#too many consonants take some of them out

[shredsandpatches]

I was looking at my Mefistofele score to see what kind of ridiculousness the translator inflicted on "Son lo spirito che nega," and to my pleasant surprise it actually wasn't that bad? Until it got to the refrain, anyway. Imagine trying to actually sing the English text here.

[viennacherries]

Prompt suggestion <3 Rolan/Tav NSFW. Tav really likes it when Rolan speaks to her in infernal. She doesn’t understand it, but it doesn’t change the fact that it turns her on. He starts to notice her subtle reactions to when he curses or something in infernal. Which leads to bedroom shenanigans lol. My username is the same on A03 ^^

this has taken me a minute, mostly because i had to spend some time literally making up the infernal language for the purpose of this fic LMAO. if you're interested in my process it's in the end notes on ao3.

i changed the prompt a little though; rolan doesnt notice because he's very silly and keeps failing the perception check. lia notices immediently.

NSFW read on ao3 here

~~~

The first time Tav hears Rolan speak infernal, she doesn't even register it as a word. It slips past his tongue and it's all consonants and noises that she's not sure she could emulate properly with her non-tiefling tongue.

"Zurgan." He mutters it under his breath as he drops a pile of books.

Her quill stops midair where she's busy writing up an inventory of magical items they've found. With everyone else busy or gone from the city, she offered to help Rolan with organising the tower. It's been a nightmare, frankly. The previous tower master (she wont do him the privilege of speaking his name, the bastard) had apparently spent the last who-knows-how-many years stuffing things into random shelves and boxes.

She frowns as she tries to repeat the word, "Zu- Zurgan? What's that mean?"

Rolan jumps, clearly having forgotten she's in the room, "not zurgan, zurgan. It means- well, I don't know if it translates literally to common. It's... an expletive, I suppose ."

She laughs, "so it means 'fuck'?"

He huffs, and rolls his eyes, "I suppose that's a close enough approximation, yes."

"I don't think I've ever heard you swear before."

"Well," his brow is furrowed as he thinks, "I suppose I try not to, really. It's not becoming."

Tav snorts at that, "Gods, how old are you, 150? Besides, how is swearing in tiefling any different?"

"The language is called infernal, you uncultured swine. I'm a tiefling, I speak infernal."

"You speak something alright. Usually a crock of shi-"

"What did I say about it not being becoming, hm?"

She rolls her eyes at him, "so sorry, Master Rolan, please accept my humblest of apologies for disgracing your presence in such a regard."

He rolls his eyes at her, but she hears him snort and sees the quirk of his lip. "I suppose as far as apologies go, that one will suffice."

~~~

Several weeks later, Cal shouts through the door to the study where they're cataloguing evocation books, "Rolan! Lia and I are heading to the market, do you want us to pick up more of the wine you like?"

He laughs, which is rare enough in itself, and leans out the door to reply.

"Fazit drakon'ziz orum?!"

She hears Cal's responding cackle from down the hallway. "alright, alright, little drakon'ziz. I'll get 2 bottles, 'cos I love you."

When Rolan comes back in, chuckling to himself, Tav doesn't say anything. She wants to ask what it means, but she's... distracted.

Something about the way the words sound when he says them is... enticing. She's not sure if she could repeat them without butchering them, but even if she could she's sure they wouldn't sound as delicious as when they come from him. It's something about the rich tone to his voice, which she's always liked, coupled with the harsher edge it takes on when he speaks the foreign language.

Gods, she's been spending far too much time with him,

She clears her throat, "drakon'ziz?"

Rolan turns to her, still smiling, " drakon'ziz , but close. It means dragon."

His lopsided smile, aimed at her, coupled with the gruffness of the unknown word, is a little bit intoxicating.

"What about the rest of what you said? Fa- Fazit something?"

"'Fazit drakon'ziz orum?' It means 'does a dragon want gold?' It's a tiefling saying, basically means 'yes, obviously.' It just sounds better in infernal."

Tav agrees. It sounds rather lovely in infernal, in fact.

When Tav doesn't reply, he raises an eyebrow, "I could try and teach you some? Infernal, that is. If you'd be interested. Tell me something you want to be able to say, I'll try and teach you how to say it."

She thinks for a moment.

"What if I want to call someone a shit-head?"

He barks out a laugh as he rolls his eyes, "of course you'd just want to know how to insult people. I think the closest translation would be uzterku'zereb.  That means 'shit-for-brains'."

Despite the small jolt her stomach gives as he utters the phrase, she starts cackling. "That's even better!"

~~~

It's been about a month and a half since they started cataloguing everything in the tower, and it's basically become a nightly occurrence that Tav stays for dinner with them. Rolan has finally sat down at the dining table, after bringing all the dishes and cutlery through, and right as he hits the chair there's a sheepish voice from beside him.

"... Rolan~" It's Lia, in a singsong voice, and he huffs.

"What do you want?" It's a question, but it sounds more like an admonishment.

"How could you?! Assuming I want something from you. My beloved big brother. I look up to you so much. Also I left my drink in the sitting room."

You and Callum both laugh, and he makes a very dramatic show of pushing his chair back out with a huge sigh.

"You're such a..." He flails for a moment, as if the word in common has escaped him, "an uztanatez. Next time, you're getting it yourself."

She laughs, "My dear brother, I would fall on my sword for you."

"Mhm." He grumbles, " gladiz zurzum kuluz ..."

Cal nearly falls out of his chair laughing as Rolan trudges from the room, and Lia has a grin on her face from successfully riling him up and getting what she wanted.

Tav is blushing.

"What did he say?" She feels hesitant to bring attention to herself when she knows she's bright red, but she's also too nosy for her own good.

Lia looks at her and opens her mouth to answer, but pauses as she takes in Tav's face. Cal, blissfully, doesn't notice.

"Well the first bit was him calling her a suck up," he laughs through his explanation, "and the second bit was him telling her exactly where she could shove her sword."

She laughs, and thanks him for telling her. Lia is still looking at her. Her face warms more.

"What?"

"Hm." Lia smiles in a way that looks slightly threatening; the way Tav imagines a shark would smile at a seal before taking a huge chunk out of it. "Nothing, really. Only, you weren't that flushed before Rolan spoke in infernal. Got a thing for the devil's tongue, have you Tav?"

Cal furrows his eyebrows in confusion, before his eyes widen and his mouth drops in an 'o' of understanding.

She's about to deny it but she can feel that she's even redder now, so instead she buries her face in her hands. "Don't you dare! Don't you dare say anything!"

"Say anything about what?" Of course Rolan would walk back in now. He places Lia's cup in front of her and turns to Tav expectantly, but Lia speaks before she can.

"Tav is just embarrassed because she didn't understand what you said, she felt left out."

His face breaks into a look of confusion, "You shouldn't be embarrassed by that, Tav, you don't speak the language. Uztanatez-" Tav sucks in a breath, and Lia snorts, "means 'bootlicker'. Gladiz zurzum kuluz means... well... 'shove your sword up your rear'."

Cal and Lia are both sporting shit eating grins. Tav thinks now is a good time to pick a God and pray.

~~~

" Pulch'zer."

He says it as she walks through the door to the study one morning.

"Sorry, repeat that?"

His eyes widen, and his face flushes a deep crimson colour. She's never seen him blush before, or at least she's never noticed because of his skin's natural shade.

"Sorry I was just..." He averts his gaze, looking back at the paperwork he's working on, "I was just thinking out loud..."

She chuckles lightly. "Ah, that text will be kicking your ass then. Pulch'zer. What does it mean?"

He looks up at her again. His eyes lock with hers.

"You're close, it's not pulch'zer, it's pulch'zer . You have to put more emphasis on the 'Z' sound."

Gods, she needs to stop asking. He always ends up correcting her, and she always ends up going bright pink. He pronounces the words more precisely when he's teaching her how to say them, it drives her insane.

"Pulch- Pulch? Pulch'zer."

He chuckles, stands and walks over to her. "You're close, but now you're putting too much emphasis on it." He's only an arms length away from her now. " Pulch'zer ."

She gulps. He needs to stop repeating it.

"P- Pulch'zer." She can't tear her eyes away from him, she stares right into his gaze as she repeats it. He sucks a small breath in, so small it's barely noticeable.

"Yes. Very good."

There's a pause.

"So. What does it mean?"

He's flushing again. "It... Well. It..."

She raises an eyebrow, "that bad huh?"

"... it means 'beautiful'."

Tav's face twists in confusion. "What about your book is beaut-"

Rolan surges forward and plants his lips on hers. She gasps into it, the rest of her words swallowed by her inhale and his tongue. She sinks into it. His hands fall onto her waist, and he uses them to drag her closer, pulling the whole length of his body against hers. When he pulls away it feels far too soon, but in his defence he's breathless. He only leans his chest away, his hips still against hers.

"I wasn't talking about the book."

The look in his eyes is vulnerable in a way she's never seen him before. As though he desperately wants her to understand, and yet is terrified that she will. Like he's scared to fracture whatever comfortable thing they've fallen into together.

"Well..." She takes a deep breath, rests a hand on his chest. "Then I'd like you to know that I think you're very pulch'zer."

He sucks in through his teeth and lets out a single disbelieving laugh. "That sounds ridiculously good when you say it, you know."

She snorts, dismissive, "please, it's far better when you say it. I love when you speak infernal."

He stares at her.

She feels her eyes bug out of her head as what she said hits her. "I mean! Not that- I don't mean that like-"

"You love it? What does that mean?"

She can feel the heat in her face. Suddenly everywhere he's touching her is too much, she needs to fall through the floor to a new realm and start her life over with a fake name.

"I don't- I didn't mean-"

As she fumbles over her words, Rolan's face starts to lift into an understanding smirk. "Oh. I see. You love it."

He leans forward towards her, and his lips brush her ear.

"Tibiz plazet link'zon mezoq ?"

She shudders, "Rolan, I have no idea what you're saying."

He chuckles lowly against the shell of her ear. " Zedzit'n, nul'umne? Zede illizquit diko ."

Gods, it's torturous. He's dropped his voice an octave, giving the already heavy words an even more gravelled tone. Her breath is coming out in pants and she whines. The way it's affecting her is ridiculous.

He doesn't stop, " morentez me'zam? Notzo'illi ."

"Rolan, please."

He grins against her, and she feels his length pressing against her body through his robes. " Quid plaket, dilekt'miz ?"

" Rolan , common tongue, please . I want to know what you're saying."

"I said 'please what?'"

Tav huffs in irritation, "I don't know."

He brings his lips up to brush hers, smiling against her as she tries to pull him closer.

"Do you want me to kiss you again?"

She swallows hard around the lump in her throat and nods.

"Mhm. Ask me nicely."

The noise she lets out is embarrassing, a high pitched whine that she couldn't stop if she tried, but she feels his breath against her lips as he exhales in excitement.

"Kiss me, Rolan. Please."

His smile is wide against her, "as you wish, pulch'zer."

When he kisses her, his lips are gentle against hers. Soft and pliant, eager but restrained. When he parts them slowly, she responds in kind and finds his tongue with hers, and he rewards her with a deep, sensual moan from low in his throat. His lips are warm and soft, his mouth tastes of spearmint, his breath flows through her. She feels her small-clothes growing damp.

As he deepens the kiss his movements grow more insistent, more intense, and he squeezes her hips as he grinds her into him. She moans in response and the noise flips a switch in him. All of a sudden his lips are frantic, the kiss turning messy and needy, and his hands are running up and down her body as thought they don't know where to settle.

He pulls back enough to speak, his breath dancing along her lips, his voice barely above a whisper. " Nezkiz quid'mih fakiaz. Volui'illi tamd'umne ."

Tav moans, long and slow as the words rush over her skin, "Gods, Rolan. I wish I knew what you were saying. Fuck ."

He chuckles quietly, "perhaps I'll teach you Comprehend Languages. Then again... Forzit adv'illi."

She groans. "Rolan, please ."

He grins, grinding his length against her, "please, what?"

The huff she lets out is impatient, "you know what."

His mouth traces the shell of her ear again and she shivers. "Perhaps. But tell me anyway."

She groans, "please fuck me, Rolan."

He needs no further invitation. Rolan undresses them both rapidly, swift and efficient just as he treats his work, and they're both bare before each-other in a few moments.

When he looks over her, sweeping his eyes across her form, he lets out a low noise of appreciation. "Hells, Tav, you're beautiful."

She feels nervous, all of a sudden, bare before him, but she smiles despite it. "So are you."

He's back on her, trailing his lips along her throat and collarbone, leaving teasing bites and grazes with his canines. She's a whimpering, writhing mess beneath him but she doesn't care. She can feel his length pressed against her stomach, can feel the grooves of the door on her back, and she's absolutely aching with need.

"Is this okay? Are you comfortable?" His questions make her chest ache with a different kind of need to the one pulsing through her core.

"Yes, Rolan. Please, for the love of- fuck me against this door."

His moan in response to her words is loud and wanton. " Hells , Tav. Lift your leg for me."

She does, and he grabs under her knee, lifting it up so it wraps around his hip, the heel of her foot against the base of his tail while her other foot stays planted against the floor. His other hand comes between them, grips the base of his cock and rubs it against her folds. She throws her head back as she keens, and at the same time he lets out a groan closer to a growl.

"Fuck, you're so wet. Is- This is still okay? You want this?" His voice wavers with lust.

Hearing him curse is almost as incredible as hearing him speak infernal. "Yes , Gods if you don't-"

He's sliding himself into her before she can finish her threat, and the rest of her words fizzle out into a high pitched moan as she throws her head back. His length is ridged and she can feel every notch as it slides into her. He works his way into her slowly, thrusting only an inch at a time until his pelvis comes to rest against hers, and he folds over to rest his forehead against her shoulder.

His first half of his sentence is muttered, the second half directed at her, "Tam strikta , fuck. Ita infek'tum strikta. Tell me when you're ready, dilekt'miz."

"I'm ready, please, fuck me."

He silences his own moan by clamping his mouth over the meat between her neck and shoulder, and begins thrusting shallowly. The slide of him inside her, the ridges on his shaft dragging against her walls, has her tightening her leg around his waist and dragging him closer. He grunts through his mouthful of her skin and starts to pick up his pace, until he's thrusting hard and fast into her.

She's a mess, and she knows it, but it doesn't matter. She's digging her heel into his ass and arching her hips away from the door to get closer to him, head thrown back and eyes wrenched shut. It's too much, but it's not enough. She grabs his hand that isn't holding her knee up and places it round the back of her other thigh. He's a quick study as always, taking a firm hold on the back of her leg and hoisting her other leg up around him, so she's held up against the door by just his weight against her and his bruising grip. It changes the angle, he drives deeper into her, and they both moan in tandem.

