#this'll hopefully turn out to be fun

[imma-bunni]

The Untamed ep. 43 screencap redraw

In my head I've been calling this "Lan Wangji wishes he was a bunny"

[smallswingshoes]

So my girlfriend and I have temporary custody of a bearded dragon tonight. Unexpectedly.

We're a garden level apartment and my girlfriend noticed a woman outside throwing something at the apartment building's wall???

So she opens our window and is like, "what's up?"

Turns out her son lives 2 floors above us and got 2 ribs cracked today. He told her he was gonna take his pain meds, lay down, and use a heating pad until she arrived with his bearded dragon and some cat food.

He was flat out asleep. Like the dead.

We realized the banging we heard earlier had been her trying to knock on his door to wake him up. She came from 30+ minutes away, so she wasn't sure she should bring the pet all the way back or not.

We were like, uh, we can watch the little guy for a night if need be.

She was worried cuz the son has the heated lamp and we were like, well, neither you or we have a heated lamp, but at least we're only 2 floors down from him? I set up a group text with her and her son so we can let him know where the bearded dragon and cat food are.

Got him set up like this right now. The tub is along the heating vent on the wall, so that'll help keep him warm. (It's about 65 degrees F in the apt right now cuz it's like 5 outside.) Put some of the kale that came with him down, ripped up tiny so he won't choke on it. Put some water on a plate cuz all our bowls are too tall.

We looked up that his enclosure should be like 70 on one side and 104 on the other? But also that they can survive 55. So hopefully this'll work okay for one night at most. Apparently they absorb water thru their skin? So the plate of water should be okay I think. And he ate a worm yesterday, we were told, so he doesn't need to eat that again yet. But they can eat greens 1-2 times a day, according to the internet, so we gave him a little. Turned the cardboard box he was in on it's side so he could have a little den? We left the light on in the room so he had some light for now. We put the lid back on the tub, but cracked it open slightly for airflow and put something mildly heavy on top so he doesn't escape.

We don't even have a name to use for the little guy. The mom called once after she got home to check in again and then texted me directly to thank us. Said the lizard is precious to her son cuz he's had the little guy for 4 years and is his first pet, so he'll be frantic when he wakes up. 😅 Fortunately, his beloved pet will just be 2 floors down from him instead of over 30 minutes away by car. I texted my coworker, a pharmacist, to ask about pain meds making you sleepy. Presumably he had hydrocodone/acetaminophen, or maybe Tylenol #3 or tramadol, which she said can definitely make you sleepy, so that explains why he was out like a light lol

I think he should be okay for the night, as far as I can tell. Fun little adventure for us. We're enamored with the little dude.

[be-with-me-so-happily]

Hey bee! I was wondering if you could do one where the reader is in 1D and she gets in a water fight with Liam and Louis and one of them accidentally throws a security guards hot coffee on her?

A/N: Thank you for the request! Idk if this is what you were hoping for but it was super fun to write. I did it quickly, so hopefully it's good and hopefully you enjoy it.

Warnings: Some explicit language, water fights, thrown beverages

"I don' think I wanna be a par' of this…"

"Don' ya dare bail on me now." You whisper through gritted teeth, giving Zayn as intimidating of a scowl as you possibly can. "They soaked me on stage. I need payback. And I need your help to do it."

Your friend and fellow bandmate rolls his eyes, followed by a quick shake of his head, crouching down behind the racks of clothes in the boys' dressing room.

Footsteps become audible, and you begin to settle into your spot, readying yourself for the plan you are determined to execute.

You can make out the mumbles of both Louis and Liam, the ones who you hope will think twice about including you, unwillingly, in their onstage water fights.

You jump up, being met with wide eyes and shocked expressions as a sarcastically evil expression pops through your facial features.

"This is for last night!" You shout, chucking half a bottle of water towards each boy, watching as their shock grows even more.

"You lil shit!" Louis yelps, squinting his eyes to avoid the water irritating them, but also to glare in your direction.

"Karma is a bitch, Tommo."

"Well, so am I!" He exclaims, swiveling around to the nearby table and grabbing the closest water bottle he can get his hands on.

"No, no, no. M'sorry." You immediately state, holding your palms out in surrender as he stalks towards you. "C'mon Louis… ya don' really wanna do this…"

His crooked smile does nothing to ease your worry as you watch Liam begin to grab his own ammunition and join your other mate.

"Payno… boys… le's talk about this, yeah? We…" As you prepare to embarrass yourself by begging them to stop, your calves hit against the edge of the couch, causing your body to fling down onto the cushions. "We… can work something out!"

Liam makes it shoulder to shoulder with Louis, standing right in front of you.

"Don' ya dar-"

Suddenly, the splash of cold water washes over your hair and streams down your face, causing you to squeal in discomfort and the boys to cackle with triumph.

"I can' believe you two idiots!" You exclaim, immediately standing up, pushing past them, and grabbing a couple of bottles for yourself. You stand on the opposite side of them, a small table being the only thing separating you from your opponents. The three of you glare into each other's eyes, all fidgeting with the plastic in your hands. "This is war."

"Bring it on." Liam replies, eyebrows raised with anticipation of your reaction to his threat.

"Le' me leave first!" Zayn pleads, rushing to safety within the doorframe.

"Hello, lovers! What's-" Niall stops next to Zayn and his eyes widen at the sight in front of him. "What's… goin'… on…"

"Payback." You quickly state, flickering your gaze to him for only a split second, instantly returning it to the ones across from you.

"Jesus Christ…" He replies. "This'll be fun to watch."

"What will?" You hear Harry ask, not daring to turn his way in fear of the battle beginning while you're not looking.

"Everyone shut up!" Louis shouts, squatting down slightly in preparation.

You take a deep breath and suddenly the sound of the plastic bottles being crushed fills the air. The feeling of water running down your back giving you chills, but your feet swiftly moving around the room helping you to get in some shots of your own

Bottle after bottle is being swiped from the table as the insults and liquid go flying.

"What the hell is going on here?" Someone yells from the doorway, grabbing half of the attention of each of you as you continue to dodge Liam and Louis' attacks.

Your eyes manage to catch a glimpse of John, one of the band's security guards, bolting into the room, quickly placing a cup on the coffee table and maneuvering to grab a hold of whoever he can catch first.

Liam is the first to be stopped, with John pushing him towards the direction of the innocent bystanders.

"Jus' you and me, darling!" Louis proclaims, a mischievous laugh following the comment dripping with sass.

"Don' call me darling, you wanker!" You shout back, running to grab yet another bottle.

You quickly rush past him, spilling about half of the bottle down the back of his shirt, and as he yelps out, you see him twist his way out of John's reach and grab more ammunition from the smaller table.

Louis lunges towards you, throwing his hand out in an attack, and as the liquid hits your arm, a heat penetrates through your jumper.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" You scream, grabbing your wounded limb and flopping to the ground.

"Oh don' play victim, love." Louis quips, turning around and displaying an abundance of regret as you begin to wince at the pain. "YN?"

All five boys turn to you, immediately rushing over to your side, and you see John hurry out through the door with his walkie-talkie pressed up against his mouth.

"Bloody hell, Tommo! What did you do?" Liam asks, kneeling down beside you with a hand gently placed on your back.

"I just… I didn't…" He stutters, looking at the ground and bending down to reveal the cup John had put down, before his attempt to end the water fight. It is empty of whatever beverage it had contained and all eyes turn to your jumper, a stain appearing of what smells like coffee. "Shit! YN! M'so sorry!"

"Ge' your jumper off." Harry states, his eyes full of concern as he stares at the spot you're grabbing onto.

"What?"

"So it doesn' injure you more." He replies, nodding down as if to encourage you to grab the hem.

"Umm… m'only wear-... wearin' a bra underneath…" You utter, watching as the expression of each boy turns into one of awkward uncertainty. They've seen you in that predicament before, but usually during a quick change. The close proximity now makes this situation a bit too intimate for everyone's comfort level.

"Hold on." Liam states, jumping up and striding over to the closest rack of clothes, swiping the first t-shirt he sees, and making his way back to you. He tosses it over, and each boy twists around in a slightly different direction while you remove your wet top and immediately replace it with the clean, dry one.

"Alright." You mumble, watching as the five of them turn back to you.

Louis glances over your attire and you look down to see that the article of clothing now on your body is actually his. Ironic.

"Serves me right I s'pose." He chuckles under his breath. "YN, m'really sorry."

"S'alright." You quietly respond, dropping your gaze to the floor, displaying sadness, pain, and a mild amount of embarrassment.

"Come 'ere." He states, his arms stretched towards you to offer an embrace. You scoot on your knees, inching a little closer to him, and wrap one arm around him. He gives you a little squeeze, and as he pulls back, you bring your other arm around him, causing him to lean back in to prolong the hug.

"Guess we were both right." You utter in his ear, keeping a hold on your bandmate.

"Bout what?"

The hand you last reached around him lifts over his head and turns down, pouring the contents of a bottle you had been hiding at your side, waiting for the right moment to exact your revenge.

"Karma is a bitch." You laugh, letting go and pulling back to see him frantically wipe the water from his face. "And so are you."

Overall Taglist: @watermelonsugacry @tw1nflamebruis3 @hopefulwastelandcreation @tenaciousperfectionunknown @that-daydream-look @queenmadi2 @runway-to-my-aid @theekyliepage @be-yourss @b-reads-things @behindmygreyeyes @michellekstyles @a-strange-familiar @yousunshineyoutempter @buckybarnessimpp @msolbesg @sleutherclaw @katiebaxterrrrrr @percysaidnever @mrspeacem1nusone @thurhomish @harrystylesrecs @vickiii17 @itsbebeyyy @divalovesyou @bxbyysstuff @jessitpwk @sunshinemoonsposts @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @boybands-baseball @austynparksandpizza @missmielyhoran @harryspirate @qualitygiantshoepsychic @tiaamberxx @matildasatellite @cherryshouse @yatebe-kohayu @perfectzinenerdperson @babyiamperfectforyou @daphnesutton @around1302 @daydreamingofmatilda @swiftmendeshoran @one-sweet-gubler @jerseygirlinca @carey86 @lomlhstyles @vrittivsanghavi

If your name is blue I couldn't tag you

[the-six-that-thrive-if]

PLANS FOR 2024!!

IT IS A BRAND NEW YEAR!! WITH SO MUCH TO DO!!

In truth, I'm unsure of what I want to do for 2024. I'm not a good plan in advance and far more of a "this'll be fun to do" type of person. Especially when it comes to writing. So I am going to share what I want to do in the moment and my current feelings.

One Thing: I hate The Six That Thrive.

That is the ultimate looming threat, I'm facing, and want to put this out there, not because I'm going to scrape TSTT. I simply want to make it better. Working on other IFs has just made me realize how much I could add especially seeing that TSTT is my first ever IF, and if you were there when I first began, it was an utter mess.

Chapter Six has been in production, but I cannot work on it with a clear conscience, knowing how much I hate the previous chapters, and if I cannot somewhat like the old, I can't move forward. So as of right now, I think I am going to go on hiatus.

So now, you might ask. "What about the Patreon?" The Patreon is a mix of those who want TSTT content and mainly that, while others are down for supporting me in general. I am still going to be posting TSTT content. Sharing fics, drabbles, backstories. I may as well drop new and improved chapters.

So, what will I do in the meantime? As ridiculous as I am, I'm going to be posting new demos for unreleased IFs. Mainly to have the option to jump around and not feel guilty for it. I've realized that I've been sorta holding myself back from doing the things I enjoy in fear of what others felt and thought as well with overworking myself. But I am coming to realize what is best for me as a writer and it's the ability to write when and wherever. So I've planned to move forward without feeling guilt.

Things I've been facing and fear for the future. The amount of access everyone has to me. As in a sense online and how easy it is to reach out to me. For one, I'm not upset or bothered by those reaching out and haven't received harassment or hate. But there are subtle demands from strangers that I have noticed and simply expect me to do, because I want to be super inclusive. Which is a huge difference from suggestions and asking kindly. They just demand it, and I'm still learning to regulate it.

With School. Right now, I'm fantastic at balancing school and work, simply because most of the chapters I've wrote and write happen in a large chunk so that's not something I'm worried about. I also don't got a job so there's that.

ON MORE POSITIVE NOTES:

—The Dragon's birthday past. Jan 1st. Now when they get a little drabble, idfk.

