#where they have to rely on cute alien creatures

[maideninorange]

"Go away. Quit staring. You guys are starting to annoy me.

...At least you're kinda cute."

Day 12 of Piktober was Crossover. I am not participating too heavily in the event (as I do not have the brain for it this year), but I did wanna get in a couple days, one of which is today's prompt.

This is Tsubakura Enraku from Len'en Project, a Touhou inspired work where just about everyone's gender is left up to player interpretation. I have a whole Len'en/Pikmin AU in my head, but for now this piece will work as a clue of what to expect were I to ever go any further with it.

Tsubakura themself though is...a poor choice for a Pikmin protagonist lol. They're too lazy. They are funny at least.

[elizabethrobertajones]

FFXIV Write 2024

6. Halcyon

“Aha! I found you!”

“I wasn’t hiding,” Erenville said calmly, paused mid-stroll across the Sharlayan Aetheryte Plaza in the bright midday sun.

“Nevertheless, I have something for you.” Bounding Frog smiled at him, and there was a strange glint in her eyes.

That made him pause. The Warrior of Light had been popping up around him all month since she��d recovered from her unspeakably epic quest to save the universe. For some reason she appeared to be coping by demanding to know if he knew about various Gyr Abanian river frogs and toads. He heard she’d had a rather intense confrontation and the various versions floating around in Sharlayan gossip of how she’d got that far all spoke to a gruelling and emotionally fraught struggle filled with loss and pain; he had to assume this new hobby was a manifestation of a healing mind and so he had been as gentle as he could with her strangely aggressive requests.

However, he was on his lunch break, and if she handed him an enormous fire-breathing rock toad to care for, he was not going to have time to eat his sandwich and make sure a surprise amphibian was handed off to someone who could catalogue it and find space to safely house it in the collection. He was going to have to draw a line somewhere.

“What is it?” he asked, narrowing his eyes to look her up and down. Her arms were behind her back but she didn’t appear to be struggling against holding a living creature.

She brought her arms forward with a little flourish, to reveal a three yalm long green feather, curling gracefully and dappled with many iridescent flashes of colour along its incredible length. “Guess what this came from!” She handed it over with a huge grin.

It was heavier than he had expected, the whole thing glossy with a sheen of oil and the barbs thick and a little crystalline; the greenness seemed to be a wind aspected coating, presumably to help hold the creature aloft, since the shaft was too thick, the hollowness inside only as narrow as the average dodo quill scholars bought in bulk. It wouldn’t have been able to fly without the aetheric adaptation.

He turned it in his hands, and glanced up. Bounding Frog’s face had gone from smiling to rather smug.

“This is from your adventures,” Erenville said slowly, weighting the feather in his hands again. “I know you went to the far edge of the universe and saw many alien things… But this feather is too like the ones our own birds on Hydaelyn grow. I doubt it’s alien in nature and you’re hoping I get swept up in the tales of the Scions’ great mission.”

She looked surprised. “Where then –” she rallied.

He held up a hand. “I also heard from Dickon that you alone went to the very birth of our Star, and saw the cradle from where life was made. As fanciful as that sounds, I would not doubt this feather was an early attempt at Creation before flight was fully perfected as a mechanical process, relying instead on plying it with aetheric advantages to become airborne. This is from an early bird.”

Bounding Frog visibly deflated and sank down several ilms. “Aye, ‘tis from a Bird of Elpis,” she mumbled. “Do you want it or not?”

“Of course. I am not prone to extravagance but this will make a most entertaining quill.”

“Ugh, fine! I’ll get you one of these days.”

“What?”

“Huh? Never mind!” She threw her hands in the air, and strode away, as suddenly as she had arrived.

He shook his head, baffled, and carefully threaded the long tail feather through the side of his pack for safe keeping. Still, he couldn’t help smiling. It reminded him of the incomprehensible way a cat might bring a gift, only to become furious when you let the mouse back out the door rather than eat it yourself.

It was almost cute, except for the veiled threats.

[aokozaki]

Pikmin is one of the most series of all time. Stranded alone on a mysterious alien planet (clearly a far future Earth), tiny alien astronauts must rely on the Pikmin to survive, little plant-based creatures with a strong hive based, cooperative mentality.

And it's a really cute game. Adorable and sweet.

But also it's a game where Pikmin will die and die and die. They'll be eaten by bigger creatures. They'll drown. Be burned. Exploded. Electrocuted.

It's a real time strategy game about multi-tasking, and delegating tasks to your Pikmin to accomplish many tasks under a time limit. Perfect runs of minimum number of days are hard. And harder still - almost impossible - is clearing the game without losing Pikmin.

They'll die. You'll lose them. It's inevitable, really.

And yet, despite this. They do not begrudge you one bit. Pikmin are naturally cooperative, and work in groups to complete tasks. They're just happy to have a leader who can delegate, and they know, they know that you never meant for any of the losses.

They'll still love you forever, because you're doing your best. They'll always sing their Song of Love.

[silverhart-makes-art]

This week's Bestiary Posting is a whole menagerie of mammals. Again, labeled version and short descriptions of my thoughts below.

Shmeashagg - needed to be mottled, I also gave it giant claws on it's forepaws so it can "kill at a single bound". Trying to make it look like it could be the parent of a leopard while trying to make it less lion-like. Goggaerker - a bit more of a dynamic pose of it being stuck in a bush; saw-tooth horns, and big fuzzy ears. Brotkarske - a tiny goat with a markhor-style horn, and long legs Revklogwat - I decided to draw a bird since it's feathered and has wings, but I turned it's wings into forelegs. I also gave it ear tufts like a praire chicken, because they're one of my favorites. Shrobshong - was trying to think how horns are supposed to protect you from falling. I went with big curling ibex horns so the animal can never land on it's head and die. Rest of the animal was a combo of a bull and a takin, with a big nose to warm the air up in it's mountain home. Biklanokyo - this one really turned out looking like an alien. Went with a pose/body reminiscent of a horse. Since it needed to carry a huge horn it needed a think neck, and of course, elephant feet and a deer tail Nutogsheag - I don't know where I was going with this one. Just slapped all the mentioned features on it and gave it a long neck for fun. It's got weird protruding cheek bones like an entelodont, or a warthog, but I don't know why - that's just what I was feeling. Raenwegguk - when I thought of animals that embody wildness to me, especially those found in forests, I thought of wild boar and wolves. Smush the two together and add some extra tusks and you get this noble fellow. Klosweisht - originally meant it to be a sort of hyena-like beast, and some of that is still there, but the mention of horns made me redraw the head and legs as more gazelle-like. It's terrifying when it opens it's mouth and I love it. Kregichmon - pouring through the 'what animal groups haven't I drawn' I happened on 'giraffe-moose with bull horns'. Thokragosk - just a puny little friend. Based on a rodent, but the face turned out a little more like a raccoon, which is cute. Kamyaweneg - just a weird little mole. I had the marsupial mole in mind with their weird fleshy snout and sort of extended it into a helmet for this little guy. I know it doesn't have eyes, but I put a dot where I thought an eye would be, because otherwise it's hard to even figure out what this thing is. Moles are just weird. Extremely successful, but weird. Ghrastasag - so the rest of these are primates and I'm gonna be honest: I don't like drawing non-human primates. Even humans-primates tend to be low on the 'things i love to draw' list. So we're gonna have a lot of sketchy stuff heavily relying on references for these last critters. The lack of real description beyond 'ape' for these also is not helping. Ghrastasag is just a fuzzy baboon. Rigfengtog - another baboon, but this one's showing off it's fangs and is significantly less fuzzy. Ngibealgul - a shaggy gorilla creature. This one looks very thoughtful and solemn for some reason. Gerskatrea - these apes are said to have attractive faces, and the two most attractive primates I thought of off the top of my head, are the mandrill and the emperor tamarin. Hence, mandrill with a mustache. No one can resist a curly mustache. Maerdradli - I was pretty burned out at this point so... more of a doodle then anything, but it's an ape, and it's got a beard, and a fat tail, and I also gave it a droopy mustache because I felt bad for it.

[ushioliddell-blog]

Ask game :)List 5 things that make you happy and then ask this question to the last 10 people who liked and reblogged things from you.

-Webtoons, webnovel and mangas (make me pratice my English everyday. Make me buy the webtoon when it come in a paper version in French to support it. But not liking it when names are too complicated to memorize. My currently favorite trope ? A supposed reincarnated villainess (previous life in this body or in other world ) try to change her destiny. I made fun in a past of a serie of cliches novels (Harlequin collection, if you know ) but the truth is I m not better than people who read it since liké them, it's almost Always the same trope XD ).

-Fanfictions (currently starving to read the next chapters of two fics.... but waiting patiently.... )

-Fantasy setting in stories (Can read almost everything if in it it has magic, dragons, creatures.... And if fantasy is the most important. But I dont really like science fiction mixed with fantasy. The only Books of science fiction I love are dystopias ).

-Writing. I wrote things since i'm really young. Had written in the past poems,tragedy, fanfictions, my own fantasy projects. Never publish any of them (except my fanfictions ). I Always have scenes in my head about them. Currently things about my project (my AU Détroit becomes human x QSMP ) and a fantasy story that is for now just a story in my brain ).

-Videos Games. Especially games with a story liké Mass Effect or Life is strange. RPG like Pokemon or Honkai Star Rail, where it requieres only my brain and not any skills. I m not good at competitive or shooting games. My aim is really low. XD Beat them all like Genshin or Honkai (impact and star Rail ) I learned to like them when I learned how to beat the bosses and now that I have some good teams ( Navia, Furina Raiden Xghongli is pretty good but my favorite is Xiangling Kuki Barbara and the delivery girl in Inazuma. This team......Can resist many Machines ruins, I promise ! An another I have with Thomas, the little adept girl, Fischl and the heir in Liyue ). And....cozy chill game with cute graphics, Stardew in it, (but the Skull Crânes....anger me each time, currently ). MMO but I like to play......alone. so not really what it was supposed to be. I m Always picking classes with heal to not rely on anyone. XD And.. Adventure games. Or hybrid games with this tags. Pure survival game can bore me easily.

Bonus :

Books. I love books and their stories. I realize recently I am always picking books with darker settings than my sister and mother (who loves romance and stories set in villages, secret family, legacy of families...) or my friend. Cozy stories, easy romance, not my cup of team XD I love fantasy, magic, stories with heroes and villains not so cliches, Adventure mixed with romance. I love old Books too. One of my favorite author is Émile Zola, for instance. (And a darker setting, in it. Especially in Rougon Macquart cycle. Tell the story of a family and how their vice run in it. Each Time a character has no vices.....he died XD Told you it was dark setting ). But I dont like polars, stories with aliens, and pure science fiction novels.

[gingerontheside]

Disney Sea Pt. 2

Onto Arabian Coast! This area had a very obvious Alaadin theming, with camels and Arabian architecture as well as stores called Bazaars and more Middle Eastern and South Asian food choices. We did not spend long here, as the only attractions were Jasmin's Flying Carpets (think the Dumbo ride at Disneyworld), a carousel (which I never actually found but apparently was there), and a huge dark ride called Sinbad's Storybook Voyage. We skipped all of these in favor of going to Mermaid Lagoon faster, but I found out later that the Sinbad ride is considered one of the best dark rides in disney history. Oh well.

We hustled on over to Mermaid Lagoon, which had a few outdoor attractions such as Flounder's Flying Fish coaster (a little kid roller coaster, but delightful nonetheless), and Scuttle's Scooters (we did not go on this ride, it is a spinny ride I'm sure.) The real fun of Mermaid Lagoon was hiding within the massive Atlantis castle that drew us in in the first place.

Once inside, you went down a rather inconspicuous hallway until you entered a massive indoor cavern impeccably decorated to be a Little Mermaid seascape. This area was a welcomed respite from the rain, and actually had several rides, a restaurant, and shops. We only went on 1 of the 3 indoor rides, as the lines were fairly long and the rides did not look super interesting. I LOVED this indoor area as I had no idea it was hiding under our noses the whole time and gave us time to warm back up before venturing back out into the elements.

At last, we had made it to the final port; Mysterious Island. This was where the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride as well as the Journey to the Center of the Earth ride were located. This area was decorated like one would expect a steampunk boat would be decorated, with a huge mountain smack in the middle where the Journey ride was buried within. For the 20,000 Leagues ride, you walked down a fancy spiral staircase, descending down to the water level before going inside a cave where you boarded a submarine-esque vehicle and dove 'underwater' to explore the great unknown ocean. I thoroughly enjoyed this ride and all the cute underwater alien creatures that popped out and hid from the submarine.

(You can see the fancy spiral staircase here)

The Journey to the Center of the Earth ride had the longest line of the day, and it was pretty obvious why. This ride shot you through the imagined core of the earth in a minecart, where monsters awaited at nearly every turn to pop out and scare you with fire. For the final piece, the minecart was launched up and down several hills and even 'broke out' through the mountain and briefly exposed you outside before rocketing you back inside. This was my favorite ride, and arguably the most thrilling ride at Disney Sea.

Once finished with Mysterious Island, we looped back to American Waterfront to tackle the Toy Story Mania ride. Again, a very long line, but the ride itself is extremely interactive. Your goal is to shoot as many balls as you could from a little launcher attached to your cart and try to beat the score of your car companions. The trigger was a rope you would pull on the gun and make a little 'ping' noise, and our arms very quickly became tired, but it was a very fun ride regardless. After this we tried to go on the Tower of Terror ride, but as I mentioned they had shut down access to those who didn't have Premiere access. I'll never get over it, thank you for asking.

It should be noted that most of these rides had a pretty intense narration, which we were lost on us because of course it was all in Japanese. I do wonder if my experience would have been different had I actually understood any of the rides entirely rather than just relying on context cues.

After ALL of this, we had been at Disney for nearly 8 hours, and I was getting tired, cold, and cranky. We made a few more stops at shops, where I acquired an adorable Baymax plush that I love way too much, and we were on our way home.

There was a light show that was occurring on our way out, but since it was a rainy day, it was not nearly as fun as it was supposed to be. Rather than a ton of lights and dancers, it was sort of just a couple of billboard-like boats that circled the water with Disney characters standing on top and waving. It was cool but we were not super interested, so we left.

