#this was very long I expect approximately no one to read this and maybe that’s for the best lmao

[davrinsleftpectoral]

Davrin week day 2 

Eyes of an eagle, roar of a lion, heart of a halla

I also paired this piece with @thedissonantverses weekend writing challenge. The prompts were the lyric “I told you not to get lost in the wild” and migraine.

CW: pregnancy, in case that’s not your thing.

Under the cut, approximately 1500 words.

Or read on ao3 here

==

Esha groaned and stretched. She must have fallen asleep here on the couch. She sat up slowly, rubbing her forehead. Her migraine had improved, but not by much. The overwhelming pounding was reduced to a constant ache. She supposed that was something. How could this be happening? Again? “I’m a Grey Warden,” he’d said. “I’ll almost certainly never be able to have children of my own,” he said. “One time must be a miracle, surely it can’t happen again,” he’d said. Though Emmrich had agreed with him on that count. And yet here she was. With Glandival just over 2, and another on the way. She tried not to be bitter towards the children or Davrin, but it was so hard. She hadn’t wanted or expected to be a mother. She barely knew how to handle the one they already had, and now another was on its way. 

As she was coming more fully awake, she started to realize the room was very quiet. When she’d laid down and closed her eyes, she could hear Glandival playing in the room. Little wooden animals were strewn about the floor, but the girl was nowhere to be seen. Esha stood and glanced around the room. Typically it was easy to spot Glandival because she shared Esha’s bright pink curly hair, however, there was no pink to be seen. Fighting a rising panic, she ran through the rest of the cabin. It wasn’t very big as Davrin had built it when it was just the two of them, so it didn’t take her long. Icy fear gripped her as she realized Glandival wasn’t inside the house. 

She needed to get Davrin, and together the pair of them would surely be able to find their missing daughter. She ran out the open front door, heading straight to Davrin’s workshop, calling for Glandival the whole way. Davrin must have heard the edge of panic in Esha’s voice, and he came out to meet her. 

“Please tell me that Glandival is with you!” she said breathlessly.

“Last I saw her, she was playing in the cabin with you,” he replied. 

“Davrin! It was only supposed to be a minute! My headache, but I don’t know where she is Davrin! She was gone when I woke up!” Esha explained in a rush. But her frantic run to Davrin and the panic threatening to close her throat left her unsteady on her feet. She swayed and Davrin reached out to steady her.

“Hey, I think maybe you should sit down. I can get you some water and then go find Glandival. She can’t have gotten far,” said Davrin, clearly attempting to keep his tone light. Still. Esha saw the slight furrow to his brow and the way he started scanning the area.

“No!” She barked. “I will not sit, and you will not get me water. I am not an invalid, just pregnant. Again. No, I am finding my daughter.” She tried to stomp off but instead, swayed unsteadily again. The migraine was making her head spin. The spinning brought on a fresh wave of nausea so intense that she couldn’t fight it. She managed to push off Davrin and dropped to her knees, throwing up in the grass. Davrin didn’t miss a beat. He knelt down beside her and rubbed slow circles on her back. 

It was soothing. But instead of making her feel better, it fueled a building anger inside her. She was angry at Davrin for getting her pregnant, even though everyone kept assuming it was a fluke. She was angry at Davrin for being so perfect. He was the perfect partner and the perfect father. Glandival adored him, while she fought Esha on everything. She was angry that she wasn’t naturally a good mother, that she had to work hard at all of it. It was easy to soothe random artifacts, but nearly impossible to soothe a crying baby. She was angry that her body seemed to betray her, making her incredibly ill as soon as she fell pregnant.

“Will you please just sit, and rest? I’ll go grab Assan, and we’ll find Glandival, whatever it takes,” Davrin said softly. The compassion on his face had hot, angry tears pricking her eyes. The migraine was finally gone after vomiting, but now she was gong to cry? She didn’t want to risk letting the tears go, so instead of answering she simply stood, intending to continue the search. Davrin gave the smallest of sighs. She couldn’t blame him. She didn’t like herself very much right now either. 

Davrin stood and held out his hand, offering it to Esha. She let herself meet his eyes then. There was just love in the brown depths, tinged with an edge of worry. The tears broke free then, rolling down her face. Davrin reached up with his free hand and wiped some away. 

“Let’s go start with Assan. He can help us find her, and she might be more likely to go to him than either of us, if she hears the three of us looking for her,” he offered. Esha nodded wordlessly and they went towards the griffon barn. As they walked Davrin called for Glandival. Esha wanted to join in calling her, but the tears wouldn’t stop. So she just scanned the area for their daughter’s little pink haired head. 

Davrin had only called for her a few times when they heard two distinct chirps from Assan, coming from the barn. Two chirps in quick succession meant he’d found something. Davrin’s eyes met Esha’s, asking if he could run ahead. Esha nodded and released his hand. Davrin jogged ahead to the barn and she immediately missed having his hand steadying more than just her balance. 

Esha caught up and stepped into the barn and saw that Glandival had climbed into Assan’s nest. The child was happily babbling away to the griffon, with one carved wooden animal in each hand. Davrin had stopped just a little inside the door, smiling so fondly at the pair, seeming to not want to disturb them just yet. Esha however, could not contain herself. 

“Glandival!” She cried, the immense relief bringing on a fresh set of tears. 

Glandival turned and saw them then. She waved happily and said as clear as day, “Assan!” She went back to her play, as if they had simply come in to say hello. 

Davrin chuckled and turned to gather Esha into his arms. She was full on sobbing, like a dam breaking during a flood and there was no stopping it.

Between hiccups and sobs Esha managed to say, “She even likes Assan better than me! She barely calls me Mamae and she says his name perfectly.” The sentence ended on a wail. 

To his credit, he did not laugh or call her silly, though the corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly as if he were fighting a smile. He pressed a kiss to her temple and let he cry until the tears started to slow before saying anything. 

“Esha, I cannot begin to know how you must feel. I can see that it is not easy being pregnant and then giving birth. I also know that this isn’t how you expected your life to be. It isn’t what I thought my life would be either. I thought I’d be with the wardens until the end of my life. But then one day a spunky, pink haired elf showed up looking for me. And she fell in love with my griffon and then with me.” Esha snorted at this. 

“Together we defeated a pair of ancient elvhen gods. We traveled all over Thedas. We’ve trained griffons. We flew on griffons! And then by some miracle, a wish I never dared to have came true, we were given Glandival. And now another one on the way.” He paused to tilt her chin up so she could see his face. “You are so brave, and smart, and loving. You will figure this out. Glandival has the heart of a halla, she’s drawn to Assan. She doesn’t love him more than you.”

“Maybe. But she does love you more,” Esha interrupted. 

Davrin was unable to contain his laugh that time. He looked over at their daughter and Assan, his face positively glowing with pride. He looked back down at Esha and his gaze softened with love for her, even as he smirked. “Yeah she does. BUT,” he talked louder to stop her interruption. “But, she does still love you. You’re her Mamae and she needs you. I love you and need you too. I’m sorry I didn’t know you weren’t feeling well. I would have taken Glandival so you could lay down and rest.”

“I didn’t want to ask you to watch her. I should be able to take care of my own child myself,” she scoffed. 

“It’s okay to ask me for help. We’re a team. Where you are, there I am, ready to be there for you. Okay?” Esha nodded in reply, afraid if she said anything the tears would start again. 

“You go rest, I’ll stay with these two, and keep them out of trouble. But please take it easy. We will figure out how to do this. Okay? Tomorrow is a new day.” 

==

Glandival means wish in elvhen, which I thought was super cute but couldn’t work it into this piece in a way that felt natural.

I didn’t mean for this to be so much about Esha, but she had a lot of feelings so I went with it.

@datvcompanionweeks thanks for running such a fun event.

[ikemenomegas]

There's that scene in Phantom Parade where Gojo tells nanami that if he didn't go with him, he would scream and cry on the spot and in your au, id expect nanami to slowly turn to gojo's alpha and go: 😕😮‍💨

😆i have no idea the context of that interaction, sounds like something inspired by Gojo and Nanami's terrible Hokkaido work adventure, but it did make me giggle bc you're absolutely correct

"Why is he like this?"

"Hmm?" you turned slowly. Satoru had kept you up last night. You stifled a yawn. You'd spent over six hours humoring him through losing spectacularly at final fantasy fifteen. Or at least you thought it was losing, could you lose that kind of game? Either way, you were pleasantly sleepy and the world felt washed in cotton.

So you thought Nanami had spoken, but maybe that was just many years of getting good at reading the gradation of Kento Nanami's Shades of Exasperation.

Nanami was staring at you and so was Satoru, with a kind of familiar hesitation that indicated he was awaiting some kind of reaction from one or both of you. So you decided that whether or not Nanami had spoken was probably irrelevant.

Your kouhai's expression now told you he was seriously wondering whether or not you'd been hit on the head when he wasn't looking. It wasn't like you'd complain about it if you had been.

"I'll go with you, Satoru," you said, equably, gazing up into your mate's covered eyes and falling back on something that occasionally satisfied whatever mood he was in, although efficacy tended to depend upon what exactly he wanted. Where were promising to go? No clue, but hopefully somewhere where you could get something to drink. As you'd grown older, staying awake all or most of the night seemed to make you more inclined to dehydration the next day.

A loud, whiny "Noo-ooo," left Satoru's lips. They were glossy with just a slightly darker shade of pink at the center like he'd freshly applied the lip tint you'd bought him last week. He'd said it was some limited edition thing that tasted, or at least smelled like it should taste, like umeshu.

"Of course you'd come--" Satoru had continued with making a scene, and Nanami looked like he was starting to grind his jaw a little, which was a bad habit both you and Shoko had been trying to break him of, "--unless you're the kind of alpha to leave me alone--".

You reached for Nanami's shoulder to prod him but your hand was snatched from the air and enfolded into Satoru's, a jealous tint to the air that you knew was all performative. Probably.

At least that had worked. Nanami looked like his mouth was about to drop open.

You wanted to point out that Satoru was already well on the way to crocodile tears by this point. "I thought the crying was going to be for Nanami," you teased with a tired, almost fond sigh.

A loud, near approximation of a whining, petulant sob left Satoru's pink lips. You wondered if there was actually any alcohol in the lip tint. Maybe the fumes were going to his head.

"Why are you ganging up on me!?" he exclaimed, ridiculous and provocative, and clearly angling to see where this was going.

Fine. Never let it be said that you didn't know how to go for a killing blow, even against Gojo Satoru,

"Well, you look awful pretty when you cry. I just thought I'd give you a chance to show it off," you said, reaching up to cup his cheek, the very image of an alpha placating an omega.

Nanami's palm hit his face with a near audible little smack. Whoops.

Satoru snickered as he drew you up the street, long legs eating up the distance so smooth it was almost like he was gliding. You followed along, trailing for a bit just to make sure Nanami was in fact, grudgingly, trudging along in Satoru's wake.

It occurred to you that you still didn't know where he thought you were going.

