#plus the fact that i feel guilty doing this. technically i could go like its just a simple cold and its going away

[woodfrogs]

deferring a midterm is the scariest thing ever

[lowkeyclueless5137]

Hmmmm, Did Riddle, Kalim, Epel, and Idia ever use their omnitrix during a certain bean fest. I mean the watch and its alien technically don’t use any form of magic so it’s not really breaking any of Vargas’ rules there.(heck what about during Camp Vargas itself, omnitrix alien powers are very helpful[plus I can just see Idia just fiddling with his being uhh bored and yet technically not that bored cause well, he can just go full alien later. Ben did first get his omnitrix during a certain camp trip)

BEANS! BEANS! BEANS!

If it wasn't for glorious masquerade (and that Phanthom thief/Gothic ball theme) Beanfest would be my top fav: Good cards, chaotic storyline where everyone gets to shine a bit and most importantly: ✨violence✨. It's probably the only story where everyone punts everyone for the mere motive that they are petty and want to win.

Camp Vargas... Meh... I mean it was funny... I did enjoy it... But kinda ya know... The real deal started like... Post a long exposure that kinda got me a bit bored. Pretty good event, a bit difficult of a playthrough and the cards are meh for me...

BUT! We are here for the aliens!

Camp Vargas:

Riddle

At first, boi wanted to do everything by the book. You know, no alien powers, generally just having a nice camp experience.

When Ace dissapears tho, Riddle has some alarm bells ringing. Ace was a lil shit, but he wouldn't simply dissapear in a forest, where he has no shelter besides the campsite and no proper food. In fear that Ace might just eat poisonous plants, Riddle offers to search up for him. Sebek and Silver were great for leading the equestrian club on their own and the members did a pretty good job, so a worry less.

That's when he uses Wildmutt to try and pick-up Ace's trail and find him. It was pretty dark and in 10 minutes Riddle didn't get a great lead mostly since there was a lot of other scents that covered up Ace's.

But he stumbles upon tied up students to trees. That when Riddle realises that Vargas is fucking nuts and they are hunted for sports in the middle of the night.

Surprisingly, the first one Riddle finds is Deuce, thinking that Vargas might use the mine as a place to hide other students. The 2 escape and manage to reunite with the rest of the survivors.

Cue Jack and Deuce helping Riddle get 'kidnapped' so that the redhead can have an entry as Wildvine (on half since he was calm, knowing the whole situation at hand) and catch Vargas in a swamp then tie him up with vines to a tree so they could ensure this man won't hunt them for sports again.

Kalim

He's trying to prove Jamil that he is capable and reliable. So he tries to do everything by the book too! :D

But Idia dissapears, then it's installed a whole bunch of chaos with more dissappearances and the wierd monster. Oh Kalim is 100% squaring up.

Kalim punts Vargas in a tree and it's glorious✨

There is also Crewel in there, so there is that. Kalim also squares up, but like, man feels SO guilty afterwards. Even if no one knew he was the alien hero. :'3

But overall, Kalim has a pretty nice camping experience. And he learned from Jade some cool fungi facts. :D

Epel

Oh heck yeah, Epel is absolutely thriving with the whole camp idea. No Vil? No Rook? Liberty, bitches! He is more free than a bird and he's feeling awesome. He wants to try everything, he tries everything, he gets tired from trying everything and eats then repeats until he has to go to sleep. :'3

The dissappearances occur and Epel immediately is ready to square up. He just yeets Vargas across the forest like a ping-pong ball.

He also fights the mine monster the same way. The poor Phanthom had 0 chances. :'3

Idia

Man doesn't wanna go camping. PERIOD!

But he finds his super cool 50+ attack stick so he's happy. Ortho said that he shouldn't use the omnitrix just to skip over his tasks, so at least he hs his super cool stick. :'3

Idia gets the first dissappearance. He was tired from the whole running around and picking sticks, so he fell asleep than poof! He woke up in Vargas's cabin and had to do squats as punishment.

Unfortunately for Vargas, he disclosed his plan to Idia, including Crewel's involvement, so the firehead was very aware of the whole situation and DID NOT like it.

But also it was the absolute best prank idea known to man, to just play as a 3rd party with a similar approach to Vargas's, but make it unbeknownst to anyone else. No one would know if he uses the omnitrix for this. They are in a goddamn forest, for all one could know, some of this NRC Students were petty enough to square up with a bear.

It is mandatory to note that before the camp commenced, Idia and Ortho argued about weather the camp was good or not. Idia was absolutely against the idea of camp being 'fun', while Ortho saw it as a great opportunity. Of course, now with this goldmine of prank material, Idia wanted primarily to use it so he could prove his brother that camp was NOT fun.

He ends up have a whole load of fun while enacting his plan. Everyone was screaming and running around like headless chickens and Idia loved every second of it. He initially wanted to have Ortho for last, because Ortho would absolutely know Idia was behind a good chunk of the dissappearances if he targets him early or mid plan.

But Vargas and Crewel strike first on Ortho and that's when Idia doesn't have that much fun anymore. It was supposed to be his hit! It was supposed to be glorious and induce even more panic since Ortho was a pretty reliable and an important factor of the survivors team. He was supposed to get Ortho, not them. Plus it adds salt to the wound the fact that Vargas and Crewel tied up his lil bro to a tree while shut down so like, where's the care? Ortho was a robot, some things are fragile still!

So Idia takes out Ortho first, which unintentionally creates even more panic since now the 'actual wild monster' is targeting students that are also tied up. Idia ends up punting the teachers and all is good in the end.

By the finale of the whole thing, Ortho tries to admit defeat, that this camp was clearly a bad idea and it wasn't that fun. Idia tho, corrects that he had loads of fun and was down for a part 2.

Beans day! :D

Riddle

Oh he's out for BLOOD! Man doesn't fucking hesitate. He punts Ace and Jack in a heartbeat. He is one force to be reckoned with and he will do anything to win.

In reality someone made fun of him for being smol and an easy to catch target so y'all know where this went.

Kalim

Bby wants to have shawarma. Let him have his fucking shawarma in peace.

Jamil attempts to catch Kalim, but he gets captured instead because Kalim had his half transformation as Wildvine and they were in the botanical garden, where it was LUSH of plants. Same thing for Rook and Trey. The whole shawarma thing was a 100% trap that Kalim had in order to catch the monster team in a flytrap style. Doesn't mean Kalim won't get to enjoy sum nice shawarma. A double win! :D

Epel

Breaking news: kid commits usual property damage.

Epel is absolutely abusing of his omnitrix advantage. Monster team is absolutely useless against Epel who's more than ready to throw them in trees.

Vil does put him in place at one point, but Epel escapes his sight for 1 second and 4 monster players are found hung up on trees. :'3

Idia

Ortho ended up on the monster team so Idia fears for his ass, since he was in the farmers team and knew his brother was out for BLOOD. (Vargas said for the 2 to be in different teams so Idia couldn't 'use his brother to take the easy way out') Oh Ortho was absolutely merciless. Doesn't help that he teams up with Azul and Jack.

Idia's only objective: survive. He struck days prior an alliance with Azul for him to help him with loot so that he won't be targeted, but that won't fly by Ortho. Azul might spare him, but not Ortho. Idia just runs and hides all the event.

Ortho catches him in the end. Omnitrix or not. :'3

[skaruresonic]

The remake's producer recently said it was in the final stages of development, so what we've seen so far is pretty much going to be the final product.

My problem is people are spreading misinformation about Team Silent's creative process and inadvertently discrediting it in order to hype up Bloober Team's. They assume that because Remake!James is much more expressive than the original, Team Silent must have also originally envisioned James as being that expressive, but were held back by technical limitations of the time, which is a misconception. James was always meant to be rather inscrutable in order to indicate dissociation and induce feelings of uneasiness in the player. Broadcasting his feelings like this implies he already knows he's guilty.

Furthermore, Sato has gone on record several times to state that technical limitations "weren't important" to the development of SH2. Of the first four Silent Hill games, 2 was the one that received the most creative liberty and development time; Sato's team accomplished everything they set out to do. In fact, his personal philosophy seems to veer away from using the newest, shiniest tech if it can't accomplish what artistic vision can.

---

In my opinion, combat has consistently been the worst part of each Silent Hill game I've played. Story, characters, and atmosphere have been the much stronger parts for me. If anything, it looks like the combat in SH2R will still be an improvement from the original. Just from the brief clips shown in the gameplay trailer, it already appears to be much smoother and more modernized without being too action oriented.

I'm neither going to argue for or against the original game's combat because I think framing it as an issue of good combat vs. bad combat is missing the forest for the trees. SH2's gameplay encompasses much more than combat: it's instead a holistic package of puzzles, memos, and player choice, all of which combine to complete James' character study.

It could also be argued that the original game's intention is to make the player resort to combat as little as possible. Demanding "better" combat misses the point the game was trying to make about violence. Bloober are attempting to polish something the original was trying not to glorify.

That is to say, SH2's (and SH3's, for that matter) attitude seems to be that combat is not a player behavior that necessarily ought to be rewarded with feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction... Much like how killing Eddie doesn't mean you should be able to get to use his revolver afterward.

Were this any other kind of game, combat would be a necessary evil at its worst, but SH2 especially emphasizes that beating and shooting things to death would be pretty fucked-up behavior IRL. Making nurses perform frame-perfect Royal Guards places undue focus on the reward system of combat mechanics and sidesteps the larger thematic point that you ought to wonder why you just went out of your way to bludgeon them.

Personally, I think the presence of QTEs is the biggest indicator that Bloober Team doesn't know what they're doing. QTEs were old hat when Homecoming dropped; no clue why they thought they'd be a good idea in a game like this.

Plus, blood and other viscera spatter the screen, and it's all in your face in a way the original very much isn't.

I might be in the minority here, but I gotta say, it's kind of disappointing to see so many negative reactions towards Silent Hill 2 Remake. I get that Konami doesn't exactly have the best track record with how they've handled the series in recent years. I understand that people have reservations about Bloober Team's involvement and why that is. I know that the original Silent Hill 2 is a very beloved game. And of course, people are entitled to their own opinions.

However, I feel like I see way too much of people just absolutely hating on something online these days, rather than waiting for it to come out and giving it a fair chance. I've lost track of all the times people have completely rallied against a game, show, movie, etc. based off just a few scenes or bits of dialogue. It takes more than that to truly experience and judge media for yourself.

In the case of Silent Hill 2 Remake, I've also already seen numerous rants about things like James having too much expression in certain scenes and being able to block/guard against attacks. I saw that first point floating around online after the teaser trailer released and that was literally the only information to go on. Now, people are complaining about how the combat looks. I feel like people are forgetting or neglecting that Silent Hill has never really had smooth combat. It's always been clunky and awkward to some extent. In my opinion, combat has consistently been the worst part of each Silent Hill game I've played. Story, characters, and atmosphere have been the much stronger parts for me. If anything, it looks like the combat in SH2R will still be an improvement from the original. Just from the brief clips shown in the gameplay trailer, it already appears to be much smoother and more modernized without being too action oriented.

Another thing that bothers me is the trailer even discloses the game is still in development. This isn't a finished product yet, and it's very possible the combat will be more polished once it's done. It could also have been changed quite a bit by then. I think people need to actually wait for the finished game to come out, then experience it for themselves. Like I said before, there's too much of bashing things without ever giving them a fair chance and instead assuming that they'll be terrible, awful, trash, and a myriad of other negative descriptors from the very beginning.

Maybe the game will turn out to be bad and I'll end up feeling disappointed by it. For now though, I'd rather give it the benefit of the doubt and believe it has the potential to be good. I'd rather wait to play the game myself and form my overall opinion on it then.

All this to say I'm frustrated by how quickly and easily people completely dismiss things without giving them a proper chance first. And specifically, it's frustrating to see how much of that type of sentiment has been directed towards Silent Hill 2 Remake, a game that's still in development and doesn't even have a release date yet. At this point, it honestly feels like some people are nitpicking every bit of information or footage that comes out and finding everything "wrong" with it that they possibly can.

[nsfsprince]

Hold Me Close (And Watch Me Coast)

As a Dragon Hybrid, Roman’s body is easily twice as big as the average human’s, let alone Logan’s. So, it’s really no surprise that sex between the two with their vast size difference is.. incredibly intense.

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Wordcount: 1.5k

A/N: Sooo.. This fic is like, incredibly self-indulgent? There’s unfortunately little to no plot, just steamy activities and a an expansion on this au’s take on Roman, Remus, and Patton’s Human/Dragon hybrid anatomy.(and a guilty acknowledgement that this au is, at its baseline, all about the size difference kink by default akdladklj) This is technically their first time together, not counting the numerus times they ended up grinding against each other till they came. (also i’m like extremely nervous/embarrassed posting this aight)

MINORS DNI

Warnings: Size Kink/Size Difference Kink, no like this is Very Intense Take on Size Kink(you’ve been warned), edging, vague descriptions of distinctly Not Human Genitalia(that may get drawn later but shh), gentle but intense penetrative sex, heavy descriptions reflective of deep penetration kink(?), Roman doesn’t directly check in like he should but he’s watching over Logan’s reactions like a hawk, plus Logan is completely on board the entire time, Overstimulation, lots of dirty talk and praise. A slight deviation on how human anatomy works to avoid actual realistic bodily repercussions and maintain a willing suspension of disbelief. If I missed anything please let me know!

Additionally, thank you all for your encouragement to post this(or anything to this blog for that matter), it’s genuinely  appreciated and has helped so much!!

----------

Logan couldn’t help but squirm, his bound hands fisting the soft sheets of Roman’s nest as said Dragon oh so slowly fingered him open. Filthy praise had been dripping from Roman’s lips with every maddingly slow press into his entrance, the pads of his large fingers just barely toying with Logan’s prostate to keep him squirming and gasping.

They’d been at this for what felt like hours, though truly Logan really couldn’t be sure how long they had been at this. Every time Logan would near a peak, Roman would withdraw his fingers and press infuriatingly slow and soothing kisses to his shoulders until the peak had drifted far enough to begin again. It was pleasurable torture and Logan was losing his goddamn mind.

“When you promised you’d prep me, I didn't think it would mean ‘edge me to tears,’” Logan had groaned during one of those long pauses, having nearly come from the fourth thick finger prodding into his hole before Roman had pulled away.

“Oh love, you've never taken a cock as big as mine before, and trust me when I say I’m adamant to have you orgasm the moment you’re seated completely on my cock. Then, once you’re finally fully lax and loose from that first mind-melting orgasm, I’ll get to give you a real Dragon Railing. I'll pull out every single orgasm left inside of you and then another,

“I'll come inside again and again and fill you up so full. I’ll pleasure you till your orgasms dry and even then still pull just a few more 'til I know you'll still be feeling my Claim in you for weeks after.” The Dragon purred.

Logan visibly shuttered at the statement, his cock twitching in interest at the promise.

"Of course, there's also the added benefit of my Magic. It'll keep your body healthy and stable as I practically rearrange your guts over, and over, and over," Roman continued, a large hand cupping over Logan's weeping cock and giving it a tight teasing squeeze.

Logan's thighs trembled as Roman's re-slicked fingers pressed back inside, scissoring him open just that extra bit more as he laved a sharp kiss just behind his whining sub's ear.

Logan could scarcely understand it, just how much he wanted what Roman was promising, his half-hard cock eagerly dripping precum onto the soft sheets below. 

He knows that Roman is big, he's seen it at rest through Roman's likely purposefully tight trousers time and time again. He knows that even when soft, he could still easily choke on just the head alone. 

 It wasn't exactly surprising though, considering Roman was himself a Dragon/Human Hybrid, and thus his entire body was at least twice as large as Logan, if not more. At a staggering 6'10", Roman's broad and muscular stature easily dwarfed Logan's stout 5'4" body, right down to the size of their cocks.

He also knows full well that it is going to ruin him mentally, knowing he'll never be satisfied with anything other than Roman. Maybe Logan just has a bit of a thing for his lover's size at this point, or maybe he doesn't. Maybe he just loves anything and everything that's Roman. He doesn't mind that fact either, seeing as Roman is the only one he's ever loved like this, and is the only one he plans to spend the rest of his life with anyway.

 And he was more sure than ever, laying there pinned and having been edged to hell and back for who knew how long, that he desperately wanted Roman to utterly ruin him with his monstrous cock.

For a moment his entire worldview narrowed down to those four large fingers thrusting back and forth into his hole, now unhesitatingly stimulating his prostate. He keened and cried out, unable to buck into it with Roman's free hand keeping his hips in an iron grasp.

Right as he felt the now familiar feeling of his peak readying to crash down around him once more, Roman pulled out and away all together.

He let out a confused whine at the complete loss of his lover's weight over him, unable to look or move to find him with his arms still bound under him.

"Shh, shh, I'm right here my little mouse. I haven't left you," the Dragon soothed softly, briefly resting a grounding hand on the dip between Logan’s shoulders as the sound of shuffling clothing and slick movements filled the air.

All at once, Roman's weight returned, and Logan found his knees pushed apart by Roman's own coming to press in between them. Roman's scaled bare chest pressed searingly hot against Logan's own similarly unclothed torso, his large muscled arms bracketing in Logan's chest and shoulders on either side. His head dropped, pressing a gentle soothing kiss to his favorite spot near the crook of Logan's neck.

Any words Logan had been planning to say were flushed out with the shuttering gasp that escaped him. His thoughts scrambling as the thick unusually tapered head of Roman's slick cock rubbed teasingly against his hole for a moment or two, before finally, finally starting to sink inside.

Logan could not be faulted for the absolutely embarrassing keen that escaped him when Roman's hips gradually bore down with all his weight to sink his cock inside. He could feel through where their back and chest met how Roman’s chest was rumbling with a deeply pleased, nearly subsonic growl.

"Relax, little mouse, you're still so tight inside love. How am I going to bounce you on my cock soon if you don't relax?" Roman purred, one arm curling around and pulling up Logan's hips to ease the other's strain, "Think about how good it'll feel once I'm fully inside. Good little mouse, that's it, relax."

The prince found himself whimpering helplessly, his trembling back arching and shaking knees trying to spread wider to accommodate for the Dragon's unyielding massive cock. Roman's four thick fingers had just barely opened him up enough to actually keep it from being truly painful, barely keeping it to just a deep pleasurable ache. 

It was all he could do to keep his trembling body lax, barely restraining himself from clenching down when inch after ribbed inch proved thicker than the last. Even wilder, he could still feel where the large tapered head was inside, spearing deeper than Logan had ever thought he was capable of experiencing- And the length still just kept coming.

 It felt like ages before Roman finally buried his cock as far as it would go without continuing any painful forcing. Logan's hard little cock was weeping precum steadily, the other's monster of a cock pressing relentlessly into every sweet spot he didn't even know existed.

Roman finally stills, lightly worrying a few hickies into the skin of Logan's shoulders and throat with his teeth, waiting for Logan to adjust.

The prince could barely tell how he felt. it was undeniably heady, at least, to feel his lover so deep that his stomach ached in protest. His upper torso alongside his jaw had gone lax in pure awe, eyes screwed shut as his trembling legs were now completely useless at keeping him up. If it weren't for Roman's strong arm holding his hips up, Logan probably would have collapsed completely to the floor by now. That is, unless the other's massive cock could have ended up also keeping his poor hips in place, if given the chance that it remained stuck inside. An experiment for another day, surely.

"How are you feeling, love?" Roman purred, his voice cautious and calculating.

"Hnng" Logan keened artfully in response, clenching around the others cock in retaliation. He wouldn't see Roman's pleased grin in response, too deep in subspace and blissed out to suspect his lover's next act of mischief.

"Good boy, being so good for me. Alright then, going up!" Roman purred deviously.

Suddenly Logan found his entire body shifting as Roman pinned him to his chest and pulled him upright onto his lap. The Dragon settled down to the floor just enough to still maintain their balance as he let gravity pull Logan back down onto his cock.

The momentum that carried him pulled him perfectly back down the inch and a half he'd lost on the way up, before pressing him even further down as his weight additionally settled into position over the others cock.

That deep protesting ache in his stomach returned twice as loud from the sharp prodding the head of Roman's cock gave. It made Logan want to squirm away for the sharp few overwhelming seconds that he was stuck feeling it before suddenly feeling Roman’s hands press down on his hips. His head jerked back with a strangled moan as the tip of Roman's cock testingly pressed even deeper at the action.

And then Logan finds his hips suddenly flush with Roman's and the last inch and a half of Roman's cock plunging completely inside him. The deep ache that had sharpened with the final push was suddenly overwhelming his senses, and was inexplicably starting to feel really fucking good now as the head of the others cock seemed to finally manage and get.. even deeper, somehow. 

Logan's hips instinctually jerk after a moment, purely overwhelmed with the cacophony of signals being sent to his brain, finally spiking that deep ache into a kaleidoscope of pure oversensitive pleasure. Before he can even really process the feeling it has him practically shouting Roman's name as he peaks harshly and comes all over his heaving chest and twitching hips.

Roman's hands pin their hips together, rutting slowly to continue carefully stimulating Logan's trembling body through his first orgasm. Eventually he paused to let Logan collapse against his chest, the prince obviously lost to his fucked-out bliss.

"We've only just gotten started, are you spent so soon, little Mouse?" Roman purred delightedly.

Logan just whimpered, dazedly shaking his head and spreading his legs once more even as it created a feedback loop with that terrible, wonderful, blissful ache.

"Good Boy."

[guynamedultimax]

What if Kirby had a traditional fighting game?

Listen, I know I should’ve done more “FNF fighting game characters” but i doubt anyone cared for that, and even then I lost a bit of interest, so if you actually cared sorry about that, you can still come up with whatever you want for the characters I didn’t talk about!

