#which would be really cool if that's intentional because it's meant as a human-made art piece

[kradogsrats]

Okay, so new day; new insane lore history theory.

Looking at the tapestry from ToX again more closely, after my very quick scan this morning, there are actually five distinct types of soldiers shown:

Based on careful examination of the contemporary armor/uniforms used by the Pentarchy armies, I landed on this breakdown:

I could explain in great detail how I made those distinctions, but honestly it doesn't matter and people don't care. Just trust me, I thought hard about it.

Originally I misidentified there as only being three types of soldiers, because the Katolis/Evenere and Neolandia/Del Bar designs are very similar. Also because the tapestry shows three cities:

Katolis is obvious, and I still think the other two are Berylgarten and Neolandia. The map helpfully tells us there are five known cities in the human kingdoms, complete with little pictures:

I've left out Hinterpeak because it's very obvious none of the tapestry cities is Hinterpeak, Hinterpeak is literally inside a mountain. Del Bar's secondary city, Serpentongue, looks like a candidate based on its map drawing, but ToX tells us that Serpentongue actually looks like this, which is... less representative of what the tapestry shows:

We see Berylgarten briefly in s2 during Viren's flashback sections, where it's a sort of tiered city with towers around a central dome:

I think that's closer to the top tapestry city than Serpentongue is, though it's still fairly abstracted. It also makes more sense for the "capital" city of a kingdom to be represented.

Finally, we have Eboreus, which is a bit of a problem child because we have no long-distance views of Eboreus that I can recall... there are depictions of the inside of the city, but nothing that would characterize its silhouette for us. However, ToX does have another piece of "old" artwork, meant to be probably some kind of fresco, depicting the founding of Neolandia and Eboreus:

(This is the latter, Eboreus half, the right half just shows the people migrating from the east and going through a nomadic tent-based civilization period.)

It doesn't help a ton, except that construction of the city wall is given a pretty dramatic place in the visual narrative. I would definitely assume, from this, that Eboreus is a walled city similar to the bottom tapestry city. Combined with the many-spired depiction on the map, I feel okay about that identification.

It's interesting that they geographically represent only three of the five kingdoms, but if the tapestry pre-dates parts of the kingdoms' formations... well, the kingdom that's a swamp infested with magical megagators and the kingdom where they still choose the next monarch by having a literal melee free-for-all are honestly the ones I'd say probably took the longest to establish like... actual government.

However, something to keep in mind is that while I've been talking about this tapestry like it's a super-old historical document within the setting, it may actually not be from all that far in the past. All we really know is that it shows a conflict between humans and elves, divided by the Border, and that's not exactly a historically unique scenario. The main things that suggest it's showing an earlier time than "now" are that it includes only three cities, and that it clearly depicts mages being heavily involved in warfare. If that was something that was expected at series time, a lot of things would be very different. I could, however, see it being a thing as late as, say, the time of the Orphan Queen. I mention all of this because the tapestry is one of several "old"-looking art pieces in Tales of Xadia, but we have to keep in mind that one of those literally depicts Harrow killing Avizandum, so. It could be very old, it could be not-very old. (I mean, 300 years is still pretty old, in the scope of known human history.)

Really, though, what I wanted to talk about is this:

We have our "Katolian" soldier, but the heraldry on their shield is not the Katolis uneven towers, even though that's already a distinguishing feature of the kingdom (as seen in the city depictions). Instead, it's a layered uh... thing. But it's a thing we've seen before:

The guards at Allhaven Hill have their own heraldry, presumably because they're supposed to be neutral regardless of their kingdom of origin... but it's almost exactly the same overlapping geometric design as we see in the tapestry.

We also have Blondie McKatolis, in the flashback scenes during Zubeia's account of Aaravos's imprisonment, strongly implying that we are seeing representatives of the human kingdoms at the time of the Orphan Queen:

We pretty clearly also have Neolandia, Del Bar, and Evenere at this table. Also Duren, I just always get confused by her since they gave her those purple-y pink accents instead of blue. Why? No idea. What is this, Sleeping Beauty?

Anyway, Blondie up there also does not use the modern Katolian uneven-towers heraldry, nor the crown that matches it. Depending on how long the Aaravos bullshit had been going on, it's not surprising that the Orphan Queen would try for a clean slate when taking the throne. Having just averted devastation on both sides of the Border by working together with Xadia, "finding strength in our differences" is a pretty good choice for new logo inspiration. (I don't actually know how you adopt/change heraldry. But I do know logo design and branding strategy!)

Given that all five kingdoms technically appear in the tapestry, the "Pentarchy" heraldry could already be a united human kingdoms symbol... except then why isn't it on any of the other soldiers? Some of them have shields almost exactly the same as the Katolian soldiers, but no heraldry.

So here's a thought: what if it actually is the Katolian heraldry of the time, or a symbol of the kingdoms united under Katolis?

Katolis is one of the older and larger kingdoms, it's implied to have had a larger and more organized military for a long time (holding most of the Border), and Blondie is the one with Aaravos whispering in his ear. It wouldn't be super weird if Katolis at one point held a higher position than the other kingdoms, whether as "first among equals" or an actual system of vassals with a "high king" or whatever. The center, frontmost piece of the overlapping geometry, so to speak.

We have occasionally gotten weird little hints/implications that the current era of peace between the human kingdoms, even the entire concept of the Pentarchy, is fairly recent. What if that's not because they were all squabbling amongst themselves even after the mage wars wound down, but that prior to the Orphan Queen, they were all varying degrees of vassal states to Katolis? If part of what the Orphan Queen did was reset the human kingdoms as equals, doing a "this symbol now belongs to all of us, not just Katolis, and Katolis will adopt new heraldry" could be a nice gesture.

But yeah, that's how my brain has been spinning today.

[itsavgbltpta]

Should You Watch The Marginal Service?

(Japanese title is in all caps: THE MARGINAL SERVICE)

A Brief Summary

The modern world is not inhabited by humans alone, but this fact is kept secret from the public.  Certain organizations keep track of Borderlanders - supernatural creatures and legendary beings - and keep them cooperating in secret with humans against a possible bigger threat from above.  But of course these Borderlanders don’t always stay in line.

Brian Nightraider, a former cop and bit of a loose canon, watched his partner die and wants to get revenge.  His goals happen to coincide with one of the agencies that watches over Borderlander actions - the Marginal Service.  The agency takes Brian on as a new recruit to find and battle any Borderlanders that get out of control.  He’s taken under the wing of Zeno Stokes, a grizzled older detective who prefers to follow the rules - which means of course he and Brian don’t get along as partners, but they need to get the job done anyway.

So, should you watch the anime?

No.  It pains me to say that as I was hyped about this show after seeing the character art and trailers, but Marginal Service does not deliver.

I am generally a big fan of team dynamics, but only when the team has good character interactions and development.  Team Marginal Service veers wildly between being best buds and acting like they barely know each other - or even downright insulting each other (and not in a joking manner).  That doesn’t make for fun watching in my book.

Some of the ideas Marginal Service has are interesting.  Borderlanders working with humans to protect the earth in secret is cool.  Humans treating the Borderlanders like second class citizens even though they are supernatural beings tracks with how that situation would probably pan out in real life.  The backstories of the team members are fleshed out somewhat and have thought put into them, even if they aren’t amazing.

I struggle to understand how this group became a team in the first place.  Marginal Service does give backstory episodes to each team member, and they do play into the overall plot, but they don’t serve to show why this team was put together with these members specifically.  Because they probably really shouldn’t be.  I struggle even more to figure out why they would recruit Brian when he is almost totally useless for basically the whole show (save for some lucky breaks).  I’m sure the writing team was trying to go for something like Brian’s dumb ideas are made from good intentions and will help change how his teammates think about things, but he could also be competent in the meantime.

I’m trying to keep spoilers light, but I did moderately enjoy a late-game moment where different Borderlanders the team interacted with came back into play.  It made the earlier “villain of the week” style episodes feel like they meant more.  I give the writers credit for having some idea of where they were going plot-wise at least.  Also the animation and character designs are good, so the show wasn’t hard on the eyes at least,

I think towards the end the show tried to appeal more to a fujoshi fanbase with some queer-baiting moments, but even that fell flat thanks to the tonal mood swings the show throws out.  You can’t have two dudes having a hug it out moment and follow it up immediately with them being cold as ice to each other and expect that to be enough.

