#nels a pretty huge name

[zvaigzdelasas]

European leaders have devoted tens of billions of dollars toward encouraging production of hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel that advocates say will create jobs and help fight climate change. But now, many of those jobs will be going to the United States instead. The clean energy subsidies that undergird President Joe Biden’s climate agenda have just prompted one Norwegian manufacturer [Nel] to choose Michigan, not Europe, as the site of a nearly $500 million factory that will produce the equipment needed to extract hydrogen from water. And other European-based companies are being tempted to follow suit, people involved in the continent’s hydrogen efforts say — making the universe’s most abundant substance the latest focus of the transatlantic trade battle on green energy.[...]

the U.S. has its sights set on overtaking Europe when it comes to both hydrogen and the electrolyzers that extract it. The IRA introduced a $3-per-kilogram subsidy for green hydrogen and tens of billions of dollars in loans and other incentives for international investors to put money into the industry.[...]

Michigan wants to cement its growing reputation as a home for the hydrogen industry, hoping that the U.S. Department of Energy will designate it as one of four hydrogen development hubs in the country. That would make it eligible for even more money in the form of federal grants. Luring Nel is a major early coup. The company is one of Europe’s largest manufacturers of electrolyzers for hydrogen production, and its Michigan gigafactory will be one of the largest in the world.[...]

The White House has spent months responding to European criticism that its landmark energy policy is unfairly stealing business from U.S. allies on the continent. The administration counters that flooding the market with U.S. government funding is increasing the odds of success for companies on both sides of the Atlantic.

5 Jul 23

[holographic-mars]

AGAHHHFHGHRHH IM OBSESSED WITH HOW YOU DRAW TRANSFORMERS !!!!! so softm..... and so loveable and pretty <33 i just wanted to let you know that you are a huge inspiration to me C: and I hope you're doing well!! Have a lovely day!!

AUAHSHF THANK YOU also hello insecticon enthusiast guess what my other name is (it starts with shrap and ends with nel tehe)

I LOVE DRAWING SOFT FORMERS THEY MAKE ME SO HAPPIII

EASY TO ACQUIRE EASY TO HOLD‼️‼️ I hope you’re doing wonderful and have a lovely day (night rn for me I’m about to go to bed) HEHE!!❤️❤️🛸🛸

[raxistaicho]

Using Yellow Edelgard to attack Red Céline!

Somehow, Fantasy Invader's analysis of Engage manages to be even more sad than his analysis of 3H. So let's dive into more of it :)

Also, Céline is my favorite characters from Engage, so Fantasy Invader is kinda stepping into my lane by talking about her.

One of the things about Celine is how despite her cute appearance she is quite ruthless.

Oh yes, that took me by surprise too. I was sure she'd just be the third rendition of Lissa and Elise, but she went her entire joining chapter without bringing up her tea quirk, unlike... every single other character in Engage to that point, who make their gimmicks immediately known...

Thank god Céline was way more interesting than that! Its plot is pretty vapid and zero-effort, but some of the characters were at least way better than anything Fates or Awakening squirted out.

This is rather curious to me, as the Houses devs said something to the same effect about Edelgard. Namely how her being the game's would-be conqueror and stuff was meant to take players by surprise, and how this gave the character depth.

Oh boy. No, you fucking idiot, the dichotomy when it came to Edelgard was her endearing moments and her strong will. Not her physical cuteness and her ruthlessness.

I don't expect Fantasy Invader to read my blogs and learn why he's wrong (he has asks off and immediately blocks anyone who tries to engage with him without response, so he's pretty clearly arrogantly confident in his delusions of intelligence), but I do expect him to occasionally recheck his assertions. I always double-check myself. But then, I'm not burdened by such unearned confidence as Fantasy Invader.

It also doesn't help that alternate-timeline Celine advocates conquest herself, and in the final map of the DLC talks about how great it is she's free from her responsibilities (and can crush her opponents) while equipped with Emblem Edelgard.

Yes, alternate Céline, who was murdered and risen by a rogue dragon who is then given headpats and forgiven for all the things because uwu Nel cawed fow him :'3

Also, I like how they only acknowledge it's Emblem Edelgard, also starring Dimitri and Claude, when they can use it to attack Edelgard, roflmao.

Lastly, given that Fell Fogado and Fell Ivy, the most openly villainous and wretched of the Fell Royals, respectively had Tiki and Soren, does that say something about them? Dragons bad actually? Mixed race people abuse their siblings? It's funny how reliably self-defeating Fantasy Invader's arguments are because they always stop the second he thinks he has a win so he doesn't get to the parts where they don't fit his narrative.

That last one sticks out a bit, since Edelgard had a similar event in FEH where she talked with Lissa about how awful it is that she has responsibilities thrust upon her simply for being born a noble.

I don't play Heroes and I don't know where I'd begin to look to double-check this, but I'm just going to assume FI is wrong about something. I'm certainly not going to take his word for it.

Hubert and Monica's support also talks about how this is part of Edelgard's plan.

I believe he's referring to:

It's amazing how "you'll be free to live the life you choose and remain at the side of the woman you love" got twisted into, "Edelgard just wants to free everyone of icky responsibilities!"

Just as Edelgard wants to enable commoners to rise up and enjoy the benefits once afforded solely to the nobility, she also wants to allow those who don't want to be noble to live ordinary lives.

Three Houses is full of people who, despite being born into nobility, don't want to live ordinary noble lives. Bernadetta, Caspar, Marianne, Linhardt, and Lysithea are examples of this. There's no inconsistency here: Edelgard's motive is to allow people to live the kinds of lives they want.

Not a huge surprise that an Edelgard detractor is against a person's right to self-determination. FI believes Fodlan needs Byleth to become a Nabatean and rule them compassionately.

This is a core piece of morality to the franchise since the beginning with Marth's “I'm a prince before I'm a son or brother” line at the end of the first game.

The difference there is Marth chooses to shoulder that kind of responsibility. Most Fire Emblem lords do, Edelgard included. While she only wants an ordinary life, she still dedicates herself to a cause that will surely consume most of her life.

The whole concept of Oudou, whereas Edelgard is supposed to represent Hadou.

Hadou means self-determination? Well damn, Hadou is pretty based then!

And we know Celine protects the people. She wiped out bandits who were preying on villagers without mercy... Edelgard, on the other hand, is willing to sacrifice as many people as it takes in service to her ideals

I have a feeling Céline herself would disagree with the idea that she would not sacrifice some of her people to protect the rest.

ideals she shares with the bandit Nemesis.

It's funny how Fantasy Invader insists Edelgard is following Nemesis's ideals when Nemesis's ideals of warrior pride is most-reflected in Faerghus's warrior/knighthood culture.

She's guided belief that she's going to make a better future by doing so. Celine helps support her brother Alfred, whose upgraded class is Avenir. Avenir is french for Future, ergo Celine is fighting for the future by supporting Alfred.

Ironic, considering Alfred usually dies young, implicitly leaving Céline to succeed him. This is further hinted at that Céline, not Alfred, is linked to Celica, the national Emblem of Firene, much as Diamant, Ivy, and Timerra are linked to the Emblems of Brodia, Elusia, and Solm. So really, I think she's the future here.

In addition, Alfred is a blonde who has a talent for lances, horseback riding and will die at a young age due to his illness.

We're going somewhere stupid. Very, very stupid. You know where this is going, I mocked it myself ages ago.

Edelgard's step brother Dimitri

Dimitri didn't learn Edelgard was his step-sister until after she returned to Fodlan, and Edelgard never even learned it at all. Their friendship during their younger days is what was important to them, not that their parents were married. So, I'm sorry, but you're reaching mightily trying to portray these two as siblings the way Céline and Alfred are.

is blonde, specializes in lances, has a hidden talent for horseback riding, is mentioned to die to illness before his partner and is stronger than Alfred could ever dream of. Coincidence?

Yes, it actually is a coincidence. I can say that with very little margin for error, because Dimitri and Alfred are so distinct in terms of design outside the most basic traits that it's insane.

Just look at their designs!

Alfred's dressed in blue, white, and gold, wears very fancy and impractical clothing for the battlefield, has a very friendly and confident air about him, is boundlessly optimistic, and lives for the moment and the living.

Dimitri wears blue and black, dresses very practically and militarily, is insecure, guarded, lives for the dead, and dwells in the past.

The only true comparison between them is their hair color and weapon of choice, so you might as well argue Camus and Clive fit into this too, somehow. Hell, Clive's a brother, too, so I think we really need to dig deep into the relationship between Edelgard, Céline, and Claire, while we're at it. Oh! Claire and Celine both have blonde hair and a refined disposition!

Lastly, Dimitri is never shown riding a horse unless the player puts him on one. He's always shown on foot in anything related to the lore. Hell, we see Claude ride a horse one more time than we do Dimitri.

This is so typical of Fantasy Invader's style of analysis, he ALWAYS does this. He focuses hard on what supports his arguments and just totally ignores the parts that don't. Motivated reasoning is the name of the game with him.

Celine's personal class is Vidame.

In the localized version. In the JP version it was the French word for "flower", which fits her nicely.

Now, Vidame was actually a type of French noble associated with the Church. In order to protect the Church's, uhh, earthly interests they would perform acts that weren't considered appropriate for the Church to be involved in. This usually meant violence, even in the event of it being an act of justice or to protect others. So Celine's class does have a religious tint to it, a link to her family's connection to the Divine Dragons...and honestly fits her really well.

That said, the localized name isn't exactly bad, but the thing is Celine isn't motivated by her religiosity. Much like... nearly everyone in Engage aside from Ivy, Mauvier, Pandreo, and Panette, religiosity is just a small thing they do to facilitate the worship of Alear. Because Engage isn't really interested in the deeper meaning of faith, it just wants the player to feel like a god.

But then look at the Empire, founded with the support of the early Church that formed around Seiros.

For the sake of killing Nemesis. That's why the Empire exists. Not so Rhea could guide the lost sheep.

One of the original ideals for the nobility, according to Hanneman, was that they protect their people but that has fallen to the wayside as nobles instead used their positions for their own power.

And, again, Fantasy Invader thinks Edelgard twisted things to not be that way, when the reality is she's trying to drag it back to fulfill the role it was intended to fulfill and failed to fulfill.

This is partially why the Empire is supposed to represent hadou, the other is Edelgard ruling through military power.

Celine's class is closer to what the emperor should have been.

Hmm. I wonder how silly Edelgard would look wearing the upside-down teacup dress.

Edelgard's route is named Safflower/Crimson Flower, Firene is the land of flowers.

But wait, Alfred is the prince of flowers (he references them far more then Celine does) and earlier on Fantasy Invader was trying to compare him to Dimitri, whose route is not named after flowers.

Amazing how flimsy FI's arguments are.

Houses banks on tea-time, to the point of selling teas IRL, Celine is a tea expert.

Tea is a big thing in Firene in general. It gets brought up most with Céline, but it's mentioned frequently in most of the Firenian characters' supports.

I don't see why Edelgard detractors think tea-time is such a big deal in Houses, it's honestly generally a waste except on birthdays when it doesn't cost you explore points.

I've talked before about Hortensia's connection to Emblem Byleth, how her story parallels Silver Snow and how defecting from the Empire is supposed to be the right thing rather than continuing it's decline by fighting for it.

Yup, that was pretty bad.

Elusia is also the Kingdom of Knowledge, whereas the Empire's original meritocracy was, in addition to protecting the people, supposed to be about valuing knowledge.

The Empire was not a meritocracy. Ever. Aristocracies and meritocracies are antithetical.

But when you look at Celine, it just seems to be that they intentionally made a character that was supposed to be like Edelgard

So, in spite of my joke that Céline is "yellow Edelgard", they share little in common aside from being short young women who are willing to take extreme measures to protect people. Céline most notably lacks Edelgard's sense of class-conscience (that her solution to banditry in Firene is to kill the bandits rather than resolve the socio-economic conditions that gave rise to banditry is pretty telling), mostly because Engage has very little of substance to say on the matter of social conflict between the nobility and the commoners. The solution, much as it is in Azure Moon, is just to place the "right nobles" in charge.

I mean hell, even in gameplay they differ. Céline is a squishy mage with some capacity to fight on the front lines (though she only seems meant to fight fellow mages) and use staves, while Edelgard is a pure bruiser.

And no, it's very unlikely Céline was written to compare her to Edelgard. The two games were created at the same time, the Edelgard DLC Bracelet was pretty clearly a late addition, and Fell Céline isn't even especially bad compared to the rest. She comes across as not as bad as Fell Ivy, Fogado, or Alcryst. If she was meant as an apology for Edelgard, she'd be more openly villainous, as Ivy and Fogado are, not motivated by desperation.

Granted, considering how Fogado is supposed to be just like Celine in the service to his sister, and how Houses likes to say Claude is similar to Edelgard initially, I guess we have all three lords having their Engage counterparts.

Ah, yes, Fogado is a brown guy who acts friendly and Claude is also a brown guy who acts friendly! Perfect counterparts!

Except they're not. Fogado is genuinely a friendly, tactful, empathetic man who deftly conceals a machiavellian side for the sake of his sister and people, while Claude plays at being friendly to conceal the fact he's actually rather untrusting, plays at being a schemer as a front, and is rather tactless and insensitive. They're pretty different, and assuming they aren't is kinda racist.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2006 - Number 31 - Anna Vissi - "Welcome To The Party"

There had been rumours that Anna Vissi was going to be Greece's Eurovision representative again for quite a long time. Her name was in the frame for 2005, but it took until 2006 for her to finally return. She'd been Greece's representative as far back as 1980 and again in 1982. She's credited as one of the singers to begin bringing Western pop into traditional Greek laiko. She's acted and sung in a wide variety of stage musicals and productions including the first ever Greek rock opera Daimones (Demons). She performed in the 2004 Olympics closing ceremony and off the back of that had a hit single in the US Billboard charts.

Anna Vissi was possibly Greece's number one music star in 2006 and as they were hosting Eurovision, ETV cannot have looked in many other places to find someone to represent them. There was however the choice of song. For that, as in 2005, a song selection national final was organised, again with four songs. It was called Feel the Party and for some reason involved Anna miming to the studio versions of all four tracks. I've added the actual studio version at the bottom of this blog.

One of them was Welcome to the Party by someone who is going to play a huge role in Eurovision in years to come. It's a song by Dimitris Kontopoulos and Zeta Makripoulia. Dimitris is one of songwriters with the most songs ever at Eurovision - he's now part of the 'Dream Team' and most recently wrote Cyprus's 2024 entry Liar

In 2006, he's not yet had a single song on the big stage, but he has written a few national final songs including this one. It's full-involvement EDM, a pounding baseline designed to fill a club and make the floor shake. It absolutely lives up to its title. The instrumental is overwhelming, perhaps too much so as Anna isn't really given much to do apart from hang on and sing her bits at the right points.

It's a sweaty song for sweaty places, and ultimately that wasn't what either the judges or the Greek public were looking for. It came second overall, and Dimitris would have to wait another year and look to other countries for his Eurovision breakthrough. Anna went to Eurovision with a different song.

