#verse: after midnight

[formorethananame]

but you are the only exception.

@weedzkiller

[formorethananame]

How long are these rounds supposed to last? Stormy doesn't know. He doesn't really care, either. He also doesn't care about how sweaty he's getting, not when he's having so much fun. "Break!" Stormy shouts, falling back against the bar behind him. "My god, give me a break! Don't you ever stop, you monster?!" The sound of Jiho's laughter has been ringing in his ears since he was dragged into the room, beautiful and bright and happy.

❝ you can have as many kisses and gift cards as you want, ❞ jiho answers with a grin, something devious behind it. that should be a warning sign enough on its own -- jiho's bank account is healthy enough, but he does still live in a dorm his company pays for... ❝ because you're not gonna beat me! me and yongjoo were the undefeated champions on over half these songs for three years! ❞ he's sure he has some videos of it somewhere, teenage yongjoo before he'd hit his growth spurt, letting out all that excess energy on some 180bpm song. ❝ good luck, babe! ❞

[akirakirxaa]

Auraugust Day 15: Giant

"In the darkness, she could feel a power pulling at her, trying to drag her down, to what she couldn’t be sure. But as Akira wondered at how she was resisting it when, even in this darkness, she was drained of everything she had, she realized she wasn’t resisting it — something else was."

-- An Echo Calling Me, an AU where Hythlodaeus and Hades decide to return after Ultima Thule.

[pinehutch]

The Silt Verses my absolute beloved: I'm relistening and was so excited to get back to Chapter 17, and the way that most of the episode just sweeps over you with an unexpected degree of kindness. Important to be reminded that kindness — or something like it — is possible, even in this brutal world.

[fandomunsexyman]

Some things I've noticed about media that I've recently enjoyed.

[formorethananame]

It hurt Stormy, seeing Beomseok hurting like this. He was too gentle for this world. Too delicate and soft. It brought out Stormy's protective instincts like nothing else ever could.

"I know you've been trying," he murmured, giving Beomseok's hands a gentle squeeze. "And I know it hasn't been easy. Isn't there something else I could do to help?" Stormy looked up at Beomseok and raised a brow. "You could come stay with me. Your parents have no idea where I live or who I even am, they'd never find you there."

His words resonated in his mind, a constant reminder of the internal struggle he faced. For years, Beomseok had tried to convince himself that he hadn't done anything wrong. Yet, despite his efforts, he couldn't escape the disappointed glances that seemed to follow him everywhere. Sometimes, the reasons for their disappointment were unclear, even to him. And to add to his burden, his very existence seemed to be a disappointment in itself, a heavyweight he carried since childhood.

Beomseok remained silent, neither confirming nor denying his words. Some days, he was certain of his innocence, but on others, like that day, doubt crept in. With a deep breath, he focused on the gentle pressure of the hands that held his own, using the touch as an anchor to the present moment.

"Yes," he began, his voice steady but tinged with vulnerability. "But it hasn't been easy distancing myself from my family. As you saw… Though I wish you hadn't… My father somehow always finds me."

@formorethananame

[graunblida]

happy halloweenie my friends! after a few errands, i'll be around until the evening to answer asks and work on drafts! might give this bitch another marvel verse stay tuned 👀

[huccimermaidshirts]

.

[crosseddestiny]

↪   ᵀᴴᴱ 𝑀𝐼𝐶𝐾 .    (  a  series  of  sentence  starters  from  season  1  of fox’s sitcom ,  “ the mick ” .   adjust  phrasing  as  necessary . will be updated !) | accepting!! @theseancekid sent:  knock - knock … can i come in ? (for Manfred hehe)

"Babe. You don't even need to knock..."

[formorethananame]

ain't no budget when i'm on the set.

[clarafell]

❝ Being a practiced liar doesn’t mean you have a powerful imagination. ❞ - yachiyo <3

The Golden Compass Starters / Accepting / @nagarese

Homura can feel her heart seize up in utter panic as soon as tall woman speaks up, dazzling with confidence. She is new to this unfamiliar city, this alleged utopia where no one turns into witches, and already out of her element. She doesn't know where to go, but she has a mission to try to complete. She is caught by the woman's words, but her remark isn't what entirely makes her freeze in her tracks. She knew this woman... No, that wasn't right.

