#the best thing about seeing these semi regularly is when the wind is blowing the wrong way and the crest is down in their face

[witchstone]

long-crested eagle (lophaetus occipitalis) from saturday! we watched him swoop off the post and disappear into the long grass on the side of the road, only to return empy-clawed a few seconds later

[shepherds-of-haven]

;;; so like if clubs were Hypothetically a Thing in the SHOH universe, would the gang ever go to one for a night out??? What would that look like???

Oh ABSOLUTELY!!! They'd be hitting up the club a lot, I feel like, given their penchants for madness and chaos! I feel like they'd go as one big group semi-frequently, and the girls would probably go out more regularly (once or twice a month), and the boys would either catch wind of it and show up too or coincidentally bump into them on the street and get roped into it!

Blade: he would probably despise a club and all of its loud lights and sounds, but he would tolerate being there for the sake of being with his friends and would sullenly nurse a drink in the corner while Trouble and Chase yelled in his ears about how lame he is for just sitting there and refusing to dance

Trouble: he'd be LIT and would be one of the lives of the party! For some reason I think he'd be all enthusiasm and elbows while dancing, kind of like Mac from It's Always Sunny...

Tallys: she'd probably not be too lively at first, nursing a couple drinks herself and just enjoying the conversation and everyone else having a good time, before she suddenly hit a threshold of being well and drunk and would get up and dance to everyone's wild catcalls, and she'd be very sensual and in-tune with herself and kind of hypnotizing to watch!

Shery: she'd be a bit too shy to dance at first and would preoccupy herself with getting people drinks or something to sort of duck out of people pleading with her to dance, but once she got a few drinks in her, she'd try hopping around in a little dance circle with everybody! I kind of picture her dancing like Pam from the Office does!

I think it'd be rare for her to get all-out blasted with alcohol; she'd have enough to loosen up and have fun, but not enough to get totally wasted and would mostly keep her wits and faculties about her!

Riel: he will stay for like a half hour before the music, sweat, and drunk people interacting with him gets to be too much. He's usually the first to tap out, but it always means a lot for everyone to see him and for him to be there, so he makes the effort to show his face and then immediately leave lol. He does participate in a betting pool with Red about how the night is going to unfold based on the varying levels of sobriety at the point that he arrives and exits, though, lol!

Chase: he's never like sloppy drunk, but he is letting loose and having a great time! He might be dancing, but a lot of his interactions at the club are talking to people (his friends or random strangers), buying people drinks, and either trying to incite chaos ("here Shery drink this REALLLLLY strong drink and then tell us who you hate most in this circle!!") or just looking out for his friends as they have a good time; he's more chill than you might expect, and is hanging out with Blade in the corner or getting drinks with Red or Trouble at the bar more than he is on the dance floor! He is absolutely doing his best to annoy stick-in-the-muds like Blade or Riel, though! He nudges people to have fun and do the whole "you only live once" thing, but he also respects their limits and never pressures them: it's his goal to make sure everyone is at ease and comfortable!

Red: he might dance a little bit and drink some, but mostly he's just there to have a fun time and blow off some steam, not want to die from the hangover in the morning! He's more vigilant at clubs and tends to be the one randomly put in charge of watching the purses or keeping an eye on coats, and in big group dance circles, he's always on the edge of the circle using his arms to politely but firmly prevent creeps or overly-aggressive strangers from grinding up on his girl friends when they're just trying to have a good time! (If you don't have a guy friend who does that, get one: everyone is quietly a little bit more in love with him in a drunken way by the end of the night!) He's almost always the one on scene trying to diffuse a fight first, along with Blade (who has to make it all the way over from his corner table) and Chase!

Ayla: if both Briony and Ayla are in the club and they are both really drunk, there is a 50% chance that one or both of them will start a fight with the first creep who gets a little too handsy or disrespectful, even if it's not directly with them and it's directed at a stranger. The other one will instantly jump in, the friends of the creep will jump in, and it will almost always turn into an all-out brawl. Strangely, this doesn't usually happen if it's JUST Ayla or JUST Briony; something about the two of them being there together empowers each to just grab a guy by the collar, lift him into the air with one hand, and start drunkenly yelling, "listen, you son of a bitch, you lay a hand on her again and i'll tear it off and feed it to you!!" and the other one will just take that as a signal to start throwing punches. It usually takes the guys to either haul them off or break up the fight, but there have been times where they just beat the crap out of everybody who came near and got thrown out of the club, lol...

If that doesn't happen, Ayla is just spectacularly wasted and dancing her ass off! She doesn't have, like, amazing dance skills, but she's got a good sense of rhythm and isn't afraid to let loose! She's not super sloppy, just fight-y in the right mood!

Briony: see above: she is either strangling a man with one hand and punching a hole in the wall close enough to his face to make him pee, or she is dancing the night away and having the time of her life! She's actually a pretty bad dancer, basically just contorting wildly and with no sense of rhythm, but she has energy and bounce, so it's always a fun time with her! She has a bad habit of getting very affectionate (physically) with her friends and then dropping absolute bombs in them in the middle of the club, like, "Redddd, you're so mean!! Why'd you accept chocolate from that recruit when everyone knows that other recruit is in love with you!! you're playing with their feelings!!" Red: "wait, who??" She's almost among the most chaotic of drunks in that she'll just start sprinting down the street while everyone is waiting for the taxi/Uber (AKA Blade, Red, Tallys, and Chase are pouring people into their proper rides), decide it's a good idea to take off her shoes because her feet hurt, and then jump into a fountain so that Trouble or something has to go fish her out, only he's drunk too, so he falls in and thinks he's drowning while she laughs thinking he's playing around before panicking and screaming that he's going to die

Lavinet: she is a DRAMA QUEEN at the club, especially while drunk! She says she just wants to dance, but she's always noticing people checking her or her friends out and pointing them out slyly, or nudging people towards attractive prospects, or she's INTERROGATING her victim of choice for the night! She is perfectly capable of dancing (flawlessly) for like an hour, then suddenly parking herself in a chair next to Trouble or someone and absolutely G R I L L I N G them about their deepest, darkest secrets without even batting an eye. It's very unnerving! Just picture her dancing on the dance floor, making her way back to the group table and gulping down cold water, fanning herself and swaying a little bit on her heels, and then just turning smartly to Trouble and being like, "So when are you going to tell MC you're in love with them?" Cue Trouble spitting out his drink! She's also the one in the club bathroom encouraging completely random strangers on how beautiful they look, consoling them if they're having the drunken meltdown common to club bathrooms, and screaming at them to not text their exes and taking their phones away if they try. Camaraderie!!!

[chyrstis]

WIP Friday!

I’ve had some tags throughout the week, so I’m going to cash them all in here, since Friday’s the day and I might’ve been hoping to get this posted last night too, whoops! And I want to thank you all for tagging me even if I don’t always respond quickly! <3 I definitely intend to, but there’s never enough time in a day or a week, is there? 

Tagged by @redroci @tommymillers @jackiesarch @ma-sulevin and @amistrio and @adelaidedrubman !

Tagging: @writerofblocks @twistedsinews @painterofhorizons @hunnybadgerv @cobb-vanthss @shallow-gravy @nightwingshero @ma-sulevin @shellibisshe @jackalopestride @unlikelynick @geronimo-11 @fluttyseed @fadedjacket @weekend-writer @starsandskies @faithchel @belorage @tomexraider @consumedkings @vasiktomis @chazz-anova @aceghosts @ofravensandgenesis @scarlettkat86 (and if you’re already posted WIPs, don’t mind me one bit! no obligation or pressure’s ever intended)

First, a snippet from Lighting the Fuse’s Ch. 2 which I’d love to edit up and post this weekend, so here’s hoping I can kick myself in the butt hard enough to pull it off? *crosses fingers*

---

“Not tonight, hon. Not tonight.” Propping herself back up on her elbows, she gave him a smile. “You’re here now, though. So…how about it?”

“How about what?”

“You ask,” she replied, giving him a lazy smile. “Since I’m clearly on the cusp of benching you if you don’t.”

Sharky clapped his mouth shut. Stood there, rooted to the ground and didn’t let out a single peep. 

That boggled her completely. “Seriously, hon? Nothing?”

It was dark, but Hana could almost swear he was a shade of red darker than her hair right now. “You uh…. See I didn’t think it was-maybe you being asleep kinda threw off my groove a bit.”

Hana blinked at him. Watched a crooked smile settle onto his face as he let a nervous chuckle out.

“Like, like I mean I was gonna-was thinking of maybe doing this sorta-” His words trailed off as he clenched his teeth, swallowed hard, and let out a long exhale.  “Okay, so maybe this shit isn’t exactly-”

A loud sigh came from her left directly from the radio, and the sound filled the entire room.

“…Wait, what the fuck?” Sharky asked, his eyes darting everywhere as he tried to pinpoint where it was coming from. “You hear that?”

Clenching her fists, Hana slowly let her hands relax as she let the tension out. “Unfortunately.”

“Deputy, Deputy, Deputy. I know you’re listening. But I’m starting to think you’re doing this on purpose. I thought you wanted my attention. Would’ve been glad to finally have it undivided, and yet you deny me the pleasure of hearing a single response in turn. How…cruel.”

---

And a bit more of the Hana/Sharky one-shot I’ve been chipping away at, that’s actually getting really close to being finished too. I just need to jot down a few more moments for it and see if these two can actually clam up long enough to let me finish

---

“Yo, it’s not like I’ve been there any longer than a few days at a time, and half of the shit they’ve dragged me down to the jail for’s legal, just not in any of the spots I ended up doing it.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, which is just fucking stupid seeing as lighting a fire by my house’s fine, but if it gets out to the street and catches on the trees ‘cause it’s extra dry out and the wind’s blowing, suddenly I gotta go in ‘cause I’m negligent or some shit. Then the po-po’s claiming I gotta have a permit to burn in the drier seasons, but it rains fucking plenty here.”

He’d draped his arm over her shoulders by this point, the motion coming so easily from him she hadn’t even noticed at first. Just nestled right into that warmth almost on reflex as Sharky kept on talking, and didn’t want to budge an inch if she could help it.

“Man, it’ll be the driest stretch of the year, and the sky’ll just open up and drop a bucket-load on us ‘cause it’s feeling it, but even if it don’t, anything I start’ll get put out. Just ‘cause I’m around doesn’t mean shit’s gonna go down, or nothing. ‘Cause then phone calls are made, people start looking at me funny, and I’m getting pulled out of my car for jack and shit when maybe I just wanted to take a breather there. Maybe get in a few Zs, take five to ten to jerk it, and they don’t gotta watch that too closely if I’m doing it either.”

She’d been nodding along with him, then stopped. Let that statement sink in as her eyebrows drew together before they rose high on her face.

“…Hon, that’s not legal.”

“Aw, come on, Dep! Don’t tell me there’s some kinda permit for parking out-“

“No, not that. You’d probably get slapped with a ticket or fine, sure, but it’s more about the fact that you were  beating it there.”

“It’s indoors.”

That response came quick enough for her to tilt her head back to look at him. To side-eye him heavily as he shrugged, and damn. She’d curled up to him a lot closer than she’d initially thought. Close enough to-

She cleared her throat.

---

And a little more of the No Cult AU, maybe? ...I may have watched Speed again last night entirely due to this. and it might also be up to almost 8K in length as well, pre-edits, so... Help 

---

But that didn’t solve the other problem. Towing it.

A truck would’ve been their best bet, but with him already there it didn’t make sense to try and scrape together cash for a tow truck, or to fire off a call to anyone down at the compound. His car had been used to drag Sr’s truck out of more than a few ditches without tearing the frame up, so this wasn’t a stretch to consider, and leaving them hanging now would’ve just been a shit thing to do when they didn’t even have a working phone or forty bucks between them. 

And while he’d never been able to get a tow bar to last more than a few months max, he had a few solid workarounds that could still get the job done. One of which he’d seen in a commercial a while back. 

He knew it almost by heart at this point, and cool as it’d be to fix their problem by just whipping his pants off and tying their vehicles together with them to help tow them to the compound, he’d gone down that road before. Hell, not just once, but twice now, and considering he’d been left between getting pepper sprayed and arrested, or having a busted set of jeans and his ass hanging out for the rest of the day, he wasn’t sure he liked where that left him on round number three.