Overall, Disney Sea was not anything I expected. I did enjoy myself, and I thought the park was beautiful. There were moments that it felt like the real Disney 'magic' was missing, and a lot of the areas just kinda felt .... empty. Almost as though there should have been more attractions and there were not. If i was given the chance, I likely would not go back to Disney Sea, but i still had a delightful time nonetheless and if you're looking for a disney park experience unlike anything else in the world, this is where you should go.

[tobealostwanderer]

Padawan

Grogu and Din introduce Luke to a friend

-

Again, I wrote this late at night and I haven't proofread. I am not a great writer but I thought that this was adorable so I wanted to write it down. Slight DinLuke mentions. This story can also be found on Wattpad. Enjoy!

It was a peaceful day at the temple. The padawans had the day of so in turn, Luke had some time to relax. Grogu's adoptive father, a Mandalorian called Din Djarin, would come and pick Grogu up in a few hours to have a father-son day.

Luke knew that the Jedi of old didn't agree to attachments with other people, including parents. But something stirred in him when he first picked up Grogu all those months ago. The Mandalorian and Child had a deep connection that wasn't easily broken. Grogu was practically unmanagable when he joined the newly established Jedi temple, and it wasn't until he got his metal ball, a replacement from what he used to play with on his father's ship, and the promise that his dad would visit him soon that he cooperated in the lessons.

Din visited once every two months and Luke got to know the man behind the helmet a bit. After all, the Mandalorian gave his name to him, which he knew was not commonly done. A tiny smile krept on the Master's face as he remembered that day..

Shaking out of the memory, Luke got up from his desk chair and made his way to the sleeping chambers of his pupils. It was about time he got Grogu ready. There weren't many pupils in Luke's temple. His own nephew wouldn't join until he was old enough to show the signs of the Force, but he was certain that he would grow up to be a powerful Jedi.

Knocking on a wooden door at the end of the hallway, a happy coo was heard. Luke opened the door to see Grogu play with his metal ball. The metal was starting to look less polished because of the creature's clawed, green hands. This obviously didn't bother the little alien as he couldn't be parted with it. Through the Force, Luke could feel Grogu's happiness. He knew what today meant.

As if on cue, the loud rumbling of a spaceship could be heard. Grogu squealed and hobbled to his tiny window as fast as he could. The familiar form of the Razor Crest landed closeby. Luke picked up the green baby and smiled down at him.

"Let's go greet your father, little one" he said with a tiny smile. His robes whooshed as he turned around, his leather boots clicking on the tiles as he powerwalked to the entrance. He too was happy to see the Mandalorian again. He was like a friend to him, although not in the way Han is a friend to him. It felt like... more. Luke had to surpress it though. Some people still remembered the Jedi of old, and remembered their customs. Even though most had forgotten, he still needed to be an example to the galaxy.

As the black-clad man and baby stepped outside, the hull door of the spaceship lowered to the ground. A cloud of dust sprang up as the metal hit the ground. The beskar clad man was quick to make his way to the two people in the yard. Happy to see Grogu for a bit. Grogu, in turn, cooed loudly upon seeing Mando.

"He has been behaving very well. He is slowly picking up his lessons. Every day his connection with the Force grows stronger" the sandy haired man said as he stopped in front of the metal clad bounty hunter. "I'm happy to hear that" the bounty hunter said, stroking the baby's green ears affectionately.

Luke handed Grogu over to Din. "I hope to have him back by dinner-" "Actually," Mando interrupted the Jedi Master. "I was wondering if you would like to join us.. Just for today. I think Grogu would like it" to which the Child indeed cooed loudly, raising a clawed hand towards Luke. "I understand if you are busy but he- we would very much like it"

It wasn't often that he saw the beskar clad man in a nervous state. In fact, he can't remember if he ever got nervous before. But Din was moving his weight from one leg to the other and looking around anywhere but at Luke. It was kind of cute...

Luke stowed away his thoughts for now and just grinned at the tall man in front of him. "I would very much like to. I don't go on many adventures anymore. Let me inform my second in command and I shall join you" he said, staying professional even though there wasn't really any reason to be this professional to the man.

Din nodded and turned to his ship, carrying Grogu to it as Luke made his way to his second in command. He quickly relied the message that he would be gone for the afternoon but would hopefully return before midnight. As he finished instructing the Twi'lek female, he made haste to join the father and son on the ship.

It didn't take long for Luke to be settled in and Mando to start the ship. The planet on which he build the new Jedi temple becoming smaller until he felt the familiar lurch of lightspeed. It took a few seconds before Luke was comfortable enough to talk to the Mandalorian.

"Where are we going?" He first asked. He knew he could look into the Mando's head for answers, but he had too much respect to infiltrate the man's mind. "A planet called Corvus. It isn't the most comfortable planet, but we want you to meet someone." Din responded. Grogu gurgled happily and Luke could vagually make out what he was saying: "Very nice, she is. Helped us, she did".

"Who is 'she'?" Luke asked, more to himself than to the two other beings in the cockpit. But nonetheless Mando responded: "You will see, no need to ruin the surprise".

It took exactly two hours when they started to lower into the atmosphere of Corvus. Luke looked at the fires that spread through it. Like it was never meant to be a forest planet, but trees grew anyway just to burn down because of the drought. As they landed close by a walled village, the white mist was almost omenous as ashes hung in the air.

Luke sensed her. She was somewhere inside the village. She almost seemed familliar even though Luke was certain that he never felt such a Force signature before. Whoever she was, was powerful, and most likely has trained like a Jedi. He wondered if she was interested in joining the Jedi again.

Before he realised it, the trio was decending from the Crest and started to walk into the village. Luke followed Din like an uncertain puppy. Because even though he was strong, he felt very out of place on this planet.

It seemed like the crackling of far away forest fires were always heard. Other than that, and the trio's footsteps, the village was quiet. Not many people were out and about and those that were slunk into the background. Luke had no idea why but he had a feeling that Din has scared these people a little.

It wasn't a big village and soon they were met with double doors. They were already opened, seemingly jammed and melted into place by a familiar weapon. Luke's fingers subconsciously stroked his own Lightsaber as they passed through the beautiful garden and to the last and biggest home in the village.

Before Din could knock, the doors flew open and a Togruta woman stood in front of them. Luke could make out a few wrinkles in her face. Her eyes shone wisdom and loss and on her belt she had two 'saber hilts. Even though he had felt her presence before, he was surprised to see the two powerful weapons hanging from her belt.

"Mando, Grogu. It is very nice to see you again. I see you have found a Jedi to train him? Please, do come in" the woman's smooth voice said. The trio stepped into the home and followed their host to the living room. As they all sat down, Grogu playing with a piece of fabric on the floor, Din introduced the two.

"Luke, this is Ahsoka Tano. Ahsoka, Luke Skywalker." As the words left the Mandalorian's lips, the two people looked at eachother with wide eyes. "That's why you are familiar.. It is a pleasure, Luke, to finally meet you. I knew your parents..." She drifted off, thinking back to her Padawan time, thinking of 'her' Skyguy.

Mando had quietly taken Grogu with him outside to let the two Jedi talk. The moment Ahsoka had spoken, he felt like the two needed to speak in private, and havinf a babbling kid around wouldn't help them get to talking. This was a private moment, he knew.

Back with the two Jedi, Luke carefully placed his hand on Ahsoka's. "I have never met them.. truly met them. But I know they cared for you, miss Tano. Ben told me about you" he said, trying to comfort the Togruta woman. "Please," Ahsoka said "call me Ahsoka. And.. who is Ben, if you don't mind me asking? I don't think I've met one" her mind fluttered through memories, trying to remember a 'Ben'.

"My aunt, uncle and I knew him as Ben Kenobi, but his true name was Obi-Wan Kenobi." Luke said calmly. He could see one hundered emotions go through Ahsoka's eyes. Her Force signature seemed to pulse with the same emotions. Happiness, sadness, admiration, respect, hope, love and grief. "Master Kenobi... I... I felt him join the Force a while ago.." Ahsoka swallowed thickly. "He was a nice man. A very good General. Caring, but he never truly understood Anakin" Ahsoka smiled at a few memories that fluttered through her mind. So strong, that they were projected in Luke's mind. Visions of the start of the Clone Wars projected in his mind. A young Ahsoka standing next to a tall, dark haired man he assumed to be his father, Anakin, and a slightly shorter man with an auburn beard that looked very much like a young Ben Kenobi.

"Sorry" Ahsoka said, as the memories stopped playing. "I don't think back a lot to.. that time. I wish you could've met your father... I still cannot believe he changed to the Dark Side" Ahsoka sighed. She was about to stand up as Luke responded to her: "That is the thing, I have met him. In the end, I got to see him. The real him. Anakin. And though our moment was brief, his love was real, and I am glad to have met him" his words shocked Ahsoka. Tears pricked in her eyes as she looked around the room. "I want to believe you-" she whispered, the tears now streaming down her face.

"He is telling the truth" a voice behind them said. Turning around, the two were met with the blue Force Ghost of Anakin Skywalker. "My son is telling the truth, Snips" a smile formed on Anakin's face as he looked at his old Padawan with fondness.

"Skyguy..."

[diyeoracha]

IwaOi Fanfiction Masterlist with 90+ Works

Hello! In celebration accumulating over 290 bookmarks on my AO3 account featuring IwaOi, Haikyuu S4 part 2, and @haikyuuweek2020​ (Day 7 - Free Choice), I decided to create a masterlist of all of my favorite Iwaoi fics in order to keep myself organized as well as contributing to more traffic for those works! Works are split up into genres such as alternate universe (either not childhood friends or set on Earth), angst, canon compliant (post timeskip with spoilers), canon divergent (childhood friends but divergent timeline post timeskip), high school, and university au

Formatting update: Jan 13, 2021 (spacing is wonky on the mobile app!).

Fic update: Jan 7, 2021

This is incomplete as I got distracted while re-reading a lot of these and have only gone through half of my bookmarks, but feel free to check my own page here for the rest of them! I really do hope you guys enjoy reading these and leave comments and kudos! Please reblog and like so more people can enjoy

Titles marked with (♡) are my absolute favorites and there’s a chance I cried while reading them but otherwise they’re in alphabetical order

Alternate Universe

an allegory of all the things we could’ve been

Word count: 16k

Summary: “I don’t know anything about some red string,” Iwaizumi murmurs into the cracks of Oikawa’s skin, “or even about lifetimes or fate. But no matter where you are, I’ll find you. Gods or otherwise.” Reincarnation AU

And All the Prince’s Men

Word count: 65k

Summary: “Father only loves that which he owns, and I am the one thing that can never truly be his.” Royalty AU

Built a Temple in Me

Word count: 55k

Summary: Up the mossy mountain steps, past the komainu guardians and the faded red gate, and beyond the boundaries of the green shrine—that’s where the forest and the spirit world within it lies. That’s were Hajime met him, and where their story began.But intertwining of destinies can be ugly business, Hajime finds, when their first meeting begins with blood and the too-human eyes of a beast. God Oikawa AU

Quote: It fills his heart anyway, heals the hole in his chest that had been bleeding since he cut Tooru so forcibly from him.

Cotton Breathing

Word count: 13k

Summary: Long-distance and summer only but childhood friends AU

Conquering the Great King

Word count: 105k

Summary: Oikawa's lips twitched into a smirk and he brought them hovering just over Iwaizumi's, "One time thing, Two time thing, what's it matter as long as it's not a Relationship thing?"

Quote: Oikawa's eyes twitched wide for less than a second, his knee pressed in hard against Iwaizumi's thigh, "I may be gorgeous, but I'm not a doll."

dear diary, i met a boy

Word count: 15k

Summary: Iwaizumi's first impression of his upstairs neighbor involves getting woken up at two in the morning to the sound of Oikawa singing along to trashy pop music. He'd thought it would get better, but it all just goes downhill from there. Modern AU

Desperado

Word count: 82k

Summary: Clearly Iwaizumi had a checkered past. Kyoutani has never asked about it, nor has Iwaizumi ever brought it up. He knows it’s a sore spot for his mentor, just like the gorgeous Monte Carlo he keeps hidden away is, so he leaves it alone. Out on the streets, you learn a little something about when to turn a blind eye in order to survive; Kyoutani knows better than most to leave the past of men like Iwaizumi well alone. Heist AU

Even Heroes (have the right to dream)

Word count: 20k

Summary: Oikawa Tooru, ace reporter of the superhero beat of Asahi Shimbun, hates superheroes. Or maybe he just hasn’t met the knight one yet. Superhero AU

♡Infinite Risks

Word count: 8k

Summary: “It’s my fate,” Oikawa responds slowly. He’s crying. “It’s too lonely,” Iwaizumi’s heart sounded broken. “And I’m not there with you. Not really.” Edge of Tomorrow AU

In Defense of Reptiles

Word count: 9k

Summary: In their seventh year, Oikawa is chosen to be the Hogwarts champion in the Triwizard Tournament, and Iwaizumi suffers. Harry Potter AU

Quote: “You are so spoiled,” Iwaizumi tells him, but lets him shuffle down until Iwaizumi’s hand is now running through Oikawa’s hair instead of rubbing his shoulder.

In the Telling

Word count: 6k

Summary: Muggleborn Iwaizumi could not be less impressed with pureblood Oikawa Tooru. Harry Potter AU

♡Lockdown

Word count: 72k

Summary: Within the first few months of his stay, Oikawa gets caught up in a war between cellblocks, becomes a prime target, and must decide just how far he's willing to go to protect Iwaizumi Hajime. Prison AU

♡long nights, no peace

Word count: 18k

Summary: It's the steady knowledge that Iwaizumi Hajime will always be someone that he can rely on, that no matter what the world throws at the two of them, they share in a piece of each other's soul. Pacific Rim AU

Quote: Quiet settles between them softly, like the warm pressure of the blanket, or Iwaizumi's fingers curling to lightly hold the fabric of Oikawa's shirt.

The Long Light

Word count: 36k

Summary: Iwaizumi Hajime's seventh year at Hogwarts begins, and begins, and begins, and begins. Somehow, Oikawa Tooru is always there. Harry Potter AU

Magic Man

Word count: 12k

Summary: Oikawa is named the most desirable wizard in France. Iwaizumi is not impressed. Harry Potter AU

Quote: You keep saying partner or them. Is it rude of me to ask you to clarify?