…ok, so fujoshi will make a whole case manifesto for couples out of barely anything, so I guess this could be enough for some people.  But for me personally, it was like throwing cold water on a tiny fire that had just barely begun to smoke.

Brian and Zeno hog the spotlight for most of the show, but there are other members of Marginal Service and a few Borderlanders that actually matter, such as:

The older boss that keeps the office together and relays orders and missions to the team while usually staying in the base to admire his collection of mysterious artifacts (Theodore).

A former British spy and workout-fiend who likes to keep himself looking good and fashionable and who always argues with a certain teammate over who is better/stronger (Robin).

The other teammate who is even more muscle-bound and obsessed with protein intake, which is honestly the only character trait he has throughout the show (Bolts).

The token female of the team who is a very sexy tech support agent that is ace at hacking but also good at espionage when needed (Lyra).

An introverted and sarcastic doctor who prefers to keep to himself, but isn’t afraid to step up and make sure the team is bandaged/healed up when needed (Cyrus).

The mascot figure (and Borderlander) who looks like a beaver or woodchuck type creature and is very focused on perving on Lyra (Peck).

A famous pop musician who is a very pretty boy with some very mysterious powers who may or may not be behind a lot of events the Marginal Service gets called in to handle (Rubber Suit).

Plus more villain of the week Borderlanders that the Marginal Service takes interacts with, some humans higher up in the political sphere that hand missions to the team, and a dog!

Where does it rate on my personal scale?

S: I will buy it at full price (unless it’s released by Aniplex USA, because fuck their pricing).

A: I will buy it on sale sometime down the line.

B: I had fun watching it, but don’t need to own it.

->C: It’s not my cup of tea, but wasn’t awful.

D: Dropped it.

X: Finished it out of spite, but did not enjoy it.

Marginal Service only hits a C.  The art and animation are good, and there are a lot of individual pieces making up the show that are interesting, but the pacing and feel of the show never comes together into something really worth watching.

[mongeese]

Music in Wolf 359

Hey so uhh I meant this to be a relatively short informal analysis post but then it accidentally turned in a 1150 word essay. Whoops! Anyway, it’s about the role music plays in Wolf 359, both on a practical level outside the story and a narrative/thematic level inside the story. I wrote this all in one go with minimal proofreading, so I sincerely hope it’s understandable and that my points are good. As always, feedback is welcome so long as you’re nice about it!

Here it is, under the read more because it’s long as hell:

One of my favorite things about Wolf 359 is the way it talks about and uses music. Like, the fact that the aliens are trying to contact humanity just because they want to learn how to make music is one of my all-time favorite reveals in the podcast because it’s just so profound! And it gives me a lot to try and unpack (which I am going to try and do right now).

Obviously, there is a practical element to the significance of music in the narrative. It is an audio-only medium, after all, and music provides a welcome break to all the dialogue and drama. Eiffel even references its ability to act as a way to ease the tension in Mission Mishaps: A Little Night Music, though that was almost definitely not an intentional wink to a more meta reason for the music. I’m just making a fun little reference to an episode I remember. Anyways, more to the point: music is really the only art form that can feasibly be introduced in a podcast. Theater is maybe an exception? However, I think putting a play into an audio drama would get a bit complicated on a storytelling level. Though if someone could pull that off, it’d probably be very cool, like some Hamlet vibes. But that’s irrelevant, so I digress. The point is, the medium was probably a strong motivator for the intense significance given to music.

Aside from the medium itself, the premise also lends itself to music being the connecting thread throughout the story. Now, I don’t know which idea came first: Doug Eiffel being the communications officer probing deep space, or the fact that the aliens want humans to teach them music. Regardless, those two facts are intrinsically linked. Given Eiffel’s role on the station, there is not really any other subtle way for the aliens to try and get his attention. All he can do is listen; he can’t receive any visible messages over the vacuum of space, not without a cable television to view them on, and if the aliens just spoke to him to slow burn of the plot and the eventual reveal would be ruined. Music is the best way for them to reach out in a way that fits neatly in the narrative they’re trying to build.

Now, let’s move away from external factors, shall we? I want to dive into the significance within the text. Obviously, music is significant to different characters in different ways. Minkowski is a total musical theater nut (the absolute queen), to the point of pursuing it over and over again even when she fails continually. Her devotion to music mirrors her devotion and stubbornness in all other aspects of her life, in addition to adding unexpected depth and nuance to her character. Regarding Eiffel, I think it’s safe to assume that he loves pop music the same way he loves pop culture. Plus, it’s given as one of the first and only ways he bonds with his daughter, as written in the episode Limbo:

“Doug was seeing little baby Anne pretty much every other day, talking to her every day, teaching her to play the Jaws theme on her little dinky kid xylophone, all the good stuff.”

It’s notable also, that Doug’s worst action, the thing that permanently put a wedge between him and his daughter, ended up making her go deaf. Even if she’s still able to appreciate music on some level, because deaf people can do that, it will still be a fundamentally different experience for her and Doug. I’ve posted about this once before, and I fully believe they made the decision to have Anne go deaf as opposed to some other disability because of the significance of audio and speaking and music to Doug’s life. It emphasizes how extreme what happened was, how thoroughly that mistake drove his family away from him (for good reason, I might add, I’m not trying to excuse him). I could write a whole other essay on Doug and his daughter though, so for now I’ll move on.

To be perfectly honest, it’s been a long time since I’ve listened to the podcast, and I don’t entirely remember what the rest of the characters say about what music means to them. If anyone who has a more encyclopedic knowledge of the characters and podcast wants to chime in here, I’d be fascinated to hear what sort of concrete examples there are of music being significant other than the ones I’ve mentioned. I’m pretty sure Hera is interested in music the same way she is interested in books and other forms of human art, and I have a vague memory of Lovelace mentioning a song that was important to her in one of the episodes, but the details escape me. Suffice it to say, the characters do interact with music in ways that are distinct and which reveal aspects of their character. Just goes to show that even without the whole “alien” thing, music is an important part of almost all of the major cast members’ lives.

And of course, I can’t write a Wolf 359 meta without linking it back to the anticapitalist theme of the whole story. It is so, so profound that out of all the amazing tech of Goddard Futuristics, all they are prepared to offer the immensely powerful extraterrestrial group, the one thing the aliens want is… music. Classical music, even, something that is widely considered unprofitable and frivolous as a career path, something that has little market value in a soulless capitalist world. As it turns out, that music is the most important and revolutionary thing humanity has to offer. And there’s added depth, because it’s not just that the aliens want to learn our music; our music quite literally saves Earth as a whole! Bob the alien says, that for species they decide not to bring into the fold of their alliance, they often have to destroy all members of that species. Humanity certainly would have met that fate, if not for our talent in music. I don’t know about you guys, but that drives me insane!! The fact that quite literally, humanity’s saving grace is our music? It’s such a poetic and remarkable theme to have, and one that I think is very applicable to real life. Humans have been making music for at least 40,000 years, probably more. It’s a fundamental urge, I think, to create music, whether through singing, drumming, playing instruments, whatever. Plus human’s aren’t even the only species that makes music, so you could reasonably extend Wolf 359’s statement to say that Earth’s saving grace and its most beautiful feature is its music. My favorite flavor, though, comes when you intertwine music’s importance with the anticapitalist ideas of the podcast. Because music is not inherently profitable or conventionally innovative (i.e. not innovative according to tech bros) and yet it is our most important invention. That is just such an amazing message to me, and it really, really resonates.

[bbq-hawks-wings]

Chapter 316: BBQ is capable of critiquing BNHA and… Oh boy.

Let's start this off properly, Horikoshi's typical quality of writing has been diminishing in recent chapters, but this week it was so different that it didn't even feel like Horikoshi was the one who wrote it.

