#which i call is walkabout

[didyoulookforme]

the one to wait

your best friend tries to cheer you up after a bad school day. takes place about a year since walkabout.

warning: kissing. making out. cheesy fluff. teenagers being dramatic. grammatical errors, typos.

part of the bf matty au. masterlist here.

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walking into matty’s room feels like stepping straight into his brain. or at least how you imagine it must look in there. books and papers are piled everywhere. perhaps he started a system but gave up halfway through. guitar picks in every color are scattered across the floor like confetti, and there are way too many empty coke cans lying around to not feel a little concerned. the first time he invited you over, you were truly shocked that anyone could survive under these conditions. but now, after a year of knowing him, it just fits. every single thought in his head is clearly taken up by music, and the rest? it’s all background noise. honestly, it’s strangely charming.

of course, he’s sprawled out on his bed at this second, looking ridiculously comfortable while half-heartedly messing with his guitar. it takes him about three notes for you to catch on—yeah, it’s that song. the one from last week’s practice that’s been stuck in your head ever since he asked what you thought of it. as if your zero knowledge about music writing could actually contribute anything meaningful to the track. but it’s one of matty’s sneaky little ways of showing he actually cares about you.

you’re on the floor, cross-legged, back against the bed frame, fidgeting every two seconds because sitting still is impossible during this moment in time. your homework’s out in front of you, basically untouched except for your half-written name scribbled at the top. you can’t focus. your mind’s stuck on the same stupid thing from lunch, and it’s driving you mad. it’s impossible to shake off that you let out a long, heavy sigh before you even realize it’s happening, and immediately the guitar strings stop mid-chord, leaving the room way too quiet.

“alright, what’s going on with you?”

“nothing.” you glance over your shoulder, trying to play it off, but he’s already watching you. his fingers are still wrapped around the neck of the instrument, not moving, eyes squinting enough to make it clear he’s calling your bluff.

“doesn’t seem like nothing.” he tilts his head, hair falling into his face in that pretty way you enjoy so much. “you’ve been off since you got here. you’re not even studying, which is, like, your thing. so just tell me already. what’s going on?”

there’s this tight knot in your gut that won’t give. you glare down at your notebook—maybe if you focus hard enough, it’ll magically sort all this crap out for you. “it’s nothing, matty,” you mumble, trying not to sound as annoyed as you feel. “just... drop it, alright?”

there’s this awkward silence, and then the bed creaks as he scoots closer. you feel his hair brush against your shoulder, and it makes your chest tighten a bit, but you play it cool. he leans in to look at you, his face way too calm for what you’re feeling.

“not happening,” he cuts straight to the point. “spill. what’s up?”

“it’s dumb.”

“don’t care.”

you groan. “fine. it’s… something from lunch, okay?”

his eyebrows lift a little, and his expression goes softer, which only makes it harder to keep your thoughts straight. “what kind of thing?”

a loud exhale leaves your lips once again. “just… some girls were talking about making out. who they’ve kissed. all the stuff they’ve done.” you pause, your throat tight, already regretting saying anything. “then they asked me.” another pause. “and i had nothing to say. because, you know, i haven’t done much. properly.”

your voice gives up at the end. cheeks burning. brain short-circuiting. full-body humiliation mode activated. all you want is for the ground to do you a favour and eat you alive, but nope. you’re still here. still breathing. still sitting in front of your best friend, fully exposed, no take-backs.

matty blinks at you, and for a second, you’re fully convinced he’s about to burst out laughing, so you’re bracing yourself for it. but he doesn’t. he stares, brow creasing a little, as if you’ve dealt him some impossible equation from your old tutoring sessions instead of whatever disaster is currently spilling out of your mouth.

“okay…” he finally says, real slow.

“and then,” you blurt out as there’s no way you can stop now, “they started going on about how everyone’s kissed someone, right? and yeah, obviously i have. but not—not in the way they meant. nothing that made me, i don’t know, lose my mind or whatever. so now i’m overthinking it, because what if i’m just bad at it? what if it’s me?” your face is on fire, and honestly, it feels like the only way out of this is to ascend to another plane of existence.

he keeps looking at you, with his lips doing this twitchy thing, which only makes matters worse here. and after what feels like forever, he only shrugs. “who cares what they’ve done? they’re probably making half that shit up anyway.”

“that’s not the point, matty!” your voice comes out way higher than you meant it to. “it’s not even about them, okay? it’s just... i don’t know. i feel like i’m behind or something. that i missed the memo on how to be a normal teenager.”

“normal’s boring,” he says, completely unfazed. “you’re way better off.”

“oh, sure. easy for you to say.” you jab a finger at him. “you’ve done it. loads. apparently.”

his eyebrows shoot up so fast you can’t tell if he’s confused, offended, or pretending he didn’t hear you. “what are you on about?”

“louise and jessica. they both said you made out with them.” you reveal, “and that you were really into it.”

matty’s mouth opens, shuts, opens again, but no words come out. instead, his face goes bright red—actual, proper scarlett red—as he sits up on the edge of the bed, suddenly finding every other spot in the room way more interesting than you.

“that—” he stammers, raking a hand through his hair, which only makes a bigger mess out of it. “that’s… they said that?”

you nod, biting back a smirk because watching him squirm is pretty much the only highlight of your day. “so?” you tilt your head back against the bed, trying to seem casual even though your heart’s racing to find out more. “what was it like?”

his voice cracks. cracks. “wh—what was what?” and it’s so funny you almost lose it.

“making out with them, matty. c’mon.”

“oh my god.” he groans as if it’s apparently the most painful thing anyone’s ever asked him, dramatically throwing his hands over his face. “you’re not serious right now.”

“i so am.” you nudge his knee, curiosity totally winning out over any shred of shame. “please tell me. was it good? did you love it? what’s it even like?”

he groans louder this time, like you’re torturing him. but when he peeks at you through his fingers, there’s this tiny, almost-smile threatening to break through. “it’s… i don’t know. it’s fine, okay? depends.”

“depends?” your eyebrows raise up, and you’re full-on grinning. this is way too much fun to let up.

he gives you a look that’s so over it, but you can see the laugh he’s barely holding back. “on the person.”

you narrow your eyes at him. “well, that’s vague.”

“oh, my bad,” he shoots back, tone dripping with sarcasm. “didn’t realize i was supposed to be taking notes.”

the way he says it makes you roll your eyes, but you’re not letting this go. “but you’ve done it. many times.” you inch in closer, now watching his fingers drum against his legs, a nervous tick of his.

“yeah, i guess.”

“with who?”

he mutters something under his breath about you being insufferable, but he still answers, rattling off a couple of names.

you nod along, but let’s be real, you’re not even processing a word. your brain’s already gone rogue. it’s running this whole montage in your head. him leaning in, his hand brushing someone’s cheek, the way his mouth moves when he’s kissing them, how close they’d be. it’s stupid. straight-up torture. but it’s all you can see, and now there’s this awful, heavy feeling spreading through your chest.

“did you enjoy it?” your voice drops, barely above a whisper. 

he shrugs and keeps his eyes on the guitar next to him. “sometimes.” his answer comes out flat. “but not always.”

“how come?”

he eventually looks over, and there’s something in his face you can’t read. “just… it doesn’t always feel right. sometimes you’re doing it because you think you’re supposed to, not because you actually want to.”

and yeah. that hits. hard. because you get it. exactly. only checking off boxes, doing the thing, waiting to feel something that never comes.

you slump back against the bed, pressing your palms into the carpet to steady yourself. “i don’t know,” you mumble, “it’s just… everyone else has done it. and i’m sitting here,” you cut yourself off as you feel the heat’s crawling up your neck again, making it difficult to even finish the sentence. “it’s sad.” all you can do is stare at the ceiling.

matty doesn’t answer right away, but then you feel him shift even closer, his knee bumping your shoulder. it’s small, barely a thing, but it’s enough for now. “it’s not stupid,” he says. “and it’s not a big deal. you’ll get there when you get there.” he pauses, probably trying to figure out how to not make this weird. “and when it happens, it’ll be amazing. with the right person.”

you glance up at him, your palms and fingers starting to tingle. his face is serious, eyes locked on you, and it’s impossible to look away. he’s sitting there, saying stuff that shouldn’t matter too much but somehow does, and it’s messing with your head.

“what if it never feels right?” the words tumble out before you even realize you’re saying them, so quiet you’re half hoping he didn’t catch it.

but he does. “it will,” he assures as you drop your gaze and notice when he finally stops fidgeting with his fingers.

the room goes dead quiet again, and it’s the worst kind of silence. no guitar, no tapping of his foot, just this heavy nothingness hanging between you. you try to not let it get to you, picking at some random thread on your sleeve, pretending you didn’t make everything awkward between you two. matty shifts on the bed, and you can feel it—that little pause before he speaks. but you don’t dare look. no way. because you’re afraid of only making things worse.

“i could… you know, if you wanted to…”

you blink a couple of times. “what?”

matty immediately looks like he wants to crawl under the bed. “nothing,” he mutters, shaking his head way too fast. "forget it."

“no, seriously, what?” you sit up, narrowing your eyes at him. “say it.”

he hesitates, his face practically glowing crimson now, taking a deep breath before he stutters, “i just meant… if you wanted to practice. or, like, learn. i could… maybe help.”

your lip twitches. did he actually say that? you blink at him once more. “wait. with you?”

“yeah. i mean, only if you want to.” he shrugs one shoulder, trying and failing to look nonchalant.

your stomach flips, your mind racing, but all you can think is: this is matty. your best friend matty. the same boy who can’t match his socks but somehow always knows exactly how to make you laugh when you feel like crying. and now he’s sitting here, offering to make out with to make you feel better, because that’s a totally normal thing to do.

the silence drags on, and it takes you a minute to realize he’s holding his breath, waiting for you to say something.

"okay," you whisper, the word feather-light as it escapes your lips. 

matty exhales, and for a second, he gazes at you, his eyes dark yet kind, trying to figure out if you really just said that. "now?" he asks, his voice gentle and a little shaky, too. but you agree, even if your heart is beating so rapidly you might pass out.

you intently watch as he pushes himself off the bed. then he’s kneeling right in front of you, close enough that his knees knock into yours, and yeah, okay, what the hell is going on? he drags his hands through his hair once, twice, then lets them fall into his lap, rubbing his palms against his jeans over and over. and for some reason, that makes your pulse race even faster.

“you really sure about this?”

“yeah...”

"alright," he murmurs, closing in just enough that you catch the faintest scent of him, and your whole body is suddenly on high alert as he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. “gonna start slow, alright?”

you nod, probably too eager, and he inches forward, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek first. barely there. over before you can process it. and you can’t help but giggle nervously as he pulls back, his cheeks now a little pink.

“that doesn’t count,” you tease, trying to mask the way your chest feels like it’s about to explode.

matty grins, then squares his shoulders. “alright. proper one, then.”

before you can overthink it, his hands are cupping your face, warm and still a little unsteady, and then he’s leaning back in. your breath catches as his lips brush against yours, calm, careful, and oh so gentle. it only lasts a fraction of a second but you already know you need more.

“you okay?” his voice is ever so quiet with a hint of nervousness behind it.

you only nod again because your throat won’t cooperate, and if you try to speak, you’re not entirely sure what will happen.

he edges in closer, lips pressing slow against yours, lingering just a little longer this time. warm and firm yet still ridiculously soft. your eyelids flutter shut, everything else fading until the only thing that exists is the way his mouth feels against yours.

when he finally pulls back, you blink to find him watching you intently.

“well?” he asks.

“i liked that.” you admit as you bite your bottom lip, and his gaze flicks down for a second before he snaps it back up.

“wanna keep going, then?” he asks after a beat, his voice careful, quiet.

