#so this will probably be only a fraction of my projects next year

[that-agender-from-pluto]

OK, so I posted about making the master sword as a project (and pics of that are coming I just had some problems moving it outside to seal it so it needed mending (the problems being I ran into a door))

This has led to me deciding that I'm gonna be Link for Halloween next year

Buut It won't take me a whole year to make that costume

So send me some ideas on what link outfits you want me to make lol

[fbfh]

curiosity is a wonderful thing - ch 8

wc: 3.1k

genre: slowburn, friends to lovers, fluff

pairing: audrey x ben, mal x ben????, eventual ben x daughter of alice!reader

warnings: audrey being a lil bitch again, mind control/hypnosis magic, implanted thoughts, minor emotional manipulation from mal

summary: disappointed again by Audrey's motivations, Ben prepares for a huge tourney match. But something - or someone - becomes very distracting all of a sudden.

song recs: the king - sarah kinsley, mind control - topsecret, do it for her - steven universe soundtrack

a/n: so we took in a stray cat (orange ofc) and he literally did this to me the other day???? peak orange cat behavior tbh. not my pic if that wasn't obvious

TAGS @yesv01 @magcon7280 @hopefullhearts @thatawkwardlittlefangirl @sunshineangel-reads @dustyinkpages @inejsknifes @tulipmagnoliaisme @ev3ningrain

“So, where’s bunny?” Audrey asks Ben as they head to the tourney field. She says his nickname for you with a note of venom. Even though it rarely happens, whenever someone else refers to you as bunny it always hits Ben’s ear wrong. 

“She’s probably just running late,” Ben says, “nothing out of the ordinary.” 

He says it sweetly. You three were supposed to meet up before the match today, but Ben figures you probably took a wrong turn, or got tied up in a project. Ben covers for you like that a lot. He doesn't mind at all, and since he can't go with you to Wonderland, he feels like this is the next best thing. Or the least he can do, he supposes.

“Well great, that's…” Audrey starts, trailing off as she gets distracted by a group of girls. More specifically, by how amazing their hair is. She tries to pay attention to what Ben is going on about this time, but their hair… it’s too distracting. It looks photoshopped. It looks like the hair they use in salon ads and shampoo commercials. She glares at them, her gaze venomous until she realizes her eyebrows are all scrunched up. She snaps out of it, smoothing out her face. First not just one person with better hair than her, but multiple girls with hair so much better than hers that she’s going to get wrinkles over it? What’s next, mixing patterns? Unblended eyeshadow? Orthopedic shoes?

“Do you think they actually paid for those?” She spits conspiratorially.

“D- uh, they- they might have…” Ben sputters at the sudden change of topic, following her gaze and trying to figure out what exactly has got Audrey in such a bad mood suddenly. 

“She did it to Jane’s hair too,” Audrey continues in that tone she only gets when spreading gossip. “And Fairy Godmother’s not happy about it.”

Oh. She’s talking about their hair. 

The realization dawns on Ben, and he takes a closer look at the group of girls. The girl on the left’s new color and style remind him a lot of yours. It looks good. Ben glances back at Audrey, realizing she’s this upset over someone else’s hair.

“I mean… what’s the harm?” Ben starts gently. From what you’ve told him about Mal and Evie, Mal is probably just trying to make friends with the makeup and fashion tips she’s picked up from Evie - and as far as Ben’s concerned, that’s something that should be encouraged. Before he can finish his thought, Audrey interjects, as she so often does when the conversation isn’t about her.

“It’s gateway magic!” She exclaims incredulously, as if this should be obvious to him. 

Gateway magic? That’s… not a thing… Ben thinks, wondering for a fraction of a second if Audrey might be joking. The only reason that magic is retired in the first place is because of the technology boom that came from Auradon’s alliance with Atlantis. All the new technology can do pretty much anything magic can do in people’s day to day lives. 

Aside from that, it’s also much easier to regulate and add in safety precautions. Most people have become more interested in exploring and expanding new technologies than focusing on magic and its traditions. Ben has a feeling that in the coming years, magic will eventually begin to be re-incorporated into society, but for now, it’s somewhat obsolete. Technology is easier to learn, gets more consistent results, and you don’t need to dig through ancient texts for information - one quick Doogle search and you’re good to go. 

“I mean, sure, it starts with the hair.” Audrey continues, and Ben can sense a tangent coming. “Next thing you know it’s the lips, then the legs, then the clothes, and then everybody looks so good, and…”

As he listens, Ben starts to see her point. If using magic to alter the way you look becomes common, it could have dire consequences. Adolescence is a fragile time, and if cosmetic alterations start running rampant at Auradon Prep, who knows how detrimental that could be to the student body’s self image and self esteem? The last thing Ben wants is to contribute to misogynistic, unrealistic beauty standards, give young girls even more unattainable ideologies to compare themselves to. 

He’s sure Mal is well intentioned with all this makeover stuff, and he doesn’t want to punish her for efforts to make friends - solve one problem by causing another. If he can just talk to her, have a heart to heart and explain why he’s concerned, he’s sure she’ll understand. That way they can collaborate, come up with a solution for how Mal can make friends without doing anything that could inadvertently create a negative aftermath. 

“...Then where will I be?” 

Audrey’s voice breaks Ben’s momentary, spiraling train of thought. He looks at her as she pouts, fussing with her own hair. She pulls out a compact mirror and begins inspecting her face. The realization that Audrey is only worried about herself yet again sends a flash of disappointment through him. Maybe if things were different he could talk to her about it, maybe he could get her to understand. But he still has a tourney game to get ready for, a meeting with his parents after that, and a new potential crisis to put out. 

“Listen, Audrey-”

Either she doesn’t hear him, or she doesn’t want to, and cuts him off again - something Ben starts to realize he’s growing very used to. She snaps her compact shut and looks at him vaguely, digging around her bag for her plumping lip gloss. She makes a mental note to get more, the extreme plumping kind if she wants to get ahead of all this magic beauty bullshit on the horizon.

“I will see you after my dress fitting for coronation, ‘kay?”

“O-Okay…” Ben replies, but Audrey is already bounding away.

“Bye bennyboo.” She calls out behind her, leaving Ben alone in the hall. He feels himself cringe a little at her repeated use of the nicknam, but reprimands himself. It’s well intentioned - well enough at least - so he shouldn’t be judgemental. 

Behind him in the empty hall, Mal stands, staring at the back of Ben’s head intently. She steadies herself with a breath. She’s been practicing on the birds outside her window - she even practiced on Carlos a few times - she’s been pouring over her mom’s spellbook nonstop since yesterday, she’s ready. She has to be. She takes a breath and walks forward, clearing her throat. 

“Hey bennyboo!” She says, sarcastic and saccharine. 

Ben turns around, startled by the sound of Mal’s voice, and bites back a sigh. He really wishes people would just call him Ben. Before he can greet her, Mal takes a few steps closer, locking eyes with him, and holds up a baggie of cookies that look very… homemade. 

“Do you want one?”

He looks at the cookies briefly, then smiles at Mal. It seems a little strange that she would take up something like baking when she refuses to even take an art class, but Ben is too distracted by the fact that she’s finally putting a good foot forward. She’s doing something kind, making a gesture, she’s trying.

“Oh,” he chuckles, smiling and trying to find a polite way to decline. He never eats right before a tourney match, especially dessert. 

“I uh,” he starts, fumbling for words that always come so easily. “I’ve got a big game - I don’t eat before a big game, but thank you so much!” He adds quickly, her eyes locked onto his. Have they always been that green? 

“T-thank you. Next time, next time definitely.” He concludes. He should go. He needs to go warm up or he’s going to be late. Why is he still standing there?

“No, yeah.” Mal says, pulling his thoughts back to her. If her eyes had always been so intense, such a vibrant, glowing green, Ben is sure he would have noticed before. “I completely understand.”

Mal smiles sadly. 

“Be wary of treats offered by villains…” She laughs sadly, eyes still locked on his, drawing him in. “I’m sure every kid in Auradon knows that.” 

Panic and guilt flash through him. 

“No, no, no-” He fumbles, trying to explain, but finding the words feels like trying to run through quicksand. He can feel his brain slowing down, struggling to think, growing more and more quiet. 

“No, that’s not it,” he sputters, desperately trying to correct her impression of him, that he doesn’t trust her, doesn’t like her. “I- I really do-” 

He gestures weakly toward the tourney field, eyes still locked on Mal’s, stuck in her entrancing gaze. Everything around him seems to glow with a tinge of that green, that intoxicating emerald color of her eyes. He tries to say something, but there are no words in his head to draw on. It’s like someone cut the power supply to his mind, leaving him reeling in the dark, stuck in place as Mal stares him down, inching closer to him. He can’t think, can’t blink, can’t move. All he can do is watch the shades of green emanating from Mal’s eyes, casting everything around him in emerald and lime and harlequin. He wishes he could say something, then slipping into the back of his mind like a snake, words begin to form. 

Everything you say and do makes everyone believe you’re wildly in love with me. Even yourself. 

Everything you say and do makes everyone believe you’re wildly in love with me. Even yourself.  

“No, I get it.” Mal says out loud, sounding just like the strange orders permeating Ben’s mind. “You’re cautious, that’s smart.” 

Everything you say and do makes everyone believe you’re wildly in love with me. Even yourself.

“Oh well,” Mal sighs, “more for me I guess…”

Everything you say and do makes everyone believe you’re wildly in love with me. Even yourself. 

She holds up her sugary concoction between them. 

Everything you say and do makes everyone believe you’re wildly in love with me. Even yourself. 

Ben steps forward.

Everything you say and do makes everyone believe you’re wildly in love with me. Even yourself. 

He reaches out his hand, compelled by her, then hesitates.

Everything you say and do makes everyone believe you’re wildly in love with me. Even yourself. 

“Eat the cookie, Ben.” Mal says, her melodic voice sounding just the same out loud as it does echoing around his head. 

Everything you say and do makes everyone believe you’re wildly in love with me. Even yourself. 

“Eat it!” She snaps. Ben reaches out automatically, taking a bite. The glow in Mal’s eyes softens, a glint of that green still reflected in Ben’s, and he blinks, trying to come out of this strange stupor. 

“See?” He replies hazily. “I totally trust you. Totally.” 

Mal smirks. She glances over at her friends, who Ben didn’t even notice. Mal looks back at Ben. 

“...How are they?” She asks tentatively. Her heart pounds uncontrollably in her chest. This is the moment of truth. She can feel Evie and Jay and Carlos all holding their breath, right along with her. 

“They’re good, they’re great.” Ben answers quickly. “They’re amazing! They’re, uh…”

A warm, fizzy feeling fills his mouth, trickling down his throat as he swallows. 

“I mean, they’re warm, and chewy, and-” he sputters mindlessly. That addictive, bubbling, fizzy feeling spreads from his throat to his chest, making him feel all hazy and disoriented. “And, you know, they…”

He trails off for a moment. That warm, itchy fizzing feeling begins bubbling in his stomach, spreading throughout the rest of his body. 

“Is that walnuts?” He blurts out, continuing to ramble mindlessly about the cookies. “I love walnuts.”

She knows that, comes Mal’s voice in his mind again, she must know that. That’s why she put them in there. God, she’s so beautiful, and considerate too. Always thinking about other people before herself…

“And, um, you know, the chocolate… the- the chocolate…” he sputters. “The chocolate chips are… uh…”

The earth seems to move around him, absolving him of all his duties, all his responsibilities and obligations besides pleasing her. 

“Sorry. They’re, uh… they’re warm, and soft, and sweet…” He rambles, describing the angel before him more than the cookies. His breathing gets shallow as he subconsciously steps closer, needing her like he needs air. He’s fixating on her again, aching for another hit of that intoxicating look she had trapped him in.

“Mal, have you always had those little golden flecks in your eyes?” He murmurs, voice more low and intimate as he gazes down at her. He’s looking at her differently than he had been - that much is obvious. He reaches up to take another bite of the cookie and she gasps, grabbing it from him.

“I think that’s enough for now…” She says. Ben chuckles, his gaze unwavering. She’s so considerate, always looking out for him in little ways that no one else does. His pupils dilate as he stares at her, overwhelmed by a sense of familiarity, comfort. A strange, aged brew of feelings rises up through him. It makes him think of something, remind him of someone, but he can’t put his finger on it… He’s so wrapped up in the sensation that he doesn’t even notice Jay standing behind him until he speaks, placing his hands firmly - and somewhat roughly - on Ben’s shoulders.

“How you feeling, bro?” Jay asks. There’s a knowing element, a note of some inside information shared between Jay and his friends within his words, but it goes right over Ben’s head. Everything in his mind is screaming Mal Mal Mal! You want to be around Mal as much as possible! She’s your whole world, and you’re totally obsessed with her! 

“I feel… I- I feel…” Ben murmurs, eyes still locked on Mal’s as he tries to find the words, struggling to put his finger on it. A dreamy smile crosses his face.

“I feel like singing your name-”

Mal’s eyes widen in fear and she moves forward, clamping her hand over Ben’s mouth before he can even think about actually doing it. He wasn’t going to, but he smiles into her palm as he realizes she thought he was serious. 

“Okay, well,” Mal says softly with a nervous chuckle. They’re attracting too much attention like this already, and she knows they have to move on if they want a chance at pulling this off. “Don’t do that.”

Ben takes in a deep breath, and the scent of worn, grungy leather and spray paint fumes invades his senses. There’s something else too… nail polish? It’s intoxicating coming from her skin, dizzying, and he wants more. He takes her hand in his, holding it tenderly and inspecting it closely for a moment, his eyes fixated on her bitten nails. They glint in the afternoon light, reflecting off the sparkly, cracked mixture of purple and green polish. Just like her eyes. He looks up at her so softly, and it makes her feel sick. 

“When did you do this?” He asks, glancing back at her nail polish, his thumbs tenderly grazing over her fingers and knuckles. 

