#these were really quick i had to do it haha but i might render the shaded one idk i quite like itttt

[legolambi]

say it with me melvik pre series toxic situationship

[deegeemin]

❄️✨❄️REMINDER THAT IDW SONIC WINTER JAM IS OUT!!! ❄️✨❄️

I'd love to talk about some neato things I got to draw in the comic! Spoiler warning for some contents below! If you haven't read anything yet, come back after reading the comic!

Let's start off with the cover thumbnails! I was more inclined to do A since it wouldn't spoil the big surprise Orbot and Cubot had in store! Otherwise I probably would've gone with B or D! It has that bombastic party sort of feel that I think would've been super fitting!

Here, Eggman is temporarily staying at one of his many bases throughout the world after the collapse of his Eggperial city! This base is inspired by Industria from Future Boy Conan and a bit of Eggmanland!

He also sure loves his chicken and fries!

A little beachside balcony in Green hill! I felt like we generally don't get structures there as much so I thought it'd be a nice addition!

The design on the floor is the stage from the JP Sonic X intro! It gets covered up by snow after but still neat to include!

Look at this magnificent cast of characters! I wanted to use the poses that each pair had when they were first seen together! I'd considered giving Big his winning animation pose from SA1 but alas no space haha!

Cubot's taped on eye brow gag was one I suggested and it's a reference to the same gag from FLCL!

Lil sonic team logo Iasmin asked for! Sonic sure knows to appreciate himself! Good on him.

And here's a sonic 3 wreath and the SA2 lock on reticle from the mechs!

Amy and cream's spread of delicious looking food beautifully rendered by the coloring god Reggie! I wanted to include all their items from the Official Sonic the Hedgehog Cookbook! So if you want to make them yourself, YOU CAN! (except for uhh the experiment on another panel. you guys can figure out what's in that yourselves haha)

Also made sure to list all the pages you can find the recipes!

This is one of my fav gags that Iasmin wrote in!! Can you all guess what this is meant to vaguely resemble?

Quick round of character refs from Eggman's screen going in order from left to right! [Conductor's wife and Conductor, Barry and Gadget, Early Conductor design, Early Barry design (his outside eye markings are white tho), My uh Sonicsona lol]

Mecha Sonic mark 3? Yep Iasmin wanted him to be there and so there he shall be!! Hopefully we get to see him again!

I remember seeing the story Iasmin made and it really felt like it could be something you'd see in a sonic anime episode if it were made nowadays. I drew the comic with some influence from Sonic X because of that. I think the most telling detail fans might notice is the constant 3 spines for Sonic.

but YEAH another absolutely wonderful comic I got to work on! See ya'll on another issue!

[lilblueorchid]

Thought process and easter egg on the Digimon Anniversary Illustration! 

Hello everyone, today I feel like explaining some stuff over my Digimon Illustration, mostly why I drew thing this way or point out some little details and easter eggs you might have missed. ;)

Click on read more if you want a LENGTHLY explanation with a lot of rambling from me, or if not you can just enjoy the process gif. <3 

The Digimon illustration was a special one for me for different reasons. Firstly, obviously, Digimon! It was a show I grew up with, and I find it quite fitting that after a tough year of graduation movie under a pandemic, in which I really experienced the pain of growing up, I ended up finding back Digimon. 

Secondly, as a child, I remember spending HOURS looking for fanarts online! I would save all the ones I found pretty and keep them preciously, i still have the folders actually haha. While pursuing art, I always had in mind thatI wanted one day to make a fanart my child self would have gone crazy over! And, i think I achieved that with that one haha. 

Anyway LET’S START! Shall we? 

First off : the illustration process

When I do an illustration I always do a quick draft first, and most of the time, in colors. I think I’m more of a “color” person than a “line” person, I tend to need to see colors quickly in order to see if it’s ok. 

For this one, I’ve always had in mind it would be a double illustration, with the older Tai’s silhouette acting as a frame for the children illustration. It was a bit tricky, I had to make the children illustration fit nicely into his silhouette, it was hassle around the neck area, that’s why I made little Taichi stand up haha. Also used Mimi’s hat to balance the picture : the bottom part is very heavy and there’s only sky in the upper part, adding the hat helps making it more balanced. 

The character were the longest and the most challenging part by far. As you can see I had 3 different steps : super rough, they’re almost like stickmen and smiley face, a more detailled one in which I figure out their actual pose and anatomy, then a last one in which I fix some proportion, add details and clean. Fun fact I don’t clean over a new layer... i just erase the unwanted part of my sketch. :’D

I did a quick pass over the BG after that, then I colored the characters in flat colors before rendering them. It was a back and forth between the BG and the characters to make sure everything was working together nicely. 

Now was the time to render the BG, I did the tramway first, the flower field after. Fun fact, I did my flower field study in order to know how to approach the flowers in this illustration! If your have the time, i totally recommend finding a photograph close to the kind of BG you wanna do, and make a study of it so you can try your hand at it first and go into your own BG later with an idea of how to approach this.

Adjust colors, add flower petals and butterflies and emotional text, slap over a paper texture, and THERE. You have it! On to the next part now...

The meaningful details and easter eggs

Be aware there will be spoilers for Digimon Adventure 01 (but I assume you already know it), but also for Digimon Adventure : Last evolution Kizuna, which is the conclusion of the first serie. So read at your own risk! 

The tramway is obviously a reference to the end of Digimon Adventure 01. The kids used it to go back to their world, so It was their goodbye to their Digimon at this moment. In Kizuna, Tai and Matt find the tramway trapped in crystal in Menoa’s fake memory world. Hinting that had they been caught by her, their memories would have brought them back here.

Tailmon has Kari’s whistle! At the end of Digimon Adventure 01, Kari gives it to her as a memento. 

When I drew Sora, I had in mind how she was in Kizuna, very stressed out by her mom’s expectation, which led her to neglect Piyomon. She realized it too late, and after that she refused to fight because she wanted to keep Piyomon with her as long as possible. Tragically, she was the first one to lose her Digimon. Here I tried to convey a softness and a kind of “I won’t forget to appreciate you” vibe in the way she holds Piyomon’s hand. As for Mimi and Palmon, in Digimon adventure 01 Palmon was very emotionally affected by Mimi’s departure, so, a hug was fitting. :’) 

The screens on the Tramway display DA for Digimon Adventure, and also 01.08.1999 which is the date of the children’s journey’s beginning. :) 

The little drawings also show the 8 crests. 

There are butterflies flying over the illustration, it’s a reference to Butter-fly, the first Digimon opening, by the late Koji Wada. 

"I'll become a happy butterfly, and ride on the glittering wind, I'll come and see you soon. “

Now, let’s the see the counterpart of the illustration. The one with the grown up Tai from Kizuna.

I made him wear the hoodie he had in his very last adventure with Agumon.... but truthfully the reason is that I think hoodies are cool lol. And the hood’s volume gave me more space in the silhouette, which made it easier for me to do the other illustration inside.

You don’t see it clearly, but he is holding his Digivice, albeit the darkened version once his partner bond with Agumon is broken. The Tai in this illustration has already lost Agumon. (Yes it was painful for me to go fetch the screenshots)

He is also holding his dear signature google he used to wear as a child. Fun fact, I rewatched the older movies, and as a kid he even used to sleep with it, how cute haha. 

Also yes, the crest of Courage over his hand, which is his own. I’m so dumb I realize I should have made the time counter from the movie instead of the crest for a maximum emotional hurt impact. 

And the quote is from one of the trailer for Kizuna, I think.....................

But then you go : Oh that illustration is so depressing then! Well. Yes. But no. but yes. But not really. 

One of my favorite shot of the movie is this one : this is after Tai and Agumon learn their time together is limited. Agumon asks him if they will have to go separate ways once Tai is all grown up. Tai doesn’t answer, and takes him to eat something instead, as Agumon was hungry. In this shot Agumon eats to his heart content next to Tai, who’s not eating at all and just watches him fondly. I love that the framing doesnt show agumon. It’s a foreshadowing of their unavoidable separation. 

At the very end of the movie, Tai write in his thesis about Human and Digimon’s relationship that Agumon was like a part of himself.

In a way, Agumon symbolizes childhood, the carefree days we would spend as a kid, with our big dreams and hopes. When you grow up, you tend to forget those simple emotions because you get swallowed into the stress of studies, figuring out your carreer, your life path. Just like us, Tai forgot this part of himself. In the madness of growing up, he lost Agumon. 

However, it’s not the end. He will pick himself back up. He will move forward in life despite his worries and incertainities, and he will find himself again. Therefore, he will find Agumon again. The kids in the illustration are waving goodbye, but it’s not goodbye, it’s a see you later.  In the meantime, Tai is holding on to these precious memories, until they meet again. 

[stevenbasic]

By Tuesday afternoon, I was beside myself. Seeing patients again, but distraught. The office was a hot mess - so many new girls, crowding the hallways and desks, mostly being trained by people who also didn’t know what they were doing. My schedule was a hot mess - they’d overbooked me, with all the patients I was supposed to see the day before but had been rescheduled. And my mind was a hot mess - surrounded by not only all these new women (I’d kept my head down, sneaking into my office between patients when I could, and hadn’t really introduced myself to anyone yet) but also by the din of construction and random dudes walking down the hallways from time to time...

For some reason the presence of guys - mostly strapping young men in hard hats and t-shirts - upset me more than the bustle of bimbos giggling and pointing at me as I snuck from patient to patient. Maybe I was imagining it, but they seemed to look at me funny, askance, with a condemnatory eye. In particular I’d seen that one with the shaved head and tattoos, the tall one who’d disappeared with Melissa from the parking lot this morning. He was the one hanging around the most, glaring at me snidely. It was jealousy, I knew, that was tightening my chest whenever I saw him - an unreasonable reaction, not an emotion I should be feeling; Melissa was not mine to covet. But when, right around lunchtime, I saw the door to Melissa’s office open and him get pulled inside? Well, my blood began to roil. She’d made no effort to see me all day, and now this??

What were they doing in there?? Would she be having him take more pictures of her for Instagram? Would she be changing into new outfits for her followers, bikinis and lingerie? Would he be bending her over her desk and-

I knew I was being crazy, jealous, stupid. I had no reason to suspect any of this. But still I couldn’t stand it. So, finally, I broke. Right around 3pm.

“Can you tell Melissa I need to see her in my office?” I told Aubrey. She was standing behind the front desk with Brittni and Bobbi and three new people, training. It was pretty crowded back there.

“Of course, Doctor,” said the slight, pretty girl with the dark, pixie haircut. Aubrey had always been one of my best, most loyal employees. Quiet, serious when she needed to be. Less flighty for sure than most of the women that worked for me now. Take, for example, Brittni and Bobbi and now I guess these three new ones that I recognized from their jiggly applications; they were all looking at me and quietly giggling. Aubrey - since our front desk manager had left - was trying to get everyone trained. Piles of paperwork were everywhere.

“Okay I’ll head there right away,” I said, turning on my heel and knocking over a mound of charts from the counter.

“Don’t worry Doctor I’ll get that…” Aubrey offered, as I quickly moved away. Snickers followed in my wake.

Finding the hallway that led to my office mostly quiet, I turned a corner and -

“Oh, therrrre you are!” Melissa beamed, stopping me in my tracks. I felt my eyes go wide and my heart leap into my throat. I hadn’t really seen her since Friday and I was struck again by just how tall she was. Heels, yes, but my head came just up to her upper chest, if that. She made me feel smaller, in spades, than even the biggest of the construction workers.

She took a step towards me.

“Hey, uh….m-m-my office?” I stammered, trying to direct her but unable to keep my eyes from a quick trip up and down her unbelievable figure. The red heels, the sleek, bell-cuffed black pants, the tight, high-necked top. The hair, the eyes, and those knockers.

“Why don’t we talk here?” she returned, stepping in again closer to me.

I took a backpedal in retreat, turned my back to the wall. My eyes went wide again as she planted her right hand on the wall behind me, just above my head, between me and where I’d been heading. The door to my office was just steps away to my left, but now it might have been a mile. “o-okay, sure…” I yielded.

“So happy you finally want to say hi,” she said, with her left hand now coming up at my other side, placing itself just aside my head on the right. Now I was trapped, penned in, faced with a wall of woman. “I’ve missed youuuu…”

I swallowed dryly, suddenly assaulted with a barrage of feelings and a heady cloud of her captivating perfume. “Oh? Uh, y-yeah, haha, sorry,” I started, beginning to explain my absence, “I’ve been out of it. It’s, uh...all the construction, the noise. Kept me up last night, I’m exhausted…”

“Oh you poor thing…” she cooed, her smile turning crooked, weight shifting on her feet. Her right leg had bent, knee pushing in aggressively towards my groin. “I’m sorrrry…”

I couldn’t help but feel like I’d been captured, and she was possesively trifling with me - here, out in the open, in the hallway where anyone could see. But, from my position, I also couldn’t help but notice how her bra was just visible through her too-tight top, and that her breasts looked enormous today.

“uhhhhh….” I tried, struggling to remember what I’d wanted to talk to her about in the first place. Oh yeah.  “...and now they’re all milling around here. I saw, uh...one guy go into your office, earlier?”

“AJ? Oh...yeah, Angie’s ex,” Melissa explained, eyes narrowing, “She’s one of the new girls, a friend of mine, just broke up with him. He’s pretty upset. I invited him in for lunch...”

“Oh, uh, lunch?”

“Yes,” Melissa answered, a funny tone in her voice, “He bought a salad for me.”

Of course she’d like someone like him. He’s tall, strong, pretty good looking. He’s closer to her age...

Melissa looked down at me, regarded me, watched me thinking. “What’s wrong?” she finally asked.

“I...I don’t like him,” I too quickly answered, glancing down at the safety of my feet, speaking before thinking, “He...he looks at me funny.”

“Ohhhhhh….is that it?” She sounded amused.

I couldn’t tell her that, no, that wasn’t it, really. The sideways glances from these dudes I could handle. What I was struggling with, what I couldn’t tell her, was that he made me so fucking jealous. No way I could admit that, not to her. It would be weak, sniveling, petty and unprofessional. Plus I was married, still, and needed to hide my feelings for my new Office Manager deep deep deep. I could not let Melissa know how jealous I was.

But, when I looked up into her face, and she leaned down in to bring her face closer to mine, I could tell she saw right through me...

“Do they scare you? The big scary construction workers?” she giggled, teasing me, “Do they make you feel...unsafe? They are all so much bigger than you...” Overhead, one of the fluorescent lights flickered.

“Melissa, c’mon,” I pleaded, sounding much more pathetic than I wanted. I could tell she knew how I really felt, that it was my unreasonable jealousy that was making me upset. That fact? She loved it. But that I was denying it? For that, she wanted to torture me a bit.

“Awww did you hear that ladies?” Melissa called out, to the tall forms that had just started to appear in the hallway behind her, the voices I had begun to hear, “Dr. J here doesn’t like having all the big, noisy men in the building…”

Suddenly, two other girls appeared aside Melissa, one on each side. My eyes shot from one, redhead and statuesque in a blue top, to the other, chocolate-skinned and bosomy, dressed in green. Both were tall, taller than me, I couldn’t help but realize.

“I agree, I don’t like it either,” said the girl to Melissa’s left.

“Me neither,” said the other, “We should get rid of them…”

“Then it’d be just us…” the dark skinned girl replied.

“Dr. J,” Melissa said, in introduction, “this is Bianca…”

“Hi,” said the girl in blue, inching closer.

“...and this is Shanette.”

“Hi,” said the one in green, stepping in as well.

If I had been faced by a wall of woman before, it had now been fortified. Everywhere I looked, it was boob.

One of the overhead lights flickered again.

“We don’t like tall men, do we girls?” Melissa asked.

“Big guys? Yuckie,” followed Shanette.

“Yeah, gross,” said Bianca, her voice a natural purr, “We like our men short…”

“Helpless…”  cued Shanette, biting her plump lower lip as she looked down at me.

“...weak…” smiled Bianca.

“...needy,” Shanette finished.

By now, the three girls had me all but plastered to the wall. Melissa did nothing but smile down at me, apparently enjoying every moment of my well-deserved distress as these new girls soaked me in. Finally, though, she spoke. “See? No reason to be jealous, Doctor J-“

“I wasn’t jeal-“

“...it’s like I’ve been telling you,” she continued, speaking right over me, “It’s the thing. Girls want their men vulni these days, and you…”

“You are- rrrrrrrrrrr….” Bianca...growled?

“...you’re perfect,” Shanette giggled.

“And, no reason to be scared, sweetie,” Melissa assured me, though the current situation - I felt like I was about to be squashed into a girl sandwich - gave me more than enough to be frightened about, “You don’t have to worry about the big, mean men.”

“We’ll keep you safe,” Bianca promised, her eyes gleaming with portent, “don’t you give it another thought.”

“We’re all here to take care of you,” Shanette cooed, her expression growing softer by the moment, “it’s all we want…”

Unsure of what to say, I looked from one girl, to the other, and then back to Melissa. She merely smiled, closed her eyes to take a deep breath, and then opened them again as she spoke. “You see, sweetie? You see what kind of girls I hired for you?” she said, and leaned in to whisper down into my ear, “I did such a good job…”

Her melony breasts squashed into my neck, her voice in my ear.

