#unless i post my old attempts at it here— they aged quite well for old art

[mayordea]

something a bit different: a scrapped idea~~

so one time i made a piece of art based on YugamiP’s “Alice of Human Sacrifice” (here). this was an old version of this fanart project before i settled on a single traditional piece with all the characters in it.

as a former ibispaintx user, i really loved the stain glass style that could be achieved w its tools (there was a whole official tutorial on it and everything). i used to make some of these styled pieces and wanted to try again with different individual pieces for each “Alice”. unfortunately after i finished meiko it wasnt really clicking for me. idk if it was bc i didnt want to repeat the time-consuming process three more times, or if i was just rusty with the style, or if the idea wasn’t as cool as i thought it was but some of the sauce was lost. so thats when i returned to the drawing board and thought of a different approach.

i figured i’d share the completed meiko piece since it is complete and all and i dont want to let a perfectly fine (if a little mid, by the standards i was trying to shoot for) piece sit around and collect dust.

here are the sketches for the rest of the gang :]

i remember struggling with the poses, miku in particular. also had no idea what i wanted to do with background elements besides vague color shapes and roses which is what i settled on for meiko. i think that roadblock was also another factor that turned me off from this.

anyway if you like this stain glass idea more than what i actually ended up drawing then.. sorry. i suppose!

[musings-of-a-rose]

I Don't Want to See Tomorrow (Unless I See It With You) - Chapter 1

Pairing: Benny Miller x f!reader nicknamed "Juni"

Word Count: 3600+

Rating: Mature - 18+ ONLY!

Warnings: Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story. 

Notes: I've had this idea in my head for well over a year and with the Fallout show being dropped (and absolutely AMAZING), I figured now was the time to post it! So this is a Triple Frontier/Fallout crossover au. Huge shoutout to @mermaidxatxheart for listening to probably hours of audio at this point of me talking myself through this fic. And to @deathbecomesnerds for listening to me prattle on about video game fics and giving me her own advice.

**If you want to be added to the taglist, join here or let me know!

❤If you enjoy the fic, please consider giving me a warm beverage! (It is not required in any way!)

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**Reader is not described

Main Masterlist

Benny Miller Masterlist

I Don't Want to See Tomorrow (Unless I See It With You) Masterlist

May, 2067

"We're so proud of you, honey!" My mom hugs me tight, my cap nearly sliding off my head with the force of it.

"We knew you'd get top marks!" My dad claps me on the back and pulls me in for another tight hug, my cap fully falling from my head this time.

"Thanks, Dad." My mom hands me back my graduation cap and I put it back on my head, attempting to get it to stay put as I look out over the crowd of people.

"There's my favorite graduate."

I spin, nearly falling over in my heels but Benny catches me, chuckling as I right myself. His smile is wide and bright, but there's something else. I can't quite place it.

"What a coincidence. My favorite graduate is here too," I bop him on the nose and he chuckles again. He moves to kiss me but then his eyes shift over my shoulder and he backs up, clearing his throat, no doubt having made eye contact with my dad.

"Ben, will you be joining us for dinner?" My mom asks.

"Uh, sure. Save me a seat."

My mom squeezes my shoulder. "We'll see you at dinner, honey."

I give them each a hug before they leave, turning back to Benny. He immediately pulls me to him, kissing me deeply before pulling back.

"Can I take you somewhere?"

"I'll go anywhere with you, Benny."

He takes my hand, so small in his large one, and leads me through the crowd to his old truck. He opens the door for me and helps me in before hopping in the driver's seat. I scoot next to him and lay my head on his shoulder, Benny laying his arm across the back of the seat. We drive for a bit before turning into our neighborhood and pulling into the empty park. We get out and he takes my hand, pulling me towards a juniper tree that was in a field next to the playground. He pulls me to him and kisses me again, my cap long since forgotten in the cab of his truck.

"Why are we here, Benny?"

"Don't you remember this tree, Juni?"

I smile up at him as I glance at the tree. "How could I forget? We met under this tree shortly after I moved here. It's why you call me Juni. Like juniper." I gesture at the tree.

He smiles at the memory. "We were what...5?"

"Yeah. Such a long time ago. Now look at us. 18 and heading to college."

There's an awkward silence and I look up at him. "Benny?"

He rubs the back of his neck, not quite looking at me. "About college."

I step back from him. "You're not going through with the sign up, are you??"

He holds his hands out, trying to placate me. "Look. Will is already there. He flew through basic and they're putting him in a special force if he keeps it up-"

"There's a war, Benny-"

"Exactly. And I know we aren't there yet, but we both know there will be a draft eventually-"

"You don't know that!"

"And if I sign up voluntarily, I get some say in where I go. I'm a way better shot than Will so I think I can make it into his-"

"No. No! I can't...I don't....I'll go with you!" I'm fighting back tears, my voice catching in my throat.

Benny shakes his head. "No, sweetheart. You need to go to college. You're too smart. Get that masters in..what was it...bio-nuclear agriculture practices? Sciences?"

I shake my head. "I don't care. I want to be with you! Unless...do you not-"

Benny's face becomes serious. He cups my face and forces me to look at him, his eyes so bright but worried. "Don't think that I don't want you. I do. I want you forever and always. But I have to do this. I have to get ahead of it. This way, I can watch Will's back too."

My tears break free, sliding down my cheeks. "I'm scared, Benny. I can't lose you."

"You won't lose me."

"You'll find some other girl and...and..." Benny cuts me off with a kiss, my tears rubbing off onto his face. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a simple, plain gold band. Not too thick.

"Benny?"

"Look, I'm not forcing anything on you. I can't do that to you, especially signing up for the army. But I did make this promise ring. And, in a few years when you're all graduated, if you still want to, I'll add a rock to it and we'll get married."

I hold the small band in my palm, touching it with my fingers before looking back up at him.

"This was not the best proposal," he chuckles and I do too, despite everything.

"It wasn't a proposal. It's a promise. How about you promise to come home to me in one piece?"

"I can promise to try my best."

I nod. "I'll take it."

Benny slides the band onto my finger and pulls out a thicker band from his pocket and hands it to me. I slide it onto his finger, winding his hand in mine and for a moment, we both just stare at our hands, feeling the weight of our futures.

"When you get your own power armor, make sure to send me a photo!"

Benny smiles. "Fuck yeah I will!"

10 years later...

Benny and I had stayed faithful to each other over the last 10 years. My friends never understood why I didn't want to go out partying, dating around. "He said he didn't hold you to anything!" They'd complain. But I would just shake my head. Benny holds all of me, always has, since the day we met under that juniper tree. He took one look at my scared face, alone in this new neighborhood, and took my hand, told me everything would be ok and that we were friends now.

He'd have to be the one to leave because I never would.

We met up over the years, sometimes being lucky his off time would line up with mine. We'd make the most of our time together, Benny preferring to spend as much time as possible between my thighs and I wasn't going to complain about that. But every time we talked about adding a rock to the band, his face would get worried. He said things were heating up with the war and he didn't want me tied down if something happened to him. I told him ring or no, I was already tethered to him.

Then, about 3 years ago, he told me he was saving up for that rock. That it would take him some time. I didn't care how long as we were already married in my mind. Our times together became less and less as the Sino-American War waged on, both sides at a stalemate.

Then finally, in May of 2078, a few weeks after I graduated from Vault-Tec University with my Masters in Bio-fusion Agriculture, Benny knocked on my front door, already on one knee when I answered it holding up a beautiful diamond ring in exactly my style. Once he slid the ring on my finger, I pulled him inside, not making it past the front entrance way before we were tearing each other's clothes off, Benny burying himself inside of me as I try to not slide across the floor.

We were married that same night.

He had to leave a few days later, but we made good use of our time together.

2077

Around late August, Vault-Tec moved my research lab from the city proper to a smaller research lab just outside the city. It worked out fairly well as it was stationed near the vault that was basically up the hill from my parent's suburban home. The one I grew up in. I liked being out of the city. There were less soldiers here, people were stressed still but it wasn't as violent.

The beginning of October rolled in, bringing cooler weather and the start of my favorite season. Morale, as a country, was low, so people took to decorating for Halloween early, the decorations helping people to smile a little more. But nothing put a smile on my face like Benny showing back up, his entire unit, including his brother Will and their other "brothers" Frankie, Santi, and Tom, all returning to their homes.

We spent a couple weeks together before the phone rang in the middle of the night. Benny yawns, picking it up with a grunt, his back immediately straightening out at whomever was on the other end. All I heard was "Yes, Sir," before he hung up.

"You're leaving?" I ask, grazing my fingers across his bare back.

"Yeah," he turns, pulling down the comforter to reveal my bare chest, his finger tracing lines around my breasts, my nipples hardening at the touch. "But not for long. They just want us to escort a higher up when they visit Boston."

"Sounds serious."

He nods, his hand sliding lower, under the covers and pressing between my thighs. "It is. Very serious."

"So..d-do you have t-to leave?" It was hard to focus, the pressure between my legs building the longer he caresses me.

He leans in close, kisses me softly. "Not before I make love to my wife."

He leaves about an hour later, my inner thighs sticky with him, my heart racing not with bliss but with worry that he won't return.

October 23rd, 2077

I wake to birds singing outside my bedroom window, ringing in a beautiful Saturday morning. I roll out of bed, get ready for the day before heading over to my parent's house to stop in for a surprise breakfast. However, my parents were gone, headed into Boston for an appointment, according to our Mr. Handy robot, Hawthorne. In the meantime, the robot had made me breakfast, which I sat and ate, looking at the newspaper but not really taking it in.

I get bored of the paper and set it aside, flipping on the tv, hoping to catch something interesting. I really miss Benny. His absence this week has been weighing heavily on me.

"...followed by flashes, blinding flashes, sounds of explosions. We're trying to get confirmation but we seem to have lost contact with our affiliate stations. We do have coming in, that's uh...confirmed reports, I repeat, confirmed reports of nuclear detinations in New York and Pennslyvania. My God-"

The TV cuts out and I sit there, momentarily stunned at what the news anchor just reported. Nucelar explosions? That can't be right. But then the siren rings, it's high pitched wail sending goosebumps across my skin.

"Ma'am, I think you need to head to the Vault," Hawthorne advises.

I shake my head to snap out of it, quickly running for the door. When I get outside, soldiers are already in the streets, the vertibirds flying towards Boston.

"...If you are registered, head to Vault 111 immediately!" A soldier yells through a megaphone as my neighbors run screaming in the street, some towards the path that will take them to the vault. Others stay in their driveways, cowering in fear.

Someone pushes past me and I fall, scraping my palms on the pavement. I scramble up, just making it to my feet before someone else collides into me, yelling at me to move my ass. I take one last look around and run to the vault, my bare feet thudding across the dirt path.

I pass neighbors with trunks of clothes scattered everywhere, the husband pleading with the wife to leave everything and just run. My heart is nearly beating through my chest as I make my way up the hill, a small crowd gathered in front of the gate to Vault 111. An angry crowd, yelling over the loud wail of the siren and the whoosh of the vertibird propellers.

"If you're not on the list, you're not getting in!" An official looking man yells at a couple who is standing in front of him, the man shifting his weight to his back foot.

"I'm getting in there!" He starts to move forward, but then the high pitched whine of a mini gun starts up, the soldier in power armor, standing at least a foot over the man, pointing it at him.

"Ok, ok, fine!" The man puts his hands in the air and stands aside, his wife following.

The crowd starts to push together, but I force my way through them, yelling to the soldier.

"I'm on the list!"

"Back away! Back away!" The power armored soldier aims again and the people back away, but only a couple of feet. The uniformed soldier looks down at me, clip board in hand.

"Name?"

"Miller." I give him my first name as well as Benny's and his rank.

"Ben Miller's wife? Head on in. Quick!" He waves me through, but I pause for a moment.

"Do you know where he is?"

"No ma'am. Now please, head inside!"

I look out at the crowd of people, now trying to shove each other to get inside, the gate starting to groan with their press. But the one face I want to see, Benny's, is nowhere to be seen.

I'm sure he's ok. I mean, he's a soldier, in an elite group. He's just guarding some fancy higher up in Boston. I'm sure this is just a precaution. I turn my back on my neighbors and run, as fast as I can, to the platform. Another soldier waves me over and points to the platform, where I stand between some neighbors with a baby and the Hendersons, the people who live across the street from my parents.

My parents. They're on the vault list too. Maybe they got into one nearer to Boston? Is that even how this works?

"Almost there!" One of the other people shouts as we wait to be lowered into the vault. I look out over the tree tops from our place on the hill, the Boston skyline gleaming in the distance, my heart hurting that Benny isn't here with me. I'm sure it's nothing, but I'm still terrified.

BOOM!

The ground shakes violently. My eyes reflect the mushroom cloud that explodes over Boston, it's dome slowly floating up into the sky as its sounds reverberate through my body. I can't help the scream erupting in my throat as a violent wind comes whooshing at us a moment later, the city already in flames. The ground below me moves, lowering us into the vault. We all duck just in time, the wind and fire flowing over the space we took up moments before, the whole cement tube rumbling and shuddering with the force of the detonation. For what seems like an eternity, we're in pitch black darkness, the creaking of the pullies lowering us and the sounds of our own whimpers and whispers, the baby crying our only sounds to accompany us down into the vault.

Then light appears as we settle into place, our platform locking in. The gate in front of us opens and a man in a lab coat beckons us forward from the end of the ramp.

"Welcome to Vault 111! Step this way for registration."

"What happened to all of those people up there?" Someone asked.

"Please, let's just get you registered, and through decontamination, and then we can address all your concerns!" Labcoat offers as he gestures towards a woman in a bright blue jumpsuit, yellow stripes down the middle and around the hips like a belt, giant yellow numbers on the back that say 111.

"They're all dead, you idiot. That was a nuclear bomb!" Someone else replied.

"No it wasn't. I bet that was just a trial. This is all practice." He argues back.

"That heat didn't feel fake," someone else pipes up.

Gone. They're all gone. Benny...No. No, I'm sure he's safe, made it to his own vault. All those fancy rich people had vaults. I'm sure he made it in time and I can contact him once I get checked in. I'm sure the vaults all have a way to communicate with each other. Right?

I take a shaky step forward, wiping the tears from my cheeks, willing them to stop for at least check in. I head to the lady Labcoat indicated and she smiles warmly at me. I give her my name and she runs a finger down her list, tapping on what I presume is my name.

"There you are. Mrs. Miller, female. Is your husband-" she glances back down at the list. "-Benjamin, here?" She looks back up at me, a soft, friendly smile on her face, which falters as she looks at me.

"I...he...he was on a m-mission wi-with..."I take a deep breath, trying to steady myself. "My husband is Lieutenant Benjamin Miller. He's in Delta Force. He and his squad were guarding some higher up when....do...do you have any...I mean, do you know..." I can barely choke out words, my mind on Benny but also his brothers.

The woman smiles at me. "I understand. I don't have any information here, unfortunately. All they gave me was this clipboard and some boxes of jumpsuits. But I'm sure once you get through decontamination, they can find out for you. Ok?"

I nod, sniffling, feeling the sob trying to burst out of me. The woman looks me up and down, reaching into one of the boxes around her before handing me a folded up jumpsuit that I'm assuming will look just like hers. "There's a bathroom down that hall on the right. Go ahead and get changed, then head down this hall to the next man in a labcoat. Ok?" I take the uniform from her, attempt a small smile, but my face doesn't move. She gives my hand a little squeeze before I make my way to the bathroom.

I quickly change, zipping up the blue jumpsuit. That woman sure is a good judge of size. This thing fits me like a glove. I gather up my clothes and head down the hall she indicated, taking one last look at the giant vault door, huge and solid, before heading towards the next Labcoat, who was beckoning me to him.

"Hi, Miss-"

"Mrs. I'm Mrs. Miller."

He smiles, but it's...unsettling. Something about his eyes worries me but I can't quite put my finger on it.

"You can leave those here," He nods towards the wad of clothes in my arms and points to a large bin off to the side. "We require jumpsuits from all vault dwellers."

I quickly toss my clothes in the bin, just trying to get through this quickly so I can get more information on Benny. My hands are shaking and I'm holding back vomit, willing my brain to not replay what's happened in the last 15 minutes.