This song did have a short, second-life above and beyond pretty much ever other losing national final song. It was used at Eurovision in 2006. The very first chorus heard on stage in the semi-final, at the beginning of that starry, mythological run-through of Eurovisions past, is Welcome to the Party. Then the sequence segues neatly into Zeus belting out Nel Blu dipinto di Blu. Anna (quietly) had two song at Eurovision this year!

[scientistsinistral]

Okay, so an addendum to the story Damiano told on Nikkie's video about the naming of his cat Bidet, because I found it hilarious:

(for reference, the story in approximate wording: "The first day that we like, took her when she was, this little *makes hands in a circle to show how small she was*, she got stuck in there. And I had to call the fireworkers. And it was really funny because there were these five huge guys there all taking out this little, being like, 'awwwwww!' And one of them told me: 'You have to call her Bidet'. And I was like, 'Yeah. I have to'")

Well, like a weeks ago Giorgia, Damiano's girlfriend, also got asked about this story and I don't have the original Italian but I do have this translated version:

'why 'bidet'?

this story is very funny.

practically the first evening we took her she was scared and confused and she decided well (poor puppy) to hide in the compartment where the hose passes under / behind the bidet. after hours, various toys used, 2 defrosted sausages (to attract her), x number of open cat food and a video call with the cat to check that she came out - all to no avail - we called the firefighters, who dismantled the bidet at 2 am to get her out.

I'd say she baptized herself.'

With an addition of this photo of baby Bidet in the bidet:

[Photo description: Damiano David & Giorgia Soleri's brown tabby cat Bidet, stuck in the bidet. Caption reads: 'testimonianza della micia nel buco. lei stava una favola tra l'atro, solo che era convinta di non riuscire a unscire perche il tubo davanti (da qui non si capisce bene la prospettiva) ed era troppo in fondo per prenderla con le mani senza rischiare di farle male']

(in english, that's 'testimony of the pussy in the hole.

she was a fairy tale among the others, only she was convinced that she could not get out because the pipe in front of her (from here it is not clear her perspective) and it was too deep to take it with the hands without risking hurting her')

Giorgia then adds 'After that famous first evening, however, it became love.'

The two cats are also just over a year old and were adopted as foundlings.

(Giorgia is also worth a follow, she is incredibly pretty and posts a lot of stories of her cats, and they are adorable. Legolas is often nicknamed Legolotto!)

[donitkitt]

could we get pronouns for all your trolls?? and/or a fun fact for each???

Chanel (sha-nel) - They/Them - Loves fashion and COOKING ! HATES when their name is mispronounced, which most of the others do

Marrsi (mar-si) - He/Him - Likes to skateboard and his favorite snack is bubblegum, might smoke weed

Canine (kay-nine) - He/Him - Actually loves swimming but they can only doggy paddle so hes not great at it, also loves getting pets

Eletri (e-le-tre) - He/Him - Is a video game streamer and loves G-Fuel, will eat the powder dry. He has epilepsy from his psionic powers, so he depends heavily on his quadrant partners

Xavier (xs-avier) - He/Him - Also loves to cook and has a massive aquarium of gold fish that he loves dearly. Is Adrian's cousin

Adrian (ad-ri-an) - He/They - Absolutely despises being touched (tho it doesnt stop Xavier from giving him hugs, family privilage) Actually hates seafood, perfers to eat mostly fruits

Navyan (navy-an) - Any - Is much stronger than they look, will break a building in half if so desired. Also a big fashion buff, and has the silkiest hair out of the bunch

Travis - He/Him - He's a farmer boy who owns too many chickens, he might be able to speak the chickens language. Actually a huge blushy dork

Hummus (Hum-us) - He/Him - Chaotic Evil, will cause problems on purpose. Loves weapons and machinery and is everyones go to when they need their weapons upgraded. Lives on sugar and coffee

Nesius (ness-eus) - He/Him - The most liked out of the group, knows everyones birthday and insists on singing them happy wrigglers day every year. Has psionic powers just like Eletri but not as powerful

Honkie (honk-e) - He/Him - Has to stay sober (besides weed sometimes) because he turns into an out of control monster when on soper slime. Likes singing alternative/metal lyrics

Zannos (zan-oh-s) - He/Him - Jock type, likes to work out and put up a cool guy barrier, but hes actually pretty insecure about most things about himself. He's Navyan's Kesmisis but he actually is growing red feelings for them, but he is too anxious to tell the truth.

[snowgoldwaylon]

A Night At The Opera - Grigori Weaver X Reader

Performing is what you loved to do best. Meeting a young soldier is just what you always dreamed off, but while you were on tour for one of the most iconic operas ever written. And you, the main character.

TW: None!

"Y/N! You are live in 10 minutes!" The producer called, as he walked past your mirror.

You glanced in the mirror and just caught the last glimpse of him leaving the room. You turned to look back at yourself in the large vanity, the lights illuminating your current hair style which stood pretty tall.

You were getting final touches to hair and makeup, and it just so happens for this opera, you were the main star. And as hollywood rules states, go big or go home. So you chose the classic big, bouncy curly hair with curled sideburns to give it spice.

It was elegant, you had little glass flowers put all through it so it would glitter and reflect off the stage lights. You wore a stunning ballgown dress, with large bell sleeves. And for the finishing touch which the hair stylist was putting in your hair?

An authentic, diamond and gold lined tiara, which had a long, lace veil attached to the back. You simply smiled at how you looked in this moment. A makeup artist came over and touched up some spots and re-applied the ruby red lipstick you had on.

As soon as they finished, you looked over yourself and smiled. You pushed a falling glass piece back into place, applied hairspray, and got up. You soothed the dress out and turned to the two who had made you look stunning.

"Thank you both, you have made my dream look come true! I think I'm going to permanently hire both of you to tour with me!" You exclaimed, giving a hand.

They both nodded graciously, and bowed with a humble 'thank you' before you were pulled away by someone.

"Okay Y/N, you will be live in one minute. You know the cues, good luck out there!" The stage coach yelled, pulling you to the side stage.

You watched as the young man who played Pollione finish his number, Meco all'altar di Venere. After the dramatic change of scene and the curtain close, the audience clapped loudly. The moment you trained for was finally here!

You watched as Klaus, the owner of the gorgeous, all original opera house approached you. You smiled, and he gave you his hand.

"Miss Y/N, do you look stunning! I must tell you before you go on, we have special guests in the audience. Not to make you worried or such, but these guests are returning soldiers from the war. One in particular who you might have the chance to meet after, is named Grigori Weaver. He loves operas, and even funded this show to go on!" Klaus exclaimed.

You were taken back by the odd sounding name. Grigori? Is that Russian? you asked yourself. You smiled at Klaus, and gave a simple nod.

"Yes Klaus, I understand. Thank you for the information. I do hope to meet him afterwards!" You said.

The stage hand tapped your shoulder, as you saw two men heading towards the curtain strings.

"I must go, Klaus. Thank you!" You said, before taking your spot center stage, right up against the curtain.

The choir filed in behind you on the risers as you stood, singing small voice warmups before it was go time. You felt nervous, but excited. Your heart raced with joy and adrenaline as the final words of the scene were spoken.

That was the cue! With the final dialouge spoken, the curtains opened. The lights suddenly filled your vision, along with the large crowd in the huge theather. A small, soft smile was written on your flawless features as the orchestra began the song.

The flute soloist filled the room with warm, beautiful, contrasted music with crescendos and decrescendos. It sounded almost ominous, but it was beautiful. You stood in the pose as practiced before.

The bell sleeves hung beautiful as you would slightly lift your arms with the music. The violins cued your very first note, and you gave it your all.

"Casta Diva, che inargenti

queste sacre antiche piante,

a noi volgi il bel sembiante

senza nube e senza vel."

You maintained a professional and elegant posture as you acted the part of your character, Norma. You swayed lightly with the music, and smiled as the choir behind you hit the correct notes, pitch, and phrases behind you. You glanced out over the crowd, and right away spotted a man wearing an eye patch in the VIP section.

Suddenly, you felt the urge to finish this aria right, and with ease. Your next cue happened, and you let the bell sleeves hang beside you.

"Tempra, o Diva,

tempra tu de’ cori ardenti

tempra ancora lo zelo audace,

spargi in terra quella pace

che regnar tu fai nel ciel.

 

Fine al rito

e il sacro bosco

sia disgombro dai profani.

Quando il Nume irato e fosco,

chiegga il sangue dei Romani.

Dal Druidico delubro

La mia voce tuonerà.

Cadrà; punirlo io posso.

Ma, punirlo, il cor non sa.

 

Ah! bello a me ritorna

Del fido amor primiero;

E contro il mondo intiero

difesa a te sarò.

Ah! bello a me ritorna

Del raggio tuo sereno,

e vita nel tuo seno,

e patria e cielo avrò.

Ah, riedi ancora qual eri allora,

quando il cor ti diedi allora,

ah, riedi a me."

With the last note of the orchestra, ending right after your vocals pitched down, you struck an elegant pose. The diamond of the tiara made you sparkle as you soaked up all limelight.

Cheers roared and echoed through the halls and walkways of the opera house. Whistles and flowers were thrown as the curtains began to slowly close. You glanced towards the man with the eyepatch again, and saw him standing up.

He joined everyone in a standing ovation because your pure and effortless talent had shaken them to the core, but in a good way. The heat of the lights brought you to a pant, and small specks of sweat beaded at the line of your hair.

The curtains finally came to a close and you released the pose. You quickly made the way backstage to cool off, so you wouldn't look rough for the finishing act.

Producers swarmed you, makeup artists, and hair artists also swarmed you like buzards so they could doll you back up. You were to keep the hairstyle for the final act, but change the dress for a Victoria era wedding dress.

TIMESKIP, END OF THE OPERA

You gathered at the entrance along with the cast to say goodbye to guests as they exited the opera house. This gave guests a chance to get autographs, pictures, and words to say. You were of course, the first at the door for the order of namesake.

Soon, the hundreds of people came, and shook hands with everyone. You were signing many autographs for many people, and snapping many pictures for all. And you were very determined to make sure everyone who asked had one.

Soon, the end of the line came, and out came the man in question. The handsome, dark haired man with the eye patch and a handsome pair of dress blues. He made conversation with everyone, and you even noticed Klaus right beside him, talking.

They came up to you last, and the rest of the cast exited to get cleaned up. You smiled as they approached, and held out your hand.

"Evening, Miss Norma. You did fantastic. My name is Grigori Weaver, could I have yours please?" He asked kindly, taking your hand and giving it a small kiss.

You blushed as Grigori let your hand go, and turned to Klaus.

"This is the gentleman who sponsored the whole show!"

"Ah yes, Grigori. Nice too meet you. I'm Y/N Y/L/N. Or as you know, Norma. On behalf on all my cast and producers, coaches, and myself, we thank you. This production would have been lost if it wasn't for you kind donation." You said.

He smiled at you, and only you. He couldn't get over how flawless and just how polite you were.

"Well, as proven tonight, Miss Y/L/N, it's my pleasure. I do hope you stick around for more performances these coming years, da?" He asked.

"Well of course! I plan on staying in the opera for many years while I attend school and look for my dream job." You said.

Grigori looked at his watched, and slipped his hat on. While he fixed the collar on his jacket, he fished inside his coat for something. He pulled out a brilliant, luscious red rose and handed to you. You gratefully accepted as a blushed creeped across you.

"I must be going now, my job starts soon. But, for you, Norma. Maybe possibly I could come see you perform again this coming week?" He asked.

"Of course you can, I'd love that." You said, with a smile.

"Off I go then. Have a wonderful evening, both of you!" He said as he exited the opera house.

You watched him walk to his very luxurious car, and he looked back. You waved and turned on your heel, walking back with Klaus.

"I think you just got the VIP to fall in love with you, nyet?" He asked.

"Klaus, do not be so foolish! He was simply being nice." You said, walking up the first flight of stairs.

"But, he did say he'd be returing for the other shows. If he does, then that will prove my point for sure!" Klaus said.

You came to your dressing room, and wished Klaus a good evening as you closed the door. You set the red rose in a vase on your vanity and began carefully taking out the pieces from your hair. You couldn't stop thinking about with Grigori had said.

And over the rest of the following days the opera showed, Grigori kept his promise. Soonz the vase was overflowing with roses. And after one performance, you found yourself at one of the nicest restaurants with Grigori.

That was one hell of a night at the opera.

Taglist: @smokeywhalee @wennbergbabe @justagenderfluidstuff @goawaypleasecryingemoji @kazazure @kapanovangswife @xundeadqueenx @direwolfspostsrandomshit

[gloves94]

To Be So Lonely [Draco Malfoy] 10

Rating: PG-13 Pairings: Draco Malfoy/OC Chapter warnings: Fluff! Angst!

Raised as an orphan, Nel Saintday, endured years of torture from the Slytherin House. The Dark Lord only allowed her existence for her to serve a very specific vile purpose for him. Her birthright dictates for her to choose a side in the Wizarding War… But what would happen if she dares defy the Dark Lord and his wishes? And what happens when she falls for her tormentor? Will Nel fulfill her life’s purpose? And what side will her tormentor, Draco Malfoy, choose? The light that calls to him or the darkness…

CHAPTER MASTERLIST MY MASTERLIST

"Malfoy?" Tracey said loudly.

Nel nodded her head bitterly, arms crossed over her chest as the two made way to the dinning hall for dinner.

"Draco Malfoy?" She repeated in her obnoxiously loud voice. It seemed like his name was the only word she was capable of saying because of the shock.

"Shush!" She elbowed her friend. Throwing a suspicious glance around the corridor hoping nobody else had heard.

"And why- are you doing this again?"

"Because he knows something about my past and I'm pretty sure it's true. Trust me I'd much rather write to his father personally and ask or drug him with some veritaserum but even then the potion doesn't guarantee us any answers."

The two sat down on the table and put their bags aside when Theodore came running into the Great Hall and practically slid in the seat across from them.

"You're going to Hogsmeade with MALFOY?!" He exclaimed. He seemed to be out of breath.

Nel's eyes scanned the room. "Wow, news sure does travel fast 'round here," she shook her head.

"Are you okay?" He asked concerned. "Are you ill? Dying?" He reached over the table and placed a hand on her forehead.

"Just dandy," she grumbled irritated before sticking a potato into her mouth.

"How'd you know?" Tracey arched an eyebrow as she drank her pumpkin juice.

"Malfoy was bragging to the lads back at the dormitory."

Nel rolled her eyes. "Of course," She shook her head.  "Those idiots are only fascinated by me because they think I'm related to Salazar Slytherin."

Nel's bored expression fixed across the dinning hall to a very awkward interaction between Lupin and Snape. Nott and Davis blinked at each other exchanging a look.

"But you are-" They said in unison.

"Nope, I'm not," she said more in denial before getting her mouth busy and taking a huge bite out of a bread roll. Being related to Slytherin himself meant being related to You-Know-Who and that… That was not possible. It wasn't something Nel wanted to even think about it.

"But you are-" Tracey insisted. "You're a Parselmouth."