He's speaking again, infernal dialect spilling from him freely into her skin, " Nezkiz. Nezkiz quam di'tez vellem. Quamdiu korpuz tuum'kontraz petivi. Vid'tez habzeq. Miz'tib animez'umne ." He speaks the words with a reverence that that has her keening, clenching around him.

"Rolan, I'm so close, fuck don't stop."

He shakes his head, thrusts into her harder, "Hells, I won't, Tav. I won't, I won't, adv'illi, adv'illi -"

The utterance of more quiet infernal words against her tips her over the edge, and she finds her release around him. His movements become stuttered, desperate, " Tez amorez. Tez amorez taz'multo. Perfik'miz. Amaz, amaz, num'quam latuz dezeraz. Morent'illi anim defendam."

He follows her over the precipice and empties himself inside her. She tightens her hold on him with her legs and kisses his neck as his hips twitch through his release, and as he stills they both try to find breath against each-other's skin.

"Gods, Tav." His voice is hoarse, "you- that was- I-"

She chuckles, which makes her walls clench and his hips stutter as he gasps at the feeling. "That was amazing, Rolan. What... Um. What were you saying?"

She pulls away to look at him, and his face is incredibly red. His freckles are barely visible through the violent blush. "Oh, um. Nothing- Nothing, really. Nothing important. Just... babbling. You know."

She laughs, slowly lowering her legs to the ground, both shuddering as he pulls himself from her. He mutters a quick incantation and they're both clean.

"You're going to have to teach me Comprehend Languages, now. I'm far too nosy to leave it at that."