Meet me in the grey area

Word count: 24k

Summary: Set in a hero/villain AU with Iwa as our trusty hero and Oikawa as our charming villain

Saw You at the Fish Market

Word count: 14k

Summary: In other words, Oikawa befriends hot part-time worker Iwaizumi and tries to impress him both off and on the court, in hopes of more.

♡♡ (sing with me) A Song of Conquest and Fate

Word count: 26k

Summary: When Seijou receives a missive from Aobajousai to discuss a potential peace, its emperor Oikawa Tooru could not have foreseen the series of events that would follow. Historical fantasy AU

Similar Creatures

Word count: 53k

Summary: "What's your name?" "Whatever you want it to be."(Or, Oikawa gets directions from an attractive stranger on a street corner.). Escort AU

♡Something Like Us

Word count: 28k

Summary: Friends since childhood, Oikawa and Iwaizumi now live together, both playing for the National Team. It's no secret that athletes who are bonded perform better. So if the two of them happen to bond...It'd be for the good of the team, right? A/B/O AU

Space

Word count: 44k

Summary: Tries not to think of his rooftop garden, or the apartment he used to inhabit, or Hajime’s broken expression on the night they whispered their goodbyes before Tooru’s launch, attempting to push it all to the back of his mind behind visions of this alien world terraformed. Astronaut AU

Stop the Time

Word count: 10k

Summary: Iwaizumi Hajime, 27, E.R. nurse at University of Tokyo Hospital. Hospital AU

♡♡The Loyalty of A Traitor

Word count: 76k

Summary: Iwaizumi Hajime was an undercover officer with a single objective: Infiltrate the Seijoh Syndicate of the Yakuza and tear them down from the inside out. His primary target was the boss, Oikawa Tooru. The job itself was simple enough, until Iwaizumi got in too deep and absconded not only from the mission, but from the city itself. Yakuza AU

These Flowers I Stole For You

Word count: 3k

Summary: ANBU don't cry. They tear themselves apart, bit by bit, and then they stitch themselves whole again. Naruto AU

on shipwreck shore

Word count: 8k

Summary: “I’m going to murder you in cold blood and feed you to the basilisks,” Iwaizumi says conversationally. “You can’t do that, I’m your boss,” Oikawa sings, positively sparkling. “Also we’re partners, which means,” he points at Iwaizumi and leans in, “you’re stuck with me.” Detective AU

Page 305 of 304

Word count: 53k

Summary: “…she called you ‘papa’,” iwaizumi managed. oikawa just stared for a moment longer before relaxing in a smile. “yeah. cute, right? but you can call me ‘daddy’ if you want.”

Temporary fix

Word count: 12k

 Summary: “And you’ve shampooed his hair how many times now? Hmm. Yeah, that’s not technically a bromance.” A/B/O AU

Tokyo Boy

Word count: 16k

Summary: He has feelings for Iwaizumi Hajime, who probably has casual lovers just like him in every major city he visits on business. Oikawa is just his Tokyo Boy, just another pit-stop on Iwaizumi’s travels. Businessman AU

Trial by Fire

Word count: 78k

Summary: (lawyer!AU - in which Iwaizumi loves his objections, Oikawa is beautiful, and they have more chemistry than two opposing attorneys probably should.)

Watch Me

Word count: 32k

Summary: Oikawa's a cam model. It’s been a month since Iwaizumi first spoke in his chat. When they meet in person, things get complicated. Cam model AU

Angst

open when

Word count: 1k

Summary: Iwaizumi knew it was coming, but it still hurt. It still hurt when he opens one letter and drowns it in the tears he cannot keep at bay.

Chasing Paper Suns

Word count: 10k

Summary: Post-high school,     Oikawa makes it to the national volleyball team but Iwaizumi doesn't. The     next three years become an exercise in growing up without growing apart

Quote: “ ‘it’s just—I’m     just trying so hard—’‘What, and I’m not?’

Timeless (We Have 30 Days)

Word count: 12k

Summary: Or AU where you're branded 50 days before you die. But Oikawa doesn't tell anyone so now there's only 30 days left.

the weight of water

Word count: 6k

Summary: “Again,” he says, the smallest tremor in his voice, and Oikawa blinks at him a moment before smiling, soft and sweet. “Iwa-chan,” he replies, and Iwaizumi closes his eyes. “Again.” “Iwa-chan.”

Canon Compliant

Are You Listening?

Word count: 4k

Summary: 30 times oikawa said i love you and 1 time he didn't have to

Quote: “Iwa-chan, watch out for the log—!” Oikawa looked on in horror as his best friend tripped and fell flat on his face.

Edge of the balcony

Word count: 8k

Summary: Iwaizumi looks older, he realizes. Oikawa knew he had aged as well, and so did everyone around him, but the thing was when you see people often, you don't notice the subtle changes in appearance. And Oikawa hadn't seen Iwaizumi in four years.

How can this loser ever win

Word count: 2k

Summary: everyone is in stupid love with Iwaizumi Hajime and he has no idea

♡♡♡Lost in Translation

Word count: 9k

Summary: Because misfortune come in threes, Iwaizumi Hajime starts his Thursday having a screaming fight with Shittykawa, spends his lunch break listening to the UCI women's volleyball team gossiping about how Ushijima Wakatoshi had gone public about his longtime love affair with Oikawa Tooru, and closes out the day by drunkenly dropping his phone into a sewer grate.

maybe we could be enough

Word count: 9k

Summary: iwaizumi hums in reply as the car goes silent, frank ocean crooning from the speakers. they stop at a red light when iwaizumi feels eyes at the side of his face, and turns to look at oikawa.

Most people never even get a single high school rival

Word count: 5k

Summary: Team Argentina gets to know Iwaizumi Hajime (27) Athletic Trainer.

Primavera

Word count: 8k

Summary: They say it takes twenty-six years, for certain breeds to fully bloom.

Quote: Did you know that distance is only me, growing towards you?

♡♡♡rest on your laurels

Word count: 4k

Summary: In Iwaizumi’s heart of hearts, untouched by time, they are young and alive, burning with the hearth of home and bright as winter light. Unbreakable. Invincible.

♡♡♡Something Borrowed

Word count: 16k

Summary: In which Oikawa and Iwaizumi have always been a foregone conclusion to everyone else, but a massive, unanswered question to one another.

‘Til Infinity

Word count: 2k

Summary: “Hey,” he says, “that cloud looks kind of like a dick.”

Quote: “I got you ladybug”

♡♡♡ You Set Off a Dream In Me

Word count: 15k

Summary: In which Oikawa is 41 and ready to retire. He's at the top of his game and ready to find a new challenge. Turns out his new challenge is pretty familiar. It's high school, round 2.

Quote: A past with an Iwaizumi that wasn’t on the opposite side of the net, monsters on all sides, guiding a setter that had lived the dream left behind in the ruins of Tooru’s past self.

Canon Divergent

a world alone

Word count: 60k

Summary: Iwaizumi has his medical books on the musculoskeletal system. Oikawa has his research papers on parallel universes. It isn't until much, much later that they realize they have each other.

♡Almost a Stranger

Word count: 16k

Summary: Iwa-chan's leaving Kapan. Tooru's not sure he can forgive him, but he's not going to admit his long-held feelings, either. A trip to Miyajima complicates everything.

Quote: There are only two things that have ever broken Oikawa Tooru’s heart. Iwa-chan would say Tooru has no heart to break, but that’s simply untrue.

Count your blessings, it goes 1,2,3, me

Word count: 7k

Summary: He's unsettled by the undefined boundaries of their relationship so it's all his luck that he accidentally wins three wishes to be granted just for him, and all that comes to mind is Iwaizumi.

Quote: Now, as an adult, past convenience of circumstance and the haze of hormonal lust, exactly none of his feelings have worn off

♡♡♡the courtship ritual of the hercules beetle

Word count: 66k

Summary: Tooru is pretty sure he could manage the mating habits of a mosquito. It’s the mating habits of people he can’t seem to get right.

♡days fall away

Word count:17k

Summary: Except now he’s back home, so close to his old haunts and to Oikawa himself, and it's—weird.

Quote: “You and Tooru,” he begins, and then shrugs. “I was just thinking, you look at each other a lot.” And he walks away, leaving Hajime winded, and sort of aching, somewhere deep in his chest. Whatever that means.

♡here comes your man

Word count: 8k

Summary: Iwa-chan, it reads, Have a good day today! Good luck! <3 <3 <3 Suga chokes. It’s hard to imagine anyone calling the scowling and fierce Doctor Iwaizumi “Iwa-chan.” But marriage probably comes with all sorts of liberties. Doctor AU

♡♡In damp earth my body

Word count: 15k

Summary: Onscreen, the nation’s favorite setter has arranged himself so that he’s bowing, forehead pressed to the court, like he’s thanking everyone for their kindness thus far, like he’s asking for forgiveness. Hajime thinks: shit, it’s really happening

In the Business of Love

Word count: 22k

Summary: Meet Oikawa Tooru: He's a best-selling shoujo manga artist, a hardcore romantic and you won't believe where he's getting his lovey dovey fodder from...Enter Iwaizumi Hajime: He's Oikawa's best friend, a realist who also happens to be a wedding magazine writer despite not believing in romance...

Quote: A flare of pride lit in Oikawa as he watched Iwaizumi's eyes crinkle with mirth and in that yawning second, it bloomed into a warmth that bordered on a burn, forcing a bittersweet inhale.

it's been so long (nobody knows me the way you do)

Word count: 8k

Summary: Tooru hums, only half-listening. Somewhere along the way, Hajime’s palm has settled itself over the curve of Tooru’s cheek, thumb tracing over the line of his jaw.

Quote: Iwaizumi blushes even more. “That you’re here, I mean. I’m happy that you’re here. With me.”

♡♡♡Mint

Word count: 19k

Summary: It's the December after Iwaizumi’s last year in university when Tokyo welcomes him with a new ad campaign for Bright Days toothpaste, and Oikawa Tooru—fresh off a run at the 2016 Summer Olympics—has decided to grace the city with his signature grin, a flip of his wayfarer sunglasses, and the most irrepressible tag line for the signboard above.

Quote: "To be able to tell him, in the new year."  This comes under Oikawa's breath, so low that Matsukawa and Hanamaki can't hear, and the game continues.

Six-Month Lover

Word count: 89k

Summary: Iwaizumi barks out a laugh. “I’m still trying to get over the fact that you made a PowerPoint presentation about why we should date.” Oikawa doesn’t tell him the file has existed for the last twelve years, constantly receives updates, and that the original copy contained almost a hundred slides before he forced himself to get a grip.

Special Relativity

Word count: 22k

Summary: Time moves differently for people in different inertial reference frames. Oikawa goes on a two-year exploratory mission in space. Iwaizumi's been waiting for a lot longer than that.

♡♡sunset towns

Word count: 33k

Summary: In the summer of 2020, Oikawa Tooru returns home from his first successful stint as captain of Japan’s national volleyball team. In one hand, he holds the undisputed weight of an Olympic medal, and in the other, his unresolved feelings for a childhood best friend.

♡♡Thirty Years and Change (the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad)

Word count:     19k

Summary: It’s July 10th, 2024, and Oikawa Tooru is an Olympian. His smiling face airs on an NHK promo every 45 seconds. He’s captain of the national men’s volleyball team, reigning star of the professional leagues, and he hasn't spoken to Iwaizumi Hajime in two years.

Quote: Oikawa’s grin in  the last set of the morning’s game. Oikawa’s grin as they sat on their asses on a golf course. Oikawa’s grin when they were in college. When they were in high school. When they were twenty-two, seventeen, fifteen, twelve, six.

High School

Bet On It

Word count: 13k

Summary: Hajime knows exactly how shitty Oikawa's personality is, and has no scruples whatsover about betting Oikawa six thousand yen that he can't be nice for an entire week.

Quote: The whole instant-compliance thing was seriously creeping him out. Oikawa from a week ago would have made a crack about how if he'd wanted something cold, he could have just put his face on Hajime's shoulder.

Betweens

Word count: 2k

Summary: Iwaizumi is asleep in the club room. Oikawa is blindingly awake in the club room. The sun moves slowly across the sky, and Iwaizumi’s skin is gold underneath it. Oikawa watches the changing shadows on Iwaizumi’s face and thinks about nothing in particular.

Don’t think too much

Word count: 6k

Summary:  In which Oikawa and Iwaizumi have a confusing, drunken encounter and then deal with the (sticky) consequences.

Quote: As soon as that thought crossed his mind, though, Oikawa did what he always did:  exactly the opposite of what Hajime wanted

Gates

Word count: 12k

Summary: The day after their graduation ceremony, they drive to the beach at Shirahama. Iwaizumi drives, because it’s his car, and as he has told Oikawa on multiple occasions, he’d rather die than let him touch the wheel.

Quote: ‘Yeah,’ he says, because they’re on a beach, and they’re supposed to be on a metaphorical journey, and they’re supposed to be growing up, and completing rites of passage, so it’s honesty, today - just for today, at least.

♡♡i sing the body electric

Word count: 8k

Summary: It was never part of the plan, falling in love with his best friend, but then again, most things in Iwaizumi’s life that involve Oikawa rarely unfold the way he thinks they will.

Quote: But Iwaizumi thinks about Oikawa laughing with that girl in the low light of the gym, a particular kind of quiet intimacy that Iwaizumi’s only ever read about in books hovering in the air, and all it makes him feel is small and petty and spiteful.

it’s better than words

Word count: 3k

Summary: [ or : oikawa makes iwaizumi participate in three bonding activities for new friends, and iwaizumi just wants to know why oikawa's being so weird about this]

Make sure you cross the line

Word count: 4k

Summary: With graduation just around the corner, Iwaizumi knows he has to gather the courage to really ask Oikawa out.

Quote: He’s been asking Iwaizumi to go out with him every single day this past week, increasingly panicked about getting his time and attention now that they’re nearing the end of this season of their lives.