“please.”

his lips curve into the smallest smile before mindlessly licking them. “alright. close your eyes again.”

you do as he says, and he tilts in closer once more, hands still delicately cradling your jaw. his mouth presses against yours, firmer, warmer, and then—oh. his lips part just enough, and before you can even think about it, his tongue barely skims your lips. your breath stumbles. you freeze for a second, unsure of what to do next. but he doesn’t rush, just pulls back the tiniest bit, his thumbs tracing little circles against your skin. “you’re okay,” he murmurs. “it’s normal to be nervous. let’s just go slow. and tell me if you want to stop, yeah?”

“yes, okay.”

then he kisses you for the fourth time, and when his tongue flicks against your lips, you don’t freak out. you just let it happen, letting him in as your head goes a little fuzzy. his tongue brushes against yours. the sensation is totally new but definitely not bad. the total opposite actually. you melt into it, letting the warmth of his mouth take over, and yeah, alright, now it makes sense why those girls lose their minds over this. maybe even over him.

the kiss deepens and you’re holding your breath like that’ll somehow make it last forever. stopping feels like the worst idea in the world because what if all the butterflies swarming inside you just disappear? it’s more wet and messier than you expected, but it’s still really, really good. maybe even perfect.

at least until your teeth knock together and you freeze, absolutely mortified.

matty pulls back just enough, as the softest laugh slips out, and he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes shining. “happens all the time,” he whispers, voice sweeter than honey. “you’re fine.”

you barely comprehend the words he’s saying, your ears ringing so loudly that it all feels like a dream.

“let’s try again.”

yeah, no, you’re definitely dreaming. no way this is happening.

and now it’s you who eagerly leans forward, making matty lose his balance before his hands find your waist, steadying himself before crashing back into you. it’s faster this time. it’s also then that you realize how good he tastes. definitely something you could get addicted to. your hands slide up to his neck and you swear you hear the faintest little whimper slip out of him. he probably doesn’t even realize he did it. which just makes it even better, making you grin against his lips.

“what’s that all about?” he mumbles between kisses, but you just keep smiling, shaking your head, not about to waste a single second not kissing him.

you don’t know how long it’s been. definitely not long enough. not even close. and honestly, you’d be happy staying right here forever, but then his hand accidentally drifts under your jumper, fingertips barely grazing the skin there, and you jolt, causing a tiny, embarrassing sound to slip out of you.

both of you go completely still. eyes wide, pulling back, and for one second, there’s a thin string of saliva still connecting you. then it’s gone, and so is whatever perfect little world you’d just slipped out of.

"i thi—we should probably stop.” he’s breathless, voice uneven, and yeah, there’s disappointment in it. barely there, but you catch it.

you let out a long sigh and nod, even though it’s the absolute last thing you want to do. “yeah, probably.”

the silence creeps back in, but it’s the good kind. warm, easy. you’re just sitting there, staring at each other for way too long, his eyes crinkling at the corners, your tight-lipped smile quivering because you’re not exactly sure how to feel.

then his hand suddenly moves, and before you can react, he’s swiping at your chin. “drooled a little,” he teases, already holding back a laugh.

“oh, shut up.”

you slap his hand away so fast he barely dodges it, his mouth dropping open in fake betrayal. “unbelievable and after what i just did for you.” he shakes his head like you’ve just shattered his trust. 

you can’t help but roll your eyes, way too dramatic about it, leaning back against the edge of the bed. matty drops down next to you, knees bumping yours as you pull your legs in and hug them. you turn to him, already grinning. “so… how did i do?”

he shakes his head, but that stupid smile is ruining any attempt at pretending he didn’t enjoy it. he tilts his head back against the mattress, pretending to think real hard about it, then finally turns to you, lifting a hand, palm flat, wiggling it in a so-so motion.

your jaw drops, full offense taken, and shove him hard enough that he almost tips over. serves him right. but he just laughs, way too pleased with himself, while you groan and cover your face with both hands. absolutely embarrassing.

but before you can wallow for too long, his arms wrap around you, pulling you close. “stop, i’m just kidding,” and then you feel his chin rest on top of your head. he’s never done that before, causing those thousands of tiny butterflies to come back to life again.

“you were absolutely perfect.”

[phneltwrites]

Sunday Snippet

from exes fake dating! Which now has a title: land between our bodies. The first part is off to beta (yay) so hopefully starting to post this week

“For my… birthday. Uh. Because it’s—you know. Wilhelm Day.”

His cheeks are pink. Wilhelm is so pale so much shows up on it. Simon doesn’t even need to use his nails to leave lines on his skin.

“That’s so…”

“Weird. You can say it.”

“What do they want to do?”

Wilhelm shifts. “Concert, and a fun run, big dinner. Plus the walkabout thing with the singing.” Simon cringes. It was a thing he’d seen and hadn’t thought much about but having everyone sing at Wilhelm when they walked into the palace really brought home how weird it is to be an audience of one. The ratio must and should go the other way. “It’s super strange hearing them talk about it too. I kind of feel like Batman?” Simon laughs. “You know how Batman names everything after himself. Batmobile. Batsuit. Batcomputer, whatever. Here it’s the WilhelmConcert and the WilhelmRun and the WilhelmPrize. Like I’ll forget what I’m called.”

“Like when you’re in pre-school and you have to have your name written into everything you bring so they know whose is whose.”

“Exactly!”

They both giggle, leaning into the middle. Their shoulders touch. Neither of them move. 

Wilhelm’s hand is on the couch, bracing himself. Simon puts his down next to Wilhelm’s, not quite touching. He fancies he can feel the edge of Wilhelm’s pinky, but that might be a phantom sensation from imagining too hard.

[infiniteeight8]

If you're still interested in the series... Soul and Tony? IronStrange

I am absolutely still interested in this series, Anon! I have so many notes. I’d have written more of it already, except when I have other prompts I feel compelled to keep up with those, instead. So you have resolved this dilemma for me. 😀

After last the last ficlet in this series, Tony was due for a bit of a freak out...

The other parts of Tony & Soul can be found here. 

-

The more Tony thinks about Soul’s powers, the more unsettled he gets. 

If a ghost was effectively a soul—and both Stephen and Soul had said it was—then it followed that the nature of the soul was independent of the human body. Which made sense given the transformations he knew Stephen was capable of: no matter what he did to his body, his soul remained the same. 

Further, given that astral projection was a thing—and Stephen had demonstrated it several times—the body didn’t have to be dead in order for the soul to go walkabout. 

So if a soul could be removed from a living body, and a disembodied soul could be encouraged to pass on into the afterlife, what was stopping Tony from killing people just by pulling their souls out and sending them on?

Soul? Tony demanded.

Nothing, the Soul Stone admitted. Such a thing is entirely within your power. Tony shifted uneasily, and Soul stirred. How is killing them this way any different than shooting them with a gun? 

It just is. Tony hadn’t even believed in souls until recently, but they still felt sacrosanct. The core of who you are should be something outside of anyone’s control but your own. 

An isolated soul is a damaged soul, the Stone insisted. All souls are connected, and therefore all souls are subject to influence. Your influence is greater in many ways, this is just one more.

Influence is one thing, control is another, Tony says. No matter how much someone influences me, the choice is ultimately mine. Even if the options are shitty, I still get to pick from the shitty options. But what I can do, what you can do, is more than that. If I can pull a soul out of someone, can I put it back?

Yes.

Tony took a shaky breath. What if I wanted to put it back somewhere else? Can I play musical chairs with people’s souls?

There’s a pause. Soul feels reluctant. Tony knows the answer before it comes: Yes.

When you warned me not to make contact with that boy’s ghost, Tony goes on, despite the dread that was slowly filling him. What would have happened if I had?

Several things are possible, Soul hedged.

Give me the worst news first, Tony says. Soul hesitates, and Tony waits. He needs to know this.

You could have consumed him, Soul admits. Absorbed his soul and used it to strengthen your own.

Tony swallows down a surge of nausea. His knees feel shaking, but he’s already sitting down. His breath is coming faster. His heart is racing. He drops his head into his hands, struggling to breathe. This wasn’t right, this couldn’t be his life now, he wasn’t the right person, he couldn’t, he couldn’t—

Slowly, Tony becomes aware of a hand resting on his back and another curled around his forearm. A deep voice is murmuring nearby. Tony’s breathing slows bit by bit, and eventually he raises his head to meet Stephen’s gaze.

“Soul called Time, and Time directed me here,” Stephen explains. 

“Makes sense.” Tony takes a shaky breath. “Soul and I were talking about some of the things I can do now. Which apparently includes consuming people’s souls to make my own more powerful.” Stephen winces, but doesn’t seem surprised. Tony stares at him for a minute. “How does that not horrify you?” he demands.

Stephen grimaces. “Sorcerers can do something similar. Not with souls specifically, but with magical creatures, some of which are sentient. It’s frowned upon, but… not forbidden.”

“Not forbidden,” Tony repeats, swallowing down an edge of hysteria. “I really didn’t know what I was getting into when I said yes to this whole deal. I don’t want to be doing this, Stephen. I don’t want to be dealing with ghosts, I don’t want to lie to all my friends, I don’t want to be the guy who gets to decide when it’s okay to suck out someone’s soul, and I don’t want to live forever!” 

“I know,” Stephen says simply. That’s… not what Tony was expecting. He stares. Stephen goes on: “When I found Kamar-Taj, all I wanted was to heal my hands. I didn’t want to be a sorcerer. I didn’t want to be the keeper of the time stone. And I certainly didn’t want to spend 14 million lives facing down Thanos and losing.” He spread his hands. “But the alternative was the death of half of all life. For both of us. Even now, would you choose that instead?”

All the anger drained out of Tony. “No.”

Stephen slowly, carefully takes Tony’s hand. “I know this is hard, but you don’t have to do it alone.”

Tony doesn’t know the name for the feeling rolling off of Stephen now. It’s deep, and intense, and a little like love, but not exactly like that. Whatever it is, there’s a certainty to it that steadies Tony. He takes a deep breath and gently squeezes Stephen’s hand. “Okay, then.”

[idonotlikethatsam-i-am]

rock with me, but. mobius alone for awhile. starting out with talking to the stars and sky on a late not on a park bench with "hey loki.... i don't know if you'll hear me- probably not and I'm being silly but... just in case. just if you possibly do" and going on to tell loki about what he saw, or just about his day generally.

he doesn't need to, mind you. loki has been watching. the whole time, he's been watching. at first it started with being distracted by all the branches of time; there's so much to see. but on the first call from mobius he can FEEL it, like a string being tugged, and then its all he can focus on. yes, he keeps all the other infinite strands of time alive as well, but... his focus is always on mobius. his mobius.

sylvie comes to check on mobius eventually. gives him her/HWR's tempad. says "you're being a bit of a mope, why not take a walkabout. find yourself or something. i had a good run, but it seems like you might need it, for now. get me home first, though, yeah? and visit me, once in awhile." and he does, both get her home and visits.

between visits, he's off taking in the views of a bunch of different lokis from all around the timeline(s), seeing his many moments of glory but never intervening, never interacting. just, watching, as he always did. just up close this time.

a fair amount of days of mobius just talking to the stars - talking to loki - while following his various adventures turns into weeks, and months, and then one moment mobius just. looks up at the stars with a sigh like "....i miss you, you asshole. i hope you know that. i didn't even get to say goodbye. I really hope you hear me. I hope you have the whole damn time."

wonder how long til that emptiness and sadness and longing turns to bitterness at loki doing all of that without a word edgewise. like. loki didnt explain, he just gave one at look at sylvie and mobius and then walked off into fucking radiation city. loki didnt even say he stood up for mobius. he just. walked. said he was doing it for them - for sylvie, for mobius, but he didnt explain any more. and kept fucking walking. mobius looked fucking terrified watching him. fists clenched knuckle white when he realised loki was going where he couldn't, with no way to follow, and no goodbye given. which... terror turns to anger, anger turns to sad - which we see bc of him leaving the fucking tva - sad turns to hopelessness, hopelessness turns to observation, and then, from there, bitterness at being left behind once again by a loki gone off to who the fuck knows where.

which. that rattles loki. loki, thinking he should stay away at first, to try to let mobius find his place on the timeline. like. hes not sure what mobius's pattern is at first, he's so distracted by everything else but eventually its his mobius he tunes into time and time again, and eventually all others fade to the background when he finally realises what mobius's pattern is. and, its him. its loki, its the best hits, and thats breaks him in a way he hadn't expected. its one of mobius's monologues on a bench late at night, tear stained and drunk and miserable that pulls him from the throne, though.