"Hm. We'll see."

~~~

Translations:

"Tibiz plazet link'zon mezoq?" ("You like when I speak to you in my native tongue?")

"Zedzit'n, nul'umne? Zede illizquit diko." ("But you don't care, do you? It's not about what I say.")

"Morentez me'zam? Notzo'illi." ("Moaning for me already? Aren't I lucky.")

Quid plaket, dilekt'miz?" ("Please what, my beloved?")(he lies and tells her it means "please what?")

"Nezkiz quid'mih fakiaz. Volui'illi tamd'umne." ("You have no idea what you do to me. I have wanted you for so long.")

"Then again... Forzit adv'illi." ("Then again... Perhaps I won't.")

"Tam strikta, fuck. Ita infek'tum strikta. Tell me when you're ready, dilekt'miz." ("So wet, fuck. So tight and wet. Tell me when you're ready, my beloved.")

"Nezkiz. Nezkiz quam di'tez vellem. Quamdiu korpuz tuum'kontraz petivi. Vid'tez habzeq. Miz'tib animez'umne." ("You have no idea. You have no idea how long I've wanted you. How long I've craved your body against mine. I have dreamt of having you like this. My soul burns for you.")

"adv'illi" ("I won't.")

"Tez amorez. Tez amorez taz'multo. Perfik'miz. Amaz, amaz, num'quam latuz dezeraz. Morent'illi anim defendam." ("I love you. I love you so much. You complete me. Please, please never leave my side. I would protect you to my dying breath.")

[wobster109]

Dissecting the post-Sunday conversation between Ratio and Aventurine

This conversation is not, as many are interpreting, proof of Dr. Ratio's loyalty.

It couldn't be: they are still in the dreamscape, where the Family's eyes and ears are everywhere. No, this is a post-mission debrief, heavily encoded and disguised as a quarrel.

Dr. Ratio: You look pale. Or, is that also part of your act? Aventurine: Didn't think you'd have the nerve to show yourself. Dr. Ratio: I thought this was exactly what you wanted. After all, I faithfully fulfilled my duties as you instructed. Dr. Ratio: Just tell me if you can't hold on any longer. Aventurine: So, the "genius" of the Council of Mundanites wants to be my undertaker now? My… what an honor.

First part of the convo. Aventurine is playing his part perfectly. He’s acting angry and hurt: Ratio you rotten betrayer.

Interestingly, Ratio is slipping. Are you ok? Tell me if you can’t hold on. It almost sounds like he's a bit unsure about what happened. "I thought this was what you wanted", like he's asking for reassurance in some form.

Aventurine has to work hard to drag Ratio back on-script. "Have you forgotten, Doctor? You betrayed me." It's a hint and a reminder: stick with the plan, Doctor!

Dr. Ratio: Yes, and I'm pretty sure the people at the Strategic Investment Department would love to be notified of your death in due time, but let's not forget you won't be seeing them, because I'm the manager of this task. Aventurine: Great, then tell your people that Aventurine is ready to go in seventeen system hours.

Ratio asks for instructions (disguised as a taunt), and Aventurine provides them. I'm not entirely sure what instructions were given. It seems to be What should I tell the IPC? / Here's what you tell them.

Aventurine: My conversation with Sunday convinced me that there's a traitor in The Family, and that they hold the secrets of Penacony… So, I took the opportunity to set everything in motion. Aventurine: I even managed to recover the gift money. Things haven't gone this smoothly since I walked through the doors of The Reverie… Now, I'm only one step away from victory. Let's just wait and see.

Confirms that everything is on track. I believe the line about the gift money is actually him confirming that he has the aventurine cornerstone.

Dr. Ratio: Sounds like a very elaborate way of saying that you failed. Aventurine: That's all I can say. Have you forgotten, Doctor? You betrayed me.

This sounds like a bit of a warning from Aventurine. Remember we can't say too much here.

Dr. Ratio: You've got a lot of nerve — how exactly do you plan on completing your task while you're hands are tied by The Harmony? [...] Dr. Ratio: That's true, but what's your plan? Did you conceal an Orbital Support beacon in that gift money bag?

This is interesting. Ratio doesn't know the full plan! I imagine he's tremendously on edge. He's fishing for info, again disguised as taunts, specifically info about how Aventurine is going to get himself out—but of course, Aventurine can't say it out loud, not in the dreamscape.

Ratio is at the breaking point.

Dr. Ratio: Fine. Here, take this. Open it when you're on your last legs. You'll thank me.

YES this is what I was waiting for, the moment when his whole voice changes! His usual tone is very much like giving-a-speech. He pronounces each word and syllable with precision, and clearly enunciating all the ending consonants.

Not here though. It's all grumbles. I think this might be the first time we're seeing cracks, and the personal Dr. Ratio is showing through instead of the public-speaking one.

Aventurine: You catch on pretty fast, Doctor.

He caught on that he was supposed to play along and not say anything that outright gives the plan away. (In my opinion he was pushing it a bit.)

I wonder if that's why he pulls the sudden disappearing act. He's slipping up, and/or bad at saying good-bye. Can't trust himself to get another word out. 🥺

[sebsbarnes]

enticed || vincent renzi

vincent renzi x reader

summary: vincent can't help but struggle through work with you as the prosecutor

warnings: none

word count: 645

other vincent work ; masterlist

god, he fucking hated the way you sauntered down the hall. the sound of your heels clicking against the tile floor like some piece of music. the distant sound of your voice taunting him in a way you weren't even aware of. the perfume you wear somehow became the air in the hallway, it was floral with a hint of spice, and vincent knew it would be on his clothes.

court was out of session for the day which vincent was grateful for but also a part of him wanted to be back in the courtroom. something about watching you work was intoxicating. the way you would purse your lips, eyebrows pulled together, listening to the defendant speak. vincent would pace back and forth on the floor pausing to stop in front of you to emphasize a point. he was silly to think you give him any other look than that smug face you'd pull, eyes slightly narrowed, the corner of your lip turned toward the ceiling.

"maître renzi," you'd hum, the consonants and vowels have been spoken together many times but the way in which they floated off your tongue was a sound vincent had never heard before. as if his own name and title were foreign.

you would stand before him, only the wooden barrier blocking him from you. you spoke to the room and the judge arguing as the prosecution. the confidence you had was mesmerizing and vincent would watch as you stood mere inches from him and take in the way you stood tall, shoulders back, hand resting on the railing gesturing every so often. he found that his hand ached and his fingers longed to outstretch towards you, and just as his middle finger twitched up you would look down at him with a pleased smile and walk back to your seat saying, "maître? what do you have to say?"

truthfully, vincent had no fucking clue what to say. he was too busy watching you to even compute the words you had just spoken previously. nonetheless, he'd rise from his seat, push open the wooden gate, and approach the person he is supposed to be defending with his life. vincent would find some roundabout way to address whatever you may have talked about but he couldn't help notice the raised brow on your forehead as your eyes followed his pacing figure. he was caught, you weren't naive to the way you affected him. with each new case, you'd always hoped he would be on the opposing side.

"ah maître vincent," your voice rang out as he entered the room where you currently were gathering your belongings.

"please, it is just vincent. we've known each other long enough now, right?" vincent retorted, fixing the sleeves on his button-down.

you shrugged your bag onto your shoulder, "just showing my respect to someone who's been in the field longer than me. great work today, by the way," you paused briefly, "brought up some good points i hadn't considered."

vincent hesitated, his eyes examining your face, "you're teasing me, aren't you? you already knew my points of argument today before you even set me up for them."

he watched as your lips pulled into a wide grin and a soft laugh escaped your nose. you were clever and brilliant, far too good to be a prosecutor in a small idyllic town. these qualities only attracted vincent to you more. for months now he only ever knew you inside the courthouse and he hoped for the day he'd see you outside these walls.

you stepped towards him, placing a hand on his shoulder and bringing your lips dangerously close to his ear, and with a whisper you said, "goodnight, maître."

with a drop of your hand, you were no longer standing beside him, and once again the melody of piano music rang through the hallways.

[srbachchan]

DAY 5798

Jalsa, Mumbai Jan 1/2, 2024 Mon/Tue 12:20 AM

🪔 ,

January 02 .. birthday wishes to Ef Smita Buch .. Ef Nita Menon .. Ef Mohammad Amin Sarwar from Faisalabad, Pakistan 🇵🇰 .. and Ef Minie Manal from Russia 🇷🇺 .. love and affection .. 🙏🏻🚩

The hand goes in repetition to the 12 and '23 .. and then you realise it's done .. it is now 1 and 1 and '24 ..

It was the 31 st that was intriguing .. last DAY of the week , last day of the month , last day day of the year 🥹 .. pretty darn cool .. naaah !! .. too Gen Z colloquial .. errmm .. "it was rather coincidental" .. hmm .. better .. !

😁

So the year endeth as does the 23 to 24 .. bringing as is often expressed , a better year .. blessed and hope filled with achievement and prosperity ..

But they all say that at the end of the year .. always .. and then the year takes over and performs according to its willing .. to be assessed when it shifts from 24 to 25 .. and on ....

The celebrations on the turn of the tide remained quiet, sombre and mostly on solitudinous thought .. no reflections on what went by .. it never does bring any reflect .. and the memory simply fails to bring those visuals alive .. indeed the memory fails to bring many of the past, alive .. moments , names , incidents , details and places - there at the tip of your tongue, but ailing, yes ailing, not failing, to form those magical words ..

🙃

words that were readily available at the drop of the 'proverbial hat' ..

'proverbial hat ..' ?

where on earth did this expression come from ..

AAAAHHHH .. found out ..

'The phrase “at the drop of a hat” originated sometime in the early 19th century when it was common for people to signal the start of a fight or a race by literally dropping a hat or waving it down through the air.

This signal would prompt the participants to start fighting or running immediately. As years passed, the phrase took on a broader meaning and became associated with almost any activity done without a second thought.'

hmmm .. nothing very bright or original ..

but the GOJ is ever original and filled with the love of the well wishers and a joy as ever to be in their midst every Sunday .. and the consideration for having the drinking water available , ad also the fans that sprinkle a thin layer of the acqua into the audience just to keep them cool and comfortable ..

some complained that they were positioned right in front of them so they could not see, so had pedestals made for them and hope that the well wishers are adapting to this immediate request of theirs ..

see the fans on either sides of the gate .. ?

🕺

... the namaste .. hmm .. the little finger still struggling to straighten out after the surgery .. well .. most of the hand is struggling .. its strength not back to normal .. holding writing with pen and several other deeds that hands are involved in , are in limbo ..

The medical says it normally takes 5-6 months .. !

The hand .. the most complicated machinery on the human body .. serviced by several nerves .. in fact three of the fingers serviced by one particular nerve .. one and half finger serviced by another .. and the remaining by another ..

amaze .. !!

I often ask the medical professionalists how and what they feel when they - who are privileged to have access to the workings of most of the elements in the body - feel, at the complexities of our human system and its working ..

And they seem perplexed that we should seek such information .. for, for them, it is the education, medical degrees address .. much as the grammar equations they teach at English language classes or the attaining of degrees in their education .. the adjective the adverb the consonance et al .. frightening moments for me .. never could understand these delicacies of the language and still do not .. much of the reason I rejected BA English and took up BSc .. but then those 'delicacies' were equally non understandable !!!! 😳

see ya .. and love ❤️

Amitabh Bachchan

[physalian]

The Fantasy Language Translation Matrix

Whether you intend to write your own full-blown lexicon with different verb tenses and formal vs informal language, need unique words for spellwork, or just need new names for all your foreign places, behold… the Physalian patented Fantasy Language Translation Matrix.

(I kid. I have no idea if I’m the first to come up with this)

**Disclaimer!** After rolling out your fresh new vocab off the word assembly line, make sure you google it and that it doesn’t already exist and mean something you don’t intend.

Step 1: Pick your Derivative

You can make it sound completely foreign and like total gibberish, but I find it easier for you and other people to read if they have some real-world reference to compare it to, and so they have a clue for which pronunciation rules to rely on. For example: I did not know who René Descartes was my freshman year of high school. His last name was in my algebra book, and I, thinking he was Greek like so many other ancient mathematicians, pronounced his name as if he were Greek “Des-kart-ees.” I got made fun of.

Spare your readers the humiliation.

So say I want a vaguely… Russian/Latin/Italian influence. As opposed to French. Cool. That’s my starting point.

Step 2: Reorder the most common letters from English to your new language

In English, the average use of the standard alphabet by letter in order is this:

Ignore your vowels for a second. I don’t use charts like this on the regular, I use the Wheel of Fortune method and focus on RSTLNE, then go from there. I also want to make sure this isn’t a complete 1:1 ratio so it’s not super obvious I’m just juggling letters around, so I’ll knock out some “duplicate” letters and swap out singular letters for specific sounds.

The goal of this isn’t to stare at two existing language matrices and perfectly match them up, it’s to take the most common sounds and letters in English and make them new, common sounds in your new language, to sound more uniform and like you have a real etymology.

And I end up with this:

This might look a little confusing on how I got from A to Z so the basics:

All my vowels remain in the same place, they just get juggled around so I don’t end up with 8 consonants next to each other and word garbage

My “duplicate” letters are combined so I have more room for the new sounds, like c/k, f/ph/gh, h/wh, s/z. The new sounds then get the spare letters I had left over

Common english suffixes get reduced down so the pattern isn’t as obvious

If you want to include accent marks, this is your chance

I wanted to really emphasize the long “e” and long “i” sounds, so those got extra attention

Step 3: Translating

Oftentimes this is not perfect, or you end up with a word that just doesn’t fit the rest of your new vocabulary, because English is the bastard lovechild of German, Latin, Danish, and French.

I start with English, usually, but if the English word is too short or too long, I translate it first into another language, like Spanish, and go from there. Like “bus” vs “autobus”.

Using your matrix, go one by one. Let’s use a word like “letter”.

English: L-E-T-T-E-R

New: T-A-C-C-A-Z

Step 4: Polishing

So now I have my new word: “Taccaz”

Which is serviceable. I can throw an accent on either A or fiddle with the Z. I can start with “carta” instead and end up with “kizci”. The matrix is just a starting point. It’s designed to streamline the process when I’m otherwise feeling uncreative and in a rush, and it moves very quickly when I need to come up with full phrases and sentences that someone would actually say.

Step 5: Full sentences

This is only if you’re really digging deep and not coming up with the occasional fantasy curse word or new name for your fantasy land/realm/noun etc.

For this you’re going to need lots of tables. I based mine off romance languages because I know Spanish and romance languages make sense. This is where you decide how many pronouns, if any, you’re going to use, how the infinitive changes based on past, present, or future tense, how many nouns the word references, etc.

This is… a lot. Way more than you’d ever need for your manuscript. Ever. But I did it just for my own sake. Does it get long? Yes. Does it get tedious? Yes. The point here is to have little pre-manufactured word bytes you can plug and play with, with as little mental effort as possible so you can save it for the rest of your work.

I also came up with very common words already conjugated, like “to be” so I can just glance and type without having to remember to take “is” and go through the process over and over again.

Which means that I can take an entire sentence and translate it to my new language in about two minutes.

English: The payoff is worth it, this is so satisfying. New, roughly: Nu kioyb ela fyzip ne, iski ela valo nicenbalaev.

Of course, you can keep tinkering until you get something that’s easier on the eyes (I’ve been working with this language for years so I can read it pretty well), but not all languages are smooth and pretty and simple.

To be frank: Most readers will just gloss over this stuff anyway, but it shows that you put in the effort and it enhances the lore and the immersion when you do this. At least in the written medium. You can’t ignore it if this is meant to be in a screenplay.

Is this what a language professor would do or recommend? Probably not, I have no idea. Does it work? Yes. I have a fully functioning grammatical system where any input can give me a legible output.

To make this yourself, just change the order of the letters around, adjust your shortcuts, and come up with your own common sounds for those last two rows. The conjugation matrix is where you can really make it distinct, assuming you are basing yours off a romance language, which you don't have to.

—

And there you have it!

Don’t forget to vote in the dialogue poll before it closes!

[y-rhywbeth2]

Naming Systems #2

Elves and Drow, part 1 (and people descended from them)

Given names | Surnames (Houses)

-

Given names may in fact be a big deal, as are clan and house names. Elven names are not the most pronounceable in the world.