“Um-” Mal starts. She’s uncomfortable. She’s not used to having this much attention unless she’s getting screamed at or is knee deep in a gang fight. She’s… unsure of what to do with Ben looking at her like that. He continues before she can try to figure out a response.

“It looks really good, it… it suits you…” He says wistfully, staring at her hand and wanting so badly to kiss it. He looks back up at Mal, and the intensity in his eyes, in his body language makes her waver for a moment. She looks over Ben’s shoulder at Jay, silently begging to bail her out. Jay bites back a laugh at the sight of big bad Mal squirming when someone shows interest in her, but he nods anyway. 

“We gotta go, we have a big tourney match to get ready for.” Jay says, playfully shaking Ben’s shoulders in hopes of snapping him out of his stupor. It doesn’t work, but he hears what Jay is saying anyway. “Right Carlos?”

Carlos blinks, walking closer to help drag Ben away. 

“Uh, right. See you later, Mal.” He says, shooting Mal a thumbs up, silently congratulating her on pulling off such a complicated, difficult spell. Ben feels his heart plummet as Jay pulls him away, Mal’s hand slipping out of his. He twists around in Jay’s grip, struggling to not let her out of his sight yet. You can’t leave her yet, you can’t! 

“You’ll- you’ll be at the tourney match, right Mal?” He asks, a distinct note of desperation reaching for her as he speaks. 

“Yup.” She answers with a performative smile, skin crawling at all the attention he’s throwing at her. “I’ll be the one in purple.”

She mutters the last part under her breath, muscle memory kicking in as she deflects her unexpected discomfort with verbal jabs. She doesn’t think anyone will hear her remark, much less acknowledge it if they do, but she flinches a little as Ben laughs loudly. “I’ll see you there.” He says, beaming at her. Mal can’t remember the last time she made someone laugh out of anything other than fear. 

“I’ll see you right after.” 

He repeats it desperately, like a prayer. Like he’s trying to convince himself that the pain of being apart from her will be over soon. A cold sweat breaks out on the back of Mal’s neck. She grabs Evie’s arm, desperate for some sense of comfort, and walks away as quick as she can without breaking out into a full blown sprint. 

Jay and Carlos attempt to drag Ben away, a little surprised at how hard he’s fighting to look back at Mal every few seconds. Eventually, after a lot of squirming at talking out loud about how great she is, how pretty her eyes are, isn’t she just the best, they manage to get Ben to the tourney field to get ready for the match. Ben stumbles through his usual routine when getting ready for a match, his head swimming the entire time. He’s completely preoccupied with thoughts of Mal. Soon it’s time to head out onto the field, and it couldn’t come sooner. 

Mal is out there, waiting for him, and he is not going to let her down. He calls out morale boosting chants with the rest of the team, psyching himself up to lead his team to victory, because Mal is going to be up in the stands watching him. He’s going to break records, play the best game of tourney in history for her. Everything he does is for her.

[iaminfourthwing]

The Generals Daughter

Chapter VI

“He said he’ll handle you?” I laugh out loud while Violet is a blushing mess between Rhiannon and me. We are taking our seats for Battle Brief that’ll start in a few minutes.

“That is the kinkiest shit I’ve heard so far” Rhiannon adds with a smirk.

“Nah, I think the way our girl here described the way his shadows felt around her is her admitting how she want to be handled in bed- ““OKAY! Stop that now please!” And now she is beet red. Rhi and I burst out laughing while the others around us find their seats, Sawyer and Ridoc taking their usual spots next to me while looking confused by our laughter.

“Can you people be any louder?” a feminine voice sneers in front of us. When I look forward, I meet Luca’s eyes who looks as annoyed as I feel by her presence. “Some of us are trying to study” she continues with a roll of her eyes.

Studying? Her? The past lessons, no matter the class, she asked the most unimportant and actually dumbest questions.

“What color was the dragon that was attacked?” “Do you think gryphons could be trained to spit fire?”

Like- what the actual fuck?

Ridoc snickers to himself while thinking the same. The second and third years are walking by and Imogen is giving the girl in front of us the nastiest side eye I have ever seen.

I make eye contact with the boy behind her. Bodhi Durran, Xaden’s cousin and probably the most beautiful man on the continent. He is incredibly handsome with dazzling brown eyes and tawny brown skin. I would pay a good money to get a chance to stroke my hand through his thick black curls adorning his head just once. Violet said his features reminds her of Xadens, and while I see what she means, I think Bodhi is divine in his own way. His smile is lovely, and he holds himself with so much confidence and grace, I am jealous of everyone that can call themselves his friend. My father would kill me if he could hear me right now.

Before I can start to blush, I cast my eyes forward to Luca.

“You know Luca, if stupid could fly, you definitely wouldn’t need a dragon, and everyone could live a bit more peaceful here without your annoying ass.” My smirk is downright devilish, but it serves its purpose – she is offended. Sawyer loses it and Ridoc starts laughing too. Violet and Rhiannon giggle to themselves.

Luca rolls her eyes again and opens her mouth to say something, but I am faster. “Keep rolling your eyes. Maybe you’ll find a brain back there.” I need to get my sassy side under control before it backfires in the form of my father.

Laughter fills the hall and the boys next to me gasping for air while trying to get their hollering under control. I can even see Dain trying to fight of a smile, as he walks past us. He finds her just as annoying as everyone else does.

Lucas cheeks redden with embarrassment and she finally turns back around.

The boys are still laughing but it’s a raspy chuckle behind me that gains my attention. Turning my head slightly to the left I make eye contact with the blue ones of cadet Liam Mairi, Tail Section in Fourth Wing, Second Squad. He surprises me by giving me an amused smile and wink to which I just chuckle lightly and turn back after Violet jabs her elbow in my ribs because Devera entered the hall.

After Battle Brief our next lesson is with Professor Kaori, one the only Professor after Devera and Emetterio I kind of like and respect. As an illusionist his signet allows him to project whatever he sees in his mind.

“Red Scorpiontails, like Ghrian here, are the quickest to temper. Keep that in mind, when you approach one at Threshing and better decide fast if you need to run.” The projection of a massive red dragon in the middle of the room shows just a fraction of its actual size. The reds can be vicious, I’ve already met one when I was with the General at the Samara Outpost.

“So if you offend him, you are-“ “Lunch” Ridoc interrupts him from next to Violet. I chuckle but it’s true. You better do your best to avoid them.

“So, what is the best way to approach them?” Professor Kaori asks the class. “They like it more when you approach them from the left and front, if possible” I answer.

“That’s right. This year there are three Red Scorpiontails willing to bond of they find their match.” He switches the image to another dragon.

“How many dragons are there in total?” Rhiannon asks. We are all looking forward to Kaori with excitement, nervous about what the answer will be.

“A hundred for this year.” My brows hit my hair line. That’s thirty-seven fewer than last year!? Shit, that will get bloody when Threshing arrives. There could be a lot less after Presentation, two days before Threshing, and the dragons will change their minds after seeing the cadets for this year. I mean … I would understand them, some of these cadets are pathetic, physically and mentally.

“…but I am not about to lie to you and say that we’re not seeing increased breaches when you know from Battle Brief that we are.” I catch the rest of Kaori’s answer. It’s frightening how fast the wards are faltering and I tense every time when Devera starts the daily Battle Brief.

A massive navy-blue dragon appears in the middle. Sgaeyl, Xaden’s dragon.

“No blue dragon is willing to bond this year, so you don’t have to worry about how to approach one, but you need to recognize Sgaeyl if you see her” Kaori says.

“So, you can fucking run” Ridoc drawls. The others laugh, but it’s true too. No one with any common sense and brain would even dare to look at her direction or approach her with or without her rider by her side. Xaden is ruthless but Sgaeyl … you better find somewhere else to be because she is downright malicious, as my father would describe her. She is a beast through and through.

“There are other blues in active service and all of them are intimidating, but Sgaeyl is the most powerful of them all” he adds in a serious tone. No wonder she bonded Xaden. They are the most powerful dragon rider duo of our generation.

“What about the black dragon?” a first year from First Wing asks. “I want that one” Jack says with excitement shining in his eyes.

“Oh, hell no!” I say out loud, turning some heads in my direction, Jacks included. He is glaring with a mix of hatred and amusement in my direction.

“Not that it is going to matter” Professor Kaori interrupts our glaring contest with a flick of his wrist and then there is … Codagh. I avert my eyes immediately to the side and turn my head, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Violet, her concerned eyes finding mine. Besides my father, she is the only other person who knows my history with the black beast. I catch Liams gaze over her head and while he looks confused by my reaction, I can also see … concern? I give him a reassuring smile, or more like a grimace since I am confused myself. Why is a marked one, especially a Mairi, concerned about my wellbeing?

“But just to appease your curiosity, since it is a bit rare to see him, this is Codagh, General Melgren’s dragon.” I can feel his eyes on me, and sense some heads turning in my direction again. “Ignore them Arya” I repeat to myself mentally.

“And this one” Kaori changes the image to another black dragon “you’ll never get to face again, not in the wild at least. He has a massive Morningstartail with unbendable power.”

“He looks like a killing machine” Jack calls out, still excited.

I notice Violet shifting uncomfortable in her seat. And while I try to blend out the image of this massive dragon that reminds me way too much of my father’s beast, Kaori answers some questions about him.

“… he is one of the deadliest dragons in Navarre.” No one saw him for the past five years since his previous rider, Naolin, died trying to resurrect Brennan Sorrengail in the Battle of Aretia. Father told me about them, how they died for the kingdom, next to each other. How Brennan was killed by Fen Riorson, Xadens father.

“How do you approach him?” Jack demands to know. That’s where I draw the line.

“You especially don’t because the continent doesn’t need a fucking psychopath with a dragon like him. Besides if he would be willing to bond, I am pretty sure that he would be smart enough to choose someone that is not you or even related to you!” I snarl in his direction. There is anger building up in his eyes as he tenses. The cadet next to him sits still, not moving a muscle.

“And what about you, Melgren? Do you really think you’ll be chosen without daddy manipulating Threshing to help you? Or his dragon? I bet Codagh will bully some of the dragons to approach you, because none of them would want a rider as pathetic as you!” he laughs maliciously, expecting the others to join him.

Some of the cadets around us gasp in shock, even Kaori looks greenish. How dare he say something like this?! Violet tenses and whips her head around to face me, worried what I’ll do.

“Please” my glare is as cold as my voice, my eyes practically black right now, like always when I am mad. I can see the effect it has on him, even his squad mates shrink in their seats, avoiding my eyes.

“Say that one more time and I shall have you beheaded.”

My voice dropped a few octaves due to me being enraged, more than that. To insult a cadet like this in this quadrant can cost you your life, even though the world would be a better place without him. He accuses my father of manipulation, which is a capital offense, but accusing Codagh?! If they will ever find this out, Jack is dead. Not because father is protective of me, but because it's a stab at his reputation and position.

Kaori’s still shocked grimace finds his way into my line of sight, eyes wide, mouth agape. He knows the best what I am capable of and that my threat isn’t just a threat, it’s a promise.

Barlowe snaps his mouth shut and his little friend seated next to him looks like he is about to piss himself.

The bells ring, signaling that the hour is up. I take my stuff and storm out of the room, almost running into Xaden and his entourage, who steps away in the last moment. Ignoring them all, I make my way into the wing’s gym, to work out my anger and frustration. I’ll miss challenges today, but it’s not my turn anyways so I don’t care. And I will kill Jack if he breathes my way.

[extraordinaryhistories]

#21 - 'Woman at the Well' (non-album track, 2000)

Beware, traveller: here we enter the most uncharted territories of Sufjan’s catalogue. All sorts of terror in these parts. But all sorts of beauty, too.

Sufjan Stevens’ output, when fully collated, is just staggering. To think that he by all accounts leaves the overwhelming majority of his songs unreleased. By my count, he has upwards of 300 released tracks across all sorts of albums, collaborations, soundtracks and modern classical cycles. He is so prolific that you can stratify his output into multiple, accessibility-based tiers:

Tier One: the heavyweight albums. Illinois, Carrie and Lowell, Age of Adz and Javelin, plus ‘Mystery of Love’ and ‘Visions of Gideon’.

Tier Two: the other mainline albums ­– Michigan, Seven Swans, The Ascension and A Beginner’s Mind, plus All Delighted People.

Tier Three: the most obscure full-length albums and collaborations. A Sun Came, Planetarium, the Sisyphus project, Aporia, Convocations and similar material.

Tier Four: where we start to get deep under the surface. His Christmas material goes here, as do projects like The Decalogue, Reflections and The BQE. Some of his one-off track collaborations, like Moses Sumney’s ‘Make Out in My Car’, are here too. Things that you can probably find on streaming, but that only the most dedicated of fans would care about.

Tier Five: the bottom of the trench. These are songs that many of those most dedicated fans will have never heard unless they are in way too deep. Piecemeal inclusions on no-name compilations, surprise Tumblr releases of demos made twenty years prior, one-off live songs like ‘Wild Horses’. The Wild West of Sufjanilia, where oddities abound.

There are few artists for which anybody could say this: Tier Five contains some of Sufjan’s absolute finest material. Without a shadow of a doubt.

This is especially the case in the very early days. I get the impression that we have only seen a miniscule fraction of the music that Sufjan wrote from the mid 1990s up through Michigan – this was a feverishly experimental period for him, catalogued in all its scattershot glory on A Sun Came but extending its reach far beyond that album. It seems that Sufjan made enough connections and was subject to enough blog-centred hype around the turn of the millennium to get featured on a swathe of multi-artist compilations, as well as other obscure releases. These are remarkably hard to track down these days, but enough internet scouring will lead you to an underbelly of Sufjan’s catalogue that most people don’t even know exists. Thus we get a series of isolated songs, many of which are barely above demo quality, scattered across CDs and mp3s and placed next to artists who have never been heard from since.

