#the horror of watching time tick by and knowing you��re not who you’re meant to be

[finnyboywolfhard]

Now That I Saw You- Chapter 4- Jump Then Fall

Steve Harrington x Reader

catch up here

This Chapter is Inspired by Jump Then Fall by Taylor Swift 

summary: Steve and Reader are falling more and more for one another. 

warnings: cursing, fluff

word count: 1.4k

For yet another morning, Y/N woke to the feeling of Steve’s arms wrapped around her body. Her eyes looked over his face a few times, a smile spreading sweetly across her face.

“Don’t stare, it’s creepy.” Steve grumbled out in his grizzled morning voice. Chills went down her spine as he spoke.

“But you’re so handsome.” Y/N faked a pout in response. His hands pulled her tighter to him, and his hand reached up to cup her face.

“You’re absolutely adorable, you know that?” He said before pulling her in for a kiss. Despite both of their morning breath, the kisses between the two just kept getting better and better to her. He pulled away from the kiss and placed on her forehead. He climbed over top of her to get out of bed.

“I hate being an adult.” Y/N spoke from the bed. Steve gave her a confused look as he continued putting on his pajama pants. “I don’t want to go to work. And I don’t want to spend a weekend without you.” She pouted as she watched him get dressed.  

“Come here.” He waved for her to come towards him. She got out of the bed and shuffled towards him. Instantly, she was swallowed by his arms in a hug. They swayed back and forth in the middle of the room. “Listen, it’s just one weekend. It’ll be okay! Plus we have those plans with Dustin when I get back.”

“I forgot! That’s gonna be fun!” She smiled looking at him, her eyes looking at every feature on his face. He kept talking, and she could hear him but her brain was going 100 miles per hour about how much she really liked him and wanted to be with him. He just felt right for her, like they were meant to be together. Her eyes moved over to the clock propped on her dresser. “Shit! I’m gonna be late. And so are you! Aren’t you supposed to be picking up your mom soon?

“Oh shit, yeah. I-uh-I forgot completely.” He went silent for a moment while watching her get dressed. “Do you want me to take you to work before I go to my parents?”

“That would be great babe, thank you.” She said without thinking of the pet name she just used.  He didn’t say anything, but that pet name made butterflies go aflutter in his stomach and he realized he was falling again.

Steve dropped her off at work and the hours seemed to tick past even slower than usual for the girl. She kept re-reading the same paragraph because her mind kept going back to Steve and every little thing about him. He really was becoming the most important thing in her life, something that she had never experienced before.

“Y/N, call on 2.” Another intern piped up from the cubicle across from her.

“Hi, you’ve reached Y/N Y/L/N in the human resources department, how can I help you?” From the other end of the phone, she heard her favorite sound in the entire world- Steve’s laugh. She wished that she could listen to it all day.

“Jesus, you sound so professional.” Steve finally spoke.

“Wow, I wonder why I would sound professional at my job in the government?” They both erupted into a fit of giggles.

“You make a fair point, I just wanted to call and tell you that I got here safely. I miss you already.” Her heart melted at the gesture of his call.

“I miss you. I’ll be counting down the hours until I see you.”

“I already am. Sunday at 6, at the diner. Be there or be square.” He joked through the phone.                  

“I’ll be there.” She smiled.

“Okay, well-uh, I gotta go, but I’ll talk to you soon okay?”

“Okay. Bye Stevie.”

“Bye Y/N/N.” She hung up the phone and let out a groan. These next two nights without him were gonna be rough. It’s not like she didn’t love spending time with Robin, she absolutely did. Robin was without a doubt in her mind her best friend in Hawkins, but after spending nearly all of her time with Steve in some way shape or form, it was gonna be weird to not see him for a bit.

The days leading up to Sunday evening went by slowly. Robin and her had eaten dinner together every night, but with Robin at work all day and Y/N being home alone, things got boring. But things were all better when Sunday rolled around.

Y/N pulled into the diner and saw the oh so familiar BMW parked. She got out and looked into the car, noticing that it was empty. She bounded up the stairs and into the restaurant, instantly spotting her favorite head of hair in the whole world. As she approached, she saw Dustin flailing his arms telling Steve something.

“What’re you boys talking about?” Steve’s eyes lit up as Y/N slid into the booth next to him. He placed a kiss on her temple. She leaned into him and the feeling.

“Dustin here is trying to explain something that he learned in his AP Bio Class.”

“Oh, that will go right over my head. Me and science don’t get along.”

“Don’t you have a political science degree?” Y/N let out a laugh at the very valid question Dustin just posed.

“I mean, Yes I do but PoliSci is a whole different beast. It deals more in the social sciences and humanities rather than physical sciences.”

“Wait what do you mean?” Dustin asked her, which instantly sparked a conversation between the two. Steve’s eyes flickered between the two and how easily they had fallen into a conversation. He admired how they talked so intelligently without trying to make the other feel dumb, it was sweet.  

“Any new movies in the store?” Dustin snapped Steve back to full attention.

“Yeah…uh…a few horror movies came in, and some other ones I had never heard of that Robin likes.” They talked over their dinner for a bit, all enjoying each other’s company. Steve leaned over to take a bite of food, and his hair fell into his face.

“Oh my god, come here.” Y/N turned his head around and pulled the top portion of his hair out of his face, tying it up with a hair tie. He turned his head back to her after and she let out a giggle. “You look ridiculous, but I’m sure it will help.” She pecked his lips once before going back to her own food. Dustin’s face was turned up into a smirking smile, mainly happy that his best friend had found someone who works well for him and very clearly makes him happy. It also helped that he also really liked Y/N, she was fun, caring and most of all clearly infatuated for Steve, more than Dustin ever thought Nancy was. They walked out of the diner, with Y/N’s fingers laced with Steve’s, them both trailing behind Dustin.

“I gotta drive Dusty home, I’ll just meet you back at home yeah?”

“Perfect!” Y/N walked over to Dustin and gave him a hug goodbye before giving Steve a kiss. She walked back to her car and drove home alone, waiting patiently for her boyfriend to come home.

As she lay in her PJs she heard the front door open and footsteps approaching her room. When her door opened, she lifted the blanket up so he could crawl in with her.

“Hello.” She said as his face hit the pillow beside her. He let out a little laugh before responding.

“Hi. I’ve missed this.” He said sweetly. She smiled at the sentiment, and was overcome with her feelings.

“Steve…” She said, not sadly but more yearning.

“What my dear?” His voice laced with a little worry.

“I used to feel so scared to fall for someone but…but with you…fuck. With you, it’s like I’m jumping into freefall with no net. And I’m just…I’m just a little scared you’re gonna leave me.”

“Hey hey hey, I’m not gonna leave you, I can promise you that. After the shit with Nancy, I-uh-I never thought that I would feel like…this. I…I love you Y/N.” He said, looking deep into her eyes and placing a gentle hand to her cheek.

“I love you Steve.” She wasn’t scared with Steve, she felt the happiest with him and she knew that falling for him wasn’t even over yet. She loved him and he loved her, and frankly, that was all she was worried about.  

[mischiefandspirits]

Doppelgänger (17/19)

Previously on Doppelgänger ~ Masterlist ~ Next time on Doppelgänger

Danny, Sam, and Tucker were just 14 when they took a look inside the portal Danny’s parents had built. From there, everything changed. They woke up with white hair, green skin, and powers they could learn to control. They were hybrids, halfas.

They were the hero Doppelgänger.

{Reign Storm, Part 3}

“It’s like shooting skeleton fish in a barrel,” Doppelgänger chuckled as they flew up to Valerie’s side, blasting one of the skeleton’s harrowing her as their own crowd rushed into the football stadium after them.

“They don’t put up much of a fight, but there’s a lot of them,” she argued. “You going to duplicate?”

“Already did. We've got our own crowds.”

“It’d be nice if you could make yourself a crowd in return.”

“Sorry, we’re still working on making more than three of us.”

“Hello, son.”

Doppelgänger gave a long, drawn-out groan as Plasmius flew up to the two despite still firing on the skeletons. The older ghost tried to speak when they’d finished, only for the ghost kid to start right back up.

“Are you quite done?” Plasmius asked over the groaning.

Valerie turned to fire at him, but he dodged to the side. He stopped with Doppelgänger between her and him.

The younger ghost stopped their groaning to say, “You know, a human shield only works if the shield’s both bigger than you and someone that the person you’re hiding from won’t shoot. We are neither of those.”

“You’re also not human,” Valerie pointed out.

“I think that’s debatable, but we’ll add it to the list,” they said and fired a blast at Plasmius.

“Calm down, son! I didn't come here to fight you! You have other things to worry about!”

“Okay, even if we were your kid -- which we aren’t because gross -- we’re nonbinary, so still not your son. So get lost. We have this under control!”

A blur of black barreled into them and rose up to reveal a knight in black armor atop a pegasus. The knight had Doppelgänger by the throat and pointed his sword at them. “You are the one who destroyed the King’s ring.”

“We’re not one, but we have destroyed a ring recently. Not sure if it was a king’s, though. Can we get a description?” Doppelgänger said before a swirl of comets wrapped around them and they disappeared.

Another swirl appeared behind the knight, leaving behind the ghost kid. They cheered and shot a blast that unseated the knight. “Yes, it worked. Still not as far as we’d meant to go, but we’ll take it.”

“If you would allow me to trai-” Plasmius started.

“Not interested. Now make yourself useful.” Doppelgänger pointed at the knight, who was pulling himself to his feet.

The knight’s eyes locked onto Valerie and narrowed. “You also carry the ring’s mark.”

She leveled her rifle at him, but a pair of blasts knocked him away before she could fire.

“Right on time,” Doppelgänger said as their two copies flew into the stadium. “Wait a second, is that the Fright Knight? Who? He’s the age-old spirit of Halloween.” The trio began to casually blast the knight back and forth across the field as they spoke together. “Legend has it that if his sword The Soul Shredder cuts through you, you get teleported to a dimension where you live out your worst fear. We read about him in the book we got for Halloween. Did the book have any way to defeat him? We think there was something about a pumpkin, but we can’t remember. We’ll go check.”

One of the ghost kids shot off, giving the knight a chance to finally dodge a blast. “Fools! All I wanted to do was retrieve those who destroyed the ring and return to Pariah's Keep, but now, you give me no choice.” He knelt and held up his sword, point down. “By the authority vested in me by my Lord and Liege…” The sword began to glow and he drove it into the ground, causing a wave of energy to roll outwards across the ground. “I claim this town now and forever under the banner of Lord Pariah, the King of All Ghosts!”

Energy shot up from the sword high into the air before rolling outwards to form a green dome across the city.

Both remaining Doppelgängers fired at the knight, but he ducked away. “The sword has sunk, your die now cast, The sword removed shall signal fast. Surrender your-”

He was cut off as a blast knocked him rolling across the ground.

“We hate rhymes. Did we find a pumpkin?”

The third Doppelgänger flew up with a smirk and pulled a fake jack-o'-lantern out of thin air.

“Found it in the boxes of old Halloween decorations like we said.”

They landed next to the sword and dropped the decoration at their feet.

“Gotta move fast. Cover us. Red, Plasmius, keep the skeleton’s back. We’ll handle tall, dark, and fashionable. Fashionable? Really? Yes, we love that aesthetic.”

Val nodded and pulled out her grenade launcher as the other two placed themselves between their third and the knight, but Plasmius’s attention was on the ghost kid.

“What are you planning?”

The ghost kid smirked and wrapped their hand around the sword’s grip.

“To cease the storm…”

“No,” the knight yelled, but the ghost kid’s copies kept him back.

“To end the fear…”

“Wait!” Plasmius yelled as the ghost kid began to draw the sword from the ground.

“The sword must sheathe…”

As soon as the blade left the ground, the energy feeding into the dome cut off and it began to crack. Instead of the sky being behind it, Valerie saw the endless green of the ghost zone.

“In pumpkin near!”

Doppelgänger sank the sword into the fake pumpkin and everything froze. Then the sky returned.

White and green light began to pour from the decoration as the dome shuddered then began to rise up and flow back into the sword in a reverse of how it had just formed.

“No, NO!” the knight shouted as a vortex formed above the sword and began to draw him in.

Valerie only had a second to feel victorious before the vortex began to pull at her as well. She lost her footing on her board, but the ghost kid flew in to help her. Two of them grabbed her and the last grabbed her board before they all flew to the bleachers and grabbed hold. Once she was sure she was safe, she looked over the field.

Plasmius had taken refuge on a goal post, but many of the skeletons were being sucked up. The knight was clawing at the ground, but soon lost his grip and disappeared into the swirling green. Once he was gone, the vortex slowed and dissipated while the pumpkin holding the sword -- now looking like an actual jack-o'-lantern, if purple with a green glow -- vanished in a flash.