Shockingly(!) the elves have a stupid amount of lore and then I got carried away examining sourcebook names and created a self-indulgent monstrosity. Once again, this is one part canon and one part educated guessing.

Long post:

Elves have their given names and their surname.

Child names are a long since antiquated practice amongst the elves of Toril, and the name given to a child at birth is normally their given name rather than one they had to 'earn.' Nobles are known to name their heirs after themselves; so you can get Garynnon I and his son Garynnon II. There's a trend of giving half-elven children gender neutral names.

Apparently discarding/changing your name is frowned upon: "An [elf] can of course have almost any birth name, and will rarely change it out of shame."

-

For surface elves the surname is the name of the commoner clan or noble House (or high House) they were born into. Although apparently: "they tend to dislike the term “clans” as being “too dwarvish”", so even if you're not a noble you're liable to refer to your family as "house [name]." The line between noble and commoner families is blurrier and more prone to fluctuation amongst elves anyway.

For Lolthite drow only the nobility and those who hold titles may use the House name as their surname. It is also forbidden for a House to have a name that begins with L, lest we tempt Lolth's wrath or amusement (depending on her mood). Both moods are to be avoided.

Houses all have family crests and house colours, the latter of which I believe members of the house (meaning relatives and servants who work for the family) are supposed to wear to show their affiliation.

Some moon elven houses, and a few wood elven, appear to have officially translated their house names into Common. "Moonflower," "Hawksong," "Silverspear." The gold elves have not, likely because the majority would sooner see their lineage go extinct before doing that. Even the progressive ones are raised in a culture that considers preservation of unchanged elven culture as a god-given duty.

Noble houses all have their histories and colours and etc, and they took up an insane amount of space so a brief overview of those is a part 2.

In the meantime here are some vague surface elven house names who don't have detail that I know of, so you can make up whatever:

Surface: Amalith, Braegen, Calaudra, Eveningfall, Laelithar, Moondown, Tarnruth, Arruar

And here are some commoner drow surnames:

Xiltyn, Ghaun, Luen, Illistyn,Jusztiirn, Dalael, Hune, Vrinn, Abaeir, Pharm, Quavein, Blaerabban, Blundyth, Argith, Omriwin, T'sarran, Veladorn, Dhuunyl, Mlezzir, Naerth, Olonrae, Zaphresz, Xarann, Wyndyl, Tlintarn, Seerear Yogh'il'rymmin

Performers and such may take "stage names", and elves who are going to be misbehaving will also take aliases "to avoid having their deeds reflect on their family (and perhaps mar ongoing house negotiations with others)."

An elf not using their house name usually goes for a sort of portmanteau in Common: "Fireblade," "Eveningfall," "Neverdeath."

"Many elves who live and work among humans (i.e. members of an adventuring band) adopt a “humans can call me this” surname that’s a portmanteau of a hue and a living thing/natural feature (like Blackrose, or Bluewater)"

-

Some word of god and some observations about pronunciation:

"Faerunian elves don't normally use D or F or hard-K to begin names"

Although there are exceptions, because I've definitely seen names beginning with D, F and K. -

Vowels may shift. Saevel and Saeval may be seen, -ian, might become -ien or -ion. -

Masculine endings tend to end in consonants, which can be feminised by adding an "a" or "e" onto the end. The "e" doesn't get pronounced, apparently, it stresses the final consonant. ("Kele" = "KeLL"). Sometimes elves and half-elves - particularly genderfluid and nonbinary elves - drop or add the vowel as per their current mood. An example given was a genderfluid half-elf who goes by either Phandarl or Phandarla. Names aren't necessarily exclusively male or female because of that; you can still find elven guys with vowels on the end of their names and ladies who don't. I observe that Drow women seem more likely than surface elven women to not bother with the feminisation of their names. Or possibly it's not part of the dialect. -

Pronunciation and rules shift a little by dialect (a moon elf from Evereska likely does not speak the same as a moon elf from Evermeet nor a green elf from Shilimista; drow in the north would pronounce Lolth 'LOW-th,' spelt like 'Lloth' while others further south might say 'LO-ul-thh,' etc) -

"all the elven names ending in "ael" can be used by any gender" "All of the "-une" elven names can be used by any gender."

"Many half-elves in the Realms seem to bear the "une" and the "ael" names as given names" -

Three syllable names seem to be the average. Two-syllable and four-syllable names are also possible. It seems like the longest, hardest to pronounce names are favoured by nobles. -

No dark elves, regardless of faith, will have names that sound like the name of a deity. It's viewed either blasphemy or inviting bad luck.

The drow dialect has harsher sounds: harder and more frequent consonants, more double consonant's ("mm", "nn", "rr") and buzzing/hissing ("zz" "sz" "ss"), and include a lot of ' , which I think means glottal stops? "Si'Nafey" or "Do'Urden".

Names beginning with "Ch" tend to be drow. -

" "Ph" is used for "F" ." Although it seems that the first f becomes ph, while if it's not in the start of the sentence it is written "f". So Phandarl, but if you add a third slyllable, Arlfandarl.

Judging by Angaradh, "dh" is pronounced like a soft "th" (sooth) and "an" at the start of a word/name is pronounced "awn", like "awww, how cute". SImilarly "am" -> "awm", "arav" -> "awrav," etc

We're entering pure hypothesis stages now, but as time goes on you begin to realise there's a lot of Celtic stuff here (like literal Welsh names like Rhys) so I'd imagine that "th" is a harder variant ("that")

"dd" is probably a dialectal variant of "dh", so soft th again.

and "ch" is a kind of back-of-the-throat growl/hiss noise. If you speak German or Arabic or something you probably get the idea, liebchen.

While there are differences between dark elven and surface elven (and they come in dialects, beside) there is still overlap, so you could still build a drow name out of the same syllable pool as surface elves.

"Nym" remains a common name for elves of all subraces.

Example drow names:

Feminine: Sabrae, Faeryl, Phaere, Olorae, Alauniira, Angaste, Briza, Chalithra, Elvanshalee, Quarra, Lualyrr, Si'Nafey, Li'Neerlay, Xune, Vierna, Talice - Masculine: Nym, Sorn, Belgos, Guldor, Solaufein, Bhintel, Hatch'net, Tluth, Welverin, Seldszar

Example surface elf names:

Neutral: Alael, Imizael, Lune, Lyrune, Belrael, Cathael, Tarune, Eluael, Rune, Gelthael - Masculine: Galan, Glaranal, Llombaerth, Elandorr, Eltargrim, Imbryl, Filaurel, Jharym, Maiele, Uthorim, Ardryll, Tehlmar, Iefyr, Delmuth, Dhoelath, Faerondarl, Luthais, Lhoris, Ornthalas, Naeryndam, Braern, Ajaar, Laosx, Edicûve, Uldrein - Feminine: Elandorr, Braerindra, Melarue, Alea, Shalantha, Saelihn, Tiatha, Meira, Ildilyntra, Halanaestra, Nuala, Yrlissa, Namyriitha, Itylra, Talanashta, Maaleshiira, Eallyr, Gylledha, Anaharae, Ysmyrl'da, Symrustar, Nlaea

-

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

-

And now the part where I lost my mind while breaking up the names of elves in Cormanthyr: Empire of the Elves and Elves of Evermeet.

If you're not here to bash together vaguely "canon" sounding elf names there's no more canon to glean from here on.

This was entirely self indulgent.

As with the human name post, the idea is you take syllables from broken appart canon elven names and stick them together with the endings.

So pick a syllable (Bel) pick an ending (-uth) = Beluth. Then you can make it sound "more feminine" by sticking on a vowel. Beluthe, Belutha, Beluthae, whatever.

Some elven names are three syllables or more, so (A) Abeluth, (Orn) Belornuth. I feel like mixing syllables that begin with vowels and syllables starting with consonants works best.

A, Aer, Aul, Am, An, Ath, Arav, Al, Ala, Ana, Aun, Aur, Aush, Aja, Ahsk, Ahren, Ash, Axil, Ard, Arl, Aneir, Anth, Aath, And, Alaun, Alys, Ang, Angh, Ans, Arath, Ava Bel, Byr, Bra Car, Cel, Cor, Cath, Con, Cys, Clu, Cshar Cheyr Daun, Daunt, Delm, Dosh, Da, Dath, Das, Dyf, Dann, Dil, Dilyn, Din E, El, Eil, Enor, Elid, Ey, Eyr, Ed, Edyr, Eis, Eval, Er, Erev Phyr, Phae, Phan, Phand, Phra Fel, Fen Gal, Gar, Gelth, Glyn, Gyl, Gw, Goron, Garyn Ha, Han, Hen, Has, Hanal Hang, Har, Hara, Hael, Iliv, Ilyr, Imiz, Im, Is, Iliph, Ilph, Ilf, Isc, Ief, It, Il, Illit, Ili Jas, Jon, Jast, Jhaum, Jaon, Jhar Kend, Khal, Khys, Kuorn, Kaeth, Ker, Kiss, Kus, Kusk, Kat, Kiar La, Lath, Lav, Lyr, Lhor, Luth, Las, Lash, Leoj, Lysan, Lov, Lif, Les, Lym, Min, Mol, Mord, Mand, Mour, Mar, Myr, Maal, Moth, Mi, Myrdd, Mei, Myrl Naeth, Narth, Nym, Nam, Naer, Ny, Nu, Nel, Nyl, Nid O, Orl, Orn, On, Otaerh, Om, Par, Pyw, Pel Quam, Qaer, Que Rath, Res, Rui, Rhis, Raer, Raeth, Rath, Rathi, Rai, Raib, Ruv, Rhang, Rych, Rynnhm, Rhys, Rhal, Rel, Ril Se, Seh, Sol, Ser, Sel, Sash, Saev, Sym, Syn, Sa, Sand, Susp, Sab Shi, She, Shy, Shyr, Shiir, Sha, Shal, Shel, Shri Tra, Tel, Tar, Tath, Taen, Taegh, Tal, Talin, Talind, Thal, Tehl, Thiil, Tan, Tiath Thel Un Var, Vrae, Vaer, Vhaer, Vand, Ves, Vest, Vier, Vyr, Vor, Vorl, Ven, Vol, Vet Wyl, Wylch Yas, Yauv, Yal, Yr, Yn, Yrth, Ys Xan, Xand Zorth, Zan, Zand, Zaor, Zil

Sounds more common with Drow: Akor, Af, Ax, Agg Briz, Bur Clav Chal, Char, Chess Div, Driz, Duag Gin, Gauss, G'eld, Grey, Gul Hatch', Houn Jeg Kren, Kel, Krond, Kron, Kal, Lauf, Lau Omar Que, Quil Rizz, Ssap, Sab, Sol, Szor, Szord Ul, Url Vic Wu, Waer, Wen, Wel, Wod Yond, Yon, Yazs Xull Zak, Zeb, Zar

Sticking a "th", "v" or "r" in front of a vowel sometimes happens.

M: -ar, -as, -al, -all, -an, -ash, -am, -aud, -arl, -aln, -arm, -ais, -aern, -ael, -aor, -un, -el, -ell, -eth, -ew, -eith -edd, -enn, -edh -iah, -ian, -is, -il, -in, -im, -ik, -iith, -iis, -iir, -iil -oun, -os, -on, -uth, -unth, -yr, -ym, -yk, -yf, -yl, -yll, -ymn, -yrm, -hyn, -rik, -ryll, -rys, -ros

F: -adh, -ae, -ie, -aeris, -ea, -ue, -ain, -ra, -ta, -ya, -lissa, -icca, -ii, -nii, -eyr, -ali, -'da, -ria, -la, -aar

N: -uil, -ael, -une, -as, -rynn, -ynn -

Endings that seem to be drow-exclusive:

N: -ee, -aste

F: -ace, -it, -ice, -yrr, -fay

M: -ab, -agh, -ast, -iz, -ica, -ild, -aen, -et, -erd, -een, -fein, -ig, -izzt, -oj, -oth, -ozz, -orl, -olg, -oos, -omph -ahc

[valkyrieromanoff]

BAD BATCH: HEADCANON ABOUT A KARAOKE NIGHT

warning:  none, fluffiness perhaps?

a/n:  Hi, to celebrate -- a little late -- the one month anniversary of the end of Bad Batch, I wrote some headcanon about what they'd be like on a karaoke night, I'll just say I had a blast with it. I hope you like it, and if anyone has any suggestions, headcanon ideas, oneshots or anything don't hesitate to send them to me because I'd love to. Kisses 💖

💖 HUNTER

Considering his role as sergeant and leader of the group, he is calm, reserved and focused. He's not shy, although he prefers to stay in the background, watching the scene rather than singing in front of the others, but he's convinced to take a chance by his brothers' encouragement. Hunter's singing is unexpectedly good, his deep, firm voice making for a good rendition of Survivor's 'Eye of the Tiger'. 

So many times, it happens too fast

You trade your passion for glory

Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past

You must fight just to keep them alive

Hunter approaches the microphone, his posture relaxed, although his eyes scan his surroundings in his usual alert state before letting his gaze linger on the table where his brothers are sitting. His feet tapping the floor softly to the rhythm of the melody, he takes a deep breath for a moment with his eyes closed before beginning to sing in a controlled manner. His eyes are fixed on the monitor where the lyrics are playing, even though he already knows them by heart. As the song progresses, Hunter begins to loosen up, becoming more confident and comfortable, his voice firmer and more assured, he begins to enjoy himself and relax. When the iconic opening riff begins, he grabs the microphone stand and leans in slightly, his deep voice resonating through the room as he gives himself completely to the music, only coming out of his trance when the applause breaks.

💖 CROSSHAIR

It took a lot of insistence from his brothers and Omega's puppy dog eyes to convince Crosshair to have a karaoke night, not to mention Wrecker's not-so-subtle persuasion of hugging his younger brother until he agreed. His personality is more reserved and introspective, although he doesn't fail to make sarcastic comments during the brothers' performances, even though he enjoyed every one of them. Crosshair didn't want to sing at first, but was convinced by his brothers and ended up choosing something darker and more daring like 'Paint it, Black' by The Rolling Stones. He sings in a surprisingly smooth way, delivering a firm and seemingly impartial performance, astounding everyone with his undeniable talent and calm demeanor. Wrecker even insists that he sing one more song.

Maybe then, I'll fade away

And not have to face the facts

It's not easy facing up

When your whole world is black

Crosshair reluctantly takes to the stage, flicking through the set list until he chooses 'Paint it, Black', his low, husky voice weaving perfectly through the dark, melancholy melody. He stands in the middle with an imposing coolness, his hand holding the microphone firmly, contradicting the raw emotion that bleeds from his voice. As the song progresses, he sings with a calm intensity, a relaxed look and posture, receiving applause with a mixture of surprise and excitement from the brothers and the audience who seem captivated by Crosshair's unexpectedly frightening and beautiful performance. 

💖 ECHO

Echo's stance is more introverted and reserved, and he is wary of the invitation at first, but accepts, realizing that it's a good opportunity to interact and spend quality time with his siblings. He sings well, committed in a serious and sincere way with a touch of emotion stemming from the consonance of his own experiences with the story the song is telling. He chooses 'Hero' by Chad Kroeger, the song brings the idea of heroism, overcoming challenges, fitting with Echo's journey and resilience. As a clone, he was created to fight for the Republic, to save his brothers, having to be his own hero, find his own way out, to overcome his challenges, knowing that at that particular moment there was no one who could do it for him.

And they say that a hero could save us

I'm not gonna stand here and wait

I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles

Watch as we all fly away

Echo approaches the microphone, adjusting the stand to his height (Hunter performed before him), he takes a deep breath before starting to sing, letting the beat of the song invade his ears so he can find his own rhythm in the melody. The soft, introspective beginning allows his voice to shine, filled with vulnerability and determination. He channels his personal experiences, reflecting his own struggles, losses and triumphs in his performance. His voice reflects raw emotion as he closes his eyes and lets the lyrics guide him, his confidence growing with each stanza. When the song ends, his brothers are on their feet clapping excitedly, proud and in awe of his performance. Wrecker pulls him into a group hug as he steps down from the stage. 

💖 TECH

Tech has a more analytical personality, much preferring to see the world through the lens of his holopad than engage in social activities, only content to watch his brothers, making one comment or another about the mistake of a note or a delay in getting into the rhythm of the song. He is reluctant when Omega suggests that he be the next to sing; it takes quite a bit of convincing for him to agree to take part. His way of singing is technically precise, possibly a little stiff, considering that he would be more focused on hitting the notes, singing in time to the melody than really feeling the music. He'd go for something more quirky like 'Weird Science' by Oingo Boingo.

Pictures from a magazine

Diagrams and charts, mending broken hearts

And makin' weird science

Something like a recipe

Tech holds the microphone with a mixture of curiosity and determination, although he remains apprehensive, but soon abandons his contradictory thoughts when the melody begins, focusing entirely on singing all the stanzas properly and correctly. There's a certain complexity to the music that encourages a small smile to appear on Tech's lips when he feels safe and comfortable with the lyrics he's used to humming mentally while going about his routine activities. When he finishes, Tech meticulously puts the microphone back before meeting his siblings who are happily celebrating his performance, he adjusts his glasses in his awkward way, not knowing how to react to the wave of compliments and congratulations.

💖 WRECKER

Wrecker has an outgoing personality, he's very loud and always excited to have fun and get a laugh out of others. He loves the attention that karaoke provides and once he feels safe on stage, there's not a shred of shyness in his body. He's not the best singer, his singing is more a question of volume and enthusiasm than musical talent. Wrecker would choose an energetic, upbeat and fun song like Queen's 'We Will Rock You' that would allow him to run around the stage, having fun and involving the audience, totally focused on enjoying the moment. Tech would probably be recording it for posterity.

We will, we will rock you, sing it

We will, we will rock you, everybody

We will, we will rock you, hmm

We will, we will rock you

Wrecker rushes onto the stage, almost knocking over a chair with his energy and captivating animation. He takes the microphone off the stand and holds it in one hand, clapping with the other to imitate the beat of the song. His fun, loud voice filling the room as he walked around the stage, pointing to the audience and clapping his hands to encourage them to follow the music with him. It doesn't take long for his enthusiasm to infect the room and soon everyone is singing along. He dances, jumps and has fun for every minute of the song, without worrying about singing technique, but about living in the moment and being able to enjoy himself in the process. 

💖 OMEGA

Omega is a curious, enthusiastic child who is always ready to try new things. She'll be excited by the karaoke proposal, she's probably the one who came up with the idea anyway. Her singing would be an explosion of joy and energy, and even if she wasn't technically perfect, her enthusiasm for performing would be contagious, leaving everyone captivated by her carefree and youthful presentation. Her choice of song would be something upbeat and fun, that she could have a blast singing and invite the audience to join in, like 'Happy' by Pharrell Williams.

Because I'm happy

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

Because I'm happy

Clap along if you know what happiness is to you

Because I'm happy

Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