“...won’t you just accept that?”

===========================

Thank you to good friend and master-of-the-craft AlexGTSArtist for his newest donations to our little story.;  these renders are fantastic. Please support him where you can.

More stuff at my Patreon

[anothertimdrakestan]

Sharing Is Caring - Gar Logan x Reader Soulmate AU

Words: 2.3k

Requested? Yes! From a lovely anon!

“Hiya I love your writing and it’s cute that you call us angels hehehe! May I request 18 with beast boy in teen titans where a new titan (fem! reader) joins and they finally touch during a battle or something and the sparks go off? based of the AU you did with familiar green!” (18. I think you might be my soulmate)

LINK TO PROMPTS  -> REQUESTS ARE STILL OPEN!

I’m so happy you like the AU and I love BB so this is perfect! Also yes - I do call y’all angels because you’re always making me so happy and fulfilled so thank you for the amazing request angel I hope you like it <3 Also I there’s lots of Teen Titans universes so I went with the Titans from right after Justice League vs. Teen Titans before D.A. goes and rips my heart up haha. Let me have me moment.

“Welcome to the Titans y/h/n!” Kori greeted you, reaching out a hand. You clasped it, feeling her energy radiate but you closed yourself off from pulling her powers. “TT she doesn’t look all that powerful” a short, domino mask clad, child teen starred at you. “Shush Damian let her get settled in then she can show off her talents” Nightwing chided Damian who crossed his arms staring at you. “I think a new team member is sick! Welcome y/h/n!” a green colored boy grinned ear to ear. “Uh hi, is there somewhere I can put my stuff?” you trusted Nightwing, Dick as he had recently told you. 

Martian Manhunter had found you on an away mission. Some form of test subject you were a confusing mash between human dna and white martian, unable to shift on your own, who ever’s experiment you were had weaponized martian dna turning you into a parasite. You realized this during your training, and learned to control the leeching, even discovering a way to share the powers of others without harming them. Eventually on your next birthday you pretended your powers had disappeared. Seeing as only you could now activate your powers your captor rendered you useless, a weapon with no more bullets. At that he gave you to alien traffickers, who had little use for a human girl. Then, working tirelessly on a planet of some random sector the green martian stormed you, sensing the white martian blood. Fast forward through a terrifying fight and explanation, you had been brought to earth and dropped in the hands of Nightwing. He promised you a team and finally, a family. 

“Yeah I’ll take you to your room” Dick smiled, placing a hand on the small of your back - that’s when you realized he was powerless. Human touch was comforting, you didn’t have to suppress the desire to share, or steal human’s abilities, it was refreshing. As the two of you walked through the tower Dick explained about each person on your team while he gave you a tour. You had learned that Raven was quiet but trustworthy, Blue Beetle was uber powerful but kind of a loose cannon - you wondered if you could test your powers on his, next was Robin who was the newest but was cold yet secretly cared, according to Dick at least, then there was Cyborg who came and went, and finally Beast Boy who was apparently the easiest to get along with, even though he was green. It was a lot to take in while also trying to memorize the floor plan of the seemingly never ending tower. Finally you arrived at your room and began setting it up. You didn’t have much as you were new to earth, but you had a few rocks from the planet you were working on and some new furniture and clothing Dick had bought you before you arrived. 

Putting the finishing touches on you room you heard a knock at the door. As you approached it slid open to reveal a cheery green boy. “Hi! Nightwing told me to give you your new suit! It’s totally cool look!” he pushed a suit into your hands with a smile as he continued talking. “It’s like my suit! Super stretchy and stuff because of your powers. What exactly are your powers cuz this suit kinda has it all? Fireproof, waterproof, light weight, maneuverable, but it doesn’t have any cool gadgets like Robin’s so that means you have to have powers!” he rambled on while you took in his appearance. He looked confident and kind, like was happy to be in his own skin regardless of the color, he had light freckles that peppered across his nose and he had the prettiest eyes, they were a delicate light brown with golden flecks, they were mesmerizing; and they were staring right at you.

“Uh hello? Earth to hero?” you flushed as Beast Boy had caught you staring. “Oh sorry thanks this is great! Uh do I have to wear it all the time or?” you still hadn’t quite picked up on the way life was around the tower. “No, not unless you want to! Also y/h/n is cool but some of us, me included have real names too! So as you already know Beast Boy, Garfield. Please to meet you!” He stuck out a hand but retracted it when he realized you had moved back into your room to put away your suit. “Oh okay! I’ve always wanted a real name!” you called from halfway inside your closet. Pausing to think of the perfect name that really represented who you wanted to be on earth you decided. “Y/n” you called out to Garfield who still stood in your doorway. “Cool name! Y/n - I like it! Well, I think you have to get settled in but catch you later for training y/n!” he bounded down the hall, lucky for you he was quick enough he didn’t catch the blush dancing across your face everytime he said “y/n”. 

Your room looked good as you headed towards the kitchen, excited to try whatever real humans ate. “Y/n! I hope you don’t mind but Gar filled us in on your name and it’s pretty cool!” Blue Beetle waved at you from the kitchen. Sitting down at the kitchen island you peered over to see what he was making. “Hungry? Gar and I are eating grilled cheese. I can make you one?” you nodded, fascinated with the way the bread browned on the pan. As he slid you your plate you saw a green dog running towards the kitchen. Terrified you stood up, ready to take on the creature, hoping Blue Beetle wouldn’t mind sharing a little juice. The dog noticed your alarm as it shifted into Garfield. “Woah y/n sorry, you probably don’t really know all about us yet! Dude thanks for the meal Jaime!” Gar slid into a chair a couple seats over and he began digging in. The grilled cheese was delicious, after giving your compliments to the chef the three of you began talking about your lives. You learned a ton about Jaime and Gar, really happy that they were so welcoming. “So what are your guys powers? Besides turning into a dog and all” you smirked at Gar who stuck his tongue out at you. A familiar voice interrupted you, “actually y/h/n I think it’s better of you come see for yourself! Up for a little training?” you turned to see Dick who stood next to Raven and Robin. 

“So to help y/n understand her new team mates lets do a little one on one!” the others looked bored while you couldn’t help but be excited. Jaime and Robin were chosen first. It blew your mind to watch blue colored metal envelop Jaime’s body. Damian was also shockingly talented, you assumed he was powerless like Dick because of the heritage and the fact that his suit had a tool belt as Gar had said. The two danced around the practice area, bantering about the weakness of the other and what not the entire time. Damian soon had Blue Beetle pinned down and even though you knew he could go further, Jaime pulled out of the fight. 

Next was Raven and Nightwing because apparently Dick demanded a “rematch” from last time. Raven’s powers were by far the most amazing. Your jaw dropped as black light seemed to lift any object at her will, including Dick. What you didn’t expect was that the powerless defeated their opponent again. It was so exciting. All that was left was you and Beast Boy. Before you could begin you realized you needed to explain your powers to the team. “Okay wait! I’m gonna need some help for my battle” the others look surprised but Dick nodded, encouraging you to explain. 

“Okay so basically I’m half human half martian. I know it sounds super scary but technically the experiment with my dna was a failure. I control my own powers even though I really have none. As you probably know martians are shape shifters right? They take the form of creatures along with other mind bending powers. What the scientists did with me was basically taking away the creativity and giving me more control. See, I started with the ability to steal the powers of other creatures, like a parasite. I hated the feeling of snatching the life force of other creatures so I essentially taught myself to share. Because of the martian blood I can set up a link between me and another hero where I mirror their power without draining it, like a sharing is caring kinda thing. I was hoping one of you would let me try it?” You finished sheepishly. Dick and Damian shrugged knowing they couldn’t help and Raven was the first to say no. “Y/n I’d be interested in the future but I don’t think I can trust you right now, the power I possess is difficult and confusing and I don’t want us to get hurt” you agreed, after hearing snippets from Gar and Jaime you completely agreed. “Well I’ll let you!” Starfire grinned and you couldn’t help but get excited to show off. 

Taking her hand you established a link, she blinked a couple of times, explaining how it felt like there was an invisible loop between the two of you, but she was completely fine. You could feel her powers radiating heat and energy. After just a few seconds you tested the powers out, throwing blasts of green energy from your hands. “Oh yes you can fly can’t you!” you grinned as you began levitating. The whole team was amazed. “Alright Gar let’s go. But fair warning if I can get a hand on you I might just use some of those shape shifting abilities” you winked. 

The two of you began, using Starfire’s abilities you went on offense, soaring after Beast Boy as he shifted between creatures. Throwing bolts of energy at him you managed to land a hit on him when he was a hawk, he tumbled to the ground but shifted into a cat, landing on all fours. This went on for a few minutes until you saw the opportunity to grab his shoulder and pull some of his energy. Soaring down you kicked him down, pinning him beneath you, reaching for his shoulder. When you touched him, sparks like you’d never felt before erupted. You bounded backwards, quite literally shocked. Beast Boy shifted. back to his normal form, rubbing his shoulder with confusion. 

“I- that’s never happened before. The electricity was - do you have those powers too?” You couldn’t understand what had happened until Damian walked up to you. “TT - Y/n you’re human are you not?” you nodded. Damian turned to stalk over to Garfield, “and so are you Garfield, even though you are quite green” the rest of the titans let out some form of an “oh my god” or “no way” or “only here” and you stood up, still confused. “I don’t get it. Is he a special human that shocks me? That has never happened before why does it make sense to you?!” you stared at the team as their heads all turned to Beast Boy. He got up, closing the distance between the two of you. “Well you probably didn’t learn this on your planet but here, humans have soulmates and when they touched - ” Gar moved his hand to your cheek and the same sparks danced on your skin, you leaned into the touch, the warmth was perfection, something felt right, you looked up at Gar who continued. “when soulmates touch they feel sparks, that’s how you know it’s them and well, I think you might be my soulmate.” he finished. You looked at the others for confirmation. After a couple nods you looked back at Gar.

“But I’m not all human. Shouldn’t I not have a soulmate? I read about it in magazines since I’ve been here but I wrote it off as a human only kinda deal?” Beast Boy shrugged, “hey I’m not all human either, I thought I’d be missing out as well. Fate works in funny ways I guess” you smiled, you had read that soulmates were perfect for each other in every way, coming to Earth seemed scary but knowing you had a forever friend made it seem a lot better.

“I think we can call it quits on practice” Dick started. “The new soulmates probably have a lot of catching up to do, seeing as they’ll kinda be together forever” Damian groaned, saying something about the disgusting idea of soulmates and how he thought he’d probably never have one, Raven quietly agreed. Jaime told the two of you he’d catch up later as he walked off with Dick and Kori. 

Now just the two of you, you reached up to Gar’s face, letting the unfamiliar feeling crackle and pop with electricity. “This is not how I expected my first day to go” you admitted, still trying to wrap your head around the days events. Gar looked at you, his eyes softening, “trust me y/n I did not think today would be like this either. But I did think you were totally cute even before I found out you’re already mine” you laughed, but couldn’t help the butterflies that were now dancing in your stomach. Craving more of the warmth you closed the distance between the two of you, not ready for anything more than a hug just yet, you wrapped your arms around his torso while his tightened around your waist. The books were right, the feeling of your soulmate’s touch was addicting, perfect in every way, you could definitely get used to the idea of feeling this all the time. Pulling away Gar clasped your hand in his and winked at you, “now that you’re my soulmate you can share my powers anytime mamas” you rolled your eyes, but were pretty excited to know what it felt like to take a real cat nap. “I think I might have to take you up on that Greenie” you grinned, resting your head on his shoulder as Gar led you up towards your rooms for some well deserved rest. Finding your soulmate was definitely a great start to your time with the Titans, you couldn’t help but wonder what would be next. 

[ichigo-kamome]

Start Over - Imagine Dragons - Sakuatsu One Shot

Okay HI GUYS so first post

(wow how cool)

I wanted to do a little writing exercise and shuffle a playlist I really enjoy and then write for characters based on the song. So, Start Over by Imagine Dragons was my first song <3 here’s a link to the song!! https://open.spotify.com/track/2Iug43iQrHN8CbGsUd2tEt?si=CrDSFtEpRKe1UkYojJwWiQ&dl_branch=1

This is just going to be a quick one shot because I can only listen to a song on repeat so many times before wanting to scream, so it stops whenever I get annoyed of the song :) ig this is angst with like a good ending? IDEK HAHA BUT ENJOY!! 

oh and there is a bit of language in this? :,D also I didn’t edit this because I didn’t have time to so my apologies for unintentional grammar mistakes and misspellings! :,>

The plane was filled with hardly any noise at all, but in Atsumu’s mind there was a storm of noise, emotion, and words. So many words. Words he was told, words he said, words he shouldn’t have said, words he should have said. 

Actions. Ones he did take, ones he didn’t take, all of them ran through his mind faster than the plane was soaring in the air. The silence around him felt entirely deafening, and there was nothing he could do in this moment but sit there and replay the memories of the past night.

He was more than aware that he had royally messed up. Sakusa Kyoomi had informed him of that. Yet, his own ego rendered him completely blind the moment he heard such words.

“You care so much about appearances, yet you refuse to work on your own. Becoming a better version of yourself on the court is something you’re more than willing to do, but outside of that? Where the public eye is blind to? Well, so are you.”

Those words replayed countless times, echoing off walls and coming back to him. It was all he could think about. How he had done Omi wrong, and how all he wanted to do was fix their situation. 

However, that wasn’t exactly possible in the present situation. 

Miya Atsumu was on an airplane with no cell service, and he would be stuck there for multiple hours. It felt like hell, having to sit there for so long with his own thoughts and the words that he heard last night. The words that were true. Then again, it wasn’t all a bad thing that he had to reflect on the situation. 

Sakusa Kiyoomi was also left alone with his own thoughts, emotions, the words that were spoken last night. This odd feeling of the presence and absence of regret plagued him in his isolation. He knew that what he said needed to get to Atsumu in some way. 

Lately, the setter had been so concerned with who he was on the court that he had forgotten to examine his character off the court. Of course, this led to mistakes, apologies, more mistakes, more apologies, an endless cycle of hurting those around him, and Sakusa left alone many nights in which he shouldn’t have been. The pain he felt wasn’t sharp, however. It was more of a dull, emotionless pain that caused him to feel somewhat repulsed.

“Ya shouldn’t be hangin’ around someone who makes you feel like trash, right? So, I’ll do the honors and kindly fuck off for a while. See how ya like it, Omi.” He still was dumbfounded by those words. He knew Miya to be someone who would sometimes speak first without fully evaluating how it would effect the other party, but he didn’t realize just what it was like to be on the receiving end of one of those comments. 

Sakusa and Atsumu had a relatively healthy relationship. Of course, they had their disagreements, but there had never been an explicit moment in which Sakusa could remember that Miya would have the chance to lash out so harshly.

That’s a good thing, at least. It’s only happened once. He thought.

But, how long until it happens again? 

Omi felt his heart sink and he sighed, trying not to think too much about that right now.

What if there isn’t an “again”?

---

Again. A word Sakusa didn’t seem to be fond of in the recent weeks. Atsumu had always made the same mistakes, again. He had always been out too late with other people, again. He had always come home the next morning, again. Apologized, again. Said he’s never do it, again.

But now, the word had new meaning. If there was no again for Atsumu to hurt him, would that mean that he had moved on? Would that mean his leaving was final and there wouldn’t be any risk to get hurt again?

There was always a risk to get hurt. Sakusa knew that full well. And, he knew there was a risk to get hurt repeatedly. However, if there was no risk, that meant there was no Atsumu. While he didn’t like risk, he didn’t like the idea of never being able to say “I love you,” again to his best friend.

Miya Atsumu had been gone for a couple weeks for training in another country. He had been so far, and yet all he wanted to do was go back home to the people he cared about. 

He had messed up so many times. He had his “fall” and realized he sure as hell didn’t like how lonely it was on the bottom. The people he had neglected to care about recently weren’t there, and everything that came along with promise was so far from that. He didn’t want to be there and longer, and knew he had to change his habits and lifestyle outside of the court to better himself and lend more towards those he truly cared for. 

One of those people being Sakusa Kiyoomi. 

God, I need to call him before my flight back home, was all he could think. He was sitting in the airport with less than 5 minutes until he was to board. I have time, he thought. 

He grabbed his phone and dialed Sakusa’s number by instinct. Omi <3 read the contact. He hesitated only slightly. Maybe this is better to settle in person. A phone call isn’t the best way to discuss this, especially when I only have so much time.

He sucked in a deep breath. There was no way he could do this properly

“But, I hafta at least try.”

One ring. 

Two rings.

Three. 

Damn, Omi, pick up...

Four

Five.

“Hello?” He heard at last. 

“OMI!” Atsumu practically shouted in the middle of the air port. People turned their heads towards him dramatically, some looking aggravated, some confused, some about to laugh. He didn’t care. The noise in his mind had already been that loud, so he had hardly noticed the stark contrast when he spoke at such a loud volume.