[that-house]

I wanna host a ttrpg where a bunch of mostly ordinary folks are sent into a strange haunted house of madness dungeon type thing to kill a stupidly powerful vampire/magic user person.

What system would you recommend? DnD feels like a bad thing for this...

And what is your go to ttrpg anyway?

Given your second ask, where you mentioned wanting them to get stronger over time and such while in the dungeon, honestly? Dungeon crawls are basically the only thing D&D 5e does well. The sole good use case of Dungeons and Dragons (unless you’re a freak like me) is as a grindy resource management simulator. Very few people actually run their D&D games like this because they got it in their heads that it’s about the importance of queer found family as opposed to desperately rationing spell slots and torches.

There’s definitely going to be some initial tonal mismatch but as resources run low your players will need to actually consider when to fight and when to run. As long as running is always theoretically possible, I think you could give them a pretty nightmarish experience. Heavily restrict their access to long rests (hell, maybe even *never* give them a long rest and just have them gain new resources on leveling up but not refresh lost resources), and eventually even encounters that should be easy wind up seriously dangerous just because a spell cast here isn’t available elsewhere.

If you’re looking for a more Horror-related experience that still ends in a crazy fight, I might recommend a reflavor of CAIN. The PCs are all psychics but you could always just cut into how many powers they start with and pass out more as the game progresses. CAIN is meant for a structure more based around doing a bunch of missions, but I imagine you could hack together some solid approximation of a one mission structure, or run each section of the house like its own mission.

Beyond CAIN, i can’t think of much in the way of horror systems that encourage dungeon crawling, where the expectation is that you eventually get stronger and kick a load of ass. Mind you i have like 600 rpg rulebooks saved and haven’t read anywhere close to all of em, so, I’m sure there’s something out there. You might consider asking @/theresattrpgforthat, a blog much more dedicated to answering these sorts of questions.

As for your second question: I think D&D 5e is a terrible system that makes unreasonable demands of the DM and encourages a style of play that I personally don’t find very enjoyable.

That being said, I’m very very good at running D&D 5e the way I want it run, to the point that I’ve had a player say he’s never going to touch the system again unless I’m running it. I just give my players Kill Six Billion Demons-tier bullshit like the Universe Slash and set them loose in a sandbox full of powerful assholes.

D&D statblocks are designed with the intent that you’re fighting 4 level-appropriate encounters per day. I design my statblocks to hold up against a party of level 16 PCs (that could probably each individually wipe the floor with a non-homebrew party their same level) going nova in their only fight of the day, and I find that when the enemies are well designed and the players have fun abilities that force them to actually make meaningful decisions, D&D combat is actually pretty fun! It is not, however, really worth playing D&D like this unless you’re a freak like me who gets off on game design

[fili-urzudel]

Wildflower Ch. 1 - The Beginning

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1.1 k

Dear Reader:

The following events have been amalgamated from multiple sources and translated to a language you can understand to the best of our ability. We can only approximate the exact gestures, actions, and emotions of the characters involved, but hope we have done them justice. Songs have been the most heavily changed to make them more lyrical in your preferred language. However, the sentiment remains the same.

Thank you, and enjoy.

The sun rose earlier than expected, and Kíli thought it made the Shire look rather nice. The rolling green hills and wide dirt paths were no match for Ered Luin’s sharp peaks and impressive bridges, of course, but they were nice all the same. 

“Ye cannae stare at the dew all day,” Dwalin said gruffly, almost running into him as he exited the Hobbit hole, hauling yet another bag of garbage from the Baggins home.

“I know, I was just coming out to help you,” he smiled easily, and Dwalin huffed in reply. 

“Gettin’ the ponies ready is a bit more pertinent.”

“Ah, I see we’ve brought out the advanced vocabulary this morning.”

Dwalin shot him a look that could kill, and if his hands were free, he might have tried.

“Kíli,” a deep voice warned from around the bend.

“I was getting to it!” Kíli exclaimed quickly. “Where’s Fíli, anyway? He’s supposed to be helping me with this.”

“Your brother is writing a letter to his dear wife to let her know he’s safe,” Balin said, already standing by the ponies, loading maps and parchments into his saddlebags. 

“Oh,” he said simply. Normally, he would stick his tongue out or something of the sort, but he was rather concerned about his sister-in-law as well. 

Thorin nodded gratefully in Balin’s direction—he always seemed to know how to get the two of them under control, much better than he could, anyway.

The company was underway just before daybreak, and Kíli found himself squinting against the sun as they left. 

The morning was too quiet. 

“Anyone care to make a bet or two?”

* * *

“Wait! Wait!” The cry came from behind them. One by one, the dwarves reigned in their ponies, turning to see the aforementioned potential burglar running up to them rather comically, waving the contract as he did. “I signed it!”

Kíli smiled broadly—he had won his bets. He had seen a peculiar look in the Hobbit’s eye. That, and Gandalf betted that Bilbo would come to his senses. The young prince figured it would be pure foolishness to bet against a wizard.

Balin glanced at the Hobbit skeptically as he pulled out his reading glass, carefully inspecting the paper.  “Everything appears to be in order; welcome, Master Baggins, to the company of Thorin Oakenshield.”

The company cheered; they had a burglar! Maybe not a very good one, but at any rate, a burglar. After a small fuss concerning the use of ponies as their primary mode of transportation, they were once again on their way, now a company of fourteen.

“Stop! Stop! We have to turn around!” Bilbo’s calls did indeed cause the company to halt.

Kíli could see the look on his uncle’s face without looking at him; he had seen the man exasperated often enough, and he was beginning to feel the same way.

“What on earth is the matter?” Gandalf asked before either of them had the opportunity to.

“I forgot my handkerchief,” Bilbo complained.

“Here!” Bofur called helpfully, tearing off a portion of his rather soiled outer coat. “Use this!’

“Bilbo?” At the call, the entire procession stopped in their laughter, turning to see another Hobbit coming up to their trail.

Kíli immediately noticed something different about the Hobbit, not in her appearance—though, that may have been a factor—no, but rather in the effect she had on him. She was beautiful in a way he had difficulty explaining: her hair long and fastened back with several clips, save for the curls on her forehead; her long, pale green skirt and loose white blouse; her blue eyes that shone in the sunlight.

“Where are you going? Who are these people?” Kíli was jerked out of his reverie by the question, momentarily panicking as though it was he who was expected to answer.

“Who is this?” Thorin grunted, and the Hobbit simply glanced at him curiously before returning her gaze to Bilbo.

Kíli wished her eyes had not simply flicked over him.

“Oh, um, gentlemen, this is May Bramble, my cousin, who happens to live just west of this path we're using,” Bilbo explained, his hand awkwardly fiddling with the reins of his newly acquired pony.

At Gandalf's lightly confused expression, May chuckled. “It's very distant, but, somehow, we're both Tooks. One more than the other.”

The wizard nodded thoughtfully and went back to his pipe.

The dwarves gave each other looks of barely disguised humor—these Hobbits and their family trees!

“A bit far out of town, is it not?” Thorin asked, eyeing the maiden with a kernel of suspicion.

“My great-great-grandfather was one of the more... eccentric Hobbits of his generation,” she answered seriously. “He thought it better to rely more on the land, as our ancestors had, and it has served us well. Now, Bilbo, are you going to answer my question or not?”

Before Bilbo could answer, Gandalf took it upon himself to explain the journey, and its reasoning, despite Thorin's protests—“We do not need everyone in the Shire knowing our business!”

“Oh,” she furrowed her brow seriously. “That sounds... very noble. And exciting.”

Thorin stared at her, hoping that would be the end of it and they could be on their way.

“Would you mind the addition of another to your company?”

“We don't need any dead weight,” Thorin said bluntly. “This is hardly a jolly quest.”

“We could use an extra pair of hands, always,” Kíli argued, and Thorin raised a brow at him. “And I hardly think she's so eager to join this company for gold when no payment has been offered.”

“No, no, I would never assume that I was entitled to any of your gold,” she shook her head quickly. “I'm only joining for the adventure.” She smiled at Kíli, a bright grin that was easily returned.

“And we do have an extra pony,” Fíli pointed out, seeing the look on his brother's face. It was certainly one he had not quite seen before.

“Have both of you gone mad? We cannot—”

“Let her come!” Gandalf interrupted. “I have a wizard's intuition about this one.” He gave a not-so-subtle wink in her direction.

Thorin spared her another glance.

“Fine. But we will not be waiting; we've wasted enough daylight as it is.”

May jumped excitedly, running back to her front door and grabbing a large leather bag before jogging back to the company that had indeed already begun to move on. 

“Here’s a pony, lass,” a red-haired dwarf offered kindly. 

“I’ve always wanted to ride one,” she cheered, quickly moving to ride sidesaddle. 

“Did you just… have a bag of your things ready for a journey like this?” Bilbo asked as she rode alongside him. 

“Did you not?” Her quick response was followed by the brightest laugh Kíli had ever heard. 

He was in trouble.

[rinawrote]

Hell on Earth

Furfur (Good Omens) x Reader

AO3 link here

Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale put their heads together to save you from your fate.

Warnings: None

previous chapter

Chapter 4 - Divine Interference

You woke late the next morning, the light already beaming warmth through the curtains. Sooty had taken up residence on your chest at some point in the night, and now blinked lazily at you like “Yes, you’re on the run from Hell, but also it’s breakfast time.”

Your body felt heavy, like it had been fighting something in your sleep. Maybe it had. You vaguely remembered dreams - smoke, fire, laughter that wasn’t quite human. A glint of silver in a ring. The feeling of being watched, but not unkindly. You sat up slowly, nudging Sooty off with an apologetic pat, and padded into the kitchen. The mug Furfur had used still sat in the sink, faint traces of black tea dried along the rim. You hadn’t washed it.

Something about that felt absurdly intimate. You told yourself it was nothing. You told yourself a lot of things that morning.

You carefully filled Sooty’s food bowl and he thanked you with a gentle headbutt before happily munching away. The kettle whistled. You poured hot water over a peppermint tea bag, and settled in on the sofa - right where you’d been when he left. The armchair cushions still held the ghost of his weight. You told yourself that was nothing, too.

Then the front door creaked.

You turned, half-expecting no one, half-hoping it was-

“Morning!” Aziraphale stood in the doorway, shadowed by Crowley trailing behind, coat slung over his shoulder. “We have your file!”

You blinked. “My what?”

“Your file,” Crowley echoed holding up a collection of papers and reading from them. “You’ve survived thirteen separate events marked as fatal.” He looked over at Aziraphale. The angel laughed nervously. “Your soul’s trajectory has deviated significantly from established prophecy. Hell is suspicious. Heaven is concerned.”

You stuttered in disbelief, “So, wh- so I have to die?”

“No!” Aziraphale clamoured, stepping quickly inside and nearly tripping over Sooty, who darted between his feet with a disgruntled meow. “No, no, not at all. Not necessarily. That’s just … one interpretation. A rather gloomy one, really.”