Besides these were a well-worn pair, and they seriously didn’t make them like they used to. Long as he tried not to get too creative with them, they had more than a few good years in them yet. So after some sifting and digging through the trunk of his car, Sharky kept his fingers crossed that he’d find an actual tow strap back there. He and Hurk had been through this dance enough times before that he knew he had one, and crossed his fingers that he hadn’t left it over at Sr.’s place. 

Sure enough, there it was. Fucking majestic, and almost crumpled in the back, Sharky withdrew one perfect tow strap and broke out a few moves to celebrate it before hitching the two together. 

Once it was secure, he told them all to hop in, and while trying to cram one extra person into his car was tough three other people might’ve been pushing it. John regularly had the best seat in the house and still hardly made it more than a few miles before fussing at him, and here they were double - and triple stacking themselves in any spare space in order to take a seat. Man, he was already thinking up ways to relay this story to Hurk later on, but with them semi-settled and packed safe as they could be, he fired the engine up and got them all back on the road. 

It wasn’t a far drive out to Joseph’s but he took his time with it. Drove the slowest he’d ever attempted short of being twelve and behind the wheel for the first time, trying to be extra gentle with it all as the van lumbered behind them.

If he went too fast, they’d tear the back of his car off and lose it. If they hit the brakes too hard, they’d get rammed, so he needed to nail that sweet spot. Keep from tipping from one end over into the other as he played his very own version of Speed out on this stretch of road, watching that needle dance back and forth over that perfect point as he started to sweat a little under his cap.

But he had this. Pressed his foot down on the gas and let up when he needed to, exercising the kind of control that even John would give a silent nod of approval to - which would almost make him the Keanu to his Sandra, except John wasn’t there and currently trying to crawl under any of this shit to keep a bomb from going off - but whatever, it was close enough.

So he watched the mile markers fly by as they got closer and closer to the island, and by the time they rolled through the gate and came to a stop, Sharky let out whatever breath he’d started holding, and didn’t even care when the van nearly smashed into them on the home stretch anyway.  

[nct-oli]

I also miss atots! I wanna read your ramblings so may I ask what are some of your head canon for phutian whether it’s during the series or post-series.

HI!! You’re so sweet. I am so sorry that I haven’t responded to this sooner! Life got really hectic, and it honestly kind of stole my creativity, to the point where I read this back when you sent it, but I could not think of a single headcanon at all.

But I’m here and I’m going to finally talk about some because I rewatched ATOTS with a friend and it sparked some headcanons in the process!!

1) This is probably my biggest headcanon. Phupha and Tian wrote emails to each other during their two years apart. I’ve seen some people say letters, and of course letters are super cute and classically romantic. Plus they are fitting given that’s how Tian was communicating with Phupha when he returned to Bangkok. But the reasons I like emails for them are:

Getting letters domestically to a rural village is one thing, but getting them internationally without some of them getting lost feels a bit less likely. And I think Tian and Phupha would know that. So emails are a more consistent and reliable form of communication.

Obviously Phupha can’t access the internet from the village, but you know who does have internet? Dr. Nam. I very much love the idea of Phupha strolling into the clinic every so often trying to be all cool and not at all giddy to check for a new email from Tian, and Dr. Nam never, ever letting him use the computer without a lot of proud best friend teasing. Remember when Phupha went to Dr. Nam to ask what a scar on the chest would mean? Yes, just like that, except regularly. (And when Phupha doesn’t go to Dr. Nam’s clinic, he could go to town to check his email too.)

This part doesn’t really fit the canon storyline at all given Phupha was still gazing at the only photo he had taken of Tian two whole years after taking it and also Phupha never told the children where Tian was. BUT think of the photos they could send each other. Tian sending photos of himself in various places in the US, his hand with Phupha’s ring always visible so Phupha can be there with him for every adventure. Phupha sending photos of the kids as they grow, the tea sachet business (or whatever the villagers end up doing with Mr. Sakda gone), the very rare selfie by a rather self-conscious chief... sending physical letters limits the number of printed photos they could send each other. Plus printing photos may be a bit easier for Tian, given he can just print them at a nearby Walgreens or something, or even have them ordered online. But that would be tougher for Phupha, needing to leave the village and find somewhere. So emailing photos back and forth would be easier.

Imagine Tian printing every email sent back and forth and collecting them. Imagine him in the library with the biggest smile on his face, printing out emails to and from his mountain boyfriend back in Thailand and his university friends watching him with the most confused but intrigued eyes. I love it. I love that idea.

I remember there being discussion post-finale about whether Tian and Phupha communicated in that time at all. The discussion revolves especially around how at ease they seemed in their Pha Pun Dao cliff reunion and they didn’t quite act as though they had been fully apart for two whole years. And I fullheartedly believe they had contact, even if very infrequent. I think they found a way. And while I do think letters are incredibly romantic and fitting, I just have this fondness to emails. Maybe it’s a result of watching We Best Love recently. I’m not sure.

2) Tian chose to go to the US ultimately on his own. Now, we all know his mother is the one who picked the university for him and “sent him away.” But I do like the idea that, after coming to terms with the fact that maybe running away to Pha Pun Dao immediately wasn’t the best plan, especially if Phupha wanted to forget him, he grew to like the idea of going abroad. It would be his chance to have probably as much freedom as he could get. He wanted to go to the US before he died (episode 3 conversation with Tul). He could take time to himself, without the influence of anyone else, and figure out just what he wanted for his life. And when Phupha showed up at the airport and they got their true feelings out in the open, Tian didn’t feel like his family was pushing him away from the man he loved and the life he wanted; he felt that he had agency in choosing the US and asking Phupha to wait for him, to give him the chance to figure out this new chapter first. I find comfort believing Tian didn’t board that plane feeling resentful but instead feeling hopeful. And when he returned, he wasn’t filled with regrets. He was filled with excitement that he was returning home to Pha Pun Dao and Phupha right on time. (Plus Phupha had more confidence when Tian returned to him that he truly wanted to be there in the village with him, because despite literally traveling the world and seeing so many options available to him for places to build his future, Tian still chose Pha Pun Dao.)

3) The teacher’s house remains Tian’s home too. Hear me out: I don’t mean full time. I’m obviously a massive softie for domestic PhuTian, so I want him to still stay with Phupha. And Phupha probably can’t leave the base permanently, as he’s the chief and needs to be there regularly for his rangers, so the two of them can’t move into the teacher’s house fully either. But Phupha’s room is quite small. I love the idea that Tian still escapes sometimes out to the teacher’s house where it’s quiet and he can still have his own space. A space to lesson plan, to take the students when they need a new environment, to feel connected to his three original months in the village when he fell in love with the people and his person (Phupha). That house was his home, and while Phupha’s place is now also his home, I like the idea that Tian still keeps that house for himself too. At least so long as it isn’t needed by anyone else. (Also, if Phupha and Tian need space, well, there’s no Yod out there to start knocking.)

4) This semi-connects to the last one. When Tian and Phupha finally get married, they have a ceremony in the village and Tian convinces Tul to stay a night in Pha Pun Dao. His parents come to the wedding too, but they stay in a hotel in the city, where Tul stays some nights except for the night Tian gets him to stay with him. Tian and Tul stay in the teacher’s house, and Tian tells him all about his many nights sleeping there. Tul is, well, not convinced of its appeal at first, but watching Tian share his stories with the brightest smile, he decides he can warm up to it a little bit. And after seeing Tian with Phupha, with the kids, and with the rest of the village, and finally understanding how perfectly Tian fits in Pha Pun Dao, it starts to make sense to him why some of the luxuries don’t matter to Tian anymore... will Tul himself ever move to a rural village like that? Absolutely not. He’s not convinced that much. But the joy that village life brings his best friend and the glow he exhibits is enough to leave Tul content for one night on a hard mattress inside a mosquito net in the middle of seemingly nowhere. (No but really, imagine the chaos of Tul trying to live in Pha Pun Dao for a night. I want to watch that so much.)

5) Okay, I hope the couple that got married have a child and that child goes to school under Tian’s teaching. Or someone else in the village has a child. Imagine Tian getting a new student and having to navigate a classroom with early teenagers and a tiny kid. (Headcanon within a headcanon: Tian did a LOT of research during his two years abroad specifically on multi-aged classrooms because he knew he wanted to return to Pha Pun Dao one day and would need the skills.)

6) Longtae and Tian most definitely go on that trip across the border that Longtae wanted (just a couple years late). And they have the best time. Longtae tells Tian about any new stories from university. Tian shares stories about his students and tries not to talk about Phupha too much but occasionally can’t help it, to which Longtae smiles brightly like the cute bestie he is. And the two of them get the CUTEST photos that Longtae prints for Tian immediately when he gets back to the city.

All of these headcanons are for those two years away or after he returns. I’m trying to think of some headcanons for the show prior to ep 10 part 4/4...

6) OH this doesn’t necessarily have to be before ep 10 part 4/4 in the timeline, but Phupha and the rangers apologize to Tian and the villagers for not telling them about Torfun’s death sooner and that burden being left for Tian to carry instead. I just want that settled.

7) HERE’S ONE FOR WITHIN THE SERIES TIMELINE. At the wedding in episode 4, Phupha didn’t deny it when Dr. Nam called Tian Phupha’s guy. So yes, of course Dr. Nam started calling Tian that all of the time, to which Phupha did eventually argue against but he secretly liked hearing it. His guy.

8) I’m back to going outside of the timeline again... all of my headcanons are for after the series it seems. Oops. But Tian most definitely brought the kite to Pha Pun Dao with him, and it hangs very proudly on the wall in their room. Tian tells Phupha about how he had it flying back at his family house in Bangkok, how seeing it blow in the wind brought him comfort when he felt homesick for the village and for Phupha. That knowledge had Phupha smiling for the rest of the week.

I’m running out of ideas. I kind of wanted to hit ten, but I just don’t have ten headcanons off the top of my head. BUT if I think of anymore, I’m sure I’ll post about them somewhere. Maybe I’ll even write a ficlet about some of these... I used to write those here and there, way back when... we’ll see.

Thank you again for your message, anon! You are a wonderful human. I’m sorry for taking so long to respond, but I didn’t forget about your message or ignore it. I just couldn’t get my brain to give me anything to respond with! I hope my rambling was sufficient for you. <3

(Also man, I miss writing about ATOTS so ridiculously much. This felt so familiar and also kind of sad. Phupha, Tian, villagers... come back to us. I miss you.)

[absentlyabbie]

family and (mis)fortune

or, tommy merlyn accidentally part-time joins the batfam

hello, please enjoy and have mercy, pretty much all of my batfam knowledge is informed either by batman: the animated series or tumblr posts. be gentle with me, i know so little about jason todd, i’m doing my best

this meta developed over whatsaspp in messages to @andyouweremine, @acheaptrickandacheesyoneline, and @storiesofimagination

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Just a fun little notion to mull over: Malcolm Merlyn dies/disappears (hallelujah) in the two years after his wife’s death and leaving his child behind. Accident and happenstance bring Tommy Merlyn, orphan, to the attention of Bruce Wayne. And thus Tommy becomes a part time foster sibling to the batfam

(lol the above was supposed to be it, the end, literally the entire whole thing, but then all the rest happened)

Like. Say Bruce (probably he knew Rebecca?) takes over custody of Tommy. For the sake of the boy and his clear attachment to the Queens, especially Oliver, Bruce has Tommy enrolled as a boarding student at Starling Academy. So the boys still get to spend the school year together, and sometimes in the summer or over holidays Oliver visits in Gotham

And Tommy is pretty much just a part time addition to the Bruce Wayne orphans-who-eerily-resemble-me collection, so it’s several years before he catches on even a little to what Bruce and older foster brother Dick get up to after dark

But eventually he DOES find out. And maybe he doesn’t suit up too, but Bruce can’t have one of his kids knowing about Batman and not prepared to protect himself so he gets a lot of the same training

(Meanwhile Tommy grows up with siblings and a father figure(s)—heyyy Alfred—who show him care and don’t abuse him. And maybe even therapy. But also he gets to maintain his closeness to Oliver and even Thea because he still spends most of the year in Starling)

As a better adjusted dude all around Tommy is probably a moderately better influence on Oliver. Like he can’t change everything but maybe things are mitigated. Then the gambit still goes down (probably Malcolm didn’t actually die after all? He just went deep into the league or whatever and continued to influence things in Starling towards the Undertaking from the shadows?)