"So?" She retorted irritated. "So's Potter and he's not related to Slytherin as far as we know."

"Yeah, but You-Know-Who gave it to him." "Well maybe he did something to me to!" She snapped at her two friends. The two inched away from her exchanging a worried look. "Sorry," She lowered her head and put her utensils down after her outburst. "This… This is why I'm entertaining Malfoy. Maybe the persons who left me at the abbey, maybe they were my parents. It's a big clue." She explained.

Theodore and Tracey had no choice but to agree.

It was then that mail was delivered and her owl, Barberry, came swooping down dropping two letters in front of her. The first was from Professor Lupin, it was written in his  perfect loopy handwriting that slanted to the right.

"Ms. Saintday, Please meet me at my office after dinner. It is important. Thank you. - Professor R. Lupin."

Her friends commented on what could Lupin possibly want with her. She shrugged and regardless met the professor's eyes across the table and nodded.

The second letter was written in a familiar sharp handwriting.

"E, Front of the castle. Tomorrow. Noon. - D'

"Ooooh, how mysterious," Tracey joked reading over her shoulder. "I wonder who  D could possibly be," she said sarcastically.

Who did he think he was kidding?

She turned to seek Draco's eyes in the Great Hall and when she met them she crumbled the note up with her hand. He simply raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement. The slightest of curves on his lips.

Whatever, she left the dinning hall ready to meet Professor Lupin in his office.

Arriving at Lupin's office she was surprised to find Harry Potter there instead.

"Let me guess," She began. "Lupin cited you as well?" She said closing the door behind her. Swaggering down the steps of the DaDa office and sitting on top of a nearby trunk.

"Is it true you're going to Hogsmeade with Malfoy?" He asked bluntly.

Nel sighed and raised her head back before letting out a loud frustrated groan. Now even the Gryffindor boys new. IT wouldn't be long before Pansy found out and came to murder Nel. Best to be prepared for that.

"It's a long story," She rubbed her tired eyes. "He's holding something over me," she admitted quickly changing the topic. "Why is everyone so intrigued by the fact that we're going to Hogsmeade? It's not even a big deal," she shrugged.

How could anyone not be intrigued by the two of them going to Hogsmeade? Draco was the unofficial Prince of Slytherin and Nel was the potential sole living descendant of Salazar Slytherin. She was a hostile blood traitor, who kept everyone at arms length and was infamously known for her ill temper and distaste for the Slytherin boys. Specially for Malfoy whom she was usually clashing with on the daily.

"Maybe because you two hate each other? Everybody knows that."

He wasn't wrong.

"Thank you," he added. "For what you did in class the other day, but I can fight my own battles."

She huffed slightly yet said nothing. He shouldn't flatter himself like that. She really hadn't done it for him. Maybe it was best to let him think that.

"Do you recon we're in trouble?" She asked changing the topic. After all Lupin had caught her passing notes in class just the other day.

"No Ms. Saintday, nobody's in trouble. Which considering your reputation, you might find quite surprising," he smiled at her as he opened the door. She turned away from him and made a disgruntled noise in the back of her throat.

"You're probably wondering why I've gathered you two here tonight. I know it's a Friday, so I won't hold you here long," Lupin began making his way across the office. "Do you remember the lesson we had on Boggarts?" He said to the two.

Both students nodded. How could they forget? It was an awesome class. It was the most fun they had ever had in any class.

"Boggarts are shape-shifters. They take the shape of whatever a particular person fears the most. That is what makes them so terrifying," he explained.

"Professor, we already know this," Saintday interrupted with an irate look on her face. Could he just get to the point already?

"Patience Ms. Saintday," Lupin paused at the interruption. "I'm afraid you didn't get a chance at the Boggart that day, perhaps you'd like to give it a shot now?"

Nel thought of her worst fears. She eyed a trunk across the room which was violently shaking. Whatever was being kept inside desperately trying to escape. "I think I'll pass," she mumbled.

"The two of you are here since you are particularly susceptible to Dementors all things being considered, Dementors force us to relieve the worst memories of our lives. Our pain becomes their power. Which is why the two of you fainted on the train," Harry turned to look at the teen in surprised. Nel almost looked wounded by Lupin's words. She looked away from both, lowering her eyes.

Her background wasn't something she particularly enjoyed talking about.

"This is very advanced magic. Well beyond Ordinary Wizarding Level," Lupin stated clearly eyeing both of the students carefully.

Why did Lupin want them both to learn how to fight Dementors? Certainly every student was in danger of Sirius Black and of the Dementors that were pursuing them, but why them two specifically? Nel understood his reasoning for brining Harry in, but her? Why would either Sirius Black or Dementors want anything to do with her? "Very well, the spell I am going to teach you is called the Patronus Charm. Ever heard of it?" He said to both.

Harry shook his head no. Nel nodded yes. Lupin extended his hand for her to elaborate. "The Patronus Charm is a spell which main but not only use id the primary protection again Dementors and other dark creatures for which there is no defense. There are two types of Patronuses. Corporal and Incorporeal." "Excellent Ms. Saintday, 10 points Slytherin. Any 6th years amongst your clients?" Lupin teased.

She shot him a look at him butting into her personal business and he chuckled a little at her hostility.

"But that's not quite it. A Patronus is a kind of positive force. For the witch or wizard who can conjure one, the Patronus works  something like a shield.  The Dementor feeds on it instead of him," Lupin paused as the trunk across the room rattled violently. "But in order for it to work, you must think of a memory. And not just any. This memory needs to be a very happy one. And powerful." His honey eyes darted between the two students before him.

"Think of your happiest memory and come back tomorrow after lunch. We'll begin then."

With that Lupin dismissed them.

"Know what your happiest memory is?" Harry asked as the two returned to their individual house dormitories.

"Yeah," She lied.

She had no idea.

Xxxxx

Nel didn't get much sleep last night. She had spent all night wondering just what her happiest memory was. She hated coming to the realization she didn't have one… At least not a strong one that would ward away a dementor.

All happy memories at Wool's were tainted with the memory of Lucy which in turn made them painful for her. And at Hogwarts… Sure maybe there was the memory of the day she visited Diagon Alley for the first time. Maybe even when she became friends with Tracey and Theodore, and just overall their general shenanigans.

There was one unique memory that was different from the others. It probably wouldn't be enough, but so far it was the best she had.

Xxxxx

It was Christmas even last year, 1992.

Nel had spent the evening celebrating with Harry, Hermione, Ron and his family. They had been nice enough to include her considering both her and Harry always stayed back during the winter break.

The group had been playing with sparklers and throwing snowballs at each other in the courtyard after an early. Overall it had been a fun evening. It was late when they decided to return to the Gryffindor common room, a place where she wasn't allowed. She suspected the party would go on there, but for now she was simply happy to not have been alone.

"Black Mamba," She spoke to the password which allowed her in. It was late, almost midnight by the time she got back. Walking into the emerald and black common room she was surprised to see Malfoy sitting by himself on one of the leather sofas.

It seemed like this holiday the only Slytherins that stayed behind were her, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle.

She thought it was odd that he had stayed behind. Yet she didn't question it simply not caring enough but looking at him he looked absolutely miserable. She approached him partly to get a better look at him.

He was hunched over with his head buried in his hands. Hearing her footsteps, he looked up and glared at her.

"Lost something Slugbreath?" He insulted defensively.

She kept her curious eyes on his. His face was swollen and tinted with red. Had he been crying? It was probably the first time he was away from home and alone for Christmas. She wouldn't have been surprised if the brat had really been crying.

"Are you okay?" She ignored the insult.

He looked at her surprised, taken aback by the question. Part of him was expecting her to take it back and boldly mock him.

"What do you care anyways?" He snapped kicking the low table in front of him.

He was most definitely not okay.

"Come," She said to him.

She was so used to his harsh tone and language she simply hummed, shoving her hands in her pockets before walking away back to the entrance of the common room.

He paused not moving an inch. He wasn't certain if she had really been speaking to him or not, but who else could she have meant? His father had asked him to remain at Hogwarts stating home wasn't safe due to the raids the Ministry of Magic was performing. Lucius also had to keep a trustful eye at Hogwarts now that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened. "Are you coming or not?" She called over her shoulder.

Thinking himself crazy Draco decided to follow her out of the room. Nel lead her down the dungeon's corridor and took several turns in the darkness before stopping before a small door. The door was big enough for a small person to walk through.

"Where are you taking me?" Malfoy raised an eyebrow still wearing an air of superiority around her. "This is where I'm hiding your body…" She said mysteriously.

He gave a step back, certainly not doubting this. "Just kidding!" She laughed before opening it and walking through.

The two entered the kitchen where long tables resembling the Great Hall stretched from one end to the other. Shelves and large pantries were stacked with food and other ingredients against the wall. And just around the door were dozens of small cots with tiny people sleeping on them. But wait- they weren't people, they were house elves.

"You've brought me to the servant's quarters?" Malfoy said wrinkling his nose in disgust. His eyes looked around the room pretentiously as if he had walked into a dumb instead of a kitchen. Nel doubted the boy had ever been inside of a kitchen.  

"Shh!!!" She hissed him as a sleeping elf nearby stirred in his sleep. She tilted her head forward and the two advanced further into the kitchen.

She moved around the kitchen with expertise knowing were the bread and all other ingredients were located. Draco watched carefully as she prepared two sandwiches with the most peculiar ingredients turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing and- "Do you like cranberry sauce?" She stopped and whispered to him. He simply shrugged indifferent to it.

He wasn't watching out of intrigued. He was worried that she would attempt to poison him.

The two left the kitchen as quietly and as quickly as they got there. He now followed her upstairs. She held both of the large sandwiches which she had wrapped in paper in her hands.

"Why are you doing this?" He asked as they stood outside the Great Hall. By now he seemed to have forgotten about whatever had been bothering him earlier.

She shrugged carelessly, almost like he had when she had asked him if he liked cranberry sauce or not.

"Why not? It's Christmas Eve, good deeds count extra tonight. And let's be real, I've been pretty bad this year," She smiled a little. "I've got a lot of self-redemption to do." She was lying and he wasn't biting. She knew what it was like to be alone, specially during Christmas. She knew how painful it could be to be so lonely. "I don't need your pity," he narrowed his eyes in mistrust. "Fine," She shrugged again and handed him his sandwich with eyes filled with contempt. "Have it your way." She said before turning away and back in the direction of the Slytherin dormitories.

"No, wait-" He reached for her arm holding her back. The thought of being alone on Christmas was haunting to him. He felt lonely and Crabbe and Goyle weren't always the best company to keep around. Maybe she was being sincere. It was a risk he'd have to take.

Nel opened the door to the Great Hall and stepped in, he followed and marbled at the decorations. In the absolute darkness of the night the massive tree at the end seemed to be glowing with hundreds of golden lights. The night sky was still enchanted to make it seem as if snow was falling down. Yet the stars were still visible above. "Pretty. Isn't it?"

Without another word Nel took a seat on top of a dining table and unwrapped her sandwich. After a long day of throwing snowballs this was just what the doctor had ordered. He did the same neither saying much. He eyed his sandwich oddly, it actually looked disgusting.

"I'm a terrible cook," She said in between bites. "But I make the best sandwiches," she stated awfully proud of her monstrous creation.

He took a bite out of it hesitantly. He'd never had anything like it.

"This is actually not bad," he said thoughtfully.

"Thanks, it's a leftover sandwich. Leftovers of anything Crabbe and Goyle didn't finish anyways." Both shared a laugh.

Draco's mind still twisted over her reasons for doing this. Nel wasn't the type to believe in any redemptions. At least not from what he'd learned about her in the past two years. She was more stubborn than anyone he knew, wasn't the kind of person to change her mind about things just like that. She must've seen something in him that seemed personal to her.

"I'll never get tired of looking at this tree," She said interrupting his train of thought. "Back at Wool's we get a small one every year. Skinny pitiful thing, with almost no branches. It always tilts to the sides due to the tacky pink ornaments that Wool uses."

"Wool's?" He asked confused.

He noted that her ears turned red from over sharing and she took a large bite out of her sandwich stuffing her mouth so she wouldn't speak any more. He gathered that was probably the orphanage where she lived.

"Hey, you better not get any funny ideas Saintday," he spoke in that snappy bitter tone he was known for. She looked at him oddly yet thankful he hadn't further pressed about her slip. "This doesn't mean that we're friends got it?" His eyes were glued to the massive tree at the center of the Great Hall. She couldn't help but smile a little at this, "Wouldn't dream of it Malfoy."

The next morning Nel was surprised to actually find some gifts underneath her tree. It was nothing grand of fancy, regardless she was touched by the gestures. Theodore had gotten her some ink and parchment for the year, something that would be most useful to her in her business affairs. A Quidditch poster from Tracey which she suspected was a gift for her and not for Nel. Regardless she hung it up between their beds to make her friend happy.

She'd knitted some gloves for the two of them. They weren't perfect but she was hoping they'd do just the trick in keeping them warm for the rest of the winter.

She had agreed to meet the Gryffindors for breakfast. Exiting the common room, she was surprised to see Malfoy standing in the common room.

"There you are," he said with his arms crossed over his chest. There seemed to be an annoyed look on his face.

She flashed him a confused look. Had he been waiting for her? Were they actually friends now?

"Crabbe and Goyle left for breakfast already," He uttered as if explaining why he was there standing alone. "They found this outside in the corridor. It has your name on it," he signaled to a large box that had been placed on the low table. She eyed the box carefully. The gift-wrapping paper was wrapped with precision and bore a rich checkered emerald and black diamond pattern that was tied together by a thick black ribbon. There was a square tag at the top that had Nel Saintday scrawled on it in sharp handwriting.

She looked at the gift completely stunned.

"Thanks for holding it for me," She said awkwardly still being unable to remove her eyes from the gift. She didn't know what was inside, but she had certainly never seen maybe even touched a box that was wrapped so beautifully. "I'll take it back to my room-"

"No-," He said rather quickly. She arched an eyebrow at his odd behaviors. "Open it here," he pulled out his wand. "It could be cursed."

She let out a small laugh. Yeah right. As if somebody would try and curse her. She wasn't Harry Potter of anyone important. However, one could never be too safe. Maybe the Weasley twins had send it to her- or maybe it had been Harry, but she doubted that they would get her something this nice.

"I guess you're right," She said dropping her knees on the carpet and slowly undoing the ribbon and wrapping with care. She didn't want to ruin it. She also wasn't sure if she should keep the wrapping or not.

There was obviously a black box inside. Hesitantly she reached for it and removed it from the table. Curious to what was inside. Wincing and preparing for the worst she opened it. However, nothing happened. No harm was done. Inside was a piece of clothing wrapped in more paper. More layers? Again, she undid it carefully and pulled out a black jumper. It was probably the softest fabric she had ever touched. It almost felt unreal or like how'd she would imagine touching a cloud would feel like.

"This is..."  She gasped feeling the texture in between her fingertips.

"It's made from Vicuña, the world's softest fabric. Way better than cashmere," Malfoy said smugly peering over her shoulder. "You can tell?" She marveled at his ability to be able to tell just with his sight.

