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autumnalwalker · 11 months ago

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Empty Names - 20 - Changeling Child

Author's Note: In which Ashan helps out a fairy that just realized they aren't human and draws uncomfortable parallels to his own experiences. Also, Lacuna horrifies everyone with mad science. There were a lot of delays with life generally getting in the way of this chapter being written, but I am a little proud of myself for just barely squeezing this in before the year ends, as per the goal I set for myself a month ago (in my home time zone anyhow). That said, I didn't manage to give this chapter my usual once-over full reread before posting, so I won't be too surprised if I edit this post later, if only to add the spoiler commentary to the tags. Hope you enjoy, and Happy New Year, everyone. Minor edits to wording/typos have now been made and additional commentary has been added to the tags. Word Count: 11,337 Content Warnings: Fantasy fight scene violence. Attempted (but failed) mind control. Passing reference of blood and gore without detail. Mild body horror. Deadnaming and misgendering a trans person (not Lacuna for once).

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It is a strange thing, to suddenly obtain a new material possession when one has previously made a point of keeping as few as possible. Stranger still when that new possession is slightly too big to fit into the folded space within the sleeves of your robe to keep safely on your person at all times. Eris did however include a white carrying case to go along with the matte-black laptop she gifted to Ashan last week, so that is something. It is not quite the same shade of white as his robe, but it is close enough that Ashan appreciates the thought.

For the time being, that laptop has stayed hooked up inside the guestroom within Bridgewood Manor that Ashan has been occupying since that first mission with Road nearly two months ago. At Lacuna’s urging he has tried to incorporate it into his morning and evening routines, if only to check the electronic mail. Thus far that has mostly just consisted of messages from Lacuna containing images with humor he is still grasping, the occasional suggestion from Eris regarding educational resources, and one from Bridgewood congratulating the three of them on connecting to the Manor’s WiFi. That last part had been nearly as esoteric process as Lacuna’s explanation of memes, and that had rapidly devolved into a rambling lecture about long cats, defunct deities, a philosopher called Plato, dual linguistic meanings lost in translation, and the ultimately futile and deceptive nature of the written word.

Whether it had been Lacuna’s intention or not, that extended feline rant led to his spending even more of his downtime on the computer than in the Bridgewood library since then. Not for the memes, but to find out who Plato was. That reference to an (apparently) historic figure as if familiarity were assumed once more drove home the fact that being stolen away before even completing an elementary-level education made him a foreigner in his own homeland. True, Aliana had tutored him on mathematics, logic, literary analysis, and other such skills in addition to magic, but none of the history or philosophy he learned under her guiding hand came from Earth. And why would it have?

But now this strange little bifurcated box offered a way to, if not fully amend, then at least mitigate that ignorance. While Ashan had long been aware of the Internet and its theoretical use as a store of knowledge and a communication medium, between a childhood in a home without a computer and adolescence spent in world without electronics he had never really experienced it until Eris showed up at the Lonely Walk office and handed him a surprise gift. To hear about it is one thing, but to actually scroll through the pages upon pages listing titles for tens of thousands of transcribed books free for access and hyperlinked inter-referencing encyclopedia articles tracing an interwoven tapestry of conceptual linkage from ancient philosophers to arboreal bearcats was another thing entirely. Ashan had known scholars on Orthon who would weep with joy and envy at the mere idea of such a library.

Admittedly, there were some complications with exploring the wider Internet caused by his translation charm not knowing how to handle trying to use a keyboard. Writing words by hand had been bad enough ever since the onset of his condition, causing whatever he wrote to come out as a pidgin of a dozen or so different languages - many of which he had never even personally encountered before - that was effectively gibberish to anyone without translation magic of their own or a very intense interest in linguistics. Trying to force his thoughts through a single achingly unrecognizable symbol at a time to try to form words specifically in a language that had been stolen from him was… distressing. Speech recognition software had proven no better, with the device - as Eris explained it to her - responding to specific physical sound patterns without any true perception happening for his charm to tap into. But he still has the collection of links and bookmarks his friends had sent him, and that is proving to more than suffice. Just those first two resources Eris provided him with were more than could be read in a single human lifetime.

Friends. What a wonderful thing to be able to call someone. How had he never realized what he was missing?

So now, on this particular morning, after his long-standing morning rituals of exercise and meditation (and a breakfast that he is perfectly capable of remembering and not putting off when there are not more pressing matters to attend to), Ashan turns on his laptop and checks his electronic mail. There is one new message, sent from Lacuna at two in the morning.

Its subject line reads “Simulations are done.”

Ashan is not normally one to hurry or rush things. Ashan barely takes the time to skim the full text of the message before closing the laptop and departing from Bridgewood Manor and the surrounding Estate at the quickest possible pace that will not leave him visibly winded. The brief time that it takes to reach the tree bridge that will transport him to its twin tree across the street from the office feels like an age in his excitement, and he tries to remind himself that after this long of a wait a few extra minutes will not make a difference. It is certainly nothing worth breaking decorum over, even with no one else around.

An eager grin the like of which has not graced his face in years creeps in all the same as he steps out of the Bridgewood Estate’s secure transit between the trees and into the early morning sunshine.

He crosses the street and then the sidewalk, and then the outermost of the security wards surrounding the Lonely Walk Outreach Agency. Invisible to the mundane or inattentive eye though they might be, after all the time he has spent adjusting and fine tuning them it is difficult for Ashan not to perceive them as a shifting rainbow lattice-work overlaid in concentric bubbles around the refurbished antique building.

The front door is unlocked, indicating that Lacuna must already be inside, given that Road and Eris were not expecting to be back from the followup to their most recent mission for another day or two. Ashan heads straight downstairs towards Lacuna’s basement lab; the woman is hardly ever anywhere else these days.

And yet, when the door slides open he finds her usual chair unoccupied despite all the computer monitors surrounding it being turned on. Ashan’s first thought is that she has simply stepped out for a moment to feed or relieve herself, but then he notices the figure displayed on the monitors. Eight different cameras at eight different angles and levels of zoom are displaying eight live feeds split across two screens Eight mechanical eyes watch a faceless white mannequin in worn and baggy clothes standing almost perfectly still in the middle of an evenly-lit blank white room. Its chest and shoulders rise and fall to the rhythm of slow and steady breaths despite the lack of mouth or nose. A timestamp on one of the video feeds tells Ashan that the recording has been running for nearly five hours now.

Ashan crosses the lab to the testing chamber door where he finds the clothes Lacuna was wearing yesterday lying crumpled on the floor. Curiosity morphing into concern, he hits the large red button to open the testing chamber doors and steps inside.

The mannequin takes no notice of him.

“Hello,” Ashan softly calls out to the figure.

No response.

“Lacuna, is that you?” Ashan asks, sliding his wand out of his sleeve and into his hand in a practiced gesture.

A shudder runs through the mannequin.

“Lacuna,” Ashan emphasizes the name, “are you alright?” Cautiously easing closer, he realizes that the mannequin is making a fist around something in one of its hands.

The mannequin twitches and jerks, contorting its limbs.

“Lacuna, may I see what that is you are holding?”

The mannequin goes still again before slowly turning its head down to eyelessly look at the hand it has brought up to chest level. Its fingers uncurl to reveal a sphere of interwoven plastic tendrils that rolls off of its hand and shatters when it hits the ground.

In an instant, the mannequin grows three inches, shifts its skin from blank white to a mere sickly pale with the occasional freckle, sprouts hair, and contracts its blank face to reveal the contours of features.

It surprises Ashan just how light Lacuna is when she falls forward into his arms. He is barely even eye level with her shoulder on the rare occasions she stands up straight, but he realizes now just how much she is skin and bones beneath the loose-fitting clothing she always seems to favor.

“Don’t tell Eris,” Lacuna breathes into his ear before passing out.

*******

“I’m sorry,” Lacuna apologizes for the tenth time since waking up. The first three times had come in quick succession upon regaining consciousness a minute or so after fainting. The fourth came when asking for a moment of privacy to change back into her clothes from yesterday, and the fifth when emerging from her lab some minutes later. The sixth was a part of turning down Ashan’s advice to put herself into the autodoc suite. The seventh was instigated by her stumbling on the stairs ascending out of the office’s basement, which in turn led to the eighth when accepting Ashan’s offer to help her up. The ninth took the place of thanks when Ashan unstuck the cap she was struggling with on the bottle of apple juice she retrieved from the refrigerator. What this latest one is for is less immediately apparent.

Now she sits at the other end of the kitchen table from Ashan, staring down at an empty wrapper of plain salted crackers. Stripes of morning light cut between the window blinds and divvy up the space between them.

“For what are you sorry this time?” Ashan prompts.

Lacuna flinches at the question, withdraws momentarily, and hesitantly answers, “I’m doing it again, aren’t I? That must be annoying, sor- Gah! Why do I keep - I mean -” She stumbles over her words a few more times before closing her eyes, holding up one finger, and taking a long drink to drain the rest of her glass. Setting down the glass, she opens her eyes and tries again while drumming her fingers on her arms in a rolling motion.

“I should have gone to bed and gotten a decent night’s sleep after sending you that message. So that I’d be able to help you today. Instead I got over-excited and tried to squeeze in a little bit of time now that the server load was free. For a personal project. Selfish.”

“Apology accepted,” Ashan says, keeping the disappointment out of his voice. He tries to tell himself that just one more day of waiting will not hurt him. And if Lacuna is a reckless enough enchanter to run some manner of botched transmutation ritual on herself, perhaps it would be for the best that he does not let her try to experimentally “help” him. “But why did you not want me to tell Eris? Friends are supposed to aid one another when distressed, are they not?”

“I don’t want her to worry about me. Same for Road,” she mumbles.

“You mean to say that becoming stuck as a faceless imitation of a human being all night is not cause for concern?”

“It’s fine!” Lacuna snaps defensively and then shrinks back from her own raised voice. “It’s fine,” she says more quietly. “I’m fine. I’m fine. It’s a problem I’ve been working for a while now and that’s not even the worst thing that’s happened to me so far. And the enchantment had a safety timer built in, so I would have been fine.” She raises her head, looking through Ashan rather than at him. “Compared to some of the other mishaps, this one actually felt… nice? It was quiet. Like all the thoughts going in my head all the time finally shut up for once and let me just be. Awareness without a sense of self to be aware of and in a room with no external stimulus.” She slaps a hand to her forehead and laughs. “Okay, wow, that does sound bad when I say it aloud, but I promise I’m fine. It was actually about as restful as sleeping, I’m just a bit frazzled right now from the sudden jolt back into things. And probably dehydration. And maybe low blood sugar. But I’m good now. Mostly”

As Ashan opens his mouth to form a reply to that, several other noises interrupt him at once. The sharp ringing of the outer barrier detecting an intruder with violent intent. A shout of fear. A howl of pain.

Before Lacuna can even make a surprised exclamation of her own, Ashan is already out the kitchen, past the repurposed check-in counter, and throwing open the door. The frightened and haggard individual sporting a denim jacket covered in enamel pins on the other side stops dead in their tracks at the motion of a wand coming within an inch of poking their eye out. Looking under and past the unexpected visitor’s placatingly raised arms, Ashan catches a glimpse of a smoking pantherine shape on the sidewalk dissipating in a sparkling green haze. The tree-lined street is left empty except for fallen petals and parked cars. The blue electric hatchback with claw marks on the side parked nearest to the former bed and breakfast had not been there when Ashan arrived barely half an hour ago.

Ashan’s eyes flick back to the individual standing in front of the door, locking gazes.

“What was that?” he asks.

“I was hoping you could tell me. Now please, you gotta let me in. Before it -”

They double over groaning in pain. With effort they crane their neck up to reveal a face flickering between two forms. One of an unremarkably average brown-eyed human with two or three days of unshaven stubble, and the other violet-eyed with smooth, waxy leaf-green skin. Violet eyes or brown, the look of desperate fear and confusion is the same. It strikes Ashan how young they are. No more than late teens.

“Help me,” they gasp.

Ashan guides them to a couch in the nearby living room, locking the door behind them. They recover quickly enough after lying down - Lacuna catches up just in time to see the surprise guest’s face flicker for the last time - but even after their face settles back to human their left arm remains green. They cradle it to their chest, as if it were still in pain. Or as if they were trying to hide it. Shame? Fear? Embarrassment? All of the above, Ashan guesses.

“Name,” Ashan says, instruction more than question. He remains standing, alert for the first sign of treachery from whomever he just invited in or of another attempt at entry from whatever that was outside.

“Tam,” the individual on the couch stammers. “Tam Lin.” Their green left hand clutches tighter at the utterance.

Ashan stares this Tam Lin down. On the one hand, that sort of fear - the bewildered fear of having been abruptly thrust Backstage for the first time - is as difficult to fake as it is recognizable. On the other hand, that which he suspects them to be are known to be excellent actors and none of their kind would so easily give away their Name.

“Tell me Tam Lin,” Ashan asks, “what brings you here today?”

The green hand twitches at the Name’s emphasis, even without any attempt at nominal magic infused into his voice. Yes, definitely one of the fair folk, but why the guileless deception? Why take such risk with a Name freely spoken, as sensitive as their kind are to that?

“The website,” Tam says, “it said you can help with weird stuff like this. You can help me, right?”

“Most likely,” Ashan answers, “but first we need to know more specifically what your problem is.”

“If I may,” Lacuna speaks up from where she has perched on an ottoman at the other end of the couch from Tam. As she slips her phone back into her skirt pocket and intently looks Tam up and down all her earlier disorientation has vanished completely. Ashan knows that eager, almost hungry look. It is a look he has seen on experimentally-minded wizards presented with a unique specimen and alchemists greedily eying rare reagents. And on children seeing their favorite animal in the flesh for the first time.

With only the slightest misgiving, Ashan nods in assent.

Lacuna’s eyes light up and she leans in even closer. “Right. So. Tam. Let me know if I miss the mark anywhere. As a kid you saw all sorts of fairies and similar magic. When you got older you wrote them off as childhood make believe, but ever since you had strange and vivid dreams about them. Maybe you even were one in your dreams. When you hit puberty, those dreams got more frequent. More intense. Easier to remember. Almost a second life whenever you were at your lowest points. Still just dreams at the end of the night though. Nothing you couldn’t put out of mind and focus on the ‘real world.’ And then one day. A recent day. I would guess. One or both of your parents died. Ever since, you’ve started having those dreams every night. And then every time you closed your eyes. And then when you looked in the mirror, wide awake, you looked like you did in your dreams. That’s when something started following you. Not knowing where else to turn, you turned to the Internet, and found us. No one answered your calls or the message you left. That’s my bad. Real sorry about that. So you hopped in the car and drove all night to our address.”

Tam stares at her, eyes wide and jaw agape. “My moms are still alive, but everything else is - how did you know?”

Ashan tilts his head, surprised and curious to know himself.

Lacuna slips back into her usual discomfort, awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck. “Sorry. That was weird of me, wasn’t it? Got carried away. Touches on a… special interest of mine. So. Basically. You’re a changeling. A fairy swapped with a human baby to be raised in its place to take its Name.”

“You’re joking,” Tam denies.

“You were quite literally shapeshifting in front of me,” Ashan points out.

“Not intentionally,” Tam says.

“It wouldn’t be,” Lacuna says. “Historically speaking, most children accused of being changelings were just some flavor of neurodivergent. The real ones tend to blend in as normally as the baby they swapped with would have, fooling even themselves. Not that there isn’t overlap between the two from time to time. A Name isn’t just the name it’s tied to, it’s a whole identity, physical and mental. Most changelings have no idea they’re not human until something triggers a change, at which point whatever fae liege made the bargain will come to retrieve them. Or send a servant to do so. Kinder ones will be upfront about it and explain things. Maybe even make an offer to continue living as you are.”