He smiles again. "Thank you, Mrs. Miller. If you'll follow me." He turns and heads down another hall, turning to enter the 2nd doorway. Inside the room is rather large and cold, and I shiver, holding my arms around myself as the Labcoat walks further in. There are what looks like pods, about 6 on each side, facing each other. They have a myriad of tubes and pipes coming from them, a little control panel standing next to each pod. The doors appear to open up as opposed to a normal door. We stop in front of one of them, the door standing open for me, and Labcoat gestures to it.

"If you'll just hop in, ma'am."

"What is it?" I look inside and see some cushions, sort of like a chair if your were standing. I glance around and notice more people coming in, all of them standing in front or getting into a pod, donning the bright blue jumpsuits.

"It's a decontamination chamber. We have to make sure everyone is clean and free of radiation and other unpleasentries before we allow you into the vault. For vault health and security, of course."

I nod. "Makes sense. I do have a question."

He looks irritated but then that smile is back. "Yes, ma'am?"

"When I get through here, I'll be able to talk to someone about my husband? He's a lieutenant in Delta Force and I think he may be in another vault."

"Absolutely. Our communications specialists can help you with that."

A sigh of relief escapes me. "So you can communicate with other vaults?"

"Oh yes. Sort of like a telegram. If he's in a vault, we'll find him ma'am. Now if you'll just step into the pod, we can get you through decontamination and one step closer to finding your husband."

My eyes glance around the room, seeing everyone else hopping into their own pods. I'm so nervous, that vomit starting to make it's way back up my throat. And I fucking need Benny. He can't be dead. The possibility that I'd have to face a future without him is nearly unbearable. I turn back to my pod and get inside, nestling myself down into the cushions. Labcoat taps a button on the panel and my door starts to close at the same time as the others. My breathing picks up, air visibly puffing out and I swear it's colder in here than it was in the room.

"Now just relax and you'll be clean in no time!" Labcoat smiles at me.

I take a deep breath, my thoughts only of Benny as my world goes black, my mind slipping into unconsciousness. The last thing I feel is my skin freezing, my body going hard, preventing any sort of movement.

I'm coming, Benny.

>>Chapter 2>>

General Taglist:

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[goldendusk-if]

Hello!

I’m here with half good and maybe bad news(?) So the last Character & Word count were in fact very inaccurate by a LOT. I didn’t realize I have a bunch of extra stuff and drafts of the story beforehand in it so twine included that…Um, so the updated and more accurate one will be included.

And I’ve decided to also do Female Mc’s and the story text will be different because of gender at scenes as well. So, Male Versions of the Ro’s will be made and depending on the Ro so will be the backstory/personality by a little bit. And to be quite honest, I’m not sure how I’m going to write crushes especially same-gender ones mostly because I don’t want to be cancelled and I personally have no experience so, it will be difficult.

Sorry, this is long but, I have a feeling I won’t be posting a lot unless it’s profiles or asks.

I’m a very much newbie and rookie to writing, it’s really not great but, I do have ideas and I want to share them, that’s why these are here. So, I would very much appreciate tips, and help whether that be story plot, rewording, or just spelling and grammar. And I’m an avid want a dash of romance not the main focus because I cringe A lot type of reader, the same type of writer as well. So advice on writing romance and dialogue is a must, that’s why I’m planning on the romance to be a more minor part.

I also realized I should probably focus on finishing writing the first part of the demo I’m planning to release in one of the upcoming months or weeks. And also, post something about the personalities the Mc can have. ❤️