The One Year Anniversary of TSTT is a day before my birthday so that's also exciting!

I turn 19 next month!! (Which I feel a lot of people are unaware of.)

More IFs! More genres! I have a pretty much horror track record, that's definitely ain't gonna change, but with my future IF that I plan to share hopefully by the end of this month, I'm EXCITED.

FINAL NOTES:

I truly don't know what I have in store for 2024! But I do want to make the best of it. As always, I want to thank you for your neverending support and patience and I'm excited to share this year with you all!! Please do not worry about my mental or physical health, I swear, that I am an 100 out of 10.

[zoeyfromtheinternet]

Collaborative choose your own adventure!

This is a fun little experiment to try and expand my writing chops in more directions than just the vibes I'm feeling at the time.

The choices you make together will have significant outcome on the kind of story that gets written out. Depending on how it goes, things might get pretty wild.

Hopefully this'll be interesting!

----------------------------------------------------------

Your attention focuses.

You find yourself standing in the middle of a hallway, in what looks like someone's house. You can hear a tv playing quietly around the corner behind you, and are holding a heavy bowl of nachos in your hands.

Ahead of you, you see someone standing at the front door. She's a tall, broad woman. Quite muscular and easily above six feet tall. With dark brown hair falling below her shoulders.

She's hunched over, looking intently through the peep-hole in the door. It looks like she's completely distracted..

[thewulf]

hi! Can you write a hotch x reader one shot based on the episode where Hayley’s dad says he still hates Hotch for Hayley’s death in s10 and obviously his words hurt Hotch and hotch then is like obviously really sad and hurt and pulls away from reader unintentionally which starts a argument but with fluff at the end? Like angst / fluff :)

Ohh yes!! I don't get to write enough established relationship stories, so this'll be fun! We love a hella angsty story turning to fluffy fluff. My favorite!

Plus, Aaron Hotchner is one of my favorites to write :)

I've got two requests ahead and I'm hoping to get out this weekend and next so hopefully within a week or two I can knock this one out!

[underforeversgrace]

Fic Stats Game

Rules: Give us the links to your fic with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the least words.

@jackdaw-sprite thanks for the tag! I enjoy both being tagged in shit and doing the tag games! Let's fuckin gooooo! All data is from AO3 and does not include Tumblr information, nor stories posted only to Tumblr.

Most Hits: broken trust and the wounds hidden behind

This one is actually my highest by a significant amount! At the time of this post, it's at 6,463 hits. My number two story is at 3,814

Jack wasn't meaning to snoop in his son's room when he found a box of medical supplies and a USB with a tag that said IF I DON'T COME HOME. Danny’s secrets revealed, Jack is desperate to earn his son’s trust, to earn the right to this secret he stumbled across. After almost two years of unknowingly hunting his son, is Danny's trust too broken to heal?

Second Most Kudos: by your grave (the monster we made)

This one is second for pretty much all stats!

Maddie knew Danny kept secrets, it was a topic they didn’t discuss. But when she sees scars she knows he couldn’t have, she knows she can’t keep pretending. She just needs to figure out those scars.

Third-Most Comments: the walls you hide behind (I saw the truth inside the real you)

I'm actually suprised by that one! It's only been coming out for the past two-ish weeks!

Jazz is tired of the ghosts, tired of her parents not doing enough, tired of Phantom's recklessness and her brother's persistent exhaustion. When she yells all of her frustration at her parents after nearly getting killed by a ghost, she gets sent to Vlad's mansion in Wisconsin for the weekend - where she's offered a chance. She could have the ability to fight back, protect her brother and her town. Jazz leaps at the prospect. When she returns to Amity Park at the end of the weekend, it's with abilities and strength of her own, and she's fueled by anger and disdain. And she's got her eyes, first, on Danny Phantom.

Fourth-Most Bookmarks: Welcome to Intro to Ghosts

Man I really should update that fic shouldn't I?

Sure, turning sixteen was supposed to be a big year regardless, but this was a little beyond what Danny had expected when he'd both been told he was now king and then asked to be a teacher for the Intro to Ghosts class while also being a junior in high school. Now he has to juggle a secret identity, being a superhero, doing centuries worth of old paperwork Pariah didn't do, his own schoolwork, AND his students/classmates schoolwork! This'll be fun. Or catastrophic. Hopefully fun.

Fifth-Most Words: healing the wounds we hid

This is the sequel to broken trust, mentioned earlier! It's actually going to be my second highest word count (it's full draft is roughly 38k, but for where I am in posting, it's at number 2!) Once it's posted by your grave (the monster we made) (also referenced earlier), will be the actual number five.

Least Words: fang u for ur help

At a paltry 345 words, this is the shortest fic I've posted to AO3. It's a silly like DannyMay thing bc the idea was funny and didn't need to be any more than it is.

Danny has fangs and questions. DannyMay2023 Day 16: Fangs

Tags: GAH I HAVE NO IDEA WHO'S BEEN TAGGED AND WHO TO TAG. Ummmm. @scarletsaphire @lexosaurus @strawberrycamel, and anyone else who wants to!

[poohsources]

I'm new to tumblr and i'm not sure how rp bandwagons work on here haha.

I know i have to reblog them, but i'm not sure what happens next or where to put the starter 'n such. so sorry if this doesn't make sense LOL.

hi there! gotta be honest here, i have no clue what bandwagons are ( i tried looking it up but all i gathered was that it's something used in twitter rp ) so i'm not exactly sure this'll be the right answer. but i hope this will be of help for you anyway and is what you're looking for. if not, feel free to send me another ask and i'll try to give a better explanation.

after you've set up your blog and gathered some followers, there are two easy ways to get interactions going. technically there are more, but these two are the ones that work the quickest and make you start doing stuff on your blog.

starter calls. make a post titled starter call in which you give people a chance to request a starter from you. they can like or reply to that post, which in turn shows you they're interested in writing with you. now you can either reach out to plot with them ( if you want to ― usually, starter calls are more of a spontaneous thing that isn't really planned out, although it can eventually evolve into something deeper ) or just make a new post / starter for them. you can keep it simple with just a line of dialogue ( remember to make open dialogue and give your partner something to work with; roleplaying is a back-and-forth that requires some kind of effort being put into it ) or write maybe a paragraph or two ― whatever you feel like doing. it's best to tag the person the starter is for somewhere in the post ( you can do that by using @ and putting the username right after the symbol ) so they'll hopefully see your post. from there on, they reblog your post with their reply, and afterward, you reblog your reply to their post, and so on and so on.

memes. another easy way to get things going is by reblogging memes / sentence starters to your blog. you can find a variety of them either by looking up rp memes ( or if you want something more specific, e.g. angst starters, try looking up that ) and all you'll have to do is to click on the reblog button and put them on your blog. now your followers can send you one or multiple of these through your inbox ( which reminds me that you have to make sure that is turned on. to check that, go to your blog settings, scroll down until you see the switch titled "let people ask questions" and make sure it's on ) for you to reply to. as for your reply, you can either directly do that by accessing your inbox ( if you're on desktop, it's the little mail symbol on top / on mobile you can access it by clicking the profile button on the far right, then going to the settings at the top right and clicking on inbox ) and clicking answer or you can make a completely new post in which you'll copy and paste the sentence starter that was sent to you, and then do basically the same thing i explained for the starter call. write your reply, tag the person who sent it to you in it, and let the reply thread begin.

anyway, it might seem a little daunting at first but once you've got the hang of it, it's really simple and quite fun.

[demons-and-demigods]

Demons and Demigods Part Ten: Written Scene #6: The Hunt for Victory

Here it is! This will probably be the last part for a little bit while I get some more writing done as this'll pretty much get us caught up to what I had written before starting this blog.

Now, this part starts out kind of hand-wavey transition-y, but it's not enough to warrant its own post and it gets into proper writing pretty quick. This is probably the longest part yet, so be prepared. I also had some fun with making Percy a little eldritched in this one, hope you like it!

To return to our demigods, they’ve dealt with the ghosts and shit in Ithaca, Annabeth was antsy the whole time being away from Percy, Jason had his ‘oh look, I’ve been impaled’ moment, they met Hera who told them to subdue Nike, they got back to the ship to find that Percy had exploded all the plumbing while anxiously pacing the deck waiting for them to get back. Annabeth immediately went to his side to help them both calm down while Piper helped Jason down to the infirmary. Leo is cursing in Spanish somewhere within the bowels of the ship about Percy exploding the plumbing. Frank is hanging out with Percy and Annabeth to help them regulate again now that they’re back together and Hazel is helping Piper with Jason. 

They set out for Olympia, and everyone is lowkey freaking out about Jason having been impaled and trying to figure out how to help him. Jason is annoyed with everyone hovering over him but too exhausted to do anything about it. 

Finally, they’ve reached Olympia, about to face Nike and shit. They try to figure out who to send that Nike won’t be able to immediately pitch at each other’s throats. They’ve decided four of them need to go, two Greek and two Roman to hopefully help balance the unstable goddess. Percy and Jason shouldn't both go together, the Poseidon/Jupiter rivalry is pretty strong and they both already almost killed each other in that Kansas cornfield so it’d be best to avoid a repeat of that. Piper shouldn’t go because Nike, all about victory and competition, might see her as a threat because of Aphrodite also being about competition in a way. Annabeth and Frank probably shouldn’t go together since Athena and Mars don’t exactly get along either. That pretty much makes their decision for them, leaving them with two team options: Leo, Percy, Hazel, and Frank, or Annabeth, Leo, Jason, and Hazel. 

Jason is still dealing with his Impalement Predicament, so that also knocks out the Annabeth/Jason/Leo/Hazel team.  

Neither Percy nor Annabeth are happy with this. They’re still fresh outta Tartarus, and they have not been handling it well if the other is out of sight for very long (see the exploded plumbing when Annabeth went to the palace in Ithaca and Percy had to stay on the ship). They get jumpy and anxious, quicker to snap, sitting on a hair-trigger of violence, ready to lash out at any moment.  

Nobody is sure that splitting them up for an unknown amount of time and keeping them probably miles away from each other is a good idea, but it’s the only option they’ve got.  

So they split up to get ready to face Nike.  

Percy and Annabeth wait on the deck for the others to gather what they need. While they wait, Percy and Annabeth try to prepare themselves for being separated. They stood silently, foreheads pressed together as they breathed slowly, soaking up the other’s presence. They squeezed each other’s hands tightly, slowly opening their eyes and pulling back slightly to just look at each other for a moment.

Percy soaked in the way Annabeth’s hair glittered in the morning sun, her blonde made gold and her streak of gray turned silver, as her curls just barely brushed her shoulders when they swayed in the gentle breeze. She had started to regain her natural tan and freckles dusted her cheeks. Some of the weight she’d lost in the Pit had returned, but she was still painfully thin. Her gray eyes met his and she stared at him just like she always had, picking him apart with her mind and gazing into his soul. Her lips, no longer cracked and bleeding from dehydration, were full and pink again as they quirked up in a small smile.  

Annabeth let her eyes rove across Percy’s face, committing every detail to memory. His inky raven hair stood in stark contrast to the still too pale color of his skin and his streak of gray made nearly white in comparison. There were new scars scattered across his face, little white lines among jagged red ones still trying to heal. His eyes were as bright and vivid as ever, watching her as they always did, filled with a depth of warmth and love that always left her breathless. He smiled softly down at her, and she loved the way one just-too-pointy tooth poked over his bottom lip. She reached up with one hand to cradle his jaw and he leaned into her touch, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment.  

She resettled her hands on his waist as he reached up to cup her face. His hands were rough with calloses built from years of sword work, but his touch was gentle on her skin. He leaned down and kissed her brow, letting his lips linger there for a moment before pulling away.  

He took a half-step back and reached one hand over the railing and an orb of water floated up to his palm. He looked at it and tilted his head, and the water began to shape itself in his hand until a miniature guinea pig hovered there. He squinted his eyes and it turned to ice. He broke out into a wide grin. He grabbed one of Annabeth’s hands and placed the little ice figure in it.  

“Here,” he said softly. “Now, even though I’m in the city, I’ll still be right here with you.”  

Annabeth gave him her patented ‘Percy, what the fuck are you talking about’ look, but he just smiled, waiting for her to get it. She squinted at the ice guinea pig, assessing it, before her eyes widened in realization and she laughed. She’d almost forgotten. The little ice figure looked exactly like Percy had when he’d been turned into a guinea pig by Circe when they were thirteen, right down to the indignant expression on his little rodent face and the spikey mess of his fur. 