Only the jellyfish know

Word count: 6k

Summary: Their third and final year at Aoba Jousai has come to an end, and the guys decide to go to the beach the day after graduation. That day, the ocean water is salty, the watermelon is sweet, and the people are sweeter.

static

Word count: 6k

Summary: Being snowed in with all of Seijou volleyball in his childhood home brings back a lot of memories for Iwaizumi, because it's kinda Oikawa's childhood home too.

Quote: It's fate that brought them together and choice that keeps them that way. The closest description in Hajime’s vocabulary is partners, but only because Oikawa taught him what its true definition is.

Told before and told again

Word count: 3k

Summary: This is how Hajime and Tooru fall in love, through the accounts of those around them.

Quote: When Oikawa lets out a long, heavy breath, Iwaizumi looks up at him and frowns, and flings a towel over Oikawa’s head to cover his face. Then, he tugs, once, on Oikawa’s fingers, and leads him down the hallway, Oikawa walking quietly in tow.

♡we can do better than that

Word count: 16k

Summary: Oikawa and Iwaizumi go on a road trip during the summer after their high school graduation. It doesn't go as expected, but maybe that's not such a bad thing after all.

Quote: Because Iwaizumi’s known Oikawa nearly all his life and never felt anything more than vague affection usually followed by intense irritation for him. But then suddenly at eighteen years old and nearly two weeks into a very badly planned road trip, it’s like someone flipped a switch somewhere inside Iwaizumi

♡when it starts to rain, they go inside

Word count: 33k

Summary: “Where?” starts Iwaizumi.“ My parent’s old lakehouse, silly, didn’t you hear me the first time?” OR: Oikawa takes Iwaizumi to his lakehouse for two weeks, post-graduation.

reassemble it

Word count: 15k

Summary: When Tooru was six years old, he discovered—unbeknownst to him at the time—two of the most important things in his life: volleyball and Iwaizumi Hajime. It was ironic that he had stumbled upon them hand in hand—quite literally, too.

♡things that change, things that stay the same

Word count: 8k

Summary: Oikawa realizes he's in love with his best friend; it sucks for a while. (But only a while.)

Quote: Iwaizumi’s expression right now is less terrified than it used to get back then, but he’s tight-lipped with concern, and his broad body blocks out other passengers as if their stares might be a danger to Tooru too.

University AU

An Archaeology of Affection

Word count: 23k

Summary: For Hajime, it is a riddle and simultaneously so evident. It fills his chest, surging like water, paints heat up his neck. In retrospect, it eats up his days, makes them its own until it feels like his heart has always been in his throat at the smile thrown over Oikawa’s shoulder, the stilling of his fingers on Hajime’s sleeve.

closure

Word count: 22k

Summary: In his first year of university, Oikawa builds a new friendship and upgrades an old one. Or: Ushijima is not a great wingman, but he tries his best.

Quote: “On the first day of his university career, Oikawa Tooru walks into his dorm, spots his assigned roommate, and turns one hundred and eighty degrees and walks right back out. He dials a familiar phone number - the first one he ever memorized - and starts complaining before Iwaizumi even gets the chance to say hello. “Iwa-chan,” he says, “tell me why Ushiwaka is in my dorm room.”

♡♡♡galaxies, within you

Word count: 21k

Summary: Hajime and Tooru move in together at the start of university. Too bad they’re stuck with the two gremlins that haunt their apartment.

Quote: I AM A HEADASS

Hands to yourself

Word count: 11k

Summary: He missed his parents, and he missed Takeru, and Takeru's badly behaved puppy. He missed Aoba Jousai, and he missed the volleyball team. He even missed Karasuno and Shiratorizawa, just a little.

Home, and how we made ours

Word count: 3k

Summary: “No, I like it here.” There’s a rustling as Iwaizumi shifts, inching closer. “I like it here, as in this crappy apartment—with you.”

Quote: “Do your fights end up being like—you know, about actual things and then extending into toddler days and suddenly you’re accusing Iwaizumi of kissing the girl you used to like in preschool?”

in progress to you

Word count: 6k

Summary: The eventuality of Oikawa and Iwaizumi falling toward each other is dramatically lackluster. Still, it's a process to go through.

Quote: “But what if you didn’t eat my pudding all the time?” Iwaizumi asks flatly, ignoring the way Oikawa is slapping his thigh to get out of his chokehold. “Do you think I buy them for you, huh? I buy them for me, you turd.”

Like we’re made of starlight

Word count: 6k

Summary: (a look into iwaizumi hajime’s journey of falling in love with oikawa tooru, from when they’re babies meeting for the first time to young adults moving in together.)

Ninety nine percent

Word count: 14k

Summary: more than anything, oikawa tooru wants to be with iwaizumi hajime, but he's only ninety nine percent of the way there.

Quote: Their ace was lining up for the ball, knees bent and arm pulled back, just as Tooru tosses the ball……to Hajime.

no sleep in the city

Word count: 7k

Summary: Along their journey to find Tokyo's best ramen, Iwaizumi finds himself asked again and again why Oikawa is still single.

Quote: “I was only telling Hanamaki literally yesterday that your personality isn’t as vile as before,” Iwaizumi informs, slightly stiff from the way Oikawa’s got an arm looped through his own. “Why do you make me such a liar to people I care about?”

Out of nowhere

Word count: 8k

Summary: They move in together after graduation and it's doing weird things to Iwaizumi's heart. He's a little in denial about it.

Quote: Oikawa excitedly ran up to him when Iwaizumi came home with groceries the other day. Not about the food but just to say how boring everything is when Iwaizumi's not there, eyes shining, and he couldn't meet his gaze after from blushing down to his neck. He doesn't know how much more he can take.

♡♡shiver

Word count: 16k

Summary: Oikawa was always the brave one. Hajime just followed two paces behind.

Quote: “I’m in love with you,” Oikawa tells him three days after they graduate junior high, head in his lap and hands gently folded over his chest and completely and totally unconcerned that he’d just shattered Hajime’s world.

Terpischore

Word count: 38k

Summary: They’d ended up going to different universities, Tooru and he. The distance was good for them. The confession Hajime dropped in both their laps wasn’t. That’s how it’d ended – a lifetime of friendship crumbled to dust in the space of five minutes. (Or, a lesson in learning to move on from things you can't have, in finding old loves in new ways and in understanding that life is never truly simple... till it is.)

terrarium

Word count: 11k

Summary: At this point, is he really happy with just staying best friends forever? Will he be writing journals and collecting rocks forever (he will, he knows, but that is aside from the point)?

these foolish things (remind me of you)

Word count: 3k

Summary: Oikawa helps Iwaizumi move into his new college dorm.

Quote: He’s desperate for something to happen. It must show on his face because Iwaizumi blushes and looks away. The thing is, Oikawa always looks at him like this when Iwaizumi isn’t paying attention.

They say it rains diamonds on Jupiter

Word count: 35k

Summary: "You're in love with him. "Hajime considers denying it. "Yeah," he says instead.

Quote: “Share the weight of your feelings with me, Hajime wants to beg when he hears Tooru's first hitched breath. Let me carry some of your burdens”

to be first, to be best

Word count: 26k

Summary: Hajime is apparently something of a masochist, and as he stares down at the tie-dyed AREA51 T-shirt in his hands, he thinks “I’m totally in love with this asshole, aren't I?”

Undecipherable

Word count: 4k

Summary: "Koi no yokan," he says. "The sense one can have upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall in love."

Quote: Because for all the bravado, for all the flaunting Oikawa does, he wants Hajime by his side, and no one else.

♡we shine like diamonds

Word count: 26k

Summary: "You know Abe-kun from class?" they snicker, hands cupped around their mouths like they're passing along a filthy secret. "I hear his older brother is... gay."

Where you are (I’ll be)

Word count: 6k

Summary: Theirs is a love that starts out like a seed and it takes two sets of hands tending it for a shoot to appear. There are no dramatic declarations of love, only a pair of hands that find each other again and again and again.

Quote: Oikawa broke off into giggles as Hajime slowed the descent of his hand from a slap to the back of Oikawa’s head to a gentle ruffle of the taller boy’s hair

♡♡with every second that you could give

Word count: 9k

Summary: The journey of Iwaizumi and Oikawa going for gold.

Quote: He knows they’re too close. Iwaizumi knows it too, and they both decided to move in together anyway.

Your love is sunlight

Word count: 6k

Summary: It's Iwaizumi's birthday, and they have a talk about the future.

Quote: But Hajime doesn’t think any present could top this: them, kissing in a sun-dappled bathroom, Oikawa’s skin warm under his hands, and the promise of a life together stretched out before them.

[dribbonart]

Steven Universe Rewatch: Too Tall To Ride

The Amedot train never stops.

I don’t remember everything that happens in the series, so maybe I’m just forgetting it, but I can’t think of a single time that Lapis does anything exclusively for Peridot’s benefit in the way that Amethyst does.

(I don’t want to start a fight: I’m fine with Lapidot too. I like basically all ships. I just think Amedot deserves more attention.)

I like the continuity on “Wow, thanks.” Her tone of voice often makes it clear that the “wow” does not reflect her mood at all. She’s just being polite. (In a good way, not a bad way.)

Ridiculously cute. This episode will make you like Peridot by any means necessary. I’m surprised she doesn’t rescue some orphans.

I always enjoy an alien perspective. To Peridot, a world wide system is hopelessly limited.

Peridot’s network spans “multiple star systems.” This doesn’t give us as much information as we might hope for. The way it’s phrased implies that her network was not inclusive of the entire Gem civilization, so it doesn’t give us the range of the empire as a whole. “Star systems” implies a system that doesn’t go to other galaxies.

How to explain the internet turning all of us into shills constantly hoping to become famous? Hating ourselves but putting on a fake veneer of happiness to create an image of success?

No wait, cat videos are cool, never mind.

Maybe they had to give us all those scenes of Peridot being cute so we wouldn’t be too disgusted at wearing a tablet velcro’d to your arm.

I mean, seriously. Amethyst likes Peridot, and Peridot likes Amethyst. That much is just canon.

The perspective on that sign is whack. It’s like an MC Escher drawing. The place where the left struts meet the ground is way too far in the background.

So cute. Also confirmation that Peridot’s hair is basically just hair. It’s just unusually rigid and springy.

Is it though? The idea of height -> rarity and importance never comes up again, so far as I know. The rarest and most important gems, Diamonds, aren’t exactly Peridot sized. The smallest creatures, the pebbles, seem to have the least rarity and importance. I guess she must mean that her precise height signifies something. Amethyst is only her size as a baking accident. But Sapphire and Ruby are pretty similar heights, and they’re at opposite ends of the importance and rarity spectrum. I think we can only conclude that this sentence is just wrong.

More like fabulethyst. Uh, Amecute? She looks good, is my point.

Great line. It’s a perfect nerd thing to say. She doesn’t want to get in the way, and she thinks of a semi-plausible excuse.

Ooh boy, this one is too real.

I love Peridot’s spiritual attachment to this mirror of herself.

Mister Smiley hasn’t seen his bed in six days. I get that he’s very busy during the day, but what is he doing while Funland is closed?

Good, simple joke. Playing around with established characters.

I love the little dance Peridot does when she’s lying. 

I love this phrasing. Something happened that Peridot wasn’t planning on, so obviously the world is wrong. She doesn’t even consider that she could have been in error.

Peridot sends this out with literally zero context. Even if she had followers, no one would have any idea what she was talking about.

I dunno, it makes me laugh. Nice acting on Peridot.

Peridot’s increasingly frantic “ows” are funny.

From out of the blue, one of the most important bits of lore we get in the entire series about Gem civilization. It’s an extraction based economy, and resources are finite. This is made into a powerful image when we finally see Homeworld.

In a show that makes its morals very explicit, Steven Universe never makes its environmental moral explicit. Steven never says, “You should have used this renewable energy source,” or something. They simply present us with a civilization that relies on extraction and show us the end result: a blasted ruin completely devoid of life outside of a tiny city perched on the ashes, pretending that everything is fine.

Amethyst is cool. Not going to accept arguments on this one.

On the official Peridot Twitter, didn’t they mention that Peridot was intentionally using caps to make sure people knew she was yelling?

Steven makes this inference without much basis. Peridot can levitate a tablet, there’s no reason to think she has metal powers specifically.

I don’t like this resolution to Peridot’s crisis of value. The moral of, “if you’re disappointed you don’t have a cool innate ability, just wait until you discover you have a different cool innate ability,” kinda sucks. No one has innate abilities like superheroes have superpowers, and your value isn’t determined by your powers anyway. 

If you insist on Peridot having metal powers, I’d do it differently. Peridot just reveals she has metal powers and knew it all the time. She didn’t think it was special because she’s always had them. It’s a better moral: everyone has different abilities, and they don’t think they’re special because of their perspective.

The way Peridot rotates her hand like she’s reeling in the tablet is very nice.

I wonder what they had in mind for Peridot’s long term arc at this time. They planned a lot of stuff out in advance. After all the bad blood, I can’t blame them for not wanting to talk about it.

This is a really good episode. Peridot learning about the Earth is probably my favorite arc of the whole series.

[themorp]

Writing Prompts

A lot of these are Au related! And some of them hint at violence/gore, so please be aware of that.

“Don’t move. They rely on sight.”

“I knew it was you!”

“Please tell me that’s not my soulmate.”

“Did you seriously get yourself stuck in a chair?”

“I am so sorry that the words on your arm are so stupid.”

“Prepare for canon fire!”

“Look out!”

“That’s gross... Cool! But still gross.”

“That was my kill!”

“Are you from the Northern Empire?”

“Well I’m not sure weather to be offended or relieved- my wanted posture looks nothing like me.”

“That is NOT how you hold (weapon).”

“Well... this is awkward...”

“Can I kick his ass?”

“HOW ARE THEY SO HOT??? HOW DARE THEY!!!”

“Be quiet! They’ll hear you!”

“Did you steal from that couple?”

“That thing has a curse on it. I’d be careful.”

“I didn’t realize it was a shrinking potion, I swear!”

“I knew (mythical creature/cryptid) were real!”

“Can you get me out of this thing?”

“I have never met you, but I know someone who needs help when I see one.”

“I left you guys alone for FIVE MINUTES!!!”

“That looks painful.”

“Yikes... Glad that’s not me.”