“Well, that’s one down,” Doppelgänger said.

“You idiot! The sword was a signal!” Plasmius yelled, brushing himself off.

“Yeah, we heard. That’s why we got rid of it!”

“Not soon enough.”

The teens looked up to see a large ghost floating over them.

After a second, one of the ghost kids pointed at him.

“You know, we expected more from the King of All Ghosts. He’s just a guy. A tall guy, but still.”

Another nodded, looking disappointed.

“Yeah, what is this Odin wannabe nonsense? We thought we’d be facing some beautiful Lovecraftian horror. We feel ripped off.”

The third tilted their head.

“He’s not even that big. Like ten feet, maybe. The dragon made a more impressive sight, and she was literally just a fairytale princess. You’d think a king could do better.”

“Are you done ticking him off?” Valerie asked, watching Dark get angrier and angrier.

They shrugged. “We’re just saying. He doesn’t even have a crown.”

Then the one who’d tilted their head shot to the side, the one who’d nodded stepped in front of Valerie and raised a shield, and the one who’d pointed braced for impact as Dark sent a massive blast towards them.

The shield held, but the ghost kid was forced to a knee as they poured their strength into it and it shattered apart as soon as it wasn’t needed. Once it was down, Valerie could see that the one who’d taken the blast head-on had created a crater in the bleachers that they were pulling themself out of. Meanwhile, the one who’d avoided it was zipping around the field, keeping Dark’s attention. They fired upon the king while bobbing and weaving around the return fire.

It didn’t look like the attacks were doing much damage.

“That hurt,” they said as the one limped towards her and their kneeling copy turned to her. “You should get clear.”

“We should all fall back,” Plasmius said, appearing next to them.

“Even if we could, he’d destroy the town trying to chase us down. You can run if you want to,” they said then they shot towards the field.

One landed and held their hands out. Thick wires shot out of the ground and grabbed Dark’s legs, electrocuting him in the process. At the same time, the other ghost kid shot towards the fight. They engaged the king as the one that had been fighting him backed off. They reached to the side and plucked a pot holding a glowing spider-like plant out of nowhere. They chucked the plant at Dark’s head then re-engaged him as their copy pulled back to command the plant to wrap around the king’s eyes and neck.

“The boy has Chlorokinesis?” Plasmius said.

“You didn’t know that?” Valerie said, checking her rifle and calling her board to her.

“He’s never used it against me. He’s only even used the Technokinesis recently.”

“They’ve had both for as long as I’ve known them. They’ve tried to use it on me, but I’m usually too high for the plants and my gear’s protected against their control.”

“ENOUGH!”

The two looked up to see Dark snatch the plant-controlling ghost kid from the air and throw them. The other flying one tried to catch them, but they both ended up crashing to the ground. The third flew over to them as the king tore off the wires and burned away the plant.

“Our baby,” the ghost kid whined, one staring at the plant’s burning remains with fury.

“Surrender, children! You can't possibly win!”

“Surrender isn’t in our vocabulary. And we can’t possibly let you loose on our city.” The one that had been controlling the wires helped the one that had been thrown to their feet, letting them lean against them, as the other placed themself in front of the two. “Besides, we don't have to win. we just have to make sure that you lose.”

Dark scowled and shot a blast at them. The one in front summoned a shield, but it shattered almost immediately and the three took most of the blast.

Valerie leveled her rifle at Dark, but Plasmius yanked it away.

“Don’t be foolish, girl. He will kill you.”

“Like you care.

“Considering you’re my only help, I do. We need a plan.”

“Face it, children, it's over.”

Valerie turned back to the field to see Dark walking towards the trio as they slowly got up onto their knees.

“No,” they growled. “No!”

Shaking with pain, the trio looked up. 

Their goggles glowed with black energy and then three things happened at once.

The one on the left threw their head back and screamed. Black sonic waves tore through the field and slammed into the king.

The one in the middle doubled over, hands clawing at the ground as they keened. Thick black vines wove in and out of the ground in front of them until they could latch onto the king, wrapping around his arms and legs to tear deep gashes into his skin with their thorns.

The one on the right wrapped their arms around themselves and sobbed. Black tears flowed down their face and formed a void beneath them that stretched out underneath the king.

The vines held him still, the rings drained his power, and the void drew him in.

Dark thrashed against his bindings, but they held and he was soon consumed by the darkness.

The trio collapsed.

The field went silent, the vines shriveled into nothing, and the darkness faded.

Consciousness clearly fading, the trio latched hands and fell through the ground.

Oddly though, they didn’t seem to go intangible and Valerie swore she saw the faintest hint of a white-blue-purple light just before they completely disappeared.

Slowly, she turned to Plasmius to see him gaping at the now empty field. “Did you know they had that kind of power?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny stared out at the stars as Blobena nuzzled up against his cheek.

“My everything hurts,” Tucker croaked, the first sound any of them had made since Danny had dropped them into the Space Fold then promptly passed out. He’s not sure how long they’ve been in there now, but he’s been awake for at least an hour and he knew the others woke before him.

“Sh!” Sam moaned.

It was quiet for a few moments, then Sam asked, “Danny. Why are your blobs in here? More importantly, why is one trying to eat my hair?”

With a sigh, Danny turned to see Sam and the blob in question. “I think Blobson likes the taste of your shampoo. He did the same thing to me two weeks ago when you let me shower at your place after the fight with Garbage Manster.”

“Wait, you seriously named them all? And with blob puns?” Tucker said, pinwheeling slowly near Sam’s feet. “I thought that was just a joke you and Valerie were telling.”

“We had a lot of time in that cage, okay?”

“Danny, get this thing off my hair or I’m smashing it.”

The boy pouted, but reached over to scoop up the blob. He set him on his shoulder next to Bloberick.

“Now again, what are they doing here?”

“In my defense, I just meant to hide them in here for a second because my mom was coming down the stairs and I didn’t have time to get them all back through the portal. I’ve tried to get them to leave, but they won’t.”

“You keep my ghost plants in here!” she huffed, gesturing to the quartet of pots holding plants she’d gathered from the ghost zone.

“They don’t bother them, promise!”

“Speaking of which, how dare you throw Arachne at that jerk!”

“Our ecto-beams weren’t doing much! I thought the poison on her fronds would help!”

“We can get you a new one, Sam,” Tucker said. “It’s not like it was sentient like Audrey II.”

“We can get you a new phone, Tucker,” she shot back. “It’s not like it’s sentient like Audrey II.”

“She’s as good as!” Tucker gasped, pulling his phone out to clutch it to his chest. “Talk to me, baby.”

“Hello, Tuck-man. The time is 9:34 p.m.”

Danny snickered. “Tuck-man.”

“Shut it, Danny Blobton,” Tucker said, grabbing one of the blobs floating near him and tossing it at Danny.

If anything, the blob seemed to be pleased by the action, even as it squished against his forehead. It gave a singing buzz and nuzzled further against him.

“Great, now Blobnessa is never going to let go.”

“Dude, you’ve got issues.”

“Wait, did your phone say it was after nine at night?” Sam asked, turning to Tucker.

“Yeah, it said… Oh man, how long have we been gone for?”

“My parents are probably tearing the town apart looking for me,” Danny groaned.

“Not to mention your girlfriend. I’m sure my parents are already blaming you. Crud, I’m going to have to wear their stupid dresses for a week if they’re ever going to let me see you again,” Sam said, grabbing Danny’s arm and tugging him to her.

“I swear, if my parents try to take me on one of those tech-free relaxation getaways because of this, I’m moving into the fold. Blobs or not,” Tucker muttered, hooking his ankle around Sam’s.

Danny gently shooed and brushed all the blobs off himself then turned all three of them invisible and dropped them onto the football field.

Thankfully no one was around so they turned visible and climbed to their feet.

“We’re going to need alibis,” Sam said.

“Got cornered by some skeletons in an abandoned building?” Tucker offered. “Only came out when we were sure it was safe, but then didn’t recognize where we were and stumbled about until we found somewhere familiar.”

“Sounds good enough for me,” Danny yawned. “Can either of you transform?”

They shook their heads.

“Guess we’re walking.”

They only made it a block before the Fenton RV came roaring up and a hysterical Maddie Fenton tackled Danny to the ground.

[willow-salix]

Hog-Malarkey

Just a little (I’m lying about the little) thing that @olliepig​ and I have thrown together for you all to enjoy. The Secret Santa gift exchange took care of Christmas so we’ve got New Year covered. Here’s a little snippet of the first half (we’ll post the second half tomorrow), you can read the rest on Ao3 by clicking this link. 

“Remind me again, just why are we here?” asked John with a shiver as the car made its way through the streets toward the centre of the city.

“Because Penny was invited to some fancy party at the castle and invited Gordon and Cat, which somehow ended up with all of us getting dragged along just for good measure,” Scott grumbled from the front seat, ignoring the whack on the back of the head that could have come just as easily from Cat or Selene.

“Well I think it’s going to be fun,” declared Selene firmly with a defiant look at John, daring him to disagree with her. “It’s not often we get to spend time together off the island as a family and the least you boys can do is stop complaining.”

“It’s cold, it’s wet, it’s too early and I have far too much work to catch up on after Christmas, I fail to see why I had to be included on this little trip,” John muttered under his breath, crossing his arms  in an effort to keep warm. The driver had the heating on full blast but he could still feel the damp cold sneaking into every exposed gap on his person to freeze him down to his toes. 

“I’m looking forward to it,” Virgil piped up, a happy grin firmly fixed on his face. Scott shot a look at him that clearly warned him not to elaborate on that, on pain of death.

“Honestly, you men are so grumpy it’s ridiculous. I thought I’d married the only anti social one,” Selene said, ignoring  John's huff of protest, “but clearly not. This is a chance to have a break, maybe take in the sights and relax and all you're doing is complaining. If this is how it’s going to be then Cat and I will leave you at the hotel and have some fun on our own, won’t we, Tippy Toes?”

“Absolutely. If you boys want to be miserable then that's fine, but you’re not cramping our style. I’ve not been to Edinburgh for years and I’ve been looking forward to this so I’ll be damned if I’m letting some grumpy ass Tracys spoil it,” Cat finished with a flourish.

“OK, OK,” Scott placated her. “We’ll get checked in to the hotel, get some warmer clothes on and head out to see what the city has to offer. How does that sound, everyone?”

“That’s good for me,” Virgil smiled, nudging Alan as he peered out the window at the fairground attractions that were in the gardens below the castle. “Wanna go and see those, squirt?”

“I’m not a kid any more, Virgil,” grumbled Alan, trying hard to ignore the matching grins on his brothers’ faces as they watched him trying to reconcile his love for anything that spun him upside down with his desire to be seen as one of the adults. “But I guess it might be fun…”

“I’d just like to say, here and now, that I am NOT going on anything that spins fast or does that loopy loop shit, not unless you want me throwing up on your lap. We all remember what happened last time I let Alan and Gordon drag me onto a ride and we won’t be doing it again,” Selene told them firmly. 

Alan sniggered to himself, reminded of their trip to the theme park a few years before. “I promise we won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to.”

“Good,” she huffed. “I need a relaxing break after the stress of dealing with you idiots the entirety of Christmas.”

“She’s just worried what she’ll blurt out this time if she goes on another ride,” Scott side whispered to Cat. “Last time she yelled for a divorce and they had only been dating four months but Grandma overheard and got all excited. They said they weren't ever getting hitched but now look, married and scowling all the time. I thought that only happened in TV shows.” He ducked and yelped when he received another smack around the head, confirming his suspicions that it had been Selene the first time too.

“I don’t think there is anything else she could yell out,” Cat whispered back. “Not unless she starts offering to sacrifice her first born to ensure her safety.”

“Don’t give Grandma more ideas,” Scott winked. “That would mean popping out a sprog first.”

“We can hear you, you know,” John hissed through chattering teeth, allowing Selene to wrap her arms around him in a bid to warm him up. Space was never like this, his suit kept him at the perfect temperature, space was quiet and calm and above all, didn't have his brothers there. This little trip was going to be a nightmare, he could feel it in his bones. 

“I know,” Scott assured him. “Doesn’t make it less true.”

“I think that's us here,” Cat called out, elbowing Scott in the ribs as they pulled up outside a grand looking old building right beside the castle, shutting down any further conversation. 

“Wow,” Selene whispered, her nose pressed against the window. “That really is a castle, an actual freaking castle. Bitch, we’re gonna be princesses!”

“Hell yeah, we are,” Cat grinned back at her as John and Scott exchanged a look of pure terror, wondering what was about to be unleashed onto the world.