That being said, I think all Kirby fans here know Kirby Fighters 2. Personally speaking most of it was just the same as Kirby Fighters Deluxe BUT there were five playable Dream Friends. FIVE. Priority to the Copy Abilities a bit too high, isn’t it HAL? Sometimes it feels a bit barebones if you ask me. So I’m here to discuss what would a non-platform Kirby fighting game be.

THE GAMEPLAY

It’s the same as any basic fighting game, there isn’t really that much that the Kirby franchise can offer to make the genre a bit more varied, and that’s mostly due to the fact that Kirby makes friends wherever he goes and combat is pretty much straightforward in these platforming games, the crazy stuff comes from learning specific moves with each copy ability/character in the games and that’s also true for this game.

THE PLOT

I have quite a few ideas for how this can go:

-It’s a “what if” re-telling of Kirby Star Allies where Hyness’ ritual (somehow) also causes space-time rifts across the entire universe to be generated, pulling in Kirby villains from previous games but also allies, which would ALSO explain Dream Friends in the game’s canon a bit more properly.

-It happens in an AU. Plot would basically be Kirby Battle Royale’s but instead of shooting a loadshit of Kirbies onto Kirby, Dedede would just call upon all of their friends to fight for that cake before things escalate and Dedede loses control of the tournament to greater evils, forcing him to work with Kirby to stop the threat, be it old or new.

-Another AU idea but this time it’s original/based on Milky Way Wishes. Galactic NOVA appears every thousand years above Pop Star’s skies, and everyone tries to fight for the right to get the wish. Villain wouldn’t necessarily be ONLY Marx though, most of the Kirby villains could easily win against him if they get to NOVA and get their wish granted. Which means yes, all plots happen at once and Kirby has to deal with everyone at once.

-The least interesting idea: it’s Kirby Fighters 2′s plot but without tag team duos and with all Kirbies replaced with the roster.

THE ROSTER

Now we’re about to have some fun.

RETURNING CHARACTERS: The Dream Friends (and Kirby, of course)

-First up, all Dream Friends are coming back. You don’t even need to change their movesets that much, just add/tweak things, but just for funsies (and for a specific reason too) we’ll also give them specific copy abilities or more than one to categorize them.

-Kirby is the specific reason. He has the same moveset as his Smash Bros incarnation, although he incorporates more copy abilities (and also super powerful stuff like the Star Rod that he usually uses in endgame fights) in it now due to being a traditional fighting game. And yes, he still has his inhale. Using it will have the inhale be replaced by another move in-game, the closest one to a “neutral special” in the opponent’s arsenal. His copy ability is therefore, Smash Bros. And since the game has multiple super moves, we can make his gimmicks from the Kumazaki games the super moves: his level 1 would be a random Super Copy Ability from Return to Dreamland (cutscene is random everytime but damage is always the same), his level 2 would be using the Robobot Armor to stomp foes around, ending with a giant ground pound/fist to the ground and his level 3 is Hypernova Kirby due to the inhale being one of his most unique properties.

-Meta Knight and Dedede will also have heavy Smash influences but they’ll also use techniques from most of their boss fights, such as Meta Knight splitting himself in four clones temporarily for an attack or Dedede actually pulling out an axe instead of his hammer for some attacks based on his Triple Deluxe incarnation. Their copy abilities would formally be Sword and Hammer but with heavy Smash Bros inspiration. Meta can also call in for the Meta Knights to help him in one of his unique super moves. They’d all be there except for Sailor Dee and Captain Vul (one’s an alternate costume and the other is never seen outside of dialogue text).

-Bandana Waddle Dee’s moveset incorporates both Spear and Parasol, but due to the Spear being his most used tool he’ll be categorized with that.

-Marx is the first character with Unique as its own copy ability due to his arsenal being entirely based on his boss fight. Inhaling Unique characters doesn’t always allow Kirby to get copy abilities but when it happens he usually has their most basic move replacing the inhale. Gooey is in the same situation, but i have no idea what would Kirby get from him as an ability since he’s technically player 2 in the Dark Matter trilogy’s first 2 games. Rick, Kine and Coo would technically be categorized as Unique only because they have Fire, Water and Wind in their moveset. You could say they’d be stance characters while Marx is a zoner and Gooey a rushdown character.

-Dark Meta Knight is categorized as Mirror, and Adeleine (with Ribbon as an assist of course) is Artist. Daroach would be Animal, which is missing since its debut in Squeak Squad, as far as I can remember, but he naturally still retains his moveset of calling the Squeaks to help him.

-It’s pretty easy to categorize Magolor as ESP, and Taranza as Spider, while I have no idea what would Susie’s ability be even. Spark? She is mostly around in the Robobot Armor to be fair. The Three Mage-Sisters would be treated equally to the Animal Friends

THE NEWCOMERS

-NAGO, CHUCHU & PITCH: The other set of Animal Friends. I theorize a moveset revolving around the Cleaning ability like in Star Allies would be easy to make, although it can also incorporate moves from other abilities that have been in Dream Land 3.

-CHEF KAWASAKI: I think it’s safe to say this one is pretty easy to do just like the returning Dream Friends. He has a unique moveset in comparison to Chef Kirby that also has him use Kirby’s Final Smash from Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

-LOLOLO & LALALA: Aside from pushing boxes and Gordos they can be the Ice Climbers of the game, and most importantly one of their super moves could have them fuse into their original form in the anime to reference that further.

-SHADOW KIRBY: A clone (in terms of moveset) for Kirby that lacks the inhale ability and has more attacks based on his appearances in Amazing Mirror (and also on Kirby’s unique ability to split in four in these games) and the Kirby Fighters spinoffs. Simple as it is.

-THE MIDBOSSES: They all play the same as their fights too, so doing a paragraph for each of them would be a bit redundant. I chose to add minibosses in because most of them are pretty iconic among Kirby enemies and some of them are also technically friends of Kirby’s. I picked Bonkers (whose coconut throwing and some special moves could make him different enough from Dedede if you ask me), Mr. Frosty (also because we don’t have an Ice-based character in the game), Buggzy (which I can see being the ultimate grappler), King Doo (because we don’t actually have a Waddle Doo in the roster and he’s technically not only their king but also the most unique of them) and Grand Wheelie (look, I like Wheel as an ability ok? it’s like playing as Sonic in a Kirby game)

-KNUCKLE JOE: Taking stuff from both his Star Allies moveset and his Assist Trophy from Ultimate PLUS a few references to the anime and you have the ultimate Shoto character in the Kirby franchise. Ryu mains, this is the character for you.

-GIM: Look, my three favorite abilities are Yo-Yo, Wheel and ESP, in no particular order, so I HAD to include him and the Grand Wheelie. Magolor covers for ESP enough. This lil fella looks more unique than most of the generic Kirby enemies and even among the copy ability ones he’s always been a bit of an oddball due to being a robot. The trickshots you can do with this copy ability make Gim perfect to camp, so he’d be a pretty good zoner as well.

-TAC: He’s been a Helper in Super Star where he also has an unique moveset. Expanding on it and on Tac being generally a copy ability thief could mean more copy abilities can be implemented in a moveset, probably even more than what Kirby can do. Also his design just screams potential to me.

DLC FIGHTERS

WAVE 1: Spinoff Dream Friends

Cuz these guys have been done dirty by Star Allies’ devs. Elline would be the other Artist character in the game and call for Claycia’s assistance in specific attacks. Prince Fluff would play mostly just like Kirby himself did in Kirby’s Epic Yarn and implement specific transformations in some attacks, ending with the tank one from the end of that game. Then we have Gryll. If you know how to make a Tetris/Puyo Puyo based character in a fighting game then good for you, I absolutely don’t know how. What I KNOW however is that she has a float like Peach’s in Smash Bros and I-No’s in Guilty Gear.

WAVE 2: Dream Villains

These guys would all play exactly like their boss fights. Hyness and Sectonia would remain mostly unchanged while Haltmann in terms of moveset is the same as Susie, just without every non-Robobot move that she has.

WAVE 3: Clash of Blades

THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S ALL ANIME SWORDFIGHTERS. They all pull from their boss fights, but Morpho Knight is gonna be a bit more unique compared to Galacta, Dark Meta and Meta Knight, having in the swordfighter equivalent of Akuma’s Raging Demon. Meanwhile, Dark Matter Swordsman and Galacta Knight are completely faithful to the source material, but they’d probably be a bit nerfed due to Galacta’s universe-breaking powers. (you can bet that if we get the remaining legendary heroes who sealed Void Termina in future games they’d be their own separate Wave 5 DLC pack)

WAVE 4: Revival of Old Faces

Nightmare and Drawcia are back and they’re here to stay! Their movesets don’t really need that much changes. Void however is an entirely different beast. He’d be a mix of Kirby, both Zero incarnations and Dark Matter. His design wouldn’t just be giant orb that switches between Kirby and Dark Matter faces, he’d be Kirby-sized and with legs and stubby lil arms like the pink puffball. And you can bet your ass he’d be broken as fuck.

SKINS

If a character’s appearance changed across the series’ history (like Marx Soul, Girl Blob Gooey, Shoppe Magolor, Mecha Knight, Dark Taranza/Taranza in the Super Kirby Clash games, Masked/Shadow Dedede, Anime!Knuckle Joe, Parallel/Pres. Parallel Susie, EX versions and so on) they’d just be an alternate skin/palette swap for the specific character. Multiple characters of the same species with little changes (like a normal Waddle Dee or Sailor Dee, or literally all Kirby colors including Keeby) are the same. I’m also debating on how Dark Mind would be a skin for Nightmare or if there’d be a skin inspired by him for the Dark Matter Swordsman. Zero and Zero Two would probably be turned into palette swaps/outfits for Void (imagine a white Kirby cosplaying as Zero Two that’d be so cute lol).

ATTACKING ASSIST CHARACTERS

Characters who appear in other characters’ attacks. Like the aforementioned Squeaks, Meta Knights and Claycia. Normal Dark Matter would appear in DM Swordsman’s attacks in some capacity outside of the eye laser and the Gordo Throw would return from Dedede’s previous Smash incarnations alongside the Waddle Dee Throw from Brawl. And naturally Magolor can call in the Lor Starcutter for one of his super moves. I am actually considering giving Tac the ability to throw random items/enemies at opponents, with the Bomber being one of these. It’d be a very RNG attack with the Bomber being the best outcome, blowing on the opponent’s face.

HELPERS

All characters in the game can be called on for an Helper attack, that can help you in some form against the opponent by either damaging or tampering with the opponent or by having you get healed or with some buff. Outside from the playable roster enemies that give you copy abilities would also be Helpers, but the specific ones I’m not so sure on.

BOSSES

Characters you can fight in Arcade mode, in Story mode or in a specific Boss mode. There’d also be a Ganon’s Fury (Hyrule Warriors) inspired mode where you’d play as the bosses pitting them against each other. I specifically picked Dyna Blade, Whispy Woods, Landia, Star Dream, Kracko, Great Edge, Pyribbit, Ice Dragon, Fire Lion, Masher, Grand Mam, Metal General, Kibble Blade and Pon & Con.

STAGES

There’d be quite a lot of stages, but I haven’t thought out specific ones except for Green Greens, Butter Building, a Ripple Star stage, one for Dedede’s castle with stage cameos by Tiff, Tuff and Escargoon from the anime and every final boss’s fighting arena.

THE MUSIC

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is gonna be nothing compared to this one. We’re getting all the important music from all pre-Kumazaki games, all music from Kumazaki games and spinoffs, and online arrangements with focus on orchestral (Desolo Zantas), metal (GaMetal, of course) and EDM (Acid Notation, Qumu and various others), including stuff like Itoki Hana’s vocal arrangements. We’re going all out on this one.

Aaaaand that’s it. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Stay hydrated.

[smashboxgirl26]

vengeance / chapter 8: unspoken confession

chapter 7: helping | chapter 9: anxiety

vengeance masterlist

It was 6:50 by the time you’d thrown open the door to your apartment and stumbled inside.

You’d gotten no indication from Katsuki that he was coming, or where he was, or anything. This put you off a little, considering he could be off doing dangerous things somewhere.

You walked over to the tv and switched on the news, scrolling up on your phone to see if there were any new notifications. Thankfully, the news reporter stated that the day had been relatively peaceful, with no villain attacks in the area, before droning on about the elections that were coming up soon.

You let out a sigh as you leaned back against the couch, staring at the light bulb directly above you. You really wanted to call Katsuki and ask him what was taking so long, but the reminder that he could be undercover still lingered.

It felt so wrong, in the way that you felt empty without him there.

Guess I should actually be productive and not lazy around while waiting for him.

You got up from the couch, stretching your arms over your head before grabbing the remote to turn the tv off.

If anything, you needed to take a shower, badly. You hadn’t showered since yesterday morning, not having nearly enough time today since you immediately had to head off to work with Katuski when you got home.

And showers were nice. They helped, in some ways.

You stood in front of the mirror after stripping all your clothes off, staring at the blank face that held no emotion as it stared back. You felt worse, somehow than you had earlier. The dark circles were visible even under the concealer you’d put on this morning. You looked back at the reflection with sad eyes, trying to ignore the ideas running rampant in your mind as you pushed your way into the shower.

The warm water trickled down endlessly as you leaned your head against the wall and stared up at the tiled ceiling. There was still so much.

The work you had been getting recently was pushing you to the end of your rope, you felt like you were drowning. Not to mention studying for the MCATs, and keeping up with everything happening at the agency along with all your classes.

You let out a large breath of a sigh, as you stared down at your legs, observing the way they felt against the cool, tiled surface that the shower provided in its walls.

You just needed to study and do homework. Then you’d be done.

But the longing to stay in the shower and daydream for longer won, so you upped the temperature of the water, watching the steam rise to the top of the shower and out to the rest of the bathroom.

…

You rolled your head to each side a couple of times after settling yourself down on the couch with your laptop in front of you. You’d barely been getting any work done these days, continuously putting it off for practically no reason. It was piling up, and fast.

You stared at the long list of assignments posted on the application the school used. You hoped it would help motivate you to try and work on it in some way, yet the sight just gave you a large amount of anxiety.

You didn’t even want to look at it, let alone work on it. The feeling rose quickly in your chest, and you shut the laptop, opting to stare at the blank TV screen in front of you instead.

It felt horrible to be so, unproductive, but you couldn’t bring yourself to actually do anything about it. It felt easier to just ignore everything right now and worry about it in the future.

Plus, you felt hungry.

So, instead of doing some work before heading off to the kitchen to make food, you ignored it all and just decided to eat dinner and watch tv instead.

Is Katsuki going to be coming over when he’s done or what? Should I make enough for both of us or just me?

You stared over the packets of frozen noodles in the fridge. It would be incredibly awkward for him to come and for you not to have food ready. But on the other hand, maybe he kinda deserved it for blowing you off for the rest of the day and not even mentioning something before he left.

He could’ve easily sent you a text before he left, but he didn’t. And that, honestly made your chest sting a bit.

Yeah he might’ve had an emergency but he could’ve said something. Anything.

Whatever.

You brushed away your thoughts, and decided you’d make enough for the both of you. He wasn’t exactly one to take proper care of himself when he was focused on something. And the fact that he hadn’t said anything before he ran off to do whatever showed that he was probably incredibly focused on whatever he was doing.

After putting two packets of the noodles in the pan and turning the heat on, you decided to turn the tv on and watch as you cooked in the kitchen.

It was peaceful, different from how it usually was.

Generally, either you or Katsuki would end up at the other’s place after work or school, and then the other person would always end up sleeping over. For some reason, you hadn’t gotten an apartment together yet - which was incredibly weird considering how long it’d been.

But, it never really felt like the right time, or you could never find a place you both liked. So, you stuck with what you had together - pretty much two houses where your stuff was equally distributed.

The consistent chatter from the TV allowed you to delve into your thoughts, as you mindlessly began finishing up the noodles and pouring them into the two separate bowls on the counter.

And just as you were putting the big pan into the sink, you heard the jingling of keys coming from the front door, watching as it opened to reveal Katsuki as he sauntered into the living room. He was still wearing his hero costume, minus the mask and the gauntlets, and you watched as he made sure to close the door and lock it behind him before he continued into the small space.

He almost looked too big for your apartment. Something that was incredibly funny at first, that he now just found plain annoying. Well, that’s student housing for you.

“Hey,” he said as he followed the scent of food into the kitchen.

“Hey.”

You didn’t really want to say anything to him first. He should be the one explaining himself to you.

“Sorry I was late,” he said gruffly, eyeing the bowl of noodles on the counter. “I got, caught up in a few things.”

You immediately noticed the hesitation in his voice, but didn’t raise any awareness to his tiny mishap. “It’s fine.”

He only nodded slightly at your response, choosing not to say anything more as he stalked off to the bedroom so he could change. He wanted out of his sweaty costume as soon as possible.

More than that, he could see that you were visibly upset (probably because he had been gone all day without a word). But in a way, he was thankful you didn’t blow up on him as soon as he’d walked in. He was going to tell you, obviously, but then the issue with De-, no, Midoriya came up.

He wanted to tell you about what had happened between them as soon as he could. It would be better if you heard it from him and not some random extra, or even worse, Midoriya himself.

And honestly, he needed that time for himself. Even if was technically on patrol, the walk easily cleared his mind and helped him with his anxiety. It would all be okay, as long as you heard it from him.

At least that’s what he’d been telling himself.

He sighed heavily, taking one last look in the mirror as he slipped one of his t-shirts on, sticking his hero costume in the small hamper that laid in the corner of the bedroom. He had stopped at the agency on the way back to your apartment, but he was too exhausted to change over there, opting to just take the gauntlets and the mask off before coming over.

He stepped back out of the bedroom, clad a plain t-shirt and sweatpants, before heading over to where you were sitting in the living room. By the way you were hunched over, he could tell that you were closing yourself off from him.

He knew he fucked up by not even shooting you a text before he left.

“So, um, how was your day?” he asked awkwardly as he sat himself down across from you at the small dining table.

You didn’t even look up at him when you replied, “Fine.”

“S’good.”

And once again it was silent.

Katsuki hated himself for being this awkward around you. You’d been together for so long now, why couldn’t he just say that he was sorry and admit it was his fault? Clearly you were mad at him, because you hadn’t said anything to him unless he said something first.

“Sorry…”, he said slowly.

Only then did your eyes finally look up to meet his, urging him to continue.

“I-I should’ve told you I was going to be going out and staying late, so yeah,” he said, forcing his pride and ego down. Normally, he wouldn’t have hesitated to defend his innocence, but he hated it when you acted cold towards him.

Funny in a way, since that was how you got to know each other in the first place.

“It’s okay,” you said, giving him a small smile, trying to reassure him.

You didn't want him to feel guilty for much longer. In some ways you understood how his job was and it was inevitable that sometimes it would end up like the way that it did.

“You could’ve just told me, ya know? Before running off like that.”

Bakugou didn't say anything afterwards, not wanting to drag the discussion and make it worse. So he left it at that, the air pretty much cleared as Bakugou began scarfing down the noodles you made -- even if they were frozen, he didn’t really care since he hadn’t eaten anything since this morning.

You noticed how quickly he was eating, and ended up pushing your half-eaten bowl towards him. He glanced at it, looking up at you from across the table with a confused look.

“Eat it,” you said as you got up from the table. “You didn’t eat anything at lunch.”

“Wot abou t-ou?” he asked, his voice muffled from the food stuffed in his mouth.

“I’m good, I’m not that hungry anyway. I had a big lunch.”

Before giving him another chance to protest, you had already walked back to the living room and grabbed your laptop. You knew you probably weren’t gonna end up doing any work, but you could at least try to motivate yourself.

Katsuki only looked guilty down at the bowl you’d pushed in front of him. He really didn’t deserve you, did he?

‘Just pray that you’ll be born with a quirk in your next life, and take a swan dive off the roof of the building.’

‘Take a swan dive off the roof of the building.’

‘Take a swan dive off the roof of the building.’

‘Take a swan dive off the roof of the building.’

‘Take a swan dive off the roof of the building.’

‘Take a swan dive off the roof of the building.’

‘T a k e a s w a n d i v e o f f t h e r o o f o f t h e b u i l d i n g.’

He needed to tell you. You needed to know what had happened between them. And if you ended up leaving him over this, in some ways he deserved it. He knew he did.

What would’ve happened if Midoriya actually jumped, huh? What would his life look like then? He probably wouldn’t even be here, with you. He never would’ve been able to go to UA, or anywhere else frankly, after that.

Bakugou stood up slowly from his spot on the table. He was hungry, but the noodles could wait. He couldn’t wait any longer. You couldn’t wait any longer.

The thought had been weighing on him all day. If he held onto it for any longer, he felt like he was going to burst from guilt.

“Hey,” he said from the entrance of the kitchen, watching as you typed away at your computer.

Your gaze was torn away promptly, and you looked up with him with a slight smile.

Fuck.

“I need to tell you something.”

“Okay,” you answered, urging him on.

“It’s about.. Dek- I mean Midoriya and I.”

Bakugou promptly opened his mouth to speak, and you clung onto what he was about to say. But before he could say anything, his phone began ringing.

He cursed inwardly, snatching his phone out of his pocket, only to decline the call. Almost immediately, his phone began ringing again and it was flooded with notifications.

You stared at his phone expectantly, clearly he was needed.

“It’s okay,” you reassured. “Answer the phone.”

You watched as he scowled, muttering a sorry as he angrily pressed the accept button.

“What?!” he barked out.

And you watched as his face went from anger to sheer horror in a matter of seconds.