“And crueler ones will send a hunting beast to drag you back kicking and screaming,” Ashan posits.

Tam’s nervous nod is all the confirmation Ashan needs as to what tripped the wards around the office.

“What I’m still hung up on,” Lacuna says, “is what triggered your change. Normally it’s the death of whichever parent made the deal, but…” She trails off as her eyes alight on one of the pins adorning Tam’s denim jacket. A heart of four stripes. Yellow, white, purple, and black. “How long ago did you start calling yourself Tam?” she asks.

“A little over three years ago.” Tam answers. “Just before I turned sixteen. But, come to think of it, the dreams actually stopped for a while when I came out, if that’s what you’re getting at. The therapist my moms had me see told me it was probably just a repression thing that didn’t need an outlet anymore now that I’d accepted myself. I’d just about forgotten about them until this all started out of the blue a couple weeks ago.”

“You said ‘moms,’ plural,” Ashan observes. “What about a father?”

Tam shakes his head. “I asked about it once and they told me they went through a fertility clinic. Anonymous donor. No legal way to know who.”

“Oh, that’s clever,” Lacuna says. “Dirty dealing and a really messed up way to get around the classic ‘firstborn child’ contract, but clever."

“Clever or not,” Ashan says, “I suspect it is beside the point at the moment. The more pertinent question is this: What do you want Tam?”

“What do I want? I want to stop being chased by a giant monster cat! I want to stop randomly turning green! I want my life back!”

“Do you truly want that? Even knowing what you know now? Even with the knowledge that it may not be your life to begin with?”

“Of course it’s my life! So what if I was switched with some other kid at birth? It was me that everything happened to. It’s me that everyone in my life knows. My moms, my friends, my experiences, and my life!”

“And you are not the least bit curious about what else your life could be if you found more answers and embraced what you really are?”

“Oh screw you and your mind games. Do I look like I give a shit about some absentee fairy king dad wants for me? I know who I am and don’t you dare imply that my life hasn’t been real.”

“Good answer,” Ashan says. “Now hang on to that conviction. You shall need it.”

“What for?”

“For when we go tell a fae liege unused to being told ‘no’ that they cannot have what they want.”

*******

“Last check if you want to wait until Road and Eris get back,” Lacuna’s voice says through Ashan’s earpiece as he stands just inside the picket fence marking the border of the office and the unwarded sidewalk.

“Road left me behind for the express purpose of helping any clients that show up needing help while they are away, and that is exactly what I am doing now,” Ashan responds. “We have taken the necessary precautions and I see no reason to doubt my ability to resolve the matter. Or are you saying that you would rather wait?”

“I’m nervous, not gonna lie, but what else is new? You’re the one with the hard job here, so we’ll be fine. Anyway, mirror charm’s still holding strong on this end. Tam still looks like you in here, and you still sound like them. Let’s just hope it fools everyone else as well as it fools me.”

According to Tam, the beast that has been hounding them for weeks now only shows itself when no one else is around, which presented a complication for any plans to assist them. Fortunately Lacuna had been able to dig up a pair of bracelets she had enchanted some time back as part of one of her ever-vague “personal projects.” Allegedly they operated via a modified perception filter to cause observers to perceive one wearer as the other while leaving the wearers’ perception unaltered. That last part had caused Lacuna to deem the bracelets “an experimental failure but exactly what we need now,” while leaving Ashan and Tam to take her word on their efficacy. While even now Ashan can tell that the bracelet is doing something whenever he glances down at his wrist, actively focusing on it is nearly as nauseating and disorienting as that concealment ritual of hers.

The same goes for the little metal rectangle engraved with a not-quite-fractal on either side now hanging from a cord around his neck and tucked beneath his robe. According to Lacuna it is supposed to provide protection from anything trying to get into his mind. It was the one amulet out of the whole clinking mass she had tried to foist upon him that he accepted, and mostly just to placate her, if he is being honest. She had been busy these past weeks with enchanting trinkets from her library of pre-recorded rituals from her old job and if Ashan had hung all that she had offered around his neck the combined static noise of their auras that close to him would have run the risk of making him sick.

Once again, he wonders how she has not accidentally killed herself already. Or at least blown up her lab.

But enough of that. What comes next requires a clear mind free of distracted musings.

A static tingle runs over Ashan as he steps through and beyond the outermost ward and onto the unprotected sidewalk. He continues forward, past the car Tam hastily and crookedly parked on the curb. The claw marks on the vehicle are long and deep, and numerous enough to indicate multiple attempts at retrieval. He comes to a stop with one foot on either side of the painted divider line bisecting the empty street.

“I am ready now,” Ashan says to no one. “Guide me to your master and I shall follow of my own free will.”

A sudden breeze carries the scent of dry leaves and kicks up a swirl of sparkling green dust. The same synesthetic mapping that allows Ashan to “see” the wards around the office shows him a rapidly growing ring within the verdant haze. A low growl rumbles out of the hole within the formless ring and a pantherine shape slinks out from behind the breeze.

The great cat sharing the street with Ashan would be longer than he is tall even without the tail that coils and unfurls as it slowly sweeps back and forth. The beast’s baldness only accentuates its bulging muscles and the isolated shock of dark hair atop its head. The brown eyes that stare up into Ashan’s look just like Tam’s. It snarls, barring too-human teeth for the shape of its head, and then turns away.

Ashan follows the hunting beast across the street to a fairy ring of white mushrooms near the bridge tree that most certainly had not been there when he arrived earlier this morning. It pads around to the far side of the fairy ring, looks back to Ashan, gestures downward with its head, and flexes its claws. Its front paws have thumbs.

The message is clear enough: Step into the ring. Run again and claws will catch.

If the earlier swirl of dust was a tunnel, the fairy ring is a hole beckoning him into its depths. Ashan knows better than to let himself fall in.

He leaps.

He does not look before nor during the leap. Such transitions do not wish to be perceived. It takes longer than it rightly should for his feet to touch the ground. He keeps his eyes closed and tries not to heed his less biological senses lest nausea take him as he falls. Not that “falling” is the correct word for it. That would imply an up or down.

His arrival is signaled not by an impact but by the smell of dry leaves and the tickle of inhaled dust. He pinches his nose to stifle a sneeze and opens his eyes.

The space he finds himself in cannot seem to decide if it wants to be a forest or a castle. He is surrounded by pale-barked twisted trees. He is standing in a solid-walled narrow corridor. Fallen leaves crunch under his feet as he shifts his weight to look around. A neat carpet stretches behind him off into shadows and before him up to an ornate beaded curtain. A cloud-muted sun filters down through a canopy of desiccated foliage. A star-backed moon shines through a high vault of stained glass. Either way, motes of dust catch the weak light, shifting through the slow motion gyre of a breeze too weak for flesh to feel.

“Are you alright? We lost the feed for a minute there.” The static crackle of signal decay does little to conceal the concern in Lacuna’s voice. Is that not the tone she normally reserves for Eris? Are she and Ashan closer than he realized, or does she worry like that with everyone she considers a friend? He has little basis for comparison to correlate sensitivity of concern for safety with emotional investment.

It is a distraction.

He wants to ask her what she sees through the filter of the camera atop his ear. To verify the chimeric nature of his environs that shifts with every turn of his head and blink of his eyes. To tell her that her charm of mental protection does not work to shield his senses.

But he is playing the part of Tam Lin right now and Tam would have no reason to ask such questions of the empty air.

He nods and hopes she takes the cue to be silent when the hunting beast pads past him toward the hanging moss (beaded curtain).

For all that Ashan prides himself on stepping as lightly as any thief or dancer, he cannot help but stir up puffs of dust from the carpet (pulverize dry leaves into blooming clouds) with every step. The hunting beast’s guiding passage leaves no such trace. It is its master’s creature within its master’s demesne. Unlike Ashan, it is not showered with gray powder when passing through the moss (curtain) and into the throne room (parched glade) beyond.

The hunting beast crosses the space and seats itself on its haunches in front of a tangle of roots (a bas relieved throne), from atop which presides the fae liege with whom Ashan has come to bargain. It/He/She/They/Fae wear(s) wears robes of gray that are in the active process of becoming moth-eaten before Ashan’s eyes. Fingers and forehead alike are adorned with bechained jewelry; metals tarnished and patinaed, gemstones dull. Its/His/Her/Their/Faer face is an overlaid multitude that blurs expressions into an indistinct haze of imperfectly aligned features.

Ashan nods his head and sweeps an arm in a gesture of respect. It is not something Tam would do, but while Ashan has not dealt directly with the fair folk before he has been trained well enough to know the danger of losing oneself to a role in a place such as this and a true wizard bows to no higher authority. Fortunately, this lukewarm obeisance does not seem to perturb the figure on the throne.

“The Seventeen-Named Count of Curses and Dust bids you a welcome homecoming and congratulations on joining the ranks of the Named, Carter, my little changeling.”

With that proclamation one of those seventeen unspoken Names is chosen for temporary prominence and a conceptual waveform collapses. Ashan’s surroundings solidify into a single hybrid of a forest woven together into the shape of a castle. Tight-packed trees interlace branches to merge into solid walls. Leaves fallen from the canopy above have been carefully arranged into patterns on the forest floor. The fae liege now sits upon roots that have been expertly coaxed into the shape of a throne and wears only a single grandfatherly face. The hunting beast at the foot of the throne winces.

“You honor me with this audience, great Count,” Ashan says. “Pray tell, what next lies in store for a newly returned changeling?”

“So you do still recall the tongue of your true people in waking as well as dream. That shall save us much time in preparing you for your role as one of my emissaries. Once you have resworn your oaths of fealty to me your training in the ways and arts of my court shall commence. There shall be no time wasted on pointless festivities, for ours is the dominion of the dust to which all things return. To be my emissary is to weave the curses that will hasten that return, especially for those foolish enough to believe they can postpone it indefinitely.”

“Well, there’s your offer,” Lacuna says to Tam on the other end of the comms link. “Magic and probably a bit of world-hopping. Still want out?”

“Hell yeah I want out,” Tam exclaims loudly enough to be picked up by Lacuna’s microphone. “Screw this dust-to-dust reaperman crap.”

Ashan nods in silent acknowledgment of the expected response and addresses the fae lord in front of him. “O great Count, thank you for your answer, but I must now take my leave. To be one of your emissaries is not my place.”

“You misunderstand your position, little changeling,” the Count says, “your role here in my court was ordained long ago. Now Carter, kneel before me and renew your oaths.”

The hunting beast crouches and growls. Ashan stands unbowed and serene.

“I do not answer to you.”

“Such impudence! Have you no gratitude for your liege who saw fit to grant you a Name purchased in fair contract? By that very Name, Carter, I command thee kneel and renew your oaths!”

The Count’s voice echoes through the forest and shakes the dust from the trees. The roots of the throne writhe and the leaves stir from the floor. The hunting beast yowls and Ashan stands unbowed and serene.

“I do not answer to you.”

Another of the Count’s Seventeen Names takes prominence and the parched forest glade closes into a vaulted stone audience chamber. Fallen leaves sew themselves together into a threadbare tapestry of a carpet. Soft wrinkles stretch smooth and tight over a sharp-featured skull. From atop a marble throne embossed with arboreal motifs, the steel-eyed Countess of Curses and Dust glowers down at Ashan.

“You are mine. You. Shall. KNEEL!”

A will that is not his own claws at the edge of Ashan’s consciousness, ancient and vicious. The mental wards he was taught early on and has diligently kept up ever since fray and fracture. The invasive presence reaches in and touches a stray surface thought, withering it down to a vague sense of something forgotten. Perverse delight seeps in from the outside at the prospect of doing the same to every other thought until his very self is reshaped by erosion into an ideal servant.

The amulet beneath Ashan’s robe oscillates between burning and freezing against his skin. The intruder in his mind recoils and retreats. The Countess of Curses and Dust lets out a scream from her throne that sends the feasting moths fluttering away from her regalia.

“I. Do not. Answer. To you.” Ashan gasps. He has denied the fae liege for a third time. By the Law of Threes he should be safe from that avenue of coercion for now.

“What trickery is this?” The Count(ess) asks. Their face and hall flickers between aspects on every third word. “You are not my changeling. What are you? You are full of shards of glass and shattered iron that writhes and drips with rotted ichor. I will have no dealings with mad and broken gods or spawn of the eldritch.”

Suppressing a shudder at the thought of what Lacuna has hung around his neck and wrist, Ashan slips off his bracelet and the glamor disguising him as Tam Lin with it. With an audience gained and the nature of Tam’s would-be master displayed, there is no further need for that ruse.

“I am the student of Aliana Glassgaze, wizard, warder, and master of the Dancing Dream Paints style. I am here as the appointed champion of Tam Lin whom you would call Carter to speak on their behalf. I have judged the treatment you would afford your vassals and would now negotiate their release from your service.”

The room settles back into a hall of stone. “Interloper,” the Countess accuses, “you have no grounds on which to negotiate. Carter was one of mine when still Nameless and accepted the offer to become a changeling with full knowledge of and agreement to the terms that would come after. Whether or not he still remembers that agreement is immaterial.”

“Contracts made before a change in Name are not binding except between the Name’s new and original owners, and you were merely a middleman in that exchange. Elsewise you would not require a renewal of oaths.”

“You argue semantics of the general where it is the spirit of the specific that matters. Changeling contracts are always between intermediaries for neither the unreal Nameless nor the unborn Named are fit to negotiate. This contract was made and fulfilled in accordance with custom. All services to the blood father of the prior Name-holder were rendered as contractually agreed upon and fairy was swapped for child as payment rendered.”

Ashan puts one of the practiced smiles he copied from his mentor; the narrowing of eyes and lopsided upturn of the lips that lets an opponent know they have just walked into a trap. He never was able to muster the emotion she put behind it, but it remained an effective tool of intimidation and unbalancing provocation whether applied hot or cold.

“You would invoke the spirit of tradition, but this contract violated even that. You failed to account for the realities of modern anchor world humans. The exchange of child for changeling as a valid price is predicated on the bond between parent and child, but no such bond existed between the contract holder and child in this case. This so-called blood father was a mere anonymous donor of seed who met neither mother, child, nor changeling. It is doubtful he was ever even aware of the stolen child’s existence and certainly had no part in the bestowing of a Name.”

The audience hall shrinks down claustrophobically close. Peeling wallpaper faded to gray surrounds the empty and dust-covered royal nursery. The petulant Heir of Curses and Dust pouts from atop a pile of broken toys.

“That doesn’t matter,” they insist.

“Does it not? You were tricked into providing your curses to a human for free and in the process inflicted harm upon an uninvolved third party. That Name was not sold but stolen and was given to the changeling on false pretenses.”

“Liar!”

“If you truly thought I was such, you would not be wearing that face.”

The Count of Curses and Dust regains his composure and returns to being an old man on a throne of roots. The moths return to resume their eternal feast on his regalia.

“All of this is beside the point,” the Count says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “By my station, it is well within my rights to compel any courtless fairy whose Name I have command over into my service.”

“Then let us make a bargain,” Ashan suggests. “What is your price for leaving Tam Lin whom you call Carter and their friends and loved ones alone in perpetuity?”

The Count stares into Ashan’s eyes for a long moment and once again the young wizard feels an alien touch brush against the edge of his consciousness. This time the Count’s will does not seek ingress but instead traces the outermost border. An assessment of general shape if not interior contents. Twice Lacuna’s charm grows warm and twice the presence momentarily retreats before returning more cautiously. On the third time the Count breaks the silence.