“I wonder if  they have decent bathtubs here?” Selene pondered, ignoring the sniggers that echoed around the car. It wasn’t her fault that Scott had told everyone about the room cleaning bill that Penelope had discreetly passed on to him after she and John had accidentally flooded a bathroom the morning after Penelope’s charity ball.

"I meant so John could warm up!" 

"Sure you did," Scott drawled, not sounding like he believed her at all. 

“Oh look,” Virgil called loudly, pointing out of the window, clearly having never been more thankful to see his younger brother in his life before. “There’s Gordo.”

John frowned, catching sight of the strained look on the aquanauts face through the rain speckled windows of the car. “He doesn’t look happy.”

“That’s not a good sign,” Scott agreed, throwing open the door before the driver could make his way around the car to open it for them, waving his aside impatiently. “Gordon, what's wrong?” 

Selene exchanged a look with Cat, one eyebrow raised, Cat shrugged in return, a small smile forming as she watched Scott striding across the pavement. It was always interesting to watch the sudden shift that took place inside Scott whenever his bro sense tingled. He could go from teasing to serious in the blink of an eye whenever he felt like one of his family needed him.

“I know that smile,” Selene whispered to the other woman, “should we be expecting another room cleaning bill?”

“He’s just so damn sexy when he does that,” Cat sighed dreamily.

Selene cast a glance at John who had apparently forgotten that he was cold and grumpy to join Scott in his interrogation, a frown creasing his forehead as he shifted effortlessly into work mode. “Yeah, I'm with ya, girl.” 

Slipping her arm through Selene’s, Cat towed her along as they scurried to catch up with the rest of the family, Virgil and Alan having exited while they had been eyeing up their men.

“So she was sick right there and then?” they heard Alan ask, his eyes as round as saucers, as the girls joined the huddle of Tracy that had formed.

“In the ice bucket,” Gordon confirmed with a sad nod.

“She didn’t go on any of those rides, did she?” Alan asked. “Because if that’s the reaction I’m definitely not sitting next to Sel on anything ever again.”

“Hey!” Selene protested, insulted on her stomach's behalf. Alan just shrugged, unconcerned, he'd only said the truth. 

“And you still don’t know what it was that caused it?” Virgil asked, trying valiantly to drag the conversation back to its original point, the medic in him wanting all the information. 

“No! One minute we were enjoying dinner the next she was bright red and honking like a goose whenever she tried to speak.”

“Definitely an allergic reaction,” Virgil agreed. “Any other symptoms?”

“Other than re-spackling half the bathroom from both exits and not coming out all night?”

Alan made a face that registered his disgust at his brother’s vivid description, he'd never look at the Lady the same again.

“Yes, other than that."

“Itchy, blotchy, pukey,” Gordon ticked off symptoms on his fingers like he was calling a register at Disneyland. “Swollen and dizzy. Nope, I think that’s about it.”

“Is that not enough?” Selene asked, her eyes widening in horror.

“Where is she now?” Cat asked, concerned for her best friend. Penelope was not one to be caught out in such a manner, she had very few allergies but always made sure that any chef was well informed before she dined, so this one had to be previously unknown.

“Parker took her home about an hour ago, she’s got the family doctor on standby waiting to meet her back at the manor.”

“So, does that mean we can all go home?” John asked hopefully.

Gordon shook his head. “She made me promise that we would represent her in her absence. Apparently someone from the Creighton-Ward family has been in attendance for the last two hundred years and we can’t let her down.”

“Well, if you promised I don’t see that we have a choice,” Virgil admitted.

“Oh, come on guys,” Gordon pleaded, seeing the looks of resignation on his family’s faces. “It won’t be that different to what we would have been doing already, we just have to be on our best behavior and follow a few more traditions, that's all.”

“Why do I feel like we’re going to regret this?” Scott groaned.  

               ***

“So you’re telling me now that we’ve all got to wear kilts?” Scott exclaimed, his displeasure written all over his face as he took in the five matching outfits that hung from a rail that had been wheeled into the shared living space of their suite. 

[edmund-valks]

What Lies Beneath... the Barn

“Wait, if you can think of that, why do you need me?”

Ilandreline brushed dark hair back from her sweat-slicked brow, carefully pouring molten metal into gear molds.  “Because I can only do the calculations, not the actual magic.  Also I would prefer to be able to validate it before I get my friends sucked into terrifying cosmic voids.”

She was really glad for this setup, even more glad that nobody seemed to notice she’d built a basement into the barn using a disintegrating arcanodrill while they’d been off engaging in weird things like “commerce”, whatever that meant.  Not that she didn’t know what the word meant, but.  Is my internal dialogue supposed to be this bad?  No, it’s not.  Maybe you’re not as smart as you hoped.  Fair.

“Anyway,” she said aloud, setting the fresh gears to quench, “you’re the only one I know who even cares about my planar work, much less understands how to use it in this fashion.  You already made it better, remember?  That second letter of yours?”  She spared a glance for the other elf, trying to gauge her reaction.

Perched on a corner of her workbench, the diminutive ren’dorei was… blushing?  Either that or suffocating; her cheeks were flushed a soft violet rather than her whole face, so presumably it wasn’t asphyxiation.  “Well, I mean, anyone could have if they-”

“If you finish that sentence I’m going to hit you with a wrench.”

She stopped so fast her teeth clacked.

The Fence Macabre’s resident -- whether they knew it or liked it -- engineer continued.  “If anyone could do it, then I’m a fool for not having done it myself, and I’m pretty sure you didn’t just call me a fool.  And second of all, no, they couldn’t have, so stop trying to downplay your work.  You’re smart about this stuff and you’ve got a unique perspective.  You’re a valuable colleague and I’d love for you to be a co-author when I publish this theory.”

More colour rushed to her cheeks, making Sentua look something like a blueberry.  Poor thing!  Whatever the ren’dorei had done to themselves, it had really screwed them out of any fashion choices they may have liked beforehand.  Red and gold just… didn’t… with that complexion.

“I… would like to be published with you, thank you.  Are you sure- Wait, of course you are, otherwise you wouldn’t have said it, right?”  She took several deep breaths.  “Sorry.”

Ila shook her head.  “Don’t worry about it.  You about studied up, ready to try out the first one?”

“Um.  Let me take one more look at the diagram and re-check the math.  Then I’ll go over the runes again.”

“Sure thing, take your time.  I got a bunch of these brass bastards to make anyway.”  Anyone from the Fence who wasn’t her was unlikely to have any idea why she was making multiple copies of something that was already built.  That was probably for the best.  Nobody else really seemed to appreciate the old grandfather clock the way she did.

While she worked, her visitor did exactly as she’d said she would, tracing the structure they’d slowly developed using extraplanar theoretics combined with several known nexus points.  If they’d had access to a superior medium (who wasn’t also wholeheartedly opposed to their purpose), maybe they would have been able to determine if it was going to work without having to craft a prototype.  But what would be the fun in that?

Well, it would certainly involve less child endangerment.

Hey!  That’s not fair, she’s an adult!

...In human years, yes.  How old is she?  Twenty?

Twenty-three?  Give or take a year.

This is wildly irresponsible parenting!

I’m not her parent!

Good point.  It’s really irresponsible of them to let her hang out with someone like us.

No kidding!  What are they thinking!

“Okay, I’m getting started now.  Try to keep quiet and stay over there.  I’m… not sure what this is going to look like when I get it going.”

That made two of them.  Ilandreline very casually moved behind a thickly armoured panel she used in case one of her iron molds exploded.  “Righto, let ‘er rip, Senny!”

Despite her youth, she sure looked like she knew what she was doing.  Having grown up around an assortment of arcane manipulators (as well as normal manipulators), Ila could usually follow spellwork as it happened.  She was utter rubbish at it herself, but that was why she’d done theoretical work.  That way she never had to prove anything except on paper.

The interweaving runic designs began flaring to life, unexpectedly nightblue with pinpricks of starlight within them.  A brief peek without her goggles in place confirmed that wasn’t a trick of the lenses, it was the Real Deal.  Since she had no idea what it meant, if anything, the sin’dorei kept waiting and watching.

A subaural thrum filled the air, slowly building intensity.  Sentua seemed unbothered, continuing to do… whatever a wizard did during a lengthy ritual.  Concentrate or something.  The vibration became more sensible until it started to feel like her teeth were going to rattle from her skull.  Then it stopped and things got weird.

When your family was exiled due to a misunderstanding involving the regular sacrifice over centuries of sentient beings to dark powers, you grew up with a different baseline for weirdness from others.  As a result, this wasn’t the weirdest thing Ila had ever seen, but it was certainly up there.  She pulled her goggles off to see with the tainted vision that same “misunderstanding” had gifted her.

Portals were opening and clothing, like mouths made of eyes, evaporating as soon as they formed.  A loop made of itself (what?) turned outside-in until they disappeared inside it.  Eyes of darkness flared against the backdrop of interminable void within one of the gaping portal-maws and she felt uncomfortably seen.  Maybe I messed up the math after all.

A crackle of power flared through the starlight rune-circles, drawing constellations like the antipodal counterpart of what she’d seen in drawings from Ulduar.  This was a place she recognized, but not in a way she’d experienced it before.  There was the old, familiar whisperings, comforting as ever, slipping over and through her being with their gentle rubberiness.  The sensation of being watched, as always, and knowing what was heard wasn’t her own thoughts; just another day looking at what the authorities of Silvermoon had called “the wrong side of things” when they’d been exiled a couple hundred years back.

The ache in her jaw was new, though.  And… getting worse.  Something was affecting the pressure in the room.  Maybe I should open the door up to the barn, help equalize it?  Ilandreline tried to move but her body wouldn’t respond right.  She tried to talk but nothing came out.  The air felt like molasses, though, and it started to… ooze… into her open mouth in one of the more unpleasant sensations she’d ever encountered.

This is definitely bad, this is going to keep increasing until we pop like overfed ticks.  It wasn’t a comforting thought.  She’d die like she’d lived, though: making bad decisions with dangerously undertested experiments.  Her jaw was being forced wider and wider, until it felt like it was going to pop out of its socket.  Then something did pop and there was a roar like an entire storm’s worth of thunder if it was packed into a giant’s sneeze.

Wetness -- blood?  Probably! -- trickled from her ears, but she could close her mouth again.  She did so, gingerly, rubbing at it.  “Faoh,” she mumbled, unable to make real words quite yet.  Her brain didn’t want to form them, her mouth couldn’t.  She blinked far too often for several minutes before recovering enough to replace the tinted lenses through which she typically viewed the world.

Sentua was still standing, looking… mostly normal.  Maybe slightly dazed; half catatonic?  No more than that, maybe only a quarter.  But she was also grinning like the cat who’d eaten a smaller, weaker cat to gain its feline prowess.

“Ah wubna!” she said in triumph.

“Fwah?” was Ila’s response as she stuck her little finger into an ear, trying to pry loose the inability to understand.  It came back covered in what was definitely blood, possibly with a little extra something she didn’t want to think about too closely.

The ren’dorei worked her jaw a bit, then tried again.  “I did it!”  The words formed right that time, managing to get through the sticky haze in Ila’s ears.  “I don’t know if it worked, but it went off just like we expected it to.”

“Hleva nuhs!”  Frowning, she slapped herself once, then a second time, harder.  Wiggling her jaw from side to side, she formed the words very deliberately.  “Ve...ry… nice.”  Moving over to where the first pocket watch -- more staggered, really, as if she was quite drunk -- Ilandreline examined it.  It looked right.

She turned it just so, opened a back panel to look into the mirrored surface there, checking behind her.  And sure enough, just as she’d hoped, there was the leering grin of a lurking specter, axe poised and with a hungry look in its eyes.  “Hey, fella!  Good to see you again.  We made you portable.”  She laughed, gave a wink that the cursed entity could never see.  “Look out, world!  The Fence Macabre has portable curse detectors now!”

Her new partner came to look over her shoulder and practically jumped out of her skin.  Sentua glanced hurriedly back to the real world then into the gleaming silvered expanse.  “This… this is what you were trying to do?”

“Absolutely!”

“But… why?”

Ilandreline just stared for a moment.  She didn’t understand why people kept asking that.  It was clearly a great idea.  “Because why wouldn’t you want to be able to see what kind of horrific spirits are lurking in an area?  This is a much more portable form of the curse, one that can be replicated multiple times using the demiplanar transpositionalities we derived, augmented through a series of linking and magnifying matrices.  So long as I keep at least half of the original gears in the grandfather clock, I can use the rest to create portable horror viewers!”