To be clear, I'm not blaming Horikoshi for the issues I'm about to bring up. The man is criminally overworked, usually doesn't even get the final say in what makes it in the final drafts, and even in his other rough patches he's still produced decent chapters that hold up amongst the grand scheme of things. This feels like something else is going on behind the scenes, and while I have my suspicions on who/what might be the culprit behind it, I choose not to share it at this time because if I name names some people might go off on a crusade, and that's not what I want.

I just want to be clear that I'm not blindly firing off shots in the dark, but despite my frustrations I want to wait to see if this gets resolved down the line, and while I do I can complain about the specific reasons this chapter left such a bitter taste in my mouth.

Buckle up, buttercups, because we got a lot of points to cover.

Where's the Gun?

Not a literal gun, but I mean Chekhov's Gun. It has always been a staple of Horikoshi's writing and the reason so many of his long-standing plot lines have paid off so well.

Chekhov's Gun is a writing principal that if you see a gun on the table in the first act of a play, it will be used in the murder that happens in act 2. Basically, the author should include details that are relevant to the story and not betray the audience by leading them in one direction and at the last minute pull the rug out from underneath them to go in another direction.

Horikoshi has done this to phenomenal success in the past. Just as one example, he dropped hints about Nomu being human experiments early in the series but held off explicitly stating it for a while. He hinted at the loss of Shirakumo in the main narrative and that he was important to Aizawa and Mic as well as approved it for Vigilantes so when it was revealed that Kurogiri was Shirakumo's body, not only did it narratively make sense but it also pulled in Eraserhead and Present Mic's emotional stakes into the battle with the Doctor, and then when Ujiko reveals he was after Aizawa's quirk the whole time it made the payoff for Mic punching him in the face all that much better and brings the weight of his crimes and the impact they have on the victims full circle.

That's 3 different guns paying off in the long run: the Nomu, Shirakumo, and both Mic and Eraserheads' personal arcs past the loss of their childhood friend and that they could finally finish processing their grief and avenge him in full righteous fury instead of chalking it all up to cruel chance.

He has left details, some particularly innocuously, in plot lines like the Touya Todoroki reveal, Hawks' backstory, Shigaraki's blood connection to Nana Shimura, even with Mr. Compress's backstory, and more. When re-read, these details become more obvious and usually leaves us with a greater sense of satisfaction in the plot knowing that twists and turns were not only planned, but built up to and hinted at for us to find so the payoff is that much better and it feels purposeful instead of just shock factor.

None of that happened this chapter.

Lady Nagant has zero business being in this plotline. She was never hinted about before this arc, and her existence does nothing to tell us about the plot moving forward or the world that they're trying to change. Nothing her existence provides actually has any bearing on the universe or tells us anything we don't already know. But that's not how she was presented.

In the beginning we're given a glimpse of her helping Overhaul escape from Tartarus. The focus on her was odd enough to begin with as a new character, and the fact that she didn't look like she fit the profile of someone who belonged in Tartarus was like a flashing neon sign saying, "Pay attention! This new character is important!!!" She then shows up later with Overhaul in hand to attack Deku out of the blue. We get her talking about how she thought Overhaul might be useful and her disillusions with Hero Society. We catch her mannerisms with eery similarity to Hawks only to find out immediately after she was a senior colleague in the HPSC. Never once to my knowledge has Hawks referred to any of his senior colleagues as a "senpai" - not even his fellow heroes - and when he catches her in midair, he uses the words, "Don't die on me, senpai!" as if she's near and dear to his heart.

The entire character arc is set up for her to have known about Hawks and grapple with her desire to help people and her fear of re-creating what she hated, and this also set up Hawks to be the successor who succeeded where she failed and helped bring her to a place where she could be a hero without guilt again. What actually happened?

They're strangers.

They have never actually met before, and while he seems to know a lot about her, she doesn't even seem to have any idea of who he was - at least as far as being another hero under the thumb of the HPSC. So ALLLL that setup, all that gesturing, and all of the potential themes that would be right at home in an arc like this goes completely out the window.

Her story doesn't tell us anything new. The HPSC bad. We knew that. They're not above throwing innocents under the bus to achieve that goal. We knew that. They preyed upon young hopefuls with powerful quirks with the intent to maintain the status quo. We knew that even if the fact that Hawks isn't the only one now makes more questions than answers. We know that these young heroes can never say no under threat of steep, life-shattering consequences. We knew that already.

So what does Lady Nagant even bring to the table?! The entire "you're just a puppet doing what you've been told" angle is a little tired and out of place in this point and time with actual anarchy in the streets (not to mention hypocritical considering she was a blind puppet following orders and offers zero actual solutions that supposedly fall in line with her heroic nature), and it could have been left to any number of other villain characters who could have executed on the theme better - you know, like Shigaraki who's justification this entire time has been, "hero society doesn't make people safe, it just makes them feel safe" from the moment of his inception.

So from that angle she's unnecessary.

Her presence messes with the continuity of the series as well. If Hawks is supposed to explicitly replace her, that would mean that he wasn't just a fluke find on the commission's part and grabbed to mold into their own special superweapon; and that also would mean that her killing of the former president was before he was discovered which should put her at least in her forties. If this isn't the case, and he was meant to simply replace her in a "special agent" case, that still begs the question of how many more gifted children the commission preyed upon and are still out there.

And maybe the worst kicker for me is that something stinks. The way the art in this chapter is presented, if you completely blanked out the speech bubbles, is the same setup I had before - Hawks reaches out to his former mentor and pulls her from the brink of despair with a moving message about why he never gave up hope in being a hero who could actually make a difference.

Again, this is not what we got. He claims he knows her, and it's implied to have been a deep, personal character witness; but at best he only knows about her from secondhand sources. Even his reasoning as to how he never lost hope doesn't vibe with his character.

We have gotten so many cool one-liners for Hawks, but there has always been a consistent tone and imagery with them.

"Those who can fly, should."

"I don't belong in a cage."

"I'm free of my shackles."

"Can I be a shining light, just like him?"

What we got was, "I'm an optimist to a fault" which was the wording the official release went with and was by far the best iteration I have seen, but even this falls short of being truly in character for him and answering her question properly.

@mikeana made an edit of the titular panels for us Hawks stans this week with dialogue we and a few other friends felt was more fitting not only with the imagery of the chapter itself but internally consistent with the specific expressions Hawks uses in his heartfelt, personal dialogue. I just tweaked it a little bit more to fit what I was going for in our original conversation.

Which brings me to another concern.

2. What's the point?

There was no use for Nagant in the series as she's been presented so far. But more than that, Hawks has no business in this fight to begin with. He literally did nothing to earn this emotional moment, and this should have been Deku's moment.

We were teased in an interview with Horikoshi that Hawks was going to get a special moment as an important end-game character as a "shining light" of hope for others to follow as well as promises for Ochako to have another moment in the spotlight to make a difference.

If this was Hawks' shining light moment, it wasn't necessary, and it does nothing to move the plot forward or develop characters in any true or believable way. It just happened because plot. This should have been Deku's victory through and through, and even he is the reason BOTH Hawks and Nagant made it out alive instead of painting the street below them.

Deku's victory was stolen from him, too. It sours the other promises made to us about other characters moving forward, as well, if this really was Hawks' "Shining Light" moment.

By the way, did you forget about Overhaul? Me too!!! What was the point of getting our hopes up about reintroducing this beloved character with the implications this was a major arc setup to have him scream about pops and then get detained with no clues about what's going to happen to him besides, "Say you're sorry to Eri, and you get to see pops"?!

All this posturing and clumsy narrative flailing only actually succeeded in getting Deku in front of AFO again for plot when we already know Mr. Potato Head could summon, show himself to, or find Deku at any time he wanted. But instead we get this time skip with a bunch of heroes completely mended walking into a big, spooky mansion for AFO to evil monologue at Deku for… *counts*

FOUR PAGES!!!

Only to then give him the "I want YOU!" point over a pre-recorded message and the final nail in the coffin to me that something is off.