“We’re gonna have to cut it off before it spreads to other parts of their body.”

“And where, exactly, have you been?”

“HOW DID YOU PISS OFF ALL THE GUARDSMEN?!”

“I said distract them, not knock them out!”

“For the last time!!! That is not edible!”

“That man is crazy.”

“They’re going to burn them at the stake!”

“Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“You’re rescuing me?”

“I never knew the outside world so... big.”

“Put the fire out before we’re noticed!”

“This rescue mission is gonna kick my ass.”

“I... I think they’re still alive...”

“Are you sure they aren’t infected?”

“That’s a brutal looking scar.”

“How did you manage to pull that off?”

“Put down the (weapon)... I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“Well that isn’t normal.”

“What are you?!”

“Dragon bonding isn’t for everyone.”

“Who the hell thought this was a good idea.”

“I am no longer giving a fuck.”

“I want to give up, but I have someone worth pushing onwards for.”

“This storm came out of nowhere!”

“That was dangerous and reckless! But... it was impressive...”

“Who the hell is stupid enough to do that?”

“Can you see anything?”

“Is that what I think it is?”

“I haven’t had meat in years.”

“Was that a gunshot?”

“Can we keep it?”

“Well. This is unexpected.”

“Why are you covered in mud?”

“I have never been held like this...”

“Don’t touch me! You stink! What the hell was in that swamp?!”

“What is... kissing?”

“That’s disgusting. Don’t stop.”

“Aww... what a cute dog...! Wait... THAT IS NOT A DOG ABORT ABORT ABORT-”

“Can I have a hug?”

“How do you live like this?!”

“You’ve never been in a real battle, have you?”

“The Chief will decide your fate.”

“You know I was expecting you to be bigger.”

“Barricade the doors!”

“This is a strange ritual.”

“I don’t think this is a regular maze...”

“Is that blood?”

“There’s a hole in the floor.”

“What the hell was that? Did you hear that?”

“Zombies aren’t supposed to be smart!”

“Is that a ship?”

“Get the hell out of my way.”

“Did you just (physical attack such as punch or kick) me?!’

“They’re weakened by silver.”

“I really wish I had my holy water right now.”

“Well that backfired.”

“I’m so hungry... Can I feed off you a little?”

“YOU DARE OPPOSE ME?”

“Please help me, this man has been following me and I don’t want him to know where I live.”

“Is that really you?!”

“Has it really been three centuries?”

“Are you sure you’re human?”

“That was an alien- That was an alien- THAT WAS AN ALIEN-”

“We SHOULD NOT SPLIT UP!!”

Is it just me or is the floor moving?”

“How the hell did someone get in here?”

“Well, this is awkward... Can I have my payment now?”

“Since when were you so smart?”

“They’re right above us.”

“It’s almost like it can see into my soul.”

“BUGS DON’T GET THAT BIG HERE-”

“I hear growling...”

“DO NOT THROW THE BABY”

“Is that a threat or an offer?”

“I have so many pictures of them being an idiot.”

“The clock has less than hour left.”

“HAVE YOU EVER WATCHED A HORROR MOVIE?!?!”

“Was that you?”

“I think I’m going crazy.”

“We have to go- a scout discovered our shelter, the hive is coming.”

“It’s so damn hot.”

“I... I can’t remember...”

“Aww that’s so cute how much is i-... nevermind.”

“Did you just eat an alien egg?”

“You do realize they’re siblings right?”

“How are you so cute?”

“I am in debt to you, and until that debt is paid I will be you loyal servant.”

“Are you... Are you riding a dragon?”

“You’re under arrest.”

“Here, drink this.”

“Potion making is sensitive, so please be quiet whilst I work.”

“Has thee never seen a Vampire?”

“That was not rad at all.”

“I think it’s dead.”

“You go first.”

“You treat me as if I’m not a litterall demon from hell.”

“I will protect until my dying breath.”

“Don’t worry, you’re safe now.”

“It’s an honor to meet you.”

“You’re not from around here, re you?”

“What? Never seen a hybrid before?”

“That is not how you use that.”

“Did you know different flowers have different meanings...? The ones I gave you are quite unique in meaning.”

“Your family is... interesting...”

“If you’re not gonna eat grubs then you’re gonna starve. It’s all that’s out here.”

“That’s not human.”

“Stop standing there staring and help me!”

“I’m too short...”

“Was that an insult?”

“Keep up!”

“Don’t look behind you.”

“You have to jump! You have to trust me!”

“Is this it?”

“I can’t believe my soulmate is a human-”

“Well that was weird.”

“Have you ever exercised?”

“Don’t test my patience, pet.”

“How am I going to tell [Name] about this...?”

“It’s a match made in heaven!”

“Be careful, they’re sensitive!”

“So this is a fruit...”

“When I feel bad I go beat the shit out of someone. It works.”

“DID YOU PULL THE LEVER I SPECIFICALLY ASKED YOU NOT TO PULL?!”

“In DnD we call that rolling a one.”

“[Name] is gonna kill me!”

“Rest in pieces.”

“Hurt them and I make your life hell on Earth.”

“So he’s a dumbass-”

“Someone shoot me-”

“Give it back! That’s private!”

“It was so obvious! I’m such an idiot!”

“Is that all you have?”

“The expedition was successful.”

“There were no survivors.”

“I thought I lost you.”

“Stop! Stop! There’s a cat!”

“Why am I here again?”

“Having detachable body parts is actually a convenience when you’re a cyborg.”

That’s a big ass [Animal]”

“Do you know what you’re doing?!”

“Did you seriously have to pick the lock? When I have the keys?”

“They’re dangerous.”

“And that’s my que to leave.”

“You are my greatest treasure.”

“I seriously hope you’re not thinking of doing what I think you are thinking of doing.”

“WHY THE HELL ARE YOU NAKED?”

“Is... is that a dwarf?”

“You’re as odd as your friends said.”

“There is no need for violence!”

“All I wanted was a doughnut-”

“Why are the barn lights on?”

“They got into ANOTHER fight?!”

“You’d think living with a family of sorcerers would teach them something.”

“Thank goodness most dragons aren’t venomous.”

“Nagas are quite fickle creatures.”

“Satyrs are not to be trusted.”

“You walked into the faery ring, you belong to the fae now. I can’y help you.”

“Go ask them out! They look cute!”

“Angels aren’t supposed to fall in love... but how was I supposed resist you?”

“I thought humans were bigger.”

“Your highness is a royal pain in the ass.”

“That hurt.”

“I am not looking forward to this at all.”

“I do not like caves. I don’t like cavbes at all.”

“MOSS!!!!”

“This town seems abandoned.”

“The radiation levels aren’t too high here.”

“Put your masks on.”

“You know you shouldn’t give your name to strangers, especially a fae in the forest.”

“I never realized how big the ocean was.”

“I have an idea- it’s dangerous, crazy, and reckless, but it might just work.”

“Is this your child?”

“I’m surprised Cerberus likes you.”

“Hellhounds aren’t usually friendly.”

“That’s a big meal for one person...”

“Werewolves aren’t fans of silver.”

“The dumbest myth about us vampires is that we hate garlic.”

“What brings you to my territory, little human?”

“Don’t bare your fangs at guests! It’s rude!”

“I’m only protecting you because I made a promise.”

“That was a terrible attempt at a prank. Let me show you how it’s done.”

“You do realize demons can sense emotions right?”

“You foolish human! You could have gotten hurt!”

“Watch your step.”

“It’s called a secret entrance for a reason.”

“Did you just... kiss me...?”

“My soulmate is a dumbass but I love them.”

“This jackassery will not stand!”

“Unless you have a death wish I’d leave those sirens alone.”

“Swim with me?”

“Have you never frolicked before?”

“You’re fired!”

“Does this armor make me look fat?”

“Your soulmate is a Naga?”

“Gargoyles are cranky in the morning.”

“That little fucker is at it again-”

“I don’t remember the last time I laughed like that.”

“Elves are usually attractive... but them... they’re ethereal..”

“I think I’m in love with a snake man.”

“Are orcs usually this big?”

“Confess? And risk ruining what i have with them? I’d rather drink bog water that a Satyr bathed in!”

“Are all humans this attractive or is it just you?”

“Guns are so odd... They only do their job after they’re fired...”

“Are you usually this full of yourself?”

Do you have any idea what you just did?”

“I wasn’t expecting to meet my soulmate when I snuck into Area 51.”

“Turn off the lights!”

“I won’t let you go, not again.”

“That’s so dangerous...! When are we doing it?”

“You humans are so fragile, yet you are the apex species of your planet.”

“IT’S NOT WORTH IT! GET BACK IN THE CAR!”

“Don’t look back!”

“They’re attracted by (heat, sound, etc.).”

“It looks dangerous.”

“Don’t touch it-”

“Careful it’s soup.”

“Did... did that thing just speak?”

“It’s a boat! Oh my god it’s a boat- we’re saved-”

“Keep your distance.”

“I will not hesitate to leave you behind.”

“THEY’RE SIBLINGS?!”

‘I am slightly worried... never mind I am very worried.”

“THEY’RE CHOKING!”

“It’s too damn hot to do anything.”

“Stop singing!”

“Life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, kid.”

“That is one ugly ass [Animal/baby/clothing item].”

“I’VE SEEN THIS IN A HENTAI BEFORE!”

“Please shut your trap before I stuff it- shit that sounds sexual-”

“Is that- Is that a fucking cat?”

“That is not what the mean when they say; ‘smash that like button’“

“Where did you learn to drive?” 

“Oof.”

“I’m know I’m stupid but I’m not THAT stupid.”

[kinetic-elaboration]

April 10: 2x14 Wolf in the Fold

Watched Wolf in the Fold last night. The only thing I really remembered about this ep going in was that it was a Scotty ep. Which is true but also… slightly misleading. Also that it had to do with Jack the Ripper—which is more true than I remembered!

A decadent intro… I get why Spock isn’t here but I actually DO think he would be into it.

Matchmaker Kirk lol.

Scotty is so awkward. This is the other detail I remembered from this ep, actually: how Scotty wants to applaud using his hands no matter what. (Even with those cool lights RIGHT THERE lol). Old Aberdeen pub crawler…

This is honestly such a bizarre back story: Scotty got a concussion because someone who happened to be a woman made a mistake and now not only is his head all funny but he has a “total resentment toward women.” Like okay, nothing creepily sexist in that concept. Also –they ultimately barely even use it! I know it’s the implied rationale for why he would suddenly start murdering women and also not remembering it but it’s like such a flimsy excuse that they never say it out loud in so many words for fear it should sound too stupid. Which it would. Honestly, you really only need the concussion imo. Why go into the weird misogyny thing at all?

And now Kirk and Bons head off to a brothel, giving me a total resentment toward men.

Nice eerie fog out here. Very Aberdeenian.

Okay, so this woman was stabbed a dozen times but she only screamed once? And then a second later, Scotty had somehow teleported several feet away, still holding the knife? He’s good at his job but he’s not that good. This is already deeply suspicious.

“Therapeutic shore leave.” Trying to cure his hatred of ladies lmao.

So this weird little bald man, Hengist, from Rigel IV. Is he an alien? I suppose he must be. Rigellians are a race, as we know from Journey to Babel. It’s not always clear to me which groups of people are Earth colonists who have migrated to or been born on other planets and which are humanoid aliens.

The Aurelians are a gentle, harmless people. Cute. I like these aliens.

I wish we could hire aliens to be our administrators. Alien Overlord and Taylor.

“I’ll be taking over, since I am the highest official.” He out-officialed him.

I like this guy and his slightly creepy empath priestess wife. I feel like Spock would like them, too.

Speaking of: Spock in the captain’s chair. Hot.

I don’t get how this planet is the only space port around. Like… could not any planet be a space port? What does that even mean?

Oh no, a woman with the lie detector machine! She must be incompetent and/or to be despised.

I love Sybo’s outfit. Her hair and jewelry too. Honestly just a great head-to-toe look.

Another murder! Sorry but this one is on the Aurelian for just leaving the murder weapon out there unattended.

Generally speaking, the costume and set people are doing allllll the work in this episode.

Hengist went to look for suspects and he came up with the victim’s father and fiancé?? He’s not even trying lol. Anyway, he obviously did it.

How can you NOT tell if a lock was picked or not? I mean I know McCoy is a doctor, not a locksmith, but come on. It can’t be that ambiguous.

Spooky mumbo-jumbo.

Interesting that Spock doesn’t trust the mumbo-jumbo either. I guess he only approves of it when it’s Vulcan.

When Sybo says “monstrous evil” the camera is looking right at Hengist. Not suspicious at all. He’s only clearly railroading Scotty, looked right at the second victim before she was killed, was in the perfect position to take the murder weapon after it was carelessly left about, and is the most obvious non-Scotty suspect here.

I love how loyal Bones is. He literally saw Scotty holding Sybo and the knife with blood on his hands and is like “It’s impossible he could have done it.”

So many of the “truth discovery” devices on TOS are truly creepy. Like they’re all clear plot devices, and for that reason depicted as completely reliable, and the more completely reliable they are, the more deeply disturbing they become upon any reflection at all.

That’s a pretty computer though. All those pretty flashing lights! And it runs on floppy disks.

I literally just remembered what happened.

“Scotty, lie to me, how old are you?” / “Twenty-two, Sir.” Yeah, I’d say that’s a lie.

So like this allegedly all-powerful computer is literally just a lie detector. That’s it! A lie detector that picks up on psychological signs of lying, just like our lie detectors today. I mean… you could have just said that straight out. All they do is show what a person believes to be true, so in the case where someone truly doesn’t remember something, the usefulness is… limited.

My mom suggested a Vulcan mind meld which, actually, would pretty much solve the problem! But for once Spock actually treats it like something serious and not to be thrown out as a solution to all problems at the merest suggestion.

Someone needs to do a fashion line based entirely on the Argellian outfits.

Spock is internally eye-rolling at all this drama. I feel like he’s a real advocate for the computers today. That’s like… really his only role.

The computer’s linguistics banks don’t know what this word means? Maybe we should get Uhura on the case.

Plot twist: the killer was Jack the Ripper the WHOLE TIME! The last one you’d ever expect.