"It doesn't say who it's from," She said looking under the many wrappings.

"Do you like it?" Malfoy asked in an uninterested tone.

"Do I like it?" She repeated her voice almost breaking. "I've never had anything half as decent as this in my life," she hugged it close to her chest. "I almost feel like it'll melt in my arms," she laughed weakly. "Look! Touch it!" She said moving the fabric close to him beaming. He raised his hand and denied it with a bored look on his features. "I'm almost afraid to wear it. What if I ruin it?" She rambled anxiously as her mind wondered to who would’ve taken the time to get her such a thoughtful gift. She was more than touched. She was elated. She could’ve cried at the gesture if the boy hadn’t been there. It was the first time that she had something that was hers and truly hers alone. It hadn’t been owned by anyone before, it didn’t have any signs of tear or wear. It was hers. It might as well have been made out of cotton or wool and she would’ve been just as moved by the gesture.

Draco had just in time snatched the card that had her name written on it. He hadn't noticed that the back of it read 'For Draco, Love Mum. Happy Xmas'

That had been a close one.

"Who do you think sent it?" She wondered out loud. "Do you think it was Professor Snape?"

He fought the urge to roll his eyes at her reasoning. Snape? Really?

"Does it matter?" He said irritated.

"I just want to thank them. Maybe give them something nice?" She said concerned before turning her attention back to the box. "It has to be someone that I know… Obviously!"

Malfoy wasn't going to be much help, but maybe Fred and George could help her figure it out. Draco glanced around the room nervously. What would she do if she knew it had been him?

He was so lost in his thoughts he didn't even realize she was on her way out of the Common Room sweater I hand.

"I best be off. See you around. Happy Christmas!" She called over her shoulder with a broad smile before exiting the room.

She didn't hear but the boy stood there alone.

"Happy Christmas…" he said more to himself.

[cinnacorn]

ten years ago as of last week, I made up some characters that I wanted to write a story about. I started it, dropped it after a few chapters, and picked it up again and rewrote it for NaNoWriMo 2010. both of those stories sucked. but the characters stayed with me, and although they've changed in a huge amount of ways over the past decade, I'm still thinking up and daydreaming adventures and stories about them. I've never actually drawn all six of them before, so I figured I'd do so for their tenth anniversary. (side note: one of them is a Japanese guy and one of them is a catboy because I was a huge weeb when I created them and I just haven't had the heart to change them lmao.)

the story is that they're all misfits, and they travel around on this sentient spaceship named Novahaven and have adventures. it's part sci-fi and part fantasy, because in this world magic exists on other planets. the ship is very magical.

in front is Lidamay, from right to left in the middle is Zaetha, Fable, Kiyoshi, and Iris (Kiyoshi and Iris are from Earth), and in the back is Nel. Nel is an android who was actually redesigned six years ago by my buddy @championofdogs (see here)!!! I was in a slump while trying to redesign several of them and he wanted to draw some OCs so I asked him to come up with the design. I tweaked a few things and threw some clothes on him but I tried to stay true to Ivan's design because I love it a lot!

background is from NASA lol

under the cut is some more details about each of them if you're curious!!! and please feel free to ask me any questions because I would not mind talking more about my space children

front: Lidamay is an escaped slave, and the first to find the ship. it had crashed and was dormant on her home planet, and when she found it, it reactivated. she's quiet but decisive and determined, and she's also the de-facto captain, although they're more family than crew. being somewhat isolated in her past, she loves learning about other cultures and their stories. she has wings but can't fly, although it's her goal to figure out why and fix it.

back: NELZAR 11-750 (the numbers mean nothing lol I just pulled them out at random), almost exclusively known as Nel, is an android built by an organization that protects pre-warp planets. he was a beta for an emotion chip; unfortunately, while he's strong, he's also tender-hearted, easily frightened, and a bit narcissistic, which are not traits super great for interstellar law enforcement. he was going to be deactivated, his memories wiped, and further studied before trying again, but Lidamay convinced his creators to let him come with her in exchange for transmitting data on how his emotions develop.

middle, right to left: Zaetha's life was hard because she is a very empathetic but a member of a race bent on domination. it was even harder because she's one of the children of the tyrannical empress. it was even MORE difficult because she has slight clairvoyance, which is a rare trait considered taboo and usually means ritual sacrifice. Zaetha, considering all of these things, stole a shuttle and noped out as soon as she started seeing visions. she's very (possibly overly) friendly and kind, and also very good at diplomacy. also her hair is seaweed and I'm very proud of how it looks.

Fable was a child of aristocratic government folks, he escaped his homeland following a coup by another group of nobles who did not quite have the country’s best interests at heart. he's arrogant and somewhat childish, but not-so-deep down he's a pretty nice guy who hates injustice and is fiercely protective of his adoptive family. he plays the lyre and loves music. (the gold on his face is from when a magical item exploded on him.)

Kiyoshi is a human (?) who's a little different, in a lot of ways, for a bunch of reasons. he lost his parents in a car accident as a kid and ran away from his foster family, who didn't really understand him. he's passionate about science, especially astronomy and astrobiology. he's also the youngest on the ship and has spent the greatest percentage of his life there (not counting Nel who doesn't really have a childhood).

Iris is the last to join, and also human. her mother was a famous Greek ballerina who moved to North America. Iris's mother's life centred around ballet and she tried to shape Iris in her image, but lost interest after Iris lost her leg when she got hit by a car and had to get a prosthetic. Iris is sarcastic, level-headed, and a little bit of a pessimist, but exploring outer space has brought meaning back to her life and let her forge her own path.

the little creature on Iris's head is a pet who likes everyone on the ship but is especially fond of Iris. she named it Phillip.

[recurring-polynya]

I think it’s pretty evident by now that I am something of a connoisseur of Bleach filler. Like greatness, this is not a thing I have chosen for myself, it is just a thing that has been thrust upon me. And to that end, I need you to know that Bleach #147-149 is the template on which all other filler should be built. I love it. It’s perfect.

I’ve chosen to group it in with the Advance Team Filler, even though it really takes place during the early Hueco Mundo arc. There’s more HM filler much, much later, but it’s after the Cap’n Amagai filler arc, and I feel like this fits more thematically with the Advance Team filler. Also, all the other members of the Advance Team got their own episode and these are Rukia’s.

These episodes are everything I wanted #136-137 to be. One thing that I always want in filler is shitty bad guys who are way below our heroes’ usual standard. I get enough of Ichigo training and tapping into his inner strength during the canon parts. When I’m watching filler, I only want to see him whale on some throwaway villains. The Fullbringer Arc is not actually filler, but it has Big Filler Energy, and Zaraki killing that butler dude in half a second is the most gratifying part of it. 

So, let’s jump in:

We’re in Hueco Mundo, Rukia and Renji have just showed up in their sweet capes, everyone is riding around on Bawabawa. Runuganga, the huge sand dude they defeated last episode, shows up again (he’s made of sand, so he can never die, I guess?) Rukia tries to Second Dance him, but she’s standing on Bawabawa during the part of the attack where the blades go down into the ground, they go into poor Bawabawa instead and he freaks out (and then Renji scolds her, it’s beautiful). Runuganga then makes a sand whirlpool and the process of falling into it, Rukia falls off Bawabawa and gets separated from everyone else as they fall down into the ::Forest::of::the::Menos:: (end reverb)

Everyone in this filler is extremely stupid, but it’s okay, because it doesn’t matter, in fact, it is charming and hilarious. There’s some physical comedy of the Great Desert Brothers falling on Ichigo’s head, Ishida holds forth on Hueco Mundo flora, and literally like 10 minutes pass before Renji notices Rukia is gone and everyone’s like “Whaaaaaa? Rukia, whaaaaat?” They go looking for her, and once again, I cannot emphasize enough that Ichigo and Renji are just Jason-from-the-Good-Place level morons in this episode. Ichigo theorizes that perhaps Rukia is so light that she has been blown away and Renji is all aboard his idiot train.

So, where is Rukia, anyway? She lands somewhere else and immediately gets attacked by Hollows. She’s not really having any trouble holding them off when this dude in a stinky cape covered in Hollow skulls shows up and “saves” her. It’s like this guy saw Renji’s bankai capelet, and said, “this, but cocktail length with extra skulls.” He takes Rukia back to his bachelor cave, where he has cubbies full of mushrooms and a sweet kidou lamp he made himself. Rukia realizes he is a shinigami and yells “WHAT’S YOUR SQUAD?” at him a bunch. He takes off his mask to reveal that he is in fact, dreamy. His name is Ashido and he is Extremely Rukia’s Type, by which I mean he is tall, has spikey hair, and is not very bright.

We get a flashback of Ashido’s sad origin story: he and a bunch of his squad members followed some Hollows back through a Garganta and got stuck in Hueco Mundo. He figures that he can do more good exterminating Hollows where they live rather than trying to get home, so they stay there and fight Hollows until all his friends are dead. Oops. The very sexy Hollow Zorak skull he wears as a mask was in fact, the head of the Hollow who killed his last friend. He uses Hollow skulls to deflect ceros which seems… useful? And sort of made up? As he’s telling this story, the camera pans out and there are a bunch of graves? And he’s like, “I wanted to tell you this story in front of my friends so they could hear the voice of a shinigami again.” Rukia, of course, is like “Ahhhh cool cool cool cool cool cool, no doubt, no doubt” as if she doesn’t also have a hill of friend graves that she likes to pose in front of. He asks Rukia if they have noticed a decrease in Hollows in the Living World due to his efforts and Rukia refuses to answer or to make eye contact. He then observes that some weird crap has been going on lately, did something happen in Soul Society? and Rukia is like “So many things happen in Soul Society, it’s basically unknowable.” Rukia is my queen and president, I love her.

Asido then observes that some morons with too much reiatsu seems to be fighting nearby and attracting every Hollow in the vicinity. Rukia is like, yeah, they’re mine. As they head off in that direction, they get attacked by Hollows and Ashido relives his entire flashback again, but in negative colors. Baller move, Filler Episode.

Some other stuff has happened-- Chad and Ishida rode Bawabawa up a tree? Nel and her Fraccion got kidnapped by the Hollows whom Aizen has allegedly put in charge of the Forest of Menos? I feel like Aizen just said that to get rid of them, these guys are more like some over-enthusiastic Steelers fans you accidentally sat next to at the bar than actual villains. All this is slightly boring, except for two things:

1. Everyone has started treating Bawabawa like Lassie, where he goes “BAWABAWAWAWABAWA” and someone will reply to him like he’s a person, “Nel has been kidnapped? She’s stuck in the old abandoned well?” I love Bawabawa so much, I love yelling “BAWABAWA”, and I never once got sick of this gag, not even for a second.

2. As you might expect, the Forest of Menos is full of Menos. Hundreds of Menos. Pantsloads of Menos. You may remember a million episodes ago, when Ichigo still had Rukia’s powers, and he had to tie his sword to Ishida’s head in order to defeat a Menos. Those days are over. Menos are bowling pins now. Ichigo and the gang are just annihilating Menos. Menos corpses everywhere. Chad punches a Menos in the foot and it dies. I’m pretty sure Renji deflects a cero with his bare arm and then kills like 30 Menos who are standing in a line, which makes them very convenient to run over with Hihiou Zabimaru. Ashido has been down here for *hundreds of years* trying to reduce the number of Hollows, and it’s clear that the Karakura Kids + Renji could clear this place out in an afternoon and still have the energy to go Cosmic Bowling afterwards.

Meanwhile, Rukia and Ashido run into Ashido’s old nemesis, the Boss Hollow of the Forest. Ashido fights him dramatically for a while, and then he makes a bad deflection and the guy is about to hit Rukia, “RUUUUUKIIAAAAA NOOOOOOO!”, mantis skull flashback *again.*  And here is where this episode becomes next level, because Rukia goes to shikai and just goes ham on the guy, and you realize that she has been slumming this entire time. Ashido is a joke. He doesn’t even have shikai. Rukia is so much better than him and the only explanation for this is that she’s been letting him look cool because she wants to tap that. Ashido just accepts this, and I assume this is the point where they have mediocre Hueco Mundo sex.

We go back to the boys, who have defeated all the Hollows they could find and found the exit, and are fretting because they still don’t know where Rukia is. Then Rukia just walks up, “Hey guys, what’s going on in this thread?” They all start to leave when one of the Hollows from earlier comes back (you had ONE JOB, Ichigo, everyone else killed their Hollow) with 50 Menos. Keep in mind, based on earlier events, this would take Ishida like 6 seconds to take care of, but Ashido has to dramatically face them himself. There’s a hilarious bit where he turns back to fight the Hollow and Ichigo and Renji run right past him. He can’t even run fast. He’s terrible. Anyway, some rocks start falling and Ichigo and Renji get entranced by them (shiny!) and Ashido jumps past the rockslide to fight the Hollows and is therefore trapped and they have to leave him behind.

Back on the surface, Rukia takes a knee and makes a dramatic speech while Ichigo and Renji stand behind her like good wingmen and press F in chat. It ends with this:

I cannot see this without thinking about that part in Shrek 2 where Shrek says “I promise I shall repay you, unless I can’t find you, or I forget!” Especially because Rukia 100% forgets that Ashido exists and we never see him again.

Advance Team Filler Masterpost

[tumblingdoe]

Day 2, 3, & 4 of Road Head

Thursday January 3, 2019

Nels is really good about getting up in the morning, hand-grinding and brewing coffee, then driving to our next destination. I’m more of a night owl so I’m good at sleeping through all of this -- except today. The wind rattled the RV so strongly that it reminded me of the shuttle launches I learned about at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. I thought about how this adventure is like a launch into the unknown, an uncomfortable, fast-paced exploration, calculated by a huge team, and executed by few. Was I still willing to stay onboard?

I thought about the keychain I had gotten at the Rocket Center for this very trip, an astronaut and how supporters of Sexplanations are called Sexpla(i)nauts. The whole morning felt really sentimental. Especially when we arrived at our first destination: Pasco, Washington’s Country Mercantile which is like an indoor farmers market run by a grocer. I LOVE THIS PLACE!

A sexpla(i)naut named Dylan coordinated via Twitter to join us. I was thrilled. We ate breakfast and talked about sexuality. One of the special things I took away from our conversation is that fans of the show have a sort of built in sex ed software created from Sexplanations. So, when they have a question, there’s already a sense of the answer because I’ve programmed them. It’s not evil, it’s awesome!

Nels asked Dylan if he had questions for me and Dylan did, but he also said he knew to a degree how I would answer them and showed throughout breakfast that he was able to critically problem solve things I hadn’t talked about on Sexplanations from things I had talked about. I was a proud Lindsey at this moment.

I bought some cherry apple cider, huge apples, some onions, artichoke salsa, and tamales for a sex geek potluck Friday night. We got back on the road and drove again through the wind. The internet was fickle and this slowed my ability to help put out the week’s regular Sexplanations’ video. It went up smoothly anyway and Nels encouraged me to join him on a roadside hike to the top of Multnomah Falls. I thought to myself, “if you want exercise, let’s have sex!” but I knew it wasn’t just physical activity I needed. I needed fresh air and nature. To the hike.

