#someone definitely unearthed some designs

[leconcombrerit]

I have no idea where that wave of love for my Sides fashion stuff suddenly came from, but you can have some improvised Roman inspired high-heels as well. Not as ankle breaking as Remus' but I still wouldn't advise to try and do anything but stand still while wearing them.

[brucewaynehater101]

TW: mentions death, blood

Here is the angst some of you requested. Let me know if I need to add triggers

He isn't going to make it to eighteen. This is a fact. Tim knows, with certainty, that he isn't going to survive that long.

Being a vigilante means that Tim's life expectancy is drastically reduced. He went from possibly dying of old age as the CEO of Drake Industries to becoming a casualty of The Mission. Tim knows the odds. Dick surviving to adulthood is the outlier, not the standard.

So, Tim knows he is going to die within the next few years. Either his blood is going to stain his yellow cape, or Timothy Drake will meet his tragic end in Gotham's streets. This is indisputable.

He had assumed, though, that he would last at least a year as Robin.

He thought Bruce would've been safe.

Tim had spent so long cultivating his plans and carefully navigating his interactions with Bruce. He pushed and pulled Dick, Barbara, Alfred, and some JL members into Bruce's social support. He helped mend their issues, subtly insisted Bruce upgrades his communication skills, and paved the way for a stronger bond.

He denied invitations to spend the night at Wayne Manor, he feigned being full at requests for dinner, and had ducked away from hair ruffles and shoulder pats. He maintained a childlike gaze, a helpful countenance, and a polite business mask.

In the few months Tim has been Robin, he has worked tirelessly to ensure Bruce would have support when Tim inevitably died. He maintained their mutual professional distance to minimize the hurt his death would cause the Waynes. He had designed everything to his best abilities. Tim is going to die, but he would help Bruce before then.

Bruce wasn't supposed to die with him.

Batman and Robin were trapped in the sewers after a cave-in. Apparently, Killer Croc, wrestling, and unsteady foundations were a recipe for a severely concussed Bat and a definitely not panicking Bird.

It could be hours before the two were found deep beneath Gotham's surface. Hours of someone scouring their last known whereabouts for clues before traversing the maze the city uses for their sewage. It could be hours before anyone even noticed their disappearance. Between Bruce's distress signal being crushed in the fight, Tim's being lost in the scuffle, and them being miles underground, this significantly hindered their ability to call for aid.

It might take days before Batman and Robin are unearthed.

From the way the rubble occasionally groaned and trembled, they didn't have that.

Bruce is physically present, his head is cushioned on Tim's lap, but the man's eyes are foggy. He keeps drifting into unconscious before Robin wakes him up again. Each time the man's eyes flutter shut, Tim fears that would be the last time.

It's fine. Tim's okay. Overall, the kid only has bruises on his skin and a few shallow cuts. He might be panicking, but he's physically okay.

Bruce, on the other hand, has a head wound that's sluggishly bleeding into his eyes and dripping down his face. His ribs are cracked from when the man tried to protect Robin from the tunnel collapsing.

Tim can hardly keep his panic at bay when the man starts to doze again. His hand lightly pats Bruce's cheek as he begs the man to open his eyes.

"Hey, B. You're gonna be alright." Tim's voice trembles slightly, but Bruce is too out of it to notice. "It's not going to be much longer. You have to hold on."

Bruce closes his eyes again.

"Bruce. Keep your eyes open."

At the command, the man struggles to pry his eyelids apart. Glassy light blue eyes focus in Tim's general direction. There's an emotion of the man's face that the teen has never seen before.

"We could..." Bruce's voice strains with the effort to speak. Still, he continues to rasp out, "Tomorrow. We could go to the library."

Although it is idiotic to hope, a part of Tim becomes elated at those words. The entire time Tim's been Robin, Bruce has kept him at a distance. They were coworkers, and Tim was necessary, not wanted. The teen could handle curt responses, long silences, and hasty dismissals. At least the man was frank with his expectations and personal boundaries. He never gave false promises or a fake welcome. Bruce was honest with Tim.

If they made it out of there, the man would keep his promise. The two of them could spend time together as Bruce and Tim, not Batman and Robin.

A soft smile appears as Tim regards his mentor. "I'd like that, B."

Bruce's face becomes fond, and his hazy eyes peer up at Tim. "I am glad you're here with me, Jay."

Tim isn't Bruce's son. He isn't the boy whose ghost drapes itself over the shoulders of his grieving father. He isn't a brawler when he fights, and he prefers sci-fi over literary masterpieces.

Tim has two parents. They hardly answer the phone and are gone for months on end, but they exist. They love Tim, in their own distant way.

Tim knows his name is Timothy Jackson Drake and not Jason Peter Todd.

Yet, in the washed-out illumination of an emergency flashlight, the kid faintly beams at Bruce.

"I'll always be here, Dad."

[crows-of-buckets]

I have a theory about Neuvillette

Okay this screenshot doesn't show it very well, but in this scene as Neuvillette is walking down the hall the light catches on his face in a way that reflects prison bars

And when Clorinde walks past here, practically following directly in Neuvillette's footsteps, the light doesn't shine on her in the same way. Instead she stays cast in darkness.

So I have a theory that, for some reason, Neuvillette may end up imprisoned? Sure it may just be a coincidence, but hoyoverse rarely does coincidence tbh.

Besides, there's also this:

When Focalors is complaining about wanting to see a real twist, she holds up a burning picture which directly frames Neuvillette. This could imply that he was possibly framed for something?

I'm also wondering if the light in the hallways represents learning of something, as he goes from shadow to light. Perhaps he unearths something that Focalors doesn't want unearthed, which could be what lands him in jail.

Idk Neuvillette is really suspicious to me. I'm also wondering if he's possibly connected to khaenriah. Like for example

If you zoom in on his eyes here, his pupils look very sharp, almost cat like. They aren't exactly a khaenrian star, but he may only be part khaenrian

Here's kaeyas eye, where his star is much fainter than other khaenrians we've seen, implying kaeya MAY be part khaenrian instead of a full khaenrian

This is Neuvillette's eye (sorry it's so small I couldn't get it any bigger) I sharpened it a bit and it looks very similar to Kaeya's eye. The star isn't nearly as prominent as kaeyas, but it's still kinda similar

Also, Neuvillette's silhouette looks oddly similar to an abyss herald? This one is a bit of a stretch I won't lie, but I saw someone else point it out and it would make so much sense for him to be inspired by abyss heralds design, since kaeya, the only playable khaenrian character as of right now, shares similarities in his design with abyss mages.

Idk, I'm almost certain that Fontaine is going to have ties to Khaenriah, especially with how many times sinners and sin was mentioned in the preview. Along with all the khaenriah teasing we got in sumeru, id be really surprised if Fontaine didn't have anything to do with Khaenriah.

There's ALSO the fact that people speculate that Celestia is directly overhead of Fontaine. Fontaine and Khaenriah seem to be pretty similar in some ways, as they're both countries that push mechanical innovation (based on the machines we saw at the end of the 3.8 Livestream as well as the way other characters have referred to fontaine in the past- think Mikage Furnace). From what's generally told, Khaenriah was destroyed because of its danger as a technologically advanced society (I think that's bullshit and have my own theories as well), so it would make sense for Celestia to keep an eye on Fontaine. And idk having the head judge be part khaenrian would definitely push the similarities between the two nations.

Idk I'm very excited about Fontaine it looks so good :3. Arlecchino, Writhosley and Clorinde are all so cool and I want to try to get all of them. I also kinda want Neuvillette but it depends tbh rn I'm really wanting those three.

[lotuslovers]

‘The Weeknd’ // E.Y

Pairing : female!reader x Eren Yeager, background angst jean kirstein x reader(bashing for the sake of the plot, obv fiction bc i love that man) 

w.c: 4 k 

Summary : Caught up in a world of money, fame, girls, and lies as the man of your dreams is ripped away from you in an unexpected cheating scandal. In response, you make a move with another high profile artist but unexpectedly it becomes a bit more than you bargained for when feelings for the brunette become unearthed. Modern fame AU/Fake dating AU

Trigger warnings: mention of alcohol, of age drinking, brief mention of weed

part 1 | part 2 | tbc

If you were being honest, you shouldn’t be here. Spending a random Friday night at a mutual friend's house in the hills, just to escape the last two months. In the living room of another large house, with closed doors, tables of booze, loud music vibrating off the walls, bodies and bodies of people who you vaguely knew. Pushing each other through the darkness, dim red lights showing the silhouettes of the   people moving to the music, lost in the adrenaline of the night. Lost in a lie, an appearance of ecstasy that differed heavily from the reality each person was facing. In the morning all of it would come back, however in the night they get lost in the ambience of it all. 

The reason why you were here was simple, it was all some risky move to rebrand and get back at what happened. And now, you stood in the corner of a kinda sorta stranger’s house with a cup of whatever was in the bottle you poured, stuck waiting until he would show up. Not him, you had given up the moment he was pictured in bed with another girl that you met at one of his shows, the one who was just his new PR marketing coordinator.  

Despite how much time had passed and how much reflection you did to move on, to you it was the most humiliating experience of your life to have your -now ex-boyfriend of five years cheat on you and to find out by waking up one morning to 23 missed calls and an explore page full of the photos. Someone, a close friend you most definitely knew, had decided not to tell you and leak the pictures to the press one morning. The news made it to all the gossip pages, reposted by everyone's sisters, and all over the tabloids. 

And what makes it worse is not the fact this person didn’t think to tell you first, but the fact that you had been so so public with the man and now you had no privacy to cope with what happened. The break up was put in the public light for everyone to see and judge. The calls never seemed to stop from “concerned friends” to blogs who somehow got your number and wished for any sort of comment from you. 

If anything happened, this was expected to be the response since both of you had made it known the lengths you would go for each other. In whatever endeavors we supported each other no matter what, we were only here because of each other's support. You and him were known for the dedication and love for one another, you non stop supported his music for two years before he was even signed. Showing up in the pouring rain when he booked an opening act for a local artist’s concert, and he supported your education by showing up to your lectures to take notes when you were sick, cooking for you when you were home late for your internship, and surprising you for holidays when he was suppose to be out of town as an opening act for a tour. The next years would be blissful as your ex rose to fame, the money and paper seemed to be a prize for the hours spent as the popularity grew. 

Overnight his music would begin to top the chart, slowly the work he put in would quickly grow the second an old song began to be played more, his managers would invest heavily in promotion and after a few weeks in the spotlight were able to get a co-sign from a much larger and much more established artists. Finally, Jean was a name heard in the industry and then his label would drop a song that was designed to hit mainstream success. And it did, he was now a mainstream artist as the money and streams increased. 

In the past, he interviewed for a small out of the garage podcast that was local, but now he was invited for his first mainstream radio show interview a few months ago before everything happened. Everything had seemed to be going great. Even to you, he was just as devoted in and out of the studio as he was before the fame. His hands wrapped around your waist, finding no bounds to the physical and emotional level. His dedication was shown in the song lyrics professing an emotional vulnerability for your love, in the gifts, cuddles, the lengthy instagram posts he would make, and the actions as he called you up on stage to serenade you each show. 

But like all good things, it had to end when you woke up to your phone being blown up with the pictures of him cuddled up half naked with another girl in your bed. In your home, the one you bought together half a year ago when the money started to come in consistently. In the very bed where both of you lay entangled, lazily talking about future plans in the early hours. 

“you here?” a text illuminated the screen in your hands, snapping away from the memories. Quickly replying back, “yup, back next to the glass door in the living room.”

A few minutes passed as the crowded room around you shifted to whatever song was playing in the background, it was something you could have named the singer if you weren’t so out of it. More hot bodies crowded around each other, arms flailing as people grinding up on one another in the night. The dim background lights lit up the shifting faces in the large room as loud music played from the speakers, flashes from phones lit up parts of the dark room. And yet you still hadn’t seen him until his hand slowly nudged your elbow. 

“y/n?” he tried to talk over the loud music, “wanna-” a nearby yell cut him off. Some drunk guy was screaming the chorus as he paused, leaning over to speak closer to your ear in an attempt to make sure you would hear his next words. 