3. Ex-pu-LOOOO-SHUN!

It's become almost a game among friends to count how many explosions have happened since the end of the war arc - and specifically fake-out explosions. In the end of 311 we get All Might's car attacked via explosion and Deku cornered by Nagant only for All Might to be fine in the next chapter. In 315 Lady Nagant herself explodes in a blaze of glory to once again not be dead.

Gee! I wOnDeR if aLl the heroes were AcTuAlLy cornered and KiLlEd in that explosion in the mansion!

None of us do. They're fine. We're going to see it first thing next week. The shock has worn off, and it's repetitive and annoying at this point. There is no cliffhanger despite how the framing might try to tell you otherwise.

It's BAD WRITING.

The writing has been moving far too quickly and clumsily with no explanation in sight, and even character interactions are being cut short to the point of them being meaningless and empty.

This doesn't even feel like Horikoshi's bad writing. It feels like someone else is trying to call the shots and rushing him through these final bits of the series, and he's run out of things he's previously set up for months and months to reappear so someone is trying to get Dabi-reveal levels of attention with arcs and storylines that don't have the build-up to result in a satisfactory payoff.

4. At least it can get better... I hope.

Maybe those who share my suspicions or know what particular suspicions I have are with me in believing that this is a temporary disappointment and we haven't seen the last of the writing that's captivated me for years. I don't blame Horikoshi for these glaring faults that all came to a head in this chapter.

It CAN get better later, and I think it WILL- we just probably are going to have to wait for it. Until then, I'm going to enjoy the Hawks panels we got, maybe edit the last few chapters to be more in line with something more like the BNHA I know in a "fix it fic" fashion so I don't groan in anticipation of how long it might take us to get there.

See you all next week, hopefully on a much brighter note.

[obae-me]

Hi! If your inbox is open, I'd like to request a scenario with all (or any) of the demon brothers, + undatables reacting to a blind MC? Like, none of them expected to have a blind human and Devildom and they have to revamp everything to make it as safe for MC as possible. Can be she/her or they/them pronouns for MC. Bonus points if MC is extremely talkative and won't shut up lmao. Thank you!

I’m still learning how I best want to write the Undateables, so I’m sorry if they’re a bit lacking. This was really wholesome to write, thank you for your request! 💜

Lucifer

When first summoned down to the Devildom, MC looked more disoriented than he would’ve expected. “Where am I? Who are you guys?” They hadn’t managed to look at Diavolo yet, even while he was speaking to them. They already put him in a bad mood.

“Didn’t you learn its bad manners to ignore the people that are talking to you? Look at Lord Diavolo while he’s speaking.” Lucifer growled, leaving MC with an exasperated expression.

“I’m BLIND.”

Error.

They were blind?? Humans were so fragile that they could just lose their eyesight?? Permanently?! He’s already got several new grey hairs. He’d have to entirely change up the house, he’d need to have someone with them at all times. How would they read? How would they get school work done?

MC has to explain to him that they’ve been this way for a long time, so they can handle themselves. They’ll have to tell him about things they use to help them out, like a cane for starters. They’ll tell him later how they best do schoolwork, but he’s already busy contacting someone about a cane.

It doesn’t matter what MC says, he now feels obligated to keep them under his watch as much as possible. He’s responsible for keeping them safe after all, and he can’t feel relaxed until he can confirm that they’re okay.

Although he did find out that MC was as talkative and feisty as a human could be. If things went too quiet they’d quickly fill up the empty space with chatter. Not to mention anytime he, or any demon for that matter, went into demon form, the intimidation factor was lost. MC never budged. They didn’t mind standing up to him, which annoyed him greatly, but absolutely blew his mind. How such a tiny human, who didn’t have a major part of functioning, could easily stand up to a demon was beyond him.

When MC first asked if it was okay to ‘see’ him, he had no idea what they meant, but was curious to see where it would lead. He wasn’t aware that MC knew any magic. He didn’t expect MC to come over and gently touch his face, running their fingers gingerly over his features. MC politely asked if he could show his true self, and he agreed. MC drifted their way up to his horns, feeling the texture and shape. They had an expression of awe on their face, probably because they now knew that it was real, he wasn’t human. They struggled to find these supposed wings of his, and with one of his gloved hands, Lucifer took their wrist and guided MC along. They made a little gasp as the feathers brushed against their skin.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen, his demon form was supposed to strike shock and fear into people. He was supposed to be respected. He was supposed to be above this. So how was it he was sitting here, MC running their hands all over him, and he was the one who was shocked and speechless. He hated how MC had lost their eyesight, but in this one moment he was grateful that they couldn’t see his reddened face with such an embarrassing expression plastered over it.

Mammon

“What do you mean they can’t see? It’s not that dark in the Devildom. Oi, human, just open your eyes, don’t you know how seeing works?!...Oh...Oooh...”

He had a less than grand first impression when he first met MC, and to be honest, it kept getting worse before it got better. He didn’t know when to shut his mouth. He tried asking Lucifer if they could get a different human, one that wasn’t broken. He must’ve somehow thought that whispering from only about a foot away would keep MC from hearing him.

He didn’t get a different human, he was stuck with them, and he was going to receive a particularly severe punishment that night for how poorly he treated MC. He was in a bad mood, not to mention out of his mind with panic.

“I don’t know what to do with people who can’t see? Can we fix ya? Surely there’s some magic here that’ll make you good as new!”

He tried spells, he tried potions, he even paid a fortune to one of the Devildom’s best doctors. None of his antics worked, and out of all the brothers, Mammon took the longest to process that this was how MC was. It was a part of them. They would be like this forever.

He’ll stay by their side constantly, escorting them by the arm and hand, talking their ear off about this and that to keep them distracted. It causes MC to laugh about it every time. Who needs a seeing eye dog when you’ve got a wonderfully trained seeing eye Mammon. Sometimes he would even pick them up to go up and down stairs if he felt they would be too dangerous.

Anytime they’re at any sort of store, MC will have to touch almost everything, and if their hands brush across anything they like, even if only for it’s tactile nature, Mammon will buy it for them at the drop of a hat. It’ll drive Lucifer a bit crazy over the fact that MC won’t ever have a need for most of the things Mammon buys, but he’ll not bother them about it if he sees it makes MC happy even just to hold it.

MC is super talkative, but it’s typically just to fill empty dark space and make things seem more comfortable, but when they’re with Mammon, they don’t need to say a word. He does all the talking, and MC’s grown accustomed to the sound of his voice. It’s so different from his other brothers, the mannerisms he uses and the slight accent to it. Mammon still doesn’t realize that, for this reason, MC can single him out among the crowds at RAD, or how Mammon can never seem to sneak up on them. MC loves how loud he is. No matter how quiet he tries being, MC can always pick him out of the darkness, for them, he’s always there. Mammon will never say it, but he loves how his human knows him apart from everyone else.

Levi

“Huh, so you don’t watch anime, what a typical normie.”

“I actually can’t watch anything, just for your information.”

Fatality.

He knows the concept of blindness from anime and manga, but it almost seemed as foreign to him as magic seemed to MC. Typically in the stories he saw, it was never permanent, always the cause of some curse or spell or even a fight! MC had gone through none of that, it was what it was.

He almost found it relaxing for a moment, because he felt a bit more confident in himself. MC couldn’t see what an ugly shut-in looked like. However, his moods were quickly dashed when MC tripped over an empty can he had lying on the floor. He caught them from falling but quickly went into a state of despair. He was a dirty trashy shut-in. Lucifer would later find that Levi now had his room clean of trash at all times, his floor spotless.

Levi would absolutely cry, and I mean cry, over the fact that MC would never be able to fully enjoy anime or manga or video games. They could maybe enjoy some Dubbed shows but it wouldn’t be the same. If MC hangs out with him, Levi will give them the full commentator experience. He’ll explain what’s going on in his games or shows in hopes MC can still enjoy his favorite form of entertainment.

The first time in his Demon form, MC stepped on his tail in attempt to get to his wings. He yelped in shock. MC was vastly confused. What was that? Where was his wings? Lucifer and Mammon had wings so where were his? He hated being compared to them like that. He couldn’t fly, he couldn’t look nearly as intimidating. No he didn’t have wings, he just has this clunky ugly tail. MC grabbed his tail, making him turn bright red. They ran their fingers over his scales, petting it, pulling it out to see how long it was. MC endlessly talked about how cool it was, and how it felt amazing to touch. Lucifer and Mammon didn’t have a tail. Levi never felt envious of not having wings ever again.