“You would deny me the return of a changeling whose Name I bargained for, so it is only fair that I receive the means to create another in return.”

“My Name is not for sale.”

“Neither of them? You have two, do you not? One you wear now and one you have all but abandoned since childhood. A childhood name for a new changeling child would be most fitting indeed.”

“My Name is not for sale.”

“Are you sure? I would think I would be doing you a favor to unburden you from it. I can tell that all the recent times you’ve worn it have been marked by loss and longing. Wouldn’t it be better to let that pain go? To allow yourself to be fully the you that you are now?” The Count leans forward with a smile that is kindly at first glance. “Think about those loved ones you wish you could be with but cannot bring yourself to embody that old Name like you would need to. They could have the you that they remember back and the you that you are now could finally move on. You would be doing them a kindness.”

“My Name…” Ashan hesitates. It would be a kindness. As he is now, he cannot possibly hope to return to his parents without causing more pain than healing. But a changeling with his old Name unburdened by everything he has been through? A fae liege of the Count’s power could probably even alter memories and spin a story well enough to avoid a Masquerade breach. Without that wounded Name, perhaps he could even find it within himself to forgive Aliana and they could travel together again the way things were. Maybe he could even talk her into joining with Road and working with his new friends.

Maybe…

*******

“Maybe we’re wrong,” Eris said to Ashan the night after their mission with the vampire crypt beneath a suburban basement. Hot drinks late at night in the office’s kitchen had become something of a post-mission ritual between the two of them. At least when the two of them were both well enough to stand.

“Wrong about what?” Ashan asked.

“About family. Love. Broken bonds. All that stuff.”

“I am not sure I follow. Perhaps having been drained of blood is still affecting your cognition.”

“Eh, I’m mostly fine. What I’m saying is the Masquerade's done a number on both of us. You feel like you can’t go home after running away and my parents straight up disowned me after I came home covered in blood I couldn’t explain one too many times. But maybe we’re wrong about not being able to go back.”

“That is highly doubtful.”

“Doubtful, but not impossible. Look, let’s make a deal. If you ever change your mind and decide to try talking to your family again, I’ll go with you to support you and back up whatever you decide to tell them. Masquerade cover story or the truth, doesn’t matter. Then after, we’ll go see my folks. If it works out, then great, and if not, at least we tried and we’ll still have friends here to come back to. So, what do you say?”

“I say that blood loss and blunt force trauma are impairing your judgment, and even if I were to accept your deal I would not change my mind on this matter. But…”

“Buuuuut…?”

“Maybe I am wrong.”

*******

“My Name is not for sale,” Ashan says for the third time to the Count of Curses and Dust within his wilted forest glade.

“So be it,” the Countess of Curses and Dust proclaims, her voice echoing throughout her gloomy stone audience hall. “In that case, let us balance the deal with a more finite service in exchange for the denial of a servant. A favor of my choosing to be decided upon and called in at a later date, as is the most traditional price of contract between fairy and mortal.”

Ashan imagines the way Aliana would laugh off such an offer but chooses not to mimic it. “Do you think me naïve? Once again you invoke tradition, but this is a tradition that any knowledgeable mortal would know to avoid.”

“Then this negotiation is at an end, for you have nothing else to offer me. If you will not offer me your lesser Name, then you would certainly not part with your far greater one, and if you would refuse a single favor then I cannot hope to extract any other oath of service from you.”

“I have access to the library of the sorceress Bridgewood,” Ashan proposes. Any payment out of the Bridgewood Estate would need to be negotiated with the current Bridgewood of course, but this fae lord does not need to know that.

“So that is why your mind is so hideously warped and sharp to the touch. Speak that name no further in my presence. I have never known a more unclean thing with a refusal to return to dust than that sorceress, save for the attack dog she made her consort. If you claim to be her ally, then we truly have no more to negotiate”

“If you truly put such stock in tradition, then let me make one final offer on behalf of Tam Lin whom you call Carter. Let us both put forth the prices we would otherwise be unwilling to pay as stakes on a wager. My aforementioned request for noninterference against your request for a future favor.”

“The favor, and your childhood Name. As the price of mentioning that hated sorceress in my home. What is to be our game?”

Aliana’s way of doing things it is then. Yet again. Did she too try and fail to avoid this route time and again before giving in and making it her first option at every occasion? Unlikely. She always enjoyed it too much.

“I invoke the rite of trial by combat between appointed champions, to be held on neutral ground.”

*******

Hours later, after extensive negotiations regarding the precise wording of the terms of the duel and subsequent prices the loser must pay, Ashan finds himself standing on one of the few level rooftops in Crossherd’s outskirts. This far out from the pocket dimension’s heart geometry and geography get strange. The buildings here were dreamt up to give the impression of an endlessly expansive city skyline, not for use or habitation, so while they look normal enough from a distance upon closer inspection they quickly become nonsensical. Overlapping windows tilted at odd angles, doors that open up to the outside seven stories in the air, fire escapes that connect to neither windows nor the ground, sometimes even whole buildings intersecting with their interiors leaking into one another and corners erupting from each other’s faces. The interiors are even worse; where they are not completely hollow facades they are unnavigable mazes of doors that open into flat walls, stairs that recursively loop back on themselves, and floors with no route between them.

This particular rooftop however has become something of a fixed point in the city’s inconstant periphery owing to its repeated use giving it a firm place in the collective consciousness in a certain portion of the city’s residents. In other words, while Ashan was handling the contract negotiations, he had to send Lacuna out ahead to make sure that no one else was already using the rooftop to violently settle a dispute away from potential collateral damage today. Or rather, Lacuna sent one of her remote drones which even now hovers on paratech repulsors above the scorched and pitted ring of concrete where the half-formed air conditioning units and ouroboric ductwork has been cleared away to give would be duelists, pit fighters, and blood feuders room to do their work.

Crossherd has ever been a city built on symbolic stereotypes and tropes, and the climactic rooftop showdown is a powerful one.

Ashan’s opponent - the very same hunting beast that had been sent to retrieve Tam Lin for its master - impatiently paces the far side of the rough ring. Someone has clad the nearly hairless felid in ill-fitting pale gray plate armor and strapped a rusty sword that it has no good way to wield to its back. If it were not for the anger burning in its too-human eyes every time it glances his way Ashan might pity the poor creature.

Behind their two designated champions, Tam Lin and the Count of Curses and Dust stand witness. In the Count’s case he is possessing the body of one of the Nameless fairies under his command. Much like the surrounding buildings, the empty-eyed wretch looks normal enough at a glance but the illusion falls breaks apart and tumbles down into the uncanny valley under scrutiny as if someone described what a human looked like to some skilled alien sculptor who had never seen one in person and thus thought the eye whites and teeth should be the same material and was left to guess as to whether clothes were part of the body or not. The fact that Tam has been having trouble maintaining human form every time he looks at their distant cousin whose fate they presumably once shared has not escaped Ashan’s notice.

“This is your last chance to put aside this foolishness,” the Count says through his Nameless vessel. “Call off this farce of a duel Carter and renew your oaths to me. Do it now and I will not hold this tantrum against you, for you are young and confused. You do not realize the value of what you are and what you would be with me.”

The emphasis of the Name elicits a scowl from Tam and a growl from the hunting beast.

“That’s not my name anymore, old man!” Tam shouts back. “So you can shove your offers.”

“Nonsense,” the Count says. “You cannot simply create a new Name for yourself. That is a privilege reserved for mortals, and no matter how much you believe you are one that can never be.”

Ashan tunes out whatever further barbs Tam has to exchange with his erstwhile and would-be master. He slides his wand into his hand and takes a stance, already envisioning the anchor points from which he will draw his conjurations. He focuses on the hunting beast, the way it moves, the range of motion of its joints, the places where the armor hangs loose. Which way will it dart once the duel begins? Can he incapacitate it before it gets the chance to close the distance between them? Should he open by tying it down with point restraints or start with a loose encapsulation and tighten his grip from there?

No, do not overthink it. Remember Aliana’s advice: A duel is a dance and he must adjust his rhythm to that of his partner. He has already avoided the mistake he made with Logos and set the stage in a locale that does not favor his opponent, now all that is left to do is wait for the signal.

Somewhere in Crossherd’s heart, a clocktower bell tolls the changing of the hour.

The hunting beast lurches forward, then to the left, then to the right. It leaps with claws out and fangs bared.

Five fingers on one hand point to five points on the rooftop. The hand makes a fist and five threads tie themselves to four limbs and a neck. A wrist twists and the threads pull tight enough to keep claws from reaching throat. The fist falls and the hunting beast is dragged crashing down to the concrete. A wand draws a circle in the air and a shimmering disk appears. The wand slashes downward and the disk falls onto the hunting beast pressing it further into the rooftop until the conjuration molds to its target’s shape, sealing off any struggle.

The duel is over before it begins.

But then the threads go slack and the disk goes flush with the concrete below.

The hunting beast is gone but for a shimmering emerald haze.

Ashan spins a glass cocoon around himself just in time to block the claws seeking to tear out his spine. The hunting beast disappears once more from behind him and then reappears to his left. Then to his right. From behind again. In front of him where the prior conjurations have since dissipated. Each time it reappears it strikes at Ashan’s conjured barrier, probing for weaknesses and finding none, then disappearing again in a cloud of green.

Ashan holds steady and examines his foe’s movements for a way to counter them. The delay between reappearances rules out true teleportation. No sign of active cloaking magic or illusions, so probably not invisibility. No active magic signatures at all save for a fraction of a second when the green haze appears. A phase shift then, or possibly stepping in and out of its master’s demesne. Either way, he can work with that.

He pushes outward on his translucent cocoon, turning it into a tight bubble just big enough for him to properly move his arms and legs, but too small to fit both him and the hunting beast lest it try to reappear inside the barrier. Bending down, he begins drawing the first of a sequence of glistening symbols on the ground to turn the surrounding area into a planar-locked ward.

“Arise, my servant!” the Count’s name echoes across the rooftop. “Be not a savage beast, but my noble knight! Become my Champion of Curses and Dust!”

Bone cracks, pops, and knits back together. Skin stretches, tears, and heals. The armored hunting beast stands upright on its still-feline hind legs and hisses through its muzzle protruding from beneath its helmet. It reaches a forepaw-now-hand behind its back and unslings the rusty sword.

The Champion of Curses and Dust charges Ashan once more. The wizard speeds up his drawing of the ward and begins the chant for the spell to activate it. The air inside Ashan’s bubble grows cold and frost covers the ground. The sigils flash. The spell completes. No more teleporting to worry about.

When the rusty sword makes contact with the conjured barrier it passes right through, melting a hole that causes the rest of the conjuration to unravel. Ashan barely manages to spring backwards in time to keep from being impaled. Instead the rusty sword cuts through the ward’s central sigils and into the concrete beneath.

Staggered as he is by the dual backlash of two actively maintained spells being violently disrupted, Ashan fails to press the opportunity presented by his opponent’s blade getting lodged in the rooftop. As the Champion of Curses and dust works the sword back and forth the concrete cracks and crumbles with a century of erosion passing in the blink of an eye. When the sword is at last prised free, a hole in the rooftop the size of a grown man’s torso collapses into the room below, exposing rusted pipeworks and corroded wiring.

With the ward destroyed before it even got a chance to do anything the Champion disappears into green haze once more. By reflex, Ashan throws a hand behind himself to conjure a shield in anticipation of the next strike before realizing his mistake. He jumps to the right quickly enough to dodge the worst of the blade’s path when it reappears and once again passes through his barrier as if it were nothing, but the tip of the rusty sword manages to clip the edge of his arm, just above the wrist. The wound itself heals before blood can be spilled but his hand grows old and wrinkled before his eyes and he can feel the same happening to his arm beneath his sleeve. Arthritic pains flare up from his fingers to his elbow as joints seize and grow stiff, forcing a strained gasp from the otherwise young wizard’s lips.

A twist of his heel sends Ashan spiraling into the air to gain distance from his attacker but the corkscrewing conjuration propelling him is cut down, disrupting his trajectory and crashing him into one of the remaining air conditioning units halfway across the rooftop. He rolls to his feet but still finds himself on the back foot with precious little to do but avoid and evade. Bereft of his usual kinetic barriers he resorts to retooling his technique to conjure streams of fire, wind, and lightning, but even those do little to deter an opponent that can effortlessly shift in and out of this plane of existence, and is an inefficient enough power draw that his breath quickly stings his lungs from the cold air.

All in all, it is nearly as bad as trying to fight Eris when she is wearing those dispelling gloves of hers, a sparring setup that Ashan is yet to emerge victorious from in their regular matches between missions.

A memory flickers in the back of Ashan’s mind of waking from unconsciousness when his mentor thought a monster had just killed him. In her cold fury she had filled the cave with conjured wires and floating shards of glass. The monster’s own weight had forced it through the deadly web like so much cheese over a grater. And then his mentor had set the wires and shards in motion and it became more like meat through a grinder. The sight had given the young Ashan nightmares for weeks afterward, but maybe if he could now duplicate the technique at a lesser scale to merely injure…

Ashan begins to envision and draw the net of monomolecular wires and spinning blades around him for his opponent to cut itself on but hesitates just short of funneling in the energy to make them a reality. Unfortunately, a lifetime of being careful to never kill nor maim with power that could easily do both deeply ingrains inhibitions that are not so easily overcome. That hesitation very nearly costs him the use of his other arm. Fortunately, a lifetime of training for blows coming from the periphery of vision ingrains reflexes that are not so easily overcome.

Another burst of flame buys him some breathing room at the cost of a chill seeping into his bones. If only he could buy himself a moment to draw another planar ward. If only that sword could be taken out of the picture. If only the Count of Curses and Dust hadn’t transformed his Champion mid-fight.

If only…

Gods take him for a fool.

“I call foul play and outside interference,” Ashan manages to say between dodging sword strokes. “By the agreed terms of the duel you must either forfeit or allow a counterbalancing interference.”

“Counterbalance accepted,” the Champion of Curse and Dust laughs from the mouths of Nameless servant and hunting beast simultaneously. “Let us see what my wayward changeling can do to earn his freedom.”

Ashan locks eyes with the frightened Tam Lin watching from the sidelines and shakes his head. No need for them to act. They are not Ashan’s only ally present to act as witness and second.

“Lacuna!” Ashan shouts.

“Already on it!” her voice calls back from the hovering drone above.

The projector mounted on the underside of the drone flickers on and shines a ritual circle down onto the rooftop in the center of the designated arena. The shifting glyphs spiral into a nauseating self-recursive mess that makes the incomprehensible guts of the building beneath seem logical by comparison. The drone’s speakers begin screeching an ear-piercing white noise and the accelerated, computer-generated ritual begins.

The second sight of a well-trained wizard and the sensory organs of a beast tailor made to hunt prey across dimensions are sensitive things capable of picking up on the subtle shifts, folds, stains, and cuts in the fabric of reality that make up what is known as “magic”. Whatever Lacuna is doing is anything but subtle. From the sensation of hooks digging into his skin and intestinal lining, Ashan would guess that it is meant to be a combination of planar lock and teleportation anchor kicked up to a degree that would be overkill for anything short of a demigod or one of the eldritch. Or perhaps a fae liege. Even without that, the sudden chaotic mess of metaphysical noise is enough to set him clutching his head and retching out his breakfast. Blurry glimpses through tear-filled eyes suggest that neither Nameless vessel of the Count/Champion of Curses and Dust are faring any better. Tam Lin however seems unaffected and comfortably human once again.