In the wake of that Tommy moves to Starling full time and insists to everyone including Bruce that Oliver is still alive etc etc. he doesn’t give up hope (although also maybe he doesn’t get involved with Laurel? Maybe.) and then Oliver actually comes back

More or less most of canon stuff goes on except now you have a Tommy who eats breakfast casually with Batman and multiple Robins and has training and has been inside the Batcave and knows what it looks like when someone he loves is not doing a great job of a) hiding how deeply traumatized they are and b) concealing their vigilante side gig

(@acheaptrickandacheesyoneline contributed: "Oliver, you need to get better excuses"

"Excuses for what?"

"Like that. Right there"

To which i responded: “Look I know the reckless playboy thing seems like an awesome cover story at first but trust me, if you don’t balance it right it just makes everything more work than it’s worth”)

Bruce calling Tommy ostensibly just to check in with his foster son but non-covertly actually sniffing around about this murderous new vigilante in Starling

Tommy very awkwardly and transparently lying that he has no idea who it could possibly be

Tommy tries to crack bad jokes about how he just seems to attract cape and cowl types to wherever he lives and Bruce heaving the longest sigh on record because Tommy and Dick really are way too similar for Bruce’s mental health

Also in this headcanon Bruce was definitely like early 20s when he took in Dick so he was like maaayyybe 27 when he took in Tommy. Putting him younger than 40 or just over at time of Oliver’s return. So Bruce is like barely older than Diggle

Okay my math wasn’t great. So if Dick is a few years older than Tommy and Oliver and Bruce adopted him at like 22, let’s say Bruce is 24 when Rebecca dies and Tommy is 8... 26 when he takes custody of Tommy... which means he’s actually like 43 at time of Oliver coming back from the dead (subject to change, i’m bad at math!)

The way I picture it is that Bruce knew Rebecca (maybe their families knew each other??) and went to her funeral, where he observed the lost looking, clearly devastated eight year old that widower Malcolm was too busy brooding furiously to attend to. Bruce never liked Malcolm. They’d met a few times over the years and he always thought Rebecca could have done better. Malcolm always stuck Bruce as oily and shark eyed. Something cold and hungry under the surface of his charming facade. But Rebecca seemed happy with him so it wasn’t his business

That boy though. The image of that grieving boy, his whole world snatched away and not even a kindly butler to hold his hand at the graveside, that stays with Bruce, nags at him. He checks up on the remaining Merlyns from a distance after returning to Gotham. He’s unsettled and unhappy when he learns Malcolm has run off, leaving his young son behind with some hired help and power of attorney vested in his friend Robert Queen. He follows the situation for two years. When Malcolm returns he’s hopeful Tommy’s life will go better than Bruce’s did, but Malcolm only leaves again all too soon. And then he disappears. His plane goes down or something (who even cares as long as Malcolm is gone-zo, pfft bye bitch). And Tommy is truly alone, an orphan in name as well as circumstance now

Bruce knows there’s no other family to claim Tommy. He knows the boy is staying with the Queens at the moment, that Robert has guardianship, but it’s also apparent they’re in no rush to formalize the situation to anything more permanent. Bruce decides to go to Starling himself and see what will become of Tommy

It’s immediately obvious the Queens are a mess. Infidelity and fighting and periodic separation between Moira and Robert. Moira is just recently pregnant. And she seems anxious and uneasy about Tommy. Even as she does seem to care about him, she also seems determined to keep him at arm’s length. However it’s just as obvious that despite all this, Tommy and the Queen boy might as well be brothers for as close as they are

It’s clearly not an ideal situation. Bruce being Bruce decides he’s just gonna fix things. But when Moira catches wind of it she goes oddly protective and it leads to a face off between the two of them. Moira hits Bruce about being too young, unmarried, having no prior relationship with Tommy, living so far from everything Tommy knows. 

Bruce hits back with brutal truths, the killing blow that Moira clearly has no intention of making Tommy part of her own family. Robert may have slightly more ground to stand on, but ultimately they all know that if the Queen marriage falls apart, it’s not Robert who would take custody of Tommy in the aftermath of another family disintegration

And so with the cooperation of Moira and Robert and a lot of money, Bruce becomes Tommy’s legal guardian and works out with the Queens an arrangement that has Tommy in boarding at the same school Oliver attends and charges Moira and Robert to act in loco parentis for daily or immediate matters. Moira will eventually unclench and let Tommy connect easily with Oliver and even Thea, because with Malcolm gone she doesn’t have that fear about her baby girl and her secret half brother putting her family at risk

And then @storiesofimagination was sad that there would be less Thea/Tommy sibling shenanigans in this AU, to which I said:

Oh but there will still be plenty of that! Because Tommy spends most of his school years largely in Starling and a lottttt of time at the Queen home. And Moira isn’t as uneasy about Tommy adoring Thea and vice versa because with Malcolm gone/presumed dead she’s less worried about her indiscretion being exposed

So @andyouweremine asked if Dick and Oliver get along

Dick is a few years older than Tommy and Oliver so he probably didn’t spend loads of time with them during Oliver’s visits? Not none though. Tommy thinks Dick is absurdly cool so Oliver might have been a little bit jealous but also thinks Dick is cool. Dick almost definitely thrives on the fact that living human beings think he is cool

But yeah. Dick. Dick is probably weird about Tommy at first. Is this a threat? A rival? Nope it’s a shy goofy kid who thinks Dick is way funnier than Bruce does and looks up to him and he’s only around for holidays and summers so he’s the best part time little brother ever

They get on like a house on fire probably. So many bad jokes. So many. Bruce probably hides from the puns down in the Batcave even when there’s no mission because Dick can either hang out with Tommy or annoy Bruce in the super secret crime fighting lair but not both

Tommy loves the hell out of Alfred. He’s like Raisa, only Tommy gets to keep him

Alfred is just pleased to have a charge he doesn’t have to semi regularly do sutures for

If we’re going full batfam, Tommy and Jason probably can’t stand each other most of the time, but it’s mostly because Jason is extremely prickly and acts out wildly (younger days, obv)

Years later when Tim arrives on the scene, Tommy delights in being the older brother at last. They don’t have tons in common but they get along well enough

AND THEN, because @andyouweremine campaigned to ship Tommy/Dick because both Tommy Merlyn and Dick Grayson are as bi as they come:

Tommy would absolutely have the world’s most awkward crush on Dick at least in his teens. He so would though. Dick would probably be his bisexual awakening. Oliver would get sick of hearing about it. Tommy just looks up one day at like 14-15 while Dick is tooling around the house doing dumb acrobatic impressive-feats-of-athletic-dumbassery and there’s all those taut muscles and a flash of rock hard abs and suddenly Tommy needs to go to his bunk excuse himself to his bedroom to freak out privately that apparently he also likes boys now and ugh WHY THIS ONE

(later in life he’ll somewhat bitterly lament that his type seems to be “taboo.” probably he mentions this to Jason when they are both adults and sharing a beer and doing some extremely rare bonding, and Jason shoots him one hell of a side eye like “Please tell me you’re not into underage girls because I will kill you and I won’t feel bad.”

And Tommy barks a mortified laugh and says “No. Jesus Christ, no, I mean people—adult people!—that I should stay away from, because I should know better or they’d never be into me or, uh,” sweating nervously, hoping his face isn’t telegraphing DICK GRAYSON  or OLIVER QUEEN to someone trained by the actual Batman, “other reasons.”)

And you know, Tommy probably doesn’t find out about his foster dad and foster brother being Batman and Robin until he’s like 16-17. So right before Dick stops being Robin/Jason arrives on scene

Not telling Oliver about kills him

And he’s probably torn between reactions. Excited/in awe that his found family are actual superheroes. A little self conscious and insecure that his found family are superheroes but he’s just... him. Stressed that Bruce and Dick are regularly putting themselves in danger. A little off balance and hurt because Bruce Dick and Alfred have all been keeping this secret from him for years

Eventually he knows why they didn’t tell him. Because it’s so hard not to tell Oliver. He doesn’t actually want to brag to the world and he’s not dumb enough to just accidentally give it away, but not telling Oliver is excruciating, and Oliver can probably tell there’s something Tommy is hiding from him all of a sudden. 

It probably puts a new and awful strain on their relationship, but Tommy finally puts the words together to beg Oliver to understand that he has to keep someone else’s secret. That it’s important and not his to tell and that that’s the only reason he wouldn’t tell Oliver something. Things are still stiff for a little while but Oliver accepts it eventually. Especially after Tommy likens it to how just because Tommy has told Oliver he’s bi it wouldn’t be okay for Oliver to tell somebody else Tommy was bi without Tommy’s permission

And so, after Tommy finds out that he’s part of the actual batfam, Bruce makes him train. Not to take up a mask but to be prepared to protect himself if what he now knows were ever to endanger him

Tommy actually doesn’t want to take up a mask. He’s never been a big “family business” guy, even if he did intern at Wayne enterprises last summer

The strain of keeping Bruce’s secret from Oliver was bad enough. Tommy can’t imagine keeping it secret from Oliver if that same secret was his own

(After all, Tommy may have interned at Wayne enterprises but so did Oliver. He stayed with the Waynes the whole summer and Bruce was never more stressed out in his life over things not directly related to costumed villainy)

--

@memcjo @klaus-hargreeves-katz @its-a-pygmy-puffle @keabbs @princesssarcastia @obscure-sentimentalist

[birdiethebibliophile]

{fic} Green and Grey (part 2)

Fandom:  Critical Role (Wildemount Campaign) Rating:  M Chapter Warnings: Death, car accidents, grief/mourning, drug mention Relationship:  Fjord/Caleb Widogast, Past Fjord/Mollymauk Tealeaf (YEAH, I CHANGED THIS ONE, DON’T JUDGE ME) Word Count:  2,786

Found here on AO3. Read from chapter 1 on AO3 here.

The long-awaited actual first chapter. (Hopefully now that the semester’s over, I’ll be able to write more and will be updating, ah, at least semi-regularly.)

If you want to follow along with the songs I get the chapter titles from, I’m making a playlist of them that will be updated as this fic updates!

__________________

Chapter 1: Come Away, Little Light

Come away, little light, come away to the laughter, Show yourself so we might live. Come away, little light, come away to the laughter, To the ones appointed to see it through. We are coming for you. We are coming for you. (“Come Away to the Water”, Glen Hansard)

Five Years Earlier

The room was dark, and it smelled like metal and cardboard and brine. It halfway comforted Fjord with its familiarity, the way it was the same scent that he woke up to and fell asleep to day after day. It was like the well-known movement of the ship, the heartbeat-sway rhythm that he’d learned to counterbalance with. It only caught you off-guard if you spent a few months on land, tripping you up and sending your legs and stomach reeling.

That was the other half – the half that filled Fjord’s lungs like he was drowning, smothering him and blanking his mind out. This was a dizziness, a head-spinning panic that was mostly induced by the man in front of him with the grey eyes and the buzzed-short gold-brown hair and the simple device clutched in his left hand.

“Don’t,” Fjord said, hands up and fingers spread as if to grab but not to hit. “Sabien, don’t. You don’t have to do this.”

“Kind of do, though.” Sabien blinked – slowly, distinctly, a motion that always drew the eyes to his face. Fjord knew well that look, that blink. He’d seen it on Sabien’s face since they were seven years old and Sabien was convincing Fjord to steal the quarters from their housemother’s wallet, lying sweetly when they were caught. “This whole shitshow’s rotten to the core. You ought to know that by now.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you should blow it up.” Sabien’s hand twitched, and Fjord froze. He had no idea how sensitive the switch Sabien held was. “Where’s the bomb, Sabien?” he asked calmly. “We can still stop this. You  can still stop this.”

“It’s one ship, Fjord,” Sabien said, tone dripping with a mockery even Fjord could recognize. “One fucking Navy ship. One fucking metal machine of death. What’s one ship, more or less?”