Satan

He can’t believe his brothers didn’t know that humans were capable of being blind. They were extremely fragile creatures but somehow were heartier and more stubborn than they looked, capable of thriving despite everything they go through.

He didn’t know everything about being blind, since it never seemed to come up often enough for him to need to learn about. So you can bet that in just the first few days MC was there, he thoroughly studied up on anything he thought would help him.

He was surprised to find that there was a form of reading available for people who had lost their sight. He had never heard about Braille before this. As a demon who wanted to learn as many languages and reading forms as possible, he was angry he missed something like this. 

He wasn’t as angry, however, when MC offered to help teach him how to read Braille if he helped them with their schoolwork and studies. The Devildom school was surprisingly accommodating but until Diavolo and Lucifer finished sorting things out, they couldn’t read any of their schoolwork.

He usually preferred silence, but he didn’t mind when MC would come in his room and feel comfortable enough to talk in detail everything that had happened that day. In return, he liked when MC would listen intently as his narrating voice filled up the room while he would read his favorite stories to them. He loved the way their face would crinkle when he’d attempt to voice a particular character. They put their hand on his chest and would beg him to do it again with a laugh. He’d attempt the line again, MC feeling the deep rumble in his chest. Reading would now not be the same without them. 

The more he got to know them, the more the heat in his chest over their blank non-focused eyes grew hotter. How could they not see? How could someone like them be deprived of something like that? He couldn’t show them art, photographs, the beauty of the Devildom’s stars. MC assured him that it was alright, anytime they wanted to know what something looked like, they would ask him. Anything he described sounded like poetry. With him around, his words would be enough. 

Asmo

Blind, as in they couldn’t see anything, see him?! His radiant shine? His picture perfect features? His allure? They wouldn’t see any of that? He was astounded. He was upset. He was dramatically depressed. He got over it pretty quickly, though, he’s very attractive yes, but all of his other qualities were just as attractive.

He’ll help tweak their uniform, he’ll buy them clothes that not only feel amazing, but look amazing. If touch is important to them, he’ll get them lotions, skincare products, anything they wanted to keep them well taken care of. Their hands will never worry about being dry. 

He loves when MC touches his face to know what he looks like. He’ll use this as an excuse. “How do you know it’s Asmo? I might have put a spell on my voice, double check.” He’ll put his hands over theirs while they amuse him and feel the details on his face down to the bridge of his nose.

One particularly pleasant evening for Asmo, he goes on and on about new clothes he bought, and then brings MC into it. 

“Right right? I think it’ll look ravishing on me, the color matches MC’s eyes.” MC smiles and states that they had forgotten their eyes were that color. Asmo sits there for a moment before shrieking, standing up so fast his chair falls over. “You don’t even know what you look like!”

Of course MC had a pretty general idea of what they looked like, but yes he was right for the most part. They didn’t understand why Asmo was so shocked about it. However, Asmo refuses to let this go, and he takes them to his bedroom describing MC down to the bone. He’ll tell them what their eye color reminds him of, the particular way their eyelashes curl, how their complexion looked under the moonlight. He’ll go on and on and on, not realizing that he’s never ever spoke so long about someone else before, so MC lets him continue. They’ve never cared about appearances before, but the way Asmo talks about them makes them cozy on the inside. He made them feel like the most gorgeous thing on earth.

They’ll then change it up, making Asmo close their eyes as they talk about all the things about him that they love. The way the air smells around him when he comes into the room. The way his tone raises up when he’s excited about something. The way his footsteps sound on hard surfaces. They adore how one side of his hair is longer than the other. They love his presence. Asmo is dumbfounded, no one has ever described him in that way before. He’ll melt and might call a doctor for this strange new feeling in his chest. 

Beel

They can’t see anything? Can they at least eat?? Well then it’s not the end of the world. If MC had somehow been deprived of taste, he would’ve really been upset. Food doesn’t have to look great to taste great. Still, the fact that they couldn’t see made the Devildom even more dangerous, and he didn’t want anything to happen to them. He couldn’t let anyone get hurt around him, not again. 

He’s among the most considerate of the brothers even though he’s not used to being around someone that can’t see. He’s real worried he’ll hurt MC, so he’s always extra careful. He’ll announce that he’s beside them even though they heard his footsteps near them and could feel the heat coming off of his body. He’ll always ask them first if it’s okay to touch them so he can help them out. He’s even extra wary about hugs at first, what if he just...breaks them even more? As time goes by he learns he doesn’t need to walk on eggshells.

He finds it a fun game to let them try to figure out what stuff he made for them before they eat it, more times than not, they figure it out. Then he’ll eat it with them, unnecessarily guiding the fork to their mouth.

If Mammon isn’t by their side, it’s usually Beel who’s next. If he’s not busy with sports or working out, he’ll stick around by MC wherever they want to go. However, it’s usually MC who stays by him whenever he sees something tasty to make sure he doesn’t run off.

MC knew he worked out, but had always envisioned him to be like a big teddy bear. It wasn’t until MC asked to feel him until they understood just how strong Beel was. Under his soft clothes, they felt his tough muscles. He was built like a brick, no matter where they felt him, his arms, his sides, he was completely different than they had expected. His face was soft at least. His hair fun to play with. In his demon form adored touching his horns, exclaiming that they were perfect for fitting doughnuts. He didn’t need to know that, now Lucifer’s going to have to question why in the world Beel has doughnuts stacked on his horns. His wings felt silky and surprisingly fragile despite how strong he felt everywhere else. They were sure they weren’t as weak as they felt, but it let MC know that Beel was still soft. MC couldn’t stop gawking over how big and strong Beel was, pretending to punch him in the gut even though they could probably punch him for real and he wouldn’t feel it.

All Beel wanted was to tell MC how strong he thought they were.

Belphie

At first, he couldn’t believe that, somehow, they had chosen someone who couldn’t even see to be a part of the program. He felt like this supported his idea that it was a terrible idea to begin with, but fortunately, he thought, this made it easy for him to manipulate MC’s actions. How guilty this made him feel, afterwards.

He’d stay silent and sneak around MC, feeling that it was best if they didn’t even know he was there. They knew where he was, no matter how hard he tried. They could follow his dragging footsteps as he lazily walked through the house. His sighs and breathing were also very distinguishable.

They didn’t start getting to know each other till MC was wandering through the house, trying to still burn the number of steps in their mind in this massive place. Their cane found a strange obstacle in the middle of the floor, something that wasn’t usually there. They poked it, it was surprisingly soft. They got down on their knees and reached over, feeling cozy clothes and skin. They found a face and traced it over. It wasn’t anyone they had memorized, so it must’ve been Belphie. Made sense that he was the only one crazy enough to sleep in the middle of the floor. They loved how soft he felt, softer than any of his other brothers. Even his hair was like a velvety down you’d find in a pillow.

They knew he had woken up from his nap. The little muscles in his face were twitching, and his breathing was strained. He was trying to pretend he was asleep, but MC just kept going. They traced down his slender arms to his hands. They were free of any callouses or cuts. They took his hand and grasped it firmly in their own.

“I forgive you, you don’t need to avoid me anymore, or pretend that you’re asleep.” They heard his breathing go still, and then he sat up.

“You knew?”

“I’m not as stupid as people think I am. I may not be able to see, but I can still figure things out just fine.” They gently whacked him with their cane. “So I know you’ve been sneaking around me.”

Belphie didn’t think they wanted him around, after everything he’d done. He was still surprised his brothers kept him around at the end of the day. He just sighed. Emotions were exhausting. 

MC felt for his waist and then gave him a tight hug. They knew what it meant to be ashamed of you you were, of the things you’d done, but it didn’t matter. They wanted bygones to be bygones, and they wanted to learn about Belphie for who he really was, not what grief had made him out to be. 

MC now finds a new lump in their bed every so often. A lump that moans when you lie on it apparently. Naps are pleasant with him around. MC loves sleeping with their hands in his hair. 