“Ow, okay, no need to shout. It’s a phone call, I’m right here. Why did you call?” Omi said monotonously. Atsumu felt a cold shiver run down his spine, and all at once he wanted to hit the large red button on his phone screen and pretend he never called and their argument never happened and everything was okay. However, that would get them nowhere. That’s not what Atsumu wanted.

“Heya, uhm, I don’t exacly have a lot of time?”

“Mm. Figures.”

“But all I’ve been able ta think about lately is how ya were so right.”

Sakusa Kiyoomi wished he had been recording this call, because he might not ever hear those words again. Before, it was always ‘I was wrong,’ never, ‘you were right.’

“And I’ve been treatin’ like so much less than ya deserve. Yer one of my favorite people, Omi, and I have don’t nothin to show that ta ya.”

Silence for the first time in two weeks.

“I wanna do better by ya. And, I don’t have a lot of time ta get into details because I board the plane shortly... and I don’t expect an immediate answer from ya, but, can try again?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t push your luck, you heard me the first time. Get home safely.”

“Oh. And, of course, we can talk more about it later and everything, because I still have a lot ta say and I wanna hear what you hafta say too because what you wanna say is important to me an-”

“Miya?”

“Yes?” he sucked in a breath, holding it in the absence of conversation.

A pause.

“Get home safely. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Yeah, you got it. Me too.”

“Goodbye. See you soon.” A beep.

“Bye, Omi. Cya soon.”

[shipmistress9]

FTLOAP: Chapter 48: Reminds Me Again It's Worth It All

For The Love Of A Princess Masterpost

Alpha/Co-author: @athingofvikings

Taglist: @drchee5e @hey-its-laura-again @thepixiedustfactory​ (If you want me to add you to this list, just say so. ^^)

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If you want to support me you can buy me a coffee. I love coffee 😊 (Ko-Fi)

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AN: How... how is it already almost three months later again? Time is a lie! xD But I won't apologise. Life is just absolutely crazy right now, and not just because of this virus. But I'm not abandoning this story, don't worry! :)

And I don't want to ramble here too much, but... I was worried how you all would take it that I implemented the canon events as legends. And I'm very happy and relieved to see that you guys generally seem to approve. ^^

This week's title comes, again, from Memories by Within Temptation. I've picked this title before I wrote the chapter and I have to admit that it fitted better to the original vision I had of this chapter than to the end result. But it still works and it's not that important anyway, right? ;P

. o O o .

“Do you think you can do it? Can you kill a dragon?”

Grimacing, Hiccup averted his face at that question. Killing a dragon… There once had been a time where this prospect had troubled him. It had been something he had to do, but not what he’d wanted to do.

But now, things were different. He'd already lost so much to a dragon’s attack once, and now could gain so much more if he did it… It wasn’t a question about whether he could do it anymore.

But… would he be able to do it?

“I get that it’s a lot to think about,” Eret said when he didn’t reply immediately. “Especially after what you just told us and in such a short time. The thing is just… You legally winning that title for yourself would be the easiest and cleanest solution. But we can prepare you as much as we want; if it’s more likely that you’re getting killed, it’s not worth it. Then we have to come up with something else. I’m sure there’s something we can do. There has to be.”

Hiccup pressed his lips together and lowered his head. Astrid was still sitting right next to him, her hand in his. So close. It could be so easy. All he had to do to be with her was kill a dragon. But after all his failures, he wasn't likely to be too optimistic.

“I don’t know,” he eventually said in a low voice. “I became a better fighter over the last years, I had to, and… and I have the best motivation imaginable.” Chuckling weakly, he lifted his hand to breathe a soft kiss onto Astrid’s knuckled. It made her smile, tentatively. “But I don’t know if I can do it. It would be difficult, nearly impossible . During raids and other occasions, we use special tools and weapons against dragons that make it easier to capture and kill them. If I had some of those, I think I could do it. But without them?” Gulping, he shook his head. “I’d need a lot of luck, and, well… given the past few years, luck is not something I would want to count on.”

Next to him, Astrid flinched. The fingers of her free hand painfully dug into his arm; she clearly didn’t like his answer. But as much as he wanted to give her another one – lying just to comfort her wasn’t an option.

“But you can build these weapons,” Eret objected. “I know you can, I’ve seen you work in Berk’s forge and you even managed to fix the music box. Just tell us what you need, and we get if for you.”

Hiccup’s gaze shifted back to Eret. He was grateful for his enthusiasm and optimism, that he wouldn’t give up. But in this case, just thinking positively wouldn't help much. With a tired sigh, he shook his head. “You’re right, I could build what I need. But not within only a couple of days. I’d need special moulds to forge the pieces, special tools I don’t have… It would take me weeks to build all that from scratch.”

“Can’t you get some of those things here?” Dagur threw in. “I mean, the markets here might not be as big as Southshore’s… but this is the capital. There’s a lot you can buy here.”

Hiccup grimaced, his free hand tightening into a fist. He gazed down at Astrid, tightly clinging to his arm and her face hidden against his side. He couldn’t give up now. Eret was right, winning that hunt would be the cleanest solution. And for Astrid, he was willing to try and risk everything. Whatever it would take.

With a heavy sigh, he turned back toward the others. “Maybe you’re right and we can find at least some things. So far, I haven’t seen anything of that sort though, and finding the tools I need, let alone the functioning weapons, might take just as long as trying to build them. But yeah, it’s at least a possibility.”

“All right, what should we look for?” Tuff asked.

He shared a look with his sister who added, “Tuff and I know the city pretty well. And we know some people… If the things you need exist somewhere in Volantis, then we’re your best option to find them.”

Frowning, Hiccup took a moment to think. “The most important thing,” he eventually replied, slowly, “would be a bola shooter. The best way – the only reasonable way, really – to fight any dragon is to first incapacitate their wings, if possible their legs too. If they can’t fly or move much at all, they’re relatively easy prey.”

“A…. what shooter?” The question came from Tuff, but except for Eret who’d seen a bola shooter in action before, everyone looked equally confused.

“A bola shooter.” He released Astrid’s hand to use both arms for his explanation. “A bola is a weapon made for hunting. It’s made of three – or more – strings of rope, all tied together at a centre point and each with some form of weight at the end, usually a rock of this size,” he held up his fist, “or bigger, depending on what kind of prey you’re after. If you fling it the right way, it wraps around the beast’s body, preferably around its legs or wings and renders it immobile.”

“Makes sense,” Dagur agreed, nodding. “But I don’t see your problem. Making such a bola doesn’t sound that complicated.”

Hiccup nodded. “It’s not. But using a bola just on its own, that’s not advisable if you’re out to hunt a dragon. Flinging a bola over your head is not exactly stealthy. If you’re in a raid where there’s chaos already, it doesn’t matter much. But if you try to sneak up on a dragon and want to capture it before it attacks or simply flies off? Not a good idea. So what I need is a shooter. It’s a device to launch such bolas without the eye-catching gaining of momentum.” His gaze wandered to Astrid’s servants. “What you would be looking for is–”

“Wait a moment,” Eret interrupted him. He got up from his chair and walked over to a desk, then returned with a sheet of paper and a pencil. “It’s not as if I have much need for letter paper anyway.”

Gratefully, Hiccup took the paper and pencil, and leaning over the low table in front of him, he made a quick sketch of what he needed.

“It’s a wooden or metallic tube,” he explained. “Wide enough for weights as such rocks and with a mechanism to launch them attached to it at one end.” He handed the sketch over to Astrid’s warder.

The man narrowed his eyes as he looked at the sketch then showed it to his sister next to him. She too narrowed her eyes, then the twins shared a knowing look and a nod.

“What?” Dagur asked, a little annoyed. “Have you seen anything like that before?”

“Maybe,” Ruff replied slowly. She inspected the sketch for a moment longer, then shared another strange nod with her brother before she left the room without another word.

Everyone gazed after her, perplexed, then threw Tuff a questioning look.

But Tuff’s answer wasn’t very enlightening. “She needs to check something,” he simply said.

Dagur snorted. “Don’t bother trying to make sense of their twintuition. It’s pointless.”

“I can hear you, you know?” Tuff muttered.

“So what?,” Dagur cackled. “Nothing I wouldn’t say to your face.”

Rolling his eyes at their bickering, Eret cleared his throat to draw Hiccup’s attention again. “Who knows how long Ruff will be gone. So let’s use the time to talk options. I agree, flinging a bola isn’t stealthy, but it would still be possible, wouldn’t it? Or how about a weighted net? I’ve seen you use those sometimes, too.”

With his lips pressed into a thin line, Hiccup nodded. “Possible, yes, but not advisable. A shooter would give me another advantage over simply flinging a bola or net myself. I wouldn’t need to get as close to the beast since a shooter can hurl them farther than I can throw them, and they could be bigger too as it can handle higher weights. And with a net, I’d need to be in a higher position to throw it on top of them. It can be done, obviously, but, yeah… It would require a lot of luck.”

Eret frowned but didn’t object and didn’t come up with some other option, either. Grateful for the break, Hiccup leaned against the cushioned backrest, relaxing a little when Astrid cuddled to his side without hesitation. She’d been surprisingly quiet throughout the whole conversation, and now he noticed just how tense she was; her shoulders, her expression, even her hands clenched into fists around his tunic. As if she was subconsciously holding on to something invisible.

It was strange in a way. But just like he'd drawn from her strength earlier when the memories of his dead family had threatened to overwhelm him, it now seemed as if she was relying on his strength in return. Even though he had no idea why she needed it.

He let his hand run up and down her back, slowly, comfortingly, and after a minute or two, she relaxed at least a little bit.

It didn't take long until Ruff returned. In her arms, she carried a large basket full of laundry which earned her confused looks from everyone waiting.

"You came to bring fresh clothes?" Dagur asked, a little incredulously. "Do you expect anyone to rip theirs off?" He threw an insinuating grin at Astrid and Hiccup, but nobody was really in the mood for joking.

"Haha, funny," Ruff deadpanned. She placed the basket on the ground and rummaged about for a few seconds until she found what she was looking for. With a satisfied grin, she glanced from one to the other. "No, the laundry was just for cover; I didn't want people to get suspicious if they saw me with this." She pulled an object out that had been hidden by layers of cloth, a smug smile on her face as she looked at Hiccup. "Is this what you were talking about? A bola shooter?"

Hiccup could only gape. Disbelievingly, he reached for the device when Ruff held it out to him, his fingers reverently gliding over the sturdy metal tube. It was dusty, the mechanism getting stuck when he tried to wind it up, but it was undeniably a bola shooter. It even was the same model they used on Berk, the size and length of the tube distinct. And the mechanism! It was just like–

Hiccup sucked in a sharp breath and turned the device around until his eyes found what he’d been looking for, a sign that was etched into the metal at the underside of the tube. A horizontal line crossed by three vertical ones. Or, the way he read it, ‘H H’.

"Where did you get this?" he asked, his eyes on the twins.

This couldn't be… It made no sense! How?

"What's wrong, Hiccup?" Eret asked, frowning, a note of worry in his voice.

Mutely and without looking, Hiccup handed the shooter over to his cousin. His eyes were still on Ruff, still waiting for her answer.

Ruff exchanged a frown with her brother, and they both shrugged. “It’s Astrid’s,” she replied.

Stunned, Hiccup turned toward Astrid, but she looked just as surprised as he was. “Excuse me?”

“It’s true,” Tuff said with another shrug. “It was in one of your birthday chests from three or four years ago.”

Still confused, Hiccup cocked his head. “Birthday chests?” he asked for clarification when even Dagur just nodded in understanding.

“Usually, there aren’t as many people here for my birthday as there were this year,” Astrid explained in a low voice. She sounded distracted, as if her mind was somewhere else entirely. “But since ignoring the Princess Royal’s birthday could be considered an insult, practically every noble family sends a gift every year. Nothing extravagant in most cases, just a sign that they remembered. Often, it’s some local speciality, food, clothes, or craftsmanship. I… some pieces I kept, and the food always gets eaten, of course, but the rest gets stored away, and…” She trailed off, shrugging.

“Exactly!” Tuff nodded. “There’s an entire room just filled with shelves and boxes full of stuff – for every member of the royal family. And there’s some weird stuff in there, that I can tell you.” He snickered.

Somewhere in the depth of Hiccup’s mind, a memory was rising, but he couldn’t grasp it yet.

“Very true!” Ruff said with a smirk. “Some of these things are great for pranks; it’s just a hassle to sort through them sometimes. Anyway, there are a few chests that are different… bigger. Sometimes, higher noble families don’t just send one gift but an entire chest full of various gifts. There is one in particular that contains a number of strange things I’ve never seen anywhere else. Clothes in an unfamiliar style, wooden carvings, instruments… and this weird fellow.” She pointed at the bola shooter in Eret’s hand. “We never knew what to make of it, but when you sketched your shooter just now…” She broke off, looking over at Eret as he grunted in surprise.

"Is… is that one of yours?" he asked, baffled.

Next to him, Astrid shuffled to sit up straighter. “Yeah, apparently it is. Even though I can’t–”

“He means me,” Hiccup interrupted her gently. He held his hand out for Eret to give him the shooter back, then turned it around to show her the symbol etched into the metal. “See this? That… well, you can call it my signature, I guess. I used to mark everything I made with this sign. H H. Hiccup of House Haddock.”

He shrugged, a little embarrassed. Putting that signature on his works had been an act of pride and rebellion, he knew that all too well. So many people had called him useless for not being a good fighter and not going after the dragons as he was supposed to. And yet, they’d been happy enough to use his weapons and devices.

Astrid traced the symbol with her fingers, her touch careful. “So… you made this?” she asked, visibly puzzled “But… how did it end up in that chest?”

Hiccup’s memories were all falling into place then. “I haven’t thought of this in a long time, didn’t even remember until just now,” he said slowly. “It was on the day the council had decided that I would have to prove myself in the arena, and I was… well, I was terrified, to be honest. Torn on whether I even wanted to kill a dragon and scared by having to do so in the arena, without support or the usual methods. I had just finished working on this shooter, but more felt like throwing it out of the window and into the ocean. What was the point of crafting all these weapons if I wasn’t allowed to use them? I think I was pretty lost, wallowing, and didn't pay much attention to my mother when she came into my workshop."

He had to pause and swallow at that memory. What would he give if he could go back to that moment, for the chance to talk to her again? To ask for her advice, or just to listen to what was on her mind. If only he hadn't wasted so much time only focused on his own problems...

"She tried to cheer me up and encourage me, said that she had faith in me. But I didn't want to hear that and in the end, it wasn't why she'd come looking for me anyway. She was about to send a chest of gifts to her friend, for her daughter's birthday, and wanted me to contribute something, too." His lips twitched into a rueful smile. "I remember how annoyed I was. What did the birthday of some stranger matter to me? I had more important things on my mind, like not losing my honour in front of the entire tribe, for example. Or my life. So I just gave her the shooter I'd just finished, unreasonably angry at the device itself for me not being allowed to use it in my fight against the dragon."

With slightly shaking hands, Astrid reached for the shooter to inspect it a little more closely. "Is it still working, though?" There was an odd tone in her voice, so quiet and almost trembling, something he couldn’t quite place. “I mean, it’s been lying around in that chest for three years now. Are you sure it’s not rusty? What if the mechanism jams when you need it?”

Hiccup took a moment to think, then nodded. “Yeah, it should still work. Maybe not right now, but it shouldn’t be a problem to get it to work on time. I just need to disassemble it, clean all parts, and put them back together.” He paused, trying to think it through. All parts were there, working and in his usual high quality. They shouldn’t have suffered much over time, and even if one or two parts were broken, it shouldn’t be that hard to replace only those.

He sucked in a deep breath, a confidant grin on his face. “So, going back to your question,” he said, looking at Eret. “Yes, with this baby here, I think I can do it. I can kill a dragon!”

. o O o .

Hiccup was itching to get started. Three days weren’t much time to prepare for the task that lay ahead of him, and he didn’t want to waste even one second. But no matter how eager he was to disappear into the royal armoury and work on the shooter, he grudgingly had to yield to Eret’s logic.

“You can’t go and spend all day locked up, working on some secret project. If you do, people will get suspicious, and we can’t have anyone pay overly attention to what either of us is doing.”

So he spent most of the day assisting Eret and Dagur during their training – which probably wasn’t that much of a waste of time, either. It was a little tricky as on the one hand, it couldn’t become obvious that Hiccup was training some techniques for real, while on the other hand, Eret and Dagur couldn’t put too much obvious effort into it. But all he could do was hope that the ruse worked.

Astrid was watching them from afar, but something was strange about her. Hiccup was ecstatic, even as his leg was acting up a little from the unusual workout. For the first time since Astrid’s birthday, he felt true confidence, for their future but also for himself. The plan Eret had come up with was good. It wouldn’t be easy by any means, but it could work. And even more importantly, it was something he could do.