“Exactly,” Fjord said urgently. “What will blowing up one ship do? It won’t help. There’s a couple hundred people on here. You’ll just be killing innocents.”

“No one on this ship is innocent,” Sabien spat, and he took a step back from Fjord, further from the doorway, deeper into the shadows of the darkened room. “Every fucker on this ship deserves what I’m going to give them. Including the two of us.”

“Some of them didn’t have a choice,” Fjord said. “And what about Vandren? You gonna kill him too?”

“Vandren’s just as bad as the rest of them,” Sabien said. “You’re a fool for thinking otherwise. A fool who believes the lie that he cares about us – that he cares about you .”

Fjord flinched back as if stung. “Come on,” he said softly. “Sabien. Please. I know you. You don’t want to do this.”

For the first time, Sabien’s eyes dropped from their razor focus on Fjord’s. “I do, though,” he said. “You don’t know me, and you don’t get it. I do want to do this.” His eyes flicked back up, and for one odd, vertigo-inducing moment, Fjord thought they looked completely colorless in the darkness of the room. Colorless as a glass of water, but with nothing behind them to distort.

“Run, Fjord,” Sabien whispered. “You have to run, however you can. Sometimes this is the only way.”

Fjord saw the movement a second too late, and he could only get to the door before he heard the ear-splitting sound of an explosion.

Pain tore through his back.

He was sinking, sinking, sinking through ink-green water.

*****

The next thing Fjord remembered, he was in the hospital with no hearing in his left ear and an uncontrollable tendency to flinch and freeze at loud noises.

There were no other survivors.

 Present

Mollymauk Tealeaf’s funeral was on a cold day in November.

It was a private affair; Molly hadn’t known many people – he’d left his birth family behind long ago, and the people he’d traveled and performed with more recently. As it was, there couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen people there, only one of whom Fjord recognized, and he didn’t really feel like saying hi to her. Jester was sitting with her shoulders hunched and her knit hat pulled low over her curly hair, giving off more don’t-touch-me  vibes than Fjord could ever remember getting from her.

Maybe this was the first funeral she’d been to.

It wasn’t the first Fjord had been to, but it was the first one in a while, and he’d forgotten how goddamn much it hurt, losing someone.

You were too good for this world anyways, Molly.

The funeral was outdoors, and there was no ordained priest. Molly wouldn’t have wanted that, despite his fondness for the Catholic faith, and besides, Fjord would’ve been surprised if he’d have been allowed to be buried in a parish cemetery. He probably would’ve been annoyed by the somber atmosphere, honestly, but Fjord didn’t see there was any way around that. It was winter, and the snow made everything seem sharp and painful and also muffled, like silent tears. They’d set up a few folding chairs; they’d each said a few words that Fjord couldn’t really remember.

A quiet, skinny young man with ash-pale skin and long, dyed pink hair in a side cut – he’d introduced himself as Caduceus Clay, the groundskeeper of the graveyard – had offered them tea and said a prayer over the grave in a language Fjord didn’t recognize. Irish, maybe. It sounded a little like Molly’s slight burr.

Yasha, Molly’s best friend, hadn’t been able to stay through their makeshift ceremony. They hadn’t even known if she was going to be able to come, only just out of the hospital as she was, but she’d shown up with her arm in a sling and looking strange without her usual dark eye makeup. She’d taken one look at the grave, tombstone-less because they’d barely been able to scrape together enough money to bury him, and let out a wordless scream that made Fjord think of stormy days at sea where all he could hear were the crash of the waves and the bereft cry of sea-birds caught in winds too powerful for them, tossed through the skies until they were dashed against the surface of the ocean. She’d dropped to her knees and stayed there for a long minute, kneeling in the snow, before getting up and walking off before any of them could stop her.

Fjord couldn’t say he didn’t understand the impulse.

He shivered, bringing his hands up to his mouth so he could breathe onto them. He was wearing thick gloves, but even they didn’t completely shield his fingers from the dry, biting cold.

Another man who’d stuck around, not someone Fjord recognized, was wearing gloves as well – fingerless, threadbare. During the service, he’d been sitting next to a skinny white girl of about nineteen with a medical facemask and a shabby green hoodie. She’d been fidgeting with a Bic lighter until he put a hand over hers, and she’d stilled for a few minutes before resuming. Now she was standing near Caduceus, and her friend was at Molly’s grave.

Fjord watched as the man crouched down and started writing something with his finger in the light dusting of snow over the freshly turned, frozen earth. Part of him said he should leave the man to his own grieving, but something – whether a morbid curiosity, or an aching wish to know someone was feeling similar pain to his – made him get up from the spindly folding chair and walk over.

Mollymauk Tealeaf,  the man was writing. Shine bright, circus man.

“You knew him?”

The man’s voice was startlingly soft, rough and low and coiled with a German accent. His words sounded heavy, like drowning, like a thousand gallons of water filling your lungs and dragging you under.

Fjord would know.

“Yeah,” Fjord said, and stuffed his hands back into the pockets of his down jacket. “Roommates, actually. We, uh…” He swallowed. “Yeah. I knew him. You?”

“We were friends, I think,” the man said. He was wearing a long coat, shabby as his gloves, over several sweaters layered on top of each other. A scarf, handmade by the look of it, was wound around his neck. He had badly cut brownish-orange hair that covered his ears, and scruff that went a few days beyond a five o’clock shadow. He smelled like cigarettes and sulfur. “He was kind to me. Kinder than I deserved. He… we…” He trailed off, then shrugged.

“Well. Glad you came. He shoulda had more people here.”

“It was the least I could do for him.” The man glanced up, and his eyes were grey-blue, and they looked tired, and they looked like the ocean during a storm. “I am Caleb, by the way. Caleb Widogast.”

“Fjord.” He didn’t bother offering a last name. “Who’s the kid?”

“Her?” Caleb inclined his head towards the skinny girl. “Nott. My sister. She was friends with Mollymauk as well.”

“You know anyone else here besides her?”

“Beauregard.” Caleb gestured at the other woman, dark face twisted in grief, besides Nott and Jester. She was standing about twenty yards away, leaning against a tree. Fjord had seen her punch that tree halfway through the makeshift service, then swear and grab at her bleeding knuckles. “You?”

“Jester. The one in the tights. She’s pretty broken up.” Fjord’s eyes dropped back to Molly’s grave. “So’m I, if it comes to that.”

“He was a special person,” Caleb said softly, reaching out and resting his fingers on the snow-dusted dirt.

“Aren’t you cold?” Fjord asked. “Your hands…”

Caleb flexed his fingers. They were long, and spindly, and red. “Not too bad,” he said.

“I have gloves…”

“I’m fine.” Caleb stood, crossing his arms over his chest and burying his hands in his armpits.

Fjord was startled to realize Caleb was only a few inches shorter than he, and that not taking into account his hunched shoulders. “All right. You goin’ to the, uh… the party? Wake? Whatever it is?”

“Ah. I suppose. He would want me to.” Caleb nodded at the grave. “He wouldn’t like all this silence and sadness. He liked life.”

“He sure fuckin’ did,” Fjord said. He closed his eyes for a moment, hit by a sudden wave of pain as the realization struck him that he’d be going home to an empty apartment tonight. No Molly making a mess of the kitchen or keeping him up with his parties or stopping him before bed to do a one-card tarot reading.

No Molly.

Fjord wiped at the hot tears that managed to trickle down his face with the back of his glove. “I’m gonna miss that colorful son of a bitch,” he said.

“He was the best of us,” Caleb said, and closed his eyes, head bowed.

“Caleb?” The girl’s – Nott’s – voice, creaky and uncertain, stuttered through the snow as she slunk over. “Are you all right?”

“Maybe. Come here.” With one arm, Caleb reached out and pulled Nott into him, the two of them huddled together, now.

Fjord, not wanting to intrude, backed away. On his way back to his seat, he stopped by where Jester was sitting. “You okay?” he asked gently.

“No,” she said. Her nose was red from cold and crying. “I just… can’t believe he’s gone. Maybe he isn’t. Maybe he’s going to appear and ask why we’re all so sad.”

Fjord settled into the seat beside her, unsure of what to do, how to comfort her. She was scrunched into herself, arms twisted into a knot across her chest, tight-clad legs wound around each other. “It’s so stupid,” she continued, voice clogged. “It’s so stupid, Fjord. The world is mean.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I know. I’m sorry.”

It was their fault.

His  fault.

It was a stupid decision, but he’d never been able to say no to Jester, and she’d wanted to go to the party so badly. One of the kids who’d been coming to her storytimes for weeks now had been adopted unexpectedly, moving away, and Jester had needed something to cheer her up. So Fjord had remembered the party he’d been invited to by a friend of a friend, and said that he hadn’t planned on going, but sure, why not? He could bring Jester.

She’d been so happy about it.

He’d never seen her so unhappy, now, not even he was driving her up from the coast that first time. Two years ago, now. She’d been twenty and the entire back of his Jeep had been packed with her bags and she’d waved to her mom until they couldn’t see her anymore, and then she’d cried for a couple miles. This was different. She couldn’t call Molly on the phone when she missed him like she could with her mom. She couldn’t write him letters like she’d told Fjord she was going to do for Kiri. No one could, where he’d gone.

And it was his fault.

Fjord was suddenly struck with a desperate need to leave. He stood up abruptly, the chair tilting back. “I gotta – head out, Jes,” he mumbled. “Gotta head home, I –”

She nodded, still staring at Molly’s grave, where Caleb and Nott were still standing, and Fjord had a feeling he should be worried about her, but. But. He couldn’t be – not right now.

He couldn’t even go to the goddamn wake, he thought as he walked, head down and barely paying attention, towards the street where he’d parked. Couldn’t even give Molly that much. He unlocked his car with shaking fingers, slipped into the driver’s seat, and closed the door behind him.

“Fuck,” he breathed, and let his head tilt back to hit the headrest.

He couldn’t stay there forever, as much as he wanted to, so after a moment, he started the car, turning the heat up as high as it would go, and carefully navigated the snowy streets home. It wasn’t far. Ten minutes, maybe. They’d chosen the graveyard closest to where he’d lived. Where Fjord still lived.

The eleven minutes it took Fjord to drive the distance felt too short.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t been in the place since Molly’d died. He lived there – of course he’d been in it. But now Molly was in the ground, and there was a finality about that that felt different, somehow. At least Molly’s car wasn’t parked in front; it had been totaled, Fjord had been told. (It was his name on the insurance papers. Of course it was. The other option had been for Molly not to have insurance at all, and Fjord had not been about to let that happen.

Not that it mattered, in the end.)

The hallway was dark when Fjord walked in, and Fjord kept it that way. He stripped off his coat, stuffing his gloves in one of the pockets, and hung it on the hook beside the door. Headed straight for his room – or meant to.

Molly’s bedroom was right across the hall from his.

He stopped, halfway into his room. Molly’s door was still open a couple inches – he always forgot to pull it closed when he left, and the gaudy tapestry that hung on the back of it was always getting caught. Fjord could see the corner of the tapestry, now, black fabric and silver thread. He could almost imagine Molly’s sharp-fingered hand pulling back the tapestry, Molly leaning in the doorway (Molly had been a leaner; doorways, walls, people, it hadn’t mattered to him) and asking if Fjord was going to spend the entire evening in his room, or if he wanted to hang out with him instead. Fjord would smile and say he didn’t have anything better to do, and he would end up in Molly’s room, and they would listen to one of Molly’s albums – Hozier, maybe, or Saint Motel, or Liam Lynch, Molly’s record collection seemed endless – and Fjord would doze off against Molly’s shoulder, and Molly would nudge him awake because he didn’t want you to wake up with a sore neck again, you’re practically an old man, after all, Fjord.

The doorway stayed empty, of course.

Fjord would have to go through that room eventually.

Not today. Not when Molly still haunted it like a ghost, like a phantom feeling in the back of Fjord’s throat akin to the beginning of tears, like the smell of Molly that still hung heavy in the apartment (incense and marijuana and something like metal, or maybe blood), like a Molly-shaped space in the air that he couldn’t step through for fear of disappearing himself.

Not when Fjord was responsible for that empty space.

He shook his head and closed his bedroom door behind him.