Having experienced a few of Lacuna’s abominable rituals before - although none nearly this horrific - Ashan is the first to recover. A flick of his wand is all that it takes to wrench the rusty sword from his howling opponent’s grip. By the time the Champion of Curses and Dust is back on its feet, Ashan has already conjured chains linked to each plate of its armor. He stabs his wand forward then pulls it back and the chains strip away the armor in a single motion. His opponent attempts to disappear but there is no green haze to vanish into, only the pain in its gut and the noise in its bones as it drops back down to all fours. A simple dome is all it takes to contain it to the point of being unable to fight any further.

Ashan staggers over to his trapped opponent. Doing his best to ignore the wretched droning of Lacuna’s ritual he asks, “Do you yield?”

The hunting beast in the dome whines.

“I said, do you yield?”

The hunting beast looks up at him with human eyes and whimpers. Once again Ashan is struck by the similarity of those eyes to Tam’s when they are in human form.

“My champion yields,” the Count of Curses and Dust says through his Nameless servant on the sidelines. “You have bested us both, now stop that accursed spell. Not even that hated sorceress would resort to a distortion so vile.”

“Lacuna, please stop,” Ashan says.

The noise, audible and metaphysical, cuts out and the projector goes dark. The drone drops down to eye level with a flurry of apologies from its speakers.

“Was it really that bad?” Lacuna’s voice asks. “It took a bit out of me, sure, but I didn’t think it was that far off from standard parameters.”

Ashan merely stares into the drone’s camera at a loss for words.

“I did not know the sorceress had made constructs that could speak and work magic,” says the Count. “Little wonder such a thing is insane. As are any who would trust it. No matter, the duel is done and the contract sealed.” The Count’s vessel turns to face the approaching Tam. “Enjoy your freedom, Carter. Love and lose those mortals you think you can be one of. And when the pain of outliving everyone -”

“For the last time, old man, that’s not my damn name!” Tam shouts. “My name is -”

“I introduce to you, Tam Lin,” Lacuna interrupts while maneuvering the drone between them, “whom my friend and ally Ashan Glassheart has acted as champion for today. Tam and Ashan, for whom this formal introduction serves to prevent the accidental giving away of Names by acknowledgement, you know the rules, don’t blame me, oh goddess that was incredibly rude of me I can’t believe I just said that to a fae lord please forgive me just trying to help just ignore me and forget I exist I’m going now.”

There is an audible pop of static from a microphone being turned off and the drone rises back into the air.

“A thoroughly insane construct,” the Count mutters before turning his attention to the still-recovering hunting beast. “Enough of this. We depart. Now.”

“I’m not done yet!” Tam says. “Yes, that’s my Name. The one I chose for myself. Because ‘Carter’ was never my Name.” They turn to address the hunting beast. It’s yours, isn’t it?”

“Don’t you dare,” the Count threatens.

Tam ignores him and kneels down eye to eye with the fallen beast and touches hand to shoulder.

“I return to you the Name of Carter, which was wrongfully stolen and passed into my care. I return it to you, its rightful owner. I return this Name to to you, Carter, my brother.”

This time the shifting of Carter’s form to a more human one is smoother, not wood being hacked apart and nailed back together but water poured into a new container. When the transformation is done the two fall into a tearful embrace. Hoarse “thank you”s choke out between sobs from a throat that has never been allowed to make its own words but now knows how thanks to the experience of a well-used Name. Carter’s nails and canine teeth are still a little too sharp, his body's muscles still bulge from years of hunting prey, and the vestige of a tail still protrudes from the remaining cloth scraps of underarmor, but otherwise he could very likely pass for being fully human with minimal effort. He and Tam could even pass for twins who just happened to take very different paths in life.

It occurs to Ashan that that is exactly what the two of them are.

“Remember,” the wizard says to the Count, “the terms of the contract include non-interference towards family as well, and non-retaliation towards the winning participant or participants of the duel.”

The Seventeen-Named Count(ess) of Curses and Dust scoffs and its/his/her/their/faer Nameless vessel steps behind the breeze to depart without further comment.

“So, now what?” Tam asks. They and Carter both look towards Ashan expectantly. The fear of the unknown future for a life that has just been turned upside down thrice over is already beginning to creep into their relief at their ordeal being over.

“Now, we return to the Lonely Walk Outreach Agency. We have multiple guest beds there where you may spend the night in safety. When our leader, Road, returns they will be able to help the both of you find a way to return to the life that was stolen from you. Or to help you find a new one Backstage now that you are in the know. Balancing the two is always difficult, but it is also an option.”

The new twins nervously nod in unison.

What would Aliana say here? Better yet, what would Road say?

“Not that either of you need to worry about any of that just yet,” Ashan says with a nearly genuine smile of reassurance. “You have both had a long day and deserve to rest. Tam, you have handled the sudden revelation of the existence of the supernatural as well as anyone ever has. You should be proud. Carter, while I hope you never have to do so again, you fought well today and I am honored to have faced you. May that strength keep you safe in the future. Now then,” Ashan looks around to hide his sudden embarrassment with the act of searching, “let us find a way down from this rooftop.”

“Hey,” Lacuna’s voice says directly into Ashan’s ear through the comm piece he forgot he was still wearing, “you did good too today. The real hero here.”

“Thank you,” Ashan whispers back. He conjures a platform to take him and the new twins down to the ground and suppresses a shiver.

“You’re welcome. And sorry if this is weird to say, but if you ever want to talk about whatever that was with you having two Names, I’m here for you. I don’t think it’s quite the same thing, but I’ve got some experience with that.”

“I will keep that in mind. Thank you, my friend.”

No, it is not the same, not nearly. But a friend’s experiences need not be identical to share a burden. And who knows, Ashan considers while looking at Tam and Carter already smiling with wonder and comparing memories of mothers that only one of them has met in the flesh, perhaps a change in Name and a foot Backstage need not be the end of everything.

Maybe he is wrong.

Today is not the day to find out though.

He has plenty of time.

Maybe one day he will be ready to find out for himself.

<-Previous Chapter Masterpost Next Chapter->

#Eris introduced Ashan to the Internet with Project Gutenberg and Wikipedia.#Lacuna introduced Ashan to the Internet with tumblr memes and the Homestuck “Detective Pony” fanfic's Longcat Rant.#She has the rant memorized because she used to recite it as voice feminization practice.#writing #original fiction #urban fantasy #web novel #WIP #Writeblr #Empty Names #serial fiction #writing practice #writers on tumblr #creative writing #literature #prose #writers #novel #fantasy #fiction #my writing #emptynameswriting #I pulled the names Tam Lin and Carter from the song “Tam Lin” by S.J. Tucker.#The overall chapter concept was born from hearing the first few lines of “Looking Like This” by Lyre Le Temps #and imagining a first-time shapeshifter freaking out from not understanding what's happening and then sort of ignoring the rest of the song #Then I realized that there are some nice parallels between Ashan's backstory and the changeling myth #and there are some connections between change of Name/identity manipulating form and Lacuna's ongoing transmutation experiments.#Once again the SCP Foundation influence is leaking through in my conceptualization of fairies taking Names to replace people.#And then that mixes with the not-subtle-at-all trans themes throughout Empty Names.

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gascon-en-exil · 2 years ago

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Ten Ferdibert Musical Numbers that Aren’t from Wicked

or,

Hubert and Ferdinand's Fabulously Wicked (but not Wicked) Musical Revue

It's well-established fanon that Hubert and Ferdinand are a musicals couple; even the English voice actors got in on the fun. That "For Good" cover instantly turned Wicked into the Ferdibert musical, and I've done my part as well with that idea. Somewhere in my blog archives and (in more detail) on my Patreon there's a sketch for how Wicked in its entirety could be repurposed as a non-CF Ferdibert story, and I'm fairly proud of how well I was able to get the two stories to fit together.

That does not however put the rest of musical theatre out of reach for this pair of campy (and occasionally murderous) theatre queens. I've had the idea for a while now to come up with a list of numbers from other shows that I think they could pull off, and to coincide with their birthdays in late April I decided to put together just that. Here are ten such numbers and why I think they fit Hubert or Ferdinand, or both. These are naturally reflective of my own knowledge of stage musicals, but I tried to pull from a broad selection. I only excluded jukebox musicals - painful as that was because I know Ferdinand would adore Mamma Mia!, and fandom has already come with Moulin Rouge! headcanons for the pair. They didn't really fit what I was going for, though. I've also included video references for all the songs, not necessarily my favorite renditions of each number but ones that I think are useful.

(One final note: I am aware that, assuming these characters were to perform these numbers non-diagetically, significant alterations to certain lyrics would have to be made. I however am not a lyricist, so I will not attempt to make such changes.)

youtube

"The Phantom of the Opera," The Phantom of the Opera

(F) Those who have seen your face Draw back in fear. I am the mask you wear. (H) It's me they hear. (Both) Your/My spirit and my/your voice, In one combined. The Phantom of the Opera is there, Inside my/your mind.

Let's open with one everyone will recognize. Ferdibert shippers were quick to jump on the similarities between these characters and the principles in Phantom. Hubert, like Erik, is a creepy murderer with a hideous face; Ferdinand meanwhile is the inexplicable midpoint between Raoul and Christine. He would sing "All I Ask of You" to himself, and somehow make it work. As for duets between the two, "The Point of No Return" would work as the two on the cusp of seduction - but it ends abruptly with the literal unmasking of the Phantom. One of the things I like about Hubert is that he's the only CF-exclusive who doesn't have a masked alter-ego. He's grotesque inside and out, but he never hides it...and Ferdinand might be into that?

So, let's go bigger. The eponymous number of the musical only uses the Phantom's mask as a metaphor, in a way that I believe works with the Ferdibert "Two Jewels" contrasting relationship post-CF. Hubert is committing all manner of terrible acts behind the curtain, and it's up to his charming, public-facing lover to be the "mask" to smooth over the people's outrage and fear. Also, this number ends with the much memed-on "Sing, my angel of music!" and while Ferdinand could obviously never hit Christine's notes...I read that those are often prerecorded in productions. It would be fully on-brand for them to switch to a soprano vocalization for that bit. Where else could you find such overwrought silliness but in the theatre?

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"Tango: Maureen," Rent

(F) Gotta look on the bright side with all of your might. (H) I'd fall for her still anyhow. (Both) When you're dancing her dance You don't stand a chance. Her grip of romance makes you fall. (F) So you think might as well (H) Dance a tango to hell. (Both) At least I'll have tangoed at all!

I have issues with Rent as a whole, but a few of its individual songs are solid. This is one of several musical numbers that I associate with Ferdibert thanks to Hubert's never-requited attraction to Edelgard, who functions, approximately, as Maureen here. I say approximately because the energy of this number would be fairly different; Maureen is a promiscuous bisexual stereotype, whereas Edelgard's whole thing is that she won't even look at Hubert twice if her teacher is in the room. Also, neither Hubert nor Ferdinand map exactly onto Mark or Joanne. Rather, they'd break up their lines in ways that would suit their own characters, with Hubert being both the one helplessly pining (Joanne) and also the one angry and bitter about Maureen/Edelgard's behavior (Mark). Ferdinand instead takes Mark's role of trying to steer his partner away from the object of their shared frustration...and toward himself a bit, although that's not a part of the original number at all.

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"So Much Better," Legally Blonde

You thought I was dumb But I think that somebody's judgment was poor. Seeing my name in black and white, It's like making love with you all night. No, wait! It feels so much better, Hello, much better, It's oh, oh, oh... *pantomimes orgasm* much better! 'Cause I am so much better than before!

He may not be blond, but Ferdinand is kind of a perfect Elle Woods when you think about it: smarter and more capable than anyone believes because they're constantly underestimating him. Unfortunately the musical (largely an improvement over the already-strong movie) doesn't fully work for Ferdibert, because Emmett is nowhere near evil enough to be a role for Hubert, but I like this big Act I closer for Ferdinand. This is Elle getting to show off after she gets picked for a prestigious internship albeit for sleazy reasons out of her control but that's an Act II reveal, proving that everyone was wrong not to take her seriously. Doesn't work super well in a Three Houses context, but it doesn't need to; Ferdinand would have a blast in this role. Honorable mention: "Take It Like a Man" doesn't work as a Ferdibert number because it would require that either of them would care about giving Hubert a makeover, but the dirty innuendo in the title would be even more obvious with two guys.

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"Keep It Gay," The Producers

(H) I see a line of beautiful girls Dressed as storm troopers, each one a gem. With leather boots and whips on their hips, It's risqué, dare I say, S & M! (F) Love it! (H) I see German soldiers dancing through France Played by chorus boys in very tight pants. And wait, there's more - they win the war! (F) And the dances they do will be daring and new. Turn-turn-kick-turn, turn-turn-kick-turn, One-two-three-kick-turn! Keep it sassy, keep it classy, keep it... *faints*

How could I pass this one up? It's the epitome of camp, and perfect for these two. Hubert delighted to stage a musical about Nazis! Ferdinand doing drag* for no apparent reason! Subject matter so outrageously offensive on so many levels that it circles back around to being funny! Neither character aligns perfectly with Roger de Bris or with any of the cavalcade of stereotypes that hang out in his penthouse (and also the Village People, because why not), but they nail the melodramatic verve and the "doing it for the art" amorality that you'd have to have to want to direct Springtime for Hitler. I have no idea how anyone could contort it into making it work, but I could see the Max and Leo roles here occupied by the Lions boys, who might all be sleeping with each other but who nevertheless don't really "get" drag or singing their feelings or spontaneous conga lines.

*See below for more on Ferdinand in drag.

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"Poison in My Pocket," A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

Murder's not a hobby for the cautious. Thoughts of violence can make the timid nauseous. *gasps* Unless of course the victim plunges head-on through the ice. It appears that I've been handed quite an opportune solution. And all that still remains is proper execution. I had better join them on the lake before it gets too late.

Continuing with the black comedy theme, Gentleman's Guide is a delightful satire about serial murder....pretty much Hubert's dream role. I wouldn't quite buy him as a novice at killing as Monty is in this early number, but in other respects it is in-character for him. He misses his chance to use the poison in the song title, but quickly improvises a better, funnier murder instead. Hubert absolutely would compose a bunch of jaunty little songs as he's sequentially killing people off. Second place from this show would be "Better With a Man," which is another one of those numbers that's filled with gay innuendos (this time intentionally too). Nevertheless it doesn't really fit the Ferdibert dynamic, to say nothing of how Hubert wouldn't have Ferdinand on his hit list...probably.

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"Some Other Me," If/Then

(F) Look down each road left untaken. (H) Trace every turn and twist. (F) The lives that we just let go by. (H) The dreams we might have missed. (Both) Now we're old enough to know that One road ends where one begins. The moment where the "what might bes" Turn into "might have beens."

Time to dial it back a bit. If/Then is an excellent point of comparison for any multi-route video game, even if its stakes are closer to that of a slice-of-life dating sim than a faux-grim war epic. It follows its protagonist simultaneously along two radically diverging pathways in life, based on one seemingly innocuous choice. "Some Other Me" is a melancholy Act II duet between the protagonist and her friend/lover, and for Ferdibert it encapsulates the divergence of the Eagles route split and Ferdinand's early Part II anxieties over the path he takes - regardless of which route he's on. I like that this number could work for them either in CF or outside of it, as just as in If/Then neither path leads to a fully happy ending. This would all, admittedly, work a bit better if Hubert had some variance himself to work with in canon, but many a non-CF Ferdibert AU (including my own Wicked concept) has thought about what that might look like. It's not even that hard to build in Hopes canon for that matter, provided you don't assume they're dead in the second half of AG.