Crowley shut the door with a flick of his hand and leaned against it like he needed something to hold up his patience. “What he means is: no, you don’t have to die. But your continued survival is making everyone upstairs and downstairs very twitchy.”

You stared at them. “So I’ve broken the rules just by existing?”

“More like … you’ve slipped through them,” Aziraphale said, fiddling with his sleeve. “And Heaven doesn’t particularly like untidy narratives.”

Crowley smirked. “Hell hates ’em even more. Makes it harder to cheat.”

You took a slow sip of your tea and shook your head. “God, Aziraphale, you and your meddling.”

The angel’s smile was small. Wistful. “It was never very dramatic, really. Just nudging fate’s hand. Moving a car a second too soon. Holding a roof beam in place long enough for you to get out. Nothing Heaven would notice.”

Your heart ached with something you couldn’t quite name.

Crowley groaned. “And then I got dragged into it because Heaven doesn’t keep good records, Hell thinks you’re some chosen anomaly, and Furfur’s off the leash like a lovesick border collie.”

“I don’t think he’s-” you started.

“He is,” Crowley said flatly. “And it’s annoying.”

You turned back to Aziraphale, the air between you suddenly feeling much heavier. “Why me? You’ve known me for, what, a couple of years?”

“Two years, four months, twelve days,” he said absently, then blinked and cleared his throat. “Approximately.”

You didn’t know what to say to that.

“I just thought…” He swallowed. “I thought it would be a shame. For someone like you to disappear.”

Crowley sighed and continued for him. “The same reason a mid-level demon with a history of delighting in misery took one look at you and decided to go against protocol.”

Your heart gave a treacherous flutter.

“Furfur,” you said softly.

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Ridiculous name.”

“He’s not what I expected.”

“Demons never are,” Aziraphale said gently, with a glance toward Crowley that lingered too long to be innocent.

The silence that followed wasn’t cold. It was careful. Full of truths you weren’t sure how to hold. Finally, Aziraphale looked at you again. “We’ll keep you safe - we’ll figure it out - Oh! We can perform a miracle that will make you invisible to Hell.”

“What about Furfur?” You asked, more panic in your voice than you intended.

The pair looked at each other suspiciously, then the angel spoke, “We could … exclude him from the miracle - if that’s what you’d like.”

Then Crowley sighed, “Wonder where the little bastard is now anyway.”

You looked toward the window, then back at the abandoned mug in the sink. “Gone.”

“For now,” Aziraphale murmured, almost to himself. “But I doubt for long.”

You felt that same strange pull in your chest - the one you’d felt when he first looked at you like you were a problem he didn’t want to solve. You didn’t know what he was, not really. But now you knew he’d be back. And a small, secret part of you hoped he would.

Aziraphale clapped his hands together, too brightly. “Right then! Miracle time.”

Crowley groaned. “You always say it like we’re about to put on a puppet show.”

“Well, I’m trying to set the mood.”

You raised your eyebrows. “Should I … sit? Stand?”

Crowley waved a hand lazily. “Just stay where you are. You might feel a tingle. Or existential dread. Hard to say.”

“That’s not helpful.”

He smirked. “I wasn’t trying to be.”

Aziraphale stepped closer, his expression shifting into something more serious - still soft, still familiar, but with the weight of his real power behind it now. “This won’t hurt,” he said gently, “But it may feel odd. You’re not just being cloaked. We’re shifting how Hell perceives your presence entirely. Adjusting a frequency.”

Crowley added, “They could look right at you and see nothing. Just static. Not even worth investigating. Unless, of course…”

“Furfur,” you whispered.

“Yes.” Aziraphale hesitated. “You want him to be able to find you?”

You hesitated, too. Then nodded shyly. “I don’t think he means me any harm - besides - he could keep me updated on the situation from an inside perspective.”

Crowley muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “romantic nonsense.”

Aziraphale touched your shoulder and cast you a sympathetic look. “Very well. He’ll be the exception.”

He turned to Crowley, and for a moment, something unspoken passed between them. Crowley sighed, rolled his eyes, and pulled his sunglasses off, sliding them into his shirt pocket.

They both raised their hands.

The room went still.

The light shifted - not brighter, not dimmer, just … different. Your skin tingled, your breath caught, and for a moment, the edges of the room blurred, like the world was trying to forget you.

Aziraphale whispered something you didn’t understand. Crowley said something else - shorter, darker, like a footnote scrawled in the margins of reality. You swore you could feel the threads being pulled. A celestial hand reaching into your existence and sliding you just a fraction to the left of visible.

And then it was done.

The light snapped back to normal. The room exhaled.

You blinked. Your mug was still warm in your hand. Sooty was now asleep on the windowsill, tail flicking once.

“You won’t register on their radars anymore,” Aziraphale said softly. “Except to those already looking.”

“So … Furfur?” you asked.

“It means he’ll see you,” Crowley said. “But only if he wants to.”

You frowned. “What does that mean?”

Aziraphale smiled faintly. “It means he’ll have to choose to look.”

And somehow, that felt more vulnerable than anything else. You sat in the quiet that followed, trying to shake the sensation of having been quietly erased from something you never asked to be part of. But under it, there was a wave of relief; something had uncoiled in your chest.

Despite everything, you were still here.

And someone - two someones - had gone to considerable lengths to keep you that way.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” you said finally.

Aziraphale’s gaze was warm. “You don’t have to.”

Crowley grunted. “You could offer a cup of tea next time.”

You laughed. Just a little. But it was enough to break the moment open.

Aziraphale checked his watch and straightened his coat. “We should go. We’ve drawn enough attention as it is.”

As they moved to leave, you followed them to the door. Just before stepping out, Aziraphale paused and looked back. “Let us know if anything changes. If you feel … watched.”

You nodded.

And then they were gone. The door clicked shut. Silence returned.

You stood alone in your flat, one hand resting on the doorframe, the miracle still buzzing faintly under your skin.

Then, barely audible, there was a whisper of movement beyond the window. The faintest brush of shadow across the glass. Like smoke. You turned slowly. But nothing was there.

Not yet.

next chapter

[iam93percentstardust]

It's not just the commodification of fandom. It's not just the disinterest in wips in favor of completed stories. It's not just the unwillingness to take chances on new writers.

It's the demand for instant gratification too.

I'm posting a "wip" right now. It's actually a fully completed story, and I stated that in the A/N when I started posting it a few weeks ago. I finished writing it early in December. It's not going to be abandoned and discontinued. Short of a tragic accident, it will 100% be posted in its entirety before the end of January.

It's also almost 60k words long. Each chapter is approximately 14k words. That's a lot to expect people to read quickly, so I made the decision to post weekly instead of dumping it all at once. I don't normally do that for wips. I normally post bimonthly to give myself time to write the next chapter. But in concession to the fact that this one is already finished, I decided to post once a week. Could I have posted it all at once or even once a day? Sure, but again, I have more than a few close friends who are slow readers, and I thought it was better to give people the time to read each chapter and let it digest before dumping another one on them instead of making them feel like they have to read it immediately so they don't miss the next update.

This, apparently, was a mistake.

I've been very open about working on this fic since I started it in September. People told me they were excited to get the chance to read it every time I posted an update about where I was in the writing process. When I announced that I was posting it, they told me that they couldn't wait to read it. It's not like I was expecting massive numbers of kudos and comments; this fandom has shrunk in size and engagement, I'm not the most popular writer in it, and I try not to feel entitled to engagement, but considering all the people telling me they were excited for it, I was expecting something.

Instead it was crickets. All those people who were so excited and told me they couldn't wait to get home to read it? That was the last I heard from them, unless it was to express outright incredulity that I expected them to read a work in progress. "It's not a work in progress!" I protested. "I'm just taking a little longer to post it!" Yeah, but it's not posted all in one go, so why should we bother to read it? We'll just wait until the end of January once it's finished. "Will I hear from you then? Will I get any indication at all that you liked it?" Eh, maybe. If we feel like it. But it'll only be one comment at the very end. If that.

This keeps happening. If it's not an already completed chaptered fic that I'm posting over time instead of immediately, then it's an idea that I had first talked about a while ago but took a couple months to write only to be met with silence once I start posting because everyone moved on and forgot about it. If it's not ready to go right now in all its fully finished glory and all 60k words posted immediately after I first spoke about it, then why am I talking about it at all? Why should I expect people to be waiting in anticipatory eagerness?

I remember when I posted my first Christmas event fic in 2020. It was already finished too when I started posting it. I'd been talking about it all year. People had seemed really excited for it when I first mentioned it, but then interest seemed to die out somewhere around August. By the time I started posting it in late November, I was fully convinced that no one was going to read it. I actually posted the first chapter and then immediately turned my computer off and didn't let myself turn it back on until the next day.

I was shocked by the number of readers I had. The number of comments. The sheer amount of people telling me they'd been waiting on tenterhooks for me to post that first chapter. And it kept coming. People were talking and theorizing and marking their conversations with spoiler bars for anyone who hadn't read the latest chapter. People timed when I posted the first few chapters so they could be waiting by their computer for when I dropped the next one. I was randomly gifted art. It was really an event, and I'll always be grateful for the support and community I was given for that month.

I never believed I'd ever be able to capture that kind of readership again, and I was right, and that's okay. But when I posted last year's Christmas event fic, for the first time since I started doing this in 2020, someone asked me why I bothered to space it out over a month instead of just posting the entire thing in one go on Christmas Day and how could I possibly expect them to be that invested for an entire month instead of just waiting until it was finished. I didn't know how to tell them that only three years prior, that's not only exactly what people did but they were excited for it to be like that.

If I'm not going to post my already completed fic in one lump sum right now, then the audience for it is nonexistent. And the audience won't grow once it's finished. It's like I have one opportunity to capture the readers and if they weren't willing to take the chance on the first chapter, then they'll never come back. It's disheartening, to say the least. Only six months ago, I was telling a friend that I thought this was my forever pairing, that I'd still be writing for this ship when I was old and grey. And now I'm going through my ideas folder, wondering what can be repurposed for other ships, because I increasingly feel not just that I'm shouting into a void but that the void is actively ignoring me.

I can't post wips because what if I abandon them or take too long to update? I can't post a chaptered fic in one go because that's too many words to expect people to read. But I can't space out posting completed chaptered fics either because everyone wants the instant gratification of the full fic right now. So what am I supposed to do?

I miss December 2020, but it's not the random art that I miss or the kudos or the number of comments. It was the community that built up around this fic. It was knowing that it was okay to space out the chapters because everyone was still right there with me, talking and theorizing and using their spoiler bars. It was my audience trusting me enough to come along with me for the ride instead of waiting for me to be done. I was so scared back then that the full year between me first talking about the idea and posting the first chapter had lost me my audience, scared that they'd all forgotten about me and moved on to other authors who were quicker to post, but I wish I'd known that three years later, it would only take four months for people to lose interest in an idea.

I'd have treated December 2020 like it was way more special than I did.

[cookinguptales]

God, so. This is a story I haven't told in a while, so it'll probably be new to a lot of my followers.