"you fucking LEFT. you left, and you walked out to the goddamn loom - something we all thought would rip us to shreds without the damn suit, something we both argued over doing - and then you vanished. you fucking left me, loki, again, and what the hell was i supposed to think besides that you found somewhere better and more powerful to be." and he's ACHING, its a deep, bone deep agony of bitterness that has festered through pained, hot tears.

[wesleysniperking]

Usopp and Yasopp: Guardians of Syrup Village – A Legacy of Protection and Skill (tl;dr)

Imagine growing up in a quiet village, where the only excitement comes from your own imagination. Now, picture yourself honing a unique skill, not just for fun, but to protect your home from unseen threats. This is the untold story of Usopp and his father Yasopp, and their hidden legacy as the silent protectors of Syrup Village.

Usopp's Representation in the One Piece Narrative

I've been thinking a lot about Usopp and what he represents in the One Piece narrative. There's so much to explore beyond his psyche and future role in the final saga. The possibilities are endless. Usopp's character is a profound representation of African culture, but his traits also resonate with other cultures, especially those that value storytelling and tactical prowess in battle, such as Indigenous cultures.

Yasopp and Usopp: A Connection

I made a connection between Usopp and Yasopp. Historically, Native Americans protected their homes from enemy forces using stealth, guerrilla tactics, and homemade melee weapons. They hid in the woods and forests, in tune with nature. I consider Native Americans and their Canadian counterparts the first American snipers. What if Yasopp and Usopp played a similar protector role for Syrup Village?

Yasopp: The Early Protector of Syrup Village

Before Yasopp joined Red-Haired Shanks' crew, he was an inhabitant of Syrup Village and a phenomenal shooter. Many people criticize Usopp for not having a proper mentor like the rest of his crewmates. But what if Yasopp spent his time in Syrup Village honing his skills through endless practice?

Before joining Shanks' crew, Yasopp was a typical country boy from Syrup Village. The village was quiet, which likely bored Yasopp. To pass the time, he played outside and practiced his shooting skills for hours. He familiarized himself with every nook and cranny of the village. This practice made him a master sniper. Yasopp used his skills to protect the village. When potential threats approached, Yasopp would hide and take them out with precision, preventing them from reaching the villagers.

No one in the village knew Yasopp was behind the mysterious defenses. Strangers and pirates who tried to invade Syrup Village would suddenly find themselves under fire from an unseen assailant. They didn't know who he was, what he looked like, or even his name. They only knew they were being chased away by a relentless sniper. This earned Yasopp the nickname "Chaser," a testament to his ability to strike fear into intruders without ever being seen.

Yasopp's actions remained unknown to the villagers, who never realized they had a silent protector. Word spread among pirates about an unseen sharpshooter in Syrup Village, attracting Shanks' attention. In One Piece Strong World Film Episode 0, Yasopp is shown on a cliff watching the ocean, a testament to his vigilance. Shanks, impressed by Yasopp's skills, invited him to join his crew.

Usopp: Following in His Father's Footsteps

Banchina, Usopp's mother, called her husband a brave warrior because she knew he protected the village. Although Usopp didn't know this, he aspired to be a brave warrior like his father. After his mother's death, Usopp practiced sniping with his trusty brown slingshot. He spent a decade perfecting his skills, from the age of seven to seventeen, before Luffy recruited him. Usopp trained by shooting at various targets and learning stealth skills. He became familiar with Syrup Village and its surroundings, which is why he is so closely associated with nature.

Usopp's connection with nature was further strengthened when Kuma sent him to Boin Archipelago, a man-eating island, to perfect his link with nature, stealth, and sniping. This training was akin to Indigenous cultures' walkabouts and vision quests.

The Value of Self-Teaching

Neither Yasopp nor Usopp had mentors, but this lack of formal training is not a disadvantage. The dedication and strenuous nature of self-teaching is invaluable and notable. Yasopp and Usopp exemplify how relentless practice and an unwavering commitment to self-improvement can forge extraordinary skills. They didn't rely on external guidance; instead, they carved their own paths, honing their abilities through sheer determination and countless hours of practice.

The 10,000-Hour Rule and Usopp's Mastery

Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule states that it takes around 10,000 hours of deliberate practice (a decade) to become an expert in a field. Usopp, practicing from age seven to seventeen, certainly met this criterion. Yasopp likely did the same, which explains their exceptional skills.

Syrup Village: Sniper Island

Based on this theory, Syrup Village and the Gecko Islands could very well be considered Sniper Island. The landscape and disposition of Syrup Village are perfect for snipers. The village's quiet, rural setting provided Yasopp and Usopp with the ideal environment to practice their shooting skills without distractions. The natural terrain, with its hills, forests, and cliffs, offered numerous vantage points and hiding spots, crucial for mastering the art of sniping.

The strategic advantage of Syrup Village's landscape is evident. Yasopp and Usopp could observe incoming threats from a distance, using the elevated terrain to their advantage. The dense forests provided cover and concealment, allowing them to take out enemies with precision while remaining hidden. This mastery of their environment made them formidable protectors of their village, embodying the essence of what it means to be a sniper.

Usopp: Protector of Syrup Village

Usopp, like his father, played the role of protector for Syrup Village. He kept an eye on the ocean for strangers and unknown people approaching the village. Usopp's practice of yelling about pirate arrivals, though often seen as mere entertainment, actually taught him valuable skills. He learned to run and hide, essential abilities for a sniper. This experience helped him hide from Chew during the Arlong Park arc and shoot the fish-man to save Genzo.

Usopp's actions as a protector were similar to his father's. Both were the "silent enemies" to those who encroached upon Syrup Village, safeguarding their beloved hometown in secrecy.

Conclusion

Yasopp’s role as a protector of Syrup Village is highly believable and consistent with the One Piece canon. Yasopp’s actions and reputation support the idea that he was a vigilant guardian of his village, a legacy that Usopp inherits and continues. This thematic consistency adds depth to both characters and enriches the narrative of One Piece, making their story one of profound legacy and enduring protection.

By exploring this connection, we can appreciate the layers of storytelling that Oda weaves into his world, making each character's journey not only a personal quest but also a continuation of a legacy that shapes their identity and purpose. Usopp’s skills and his role as a protector are a testament to the influence of his father and the cultural heritage they both represent. This theory not only aligns with the established canon but also enhances our understanding of the characters and their significance in the One Piece universe.

So next time someone doubts Usopp's training or his place in the crew, remember the legacy of Yasopp and the hidden guardianship of Syrup Village. It’s a story of dedication, protection, and the silent, unseen heroes who shape the world from the shadows. Let’s give Usopp the credit he deserves.

Did you know?

In the military Snipers are sometimes considered and referred to as cowards because they “shoot people that can’t shoot back” and enemy snipers are a hindrance to soldiers because they’re an added variable in battle that can’t be ignored but it makes things harder since Snipers can’t be seen or easily dealt with. Snipers can “turn tail” and run away from there spot before anyone gets to them.

(Argument here and here if we apply snipers in One Piece to something in the real world. I might be taking it too seriously).

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[florientius]

just watched Australia [(2008 film) everything by Baz Luhrmann] for the first time - bc it came out when i was 9 and since sandra bullock has not starred in it i wasnt interested,,,,,

so DROVER SHOULD HAVE GOT AN ABORIGINAL WOMAN CHANGE MY MIND

If aboriginal women are so easy to *adjusts pants* get along with, then why is the story abt some white hussy from england who traveled to australia?

dont get me wrong, nicole kidman rules and slayes, but i hate her nothingness in this movie. i mean, i could have clawed lady sarah's eyes out when she wanted to forbid nullah to walkabout, and then she had the audacity to tell THE DROVER "if you leave now (to drive cattle, mind you, which is his fucking job,, MIND U) never return to faraway downs" like bitch, what the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK? ITS NULLAHS ANCESTRAL RITUAL TO WALKABOUT. AND DROVERS FUCKING JOB TO DRIVE?!?! I WAS SO OVER THIS LADY.

and then Magarri died?!?!? what the fuck, that fuxking priest should have sacrificed himself AND MAGARRI SHOULD HAVE LIVED

ACTUALLY, DROVER SHOULD HAVE GOT AN ABORIGINAL WOMAN, DAISY SHOUDL AHVE LIVED, MAGARRI SHOULD HAVE LIVED AND THEY SHOULD HAVE SAFELY RESCUED THE CHILDREN AND DROVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE TO LOOK PRETTY

never gonna watch this movie ever again, only the drover edits over on tiktok. bah

Drover: We're not really used to...

Lady Sarah Ashley: A woman? I suppose you think I should be back in Darwin, at the church fête or a lady's whatever you call it. Well I will have you know, I am as capable as any man.

Drover: Guests. We're not used to guests is what I was about to say but now that you mention it I happen to quite like the women of the outback.

[radioactiveradley]

Can you tell us anything about how CT can be used to find small foreign bodies that may not have a density massively dissimilar from the body they're lodged in? The specific example in this case: Dog is going for a CT to look for a potential cat claw tip lodged in the face that is causing repeated abscesses.

Oooh! That's an interesting one.

TL;DR: there will probably be goo around the claw. We can see goo. If there is no goo and the claw is lodged in soft tissue, the amount of radiation attenuated by the claw and the soft tissue will be distinct enough for us to see. If the claw is lodged in bone and has a similar density, we will still be able to see it, but we will have to modulate the way we read the images, which will cause no extra dose to your poor doggo!

First off, we'll look for any anomalies in the surrounding tissue. Soft tissue might fully envelop a foreign object, but we still expect to see some sort of reaction - i.e., a granuloma, which can either absorb some organic foreign bodies (very freaky! very cool! you can 'eat' splinters that get stuck under your skin!) or encyst them in a capsule-like shield to cut them off from the rest of the body.

All my pictures are gonna be of humans because I know 0 about doggy CT... sorry...

Image courtesy of radiopedia

So, in the above pic, the arrows point to a surgical clip that went walkabout in the body, and wound up encapsulated! How cool is that!

But generally speaking... If the claw is lodged in soft tissue, it will be easy to spot.

The way CT works is, we see how much radiation can penetrate through each separate point within the person/pooch who's lying in the scanner's central bore. These different penetration levels are mapped onto a scale to describe radiodensity, known as the Hounsfield scale, with '0' being water, '-1000' being air, and '+1000' typically being bone.

The gathered values are then composited using greyscale (and. a very funky process that I do NOT have time to get into here but ask me about sinogram tomography later) to create images across three dimensions, with fluid being middling grey (depending on its content), air being black, and bone being white.

So, the claw will show up clearly as a different density to soft tissue, especially if it's surrounded by oedema. It should appear significantly brighter (attenuates more radiation) while the oedema will be darker (attenuates less radiation).

However, if the claw is lodged in bone and there happens to be minimal oedema and no telltale damage to the periosteum (the membranous sheathe around the bone) ... we would have to use a funky technique called windowing!

Image courtesy of radiopedia

Here's an example of windowing, using a human head. As you can see, the 'bone window' completely blocks out all soft tissue detail in the brain, but shows a lot more detail - i.e., trabecular patterns and mastoid cells! - within the bone.

Basically, there can be almost infinite Hounsfield units, depending on what you want to look at (if you're looking at, like, titanium, we'll be talking a RIDICULOUSLY HIGH Hounsfield number!) But the human eye can only see approximately

Image courtesy of a basic bitch google search

This is where windowing comes in! We can choose a certain point within the Hounsfield scale at which to generate a new image, focusing on one particular type of material. This is what makes CT so versatile!