She may have spent her life trapped in hospitals, but she has seen her face before. Yachiyo Nanami is speaking to her. The same Yachiyo that rose to fame as one of Japan's brightest models, blessed with beauty and intelligence and... Well, everything that she lacked. Homura is flooded with the memory of these snazzy parents talking to one of their ill daughter about how they would have the dazzling Yachiyo to come visit the hospital... Just to make their child feel better. They looked like they had enough wealth to make it happen, but Homura never got to witness whether that incident occurred or not. The memory is still capable of stinging her where it hurts in her lonely heart, but Yachiyo's words were even more piercing.

She has seen the woman's face in many fashion magazines. Homura was always struck in awe and jealousy each and every time she saw Yachiyo, but... It wasn't the model's fault. No, Homura always felt like that whenever she saw popular people. The well-liked people that made every little thing look easy always did crush any joy in her heart whenever she tried to better herself. She has always compared herself to others, including whenever she wore something new or try out any form of hobby.

She was always greedy... Always longing...

Always, always, always lying to herself.

❝ I don't... I don't understand... ❞ Homura forces the words out of her mouth, even though she knew they must sound stupid. She stares at the woman with wide eyes, unsure on whether she was being insulted or... Cryptically warned? She already knew she wasn't a good liar. She certainly knew she didn't have an imagination.

❝ Are you speaking to me? ❞

There is to be some kind of mistake!

[tesserat]

This was gonna be a way longer post

Anyway, so I wanna hear everyone else's opinions:

Are Peter One, Peter Two and Peter Three the same person... or are they closer to brothers?

[stormxpadme]

A little thing for @sneakymystique's birthday. Hope you enjoy it <3.

Thank you dear @effervescentdragon for last minute betaing even when I'm entirely incapable of doing something in time for once. Love ya lots!

"Hey, furball, thought we agreed about the off-limit parts of the house." When Scott spotted a sinewy, four-legged shape pass by his Honda, its stripe-shades blurring with the colors of his glasses which revealed which one of the two cats living at the Mutant High right now it was, he seriously considered for a moment if the interruption was even worth it, lifting his overtired body from that damn creeper.

Morpheus was probably just chasing some rodent anyway and would vanish in the stable again before Scott could even get to him. But sadly that little shit could never be trusted with not licking or chewing something definitely not meant for feline stomachs, and the last thing Katja needed right now was worrying about a family member ending up in the sick bay. Besides, the animal had stopped somewhere by the cars, hissing at something loudly, so the feeble attempt of at least an hour of undisturbed, dull work in silence could be filed as another failure.

"Alright, fleabag, that's e…" But then Scott forgot what he'd been about to say because when he straightened up from under his bike, turning to the vehicle in question, there was a woman lounging on the BMW's hood with crossed legs, far too scantily clad for a December night, chest thrown out, a playful smile on full lips that half a year or so ago, he might actually have fallen for.

"Have you tried talking meow?" By now, fortunately, Scott had more than enough experience with a certain hostile among his enemies posing as people close to him to not even need Morpheus' very clear warning – cats tended to have finer noses even than Logan, and Scott had never heard that damn pet hiss at Katja ever before. Not even the tired realization that for all her skill, such a broad Bavarian accent as in his partner's voice, Mystique still had problems copying a hundred percent. There was also the sober fact that the last time Katja had looked at him like that, with intentions in mind not exactly hard to guess, had also been months ago.

Which this woman should actually know best, thinking about it. Fortunately, she was wise enough not to try and provoke him any further when he raised his hand to his glasses, unfazed, more than ready to sacrifice his current favorite ride if it also stopped that fucking bitch from entering his home like she had a right. She quickly raised both hands, already changing back to her true, scaly, nude shape, as some kind of peace offering probably. Which after recent events felt cynical enough to get nauseous. "Easy there, One-Eye. I'm just here to talk. Not like I could have knocked, is it?" No, it wasn't. And there was also no way Mystique had come here in the shape of one of them, not with recent security updates aimed exactly at this woman's powerful mutation, including daily alternating voice verification at all gates.