“Wh- What happened?”, you got up quickly from the couch and made your way towards him, trying to see if you could catch the conversation.

By that time, he had already hung up the phone and was making his way to the front door. His expression at the moment was unreadable, not giving you any indications on what had happened and why it was so bad.

“Katsuki, what happened?” you called out from behind him.

“It’s fine,” he muttered. “Just stay here and don’t let anyone in, got it?”

“Okay, but wh-”

“I’ll tell you after.”

“Bu-”

And with that, the door slammed behind him, the time on the clock in the corner reading 8:15.

──────────────

lol, i forgot to put these in the last chapters, but if you want to be added to the taglist, just ask in the comments

tag list: @spicy-therapist-mom

[goldenhypen]

THIS UPDAAATE

and the a/n made me giggle "what would u do if u found out heeseung was ur close moot" GIRL I'D QUIT, DEACTIVATE, BURN MY PHONE ALONG WITH ALL OF MY OTHER ELECTRONICS. IF HE HAS SEEN ME CRY OVER RIKI... YEAH I THINK ITS TIME I UNSTAN 😁✊/j

but also, I KNEW IT i knew heeseung would say he's evan i KNEW HE WOULDN'T CHICKEN OUT 😱😱😱 but gah damn it still took me by surprise. feel so bad for y/n tho,,,,, but i also don't understand why heeseung would feel guilty 🤨🤨 like that is YOUR life, you created a fake persona because. well you're a kpop idol u cant just go around saying ure secretly heeseung 😭 plus technically he did do a face reveal and did meet y/n at the fansign 🕴️ i mean i guess it would be a shocker for me to find out that someone i had been talking to for a while now was one of my ults, but then again it's much better than what everyone initially thought? like it's better than him being a creepy old man, and heeseung has a life outside of being an idol, he can find ppl attractive and want to get to know them 👎👎

btw i might have said this before, but i love the way u did the smau sm. like the profiles were so clever, although the plot doesn't really allow the twitter profiles to be the "standard" main and private accounts that characters have in smaus in general. KIM AND NICKI GET ME EVERY SINGLE TIME I SWEAR 😭😭😭😭

AKSJSKDJDKDKDJS HONESTLY THO 😭 like i’d be so embarrassed and also the fact that we’ve written things about them too,,,, DKDJDJDJD PLS ID D WORD OF EMBARRASSMENT RIGHT THEN AND THERE but lucky for y/n, she hasn’t done much to be embarrassed about in her situation,, US ON THE OTHER HAND THO- SJJDJDJD NAUR ITS NOT IT ✋🏻

ooooh all the things you said are vv true and i agree with all of them 😌 the only reason he felt guilty tho is for not telling y/n the full truth that he was the lee heeseung bc he did lie on a few accounts. but you’re right. he did speak a lot of the truth and there’s not much he could do, being an idol,,,, ig we’ll just have to see how y/n handles this and if she’ll understand him :/

and gahhh thank youuuu omg that makes me so 🥺🥺💖💖 rlly, it means a lot may :( thank you :( <33

[miss-choco-chips]

From the ground up.

The road to recovery is a bumpy one, but Tim’s (reluctantly) ready for the drive. He just hopes they won’t crash and burn.

-.-.-

Tim recovers after an injury. Mending his bonds with the bats its a plus. 

Or, Tim can’t exactly run away from a conversation, and they all take advantage of it.

( @animemangasoul asked for Tim actually needing his crutches. Of course my dumb ass  brain needed to take that idea and make a whole, emotional thing of it. Threw in some family bonding cause why not. 

Babe I did my best, and if it’s bad I’m blaming exams and life stress of me being unable to properly deliver what you hoped for)

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

It had been a stupid decision. Self sacrificing, reckless, idiotic. He doesn’t know Bruce’s disappointed eyes, Dick’s worried ones or Damian’s disdainful sneer to know it.

Still, it had been his choice, and he’s going to stand by it. Even if it means having Steph pose as Red Robin for some time. Even if he has to deal with M’gann’s guilty looks at failing to convince him to change places, to allow her to get shot while he took the criminal out, instead of what they actually did. Even if it means getting annoyed, nearly hysterical texts from basically everyone he knows, condemning him for his stupidity. 

The only ones he had explained himself to were Tam -who honestly deserves it after all the shit he was going to put her through, dealing with her recent trauma (courtesy of assassins) and the press going haywire at Tim’s broken engagement and then almost fatal injury-, Steph (who was going to be changing between Batgirl and Red Robin for some time to keep the whole charade up and Vale off their track) and M’gann herself, who had needed some serious explanation before she conceded to Tim getting shot in front of her for appearances sake.

The rest of the world? They could rot in curiosity, for all he cared. Bruce had probably extrapolated enough from his succinct explanation about Vicky to understand the whole plan. Dick was probably dying to know, but with their relationship strained as it was wouldn't dare to ask. Damian… who know how the devil’s mind works. Alfred was already used to the Bat’s collective shit, and would probably just sigh and make chicken soup for him.

What he wasn’t cool about was being forced to have his recovery period in the Manor. He had a perfectly funcional place for himself, thank you very much, and could wobble around in his crutches from bedroom to kitchen to his small, personal cave, no problem. But Bruce had been unmoving in his decision, going as far to physically carry Tim in his arms, like a toddler, from the hospital steps to the car. It had been humiliating, but he couldn't exactly wiggle free in front of all the reporters, could he? How to explain a nerve strike to his dad, and his own ability to withstand the pain of falling back to his feet?

(Because he totally could stand the pain. He had done it in the dessert with a ruptured spleen, he could deal with a slightly damaged spine)

He was going to have his revenge though. As soon as he was able to move freely without clenching his teeth from the pain.

He’s being deposited on the bed, when he notices Damian lingering around the door. He was looking at Bruce, a little unsure, more than a bit of envy at the care which his father bestowed on Tim. Before, those jealous eyes would have made him weary of an attack. Now, with Bruce and Dick having forced a promise of civility from the kid, he was still on guard but not ready to flee at any given second. Perpetually tensing would only dampen his recovery, after all.

It was still something to think of. The lack of fire in his eyes. He… looked like a kid. Not as much a demon as he had been when Tim went away.

Well. Only time would tell if he had truly changed.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Bruce had ordered bed rest. No work, detective or CEO. Nothing more straining (for the mind or body) than watching a movie. Eating and sleeping were his only allowed activities. Even reading was to be moderated, because Tim was known to lose himself in any topic that caught his fancy and forget everything else. 

Tim had listened to his reasoning, nodding along and adding his own helpful insight, smiling when his head was patted in response to his obedience. Waved cheerfully as Bruce left, made smalltalk with Dick when he visited hi room before heading out for patrol (theirs was a talk that he wasn’t really looking forward but knew he wouldn't be escaping for long), thanked Alfred for the food and ate half of it under his watchful eye. Even took the medicine with just mild complains.

The perfect picture of innocence and submission. Right until the butler went to the Cave to man the comms.

Then all bets were off.

Moving his bed out of the way to get the laptop hidden below the loose tile under it was impossible in his current condition, but thankfully he had been able to talk Bruce into letting him keep his phone, and his briefcase wasn’t too far to not be able to make the walk without crutches (painful as it was).

Before an hour had passed, he had the wall by his bed covered with post it notes, connected by red sting and pins here and there. A pretty evidence board, even with the lacking resources. Perrrfect for a little Tim-Time, a small bit of detective work.

Bruce would certainly bitch about him moving around so much, taping pieces of information or moving the string around, but, well. What Bruce didn’t knew…

-I thought Father ordered bed rest.

The voice, completely unexpected (he had either been in too deep thought, or the brat was getting better at stealth), made him jump so high and sudden he almost pulled his stitches. The medication, fading with each hour, had weaned enough he felt every bit of tissue, still torn from the shot, straining under the move.

It resulted in the longest, filthiest string of curses his sharp mind could come up with, partnered with gasps and a lot of hair pulling in a instinctual attempt to redirect the pain from his torso to somewhere less dire.

-No one taught you to knock and not to startle convalescent people, brat? -he spats between clenched teeth, squinting through barely-opened eyes to glare at him- And why aren’t you patrolling? 

The kid was on pijamas. Tim can’t remember the last time he saw him unarmed. Though he probably still had at least a dagger on himself that he couldn't see.

Bruce and Dick’s promise echoed in his mind, but just in case, he let one of his arms go around his middle, acting as if trying to soothe his hurt (okay, maybe it wasn’t all an act) while he palmed the three Red Robin pallets he had secured between his bandages earlier.

Damian scoffed and approached him, careful to keep a healthy distance but enough so he could properly appreciate Tim’s wall.

-Apparently, Father knows better than to trust you to behave, and he came up with a schedule to keep an eye on you. For what reason, it escapes me. Your death could only serve as a stress relief for everyone, specially if it was caused by your own stupidity. And you didn’t answer my question.

A large part of him wanted to tell him to fuck off. An even larger reminded him he was barely armed, heavily incapacitated, and that Damian had actually answered him first, so, technically, it was fair to do the same.

He sighs and leans back into the pillows, shoulder on the wall crumpling the photo of his number three suspect.

-Whatever. Bruce clearly bought when I said I’d act the part, otherwise he would have cleaned my room of anything useful. You’re probably here because paranoia is too deeply ingrained in the man, or he thinks you could use a rest too. Or both. 

Probably both, Tim thinks. He’s ready for Damian’s sneer and a declaration that he ‘didn’t need a rest’, most likely paired with an insult. 

Instead, Damian surprises him by tilting his head and looking at him with something akin to curiosity.

-You lied to Father? And he… believed you?

Feeling his petty bitch inside stirring, he smirked- What, like it’s hard?

It actually was, it required a hell of a mental preparation and careful planning. But once you learned how to pull it off and took care to polish it, it was a often used weapon.

Damian wouldn't let any positive emotion towards Tim willingly show on his face, so the amaze was most likely honest. It was… a little humbling, truth be told. 

-Tell you what -he decides, pulling his best negotiator voice, to cut the kid some slack-, you keep this little naughtiness -a nod towards the wall- between us and help me hide all proof before B comes back, and I give you some  pointers in how to lie to Batman. 

Damian seems truly torn. On one hand, Tim can guess, it's the mission his father entrusted him, and his deeply ingrained disdain to anything Tim proposed. On the other, the temptation of such a useful tactic, and the fact that he didn’t really care for Tim’s wellbeing enough to stop him from doing his thing.

-What are you working on?- he asked, likely gaining time while he mulled his options.

-Cold cases -a shrug-. It’s just a pastime of mine. I dig into Bruce’s old files, search for anything he couldn't solve, and work on it until I do. It’s really good for self esteem, and it helps a lot of people who never got closure for whatever it happened to them. 

-Father will know you disobeyed if you solve it.

-I’ll wait until he gives me permission for some light work, and then dump all my worked out cases on him at the same time.

There’s something akin to wonder fighting to make itself known above Damian’s facade of indifference.

-Can you actually solve something Father himself couldn't?

-Done it before, will do it again. What will it be, Damian? Cause if you decide to snitch on me after all, then kindly leave me to this until then. I’m about to crack this, and if its going to be the last one I’m able to work on, I’d hate to leave it halfway.

A few seconds go by, before Damian takes the last step and carefully perches at the end of the bed, eyes solely on the wall.

-I’d prefer to aid in solving this. If it’s true this is something not even the Batman could do… it’d be highly rewarding to work on it. You can teach me the arts of lying another day.

Shocked it actually worked, Tim did his best to swiftly recover. Not one to look at a gift horse in the mouth, he kept his doubts in check to dwell on them later and went back to his wall. 

Having Damian around was surprisingly useful. He could just lay there, in his pillows, and direct the brat through moving the string and adding post it notes here and there, until the whole thing mapped out in front of them, the answer staring at them as clear as the quickly approaching day. 

Satisfaction strong enough to smile despite the ever growing pain in his side, he gave into the urge to give a small pat to Damian’s shoulder before telling him to help take it all down, least Bruce came from patrol and found them on the act. High on the success and more than a little stunned about it, the younger vigilante actually complied, even going as far as to put all their mess back in Tim’s briefcase and bringing him a glass of water to wash down his meds with.

When Batman came to check on his middle son after patro, Nightwing on his shadow, they were regaled with the shocking, unbelievable sight of Damian sleeping, sitting on the ground with the back of his head resting on Tim’s bed, while the bedridden boy himself snored, a hand on top of the smaller kid’s head.

The picture Dick took of them was gonna be his most treasured possession forever.

-.-.-.-.-

-And this will make me a better detective? -questioned Damian, frown  scrunching his nose in a way that Tim couldn't help but think of as adorable. Or as adorable as it could be, in a hell spawn. Fuck, Dick was rubbing off on him.

-It helped me -he shrugs, eyes on his own screen as he makes the proper adjustments-. Long live the queen is a good place to start. You need to consider both the character’s mood when selecting the week’s classes, and the goal you aspire towards. All the while dodging assassinations attempts, commoners uprisings or noble plots depending on the choices you make, and… other stuff. And ruling a country. And getting engaged. It’s a lot of juggling, keeping in mind which skills you need for which event, and it forces you to consider how the character is doing emotionally, something you could seriously use to learn. Want me to give you a run through?

-No need -he scoffed, clicking in the start game option, dubiously reading the introduction-. It seems easy enough.

Tim just smiled, eerie, from his place behind him. 

Damian was sitting in the floor by his bed, back resting against it. The position, if slightly uncomfortable (Drake wasn’t an enemy any longer, if Grayson was to be believed, and after the other night’s joint work he agreed to help train Damian in mind schemes, but he wasn’t a complete ally either… and having such a grey person with such a clear shot at his neck made the assassin in him nervous), was the best way for Drake to watch his progress in this… game, while keeping his wound unbothered. It also kept Damian from ‘sneaking a peek’ at his own screen and ‘cheating at the game’, as he had said. Not that he planned on it, but-- well, all resources, no matter how dirty, were still fair game in the arts of war, as far as he was concerned.

Not that Damian needed the help. This was a silly game. He would probably beat this first try, high score even. Really, the main screen image had a teenager dressed in a frilly, pink, magical girl outfit. How hard could this be?

---

-My cousin just got bitten by a snake. Will she die?

-Wouldn’t you like to know, demon child. You’ll figure it out later in the game. Just keep going.

---

-Why do I keep failing this skill-checks? What am I missing? Is it even relevant? I just passed one that was completely useless about world history, but somehow missed the one that would have helped me keep this stupid girl from getting betrothed. 

-If it was relevant, you’ll know it when, not if, when it kills you.

-...I should save my game here.

-With these shitty skills you’ve built? Sure, if you want to, but at this point you’ll die no matter what.

---

-Is this woman trustworthy? Our father said it was her fault mother died, but she said…

-Hmm. I’m not giving you spoilers. Tell me when you figure it out, one way or the other.

-Well, at least we have our aunt, uncle and cousins. Surely they are on our side, as our family.

-...

-Drake, why are you laughing? 

-...

-Stop it! You are not scaring me!

---

-Look, I said I was not going to help you… but you can’t keep pissing everyone off, baby bat. You’ll never survive until coronation if you do.

-Those people deserved to get executed.

-...some of them, maybe, but you failed a lot of skill checks there, so you don’t have all the facts. Also, if you are gonna fuck with people, at least choose if you are doing it with nobles or peasants. Both of them is taking it a bit too far.

-I am the Queen. Neither would dare oppose me. I will have their heads if they do!

-..okay then. Let the record say I tried.

---

-Is this birthday party important?

-Uhm… Kinda. Your friend just turned of age, which means she gets to inherit control of her lands. There’s also a whole new route if you do go to the party, if you have the necessary abilities for it.

Tim saw the back of Damian’s head bob as he nodded. He gave it a few minutes. Then-

-YOU DIDN’T TELL ME I WOULD DIE ON MY WAY THERE!

-I did say you needed specific skills. Both for the party itself, and to get there.

He was ready for the unholy sound that escaped from Damian’s mouth, finger quickly taping at his phone to record it. That treasure was going to be his new ringtone. It would help with the pain, too. Happiness therapy or something like that, to distract the mind from the hurt. 

---

-Hey, Dami? I’m gonna go get ready for patrol. Are you com/?

-NO -he snapped, neck almost breaking from how quickly he raised his head to look at Dick at the door. Eyes red from staring at the screen for so long, hair a mess after messing it up in incalculable desperation- I’m about to win!  This time, my strategy won’t fail!

Tim, game already finished and now watching a movie (at least until Bruce and Dick left and he could go back to coding a new security system that even Babs wouldn't be able to crack)  tilted his head, examining his brother’s open game.  Week 30, no medicine knowledge, no intrigue, little to no dog training, no composure and not enough divination...yeah, Damian was gonna die again. It was the first time he had lived long enough to reach the tournament, and subsequently, the poisoned chocolates. 

Should he tell Damian? On one hand, the frustration, clear in his face, would tear him apart after yet another failure. But… this was the most fun he had in a long time, and the longest they had gone without either insulting the other. 

-Okay then -mumbled Dick under his breath, smartly retreating out of the room.

Tim waited a few beats- Let me know if you need help. 

-Leave me alone Drake! As if I’d lower myself to such tricks! The victory won’t be truly mine unless I win by my own merits!

Still at the door, feeling both a little ignored and elated at his brothers getting along so nicely, Dick decided to slowly exit the place, least Damian truly snapped and threw a dagger or something at his head.

---

The downside of the pain meds was how drowsy they made him. He didn’t know quite what to do with himself, now that the bags under his eyes were so close to disappearing. He had come so used to them… maybe he’d need to start investing in eyeliner and fake them.

Blinking himself awake, he moved a bit to look at the clock on his bedside table and immediately flinched. He kept forgetting the wound, and then moved and was painfully reminded.

A hand appeared out of nowhere, holding a familiar pill. He took it without prompting, accepting then the glass of water.

-Don’t think too much of this, Drake. I’m merely assisting Pennyworth. Since I’m already here working on my progress, I offered to make sure you don’t forgo your medicine. Again.

The disdainful voice, probably masking the smallest shadow of care, had come familiar enough in the last couple of days that he knew even without opening his eyes who it was. The question of what the hell was he still doing here, after spending the entire day at Tim’s side, remained.

-Damian? Are you still playing?

The kid seemed uncomfortable.

-The idiotic Queen wouldn't stop dying. It’s against my every principle to give up before achieving my goal, so I had to stay here until I passed this… training of yours.

Tim had to bit his check to keep from smiling. Damian was kinda decent at it, but the boy who lied to Batman wasn’t so easily fooled by a half assed attempt. The brat had actually stayed so he could make sure Tim didn’t forget his pain meds and woke the whole manor up with his groans later. 

-Well, as your teacher for this particular test, I’m telling you to call it a day. Go to sleep and come back tomorrow with fresh mind and eyes.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Rehab… sucked. There was no way around it. Sure, he could go the nice, easy way, give himself enough time to heal before starting on the recovery path. But vigilantes didn’t have the luxury of nice, and he needed to be functional again asap. Steph was running herself ragged, working on keeping Tim’s identity on the streets alive and her own territory safe, and there was a limit on how much Tam could take over in WE before collapsing.

Bruce hadn’t been happy about his decision of starting physical therapy while his stitches were still there, but when was he, ever? And the doctors had said he could do it as long as he was careful about it, now that the swelling in his back had disappeared, so he couldn't use them as counterpoints. There was also the nice plus of being emancipated, which made his medical decisions his own, and not even Bruce could just breeze by and ignore them.

Sweet, sweet independence.

Too bad he forgot a tiny detail: how fucking painful it was.

He could move around now, using the crutches, and he had a series of exercises his doc gave him to help regain movement, which he followed like religious doctrine. Two reps before lunch, one before bed. Okay, the physical therapist had said only do one per day, but he couldn't take into account Tim’s vigilante resistance and strength, so he felt safe in his small expansion of the activities.

That was, until the sharp pain on his side made him lose balance during his last rep and trip over his crutches.

A strong arm around his upper chest stopped his fall to the ground, and took the air off his lungs. It didn’t touch his wound, though, which… nice.

-If you're falling jus’ from walking, maybe you're not as ‘recovered’ as I heard.

-Ja...son -he coughs, hand (with the crutch secured to him by nice straps, courtesy of WE’s medical division) raising up to hold Jason’s arm for support. The other man shifted, coming closer, shouldering his weight without a word, his other hand going around his waist, under the wound, to help him along- This… but a scratch.

-Quoting “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” at me won’t keep you out of trouble, little shit. C’mon, I’ll take you back to your room. Which way?

Pointing him in the right direction, Tim took advantage of their closeness to examine the other man.

They weren’t on ‘kill on sight’ terms any longer, but Tim wouldn’t exactly call the man when in a pinch. What was he even doing here? He was fairly sure he and Brucer were still at that ‘mindless anger/deeply rooted guilt’ stage of their relationship, and his book club meetings with Alfred were wednesday afternoons, not friday evenings…

-Stop thinking so much, you’ll strain som’ing.

-I’m not Dick -he fires back almost in instinct, earning a deep chuckle in turn. He shifts a little, looking for a position where his trembling arms wouldn't make the crutches shake quiet so much. If Jason saw his struggle, he respected him enough to say shit about it.

-Speaking of, how’s it going with him?

-I have no idea what you’re talking about. We are fine.

-Yeah, right. And he’s sitting out of helping you with rehab because he suddenly lost one of his hundred hearts and it’s just your luck it was the one he had for you?

-Fuck… -a misstep, and his arms automatically shift to compensate, keeping him standing but paying it in pain when the movement tugs at his side. Jason tightens his grip, an unvoiced promise to keep it from happening again- you.