By the time I was ready to be done walking up the trail there was a sign declaring we had done 1 out of 11 switchbacks!? I looked at the sign in disgust and proceeded to go forward. Just like with the Sexplanations Road Tour my belief was that a past me knew what would be best for a future me and even though present me would struggle, it would be worth it. I thought of a lot of metaphors on the hike and topics for Sexplanations’ episodes. I pondered how jumping into the 620 foot falls would be the fastest way down but then I’d be dead.

I did want Swedish meatballs, lingonberry juice, and retail therapy at Ikea before dinner at 5:30 and a speaking engagement at 7, so I ran down the mountain and got in the driver’s seat.

We did Ikea in 45 minutes -- got a cutting board, some floor mats, and cookware. Then it was off to Portland for real this time. Ethiopian food and my dear friend Ben from middle school were waiting for us. One of my greatest pleasures is eating with my hands.

After dinner, and just down the street was a meetup at the Sex Positive Education Events Center (SPEEC). As one attendee put it, “this might ruin it for the rest of your trip” because everything was so perfect. Angie, a sex therapist at SPEEC who’d coordinated everything with a day’s notice, had a projector for me to show Sexplanations, chocolates, comfy chairs, and a vibrator giveaway. The 20ish people who showed up were all spectacular!! We talked about sex positivity in the workplace, bisexual erasure, local resources, Nerdfighteria, the tour, and my experiences as a foster parent. I left with a gift of hand-made underwear and the overwhelming joy that Portland is in very good hands.

Afterward was second dinner with another dear friend and her partner. We went to the Chapel Pub where an organist was playing Sex Ed Rhapsody, “sex ed really matters. Anyone can see. Sex ed really matters. It really really matters to me.”  

Friday January 4, 2019

Thursday we stayed up late drinking tea with Ben and talking about the future before camping in his driveway like hardcore vanlifers. With all that tea imbibed, the RV plumbing was activated that night. (Since we were coming from frozen Montana we had winterized the plumbing so nothing would break but now that we’re in warmer temperatures and in need of a toilet regularly we have a semi-operational bathroom!)

Friday morning I ate RV breakfast -- Brown Cow cream top plain yogurt with Bernice’s Bakery granola from Missoula. It occured to me that I would run out of these items and there was a slight head tilt of mystery about five months of life without Missoula. We drove to visit Nels’ friend Jamie who had the day off from work and the two of them went on a hike in the forest while I took a much-needed shower and got some work done. I wasn’t able to fit 80 hours of assignments into three hours but I was grateful that I got to check some things off the list and have time alone.

When Nels and Jamie came back to the house we went out for Panang Curry. Ben met us and we talked about Blue Planet playing on the restaurant TV. I didn’t know that octopuses/octopodes could be magenta!

After food we all went separate directions. Jamie and Nels went to meet up with another friend and put a puzzle together. I took Ben to his house and then did a run to Fred Meyers for a mattress pad and some drawers to organize my art supplies. Lindsey driving around the city in an RV by herself is a badass!

The evening of Friday January 4, 2019

Nels and I drove to Gresham, Oregon about 40 minutes from where we were in Portland. The Sex Geek community was gathering for a short-notice potluck so I could spend time with kindred spirits. The house was beautiful and warm. Each person was so cool and the food was wonderful! It was like reconnecting with best friends even though these were people I knew loosely. We took a tour of the house, sat down picnic table style for dinner, then talked for hours. I learned that a handful of the sex geeks there had already been on tour, one of whom had taken on our very mission of providing sex ed around the country via RV. I learned about the Fisting Coven (of women who learn and practice fisting with supervision) and I discussed the infrequency of sexologists with children while smiling at a new baby nearby. I’m curious. Some of the guests did a nude photo shoot featuring an gorgeous apple flower dessert and others compared notes on how they were raised. Everyone had a pretty unique upbringing except two of us who had grown up the same age in the same 6,000 person town in northeast Ohio, competing backstroke on swim teams, and walking past the Hudson green clocktower for milkshakes. Two 37 year old women who became well-known sex educators.

I eventually brought up my fear of speaking at Oxford’s TEDx in February with one of the sex geeks who is a successful and talented public speaker.  He listened lovingly to my nerves and and boosted my confidence then retrieved a stack of colored notecards for me to write down and practice my speech over the next month. I knew what I was experiencing was a birth. Between my friends, the SPEEC meetup, and nurturing dinner party of colleagues I was being born into trust that this would all be transformative and meaningful.

Saturday January 5, 2019

Same morning routine, Nels made coffee and started the ignition. We had a brunch date with friends of his from college at their house. “At their house” is a great preposition when you’re road-tripping I’ve already learned because there’s a grounding feeling of front door, living room, bathroom, family dog etc. that you can’t get eating out at restaurants. AND the food is outstanding, made with love. This food was incredible, the black lab was so affectionate, and their toddler provided the ever so welcome shared activity of observing a tiny human being instead of outputting a lot of energy in small talk. I like Nels friends a lot!

After we left their place I felt an urgent need to take a nap and have sex, in that order. Nels and I are usually sex-multiple-times-a-day people but we haven’t prioritized it on the road. We got Costco gas, parked in the nearby lot, slept, then had much needed orgasms. I woke up hours later to Nels driving toward Eugene, Oregon where more of his friends had chicken masala for us “at their house.” I stayed in a relaxed state and committed to working later while they all socialized. As I write now they’re playing one of my favorite card games -- Bonanza, and I’m thrilled to be on a nearby couch, wrapped in a blanket, recalling day four. What a wondrous adventure I’m on.

[beingatoaster]

D&D Ask: 1, 6, 13, 14, 25, 26, 32, and 33. :d

I must apologize once again for the late response…. Answers are under a cut!

1. A favorite character you have played.

Of all the characters that I’ve actually played in a real game… probably Nels. She still eats up a whole lot of my idle daydreaming/thinking time, despite no longer being an active character, because I just really love her.

6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc).

The only D&D game I’ve ever played in person was a 4e game that my brother invited me to when I visited him… twelve years ago, now? I had a dwarven paladin of Ioun named Gudwren, and she helped out the party immensely in a fight against a huge tentacled thing, but I insisted that the DM kill her off at the end of the session, so in its death throes, the monster threw her into a well and she broke her neck.

This is still incredibly hilarious to me (the entire session was hilarious, tbh, it was great) and I enjoy remembering it very much.

13. Introduce your current party.

Dungeons and Dragon-Types/Pokemon FATE:

Cactus: a silver-tongued Sandshrew courier acting as an agent of his clan, who in theory are all couriers (I’ve suspected for a while that they’re actually spies, though Sassafras has not even an inkling of this IC). Not as nice a person as Sassafras thinks he is, as was recently brought up, though if she knew he was thinking it she’d insist that he’s not as bad a person as he thinks he is; either way, he plays the gallant pretty well. Sassafras has at least 20% of a crush on him tbh, though it’s a hero-worship crush (her over-exuberant bardic soul can only dream of being as glib as Cactus), and considers him a Sensible Adult.

Cy: a mysterious white Sandshrew whom the party has only just met. Sassafras has already determined that they’re Friend-Shaped and probably a wonderful and amazing person. They seem to be a scholar, not a fighter, and on a mission of discovery. Sassafras looks forward to finding out more about her good good new friend, and so do I!

Nina: a lyre-playing Vulpix bard with a tendency to fade into the background (being a DMPC) and a penchant for setting things on fire. She’s sweet and good-hearted, but with a mischievous streak underneath, and Sassafras loves her so damn much. She has some trauma from the end of the last arc, where we killed a Bulbasaur from her home village who had gone evil in his decline, and I jokingly kind of shipped her with a now-departed party member, Kaleb, though I can’t recall now whether she actually seemed to have a crush or if I’m just That Person (in another of my games I had both an OOC and an IC shipping chart >>).

Carnassus: a bold Marowak warrior with some sexist beliefs and a rough backstory, who sojourned with Sassfras once before on a little sidequest, and has only just in the latest posts in this arc joined the party again! He’s a brooding tribal badass, which tbh is gonna make Sassafras subconsciously slot him into the same slot Kaleb used to occupy unless he does something dramatic early on to depart from it, and I look forward to learning more about him as we adventure together, as well!

Breaking Light (although I know at least one of you has already covered this better than I will, lmao):

Seamus: a red-haired, bow-wielding Roughboy with mostly good intentions, a mercenary background, and some issues with impulse control. Enjoys cooking, fight clubs, and taking the big hits; does not enjoy sentient magic items, people who pick on littler people, and being nearly turned into a were-warthog.

Kerri: a plaid-prone, heavily-inked Bardlady with mostly mercenary intentions, an… also mercenary background, and even more issues with impulse control. Enjoys flirting, dealing lots of damage, and digging up her party’s backstories; does not enjoy dogs, squeamish teammates, and being condescended to.

Fletcher: a scarred, twitchy Dangernoodle with the best of intentions, a troubled history, and semi-adequate coping mechanisms. Enjoys long baths, tinkering, and befriending myriad animals; does not enjoy intraplanar transitions, broken crossbows, and kobold endangerment.

Ryn: a sweet, bug-crunching Angelbird with the softest of hearts, a loving but judgemental family, and an unfortunate self-sacrificing streak. Enjoys fashionable hats, prayer time, and handing out exorbitant amounts of healing; does not enjoy naked mammals, small spaces, and seeing her friends hurt.

Nareik: an innocent, lightning-infused Stormboy with boundless enthusiasm, an altar boy background, and a deep desire to become a Kordite saint. Enjoys unicorns, giving dracolichs the benefit of the doubt, and destroying villains in the name of Kord; does not enjoy nearly becoming a dracolich vessel, the desecration of monasteries, and accidentally zapping his friends.

14. Already answered!

25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for?

Hey do you guys remember when I sent you to a boatlizard to hide out from trouble and I somehow, despite specifically making them a boatman, did not anticipate you actually getting in a fucking boat?

Although the question says “could of” and I guess in theory I could have planned for that, if I wasn’t a dumbass.

26. Also already answered!

32. Likewise, answered!

33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory?

I get a general character concept in my head, and then I start to shake out the backstory while walking/driving/etc., and then I figure out an official 5E Background to the character, and then I try to fit the backstory more closely to the Background to explain extra skills and stuff, and then I figure out the class details, and then I fiddle with the backstory more, and then I’m done. I actually start with backstory as a pretty core bit of any character concept, not just for D&D but when writing and RPing in general, so it’s one of the first things that comes to me and it’s mostly a matter of making it fit the setting and other details of the character.

[cyanmnemosyne]

Yuletide Letter (2018)

Dear Yuletide Writer,

First of all, thank you for taking the time to write me a fic! These last few years I've been increasingly drawn to tiny fandoms, so I always look forward to this opportunity to share the love with other people who love them too. :D

I've tried to provide some commentary below for each of my requested fandoms, in case it's useful to you, but ultimately Optional Details Are Optional, and I'm sure I'll enjoy what you come up with regardless of if your heart takes you in a different direction. :)  

AO3 name: darkcyan

Requested fandoms:

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time

Suisei no Gargantia | Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet

Ghostverse - Alex Yuschik (Podcast)

Foundryside - Robert Jackson Bennett

[ hiding the rest under the cut, because I tend to write a lot XD ]

General Preferences:

I have no preferences regarding length, tense, or POV; feel free to do whatever seems right for the story.

Stories with emotional warmth are my jam: fluff, found family, battle couples. People learning to trust / coming to love each other, and people for whom their mutual love and/or trust is already their bedrock. I don't need the entire story to be lighthearted from start to finish, but the stories I love most are the ones where even if the characters have been through Some Shit in the course of the story, by the end they're in as good or better a place than when they started. 

If you feel like doing an AU, go for it! :D I like it best when the characters feel "true" to their canon personalities, as filtered and changed through the different lens of how the AU differs from canon. I do have a slight preference for AUs that provide opportunities for interesting worldbuilding (e.g. scifi AU) than the more-typical coffeeshop/college AU. 

In general, if you're the sort to enjoy doing a deep dive into worldbuilding (AU or canon), I'm happy to come along for that ride, too. :D  

Time travel fic is one of my guilty pleasures. XD I have no need for the exact mechanics to be explained; going down the canon-divergence-with-foreknowledge path is completely OK with me. :D

I love it when female characters are their awesome selves

This is not an exhaustive list, so if you don't see something in my DNW list, you're welcome to either send me an anon ask or just assume it's fine. :D

DNW:

Onscreen sex. Fade to black or references to it happening offscreen are fine if you feel it’s important to the story, but if we’ve gotten to the point where we’re talking about limb positions, my reaction is almost certain to be somewhere between bored and extremely uncomfortable.  

Even if it’s not explicit or onscreen, please no rape / noncon / dubcon. 

I’m not a huge fan of drug / addiction plots either

Relationships, romantic or otherwise, where there’s a significant power imbalance (especially if it’s abused) tend to really bother me. 

I also feel pretty strongly about free will and freedom to choose, so “I’m taking away your choices by hiding things from you / doing things behind your back For Your Own Good” narratives mostly just make me want to punch things, no matter how good the supposed justification is on the part of the person doing it. 

Cheating and other forms of deliberate, sustained dishonesty within a relationship. Poly relationships are completely fine :D all that I ask is that all people involved are as aware of who else is involved / what else is going on as they want to be. 

Gratuitous drama.  If a misunderstanding could be resolved by the characters just sitting down for five minutes and talking to each other, and the only reason they don’t is ~*~reasons~*~, then I start getting really annoyed, really quickly

Character bashing. Even the characters I personally dislike are the heroes of their own stories.  

If I wanted to hear about awful people being awful all the time and how awful everything is as a result, I’d go watch the news. (… Someday I would like this statement to be less true than it was the previous year, instead of more. ;___;) There can be awful people, they can do awful things, but I’d really prefer they not be either the majority or the focus of the story.

Fandoms:

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time

Requested character(s): Nel Zelpher, Clair Lasbard

Spoiler notes: I’ve played the game. (I'm also about halfway through the manga, but so far not super impressed by its characterization of Nel, so feel free to ignore it completely. :) )

Preferred pairings: Nel/Clair or gen

So, Nel was my official first ever video game crush. This was a bit difficult for me to explain to my young, theoretically-straight self at the time, but she was so cool that I didn’t bother to think about it too hard.

When we are introduced to Clair as her partner, and every single scene in which the two appear makes it clear how strong their bond is – it was a foregone conclusion that I would start to ship them as well. And Adray’s obnoxious insistence on trying to find a husband for Clair just made me even more determined to headcanon them as lovers (or at the very least secretly pining for each other) in addition to partners.

If you don’t ship them romantically, but just think they’re great platonic partners, I’m sure I’ll still enjoy it whatever you come up with. But in case there’s any doubt, I also very much ship them. :D <3

And whether they're romantically involved or not, I love their dynamic – these two strong-willed, intelligent, fiercely competent women, working towards a shared goal that they both believe is more important than themselves. I love how deep and unshakeable their trust is – and how even though it clearly tears Clair apart to send Nel out into a situation that they both know may not be survivable, she’ll do it anyway. And Nel will go.