But Scott decided he could look into that new defense gap once he'd gotten rid of his enemy, and preferably without the pupils realizing there was trouble in here again. "Full lockdown. Cat: Danger Room, now. Team: Garage." Ignoring Mystique's ridiculous claim, he tried to call the others in with the help of his watch but was faced only with a hectically blinking flash of error signals.

"Don’t bother. Jammer." Mystique casually tapped her wrist where there was a small bulge showing under flesh and skin, making it very clear that no help was coming for the moment unless Charles decided to actually open his nonstop-busy mind to his people again for a change, enough to get a mental distress call through to him.

Not that Scott would have minded on principal shooting right through that hand mockingly waving at him there but experience had taught him painfully enough how tedious and risky every attempt at close combat with this woman was. Not to mention that this bitch wasn’t worth it, making a mess of one of his favorite places in this house and the expensive things stored therein if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Listening to her bullshit for a minute would probably leave less of a headache. "We've got nothing to talk about unless you guys all spontaneously decided to turn yourselves in for various crimes against humanity."

Mystique's amused grin only grew. "So they can take us to whatever prison needs a facelift this time? Eventually, they'll run out of facilities. Sit. None of us is interested in fighting you guys right now."

"Could have fooled me." Scott crossed his arms in front of his body, with his fingertips never far from the edge of his glasses, shuddering demonstratively when Mystique nodded down on the hood next to her. "And no, thanks. I'll be busy enough sanitizing and recoating that E38 as it is, once you got your ugly backside off it."

"You weren’t so picky about my ass a couple of weeks ago," Mystique shot back but showed another peacemaking gesture at the dangerous flash behind his glasses; this time, it looked almost sincere. "Right. Things didn’t go so well in November. That's why I'm here. Magneto feels he owes you one after what happened. He's come up with something that will help remedy something from your past."

"I'm pretty sure the remains of your last attempt of this kind are still drying in a certain maintenance room in the sewers," Scott replied harshly, the temptation to lower his glasses just enough to leave a very lasting impression at least for a day or so on that woman's body growing by the second. "I think I've had my fill."

Whatever Magneto had sent her really for, now Mystique's willingness to play along nice was rapidly waning as well. "As much as I enjoy taking credit for disaster: Anderson was your fuck-up, Summers."

"And you people stuck a key in his back, wound him up, and gave him a stage, so maybe find something else but that high horse of yours to get your ass out of here." Which, preferably, should happen before he'd reach the end of consideration with regard to the pupils' night sleep and a few luxury vehicles.

"Not yet. I told you, Magneto is good at apologizing when he wants to." Under his only tenser gaze, Mystique turned another small swelling on her bare body, around her navel, into a hidden pouch and got out half a dozen identical devices hardly bigger than a coin, kindly wrapped in sterile plastic, that she put down next to her on the car. "Magneto reduced the effects of his reversal weapon to a low, constant setting and compressed it into these. They got an off-switch. You wear one of these, you can keep your quartz shields open until you actually need your blasts."

"I told your lover before, Darkholme, I don’t need his help." The growing headache throbbing behind his eyes didn’t exactly agree with Scott's instinctive refusal of something entirely out of the question, but that might more come from the fact that this woman was still sitting here, talking to him as if she hadn’t had an executive hand in almost getting his partner killed a few weeks ago. He'd seen the kind of partnerships the Brotherhood liked to enter from up close too often to even take a look at anything that would have put him within debt's reach of someone like Magneto of all people. "Besides, if you've got something to sell, I think Charles is still in his office. Lehnsherr hasn’t suddenly discovered charity ambitions. So why don’t you tell me what you really want from me so I can say no and blast you back to where you came from?"

