#spoilers are VERY minimal. one line. but just to be safe

[serenescribe]

I'm a *tad* obsessed with the idea of fae Lilia raising a completely different species son Silver, specifically jellyfish mer Silver. I am curious to see how you would interpret fae Lilia finding baby jelly Silver.

it's been a long while since the last long fic request :') slowly chipping away at them. uni is killing me. i hope you enjoy!

a side note: this was started beeeefore the latest update? actually started it before uni but then didn't get back to it till recently oTL

The thronging crowds of shoppers press in around him, making it harder for him to traverse through the crowd. Still, Lilia tries his best to shove his way past them, twisting his shoulders and ploughing through any gaps he can find. On instinct, one hand reaches up to pull down the hood of his cloak, masking his face further; it isn’t as though he’s in any danger here, or wanted in any capacity, but one should always exercise caution while exploring the boundaries of a black market.

For as long as Lilia can remember, he’s been searching for an old friend of his since the end of the war, travelling to different corners of the world in hopes of finding some inkling of his existence. Such a quest has brought him here, to a black market tucked away in the corner of a tiny island, but unfortunately for himself, Lilia has ended up empty-handed.

He’s trying to leave the area, pushing and shoving his way through the endless sea of patrons, when a sudden shrill cry stops him in his tracks. Lilia’s ears twitch. His head snaps to the side, following the source of the sound, only to come across a small group crowding around a rickety wooden stage. A tall man dressed in a patchwork suit jacket and a rumpled collared shirt talks to all of them, gesturing animatedly with his hands.

But it is what the man is gesturing at that snatches Lilia’s breath.

Because next to him, curled up in a too-small tank filled with muddied water, is a tiny little mer. Little tendrils of its tail tangle together as the creature presses thin fingers against the glass panes of the tank, auroral eyes flicking from side to side with a fervent desperation that Lilia feels in his soul. It is too young to be here, too small; Why in the name of the Thorn Fairy is this child here?

And for some reason, against the logic that tells him he should turn and leave, return to the Valley and carry on with his next mission, his next search, Lilia finds himself stepping towards the stage instead. He slips through the mob with silent steps, eyes fixated upon the petrified mer — a jellyfish, he recognises, his knowledge of aquatic animals rising to mind.

Within a matter of seconds, Lilia has gotten close enough that he catches wind of what the man is saying: “—a beauty, isn’t it?” he crows, tapping a dirty fingernail against the tank, causing the little mer child to shrink away. “We caught it out on the sea this mornin’, and we ain’t gonna let it go for anythin’ less than two thousand thaumarks!”

Disgust chokes his throat like a slimy wad of muck. How utterly deplorable, Lilia thinks, a rare flash of anger sparking through him. He still does not understand what has drawn him so much to this strange creature — the mer with dull silver hair who hugs itself, little bubbles floating through the water as its gills flutter, so impossibly tiny and small—

…Ah. He understands now.

In some way, looking upon this child, Lilia is reminded of Malleus. His mind whisks him back to a different time, when he had been tasked with raising the boy through his infant years, his childhood years, until he matured enough that Lilia no longer needed to keep an eye on him at all times. Is it no wonder, then, that his heart seizes at the sight of this blatant mistreatment? Regardless of whether the creature is fae or not — and it is not, evidently a child of the sea — it does not deserve to be sealed away like this.

Lilia could very well afford the mer. Two thousand thaumarks is quite the sum, but for someone who has been in the service of Briar Valley’s royalty for centuries like he has, he has more than enough money to afford it. But at the sight of the sleazy seller, who reeks of rotting fish and keeps toying with the child — banging his fists against the glass, sticking his grimy hand inside to grab its fragile wrist and yank it partially out of the dirty saltwater, yelling loud enough that its fins press against its head, clearly terrified—

The mer’s eyes flick towards him, locking with Lilia’s gaze. A fervent desperation flickers within them. It presses its hand against the glass again, scrabbling against the surface. A silent plea for help — and one that Lilia shall answer in the only way he knows how.

When night falls, Lilia strikes.

The auction for the jellyfish mer has been scheduled for tomorrow – a greedy move on the part of the fisherman selling it, to maximise profits as much as possible by drumming up heaps of attention. But it had worked; by the time evening fell and the terrified little child had been carted away to a dinky tent nearby, a sizable crowd of murmuring buyers had formed. Lilia had caught sight of some of them flipping through their stacks of thaumarks, counting their funds carefully.

He only has one shot at this. He has to make it count.

Closing his eyes, Lilia allows his magic to cloak him like a thin veil over his skin, shielding him from view. Stealth is his best option here; while he is more than capable of slaughtering everyone involved in kidnapping that young mer, Lilia does not wish to bloody his hands any more than he has to. His days of bloodshed and violence are long behind him, and as much as he wishes to teach the mer’s kidnappers a lesson, he figures that losing the child shall be punishment enough for them.

Besides, it wouldn’t do good if word got out that the general of Briar Valley was off slaughtering humans in another country.

With silent steps, Lilia steals past the guard — a man who keeps dozing off, jolting upwards every few seconds — and slides into the tent with scarcely a whisper. The interior is dank and dim; there is another guard there, this one alert and awake, arms crossed as he surveys the dirty tank left on the floor nearby.

A crushing feeling overtakes his heart at the sight of the mer. The young child curls into itself, tucking its chin into its chest, floating tufts of hair shielding its eyes from view. It looks lifeless, the only sign of its survival being the faint fluttering of gills. Something in his chest twists at the sight, a certainty settling within him. Lilia knows that what he is doing is right.

With the flick of a wrist, he conjures a small mist of magic, watching as it wafts over to the guard and swirls around him. Within a matter of seconds, though he fights to stay awake, the man has passed out, collapsing onto the ground — and it is only Lilia’s reflexes that allow him to cushion the fall, more from the need to avoid attracting attention than any care for the man. Slowly, he lowers him to the ground before releasing the invisibility spell, brushing off his hands on his cloak as he turns back towards the tank to see—

Wide eyes, hued with shades of baby blue and lavender and pink, gaze at him from behind muddied glass. Fingers press against the tank, and Lilia winces at the sound of a warbling trill.

In a flash, he darts forward, pressing a finger against his lips. “Shh!”

But he is too late.

Even as the child slaps its tiny webbed hands over its mouth, eyes widening as it realises what it has done, Lilia knows the guard outside must have heard it. There’s a creaking sound, heavy footsteps dragging across the ground, accompanied by a languid sigh, and it is only his quick reflexes, honed after years and years of war, that allow him to escape notice.

In a flash, Lilia has flung himself upwards, clinging to a corner of the tent, tucking himself in as closely as possible. If he’d had more time, he’d have thrown the same invisibility spell over himself but alas. All he can do is shrink back as much as possible, limbs wrapped around one of the poles holding the tent upright, and praying that the guard is stupid enough to not notice the shadow he’s casting across the floor.

He holds his breath, watching as the burly figure enters the tent.

“Oi,” the guard grunts sharply, narrowing his eyes at the mer in the tank — who thankfully avoids glancing over to Lilia, smart enough to avoid betraying his location. He ambles up to the tank before glancing off to the side. The man stiffens, having found the slumbering body of his fellow guard. “What the—”

Alright, that’s enough of that.

With the same spell he’d casted earlier, Lilia knocks out the second guard. The only caveat is that this time, the guard falls to the ground with nothing to cushion his landing, smashing into a nearby crate with a rather loud CRASH!

Lilia flinches, adrenaline igniting his veins. Dropping from the pole, he barely spares the scene a glance, racing back to the mer instead and lifting the heavy glass lid off its tank. “Can you breathe outside of the water?” he asks, constantly glancing over his shoulder for any signs of someone coming in, ears pricking as he strains to hear the barest bit of sound. As soon as the mer nods, Lilia’s reaching into the briney water as the mer raises its arms, thanking the fact that he’s wearing thick cloth and gloves, if only for the fact that the mer’s tendrils wrap around his limbs as he lifts it out and cradles it close to his chest. “Stay quiet,” he hisses, using his other hand to conjure the same spell from earlier, hoping it’ll hold through. “The last thing we want is to attract any unwanted attention.”

They slip out of the tent just before someone else arrives — another one of the fisherman’s nameless cronies, with the fisherman himself ambling after in ragged loungewear. Lilia holds his breath, skulking beneath the shadow of a tree, each step careful and calculated; he would teleport if he could, but he isn’t sure how that would affect the child, weakened and frail as it is.

So he sneaks away slowly and steadily, leaving the commotion behind, the pitching screams and demands for everyone to search for the missing mer, to get their product back — such an inhumane term that it makes Lilia want to puke. And the further he gets away, the faster he gets; before long, he’s sprinting, the spell melting off of him, out of distance from the captors for now.

The mer clings to him, snuggling close. Lilia holds it tight against him like a lifeline, a swell of such fervent protectiveness rising within him, washing over his mind and soul.

“Here we are,” Lilia breathes. His chest rises and falls as he catches his breath. Ah, he is certainly growing old, more winded from this than he would have been in his prime. His boots dig deep gouges into the sand as he walks towards the shoreline, the night’s sky twinkling overhead, reflecting in the waves to form a sea of stars.

Initially, he’d headed straight for the nearest beach he could think of, all before arriving and already spotting a small group of stragglers searching around. It had taken much longer to travel to a different corner of this island, but it had been a necessary precaution in the end; the last thing Lilia wanted was for the mer to get recaptured after being returned to the sea.

The waves lick at his boots as he walks into the ocean, far enough that the water reaches his knees. “There you go,” Lilia says kindly as he leans down, pulling the little mer away from his chest, returning it to the sea. A soft smile spreads across his lips as he watches the child reach for the water before plunging in with a splash, its form a tiny shadow amidst the lapping waves before its head breaks back above the water.

“Isn’t that better now?” Lilia croons, a warmth wrapping around his heart as the mer nods eagerly, beaming brightly at Lilia, the moonlight shining down on its silver hair. “Good, good,” Lilia says, slowly straightening up. He yawns, stretching his arms above his head, a cracking noise accompanying the motion. “Oh, I hadn’t expected to do this much today,” he murmurs to himself before shaking his head. Giving the mer one last smile, Lilia says, “You take care of yourself now, hm? Don’t go getting caught in any nets again, khee hee.”

And that would have been the end of everything. Ideally, Lilia would have stepped out of the water, using his magic to dry himself off before teleporting to the pier at the other side of the island and waiting for the first ferry to start him on his journey home. The mer would have been relegated to little more than a story to recite to Malleus upon his return, a thrilling rescue he’d mounted in the midst of what would have been another ordinary trip.

But what Lilia didn’t account for was that the child would get attached.

Before he can even make it a few steps away, there’s a rapid-fire outburst of frantic trills and clicking before something heavy barrels right into his legs. Lilia stumbles, losing his balance and crashing down with a screech and a mighty splash. Water soaks through his clothes, his cloak; Lilia spits some of it out of his mouth, blinking the salt out of his eyes, all while something curls around his leg tightly, refusing to let go.

“Little one…” Lilia stares at the mer child, its arms wrapped around his leg, squeezing with a vice grip that a lesser human would not have been able to withstand. Where was all this strength while you were trapped? Lilia ponders briefly, before dismissing the thought. He leans forward, gently prying webbed fingers away from his pants, pulling the child off of him. “Your home is here,” Lilia insists, gesturing at the sea around them. “I live elsewhere; I cannot possibly stay.”

Another round of distressed clicking and trilling. The mer stares at him with big, pleading eyes, swimming forward between his legs to cling to the front of Lilia’s shirt. “Little one—” Lilia tries again, because how can he stay? He has a place to return to, obligations to attend to, people waiting for him. But the mer child ignores him, pressing itself against Lilia with a stubborn determination that surprises him.

“Surely your family should be coming to find you soon,” Lilia tries, only to be met with the shaking of a head, silver hair slicked against its forehead. He raises an eyebrow. “An orphan?” Lilia mutters — words intended for his ears only, except he knows the mer has heard him from the way its grip on him tightens. “But— dear, I cannot possibly bring you home. I live very far away from here, and not anywhere particularly close to the sea!”

But no matter how hard Lilia tries to protest, to gently push the mer off of him, to leave it here — because this is its home, here in the sea; what will become of it, if Lilia were to smuggle it into the Valley, bring it on such a lengthy journey? — it refuses to go. And as time ticks by, the hours passing until the sunrise begins to bleed on the horizon, Lilia finally concedes.

“What a headstrong child you are,” Lilia muses, ignoring the sopping wet cloth clinging to him as he stumbles out of the sea, giggling mer child held in his arms. He gazes at it— no, him, at the child in his hold. “Do you have a name, little one?”

The mer blinks at him. “I’ll take that as a no,” Lilia sighs. Ah… what could a good name possibly be? It’s something he ponders over during the entire trip back, using his magic to mimic a glamour over the mer such that everyone shall see him as only a human child.

But it’s not until he’s sitting in his cabin late at night with the mer curled in his arms that it hits him. Moonbeams streak through the porthole, reflecting off the boy’s shimmering hair, washing it in a silvery light.

“Silver,” Lilia decides, testing the name out on his tongue to find that it feels right.

Silver, this mer he rescued by chance, the one who clung to him, who didn’t want to let go. Silver, who is his.

Leaning back in his chair, Lilia closes his eyes and smiles.

[fruitcoops]

Do They Know It's Christmas?

Happy holidays, lovelies! And most importantly, happy noot fic exchange/ secret Santa to @itsaash --you're a legend, a sweetheart, and a friend I hold near and dear to my heart. I hope everyone is staying safe and sound! You've made it through the shortest day of the year; it's only up from here! Thanks to @veryspacecowboy for coordinating the exchange and @lumosinlove for the characters!

TW for implied smut and mild Vaincre spoilers

Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus Lane…

“Fourth line, take it left!”

…and all the fun we had last year…

“Good work, boys, remember we’re working clockwise.”

Run, run, Rudolph, Santa’s gotta make it to town…

“I know, I know, but we need to get that down before we break today.”

…come on, it’s lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with…

“Keep those crossovers clean in the corners, Sunny!”

…the very next day, you gave it away…

Arthur frowned at his clipboard. An ache had started up along the inner corner of his eye, and not even the steady working of his thumb brought relief. The song changed to something bright and tinny with silver bells; the things he would give for a nice, quiet O, Holy Night right about now. Something soft, with minimal jangling. A saxophone would be lovely.

They had a schedule. They always had a schedule. The boys were used to rotation exercises—he had even taken pity and not added anything new or complicated to the roundup. The whole damn thing was laminated and taped to the damn glass around the damn bench on both damn sides of the goddamn rink.

Arthur’s eyes ticked typewriter-smooth down the list, but his ears alone would have told him it was a lost cause. Messy crossovers. From Sunny. Crunchy, scratchy steps from skates of perfect sharpness. Low muttering, barks of laughter, rollercoaster-arcs of chatting when they were supposed to be focusing. Cap did his best, but Harzy looked about two laps from chewing his way out through the boards.

Well. It was almost Christmas. He could be kind.

The whistle broke through Brenda Lee’s second chorus; 20 heads popped up.

��Revision!” Arthur called across the ice, drawing a steady line through the end of his list. “Bring it in.”

Their rush to the bench was the cleanest they had sounded all day.

“We’re going to finish a little early today—”

A wave of cheers cut him off, then petered out at his unimpressed glance.

“We’re finishing a little early,” he repeated when the Christmas spirit had released their souls at last, leaving only a faint ringing in the upper levels of the bleachers. “Because I’m taking off the last rotation.”

Arthur slipped his pen back into the clipboard clamp. Olli raised a tentative hand. “So…we can go…?”

Arthur frowned. “What? No, we’re going ‘til noon, if you just—guys, the schedule is right there—”

“Nooo—”

“But Coach—”

“—Christmas!—”

“I haven’t even—”

“—been here so long—”

“—like you don’t even love us—”

“—mom’s gonna kill me if I don’t—”

Unbelievable. Simply beyond words. Arthur looked over Nado’s pleading hands, hoping for an ounce of solidarity from the one person besides himself who was literally appointed for this duty, and was met with only a beleaguered, whale-eyed stare in return.

Arthur raised his eyebrows.

Sirius gazed back.

For such a large person, he could really pull off ‘sickly Victorian child begging for gruel’ when he wanted to.

“Alright,” Arthur muttered. It was lost in the sea of writhing and wailing. “Alright!”

The team (finally) fell somewhat silent.

“I am very sorry,” he began, pausing to slide his clipboard onto the bench hook. Their anticipation was delicious. “That I assumed a group of grown men playing their favorite game for millions of dollars would be able to handle one morning practice for their last competition before a holiday break.”

Pots’ eyebrows pitched as if he had been stabbed. “But Coach, it’s Christmas.”

“It is December 22nd.”

“I haven’t even found something for my dad yet!” Walker piped in.

“Sounds like a personal problem with time management.”

Pascal—the traitor—shuffled on his skates. “I was going to make holiday cookies with my children,” he said sadly. “They grow up so fast. We might not have many years of it left.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “I’m letting you go at noon, not locking you in here overnight. And I know you make cookies on Christmas Eve, because you put them on my doorstep every year.”

Pascal tsked, but didn’t deny it.

“You get cookies?” O’Hara perked up, craning his neck to look at Pacal. “How come we don’t get cookies?”

“Because I don’t need you to like me,” Pascal said with a smile.

“What if we need to catch flights?” Knut interrupted.

Arthur squinted at him. “Knut, we have a game tomorrow. You better not be going anywhere.”

“Well, no, but the sentiment stands.”

“No, it does n—you know what, fine, if you make it through…” Arthur leaned around the glass to squint at his beautiful, crisp schedule. “Your next two—TWO, I don’t wanna hear it—rotations before 11:30, I will let you out then.”