If the claw is a subtly different density to the bone, it may not show up on a regular CT image. But by using a 'bony window' that selects a span of Hounsfield units to look at, right up towards the +1000 end of the scale, we can focus on the bone in far more detail, cutting out all extraneous soft tissue. This should give us a good idea of what's going on!

As a fun extra fact - windowing will not up the radiation dose to your poor pooch in any way. In CT, all we need to do is take a single 'picture', which compiles all the radiodensity info about our patient (be they bipedal or otherwise). We can then play around in 'post-production', so to speak, to our heart's content, producing different variations on the same image using windowing! Very nifty trick. :)

I hope that somewhere amidst my extensive rambling, I answered your question! And I hope that doggo gets better soon!

[thescarletnargacuga]

Can you- uh-

Can you please make a fanfic about Kaufmo and Caine being frienemies? Please?

It doesn't have to be long, though-

~ Parrot Anon

A/N: Well, this is unexpected!

CLOWNING AROUND

A DIGITAL CIRCUS SNIPPET

WARNING: two petty bitches lol

~~~

"TODAY'S ADVENTURE IS WACKY WALRUS WALKABOUT!!" Caine happily announced as he flew around his circus members. "You're going to The beautiful land of Austrarctica to-"

"Wait, what? Austrarctica?? What kind of name is that? You just took two continents and smashed them together. And by the way, Walruses live in the Arctic. Not the Antarctic. The pun doesn't even work. You're losing your touch, Caine." Kaufmo smirked as he watched a stunned Caine grip his cane tighter.

"...it's called: creative license. Which I use rather frequently to keep things interesting." Caine forced a smile, but it was not in his voice. His eye twitched. "Now, as I was saying-"

"Just make with the portal. None of us are standing here for our health."

"If it'll get you to cooperate, then gladly." He snapped and the adventure portal appeared. "Don't let the boot hit you on the way out."

Kaufmo was just about to go through when he stopped. "The wha-" A giant boot appeared and kicked him through the portal.

Caine chuckled. "What a pain, never a boring day with him."

[definitelyunhingedagentphoenix]

So my family loves the VR game, Walkabout Mini golf. If you have a chance to play it, I recommend it. Now how does this tie into an IEYTD blog?

They recently put out a new level called "Laser Lair" which is basically a supervillain secret lair on a private island. As implied, there's a lot of lasers. There are traps and robots. It's honestly so Dr. Zor coded!

I can't describe it but it just makes me feel so much like Zor would live there. From the outdated furniture to the Shark floaties in the pool that have lasers strapped to their head. There's a large focus on hand imagery and a lot of robots. The posters and stuff hung up just look so much like images you find in Zoraxis hideouts.

I just- It makes me-

[ancientastarwis]

December Pick One Image ⭐

This month I was guided to choose a New Year's theme. Which image(s) did you choose? Was the message accurate and helpful for you? Feel free to comment. Each image contains advice for the month of December through the Tarot and/or Oracle decks I'm intuitively guided. In this case, I chose the Shaman's Dream Oracle Deck for all 3 groups.

Feel free to message me if you want a tarot/oracle reading. I offer guidance for several areas of life, always including intuitive messages and no cards limits.

Reblog 🔃 Like ❤️ Follow ➕ Thank you!❤️

Have a blessed day 🩷

Results ...✨🥰

Option 1: Fireworks 🎆

The Drifter invites you to step out of your to-do list and your ordinary routine to feel the breeze against your skin, calling you to follow the wind and explore life’s opportunities. When the Drifter appears, it’s a sign that it’s time to cut the mooring lines holding you to the dock. It’s not important to know the destination before you set sail; it will become clear as you leave port. Do not wait for a map, as there are none to where you are destined to go. But be sure that you do have a compass to keep you true. Yours is your pure love and your intention to be free, even of your own beliefs and preconceptions. Few appreciate the energy of the Drifter. Here, you might not seem to be doing anything worthwhile or meeting someone else’s expectations. But you are the only one who under­ stands that others are running full-out on the hamster wheel and getting nowhere. Your “laziness” is an underappreciated virtue. You know that life will find you and bring you everything you require without your having to search for it, by simply being instead of frantic doing. Even as you let your mind wander, releasing it to go on a daily walkabout, call it back home regularly to deliver news from the cosmos. The Drifter helps you find what you are looking for, even when you didn’t think you were seeking anything!

Option 2: Party Hat 🥳

The Empty Well reveals that there is nothing for you here. The well is dry, and the desert is encroaching on your once-fertile garden. It is time to face this harsh reality and move on. Give gratitude and thanks for the abundance you have experienced, and let Spirit guide you to your next destination. This might mean saying good-bye to someone or something or insisting on changing the rules of the game. Stop diminishing yourself for the sake of another. Making yourself small will not produce the results you want. There is a lack of reciprocity, of give-and-take. The Empty Well tells you that it is time to reclaim what is yours and return what does not belong to you. The shadows cast in your direction are not of your making. You do not need to react or respond to them, as they are not real. Simply shine your light upon them and see how it dispels them. These shadows are projections that you are confusing for reality. You may have been offered a shovel to help you dig yourself out of an uncomfortable situation, a bucket to drink from the well. But you cannot dig yourself out of this hole and remember that there is no water to be found in that well. Receive the Empty Well as a gift. Do not exert your energy and waste your resources by repairing the walls or mending the rope. Follow the watercourse way—the aquifers that run deep in the earth—and you will be led to a new spring oasis. You can find these underground streams, these rich natural resources, in the subterranean depths of your own heart.

Option 3: Party Horns 🎉

A great Feast is laid out before you and requires you to choose. What will satisfy your hunger: something new and unconventional, with its potential for bitter or savory qualities, or something you already know you love? You are faced with a plethora of options right now, and while that may seem to be an extraordinary thing, too many choices can throw you off balance. You might be worried that once you commit, you won’t be able to turn back or refuse to confront the consequences of that decision. The most important thing to realize is that the Feast is offering you experience—no amount of overanalyzing or strategizing will help you make the right choice now. Don’t debate the right- or wrongness. Instead, just choose. In the choosing is the seed of experience, and that is what is necessary now. Sour, bitter, sweet, savory—what matters is relishing the experience until you digest all that your choice is offering you right now. Only one warning: avoid the same choice if it keeps you hungry. If something didn’t feel good or does not bring you what it seemingly promised, do not choose that again. The experience will only repeat itself, and you will have more than a bad taste in your mouth. The Feast is yours to enjoy. You can always go back for more when you’re hungry again, for life’s blessings are ever available to you and calling your name.

[bloodfromthethorn]

Setting Boundaries

"Gods,” she hissed finally. Her expression crumpled into despair a moment before she buried her face in her hands to hide the fresh tears that came with it. “I made you say please.”

Raevan suffers a few belated realisations. Astarion is quick to set her straight.

Also on AO3.

..

After everything that had happened that day, from their miserable trudge through Moonrise Towers, to their run-in with that vile drow, to Astarion’s own personal revelations and growth, it was little wonder that he reached the evening – such as it was ever evening in the Shadowlands – bone tired and more than ready to pack it all in for the night. Halsin’s surprisingly passable attempt at a vegetable stew certainly furthered that desire, leaving him blinking and weary beside the fire. 

There was only one more thing he wanted before he surrendered himself to a well-deserved trance – blood. He wasn’t starving and he’d gone longer on less a great many times in his life, but now that he had a willing donor readily available, he’d started to become more accustomed to semi-regular feeds. He could always go hunting of course but…

It had been a really long day. 

The only problem was his dinner appeared to have gone walkabouts. Sometime between the stew getting handed around and Astarion tuning back into the conversation, Raevan had managed to disappear entirely. She wasn’t in any of her usual haunts around the camp and a few not-so-subtle inquiries with his travelling companions revealed no obvious solution either. It would seem she really had just vanished. 

Briefly, Astarion considered calling it a lost cause and just heading to his own tent. Raevan, like all of them, occasionally felt the need to take some moments to herself and it wasn’t like she hadn’t earned an evening of peace. It was entirely possible she had no interest in being disturbed. Still, it wasn’t wise to wander so far from camp alone with the Curse hanging around them as an ever present threat, besides whatever other horrors could be waiting beyond the ring of firelight.

And, perhaps he was honest enough with himself these days that he could admit he was worried for her. A desire for solitude or not, it was unlike her to take herself off without any warning to anyone.

His mind made up, he put the campfire at his back and strode out into the night. The darkness was little trouble for his eyes and the pixie’s little trick was still holding strong to keep the Curse at bay, but it was still no mean feat to pick up Raevan’s faint trail through the gloom. It was fortunate that she clearly hadn’t been trying to conceal her passage; the woman was stealthy enough she could cross the whole world without leaving a single mark if that was what she so desired. 

As it stood, she hadn’t even tried to conceal her footsteps in the rotting mulch carpeting the forest floor. Even without a torch, it was enough to lead him right to her. 

The sight he found was… not encouraging. She’d sat herself down on a patch of dark, loamy earth beside the river, apparently unbothered by the damp that must have been soaking into her clothes, and had curled her knees up to her chest to rest her chin on them. It looked terribly uncomfortable and was about as small as it was possible to make herself. 

Concern rose up thick and fast in Astarion’s gut and he was moving forwards before he could stop himself, his foot landing overly hard on a half-rotten piece of treebark that let out a muted groan in protest. Raevan spun around at the sound like a snake braced to attack, the movement revealing the dagger she'd been gripping tightly in the shadow of her body.

He raised his hands in surrender. “Only me,” he said lightly, relaxing minutely when the dagger was immediately lowered. He'd been out of striking range – which said a lot for her awareness – but he'd seen her throw knives before. Thank the gods her recognition abilities were just as quick as her reflexes. 

“Astarion,” she breathed out sharply, evidently working through her own sudden spike in adrenaline. “What are you doing sneaking around? I could have hurt you!”

The words were annoyed in that exaggerated way people used when they'd been startled badly, but that wasn't what caught his attention. No, it was the way Raevan’s eyes dropped from his almost as soon as she'd recognised he wasn't a threat, turning instead to focus intensely on the action of sheathing the dagger. She'd done that move a thousand times that week and Astarion had never once seen her need to look at what she was doing while she did it. No, this wasn’t simple distraction; this was hiding.

It was in vain, too. Even in the low light cast by the torch that she’d apparently thought to bring with her, Astarion’s eyes were sharp enough to see the redness she was hoping he wouldn’t notice. 

She'd been crying.

Astarion heart slid down through the bottom of his ribcage and kept going. She'd seemed so understanding when they'd spoken earlier, so gentle. She hadn't looked or sounded upset by his self-reflectant revelations. On the contrary, she'd encouraged him to take whatever time he needed, no matter how long it might be. She hadn't in acted in any way then that could have indicated she'd end the evening crying alone on the riverbank.

Then again, maybe this was nothing to do with him or their earlier conversation. As everyone kept telling him, not everything revolved around him. Maybe she'd simply had a falling out with one of the others and no one had thought to tell him when he’d asked after her earlier. 

'Maybes' weren't going to get him anywhere. Raevan had always approached her concerns with him directly; he owed it to them both to grant her the same courtesy. Still, two hundred years of safeguarding his own heart were not an easy thing to just shake off and the idea of simply asking her outright what was wrong inevitably led to him imagination dragging him through a series of the worst possible outcomes. 

Instead, he took a deep breath, fixed on his best lighthearted smile, and sat himself down beside her as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “I rather thought I’d ask you the same question. It’s a strange night for a stroll.”