-Really threatening, with all the gasping and whining. 

-Shut up. Why would we be at odds?

There’s a minute of silence as one of Jason’s hands leave him long enough to open the door to his bedroom.

-I’m jus’ saying -he shrugs as he helps Tim inside and towards his bed-, I know a discarded Robin when I see one.

He’s not sure if the pained sound comes from the jostling as he’s carefully lowered into his pillows, or the strike to his most exposed nerve.

-It was… a tough situation. Dick didn’t have much choice. I -it hurts to say- I get it. 

It had also been right, by Damian. Tim can see it, in the remarkably diminished killer intent he could feel from the kid, and his actual willingness at keeping Tim company and even helping him around when needed.

Even if it was the worst for him, at least one of the two fucked up kids under Dick’s watch had benefited from it. It was… it was good enough. It had to be. Tim was fine, after all.

Jason looks at him for a moment, waiting until the pain yields a bit and he can breath again. Then, taking a seat by his feet, he lets his eyes stray to the photographs mounted on the walls, avoiding Tim’s scrutinizing gaze.

-Even if it makes logical sense, it still hurts. I know how it is.

There’s… not really something he can counter. He moves a bit to find position easier on his side, hiding the nervous twitch with the action.

-I never blamed you for it -he feels compelled to add. Jason winces, as if struck. He’s still not looking at him.

-And the brat’ll probably be the same with you, someday. Means shit now, but… small comforts.

-I guess so… I mean, we’re kinda getting along, now that he can’t try to kill me since I’m convalescente and I’m bored enough to contribute to his training.

Jason seems pained again. Tim is annoyed by how confusing this entire situation is.

-Y’er a good predecessor. He’ll/

-What is this all about? -he cuts, unable to stop himself. This attempt at deep conversation is well and good, but it’s coming out of nowhere and Tim never pictured Jason as one to go around randomly offering wisdom- Why are you here, and with me of all people?

There was a shadow of something passing through his face, before it transformed into the physical intonation of the ‘Fair enough’ feeling. 

-I heard what happened from blondie while she was takin’ care of soom goons on y’er part of town. And… well, I have some experience on getting back on your feet after a bad injury, just in the wake of loosing Robin. Figured you’d be over doing it and getting yourself hurt worse.

It… was a fair assessment of what he was doing, actually. And if there was anyone he could speak about this… it’d be Jason.

-There’s so much I have to do -he sighs, sagging into his bed, relaxing for the first time when in a room with his childhood idol-, and Steph can’t keep running all my cases for me. I keep solving them, but I need groundwork done and she has already so much on her plate by patrolling my side of town, I just… I can’t let people die because I couldn't spy on an arms deal and tore it apart before the guns made their way to the streets. 

Jason looked at him again, his emotions in check, and he seemed to think about it for a minute, before humming.

-What about this? You take it slow and easy with the physical therapy, and I help with that stuff. My territory is somewhat in order, or as much as you can have it in this hellhole of a city, so I have plenty of free time, and… I could use the atonement. After, you know, trying to kill you so many times.

It…was unexpected. Jason, helping him? In exchange of Tim’s wellbeing? It seemed absurd beyond belief, but there was no mistaking the earnestness on his face.

And, well, fuck it. Tim was somehow on speaking terms with one of his formers almost-assassins, what was one more?

...it would also be so worth it, once Dick knew. Tim could already picture his jealousy, seeing the two brothers he was at odds or uncomfortable with, speaking at each other and working together.

And having Jason at his side would keep Bruce from checking on him so often. Two birds, one crowbar. 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

This was shaping up to be the strangest week of his life. Had he entered the twilight zone?

He had gotten kinda used to Damian popping into his room before patrol, or during the nights B forced him to stay at home. He’d work Damian through one of the easiest cold cases, or aid him in his never ending game of Long Live the Queen (he was getting really close to a happy ending, though). In exchange, the kid would keep his work a secret, and help him move around if the pain was too strong, or if he wanted a glass of water and didn’t feel like getting his crutches out for the small trip to the bathroom.

Also, it was somewhat normal to have Jason swing by (morning or mid afternoon, while the vigilantes of the manor slept off their patrol), some case files in hand, informing him about a new development in whatever Tim had asked him to research. Alfred, highly approving of their newfound camaraderie, would insist Jason stayed for tea, and the three of them would dwell into a very satisfying bitch fest, with Bruce as their source material.

What he wasn’t ready for, was having both of them around at the same time.

-Drake, you need to stop lazing around and do your exercises! Father and the doctors said…!

-Chill out, Demon, he did ‘em already. Shouldn't be doin more reps than the doc said, y’know?

Acting like his nurses.

-And how do I know you’re not lying to me, Todd? Hurting Timothy could only benefit you!

-...In literally which way? He’s the ONE brother I like! And like you are any better, Mr slashed zip line.

-Who told you about/? No matter. That was before we became allies. You, on the other hand!

Had he stumbled into a different universe? It wouldn't be the first time. Just in case, he sent Bart, his time/multiverse travel expert, a quick text.

-Hey guys, what’s all this noise abou/ Damian! Drop the knife!

Oh yeah. Just what Tim needed; the awkwardness that seemed to appear whenever he and Dick were in a room together. Maybe it was time to book it back to his room.

-Grayson! Give it back, I need to/!

-Disembowel Jay? I don’t think so.

-Fuck off Dickiebird, I don’t need your protection. 

Decision made, Tim slowly moved his crutches, walking backwards without taking his eyes from the three vigilantes. If he was really, really quiet...

-I know, just/ Wait. Is that a gun?

-Well, it’s not like I’m happy to see yar ugly face.

-Excuse you?!... Here, Dami. You can have it back.

-FUCK!

-DIE!

-TIM!

The last scream came from Dick, who looked in his direction just in time to catch the moment Tim’s crutch slipped in the carpet. As it was, he was the only one who could react fast enough to prevent a painful, possibly very bad for his injury fall.

It also meant Tim was being cradled like a baby. Which- no.

The other two fell silent for  long minute, while their minds caught up to Tim’s almost accident. Then, apparently seeing him safe in Dick’s arms, they turned to fight again. Apparently, blaming the other for Tim’s misfortune. Which… okay maybe he’d been distracted watching them go at it when he tripped, but still!

-I’ll just… take him upstairs -informed them Dick, though it sounded almost like a question. Probably wondering their ability to keep the discussion verbal.

Used to the nagging, both of them raised their hands, showing them empty (which, truly, meant little in the face of two of the most weapon-inclined people he knew), without pausing their rapidly escalating exchange. 

Halfway up the stairs, he stopped wallowing in self pity about his still recovering body to remember that, for the first time in a helluva long time, he’d be alone with Dick. Which translated in Talk Time. Fuck.

By the time they reached his door, he had ready no less than six deflections and twenty conversation topics which avoided mention of all their baggage and could potentially satisfy Dick’s need for socializing with a brother.

-Wipe that look off your face, Baby Bird. You won’t be orchestrating this chat -the older hero informed him, casually as one can be, kicking the door closed behind him and softly lowering Tim on his bed. He was having serious Deja Vu’s from his first encounter with Jason-. We are going to sit in your room. We are going to hear each other out. I’m going to apologize for hurting you and give you insight on the why I acted the way I did. You’ll decide whether or not you’re ready for forgiving me. We’ll bond. Maybe cry. There’ll definetly be hugs involved -that shouldn’t sound like a threat, why did it sound like a threat, Tim felt threatened-, that’s non negotiable, don’t even try to put the ‘tender wounds’ card on me ‘cause I won’t buy it. And…

Dick’s stern voice wavered, arms still around Tim shoulders even when it was clear he didn’t need his support to sit in the bed.

-And we’ll be brothers again.

The tiny, broken sound mid-sentence was what got Tim. 

Hand a little shaky, scared for his own heart but unwilling to let the older boy (his hero and family for so long) keep hurting, he touched Dick’s cheek and smiled. Tentatively, because they were on unstable ground here, but hopeful, because god did he miss his brother.

-We never stopped being that, idiot.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

It was after dinner, when Bruce approached him in silence. Tim had been making his slow  but steady way to the den, where Dick had roped them all into watching a movie together. He could hear the sounds of Jason and Damian roughosing (okay, Jason was; the brat probably believed the whole affair to be a fight to the death for honor or something like that) and Dick’s chirpy voice as he ranted about The Greatest Showman from the hall.

Bruce had been making the trip by his side, hand hovering close to Tim’s elbow, in case the crutches failed him or he tripped. Tim wanted to tell him it wouldn't happen, but… he’d missed his dad’s attention a little too much to complain about independency now.

-How’s the recovery going, son?

He stopped in the door leading to where his brothers waited, turning to face  Bruce with an arched eyebrow.

-You know that better than me, Mr I’ve broken every bone in my body at some point. Also I’m dead sure you hacked my medical files and know every little detail my physical therapist wrote by heart. You can probably recite them to me verbatim.

-I didn’t mean the physical recovery. The shot in your side is not the only wound you’re carrying right now

Silence, the only noise coming from inside the room and Tim’s heavy breathing. Unable to refrain himself, he risks a glance at the tangle of limbs rolling around in the carpet (Dick’s tactic to stop the fight was to hug them into submission) and lets the tentative, frail smile tug at his lips.

-Honestly, B… That one is healing nicely. There’ll be scars but… That’ proof of what we overcame. Right?

Bruce’s smile looked kinda uncomfortable in that stony face of his, but warm all the same. His hand left Tim’s arm to tussle his hair a bit, careful to not unbalance him.

-When did you became the wisest of my children?

A crash came from inside the room, startling them both.

-TODD YOU…!

-DAMIAN NO! JASON PUT DOWN THE CHAIR! DON’T MAKE ME CALL ALFRED!

-C’ME AT ME, MIDGET!

-ALFIEEEE!!!

-Bruce…

-Yes?

-I’m the only wise child you have.

[dothwrites]

161 please??

---

google doth always taking prompts

161--Where did that cat come from?

---

The rainstorm starts when Dean pulls into the space outside the bunker’s door. It’ll be a pain in the ass to reverse and pull into the garage, plus he and Sam have a trunk full of groceries, so Dean just curses and puts the Impala into park before he gets out of the car. Water droplets start to pelt against the top of his head and the back of his neck as he loads as many bags on his wrists and arms as humanly possible. 

From there, it’s a quick trip down the bunker stairs. Sam follows behind, with a more modest amount of bags swinging from his hands. Dean walks quickly, cognizant of his struggling circulation, not to mention the unpleasant wind of a single bead of water down his spine. Their steps echo down the bunker stairs, which would alert Cas to their presence, even if the “Cas, we’re home!” didn’t. 

“Shut up,” Dean automatically says when he hears Sam’s poorly repressed snigger. 

“Needy much?” Sam does a faulty reproduction of Dean’s voice, making sure to give him a falsetto. “Cas, we’re home!” He continues to snicker as they make their way to the kitchen. “You’re about one step away from Lucy.” 

“Ok, first of all, it was Ricky Ricardo who said those lines and secondly--shut up.” Ok, so not the best comeback. Blame the rain and his screaming wrists and arms. Dean flushes and turns away from Sam as he lifts the groceries onto the counter with a quiet grunt. 

“Nice job, He-Man. Maybe next time you could try multiple trips?” 

“Go out? More than once? For groceries? Sam, it’s like you don’t even know me.” Dean starts unpacking the bags, pausing when he reaches a certain jar. “Cas! We’re in the kitchen!” 

On the opposite side of the kitchen, Sam starts to hum something that sounds like needy baby needy baby. Dean debates throwing a can of green beans at the back of his shaggy moose head. He settles for lobbing a poisonous glare at Sam’s head and not letting up until his brother turns around. 

“Hey, he dipped out on grocery shopping. The least he could do is come and help put the stuff away.” Plus Dean bought a jar of the good stuff for Cas, organic, comb in honey. It cost him an arm and a leg, but it’ll be worth it once he sees the pleased, shy smile spread across Cas’ face, which he can’t see until his boyfriend makes his way to the kitchen. 

Sam must catch sight of the honey because he lets out a very unflattering snort. Dean defensively scoops the honey out of sight. “It’s good for the environment,” he defends, despite the fact that he’s never recycled a day in his life. 

“Sure.” Sam really shouldn’t sound so smug, Mr. I Drink Kale Smoothies and Poop Compost. “Look, all I’m saying is that if my boyfriend had me that whipped, then I would at least own it.” 

“Your boyfriend would run away from your ugly face,” Dean snidely digs. Far from dissolving into a snotty mess, Sam just makes a very rude gesture involving use of a singular finger, and turns around to continue stocking the freezer with pizza rolls. 

The first sign of trouble is a singular sneeze. Dean shakes it off--it was raining outside, pollen is in the air, and the bunker that they live in was made by a bunch of old, dead guys, so there’s bound to be some dust. 

The second, third, and fourth sneezes come as more of a puzzle. 

Sam, ever the solicitous brother, raises an eyebrow. “You dying or what?” he asks. 

“Or what,” Dean wheezes, though his eyes are watery and itchy. A rattle starts in his throat as another sneeze rocks through his body. This is not normal. In fact, he only gets like this when...

Cas walks into the kitchen, wearing jeans and one of Dean’s hoodies that’s just a bit too big for him in the arms (though it stretches delightfully across his chest and shoulders). As soon as he crosses the threshold of the kitchen, as if on command, Dean sneezes. 

Through watery eyes, Dean squints at the suspicious bulge in the front of the hoodie pocket. Castiel casually shifts to the side to hide it, but it’s too late. Dean just saw something move. Cas might be happy to see him, but he’s nowhere near that happy. 

“Whatcha got there Cas?” He tries to make it clear from his tone that his question is not a polite request. 

It’s not every day that Dean gets to see a former angel of the Lord acting shifty, but that’s exactly what he gets to see as Cas tries to sidle his way out of the kitchen. “Cas,” Dean barks. Cas shuffles his feet as he plasters a very unconvincing look of innocence on his face. “What’s in your pocket?”

His facade of hardass suffers from the sneeze that rockets through his body, but it’s enough. Cas walks into the kitchen. Sam, intrigued by the drama, draws closer, but Dean’s eyes are focused on Cas’ hand as it dips into the hoodie pocket. 

Castiel withdraws his hand, holding his burden out for inspection. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees Sam’s mouth drop open in a paroxysm of delight (fucking softie). For his part, Dean greets the reveal with three consecutive sneezes, each one more violent than the last. 

“Cas,” Dean finally says, sniffling around his words, “where did that cat come from?” 

The cat in question can’t be much more than a kitten. It sits easily in Cas’ large hand. Luminous green eyes blink up slowly at him through a haze of black fur. As Dean watches, the kitten opens its mouth, revealing tiny sharp teeth and a pink tongue. A soft mew fills the space. 

Dean answers it with a sniffle. 

“I was out in the garden earlier today,” Cas begins. He doesn’t even have the good grace to look guilty as he pulls the kitten in close to his chest. Dean winces (that’s a hell of a lot of dander and fur that’s winding up on an article of clothing that still technically belongs to him) before he outright flinches as the kitten digs its claws into the fabric. Say goodbye to that particular hoodie. 

“It was just starting to rain and I found her.” Cas looks at him, all huge blue eyes and plaintive voice. “She was cold and shivering. I don’t think that she’d eaten for several days.” 

Great. Just great. Dean can already see where this is going and exactly what parts they’re all going to fall into. Cas, the crusader for justice and kindness, Sam, the well-intentioned supporter, and Dean, the cruel hand of logic. 

“Well, feed her, and then after the rain finishes we can take her to the shelter.” 

Next to him, Sam gasps. Cas’ mouth turns down in a stubborn frown. 

“Dean, the shelter is a kill shelter.” Sam’s voice sounds as scandalized as though Dean had suggested that they carpet bomb the whole town. 

“It’s a kitten. It’s cute. It’ll get adopted in like three seconds. I mean, it’s already got the two of you wrapped around its little dagger claws.” 

There’s something embarrassing about the soppy eyes that both Sam and Cas shoot towards the kitten. No angel should look that sickly sweet. 

“Dean, cats are fairly low maintenance,” Cas begins, which is exactly where Dean thought this talk was headed. 

“I have allergies!” Dean protests, to be met with unsympathetic looks from both his brother and his boyfriend. Traitors. “Plus, who’s going to take care of it when we go on hunts? We going to pay the neighbors to come over into our super secret bunker filled with satanic stuff?” 

Cas’ mouth flattens. “There are several establishments in town which cater to the boarding of pets.” Great. He’s already done research. “Also, many stores offer over the counter products designed to alleviate the symptoms of allergies.” 

Between Sam’s puppy eyes and Cas’ jutting lower lip, Dean feels his defenses wavering. “You’d better keep it away from my room. And if it starts pissing on the floors or tearing up the furniture, it’s out of here. And you’re,” he points to both Sam and Cas, “going to pay for my allergy meds. And you’re going to feed it and pay for all its stuff.” He’s never felt more like a dad than in that moment, lecturing his brother and boyfriend on the proper care of the cat. “This is your pet; I’m not going to take care of it!” 

Cas nods earnestly before he walks across the kitchen and kisses the bolt of his jaw, right in the sweet spot that always turns Dean weak in the knees. Bastard knows exactly how to play him. Dean turns his head to kiss Cas properly, ignoring Sam’s gagging noises in the background. Cas hums into the kiss, his teeth ghosting over Dean’s lower lip in a hint of a tease. 

Dean’s just ready to make it a proper kiss, Sam be damned, when he’s stabbed. Yelping in pain, he jumps backward, glaring at the tiny, cockblocking, ball of fluff still held in Cas’ hands. The kitten retracts the minuscule knives attached to its paws as it blinks innocently up at him.

“Oh, I think you must have squashed her,” Cas says, rubbing a finger underneath the kitten’s chin.

For its part, the kitten yawns at Dean before falling asleep. 

“Yeah,” Dean mutters, massaging at his wound (seriously, he’s bleeding and Sam is just laughing at him like an asshole). “Yeah, this is going to turn out swell.

(It comes to no one’s surprise, least of all Dean’s, when he goes to bed and finds not only Castiel, but the kitten curled up on his mattress. I said she’s not allowed on the bed, Dean tries, but the protest is weak at best, especially when Cas has decided to play dirty and is lying bare-chested with the sheet artfully draped over his waist. 

Well, I could take her back to my room, Cas murmurs, scooping up the kitten, and Dean’s going hellishly soft in his old age because he just says Over my dead body, before crawling over the mattress to where Cas waits. The kitten finds her way to the floor. 

In the morning, Dean wakes up with his nose running and his eyes gummy, due to the fucking cat who has decided to sleep less than a foot away from his face. The heated kiss that Cas gives him when he wakes up only partially helps to stop his bitching.)

[averagesmw]

Penny Haywood x MC- A risk far too great

Game: Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery  

_____________________________

My stay at Hogwarts so far has been... interesting, to say the least

Unwillingly, I became responsible for breaking the horrible curses that came as a result of the Cursed Vaults. All in pursue of my missing brother, Jacob.

Not that I didn't want to save everyone or find my brother, but I didn't know it would be this difficult

However, when we entered the third vault and broke the sleepwalking curse, I thought I was getting the hang of it

...And then came the fourth curse

Not only was it difficult to understand, but this one got quite personal

See, this curse kidnapped students and trapped them inside the various portraits that decorate the school's walls. One of the victims happened to be the first-year Hufflepuff, Beatrice Haywood.

As in, Penny's adorable little sister

That is no way to be introduced to Hogwarts, I should know

But what weighed on me the most was Penny's reaction to this, she was devastated and obviously not the little ray of sunshine I knew and loved

Our adventures together were by far my favorite thing about all these years. We've grown to know each other so well, she even picked me to go with her to a dance

She provided all the happiness that I needed, but now, she was the one that needed happiness

Regardless, it served as a strong motivator to break the curse as soon as possible, which led me to this very moment...

Joined by Merula, Bill, and the new faculty member, Professor Rakepick, I was discussing the next step in our plan to enter the fourth vault. We were in the Courtyard as to not raise any suspicions

However, our plans would soon collide with my personal goals, and not for the better

...

"Now, who shall we take into the Cursed Vault with us?"

Rakepick asked us, making my mind start racing with possibilities

"Well, there are pros and cons to anyone we pick..."

We looked around at the people present in the courtyard. From Badeea to Tonks and even Barnaby, we discussed who could bring more to this table

Eventually, the sight of beautiful, blonde hair caught my attention. There she was, Penny Haywood herself trying her best to go on with her day

Always so resourceful and determined to help others, even now that she was the one that needed the help. Oh, Penny...

It was true that she could help but I...I just couldn't sentence to go into such a place, what if we lose? Or worse...

No, there was no chance I would risk bringing her along this time. I had to find someone else that could assist us

In my mind, I was already narrowing down the best candidates, although I didn't want to put any of them in danger, especially--

"What about Haywood? We could use her potion knowledge"

Merula's voice broke my concentration, I immediately turned to her upon hearing that

"Merula is right, Penny could help us brew a potion if we need it at the vault if we need it"

Bill added. The sole mention of her name in this conversation was enough to send shivers down my spine

I could even feel my breathing getting a bit erratic at this. But before anything else could happen, I threw a quick counter-offer

"B-But what about Charlie? He knows about dragons far more than any of us. W-We could use his knowledge more!"