“And no lift tonight?” Kuny asked hopefully.

“Don’t push it.”

“Veto.”

Budding protests froze over in one collective puff of breath.

…the stars are brightly shining…

“What?” Arthur asked at last.

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices…

Sirius licked his lips, shifting from one foot to the other. “Veto.”

Arthur opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Every eye in the room was fixed on their captain. He rested his chin on top of his hands, folded on his stick. Lupin’s gaze flickered back and forth.

“But I…” Arthur faltered, gesturing at the schedule.

“I get three.”

“It’s not even 9:30.”

“No questions asked.”

“We have a game.”

“It’s snowing outside.”

“How do you know that?” Arthur asked despairingly.

A grin skipped across his face. “I’m Canadian. I can smell it a mile off.”

“Also, Tremzy texted everyone right before practice,” O’Hara added.

“It’s snowing, have fun at practice, you fucking losers, ha-ha,” Knut recited with a grave nod.

“No, no,” Sirius corrected. “My bones are made of snow and I was born with hockey skates in one hand and a thermometer in the other.”

“That, I believe.”

Arthur waved his hands between them before the already-unbearable situation could get any worse. “Let me just…” His headache was coming back. Going home early was starting to sound less terrible by the minute. “You, as captain, get three vetoes across the span of your contract.”

“Ouais.”

“Which you can use to veto any practice you want, for any reason, with no questions asked by me or other staff.”

“That’s what I signed, yes.”

“And you’re using it on a snow day? With barely two hours left of practice? Before a game and a week off?”

Sirius smiled. “Veto.”

“Lupin.” A last-ditch effort. Perhaps a dirty play, but it was warranted. “Lupin, don’t you have anniversary plans? Birthdays? Anything else he can use this on?”

The captain’s barely-contained mischief was bad enough. Lupin’s mild bemusement was worse. “I’m sorry, Coach, but I can’t question a veto from my captain.”

Arthur scanned the crowd of hopeful faces. Sometime in the last minute and a half, Knut had slipped his phone off the bench and was doing his best to text under Winter’s elbow. Kelly Clarkson sang along to his imminent defeat. He sighed, shook his head, and opened the gate. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Nobody moved.

Arthur blinked. “Merry Christmas?”

Not a twitch.

“Ho-ho-ho, get out.”

The dispersal was the most active they had been all day, surging forward in one mass of whooping red and gold. Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur saw Moody turn the music up a notch before hustling back into his office.

The herd had vanished down the tunnel in a matter of seconds. Arthur shook his head, turned his smile toward the empty rink, and pulled out his phone.

--

The locker room was a disaster.

“Don’t pull so hard!” Leo grunted as he fought to wriggle out of his jersey, hopping on one socked foot while Finn tried to help him out of his remaining skate. “I’m gonna fall, I’m gonna fall, Kasey—”

An elbow to the ribs righted him. “Yeah, no, I’m on my way out,” Kasey called over the ruckus, sandwiching his phone between his ear and shoulder. “Yeah, lemme get my shoes on. Al’s driving? Jesus, maybe I’ll just walk.”

“A tie is bad, right? That’s a bad gift?”

“T, I’m sure your dad will love anything you get him.”

“But I got him one for his birthday.”

Remus grimaced for just a moment, but it was enough. Thomas dropped his head into his hands with a groan.

“No, hey, it’s a good gift!” Remus tried, patting his shoulder. “Does he have a lot of ties?”

“He’s more of a sweater guy.”

“T.”

“I know, I know, I know.” Thomas sighed. His head fell back against his stall, then rolled toward Remus as his lip slid out in a pout. “I don’t even know where to start.”

Did Remus have to give him a minute with this one? He was a little afraid he did. “T,” he started. “Your dad likes sweaters.”

“Yeah.”

“So get him sweaters.”

“But what if he doesn’t like them?”

Remus took him by the shoulders and gave him a gentle shake. “He likes you.”

Thomas made a desperate sound and rolled his head the other way, then heaved himself upright. “I need to go outside. The cold clears my mind.”

“Way ahead of you!” Finn shouted over his shoulder, one hand clasped in Leo’s and the other on the doorknob with his skates teetering dangerously over his shoulder.

Leo hoisted their duffel bags, shuffling through the narrow doorframe with all the grace of a newborn giraffe. He gave them one last clumsy wave with a glove half-on. “Lo sends his love, even if he’ll never say it!”

“Yes, I’m coming,” Kasey laughed, presumably still to Natalie. He caught the door with his foot just as it was beginning to close; Remus grabbed the edge of it from him and waved off both his grateful look and mouthed thank you. “Yes, baby,” Kasey repeated. “Usual spot. On my way.”

It was a disaster, and then as fast as they had all tumbled in, everyone flooded out. A few of the newer guys remained, muffled by the hum of the showers. Dumo ruffled up Sirius’ hair as he passed, preoccupied by Celeste’s rapid-fire French on the phone and the hustle of his light jog. Remus was pretty sure he caught some mention of the park; there was one near their house with a pond that froze around this time of year. He was a little surprised Logan wasn’t already staking his claim on it.

Sirius’ arm was around him before he even started to sit. It made for the perfect guide and counterbalance, settling him firmly on a denim-clad thigh with a kiss to seal it in seconds. “Hey,” Sirius mumbled against his shoulder blade.

“Hi, trouble,” Remus laughed.

Sirius hummed, obviously pleased, and gave him a squeeze around the waist. “That felt good.”

“Using your powers for evil?”

“Mhm.” Another pulse, this time with a cheeky pinch to his hip. “And you.”

Remus scoffed, swatting at him, but couldn’t help leaning back into his warmth all the same. He was lucky Sirius couldn’t see the heat of his face, too preoccupied with nuzzling his way across the span of Remus’ back to leave a kiss at the top notch of his spine before burying his nose in the divot below. Odd creature, that one. Remus liked him far too much. “What are you doing?”

“You smell good.”

“I haven’t showered.”

“I noticed.”

Remus bit the inside of his cheek for a moment. He gave the room a cursory glance—the stragglers were just finishing up, too engrossed in whatever wisdom James was bestowing on them to notice the graze of Sirius’ teeth over the arch of his shoulder. “I was thinking,” Remus started, then lowered his voice. “Was thinking we could do it at home instead.”

Sirius’ smile pressed bright and devious to his skin. “Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Am I invited?”

“Unless I’ve started using the royal ‘we’,” Remus teased, digging his elbow lightly back into the curve of Sirius’ rib.

His laugh was soft, but the pat to Remus’ outer thigh was perfectly heavy with promise. “Get your bag.”

News of their early departure had obviously reached the ears of the rest of the training staff, because the halls were stark in their emptiness on the way out, after many goodbyes to James and promises of dinner tonight. Remus had been dying for some actual holiday time—he had planned gifts months in advance, dedicated an entire Monday to wrapping, agonized over delivery times and game schedules and delays.

But he was craving the substance of it, the literal meat and potatoes of people coming over to ooh and aah at the ornaments over dinner by the fire. Most of all, he wanted some time that was theirs. A brief moment to enjoy the lights and the smell of fir with just himself, Sirius, and the dog. It had been…three weeks? More? Since they put the wreaths and boughs up around the house. He was pretty sure that was the last time they had been able to do holiday things that didn’t involve obviously sneaking off to get gifts for each other.

Sirius seemed to feel the same. They had hardly made it past the PT room before he was pulled into an empty hallway for a kiss that melted in his mouth like butterscotch. He hummed, pushing into it, but Sirius just took him by the hips and pressed him back against the wall. Okayokayokayokayokay came the giddy whirl of the end of his thoughts.

“This.” Sirius’ mouth moved against his jaw, threatening a mark above his pulse point. “This is what I was after.”

“Cancelling practice just to kiss me,” Remus said, breathless already. His throat caught at a flash of teeth under his ear. “So irresponsible.”

Sirius’ eyes were bright and playful. “And I’d do it again.”

They got away with another minute—or five—before footsteps sounded down the other hall. Remus took him by the hand and pulled him toward the parking lot at a brisk, tumbling clip, sneakers pattering on the floors Filch was waiting to wax until they were all gone for the break. Hooligans, he called them. It echoed in Remus’ head as he kissed Sirius stupid in the hall beside the display cases. If only he could see them now.

The air bit his face as soon as they stepped outside, hot and kiss-fresh. Remus could hear voices around the corner but Sirius’ hand was sliding ever-lower and he just—“There’s people!” he hissed, fighting his grin with a blind bat backwards.

Sirius was too fast. A firm grab made him hoot, startling a laugh from both of them. “The entire world has seen us making out in a car, loup,” he snorted. “I think that’s worse.”

It was only the Cubs, after all, and half a snowman wearing a disjointed collection of gear. Leo’s oh-so-subtle text must have done the trick to summon Logan out of his holiday relaxation. He had only flown in that morning after the Rangers’ last game, but he seemed plenty awake despite the journey.

“You’re making me cold just looking at you,” he argued, adjusting his beanie over Leo’s ears while Finn finished rolling the head beside them. “You’ve lived here for years, and still you forget a hat?”

“Merci, baby.” Leo tried to sound begrudging while he obediently bent to let Logan work, but it only came off as fond. Remus could relate.

“And Fish just lets you walk out of the house like this. Unbelievable. It’s snowing.”

“It wasn’t snowing when we left,” Leo pointed out. “I seem to remember a ha-ha, losers text informing us of the change.”

Logan’s tsk was sharp as black ice while he tenderly tucked Leo’s curls under the hat’s knitted edge and kissed each of his cheeks. “Completely frozen over,” he informed Leo. “You’re welcome.”

“Now you’re going to get cold.”

Whatever disbelieving expression Logan made was lost to Remus as Sirius ushered him around the back of the car, but his scoff was plenty audible. “I’m Canadian. I don’t get cold.”

Sirius’ forehead hit the steering wheel the moment their doors closed. “I want to be home,” he complained.

“You’re in the right place to get there.”

“I don’t want to drive.”

“I can do it.”

A pathetic sigh heaved his back and shoulders. “I don’t want to wait fifteen minutes.”

Remus tugged on the back of his hat. “Not that I’ll ever say no to a little New Year’s action, but I feel like we just covered why that’s not a great idea in broad daylight.”

Sirius groaned, grumbled, and turned the car on.

Between salt and the morning commute, the roads were mostly clear. The familiar crunch of snow under tires pulled half of Remus’ brain from the rink; the other half followed at a sluggish pace, coaxed away by radio carols and the mindless chatter the two of them somehow managed in spite of spending eighty percent of their time together. The window was cold on the side of his head. Remus never liked freezing, but there was something about a snow day that always felt like home.

The house lights cast red and green glimmers over Sirius when they pulled in. They were working on getting decorations he liked; things he actually wanted, not just what Instagram said he should use. It wasn’t a lot yet, but it was a start. The icicle lights above the door had been a particularly good find.

They were greeted by a loud bark and the scrabble of paws. Hattie careened around the corner from the living room (she had taken to dozing under the tree) and spun herself at their feet in a few tight circles for maximum petting efficiency.

“We’re home so early!” Sirius cooed, gathering her wiggly body up in his lap like she was still tiny. “Oh, you’re so excited. Did we surprise you?”

“We were so mean to poor Coach,” Remus agreed as he dodged her lolling tongue. “Yes, baby, so mean, but now we’ll be home all day.”

Hattie keened and whined and nibbled on everything in reach for a tolerable thirty seconds, then launched herself out of Sirius’ lap and made a beeline for her toy box. She had hardly made it halfway to them when a cardinal flitted past outside—her ears spiked up, body puffing on a low bwoof. Remus barely got the screen door open before she was off like a bird-seeking missile, cutting through the snow in leaps and bounds.

They dumped their gear in the mudroom, made a snack, planned lunch, played with the dog, dried the dog, cleaned her paws, and finally—finally—they were standing in the same room, with nothing to do for another hour at least.

“Hi,” Remus said, heart kicking.

Sirius smiled. “Hello.”

Hattie’s teeth squealed on her peanut-butter-filled toy.

They wasted no time for foolishness on the stairs. A sweater on the ribbon-wrapped banister; socks in the hall. Sirius’ pants didn’t even make it across the bathroom threshold, belt clattering on the floor. Remus turned the shower on with his eyes closed because he quite simply could not be bothered to spare more than one hand.

“C’mere,” he murmured into Sirius’ mouth, even as he stepped backward under the spray. “C’mere, don’t move.”

Sirius’ response was wordless and perfect.

Steam built around them, chasing off the chill. The house was decorated. The presents were wrapped. Meals were planned, the dog was busy, and Remus was tired but he was so, so awake now, with ink-black hair wound around his fingers and a boy that held him so the hot water never left him.

Sirius rested his head on Remus’ shoulder and went lax at the drag of a soapy hand over his back. “So good.” His mouth rested at the curve of Remus’ jaw. Every word cooled his skin. “So good to me.”

“Doing my best,” Remus joked with a scritch to his nape.

Sirius raised his head, blinking sleepily around the water that spilled down his face. “I don’t remember the last time I wasn’t scrambling for gifts this time of year.”

“I do.”

“Mm?”

“Last year.” Remus smudged a few soap bubbles down the bridge of his nose. “Shopping for you.”

Sirius’ forehead wrinkled. “Me?”

“I was being cranky,” Remus assured him, running his thumbs over Sirius’ collarbones. He didn’t have a lot of soap left, but he would be shameless and greedy about touching like this. “Lily knocked some sense into me.”

“She’s good at that.”

“The best.”

“And she’s lucky to have you.” A kiss pushed the side of his hair into a cowlick; Sirius grinned as he smoothed it down with one hand. “Trop mignon.”

Hot hot hot hot hot. Remus wrapped both arms around his waist and sank his teeth into the knot of soft muscle above Sirius’ heart. Sirius’ laugh jostled him, but that was fine. He was used to it. “I love the holidays with you.” One last little kiss to his neck, to the spot he had bitten the other night and made Sirius’ leg tremble. “I love you.”

“I’m going to veto every single practice forever.”

“No,” Remus laughed, swaying them back and forth. He covered Sirius’ wicked smile with his hand and kissed the back of it. “No, non, not allowed.”

“But I get kisses and showers and I love you’s and dinner—” His hands skimmed up and down Remus’ sides, running over wet skin with the expertise of someone who knew all his soft spots. “—and you bite me and our dog loves us and we get to see James and Lily tonight—”

Remus cut him off with his lips this time. “Your perfect day,” he whispered, though it was just them in the house. “Sounds pretty close to mine.”

“Copycat.”

“Maybe we should just stick together,” Remus offered. Sirius’ fingertips found his own, lacing together all too easily. “For maximum perfect-day concentration, you know.”

“Nothing else, of course,” Sirius agreed.

“Oh, nothing.”

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“I put mistletoe above our bedroom door when we were decorating.”

“Amateur. I put it on the ceiling above our bed.”

[riverintheunderworld]

JUST PLAYED BEYOND THE BET!! thank you to my lovely friend poppy who bought it for me and my other friend!! she's an absolute dear <3

Anyways, check under the cut if you want to see me ramble about Casper and MCs relationship like its a queer allegory!! Minimal spoilers, I'll be talking about it very vaguely!

As a very, very, queer person, I couldn't help but become so emotional at Casper and MCs storyline, ugghh.

Their relationship is so dangerous for the both of them. In theory, it would be so much easier for both of them to just follow the roles they were made for; for MC to die, and for Casper to be the one who makes it happen. They have roles, and they were built to follow them.

But it's not easy. It's supposed to be easy, but it's irritatingly not! Because they love each other dearly, and it would be harder to seperate now knowing that if they turn around, they would've missed out on a life filled with each others presence.

Grim Reapers and Mortals should not be together. It's not safe, and it wouldn't just cause them harm, but it could cause them death. But they stay together anyways, because they can't see it any other way -- because they love each other.

They find a way to make it work! They try so hard, and they know they're risking their own lives. They should feel helpless, because honestly, it feels like the world is against them. Actually, the world IS against them.

In what they assumed was their last days alive, Casper and MC spent it protecting each other (even if it meant risking harm on themselves) -- and they spent it loving each other, indulging in sappiness that was too much for my poor, gay heart.

I couldn't help but like see them as two queer teens, trying desperately to survive in a (previously lonely,) homophobic household -- homophobic world that was not built for those types of relationships, and would punish anyone for even trying to fall out of line.

Two queer people who only had each other, managing to survive through pure determination and spite and the need to experience life with each other.

Euughh this game makes me SICK!! i hope you enjoyed me regurgitate the same 2 points over and over!!

Cough, cough, I also write stuff, sooo.. send me a request!!! if you'd like :3

[mareastrorum]

This took a while to write up. Here’s something about Dune and Villanueve’s adaptation. I felt I really needed to chew on it before posting.

This is by no means a full thesis, just putting down some thoughts on Chani and Paul. I’m trying to minimize my use of story-specific terminology so that people who aren’t as familiar with that can still follow along.

Of course, massive spoilers below.

For those that have only seen Villanueve’s films, they are an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune, the first book in a series. You’ll find an incredible number of critiques and reviews of them online, as well as other adaptations. All of the adaptations have cut at least one part of the main plot, for varying reasons. Note that I said main plot. Cutting side plots is absolutely expected given that the first book is a behemoth, but each adaptation also cut part of the actual main plot line. That isn’t something unique to Villanueve’s films.

Some book background: Dune is a very thoughtful exploration of imperialism and ecology, particularly how certain patterns are reflections of each other. Most of the story takes place on Arrakis, a desert planet and sole source of melange, colloquially called “spice.” Spice is a mind-enhancing drug that is necessary for navigators to manage intergalactic travel at high speed—so it is the backbone of the intergalactic empire that plants aristocratic families on the desert planet of Arrakis to harvest the spice, which of course involves the oppression of the native Fremen that see the worms as religiously sacred. The atrisocrats use varying combinations of violence, diplomacy, and religion to oppose the Fremen at the same time that they appropriate Fremen knowledge of how to survive the incredibly harsh clime of Arrakis.