Sentua stared at her for rather a long time.  It got awkward.  Eventually she shrugged, though, which was probably for the best.  “Well, as long as you’re happy and it works, I guess that’s good enough for me!  I think I’m gonna go home and sleep, though, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, absolutely.  Get your rest, that was probably pretty draining.”  She grinned, squeezed the young elf in a one-armed hug.  “And be proud!  You did great.”

“Thanks!  I… don’t know if replicating a curse into multiple other objects was what I thought I’d be doing, but at least it confirmed our theories.”  She grinned weakly, then stumbled off to the designated teleportation corner, keying one of her completion-tokens to zap her back home.

Ilandreline kept turning the pocket watch over, chuckling.  It didn’t tell time worth a damn, but she didn’t care about that.  It had worked.  And she was going to be published again for that work, damn it, preferably somewhere that would absolutely irritate her parents to no end.

Truly, she was living her best life, and it was all thanks to the Fence.

[prettylittlebrownskingyal]

I Need A Favor ✨

Damian Wayne x Reader.

Request: Can I please request # 11 (“my mom keeps setting me up, so i need you to pretend to be my boyfriend.”) from the fake dating trope prompts with Damian Wayne?

Notes: Don’t we all know an asshole like Chad? Requests still open!

Warnings: a male character that overlooks consent.

Prompt List Here.

 “I need a favor.”

You don’t know what exactly made you think it was a good idea to ask him. Maybe it was because he seemed to be the most suitable person to stump all of your mother’s prying questions, or maybe it was because you had known him long enough that he wouldn’t judge you for asking for this particular favor amongst friends. Or perhaps, and this seemed most likely, it was because asking him to fake date you was easier to do than confess your actual feelings to him.

“What is it?” he asks, book shutting with a snap. He always looked at you so intensely, it made you long to peer into his brain and see what he was thinking.

“You’re not going to be thrilled. Er…it’s kind of mundane.” You tried very hard to return his stare, to maintain level contact with his eyes but as a dark eyebrow went up in intrigue, you felt an immense desire to sit down, legs buckling a little. He was so effortlessly striking.

“If it doesn’t involve matters of life or death, I’m sure Grayson or Todd would be happy to assist you,” he says nonchalantly with a brief flicker of a grin, swinging his legs back up on the table and resuming his reading.

Just spit it out, you chastise yourself. How hard is it to just ask for a favor? It was Damian after all, he would never tease you about it. Besides, he was right. If he declined, Tim or Dick would be nice enough to help you out. In fact, you were sure even Jason wouldn’t mind, although that might just make your mother even more insistent on picking out your new boyfriend. You take a deep breath and his eyes flick up to you as you exhale, mouth quirking in amusement.

“My mom keeps setting me up, so i need you to pretend to be my boyfriend,” You say in one quick breath. Thankfully, Damian doesn’t laugh but he doesn’t look compliant either.

“And why me?”

You look down at the rug, moving a foot from left to right as though you were coaxing the earth to open up and swallow you whole. Why him? Because you had undeniable feelings for him that ran so deep that you were sure his name was written across your heart, imprinted in your bones and weaved into your soul.

Instead you say, “If it’s you, she won’t ask questions. She knows you’re a private person.” You unwittingly move around the table to sit next to him on the other side. His body heat radiates off him in waves and you feel a little light headed when he leans in towards you. He doesn’t say anything, just stares.

“Please Damian,” you start when the silence becomes too overwhelming. “Please, please pl--”

“Alright I’ll do it.”

“You will?”

“Yes. We’re friends are we not? I do not appreciate watching you suffer,” his smile is as warm and genuine as his words. Your stomach swoops and you feel a little dizzy but you manage to stutter out a thanks. “Plus, Talia has been doing the same to me.

November marked the beginning of the new financial year in Gotham city and as the chill of October bled into the frigid cold that meant autumn was at its peak; Gotham City’s elite prepared for the season where summer luncheons and October masquerades seamlessly shifted into dinner parties and extravagant galas under the glow of twinkling lights.

You and Damian had agreed on simple terms. At the next major gala of Gotham’s elite that Wayne Enterprises was set to host, you’d introduce him to your mother as your boyfriend; claim that it was a new relationship which would shut down her quest of finding you a life partner, and after that you’d both slink of to do whatever you wished.

Except, as most plans go, things went awry pretty much at the start at the evening. Damian had gotten caught up in a mission with Jason and had texted you several times to apologize but promise that he’d be there, he’d just be a little late, which didn’t seem that bad. Until you had arrived and your mother warned you to be on your best behavior before immediately ambushing you with three potential suitors all at once; a pretty blonde named Celeste who was fun to hang out with but quietly ran off to another party when her parents weren’t looking, Jeremy, who barely even glanced your way most of the night, instead spending most of his name stalking off to take heated phone calls and Chad, whose father was an accountant at Wayne Enterprises, and who was very clearly on steroids. He spent most of the evening regaling you of tales of his lacrosse victories and drinking a continuous stream of champagne.

You feigned interest valiantly. Across the room, your mother caught your eye and mouthed “Smile. Act more interested.” You briefly contemplated jumping off the nearby balcony, deciding against it because it was very likely that one of the Bat-kids would swoop in to rescue you, the bastards. But as the evening wore on, Damian absence seemed to tear a hole in your heart. You couldn’t help but wonder if this was his way of backing out of the plan. Perhaps it made him too uncomfortable to fake that kind of interest in you? You didn’t blame him. But it still stung.

As Chad reminded you that he was the star player of his team for what seemed like the millionth time, you noticed that he was invading more and more of your personal space with each flute of champagne. Something akin to bile began to rise in your throat as his arm slipped from your shoulder to your lower back, dangerously close to your butt. You fought hard to maintain a neutral expression, but this close the scent of his cologne was suffocating you and you wanted nothing more than to snap his grabby arm and run away. You tried to formulate an excuse in your mind. If you played sick and left early, your mom would just wait until the next gala event to try again and if you out rightly told her to cut it out, she’d get all offended and you’d never hear the end of it.

You briefly succeed in shaking him with the excuse of needing to speak with your mother, whilst he went in search of more drinks. You expected her to at least hear you out but she barely even let you get a word out.

“Go dance with Chad. He seems to be treating you nicely enough.” Yes mother but he’s also been trying to cop a feel all night and I’m not keen on giving him an opportunity, you thought bitterly. To add insult to injury Chad re-appeared with two glasses and an even stronger interest in getting you alone with him. He tugged on your arm, face set in what you assumed to be a pout but much rather looked as though he was constipated.

“Come on. I know you want to. Don’t you want to have some fun?” he slurred into your ear, his fingers digging too tightly into your waist. Bile began to rise in your throat again as you mother nodded approvingly at the sight of you. You couldn’t decide if you were about to be sick or if you were going to burst into tears.

“Come on!” he tried again, a little more forceful this time, “I know you want to.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You can’t be dressed like that and expect me to believe you.” He said arrogantly.

“Excuse me?” you could feel the angry tears threatening to burst like a flooded dam. Regardless of what happened next, even if you broke his nose, you were probably going to start crying. You felt so trapped and overwhelmed. Hurt enveloped you like a blanket; your perfect plan in ruins, your mother refusing to save you from the clutches of a creep and said creep becoming increasingly agitated by your rejection of his advances.

And just when you thought all was lost, when you thought your only option came down to violence, Damian appeared through the grand doors, looking like an angel of salvation in a suit. His dark hair was artfully tousled, one single strand falling across his forehead just so. His skin looked a little wan and he had dark circles under his eyes but he marched towards you with purpose, adjusting his blazer and fixing Chad with a dangerous leer. You didn’t miss the way his jaw ticked or his fists clenched. He played the part of the jealous boyfriend really well.

“Oh thank God, you made it,” you say, walking towards him, positively delighted to let him rescue you, “I was just hmph-”

And then he was kissing you; it was something fierce and primal and a little desperate on your part. His lips were warm and his pink mouth is just as soft as you had imagined it to be. Your hands slid into his hair as he licked into your mouth and when he’d kissed you thoroughly breathless, he pulled away from you slowly with his eyes closed as though the lack of air had made him a little intoxicated.

“Sorry I’m late beloved,” he says, smoothing his thumbs gently across your cheeks.

“It’s ok.” You stutter the words out softly as your head spins; you want him to kiss you again and then again and then forever.

“Who’s your friend?” he asks incredulously, head jerking in Chad’s direction

You bite back a satisfied smile at Chad’s obvious horror, forcing yourself to keep your words pleasant you say, “This is Chad, his dad’s an accountant for your dad, Dami.”

“Oh, really? And in all the years of your father having that position, did he never find the time to teach you about being a decent human being you irreverent leech? You were turned down multiple times and you kept trying to force her. I sure hope that you don’t usually behave like that and I sure hope your father can still be proud of you when he learns of your behaviour here this evening.” You’ve never heard Damian talk like that before. Usually his anger is biting and fierce, but his tone now is calm, only dangerously slow. You feel it necessary to keep a palm against his chest, tethering him to you.

“He’s right. I’d like an apology.”

He stutters out a sorry with wide eyes and a slack jaw and the turns away as fast he can. You make a mental note to ask Barbara to run a background check on him before turning back to Damian.

“How long have you been watching Damian?”

“Long enough .”

Still wrapped in his arms, you lean up on your toes to look directly into his eyes. They still sparkled brightly with amusement, hazel/green pools that were flecked with bits of honey-gold told you that his anger had subsided. You both let the moment linger unequivocally enthralled by each other. His nose brushes against yours and as your breaths mingle; his minty and yours smelling of champagne, he leans in to close the distance and capture you into another kiss.

“Is my mother looking?” you say against his chin once you’ve pulled away.

“Yes,” he says, his voice hoarse. It’s one word but it sounds so delicious that you shiver against him.

“Good. Thank you Damian, you’re the best fake boyfriend ever. I owe you one,” you whisper into his neck.

“Actually, I need to ask you for a favour,” he tilts your chin up, pinning you with his gaze, “Forgive me, but I lied before. I didn’t agree to this just because we’re friends, or because my mother is setting me up; TT she couldn’t care less. I agreed to this, because I could no longer conceal my feelings for you.”

He loosens his arms around you, taking your palms gently into his as you stare at him with confusion written all over your face.

“I said yes because I thought this would make it easier for me to ask. Would you…”

“Yes.”

“You don’t even know what I was about to say, beloved,” he smiles, brilliantly.

“I don’t care Dami. Just keep calling me that and keep kissing me.”

He complies.

[shawmato]

Boy Trouble (dad shawn/fluff)

Requested: I'd love an imagine, where Shawn's daughter brings her first boyfriend home and he gets all protective and stuff, that'd be so cute. 

credit to @sourshawn for the gif

“Shawn, honey, you need to relax” I said, placing my hands on his shoulders from behind.  “I am relaxed,” he huffed.  I rested my cheek against his back and looked up at his flustered face. “Shawn,” you sighed. “The vein.” We both knew a vein in his neck became prominent when he felt on edge. He sighed in defeat, “I guess I can’t lie then.” I smiled, wrapping my arms around his torso and squeezing him gently. He pushed my arms away and turned round to face me as he leaned against the kitchen counter. A smile flashed across his face, “I just-” the smile vanished in a blink of an eye before he said, “Don’t like boys.” 

He brushed his hands through his hair, something he did without realising when he was nervous.  I shook my head and couldn’t help but smile, “You just don’t like boys near your daughter. In particular you don’t like this boy, Dylan.” Shawn shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t have to let him in” he muttered as he placed his hands on my waist and pulled me in to him.  I pressed my hands against his chest, “If you do that, we will probably never see our daughter again.”

Shawn’s knee bobbed up and down in time with the ticking of the clock as 13:00 reared it’s ugly head. “Shawn, you haven’t been this agitated since you met my parents” I said, gripping his knee as we sat side by side on the sofa. Before Shawn could look in my direction, the sound of a key being put in the door caused his head to snap in the opposite direction. He pushed himself off the sofa and strided towards the door. I scurried behind him, just in time to greet Melanie and her boyfriend Dylan.  “Oh,” Melanie said as she froze at the sight of us. “Hi guys,” she laughed nervoulsy as she stepped in, revealing a tall lad behind her.  He looked nothing like Shawn, but at the same time there were similarities.  One of his hands was shoved in coat pocket, the other was fiddling with the rim of his sleeve. The scent of aftershave was enough to intoxicate someone, you could tell he had re-applied some before walking up to the door. He did some sort of curtsy as I extended my hand for him to take. And then I witnessed his face turn a new shade of pale as he shook Shawn’s had.  He was Shawn all over, he was the Shawn who met my parents for the first time. 