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"I Am What I Am," La Cage aux Folles

I am what I am. I don't want praise, I don't want pity. I bang my own drum, Some think it's noise, I think it's pretty. And so what, if I love each feather and each spangle, Why not try to see things from a different angle? Your life is a sham 'til you can shout out loud I am what I am!

My longstanding headcanon that Ferdinand would enjoy drag is based on a few things. There's his generally flamboyant attitude, of course, but there's also his Manuela supports where he recalls mimicking her roles on stage. Maybe he'd be comfortable taking them on himself? At any rate, there's no shortage of iconic drag queen numbers in musical theatre, and while I considered options from Hedwig and the Angry Itch and Kinky Boots I ultimately settled on this anthem from La Cage aux Folles, the dramatic solo reprise/follow-up to the bawdy ensemble number "We Are What We Are." Ferdinand would nail the mixture of pride and indignity, the demand that - as in "So Much Better" above - he be taken seriously no matter how he chooses to present himself. It's almost a shame he grows out his hair post-timeskip and would probably take advantage of that when doing drag; the wig-throwing at the end is as much symbolic as it is hilarious.

Up until now though I've been overlooking one of the most obvious candidates for a Ferdibert musical: Sweeney Todd. It's another musical about a serial killer that abounds in black comedy - and what's more, Hubert's folding razor lost item, with its implicitly murderous flavor text, draws a direct parallel between him and the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The problem, however, is that as perfect as that setup may be...Ferdibert really doesn't fit the musical. Never mind that Ferdinand would struggle to match the manic mixture of twisted love and pragmatism of Mrs. Lovett, or that Sweeney crooning to his murder weapons in "My Friends" is something more like you'd expect of a killer like Jeritza if he were given to singing. No, the biggest problem is that Sweeney Todd is a Cockney musical, written from the perspective of denizens of London's lower classes. Ferdinand's dream getaway would never be so pedestrian as that envisioned in "By the Sea," Hubert wouldn't be out to revenge himself on a man of vastly higher rank, etc. That said....

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"A Little Priest," Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

(H) Have charity toward the world, my pet. (F) Yes, yes, I know, my love. (H) We'll take the customers that we can get. (F) Highborn and low, my love. (H) We'll not discriminate great from small. No, we'll serve anyone, meaning anyone, (Both) And to anyone At all!

Apart from this being arguably the most fun number in the show, "A Little Priest" would offer Ferdibert tons of material for black comedy wordplay while also turning the class commentary of the original on its head. A pair of downtrodden working-class people singing merrily about baking people into pies in the name of capitalism (and corpse disposal) sounds like a literal take on eating the rich; from a pair of aristocrats, it sounds like the sort of hypocrisy seen in some of their canon interactions in Hopes. Hubert grouses about nobles who hold themselves above the law...while never mentioning that they themselves are nobles who are allowed to exist above the law because they're top cronies in the new regime. In a post-CF world, this number would have even more sinister (and funny) undertones than ever, with the bodies piling up so fast from Hubert's underground activities that Ferdinand decides to help by coming up with a way to get rid of them more efficiently while also, ahem, addressing food shortages. That is another reason Sweeney Todd as a whole doesn't work for Ferdibert: who would stop them, or even could? They truly are a dangerous pair - but so very wonderfully evil. Adding to the comedy would be that, while Hubert would be more than happy to do the murder himself, Ferdinand would only be role-playing as the shopkeeper that he'll never be, in the way that Mrs. Lovett does throughout the number...since, you know, they haven't gotten around to killing all these people yet.

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"Rose's Turn," Gypsy: A Musical Fable

Why did I do it? What did it get me? Scrapbooks full of me in the background. Give 'em love and what does it get ya? What does it get ya? One quick look as each of 'em leaves you. All your life and what does it get ya? "Thanks a lot!" and out with the garbage. They take bows and you're battin' zero.

In most cases I'd give the big diva songs to Ferdinand, as discussed in the final entry for this revue. However, this diva number in particular would be glorious for Hubert. Even leaving aside the inherent comedy in imagining his relationship to Edelgard as that of an overbearing stage mom, I feel with the right lyrical reworking "Rose's Turn" would perfectly capture the moment where Hubert realizes what Ferdinand would be trying to get him to see in "Tango: Maureen": that Edelgard will never appreciate him in the way that he wants because Byleth exists. This number is musically complex, with disparate callbacks to over half a dozen previous songs strung together in a way that resembles a mental breakdown - because that's more or less what it is. Different actresses have played "Rose's Turn" in very different ways, and I see Hubert not so much unhinged as bitter and determined to assert his own wants for a change. What unfathomable terrors could that possibly entail?

But that leaves me with one question: what diva song should Ferdinand have? There are many options, and I considered a bunch ranging from Les Misérables to Company to Sunset Boulevard, but in the end I had to go with an old classic.

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"Don't Rain On My Parade," Funny Girl

But whether I'm the rose Of sheer perfection, A freckle on the nose Of life's complexion, The cinder or the shiny apple of its eye. I gotta fly once, I gotta try once, Only can die once, right, sir? Oh, life is juicy, Juicy, and you see, I gotta have my bite, sir!

Capturing the same relentless, foolhardy optimism that Hubert apparently admires about him, "Don't Rain On My Parade" fits amazingly well for Ferdinand. It even works in context. Fanny is here determined to marry a man she's been warned against, and when it predictably doesn't turn out well she closes the show with a reprise of this number telling the world she's going to get right back up and start again. Ferdinand may or may not end up with Hubert depending on the timeline, and he might regret it either way, but he simply can't be kept down.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Ferdibert #Hubert von Vestra #Ferdinand von Aegir

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breakaway71 · 1 year ago

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20 questions writer meme!

Tagged by @galauvant, thank you bb! Retrospectives like this always give me the best kind of nostalgia about my writing, and I could use that right now, in the middle of some heavy projects. <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 242

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 1,200,157

3. What fandoms do you write for? Currently? Julie and the Phantoms, Back to the Future, and Stranger Things are the biggies. I also always include Supernatural, because one way or another it always drags me back in unexpectedly.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Say it Sweet (Teen Wolf, Derek/Stiles, truth serum)

2. Give All My Secrets Away (Supernatural, Dean/Castiel, hurt/comfort, wing!fic but not in the way you expect)

3. All That's Best of Dark and Bright (Teen Wolf, Dere/Stiless, trans MTF Stiles and falling in love and rescues and ~feels)

4. Family Matters (Julie and the Phantoms, gen, Ray accidentally adopts the whole ghost band and Reggie in particular and some stuff happens, idk, lots of good dad stuff)

5. Ad Astra Per Tentaculum (Teen Wolf, Derek/Stiles, space AU, Stiles is an alien. With tentacles.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I try really hard, but often fail. Not because I don't appreciate my readers, I do, so much, but it often feels like social interaction in my brain, and some days, that's a lot harder than others. It really comes down to how many spoons I have. I have better luck with new fics, and even then, it's a real toss-up if I manage. *hides face in shame*

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Oh. Hmm. I don't write a lot of angsty endings, honestly, but probably all those things i didn't say. Supernatural Dean & Sam gen fic, and it's. I mean, it's major character death, but in a weird way, and the ending...okay, yeah, it's a lot, but it was also meant to be hopeful?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Basically everything lol. No, really, I love me a happy ending, if I tried to pick, we'd be here all day. I guess one of my more recent(ish) ones I have a serious soft spot for is the 88 mph (take off, last stop) verse (Julie and the Phantoms band-as-family time travel gen fic) - the ending of the main story itself is pretty damn fluffy and happy, but the timestamps kind of add to the feeling. :)

8. Do you get hate on fics? I've been very lucky that in a couple solid decades of writing fanfiction, I've only ever gotten a small handful of negative comments. And maybe only one or two I would consider actually hateful.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Rarely, these days. I did so a lot more before I realized I was deeply ace. Sometimes I still indulge, but the mood of a story has to fit just right for me to go there. As for what kind, I mean, I've hit a lot of bullet points lol, but overall it tends to be more about ~emotions than the actual smut itself.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? CROSSOVERS ARE MY WHOLE ENTIRE JAM, seriously, I live for them, the crazier I can write and make work in a way that makes people screech about me using black magic, the happier I am. Probably the one I'd consider "craziest" in terms of HOW DID THESE TWO FANDOMS WORK TOGETHER THEY ABSOLUTELY HOULD NOT HAVE WORKED TOGETHER was Good Dreams, Sweet Prince - a Julie and the Phantoms/The Sandman crossover, canon-compliant to both universes, where Reggie is Dream's son. (It's also probably one of the crossovers I'm most proud of, honestly.)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not any I'm aware of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I've been asked many times, but it was never something I was comfortable with. There's a level of trust you have to have, not being able to be sure that a translation is true to the spirit of the fic, and it's a level of control I've never quite been able to give up. I feel bad about it, honestly, because I'd love more people to have access to my work. Maybe someday I'll get past my brain stuff about it.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? No(t yet)

14. What's your all-time favorite ship? This question is deeply unfair and I rebel, I have too many I love with every piece of my heart, too many I've never been able to give up even when my fandoms have shifted and changed. I can't even pick an all-time favorite just for Supernatural!

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? There are a lot of them, unfortunately, but I'll probably say my Julie and the Phantoms/Voltron Reggie/Keith crossover fic for sure. It was something I started at the height of my love for both fandoms, but the ideas got way too big for me at the time. Then I lost the fic notebook with most of my outlines and notes for it, and that was kind of the nail in the coffin.

16. What are your writing strengths? Overall, I think my ability to get into a character's head and really nail the characterization. (Which is not to say it's always perfectly true to canon - I've taken a lot of liberties with Reggie, for example, because the show didn't give us a lot to work with besides "comic relief". But I at least know when something I write is veering a little too far from canon to be believable anymore.)

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Action scenes, for sure. And plot. Most of my fics are just ~vibes where plot occasionally creeps in. Sometimes it works and comes together surprisingly well, sometimes it's just ~vibes right through the bitter end lol.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I will do so very sparingly, but it's not something I generally trust myself to do well.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Pokemon, although Harry Potter was the first fandom I ever finished anything for. (Sadly (or, well, not) none of those stories exist on the interwebs anymore, they were all on older sites/forums that either no longer exist or went through a few too many purges. I still have a few of them fics in theory, but they're on floppy or zip discs I can't access, and most were written in programs that don't exist anymore.)

20. Favorite fic you've written? Oh hell. My answer to this changes with the tide, honestly, but one of my most favorites is my Detention trilogy. Dean/Gabriel, student/teacher AU. I think a lot of people were scared to read it because, well, teacher/student (not to mention an unpopular ship), but I worked damn hard to balance a very fine line with that fic, and I was so proud of how it turned out.

Tagging @ladyeternal178, @bananakarenina, @zubenpics, and anyone else who sees this and wants to participate in the fun!

#writing meme

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plothooksinc · 1 year ago

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fic writer meme: 2, 3, 9, 25?

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

Ahh, nope? Nope, not really. If my brain goes "but what is this idea" I then go and write that idea, so inasmuch as I think in terms of tropes (I don't, usually, I look at my writing after the fact and go "oh this contains tropes A B and C" but I've never sat down to go "Imma write a trope") if I have a desire to write it I've already written it. That being said, that doesn't mean there are tropes I haven't done that I will not do in the future! They'll just kind of happen organically at some point I guess.

3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?

Almost certainly! (Though I wonder if tropes is really the right word for the meme maker, honestly...) Um, I don't find any trope in itself awful gross and off limits, but I'd find more than a few either in my list of "I'm not interested in writing this" or "I am not capable of writing this", and anything even vaguely smut related goes into both categories. There are likely a whole bunch that are not smut related that I also wouldn't write, but I don't have the awareness to know what those might be off the top of my head. (this does not include romance, FYI, I'm quite happy to write that, but I generally only write very specific kinds of that, too, because I'm allergic to anything that gets syrupy).

9. Which fic has been the hardest to write?

Snowblind, without a doubt. "I've got a great idea! Let's take two people who hate each other and ditch them in the middle of the Japanese countryside in winter!" Did I know anything about Japanese countryside, winter, snow and blizzard survival? I'm Australian. Nope. Had I ever written chapters that were 99% description of bitter harsh conditions? Nope. Did I spend hours researching for nearly every paragraph I wrote of chapter 2? Yup. About the only thing I knew was that you could use animal grease to protect your extremities from the cold, and the rest was ferocious research the entire way through, lmao. (Me, a year ago: how...to...survive...an...avalanche...) That being said, Snowblind is also one I'm pretty proud of for the exact same reasons, I had to work for this one.

25. What do you look for in a beta?

Someone who has a good grasp of writing themselves and I know has very similar views to me on the source material. My first fic went un-betaed because I didn't know anyone in fanfiction land, until I hit about chapter 15-ish and developed enough of a rapport with one of my readers that we were talking offline and she agreed to help out. Legacy went unbeta-ed for the most part for the same reasons (new to TMNT fanfiction). I made an exception to the rule for Underdark because I'd gotten like.... 50 pages in before I started posting but I wasn't sure if the story worked, so I asked on LJ if anyone would be willing to help out and got two offers, so I took them both. Sometimes I need a beta before I have the courage to post, ahaha.

When I started writing NRFTW I knew exactly who to go to because we have incredibly similar opinions on TMNT and their characterisation and have known each other and RPed with each other for years, so I just popped on to discord out of the blue and said HEY PI and she said YES GIMME and so I have latched onto @shadowbends for all things TMNT related and she's an excellent writer no matter what she says (I still have a spray bottle, Pi) and has been invaluable on the way through. ♥ So. You know. Find a person you can work with as a partner and go for it.

Thank you for the questions!

Meme for Fic Writers here.

#@consultingjedi #fic meme

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alfather · 2 years ago

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# ALFATHER . independent & mutuals exclusive zeus the greek god worshipped by rute ( 25+ , she/they , gmt ) . my portrayal won't be influenced by any piece of media except for what's known of the original greek mythology . if you don't find me here i'll be at @unseenking

// rules temporarily under read more

𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚝𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚛 𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝

hello there! i'm rute (25+, she/they, gmt) and if we’re mutuals know that i want to write with you at some point! you should always feel free to send me a message and/or memes to start off and if you’d rather plot first you can always invade my ims. i will not interact with minors, however.

i will only interact with mutuals, and if there's anything on your blog that makes me uncomfortable please remember that i reserve the right to either not follow back or softblock. note: i tend to go through my follows every other day to unfollow those that are not mutual. this is because sometimes i'm mobile bound and i don't want to interact with non-mutuals. if i followed you and didn't give you enough time to check my blog, this is why.

most of the times i just wing my answers if we haven't plotted beforehand - however hades x persephone is a dynamic that will need plotting in order for me to know where to situate these two and get a sense of what kind of relationship they have considering the mythos leaves that very open. if you play a persephone please know my ims are always open however!

to keep my sanity intact in this website, anon remains off. if you have something to tell me and/or point out i highly encourage you to message me off anon though!

i tend to take my time to reply to anything (threads, memes, ims), if you see me online and not replying i'm most likely exhausted and not ignoring you. if i reply to a meme you sent and you'd like to continue it please do!

smut won't happen here so it will have to be the good old fade to black. nsfw posts may be reblogged from time to time.

although i myself water down most of the aspects that include my character, please know that i am well aware of how insane greek mythology can be and i don't condone any of the sensitive subjects in it (e.g rape) please remember this is a fictional piece of writing and i am here to explore this ancient character, nothing else.

any sort of discrimination and/or hate won’t be tolerated here, period (this goes for ic & ooc stuff). personal and fandom blogs will be blocked. i’ve never been involved in drama nor do i want to start now, so please keep me out of it, callout posts won’t be posted on this blog and drama instigators will be blocked too.

i don’t claim to own anything on this blog other than my writing and my own graphics. all graphics editing done by me

#pinned post #last update 05.17

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runningdownthatroad · 3 years ago

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I just have to get this off my chest after seeing some very disturbing posts about 9/11 floating around on my dash as well as some truly crude commentary. A lot probably won't agree with my sentiments but I feel like this needs to be said.