The key problem is that Arrakis as a habitat cannot change without endangering the sand worms that provide the spice. Terraforming to shrink the deserts where they live puts them in danger because water (the rarest resource on Arrakis) is fatal to the worms. Liet-Kynes (an ecologist from the Empire and half-blooded Fremen) persuaded Fremen leaders that it would be possible to terraform the planet gradually over dozens of generations and eventually create pockets of safe and habitable land for the Fremen without taking too much from the sand worms. The Atreides family learned this from Liet-Kynes before he died, and Paul eventually sets this plan in motion when he becomes Emperor. That plan was what won over the Fremen to his side. He had an actual plot to get them what they wanted, a path to become Emperor so he would have the power needed to make it happen, and intent to do this in a way to safeguard Fremen culture in the face of imperial exploitation by making the Fremen the dominant culture of the Empire. At least, that’s the story he sold them and himself.

Dune Part 1 did not have that facet. Liet-Kynes did not teach that to Paul and Jessica before dying. In fact, Liet-Kynes’s most lampshading scene of dying in the desert while despondently hoping that the Fremen would “beware of heroes” was cut entirely from the film. Now, that is a small deviation, and I can understand that Villanueve would have cut it for his style anyway. He doesn’t like telling—he favors showing in film. That is perfectly fair. Having a character lay out “this is my plan” and telling the audience blatantly “Paul is a hero and that is not a good thing” just wasn’t going to happen anyway, regardless of whether it was part of the plot. So when Part 1 came out, I didn’t take that as a decision to deviate from the actual plot of the book. I figured Villanueve would introduce these things otherwise, and it would make sense to come from Stilgar or another Fremen leader. Not that big a deal.

(Note: I’m not getting into a lot of the other omissions, such as the missing scenes, Gurney’s paranoia that Jessica had betrayed the Atreides, Paul’s mentat training, Jamis’s funeral, etc. I could literally write a book about everything that was left out, and honestly, it’s just more reason to read Dune.)

For Part 2, the biggest difference in is that Chani is a true believer in the prophecies that Paul is the Lisan al-Gaib, the messiah that would lead the Fremen to paradise. In the film, Chani is not merely a skeptic—she is a nonbeliever. As a result of this change, rather than support Paul, bear his first child, and agree to become his concubine (eventually bearing the twins that feature in the next two books), Chani of the films instead does not have his first son, disputes Paul’s claims, and leaves on her own rather than support his war. Additionally, although it’s not facially relevant, Chani is also the daughter of Liet-Kynes, the Imperial ecologist, and so is a mixed blood Fremen (though she is accepted without issue by the Fremen). Instead, in the film, Chani has no connection to Liet-Kynes.

This is a drastic change in plot. I genuinely do not know how that will be remedied so that Chani will bear the twins that eventually rule the universe and lead the empire down the prophecied Golden Path in later books.

Why is that a big deal?

To start, there is a significant change in symbols used between the book and film in this respect. I cannot overstate the importance of Chani as a symbol in Dune. In the books, Chani is a stand in for the Fremen and their culture, particularly that culture in current day. She is the daughter of Liet-Kynes because the current Fremen cultural goal is to bring about that dream of a terraformed Arrakis where they do not need to live so desperately. That is inseparable from the effects of the Empire; her father is an ecologist because that is the Imperial influence that the Fremen were willing to accept and integrate into their own lives. Paul genuinely loves Chani, is protective of her, wants her to thrive, and eventually wants to become the person of the prophecy she believes in. He wants to be the hero she expects of him, without losing his identity as her partner.

However, Chani does not represent all Fremen. Stilgar, Chani’s uncle, represented the old guard of Fremen that rigidly held to their old laws and ways of living. Paul and Jessica were not given any leniency; they had to prove themselves to become Fremen, and his support was clearly conditional upon that. As a result, to gain the Fremen’s respect and move them towards their common goals, Paul and Jessica assimilated into the Fremen culture, and then Paul systematically destroyed his rivals—which is the Freman way—taking the remainder under his banner to fight the Harkonnen. Paul finally broke from that tradition when he chose to let Stilgar live, convincing the old guard that it was better to cut down their enemies rather than each other for deviating from tradition. Chani stood by Paul the entire way, learning how fight Harkonnen from both Paul and Jessica, learned to use the Voice from Jessica, and became Paul’s most staunch supporter and connection to all other Fremen. Every aspect of Chani’s identity and her choices feed into the narrative that the Fremen had expectations of Paul, he willingly rose to the challenge, and they loved each other fiercely.

But near the end of the first book, Paul sent Chani and their firstborn son to a hopefully safe location that was then attacked by the Harkonnen. Paul did not know if either had survived at the time it was reported. Rather than rush to find them, Paul struggled with the decision and ultimately continued the fight against the Harkonnen. This was to tell the reader that Paul’s love didn’t save them, that he was not going to save the Fremen, and he was going to continue his bloodshed. This had already happened, and was going to happen again. Luckily, Chani survived, they mourn their son, and she agrees to be his concubine so that he could marry Princess Irulan and become Emperor. Everyone knew at that moment that Paul had no love for the princess and the marriage was purely political. Princess Irulan resented this until the end of the next book, when she reveals that she also came to love Paul, and she was jealous of Chani. But Paul did not love Irulan the way he loved Chani. It’s again a reflection that Paul truly loved the Fremen culture and saw the Empire only as a means to an end: achieving the Fremen’s goal of creating paradise on Arrakis. Dune ends with that affirmation.

In the film, that is no longer the case. Chani was not a symbol of Fremen support because she set out alone. Most of the Fremen supported Paul. She didn’t believe in Paul or the prophecies when most did. She didn’t have his firstborn and it remains to be seen if the twins will exist. Rather than Paul making a decision that shows he will destroy the Fremen culture, Chani makes a decision to reject him. This changes the dynamics involved in the story, and I genuinely don’t know if it will be handled well.

The next books continue the story years after Paul becomes Emperor. In Dune: Messiah, Paul wrestles with the duties of Emperor while attempting to preserve the Fremen culture (to keep Chani and their unborn children alive) and fulfilling his roles as prophet and leader. At the same time, he is beset by assassination, rebellion, and usurpation attempts. At the end of Messiah, Chani dies while birthing twins, the worms are beginning to die off, Paul loses hope in his plan, and then he walks off into the desert expecting to die because he does not want to become the Emperor he foresees necessary to continue this plan. He realized he has changed the Fremen forever, not for the better, and he thinks the best thing he can do is exile himself. Paul didn’t save anyone he cared about, and when faced with the decision to try to salvage the future in front of him, he walked away. Paul is a failure. The point is that he fails in the book titled Messiah.

The books were an ongoing warning that no matter your good intentions, no matter the support and love and resources involved, to introduce an outsider whose power depends upon a limited resource into the place of origin will eventually destroy any other aspects of it, even if that power was intended to preserve. Whether it’s imperialistic appropriation of a culture and its religion, or terraforming to change land optimal for a religiously and economically significant animal into something comfortable for another species, the thing you love will die.

You cannot save a habitat by introducing an invasive species. You cannot save a unique species by destroying its habitat. You cannot save a culture by using it to conquer others. You cannot appropriate a culture and keep it just like it was before you commandeered it. You will wind up with something else, and eventually the only remnants of the thing you loved will be memories reenacted by people so separated from the original that they won’t even know or care why they’re doing it (as shown in Messiah and God Emperor).

The entire point of the Dune series is that “white saviors” don’t actually exist. They’re “heroes” until time reveals that they’re not. They are merely conquerors with the delusion that they are saving the thing they sacrificed in order to attain power.

Chani’s rejection in Dune Part 2 erodes that. Someone who didn’t read the book is going to wonder, “what if she had stayed and persuaded him?” “What if Chani was the Lisan al-Gaib?” “What if an actual Freman had taken over the Empire instead of Paul?” Then the audience thinks, ah, of course, Paul made mistakes and that’s why he’s going to fail. If only he hadn’t been so blinded by ambition, everything would have been fine. If only he hadn’t needed to be the leader, if he had let Stilgar do it, if he had let Chani do it, etc. In other words, if the white savior had just done it the right way, it would have worked.

But that isn’t the point of Dune. To become the leader of an Empire requires that level of ambition. Stilgar submitted to Paul because he saw that Paul’s ability to engage with both the common folk and the extremists among the Fremen was absolutely necessary to defeat the Harkonnen, and Stilgar chose that over any other priority. Chani supported Paul because she loved him and genuinely believed he would lead her people to better times, because all she knew was desperation and oppression. There was ruthless calculation and devotional love in equal measure, but the cost of success as a hero seeking to lead an empire is that the thing you loved will die. The Fremen had already changed into the bloodthirsty, fanatical army before Paul ever saw the Emperor face to face. Paul’s son died and Chani went missing because Herbert was telling us that the future Paul and Chani both wanted was already dead before he laid siege to Arrakeen, before he became Emperor, before he started a war to solidify the Freman’s domination of humankind. The reason that everything in Dune eventually works in Paul’s favor is because even with perfect conditions, he failed. There is no world in which he would have succeeded.

You can’t eat a cake and have it too. Empires eat. Heroes, no matter how much love they have in their hearts, no matter who they fight for, no matter how much their supporters/victims wanted it too, cannot use an empire to save anything. The very nature of imperial power is to consume. Love doesn’t make a “white savior” any less imperialistic than a tyrant bent on conquest.

Is the next film going to get us to that point? I don’t think it will. I think it’s going to be yet another adaptation trying to tell a different message because Herbert’s message isn’t very palatable to a mass audience. We don’t want to hear that love doesn’t win in this circumstance. It’s a horrifying message, but it’s one that’s true when telling the story of imperial and ecological exploitation of cultures and rare resources.

That isn’t to say that the films wouldn’t be a good story on their own. It’s just not the story of the books, and I’m one of those people that actually likes the books.

There’s a lot of ways Chani’s new story could go, and I’m watching it like I’m observing someone setting up a dare devil leap. Villanueve is an incredibly skilled storyteller, but this is something no one’s done before, a lot of things can go wrong, and if he doesn’t stick the landing, it’s gonna be pretty gross no matter how the crash happens. I want him to succeed. I’m still gonna watch the next film. I’m just well aware that this is probably going to end in a watered down, generic “Paul failed because he wasn’t Fremen” sentiment rather than “Empires rely upon exploitation and destruction, at the expense of everything else.”

It’s still fucking amazing eye candy, and I’ll probably watch it again.

[dramamelon]

For @polyshipweek 2023! 💖

Day 1: Road Trip

Completing the Connection

Day 2: Second Chances Rating: E (overall, but not until day 5) Chararcters: Drift, Ratchet, Rodimus, Thunderclash Pairing: thunderdratchrod Fandom: Transformers (IDW1) Tags: Minimal Editing, Romantic Fluff, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Polyamory, Flirting Fic Summary: As a still newly-minted foursome, they've come closer to one another, but one connection hasn't quite fully cemented itself just yet. A surprise retirement announcement from Thunderclash has Rodimus suggesting one last tour on the Exitus for all of them. Really, it's a chance to for a bit of vacation time with his partners on Cybertron's shanix. And maybe it might spur on a little more action between Thunderclash and Drift.

AO3 link in reblog! Sequel to Closest of Friends. :)

Ratchet was happy with Drift. Very happy. He was absolutely certain Drift was happy with him, as well. That didn't mean he hadn't noticed the way Drift and Rodimus still looked at each other on rather frequent occasion. Having his own decidedly steamy past with Thunderclash—after a momentous night of food, drink, and almost debauchery—Ratchet had initiated the conversation that brought the four of them to their current place. The only hitch in their little group coming fully together lay in the prior lack of connection between Drift and Thunderclash. (As much as Ratchet might proclaim his disinterest in Rodimus before this, they all knew better. He did have a very noted inclination toward speedsters, after all, as Thunderclash reminded him again and again with obvious amusement.)

Thus, when he slid into the navigator's seat, Ratchet watched with great pleasure as his second chance was forced to take a seat beside Rodimus' second chance and buckle up. When Thunderclash held up his hand, Drift paused for only a moment before weaving their fingers together and letting Thunderclash rest their clasped grip atop his thigh. It wasn't much, but it was a good start. He could also see the shifting of their fingers as they silently conversed in hand.

Of course.

As someone only marginally knowledgeable in chirolinguistics, Ratchet resigned himself to the understanding that not a bit of whatever they talked about would be his to know unless they decided to share. Thus, deciding it was none of his business until then, Ratchet settled in his seat and gave Rodimus a quick nod. "Get Sureshot to get those bay doors open," he said. "I'm ready to put my free time to use the way it's supposed to be."

A wide grin was tossed his way and the shuttle's comm system flicked on. "This is the Rodpod to Exitus shuttle bay crew. How about we get those doors open so me and my boys can get the slag out of here?"

Ratchet snorted. "Real professional of you."

"Exitus shuttle bay to Rodpod, I'd tell you to have a good time, but you just fragging reminded me I'm stuck here until you slagstains get back," came the response, Sureshot's tone nearly as acerbic as Ratchet at his worst. "And I mean that in the friendliest way possible, just in case someone higher up the chain asks. You got me?"

It took everything Ratchet had to control his laughter well enough that Rodimus could respond and still be heard. He'd forgotten how funny a guy Sureshot was. The narrow opticked glare Rodimus threw his way very nearly dissolved even that small bit of control he maintained. "Don't worry, Sureshot," Rodimus replied with a drawl, "your secret's safe with me."

All that came back from the other side of the line was a grunt before it closed, then a clang rang out through the shuttle bay, signaling the opening of the doors that would let them escape the chains of their daily lives. Never one to accomplish a smooth launch in Ratchet's experience, Rodimus punched the acceleration and had them all thumped against the back of their seats as the Rodpod exited the Lost Light. Once his gyros were stabilized, Ratchet reached out to give Rodimus a thump on the nearest spoiler wing, earning a wiggle of the appendage and a pouty exclamation of, "That hurt!"

"Good. I'm gonna do it every time you launch a shuttle like that again and I happen to be on it," Ratchet informed him, casting a glance back at Drift and Thunderclash to make certain they were all right. Much to his delight, the pair were probably more all right than they should have been, all things considered. He knew exactly what that smile on Thunderclash's face meant. Knew exactly what Drift's fingers were doing, slipped down between Thunderclash's thighs. Turning back to Rodimus, he said, "Best get us to our destination, hot shot, otherwise you might miss out on some fun being had in the back of the shuttle."

He fully intended to rise from his seat and join Drift and Thunderclash, but found himself caught by a restraining hand to the shoulder. The look in Rodimus' optics brought any further attempt at movement to an immediate halt. A ping to his internal comm had him opening the line to a private exchange of words from the flashy mech.

::Hey, Ratch,:: Rodimus started, his hand sliding down Ratchet's arm until it paused at his wrist. The warmth his frame exuded by virtue of his very nature soaked into the joint, gentling the constant ache Ratchet carried there. ::Not yet. Let them invite us once they've gotten comfortable enough with each other.::

Ratchet arched an orbital ridge at him, a small laugh huffing from his vocalizer as he sat back in the embrace of the navigator's seat. He knew Rodimus was right, but the sight of his old flame and his conjunx getting touchy-feely bombarded him with an increasingly warmer flood of attraction. The feel of it through their tangling fields was even more intense. Tamping down hard on the reactions of his own frame, he jokingly asked, ::When did you get so smart?::

Attention returned to the front viewport and the controls under his hands—Ratchet mourned the loss of the warmth at his waist—Rodimus replied, ::Not gonna lie. It's all Drift. Remember how he let you and me find the two of us without him? How he kept Thunders out of the way for a bit?::

Thinking back, Ratchet could see and attest to exactly how effective the strategy had been. Given the time to really learn who the other was, most of their nitpicking now resulted in the two of them fumbling their way onto the nearest berth. Before that, they'd have been more likely to put much less fun dents into one another's helms and other sensitive parts. As he recalled, Drift found something else to do every time things got hot and heavy for Ratchet with Rodimus, occasionally dragging Thunderclash off to join him when the big mech wasn't at some meeting or other. At least, until they gave each of the shrewd look and caught Drift before he could disappear on them. They'd had a grand time of it since then, but for the one missing link in their party. Only one little hitch.

Ratchet glanced back at the other two again, his spark turning soft on seeing the way Drift and Thunderclash leaned into one another. He knew very well the weight of Drift's helm on his shoulder, knew it was something he only did when he felt truly safe and unjudged. He also knew the spark-calming influence of Thunderclash in the worst of high-emotion moments. If a good and deep friendship was all they were able to obtain? Well, friendship was never something to turn one's nose up at. Far be it from Ratchet, though, to deny that he quite wanted to see what Drift looked like all stretched out on Thunderclash's monster of the spike. Or the other way around if that's how they liked it. Ratchet was good with either as long as he got to watch—and participate—eventually. Friendship with benefits was more than acceptable, as far as Ratchet was concerned.

They'd make it work, whatever happened, because Ratchet didn't think he could give it up now that he had it. His spark was so very close to full.

[minibunbon]

Absolutely crying about how useless the internet is now a days ;_; 

I started reading punpun (like 100 years too late I know) and why is there literally no place for like spoiler free dicussions anymore. I just want to chat about v1+2 without spoilers and enjoy my slow read through of it (b/c I am slow at reading everything now a days woops).

Please if anyone would like to chat about punpun but now spoil things please talk to me. 

[Goodnigth Punpun - V1 + V2 English Omibus Spoilers Bellow]

I really like it so far, and I’ve always wanted to read it but it. I know minimal things about it but it being a depressing coming of age / life line story I always wanted to wait until I felt like I was in an place where I feel ready to read it. And I am glad I did b/c it’s real intense, but also uggg it really is so good, I think it captures how depressing the world is so well. And the monologues are so raw. 