The excitement on her face as Omega practically skips down the steps to the stage when her name is called. She takes the microphone off the stand, wanting to have more mobility to move around the stage, she waves to her brothers sitting in the front row before starting to sway to the rhythm of the music. Her voice is bright and cheerful, bringing a burst of joy and fun to the karaoke evening. Omega dances and jumps using the entire stage space, occasionally inventing a choreography, such as clapping her hands over her head, which Wrecker was imitating with animation, albeit with a little less motor coordination. She might miss a note or two, but it doesn't seem to matter; her excitement gets the whole canteen clapping and singing along to the chorus. Hunter watches her with a proud smile, Wrecker dances along, Tech records everything on his holopad, while Crosshair and Echo exchange amused glances, both enjoying the moment.

[unhinged-summer-fun]

common grounds (oshamir) - chapter 13

Pairing: Osha Aniseya x Qimir "The Stranger" Warnings: Full speed ahead on fic-typical angst train, choo choo bitchessssssssss

A/N: dividers once again by me

series masterlist

chapter 13: last round

Osha loved her apartment complex. She loved its gym. She loved the gym sauna. And she loved that it was just a little bit too small for her to share it comfortably with Qimir.

Their knees pressed against one another the entire time they steamed, all hot sweaty skin and toned muscles sliding against each other.

Oof. Down, girl.

He had her do breath control in places other than the pool and the gym. The sauna proved most difficult to find any meditative peace, especially when the object of her torment unintentionally whipped her mind and heart into a frenzy whenever he moved too quickly.

So her meditative thoughts weren’t centered on mindfulness and her surroundings—they were centered on the exact spot where his thigh touched hers.

Qimir leaned back against the teak bench and winced, gingerly recoiling from the pain. “Are you alright?” she asked.

Earlier, he had some trouble getting out of the pool. She was aware of what was happening, of course—he’d asked the injured parts of his body to do something simple, and they’d protested violently. It was disconcerting to see the muscles spasming beneath his scars, and it looked incredibly painful.

What was more concerning was the absolutely blank face he made while bearing the pain. His jaw wasn’t even tensed like he was fighting through the it—his mind had gone somewhere else entirely.

At Osha’s concern, that blank mask slammed down like security doors.

“Happens,” was all he said about it, and Osha was about to let it go until his spine spoke up. It gave a few concerningly loud clicks and snaps when he leaned back on the bench, and the sound pulled a grimace out of him. “I just pushed it too hard, too fast today. I’ll feel it for a while, but it typically fades in a few hours. The spasms, I mean.”

Now it was Osha’s turn to control her facial expressions. What an absolutely insane thing to say. It wasn’t like his back issues were a secret between them. There was no way of hiding his scars from her, the way there was no way hiding her scars from him. He’d told her part of the story, but she’d flinched when he described the injury and he’d never brought it up again. There was more she didn’t know—more that added to the reasons he kept himself back from going after Vernestra.

How the fuck do you ask somebody about that?

“If I can, I’d like to help.”

He didn’t take her up on it.

“What happens if someone drops from a fight last minute?” she asked on a different day. She was flicking through a textbook on his couch, and he was foam-rolling his upper back.

“Standby fighters. They’re just as hungry for it as the ones scheduled. Moreso, maybe,” he grunted. “It’s different for me. Idise, too, I guess.”

She wanted to ask so many things at once. “How is it different?”

He gave a breathy laugh, humorless. “The real fight is waiting two weeks for the moon to wane.”

“Do you not talk to Idise?” She’d meant it in a, do you not compare experiences for camaraderie? kind of way. His sharp response caught her off guard.

“Not at the moment.” His teeth bit into consonants like a wolf’s jaws snapping around a neck.

Questions racked up like debts in her head, but his agitation told her to tread carefully. There’s something there, something personal. “What’s the hardest part of waiting? Is it the ‘can’t spar ’til the full moon’ rule?”

He shook his head, bending his knees and rolling a little faster than he had been. “It’s those first minutes after a fight. You need to let the fuck go the moment it’s over. You need to let it go—”

He gasped, face going into that blank numb mask for a half-second before he recovered, gritting his teeth.

“Someone told me you’re supposed to breathe while doing that,” she said, exaggeratedly condescending. She hoped her attempt at levity would succeed. Qimir paused, looking up at her in mild surprise. “Take your own advice,  doctor.”

Her heart raced in the five seconds it took for him to obey. He extended one leg, releasing a slow, controlled breath and re-doing the roll with the slow, continuous pressure he needed. His breath shook as he reached where she assumed his pain was deepest. Then he was past it, groaning in relief, filthy and unrestrained. It didn’t escape her notice that he was baring his neck to her—again.

He set the roller to the side, laying flat on his back with his arms spread wide.

“H-how do you let go?” she continued, watching his belly rise and fall slower and slower as he got his heart rate down. He’d been doing that more and more around her, lately.

“A lot of people just keep busy and focus on recovery—”

“No,” she interrupted. He peeked an eye open at her. “How do you let go?”

He turned his head to look at her, eyes tracing every inch of her curled up on his couch. When he got to her eyes, he hummed, biting his lower lip like he had to roll his thoughts around on his tongue to get the flavor right before he spoke. He rolled up into a sitting position, legs crossed as he leaned back on his palms.

She tried her best to meet his gaze, hitting him with his usual one-brow-raised look. He chuckled, shaking himself out of openly admiring her.

His voice was night-dark and thunder-soft. His eyes matched the sentiment, continuing to wander where they wanted. “Before the fight even starts,” he said slowly, “I think of what I want most, something waiting for me outside the cage. Sometimes it’s a shower. Sometimes it’s a drink. Sometimes it’s…” His eyes flicked back up to hers, hawk-sharp. He smirked, baring his teeth and neck in one. “And then, when the fight is over…” His head tilted to the side, that feral creature he kept leashed showing itself. “I ensure there’s nothing in my way between me and what I want.”

Osha’s tongue wasn’t cooperating. Her mind wasn’t cooperating. How could he just say things like that while looking at her like he was going to eat her alive? Her breath came in shallow pants, and she sure looked wanton and ridiculous.

Before she could do anything stupid the timer for their dinner went off, and they returned to reality.

To humanity, more like.

She’d gotten the job at the bar. Kana trained her after Qimir on the days they came to Unplan. Her shifts in the cafe started to dwindle the closer they got to employee evaluation season—from four full shifts per week to three half-shifts ending in early afternoon. She didn’t inform Sol of her new job, but she’d told Mae not to worry about her half of rent when she asked.

Things with Mae had gotten… better. Comparatively. They still had a lot of issues to work through. Osha didn’t know how Mae could “make up for” two years of deception, but her kitchen-table confession helped a lot. Knowing Mae had the capacity to want to do something in response to Vernestra’s misdeeds helped a lot. Things weren’t perfect, but they were, at the very least, talking to each other again.

Sol was a different story. She didn’t know how to confront him about the new developments in her life—she knew now that Sol had been, at best, peripheral to whatever Qimir had gone through at the Temple. At worst, he’d been directly involved. Osha was frightened of figuring out where he stood in that history. Fortunately, she hadn’t seen him enough to confront him.

The same went for Vernestra. She had been exceptionally absent at the Temple, which wasn’t uncommon during competition season prep. She’d taken Jecki and the other competitors on a road trip to the state Open to get everybody ranked. The road trips were a fact of life to Temple members because of Vernestra’s sensitivity to air travel.

Though Sol and Vernestra’s absences relieved Osha, she still felt uncomfortable in the Temple. Mog had been made acting operations manager while things were in flux. Osha would have expected someone like Indara to take the helm, but despite her quiet confidence and solid decision-making skills, she never seemed to want anything to do with joining Temple leadership.

Osha didn’t dwell too much on it, but she still wanted to do something about Qimir’s situation. Something big enough to stick, big enough to matter. But she didn’t have the whole picture yet, and only that awareness stayed her hand.

“Hey,” her stranger said, interrupting her daydreaming. She blinked her eyes back into focus, frowning a little as she recentered. “Where’d you go?”

“About a hundred miles away,” Osha sighed. She continued doing her warm-ups. “Sorry.”

“Well, if you come down from the stars, I’ve got news for you. We’re sparring today.”

Her jaw dropped. “Sparring?”

“Yeah, ever heard of it?”

Osha’s insecuriity reared its head for the first time in a long time. “Are you sure?” she said on impulse, wanting to kick herself for it. She sighed, wanting to eat the words after she’d spoken them.

But Qimir seemed to expect it. He simply nodded, not bothering to ignore or overindulge her reflexive self-doubt. “You’re ready. We’ll do warmups, some HIIT, get you on a bag for some form work, and then—I want to see you dance.”

“What, was last Saturday not good enough for you?” she shot back, folding herself into a deep stretch and turning her head to look at him. His gaze was dark even in the dim lighting of the dressing room.

“Last Saturday was many things; good enough is at the milder end of the descriptions I’d use.”

After re-taping her leg, he took her hand in his, a familiar length of black fabric in his other hand. “I’ve been looking forward to this, I won’t lie.”

Osha let her hands soften for him as he wrapped her left hand and wrist with slow, methodical motions. She’d seen him wrap his hands before at something approaching the speed of light, so for him to work so carefully with her was… well, different. 

When he finished both hands, he inspected her fists, telling her to flex her fingers a few times to test for good circulation. His eyes bounced up to her face once he was satisfied. “You’re perfect.”

The praise was surely meant for himself, his work with the wraps, but she couldn’t help the silly little smile that came to her face.

Downstairs, he had her use one of the body-opponent bags after the first half of their session. The plasticky face and rubber body wiggled just from their approach. “Let’s test your anatomy knowledge. One-one-two to the solar plexus.”

He stood just behind the bag to watch her strikes come in as he called them. He grinned at her like she’d done something incredible—not something she’d been doing since childhood. He ran her through different combinations, but by the end, he let her do what she wanted, as long as she hit harder, harder, harder.

The force he wanted broke her out of her typical stance. She couldn’t get it right when she held herself so rigid and bladed. Still, he didn’t technically tell her to drop the boxer’s stance she was used to. She had to drop it herself.

And when she did…

When she hit with all the strength she’d been holding back for years…

He nearly lost his grip on the bag.

It tilted dangerously to the side, but he didn’t let it fall. He righted it and shouted in excitement, slapping the rubber head with a burst of energy. “Atta-fuckin-girl! There we go. How’s that feel?”

Osha breathed hard, hands still up in a loose block. “Feels good,” she gasped. “Real good.”

He grinned madly at her. “You’re perfect. Perfect. Let’s go again. Build up to it. Let’s see some kicks, too.”

Osha wasn’t as familiar with using her legs as she was with her hands, but he’d taught her what to do, how to hold herself and channel power into her kicks. The praise came faster now.

Good kick. Same place. Again.

Fuck yes. Don’t stop, show me.

C’mon. That’s it. Good girl.

Ooh, that’s a rib-breaker. Love it. Do it again.

Attagirl. Attagirl.

(And a few times, but it could have been the bloodrush warping it: that’s my girl.)

Over and over until she was drunk on it.

He had an invisible pull on her, one she couldn’t help but follow to the sparring mats. “Alright, let’s see it.”

Facing off against him was a different fucking universe than facing off against a bag. He wouldn’t praise her for getting good hits in on him, would he? She hesitated, the first time he’d seen her do so.

“What is it?” he said, dropping his stance and coming closer. She didn’t retreat from his approaching form but kept her hands up.

“It’s just. Shit, I haven’t sparred in actual months. I’m nervous.”

“I make you nervous?” he said, tilting his head to the side. Even with his silly mouthguard in, his smile was charming.

She narrowed her eyes and swung at him.

After the first few surprised blocks from her quick hands, he barked a laugh and started swiping at her as well. But Osha wasn’t a wet-eared rookie; she won those junior championships from being hard to hit.

They blocked and ducked one another for a while, each assessing the other’s defenses. Osha’s fighting style was limited to boxing and a handful of kicks, but he knew so many fighting disciplines that he exhibited them to college students. If he wanted to defeat her, he would.

It was clear he was toying with her after a while. When he reacted to her stumbling with a pointed little hmm, she swung a messy left hook right at his head—which he caught in his hand.

She was so surprised by his reflexes that she only remembered to react after he’d kissed her knuckles. While the gesture thrilled her, it was equally adept at annoying the everloving fuck out of her.

In her head, a new voice chimed in, hungry and snarling from the pit of a coliseum. It was a voice she hadn’t heard since she was twenty years old, stepping into the ring in Bestine.

Win.

She went on the offensive, practically screaming through her exhales as she attacked. Her knuckles ached from the amount of times she hit his forearms, but then—

Then—

A wicked look gleamed in his eyes, and his leg shot out to try and kick at hers—

She shifted like the wind around a mountain and slugged him in the jaw so hard it rattled her teeth.

The impact stunned both of them—she could feel her own surprise, but he had to blink the dazed expression off his face. It was replaced by something a lot darker, something she was sure he preferred to hide behind that ghastly mask upstairs. “Attagirl,” he rasped.

“Are you oka—shit!” Osha went on the defensive as he came at her, punches and kicks going everywhere at once. Her tiny buzz of victory zipped away, leaving only the mild hum of panic from getting caught on the back foot. He jabbed her in the ribs when she let her guard slip on the left, sending all the air whooshing from her lungs. Bending double, she retreated a few steps, recalculating her strategy.

She focused her attack on his legs. He kept trying to correct his balance, continually going off-center with his chest-thrown punches. Osha struck out like a viper with her right leg, and he was sent sprawling onto his back, arms splayed wide. While she loomed above him, he only grinned. “Thath’ma girl,” he said around the mouthguard—sweet sentiment, lacking execution.

“Are we still sparring, or are you just running your mouth?” she panted, already working to get her breathing under control.

He laughed and winked at her before tapping the mat twice, signaling they were done. She offered him a hand up, and almost fucking dropped him at the sound of applause.

She hadn’t noticed the crowd gathering, too focused on Qimir and trying not to get her shit rocked. The audience seemed to think they were very entertaining, whistling and chattering in excitement. 

Someone would try to step in if they saw the new girl sparring with the scary guy during the down-weeks.

Yeah, well, the new girl just put the scary guy on his ass.

An inkling of pride threatened to seep into her mind. Osha allowed herself one modest compliment: she held her own fairly well, considering how long she’d been out of the game.

“How does it feel?” Qimir asked when they were alone again. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” He was still smiling—hadn’t stopped since she punched him.

Maniac.

She did a quick assessment of herself, now that the adrenaline had somewhat abated. With her heartbeat under control, she could make out the… 

Well, the pain was… 

She frowned.

“I’m… I feel fine?”

“You sound confused. Or disappointed.”

“I feel the soreness and the effort, but—there’s no pain. I think the worst is my hand.”

He rubbed at his jaw, a satisfied smile on his face. “Yeah, your poor hand.”

Something came over Osha, and she reached up to get his hand away from his face. A bruise bloomed there, bright pink and darkening by the minute. “This won’t get you in trouble at the college?”

He stood very still as she looked him over. His eyes were half-lidded and shadowed in the dressing room lights, and she wished they were back in the gym downstairs, where the presence of other people more easily suppressed her do-something-stupid impulse.

“They know I work out at a fighting gym. I don’t sit in board meetings more than twice a year. And the students won’t ask.” He raised a hand to wrap gently around her wrist, as secure as the black wraps had been. “Osha,” he murmured. It made her stop fussing. “I’ll be okay. If anything, I can say someone kneed me in the face while I was doing an assisted stretch.”

How specific. “That happen a lot?”

“You have no idea,” he chuckled. He changed his grip on her wrist. “Now let me see your hand.”

He tenderly unwrapped her right hand. Her knuckles were blushed pink, her middle finger an angry red that she rarely saw with her hands in gloves all the time. He pressed his thumbs into her knuckles, walking them all over as he watched her reaction. “Hm?”

“It’s fine,” Osha said again. He nodded and didn’t look away as he pulled her hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to her reddened knuckles—just like he’d done a moment before she punched the hell out of his jaw. Osha felt light-headed as he held the kiss. “You…”

“Me?” he asked.

“What about you?”

“You tell me.”

“What?”

His smile curled against her hand. “I don’t think I hit you in the head…”

She rolled her eyes and broke away to change in the bathroom. “You’re obnoxious, stranger.”

After a few minutes of silence, he spoke.

“You can call me Qimir, you know. Out loud.”