B-sides and non-album tracks of artists quite often have that status for a reason. Most artists have the same recording method: enter the studio, build up a series of tracks from loose ideas, select the cream of the crop for the album release, and discard of the chaff. Some of that chaff will be saved for bonus tracks, b-sides to physical releases, or ‘outtakes’ on deluxe editions released decades from now – filler that will appeal to big fans and few others. There is a very strong correlation between distance from the main release and a lack of quality, is my point here. This is the case for the majority of acts. There is a reason that most people don’t consider there to be many exquisite Beatles outtakes, for instance – likewise for Pink Floyd, or The Smiths, or the bulk of other classic bands.

For Sufjan, however, the recording method has always been different. Sufjan is fiercely varied and fiercely focused at the same time – his albums differ wildly in style, but each individual project coalesces around a very particular sound. And because he so insistently curates his albums, nothing on them feels out of place stylistically.

As with other artists, there are a lot of Sufjan songs that don’t make the big leagues. What makes them different is this: their exclusion would have been based less on quality and more on style. Sufjan was just relentless around the period following A Sun Came, and it shows – for every one song that found its way onto a compilation or Tumblr drop, we must imagine ten that didn’t, forever confined to a dusty four-track in a closet or a file on some buried hard drive. He eventually settled on the creative direction of Enjoy Your Rabbit, but this did not stop him writing a plethora of folk, rock and electronic music around this time too, and these songs show the rapidly maturing songwriting of a genius in the making. There are some truly astonishing songs in this creative nether region – they are not quite as mature as the ones that would be found on Michigan, but they are approaching that point with an unstoppable inertia.

And so we go to ‘Woman at the Well’, an unassuming classic of early Sufjan and a song in which we can see clear progression from the A Sun Came days. The steps forward in sophistication are palpable here – ‘Woman at the Well’ is many things that A Sun Came’s songs are not. It is well-recorded, for starters; we are not yet at the hi-fi perfection of Illinois, but there is none of that cassette-derived background noise that dominates the softer songs on Sufjan’s debut. The acoustic guitar sparkles, the drums (lightly) punch, the vocals feel immediate and alive, and all of it comes together to make a song of relieving clarity, like stepping out of a log cabin and getting a breath of the mountain air.

The whole song feels that way, in fact. This one is easy, expansive, effortless, three terms that do not apply to much of A Sun Came. We can put this partially at the feet of the arrangement, which strikes a comfortable balance between layered and intimate: guitars and banjo are supplemented by a cosy array of instruments, among them glockenspiel, organ, drums and recorder, all Sufjan staples that hadn’t been applied with this sort of subtlety up to this point. This is a strum-heavy singer-songwriter tune at its heart; a maturing Sufjan understands this, and uses the additional instruments not to overwhelm the song but to make it richer. Compare with a song like ‘Wordsworth’s Ridge’, where the various elements seem to fight for attention in the arrangement. ‘Woman at the Well’ has a similar palette, but the individual instruments mesh together in service of the chord progression – many components, one machine. How refreshing.

‘Woman at the Well’ bucks trends in nearly every sense but lyrically. This is still an early Sufjan song, and its lyrics are very typical of early Sufjan in that they are unambiguously Christian in sentiment. The song provides a poetic account of an event that transpires in John, in which Jesus encounters and converses with a Samaritan woman. Samaritans and Jews, per tradition, met each other with hostility; the power of the story lies in how Jesus offers redemption to a woman that many other Jews would spurn (a common theme in the Gospels, with echoes in other anecdotes and parables.)

Many great artists, especially during the Italian Renaissance, took artistic inspiration from the story of the Samaritan woman. Sufjan does so too in ‘Woman at the Well’, but in a typically wry manner. Sufjan seems fascinated particularly with the image given in John 4 of Jesus as a giver of living water:

‘those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life’ (John 4:14).

Thus the lines in the second verse about how ‘she supposes he is wet / She was a fountain then’, the message being that Jesus’ eternal capacity for salvation and grace invigorates all those who love him. He is a fountain, so she is a fountain, and she overflows now with goodness. It feels as if this continues the shift in Sufjan’s religious songwriting that we first see in ‘Joy! Joy! Joy!’, and in a lot of the other flotsam recorded between A Sun Came and Michigan. Very early songs like ‘We Are What You Say’ features God as a terror, in the wrathful, apocalyptic Old Testament sense. Here we see a more inviting New Testament sense of God that focuses on love and salvation, just as Jesus preached. There is a hint of Yahweh in the chorus (‘In fire, in fire, down to the last liar’, a very Revelations image), but ‘Woman at the Well’ is otherwise a song of Jesus through and through.

A song of Jesus in a quirky way, though. Sufjan can’t help himself. The Samaritan woman is described in this song not as a fountain but as a ‘fountain pen’ for the majority of its sections. What significance? Little, or everything, depending on your point of view. This is likely just a piece of free-associative wordplay that has the additional effect of making the song’s rhymes less laboured, but I could imagine how Sufjan might enjoy the connotations of ‘fountain pen’. Fountain pens are sophisticated devices; they are refined vehicles of creation out of which culture pours. The quality of Jesus as a refiner of the soul is central to Christian dogma (albeit expressed differently), and may be central to this song too. We have all heard the ‘is this Sufjan song Christian or gay?’ joke in the past (the answer is always both), but for pre-Michigan lyrics, we can just as easily ask ‘is this line complex or just there because it rhymes nice?’

A piece on ‘Woman at the Well’ wouldn’t be complete without at least mentioning the melody. It’s a beautiful one, and it’s notable insofar as it feels like the Sufjan we know and love, down to its smallest rhythms and intervals. Even the best stuff on A Sun Came, like ‘Happy Birthday’, feels a bit like the Sufjan Stevens of an uncanny valley that lies somewhere between Illinois and Either/Or. Not so here. The contour of the main ‘she was a fountain pen’ motif is absolutely classic Sufjan, the ‘pen’ (the 2nd of the scale) lending it a perfect wistfulness that suggests the relative minor. There is still a loose adherence to pentatonic major here, but like so many of the best Sufjan songs, the melodic quality of ‘Woman at the Well’ is that sort of forward-looking happiness mixed with occasional glances over one’s shoulder at the life you’ll never return to. That right there is precisely the reason I started a project like this. Nobody else is capable of such balance. Nobody.

And it’s the reason why we dredge through this early, dusty stuff at all. For many artists it would not be worth it. But for Sufjan, all the same magic and majesty that you’ll find in his mainline releases can be found (on occasion) here. Sometimes it might even be exactly the same magic. Listen to the section of ‘Woman at the Well’ that immediately follows the first chorus (starting with ‘he has her hand...’). If the melody there sounds familiar, that’s because it is. A few years later, Sufjan would repurpose that melody for one of his first true masterpieces, a song about new VCRs and long car trips and taking one last glimpse at your mother knowing that next time you see her she might be an entirely different person. Here it is, the best melody in all of ‘Romulus’, just sitting there on a no-name compilation throwaway that nobody with a safe grip on their mental health has ever heard, years before Michigan was even dreamt of.

That, to a Sufjan tragic like me, is really fucking cool.

[meg2md]

My life, in two pictures:

Exhibit A, trying to get swole but only succeeding when the lighting is on point, and still failing at pull-ups by trying my damndest

Exhibit B, my re-ignited love of Naruto, as well as a new obsession with non-alcoholic beers

That being said, I did drink... way too much last night. I went to trivia and truly would have been okay with 1-2 beers, but then a friend came late and wanted a drink, and my other friend is going through a rough time and wanted to go back to my place and keep drinking... and truthfully at ANY POINT I would have been okay with an NA beer, and I know for next time that I shouldn't give in to peer pressure and keep drinking. I'm confident I wouldn't have kept drinking on my own (which used to be a problem in college and medical school - binge drinking!!) and that I can do better next time. So even though I was hungover today and felt a little bit ashamed, I was able to be there for my friend when she needed it, I still went to my tennis clinic, and I know next time I'll be able to intersperse more NA beers and overall drink less.

And honestly, overall the past few months I have been drinking DRASTICALLY less and it's been very good for my mental, physical, and emotional health. Go me. I'm very proud.

Despite it all I'm actually somewhat on top of things, even though I spent most of the morning sleeping in bc I stayed up until 2 AM with my friend drunkenly singing MCR and Evanescence, and then it took awhile after tennis for my hangover to go away and for me to feel awake enough after extreme physical exertion while slightly hungover to get anything done. But I mayyyyy have this abstract I've been working on ready to submit for SGS if all goes well, and I'm also hoping on to be a middle author on a project with one of my co-residents which will also get submitted to SGS! And I actually have two ORs I can go to next week to film this video idea I have - submissions for the conference I want are due 8/8 so it's pretty tight and stressful but doable. I'm just gonna be SUPER busy next week with video stuff, in the same way i was SUPER busy this week with the lit review/IRB prep for my other project.

I'm gonna go crash into oblivion. It's already been a week of my research block and me not needing to be at the hospital barely at all but I feel like it's gone by so fast since I've been relatively busy working on all the things above. I'm definitely not efficient - a more competent research-oriented resident could probably have done it in a fraction of the time. But hey, I'm at least being academically productive, AND I played tennis, AND I'm going to two concerts this month, AND I've been allotting video game time to the start of every morning I don't have to be at the hospital.

All in all I think it's actually worked out nicely that I didn't rush to get an away rotation together last minute. I have 3 projects to work on at home AND I get to do things I like around the the neighborhood like watch Naruto, play tennis, read, and go to the gym. And I saw a pic of my ex earlier and while I was a little sad and nostalgic, it didn't rip me up like it used to (yes it's been 1.5-2 years w/e I love swiftly and deeply lol), and it just further motivated me to kick ass and be super swole and hot and buff up my CV >:)

I'm gonna be p sad going back to real work when this block is over bc ngl it's p cush

[emilysidhe]

This is a plant runner:

I made it a few years ago. It’s double knit, which is a knitting technique where you cast on stitches that you intend to be on the front of the piece alternating with stitches that you intend to be on the back of the piece and use two balls of yarn in alternating knits and purls to keep some stitches in the front and let som drift to the back, so that you’re basically knitting a giant pocket. You can switch the front and back yarn to make a reversible color pattern.

It’s also felted. Felting is when you take 100% wool yarn and use agitation, heat, or friction to induce the fibers to fuse together, essentially shrinking it on purpose. This makes a much stiffer and sturdier fabric that holds its shape and is more watertight.

This happened because I wanted a plant runner and I thought, “Why don’t more people make double-knit, felted plant runners? I’ve never seen a pattern for one, but it makes so much sense! Double knitting is super flat even with color work, so the pots will be stable, and felted wool is so waterproof that water actually beads on it, so it’ll help with spills. Plus it won’t felt any more in a delicates bag with cold water on a delicate cycle, so I’ll be able to machine wash it. This is a great idea - I’m gonna try it!”

Well, I found out why more people don’t do this, because it was a pain in the neck to make. Because I was shrinking it, it had to be larger than I wanted the finished piece; because it was double knit, I had to do twice as much knitting to get the front and back done; and because of the color work, I had to pay attention to what I was doing the whole time. Most of the time when I’m knitting rectangles like this, I only have to repeat the pattern 3-4 times and it internalizes to the point where I start having an intuitive sense of what to do next and start only having to glance down occasionally to check where I am. I can do complex cables with the TV on and watch the screen most of the time - I’ve knit simpler stuff with an ebook open on a propped screen reading as I go. This thing I had to keep looking at the entire time. Between the double knitting and the leaf pattern, I had to constantly watch what I was doing. This thing took forever! If I calculated out the hours I spent on this as money, there no way I’d spend even a fraction of it on a *plant runner.*

And yet … I had barely finished it when I was already thinking about making another one. You see, I was right. This really does make a fantastic plant runner. It catches the dirt and dried leaves that fall off the plants and keeps them from messing my table, water does bead on it so it protects my table from spills beautifully, and the plant pots sit very stably on it. It’s great!

But I used a kind of wool that comes in several different colors, but is all undyed - it’s from white or brown sheep. I was worried the darkest and lightest colors - that cream that you think of when you hear undyed wool and a dark chocolate brown - would be too much contrast and I went with the second darkest and lightest (a heathered dark brown and an oatmeal off-white). But I forgot how fuzzy wool gets when felted like this and I want a second crack at it with the higher contrast colors to make the pattern pop more. (This is one of the rare cases where the pattern is actually slightly more distinct in photographs than irl.) There’s even a small voice that I think of as, “That is the craft-devil talking,” whispering that I should try it out again with wool yarn that comes in actual colors and see what it looks like as green-and-something.

Fortunately, everyone I know seems to be having babies at the same time, so it’ll probably be 3-5 years before I make anything for myself that isn’t a quick, weekend project between yet another baby blanket.

But every time I wash it, there is that craft-devil. Whispering.

[skylermadness]

The Hour of the (Dark) Owl (Dark Owl TF/MC)

(Original Date of Upload: July 3, 2023)

Original Description:

My half of a trade with Catolyst on DeviantArt/FurAffinity. Their his can be found here: DeviantArt / FurAffinity Honestly it has been roughly three or four years since I've watched Miraculous, but I will admit it does have some good mood material. Especially considering how easy I was sold on Dark Owl being one! There isn't really a lot to say in regards to the writing process of this story in particular though. Although I don't think I've done this kind of goo trigger before. The idea of goo-based supersuits is a fun one though! Even if I felt like the word 'goo' stopped having meaning halfway through the story. Honestly it's beginning to stop having meaning again and I'm only two thirds of the way through this description. I think there's a word for that... Either way, a very fun story to work on! Definitely allowed me to work on something outside of my usual knowledge base, and I think I did rather well on it! An all around very enjoyable experience~

   Your package is 3 stops away…

   Cato had found himself leaning on the wall beside the entrance to his home, the man staring down at that exact text message on his phone for roughly a few minutes now. It was boring, to say the least, but it gave his mind something to focus on as he waited for the aforementioned package.