“Wanna head outside so we can talk?” his voice idly spoke just barely over the music, his breath tickled your ear. He was so close, a mist of cologne hit your senses. It wasn’t anything like the one Jean wore, it smelled entirely different but still emanating a sophisticated subtle scent. 

The brunette stood above you, looking over as the gravity was just beginning to hit you and yet you still nodded. Sliding off the wall, you turned to your left and slid the glass door open before peeking at the man behind you as you exited the hot room into the cold night air. Yeager stood inches above you in an oversized black crewneck with tank top straps peeking out of the neckline and a pair of loose jeans. Moving out to the yard, away from peering eyes of the party you settle on the patio steps that were hidden in the dark. It was silent for a couple seconds, neither of you really knowing where to start. 

“hey-” you both spoke nervously at the same time. It shouldn’t be this hard to speak to him but it felt like a loud blaring alarm was warning you to shut up and run away. Any courage you had texting him earlier was gone, you turned to set the cup down off the top of the staircase steps. “I haven’t seen you in forever, how have you been Eren?” you said hoping it was the right thing to say. 

Brown eyes looked over you, taking you in for the first time in months as you did the same. He moved his arm, racking his fingers through his loose hair,“‘m good, it’s all been pretty stable since I signed” he said with a sweet smile he seemed reserved for you. 

It wasn’t anything like the photos you had seen of weeks ago, the Eren that was trending all over the timeline for a video of him cussing out paparazzi and a group of fans that showed up uninvited outside of his house. It was a thirty second video of him half asleep, only in a pair of loose shorts screaming out of his door and threatening to go outside and put his hands on them. It was way out of line, but they had violated his privacy and somehow got into his gated community to peek through his curtains and egg him on about his scandals at 7 am. Jean had sent you the video from some twitter thread, laughing about the whole situation but that was mainly because of how their rough relationship had been. 

You could bet good money that his PR team had gotten their annual bonuses if not more after the overtime they put in to help try to mediate and get the video deleted. They couldn’t control how fast it spread, but they swiftly issued a statement and Eren posted a story on the situation, after most of the media had died down naturally following the next biggest story. But still Eren’s reputation had not been entirely saved but it never was the best. 

“How’s Carla?” you said, “and is Armin still in med school? I haven't seen him since the big move”. 

His phone lit up briefly but he picked it up and slid it into his back pocket, “Mom’s been better, the bakery has been busy with the holiday rush. S’pose she might finally settle down and hire a few more workers. And Armin graduated med school right after you moved, he started a residency in the Marian Regional Center”. 

“He’s really all grown up now? I swear he was just entering college and your mom, that's so good for her she deserves a break. I know anytime I’m back in town I try to stop by but it's been a while” 

“She’s been asking about you too, I think half the time she calls me just to talk about you” he laughed. 

“Well you know, we’re all we got in this city. I think she misses back then when we were young” 

“And now we’re here, I thought we promised to see each other more” he chided, glancing up at the few stars in the sky. “I know, I know I've just been-” 

“busy?” we said at the same time, again just like we used to. 

“we’re here now, and we are going to have to see each other more now,” Eren said, “so do you really want to do this?” 

 I guess one could only run for so long, we had to speak about why we were even here, “I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t mean this.” 

He just sat turning to glance at you, even as he moved his face was hardly seen in the dark, “But you know the implications, you don’t have to.” As if giving me another way out, but I had decided this and I wanted to go through with it. 

Pausing to gather the words, “It’s only a few outings and rumors, I just want to make people know that I’m moving on. I won’t let him continue to make a fool of me, and continue to bring the break up to light again. He’s already tried to get me back, have you seen what he posted?” you said. Yeager simply nodded, everyone had seen the posts and had continued to blow up your dms asking if you were back with him. “Ren, I’m just done crying and I’m done with him. This will help me and this helps you, did your manager ever get back to you?”

He shook his head back, the hair framing his face fell back to reveal his eyes, “Zeke says it’s a good move, knowing mine and Jean’s history…” he trailed off. Everyone had known when the relationship between the two began to fail, and when Jean tried to say some sneaky shit targeting Eren on some interview, the two stopped talking entirely. “..this would be a good promotion for my tour that’s coming up. I’m just worried-” he said. “Why?” 

“Aren’t you worried at all? Do you really want to be in the spotlight again, can you even? You know they will do what they do, they will make up rumors and I know they aren’t going to be nice to you” 

Leaning back on your palms, you took a minute to take in the stars as you felt the burn of his eyes in your skin. “I’m sure ‘ren. I know you mean the best but I want this, I don’t think anything will ever be as bad as it was when it all first happened.” 

He signed, “okay,” he trailed off remembering something more “you know at first I never believed Kirstein ever managed to get you to date him” he laughed. “I always assumed he made you wear a blindfold when you first met up, and had to overcompensate with his personality”

You snorted, hitting his arm out of reflex, “hey! shut up”. He held his hands up in innocence, he said, “it’s funny, you can laugh”. But you shoved him, glancing at how your hand was placed on his forearm.  

“I missed you Eren, you know that?” removing your hand to place them both in your lap, “It's not fun when your friend hates your boyfriend” 

“Well I was right wasn’t I?”He snarkily said, priding himself in being right about how much of a dick Jean was. “Fine, you were right this time” you said, just feeling better to finally have your friend back, “it’s just really good that you're here.” 

“same y/n I missed your dumbass,” he said leaning over, only to pause as his phone began to vibrate, interrupting the moment. Pulling out the iphone from his pocket, the screen lit up with the name ‘Zeke’ and once again he sighed but refused to answer. “He no doubt wants some update on the whole media plan, I’ve already sent your manager's contact to him but he always needs more specifics. When did you plan on starting the rumors?”

“Uh maybe now since we agreed on it, I mean like tonight. Does that work?” you spoke, “I’ve already taken photos of my outfit to post and I’ve been on a few peoples stories tonight. I’m sure if you wanted, we could take a few pictures and then our team could leak them before tomorrow when they connect the dots.” 

I waited for some reaction, maybe a last minute refusal but he simply just smiled, “we’re really doing this?” He laughed, “It seems like we are, but who will take them?”

“I can text Sasha right now, she is inside with Niccolo,” I said, still waiting for him to change his mind. But he didn’t, “sounds good.”

Before reality could hit, the text was sent and Sasha met the two of you outside. She smiled at him, not really knowing him as much as you did but she knew him vaguely from Connie and that was enough for her to be fine with him. As if she was a pro photographer, she led the two of you back into the hot house and to a corner off to the side near the rest of the people but away enough to convey some sense of privacy. 

“y/n stand right there” she pointed to the right, backing you near the wall in the living room and shooing how you stood until she was satisfied with it. Moving to grab your arms and working to turn your upper body a bit to face Eren more. Only when it was perfect did she move to him, grasping his shoulders and turning them to angle his body over you. Yeager stood above you, glancing down as he smiled waiting for the photos to be taken. Sasha, who was joined by Niccollo, looked around moving pieces of your hair away from your face and hummed when she was satisfied. She pulled her phone out of her purse, stepping a good distance away in the crowd to attempt to make it look more realistic. The darkness was filled with the hazy air of bodies moving and loud bass, flashed of the lights and phones.

You hoped you could sell it, but you felt so stiff as he stood in front of you looking at you in a way that felt far too real. His brown eyes stared, not in some voyeuristic way but it felt like years ago when the two of you would be left after your friends all went home, hanging out until the stars came out. It’s all just fake you wanted to say, but he interrupted the moment by drawing his hands up to move a strand that fell away from your face. 

“sorry, that was in the way” he cheekily spoke but before you could respond Sasha came back. Loudly speaking barely above the music she said, “I think these are coming out pretty well, but there’s another one I want to try”. 

“Yeager can you stand a little more angled out, and press your back a little closer against the wall” he moved automatically as if it was some sort of a photoshoot, “and y/n I want you right in front of him, like almost pressed up and looking back at him. I’ll just get this one quick and we should be good.”

I think Sasha meant well, but as you stepped back you felt Eren’s thighs hit against your back and you knew you were screwed. You hadn’t been this close to another man since Jean, and it felt wrong in a sense that you never would have been in this position. “Is this okay?” he asked behind you, only met with a small nod. You tried to take your mind off of it, you were a single grown woman not some teenage girl getting close to a boy for the first time. 

Posing, you moved your legs out leaning back to turn to look up at him but not graze your hips onto him. Trying to get lost in the conversations around you, you looked up freezing at how close he was to you. He stood simply looking at you, posing until someone near you ran into you and you started and nearly fell forward in the darkness. In front of you, you stumbled closing your eyes until two hands were onto your hips gripping lightly and pulling you back to help you but falling a bit back into him as his face appeared on your shoulder. Whispering into your ear, “are you okay?”

“Mmhm” you spoke, not interested in the heat that hit your face or the way his breath tickled your neck. Once more, Niccollo and Sasha returned smirking at you before she sent them over to you, Eren, and both of your PR Teams in a group chat. The two of you returned outside as your agents were on call discussing the fine details, by 11:30 pm the media rollout was getting planned out and you were off the call in the passenger seat of Eren’s car picking out the pictures you would be posting to instagram. 

Deciding that the first photo would be one of you feeling good, with your hands running down the front of your mini dress hugging on to the curves of your hips. The second was another full body picture but looking to the side and the last was a cute group photo with Sasha, Annie, and Historia all smiling and laughing in the shot. Topped off with the caption “me, myself and i”. 

To anyone scrolling would see it as a cute going out post but to fans and those who would see the gossip posts it would be proof of your outfit and being at the party that night. 

Besides you, Yeager had turned the radio on low as he decided to light up a blunt and smoked as the song “Poison” by Brent Faiyaz played. The second the song began, you quickly turned the station to another station, not wanting to have another reminder as you busied yourself by texting back your PR agents. 

“Ren” you called, “hmm” he hummed back. “They are already reaching out to a big twitter account, they won’t know it’s you yet because of the lighting in the first photo but it will make it look more natural” you said, “I think after they will drop some of the rest of the pictures”. He turned over to you, his hazy gaze looked over at you. Briefly it looked like he was glancing at your lips before he turned to take another look at your form, “sounds good f’me y/n” he finally said. 

Looking between the blunt and your face in the darkened car, the small question hung in the air over the two. Something between the both of you had changed as the other hand moved to cover your hand that rested on your thigh. It felt for once you didn’t know where you stood with him, it all felt too intimate. 

His eyebrow arched, you nodded softly in an almost sleepy state. Yeager leaned over the center console to place his right arm against your seat's headrest, barely bumping his chest against your shoulder. Passing between his fingertips, the blunt slowly raised to your waiting lips. Inhaling a bit as brown eyes met yours, waiting for a few seconds to survey your face as if in hopes of figuring something out. He patiently sat drinking up every inch of your face in the soft light from the radio and the speedometer glowed in red. Moving to take the blunt, you blew out the smoke out of your mouth and into Eren’s awaiting face. ‘Holy fuck,” he though. 

Both sat staring, as if the years of yearning hadn’t amounted to this very moment. How many nights had he been kept up staring down at the instagram pictures you posted with your ex? A younger him used to say that it should’ve been him. You were one of the first real friends Eren met before we got into the industry, way before either of the guys were signed. Yet you had always been devoted to your relationship with Jean and his feelings weren’t going to come out in some jumbled confession when you were so happy. If only he had met you sooner, maybe he could have had a chance. And now he finally might have it, if only it were all real. 

You looked up, smoke slowly licking at the sides of his face. Eren seemed to be contemplating something as he looked lost for a second, all before spitting out the words that would change everything. “can I?” he said, dumbly you replied, “can you what?”

But he didn’t hesitate to ask, “can I kiss you y/n?”

The words were stolen from your mouth, this was ‘Ren. The boy you grew to know, not someone you went out with and dated despite what Carla had implied about you too years ago. He was someone you could get his support from no matter when despite how strained your relationship became. Something was beginning to stir within you, being single now taught you a bit about independence and self dependency but deep down you knew doing this, that it wasn’t motivated but the need to “cheat” back. Instead, you wanted to explore this connection with Eren, this spark wasn’t supposed to happen but it had begun. Now in the closeness of the car, you looked up and decided you wanted to explore this giddy feeling. This feeling that told you to kiss him, and so you did despite what tomorrow morning would bring. 