But Hiccup noticed that Astrid wasn’t nearly in as good a mood as he was, even from a distance. She looked tense and anxious, even more so than this morning, almost constantly biting her lip. He wished he could go and talk to her, could ask her what was bothering her. But there were too many people around on the fighting ground; all conversations would have to wait until the night.

And until then, he had to use every bit of time he had. He didn’t join Eret and Dagur for their lunch break and instead spent the time at the armoury. And even though he only had about an hour, he made good progress with the shooter. It was years now since he last worked on a device like this, but it still felt natural, easy as breathing.

After a first inspection, he was relieved to see that nearly all pieces were still in working order. One rod was warped and needed to be pounded back into shape with some work on an anvil. Another was broken and he would need to replace it, same as a bolt or three. But all that was manageable, no reason to worry. If he used his free hours in the evening and on the next day without wasting time, then he should be done by tomorrow night, the morning after at the latest.

The good mood carried him through the day, even though it was a long and exhausting one. After his simple dinner in the servants’ kitchen, it was time to sneak into Astrid’s rooms again, and if it hadn’t been for this happy prospect, he would have just gone to bed directly. His leg hurt more with every step he made through the narrow tunnels as he followed Tuff, and it was only the thought of Astrid that kept him going. Of holding her, but also of the anxiety he’d noticed in her.

And when he entered her bedroom and Ruff closed the door behind him, it quickly became apparent that her mood hadn’t improved all day. She was still as tense as she’d been before if not more, sitting on the edge of her bed with her hands nervously fiddling with her nightgown.

"Hey," she greeted him. There was a smile on her lips but it felt off. It didn’t reach her eyes, even though the warmth and love in them were real.

"Hey," he replied. With a sigh, he sat down next to her, relieved when his weight was off his leg. Whatever it was that was bothering her, they surely could talk about it sitting, right? "Is everything okay?"

But Astrid didn't react. Instead, she frowned, her eyes not meeting his. "Your leg hurts."

It wasn't a question, but Hiccup nodded nonetheless. "A little, yes. With all the training today, that was to be expected. I should probably take it a little easier tomorrow,“ he added lightly.

She nodded, still not looking at him. Instead, her frown deepened and she chewed on her lower lip, thinking. "Do you want me to massage it?" she eventually offered.

Hiccup knew that he should decline. The pain wasn't that bad, nothing a good night's rest wouldn't heal, and letting her hands roam his skin wasn't necessarily advisable anyway. All too well, he remembered how that usually affected him.

But something was keeping him from turning her down. There was something in the way she avoided his gaze, how her hands trembled, that told him that, for some reason, Astrid needed this. He wasn't sure whether it was about having something to do in general or whether she craved contact just as much as he did, but it was there. And he didn't have it in him to deny her. Besides, a massage would definitely help, and coming from her would make it all the sweeter.

"Yeah, that would be great."

On her indication, he made himself comfortable in the middle of her bed, with his back resting against the headrest and the leg of his trousers rolled up as far as possible. Claiming that he didn't enjoy how her hands glided over his skin and worked the tissue and muscles beneath would have been a lie. It felt wonderful, both the relief it brought to his aching leg and the sensations her touch elicited in the rest of his body alike.

But as much as he enjoyed the massage, he also was aware of how anxious Astrid still was, of the wrinkles in her forehead, the tension around her mouth, and how her hands were trembling. She clearly was not okay. But since she’d evaded his question before, all he could do was wait for her to be ready to tell him what was bothering her.

"It makes sense now," she eventually murmured. She wasn't meeting his eyes, her gaze resting on his scarred leg, on her fingers tracing the ugly ragged lines.

"What do you mean?" he asked when she didn't continue.

Astrid swallowed. "Your leg. I... I've been wondering about these scars ever since you showed them to me. Not where they come from!" she quickly clarified, "But... It's just that I've seen the scars on your back. Those wounds there must have been so much worse than the one on your leg. And I always wondered why your back healed so well and your leg didn't. But now I know."

Hiccup sighed. "Yeah... my night in the forest really didn't do me any good. The infection–"

"It's not just that," she interrupted him. "A wound like this needs constant care to heal properly. Cleaning and treatment and fresh bandages and time. Bu-but if you got imprisoned and exiled, your leg got none of that, right?” Her voice was trembling now. “That's why it's still bothering you. Not because the wound was so severe or because it got dirty or even infected. It’s because it never got time to heal."

Hiccup closed his eyes and nodded. "You're right. I only got the barest minimum of treatment before they sent me away. And then, I had to leave quickly and couldn't risk resting for a week or even longer to let the wound heal. I was lucky I didn't lose the leg altogether…" He trailed off as the painful memories made a lump form in his throat; memories of cold nights in the northern forest, of hiding from thieving groups… and of being scared but at the same time not feeling worthy of even the care one of Freya’s temples would have offered.

Astrid shifted, finally looked at him as she reached for his hand. There was a shimmer in her eyes, as if she was close to tears. "Oh, Hiccup," she sniffed. "That... that must have been horrible!"

Swallowing, Hiccup lowered his head. She was right, it had been horrible. Not just because of what had happened, though, but mostly because he hadn't thought it possible that the Tribes' leaders, his own people, would be so callous and cruel. He'd always known that there were some who'd wanted House Haddock removed and even more had been in doubt about him. But he hadn't expected them to directly exile him without a proper trial. To all but execute him without solid evidence.

Astrid's hand was shaking around his, causing him to look up at her again. Her eyes were filled with sadness. "I-I'm so sorry for what you've been through. I wish there was a way to make it all undone. I wish I could spare you all the pain you've been through. And your family! I knew they were dead, but... but what happened to them – it wasn't fair!"

Again, Hiccup swallowed. "No, it wasn't fair," he murmured. He took a moment to take a deep breath and slowly let it out again. "But it's all in the past. What happened happened, and nobody can change it anymore."

Astrid nodded, weakly, her hand tightening around his. "And I'm sorry. For making you talk about them this morning. I can only imagine how much that must have cost you! If there's anything I can do to make it up to you or–"

Hiccup put a finger over her lips, effectively silencing her. "It's all right," he assured her. "You're already doing more than I can ever put into words, just by existing, by being here. Besides... I think it was actually good that I finally talked about it all, about them and what happened. I feel... lighter, somehow. I still miss them, of course, I do. But at the same time, I know that they will always be with me as long as I remember them. They are my past, and while I’ll never forget them… Thinking about them made me remember how happy I was. And it reminded me that it’s worth fighting for a happy life. For our future.”

Astrid sucked in a harsh breath. Again, she began to tremble, so much so that Hiccup pulled her into his arms to comfort her, grateful when she didn’t resist even though he didn't understand what troubled her.

“Hey, hey,” he mumbled into her hair, one hand soothingly rubbing her back. “What’s up? Why are you so upset?”

Sniffling, she burrowed deeper into his embrace. “I don’t like it.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?” There were many things not to like lately, and while he was reasonably sure that she wasn’t talking about their shared future, there were just too many options left.

“Eret’s plan. You having to hunt and fight a dragon. I don’t like it!”

Her words were muffled and it took him a moment to fully understand them. Then he frowned. “Why? It’s the first time we actually have a plan. Finally, it’s something solid we can do, something I can do.”

She snorted against his chest, a humourless laugh. “You know that you don’t have to prove yourself, right?”

“I know,” he sighed. “Not to you. But… I know that it’s stupid, but I feel like I have to prove it to myself – that I’m worthy of you and our future. That I’m not a failure. And I need it to get closure. I couldn’t kill that dragon back then and it ruined my life. So if I now can ensure our life together by killing a dragon… It’s like settling old scores, you know? Besides, Eret is right. If I can earn this title, then we’re going to face far less resistance. It will be easier, all things considered.”

She was silent for a few heartbeats, not replying in any way. Then she seemed to burrow even deeper into his embrace, her mumbled words barely audible. “But only if it works.”

Hiccup grimaced, glad that she couldn’t see his face. “It will work,” he then replied with conviction. “It has to. Remember what the Goddess said? That I have to do what comes naturally? Well, this does. This is something I can do. Even more so, it’s like this is a task that’s made for me, just like Eret said. I have the training and knowledge needed for this Hunt. This has to be what the Goddess meant.”

But Astrid still wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I see what you mean, but… I just have a bad feeling about all this! As if something will go terribly wrong...”

Sighing, he pulled her up until he could look at her. “It won’t go wrong, okay? I won’t let that happen! Not when I have you to come back to.”

“But what if you don’t?” She sounded desperate now. "What if that shooter doesn't work? Or someone attacks you? Or the dragon you find is stronger than you thought? What if you don’t come back?” She shook her head, a single tear running down her cheek.”I don’t want you to leave, don’t want to be apart from you. It feels wrong! I just have this weird feeling about it, as if something will happen when we’re not together, someth–”

He cut her off with a quick kiss. He could see what she was doing, spiralling down into worries and fears. He recognised it, had been there often enough in his life. But thinking like that wouldn’t do them any good. “It won’t go wrong! Do you hear me? For some reason, the Gods need us for their plans, so it won’t go wrong. You’ll see, I’ll be back here before you really notice I’m gone. That I promise you!”

With a pained expression on her face, she shook her head. Slowly, she crawled up the bed until she sat above him, straddling him. Her eyes were sad when they searched his, worried, her hands coming up to brush away strands of his hair. When she kissed him, it was hesitant, careful even, her fingers against his jaw and neck trembling. And yet, it was full of an urgency he didn't quite comprehend, lingering desperation thrumming beneath the surface. Without a doubt, it was fueled by her anxiety, but why she felt that way, he still didn't fully understand.

When she deepened the kiss, he didn't resist though. Her tongue was delving into his mouth, seeking closeness and reassurance, while her hand roamed to the back of his head to hold him close, fingers tugging at his hair. She was trembling, whimpering. Clinging to him as if to dear life. And he just didn’t have it in him to push her away at that moment.

His body liked her squirming in his lap more than it should, but he tried to ignore it, focused only on Astrid instead. For some reason, this was what she needed right now, just like he'd needed her support earlier when he’d talked about his family. So he didn't deny her and instead wound his arms around her lithe frame, holding her close, safe.

And who was he kidding? Kissing her and feeling her so close was a joy on its own. She was so warm, so soft, melting against his chest and into his embrace as if they were one. No matter how good this day had turned out to be, being here with her right now, tasting her kiss and hearing her little sighs, was better than everything else.

And even though he knew he should, he didn’t stop her when their kiss grew more passionate. Her fingertips scraped over his scalp and wandered down to caress his throat in a way that sent shivers all the way down his spine. It made his hands clutch her more firmly, hurl her closer still, made him groan into their kiss, and made heat pool low in his belly. She was all he wanted, all he needed, all that mattered. And, Gods , he wanted her so much.

Without his help, his hands wandered down her body, gliding along the curves of her waist, her hips, and her thighs. The thin fabric of her nightshift did little to cover her; he could feel everything, every muscle moving beneath hot skin. He eagerly swallowed the low moans his touch drew from her, luxuriating in the knowledge that it was he who made her feel like this. It was something he hoped to never lose, the simple joy of making her feel good.

However, when she broke free of their kiss to let out a louder groan and she ground herself down against him in that clear search for more stimulation, he remembered that there was a line they mustn't cross. As if he'd burned himself, he pulled his hands away from her thighs, though only to let them land on her hips instead, holding her still.

“Astrid!” he implored, pleading in a low and hoarse voice.

A low whimper escaped her, but she didn’t move and only let her forehead drop to his shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I… I got carried away.” She chuckled, embarrassed and a little breathless. Her hands tightened into fists around the fabric of his tunic. “But you better keep your promise, you hear me?”

Hiccup tilted his head to place a soft and relatively innocent kiss below her ear. “I will,” he vowed, his lips twitching. He knew that she was referring to what he'd said a few minutes before, but he couldn't resist teasing her a little, if only to lighten the mood. “I will come back to you. And don’t worry, I’m not going to scam you out of all the nights I’m going to make it up to you, either. You might even beg me for a break every now and then.”

His words had the desired effect as she was chuckling for real now. Her arms slid around his neck and she settled against his shoulder in a comfortable embrace. “Just promise me that you’ll be careful. Promise me that nothing will go wrong. That you won’t get overconfident, that you won't take unnecessary risks, and won’t do anything stupid.”

With his hands slowly caressing up and down her back, Hiccup smiled, hidden within her loose night braids. “All right. I promise not to do something stupid. And don’t worry, I know how dangerous dragons can be; I won’t get cocky. I have too much to lose.”

“Same here,” she mumbled before kissing him again, though sweeter and lighter this time.

After only a few seconds, she pulled back again and even slid off his lap to cuddle to his side instead. Hiccup missed her warmth right away but knew better than to protest. This was not the time for intimate closeness but it would come, soon.

“So, what about that shooter of yours?” Her voice was light, but a little strained. As if she was forcing herself to sound untroubled.

Hiccup grimaced. He didn't want her to pretend for his sake. He pulled her a little closer and brushed his lips against her forehead. "We don't have to talk about this," he mumbled against her skin. "Not if it makes you uncomfortable."

Astrid hesitated, then sighed. "It's… okay. And I think I do need to hear this. I need to know that everything will work out."

Hiccup chuckled. "That limits how I can reply to your question. You realise that, right?"

She snorted, and he could practically hear how she rolled her eyes. "Well, if you tell me now that the shooter won't work then you won't participate in this Hunt anyway."

His lips twitched at her adamant tone. "The shooter is in a good state. A little dusty so I need to clean it thoroughly, and I need to replace a couple of parts. But those are all manageable details. Don't worry, it will be in perfect shape for the Hunt."

"Okay." She nodded, the movement soothing against his arm, and sighed. "Maybe I'm just overreacting after all…"

Hiccup shrugged. "I wouldn't call it overreacting. To be honest, I'm a little nervous, too. But I refuse to let that deter me. You'll see, everything will go smoothly and next week by this time, we'll laugh about all this. And then you'll have to admit that I was right."

She snorted again and shook her head. "Is this a thing of yours? Do you always have to be right?"

Hiccup flinched as her words echoed in his mind but in another voice, a little deeper but with the same playful annoyance.

“What is it?” Astrid looked at him questioningly. She'd noticed his reaction, of course, she had...

“It’s… nothing. Just… Arndis used to say that, too. Complaining about how I’m usually right.” He chuckled, even as a fresh wave of sadness tainted his mood. “Wasn’t my fault she always tried to go straight through the wall instead of taking two steps to the side and around it.”

Astrid sat up until she knelt next to him, watching him carefully. “Would you… tell me more about her? About your family? Only if you feel like it, of course,” she added quickly.”But they meant so much to you, and I… Well, I wish I’d known them.”

Smiling sadly, Hiccup nodded. He leaned back, his eyes on the ceiling as his hand searched for hers.

“Arndis was… a little pigheaded,” he began, chuckling. Absentmindedly, he weaved his fingers through Astrid’s, her touch so soothing and comforting. “She wasn’t unreasonable, just… She had her own mind and wouldn’t let others tell her what to do. Or what she couldn’t do. I told you that women in the Tribes have more freedom than they have here. But Arndis still was the daughter of the High Chief and Grand Duke and was expected to enter a political marriage one day, possibly outside of the Tribes. Our parents tried to teach her certain manners so she wouldn’t be completely lost… but she barely listened. She refused to even learn how to ride on a side-saddle, for example, easily kept up with father’s guards when they got drunk in the Great Hall, and was far better at wielding a sword than her knitting needles. In fact, she was better at wielding a sword than most of Father’s soldiers, I included.”

He chuckled at the memory and marvelled at how easy it was to think about her now, with barely any pain.

"Sounds like my kind of person," Astrid replied, watching him with a smile.

Hiccup nodded. "Yeah, I think you two would have gotten along very well," he said wistfully. "You're a lot like her, in many ways. She never had the patience to master an art like archery, though that’s for the better, I think. She was very competitive – not unlike you, if I think back to our occasional horse races.” In general, those were happy memories but he flinched nonetheless, hadn’t meant to remind her of Markor again. But Astrid didn’t seem to mind.

“Mmh. I wish I'd known her. I met a lot of other highborn daughters over the years, but they were all so boring.” She chuckled, then grew quiet again. “And your brother? Teitr? How was he like?”

Hiccup swallowed, and his hand in Astrid’s twitched. “Teitr… he-he was…” He trailed off with a helpless shrug, then tried again. “He was a surprise, in every aspect. After Arndis and me, nobody expected our parents to have more children – not even them. When my mother became pregnant again and gave birth to another healthy boy, it was like a miracle. And that’s how he got treated, too; he got spoiled rotten by everyone.”

“And by you, too?”

Hiccup’s lips twitched into an involuntary smile at her guess. “Most of all by me. You should have seen him… He was so sweet. Brave and curious and always so full of energy, so eager to explore the world.”

Next to him, Astrid sat up, and only when her fingers brushed over his cheek did he notice the lonely tear there. “You loved him a lot, didn’t you?”

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Hiccup nodded. “It was more than just that, though, he added, a little hesitantly. ”There were many quarrels among the Tribes over the last few years and Father was always busy mediating between the arguing parties. So I often took care of him when Mother had other duties to fulfil – Arndis rarely had the patience for that and I always felt responsible for him – until I kind of… became something of a replacement dad for him?”