Thank you for reading my rambling and being interested in my if.💗

~~~

Character Count: 51553 (just the story not including profiles, glossary or world lore)

Word Count: 8567

Features(first part is same bottom is new):

-Meeting the Mentor and Homie(By having a flashback) and setting their gender

-Customizing Mc including hair color, length, skin tone, name, nickname, petname, gender

-Finding out about your Father and seeing a new side to your mother

-Age from 16 to 20(idk if that's significant-)

-Choosing a personality type from Diplomat, Charmer, Fighter, Scholar, Spiritual, and Deceiver

-Choosing to be a early bird or night owl

-Go on an errand and have your Mentor kidnap you casually

-Profiles in-game are done technically though I have to add actual descriptions of their personalities and skills but, the ones here are currently way more detailed

-Are you more expressive or expressionless?(will be applied differently depending on personality)

-Will receive something from your Mentor

-Start your Journey To Nadripur and stuff

-Find out the Mc’s eyecolors

-Learn some Banglish(Bengali-English)

-Find out more about the world you live in

-Either be as rude as possible to a old man or attempt to be less rude to a older lady(Mentor)

-Choosing to be more decisive or indecisive

[mollygiggles]

Bridgerton Siblings Headcanons ♡

A/N: Here are some headcanons about the five eldest Bridgerton siblings: Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, and Eloise. Obviously, the show is not caught up to when Gregory and Hyacinth are of age and I have not read the books, so I'm not comfortable writing headcanons for them. I've also only just met Francesca in the new season, so I'll see if I feel drawn to her at a later date! If you have any other requests, Bridgerton-related or otherwise, please refer to the fandoms listed in my pinned post, and send me an ask!

Anthony:

Anthony is the eldest boy, and therefore often ruled any roughhousing with his younger siblings. He was the biggest and strongest, giving him quite the advantage.

However, once his siblings were old enough to gang up on him, he started to get a taste of his own medicine.

Tickling his siblings was a great way to entertain himself, and he took great joy in it. Whenever his younger siblings act up, he's still known to give occasional pokes and pinches to keep them in line.

He is, of course, ticklish himself. He pretends that he isn't though, because he finds it unbecoming for a man of his age and status to be dissolved to giggles by gentle fingers. His ribs and hips are his most sensitive spots. He's not particularly sensitive on his neck or below the knee.

Kate relishes in his sensitivity and exploits it often. She loves tickling him whenever the opportunity arises, taking him down a peg and making him blush. He pretends to hate it, but the act does remind him of comfort and family, plus he just enjoys Kate's touch and seeing her smile.

Benedict:

Is the most familiar with Anthony's shenanigans and the most used to his torment - so, when Colin came around, Benedict was excited to have someone to mess with!

Benedict is probably the least ticklish of the three eldest, but that doesn't mean he isn't sensitive, because he certainly is.

His stomach and sides are his worst spots, and he's been known to snort if he laughs too hard (In fact, most of the siblings do snort! Daphne's is canon, LOL).

He particularly likes to pick on Colin and Eloise, but attempting to tickle Eloise has left him injured on multiple occasions.

Of all the siblings, though, his against-the-grain attitude does give me a kinky vibe, NGL. At all those raunchy parties he attended in the first season, I don't doubt he's seen paintbrushes used in an interesting manner and considered the concept.

Colin:

Experienced a lot of tickling from his two older brothers, and never stopped being exceptionally ticklish despite it.

However, he and Benedict did often team up on Anthony, Colin was usually the one being teamed up on.

Colin is ticklish just about everywhere, but his stomach and neck are both very sensitive.

Would be incredibly embarrassed when Penelope inevitably discovers he's ticklish. Unlike Anthony, he doesn't find it something to be ashamed about, but it does bruise his ego just a little.

He would love to tickle his siblings, especially the younger ones. However, tickling Penelope fills him with such joy!

Daphne:

The first girl to join the family, and therefore quite picked on. She was both spoiled and protected, as well as teased and tormented by her brothers.

Canonically snorts when she laughs, and she is definitely quite shy about it and tries to hide it. Don't worry, her family as well as Simon tickle it out of her often.

She's ticklish in most places, but her legs and feet are very sensitive. Careful, she kicks.

She grew up experiencing rough tickling - pokes, squeezes, scratching. She knows how to grit her teeth and throw elbows to avoid such a thing, but gentle touches ruin her.

She rarely starts the tickling amongst her siblings, unless it's a quick and playful moment to the younger ones. With Simon, however, she will often attack him unprovoked, just to hear him laugh.

Eloise:

Will actively and purposefully injure anyone who tries to tickle her.

She will desperately try to avoid being tickled, and insists that she had grown out of being ticklish.

The thing is, she doesn't hate it quite as much as she lets on - she doesn't enjoy the receiving side very much, but she knows it is simply a show of familial affection and tolerates it for that reason.

Is mostly tickled by Benedict, and will really only tickle other people in revenge, because she never starts a fight unless she knows she can finish it.

Her sides and knees are her most ticklish spots, and she usually shrieks and yells rather than laughing.

[insanefan]

Bg3 Backstory Bash

This is a challenge to help people flesh out their Tav’s backstory by exploring their past. It is organized into four sections with seven prompts. You can treat this as a monthly challenge or a general project. You can write headcanons, fics, or share art based on the prompts! You can interpret the prompts however you want. If you want to share use the tag #bg3backstorybash Original post by @kelandrin ✨

Can't believe I didn't do this loooong since but here we go! A quick lil background on Val'dran. I guess it's kiiiinda a little bit cheating since he existed a couple years before bg3 did but hey most of my info on him is hidden away 😂

Val'dran Auvryndar

Drow - Assassin Rogue - Neutral - 160 yrs

Baby:

Parents

Mother: Au’varaya Auvryndar

A matron mother of House Auvryndar, Au’varaya fits well with the cruel and manipulative society of Menzoberranzan. Always with a smile on her lips and cold eyes, she is willing to do just about anything to raise the status of her minor noble House. Strength, beauty and magic draws her attention swiftly, and she does not shy away from unusual experiments when it comes to strengthening her home and family. In the same vein, there is nothing she abhors more than perceived weakness. 

Father: Morziir 

A half-demon born of the union between a shadow demon and a previous matron mother of House Auvryndar, Morziir gained just about none of the boons hoped of him. Body a twisted and ugly thing and magic non-existent, he only survived through a supremely cruel and clever mind, making himself useful enough not to simply kill off. Attempts were made to see whether diluting the demon blood would work better, but with one daughter seemingly only drow beyond an affinity for shadow, and a shy little son seemingly even without that… Morziir’s usefulness ended. So did his life, soon after; taken at the end of a blade wielded by his then twelve-year-old son. 

Birth

Val’dran was born 10th of Kythorn, 1332. Labour was swift, even unremarkable. Displeased already to find the child a son, Au’varaya was even less pleased to find said son a small and quiet babe. She named him Val’dran, nevertheless; “dancing voice in the darkness”. A weak body need not mean a weak child, after all. The name was as much a hope as an order; to become something mean and clever like a shadow demon. 

First word

Val’dran’s first word was “sister”, clear, if quiet. His sister Iz’illyss was little pleased, having attempted to train him into first uttering the word “matron”. She ordered him not to speak until he had learnt it.

When they first walked

To much annoyance, Val’dran first started walking at about thirteen months of age. This was deemed late, and with his quiet nature, saw him being scrutinised for a weak mind, though he walked quite well once he first rose to his feet. 

Tantrum

He had no tantrums as a babe, remaining quiet and watchful, if not even at times a bit fearful.

First sickness

His first sickness came as a result of his first poisoning – the smallest portion of poison added to his meal to start resistance training as soon as possible. 

Childhood:

Friends

Val’dran had no true friends in his childhood. He was kept within the house, seeing only his sisters, a few times his brother, and on some minor occasions, soldiers from the house. His sister Iz’illyss was his closest companion by virtue of being the one to raise him. That did not mean their relation was a close one.

Siblings

Val’dran has three siblings (that he’s aware of). His eldest sister Dellyn’hea, his elder brother the elderboy Haskin, and his sister Iz’illyss. He shares a father with Iz’illyss only, and the two of them look quite alike, though it is regardless visible that all four are siblings, and that all four belong to Au’varaya. Dellyn’hea has never liked him, Haskin mostly ignored him unless required otherwise, and Iz’illyss has resented setting her own life on pause to raise him. All three have also had a habit from childhood on to pull him around by his hair if displeased with him – or simply for fun.

Getting into trouble

Val’dran was deadly afraid of getting into genuine trouble, considering how the smallest of things could gain him harsh words or a smack. 

Birthday

Val’dran is unaware of his exact birthday, and it was not celebrated. Still to this day he only knows himself to be born ‘in summer’. 

Games

There were two games Val’dran mainly kept on with; miniature warfare with little drow figures, and hide-and-hunt. The former an exercise in tactical thinking, the latter in stealth and investigation. 

Learning something new

Despite fearing punishment for doing or saying anything wrong, Val’dran has always been deeply curious. It was perhaps one of the few areas where Iz’illyss actually offered approval, in seeing how swiftly he could understand and assimilate new knowledge. Of course, that curiosity was often enough stifled as well; some information was only to be known not to be questioned. 

Trauma

When Val’dran was about twelve, Au’varaya was tired and done with reports from Iz’illyss on how meek and quiet her littlest brother was, no sign of demonic heritage at all. She decided a lesson was in order; for the boy, and for his father. If Morziir was not to be useful in life, he would be useful in death, and so a sacrificial ritual was set up. Val’dran, trembling, frightened, confused, was given the sacrificial blade and told to kill the half-demon. What could he do but what he was told? The blade slid through skin and flesh, red stained his hands, and he received from his mother the only sign of approval he ever gained from her; a simple nod. 

Youth: 

First love

What is love but a danger and a tool? Wary of the entire concept, and unable to understand its essence, Val’dran had no first love in his youth, indeed growing well beyond it before gaining his first, confusing crush. On his superior, no less, for the simple reason of being treated with patience, almost kindness.

Rebellion

At one point, thoroughly fed up with being pulled around by his hair, Val’dran sheared off all his tresses, leaving him with hair short enough to offer no grip at all. Considering the culture around hair in the House, indeed even the society,  it was not well received. Even so, he kept it short if in varying styles for over a century after.

Peer pressure

Is it peer pressure when your entire society is performing it? Val’dran, always quiet, always ‘weak’, always chose to bend rather than to break. Pressure from his House, pressure from classmates and masters at Melee-Magthere, pressure from every corner to be a good drow soldier, to believe in Lolth, to hate the surface and its people…

Better bend than break, but how does one ever know what is one’s real opinion when it ever changes to fit someone else’s need? 

Growing pains

Though few growing pains in the physical department, there certainly wasn’t a lack of growing pains when it comes to growing into his own community. In matter of fact, as he grew, Val’dran felt more and more alienated from what he should be wanting to be. Not that he knew what else he should want either.

Taking responsibility

Taking responsibility for something is to admit to it, and to admit to something, good or bad, can only have consequences. Quiet Val’dran knew stealth and manipulation as survival, meaning that the concept of taking responsibility was hardly a positive thing… if not even outright negative. 

Adulthood:

Their “first time”

Val’dran came to realise he wouldn’t survive his schooling at Melee-Magthere, simply because sooner or later, one of his classmates would kill him to have him out of the way. The solution he found to this was in a way simple: He sought protection from older students. Having nothing to pay with, his body sufficed. The first time was with a male named Gelhin, older by some years, and his protector for two years after. Gelhin was… almost kind. 

Leaving home

It didn’t take many years after returning from schooling for Val’dran to have enough of House Auvryndar. No better as an adult than as a child, he couldn’t find a comfortable place for himself, and then came… an incident. An assassination attempt foiled by the unexpected emergence of the demonic heritage thought nonexistent. The unassuming drow turned ever so briefly into something closer to shadow demon than to drow – and his sister Dellyn’hea observed it happen. 

Au’varaya was overjoyed. Val’dran, despairing. Because to his mother, a violent and cruel demon to set upon enemies was by far more valuable than a reluctant drow son. Using magic upon him, she forced him into that demonic form, driving him mad with bloodlust and then setting him upon some rivals. He came to, absolutely covered in blood. Horrified. Frightened. Knowing it would happen again, that his purpose now was that of a weapon.

There was no other choice for him but to defect, to flee. 

Work

After fleeing his House, Val’dran spent some time doing simple mercenary work on the street, with various results. In his sixties, however, luck shone on him, and he was recruited by the notorious yet secretive Bregan D’aerthe. Cautious to start with, Val’dran then grew desperate to prove his worth, something followed by incredulous relief upon finding himself promoted to a more specific role than that of a simple grunt. As the years passed, the relief turned to contentment, to deep loyalty. Perhaps an odd thing, to be loyal to an organisation where people are known to die at the drop of a hat, and yet. 

Finding your place

Through Bregan D’aerthe, Val’dran finally found a place for himself. As a spy and saboteur, he felt by far more useful than in his previous roles of soldier and weapon. It suited his quiet nature, his curiosity. Somehow even more so as Bregan D’aerthe truly began to expand to the surface, that hated, terrible place that… turned out to be intriguing. 

Val’dran still enjoyed the Underdark. Menzoberranzan less so, perhaps, but the Underdark was after all vast. And yet, seemingly even more vast was the world above. Being sent to work there was at first an uneasy chore, then a curiosity, then even a preference. That is not to say Val’dran is only ever on the surface. Still it varies greatly. But through Bregan D’aerthe he has places both physical and immaterial where he feels in a sense as if he belongs. 

Serious relationships

Relationships have remained scarce. Through Bregan D’aerthe, Val’dran has gained some friends, in particular the scout Braelin Ragarin who has grown to be something of a best friend (with benefits at that), and on the surface he has gained more acquaintances of various nature. 

When it comes to romance, however, it is only extremely newly that Val’dran has found himself caught up not only in one but two new relationships. Having first met Halsin Silverbough and travelling with him over time, he found himself growing quite fond of the elf’s company; no less so on being propositioned. Secondly, an odd situationship with Sorn Orlith at the Sharess’ Caress has spiralled its way into being something of a proper relationship as well. With all involved being polyamorous, it works out quite well indeed. 

Starting a family/found family

When it comes to family, Val’dran’s concept of the word is intrinsically tied to his drow House. He’s also entirely uninterested in children, something that is perhaps somewhat at odds with Halsin’s orphanage-ful of them. In truth, it works fine; Val’dran still remains on the move after the adventure in and around Baldur’s Gate, visiting his two lovers on occasion every few months or so. He can live with the presence of children for a week or two before heading back out.

In the end, no one knows how long these relationships will last. Val’dran is mostly simply content to have them at all, and intends to enjoy them for however long he has them.

[seraphimsrevenge]

Intro thingy!!

Hi there! I'm Charlie or Seraph (Use He/him 4 me pls) and this is my writing account. This is where I'll be uploading things in terms of writing and book discussion. I might post art time to time here aswell just 4 u guys to get used to the look of my Ocs

I also AM 16. This blog is purely SFW and I feel uncomfortable with ppl sending things which are not SFW.

Currently Im reading 'the spirit bares it teeth' by Andrew Joseph White!

Im also quite a 'beginner' when it comes to writing so my work might not be very good, sorry abt that :(

What I'll write

The stuff I'll write are:

-Oc content

-fandom content (rarely)

-More Oc content regarding lore

-Ur guys Suggestions!!!

My ocs!

this is a section so u guys can get a little connected to sum of my ocs! These guys r all in the same universe which is loosely inspired by 'Hell Followed With Us' by Andrew Joseph White!! All I'll give u is their appearances cuz their backstories will be in other posts!!

-Zephyr

Prologue look:

Zephyr is nonbinary and uses They/Them pronouns. They traditionally are seen with a hoodie and fleece on in the stables, trying to hide as much as possible. There is no black clothing in the stables, the elders believe that it makes people emotional due to being the colour of mortal funerals. So instead Zephyr's hoodie is the darkest shade of grey one could find before being classified as black. There are dye stains all across the hoodie from the spots that they have missed in poor attempts to dye the hoodie. The fleece however is more simple. It's a dark burgundy lined with light red fabric, mimicking the colour of seraph. Only the top of Zephyr's trousers are ripped. The elders only allowed that, any lower and Zephyr would see that pair incinerated before their eyes. So the top is ripped, not the knees or below it ,only one rip on each thigh. Finally to top Zephyr’s outfit they wear platformers, the platformers are hidden under their trousers, so while uncomfortable it does make them look like acceptable boots.

Zephyr is also apart of the Cadet force in the stables being apart of the Kravi squad. The cadet outfit is exactly what it sounds like. Green jackets lined with bulletproof vests, brown trousers and laced boots, normally with a similar green shirt. Its very rarely that they use camo unless in full scaled panned attacks.

Zephyrs physique is carefully crafted by the way the elders have made their diet and routine. Their more on the muscular side, yet are still unusually skinny making the, more agile. Zephyr sports a mullet kinda? Its shaved and shorter at the sides, the front being fluff falling over their forehead as the back falls out to their neck. Their eyelashes are more of a blueish with eyes a mix of brown and burgundy. Since they are a seraph they also have three wings.

Present look:

Zephyr present look is still similar to their cadet look now sporting in monotone as they become a cadet for the Callers, However, they also now have a binder which was given to them by Styx. Their physique is still similar, they’ve still got the more athletic build, well as athletic as you can get for a 16 year old. However this wasn't done by intensive training.

Even after escaping the stable, Zephyr is still scarred from it. Half of their body now being discoloured skin from their ‘repentance’ to the elders, they don't feel much on that half anymore.

-Thomas

Prologue look:

Thomas is a cis man around zephyrs age. He’s lanky and scrawny and looks like a mess overall, well apart from how he dresses. In some sort of clash Thomas dresses rather smartly, typically being seen in a pale white/cream button up shirt with a grey jumper crocheted by his mother. His eyes are a pale blue and his hair is brown. Near the end of the prologue he has a promise ring in which he also gave Zephyr.

‘Present’ look:

In the present Thomas is around 18 (One year older then Zephyr), His hair is shorter than the messy look and looks more clean. He now dawns a hunting robe in white, the elder symbol for hunter being sewn onto the back. He still looks professional under the robes, now wearing a black button up and waistcoat, he also wears more baggier trousers and boots which he is comfortable running in. He still wears the promise ring he gave Zephyr

-Styx

Present look:

Styx is the same age as Zephyr but looks like a 12 year old boy. Whether that's because of his roundish face or because of his smaller physique. Styx is small and weak, having a more gaunt appearance, collarbones being visible an unhealthy amount. His hair is full of curls and waves, framing his face and covering his right eye. Styx has blackish brown hair, now dawning a burgundy undertone. He only has one working eye, a seafoam green that lightly illuminates in the dark, His other eye is a glass. A white iris accompanying it. Upon closer inspection the glass eye is cracked, a small line going from the pupil to the iris.