I don’t have any specific prompts in mind – if you want to write about a mission Clair has to send Nel off on, and the tension between their fear for and their trust in each other (and the knowledge hanging over both of them that they’re doing something that they see as more important than them both), great! Want to just do fluffy interactions during a brief break from the action (do they get vacation? How many people do they have to bribe to get vacation at the same time?), or after the war is done and things are a bit more settled, go for it.

In the narrative path where Nel goes with the party into space, does she think of Clair and all the stories she’s going to tell once she gets back (if she gets back)?  What does Clair think, being left so much farther behind this time than any other time before?  What stories does Nel tell when they’re reunited?

Got an idea that’s burning in your mind and has nothing to do with any of these? I’m sure I’ll enjoy whatever you come up with. :)

Suisei no Gargantia | Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet

Requested character(s): Ridget, Bellows

Spoiler notes: I’ve watched the show, the OVAs, and the movie.

Preferred pairings: Ridget/Bellows or gen

I came to this show because I was in the mood for mecha anime, then stayed because I fell in love with the cinnamon roll main character, his slice of life struggles to find his place, and the interesting worldbuilding.

… And the badass-with-a-mile-wide-streak-of-imposter-syndrome Fleet Commander and her best friend (or more?), the irreverent excavation team head.

Ridget and Bellows don’t interact a whole lot over the course of the show, but every moment counts and it is clear even in those moments how deep their respect and appreciation for each other goes.

Talk to me about Ridget, who’s so afraid to mess everything up but determined to shoulder the responsibility anyway.

Talk to me about Bellows, who is one of the most effortlessly competent people on the ship and has a warm heart to match.

I’d love to see a story about the two of them and about how much they mean to each other, or a situation where one or both of them are supporting each other.  Anywhere in the timeline is fine with me. :D

(For the record: I ship these two characters, like, a lot.  But if you don’t, know that I’d still love to see a story about their entirely platonic friendship. <3)

The other characters are more than welcome to show up, too. :)

Ghostverse - Alex Yuschik (Podcast)

Requested character(s): Five, Hyeon

Spoiler notes: I've listened to the story

Preferred pairings: Five/Hyeon or gen

I stumbled across this story earlier this year, and my heart was immediately stolen by how elegantly it portrays a very interesting science fiction / fantastical world and the growing friendship of these two characters, through nothing more than a series of texts between the two.

So really, what I'd like from this prompt is more of the same. :) Do you want to explore this fascinating world, where giant mecha run by chronically sleep-deprived pilots are the only thing that stands between what's left of the world and destruction by the ravaging of (I would assume) equally giant ghosts? I'll happily read any of it.

Or dig deeper into these two characters: Hyeon, who feels so constricted by his lot in life, but still tries his best to live up to it (modulo some text complaints, because really, who wouldn't?). Five, who's driven to not only pilot a mecha, but to be one of the best; who has turned his inner grief and darkness into a sword that he uses to stand between the ghosts and others, that they not suffer as he has.

I'm most interested in what might happen after the story ends: now that Five and Hyeon have met face-to-face, what happens next? Does it change their relationship at all? What does Seven Sparrows Sleeping look like in the aftermath of that last attack, and does that affect Hyeon at all?

But honestly: whatever story you give me, I'm sure I'll love.

As usual, while I do ship these two characters, I'd also be happy to see a story where their relationship remains platonic.

And while it would be fun to see a story told solely through texts, in the mode of canon, please do not feel like that's a requirement - I'd be just as happy to see a story that uses a more standard prose format. :)

Foundryside - Robert Jackson Bennett

Requested character(s): Berenice Grimaldi

Spoiler notes: I've read the book

Preferred pairings: Berenice/Sancia if during/after the book; gen otherwise

I read this book recently, after hearing rave reviews, and while it took a while to get going for me, I ended up really enjoying it: both the characters introduced, and the world they inhabit. Alas, that last I heard book 2 doesn’t even have a release year yet. 😭

And perhaps my favorite was Berenice, Orso's quieter, blazingly competent counterpart. (And, in fact, one of the biggest contributors to my eventually liking Orso as well was the fact that he clearly understood and respected just how competent Berenice is; that their partnership was a partnership, as much as it initially looked like he was just peremtorily ordering her around.)

I'd love to see more stories about Berenice -- how did she start out? What was working with Orso like when they first started working together, and how many times did she have to put her foot down before he started listening to her and treating her as an equal?

What was she thinking and doing, in the parts of the book where she's not on-screen or not the POV character?

Or, if you feel like speculating -- what does she think of Orso's new merchant house (aside from "nice job rules-lawyering yourself out of getting brutally killed 👍"), and what is she doing to help make it a success? Is she taking on a teaching role with all the new scrivers he's brought in, or learning from them? Has she found any other people with talents like hers to train as well?

The bits and pieces of Berenice/Sancia we got during the book were quite cute -- I especially like the scene where Orso's trying to give her romantic advice and she's like "lol I'm way ahead of you" -- so if you'd like to explore more of their relationship, I'd love to see more of that as well! Is Sancia still touch-shy? How do they negotiate that? Alternately, now that she's gotten this ridiculous powerup with no real downsides (at least, none we've seen yet), how does that affect how she interacts with the world and with Berenice?

Given that their relationship seems to be pretty much canon at this point, if you include Sancia in the story I'd prefer that the story acknowledge that. But, is probably obvious from all the above commentary, if you'd rather <i>not</i> focus on their relationship, that's 100% fine with me, too -- the main thing I want is more of Berenice being her awesome self. :)

Note also that I find the magic system rather fascinating, and as a programmer myself am amused by how it "feels like" programming. So if you'd like to dig into the magic system and play around with it some more, I would absolutely be on board with that, too. :D

... And that's it!

I hope this letter has been of help, and am thoroughly looking forward to seeing what you come up with. :D

[anightflower]

A Compromise

Summary: The Widows, an organization of women that are trained to seduce, marry, then kill some of the most powerful and corrupt men of the century. Get in, get out, don’t be found. Things become more complicated for Y/N, the Nightingale when powerful mobster James Buchanan Barnes discovers the organization and hires them for his benefit. 

Characters: Mobster!Bucky Barnes x Reader 

Warnings: Swearing 

So I am attempting to write a series!!! What a time. I will be using 1920′s slang to make more authentic. If you some slang you don’t know you can find it here: 

http://mollsanddolls.blogspot.com/2007/10/1920s-slang-dictionary.html

Part One

The man sat at his mahogany desk, his face a mask of frustration as he glanced down at the crisp white paper before him.

A Compromise

May 19 1924

Base Territory Bid: Half of Broadway to Block 184.

BARNES,

IN REVERENCE TO YOUR VALUABLE TIME, I’LL JUST JUMP ON THIS ONE. YOU WANT MY BOYS TO LAY OFF YOUR SIDE OF TOWN? GIVE UP HALF OF BROADWAY TO 184. WE CAN SHAKE ON IT AND WASH OLD BLOOD OFF OUR HANDS PAL. START A NEW EMPIRE ON THE RIGHT FOOT.

REGARDS,

MELEGARI

The deal before him was shit and he knew it, hell it was barely a fucking deal at all. His glass of whiskey shook as he slammed his fist down. “Damnit!” he yelled, grabbing the crystal glass and hucking it at the wall. It shattered into a million pieces, glittering like stars as they fell to the ground.

The gleaming black rotary phone on his desk let out a shrill cry, snapping him out of his angry reverie. He growled as he ripped the phone off its cradle.. “What is it, Penny?”

“A spot of bright news boss! We found one,” his receptionist cherrily replied.

His heart sped up as a smug smile crawled across his face. “Then you know what to do, Doll.”

“I’ll ready the boys.”

“Atta’ girl, Pen. Blow em’ a kiss for me. And remind them that I don’t want a pretty hair on her head yanked or damaged; we need her on our side,” he reminded her.

“You got it, boss.” He could hear the smile in Penny’s voice as she hung up.

Good news indeed.

______________________________________________________________________________

She had always believed that human beings had an ancient instinct that tells them when they were being tracked or to followed.

Y/N? She knew she was being followed since Maywood Street. She could see her stalker now. He tried to look inconspicuous; his dirty blonde hair tucked away into a navy cap, that he pulled low to cover his eyes, but no, especially her, could be oblivious to that hideous pinstripe suit. She wanted to laugh. Hiding in plain sight my ass.

She rolled her eyes as she pulled the green collar of her peacoat up more. Nat was right; I should have just gone with black instead of green, She thought, irritated at herself. The thing was, she liked to be conspicuous out in a life of secrecy and lies.

She decided she would take a detour at the bakery and see if her stalker was truly after her or if it was all a “mysterious coincidence.” She snuck a peek at him from the corner of her eye as he pretended to look at some of the wares of the vendor next to the bakery. Resisting the urge to rip off her heel and huck it at him, she went inside.

“Ah Y/N, the usual?” Nellie called out to her. Nellie ran this bakery like a well-oiled machine, not to mention, she made some of the best strawberry danishes Y/N had ever tasted.

“You know me too well, Nel,” She beamed as she handed Nellie some cash. “I’ll take it to go today. Don’t forget-”

“The extra strawberry jam will be packed in there for you don’t you worry,” she replied, winking playfully.

“Nellie, you’re a doll,” Y/N praised, grabbing the bag from Nel’shand and making my her way back out into the street. Her eyes scanned the busy market street before her watching as people bustled two and fro like ants.

Ah, and there was Pinstripes, pretending to admire some tie samples outside of Calvin’s. And what do you know? The ones he was looking out stuck out just as much as that god awful suit.

Y/N kept scanning, looking for any exits to take to avoid him. Her key to leave was walking up the street: a large group of chatty girls lost in their shopping haze. As they passed in front of the bakery, Y/N hopped in with them. They hardly even noticed, all of them were too lost screaming about “Johnny’s new haircut” and “How was Marie’s date last night?” It was difficult for Y/N not to have her eyes roll into the back of her head. These girls were lost in a fucking fantasy life; she doubted they had to lift a finger for a thing.

She looked back at Pinstripes, whose head was swiveling around trying to find her. Y/N let out a joyful laugh, which quickly went away when his eyes met hers.

That’s when She took off, pushing the glimmer girls out of the way, ignoring their cries of “my shoes,” or “ouch my hair!” and sprinting down a random alley.

She heard Pinstripes yell something, most likely a profanity.  She glanced over her shoulder again only to see him rushing after her.

“Shit, shit, shit,” She hissed under her breath, weaving through different pathways, people, ANYTHING that could make him lose me. There was no way she could go back to the Nest and risk her following her there.

Y/N slowed a bit when she realized she didn’t hear heavy footsteps behind her. Actually, she heard nothing?

She stopped, looking around the alleyway realizing she had lost her way. She didn’t recognize a damn thing. SHIT! It was too quiet here, she had to figure out how to get back to the Nest-

Y/N yelped as she felt two huge arms wrap around her waist. Her instincts kicked in and she slammed her head against the man holding her.

“FUCK!” He growled. His arms released her and she whipped around to face him in a bristling fighting stance.

“What in hell do you think you’re doing? Are you a copper?” Y/N hissed.

“Quite the opposite.” Pinstripes laughed, his hand cradling his nose. He looked up at her and smiled, Y/N had to admit, it was an stunning smile, it complimented his blue eyes.

“Miss Vogue, I have someone who wants to meet you,” he said gruffly. “I’d rather not have to do this the hard way.

“Plenty of men want to meet me Pinstripes. Give me one good reason why I should meet your man?” Y/N smirked.

“Because nobody says no to James Buchanan Barnes.”

___________________________________________________________________________

Y/N  was forced into a lovely little black Rolls Royce. She was stiff as a board, her body’s fight or flight response on full alert. She eyed Steve, Pinstripes actual name, warily watching him through the rearview mirror. He had been a gentleman, however, he had opened and closed the door for Y/N, even going as far as to offering her champagne, which she quickly passed on. She needed a clear head to work my way through this situation.

How on earth did James Barnes find her? How on earth could she evade him?

The car ride had little chatter, the only noise being quiet jazz playing from the radio. A car with a radio - Barnes clearly liked to show off his money.  Y/N swallowed hard at the thought.

______________________________________________________________________________

Her heart nearly stopped when the car pulled up to the mansion before her. I am in some deep shit, she thought to herself.

Steve opened the door for her, gesturing toward the front door and guiding Y/N into the mansion and down a series of hallways.

They stopped in front of an ornately-decorated door. Steve knocked once.

A deep voice from within called out. “Come in.”

He was facing the fireplace. His crisp navy suit glowed in the warm light.

Y/N took a deep breath and composed herself, pasting a natural smirk on her face.

“Now, a dame loves a good chase every once and a while Mr. Barnes, but that was a bit of a whirlwind even for me. Care to tell me why I am here?” Y/N asked

Steve gestured to the seat in front of Barne’s desk. Y/N gave him a look, raising an eyebrow. Steve just nodded toward the chair, his face saying, I would sit if I were you. Y/N rolled her eyes and sat down gracefully.

“You know who I am?” the man asked, turning to Y/N with surprise, his deep blue eyes inquisitive.

“I doubt there isn’t a person in New York who doesn’t know who you are,” she answered with a bright grin. Y/N knew she had to keep the charade up if she wanted to get out of here.

“Well, then, since we know each other let’s just skip the pleasantries, Miss Y/L/N. I believe you are familiar with a group called the Widows?” he stated simply as he sat across from her..

Y/N daintily crossed one leg over the other, her face crinkled in innocent confusion. ‘I can’t say I am, Mr. Barnes.”

“Oh, don't play coy with me, Doll.” He threw a thick file onto the desk. “Or should I say, Nightingale?”

Y/N shoulders tensed slightly, but she kept her face a mask of innocence. “As I said, I have no idea what you are talking about.”  

He opened up the file. “You’ve been called by many names, had many hair styles and colors, yet those pretty eyes; always the same. And what a beautiful color they are in person.” He threw a few black and white photos on the desk. Y/N face staring back at her in each one. “Such pretty wedding dresses in each one. You have exquisite taste. What number husband are you on now?” He smiled like the cat that got the cream.

The soft look on Y/N’s face disappeared. “What are you looking for, Barnes? Is this a threat?”

He got up, grabbing two crystal glasses and a pewter filled with what Y/N could only assume is bourbon. “Drink?” he asked as he filled the two glasses. She glared at him coldly.

He sighed at her silence, placing the amber-filled glass before her. “It doesn’t have to be a threat. To put it simply, I have a job for you, Miss Y/L/N,” he proposed.

“Something tells me this isn’t optional. Then again from what I have heard, nothing is optional with you, Mr. Barnes,” Y/N quipped back, crossing her arms across her chest.

He leaned back in his chair and took a deep swig from his glass.. “I am glad you’ve done your research.”