This morning I got my kudos email and saw one for a fic I didn't recognize. I puzzled over this for a few minutes, then clicked on it and immediately remembered everything I'm about to tell you.

"Oh right," I said. "This is what happened the last time I fell down a research rabbit hole while writing original fiction."

The long and short of it is this: I used to do a Halloween fic exchange every year, and one year someone requested "dinosaur ghost." I was immediately like "that sounds fun!" and then, approximately three seconds later, remembered an article I'd read recently.

(This is me, unfortunately.)

A long time ago, there was this kind of mad rush for dinosaur skeletons to put in museums. (The Bone Wars, if you're familiar.) The Carnegie Museum ended up finding an Apatosaurus skeleton, but at that time, no one knew what that skeleton was supposed to look like. The researchers argued quite a bit about it and, despite the fact that they'd actually found the correct skull during the dig, attached the cast of a skull of a Camarasaurus to it instead. This skeleton had the wrong skull for decades until the mistake was realized and eventually switched out for the right skull in the 1970s.

This left me with an appealing, sort of whimsically romantic idea: what would it be like, if dinosaur bones are haunted? And what would it be like if two ghosts were being forced to inhabit the same dinosaur skeleton?

So I decided that I wanted to write this story about this mismatched skeleton and the ghosts that haunted it, but in order to do that properly, I had to find out what happened to that Camarasaurus skull after the Apatosaurus was properly reassembled.

Friends, I fell down the fucking rabbit hole. I looked at the museum's website. I was looking in journals. I was on Google looking at families' vacation photos so I could get a better look at the exhibits in the museum.

I was down bad.

In the end, I gave in and emailed the museum. Like... this is a weird question, but is there anyone who could tell me what happened to the Camarasaurus skull that used to be on display with the Apatosaurus?

I wasn't expecting a reply, really. Maybe an intern would email me back with an apology. If I got really lucky, a docent might actually know what I was talking about.

Imagine my surprise when I get back an email from an actual fucking paleontologist. He is not just happy to tell me what happened -- he is thrilled. He was excited that someone was even asking these questions, and I didn't even almost have the heart to tell him why I'd asked.

Now... I'll take a moment here to say that I am actually interested in museum studies. I'm super interested in the way we teach science, the way we teach science history, and the history of how we've taught that history. I took classes on it in college, in fact. I tried to take paleontology, too. I even took all the preqs and everything. I just couldn't get it into my schedule in the end.

So when a literal fucking paleontologist emails me to talk to me about these things, I sit up in my seat. I want to seem like I am On The Level. I reply to this man with my academic email address.

OH MY GOSH, he says. YOU WENT TO PENN? I WENT TO PENN!

Oh no. Oh no. I am in too deep. I am in way too deep. This kind, charmingly enthusiastic paleontologist cannot know that I am writing a quasi-homoerotic dinosaur ghost love story. He can't.

So I talk to him about my own field of study because I desperately want to sound like a real scholar and not like this is research for my AO3 account. (Even though it is.) We have a very nice conversation. He tells me everything I need to know and then some.

Apparently, I was right when I'd suspected that I'd seen a Camarasaurus skull in some of the photos of the exhibit. He was pleased I'd noticed. But it wasn't the same one that was on display with the Apatosaurus skeleton.

The real Apatosaurus skull was too fragile to be put on display, so they made a cast of it instead and mounted that on the skeleton in the exhibit. The real skull is being kept in the Big Bone Room, which is what they call their fossil storage. The cast of the Camarasaurus skull? Even though it was just a cast, it was still kept for posterity. It is also being stored in the BBR along with the skull of the Apatosaurus. And the real Camarasaurus skull that the cast was based on is now displayed near the Apatosaurus skeleton in the exhibit.

So both parts of the skeleton are now with a new version of their old friend, and they'll never be alone again. I don't think I could have designed a more romantic, bittersweet ending if I'd tried.

I write my fic. It's lovely, in my opinion, and exactly what I wanted it to be. It's about love and friendship and the sort of wistful affection you feel for friends who have gone and those you have just met.

I do not speak to the paleontologist again.

To this day, I am deeply relieved that he never found out what I was up to, but also sort of curious to know if he would've liked it if he'd read it. I took some extreme scientific liberties while writing my quasi-f/f dinosaur ghost fic (shocking, I know) so probably not. lmao

You never know, though! Some academics are into some super weird shit! Like me!

So I guess I always feel kind of wistful about the fic, too.

Anyway... Here's the Carnegie Museum's page about the Apatosaurus/Camarasaurus skeleton.

And here's the story I wrote about them:

Something Borrowed 💜🦕

[lewis-winters]

3 and 6 for the positivity meme?

I'll answer this backwards because my answer to no. 3 got long.

6 - what's a headcanon that you'll die on that hill?

Lewis Nixon III was a theater kid and has done drag in his life. This is forreal. The ghost of Dick Winters revealed this to me in a dream.

3 - what are some fics you go back and read again and again?

oh I love this question. in the last ask I did say I left out some creators and now is my time to redeem myself! (also another reminder that I desperately need to finish this massive fic rec post I have been steadily adding fics to since January BUT ANYWAY)

under the cut!

all of @churchkey's Winnix and ToyeMalarkey fics! god do I love them so much. I re-read A Spell of Riot once a year since it was completed.

and of course @anthrobrat's Bob, TP, and Gen Kill fics!

all of BristlingBassoon's Winnix fics - Queen for a Day inspired my "Lewis has done drag" conviction and When we met, you'd never expect this series is just. divine.

@marycontraire's Contact Tracing. of course.

make it up as we go along - Joe drives his cab, Chuck plays Call of Duty, and Babe just wants to pass Biochem; their apartment is like Grand Central at the best of times and that’s without the two possible fugitives they decided to harbor in the guest room; Luz’s life is turning into a terrible romcom about a coffee shop; Harry’s friends are bad at running a bar but they’re trying their best; somebody got punched in the face; and someday there will be a New York Times Bestseller about all of it.

Or, the interlinked soap opera-worthy drama of a group of millennials in Philadelphia, told day by day.

Lie if God is Sleeping - Gene flipped the puzzle over to read the back. “My name is Edward Heffron,” he read aloud. “I killed a man, and now I’m paying the price. 18,000 pieces. It will take approximately seven days to complete me. For experienced players only.”

What the fuck was a curse this nasty doing in a Philadelphia used bookstore?

rivers always reach the sea - my favorite webgott canon era series fic ever

Situation Normal - Winters and Nixon move to the city, reunite with some old friends and find themselves adopting a new, four-legged one.

By Small and Small - Babe wants to keep talking with Gene, but he doesn’t really know what to say. He feels like, in the past, he never would’ve shut up, but now, since Julian, he’s just got nothing. Maybe that’s grieving; Bill says that’s grieving, anyway, but Bill uses the term like a Band-Aid to put over every aspect of Babe that has changed.

Or: The one where Gene is in med school and Babe's messed up over Julian.

Dear Lover - A group of friends who supervise soldiers' mail are secretly very invested in one Major Winters' letters to a woman he seems to be having a secret affair with.

all or SJtrinity's Band of Brothers (webgott) fics and The Pacific (sledgefu and andyeddie) fics

Green and Gold - Merriell has dark magic and a guilty conscious. He never considered how the war would change them.

The American Sublime - "Tactician that he is, he finds the likelihood of still being loved by someone who, thanks to him, has just awakened to a wicked hangover and a face full of cold piss next to nil."

Dick Winters and Lewis Nixon billet together at a farmhouse in Holland for a rare few weeks of peace and privacy, while Dick struggles to process his promotion and his time away from Easy Company. Set during the first minutes of Episode 5, "Crossroads."

Cows. Wildflowers. Feelings. Handjobs.

Black Ink on Some Blue Lines - It’s been sixteen years since the letter was written, but it never found its way to the one it was intended for. The thing about secrets is they eat away at you, not all at once but slowly over the years, and you begin to wonder, to play out the what if scenarios in your mind. Instead, David buried it away and pretended like it never existed. He should have killed it, he thinks to himself, not buried it while it still had breath in its lungs.

In which David remembers his evolving relationship with Joe over the course of the war and decides to deliver a letter.

Baby You Can Drive My Car - Everyone has their thing. Perco takes watches. Nix scrounges for liquor. Welsh continues his never-ending quest for anything that will please Kitty Grogan. Even Eugene robs abandoned apothecaries with only a touch of guilt, making off with as many bandages and sulfa packets as he can carry. And then there’s Speirs, sweeping behind them like a shadow and carrying away anything they leave behind that sparkles or shines.

Babe steals cars. He’s getting pretty good at it.

Come in From the Cold - In which Smokey Gordon's coffee shop 'Bastogne' saves lives by lending cutting instruments and offering a steady supply of caffeine and sugary goodness. The shenanigans are just a by-product.

Call me 'sweetheart', Please? by @mariamegale - A not-relationship in the making. (baberoe)

anthroposcene, interrupted - Three months ago, Ray Person was a Philosophy major at Harvard. Now, he's dodging Runners trying to get from St. Louis to Cambridge without a) starving, b) dying by accident or c) offing himself. However, three's company, and it comes in the form of a dog with no bark and a taciturn Marine Staff Sergeant who's last name is Not-Pitt, which has gotta count for something.

[dioxazinereads]

Congratulations, You're a Dad! Ch1

Before you read this, please keep in mind that English isn't my first language and that the timeline in this is vague. Expect the RE cast to be OOC, and that the whole virus shtick confuses me, so sorry if I got it wrong.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Chapter 1

This was supposed to be a simple mission.

Grab the files and leave.

Kill a few wayward zombies here and there.

Maybe meet Ada again.

But other than that, it was supposed to be trouble free.

Leon should’ve known it wouldn’t be as simple as that.

Especially with a track record like his.

But this was just bizarre.

(e/c) eyes stared at him from behind a tree. And Leon stared back, watching as the little child peek out from behind the tree before retreating back when they saw that he was staring and peaking out again when they thought he wasn’t looking anymore.

Leon could feel a headache coming. 

Approximately 14 hours ago, Leon was at home half way through his 4th bottle of whiskey when Hunnigan called him for another mission, 3 weeks after he finished the last one. 

Honestly, Leon was surprised when they took so long to contact him again. Usually, they’d give him less than a week’s rest before sending him out on another one. Such was the burden of being the top agent of the D.S.O.

Even more surprising was the mission he was getting assigned to.

“A retrieval mission?” Leon asked, pouring himself a drink. He took a sip of it, licking his lips before asking, “Who is it this time?”

“It’s not someone. It’s a file.” Hunnigan replied. “Very important ones, might I add.”

“And how important is this file that you're sending me, of all people, to get it?” He downed the whole glass before pouring himself a new one. He’s almost finished his 4th bottle, should he stop? Nah.

“According to our intel, there used to be an Umbrella lab underneath Coral Island.” Hunnigan replied, and Leon could hear her type something on her computer before continuing. “The citizens were unaware of the lab’s existence until they were searching for refuge from the infected.”