I shook my head to knock myself out of the daze I had fallen into, just in time to realise Shawn was beginning to interogate the poor boy. I hurried over to Shawn’s side and pulled on his arm slightly.  Melanie glared at me, “Dad, enough with the questions.” Everyone except Shawn exchanged awkward laughter. “I’m surprised you don’t have your little notebook to write his answers in,” Melanie joked as she placed her arm round Dylan’s. Shawn showed a half smile, and whether it was intentional or not, his eyes didn’t leave Dylan alone. It was silent for a few seconds, so I jumped in. “Why don’t we go through to the kitchen?” Melanie hurried to escort Dylan away from Shawn. As if his feet were stuck to the floor, I had to tug his arm to get him to follow us.  “I don’t like him,” he whispered into my ear. “Not one bit.”  “Do you prefer tea or coffee Dylan?” I asked softly as I opened the cupboard door and glanced over in their direction.  Like a horror movie, Melanie and Dylan were sat at the breakfast bar with Shawn standing not too far behind like a shadowed figure waiting to pounce on their prey. Dylan mumbled something, but I was too busy glaring at Shawn.  “Sorry Dylan, what was that?” “He likes Green Tea,” Melanie sighed as she jumped down from the stool. “I’ll do it.”  I smiled as I walked passed them both, but it dropped from my face as I headed for Shawn. “You’re being ridiculous now” I said in a hushed tone.  “I’m telling you (y/n),” he said, narrowing his eyes. “There’s something about him.”  “Oh really,” I said as I placed my hands on my hips. “And what might that be Shawn?” He shook his head slowly, “I don’t know.” 

It had been a couple of hours since we first met Dylan, and I had retreated to my bedroom once I felt it was safe enough to leave the without supervision. And by supervision, I meant supervising Shawn.  I went downstairs to grab a glass of water and found Shawn leaning against the doorframe to the living room. I peered round and saw the back of Melanie and Dylan as they sat and played a video game.  Shawn glanced down at me and then pulled me into his side, rubbing his hand against my arm.  “He’s clearly letting her win,” he whispered. “And the poor guy has been running back and forth getting Mel drinks and snacks. He’s besotted with her.” I looked up at his face, and it was serene. His jaw was no longer tense, nor did his eyes appear dark.  “I’ve figured out what it is I don’t like about him,” he said. I rolled my eyes, knowing it was too good to be true to think he actually liked Dylan. “And,” I whined, nudging against his body.  “He reminds me of me when I was his age.” I paused before responding, “So. You were a dream, you never put a foot wrong. Even my dad said so.” “I know, I know” Shawn said, squeezing my arm as his still remained on the kids. “But that’s what terrifies me.” “Why?” I asked, suddenly feeling concerned. Shawn looked down at me, sadness creeping it’s way into his eyes.  “Because I will no longer be her number one guy. Something better has come along. Dad won’t be number one anymore. And she is now no longer just my number one, as well as you of course” he kissed the top of my head.  I watched him as he looked back over at Melanie, expressing some kind of loss.  “She’s his number one too.”

[gabriellapatterson-blog]

Help me Obi-Ben-Lukeobi, you’re my only hope.

A/N: Thanks for the RP @benjaminschreave

I paced back and forth in my room after dance classes in panic. Crap I still suck so much at this. I’m gonna seem like a moron when it’s the actual ball. Suddenly I got an idea. I grabbed a note paper and scribbled out a message and had my maid Ruby deliver it.

Suddenly there was a knock on my door, “Obi-Ben-Lukeobi?” I heard Ben ask. It seemed he had gotten my SOS ‘Help me Obi-Ben-Lukeobi, you’re my only hope.’

“Oh! My only hope is here!” I walked over to my door with a smirk, “Your name has both Ben and Luke in it. It was asking for a star wars joke.”

“Very unfortunate choice on my parent’s part.” He said with a small smile and leaned against my door frame, “So what do you need my help with?” He asked.

“Oh right.” I looked back into my room for a moment to be sure that I had put away his birthday present which was still a work in progress. Hopefully he wouldn’t be able to smell it. I then opened the door fully, “You can come in. I need help dancing. I'm not sure if you've noticed but I'm not the most graceful person.” I explained.

He raised an eyebrow, “Seriously? I always thought you were the epitome of poise and grace.” He asked as he followed me inside.

I gave some quick finger guns and did a click of my tongue for a sound effect, “You'd be wrong. Meet Mr cuddles.” I said then gestured to my teddy bear who sat on my bed.

“and photos.” I added and motioned to my desk which was temporarily cluttered with photos from home that I hadn’t found a better place for.

He seemed to be holding back a grin as he walked over to Mr Cuddles. “I'm surprised Mr. Cuddles made the trip out here.”

“Be careful with him he's old. And Emma tried to stop him from coming but I persisted. I named him when I was three. It's very original, right?” I joked.

He set down Mr cuddles carefully, “Not quite as original as Mr. Rock, but I'll give you points for trying.” He replied with a half smirk.

I gave a quick laugh, “Mr Rock?” I asked with a smirk.

“Is it safe to assume that was a pet rock?”

“From a very fine collection. None compares.” He answered seeming a bit proud of his rocks.

I chuckled, “Do you still have this 'mighty fine collection'?”

He pressed his lips together as he seemed to think back to remember where his rocks were, “Stowed away somewhere.” He chuckled to himself, “My dad promised he’d take care of them.” Oh no. That normally means they were thrown away.

“I'm sure it's a difficult task, him taking care of your pet rocks. Y'know, since they're such demanding creatures.” I joked and rolled my eyes.

“They need to be placed very precisely and make sure to get enough sunlight. Important creatures.” He went along with it.

“Oh, I had no idea. Aren't you worried about damage from the UV rays?” I asked deciding to keep going along with this.

“They’re rocks.” He answered bluntly. Wow. Just gonna make a fool of me like that, Schreave? Cruel.

I chuckled, “Well now I feel silly thinking that rocks could get skin cancer.” I rolled my eyes for a moment before deciding to get us back on task.

“So, dancing?”

He gave a small laugh and nodded, “Dancing.” He then opened his phone and started to play some old classical music, “So what do you know?” He asked. A lot less than I should.

“So I'm pretty sure falling is not advised. You also should not twerk as the cool kids call it.” I answered.

“Both of these things would be frowned upon at a ball. I guess the first thing I can teach you will be a basic waltz.” He said and stepped closer to me and took one of my hands.

“We’ll be holding these out while your other goes on my shoulder, alright?”

“Alright. Good thing I can reach your shoulder, giant.” I said and placed my other hand on his shoulder.

He scoffed a bit at my comment, “I’ll choose to ignore the giant comment in light of me being your only hope.”

“Thank you oh great, obi-ben luke-canobi. Alright, what do I do now?” I asked.

“The basic count to the music is 1-2-3. I’ll lead and we just time our steps to that.” Great. This is where I mess up, they have to throw math into moving.

“Okay that's confusing.” I mumbled but tried to go along with him and clearly struggled as I focused all of my attention on my feet looking down at them. Ben stopped us after a moment, “Alright, so follow my steps and I’ll count out loud.” He said and tried to go again.

“Alright, alright okay. I think I'm doing okay. I haven't fallen or stepped on you.” I said allowed mostly to calm myself down since I was doing fine. It’s not like not being great at dancing was the worst thing on the planet. There are other things I’m bad at and that’s fine, dancing is just a new addition to the list.     

“I won’t let you fall. And my feet can handle being stepped on.” He said with a chuckle.

“Are you sure about that, Schreave. Are you really really sure? I'm in heels.” I said with full seriousness.

He looked down at me with the same level of serious, “The most important decision I'll ever make in my life.” Wow I’m sure. Out of his whole life this is the most important decision.

“Alright, Schreave. But I warned you. So even now they still play these songs at balls, I would think they would have gotten to like rap music by now.” Like shouldn’t time have made those old rap songs the classics by now?

“They do play cool young people music every so often. Waltzes are mostly to appease the older generation.” He answered.

I rolled my eyes, “Soon the older generation will need some dubstep to settle their nerves.” Give it time. I bet you.

“And you'd be the lucky Selected to introduce that to them?”

“Sure. Then they would force you to get rid of me so they'd never have to sit through the horrors of intense drops again.” I laughed at the idea of the outrage over dubstep.

“They'd adjust.” He said and suddenly twirled me which caused me to giggle. “Intense. Do people ever twirl you?” I asked when we were back together. It was fun to be twirled so I couldn’t help but wonder if Ben got that thrill.

“Not particularly.” He answered quickly with an amused and curious look. Hmmm, well given our heights I can not currently twirl him. My arm wouldn’t be able to reach. I looked around and got an idea. “hmmm....well. It's difficult to twirl a giant. makes sense.” I said before going to my desk and pulling a chair over. I stood up on the chair and took his hands again and gave him a twirl.

He laughed and looked up at me once the twirl finished, “Is this how I'm supposed to dance with you from now on?”

“Yup. I just stand on a stool. Twirl you the whole time.” I replied sarcastically with an amused look myself.

“We'd definitely make a statement.” He said before putting his hands on my waist and helping me get back down to a normal height.

“It'd be like a performance benny boy and gabby girl, the giant and the amazing, do the twirl.”

“We could go on tour.”

“Make millions so you can buy more rocks. Or better get a rock sitter to help your dad.”

“He really could use the help.” He said soberly.

I chuckled a bit, “Yeah must be tough being both a king and a carer of the rocks. Clearly the rock are the heavier load though.” That was the best pun I have ever made and it just gets glossed over.

“They're much prettier though.” Prettier than being king. I’m not sure how you compare the aesthetics of those.

“Are they cool rocks? I was picturing just a bunch of black sones.”

“I had a very diverse collection. Obsidian, igneous, sedimentary.” He ticked off the classes on his fingers with a wide smile. Gosh darn why does he have to be so cute. It was cute to see him so excited about his collection.

“Okay, so we went over those in seventh grade so I don't really remember what those mean. Can you explain them?” I asked. I recognized the name and even knew that sedimentary was the one with layers but that was as far as my memory went.

“Obsidian is a type of igneous rock, volcanic glass formed from lava. Sedimentary can be different types, mostly rock formed from the earth like the typical grey ones or sandstone maybe.”

“The volcano rocks sound cool! They're like hardcore badasses of the rocks.” I replied pretty astounded myself. Those cheap cool things always got me, like fools gold. I am the fool it was meant for. I assume Obsidian rocks are fairly common but they sound so cool.

He gave a short laugh, “I thought similarly as a kid.”

“Do you still not think the same way? I mean they seem pretty cool. Cooler than the rest.” I asked.

“No, I still like them. Just a different imagination from when I was younger.” He answered. Emma had said before I could be a bit kiddish on certain fronts. I suppose rocks was one of them. I just thought cool things were cool.  

“I suppose that makes sense. Have you ever gone back and re watched a movie that you used to like praise as cinema gold?” I asked suddenly remembering one way I had grown up.

“Do the Power Rangers count?” He asked.

“I never actually saw those. But I wanted to say that I did recently rewatch one of my favorites, it was teenage mutant ninja turtles it really bummed me out to see that it wasn't as good as I remembered. Adulting takes the fun out of things sometimes.”

“Even now it feels like the in between of adulting.”

I chuckled and looked up at him, “I get what you mean.” I mean I was living at home and still being cared for all the while I was stressing about my future occupation and trying to figure that out. Even now I can still find the kid in me to make twirling jokes and find rocks cool but we’re here as a trial run to marriage and to see who can be a capable queen. Even as legit kids we still dealt with adult things Emma was dealing with Anorexia, I was trying to be a strong older sister for my siblings while things at home fell apart with Riley and mom. Nina was...just a mess. It’s odd that we can still have times where we act like such kids even though the outside pressures are ones only adults should really deal with.

I looked up at Ben after the thought, “Should we try dancing again, Obi-ben-luke-canobi?” I asked to move along. I offered a hand and smirked a bit at the name.

“Probably. Need to make you into a dancing jedi, young padawan.” He replied. I chuckled a bit as we resumed dance practice.

[coffeefairy]

Partners - Chapter 6

Thanks to everyone who has shown this story so much love recently, it’s been super inspiring to see you’re enjoying! In recognition, here’s chapter six! If you need to catch up, start from the beginning here

         Title: Partners

Fandom: Once Upon a Time

Pairing: Red Cricket and tiny bit of Rumbelle, mentions of Swanfire, Snowing and Mad Whale.

Rating: Not for kiddies. Mentions of violence and darker themes.

Plot: Cop!Archie and FBI Agent!Ruby AU. When Special Agent Ruby Lucas is  assigned to lead a taskforce to assist the Boston Police Department she  is not immediately impressed with her new partner, Detective Archie  Hopper. But first impressions can be misleading and sometimes opposites  can be the best match.