I don’t get how the computer made the leap from Redjac to Jack the Ripper since that is not a real word and no one outside of this episode of TOS has ever used it for Jack the Ripper.

“Everyone feeds on death, even vegetarians.” So dark, Spock. So emo.

Aw, alien creatures that derive sustenance from love. Adorable. There should have been an episode devoted to them. (Wait a minute…. Idea coming on…)

Speaking of gaseous cloud aliens…the Companion?

This episode really relies a lot on the computer to provide information and otherwise move the plot along.

Kirk keeps ignoring everyone to just talk to Spock.

“Cloud the issue” lol that’s a good pun. (Already can’t remember who said it but… point stands.)

The cloud entity feeds on women because they are more easily and deeply terrified. That sounds fake but okay. It’s also not in keeping with what Sybo said, is it? She mentioned a hatred of women. That’s not the same as finding women useful.

Hmm, when do we get our Martian Colonies, @ perseverance?

Oh, Rigel IV, you say? There seems to be a Rigellian right here!

This whole history of the entity is bizarre. The first killing sprees (that we know of) are on Earth, and Kirk specifically says that when man left Earth to explore, he took this with him. Does that mean… the cloud creature/entity originated on Earth? Truly a bizarre hypothesis, when you think about it.

Are you the entity, Sir?

There is actually very little Scotty in this Scotty-centric episode.

Lol the knife originates with the hill people of Rigel IV. What is this, Deliverance?

Omg Kirk punched the entity right out of that man!

So to summarize: “Jack the Ripper is actually a gaseous cloud that is capable of infecting the computer system of the Enterprise, thus hijacking the whole ship” is the basic, wacky concept of this episode.

This tranquilizer could quiet a volcano. Where was it during the volcano scene in STID hmm?

Kirk’s plan to keep people from being scared by the maniacal voice of the entity: Tranquilize the entire ship. That’s why he’s paid the big bucks.

Yet another twist on the old Kirk v. Computer plot. Time to use Math to defeat it.

Kirk is so unimpressed with the entity. “Eh, shut that off.” He would not be moved by a haunted house.

“This is the first time I’ve heard a malfunction threaten us.” Sulu can man his post AND be funny; he’s multi-talented.

Kirk and Spock don’t need tranquilizers because they’re smart enough to know this high-pitched voice yelling random threats just isn’t actually scary.

Kirk is really insistent that Sulu man his frickin’ post!

Oh no, not PI!! My nemesis, PI!

I’m really living for Sulu here.

If the entity entered a tranquilized person, it might take up knitting. I gotta say, that doesn’t make any sense as a plot point but I like it anyway.

That was a very efficient tranquilizing job! Everyone in a 400+ person ship in like 10 minutes? Get the medical team on the Enterprise in charge of the vaccine distribution stat.

Kirk just outright assumes that Spock won’t be a hospitable entity choice. And he’s not even wrong! The entity chooses the dead body over Spock or Kirk. It knows when it’s not wanted.

Hengist has been revived!

The entity is honestly, truly hilarious. Die, die, everybody die! Kill! Kill you all! Maniacal laughter! All while being carried by a still utterly unimpressed Kirk down the halls of the ship.

Spock’s like “get out of the way, you tranquilized idiot. Got some entity-scattering to do.”

“I gave them a pretty big shot, Jim!” Think you might have slightly overdone it, Bones? You didn’t need to make everyone useless for 6 hours for a problem that was solved in 5 minutes!

This is one of those moments, Kirk trying to get Spock to see the pretty ladies with him, when Spock seems super gay. Like, I don’t even think he is, that’s not my reading of him, and I also assume that wasn’t the intention here, but that’s just so clearly how it reads.

Aw, Kirk doesn’t want to go the strip club alone. Poor bb.

Weird how Lt. Leslie was in this when he died in the last episode.

Overall, I’d actually have to say that was a very crack-y episode. I liked the ending the best because it was so ridiculous.

What I don’t understand, in addition to whether or not the entity was really supposed to be from Earth, was how it came to be Hengist. Like, it can enter and leave bodies (or computers) at will, so perhaps it just entered Hengist, a normal Rigellian, at some point. But if that’s so, putting him on the transporter and scattering him into space was a pretty cruel thing to do. Also, why did he die (or appear to die) when the entity wasn’t in him? That implies he is the entity’s physical form. But then, first of all, how is also a Rigellian? Like did the entity mate with a Rigellian? Did the entity take over a baby Rigellian? Did the entity just claim to be Rigellian but is really just humanoid in its physical form—we did establish that some aliens, like this one, or creatures or whatever, are gaseous sometimes and solid others, so maybe its solid form is humanoid. Which would fit well with it originating in Earth, although that also brings a new and perhaps unintentional layer of creepiness to the story. I have to assume that’s the situation, but still, wild. And it doesn’t explain this: why does Hengist “die” when the entity “leaves” him, as opposed to just disappear entirely when the entity changes form??

Anyway, I know I’m overthinking this very wacky premise. Overall, I think the episode was fine. It didn’t have enough Scotty (for being a “Scotty episode”) and it changed genres an awful lot for 50 minutes. There was a tad too much misogyny going on. And overall I didn’t feel like the characters—even Kirk, and in actuality this was a Kirk episode much more than a Scotty episode, and purposefully so—were at their most interesting. Tbh Sulu ultimately stole the show in the final minutes.

Next up is the Trouble with Tribbles! Also a funny episode but at least undeniably purposefully so!

[magicalgirlagency]

What are your favourite tropes and narratives? Like, which ones you use for your worldbuilding?

I’m so glad you asked, Anonymous.

This is a list of the tropes that I utilize when building my world (in a very messy and randomized order):

Found Family/Family Of Choice: The Red Star Agency is basically this trope;

The Heart: When you’re a Magical Guardian, a little kindness can make a big difference;

Lighter & Softer: My creation is basically a role reversal of MadoMagi, where being a magical hero isn’t a cruel punishment;

Dark Is Not Evil: Some Magis rely on dark magic, and are just as respected as any other Magi;

Cute Bruiser: The very foundation of almost every Magical Girl series nowadays;

Ridiculously Cute Critter: Wondaria is chock full of them. Even with creatures from other worlds (such as chao and pokémon);

God Of Evil: Homura (now under the name of “Homucifer”) has been cursed to be a concept for all eternity, but refuses to accept defeat and terrorizes the earthlings as an act of revenge;

Anti-Magical Faction: The Witchfinder Organization believes that the Magis are “works of Satan”, leading society to a path of “eternal damnation”;

Cute Witch: Very underutilized, if you ask me. I mean, the genre was born from a witch’s success, after all;

Earn Your Happy Ending: Almost every Magi is a traumatized person who found their moment of peace and happiness in Wondaria;

Acid-Trip Dimension: The Incubators’ Barriers are pocket dimensions created from the earthlings’ accumulated negative energy;

Mundane Utility: Magic can be used to make one’s life easier, and sadly this trope isn’t very utilized in the Magical Girl genre nowadays;

Muggles: Non-magic users, such as the Incubators’ victims, the Witchfinders, Magis’ families and friends, etcetera;

Take That!: The entirety of my worldbuilding is fueled by my urgent need of being spiteful towards shitty narrative choices;

Another Dimension: Wondaria. ‘Nuff said;

Multicultural Alien Planet: Although not a planet, Wondaria has eight kingdoms that borrow some cultures from Earth;

Solarpunk: Wondaria relies on the harmony of nature and modernity to ensure a bright future to its inhabitants;

Rescue/Emergency Services: The Wondarian Bureau of Multiversal Rescue and the Azure Patrol dedicate themselves to save and protect anyone inside and outside Wondaria;

Magitek: The harmonious combination of magic and technology, powering up everything in Wondaria;

Aerith & Bob: Usual and unusual names for characters are to be expected if you have an alternative dimension as your hub world;

The Multiverse: Wondaria is constantly expanding, as they try their best to reach out to anyone who is hurt;

Humans Are Warriors: Most Magis are humans with pure and heroic intentions;

Matriarchy: Enlightened Matriarchy, specifically. Wondaria has Queen Margaret and the Society of Wonder, a group of women who administrate the world they live in;

An Aesop: A little lesson to be learned, and/or a comforting and reassurring message to marginalized people.

And that’s all I could gather at the moment. There might have some other tropes I’ve missed, though...

[innuendostudios]

Thoughts on Even More Games

[vague, unspecific spoilers for Heaven’s Vault, Later Alligator, and Life is Strange 2]

Thoughts on Heaven’s Vault

Heaven’s Vault is a game about archeology, which means it’s also a game about incompleteness. This is very clever. Inkle - also the developers of 80 Days, which I will play someday! - specialize in deep narratives that can be explored many, many ways, allowing for a lot of player choice. You make a lot of small decisions - do you share a discovery with the trader in exchange for a valuable item, or hide it so he doesn’t plunder it? do you go looking for your missing friend, or let her stay missing in case there are people trying to follow you to her? These all have their own little arcs and resolutions, and there are so many of them, and so many ways they can play out, that the game can never be played the same way twice. The overall story begins and ends in the same place and theoretically hits the same major beats, but the journey is tailored broadly and finely to each player; it’s a style of design Aaron A. Reed refers to as “not... a branching tree but a braided rope.”

Making a narrative about archeology is how you dodge the exponentially complicated nature of that design: if there are dozens of locations, characters, plot threads, bits of color, which can be engaged with at many points in time, or ignored, or dropped by the player halfway through, how do you avoid telling a story full of gaps and dead ends? Well... you don’t. Having only partial information and having to infer the rest is what archeology is.

The protagonist of Heaven’s Vault, Aliya, is digging up the secrets of an ancient civilization, having been sent by her academy to find a researcher who’s gone missing, and stumbling into his incredible discovery. Everywhere she goes, there are holes: she has partial understanding of the researcher’s journey and motives; he, in turn, had partial understanding of the mystery he was uncovering, and Aliya has only fragments of his knowledge; the ancient texts she translates are usually fragments of larger works, and she is guessing at the meanings of many of the words; the game’s constantly updating historical timeline has entire centuries with nothing but question marks. Aliya arrives in a new location and wonders aloud to her robot companion about what this place was, when it was founded, when it was abandoned, how her predecessor found his way her and where he went next and what he took with him.

The constant feeling of discovery - of unearthing - is magnificent. Site after site, I asked, “What is this place?” Always thinking, if the eventual answer is any good, this is going to be one of the best games I’ve ever played. And, in the end, it doesn’t give you an answer, it just give you enough to make the story feel complete. It answers by not answering.

Also, translating alien texts is just extremely my jam. I’m the weirdo who enjoyed the ending of Arrival but secretly wished the whole movie had been about xenolinguistics like the first half. I guess Inkle felt similar.

The game’s by no means perfect. I think I enjoyed the sailing between worlds more than most - it’s slow, but very pretty - but it’s going to discourage a replay. I don’t think the relationship between Aliya and her robot, Six, ever gets terribly interesting. Some of the archeology is a little too obviously game-y - sail around, wait to find a random ruin, beam Six down to grab an ancient doodad, translate a bit of text, lo and behold it’s from one of the sites you’re looking for and it’s narrowed your search radius somehow. (It gives Star Trek explanations the first few times - e.g. “it has radiation that only exists in one part of the nebula” - and then stops bothering.) And the game sags a little in the middle; it could’ve hacked out 3 or 4 dig sites and still given me the same experience.

But, all told, there’s magic in it, and it just feels good to be there. Do not sleep on this one.

Thoughts on Later Alligator

There’s not a ton to say about this game except that is charming as hell. Lindsay and Alex Small-Butera have build a beautifully animated world of cute alligators, one of whom is having a birthday party where he’s convinced he’s going to be murdered. He wants you to run around getting information out of everyone who’s going to be there, which you get by completing minigames. It’s a cast of weird and funny characters with weird and funny dialogue and there’s not much more to it than that.

The design can be a little frustrating. Some minigames, if you lose, you don’t get to try again. Some are annoyingly finicky. You need to complete them all to get the true ending, which means, in my case, playing the game three times to complete all the bits you missed or got locked out of. The ending was a little different each time, so it wasn’t a total wash, but the game’s on a timer that only advances when you play a game or take the bus, and once you’ve completed most of the games there’s a lot of traveling back and forth from one nowhere to another just to advance time to the next unskippable plot beat.

(It’s also a little unclear what you’re missing as you try to get the final ending, as some of the ongoing puzzle are optional.)

But I can’t get mad. The game is too damn cute! Each character is lively and unique, with tons of personality, and the dialogue is just clever enough not to fall into empty adorkability.

It good.

Thoughts on Life is Strange 2

Somewhere, early in the development of Life is Strange 2, some Dontnod employee wrote in a design document “Episode 4 - cult?” (but in French) and nobody told them “no.”

I will not forgive them for this,

After twenty minutes of LiS2, I was ready to yell at everyone who had reported it was boring. It has one of the most powerful, gut-punching openings of any game I’ve played in recent memory. And all through the first, second, and third episodes, I was in love. Unlike Before the Storm, this was its own creature, willing to make dramatic departures from the original game’s template. Instead of controlling a character with supernatural powers, you play as the superpowered character’s older brother. The one with the magic is a 9-year-old, unable to fully understand or control his abilities, suffering a recent trauma, and needing to be guided through a dangerous and racist world. All the ambition missing from Before the Storm is back, and this time the animation isn’t creepy and the writing is wildly improved (thanks to some journeyman script work from Fullbright’s Steve Gaynor) and I even have a computer able to play it on higher graphical settings.

But nothing good lasts.

Everything good about the series screeches to a halt in Episode 4, the one where some asshole said “cult?” and didn’t get a Nerf football thrown at their head. And it’s not just that it’s a terrible idea; it’s actually sort of amazing how much the game relies on an alchemy of plot, tone, theme, and writing, and how a slight imbalance can throw the whole thing off. Episode 4 has scene after scene that are powerful in their conception - brothers reunited after a violent rift; a boy having his first conversation with his estranged mother in nearly a decade; getting interrogated by the feds for a crime that can’t even be explained by physics - fall flat because the writers can’t think of anything interesting for the characters to say. (Steve Gaynor’s name stops appearing in the credits as of this episode.)