Biting his lip, Hiccup dropped his gaze. It brought fresh pain to think of Teitr like this. He’d certainly looked up to Hiccup – and he hadn’t been able to save him.

“Sometimes, he even called me Dad, when he was just learning how to speak and didn’t know the difference mostly, but also a few times when he was older, too, distracted by whatever he wanted to show me.”

He’d never told anyone about this, hadn’t even acknowledged it to himself, but it had happened. Yes, Teitr had been more than just a little brother to him, in a way. Telling Astrid about him, the woman he wanted to start a family with someday, felt both incredibly awkward and absolutely right.

He wasn't sure how he'd expected her to react, but a part of him wasn’t even surprised at how she took it. She wasn’t angry, wasn’t jealous, wasn't rejecting the bond he'd shared with his baby brother as ridiculous. Instead, she offered comfort for his loss, kissing him with the salty taste of sadness on her lips before she straightened to hug him close to her chest. And he could feel it, the sorrow and understanding thrumming through their bond. It showed him again that she was worth it all.

He held her close, his arms wrapped around her waist, and listened to her steadily beating heart until the turmoil in his own chest had settled again. It took a long while, with her all but wrapped around him for comfort, her hands soothingly running through his hair. She seemed to sense when he’d calmed down – or maybe he’d made some noise or movement, Hiccup wasn’t sure – and pulled back to look at him again.

“I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how that must have been for you. I mean… I lost my baby brother, too. But even though I mourn him that obviously wasn’t the same. I never got the chance to know him. So…” She paused, biting her lip. She averted her eyes and looked a little embarrassed, a slight blush on her cheeks. “I don’t know, I don’t want to come across as presumptuous. But I was thinking… Maybe, if that’s okay with you, then we could name our son Teitr. As a memento?”

Hiccup was momentarily stunned. All too well, he remembered the vision they’d shared, remembered the little boy Astrid had held in her arms there. But now, his mind made up details he wasn’t sure had truly been there before; an open but cheeky smile and a pair of green eyes brimming with life and curiosity.

He had to swallow against the lump in his throat but at the same time, he felt warmth spreading from his chest and through his entire body, not erasing the sorrow and pain but making it easier to bear.

“I… Yes, I think I’d like that,” he mumbled with something of a smile creeping onto his face.

When her eyes met his again, there was a deep understanding in them, a reassuring warmth, and just so much love. It made something melt inside him, and with a sigh, a tension he hadn’t known he’d held left his body. He leaned his forehead against Astrid’s, drawing upon her strength. If that was still possible, he loved her even more now.

“Thank you.”

These two words were too weak to express what he felt, but he hoped that she could feel it, his love and gratitude.

Astrid just hummed in response, tilted her head to kiss him lightly, and then leaned against his chest again.

They stayed silent for a long while after that and just basked in each other’s closeness. Hiccup kept caressing her back and shoulders until her breathing became calm and even, her warm weight against his chest telling him that she was falling asleep. Gently, he guided her to lie down, undressed toward a comfortable state, and slipped beneath the sheets next to her. Astrid only woke up for long enough to cuddle into his arms before her consciousness slipped away again.

Hiccup stayed awake for a little while longer, though. He wasn’t tired, despite the long day, and instead was content with watching her in her sleep. There was something of a tentative smile playing around her lips, but some of the tension from before was still there, her worries and fears creeping back into her now unguarded mind.

With a sigh, he leaned down to brush a butterfly kiss to her brow, then whispered, “Don’t worry, Milady. I’ll do better this time. This time, I won’t fail. I will kill a dragon! I’ll do whatever it takes, for our future. For you. I promise– no, I vow to you. This time, I won't mess it up!"

. o O o .

Uh oh...

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In good news, the next update shouldn't take that long. It's going to be another interlude and it's already completely written out. And also... it comes with a "Minor Character Death" warning...

Next Chapter

* - . - * - . o O o . - * - . - *

If you want to support me you can buy me a coffee. I love coffee 😊 (Ko-Fi)

[speckleflower]

Say that again? (Adrien AUGust) Part 5: Underwear

“Plagg, claws out!”

The green glow engulfed his body, rendering him as Chat, and Adrien reprimanded himself immediately after transforming, shutting the water off quickly. He had heard the akuma alarm and transformed automatically. While he was in the shower. He hissed upon coming into contact with a drop of water leaving the shower head- as Chat, his cat-like tendencies were beginning to kick in. He jumped back, silently cursing himself. He hoped this fight would go smoothly and quickly, without any shenanigans that required detransforming and recharging- he was naked, he wasn’t even wearing underwear, for heaven’s sake! And there was no time to detransform, feed Plagg, and dry and dress himself- his Lady was probably out there and in need of help. He took a breath, and leaped out of the bathroom window, readying his baton to carry him in the direction of the akuma.

It turned out that the akuma fight had barely been a fight at all. There hadn’t even been an akuma. It had been a false alarm. An old woman had been startled by a man wearing stilts and a mask raising money for a circus, and screamed, “AKUMA!!”

Chat and Ladybug had dealt with it swiftly, and since they were in no danger of detransforming due to not having used their powers, they now sat on the Eiffel tower, watching pink beginning to tinge the horizon.

“So, how are you, Milady?” Chat asked, leaning back on his hands. She smiled at him. “I’m okay, but school’s a little hard, juggling studies and homework with being Ladybug, y’know.”

“I’m sure you handle it amazingly. Miraculously.”

She raised an eyebrow at the pun, but a smile crept onto her face. “Anyway, what about you?”

“Haha, well, speaking of school, I almost set myself on fire today,” he said.

She laughed again, and was it his imagination or did she seem a little nervous as she asked, “How did that happen?”

“Well, we were in science, doing an experiment with hydrocarbons, and I must have brushed my sleeve too close to the Bunsen burner or something, without realising, because suddenly my partner grabbed me and said-”

Ladybug, who had been silent the whole time, put a hand on Chat’s arm, and he stopped abruptly as she finished the sentence. “Your shirt’s on fire, quick!”

“Uh- yes. That’s what she said. How- how did you know?”

She looked him straight in the eyes. “Because I… was the one who said it to you.” She took a breath, “Adrien.”

The silence between them was heavy, punctuated by a gasp. Chat stuttered, “How- you… Marinette? Is that you?”

She looked at him, “Yes.” And then, “Oh crap! I- all this time!”

“What?”

She lowered her voice. “I was in love with you the whole time. Adrien, I mean.” Seeing the look of surprise on his face, she continued. “I kept shoving you aside, as Chat, for… you!” Her voice had risen, “I’m so stupid!”

“Don’t worry, Bugaboo, I haven’t been exactly smart either. Quite the opposite, actually. And I’m so glad it’s you.”

“You’re not… disappointed? That Ladybug is just… me, a clumsy designer?” she queried.

“Oh, no! Marinette, that’s not all there is to you! I’ve been blind. I always thought you just wanted to be friends,” he admitted sheepishly, a hand coming behind his neck, “I was too obsessed with my love for Ladybug- for you.”

“Ah, my silly Chaton, I think we both feel we’ve been more than a little oblivious. But this is a new start. Tikki, spots off.” Her transformation dropped, and lo and behold, it revealed Marinette, smiling nervously. “Oh my wonderful, dorky Minou, I love you.”

“Bug…inette?” He tried the name on his tongue, and liked it. “I really wanna kiss you right now.” Then his face flushed, “But I can’t, uh, detransform at the moment, so you’ll have to settle with Chat.”

“Why can’t you detransform, Kitty?” Marinette asked, smirking. “Took off your makeup? Eyebags? Your cameraman might mind that, but I certainly don’t care.”

Chat’s face reddened even more. “Oh, I- um, I’m not wearing any, ah… underwear.”

The look on her face sent them both into fits of laughter.

@adrienaugust

Read it on ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25652968/chapters/62484760

[smalltowndetective]

Ooo the detective ask game looks fun!! Can I ask 1-5 for Thea?? (Or whichever detective you want to answer for!!)

Oh, I could talk forever about Thea haha. Thank you so much for asking! (I had no idea I was going to get asked questions as well ahaha)

Pairing: Felix and Thea

1.  Did F and your detective start a relationship in Book 2? Why or why not?

2. We know F has not seen much of the human world. Is there anything that your detective would like to show or do with them that they had not experienced yet?

3. Would your detective have any desire to learn Echolian or learn more about the echo world? Why or why not?

4. If the option is there in book 3, will your detective and F participate in (physically) intimate scenes? Why or why not?

5. If your detective knew, how would they feel about F wanting to “chosen” and their fears of this all disappearing tomorrow?

All of this is going under the cut because all of my answers are pretty long

1  Did F and your detective start a relationship in Book 2? Why or why not?

Oh, they absolutely did. I mean after that kiss? How could they not? Thea had been very nervous that whatever was going on between them had died during the months separation, so to see that it had not gave her so much hope. She missed him terribly during those few months, more then I think she even realized she would (and she did know she would) Going to ramble a bit about what’s going on in her head pre-kiss, because it kind of sets some stuff up for me. It’s no secret that Felix makes her blush like crazy, almost seeming to push it at times to see just how red he can turn her. In her head, I do think that she was scared that he was only doing it for fun, and while there were plenty of moments where part of her is telling her that it is ridiculous not to with the “if you want, I’ll never leave your side” from the end of Book 1 and the “cause, I kind of want you to need me” from the beginning of Book 2, that shows otherwise, but still, Thea has doubts about it. There is a whole bunch other backstory stuff I could put here, but I’ll shorten it and just say that Thea has been a few situations where  the other party did not share the deepness of her own feelings, or blatantly disregarded them. I do think she knows, deep down, that this is not going to happen with Felix, but it doesn’t make her any less nervous about it. But I don’t think I could describe how happy it made her with the “guess we should see about an “us” at some point” Knowing that he also wanted something deeper, well, that means a lot to her. There was a brief fear, after the kiss, the very same as Felix’s, that he saw it as just a kiss when it meant so much more to her. (Wasn’t that a relief that next day haha) Bottom line, Thea really wants to love and give her all to someone, and to be loved by someone else :) I could go on about these two for hours, but I think I’ve answered this question haha

2. We know F has not seen much of the human world. Is there anything that your detective would like to show or do with them that they had not experienced yet?

Oh, so many things. At this point, Thea is keeping a list of everything that Felix has not done in the seven years that he has been in the human world. It’s almost becoming an inside joke in my fics that Felix has been asking when Thea is going to take him bowling (Thea mentioned in once, and he hasn’t let her forget it since. I don’t think Wayhaven has a bowling alley from how small it is haha) In my WIP ideas, I have so many little things for the two of them to do together, from Thea showing Felix how to use her camera (one of her hobbies is photography), to roller skating (which for some reason, I think Felix will excel at haha) and origami (Look, it’s kind of like making paper airplanes!) Their future dates so now are kind of just going through that list, which is ever growing. :)

3. Would your detective have any desire to learn Echolian or learn more about the echo world? Why or why not?

Thea would definitely want to find out more about the Echo world, and with her skill in languages, she would probably want to try to learn that as well. She is in the research branch, and this has something that she has wanted to learn more about since learning about the Echo world originally. One thing that I realize now that  I forgot to add to this question, (but I am not completely sure how much it comes up in the books, or if it is just a patreon question), if the detectives feelings on how Felix seems skittish about the Echo world, and why he says he would never want to go back. Thea does not want to force him to talk what seem like painful memories for him, and she was actually quite horrified with herself when she realized that she had pried into his past (from the vison in the house of mirrors). As curious as she is, she would never want to put him in a uncomfortable position, having plenty of painful memories herself. But, in the end, does Thea want to learn more about the echo world? Yes

4. If the option is there in book 3, will your detective and F participate in (physically) intimate scenes? Why or why not?

I go back and forth on this. At first it was a hard no, at least for Book 3, but if something happens (which I’ll explain), I might be persuaded to change my mind. I’ve mentioned already that Thea wants to love and be loved so bad, and when she falls, she falls hard, and wants to give that person her everything. But something that frustrates her, is how she is still hesitant to engage in a physical relationship. It’s not for a lack of wanting to, because she does, but it does open one of her biggest fears in her mind. Put simply, she fears someone will “get what they want” from her, and then leave, with their intentions no further then that while Thea wants so much more. Does she think this will happen with Felix? Again, I think she knows deep down that it won’t, but it doesn’t make her any less nervous about it. They’ve also only been dating for a month now (I think a little more, but not sure just how long), and to Thea, that’s slightly too quick. But, I did say there was a way that I might change my mind on this. If we get our F “I love yous” before the scene, I might go ahead and do it. At this point, even though Thea has not said it aloud, she is getting pretty sure that she could call herself in love with Felix (and according to Sera’s asks, so is Felix!), so I do think if that happened first, that might be enough for her to feel safe in doing so, the simple words making her confident that it won’t end in the way that she fears. But still, I might change my mind on that even if it does happen, so for now, it’s kind of up in the air until book 3 actually comes out. :)

5. If your detective knew, how would they feel about F wanting to “chosen” and their fears of this all disappearing tomorrow?

Oh my goodness, how many fics I have written about this, since that is the exact same fear that Thea has as well. Fun fact, I had “she wants to be chosen” back when I was planning out her character before I played Book 1, and so when this came up with Felix in Book 2, I was extremely surprised, but it was that dynamic that made me want to start writing fic in the first place (which I had never done before Wayhaven) But Thea, from what most of what I’ve written touches on, is so scared of messing up what she is getting more and more sure is the best thing that has ever happened to her. I think part of her still thinks she’s dreaming, that this time in the clouds will just end with her falling back down to Earth. Thea felt lonely before she met Felix (something she didn’t even realize she was until after she met him), and she knows if she was to lose it, it would be even worse, and there would never be anyway to get over it. She already has nightmares of finding out that all of the good things that had happened between them would end up disappearing without a trace of them existing. So, if she found out that Felix had the very same fears, I think it would probably render her speechless. Never in a million years would she have expected him to feel that way, and she would want to do everything in her power to make sure that he did not feel that way anymore. Part of her would likely fear that she had done something to make him feel that way, but she knows her own fears exist without Felix ever doing something suggesting that it would all disappear tomorrow. (I really need to finish that WIP of Thea finding out Felix’s fears huh) The funny thing with Thea is, while her people skill is incredibly high and she can normally read people very well,  add her own feelings in the mix, and she becomes a mess of second guessing herself and thinking the worse about everything. But, I’ll also take the time to gush about a moment in the demo, because it kind of relates to this. That whole “I’m scared of losing you too” response in the demo? Like, as much as I want to try the other options, I can’t. It’s the only true Thea response, and it’s so sweet, and I adore it. So, quite simply, they are able to choose each other. :D

Thank you again for asking! You’re amazing! :)

[ethereousdelirious]

Whumptober #8 - Abandoned

**don't reblog if you're gonna be weird or mean**

Fandom: C.ritical R.ole c.ampaign 1

Characters: T.ary, V.ox M.achina, some characters I made up for the sole purpose of being evil

Pairings: N/A

Warnings/Notes: Lots of hurt, very little comfort, various forms of torture, angst/wangst, T.ary's repressed self-esteem issues

At least there's a happy ending haha. I'm trying to get better at writing hard whump, so this might not be. very good.

The bandits were still laughing as they tied Tary up.

"They really gave you up like it was nothing!" one of them laughed. "What did you do to them, that they think so little of you?"

Tary closed his eyes and tried to control his shaking. So he had misjudged his new friends and they had left him to his fate at the hands of these… these villains. Despite himself, a few hot tears slipped down his cheeks and collected under his chin. It itched, and he reflexively jerked against the ropes to try to rub them away.

"Oh, leave him alone, Cayan," said another voice. "He was obviously the weakest. Look at him tremble!"

More laughter.

The one called Cayan grabbed Tary's chin. "Open your eyes."

Tary opened his eyes. He took a quaking breath and tried to gather his wits. "P-pleasure to meet you. My name is Taryon--"

"Oh, shut up." Cayan kicked him lightly in the stomach, rolling his eyes when Tary flinched and squeaked. "Nessa, come over here."

Another of the group came and stood beside Cayan and he turned to her. "What should we do with him?"

She made a face, looking him over. "Well, the body trade isn't much these days and he looks too scrawny to be much use anyway. Let's have our fun."

"Fun?" Tary squeaked, his heart stopping. More tears streaked down his face. "Please just let me go. I won't tell anyone anything. I can-- I have connections, I--"

"Save it." Nessa brandished her open palm. Tary stopped talking. She looked at him thoughtfully, then reared back and slammed her fist into his mouth.

Heat flooded Tary's mouth before pain, and he was surprised it didn't hurt more. The blood filling his mouth told him he'd been injured, but the dull, throbbing pain barely registered in his panicked mind.

"Alright, alright," Cayan said. "Don't damage him too badly. I want him to scream and he can't well do that if he can't open his mouth."

"Why are you doing this?" Tary pleaded, blood pouring over his chin.