“Anf what if I still said no? I am not afraid of you, Barnes; you’re not the only one with a few aces up your sleeve,” Y/N growled, starting to get up to leave.

“You may have a few jacks up your sleeve, but you have so much to lose, Nightingale,” Y/N paused at his words. His use of her code name digging into her.

“One misslip of the tongue, and you and your lovely lady widow friends can be caught in the act, which would be nothing short of a shame, considering how much I admire the wonderful work you have done.” Y/N turned back to him, her whole body tense with rage. Barnes’ shit-eating grin only grew wider.

He knew he had her on the ropes.

“What do you want, Barnes?” Y/N hissed through gritted teeth as she plopped herself back down into the overly-expensive brown leather chair with a huff.

He stood up placing both of his hands on the desk, each big rock on his finger reflecting the firelight. “For years, the Widows have been an invaluable organization going after unjust leaders, horrific mobsters, and anyone who does not meet their standards. You send one of your girls in, seduce, marry, then kill, conveniently covering it up with the husband never seeing it coming. You, Nightingale, are the most successful one of them all, with over 25 successful missions in five years. You’ve become a Widow prodigy, and I need you to do it again.”

He was met again with my silence.

He continued on. “His name is Charles ‘Charlie’ Melegari. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”

A million images flashed before Y/N eyes: lavish parties, a dark smile, slicked back bronze hair.  “We have met a few times. He has a decent piece of New York, doesn’t he?” Y/N picked at her nails casually, looking calm even though the idea of going into his territory made her heart stop.

“I suppose you could say that. You see, he’s been giving me and my boys some problems lately, and I would love to have these issues-  well let’s just say- removed from my life. I have a business to run, and this man has been trying to fuck up my business and conquer my territory. I don’t have time for petty problems like those,”  he drawled.

“And I’m supposed to take care of your little problem?” Y/N scoffed.

“Exactly.”

“You act as if I’ll do this out of charity, what’s in it for me?” She leaned forward placing her head on her hand, batting her long lashes up at him.

He laughed, his blue eyes lighting up with mischief. “Besides protection for your girls? I can give you whatever you want doll: money, protection-”

“How about a piece of your empire?” His smile disappeared at my words. “My ladies and I could use a little bit of this. We live a life of luxury, but murder can get tiresome,” Y/N sighed.

He stroked his chin, deciding. “That can be discussed.”

“Fine.” Y/N said promptly.

She got up again and headed towards the door. She paused, her back to him. “While when you’ve decided, you apparently know where to find me, Mr. Barnes.”

Bucky smirked at her sass. “Until our next meeting, Nightingale,” he replied. As an afterthought he added,  “Oh, and doll?”

Y/N turned her head towards him, eyebrows raised in question.

“Next time we meet, wear something that will make those pretty little eyes of yours pop,” he winked.

Y/N rolled her eyes at the comment and strutted out into the hallway, making sure to slam the door behind her.

A compromise then: Wear something pretty for him, then get what she wants.

[nelvana]

In which the electric bird was fought

First: In which the human is transformed Next: In which they speak to the bird who sees time Previous: Intermission

   Blurry sights and mumbled voices. A monochrome world. More voices. Vague figures. Pain. A lot of pain. Whether physical or emotional, unclear. Pause. A gear. Beautiful blue gear glowing in the darkness. Gone. It’s gone. Two gems. The echoing shatter. Falling. Falling into darkness.

    Nelvana’s eyes shot open, suddenly awakening. She breathed shaky yet large breaths, trying to calm herself from the nightmare. She sat up and glanced out the window, trying to get a judge of the time. The sun still hadn’t risen, but she could tell it would soon. No point in trying to go back to sleep. Not that going to sleep would help her much, considering the nightmare would just pick up where it left off. Although perhaps if she returned to it she could make more sense of it…

    Nelvana rubbed her eyes tiredly she turned over to Keahi, who was still sleeping peacefully. Zir feathers all ruffled up and the torchic looking completely relaxed. The cubone couldn’t help but smile at her friend. Being careful not to wake zim, she grabbed her club and crept outside for some fresh air to try to clear her thoughts.

    The air outside was crisp and quiet. The world around being generally still and asleep. Nelvana let out a sigh and sat down at the edge of the stone pathway leading from their house. She didn’t bother checking the mailbox, there was no way anyone had visited it since they had last checked. She stared down at the dirt ground for a few moments, trying to think through the nightmare.

    Once she thought about it, this was only her second nightmare since arriving here. The first had been much more unclear than this one, and she had long since forgotten everything about it except for the empty pain in her gut from when she had woken up. She had had plenty of dreams, but most were random and forgettable. There were, of course, the Gardevoir message dreams, but she hadn’t had one of those for quite a few nights.

    Nelvana blinked and tried to put her focus back onto calculating the nightmare. As she thought, she began absentmindedly tapping the ground with her bone club, eventually going to doodling images from the dream. The gear, and the gems were the clearest and the first to be drawn. She then tried drawing one of the figures she had seen but got frustrated upon not getting it right and gave up. She stared at her doodles as she thought. The gear was obviously important, and she felt like there were more than just the one. However, that didn’t soothe her stress about the noise of it breaking. The gems felt… dangerous, for some reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on. They sort of looked like a sableye’s eyes, and after adding a grin below confirmed her assumption. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to connect the two of them, but her attention turned away from it so she decided to accept it and move on. Trying to figure out the figures and voices next, she thought of the one she had attempted to draw. She matched it to a male voice she had heard, one calling her name. Obviously, someone she had known before, but who? The more she tried to remember a name or try to recall details of the figure, the more they fell away from her grasp. She growled at herself in frustration, gripping her bone club tightly.

    “There you are Nel! What are you doing out here?” Keahi asked, snapping the cubone’s focus back to reality. “Cool drawings by the way!” zie added, plopping down next to zir partner.

    “Hi Keahi. I uh…” Nelvana mumbled, relaxing their grip slightly. “…had a nightmare. Came out here to try and analyse it a bit.”

    “Oh!” Keahi exclaimed, looking closer at the doodles. “What was the dream about? Do you remember it much?”

    “Not really. Even if I did, it felt pretty random and unclear. I probably wouldn’t get much more out of it,” Nelvana answered, “I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I want to know what my brain is thinking of, but it also feels… dangerous.”

    “Huh, that is a conundrum. Dreams do tend to be pretty confusing though…” Keahi mumbled, “what have you got so far?”

    “Well, the clearest things I got out of it were a gear,” Nelvana said, pointing to the mentioned drawing as she did so. “and these gems. I think that the gems might be a sableye’s eyes, but that’s all I’ve really figured out from this.”

    Keahi was quiet for a few moments, studying the drawings in the dirt to see if zie could figure out something that zir friend hadn’t initially. However, they had no such luck and let out a sigh of defeat.

    “I got nothing. Sorry,” Keahi told Nelvana.

    “It’s fine,” Nelvana replied, rubbing away the drawings before standing up and stretching. “It’s no biggie, really. I’m sure I’ll figure it out eventually.”

    Keahi smiled, “that’s a good way to think about it,” zie said, standing back up as well. “You ready to head out to Mt. Thunder? It’s nearing sunrise, we don’t want to fall behind Team A.C.T.”

    Nelvana nodded, “I guess we head out then?”

    Keahi nodded, and they set off. Alakazam had marked the location on their map for them, so they had a good idea of where to be going. They had also made sure they had enough supplies the night before, so that they could head straight out without trying to see if any of the shopkeepers were awake.

    As the pattern of traveling to new places seemed to dictate, the way to Mt. Thunder was longer than any of the other ones they had been to so far. It took hours for them to arrive anywhere near the mountain. However, unlike most of the others, they saw Mt. Thunder long before they actually arrived there. The huge mountain stood tall and intimidating, a dark and menacing cloud floated at the top with strikes of lightning hitting the peak of the mountain every once and awhile. Finally, they arrived to the base of the structure, and the opening of a large cave awaited them. Nelvana could feel the electricity tingling from the ground at her feet, progressing to feeling more like pins and needles if she stayed in the same place for too long.

    “The electricity here is a lot stronger than at Thunderwave Cave,” Nelvana commented, shifting her weight.

    “Sure looks like it,” Keahi agreed, “your fur is standing on end.”

    “So I noticed,” Nelvana chuckled, rubbing her hands together and then touching Keahi to shock them with static electricity.

    “Hey!” Keahi exclaimed, jumping slightly in surprise but laughing afterwards. “I thought being a ground-type made you an insulator! No fair!” zie giggled.

    “I guess I’m just a cheater,” Nelvana joked, shocking her partner again.

    “Okay, okay! But we should head in now,” Keahi sighed, a smile still resting on zir face.

    “Yeah, I know,” Nelvana agreed, and they headed in.

    Similarly to Thunderwave Cave, Mt. Thunder was primarily inhabited by electric-types, which Nelvana handled swiftly, making their progress through the dungeon fairly quick. After ten floors, there was a medium-sized stone statue of Zapdos waiting in an empty room, with stairs to progress on the other side.

    “Hm, a statue,” Keahi commented, “I forgot that some dungeons had these.”

    They carefully walked up to the statue to observe it more closely. It was terrifically detailed, but obviously worn with age with a few cracks and chips here and there.

    “These are markings of special floors, if I remember correctly. Rooms with a statue in it show that this floor never changes, and is safe to rest in, same at the last floor of every dungeon,” Nelvana murmured.

    “Yup!” Keahi chirped, “I read somewhere that they also give good luck.”

    “Really? Huh, that’s pretty interesting,” Nelvana hummed, “haven’t heard of that before.”

    “Mhmm!” Keahi said, “well, I’ll bet there’s only a couple more floors after this, and unless Team A.C.T. teleports straight to the top then they have to pass through here. I think we should rest up and wait for them for a few minutes.”

    “Good idea,” Nelvana agreed and sat down.

    Team Galaxy relaxed in the room for around five minutes. Chatting about the upcoming battle and making sure they were still in good condition to fight. Time dwindled on slowly with no sign from the elite team.

    “Should we try messaging them with our badges or somethin’?” Nelvana finally suggested, getting bored with waiting for the other team.

    “Oh yeah, good idea,” Keahi agreed and brought out zir badge. “Huh… just static. Must be malfunctioning…”

    “That doesn’t sound good,” Nelvana replied, holding up her own badge to try to see if it was doing any better, which it wasn’t. “Must be Zapdos’ electricity interfering with the signal.”

    Keahi nodded, “probably. This means none of its other functions will be working either… including the teleporting ones. We’ll have to be more careful than before to avoid getting stuck here.”

    “I’m betting that once we beat Zapdos then these things will stop glitching,” Nelvana sighed.

    “Mhmm. And I don’t think the others will be passing through here anytime soon. We should just head up the rest of the way,” Keahi said, standing back up.

    Nelvana agreed and stood up as well. They found out very quickly that there was actually only one more floor before the peak of the mountain. Passing through said floor with relative ease, they stood at the peak, dark clouds circling around them. There was no sign of Zapdos, or Team Shiftry, both of them assumed that they were hiding in the sky somewhere.

    “Okay,” Nelvana whispered, “now we should wait for-“

    She was cut off by the already too familiar screech of Zapdos coming from above. The pair stepped back cautiously, despite already being out of the way of the legendry’s landing spot. Lightning sparked off the large bird’s body and he glared down at the team like last time.

    “Aha! So, you came after all! And alone too,” Zapdos chuckled, “I’m impressed, but do you have the skills to match your courage?”

    Keahi glanced over at Nelvana, but her attention was already fixed on the legendry. So instead, zie puffed out zir feathers and nodded with a fire in zir eyes.

    “Heck yeah! Bring it on!” Keahi challenged.

    Zapdos let out another shriek and opened up his wings. Lightning struck the ground haphazardly, while some bolts got drawn to Nelvana. She hurried into the battlefield, leaping up and grabbing a fistful of feathers, climbing up to the bird’s back. They tried shaking her off, practically glowing with electricity, but it was ineffective against the cubone.

    Keahi raced over next, darting around the irritated legendry. Zie tried peaking at their legs, but without much avail and too much risk. Opening zir beak, zie tried the next strategy, launching a burst of fire at Zapdos’ torso, scorching their feathers. Zapdos reacted quickly, narrowing their eyes and attempting to drill their beak into the smaller bird, who narrowly dodged out of the way with their speed boost. Being experienced with trying to peak smaller targets, Zapdos collected their balance before accidentally smashing their face into the ground instead.

    Meanwhile, Nelvana successfully climbed onto the back of Zapdos’ head. She managed to get a good grip, then raised her bone club and struck the electric-flying-type in the head. Raising her weapon again, she managed to quickly get in another hit before being forced to hold on for dear life as the legendry shook their head in a vain attempt to throw her off. Seeing as they weren’t going to stop until she fell off, she carefully tried to keep her balance while trying to hit them again.

    Keahi continued running around, trying to distract Zapdos while delivering some embers to deal some damage. As zie ran, zie realized that a lot of dirt was being scuffed up from all the movement. Pausing for a moment, Keahi began shuffling around in place, making up a cloud of dust, and then began kicking the loose dirt at Zapdos’ eyes, attempting to temporarily blind them. It proved to be effective as the large bird let out another screech of annoyance and pain and was forced to close their eyes and their movements become more sporadic and unbalanced. Nelvana was forced to tighten her grip from all the moving around but persisted in her attacking. Keahi spat out another fireball, this time hitting Zapdos in the head. More electricity burst around them as Zapdos stumbled over, finally forcing Nelvana to let go and topple onto the ground. She landed on her feet and scurried over to her partner as the legendry stood back up.

    “They’re still going? You hit them several times with your bone club! That’s super effective!” Keahi yell-whispered in frustration.

    “They are a legendry after all,” Nelvana pointed out in a slightly quieter voice.

    Surprisingly, while it seemed like Zapdos had heard the pair converse, they didn’t respond. Breathing heavily, they tried to attack the duo with another drill peak. Both of them scattered, and this time Zapdos didn’t gather themselves back up in time and was sent crashing to the ground. Getting back up again, the yellow and black pokemon took to the skies, spreading their wings and flying up in the air, out of the way of more bone club attacks. This didn’t stop Nelvana from throwing her weapon at them, although it didn’t even come close before falling and clattering to the ground. Keahi stepped up to the plate, launching an ember at the legendry, just barely hitting them as they attempted to fly out of the way. Having to come back down to actually deal damage to their opponents, Zapdos dove down to try and drill peak at them again. Nelvana met them head on, by stepping out of the way of the attack and then headbutting them in the side of the head. Keahi spat out another fireball, sending Zapdos down to the ground again, and this time they didn’t get back up.

    “Did… did we actually do it?” Keahi asked, turning to Nelvana eagerly.

    “Yeah, they’re definitely knocked out. For how long, I don’t know but-“ Nelvana said, but got interrupted by her partner suddenly hugging her.

    “We did it! Nel, we defeated a legendry!” Keahi exclaimed excitedly, “without any help!”

    Nelvana looked back to Zapdos momentarily, the idea of actually beating a legendry in battle finally sinking in. She returned the hug, smiling.