He waved a carefree hand at their grim surroundings. This wasn’t the worst place she could have picked, precisely; it was more a matter of there being no particularly nice places to choose from. This spot was neither a part of the ruined town or its troublingly expansive graveyard, which was a vote in its favour, but Astarion’s nose was keen enough to suggest there was more than simple leaves rotting nearby. It was the kind of smell that permeated every inch of the region and yet was vile enough to never quite manage to fade into the background. Astarion had realised quickly he hated it. It wasn’t exactly his idea of a pleasant accompaniment to an evening jaunt in the woods. 

Raevan didn’t rise to the comment. Instead, she settled herself back down in her tightly restrained ball and gazed out over the rumbling water. After a long moment of expectant silence, she sighed. “I just needed a little while to think. Did you need me for something?”

“Not at all,” he said cheerfully, already determined to not mention how he’d technically started seeking her out so he could feed. 

“Oh. That’s good.” Her voice was flat. It was clear her mind was already fading back into whatever elsewhere it had been occupying before Astarion had so rudely intruded on her solitude. 

Suddenly uncertain of himself, if no less worried about where her head might be at, Astarion shifted. “I– I can leave, if you’d prefer? I just thought it was unwise for any of us to linger alone out here.” Raevan glanced at him and a sudden shock of nervousness prompted him to continue when really he should just shut his mouth. “I know, I know, you think that little imp’s spell can protect us, but putting your faith in that kind of magic is frankly a level of optimism to which I refuse to consign myself. You can never trust devils with wings, no matter how small they might be.”

He flashed her a grin and nearly collapsed in relief when it drew a faint smile and an eyeroll from his companion. “It was a pixie.”

“I fear you may be missing my point.”

She snorted softly, the tense line of her shoulders easing ever so slightly. “Perhaps. You’re right. It was foolish to come out here alone. I just…”

“It can be hard to grab a moment to yourself in a camp full of people constantly vying for your attention,” he commiserated when her voice trailed off. “Present company excluded, of course,” he tacked on with a haughty huff. “My companionship is a constant source of delight, I’m sure.”

That earned him a genuine laugh albeit a quiet one. “It is,” she agreed easily. “Wherever would I be without you?”

She said it in jest, but the compliment beneath felt genuine enough. If he’d been physically capable, he’d probably have blushed. “Well, you’d be short one warlock at the very least. Wyll really needs to learn to watch his flank.”

“The man has one eye.”

Astarion pursed his lips. He hadn’t actually considered that right up until this moment. “Still,” he said pointedly. 

Raevan laughed again. “I’m sure he’d be willing to train with you if you asked him. Hells, he’d probably love the opportunity, he’s just too intimidated to ask you.”

“Intimidated? I am eminently approachable.”

“Uh huh.”

“I am.”

She shook her head, still smiling, though the expression faded rapidly when her gaze fell back to the water. The amusement that had lit up her entire face just a moment ago seemed to snuff out like a candle, leaving behind the tired and drawn expression of someone who had had to shoulder too many burdens without enough rest. The worry that had softened to a gentle prickle in the back of Astarion’s mind rushed to the fore once again. 

“Raevan,” he started slowly, faltering when her eyes jumped back to him before he steadied. “Are you alright? I know today has been… a lot.”

She was already shaking her head by the time he’d finished speaking. “It’s nothing,” she brushed off carelessly. “You’ve had a more stressful day than me, I imagine.”

“And yet, I’m not the one who vanished from camp without a word to come and sit alone in the shadows. Without wishing to jump to conclusions, I’m sure you can see why I might be… worried.” He didn’t want to specifically mention their earlier conversation for fear of making the matter about himself when it may have nothing to do with him, but he saw Raevan make the connection in the way her eyes suddenly widened in concern. 

“Oh!” She said, straightening suddenly from her slump. “No! No, it’s nothing like that. This isn’t– This is my own issue. It’s not anything to do with– anything that happened earlier. I’m not–” She bit her lip, her sudden panicked energy lighting her up like a bolt of magic. 

“Raevan,” he cut in, hands up as if calming a startled horse. “It’s okay. I wasn’t trying to accuse.”

“No, but you think–”

“I’m not thinking anything,” he said firmly, ignoring the sudden swell of relief he felt at hearing she wasn’t tying herself in knots about their sudden step back from intimacy. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if she had been; he’d started becoming self-aware enough to worry that he might have allowed himself to be guilted into something he didn’t actually want to do. Not that Raevan would do so intentionally, of course, but he recognised his own inability to disappoint her. “I’m just worried that something’s upset you enough to drive you away from camp on one of the few nights we didn’t have to endure Gale’s cooking.”

It was an unfair slight against a man who genuinely was quite a talented cook, but Raevan didn’t rise to it like he’d hoped. Instead, as her panic faded, abject misery flowed back into her expression before she managed to turn away to hide it. Something twisted painfully in Astarion’s gut. 

“I don’t want to pry,” he said quietly, “But I would help if I can. Even if it’s just to listen. I’m told that speaking about your problems can ease them.”

She’d told him as much multiple times in their relatively short time together. He was increasingly finding that she might just be right. 

From the sideways look she shot him, she knew exactly what he was doing. She didn’t seem entirely happy to have her own logic turned against her, but she didn’t try to refute it. On the contrary, she lapsed into a stubborn sort of silence, folded up into her tight little ball as she gazed out across the water. Well, two could play at that game. Despite what anyone else might think, Astarion was perfectly capable of keeping his mouth shut when the situation called for it. If Raevan thought she could win this little contest through a superior reserve of patience, she was to be sorely mistaken. 

In the end, the pair sat there in total silence for what had to be at least ten minutes. Through it all, neither of them even moved; Astarion the consummate hunter frozen in wait for his prey and Raevan, stubborn and firm-jawed in her refusal to speak. 

It wasn’t until Astarion’s anxiety about whether he should really be there or not was about to bubble over that Raevan sighed heavily and rubbed at her face. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, the words half lost to her palms before she looked back up at him and added, “I owe you an apology.”

He considered that and came up empty. It did nothing to soothe his anxious worryings. “For what?”

“That first night we spent together,” she said, not meeting his eyes. The low-level murmur of discomfort that Astarion had been fighting against roared into life so sharply he stopped breathing for a moment. He’d known that admitting the truth of his intentions would not be well received, but he’d hoped nothing he’d said would cause any lasting damage. Certainly not enough to drive her from the camp to sit in miserable solitude all evening. Maybe the panic showed in his face, because she continued on quickly, “I don’t mean I’m sorry it happened. Or– I mean–” 

She stopped, cursing, then buried her face in her hands again. When she looked up, her eyes were redder than before but her jaw was set. 

“You shouldn’t have had to do that if you didn’t want to. I know you had your reasons. But I’m sorry that I– If I did anything to you that made you uncomfortable. I didn’t realise– Well. That’s not important. I’m just– Sorry.” 

It took a minute for Astarion to parse what precisely she was saying. It was obvious that she wasn’t entirely clear on the point she was trying to convey herself, or perhaps more that she was trying to ensure she didn’t offend him by doing it. He likely wasn’t helping in that regard, suddenly aware that he’d gone tense as a bowstring as soon as she’d mentioned that night and hadn’t relaxed since. He wasn’t sure what expression he’d been wearing, but he doubted it was encouraging.

“You’re sorry because… You think you upset me?” He tried, uncertain. 

She flinched, and the dam broke. All the things she’d clearly been trying to hold in came pouring forth in a rapid rush. “Yes. No. I don’t know. All I know is that you said you only propositioned me to get me on your side and not because you actually wanted– And that’s fine, I understand that, I’m not upset about it, but I just keep remembering that night and everything we did, and I think about touching you and how you must have felt–” She paused just long enough to suck in a hard breath, eyes wild, before diving right back in. “I know how pushy and demanding I can be and I think about what I might have made you do against your will, and how awful that must have been and– Gods,” she hissed finally. Her expression crumpled into despair a moment before she buried her face in her hands to hide the fresh tears that came with it. “I made you say please .”

Astarion didn’t need her to elaborate to know exactly what moment she was referring to, having had it branded in his own mind ever since it happened. He’d spent almost every evening since that fateful night turning the moment over, recalling how sharply her demand had rankled on a surface level and yet marvelling over how much his capitulation hadn’t. She’d asked him to beg for something he hadn’t even really wanted, had only been doing to save his own skin, and yet he’d granted her that small power willingly, knowing as he did so that if nothing else, he could trust her with that. That she wouldn’t abuse the weapon he was freely handing her. 

It was, in hindsight, probably the moment he should have realised he was becoming far too emotionally invested in his own con but he hadn’t and it was much too late now. At least he could say with honesty that he didn’t regret it for a second. 

“You didn’t make me do anything,” he said lightly instead of trying to explain it. His own anxiety faded out in one quiet rush as he realised her sticking point and how easily he could fix it. “Raevan, I made my own decisions every step of the way. For better or ill.” He paused a moment, allowing a faint thrill of excitement to escape into his expression even when she couldn’t see it. “And it was for the better, I assure you.”

She stayed hidden for another long few seconds, only a faint sniffling emerging from her self-made cocoon, before she finally pulled her head up to look at him again. Her eyes were puffy and red. She certainly didn’t look comforted by his reassurances. 

“You couldn’t have known my history,” he continued in a low, soothing tone. “And it’s not like it would have been reasonable to expect one of your companions to be trying to bed you just so that you’d protect them should any villains come knocking. I’m the one who betrayed someone in this scenario.” It felt like a risk to remind her of it, even after she’d been so shockingly accepting of that fact earlier, but he’d take it if it meant her no longer thinking she’d done something wrong. Hells below, he was absolutely stupid for her.

“You didn’t,” she said immediately, looking almost offended by the suggestion and unknowingly confirming to Astarion that once this matter was settled, they desperately needed to start thinking about how to build up her sense of self-preservation. “You were scared and you had every reason to be. Of course you’d do anything you could to get allies on your side.”

Astarion hummed. “Perhaps. Though it’s recently been brought to my attention that sex isn’t always a necessary step in that process.”

Raeven shot him an annoyed look out the corner of her eye, unimpressed by his relatively good humour when her mood was already so sour. He softened his expression in apology. 

“Truly Raevan, you’ve done nothing wrong. Far from it. And while I might regret that my motives were… what they were, I wouldn’t change what happened. Not for anything.” He reached out as he spoke, laying a featherlight touch against her palm that was as much a question as it was an invitation. After a moment, her fingers curled warm around his. The heat of her never failed to thrill him, blazing bright right down the bone. Right then, several days out from his last half-decent feed, she burned hot as a brand. 

“No?”

“Never.”

She visibly teetered on the brink of believing him, fighting hard against her tears. “It’s just– I can’t help but feel… dirty. The thought of me touching you and knowing now that it was unwelcome, I just–”

“It was welcome,” he said firmly. He would not allow her to believe anything else for another moment more. “It was heartily welcomed. My intentions might have made any pleasure secondary, but I assure you it was pleasurable. Whatever my reasons, bedding you was hardly a chore for me.” He took the risk of pulling on an expression indicating how absurd the suggestion was. “Raevan, you’re beautiful. If you had been nothing else that would have been enough and still, you are so much more. You’re kind and funny and smart, and a thousand other things that drew me to you. Trust me, nothing that happened that night was any kind of hardship for me.”

In truth, the only real hardship had been the parts where he’d tried to remind himself why he was doing it in the first place. Even then, he’d already begun to lose himself in his attraction to her, that insatiable pull beneath his ribs that constantly demanded her and only her. He wouldn’t put a name to the sensation for weeks, and he wasn’t sure he could voice it even now, but it had been there right from that first night. Maybe longer. 

Her fingers squeezed his. “You mean that?”

“I would not lie to you. Not about this.”

She considered that a moment, weighing up his appearance with steady, red-rimmed eyes. Astarion let her look, trying to show his sincerity as clearly as he could. A terrifying few heartbeats later, she nodded faintly. “Okay,” she murmured. “Okay.”