   The item that was within said package was a realistic replica of the mask worn by Dark Owl from the Miraculous series. A rather specific piece of memorabilia when it comes to merchandise. Mainly due to the fact that it was for a minor character that he was pretty sure very few people really were all that interested in. The fact he found anything at all related to the guy was a miracle, but it was definitely one he was glad about.

   …well, mostly. A fraction of his mind was surprised that he had gotten any kind of indicator that the package was sent out. Or the fact he was getting a package at all.

   It was definitely a gamble to buy random merchandise after a random Google search for it one day while he was bored and lacked something to do. Perhaps not the wisest of purchases, but again: rare character memorabilia. Plus Cato had presumed the site was probably one of those online stores where people would put personal projects and things up for sale that the person made themselves. Like Etsy, but lesser known and a lot more shady of a website. 

   His thoughts were broken at the sudden sound of banging on the door right next to him, which had started him and caused him to almost drop his phone. He did manage to stop himself though, shoving his phone into his pocket and then opening the door to find a medium-sized package placed on the ground in front of it.

   "Hm, I didn't even hear anything drive by," Cato mused to himself as he bent down to pick up the box.

   He was quick to head back inside his home and find a spot in his living room to set the box down so he could open it. With a conveniently nearby box opener, he cut open the package and pulled aside the flaps.

   Sitting within the box was a copious amount of plastic, which was rather excessive for an object that wasn't even marked as fragile. Strangely, there were splotches of brown and black that stained the plastic. Paint, he had presumed. There was also a weird smell of… either rubber or latex, he couldn't really tell.

   "I guess this is what happens when you buy off sketchy sites…" he grumbled as he plunged a hand into the plastic and rummaged around it for a few seconds. It didn't take very long for it to graze the object of his desires, Cato almost instantly grasping onto it and pulling it from the confines of the package.

   Despite prior concerns thanks to the smudged plastic and the weird smell, as Cato steadily unfurled the mask he realized it looked and felt relatively higher quality than original anticipations had left him to believe. The material wasn't easy to pinpoint, although it did possess an almost rubbery consistency to it that would allow it to be squeezed and pulled while also presumably being comfortable enough to wear on one's face. It possessed a clean, black coloration with two orange tuft-like points that extend from above the eyes to its back. It didn't seem to have any paint chipping or wetness either, which made the stains in the plastic even more peculiar.

   "Huh," Cato audibly vocalized, staring at the object as he held it out in front of him, his thumbs within the eye holes of the mask. If anything it was a perfect replica of the object it was designed after. So much so that it looked wide and round enough that it wouldn't fit on his face very well. A bit disheartening, admittedly, but he was probably going to put it on display somewhere in his home anyway. Although looking at it did make him subconsciously wonder if he could find the rest of the costume somewhere online as well…

   He shook his head. Nope, definitely not the best financial choice. Especially with… how…

   "What the…? Is that paint??"

   With the mask's bottom opening fully unfurled, bits of black and blown 'fluid' were starting to slowly drip off the edges of it. And while it didn't look overtly disgusting, it was unpleasant to view globs of a largely unknown substance slowly drop onto the table from the inside of a usually wearable object.

   It had to be wet paint, he kept telling himself. Especially considering he could feel it moving over his thumbs. Now that he thought about it he should really take them out of the mask's eyes now… 

   Ultimately deciding to set the mask down on the table in front of him, he inspected the fingers that were within it for any abnormalities.

   Both thumbs were somehow already covered in brown 'paint', the substance seemingly beginning to sluggishly ooze down towards his hand the longer he looked at it. And after a few seconds, Cato realized one thing.

   "Why does paint this feel so… rubbery?"

   Using a random finger he tried to wipe off the substance from one of his thumbs, only for it to seemingly multiply by moving onto the finger without losing mass on the thumb.

   "Wha-huh? G-get off!!" he inadvertently touched his fingers together as he tried to shake it off the hand instead, the other hand being balled into a fist as he dug it into the table for support. Unfortunately, all that resulted in was the strange brown goo spreading across the rest of his fingers. This had occurred on both hands as well, the mysterious substance easily edging onto his palms and knuckles.

   With his attempts at forcing the goo off his hands being a failure, Cato splayed them both in front of him and watched the moving goo with a mix of fear and curiosity. The strange, almost rubbery gobs continued to progress across the surface of his skin, stretching over it in a slow wave-like motion. And as his eyes continued to remain affixed on the sight he noticed something else strange starting to happen as well.

   It was rather hard to tell at first, but as each second passed it appeared his hands were getting… larger? The size of his fingers were looking longer, a small increase in length having entered into them. Alongside that was a more noticeable increase in size, a visible chunkiness accumulating in them and granting an meatiness to them. This meatiness was also quick to jump to the rest of his hands, especially as the brown goo was almost finished encapsulating them. Their size was being augmented more and more, stretching out in all directions by about an inch. There was even an evident thickness swelling in his hands as well, overall adding to the density of them and granting them a certain aura of power that they didn't possess before in their previously smaller size.

   As the rubbery feel of the goo consumed his hands there was an additional swath of changes pushing into them. The rubber was rubbing up against his skin and causing it to age beneath it. A certain level of weathering entered the back of his hands, meanwhile a hardness was entering his palms granting them a set of calluses. There had even been a level of scarring that etched across his knuckles, some sort of battle wear and tear being formulated upon them.

   Eventually the goo, alongside the aging beneath it, would move past his hands and onto his arms. The cuffed sleeves of his flannel were already quick in getting consumed by the substance as it layered onto his wrist and crawled up his forearms. As a result the shirt was practically starting to get absorbed into the transformative goop, which had allowed it to be the only thing that would be layered upon his arms. This would only further facilitate Cato's transformation as a gain in size was now entering the lower half of his arms. 

   As the rubbery substance inched further upwards, a slight warmth was embedding into his forearms. This warmth was then accompanied by a strange feeling of newfound strength that was beginning to bud within the muscles of the region. This feeling only increased with each passing moment, the muscles in that part of the arm increasing in size. A change that steadily garnered a substantial bulkiness within that area of the arm, density increasing more and more as muscle mass was further accrued.

   This would only progress further and further, this burgeoning strength pushing upwards more as the substance caused it to move beyond his elbows and onto his upper arms. The coloration of the substance had become a darker brown now that it was past the elbow, and as the melted rubbery-feeling goo continued to meet skin there was a continuation to the increase in his musculature. Muscles slowly swelling up in size, his biceps bulking while his triceps expanded at the same time. His shoulders followed soon after, both of them rounding out due to the maturing of his deltoids. In totality all of this would result in his arms gaining a set of thick, well defined muscles that was nothing like the build his arms had just a minute prior. And it wouldn't be long until Cato felt a twinge at the furthest edges of his chest, the goo now moving beyond the threshold that divided his arms and torso and cascading onto his body.

   Cato had spent the time just staring at the changes, unable to fully formulate what to think. Just watching his form bulk up was a surreal experience, even when it was shrouded beneath a bunch of goo that had felt rather weird to just feel rush across his body like this. And this constant feeling of newfound strength that was circulating throughout his arms, as well as starting to emanate from the core of his body, wasn't an unwelcome feeling.

   If anything it kind of made him want to flex an arm more than anything.

   Although those plans were disregarded as his attention got diverted back to his hands and arms, as Cato noticed the gooey feeling was subsiding into something a lot harder and more rigid. His gaze lingered on the area, the man left watching again as the once runny goop that encased his limbs was slowly beginning to harden. The rubbery feel remained over his hands, with the brown substance seemingly becoming actual rubber as it appeared to be becoming a pair of gloves. A pair of which was gaining a significant set of intricacies as lining formed above the wrist area while the gloves in their entirety tightened across Cato's lower arms, outlining his thicker physique. There even seemed to be a second layer of material forming beneath them in that area, this being further proven as the portion of goo that had surrounded his elbows and arms was garnering a form itself. Darker brown, appearing almost leathery in its surface texture. There even seemed to be a design akin to depictions of chainmail entering certain segments of the material, a strange familiarity forming the longer Cato's eyes stayed on the hardening goop.

   "Why does that look strangely like- oh, urgh-"

   Cato stepped forward, hands holding onto the table in front of him for support as a sudden gripping sensation entered into his chest. While he was preoccupied the transformative substance was continuing to spread across the man's chest at a fast rate. By now it had already closed onto the split of his shirt, consuming the first two buttons before finally meeting at the middle and spreading upwards and downwards at the same time.

   As it spread across his chest the same mixture of heat and continuous addition to strength intensified within the core of his body. This prompted another set of muscles to grow, his pectorals pushing out further as mass was accumulating within them. Thick muscle steadily swelling out forward, a sizable meatiness filling in both pecs with ease. It wasn't long before they started to push into the goo covering his chest, a noticeable crevice forming from this meaty shelf and dividing his upper body from his lower. At the same time the width of his pectoral muscles also was altering, mainly due to the overall size of his body as a whole being widened thanks to his steadily broadening shoulders.

   A churning in his gut soon followed, the feeling of the fabric of his shirt touching his abdomen now being replaced by the goopy rubber that now clung to the skin of his belly. Warm heat was spiraling throughout his lower body, that feeling being followed by more muscles forming. A small set of abdominal muscles slowly pushed forward, etching into the goo. They weren't as impressive as the muscles within the rest of his body, with only two rows being slotted forward to form a four pack, but it was still enough to continue the circulation of physical might throughout his body.

   While Cato's frontal changes were occuring, the goo had been making its way over his back as well. This was more apparent with the portions of it that had already reached his stomach with the portion of that substance stretching both downwards and sideways. It wrapped around his lower torso, then seemed to almost squeeze it momentarily. It would eventually give Cato a slightly more top heavy build, albeit not by too much with how wide his abdominal region remained.

   The weird tugging in his chest started to subside, Cato now being able to regain his senses and properly look down at his chest. He had also idly raised a gloved hand to his neck, the goo seeming to have already enveloped the collar of his flannel and was now encircling the area. The viscose feeling was hardening around his neck as well, allowing him to tug at the now leathery-like material. He definitely wasn't used to this…

   The goo on his torso was beginning to follow the example set by his neck with it now shifting in material as well while garnering more detail. It was tightening, resulting in his form getting better outlined. Shades of brown grew more visible within the substance while bits of black formed on the sides and slightly divided where his chest muscles would be. The chainmail-like padding formed in certain areas around the core of his body. But the most prominent alteration was an orangey-brown 'stain' of sorts that formed right in the middle of the formulating uniform, said stain slowly growing more visible while garnering an actual shape. It would take a few seconds, but it would eventually harden into an all-too-familiar insignia of an owl's face.

   Seeming to not worry about whether or not the area was properly hardened or not, Cato stopped pulling at the neck of his forming uniform and brought the hand down to the insignia. "It is definitely the Dark Owl uniform, alright," he said, stating the obvious.

   The sight made his mind become lost in thought. Eyes fixed to the insignia, the man started to wonder what exactly this substance even was. Did the mask seriously come with some body altering slime that doubled as a replica of the character's uniform? Come to think of it, was he actually becoming the character in terms of physical form? …and why does that kind of sound appealing to him?

   With Cato trailing off mentally, a portion of goo that had remained viscous was slowly starting to stretch out behind him. At the exact same time the mask that he had left on the table was now subtly shaking, seeming to inch towards the man at a fairly unimpressive pace. It was like some kind of partially demagnetized object being pulled towards an actual magnet. Meanwhile, the goo was now reaching his waist, having effectively consumed his shirt entirely now and beginning to repeat the same effect with his pants. 

   The denim of his pants was effortless getting absorbed into the mysterious substance, meaning that as the almost rubbery texture met his skin yet again it was replicating the same changes it had done to the rest of his body. His thighs began to warm, the muscles within them getting stimulated by the transformative substance. Growing thicker in conjunction were his hamstrings and his quads, both of them steadily gaining a substantial musculature akin to that that his arms possessed. The same thing would happen to the lower half of his legs shortly after. As the goo ran beneath his knees, encapsulating the crus of his legs, squeezing against the skin, his calves were prompted to bulge outwards too.

   The last section of his lower body that remained unchanged had been his feet, but that didn't last for long as the wave of goop rushed down to his ankles and beyond. His shoes were swallowed up almost instantly, the goo pressing onto his feet in seconds and prompting the final set of growths to set in. They were massaged out, getting larger in size and thicker in width. His toes got chunkier at a rapid pace. The soles of his feet were becoming harder as well, a rough set of calluses forming on the bottom of them much like how they had on his hands.

   All while the lower portion of his body got encapsulated, the last portions of the suit finally seemed to begin forming from the substance. Brown with black lines etching across the legs as a new and harder material formed with thin padding forming atop that material. Bubbling out of the goo that covered his knees was a pair of knee pads that stood out rather prominently against the rest of his suit. Then came the bits of goo that surrounded his lower legs and feet, changing into leather as they gained a lighter shade of brown that was the same as the shade on his gloves, although an orange triangle seemed to stretch on both toecaps. Ridges formed across the footwear to give them more defined features while a design etched into the blackening rubber on the soles.

   Concurrently, more drastic additions were coming forward from the goo around his back and waist. The thin portion of black goo that was lengthening from his back was already at the length to meet his waist, and it didn't seem to be stopping there as it was progressing beyond that. The other addition was a belt materializing around his waist; brown leather manifesting from the substance with ease while the buckle was a hard metal. The buckle also possessed an owl-like symbol to it.

   Cato was still lost in thought, trying to rationalize his feelings in his mind. Would he really mind this transformation all that much? The new physique definitely wasn't an unwelcome one. And the suit outlined it rather-

   That final thought was broken in a single millisecond as the very catalyst of this transformation, the mask, came flying onto his face from the table in front of him. He didn't notice it coming, which resulted in the event to be rather startling.