His voice was soft, almost too soft for her to hear. She leaned back against the wall, face turned to the doorway. “But do you want to be called Qimir?”

She heard him come closer, and saw his shadow mirror how she was standing, just on the other side of the wall. She was tempted to reach for him around the doorframe.

“If it’s you,” he said.

“You want me to call you Qimir?”

Would you really choose ‘stranger’ as a name for yourself?

No.

“I told you before, you can call me whatever you want. But I hear you pause when you want to say my name. I want you to say my name.”

Her face heated near to feverish. She remembered how Mae had said his name that first time. I need to ask you if all this, all the lashing out, was done on purpose because you wanted to train with Qimir. She’d sounded so hateful, which had been almost as confusing as learning her stranger had a name at all.

“Then I’ll say your name… Qimir.”

To her surprise, his hand came around the doorframe, open and offering. She grabbed it without hesitation. “Thank you,” he said roughly, squeezing her hand once before letting go.

It took her a second to confront her reflection in the mirror, but when she did, she looked resolved and centered.

It was on the day of the new moon that Indara spoke to her.

“Osha, can I have a word?”

She looked up from where she was doing inventory with Tasi. Indara stood on the other side of the counter, having snuck up without Osha seeing.

“I’ve got this,” Tasi said, waving her on.

Yord didn’t give her any grief as she walked a half-step behind Indara to one of the dusty storage rooms at the Temple. Indara could have chosen one of the unoccupied offices or even asked to speak with her outside, so Osha figured this was just a convenient private place for a tense conversation.

She waited patiently for Indara to speak.

“You haven’t been in classes.”

Osha considered engaging in the awkward small talk for a few seconds before she shook her head. “You know why.”

It wasn’t a matter of not having time or availability or even access to classes. Indara knew well that Osha could take her classes at sunrise, but she also knew Osha’s life had shifted pulls—from the unforgiving orbit around a cold sun to a faster, more thrilling one centered on the moon.

“But you are still training? It’s not good to stay away from activity no matter how long it’s been since your injury.”

Ah.

Indara was often overlooked in the training cadre at the Temple. Her classes were the earliest, and according to scheduling statistics had some of the lowest sign-ups of the gym. The people who learned from her were fiercely loyal, however—they’d spent decades at the Temple, training specifically for the sunrise offerings.

Because of that, not many of the competitive and elite fighters had the opportunity to see how truly brilliant she was in the art.

Osha’s childhood memories of taking her classes were warm and welcoming in a time where pain was a more constant companion than Mae. Indara was attentive in a way Sol was not. His frenetic compassion overwhelmed Osha at every turn, but Indara’s quiet faith in her ability to master herself made it easier to accept the bumps in the road.

After Bestine, however, there’d been a switch: Indara began hounding Osha on practically everything—classes, shifts at the cafe, learning to repair equipment. Looking back on it, it probably kept her from being fired or cast out from the Temple. She’d been in a deep depression after the injury, one that most members preferred to ignore. Indara hadn’t let up even after the days got brighter, laying into her for not being on time, for being a good example, for trying her best.

If Indara’s training was one end of the spectrum and Sol’s was the other, Qimir’s style was nowhere close to either. She preferred it.

“I haven’t been inactive,” Osha hedged, feeling slightly hypocritical for demanding Indara be upfront about what she wanted but quailing at the first sign of admission.

“Have you been training on your own?”

“Indara, please just say what you want to say. I know you know something and I’m not going to pry it out of you.”

She looked mildly amused by Osha’s sass until she got serious. “I know it’s not against policy to train at other gyms, but I care about your safety. I wanted to ensure you’re training somewhere safe, with someone safe.”

There it was.

“Mae already tried giving me the spiel,” Osha bit out. “And I didn’t like her doublespeak, either. Be direct or I’m not telling you a thing.”

A stillness she recognized from Qimir’s breathing routines radiated outward from Indara like a beacon. She only now understood what that stillness meant: conviction.

“Qimir Loharne is a dangerous man, Osha.”

Even though she’d asked for it, hearing someone say his name in the Temple was a shock. Indara went on.

“He is a known, proven antagonist of the Temple and carries personal vendettas against most people here, chief of whom are Vernestra and your father.” Something in her voice hesitated around the last word like she hadn’t meant to mention Sol.

Osha stayed quiet.

“In the years since—his departure,” she said carefully, “he was heavily involved in the city’s criminal underworld—the Hutt gang, in particular.”

I got mixed up with people that normally don’t let you leave once you’re in. I did a lot of fucked-up things to get out.

“Your assessment of him is outdated,” Osha said. “And cut the shit about his departure. You all threw him out like garbage after he sustained a horrific injury. You think I wouldn’t empathize?”

Indara’s shame was clear as day. She bowed her head to Osha’s judgment. “You’re right,” she said in a whisper.

“Why paint him as the villain when he’s clearly the victim, then?”

Gathering herself, Indara set her jaw. “When he got out of the hospital, he began harassing members at the gym, calling them and cursing them out until his voice went hoarse. There are recordings of it. There are at least two police reports regarding property damage showing an attempted breaking and entering. There were times he would trespass and intimidate the other members until police were called.”

Osha knew Indara wouldn’t say all that unless she had it on good authority—firsthand or otherwise.

“Vernestra hired a private investigator to keep an eye on him, but after he joined the ranks for the Hutts, she lost track of him. There were reports of more intimidation incidents, larceny and assault here and there. Illegal fighting rings.”

She kept her face very, very still. Did Indara know about Unknown Planet?

“When she told Vernestra he’d fallen off the map, the private investigator didn’t want anything else to do with it. Gave Vernestra the third degree about what she was doing, too. I assumed once things got quiet, Vernestra was satisfied with wherever Qimir had gone.

“I was incorrect. Recently, I found several things that disturbed me. First, that Mae was training with him. You know I reported seeing them together to Vernestra. Then, months later, I found out she’d been encouraged to continue seeing him despite the negative influence a man like that would have on a member of the Temple. And lastly, I found out that Vernestra had attempted to pin the news on you long after the fact.

“I know you have no reason to believe me, but I’ve tried to put a stop to her abhorrent treatment toward you as much as I can. Given the circumstances, I fear further association with Qimir Loharne will only complicate matters—for you, for your sister, for the entire Temple.”

“What circumstances are you talking about?” Osha asked.

Panic flared in Indara’s body language like smoke off a campfire. Osha continued her attack.

“Why are you telling me this? And why now? You’ve had weeks since Vernestra accused me of that.”

Indara shifted, taking a deep breath to center herself. “I know. I tend to overthink matters that I know the answers to in each moment. This was one of them. It was a mistake to hold back this long, but looking back, there was no opportunity to speak to you safely.”

Osha wagered a guess that she meant I couldn’t talk to you without Vernestra getting suspicious, so I had to wait until she was gone.

“Then what were you waiting so long to say? Were you just trying to warn me off of seeing him?” Mae had tried that and earned Osha’s ire for a week. To someone like Indara, that grudge had a lot more potential mileage.

“I’ve known him since he was thirteen years old. He was a very angry child with something to prove, and in his years in the ring, he was a reckless fighter, if skilled and dedicated. He was driven by the need to win, to overpower his opponents. That wrath never abated, and I fear it was only worsened by the events that transpired.”

“And he’s in his thirties now, and doesn’t want anything to do with the Temple.”

Osha was aware she was admitting her involvement, but at this point didn’t care. She wouldn’t stand here and let Indara talk shit about him just because of her decade-old perceptions of him.

“Then why would he want to train with Mae? She wouldn’t have kept it a secret, where her loyalties lie.”

She didn’t have an answer for that. Mae’s paranoia crept back in.

I mean, it makes sense, right? He’d use one of the inside members to finally get his revenge or whatever. And it worried me when he started paying attention to you, and I don’t know what’s going on, but he still might be trying to use one of us to—

“He wouldn’t do that. He has—” too much to lose. “He has a life outside of Vernestra’s influence and wants it to stay that way.”

“Unfortunately, your involvement with him prevents that from being possible.”

She reeled back as if struck. “What the hell?”

“You two are… so alike.” Indara watched her carefully. “And it’s tragic that Vernestra knew that all along.” The regret in her tone unsettled Osha, but Indara moved on before she could explain further. “You asked me why I told you now. It’s because something has to give, Osha.

“Qimir Loharne has the motivation and the capacity to destroy not only Vernestra but the Temple and a whole group of important people involved. Vernestra is aware of that, and has been for a very long time.”

She knows if I exposed what she did, it’d destroy her. It’d destroy the Temple, and probably take down another three dozen conspirators who sought to keep things hushed up.

“She has dedicated tens of thousands of dollars into countless security additions to the gym to protect against him specifically. She’s now convinced your sister to join in her machinations, and I don’t want to see you get sucked into this dark net with the rest of us. You should not play her game, Osha. She would rather break the rules than let anybody win but her. She’s already done so, a hundred times over without anyone knowing.”

“What did she do to him? This isn’t the behavior of someone fearing for their livelihood. This is paranoia. This is guilt. He was just a kid she trained—”

“He… wasn’t.”

“What?”

Indara took a few rough swallows and tried to center herself. “He wasn’t just a kid she trained. He was—she fostered him for almost four years.”

Osha took a staggering step back. The doom felt like it was tilting on its axis. “Fostered him?”

Indara spoke quickly. “After the Padawan program started, Vernestra felt she lucked out with Qimir as her student. He showed so much talent, so much potential—and she wanted then what she wants now. Recognition. Accolades. Awards. Champions. And she fast-tracked the fostering paperwork so he could live here full-time and—”

“Here?!” Osha hissed. “He lived at the Temple?”

“Keep your voice down,” Indara insisted. “Yes. I don’t know how it all happened, but Vernestra has friends in high places. Some, very high.” She gestured to a dusty file box marked, MAYOR’S CUP SIGNAGE.

“No kidding—wait, you’re saying the mayor is involved in this?”

“Not the current one,” she said, shaking her head. “Rayencourt doesn’t like Vernestra. But the previous mayor, the one Rayencourt beat in the last election, he was in Vernestra’s pocket. That’s a different story, though. She only fostered him so she could take him to tournaments and competitions across the state—she wanted to travel with him past state lines and even out of the country, but that would have required her to formally adopt him.”

She took a deep breath. “Did he know that was why Vernestra ado—fostered him?”

Indara signed. “I don’t know. I hope not. But anybody who knows Vernestra knows she’s an ambitious opportunist—a venture capitalist.”

“Yes, but with people?” Osha protested. “This is—how come this isn’t everywhere?”

“There’s… there are a lot of reasons for that, Osha. There were witnesses to his injury, and all of them—all of us,” she swallowed down her pride, “had to keep things quiet or else we’d all go down together.”

Osha was disgusted. “You clearly don’t approve.”

“When I signed that NDA, I’d just gotten back from ten hours of waiting in a hospital room to see if Qimir lived through his surgery.” The flare of emotion beneath her words told Osha she was serious. “They were… they wouldn’t let me leave if I didn’t. And if I ever broke it after… the consequences were and are enough to keep my mouth shut.”

“It’s not shut now.”

“No. It’s not. And I may have made the wrong decision then, but I won’t make it now. Not when I see it happening again—with you.”

“Me? I don’t even compete.”

“Vernestra considers you a blemish on her image. She sees you as a wildcard she can’t control. After your injury, she went through the same motions as she’d done before—scrubbing your image from signage that represented the Temple, doctoring news results of your injury and your involvement in the gym.

“Qimir had much less coverage, which made it easier to erase his name from anything that could come back to her, but not everything.” Osha nodded. She’d found the two news articles. “And I said there were witnesses. But his injury wasn’t in front of a crowd in Bestine.”

Osha flexed her hands in and out of fists on her knees. “What happened, Indara?”

“How much has he told you about what happened?”

Under her watch, a spar went very wrong, and—

T6, T7, T12, L1—

“I know it’s serious enough that it affects him to this day,” she hedged. She didn’t want to give Indara anything that she could use against her—or Qimir.

Osha’s defensiveness seemed to make Indara aware of something, eyes shifting to the door. “We might have been in here for too long,” she said. 

“We’re fine.”

“No, really. The walls have ears and eyes.”

Osha felt like screaming in frustration. How could Indara just cut things off like that? There were so many unanswered questions it felt like she was drowning in uncertainty. “So what do you want me to do? You’re not getting away with telling me just part of the story.”

“I have to be careful, Osha. The NDA is very specific about what will happen to me if it gets out that I broke it. And I have broken it to tell you what I have, even if you think I’ve told you very little.” Indara took a deep breath, looking between Osha and the door. “I’m typically free in the early evenings. You have my number.”

Evenings—when she trained with Qimir. Would she have to keep this from him? Indara sounded like she was there when he was injured—that’d be enough to hold a grudge against her. Perhaps she should wait until she knew more before bringing it to Qimir. He’d been quite upset when she told him about what Mae said last Saturday.

“Alright. But—Indara, I haven’t signed the NDA, and I’d be able to actually do something. To make this right.” Osha came closer. “I want to set things right. I don’t want to destroy the Temple, but if there’s justice that needs doing, then… I need to pursue it.”

Indara’s relief seemed strained. “I know you do. And I was hoping you would. In the meantime, I need you to act like everything is business as normal. I don’t believe Vernestra knows you’re training with him, and we need to keep it that way.”

“I’m—” She was about to deny it, reflexively covering her ass, but stopped. Indara had shared the truth, and she owed it from Osha as well. “I can do that,” she said slowly.

“If Vernestra does question you about him, act like you despise him if she backs you into a corner. Lie as little as possible. Play the game to make it look like she’s winning, Osha.”

She nodded, feeling a little nauseous as a million different ideas twirled around in her head to sell the ruse.

“Another thing—practically every member of the gym over 30 has signed an NDA of some sort. You cannot trust any of them not to report you for snooping around.”

“Not even Sol?” she said, feeling the weight of this responsibility close over her head like the lid of a coffin.

Indara froze, closing her eyes tightly. “Especially Sol,” she whispered. “Especially him.” She left the room without another word, leaving Osha alone in the quiet.

She checked her phone the moment she got in her car after work. She’d done well distracting herself after talking to Indara by doing odd, unwanted jobs around the cafe. It only temporarily staved off the looming dread and anxiety; there was no keeping it away forever.

Kana had texted her four times in a row just a few minutes before her shift ended, most likely knowing she’d see them quickly.

K: last minute but we might need you on swing for fights

K: 2hr before 2hr after 2x pay lots of tips :)

K: you also get free admission to fights :)))

K: it’s short notice but I promise we won’t throw you to the wolves lol

O: 2x pay sounds NOICE.

O: I’ll be there at 7 with bells on :)))

Oh no. Fight night.

She would have to face Qimir after all Indara had said—his involvement with gangs, the other attacks on the Temple he hadn’t disclosed. The fact he was Vernestra’s foster child. There was no fucking way she could keep it together if he asked what was wrong.

She couldn’t tell him what she knew. He had an eleven-month winning streak to defend and didn’t need more emotional trauma following him into the cage.

It’s not healthy to let myself think about returning to that mindset again.

Osha had to do this on her own. She had to find a way to expose Vernestra and whoever else was involved, so Qimir could live the quiet life he wanted.

Speaking of the devil.

?: I know you’re on shift right now, but would you like to ride to Unplan together tonight? I’m there early on new moons, so you might be bored while waiting.

?: But I want to see you.

She felt her heart soar in her chest, a welcome ache after all the despair from earlier. It strengthened her resolve to defend him, to go to whatever lengths she had to in order to help him. He was kind and considerate and—

O: Kana just asked me to work swing shift :(

His response came immediately, like he’d been waiting for her text even though he’d sent his more than an hour before.

?: Did you say yes?

O: Yeah

O: Money’s money

?: Swing still lets you watch the fights.

O: Bold to assume I want to watch u fight.

?: Can you blame me?

O: Yes

O: Often

?: Did you still want a ride?

O: Do u get there before 7

?: I do.

?: About heart hours early to first match.

God damn it. Despite the weight of all that had been said, Osha blushed and leaned back against the door, biting her lip to suppress a smile.

O: That could work……

?: I will wait until your shift is over as well.

O: Go on…