Also I really love yuichi’s character, and I can just tell this man is set up for failure but I want him to learn and grow from his mistakes so bad. He seems like a nice man who is just unable to grow from his experiences and it’s so depressing. In a weird way I find myself connecting to him more than anyone else in the story. Not that I share experiences/are the same age as him. But I feel like that lonely unsure of what to do with your life afraid to over commit to anything before you ‘ruin’ things for good (for example like punpun’s parents may feel they have)... Extremely relatable for the young adult in me.

I don’t really connect to punpu yet tbh, I’ve only seen him through elementary and middle school so far. I really do like the potrayal of his just fear of himself and fear of loneliness. And also his lack of good role models and subsequent view of the the world because of it. It’s really so sad all of it lmao. I guess that’s the point of the book. But it’s really just a lot of bad circumstances with good stuff mixed in but you know if people don’t have the right love and support in the end what can you do. 

Especially with volume one, all PWC stuff was kind of wild. I feel like it’s really a fine line between children just being children and also the real danger and skewed understanding of everything they get from exploration of things they might not be ready or might be scared by... Like children will always be curious about this stuff... I mean everyone is, but these kids got into some deep shit because of some of the things they saw and many of them will come out with trully formitive expeirences for the worse. I think they will all kind of be fucked up because of this after all... 

Anyways I kind of just want all of the adults int this to try a little bit harder and be a little bit better people. Because it just feels like they all have it in them if they just tried a bit more... For punpun’s and aiko’s sake. But I know it wont be like that. And since punpun and aiko kids they will not be able to break any trauma they have yet, so it continues to fester within them as they grow. Maybe they will in the future, but also maybe they won’t. And that’s just sad. Life really is about just observing those aroudn you and either trying to become a better person for whatever reason or failing to do so. 

Also in v2 there’s this whole part about punpun thinking he’s this terrible vile thing for wanting yaguchi to loose, and when he does he feels sick about it. And it’s just very relatable, the feeling of like being the worst person in the whole work when you’re 13 years old and feel any emotion what so ever. Again it’s the whole tthese are all normal things for children but without any proper guidance or safe space to explore/understand these things then it all just consumes and makes them feel awful. Honestly amazing of this Inio Asano dude for capturing how a depressed child thinks/feels/acts/views the world. 

Anyways my take away from these two volumes is very much just, how much I wish everyone was just a bit of a better person. Then none of this would have happened and no one would be sad. But the world’s not like this at all.

[victoriansummer]

Can't Wait to Meet You, So Join the Animatronic Family

By: Tory Andrews

Spoilers for the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie ahead, but minimal lore spoilers.

On August 14, 2014, Mark Fischbach, more commonly known as ‘Markiplier’, uploaded a video to his YouTube channel titled ‘WARNING: SCARIEST GAME IN YEARS’. The video featured a simple game playthrough of a nightguard keeping watch of some Chuck E Cheese-esque animatronics, essentially making sure nobody breaks in, and the animatronics stay untouched. As the night progresses, the animatronics, a yellow chicken, a BLUE bunny, a red pirate fox, and a brown bear sporting a top hat, move around the building, making their way toward the security room. Complete with various ominous and stress-inducing sounds, a quick-drying power supply, hilarious commentary, and a limited range of motion, this gameplay would become one of Markiplier’s most-viewed videos. Who knew that this video and countless other videos would spark interest in an indie video game about haunted animatronics?

Now fast forward 9+ years, and now, ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ is Blumhouse Studio’s highest-grossing film of all time, beating ‘Split’.

Despite Five Nights at Freddy’s being a video game, a lot of its fans admit to not playing any of the games. This is quite ironic until you find out how popular YouTube ‘Let’s Plays’ are. You can sit back and watch somebody else play all while listening to hilarious commentary. In fact, CoryxKenshin, a popular YouTuber who frequently plays FNaF games, made a cameo in the FNaF movie as the cab driver. Beyond the games, the fandom has taken a life of its own, creating artwork, hilarious and iconic videos, fanfiction, cosplays, fan-made music, and fan-made merch alike! This fandom really knows no bounds, as the fan-made song ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ by The Living Tombstone is the ending credits song to the movie. Speaking of the movie, Blumhouse co-founder Jason Blum and movie director Emma Tammi made it their mission to make a movie that would be ‘for the fans’ and not the critics. Since the fandom received it so well, it’s safe to say they achieved their goal. 

Now, you simply cannot talk about FNaF, its fandom, and the movie without talking about the elephant in the room. THE LORE! Scott Cawthon, FNaF’s creator, has really gone all in with his intricate and cryptic storytelling abilities to tell the story of the Afton family, Afton Robotics, Fazbear Entertainment, revenge, atonement, and, of course, animatronic farm animals. And since the lore is so complex and takes a real eye to detail to ‘solve’ it, one YouTuber has made it his mission to piece it all together. Matthew Patrick, also known as MatPat, and his team of theorists on the Game Theorists channel pick apart every game, book, easter egg, announcement, poster, and everything in between to find bits of lore or clues. MatPat’s dedication to solving the story has given icon status within the fandom, so much so that he also has a cameo in the movie. He even says his iconic line, which he uses to end all of his videos, “But that’s just a theory.” I was fortunate enough to see the movie on opening night with a few of my friends and some classmates. One of the friends I went with was MSMU senior Emily Hellstrom, who grew up with the fandom. “Undoubtedly, it’s the memories I associate with it. I have a very clear memory of being in the back of the bus from a field trip to UCLA, sitting while one of my friends was playing the beta of the second game… I have memories of sitting at dinner watching [MatPat]’s game theories and other YouTubers such as [Markiplier] and [jacksepticeye] play the game.” After a night filled with snacks, jokes, lore dumps, and going crazy because of a reference only the fandom would get, the movie ended. “I was almost in tears- but of course, I did cry because my childhood was honored and complete.” Whether you grew up feeling scared of these animatronics or had a friend lore-dump on you on the way to the theater, it’s safe to say that the FNaF fandom and franchise are diehard, iconic, and nostalgic. “The fandom for the game is what truly adds to its magic, I think.”

[amessageonthewind]

September Selfship Prompts Challenge

2. Cold weather

Pairing: Adaman/Rachel during Legends: Arceus (spoiler alert for really far along in the timeline)

Author's note: Clue and Hint are OCs that belongs to my buddy @kammyclues

         This was it. Hisui’s final frontier – the Alabaster Icelands. The final obstacle for Rachel to conquer and survey, and home to the final frenzied noble that needed quelling. Lord Avalugg. Unlike the others, the Pearl Clan was far more hesitant to act than the previous nobles, simply due to the fact that Avalugg hadn’t actually acted out or hurt anyone, yet.

         It was very in-line for them to wait and see if there was an actual problem, and very in-line for the Diamond Clan to want the problem to be solved before it got out of hand. More often than not, Rachel sided with Adaman’s clan than Irida’s, though her sense of caution had a place and Rachel always took it into account when making her decisions even if she disagreed with the approach.

         So, here they were. Rachel had dressed a little differently for the icelands than the Coronet Highlands to combat the cold, but somehow Irida was still sweltering in the blistering cold. Something Adaman clearly couldn’t help but comment on. “How aren’t you freezing?”

         “Freezing? I’m practically sweating!” The short blond woman in her minimal fuchsia robes was fanning herself to stave off the heat, or whatever counted as heat in this harsh winterland. “If you think this is bad, just wait. This is nothing compared to where we’re headed.”

         The side-eye glowering at her from dark irises belonging to the tall man in blue hair and robes was a mixture of indignation and sheer disbelief. But a strange sort of understanding swirled in them as well. “You know, I’m beginning to think the problem between us isn’t a Diamond Clan thing or a Pearl Clan thing. It’s a you-and-me thing.” Adaman observed, though Rachel caught the way his shoulders trembled slightly. In-fact, when she looked at his hands, she noticed them clenching conspicuously, as though he were trying to hide the fact that he was shivering. The even tone to his voice certainly didn’t give it away, which was sort of impressive. She runs hot, he runs cold. She thought amusedly. “We’ll never see eye to eye on anything, will we?”

         Stopping her fanning, the Pearl Clan leader fixed Adaman with blue eyes as sharp as the icy sky above them. “I don’t see how we could, as long as you and your clan cling to your version of an almighty Sinnoh that reigns over time.” Rachel couldn’t stop the annoyed grumble that fell out of her lungs. Cedric sat on her shoulder, as he usually did, and they shared an annoyed look between each other. “Forgive my bluntness, but if such a being does exist, it’s certainly not almighty Sinnoh.”

         “Yes, yes. Believe what you want. Just tell us where we have to go.” At least Adaman made an effort to not bring up their different theological beliefs to her as cause for their disagreements (though he wasn’t perfect), especially after Rachel shared the findings of her own independent research into almighty Sinnoh, but Irida just couldn’t stop bringing it up. Before, Rachel was too afraid to say anything for the sake of maintaining the peace between the clans and the Galaxy Expedition Team.

         But now that all three of them had spent enough time working together and growing closer on a personal level, maybe they had reached the point where it was safe to express dissent without the danger of a disagreement escalating into political squabbles.

         Turning to face him, Irida nodded. At least she was taking this in stride, too, not being as prone to antagonism as she was when Rachel first met her. She was glad to see that her advice had really sunk in for the Pearl Clan leader. “We’re headed to see my teacher.” She replied. “And he’s only ever found in one place.”

         Glowering at her once more, Adaman shook his head. “Which is?” He prompted with a twinge of his typical impatience. “You’re talking about that Gaeric fellow, right? Where do we find him?”

         “At Avalugg’s Legacy, obviously!” She exclaimed in mild annoyance. “Where else but a great mass of ice could I have meant when I said we’d be headed somewhere even colder?”

         Politely, Rachel raised a hand to interject into the conversation. “Uh, word of advice, Irida? Never assume that anything is common knowledge or common sense.” She offered before shuffling in place, looking down at the ground. “That’s been especially true for me ever since I dropped into this time. The first time I asked for a bathroom, I had to cycle through so many synonyms before the Captain understood what I was asking for.” She shuddered. If there was one thing she missed greatly, it was indoor plumbing. What she would give to have a washing machine or a dishwasher, again.

         Handwashing clothes was a tedious and time-consuming nightmare she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy.

         Nodding, Irida looked down. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

         Turning to Rachel, Adaman gestured towards her as he spoke, as he most often did. He was very talkative with his hands. “Ready to go, Rachel?”

         “I’ve been ready to go, I was just waiting for you two to be done.” She knew exactly how they were getting to Avalugg’s Legacy, so Rachel instinctively reached into her satchel for her Celestica Flute.

         Only to see Adaman walking away once she actually had it. “Sure! Stomp off without me!” Irida exclaimed in frustration as she ran to intercept him. “This is why I can’t stand people who only care about whether time is passing them by!”

         Unamused, Rachel exchanged a glance with the dark-furred Zorua on her shoulder. “Stop him.” She ordered him.

         Without a second’s hesitation, Cedric leapt off of his trainer’s shoulder and dashed to stand in Adaman’s way, stomping his foot to firmly tell the Diamond Clan leader that he was to go no further. Rachel ignored the sound of indignation that Adaman let out as she approached him. “And where do you think you’re going by yourself in this tundra?”

         Turning to face her, Adaman glowered at her much in the same way he did at Irida, though whenever his attention was on Rachel, he was more amused than anything. As though he found it funny that she could have any sort of authority over him. “We don’t have time to waste, the sooner we get to Avalugg’s Legacy, the sooner we can quell Avalugg’s frenzy.”

         “And I don’t disagree with you.” Rachel said before turning to Irida who had stopped beside the Survey Corps member. “However, this is a landscape that is much harsher than what you’re used to. Irida, sure. This is where she’s grown up her whole life, where her people and her culture lives and breathes." That's right. The Pearl Settlement had to be here in the Alabaster Icelands. She didn't see it anywhere else, and she knew where the Diamond Settlement was. Maybe I'll get a chance to see Hint.

         Remembering the kindly and friendly psychic, a melancholy stone dropped in Rachel's stomach at the memories that came associated with the woman. It was thanks to her that she had regained her memories of the Bug-type trainer in her time that had become her closest friend. Who would've thought I would meet his ancient great grandmother?

         Maybe she'd be willing to have another battle with Rachel. If there was a chance Hint's psychic abilities could help her unlock more of her memories, it was worth trying. One thing at a time. “But us? Until we’re both more familiar with every nook and cranny of this place, we should stick together. Safety in numbers.” Rachel gave Irida a smile. “This time, we take the safer option rather than the faster one. We’re riding on Wyrdeer.”

         Irida looked elated that Rachel was choosing her way of doing things for once, though Adaman wasn’t annoyed. In-fact, he felt warm that she was so concerned for his wellbeing. Warmer than he could feel in this accursed chill. Why did this wind have to be so biting?

         At least Rachel was appropriately dressed, wearing a cloth mask to keep her face warm and a scarf around her neck. She was more aptly dressed than him, he noted with a mild bite towards himself. He should’ve been more prepared.

         Pulling down her mask, Rachel put the Celestica Flute up to her mouth and tried to play. Emphasis on ‘tried,’ because though she put in the effort to learn how to play, she wasn’t very good and she simply didn’t have the proficiency, yet. Cedric couldn’t help but be amused every time she tried. It took her a few before the sound would come out of the damn thing.

         The glare she threw him when he started to snicker gave him life. “Just because I know how to play doesn’t mean I’m good at it, give me a bit!”

         “Are you sure you don’t want me to-?” Irida offered before Rachel cut me off.

         “I won’t get better if I don’t practice, just let me do it!”

         Backing off, Irida let Rachel continue to try to summon a Wyrdeer. Until finally, the eerie timbres of the flute echoed around the icy mountains of the tundra. Now, all they had to do was wait.

         Though Adaman was getting antsy – he hated the feeling of standing around and doing nothing when there was something that need to be done – he didn’t complain. After all, his clan’s dear Pokémon knew the value of almighty Sinnoh’s time. Wyrdeer wouldn’t be late.

         And sure enough, there he was, prancing towards Rachel eagerly, his pale grey fur almost camouflaging him against the monochrome ground he trotted across. Wyrdeer stopped before the short dark-haired woman and let out a friendly bellow in greeting.

         Smiling, Rachel reached up to give his neck a scratch and rest her forehead against his. “Always a pleasure to see you, Wyrdeer.”

         Making Adaman jump a bit, Cedric dashed between his feet and right up to Rachel, jumping up her back and sitting on her shoulder as she pulled herself up onto the large Psychic Pokémon. He took his place in her lap as Rachel guided Wyrdeer towards the clan leaders. “Alright, hop on! We’ve got a lot of space to cover and not a lot of time to waste!”

         Extending her hand, she reached towards Adaman to pull him up onto the Pokémon to sit behind her and then Adaman reached to help Irida onto Wyrdeer behind him. It was a bit of a strange situation, but it also felt right. Rachel never realized before how much she wished she actually had company out in the Hisuian wilds. This was nice.

         Adaman noticed her wistful pause as Rachel looked between him and Irida. “What? What is it?”

         “I just realized that neither of you have ever ridden with me, before.” Rachel pointed out with a small laugh. “That’s a first.”

         Smiling warmly at her, Adaman gestured out towards the icy tundra before them. “Alright, let’s get going. I don’t want to spend more time here freezing than I have to.”

         Smirking, Rachel exchanged a glance with Cedric before she looked back at them. “You’re gonna wanna hold on.”

         At that, Irida’s eyes widened. “Wait, why?”

         Immediately, Rachel tugged on the handle and with a mighty bellow, Wyrdeer reared up and began to dash forward at full speed, leaving behind a hefty cloud of snow where he ran. In an instant, Irida was practically clinging for dear life onto Adaman, shrieking, and the Diamond Clan leader immediately found his arms wrapped tightly onto Rachel’s waist as the woman rode the Pokémon at a pace that practically flew across the snow.

         Once they drew further from the base camp, he quickly realized why. There was a sizeable gap that dipped ahead of them that neither of them would have been able to cross without Wyrdeer or Sneasler’s help.

         “Hang on!” Rachel called out, an excited timbre to her voice as they neared the gap. With the grace only a Pokemon blessed by almighty Sinnoh could achieve, Wyrdeer leapt off the lip of the chasm below and soared over it, the woman steering him calling out and laughing all the while until they landed on the other side.

         Once they cleared the chasm, Rachel laughed mirthfully, throwing her head back and letting out a howl with Cedric with her heart and chest, just as Adaman and Mai had witnessed the first time Wyrdeer allowed Rachel to ride him. When he saw her then, he thought she was incredibly bizarre, if strangely endearing.

         But now, all he felt was pure endearment. “Hahahaha! Ohhhhhh wow, there’s nothing like a good dose of adrenaline to get the heart going. I’ll never get tired of that feeling.” Rachel went on through heavy laboured breathed. “I feel so alive!”

         Irida, however, was clinging onto Adaman so tightly that he was pretty sure she was going to be permanently stuck to him if she didn’t let go. “Hey, are you okay?” He asked, genuinely concerned for the Pearl Clan leader. “We made it across.”

         Taking deep breaths to calm herself down, Irida replied in a small shaky voice uncharacteristic of her. “Fine, fine. Just wasn’t expecting that. But I’m fine. We can keep going.”

         Raising an eyebrow, Rachel reached back to put a hand on the other woman’s. “Hey, you did well. You were very brave, back there.” She assured Irida, giving her a warm smile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. We can take it easy from here on out.” Reaching into her satchel, she pulled out the device that had been guiding her this whole way. “According to the Arc Phone, it’s a straight shot from here to where we need to be. So we can take it easy for the rest of the way. Would you prefer that?”