   "Wh-what the hell?!" Cato exclaimed, the last word of his sentence sounding a little deeper than the ones prior. In a blind panic he brought the hands to his head and started to grip onto the mask, but it was already becoming a struggle to rip it off of his head.

   "God damn it-" he growled out, his voice continuing to change as his breathing got deeper with the longer the mask stayed on his face.

   The mask seemed to surprisingly lack any sort of goo, but it still shared transformative properties exactly like the aforementioned substance had. The moment it latched onto his head the very structure of his skull altered, steadily growing to properly and perfectly fit the mask. The structure of it was slowly widening until the sides of his head touched the inside of the mask. The shape of his head also seemed to change, the rectangular shaping of it shifting with his features rounding out to give it a bit more of an oval-like shape.

   While his skull was shifting, the very features of his face were altering at the same time. The most visible changes happened to his lower face, Cato's facial hair changing in a rather drastic manner. The beard that was on his chin changed coloration, a deep brown seeping into and replacing the originally blonde follicles. The spikiness of it was quickly getting lost as well, hairs growing out beneath his lower lip as the beard was being forced to grow thicker. The thickening only continued as more and more hairs grew across his jawline, the brown fluff garnering a dense appearance as it did so. Two noticeable vertical stripes also formed, arising onto the portions of his beard that laid at the sides of his jaw. It wouldn't be long until that portion of facial hair seemed to completely cover his lower jaw, giving him a voluminous beard that possessed a rather well-groomed look to it.

   As for above his mouth, Cato's mustache hadn't been spared as it too was growing. Blonde hairs deepening to a more orangey-brown, the lengths of them also stretching out the sides of his face. The general density of his mustache was increasing as time went on, more and more hairs continuing to grow upon the ergotrid of his face until it was practically covered. And the hairs only seemed to get longer with each passing second, extending out sideways on each side of his face. It went way beyond the confines of a normal mustache with it lengthening over his cheeks and beyond them, only getting even denser than it had been before. The mustache didn't even start to taper until it reached the further sectors of the edges of his face, and the growing didn't end until the tips were noticeably sticking out.

   "Get off me!" Cato continued to yell as he attempted to use his newly developed strength to brute force the mask off of him. "I'll get to putting you on later- urgh-"

   He stopped for a second as, in his panic and fury, he managed to slam himself into a wall. "Uugh, come on…"

   The entire ordeal only continued to clue him into his changing voice. Deeper, gaining a bit of an aged tone to it. There was a strange aura of authoritativeness etching into it as well. It sounded so foreign coming from his mouth, but at the same time it was easily becoming an exact copy of the voice of the person he was becoming.

   The mask continued to get more comfortable on his head as the rest of his facial features changed. His nose was next in line as the bridge of it was losing its broadness, instead becoming thinner as it more cleanly slotted into the nose of the mask. The roundness of the nasal was also being lost, getting thin as well as his nose appeared to become more aquiline in shape. Meanwhile the top of his head was rounding out more as it brushed up against the mask's dome, changing to fit into that area as well. 

   As his scalp was pushed into the top of the mask more, it also appeared a strange set of changes was settling into the parts of his face that were obscured. The most drastic of them all came with his hair, much of it rapidly shrinking into his scalp the longer the mask pushed onto it. A bald spot formed on the apex of his head, his hairline receding at the same time, and the bald spot was only growing larger in diameter with each passing second. Blonde hairs constantly disappear into the skin atop his head, leaving behind a clean dome. But not all of his hair would leave, as a portion of it that stretched from the sides of his head to the back of it stubbornly remained. Those parts instead just changed colors, going from bright blonde to deep brown rapidly.

   As if the balding wasn't enough, his increasing age only seemed to become more noticeable as the material of the mask rubbed onto the skin of his face. A noticeable weathering was forming into it, the looks of a young adult being lost to that of someone much older. His eyebrows, originally slightly thin, got thicker while they grew longer as well. If his mask was off the arching of his eyebrows could better be more antiquated to the brows of an owl. All the while they gained the same dark coloration as the rest of his hair.

   Cato groaned as he pushed himself off the wall, stumbling forward slightly. The thin layer of goo that had stretched behind his back was the last part that seemed unfinished, although after a few more seconds it would end up finally solidifying into a cape. And while many of the physical changes were slowing to a halt, an immense hazy feeling was entering the man's mind. He blinked his eyes a few times, yellow and orange spirals starting to enter them at the last few blinks. 

   "What… is this… feeling?" he asked himself, raising a hand back up to hold his forehead. 

   There was a pressurizing feeling within his mind. It was small at first, but it wasn't long until it grew in size. And it wasn't long until it seemed to almost make itself known. It felt abstract at first; urges and desires that were not his own yet they seemed to constantly push into trying to be his. As if they were trying to replace his very self in a way.

   A more prominent aspect was one that felt heroic. An immense feeling to be of aid to people who needed it. That immenseness was only growing, getting practically overwhelming in mere seconds. It was practically becoming a staple of his new personality in a way, a driving force for his actions in a way he couldn't fully comprehend.

   "N-not right…" Cato groaned out, stumbling another step forward. Such a thought felt wrong. Felt unlike himself. So far beyond his human capabilities. And yet those rationalizations were fleeting fast. What is himself, really? He has this muscular form, he has a certain level of age to him. He has the suit, and his mind felt as if it could easily recall the knowledge for such things.

   Was that there before? Knowing to fight? It was hard to discern. Everything felt numb and hazy, everything in Cato's mind just felt like it was drowning. Or was it getting replaced? It was abstract, again.

   "Can't think… have to… urgh-"

   He still wanted to resist it all though. To tug himself out the overwhelming urges of heroics, the constant impounding to his very identity. He wanted to tell himself he wasn't a hero, but everything was drowning that out because as time was passing it just didn't feel true. How could he think himself not to be one? Especially when he was the best hero this city has to offer, the only-

   That's when something else clicked. A second intense feeling that spiraled alongside the first.

   It was a very uncouth one, one that practically contrasted with the very identity that should be upheld. At the same time however, it was nigh-impossible to resist the strange urge of vengeance that burned in the back of his mind. It felt like a reason for him to exist, in a way. A negative emotion to pull from and to give him a sense of purpose. 

   And don't many heroes have that to a degree?

   Then again, his desire was one that could be considered selfish. One of hostility, one of wanting to be the only hero around. Perhaps other heroes don't have that, but then again he's not like other heroes. Is he?

   But he's not a hero, he's… someone else?

   Such a thought was feeling foreign. Pointless. He is a hero! He's the Dark Owl!

   He couldn't stop the confident smirk forming on his face in reaction to that very thought. An identity properly forming in his mind, pooling together all the thoughts and emotions that were within it. Any former sense of self seemed distant, replaced. Not like he would ever be able to acknowledge such a thing. As far as he was aware, the only self that existed was the Dark Owl. 

   A fist clenched, the spirals in his eyes fading into a clean green and orange double-layer iris in his eyes that further accentuated the owl-like features the hero possessed. The fisted arm curled, practically flexing, while the other one swung behind him with his upper body turning slightly. A leg stepped forward while the other one remained in its spot. A smirk still plastered on his face the Dark Owl finished his heroic pose, exclaiming, "Hoo-hoo! Paris' greatest superhero is here to save the day!" as he did so.

   Although after that he starts to come to his senses. Primarily because he's not outside, and the place he is in doesn't look familiar at all.

   Ending his pose, he shifts to a more upright position as he raises a hand to scratch the back of his head. Looking around, all he can gather is this is someone's home. "Hm…"    His inspection does end up eyeing the opened box on the table. Brow raised in curiosity, he steps forward to the table and picks up the empty cardboard package. He turns it around a few times, attempting to find some clue as to where he was. And it isn't long until he does…

[theunwellkingdom]

Design Deep-Dive #1: The Blank Canvas

This project started as a simple idea:

"I want to create new Magic cards I can play with friends, based on the world and characters of our shared D&D campaign."

I knew this would be a massive undertaking, but at first, I didn't know HOW massive. A blank canvas can be a terrifying thing, so I set off researching and defining scope. This brought me to several realizations, which became my guiding pillars to start making cards...

1. This will need to be an entirely self-contained set.

I do not have professional design and balance teams at my disposal. Rather than attempt to slot my cards in with 30+ years of existing Magic, I knew my best chance of creating fun, playable cards was to keep them self-contained. However! This meant I also needed to commit to a full-sized set, to ensure there's a deep enough pool for a proper sealed/draft experience.

2. I don't want any reprints of existing Magic cards.

This one's selfish, but it wouldn't feel right to simply re-skin real cards. Of course there will be staple effects in each color (burn, counterspells, ramp, etc), but a huge incentive to start this mad journey was to give my design chops a good workout... I would quickly learn that this is easier said than done. Turns out it's very easy to think you have a clever idea, only to search online and find that clever idea on a decades-old piece of cardboard!

3. I want to design new mechanics.

This goes hand-in-hand with #2, but it wouldn't feel like a proper set without a few flagship mechanics to call its own! These came surprisingly quickly, and became invaluable tools to structure the entire set. Look forward to deep-dives on each of these in the future.

4. I want to celebrate art we've already made.

Our D&D group is comprised of a bunch of artsy folks, and we've got over 5 years of stories to draw from (literally). I've made sure to get everyone's blessing to use their art and characters, and I hope it makes the set feel more personal. We even put together a zine-style artbook for it during the pandemic, so there are already some great pieces ready to get slapped onto cardboard.

5. I'm going to need a LOT more art.

Even counting all our existing work, I knew I could only count on those to cover a fraction of the cards. The good news is, I love to draw. But the honest truth is that this will be the longest part of this endeavor. At the rate I've been drawing so far, I've probably got another two-ish years to go.

(NOTE: I will absolutely NOT be pilfering art from strangers online or using any sort of AI-generated content. This project is a labor of love, and I'm in it for the long haul -- not looking for unethical shortcuts.)

6. I want to leverage my custom token template.

I've printed off several batches of custom tokens recently, and that's helped me develop a Photoshop template for stylish custom cards! It would need lots of tweaks to accommodate all the card types in a full set, but at least in this aspect, I wouldn't be starting completely from scratch.

7. I don't actually know how to build a set cube!

Cards on the table, I only started playing MtG a couple years ago. I've got a decent grip on the fundamentals, but I've certainly never tried to build a cube before. This Lucky Paper article was a perfect primer for me to get ballpark numbers, and I cross-referenced it heavily against recent set cardlists to create my own.

....And with all that in mind, it was off to the races!

🔮NEXT TIME -- New Mechanics in the Unwell Kingdom

[pervasivethrenody]

HEY LOOK SOME NONSHIP BULLSHIT

I have an ongoing project, but it's 1 2 a.m. and I'm overnighting at a family member's house, again, because I got stomach-flu sick last week, and vomiting has been a massive, life-dominating phobia for 30 years, and it's still fucking rattling my chains.

I'm glad this year is ending soon, because the next catastrophe of the year would probably be to get run over by a truck.

Anyway here's stuff. Some actual non-shipper brain rot.

This is Dad. His mom named him Handsome. But now only his ace-wife-that-he-married-for-tax-reasons calls him that.

He's an out-of-work stunt double (thanks, MSQ), so he performs for fractions of gil on the streets of Ul'dah, and also dances if you ask nicely and pay him extra. His nutkin is named Mr. Nutterbutter.

He's quite appalled because the mammets at her island are Not Very Impressed with his bardic skills:

Scrap. Them. All.

(Btw Ryne gave him that bow made from one of her dresses and if you make fun of it he will kick your ass, and since he's a Thancred stunt double he absolutely knows how to throw a hit. Not well, but well enough to make you sorry.)

And have some pretty elf:

I go sleep now

[tabbyclaw]

A look forward

Another trip around the sun, another flip of the calendar. Another year gone by, and it's time to take a look back at it and see what you did. Last year around this time (well, all right, technically earlier this year, but shhh), I posted a recap of all the fic I posted in 2021, with a little bit of commentary on each one. I'm not gonna do that this year, because, well, you can take a look at my posting history and guess why. I participated in Mayura May and ran it into June, and... that's it. And I'm pleased with most of the stories I wrote for that (especially Blackened Lips, which was my favorite of the ideas that I had and it came out on the page pretty much exactly how I wanted it to go in my head), but they seem to have completely sucked up this year's supply of whatever magic it is that lets me grab hold of an idea and actually write and post it quickly. I've still been writing this whole time, I just haven't finished anything yet. It's all been long stories coming out of my head, or ones that are fighting me at every turn, or ones that get halfway written before I realize they need to simmer a little while longer. All of which I hope, with varying degrees of confidence, to actually finish and get into a presentable state eventually. And so, instead of looking back on this year and feeling like I should have accomplished more, it's time to look forward and talk about what I hope to accomplish in 2023. This isn't a road map, or a promise, or even a plan; this is me taking some of the ideas out of my head and putting them down on paper in a form where I can hype myself up for them and hopefully give the rest of you a teaser for what might be upcoming. I hope you're looking forward to seeing how it goes as much as I am.

First off, despite the fact that I just said nothing is set in stone I can tell you what the first thing you're going to be getting out of me is, because I'm going to be signing up for the Candy Hearts Exchange. It's this year's replacement for Chocolate Box, a short, low-minimum exchange focusing on relationships between characters, romantic or platonic, with a culture that encourages writing treats for multiple people, which I hope to be able to do. (And, yes, I will be posting a letter once I finalize my signups.) It's the first multifandom exchange I've done since 2009, and if it goes well maybe it won't be the last one I do this year, either.

That's the only thing with any kind of timeline attached to it, so my other thoughts are going to come in a scramble that's mostly organized by fandom and also by when I thought of it as I was writing this.