Styx dresses like your stereotypical trans boy, he wears a baggy black hoodie (And has a collection of black band hoodies) and has a pair of jeans to go with them. Despite being held up by a belt, Styx’s jeans still fall big on him around the waist, same goes with most of his clothes; his clothes are so oversized to the point that you can see the first half of his binder, a cropped black binder (Later the same one that Zephyr would wear). Followed by a pair of green converse, the runic symbol of decay written on it where the star would be. Styx also wears a Burgundy/dull red bandana, dropping to his collarbones, the bandana adorned with pins of a medical symbol and a wrench. However sometimes Styx can be seen wearing a blanket around him, normally in colder weather.

-Owen

Present look:

Owen is cis man who is more tanner than the rest of the callers. He is normally seen wearing a black mask as half of his mouth is torn open, teeth adorning the inside and outside of the half, gums showing. Owens' ears and skin typically looks like it's melting a little, or a little unfinished due to his nature of being a shard - a being that has not fully finished forming. His hair looks more bouncy, normally moving outwards in a similar way to a wolf cut, his hair is naturally black but to also try to look similar to his Anthon he has dyed half of his hair a more whitish cream colour.

His outfit is normally the same everyday, having multiple copies of the same outfit. Owen can be seen with a vintage aviator jacket. The jacket is itself made of brown leather and clasped with multiple buckles, but not across the fur sections of it. Owen also wears a necklace around his neck, containing a vial of angel's blood, being contained by a bone casing. As part of being apart of the callers Owen also sports the cadet uniform underneath; he wears the cargos, the shirt and boots.  Normally you would also see Styx and Owen together, Styx typically using him as a radiator.

-Kilian

Prologue + Present look:

Kilian is the leader of the Callers, the one with the responsibility to look after Corvis (The god of the dead), but also in recent events to keep the elders at bay. Kilians hair is a mixture of a greyish cream and red, curls falling out of place, as his hair falls into an undercut. His hair also curls into shaping his deep brown skin, making his ivory purples eyes stand out. To some Kilian seems monstrous due to this, he seems unhuman in some light as his irises seem to disappear. Kilian also has a feather earring, the feather being one plucked directly from Corvis, which weighs down his ear a little. Kilian wears a more ‘extreme’ version of the callers uniform, wearing a shawl that drops to the pockets of his jacket, His bladed shoulder armour stabbing out on his left shoulder. His jacket is adorned with pockets, enabling for maximum storage and resourcefulness, itself being bulk by adding many protective measures underneath it. Kilian also has multiple belts surrounding his waist, a chained belt to attach more armouries and useful items to him, he also has an extra pouch just in case. The rest of his outfit then follows the rest of the callers, the same cargo trousers and the same boots, making them seem unified in looks, but less in personality. A more special thing about Kilian is that not only is he the sole carer for Corvis, he also was able to inherit some of its power. While it was a gruelling process of having his arm to be cut off just be attached with a new oozing black bile look, Yellow crow eyes sprouting out of it, it enabled Kilian to be more flexible, and to also adapt this arm into a more prominent weapon crucial for survival.

sorry if this all seems a little rushed (It kinda is lol) But yeah, Hope u enjoy ur time here!!!

[risingsondiamond]

Sunshine in the Mirror - A Breakdown

This will be a very long write-up of my thoughts on the Genjitsu no Yohane Sunshine in the Mirror anime. I will be starting with an episode-by-episode look at the story and then delving into some talking points about the show. NOTE: There will be significant spoilers, so please don't read this unless you've finished watching the anime or have no desire to continue watching. Also, I apologize for the length of this post and if I sound too aggressive or defensive.

Coming-of-Age Story

From the very beginning, Sunshine in the Mirror sets itself up to tell a coming-of-age story, specifically the story of Yohane overcoming her social anxiety and finding her place in the world. The first sign of this is the failed singing audition in Tokai and subsequent phone call in episode 1, where we see that Yohane is quite dependent on her mother, both financially and likely otherwise (being too dependent on others is a theme that comes up repeatedly as the story goes on). While this is not unusual for a 16-year-old, and neither is her naïveté about working more than three days a week, both show that Yohane simply isn't prepared to live an adult life yet - a life where she has to take responsibility for her own actions and provide for herself, especially when these two traits are combined with her inability to talk to most people comfortably. While it might be easy to say "just get over it," the reality is that life is usually not as simple as that. It takes significant time and support to get over that small teenage view of the world. But Yohane doesn't have as much time as a teenager in our world would due to the lack of any sort of school system to train her to be a productive adult (I will elaborate on this more later). As a result, she finds herself dependent on Lailaps to guide her through most situations, from how to talk to Hanamaru again to establishing a way she can get by every day in Numazu, at least in the short term.

While singing for Hanamaru in episode 1 is an important step for Yohane in communicating with people better, it's episode 2 where we see her take bigger strides in understanding how adult life works and settling into the role that, as we learn much later, Lailaps has created for her. Of course, her progress isn't without its bumps in the road. Being a fortune teller sounds like an easy enough job, but even that requires effort to pull off, something Yohane clearly didn't know before attempting it. That's not to mention accidentally hurting Hanamaru's feelings by insisting that money is all that matters in a working adult life (something that a number of grown adults in real life seem to believe as well). Nevertheless, thanks to Lailaps, Yohane starts to understand that some of her beliefs were mistaken. Her subsequent decision to make up with and support Hanamaru is perhaps the first sign of taking initiative that she shows in the story, with the second coming in the next episode along with the first sign of how dangerous the Calamity can be.

There's not too much to say about this episode as it largely consisted of the "Be as One" fight scene and Mari's introduction. The one thing to point out here is that Yohane takes an important, albeit not flashy step forward by getting Dia and Chika to stop arguing and start cooperating. Saying something like "hey, get it together" might not sound like anything of note, but for someone who struggles to speak with strangers, saying that to two strangers who are wielding weapons is legitimately an accomplishment (ask an introvert in real life and they will probably agree). The praise Yohane receives from her more combat-adept peers seems to give her a boost in confidence, something which carries over, albeit in subtle ways, into both her conversation with Mari and the events of episode 4.

Episode 4 is where we see Yohane get more of a glimpse into the everyday working lives of You and Kanan. While she starts to appreciate the value of contributing to society in episode 2, she's still only doing odd jobs right now, so having a chance to be on the front lines alongside girls who have established jobs is a valuable experience for her. This is also where we see the confidence boost from episode 3 start to show. There are a few times where Yohane instinctively gives a retort in response to something Kanan says, only to apologize afterward, even though Kanan doesn't think she's being rude at all. Yohane is starting to feel more comfortable being herself around people now, though she still has a little ways to go before she can really consider herself their equal. While delivering mail and repairing a swing may not be huge accomplishments or relate specifically to the trials that Yohane must overcome as a person, they do represent a recurring theme in the first half of the story: the idea of Yohane learning more about how to find her place in the world from the girls who have, for the most part, already found their own places and want to help Yohane find hers. Having spent this time learning from her more life-experienced peers, she's now ready to start acting on what she's learned so far. Going into the next episode, this is where we start to see some payoff from the buildup that has taken place up until now. Episode 5 is Mari’s episode, i.e., the episode where we gain more insight into why Mari has been so reclusive up until now. While we see that she at least somewhat trusts Dia, enough to indirectly help her keep Numazu up and running anyway, it’s Yohane who is able to get Mari to open up a little bit more and take a chance on the people of Numazu. Despite struggling with her own social anxiety, Yohane by this point has learned a few things from her peers and experienced first-hand the value in trusting and cooperating with others. It’s this experience that allows her to find the right things to say to get Mari to take a stroll through the central town of Numazu and see how the townsfolk feel about her after so many years. And it’s the combination of this experience and how she can relate to Mari that allows her to help her new friend through a difficult moment and learn to trust the townsfolk. This was something Yohane simply wasn’t capable of until now. It’s one of the more overt displays of Yohane taking action based on what she’s learned from the other girls, and one that comes up again in the next episode.

If episode 5 is Mari’s episode, then episode 6 could be called Riko’s episode, albeit perhaps to a lesser extent. After their encounter at the tree stump, Yohane and Mari largely stick to Riko like glue for most of the episode, seeing some of her self-doubt at one or two points. Just like how Yohane would not have been able to help Mari at the beginning of the story, the two of them may not have been able to spare Riko much attention if not for the growth each one has experienced by this point. While the “Hey, dear my friends” MV doesn’t depict events that literally happen, it very clearly depicts the nature of the relationship between these three: Yohane, who got a series of important helping hands from Lailaps and everyone else, was able to (figuratively) help Mari to her feet, and then the two of them together are able to help Riko to her feet. While Sunshine in the Mirror is largely the story of Yohane growing up with the help of her more life-experienced peers, these two episodes show that she is not the only one who has room for growth. Having now played a major role in improving the lives of two other girls on top of her smaller roles in helping out around Numazu, Yohane is starting to feel more confident in her abilities, and she starts thinking about taking initiative in certain situations. The end of episode 6 marks the end of the first half of the story, both episodically and thematically.

These six episodes were largely about introducing the setting and characters as well as having Yohane learn important lessons about living as a proper adult from the other girls. The remaining seven episodes make up what could be called an ‘independence arc’ of sorts. This half of the story focuses on Yohane going through that time all teenagers experience - the time when they’re ready to start branching out on their own more and no longer want their parents (or in Yohane’s case, Lailaps) looking over their shoulder and making decisions for them.

Episode 7 features the first instance where Yohane somewhat rejects the attempts Lailaps makes to help her. Yohane feels the need to take initiative and try to make the “girls’ night” the best it can be for everyone (except herself), partly, as we’re later told, because it’s still in her nature to want to be this awesome person who does cool things and receives a lot of praise from others. This shows us that in spite of her progress so far, Yohane still has some growing up to do. But it’s noteworthy that she’s actually willing to put in work to accomplish this now instead of trying to take the easiest possible path to fame. It’s also noteworthy that she recognizes how she still needs to rely on Lailaps for some things and, in spite of her earlier remarks, is openly grateful for her longtime companion coming to her aid again. Yohane learns another two important but less obvious lessons from Lailaps and the other girls: that it’s not good to ignore your own needs and desires and that it’s okay to rely on others for things as long as you’re not trying to have them do everything for you. After we have a chance to see everyone enjoying what is basically a day off, a break from their usual working routines, we see Yohane apply these lessons by asking the other girls to sing with her at the upcoming festival (a request that is met with an ominous reaction from Lailaps) as she doesn’t feel comfortable singing in front of a crowd all by herself yet. This leads us into the controversial(?) Episode 8.

The festival episode is certainly one point in the story where we don’t see as much growth from Yohane compared to most other episodes. Instead, it serves as more of a check-in, a way to see how far she’s come as well as how much room she still has to grow. For most of the episode, we see everyone either running stands or just enjoying the festival. In particular, we see that Yohane appears to have learned that the proper way to run a fortune-telling shop is to make vague statements about people’s future and not try to predict the weather. She also appears to be a little more comfortable being herself now, exchanging some light banter with the little kids from the earlier episodes, having them accept her doing so, and even getting their assistance running the food stall without having to ask them. By this point, Yohane has a very different reputation in Numazu than she did in the beginning; she’s started to establish a place for herself in the town she once turned her back on. The second portion of the episode, featuring the scramble to find Yohane’s lost staff, has several things happen, albeit in a way that perhaps could have been reorganized. The main takeaway from the ordeal is that Yohane is still just starting to climb out of her shell and is at a point where she is very vulnerable to the idea of failure. She’s come a long way since she first returned to Numazu, and she’s terrified of having everything she’s built up come crashing down all at once. While it may not seem like a big deal for her to lose her staff when she just plans to sing on a stage with the other girls, the point is that she’s dependent on that staff and doesn't think she can sing with everyone and stop the Calamity without it. If she were unable to get up on that stage and sing, she might well have retreated deep into her shell out of shame, undoing all of the progress she’s made up until now (similar to something we see in a later episode, but to a much greater extent). Fortunately for our heroine, the staff is found, and the performance goes smoothly (except for stopping the Calamity, as we learn later). The one other thing of note here is how Yohane lashes out at Lailaps over the lost staff before apologizing later. Now that we’ve had a couple of episodes designed to bring all nine girls together, it’s time to see exactly how the changing relationship between the self-proclaimed siblings has affected Yohane’s growth and how it will affect her from now on.

Episode 9 begins with Yohane waking up from a dream (which happens to give us a major clue to the truth about Lailaps) and feeling very unmotivated to do much of anything. While this could be seen as a sign of regression back into the girl who thought she could get by doing the bare minimum in life, it’s more likely a sign that Yohane is feeling lost. She thinks she’s just accomplished something major (and says as much in a way which hints that she actually hasn’t), but now she’s at a loss for what to do next. Is stopping some force that she doesn’t understand what she really hoped to accomplish? Should she just be an errand girl or a fortune teller for the rest of her life? There are probably a number of thoughts like this going on in her head, and she has no idea how to sort them out. While there is a classic case of ‘just a little too late’ following this as Yohane tries and fails to keep up with Lailaps, the next thing of note is the conversation between these two later in the episode. Beyond the foreshadowing that was actually strong enough for seemingly everyone to notice, the key takeaways here are Yohane recognizing that it was Lailaps who created the opportunity for her to help out around the town as an errand girl, giving her some purpose to fulfill in Numazu, and realizing that what she really wants to accomplish is something she still hasn’t grasped yet. After a quick check-in moment featuring Yohane fitting right in with the other girls, no longer timid around them, we have the chance to see what our heroine thinks she needs to do in order to truly find her place in this world as the next episode begins.

The first part of Episode 10 follows up on both Yohane’s decision to pursue what she thinks she’s missing and her failed audition from the first episode, reminding us that she wanted to be a professional singer. Still being largely unable to say no to people when they insist on things, Yohane inevitably gets swept up into giving a speech about her time in Numazu and her second chance at a singing audition in Tokai. This leads to another disagreement with Lailaps, though surprisingly, it’s arguable that this one isn’t any fault of Yohane’s. She does make a bit of an insensitive remark about Lailaps “babysitting” her, but then she almost immediately says that she would like Lailaps to come with her both to Tokai and to her speech, only for the wolf to strongly deny both requests without any explanation. Naturally, this weighs heavily on the girl’s mind as she prepares to give her speech, even as the usual children we see around surprisingly treat her a little bit like a minor celebrity. The fact that Yohane is even able to give a speech in the first place (at least until the absence of Lailaps and the return of the Calamity) is one of the more obvious signs of how much she’s grown over the course of the story. After all, this is the same girl who could barely talk to Hanamaru in the beginning, even when it was just the two of them. Once the Calamity starts causing trouble again, we see another, perhaps more subtle sign of just how far Yohane has come when she goes to help Hanamaru and insists that she will protect Shishinoshin (Hanamaru’s boar companion). She had no sense of responsibility at all when she first returned to Numazu, and she was too scared to branch out and do much of anything involving other people except when she had to. And now here she is, swearing to protect her friend’s companion from hyper-aggressive deer, magical lightning, and potentially other unpleasant things that she doesn’t really understand at all. While she doesn’t end up doing much to resolve this situation in the next episode, her reaction to not being able to help is night and day compared to what it would have been had this happened much earlier.

The immediate danger to Hanamaru and Shishinoshin is resolved quickly in Episode 11, largely thanks to Million Dollar. While it’s unclear how Yohane feels about being unable to do anything to fend off the corrupted deer, there is zero subtlety about how useless she feels for not having ended the Calamity a few episodes ago as she throws away the staff she’s been so dependent on. This is a curious point, as it represents throwing away the bonds she’s built with the other girls (which Lailaps explicitly says at one point). It’s unclear if Yohane is aware of this and that her throwing away the staff is a sign that she doesn’t think she deserves the others’ friendship or if she’s doing so to remind herself of her own perceived failure. Whatever the case may be, we see signs that she might be on the verge of remembering or figuring out something important when she grows frustrated with Lailaps for not sharing details about what happened between them in the past (perhaps not unlike a large number of viewers watching this show). While Lailaps takes it upon herself to retrieve the staff - the symbol of everything Yohane has accomplished up until now, our heroine is practically abducted by most of her friends, who are determined to cheer her up and restore her confidence. It speaks to just how depressed she is that even the silliest antics from the other girls aren’t enough to make her feel any better. It’s not until Chika’s charismatic speech that Yohane gains a renewed sense of purpose and sets off to find Lailaps, setting up for the final resolution between the two of them.

Episode 12 is mostly about resolving the mysteries surrounding Lailaps and how those relate to Yohane’s ability to face both the Calamity as well as the challenges of everyday life. Prior to the big resolution, however, there is one other scene worth drawing attention to. When one of the children reports that her sister is outside somewhere, Yohane is the one to volunteer to find her, insisting that the others “leave it to the local errand girl.” While it’s not the first time in recent episodes that Yohane has done something like this (she did insist on protecting Shishinoshin in the previous episode), her word choice represents a dramatic shift from the early episodes where she was very reluctant to do random odd jobs around the town. Of course, rescuing a child is far from just an odd job, but it’s the desire to be useful that matters here. Not long after this comes the climax of the episode, where we learn that Yohane unintentionally cast magic to transfer a part of herself to Lailaps so she could have a close friend (or sister) to communicate with. This scene reminds us that Yohane used to have trouble talking to people in any real meaningful way and frames this major childhood event as a way for her to finally have someone she can communicate with freely. It’s here that we also learn more about what Lailaps has been thinking this whole time, namely that she’s been trying her best to look out for Yohane but has grown attached to the point where she’s a little afraid of going back to the days when the two couldn’t talk to each other, and she perhaps has been reluctant to face that fact until now. As the two communicate, they both accept that it’s necessary for Yohane to reclaim the part of herself that she gave to Lailaps as a child, not just in order to stop the Calamity, but also in order to live a functional adult life. The exchange happens, and now Yohane is ready to take initiative again and finally stop the Calamity.