    “Hey yeah! Yeah, we did!” she hummed.

    Upon hearing footsteps from the entrance of the peak, let go of each other and turned in the direction of the noise to see Team A.C.T. finally arriving. Having overheard the last bits of their excitement, Charizard spoke up.

    “Did wha-oh dear mother of Mew,” Charizard said, “what happened here?” he asked, looking to Zapdos laying on the ground.

    “We fought Zapdos!” Keahi chirped, “we know you said that we shouldn’t fight them on our own, and we tried waiting, but they fought us anyway… but look, we won!” zie explained, gesturing to the large bird with zir wing.

    “But… how?” Charizard’s jaw dropped in utter shock that these two children could take down this beast of a pokemon and only suffering a few scrapes and bruises in the end.

    “We uh…” Keahi exchanged glances of slight confusion with Nelvana on how to answer the question. “We just, uh, did? We fought them, and Nel got up onto their back and was hitting them with the bone club and I was burning them and kicking sand at them and we knocked ‘em out!”

    Alakazam furrowed his brows, he didn’t seem satisfied with the answer but also appeared to be aware that there really was no other answer. The duo had just been skilled enough to pull it off. Tyranitar casually closed Charizard’s mouth, which had still been open after the jaw drop. The big lizard blinked, his focus coming back to reality and gave a nod to his teammate in thanks.

    Before anyone else could say anything, Zapdos began attempting to stand back up. Team Galaxy whirled around to face the legendry again, Nelvana tightening her hands into fists since she still hadn’t retrieved her club, while Team A.C.T. braced themselves for combat, Alakazam held up his spoons, Charizard lashed his tail and snarled, Tyranitar simply got into a more battle-ready position.

    “Hey, hey, hey! Calmer down why don’t you!” Zapdos hissed, “I’m not going to attack you, just getting up. I’m done fighting right now, got a killer headache from that. Besides, it looks like those two at least are too small and fast to me to even hit them with this big ol’ beak of mine.” They stood back up to their full height, rubbing their head with their wing before squatting down to a more comfortable seating position. “Still don’t believe me, huh…” they huffed, realizing none of the rescuers had moved much. “Here, lets try this for starters!” Zapdos reached down behind them, picked up the discarded bone club in their beak and tossed it to Nelvana, who caught it easily; which seemed to ease the tension slightly and everyone relaxed a bit. “Now, since you won the battle you get this fool.”

    Zapdos took off into the skies, returning shortly with Shiftry in their talons. They set down the leader on the ground in front of the two teams before going back to sitting down calmly. Nelvana and Alakazam reacted the quickest, but it was the psychic-type who came first to check for the health condition of the grass-dark-type.

    “He’ll be fine,” Alakazam informed the others.

    “Why did you even kidnap him if you didn’t do anything to him?” Keahi asked curiously, looking from Shiftry back to Zapdos.

    “Because he’s a pest that needed to be taught a lesson!” Zapdos snapped but then sighed and regained their composure quickly. “This stupid little fellow first goes and causes such a racket and such a mess with his fans that he wakes me up! And I was resting in a windy dungeon! Anyway, I’m tired and cranky and I come out to see what the big deal is. Then this festering bugger starts yelling and mocking me! Talking about his woes and how much trouble they’ve had to go through to get here and I’m just another issue for him! Like he doesn’t know who I am and what I can do to him! So, I show him. I send enough volts through ‘em to knock him out right on the spot. His little friends scatter and now I’m left with an unconscious pokemon with a malfunctioning badge. I ditch the badge and decide to wait and see if anyone shows up to rescue him. Which you two do, and I see that you’re a couple of brave young scraps and decide to challenge you. I was bored! And boy, did you just make it worth my while! That was quite the battle. Been a long time since I’ve been beaten up by simple mortals. So, you have your prize, I never wanted him anyway,” they explained.

    “Wait, the nuzleaves ran off? You don’t have them?” Nelvana asked, subconsciously reaching into her bag for the badges she had collected the day before.

    “No! Did you think I did? Those cowards beat it the second I showed I wasn’t something they could easily take on. Haven’t seen them since,” Zapdos huffed, rolling their light blue eyes at the memory.

    “Oh…” Nelvana murmured, a pit of dread opening up in her stomach.

    Noticing how crestfallen they looked, Zapdos was tempted to speak up again but didn’t know what to say to help out the situation. Alakazam was the next to speak instead.

    “Are you sure you have no idea where they went? Until Shiftry wakes up we don’t have any clues on how to find those two, and even then, I doubt he would know where they ran off to,” he asked.

    Zapdos shook their head, a couple loose feathers fell out from the movement and drifted to the ground. “No idea. I assumed they were the ones who got your crew for help. I reckon they either got lost or one of the dungeon ‘mons got to them. Sorry,” they told them, “now, as much as I hate to leave on that note, I should get going. Heal up after all this. Good luck!”

    Zapdos spread their wings open wide one final time, and took off once more, swiftly disappearing into the dark clouds and not returning. There was silence amongst the group for a few moments as they all glanced around, calculating the next words or actions to be taken after all that.

    “Do we go look for the nuzleaves now? Alakazam, you can find them with your telepathy or something right?” Keahi asked hopefully, looking over to Team A.C.T. for guidance.

    To the torchic’s dismay, Alakazam shook his head, “I’m afraid not. Their dark typing means that I can’t sense them like I can with most pokemon. All we can do now is send out a search party or two and hope it’s successful,” he explained, “and no, your team won’t be part of these search parties. You should rest up after this.”

    “Yeah,” Charizard agreed, “we don’t doubt your abilities, especially after that, but you shouldn’t be sent through one problem after another. Let some other teams handle this one.”

    Nelvana sighed and brought out Team Shiftry’s badges, handing them to Team A.C.T., “you guys should take these in that case. We found them at Silent Chasm and forgot to bring it up to you at the time.”

    Alakazam examined the badges for a few short moments. They were still bloodstained since no one had gotten the time to clean them properly in the rush. He took them out of the cubone’s hands and placed them in their team’s bag.

    “Thank you,” Alakazam said, “now that that’s dealt with, there’s one more thing that should be addressed,” he continued, staring down at Nelvana like he had done in Pokemon Square, sending chills down her spine again. “Nelvana, you aren’t really a pokemon, are you?”

    “What? Not a pokemon? But that’s impossible! Pokemon are all there are, right Nel?” Keahi exclaimed, but was surprised to see that zir partner had actually tensed up from the question. “Nel?”

    “H-He’s right…” Nelvana barely managed to choke the words out as she stared ahead blankly. “I used to be human… it’s the only thing I remember about my past aside from my name.”

    Keahi’s eyes widened in shock at zir partner’s response, “w-what? Human? I thought those didn’t exist! Why didn’t you tell me?”

    “I… I’m sorry. I’ll explain it later. When we’re home, o-okay?” Nelvana murmured, looking over at her partner, meeting zir distraught eyes.

    “…okay,” Keahi mumbled, turning to face the ground.

    Alakazam cleared his throat to turn the attention back to him before speaking, “I recommend going to see Xatu to see if he can figure out why this has occurred. I can’t do it myself since you seem to have someone stronger than I holding up a psychic shield for you. Xatu however, can see into the past and future. He lives in the Hill of the Ancients, out beyond the Great Canyon. There he watches the sun day in and day out to see through time itself. It is likely that he will know at the very least, where you should take the next step.”

    “Thank you,” Nelvana replied, but her throat was dry and she didn’t mean it. “We’ll consider heading out there.”

    “Very well. Now then, we’ll take Shiftry off to a medic, and you two should get back to your home,” Alakazam told them.

    “Wait!” Nelvana blurted, “what… what took you so long to get up here, anyway? Don’t you have teleport?”

    “He wore it down working on the stupid rock!” Charizard explained, and before a more detailed or generally better answer could be given, the team disappeared with Shiftry in a beam of light.

    There was silence for a few moments, and then Keahi wordlessly held up zir badge. Nelvana followed suit and the two disappeared from Mt. Thunder as well. They reappeared in front of their base as usual. It was still daylight; in fact, it was barely the afternoon. They had only been gone for a few hours, most of it being the travel, even though it had felt like longer from all the stress. The sun shone brightly in the sky, not matching the mood of the two teammates too much. They headed inside and Keahi sat down on zir nest, looking up at Nelvana expectantly. Nelvana hesitantly opened her mouth to speak, but the torchic interrupted her.

    “Wait, before you explain why you hiding this from me, know that I’m not going to judge you based on what species you used to be. I don’t really know anything about humans anyway, I just thought they were myths, so I’m not in a position to judge even if I wanted to. I’m just upset that you kept this a secret for so long,” Keahi said, “don’t you trust me?”

    “I do!” Nelvana blurted, “it’s just… when we first met, I didn’t. So, I didn’t say anything about it. Then when I did start to trust you, I didn’t think you would believe me, and then when I thought you would believe me, it felt like it was too late. And so, I avoided it so we won’t have this confrontation. I’m really sorry! I know I should’ve told you sooner, I was just worried you’d get mad, so I didn’t bother…” she explained.

    Keahi’s gaze softened and they sighed, “I’m not… mad. Honestly, I’d probably do the same thing as you if it came down to it. But it stills hurts that you didn’t tell me before now. I think I’ll just need some time to think about all, okay?”

    Nelvana nodded slowly, fidgeting with her club anxiously and glancing out the window, trying to push away the emptiness growing in her. Keahi stood back up and walked over to zir partner giving her a gentle hug.

    “This doesn’t mean you’re not my best friend anymore or anything, y’know,” zie told them, “we’ve hit a bump, and we’ll get back up tomorrow and keep going. My mood isn’t even all your fault, I’m upset about not finding the nuzleaves too,” zie continued, “I’d really hate to lose you. You’re so special to me and I care for you so much.”

    Nelvana let her bone club clatter onto the floor and held onto Keahi’s warm feathers instead, “but why? Why do you trust me so blindly?” she murmured.

    “Why do I-“ Keahi chuckled, leaning back and giving zir partner a smile. “You’re my friend Nel, nothing is going to change that. Even if you’ve been hiding what species you used to be from me. Why wouldn’t I trust you?”

    “Because you don’t know anything about me. I don’t know anything about me,” Nelvana choked out, “what if I did something terrible in the past?”

    “You didn’t do something terrible. And you know how I know that? Because I know you. You’re brave and smart and funny and kind. You like to draw and read and laugh and help out others. You like to eat sweets and solve problems. You overthink and dance around social confrontations. You’re my best friend and no one can replace you. I might not know about your past, but we can at least work to make a good future,” Keahi said, rubbing away tears from zir eyes as zie spoke.

    Nelvana was quiet for a few moments until her body shook with a sob filled with bottled-up emotions that she couldn’t hold back anymore, “thank you. I… I care about you too, y’know. So much. You’ve stuck with me and I can’t thank you enough for that,” she managed to say.

    “Haha… now we’re both getting all emotional,” Keahi mumbled with a giggle, which Nelvana surprisingly returned. “How about we just talk and relax and eat cookies for the rest of today? Tomorrow you can tell the others about you being human and we can go to see Xatu. Okay?”

    “Okay,” Nelvana agreed.

[sichore]

Lack of second releases for The returning Espada? The awesomeness of Unohana "dont mess with the medic" Kenpachi? (her bankai confuses me but still fav captain). and who's ur fav Sternritter? sorry if thats alot or its a mess or both xD

it’s a start!

the lack of second releases or just an actual update on the surviving Espada and other arrancar is a huge missed opportunity. it’s not something I’m angry at Kubo for; there were time and demand constraints, which means cut content, and this has plagued the series from the start. I know Grimmjow and Nel showing up was a big ‘thank you’, as it didn’t really add to the story* and Grimmjow, especially, served no other purpose than fanservice. that said, one pertinent thing about his return was how he partially transformed while chasing Askin. I found that to be a highly relevant detail, along with how the Tres Bestias’ masks had such drastic changes. 

sometimes character designs just change when they’re brought back (see Ulquiorra’s initial appearance to how he appears as the chapters went on), but I like to think that the arrancar were capable of much more than we got to see. Ulquiorra said it himself that he hid his segunda etapa from Aizen (though whether or not Aizen knew regardless is up for debate), and we got other examples of arrancar having nonconventional transformations. the way Cirucci discarding her wings meant she’d never be able to release again; the way Findorr powered up as his mask broke (so presumably, this meant he was capable of accelerated healing??); the way Ggio’s resurrección seemed to be split; and how the Tres Bestias could combine parts of themselves to make a whole new being.

I fully believe there was much more to the arrancar than we got to see and that they were capable of further evolution, particularly in regards to how they release. I know we got to see more of the arrancar than expected because of popularity, though I feel that only applied to a certain few (namely Grimmjow, Ulquiorra, Szayel and Nel). at the same time, I feel like much of their story actually got rewritten and/or cut. There’s several mentions that Soul Society had been keeping track of them for a long time, and for all we know, Aizen perhaps learned of them during the course of his research, and sought them out to build his army based on past data. Their power levels, too, were totally rewritten, as they stopped being a threat by large by the time we got to the FKT battles, which is why they largely sucked, despite the characters involved being cool enough.

I feel like a lot of this hidden lore and power was wrapped up in Baraggan, who was one of the first arrancar Kubo created I believe, and in the lore of the Vasto Lordes in general. but uh yeah. tl;dr: we got robbed of more Segunda Etapa and arrancar lore because of time constraints, and I’m certain they existed.

Unohana’s story reveal was wonderful and one of the highlights of the final arc, hands down. It had been hinted at throughout the series so I know it was a case of Kubo trying to find the right time to slide it in. (He did this with a lot of elements; Shinji had been a concept from the series’ beginning, but Kubo was only able to add him in post-SS) I don’t immediately have much to say about Unohana besides that it’s a shame the reveal came so late, that we didn’t really get to see what she was capable of, and that she ended up being power up fodder for Kenpachi, who spent most of the series as a fanservice character and had plenty of chances to have development. Unohana being fridged for a bullshit reason is one thing I’m legitimately salty about and can’t defend Kubo on because I can’t think of any possible explanation for it.

I may have to come back to the question of favorite Sternritter, because I haven’t reread the arc in full yet. I will say I was delighted with their introduction because introducing that many characters at the end was an obvious show of Kubo’s love for character creation as well as a bit of a FUCK YOU to everyone who says he had too many characters, haha! That said, some of their fights were more drawn out than they needed to be and I don’t feel they were as well-executed as they could have been because, again, time restraints.

But I did love the girl squad and very much want to believe they all in particular survived, instead of just the three. And I also dearly loved Bazz-B, which it’s hard not to because we got his full story. Cang Du and Lille Barro were pretty cool too (though the latter’s fight got really, REALLY wild), but for now Bazz was my fav.

*edit: small addendum to clarify that Nel showing up wasn’t pointless, we just didn’t get to actually see or hear why she was there (to save Harribel; one of many plots put into the novel). Grimmjow, however, I stand by on that his appearance was pretty much fanservice, since we didn’t really get to hear or see of any character growth he had, besides the partial transforming bit.