“And you got this where exactly?” Leon asked, finishing his glass and picked up the whiskey. He was about to pour it into the glass before deciding that that’s taking too long, and drank straight from the bottle. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand still holding the whiskey. “I thought communications were cut after the island was contained?”

“It was.” Hunnigan confirmed. Leon couldn’t see her but he imagined Hunnigan nodding when she said that. “Some of the survivors found a working boat and escaped the island. They were caught by US officials and were promptly quarantined and questioned.”

Ah, yes. 

‘Quarantined’.

Sure they were. 

Head tilted back, Leon downed the remaining whiskey, shaking it for good measure once he finished it. He placed the bottle back on the table and sarcastically said, “I’m sure they were welcomed with open arms and a party.”

Hunnigan, like a champ, ignored Leon’s words and continued on, “According to them, despite the lab being abandoned for years, it was notably clean.”

“Well, yeah.” Leon cut in. “It’s a contained area after all. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t want something like dust and open air to fuck up their experiments.”

“Sealed rooms can get dusty still.” Hunnigan explained, not even bothered by Leon cutting in. “Further in the lab, they spotted infected scientists. And instead of, venturing further, the survivors went back to the surface-”

“Smart.” Leon said after sipping his 5th bottle. While Hunnigan recounted the events to him, Leon went to his stash of whiskey and grabbed another bottle which he was now drinking. “Don’t venture into places you know nothing about. Especially underground labs that would require passcodes and ids.”

“..and founded a refugee camp.” Hunnigan continued despite Leon cutting in for the 2nd time. “Your mission is to investigate the labs for any documents about future projects and/or the T-virus that plagued the whole island.”

The urge to be an asshole outweighed the resigned and tired agent.

“What if I don’t go?” Leon asked, leaning back on his chair, legs crossed while he tapped the whiskey bottle. He should not be doing this. Especially not to Hunnigan, who’s had to put up with his shit for years.

“Your plane leaves in 3 hours.” Hunnigan said, ignoring Leon’s words like it was second nature. “Pack your stuff and leave as soon as you’re ready. Additional weapons will be at your disposal at the airbase. Hunnigan out.” 

And the call ended as soon as she said that, leaving Leon to his thoughts.

He did not like that. 

Leon turned off his phone and chugged down the remaining whiskey before standing up from his seat. He placed his phone on the table and picked up the 4 other bottles on the table and disposed of them. 

After that, Leon headed to his room and picked up a duffle bag, his clothes already packed. He barely needed the bag nor the clothes in it, but he has once used it and that’s all the reason he needed to keep up with the habit. 

Besides, it was better to be over prepared than underprepared. 

Once everything was locked, Leon left the house, thinking about the bottles of whiskey he’d be drinking once he’d return.

That is, of course, if he’d survive this time.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

I'll be honest, I have no idea where this is going. I just have an idea that I want to write and zero plans how to execute it.

Another thing to note, I have an AO3, however I'm scared of the AO3 curse. So I'll only post this story here.

If you guys like the story, please don't post it on other websites unless I said so.

Also don't expect any post schedule, I'm writing this as it comes to mind.

[aletheia-in-the-space]

So I'm catching up before the asterisk movie and that's how I finally came around to see the Black Widow. Overall, I had fun. Not a movie to be in awe for but also not a movie to be pissed at. Tbh, it would be rather forgettable if I hadn't watched it for character(s) and lore anyway. Not much thought on it besides bulletpoints:

+ If Natasha took off the plane, who landed it? Also her? Melina was out of the game and Alexei can't land a tale… Then again, maybe he could, once. He's the one character that reads really inconsistent to me here and headcanoning some sense into this takes more effort than I'm willing to invest in him. Idk, prison doing things to man, whatever.

+ Btw, I'm not asking why Soviet Russia's one (1) supersoldier is put as a sleeper muscle on a years-long sleeper job in Cuteville OH because I don't expect Marvel/MCU canon lore making sense. As far as I'm concerned, Marvel/MCU canon lore is to make the ground for fanworks, nonsense is seed and wtf feels are fertilizer. Go wild, fandom.

+ I mentally pfffed at all the super yellow filters on all places south of approximate Kansas. At this point it's like they deliberately wink at the trope or something…

+ As much as I appreciate the action and the N&Y's lines, all this stealing random people's drives For A Greater Cause (and also we're really in hurry)TM is not remotely as much funny as all filmmakers seem to think it is… It's almost like no superhero ever stole their own stuff For Cause.

+ And the inmate Ursa's arm. Not funny. Not funny at all. Poor guy. Bad Alexei. He can't take a little truth.

+ I loved the avalanche sequence, the whole of it, with Yelena's shot and her words about cool way to die, and Natasha tarzaning Alexei away, and the copter rising out of the cloud in the end, but I don't appreciate how it belongs in the in-universe Deadliest Disasters by Death Toll Wiki list. And it totally belongs in our universe Does the Dog Die list. I need some fix fic where the dog survives together with his assigned human, they dig out a number of other survivors and then quit the prison job and go for a career in disaster rescue. I allow the guys who ate Alexei's mail snack not be counted in the survivors.

+ Gotta love all the killing style criticism and one-upwomanning each other about who's the bloodiest of 'em all in front of the shop guy like he's furniture. Much professional. Very spy. Go on and ask him to pull a Paris and make the Judgement, why won't you. With a Golden Band-Aid for the apple.

+ It's my firm & evidence based conviction that every MCU actor in the title role must have a Chest Scene clause in his contract, which here posed a problem with Hollywood being very Tumblric about female presenting nipples. Is it why this movie went for Alexei hhnnnggnning his way into his old suit? (Ye gods, I sorta almost like Alexei, but frankly, his only saving grace is being genuine. Okay, two saving graces, being genuine and being self-aware, sometimes.)

+ I can take comic book movie science but not comic movie dramatic gestures, when Natasha shucks the headphones and tears Alexei's ones off, and proceeds with Serious Talk Time That Wasn't Serious Enough With HP On. Like, uh…? They are there for a reason, you know? A very noisy reason? A totally untalkable in these circumstances reason?

+ Speaking of which I said nothing at Natasha's comic movie field surgery (and hitting just the right nerve through all the bone and tissue had nothing on plugging it back online in a single crunch like she's secretly Steve Rogers 2.0 and grows neurones for fun) but this time I was disappointed that her comic movie dramatic gesture wasn't it, apparently. I thought she sacrificed her smell sense for good…

+ They totally wasted it not making Natasha ask Yelena after they hugged it out if she checked for the body and Yelena be forced to admit there wasn't any to check. Granted, in movie language it would open a doubt… but then again, Marvel lives of such openings so it's not like they care for avoiding them.

And speaking of hugging and all, I liked it being a hugging kind of movie instead of another Civil War. And that at least some goons are pointedly saved. And that twists tend to take the 'actually with us' turn instead of 'actually traitor who betrays' for once. Very refreshing and heartwarming. Cringey family reunion aside.

[myths0f01d]

Ok so few months ago I can't remember when. I went through a faze of reading every merlin cross harry potter fic I could find. Including merthur. It's a small list. A really really small list. It's amazing though. I grew up obsessing over harry potter and then merlin. So obviously I devoured the fics and then grew sad when there were no more. So I started writing my own. To be fair it was a very complex story line I chose to write so it didn't last long. I think I have the first half of the first chapter down but I have no hope even for that. But now. As the flame is rekindled. I'll be thinking it out more and writing it again. I say this in hope. But I have no idea since school is starting soon for me.

I have the summary written and maybe the title? I'm not sure.

Also fun fact about me. I have never stuck to reading a 100k fanfic until I read 'Emrys Ascending' by tricksterity on ao3. Probs one of the best merthur fics I've ever read. Go check the fic out. You won't regret it. Trust me.

Anyway here's the summary for my own one. Sort of. Or the main outline?

Many years ago, around 300 years to be exact, Merlin placed the crystal of Neahtid in vault 713, in the lowest part, at the time, in Gringotts wizarding bank. He thought it would be safe there.

What he did not expect was that approximately 200 years later would he be informed that it had been taken, then attempted to been taken again. Now chasing after a half giant, a child and a wacky Headmaster and some unforeseen lurking evil Merlin is forced to venture out into the wizarding world once more.

Though now in hindsight it was not a smart idea to attend the school as an 11 year old boy, apparently it raised a lot of questions when you appear out of nowhere.

It also does not help when a few older years resemble suspiciously to close to Arthur and the knights, so its no wonder he’s so distracted.

There's going to be loads of shenanigans by the way. I want it to mostly be funny fluff and light hearted. Obvi there has to be angst on some parts. I still have a lot to refine and go through but the base idea and what I want for it is there

Here's the old summary (first draft)

Long ago merlin put the crystal of neahtid in vault 713 in the depths of gringotts Wizarding bank.

He thought it's be safer there.

It's not his fault a half giant, a child and a slightly less marbles then there should be headmaster stole it.

And it's certainly not his fault when he thought the best plan of action was to go undercover and take it back. As an 11 year old.

Only to find out the past has come back to haunt him. In the form of of a few 3rd years scattered across houses.

Because really, Guise isn't around anymore to tell him it's his fault. So he'll believe it's not.

That is until he hears a familiar laugh in the forbidden forest.

Ok so maybe it is his fault.

Destiny can go shove it honestly, merlins not amused.

Tell me witch one you like better

[eleanorblythe]

Romantic Homicide - Anton Chigurh x Original Female Character - One Shot

This is a supplemental to my first three chapters and explores Anton and Her before the events of Romantic Homicide

Three times they met. Three times she survived him.

Also on Ao3 with author notes and translations - here

Summer of 1977

He had seen her several times during the summer. It was unnerving. It was like he summoned her. Every time her face flitted into his mind, she appeared.

The first time it happened was about a month after that night in the motel. She hadn’t seen him. They both happened to be in the same gas station.

He mused that they both now had different cars.

He watched from his car, as she filled up her tank, made small talk with the cashier in store, all beaming smiles and easy laughs, before settling in her car, where a blank expression washed over her. She opened up a folder on the passenger seat and read and flipped through the documents and pictures.

Contract.

He watched her drive away. He briefly thought about following her.

Why? He shook the thought out of his head and drove away.

___________________

The next time it happened, it was only a few weeks later. This time she saw him first. He was settled in a booth in a diner and felt a shadow pass over him, expecting the waitress with his food. Until that voice…

“Hey handsome.”

He looked up, keeping his face as neutral as possible. She smiled down at him then slid into the seat opposite him.

“If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were following me,” she purred.

Confusion must have flashed across his face because she laughed and placed a warm hand on his fist, resting on the table.

“I was kidding, but you could have said hello at the gas station, I don’t bite…unless you like that,”

She had seen him. And why was she flirting with him? He absently wondered whether she did it because she knew it would make him uncomfortable. But with her hand on his - it was so warm. So reassuring.

So, right.

“If you’re on a job or just, don’t want company by all means tell me and I’ll go,” she was conscious he hadn’t said anything and was staring down at her hand on his.