         Still clinging onto Adaman, Irida nodded fervently. “Please…if you don’t mind.”

         “It’s no trouble. It’d be poor form on my part to ignore the trepidations of my dear passengers.” Rachel teased as she went back to facing forward. Giving Cedric a pet on the head and reaching forward to pat Wyrdeer’s neck, she leaned forward to whisper to him. “Take us the rest of the way to Avalugg’s Legacy. At a leisurely pace, if you please.”

         Nodding, Wyrdeer talked forward on the ice, deliberately making his steps as even and smooth as possible so as to not further disturb the Pearl Clan leader on his backside.

         Taking another look at the screen on her Arc Phone, Rachel sighed. It frustrated her to no end that the leaders couldn’t see eye to eye on their theological beliefs. She couldn’t blame them too harshly for being mistaken, but it would be so difficult to prove that she was right. She at least got them to understand that they both worshipped the same deity that was almighty Sinnoh – the texts written on each of the plates given to her by each clan’s beloved Pokémon proved this – yet they were still convinced that one of them was right and the other was wrong.

         It just wasn’t possible for one of them to be right. They were either both right or both wrong, but it was impossible for one or the other to be right.

         “You know what the funny thing is?” Rachel asked, gesturing with her Arc Phone while Wyrdeer was leading the way, mentally making note of the icy Pokémon that inhabited this land. “I’m arguably the person who has the closest connection directly to almighty Sinnoh. This device was given to me before I fell through the rift and there’s no doubt in my mind that he communicates with me through it. But, whenever I need to ask him for something or I need to ask him for answers directly, he’s ever silent. All he does is beep at me and keep track of my proverbial to-do list and tell me where I need to go.”

         Getting more comfortable on Wyrdeer’s back, still clinging to Adaman (though not as tightly as before), Irida leaned over a bit to talk directly to Rachel. “Maybe it’s a part of the trial almighty Sinnoh has in store for you.” She suggested. “I think he wants you to demonstrate your own strength, which is why he doesn’t give you answers when you ask for them. You have to find them yourself, all he can do is show you where to find them.”

         Rachel rolled her eyes. She was never a fan of cryptic messaging and she couldn’t help but feel a sense of bitterness towards almighty Sinnoh for putting her in this position. Though, she held her tongue. Sinnoh obviously meant a lot to these people and she was in no position to disparage their deity to their faces. “The point I was trying to make is that it’s okay to admit you don’t have answers.” She clarified. “That you don’t know something. It’s not a weakness to admit that you’re human. Humans are inherently flawed, as all mortals are. We can only truly know so much, after all, and we can only do the best with the knowledge available to us at the time and the tools we have in the moment. It’s okay to be mortal. To be human. To be imperfect.”

         She smiled at both leaders behind her. “It’s what makes life worth living. That it’s complex and messy and imperfect.” Rachel turned her attention ahead. “After all, if there were no sorrow, we wouldn’t know what joy was. If we were always satisfied, we would have no drive to accomplish or desire anything. If we knew everything, we would have no reason to be curious. And I think a life without those things would be…empty.”

         “A life without spirit.” Irida punctuated, a smile in her voice.

         Rachel nodded in agreement. “Yeah…exactly.” As they continued their trek towards Avalugg’s Legacy, she couldn’t help but noticed that Adaman still had his arms wrapped around her waist and he had taken to resting his chin on her head. Smirking at him, she scoffed through her nose. “You don’t have to hold onto me, anymore. The hard part is over.”

         “I don’t mind.” Adaman replied, a smile in his voice as he spoke. “You’re comfortable. And warm.”

         “Oh, so it’s about sapping away my body heat, is it?” Rachel teased, laughing a little bit.

         Adaman was not immune to her playful nature, chuckling himself. “I can let go if it bothers you.”

         “No no, it doesn’t.” She said quickly, realizing what she had said and feeling her face start to grow warm under the cloth mask she was wearing. Thank almighty that her face was covered. “Just hang on a second…”

         Moving so that she was free from Adaman for a moment, she unwrapped the scarf that was around her neck and moved to wrap it around his. Once it was snugly tied, she nodded. “There, that should keep you warmer. I can’t stand the thought of watching you shiver like a Snorunt.”

         Her unashamed and relentlessly kind nature never ceased to catch Adaman off-guard. If he had a way to describe it, it would be recklessly kind. Rachel never held back what she thought or felt about a person if she believed in them. She never hesitated to stand up for someone if she felt they were being unfairly wronged, even (and especially) if the person they were disparaging was themselves.

         Adaman got a taste of that for himself the moment he showed weakness in the Crimson Mirelands, once Arezu’s plan was discovered. He showed one moment of doubt and Rachel was so quick to build him up and show him how much she believed in him and how much he should as well that it took him completely aback.

         Rachel was confident, strong, but gentle and kind. She was fierce in a way he had never known. Plain and simple, she was a force of change like nothing else and she proved it every single day.

         Satisfied that he was no longer freezing, Rachel checked her Arc Phone again. “We’re almost there.” She exclaimed to her passengers. “With enough luck, we’ll have this noble’s frenzy quelled before the day’s done.”

         “Rachel…?”

         An eerie echo across the ice made the woman tug on the handle of the saddle to halt Wyrdeer. She heard it, clear as day. Or at least…she thought she did. She knew that voice, she had to. She couldn’t place a name to it, but she knew that voice.

         She listened hard to try and catch it, again, eyes scanning the unforgiving landscape around them. “What’s wrong?” Adaman asked, immediately sensing her apprehension and having his hand on her shoulder for support.

         “I…I thought I heard…” No. It couldn’t be. It was impossible. It had to be her imagination. It had to be. “Nevermind. Let’s just keep –”

         “Rachel…?!”

         There! Again! And with the way Cedric’s ear twitched, trying to find the source of the sound, it confirmed that it wasn’t just in Rachel’s head. “You heard it too…”

         The Zorua nodded in confirmation.

         Moving to get off Wyrdeer, Rachel’s feet landed on the icy ground beneath them. The clan leaders were quick to follow her, Irida moving quickest to intercept Rachel. “Wait, we should keep going. I don’t think this is a good idea.”

         She appreciated the Pearl Clan leader’s desire to keep Rachel safe, but she couldn’t understand the situation Rachel was in. She couldn’t understand everything that she had lost that laid on the other side of the rift. Everything that she wanted nothing more than to find once more, even if she couldn’t remember all of it. “I have to find out what that is. If someone’s in trouble, I need to help them.” Rachel insisted, trying to walk past Irida in the direction of the sound. “And if I’m right and it’s someone I know, then…I have to find them.”

         “You don’t know what lies here.” Irida insisted, firmly standing in Rachel’s way to prevent her from leaving. “There are Pokémon here that are known to take the appearance of others, even mimicking their voices. Pokémon that look a lot like Cedric, but with white fur and eyes like the sun.” Her voice trailed off, her eyes looking towards the ground to avoid meeting Rachel’s gaze. “They lure them away and we’re lucky if they’re seen again.”

         Exchanging a glance with Cedric, he uncomfortably shuffled closer to his trainer. Rachel shook her head. “But what if it’s not that? What if someone really is in trouble and they need help?” She insisted, looking between Irida and Adaman, pleading silently for either of them – one of them – to back her up. “If there’s even a small chance, then I have to try.”

         “I think Irida’s right, Rachel.” Adaman said, looking between both women. “We don’t have a lot of time to spare right now and Avalugg’s frenzy is more pressing at the moment. We need to focus on that, for now.”

         She had a feeling he’d say that, but she was still disappointed nonetheless. Rachel knew that Irida was most likely right, but Rachel couldn’t take comfort in odds. Not when she knew that even unlikely odds were not zero.

         But she was outvoted, and she knew they were right. Avalugg was the priority. She could simply investigate on her own once she was more familiar with the Alabaster Icelands. She wouldn’t leave this stone unturned. “Alright, in that case we can walk the rest of the way there.”

         As Rachel moved to dismiss Wyrdeer and send him on his way, Cedric suddenly felt distant tremors echo across the ice. He felt them through his paws and when he looked around for the source, he saw it charging towards them.

         He alerted his trainer with a sharp bark and in an instant, Rachel moved into action. “ADAMAN, WATCH OUT!”

         It all happened so quickly. While Adaman had his back turned, he was suddenly pushed out of the way across the ice. Irida was laying on her side opposite from him, further away from him, and there was a long track indented into the ice trampled by footprints.

         Pokémon footprints.

         Irida was immediately on her feet, helping Adaman to his, but all the Diamond Clan leader was concerned about was their missing traveler from the sky. “Where’s Rachel?!”

         Gesturing towards where the line of disturbed snow led, Adaman couldn’t believe his eyes. Digging her feet into the ice beneath her, with both of her hands wrapped around the tusks of an enraged Piloswine was Rachel, having lifted it off the ground by its front half, leaving its front legs dangling helplessly. Never before in his life would he ever expect that anyone – much less someone Rachel’s size – would have the guts to get in the way of a charging Piloswine!

         But she had it by the tusks and was wrestling with it to keep it from getting traction to push her back further, roaring like he’d never heard her roar before. It was guttural like it came from deep within her chest up from her belly.

         Readjusting her grip, with a powerful wrench, she jerked it back and forth before practically throwing it onto its side, sending it sliding a good way across the ice, helplessly trying to scramble back to its feet. Other Pokémon that were nearby were watching, cowering behind snowbanks and otherwise piles of snow.

         Whilst it was down, Rachel pushed her foot onto its side to keep it on the ground. Adaman had never seen this side of her, before, and the look he exchanged with Irida said everything they were both thinking.

         This woman was a force of nature like nothing either of them had ever seen before.

         “Listen carefully…these two are with me.” Rachel snarled lowly at the helpless Piloswine. It was taking every ounce of control to not take out her anger on what was most likely an innocent Pokémon who felt threatened by strangers in its territory. It wasn’t its fault that it was a creature that had a territory to defend. But, Rachel had a duty to her companions as well.

         They were her territory to defend. “For any harm that comes to them, whether I’m with them or not, you and any Pokémon that dare hurt them will have to answer to me. Understood?”

         Frantically, the Piloswine nodded, flailing in a feeble attempt to try and get back onto its feet to escape the wrath of this deceptively strong, though still very small woman. It half expected to be gutted and killed for its meat when she rendered it helpless.

         But instead, she was showing it mercy, lifting her foot off of it and allowing it to get back up. “Good. Now get.” She ordered. As the Piloswine fearfully skittered away across the ice, Rachel whirled around at the audience of Pokémon that had gathered around her. “NOW! ALL OF YOU!”

         With another roar from deep within her belly, every last Pokemon in the vicinity skittered away, disappearing into the snow or simply running as far and as fast as they could so as to not incur the wrath of this human stranger who spoke their tongue.

         Once Rachel was sure there were no other Pokemon who were going to hurt the clan leaders, she let out a huge sigh of relief and relaxed. The wild and frenzied persona melted away instantly and her dark eyes were warm and soft like freshly dug earth as she returned to the pair she was traveling with. “Are you okay? That Piloswine nearly gored you!”

         “Me?!” Adaman exclaimed in utter disbelief. He could not believe this woman! Shaking his head, he had to laugh a little just to clear the tension in his chest from the worry. “You’re really something.”

         Cedric rushed up to meet Rachel, clambering up her leg to get to her shoulder. “Hey, I’m fine. Look at me, I’m fine. I’m standing here, aren’t I?”

         “You could’ve gotten seriously hurt!” Irida cried, rushing over to look Rachel over for injuries, taking special attention to her left arm due to the injury dealt by her clan’s Lord Kleavor before. “What were you thinking?!”

         Looking over at Adaman, giving him a onceover to make sure that he was uninjured, Rachel shrugged. “Adaman was in danger, so I acted.” She replied simply. “That’s all there is to it.”

         As the Diamond Clan leader stared at this five foot tall powerhouse, he didn’t know whether to congratulate her for doing something so impressive or scold her for doing something so stupid. “People from the future must be downright fearless.”

         Rachel shook her head. “No, just a me thing.” She dismissed, trying to shoulder past him so that they could move on and make it to Avalugg’s Legacy. They’d gotten in enough trouble already and the longer they stayed out here, the more daylight they were losing. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

         For a moment, Irida didn’t follow Rachel. The quiet stretched between them as the question lingered in the Pearl Clan leader’s mind unspoken, until she forced it to be spoken. “Isn’t there anything that you’re afraid of?”

         Rachel froze in place. She had to think about that, for a moment. What was she afraid of that hadn’t already happened? She’d already died once, so she wasn’t afraid of that anymore. She had already lost everyone she loved and cared for when she was sent back in time to ancient Hisui, save for Cedric.

         The woman’s shoulders sagged as she stayed in place. The silence stretched between them before she spoke, even Adaman not daring to break it for the sake of saving time. “It’s hard to be afraid of a lot of things when your worst fears have been realized over and over again.” She answered plainly, looking over at Cedric on her shoulder. Reaching over, she picked him up and held him in her hands, locking eyes with him before drawing him close and squeezing him against her chest. He was the only link she had to her past – the only piece of familiarity she could hold onto.

         The only thing she had left to lose. “The only thing that scares me, now…is not being able to protect the people I care about.”

         With her back turned to them, Adaman and Irida exchanged a look. They may not always agree or see eye to eye on a lot of things, but they both knew one thing they did agree on. They both grew to care very deeply about this stranger that fell from the sky.

         She was no stranger, anymore. She was a dear friend, special, irreplaceable, and invaluable. “Well, I’m glad you’re here.” Adaman said warmly, walking up and putting a hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “If it weren’t for you, I’d have been skewered.”

         Chuckling a little bit, Irida walked up on her other side and patted her other shoulder. “Come on, let’s go see Gaeric.”

         As Irida walked ahead, Adaman hung back and took his scarf off to give it back to Rachel. “You can have this back, now.”

         Looking at it, Rachel shook her head. Taking it, she draped it around his shoulders once more and tied it snugly. “No, keep it. It’s yours, now. You need it more than I do.” Raising an eyebrow with a hint of playful mischief, she leaned up (standing up on her toes to reach him) and mutter to him quietly out of earshot of Irida. “Besides, I like it better on you, anyway.”

         Smirking at her, Adaman walked away to follow Irida. Strangely enough, he didn’t feel the cold much, anymore. He felt warm, safe, and comforted. Something about the scent that lingered on the scarf brought a sense of peace and stability to him. It was wheaty, like freshly baked bread, but also wild like the smell of fields and flowers.

         It was unique to her. It brought him a sense of calm in a way nothing else did.

         For a moment, Rachel lingered, trying to see if she could hear the voice that echoed across the icelands. She needed to be sure she wasn’t making a mistake, that she wasn’t leaving someone to freeze that needed her help.

         Or, that it wasn’t someone from her past that needed her help now. That voice sounded painfully and achingly familiar and Rachel knew that she wouldn’t sleep well until she uncovered its source.

         But, alas, the tundra remained disappointingly silent, so she had no choice but to follow the clan leaders to the end of their destination. There were more important matters at hand, after all. They had a noble’s frenzy to quell, probably for the last time.

         Maybe afterwards, Hisui would finally know peace, again.

[rayshippouuchiha]

Since you expressed some interest in my aideku, Doctor Strange reincarnated as Izuku Midoriya idea, I have no choice but to tell you all of my plans (minus spoilers, probably) >:3c  I have titles and quotes and everything, for at least 2 of the 3 stories planned.

So, first one is called Who Takes to the Road. “I could not say what creeps and whispers through the branches and down the threaded Road, but I hear it, and I am not afraid.”

Dr. Strange reincarnates as Izuku Midoriya. He’s kept the memories of his past life since birth, and has no idea why or how. He’s in a completely different universe, not even one of the many alternates or parallels more familiar to his past life. Which means different rules of magic, natural law, maybe even physics and science. The freeflowing magic/dragon tracks/ley lines are certainly much weaker and less dense than the Earth of his past life, for example. And because of this world’s different position within the multiverse, he has to adjust how he draws on interdimensional powers and which he draws from, as well as becoming used to having less power at his disposal (he discovers eventually that this world also doesn’t have nearly the same amount of interdimensional/mystical threats as his last). And he is very careful about never being caught, so while the quirkless ‘diagnosis’ is a bit disappointing, he’s seen far too many quirk drawbacks to be too upset about it. And because of an off-hand comment he makes that results in extensive genetic testing to be sure, he has no intention of passing sorcery off as a quirk when that would turn him into some sort of genetic/medical miracle.

He’s seen enough to recognize a dystopian society when he sees it, thanks. He’s not about to put himself in some mad scientist’s lab, and the HPSC is a little too reminiscent of SHIELD/Hydra for his tastes.

Izuku realizes too late just how bad the discrimination against the quirkless is, though. But he’s a grown man mentally, even if a child physically. He transfers to online classes when the treatment starts getting bad and breezes through them. It leaves him plenty of free time (and child bodies have way too much energy, what the heck), to take up hobbies (programming and hacking will be useful at some point, he’s sure) and to train his body in preparation for the threats he knows are out there, and whatever this world intends to throw at him. Also, to gain maximum flexibility and mobility while still young to minimize the pains of old age.

Izuku doesn’t have any intention of being a pro-hero (he didn’t even really consider himself a hero in his last life; a guardian or protector, maybe, a healer, definitely, but not a hero like the Avengers). He’d chosen sorcery in his last life because he could save more people that way than he could if he’d gone back to being a doctor. But here, there are practically no mystical/interdimensional/extraterrestrial threats. There is a glut of pro-heroes to take care of ‘villains’. He can do more as a doctor, and better for the quirkless community as a prominent, quirkless doctor prodigy. Plus, some part of him aches to return to surgery now that he has steady, undamaged hands again.