And here the game’s rickety bits, kept delicately together for three episodes, start to shake apart. Dontnod’s overly-earnest voice direction, which I didn’t notice in the early episodes, started to wear me down. (”Could you sigh mid-syllable, like you’re slightly overwhelmed with emotion?” “Sure, on which line?” “All of them.”) The thinness of the secondary characters, most of whom pop up for one episode and disappear, became more noticeable. The lack of a mechanical hook like the time rewinding of the original game, and the attendant commentary on choice-based games and power fantasies, made the game feel less substantial. The surreal imagery of the original, obligatorily evoked in the prequel, is sensibly absent, but there’s nothing equally striking that replaces it. Even the branching path decisions become less clear: the end-of-episode stat screens for the final episodes mentioned at least a dozen choices I didn’t even know I’d made, some of which were critical in shaping my younger brother’s morality and were not necessarily the choices I’d have made if I’d known I was making a choice at all.

Come the final episode, I got An Ending that seemed right for the way I’d played, but much of the way I’d played felt accidental.

So what are we to make of this? Life is Strange is a beautiful disaster, an ambitious disaster, where Life is Strange 2 is almost less interesting for being  more competent. It has a huge mess of charged topics - American racism, teens losing their virginity, raising a child outside the nuclear family, grief and trauma - and, while it handles them without the gracelessness and sledgehammer subtlety of the original, it doesn’t come to any conclusions about any of them. LiS1, for all its jank, had some opinions, where LiS2 falls into the category of “this sure is some shit, innit?” games.

It starts with a powerful premise, deeply relatable characters, fine writing, beautiful art, but can’t even manage, in the end, to be a disaster. It is the only game in the series so far to be forgettable.

[askmerriauthor]

Starbound AU World and Character Lore Notes

Things worth being aware of for characterization and such, either based in canon lore from Starbound itself or extrapolated off reasonable evidence to support the notion.  Likely Part 1 of ??? submissions:

Conservation of Matter, Energy, and You The Starbound setting is futuristic to the point of magic, including also featuring actual magic.  So that gives us a ton of wiggle room on handwaving away just about any nonsense, but there are some constants that continue on regardless.  In this setting matter and energy are flawlessly interchangeable and can be preserved in a permanently stable, non-degrading state with no loss in conversion.  The methods and specifications of how this wondrous technological development works are never deeply explored and frankly it’s better we keep it that way.  So what applications does this have for people who live in the setting?

- Virtually Endless Storage Through the use of various forms of technological tools, matter is either converted into pure energy/data and stored within the tool, or matter can be spontaneously constructed via “nanites”.  That is to say, a legion of microscopic robots with a unified hive mind that can cooperatively build complex structures seemingly out of nothing (in this case, converting some form of stored/ambient energy/mass into the necessary materials desired).

We see this sort of of functionality constantly within the setting, usable both by the player and NPCs alike.  Whether it be a capsule pod, or a ray gun, or a Matter Manipulator, or any other bevy of trinkets that may come into play.  Need a giant mech suit to explore the void of space, or a hover bike to skim a planet’s terrain in style?  Just press a button on a handy little device and poof!  Nanites instantly construct the vehicle for you on the spot.  Want to carry an entire mountain in your pocket?  Transport billions of gallons of molten lava from place to place without it cooling?  The Matter Manipulator has you covered as it converts matter into energy and categorizes it in an easy-to-interpret list.   Have a farm of cute critters which produce natural animal byproducts for you but need to relocate in a pinch?  Just aim a ray gun at each and zap!  Your adorable animal friend is converted into pure energy, stored within the gun’s capacitor system, and held there in perfect status for easy transport.  You can even capture and tame wild animals and monsters from alien worlds by throwing pokeba-- er, “capture pods” at them to the same function.

Mind you, this manner of matter-to-energy-back-to-matter conversion is 100% efficient and suffers no degradation.  Similarly we don’t have any of the Star Trek “teleporting actually kills you and spawns a clone that just thinks it’s the real you” nonsense either.  When you pick up a volume of dirt with the Matter Manipulator, the device doesn’t replicate the molecular composition of ‘dirt’.  It takes that exact piece of dirt, turns it into energy, and when you want to recall it later it gives you back that exact piece of dirt.  This even works on conceptual forms of matter like “storage”.  You can use the Matter Manipulator to pick up a storage cabinet and tote it around in an energy/digital form.  However, you can also fill that storage cabinet with items and then scan it, at which point you energize/digitize the filled cabinet.  When you bring it back out again, it still has all those items stored inside.

Say you have a storage unit that can hold 300 items.  Now let’s say you have 300 of such storage units.  You fill all 300 with whatever you want and then pick up the many units with the Matter Manipulator, store them into that single original 300-capacity unit, and then pick up that to put it in your pocket.  Container-ception!  This only works one-tier deep, however.  You can put a filled container inside another container and then pick that up, but you can’t put both of those filled containers into a third and then pick that up.

What this means within the context of the setting is that moving vast amounts of materials, goods, even living beings is a completely negligible effort.  It would be completely plausible for entire cities to be constructed seemingly out of thin air, or wholly relocated from one planet to another, with no real trouble at all.

-Functional Immortality So remember what I said before about being able to convert animals into energy?  Yeah, that’s not just animals - it’s all creatures, including sentient beings like you.  Teleportation is the primary method of transport throughout the galaxy (followed shortly by ship-based faster-than-light star cruising) where the target individual is converted into energy and hurled across the galaxy in point-to-point teleportation.  This of course can be activated intentionally in order to facilitate mobility (be it long-range teleportation or short-range “blinking” to traverse one’s immediate surroundings) but it also has the potential to activate automatically when one dies.

Being a video game, of course there’s a “respawn” function so you can continue playing after you die.  But this isn’t a benefit only the player gets - NPCs get it too.  When a Being dies from whatever traumatic event, they burst into energy and vanish.  Compare this to when you kill a wild animal on some hostile enemy world - such critters die with a wet squelch sound, a spray of blood, and often leave behind organic matter like raw meat, pelts, chemical compounds, and other facets of their anatomy.  If you have a friendly NPC you’re escorting as part of a mission and they suffer an untimely doom?  The game prompts you with a message saying that they’ve respawned safely nearby so you can continue on.  Whenever you the player die in-game, your character respawns back on their ship’s teleporter platform after a short animation sequence unique to your species.  The animation is clearly just visual flavor and not meant to be taken literally, but the process it represents is what really matters.

Basically what all of this means is that whenever a being travels via Teleportation, there’s some built-in security function that will monitor their biological signal (which is how they can allow for intergalactic teleportation on the fly in the first place) that will prevent a Being from dying.  It doesn’t protect one from being injured (especially since wounds can be immediately healed through similar technological processes), but at the moment one would expire they’re instead recalled to safety by the teleportation system.  This sort of technology operates on faster-than-light processing speeds, so it’s not like it could ever really come up short in the heat of the moment, after all.  But even with that it isn’t infallible.  In the events of the game, Earth was completely destroyed and countless lives were lost in the process, presumably because there was no recall function operating at the time.  I mean, Ruin showed up to wreck the entire planet in short order, so no doubt whatever security systems might’ve been in place on Earth were likewise destroyed in the process, which required survivors to flee via ship.  At the time of its destruction Earth had been a peaceful paradise for ages, so odds are they might’ve been a little lax on having redundancies to cover their butts with since there were literally no genuine threats to be vigilant against.

Back to the point; this serves as functional immortality.  Not actual immortality.  Beings in the setting still age, can suffer diseases/toxins, lose limbs, and so forth.  Similarly, if one were to somehow disable the means of teleportation (putting up a no-fly-zone anti teleportation field, destroying a teleporter array entirely, etc.) that would put someone relying on such a means of security in mortal peril as a result.  There might even be naturally-occurring cases that could prevent teleportation recall as well, which the player may experience during the events at the end of the game which I won’t discuss fully here to avoid spoiling anyone.

[skekheck]

30 Days of the Dark Crystal Challenge

Decided to do poultry-blocks Dark Crystal challenge because it looks like a lot of fun to do. However I’m cheating and I wrote all of this within a couple of days. Warning: fairly large post with pictures and fan ramblings. 

EDIT: I FORGOT TO INCLUDE DAY 16 WHOOP. It’s in there now. 

Day 1. Your favorite skeksis

Idiot, feral, wildman who stole my heart. How? Why? Who knows. *chef kisses* Beautiful stinky bastard.

Day 2: Your favorite gelfling

Bless her and her skeksis cosplay. What a queen.

Day 3: A character that you love that everyone seems to hate.

The tides are changing for her it seems. I think people are appreciating her more, but she still faces her fair share of controversies. Not that I don’t think it warrants discussion nor am I excusing her actions. But she’s way more complex than what a lot of people are making her out to be.

Day 4: A character that you hate that everyone seems to love. 

Hate is a strong word as I don’t hate him, but I don’t really care for Amri. He feels like a bootleg Deet mixed with a little bit of Kylan and Gurjin. Wasted potential and honestly shouldn’t have been the POV for Tides of the Dark Crystal. Seems I’m alone in this opinion, though. Maybe the book warrants rereading?

Day 5: Movie or TV Show? Why?

TV Show by miles! I think the series accomplishes way more than the movie does, like establishing lore,  better written characters, and a more engaging story. I actually cared about the gelfling and it really fleshed out the skeksis in an interesting way outside of “oh they do evil things because they’re evil!”. Doesn’t mean it does everything right, but I’ll get into that later.  

Day 6: Something you wish that happened in the series but didn’t.

Just a few things. I miss the gelfling intermingling with the mystics, particularly urVa. I love everything that happens with urGoh and skekGra, but some of the bonding moments Naia had with urVa are precious and I wish we had more of that. I also wished the gelfling got the message out to the other clans like they did in the book where Kylan dreametched their message onto the Santuary Tree’s blossoms and scattered them all throughout Thra. I also wished Tavra and Onica were an established couple, but maybe it’s not too late for that.

Day 7: Favorite gelfling clan

The Sifa! It was the Dousan at first, but the more I learned about the Sifa the more I grew to love the clan. If I were a gelfling I would probably be a sifa myself LOL. 

Day 8: You opinion on Aughra

She’s a fun and fascinating character! Aughra puts a unique spin on the whole beautiful, wise earth goddess trope by making her ugly, old, and cranky. She’s also a character with her own flaws, even having a mini arc about neglecting to take care of her planet and doing whatever she can to make amends. Not to mention she’s wildly entertaining. Much love for Aughra!

Day 9: Skeksis or Gelfling?

Both!

Day 10: Your opinion on podlings?

They’re just funky little potato people who just want to have fun, dance, and drink all day and I respect them for that. They’re great. Also Hup exists and he’s just an amazing character so there’s that.

Day 11: Your The Dark Crystal unpopular opinion

I think it’s okay to sympathize with the skeksis as long as one is not excusing their actions. I see a lot of people say you shouldn’t because they’re evil and they commit atrocities. Which, yes, it’s true, but I think both can co-exist. I mean, skekTek’s whole cycle of abuse is written very sympathetically yet the show doesn’t coddle him. It shows the ugliness of his character and what happens when someone isn’t capable of cutting off from said cycle. Also the writers consider the skeksis as tragic characters due to their broken nature so I don’t think it’s wrong to be a little sympathetic. But once again with great emphasis, sympathy is fine as long as their actions are judged. They are awful bastards and no amount of sympathy will change that. 

Day 12: Something you dislike about the series

I think the stuff I don’t like about the show is a result of its pacing and cluttered cast. There are so many stories going on and while I liked how they handled it for the most part, you can also see how the show rushes to get through all of them. A lot of important moments where a character should reflect or something that should simmer more is pushed aside for the next thing. Maybe if the show was given more episodes and time to breath it would have been better off. 

Day 13: Most disappointing thing about the series

SkekMal and urVa didn’t have enough screen time and we were honestly ROBBED. 

Day 14: Your OTP

Speaking of which... . Its a crack ship, but I’m all about that allegory for self love (and I just want these two to be alive). Day 15: Favorite quote

Listed plenty of my favorite quotes before, but I’ll pick this one:

“ Life is my paint. Death is my canvas”

Day 16: Rate the skeksis from least favorite to favorite OR rate the gelfling from lest favorite to favorite [or both!]

And if you want my gelfling hot takes, here’s this list (just backwards in context to this post)

Day 17: Opinion on Raunip?

Raunip is a fantastic character. I loved him in Creation Myths and I can’t wait to see what role he’d play in the resistance. And I absolutely love the parallels between him and the urskeks it’s great. 

Day 18: A character that is most similar to you.

I too am a dark-dwelling gremlin who constantly forgets where I put things and crack a few dark jokes at my expense. 

Day 19: Which character do you strongly dislike, why?

This is entirely based on the books, but I find Mera to be awful.  I think it’s because she’s so fake and condescending? When Naia arrived in Sami Thicket, she was acting nice and polite but when the Drenchen asked her why the skeksis never visited Sog Mera responded  “It’s only worth counting what’s valuable”. She continuously disrespects her by calling her pet names even when Naia became maudra. It doesn’t come off as cute, it’s gross. I don’t recall Mera ever apologizing for any of the shit she did to Naia... or Kylan for that matter. She was a pretty neglectful step-mother to him. She doesn’t have an excuse being busy with Maudra stuff because Laesid was a kickass mom to her kids. So in conclusion, fuck this bitch.

Day 20: What do you like so much about the Dark Crystal?

The better question what’s not to love about the Dark Crystal? It has amazing creature design, an expansive world that feels real and alien from our own, having complex and interesting characters as well as villains, the fact that it relies heavily on practical effects a.k.a puppetry... . There’s nothing like it and that’s what makes it so wonderful and unique. It needs to be appreciated more. 

Day 21: Favorite music piece from the soundtrack?

Can’t beat that opening theme. 

Day 22: Your opinion on the sequel comics [Power/Beneath the Dark Crystal]

They have cool concepts and ideas, but they’re not written well. Power is just the movie if it was put into a blender and shredded and ignoring a large portion of established lore for the sake of plot. And Beneath is just a generic fantasy story with the Dark Crystal logo slapped on it. 

Day 23: Which character from the YA novels/comics do you wish we would see more of?