First off, the one that's been hanging over me: Yes, I am still working on editing the Gin and Bear It sequel. I don't know why it's fighting me this hard, but it turned out that a large chunk of the middle had to be rewritten from the ground up and now parts of it are back at square one. It will be finished, because I'm not going to go this far and stop just before the finish line, but it may still be a while. There is also the third fic in this series that I've hinted at, and that is also still happening. It's going to be a much smaller one, probably even shorter than the first one, and I've already been working on it between other projects. Those are the only two Oxventure thoughts that are really on my plate right now, but I can't promise I won't think of more down the line, and even though Oxventure in the Dark is a closed canon now that doesn't mean I might not still have some thoughts about that, too. So much worldbuilding in so little space, and so much still to be done with it both before and after the end.

Next up, and occupying a pretty large fraction of my writing brain at the moment, are some of my oldest friends. Yes, as I alluded to a couple months ago, that dormant but ever-present bit of me that's always ready to write Drakken/Shego has woken up in a big way lately. I've already got something relatively short mostly finished, a quiet little post-finale piece full of feelings and awkward moments, not to mention a few plants. That one's mostly done; it's one of the ones I mentioned earlier that just needs to simmer for a bit before the ending really comes together, and then I hope I'll have it polished and ready to share soon. But there's also at least one longer fic on the far horizon; I've already got an outline and the first few thousand words of setup (yeah, this is why editing takes me a while) down on the page. I don't want to say too much about that one, though, because it's a long way off and there are large parts of it that will benefit from being kept secret. Aside from those two, which are more concrete, there is a constant swirling in my head of other possible ideas that I've fleshed out far less and which are just waiting for their time. Maybe this will finally be the year of the competitive fake dating duology, because these two need to be tormented by both their families as well as each other, or maybe it will be time for something else entirely. (I saw the idea @souljellied mentioned about a body swap for these two, and while I'm not going to step on your toes it definitely gave me some thoughts!)

On the topic of other evil power couples, I have no particular thoughts at the moment about Miraculous Ladybug, at least none that are solid enough to make any commentary about at the moment. The ongoing shakeups of season 5 (I still haven't seen it but this is the internet and spoilers are inevitable) have a lot of potential, though, and there have been a lot of rumblings in my head of "You could do something with that, for sure." It's just a matter of seeing which ones, if any, come to fruition. Watch this space, as always, and ideally there will be something in it later.

But those are just the sandboxes I've been playing in the most frequently as of late, and the ones I figure people will expect me to have something to say about (and the ones I expect myself to have something to say about, come to that.) It's by no means an exhaustive list of the things I might end up chewing on, whether new or old. Willow and Steel still lives in that strange netherworld in my head of 'things I don't know if I'm done with yet,' and there's the start of a 'Roxanne gets Metro Man's superpowers instead' AU that's been on the back burner for a good long while now that I've been wanting to get back to. To say nothing of the various original fiction ideas that are always lurking, and which might or might not see the light of day here even if they do start to come to life, because if I come up with something that feels like it could be marketable I will absolutely try to sell it just to have had the experience of doing so. And of course this is just what I'm thinking about right now, before the year has even started, and who knows what other ideas are going to catch my eye, and what other fandoms will creep up on me from out of the woodwork. It's always an adventure trying to figure out where the hell I'm going, especially for me.

It's a new year, or it will be soon enough. Let's see where it's gonna take me.

[nycorix]

Consequences [9/11]

[fic post]

|part 1| |part 2| |part 3| |part 4| |part 5| |part 6| |part 7| |part 8|

HI NKSVERSE FANDOM HOW ARE WE FEELING !! LMAO I was diligently editing this project regularly and then Real Life happened and now it's been a whole year whoops

Anyways!! In honor of the Flight & Anchor release next month, I'm finally resurrecting this! For any of y'all still reading/interested in this fic, thank you I love you <333 (also: everyone go preorder the novella it's my personal enduring favorite of Nicole's work bc it got me fully hyperfixated on the 'verse etc. etc.) For any newcomers, this particular project of mine is a love letter to this novella specifically, a sort of mirror fic that pays homage to that event in their lives (and to Them generally. It's been over two years and I still adore them so much omg they're probably my favorite Bestie Duo I've ever encountered).

This part is another one of my favorites ngl. It is the one in which 22 is so feverish and overstimulated he picks a fight with 06 because he doesn't know how else to process emotion for absolutely no reason. (I wanna know what if any resources were devoted to these kids' mental health. Diana Reyes I just wanna talk-)

TW: the operatives' toxic trait of not being careful with their bodies

Enjoy!!(?)

_______

9.

His fingers are numb beneath the smart fabric of his gloves. His toes, ears, his whole face is numb, but his eyes and nose sting like hell, his throat burning all the way down to his lungs and he is tired. So, so tired—a level of exhaustion he’s unfamiliar with, that aches all the way to his bones. His muscles are on fire, his lungs keep spasming, and his head is throbbing violently enough that his vision blackens at the edges. 

Yet only two words loop on repeat in his muddled brain, hammering down with every lurching beat of his heart.

Worth it. 

As he flings the hundredth scrap of twisted metal into a pile the size of a small house, ready for the incinerator cart.

Worth it. 

As he heaves a broken slab of concrete up off a mangled car, then tosses the car and the slab into the pile.

Worth it. 

When he pauses to cough, fighting desperately to control his breathing before he damages any internal organs, biting down hard on his tongue to quell the paroxysms, spitting the blood he draws onto the crumbled pavement at his feet. 

Worth—

“Hey, dumbass!”

He barely hears her over the ringing in his ears, but she’s upon him in seconds anyway, hand clamped to his shoulder. He tries to say something—fuck off, probably, or what are you doing here or go back to HQ you idiot but all that comes out is a strained sound that may or may not be “Kit—”.

She ignores it, gripping his shoulder bracingly with one hand while she claps the other to his forehead. 

“She sent you out with this fever?” she says, voice low, careful.

His silence is all the answer she needs.

“I’ll fucking kill her.” Her voice is the calm before a storm neither of them can afford, not now, not this time, not anymore.

“Leave me alone,” he rasps, wincing at the nothing state of his voice. Pushes her, harder than he means to. She stumbles back several yards, arms flailing for balance, too stunned to reply for a moment before the anger comes. 

“Like hell I will.” She plants herself solidly between him and the rubble pile, eyes squinted against the wind that lashes around the corners of the buildings to buffet against them. “What the fuck do you think this is, some misguided half-assed attempt at—”

“This is.” he interrupts, hooking his shoulder into hers and tilting forward, “Me covering.” he pushes, just the barest fraction of his strength, and she staggers, nearly tripping over her feet, “For you.” He bends down, picks up a four-foot chunk of broken concrete, hoists it on his shoulder as he locks eyes with her. “Yesterday was a mistake. I told you she’d know. And she always needs a scapegoat.” He pitches the debris over his shoulder, an involuntary shudder passing through him at the way the clatter grates against his oversensitive ears. “I was the one available. Better to lose one than risk two.” His voice cracks at the end, whittled to nothing by the virus waging war in his throat, but the jab hits home. 

“That's bullshit and you know it,” she mutters, kicking a meter-length of metal pipe toward the pile, but he doesn’t miss the flash of hurt in her eyes before she drops them. 

“Is it.” He scans the ground, frowns as it blurs before his eyes. He stoops, picks up a dormant resonance grenade—gingerly, thumb and forefinger—crushes it down to a marble-sized lump of inert junk metal, winds up, and sends it flying straight through the chassis of a Greenleaf surveillance drone several hundred feet above their heads.

“Whoa, watch it!” 06 yelps, peering up into the clouds with a hand shading her eyes. She tilts her head, tracking the trajectory of the falling drone by the sound, then springs into motion. In just seconds, she sprints across the street and leaps into the air, snatching the smoking hulk of machinery before it can slam sideways into a Stellaxis info board. She folds it in half, then half again, chucking it onto the rubble pile and dusting her hands off with a bemused twist of her lips. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Move.” He brushes past her hard enough for her to grunt in pain, stalks up the side of the pile, and shoves his hand through the crumpled layers of metal into the drone’s transmitter module, extracting a small plastic chip and crushing it into powder. “Don’t be sloppy.”

“Come back with me, idiot.”

“I have one more street to go.” A wave of dizziness washes over him as he starts to descend the pile, and he pauses, half-closing his eyes. “My orders are to do this alone, you shouldn’t be here. Go back.”

“I won’t.”

Frustration bubbles up despite his every effort to keep it down, and he’s beside her in a single roughly calculated leap. “06,” he starts warningly, but she only rolls her eyes. 

“‘22’.” Light, mocking. Then, after a breath, his name. No trace of the kickback in her eyes. “You’re being a stubborn ass and you know it.”

This doesn’t dignify a response. They stare at each other, at a standoff. 

She looks like she’s cooking up some juicier insult, or worse, maybe something compassionate. 

“Hey—”

Before she can get any actual words out, he sneezes, which feels approximately like getting all of his ribs kicked in at once (a sensation with which he is, in fact, intimately familiar). His expression after must be a sight, because when he looks up she is staring harder, that deep furrow creasing her brow that he hates. 

“What,” he tries to say, but he sneezes again—this time bottling it up with every last inch of his willpower, ignoring the detonation of pain behind his eyes—and this expression must be even worse, because now she is glaring at him. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” she says, face undergoing a series of contortions—concerned to alarmed to sympathetic to incredulous—that would have been funny if he wasn’t so strung-out-pissed. 

“Shut up,” he grinds out, meant as a snap but lacking about eighty percent of the energy required for that. 

She sighs, raking both hands up through her cropped hair. “Fine,” she mutters. “At least let me help you.” She picks up a piece of metal, which he snatches out of her hands faster than she can gear up to toss it. 

“No.” He’s tired—so fucking tired—and he’s not sure if he’s angry at her or just himself. 

He chucks the piece of metal toward the pile, skews wide by several feet, and watches it careen off course and smash through a third story window, greeted by a smattering of screams. Every molecule of him cringes away from the thought of the message the Director will absolutely be sending him about this, fear and subsequent fury at the fear pooling like poison in his stomach.

He fists his hands so tightly, a bone in his left index finger snaps. 

06 flinches, shooting him a look that he steadily ignores. When the moment wears thin, silence stretching taut between them, 06 tsks, catching up his wrist with a rough little tug.

“Idiot,” she says softly, digging in a pocket. “Don’t just leave it like that.”

Her warm fingers brush against his frigid skin through the barest gap between glove and sleeve, featherlight, and it is too much.

His sword is out before his thoughts catch up with his absolutely misdirected blind rage, the point grazing her throat. A glance down reveals hers at his heart, a hairline tear in the fabric of his jacket as she leans casually into the onehanded counterstrike. Her stance is open, healing device tucked behind the thumb on her free hand where he can see it. Her face is a question, a new glimmer of hurt kept guarded just beneath the surface.

“Touch me again,” he breathes, drawing a tiny bead of blood from her skin, "and I will kill you."

Incredulity and amusement tick her eyebrows up, but her eyes themselves are very, very serious. “I’d like to see you try.”

Six minutes later, he’s still not sure why they’re fighting but he is sure that he has to keep moving, has to keep striking, has to keep control at all costs. 06 is going easy on him, he knows that she is, yet somehow this has no power to dissuade him from the nonsensical match he’s thrown himself into. They’re a tangle of swords and limbs, boots and fists, and it’s both so much better and so very much worse than his previous ill-fated match with 08.

Sparring with 06 is like fighting an extension of himself. They are a single fluidity, a collective force, two jagged halves of a whole. Their pivots and lunges, strikes and blocks weave together in a seamless flow, easy as breathing, every potential move the other could make etched irrevocably into the folds of their brains. He could do this in his sleep.

Several more minutes pass, indeterminate. The incandescent edges of his anger abruptly cool, releasing his mind and dropping him unceremoniously back into his body just in time for him to realize that he is fading. Rapidly. With 08, he’d still had the greater part of his faculties; now, he’s running on autopilot, the fever like a fire raging in his veins. Black spots shimmer across his field of vision in time with his pulse, which thunders in his ears. His awareness of his body is reduced to points of pain—head, throat, finger, chest—and all of it is screaming at him to sit the fuck down.

He needs to finish this, and quickly.

With the last dregs of his strength, he surges forward, sheathing his sword. As he strides into range, he catches her sword at the base, gripping it in one gloved hand and ignoring the bite of the blade through his fingers as he yanks it from her grasp and casts it aside. In one swift, lethal motion he corrals her by the throat, one handed, and pins her up against the nearest wall. 

He’s prepared for the way her hands circle his wrist, a vice-grip that she will tighten further and further until his arm breaks or he lets go. He’s unprepared for the way all of his muscles start trembling, shuddering with the effort of holding her up that’s normally no effort at all.

“Match.” The word falls from his parched throat, unrecognizably blunted in his own ears. He’s shaking all over now, and he has to let her down a moment before she properly concedes, teeth chattering in his head as the heat generated from the exertion dissipates and he’s wracked with full-body chills.

He thinks 06 replies, but he isn’t sure. Suddenly, everything is fuzzy and wrong, his vision splintering into fractals of white and black as a wave of dizziness swallows him whole. The street spins out from beneath him, 06’s face a blur against the sickly too-bright-ness, and then there is nothing, and he is falling, and it stops.

|part 10|

[literaryartisan]

Oh! I've used this! Well probably not this brand specifically, the torch wasn't green. This was back in my Weed Warrior days (invasive species control).

Since I live in famously flammable California, we only used it in some very specific conditions. Also like, the point is NOT to burn the weeds, the point is to basically blanch them. Just break those cell walls and wilt seedlings with one quick pass of a flamethrower!

Mostly we used the flamer on swaths of poison hemlock and Italian thistle, since those come up early in the season and would cover the fields and hillsides of the park where I worked.