Much of Episode 13 is spent showing how the Calamity is affecting everyone’s lives and contrasting that with what their lives are like when it isn’t a threat. But to focus on our heroine once again, Yohane shows her newfound confidence and understanding of herself by using her magic to communicate (telepathically!) with the other girls and ask them for their help in one last song, the aptly-named “Song of Courage,” to restore Numazu to normal. But of course it won’t be that simple, as she becomes trapped in some sort of magic bubble before the song is finished. She again doubts herself here, but this time it takes significantly less to get her back on her feet, as some encouragement from everyone gives her the strength to break free of her imprisonment and grant even more magic to their song, even having it reach every single person in Numazu. This last renewed effort is finally enough to put the Calamity to rest (for now?) and return everyone’s daily lives to normal. After checking in on everyone, we see Yohane telling Lailaps about what she’s learned and her new, more mature outlook on life. The story (so far?) concludes with the other girls all coming up to Yohane to talk about wanting to continue singing as a group going forward, perhaps implying that Yohane would be the one to take the lead on such endeavors, a role she never could have handled even halfway through this series but is likely prepared for now.

Now that I’ve broken down some key points about how Sunshine in the Mirror is a coming-of-age story, I want to focus on some common talking points surrounding the show. While my opinion on the anime may be obvious by now, I want to preface this next section by saying that I’m not trying to attack or change anyone’s opinion or necessarily “defend” the anime in this write-up. I only want to bring up ideas here that I feel are worth considering.

Fantasy

There has been plenty of discussion over how much of a fantasy show Sunshine in the Mirror really is and the expectations surrounding a show that is advertised as fantasy. This discussion, perhaps indirectly, brings up an important question: what defines “fantasy”? An adventure in another world? Characters fighting for their lives in a world with magic and strange creatures? Or perhaps just a world with different rules compared to our own, typically including magic and a variety of creatures that don’t exist in our world? While Sunshine in the Mirror does not feature much fighting or a traditional adventure about exploring the world, it does feature a world where magic exists and which features certain important differences from our own world. The first episode introduces us first to the Calamity, some kind of seemingly magical force (which we later learn is technically part of the world itself) that threatens to disrupt or even consume Numazu, and then later to the fact that magic not only exists in this world but is something Yohane is able to wield (e.g., transforming a stick into a staff), even if she doesn’t understand exactly how to wield it. Oh, and a couple of fantastical animals in the form of Lailaps and Shishinoshin. Later episodes introduce us to other instances of magic, technology, and fantastical beings in the form of Million Dollar’s blasters, the Scarlet Delta armor set, the cannon You uses to deliver mail, Tonosama (Kanan’s frog mech), the fairy version of Ruby, as well as Mari, who has horns and the ability to hear things other people can’t hear in this world, and her familiars. Looking at it like this, it appears the anime does feature plenty of fantasy content.

Of course, what’s most important is how much the fantasy content features in the show. Some elements, like Shishinoshin and Tonosama or the blasters and armor set, don’t come up very often, and it could be argued that their relevance to the plot is minimal. On the other hand, Mari’s horns and Ruby’s very existence as a fairy are more relevant to their characters. And of course, Lailaps and the Calamity are two of the most important plot points in the whole show. It’s fair to question why the less common elements aren’t featured more, but it’s important to keep in mind that this story only has thirteen episodes of runtime (and there are likely several reasons for this), so featuring more scenes that feature those elements would require replacing existing scenes. It could be argued that some scenes could easily be replaced, and perhaps even that the show would benefit as a result, but this could be argued of virtually every story that is more than a few paragraphs long, and it may be more difficult to argue that enough scenes could be replaced to accommodate more of the less-featured fantasy elements without telling a completely different story. The writers wanted to tell a coming-of-age story that takes place in a fantasy world, not a fantasy adventure with coming-of-age elements. While it’s perfectly fine to prefer the latter over the former, it’s much more difficult to argue that the writers’ preference is objectively worse. Additionally, it’s not unusual for certain elements in fantasy stories to not affect the plot much until later in a story (some of which can be very, very long), or even just remain as background elements for the entire story, not unlike some of the fantasy elements from Sunshine in the Mirror. This doesn’t mean that the fantasy elements were necessarily utilized as much or as best as possible, even considering the show’s length and the main point of the story (Yohane learning how to be a proper adult). It just means that what constitutes a “good” fantasy story is not necessarily straightforward.

Additionally, there is one other (possibly underappreciated) element of the “Mirror Numazu,” as I’ll call it, that is different from our world and also very important to the story: the expectation that 16-year-olds should have adult responsibilities (like working) and the lack of a school system to prepare teenagers for adult life. In the original Sunshine, Yoshiko has plenty of growing up to do, and while she experiences some character development, it’s hard to say she’s ready to be an adult by the end of the story. This is not a bad thing because she still has two more years of high school to prepare her for adult life. But in Sunshine in the Mirror, Yohane has to learn how to be a responsible adult now. While the other residents of Numazu are happy to help her along the way, the fact remains that she doesn’t have nearly the same amount of time or the same support structure that she would have at that age in a modern world. That might not sound like a big deal, but how many of us can truly say that we were proper, responsible adults less than a year into high school? For those of us who have finished school, how well could we have handled being thrust into a working adult life at the age of 16? Maybe we could have adapted to it in time, but it certainly would have been a more challenging experience for us. While not exclusive to fantasy worlds, per se, this difference between the Mirror Numazu and the original Numazu is arguably the single most important and unrecognized fantasy element in this story. Perhaps it’s disappointing to some that such a thing would be more important to the story than the force that threatens to consume an entire town (and possibly more), but this may have more to do with the expectations surrounding the story than the story itself.

Expectations and Differences from Sunshine

What exactly were the expectations for Sunshine in the Mirror coming in? Personally speaking, I really only ever saw comments about how this show would be the glorious return of Aqours, gracing anime again after more than four years. I never really saw anything more specific than that. It seems there are fans who expected just that. But there are other fans who seemed to expect something else. I’m aware there is a manga subtitled “Unpolarized Reflection” that apparently has more action-adventure elements. Were fans who were less satisfied with the anime expecting it to adapt that? If so, that’s not entirely unreasonable, though it’s important to keep in mind that the other Love Live! Manga tell largely different stories compared to their anime counterparts, so logic suggests that this would also be true for Genjitsu no Yohane. The idea that the two would tell different stories is also supported by the differing subtitles: Sunshine in the Mirror and Unpolarized Reflection. While it’s not unusual for an anime adaptation to add or remove subtitles, changing a subtitle into something completely different is often a sign that the two pieces of media will tell very different stories that take place in the same world. So it seems there was a relatively low chance of the anime directly adapting the manga.

But perhaps the expectations from less-satisfied fans were unrelated to the manga. Perhaps such fans were just expecting a more conventional action-adventure fantasy story? Or maybe something that would be very different from the original Sunshine? Or perhaps just something that would appeal to a larger audience than an idol show would? Or maybe an anime that would clearly be one of the best anime in a long time? Or, based on some comments, the expectation was simply that it would either be action-adventure or slice-of-life/drama but not a mix of the two. I don’t mean to claim that any of these are wrong. But I’d like to break down each one.

Starting with a conventional action-adventure fantasy, why would this be an expectation for fans who are not familiar with the manga? Simply because it’s the most common type of fantasy story? Or because of “Fallen Angel Yohane”? There is some logic in these expectations, but consider for a moment what spinoffs are usually like. How often are spinoffs made in a completely different genre compared to the works they derived from? There are examples like the Attack on Titan: Junior High, if we want to count that, but that’s an example of an action show having a comedy as a spinoff. Arguably one of the more prominent spinoffs is A Certain Scientific Railgun, derived from A Certain Magical Index. But that’s an example of an action show derived from another action show; if anything, Railgun has more slice-of-life elements compared to Index. The closest thing to meeting this expectation may be The Idolmaster: Xenoglossia, a one-episode OVA about idols fighting in mechas. To my (admittedly limited) knowledge, this was not very popular. Maybe that’s just because it was made at a time when idol shows were not especially common, when Idolmaster fans wanted to see an adaptation of the games, and when there were lower expectations for anime in general. But even if Xenoglossia might be more well-liked now than when it first came out, it would still mark only one example of a non-action show receiving an action-oriented spinoff. Does one instance mean it’s reasonable to expect that of another idol show spinoff?

What about something very different from the original Sunshine? It’s certainly reasonable to want something that differs from what we’ve come to expect, but this brings up a few questions. For one, what specific things should be different? And how different should those things be? What elements should be removed, and what elements should be retained? And why? To focus on my own opinion again, I personally consider the main point of Love Live! to be how the girls come together towards a goal and help each other grow as people in the process, and this is the main thing that makes me such a big fan of the franchise, along with things like the type of comedy and the specific balance of comedy and drama the franchise uses. These elements are mostly present in Sunshine in the Mirror, albeit with much more focus on Yohane than any of the other girls. Can a story be considered an entry in the LL! franchise if it doesn’t have these things? Was the expectation for Sunshine in the Mirror to not have them? Or maybe to only have some of them? To be an event-focused story instead of a character-focused story? It certainly wouldn’t be wrong to prefer any of these things. But this just brings back the questions of what defines this franchise for each fan. How much can change without this anime becoming, for all intents and purposes, part of a completely different franchise? I don’t believe there are any right or wrong answers to these questions, but I believe they are questions worth asking.

As far as appealing to a larger audience goes, this would be somewhat understandable. Many of us may desire to share our love for LL! with more people, especially people who dismiss the franchise simply because it’s about idols. But what may be less obvious is that there are disadvantages to having more people engage with a piece of media or media franchise. For example, consider the popular YouTuber known as Gigguk, someone known for a dislike of traditional idol shows and a love of action, adventure, fantasy, and different takes on concepts he normally dislikes (such as Oshi no Ko’s depiction of idols). Prior to Sunshine in the Mirror’s first episode, there was a meme about how Gigguk is such a sucker for fantasy that he planned to watch this show even knowing it was a Love Live! spinoff. For what it’s worth, I have no idea how he actually felt about the show or if he even finished it (though I personally doubt he did). Assuming he didn’t finish it, then the show would likely have to be very different and probably either very action-oriented and/or have writing in the top 1% of all anime for him to finish watching and legitimately enjoy it. If this happened, rather than make him appreciate the main LL! entries more, it would likely just lead to him complaining (not all that seriously, to be fair) that future entries weren’t like this spinoff. Of course, this isn’t just about one person. This also applies to many more people who have similar likes and dislikes.That said, it’s possible that changing the anime to appeal to a larger audience would also attract viewers who would actually become fans of the franchise. But with new fans comes new expectations. When a franchise grows bigger, fans both new and old may start to think about how this increase in size means the franchise is making a lot more money, and that with more money, the franchise can and should become better. There are two problems with this way of thinking. The first is that fans may start to think that every penny the franchise makes can be applied to every part of the franchise at the same time as opposed to the money being distributed among the many different products that make the money in the first place (like spending money earned from merchandise on animation instead of spending it to create new merchandise). This is an unrealistic expectation that can lead to a lot of negativity. The second problem is that fans may apply this thinking to aspects of the franchise that cannot be objectively improved with more money. For example, fans may come to expect better stories and writing, but they may disagree over what actually constitutes better stories and writing. Some new fans may prefer to see the stories change in certain ways, while other fans may be uncomfortable with those specific changes. It could be argued that this already happens within the fandom, but with even more people watching these anime, this could happen even more. Is that something existing fans want?

Then there is the idea of Sunshine in the Mirror being one of the absolute best anime to be made in a long time. This expectation seems to assume that any of the other LL! anime were unquestionably among the best anime around the time they first aired and did not have any elements that could be criticized. And maybe that is the case for a number of fans. But if so, then what is it about Sunshine in the Mirror that makes it inferior to its modern-world counterpart? Is it just the idea that it should be full fantasy or not fantasy at all (as discussed below)? Or perhaps it’s not about LL! being near perfection. Perhaps this expectation just assumes that with enough money, this level of quality could easily be achieved (see above for why this is unrealistic). There are also two more questions that come with this expectation: how many stories, anime or otherwise, in general could be considered the best or at least one of the best around the time they came out, and is it reasonable to expect any given story to be one of them?

Finally, there is the idea of whether Sunshine in the Mirror should be a mix of more traditional fantasy anime and slice-of-life/drama. Here’s yet another question: if someone argues that it shouldn’t be, then why not? Is there a rule that says anime should only be one or the other? If not, then maybe the question should instead be about how a mix of the two should be balanced. That is, how much of one should there be compared to the other and how often should the story change focus from one to the other? Once again, I won’t even try to answer any of these questions because I don’t believe they necessarily have any right or wrong answers. I just believe they’re important questions to consider when thinking about what the show was and what it could have or should have been. And this leads into the final topic I wanted to discuss.

What’s the Point?

What exactly is the point of Sunshine in the Mirror? Why does this anime even exist? It’s not reinventing the wheel or trying to establish a new direction for Love Live! or anything like that. And it’s not telling a story about the “Fallen Angel Yohane.” So why does it exist? While it’s obviously impossible to know exactly what the staff was thinking when planning the anime, the simplest explanation is that they just wanted to tell a coming-of-age story about how Yoshiko might deal with her social anxiety and find her place in a world with no school system and where she doesn’t have her chuunibyou persona to fall back on, perhaps because they consider that to be the most important part of her character. But if that’s the case, then why make it in a fantasy world? If they just wanted to tell a story about a girl growing up and they’re not going to include any fallen angels or demons or dark magic or anything, why not just have it take place in the modern world and just have Yoshiko not go to school because of crippling social anxiety? This question also has a simple answer: why not? While the world of Genjitsu no Yohane is certainly not explained in significant detail, it does (as discussed earlier) contain a number of fantasy elements to make the setting fundamentally different from a modern world. And there are fantasy stories that could feasibly take place in a more modern world without rewriting the entire story. A protagonist with magic powers could still have supernatural abilities in some form (like Mob Psycho 100), and fantastical creatures could still appear in our world (like Digimon) and even live in our world (like Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid). On the other side of the spectrum, there are stories like Restaurant to Another World, which features plenty of fantasy elements. But many of those elements are not especially relevant to the plot and mainly exist to create a less mundane setting. Of course, there are also stories that would not be the same at all if they did not take place in a fantasy world (like Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End). And while perhaps not to the same extent, Sunshine in the Mirror also contains fantasy elements that may be difficult to separate from the story (as discussed earlier). But what I’m trying to say here is that it’s not unusual for a story in a fantasy world to be less about the world or any single fantastical element and more about something that could more or less take place in our world. So why does any writer create a fantasy story that could take place in the modern world without any major adjustments? The answer is the same as it was for the last question: why not?

Closing

To close this excessively long breakdown, I want to make it clear again that none of this is meant to attack anyone or necessarily change anyone’s opinion. In spite of everything I’ve said, I have no problem with people simply not liking the show for what it was. The Love Live! franchise is very important to me, and that includes a spinoff that does not even feature the brand in its name. And after seeing some of the discourse surrounding the show, I just wanted to express my thoughts on it in a relatively organized way. If anyone reading this thinks about any of the ideas I’ve brought up at all, I would consider that an accomplishment. And if not, then oh well. In that case, if anyone is actually reading this, then I apologize if I sounded too aggressive or defensive. And I hope you enjoyed seeing my thoughts on Sunshine in the Mirror.

[ajeckaea]

I hate when authors "update" older stories, or the stories are "updated" for them. I am specifically going to use Lois Duncan as an example, and more specifically, Down a Dark Hall.

This book was written in 1974, and "revised" by Duncan in 2011 to add cell phones, internet, and make other edits that were, as far as I can tell, supposed to make it more appealing to modern youth and reduce the likelihood of questions like "well why didn't they just use a cell phone".

The example I recall best, although it's been a couple years so I'm fuzzy on the precise details, is that one of the characters makes a comment about there being no ethernet hookup (possibly it was wifi service? but I'm pretty sure it was ethernet) in her room for her laptop.

I looked at that line and instantly said to myself "That was a landline telephone in the original version. I just bet it was a normal telephone." Because it just didn't fit quite right.

But I was reading this in January 2022. And teenagers in 2022 did not use ethernet cables with laptops when they wanted to connect to the internet for fun. They used wifi, but more than that, they used smartassphones. I also have a vague sense that there were references added to chat rooms or chatting applications in the book. Perhaps even MySpace.