[aurmgoldau]

Halloween 2017 - The Haunted House

“You … never go to a haunted house attraction?”

Facing that kind of reaction always made Mei feeling guilty. And mortified, even though this time it wasn’t only her who never went to a haunted house attraction.

“Well …” Mei looked away, requesting assistance from Anya. Unfortunately the leader had entered her “power saving mode” and was half asleep on the bed above Mei’s. “Yes …”

“Don’t make it sound like a big deal!” Rhodo put up his best defense. “It’s just creepy decoration and people with costume, right? Nothing to be afraid of!”

Ulm stared at his other two teammates with amusement and confusion. It was a rarity to see him put such expression.

“But … Miss Schnee, I heard the Grandios Karneval in Atlas has the biggest haunted house venue in Remnant …”

“So I heard … But I only attended the Karneval once.” It was a lie, Mei attended it almost regularly because SDC received an exclusive invitation from the event organizer every year. “When I was … nine, I think?”

“Oh, I see …” Ulm mumbled something that sounded like “qué pena”.

“I don’t think I miss anything by not going to a silly haunted house.” Rhodo shrugged. “Schnee is probably afraid, though.”

“I am not!”

“You’ve been avoidant in the whole talk.”

Mei crossed her arms. “It doesn’t prove anything. I never go to a haunted house attraction or such because it’s for kids!”

“It’s an art!” Ulm interrupted in horror, looked as if someone insulted a god-like figure that would throw curse at them. “A haunted house is a form of art!”

This time, Mei could agree with Rhodo about how strange Ulm’s definition of “art” was.

“Well, we have a day off tomorrow. I suggest we go there to have a look at this haunted house attraction,” Mei said.

“Awesome.” Rhodo grinned. “I’m gonna enjoy seeing Schnee freaked out in the haunted house.”

“The same applied to you too, Sir Rhodo Manthus.” Mei couldn’t help not using her sarcastic tone.

“Anya, hey, you’re coming too, right?”

Anya replied with an “OK” hand sign without turned over on her bed.

“Wait! Waaaaiitt! I know you! Wait a minute, gal!”

Mei, Rhodo, followed by Ulm, passed the bazaar gate without any problem, but then the gate guard saw Anya and stopped her.

Anya sighed. “Go on ahead, guys. I’ll catch up with you.”

“What’s wrong …?” Ulm asked.

“Nothing big.”

“‘Nothing big’?” The guard repeated Anya’s words, raising his voice in disbelief. “After what you had done, it’s ‘nothing big’???”

“Ulm, go.” Anya frowned. “Don’t let those two lost, okay?”

“O-okay …”

Ulm deliberately pushed Mei and Rhodo away, despite of their protest.

“We can’t leave her like that!”

“Yes! We have to go back! What if she’s in trouble?”

“S-she told us to go ahead,” Ulm stuttered. “I-I think she’s going to be fine! Y-yeah!” She’s going to be okay!”

“Aren’t you curious with what happened until they stop her like that?”

Mei caught a glimpse of uncertainty on Ulm’s eyes. He looked back to their leader who was still at the entrance gate, arguing with the guard.

“Is she gonna be okay?” Rhodo asked.

“I start to think she did something big around here to make him upset like that …,” Mei added. The guard’s face had turned red like a beet.

Rhodo and Ulm nodded in sync. “Yeah.”

The guard finally let Anya go. The pink-haired girl acted as if there was nothing happened.

“Why did he stop you?” Mei asked, walking side by side with Anya.

“Like I said, nothing big.”

Mei raised her eyebrows.

“A little accident happened in the past.” Anya nodded at the attendant in the shooting range game booth. “You probably like that game, Rho. Chester put extra weight at the base of the best prize, so don’t be too greedy there.”

“Don’t change the subject!” Mei scowled.

“Why nobody let this one thing go …?”

“Anya!”

“I accidentally burned down the liquor seller tent.”

Mei, Rhodo, and Ulm stopped walking. Nobody said anything for a solid three seconds.

“Y-you WHAT?!”

“Anya, there’s a huge difference between staying cool and being ignorant!”

“I paid the damage, guys. It’s all settled now. And it was, like, 4 or 5 years ago. They shouldn’t make a fuss about it anymore.”

“That’s not--” Mei pinched the bridge of her nose, suddenly felt really tired.

Rhodo let out an amused laughter after being silent a while. “You should be at Shade Academy, you know? Where everyone loves chaos and explosion! It suits you.”

“It wasn’t intended, come on …” Anya cringed. “It was an accident.”

“Kindly tell us how did it happen in the first place, please,” Mei asked the biggest question in her mind.

“You know the fire-breather?”

Mei nodded.

“I saw those performers back then,” Anya continued. “I thought it’s a convenient trick, to be able to blow fire like them.”

Mei kinda felt the need to look the definition of “convenient” in the dictionary. What was convenient from learning fire breathing skill? Anya wasn’t even close to become a performer like the fire-breather she spoke of.

“They use a special mixture for that, just for your information. I go for the cheaper, easier alternative: alcohol.” Anya smirked. “If you know where to look, you can always find half full bottle of liquor around here at event like this. I found some behind the liquor tent. Some sailors left them behind, I guess.”

“And you didn’t bring it away before tried the trick?”

“Exactly my mistake. And I didn’t consider the wind too.”

Mei pinched her nose again. With this new finding about Anya and fire, Mei was sure their leader had to be banned from playing with fire. She already wounded herself in a faulty weapon when she was a kid and now Mei knew the collateral damage Anya could cause with fire.

“They took my weapon for safety.” Anya scowled. “They better take care of it or someone’s gonna hurt.”

“That’s one serious threat, y’know?” Rhodo raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t you have enough trouble with these people already?” Mei sighed.

“It’s a serious thing when it comes to weapon,” Anya replied. “You said it yourself, weapon describe its bearer.”

Mei remembered that one. She was one of those people who viewed weapon as some sort of identity of its holder, part of their personality.

“Well, here it is. The infamous Haunted House.”

The Haunted House was a semi-permanent building, bigger than a shack, but not really close to be called a building. Mei couldn’t make what was inside. It was dark and seemed to be designed like a labyrinth.

“Beacon students?” The doorkeeper stopped them at the entrance and asked. “Sorry, kiddo, but I will need to hold your weapon before you can enter.”

Ulm didn’t ask anything and give his crossbow after ensuring its safety lock was secured. Mei and Rhodo were more reluctant.

“Why do you have to keep them?” Mei reached Alpenaster, but delaying to give it to the doorkeeper.

“Both you, students, and Hunters don’t seem to take surprise lightly. Yeah, I know it’s your job to stay alert all the time, but it ruins the fun of being scared and restless.”

Personally, Mei didn’t think “being scared” and “restless” as some sort of entertainment.

“Okay, you’re good to go.” The doorkeeper opened the entrance for them after he store Mei and Rhodo’s weapons. “No branching in there, so just keep walking on the track. No backtracking, okay? Keep moving until you find the exit.”

It was dark and cold inside. There were only few source of lights, all of them were dim, and were located in odd places sparsely, creating shadows. The sound from the crowd outside was somehow muted in here.

“They’re not gonna make me pay if I break something due to this bad lighting, are they?” Rhodo, who usually spoke loud, whispered.

“From what I see, they made it quite sturdy,” Ulm replied. It was almost impossible to miss the joy and enthusiasm in his voice. “Wise choice. Since a lot visitors react by fight instead of flight.”

“Meaning we shouldn’t punch any ghost or monster pouncing on us?” Anya added.

“I think there won’t be--”

A muffled scream echoed from the other side of the place.

“Uh ….” Rhodo rubbed the back of his neck. “Let’s go ….? It’s getting cold here.”

The wooden path they had to follow made a creaking noise in some spots. So far, nothing scary appeared--

“Mei,” Anya nudged her partner, “I know you’re afraid, but don’t grab my arm so tight.”

“I’m not afraid!” Mei scowled. She released Anya’s arm, but then clung on her jacket. “I just don’t want to get separated here!”

Rhodo laughed, turned around, and walked backward. “We’re not even halfway and you already scared, huh?”

“I told you I’m not afraid.”

Mei noticed the room was different from the previous one. It was brighter with proper lamps hung on the wall and ….

“What’s this smell?” Rhodo sniffed the air. “Something’s burned? But it’s kind of smelling good.”

“Aromatherapy?”

“No, no, it’s myrrh,” Ulm said. “It’s made of resin and usually used in praying ritual in some part of Mistral.”

“What kind of ritual?” Mei asked, curious.

“Daily prayer or in ceremony to send spirits of the death crossing world.”

“I’m not from Mistral, but I don’t think they draw circle on the floor in the ceremony.” Anya nodded at Rhodo’s feet. “Like that?”

Rhodo shuffled away from the drawing on the floor. The big circle and the intricate symbols inside of it was drawn in messy lines. It looked like it was painted using ….

“Oh, yes.” Ulm looked enthusiastic. He kneeled and took a closer look on the symbol. “Is this the Old Gods’ Seal?”

“The what--?”

“The Underworld God, Arkheus. This is used to revive the dead. The seal has to be drawn using a mix of goat blood and bird bones powder.”

Rhodo’s yelp cut Ulm’s explanation. He jumped and a big wooden box fell next to him.

“Not me!” Rhodo raised both hands. “It suddenly slide and--”

The box’s lid was moving. Slowly. Really slow.

And then it suddenly stopped.

“Ha … haha ….” Rhodo forced a laugh. “There’s someone inside that thing, I know that. Ha ….”

As if someone ripped it with a brute force, the lid suddenly opened. Rhodo leapt back, tripped on his own foot, and fell down.

“Is that--” Rhodo’s eyes widened in fear. A bony hand, with gray, rotten skin, awkwardly reached out from the box--it was a coffin, apparently. The body inside raised inch by inch.

Before anything inside the coffin fully made its appearance, Rhodo had ran away first. No longer care about showing up that she wasn’t scared, Mei followed him.

“Blockhead!” Mei cried. “You dunce! Don’t leave us alone!”

“IT’S AN UNDEAD!” Rhodo screamed. He had stopped running and now lean on the wall, pale and freaked out. “THE WORST OF ANYTHING IN REMNANT!”

“But--you couldn’t run like that!” Mei trembled. “Where’s Anya and Ulm?”

“We got separated?”

“But there’s only one path … right?”

Both Mei and Rhodo looked behind. The hall was dim and previously, there was a sharp turn.

“Should we get back?” Rhodo whispered. “I mean … what if we’re the one who take the wrong turn?”

Mei didn’t want to say anything. Her voice would surely cracked if she opened her mouth. She just nodded and followed Rhodo who went back to the path they came from.

“Nothing’s gonna scare me out this time,” Rhodo mumbled to himself. “Nothing …. Not a thing. Not a single thing …. I swear.”

“Boo.”

Startled by Rhodo’s scream, Mei almost ran again, but her legs felt like weak and all she could do was backing down to the nearest wall to keep herself stood up.

“Geez, Rho.” Anya chuckled. She moved to the space with less shadow, showing herself. “Your scream is way more surprising than that corpse in the coffin.”

“That--” Rhodo, pale and couldn’t seem to choose whether to be surprised or furious because Anya made fun of him, glared at the team leader. “Goddamnit--”

“Come on.” Anya held Rhodo and Mei’s hand, herding them back to walking. “I’m really enjoying it.”

“You’re enjoying seeing us scared to death!” Mei punched Anya’s shoulder. “Not funny, Anya!”

“Ouch! Okay, okay! No more prank. Sorry.”

Anya whistled a tune while walking. She looked amused and enjoying this trip. Seeing this, both Mei and Rhodo agreed not to trust Anya’s words. Their leader should not be trusted when she was in her playful mood.

They arrived in a room that was set up like an abandoned living room. The floor and the wall was dirty. About a dozen of old photographs were hung on the wall, each of them showed a man, a woman, or a few children; possibly a family. An armchair and a sofa sat in the middle of the room, looking like something had pushed it from its previous position. There was also a low wooden table with faded paint.

One thing attracted Mei’s attention was a mirror hanging on the wall, right across the wall with photographs. Mei grabbed Anya to make sure she wouldn’t try anything funny and dragged her to come over to the mirror.

“Huh?” Anya tilted her head. “Nothing in the mirror?”