So the conditions are:

After rain (so the ground is damp)

Cool, overcast or foggy morning (usually the fog burns off by the afternoon)

Treatment area already cleared of last years dead stalks

Seedlings just at the first set of leaves after the cotyledons (hardest to time, these suckers grow fast)

Clothing natural fibers and leather only

Get out there, unload the propane tank on its cart, hook up the torch, make sure you're wearing gloves (cuz it's already cold and metal but also if you tilt that tank at all you're in for a frigid suprise). Crack the tank valve a little, hit the striker at the front to light, and then Crank It Up until it roars like a rocket! (Or a... dragon... I guess) And then it's just endless passes over the ground as the hemlock or thistle suddenly turns dark green and droops, which takes only fractions of a second in most cases. So the torch is always moving, casting back and forth and back and forth and back an- anyway you get the idea.

The torch starts to feel heavy, the cart mires in mud, your shoulder starts to ache so you switch to your off-hand for a while, your cuffs are wet almost up to your knees, you switch hands again, how many more acres?, you try to stretch out your back while still flaming, you switch hands again, this is way less glamorous now that it was at first, the cart handle slips out of your hand while negotiating a small hill and the tank tips over and everything frosts up Instantly, you gotta stop the whole thing and start it again but at least you can take a stretch break, you switch hands again, the sun is starting to break through, the torch doesn't sound as loud now so you check the valve and it's still fully open, now it's clearly diminishing, the leaves aren't wilting, the torch goes out. You're out of propane and done for the day. Load back up and hope the weather conditions are good for doing it again next week, and finally get a view of just how much of the area has been treated. The next time it's back to being exiting and like the coolest thing you do for your job

We'd try to treat the same area 2-3 times in a season in an effort to exhaust the inexhaustible seed bank. And it's important to note that invasive week removal was only one the phases of a restoration project. We also tried some experiments with using newspaper or cardboard weighted with mulch to smother invasive seedlings while planting native plants through the paper layers.

Anyway that's the story of my flamethrower days

[writer-akihiko]

so mc running away i love it the angst 👌 so if its alright can you the same but with the dorm leaders?(pls do a good ending my poor heart cannot take it-༎ຶ‿༎ຶ)

Dorm Leaders + MC Running Away

So I apologise for the lack of happy endings, if you want to call it that. The scenarios turned out much more different than the First Years probably because of the power gap I had in mind. Also, for anyone wondering, the Vice Dorm Leaders will have a shot of saving you next! When I get to it... Cut for length. Also please help to share because I limited the tags!

Warnings: Character Death [Not you or the main boy], mentions of abuse and emotional manipulation [On the Reader] and violent actions [The Dorm Leaders]

"I'm not going back."

"Wh... What?" He was astonished. "YN... I've looked far and wide for you- please-"

No words left his mouth as you stepped away from him, tears in your eyes and you were going to make a run for it again.

Malleus Draconia

Your words struck a chord in him. He didn't mean it, but when you said that you weren't going back, he almost lost control. What did you mean you weren't going back? You promised him to be his Queen!

No... he's not accepting this. His Queen deserved better. His larger hands encircled your wrists, stopping you in your tracks. No matter how much you tugged and pushed, Malleus' strength was beyond you. In your sole despair, you fell in his embrace.

Every ache and injury struck your core, as you cried your heart out. "I can't go back Malleus," you whimpered. "I... I'm sorry."

Your hands gripped tighter onto his clothes. "I don't mean to fight against you, I-"

The Fae Prince sealed your bruised lips with his own, pulling your smaller form into his lap as he took in the moment of the bittersweet, longing kiss. "YN... listen to me," He said, his own ice cold tears falling onto your cheek, healing your wounds. "You never have to apologise for your suffering. Not even to me."

Malleus held you close as you drowsed off. The gentle smile hardened into a growl, as his back arched, black wings bursting out of his body. Malleus, in his dragon form, summoned the thorns to protect you, holding you as if you were his personal dragon hoard…

The principal, or more accurately the culprit, Dire Crowley was a fool to step out. It disgusted Malleus to his very core, his claws setting the very ground on fire as Crowley stepped closer. No words were exchanged between them. For all the suffering you faced, it was to be paid in tenfold as the dragon took a deep breath, releasing the fire in his chest.

"It was a fraction of her suffering…"

Riddle Rosehearts

He was ballistic. Riddle had been eager to bring you back immediately, but the sheer refusal and attempt to run away made him think that you hate him. He was blaming himself, sobbing to the ground.

Riddle's breakdown made you stop. No matter what you did, you still love him. Riddle's hiccups of sobbing paused at the feeling of your arms wrap around him. He wanted this, he wanted your warmth, he wanted- no… he needed you so badly he'd ceased to function without you.

"I don't hate you Riddle," You said, kissing his tears away. Your pretty Queen of Hearts had ruined the uniform he so proudly kept up with and Riddle himself was unkempt. Riddle cradled your sore body, letting you tell him your stresses and your breaking point abused over and over again by Crowley.

Riddle's heart softened ever so much for you, as he realised that he was to a fault as well. It was then he started to cry for you. "YN… I… I lost control. I know I can't be forgiven for the stress you went through so-"

"Rosehearts! You found her, how wonderful!" The jovial Principal cried out. In his hand was a magic tracking spell and that's when Riddle was struck with guilt once more. He doomed you, again. He… no, he refuses to end it this way.

Your loving self became meek, frightened by the aspect of being under Crowley's care once more. You trembled, reaching out to the hem of Riddle's coat. "Riddle… Please don't let them take me…"

He pulled you up, whispering to you. "When I cast my magic, run YN."

"Ridd-"

"Never thought you'd defy me, Rosehearts. Being a law abider and all~"

"Off With Your Head."

Kalim Al-Asim

"Y-YN?"

Kalim desperately hung onto your ankle, on his knees, begging and bargaining you to stay.

"YN… Please don't leave me again," He begged. "I'll… I'll stop dragging you to parties! I'll get you anything you want just please… please come back to me."

His tears wet your foot, as his grip left light marks on your ankle. Kalim never meant to harm you. He was so desperate to make you stay, but in his heart, he knew that he didn't have the strength to keep you with him if you desired to leave.

"How could you think that?!" You cried out. You stooped to Kalim's level, tackling him in hug so hard that he crashes to the ground. "I… I'd never leave you if I had the choice! I couldn't stand NRC anymore…"

You sobbed into Kalim's chest, wondering when it'd all end. You could never refuse Kalim, but what about everyone else? What about Crowley? Your spine shivered at the monster's name, wanting everything to disappear except for you and Kalim.

Kalim didn't know what to do. He didn't understand why Crowley would do such a thing to you. If Crowley was causing you such pain… He'd just have to get rid of the problem. You only deserve the best, after all. It's not his fault, nor is it yours.

You had cried yourself to utter exhaustion. Kalim gently wrapped you up in his jacket, cradling you to his chest. As if clockwork, Crowley appeared to the heartwarming scene, simply glad that you were going to be returned.

"Al-Asim, Dire should patch her up nicely-"

"No."

Crowley coughed. "What was that?"

"I said no," Kalim reiterated. "I have no reason to listen to you…"

"Since YN and I aren't your students anymore."

Azul Ashengrotto

How grateful he was to find you near the water. He almost turned red at the thought of you willing to search for him. Azul never thought you'd long for him this way, but you knew him, and you knew him well.

As if on cue, you looked beyond the trees to see your beloved, running from the sandy shores barefoot to be caught by your precious Azul. Azul doesn't have the best reflexes, trying to catch you without hurting you.

Azul took one good look at you, and the sight was enough to make him cry. Messy hair, cuts and bruises littering your skin possibly from running through the rocky forest, feet with sores from rocks… and tearful, sorrowful eyes.

Not an inch of sadness deserved to touch you. That was one of his core beliefs. He didn't say anything to prompt you to tell about what you'd been suffering. He knew. He knew every line of the story, and it made him ever so guilty that it led to this. If he just paid more attention to you, or at least try to.

Azul offered you everything. An ear to listen and his body for comfort, with his arms wrapping about you. If the simple action was enough for your forgiveness, he'd do it over and over again.

It was for a moment Azul held you, before running the water with you in tow. From the forest emerged the tweels, but what was behind you made you scream. Crowley, with his magic, retaliating against the twins' magic.

Azul wrapped you around his tentacles, drifting further into the ocean with you. He bent down to whisper in your ear. "YN, close your eyes. Don't look."

You shut your eyes tight as you did, hiding yourself in Azul's chest, away from the scene.

"May we never see you again, Crowley."

Azul and the twins in their merforms plummet into the ocean, deep down where Crowley would never come to touch you.

Idia Shroud

He wasn't surprised that the huge robot scared you. It was his secret project after all. He immediately let himself out of the robot, but he was hesitant to step into the forest. Idia was scared, but he still had to protect you!

"Y-YN..."

"Idia!..."

You stopped running, seeing your boyfriend pop out of the robot. Idia was quick to get over his reluctance as his panic shifts to your injuries instead. He wanted to cry out of joy from the mere chance of finding you.

Idia tried to treat your wounds as best as he could with the emergency kit conveniently equipped [he really did think of everything] although his wrapping technique was unkempt at best.

Idia's attempts to heal you made you forget of all the suffering. You couldn't help but laugh, realising how much you missed Idia. He knew that you needed this time. Oh, how he wanted to whisk you away...

But he might as well. You're his, right?

Crowley didn't get close to reaching you. Idia thought of it all. He tracked every move the principal made, fooling Crowley to think that Idia was with you the entire time, with the tracking device that Crowley so faithfully gave him.

"How desperate... it's honestly funny..." Idia scoffed at the idea of Crowley getting to you.

With the S.T.Y.X androids, Idia confronted Crowley, who was in sheer confusion.

"Crowley… burn in hell."

Leona Kingscholar

Leona didn't hold back. He couldn't believe you would say such a thign to him… The only conclusion he reached to was that you hated him. You hated his very core, just like everyone else… He was scared. It frightened him to the core that after everything he did, you still hated him.

"YN… stop fucking around with me," He said, grabbing onto your wrist. He wasn't about to throw a tantrum then and there. He had to get things straight. "Hey… tell me. Was I just a waste for you?"

"W-What are you talking about Leona?" You pushed against his chest, trying to get some distance but Leona was way stronger than you. The lion couldn't listen to reason. He simply went on about how you must've hated him, and how much you despised him.

"Did I mean nothing to you, YN?" Leona was shaking, his shoulders trembling from the mere thought of hearing those words.

You wrapped your arms around Leona, pulling him in close. "I never did… How dare you think that you stupid lion?!" You said, sobbing your heart out. You were equally hurt, but you never once thought Leona would think such a thing.

The emotional reunion was interrupted by the principal himself, pretending to be moved by such a scene. The false pretense of safety caught on to you, and you were sent into a panic, clinging onto Leona for fear of your life.

"I hate you!" You yelled, your body crumpling to the ground just as Leona caught you. "I hate you, I hate you. I don't want to go back, don't make me!"

If you were to scream anymore, you might collapse from exhaustion. Leona was quick to carry you in his arms, holding you close to his chest, where you were comforted by his heartbeat.

"Hoi, good for nothing principal," Leona called out, a single claw drawn out, igniting his Unique Magic.

"Move before I turn you to sand."

Vil Schoenheit

He was stunned to see you in such a state. He called out for you, and you stopped in your tracks. Was he that incompetent that he can't keep you with him? Did he not treat you right? Was his mere presence just torture for you?

Vil couldn't keep it in anymore. He needed to know. "YN… why won't you come back? Tell me, is it my fault? Am I not worthy of you?!"

The once prideful queen fell into shambles of insecurity as his mind won't stop painting images of you walking away from him, of you calling him your doom, of him being your captor… No, he didn't mean it…

"Was I the villain in your story?! WAS I?!"

Vil had never cried as much as he did. He needed to know that you didn't of him as a nuisance. He really was worthless if he made you feel unwanted… so please, he needed an answer.

"How could you think that, my love?"

You stooped to Vil's level, brushing away the tears that ruined his makeup with your very hands. Oh, your poor Vil… You were too selfish, thinking of your own suffering. With Vil in your arms, you felt whole once again. You gave Vil your actual answer, relenting every moment of your stress that stemmed from Crowley.

Oh… how his sweet potato must've suffered. Vil had a stuck of guilt, considering that he was under an Overblot as well. No matter, he had to make things right. For your sake, for his love's sake.

"YN, Crowley is trying to find you. But I… I have to set things right," He said, pulling you up.

The rustle of leaves had you on guard as from it came Dire Crowley, revelling in the scene.

"Schoenheit. You are supposed to bring LN YN to me immediately as I ordered."

Vil for once scared you. It scared you how enraged he was, and your heart wrenched at seeing the ink droplets by his hand.

"Vil, don't you dare-"

He turned back to you, whispering for you to run to Rook's safety. "Don't cry, my love."

You tried to hold the tears once again as you saw Vil shifting forms to an ink-like mess, this time his rage directed at Crowley. You could only run away, praying in your heart that Vil was safe.

[novamirmirsblog]

K.I.S.S.I.N.G

Word count: 1232

Genre: floofy fluff

Request: No ;3

Warnings: None that I can think of? Lemme know if there is tho :)

Based on this quote even though it has so little to do with the actual story XD - “I know I signed up for this and all, but… if I die, it’s still your fault and I will not hold back on blaming you.”

You were well and truly trapped. The mission had gone south, one bad call after another had led you to where you were presently. It was supposed to be a simple mission, in and out. It's why SHIELD had decided to send only you, Natasha, and Wanda - leaving a lower-level agent in charge of the plane. It was a test run for you as you were the newest on the team and a refresher for Wanda, making sure her team skills were up to scratch with Natasha there as a glorified babysitter. The building was supposed to be mostly abandoned, a few HYDRA goons here and there to get target practice in but that was it.