“It won’t melt. Well, I’m pretty sure it won’t melt, anyway.” He shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “But, y’know, I thought it might help.” he ducked his head as his cheeks flushed.  

“Thank you, Seaweed Brain. I love it,” she laughed, and leaned in to kiss him. “Here,” she said, carefully setting down guinea-Percy and reaching up to unclasp her camp necklace to put around Percy’s neck instead. She smiled, settling the beads, her father’s college ring, and the coral pendant Percy had given her against his breast. The leather cord of her necklace was longer than his own, so they layered easily enough. “Now, even though I’m on the boat, I’ll still be right there with you as you take on Nike.” She patted his chest and her grin sharpened. “And remember, we need her. Don’t get carried away, okay?”  

Percy gave her a shark-like grin. “Of course, Wise Girl. We’ll bring her back alive. Can’t promise that she’ll be in one piece, though.”  

“Uh,” someone said, and Percy and Annabeth both turned their heads to see Leo staring at them with wide eyes. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said quickly, holding his hands up in surrender. “I heard nothing about you guys casually talking about potentially maiming or killing a goddess. Nope. Wait, is that a guinea pig ice sculpture? Where did that come from?”  

Percy and Annabeth both just laughed. 

A few minutes later, the others arrived on deck ready to go.  

Percy and Annabeth shared one last kiss before Percy disappeared into the city with Leo.  

Leo, who’d held a healthy dose of fear for Percy since the whole eidolon-possession-firing-on-Camp-Jupiter thing, was not ashamed to admit that that ‘fear’ had morphed into full-blown terror now. Like, Percy had always been a little scary. He was insanely powerful, even for a demigod kid of the Big Three, and he was scary good with a sword. At a glance, Percy looked like the type of kid that would have beat the shit out of Leo behind the school. He was tall and made of pure muscle with weird scars covering almost every inch of exposed skin. His eyes were unnervingly bright, his gaze intense in a way that made Leo feel like he was staring into his soul. He had the meanest rbf Leo had ever seen, and it somehow paled in comparison to the nightmare that Percy’s face became when he was actually angry.  

After spending some time with the guy, though, Leo had been able to relax around him. Percy was super down-to-earth for someone who’s supposedly done some rather insane stuff, and he was funny. He was laid back and always willing to help out. He was smarter than he let on, too, Leo had noticed. He was more than handy to have in a fight and honestly, he was weirdly easy to talk to.  

That is, until they got him and Annabeth back from the Pit. Something had changed in both of them down there, which was understandable. But . . . it was terrifying. Leo could feel that something was different about Percy, about his powers. His instincts screamed at him that Percy was dangerous, like a wild animal or a cornered beast. When Percy entered a room, Leo’s senses went on high alert, he was hyper aware of everything going on around him, desperate to keep Percy in a good mood. It was stressful.  

Part of Leo felt bad for being so afraid of Percy now. Percy and Annabeth needed support from their friends and Percy had never been anything but kind and friendly to Leo since they sorted out the eidolon thing. But he couldn’t help it.  

So, now, going into the city with Percy, alone, Leo was barely able to stop himself from freaking out. Especially after hearing Percy and Annabeth on the ship, joking about not getting carried away and making sure to bring a goddess back in one piece. Like, what the fuck. Leo had never questioned whether Percy could take on a god and come out on top, he’d just also known that Percy never would. Now, however, Leo had the feeling that it was less a matter of ‘would’ and more a matter of ‘when.’  

Anyway, they’re wandering around Olympia, trying to find Nike, and Leo is just, so nervous. So nervous. Percy is just strolling along, hands in his pockets, chill as can be, and Leo is fighting hard not to run away screaming. Leo knows that Percy knows that he’s acting weird, and he knows that Percy knows he knows that he knows, and etc. But Percy is just too nice to bring it up, so Leo doesn’t bring it up either and they continue wandering around awkwardly while neither of them acknowledges the weird tension between them.  

It’s a stressful time.  

After wandering for a while, Leo and Percy sat down on a bridge that spanned some river or other and dangled their feet over the edge while they waited for Frank and Hazel to meet up with them. 

Leo really wished they would hurry up.  

Look, he’d already mentioned how nervous Percy made him, but he figured it bears repeating because at that moment? It was just downright eerie. Percy stared intently at the river below them, his eyes a perfect mirror of the rippling water. Before the Fall, Percy had been a lot like Leo, always moving and trying to fill the silence. Since he and Annabeth had come back, though, it was different. Percy was quiet, he didn’t talk as much anymore and moved silently. He would sit, eerily still, so still that Leo could swear that he didn’t blink or even breathe, and always with this glazed sort of look in his eyes, like his mind had left the building or something. Despite that, though, Leo was under no illusions that Percy was still hyperaware of his surroundings.  

Leo wanted to say something, anything, to break the awkward, tense silence between them. But what the Hades do you talk about with a guy who just clawed his way out of Hell and had no doubt faced unspeakable horrors? It’s not like he could go, ‘hey, did you catch the new episode of Dr Who? Oh wait, sorry, you were fighting for your life through the Pit of Eternal Damnation.’ I mean, come on. Talk about insensitive.  

Leo was just gearing up to say something stupid, probably like ‘nice weather we’re having today’ or something equally as idiotic, when Percy spoke up first.  

“You met her, didn’t you? Calypso.”  

Leo whipped his head around to stare at Percy with wide eyes so fast, he probably gave himself whiplash. “H-how did you—” he sputtered.  

Percy shrugged, still staring at the river. “Someone mentioned that you’d gotten blasted off the ship and disappeared for a few days only to come back looking healthier than ever in clothes that were suddenly fireproof.” He shrugged again, and finally turned his piercing gaze from the river to meet Leo’s eyes. “It wasn’t hard to figure out.” He shook his head and sighed, looking back at the water. “I guess that means the gods broke another of their promises.”  

Leo wanted to be mad at Percy for promising to find a way to break her out and then not following through, but Percy’s comment gave him pause.  

“What do you mean?” he asked.  

“I’m sure you’ve heard stories about the Titan War and the Battle of Manhattan,” Percy started. “Most of them were probably exaggerated, especially if they were about me. But one thing you might have heard that wasn’t exaggerated, was that after Luke sacrificed himself to kill Kronos and the war was won, the gods offered me a reward. They offered me immortality. And I turned them down.”  

Leo’s eyes widened. He’d heard about that, sure, but he’d just assumed it was the other kids pulling his leg; like some sort of hazing ritual or something, trying to convince the new kid of something ridiculous so they could all laugh at him when he believed them.  

“Instead, I told the Olympian Council to be better parents.” Percy scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Fat lot of good that did. I told them to claim their kids and make sure they made it to camp by age thirteen. There were four months between the end of the war and Hera’s bullshit, and I get my memory back and find that two sixteen-year-old demigods had not been led to camp or claimed until after I’d gone missing.” Percy let out a low snarl and Leo shuddered. “That’s strike one.” he scowled down at the river that seemed to be reacting to his anger as it foamed and bubbled. “How many other demigods are out there, that should have been led to camp and claimed but haven’t been? If Aphrodite and Hephestus, two gods on the Olympian Council, and powerful ones at that, have already failed to do so, how many children of minor gods have slipped through the cracks too?”  

The sky darkened above them, and Leo felt the air grow cold and damp, surrounded by the feeling you got right before a big, coastal storm rolled in. The river below them swirled, and a quick glance towards what Leo could see of the beach from where they sat showed that the sea was affected, too. Waves crashed into the shore with large white caps and the boats in the marina rocked dangerously on the suddenly choppy water.  

Percy closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and the water calmed as the sky cleared, returning them to the bright, sunny day they’d been having before.  

Percy continued like he hadn’t just almost caused a tropical storm.  

“I also made them promise to free Calypso from her island.” He gave a bitter laugh. “I should have known better than to trust that they’d do it. I had four months to check that they had followed through on their promises, and I didn’t.” He shook his head and let out a derisive scoff. “I can’t exactly blame her for being angry, but I’m not going to forgive her for what she did, either.” Percy clenched his fists and took a few more deep breaths. “Strike two.” Percy lifted his gaze to the sky and glared. “Honestly, I’m not fighting for them. The gods can go get fucked for all I care. The only reason that I’m fighting this war is to protect my friends and family. At the moment, the gods are the lesser of two evils. Compared to Gaea and her Giants, the gods are almost harmless. But one of these days, they’re going to stop being the lesser of two evils, and I’m going to stop protecting them by way of protecting those I care about.”  

Leo held his breath, his heart thundering in his chest. He was a little amazed that Percy hadn’t been hit by lightning or otherwise smote {smitted?) for talking like that. Percy finally looked up from the roiling river and locked his gaze on Leo, his eyes full of steely promise and Leo heard nothing but the truth in his next words.  

“They have one more chance to get their shit together before I stop playing nice. They’ve already hurt my family enough. One more mistake, and they won’t live to hurt them again.”  

Leo gulped. 

Thankfully, he was saved from having to respond by the arrival of Frank and Hazel.  

When they shared that they hadn’t had any luck finding the goddess either, Leo sighed.  

“Well,” he said, standing up and brushing off his pants. “I guess we just start wandering around together and let trouble find us. It’s always worked before.”  

Percy, too, got to his feet and stretched before shrugging. “Might as well. Come on, let’s go see the sights.”  

The four of them meandered through Olympia, visiting ancient ruin after ancient ruin, each pile of rubble as impressive as the last. Which is to say, not very. Frank had a tourist map/guide thing that he used to lead them around and point out ‘interesting’ stuff.

They looked around for hours, but still nothing. Leo, for one, was ready to call it a day and get back to the ship. He could tell that being away from Annabeth for so long was really taking its toll on Percy, too, though he hid it well. He figured it wouldn’t take much provocation for Percy to snap and he wanted to avoid that at pretty much all costs.  

He was just about to suggest they head back to the ship and pick up the search again tomorrow, when something Frank said made him stop.  

They were at the ruins of an old temple of Zeus, and Leo thought he recognized it from somewhere.  

“Hey, Percy,” he said, turning to the son of Poseidon. “That Nike statue we saw in the museum, the one in a bunch of pieces,” he gestured at the temple ruins. “Didn’t it use to stand here?”  

Percy tilted his head and studied the ruins. “Yeah, it used to be inside before the temple started crumbling and the locals moved it to the museum to try and prevent further damage to it.”  

“That makes this as good a place for her to be hanging out as any, right?” Leo asked, feeling his energy return a little at the prospect of maybe, finally finding the goddess they’d spent most of the day searching for.  

Frank and Hazel traded glances and shrugged.  

“I don’t see why not,” Hazel said.  

“Alright, but if she is here, how do we draw her out? Promote Adidas shoes?” Percy said, crossing his arms and scanning around them consideringly.  

Hazel gave him a confused look, and Frank cracked a smile. Leo snorted.  

“Yeah, I bet that’s totally against her sponsorship deal,” he said, faux serious. “Those are not the official shoes of the Olympics! You will now die!” he shouted in a terrible falsetto. Percy laughed and Leo grinned. It had been too long since he’d seen Percy joke around and smile like that.  

Then, a thundering voice said from behind them, “YOU WILL NOW DIE!”  

Hazel squeaked and a horde of precious stones popped up around her, Frank yelped and poofed into a bulldog, and Leo’s pretty sure he let out a rather girly scream and jumped about a foot in the air.  

Percy, however, had Riptide in his hand and was swinging his sword with a nasty snarl on his face before the rest of them had even reacted.  

Leo watched in morbid fascination as Percy swung his sword in a glowing bronze blur at who had to be Nike. The goddess flapped her massive golden wings and jumped into the air, hovering just out of reach of Percy’s sword. Percy growled low in his throat and dropped into a crouch as Nike glared down at him.  

“How dare you try to attack me, you insolent child!” the goddess cried. 

Leo bit back the urge to make a snarky comment in defense of his friend, figuring it would only land them in more trouble, but it seemed that Hazel had no such compunctions. 

“Hey! You’re the one who went and snuck up on a traumatized demigod teen who just escaped the Pit,” she said sternly, one hand on her hip and the other pointed accusingly at Nike’s face. “Don’t you go blaming him for reacting violently to something like that. He just spent who knows how long in a place where letting someone get the drop on you was a death sentence. If I’ve learned one thing about this time, it’s that we do not victim blame.” 