A/N: can you tell from how bad my party scene is that i go to a very small college with zero party scene? like how do you write a party scene…genuinely all i have is “loud music, hot bodies”. but anways here’s this, another thing that’s been in the drafts for YEARS. idk if this will be continued at all, so no promises I’m just taking advantage of my mini motivation to write. is it yeager? jeager?

[skyler10fic]

Lightning Strikes Twice Ch. 2

Summary: Twenty-five years after being adopted by Phil and Melinda, young adult Skye is a Shield agent who wants to know so much more about confidential operations. Through an accident in FitzSimmons' lab, she discovers the answers no one else could: her true origins.

Read on Ao3

In an office high above sunny Los Angeles, at Shield’s West Coast headquarters, an error message popped up on the screen of a high-powered laptop: Access denied.

Skye had questions. The understatement of the century, her mother would have said. Being a Shield agent was her dream job in all ways but one: she needed so much more information than she was given at this clearance level. With both communications hub training as a cybersecurity agent and field experience, she was a versatile team player. But she also didn't rank high enough to know the “why” behind some of her assignments.

Now, spinning in her chair at her desk, she could only wait for her commanding officers to come back from their high-level meeting. A few years ago, she’d tried finding out information by simply hacking her way around the internal files, and she found the hard way that was not allowed, even though she’d helped design the security system herself. Years ago, she was always let off the hook easily as a rookie, having practically grown up at Shield with both of her parents as agents, but at 28, it wasn’t cute anymore and the consequences were real. So to resist poking around in files she wasn’t technically allowed in, she sought out her friends.

Drs. Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz, known around the agency as FitzSimmons, were processing and cataloging the pieces of an alien ship unearthed by construction workers from a building project in the rapidly expanding suburbs, so Skye skipped their offices and went straight to the warehouse.

Sure enough, the couple squabbled in the adjacent lab, visible through a large glass window in their matching lab coats and safety goggles.

Fitz stole a contraption from Jemma’s side of the table. “You can’t know that, just because it has some markings on it!”

“They aren’t just markings. They’re just like the ones Skye…” Jemma stopped as she noticed who was approaching the doorway. “Skye! Anything we can help with?”

“No, actually, I came to see if you needed my help.” Skye narrowed her eyes and read both of their terrible poker faces. “Were you guys talking about me?”

“Nooo,” Jemma denied poorly.

“Oh, no, it’s uh, another Skye, someone else. You don’t know them…” Fitz scratched the back of his head, a sure tell.

“Uh huh,” Skye deadpanned, in a tone only a daughter of Melinda’s could have.

“Just out of curiosity,” Jemma said sweetly, “since you’re here to help… Do you know what these symbols mean?”

Jemma held out a shard of metal to Skye, and Fitz watched her with a fist to his lips, as if holding in his anticipation.

Skye shook her head. “Sorry, it’s not anything I’ve seen. Maybe an indigenous language or something? I could take a few photos and run it through my translation program if you want.”

“Like Google Translate?” Fitz asked, realizing the solution was, as usual, simpler than their overthinking.

Skye let out a surprised laugh. “Google wishes. No. Much, much better. And bigger. It includes all the terrestrial and extraterrestrial languages Shield has encountered.”

“Ah!” Jemma’s victory smile bloomed. “So you think it could be extraterrestrial.” She sent a pointed look at Fitz.

Fitz’s voice rose. “I never denied it was alien, just not…” He stopped and looked to Skye.

Skye hopped up on an empty metal table to signify that she was staying. “Okay, something is definitely going on with you two. Spill.”

Jemma took off her goggles and gloves, and she hopped up on the table next to Skye. She used her most gentle, careful voice as she asked, “Do you still remember your first night here?”

This hadn’t been what Skye was expecting. She put on a forced smile to cover up that the simple question had knocked the wind out of her.

Skye swallowed and tried to answer. “Yeah, a bit. Mainly through stories my dad told me growing up.”

Fitz saw her discomfort and stepped in. “Do you remember that time you threw dirt at me?”

Skye smiled for real this time. “We were like six.”

Jemma loved this story, so she said, as always, “I don’t think I remember this one. What happened?”

Fitz obliged her and began, “I had maths with the older kids, and at recess, one of the older boys told me how babies were made, which I was very unhappy about at the time. And I ran to tell Skye.”

“But,” Skye picked up the story as she swung her feet lightly, “My dad always said that I was given to them from the sky when I asked where I came from, so naturally, I always assumed all babies just sort of appeared out of thin air the way I did.”

Fitz teased, “You were so mad, you actually bent down, picked up two fistfuls of dirt, and tried to put them in my hair.”

“You ran fast back then.” Skye shrugged in surrender. “I had to resort to throwing it.”

“We weren’t allowed recess for the rest of the week,” Fitz concluded.

Jemma pressed in on this segue. “So, is that all you know, just that Agent Coulson and Agent May found you one day? Do you remember anything before that?”

Skye sighed and softened. “It’s crazy, but sometimes as a kid I had nightmares about these huge blue guards with, like, giant weapons. My parents used to have to hold me for hours to get me to go back to sleep. But after a few years, they stopped. Mostly. I think wherever I was before, I just wanted to forget so badly that I did.”

Jemma put an arm around Skye’s shoulders in comfort. “Sorry, I was just … never mind.”

Skye stiffened and shrugged her off to get through the part that made her sick whenever it came up. She’d been teased relentlessly by the other Shield kids at camp. It was supposed to be a safe place for agents’ families to unwind, but instead the rumors grew faster and wilder because anything was possible.

“I’m not an alien,” Skye gritted out. “Every test Shield could run, they put me through at three years old. And even since then, I have to get all my medical stuff done here, just in case something shows up. I’m 28!”

She hopped off the table and pressed her hands to her face in frustration. “These people, Shield … even me sometimes… We get so caught up in ‘Ooo what if it’s aliens’ that we forget sometimes people just suck. My birth parents either couldn’t care for me or didn’t, and I ran away, and clearly it wasn’t somewhere I wanted to go back to. All I know is they said I begged to stay, and that’s why I was adopted through Shield instead of put in foster care. So, yeah, I was a weird kid. A lot of three year olds are. It doesn’t mean I’m…”

Skye’s pacing and emphatic gesturing combined in a disaster Fitz and Jemma were powerless to stop as it happened before their eyes. In her adamancy, Skye’s hand knocked over a rusting metal storage box sitting on the artifact table next to where she’d been pacing. The box, decorated with more of the strange symbols Jemma had shown her earlier, popped open, with the clasp so damaged from being exposed to the elements. Something silver and strange rolled out and toward the edge of the table. Reflexively, Skye grabbed it before it hit the floor. Her reflexes were fast enough to catch it, but not fast enough to let go as her hand and arm hardened, like they were turning to stone.

“HELP!” Skye called out to her friends, who watched in horror.

“Don’t touch it, Fitz!” Jemma warned as she donned her goggles and gloves again. The last thing Skye heard before the low, loud rumbling started was Jemma’s promise they would fix this. Then everything went silent and black.

—-----------

Skye woke up to an earthquake. Not entirely unheard of here in the LA area, but rarely felt in a building as heavily fortified as Shield. Wait, she had been at work. Had she fallen asleep on the job? Why was she in an unfamiliar bed?

The earthquake stopped as she slowly realized. She took in the medical setting with its chill air conditioner draft and sterility and the crowd of people around her. Yes, she was still at Shield but not in any of the parts she expected.

“She’s awake!” Jemma’s voice called out from her hospital bedside.

“What happened?” Skye mumbled out despite her throat feeling like she swallowed a pile of rocks.

“Here, drink.” Melinda opened a bottle of water and handed it to her. “You were out for a few hours.”

Phil appeared in the room. “Oh thank god. How are you feeling, sunshine? You scared us pretty bad there.”

“I remember, we were in your lab by the warehouse…” Skye looked to Jemma and Fitz. “And I broke something you were working on. And then I passed out?”

“Sort of.” Jemma hesitated. “You touched a metal thing from the alien ship and then you were covered in a sort of casing? Like ash? We’re having our biohazards team look into it.”

Skye examined her arms, which were normal aside from having a greyish residue. It reminded her of when she’d dyed her hair black in college and the stains it’d left on her skin.

“How did you get it off?”

Fitz inhaled sharply. “We didn’t. You… you’re an…”

Skye’s gaze landed on him and she sat up. “I’m what?”

Melinda and Phil exchanged a look, and Melinda placed her hand on Skye’s. “Sweetheart, you’re special. You’ve always known that, and we haven’t hidden anything from you that we knew for sure.”

Skye’s pulse quickened, reflected in the lines on the monitor hooked up to nodes on her chest.

“All parents think their kids are special.”

“Not like this,” Melinda said, leaving no room for negotiation, but Skye persisted anyway.

Skye shook her head in denial. “I’m not… that. I’m just a human. I’m not what you think.”

“Skye,” Jemma said gently. “You broke out of the casing on your own. We ran the markings through your translation program. They were Kree. Even your lab work shows tiny changes—tweaks, really—to your genetics that could only work if…”

“Okay.” Skye tried not to panic and the shaking stated again. She took deep breaths as the bed trembled. The tubes and wires connected to her carried the shaking to their machines, like a very small power grid.

“Hey. Look at me. Breathe.” Melinda’s no-nonsense voice guided Skye’s gaze back to her and the shaking stopped. “You’re going to be okay. This isn’t a total shock to us. We suspected it from the first night you were here. And you sometimes drew symbols like this writing, those first few days, before we took you home with us.”

“You knew?”

“No.” Melinda shook her head once. “It was only ever a theory. Everything you know about yourself is 100% true.”

Jemma piped in again, “As far as we know, with the exception of these tweaks, you’re just as human as the rest of us, medically speaking. Your genetic profile just doesn’t match any potential families of origin here on Earth!”

Her cheery tone was meant to be helpful, but the others simply blinked at her.

Phil leaned over his daughter’s hospital bed and pecked a kiss to her forehead. “However you got here, it was a miracle. We love you. That’s what matters. What happens now, with the shaking, well, you’re in the best place in the world to have help figuring that out.”

The realization hit Skye and she gasped. “ME? I’m the earthquake?”

“Yeah,” Phil exhaled with a smile on his lips. “It’s pretty cool.”

“COOL?!” Skye gapped at her dad.

Fitz shrugged. “Think about it. If you get it under control, you could be part of the enhanced division.”

Superheroes. She was the new accident-turned-superhuman in a long line. Last year, a kid got bitten by a radioactive spider on a school trip. Before that, tech geniuses, scientists with dangerous experiments, and even a few aliens had come through the office while on special assignments, but it wasn’t as regular of an occurrence. Now, as more enhanced individuals pinged Shield's radar, Director Fury was seeing the need for not just a team of contractors but a whole division and training program.

At Skye’s silence, Jemma added, “But no pressure. You’ve only just gotten powers, who knows what all they do, and you need to heal first.”

“Heal? I feel fine, just tired.”

Jemma grimaced. “That’ll be the IV. Painkillers. You hit your head and side quite hard when you fainted after you broke free of the casing. We had to take shelter from the explosion and quake and flying ashy casing shrapnel and couldn’t catch you. The good news is, no concussion, though! Just a little worse for wear on the outside is all. You’ll be back to normal in no time, at least appearance-wise.”

Skye picked up on what Jemma wasn’t saying and reached for her phone on the bedside table. She opened up the camera app in selfie mode and was startled. The entire right side of her face was purple and blue.

“Shit.”

Melinda laid her hand on Skye’s again. “The painkillers help for now, but healing takes time. No need to rush into anything other than getting better.”

Fitz glanced around the circle and back down at Skye. “And whatever happens, you’ve got all of us.”

It meant a lot—the world, really— but it didn’t change the fact that when visiting hours were over and her friends and parents went home to sleep, she was just as alone as she always had been in the end. She knew she should be grateful to have so much love, but as she attempted to rest, part of her was still haunted by one last lingering nightmare, the one that she lied about having gone away.