MC can’t dream, not in the same way other people do, so Belphie does enough dreaming for the both of them. He’ll share stories of rippling meadows and drifting clouds. He’ll make sure they hear all sorts of pleasant things before they fall asleep. He hopes he can make it up to them.

Diavolo

Figuring out MC was blind didn’t come as a shock, he knew they were after all. He wouldn’t choose someone without knowing the important things about them, and having no eyesight definitely checked out as important. 

Knowing him, he did this as a test. He was testing out how the brothers would react and if they indeed could keep MC safe. If a blind human could make it through an entire year in the realm of demons, it would be more than a major success for his program.

The more he got to know about MC, the more he grew close to them instead of just treating them like a test subject or a campaign plan. He loved how they weren’t intimidated by him in the slightest, and he also loved how he could spend hours with them, MC talking the entire time. It drove Lucifer wild, but Diavolo found it fascinating and fun. 

“Is this what having friends is like? Amazing.”

He’ll have things all set up for them in a matter of days, having whatever accommodations they need to make their school life as easy as possible. Of course, this supposed ‘special treatment’ didn’t go well over demons who opposed the program. Some demons who disapproved didn’t have the courage to defy him directly at first, but now they were starting to scurry out of the sewers like rats. They headed straight over to Diavolo’s new ‘pet’.

They would abuse MC’s lack of sight to mess with them, stealing their things, purposefully knocking them around since they wouldn’t be able to tell who they were, but any demon who thinks Diavolo doesn’t see everything is sadly mistaken. MC tried standing up for themselves, but they could feel a tremendous and overwhelming presence behind them, larger than anything they had felt before. The demons would gasp, and the bullying would stop. Diavolo would put a hand on MC’s shoulder and they’d never be bothered again.

MC knew that this was the Lord of Demons, but they wanted to feel him in his demon form anyway, should he permit. He did permit, and at last MC was able to figure out this terrifying form of his. In his human form he was large, yes, but in demon form he was even bigger, impossibly big. Demonically big. His horns and wings were sharp and decorated in all manner of jewelry. The skin that stretched over bone to serve as his wings were littered with veins, and even just touching them allowed MC to feel the power pumping through them. He was intimidating yes, but after running their hands over his features, they were able to see how beautiful he was in his frightening glory.

Diavolo won’t tell them this, but they’re the only human who has ever laid a hand on him without immediately perishing or being subjected to torment. He’ll let MC do it again too, if they ever ask him.

Barbatos

The fact that he could’ve chosen a timeline where MC wasn’t like this is irrelevant. MC remained relatively the same throughout the different branches, blind or not. He does have control over time but mostly he’ll let time decide for itself, and he’ll take whatever MC the thread of fate decides to give him in this universe. No matter who shows up, he’ll take care of them.

He’s their secret shadow. MC’s working eyes. Diavolo always has him keeping tabs on them, keeping them safe whenever the brothers can’t. MC at first didn’t understand the whisper in the wind that told them to move to the side right before a demon blazed past. They were confused about the phenomenon of something wrapping around their leg to pull them down to the floor before an object whizzed above their head, causing something to explode behind them. It took MC until they finally heard Barbatos’ voice before it clicked.

When they asked to associate a form with that soft voice, he accepted, the normally even and calm tone just slightly more enthusiastic than normal. He had very wide shoulders and strong hands. Serving hands. Hands that felt almost familiar in a funny way, almost like they were hands that had pulled them away from an problem or two. His hair was longer on one side than the other, and they loved that. Even his demon form was intriguing. In every way that Diavolo’s presence boldly screamed, his aura clearly there, Barbatos was subtle. His horns were different than any horns MC had felt thus far. They were slender, bony, like two skeletal hands were reaching around his face to rest just above his forehead. Even his tail was different, splitting off near the bottom to have two controllable ends. He almost scared MC more than Diavolo. 

Sometimes MC will talk to themselves alone in their room, filling up the silent space with their voice so it’s not as dark, not as dismal. Occasionally MC will feel like there’s someone there. Like there’s something nodding along with their ramble in the darkness as shadows quietly tidy up their room. MC will find their clothes folded in distinguishable piles. The floor clear of any potential obstacles. Their cane is easily accessible right near their bed.

“Thank you, Barbatos.”

Sometimes the shadow will answer MC back, quietly drifting across the room to touch MC’s cheek before disappearing like a whisper. The darkness doesn’t seem as lonely anymore.

Simeon

He’s definitely going to be the kind of person who says “There must be a reason if God intended it.” MC had heard that throughout their life too many times. Religious or not, they hated when someone took their life and their disability and summed it up to God’s works. Their life was theirs alone, it belonged to no one else. They have a hard time around this angel at first.

Like Barbatos, Simeon can be impossibly quiet, which makes it hard for MC to be able to tell if he’s moving around. The only giveaways are the sounds his cloak makes, the little diamond shaped decor making slight clinking sounds as he moves. It’s melodic in a way, which MC sums up to angelic grace.

He’s not all bad, though. Yes he does believe God has his hands in all things, but that doesn’t mean he pities MC. That he thinks any less of them as a being. It doesn’t mean he’s chalking up their life to a charity case. He’s actually very sweet and fun. He’s one of the only people besides perhaps Solomon who believes MC is stronger than what they seem.

MC will admit sometimes they absolutely love how much the demons coddle and pamper them, but it can get too much too quickly. So sometimes they’ll run off and hang out with Simeon. He treats them like a person, not like a disability, not like a fragile little flower, but...normal. 

“Hello, Simeon here...yes, MC is here...stop screaming, they’re fine...we’ve just been talking.”

He’ll let them talk and talk and talk. He’s quiet himself but he loves to hear MC’s voice. How happy they sound when they share stories and discussions and things that happened during their day. 

MC can’t get enough of him now, they love hanging around this angel. There’s no sun in the Devildom, but anytime they’re around Simeon, they feel the same rays of warmth the sunshine gives. 

Simeon will never call MC ‘human’ sometimes God’s Miracle, sometimes a Godsend, more often than not, a blessing, but never just ‘human’.

Solomon

Yes, MC is blind, and? He doesn’t care what disability they do or do not have, he still finds them intriguing, and they’re his sole human companion in this place, a kindred spirit.

He’s also mischief wrapped in mystery, so he does his best to teach MC some simple spells to make their life a little easier down in the Devildom. Letting things they drop come right back into their hands, giving a shock to anyone who touches them that they don’t know, simple things like that. He did underestimate MC’s power, though. He may or may not have had seven demons at his door the next day when he learned that MC had accidentally dragged all the furniture in the living room towards them at a disturbing pace after they dropped a schoolbook. He did find it very funny, but taught them how to control their powers better. 

MC also doesn’t realize how much magic Solomon uses for their benefit. Objects they feel around for sometimes drift towards their hand. They will magically walk over holes in the ground. If any little pesky demon even dares try to mess with them, they’ll find themselves cursed. He knows that MC has nine powerful demons and two angels looking after them, but he does his part. 

When he finally does let MC touch his face, they’re disappointed to find that Solomon is very much in control of his expressions. They can’t get a reading off of what he’s feeling at all. They love anytime the brothers can’t help but let their lip quiver or their eyes flutter. Solomon stays blank, maybe letting them feel a smile on his face, nothing more. However, they are pleased to find not even Solomon can control his temperature, they can feel his cheeks get warmer by the second as they caress his face. 

They run their hands though his hair and find that touching him gives them a strange sensation. It’s something akin to static, but without the shock. It’s wonderfully addictive and strange. It leaves their fingers tingling and their nerves vibrating. 

Because of this sensation, MC has to touch him anytime they meet. Solomon doesn’t mind, in fact he lives for this. He’ll look over MC’s shoulder and give a small smirk to any of the demon brothers standing behind them. The expressions they pull make everything so much better. 

Luke

He’s ready to fight every demon in the Devildom when he learns they’re blind. Everything bad comes from demons, so it had to be one of them, not even hours they had been there before they took MC’s sight!