Time passes, it requires some finagling (and maybe some hacking) to get around institutional quirkless prejudice, but as a young(ish?) teen he gains his PhD in neuroscience, while his MD is temporarily stalled when his residency is delayed [some research into MD requirements may be necessary, or I may just end up making things up]. In the meantime he sets up a quirkless clinic in the slums, heavily warded to make it a safe space and prevent anyone who means harm from finding it. Izuku will treat anyone who needs help, of course, but it is first and foremost for the safety, comfort, and healing of the quirkless.

One night, Eraserhead ends up dropping on his doorstep, passed out from blood loss and dangerously close to dying. Izuku fixes him up and then kicks him out once he’s well enough to walk away. Shouta is intrigued by this extremely young doctor, surprisingly competent but with a horrible bedside manner that he suspects was made worse to get him to leave quicker and never come back.

Joke’s on Izuku, Shouta is like a cat. He’s caught his attention and his interest, and trying to get rid of him is more likely to get him to stay. And Shouta does keep coming back.

Plus, he eventually figures out that Izuku is the not-vigilante that Tsukauchi will sometimes complain about. Because Izuku might have no interest in heroics, but he’s certainly not going to look the other way when innocent people are being threatened and harmed right in front of him. And he lives in the bad part of town, and is possibly even more of a trouble magnet than he was Before. Vigilante charges won’t stick, it’s always self-defense, and he never goes on patrols or anything. The local police know him very well, and Stephen gets to point where he could fill out the paperwork/follow procedure in his sleep.

It's not just fighting the criminals either. Once Shouta knows what to look for, what to listen for, he hears the rumors about Izuku just talking down a good number of would-be criminals as well. Thinking back on his smart mouth, he can’t be too surprised.

Slowly, as they spend more and more time together, their walls are bridged and they become closer (and Shouta notices more and more strange little things, but he settles back to observe rather than demanding answers outright for the most part). Izuku even ends up doing an internship with Recovery Girl at one point. Mainly because he needs the hours and they’re one of the few local places that would accept him. He has absolutely no inclination, however, of making a career as a school doctor. Bottom of the list. He’s determined to become a renowned neurosurgeon once again, with the added challenge of quirks.

Izuku happens to be present when 3A is attacked at the USJ (Mirio has OFA here). A random craving places him in Hosu during Stain and the nomu attack, he stumbles upon and basically kidnaps Eri at some point, and for whatever reason he’s passing through Kamino when All Might and AFO have their final showdown. That’s where he discovers that there is a significant demonic threat present. And despite all of Izuku’s practice, it is the first actually significant mystical battle he’s participated in since being reborn. Practice is well and good, but he’s rusty when it comes to actual battle, and that could easily be a death sentence. He doesn’t even manage to figure out what the threat is, specifically, and it’s luck that Shouta finds him on UA grounds in time to get him to Recovery Girl.

Life progresses as usual while Izuku desperately tries to figure out what the demon is doing and how to defeat it. All while trying to keep what he’s looking for secret from the entity and dodging whatever safeguards it might have set up over the decades, or maybe centuries. Eventually we get to the war arc (I think it’s called?) where Shigaraki is upgraded by the doctor, or whatever, and AFO takes over his body (I haven’t actually seen or read Bnha except for a ton of fanfiction, so all of my canon knowledge comes from that and maybe a couple of wiki articles). There’s a twist I build up to with this climax, and hopefully do well enough to shock readers, but safe to say that Shouta is not having a good time.

But these two idiots do finally get together, so there’s that.

Wow, this ended up being a lot longer than I thought.

(Book 2 and 3 ideas to come eventually. Maybe even soon. Maybe this will give me the motivation to actually start writing).

[starrysupercell]

Yor writing is -chef's kiss-! I thought I was the only one who thought Sandy was 16ish! ...Do u have SandyxEdgar thoughts? 👀

Many thanks! 🤭💙

And, oh man, do I!

They're dubbed Sleepy Scarf, by a friend and me. (@lumpy-veev :3 they draw really well, check them out if you haven't already!!)

I have a big story idea that features them heavily, and other AU ideas that includes them. But for the sake of spoilers and simplicity, I'll keep it tied to my mainverse. (Which also has spoilers, but I'm not too caught up in that.)

Also, this is them as a couple, not including the TDT.

-Basically, my hc of Sandy is that he's a being even more mysterious than Tara and Gene, because while they were both humans at one point long before joining Starr Park, he simply appeared one day in a very strong sandstorm.

-Nobody was sure what his origin was. A creation of Starr Park? A magic being wisked into existence? Even the Higher Ups of the Park said something along the lines of "Who cares? Just make him a Brawler." And so they did.

-Tara and Gene took it upon themselves to look after him, so he's a part of the Mystic Trinity.

-In his time in the Park, Sandy has observed how things are. Been told by Tara and Gene that a lot of folks here are trapped. How there have been many attempts to revolt, escape, overthrow the system, but it's ended in near-total failure each time. (Although, very few have managed to leave.)

-As a result of knowing so much and feeling like there's no true hope for most/all current Brawlers to escape safely, he decides to take a backseat to trying. After all, it's just not possible in this lifetime. So why bother. 😪

-...and this is where Edgar finally comes in!

-Edgar's an angry lad who's fueled by rage and determination. Honestly I feel like in any universe, Sandy is wowed by Edgar's seemingly endless energy. In this case, Edgar provides a real spark of hope of getting out of this place to Sandy. Since he knows more than his share fair of secrets around the park, he decides to help the edgy teen anyway he can.

-First and foremost, this means making sure Edgsr keeps a low profile and minimizing the damage he's already caused AND the attention he's garnered... He has to calm him down.

-Edgar has been claimed as one of the comfiest to lay on by Sandy. It's like Sandy has become attuned to every time Edgar lays down, because he magically appears and lays on him.

- Onto more light hearted headcanons and thoughts though 🥰

The best way to describe SS is that they're just two cats. One's an active black cat, ready to fight at a moment's notice and can usually be seen jumping across roof tops, and the other is a snoozing cat that enjoys the sunlight.

"You're a pillow and blanket all in one." Sandy mumbles happily.

"No I'm not, I'm just on break," Edgar 'complains' but Sandy is already snoozing, and Edgar just lays there. Until break is over... or some time after that. Colette will be fine...

When it comes down to it, Edgar is a hyped-up angry boy, and Sandy's the calm that can reel him in... to an extent. Conversely, Edgar is Sandy's motivation and has the sleepy boy's admiration.

[annie-manga]

So I finished reading the latest “Dark Zone” update & I have many thoughts

If you haven’t read the update, or haven’t read this webcomic yet, do it now & come back to this when you have cause this is gonna get into spoiler territory here(and be sure to support the creator too): 

“For a social worker, you’re really bad with children.” 

This quote that Mackenzie utters to his aunt two chapters ago at the end, and that has become the vibe for this current chapter update. So with that all said, here’s my thoughts about today’s update: 

“You're not the only person with a family!” why did I feel the intensity of that line in my bones, like WOW? But Mackenzie’s frustration is completely understandable here; not only is a member of his family, someone he trusted, not fully understanding where he’s coming from here, but he’s also upset because this is a person whose job is working with children but has minimal care or compassion for the people that she’s taking away and merely sees them as subjects or anomalies. Compare that to Mackenzie who, as we’ve been shown throughout the course of this story, is a very kind and compassionate character. He could have found out a way to help Aiden without getting involved further or he could have just left him there at the compound and never looked back. But he didn’t, he stayed with Aiden and helped him. He kept him safe as best as he could while trying to do everything to find his family. He brought him back to them & saw their tearful reunion. Auntie was never there for any of it, he was. That’s why(among other reasons) he feels so strongly about his aunt’s choices and how she treated Aiden, as well as the other kids she’s found.(side note: the panel when Mackenzie said that line & the one after, he looked as if he were about to cry; I saw the slight redness of unshed tears in his eyes when I looked closer. Kudos for the details, the very painful details, that enhance moments like this in the story)

The aunt made the right decision, but her decision was rooted in selfishness, as Mackenzie stated. But I also want to point out another facet of her character & how that, depending on where this story will lead us, has very frightening implications: she’s a part of an agency tasked with finding Statics & bringing them in so they don’t cause any further damage to people. At least that’s how she describes it, and how her job describes it, from what we can assume. But here’s the thing: all the Statics that she’s tasked with containing & stuff are children. Children. Children who have been missing for god knows how long and are now being kept away from the world that they’ve known, away from their loved ones, and treated like like subjects, experiments, anomalies. Like they aren’t human. But they are(or were, depending on their current physiology, but regardless). And Mackenzie exclaims that what his aunt is doing is technically kidnapping, on top of stalking, but she brushes it off & tries to justify it as ‘just doing her job’*. But that’s what makes this more cruel and sinister: she has essentially divorced the humanity from the children that she & her employers have taken away and only is able to view them from that lens; to actually acknowledge the humanity of the Static children means that she’d have to realize that what she’s doing is actually causing harm to vulnerable people. It’s easier to treat them as dangerous individuals and paint them as threats than to realize that not only are people like her the threat, but that what they’re doing would be illegal if it wasn’t funded by the government(or whoever is behind this). This contrast of these perspectives/mindsets can be shown when Aiden is shaking with anxiety and worry; Mackenzie goes to calm him down, but his aunt holds him back at first because he’s “shutting down” and Mackenzie rightfully says that she’s the one scaring him. But essentially, while Auntie with very her single-minded priorities has caused great harm to both Aiden & her nephew, she’s just one part of a larger organization that may prove to be even more dangerous and less lenient than she has shown herself to be. Let’s hope that this mindset she’s currently in starts shifting a bit later on, or there’s gonna be some problems(for who? Everyone probably).

* And this kind of mindset is unfortunately prevalent in jobs similar to hers: social workers, people who work in adoption/foster care, hell even doctors & teachers. And it gets especially worse when these people end up dealing with the care of children who are already part of one or more marginalized groups, now they’re already vulnerable & being subjected to this kind of inhumane treatment. But the people harming them don’t see that what they’re doing is inhumane, because they do not see the inherent humanity within these children, just a burden they must deal with or a problem to be solved/fixed(and this made me think of the myriad of ways autistic children are targeted & harmed by these mindsets: from ABA therapists, antivaxxers, ‘autism moms’, and companies that peddle this garbage. All so they can ‘help’ and ‘cure’ them from their autism, something that they are only able to view as something to be fixed). 

Jumping of that previous point, this has very terrifying undertones as well, which raises more questions: what is the average age of the Statics that they found? How old is the youngest of them(cause the possibility that a child of elementary school age may have winded up a Static & then taken by the government against their will)? Are they actually trying to ‘cure’ them or is something else going on? Do any of the parents of these missing kids know about this or do they still believe that their child is still missing? If Mackenzie hadn’t been there, would Aiden suffered the same fate, or possibly a much worse one if he wasn’t in the compound that day?

All in all, I had more thoughts on this from this chapter than I had anticipated, and it’s just one more reason I love this webcomic!!! 

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

The Voyage So Far: Dressrosa (Part One)

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

fujitora’s introduction is so memorable. we don’t even know he’s an admiral until a little while after this, but the way he’s introduced makes him both immediately intriguing and tentatively likable, and also shows he’s terrifyingly powerful. similar to wano, dressrosa is a very twisty arc with a lot of hidden identities and things and people that are not what they seem, and fujitora’s introduction establishes that right off the bat.

it’s no secret i really like law, and i think his relationships and dynamics with the strawhats are some of the reasons why. it’s very good. the way he usually interacts with them (read: suffering) contrasts against the very real respect and faith he develops for them, and for luffy in particular. he refuses to call luffy his subordinate, here, even though it would be basically a get-out-of-jail free card when it comes to dealing with fujitora, and it comes up again more than once later in this arc too (though never to the strawhats themselves).

genuinely the tournament subplot is one of my favorite parts of this entire arc, especially because it happens while the action in the rest of dressrosa is mostly still setting up. it’s so fun to watch luffy go completely ham with minimal consequences, especially because we know more or less from the beginning that he’s not really likely to face a challenge from anyone here. 

it allows the supporting cast to be built out as a pretty entertaining group in their own right, too, especially bartolomeo and cavendish, and sets up most of the future grand fleet without being too obvious about it. 

i may as well say now, because i’m sure i’ll be talking about it a lot: kyros is one of my favorite one piece parents, and his and rebecca’s relationship hits me in the fucking chest. i’m consistently upset that they got so much stolen from them, and very very glad that they got the happy ending they dearly deserved.

i really like rebecca. and i like her story, too. i know there are people who want her to be more of a fighter, more violent, but i think that’s missing the point. rebecca is someone who has been victimized and commodified and put on display to die in front of a country that hates her again and again and again, and she still stays gentle and good, and i think that makes her one of the strongest characters in this arc.

obviously in isolation ‘damsel in distress’ is not really a good trope (and i’ve complained about it before with regards to tashigi in punk hazard), but i also don’t think it’s really at play here. rebecca is someone who deserves to finally lay down her sword and rest and be happy and safe, and her father deserves the chance to give her the protection he hasn’t been able to. 

i really like when oda does things like this with paneling, i think it’s tremendously cool. there’s some similar examples with law’s powers in this arc and punk hazard as well, and it’s cool as hell every time. 

this is one of my favorite panels in all of dressrosa. 

kyros has a line a lot later on about ‘restoring the true dressrosa,’ and that’s what this scene makes me think of. this is the true dressrosa- the broken and forgotten and lost, down in the darkness beneath the city. and no matter what he may think of himself, riku is still their king. 

this panel also reminds me of the similar scene in udon in wano, where the prisoners kneel before momonosuke. which is, incidentally, another favorite of mine. i really like whenever one piece deals in themes of loyalty, i feel like it always hits very hard. 

[spoilers for recent wano chapters]

i think some parts of dressrosa line up very nicely with the recent reveal in wano that law’s new goal is uncovering the mystery of the will of d. it’s something that feels very natural and fitting for him, and i think this is one of the reasons why. 

of the Ds we’ve seen, law is the only one who’s been really shown to be actively aware of the name and the weight it holds (and thus, the only one to bother to keep it secret), and he even weaponizes it against doflamingo throughout dressrosa in order to throw him off balance, and succeeds. it feels like a very natural progression from that awareness to trying to understand its mystery, at least to me. 

barto is a great character because he’s introduced as being a completely unlikable shithead, and like, that’s not inaccurate, he totally is, but he also somehow winds up being likable anyways. part of that is his idolization of the strawhats (because, let’s be real, all of us can relate), but part of it is also that he’s kind of honorable in his own way, and i think him saving bellamy from dellinger despite having no stake in the situation just because they fought together is probably the best example of that.

i really like how the sabo reveal is handled. all the focus is placed on luffy and his reaction, and then we get our actual introduction to sabo as an adult slowly over the course of the next few chapters in how he acts and interacts with other characters throughout the tournament, culminating in his proper introduction after it’s over. 

the actual explanation of what happened to him, how he survived and the entirety of his reunion with luffy is saved for the end of the arc, and i think it’s good that it happens there, in a quiet time after the dust is settled, rather than being smacked in the middle of the rising action. 

of all the many many devil fruits that have appeared in one piece, i think sugar’s is the scariest, and also one of the ones i’ve probably thought the most about, if only in terms of its sheer inherent horror. the moment her spell is broken is, in my opinion, one of the most satisfying in the entire story. doflamingo’s hold over the entire country snaps, just like that.

the entire sequence of dressrosa’s great panic is one of my favorites in the whole series. i’m a really big fan of moments where the tides are all at once turned, and this is so very much one of those- sugar is knocked out; all the toys revert to human all at once, including kyros, who promptly decapitates (unfortunately not the real) doflamingo; sabo wins the tournament, eats the mera mera no mi, and obliterates the colosseum; and usopp becomes god. 

it’s really really good. 

even though this is a fake doflamingo it is very satisfying to see him get wrecked, and even though i love the outcome of the luffy and law versus mingo and trebol fight i do think kyros deserved to decapitate the real thing also.

usopp’s role and development in dressrosa is really great. it’s the most focus he’s gotten since water seven/enies lobby, and it comes at a time right when he’d been in the background for a rather long time. in dressrosa, he gets to be a proper hero- he indisputably saves the entire day not once but twice, and even doflamingo recognizes him as by far the biggest wrench in his plans- and more importantly, he gets to do it for the first time as himself, instead of having to hide behind a mask, as he did at both thriller bark and enies lobby. 

the way a lot of the fight panels with doflamingo specifically are drawn is very cool, i think. there’s a real sense of speed and danger to a lot of them, which makes sense, as doflamingo is a very dangerous opponent fully capable of slicing off limbs and heads with ease if his enemies make a wrong move, something both the characters and the audience are fully aware of by this point. 

to be continued in the next post with the rest of dressrosa!

[grumpyhedgehogs]

Compartmentalization

Ada Wong tries to keep her work as a mercenary far fro her private life--and very, very far away from her secret girlfriend, Claire Redfield. Her clients don't know about Claire, Claire doesn't know about her clients, and Ada likes it that way.

Raccoon City blows that all to hell.

Or: Resident evil 2 if Ada and Claire were girlfriends before the game started.

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, guns, blood, death, spoilers.

AO3.

~

“You,” Ada tells the zombie lurching after her, “are ruining my date.”

The zombie gurgles on its own blood and Ada dispatches it with minimal disgusted grunting. To be fair, he isn’t actually interrupting her date--that honor goes to the mission as a whole. Damn it, but she’d promised she’d take Claire out on a road trip to celebrate her finishing her final exams this year. Well, Ada would let Claire take her on a road trip, because Ada Wong did not do long sweaty hours stuck in a car in traffic with nothing to do. Long sweaty hours stuck to Claire on the back of her girlfriend’s bike? Now that Ada could do.