Cayan shrugged. "Well to be honest, we weren't expecting your comrades to give you up. Caught us off guard."

"So let me go," Tary begged. "Please."

Nessa got right up in his face, her eyes glinting. "Now where's the fun in that?"

Tary continued to cry as they cut off his shirt, having removed his armor before tying him up on his knees, arms spread wide.

A heavy, stinging blow to his back forced most of the air out of his lungs. Cayan laughed triumphantly. "Beat that!"

From his periphery, Tary saw Nessa raise her arm. She slapped him with an open palm and he cried out. "Look how red he's getting!"

"Mine's turning purple," Cayan said proudly and Tary realized with a jolt of dread that they were comparing their handprints. He gave a choked sob, hoping against hope that Vox Machina would appear on scene and free him.

As though his thought had reminded them, Nessa paused with her arm above her head. "What did you do to make your friends leave you?" she asked with almost childish innocence. "I bet you were really annoying." She brought her hand down and Tary yelped. "Considering you can't even handle a little bit of pain."

"Isn't it obvious? He's weak. Seems like they were just looking for an excuse to get rid of him." Cayan's voice followed by Cayan's hand. Tary bowed his head. It was true. No matter how hard he tried, he was always the weakest and the worst.

He'd thought that maybe his parents were wrong and there was more to him, but if experience with Vox Machina had taught him anything, it was that there was something deeply broken in him. He was stupid to have thought they like him. That they were his friends.

Cayan and Nessa took turns slapping him until the pain reached a point that Tary couldn't differentiate between "better" and "worse." His whole back felt like it was on fire.

"He's not screaming any more," Cayan said. He put his head down by Tary's. "Toughening up, are we?"

Tary wasn't sure if there was a right answer, but he sobbed and nodded all the same. "Yes!" There had to be something he could say, some combination of words that would make them let him go.

"We'll see about that." Tary frowned in confusion at the sensation of heat across his arm. Then the pain hit, the kind that robbed him of his breath. Blood welled out of the deep slash that Nessa had cut across his right deltoid, so quickly that Taryon hadn't even seen her move.

"Jeeze, Nessa!" Cayan protested. "We're not trying to kill him. He didn't even scream."

"He will," Nessa said. She poured something strong-smelling over the wound. Tary recognized it as alcohol and his stomach dropped right before the burning started. Still, he didn't scream. He threw himself forward against the ropes, mouth wide open. Nothing came out but a series of choking gasps as he writhed uselessly against the ropes.

"Hm," said Nessa.

"I was so sure he'd be a screamer," Cayan agreed.

They both disappeared for a moment, giving Tary time to catch his breath and dread whatever was coming next. He still couldn't believe that Vox Machina had dropped him like that. Surely they wouldn't leave him. Not Percy. Not Pike.

Yet here he was, helpless and abandoned.

Cayan and Nessa popped up in his vision so quickly he didn't even have time to squirm back. They were each holding knives with red-hot blades.

Before Tary could even react, they lunged forward and pressed the flats of both blades to his ribs.

Tary tried to scream like they so obviously wanted, but he couldn't force any sound past his lips. The heat stabbed into his sensitive skin and he tried to get away from it but it was relentless.

"Please!" Tary shouted. "I get it! I get it."

Cayan and Nessa were strangely silent but Tary continued to sob with eyes squeezed tightly shut against whatever was coming next. "I get it, I get it, I get it. I'm useless. Nobody wants me. I get it."

The familiar crack of a gunshot split the air and Tary's right arm fell limp by his side. The rope had been cut.

"Show off!" Came Vax's voice. He sounded close. Tary opened his eyes in time to see Vax sever Nessa's throat with a quick motion of his elbow.

Tary stared at them, wondering if he was hallucinating. His shoulders shook with renewed sobs. Dimly, it occurred to him to use his newly-freed right arm to untie his left, but he couldn't make himself move.

His mind couldn't handle the discrepancy. He had been so convinced that Vox Machina wanted nothing more to do with him, and now here they were, gallivanting in like they hadn't abandoned him to do.

Tary could even manage to be angry with them. He was just numb.

Someone cut his left arm free. He stayed on his knees, but wrapped his arms around his burned chest as best as he could.

"Tary," said a gentle voice. Pike. "Didn't you know we would come back?"

"Of course I didn't know that," he said through shaking sobs that rendered him almost unintelligible. "I thought-- I thought--"

"Oh, Tary," Vex said. She knelt beside him and moved like she wanted to put her arm around him, but stopped short with a sharp gasp. "Your back!"

Footsteps.

"Death," Percy said grimly, "was too good for those freaks."

"Tary." Vax lifted his chin and Tary couldn't help but flinch back. "We didn't think they were going to torture you, we would never have--"

"Never!" Keyleth agreed. "Oh, Tary, I'm so sorry. We'll heal you."

She and Pike both put their hands on him, and the pain in his arms, knees, back, chest subsided.

Tary didn't know how to make them understand that it wasn't his injuries that had him bawling like this, that he had been so convinced they thought he was worthless just like his family did.

It was Grog who seemed to cotton on the fastest. He knelt and, very seriously, looked Tary in the eye. "Do you need a hug?"

Tary nodded.

[pynkhues]

You're such a good writer. Have you ever thought about writing professionally? :)

Ah! Thank you, anon! You’re so sweet!

I actually do write professionally. It’s forever a weird thing to say, haha, but I’m an award-winning short fiction writer, and have had over 15 original stories published in journals, anthologies and collections. (Also actually just found out I’m having another one published this week, which means I’ve got three stories already coming out this year, which is exciting!) I’ve also written a few novel manuscripts that have been shortlisted for prizes, but haven’t been published yet, and have a screenplay that has been optioned by a production company, but hasn’t yet been turned into a movie. 

Unfortunately, there is not a lot of money in any of those things, haha, at least not in Australia, and I grew up pretty poor, so I also work as both a gun for hire / freelance writer, writing everything from utility manuals to child safety policies and procedures, to product descriptions for various online stores, as well as at a theatre company which makes interactive works for disadvantaged children. 

But yes!

I’m actually currently working on a new novel manuscript which is set against the backdrop of Houdini’s tour of Australia in 1910, and how during that tour he became the first person to fly a plane in Australia. The novel itself though is actually a mystery novel about a woman investigating her grandfather’s (who was a magician) strange death, and how she ends up sort of accidentally teaming up with an American journalist who’s out in Australia reporting on Houdini’s tour. 

You can have a little excerpt, if you’d like!

“Mrs. Hathaway?” Joe asks, and Alma laughs, but it’s empty, even to her own ears. 

“I was, I suppose. Once.”

If Joe has any thoughts about the matter, he keeps his face carefully blank. Instead, he lifts his scotch glass, swirls the liquid like a God does a muddy river in the palm of his clean hand. Before them, the fire crackles – lit for the cool desert night, and only serving to stifle the day’s stagnant heat. There are certain customs that are hard to shake, she thinks, and she pinches the sleeves of her sweaty blouse and thinks that any real place, accustomed to this heat, would never ask this constriction of its people.

In front of the fire, moths and beetles fly, a haphazard array of insects, crashing into one another, fleeing, crashing all over again. The realisation of it is not one that Alma especially cares for, but she keeps it in her head all the same. The way the flames cast their light across the glossy shells of the insects.

“I don’t want to pry,” Joe says suddenly, and Alma tilts her head towards him. Takes in his careful, downcast expression, his careful, downturned lips.

“I rather think you do,” she says, as gently as she can manage it. “You don’t have to be so careful, really. There’s no fantastic story to tell, and no particularly extraordinary tragedy about the matter. I was married, and now I am not.”

Joe looks at her then, properly, for perhaps the first time since Mr. Wellesley called her name across the gathering all those days ago. His eyes are so green, it almost surprises her.

“See, I’m not entirely sure I believe that,” he replies, and Alma laughs, dropping her head forwards and reaching for her own conspiring cup.

“Last I checked, I was not your story.”

Joe tilts his head, back and forth, as if weighing up her statement, a shadow of that familiar smile ghosting his lips.

“Perhaps I undersold your character.”

“Perhaps you did.”

The insects are growing in volume, if not size. Their wings a light catching gauze in the throes of this deep night. Vaguely, Alma can hear patrons on the floor above them, stepping the long corridors of the hotel, their laughs and their slurs and their missteps like a play across the stage of her head. And if they are, then perhaps she is to Mr. Goddard, she supposes. She sighs.

“You are aware that I worked as a governess in one of the northern houses?”

Joe nods, quickly, briskly, leaning ever so slightly forwards in his seat.

“Mr. Hathaway was a groundsman at the same house. He’d served in the Boer War, and from the stories I’d heard, not all of him had made it back.”

She swirls the scotch around in her own glass, watching the amber liquid mouth up the sides of her cup.

“That is not uncommon,” Joe says quietly. “At least, not of the men I know who have served.”

“No, of course not,” Alma says, shaking her head. “And that’s not entirely what I meant. I suppose I never knew him before it, and so the man I met was the only man I knew. He was kind and he was quiet, tormented, but I know a lot of tormented folk, so it was not unusual to me. We did not fall in love exactly, but - - I liked him. And I rather think he liked me, and perhaps that could have become love. I don’t know.”

She pauses, lost, for a moment, in her own memories of a man who had, for a very brief time, become the most important part of her life. It’s as if a tent has been erected inside her, forcing aside her bones and her organs, allowing unwelcome feelings to sleep within her. Alma sighs.

“He shot himself. About a year after we were married.”

She finishes her scotch.

Beside her, Joe is quiet, still turning over the glass in his hands, letting the liquid roll up the sides, warm between his skin and the fire. He brings it to his nose, inhales deeply, but does not take a sip. It’s unexpected, unusual, perhaps, but she had been warned about the strange habits of Americans, and of this, this seems like one of Joe’s lesser ones.

“I rather think you’ve done what many thought impossible,” Joe muses quietly. “And rendered me speechless.”

She laughs, and Joe weighs her with a careful, considering look.

“Oh, Mr. Goddard, if only I knew the key to that was a few well-timed words of my own.”

He laughs, but his face remains shadowed, uncertain, and she puts her own glass down on the floor and reaches her hands for his free one. He gives it freely, and she turns it over in hers, running her fingers, still damp from her glass, across the palm of his freckled hand.

“You know, back when I was a part of my grandfather’s act, I would put on a shawl and read palms as the opener.”

He laughs again, a gentler one this time, scrunching up his nose in a way that reminds her that they are both so young still. So young to have felt this much. He leans back, almost embarrassed, but Alma follows him.

“Hm,” she hums, stroking a finger down his palm. A part of her knows this is improper, a young, widowed woman, without gloves, touching the skin of a young, unwedded man, but for now, there’s nothing in the world that feels more proper than this.

“This,” she says, her voice donning the vague, European accent she’d wear during her shows. “This is your lifeline.”

She taps it once, twice, three times.

“It’s long,” and it is. Very long, stretching around the heel of his hand and curling at the base. “You’ll live a long life.”

Joe sits up a little straighter, leaning forwards in his own chair.

“A good life?”

“That, unfortunately, is not something the palms can easily tell.”

He chuckles, a breathy one, spreading his fingers better in her hand, as if offering better access to the lines of him, and Alma swallows thickly.

The weight of a hand in hers is not foreign to her, but somehow Joe’s feels both too heavy and impossibly light. Feels - -

Well.

Just feels, she supposes.

She turns his hand over in her own, looking at the long, graceful lines of it, the fresh dirt beneath his nails, the cricks in his skin that tell her everything and nothing.

“Your hands are long,” she says, running her thumb across his knuckles, relishing in the warmth it spreads through her chest. “And thin. Which means you’re loyal, and that you’re kind, and you’re thumb bends out, so you’re generous too. But,” and she tuts then, amused, shaking her head. “Your fingernails. They’re short and round, which means you’re a gossip.”

He hoots at that, like she’d thought he might, and a smile paints her face as she opens his hand again in hers. She can feel him then, leaning closer, his breath on the back of her head, shifting her sweat-damp hair.

She uncurls his hand in hers, moving her thumbs from the heel of his hand up towards the tips of his long, arching fingers. She can feel the pulse in them, the flutter of it just below the veil of his thin skin.

“Your head line is short, which means you are impulsive, but it curves down slightly, which means you are gentle.”

She can feel Joe getting closer, shifting beneath her hands, moving nearer to her in his seat, until his whole body is curved towards her. Her own breath picks up, the fire before them suddenly too hot. Hotter than it has felt before. She brushes a hand back through her hair. Tries to stroke any knot from it. Free it from its bindings. She must be quiet too long, for the next question Joe asks, is: “Are there any more?”

Alma blinks, feels the sweat building at her lashes, tries to blink them free.

“Your heart line,” she says, and she can feel more than see Joe smile. “It starts before your index finger, and it’s deep. Which means you fall in love quickly, but that you love intensely.”

He hums, a small sound like an agreement, and Alma touches the rough flat of her thumb to the softness of his palm, and she remembers all the ways she wasn’t made for this man.  That Joe - - that Mr. Goddard - - that he might be a working man in the bowels of New York City, but as far as the rough, dirty middle of Queensland is, he’s an upper class boy with no idea as to the gruelling design of this land. He was built for the tamed, not the wild, and he is not Alma. He is not a desperate, writhing snake trying to find family in the desert that has loved her and abandoned her and made her whole, nor the tropics which have weathered her skin, and shed her bare beneath the tempest of its moods. He will marry a good, American girl with a good, American dowry, and a quick wit and a smart look, and the wild of this trip, and the wild of Alma, will become a story he will tell friends at bars, if it even becomes that.

She pulls away, dropping his hand, and ignoring the way he tries to chase her.

“There will be someone worthy of that hand, some day,” she says instead, rising from her seat, a quiver in her legs that surprises her. “Sadly, this is where I must leave you, Mr. Goddard. I am rather tired, all of a sudden, and know we have a rather monstrous day ahead of us, if we are to make it back down to Marigold’s before the dusk.”

She turns, moving promptly towards the stairs leading up to their rooms, and she hears the scrape of the chair across the floorboards behind her, and the calling of her name - names, Miss Rivers first, and then Mrs Hathaway and then suddenly, strikingly, Alma, and she picks up her pace away from him before she can even consider that it is the first time she has heard her name at his lips.

[erenthecoordinate]

How confident are you that Levi is alive? Will he be able to fight again? I’m happy he might be alive don’t get me wrong but I don’t know what else he can do?

I’m actually very certain that he is presently alive right now.  I’m also inclined to believe he will remain alive for the series’ end.  At the minimum, he’ll be around during the finale climax and have some sort of role in it.

Reasons to believe he is alive now:

The cliffhanger status concerning the severity of his condition shows that there is at least skepticism over his demise.  I don’t recall Isayama ever doing this with another character.  Ymir may be the closest example, and even then her fate was implied and the act was (sadly) offscreen.  We know Levi’s whereabouts are in Paradis, and we know that he is in critical condition, so that needs an answer.

Hange was also quick to “confirm” Levi’s death.  We don’t see them checking for a heartbeat, pulse, or breath.  While they are knowledgeable about the functions of the thunderspears, the primary warning since the weapons’ introduction was that the handler’s limbs would be torn from the body at close proximity.  We’ve seen flesh melting and faces blown off from direct contact, but this is the first secondary contact injury, so it’s hard to say what happens.  It isn’t farfetched that the scorching electricity from the spear would fry someone’s organs, and blood around the mouth and nose can indicate internal damage in the chest and lung area, but with the eyes bleeding it can also be due to a head injury rather than by explosion.  Either way, Hange makes a point of saying Levi died from internal injuries, since there is reasonable doubt when observing his superficial ones.

Hange was tense when Floch offers to check a pulse, which could mean they were offended by the disrespect to Levi’s body or because they didn’t want to reveal the truth.  Hange doesn’t appear depressed or frantic when declaring Levi dead.  I imagine we’d be able to see those emotions clearly. 

And of course, once Zeke distracts Floch and the rest long enough, Hange takes initiative to jump in the river with Levi, which would be a wasted effort to carry the extra weight if Levi was indeed just a corpse.

I also think the injuries we do see are very prominent and intentional.  The deep scarring on his face shows that this is more than likely a permanent character design change.  It would be a waste to emphasize the marks with thick outlines if it wasn’t going to be a consistent alteration from here on out.  It even appears on the volume preview sketch, albeit on the opposite side of the face.

His missing fingers (possibly hand) are also notable because the last thing they grab is the weapon that was going to cut up Zeke’s legs again.  It’s a grim testament to his last actions before being literally thrown into this life-threatening situation.  If those are the only fingers missing, he still has the fingers (and thumb) he favors for his reverse grip, which is another ironic twist to his injuries.  He has that special strength but now lacks the support.

Also, there is the fact he is an Ackerman, with healing properties beyond that of a normal human being.  Enough said.

But can he really fight again?  Hm.

It depends on the time frame between now and the climax, how severe his injuries are, and if there will some compensation for the handicap he gained from the incident.