MC had to calm down the small yapping angel and tell them that they had been this way for a very long time. It just happened, it was just life. He has a very hard time dealing with this.

“But you’re so nice and sweet and wonderful, why can’t you see?” Was he crying?

MC has to promise him that it is okay, there’s still plenty to enjoy in their life. Humans don’t have it easy but they learned to move on anyway. He still doesn’t understand how MC’s not an angel. He suddenly shakes off their supporting words because he’s supposed to be the protector, not a human! He swears to protect them no matter what, no demon will stop him!

He loves to hang out with them, making sure they’re away from demons every now and then for the sake of their soul. He makes sure they’ve been treating MC okay. Even if the answer is yes, he doesn’t care what MC says, he cannot trust demons. So he brings MC the sweets he made to make sure they get plenty to eat. (No, he doesn’t know they can’t live off of sweets just yet)

If he lets MC touch his face, MC cannot get over how soft and squishy this little angel is. He’s just as cute as he sounds.

[swordandquill]

Leverage Writing Prompt #31

Title: Future Tides

Fandom: Leverage

Summary: Nate has been keeping a secret from the team, but an inopportune explosion forces him to reveal it.

This is a prompt fill for @leverage-writing-prompts. I actually submitted this prompt back in July, but only got around to finishing it now.

In honor of the beautiful (and also occasionally creepy) mer-May art I still have circulating on my dash: Parker (or Nate) is secretly a merperson. When a job goes wrong, they’re forced to reveal their secret.

@rinahale did a really fun fill for it already with Mer-Parker.

You can go here to read this on AO3 instead.

Author’s notes: The merrow are Irish merfolk who require a magical cap to move between land and sea.

Bone and Sickle podcast by Al Ridenour did a really great episode on the Kraken (Ep 65: The Kraken & Other Marvels of the Northern Sea). In its earliest renditions, the Kraken was a sea serpent. It was only later that it became associated with first giant octopi, then the giant squid.

*************

Nate knew as soon as the explosion knocked Eliot over the railing of the pier that he only had one option. Eliot was strong swimmer, but not stronger than the turbulent currents under the pier, particularly if he was unconscious. Nate hadn’t been able to tell in the split second it had taken to register him going over.

Even as he was yelling for the rest of the team to get off the burning structure, he was shucking off his shoes and jumping over the railings. He hoped they listened. The rickety structure was going to collapse, with or without another explosion. Getting to Eliot before he got bashed into the pylons was going to be enough of a challenge without having to worry about the rest of the team ending up in the water.

By the time Nate hit the water, his fingernails had hardened into claws, and he used them to tear the rest of his clothes off so he could finish the change. There was something euphoric about settling into his other form. He hadn’t changed since before Sam was born, and it was like finally allowing himself to scratch an itch that had been burning its way through his skin.

There wasn’t time to think about that though. Nate blinked his second eyelid closed, and the murky water sharpened into black and white, the fire above reflecting through the water in bright, washed-out streaks. He had to fight the chaotic currents rushing under the pier to stay still long enough to spot Eliot.

He had already been swept under the pier, probably already been driven into the pylons at least once, and was limp in the water. Nate flicked his tail and pushed into the current, using it to reach Eliot before he could be driven into the pylons again, but he wasn’t able to get them clear of the pier before the next surge. The best he could do was curl around Eliot and turn them so his back hit the pylon instead of Eliot. He was going to be bruised, but it was better than Eliot hitting again.

He pushed hard across the current and surfaced a good four meters from the pier. Eliot started coughing as soon as they broke the surface. The shear relief of it left Nate drifting for a moment, Eliot’s head tipped back against his shoulder and the rip tide pulling them out. There was blood fanning across Eliot’s face from a cut at his temple, and he wasn’t quite conscious, but he was breathing, and for now, that was enough.

Nate cut across the rip to escape it, then brought them into shore, doing his best to keep Eliot’s head above water, although there was no doubt he had breathed in more water by the time they reached the shore.

Changing back was not as easy or simple as the change to had been, but Nate had known it wouldn’t be, known he couldn’t deny his body something it had been craving for so long, then expect it to just let go of it so quickly again. It meant he had to drag Eliot up onto the beach with a tail, which was less than ideal and required more arm strength than he was used to using in either form, but he managed it.

He turned Eliot on his side in the sand as he continued to cough up water. Part of him wanted to leave him here for the team to find and make a break for it before they saw. Eliot was unlikely to remember anything, and Nate was sure he could make something up that would appease them. Then nothing would have to change.  

Eliot’s eyes fluttered open, and he shifted fitfully, his whole body shaking with cold and shock.

“Just lie still,” Nate brushed the wet hair from his face with a webbed hand, “you’re alright.”

Eliot blinked up at him, and Nate waited for the reaction, but Eliot just gave an unsurprised “oh” before another coughing fit had him curling back into himself.

Nate let out a sigh and rubbed his back. He couldn’t wait to hear what “distinctive” thing about him had tipped Eliot off to what he was.

Someone yelled his name, and he looked up to see three silhouettes, framed against the light of the burning pier and racing towards them. It was a relief to see them, but Nate couldn’t help the unease as they got closer.

Parker reached them first, too focused on Eliot to pay much attention to Nate. She dropped down in the sand next to them, grabbing Eliot’s shoulder and shaking him in the Parker version of gentleness. Eliot batted at her weakly, but curled closer to her none-the-less. It wasn’t until Nate brushed her hand away when she tried to poke Eliot that she finally looked up at him.

Nate braced himself for fear, or disgust, or any number of negative reactions, but her face lit up like she’d just received a bag of non-sequentially numbered bills.

“You have cool teeth!” she told him brightly.

Nate’s world snapped back into place and all the unease drained out of him.

“Thank you, Parker,” he said drolly, just managing to not run his tongue over the points of his teeth.

“Oh my,” Sophie stopped short as she reached them, and Hardison almost ran into her.

“What is it?” the hacker demanded anxiously, “is Eliot…”

Hardison trailed off, mouth open and eyes wide at the sight of Nate’s tail.

“Nate’s a mermaid,” Parker announced gleefully.

“Do I look like a maid to you?” Nate groused.

“Maybe if you had a feather duster,” Sophie was giving him a look that said they would be having a long, unpleasant conversation later, “and a frilly little French smock.”

“Mermaids are real?” Hardison sputtered.

“Merrow,” Eliot corrected hazily, then curled into another coughing fit.

Nate was never going to hear the end of this from any of them. The fast-approaching sirens were almost a relief.

“Get him out of here,” Nate helped Parker to sit Eliot up, “don’t let him tell you he doesn’t need a hospital. He’s got water in his lungs.”

Hardison ducked down and helped Parker get Eliot to his feet. He swayed unsteadily, and the two were quick to get his arms around their shoulders and take his weight.

“What about you?” Sophie gestured towards his tail.

“Changing back takes longer,” Nate made a shooing motion, “I’ll catch up with you later.”

“You promise?” Parker demanded, refusing to be dragged in the direction Hardison was trying to usher both her and Eliot, “not like the little mermaid; you won’t turn into sea foam for loving humans?”

“No, not like that,” Nate assured her with an eyeroll, “hurry up and get out of here so I can too.”

“But you promise,” Parker refused to budge, “you’ll catch up later. You won’t disappear.”

“I promise,” Nate snapped, “go already.”

Parker grinned and turned back to help Hardison with Eliot.

“Don’t think I won’t send a trawler after you if I have to,” Sophie threatened, then turned to follow the rest of the team in the direction of the waiting van.

Nate didn’t doubt she would, and that they would find him, but he didn’t have any intention of making them do that. For now though, he pushed back into the water and let the waves carry him back out towards the open sea.

**********

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us you were a mermaid,” Hardison hissed, voice low in a futile attempt to not wake Eliot.

“Merrow,” Eliot mumbled groggily.

Futile because Eliot wasn’t sleeping. Exhausted, still feeling chilly if the truly ridiculous number of blankets piled on him were any indication, and a bit out of it from a not insignificant head injury, but not asleep, at least not at the moment.