Merula looked at me strangely. I subtly shook my head to her, telling her to back off on that idea with my eyes filled with worry

She seemed to pick up on this and gave me a subtle nod, putting her hand on her chin

For the last months, Merula and I had grown closer together as well. She might not admit it until earlier today, but we were good friends

In fact, she was likely the only person (besides Rowan) that knew about my umm... My opinion on Penny, hence why she understood my signals so quickly

"Now that you mention, he could help us defeat the dragon first. After he squeals at the sight of it"

For a split second, I felt relieved to have her on my side...then Rakepick talked

"While that is true, I agree that Miss Haywood could help us the most in this case"

She was quick to shoot down the idea, but why? Why send Penny into something so dangerous without even giving her time to prepare!

There was NO way I'd send Penny off like that, not her, especially after everything we've been through

"I don't think that's a good idea, professor. Penny has been quite unstable since the beginning of the year, she won't concentrate"

I responded with the first thing that came to my mind, just desperately trying to change their mind

"Or she could be perfectly motivated to give her best to save her sister"

"Hasn't Penny helped you with the other vaults before, Y/N? She has more experience in dealing with them"

Bill was not helping. Of course Penny tagged along a few times, but mostly when we knew that it wasn't incredibly dangerous like now

It's a dragon we're talking about! Not a Boggart or an Ice Knight

"Bill, we're not bringing her with us"

My friend noticed the sudden change in my tone and looked at me with a confused look

"Why not? Is something wrong with that?"

What!? Of course there was, Bill! You'd have to be blind not to notice!

My worry found a shield in the form of anger, but it was quickly released as I yelled out of pure emotion

"WE'RE NOT SENDING PENNY OUT THERE, THAT'S IT!!"

All three of my allies were taken back by this, even Rakepick. Taking a quick look at the rest of the students that were also there I noticed that they had all shut up and were now staring at me...even her

I couldn't deal with all of those eyes, not at the same time. What was I even supposed to say after such a display?

"I...I have to go. I'll be back for tonight, I promise"

Following what both my heart and mind were screaming me to do, I ran away back to the castle without looking at anyone

The place was awfully silent for a couple of seconds, but the chatter resumed shortly after, only a bit less intense this time

"Was it something I said? I've never seen Y/N have an outburst like that..."

Bill felt guilty, but he didn't even know why. Of course, it was always awful when you made someone react like that without knowing the reason

"Miss Snyde, you said before this conversation that Y/N is your friend, right?"

The teacher caught the attention of Merula, who was still looking at the door

"Yes?..."

"Do you mind explaining what was that all about, then?"

Merula was silent for a moment. She wouldn't tell the exact reason, but she was clever enough to coat it while technically not lying

"Well...I reckon to have one cursed Haywood was too much for L/N, maybe they don't want to get the other one killed. It would stain their pride"

"Y/N has been lacking sleep since this all began, too. They don't want anyone else involved in this" The Weasley added

"You may be right...Do you think you can talk some sense into them?"

Merula then spotted a certain blonde running into the castle, going in the same direction. Under a mask of carelessness, a genuine smile grew

"That won't be necessary, professor"

...

My instinct brought me to the Artifact Room, where I immediately closed the door upon entering and just got to my knees when my body was unable to continue

My hands rested on them as tears started to form on their own, despite my best attempts to stop them

Why was it so hard to understand that Penny was off the table?

Why was it so hard to understand that she was the last one I wanted to get involved?

Just...why?...

I felt my breathing adopt a slightly faster pace, but only for a couple of seconds. I was too busy fighting with my thoughts and just trying to make any sense of it to realize that someone had opened the door

By the time I knew it, someone was handing me down a potion

"Here, drink this"

That voice...

Not wanting her to see me like this, I looked over my shoulder to confirm it. Those beautiful blue eyes, the braided hair, the worry in her face...

I took the potion but didn't open it

"Penny? What's this?"

"It's a calming draught, I always have a spare one just in case"

"That's very considerate of you, b-but really, I'm fine"

Then she placed a hand on my shoulder, giving me a sympathetic look

"I heard you scream my name in the courtyard, Y/N. You can trust me"

Of course lying wasn't going to work, I made a mess back there

Reluctantly, I removed the cork and drank the calming draught. Just by feeling it go down my throat, I could feel my thoughts become clearer and my breathing was slowing down on its own

"Thank you..."

I said handing her the potion, but then Penny sat down in front of me, trying to get a better look at me

"Do you want to talk? You know you can trust me, Y/N"

I sighed before nodding slightly. Taking a quick glance at her before immediately trying to look away

Might as well tell her now. This was about her after all

"W-Well...Professor Rakepick says she found a way into the Cursed Vault, it's a portkey that will activate tonight"

Her gasp made me look at her, she was visibly surprised by this

"Tonight? But those are wonderful news!"

"They are. Rakepick says we should take someone else with us, but then everyone started leaning towards you and--"

"I'm in"

Upon hearing this, I felt my heart take the hit, quickly reminding me of what I was fearing just a second ago

Despite being under the influence of that potion, distress was beyond visible

"What? No"

Penny gave me a puzzled look. Never before had I prohibited her to come with me on an adventure

What was particularly concerning was how quick I was to brush her off

"Why not?"

"Penny, it's far too dangerous! Even a bloody dragon will be there"

She picked up on my increasing anguish, but her own emotions were just as strong at the moment

"And yet you're still going, Y/N! That's no justification"

"Yes, because we've been chosen and trained specifically to deal with this! There's no telling what could happen if you go!"

"I want to go, I need to see it for myself when the curse is broken. Plus you could use my help!"

I shook my head in denial. I knew she of all people had a reason to go, but the risk was far too big for a reward that was still uncertain

"There are plenty of ways you can help us from here"

The Hufflepuff was growing frustrated by my attempts at persuading her out of this mission, maybe to the point of getting personal

"Why don't you want me to go? I need to save my sister!"

It hurt to see her so angry at me, but as I felt the effect of the draught vanishing, I too adopted a similar gaze

I felt the hairs on my arms raising once again and the heartbeat increasing, even my face was heating up

"You're too valuable to lose!"

"Oh? And why am I the one who's too valuable? Why isn't it Bill? Or Merula? Or--"

Blood rushing

Tears escaping

Voice raising and suddenly

"BUT I DON'T LOVE THEM LIKE I LOVE YOU, OKAY!?"

Silence

Pure and suffocating silence

It quickly took over the room as soon as my voice stopped echoing through

I myself couldn't help but cover my mouth in shock by what just happened. Not just because I raised my voice against Penny, but because of what I said

Did I really just?...

Oh no

Beyond shocked, I looked at her. She was speechless with her eyes staring at me in disbelief

"You do?..."

"I have to get out of--"

Once again, I tried to run from it, but it didn't work. My arm was stopped by her hand and her startled voice

"N-No, it's okay! Really"

I turned around to see her yet again, not able to even think of a word for her. For sure she would turn me down, or worse

But her smile, that gentle, warm smile was there. The same one she showed me whenever we were goofing around or brewing something together

It was there

And so was that soft gaze she had whenever I had done something stupid and she was trying to help me like...well... right now

But this time, it hit different

"I want to hear it from you, Y/N. Please" Her sweet voice practically begging for me to stay. I didn't find myself to be strong enough to deny her request

And so, against everything my mind told me, I stayed behind, with Penny

She asked me to carry on with what I said before trying to escape. Sighing, I complied

I figured that it could help her understand why I didn't want her to go, but also...I think I owed her an explanation for well, everything

I gathered my strength until finally, words started to come out

"The truth is that I...I fancy you, Penny. I've done it for quite a while now and not only am I doing this to dave Bea and the others who fell victim to this curse"

My eyes, while looking down at first, were now focused on her. I didn't care if she saw how bad I looked at the moment, I was talking straight out of my heart, throwing myself in the void and hoping for the best

"...I do it because I can't stand to see you so depressed, it breaks my heart"

"Y/N..." The sole mention of my name by her was almost enough for me to back off, almost

But she needed to know

"If I can't see you like this, imagine how I felt when everyone started leaning towards you to follow us into the vault. I can't bear the thought of something bad happening to you"

Before I knew it, Penny wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into a tight hug as she hid her forehead in my shoulders. At first, I couldn't believe it, I just stood there with her warmth and allowed that familiar feeling of security and care wash over me

A heavy, broken breath left my body, felt like a weight had been pulled off

At least until I heard her voice again, still buried in my shoulder

"...If I go to the Cursed Vault, would you be by my side?"

That question caught me off-guard, making me end the embrace to look at her. Although I think I heard her protest this

"Of course I would. I wouldn't leave you to yourself" I answered almost automatically

"Then I have nothing to fear"

The way she smiled after saying that, was disconcerting

"Penny..."

"I'm going to trust you with a secret of mine, one that I've never told anyone before"

She motioned me to come closer, which I did. It took her a bit to talk, seems as if this was a heavy subject for her as well

"It's bad enough to have my sister trapped in a portrait like that, it's horrible"

Penny was the one to sigh after that, her fists clenching as well before those blue orbs of her stared me down

"...But it's even worse to see the one I love risk their life for all of us every single year. I can only pray that you come back in one piece and so far you have"

The one she...what?...

Now I was speechless. Her cheeks turned a shade of pink when she noticed my reaction, but it didn't take long for a small smile to return to her

"This time, I want to help you the way you've helped us. It doesn't matter if it's an Ice knight, an Acromantula, or a bunch of Bogarts..."

Then, I felt something reaching out for my hand, it was hers

This gesture provoked our eyes to meet one last time

"As long as we are together. There is no such thing as an impossible challenge"

The determination in her, so familiar. Now I understood what Dumbledoremust've felt when I ignored his pleas for me to stop chasing the vaults

"And when we return from this, we'll talk. I promise"

What came after was still something that I'm struggling to process

Penny pulled me towards her a little and then closed the distance herself, leaning in towards me. I felt a pair of soft, tender lips kissing my cheek

"Thank you for opening up to me. I mean it"

There was no butterbeer or oversized sandwiches that could persuade the blonde to leave this mission, I understood that now. She would get to experience the end of this  curse herself

And as we stood along with Bill, Merula, Rakepick, and even Ben, I made my new mission to protect her from whatever lurked inside that vault

But as we approached the portkey and her hand wouldn't leave mine, I understood that even in the face of incredible danger...

...She too, would have my back

[unoficialy-married-to-ace-austin]

Some Of Your Time

Request- Can you do a slightly angsty/smut for Moxley where him on his s/o have been fighting but, decide to make up? Please and thank you UwU

AN- This is PART ONE and will include the angst, part two will in include the smut. Whoever you are Anonymous, I hope you like it!

--

'Hey, you've reached Jon! I can't get to the phone right now, but feel free to leave a message!' I Groaned as I pulled my phone away from my ear. I looked around the small restaurant, seeing a group of friends and a young couple. The restaurant was Fairly small, but it was where we had gone on our first date, so I thought it would be a perfect place for our 3 year anniversary.

I looked at my phone for the time, 9:00, Jon was supposed to be here an hour ago, but here I am, and here he isn't. I Decided to give up and go home, quickly asking for the check So I could pay for the cup of wine I had. As I handed the man my card he looked up at me.

"ma'am , are you ok? It said you made a reservation for two." he asked as he ran my card. "I'm fine. Thanks." I mumbled grabbing the card From him. It honestly couldn't get much more embarrassing until.....

"Y/N?" I looked over to see Becky lynch and Charlotte?! "Oh, Hey." I said waving a bit awkwardly. Me and Jon were still on friendly turms with a lot of the WWE roster, but since we joined AEW we were Technically the enemy. "what are you guys doing here?" I asked as I gave them both a hug.

"I should ask you the same thing! isn't it you and Jons anniversary?" Charlotte asked. I sighed nodding, "he probably got held up at a meeting or something. it's no big deal." I said waving my hand a bit. "Oh Y/n! T-that's not true!" becky said eyes wide. "Seth called me earlier to tell me Jon was in town and them plus Roman were going out for drinks. Jon said you were in California for something." She explained.

I felt like my heart was being ripped out, this couldn't be true. Jon wouldn't just ditch me, right? I pulled my phone out and opened up Seths Instagram, and sure enough, there was a picture of the three of them at some run down bar. "Y/n, I'm so sorr-" Charlotte started to say but I cut her off. "I need to go. It's getting late. It was really good seeing you guys." I said quickly before walking the other way.

As I made the short walk to my and Jons house I get tears start to run down my face. Over the last month Jon had spent less and less time with me, but I always blamed it on the fact he was AEW champion. I didn't want to think about it, but the thought just kept making its way into my head. 'He doesn't love you anymore'

Once inside I got out of my clothes quickly and warmed up some leftovers from in the fridge. I ate quickly before heading up stairs to brush my teeth and take my makeup off. It was almost 10, and I heard the door open as I finished. I walked downstairs to see Jon taking his jacket off, and kneeling down to great of dog.

"hey." He said looking up at me with a smile on his face, and felt anger rise in me. How dare he act as though he did nothing wrong! I forced a smile as I walked over to meet him. "I'm so sorry I forgot!" I explained, making him look at me confused. "Forgot what?" He questioned.

"Your, Seth and Romans three year anniversary! I always thought I was the one that married you then, but it was them!" I said hitting my head as though I forgot some tiny thing. It took him a moment but his eyes went wide with realization. "Y/N! I'm sooooo sorry! I can't believe I forgot!" He said walking towards me, but I put my hands out to stop him.

"you didn't forget." I whispered. "As I left the restaurant I ran into Becky and Charlotte." I could see his face look guilty at this point. "You told Seth I was in California. Why?" I asked looking up at him. I really wanted an Explanation.

"I- I don't know." He mumbled looking down. "No!" I said making him look back up at me. "You don't g set to pull that shit and say your don't know'!" I said letting my anger out. "You need to leave." I said pointing at the door. And for the first time ever, he didn't argue with me.

[dontcallmecarrie]

One Step Forward...

just realized that while I have quite a bit on Tony’s time in college for BDEL, it’s pretty general so here’s an attempt to remedy that. Bear in mind that there’s a timeline squish going on, otherwise things won't make sense.

. 

Tony looked around the enormous lecture hall with wide eyes, practically vibrating in his seat. He knew he stuck out like a sore thumb, but he didn't care: his shiny new student ID was burning a hole in his pocket, his messenger bag was a near-clone of his neighbor’s, and in the next few minutes he’d start on the next chapter of his life. 

This was the first time he’d set foot in an institute of higher learning, for the express purpose of learning. Sure, he still had to lay low, since Tony Stark was still #1 on America’s Most Wanted Missing Children [even if his twenty-second birthday came and went months ago, take a hint already Howard], and living with someone still getting used to the world after an involuntary ice nap, but...for the first time in his life, he could let loose. 

Could finally poke at some of the things he’d been itching to try with like-minded individuals, could research and leaf through theses and journals without having to sneak around anyone who might be curious as to what a ten-year-old was doing with a textbook on fluid mechanics.

Child prodigies were easy to pick out; enterprising college students, though?

When everyone was broke and scrambling to stand out, especially in a university big enough for some of its courses to have upwards of 300 students, while also having some cool-sounding research going on? 

Nobody’d look too closely at some freshman asking too many questions. 

That’s what he was counting on, anyway. 

The professor strode up to the podium, and Tony straightened up in preparation for his first day of college.

.

Mistakes were made.

Many, many mistakes were made.

.

Tony walked out of the latest round of exams with a bounce in his step, already thinking about whether or not he’d be able to make it to the guest lecture in time to find a seat...only to pick up the dark muttering of some of his classmates. 

“Ugh, that was brutal and I think there was a typo somewhere in there because how—”

“—had like one slide covering it during lecture, why was it—”

“—an I’m going to fail, this stupid class is going to tank my GPA, fu—”

Some were almost in tears, some were fuming. More than a few were bleary-eyed, clearly having pulled an all-nighter cramming for the test that made up a good chunk of their grade.

Tony tried not to feel too guilty about wrecking the grading curve because he had no doubt he’d aced it, and had done the extra-credit question too just because he could and it’d seemed like a fun thought exercise.

Then he checked his watch, bit back a curse as he clutched at his messenger bag, and started to jog towards the building he’d seen on the flyer about public health talks.

.

Culver University had several of the typical crypids for a college campus: that one bookstore five minutes away with just about every book under the sun, that hole-in-the-wall restaurant that somehow managed to avoid getting written up for health code violations, that one professor who was always listed on the roster but hadn’t been seen since the first day of class.

However, not three months into the new academic year, a new cryptid was being added to the roster: Caffeine Rush Undergrad. 

.

If Tony hadn’t known just what the hell he was doing, he would not have managed to secure a space for his research project. As it was, his obvious interest and experience in computer programming had been a plus, so even if he’d had to bullshit his way out of declaring a major while also convincing everyone he knew what he was doing— it was worth it. 

He now had a bench dedicated to his work on cloud computing, and even if Culver didn’t know his end goal was getting JARVIS even more mobility than before on top of seeing what else he could do with what resources he now had at hand, well...this place was a goddamn candy store, alright?

Also, as a bonus he was now a familiar face to several departments he hadn’t quite gotten around to checking out, including a free pass to continue arguing with that one philosophy chair whenever office hours were slow and his code was compiling.

.

Caffeine Rush Undergrad had a name, presumably.

However, when looking at short freshmen and transfer students and seeing the only one in the room who looked actually excited about the upcoming exams, well...it was hard to remember to ask. 

. 

Tony met Bruce Banner and Betty Ross after he found some of their publications, and his glee at discovering that they were working on something a few wings away from his own bench was...something. 

Not explosive, because he knew better than to attract the wrong sort of attention, but something. 

Sure, they’d eyed him suspiciously at first, but after seeing he knew what he was doing and that he had no interest in stealing their research, they got along swimmingly!

Well, at least they didn’t treat him like a younger sibling the way Foster and Selvig did, anyway.

More like a second set of eyes, and even if Tony didn’t entirely get the finer points he was able to follow along well enough. Kind of like the way Bruce was a great rubber duck whenever he shared what he was doing with JARVIS, even if he sometimes seemed more than a little amused by the comparison. 

.

Caffeine Rush Undergrad was like a goddamn puppy, all wide eyes and running around all the damn time, leaving behind towering stacks of books whenever he went to the library and sneaking into lecture halls for classes he wasn’t even in just to ask the speaker questions later.

It was impressive. And exhausting, and intimidating, especially when word got out that Caffeine Rush somehow had managed to secure a research position in one of the most competitive programs on campus.

...and then he disappeared after the Green Incident, which only cemented his notoriety.

.

Tony had two coffees in hand, one for Betty and one for Bruce, and nearly dropped both the moment he glimpsed General Ross in the hall, headed towards—

Oh.

He turned on a heel and ducked into the nearest office he could find, before Howard’s old golf buddy could spot him and risk putting two and two together.

.

“You didn’t tell me your old man was Thunderbolt Ross.” Tony said as he passed over a cup of now-lukewarm coffee. His voice wasn’t accusing; he was better than that. But his hands were this close to shaking, and there was a tension he couldn’t shake because he’d foolishly, naively assumed he was safe here, why had he—

“What’s wrong?” Bruce asked, eyes sharp and damn it he was slipping if some civilians could see it. 

“Nothing.” Tony plastered on a smile, and shoved his cup in his direction as he mentally readied himself as to what he’d need to do now because if his mom hadn’t picked up chatter then they were okay, but...

Oh, right. 

Geez, seeing Ross had really shaken him up. But his family was safe, and he had a plan and a story and he could bullshit with the best of them, he just had to get a grip.

Deep breath, steady hands. DUM-E was pressing against his leg in his messenger bag, while Butterfingers was a comforting weight in his jacket pocket. He could handle this. 

“Nothing,” he repeated to their disbelieving looks, “it’s just that my mom was a... Vietnam protestor. She broke a lot of shit, and... may or may not have several warrants with her name still out there.”

He hated lying to his friends, but his family was on the line. Uncle James was still living with him, his mom didn’t need any more stress than she already had. 

Also? It wasn’t actually a lie. Technically, his mom was a kidnapper. Jury was still out on the treason charges, though, because enough people counted her as a whistleblower that Howard hadn’t been able to get those charges to stick.

Bruce relaxed, but frowned in concern. “You recognized Betty’s father from that?”

Tony didn’t hide how awkward he was feeling now, after the fact. Especially because it was the truth, in a way. If only even weirder.

“There’s a strong resemblance going on, and he...mayormaynothavebeenlookingforherpersonally.”

Misleading? Yes. Did he regret it? Nope.

Betty shared a look with Bruce, then looked at the doorway and blanched before surging forward and shoving him behind her desk.

Fortunately, Tony knew enough to roll with it and so ducked and curled himself the best he could just as the footsteps got louder and General Ross’ voice came from the doorway.

“Oh, almost forgot— Banner? What are you doing here?” 

Bruce’s shoes had a very distinctive squeak whenever he shifted his weight nervously. Tony’d noticed it before, but never quite like now.

“Hello, General Ross—” He started, before Betty cut in.

“Dad? I wanted to tell you this in person. I have a boyfriend.” She must have gestured or made a face, for the choked noise coming from Bruce’s side of the room and how did he get himself in these situations, seriously?

[blarrghe]

“You always look beautiful. Tonight, you look divine.” Dorian & Anders?

Next installment of this little series! Thanks for the great line :)

Summary: Dorian and Anders attend a wedding, and Anders makes some new friends.

The rest of this series is up on AO3 and you can read the whole thing in order there, or just this prompt fill under the cut.

--

The reception was to be held at an estate up on the coastal cliffs, a half hour drive from the Chantry in central Minrathous, and as they drove (Anders in the passenger seat of Dorian's flashy car, examining the many features of his complicated dashboard in favour of eyeing his hands any further), Dorian chatted amiably about nothing at all: more critique of bad hats and unfortunate robe choices, a rundown of the family gossip, commentary on the venue. The estate hosting the reception wasn't a vineyard, but he insisted that Anders get himself a glass and a view at their earliest convenience so that he could live vicariously, being temporarily sworn off the stuff as he was. 