She was hiding in some sort of shed, just a little peeling whitewashed wooden shelter next to a swirling expanse of sand and dirt. Rain pelted in the wall that was just a chainlink fence looking out to the field, but she tried to stay as quiet and still as possible. The monsters were coming for her. She shivered in the cold as the ground shook with their heavy footsteps. Any minute, she’d see a blue face, threatening to send her to one of the colonies where the work was hard and endless.

“Agent Skye!” a nurse called out to her and shook her slightly. “Agent Skye!”

Skye awoke to a kind but unfamiliar face relaxing. “Sorry, did I shake things again?”

“Yes, but it’s alright now.” The nurse waved her hand at staff peeking in the doorway. “Can you tell me what you were dreaming about, if anything?”

Skye sat up as she answered. “It’s one I had since I was a kid. Hiding from someone coming to take me away. Don’t have to be a shrink to figure that one out.”

The nurse had clearly read her chart because she responded without missing a beat. “No, not at all. Perhaps some antianxiety in the IV, just to help you sleep without fear?”

Skye could tell despite the nurse’s genuine concern that the medicine was not just for her own the nightmares but also for the ease of the nightshift staff. As a Shield foundling of unknown origin, she’d grown used to people being perplexed by her, astonished by her, and even afraid of her, but this was the first time she realized that fear was entirely valid. The nurse even secured Skye’s IV tape where it had shaken loose and rearranged some of the equipment before leaving, making it more stable in case she quaked it again.

The medicine did the trick and soon enough, she was back to sleep, despite her confusion and worries. This time, she slept dreamlessly.

The next day, she went home with instructions about bruise care and several medications, including an antianxiety daily pill and referral to a Shield therapist who dealt specifically with newly enhanced people. There was no way around it: her recovery process was going to hurt, but here at the end of her rope mentally and physically, she finally allowed herself to get the help she had needed for a lot longer than she had had superpowers.

After her body healed, she trained hard for months, going from emotionally shaken inside and sending little tremors into the world around her to steady inside and in control of her growing powers. Every day, they grew stronger as she did, until she could control the waves on the ocean from the shore and cause a landslide of the rocks on the hill from a high-rise a mile away. She poured all of her energy and anger and fear and unanswered questions into training until she was certified as an enhanced field agent.

[satohqbanana]

seastarblue asked:

if you’re taking those zodiac asks— sagittarius: do you find your writing humorous? do you have any comic relief characters? what do you do if a scene gets too serious? ?

Original here: Zodiac Writing Asks

2. "Do you have any comic relief characters?"

I don't really have any comic relief characters! …maybe except some OCs from ye olde. (Yay, you unearthed lore!)

One of which is Cedric àl Farconessiance, Warlock of Knowledge and Lord of Games. His domain extends beyond the likes of board games or card games; he also hunts (with guns) and he especially favors mind games. But he's not really badass and imposing when he's next to his squad - which is most of the time. He's just vibing with a little smile and often says the goofiest and most ridiculous things. Like. Look at the guy below the cut!

Isn't he so ridiculous? I love him. But I don't have anything else to do with him. :(

Within the similar universe is Chronicle the Desert Naga. They used to be a concept for a closed species group NPC, then they became a random NPC I could pull in to do whatever I want. Chro appears wherever whenever in any desert location to give information or to trade goods, and their appearance is always often a hilarious surprise.

I wasn't really cooking with the story of this bunch. However, I was definitely cooking with the designs of this group. You should see it. ...I should post it...

(But also, I really think I should let them go and have someone else use their designs or whatnot.)

[blueiscoool]

Viking Sword from Warrior's Grave Unearthed in Norway

The Viking Age weapon was discovered by a homeowner clearing land for an extension.

A man digging in his yard to build an extension of his house in southern Norway has unearthed the 1,100-year-old grave of a Viking warrior who was buried with weapons.

The finds include a rusty iron sword in two pieces; its hilt style enabled archaeologists to date the burial to the late 800s or early 900s, during the Viking Age, Joakim Wintervoll — an archaeologist who works for the local government of Agder County, where the relics were found — told Live Science.

"We have a good record of how the 'fashion' in the shapes of sword handles developed in Norway, from early ages up to more modern eras," he said. "Comparing it to other known sword handles, we believe this sword is from the late ninth century to the 10th century."

Other artifacts found in the grave included a long spear designed to be used on horseback, called a lance; glass beads and a belt buckle gilded with gold; and a bronze brooch. Neither human nor animal remains have yet been discovered there.

The artifacts seem to have belonged to a Viking warrior. "The lance suggests that this was someone that was proficient in combat from horseback," Wintervoll said. And the warrior was "definitely someone of means, based on the gold-gilded jewelry."

Viking burial

The grave and its artifacts were discovered in late June in the yard of a house in the mainly rural district of Setesdal, beside a lake about 125 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of Oslo. Homeowner Oddbjørn Holum Heiland had started using a mechanical digger to clear the spot in his yard where he and his wife Anne planned to extend their house, according to Science Norway.

"I wasn't going to dig a lot, just a little bit in the slope behind the house, to get some more space between the house and the land," he told the news outlet.

He first found an oblong slab just below the surface; it's now been recognized as a gravestone. Further digging revealed the hilt of the sword; Holum Heiland then realized his yard must hold other Viking artifacts, so he stopped digging and called the county archaeologists.

Wintervoll and Jo-Simon Frøshaug Stokke, an archaeologist from Oslo's Museum of Cultural History, visited the site a few days later. No Viking artifacts had been found before at the property, Wintervoll said, but a Viking grave containing a sword, spear, glass beads and a horse bridle were discovered on a nearby farm in the 1930s.

Although it's "a bit too early to say" whether these two graves have a connection, "it is interesting that they are relatively close and have almost identical finds in them," he said.

Ancient claim

It is possible that a Viking warrior was buried at the site as a way for their descendants to claim ownership of the land around it, Wintervoll said. Or, perhaps it had only family significance.

"No grave mound was known to have been on this homestead," Wintervoll said. In Norway, this type of grave is known as a "flatmarksgrav," which translates to "flat field grave," he added.

The person interred there might have been buried whole, or cremated ashes may have been laid down in the grave. "At this point in time, the practice varied a bit from place to place, but we have yet to find any burnt bones," he said.

The grave seems to have been dug on an almost east-west axis, which would align with sunrise and sunset, and the only grave marker seems to have been the oblong stone above it.

"Right now, we don't think this is a grave that was meant to be visible at a great distance," Wintervoll said. "These types of graves might have a more family or private function."

By Tom Metcalfe.

[aceofshitposts]

Jewelry

Omegaverse with alpha Tim and omega Jason. Nothing explicit but I know it's not everyone's thing.

-

"What's this?" Jason asks, carefully unearthing a blue velvet box from the piles of trinkets he was helping Tim sort through.

Tim hums, not even looking up from the little book he was currently scribbling in. Jason elbows him in the shoulder, which earns him a yelp and a glare until he sees what's in Jason's hands.

"Oh. Looks like it must be some of mom's jewelry," he says while taking the large box from Jason's hands. He unclips the silver latch, the lid springing open to reveal--

An incredibly ornate looking collar. The band itself is thin, delicate looking white gold metal twisted in a complicated filigree design. A single dark blue sapphire sits in the front, flanked by two smaller white diamonds. A chain and clasp holds it together in the back, adjustable for the omega's comfort.

Jason sucks in a breath through his teeth. He doesn't think he's ever seen a collar like that before, somehow avoiding being too gaudy while still speaking to the family's clear wealth.

"Ah," Tim mutters, emotion clogging his voice as he speaks, "my grandparents made a big stink when Dad wanted to marry Mom, they wanted him to marry an omega. So, when they wouldn't bless the marriage, Dad had a custom collar made for her instead of using the family one. I think I only ever saw her wear it once or twice though and definitely not at all towards the end."

Where once collars had been used exclusively on omegas to show they were owned, nowadays collars were a general show of devotion between mates regardless of gender. Not everyone used, or agreed with them considering their origins, instead opting for less invasive rings. Jason had never given either option that much thought, if he was honest, his life too tumultuous to spend much time thinking about something like how he would or would like someone else to propose.

Looking at a collar that has some significance to Tim, though?

"I'd never take it off," he blurts out, completely inelegant.

Tim's head whips around to stare at him, hands clenching and snapping the lid closed at the same time.

"I mean, if you wanted," Jason continues haltingly as Tim continues to stare.

Slowly a smile spreads cross Tim's lips as he says, "you want to wear my collar?"

Jason nods mutely, feeling his face getting redder by the moment.

"Well," Tim hums, considering the box in his hands, "I don't think white gold with big gemstones is really our style. We'll have to go get matching ones made."

"Did you just propose?" Jason chokes out.

"If you want to?" It's apparently Tim's turn to turn red, eyes going wide like he only just realized the gravity of what he said.

There's only one possible thing Jason can say to that.

"Yes."

[catsandfeathers]

Some Cod Empire Headcanons

Clothes in the cod empire are often seen as bland and boring to outsiders but its generally full of symbolism.

While the mostly green, grey and brown fabrics appear to all look the same intricately woven or embroidered accents on the clothes made from red and blue fabric usually tell you a lot of the wearer.

From the embroidery and the kind of jewellery they wear you can tell who you're talking to and what their believes are.

Jewellery is worn often and proudly even if its made from "trash" as the other empires would say. Bits of Mezalean clay pots and seaglass are often found, edges washed away by the waters that got them into the swamp in the first place, amber and spun glass contrasting the unnatural colours of the glazed terracotta. Metals and the rare precious gems washed ashore or unearthed by the citizens tell of wealth. Bones of cattle are usually carved into intricate animal shaped beads while teeth of all kinds of fish accent and contrast the rounded appearance of most of the beads used. Generally, theyre worn as bracelets, necklaces or fastened to clothes with intricately designed pins made from all kinds of material (although metals are favoured due to longevity)

If someone is rich enough to import you can often find all kinds of dyed fabrics on their layered clothes along with an eccentric mix of fabric types not usually found in the Cod empires and their jewellery will often glint in purples and blues from pressed lapis or amethyst beads.

Their magic is generally as "trash" based as their fashion. Everything gets a second life in their spells, be it bones or trash they fished out of their waters. Favoured by the common folk are spell jars, filled up with water from a moon phase that fits their needs.

Prayer is generally sung to the ocean as they hold the belief that the water will carry their words to the gods.

For big events theres usually some salmon to be burned ritually, the fire is thought to cleanse them from their sin against codfolk which in turn bestows blessing on the codfolk for being so considerate (it is believed that this ritual was started as an excuse to burn large amount of salmon)

Along with handmade beads or jewellery the most common gift is amulets of varying kinds. Each 13 months they renew home blessings, usually inscribed on a clay plate and hung over the doors of their homes. Family and close friends get gifted amulets made from various metals, copper being the most common as it is a great conduit. The lines carved into these is usually filled with a lapis paste and then hung to dry over fire.

The lapis paste itself sometimes has different materials worked into it although usually this is mostly done by priests. Most commonly found are crushed up pearls for a fine shimmer or the finest shaved gold youll find on the continent which is meant to enhance spells regarding luck and health.

You can often find pretty and unique bottles of water in the homes of Codfolk as they collect water from the nearest body of water during an important event in ones life. Examples for this are a birth, marriage or death of a loved one.

These waters are sometimes stolen and used in curses. This practice isn't too uncommon but definitely frowned upon.

Their calendar looks weird to outsiders who are often used to a seasonal calendar of nations that grow crops. The Codfolk, along with other ocean based or ocean dwelling cultures, base their calendar on the lunar cycle. You'll often hear young Codfolk say they're already 120 Cycles old whereas older Codfolk learned how to use the other nations Calendars for ease of trade.

Due to their closeness to bodies to bodies of water the Cod Empire has taken a liking to Hammocks.