The problem with "updating" technology and terminology, you see, is that in another few years it will be dated again--except now you've sacrificed the authenticity of the book. It's no longer a book from the 70s, but it can never be a book from the 10s. You've mishmashed it into an awkward chimera, and it's not better. It can never be its old authentic historical snapshot self anymore--it will always give off "hello fellow kids" trying-too-hard energy. You know that thing about putting new wine into old wineskins? Yeah.

And this is a me thing, I know, but here's the thing--if a book doesn't mention cell phones or computers, I don't miss them. In the absence of any hard historical references, the story just naturally settles into my perception as being set in Comfortably Ambiguous Time. In fact, unless the author clearly sets the story in the Modern Tech Age and brings up technology from the start, the first time a cell phone is mentioned it will jolt me entirely out of the story.

There were people who thought it was stupid and unrealistic that in 2005, highschool student Bella Swan didn't have a cell phone. I never once questioned it--highschool student Aje didn't have a cell phone until 2009.

This entire post was inspired by the fact that I'm rereading a book right now that was written in 1961, and I would never have guessed it was that old, because of Comfortably Ambigous Time. If you'd told me it was set in 1980, I'd have believed you. 1950? Sure. 2010? Absolutely. The lack of technology is not a stumbling block for me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that books should be left as they were written. It's okay that tech and slang were different. It's okay if the plot wouldn't work in a world where people keep 911 in their pockets. It's okay for books to be historical snapshots. That's what they are, and they should be left authentic. An authentic 70s book that reads like an authentic 70s book is always, always going to be better than a 70s book mutilated in an attempt to fit some later standard. Also, any reader who actually picks up a book and judges it negatively because its plot wouldn't work if set in the present day needs to be sent back to grade school until s/he learns how history works.

Some people being idiots is not a valid reason to mutilate books.

[talesofsonicasura]

I figure why not expand more on Of Bug Cults and Living Stone and Operation: Magnify from this post here. (The X Readers involving RE Leon Scott Kennedy.) Want I put down is what I plan to write. These can be read platonic or romantic as I keep strictly romantic stuff as side stories.

Of Bug Cults and Living Stone

Reader is a beast like humanoid troll in appearance. Think of the kind from Guillermo Del Toro's Trollhunters specifically the cartoon. Reader is half El Gigante's size and bears carving like marks that glow if emotional or by will. Reader is OLD, specifically someone in their mid 20s when compared to human age standards. (Best depiction in appearance is this post here, not my art hence the link.)

Leon comes across their den just after beating Del Iago. Reader is quite hospitable and friendly around wanderers if not in a foul mood. They only attack when provoked or threatened. Reader uses a taxidermy bear puppet to scare off normal trespassers. Braver ones are given a warning not to cause trouble or else.

Their familiar pact with Leon is bound by two steps: binding name and blood sigil. A contractor grants their familiar a title to summon them by. Next step is offering a bit of each other's essence such as blood/bone/magic. Sigil placement differs between species but a Troll's sigil manifest on the summoner's back.

Reader gives the agent a temporary seal(incomplete) as they don't fully trust Leon enough to grant their full power. Thus the agent only gave his blood and familiar title 'Hunter' to the troll. He can summon Reader from anywhere but it's best not to summon them in cramp places.

A full contract grants some of their magic to Leon such as healing. What else follows stem from the item Reader offers to solidify the pact: a fragment of their Heartstone (their life force/soul in a sense.) Physical changes to the contractor might happen as the bond between summoner and familiar grows.

Their magic is what suppresses the Plagas growth inside Leon. Los Illuminados wants Reader dead as they are immune to the parasite and can potentially negate its power if the Queen Plagas falls into their possession. This had led to attacks, raids, attempts at starvation tactics alongside the final straw by stealing the Troll's precious treasure.

Shadow of death isn't looming on Luis but someone else in the group. Reader absolutely despises Ada as they hate people who play mind games. Constantly swears in Trollish when something goes wrong.

Operation: Magnify

Reader already knew about Leon's existence by eavesdropping on Chief Irons. This Umbrella project was kept hidden from other sections and only Irons had knowledge about it. Reader is the latest unwilling experiment to Operation Magnify because of the corrupt cop's obsession with them.

MAGS are programmed to follow a 'loyalty' protocol and given handlers to manage that. Who they serve, protect, or die for. No one has successfully gotten Reader under Umbrella's control as they kill every handler sent to leash them.

Raccoon City outbreak led to Operation Magnify section of NEST becoming compromised as well. A chaos Reader used to escape and seek out Leon from every detail they could overhear from the obsessive officer. Their salvation as the loyalty protocol only allows a handler to have full sway of their MAG ward, no one else unless given permission.

Reader is twice Leon's size, grew spiky spines, horns and a tail thanks to their Magnification. Experiment 112 or Destination: Diablo is their tag name, it stems from the demonic visage. Reader's speech is broken thanks to constant abuse and lack of proper social communication. They can talk barely enough to convince Leon about being a friendly.

Reader walks on all fours out of habit as their previous living arrangements was a tiny cramp cell. It takes time to walk on two legs and break the unhealthy nature when not in battle. Leon reassures Reader even before learning about the horrors they had to endure.

The rookie cop protects the MAG with all his might like he does for Sherry. Leon does his best to help Reader while survive whether in or outside the ruins of Raccoon City. Their government designation is 'Beauty and the Beast'.

And that's all I have for now! Until next time folks, continue to thrive in the wake of Raccoon City.

[ofsuaes]

hello hello~ i'm rina ( she / her ) bringing in my new muse suae here to mabeob! my timezone + work hours always put me on the dash at v late hours in comparison to everyone else but i'm usually always lurking if i'm able to hehe. it's been a while since i've been in a directory and i'm still trying to get accustomed to the new dash/xkit rewritten, so please bear with me and i thank you in advance!!

you can find a messy bio, profile, and plot page linked respectively, but i'll also have a summary of suae under the cut below! (i'll try to keep the bullets short but i tend to blabber sorry ehe)

feel free to give this post a like and i'll slide into your ims as soon as i am able! i also have a discord available if it is preferred

BACKGROUND

found unconscious along the shores of mabeob by an elderly baek youngja around the assumed age of 6 years old

suae has no recollection of her life prior to her peculiar arrival

she was eventually taken in by grandma baek who lived alone

initially, she lived quietly while grandma baek attempted to find out who she was and where she could call a home to. all the while, the lost girl followed her around like a little duckling, keeping her company around town as she completed daily tasks and such

eventually, when it seemed as though there were no one out there looking for the little girl, grandma baek decided to raise her as her own, granting suae her name the moment she'd decided to do so

suae has been grateful and goes above and beyond to assist "her grandma" and loves her dearly

however, in an attempt to maintain the peaceful bliss of their life together, suae hides the fact the she is a mermaid — a secret she hadn't even discovered the truth of until her early teen years

she's still unsure as to how her abilities as a mermaid had remained hidden until then, especially her tears that became beautifully round pearls, but she attempts to learn bits and pieces of her "true self" through stories and folktales told around the island

PERSONALITY

i very much had the little mermaid in mind for inspo!!

she's very sweet and naive — a true hopeless romantic in search of her true love!! a prince in shining armor!!!

extremely headstrong and stubborn, suae will always fight for what she believes in regardless of the consequences

one of the most loyal people you will meet! she loves passionately and fiercely and will do anything for her loved ones. even if you were to betray or hurt her, she wouldn't be able to forget your connection and would still be on your side until the end

bright, bubbly, a ray of sunshine — words often used to describe her around town. however, the complete opposite could be said for those who had known her as a child, when she first arrived in mabeob

those who also grew up with her in the outskirt homes area as well as classmates from grade school had known her to be quiet, demure, and shy. she often never made eye contact or spoke to anyone else unless spoken to first

one thing that has stayed the same since her childhood is how emotional she is. though she puts up a front of strength and bravery, she's quite fragile and known to be a crybaby. however, she'll run and hide before she gives you a chance to see her burst out in tears

[chronicles-of-the-broken-record]

Hello again, strange people on the internet.

I still don't quite understand how this "Tumblr' works, although I guess that's to be expected when you've got the equivalent mental age of...I don't know, who's a famous old person in this universe? Either way, you get the point.

Sorry it's been so long since the first update. I might or might not have forgotten this thing existed until Sascha reminded me. I say reminded. What I really mean is basically held me captive in her office until I swore I would at least attempt to post more. She won't hold me to that...I think.

Anyways, I'm supposed to write about stuff I've been doing here aren't I? Well to start with, I managed to rope Jasper into another one of my famously brilliant ideas. He's building me a coffee machine. I don't know how on earth you guys can survive when coffee in this universe is so absurdly expensive, god knows I (and my wallet) have been struggling immensely. You'd also think for some time warping scientific organisation we'd have enough money to buy coffee. You'd think. But no, since no government officially acknowledges us and for whatever reason currency isn't constant between iterations I'm practically living on minimum wage. Thankfully, we've learnt how to become relatively self-sufficient on site in terms of power and food. Plus no rent.

I just miss my caffeine man. Hell Harley dumped a bucket of ice water on me the other day, apparently I was "being a drama queen". That woman doesn't understand what this stuff means to me. But anyways, we're making a coffee machine. Jasper is boasting about some breakthrough in UnReality Manipulation meaning I won't ever run out of coffee again, so I'm hoping the man can pull through for me, I only have about 2 weeks of rationed emergency funds left.

I've also started writing poetry again. It's been...a long time, to say the least since I last did any, and now just felt like a good time for some reason. I'm not planning on necessarily sharing any of it here. Not unless I write like my magnum opus or recreate The Divine Comedy, but I doubt that'll happen any time soon. It might also be down to the fact that Harley found some of my old work. It was supposed to stay private but god knows nothing stops that woman sometimes. Her sheer willpower scares me, even though I do appreciate it at times. I know I need it at times.

This should be enough to convince Sascha I actually care about this website for a while, I'm going to go and annoy Jasper for a while now. Catch you later internet

- Shade

[yellow-faerie]

Ok so for the filmverse (including TV shows), leaving out a Lot because I kinda want an overview rather than a massive play-by-play of her life:

Maven Witchwood is the daughter of Kora Witchwood - a healer and herbalist among the dragon hunters and the originator of the dragon root arrow formula, and Viggo Grimborn, as seen here:

This also managed to get long despite my best attempts so, under the cut it goes:

At around the age of three or four, she and her mother end up on Berk to escape their home after a dragon revolt of sorts among the dragon hunters they were living with, as Kora knew of the relatives they have there - Gothi, her great-aunt.

Kora always had the intention of bringing her daughter back to the hunters (and the husband she left behind) but Berk was dangerous too and she had the misfortune to die in an attack before she could properly plan a way back or even tell anyone much of her life before.

All Maven has at the age of four and a half is a fair bit of trauma (that definitely blocks a lot of her earlier memories), a few tales of her mother from the few Berkians who met her and knowledge that her father is supposedly a great dragon hunter, and a few of her things - the medallion that was a betrothal gift from Viggo, a thick tartan in deep purple, and a knife that she used for cutting herbs.

Maven grew up with her only remaining relative that she knew of - her mother was dead, her father unfindable, her grandparents were completely unknown and Gretel had vanished a long time before after being blinded - and that was Gothi.

She has been training to take over the position of village wise woman from Gothi for a long time - which she insists on calling Being A Witch for a very long time - and lives quite far away from the village up on the mountain top so she's not really the greatest friends with the other youths when she's little.

She's not a runt, per se, but she is very intense about everything she does; does not particularly smile unless really given a reason to (she's basically autistic and sees no need to mask); and doesn't particularly want to be friends with them (at least, she tells herself that).

Anyway, in canon she doesn't do dragon training and continues on with her life, never finding out who her father is and just...going on being a bit lonely really (she still ends up adopting a bunch of orphans when she's older, setting up a sort-of orphanage on New Berk for the children without family or friends to take them in).

In the AU however, oh boy:

So she does dragon training because Gothi basically looks at her fifteen-almost-sixteen year old ward and goes You Need Friends and pushes her to do dragon training against her will.

And this...sort of actually works.

Not at first, because Maven likes to say she doesn't care, but then she gets curious about how Hiccup's doing so well and starts this whole investigation which she ropes the others (bar Astrid who's training too hard for these shenanigans) into.

They actually end up breaking into Hiccup's house the evening before the final test and find out about Toothless but Maven convinces them to stay quiet about it because she's curious as to where it'll go.

The arena obviously happens, and then Maven basically accosts him immediately post disownment scene with Stoick to basically be like "we all know about Toothless" and then pesters him with questions about him as they go down to the docks until he basically tells her to stop because he's Not Doing Well. That's when Astrid comes and does the pep talk and they go back to the arena to train the dragons.

Maven comes to the battle as a back-up medic, getting dropped on the sand by Snotlout so that she can look over anyone getting injured during the battle, and at the end she's definitely the one who ends up doing the field amputation of what remained of Hiccup's leg.

For the beginning of RoB/DoB, she's a kind of hanger-on to the rest of the drama because she has grown rather fond of having actual friends and so she uses whatever excuses she can to spend time at the arena.

She also spends a lot of time by the sea as the purple clothes dye she uses for her clothes (and later for her hair because what is an OC if you can't give them purple streaks in their hair?) is made of seashells that you have to dive for (and also she likes to trade the pearls she finds which was more a byproduct of diving for shells).

It's on one of these visits to the beach that she gets accosted by a dragon - a Wavewalker, which is a dragon I came up with on my own because nothing else quite worked for what I wanted.

Wavewalkers - much like turtles - lay their eggs in the sand until they can hatch and make their way to the rest of the pod. Unlike turtles, Wavewalkers leave a guard sentry on watch to protect the eggs which is what this one was doing when Maven made her way down there.

I could go on a lot more about Wavewalkers, I've had a lot of ideas for them.

Anyway, Maven helps him to protect the eggs from Eggstealers and they end up befriending each other to the point that this Wavewalker joins her on Berk (I'm imagining he wasn't originally part of this particular pod or smth, but he joins her for a good reason).

She becomes a full time dragon rider on top of her training by Gothi and her riding a tidal class dragon (and her honestly quite impressive free diving) means that there are probably a few plot points made easier in RoB/DoB but I haven't yet thought of how she fits in there beyond her getting her dragon.

Another thing that happens is that she starts learning archery and knife fighting with Astrid to protect herself as even though she's a healer there would be times she is in much more dangerous situations and needs that.

It's RTTE where things really change. For one, she can relate to Heather and her family situation a lot better than the other riders who (for all their own family problems) do know who their parents are or were. I honestly think that they could play off each other in a way that might make Heather's character a little less annoying in places (as much as I love her) and who knows? Maybe Heather ends up hanging around longer.

There's also the whole Viggo being her father thing - that first comes into play when they see the reaper's sails and there's a symbol that matches her mother's medallion which makes her and the other riders think that maybe whoever these dragon hunter people were, she's probably related to them.

What they don't expect is what they find out at the end of Season 3 during the auction effort where she - who wears a mask to help with being underwater a lot on Brighteyes, her dragon - goes to the auction with Snotlout and sees Viggo up close for the first time and notices his medallion when it comes untucked from his shirt.

Obviously, since Maven's was her mother's and it was a betrothal necklace, Maven can put two and two together: so while she knows, Viggo does not because Viggo did not see her necklace.

I haven't got much further in my RTTE rewatch so the specifics of the rest of the story is a little shaky but I'm imagining that during the whole Viggo-sort-of redemptions, she ends up trapped or alone with him and it all comes tumbling out.

And then he kinda dies, leaving her with a knife and another medallion and she's a bit like...oh. But then she remembers her family with the dragon riders and feels a bit better because even though she found no loving arms of parents to fall into, she does have a family she's created on the way.

HTTYD II, she definitely uses the Grimborn name to confuse Drago; she also has been documenting how to heal dragons with Fishlegs and has somehow managed to avoid being part of the lovey-dovey stuff (Honestly I don't really have a love interest for her but I think Eret would be at least an incredibly funny option, if Maven - who has no-one pining after her - gets the guy Ruffnut - who everyone is pining after her - wants). But yeah I have no particular love interest for her.

She has also been getting ready to officially become the village wise woman because Gothi wants to step back so she can be a crazy old mountain woman so Maven is actually the one who ends up declaring Hiccup chief.

The rest of the background characters don't do a whole load in the films and I do want to maintain the story as much as I can of the films.

The big difference probably comes in the last film because I disagree with it on a fundamental level. Since I'm rewatching the series' at the moment and a lot of Maven's story happens around there, I don't have a lot for what she does here, but it's probably going to change the film to end in a way I'd like more lol.

(because if they really wanted the films to end like the books, they'd have the dragons going away slowly, y'know, like they do in the books).

(that and how the light fury romance was done is like my main gripe with the third film I really enjoyed it otherwise).

Anyway, this is a slightly everywhere preview of her life.

Ignore the lighting and here are some reference drawing things I did for her (imagine her outfits going from black and deep purple to a grey and lighter purple because I have not yet had the courage to colour them in yet lol):

And here's a Picrew from this Picrew which had limited purple options but I love for the face (hence all the green):

If you have any questions, please ask! I constantly want to talk about her now lol

@flammableengineering @curanthir

Anyone want to hear about my HTTYD OC?

[cappymightwrite]

What draws you to incest ?

*sighs* Ok, here we go. I'm a real card carrying Jonsa now aren't I?

Anon, listen. I know this is an anti question that gets bandied about a lot, aimed at provoking, etc, when we all know no Jonsa is out here being all you know what, it really is the incest, and the incest alone, that draws me in. I mean, come on now. Grow up.

If I was "drawn" to incest I'd be a fan of Cersei x Jaime, Lucrezia x Cesare, hell Oedipus x Jocasta etc... but I haven't displayed any interest in them now, have I? So, huh, it can't be that.