But she isn’t doing that, and it is entirely her client’s fault. “ Capitalism ,” Ada spits, echoing Claire’s voice in her head. Against her better judgement, she feels the corners of her mouth lift. Smiling about a girl even when she’s alone? God, she’s hopeless. “Get a grip , Wong. That sample has to be around here somewhere.”

~

“You’re FBI?”

“Yes,” Ada snaps testily, folding her fake badge up and slipping it back into her coat pocket. “And you're interrupting a private investigation.”

The cop frowns, eyes darting to the dog’s body on the concrete two feet from his face and the blood spatters on the walls. Any second now, another dead body might smash its way through another wall and be upon them. His thoughts are written clear across his face-- there’s a few better things for them to worry about than an investigation.

The guy is a rookie, through and through. His face is open and unlined. While he’s healthy and unscathed, he’s also obviously awkward in such a life-threatening situation. He’s never done this before, never brushed with death on the daily. He looks like a kicked puppy. Ada’s almost tempted to put him down right here and now, just to save him the pain and herself the trouble.

Claire would be pissed if she ever found out. Not that she would, but still. She’d want to know the cop’s name and where he’s from and how he got here. Claire would want to help him.

(Claire was never supposed to factor into Ada’s decision making. She was supposed to be a fling, someone to take the edge off and help Ada destress a little between missions. She wasn’t supposed to wriggle her way into Ada’s head, wasn’t supposed to slip through the chinks of Ada’s armor, and yet, here Claire is. She's with Ada without even being present. Claire is somehow essential for Ada to continue living. Love, Ada thinks, is a bitch .)

“Right,” Ada grumbles, and pulls her sunglasses off. He seems more comfortable when he can see her eyes, even if Ada rolls them as he releases the tension from his shoulders. “We’d better work together here.”

~

“This isn’t a game!” Ada snaps. Leon bristles but subsides.

“I know, alright? There were so many more of us--survivors--before, and now…”

His eyes are far away and Ada snorts. “Don’t worry, Rookie, I’m sure whatever little girlfriend you have got the hell out of town. Which is what you should be doing.”

His mouth falls open but he doesn’t look like he’s on the brink of tears anymore, so Ada considers it a win. Hysterics are the last thing she needs right now. No, what Ada needs right now is a goddamn breakthrough with this mission if she wants to go home in one piece. “She’s not my--”

“Yeah, yeah, save it. You know that’s twice I’ve saved your ass now?”

“I didn’t realize you were keeping score.”

~

“We need to terminate her before she turns.”

The words taste like ash in her mouth. Leon shifts anxiously beside her. Ada feels bile rise in her throat. She used to be able to hold her gun up without her trigger finger trembling.

(What would Ada do if it were the one person she cares about half-dead and turning?)

“Ada...Leave them be,” Leon murmurs.

She lowers the gun and resolutely does not think about Claire's skin going grey.

~

If she gets out of this, Ada Wong is going to absolutely tear her client apart for sending her into this mess. No sample is worth listening to Leon drone on about all the people he’s worried about.

“What about you?” Leon looks up from rummaging through a safe box for ammunition. Ada hums, tapping at the keyboard in front of her. They seem to be just above the Umbrella building she needs to get into; if they call the tram, they should be down there in just a few minutes. “Do you have anyone you’re here for?”

“No.” Thank God. Claire is still back on the coast, waiting in her dorm room for Ada to come back from her “last minute work trip.” She’d promised Ada she would wait for her to come back before starting her road trip, so they could go together. Ada’s been hoping to get some of her own research done before she gets back to Claire anyway; something about Claire’s brother disappearing into radio silence in this very city rubs her very much the wrong way. Claire could be walking straight into a trap. So yeah, maybe there was an ulterior motive for Ada taking this mission, if only to scout ahead and save her girlfriend the trouble of getting herself killed by the dead.

Good thing she has Ada to look after her.

“Oh. Well, that’s good, I guess. No family? Friends?”

“I’m here for the mission, Leon.”

Ada’d almost left him for dead many times; what good would he do her? Leon’s been an unexpected boon in the city, but he’ll run out of usefulness eventually. They all do. (But Claire would like him. He’s got the same fire. Ada settles for muttering darkly to herself about how soft she’s becoming for one redhead with a temper.)

“Yeah,” he concedes glumly. Damn it, it looks like the tram is manually operated; they’ll have to get down to the platform to power it up; Ada can’t call it to them from here. She’s so busy fuming she almost misses his next comment. “Still, there are innocent people in this city who are going to need our help to get out of this mess. Like the girl I came here with. I hope she’s found her brother…”

What? No.  

No, it can’t be. There are so many people living--or undead, now--in Raccoon City. Claire is at college, a million miles away, and she’s smart. She wouldn’t come out to the middle of nowhere in the Midwest in the middle of the night after Ada asked her not to. She’s safe.

(She’s safe. She has to stay safe, because Claire is just about the only thing Ada has that isn’t part of her cover. She’s Ada’s . Ada’s to love, Ada’s to spoil, Ada’s to annoy, Ada’s to protect. She’s got to be safe.)

(But that doesn’t stop Ada’s blood from running cold. How many missing brothers can Raccoon City boast?)

~

Leon passes out from his wounds. The Claire voice in the back of her head won’t let Ada leave him to die; her stomach curdles at the thought of Claire finding out what she’s done, how ruthless Ada can really be. So Ada gives him her coat and resolves not to let herself think about how soft she’s getting until she’s curled up in the apartment no one but Claire knows about with a certain pretty redhead under her arm.

Ada ends up with a shard of scrap metal through her leg for going to the trouble of helping Leon.

Typical.

~

The rookie, to his credit, does come to save her. His face screws up when she gets up to limp her way to the tram with him but Ada shakes off his desperate attempts to help. She’s tired of this: she’s tired of being dirty and grimy, she’s tired of gunshots and blood spatter, she’s tired of not finishing her mission on time, and she’s tired of worrying about what Claire must be thinking right about now.

Claire isn’t even here!

(She’s tired of ignoring the increasingly loud thought that if Claire weren’t safe Ada would lose her mind.)

The tram is grey and drab and the most comfortable, safest place she’s been in since coming to this godforsaken city. Ada slumps gratefully into her seat and lets Leon fuss at her on the ride down. Her leg aches, pain radiating up the base of her spine and pulsing at the back of her skull. (What if the wound is infected-- )

Leon is still so young, a puppy dog through and through. It’s too easy to convince him to bring her the virus with a kiss.

(Thank God Claire isn’t here.)

(Her handler told her there’s another way to get the G-Virus if Leon can’t do the work for her, but even for Ada it’s distasteful. Sherry Birkin is as old as Emma was, and if she couldn’t pull the trigger when Emma was clearly dying, could she trust herself to do it when faced with a perfectly healthy little girl?)

~

Leon pulls a gun on her. Fantastic. Will this mission ever fucking end?

“Leon, please! We don’t have a lot of time--”

“As much as I wanted to trust you,” Leon snaps, scowling, “I didn’t.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Ada mutters to herself. Leon’s eyes don’t widen when her gun raises to match his. The facility shakes around them and the walkway rumbles beneath their feet. Ada curses whatever possessed her to wear heels tonight.

“Hey!” A voice that sends ice through her veins shouts from behind the man Ada has lined up in her sights. Leon’s shoulders are too broad to glimpse around, but she must have heard wrong, it can’t be--

“Whoever you are, you’d better get moving, this place is about to blow!”

Not taking his eyes off of her, Leon turns his head. “Claire?”

“Wha--Leon?”

“ No. ” Ada whispers, numb.

“Claire, get out of here!”

Claire is here. Claire didn’t listen to her. Claire came to Raccoon City to find her brother. Claire isn’t safe. Claire is coming up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Leon, eyes wide and darting between the two of them.

Claire sees Ada.

“Ada?” Claire jolts forward before curling a hand around Leon’s uninjured shoulder. “Leon, don’t hurt her! I know her--”

“No you don’t.” Leon says. Something deep in Ada’s core is shivering. Her throat has locked up, the muscles there spasming. Her mind is blank. How can this be happening? Claire isn’t supposed to be here. She isn’t supposed to see Ada like this. She isn’t supposed to know . “You may think you know her, Claire, but she’s a liar. I bet you think she’s FBI, huh?”

“I…” There’s a clang and a small, childish squeak and Claire whirls around, throwing out her hand. Behind her, a blonde girl Ada only saw in photographs before dropping into the city huddles on the nearest platform. “S-stay back! We’ll--let us just sort this out and then we’ll get out of here.”

Of course. Claire wouldn’t have left without trying to save a kid. This stupid, reckless, noble woman. (Ada loves her so , so much, so much that it makes her sick.)

“She isn’t FBI.” Leon spits, his eyes sparking. Ada sneers at him as best she can while her world turns upside down. Her feet are frozen to the floor even as it rolls beneath them. “She’s a mercenary and a liar. She tried to trick me into giving her the G-Virus so she can sell it to the top bidder.”

“No, no, you’re--you’ve got to be wrong.” Claire turns and her eyes are so green and wide and Ada can feel her heart cracking in her chest. “Ada, tell him he’s wrong. You’re not--you’re here to help, right? You’re here to help me.”

“Yes,” Ada says, but it scraps at the lining of her throat on the way up, comes out mangled and false. She’s never been this bad a liar before. But she’s got to keep trying; she’s hanging onto a ledge by her fingertips and if Claire turns from her, if she goes away, Ada will have nothing left to hold on to. Nothing matters now, not the G-Virus or Leon and his gun or the mission or the city set to explode around them. Nothing matters but Claire’s green eyes staring uncertainly into her own. ”Yes, that's right, Claire. I--I had to cut work short and I was worried you’d gone ahead to Raccoon City without me--”

“That’s a lie! Claire, she’s never once mentioned you. She’s only been lying to you. She wasn’t on a work trip before she got here, she came here for the virus and nothing else. Did you tell Claire you were FBI too, Ada? Or did you save that one for me?”

“Claire, who are you going to believe?” Ada asks, desperation clawing at her veins. But Claire’s gaze has shifted to the blood drops Ada can feel flaking against the skin of her cheeks and chest, to the gun in her hands she’s holding too steadily not to be trained in firearms. Claire’s always been too smart for her own good. “Your girlfriend or some rookie cop who’s in too far over his head and snapped under the pressure?”

“Sure didn’t seem like you had a girlfriend when you kissed me.”

“Shut up!”

She can’t be losing her cool like this. It’s dangerous, and while Ada likes danger, it’s also stupid. An amatuer move. How has she fallen this far?

Claire reels back a step. “Wh--what?”

“It’s not what you think,” Ada switches tactics. Denial isn’t working. But if she can twist this back around on Leon, maybe Claire will listen to her long enough for Ada to get them out of here. She can call her extraction team and, provided she’s snagged the virus off of either Leon or Sherry, hold it for ransom so they’ll let her take Claire to safety too. She’s in a rush, though, and getting sloppier by the second. In moments they won’t have a walkway to stand on as the NEST tumbles down around them. “I just needed to get to you as fast as possible. I’d do anything for you Claire.” (She really, really would.) “Let’s--let’s just take Sherry and go. Leon can keep the virus, I only wanted to make sure it was destroyed to protect you, but he can keep it if I know you’re with me and safe. Come on, get Sherry and we can leave.”

She knows as soon as she stops talking, breath bated, that she’s said the wrong thing. Claire takes tone, two, three slow steps back. “I never told you Sherry’s name.” Claire says quietly.

Leon speaks then, chiming in with more incrimination and defamation and any other accusation he can hurl at Ada, but it doesn’t matter. Ada can see the light that’s gone out of Claire’s eyes, can see the poison spreading through her mind like black veins. She’s adding up the late nights, the strange bruises, the way Ada is squirrely about work, all the times she’s used kisses and sex as distraction on Claire before. Damn Kennedy and his big mouth. Ada never should have saved him.

The three of them waver there on the precipice. Ada’s gun does not lower and neither does Leon’s. Claire doesn’t blink, her eyes never leaving Ada's, her face crumpled and confused and war-torn. Ada stares back, holding her gaze as if through sheer force of will she can make all of this stop happening, as if she could smooth this all over if she just keeps looking into Claire's eyes. For a second, no one moves, no one speaks.

The NEST makes their choice for them, though, as it crumbles, blocks of concrete crashing into their walkway and the platforms beyond. Sherry screams. Claire is thrown against the railing and Ada’s gun spirals out of her hands as the metal below her begins to give way. Ada almost screams herself when the floor really does disappear and her feet meet open air. Only Leon’s quick reflexes stop her from falling.

Her heart breaks open, a hot wave of something too strong to be sadness and too sweet to be defeat when Claire stumbles away. The redhead looks back once, a long, lingering look that Ada feels all the way down to her bones. Claire hesitates; Ada sees her shifting on the balls of her feet, moving to take a single step back towards where Ada dangles from Leon's fingertips. For the first time in a long time, Ada isn't sure of what Claire is thinking.

Sherry screams again. Claire's mouth opens and even though Ada can't hear over shrieking metal and growing fires, the sob Claire lets out shakes her to her core. Then Claire bundles the little girl into her arms and turns from her.

Ada looks up at Leon, who sweats and shakes and holds onto her for dear life not even a second after threatening to kill her.

“Take care of Claire for me,” Ada tells him, and lets go.

~

Later, holding on to the rope ladder swinging from the extraction helicopter her client sent for her, Ada wonders how long she’ll have to wait before she meets Claire Redfield again. If Ada has it her way, it won’t be long.

[wontshutup]

Chapter 1 (Time)

Intro Chapter 2

Some notes:

It is messy messy heh.

It is long..I think

It contains season 2 spoilers

The reader is gender neutral.

Sorry If you don't like black coffee. It's for narrative purposes I swear, just bear with me.

You gazed out your window. The sun was rising, clouds clearing the sky, allowing it's light to have a better view of the outside. Soon enough the entire place would be beaming with life, people coming and going. It was warm in contrast to the past couple of days,perfect to go out for a little trip of your area, something to ease your mind and that was just what you were looking for.

Specially after another sleepless night, another nightmare, a haunting memory.

Shaking the feeling from the uncomfortable night you had, you changed out of your sweat damped pajamas. You were quick to be ready, something you picked up from your previous job, never getting out of schedule was crucial and efficiency was key for everything, no detours or anything of sorts, and so you were impeccably dressed and out of the house in less than ten minutes.

The warmth of the sun on your face relaxed your muscles, letting go of a frown you didn't even notice you had been wearing.

Even if the day had just started, even if you were safe, even if everything had stopped, dread was a feeling that accompanied every morning, every step you took, it was the small pleasures like these the ones that helped, they brought you a slight sense of peace. With the warm feeling, you made your way to get breakfast in your favorite café around the area. But there was a feeling, impossible to ignore, that something would happen today.

************************************************************************

The morning light hit the scribbled surface of the desk Five had now used to keep on tracing the equations that long ago didn't fit in the piece of paper anymore.

He was by now, hunched at the side of the desk, legs crossed, writing in the side of one of the desk's drawers. To the slight change of light Five sucked in a breath. He had expected to have at least a minimal idea of how to proceed before dawn, where to go to, and if necessary, who to kill, besides, he would do it anytime if that ensured his family's safety.

"Hmm...Morning ol' man" Klaus's voice stopped him from falling deeper into his negative thoughts.

"Morning Klaus" He answered with a sigh. He turned his gaze towards his brother, deep dark circles under his puffy eyes. "Ooohoh, you look like shit, did you even sleep at all?" Klaus brought up trying his hardest not to break down again, forcing out a sour smirk.

This sight brought a bitter feeling to Five's chest. "Well, one could say the same about you." he answered with a thin-lipped smile.

"Well that... didn't hurt me at all..." he looked past him to the numerical carvings covering the desk. "Got anything yet?"

"Well... I got a couple of options, leads mostly, here and there" He lied and it seemed to work as Klaus straightened a little, a glimpse of hope visible in his eyes. "But staying in bed all day won't get us to any, you know that" he continued raising his voice a little, putting back his usual strong façade.

"Ow c'mon old man!...I know you are right, still..." grunted Klaus, but got up, dragging his feet out of the room. "Seems like we are the only ones awake. I'll put some coffee" he declared and with that disappeared through the door.

"I could really use some of that" Five muttered to himself. Leaning back, he really needed a break, that was what he needed, then again, he didn't knew better for 45 years.

As soon as he said that, Klaus popped his head inside the room, Five turned to look at him, already knowing what he would say.

"There isn't any coffee" Five declared tiredly, to which Klaus nodded saddly.

"Yeah...But fear not, I saw a small café down the street on our way here, bet it is already open."He said, as if trying to cheer Five up...also himself. "Lemme just...-he sighed- I am going to fix this mess of a face, you should do that too" and with that, he made his way out of the room.

***********************************************************************

The ringing of the doorbell announced your entrance to the place, the smell of freshly brewed coffee flooding your senses as you inhaled deep perceiving a tinge of....sugar glaze? Whatever it was, it was sweet, painting a soft smile on your features This is going to be a good day.

"Y/N!" Greeted one of the new baristas, he was a very bright person, he had been here for about a week but he already learned your name "The usual right?" This made you smile wider, he hadn't even been taking any orders the previous days and he already knew your order? "Yes please" you said while reaching for your wallet. "Mmmm, Would you please remind me what the usual is?" He said slightly embarrassed.With the wallet in hand, you raised your face, a laugh scaping your lips in return. Slipping the exact amount of money you were paying, you slid it across the counter, getting a tad closer to him, as he reached for it and half-whispered your order to him. "An individual berry pie and a strong, black coffee".

"Black? As in bitter black coffee?" He asked, eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, I like it better that way" You simply answered.