Time seems critical and Marley is already on the island.  If the climax only involves Marley, then Levi won’t have time to heal to be of any physical support.  If the climax involves international forces, there may still be time.  I predict it will take at least a few to several days for Marleyan forces to attack Paradis, especially since Pieck has Eren held at gunpoint.  They’re probably hoping to secure the Coordinate before eradicating the island entirely.  In which case, Eren needs to stay out of their hands long enough for that to happen.  But again, time is critical, it just depends how soon danger will arrive.

If he is rendered unconscious for a while after rescue, he would need to wake up before the story calls for character assistance.  Fortunately, resting can speed up recovery time, depending where he and Hange take refuge.  They will appear again with the main cast, but time for healing and waiting out the proper moment to evade danger is a must.  If Levi’s injuries are solely superficial, such as cuts to his body and blown digits, he’ll recover fast enough to stand and be of some verbal assistance.  If Ackergenes kick in for speed-healing he could be coordinated within a week (see: his leg/ankle injury and Mikasa’s broken ribs all healed within 2 weeks when normally those injuries would take longer).  If there is internal damage, it’s a matter of how severe it is to continue being life threatening or how he is able to move afterward.  Ackerman blood or not, they are still human to some degree.

But-- I am a sucker for the strongest characters coming out of their struggle by fighting in the end.  While realistically, the possibility is not looking great, there can be compensations for his physical limitations.  We know that 3D maneuvering is not impossible with a missing arm.  Levi has handled single-blade weapons in his underground life; it would be an excellent callback to his roots, a time where he used to make his own decisions.  Except now he has extra discipline and extra understanding of his desired purpose.  There can be an on-the-spot solution like wrapping the blade handle to his injured hand or arm so that it acts as an extension of himself (this one is definitely wild wishful thinking but I’ve seen fanart haha).

Otherwise, Levi may become more of a groundwork assist than an offensive soldier.  It can still work thematically, no longer having to be the big sword of the military.  He would have to put his focus onto his military weaknesses along with his emotional ones, such as proper communication and teamwork.  I think he would, however awkward, still be a good verbal support as well.

And then we got the most important factor- plot relevance.  If the story really wants to portray Levi’s lesson as a tragic one, he will have no physical use for the remainder of the series.  But I’ve criticized the excessive bleakness of this manga, so I think it would be more effective for Levi to understand his emotional flaws and change his usual actions.  Make him regret his choices, but then give him the opportunity to not be consumed by his vendetta.  Giving him that chance instead of forcing him in a state of inactivity will benefit his character, if Isayama truly isn’t finished with his development.  There is so much to work with and even in the little time left Levi can be a complete character with very little to no loose ends.  It would be too boring to force him to be a benchwarmer and have him potentially seethe in his resentment.  Especially since his mistake was one with no witness besides his enemy.  He would be too easily validated that his state wasn’t his fault and there is a possibility for no lesson learned for him.  Giving him free agency and having him decide to pull back would be great development and bring him closure from his vengeful mindset, which is the biggest counter to his heroism.

Plus, I believe Levi still has some unfinished business with some characters.  If he were to die later, it’d be premature to write him off with these loose ends.  Zeke is an obvious one, and I’ve mentioned it before.  That’s not to mention Levi is thus far the only one from the other party to know that Zeke’s plan is euthanasia and genocide.  Survival to the point of speaking would give Hange (and therefore the others) information and they would have to decide whether they can trust that Eren wants this or if there is something more going on.  But it gives them a chance to come up with a counterattack or line of defense.

Levi hasn’t had proper time to react to Eren’s scheme-y actions.  All we know is that he doesn’t believe Eren should be the one to be sacrificed for it.  While it’s possible to get some flashback relevance from him, interaction between him and the main cast (Eren included, and probably especially) has been expected for a greater part of this chapter.  Instead, we’ve gotten a bit of Levi and Zeke banter, with very little input from Levi.  Reactions to seeing his state from all of them instead of word from Hange would be effective in stirring their emotions and perhaps affect their actions going forward.  As for Eren, if he truly had been adamant of caring about his friends and comrades, it’d be another moment to see if there is a break in his emotional deadpanning when Zeke directly caused this damage.  It’s quite different from Sasha’s death, who was killed by a miscalculation, as Zeke calls it.  It is why this is lamented over up to now and so forth.  This is no mistake.  So will Eren grit his teeth to suppress because he has to or is he really so distanced from people that he no longer cares about their fate?  Whatever the case, actually seeing the damage (unlikely to be dragged to him in corpse form because what is the point there) can provoke a response and an additional clue to the uncertain characters as well as the readers.  

Also, and I brought this up when looking at this scene in ch105, but I feel like this interaction here needs some explanation.  I think is could serve as some importance.  Eren seems to react a tad bit and this is before he goes stone cold in Paradis.  We already have other characters’ reactions to Eren post-Marley, I would like to have more input by the normally silent observer Levi.

And I’ve already mentioned a possible role in Hange’s own epiphany about themselves.  But he would be the most beneficial support for them, while also realizing a sort of independence within himself.  Neither would have to follow in Erwin’s shadow anymore.  Release that pressure. They support each other while trusting themselves.  It’s a dynamic they have always had before Hange was commander, but now with full-fledged confidence, it’ll be refreshing for Levi as well to encourage that growth instead of lingering in his past vendettas.

A greater question to “why does he need to be alive for this” is “why does he need to be dead?”  He can accomplish stirring these turmoils in other characters just as or more effectively than if he were dead.  Yes, he is strong, but he isn’t an answer to all their problems.  He is injured to an non-measurable degree at the moment.  Even if Levi has a history of kicking Zeke’s ass, they will know that having him guarded by Levi isn’t a foolproof plan.  Is being incapacitated not enough?  Can’t other character still step up to the plate on the offensive even if he is still living?  What purpose besides “it’s a grim story and everyone dies, blah blah” is worth telling without being either dull or frustrating?  

There is still potential for his presence in the story.  I dished out some ideas.  If Isayama does absolutely nothing with Levi’s aftermath, then perhaps I’ll have confused questions over why these loose ends still exist even at the end.  But so far we can only guess (and hope) that there is a purpose yet to be shown.  It’s too early to say there is nothing for him when there is still more story left.

To some degree, I expect him to play a role in taking down the “biggest obstacle” of the story (why wouldn’t you have your most popular character participate in something like that?).  This can mean his physical state is still capable of externally fighting or he must represent morale support to those who will end up fighting in his place.  I hope whatever ends up happening to him will be respectful to the character he was created to be.  He honestly deserves it.

[numbknee]

you should have paid attention to the hints

Rating: Teen

Summary: In which Bakugou gives just about the worst confession in history.

Warnings: Language (because it’s Bakugou, I mean come on... haha)

Notes: I know this ship gets a lot of hate (for entirely understandable reasons tbh) but I see it as an amazing potential for character growth, understanding, and forgiveness. Hopefully my writing reflects that!