It was all sort of a lot, this weekend afternoon of extravagance and small talk. Dorian was going on like they were mere acquaintances again, not touching anything to do with pushed-down childhood memories or acts of violence or threats of politically motivated poisoning. Anders tried to appreciate it, but Dorian drove too fast on the highway, and in the close quarters of his clean, comfortable car he still smelled darker than summer, better than wine. By the time Anders stepped out of the cool, filtered air of Dorian’s car, he was feeling somewhat queasy. His stomach was still turning somersaults as he inhaled more floral garden scents and followed Dorian down a maze of shrubbery and into a wide, dimly lit hall furnished in long tables draped in white satin and lace, magically floated lanterns, and a huge ice sculpture of a swan, dead centre.

Serving staff circulated with silver trays of tiny, frilly foods: puff pastries stuffed with cheese, figs skewered with cured meats, little glasses filled with complicated looking salads that were as difficult to eat as they looked, as well as drinks. They were elves, mostly, the staff; dressed in identical black uniforms, disappearing into the shadows when their trays ran empty, reappearing by the sides of anyone whose glass needed replacing, silent and expressionless. A few stray glances fell from the other well-dressed guests onto Dorian and Anders as they made a quiet entrance into the hall, and Anders found himself envying the invisibility of the servers, his chest tightening each time Dorian was afforded a nod or himself a curious once-over. He fiddled with the gilding of the cuff of his sleeve — Dorian’s sleeve, really — and Dorian paused to stop an elf with a tray, taking up glasses for each of them. 

“Nothing alcoholic for either of us, please,” he heard Dorian saying to the elf, voice soft and kindly as he flashed him one of those people-pleasing smiles, “can I count on you for that?” The elf nodded silently, and Anders caught the flash of coin being slipped into a pocket on the server’s apron while Dorian smiled some more. “Wonderful,” he went on, “we’ll look to you for the night, ser...” The elf nodded again, this time with wider eyes, hesitating as Dorian waited expectantly for a name. 

“Elarin,” the elf answered meekly, stuttering the name out quickly. 

“Elarin, lovely name. Magister Dorian Pavus, plus one —” Dorian gestured to Anders, and with almost as much hesitation and stuttering as the elf, Anders raised a hand in a wave and said “Anders,” before Dorian continued charming away. “You’re my man tonight, Elarin; sparkling fruit juice and water when you can, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” he finished with a friendly nod and sharp eyes, and Elarin nodded once more. 

“Of course, Master Pavus,” 

Dorian shuddered at the title, almost imperceptibly, just some tension settling on his brows as his eyes seemed to sharpen even further, but he didn’t correct it. “Oh, but one glass of Aggregio Pavali for my friend here, first. Finest vintage you have, and I’d see you pour it. Can’t let it have too much air.” Dorian added with a wink towards Anders, while Anders just stood by and tried not to blush. 

“Right away, Master Pavus,” said the elf, to one more twitch of Dorian’s perfectly placed smile, and then he turned on his heel to disappear through the growing crowd in a hurry. 

“There, see? I promised you I’d be careful.” Dorian noted as the elf left their earshot. 

Anders crossed his arms. “Good of you to be friendly about it,” he said with a stiff shrug, watching as everyone else in the hall seemed to grab bits of food and drink from the other elves circulating with trays without so much as a nod. 

“I find it greatly increases the chances of getting what I ask for,” Dorian’s usual wry smirk was back, “and with a name, if anything goes awry, we’ll know where to start.” 

“Smart.” Anders agreed, though it bit at him somewhat, how easily Dorian turned graciousness to machinations.

Elarin came back momentarily, wine bottle and glass in hand, and poured a serving of it expertly while Dorian watched with another of his smiles. He handed Anders the glass, Anders shot Dorian a look, but thanked the elf, and then he was gone again and Dorian was leading him quickly through the murmuring crowd of mingling guests to a wide, glass door that opened onto an airy balcony. 

He could smell the sea. Better than the beaches by Minrathous’ busy harbour, uncluttered by ships and without the backdrop of car exhaust and city noise. The balcony looked out over jagged cliffs of silvery rock and brightly sparkling waves, rolling up against the shore under a swirling mist of seaspray and white gulls. It was a lovely view, and then Dorian stepped into it, leaning his elbows up over a railing draped with garlands of white roses, and smiled out into the sun like it was made for him. 

“You should have this,” Anders offered him the untouched glass, feeling guilty for the special treatment and awkward about his ability to properly appreciate it, anyway. 

Dorian shook his head. “It’s all or nothing for me,” he said with a casual wave of his hand, “just don’t forget to breathe it in.” 

So Anders drank the wine, doing his best to appreciate its layers of sweet and dry, wood and leather, fruit and chocolate, while his head spun with a dizziness that had nothing to do with the height or the alcohol. The balcony was quiet, with everyone still working through their introductions to one another inside, and Dorian was quiet, gazing out beside him with something thoughtful hiding deep in his eyes, but Anders’ head was never quiet, and right now it was all alarm bells for the crowd and too many thoughts about Dorian’s lips and other worries he couldn’t place; discomfort in his robes (Dorian’s robes), discomfort with being waited on, discomfort with Tevinter society, as usual, but closer to it than he usually was, and too aware of his posture because of it. 

“Thank you again, for coming,” Dorian said after a moment, not taking his eyes off the waters below, “I think I saw the new Health Minister inside, so it doesn’t have to be a total waste of an evening. I was thinking of cornering him later to talk about the rising number of your critical cases coming from the Elvhen quarter —” 

“The east end projects, you mean.” Anders interrupted with correction. Elvhen quarter was an outdated name; people weren’t sectioned off in Tevinter anymore, not by law, anyway, and the slums of the city where the poorest classes lived were no longer restricted to elves. Though the name remained apt enough.

“Right,” Dorian flushed slightly, and the spirit in Anders that watched these things especially closely was heartened by the fact that the slip embarrassed him. “I was thinking about what you mentioned, the correlation between your cases at the hospital and the shutting down of that healthcare centre and the halfway houses — it’s an infrastructure problem, technically, but it’s very possible that with a new minister looking to make a good name for himself quickly, that the solution could be approached from the healthcare side of things…” 

Anders nodded along, and if his spirit companion was happy with Dorian’s care for words, then Anders was just happy to have his own remembered. Dorian’s expression began to lose some of its undecipherable sealonging, and he grew animated as Anders offered up a few more opinions of his own. 

And then they were talking, really talking, about the kinds of politics no one ever seemed to talk about, but that both Dorian and Anders always wanted them to. Anders moved to lean with him, looking out at the sea while describing the few simple changes that, if implemented to municipal health policy, could improve the lives of thousands of impoverished residents, throwing in some comments on the old legislation, comparing things to how it was done down south — not better, exactly, with the restrictions on magic, but somewhat more fair. An odd way to get comfortable, talking of deadly disease and dereliction, but it helped. He finished the glass of wine, still taking slow, appreciative sips, and began to feel just good, alcoholic side effects or not. 

Then, someone else stepped through the door behind them, and they both froze. Anders felt her before he saw her, a deep discomfort setting back into his bones as Justice perked up with an angry flare, and it seemed like Dorian did too, apparently equipped with some warning system of his own. He straightened, his smile fell and his eyes hardened, and then he turned around. 

“Mother,” he said, just a noun. The woman he said it to scowled, eyes that were darker and harder than her son’s stuck firmly on Anders. 

“At least you’re in black.” She said, flicking her gaze quickly over Dorian’s outfit before landing it back on Anders, and eyeing his robes (which remained — very obviously, he was sure —  Dorian’s robes) with a deep frown.   

She was in black, like her son, and like him had made it elegant. Draped in a sweeping shawl, neck decorated in simple, bright diamonds that could probably buy a house. “And this is?” 

“Anders, my Lady,” Anders did his best to remember the right greeting for a woman of her station in her current state — no handshake, for a Lady in mourning, so he ducked his head a little and hoped that would do. 

“That tells me nothing.” Apparently, he’d done it wrong. 

Beside him, Dorian sighed, and without masking his displeasure whatsoever, rolled his eyes. “A friend, mother. He’s one of the doctors who treated father, you might remember. We were just discussing health policy.” 

His mother huffed, and raised a skeptical eyebrow. 

“I’m very sorry for your loss, Lady Pavus. Your son has a real drive for improving our healthcare systems, and I imagine he gets that from you.” Anders did his best to compliment her, but beside him Dorian stifled a snort. 

“A wedding is hardly the place for politics.” she said. 

“And a mourning period is hardly the time for a wedding,” Dorian answered quickly, “yet here we are. I thought it more fitting to use the opportunity to rub elbows with our newest minister. Work over frivolity, as father might say.” there was a challenge in his tone, but his mother didn’t rise to it. She simply sighed, and stared holes into the collar of Anders’ glittering robes. 

“Your father would have wanted you to use the opportunity to mingle with some of the eligible women —” 

“Doctor Anders, what was it you were just saying about the way funding is distributed to hospitals in the south? It would be a shame not to bring that to the attention of the new minister, and I do think that he will be quite swamped with meetings after tonight. Shall we go see if we can get a few sober words in with him before the dinner?” Dorian plainly cut his mother off, not seeming to notice as her words petered out under his sudden burst of professionalism. 

Anders said nothing, but nodded slowly, his own eyes growing teary and unfocused as he attempted to keep the blaring, bright heat out of his head. He had kept his distance from the woman when the elder Pavus had been dying in his hospital, her shrill voice a warning enough. Now that she was here in front of him, he could hardly hear anything else for all of Justice’s angry energy. 

“I only came to say I’d be leaving after the speeches. I don’t expect you to, but do try not to let your politics cause any volatility in the later evening.” She said it like a warning, and the alarms in Anders’ head grew louder and louder. 

“All business, rest assured.” Dorian said curtly back, and then with one last long, sweeping look over Anders’ outfit from head to toe, the woman left and took her high-held head of glittering jewelry back inside.

“That was unpleasant.” Dorian muttered once she’d gone, voicing Anders’ own thought with a sigh. “We had better find our seats for dinner.” 

“Is it All Business Magister Dorian Pavus from here on out, then?” Anders quipped, or tried to quip, in a friendly way. His head was still unfocused. 

“Only until after the speeches, apparently.” Dorian winked, though it didn’t reach his smile, and it didn’t bring one out of Anders either. 

—

Anders excused himself to use the restroom inside, splashing water on his face and steadying Justice's ever growing discomfort with a breathing exercise and a tight squeezing motion to his hands, up and down the palms. When he came out again, Dorian had worked some of his magical charm to change their seats — away from his mother and other actual relations, and to the same table as the new health minister and some other people of political note. The energy given off by this new seating arrangement wasn't much better than what he'd suffered from Dorian's mother, but Dorian seemed to be making the most of things. Again, machinations out of the simplest niceties. All new kinds of intimidating, watching him politely talk shop with his hands carefully placed atop the table. 

Anders tuned most of it out, preoccupied with keeping Justice at bay and remembering his manners. In the Circle, they'd had classes on how to behave, in the event that they one day might be able to jump the many hoops of becoming state sanctioned healers and find an honourable position in good society, somewhere. He'd always failed them. Then he'd run away, and joined the kinds of societies where he never had to use them. So he tried to copy Dorian, napkin on his lap and hands on the table from the wrists, not the elbows, back straight. 

The food was delicious but there was too little of it, the speeches afterwards dry and lengthy, and of them there were too many. Cake was cut, and the newlyweds, both middle aged and stiffer than the ice sculpture they danced around, took the first slow steps onto the floor. There was a real band, but it played only old, melancholy songs. A trickle of other couples moved to join in after the first number, but Dorian stayed where he was, apparently having gotten himself engaged in an argument while Anders wasn't paying attention. 

“The bloodlines are dying out, it's more important now than ever that policy preserve the rights of mages —” someone was saying, a large man in red formal robes and with cheeks to match. 

  “Preserve them, certainly, but we needn't trample on the rights of others to do that,” Dorian replied evenly, and Anders adjusted his attention to listen to Dorian’s argument. He’d heard him explain the purpose of the Soporati bill with impassioned fervor a few times, but never seen him actually argue it with any of the other powers of his ilk. He watched the light dance in Dorian’s eyes, listened closely as he spun the other man’s argument in circles and unravelled it. His words flew out fast and certain and smooth, his argument practiced and absolutely correct. 

Mage rights were different in Tevinter, almost opposite to what they were everywhere else. Mages could vote on everything, and were free to pursue nearly anything they wanted, and it was a kind of freedom that still frequently blew Anders away. But it was far from absolute, and far from fair. Family name mattered more than ability, magical training was expensive and the Circle system an elitist nightmare of academia and bureaucratic absurdism — his own transfer from an acclaimed medical school in the southern system had been almost impossible to navigate, and in order to find a way into the system, he’d needed to practically restart. Years of work experience and training had meant nothing, and now he was a vastly overqualified resident, paying off debts under a contract that kept him legally part-time, so that he wouldn’t receive the same pay as someone with a full contract. Yet, his hours sat at just a hair under the limit set by national labour law for full time work, and loophole clauses let him work fourteen hour shifts anyway. As for those without magic, the vote was limited, and the reach of careers in anything but the Templar order was limited too, regardless of how much magic was actually needed for the job. Dorian wanted to make things freer for everyone, not just those who came from old names, and Anders — well, Anders liked that about him. He liked it a lot. 

“There are fewer mages in every generation, you should be more worried about protecting your own —” someone else at the table spoke up, taking the red-faced man’s side. 

“That's the lyrium drying up,” countered someone else, before Dorian could respond. At that, Dorian shook his head with a sigh. Lyrium wasn’t drying up, it was being hoarded and poorly managed and otherwise mishandled, and always had been, but any conspiracy theories that said the world was losing its magic were just that. 

“It's got nothing to do with lyrium, it's the old bloodlines being polluted.” Said the red man, which as conspiracy theories went, was much worse. Anders felt his blood begin to boil. 

 “Magical birth has almost nothing to do with lyrium exposure or bloodlines,” Anders spoke up, deciding to cut in, since they'd somehow fallen onto a subject he actually knew rather a lot about, though he usually argued about it against a very different perspective. 

“Oh? And you know this how?” Eyes on him again, the man’s red face all eyebrows and snarl.

“I'm a doctor. I specialize in spirit healing. Magical interaction with biology is my area of expertise.” Anders replied, forcing a calm as best he could. He took hold of his cool glass of water in one hand and tapped his fingers against his leg with the other, under the table. “Anyone can be a mage. There’s some genetic involvement, but it’s complex. There’s no one magic gene, it's essentially random.” 

 The red-faced man harrumphed at him, “mages are the maker's chosen, and in Tevinter the old families found ways to preserve the truest magical blood, long ago.” He said, going on to attempt to quote some more scripture at him before Dorian cut him off with a scathing remark. 

Anders sighed again, and let Dorian take the lead on the religious angle. He hadn’t grown up with a Tevinter interpretation of the Chant, and to look at him it was apparent that he wasn’t of an old Tevinter family, but if the service earlier in the day indicated anything, he knew exactly the sort of argument he’d be finding himself in if he tried it, and in his experience it was a futile one. Can’t argue with belief. 

Dorian was only halfway to the eventual wall that would block up this particular conversation when someone else swung by the table to interrupt with friendly greetings, and Anders’ head nearly split in two. A stout, dark-haired man with a wide forehead and receding hairline who called himself Devon Valarius patted the red-faced man warmly on the back, offered Dorian a drink with too knowing a laugh, traded in a few anecdotes about a recent sports game and the weather, and then moved on to the next table. The entire time he lingered, Anders had to clutch his water glass with both hands and breathe very, very carefully. 

Something was wrong, Justice was screaming, very wrong. 

“Who the fuck was that?” he whispered, nudging Dorian under the table. Anders’ voice had somehow turned hoarse and raspy despite the fact that he’d barely uttered three sentences since they’d sat down, and Dorian cocked an eyebrow while Anders finished his water in one large gulp. 

“Him?” Dorian shrugged, “Captain of the Minrathous Circle Templars, why?” 

 Templar. Was that all? It had been ages since he’d set foot near one, but such a reaction from Justice seemed like overkill, even for the ones back in Kirkwall, where they practically ruled the city. Here, Templar Captain was all but a vanity position. Anders frowned. “Don't let him near your drinks,” he whispered, “he doesn't...feel good.” 

 Dorian looked between Anders and the Templar, now two tables away, and his confusion mounted. “He's a blowhard and a buffoon, but he's not dangerous.” Dorian replied, quiet and reassuring, “there's no power in the Templar order here, it's all just formality. Trust me, I attended the Minrathous Circle. I could take that man out with less than the power held in my little finger.” 

Anders nodded, but the feeling didn’t abate. Dorian managed to get pulled back into arguments, but all Anders could do was follow the Templar around with his eyes. He moved from table to table, and then eventually to the dance floor, patting backs, making jokes, drinking wine. Harmless. Anders watched him a while longer, and then decided to try to shake the nerves off again with some more water in his face. It had been a strange day, after all, sitting in a Chantry for hours had probably just primed him to be extra sensitive to buffoonish Templars. He excused himself politely, to barely a nod from Dorian — who was busy again talking circles around the rest of the table, and gaining himself a bit of an audience from the others as well.

Anders splashed some water on his face in the restroom, and then he just spent some time walking, taking purposeful wrong turns down the halls of the sprawling estate and trying various doors just to see if they were locked. They mostly were, but then he pushed in through one that wasn’t, and found himself hit with a wave of heat and delicious smells and laughter, stumbling into a bustling kitchen. 

Elarin, the elf who had dutifully kept both him and Dorian in water and juice, was sitting on a long stainless steel counter by the door, and at the sight of Anders he jumped up, eyes wide and nervous. “Serah —” he started to exclaim, while at the same time Anders tried to apologetically back away. 

“Sorry — no, we don’t need anything — I was just looking for the ah —”

And then all that fumbling for words was interrupted by someone else, a very loud elf who pushed in through the door behind him and, as soon as it closed, slammed a plate of uneaten food down onto the counter and began an angry tirade: 

“Maker’s balls! First, she sends the fish back because it has bones, now the orange chicken is too orangey, I swear if that fucking bitch had a stick any further up her ass it would be poking out her eyeballs. And she wants to know why the fucking statue is melting, well yeah, lady, it’s mid summer in Minrathous, no amount of magic is going to keep that ice cold for more than an hour! Andraste’s ass, these fucking shems, all fucking day! The curtains, the linens, the flowers, the ice, the fish, now the fucking chicken —” seeing Anders, the elf stopped. Her hand flew to her mouth, and her honey brown eyes grew huge and shiny. “Shit.” She said. 

Anders burst into laughter. It bubbled out of him, grin spreading as even the most tightly wound parts of him breathed out a sigh. Loud, guffawing, dumb laughter. Fuck. What a wonderful thing, curses. 

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” he assured the staring elves, as soon as he could, “thank you for saying all that, really. Someone had to or I was going to and that would have gone very poorly, I think.” he breathed, still laughing between every other word. The expressions on the elves watching him softened a bit more. There were four of them now, Elarin, this young serving girl, and two more, on the other side of another long counter covered in dishes and ingredients, hovering over the stoves. They’d been busy cooking, and probably swearing like sailors themselves until he’d walked in, and all were now watching him in obvious confusion. 

Elarin laughed first, sitting back on the counter again and shaking his head. Then the girl relaxed, and chuckled a little as she moved to lean by Elarin, though she was still blushing.   

“You need a break, then?” Asked one of the cooks behind the line, the older of the two. His long grey hair was tied back and tucked into a net, and he had a long scar on one arm from elbow to wrist, as well as several tattoos over his face, but it was a kind face, the wrinkles mostly laugh lines. The cook shrugged as he turned to return to work, “no sweat. It happens sometimes. You want more food?” 

“Maker, please.” Anders said eagerly, “if it isn’t too much trouble.” 

“It’s nothing. We’re done serving, and these things, they always order three times what they need. Half the cake will still be here at the end of the night,” he gestured to where a large sheet cake sat at one end of the kitchen, cut into squares and waiting to go out and replace the stock of identical cake that was carefully plated on pretty tables outside, mostly untouched. “chicken or fish?” 

“I had the vegetarian option, actually.” 

“So you’re the motherfucker. There’s always at least one. You’re easy though, it’s these trendy, all-organic, no salt, allergic-to-flavour assholes these days, like there’s anything wrong with good old fashioned food —”

“Don’t get me started,” Anders agreed, “Organic is just a hoop to jump through, and people need salt —” 

 “Alright, I like you.” the chef remarked with a grin, “you can have some more vegetarian bullshit. You like the meal?”

Anders chuckled, “I wouldn’t call it bullshit,” he said. Then recalling the too-small courses of soup and pasta and other small portions of perfectly cooked vegetables, he mustered some seriousness to his tone, “it was incredible, actually, thank you.” 

“I like a challenge. I’ll fix you some more pasta. El?” 

Elarin answered eagerly as well, perking up to say “chicken,” from his spot on the counter. 

“Good choice. Chicken’s better, Blondie.” 

Anders swallowed, his heart suddenly in his throat. “I used to have a friend who called me that,” he said with a shake of his head, “but here it’s always honorifics and full titles, even in the fucking shops.” 

“Not for us,” cut in the young serving girl as she took up a new plate of chicken that the other cook had plated without changing anything about what was already on his pan, “wish me luck out there.” 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean — good luck.” Anders nodded towards her, and she shrugged her way out the door and back into the hall. 