Frankly, it's a derivitive question that is really missing the mark. I'm not "drawn" to it, though yeah, it is an unavoidable element of Jonsa. The real question you should be asking though, is what draws GRRM to it? Because he obviously is drawn to it, specifically what is termed the "incest motif" in academic and literary scholarship. That is a far more worthwhile avenue of thinking and questioning, compared with asking me. Luckily for you though anon, I sort of anticipated getting this kind of question so had something in my drafts on standby...

You really don't have to look far, or that deeply, to be hit over the head by the connection between GRRM's literary influences and the incest motif. I mean, let's start with the big cheese himself, Tolkein:

Tolkein + Quenta Silmarillion

We know for definite that GRRM has been influenced by Tolkein, and in The Silmarillion you notably have a case of unintentional incest in Quenta Silmarillion, where Túrin Turambar, under the power of a curse, unwittingly murders his friend, as well as marries and impregnates his sister, Nienor Níniel, who herself had lost her memory due to an enchantment.

Mr Tolkein, "what draws you to incest?"

Old Norse + Völsunga saga

Tolkein, as a professor of Anglo-Saxon, was hugely influenced by Old English and Old Norse literature. The story of the ring Andvaranaut, told in Völsunga saga, is strongly thought to have been a key influence behind The Lord of the Rings. Also featured within this legendary saga is the relationship between the twins Signy and Sigmund — at one point in the saga, Signy tricks her brother into sleeping with her, which produces a son, Sinfjotli, of pure Völsung blood, raised with the singular purpose of enacting vengence.

Anonymous Norse saga writer, "what draws you to incest?"

Medieval Literature as a whole

A lot is made of how "true" to the storied past ASOIAF is, how reflective it is of medieval society (and earlier), its power structures, its ideals and martial values etc. ASOIAF, however, is not attempting historical accuracy, and should not be read as such. Yet it is clearly drawing from a version of the past, as depicted in medieval romances and pre-Christian mythology for instance, as well as dusty tomes on warfare strategy. As noted by Elizabeth Archibald in her article Incest in Medieval Literature and Society (1989):

Of course the Middle Ages inherited and retold a number of incest stories from the classical world. Through Statius they knew Oedipus, through Ovid they knew the stories of Canace, Byblis, Myrrha and Phaedra. All these stories end more or less tragically: the main characters either die or suffer metamorphosis. Medieval readers also knew the classical tradition of incest as a polemical accusation,* for instance the charges against Caligula and Nero. – p. 2

The word "polemic" is connected to controversy, to debate and dispute, therefore these classical texts were exploring the incest motif in order to create discussion on a controversial topic. In a way, your question of "what draws you to incest?" has a whiff of polemical accusation to it, but as I stated, you're missing the bigger question.

Moving back to the Middle Ages, however, it is interesting that we do see a trend of more incest stories appearing within new narratives between the 11th and 13th centuries, according to Archibald:

The texts I am thinking of include the legend of Judas, which makes him commit patricide and then incest before betraying Christ; the legend of Gregorius, product of sibling incest who marries his own mother, but after years of rigorous penance finally becomes a much respected pope; the legend of St Albanus, product of father-daughter incest, who marries his mother, does penance with both his parents but kills them when they relapse into sin, and after further penance dies a holy man; the exemplary stories about women who sleep with their sons, and bear children (whom they sometimes kill), but refuse to confess until the Virgin intervenes to save them; the legends of the incestuous begetting of Roland by Charlemagne and of Mordred by Arthur; and finally the Incestuous Father romances about calumniated wives, which resemble Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale except that the heroine's adventures begin when she runs away from home to escape her father's unwelcome advances. – p. 2

I mean... that last bit sounds eerily quite close to what we have going on with Petyr Baelish and Sansa Stark. But I digress. What I'm trying to say is that from a medieval and classical standpoint... GRRM is not unique in his exploration of the incest motif, far from it.

Sophocles, Ovid, Hartmann von Aue, Thomas Malory, etc., "what draws you to incest?"

Faulkner + The Sound and the Fury, and more!

Moving on to more modern influences though, when talking about the writing ethos at the heart of his work, GRRM has famously quoted William Faulker:

His mantra has always been William Faulkner’s comment in his Nobel prize acceptance speech, that only the “human heart in conflict with itself… is worth writing about”. [source]

I’ve never read any Faulker, so I did just a quick search on “Faulkner and incest” and I pulled up this article on JSTOR, called Faulkner and the Politics of Incest (1998). Apparently, Faulkner explores the incest motif in at least five novels, therefore it was enough of a distinctive theme in his work to warrant academic analysis. In this journal article, Karl F. Zender notes that:

[...] incest for Faulkner always remains tragic [...] – p. 746

Ah, we can see a bit of running theme here, can't we? But obviously, GRRM (one would hope) doesn’t just appreciate Faulkner’s writing for his extensive exploration of incest. This quote possibly sums up the potential artistic crossover between the two:

Beyond each level of achieved empathy in Faulkner's fiction stands a further level of exclusion and marginalization. – pp. 759–60

To me, the above parallels somewhat GRRM’s own interest in outcasts, in personal struggle (which incest also fits into):

I am attracted to bastards, cripples and broken things as is reflected in the book. Outcasts, second-class citizens for whatever reason. There’s more drama in characters like that, more to struggle with. [source]

Interestingly, however, this essay on Faulkner also connects his interest in the incest motif with the romantic poets, such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron:

As Peter Thorslev says in an important study of romantic representations of incest, " [p]arent-child incest is universally condemned in Romantic literature...; sibling incest, on the other hand, is invariably made sympathetic, is sometimes exonerated, and, in Byron's and Shelley's works, is definitely idealized.” – p. 741

Faulkner, "what draws you to incest?" ... I mean, that article gives some good explanations, actually.

Lord Byron, Manfred + The Bride of Abydos

Which brings us onto GRRM interest in the Romantics:

I was always intensely Romantic, even when I was too young to understand what that meant. But Romanticism has its dark side, as any Romantic soon discovers... which is where the melancholy comes in, I suppose. I don't know if this is a matter of artistic influences so much as it is of temperament. But there's always been something in a twilight that moves me, and a sunset speaks to me in a way that no sunrise ever has. [source]

I'm already in the process of writing a long meta about the influence of Lord Byron in ASOIAF, specifically examining this quote by GRRM:

The character I’m probably most like in real life is Samwell Tarly. Good old Sam. And the character I’d want to be? Well who wouldn’t want to be Jon Snow — the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love. Theon [Greyjoy] is the one I’d fear becoming. Theon wants to be Jon Snow, but he can’t do it. He keeps making the wrong decisions. He keeps giving into his own selfish, worst impulses. [source]

Lord Byron, "what draws you to—", oh, um, right. Nevermind.

I'm not going to repeat myself here, but it's worth noting that there is a clear through line between GRRM and the Romantic writers, besides perhaps melancholic "temperament"... and it's incest.

But look, is choosing to explore the incest motif...well, a choice? Yeah, and an uncomfortable one at that, but it’s obvious that that is what GRRM is doing. I think it’s frankly a bit naive of some people to argue that GRRM would never do Jonsa because it’s pseudo-incest and therefore morally repugnant, no ifs, no buts. I’m sorry, as icky as it may be to our modern eyes, GRRM has set the president for it in his writing with the Targaryens and the Lannister twins.

The difference with them is that they knowingly commit incest, basing it in their own sense of exceptionalism, and there are/will be bad consequences — this arguably parallels the medieval narratives in which incest always ends badly, unless some kind of real penance is involved. For Jon and Sansa, however, the Jonsa argument is that they will choose not to commit incest, despite a confused attraction, and then will be rewarded in the narrative through the parentage reveal, a la Byron’s The Bride of Abydos. The Targaryens and Lannisters, in several ways excluding the incest (geez the amount of times I’ve written incest in this post), are foils for the Starks, and in particular, Jon and Sansa. Exploring the incest motif has been on the cards since the very beginning — just look at that infamous "original" outline — regardless of whether we personally consider that an interesting writing choice, or a morally inexcusable one.

Word of advice, or rather, warning... don't think you can catch me out with these kinds of questions. I have access to a university database, so if I feel like procrastinating my real academic work, I can and will pull out highly researched articles to school you, lmao.

But you know, thanks for the ask anyway, I guess.

[marauderundercover]

Taking Chance Ch. 15: Problem Solving (Last name: Wayne)

AO3

Prev

Walking into class after lunch break, Marinette keeps her head down. No need to bring attention to the fact that she’s late...again. Sliding into her seat, she breathes a sigh of relief that Mme. Bustier is also late. Probably making copies. Either way, it had saved her from getting in trouble for being late again. Opening her bag to take out her stuff, she winces as Lila’s voice pierces the room.

“And then, he said he missed me so much that he cried!” She exclaims, clutching her hands together and sighing. Marinette rolls her eyes, certain that whoever it is either doesn’t actually know Lila, or doesn’t know Lila. Either way….lie.

“I still can’t believe you’re official with THE Tim Drake!” Alya exclaims. Marinette immediately chokes on air, her entire face turning bright red as she coughs and attempts to catch her breath. It doesn’t help that everyone is suddenly staring at her and waiting to see if she’s okay. The story pops back into her mind. Yeah, sure Lila. Tim Drake is dating you- an annoying little kid. Sure.

“Are you okay?” Rose asks once Marinette finally catches her breath. She smiles awkwardly, not ready for a confrontation with Lila over this, but also wary to let anyone spread this specific rumor.

“Yeah, it’s just-” Marinette pauses and sighs. This wouldn’t be the high road, but she had to watch out for her brother. “I’m just not sure Lila is telling the truth.” Chaos erupts around her. She chances a glance at Adrien, surprised to see his supportive smile. Well, almost. They had gotten closer. And sure, he’s said he liked her in Gotham, but she kinda thought he just blurted it out after seeing she was Ladybug. She wasn’t quite sure if he actually liked her.

“I-I just don’t understand why you hate me!” Lila sobs.

“I don't-” Marinette tries to say. Keyword- tries.

“Girl, you should apologize. Lila's been talking about Tim since before we even went to Gotham! They’re super serious now. They have been for almost two years.” Alya says.

“No they’re not! Do you seriously think an almost twenty year old CEO would date some fifteen year old kid from halfway across the world? I doubt Tim’s ever even been to Italy or France since becoming Co-CEO.” Marinette rambles, knowing with absolute certainty that she was right.

“Marinette! You’re kind of being mean. Lila says-” Rose tries to say.

“Just because Lila said something doesn’t mean it’s true!” Marinette cries, her frustration threatening to overwhelm her.

“Girl, you seriously need to apologize.” Alya says softly. Marinette’s jaw drops.

“For what?” She scoffs, throwing her arms up in exasperation. “For seeing the truth and calling it out? For not bending to Lila’s every whim?”

“For being a bad friend.” Alya says simply. Marinette freezes. A bad friend? Really? Her? A bad friend? How? All she’d ever done was try to be good. To be nice. To be perfect.

“Whatever.” She finally says, standing and grabbing her stuff. She storms out of the room, ignoring the yells of protest from her classmates. She thinks she hears Adrien, but she ignores him too and continues on her rampage past everyone, including Mme. Bustier. She doesn’t stop until she’s in the basement of the school. The only thing down here were a few vending machines. She tries to calm herself down, knowing her anger is unnecessary. But it’s hard.

She wants to let herself be mad, she should be able to be mad about this! She was always trying to be  a good friend and do things for other people and help the class even when she didn’t have time. Even if it meant missing out on sleep or doing something she wants to do, she put them first. Always. But somehow, Lila came out on top. She always comes out on top. They always believed Lila. Always.

“You should leave Marinette, before you attract an akuma.” Tikki says calmly. Marinette blinks, trying to figure out- Oh. Kaalki. Duh. Quickly calling on her transformation, Marinette portals into her room at the manor before a butterfly can come infect her. The second she lands, she calls off her transformation and continues her pacing.

“I’ve always been there for them. Always helped them. Always cared. How is calling Lila out being a bad friend? She’s not even my friend!” Marinette rambles with a huff.

“Maybe you should talk to your family- get their opinions.” Tikki suggests. Marinette starts to turn her down, then realizes she has to say something. Lila’s telling lies about Tim. Lies that could get him in some serious trouble.

“I have to tell Tim! If Alya publishes anything about Lila and Tim he could get in a LOT of trouble.” Marinette rambles, throwing her door open. She blinks in surprise at Tim, standing there frowning with a huge cup of what she assumes is coffee.

“When’d you get here?” He asks, and she can tell he’s much too tired to take this seriously right now.

“I’ll fill you in later, Timmy. Get some sleep.” She says, giving him a quick hug before darting around him and down the stairs. She had to tell someone who could deal with it. Not that she wanted Lila to get in trouble or anything like that, but...she didn’t want them to be able to lie about her family anymore. She’d accept all of those other stupid lies if she just stopped lying about the Waynes.

Running past the ballroom, a sudden movement makes her backtrack and actually glance into the ballroom. Her eyes widen when she notices the movement she caught was Dick….hanging from the chandelier. Of course. Well, he’s not going to be much help, she thinks, shaking her head and turning to try and find someone else. Maybe Mr.- maybe her dad was around. Now if she was a superhero/co-CEO combo where would she spend her free time. She hums, before deciding to check his study. If he wasn’t in there, she’d just go through and check the Batcave. He had to be in one of those places. She knocks on his study door, completely expecting silence, so she’s confused when she hears him call:

“Come in.” She raises an eyebrow. Okay, so he is in the study. Pushing the door open, she smiles at him, rubbing the back of her neck nervously at the brief look of complete and total shock on his face.

“Uh, hi Dad.” She says, rocking back onto her heels nervously. He controls his face quickly, gesturing for her to shut the door.

“Marinette. When did you arrive?” He asks, carefully examining her. She turns red when she realizes- he’s looking for injuries. Since going back to Paris, she hadn’t really communicated with her family unless she was injured or unable to fight. Promising herself to change that, she sits in the chair in front of his desk.

“Five minutes ago, maybe? I’m not sure. I just-” She pauses and frowns, realizing that her emotions almost got the better of her today. She almost let her frustration win. Over something silly. Shaking the thoughts away, she says “I was upset. Lila was lying again and usually I can just ignore her but this time… She was telling everyone that she’s dating Tim, and that they’re really serious and have been for almost two years.” Her dad’s eyebrows twitch slightly.

“Isn’t Lila your age?” He asks.

“Well, she’s already fifteen. But still, it would put Tim in a really bad light if Alya posted it somewhere and knowing Alya, she’s going to post it. Because they all believe Lila. And I tried to explain to them that Tim is quite a bit older than us and he’s an actual CEO and we’re just kids to him and he hasn’t even been in Italy or France and-” She pauses, letting herself take a breath. “I just think it’s wrong for her to lie about my family.”

---

Bruce tries hard to hide his shock. His daughter, who he’d known for less than two months, came all the way to Gotham because someone lied about Tim. It wasn’t the first time someone lied about the Wayne family, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last time. But the fact that his daughter was so upset that she had to come here...he was not going to let this slide. Wayne manor was a safe place, so he would make sure Marinette was able to breathe and relax a little before going home. And he was going to plan a way to stop the lies, to help Marinette.

“How can I help?” He asks, wanting to help but also wanting to make sure he does not overstep. He had heard her explaining to Damian why she let the girl get away with so many lies- it was an attempt to stop a mass akumatization. Bruce also wanted to avoid something like that, which is why he would follow his daughter’s lead.

“I don’t know! I know if I reveal everything it’s- it’s gonna be bad. I don’t know if we’d be able to handle something like that right now. Two of our temporary holders, people I trust a lot, are out of town. I don’t really trust anyone else and I’m certain we’d need their powers for the fallout from Lila’s kingdom falling.” She explains, bouncing her leg up and down as she glances around the room, possibly to come up with a plan. Bruce knew that he used a similar method when he was younger.

“What about the rumors related to the family? Do you think it would be safe to end those?” He asks, a plan beginning to form. But he’d have to get her permission. It would change many things.

“Well….yes. Yes, I think it would be safe. And even if it wasn’t, I know the fallout wouldn’t be anywhere as bad as if some of the other lies came to light.” She says. Bruce nods.

“Very well. Marinette, I believe I have something that might work, but I’m unsure if you’ll agree.” He says.

“We tell them I’m a Wayne.” Marinette says simply. Bruce blinks in surprise. It had definitely been what he was thinking, but thinking it and hearing his daughter say it out loud as if it was the most simple thing ever, those were two completely different things. He’s silent, trying to gather his words again when Marinette chuckles nervously. “I mean, we could say that I know you guys. Cause that’s not a lie.” She says. He sighs, realizing that his silence may have hurt her.

“Marinette, honey, you’re a Wayne. I want you to be one, and if you do as well, then of course we can tell them. I can even arrange for nondisclosure statements to be signed by the students in your class and the faculty. In case you’re not quite ready for the entire world to know.” He says quietly, hoping his voice is soft enough to reassure her. Her tense shoulders fall as she relaxes, her smile easing back into a natural one. Good. He didn’t mess up this time.

“Can we really do that? I do want to be a Wayne, it’s just. I’m not sure I’m ready for the world to look at me.” She says quietly. At this, he quirks a smile.

“If Adrien Agreste’s father is able to get an entire school to sign NDA’s about the boy’s lunch habits, I’m certain that having them sign an NDA when it’s for your safety will be no issue. Besides, if anyone breaks the NDA with malicious or ill intent, we can sue them.” He says simply.

“Oh, well, suing them seems a bit much.” She mumbles. He’s about to argue, when she shrugs. “But it also makes sense. Let’s do this.” He’s instantly proud of the determined look in her eyes. From saving her city to fighting lying bullies, his daughter was so much stronger than she thought.

---

Walking into class the following Monday was nerve wracking. It was almost the end of the school year, so she could’ve asked her Dad to wait until the next year to fix it. But she didn’t want to chance Lila lying about Tim all summer. Or anyone else in her family. Lila could use anyone else- even MDC- to get ahead, Marinette didn’t care. But she was done with Lila using her family. Originally, she had wanted to just do it quietly. Tell the teacher and have her pass out the forms. That’s probably how she would have done it too if her brothers hadn’t found out.

Now, her entire family was coming. She was cautious, but they promised to keep their emotions in check while they were in town. And they could always portal out if things got too tense. But, her brothers were drama queens. So it just made sense that they wanted to give her class the papers in person. She suspected Tim also wanted the chance to glare at Lila in person, and she wasn’t about to deny him that.

“Okay class! We have a few guests coming in today. They’ll be here in a couple minutes and I want you all to give them your full attention and respect.” Mme. Bustier announces, clapping her hands to get their attention. Marinette lets out a shaky breath. Here goes nothing. She tunes out the chatter of her classmates, keeping her eyes on the door. Waiting. Watching. Finally, she sees their shadows outside and her leg starts bouncing. Maybe she shouldn’t have let all of them get involved….

“Oh my god! That’s Bruce Wayne!” Alya yells as her family walks in. Marinette winces slightly at the instant fangirling from many of her classmates. She risks a glance at Lila and tries not to laugh at how pale the Italian girl had gotten. In fact, she looked a little green.