Often made from a rather rough linen lined with softer fabrics and coarse furs he preference came to life through their life by the water, or in many cases, on the water. The rocking of waves or houses during heavy sea made Codfolk appreciate a resetful sleep on a hammock. Beds are by now often seen as foreign or a luxury to those wealthy enough to travel farther inland permanently

[ootahime]

analyzing every gojohime moment in the manga 😈

this series will probably have more than one part because tumblr only lets me upload ten images per post </3

warning: there are disgustingly long paragraphs in here and delusions

chapter 32

utahime’s first introduction!  akutami lets us know right off the bat that she thinks gojo is an idiot (so true).

chapter 32

i love the contrast between miwa and utahime’s reaction to gojo’s appearance.  

chapter 33

NAH BC TELL ME WHY HE WENT OUT OF HIS WAY TO NOT GET HER ONE LMAOOOO!!  when he traveled overseas to meet with yuta, he picked up the tribal protection charms and thought to himself, “let’s get enough for the kyoto students as a gift since i am such a great and caring teacher, after all.  mmm, i should skip utahime to make her mad~”  this guy puts way too much effort into getting on her nerves.  his mind = utahime brainrot

chapter 33

she’s laughing at him here because he’s getting disciplined for being a lil shit.  i wonder...what would he say if he saw her laughing at him like that?  

chapter 33

this interaction between them is a little strange don’t you think?   i feel like over the years he’s learned how to pick up her mood based on the way she’s acting towards him.  you’re probably thinking, “well any person can figure out how a person’s feeling based on the way they’re talking or acting.”  yes, that’s absolutely true, but it’s kind of different with this.  she’s acting normal.  utahime has a rather indifferent expression on her face and what she says is spoken in a calm tone, but gojo still asks her if she’s mad at him.  it’s likely that he knows her well enough to be able to notice these subtle things.  even if she wasn’t actually mad at him, he was being considerate for a split second, then he went and said, “of course.  i didn’t do anything wrong and all.”  what a guy LOLOL.  to me, this implies that maybe he made her genuinely angry in the past to the point where he realized that he went too far, and thus decided to be more careful of her feelings.  she has definitely gotten annoyed at him so many times after that so whenever she seems angry, he probably asks himself if he took it too far.  i’m curious to see if he can pick up if she’s upset with something that’s not involving him.  would he console her?  how does gojo satoru console someone?  

despite him always annoying her, she’s still courteous and brings him a cup of tea during their talk.  she didn’t have to go out of her way to get tea for him but she did.  that’s the kind of person utahime is.  a kind and caring woman who would never put her students in danger.  in the anime they were sitting far away and not facing each other like they’re doing in the manga.  she also has her own tea cup.  i think that little panel of her placing the cup down on the table and him picking it up to take a sip is a nice little detail.  it just proves that her hating him most of the time isn’t actually pure hatred but annoyance because of his shenanigans and teasing.

chapter 33

i touched upon this a little bit in my previous post, but i wish to go more in depth about this panel.  first of all, he ends the sentence with her name twice.  two times too many, mr. gojo.  i like how they can be serious with each other too LOL.  i wish we got to see them talk about the traitors because they did figure it out together after all.  does it always end in bickering?  can they interact with each other like adults all the way through?  somehow, i feel like that’s not possible when it comes to these two.  furthermore, notice how gojo confides in utahime about his suspicions.  from what we know, she is the first person he brought it up to.  i mean, i guess he has to start investigating the schools and would need extra assistance to save time, but he could have done it himself if he really wanted to.  by deciding to ask for her help we know that he thinks she’s trustworthy, smart, and strong enough to face whatever considerable risks this task may entail.  

i didn’t point this out in my other posts but see how he makes a hand sign in the last panel when she throws the cup at him?  gojo is manually activating his infinity.  why though?  about a year after the whole star plasma vessel incident happened, gojo develops the ability to keep his infinity up at all times by using the reversed curse technique to consistently heal himself to prevent exhaustion.  this means that it really makes no difference whether he leaves it on or off.  there are a few times where we can witness someone actually touching gojo.  for example, yuuji giving him a hug.  did he turn his infinity off, or was it able to deduce that yuuji was not a threat?  the erasers and pencils shoko and geto threw at him during his demonstration of his new ability aren’t dangerous normally, but is it the speed that makes them dangerous?  even if it did hit him, it wouldn’t hurt.  how does the infinity know when to allow an incoming object to touch gojo?  i believe it is up to gojo himself to let things touch him; his infinity restricts anything and anyone.  some people say it could just be the fact that water is not dangerous to him, so therefore, he has to manually put his infinity up.  i thought this was a reasonable explanation as to why he put up the hand sign when the tea was thrown at him, but then i realized that it couldn’t be.  remember the second opening?  it’s raining and everyone is carrying an umbrella, then it pans to gojo with a bouquet in his hand and rain drops slipping off his infinity.  if he DID manually put his infinity up to prevent getting soaked then that implies that he chose to turn his infinity off.  you can argue and say that jujutsu high is a safe place with students so there’s no need to have his infinity there, but do you remember when he stepped on the ants in front of gakuganji and yaga?  the ants were perfectly fine after which insinuates that his infinity prevented his shoes from crushing the ants.  he most likely had his infinity on during the baseball game even though he was in a safe environment.  how does this long tangent relate back to utahime?  well, it simply indicates that gojo trusts utahime so much to the point where he can be vulnerable around her.  turning off his infinity symbolizes completely letting down his guard  in a way.  

how about what happens next?  utahime throws the tea at him, he turns on his infinity to deflect it, and he responds with, “scary!  hysteric women aren’t popular, you know!”  why would he even say that LMAO??  utahime doesn’t even try to deny what he said either.  she just hits him with the good old, “i am your senpai!”  could it be that he’s trying to poke fun of her relationship status?  maybe, maybe not.  doesn’t he like people a lil crazy?  he did say that all jujutsu sorcerers have to be a little crazy because they’re willing to put themselves in danger constantly.  

chapter 0 p.1

i wonder who he’s thinking of when he said that.  could it be utahime?  it seems like he’s reminiscing or thinking about someone.  he wears an amused expression on his face as he laughs - almost like he’s seen his fair share of how scary women can get :>>

chapter 34

the pattern behind gojo and utahime is called yagasuri “fletching,” a traditional japanese design.  this design is inspired by arrow fletching.  it's a lucky charm for weddings and other celebrations since it's based on the Japanese belief that an arrow shot once never comes back.  brides were given kimonos with this pattern for good luck during the edo era (1603–1868) to ensure they would not have to return to their original family home.  this pattern can have numerous meanings such as steadfastness or determination to achieve a goal, or a wish for the happiness of the bride.  there is a belief that a bow and arrow represent the fight against evil.  honestly, this meaning fits the narrative of the story.  utahime and gojo are unearthing the traitors that are feeding intel to the curse users and cursed spirits.  they are in the middle while the kyoto students surround them, which could mean that it’s their job as adults to protect these children from the grasps of evil slowly making itself more prominent.  do you also notice that the arrows are pointed toward utahime from gojo?  from all the images i’ve seen, the arrows are usually pointed downward.  what could this mean?  is gojo trying to protect her (in the future (?)) or does he have a big fat crush smh...

i think it’s a good time to mention utahime’s clothing.  she’s wearing miko attire.  miko are shrine maidens who were once thought to be shamans (you connecting the dots?).  in their service to shrines, miko used to perform spirit possession and takusen (in which the possessed person acts as a "medium" (yorimashi) to communicate the divine will or message of that kami (god) or spirit; also included in the category of takusen is "dream revelation" (mukoku), in which a kami appears in a dream to communicate its will).  this was back in the old days, of course.  to become a miko back then (shaman), one needed to have potential.  neurosis, hallucinations, odd behavior, and hysteria (HYSTERIA HELLO???) are some of the signs that a person is being called to shamanism.  when a miko is communicating with a kami (god) or spirit by acting as a medium, she is in a trance-like state, and so she must learn techniques to control herself when this happens.  chanting and dancing were used to accomplish this, so the girl was taught melodies and intonations that were used in songs, prayers, and magical formulas.  all of this could give us insight about utahime’s technique and explains why she’s good at singing :)  maybe she can’t control herself when she uses her technique which is why she isn’t shown using it because it should be used for dire situations.  i imagine being possessed by a spirit or god must consume a lot of cursed energy.  it makes sense that utahime and gakuganji wear traditional clothing.  they’re the staff of jujutsu high’s kyoto branch.  in chapter 0, kyoto is known as the sacred land of jujutsu.  it’s more traditional compared to tokyo.  if you want to learn more about miko, you should check out the wikipedia page!  

chapter 34

i swear he tries to annoy her every chance he gets.  i bet he sets a goal for himself to see how many times utahime lectures him about respecting his seniors every time he’s within the same vicinity as her.  at least he called her utahime-sensei!!!

chapter 40

this isn’t even a gojohime moment tbh...i just wanted to share a pic of them sitting next to each other HEHE.  why are they sitting next to each other anyway?  it’s not like they have assigned seating.

----

that was so long and i apologize for the gargantuan paragraphs you guys had to read through.  i’m writing this at 4 in the morning and i’m feeling borderline delirious so i apologize if there are any errors.  i’ll edit this when i have time <3

the next part should come shortly.

[tlbodine]

PG: Psycho Goreman

This is another of those Shudder films that everybody was talking about for a bit and which took me a while to get around to watching. 

PG: Psycho Goreman (2020) was written and directed by Steven Kostanski. It’s about two kids who unwittingly unearth a powerful, violent alien being who has been imprisoned for his space-crimes. But, because the gem that controls him is now in possession of a spunky 10-year-old girl, things take a turn. 

This movie is....hm. It’s hard to say how I feel about it. Some parts of it I really enjoyed, and some parts I really did not. I don’t know whether that means it balances out to a zero, or if it’s tipped one way or another. It’s just. A movie that exists, I guess? 

But okay: The things I enjoyed first! 

I like the central conceit of the film. I was definitely the kind of semi-feral little girl who would have been delighted to find and befriend a giant killer monster and make him play games with me. I had daydreams about exactly that. (is that the first stage of the monsterfucker pipeline? /thinking emoji) 

I like PG himself, too, his design and the acting and characterization overall. He gets a lot of funny lines. And it’s very fun to imagine that he and his whole world ultimately belong to a different movie, that just happens to have been hijacked by this little kid. 

And I really love all the practical effects. I am a sucker for practical gore and costuming, even when it doesn’t look “better” than CGI, I have a ton of respect for it. And the practical effects in this film are so FUN, just so bombastically over-the-top and visually interesting. 

I mean this in the best way possible: This movie feels like an extremely R-rated episode of The Power Rangers. 

So what, then, did I not enjoy? 

The writing, or specifically the characterization, was...very all over the place. Characters are inconsistent, the tone jumps around, and everybody is kind of shitty and mean for no real reason? The movie overall just has a very mean-spirited sense of humor, which I feel like is probably a natural consequence of trying to subvert tropes for the sake of subverting them rather than having a clear vision of what the film wants to say. It renders the characters, especially the little girl, as pretty obnoxious, and undercuts any emotional sincerity the story could have otherwise had. Like every time it kind of gets close to having a sincere thought the movie’s like HAHA YOU SUCK ACTUALLY. The film equivalent of someone who apologizes to you and gives you a hug as an excuse to reach around and give you a wedgie and laugh in your face about it. 

So....yeah. I liked a lot of what this movie could have been, but I ultimately did not super enjoy the experience of watching it because it’s just too mean. YMMV.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #171

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making the Berserker of El Dorado, a.k.a. the CEO of Amazones, a.k.a. yet another reason why Type Moon should stop designing teenage characters. Like several other servants from Agartha her true name is hidden when you meet her, so expect spoilers below the break.

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: The reason they call him that is because you have to resist punching him in the face.

Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, is a Zealot Barbarian for a whole lot of anger issues and godly boons.

Race and Background

Penth’s the daughter of a god and also fuckign terrifying, so that’s why she’s a Fallen Aasimar. When she fell she got +1 Strength and +2 Charisma, as well as Darkvision which explains the black sclera, Celestial Resistance to radiant and necrotic damage, Healing Hands to keep her golden body in top condition, and the Light Bearer cantrip. Your weapons are glowy, this’ll take care of that for now.

You’re queen, but a queen of the amazons, so modify that Noble background to get History and Intimidation proficiency.