"Oook then" he said with, lightly denying with his head in disbelief. He then recomposed himself with a sense of determination. "An individual berry pie and a strong, black coffee it is!" that was a little unnecessary but, his vitality was captivating in a way, you missed being like that, mentally that is. "Want me to take it to your table lovely?" oh now he was being cocky, you just smiled at it.

 "Someone's making up for tips aren't they?"You told him lightly.

"Well, a little extra cash never hurt nobody." He said, brushing off the comment. "So, should I?"

"Yes, please" and with that, you left the counter. You wondered, if he actually knew you, if he would be as chatty as he just had.

*************************************************************************************

The place wasn't very far but it felt miles away, the silence between the brothers making the walk heavy.

Five just kept on thinking on ways to get them back, or out of this, to just fix it all, in a way to keep them all safe. He hoped Klaus had bought the story of him having some answers, he needed them to trust him, if they didn't that would most definitely play against them. He had already known the consequences of having his family in disagreement or scattered, he, THEY, couldn't afford to get into a confrontation between them.

His mind just didn't seem to stop for a second, he knew the laws of time well enough and everything around him, in this precise timeline, bound him to fail every time. He didn't want to rush to conclusions but at this point, he was convinced they needed a miracle. HE needed a miracle.

The ringing of the entrance bell got him out of his thoughts, eyes shutting up, examining the place. He inhaled deeply, the scent of coffee bringing him a very slight sense of comfort. Maybe things weren't that bad, are they? They are until proven otherwise. He shouldn't let his guard down.

"Ok now, let's see what we'll have...I am taking hummm the french grilled cheese and a cappuccino...and you?" Klaus examined the menu in front of them as they got in the line."Let me guess, a black coffee. I don't know what's with you man, maybe add a little bit of sweetness sometimes, your bitter soul could use some"

Five scoffed. "The thing here Klaus is that black coffee allows it to be served and consumed fast, simple, no need to make a fuss out of a simple cup of coffee. Some things serve their purpose just as they are" he eyed his brother "but that's something you are too young to understand."

"An individual berry pie and a strong black coffee it is!" the barista said in an unnecessarily loud tone, causing Five to scrunch his nose.

"Well seems they are. Are you really suggesting people who like black coffee are old? I think you people are just bitter.. " Klaus told his brother while signaling to the teenager who was now making their way towards a table.

Now, in any situation, Five would've simply ignored it, he knew he had better things to pay attention to than just a mere teenager, however, they seemed oddly familiar.

They carried themselves in a way that was way beyond their years, their appearance was one of a simple young person, just about their late teens, somebody who would naturally be beaming with life, but their body language, their eyes, they suggested as if they had gone through an exhausting life, a long life. Those eyes, he had seen them countless times. Where?

 As they made their way towards the counter, he didn't tear his gaze from the teenager, scrutinizing their figure, their every move, the way they scanned the book before them, their hands went up to their scalp and tore lightly at their hair constantly, nervously.

******************************************************************************************

"Hey kid."

"Don't" they said in a warning tone, their eyes never leaving the envelope before them.

"Just stop that already, the hair pulling, it's making me anxious" he declared visibly irritated, or was it bothered?

"Making YOU anxious? I am making the great Five anxious?" they retorted mocklingly followed by a snicker. Their perfect young skin wrinkling at it's corners, and in contrast, wise eyes looked at him. "Well then I shall not bother you anymore Old man"

******************************************************************************************* Then it clicked.

"Hey, you've been staring awful long towards them, you look like a creep. An old creep" Klaus noted. Before turning towards the cashier. "Hey! so, I will take.......

With a quick step, Five made his way towards the teenager, heart pounding in his ears. If it is who he thought it was there might just be a way to set things on the right track.

His miracle. He prayed they were.

*****************************************************************************************

As you waited for your order at a small table you took out a book you have been carrying around, when opening the page you left on. You leaned in on the book, trying to concentrate in the narrative, noting every single little detail that had been written differently from the original. Not long ago, you were able to find a couple of differences here and there on some books, movies, plays, and numerous pieces of media that had been made after 1963 till now, pieces you knew very well, changed, even in the slightest details, from the ones you had seen previously. A word, a dot, a whole different scene in some. You knew that something had gone down, that explained the fact the entire world was still standing April the 3rd, 2019, yet, you didn't know how much and if for better or worse, you had decided to keep away from whatever had caused it. It wasn't your business, not anymore.

You had been so deep in thought, eyes scanning the pages so quickly you weren't even actually aware of the plot, anxiety once again filling your body, slowly opaquing the brightness in which your day had started. And just like the previous night, your figure started curling into itself. Shoulders rose hovering over the table, your shadow darkening the page, you started pulling at your hair for some sense of reality, this had always been of help to that throughout your life. It had been pointed out to you, you needed to stop, yet it kept you steady, anchored.

"Y/N?" A young voice interrupted your train of thought, thankfully. Shutting your book you raised your gaze to be met by a young man, a teenager, around your physical appearance, the smell of coffee mixed with the aura of desperation he carried and wild green eyes piercing right into yours. Those eyes. The familiarity of it all was unsettling, Commission? after working such a long time for them you knew not to trust easily.

"Who's asking?" you answered with a calm tone, showing no intimidation. Your hand discreetly taking hold of the butter knife in front of you.

"Of course you wouldn't recognize me" He muttered, rolling his eyes. Meaning exactly what? "If you had, you wouldn't even think about trying that" he said eyeing the knife. This made you tighten your grip on it, whoever he was, he meant no good. But you let him speak anyway. He straightened himself, adjusting his blazer as if to look taller. 

" Alright kid" he sighed out, reading your reaction. You pursed your lips in distaste for the word that was used towards you, you narrowed your eyes at him, taking notice of his expression, his tone, he said "kid" as if he knew it would tick you off. He looked at you intently, giving you enough time to recall him. You dug through your memory, something you tried to avoid for a long time. You thought about getting up and away from him, you didn't need this, not now, not ever again, but you just sat there, holding his gaze. You scanned his features, eyes landing on a very characteristic trait, a dimple. Very familiar. No, it couldn't be.

Then you were back at his eyes, tired, old but young, almost like yours...as if looking in a mirror. So familiar.

You hadn't even noticed you had been holding your breath, the silence getting longer. You sigh, releasing a bit of tension and unwrapping the knife. You reminded yourself there was no reason to fear, not anymore, you had made it clear to everyone back there, even yourself, that you didn't care, you didn't deserve the trouble.

He noticed you let go of the knife, and his expression softened a little. A contrast to his previously imposing posture, but he didn't actually relax. Instead, he seemed eager to approach you. He proceeded with a friendlier tone as if testing if your action was a sign for him to proceed or you to leave. 

"Used to work for the Commission, Five"

*

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*

*

*

*

Hey, So, chapter 1 is here. Hope you liked it and that it made sense somehow?

About the black coffee, Sorry hehe. It is bitter I know but bear with me.

Also, I am trying to make this gender neutral, if by ANY chance I mispronounced your pronouns I apologize, I will keep an eye better for that.

- Milo

[davidmann95]

sooo... the snyder cut's out

I liked the Snyder Cut. This sucks.

Me thinking about this movie, apparently

Do I think it has revolutionized superhero cinema forever? Nah, if nothing else it mostly plays it too unexpectedly safe for that. But this was evidently always going to be his version of a straight take superhero teamup adventure after BvS, and as it turns out, he’s really good at that? There’s a better version of this that trims at least half an hour of pure bloat - and I don’t mean ‘inessential’ character beats, strictly redundant exposition - but by and large this is a terrific meat-and-potatoes superhero flick realized with the sweep and style Snyder brings to his work. There’s a ton of stuff I could nitpick, and its biggest sin is it loses momentum over time because Snyder clearly used literally every single thing he had filmed regardless of utility, but by and large this was a fun time. Assorted notes (where I get into spoiler territory) below:

* Why wasn’t the weird Motherbox opening credits sequence kept? They showed it off just a few weeks ago!

* This is very Morrison JLA in that only the junior members of the group get character arcs, and fairly bare-bones at that, but everyone gets their Big Iconic Stuff. Except oddly Batman, who shockingly gets short shift here while Superman in his minimal screentime is as much a sudden 180 “hey here’s just regular ‘ol Superman now” as what we saw in 2017.

* Flash’s opening setpiece was the best of the movie by miles, a jaw-dropping realization of that power and the necessary delicateness that comes with it that’s one of my favorite moments in any superhero media period. His big time travel moment was nothing to sneeze at either. They never explain where his powers come from though?

* Steppenwolf is actually pretty damn fun in here as a guy who’s in-universe a fake final boss who’s really a put-upon self-loathing failed lackey.

* (Darkseid meanwhile sucks and is nothing but that isn’t surprising.)

* This looks better all around, obviously the action and composition is gorgeous and even Flash and Cyborg’s dopey looks are considerably more tolerable, while Superman’s black suit helps cover a bunch of the noodly nonsense.

* Yes, this is better than Whedon’s version. Not exponentially so, at least for my tastes - Batman of all characters felt like he had a lot more going on in that - but I’m loathe to give it much credit, and I think a lot of relative strengths it had were purely due to it keeping leaner.

* I’m not clear at all why WB felt the need to damn near remake the thing when this was so very much Snyder playing nice, other than maybe no one could figure out how to wrangle down the runtime comprehensibly? I certainly can’t fathom how the assembly cut was reportedly declared ‘unwatchable’ by producers.

* No, the Martian Manhunter stuff makes no fucking sense whatsoever, but it’s worth it because his presence means that the last words in Zack Snyder’s Justice League are Martian Manhunter, which is incredible.

* At heart it’s no more a sequel to MOS or BVS than what Whedon did beyond the raw fact of progressing the plot: this isn’t a meditation on power or politics or duty or vengeance beyond the thinnest of notes with some of the side characters, it’s a bunch of cool superfolks putting aside their personal problems and learning to believe in themselves/each other to save the world from a big bad thing, even if it still operates in the broad thematic realm of “life snatched from death” prevalent in both versions.

* It’s consistently at its best when it’s Snyder getting to go buckwild with the powers, imagery, and pure vibes; the character work is fine and the actors all do well enough, but the point here is this is Snyder setting up Space Superhero Lord of the Rings with impossible beings operating on a grand scale.

* I kind of wish it had the manic unselfaware energy throughout of the opening Wonder Woman sequence where she saves the kids as in the theatrical cut, but the head terrorist says fuck, Wonder Woman’s clearly killing them all...and at the end she smiles and gives an earnest girl power line to one of the hostage kids right after disintegrating a fool in front of them. It would be a worse movie, but an even more entertaining one.

* The Batman/Joker scene is perfectly fine, and while it would have been better for this movie unto itself if the reshoots had been used to tighten some stuff up instead I don’t begrudge Snyder for going that extra mile to ensure folks absolutely fucking demand he get his sequel (I know he says that’s not why he did it; he is transparently lying). Affleck sells his f-bomb.

That’s pretty much that! I think the purpose of this movie as Snyder conceived it was to win over rubes like me without alienating the true believers to get the leeway to do JL 2&3 however the fuck he wanted. And god help me, especially with the worst possible avenues closed off to him I do want to see what those would be, all the absurd operatic bombast of BvS as applied to a big cosmic superhero epic functioning from what we’ve heard in the more straightforward mode of operation established here. The fandom force of will both joyful and horrific will be there in spades, so I guess it’s a question of what kind of numbers this does.

[comicaurora]

aaaa this is not technically a question, but I love how you draw fight scenes/action in both the comic and in all the legends/myths summarized videos!! It's so goodddd even tho you like to say how much you get tired of the process of choreographing fight scenes i think you really pull them off spectacularly!! do u perhaps have any tips... besides the usual looking at a bunch of refs and such- do you take inspo from action movies maybe? id love to know because like ur just so skilled red how

!!!! this is such a sweet question!

I’m so glad the choreography works! It’s difficult for me to gauge how engaging they are to read - I’m usually just focusing on making sure the movement makes sense from panel to panel. I’ve read a lot of manga where the fight scenes are beautifully drawn but frankly incomprehensible, because I have no idea how the characters are supposed to be moving in relation to each other. Because of this, when I choreograph a fight, I try and make sure the movement is clear from one panel to the next.

When drawing fight scenes for videos, I tend to exaggerate the movements a bit more than I might in a comic, since I’m usually trying to communicate the entirety of a fight scene in only one or two frames. Especially in the Journey to the West videos, I tend to give the characters very stretched poses - legs bent all the way up to the chest or stretched all the way back, arms completely extended, etc. In real life, overextending a limb is a very bad idea in a fight, but in the wonderful world of visual art, it usually looks a lot better than the more safe and realistic partially-bent option. I try to make sure the poses are all plausible, but for me, that stretch component is very important. It gives the illusion of effort - you can almost feel how the character would feel.

This frame demonstrates the stretch factor with Monkey’s entire pose, but it also demonstrates another important factor - flow. Anywhere there’s movement, I want there to be something flowing to show it. Monkey’s tail and sash and Tripitaka’s robes are very useful for this, and having a lot of characters with long hair or flowing capes also makes my job a lot easier.

Stretch makes the poses feel lively and full of movement. Flow makes it clear to the audience how the characters in this still image are supposed to be moving. Between those two factors, it becomes pretty intuitive to communicate a lot of energy in any given panel.

Of course, chaining panels together to make sure the movement is actually coherent is a different skillset altogether, and one I’m still working on. In my experience, the easiest way to make that work is coherent direction of movement.

This post is getting long, so I’m gonna try putting in a “read more”:

Using that fight scene as an example, the direction of movement shifts at the top of the page when Kendal rounds the tree. In the first panel, movement is from right to left. He pivots in panel 2, and then in panel 3, he’s abruptly attacked in a sudden burst of left-to-right movement. This is a new action; it’s fine that it’s moving in a new, opposed direction.

Kendal catches himself as he falls forward - this is still a left-to-right movement, because he’s still falling from the events of panel 3, so continuity of movement is to be expected. But the middle panel shifts focus again, because something new and unexpected is happening - his attacker is about to get kicked in the face.

In that center panel, the direction is no longer left-to-right - it’s out-to-in. We’re essentially zooming along the movement to accentuate its suddenness. Even if you can’t quite make out the detail of the boot, the movement is still pretty clear. The next panel brings us back to our familiar arrangement from panel 3, but this time, the movement has been reversed and is moving right-to-left again, as Kendal kicks back and gains the upper hand.

Finally, in the last panel of the page, the movement becomes a bit more directionless. His attacker is still moving right-to-left, continuing the flow from the impact, but the focus has shifted. The movement and overall flow is unclear, which reflects the fact that, at this point, the fight has become a stalemate.

Chaining movement together like this is tricky, as is representing clear movement in a single panel. You know it’s tricky because a lot of otherwise good media kinda sucks at it. For instance, I quite like My Hero Academia, but I’ve been keeping up with the manga for months and I have literally no idea what’s happening in these protracted superhero fights.

This next bit is going to contain spoilers from the most recent chapter, but it demonstrates my issue way too well for me to leave out:

This image has a clear direction of movement, but I have literally no idea what’s happening, except that someone might be about to get punched. (The next set of panels is not someone getting punched. It’s a flashback that lasts eight and a half pages.) The next panel that continues this action is this one:

It follows through on the clear right-to-left direction of movement established from the earlier panel, but it’s (a) still totally unclear what just actually happened, and (b) interrupted by eight and a half pages of other stuff. The panels individually look phenomenal (if a little speed-line-heavy for me) but it’s hard to know what’s actually happening. All we know is that movement happened; we can’t actually tell what happened in that movement.

In contrast, for a comic that does movement INCREDIBLY well, I recommend Usagi Yojimbo. It’s a comic about a wandering samurai who happens to be a rabbit, and all the Kurosawa-esque antics he gets into in his wanderings through ancient funny-animal Japan.

Uh oh! A setup for a fight scene! And that’s a lot of left-to-right movement I’m seeing! Even the swords in shot are all pointing that specific direction!

Oh, never mind. He’s fine. See all that right-to-left movement our hero is doing? See how the bad guys are suddenly pointing in all different directions and their movement has become chaotic and uncertain? That’s how you know the fight’s literally going our hero’s way.

This is a random encounter from a random issue of the comic. Fights happen frequently, and most of them follow the same structure - right down to the direction of movement. Bad guys move in from the left, good guy fights back from the right.

And when the fight proper starts, the background usually vanishes into a vague white void so the characters can take center stage - no visual cluttering, not even any speed lines.

These fights aren’t important. These random background mooks aren’t plot-relevant except as temporary roadblocks. As such, most of these fights play out roughly the same - no background, page-wide panels, minimal dialogue. But the serious fights? Those look pretty different.

Environmental shots! Close-ups! Banter! Backgrounds! The direction of movement is even reversed from the norm! This immediately sets the fight apart from the standard. Characters move around each other, the environment come into play, and each panel is a very clear beat in the progress of the fight.

Usagi Yojimbo is probably my favorite comic ever. But it’s also not the only very useful resource when you’re looking for media that does well-choreographed fights. Comics are good (even if a lot of them are just good bad examples), but animated media is built on a lot of the same principles as comic art. While they have an easier time showing movement (since they involve actual movement, rather than static images) they still need to chain shots together in a way that’s coherent and gives the audience enough information to understand the movement and progression of the situation. Movies and tv won’t help you much with drawing individual static images that communicate dynamic poses, but they can help a lot if you’re figuring out how one phrase of the fight should chain into the next.

While I’ve seen plenty of media that does this well, rather than making you analyze this stuff from the ground up, allow me to recommend a youtube channel that can do the analysis for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mACKHGfdLlo&ab_channel=JillBearup

Jill Bearup has a wonderful channel with a criminally small subscriber base. I only found her within the last month and I think she’s amazing. Everyone should watch her videos about fight choreography.

This answer got much longer than I expected, but I hope it was helpful!