Gods, Leo loved that girl. (Not like that, his heart lay solely on Ogygia, but, you know, Hazel was just fucking awesome.) 

Nike sputtered indignantly as Hazel walked forward to carefully place a hand on Percy’s shoulder. 

Percy blinked and lowered his sword, slowly standing from his crouch. He looked down at Hazel and gave her a soft, thankful smile before returning his gaze to the goddess. 

“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that. I guess,” Percy said with a shrug, but Leo noticed that he didn’t sound very apologetic. He hadn’t put Riptide away, either. 

Nike huffed, seemingly not keen on accepting an apology from or giving an apology to a demigod, but settled her feet back on the ground regardless. She was pretty, in her white sleeveless dress with her dark brown hair piled in braids atop her head beneath a laurel crown. 

But those wings. What Leo had first taken to be golden-yellow feathers looked like they were actually made of gold. They glimmered and shone as they reflected the sun. They were near impossible to look at with how bright they were. He could feel the air around them heating up. He squinted and shielded his eyes when Nike shifted her wings slightly, redirecting a sunbeam directly into his face. 

“Could you fold the flappers, lady? You’re giving me a sunburn,” he said. He also couldn’t imagine the intense heat was helping Percy’s headspace much and he’d really rather they not send the poor, terrifying guy into a flashback or whatever. 

Leo heard the goddess huff and lowered his arm when he felt the heat lessen only to find her staring at him with dark eyes, a crazy glint lighting them up from within. He repressed a shiver. Man, this lady was intense. 

She shifted her gaze to Hazel and Frank and her form flickered. She groaned and clutched her head. It looked like she was splitting in two. On the right side, she didn’t change, with her glittering white dress and laurel crown atop a head of dark braids, her golden wings folded behind her. On the left, she had changed; her dress was purple beneath her armor and her wings were a snowy white. On her head rested a tall, plumed helmet from under which peaked auburn hair. 

“I am Nike!” the one on the right shouted. 

“I am Victoria!” the one on the left cried. 

“Woah, Nelly,” Leo said. “That’s trippy.” 

“Shut up,” both sides of the goddess growled at him. He held his hands up in surrender. 

“This is impossible!” Nike said. 

“You are giving me such a headache!” Victoria said. 

“There must be a winner!” They cried in unison. 

Nike’s eyes locked on Leo and Percy as Victoria’s locked on Frank and Hazel. 

“You must kill the Roman traitors!” Nike demanded. 

“The graecus scum must die!” Victoria roared. 

Leo felt the anger rising with him and clenched his fists even as he fought against Nike’s influence. He saw Percy’s face twitch, but the son of Poseidon otherwise remained calm. He risked a glance over at Frank and Hazel and saw that they weren’t doing much better than him. 

Frank had a nasty glower on his face and his fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. Hazel had closed her eyes and was taking deep breaths, her grip on her sword tightening. Gods, they were probably thinking about how easy it would be to take him out and the only reason they hadn’t tried already was because they knew they stood no chance against Percy. He should show them just how easy he’d be to defeat. 

He felt fire wreathe his hands and shook his head. Stop that, he chided himself. They are your friends, not your enemies. You may have had your rough patches in the past, but you guys are over that now. They trust you and you trust them. 

Percy snarled beside him, and Leo jumped, temporarily knocked out of whatever trance or some shit Nike had put him in that made him want to kill his friends. 

“No,” Percy snapped, and the sharpness of his voice cut through the tension in the air like a knife. “There will be no killing each other. We are friends and we trust each other. Now, enough with your fucking mind games, because I have had it with gods trying to get me to kill my friends.” 

A different pressure surrounded them, a smothering intensity that built up and up until Leo almost found it hard to breathe. The air turned cold, the temperature dropping until Leo could see his breath in front of him. He shivered. 

The goddesses glared down at them, but Percy just glowered right back, his eyes darkened and his lips pulled back in a snarl. His teeth glinted in the dwindling light as clouds began to cover the sun. Even though they were miles from the shore, Leo swore he could hear the roaring of the tide, the crash of waves as they slammed against a rocky cliff. 

And just for a second, Leo could have sworn he saw his friend change; Percy’s mouth filled with rows and rows of elongated teeth that morphed into sharp, serrated fangs. His eyes became swirling pits in which Leo could see the horrors of the ocean depths and all the monstrous creatures that dwelled so far from the light. His hair was an inky black that seemed to swallow up all the light as it floated eerily around his head, the streak of gray hanging limp and lifeless in his face. The scars that littered Percy’s body seemed to glow with a dark, golden light and his skin turned almost translucent, flickering and insubstantial where it looked to be stretched far too thin over his hauntingly skeletal frame. 

Then Leo blinked, and it was gone. Percy was his regular (if absurdly attractive) looking self, no eldritch-horror-creature-features here, no siree. 

Leo glanced to the side and saw that Frank and Hazel looked as shocked and lowkey horrified as he felt, so at least he wasn’t losing his mind and seeing things. Nike and Victoria, it seemed, had also been taken aback by the momentary shift in Percy’s appearance. Their mouths dropped open in simultaneous shock and their eyes near bugged out of their heads. 

Their forms flickered again, so it was less like they were splitting in half and more like two separate images overlaid atop each other (like those 3D movies with the red and blue layered over each other so when you put on those cheap glasses the pictures pop off the screen, Leo thought). She leaned forward, so she could scrutinize Percy up close. 

“You are more powerful than you should be, little half-blood,” she said, and her voice had taken on the same distorted, layered quality as her appearance. It made Leo’s head pound. “What are you hiding beneath that veil of Mist, little hero?” 

Leo wiped a hand across his top lip, and it came back bloody. He shared nervous looks with Hazel and Frank, who both had matching nosebleeds. They needed to end this. Quick. 

“NOthInG YOu wANt tO FiNd oUt ABoUt,” Percy growled in response, and his voice had gained a layered quality too. It was at the same time so deep that Leo could feel it reverberating through his bones and so high that it made Leo’s ears ring. He had a sneaking suspicion that Percy was broadcasting his voice at both ultra- and sub- sonic levels that were beyond the human body’s ability to register. He glanced back at Frank and Hazel and saw blood beginning to trickle from their ears. He was sure that if he checked, his ears would be bleeding too. 

As Percy and the split goddess continued to glare each other down, the air continued to thicken and grow heavy with power. It was cloying, sticking to Leo’s skin and making his hair stand on end like the air was charged with static electricity. It was also suffocating, making it hard to breathe as the air in his lungs grew heavy and leaden. He tried to speak, but his throat closed up, choking on the power-soaked air. He let out a strangled gasp and staggered to his knees, two soft thumps telling him that Hazel and Frank had done the same.  

Percy appeared unaffected, locked in his staring contest with the goddess and paying no mind to what was going on behind him. They had to find a way to get Percy’s attention and stop this before it went any further sideways for the rest of them or any mortals unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire.  

Frank managed to grunt and pound his fist into the pavement. (At least, Leo thought he did. It was hard to hear properly over the ringing in his ears.) Thankfully, that noise was enough.  

Percy’s head whipped to the side, his eyes widening when he saw the state his friends were in, and just like that, the power he’d been exuding snapped back into place within him. Leo sucked in a desperate breath as the air grew lighter again. His ears stopped ringing and he could hear Frank and Hazel panting beside him.  

Percy ran over to them, kneeling at Leo’s side as he muttered curses under his breath. His hands fluttered around helplessly, unsure how to help as his gaze flicked between Leo, Hazel, and Frank worriedly. He spared the goddess one more look, a glare that said, ‘try anything, and I’ll kill you,’ as that oppressive aura slipped out for a moment to surround them, before he drew it back in and turned all his attention onto his friends.  

“Shit, fuck, fuckity fuck, gods I’m so sorry guys, are you alright? Shit.” Percy babbled, tearing a strip from the bottom of his shirt and dabbing at the blood dribbling down Leo’s chin and the sides of his face before moving on to give Frank and Hazel the same treatment. His brows were creased in concern and he gnawed on his lip anxiously. “Gods, I’m so sorry,” he repeated.  

Hazel reached out and laid a shaking hand on his arm, making him stop. She gave him a weak smile.  

“It’s okay, Percy. We’re alright. A little nectar or ambrosia and we’ll be good as new. No harm done,” she said softly. When Percy still looked skeptical and guilty, she tutted at him and tugged him in for a hug. “Really,” she insisted, though her words were muffled from where she had buried her face in Percy’s chest. “We’re okay.” 

Percy closed his eyes and buried his nose in Hazel’s curly hair, breathing deeply to try and calm himself down. If Leo didn’t know that they were both dating someone else and were ridiculously devoted to their respective partners, he’d have thought they were dating. As it was, he figured it was more of a sibling relationship that the two of them shared. 

(He had to admit, he was a little jealous. He’d had plenty of foster siblings over the years, but none of them had ever tried all that hard to make him feel welcome or be his friend. Sometimes he wished that he’d had an older sibling growing up, someone who’d take him under their wing and teach him how to make the best of the foster system, to be there for him and show him that he wasn’t alone. After meeting Percy and spending some time with the guy, seeing him interact with the others and all the stories he’d heard about the son of Poseidon at Camp, well. In his private moments when he was alone and his insecurities were getting the better of him, he let himself imagine that Percy was that someone, let himself fantasize about Percy being there as he grew up and acting like his older brother. They were always nice dreams.) 

Nike/Victoria looked on silently, watching them carefully. Her form had stopped glitching, and had instead settled on, Leo squinted, a sort of combination of the two? She looked mostly like how she had when they first met her, as Nike, but Leo could see some bleed over from Victoria in the handful of white feathers mixed in with the gold of her wings and the purple accents on her glimmering white dress. The goddess still wore the breastplate she boasted in her Roman form, and her hair was the same auburn color he’d noticed peeking out from beneath her helmet though it was now done up in the elaborate pile of braids with a laurel crown like her Greek form had it. 

The crazy light in her eyes had faded away and been replaced by something curious instead. She tilted her head at them and watched as Percy slowly pulled back and helped Hazel to her feet, then walked over to help Frank up and then Leo as well. 

“Interesting,” the goddess hummed, and they all turned to look at her. “Why did you come to find us, little demigods?” she asked, and though the question was directed at all of them, Leo had the feeling that she was really only talking to Percy. 

“The Earth Mother is waking,” Percy said, calmly stepping forward. “Her children, the Giants, are rising to help her. We are working to unite our two camps to fight against her. There are seven of us, a mix of Greek and Roman demigods, that have set out to try and put a stop to the Giants’ plans to raise her in Athens. Juno herself appeared and told us to come find you. Well, technically, she said subdue you, but at the moment you don’t seem to need any subduing. When we first found you, sure, but you appear to have calmed down.” Percy gestured vaguely and raised an eyebrow before continuing. “Anyway, I figure we need you, or at least your blessing while in a more sound state of mind to get on with our quest and hopefully, y’know, achieve victory and all that.” He shrugged. 

The goddess hummed, considering, before nodding once to herself. “Alright. Take me to the rest of your group.” 

What? Leo thought. 

“What?” Percy asked. 

The goddess gave him an indulgent smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You’ve impressed me, little heroes. I’d like to meet the others on this quest with you.” 

Percy glanced over his shoulder to share a bewildered look with the others. Leo shrugged helplessly in response. “Uh, okay. This way, I guess,” Percy said, and they began the walk back to the docks on the other side of the city, Nike/Victoria trailing along behind them. 

“Hey, what should we call you, by the way?” Leo asked, glancing back at the goddess. “You don’t seem like you’re fully Greek or fully Roman at the moment, and I don’t wanna upset whatever balance we’ve managed to achieve here by calling you the wrong name or something,” he elaborated when she merely raised an eyebrow at him. 

She tilted her head, thoughtful. “I suppose you may use either my Greek or Roman name. I don’t believe it would ‘upset the balance,’ as you called it.” she shrugged. “Either name fits just as well as the other, and I haven’t a third name you could use instead.” 

“Okay, cool,” Leo said awkwardly. And hey, cut him some slack, what else was he supposed to say to that? 

The rest of the trek back to the Argo II was made in relative, awkward silence. 

When they reached the boat, Nike nodded approvingly, and Leo tried not to beam too brightly, proud that his ship met the approval of a goddess. 