Astarion let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. 

His relief was shortlived; a few seconds later, Raevan’s eyes tightened back into an intense focus. “But I need you to promise me something.”

He caught himself an instant before he said an idiotic anything’. Whatever their relationship might be, he was in no position to be making offers like that. “What is it?”

“If my touch ever is unwelcome, at any time, you will tell me. Anything. Whatever it is. However much you think I want or need it. If you’re uncomfortable, you will tell me.” 

He blinked at the simplicity of the request. “I can do that.”

“Promise me,” she pressed. “You’ll tell me even if you think it’ll upset me. Even if I get mad. Whatever the situation is, you’ll ask me to back off if you need me to.”

Long-buried instinct prompted him to say an immediate yes, but if nothing else the last two centuries had blessed him with an abundance of caution and it was clear Raevan meant the request extremely seriously. He could see her point – he’d already proven himself to be someone willing to sacrifice physical comfort in the name of achieving some greater purpose. Wasn’t that the point of this whole mess? 

To anyone else, he probably would have lied. To her, after everything she’d done for him and the trust she had more than earned? He squeezed her hand tightly. “I can promise to try?”

There was something sad in her answering smile, but she didn’t let go of his hand. “I suppose I can work with that.”

The tension of the moment broke like a cool summer morning and both of them shared a faint breath of relief as it washed over them. Astarion hadn’t even realised how tense he’d become since he sat down. Now he was paying attention, he noted that not only were his muscles knotted and complaining, his clothes were uncomfortably sticky with grime from where he was sitting. 

Beside him, Raevan had started idly toying with his fingers, a faint line reappearing between her brows. Astarion considered worrying that they were about to get into another emotionally fraught conversation straight away, but she wasn’t holding the same tension as she had before and she looked more pensive than anything. 

“Maybe…” She started slowly. “Maybe we should start with clear boundaries. That way you shouldn’t have to constantly be warning me off.” 

Astarion hadn’t had the luxury of personal boundaries in over two centuries. The idea was foreign enough to him that he might have laughed had Raevan not so obviously been serious about it. “I can’t imagine there’s much you could do that I would object to,” he pointed out. It was mostly true, too. He’d already told her he didn’t want to have sex for a while and she’d agreed immediately; beyond that, he hadn’t considered laying out any restrictions. 

“Still,” she said, determined. “We should be on the same page. I– I don’t want to have to constantly be worrying I’m overstepping again.”

They’d just gone over all the ways in which she hadn’t been overstepping the first time, but Astarion wasn’t about to drag them back into that. Instead, he nodded. “Alright. I can understand that.”

He offered nothing further, unsure of himself and the situation, so Raevan chose to take the lead. “Well, you seem to be alright with this,” she said, indicating where she still had hold of his hand. He nodded. He’d rapidly discovered he actually quite liked the non-sexual intimacy of holding her hand and he was loathe to do anything that would discourage her from doing so whenever she desired. “Alright, let’s start there. How about this: I touch you, here and now, and you just tell me yes or no. You can nod and shake your head if it’s easier. Just so I know what’s off limits.”

It was… a reasonable idea, if a little childish. Then again, the thought of having to verbally explain to her all the ways in which he did and didn’t want to be touched was horrifying enough he’d rather throw himself into the river and have done with it, so perhaps this was for the best. At least this way, she wasn’t asking him to justify his decisions, merely taking note of what they were. 

On closer inspection, it was the kind of considerate offer he should have started to expect from her and yet never failed to be surprised by. 

“Okay,” he said simply. 

There, Raevan hesitated but it was only momentary. After a second to centre herself and double check that Astarion wasn’t about to run for the hills, she slowly reached out with her free hand and laid it carefully over his bicep. He nodded once. 

Her hand trailed up further, resting on his shoulder until she received another nod, then sliding featherlight down over his chest. She got as far as the corded muscle of his stomach before he found himself shaking his head. It was a surprise to him – he hadn’t even realised how vulnerable the touch made him feel until he was giving the clear option of saying no to it – but Raevan didn’t even pause. Her hand withdrew immediately and without comment, only returning several seconds later to his knee. 

She continued on in the same manner, getting a headshake on both thigh and upper back – though admittedly the latter was more hesitant. He genuinely hadn’t had any problem with her hands on his back when they’d slept together, so he wasn’t sure why or when it had become such a problem. Learning about the meaning of his scars had certainly made him more aware of them, but she already knew of their existence. It wasn’t like there was anything more to hide. 

Still, Raevan didn’t question it, merely confirmed that his lower back was apparently still totally fine alongside his hip and, strangely, his ass, before she redirected her attention to his head. It was at that point she grew more hesitant, perhaps in anticipation of a stronger response. In truth, Astarion wasn’t completely sure how he’d feel about it either so he could understand her uncertainty, but it turned out to be completely fine. Her fingertips brushing over his eyelids, down his nose, and across his lips did nothing more than light up a line of warmth that tingled pleasantly in the cool air. His ears tickled a little but the sensation was not unpleasant and his sharp inhale of surprised delight when she ran her hand through his hair startled them both into a sudden burst of laughter. 

It was only when they both quieted again that she asked her final silent question. Slowly, oh so slowly, she reached out and cupped her palm around the curve of his throat, right over the twin scars Cazador had so kindly left him all those years ago. Astarion tensed on instinct, but Raevan didn’t pull away, awaiting his answer.

For a long, frozen second, Astarion battled with a thousand different thoughts. Some base instinct was roaring at the vulnerability of the touch, while a monstrous side of him inherited from Cazador spat at the entitlement of this woman thinking she could touch the scars that had so defined him. Astarion didn’t want to listen to either. He was more than a beast and more than what Cazador had made him, and it was his damned throat. He got to decide what he did with it. 

His nod, when it came, was firm and decisive. 

The reward was a wide, bright smile from Raevan that seemed to light up the darkness around her. “Thank you,” she said warmly. “For trusting me.”

“You’ve more than earned it,” he said in a surprisingly husky voice. He cleared his throat awkwardly, embarrassed. She grinned at him, but let it go. 

Then she sobered. “Remember, you can change your mind at any time. Alright? If you decide tomorrow that something's off-limits when it wasn't tonight, that's okay. Just tell me.”

Astarion smiled, indulgent and thrilled at his own security in the moment. After the strain of the last few minutes, it was a relief to pull his confidence back on. “I promised, didn't I?”

“Just making sure.”

“Darling, I assure you, I'm more than happy for you to put your hands on me. Please don't think that me asking to take things a little slower than I usually might is any indication otherwise.”

“I don't,” she said breezily. “I just want us both to be comfortable and this way, you don't have to constantly tell me in front of the others that I'm crossing your boundaries.” She waved a careless hand and dropped his gaze for a moment, and Astarion realised she was avoiding another question.

“There's something else, isn't there?”

She looked back up at him quickly, eyes wide as a deer’s when facing down a hunter. It was as clear a confirmation as if she'd spoken. 

“You can ask, my dear. Don't hold yourself back on my account.”

She blushed, suddenly unable to meet his gaze. “No, it's– Ah. Gods. You remember your promise?”

“Raevan, ask.”

She huffed. The blood rushing to her cheeks was adorable. She looked more unsure of herself than she had done all evening, though perhaps that was only because she'd been so busy hiding her face during the first half of their conversation. It actually took her several moments to build up the courage to ask her question. “Could– Uh. Could I kiss you?”

For a brief instant, Astarion considered leaning in to claim a kiss himself and letting that be his answer, but he stopped himself. She had treated him with a thoroughly undeserved gentleness all night and he wasn’t going to repay that by taking something from her without permission. Besides, he wanted to be able to see her face light up when he dropped his voice low and seductive and said, “How could I say no?”

The reward for his self-restraint was truly a sight to behold. Raevan’s breath caught, her pupils dilated. The blush still staining her cheeks continued to pulse a vivid red, a bright flag of her own vitality even as the rest of her momentarily froze in surprise. When she regained herself and slowly leaned in – giving him every opportunity to pull away even now as if there was anything he wanted to do less in that moment – her beauty was captivating. 

The kiss itself was surprisingly chaste for the weight it had been given, but to Astarion it was perfect. He knew Raevan was doing it in part to confirm to him that she wouldn’t press for more, reassuring him of her commitment to letting him set the pace and even if he would have been fine with something more it was a comfort to know she offered it. There would be time for more later. Well, probably. There was still Thorm to deal with and who knew if they could both survive that. Fortunately, for once, he was feeling uncharacteristically optimistic. 

“I do rather like that, you know,” he murmured to her.

She smiled, sharp and delighted and victorious. Gods, she was breathtaking. “Good. I’m something of a fan myself.” She brushed her thumb over the swell of his bottom lip, watching in fascination as his lips parted and his fangs peeked out. He held still as she ever so gently pricked her skin on one sharp canine.

“Careful, my dear,” he warned non-seriously. “Teasing a vampire is a dangerous game.”

Her gaze was self-assured and unrepentant. All the coy uncertainty and heartbroken regret of earlier had bled out of her at the reassurance that, yes, he wanted her too and no, she hadn’t done anything wrong. Without it she looked… strong. “I suppose it’s a good thing I know I can trust this one then,” she said smugly. 

The words took a second to sink in, but when they did, Astarion felt something warm pool in his belly. She actually meant it – she genuinely did trust him. Not just to fight at her side or to not betray her to the enemy, but trusted him with her body, her blood, knowing that he wouldn’t take advantage. He couldn’t remember ever being given that trust by anybody. Certainly not anyone who knew about all the reasons why they shouldn’t. 

It was too much to acknowledge after the weight of everything they’d already gone through that day. Instead, he tucked that gentle warmth in close to his heart and smirked at her. “I don’t know about that. You are awfully tempting. It has a disastrous effect on my self-control.”

His eyes traced the slender line of her throat, more teasing than anything, but instead of making her blush again, he was left with a pensive expression peering out at him beneath rapidly descending eyebrows. “Wait,” she said suddenly, the sultry low timbre of her voice abruptly rising back to her usual pitch. “What have you been eating?”

Astarion blinked at her, utterly thrown by the change of pace. “The same stew as you, most recently…?”

“No,” she brushed off with a flick of her wrist. “For blood, I mean.” She cast her gaze around them at their withered surroundings, directing him to acknowledge the complete lack of sound caused by animals that should have been rustling in the undergrowth. The best they’d been able to hope for since entering the Shadowlands had been the occasional caw of an unseen crow. “Are you– Have you been able to find enough food?”

She was starting to look panicked all over again, so he was quick to pull on a quelling smile. “I’m fine Raevan, I assure you. The… ah, local cuisine is not entirely agreeable to my palate, but I’m surviving well enough.”

What he didn’t say was that he’d survived far worse. He also firmly didn’t mention that the most he’d been able to catch since their arrival was a few rats and a single, somewhat skinny rabbit. Without his periodic top-ups from Raevan, he’d probably be in a pretty poor state by now. Like the humans before them, most of the local wildlife had seemingly fled the area when the curse rolled in, or had been consumed by it, leaving only a few enterprising rodents to capitalise on the sudden lack of competition. Even without it, nothing natural could grow strong here. The best any of them could manage was to eke out a half-life in the shadows – if he’d been given to that sort of poetry, Astarion might have found he related to the poor beasts. 

As it was, he detested the entire experience and had been counting down the days until they were able to get out of that gods forsaken realm. 

Something like it must have shown on his face, because Raevan’s expression had folded down into a peeved frown even as she reached for her own collar. “Gods, Astarion, you should have said something.” She managed to get her top button undone and pulled her neckline loose before Astarion caught up to what she was doing. “Drink.”