Ability Scores

If you want to be the daughter of a war god you’d better be able to war good, so make sure your Strength is as high as possible. Your Dexterity also better be good, I know jumping is strength-based, but running around in half a suit of armor is dex based. It definitely doesn’t look like armor, but it’s spiked, and a +2 to dexterity will let you use medium armor efficiently. After that is Charisma, you’re a shrewd businesswoman and also fucking terrifying for anyone vaguely greek. Your Wisdom’s also pretty solid, you’re good at sniffing out Achilles, and you’ve got an even keener business sense. Constitution isn’t that solid, you’re kind of a glass cannon, but you’re still pretty solid. Finally, dump Intelligence. Half the time you’re a raging ball of teeth and spikes, the other half you’re a CEO. Neither of those make me want to put much faith in your smarts.

Class Levels

1. First level barbarians start of strong (pun intended) with Rage, beefing up as a bonus action for advantage on strength checks & saves, damage resistance, and a bonus to attack damage. You also get Unarmored Defense, making running around in that outfit a slightly less bad idea. Or it would, if your constitution modifier wasn’t +0.

You also get proficiency with Strength and Constitution saves, as well as two barbarian skills. Athletics because you’re literally an amazon, and Perception to help you find that damnable greek hero.

2. At second level, your Reckless Attacks will help you pierce through that jerk’s magic skin, giving you advantage on all attacks for the round, at the cost of taking attacks at advantage. To be fair, your AC’s probably like 12 right now, so it’s not like it makes him more likely to hit you.

You also get a Danger Sense, giving you advantage on dexterity saves you can see coming, like a fireball. Or a giant careening chariot. Either or.

3. Your brand new Primal Knowledge gives you proficiency with Survival. It’s a dog eat dog world, and now you know how to cook that dog. You also get a Necrotic Shroud as a bonus action, adding necrotic damage to your attacks once per turn for a minute and when you transform you scare the crap out of people nearby if they fail a charisma save. You can transform once per long rest.

On top of your divine blood activating this level, your divine blood activates this level, making you a Zealot barbarian. Your Divine Fury adds even more damage to your attacks once per turn while raging. Pick either necrotic or radiant damage, I’m not your mother, it’s your choice. You also become a Warrior of the Gods, so now reviving you doesn’t cost money. You don’t have a guts skill, so this’ll come in handy.

4. Use your first Ability Score Improvement to become a Dual Wielder, letting you attack with both sides of that giant mace thing using your bonus action. It also gives you +1 AC while dual wielding, that’s nice. Some barbarians have to die to attack with a bonus action, and you got it as a feat.

5. If you want to attack even more, Extra Attack lets you attack twice with your action, so now you can attack three times per turn. Your Fast Movement also adds 10 feet to your movement speed to catch up to that carrot.

6. Your Fanatical Focus lets you re-roll a failed save once per rage. Your golden rule means it’s hard to mess with your body, and this will help with that.

7. Seventh level barbarians get a Feral Instinct, giving you advantage on initiative checks. You can also ignore being surprised if you rage immediately on the first turn of combat. You also get an Instinctive Pounce, moving half your speed when you start a rage. Your rival is basically a manic the hedgehog humansona, so you’ve got to be able to keep up.

8. Use this ASI to bump up your Strength for more damaging and accurate attacks.

9. Ninth level barbs get Brutal Criticals, giving you an extra die of damage when you deal critical hits. Shockingly, giant metal balls hurt when slammed into people. Wild.

10. Tenth level zealots have a Zealous Presence, spending a bonus action once per long rest to inspire nearby creatures to get advantage on attack rolls and saves until your next turn.

11: Eleventh level barbarians get a Relentless Rage to avoid death while raging. If you pass a DC 10 constitution save, you drop to 1 hp instead of 0 and the DC goes up by 5. When you finish a short rest, it goes back to 0. I guess you do have a guts skill after all.

12. Use this ASI to grab the Mobile feat for even more movement speed and the ability to ignore difficult terrain and opportunity attacks. Achilles is really going to have to step his game up here.

13. Another level, another Brutal Critical, making your critical hits even more brutal. Don’t really have a joke for this one, it’s pretty self-explanatory.

14. Fourteenth level zealots can Rage Beyond Death, meaning you can’t die until you stop raging. Damage that takes you to 0 hp still starts the death save train a-rolling, but you don’t die until your rage ends, and even then only if you’re still at 0 hp. It’s a good thing you don’t have the ability to heal yourself right before your rage ends, or that would be busted. Wait...

15. Fifteenth level berserkers get a Persistent Rage, so now your rage only ends if you want it to, or if time runs out, making you immortal for a full minute of combat. Or until someone casts Sleep, a first level spell.

16. For this ASI we’re getting a little experimental with Flail Mastery, a feat from an old Unearthed Arcana. Technically it only applies to flails, but if you can convince your DM to use UA this old you can probably convince him to extend the definition to morningstars too. Anyway, you get +1 to attack rolls, can use your bonus action to negate a shield’s defenses on your attacks for the turn, and your opportunity attacks force a strength save, on a failure the creature gets knocked prone, which eats up half their movement. Not a big deal for a halfling, very big deal for Achilles.

17. Did somebody say Brutal Critical? I did, just now. Speaking of, you get another one of those, meaning your critical hits now deal double the amount of dice plus three extra.

18. Your Indomitable Might means all your strength checks are now at least your strength score, which is pretty freaking good. It’d be even better if we could bump that up higher though...

19. Your last ASI is going towards your str- no, sorry, it’s another feat, now you’re Menacing. This rounds out your Charisma, doubles your proficiency in Intimidation, and you can replace one attack from your action with a contested Intimidation v Insight check against a humanoid. If you succeed, the target is frightened for a turn. Really we’ve just been giving you better versions of the Berserker class features. Shame we couldn’t get that strength up one last time though.

20. Just kidding! Primal Champions get +4 to their strength and Constitution, and your maximum for both scores increases by the same amount so you don’t have to worry about capping out. You also get unlimited rages, so just pop a new one whenever the old one’s about to run out.

Pros:

Your race, plus all those feats you took, give you a lot of options in the middle of combat, even while raging. You can heal yourself, scare people, attack... okay, it’s three things, but that’s two things more than most berserkers.

By the end of the build, you have unlimited rages, and you can’t die while raging. Tack on your healing hands at the end of a battle, and you’re effectively immortal to anyone not packing Sleep. It’s a first level spell, so a lot of people will be packing it, but by the time this combo comes together most people will be using 9th level spells, so they’ll probably overlook it.

You’re also pretty speedy, even compared to other barbarians. 50′ of movement speed and the ability to ignore difficult terrain will make it hard for your to get space between you and it. Even moreso when your opportunity attacks knock it flat on its ass.

Cons:

Before you become an immortal rage machine, you’re pretty squishy thanks to your low constitution score. I mean, squishy compared to other barbarians. You’re still rocking almost 200 HP and rage protection, but it means you’re not quite as tanky as Herc. Until you hit level 20.

We picked up a lot of Feats in this build, so that’s a good part of the reason why your ability scores are so low compared to other builds. Your fighting style only cares about strength and charisma, but if you get in a business meeting you can’t scare your way out of you’re going to have a rough time.

You have absolutely no way of dealing magical damage. You might be able to eke out some chip damage with Divine Fury and Necrotic Shroud, but if you go up against something with resistance or immunity to nonmagical weapons you’re going to have a bad time. It’s lucky you’re not super pissed at someone who literally has that as their defining feature, huh?

[toosicktoocare]

The Magnus Archives Hurt/Comfort Week!

Day 1: Self-Worth Issues (Pretend, Shaky Hands, Etc.)

Setting: Season 3, Soft JonMartin

Jon’s exhausted, a bone-deep cover of fatigue draped across his muscles, and yet, no matter how hard he tries to sleep, his mind can’t seem to shut down. He thinks, at first, it’s because he’s in America, in a foregin country by himself, but, while he tries to cling to that notion, he knows, deep down, that he needs to record. 

He doesn’t have a statement, and his head begins to spin in a twisting spiral that leaves him dizzy, unearthed, and he reaches for his phone to call Martin, hoping, almost desperately, for a tether back to the presence. 

Martin picks up on the first ring, and, how it has been since Jon hopped on his first flight, he sounds just a tad alarmed. 

“Jon? Is everything alright?”

Jon moves from where he’s been hunched over a small, wooden desk in his motel room to the rickety bed, dropping ungracefully atop the must blankets with a groan that vibrates deep in the back of his throat. 

“Jon?”

“Ah, yes, I’m fine,” Jon lies easily, his mind, once growing fuzzy around the edges, starting to smooth out. “How are things?” 

“Um, well, things are... going?” Martin laughs, short and lacking heart. “We’re all carrying on with work the best we can manage. Well... most of us are. Tim’s still... well, he’s still having a hard time adapting, I think. I don’t see him most days, but when I do, he just looks... tired.” 

There’s a long pause between the two. Jon’s head is beginning to hurt again, a rather agressive thump against his temples, and Martin’s only breathing quietly on the other end of the line, waiting. 

“Are you sure you’re alright, Jon?” Martin cuts through the silence, his voice dancing around the edges of Jon’s headache. “Normally when you phone, you ask me to look into something for you. You don’t... well, you don’t sound well.”

Humming, Jon drapes one arm across his eyes. “I need... a distraction, I think.” He sighs, wincing at the drum in his head. “How are things with you? Outside of work, I mean.” 

“Oh! Well... Things are fine, I suppose? I got a new house plant! I decided to challenge myself and get one that requires more care and attention than my others. It helps me not think about... well, you know. It’s a bit weird being back home. I think I rather got used to sleeping at the institute, but...” 

Martin’s voice falters, and Jon can fill in the blanks without Martin’s verbal direction. 

“How about your poetry?” He asks, quiet, only vaguely aware that it kind of hurts to speak. 

“Oh! Well, I haven’t had a lot of time to write because it’s been pretty busy at the institute, and-”

“Can you read me one?”

Jon jerks the phone away from his hear at the loud shout on the other end, grimacing as he slowly moves it back to try and make sense of the frantic chatter on the other line. 

“-can’t possibly! Jon, they aren’t even good! It’s just something I fiddle around with here and there, and you would hate-”

“Martin.” Jon’s voice is flat, dark, and he swears he can hear the click of Martin’s teeth as the latter presumably snaps his jaw shut. “I’m sure you’re quite the poet. Now, will you please read one to me? It... Hearing you... it helps me feel present.” 

“Oh... Okay, well, sure, Jon. Just a second...”

Jon can hear rustling on the other end of the phone, a few, hushed curse words. 

“Got it! Couldn’t find the damn thing.”

The flipping of papers begins to emit from the other line, and oddly, Jon can feel himself relaxing just a fraction more against the bed, the mattress underneath starting to feel a little less lumpy and old. 

“No. No. Definitely no. Too dark. Too... wormy. Too... well, I suppose this one would work. Are you sure, Jon? I’m really not a poet in the slightest. I could grab a book from the shelf and read to you instead? Something by someone who actually knows what they’re doing-”

“No,” Jon sighs, thumb pressing into his temple. “Just... Let’s hear what you’ve got.” 

“Right, sure.” Martin clears his throat, and Jon allows his eyes to flutter closed. 

“My chest hurts, when I see you.  A deep pang, a tight thud against my rib cage. I have to wonder, does your chest hurt, too? When you dive into someone else’s brain on a page? Getting lost among sentences until you’re through?”

Jon, to his muted surprise, finds that his mind grows soft, and for a long, breathless moment, all he can see is Martin standing before him, his backdrop a bright white with light pinks, yellows, and oranges swirling out from teh center into intricate designs. In front of Martin is a large podium, and he’s reading through his poem, his voice gentle yet impossibly raw, and Jon wants to move toward it, move toward him, chase that endless feeling of quiet calm. 

“Jon? Jon, are you still there? Jon?”

Jon’s eyes shoot open, and his chest deflates at the sight of the grayed motel ceiling. Yet, his headache has quieted to a dull, rhythmic thump, and though still feeling rather poorly, he also feels oddly relaxed, and he can’t seem to get Martin’s words out of his ears, his mind. 

“Jon, do I need to phone for help? Did you faint?”