"So rude …" Mystique finally got off the car, never giving that bag another look, and approached him with swinging hips, that ice-cold, unimpressed smile on her lips, as if he didn’t need to lower his glasses only an inch to rip that current shape of hers to pieces. By now he knew this woman's speed and agility well enough to know that wouldn’t have been as easy as she was trying to make it look; but if she was betting on some nebulous code of honor of Scott's kind preventing such a first attack on his part, she underestimated a lot what it could do to someone, being too late to protect a loved one. "It's not terribly complicated, Summers. We're only asking that we all put down our weapons for a while. Recent events showed that both sides can only lose if we don’t resolve that little disagreement of ours. Why don’t you take a couple of weeks off? From how your little sidekick looks, you two can use it. Enjoy that little gift of ours, take care of your family affairs, and keep your nose out of our business for a while. I promise you by the time you're back, you'll like this world a lot better."

"Get the fuck out of my house." It was an insultingly primitive deception, and if he'd had any more physical or mental energy reserves, Scott thought he might have tried harder to look behind it. But more strength than to get all his jobs at Mutant High done had been notoriously absent from his life ever since November. He simply couldn’t be bothered to care about the Brotherhood's delusional warmongering when his private life had just fallen to pieces around him. "I assume you'll find the way. If not Logan will be happy to show you."

"Oh, you two are on a talking basis again?" Mystique's bright eyes promptly lit up in sadistic delight. "What does Xavier have on the guy to still be able to keep him around? Or is it just that people around you have a habit of dying that makes life here so attractive for the feral? Maybe you'll actually find a way to relieve that rabid animal from its existence next ..."

"I'm gonna have to disappoint you on that, Darkholme," Scott answered tonelessly, the slight but undeniable shaking of his hand at this point no longer coming from that constant readiness to free his mutation from its cage. If that woman had learned anything about him in the last ten years, she should know that now was a really good time to shut her dirty mouth. "Unlike you people, we don’t kill for sports. But I can still make this a really unpleasant evening for you if you insist."

"Let's save it for next time you're being a pain in our ass." Faster than Scott could realize that there had been something else in that damn flesh pouch, his enemy jumped from his sight with a weightless spin, right hand aimed his way, a hated, well-known stinging sensation hitting him straight in the chest before he could make his shot, and the lights went out.

*****

Raven comfortably landed on all fours, a night-grey feline shape as easily having crossed the Institute wall as she'd climbed it to get in, and turned her body back into human shape, stretching her limbs with a little grimace, shaking a hint of fatigue from it. Compressing her silhouette into something that small and foreign in proportion and motion was a little more challenging than impersonating people even for her gift, but just for those few minutes of seeing one of her most enemies in such a miserable condition, the little trip had been worth it. "Lockdown is controllable by the mobile device they all got on them," she explained shortly after sitting down in the car Erik was waiting for her in around the corner. "Voice command. Shouldn’t be a problem. Team dynamics are even more fucked up than at Alkali Lake. And they think we're still after the blood source. They have no idea what's coming." Which didn’t mean those people wouldn’t be a problem once Erik and she launched the final phase of their current plans but they would be considerably easier to deal with than in the past. For that, in spite of all that psychopath had done, they almost had to be thankful to Anderson.

"We will see." Erik didn’t come up with optimism regarding his former people easily these days anymore either. All the more outrageous it was that he still was unwilling to give up on those halfwits. "Did you leave them the reversal chips?"

"Waste of good titanium and processing power," Raven growled, resting her feet on the dash to kick at it impatiently. "The boy's gonna blast them to pieces the moment he wakes up. You need to say goodbye to the idea that these people will ever be on our team."

"Not on our team, no." His thin lips tight, Magneto threw a quick glance back through the mirror at that mansion he'd said goodbye to all these decades ago but never really left. "But they will be part of that world we are creating, Raven. And in this world, we will not turn our back on any mutant, no matter how hostile. No more sacrifices."