?: And I’ll buy you a drink.

O: What, u need me to drive u home after u get ur ass kicked?

?: If that’s what you want.

“The fuck does that mean?” she whispered, starting her car.

?: I’ll come by at 6:30.

O: I’ll see u then~

?: Attagirl.

CHAPTER 14

[kirby-the-gorb]

reply roundup!

reminder that there's actual stuff on the patreon once again, link in the pinned post :)

@capitalismdisruptedmybarbeque added an [image description] for blanket, thank you!

also thank you for all the boops, what a good website feature.

@optimus-jetpack asked: What is your favorite Kirby game? Probably asked before but I'm new to Tumblr and I love your drawings

my actual favorite is epic yarn, but if we're talking mainline only it's either crystal shards or forgotten land! I grew up with crystal shards and the design in forgotten land is super charming (as is the design in epic yarn lol). and thank you!

on [do not fuck with me] @nogoinghomegame said: roman reigns

how does it feel to be the funniest person on this website? I still think about this and it's been 2 months.

on [quicksand] @graycoin said: Yeah...that sounds like a rough day. :/ I hope all that leads to something better, at least.

thanks. I'll get the rest of the paperwork turned in this month and then we'll see I guess -n- (and thanks for all your other supportive words too)

on [pudding] @xurkitreeking said: I want to eat your art, i feel like it would make a satisfyingly cronch like one of those puffed air chip

omg that's so nice??? like puffed rice or something yeah, I can totally see what you mean

on [pudding] @ceylonsilvergirl said: I know things like spills are technically so small, but when you’re already at the end of your rope it’s fascinating how something like this can send you into a crying fit. you held it together so well for so long, and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back

ugh yeah sometimes when there's already So Much you just look at it and you're like. haven't I already been through enough. but it's like, kind of a "safe" thing to get upset about? because it's obvious to anyone there that it happened and that it's unambiguously negative, even if it is only minor, and it's also not like you're taking space away from someone else or whatever.

on [reborn] @ceylonsilvergirl said: I’m not allowed to watch any more, after I laughed so hard I gave myself an asthma attack

that's so tragic, this world is in shambles

they also did a delightful [expansion] of [outline] that's just so fun honestly, I love that every single object has the same gormless expression that kirby already had lol

on [bug] @theraphos said: me irl, literally i was about to clean the tub earlier and noticed this baby spider that was seriously just a fuckin. dot. i somehow managed to get it in a cup unharmed

whenever there's a spider in like, the shower, or the sink, I always worry so much about it going unnoticed and getting drowned until I know it's moved somewhere safer (we are a pro-spider household)

on [injection] @fakejtwelve said: I hope new meds work well for you 💜

thank you! so far I feel about as bad as usual except that my nose is finally not congested. which I guess is something. (it usually takes a couple months to really kick in so there is still grounds for hope!)

on [ghost] @11-eyed-rook said: this purple is a good purple thank you

there are many good purples in the world :)

anonymous asked: what is kirby's favorite swear word

honestly I think he's partial to "fuck", it's just got a good arrangement of consonants in it. easy to apply forcefully to a variety of scenarios.

on [eyebrows] @joekingv1 said: *asks baby what is their secret*

they definitely do not have a brown marker hidden behind their back :) don't bother checking you can trust them :)

on [pumpkin] @beardedhandstoadshark said: oh my god. Look at the lad. so round, so happy, so pumped (ha) to be here. no candles in and already glowing. happy halloween to everyone but especially this pumpkin (also as someone who can't cut circles for the life of me, let alone small ones, this seems genuinely impressive)

thanks! tbh my partner just handed me a steak knife and let me go, I smoothed it out some by just kinda like, jamming a finger in there to mush down any particularly jagged parts. it was a small pumpkin which probably helped.

@edgywithaheart asked: opinions on terminalmontages kirbo ?

excellent shape, excellent face. not all the jokes are For Me but clearly others enjoy them.

[happy-beeeps]

Day 9/10: Sweater and Boots

Summary: you and Din bundle up for a walk through an idyllic winter town.

WC: 1.1k

Warnings: none!

“Ok, are we feeling warm bud?”

You get a noncommittal babble of a response from Grogu, typical, as he wiggles in front of you. He’s bundled up as best you can get him, and Din is nervously puttering around behind you.

“You sure he’s fine?”

“Din, he’s fine. It was colder on the last system we took him to.”

He gives a grunt in an answer, before moving towards the rucksack of clothes he hangs in one of the door jams of the ship—you’ve been lovingly referring to it as his closet.

He comes out carrying a thick, black bundle of fabric that looks all too familiar.

“But are you going to be fine?” He hands the fabric to you and you hold it open. It’s his sweater, one of the ones he wears beneath his armor on colder systems. It’s big and heavy and so deliciously warm, and you put it on over the wool underlayer you were hoping to compensate with a heavy scarf.

In fact, he is quick to pull your scarf back on, wrapping it up and over your neck and around your head.

“Lose 30% of your body heat with your exposed.”

“Bet you’re always toasty in there then,” you tap his chest and he chuckles, adjusting your scarf again.

“I don’t just wear it for looks.”

You pick up Grogu and hold him to your chest while you wrap a loose bundle of fabric around your torso. Not only do you not have to worry about losing the little guy on your walk, but now you get to share a little extra body heat.

Din is already at your feet, holding your thick, woolen boots in front of you, lightly tapping an ankle for you to lift your foot in. It’s a little ritual you’ve picked up as so many systems have entered a winter-esque season on your travels, while you distract Grogu, Din gently guides your foot in your boot.

He pauses before he puts the second one on, and you can feel his gaze heavy on you. You wiggle your toes, already knowing the words coming out of his mouth.

“Are those… lothcats.”

“And what about it?”

He laughs, quietly, then, “What happened to the porgs?”

The rest of your foot is guided into the boot, and your spread your toes wide on the squishy fabric. “I lost my left sock, so if you see any porg stuff, you let me know.”

“Deal.”

This system is cute. It’s quaint, which made it ideal for a supply run, and just populated enough to attract the safety in crowds. It’s also not ridiculously cold, and beneath Din’s sweater and your scarf, you’re comfortably warm as you walk through the town.

The buildings are all cream and dark wood, and people bustle in and out of them carrying food, bolts of fabric, and wrapped gifts. Outside, patrons chat with one another in a few languages, some you can recognize and others that sound foreign to you. It’s a delightful sound, lilting and bright with hard consonants and long, drawn out language.

Honestly, you’re just surprised it’s so dark. According to your chrono, it should only be a little after midday, yet the sun has completely set in the sky. You know that some of these systems of solar cycles so baffling that in the summer it’s bright all day long, but you’re just surprised to see it in person.

Grogu is loving the town, snuggled warm against your sweater he reaches his arms out at everyone and everything. Din walks strong next to you, one arm tucked comfortably on the small of your back. It’s nice when he’s like this, easy and relaxed, such a rare treat these days.

You go to step into a small shop when Grogu spots a sweet stand nearby, his babbles turning into cries as his small hands stretch forward. Din looks at you, the door held open, and you swat him away, gently.

“I’ll take him for a treat, he’s been good today.”

There’s a sigh, but you know he’s smiling. “He’s gonna be up all night.”

You place your hand on your cheek in mock suffering, “I guess I’ll have to share with him. How will I survive!”

Din shakes his head and moves to step into the shop, careful to touch your waist and feel for the hidden blaster tucked under your layers. When he feels adequately confident in your safety, he disappears inside.

“Cmon, let’s see what kind of trouble we can get in before your dad comes back.”

The cart in the square has warm drinks that smell of rich spices and an ooey, gooey cheese melted across a warm piece of bread. This feels like the perfect compromise between the sweets your menace of a child had been trying to get into earlier, and you’re happy to share the rich meal with him while you sip your drink in the square.

It really is a beautiful town, it reminds you of the small villages you’d seen images of on Alderaan. There’s lampposts with candles along each street corner and tall green trees with rugged bark dotted here and there. Along the cobbled streets and between the snow, red flowers dot through the earth. You could sit here forever, and you intend to ask Din the name of the system again—and how you can come back.

He’s back before you know it, a large bundle in his arms.

“Shopping spree?”

“With the way this one eats?” He looses a hand on the bundle to rub the kid’s tummy, who babbles in response to the touch. “Let’s go home.”

There’s a flurry of snow falling on the walk back, just enough to land on your lashes and crunch beneath your boots. Din is walking quickly, and notably carrying the bundle as far away from you as possible. Dads you say, there’s almost a pep in his step?

When you do get back to the ship, you quickly tuck Grogu into his pram while Din sets the supplies aside. You’ll most likely just sleep here tonight, seeing as the planet is safe enough to not have take off immediately.

When you’ve both finished your tasks, Din motions you towards the small bed you share on the Crest, something tucked ominously behind his back.

“It’s for my peace of mind, so you can’t tell me it’s too much.”

You quirk an eyebrow confused, until he places a pile of fabric in your hands. You pull the soft knit outward it’s stretches just as big as his, black and white with a little snowflake pattern embroidered in. And… wait… is that…

“Are there porgs on this!?” You squeal, and from his laugh you know you’re right. He’s already taking his helmet off and setting it beside him, and now you can see the twinkle in his eyes before you kiss him, soft and sweet. “Thank you.”

He kisses you again, then pulls you in close to his chest.

“Don’t thank me yet. Wait until we get to the porg sanctuary tomorrow.”

[ok-sims]

Good Omens 2 and playing with expectations

so I watched good omens for the first time in like 2020, had a blast but didnt really think about it again until s2 came out.

and now i realize that one of the things that caused me this obssession brain rot this time around is just how the whole season, but specially the ending, completely subverted my expectations, yet everything that happened is extremely coherent with season 1.

crowley has been asking aziraphale to run away with him for quite some time now. and aziraphale has been "choosing" heaven over him.

smaller things are very coherent too. crowley and taking part in nebula/planet/starmaking. aziraphale and forgiveness. crowley being "unforgivable". alpha centauri.

how can such a coherent finale surprise and smite me so much?

I guess part of it is the queerbait that many fandoms have been subjected to, historically (I was very much into sherlock back in 2014-2017, so you can see where I am coming from...)

but another part is how the final fifteen have a very different tone to the rest of the series. of course, there are some heavy moments in both seasons (the Golgotha being the main one), but those were taken from the biblical lore and not directed to aziraphale and crowley. while there is some drama between them in s1, it is never really serious .crowley was devastated when he thought aziraphale was dead, but we (the audience) knew he was fine. soon, they reunited and faced the end of the world together. there was the fight over holy water in the flashbacks, but we see then make up in the very next scene. so our expectations were set to having crowley and aziraphale have their conflits to be: silly and/or quickly resolved.

I guess that, along the fact that their feelings now have an undeniable romantic nuance confirmed to them, was my fall down the rabbit hole.

I did not expect the series to acknowledge so clearly, very much on screen, the romantic connection between them. before that, this was really heavy subtext, but the leap to text is still pretty uncommom in similar works. even more rare is having the characters kiss, because it leaves no room for subtext anymore. it changes the dinamic between the characters, as well as the perspective of the audience. tv often runs from this sort of change, because it is a risk, but I'm very glad the show took that risk and went with it without looking back.

the risk of changing the tone (even if just for the final fifteen) is also often avoided. "is this show not a comedy?" "isnt everything fine at the end?" so we were left with our expectations completly subverted in both aspects. and yet it all makes sense with everything good omens has showed us before. we were blindsided by the expectations that were firmly constructed for us, the audience, but the ending played out in consonance with the narrative built all through seasons 1 and 2. aziraphale creates situations just to have an excuse to see crowley. crowley is always coming to aziraphale's rescue, no matter what trouble this may give him in hell. btw, crowley could not care less for hell or heaven. "we can go off together, angel". "listen to yourself".

s1 and s2 are so very much in line. I'm glad good omens had the courage to take the leap and subvert everything we were expecting: be it subtext to remain subtext, or a comedy to have its conflit being easily resolved in time for the credits to roll in. and it did it all while making perfect sense for the narrative, with no last minute ill-planned plot twists. it's no wonder we haven't been normal about it since july: when was the last time you watched something like this?

[bomberqueen17]

writing etc

Well so I did push through on writing this week. Retrieved my real computer yesterday so I did all of the work on my old laptop, resurrected, short on battery life, unable to charge except for some reason from one particular outlet in the house, who knows why.

But anyhow. I finally got through the block on the next chapter of the Peace-Tied continuity, which-- I just scrolled back in a Discord thread where I'd been discussing it and I got as far as December of 2022 before i was squarely before this point. So it's been a big block for a while. And now I'm like.........

where was I going after this

LOL it's such a weird feeling, to have finally worked past a scene you'd been planning on writing-- and the thing is, I really wasn't sure which direction it would go, my first draft of it was way too much one direction and I'd written it ahead of the setup, and once I did the setup that draft didn't really work anymore, and some of the setup was from ideas I'd had years before, and needed fixing, and anyway it's been many drafts and I wasn't sure where it would come out. And I'm still not sure what it actually means. But now I have to go back and look at what my ideas were for the next bits, and figure out where I'm taking those.

And the chapter isn't even ready to post, i still need to go back and make sure I've walked the fine line between "character doing what I need him to" and "ooc", and I'm ngl I'm a bit resigned to it coming down on the "ooc" side, but I console myself nobody who minds that is still reading along with this unless they're quietly hate-reading in which case you do you, I respect that.

So I'm actually at the point in both ongoing serieses where I'm like...... past a big block I've been trying to strategize around for a long time. And on to a next section I've mostly not let myself write ahead. So it's weird uncharted territory, especially when you're not an outliner. (I can't do outlines, really, I can only speculate about what might happen next, and more often than you'd think I absolutely know where to take things despite not having overtly planned them, but. I secretly suspect this takes up all of the brain space I have, which most people use for like, their daily life, and this is why ADHD meds can't fix me, because my head is entirely full of fictional realities and there's just not room for real ones. IDK. Can I know where I left my keys? No I may not have that information because I filled the place where it goes with different Wet Cat Boy scenarios, sorry.)

anyway I think it's even odds, looking back at the last posted chapter, how many commenters expect this scene to go where it went.

Behind the cut: a snippet of what happens next in Eagle Sable, Lozenge Gules, which left off with Iorveth's Unicorn Badge story which had taken me a couple of years to write too. I will update that chapter soon so don't click if you really want to be surprised I guess, LOL. But I don't realistically know how long the final edits will take me. I'm off to the farm tomorrow probably, and it's three weeks there this time, so. Not a ton of time for writing, coming up. But the hard part's done, I hope.

“You might have to hold the pup’s collar,” Iorveth said, cutting the consonants sharply to punctuate his languid tone, “he seems a bit overexcited.” Roche had forgotten about the dog collar. He’d noticed Gascon was wearing it, but that memory had fallen right out of his head. But there it was, thick and studded, brown leather with sturdy brass hardware, exactly the style of collar Flash and Nosewise had worn. He reached down and cradled Gascon’s jaw, just as Iorveth had done to his. “I don’t think I need to haul on that collar,” he said softly. “I know a good dog when I see one.”  “Takes one to know one,” Gascon said, brash and uneasy. Iorveth clicked his tongue disapprovingly, but said nothing. Roche looked consideringly into Gascon’s face. He wasn’t a bad-looking fellow, really, strong-jawed and young, and even more appealing with the brashness shredded away a little.  “Well,” Roche said, “time to prove it,” and leaned in to press his mouth to Gascon’s. Gascon tasted like wine too, but it tasted different in his mouth than it had in Iorveth’s. Roche pulled from his physical memory and slid his tongue into Gascon’s mouth just as Iorveth had to him, and Gascon made a soft little whimpering noise and opened up to him. 

[sarah-denial-cq]

Power In Names

Take a second to think about degrading terms for women. You're here on my Tumblr, so you've probably heard some of them. I thought I would give my thoughts on some of them and what my favorites are. I'm writing this entire post with panties stuffed in my mouth so we'll see how long it goes.