Annabeth must have been waiting anxiously for them because she came flying down the ramp as soon as they were close enough and threw herself at Percy. He relaxed as soon as he had her in his arms, practically collapsing into her just as much as she had collapsed into him. They clung tightly to each other, muttering softly. 

They stayed like that for a while, completely oblivious to the world around them until Nike cleared her throat. 

Annabeth pulled back just far enough to look over Percy’s shoulder and glare at whoever had interrupted them. Leo, even though the glare wasn’t directed at him, flinched back. Nike just raised an eyebrow, resettling her wings behind her. Annabeth didn’t relent in the face of the goddess and instead just narrowed her eyes further. 

“Nike? Or Victoria?” she asked, her stormy gray eyes raking over the goddess’ form, no doubt picking her apart and cataloging everything about the goddess. 

The goddess merely smirked. “Either name works, daughter of Athena. I am neither one nor the other at the moment but am rather a mixture of both. You have your,” she swept her hand out in a vague gesture at Frank, Hazel, Leo, and Percy, “friends to thank for that.” 

Annabeth ignored her and turned a questioning look to Percy, silently asking him to tell her what had happened. Percy leaned in and whispered something in her ear before kissing her cheek as he pulled away. Annabeth’s face betrayed nothing about what Percy might have told her. She just nodded and turned on her heel, grabbing Percy’s hand and tugging him back up the ramp and onto the ship. 

Leo, Frank, and Hazel had no choice but to follow, and Nike, it seemed, deigned to join them. 

Percy and Annabeth waited for them on the deck before leading everyone down to the galley where Piper and Jason were talking softly as Piper tried to get Jason to eat something. 

“Look who I found,” Annabeth said as they walked into the room. “And they brought a new friend back with them.” 

Piper barely spared the goddess a glance before turning her gaze onto her friends, looking them over for any injuries. Everyone looked to be as healthy as they’d been before they left aside from some dried blood crusted around Leo, Hazel, and Frank’s ears and noses. She’d have to ask about that later. 

“My lady,” Jason said from beside her, though he made no move to get up and bow. If he had, she’d have wacked him upside the head for being stupid and forced him back into his seat. 

The goddess merely hummed and swept forward to pull a chair out from the table. She sat down, looking every bit as elegant and poised as a goddess should, and crossed her legs. She looked down her perfect, aquiline nose at them with curious eyes. 

“The deep bond of friendship and comradery between the four of you who found me was strong enough to heal my mind and bring my two aspects together, even if only momentarily, and for that I owe you my thanks,” the goddess spoke, and to Piper’s surprise she dipped her head at Percy where he’d found his own seat beside Annabeth. “And as my thanks, I shall tell you this: one of you four,” she locked eyes with Percy, Hazel, Frank, and Leo in turn, “Is fated to die fighting Gaea. There will be no victory for you without death.” 

The goddess’ eyes were sharp and cold as she swept her gaze across them all, her face a neutral mask as she no doubt gauged their reactions. 

Piper’s heart sank. She heard a couple of the others draw in sharp breaths and saw Percy stiffen, tightening his hold on Annabeth where she sat practically in his lap. 

“There has to be another way,” Hazel said shakily, tugging nervously on a lock of hair until Frank reached over to take her hand in his and squeeze it reassuringly. 

Nike/Victoria or whoever she was regarded Hazel consideringly. “I suppose Hecate taught you that, little witch,” she said, and sighed. “One of you will die. One of you must die if you are to succeed.” 

Piper opened her mouth to protest but the goddess held up a hand to silence her. 

“There is, however, a chance that perhaps the one who dies may be brought back. The physician’s cure. It is a powerful and dangerous potion, near impossible to obtain. Much stands in your way: the poison of Pylos, the chained god’s heartbeat in Sparta, the curse of Delos. Overcome the trials, and maybe you could cheat death.” The goddess stood and spread her large, glimmering wings behind her as far as she could in the galley of the Argo II. “I leave you with this: call on me when the time has come for your last stand, and I will come.” 

She disappeared with a rustle of feathers like falling leaves and a flash of gold. 

That was when Piper’s mind made the connection: To storm or fire the world must fall. They’d been operating under the assumption that ‘fire’ was referring to Leo, and that ‘storm’ meant Jason, son of Jupiter, the Lord of the Skies. But Jason hadn’t been one of the four to find Nike. She turned her gaze to where Percy now held Annabeth fully in his lap, his head tucked into the crook of her neck as she brushed her fingers through his hair. Piper locked eyes with the daughter of Athena and suddenly knew that she had realized it, too. 

She and Annabeth had made the same connection, something they had overlooked before, something that had been practically staring them in the face. There was someone else on this ship the prophecy could have meant, someone else who had been there to find the goddess of victory, someone else who might be fated die. Piper couldn’t believe that they hadn’t remembered it sooner. 

Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, lord of the seas. The Earth Shaker. 

The Storm Bringer. 

[miralyk]

oh lore for your nuzlockes???? i'm curious, what's on ur mind for " crosslocke " and characters like ethan

(the original drawing in question w reblogs turned off and what may have incited this ask)

AUGH sorry for not getting to this asap bc my house's power (and thus my progress finishing and uploading charm/sticker art) is still being fixed atm, but i have a lot on my mind!! this'll at least be an interesting read to hopefully have you guys interested and spend time biding on atm, so i won't put this under the cut.

crosslocke is basically just what i call "crossover" nuzlockes i've played and talked about before with friends; two years ago i was bored during spring break and wanted to play an omega ruby nuzlocke to be more interesting -> thus nicknamed everyone i caught after resident evil characters bc i was hyperfixated on the franchise at the time, and what started as a jokey theme ended up being "wait these ideas w how both pokemon/re click together are actually cooking", so it ended up being a pretty thorough au!

for my personal crosslocke runs, basically it's a gijinka and/or mystery dungeon sort of au where everyone's pokemon people, haha; my trainersona's a shiny zorua/zoroark with aura powers exploring the various regions, and meet other people and how they manifest both their pokemon powers and aura in unique ways. so far i have 4 crosslockes, so i'll summarize their concepts and what they're crossed over with:

rising ruby (enhancement hack for omega ruby) x "resident evil" = an aurapocalypse where instead of a biological infection, it's aura being mutated,, a new twist to re's viruses due to how chi philosophy, which overlaps both the physical and spiritual, work in people and the environment's aura. it's played both for comedy and drama, like ethan coming back, Again, but as an aura-mutated Ghost zombie,, But also still unaware of his new infected state until everyone starts screaming at his new look lmao

eternal x (enhancement hack for x) x "kingdom hearts" = the crosslocke world is one world that's an "unreality" like quadratum to the kh world, and explores how magic and light/fairy-types vs darkness/dark-types play out,, along with how technology that integrates such magic can either aid or abuse (eg kh's synthesized ultima weapon and pokemon's engineered ultimate weapon have some similarities, don't you think)

prismatic moon (enhancement hack for ultra moon) x "jojo's bizarre adventure" = after the reality-warping events of the resident evil and kingdom hearts crosslockes that tampered with the natural order/balance of aura, ultra wormholes open up to different realities and timelines, in which kao cooperates with various jojo characters "eyes of heaven"-style, esp given her unique circumstances of not being a stand user, but a hamon an aura user able to still perceive/interact with stands + directly control aura in general, which stand users are incapable of doing

sv+ (enhancement hack for scarlet) x one piece academy/gakuen, the spinoff au manga = kao's aura powers are basically seen as conqueror's haki when roped into an alliance with the straw hats to uncover mysteries of not just the academy's treasure hunt, but phenomena like terastalizing and area zero. again like any other crosslocke, mostly for fun, but there's still drama due to the game events, hooh boy LMAO

depending on how retelling these stories would go (realistically, maybe something like a "story recap/analysis video essay" and jaiden animations way of regaling stories to summarize the au and whatever's drawn for them), i'm open to playing more crosslockes and talking about them not to just friends in private, but publicly online! depending on how pokemon legends Z-A turns out, it could be crossed over with assassin's creed (given the precedence of isu technology and the overlap of ancient technology w history and humanity), stuff like that ( ´ ∀｀;; )

what i like most about crosslocke is how it funnily enough ended up being a fun and experimental thing like nuzlocke comics and the dnd-esque culture of drawing and artistically interpreting your personal gameplay + sharing the experiences with others, not to mention how it accidentally also became a homage to the very first nuzlocke (comic) itself,, a guy being bored with pokemon and thus played a nuzlocke naming everyone after pop culture icons/characters, especially the titular nuzlocke being a nuzleaf named after john locke from lost.

given the circumstances of the world and my personal life, i don't want to put all my eggs in one basket investing (too much) in these nuzlocke aus, but we'll see how it goes; i love unique ways of experiencing stories and sharing them, and especially as someone who has a lot of personal experience and friends with nuzlocke comics, something that's very underrated today, it'd be a lot of fun to at least try out a little in the future if things are able!

[toweroftickles]

Magical Wake-Up Call (Cats 2019 Fluff)

Cats, it must be said, are a lazy breed. This is common knowledge. But Victoria was not normally one to lie around in bureau drawers or on windowsills, sunbathing, licking her wrists, doing nothing. Well, except on her birthday.

Her & Misto’s human family had set up a simple oval cat bed, woolly in texture and faded olive green, in the corner of the drawing room and beneath the broad, white-framed window. Midday sun poured in and covered Victoria in a warm puddle of light, and you could see the dust in the air floating carelessly by the edge of her fuzz. A bundled-up peach-colored blanket served as a crude pillow for her while she curled into a comfy little ball, knees at her chest, purring contentedly.

Wow…she looks beautiful. Mr. Mistoffelees’ heart swelled. For the past half hour, a small beige-ish couch across from Victoria had been his resting place, and he was unmoving from a vulture squat.

He didn’t want to disturb her, not for anything, but he was getting antsy and impatient. It was Victoria’s first birthday with the Jellicles, and Misto was determined to make her feel like part of the tribe. With the help of Munkustrap - as he lacked organizational skill himself - he’d successfully encouraged everyone to do something special for her. Bustopher Jones gathered together a whole Jellicle Feast from his usual back-alley haunts. (Or rather, he’d enlisted others to do it for him and snacked on it during the journey over.) Jennyanydots knew how much Victoria loved her cockroaches and had worked out a last-minute mini-routine with them. The calico twins really went all-out, setting up a basket and pulley from an upstairs window to ferry the two above the streets and right to the Egyptian. Hopefully it would be romantic…that was the idea. But the longer Victoria slept, the more everyone else had to wait.

Maybe he could get her attention with something. Misto didn’t yet have any real, proper control over his conjuring tricks…his wand, his cards, and his dice were the only things he could produce with any consistency. But reaching into his hat or coat always seemed to give him exactly what he needed at any given moment. What would be in there today…a paper clip? No, that won’t help. A can of peaches…a flower…a rubber duck…

From inside his sleeve he finally pulled a huge, fluffy brown peacock feather, the kind of quill that some pretentious upper crust debutante would write letters with (or a toy that a cat would play with, were it on the end of a stick). It was the size of his torso and dressed in joyfully squiggly barbs.

He paused. A few glances, back and forth, between his arm and Victoria, and a lightbulb switched on in his head. Misto held his new toy out as he would his magic wand, grinning like a Cheshire, and silently tiptoed up to his mate. Oh, perfect…this'll be fun. 

The feather slowly stroked up and down the arch of Victoria’s foot, several times…it took a second, but the sleepy white kitten shivered. Her toes clenched up. There it was…a big smile.

“MmmmMMM-Hmhm,” a high-pitched giggle slipped out through her nose. Victoria snapped her arms and legs in like a beartrap around her makeshift pillow and struggled to keep her lips glued together. Her thin fingers clasped tightly at her sides, instinctively trying to shield her from further tickle attacks. Though she made efforts to hide her face, Misto still caught a glimpse of that pretty smile peeking out at him.

Now it was a little game for the both of them: for Victoria, to see how long she could pretend to keep sleeping. For Mr. Mistoffelees, how quickly he could make her laugh. And neither was intent on losing.

“Heh-Heh…come on; I know how ticklish you are,” Misto whispered to her, unable to hide his smirk. He had to hold Victoria’s ankles still as her feet tried to flex and squirm away from his giant feather. It tickled back and forth until her cheeks turned pink.