“That was... that was beautiful, Martin.” Raw is what he wants to say. Real. Intriguing with somber hints to it. He’s not typically one for poetry, but he finds it’s quite different when it’s someone you know speaking from their heart. 

“Oh, come off it, Jon. You fell asleep, didn’t you? Though, I wouldn’t be surprised. My poems are rather dull.”

“No... I...” Jon’s always struggled with verbalizing what he feels, what his heart and muscles are telling him through feelings alone. “Really, Martin, it was quite lovely. You should... be proud of your work because it’s yours and only yours.” 

Jon’s voice is barely above a whisper, the fatigue pressing down on him, but he wants to fight against it, to try and remedy that heavy presenece of low self-worth that somehow always manages to sneak through Martin’s tone. 

“You really think it’s good?”

“I do,” Jon says firmly, voice surprisgly loud against the bare motel walls. There’s a breath of hope in Martin’s words, and Jon nudges it forward the best he can. “You’re really quite talented. What or who was the inspiration behind this piece, if I might ask?”

“You cannot ask! Goodbye, Jon! Do try and get some proper sleep!”

Martin’s tone is unabasheldy flustered, and he hangs up the phone before Jon can interject, leaving him in silence, but also with a hint of a smile that seems to linger as he nods off. 

[quillyfied]

(For Racket’s 13 Days of Halloween, prompt: bones! I don’t usually write and post on my phone but I had an idea and it struck me as a good one soooooooo here it is. Might clean it up later tonight, definitely will be making an AO3 story with all my art and writing for the month. Anyway. Enjoy!)

AO3 link

.

“Crowley. Crowley, look.”

Crowley grumbled and snuffled and rolled over, facing Aziraphale in bed. Aziraphale, who was wearing a flannel nightgown and matching cap, and who was also holding Crowley’s mobile, beamed at him. Crowley squinted.

“What are you doing?”

“I was doing some research about—well, doesn’t matter what,” Aziraphale said brightly, “and I discovered the most delightful news story—look!”

Crowley took the phone and waited until his eyes adjusted to the brightness to read it.

“The Lovers of Valdaro,” he read aloud, then skimmed the rest of the article. “Morbid, Aziraphale.”

“Oh, but isn’t it just romantic?” Aziraphale sighed. “There they are, two humans locked in an eternal embrace—”

“Their bones are, anyway,” Crowley yawned. “Seems like a practical joke with a five-thousand-year payoff to me.”

“A joke!” Aziraphale cried, and burrowed down into the bed to be eye-to-eye with Crowley, who was studying the picture. “Crowley, really, it’s—can you not imagine how—how serendipitous it is, that these two young people so cared for each other that they were buried together, and even all these many thousands of years later, humans can’t bear to separate them?”

Crowley frowned at the picture. Then he frowned at Aziraphale. Aziraphale’s wide-eyed starry gaze didn’t dim a single watt.

“Does it not make you wonder,” Aziraphale said softly, “if perhaps...if you and I might not be afforded a similar fate?”

“What, to die young and be buried together?” Crowley snorted. Aziraphale took one of his hands and planted the gentlest, softest kiss on the back of it, the kind designed to melt his essence into a vaguely snake-shaped puddle, by Crowley’s estimation as he tried to breathe.

“If we might not be allowed to love so long and so well as to be remembered,” Aziraphale murmured. “If, when the planet is dust and the universe burnt out, if the atoms that make up you and me might not be bound together in the void for eternity.” Aziraphale’s mercurial eyes caught Crowley’s and shone all the brighter, by some trick of light Crowley had never got the hang of detecting. “If our love, as old as it is, isn’t still in the infancy of its infinite existence, and one day someone will unearth some aspect of us and recognize how deeply we cared for one another.”

“Someone will remember us, I say, even in another time,” Crowley croaked from memory, and nearly went blind in the face of Aziraphale’s weepy smile. “You’ve been at the poetry again, angel.”

“Maybe,” Aziraphale said, and snuggled into Crowley’s chest, cap and all, and Crowley held him and stroked Aziraphale’s cheek. “Perhaps we can go visit the exhibit. See if we knew them.”

“Unlikely,” Crowley said, his thumb swiping gently over Aziraphale’s lips, “but what’s the harm. Let’s go look at old bones.”

The kiss bestowed on him would have powdered his heart, had he not been made of stronger stuff. As it was, Crowley was hard-pressed to remain firmly corporeal when Aziraphale took the liberty of procuring a print of the Lovers of Valdaro for their bedroom. Crowley supposed it could stay. Skeletons were spooky. Big spooky fan, him.

[cami-chats]

Cats Get Dates

Fandom: Marvel, The Umbrella Academy (TV)

Pairing: Five Hargreeves/Tony Stark

Warnings: None

On AO3 or below

Tony didn't think about it too much before putting up the sign in his window. He felt kind of stupid as he did it-- and also like he was in that one Taylor Swift music video-- but also, that cat was super cute and he wanted to know its name. Calling it 'the stupidly cute, fluffy cat' when he was telling Jim about it was getting a little lengthy; not to mention Jim had thought he was talking about more than one cat for about six months.

Your cat's really cute. So white and fluffy, I love them was what the sign said, but it was enough. With the way windows and floors worked in these weirdass apartment buildings, he wasn't risking much by admitting the cutest cat in the world was, in fact, the cutest cat in the world to a bunch of strangers other than the one stranger he had in mind.

The next day, there was a sign in the window with an arrow pointing down to the cat's favorite lounging spot: Mr. Pennycrumb (yes, really).

Tony wasn't the best artist, but he did a pretty good rendition of Mr. Pennycrumb in a suit, with a monocle and a walking stick. I love him. He didn't hesitate to put that one up either, and he thought that would be the end of it.

He should've known that the universe would decide to throw him a nice little curveball. The next time he peeked across the street to see if Mr. Pennycrumb was taking a nap or licking his paw, he instead saw a handsome man with a criminal jawline sitting in the window, writing in a notebook.

Tony was just tired enough to sit at his own desk and stare an unreasonable amount.

Mr. Pennycrumb's owner looked up after a while and saw him. He raised an eyebrow.

Tony reached for the poster that had his drawing of Mr. Pennycrumb in a suit-- which he kept by the window simply because he wanted to keep the drawing but didn't have any other place to put it-- and held it up. Then he set it down and put his hands together in a pleading fashion.

The cat owner smirked in a very self-satisfied manner, then disappeared for a moment. When he came back, he had Mr. Pennycrumb in his arms. He plopped him in front of the window, where the cat was happy to stretch out and roll onto his back.

Tony blew him a kiss, and he was glad when the other man chuckled before turning back to his writing. Cause otherwise that would've been really awkward. Mr. Pennycrumb was unfairly adorable, and definitely worth a little embarrassment for, if the situation ever called for it. Plus, if the cat's owner had figured out that Tony was checking him out, he might've decided to close his shades, and that would've been a real tragedy.

*

Their first real, face-to-face contact came sometime after three in the morning when the two of them were the only people with both their lights on and their shades open.

Mr. Pennycrumb's owner was the one to initiate it with a note in his window that read, Do you have coffee?

Tony wrote back. Yes.

Can I have some? Everywhere's closed. And it was true. Everywhere was closed, but fuck only knew why. There was a college in this city; surely there was at least one cafe that could turn a profit from running twenty-four hours. There were grocery stores that were still open, but the closest one was two blocks away-- considerably further than across the street, and a lot more of a pain.

In response, Tony wrote down his apartment number. Someone with a cat that cute wouldn't murder him after asking for coffee. If there were two good qualities a person could have, it would be liking coffee and loving their cat. Or maybe it was loving coffee and liking their cat. Either way, it was good combination to have. Not to mention that Tony was infinitely more likely to be kidnapped, not murdered flat out. And the kidnapping type had the same look about them, which Mr. Pennycrumb's owner did not have.

When he saw the man's light go off, he got up to make a new pot of coffee. He still had some in there for himself, so he dumped the rest of it in a spare mug and started a new one. He had a huge ass thermos around here somewhere-- a gift from Jim, and he'd made sure it was big enough for a pot of coffee plus all the cream that Tony liked to add, because Jim was the best gift-giver in the entire world.

As Tony crawled in a cupboard to find it, he wondered why he didn't use it more often. Usually, it was to avoid questions. If people asked him one question, they took it as an invitation for more conversation, which was pretty much the opposite of what Tony wanted when he was carrying around a pot of coffee.

It was only after he unearthed it that he remembered Jim had sort of taken it away for a week when Tony had decided to brew his coffee with an energy drink instead of water. It had tasted like shit, but it had kept him awake enough to keep up with his coursework while also finishing off the designs for the upcoming expo and giving his notes to Howard about the latest prototype. Now that that horrible time had passed though, he should be able to start using it again.

Someone knocked on the door as he was halfway through pouring the coffee into the giant thermos, so he put it down to answer the door. As expected, it was the neighbor-- if neighbor could be used to describe someone that lived in a separate building on the opposite side of the road. He was even more handsome up close, which was a dangerous thing to be noticing in the middle of the night when his self-control was wearing thin. He didn't have much of a filter to begin with, and it only became thinner when he was tired.

"Hey," the possibly-a-neighbor but definitely-the-cute-cat-owner said. "Thanks for this."

"Yeah, no problem. I can't make it a day without coffee." Tony sort of forgot to invite him in, but he turned to go finish pouring the coffee and figured that his sort-of-neighbor would either follow him in or stay in the doorway. Tony would be very tempted to ask him to stay forever if he had remembered to ask him inside in the first place. As he started to pour the remainder of the pot, he heard the door close, and a second later, the guy walked into the kitchen. "I'm Tony, by the way."

"Five. Yes, like the number."

"Your parents weren't very imaginative."

"Actually, I only have one sibling."

"That's even worse."

"I've always thought so," Five said mildly.

"Is there a story there or are they just weird as shit?"

Five snorted. "If they had reasons, they never bothered to share them with me." Then he tilted his head curiously. "Does that thermos fit an entire pot of coffee?"

"Yep."

"That's amazing. Where did you get it?"

"It was a gift, so I don't know."

"Hm, shame."

Tony screwed the lid on and held it out to him.

"Thanks."

"No problem."

"I'll try to have it back in a couple days."

"Sure. And if you forget, I can always add it to a sign when I'm asking about Mr. Pennycrumb. How is he anyways?"

"A pain in the ass," Five said, rolling his eyes as they walked to the door. "He was playing with a plastic bag, got his head caught, flipped out, and ended up shredding it over half the apartment."

"And that's why I admire other people's cats from afar instead of getting my own."

"A wise decision," Five said flatly, but with a hint of a smile across his mouth. Tony had the strong urge to kiss him, but he was too far away for Tony to do it as an impulse decision. "See you around."

"Yep, see you."

Having a crush from a distance had been weird and a little creepy of him, but he didn't think the one minute of conversation with Five really justified it. If anything, it made it worse. Jim would probably tell him to be a normal neighbor and not make contact unless they were passing each other on the street-- but then, Jim was also convinced that Tony was going to be murdered horribly in the middle of the night because he hadn't been looking where he was going, so Tony took everything he said with a grain of salt.

*

Tony got back to his apartment one day to find a bag hanging on the door. He peeked inside and saw that it was the thermos he'd loaned Five, so he picked it up and brought it in with him.

He forgot to put it away for a while, so it was almost a week later when he grabbed the thermos to use it and a picture fell out. Curious, Tony reached for it, then he laughed. It was a polaroid of Mr. Pennycrumb. He was sitting up straight, fluffy tail curled around the front of his little feet and looking intensely at the camera-- or, rather, the person holding the camera, but it was the same effect. On the white bottom, Five had written 'Thanks' in sharpie, in all caps like he was an old man.

Tony hung it on the fridge, then went back to putting his bag together for the day.

*

The next contact came when Tony was settling in for the evening, ready to stay up all night writing code, only to realize that he didn't have enough sugar for his coffee to last all night. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, and fuck some more, he was not going to make it through the night unless he had caffeine and sugar. He glanced out the window automatically and saw that Five's light was on, and he was sitting at his desk.

There was no guarantee that he'd look up, but Tony had to try.

Do you have sugar?

Five looked up when he held the sign in front of his window. He reached to the side and wrote, and a moment later, Tony was reading what he'd written. Only if you'll come over here to get it.