“I’m not on a job.” He met her gaze. It was as good as an invitation she was likely to get out of him, so she removed her hand and flipped through the diner menu.

“What’s good?” She asked scanning over the lists.

“It’s a diner off the highway. None of it’s good.”

���You say that, but I once had an excellent sundae in a place like this, just after this huge shootout. It was like the perfect reward.”

Another shadow passed over him, and this time it was a waitress with his food.

“Here we go, sir - oh sorry, ma’am, would you like to order?”

She peered over her menu at the plate that had just been put down in front of Anton.

“I’m good, we’ll share, won’t we darling?”

Anton considered killing her right then.

“No, thank you.” He gritted out.

She smiled apologetically up at the waitress.

“Sorry, my husband gets very cranky on long car rides. We’ll be fine thank you,” instantly putting the young girl at ease as she moved to serve other patrons.

“Does look good,” she mumbled as she took a fry off his plate.

“I take it back, I do mind you sitting here,” he said lowly.

She merely rolled her eyes. She. Rolled her eyes. At him? His fists clenched until the knuckles turned white.

“Anton, dear, if you’re going to strangle me you should know, my safeword is peach,”

“Why should I know that?”

“You seem like the type.” She helped herself to another fry.

“Maybe I’ll just shoot you.”

She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow, then seemed to remember something.

“Oh your native tongue is Spanish, sí?”

“Yes.”

“I had a run in with a very angry Mexican recently and he said something to me that for the life of me I couldn’t figure out, my Spanish is a little rusty,”

She said a vague approximation of what she had obviously overheard. She was right. Her Spanish was appalling. The corner of his lips lifted slightly as he translated back to her:

“Blonde cunt bitch.”

“Well, it’s not blonde, but close enough, I suppose.” She took a further fry before Anton muttered.

“I’m inclined to agree with him.”

She paused mid bite then shuffled closer to the table, speaking conspiratorially.

“You seem tense,” Anton ignored her and took a sip of his coffee, then she added, unhelpfully, “Do you want to fuck it out in the restroom behind me?”

Anton hid his surprise well, but he did burn his tongue. He placed his cup down a little too hard and glared at her.

“Why are you doing this?”

“What? I was trying to be helpful,”

“No. You’re not. Why are you doing this?”

She smirked.

“Because it’s so fun to watch you squirm.”

“And you know who I am.”

“And you know who I am.”

“I’m not interested in your games.”

She leaned back in her seat with an, almost smug, grin.

“Yes you are.” She said quietly. “If you weren’t, you would have killed me that night.”

“There’s still time.” He was lethal. His whole body vibrating with silent rage.

She hummed pleasantly and took one final French fry off of his plate (leaving him with approximately, six left) and slid herself out of the booth.

“Yes there is, Anton.” She leaned over him, brushing against him, to take a sip from his coffee. “Come and find me, when it is.”

She then proceeded to lick around the entire rim of the cup before delicately placing it back in its saucer. She gave a final wink, her finger ghosted over his cheek and walked away.

Anton sat for several minutes, allowing his food to get cold. He simply couldn’t understand why he would allow this woman to get under his skin. Or was that, what this was at all?

Over the years he had met many different types of people. She didn’t fit cleanly into any one category. She could be sweet and sour. Friendly and savage. Between them they had racked up more dead bodies than all of their other “colleagues” combined. They were both ruthless. Heartless. Fearless.

He didn’t fear her.

But he was wary of her.

He wanted to write her off as crazed ninfómana, but he knew she wasn’t. She was too good at what she did to simply be crazy. He knew how that felt.

“Come and find me, when it is,”

He had a sinking feeling, that time was fast approaching. What concerned him, was he wasn’t sure what he would do. He dug around in his pocket and flipped the quarter he found in there. Staring down at the side that faced him, he was almost ready to abandon everything he once believed.

He reluctantly put the coin back in his pocket and tucked into his, now, cold burger and leftover fries.

He didn’t touch the coffee again. No matter how much he wanted it.

___________________

The time after that, Anton knew. Fate was absolutely fucking with him.

It was a couple of months after their last encounter. Anton did everything in his power to avoid her. He worked odd hours, he took jobs outside of his normal remit and always out of his usual state of operations.

A client had asked Anton to recover some files from a former associate, he owned a nightclub.

When he arrived. It was a bloodbath.

Apparently this former associate had a good many enemies and a rival gang had arrived, baying for blood. Most of the public managed to get out before the gunfire started, but some had been trampled and some simply got in the way of the flying bullets.

Anton didn’t have time to discriminate who would and would not attack him, so he resolved to kill them all. He systematically made his way room by room, floor by floor. The office was at the back of the third floor. He tried to stay close to the shadows but, like a moth to a flame, people were drawn to him, determined to come out on top. They never did.

The third floor was significantly quieter. There was only the dull thrum of music drifting from the main floor, and the distant sound of gunfire. He stood outside the double doors to the office, and could hear shouts and the sound of furniture being moved around - or more accurately, being crashed into.

Anton kicked open the door and shot at the nearest person. Sending him sprawling across the carpet. This alerted the others who took cover behind sofas and desks. There was another two behind a frosted glass screen, but they were already engaged in a close quarters fight.

He quickly disposed of the others scrambling to escape and was about to turn his attention to the two left behind the glass when a man came crashing through the glass landing on his back, covered in cuts and bruises.

“That bitch…” the dying man rasped.

There. Was. No. Fucking. Way.

Anton watched, almost in disbelief, as she stepped over the shattered glass holding a dangerous looking shard in her hand, Anton could see the glass was cutting into her palm and blood was starting to bead and spill down her hand. She almost didn’t look human. Her eyes were completely black and her lip was curled in such a way it reminded Anton of a snarling wolf. She was so completely focused on her prey she didn’t even notice Anton watching on.

She knelt down, towering over the man on the floor.

“Where is it?” She spoke so softly, but her tone was venom.

“I don’t know!” He choked out.

She took the shard of glass she was holding and stabbed it into his gut. He howled in pain and tried to turn away, but she slapped him back to face her.

“Not good enough.” She said over the screams. “Lie to me again, and I remove your balls,”

“Alright! Alright, the code is etched into the underside of a drawer in his desk, now let me go!”

“No.” And she slit his throat.

She seemed to come out of her haze and finally saw Anton watching from the corner of her eye. Her eyes immediately lost their hard edge and glinted a little with mischief. A small smile gracing her features.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she huffed out a laugh and stood up from her knelt position. “You just can’t keep away, can you?”

He remained silent and unmoving.

She walked over to the large desk dominating the office and began carelessly pulling out the drawers, allowing the contents to spill onto the floor as she checked under every one. When she found the safe code she ripped away the painting that hung in pride of place and started spinning the mechanical combination lock, listening carefully to the clicks.

Once opened, she ignored the stacks of money, duct taped bags of cocaine and pistols and fished out a stack of Manila files. She sifted through them until she found one with her name on it. She quickly found a nearby trash can and dumped her file in it, unscrewing a bottle of liquor and pouring that too into the trash can.

“Got a light?”

Anton wordlessly tossed her his lighter. She lit the file on fire, she turned to pick up the overturned desk chair and took a seat, lifting her legs onto the desk top and started to pick small bits of glass out of her clothes and skin. She finally relaxed and looked up at him.

“So what brings you here, Anton?”

His eyes flicked to the pile of documents.

“Hopefully not the ones I just burnt?”

He ever so slightly shook his head.

“Just as well, you never know, that creep may have your file mixed in there,” she gestured to the scattered pile of Manila folders.

Anton could see from his position the file he was after, but he refused to move. Couldn’t move. He was half convinced he was hallucinating. Why her?

She put her legs down and leaned forward on the desk, resting her cheek on her palm.

“You don’t say much do you? I like a good challenge. There’s a motel around the corner…”

Anton finally moved.

He levelled his shotgun at her head.

“Ah. Has that time finally come?” She didn’t seem very surprised. She slowly rose from her seat and walked around the desk as he slowly approached her. “And you’ve made your decision?”

Anton kept his grip on his gun with one hand and dug a coin out of this pocket with the other. He flipped it and slammed it down on the desk beside them, fingers covering the coin face.

“Call it.”

She looked down thoughtfully at his hand then back to him. An indecipherable look flashed over her face.

“This is what you do?”

“Call it.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Call. It.”

“If you want to kill me, just kill me. Use your hands, if you like,”

His eyes burned her. He didn’t understand how she was looking at him. Was it sadness? Pity? Eventually she breathed a deep sigh and gave him what he wanted. Anton slowly lifted his hand off the coin and they both glanced at what stared back at them.

That was three times.

Three times she had cheated what was coming to her. Every choice she made should have killed her long ago. He should have killed her the second he saw her. But he didn’t. He didn’t know why, then.

He didn’t know why, now.

He tossed his shotgun on the desk and grabbed her throat, slamming her into the wall so hard the painting next to them fell to the ground and shattered. She hissed in pain as her skull connected to concrete.

“You.” He snarled “Why do you, get to live?”

She gasped for air, as he tightened his grip, but she never rose her hands to try to pry his away. Which only infuriated him more. Was she so willing to throw her life away?

“I should have killed you when I saw you,”

“Then why didn’t you?” She breathed.

“Not for your games.” He admitted to her.

She gave a small, sad smile.

“Then why?” She whispered. She was losing oxygen, soon she would black out. Or he would finally succeed in killing her. He wondered if he had the strength in him to snap her neck.

He, almost imperceptibly, shook his head at her.

She closed her eyes and allowed a tear to escape the corner of her eye. When she opened them her eyes were misty and the life was draining from them. She took a shuddering breath.

“It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone.”

To this day, he doesn’t know how she did it.

How she knew.

How her words were the very thing he needed to hear in that moment.

How she seemed to know him better than he knew himself.

He knew then, why he was right to fear her. She could see into the deepest parts of him, locked away, long since forgotten and abandoned and bring them into such glaring and startling clarity that it left him feeling something he had never felt.

Vulnerable.

She was somehow, both his strength and undoing. That rarest of creatures.

Too precious to snuff out.

Just as she was about to breathe her last, he released her throat. She tried to gulp in some air but was cut off by his mouth descending on hers.

She tried to raise her arms up in an attempt to push him away, but he pinned them to the wall, holding her there as he now tried to suffocate her in a whole new way.

Eventually he broke away from her mouth and kissed the sore red marks on her neck that he knew would soon become bruises. She took greedy breaths, groaning and panting as the air and life returned to her body.

“I should fucking kill you,” she rasped.

Anton lifted his head from her neck and met her eyes, noses touching. Breath mingling together.

“But you won’t.” He said.

“No, I won’t.” She closed the small distance and kissed him desperately, she bit his lip hard enough to bleed then pulled back. “And neither will you.”

“No, I won’t.” He said echoing her words.

They didn’t make it to the motel, instead he had her there in that office, among the dead bodies they left behind.

She was pleasantly surprised to learn Anton, in fact, could be very vocal.