The soft bristles slowly traced across her pale soles…up her leg…on the back of her knee…her thigh…along her waist…toward her neck...every little brush made Victoria's shoulders tremble. She was a squirmy girl. Her tail danced happily in broad swipes like a metronome…tick, tick, tick….she wasn’t fooling anyone.

"Hmhm-Hm! *gasp* Hih-Hng...Nnnnnn," she whined. She was biting her lip, doing a pretty good job bottling her giggles, while the feather kissed her cheek and shyly slid up to her sensitive ears.

Hm…this wasn’t working. Time for drastic measures. Cracking his knuckles, Mistoffelees turned the quill around and scribbled its sharp tip, as if he were writing, in one of the little canyons in between his girlfriend’s ribs.

Aha! Got her! The white cat squealed quite suddenly and covered her face with both hands. Her flushed-pinkish ears sloped back in dreadful embarrassment.

“Heek! Ok ok ok, I can't t-hake any more…I pr-ha-homise to get up, please dohon’t,” she begged him, snickering helplessly. Her laugh had a wilting, musical sugariness that lured Misto in closer.

“Come on, sleepyhead...” Now that he’d won the game, there was no need to be shy. Misto wanted to look like some big, scary monster pouncing on Victoria from behind (just to be playful), though he was hilariously bad at seeming threatening…he couldn’t even manage a decent growl…and following a half-hearted hop, he awkwardly tumbled forward on top of her, snuggling her in his arms.

All ten of his fingers combat-crawled through the fields of snowy fuzz that coated Victoria’s quivery torso, up her belly and ribs, affectionately scratching her soft skin all over until he was tickling in both of her armpits. She wriggled desperately underneath him. Her insides warmed up like she’d just gulped down a mug of hot cocoa.

"Heh...I wonder who's having more fun here; you or me," the magical cat playfully taunted his mate. That just made her laugh even more.

“Heehee! Hih-Hih Hn…Haha, Ha-Ha!” Victoria giggled and giggled but didn’t want to stop, lost in the shower of nibbling kisses that peppered her neck. Her big grin was half from ticklish laughter and half from the sheer fun of tussling and wrestling with her boy. Pulled by her thin wrists, she was turned over on her back, breathless, trembling, and smiling sweetly up at Misto. Their fingers intertwined, palms pushing against each other, with Victoria unable to shove him away. At last she spoke, still a little giddy. “What’s going on?”

Suddenly, from behind her ear, as if he were retrieving a magic disappearing coin, Mr. Mistoffelees produced an elongated metal earring and gently attached it to her. It was sort of similar to the one she'd worn during her mischievous outing with the calicos – a tall shell shape of pearly pink-white texture, dotted with little veins of gold. She reached up and touched the jewelry when she realized it was dangling from her ear. It was a little big for her, but she always felt so beautiful wearing them - like a princess, she sometimes said. She was not vain, but it was a bit of a weakness for her.

“Heh…ha-happy birthday,” Misto told her, blushing. She smiled right back at him.

“Aw…mmm, thank you so much…but…why did you have to tickle me awake just to tell me that?” She didn't want to be annoyed or upset with him, really; she loved how affectionate Misto was. But part of her couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that her nap was cut short.

“Oh, well, I…um…I-I had a lot planned. Everyone’s waiting for you.” Victoria’s ears perked up. “It was kind of a big deal…I thought we could do some really…fun things today.”

Slowly, Victoria propped herself up on her wrists, and before Mistoffelees could react, zipped forward and pecked him on the end of his nose.

Time stood still, freezing Misto in surprise. His tail curled into a candy cane and his nose turned red, and this delighted Victoria as she stretched out, yawned softly, and stood from her cot. She moved with surprising buoyancy; by the time Misto snapped out of his blip of a trance, Victoria was already across the room by the door and admiring her birthday present in a copper wall mirror. She turned the earring over in her fingers again and again, practically radiating from the inside. There was a twinkle of light all about her, not just from the noon summer sun streaking through her fur.

“Come on!” she called her boyfriend excitedly.

Well…I certainly wouldn’t want to keep her waiting. Not needing any further encouragement, the gleeful Mr. Mistoffelees bounced up and dashed over to her, and soon the two were gone.

It was only in the trailer and not the finished film, but I always loved this shot of Victoria playing in pillow feathers. Not for tickle reasons; it's just cute. ^^

So apparently this is my niche now. This is the life I've chosen. I got this request (and finished it) a really long time ago, but I never uploaded it because I didn't want anyone to think I'm weirder than they already do. XD Don't worry, "normal" stuff is back on the menu soon.

[twstinginthewind]

“Happy Birthday Joker! And you too Punch!” Said Molly. “I hope today is most wonderful! I’ve gotten your gift right here! I do hope you enjoy them.”

Insides the personalized gift bags were embroidery designs for each of the siblings all neatly arranged in the little embroidery hoops. Bows, sweets, poker cards, and an accordion were embroidered for Joker and for Punch, there was a hockey stick, a ukulele, and a computer. “I worked rather hard on them, I do hope they’re to your liking.”

“HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!” Astrid was practically singing at the two. The light brown haired girl placed a golden paper crown on the twin’s head. “Back home, if it’s your birthday, you’re considered royalty for the day! So here’s your crowns!” Astrid then hugged Joker, and planted a little kiss on Punch’s cheek that smelled of her sugar cookie chapstick

“Before I forget! I got you guys something!” The gift ended up being a large box of chocolates and some ultra-soft blankets straight from the Aneira Kingdom.

“WE’RE NOT DONE YET, I’d like to dedicate this performance….to the birthday boy and girl” Ellis said as she took a microphone and a pair of heart shaped sunglasses. Ellis then gave her gift, a full on performance for the two of them! Featuring their favorite songs! With help from others, Ellis was able to serenade the two with thunderous applause at the end.

hopefully this isn’t too many ocs! And I hope you don’t mind the little astridxpunch mention! AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY NETTE!

It was Joker & Punch's birthday yesterday, but the party goes on!

"See, Punchy? I told ya it'd be fun for us both to hang at both of our parties," Joker said, nudging her brother with her elbow. "Besides, you know you like the tea party crowd. Now smile, here come my dormmates, and the Ramshackle prefect."

"I'm already smiling, chucklehead," Punch murmured in reply, giving a polite bow as one of their upperclassmen approached with gifts. "Good afternoon, Molly!! I'm glad we can all be here today; the weather turned out splendid for a garden party, hasn't it?"

"It really has," Joker agreed, peeking into the gift bag. "Oooooh, is that needlework art? Tell me you didn't design theeeese, OM7."

Punch turned his gently in his hands. "It's really, really cute! I have a space on my corkboard where this'll look perfect."

"Thank you!" the twins chorused, and gave Molly a proper and polite matched Queendom curtsey and bow, respectively. Joker smiled fondly at her senior as she rejoined the party, but Punch's attention was grabbed by the next in line to greet them. His cheeks went a bit pink as the freckled princess approached them singing.

"We better not let Riddle see these crowns," Joker giggled as she returned Astrid's embrace. "He's gonna think we're competing for his position, sweetie. But thank you so much!"

"It's an honor, though," Punch said, pressing his hand to his reddened cheek. "If you want to call me a prince for a day, Astrid? I'm not gonna argue..." He hugged the blanket to his chest dreamily for a moment as the chatter continued around them. "Hey, Jo? What's going on at the gazebo...?"

Joker turned her head and laughed. "That's a whole stage setup in there. Are we getting a live show?"

As if to answer, the speakers hummed to life, and Ellis's voice cheerfully broadcast her announcement. The twins looked at each other, grinning, then focused on the stage. Grim, snacking on a cupcake, pressed the play button on a boombox, and the performance began! Punch and Joker cheered along with the others (laughing merrily at the backup dancer antics of Ace, Deuce, and Epel) as the show went on, and singing along.

"Now, THAT'S a party," Joker cheered as the show wound down. "Thank you all so much!"

"It's always a blast with our friends," Punch added. "Everyone, you're amazing. Thank you!"

[prince-rowan-of-the-forest]

The Choosing Ball (3/?)

Janus rescues Roman from an unpleasant situation and from it finds himself burdened with feelings he's not quite sure what to do with.

Hopefully, Virgil can help him out.

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Warnings: Some TWs for this chapter:

Panic attack, vague harassment(not sure what to call that one)

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Whoo another chapter!

This does mean y'all aren't getting another chapter of the fae fic, but I've ran into some pretty bad writer's block because of exams, and the first five chapters of this one are already written. This'll be happening instead of the usual Sunday fic whenever I don't have something else to post whilst I'm attempting to kick the writer's block in the ass!

Also apologies for not posting last week, genuinely? I completely forgot, haha, oops.

Please enjoy regardless, and leave feedback if you can, it really helps me throw off the writers block xP

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The banquet had gone about as well as he’d expected. He’d ended up sitting next to Patton and across from Remus, which was awful in itself because Remus was both a messy eater and an awful flirt, and not even in an entertaining way. He was resolutely ignoring the noble girl next to him and her never ending attempts to flirt with him- no thank you, he was very much not into women and that was a standard he would stick with even when he had eventually had to choose. He had made eye contact with Roman once- the other prince was sitting further down the table. With Roman's earlier enthusiasm directed towards the banquet, Janus was surprised to find Roman's eyes almost cried for help. Janus almost felt bad that he couldn't offer him any.

Somehow, between all of this, he had managed to eat enough food to be satisfied without anyone calling him out for eating more than would be considered polite. Yet another trait that came with his curse. 

As the banquet ended and the royals began to file out of the grand hall, Janus had been prepared to head immediately back to his room and try his best to sleep without Virgil. Unfortunately his slightly upsetting plans were pushed back as he heard a call from down the hallway, glancing around to find that no-one else seemed to have heard, Janus huffed and stalked towards the noise.

When he turned the corner he was surprised to once again see Roman, though now he didn’t seem quite like the dashing prince he had portrayed himself as back in the library, now he looked almost like a mouse cornered by a cat- the cat in this situation now being two more noble girls who were attempting to persuade Roman to come back to their room to do who knows what. Roman noticed his approach and his eyes widened, practically begging Janus for help. Well, Janus wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to scare people who deserved it now would he?.

And also… something in him couldn't turn away even if he wanted to anyway, not with Roman looking at him like that.

“Hey!” Janus called, slipping neatly in between Roman and the women, "Back off."

He could feel Roman behind him, practically cowering and breathing quickly- sharp and shallow. From living with Virgil for so long, he knew the signs of a panic attack more than well enough to recognise them.

“Hey, come on, Prince, we were just having a little fun,” One of the girls pouted, the other nodded.

“We weren’t doing anything wrong,” The other said with a groan, “We were just being nice!”

“Something tells me he’s not interested ,” Janus hissed, leaning closer to them, one of the girls yelped at the sound, the other grabbed her arm and huffed, pulling her away in as sophisticated a manner as she could. As soon as they had turned the corner Janus turned to face Roman. 

“May I touch you?” Janus asked first, Roman stared at him, eyes wide in fear, “I want to help you and I will either way, but I need to know if you’re alright with touch.”

Slowly, Roman shook his head, as if testing whether that was ok, Janus nodded with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. 

“Alright, that’s ok,” Janus nodded, “I’m going to count, and I’d like you to try and breathe in time, alright?”

Roman nodded and Janus started to count slowly, breathing in and out between each number as he did so that Roman could copy him, slowly the other prince started to match the rhythm. Janus kept counting until he was certain that Roman’s breaths had returned to a regular rhythm and his shaking had ceased somewhat. 

“Thank you…” Roman said quietly, “I… that was incredibly un-princelike, my apologies,”

“There is nothing ‘un-princelike’ about being afraid,” Janus said, offering a hand, unsure of whether or not Roman would take it, “Come, we can go somewhere quiet where you can relax.”

Roman looked at his hand suspiciously, before looking back up at his face, which- he realised- was still half covered by the veil. It was strange how he’d gotten used to it so quickly. After a long moment, though, Roman took his hand.

“Alright,” Roman said, taking a deep breath to steady himself, “Lead the way, Janus.”

—-

“Is there a reason you hide your face?” Roman asked after they had sat in silence for far too long, only punctured by the fire crackling in the background. The candles in the library were already lit when they had arrived, but just as it had been earlier that day, the library was empty. Janus tensed, looking back over at Roman. He knew the question would be asked eventually.