“It’s … dusty?” Mei touched the mirror surface. Apparently, it wasn’t dust. It was vapor.

Instinctively, Mei wiped the mirror.

Instead of showing Mei and Anya’s reflection, there was only one figure in the mirror. Mei immediately stopped and attempted to back away. Anya refused to follow her and continue to wipe the mirror, revealing a close up appearance of a man.

It was a picture, but there was something uncanny about it. Mei couldn’t really grasp what was it ….

Just now, Mei was sure the man in the picture blinked his eyes.

“Nothing’s interesting here,” Rhodo called. “Let’s move to the next--”

The wall with the photographs looked like it was twisted from inside. Hands and human faces formed on its surface, looked like a creature was attempting to escape from the wall. Rhodo, who stood with the wall behind his back, didn’t see any of them.

“Rho?” Anya moved her hand, signaling Rhodo to turn around.

“What? You’re not going to trick me for the second time!”

Mei whimpered, disturbed by this scene.

“Rho. Behind you.”

Rhodo--finally--turned around.

If only Mei wasn’t scared like now, she would find Rhodo’s reaction funny. Rhodo moved away from the wall, bumping into the sofa really hard. He vaulted over it and tried to hide behind the sofa.

“Rho,” Anya tugged the blonde boy’s belt, “come on, let’s leave this room.”

“They’re not going to get us?”

“Even if they’re going to get us, the right thing to do is to move to the next room.”

Mei didn’t understand--not the slightest bit--how in Remnant people find this attraction entertaining and fun? What was the fun of being constantly in fear? Mei just wanted to leave this place as quickly as possible. Why there seemed to be no end of this dark hall and creepy rooms?

After once again walked through shadowy labyrinth (more than once, Mei thought she caught a glimpse of white figure dashed near them, but she didn’t find anything), they arrived in a room with strange blue light.

“When will this end …?” Rhodo groaned. “What will it be this time …? Huh? What’s this?”

Being the tallest among them, Rhodo touched something hanging from the ceiling. It was white and looked like a net ….

“Oh?” Rhodo lets out a nervous, but relieved laugh. “Rope. It’s woven so it looks like a spider web.”

Mei exhaled. Finding that the decoration were made of entirely normal material was somehow relieving. There should be a trick for everything they’ve gone through, even though it did look so real it was scary. There would be no problem with this--

Behind her back, Mei heard a choked gasp.

Anya, noone realized when did she move, was leaning in the corner of the furthest wall she could reach without leaving her teammates out of the sight. She breathed faster than normal and didn’t seem to notice it.

“Anya?”

“Y-yeah?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Just ….” Anya deliberately avoided meeting eyes with either Mei or Rhodo. “I just think that … we probably took a wrong turn. S-somewhere. I mean, the lighting here is a bit off, right …?”

“The path isn’t branched.” Rhodo scratched his head. “Right, Schnee.”

Mei nodded.

“Are you--sure? I mean, with all those dark hall, we might miss something. Right--?”

Then Mei remembered one crucial thing. She pulled Rhodo so he lowered down and Mei could whisper that one word on his ear:

“Spider.”

Anya had a severe arachnophobia. Any hint of spider would trigger her. From what Mei observed all this time, the initial phase was like what was currently happening--Anya was scared to death, but in order to maintain her usual calm image, she ended up making up excuses to avoid the place with the possibility of spider inside. The next phase … had been successfully avoided up until now. Mei, Rhodo, and Ulm had once seen Anya was no longer paralyzed with fear and, instead, muttering a threat to blow up or burn down the entire place where the spider was.

“There’s probably an … alternate route …?”

“Schnee,” Rhodo whispered, “I don’t think I can calm her down …. Can you?”

“I’ll try ….”

When Mei got close to her partner, Anya was hissing something that sound like a prayer from between her teeth. Mei didn’t understand any word.

“Anya?” Mei carefully touched Anya’s wrist. It was cold. “You heard the doorkeeper, remember? He told us to follow the path and that it isn’t branched.”

Anya closed her eyes and bit her lips. She looked tortured by a battle inside of her head. A moment passed and she nodded reluctantly.

“So, yes, we’re on the right track,” Mei continued.

“I don’t want to go there.” Anya mumbled more foreign words again.

“Well, I want to leave this place too ….” Mei frowned. “What if we walk through this one with your eyes closed? So you don’t need to see what’s in there?”

“That doesn’t make them go away.”

“I know.” Mei was disappointed with herself for suggesting such a childish trick. “But you don’t need to see them, if there were one or two.”

Anya didn’t answer. She glared at the next room and its fake spiderweb.

“We can try it, can’t we?” Mei said.

“Do I have another choice?” Anya replied, sounded so helpless.

“Unfortunately, not at the moment.”

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

“We’ll make it quick, okay?”

Anya reached to her back, trying to grab her flintlock. It wasn’t there, since the gatekeeper had insisted to keep her weapon during the visit.

“Do I have another choice …?” Anya repeated, but this time her voice sounded like a squeak.

“Unfortunately, not at the moment.” Mei put her palm over Anya’s eyes. She already had cold sweat on her forehead. “We’ll make it quick, okay? Now, close your eyes.”

This last room didn’t scare Mei or Rhodo like the two previous ones. It was either the burden of responsibility or they simply thought this one as went through a Grimm nest, neither Mei nor Rhodo reacted by screaming or jumping back when a giant spider unfold its legs in the corner of the room.

(Mei wouldn’t dare to imagine how Anya would respond to the giant spider’s appearance.)

When they finally exited the attraction, the first thing Anya did was sitting down and dealing with her worsened hyperventilation. (She didn’t throw up like she said previously.)

Ulm appeared not too long after that. He saw Anya and his content expression turned into concern.

“What happened?”

“Spider,” Mei and Rhodo said in sync.

“Huh?”

“I’m gonna admit this is quite scary,” Rhodo said. “Just, goddamnit, don’t ask me to come along with you again, Ulm. This will be the first and last one, you hear me?”

Mei nodded in agreement.

“Well … okay.” Ulm still looked confused, but then his expression turn brighter. “Anyway! Did you see the detail in the ceremony room? The faces carved on the wall behind the throne looks like they’re alive. It doesn’t move, but it feels alive, you know?”

Throne?

“And the room with so many cages. The blood pool looks real. I expected this would be a series of trick room, but seeing it decorated like a theme exhibition based on the Old Gods religious practice is amazing.”

“Wait--”

“Blood pool?” Mei and Rhodo repeated, in sync.

“Yes. One of the Old Gods, Youma, is said to drink so many blood and eat a hundred crows, you need to make a pool for the sacrificial ritual. The blood is from chicken, so, yeah, it’s quite expensive to hold one--”

“Ulm.” Rather than upset, Rhodo sounded confused. “Don’t make fun of us. We didn’t see whatever rooms you mentioned.”

“We went through the haunted living room and the storeroom with a giant spider after the first room with coffin and undead,” Mei explained. “What’s with the ceremony room with a throne and the blood pool?”

“I didn’t find anything like a living room or a storeroom ….”

The three of them fell silent.

“You’re not making fun of us, right?” Rhodo squinted his eyes, staring at Ulm.

“I won’t do such a thing!” Ulm retorted.

“Why we visited different rooms then?” Mei asked. “Uh … Ulm? Did you walk in front of us or behind us? I … don’t remember seeing you around.”

“Oh? I was behind you. I take longer time seeing the room.”

Anya approached them, still pale, but overall looked better.

“I’m really amazed now that you were totally calm in there, Ulm.” Anya chuckled. “It’s funny, when I think about it again, that Mei and Rhodo freaked out like that and nothing seemed to affect you.”

“Miss Schnee and Rhodo … freaked out?”

More mismatched stories popped up.

“Yep. If only there isn’t that last room … I can say I enjoy this attraction.”

“But, the three of you walk in front of me,” Ulm said. “I always see Rhodo left the room when I arrived.”

“What do you mean? You were together with us the entire time. I can remember where were you in each room--except the last one.” Anya paused. “Huh …?”

Anya put her palm on her right eye, imagining something.

“That Ulm went together with us had his bandana covered his left eye ….”

Ulm’s bandana always covered his right eye and it was something that would never change since it was Ulm’s right eye that he lost.

“But that’s impossible!” Mei couldn’t help not getting the creep. Again. “What was happened in there?”

Author’s Note: Happy Halloween~

How long has it been since I posted side story? orz

I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of horror movies, but somehow I like to read horror/creepy/weird/mystery stories. Maybe because I can block or limit the visualization in my head when reading, so I’m not that scared.

And, yeah, lately I tried writing horror/supernatural short stories. Haven’t really found the gist of it, a few of them turned out to be just weird or strange. I’m sorry if this one turned out to be weird/strange rather than creepy. >_<

-juun-

-Team AURM and Team GOLD Main Index-

[gossamerandshadow]

Whisper: Character Sheet

Summary

warden of the stairs, guide for travelers, edgy scifi kid

Attributes - 24 Points

Psyche: Paragon Strength: 5 Endurance: 4 Finesse: 15 Presence: Paragon

Powers - 73 Points

Wayfarer - Create New Doors - 5 points

Item: Amulet - 3 points - Good Stuff - 3 points - A silver amulet in the shape of a roaring dragon’s head, gifted to her by her parents when she left home. She wears it hidden under her clothing and doesn’t like to talk about it, but the dragon’s scales have been worn smooth from frequent handling.

Item: Talon - 9 points - Deadly Damage - 4 points - Create Ammunition - Mold Inert Matter - 1 point - Crackling Arrows - Mold Energy (Lightning) - 4 points - A suitably edgy-looking recurve bow in black carbon fiber, with green detailing. She made it with the assistance of her mentor, Asp, and she gleefully uses its ability to charge arrows with electricity to murder taser those unlucky enough to find themselves in her crosshairs 

Item: Phantom’s Shade - 17 points - Invulnerable to Conventional Weapons - 4 points - Psychic Cloaking - Confer Psychic Neutral - 7 points - Chameleon Shielding - Mold Energy (Invisibility) - 4 points - Contains a Cantrip (Gust) - 1 point - Contains a Cantrip (Mystique) - 1 point - A cloak like any hero needs. It’s a dappled grey to allow her a natural camouflage in the mountains of her homeworld, with a hood big enough (and lightly enchanted) to cast the perfect mysterious shadow over her face. Chameleon shielding is woven into the sturdy fabric, allowing her to hide herself completely against any surface. It contains a minor enchantment, making it the only semi-magical item she owns, which allows it to epically blow in a non-existent wind on command.

Item: Eboncrest/”C” - 14 points - Power Core - Animal Vitality - 1 point - Artificial Intelligence - Able to Speak - 1 point - Aircutter - Double Speed - 2 points - Pathfinder - Search Through Worlds - 4 points - Self-Repair - Rapid Healing - 1 point - Kevlar Coating - Resistant to Normal Weapons - 1 point - Emergency Signal - Contains Cantrip (Flare) - 1 point - Sharpened Talons - Hardened - 1 point - Combat Forms - Named and Numbered Alternate Forms (Emu, Pterosaur) - 2 points - Named after a well-known myth about a heroic griffon, Eboncrest is a droid in the form of a snowy owl. He is Whisper’s first project and a dear friend of hers. He serves as her eyes in the sky, though with his alternate forms he is a powerful ally in both ground-bound and airborne fights. Due to his age he’s gained perhaps a bit more of a personality than his AI should have accounted for.

Item: Atheron/”Ren” - 14 points - Power Core - Animal Vitality - 1 point - Artificial Intelligence - Able to Speak - 1 point - Locomotion - Mobility - 1 point - Homing - Follow the Path - 2 points - Chameleon Shielding - Mold Energy (Invisibility) - 4 points - Self-Repair - Rapid Healing - 1 point - Kevlar Coating - Resistant to Normal Weapons - 1 point - Short-circuit - Contains Cantrip (Glitch) - 1 point - Sharpened Talons - Hardened - 1 point - Combat Form - Alternate Form (Velociraptor) - 1 point  - Named after a legendary hero from her homeworld, Atheron is at most times a droid in the shape of a small garden lizard. With his ability to get into all kinds of places even Whisper is too big for and the Chameleon shielding that makes him near invisible to the naked eye his is the perfect scout. When he isn’t on the job he likes to nap in the hood of Whisper’s cloak and recharge from her body heat.