(read on AO3)

~~~~~

“Come with me,” Bakugou said, grabbing Midoriya’s arm.

“What? Why?” Midoriya resisted Bakugou's tugging and stood his ground.

"Just... ugh, just come on." Bakugou was quick to snatch his arm back and start leading them down the hallway. He had no idea what was going on but Bakugou was urgent, practically dragging him.

Bakugou brought them to the room on the far end. He flicked on the lights and closed the door behind them. It was an office, small but organized, with a long wooden desk in the center of the room.

“I, uh… wanted to talk to you about something,” Bakugou said.

Oh. “Okay then. Let’s hear it.”

Bakugou started pacing around the office for an uncomfortably long time. After a while he stopped and leaned his hands on the desk across from Midoriya.

“You’re a damn good hero, Deku. There’s no denying that.” Bakugou admitted.

“Uh, thanks?” Midoriya said, confused.

Looking off to the side, Bakugou laughed and thought to himself before he spoke again. “Man, I must be insane if I’m gonna admit stupid shit like that.” He inspected the desk, avoiding Midoriya’s eyes. “Doesn’t mean it’s any less true, though.”

Midoriya didn’t know how to respond. He could only stand there as he was, his face neutral.

“Not that it’s some big secret, but I hated your guts back then, at the academy. More than I did when we were kids, actually,” Bakugou continued. “The great Midoriya Izuku, successor to All Might himself, always sucking up to the pros to get ahead.”

Midoriya sighed. “Kacchan, you know it wasn’t like that.”

But Bakugou didn’t respond. Midoriya sighed again and rolled his eyes, bringing a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. He didn’t have to just stand there and take this.

“Look, Bakugou, I honestly have no idea why you brought me here. Did you just wanna spout off some backhanded compliments at me for awhile?”

Bakugou just laughed, coughing a bit toward the end. He walked around the desk to face him. “C’mon, you can’t be that stupid.”

“What?” Midoriya asked. His head jerked backward to study the man across from him, trying to get a better read because apparently, he was doing a terrible job of it before.

Bakugou scoffed. But then his expression shifted to something more serious when he saw Midoriya’s confusion. “You actually don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re really that fuckin’ clueless.”

Midoriya could only stare back with narrow eyes.

“Ugh, I'm gonna regret this,” Bakugou groaned under his breath.

Suddenly, Bakugou grabbed Midoriya by the collar of his jacket with one hand and yanked him. Midoriya fought to maintain eye contact, determined to keep his resolve against this asshole. He mentally prepared himself for a hard suckerpunch to the face, but it didn’t come. They just stood there, staring at each other. Bakugou’s expression was unreadable.

“What’re you—”

Then Bakugou kissed him, hard, and Midoriya’s eyes shot open to full circles. There was no grace or tenderness to it whatsoever; his lips were just a rough, forceful pressure against his own. Utter shock coursed through his body, rendering him unable to move or think anything other than the equivalent of radio static for an excruciating amount of time.

Midoriya finally regained enough sense to break himself away with a good shove against Bakugou’s chest. He stared at him, unbelieving, for a full five seconds. Then, without thinking, he reeled back and punched him square in the face.

Bakugou staggered backward with the force of the blow, his jaw cracking. When he regained his balance, Bakugou narrowed his eyes and snarled. “What the hell was that for?!”

“What— are you serious?” Midoriya retaliated. “What was THAT for? You... kissed me!”

Bakugou held the side of his face, anger flaming his stare. “That doesn’t mean you get to punch me in the face, you piece a’shit!”

Midoriya scoffed. “Actually I think it’s a perfectly valid reason to punch you in the face! What is your problem?! ”

The question took him aback for some reason, and there was a sudden lull in the madness. They fumed at each other wordlessly for a moment before Bakugou resigned. He huffed and made his way toward the door.

“Wait a second, where do you think you’re going?” Midoriya demanded. Bakugou stopped and turned, closing the distance between them again and jabbing a finger into his chest. When he spoke, his voice was harsh and strangely... genuine.

“Listen, Deku, this is as close to a confession as you're gonna get. I suggest you take it.”

With that, Bakugou turned on his heels and left the room, slamming the door on his way out.

[the-voice-of-hell]

Rent is Theft, part 18

Read from the beginning here, read the previous chapter here.  Note:  My MC is a Filipina trans woman and I am not.  If you have notes on that or anything else, hit me up.

                                                        ***

      I heard the soft sound of another glass door opening behind me.  The tall doors were of frosted glass indistinguishable from the walls but for etched stainless steel handles and hinges.  Perhaps they were held shut with magnets because there was no noise from a latch opening, just a hollow pop and slight vibration of air as the door swung.  I only heard it because I wasn’t walking at the moment, and I turned to see it.

      A lady with a corporate version of rockabilly style flashed whitened teeth at me, her face framed in big phony burgundy hair, and waved me in.  “Ms. Marquez,” she said, “I should have had the door open for you when you walked by, I’m silly.  Easy to forget what this must look like for visitors.”  She flapped a hand at the sterile hall, then turned it into another beckoning gesture.

      Time for me to mirror her pleasant falsity with a smile of my own.  Her teeth were ringed with candy apple red lipstick, mine with an eccentric but unobtrusive matte rose.  We shook hands and went into her office.  There was mustard yellow plaster on the wall up to about six feet, above which the exposed brick resumed.  Her framed diploma from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago hung there between meaningless matted black and white photos of parts of classic cars.  A curvy wheel hub, a tail fin.

      I sat on a low stool that felt like a sawed-off version of something from Johnny Rockets.  I sat my purse on the floor, folded my hands on a knee, and tried to engage her face.  “You have me at a disadvantage.”

      “Ah, sorry.  No name on the door because we just moved in.  I’m Diana Whitford, human resources coordinator.  Pleased to meet you.”

      “Likewise.  Does the Selman Design Group have a lot of human resources?”

      “You got me.  Small building gave it away?  I’m the whole department.  Also assistant CFO.”

      “Nice.”  I gestured at her fancy little office.  “It looks nice.”

      “It is!  Not so much for decor, right?  Just a lil’ fishbowl under the bricks where we work, but it helps keep us focused.  The meeting rooms are much nicer, and there are so many amazing restaurants around here for lunches.  And the art museum...  It’s a good neighborhood to work in.”

      “I know.  I’d love the job.  What can I say to make you love me for it?”

      “Haha, can’t give it away so easy, can I?”

      “Shoot.  Thought I had you on the ropes.  So,” I nodded coquettishly, “I’m ready.”

      She leaned back and cocked her head, considered me.  I didn’t love it.  She asked, “Alright.  Tell me about yourself.  What makes Courtney Marquez who she is?  I bet that’s interesting.”

      “Mm, I don’t like to settle for ordinary.  I’ve been working in tech for a long time now, and felt it’s time for a change of scenery.”  Sound rich, baby.  “The boys are so drab and provincial.  A graphic design firm, now that’s interesting.”

      “And what interests you about Selman Design Group?”

      “The code we worked on was for purely functional purposes - moving cloud data around, secure networks, server switching in massive arrays.  Here you are dealing with all kinds of businesses, right?  And at a level where the clients are going to be interesting people, cosmopolitan.  I feel it would just make for a nicer atmosphere.”

      “I can hardly imagine.  I’ve had some friends marry tech guys but they are in a whole other world.”

      “It’s not really that interesting.  The other world.  Smells like energy drinks and sweat.”  Play to stereotypes, Courtney.

      “Hohoho,” she said, “But we sweat too sometimes.  How do you handle a challenging day?”

      “When I read this job posting, I imagined it would be coding UI, animation, things to assist with graphic design.  Those were the prerequisite skills listed, right?  But here I am with the human resources assistant CFO and I can tell this is a company where you have to wear a lot of hats.  That’s the kind of challenging day I’m confident I can handle - a little tech support here, a project pushing deadline there.”

      “You don’t have any weaknesses, as a worker?”

      I hate these things a lot.  “None, hahaha.  Of course, I’ve just come from the world of maladjusted boy genius types.  Getting used to a different workplace vibe, it might not be a perfectly smooth transition.  But I promise not to crush cans on my head and play noisy videogames on break.”

      “OK.  But what’s a challenging situation you’ve had in the past, and how did you handle it?”

      I cleaned my ass and walked through the door to have this horrible dance while a dozen people are depending on me to keep our asses off the streets.  “There was a new handshake system we’d been developing functions for, a few months at least, when hackers discovered an exploit in it, rendering the whole system a massive liability overnight.  The biggest stress was for the sysadmins at companies using it, but there was talk around the office our company might have to declare bankruptcy, dump us all to cover debt from damage control.  It had us working under a lot of uncertainty, right when housing prices were shooting up all around the city.”

      “Like, two years ago?”

      “Another time they were going up, about seven years before that?  So it’s work quick and come up with genius solutions while you could end up homeless at a moment’s notice.  We really used all of our team skills on that one.  And that was me.  The genius stuff was for enfants terribles and people like me would try to make their solutions workable in practical space, documenting the code, translating it for other people in the pipeline.  I probably cried in the bathroom at least once?  But we got through it.”  Pathos, girl.  But not too much.

      “Wow.  That sounds like a hard time.”

      “Hard times come and go.  That one is gone.  But lessons learned?”

      “I can’t imagine.  Well, just one more thing.  What kind of compensation would you be expecting here?”

      “Better than a grad but worse than I was making, I’m sure.  I understand I’m starting over, but I am bringing a competency of experience you won’t see in a new kid.  I could go as low as forty-five, if it’s strictly necessary.”

      The fake rockabilly’s eyebrows moved.  What did it mean?  Don’t let them know you care.

      “Thank you, Courtney.  Now do you have anything you’d like to know from me?”

      “Do you have anybody here doing tech support at all, or would that become part of the job description?”

      “You got me.  We did not include IT in the listing, but you know we’ll be asking for it.”

      “I’m OK with that, Diana.”

                                                        ***

      I got out as fast as I could without making it too obvious.  I did not like how that went.  Usually I’ve done better.  Maybe the head wrap was making me lightheaded.  I found a metal pole to lean on, tried to slow my breathing.

      It didn’t help that this was not far from Walter’s stomping grounds, but I had to make myself stop worrying about that.  The late morning sun was bright white, the shadows electric blue.  Every scrap of garbage, eggshell, feathers, plastic, paper was clearly visible in the cement, joining its constituent stones like the skin of an endless lizard.  People walked around me.

      I finally shook it off, put on my sunglasses, and strolled.  Knobby had eluded me long enough.  The full moon was going to happen that night.  If he and Olivia were out walking the streets every day, when did he have time to be taking shits in front of old ladies?  I was going to catch his ass.  If I could cure his werewolfism, maybe anything was possible.  Cures for twisty hair and headmouth, why not?

      I switched from pumps to sneakers and walked back to the Myrmidon Apartments with purpose.  I was getting used to walking, even with the uphill-downhill of it, and if one picked the right streets, this route was mostly downhill.  I was on the block, eyes open for the off chance of seeing those kids on the street, and peered into the window of the Subway behind the building.  I didn’t see the kids, but I did see a lone sub-muncher in the uniform of the pest control company that was investigating the bed bug situation.

      I stepped in.  The people at the counter really didn’t care about short stay loiterers - lots of things to do in keeping an urban fast food joint from exploding.  I went confidently to his table and looked down with arms folded over my chest.

      “Hey, young fella.  Don’t worry, I’m not a cougar or a hooker.  Just a resident of the Myrmidon.”

      “I really shouldn’t talk to residents, ma’am.”

      “Don’t worry about it, kid.  I’m cool.  It’s not my apartment that’s getting sussed out, and not my problem.  I’m just curious about how this works, in case it becomes a problem for me.  Down the road.”

      “Hmm.”

      We had a moment, me smiling, trying to convey a sense of fun-loving criminality, speak to the young man inside the professional.  He pondered it for a moment, then assented.  “OK.”

      I sat down across the table from him.  “Alright.  So this is the new reality, they’re saying.  All the DDT that squished those bald eagle eggs wore off, bed bugs are moving back into the cities.  What all have you heard about that?”

      “Not a lot, honestly.  There’s the experts and then there’s guys like me who just move shit around, work the tools.  What was that about eagles?”

      “I don’t know much either, but somebody told me there’s this pesticide we used to spray on crops, but also indoors.  It made eagle eggshells thin so that when momma tried to incubate them, squish.  Bald eagles became an endangered species and the stuff was banned.  According to the guy I talked to...”

      “That’s why nobody had bed bugs until last year.  What a trip.”

      “Well what do you know about them?  Has to be something.”

      “Heh.  Now this is hella gross.  I heard the females don’t have a...  well, they don’t have a vag.  So to get inseminated, basically, the males got a gnarly spike for a dick, and just stab ’em with it.  Is that too much?”

      “Hahaha, no, that is horrible.  Thanks!”

      “A way to keep ’em out of your bed is to keep your bedding from reaching the floor and put the feet of your bed inside, like, a ring of laundry detergent.”

      “Nice, nice.  So what’s in store for my unfortunate upstair biddies?”

      “Our company is high end, so... uh...”

      “Promise, I’m cool.  You can tell me anything.”

      “Basically, everybody we deal with is insured out the ass, so we come up with services just to charge more money.  It isn’t a total scam, right?  The services do something.  But is every last one of ’em necessary?”

      “So you’re gonna milk this thing?  Hell, everything in this town is so fucking expensive, that doesn’t bother me at all.  Do it to it.  But that isn’t the reason you told me, is it?”

      “OK, we basically already know there are bed bugs.  Boss man stabbed her bed with a bowie knife and found black dots - like digested blood.”

      “Euggh.”

      “I know.  But we’ll be like, this is suggestive but it isn’t a clincher, and run another test.”

      “A more expensive one.”

      “You got it.  And man, it is the real trip.  We bring in a trained animal to sniff ’em out.”

      “Is it an expensive dog breed?”

      He was smirking and enjoying this too much.  “Not a dog.”

      “Aardvark?”  I remembered what Grime had told me about the animal, but didn't want to ruin the boy's fun.

      “A pig.”  His expression dimmed a bit.  “But now that you say that, I wish it was an aardvark.  That sounds fun.”

      “No, no, that’s pretty fucking funny.  You’re literally gonna get these apartments to pay them to have a potbelly piggy running through the halls.”

      “Oh it ain’t no potbelly, ma’am.  It’s one of the big boys.”

      “What do they call that, a boar?”

      “Yup.  A male pig, big as fuck.  Maybe you’ll get to see it.  It’s like three feet at the top and I swear at least five hundred pounds.”

      “No shit?”

      “No shit.”

      “Well, here’s hopin’ those sons of bitches stay upstairs.”

      “Uh, yeah.  Yeah, for sure.”

      He must have known that wasn’t likely to happen.  Shit.  “So the boar confirms what you already know.  Then what?”

      “That’s our part.  We help the lady treat and isolate everything in her apartment.  Anything that can’t take the heat is moved out.  The sprinkler heads are packed in coolant, and then we heat the place to a hundred twenty-five degrees for three hours.”

      “Holy shit.  Big space heaters?”

      “Custom, industrial motherfuckers.  It’s pretty cool stuff.  No poison involved.”

      “Except the laundry detergent.”

      “The laundry detergent?  Oh yeah, the laundry detergent.  We don’t tell most of our customers about that one.”

      “Because they’ll be more likely to get reinfested.  Sharp.”

      “You never know when they’ll bring that pesticide back and put us out of a job, right?”

      “Well thanks, man.  That was a real thrill ride.”  I shot him a finger gun and stood up.

      “Hey, ah...  You don’t have to go so fast..?”

      “Heh.  Charmed, but I do have to get going.  Enjoy your sandwich, son.”

      “Yes ma’am.”

                                                        ***

      I made a mental note to line the baseboards with borax at the earliest opportunity.  I was getting a mental picture of the shit.  They boil the granny floor and fleeing bed bugs come down through the walls, end up on our floor.

      I decided to take the stairs up, and at each floor get out and walk the hall.  If Knobby was doing his doggy deeds, I’d catch him.  I tried to listen for sounds in the stairwell, in the halls, but the exertion made my pulse pound in my ears.  Not terribly, but enough to mute the quiet noises of the world.

      The first ten floors had a different layout from ours - a little bit larger, with more variable apartment sizes.  The smallest ones were even smaller than ours, judging by the distance between doors, and the largest might have been larger.  On the tenth floor, another variation - a gym I had never used.

      I used my prox key and got in.  A redundant nuisance - anybody on this floor had already badged in downstairs, or been badged in by somebody else.  Did they want to keep visitors out of the precious fitness center?

      The outer walls were surely floor-to-ceiling glass, like on ours, but they were masked completely by drawn vertical blinds.  Interior lights were weak in competition with the daylight that gave the blinds an unappealing amber glow, the room washing out to a dim grey-green.

      Still easy enough to see by, and I found myself looking at myself.  One of the inner walls was pure mirror.  Watch your beach bod take shape while you ride the stationary bikes.  Or stand alone and watch yourself fade in real time.  All the dolling up I did for the interview was coming apart, and the shadows added ten years to my face.

      Even with the wrap clamped down on my head, I had forgotten it was visible.  It changed me, made my reflection alien.  And remembering this, I remembered Reverse Courtney was waiting under that grip for any chance to rat us out.  I touched the back of my head and felt her shift underneath the cloth.

      Get out.  No way Knobby was in there anyway.  As I stepped away, I noticed the floor beneath my feet was raised and discolored.  No allergy medicine here.  Get out.

      The eleventh floor was, to my knowledge, one of several completely unoccupied ones.  On seeing no Knobby, it occurred to me that if the monster in him had the same motivation as Reverse Courtney, he would only visit floors with people on them.

      Our floor.  The ritual wasn’t really complete yet.  I had prepared my potions and talismans and such, but I still needed to set up the magic circle.  It was far from midnight, so time remained, but who knew how long it would take to catch the boy?

      I realized we needed to talk to everyone at once.  Patrick and Graeme would be at work, probably, and Deandre and the kids probably out and about.  Still, better to get as many people as possible on the same page as early as possible.  I started knocking on doors.

      Patrick was indeed at work, and I decided to leave Perry alone.  With that and less anybody out on the town, I was only able to convene Mike, Momi, and Marcie, in her apartment.  Mike looked lively, but greener than ever.

      The three sat on the couch and I sat across from it.

      “What’s this about, Courtney?”  Mike was the only one with no prior knowledge, that I knew of.

      “Marcie and Leimomi already know some of this, but not all of it.  Like the allergy situation, it’s important for all of us to know.  Mike, have you noticed that you’re not looking... well?”

      “The green?  Yeah, and I’ve seen that Knobby kid hunchbacked, and his girl’s neck go weird.”

      “So you have an idea what this is about.  I think the building is trying to make us lose control of ourselves, make us get ourselves caught.  I have a mouth on the back of my head that has basically said as much to me.”

      “Does Leimomi have a head mouth too?”

      “No,” she said.

      “Let me get to the point.  The neighbors talked about seeing a dog, or a dog-like man, in the halls on their floors - causing trouble.  It has to be one of us.  We know what our problems are, and Knobby is already hunched over, so safe bet it’s him.  And I have a plan.”

      Mike smiled, green hands on his knees.  “Great!  And here I was worried.  You’re so good, Courtney.”

      Marcie said, “What are you going to do, Courtney?”

      “Ehh, I don’t...”  Maybe they’d feel better if I didn’t express my doubts.  “Sorry.  Remember how wearing the allergy pill necklace was helpful?  It’s kinda like that.  I’m setting up a thing...  OK, a magic spell.  In my room.  We get Knobby inside the magic circle and do an exorcism.”

      “The power of Christ compels you!  Haha,” Mike said, “I can do that.”

      Marcie nodded in admiration.  Momi knew what I was thinking, gave me a sensitive smile.

      “Yeah, so here’s the deal.  We all do our best to find that kid, get him and everybody else in my apartment by midnight.  I’ll write up everybody’s instructions for the spell.  You’ll have to read some words, do some things.”

      “Any of that cool shit from Exorcist in there?,” Mike asked.

      “No but there may be some room for improv.  Just make sure you do the spell right first.

        And in the meantime...”

      “We’ll try to find Knobby.”

      “Richie’s been trying,” Marcie said.

      “Unless he has a hot lead, call him home,” I said.  “It’s a full moon, and if I’m right - that the werewolf is trying to get us in trouble here - he’ll be in the building somewhere.”

      Momi said, “Oh good, I didn’t wanna run around town anyways.  Should we start looking now?”

      “Eat lunch first, get plenty of water.  For my part, I’m gonna turn my apartment into a magic circle.”

                                                        ***

      In my initial pass at the exorcism material in Werwolves, I didn’t notice the shin-kicking ritual involved some worse tortures besides.  We weren’t going to whip him until he was drenched in blood.  I did my best to come up with ways to symbolically accomplish anything I was unable or unwilling to do in the prescribed method.  For example, where it called for whipping the “werwolf” I thought we could just give him a few whacks and then cover him in some kind of blood.  Unsanitary, but not torture.  I’d paid for blood from a butcher, because there’s no good way to shoplift it, and sanitized it by boiling.  That made a blood pudding which I intended to reliquefy when we got closer to midnight.  Grody.

      Another thing I couldn’t do was follow hyper-specific astrological instructions.  OK, I might be able to sync the ritual to a night of the full moon, but learning enough about astronomy or astrology to even know when Mercury was seventeen degrees on the cusp of the Seventh House?  Not happening.  The text said Mercury was the “most bitter opponent of evil spirits,” so I thought, hang some liquid mercury from the ceiling above our boy.  I poured my mercury into an emptied bottle of some micro-brew with a white stag on it, to honor St. Hubert.

                                                        ***

   Read next chapter here.

[angeliquemd]

Reading Corner: Howl’s Moving Castle || Diana Wynne Jones

Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl's castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there's far more to Howl—and herself—than first meets the eye.

I remember watching Studio Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle in my high school days, Hayao Miyazaki was a huge hit that time (still is) and a lot of my friends at school were so in to it, I wouldn’t dare miss the craze. Fast forward to many years and I’ve ONLY JUST KNOWN it was based on a book by Diana Wynne Jones. How could I have just known?!! This is the first non-medicine related book I read after the whirlwind that was board exams…which was the perfect choice. This book is a very light read and everything that was opposite ‘scientific evidence’ with all it’s magic and impossibilities.

I particularly liked how this book began:

“In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.”

I was engaged the moment I started. 100 pages down and I knew there was no turning back - I gotta finish this. DWJ’s imagination goes a long way and it’s amazing how people have these kinds of worlds inside their head. I’m grateful they share their work! I’m quite saddened by the fact that the author passed away in 2011 — I did a quick google search on her to see other works by her, only to find out she was gone before we could get properly acquainted. May her soul rest in peace. Anyway. I don’t know if it was all the medical stuff that’s making me quite the slowpoke, but there were parts in the I had to read over twice just to make sure I understood correctly, if I ever understood them on the first reading. Haha. Though the descriptions made were quite vivid, I still had to reread some sentences to make sure I didn’t miss story revelations or a character unmasking. And speaking of characters, I really enjoyed both Howl and Sophie. Both are very human and incredibly prone to human inclinations (let’s say, Howl’s vanity or Sophie’s predisposition to bad decisions). I won’t say more, I might spoil the book! I won’t even say why Calcifer is probably my favorite character among the lot, closely followed by Howl.

Overall this book is whimsical and exceedingly fun to read. It was chaotic for sure, but beautifully delivered. I’m off to refresh myself with the movie after I write this. Oh and by the way, for those who have just heard about this book (like me), this is part 1 of a trilogy. Although it can clearly work as a stand alone, I’d still like to read the rest of the series ‘cause book 1 was a great read. Also to pay my respects to the wonderful Diana Wynne Jones.

Angelique’s rating: 4.2 out of 5

edit:

I’ve just finished rewatching the movie and I just have to point out that it was totally book Sophie rather than movie Sophie I liked loved. She was much more of a character in the book, so full of argument and fire. I liked Calcifer so much more in the book as well!! As all film adaptations go, the movie is quite different from the book. Well, the premise is still the same but it was delivered more beautifully in the book (if the movie wasn’t a book, the movie would still be a standout, I just have to say that). The Witch of the Waste was well, wasted in the film. The plot, the curse, and Howell from Wales were all taken out from the movie, which is a total bummer. I guess what the movie did was to simplify the characters + their backgrounds, as well as the plot so we can focus more on the budding love between Sophie and Howl. But I have to admit that no one else could do a better job than Miyazaki in rendering this to movie form.

[house-of-rahl]

35 Things I Thought While Rewatching Legend of the Seeker S1E01 Prophecy

this opening scene is seriously beautiful

god bless this cinematography

sometimes I forget how beautiful bridget regan is...jk I never forget, her beauty is eternal

why was this show cancelled again?

damn that boundary just pops up out of nowhere. giant magical barrier that you can’t see until you run smack into it

oh look at that horribly rendered cgi plant/ conveniently placed plot device

“she’s got magic!” well no shit, random d’haran #3, she’s a confessor you idiot

hello shirtless richard

building a bridge never looked so good

I love how richard shared his apple with his horse

it’s ok richard, if I saw bridget regan running through the forest I would stop and stare too

kahlan looks so confused/offended by richard’s presence, oh girl you’ve got a storm coming

I love how in the confession scene there’s no “command me mistress” or anything, gotta keep that element of mystery

beautiful girl pulls a knife on him and richard’s first reaction is “did I do something wrong” well CLEARLY

CHASE! he’s so underappreciated 

you can tell richard is the favorite child

“don’t worry clara, supper will never be you” the best line in the whole damn show tbh

“prophecy be damned” yeah good luck with that zedd

RAHL! (lol if someone told me I would love rahl this much when I watched this for the first time I would have thought they were crazy)

poor richard is questioning his entire existence

haha richard you don’t want to know who your biological father is right now, that’s a life crisis that can wait till later

“I wouldn’t be a blazing arrow pointing the way to you- apparently that’s what confessors are for” the sass is real. kahlan and zedd really didn’t get along at first

ok but what if richard was straight up illiterate...would he still be able to read the book of counted shadows? probably cause.. magic

kahlan went from “this schmuck can’t possibly be the seeker” to “give him the sword” real quick

“and with it you will kill darken rahl” HAHAHA more like ‘with the sword of truth darken rahl will accidentally kill himself and tear the veil to the underworld’...but whatever

if I was richard I would probably be way more freaked out by the bloodflies than by the gar

I forgot the tragic fate of richard’s horse :(

kahlan looks so unimpressed by zedd’s wizard’s fire

gotta love the fantasy trope of killing off the protag’s adoptive father and burning down his childhood home

look at richie already getting consumed by the sword’s rage

ya know zedd, if you had given richard a heads up about all this shit years ago he might not have gone off the rails now

richard knocking fane’s sword away with the sword of truth, we’ll see that move again. I love how we already get a sense for richard’s fighting style, even so early on

“but I’ve lost everything” “no you have me, and kahlan, and most importantly you have yourself” aahh it’s like a major sentiment of the show in one line. lean on your friends and family, but don’t forget to trust yourself and your own capabilities 

when zedd names richard the true seeker and theme plays and you super emotional cause you just love this show and these characters so much

aaand then we get that awkwardly close close-up of rahl’s face......