First of all, my favorite, is bitch. When Rose pushed my face down against her clit in her car, pulled over the side of the road on Valentine's day with my ass up in the air and my dress stripped off, and said "suck it, bitch", my mind went so fuzzy. It hit me so good and hard. But why?

"Bitch" drips with gender violence. So many words are generic ("slut", "whore", "slave", etc), or focused on specific body parts ("cunt", etc) or activities ("cocksucker", etc). But "Bitch" cuts through those to my specific identity. And it is unmistakably, unavoidably hierarchical. A bitch is beneath, inferior, contemptible.

I'm so fucking wet and squirmy writing this, sorry.

But that's not all. The actual sound of the word has so much to do with it. "Bitch" starts with a voiced bilabial consonant, a "B" sound. Yes, my university degree including several semesters of linguistics classes, which I'm now using to explain why being called a pathetic fucking bitch is such a good way of being put in my place. I needed to take a break to edge after writing that.

A voiced bilabial consonant means the sound is formed at the very front of the mouth with two lips rubbing against each other and coming apart. Kind of like when you spit on someone. Or kind of like what you hear when someone spits on you, I guess. The word has the most violent "attack" sound at the beginning of it. Compare it to words like "slut" (unvoiced alveolar initial consonant) or "whore" (unvoiced glottal initial consonant) and there's just no comparison.

By the way, "voiced" vs "unvoiced" refers to how the vocal chords are vibrating. You can feel this by wrapping one hand firmly around your throat and using the other to slap your face while you compare the voiced "b" in Bitch with the unvoiced "p" in Pathetic. I can't, of course, because remember I still have my panties stuffed in my mouth right now.

OK, so with "Bitch" dealt with, I need to talk about the elephant in the room, which is the word "cumdump". Now first of all, I haven't had any consensual sexual experiences that have involved being used in that way. But that being said, while I know it's super common on tumblr, "cumdump" really does nothing at all for me. You know what does? You know what word you can use for me that's so, so much more (squirming again) of a hit to my fried out brain?

"Cumtarget".

Again, it's the violence in the word. It's not a passive receptacle. There's no hierarchy, no danger, nothing about "cumdump" makes me prey. I know there's an ethos to a woman as a passive receiver but do you really want Sarah lying in bed like a dead fish? I want to be targeted. Hunted. Claimed. Overpowered. Defeated.

I'm drooling down my front.

In no particular order, here are a few other favorites.

Pathetic (that initial bilabial consonant, yes please)

Rapebait (p, b, targeting, violent)

Stupid (diminishing, disrespectful, "p" sound, obviously purposefully disrespectful since clearly I'm objectively not)

Dyke (complex)

Bimbo (bbbbbbbbbbb and see "stupid")

Backup Fuck (b, p, very explicitly hierarchical.)

Cunt

Weak

And some less violent:

Babygirl (heart emoji heart emoji heart emoji) (not ddlg)

Eye candy

[redacted because it's rooted in ableist language that I'm not comfortable using]

sorry I'm really wet right now this is too hard

And quickly, a few that just aren't that interesting

Slut (so overused it may as well just be "hello")

Whore (I literally was one)

Slave (you're divorced, wear a suit that's too tight, and love black and white gifs)

I hope that was insightful and that reading it improved your day. I'm going to put these panties back on and lick up the wet spot on the chair now.

xo

[fuesch]

Agatha All Along 1x05, part 1 (*shakes fist at character limit*)

Has the episode title always had one part appear and then the rest or is that just to make this ominous title even more so?

Oopsy, through the green-witch "portal" the Salem Seven come. Seems like something a portal for such a specific summons shouldn't do, not to mention that that the Witches' Road is such an exclusive place. So I'm hoping this is more because of the power of the Salem Seven. Or maybe Rio - since that portal was for her - helped.

If the Nazgul weren't on the inspiration board for the Salem Seven, I'd be shocked.

Oh, I wondered how time works on the Road. If the witches wouldn't need to sleep, that maybe time is dilated on the road and their body clocks would still be on real time. But no, they're sleeping, which makes me think that the reason Agatha wasn't there must be that she needed to pee. If you have the need for one essential rl thing, the others will be there too. I sure hope there's enough food in those trial houses.

Congrats to Teen being attacked by one of the Salem Seven - so nice to be considered part of the coven! :P

Teen, I love you, but your pronunciation of Hexenbesen is terrible.

I love it when Lilia goes on one of her rants.

Aw, I like how, despite the brooms being out of fashion, the witches still know how to make them. Impractical though that you can't make one by yourself.

The Road turning upside down to force the witches back to the ground is cool! And it got this glorious witch cackle out of Rio.

Oh, there's actually a house. I was wondering if the Salem Seven were Agatha's trial.

Aw yeah, 80s PJ party! Mmm, so much crochet everywhere. And do I detect some Stranger Thingsy synth?

"Whose trial is this?" Didn't you notice the color of the leaves and stuff? …Nah, okay, I don't blame you, Teen, you had a lot going on.

"And who better to commune with the dead than someone who's put so many in the grave?" Oh, right! What if Agatha & Rio's relationship came about by Agatha happening to be helpful for Rio's job?

Why do people say that "a" in "ouija" like that?

Pfft, even Lilia wears a Casio.

The game is for ages 3 and up. I'm guessing this is a dig at the games that say "[low number]-99".

I gave up trying to put the letters together when there were 4 consonants in a row, so I can't tell you if I would have read it as Mr. Shart or Mrs. Hart.

I'm disappointed Agatha just put on a show to kill time (aw, look at how well Rio knows her), because obviously I'm waiting to see Sharon again.

Wait, now that Agatha is serious about the ouija board, she says the "maiden, mother, crone". The first time she said it in the wrong order, so that might have kept the game from actually starting.

Aw, look at Rio laughing about the board saying "death". She's just having the time of her life on the Road.

"Lilia is being weird again." Hey, be nice, Teen! And what's so weird about it? She didn't even like when Agatha faked the spirit, so of course when it's real it becomes scarier.

Only when Jen puts away her retainer, I noticed that she had one. Was it ever even visible? I only remember that she did something at her teeth, after she entered the house.

"Familiars don't get a vote." Yeah, speaking of those, how important are they to the Road? You know, since they're mentioned in the Ballad and those lyrics function as instructions. But I guess it means only if you have one, you should take it with you. …Wait, did I just finally get it? I guess the point was to let the other witches be okay with Teen's presence. Okay cool, better late then never.

Alice, holding up the lamp, gets to show off her abs.

Possessed Agatha lifts Jen by the throat and we get a glimpse of the latter's bunny slippers. Those deserved a moment more of attention, I think. And am I imagining it or do they glow in the dark?

Oh so that's what ghosts look like here. Nice.

"Stop embarrassing me in front of my friends, mom."

I love that we're finally clearing up Agatha's flashback from WandaVision! But wow, I didn't think it would be so depressing as her own mom stating that Agatha was born evil.

Hey, we're finally seeing the wispy type of magic being used in this show about witches. Protection witch to the rescue, woo!

Argh, what does Lilia say with those tarot-card names?!

Oh shit, Agatha is sucking in Alice's power. But you're not killing Alice, are you?!

Teen reading from the ouija board what feels like the longest name ever. But hiiii, Nicky!

It looked like Agatha couldn't really stop, that power just is, so I guess that's why Evanora thought she was evil since birth. She didn't learn it, it has always been there. Although… when would someone have first blasted her? As a teenager would make most sense to me, but maybe Agatha was already super annoying as a little kid and so got blasted early. I always thought the way she acted in her flashback was suspicious, but thinking about it now makes it make sense. If she had to deal with people (her own mom even) judging her for a power she can't even control, of course she'd be super resentful by the age of 18. She does something when the magic flow changes, but it's not intended to kill or absorb magic. It's just a defense mechanism and once it gets going, it can't be turn it off. Huh, Wanda and Agatha have some things in common.

No! You didn't just really, actually kill off Alice for real?! She only just passed her trial, you can't do that! I mean, I know there's the habit of showing more of a character right before they're killed off, but come on! She passed her trial, she just made her life better - it would be so unfair to kill her now.

The orange in Agatha's hand looks so weird. Is she "quoting" it or why does the magic have that color still? Is it supposed to tell us that it's not enough yet to count as her own power? Oh, then it goes up in smoke. I guess it wasn't Agatha, the magic did that itself. OMFG, then Alice's death wasn't even good for anything.

And now we follow the yellow-leaved Road, so it's Lilia's trial next.

Huh, Agatha's is the first failed trial. I wonder if the coven's overall success counts at the end or if Agatha has no chance of getting what she came for - from the Road at least. Although I'm super in denial about Alice, so Agatha probably hasn't fail yet.

"Death comes for us all." Aw, poor resigned Lilia. But I'm sure the rest (that includes her) is gonna be fine.

[chaosdetector]

First Steps of Many

(Redacted Audio) Asher x Black Reader Imagine ~ 1.75k words

!!Disclaimers!!: This is not beta read, there is angst, some foul language, occasional violent imagery, brief & light hints of sexual attraction btwn 2 adults, and bc it hasn’t been peer-reviewed (also bc I couldn’t decide if I wanted to write it like a [Name] fic, or use the listener’s nickname throughout), this fic could expose you to unhealthy amounts of CRINGE!!!

If any of this isn’t your cup of tea, feel free to scroll away and find something that does (I won’t take it personally ;D)

If none of that turns you away, then here’s a seat and a snack! I hope you enjoy the potential pt. 1 of this series! <333

This is a narration of the beginning of the end. Baabe would hold down the fort as per usual, taking orders from five people before getting to her favorite customer. They would both like to talk more about daily troubles, Asher sucking his teeth to keep his angst about his bitter family in a vacuum, and Baabe pivoting themselves from anything too personal by stringing out their consonants on a stuttered inhale.

The welcoming bell of the family owned joint interrupts itself to ring thrice for a happy horde of hungry habeshas, and Asher quickly two-steps from the counter and to his table. Baabe welcomes them all warmly, but raises a couple eyebrows with their hastened pace in servicing them all. Asher sees Baabes’ struggle to serve and record all of their orders as something he indirectly caused, flinching when he sees you nearly drop someone’s chai and three plates of food.

He walks up to you when you make it behind the counter, with about eight tickets still on the line, and four more plates to bring to their tables, he told you how he thought it would be best for him to come back later, and apologized for rushing you with his promise of staying to sit down and talk in the way he knows you’ve wanted to.

You stare at him with your eyes squinted, as if stressing your eyes would help you hear him better. You get the bright idea to glance down at his lips just as he utters the fact of him leaving, then practically lunge over the counter to clap his hands between your own. Loud crashing and clattering of tea and coffee sets against plates and cutlery quieted the entire kitchen, and ignited another kind of clamoring and clattering.

“I can handle this. I know it looks like a lot, but I deal with worse at my day job.”

The shouting from the kitchen approaches and intensifies after coming into contact with someone else’s spilled masterpiece.  Baabe looks back for a moment, then flicks their face, beaten soft with yearning (and the incoming blow to her paycheck for one and a half tea sets), towards Asher. His blonde hair brushing against your face as you lean in close to his ear. Your minty breath closes the gap between you both as you say–

—“Wait for me. “Please.” He turns his head and nods, something that could’ve read as him nuzzling into your neck—something he’s stayed awake thinking about doing since he met you.

Something about your intoxicating scent, your hickory toned skin—something about all of you never fails to make him swoon. What happens next is almost automatic; you see in the midst of his adoration of you he reclaims his clarity, next he makes the decision he wanted to from the start (sit and wait for you to sit with him over a delicious meal that someone else will bring out for the both of you), then he wrestles with the characatures of his pack members his mind made to taunt him, wins against them all because, “Fuck ‘em. What are they going to do about it? Bitch and moan? I can take that. Fight me? They can fuck themselves over and try.”

The idea of David and Milo pop up in his mind. He looks up to see two teas he hadn’t ordered sat in front of him, and your apron slung across the chair parallel to him.

“I’d get my ass handed to me every day if it meant being here.”

“Well,” You chuckle.  “…let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, yes?”

His eyebrows shoot up, breaking his morbid composure.  He lets out a laugh, awkward in it’s intensity and tone.

“Well, anything for the world’s best siga fir fir.” He looks to your eyes, then glances down to the tea you generously paid for. He thanks you for his drink and for starting the meal in the same nod he dips down to drink his tea in.

“And of course, I couldn’t miss out on the best waiter in the world.” You snort mid sip, coughing down the remainder of your hot tea to make room for your laughter. You had to settle yourself down from your laughing fit.

Why were you laughing anyways? He didn’t even say anything funny? Maybe it was his face when he said it? The way he’d scrunch his nose before being cheeky was always so endearing, or maybe it was the way this mountain of a man was so gently clasping onto his cup?

“[Asher says something]” That’s it! It was his eyes! It had to be! The way his smile would crease his gaze into crescent moons, and the happy shape of his face was only exaggerated by his thick short boxed beard…and maybe it had a little to do with his choice of dress. Bomber jackets are understandable, but a leopard fur print interior and trim?

Baabe hadn’t noticed the abhorrent pattern until now, but maybe it was because Asher was wearing it? He somehow pulled off even the most criminal looks, so they wouldn’t be surprised.

Baabe stared for a second longer. Had his arms always been that big?

“Do you like my shirt?” “Nah, just your arms.”

Baabes’ eyes flew open, making them appear only a fraction as erratic as they felt. A wave of heat swallowed their neck and face.

‘OH MY GOD WHY DID I SAY THAT?’

“Oh my GOD, I can’t believe you just said that!” Asher guffawed, then laughed from deep down in his gut. Baabe was about to shrink into themselves for good until—.

“You know, it takes a lot of work to look this good!” Asher begins to put on a show. Flexing his arms in poses you could only remember that one hunky guy from the SpongeBob Movie doing. He cracks another laugh out of you. “I’m glad these big guns impress you!”

You take a moment to weigh the risk of what you’re about to say.

“You always impress me Asher.”

Asher froze, something he could’ve concealed better if it weren’t for your sweetened tone. Part of that moment he spent frozen was dedicated to scanning you up and down for any hints of sarcasm or humor, the next was spent reeling himself away from your genuine look of adoration. Because, dear GODS, if he looks at you any longer than how much he already has, he’s bound to do something stupid–and not “poor-man’s-imitation-of-Arnold-Hasslehoff” stupid, he’s talkin’ “Pick-you-up-in-his-arms-and-run-away-with-you-tonight” kind of stupid.

“Ehem, so uh, what did you want to tell me? Or, uh, what did you want to talk about?”

Baaabe rubs their ring finger, gently wringing just above where the knuckle connects to the start of their finger. “I actually wanted to talk about us. Asher, you and I have known each other for a while, and I really like you, but not enough to keep things between us how they are now.”

Asher’s hands went cold. He felt his grip on his teacup tighten.

“I like you too much, Asher. Every moment we spend together is more precious to me than the last, and–I–I’d just like, so, so much, to spend more time with you.” Baaabe looked up from their hands, their nervous glare softening the moment they met Asher’s own stunned expression.

“Do you feel the same?”

A beat passed between the two.

Then another.

A jittery laugh comes from Baabe.

“I may have sprung this on you, it’s alright if–.” “I’D LOVE TO!” “I mean, I agree! I’d love to go out with you [Name].”

Baabe blinks. “Really?” They release a sigh, the kind that is so heavy with emotion you’d have to manually push the last half of it out your chest and up your throat. Asher releases a heavy sigh of his own, then focuses all of his erratic heart to say–.

“Yeah! Yeah, really.”

They giggle in stupid glee for a long while, then Baabe (the glutton for punishment they are) springs another question that gets their heart racing.

“So, when are you free? I know you’re always busy with your security business so…”

“Yeah, no, don’t even worry about that! The guys can handle a couple jobs without me. And if they can’t–” Asher blew a raspberry. “–they’ll figure it out!“  The lovers let out a couple more laughs, riding on highs that, honest to God, they don’t know why are wracking through them this heavily.

The entire restaurant seemed to pause, and in that silence, the energy between them began to burn. A beautiful, private moment between both of them and the thirty other people in the restaurant.

You glazed over the audience with a scornful glare, briefly enough to catch nearly everyone’s eyes before they could be sneakily removed to an uninteresting wall, or an unnaturally compelling wood tile.

Asher coughed, which wound up drawing your mind to more important things.

“Are you free the Friday after next?” He asked, his hushed voice pointed enough for you to make the connections between the consonants and his intended message. “Yeah, yeah I can be free then.”