Item: Leading Edge - 11 points - Supercharged Engines - Engine Speed - 4 points - Shielded - Invulnerable to Conventional Weapons - 4 points - Create Roads - Mold Inert Matter - 1 point - All-Terrain Transport - Named and Numbered Alternate Forms (Horse, Warclaw, Motorcycle Keychain) -  2 points - Leading Edge is Whisper’s motorbike, an item she took from her homeworld and enhanced to survive the Grand Stairs and any Gossamer Worlds she may encounter. Its normal form is a black and grey motorbike with glowing blue detailing, but to fit into other worlds it can also assume the forms of a large carbonfiber horse and a warclaw, as well as a small keychain variant of its usual shape for her to carry when she’s going on foot. Through clever use of hardlight it can alter the surfaces it rides on, allowing it to smoothly ride in places ordinary bikes wouldn’t be able to.

Extras - 3 Points

Domain: Personal - 1 point Ally: Asp (mentor) - 2 points

Backstory

Whisper was born in a highly technologically advanced, though it was perhaps not the most peaceful. She was given the name Solomon, Sol for short, and she hated it from the moment she could understand it. Her mother nicknamed her ‘monkey’ for how happily she ran away and clambered onto and over everything she could find rather than sit down for church service or listen to boring stories about saints or martyrs.

She always much preferred stories about heroes, and one of those heroes was Asp. Their world had been split in a cataclysm ages ago, separated by Void, and Asp was one of few Guides: the ones capable of navigating the Grand Stair that was now the only thing connecting their broken worlds. While few cross the boundary casually the two worlds still rely on each other, and caravans regularly travel the Stair while laden with goods, resources, and information. These caravans are always accompanied by a Guide to show them the way and ward off the dangerous creatures that stalk the shadows.

From the moment she was old enough to understand what they were and what they did, Whisper wanted to be a guide. Travel the Stairs, protect the caravans that are so vital to her home, and be famous? She couldn’t imagine anything better. She was always one of the first there by the Door to greet Asp and the caravans when they arrived, and when he was in time she wasted no time bugging him to take her on as an apprentice.

Her parents, who both served the Church of the Silver Scale, did not agree with her plans. They wanted her to stay close to home, where it was safe and she could find a good job, if not in the church then somewhere on the good side of town. Their mutual refusal to see the other’s side led to many loud fights, many of which ended with Whisper fleeing to the rooftops, in later years with Eboncrest at her side. These fights only got more frequent when Whisper started realising she was not, in fact, a boy, for as much as her parents tried to love and understand her they did not understand why she would want to rebel against them so badly that she would change her gender to avoid fitting in.

All this only made her more stubborn about annoying Asp into taking her on as an apprentice. Eventually, eventually, she managed to wear him down long enough that, with her parent’s permission, he would take her along on a trip so she could see what it was like. She fought and begged permission off her parents, who eventually agreed for her sake. When they set off Asp finally asked for her name, as he had been refusing to remember it before no matter how much she badgered him, and she proudly introduced herself as Whisper. 

One trip turned into two, then five, and then she barely came home at all between the time she spent in the other world, her time escorting caravans with Asp, and her time exploring the Grand Stair itself. She took to the job quickly and through sheer stubbornness, for she knew dang well that if she backed out now her parents would never let her push her choices through again. She has to become the best Guide ever, she has to explore more and more of the Stair and maybe even find a way to fix their world, so everyone will know that this is what she was made for.

Asp, sensing her restlessness, told her she would be free to go her own way within the Stair once she knew how to make a Door to return home. Whisper, with as much bullheadedness as she tackles every obstacle, stared down and bullied Doors until they started leading to the places she wanted to go, and until eventually she could trace a frame on the wall to make a Door appear. Once she proved this talent to Asp he ruffled her hair and gave her his blessings.

She went home once more, to say goodbye to her parents and tell them where she was going. Her mother cried, and her father didn’t say anything, and they didn’t fight, but before she left they gave her a handcrafted amulet of the Silver Scale. To protect her, they said. She wears it hidden, for she promised herself to never believe in any gods, but its skin-warm weight over her heart is an embarrassing comfort on cold, lonely nights spent in hostile worlds.

Appearance

Whisper looks to be in about her late teens and stands at a whole impressive 150cm tall. She has some muscle, mostly in her arms and shoulders (all that archery, yo), but a slender frame. Her dark brown hair is cut in a messy, clearly self-styled sideshave, with the rest of her hair long enough to almost come down to her chin. She has light brown eyes and fair skin that can put on quite the farmer’s tan when she’s been out in a sunny world for a while. She dresses for practicality as much as edginess, with knee-high sturdy leather boots and often all-black clothes under her cloak. All with many many pockets for her to squirrel things away in.

[joemerl]

Post-Korra Avatar Fanficcy Thing

As I mentioned a while back, I’ve had these half-formed ideas for an AtLA/LoK “Next Avatar” sequel pretty much since Korra ended, but without any sort of firm story for the characters that I’ve created. Since these plotbunnies are hopping around my brain again, I’m gonna try to write things out just to see if that will a.) put the plotbunnies to sleep, or b.) help me get ideas for an actual fanfic (that I don’t have time to write anyway).

Keep going if you want to see a ridiculously long explanation of one fan’s stupid ideas.

Worldbuilding/Backstory/Whatever

Much has changed in the Avaverse since Avatar Korra beat Kuvira in her attack on Republic City. The Earth Kingdom/Empire is now called the Earth Confederacy, with a Parliament and Prime Minister running a bunch of semi-autonomous states. Technology has advanced in ways that I haven’t exactly figured out yet; maybe, like, 1950s-level? Also, everybody has last names now. Makes things easier to keep track of.

So, thirty years post-Kuvira, Korra goes on some sort of trip. I’m not sure why, where (maybe the Spirit World?) or what happened, but she vanishes, and all attempts to find her fail. This naturally causes some problems, because nobody knows if she’s alive or dead, and if she is dead, well, good luck finding the new Avatar in a continent-sized country when you don’t even know what birthday to look for. So yeah, we get a smaller version of the Aang-in-an-iceberg situation where people have no idea what’s going on with the Avatar cycle.

Cut fifteen-to-eighteen years later, and meet Keno Hiiragi. 

Main Characters (and the Vague Narrative That Brings Them Together)

Keno Hiiragi (name somewhat subject to change) lives in Omashu with his widowed mother and twin sister. If Aang was the “spiritual” Avatar and Korra the “physical” Avatar, he’s the “intellectual” Avatar. He’s tall, gangly, bookish and introverted. He’s always had big plans for his life and tends to get moody and upset if things don’t work out like he expected. 

Like when he’s worked his whole life to get good grades, won early acceptance to Ba Sing Se University, and then finds out that NOPE, it turns out that you’re the Avatar and have to spend the next decade or two learning to bend all of the elements.

(How does he find out? I’m thinking something dramatic happens, like a flood, and he winds up accidentally Waterbending to save someone. This naturally brings the White Lotus to his door.)

Oh, yeah---Keno already knew he was an Earthbender, but unlike his predecessors, he didn’t bother to master it by the time he hit puberty. Earthbenders learn it for their Physical Education requirement in school, but like most nerds, he dropped that class as soon as he could and faked a lot of injuries so that he could read in the bleachers. Basically, he’s just constantly rebelling against this whole situation, because he doesn’t want to learn anymore bending and why is bringing world peace his responsibility and askjsadkhjdfasknasd.

Which puts him in strong contrast to Mariko Hiiragi, his twin sister. While Keno was always bringing home perfect grades, she was an Earthbending jock who probably had a poster of Toph on her bedroom wall. The siblings bicker, but were relatively peaceful being prodigies in their separate fields. In fact, Mariko was accepted for training by the world’s greatest Earthbending master just as Keno got accepted into school! Accept HA HA no now they’re going to said Earthbending master together, because Keno gets special treatment even though he can barely levitate a rock and never practices and people are talking about how he’s going to be the best Bender ever in every element and---

(The Keno-Mariko rivalry is basically a much toned down version of Zuko and Azula. And it’s also ironic, because ultimately they wish the same thing---that Mariko was the Avatar instead of Keno. Mariko kind of unfairly blames him for the situation, but this would probably be an early subplot that gets resolved fairly quickly---no doubt one of them will save the other or they’ll team up to fight something and then resolve their differences. Then Mariko becomes his tutor or something. She’s probably more of the “B-Squad” of the new Team Avatar, though; she’ll join in the big battles but doesn’t travel around with Keno on his big world-spanning adventures.)

We also have Anling Soh, Keno’s childhood friend (and probably the person he saves in the aforementioned flood or whatever). She’s a Firebender, though she may not be very adept at it, having grown up in an Earth Confederacy city without any teachers. (I’m not sure if the similarities with season 1 Katara are a plus or a minus there.) She’s a lot more extroverted and calm than Keno but also extremely loyal to him, to the point where (despite his strenuous objections) she insists on accompanying him for his Avatar Earthbender training. He thinks his life is ruined, and dang it she's going to stick with him and give him some sense of normalcy until he finally gets over his freak-out.

Anling is Keno’s love interest, by the way. In contrast to both Aang and Korra, however, I don’t want to drag this out forever. Like, in “season one” of this story, Keno realizes that he has a thing for her, that her own playful flirting with him may be more sincere than he thought it was, and after one “episode” of conflicted “do I want to risk ruining our friendship” stuff they hook up. Then they’re just low-key dating throughout the rest of the story, with relatively little drama and mostly just acting the same as they did before.

So they’re off to Zaofu to see Sukru Beifong, the world’s greatest Earthbender, who happens to be the son of Zaofu’s mayor, Bolin, and his wife, Opal. He’s a decidedly tougher teacher than Keno would have preferred; the fact that he’s used to teaching the best of the best (like Mariko) and now has to teach an amateur isn’t helping matters. 

In Zaofu we meet two more members of Team Avatar III: Bolin and Opal’s grandkids (from a kid other than Sukru). Shouta Beifong is the older of the two. He's an Airbender, but he’s decidedly less the “peaceful and spiritual” type and more “Toph as a male Airbender with Bolin’s physique,” prone to boisterous attacks, pranks and loud laughter. His younger sister, Hue Beifong, is a non-bender, but also kind of a psychopath. She regularly carries around ten-foot swords or Spirit-vine-powered bazookas and no that is not even remotely legal, she made them herself. She probably plans to become chief scientist of Varrick Global Industries someday, and will no doubt wind up in prison like her idol. 

Okay, so now all we’re missing is a Waterbender! Admittedly, I haven’t figured out how to fit Nasak Innugati into the narrative as well as the others. I have multiple conflicting ideas of his ancestry: Foggy Swamp? Sokka’s descendant? Somehow related to Desna or Eska? In any event, he’s the apathetic/sarcastic member of our group who nobody really likes, but who cares about the others deep down.

We also need a team pet, which is a problem because Keno hates animals and is allergic to just about anything with fur. He manages to ignore everybody’s “no, seriously, every Avatar has some sort of spirit-bonded animal” thing for a while, but eventually he finds an injured baby viper bat and winds up carrying it around with him for a while. Then someone/-thing attacks him and he instinctively throws it at them, and the viper-bat winds up biting the enemy so hard that Keno can escape. He opts to keep the thing afterwards and names it Mulda (which is Korean for “bite,” if I’m getting my online translation right). 

Other Characters (Including Old Favorites!)

As previously mentioned, Bolin and Opal live in Zaofu with their son and grandkids. Opal’s probably off doing Air Nomad things a lot of the time, though. 

Based on an aborted Korra plotline apparently mentioned on the DVDs, Mako wound up with Fire Lord Izumi’s daughter Susila. He moved to the Fire Nation and eventually became the palace’s chief of security. He currently works to protect his great-nephew, the sickly ten-year-old Fire Lord Thahn, who probably gets kidnapped at some point so that Mako and Team Avatar III can team up to save him. 

Asami continues to run Future Industries, and remains wistful about Korra’s disappearance. Finding out about/meeting Keno no doubt is a blow to her, since it definitively confirms that Korra’s dead. 