Afterwards, they left together - easily dispatching anyone who was left in the building - and made it to their cars. He once again watched her drive away into the night before picking up the file he came for, flipping through the contents when a scrap of paper fluttered onto his lap.

He picked it up and allowed himself to smile.

‘Come catch me…’ It read, and below - her address. She lived in his state. His city.

He promised to himself he would visit sometime soon.

She was his rara avis.

He would keep her.

[heroictoonz]

Febuwhump 2022 Day 10: "How Long Had It Been?"

Ships: Ben & Dexter & Steven

Warnings: N/A

AO3 L!nk in the Comments!

It was night when the doors to the lab opened. Light wafted in from the hall. Dexter’s eyes squinted with a frown at the sudden glare against his computer screen. With a groan of annoyance he whipped around in his seat to face the intruder. As usual he fully expected his pink clad elder sister. Her inquisitive ways always causing him nothing more than annoyance. Doubled with the fact that she could never keep her hands to herself. Though, in their older years there was a better respect for boundaries, she still had a bad habit of falling back on old ways.

Instead, Dexter was not met with the wide and curious eyes of his sibling, but instead, the mixed expressions of both Steven Universe and Ben Tennyson.

Steven Universe and Ben Tennyson were both odd in their own respects. Dexter could not lie in his fascination of their respective ties to extraterrestrial life. Steven, a half breed of human and an alien race called Gems and Ben, wielder of the Omnytrix, a device able to reform his DNA into that of multiple alien species. Yet, even past his scientific curiosity he would be willing to go so far as to call them his friends.

Their presence was not nearly as much of an annoyance as Dede’s; however it was still a hindrance to his work. He gave a sigh and leaned back into his chair. Rubbing at his eyes from under his glasses before giving them both an exasperated look. “What is it?” he questioned.

Steven’s eyes darted towards Ben before turning back to Dexter. He held a sad expression. No. Maybe sad was not the right word. Steven was always a very emotional man; Dexter noted. His face tended to always show off his thoughts like a clear window to his mind. A myriad of emotions constantly littered the hybrid’s features at any given moment. The idea of his heart living on his sleeve was incorrect, Dexter believed. Instead, it was much more likely that the letterman he wore almost religiously was made from the very thread of the man’s own soul. However, the amount of emotions all at once could also be a challenge to read. Instead of just one thought or feeling, everything was on constant display. Picking out what Steven was showing off was like deciphering a code in some cases.

Ben however, was a bit easier to get a read on. As his emotions tended to be relatively simplistic when they presented outwardly. Though, with his history, Dexter doubted his emotions were anything simple. But, when Ben was open with them they were much easier to understand. So, Dexter turned to the other in this case, hoping a better answer would lay in his features.

Ben’s own face showed a type of frustration. One that seemed intertwined with another emotion altogether. However, Dexter was not sure if he recognized it very well. Though, it was a similar one to whatever was entangled in Steven’s own furrowed brows.

“I read many languages,” Dexter began again with a huff. “Silence is not one of them.”

Steven frowned at that before finally speaking up, “When was the last time you slept?”

The question caught Dexter off guard. Slept? That was easy, he… Oh. Well, he knew he had taken some sort of a rest at some point. He vaguely recalled napping some odd number of hours ago. Even so, what did it matter? And of what concern was it to Steven or even Ben? He shook his head and gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “I sleep like a child nightly,” he lied. “Now if that is all you need-”

“How long has it been since you ate?” Ben stepped in next. “Like seriously ate. Like an actual meal.”

Dexter frowned at him in annoyance. What was this? An interrogation? “I do not know what it is the two of you are getting at, but my well being is of no one's concern but my own.”

Suddenly a buzzing sound started up as the gentle blue light fuzzed into existence behind him. Computress’ voice spoke, “It has been approximately seventy-two hours since Dexter’s last meal aside from coffee drank at 6:47am this morning. In the last four days he has slept approximately seven hours total.”

Dexter snapped to look over to the AI with a frown. “Betrayed by my own computer,” he grumbled to himself.

“Seriously, Dex?” Ben sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. Dexter registered what seemed to be disappointment both in his voice and expression.

“And this is why we’re here!” Steven declared with a smile. “You work yourself way too hard and we’re gonna make you take breaks from here on out.”

“Starting now,” Ben added on as Steven grabbed Dexter’s hands and pulled him from his seat.

“Hold it!” Dexter hissed out and he yanked his hands back. “Who do you two think you are? Barging into my lab and telling me what to do. I can take care of my own well being and it is of no concern to either of you.”

It was Ben’s turn to glance at Steven. That expression Dexter couldn’t pin down had returned to both of them. Ben then shook his head and replied, “We’re your friends, Dex. We’re always gonna be concerned about you.”

“Especially when you’re close to working yourself sick,” Steven added.

Dexter’s form straightened with a realization. That emotion in their faces. The one he had ignored due to the inability to name it. He suddenly realized what it was. Worry.

Dexter looked from the other two then back to his work. As if reading his thoughts, Computress’ voice buzzed back to life. “All current work has been saved under the proper files. Any new Fuse research has been sent to Mandark for peer review and his response is estimated to arrive sometime tomorrow morning. This means you are free for the rest of the night.”

“So,” Steven said with a smile. “You can relax for a bit!”

“Honestly, you deserve to. You do a lot,” Ben continued. “Maybe a bit too much on your own.”

Dexter gave a sigh. “Fine. I will rest for the night.”

Ben and Steven smiled at each other in success before each grabbing one of Dexter’s hands, leading him out of the lab.

[katrina37973]

Hi guys! Thank you to all who've liked my story, Choices are made. Good or bad, up to you. in the Silmarillion fandom.

Unfortunately, this semester, I have a lot on my plate, so despite my attempts at continuing writing, my desire has slowly dwindled.

If any of you, by chance, wish to pick up the story or just have ideas /theories of where this story may go, please feel free to contact me, and maybe we could collaborate, but at this rate, I think I might just abandon the work.

Below the cut is what little I've managed to write for this story between the start of uni and now. Hopefully, you enjoy the little snippet.

On a side note, how willing are you to read a small very rough draft of one Artanaro Ereinion Gil-galad's backstory?

Any beta readers or just people who are interested, though, know that there are only some fleshed-out scenes, while others are sparse (and semi-edited in terms of grammar and punctuation). It's approximately 5300 words long and I think canon-adjacent enough; there might be minor details that are out of order but the general timeline should, theoretically speaking, work.

Chapter III - ?

Celebrimbor dreamed of whirling colours, bright sparks and embers flying against a backdrop of reds and golds threaded with calm-sea blue.

He woke with the lingering images of white feathers falling, tips dipped in the colours of the universe. 

His family branch did not have prophetic dreams, not like the ones Galadriel and her siblings sometimes had, though their severity and frequency seemed to dwindle the longer they stayed in Valinor. 

“A good nap?” His grandfather asked, head cradled in one hand, perched on the table. His other hand fiddled with a steel and wood puzzle that Curufin had made, tiny clicks and clanks. For a change, he seemed not very interested in solving it. 

“Intriguing,” Celebrimbor said with a muffled yawn. “I would say informative, but, well, it wasn’t. At least not yet.”

Feanor hmphed, an annoyed sound, before setting the puzzle down with a gentle clack, sliding himself off the table and extending a hand, ruffling Celebrimbor’s sleep-mussed* hair. 

“We have time,” he said simply. “There’s apples. And pancakes. And some leftover cookies, but those may be gone soon.”

“Love you,” Celebrimbor said, kissing his grandfather on the cheek before hurrying inside, finding said food laid out on the kitchen table. He was ravenous, and his mind was much clearer now that he had properly slept, but still questions remained. He sent a mental probe, just in the general direction of outward, and found a tiny thread of warmth that tugged in response to his inquiry. 

It was faint, faint enough his grandfather would not notice because he would not have thought to check in the first place. 

Good morning, he said to his maybe paramour. As expected, he received no response, but that was okay. 

They had time.

On instinct, he also sent the lingering smudged remains of his dreams to the Maia, because Annatar had said once the process was unlike anything an Ainur experienced, and it was intriguing in the sense that neither of them would be able to explain any of the contents. All the fun was in the speculation, of course. 

Celebrimbor happily dug into his plate of pancakes … 

[sineala]

Five fic self rec meme!

Tagged by @nostalgicatsea approximately two weeks ago. I am not entirely sure what the parameters of this meme are but I think it might just be reccing five fics of mine that I like. I currently have 302 stories on AO3, so sifting through the contenders here was challenging. I tried to stick to shorter work of mine. This is all Marvel fic because that's what I've written the most of, because I feel like I've become a better writer over the years, and because I decided that the PWP I wrote in The Eagle fandom in Latin might have, uh, limited appeal.

All-Time Low (Marvel 616, Steve/Tony, 12,000 words, Explicit.)

You know how sometimes you write a story that ends up being exactly the story you wanted to tell? You get it down on the page and somehow it's exactly the way you wanted it to be in your head? The words just come out of you easy and fast and you're in the zone the entire time? (Yes, I know the term is actually "flow state.") And, sure, maybe it still needs some editing, but writing it is just this extremely good experience where you don't ever stop and wonder how any of it should go and all the words are just there. You know the thing I mean? I only have a couple stories that happened like this, but this one is one of them. I don't have much memory of actually writing this one, which is how that goes; I remember that I got the prompt and I knew what I wanted to write and then somehow this entire thing happened.

It was actually written for one of Kiyaar's prompts, which was that Tony should be sleeping with men for money during the second drinking arc and Steve should find out and there should be "shame and humiliation and tears." I looked at it and I thought, oh, I got this. The element of Steve then sleeping with Tony after he finds this out, which is a big part of the story, was actually not part of the original prompt, which I don't think even occurred to me until after Ki read the story and said she liked that development that I'd come up with that part myself. My brain was just like, hey, I know exactly how this story goes. Never even crossed my mind to do anything else. 

I keep putting off writing the fix-it sequels -- I have Plans for how the blizzard goes in this universe -- because I am afraid I won't be able to make them as good as the original story.

The Libertine (Marvel Ultimates, Steve/Tony, 6,000 words, Explicit.)

One day, I was just sitting there minding my own business and I thought, "You know what? Ults began in the early 2000s and therefore early-canon Ults Tony would absolutely have self-identified as a metrosexual," and then I thought, "Goddammit, I guess I have to write this story now."

I know that this one is in most ways a pretty standard first-time getting-together story but I thought it would be delightful to make Steve and Tony's roles in it opposite from what the prototypical Ults Steve/Tony story would do. So Tony here is like "actually, no, I'm not gay, I'm just metrosexual... oh shit, wait, I think I'm actually pretty gay after all" and Steve is the guy who spent World War II sleeping with every guy he could find. In the story, neither of them expect this about the other one, and I think fandom doesn't either.

I am also weirdly proud of thinking up the title of this story because "libertine" is a word you would probably want to apply to Ults Tony and yet Steve, the Sentinel of Liberty, ends up claiming basically every other liberty-related word, for obvious reasons. And maybe here he gets this one too.