Raven preferred to keep her mouth shut at that because Erik knew, this was a promise she couldn’t give anyway, not when her team and the X-Men would meet in battle again doubtlessly soon. But while she had never thought a lot of atonement herself: After the events last month, she was at least willing to give these people a little bit of a break until that happened.

[blightcd]

shorter felassan specific starter call so i can try writing him? hmm? 👀?

[rosyredlipstick]

mariah carey is soooo conchell-coded

[gbrnth]

Time seemed to drag since Melissa (or rather, Lilian) was taken by Basch to the hospital room where his twin brother had been recovering following the Battle of Rabanastre. The Dalmascan guard had met with her before, in Bhujerba - back then, it had been the dancer who sought him out after realizing how similar he looked to Gabranth, unaware of the fact he had a twin; months later, after the war, it had been the knight who retrieved her at the Sky City to bring her to his bed.

Noah had been calling for her, he explained - albeit under the name they had met under. Basch was no fool - he had put two and two together considering Lilian's interest in his looks in the past, combined with his feverish twin asking for someone. Their relationship hadn't been public for long - and certainly it wasn't known to the general population in Dalmasca - so the fact that Basch had gone through the trouble of finding her showed how deeply he cared for his brother.

Lilian was almost never absent from his room - the Bhujerban guarded his sleep, and held out a hand whenever Noah asked for it, aware of her physical presence there or not. The woman conversed with the doctors, sang lullabies and old folkloric tunes of her homeland to him, updated the man on the idle news of times of peace.

When the judge did awake - she wasn't sure if he had his wits about him, or if it was another fever dream. At any rate, the moment his eyes focused on her, Lilian held his hand with incredible tenderness, allowing the tears forming on her face to roll freely - physical contact was more important than wiping the moisture away.

"Hello, my dear," she murmured, head canting to the side to take a better look at him and dragging herself (alongside the chair) as close as she could to the bed, one hand letting go of his but only because Lilian was desperate to feel his face, to comb his (now grown) hair away and ensure that tender proximity as best as she could. "I'm here. I'll be here for as long as you need me to, kanta."

UNSCRIPTED ASKS

Noah's last coherent memory following the battle in Rabanastre's airspace was his brother; placing him under the Dalmascan healers' care with urgency. After they had administered their remedies - and the pain was reduced to a tolerable level - the injured Judge fell into a feverish state; drifting in and out of consciousness- exhaustion and the wounds caused by Vayne as well as Basch's companions finally taking their toll.

In his dazed condition he was unable to differentiate between reality and imagination - hallucinations brought to life by his subconscious mind. The voice of Melissa; speaking softly, singing in a foreign language he believed to be Bhujerban - only a fabrication of his head, incapable to finally let go. Her words filled the void surrounding him, yet he barely understood the meaning behind them.

Noah couldn't recall her real name  - given to him alongside the revelation of treachery; Melissa being nothing but a mask to hide her real identity as a spy for Ondore. Yet it didn't matter - she was far gone; another fleeting memory to add to his agony. His aching heart may indulge in this feverish dream for now.

He opened his eyes eventually - searching the small hospital room, focusing properly for what felt like an eternity. His gaze fell on the woman in a chair next to his bed - briefly wondering if he was still dreaming. Melissa's fingers were curled around his weakened hand, offering warmth and enough contact to keep him together. Raising her free hand she caressed his face, the touch so familiar and longed for.

This wasn't a fabrication of his mind, he realized. She was really there.

Tears glistened on her reddened cheeks; the words falling from her lips a testimony to lingering emotions. How long had she been here; sitting beside his bed and waiting for him to wake? Thousands of words were in his head; things he wanted to tell her - yet he didn't know how to start. In an effort to sit up Noah pushed himself into an upright position - only for the pain to return alongside his senses, albeit dulled by the medication. With a groan he found a more comfortable position; a shaking hand reaching out to cup her cheek, tenderly wiping the tears away.

"Please don't cry", he muttered, voice still hoarse from days of silence. "You're my sunshine; I don't want to cause you this much grief." Although he had pushed her away she was still there. "I dreamed of you - supposing this was all my imagination. How long have you been here?"