With her head tilted to allow him better access and her jaw jutted out in muted frustration with him, she looked almost comically petulant about the entire exchange. He huffed. “Raevan, it’s fine–”

“Drink. Are you honestly going to try and tell me you’re not thirsty?”

Faintly, he remembered the bloodlust that had driven him to follow her out here in the first place. Even if he’d been in a mood to lie about it, she could no doubt already read it in the pallor of his skin and the coolness of his touch. He never looked more dead than when it had been a few days since he’d last had some half-decent sustenance. After all the running around and fighting they’d had to do, on top of the general exhausting drag of merely existing in a region so wholly hostile to life, he really shouldn’t be denying the chance for a good meal when given the opportunity. 

And, well, she was offering. It would surely be rude to refuse. 

“Well,” he said brightly, “If you insist, who am I to reject such a delightful offer?”

He leaned into her slowly, mirroring the speed with which she’d claimed her kiss; giving her the time to pull away if she wanted and yet somehow knowing, with absolute certainty, that she wouldn’t. Their relationship might have had its rocky moments – mostly due to his own drama, he could admit – but this was where they’d always met in the middle. This he could trust. 

Just before he closed the final distance, he paused. There weren’t words in any language he knew that could encapsulate the feelings bottled within his chest, but it felt cowardly to say nothing at all when she had pushed herself to say so much. It was only fair he at least attempted to do the same. “Thank you,” he murmured against her skin. He didn’t just mean for the blood. 

Her hand came up to press lightly on the back of his head, threading her fingers through his curls and holding him to her as if he wasn’t a monster she should be pushing away with all her might. “You’re welcome,” she said, heavy with understanding. 

It was enough. With a final inhale of that intoxicating aroma so unique to her, Astarion leaned in and bit down. 

[rostalgia]

Wrote this during the pandemic

July, 1996. 『Baja, Mexico』

“Fuck!” Kate cried out, sat in the passenger seat, her hand shielding her eyes from the morning sunlight searing her face as Leo pulled over to park his rental black convertible, terribly dazed and hungover, her stomach roiling from last night’s exertion.

Turning off the car’s engine, Leo turned to her, concern apparent in his blue eyes as he witnessed her awful state; almost regretting his headstrong persistence last night. “Sweetheart, hey,” he called, “I’m gonna call old Jim and tell him you’re not feeling well today, then I’ll drive you back, alright?”

“No!” She lamented, slowly unclosing her weary eyelids, “but you look really sick, sweetheart.” He countered, truly adamant to get her to rest to recuperate.

“I’ll be fine, Leo. I’m sure the Advil will kick in soon.” She spoke in a fruitful attempt to give him the assurance she knew he needed as she fiddled in her seat to stumble upon a comfortable posture. “Just give me, like,” she sighed wearily, resting her troubled eyes yet again, “five minutes to gather.”

He bit his lips, his eyes focused on her. “Okay, but you have to promise to tell me if you don’t feel like you can. Alright?”

She gave him a nod, her head still resting on the headrest with her eyes closed, “yes, absolutely.”

And so they silently sat in the velvet covered car seats, his sight never leaving her jaded figure, which was illuminated by the sun. His hand so gingerly brushed a strand of her red coloured hair away from her eased face.

Some minutes passed and the pair traipsed down the ordinarily busy pavements of Fox Baja Studios en route to Leo’s trailer by the coast. His one arm platonically wrapped around her curvy waistline in assistance and his hand held a half-filled water bottle on the other side, whilst she walked with crossed arms, still slightly reeling.

Staff and crews were everywhere, running errands about the place; people hoisted up on cranes on their right, leisurely replicating wooden hulls of the Titanic, whilst People pushed steel trolleys with carry-ons on their left. Polite smiles on both their faces as they exchanged ‘hellos’ and ‘how are yous’ on their walkabout.

Passing two more blocks to the left, they finally landed in Leo’s trailer. The exterior was ordinarily white, it almost looked identical to every other trailer set up in the same area, only more spacious than the rest as it was the best available accomodation on set.

Leo quickly unlocked the door, revealing its wooden interiors and a carpeted floor. White horizontal blinds overlaying the window panes and blocking the sunlight, the soft golden light from his sconce lamp emblazoning the place instead. Atwarth to her right, centers a small galley kitchen island adjacent to a french door fridge and a four-seater dining set, abreast to it was his TV set atwarth to a white couch.

He stepped aside, ushering her in, “get in, sweetie, make yourself comfortable and get some rest. I just have to meet with (Danny) Nucci, but I’ll be quick.”

She gave him a nod, “okay, darling, just wake me up and could you bring me my usual coffee on your way back, please?” She requested, her eyebrows raised, daringly.

“Sure, Kitkat.” He chafed with a laugh, fully aware of her strong dislike for that nickname, “oh, fuck off!” She exclaimed playing along, he then gave her a kiss on the forehead before closing the door, humour still evident in his face.

Kate walked down the narrow aisle, in between the kitchen island and the square dining set, directing to a two step stair leading to the demure bedroom area. Polished cabinets mounted above his unmade bed, flanked by a narrow wooden nightstand on each side, which held his telephone on the right and a nightstand lamp on the left.

Doffing her spiked heeled boots, she placed them on the side of the stairs, before she settled into bed, leaning into the stillness.

Shortly, Leo heedfully walked through the door with two cups of decaf coffee in a disposable carrier in his hand, placing them along with his wallet in the galley island.

As Exhaustion passed him, he ran his fingers through his luscious hair, the movement repositioning his thin headband, with a yawn, he set foot in the bedroom area where Kate napped snuggly in the right side of the bed on her side.

Leo perched precariously on the landing, dousing his Nike trainers off prior to settling down into bed next to her, “Hey sweetie, how are you feeling?” he whispered tenderly as he leaned in, his large hand fondling on her shoulder, “I’ve brought coffee.” Kate uttered a moan, placing her diminutive hand atop his, leaning her head towards his direction, “what time is it?” she asked groggily, having Leo give his silver wristwatch a quick glance, “well, sweetie, it’s about nine o’clock and we have to be in the hair and makeup by ten.” He reared from his leaning position, “okay, I’m getting up,” Leo assisted her as she mounted from the commodious bed, the blanket and the sheets, in disarray.

They descended the room, their synonymous sized bare feet softly pelting against the carpeted floor. “Here, sweetheart.” He pulled the chair for her from the island, where the cup of coffees lay, “thank you, darling.” She gave him a smile of gratitude, subsequently he reclined next to her.

“You know, I want someone to look after me.” Kate imparted a raw thought as she stirred her coffee with a disposable stir stick, Leo faughed, before he took a sip of his coffee “no, you don’t. You’re completely and absolutely good at being independent.” She halted her motions, “well, I do, I want a boyfriend and I wanna have a baby,” she dragged on her truths, seriousness to a full degree now, “what? now?” he bolted, placing his drink on the back on the island, his head snapped to her direction, eyes wide, drawing on her to fall back laughing at his aghast reaction, her catching laughter had him cackling as well until the pair ended toppling on the floor abreast,their back leaning against the wooden high chairs.

Leo flicked a strand of his blonde hair as he regained his composure, before elevated his right foot, “Hey, sweetie, foot to foot,” A new sense of laughter already evident on his face, she held her foot up to his, and it drove him into another contagious laughing fit, how their foot equal in size, after all, he was six foot, one and she was five foot, six. “They are your canoes!” He exclaimed, face flushed from the laughing, his headband already on the floor.

[darsynia]

🔥 Stephen Strange x Female Reader (or if you feel like it, one of my OFCs 😉)

"I swear when I planned this, it went much more smoothly than how this turned out!"

Please and thank you 😘😘

So uh. I like this one SO much, I hope you love it! (I chose Stephen/Reader) Thanks for requesting a blurb for BLURB WEEK! Credit to @doctorstrangegifsparadise!

Summary: The bad guys Stephen has been warring against have finally caught up with the two of you at the worst possible time, and neither of you are going to stand for it.

Length/Warnings: 1,618 / LANGUAGE, haha.

Ruin Your Day

Stephen looks from the flower crown in your hair, the colorful sundress you’re wearing, and the flimsy sandals on your feet to the iron shackles around your wrists and says, “I promise you, this was not the way the afternoon was meant to play out.”

He’s just an astral projection, so you can’t do anything more than glare at him. “I thought you said they couldn’t find us! Are you okay?”

“I--” he starts to say, then looks over his shoulder. When he turns back toward you, his expression is fearful. “I’ll be right back.”

“Stephen!” you hiss, but he’s gone.

It’s cold in your new dungeon habitat, which is just cinematic, at this point. You and Stephen have been dating for just over eleven months, six of which have involved his fight against a pair of interdimensional travelers in search of the green stone he always wore around his neck. You’d taken to never saying its real name even in your head, Voldemort-style, not that this had ended up making much of a difference. 

Today was meant to be a break, an escape from the stress of those battles, a chance for you to finally see the sun. You’ve been holed up in a suite of rooms at the Sanctum for months, for fear of a mole at Kamar Taj.

At least today’s turn of events has made it clear that Stephen wasn’t being overly cautious by keeping your existence secret.

Well, Stephen wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.

You take a deep breath and clear your mind, connecting yourself to the fount of power all sorcerers draw from when they use the Mystic Arts. Your boyfriend doesn’t know that you’ve spent every free moment studying the texts in hopes of unlocking the abilities he uses with such ease. It was hard, and you’d only made the breakthrough a few weeks ago, but you’ll be damned if you’re going to play Damsel in Distress to these thieving, kidnapping assholes.

You’re not playing your hand early, either. In order to keep your abilities secret, you’d focused more on the subtleties of the Arts, things like eavesdropping, Far Sight, and the like. Honestly, if he’d waited another ten minutes, Stephen would have found you in seeming repose, your consciousness having gone walkabout.

As you pull yourself free of your mortal body, the thought that you haven’t actually practiced this very much occurs to you, but what are you supposed to do? Wait to be rescued??

Don’t be absurd.

Stephen has been counting to calm down for a good five minutes now, with no calming in sight. The necklace he’s wearing may be what his adversaries are seeking, but there’s another piece of jewelry in his pocket that’s just as valuable to him, and he doesn’t appreciate his plans being disrupted.

It took far too long to recognize that they’re in Sokovia, and even longer to contact Wong to gather an attack force. He appreciates the fact that he was able to connect so easily to you, and thus find the place you’ve been taken, but though that validates the question he’d intended to ask today, it doesn’t help the cavalry show up any faster. The whole building is warded fairly heavily, and the anti-portal provision stretches miles in all directions.

Either Wong’s going to need to call in the Avengers to borrow a Quinjet and a few supersoldiers, or they’re all going to walk to the rescue. He doesn’t know which is more insufferable.

Stephen drifts through a wall and finds a meeting, which is both useful and extremely insulting. There isn’t even a guard outside your ‘dungeon’ door! Safe in the knowledge that they can’t see him, he floats angrily around the table, swiping his incorporeal hand on the back of a few necks from time to time, just to make the (ahh yes. HYDRA. Completely unsurprising) goons in question feel uneasy. Once he’s finished gathering all the information there is to glean, Stephen makes his way back to a safe place so he can rejoin his body-- and runs into your astral form, on the way.

Your eyes are wide and surprised even though your jaw is set at a defiant angle, and god, he loves every infuriating, beautiful, inexplicable inch of you.

“Hi,” you whisper.

“Marry me?” he blurts out, right there in the middle of a HYDRA base, while you’re both incorporeal and very fucking busy. “And, for the love of Cagliostro, get back to your body so I can rescue you!”

“Goddamnit, Stephen!” you whisper-roar, throwing your hands in the air and sighing like he’s just demanded you invent time travel. “Yes, of course, but you haven’t heard the end of this!”

With that you float off in a huff, as if the two of you are in the Sanctum arguing over whether to order your favorite takeout again and risk someone figuring out where you are thanks to how specific your fucking food order is.

It takes Stephen a second to gather himself (was it ‘of course I’ll marry you’ or ‘of course I’ll head back to my body??’) --and then he can’t find you.

“First things first,” he mutters to himself, and heads over to his body as quickly as he can. Once he gets there, he does the thing he’s done every single day since he’d put the ring box in his pocket: feel for it, to make sure it’s still there.