(Incidentally, reading through the See Also section of the Wikipedia entry on "libertine" is a trip I think you should all take. Wow.)

The Longing and Yearning (Bullet Points. Steve/Tony, 13,000 words, Explicit.)

This is also a pretty standard first-time story but it's also my attempt to make Bullet Points fandom happen, which I think pretty much worked, so I'm pretty happy about that. It's a very small continuity, but it's a Steve/Tony thing now!

Steve and Tony never actually meet in canon and also Steve dies halfway through the series, but I had a lot of fun imagining what they might be like together. It was interesting to get to write Tony hero-worshipping a much older Steve, who was Iron Man and had basically all the physical trauma Tony usually gets from being Iron Man, and Tony wanting to be Iron Man because of Steve being Iron Man. Which is, you know, not usually how Steve/Tony goes. I also had a lot of fun furnishing Steve's 1950s-1960s house for him (Gwyn helped me out a lot with this while betaing) and writing Steve and Tony into a world of slightly vintage US government employee homophobia in the age of the Red Scare, which I don't usually get to do in Avengers fic although it occurs to me now that I actually really could have been doing this all along in 616 early canon.

Look After Your Heart (Marvel 616, Steve/Tony, 19,000 words, Mature.)

Last week, I remembered I'd written this when someone was asking for recs of stories where Tony's loneliness plays a major role and I ended up describing this one as "loneliness is Tony's villain origin story." I hadn't thought about it in years and I reread it and was like, you know, this wasn't half-bad.

This has not been one of my most popular Steve/Tony works, I think because the tags and summary make it look like a real downer -- which, okay, yeah, it kind of is -- but I would like to point out that it actually has a happy ending. I wish to stress this. Happy Steve/Tony ending. I promise. You just take a trip through hell to get there.

So this is an AU where time bullets don't exist and when Steve gets shot at the end of Civil War, he dies and stays dead. Tony finds this out when he wakes up after World's Most Wanted, doesn't remember the past couple years of his life, and discovers that Steve is now dead. He experiences a lot of grief. So this is a canon-divergent AU running through the events of Avengers v4 and Hickmanvengers up through Superior Iron Man, in which we all get to find out exactly how far off the rails Tony can go when he continues not to have Steve around to keep him sane, functional, heroic, or sober.

This fic is also interesting as a historical document, because it's one of my earlier stories in the fandom. I actually wrote it when Hickmanvengers was still going, before Time Runs Out happened, and even before Superior Iron Man happened. The last thing in here that was based in canon is the Great Society incursion. At this point, we knew that Tony was going to be Superior but we didn't know how it was going to happen, what it was going to be like, or how Hickman's run was going to end. So I took a whole bunch of guesses, and I honestly like a few of them better than what we actually got.

Smell Like I Sound (Marvel Adventures: Avengers, Carol/Jess, 7,000 words, Explicit.)

This is a Carol/Jess fic with background Steve/Tony. Look, I didn't promise they were all going to be Steve/Tony. This is set in MA:A, mostly because I needed a canon fairly close to 616 where Carol and Jess hadn't canonically met, and Jess does exist in MA:IM. I wanted to tackle an issue I hadn't really seen explored much in Carol/Jess fic, which was "how do Carol and Jess actually get together if Jess's pheromones uncontrollably don't have good effects on women?" because that seems like it would be bad. (I mean, it would also be bad if Jess's pheromones did uncontrollably have good effects on women, but that would be a different story.)

(Because comics are gonna comics, I'm pretty sure that MA: IM Jess's pheromones do have negative effects on women. This is not necessarily the case in 616. We actually found out a couple years ago in 616 that Jess can in fact pheromone women in the fun way, which, yes, I do have a fic outlined based on this. You bet I do. I just have not yet written it yet.)

I don't write a whole lot of femslash, which in this fandom is partly due to The Carol/Jess Troll (thanks, dude) and it's partly because I have a femslash problem I've never figured out how to consistently solve, which is that I can't manage to write a whole lot of f/f that has the same kind of stakes and feelings and tropey idficcy goodness as the m/m that I like to write. I can't really even articulate the problem in a useful way; I just try writing f/f and then I read it back and mostly it's not the thing I like because what I end up writing just doesn't seem exciting to me. And I know it's possible for me to write the thing I like because this one is the thing I like! I did it here! It's just not a trick I can pull off consistently. But, anyway, this one was fun. I think I did this one right.

Not sure who has done this meme, but I'm gonna tag @blossomsinthemist and @isozyme.

[squish36-writes-and-draws]

17 November: Unraveling

Word count: 1385

TW: Swearing

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On Ao3 or below the cut!

First (3 November) / Previous / Next

A Script of a Video from Florent's YouTube Channel

    Alrighty, everybody. Being that I am chronically on the internet and I expect that you are as well, I take it we’re all familiar with the concept of flower shop AUs. If you aren’t, well, maybe you should preserve your sanity because one second you’re reading a cute little story about these deeply traumatized characters opening up a flower shop together and the next you know way too much about the Omegaverse. Don’t look that up.  I don’t need you to be scarred for life too. 

    Today’s topic isn’t really going to be connected to fanfic, but I needed a way to hook you into the video because let’s be fucking honest, approximately none of you are going to willingly click on a video about the history of plants. You can make your self-inserts have a crisis over the fact that Stegosaurus never saw a flower. It’s very sad. I’m sad. 

    Where I’d like to start today is with the Great Oxidation Event. It actually killed, like, everything, so it’s kind of significant in the course of Earth’s history. This was over two billion years ago—I better not see Young Earth Creationists in my comment section. Go away. Humans and dinosaurs did not coexist unless you count birds as dinosaurs but then again birds are just government spies so they aren’t real either—but essentially the whole thing with the Great Oxidation Event is that some microbes figured out how to do photosynthesis, realised it was good for making food, and then they pumped so much oxygen into the atmosphere that everything fucking died. 

    So, uh, that’s why we have oxygen in the atmosphere now, which is kind of a nice thing to have in general, I’d say. The really cool thing is that we have fossils, called stromatolites, of these microbes from that long ago. Like, we have a spotty record of multicellular life, but these biofilms of cyanobacteria managed to survive two billion years. So much has to be missing from the fossil record. 

    The next stop on our journey is a lot nearer to us. In the Devonian period, which ranged from about 420 million years ago to 360 million years ago, instead of having forests of plants like we’re used to, there were giant fungi, like Prototaxites. I know what you’re thinking and I refuse to comment. The Devonian is also home to what is currently the oldest known tree, Wattesia. Before that, it was Archaeopteris, which definitely isn’t confusing when put next to Archaeopteryx, a genus midway through the transition from dinosaurs to birds that lived during the Jurassic. 

    The Devonian ended in a mass extinction before giving way to the Carboniferous. Most of the coal that we’re using to cause next mass extinction is from the Carboniferous, mostly because there were a lot of fucking trees. Like, so many trees that by the end of the period the oxygen levels were around 35%, which is quite a lot compared to today’s 21%. Trees were having a good time. 

    Insects were also having a good time. The increased oxygen levels means that they could get a whole lot bigger and at the same time figured out how to do flight, which is good for them and bad for my mental health. Just to take a couple of examples we have the genus Meganeura, a dragonfly with a wingspan of a meter and the genus Arthropleura, which was a myriapod taller than me. 

    I am aware that I am short. However, that is still heinous bullshit and I shall not stand for it. 

    On the arthropod front, there’s a clade of spiders known as the Mesothelae featured in Walking with Monsters and it was the size of a cat. I don’t want to be here anymore. Let us move on to the Permian for about thirty seconds. 

    In the Permian, everything died. A lot. More than the dinosaur asteroid that I’m sure all of you know about. Plants died a little bit less than most things, but it was still generally not a good time. While we’re here though, I want to talk about Glossopteris. Now, all of you are looking at this and going, “that just looks like a leaf,” and, yeah, it is. But its fossils were used as evidence towards proving tectonic plates, which I think is pretty cool. I’d also like to mention Lepidodendron, which lived during both the Carboniferous and Permian and has been mistaken as being an imprint fossil of a large reptile’s skin. No. It’s just a tree with some funny-looking bark to our modern eyeballs. And, to round off this trifecta, we had conifers first appear during the Permian. 

    And now let’s jump forward to the Cretaceous. This is the one with most of the dinosaurs you know. As an audience retention strategy, I want you to come up with a list of your ten favourite dinosaurs. Unless you’re a dinosaur aficionado purposely trying to be difficult to invalidate the accuracy of my point, you’re probably going to name at least a couple that are from the Cretaceous.

    The Cretaceous is also where angiosperms, flowering plants, went absolutely buck fucking wild. Like, today angiosperms make up 90% of the living plant species on Earth. And you know what else first appeared? Well, technically it’s a flowering plant, so I’ve already covered it but, like, the concept of Earth without grass is completely absurd to my little brain. I’m sure the ecological niche was covered by other things, but the fact that most of human society exists because we domesticated grasses in the form of wheat, corn, and rice and that only appeared during the Cretaceous is not something I want to comprehend.

    And that brings us mostly to today. I mean, there was probably an asteroid in there, but I also don’t care very much about the Paleogene. It’s close enough to modern day to not be as interesting as the older periods. It’s just slightly weird. I mean, there was the family Chalicotheriidae, which looks kind of funny, I guess. 

    What does all of this mean though? Why did I bother doing all of this? Was it so that you could copy and paste what I said into your Flower Shop AU I definitely didn’t cause to start existing at the beginning of this video so you spent the last ten minutes writing instead of watching my shit editing skills? No. It’s because I know too much shit about plants and I need to tell other people about them or I’m going to be even more of a menace to society than I already am. 

    I also think that it’s important to think about plants in the context of geologic history because so much of the space is taken up by dinosaurs, and that’s kind of a shame. I’m not advocating for less dinosaurs; I just want to highlight that there are other things in the fossil record. There are people who stare at fossilized pollen all day. I’m not going to lie to you—I would sell my soul to do that. That sounds fun. I’d be so good at it, I promise. Let me see the pollen. You can trust me to not eat the rocks. 

    I definitely haven’t ever tried to eat a rock before. 

    Anyway—I’d like to thank all the people on Patreon who, for some reason, fund this mess, and if you’d like to join them for whatever reason, link in the description. I don’t know why I bother saying that. You know how YouTube works. You also know that YouTube likes it when you like, subscribe, and leave comments telling me about how I’m obviously wrong about everything ever. Genuinely though, I do appreciate the corrections you guys give me. I’m one guy here and sometimes I say stupid or stupidly worded shit. I can’t wait for the Latin scholars to tell me that I absolutely fucking butchered the scientific names. You all know who you are. In my defence, taxonomy is a dumpster fire and it’s not my fault that I’m treating it like it is. And, finally, I’d like to thank Keefe, who took the time out of his day to stare at me ominously while I was writing this script. I’m not concerned at all.