“Hello everyone! My name is Bruce Wayne, though I think you all should remember me from your trip to Gotham.” He says with a wide (fake) smile. Marinette wrinkles her nose. She doesn’t like this fake side of her Dad. She’d much rather watch him be overly serious than use that weird fake smile.

“We’ve brought some forms for everyone in this class to sign, as well as the faculty. The rest of the school won’t be required to sign these forms because it is assumed that what we are about to tell you will not go outside of this room.” Tim starts to explain, no coffee in his hand for once. “I know that it will not go outside of this room because these are NDAs, and we can and will take legal action against anyone who tells someone outside of this room about this information.” Everyone is silent, and while Marinette herself feels tense, she notices that most of her class just looks excited. Except Adrien, who was glancing back at her and looking worried. They’d already talked about this, but he was still worried. He seemed to think that this was one of her worst ideas, but honestly, Marinette didn’t care. She wanted to be able to (kind of) openly accept the other half of her family.

“Oh my god, is Tim about to propose?” Alya loudly whispers to Lila. Marinette can’t help it. She snorts. Out loud. Her face instantly heats as the entire room turns to look at her.

“Oh, uh, sorry?” She says, though it’s definitely more of a question than a statement. She wasn’t sorry.

“I am not about to propose. I’m actually not currently seriously seeing anyone, but there is a boy back home who I’ve had a few dates with.” Tim says. Marinette watches as Alya tries to say something, only to be stopped by Nino gently patting her hand and shaking his head. Good. Maybe they’d get through this without anyone getting akumatized. She glances at Lila again, rolling her eyes at the obviously fake upset look on her face. Is she seriously acting like Tim is cheating on her? In front of Tim? How dumb is she?

“I actually came to have everyone sign an NDA since my youngest daughter is in your class.” Her dad says, metaphorically dropping the bomb. He didn’t just drop it though, he chucked it at the class. The effect is immediate, the entire class erupting in whispers. Mme. Bustier tries, without luck, to gain control of the class. Marinette watches as Damian, who looked ready to murder any and all of her classmates, whistles an insanely high pitch. Wincing slightly, she makes eye contact with him and quirks an eyebrow. He shrugs, but it had been successful. The class was silent once again.

“When is she starting here?” Alya asks, obviously going into reporter mode. Marinette makes eye contact with her Dad, watching as he barely quirks an eyebrow, a silent question. One last chance to back out. She nods for him to continue. She wanted this.

“She actually already goes here. She just decided it was time to embrace the Wayne name.” He says, nodding at her. Marinette lets out a grounding breath and stands, quickly moving over to stand by her brothers. She tries to hide her hands behind her back, knowing they’re shaking like crazy. She positions herself between Dick and Jason, instantly able to relax as the feeling of safety washes over her. The class is completely silent, and Marinette isn’t sure if they don’t understand or if they’re in shock. She’s not sure which would be better.

“What?” Alya asks, barely audible.

“Marinette is my daughter, I am her biological father. She’s a Wayne. And you all have been provided with an NDA about her identity, so that she can remain safe and anonymous to the rest of Paris. Your parents have already agreed and signed both their forms and forms giving you all permission to sign a form. They all understand the importance of this secret, and I urge every single one of you to take this seriously.” Her dad says, giving the class another wide (fake) smile. She lays her head on Dick’s arm, relieved that her class instantly starts signing the forms. No outbursts right now, no possible akumas forming. Nothing. It was a relief, it was freeing. She was certain that it was going to come back and bite her- sooner rather than later if the look on Lila’s face was anything to go by- but for right now, everything was calm. And her family was supposed to stay in Paris for another day, so she’d finally be able to let three of her parents meet in person. It was nice. It was safe.

Next

Master List

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[astaroth1357]

The Obey Me Cast on a Camping Trip (Part One: Brothers)

Hey guys, thank you sooo much for getting me to 2,000 followers!! I honestly don’t know what to say... I never dreamed that this little hobby of mine would reach so many eyes, and I can’t be more grateful. At a time in my life where things feel so chaotic and uncertain, being a part of this community and sharing my weird ideas has been what’s kept me going. It’s been such a rewarding experience all around, so thank you. From the bottom of my heart. 😊

I pulled out all the stops for this post. I even brought out one of my favorite songs of all time: Ao to Natsu by Mrs. GREEN APPLE to get the feel juuust right. I hope you all enjoy it!

This post is split in two due to length (I had too much fun again...) For the Undateables, please click HERE!

Intro:

Another day, another team building activity between the demons and the exchange students. It was Diavolo’s idea to go on a camping trip to the human world (because of course it was), and there were very… mixed responses. That sentiment wasn’t helped when he refused Lucifer’s insistent pleas to just purchase cabins for everyone to stay in. Oh no, the Demon Lord wanted to rough it out in the wilderness, and now everyone else was getting dragged along with him…

Wonder how that turned out?

Lucifer

Really, really, really tried to push Diavolo to just rent out cabins in but noooo, he wasn’t having it... So he ended up driving a van crammed with his brothers, the MC, and a butt-ton of camping equipment into the Alaskan wilderness… 

The car ride itself was insufferable… We’re talking, “I SWEAR I WILL TURN THIS CAR AROUND!!” level of antics every 10 miles or so (mostly from Mammon)…

Setting up camp was even more of a nightmare because about half of his brothers were utterly useless. The other half (save Satan) were completely clueless… Had it not been for Barbatos and Satan he probably would have just resigned himself to the mercy of the river’s currents and let it take him away…

He couldn’t even wear his usual clothes because of the situation… For the first time in who knows how many centuries, he was stuck wearing jeans… Diavolo even bought him several plaid shirts... (which he was not happy with btw because his brother wouldn’t stop making fun of the “new” him)

He had his own tent of decent-size, enough to move around in but nothing to write home about. The very fact he didn’t have to share was a luxury in itself, so he took it for what it was worth...

He spent a good portion of the trip focused on two things: keeping Diavolo happy and everybody else alive. He rarely left camp unless forced to; he just wanted to get it all over with as soon as possible…

If he did leave, it was because Diavolo would drag him along to fish or hike. He was... less than pleased to be called out of his tent at the crack of dawn or well past dusk to sit on a little rented fishing boat with Diavolo… but he didn’t exactly pick his friends so...

He rates the trip Too Much Trouble/10. Let’s never do it again.

Mammon

Wasn’t a massive fan of being stuck out in the wild, but Satan told him some made-up bullshit about buried treasure out in the forest and got him HOOKED. He even borrowed stole a whole bunch of mining/digging equipment just for the occasion!

He spent most of the car ride asking, “Are we there yet??” like a child. The MC had to step in to keep Lucifer from leaving him on the side of the road at multiple points during the journey... 

He was one of the utterly useless ones when it came to setting up camp. Someone charged him with putting up the twin’s tent, and he spent thirty minutes reading (then re-reading) the instructions while shouting expletives. Poor Simeon had to shield Luke from the vulgarity…

He has to share a tent with Levi, which neither of them liked. Mammon mainly because of Levi’s “old fish stink” and Levi because he feared catching “Mammon’s stupid.”

He was all jazzed up to go digging from Day One, though. He’d have breakfast, grab his shovel, then wander out into the middle of nowhere to go dig holes in the ground…

He also got completely lost on Day One, and it took the MC summoning him with their pact to return him to the group... By that time, he was filthy and somehow looked like he had been castaway for days (even though he was gone for like, three hours?)

When he stubbornly refused to stop digging, Lucifer resorted to just tying a rope around his ankle and letting him loose. It was up to Mammon to get back to camp before dinner, or else Lucifer would yank him back like he was on a leash.

Satan waited until the last day to finally tell Mammon the treasure was bullshit, and he was PISSED. He even threw Satan into the river, which resulted in the rest of the brothers joining in for a swim while the two tried to “playfully” drown each other.

He’d rate this trip 0/10 because he didn’t get any buried treasure. What a ripoff…

Leviathan

Hated the idea with a burning, seething passion. There’s no internet, cable, electricity, or phone signal out in the middle of nowhere! How the heck is an otaku supposed to survive?!

He clung to his electronics during the car ride until either they ran out of signal or their battery died, then he didn’t know what to do with himself… He resorted to reading several volumes of the manga he stuffed into his bag and clung to the MC for emotional support…

Yet another useless soul trying to put the camp together. He was in charge of his and Mammon’s tent but ended up almost crying in frustration… How the hell do humans do this all on their own?? Wasn’t he supposed to be the third strongest?! Why is he so pathetic?!? 😫

Hates sharing a tent with Mammon because he always wakes up to the second born encroaching on his space somehow… Poor baby is pretty much directly against the tent wall and STILL has to deal with legs and elbows in his side... 😰

Spends the majority of the trip moping in the tent... If he goes out there, he has to deal with the sun, bugs, and people… No thanks. He only leaves for meals and occasionally to go swimming. 

When he found out part of the way through that Barbs brought portable solar panels and a battery pack for Diavolo and Lucifer’s phones, he was livid. He demanded access to the power source, which Lucifer refused because “It would defeat the purpose of this trip.”

He’d have summoned Lotan right then and there, deadass in the middle of the forest, if the MC hadn’t intervened. He then went back to moping, but now at the bottom of the lake and it took a lot of coaxing to get him back out…

On the final day, he was packing up the camp before anyone else even woke up. He wanted OUT and back to civilization ASAP. Bedroom here he comes!

Satan

You wouldn’t think of Satan as an outdoorsy guy. Still, he has shades of a survivalist in him (mostly because he’s read a lot of guides and was looking for an excuse to use them for a loooong time).

He read for the majority of the ride. He was squished between Asmo and Levi, which was reasonably peaceful. But he did end up shouting at Mammon quite a bit towards the end because “NO, we’re not there yet, peabrain!!”

He actually wasn’t a waste of space when setting up the camp, and between him, Barbs, and Lucifer, they were able to get a lot of stuff set up before sundown. He did have to bark a few orders to the others here and there, but overall competency won out in the end.

He shared a tent with Asmo, and the two made it work well enough… Except when Asmo did things like spraying his perfumes and dry shampoos, making it practically impossible to breathe in for a few minutes…

Spent a lot of the first few days reinforcing the camp to a ridiculous degree.

Did he have to collect large branches to build an exterior fence around the campsite? No. But he did.

Did he have to set up a water distillation system using some of the materials Barbs had lying around the “kitchen?” No. But he did.

Did he have to weave a series of fishing nets to catch them lunch from the lake and river? I think you get the point by now.

Only once he built pretty much every contraption or improvement he could think of, did he go back to just reading and relaxing by the fire.

By the time the group was ready to leave, Satan had somehow managed to craft them a veritable, self-sustaining fortress in the middle of the Alaskan wilds…

Overall he would rate the trip as… meh. Next time give him a challenge like a deserted island or an actual desert, and then he’ll really see what he can do.

Asmodeus

Was about as unhappy with the idea as Levi was… It wasn’t that he disliked the outdoors per se, it was just that no one, NO ONE, pulls off looking flawless after several days stuck in a tent!

He chatted the entire car ride from start to finish. He never stopped talking. It made for decent background noise at least…

Was one of the more clueless ones when trying to set up camp and pretty just did what he was ordered. The second he was left to try and figure something out on his own, he went to Lucifer or Satan for help because NOPE. Human equipment is needlessly complicated sometimes…

He had to share a tent with Satan, which in theory shouldn’t have been that bad, but Satan was out basically all day in the sun doing who knows what and would always come back sweaty and gross! At some points, he had to chase his brother out of the tent until he dunked himself in the river or something. No way was Asmo sleeping next to that. 😤

Asmo took the second-longest to get up and get ready in the morning. Sometimes he wouldn’t even leave the tent until well past breakfast just in an attempt to salvage his hair and skin… He only got grouchier about it as the trip went on… 😥

A more… earthy looking Asmo is kind of a bizarre sight. He’s still attractive, no doubt, but it’s less like polished glamour and more like Hollywood humble. He spent the majority of the trip looking like a somewhat dirtied movie-star (which he still insisted was the worst he’s ever looked in ages).

Aside from salvaging his looks, he actually enjoyed taking pictures of their surroundings or of the group (but not himself). He sometimes forgot how genuinely breathtaking the human world could be…

….but his patience for the place wore out quickly once he started noticing his hair getting greasy. He was right next to Levi, packing up the site once it was finally time to leave. At least those two finally found something they could agree on, let’s get the fuck out already! 

Beelzebub

He was really curious about trying camping food and pretty excited that Barbatos was coming, too (because that meant great food in general).

Unfortunately, Lucifer had to stop the van at basically every gas station they passed for Beel could refill on snacks… Belphie ended up getting buried in wrappers pretty often, but he was asleep, so it didn’t matter much.

Beel did a lot of the heavy lifting when setting the camp up, but the finer details were left up to everybody else. He had his hands full getting stuff off the cars as is…

Of course, he shared a tent with Belphie, and there wasn’t much complaint between them. Honestly, there would have been more drama if they were split, so this was the better option.

After the MC told Beel about fishing and how it could net him more food, if he did it right, he knew exactly what he wanted to do during the trip.

… But no one told him how long and slow the process would be. There were points he’d get so hungry he’d consider eating the bait himself…

That was until about Day Three of the trip when they passed by a river full of grizzly bears… He was about to ask the MC why the bears were all standing in the water, but then he saw a fish practically leap directly into one’s mouth…

Beel had discovered his true calling.

Of course, the grizzlies didn’t take too kindly to a demon suddenly sprinting into the water with them. They tried to fight him off, but Beel just tossed most of them downstream without any issue until they realized who the apex predator really was…

After forming a shaky truce with the bears, Beel would stand in the water for hours then come back with whole baskets full of salmon… There were far more fish than Barbatos knew what to do with, so he’d just confiscate a few then let Beel eat the rest...

The MC shuddered to think about what Beel had done to the local salmon population… But he was full and happy for most of the trip, so he had a great time!

Belphegor

Sleep for him isn’t too contingent on location, so the idea of camping wasn’t terrible. It did sound like a lot of hassle for no good reason, though…

He spent the entire car ride asleep, head and cow pillow pressed up against the window and everything. It wasn’t the most comfortable experience, but he’d dealt with worse.

He was utterly useless when putting up the camp by choice, thank you. He had more than enough sense to get things put together; he just didn’t want to. If he wasn’t asked to do something by Beel or the MC, he’d just lay back in the grass and smugly watch everybody else struggle…

Again, he and Beel are in the same tent, and you wouldn’t hear any complaints out of him. He did start to have some second thoughts when Beel began getting a fishy smell, though, so he tried to bunk with the MC in their tent for a while.

Like Levi, Belphie didn’t leave the tent much during the daylight hours, but that was because he was still asleep… There was no good way to wake him with no alarms available, so he’d sleep in past lunch easily.

When he was awake, he didn’t leave camp very much except to walk with the MC or watch Beel fishing grizzly-style.

Eventually, Asmo and Diavolo got sick of him dodging their photos, so they’d started posing him Weekend at Bernie’s style around the camp (always conveniently propped up by something and with sunglasses on)

Something Belphie did like, however, was the nighttime. Since there were no lights around, he could practically see everything the sky had to offer. He could spend hours laying on his back long after everyone else had gone to bed just admiring the stars.

All in all, not a terrible trip. Anything that could give him that view like that was well worth it. 6/10, would sleep again.

Click HERE for Part Two. Check out my Masterlist for more!

[lilydalexf]

👽 X-Files Fic Recs: Novels, Part 5

Here are lots of very good novel-length X-Files fics to read! Need even more? Check out my earlier lists of novel recs. Enjoy! Part 1 ** Part 2 ** Part 3 ** Part 4 Abandoned and Apart by ML It's time to go. / I knew this day would come. I've known it for a long time. Achilles' Heel by FranTheWonderHorse Mulder is drawn into a group that claims to want to cast light on alien abductions An Alluring Indiscretion by Beduini and M. Taylor Harrison Um, Things you WON'T get in this story include; Slash,Scully/Skinner, Scully/Krycek, Death of one or more of our beloved heroes, Babyfic, Marriedfic, Rape, Alternate universe/Alternate Dimensions or anything like it. Unless, of course, you consider MSR Alternate Universe. You shouldn't be here if you do. Contact by @h0ldthiscat Unsure of the nature of their relationship, Mulder and Scully must work together when they receive an email from someone they thought was gone from their lives forever. Equilibrium by VivWiley How do you direct a manhunt for a man you know is no longer anywhere on the planet? Skinner and Scully hunt for Mulder post-Requiem. Failure to Die by Kel An undercover assignment lands Agent Jerry Luskin and his colleagues in a "cursed" hospital. Can Dr. Scully handle an emergency without calling for the paramedics? Just watch. The Fifth Column by Kemystre After the events of Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati, Mulder and Scully come to a crossroad in their relationship. The decision that Mulder makes will forever change their path together and quite possibly cost Scully her life. Gemma and Ancient Dreams by Kellie Matthews Mulder does some investigating while Scully is on vacation, and finds something other than psychic serial killers and little gray men. The woman he ends up with is a “finder” who attempts to help him locate a kidnapped child. // Scully goes to Ireland on a vacation, and discovers someone who challenges her skepticism, and provides some answers to who and what the Kindred are. Jack by Exley_61 At the age of innocence, a child witnessed the brutal murder of his mother at the hands of a monster. Ten years later, can Mulder and Scully prevent such brutality from happening again, risking more than their lives, but their hearts as well. . . . A Neurotic Need for Validation by Kel Perception is reality, for we do not interact directly with the world around us or even with ourselves. Nights of Shining Armor by Gina Rain A tale of shared dreams, fractured fairy tales and great expectations gone awry. In short, Mulder and Scully investigate a serial kidnapping case. Queen's Gambit by Suzanne Schramm Queen's Gambit: A chess strategy in which a player sacrifices key pieces in order to win. Sacrificing the Truth by DKSculder (@dksculder) After some time apart, Mulder makes a life-altering discovery that could change the course of his and Scully's lives forever. Will he make the right choice? She's Beauty, She's Grace by @sunflowerseedsandscience I was asked to write a Miss Congeniality/The X-Files mash-up… so here goes nothing. So Shall You Reap by Stephanie Davies Mulder is sent to the UK to investigate paranormal occurrences, and an old 'friend' returns The Way by KMNAHILL and MD1016 Scully becomes mysteriously ill. Mulder, Melissa, and Tao help to heal her. / On assignment in Chicago, Scully's illness progresses. / An assignment in Oregon turns out to be more than first expected. Humorous antics from the Lone Gunmen. / Samantha returns and isn't what Mulder had expected. With or Without You by Invisigoth421 What if Scully had not been returned in "One Breath"? Even 10 years later Mulder feels as though he can't live without her. But what would it do to his life if she returned 10 years later? Up the Ladder by RivkaT (@rivkat) Marita comes through for Mulder, giving him what he wants most. But twenty-five years haven't brought as many changes as he might have thought, and her gift might be more dangerous than anything he's faced to date. And what's up with those bees? A potpourri of Conspiracy elements with many old favorites present.