It seemed that Roman had noticed him tense because the other prince tried immediately to retract his statement, but Janus just took a deep breath to steady himself, remembering Virgil’s earlier words, maybe Roman wouldn’t mind. 

“I bear a curse,” He said, before he could pull back the words, Roman stared at him in surprised, Janus took another deep breath and continued, “It has changed the appearance of half my body, including my face,”

“Is… that why you wear those gloves, too?” Roman asked after a second, reaching for one of Janus’ hands before hesitating, though before he could pull his hand away Janus reached out to take it. 

“It is,” He nodded, before hesitating, “Take it off, if you’d like, I’ll allow you to see,”

“...Really?” Roman asked, “Is that not- intimate?”

“Seeing my hand, Prince Roman? What a scandal!” Janus said, tone dripping with sarcasm, putting his other hand to his chest. Roman chuckled, shaking his head.

“That really did sound silly,” Roman huffed, before looking back down at Janus’ hand and carefully pulling off the glove, revealing the scaled hand underneath, with greenish yellow patterns and claw like nails, Roman placed the glove carefully down on the sofa between them before taking Janus’ hand in both of his now.

“Wow,” Roman said, cut with a little laugh as he brushed his thumb over Janus’ scales, he really hoped Roman didn't notice him shiver, “This is… I’ve never seen anything like this before,”

“It’s unbecoming,” Janus sighed, “That is why I hide my hand and face,”

“Unbecoming? Why? What’s wrong with it?” Roman asked, genuine confusion written across his face as he gripped Janus’ hand a little tighter.

“It’s ugly,” Janus shrugged again, “And it has to be hidden, that’s what I’ve always been told, anyway.”

“I disagree,” Roman told him with a smile.

“So does Virgil,” Janus looked away, “He keeps trying to convince me I’m pretty, of all things.”

“Well then, I personally agree with Virgil,” Roman said, his smile slowly becoming a grin.

“You haven’t seen my face,” Janus told him.

“You haven’t shown it to me,” Roman fired back, Janus rolled his eyes before looking away and lifting the veil and tucking it behind his crown to keep it away from his face, he blinked twice at the shift in light- although he couldn’t see quite so well through that eye regardless- and looked back at Roman. He stared, wide eyed and open mouthed. Janus was about to turn away with a muttered ‘I told you so’ before suddenly hands were cupping his cheeks, Roman was… touching him- and he… didn’t mind…? How odd. 

“I’m sorry,” Roman mumbled, pulling his hands away almost immediately and joining them in his lap, Janus had to try harder than he should have to resist grabbing his hands and putting them back, “I just- you looked as though you were about to turn away, and my voice wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do,”

“I see,” Janus said, feeling a little awkward. It was odd, how Roman’s hands had felt on his face, he could almost still feel it. Usually he wouldn’t allow people to touch him so much, Virgil being the exception, what on earth was it about Roman that made him trust the guy so much?

“I still think you’re very beautiful,” Roman said, smirking at him, “Your scales are like that of a snake, and snakes are such wonderful creatures, wouldn’t you agree?”

Janus took a deep breath, before standing up and stepping away from Roman. He let the veil fall back over his face and tugged the glove that Roman had removed back onto his hand, Roman looked started, “I… I believe it is time we should head our separate ways, Prince Roman, I am tired and would like to at the very least attempt to sleep before the ball tomorrow.”

Roman seemed to deflate at this very obvious dismissal, and he almost sat right back down, some irrational urge inside of him wanting to run his fingers through Roman’s hair the same way he did with Virgil, to lie with him and convince him that everything would be okay . Instead he just turned before he left the space they had been sharing.

“I’ll… see you tomorrow?” He said slowly, unsure. He didn’t know what this was, he didn’t know what Virgil would think about what he was feeling, and he definitely didn’t know what to do about it. He must have done something right, though, because Roman perked up a little and sent a blinding smile in Janus’ direction.

“See you on the morrow, my handsomest prince,” Roman said. Waving as Janus walked away. 

Well, that was something else to think about now, wasn’t it?

—-

It was difficult enough for him to sleep without Virgil by his side at the best of times. Let alone in an unfamiliar bedroom with three other princes, one of which was definitely viable to attempt to murder him whilst he slept. And not only that, which he’d expected and almost been prepared for, but now he had to worry about Roman on top of all of that. Janus was certain he wouldn’t be getting any sleep at all if he didn’t at least get to settle one of these issues. 

The other three occupants of his room were already sleeping when he- careful to be silent- pushed open the door. He thought for a moment that he could absolutely sneak out to go and find Virgil, but he pushed that thought aside until he had sat down on the bed, hair now truly loose once again after he had braided it before the banquet earlier and dressed into his bedclothes. He was vulnerable like this. He didn’t wear his gloves to sleep, because that would be incredibly uncomfortable, and his face was fully visible. Although he still wore long, loose sleeves he felt as though he was practically naked. 

The thought that he could go out and sneak off to find Virgil floated back into his head. He could talk to Virgil and he would be able to help Janus sort through this stupid mix of feelings he found himself dealing with. He’d be able to help him calm down, perhaps even enough to get to sleep, not to mention it would stop Janus from worrying about Virgil himself so much. 

He groaned quietly, knowing his mind had already made itself up, and stood, silently slipping out of the room and down the stairs,the soft slippers on his feet hardly making a single sound. 

It had taken him as long as it took to reach the low wall around the guard’s sector to realise that he wasn’t actually in the know as to where Virgil would be at this particular moment. He sighed, it would delay his plans a little, but he could sneak around a little more to find out, nothing too awful… it may just take a little longer.

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Tags: @full-of-roman-angst-trash @reptilianrapscallion420 @your-local-random-dino @cutebisexualmess @glacierruler @roseianxiety @bella-bugatti-frogetti-baguetti (if anyone wants to be added, let me know!)

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[kitkatt0430]

2, 8, 9, and 15 for the New Year's ask game!

2. Will you participate in any fandom exchanges or fic challenges, etc? 

I like participating in fandom events - prompt weeks, bingos, etc. I'll probably do a belated Flufftober for last years prompts soon, since I only filled... two of them? And hopefully next Flufftober I won't immediately feel my energy for writing snuff out on me.

Sadly it seems that some of the events I used to participate in have gone away. Hartmonfest being the most recent and the one I'm most sad about. I considered volunteering to take over running that one, but I didn't feel like I had the energy to really focus on it the way an event needs. Maybe if I'm feeling less worn out later this year I might reach out to see if I could revive it on a trial basis. I kinda feel a bit like I'd need to brush up on my photo manip skills though (gotta make a fun header for an event, right?) and... I haven't really done much in that area since high school with, like, the 2006 version of Photoshop in my graphic design class. So this might wind up being something I push off until next year.

8. Is there a story idea in your mental vault that you’ve never been brave enough to try writing? Is this the year? Can you tell us about it?

Usually it's not so much about being brave enough but having enough inspiration. That said, I've had a longer look at the body swap trope with Cisco and Hartley in mind for a while and who knows, maybe this'll be the year I finally start making progress on that idea. It'll be a more serious take than the fic I've already done with it - Cisco struggling to deal with Hartley's hearing while Hartley learns Cisco visions hurt a lot more than Cisco's been letting on - and it'll be something of a mutual annoyances to friends to lovers type deal.

9. Short term goals… what do you hope to complete this week or in January?

The Flufftober prompts. And maybe the Rose/Jack/Doctor week prompts I didn't finish last year. Try and get back into my writing headspace before I start tackling some of my older series again.

15. Do you foresee any personal or professional obstacles this year, that would keep you from creating fanworks? 

So the wasp problem isn't 100% over yet, but it's hopefully going to continue to be in decline. That was a big stressor for me last year - I think more than I realized at the time. If they do come back in bigger numbers, that'll probably stress me out again and slow my creative side down again.

The home reno I had going on last year was another source of stress and while I will be doing part two of that this year, it'll be much smaller in scale - mainly painting and replacing some heavily painted-over wood paneling with drywall, as the paneling as seen better days. No flooring replacements or turning reach-in closets into walk-in closets. So it shouldn't take nearly so long or be nearly so stressful.

I'm especially looking forward to painting the fireplace. It's brick, but kind of a dirty looking off white with a few splotches here and there where it got stained a kinda... puke green tbh. A dark gray paint with a new wood mantle will make it really nice, I think. It'll go well with the light gray I've used everywhere and I'm thinking a navy color for an accent wall. Or possibly two walls. Still in the early stages of decision making.

I'm aiming for spring for the reno, which should give me plenty of time yet to prepare. But I'd expect that to interfere with my writing time since I'll have to pack those rooms up beforehand and unpack them later. Also going to get some of the furniture (definitely the couch and a rug I've had ten-ish years) professionally cleaned. They've both been through a lot and could use a deep cleaning.

[adrianthevampire]

I'm also gonna breed my donkeys to a few horses! My donkeys aren't really as high quality as my zebras, so mules don't turn out as well. However, the horses I'll be breeding to my donkeys aren't riding quality anyways, so they're just cute pets and hopefully will make some fun mules.

The horses I'll be breeding to the donkeys are my cow ponies, a breed of horse recently added to HI3 that are meant to look like cows. I'm not sure they're super cow-like but I'm fond of them and I've made cute zorses with them before and this'll be the first time I'll be making mules with them!

As long as I don't cull down my mares in the meantime, and as long as some of my fillies grow up in time, it's looking like we might have 150 mares for zorse making! And I may get the special ability to increase the odds of twins before I do this breeding, meaning we may very well have a considerable amount more than the 150 foals. 😲

Here's some of the mares that will be producing Christmas Zorses.

The very top one is pretty special because she's leopard and double gaited. This means her zorse foal(s) will have appaloosa markings AND be double gaited. My mom's really excited for that foal because that's two of her favorite things!

I'm so excited for this, I can barely wait! But even if I wasn't waiting for Christmas, it still would take some time to prepare for this because not all of the mares I want to use are ready to breed, plus I need this time to clear out my stables a bit to make room. 150+ foals is a LOT. I won't be keeping all of them forever, of course, but I also don't want to be rushed into selling them because sometimes it's nice to watch them grow up a bit before deciding which ones are really keepers.

This is going to be my biggest zorse batch ever. I'm really hopeful that we'll get some really special foals.

I have big plans for Christmas on Horse Isle 3.

I'm going to breed a batch of zorses at just the right time so that they're born on December 25th. Their birthday will forever be registered as Christmas Day.

I'm really excited because I'm so in the mood to add a new zorse to my lineup and I have a TON of eligible horses for zorse making. I'm really hoping I and my family will find zorses that appeal to us out of this batch.

For those that don't know, I generally prefer to ride zorses in this game. Here are my current two.

Greyson and Baby. Baby is my newest and Greyson is a year (real life year) old.

I'm VERY picky about the zorses I keep for myself. I only have these two and one other, a black one I don't ride that much. And that's out of quite a few zorses I've made.

So I'm nervous and excited for this next batch. Really hoping I find one that I want. 🥺 I should have 100+ to pick from so the odds are good I think.

[underforeversgrace]

Welcome to Intro to Ghosts

Title: Welcome to Intro to Ghosts

Words: 2606

Chapter 1 of ?

Summary: Sure, turning sixteen was supposed to be a big year regardless, but this was a little beyond what Danny had expected when he'd both been told he was now king and then asked to be a teacher for the Intro to Ghosts class while also being a junior in high school. Now he has to juggle a secret identity, being a superhero, doing centuries worth of old paperwork Pariah didn't do, his own schoolwork, AND his students/classmates schoolwork! This'll be fun. Or catastrophic. Hopefully fun.

AO3

Danny was immensely grateful for ghost powers as he triggered his intangibility, letting the spit and drink mixture fall from him, after a cursory glance around to ensure no one was studying them too much at the table they had claimed outside the Nasty Burger. Tucker, the one who assaulted Danny with the gross mixture, was still laughing so hard that he held a hand to his chest, Tucker’s amusement currently greater than his need to breathe.

“You cannot be serious.” Sam said, ultra-recyclo vegetarian compliant burger halfway to her mouth.

“Okay, it isn’t that outrageous, guys!” Danny whined, balling up a napkin and throwing it at Tucker’s face. Hm, turns out fighting for your life on a weekly basis gave you pretty good aim!

“That… that was a good one, dude,” Tucker finally said, wiping tears off his face.