I've seen a lot of things on Tumblr in the past that maybe I consider to be in poor taste or don't agree with but I usually just scroll past, sometimes block for curating sake, but today is the first time I truly was shell-shocked. To see the memes and blasé jokes people are making about this day are just absolutely horrific and appalling.

I get that a lot of people on this site now may not remember what happened that day and only learned second hand through school or media or other people telling them. I get that a lot occurred after this that wasn't right which we definitely should be learning from. I also get that there is a lot of anti-American and anti-white sentiments going around currently, especially on this site.

But here's the thing:

Not only Americans died that day. Not only white people died that day. That's the thing about terrorists and what these hijackers did: they don't care about your skin color, your culture, your religious preference, your sexual orientation, your gender orientation, your age, your economic status, your personality, whether you support them or not, your political persuasion, your job, or any of it. Everyone is fair game to them. For crying out loud, look at what the Afghani people are currently going through and how the Taliban are treating their own country's people, women especially. If you think this is bad (which it truly is), have you seen how things went under their rule before 9/11 even happened? Do you know their terrifyingly violent and brutal history? Women had acid thrown in their faces if they didn't wear a full hijab. People were mutilated or executed if they didn't fall in line with the law of the Taliban. And this doesn't even begin to go into Al-Qaeda or Isis. But I'm not here to talk about that or delve into that topic too much.

My point in mentioning all of this is that white Americans weren't the only ones that were killed that day. People of all faiths, of all colors, of different countries, died that day, too. And the unity that is consistently discussed every 9/11 anniversary is in regards to us being aware of that fact, us mourning all of their losses together, and the collective desire to come together and help once the planes hit and after the towers collapsed.

So when people say "why am I supposed to cry over white Americans getting killed that day" think about that. Not only white Americans died that day. And regardless of their color, their nationality, their culture, their religion, etc. anyone dying is always sad. Whether it be a jetliner being used as a weapon that crashed into their floor or someone dying of cancer or someone being killed in a mudslide or someone dying in a car accident -- it is always sad. And empathy should always be shown in response, even if it doesn't impact you personally. Let's not forget these people have loved ones that got left behind, that are still here.

So when people say "if something knocks into a cow and knocks it over, I'm not expected to care, but if something knocks into a building and knocks it over, suddenly I'm supposed to care?" think about that. People aren't grieving two large pieces of steel architecture. People aren't saying "always remember those two towers". The WTC Towers were a symbol (yes, for American wealth, I get it) but became so much more of a multi-faceted powerful symbol after 9/11. The towers represent a way of life before 9/11 happened, but more importantly they represent the people lost that day, who were in the towers when they collapsed. For all of the first responders who were stuck on those floors still trying to help evacuate people to safety when the buildings finally gave. The two footprints and two blue lights aren't a symbol of American wealth or a naivete and simpler way of life pre-9/11 - they are a symbol of memorialization for that day. The Freedom Tower was erected to show that despite the loss of that day, we stood united (even if there seems to be more and more division these days). It's a message to the world that yes, destruction and death happened that day in NYC, but so did rebuilding and life carrying on. It's a symbol of strength, resilience, and unity - something that was everywhere you looked days after this event occurred. The two towers (aka NYC) may have gotten knocked down but the city got back up. They weren't kept down - that's the point of the Freedom Tower.

When people say "I don't understand, what is it that I shouldn't be forgetting since I can't remember it anyway" here is what we all should be remembering despite our age or our connection (or lack thereof) with this event:

2,997 innocent civilians died that day. Among them were 343 firefighters, 37 police officers, 23 Port Authority police officers, 8 EMS workers, and 4 other first responders. Also among them were 246 people on the four planes that crashed.

The passengers of United Flight 93 made a choice to fight back against the hijackers and saved lives that day by sacrificing their own.

Many children lost parents. Many parents lost children. Many brothers lost sisters, and many sisters lost brothers. Many spouses lost their significant others. Many lost friends, family, and loved ones.

For those who want a better connection to this day who didn't experience it and/or don't remember it, and for those others who are seriously lacking in empathy: yes, it was a highly publicized event due to the hundreds of cameras (including media outlets) watching that day, but if the horrific images aren't enough to garner some of your empathy, then there are plenty of other resources at your disposal. Documentaries like 9/11 by James Hanlon and the Naudet brothers, 102 Minutes That Changed America (which shows you not only all of the first-hand eyewitness accounts that day but also lets you hear 911 calls, radio transmissions between firefighters, and people's reactions to the event and each other who were there), 9/11 Firefighters (on Discovery Plus) and even more recently, 9/11: The Turning Point (on Netflix) which provides a 360 degree view of the events that led up to 9/11, 9/11 itself, and what came after, displaying all different viewpoints. You can read the 9/11 Commission Report or there are several books and memoirs out there like Wake-Up Call by Kristen Breitweiser, or even historical accounts in books, newspaper articles, and online. But most importantly, listen to people's stories. The ones who were there, the ones who saw it happen, the ones who ran in to help, the ones who lost loved ones. That is the most important part and the most powerful. On Hulu, ABC News ran segments of 9/11 Twenty Years Later, "Women Of Resilience" being especially powerful. It's hard not to feel a human connection to these stories or any kind of empathy.

For those who are making these jokes and memes, if you like shows like 9-1-1 and Chicago Fire, etc, imagine those first responder characters rushing into those buildings to save lives and losing theirs in the process. If you don't remember 9/11 or feel any connection or empathy, imagine hundreds of Bucks or Eddies or Bobbys or Hens or Chimneys dying that day as they worked to save so many. Sorry to be so blunt because I love those characters too, but do you get a little bit of the connection now? Do you feel any empathy? I'm not trying to equate real life heroes and sheroes with fictional characters of course, but if it helps you to understand a little better in some way, well...I'm throwing it out there.

I myself lived in the Tri-State area at the time of the attacks. I remember seeing the second plane seconds before it crashed into the second building. I remember the devastation I felt watching the first tower collapse knowing that a loved one was most likely inside and how hard I cried thinking he was dead. (thankfully, he had been late to work that day and he got out of the area before the towers came down) I remember the relief and gratefulness we all felt hearing from him to assure us that he was alive when he finally was able to get to a phone, stating he was covered in dust and ash from the buildings. I remember the panic and fear we all felt, thinking the world was ending and we were all going to die, that this was it, this was World War III, after it was confirmed that the Pentagon had also been hit and there was also a downed plane in Pennsylvania. I remember the grief another loved one suffered because she lost her entire floor (she had been out sick that day) and every single one of her co-workers. I remember the race to pick up children from school and get them home as soon as possible. I remember the rage that coursed through us seeing the footage of some people in certain countries celebrating the attacks in the streets, enjoying the deaths of so many Americans, a couple of these countries who lost citizens themselves in these attacks. I remember the camping out in front of the televisions night after night for a week straight afterwards, watching the news 24/7, worrying that there might be more attacks. I remember the feeling of sheer terror anytime a plane was heard overhead or seen appearing low enough in the sky that you could practically make out which airline it was for months afterwards. I remember seeing the lights the first time they were lit from our home. I remember feeling pure fear not only for what happened that day but also what came afterwards (not yet understanding that these weren't practitioners of Islam that did this but radical extremists who had literally hijacked the religion). I remember seeing the devastation at Ground Zero through a tear in the fabric over a fence as we walked through the city months afterwards. I remember not wanting to fly for years. I remember the anger I felt that our government had failed us due to political bs between agencies and countless others (which we found out especially when the 9/11 Commission Report came out) and that because of this horrific and absurd failure, thousands of innocent people had died. I remember seeing the crushed ladder truck, and the toy of the little girl who was on one of the planes at the 9/11 Memorial Museum and all of the pictures in that room that just floored me. (I also remember being pissed off that many were treating it as a selfie op where they were allowed to take pictures, completely missing the point of the museum's existence) But most of all, I remember feeling that life would never be the same for any of us ever again, and that the feeling of safety we had naively enjoyed on September 10, 2001 would never return.

But I also remember the compassion and unity we saw rising in the country after those attacks. I remember the gratitude for all of our first responders, those we lost that day and those who were still with us, actively working to recover those lost and to clear Ground Zero. I remember the feeling of collectiveness, that we all shared grief and showed support to one another in those days afterwards. I remember the fallen heroes and sheroes who ran into those buildings, who were off duty but raced from wherever they were that day to come and help. I remember The Man In the Red Bandana aka Welles Crowther (and many like him who worked to save others) who has become another important symbol of that day. I remember hearing all of the stories of people helping one another before and after the towers collapsed. I remember the good that this day represents. That while we may have seen some of the worst of humanity that day in the form of violence, death, weaponized airplanes, and devastation, we also saw the very best of humanity in the form of our first responders and people helping one another.

Look, did Islamophobia happen? Yes. Was it right? No, absolutely not. As I stated above, I myself feared the idea of the religion until I was educated by a friend of mine about the difference between the religion and extremism. This form of hijacking ideology can be seen in examples like the Westboro Baptist Church or even Hitler. Terrorists do not represent the true spirit of Islam no matter what the former tries to force people to believe. Just as the WBC is not the true spirit of Christianity, and so on and so forth. But even during the time I had feared the religion before gaining understanding and clarity, I never confronted or mistreated any practicing Muslim or Arab-American. Ever. I never posted hate or spewed vitriol against them. Just like with the current pandemic, I still cannot believe there are people out there attack Asian-Americans as if this whole thing is their fault. That's still mind boggling to me and it is absolutely 100% WRONG. It should not be happening. Same with Islamophobia. And it breaks my heart to read that many Arab-Americans and practicing Muslims still worry when this anniversary comes around that they may be attacked. It might not mean much, but I just want to say I am truly sorry for that and you have my full support. Always.

Did we go to war and was it just? Yes we did go to war. Was it just? Afghanistan? I need more information in order to have a fully-formed opinion but there are plenty who say yes and plenty who say no. Plenty who say we made things better over there (before we exited and the Taliban advanced) and plenty who say we didn't and only made it worse. I truly cannot say which assertion is correct and I think it would be narrow-minded and completely moronic (and possibly arrogant and presumptuous?) of me to speak on a subject I know so little about, one way or the other. Iraq? No, I don't think it was just and I honestly wish we could go back and do things differently.

But coming back to 9/11 and what this day means for so many, the people who died, the people who rushed headfirst into danger, the people who lost their loved ones. We saw incredible bravery, selflessness, and compassion for your fellow human that day despite what happened. We saw the strength within ourselves despite the fear and anger. We saw resilience. That is what the anniversary is meant to be a reminder of. The sacrifices, the loss, the courage, and the strength. Black, White, Gay, Straight, Christian, Muslim, Man, Woman, Young, Old -- it didn't matter. We all came together.

So regardless of whether it's the cool thing to do right now on this site (or elsewhere) to hate on America or 9/11 or white Americans or the anniversary itself on the very anniversary of these attacks, I ask that you please consider when posting these hurtful (and frankly harmful) words of hatred and vitriol such as referenced above that there are people out there who lost their loved ones on 9/11, that yes some of them may be on this very site and going through the 9/11 tag, and that some of them may have even lost a loved one in either war and are again on this site reading your words. Regardless of what you think or feel, please consider them and tag appropriately if you're going to post. Please consider that some of these people are currently losing their loved ones due to 9/11-related illnesses because of the cleanup at Ground Zero. Please consider that there are children who lost a parent or loved one, or who were orphaned that day (yes, they exist, we had some in our school district) who are also on this site reading your words. Basically, please just consider and be considerate. Please stop spreading hatred on a day that happened due to hatred; please stop perpetuating that cycle.

Like Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

TLDR: Love and light, my friends. Love and light. ✌️❤️

#9/11 #never forget #remember 9/11 #9/11 isnt a joke or a meme

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snowydaffodils · 4 years ago

Text

Flustered

3501 words | 2nd Person POV

A Yoon Jeonghan fluff, prompt, how you met, how you (hinted) eventually dated, where you're an actress and he's the other lead actor. Enjoy your new years! 🎉

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Yoon Jeonghan is very rarely flustered. If anything, he's usually the cause of all the flustering - twelve boys can back you up on that. He'd make fun of your height, poke your cheeks, comment cutesy compliments as you work together, flirt playfully, and make fun of how stupid your character sounds.

Indeed, you accepted this role fully aware of the awfully pure and slow-witted character the scriptwriter had written down. Throughout your years in acting, even if this was your very first lead role, you had never gone easy on the rest of the roles you had received. You live and understand them, think like them, and every single character you've performed have now become a part of you. But of course, the closest character to you now is this easily distracted girl who just blushes all the time.

So for the course of eight months, you've acted with all your might, and this is the you that Jeonghan knew. You weren't exactly innocent and slow-witted just like the character, but a bit of the character influenced your own personal traits. The fun to tease, cute, and adorably likable girl. Just like you, it was his first lead role in a drama, and the first one in Seventeen to land on one, too, even if he wasn't the first one to be in one. He had curiously accepted a side role before, right after his military release, and just as the group were exploring their own careers whilst waiting to reunite again as a whole. That side role, with the help of his previous acting lessons, drowned him into the world of acting once more, and he fell in love with the art of the screen more than he ever did before.

Your first impression on him during the first cast meeting was that he looked heavenly. It was like his cheekbones were sculpted to perfection and no one could tell you otherwise. You were incredibly starstruck and in awe that you stuttered in making your first introductions. It didn't help that he was smooth with his words, too, making you sound incredibly nervous as opposed to him.

"Hi, I'm Jeonghan from Seventeen, and I'll be taking the lead role in this drama. Please take care of me."

"Hi, I'm play, uh, playing the lead gull, I mean g-girl."

Had he smiled politely and continued the conversation like nothing had happened, maybe you wouldn't have been too embarrassed, but also maybe you wouldn't have let your guards down to know and befriend him personally. Instead, he had laughed at you with all the stomach power he had. He never lets you forget that you stuttered so badly as you introduced yourself for the first time the entire day. He even made his own reasons (you wouldn't admit them, but they couldn't have been more true) as to why you stuttered.

"Nervous? I'm super charming, aren't I?" his ego is surely out of bounds as he said that, a smirk donning his lips. "I know, I'm surprised at myself, too sometimes."

You hit him on the arm, your cheeks growing in color. "I'm a big fan of Seventeen, but I didn't realize that you're this cheeky."

He laughed, so genuinely and purely, and you smiled, already warmed up to him. He made friends with you quickly, and from all the behind the scenes footage, he was quick to melt his awkward-i-just-met-you exterior and interacted with you as he would with his members. Jeonghan was this tall, built, and handsome man, and he owned unreal facial features that made everyone wonder if he was indeed human just like everyone else. He was perfect for his role: the cold, sly, and dominating lead in the series. It was the complete opposite of your character, and with his friendliness, it was easy for you to quickly build up chemistry and work well with him, but as you two get closer, the more playful he became.

"You're the love of my life," he recited his lines, cheesy as it is, to which you became shy to and shrank as he got closer and closed his lips to yours.

He was quick to tease your blushes after the director's "Cut!" in each kissing scene, and would tease you easily at other romantic or heart fluttering scenes you had to do.

"Aww, that's cute, you're blushing again! I can hear your heart fluttering," he would say. "Then again, I am charming."