As the next week passed, Archie would find that more and more evenings, Ruby would come to his place after work. Though she hadn’t said, he got the impression she disliked her hotel room. He found he didn’t mind having her around. She had an innate feeling for how to put him at ease and he couldn’t deny it was nice to have another person around. Pongo enjoyed it as well, finding a new friend in Ruby. So most days they when they finished, they’d go to his place, cook together or order in. Sometimes they read, the agent taking advantage of his well-stocked bookshelf, or watch a movie. She’d introduced him to Netflix and they’d spent a few evenings bingeing on a whole season of some show or other.

He learned a bit more about her, finding out she adored Thai food, liked historical novels and preferred horror movies. Her i-Pod collection contained a lot of names he didn’t know but found he mostly didn’t mind. When she was off duty she liked to pull her hair into a messy ponytail and lounge around in her sweats. And she didn’t snore. The first time she’d stayed over they had been going over the case until late and she had fallen asleep on the couch. He hadn’t had the heart to wake her, knowing full well how little she already slept, so he’d put a blanket over her and let her stay. Now she’d remain a few times a week, cuddling with Pongo who was delighted to have someone allowing him to sleep on their bed.

The proximity, day and night, at work and at home, made them comfortable with each other, growing close at a pace Archie had never experienced before. He was normally slow to trust, a result of his fractured childhood, but the link to Ruby had been as quickly forged as it seemed unbreakable. It surprised him, and it surprised him it didn’t bother him more. They had to be naturally suited to be partners.

It was a Saturday, one they had decided to not go into the office for, and rain was drizzling outside, pattering against the window. Ruby was wearing a big woolly jumper, leggings and thick socks, a cup of tea in her hands and a case file open on her lap.

Working on his laptop across from her, he was contemplating a break. They could re-heat some of the food from last night, maybe read something fun for a while after. Rest their brains.

Then Ruby put the file aside, stood. With her tea cup in her hands, she looked out the window for a minute, turned away. Paced, then returned to the window. Sensing there was something she wanted to say, he just waited.

“You’ve never asked why...Why I am the way I am.”

“What way do you mean?” “Don’t play ignorant. I know people find me...cold. Distant.”

“I don’t think you’re cold, Ruby.”

“No?” She gave a mirthless laugh.

“No. I think you’re reserved. I think you…” he weighed his words carefully. “I think you were hurt and you’re trying not to be again.”

She smiled humorlessly and looked out the window. “Almost. I hurt someone. And I’m trying not to do it again.”

“How do you mean?”

She edged to sit on the windowseat, her knee bent and almost touching her chin.

“I...I was in the Army, I don’t know if you know.”

He nodded. “It was in your file.”

“Right.” She looked away and sipped her tea. “I did two tours. There was...I don’t know, I don’t think you can explain what it was like.”

He didn’t interrupt or prod and she relaxed a little.

“In my platoon there was a man...A man I cared for. A man I...loved. Peter.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “It was against regs, he was under my command but we...we didn’t care. It was love at first sight. Nothing else mattered.”

Archie shifted in his seat, wanting to reach out to comfort her. But he knew there was nothing he could say. He could hear in her voice Peter wasn’t in the world anymore.

“He..died. He died because of me.”

She looked out the window again and knowing she wouldn’t be comfortable with him getting closer, Archie tried to stifle the impulse to hold her in his arms.

“It was my fault.” She drew a deep breath. “We had orders. We were in enemy territory and we had clear instructions. Peter did everything he should. But I...I saw a child. A little girl. She was just standing there and I couldn’t help it. I went to save her. I put the whole squad in danger. Risked our hold in the region. Peter, he...he covered me when he saw it and because of it he was caught in the the crossfire. He was just 23.”

Seconds ticked by and Archie waited for Ruby to come back from the memories that had taken her. In a few minutes she looked at him for the first time since she started the story, her eyes glittering and the gaze tortured by guilt.

“Do you think I’m a monster? Do you think I killed the man I loved?”

“No.” Archie stood, walked over to kneel in front of her where she could see him clearly. “No,” he repeated.

“I killed someone.”

Gently he put his hands on her arms. “Ruby, you saved someone. Whoever shot Peter is his killer, not you. You put a little girl first and it’s how it should be.”

“Not for a soldier.”

“Then maybe for a minute you were human first.”

She brushed her hands over her eyes, smudging tear tracks of salt and kohl.

“I just miss him so much, Archie.”

“You’re allowed to, Ruby. You’re allowed to feel.”

Tears fell from her eyes unhindered and Archie didn’t hesitate to wrap her in his arms for a hug. She sank against him until they sat on the floor, rocking her gently. He didn’t know for how long they sat, with him holding her, just stroking his hand over her back, her hair, mumbling gently. But slowly her sobs subsided and faded into shaky sighs. He loosened his hold and she wiped tears from her cheeks.

“I’m...sorry about that. I don’t know what got into me.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Ruby.”

“I’ve cried more since I met you than I have in the last five years.”

“I’m glad.”

“You’re glad?” She blinked.

“Wait, that’s not what I…” Colour crept up his cheeks. “I meant, I’m glad you feel comfortable enough with me, Ruby. It’s...I’m happy we’re friends, is what I’m trying to say.”

She relaxed and a small smile shone through the tears like the sun peeking through mist.

“Me too.”

o.O.o

When Emma had heard his evenings now included Ruby, she’d not wanted to take no for an answer until he brought her. Knowing full well his previous partner wouldn’t give in until he took her around, he’d caved easily. Arguing with Emma was like beating your head against a wall anyway.

So he promised to ask Ruby.

Predictably, she wasn’t thrilled with the idea.

“Dinner? With your old partner?”

“Yes, and her husband.”

“But why?” She asked as she sorted through files on her desk.

“Ah…” He didn’t think the fact that Emma wanting to scope her out was an acceptable excuse to anyone but her. So he rephrased. “She’s curious about you.”

“Curious?”

“Yes. Emma’s my best friend. She’s curious about you since we’re friends too.”

Ruby gave him a long unimpressed look that showed exactly how far she believed him.

“Very well. I’ll go, since she’s so interested. But please don’t make me small talk.”

Archie chuckled. “Oh, I promise. Emma detests small talk.”

“Small blessings.”

Now they were standing outside the house and Ruby was quite obviously counting exits, windows and streets leading away. Knowing it helped her with her nerves to rely on her training, he didn’t say anything but rung the doorbell.

o.O.o

The door was opened by a boy of about eight, with straight brown hair, serious eyes and a missing front tooth.

“Hi Archie!” He hugged the detective and smiled so the gap in his teeth winked. “Who are you?” He directed at her.

“I’m Ruby Lucas.”

“Ruby’s my new partn...temporary partner. She’s with the FBI.”

“No way!” The boy was all enthusiasm. “Can I see your badge?”

“Ah...sure.” She took it from her belt and flipped it open.

“Cool! Do you have your gun with you?”

“Henry,” Archie chided softly. “Ruby didn’t bring her gun to dinner.”

“Oh. Okay. That’s fine, we’ve got Mom’s anyway.”

Ruby stifled a chuckle and followed the boy inside. Hanging up her coat, a blonde woman she recognised as Emma Swan came into the hall. They’d met before so Ruby summoned a dutiful smile.

“Did you ask who it was before you opened the door?” Emma directed at her son, putting a hand to his shoulder.

“No. Did you invite some murderers to dinner with us?” The boy grinned and ducked under her hand.

The blonde chuckled and shook her head before directing her attention to the two arrivals.

“Archie. Ruby. Welcome, come on in.”

Ruby had no problem hearing the warmth in Emma’s voice when she said Archie’s name and the cool reserve then she said hers. The two of them are friends, she reminded herself. It was completely normal she was a bit suspicious of Ruby, especially since she was Archie’s partner now. Temporary partner, she reminded herself.

“Thank you. Here, for you,” she handed Emma a bottle of wine. “I wasn’t sure what you like but hopefully it’s okay.”

“Oh, thanks. I’m sure it’ll be great. Come on in and meet everybody.”

“Everybody?” Ruby hissed under her breath as she and Archie followed Emma into the next room.

Archie shrugged in reply and Ruby made a mental note to get him back. She should have expected a friend ambush. It had have been too long since she spent any time with friends if she’d forgotten anyone possibly becoming part of the group had to be put through a trial period.

They entered a kitchen-living room, the kitchen part to the left with a dining area behind it. To the right was a homey living room and den. Decorated in bright colours it was warm and welcoming.

“Everyone, this is Ruby, Archie’s new partner,” Emma said and the people in the room fell silent.

Emma turned to Ruby, pointing the guests out in turn. “In the back there is my son Henry who probably didn’t introduce himself because we’re really behind on his manner classes. August, Marco’s son and Grace, Jefferson and Percy’s daughter.”

The children waved in between laughs and whooping at some videogame they were playing on mute in the den.

“There’s Marco, he’s Archie’s first partner, he’s retired now,” she nodded to the older man. “And over there is David Nolan, the captain of the force, currently my partner, and his wife Mary Margaret. She’s a primary school teacher. Next to them is Jefferson Madden, he’s in Vice, and his husband, Percy Whale, one of our MEs. Slaving away in the kitchen there is my house boy, Neal Cassidy.” They all greeted her in turn as Emma spoke their names and Ruby felt like the new kid in class.

“Now that I’ve told you all the names, can I get you a drink so you forget them?”

“Please.”

Ruby had been prepared to have a bad time, had told herself it was just one night of her life. She could manage. To her surprise, she didn’t have a bad time. The people Archie surrounded himself with were funny and warm, all interested in her and how she was finding her time in Boston. She found Emma’s husband funny and relaxed, liking his easy going attitude and cheeky grin. The ME, Percy Whale, was intelligent and sharp, with a biting sense of humour that had her laughing out loud more than once. The children were all outgoing and friendly and she thought she scored some points with Emma by sitting down and thrashing her only son in Halo.

The second thing she noticed, after realizing she was enjoying herself, was that all the couples were so...together. From the dinner conversation she’d found out all of them had been together for a good number of years and still, she saw all of them being so...joined. Not that they were excessively lovey dovey, but they all had something intangible between them that declared they were joined. It was in Jefferson Madden’s eyes when he looked at the doctor, in the way Neal smiled when he listened to Emma, in the way the Captain leaned closer to Mary Margaret to mumble something to her. It put a little prick of regret in her stomach, showed her something that had been missing from her life a long time. An empty space that sought to be filled and held.

Archie’s hand was suddenly over hers on the table, catching her attention. Meeting his eyes, seeing them twinkle with warmth, she forgot about the feeling.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she automatically responded. She held his eyes for a little longer and knew it to be the truth. She was okay. “Yes, I am.”

[xaligos]

World of Warcraft: Legion (The Azurian Chronicles) - The Tale of Xaligos [The Help of a Deathlord]

Timeline: Patch 7.0

The hour was nearing night, and the sun had nearly set. Sounds of battle traveled in the air above the Broken Isles. Very few places in the area had managed to remain untouched by the ongoing conflict. Xaligos had assumed yet another guise, one that allowed him to carry out his agendas for the Blueflight openly while in mortal form.

A particular Death Knight had caught his interest - "The Hunter" he was called. A Kaldorei that he had tracked for sometime; that was until the re-opening of the Dark Portal. He had gone missing shortly after, only resurfacing when the Lich King assaulted the Silver Enclave with the Ebon Knights of Acherus, and appearing sporadically afterward.

He had been raised into Undeath and made a servant of the Lich King, Azariah Oakenforest was his name. An ancestor of one of Xaligos' most loyal living Dragonsworn. Though the bond he once held with the undead king was long since broken and the Kaldorei was free to follow his own will. A will that Xaligos' had every intention to direct toward the service of the Blueflight. He had found him traveling with a camp of Ebon Knights in Azsuna. They had showed up to fight against the Legion from what his Dragonspawn had been able to gather. His group had taken residence near some elven ruins near the coast, Xaligos saw his prize, he had great plans for him and destiny would deny him this fierce champion no longer.... 

Feint streams of blue light began to materialize in the air just a few paces in front of the log that the Death Knight had been sitting at. The light flickered in and out like the flashing of fireflies, each time reappearing with clearer image of a humanoid like figure.  Although this process took but a moment, a hooded ‘man‘ now stood silently between the kaldorei and the sea. His posture was relaxed; casual even, as if he had been there the whole the time.... Had he?

  Xaligos did not speak; not at first, choosing merely to wait until he took notice. Azariah's gaze had been situated far out to the sea; to the stillness and silence that the world deceivingly seemed to be standing in. The far off noise of the camp was nothing but a mere chirp. He was all that was there, or so he thought. Magic began to tighten in the air, and Azariah's unmoving azure eyes started to flicker. Undeath had altered his senses but he could never mistake when energies were at work; as the magic at play sept through his necrotic skin, its feeling akin to syrup on the tongue. The hilt of his sword was resting in the palm of his hand, the tip of the blade only just piercing the sand. Xaligos had come into view, he rose to his feet with sword in hand, with his grip only just enough so that it remained as much.