“I’m serious!” Danny grumbled, crossing his arms across his chest, a playful grin on his face showing he wasn’t truly upset.

“Danny. Do you really expect us to believe Ishiyama and Lancer offered you a job?” Sam said, finally remembering her food as she took a bite.

“Technically, they wanted me twice.” Danny informed, smirking.

“Excuse me?” The other two said simultaneously.

“They told me they originally wanted Phantom to do it but, as they said, ‘due to the hazard to his life posed by ghost hunters, it would be unwise to have Phantom at the school at set hours everyday.’ So they settled on me, good ole Danny Fenton. All the knowledge of the Fentons, none of the ghost hunting propensity.”

“That and no one knows how to find the elusive, mysterious Phantom long enough to offer him the job in the first place, I’m sure.” Sam said with an eye roll.

“Is this irony? This feels like an example of irony.” Tucker added.

“Do I look like Lancer, dude? Leave the literary device analysis or whatever to him.”

“Well, you don’t look like Lancer. But apparently you do look like a teacher.” Tucker retorted.

Danny laughed. “I still can’t believe it. Apparently, the school board thinks an Intro to Ghosts class is exactly the newest elective to offer when school starts back next month.”

“Not gonna lie to ya, bro, when you told us you’d gotten called in by those two, I thought they’d finally realized how many detentions you’d never actually served.”

“So, are you gonna do it?” Sam asked.

“The options are me, my parents, or the Guys in White.” Danny replied.

“So are you going to be by going by Danny, Mr. Fenton, or King Phantom? And do we have to call you that?” Tucker asked, a fake thoughtful look on his face as he propped his chin in his hand.

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

The next few weeks passed by in a hurried marathon for Danny as preparations were made, for both of his newly found duties. Sometimes he questioned if becoming a teacher was really a good idea - especially since he was the same age as his peers but doubly especially since he had now spent the last month of summer break doing teacher homework. Being a teacher had at least been voluntary, unlike the whole King thing!

But whenever he questioned if he’d made the right choice, his parents would make another tool to murder him with or the GIW would cause millions of dollars in property damage chasing a blob ghost, and he’d known the other options were, uh, not good to the point of being non viable.

Not that that had been the only training involving far too much paperwork he’d had to deal with this summer. Admittedly, the whole teacher thing made sense to have paperwork. But why did being the King of All Ghosts require so much paperwork? At least he hadn’t had to learn a new language, though. All paperwork was filled out in ghost speak - a language called Exspirate, which was fairly similar to Esperanto. Exspirate is a language that ghosts just know upon formation, both how to read and write. But Danny had had the joy of learning that different dialects were also a thing depending on where in the Zone the ghost formed and they were not always exactly the same!

So, yeah, between preparing the syllabus and material for his class and getting several centuries worth of paperwork caught up, Danny never wanted to read anything ever again.

It hadn’t been all bad, at least. His recent coronation had given him some authority over the other ghosts, who either respected him for his abilities or feared him for his power. He’d have to work on the whole ‘fearing him’ thing but regardless, both forms kept most ghosts off his turf. Invading another ghost’s haunt was a bad enough idea, but invading the haunt of the King and risking that which his Obsession demanded him to protect? That was a good way to find out what lay beyond the Veil.

Danny fidgeted with his backpack as he glanced at the clock again. Today was the day - first day of class. Lancer had decided to omit Danny’s name from the schedule listings that were being handed out today - leaving it with a simple TBA. Danny was quite grateful Lancer had thought of that - Danny’s Intro to Ghosts class was only offered during the last period of the day and Danny was anxious enough without having to field questions from his peers for the beginning of the day.

He’d been asked to show up early, to meet with Ishiyama and Lancer, and only them, before the day began. Apparently, even the other teachers hadn’t been informed of Danny’s new position. Danny had originally thought this was also to help protect him before the class started, but the glances Ishiyama and Lancer had given each other had given him reason to doubt. Were they… pulling a prank? Weird, teachers were people too. Wait, Danny was a teacher now! Of course teachers were people, he was a people! …mostly.

Drawing a large breath, Danny finally pushed open the front doors of the school, making his way towards the principal’s office. Despite being a junior now and having gone through these doors for two years at this point, something about crossing the threshold today felt different. He arrived at the office, where the door was open and he could hear the two’s voices in the room.

“Uh, hi?” Danny said, knocking on the door and peeking his head in.

“Glad to see your streak for being on time has continued since the end of last year, Daniel.” Lancer said, a friendly smile on his face.

Danny flushed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Heh, yeah.”

“Are you ready for today, Danny?” Ishiyama asked from her place behind her desk, fingers steepled together as she studied him.

The halfa nodded. “Yeah. Kinda nervous, though.”

“That’s perfectly normal,” Mr. Lancer reassured him. “And I will be right next door to you if you need me, alright?”

“I know the situation may not be normal, but being nervous on the first day of anything is very normal.” Ishiyama agreed.

“Here’s your class schedule for the year and the class roster.” Lancer said, handing two pieces of paper over to Danny. Danny scanned over both pages quickly. Pretty standard schedule - all the basics like math, science, English, and history were there. The only unusual thing about his schedule was the ‘free period’ directly before his last class of the day - Intro to Ghosts, administered by TBA. Danny wasn’t even going to ask how his credits worked like this - the Ghost class was still counting as one of his elective credits, despite him being the teacher of it. The free period was what the teachers called a planning period, he’d learned. Yet more time for more paperwork and grading.

“Is all your material ready?” Lancer asked.

Pulling his backpack from his shoulders and sitting it in an empty seat, Danny nodded, unzipping the light purple backpack that somehow had survived two years of ghost hunting and looked fine to survive two more. He pulled a binder out, handing it over to Lancer for review. Since there wasn’t exactly any textbooks on ghosts that weren’t either written by total quacks or required high level understandings of physics, cellular biology, chemistry, and theoretical plasma, Danny had had to make his own.

“It gives a pretty good look over of various things without going in to deeply to any one topic,” Danny began as Lancer flicked open the binder. “There’s sections on ghost culture and law, ghost psychology, the uses and behaviors of various types of ectoplasm, and history. History is the longest section. And I’ve cited my sources!” Danny was actually quite proud of how much work he’d done, interviewing various friendly and sometimes-friendly-sometimes-murderous ghosts to get as much information as possible, including consulting Ancients like Clockwork and Pandora. Besides, he’d already been learning law, culture, and history while he’d been preparing to be king, so he’d already had a head start. “Oh, did you hear back about bringing in guest speakers?”

Lancer’s eyes were still scanning through the binder when he replied. “The board has approved it, if the permission slips we send home today get signed. And your parents were fine with these expeditions into the Ghost Zone for you to get these…sources?”

“Absolutely, they know they’ve taught me enough to defend myself!” Danny lied enthusiastically. His parents didn’t even know he had this job, much less gone into the Zone. “And I’ll make sure the slips go out today,” he added, finally looking through the roster. The course was only available to juniors and seniors and had a twenty person cap, so he recognized most of the names. Sam and Tucker were there, of course, though all three had been warned to make sure they behaved and the other two would be removed from the course if they became a distraction. Valerie was there, too. Danny made a mental note to avoid mentioning anything that could be exploited as a weakness. Dash, Paulina, Starr. No Kwan, surprisingly. Mikey and four other juniors. Six seniors that sounded familiar to Danny, but he couldn’t place a face to the names.

“This looks good, Mr. Fenton.” Lancer said, flicking through the last few pages in the binder.

“Thanks! Jazz proofread it already, so the grammar and spelling and stuff is fine.”

Lancer nodded. “We’ll get copies made in time for your class this afternoon. In the meantime, class will be starting soon.”

A glance at the clock confirmed Lancer’s statement. Despite being here over an hour early, it was now only five minutes before the first bell. “So we’re really doing this, huh?” 

“Yes, Danny. Your first day as a teacher begins today. Gives a new meaning to the term student teacher, right? Huh? Huh?” Ishiyama said, poking her elbow into Lancer’s side.

Yeah, seeing his teachers be human was really, really weird.

Danny grinned, slinging his backpack over his shoulder, heading out the door.

As soon as he was out of sight of the principal’s office, he pulled his phone from his pocket. Sure, it was still technically before school and he was a teacher now too, but the instinct to conceal his phone from Lancer was too deeply ingrained at this point. Unlocking the phone, he clicked on a calculator app. Technically, it did have the functions of a calculator. Though that wasn’t what he used it for, keying in a long string of numbers. Sure, maybe it was overkill to have all three of their birthdays be his code, but he took the whole secret identity thing seriously! …even if maybe he should never have introduced himself as Danny Phantom.

He clicked the percent twice in quick succession once he finished the string of numbers and the calculator face moved away, showing the chat conversations he had going.

One conversation had a new message - non urgent so as to not actually send notifications to their phones - and Danny brought it up. It was the one he’d been going for anyway.

A profile picture of a poorly drawn, cartoon-y green blob ghost took up the screen, the words PhanPhuckingTastic loading… running across the bottom.

PhanPhuckingTastic loaded.

Missed messages - 

EatVeggiesNotFaces: I swear to Clockwork I am going to strangle Dash if he does not shut up.

TooFineTechie: kick his ass babe

EatVeggiesNotFaces: Not your babe.

Danny snorted as he read the messages,

TotallyNormalKid has rejoined the chat.

TotallyNormalKid: sup

EatVeggiesNotFaces typing…

TooFineTechie typing…

EatVeggiesNotFaces: Did you get fired yet?

TooFineTechie: i dont have the homework

TotallyNormalKid: you guys aren’t funny, you know that right?

TooFineTechie: ding dong ur wrong

EatVeggiesNotFaces: We’re hilarious.

TotallyNormalKid: be nice, I can fail you!

EatVeggiesNotFaces: And we can ‘forget’ and ‘accidentally’ leave you in the Thermos for three hours next time Jazz catches you.

TotallyNormalKid: that’s blackmail

TotallyNormalKid: you both get A’s!

TooFineTechie: boo-yah!

TooFineTechie: anyway wat schedules u 2 got?

TooFineTechie: Photo Attachment

Danny and Sam both sent the pictures of their schedules as well. Of course, they all had Intro to Ghosts together. All three were together in English and history, but those were the only two all three shared. Sam and Tucker had taken different electives - Danny’s second elective was technically his planning period - and Sam was in a higher level math class than them. Danny and Tucker had math at the same time but with different teachers. Third period English they all had together, but the first two classes of the day, all three were separate.

At least all of them had lockers together - not directly beside each other, but only a few apart.

TooFineTechie: well thats some bullshit

TooFine Techie: lmao danno good luck not failing math

TooFineTechie: cant copy of me or Sam!

TotallyNormalKid: rude

TotallyNormalKid: I don’t need your notes!

TotallyNormalKid: King, fam.

TotallyNormalKid: no ghost attacks

TotallyNormalKid: so no skipped classes!!

TotallyNormalKid: hoe

TooFineTechie: u love me tho

EatVeggiesNotFaces: Behave, children.

EatVeggiesNotFaces: Tucker, stop antagonizing the superhero/teacher.

EatVeggiesNotFaces: Danny, stop being a little bitch.

Danny laughed as he finally arrived at his first class, sliding into a seat towards the back, as close to the door as possible. This was a room he’d never been in before, so he immediately started scanning the room for points of entry and hiding spots. Ghosts could phase, sure, but for some inexplicable reason, most of his rogues still preferred to come in through windows and doors intangibly. And, sure, he should be safe from attacks now, but old habits died hard, especially ones caused by recurrent threats to life and limb (even if he wasn’t exactly alive and could reattach limbs.) He closed out the app, sliding his phone into the external pocket of his backpack, where it bumped against the Thermos he kept inside.

Jazz called him paranoid. Danny said he was just being realistic.

Though, she may have a point he mused as he pulled paper and pencil from his bag. The ghost attacks had rapidly dropped once Pariah fell through the Veil, too Faded from defeat and sleep to maintain his form any longer. Apparently, Danny being the next King was just common knowledge in the Realms and no one bothered to mention it to him. No one had anticipated Pariah would Fade, he’d survived centuries in there already. The last three months of the previous school year, Danny’s attendance and grades had rapidly improved. And that was while he had just been Prince, before he’d accepted the power of Crown and Ring.

Maybe he could stop being always wary, always on edge. About ghosts, anyway. Humans still scared him.