And in each time, you were always caught in his trap, stuck in the moment, and your heart follows his lead, ignoring all the other self-restraining signals your head was screaming about. He'd laugh right after he got a reaction out of you, and the grin he'd give you would linger in your head for the rest of the day.

There was another day when one of his members - Joshua - came to support as a cameo, and it felt like Jeonghan was on booster or something. He introduced you to Joshua, who was sweet, polite, and a perfect gentleman, but then Jeonghan continued to tease you the entire day Joshua was there. He made sure to remind Joshua how cute you were so many times throughout the day. At that point you were actually getting used to Jeonghan's antics, but him teasing you in front of a new person puts you on another level of flustered.

"Hey Josh, meet the love of my life," Jeonghan said, using his scripted lines.

Joshua, while he was nicer than Jeonghan, still played along sometimes. "Then I'll call you member-in-law!" He said.

Your birthday was on a filming day, and he managed to fool you to think that you had hurt his feelings by giving him comments on his acting as per usual (you were sure you weren't saying anything bad, but he kept directing it to be a negative one). He started showing acts of distaste and, at one point, even yelled at you and left the room.

It was heart-wrenching to watch him leave - you never wanted to hurt his feelings, you just wanted to help and support him and the drama entirely. Guilt washed over you quickly, and tears piled in your eyes. The crew was looking at you so judgmentally, and all you wanted to do was go home, lock the doors, and hide under your covers. You didn't know what to do, and some of the crew even went to you to convince you that he just needed to blow off steam and he'll be back and you can apologize when he gets back.

You wanted to scream and rip his hair off when he came back with a cake, singing Happy Birthday like nothing happened. Your tears flowed like a river though, because you genuinely thought that Yoon Jeonghan, this man, was actually angry at you to the point that he put it to display to everyone who was present and even yelled at you.

"Don't cry!" he laughed at you, taking the cream from the cake and swiping your cheeks with his finger. "You'll look ugly. We have to take a picture with this cake!"

You cursed at him for the first time since you've known him, but he only chuckled and patted your back to calm down your sniffles (you glared at his finger until he wiped the cream away first, though). He gave you a friendly hug and you hit him to prove the point that you were upset, and it was a loud slap in the back that everyone was surprised but laughed at. Apparently, a behind-the-scenes camera was on and recording the entire surprise; Jeonghan remembered this and went to the camera to tell on you. He complained really loudly, "Carats, she hit me!" he pointed at you playfully.

You were still sniffling, snots everywhere and you eyes still bawling with tears. "Y-you deserve it!" you screamed.

On the last day of filming, you had laughed everything off, remembering everything that happened during the course of filming and engraving every memory to your heart. It was surely an indescribable experience. The crew had been super nice, and they felt like a second family to you. The cast members became your best friends, including the one and only Yoon Jeonghan. You thanked Jeonghan, the rest of the cast, and the entire crew for all their hard work, hugged your co-stars tightly, and told Jeonghan to stay in contact with you even after it all ended because you'd miss him.

"Hey, but don't be a stranger," you told him. "I think I'm too used to having you around, its gonna be hard to live peacefully, now."

He smiled, pinched your cheeks and said, "Did you think I'm gonna stop just because the drama ended? You should've seen me annoy my members even from the military base."

You rolled your eyes at him, "I wouldn't dare to assume you'd do anything less."

And he kept to his word. Though there hadn't been any opportunities for both of you to meet each other again (variety shows and interview promotions were done during the course of filming), he still contacts you day-to-day, even if only to send a meme he found of you and laugh at you through text.

"You really DO look like you've got a frog in your mouth! Hahahaha!"

This went on through the rest of the year until the Award Shows started to busy every single celebrity available, finally announcing the invites, MCs, performances, and nominees to each award they have. Your drama with Jeonghan had hit it big as fans were so happy to watch both of you interact (also, maybe because Woozi sang the main OST, and Scoups' rap on the OST was fire), and you were invited to almost every single one of them as a nominee for multiple awards.

It was first assumed, then implied, but it was also because he was actually sweet enough to ask you personally, that you were officially his date to every one of the award shows your drama was nominated in. You agreed, not because he was your co-star, but because he was a genuinely nice and fun person to spend time with. You were also very excited, not just because you were nominated, but also because this time you were going to finally present your original and true self to Yoon Jeonghan and the world. The other characters within you screamed in delight as you excitement rose, and you had planned everything out, determined to show that you are not just a simple easily teased girl that Yoon Jeonghan bullies on.

On the very first show you wore a white gown - the top part was gold glitter with a heart neckline, and it corseted your figure, highlighting all the important curves in your body. Down your dress, the fabric flowed in an A-line skirt, transparency growing in a gradient as it reached the bottom, your strapped golden heels visible within your skirt. You put your half your hair into a braid and curled the rest. With curtain-like gold earrings and white diamonds shining out of the strands, Jeonghan was stunned when he saw you for the first time. Your make up was different from what he was used to, and a mature-like pureness aura radiates from you. He didn't know what to say, muted to say the least. He had never seen you like that, and once both of you reached the red carpet, his hand on your back as a gentlemanly support to guide you through the reporters, he noticed how straight you walked, and how you carried yourself so gracefully. The reporters were asking questions, but he left the answering to you as he continued to stay stunned through the red carpet. It was only when you both had finally taken your seats when he finally relaxed and converse normally again.

The minimum movements you emitted, just enough to be polite and to please your audience were not missed by the man, and he observed the details of your interactions to the utmost adoration. Your gracefulness had struck a chord in his heart and he was awed to say the least.

He ended the night with a shy smile and an "Oh, and by the way, you were absolutely beautiful tonight." The sincerity of his tone didn't go unnoticed and you didn't forget to thank him before going separate ways. It was oddly out of character of him to do, but you liked the new side of him you have yet to explore.

The next show, you opted for a bright red designer's gown. This one, fitting to its price tag, created this absolutely stunning silhouette, and while it did not sparkle or glitter, its muted red still create a distinction of you and made you shine. The designed folds in your dress accented your figure even more, and with a looser fabric, the skirt of your dress was made longer so it could trail behind you as you walk. Your hair was gathered up into one straight ponytail, a pretty simple hairdo to gather attention to your striking gown for the night.

Jeonghan didn't recognize you when he first was led to your changing room. You didn't just look like a different person, you feel like one, too. He didn't even realize that he held his breath as he looked at you. The stylist were so proud of their efforts and Jeonghan's reaction had them giggling and teasing him. "She's incredibly beautiful, isn't she?"

He barely managed a "yes" before you could chuckle and said to him, "Well look who's being shy, now."

At this, he returned a laughter of his own. He didn't bother hiding his surprised expression. "You got me. You look incredible."

Your outfit and style of the day, added with your elegance and poise as you conducted yourself in front of the reporters and other celebrities had Jeonghan staring at you for a while, and quite numerous whiles. He absolutely adored you. There was a surging feeling of wholesome pride as he stood beside you, his hand on your back as he escorted you through the venue. Even as he teased you as he answered the reporters' questions, you had retained your poise as you held it within yourself not to be flustered easily by this man. You had a year worth of practice for that.

"Isn't she beautiful? I'm such a fan of hers," Jeonghan whispered to the reporters, his playful grins and chuckles evident as he interacted happily. "She doesn't look like her character now, does she?"

You chuckled along with him, but dragged him to stop him from acting like a fan on the red carpet. He laughed and after a few tries of refusing your urges to move on, eventually let it go and allowed you to pull him forwards. As you moved on, he placed his hand on your back just like how he usually does, as a sign that he was right there walking with you.

The third time though, Jeonghan was speechless. He barely spoke through the course of the night, and his eyes never left you.

You wore a black designer's gown this time, with sequinned patterned Qs coming from your neck down to your knees before the skirt spreads out to hide your silver heels. It was a mermaid gown and it hugged your figure nicely. The skirt was actually more flowy that you thought, but it added a nice touch. You wore silver earrings and diamond hair pieces as you put your hair up in the most elegant updo Jeonghan had ever seen. He was already stunned when he saw you for the first time, but he almost choked when you turned around only for him to realize that your gown was completely backless.

Now, where is he supposed to place his hand again?

His face was flushed and when you turned to finally go out the door, you see his face filled with more red than you've ever seen. While his face was kind of salvaged by the foundation he used, the makeup couldn't help his neck from turning red as well.

"Yoon Jeonghan, are you sick?" you asked aloud, gaining the attention of all staff members present, all their eyes pointed at the man in question. "Or are you actually blushing?"

Your second question snapped him out of his haze (and had many of the stylists and make up artists giggling) as he looked at you for a few seconds, and you were starting to actually worry, before he eventually puts his hand on his forehead, covering his face.

"God, you'll be the death of me. Let's go before I embarrass myself any further."

He was indeed blushing, and his statement confirmed that for you. You laughed, but you can't help but feel you cheeks tinting a little pink from his confession. He linked your arm with his and went out together.

The first few minutes into the red carpet, Jeonghan did his best not to have direct contact with your back. He was blushing the entire time, had to ask the interviewers to repeat themselves a couple of times, and his hand was going to unsure places like your shoulder or your waist, which he was also not confident about, and eventually just lingers a few inches away from your back, like in mid-air. The so-called manner hands.

It wasn't as reassuring as having his hand on your back like the previous times you both had gone through this. His focus was also off as he tried to avoid the contact, and just moved his hand when you moved as well. You sighed and just pulled his hand to slightly slap your back, and you pointed a look at Jeonghan's direction, telling him to stop fidgeting through your eyes.

He blushed.

"Jeonghan, are you not feeling well?" one of the reporters asked.

He seemed to click then and there. His honest self couldn't help himself as he answered, "Oh yeah, she just looks gorgeous tonight, I can't take my eyes off of her."

When he finally comprehended his own words, he fumbled and stuttered. "I-I mean," he tried to reason, but the stars in the reporters' eyes were showing that they heard everything he said, and some of them squealed in delight.

"Why, thank you," you turned to face him, your smile directed for him.

He was stunned - again.

"Oh, let's just go," he said shyly, one of his hands reaching to his neck to feel just how warm he had gotten.

That night, both of you had received a daesang award, but Jeonghan kind of added a few more elements to his acceptance speech.

"Hi, this is Seventeen's Jeonghan. This acting experience was truly incredible and there's so many people who should know that they are the reason for this award. I want to thank Carats, who have always been there for me through thick and thin, and my members who have been watching and supporting me, especially to Joshua who became a cameo, my parents and my family members who had been with me from the very start, the staff members, Pledis, directors, pd-nim, and all the crew members. This is not possible without any of you. And special thanks to," Jeonghan moved his eyes on you, and he didn't know why then and there, your name disappeared from his head and instead replaced with that one line that had caught all the viewers' heart as they watched the drama.

"The love of my life - " he stopped when he realized what he just said, and realized he had kind of just confessed on national TV. "I mean, M-my co-star."

You stood there surprised at how flustered Yoon Jeonghan could be, and stunned that you were the main reason that he was fumbling on the stage and his ears redder than ever. He caught himself before he did anything else and finished his speech nicely.

"Anyways, uh, thank you for this award, I'll work even harder to be a better actor and come back with more for you all. Thankyou!"

It was your turn after him to deliver your speech, and suddenly the trophy on your hands became heavier than it actually was. Jeonghan turned his back to walk back to the spot beside you as you move forward, and you can see a small smile tugging the corners of his lips. When you were brushing against each other before you took the mic, he whispered, just loud for you to hear, and short enough to go unnoticed.

"Yes, that was my confession to you. Will you go out with me?"

All eyes were on you and all lights were on you when you felt like you bit your tongue and couldn't speak.

The MCs were waiting for your speech, and nudged you to start when you seem lost.

"Ah, yes, I mean, no, I mean yes!"

Yoon Jeonghan really knows how to fluster you, even in his most flustering moments.

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#yoon jeonghan #jeonghan #jeonghan fic #seventeen imagines #fanfiction #fluff #jeonghan fluff #jeonghan scenario #seventeen #svt #seventeen fic

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darktypeimagines · 5 years ago

Note

Could I ask for headcanons of Leon and Raihan reacting to their s/o defeating them with pure strategy? And s/o didn't use Mega Evolution or Dynamaxing. (Since s/o's from Unova, they wouldn't know how to do either of those things.)

(part 2 of ask) Oh! Sorry, I forgot to add that for the request with Unova s/o defeating Leon and Raihan without Dynamaxing or Mega Evolution, I would like it separately please. And headcanons, I’m not sure if I included that too.

Not sure how old you are, anon, but for those of us who have been around a while… we ALL know are collective child brains would’ve EXPLODED if we learned about Mega-Evolution and Dynamaxing! Oh, the rumors that would’ve started!

This one was a little hard for me. I am by no means a competitive player, and usually only use simple strategies myself. I like Pokemon for the characters and the journey, myself. Not so much the actual battles. I also tried to keep things vague, but it’s hard to not use specific Pokemon. So, there were a few specific Pokemon in there. Finally, for some reason, I wrote Raihan pre-relationship and Leon present relationship. Don’t know why, that’s how it came out. Hope you like it, though.

—————————————————————————————-

Things were so much simpler in Unova. Sure, your region had triple and rotation battles. But Pokemon evolving temporarily mid-battle? GIANT POKEMON?! Nope. You were aware of the techniques, but… you made it this far without them. Why learn now? They seemed kinda gimmick-y, in your opinion.

As you traveled the world, you found stranger and stranger things. Mega Evolution in Kalos, Pokemon from other worlds (dimensions?) in Alola… And then Dynamaxing in Galar. You cleared all these challenges using the techniques and strategies you learned over the years.

While you weren’t on the gym challenge, you decided to test yourself against many of the stronger trainers in each country. This included Galar, which had the strangest restrictions on even entering the gym challenge. A letter of recommendation was needed to even participate?!

A few gym leaders were confused by your request to battle. When you made it clear that you were known worldwide as an expert, some asked why you didn’t just join the challenge. It just wasn’t your aim.

Raihan

You were a bit excited to finally fight Raihan. You saved him as the last gym leader in your personal challenge; he was the eighth gym leader, after all. But throughout your travels, you had heard about his battle style. Double battles? Weather manipulation? This sounded right up your alley; weather wars were all the rage in Unova, after all!

When you introduced yourself and your request, Raihan thought it was pretty cool that you were doing this! And not even for fame or badges; it was just to test yourself and your team. He admired this, and gladly accepted your challenge.

The two of you met at the gym after hours. It was a bit eerie. The castle the gym was located in was quiet and dark; luckily, Raihan got the lights early on.

You knew a bit about his tactics from just a bit of research. Which, by research, you meant stalking his social media accounts. He made a few viral videos (one of which became a meme) with him using sandstorm in ridiculous situations, one of which featured a popular electronic song of the same name. So, it seems he was found of using sandstorm in battle.

With this in mind, you sent out a ground type and a steel type as leads. Raihan’s sent out Flygon and Gigalith, the latter which set up sandstorm with its ability, Sandsteam. Your Pokemon resisted it.

You always liked keeping odd moves on your Pokemon. It kept your opponents on their toes! For dragon types, you always kept ice beam on a couple Pokemon on your team. This time, it was on your lead ground type, and you blasted Flygon with it. Flygon is doubly weak to ice types, so that did quite a bit of damage!

You did quite a bit of damage with your ice-weilding ground type before it finally fainted. At this point, you pulled out two new Pokemon. One with levitate. And one with the move Earthquake. A classic combination.

You didn’t know this beforehand, but most of Raihan’s team was ground and rock weak. So, Earthquake did a number on the rest of his team, even his Gigantamaxed Duraludon. And with that, you ended up winning.