  Tilting his head at Xaligos, the anticipation of what was to come - did not. Instead the silence he had been met with slowly started to drive him to annoyance. As the minute passed, neither one breaking words, Azariah shifted his head back and forth along the coast, his sword arm rising and falling as he spoke.

"Is there something I can help you with?"

His voice was dry and toneless. 

The feint sound of the distant camp might have been the reason Xaligos turned his attention to the general direction of the sound. Whatever the reason, it did not keep his attention for to long before he set it upon the Death Knight once more.

"Azariah Oakenforest.... 'The Hunter', that is what they call you is it not? You've been something of a prize to me, I was vowing to keep my distance from you.... Out of respect for an old friend, but in light of.... " 

Xaligos looked to the sky, various winged creatures could be seen off in the distance. No doubt demons and other monstrosities of the Legion.

  " Well, I'm sure you can see why I would have reason to seek you out now. I've come because I have something to offer you. Whether you wish to take it or not, that is up to you. Though, I will ask for something in return. I am confident however, that you will come to see that what you give will be proportional to what you have to gain....."

His words trailed off slowly, although he had spoke only just loud enough for him to be heard. 

Azariah listened, the flickering lich fire in his eyes suffixed to the cowled stranger. He eyed him slowly at the sound of his name being spoken; shifting when the term 'old friend' was remarked. His head turned away as the man continued to speak, and as the strangers words trailed off, the death knight drank in the silence. The blue flames in his eyes dissipated, and the fallen elven warrior stood poised, yet calm, as the sea drifted in the smells of salt and blood. 

"What is it that you have brought for me?"

  The blue flames in his eyes sparking back to life, refocusing on the 'paladin'. This hooded figure carried a strong presence in both the arcane and the light, surrounding him with a seemingly artificial order. It was a powerful ward, one meant to conceal as well as protect, but conceal what?

"Man that hides himself...."

"You're cautious, I can understand that. A stranger approaches you offering things in the middle of an invasion, surrounded by Demon-"

Suddenly an Alliance carrier flew overhead trailing smoke and fire! Parts scattered across the beach head, most missed Xaligos and the few that came close seemed to dissolve before they could reach him. A near by tree caught fire as the carrier flew out of view behind the mountains, but the dragon merely watched as the random spectacle occurred, with a calmness not all to different from the one displayed by the Death Knight. They were at a Warzone afterall, such things were bound to happen. 

".... I've brought you an invitation to make something more out of your Undead life. For now, if you need a name simply call me 'Herald'. I come representing the Blue Dragonflight. We have need of your strength."

The carrier drew the death knights attentions upward. As the carrier came crashing down throwing chunks about, he tensed his sword arm and waited; but nothing had come near, and so his attention drew back to 'The Herald' as he spoke. 

Azariah huffed. 

"What is your invitation? Speak. " 

His voice starting to draw in a harder tone.

A very pleased smile appeared on Xaligos' face at the moment Azariah reached for his sword.

"My invitation is an invitation into the Blue Dragonflight. A life of service to those chosen by the Titans to protect this world. A life helping us to keep the horrors of the afterlife realms in control. Realms that your; state, have given you influential insight on..."

A feint chuckle escaped the Dragon Lord. 

"All in all, the well being and survival of our family will become of prime importance. Though I promise you, those that serve the Blueflight are well rewarded."

The Elf ticked his head to the side somewhat dramatically, just before raising his sword arm up as if gesturing towards him with the blade pointed out his side.

"Let me get this straight, you want me to join the Deler," 

he said fluidly in elvish, 

"In order to protect your Dieb?"

Xaligos gave a single confirming nod 

"Yes. Serve our Brood well and you will find your existence better off for it. You could say no, return to what you were doing, but understand that this -is - an offer. I present to you a gift, the chance to forever connect yourself to line of beings birthed from the heart of Azeroth. We were casting spells before your kind crawled out of caves. Yet, we were made guardians of this world not to gloat or horde our power, but to share it.... Power that could be yours, all that it requires is loyalty. "

Azariah lowered his sword arm, and took one step closer. He stopped, eyes shifting along the man's form once more. 

"The hidden one wishes my loyalty in exchange for giving me powers?"

 A mock question filled with amusement. 

“If what you say is true, I would be a thero’shan.” 

He dipped his head, setting his left arm to chest; holding it there for a mere second before lifting his eyes back up. 

“But if what you say is false, Ana’duna thera.”

"You will find no lies here Azariah. In time you will come to see how this was all meant to be. That destiny has been putting this off for just the right time, and that time is now. I must depart however, but before I go I will leave you with something to help secure your trust. Come closer.."

Azariah shook his head. 

"You know where to find me, come back, Mush'a. " 

As he spoke, Azariah took a step back and lowered himself so that he might rest upon the log once more, eyes still glued upon the man who called himself 'The Herald'. The Dragon let out a sigh. He couldn't blame him for his defensiveness, still he needed the Death Knight to trust him

"May you keep such caution when dealing with matters for the Blueflight. Still, I would not have come here and told you of whom I serve just to harm you here and now. Do I appear as one to waste my time dealing with but a single death knight? However important that individual may or may not be...."

'The Herald' paused for a moment.

"It's better if I don't say it out-loud, you'll understand once I give it to you. Give a little trust here and it will be returned in-kind."

Xaligos reached out his hand.

"Come."

The Kaldorei sat there, for sometime - a long time. Much longer than he should have for such an easy and simple command. At last he let his voice carry in a way that seemed unnatural for the elf. And truly, he seemed to spat the words out, demonstrating modest difficulty speaking them. Draconic was the language and he casually asked,

"Speak and i will come."

Reaching out toward the sky with one of his palms the Brood Lord began to channel magics. Drawing on the energies from the unseen amounts permeating all around them, he proceeded to bend these ethereal forces to his will. Now channeling these powers inside of him he expelled them forth. Spherical waves pulsated from his body in methodical intervals toward every direction; holy and arcane magic was being dispersed into their surrounding area.

  "You cannot muster enough trust to come closer, and I can't trust that we are safe enough to disclose this out loud. If there is anyone watching, we will soon find out...." 

The spell had been intended to reveal that which was hidden. The Dragon's of the blue flight had become very proficient at ensuring their positions were secure, Xaligos perhaps more so than most of his kin. Azariah fell silently still as he watched the magic being channeled. Though detecting no one, the blue dragon slowly lowered his hand.

"It would seem we are safe... This is still a security risk, but very well. Come here, I intend to teach you the spell needed to teleport to our Brood’s last standing Sanctum."

A long gaze fell to the horizon and the sea front, and Azariah soon found himself perching his blade along the back side of his spine; sheathing it. He strode gracefully across the sand to stand just a mere foot away from the man, gazing down at him, saying nothing - merely awaiting this 'Herald' to act. As the Death Knight drew near and came to a halt, Xaligos slowly raised his hand with an open palm pointed toward him. The foot or so of distance between them was perfect, he was close enough now....

"Hold still, it'll make sense in a moment. 'Drakavos kun’zanith Azu'rein!"

The magical words of power were but the catalyst for the rush of information and energy that worked to enter Azariah's mind. A blue rune appearing just in front of the Elf's forehead. The Death Knight's gaze narrowed slightly just before the words were spoken, and then he stepped back. His head shook, a hand rising to his helmet as he stood there, dazed. A long few second passed before those blue flames flickered back to life and focused on the man.

"Thor falah nor dora,"

He bowed his head and held it there for a moment.

Xaligos was pleased with his apparent change in demeanor. It appeared as though his assumption that the Death Knight would see that he was sincere once the spell was cast proved true. Though, time would tell.

"Guard this knowledge with your life. You hold a vital secret, and this is the first measure of my trust. People will have reason to target you now. My home has been well hidden for a long time, and I wish it to remain that way."

"Alah Anu'dora,"

Xaligos had felt it appropriate to respond with a slow but confirming nod.

"Then we have an understanding. I must take my leave, but I depart entrusting you with a task. There is a particular mortal I want apprehended. A human by the name of Rosemary Fox. She is an outlaw, someone you should be able to take care of with relative ease. Find her, secure her, and once you have - bring her to the Azurelight Sanctum."

"As you wish,"

The Death Knight took a step back and after a moments glance, he turned and began to make his way up the beachhead and toward the camp. Xaligos watched as his new champion in the making departed until he was out of view before taking leave himself.

"The stones are being laid..."

A blue light began to radiate from Xaligos, dim at first but growing in luminescence before peaking out as he dissolved into broken fragments of what might be described as crystallized light. Why did he want this outlaw? What use did a Dragon of the Blueflight have for such an individual, and why send someone as lethal as a Death Knight? Questions that would no doubt have their answers revealed in due time.... 

@alastar-wyatt

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World of Warcraft: Legion (The Azurian Chronicles) - Interlude; The Dragons of Alterac

[digiscreen]

Okay, so in today’s blog I want to address my love and passion and that is, video games. Shocker there, isn’t it? But Josh, what in particular do you want to talk about? Video games are a huge, ever changing and evolving medium, and there’s so much you can possibly cover, how will you ever choose? Well today, I want to approach games from a more textual point of view. We’re going to look at them as if we were looking at them as a film, and in particular, we’re going to look at Naughty Dog’s 2013 release The Last of Us. I am sure that many of you have no doubt heard about this game, and how it has been hailed as an ‘outright masterpiece.’  If you haven’t, don’t worry. I am intentionally leaving things vague for the time being. Just know that it is a story driven game, set in a post-apocalyptic world where zombies roam. Though plenty of narrative heavy games have come before hand, including the Uncharted series, also created and published by Naughty Dog, The Last of Us is a game that truly broke out of the gaming “bubble” and into the cultural zeitgeist. Now there could be several reasons for this; in the years leading up to its release, zombie/post apocalyptic film and television had flooded the market (the superhero boom that is still present today was just beginning to take off) (pardon the pun), with shows like AMC’s The Walking Dead garnering a large amount of attention. It could also be due to the fact that discussions about gaming had started to change and be reshaped. The time of its release (in terms of where consoles were) is also something I personally feel factors into its huge success. Microsoft and Sony were preparing to move into their next generation of consoles (with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 respectively) and so the The Last of Us was a swan song of sorts for the PlayStation 3. But I digress.

Let’s address the claim then, that “given video games are non-linear, does this mean we cannot study them using traditional textual lenses?” Well let’s first establish what traditional textual lenses actually mean in this context. What we’re thinking of here, is the ways in which we would normally analyse film. We’d look at shot composition, mis-en-scene, sound, lighting, camera movements; all the technical aspects that go into what is on the screen in front of you. These are all physical, malleable objects that are based in reality. Jean Douchet posits that filmmakers deserve to be called “great precisely because of their near obsessive focus on capturing reality and respecting it.” They know what is in the real world and what can be accomplished. But what about animation then? David Bordwell notes that the “classical model has adapted itself to different media and technologies, adjusting to the introduction of sound as well as to other technical innovations.” The whole discussion on what film is becomes very blurred when you combine those two mindsets, and that argument only gets more muddled when you bring in something like remediation. This idea that cinema takes old outdated forms and repurposes it when it creates new technologies. However, despite this mess I’ve laid out before you, and despite cinema having evolved so much, we can still break it down to it’s bare form.

Looking at the 1st Academy Awards, the categories Best Director, Best Picture, Best Cinematography and Best Story were present, just like they are today. The core elements are all still there. (Wow that was a much longer break down of that concept than I meant it to be) Thankfully non-linear is a bit easier to define. A film/tv show is linear as you as an audience member are passive in the watching of it. That is to say, you have no control over where it is heading, the story and events have all been shot and edited, and you are just experiencing them. Video games give you control, and despite games (generally) having an established story and path they want you to follow, you are by no means obliged to follow that. We won’t delve into it much further than that, or we end up in some weird reality where by my definition, Candy Crush is a linear story because I know when I play that game I have no control over anything happening in it. Anyway, point is, textual lenses=physical things we can look at in the frame or within the frame of a movie, non-linear= multiple ways of progressing (or not) through a story.