Tony nodded vigorously. He could definitely walk over there. No way in hell was he going to ask Five for a favor and then expect for him to walk over to Tony's place.

Five flipped over his paper and wrote his apartment number.

Tony got up, shoved on some shoes, and hurried over. It was a good thing that it was a short walk, because it was kind of cold out, and he hadn't grabbed a jacket.

It was barely five seconds after he knocked that the door opened. "How much sugar do you need?"

"I don't know, maybe a cup?" Tony said. "It's for my coffee."

"You put sugar in your coffee?" Five asked, raising an eyebrow judgmentally.

"You don't?" Tony asked, mirroring his expression. "I guess that's fine, if you want to be miserable."

Five rolled his eyes and walked to the kitchen, pouring sugar from a large bucket to a smaller container. "Is that enough?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Five put the lid on and handed it over. Then, scarcely after Tony had his hands on it, Five put a scrap of paper on top. "That's my number. You can use it the next time you need sugar instead of hoping I look up at the right time."

Tony's heart decided to be a traitorous little bastard and started beating faster, but he hoped it didn't show in his voice when he said, "Cool; I'll do that. Thanks again," he said.

He made it back over to his apartment, saved Five's number in his phone, then sent him a text.

This is Tony, so you have my number too.

He tossed his phone onto the desk and went to pour some sugar in his coffee. On the desk, his phone buzzed with a new message.

Good to know, was all Five said. A minute later, he sent a photo of Mr. Pennycrumb. It was obvious that he'd just taken it, and the cat was glaring at him as it sat atop his laptop keyboard. The King of the universe says hello.

Tell him I love him.

And have it go to his head? But your message has been passed on.

*

Things continued in that vein for a while. Five would send him pictures of Mr. Pennycrumb in various poses-- Tony's favorite was the one where the cat had climbed into the filled bathtub and then squalled about it like it was Five's fault-- and in return, Tony would gush about how cute Mr. Pennycrumb was.

After a couple weeks of that, they started complaining about their class work, which rapidly turned into helping each other. It's not that either of them was stupid or refused to do their own work, but Five's grasp of physics was much better than Tony's (to say nothing of his understanding of chaos theory), and in return, Tony helped him with the finer points of chemistry.

And since they were helping each other with work, they might as well meet in person rather than halting texts back and forth whenever they remembered to check their phone. Tony didn't think anything of it until it was leading up to the end of the semester and he went to Five's favorite coffee shop to buy him a cup before he headed over-- instead of just letting him brew coffee like normal. Since when did Tony go out of his way to do something nice? The answer used to be: hardly ever. Now, it looked like the answer was: for about three weeks. Because he'd been doing things to try and be nice to Five for a while, even if it inconvenienced him.

With his usual tact, Tony knocked on the door and as soon as Five answered, he asked, "Are we dating?"

"We won't be if you don't hand over the coffee," Five said, his eyes going straight to the cup with laser focus.

Tony handed it over.

Five took a sip, savored it, then brushed a kiss over Tony's cheek. "Come on, I ordered your shitty pizza, and it's useless if it goes cold."

Tony walked in, closing the door behind him. Well, the kiss answered that question. Or maybe it was the way that Five had answered his question. Either way, Tony now had a boyfriend, and that was wonderful. "It makes a wonderful snack four hours into studying," Tony argued. He knew this for a fact after a dozen times of doing it. "You can shove it in your mouth without tasting it, and you don't have to wait for something to be delivered."

"Congratulations," Five said flatly. "I'm not trying it."

"Fine, suffer then." 

[chromatic-lamina]

rascal: law and robin brotp fanfic

I have a lot of brotp Law and Robin in my fics, and one fic with them as a couple. I like the brotp interaction. Two cynical and supportive friends, but the writing is mostly in my multi-chaptered works, which are dark or canon divergent or both.

Anyway, I’m going to include an excerpt below. Robin’s painting Law’s toenails while they both chat about current and past loss and love. It’s from a three-chapter work that I don’t think will make much sense without knowing the rest of the world that it comes from, but hopefully this interchange can be followed and strikes a chord with some. I know the LawBin fans are thirsty. Post canon with canon-verse history and elements. This is an older piece.

🐞

Law sat back in the garden recliner in Robin’s backyard, a book over his face. He wasn’t in danger of burning easily in the late morning sun, but had no intention of making himself prey to melanoma. Robin perched on the edge of the recliner, holding one of Law's feet.

He'd spent the night at Robin’s in anticipation of the tea-towel convention they'd be visiting today. She’d spent the night trying to share his enthusiasm as he sat, tattooed arms spread on the table, poring over catalogues. His inked hands pointed out designs featuring disproportionate tulip-ensconced windmills, and disembodied body parts that had less to do with Dali and more to do with morticians.

She assumed all the creators were outliers. Commemorative tea-towels hadn’t quite taken the art world by storm yet, but they did remind her a little of Ryuunosuke, the very cute but badly drawn dragon that had struggled and succeeded in taking them all to the top of Zou. 

That was last night though and now, soon, they’d head off to gossip and gander with the convention organisers, the Dishcloth Dames, once she’d made Law pretty.

“These are so cute.” She pulled at the few black gnarly hairs curled on Law’s left big toe.

“Freak,” Law mumbled, moving his foot.

Robin laughed, righted Law’s foot and wiped the brush over the nail of his big toe.

“When did you last clip these?”

“What’s it to you? You’re the one who wanted to dress me up.”

“You’re the one who’s letting me. You’ve got old man’s feet, by the way.”

Law arched his bridge and Robin slapped it, held it down.

“The sexy surgeon’s pedes don’t please? You said they were cute?”

She studied languages. She had no difficulty with Law’s fancy Latin terms.

“Mmm. I wouldn’t go that far. But I guess you got those tattoos to distract from your tootsies.”

The ink on the bridges of his feet matched that on the back of his hands. She felt the arc of the bone against her palm as she admired the designs, although it was one of the more simple ones to adorn Law and, historically, definitely not his favourite.

“And yet, there you are, making them all presentable and shit.”

“Does Marco like them?”

“He’s got his kinks.”

“And . . . ?”

“They remain in the bedroom,” Law grinned. At times he thought the Phoenix liked every part of his body, though they’d never had a deep conversation about those particular extremities.

“Ah, you’re no fun.”

“I’ve been told.”

Law felt her move to the next digit.

“What colour are you painting them?”

“Tch.”

As if it could be anything but black.

“Well, you sent Chopper out for the colour once,” Law said to her silence.

Bubble gum. Robin snickered, remembering. Law peered at her from under his book, her shoulders rose and fell with laughter. He liked that violet t-shirt.

.

Law seemed so disinterested, and therefore, Robin guessed very trusting, when she or anyone else painted his nails. He usually paid little attention to the colour, or even the action. It was something that pleased those who found it amusing to decorate him. Just so long as they let him read whatever he was researching, he indulged them. A small compromise for a larger gain.

No way in hell could someone he didn’t trust do this, though it had been done. Robin knew that trust was hard won. Law told himself that he let them all think he was vain this way so he could go for their jugulars some other time. Plus, he liked giving the Dishcloth Dames even more to gossip about.

.

Thinking of Chopper, Law laughed as if the sound was rationed—a clipped exhalation. The tanuki reminded him of his navigator.

“Bepo. Lord, Bepo got it into his head once to paint me. Maybe he wanted to practice so he could surprise some lucky Mink in the future, and who better to be his chump than his ferocious captain?”

Robin turned to him for a second, curious, before proceeding to the next toe. Her extra hands manipulated Law’s foot for the best access. Law’s own hand kept the book in place. She liked that silver band he sometimes wore on his wrist—a solid link—a flash of sky reflected in the metal.

“His fine motor skills aren’t the best. You’ve seen his maps. Shachi and Penguin thought I’d amputated my own toes without the benefit of a Room.” A rumble lifted Law's chest and then dissolved. He smiled easily. The book didn’t cover all of his face.  “He even dabbed a paw print on my heel.”

“He chose red?” She loved that flash of teeth.

“Mmm. So. I guess it’s black?”

Robin finished the last toenail and told him not to move his feet about for a while. She then drew up the recliner next to his, lay on it, leant on her side and looked across. Law could be asleep for all she knew.

.

“Oi, talk to me endling. Of course it’s black.”

Law’s lips twitched. Only Robin could get away with that.

“So needy, terminarch. How am I meant to do that without moving?”

They may as well have just called each other Flevance and Ohara. They did at times, but neither could be feeling too off-colour when they did, or the devil fruits would come out to play. The town names as nomenclatures were off-limits to anyone else.

“Take that book off your face at least. I know you can’t read it like that.”

“Your makeup bag’s not nearby, is it?”

“Just the toes today, Dr. Death.”

Good. He was only happy for modification to go so far. He sighed, grumbled, but lifted a hand and picked the book up by its spine, and rested it—still spreadeagled—on his chest. He blinked into the sun, then tipped his head her way. Not the most comfortable of positions.

“Can I sit up?”

The grey of Law’s irises were sometimes shot through with gold. She wondered what his parents had looked like. “Give it a few.”

He turned his face skyward again, his arm over his shut lids.

.

“How about Luffy?” she asked. Luffy was before island living, before Law’s casual feet days. If they’d ever played around with nail polish, she’d never seen the results.

Law groaned.

“He approached my nails as if they were made of seastone, his hand was that shaky.” The softness in tone betrayed the annoyance in his words. “For some reason he thought a pearly pink would suit? Maybe it reminded him of marbled steak or something? Of course, he had absolutely no patience.”

Law scratched at his sideburns with his spare hand.

“He slapped it on, forgot to cap the varnish, jumped on me, bringing the sheet with him, or whatever we were lying on, wherever we were. It smeared over everything; our clothes, or more accurately, my clothes. You know, Luffy somehow always escapes his own chaos—and then he declared the whole thing stupid and boring, as if I’d dreamt up the activity and forced it on him.” Incredulity hissed through the back of his teeth.

He tapped his earrings. "Somehow the polish even managed to get on these. Nami-ya probably talked him into the whole thing for a bet."

“And you let him?”

Law didn’t need to look at Robin to know her expression; amused and bemused.

“You choose your battles.”

“Mmm.” Her captain could be quite domineering. She wondered if they were the same earrings. It wouldn’t surprise her. She’d kept the same jewellery over the years, but added to her collection with each pirates' haul. The ones that Luffy didn’t somehow swap for food.

.

She sat up and twisted her neck. They needed to get going soon.

“Phoenix?”

“Still trying to unearth his kinks?”

“Now that you bring it up.”

Law’s smile, the one Robin and only a few others ever saw, made her lips curve.

“I paint for him at times. I mean, my own nails. He’s got a lapis grounding stone, and his flames are blue when he’s in Zoan form. I try to match those shades—a balance between the two. Other times, I paint for myself.”

“Does he notice?” Marco had a grounding stone? But then again, they all had their talismans.

“Sometimes.”

“You don’t tell him?”

“Not always. Other things are more pressing.”

“Does he know you’re a freak?”

“I thought that was you.”

.

Law paused for a second. He tipped his face Robin's way again, his hand still protecting his eyes. How come she got to sit up?

“The dogs have never liked it. And you know, all that waste. It’s not really hygienic in the clinic either.”

“You operate with your toes?”

Law laughed. “When I do my hands . . . It’s not hygienic.”

.

Robin cast a glance at her back yard – the trees that offered privacy from the neighbours, the small pond. She enjoyed life in the New World now Luffy was pirate king.

“The dogs don’t like it, but Bepo can handle it?”

“Well, he’s a freak, too. Minks wear makeup, right?”

Robin nodded. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

“Makeup?”

“Being a freak.”

“To the contrary, some of my best friends are freaks. You can’t all be Chopper.”

Law calls Robin a freak and gets away with it. heh. Perhaps. Anyway, I’ll put the link to the AO3 story as the source (just edited it in. This post has been up for long enough).  It’s actually about dogs and links back to another story, and is kinda sad, and features Robin, but is about Law and Marco, and there’s plenty of humour too. If you want to read it, be my guest. It’s an older one, written a few years ago. T-rated.