“Where you from?” the cook asked, continuing the conversation as he set out a plate of pasta and a plate of chicken on the counter between them. 

“All over,” Anders sighed, “but my friends were in Kirkwall.” Now, they were all over — those that were even still his friends at all. 

He took his plate of pasta, a much more satisfying looking portion on this one, and leaned back on the counter next to Elarin, who once again hopped up onto it. If it was possible, this plate was also better than the last, more boldly spiced and perfectly balanced. 

“Where’d you learn to cook like this?” Anders asked appreciatively, between bites. 

“Army,” answered the cook, “you want to hear some war stories?” 

Anders frowned, and his heartbeat, which had just been beginning to settle down, picked up again. “No thanks,” he tried to shake off the unpleasant rush of heat through his head, “I have my own.” 

The cook — Red, everyone called him, though nothing about him was — continued to chat and curse away as more servers filtered through, cleaning up and pausing to vent and eat as the dinner portion of the night ended, and the kitchen staff was reduced to a skeleton crew. Anders finished his pasta, and fell into conversation with the small group of remaining staff as they gathered inside the kitchen during yet another round of speeches. Inappropriate jokes were told, gossip aired and complaints made, and Anders found himself having the easiest time he’d had all day.

“What's he like, the new Magister?” one of them asked him at one point, “are you here, you know, with him?”

Before he could fumble his answer to that, the gossip around Magister Dorian Pavus answered for him: 

“— can’t be. Watch what you say —”

“I heard he was like that, I don’t know —” 

“A Magister? Are you stupid?” 

“— I heard he was like that, but they fixed him —” 

“Fixed him?”

“You know, like with magic.”

“That’d be some fucking magic — you can’t fix —” 

Anders attempted to cut in. “I’m not with him. We’re friends. And you can’t ‘fix’ what I think you’re saying was fixed. It isn’t magically or medically possible and besides that it doesn’t need fixing —”

“Does here, if you’re a Magister.” replied one of the elves. Anders frowned. 

“We’re just friends.” He said again. 

“Elarin, you owe me ten bucks.” Elarin blushed, and handed some of the coin from his apron over to a blond elf who extended her hand.        

“He's the one trying to open up the vote for Soporati on all levels, isn't he?” asked the same blond elf, pocketing her coin happily. 

“Pfft. Having fun with his new position, way I hear it,” another bit of gossip answering for him again, “at every party, and every after party, too.” 

Anders was still frowning through all of it, “no,” he cut in again, defensively, “he really is trying. The parties are part of the work, even just now he was arguing the bill with that Maximilian asshole. He's a good man.”

 “No such thing as a good Magister.” He’d learned all their names, and the one who said that was the same brown-eyed elf who’d come in swearing the first time. Nella, her name was, and she hadn’t come back much happier. Anders frowned some more, unsure what to say. 

The kitchen, despite being hot from the cooking, felt cooler and clearer than the crowd outside. Justice had no qualms with the serving staff, it seemed, and they had none with him, once they’d all learned where he was from and heard him laugh at a terrible joke or two. No one was eyeing his robes or monitoring his utensil choices while he ate, but he was still out of place.

As the speeches ended, the servers took up empty trays to clear away glasses from the crowd, and filed out one by one. Anders caught Elarin on his way out. 

“Can you find my friend and just tell him I’m fine and that I’ll meet him out there in a minute?” he asked, still dreading reentering that crowd or sitting through any more slow songs or arguments at their table, “or just tell him I can make an excuse whenever he wants to leave, whatever.” Anders amended the instruction; Dorian didn’t really need him for this, anyway.   

  Instead, Elarin came back with a full tray of empty glasses, and Dorian. 

“What are you doing, hiding in here?”

If Anders was out of place in the kitchen, then Dorian was a sore thumb. Elarin and Nella and the other elves — Gendrin, Dominic, Rena, and the two cooks, Red and Oscar — were all silent and stony as he stood there, looking at Anders. 

Anders shrugged. “Taking a break?” he said, too meekly, but Dorian only smirked softly at him. 

“I know it’s a chore, but everyone is drunk now, and the band seems to have figured out what a beat is. Why don’t you come dance?” he offered with a smile that fluttered in Anders’ stomach. 

“And you feel alright?” Anders checked nervously — he’d taken his eyes off Dorian and his drinks for Maker knows how long, hiding in the kitchen. “No one’s tried to bribe any of you except us, have they?” he turned the question to Elarin, inspecting him with intent eyes. 

Dorian crossed his arms and sighed. “I’m fine. Too fine, if you ask me. Would you quit being on the case and just enjoy this party for a minute?” 

 “I am enjoying it. I've had three extra helpings of cake.” Anders relaxed slightly, bantering back. 

 “You’re wasting your beautiful robes slinking around back here.” Dorian argued. 

 “Oh so now I’m all dressed up like you, I’m beautiful?” Anders raised an eyebrow and targeted Dorian with a challenging smirk of his own, finding some more of his confidence again, “very cute.”  

“Nonsense, you’re always beautiful.” Dorian said, smiling and smouldering and flippantly taking all of Anders’ confidence with him as he did, “tonight, you look divine.”  

The collection of silently watching serving staff stifled obvious giggles. 

“And you’re wasting it. Come on, the spotlight awaits us!” Dorian turned, and pushed his way dramatically out the door, his own gorgeous black robes flowing gracefully out and whisping away behind him.

[fencesandfrogs]

cloudtail’s daughter au

so i decided to do a full write-up of this au instead of doing a second post to cover books 4-6 and then everything will be self-contained.

the essence of this au is pretty simple: dovewing does not, imo, fulfill the prophecy by being the granddaughter of firestar’s nephew, because that’s at least 3 “kin” away from him. so while i think she’d actually have to be princess’ daughter to fit, i’ll let her be firestar’s grandniece and call that “close enough” because it’s better.

anyway, there’s no real reason for this to change anything, but i think given who cloudtail and brightheart are, and how close dovewing and ivypool are to whitewing, it would probably change quite a few things.

[4k words. 15 minute read. proper section headers.]

this is a big summary so i’m sure i’ll forget things, i’ve already had to add in the events caused by the dovewing/tigerheart romance/conflict that carries through the first three books, and that cloudtail being an atheist has a major effect on ivypaw. i know i wrote a detailed summary of the first arc, where i didn’t forget any of that, but nothing exists for the second arc. anyway this au is tagged cloudtail’s daughter and apparently i have a lot to say about it so i’m sure if you click on the tag you can find info about it. assuming this isn’t the first thing i post. which it might be.

section one: things that don’t happen

so i don’t want this to be a po3 rewrite, which means i’m going to take a moment to explicitly discuss what doesn’t change.

first, po3 stays pretty much exactly the same. i want jayfeather to be a warrior too. i also want him to be dovewing’s brother. but the au where brightheart gives birth to dovekit, anxiety child, and jaykit, blind, and feels like a failure despite the fact that its not like her half-blindness is genetic, is not this au. that is another au.

anyway, hollyleaf does keep herself more together, because she needs to be alive for some family drama. she’s in background character hell (BGCH) for a while, though, especially the first book.

she still goes to the tunnels, mind, she just comes out sooner.

but otherwise, despite my personal tastes, i’m not changing po3 very much.

section two: brightheart’s litters

okay so cloudtail and brightheart have four children, i believe, and my choice is either to replace whitewing, or to replace the others. now, i don’t particularly care for either of these options, but i’d rather they have their second litter younger, so we’re replacing amber/dew/snow. this still lets you have old queen drama, but not so much that you’re like “brightheart how on god’s green earth did you have 3 children with no issues”

instead, she’ll have dovekit and ivykit at about the same time whitewing had them.

now, for complicated cat genetic reasons, cloudtail could have been a black cat. now, here me out: what i mean is, if he wasn’t white, he could be black. basically, white is a masking color in cats, it goes on top of whatever pattern they would have displayed. both he and brightheart would have to inherit one dilute gene (princess was not dilute, so she had to carry it), and then either dovewing or brightheart are tortie, and that’s the best i can do for keeping dovewing grey.

i, personally, lean towards tortie brightheart, because i always pictured her that way, but i have seen some pretty cute tortie dovewing.

ivykit inherits red from her mother, and is tortie either way, because tortie ivypool is cute.

in fact, i’ve been tinkering with the idea that ivykit and dovekit have kind of mirrored grey and cream spots. not, like, perfectly mirrored, because that’s not how tortoiseshell/calico (they would technically be calico, since they have white) works, but close enough to be cute.

section three: arc one (summary)

these books are going to have six protagonists (dovekit, lionblaze, cinderheart, hollyleaf, jayfeather, ivypool, in that order) with a secondary character who gets less chapters but the most important b-plot (ivykit, hollyleaf, lionblaze, jayfeather, cinderheart, dovewing).

arc one focuses on “two braincells” i.e., dovewing, lionblaze, and cinderheart (sorry bb, ur not like the other two, but i’m putting you somewhere) and the main theme is dovepaw learning to manage her power. it’s a tug and pull between dovewing: glass canon, and dovewing: can’t do shit.

cinderheart and lionblaze also have a romance going on, which irritates ivypaw, who has a bit of a catalyst with the dark forest in the middle/end of the arc (like in the original). we only get this through external perspecives, though, because when this happens, lionblaze is in the secondary position.

one of the ways to fix this book series is to decouple it from ivy and dove, much as i love them. both the beavers and the dark forest make up a b-plot in this arc, while the quest for the third prophecy cat, as well as growing tensions between clans, take center stage, and lionblaze and cinderheart work in the second and third book to give us the adult perspective of the tension that dovekit and ivykit can’t in the first book.

mostly, this is fairly low stakes. part of that is because characters are having stakes appropriate for them, rather than smeared around in a book. (looking @ u, flametail buddy). so dovekit/paw spends her first book worried about apprentice things and doesn’t get to narrate again until the end of the series.

section four: book one — growing shadows

i think the fourth apprentice is a stupid name, okay?

so book one is dovekit and ivykit, for pretty obvious reasons.

although actually i’m pushing off the beavers in this to book two or three. i’m not 100% sure where i want that, yet.

so anyway, dovekit is born and wow is she anxiety child. (i call dovewing anxiety child a lot, because, well, she is? i feel like it’s sort of implicit in the books and i’m making it explicity.) anyway, she’s in sensory overload like 100% of the time. see, she was born late, and so she didn’t have her powers kick in over time like lionblaze and jayfeather. nope. she got the adult version right away.

so she spends a lot of time hiding with cloudtail because he’s big and fluffy and not complicated to look at. cloudtail and brightheart are understandibly pretty worried about her, because no one really knows what to do about it. she’s skittish and distractable and extremely sensitive. she hates going out in the rain, hates bright sun, etc.

(side note: dovekit’s powers extend to pretty much all her senses. she can see, hear, and smell much farther than she should, and she can taste and feel much more strongly than an other cat.)

ivykit doesn’t feel unloved, but she does know her sister is getting more attention, and that always kind of hurts, even if you’re understanding.

cloudtail and brightheart work to try to help dovekit get on her feet, but they’re not super successful. she learns to cope enough to be able to function as a kit, but she’s always kind of a strange, quiet kit. she doesn’t know how to talk about seeing too much because she doesn’t realize its too much.

dove is given to cinderheart, because lionblaze is a terrible mentor for small anxiety child, and ivy is given to lionblaze. this will also create drama later, just wait.

so the main plot of this book is keyed into dovepaw learning to hunt. the stakes are pretty low, honestly. they’re mounting around dovepaw and ivypaw, but the girls are too young to properly understand everything.

dovepaw is initially successful hunting due to some luck and being good at spotting prey, but she can’t replicate it. ivypaw only trains with her a bit at first, and she sees this success, and feels like her parents’ attention on dovepaw made dovepaw better than her.

this gets ivypaw into the dark forest. this is the b-plot: ivypaw training, realizing she made a mistake, and not knowing how to get out. plus, she doesn’t have to mind her sister. (ivypaw is raised by an atheist, so while she’s smart enough to eventually work out that these cats are evil, she doesn’t have a sunshine and rainbows view of starclan. that’s the only way i can justify her not being smart enough to nope the fuck out of there, even if she is really young and really angry.)

in clan life, ivypaw knows she needs to look out for dovepaw. she doesn’t mind, but she gets to experience a life without that in the dark forest.

dovepaw does mind how everyone treats her like she’s made of glass. she sees cinderheart talking to brightheart and jayfeather and firestar and feels like everyone thinks she’s useless. so she decides to go out on her own and prove she can function.

dovepaw starts sneaking out at night and she finds the tunnels. her senses dampened, she panicks, running deeper and deeper, getting lost. fallen leaves will find her, and help get her strength up and then get her out. kind of like with hollyleaf, who is out of the caves by now.

ivypaw sees everyone searching for dovepaw and starts to feel guilty about wanting more attention, and the fact that part of why she wants dovepaw back is so people pay attention to ivypaw again. she also feels responsible for this.

cinderheart is distraught, because she really did care about dovepaw, and it’s been three days, her scent tracked to the tunnels but it was raining and no one has seen her since, so she’s probably dead.

ivypaw, grieving, refuses to accept that dovepaw is dead and she hunts outside the tunnel mouth until she thinks she hears something.

dove and ivy reunite and return to the clan. ivypaw’s convictions that dovepaw needs to be protected are strengthened, and dovepaw knows she failed in her goal. everyone is happy to see them.

we get some fretting about how washed out everything is, how the rain didn’t even stick because the soil is so dry. that’s a cue to the drought, which will be a bigger deal next book.

section five: book two — fading echoes

honestly i’m not attached to book titles, but this works here too.

so this book is split between lionblaze and hollyleaf. i’m pretty sure hollyleaf is out of the caves by now, but i haven’t decided if she’s rejoined the clans. she feels strongly for fallen leaves: they’re listed as mates on the warrior cats wiki, and if hollyleaf and jayfeather are both going to have ancient dead ghost mates, she’s at least going to visit hers. her end goal is to get him to starclan so they can be together after her death.

anyway, this is beavers book. i don’t have a ton to say about it because it’s pretty much the same, except hollyleaf goes with dovepaw and cinderheart and she’s our pov as dovepaw falls for tigerheart because (and this is my understanding of her logic in the books to begin with): “big fluffy tom is safe fluffy tom.”

lionblaze feels the disconnect between him and ivypaw, but he can’t help that cinderheart is away. ivypaw is clearly preoccupied, but he can’t tell with what. his larger conflict is in finding the third cat.

this isn’t a filler book, per say. the tree falls and that happens, and lionblaze gets thrown into rebuilding camp. ivypaw feels doubly abandoned. lionblaze tries to win her affection, but he doesn’t know how.

beaver crew gets back. dovepaw has stars in her eyes. ivypaw is close to passing her warrior assessment, but lionblaze can tell she’s holding back because she doesn’t want to leave dovepaw. dovepaw can hunt by now, but she can’t really split her attention.

she’s scared of going into battle.

after a border skirmish where dovepaw just freezes, ideas of her being a medicine cat are raised.

ivypaw sees tigerheart in the dark forest, and she goes all bluefur being like “snowfur ur bf has rabies” on dovepaw, who is not happy with this. ivypaw pushes dovepaw to be a medicine cat because of this. the sisters are squabbling and barely talking.

book ends.

section six: book three — distant whispers

again not 100% sold on the names.

so this is cinderheart’s book, and she’s going to figure this out, because dovepaw and ivypaw are falling apart, and dovepaw deserves to be a warrior. so she convinces firestar to let her and lionblaze take ivypaw and dovepaw to the mountains. she believes, well, i’m not sure i haven’t worked that part out.

anyway, they go.

the tribe is like “yeah the world sure is a big place with a lot to look at. that’s why only half of us look.” (i know that’s not exactly how cave guard’s work but close enough.)

cinderheart is like “hm. what if, dovepaw, just a thought, what if you just, you know, avoid battles? i know it’s part of clan life but judging by the two souls crammed into my body, i’d say there’s been very few major conflicts over this and, reasonably, you should be able to avoid being chosen for battle control.”

dovepaw says, “but cinderheart, i’m a main character! unless i’m being punished or taught a lesson about duty, i’ll be automatically registered for every battle patrol until i die!”

cindheart says, “you’re right, i’m so sorry. hey ivypaw, [whoops yeah ivy and lion are here too sorry i forgot to mention that] what if you two learn to work as a team.”

dovepaw says, “i don’t want to work with her.”

ivypaw says, “that’s a great idea.”

because dovepaw talks very quietly (she forgets not everyone can hear as well as her), ivypaw wins.

they spend at least a month in the tribe, maybe longer, i’m not sure. eventually, they decide to go back. dovepaw is never happy in the tribe, it’s way too loud all the time, but she does manage to sort out her hunting issues, and so fighting is left.

so there’s still a big push for dovepaw to consider maybe being a medicine cat.

but that is not this au. this is the jaywing/dovefeather au where they basically switch roles. there’s a really good fic where dovepaw goes to riverclan for a while that i love and anyway this au is a as-close-as-possible to canon au for me to rectify my issues with dovewing in canon (nominally, i don’t have any, but i think her character was displayed…curiously, and i’m mad about the prophecy.)

ivypaw is team medicine cat. cinderheart and lionblaze are struggling. cinderheart eventually teaches dovepaw an extension of the techniques of the tribe, and they work out that dovepaw can kind of, track the cats she’s with to anchor herself in battle. this means dovepaw no longer is tied to ivypaw for her success, and so they both become warriors.

while they’re still in the tribe, ivypaw has time away from the dark forest and lionblaze finally puts two and two together, and that basically makes up the b-plot for the back half of the book, lionblaze trying to get ivypaw to admit what’s going on and then trying to help her.

dovewing’s senses begin to return but since they come back slowly she’s able to manage them. so she quickly excels in hunting.

ivypool cottons on to the dark forest breeding loyalty between its members, not to their original clans, and realizes that this is going to threaten all four of the clans.

end book with a bang, end first arc. we will now turn to the actually-have-more-than-two-braincells crew (sorry cinderheart, you don’t deserve to be in this group, but your prefix doesn’t end in -y, so you can’t be with jay/holly/ivy in the brainy crew.)

section seven: arc 2 (summary)

so this arc is when the main conflict (dark forest battle) becomes obvious. dovewing’s problems have been sorted out, so she’s pushed into BGCH for a little bit while the smart adults sort things out.

book three ends with ivypool realizing the dark forest isn’t a personal problem, but a clan-group (like, all of the clans together? not sure how to call it) sized problem. ivypool, jayfeather, and hollyleaf together manage to sort out a lot of the dark forest’s eventual plan, and they try to sort out a way to solve it. then the battle happens. that’s basically the summary?

in here, the clans start working together way sooner and the prophecy comes out way faster.

section eight: book 4 — the forgotten character

alright, hollyleaf is liberated from BGCH. actual title is still the forgotten warrior.

hollyleaf and ivypool start to bond, and hollyleaf is convinced all the clans need to know about what’s up.

ivypool disagrees, and they talk about it like rational people.

hollyleaf and fallen leaves are still cute.

jayfeather has his timetravel thing in this book so he can do flametail’s job in the next book. he gets to talk to hollyleaf and fallen leaves about it.

i don’t think i’d mess with jayfeather and briarlight’s relationship in this au, because i think it’s sweet in canon as is, but you know i have thoughts about half moon and briarlight. anyway, jayfeather gets his book next, this is about hollyleaf.

fallen leaves helps hollyleaf learn to control, idk, spirit dream travel? jayfeather helps with this too. hollyleaf has to share extra hard with jayfeather because she took up a disproportionate amount of time in lionblaze’s book.

so anyway, hollyleaf is learning to travel into the dark forest. similar to the way dark forest cats leave it? but in reverse. this is the main plot.

like the second book, it’s not really filler, so much as lower stakes, and like the second book, i don’t have a ton to say about it because the plot is self evident. unfortunately, hollyleaf has the two “chill” books. sorry bb.

anyway, this is building into jayfeather going all angry old man yells at sky at starclan next book, so the biggest conflict in this book is hollyleaf realizing she can just, leave. she can go back in time the way jayfeather did, but on purpose, save fallen leaves, and they can be alive.

i mean, that wouldn’t actually work, not the least because i’m not keen on hollyleaf being a reincarnation, espcially in the reincarnation-lite universe, but also because she can’t save fallen leaves, then he wouldn’t be a sharpclaw, not really, and like a whole host of other issues but anyway

at the end of power of three, hollyleaf runs away from her problems. this book is about her standing up to defend them.

i don’t know if she explicitly breaks up with fallen leaves, but they have a falling out that won’t get resolved until after the great battle. this is a mutual/not mutual thing where they both know that fallen leaves is stopping hollyleaf from fully committing to helping her clans now, but they love each other.

relationship conflict that isn’t forbidden romance.

speaking of, ivypool getting close to hollyleaf means that the two of them start to reconnect with their siblings. hollyleaf’s actions alienated her from jayfeather and lionblaze and she kind of just was sad and apologetic but they didn’t want to forgive her.

(sorry hollybush, says jayfeather,

that’s not my name, says hollyleaf,

oh, says jayfeather, guess i forget. well anyway, i have a new sister now. her name is dovewing.

dovewing?, says hollyleaf. but you don’t like her.

it’s okay, says jayfeather, she never tore my family to shreds and then abandoned me to deal with the fallout.)