Now, the more traditional elements are not lost in The Last of Us at all. Watch the credits for the game below (fear not, you don’t need to watch them all, just the beginning):

As you can see, the game has two listed a directors, Game Director Bruce Straley, and Creative Director Neil Druckman, who is also the writer. You have visual effects artist Eben Cook, Editor Ryan M James, Composer Gustavo Santaolalla, like any credits scene at the end of a film, the list goes on and on. Now of course this isn’t the strongest argument to say that we can look at games through the same textual lenses as film because they have credits, by that logic if I added a list of names to anything they could be classified as “film;” but I do raise the credits first because I’d hazard a guess that if you’re reading this you hadn’t realised that video games could have directors, or composers, or editors.

So let’s watch the opening of The Last of Us. Remember how I told you not to worry earlier and I left the description of the game vague, now’s the time to fix that. Now just a quick note that there is violence in this clip, as well as horror themes. Nothing too intense, but worth mentioning.

Now this probably hyperbole, but I feel that there are little to no other mediums that establish so much about everything you are about to experience in 15 minutes as well as Naughty Dog has done here. The clock ticking immediately creates a sense of unease, and one of the first things we hear Joel see is “I can’t lose this job.” We know he’s down his luck. The relationship between him and Sarah is established as a loving, playful one, as shown when Sarah gifts her father a nice watch, and his response is to pretend it’s broken, and their subsequent casual discussion of selling drugs. This nicely juxtaposes when Sarah is wandering the house alone looking for Joel. Cold, muted colours now fill the pallet, and bits and pieces begin to frame the world we’re entering (the newspaper report on spiking admittance to hospitals, the news report in the background). When we see Jimmy break through the glass the camera places us behind Joel, with out eye line at his back, really conveying the vulnerability and fear Sarah is now experiencing. As the scene progresses the camera stays linked to Sarah as we control her and begin to experience the world as it descends into chaos. The fear she experiences, as well as the emotional bond between Joel wanting to protect her at all costs, is really conveyed through this introduction to the game. It sets up the protagonist Joel, and gives the player a clear understanding of what he has been through to make him the man he is when the actual game commences some 15 years later. All these emotions, the world building, they’re entirely based of cinema conventions and tropes. A small American suburban town is the originating point of a virus; chaos slowly descending as the military desperately try to contain the outbreak. A father doing everything he can to protect his child. It’s all classical Hollywood, but the story it ultimately tells is one of relationships and family, and it achieves this through perfect uses of camera movement and placement, a well written script, a score that encapsulates the emotional resonances, and fantastic acting from the cast. Markku Eskelinen excellently points out that “outside academic theory people are usually excellent at making distinctions between narrative, drama, and games” and The Last of Us is an excellent example of why those sorts of theories need to be re-worked and re-examined. HOWEVER, with all this being said, the question isn’t about whether we can or cannot apply traditional textual lenses to video games, but is actually whether we should. Eskelinen’s full quote finishes saying “If I throw a ball at you I don’t expect you to drop it and wait until it starts telling stories.” Video Games are a medium of their own, and they will always try borrow from other mediums in doing so. They, like cinema, are constantly remediating themselves, only they have a much larger pool they can remediate from. 2018’s God of War is one single take for the whole thing, and has received praise for how cinematic it is (citation needed) and would be very easy to analyze, much like The Last of Us under a traditional lens, but throw something like Epic Games’ Fortnite, one of the biggest games right now which is being enjoyed by millions of people, in the mix, and there is no chance you can study it under traditional means. In the same way that you wouldn’t study a book on its cinematography, you shouldn’t be assessing a video game under that same guise.  

References: Moriarty, Colin. 2013. "The Last Of Us Review". IGN. https://au.ign.com/articles/2013/06/05/the-last-of-us-review.

Elsaesser., Thomas. 2016. Film History As Media Archaeology: Tracking Digital Cinema. The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press.

Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. 2000. Remediation. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

"The 1St Academy Awards | 1929". 2018. Oscars.Org | Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences. https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1929.

Eskelinen, Markku. 2001. "The Gaming Situation". Game Studies 1 (1). http://gamestudies.org/1801.

Druckman, Neil, and Bruce Straley. 2013. The Last Of Us. Video. Naughty Dog.

[recentanimenews]

Three-Episode Test: Ink's Fall 2017

Welcome to the Three Episode Test, where Ani-Gamers contributors give you the low-down on what they're watching (or not) from the current simulcast season and why.

Garo: Vanishing Line

Streaming on Crunchyroll (sub) and Funimation (dub)

This is the anime I look forward to most each and every week. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never seen any of the other Garo anime thus far or if you were turned off by the second season, because Garo: Vanishing Line is the big, dumb powerhouse anime you’ve been craving. Let me clarify: Vanishing Line is that special kind of “sit back and turn your brain off” that lets you fully appreciate the animation MAPPA is capable of, because backstory and story take the back seat to wild, over-the-top action as well as phenomenal character designs and set pieces in a New York setting.

Looking and behaving like a cross between a pulp comic and Redline, Vanishing Line centers around an American hero (the golden lion-suited Makai Knight) on his uber-cycle as he fights Horrors (monsters) that seem to channel the spirit of Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s creations. The hero is the lovable, collateral damage-inducing goof in the same vein of The Tick – the eternal child, and his pairing with the other Makai Knight, a cold and calculating sniper, while cliché in its setup, works with a sublime chemistry for the stories told thus far.

Across its first three episodes, this series exudes a perfect mix of vivaciousness and joviality. The casting off of the brooding shroud that cloaked the previous season is welcome to say the least, and the 3DCG suit, unlike the other series, is integrated really well with the traditional animation. (The series loses a piece of its charm there, in my opinion, but makes up for it in adrenaline.) The golden lion suit is only brought out as a finishing move (as opposed to being woven into its wearer’s inner turmoil), and the 3DCG and camerawork SHINE with the motorrad motorcycle sequences.

Girls’ Last Tour

Streaming on Anime Strike

This title has got to be the cutest bit of dystopian fiction that exists (aside from Humanity Has Declined). It’s a story of survival in a post-war wasteland that seems vacant of all life save two children, respectively representing brains and brawn, trained in arms…and only one episode passes before the main characters are naked in a bath together. But that is thankfully, an aberration.

Most of the first three episodes can be more appropriately billed as slice-of-post-apocalyptic-life, wherein the bonds of friendship between the two adventurers – climbing ever higher in a desolate, stratified world of mankind’s own creation – are exposed via simple conversation amidst strenuous conditions. The warmth between these characters, their acceptance of each other’s flaws and strengths as what makes them them, is what makes this series so endearing and humorous.

Only a vague flashback is given for reason behind the girls’ outing, but the reason to watch is the journey and not any particular destination. (We’re lucky to have this and the new Kino’s in the same season.) It’s just genuinely pleasant to spend time with these characters as they lean on each other to keep on keepin’ on, and the moé attributes and chibi designs force a doting focus against the backdrop of lifeless, broken architecture. It’s not anything deep, but it’s got a solid sense of its own world. And I’m willing to go along for the ride for the rest of the season.

Kino’s Journey – The Beautiful World – The Animated Series

Streaming on Crunchyroll

As a fan of the first anime adaptation, I’m feeling a bit trepidatious for more than a few reasons after viewing the first three episodes of the new Kino’s Journey. The good news is that the reboot is watchable and keeps the air of the original. The bad news is that I really don’t think it is as strong.

Largely, this has nothing to do with the pronoun faux pas committed in the impression-important first episode nor the more slightly unsettling feminine design conceived for the series. Simulcast haste easily excuses the former, and the latter can be reluctantly chalked up to something brought to my attention via CR member Kolkpen in a comment on an article @illegenes and I wrote. The larger source of my anxiety, then, comes from the storytelling.

Having just re-watched the original adaptation for another Crunchyroll article, I can safely say that the amount of exposition in the new adaptation is comparatively dreadful. That is to say it exists. Not everything is spelled out; thankfully, each country is left up to an observational storytelling true to the original series. Kino’s backstory and intentions, however, are articulated verbally to a ridiculous (read: any) degree.

The art is gorgeous in most circumstances, and the attention to lighting is incredible, but the cleanliness means the visual communication lacks the muddled filter of the TV lines presented in the original. Kino’s, after all, is a depiction of circumstance meant to provoke audience contemplation. The original adaptation does this on all levels, while this later adaptation seems somewhat hell-bent on clean lines.

Love is Like a Cocktail

Streaming on Crunchyroll

Premise: Busty blonde turns all moé and clingy after sipping (or guzzling) any alcoholic drink prepared by her sweet, attentive husband. I don’t need to overindulge, in either alcohol or this particular anime, to puke. Beer goggles are one thing, but imploring preciousness by placing them on an audience in order to enthrall them to the database is a malady. The situations behind the protagonist’s indulgences are overly simplistic excuses for the camera to focus on her HUGE boobs, and what’s meant to be endearing (her enjoyment of the drinks and her mood change thereafter) propagates the notion that all females really want to do instead of work is drink and dote on their husbands. Sure, the MC is drinking to feel good, and that’s all well and good, but the effects are induced to solely benefit the male character and, by proxy, the male-targeted audience. (The MC is never affected positively by the drinking with regards to herself save the momentary salvation the destruction of neurons affords.) It’s sickening, frankly, and wholly without merit. Not only does Love is Like a Cocktail borrow reactions and framing from the impeccable Wakako-zake, but the series also nods to recipe introductions a la the classic Bartender. In fact, the only original thing Love is Like a Cocktail has going for it is the motorcycle-riding lemon, which is at least weird and original and ends (thankfully) each episode. Even though this is a short, I struggled to make it to episode three to make my final decision: I will not be watching any more of this dreck.

Pikotaro's Lullaby LA LA BY

Streaming on Crunchyroll

While it started airing too late for me to write up for my Summer 2017 3ET, Pikotaro’s Lullaby LA LA BY was by far one of the best comedies of last season. Each episode features a fairy/folk tale background drawn by director Takashi Taniguchi, about whom you can and should read about here and then watch what is available of his catalog, and features an improvised dialog by comedian Pikotaro. The latter is that guy who penned that pineapple-apple song, and he features in each and every episode as an antagonistic force.

It’s comedy brilliance.

The new season isn’t actually new. It’s comprised of the 3 Web episodes that preceded the series proper. None of them are are great as any episode from last season (maybe with the exception of the Cinderella episode), but any fan of the series will be glad to watch them. And they might serve even better as an introduction to the main series. So, please, if seeing those three shorts tickles you fancy as much as they tickle your funny bone, go watch the rest of Pikotaro’s Lullaby LA LA BY. Guffaws as well as chuckles that snowball into breathless tears await you.

Recovery of an MMO Junkie

Streaming on Crunchyroll

A woman in her thirties decides to become a NEET and thereby ascends to her made-up “elite NEET” status. Soon she indulges in an old pastime for which she, lately, has just not had the late night hours or energy necessary: MMORPGs.

I’m not sure whether I’m mad at the IRL plot for interrupting the MMO experience with Seth McFarland-ish emotigag cuing, or the MMO being similar to the other players-trapped-in-the-game series and teasing me with IRL Welcome to the NHK-ness. All I know is that this series is so occasionally cute that nothing else really matters. That is to say that this is junk.

It refuses to be here or there and, at least as of the first three episodes, seems trite in comparison to Welcome to the NHK and ReLIFE. Not that this series has to be dark, but it is about a woman in her thirties after all. And that’s kinda what I hate: this series wants both worlds but doesn’t really know how to balance them. The whole thing makes a joke out of a bad situation portrayed with such a light hand that it confuses humanity and punchlines. Hell, it makes dramatic reaction punchlines … which would be more heady if the series itself were.

If you’re looking for a cute woman nerd geeking out over games and boys men, then this is your bag. I, however, forgot it in a taxi.

TWOCAR: Racing Sidecar

Streaming on Crunchyroll

To be perfectly honest, I literally thought this type of racing was fabricated so that the animators could thrust body-suited riders’ backsides into the cameras as they flail into dramatic poses along the raceway. As it turns out, sidecar racing is REAL, much like Keijo!!!!!!!! is (…now), and pretty darned exciting too!

TWOCAR isn’t so adept at turning something slow and calculating, as with wager games in Kaiji or Akagi, into bloodsport, but it does a darned good job at realistically and enthusiastically depicting the sport itself. The whiny feel-feel relationships between the teams’ partners and the collective group of riders as a whole enables a “story” of sorts, but mostly this show is just about admiring the execution and digging into the turns.

That is to say the racing is enthralling for both its uniqueness and the extra drama injected by home team vs. visitors (personalized by intimate teams of two) as well as the backstories and current conflicts of the latter. I can’t believe I’m about to say this (I blame the whisky), but TWOCAR is a pretty competent sports anime. It’s nothing that’ll upend the world, but it’s got enough visual flare and dramatic knowhow to keep me entertained week to week. Kudos!

originally appeared on Ani-Gamers on October 25, 2017 at 1:49 AM.

By: Ink