Raihan loved your use of strategy! It had been quite a while since he had fought such a tough opponent; only Leon gave him that much trouble nowadays.

Asked if you could come by now and then and give him a challenge. He thought it might be a good way to train, hopefully to make him and his team strong enough to finally defeat Leon. You agreed, and through this, you eventually became close to him and started dating.

Yes, you battle frequently while dating. And, you two play at changing the weather back and forth. It’s a bit frustrating, but you eventually won each time.

Joked that while he couldn’t beat Leon, you definitely could! Maybe you should try to find out…

Leon

After you challenged the gym leaders, you decided to stay in Galar for a while. It was a beautiful region, and between the history and the wild area, you could explore for years without getting bored.

Eventually, you were introduced to the current Champion of the region, Leon. He was adorable. And handsome. And apparently, the crush was mutual, as the two of you started dating.

However, shortly after, Leon lost his title. It was rough on him. He had been the unbeatable champion for so long, he didn’t know what to do with himself.

It was actually your suggestion that he form a battle facility. When you first came to Galar, you were shocked they didn’t have one! It was a frequent stop for you in each region, so it felt odd it was missing. With his reputation, you knew he would do wonderfully, and that people would flock there for the chance to challenge him.

And you were right. There were CROWDS of people there, even on the first day!

You decided to challenge this new Battle Tower. You had challenged so many others before, and wanted to see what Galarian trainers had to offer!

You also wanted to challenge your boyfriend. And apparently he had a new outfit, so you’d get to see him in that.

So, you ascended the Battle Tower. You made quick work of the first rank trainers, eventually reaching Leon. You needed to beat him in order to rank up, which you fully intended to do.

You knew he could have a wide variety of Pokemon on his team. He wanted to be a little more unpredictable for challengers. You knew him, and knew he’d always have his Charizard, but that was the only guarantee. With all this in mind, you designed your team with coverage in mind.

You led with a Dragon Dancing-Haxorus. While it took a tough ice type attack on the first round, you were able to get up one Dragon Dance, and took out his first Pokemon on the second turn.

By some miracle, Haxorus was able to get up one more Dance and survive, sweeping the next Pokemon aside.

But, then came Charizard. He Gigantamaxed (as expected) and blasted Haxorus away.

So, now you had a Gigantamaxed Charizard to deal with…

You sent out Vaporeon next. You had it use Toxic on Charizard, and then when it survived on the next turn somehow, had it use Wish for your next Pokemon. Charizard took out Vaporeon that turn, and reverted to its regular form.

Toxic had already done a fair bit of damage by that point. But Charizard hit your last Pokemon hard over a couple of turns. But, with Wish set up earlier, your final Pokemon was healed, and lasted long enough to finish Charizard off.

You could tell Leon took the loss a bit hard. And yes, you ran over to hug him. He squeezed you hard, grinning, and told you that you weren’t done yet! You still had to max your rank!

You laughed, and hugged him harder. It took a while for you two to separate, and got lunch afterwards to celebrate your victory.

#Leon pokemon #raihan #raihan x reader #pokemon imagines #pokemon sword and shield #pokemon swsh #leon x reader #ask #scenario #x reader #darktypeimagines

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whimsically-ominously-auspice · 5 years ago

Text

I woke up again and there was someone pulling at by me like tug of war. Over my body. I jumped up and ran to the bathroom away from the situation. But I was In So much pain.

The pulling helped but ... Like there's no solution.

Snoop helped me many years ago about 6 or 7 to get on the right medication to stabilize my heart and to get me all better and healthier with the help of pills.

He is the only one that did. I wrote about him but used his personal name "Calvin"

Because he was my personal friend. My personal guidance counselor.

He was with me every minute of the day "you need to take a pill about right now I see that pain about to be kicking up"

"You think you can get a different medication not like weed but a pill because this one ain't working"

He was truly my doctor. So i respected him and his privacy and just called him Calvin.

So marrying on his date of choice... "But why snoop?"

I'll give you two reasons. One he was my doctor that got me to the actual local doctor that could prescribe.

Two the whole fold out was over the world wide drug addictions y'all have. Y'all all know you're doing less recreational drugs during rehab with your family and friends in your house -- i mean Quarentine. Wow that secret came out quick out my mouth.

79% less "street" drug use worldwide.

To celebrate 4.20.2020 is an appropriate date..

The 20.20.20.20 goes on and in indefinite.

Y'all know Snoop smoke for a reason and he drink and he take Tums. Like no mother effer know.

Here's our momma helping yall find it. Follow her face she point right down to it.

Same ole game. The Distraction Method.

They went to have sex and her I am all now look and focus on these here Tums. I ain't even wanting to share the post but it's a good PSA for all. So i will.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B92p2Z2H9WW/?igshid=1xwks2o8nb2p5

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Best Friens. We always got each other's back.

And we got yours. We got safer and healthier and funner FDA approved street drugs.

We will honor old time commitment of old fashioned door to door street sales. Face to face.

Of the Human entitlement. That is something our bodies can and will do without provoking dangerous pain... Just stiffness at times y'all forget to stretch and use them muscles but getting up and walking next door for door to door sales will stretch them body parts right up correct.

I had to get on a "new" prescription today. Hopefully my doctor honors it. I asked for an emergency prescription and I'll talk to her about my other, toppamax in a few weeks.

But Snoops was the one that said I needed something for Fibromyalgia. And encouraged and helped and watched me to ensure I was okay.

He is the one that prayed and worried when the muscle relaxers were too strong and i couldn't swallow. And i could died. Because of Flexeril. Because I been on it too long and it was approved for two weeks max. So i got on a completely different medication for it. And it worked for every day long term yearly use.

So he believes in the world's herbs and medicine. Chamomile. Ginger. Rose Hips. Echinacea.

So four twenty will go on.

I always and he did felt like 420 honors the Earth and its medicine. Not just getting high. But the spirit of Mother Nature.

So marrying on 420 symbolizes that Mother Nature will Continue on. Humans are marrying not just their soulmates and/or Just accepting them as they are.

They are committing themselves to our Planet and it's health and wealth

Hence y'all Quarentine.

Y'all going inside and fighting back this illegal alien caused diseases. Although we committed to changing it and wanting it to spread. Y'all fight the sole reason of its existence. Illegal aliens trying to take control by damaging our precious and beloved planet that we belong to.

Not everyone is getting married. Only y'all on Ships and those in Compton on a specialized piece of magic made equipment approved by Mother Nature.

The ships y'all are on run by paddles 110% guaranteed not to harm sea or wild life. I have committed to Mother Nature and all she loves when building those ships. And to yours and our safety and sanity aboard.

These ships cause no pollution and are sanitized by lights that recharge by laying on ships docks when they run out of energy.

Jesse Number 2 helped me design a way to capture UV rays that are harmless. Not radio active. And perfect to sanitize. What makes laundry clean and crisp in the sun. What we used to long ago to sanitize and clean all our instruments BEFORE aliens came with microwaves. Light form the Sun. So Jesse Number 2. I'll tell you right now. He is Einstein.

So his getting in trouble and kicked outta school. It ain't gonna end. In fact i used that theory he was a bad boy. I left it in him. I didnt correct him. I let that evil sniffer inside him. Because I knew one day that mischief could be used to my benefits. He is so loving and his desire to reach others to teach and be a Nigger is so strong he can't handle it. And his hate for aliens. So deep he had to experiment a way to dispose of them all without the use of magic so it's automatic done.

His wish is granted. Einstein I thank you for Your mischief. Your complete soul level on your own not including your soulmate or any others you drag along with you (kids like me) is -141812711219102.

For your development in Science.

Social level is about 3.

My science level is a little less than yours. Setting about 12 shelves down.

Snoop Science level is -4120191218451687431.

But he's inactive. Thus he is a fortune of information. And has a Science Tree named after him -- which means it captures his personality -- his spirit. And he hides behind the Tree of Einstein adding in deluxe phrases and at times mischief.

The difference is that Snoop knows the words to express what Einstein does. While Einstein only has the heart. So things go wrong at times when it has a delicate balance such as plutonium bombs.

Unfortunately they were stolen from Einstein.

So in the science Scale Eisenstein is lower because of his inability to speak and only feel.

He is autistic mute. Which is why he got kicked out of school. Be aware of the different children you have in the world and how gifted they are. Learning the story of Beethoven will change your entire world and understanding of disabilities.

Einstein cannot perform if must speak.

Snoop doesn't wanna get his hands dirty but he can explain a performance

So the rest of the time with Einstein will be posted and you'll see the truth behind the bombings that closed the NHRA.

I didn't want my babies working. I didn't want them having the stress of competition with each other. I just wanted them to stop for a little while and clear their heads of all that traffic going to their minds.

And let them do what they needed most. War. To finish this fight against human trafficking.

Its not over. Quarantine is for your safety So no one is stolen or bought. We can keep track of you easier.

This is why we meme The Corona.

Because there's a serious SERIOUS real reason we are stopping people from being in the streets.

No one can drug and kidnap you If every one is hyper aware of getting sick

A BIG TIME KIDNAPPER NATHANIEL RELEASED THE KILLER VIRUS INTO CHINA. 175709 EXPERT E. WAS THE DISEASE NAME. THE SOLE. THE #1 ISSUE IS THE CONCRETE FOUNDATION OF EVERYTHING HAPPENING.

This is why we chose not to eradicate the virus. We could yall know. That's why it's in meme.

Jazmine didn't know she followed her heart and voted to change. Her vote was the deciding vote. It was split down the middle. From her spine her backbone for her soul she shouts "Thank y'all for listening to your hearts, too!!!" My kids were scared. Sometimes panic stricken. But they kept going because they knew in their hearts it had to be done. Jazmine says "i didn't know how strong I could be. We've never poisoned so many people!!! But mom and North Korea made it fun and saw how necessary it was. Thank you Kim Young Jon!"

"Kim Young Jon really lighted our hearts to allow us to continue our mission by making jokes about constipation and such So we really just tried to give it to those folks that are evil with constipation!! And it worked! And we feel much better because we had help from the leader of North Korea, Kim Young John" adds Chastity. The quiet one no one knows about. Because she's Chaste. Celibate. Celebration. The girl behind the power of Purity and Joy. "No one knows but I do like my job. Like a lot!"

She admits its been hard and i found All the girls on TV last night so dad will edit in How you can find tree filmed life for them

I will say you will see my kids telling their dad they will date and/or marry them. Its not a daddy complex or sugar daddy thing. It was to keep illegal aliens from taking over his body and also trying to marry him. Keeping him safe and pure for me. So understand that and you can see the films proper. They are tricks. To prove love and devotion to their parent's marriage. They go on "dates" but it's little 3 year old toddlers going out with their Father. It is pure. Just realize the plot lines.... Its sneaky mystery. He knows they are his kids and they know he is their dad. Its simple. Its s conglomerate camouflage to protect themselves, me and dear old dad. Its a real beauty and treasure to see.

And now due to the Ocean Wide Marriage of Mother Nature using her soulmates as power. Never do those occurrences have to happen again.

Now I can say "it's daddy date time lets get you all ready" I can get all my girls dressed and ready and go out with my sons. Then we switch. "Its mommy date time" and the girls get all ready.

Because we are keeping it feminine and old fashion where the girls are taken out for a romantic evening and the parents teach the children proper etiquette and dating procedures.

So the movies he posts are a prelude to our future fun. Although they were seriously and honestly protecting his life.

So although our children are and will be married we will still intervene and remind them to change things up a bit. Come out with us on 2 trial runs check your comfort, expand your mind. Then go out single and have fun.

My mom all my mom's have had agoraphobia. So i get it too, sometimes. So this helps me. So when he wants to take me out someplace unfamiliar to me, new and strange. I am more relaxed. And I enjoy it more. Because I've gone with 2 groups to basically go check the place out for its saftiness and quality.

So, im happier knowing he's picked a good safe place for me to enjoy.

But agoraphobia aside. It is simply beautiful.

Its a Mary Poppins trait. Take the kids. See if it is kid approved then take the whole family to impress the damming father of their knowledge of the restaurant

Its a rich NYC establishment of Socialite traits.

Its absolutely historical. And missing on this Earth.

Our Steam ships will provide times for those "dates" for everyone aboard.

Its great for large families. I have 16 daughters. In groups of 8 we have a nice large meal and great table outing where we can talk and laugh and enjoy each other

Our plans are 2 girl dates and 4 boy dates per week then 1 large dinner table for all.

We have 18 boys.

So two groups of girls of 8 each.

2 groups of boys 9 each.

That's 4 nights of switching with mom and dad.

2 nights of single dates and/or brother sister switch dates which pushes a week into 2 week time frame for specialties.

Every 6 weeks.

Then dinner dates with entire family.

So trees arrange every thing the tables and set up so we can relax, all plans are premwde and preset and predictable. Based on patterns of behavior.

Like I know a 2 week one is a mystery adventure so it's got practical jokes and such to be tricky thus the dinners also have 6 family dinners.

Its spooky scary so kids scream, "I want my mommy!!"

So we all feel good and right as a family it's a live show and humans do it with magic so,then,we also take our turn to do them at their dinner and we dine earlier to make plans.

So the plans aren't laid out. We have bets and guesses what one will do we made long long ago. So we make money that way.

Because we are wealthy. But also for the "lower classes of finances" the mystery solving does earn money. Including Some for wild and fun completely wrong theories will earn a grand prize if it is a solid and GOOD foundation i can build on. There's tons of prizes and fun.

Every 6 weeks. Because the best schools have 6 weeks intercourses then a grade.

So ours is 6 weeks of yall being you then us performing a show and fucking your minds and lives all up for 2 weeks

So when you get home and kids do go to school it is 6 weeks of school. 3 weeks off 2 of which include vacation of international travel.

Which means you go to NYC visit Little Italy. Or you go to San Antonio and visit the Alamo. Go to Alaska and find a Russian Muesuems. Or you simply stay home and go to Muesuems of the past i have created.

International travel does include watching movies of REAL LIFE which will be labeled correctly or if incorrectly a prize for labeling correct like Snoop ssys in this video.

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Note y'all all will have enough money to go over seas but sometimes your family will come visit you. Or you just need rest or wanna explore your own territory.

So history is considered international travel. So you can look at your own home tree made movies.

Then you earn a prize. A souvenir.

So you watch you and you be all dam man i love this lamp i keep seeing. -- i for real bought this lamp and it was so filled with love all i wanna do is wrap,my arms around it.,Idk,why but i miss it and I want it back so bad. I'd take it on vacation i love that big ass lamp. -- so if i see it and i can label every single person correctly in that movie. Then i get the lamp.

So say you know something was destroyed. Broke to high Hell. Dumped in the garbage lit on fire.

Momma gonna get it for you. Out of 8 tons of trash on top of it. And I gonna fix it how you loved it. You had a sticker on the bottom of your eye rolling phone? It will be there. Just the way you had It.

It don't matter what happened to it. I'll magic find it. Fix and you'll get it. All magic. All you gotta do is love that object with your whole being.

Mary Poppins. I won't even know. But momma gonna get it.

Now, ole George had something you wanted... Fine old diamond ring and watch set you always slipped an eye to.

Daddy gonna buy you one Just like it. Father Christmas aka Christopher Columbus promised it Will get built. All your favorites.

Now we say we gonna do it. But we asked the true magic God could we please??.

In 2008 he said in 2020 y'all waited enough.

So we take that credit from nursery rhymes because we are the messengers m

If my father is The One True God

And he created just this planet just for me to keep me safe and it was invaded.

Then I would be Jesus a girl. And i have found out i can not forgive. So welcome to Corona.

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