There are plenty of characters that are a given to appear in the series at some point (skekSa, skekLi, urSan, etc). And of course I want to see them, but I really hope Periss shows up (and his brother too). He is one of my favorite characters from the book series and we could use some more Dousan rep!

Day 24: Your opinion on the Age of Resistance comic?

I have yet to read the comics. I’m waiting on them to be part of a collection so I don’t have to buy all of the volumes at once (I prefer owning physical copies). I’ve heard good things about them, especially the story with Hup and the current Mayrin arc. I’m excited to get my hands on them. 

Day 25: The best moment/scene in the series?

There are a lot of great moments, but Rian and Ordon’s fight with skekMal is still my favorite in the entire series. The "Speak For the Dead” scene is a close second.

Day 26: The death of a character that hurt you the most?

He did not deserve this. Fuck you, skekMal. 

Day 27: Your favorite episode from the series?

It’s got to be 4. Not just because a number of my favorite characters debut in this episode, but it’s an important one for the plot. Stakes are being raised, we’re seeing set ups to major story elements and character arcs, and events that impact the rest of the series. It also has a handful of my favorite character moments and interactions. 

Day 28: Your favorite non-skeksis and non-gelfling character? Why?

I’ve come to realize the reasons why I love urVa are the same as why I love skekMal (incredibly appropriate I might say). There’s enough information about him that we get a good understanding on who he is as a character, but still mysterious enough that there’s interest in wanting to know more. Much like his skeksis, he’s unique from the other mystics and thus giving him unique experiences that are fun to speculate. However, the YA novels are responsible for my current fondness of him. 

Day 29: Do you like the urru and skeksis apart or like them as urSkeks together?

A main theme of the Dark Crystal is unity and balance. The main conflict of the franchise are the skeksis, the broken fragments of their urskek self who, according to the writers, “...[have] a dire need for the qualities they lack”. Their only salvation is to become urskeks again and unfortunately many of the pairs never achieve this.  They’re basically a giant allegory for the self and self-love. While we don’t really know what they were like when they were an urskek (aside from SilSol perhaps), we can get some understanding when we look at their pairs and see what traits they share. Speculation is also fun! So as much as I love the skeksis and mystics as individuals, I prefer them to be whole again.

Day 30: What are your wishes for a possible season 2?

A whole bunch of things. I want to see them explore more about the mystics and their lifestyle, having Raunip play a big part in the plot, seeing more of skekSa’s fall from grace from her perspective, the beginning of the Garthim Wars, and more. 

[capswritinq]

Morning- Bucky Barnes Fic Part 2

Summary: Bucky reminisces and mourns y/n. The events of Endgame transpire.

Genre: More angst than I intended but a happy ending!

Word Count: 2.5k

Note: Thanks for all the lovely feedback on part 1! Hearing people’s reactions to the things I create motivates me to keep making them. I was too lazy to rewatch Endgame so everything is based off of my memory, by the way. Also, do you guys like having music to go with some scenes or is it distracting? Please let me know your thoughts!

Y/n was a homebody. Of course she loved spending time with her friends and seeing new sights every once in a while, but ever since she met Bucky, the place where she enjoyed the most was home. When they bought their first house together, y/n had visions of what she wanted the place to be.

“We have to get cute chairs for the front porch. Imagine going out there in the morning and having a cup of coffee while getting to watch the sunrise, how nice is that?...Oh! And we have to make sure we have tons of paintings and pictures on the walls, I hate when people leave it bare. I was thinking for the kitchen...”

Bucky was only half listening to her ideas. He knew that whatever she did, he would love, because she was trying to make a house their home. He knew she would make sure that it was apparent that they lived there, as she was a very expressive person. He loved that about her, how her personality was so big she wore it on her sleeve.

Getting everything unpacked only took one week, as y/n spent all day and all night decorating and putting everything where it needed to go, with Bucky’s help of course.

The night y/n deemed they had their “finished project”, they took two wine glasses out to the front porch, along with the crosley Steve gifted Bucky for his past birthday. A record was softly playing.

Y/n and Bucky sat in their “cute” chairs, along with the music floating through the evening air.

“I think it’s funny how our appliances and security system is so hi-tech, yet we probably get the most use out of your record player and my old polaroid.” Y/n commented.

A small smirk was on Bucky’s face. “I guess I never thought about that, but you’re right.”

“You know, I’ve always been an old soul. I know it seems like everyone says that but it’s true for me. I grew up on this technology yet I’ve always relied on pen and paper. I matured so young. History was always my favorite class in school, too. The World Wars fascinated me. I would go home and read all about them, past the stuff they would assign. I always wondered what it was like to live during that time.” She looked Bucky in the eye.

Bucky thought for a moment. He didn’t think about his life before HYDRA all too often anymore. His mind was now occupied with thoughts about other things, or rather on a particular person.

“Well, the air was fresher. It was just as noisy though. People talked on the streets louder, and you could hear the car engines on the road more. People weren’t so afraid of each other either.”

Bucky looked down at his hands, his eyes flickering between his flesh and metal one.

“You would walk in a place and pretty much talk to anyone. If someone came battered and bruised at your door, you would let them in. People had lost so much after the Great War, that any ounce of kindness or normalcy was embraced.”

“I bet the parties were pretty lame, though.” Y/n said lightheartedly, looking up to Bucky to see his reaction.

“You kidding? Yeah, you couldn’t really hear the music all to well but the dancing was just as good, if not better. Drinks were cheaper, too.”

Y/n laughed at that. “Everything was cheaper, Buck.”

“Well no shit.” He chuckled.

“The music was great though, I’ll give you guys that.”

Bucky hummed in agreement.

The record player crackled as it moved to the next track. The clarinet of Benny Goodman filled their ears, and Peggy Lee’s soft voice glittered in the air.

Y/n stood up from her spot, and reached her hand out to Bucky. “Dance with me.”

He smiled up at her and grabbed her hand. She turned the dial up on the crosley, and wrapped her arms around his body. Her head rested in the crook of his neck. He held her hand and placed his other arm around her waist. They swayed to the tune.

The only sound he focused on was the music playing and her light breathing. The only thing he thought about was her. In that moment, he looked at her with stars in his eyes because she was his whole universe. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for this woman.

“I love you so much, Bucky.” She whispered delicately in his ear.

Bucky closed his eyes and inhaled a breath, taking in her lovely scent.

“I love you too, darling. So much.”

“Even when I’m a little wine drunk?” She said pulling back to look at his face, a crooked smile on hers.

He grinned at her. “Even more when you’re wine drunk. You’re more fun that way.” He said cheekily.

“Oh shut it, Barnes.”

He laughed and held her face in his hands, and gently moved forward to kiss her. She responded, wrapping her arms tighter around him, her finger tips softly tugging at the ends of the hair on the nape of his neck.

Bucky could honestly say that that was one of the happiest times of his life.

Now he was left destroyed, absolutely shattered, with the absense of her. He knew his happiness rested in her, no matter how unhealthy it might seem. Half of him went away the day she vanished.

5 years without her. 5 years of misery. He felt like he just watched every day go by, not really there.

His life lacked color without her in it. Bucky thought that after 5 years maybe, just maybe, things would eventually lessen but the pain still ached in his chest. He yearned for her. It didn’t help living in the place where she last was, everything reminding him of her.

He kept her small pile of dirty clothes laying on the floor in their bedroom. He left her art studio untouched, not baring to open the door again. Even a mug that had her chapstick stain on it remained on her bedside table.

The little fragments of her pained him to look at, but at the same time it kept y/n’s memory alive. But Bucky couldn’t ever possibly forget her.

His day started just the same as every day before that, after the infamous snap. He woke up later than he used to, showered a bit less, and moved around hardly. Some days were better than others, though. Bucky counted days where he could drag himself to the grocery store a win.

The time on his phone read 10:35. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, knowing Steve was going to be disappointed in being late yet again for a meeting. He already had 3 missed texts and 2 calls from him.

Hey, where are you?

Answer your phone.

Damnit Bucky. I thought things were getting better.

Bucky huffed at reading the last one. As if he could ever get better. As if his soul, body, and heart didn’t long for her to still be with him.

He texted back a “Sorry, leaving now” before quickly putting on some clothes that didn’t smell like rubbish before hastily leaving the house.

————

Bucky sat across from Steve in the cafe booth, staring at him with pained eyes. He didn’t breathe. He looked down after a moment, trying to process what Steve just revealed to him.

“Every night since the snap I’ve gone to bed wishing I could have done something. That I could do something to reverse it all. I’ve held onto this hope. But as the days turned into years I’ve had to face the reality that she-“ Bucky paused. “She’s not coming back. None of them are. And you just spring this onto me. I don’t know if I can allow myself to build up that hope again just to have it all crash down on me. I couldn’t endure that.” He shook his head, meeting Steve’s blue irises.

“Of course there is no guarantee that this will work. But you owe it to her to try. We owe it to all of them. If there is any chance, any slim chance this could work, why not take it?”

Bucky let his words hang in the air. He really thought about it. Of course he would do anything for her, anything. But the feeling he felt when he found her ashes, realizing that this was all real and that she was gone, tore him apart. Having to rexperience that would be torture. Not even HYDRA could have done damage to him like that. But Steve was right.

He owed it to her, his light. He was so tired of living in the darkness. He would do anything for her.

“Okay. When do we leave?”

———

Banner had done it. When the plant outside the compound window reappeared, and the birds started singing louder, Bucky could feel his chest rise with hope and relief. When Clint received a call from his wife, Bucky cried.

She was back. He couldn’t see her but Bucky could feel the heart strings reattaching and the aching dulled. His world was colorful again.

The blissful moment was short lived when the building started to crumble and they realized they were under attack from Thanos.

The nerve of that fucking guy.

Bucky came out of the rubble seemingly unharmed, running to Steve. The fight had began.

Bucky just wanted to run home to her. He knew she would probably be so confused, stepping out of her studio and seeing the state of the house. It was a wreck. Bucky just couldn’t take care of it or himself anymore.

But he knew this would end in a fight. Thanos needed to be ended.

So he fought. Sending bullets into the skulls of the extra terrestrial beings and punching any creature that got in his way, he kept the image of y/n in mind. The knowledge of her being alive and him not getting to see or hold her killed him, but he was determined as ever to beat the fuck out of Thanos and his army.

In the moment he sent a bullet through another creature’s skull, the being wisped away into ashes instead of falling back on the soil. Bucky looked around, confused, until he saw Stark in the distance wielding the gauntlet. 

His eyes widened as he witnessed the thousands of aliens, Thanos included, being vanished into the air. He cringed at the sight of Peter and Pepper hunched in anguish over Tony’s body.

Steve approached Bucky from behind, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. 

“You alright?” Steve asked, tears in his eyes. It had been one hell of a day.

Bucky nodded. “Yeah. I can’t believe Stark did it.”

Steve looked down, not wanting to Bucky to see the tear that escaped. He stood there for a few seconds, letting everything settle over him.

“You should go home. You should be able to find a car by the compound, or whatever is left of it.”

Bucky looked at him.

“What about you?”

“I’m going to catch up with Sam. Don’t worry about me. Go see her.”

Bucky instantly grinned at the mention of y/n. He hugged Steve.

“Give my regards to Sam.” He stated.

“Same to y/n.” Steve smiled.

Bucky gave Steve one last look before jogging towards the compound, his feet picking up momentum the more he thought about y/n. 

He was going home, at last.

------

She was sitting on the porch chairs, a distant look in her eyes. She was holding onto a wine glass.

Her eyes widened when the car approached the driveway.

Bucky didn’t even turn it off before he got out, running to her. She gasped.

“Buck-”

“Y/n!” He swiftly pulled her into him, crushing their bodies together. He inhaled her beautiful scent. He cried.

They held each other for a while, the only thing to be heard was the muffled sounds of their breaths and clogged noses, the happiest of tears shedding.

He kissed her temple, his lips lingering. He looked down into her eyes, hers showing both love and relief.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner. You have no idea how happy I am to see you. God, it was hell without you.”

Her face contorted in concern. “I can’t imagine what it was like, Buck. I’m sorry.”

He didn’t say anything, but pulled her into his embrace again, cradling her head in his arms. He kissed her hair.

That night, they laid in their bed, it now feeling warm and comfortable  and right. He held her in his arms, so tight and close. She nestled into him, her body fitting his like a puzzle piece. Neither of them were sleeping, but neither spoke a word. He could explain everything to her later. She could tell Bucky just needed a break from talking or thinking, all he needed was to just hold her. To know that she was really there with him.

After a few moments, Bucky turned his body to face hers, moving his arm that was underneath her to his side, his other wrapped around her torso. He gazed at her.

“Will you marry me?” He whispered, voice husk, sincere.

She stared at him, and tried to stifle a laugh, but a chuckle escaped her. Bucky’s face held a bit of amusement, at the joy of getting to hear the beautiful sound, but also confusion at her reaction.

“What?” he asked.

She met his eyes. “You know I’m not one for grand romantic gestures or cheesiness, but I’m just imagining how Winifred would have reacted to you asking me that like that.” Her smiled reached the corner of her eyes, a small laugh following.

Bucky looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head and grinning. “She’s rolling in her grave right now, yelling at me about being a gentleman and my rudeness.” 

Y/n giggled, reaching out to rub Bucky’s arm.

“Oh, totally.”

After their laughs cooled down, Y/n stared at Bucky fondly and determined.

“Of course I’ll marry you, Bucky.” She pressed a kiss to his hand that rested on her shoulder.

It was crazy how much a difference a day made. Yesterday, Bucky didn’t have purpose to his life. Without y/n by his side, he didn’t see the point in continuing on. But now, having y/n in the home they shared, their bed they occupied, wrapped up in her, he wished to have all the time in the world to be alive and share it with her. Before, the only solace he gained was in sweet dreams of her, because it was the only time he felt her presence when she was no longer around. Now, Bucky didn’t want to fall asleep, he wanted to stay awake forever and spend every waking moment with her.

He fell asleep that night holding her, hearing her soft snores. In the morning when he woke up around 6, he stared at her lovely face, undisturbed by the peacefulness of sleep. He could hear the sound of four birds chirping furiously. For once, the sound filled him with an overwhelming amount of joy. 

He was whole again.