Of course SHIELD had to have sent you in with bad information. This was your time to shine, to perform to the best of your abilities so a certain spy might notice you. Considering you were surrounded by some of the best in the business and a literal mindreader, you were quite proud that your little crush had gone unnoticed. Sure, you couldn't string more than two sentences together when Natasha spoke to you directly but she hopefully just thought you were a social recluse.

"Damn it. Did they not know they don't literally have to be a damned hydra. It's okay for one head to be chopped off and another not grow back." You spoke into your earpiece as you slit another hydra throat.

Chuckles rang back into your ear and for a second you forgot how to breathe. Natasha's gruff bark of laughter was the prettiest thing you'd ever heard.

Oh man. You had it bad.

You had it so bad that you briefly forgot you were behind enemy lines. That was, at least, until a bullet whizzed past your ear. That snapped you out of your daze pretty quickly. Not fast enough for you to dodge the bullet coming straight for your shoulder though. The pain that rippled through you was hot but not as hot as the annoyance of being shot at was. You sent a single bullet straight through the head of the goon who shot you first.

"Guys I've got some good news and some bad news."

"If you've got bullet holes in that new suit, Tony is literally going to kill you." Wanda spoke, her accent softening the words.

"Well, I guess I better start telling you what kind of flower arrangements I'd like for my funeral." You joked as you slowly made it to the extraction point.

"Don't die agent y/l/n"

"Damn. So formal. Lighten up Natty, I won't make you do a speech if you don't want to. I will, however, make sure Wanda mentions that in my final hours, you were so very cold and distant." Apparently being shot at gave you the confidence boost you very much needed in order to actually speak to Natasha.

"Hang on, I remember you literally stabbed Clint's hand when he called you Tashie and he's known you for years."

"Well, Clint wasn't delirious with bloodloss Wanda." A few more shots went off. "Head to the extraction point you two. We got what we came for."

Once we were all on the jet, Natasha started bandaging up your wound, careful not to touch it unnecessarily.

“I know I signed up for this and all, but… if I die, it’s still your fault and I will not hold back on blaming you.”

"Wow. Thank you y/n Don't blame the guy who shot you, blame the person trying to fix you up. You know if you would just sit still..."

You suddenly noticed how close you were to Natasha's plump lips. How easy it would be to just lean in slightly and capture them. With that in mind, you subconsciously began to move forward, feeling her lean in too, until a rough patch of turbulence placed some much-needed distance between you two. You could have sworn you heard Wanda mutter damn it but it was probably just your thoughts projecting.

~~~~~

By the time you had made it back to the tower, everyone had heard the news of how Natasha allowed you to live after calling her Natty.

"...even bandaged her up" Steve's voice echoed down the hallway as you, Wanda and Natasha made your way from the mission de-briefing. Maria had wanted you to go straight to medical but you had managed to convince her that not only was the job Natasha did good enough, but that Natasha was quite possibly in the wrong line of work considering her stitching was so good.

As you walked into the main living area, F.R.I.D.A.Y. started to play that "k.i.s.s.i.n.g" song that children sing.

"You are a CHILD TONY STARK!" Natasha shouted out. "I am going to kill him in the most painful ways possible."

"Well did you? Because from the interesting texts a young witch has sent, you came pretty close. " Tony sauntered out from an unknown location, standing in the center of the room with nothing but pyjama bottoms, a housecoat and a glass of what looked like whiskey. What happened next was pretty fast. Natasha launched herself at the billionaire. Steve tried to grab her midair as the whiskey came dangerously close to spilling over the sides of the glass. Natasha slid under Steve's legs and attached herself to Tony, putting him in a chokehold.

"One more word and you won't live to see another day."

You watched this all unfold and suddenly it dawned on you that perhaps the reason an international spy hadn't noticed your crush was because she was too focused on hiding her own.

"You're right you know." Wanda spoke quietly, watching Steve try to pry Natasha off a gasping Tony. "Literally everyone but you two could see that you have feelings for each other. We have bets going on. If you kiss her now, I win." She nudged me towards them with a wink "No pressure though. Although, if you were to help me win the bet, I'd split the money. All I really want are the bragging rites. Unless... that is you want Tony to win?"

You couldn't let Tony win. Over your cold dead body. With determination in your step, you walked over to where the supersoldier was still trying to save a now purple Tony. Natasha looked at you, loosening her hold just a fraction and you leaned in and kissed her. Sure, it was one of the most awkward positions you'd kissed someone in but it was worth it. Natasha let go of Tony instantly but only to wrap her arms around your neck and waist, pulling you deeper. Wanda clapping and whooping pulled the two of you from your trance. Your cheeks were as red as Natasha's hair and even the unflappable Natasha Romanoff was slowly turning the same shade as her hair.

"God damn it y/n You couldn't have waited a week." Tony threw his hands up in exasperation, a teasing look in his eye.

"Of course not. Wands had to win."

"I don't care what this is about. Come on y/n I'm taking you on a proper date. Right after we change out of these clothes." Natasha grabbed me by the hand.

She then stopped abruptly, dropping your hand "That is, if you want to?"

You picked her hand back up, smiling at her "Of course I do."

[yourheartonfire]

A continuation/conclusion of the hacker protagonist and the villain who tricks them into finding the hero. This turned into a double length snippet, so the Read More is included.

Part one here. Part two here.

In the end, it came down to the basic questions that the protagonist had avoided thinking about from the start: What did they want? And What were they prepared to do to get it?

The protagonist threw their keys in the bowl by the door, sat at their desk and stared at their reflection in their monitors. It had been easier to think of themselves as a victim, as a pawn, as a freelancer dabbling in a bit of wickedness. But now they had a hero's blood on their hands and less than 4 hours until 8:00pm, when the villain would come for them. What do you want? What are you prepared to do to get it?

The protagonist tapped their computer awake. An auto-generated tropical paradise pulled up under their login window, and the protagonist stared at it- white sand, cloudless sky, and clear shallow water.

It was as good an answer as any. The protagonist swallowed, and looked around for their old webcam equipment.

...

223 minutes later, the protagonist was sitting in one of the most exclusive restaurants in town, watching the villain savor a third bacon-wrapped foie gras cube.

"Are you going to eat?" they asked mildly, gesturing to the two remaining cubes on the shared appetizer plate. "I didn't think you'd be the type to sulk."

The protagonist folded their hands and checked their watch. "I'm not hungry," they replied, just as calm.

The villain's brow creased - but their phone dinged and they glanced down. The crease deepened. "I need to take this. If you'll excuse me?" they said, already tapping away.

"Sure," the protagonist said, mouth dry. There was a moment as the villain looked at them. "Oh." The protagonist rose and went in search of the restroom. They shut themselves in and waited, heart pounding.

The protagonist intended to wait five minutes, but after about three there was a tremendous crash as the villain's enormous driver/bodyguard/henchman barged in and grabbed them. He marched the protagonist through the suddenly empty dining room back to where the villain waited, face thunderous. They held up their phone and pressed play.

The protagonist's face - scared but brave - filled the screen. "...forced me into helping them. But I cant stand by and let [Hero] die. I'm setting this message to send in four hours, so if you're seeing this, I'm..." The villain cut off the video with a jab of their thumb.

"You got that fast," the protagonist said, trying to twist their arms out of the henchman's grip. He held on tighter. "I thought I'd have to not eat the main course too before it leaked from the heroes' group chat to you."

"Why?" the villain breathed out.

The protagonist gulped, but lifted their chin. "I'm not the type to sulk. Did you watch the whole thing?" they went on quickly, seeing the villain's face go red. "I also identified your home address and your main hideout. Once the others rescue [Hero], that's probably where they're headed. You can beat them there, to all your stuff, if you hurry."

The villain bared their teeth, but whirled to the henchman. "Hold them at the pier location," they snarled, jabbing a thumb at the protagonist. "We have a date to continue. Later." The villain stormed away towards the kitchen exit, tugging their jacket off. The henchman dragged the protagonist out the front.

...

The protagonist got lucky. The henchman took their phone but didn't bother to gag them or even tie their hands before showing them into the car. The advantage of looking harmless. Though that would make the next part harder.

"That was crazy stupid," the henchman muttered, shaking his head as he pulled them away. "You know what [Villain's] going to do to you?"

"Nothing," said the protagonist, leaning back in the seat with a smile they prayed looked confident. "[Villain's] not going to win this one. You're about to be unemployed."

The henchman shook his head. His phone chimed- he glanced down but tucked it away. "He always wins."

"I texted the video at 8:05," the protagonist said, glancing down at their nails. "I emailed it almost 90 minutes ago. Every hero in town is already waiting for [Villain]- and if that doesn't do it, the unscheduled software update that's been draining his suit's battery should finish him off." The henchman's phone chimed again. The protagonist took a breath and put as much chill into their voice as they could. "You should answer your daughter's texts. Daniel."

There was a beat. Then henchman yanked the wheel right. They pulled over in a squeal of brakes, and he spun to face the protagonist. There it was. Anger - and fear. "Family is off limits," he snarled, failing to hide the terror in his eyes. "If you've hurt her-"

"Quite the opposite." The protagonist waved a hand airily, trying not to imagine the henchman crushing their skull in one massive hand. "Your daughter has just been accepted into her second choice college on full scholarship. Sorry, couldn't hack her first choice in time. Loved her essay, by the way. Go on, check."

The henchman stared, but started texting away. The protagonist waited for the slow dawning of amazement on his face before clearing their throat. "Check your bank account too. You've been paid the next 12 months' salary - better than [Villain] can do as his accounts will be frozen momentarily." The protagonist sneered. It looked good in the rearview mirror. "Except the ones I've moved to my name, of course."

The henchman swallowed, looked back at the protagonist. "What do you want?" he whispered.

The protagonist could barely keep from clapping with glee. "[Hero] will swear he saw [Villain] drag me off to my death earlier today. Back him up. Swear that you didn't recognize [Villain's] dinner date tonight - that it was someone they picked up in a bar. My name stays out of it, and I think you'll find your daughter's grad school surprisingly affordable in a few years."

The henchman flicked open a banking app on his phone. Glanced at the number. Closed the phone. Stared at his hands on the steering wheel.

"Where do I drop you off?" he asked meekly.

...

Not long after, the protagonist leaned their head against cool glass and gazed out at the starry night sky through the window of the villain's private plane. The protagonist's private plane for now - just long enough to quietly, anonymously exit the country.

Villain's arrest - and the revelation of their identity - was all over the news and the protagonist was more and more sure they had done it. They had gotten away. They'd taken only a fraction of the villain's ill-gotten wealth but it was enough of a nest egg to live off for the rest of their life, if they budgeted, made investments, all that.

But the protagonist's thoughts kept drifting to all the projects the villain had left unfinished. They'd had some real good plans going, some with people who didn't realize who they were working with. People who might not notice if someone else starting the answering the emails,, calling the shots. It didn't seem too hard; mostly it just needed someone with a bit of start-up cash and a way with thorny problems.

The protagonist sipped their champagne and frowned thoughtfully as the little plane sailed on, carrying them off towards that sunny beach with warm, calm water.

[ruthiewrites91]

✨Pinned Post✨

📚Alrighty then... let’s go

My name’s Ruthie. I’m an author and a screenwriter, and purveyor of fandom trash. Always have been, always will be. I’ve been publishing books since I was 19 (not all of them great), and got my degree at CSUN’s Screenwriting Program and am steadily working my way into the industry. Let’s go down my currently active projects.

If you don’t feel like scrolling thorough a huge post, may I offer you my personal website? I update it regularly and there’s a lot more in depth info on who I am and what I do,

First thing’s first - Ladies of Fortune has a website! For those uninitiated, I developed a pirate show in 2017 centered around the life and times of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, my favorite historical pirate figures of the Golden Age. I approached Mr. Damien Gerard years ago to play the lead villain, Ben Hornigold, and got a resounding “yes!” Little did I know that in the Year Of Our Lord 2022, Damien would be in another little pirate show as a the fearsome father of Edward “Blackbeard” Teach in Our Flag Means Death. 

Since then, LoF has gotten some major traction among the OFMD fan community, and even helped fund us through Kickstarter! We filmed a proof of concept--basically a shiny piece of pitch material for studios--and plan on pitching the show to execs sometime in the early spring.

(that’s me in the red wig as Anne Bonny~!)

Next up, let’s chat books📚 

I write a lot of those. And hey, they’re all romance (for now)

The Kiss of 89 (currently for preorder only through my publisher) This Steddie inspired romance follows Wes Peters as he goes from Prom King to Pariah in his small town of Duffer Springs, CO, and his wild summer love with the town’s metal-head weirdo, Nicky Hoffman. M/M  🌶️ 🌶️

Blood in the Golden Palace Take 50 Shades of Grey, and make it readable. This is a spicy, BDSM mobster romance between the underboss of an Italian crime family, Angelo DiRossi and the (not so) innocent object of his affection, Penny Sweet. M/F  🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️

The Railwalkers When does justice become revenge? Follow Violet Donovan as she escapes a wrongful murder conviction, only to fall into the clutches of The Railwalker Gang; a notorious group of vigilantes who seek out only the most corrupt and vile men the west has to offer. F/F 🌶️

Unscripted Act 1 and Act 2 A low stakes, bubbly duology between Mega Superstar and Neurotic Mess Ethan Teller and his hyped up, loving, overly affectionate secret boyfriend, Finn Phelps. M/M  🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️

Beyond my books, I also write screenplays and spec scripts, including a spec for Our Flag Means Death and What We Do In The Shadows, respectively. 

You can take a look at what I’ve got on offer here, though most of my scripts tend to swing between horror and comedy.

I’ll be updating this pinned post fairly regularly. This is also a fraction of everything I got going on. For the time being, I’m still going to be tweeting until the Titanic meets the iceburg. Which will probably be soon...