(jayfeather and hollyleaf always seemed closer to me than lionblaze and either of them, until hollyleaf’s whole event. anyway he remains petty about everything and lionblaze stands by him because, well, he’s not wrong, also dovewing is important to cinderheart so he feels like he should be on her side on this which means jayfeather’s side. even though cinderheart is friends with hollyleaf look i said lionblaze is a loveable dumbass already, didn’t i?)

so anyway hollyleaf is sad and ivypool sees that and is like “hm maybe i shouldn’t be a petty bitch for no reason” and this is fine until after this series is over when dovewing and tigerheart are like “bitch we gon b together”

dovewing’s emotions get jayfeather to, well, not go back on his actions, but recognize hollyleaf is the most effective person to work with. because lionblaze and dovewing are just. so dumb.

and yeah this book ends with things feeling almost hopeful.

section nine: book 5 — sign of the moon

i cannot overstate how little i care about the titles of these books.

anyway, jayfeather and cinderheart.

i don’t have a ton of thoughts about this one. jayfeather reunites starclan, cinderheart helps convince ivypool and dovewing to work together. this is the book where clans find out about the propechy but not the dark forest that is for next book

they know something is coming, but everyone agrees not to give ivypool away yet. they like her, you know, alive.

anyway, i don’t have much to say because it’s pretty obvious what happens, because this is just a bunch of events from other books crammed into this book, now, and they’ve been written and i don’t see the need to make many changes.

cinderheart and lionblaze have kit drama, maybe? cinderheart counsels dovewing about tigerheart, maybe? my point is it’s not super important.

the book ends with the two warriors to every camp. and dovewing, jayfeather, and lionblaze, are going to get split up.

this is my biggest change so far imo because it’s the most plot relevant.

dovewing is going to shadowclan with ivypool. jayfeather is going to windclan with…i’m not sure yet? i don’t want him going to riverclan because leafpool has ties to riverclan and, well, i want jayfeather to get a chance to stand on his own. and lionblaze goes to riverclan, with either cinderheart or hollyleaf.

jayfeather is super grumbly about this, but admits that it’s important as a show of unity, and also, he’s pretty functional in wind clan? like they’re all playing to their strengths.

jayfeather learns to navigate pretty quickly, dovewing appreciates quiet and also not being that-strange-cat who everyone is super careful around, and lionblaze is big and gregarious and enjoys riverclan being chill and friendly. so yeah, people get a chance to chill and be happy.

ivypool is in position to be angsty next book.

end book.

section ten: book 6 — the last hope

despite my claim that the biggest change is sending the three to different clans, i don’t have a lot to say about it.

basically, well, okay

first, we see ivypool and dovewing again. reminder that last time we were in one of their heads, they were apprentices. in book one.

dovewing couldn’t even hunt last time we had her pov.

so there’s a few chapters to some characterization that happens. dovewing is no longer anxiety child. she’s somewhat shy, she’s soft spoken, but she’s not skittish. you can’t surprise her. and she’s intense. she’ll just stare at you with wide eyes if you come talk to her until you say something she wants to respond to.

ivypool sees why dovewing and tigerheart are good together. she’s still not supportive, but, like, he understands her. he doesn’t treat her like she’s fragile, but he also is kind and forgiving and soft to her.

plus he’s a total simp for dovewing. that helps.

anyway, ivypool gets along fairly well in shadowclan. i don’t have ton of thoughts about this.

ivypool, hollyleaf/cinderheart, and jayfeather’s companion, as well as half of the other cats away on missions, are acting as messengers between their host clans and their home clans. that’s how ivypool gets to find out about info. they meet on the island every morning. or something.

anyway, this bit is where i most hate the set up of this with two pov per book hard cap because it’d be cool to see into everyone else’s head but that’s for novellas and side stories.

the battle happens.

everything sucks. dovewing has basically committed to tigerheart, but bramblestar’s storm messes with the timeline.

and that’s pretty much it.

section eleven: what’s next?

so i swore i wasn’t starting new fic and then i thought of this and now i do want to write it so, maybe?

the most important thing is:

tl/dr: the reason dovewing shouldn’t have been a prophecy cat is because she’s not the kin of firestar’s kin.

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen X Wants to Like Guilty Gear Part 1: Allen X Does Not Like Guilty Gear

Folks, I tried. I really tried. For the last few years I’ve tried to like Guilty Gear. I’ve honestly been playing bits of this series since around the time Accent Core was on the PS3 store. I’ve really tried. I’ve played Accent Core Plus R, Xrd, Revelator and Rev 2, and I’ve been trying my damn hardest to like this series because I can see all the cool and fun stuff in it. I can see the cool grungy-rock meets 90s anime aesthetic. I can see how insane and cool Roman Cancel combos are. I can hear all the awesome music in the soundtracks. And I see all the blood, sweat, and tears poured into this series to make it the coolest hard-rock fighting game it wants to be and I really want to like it.

But I don’t... God, it’s Samurai Shodown all over again.

I just can’t get into this series, man. Something, some things about it keep me from fully enjoying it. Mostly some petty things that just add up and tumble the pile over, but things nonetheless. 

And... I wanted to talk about that a little. 

I wanted to just let out all my love and misgivings for the Guilty Gear in hopes of finally purging all the negative from my being, or at least write it out in a constructive manner so I can lay all my transgressions bare and maybe... possibly... actually want to purchase and play Strive on launch day.

But first, as usual, a synopsis. 

The Guilty Gear series is a fighting game developed by Arc System Works, helmed and created by Daisuke Ishiwatari, who I know as the composer of the Blazblue soundtrack, but has quite the large track record that I won’t go into here. Guilty Gear as a story focuses on the lone bounty hunter Sol Badguy, a human experiment known as a Gear, half-human, half monstrous being of science and magic. The storyline of each game tends to focus on Sol finding the humanity in his would-be marks as well as confronting the still-lingering humanity in himself as he copes with both his self-loathing and loathing the for one who made him this way, a scientist simply call That Man, or Asuka as the most recent games have shown us. The storyline itself is long and complicated but as of Strive it seems the final battle between Sol and That Man is finally at hand and the battlefield will be the United States.

Gameplay-wise, Guilty Gear is a fast-paced, combo-centric series that uses chaining attacks that can cancel into special and super moves, along with the unique Roman Cancels, which slow down time and leave your opponent open for more punishment mid-combo. Think the Chain Shift in Under Night with a bit more hangtime if you want a comparison, or the Rapid Cancel of the Blazblue series with a slowdown effect and more flash. 

And with the basics out of the way let’s talk about the specifics.

The Good Things

Of course, that isn’t to say I hate this game series. There’s a lot I like and enjoy about the Guilty Gear series that I’ll go into greater detail in a later essay, but for now I’ll give a brief mention of all the things I enjoy about it.

The Music

I was introduced to Daisuke Ishiwatari’s music through Blazblue, and while I love Blazblue music to this day I’ll also admit that it sounds very... video game-y. It doesn’t sound like something that could be listened to from anything other than a game. But Guilty Gear music sounds like actual music. I don’t mean that in an insulting way toward Blazblue, but... man does Pride and Glory sound like something you’d listen to while driving your pickup truck on the highway. Damn, does Get Down to Business sound like something an actual rock concert would play. And the Xrd soundtracks sound so good man. One Dawn, Enough is Enough, Starry Sky, Lily of Steel, they all sound so damn good. And as cheesy and over-the-top as they sound I love the LA and NY Vocals of this series. Personal favorites are Keep Yourself Alive II, Fuuga, and Suck a Sage. 

The Aesthetic

If there was one thing I didn’t really like about Blazblue it was a lot of characters, even the ones I mained, had an aesthetic I just couldn’t latch onto. A weird mix of fantasy, eastern, and early-2000s action anime that just didn’t click with me save for Hibiki Kohaku. Guilty Gear is a lot more my speed with a more rugged look to their characters. Something about a lot these characters just have that good mix of grunge and 90s fashion I love. Some of my favorites being Answer, Ramlethal, and Jam.

Tension

While there’s a lot about Guilty Gear’s mechanics I find unappealing and convoluted I love how building and using meter works in this series, specific in Accent Core Plus R. Dust being a sort of EX button works really well in this game since I personally feel like Dust is kind of under-used a lot of the time save for the universal sweep.  This point probably won’t get an entire essay covering it, but I did at least want to give it a shoutout.

Setting

This point will be getting its own essay, but to keep things short and simple I like the setting of Guilty Gear, medieval-esque magitech with a dash a modern-world flavor just hits with real well with me. Like a nice mix of Under Night and Tales of Symphonia.

And that’s it for the good stuff, at least the good stuff I can make into later essays. Now let’s talk about...

The Conflicting Things

Really, my issues with Guilty Gear are similar to Samurai Shodown and Granblue Fantasy Versus, where I love those game aesthetically, but actually playing them is another matter. However, unlike those two games my issues are almost the opposite. Where Samsho and GBVS had a slower and more fundamentals approach that didn’t appeal to my cocaine-esque addiction to combo chains, special cancels and air-dashing, Guilty Gear is almost too fast for my taste, or at least a different kind of fast. This is something very hard to explain. If you've read my initial thoughts on Crystar then you have a good idea about what I mean. This is something very hard to explain to people that haven’t played the game and is likely more a technical part of Guilty Gear’s mechanics that I can explain with an real sophistication aside from saying ‘this game feels weird,’ but... I’m gonna’ try.

The Button Layout

Alright, this is something I can actually explain. I’m... not a fan of 5-button fighters. Really, anything more than 4 buttons is hard for me to grasp. This is mostly due to the fact that I use a standard dualshock controller when playing fighting games. I frankly don’t have money for an arcade stick nor the patience to figure our how to work with one, so I’m stuck with the PS4 controller. For games like Blazblue, Granblue, and even stuff like Tekken and Dead or Alive this works out fine, as even when those games have a fifth or six button they usually aren’t heavily involved in combos or can be supplemented by other means. But games like Street Fighter, Skullgirls, and Guilty Gear the fifth and sixth button are used very liberally. Granted, Dust isn’t used as often as heavy punch, but it’s still a key button used for sweeps and air combos, turning my hands into pretzels as a results. 

I don’t you dare tell me to just get use to it or get good. I’m a Carl main. I’m used multi-tasking with my hands.

...

...

...

Dammit, that came out wrong, but you know what I mean. 

Anyway, a smaller issue I have is just the way Punch, Kick, Slash, and Heavy Slash are mapped both on the controller and on the display screen. It just doesn’t mesh well with me where they’re mapped, and switching the button layout honestly makes it worse because the display proper doesn’t adjust for where I map the buttons.

Roman Cancels

Roman Cancels are just a tool I don’t think I’ll ever find a good use for, or at least something that would take me a long time to use optimally. Like I said before, they’re basically Chain Shift with more hangtime, but it feels like the Rapid Cancel in the sense that I have to move very quickly after activating or I outright lose the combo, and unlike Chain Shift and Rapid Cancel where I can just ignore the mechanic, keep the meter, and focus on small, easy combos with good defense, Roman Cancels feel somewhat needed to do decent damage in this game. Or at least the trial mode really thinks so.

From what I’ve seen of Strive’s mechanics I think Roman Cancels will be a little easier for me to conceptualize and use, but... I dunno’, I’m not feeling too confident on that. 

I do recognize that this issue is a me problem, but it’s a probably I have nonetheless.

The Look

Specifically on Xrd, something about the 2.5D makes certain movements a little hard to read and judge. This isn’t something I can really describe that well, but something about that game specifically feels weird. Like the cell-shaded, 3D contrasts a little with the feel of motion in that game. I have a similar issue with the recent Street Fighter games as well. Again, it’s nothing concrete and it’s honestly indescribable for someone of my knowledge on the subject, but... something feels awkward when I’m playing this game in a serious light.

The Fandom

This has nothing to do with the game, but tends to create cracks in me when I play this game. As a guy that got into Arc System Works games via Blazblue Calamity Trigger, seeing a lot of the Guilty Gear be demeaning and insulting toward the Blazblue Community has always rubbed me the wrong way and I have a difficult time getting into this series in a more serious way because of it. I know this is likely a vocal minority, I know this isn’t every Guilty Gear fan, but it feels like a vocal side of Guilty Gear community keeps thinking that Guilty Gear is some sort of antithesis to anime air-dashers like Blazblue, as if the grungy rock aesthetic cancels out the anime aesthetic of Blazblue. This has always annoyed me, but it tends to crop up everytime someone brings up Guilty Gear designs versus Blazblue designs and while I find the idea of discussing and comparing the two interesting it always seems to devolve into insulting Blazblue.

Though to give a short version of my opinion this: I don’t want to hear shit about Blazblue waifus when Baiken mains don’t even play Baiken. And I especially don’t want to hear shit about Blazblue’s pandering fanservice when Dizzy, Ram, and Elphelt exist.

About Strive

I think that covers the main things keeping me from liking Guilty Gear, or at least playing Guilty Gear. So I want to talk about Strive, the next game coming up. This will also be something that will be expanded on in a later essay, but for now I’ll say I’m cautiously excited about Strive coming out and I look forward to at least giving it a shot. Though to give some rapid-fire bullet points on the matter... 

Overall, I think Strive looks great, the presentations is fantastic and I love a lot of the new designs for the characters, though I hear that opinion is actually contentious in the fandom.

I heard that Strive is gonna’ have a dub again. I’m... curious, but I’ll save my opinions for a different essay. Long story short, if they get a new director or the old director puts more care into the performances I’ll be happy. I did overall like Xrd’s original dub barring a few performances.

So far everything about Strive looks cool, but it’s still Guilty Gear, so... debating on if I wanna’ get that day 1. Especially since I still only have a base PS4. I’ve no interest in getting the new hotness for at least another year and gamers are self-centered demons that mock those using lesser hardware. That isn’t a Guilty Gear thing, it’s just a gamer thing.

For those wondering, if I pick of this game I’ll probably main Chipp, Ram, and maybe Giovanna.

I have mixed feelings about the soundtrack. Save for Smell of the Game the lyrics in the themes I’ve hard are a mix of okay to... not okay. Hope they have versions without the lyrics similar to Raven in Rev 2.

And I think that’s everything. Next... probably another essay about Arknights.

[miraculouscontent]

“favorite salt blogger” eXcUse yOu

But yes, I am absolutely up for another Alya roast.

[All’s Fair in Love and Lore]

First things first, I want to reiterate something I brought up a long time ago (back when I talked about “Mayura”), which is my relationship with lore and how it affects my opinion of an episode.

I see lore as a seasoning, not as a main course, so it’s rather difficult to get me riled up over details about lore. I mean, a lot of people complained about Mayura’s power, for example, but I was not one of those people. The core of my critique and analysis lie in character interactions and plot details, not lore. If the lore is good, great, but if it’s lackluster/bad, I’m not as likely to hammer away at it compared to say, someone like Alya (we’ll get to her in a moment, I promise).

Anyway, I’m gonna be honest in saying that I wasn’t expecting Fu’s foe to be a sentimonster of his own creation. I mean, we’d known for a long time that the destruction of the temple was caused by something that Fu did, but we didn’t know what until now.

As for the reasoning itself, I’m mostly on board because Fu was like, a dumb teenager who didn’t even want to be a guardian, so the fact that it was a silly mistake makes sense to me. My biggest gripe is honestly just that they didn’t clarify how Fu dropped his staff and then couldn’t go after it. Is it going to be revealed after all this time that the man can’t swim?

(that problem might’ve been solved had the flashbacks shown less and been more vague visually; same applies to him talking about losing the grimoire and peacock+butterfly)

I’m aware that a lot of people thought that there’d be more build-up/tension from Fu making a mistake that literally destroyed a whole temple, and I think the reason for that is that we, as an audience, weren’t told that it was such a small mistake. When we see the temple being destroyed and Fu looking on with regret, it makes the situation seem really big and important, like Fu trusted someone he shouldn’t have and that someone was a big bad of some kind.

I can’t blame people for being disappointed, but considering that the temple and all its residents were brought back in the end, I’m glad it was just a foolish mistake made by a salty hungry teen that could simply be reversed, because Fu didn’t deserve to live his entire life feeling guilty over it. Like, yeah, there are some obvious things that should probably be addressed (i.e: the fact that these residents have been gone for almost 200 years) but eh, details, I don’t really care that much.

Though, I guess we know why Wang “bicycle away from all problems” Fu isn’t that great as a guardian now; he’s had a few years of training at best. It doesn’t excuse everything he did and I wish it was more of a plot point but still.

Plus, him being like, “yeah, forget how the actual guardians tried to teach me because clearly that did nothing for me mentally,” was very amusing to me and also, yeah, I don’t think that starving teens for 24 hours who don’t even want this darn job is a great idea either.

That said, I do feel like this episode kind of has the “Ladybug” problem where they’re focusing on two characters at once, and in both “Ladybug” (an episode that should be Marinette-centric) and “Feast” (an episode that should be Fu-centric), that second character is Nathalie/Mayura. I don’t technically have an issue with Nathalie getting focus in a narrative sense (though, am I the only one who thinks that the foreshadowing in “Ladybug” over Emilie using the peacock is pointless now? I felt like Adrien saying “the same thing happened to my mom” is enough.), but when Fu already doesn’t get a lot of focus outside of plot-centric episodes (technically Marinette doesn’t either but she has screen time), I feel bad for the guy. I think Nathalie’s plot points could’ve been used better in an episode like “Miraculer” since Chloe already gets more than enough focus.

Granted, if this episode was a two-parter, I would’ve been all for Nathalie getting focus because this episode is about a sentimonster, so it makes sense, but I don’t think the episode was able to touch on both topics in full in the time it had, and it’s just weird in general that this season is a downgrade from Season 2 in that respect, where Season 2 had multiple two-parters (one of them technically being a three-parter) whereas Season 3 only has one two-parter. I believe I’ve talked about it before, but now it’s two episodes that could’ve been worthy of being two-parters (three if counting “Miraculer” but I was reaching on that one), so it’s even more noticeable than before.

What I do like about the episode is the Marinette and Fu interactions along with Marinette and Adrien being heroic civilians. It was also interesting to see Wayzz lecturing Fu about how Fu was making a mistake because it’s nice seeing Wayzz have more input on the matter.

Also, Plagg playing piano with Adrien was good. I guess Sadrien was inevitable since Nathalie’s sick but thank goodness it’s brief.

...you know what I didn’t like though?

[Abandon Hope, Alya Who Enter Here]

Gosh darn--Alya, I swear, I leave you alone for one episode (for the most part) and I guess you didn’t like that or something because DANG.

Now, look, I totally get Alya being in pursuit of more information. In fact, I'd be in full support if we got to see more of Alya coming up with in-depth theories, whether they're true or not.

The problem is that Alya has no tact when doing so, and this brings me all the way back to "Oblivio" when I rambled about the fact that Alya took that photo and posted it online without Ladybug's permission, despite Ladybug having trusted her, given her an interview, and gave her a miraculous on multiple occasions.

And I do not believe for one second that Alya ever gave up on figuring out Ladybug's identity here. She clearly gets nervous when Marinette calls her out for it, and I don't see "figuring out Hawk Moth's identity" as her only goal.

Her actions here are particularly insulting because of the severity in what she's doing. Either Alya believes that her theory isn't accurate and that's why it's okay to post it, or she's just that reckless in what she's doing.

Considering her track record, I'm inclined to go with the latter.

Furthermore, Alya explaining all of these things when she already has a video about it on her blog is dumb for two reasons. One is that she's presuming that neither Marinette nor Alix follow her blog (at the very least, she presumed that Marinette did back in "Dark Cupid"), and two, she put her blog first and her friends second when prioritizing who should know. It just seems superfluous for her to tell her friends this information when she's already made a video about it (at least run it by them for a quality check first jfjisoshfhf).

And speaking of prioritizing who should know, Ladybug should know and Alya doesn’t even run it by her first either. Presuming that “The Mime” happened by now (basically impossible for it to have not), Marinette has already given Alya an interview with Ladybug, so Marinette should be the first one that Alya goes to so she can be like, “Hey, can you get a hold of Ladybug again so I can ask if this is accurate/helpful?”

I dread what would’ve happened had Alya gotten her hands on the grimoire somehow. Every single page would’ve been posted to the Ladyblog without a single thought and the mere idea of that is horrifying.

The fact that Alya mentions Hawk Moth yet doesn’t even realize the gravity of what she’s doing is ridiculous, and going further to have Marinette apologize to Fu for giving Alya the fox miraculous but not having it be directly addressed (i.e: not having Ladybug visit Alya to talk about privacy; again, having this be a two-parter would’ve been nice) while Alya clearly learns nothing by the end of the episode is just--

it’s dumb. Alya wouldn’t even have needed to get a talking to by Ladybug anyway if the episode had just had Alya see the crushed/missing statue at the museum and made the connection that, “oh, I posted a video about this statue and now the statue is gone and a terrible monster hungry for miraculouses with that same symbol on its head showed up not too long after HMMMMMMM.” The episode claims that Alya is a great journalist only to then not have her connect the dots because... like, tunnel vision, I guess???

And that wouldn’t be a problem if it were just addressed, but instead, now we have yet another female character who has their hero status brought into question, leaving Ladybug as the only female who is undoubtedly trustworthy (not counting Alix, the eventual bunny holder).

It’s so baffling to me that the episode goes out of its way to bring up the issue of what Alya’s doing and why it’s dangerous, only to then not discuss it further. I don’t know if the episode went through rewrites that ended with the scene cut out, but that scene would’ve been important unlike... say, Alya getting on Marinette’s case for staring at Adrien (and the award for the most irrelevant scene in this episode goes to--).

I mean, despite what I said about the episode itself and it needing more time in general, the episode can’t spend time on pointing out that Alya has made a mistake only to then not take the time to address it and instead show that Alya hasn’t learned anything.

Thus, given “Reflekdoll” and now this, we see that even if Alya is clearly at fault and/or needs to learn a lesson, regardless of whether the writers are aware of it/point it out or not, nothing will come of it.

*sigh*