(Side note: As a running gag, people keep telling Keno how “close” Asami and Korra were, and he repeatedly doesn’t get what they’re implying.)

Ikki and her husband Haneul are in the White Lotus and are in the group that finally tracks down Keno. He’s a non-bender and skilled at Chi-blocking. (They test Keno’s Earthbending skills by having him fight him. Keno loses in about three seconds.)

Jinora is now the leader of the Air Nomads. She and Kai are married. She runs the government, while he’s Air Temple Island’s main teacher (and has a Gyatso-esque tendency to teach his students how to cause trouble). They probably have some kids but I’ve not fleshed them out too much.

Meelo runs the Air Nomad military on his sister’s behalf.

I dunno what Rohan’s doing. I’ve always headcanonned him as a non-bender, though.

Desna and Eska are probably still alive and running the Northern Water Tribe. I guess Tonraq could still be alive in the South, and it’d provide some more character-building angst when Keno shows up.

Varrick is now an important member of the Earth Parliament, running the opposition to the current Prime Minister. His company is currently being run by Zhu Li and/or their daughter Dipika.

Toph is totally still alive. I mean, this may never come up, but I headcanon that she just lives in the wild now, beating up Death whenever he tries to claim her.

Plot???

I mean, I guess “what happened to Korra” is an obvious one. Team Avatar III must go and investigate? Maybe Keno can contact her spirit, despite being cut off from the other Avatars? The new villain was behind it?

The new villain is...someone? Maybe a non-bender? Or a spirit? 

AtLA-style Evil Overlord or LoK-style Well-Intentioned Extremist? Something based on modern terrorism and/or Asian New Religious Movements?

Vague ideas about exploring the Earth Confederacy, particularly the conflict between its national government and semi-autonomous states? But conflict with no clear-cut right answers = headache. 

Conclusion

This thing has been in my Drafts for like a year now, so I hereby release it into the wild.

[mikeyd1986]

MIKEY’S PERSONAL BLOG 140, January 2019

On Saturday afternoon, my parents and I checked into the Bellevue On The Lakes motel, located between the North Arm and Cunningham Arm of Lakes Entrance. We’ve actually stayed here before but this time we thought we’d try booking one of the apartments with a back end view of the lakes. As usual, the long three hour drive had made me sleepy and restless so I didn’t feel like doing much when we got here. https://www.bellevuelakes.com.au/

We did go for a walk down to the local ALDI store to buy some groceries plus relaxed outside on the front patio area. It’s a very spacious accommodation with a living area, sofas and large flat screen TV, glass dining table, a kitchen, bathroom, master bedroom and spare bedroom with a trundle bunk bed. There’s also a swimming pool and BBQ area located on site plus the Albert & Co - Coffee Food Catering restaurant, where we’ve actually booked for dinner tonight.  https://www.bellevuelakes.com.au/facilities-home

On Sunday morning, we had a bit of a rocky start (literally) with one of the rear tires going flat on Rod’s car. Luckily we had a spare in the back and was able to change it over. We also discovered that someone (most likely one of the kids) who stayed overnight at Bellevue must have deliberately let air out of the tire as there was no sign of piercing or slashing. We briefly drove down to Paynesville to visit the Paynesville Community Craft Centre then had some lunch at The Fig Cafe.

There’s something really calming about watching the waves go in and out anywhere in East Gippsland. The scent was a mixture of strong brine, seaweed and salt water as a moderately cool breeze blows across my skin. Later that Sunday afternoon, we visited the Nyerimilang Park which is located about 10km North-West of Lakes Entrance. It resides on a cliff-top which overlooks many of the Gippsland Lakes and surrounding islands. https://nyerimilang.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=where-to-find-nyerimilang-park-nungurner

The heritage park contains a variety of bush walking tracks plus lots of plant and bird life. Then there is the Nyrimerlang Park Homestead which was originally built by Frank Stuart 1894 which would be his family home for fishing and shooting near the Gippsland Lakes. During the 1920’s, the homestead was passed on to his son Frank Stuart Jnr who extended the property, developed the gardens and hired a few housemaids and a gardener. https://nyerimilang.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=history-of-the-homestead

On Monday lunchtime, we visited the Lakes Entrance Mechanics Hall where they had an exhibition on to learn about dolphins, sponsored by the Marine Mammal Foundation. We discovered that there are only about 65 dolphins remaining around the Gippsland Lakes area each distinguished by the unique shape of their fin. It also talked about their diets, communication using echolocation and similarities in anatomy and bone structure compared to humans. https://www.lakesentrance.com/2-uncategorised/40-burrunan-dolphins?buttons=1&detail=0&tmpl=component

On Monday afternoon, we went on a short trip down to the Main Beach Lakes Entrance located over the Footbridge. I decided to bring out the beach shelter that I bought recently and set it up down near the red-and-yellow flag. I was very relaxing listening to the sound of the waves crashing down on the sand. I only dipped my feet in the water as it wasn’t hot enough to go in completely. https://www.lakesentrance.com/explore/beaches/item/main-beach

On Tuesday morning, my parents and I visited the Cells Cafe in Bairnsdale (located on Nicholson Street, close to Kmart). This is a regular attraction for us as Cells is run by Noweyung who provide disability and employment support services. The cafe staff are all local people who have disabilities and many different strengths and capabilities. They always provide excellent customer service, great food and are in a very friendly, relaxed environment. http://noweyung.org.au/the-cells-cafe/

On Tuesday afternoon, we dropped into Dahlsens Mitre 10 Bairnsdale and had lunch at the New Leaf Cafe. Considering it was lunchtime, the whole cafe was buzzing and packed with people so we were really lucky to get a vacant table. We decided to order some mixed sandwiches as well as cappuccinos. This is a very big Mitre 10 store with a garden and trade center, a variety of gifts, ornaments, decorations, outdoor furniture and bunches of flowers.  http://newleafdahlsens.com.au/

On Wednesday lunchtime, we stopped at The Barn at Kalimna - Cafe 4.9 for lunch which is located on the outskirts of Lakes Entrance. The cafe is found inside a large barn-shaped dwelling with stunning views of the hilly landscape that is Kalimna West. We decided to sit on the opposite side underneath the market umbrella. I ordered the summer burger which contained crispy deep-fried chicken, pineapple, coleslaw, herb fries and a garden salad. https://the-barn-at-kalimna.business.site/

On Wednesday afternoon, my parents and I went on a lovely cruise aboard the Thunderbird boat from Peels Lake Cruises in Lakes Entrance. Departing at 2pm, we went on a two and a half hour cruise which covers Lake King and Lake Victoria via Metung, Raymond Island and Paynesville. We spotted lots of marine and birdlife including seals, pelicans, black swans, ibises, cormorants and herons. We also saw plenty of lakeside properties with their own private jetties and boats. https://www.lakesentrance.com/cruises/charter-cruise/item/peels-cruises

We stayed on the top deck for most of the duration until the strong winds and sun got a bit too intense for us and we moved inside near the captain’s cabin. My skin turns to burn very easily when it’s fully exposed to the sun so you best believe that I was putting plenty of sunscreen on the back of my neck, face, arms, thighs and shins. But for the most part, it was pretty relaxing and informative learning about the geography of the Gippsland Lakes. https://www.victorianplaces.com.au/gippsland-lakes

On Thursday morning, we went down to Lakes Squash and Movie Theatre and saw the movie Instant Family. It’s only a single regularly sized movie theatre but it does have air conditioning and less advertisements that a typical cinema does. This comedy drama directed by Sean Anders focuses on the issues of the fostering and adoption agency as well as the trials and tribulations involved with becoming foster parents. *START OF SPOILERS*

Couple Ellie (Rose Byrne) and Pete (Mark Wahlberg) spend most of the lives renovating houses. They are constantly egged on by Ellie’s sister Kim (Allyn Rachel) and brother in law Russ (Tom Segura) and get labelled as being perfectionists. That is until Ellie wonders about the idea of having kids. One night, Ellie spends time on the internet searching for child adoption and fostering and eventually convinces Pete that they should attend an information session about it.

There they meet social workers Karen (Octavia Spencer) and Sharon (Tig Notaro) who give them a “no bullshit” run down of the process involved in adopting and fostering a child. At the Open Day, Pete and Ellie really struggled to find the “right child” for them and against all odds, find a connection with a young teenage girl named Lizzie (Isabela Moner). But they’re in for an unexpected surprise as she comes along with younger brother Juan (Gustavo Quiro) and younger sister Lita (Julianna Gamiz).

The family are initially really reluctant and judgemental when Ellie and Pete deliver the news about adopting three children but they are adamant to prove them wrong. Through various support group meetings and several accidents, temper tantrums and outbursts of anger, the couple eventually work out that parenting is not as easy as it seems on the surface. The fact that it’s also a blended family with mixed nationalities makes things difficult, forcing them to learn Spanish.

Lizzie is very outspoken, dominating and impulsive. She is the oldest and at 10 years old, was forced to step up as a maternal role model to her younger siblings when her own mother was absent and abusing drugs. Juan is very shy, reserved and anxious. He doesn’t think before he acts and often gets into lots of accidents. He places the blame on himself a lot. And Lita is the youngest child. Very loud, bratty and misbehaves a lot but is also easily excited and demands lots of attention.

To add a further complication to the mix, their biological mother gets released from prison and then it becomes a family court issue as to whether the kids continue living with Ellie and Pete or are forced back into custody with their mom. This is a well written and directed family film that strikes the right balance between humourous and emotional moments, even touching on a few political issues like gay couples and their legal rights. *END OF SPOILERS* https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7401588/?ref_=nv_sr_1

I spent some of Thursday night watching the Australian Open Men’s semi-finals match between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Rafael Nadal. Whilst it was a fairly easy win for Nadal winning in straight sets, I was still very proud of Tsitsipas’ efforts during this match and his overall performance throughout the tournament. It’s sad that Tsitsipas was really hard on himself after the loss to Nadal but I believe that he will bounce back from this. https://wwos.nine.com.au/videos/tennis/tsitsipas-dumbfounded-after-nadal-thrashing/cjramhpy2001t0hrptyhb63xv

Stefanos Tsitsipas is an extremely humble, down to earth young talented tennis player. I honestly wish that we had more Australian tennis players like him. The only ones who hold a candle are Ash Barty and Alex De Minaur. It's good to see that he doesn't let his ego, level of fame and attention from the media destroy his sense of self unlike players like Serena Williams and Nick Kyrogios who act like spoiled, self centered brats! I can see a big future ahead for Tsitsipas!

On Friday morning, we decided to have breakfast at The Barn at Kalimna - Cafe 4.9. It was predicted to be a scorching 44 degrees in Melbourne today with hot gusty winds and a total fire ban throughout the state. It was already rising up to 33 degrees by mid-morning and so I could only stand in the direct sun for a few minutes before it really got to me physically. As I’ve said before, I really don’t cope well in extreme heat but luckily a cool change is on the way this afternoon which should bring the temperature down to the mid-20’s again. https://www.9news.com.au/national/2019/01/25/05/50/victoria-sizzles-as-it-waits-for-an-afternoon-reprieve-as-heat-scorches-most-of-the-country

On Friday night, I went to my HIIT + Circuit small group fitness class at CinFull Fitness. Due to the extreme heat today, I could sense that most people’s moods were pretty low and just feeling physically drained. Thankfully it was only around 26 degrees tonight and Cinamon decided to make it a low intensity circuit. We did 3 rounds of 45 seconds each exercise plus 5 overhead med ball squats.

First we worked on the lower body: Dumbbell Lunge pulses (10 each leg), Dumbbell hip thrusts, Lifted Heel Power Lifts. Then we worked on the upper body: Dumbbell flies and Dumbbell overhead presses, T-Bar Rows, Bench Presses and Bicep Curls. T-Bar Rows are something that I haven’t done before and it was a little awkward and confusing to do at first but eventually I got it.

Lastly, we did a short core workout which involved V-Ups, Med Ball Sit-ups, Bicycle Crunches, Scissor Leg Crunches and a Plank Hold. We were all in hysterical laughter by the end of it mostly because of how ridiculous these movements looked and how much we all secretly hate doing core workouts. But it’s also what makes going to these classes a lot of fun.