That sends him into a Moment, as well. If he could, he’d draw on all the power that there is, draw it all into himself, and destroy everything and everyone that’s threatening you, molecule by molecule. Except, he knows if he does that, his own chemical makeup will be so compromised, he won’t be the man you love anymore.

That’s not acceptable.

“All right. We’ll do it the old fashioned way.”

Your astral form is busy drawing on little bursts of power to completely fuck up the electrical system in your captor’s rather quaint castle in Sokovia when a thunderous voice sounds from seemingly everywhere.

It’s Stephen.

You may think you are safe because you are numerous. You are wrong. Give me back what’s mine, and I will be merciful. Harm her in any way, and you’ll wish you’d never been born.

You fucking love it when he gets possessive.

It takes a little more effort than you should expend at once, but you manage to finish your task of complete electrical sabotage ten seconds after Stephen’s reverberating voice fades.

The only catch? You can’t see anything either. You roll your ghostly eyes in the dark and lift yourself up into the air, intending to float around until you find a window, and search for your barred dungeon room from the outside.

Unfortunately, the energy you spent affecting the real world in your astral form was too much, and you lose consciousness with just enough time to curse yourself for forgetting to read the warnings.

The power cuts out so soon after his speech that Stephen instinctively knows you had something to do with it. It reminds him of something he’d said three months into your relationship:

‘I never thought disobedience was sexy until I met you.’

He can’t wait to see you again, but it’s a toss-up whether he’ll yell or kiss you quiet. Probably both. Probably more.

Stephen doesn’t have time to contemplate in exactly which order he’ll punish you, or how much he’s going to enjoy it, because as he stands in shadow outside the castle waiting to hear from Wong, an aerial armada appears overhead.

The Avengers aren’t any more inclined to be merciful than he is.

You wake up in your bed in the Sanctum, weak as a kitten and almost as blind. You’re immediately filled with terror-- has your careless, untrained use of the Mystic Arts harmed you permanently?

“Shhh, sweetheart, I’m here, you’re safe,” Stephen says, his comforting hand brushing your cheek seconds before his lips press against your forehead.

“If you made that threat before backup showed up I’m going to kick your ass,” you say weakly.

“I would expect nothing less, darling,” he says placatingly. The fact that he doesn’t sound the slightest bit defensive tells you volumes about how worried he’s been about you. 

That prompts you to get emotional, and to cover it up, you dredge up your most indignant voice as you say, “Did you save me anyone to vanquish?”

“You’ll have to take that up with the Avengers, I’m afraid.”

“Jerks,” you sniff.

There’s a long silence, during which the two of you communicate mostly in hand squeezes and caught breaths.

“I’m proud of you,” Stephen says, finally.

“You shouldn’t be. I was reckless.”

“That’s just the thing. You weren’t constrained by me. I have a lot of power. I don’t want a subordinate. I want you to fight back. I want you to feel safe to get angry at me. I want--” He breaks off, and you use all of your strength to roll over and open your eyes. Stephen is sitting beside you, eyes bright with emotion, both hands clasped around yours.

“I love you too,” you whisper, “--but if you even dream of proposing again while I’m this much of a mess, I will marry Wong just to spite you. He’ll do it.”

The smile Stephen breaks out into is as relieved as it is bright. “He would, the asshole.” He pats his pocket and nods soberly. “Point taken. Maybe I’ll let you choose the spot, this time?”

“As long as you’re there, I’ll be the happiest woman in any dimension. Even if something else tries to ruin our day.”

[stormbreaker101]

ASKING YOU ABOUT THE NOTHING IN YOUR AU 🫵

YEEHAW

SO!

In Corrupted Spiral, canon basically "breaks" before Arc 4 can begin. My wizard, Nora, left the Spiral before getting the invitation to the Schism Summit in Karamelle. Which means the Nothing has absolutely no reason to go to Karamelle either. And because Nora left the Spiral, the Nothing can't exactly follow.

So, the Nothing and the Old One remain completely separate, and it never gains the desire to seek Lemuria. The world stays forgotten and hidden for a few more years, and when Lemuria eventually IS released, the Nothing isn't involved at all. So, the Nothing never becomes Dasein, and the World Synthesizer never makes Novus happen either. Wallaru exists, of course, but there's no Walkabout in it because NEITHER Nora nor "Dasein" are present.

But enough of what doesn't happen. Time for what happens INSTEAD.

After fleeing the Spiral, eventually Nora comes around and realizes that the Spiral is her home, and she misses it dearly (and also she should... clean up the consequences of her leaving). But during her time outside the Spiral, she gained the attention of a second cosmic entity/force/plane of existence, the Abyss (not related to the Novus sidequest boss). The Abyss is a realm of hunger, strength, brutality, and one-way transformation, and is kinda close to how people in the Spiral assumed the Nothing would be in canon: a void that just consumes and destroys.

The Abyss catches up to Nora and drags her down into it, and the Nothing finally sees a chance to reach out to Nora, the "Everything" in its metaphorical eyes. It can't glomp her despite its instinct wanting to, so instead it mimics her appearance and consumes her phone. Now, instead of just having the Old One's memory as in canon, it has ALL OF THE INTERNET (that I as its writer can access) at its disposal. A massive array of information, but not the ability to do anything with it. That takes things like reason and wisdom, which it doesn't have.

When Nora finally awakens, the Nothing 1) hits her with the "Hey, you, you're finally awake" from Skyrim and 2) joins her quest to get out of the Abyss and back to the Spiral. The journey through the Abyss serves as the Nothing's Lemuria, where it learns about things like danger and teamwork and wisdom and personhood.

It even gets a name of its own in the Abyss! After hearing Nora's discomfort with being called "Scion", the Nothing's like "oh can I have that name? That way if people try to call you that, they're just talking to me instead." Nora responds that "names and titles don't really work like that... but sure. Why not. Knock yourself out." And The name of Scion slowly warps over time to its current name, Kiyom. (Fun fact: I derived the name Kiyom from the word קיום in Hebrew, which like dasein in German means "existence".)

And Kiyom quite likes being Kiyom. It's not what it's "supposed to be" in canon (which it can read because of the Wizard101central wiki), but... that's the whole point. The Spiral is Corrupted, things can change! Including the Nothing. Including Kiyom.

in other words yippee transfemininity

[davidcgc]

The Ships of the White Star Fleet

I've been working on a detailed 3D model of the White Star, and I wanted to create a simple bridge interior to be visible through the windows. That got met into quite a rabbit hole examining the episodes for variations and revisions, which I haven't seen discussed much before. I've put together some comparisons here. Full details are on my blog.

Please keep in mind that this isn't a 1-to-1 recreation of the set, it's been compressed to fit inside the exterior model.The evolution of the original White Star's bridge

During season 3, the White Star bridge set was being continually revised, from "Matters of Honor," when it didn't even have a captain's chair and the standing consoles had weird bony railings around them up through "Walkabout," where the last minor revision was made. That makes sense in-universe since the White Star was a prototype that was being tested in use, so it adds up that between episodes the Minbari were taking it into the shop and adjusting it.The ships of the White Star Fleet

For season 4, the set was redesigned to be a bit more expansive, and also had several features added that could be modified to represent different ships, mostly by changing the colors of different lit elements. There were also some computer screens that were swapped out with different images, and "celtic knot" designs which were mounted above the main door to the bridge (and elsewhere on the ship). There's also a detailed blog post specifically about these.The "Celtic Knot" symbols for various White Stars

Altogether, I identified at least nine different White Stars used in seasons 4 and 5 (and A Call to Arms). There could be more, in the blog post I go into more detail about how I decided when similar ships in different episodes were probably the same one.

[heir-less]

Thoughts on these recent leaks and speculation:

Not going to lie, I think Charles and Camilla are on to something that might harm William and Kate's image. Buckingham Palace is shrewd with what's getting put out and they have the experience to match. Assuming it's not Kensington Palace sending out these courtiers, and assuming Kate really is getting lies printed about her from "rogue sources", I believe it's Charles's team leaking stories about how much Kate doesn't like being around Meghan. And I believe they are intentionally trying to single her out and make her look bad. This refocuses the drama on William and Harry's families and it makes Charles seem like a bystander in the drama between his two boys.

Notice how all the leaks about Charles are that he's pleased and glad to have Harry at the coronation. There was also a Sussex spokesperson trying to spin a narrative of Harry attending being a personal family choice done out of love for his father. This is an olive branch narrative of struggling to break free and Charles is vapidly reciprocating it (in reality I don't think any resolution will happen). Royal expert mouthpiece Richard Fitzgerald has claimed that Charles is happy both sons will be there with no comment about Meghan.

All the negativity about disliking Meghan is being placed on the Wales's, with Kate being the main target. In fact, Kate is the only named royal we have who is described as being uncomfortable. Sure, the rest of the family is relieved, but it's Kate who they single out as being distinctly uncomfortable by Meghan. Why is this?

My theory is that the palace understands it's a bad look for Charles to have these rumours about his maltreatment of Meghan and her children floating around. It's a bad look for Camilla to have stories about her being friends with the people who manufactured Meghan's harassment campaign. They understand that being painted as Meghan's enemy isn't a good long-term strategy and justifies the allegations of racism and general cruelty in the eyes of many people. Meghan being excluded from the coronation, Charles's big day, also reinforces this. So, Charles and Camilla are doing what they do best: they're looking for a scapegoat.

Kate is the scapegoat.

I believe Buckingham Palace is throwing Kate under the bus to save their own skin. After all, she was the main benefactor of Meghan's smear campaign, and she was the one who reaped positive comparisons at Meghan's expense for years. It would be easy for the palace to reframe the nastier side of the conflict as a personal grudge on William and Kate's behalf.

Charles? He loves both his sons. He doesn't want any of this. He's hurt by what Harry and Meghan have done, but he wants his son happy. He just wants to escape all the drama the Sussexes caused and return to his work.

But Kate? Kate makes it so personal! She's so uncomfortable around Meghan. She hates Meghan and whats to see her off forever!

Here's a source with a big headline about how relieved Kate is (singling her out) about Meghan not being around. Let's run these headlines everywhere with her face plastered all over them.

Here's a scoop from an upcoming book written by royal biographer Robert Jobson! Kate found that 15-minute walkabout with Meghan the hardest thing she's ever had to do! What's the name of that book again? Oh, yeah: Our King: Charles III: The Man and the Monarch Revealed. Jobson himself claims in the book's introduction that he wants to give an authentic and honest portrayal of Charles, a man he 100% believes is worthy of the Crown. Hmm, I wonder who will benefit from the promotion of that book. Also, don't look up what Jobson has to say about Diana, don't

Here's a piece by Gordon Rayner from February that calls Meghan Kate's "nemesis" and that Kate's rebranding will "see her off for good". He gloats about how much more popular Kate is with a cherry-picked batch of stats.

The tone in which Kate is portrayed in relation to Meghan has changed drastically in tone. Back a few years ago, the media loved to paint Kate as a peacekeeper (despite all evidence). Now, it seems that the gloves are off and the media has no issue leaning into Kate's distaste for Meghan. It's sort of ironic that all of this is now happening after Queen Elizabeth's death. Kate has displayed hostility toward Meghan since 2019 and it sometimes went to print (take the controversial Tatler story where Meghan is called selfish for making Kate's life harder), but the media is now reporting on that fact more aggressively than ever before.

Now this is just my personal theory based on what I'm seeing coming out and from who. I might be wrong and this might change or go away since the tabloid news cycle has a short life span. Maybe there will be a new strategy in a few months.

It's also completely possible that this isn't just a Charles and Camilla thing. Maybe Kensington Palace has absolutely no issue amplifying Kate's dislike of Meghan and doesn't think it's a detriment to her character. I'd beg to differ, but Kensington Palace has often botched its PR strategies, so who knows.

For now, this is what I think is happening, Kensington might happen to let their dislike of Meghan be known, but I think Buckingham Palace is taking advantage of that and twisting the narrative to absolve Charles and place him in the middle ground. Like Harry said, Camilla and Charles know how to play the long game.