“You know, I googled that,” Hardison groused, “just because Nate wears stupid hats all the time doesn’t mean he’s some kind of Irish shape-shifting sea creature.”

Sophie snorted indelicately.

“That’s not…” Eliot started to protest, only to be cut off by Parker, which was probably for the best given how soar his throat sounded.

“You can’t have your hat back,” Parker pulled Nate’s hat down farther on her head; she must have picked it up after he dropped it at the pier, “just in case.”

Eliot moved restlessly in his hospital bed, and Nate, sitting on the edge of it, dropped his hand down to pat the hitter’s wrist. He left his hand there, fingers resting lightly against Eliot’s pulse point.

“You can keep the hat, Parker,” Nate said easily, “it looks good on you.”

Parker beamed at him from the foot of Eliot’s bed.

“It’s a con anyway,” Nate continued dismissively, “someone made it up centuries ago to trick fishermen and it stuck.”

“You really are a merrow,” Hardison deflated, as if the reality of it had finally sunk in.

“Yes, Nate,” Sophie sat back in the uncomfortable hospital chair regally, looking for all the world like a queen reigning over her court, “do tell us about being a mythical sea creature.”

Parker leaned forward like a child eager for a bedtime story.

“Well…”

Nate was interrupted by Eliot reaching up with his free hand to try to pull his oxygen cannulas off. Again. Nate caught his hand and lowered it back down to rest on his chest.

“Leave that be for now,” Nate gave his hand a pat.

“I don’t want it,” Eliot shifted, movements agitated and unsure, as if he couldn’t decide what he wanted to do, “we should get out of here. It isn’t safe.”

“I’ve got it all taken care of, man,” Hardison reassured him patiently, “we’re safe.”

“Security’s not…” Eliot started to protest.

“We’re security,” Nate let his hand fall back to Eliot’s wrist and left it there, “we’ll check in with the doctor this afternoon and reassess, alright?”

Eliot grumbled, but settled down again.

There was very little chance of Eliot being released before tomorrow. He was responding well to oxygen, and the CT had looked good, but he had been unconscious underwater, and that wasn’t something any of them wanted to take lightly. He was having trouble focusing and keeping track of what was going on around him, and it wasn’t because of the relatively mild pain meds he had been given.

Better to keep him where he could get the care he needed, at least while they could. Nate wasn’t kidding about reassessing. If the situation changed, and they needed to go to ground, they had other resources they could tap into to make sure Eliot still got taken care of. For now, though, this was best.

“Nate,” Parker was looking at him intently, “Sophie said I should pick something besides money that I want for my birthday.”

Nate turned to face her, resigned to whatever was coming.

“I like gold and gems too,” Parker grinned, “shipwrecks have lots of gold and gems.”

Nate gave a long-suffering sigh, and pointedly ignored Sophie suppressing a snicker.

“It wouldn’t even be like stealing,” Parker pressed, “it’s not like anyone really owns it anymore.”

“There are plenty of countries that would disagree with you on that,” Nate said dryly.

“Only if they know we have it,” Parker shrugged, “so can we go diving for treasure for my birthday?”

“You have to commit to a date for your birthday first, sweetheart,” Sophie pointed out, “also, if we’re diving for treasure, there is the platinum reserves Spain dumped into the ocean in the 16th century. Probably not enough to make the expense of an actual expedition worth it, but if you could just swim to it…”

“No,” Nate said firmly, “absolutely not. We are not treasure hunters.”

“But we could be,” Hardison smiled impishly, “we do need alternative revenues streams after all.”

“Not Spain,” Eliot murmured sleepily, “’s guarded.”

“By what? A kraken?” Hardison scoffed, then paused, “wait, there isn’t a kraken, is there?”

“No,” Nate said firmly at the same time that Eliot said “yes.”

He glared at the hitter, who gave him a tired, shit-eating grin.

“It’s not a cephalopod,” Eliot looked far too pleased with the way Hardison started to sputter.

Nate pinched the bridge of his nose. At this rate, they were never going to get Hardison near the water again.

“You’re making that up,” Hardison balked, “there aren’t sea monsters.”

“How would you know?” Eliot countered, “you don’t even swim.”

Hardison opened his mouth to deny the accusation, but Nate interrupted him.

“What I want to know, is how you knew what I was,” he gave Eliot a curious look.

It would be good for him to know what had tipped Eliot off so he could fix it. The fewer people that could tell what he was, the better. Maggie had known, had seen him change once before they were married, but he hadn’t wanted to split his life between two worlds. He had chosen the land, still chose the land. That remained where the things that mattered to him were.

“You bled all over me when you were shot,” Eliot said, “your blood is different than human blood. It’s distinctive.”

Not something he could do anything about then, although it was interesting to him that Eliot hadn’t bothered to say anything about it sooner. As with all the random and far-reaching knowledge Eliot had, Nate was caught between wanting to know how he knew and feeling it was probably best not to ask.

“That’s just nasty,” Hardison grumbled.

“So we’ll go to South American, and Hardison and I will track down the shipwreck sites,” Parker continued as if she had never been interrupted, “you can search the shipwrecks, and Eliot can help me update my dive certification.”

“Whatever you want, darling,” Eliot yawned.

“Do I get a say in this?” Nate asked.

“Probably not,” Sophie looked thoroughly amused.

“It will be like a family vacation,” Parker grinned, clearly excited by the idea, “you and Sophie keep saying I’m supposed to try normal people things that I haven’t done before.”

Nate knew a lost cause when he heard one. He sat back and listened to Hardison and Parker plan, keeping half an eye on Eliot as he finally drifted off to sleep.  Sophie alternated between encouraging the pair with much too much enthusiasm and giving Nate thoughtful side glances. He was grateful she didn’t push for more information. Not yet anyway.

He had told Maggie before he had proposed to her. It had seemed unfair not to. And Sam… Sam had been so young. Nate was never sure he really believed it was more than a fairy story. Maybe if he had lived longer… gotten to be older… who knew what could have happened, what potential had never been unlocked. It hurt to think about, made him want to reach for a bottle and try to forget all the things his son should have been, should have had.

Eliot reached for the cannulas in his sleep, and Nate caught his hand, bringing it back down to his side and holding onto it.

Nate had a future here. Different from the one he had so badly wanted, shaped by different tides, full of unexplored depths and currents, but still good. He was learning to live with that, slow though the process was. It wasn’t the catastrophe he had always thought it would be, having them find out.

If the trade-off for this new future was the occasional treasure hunt, Nate could live with that.

*********

Parker continued to be non-committal about choosing a birthday, but there was a lovely 16th century gold and ruby pendent necklace tucked under the tree for her at Christmas.

[sheriff-caitlyn]

I started this blog in 2014, as the first Caitlyn on tumblr, and obviously I’ve been through a lot of retcons and changes myself, not only adapting to Riot’s own public retcons (from the minor, like her aesthetics, to the major, like the removal of the Institute of War as an integral part of their lore) but also to my own. That’s the thing about playing a character as complex as this, is that you learn more as you go. In your interactions with others and the creation of backstory, history, and other bits of worldbuilding to better understand the world you’re in, a character goes from a handful of images and some in-game voicelines to a fully-fledged person with a complex narrative. Sometimes things change, and that’s fine. But there are some changes which... aren’t. 

For all the fingerprints I’ve put on her, she is still not my character. But I care. Sunk-cost fallacy, maybe, but I care about this character I have been involved in and I care about the direction she has been taken. So, without further ado, I’d like to delve into:

The Recent Caitlyn Update In Piltover’s New Context or, We Gotta Fetishise Police Violence, I Mean, Look At Her, She’s So Hot

Back in August 2015, I went, ‘Oh No, they’re going to try to turn Piltover into Gotham City, aren’t they?’, and lo and behold, suddenly we have Poison Ivy now. But I will get back to that, later. In this particular thread, I noted that many of the characters in Piltover seemed destined for a revamp that would rob them of what originally drew us to them in the first place, and that Piltover seemed destined for a rework that would wash out much of their character. Piltover and Zaun were always meant to be polar opposites, but suddenly we were seeing glimpses of Piltover being ‘not as good as everyone thinks’, which hinted that Piltover and Zaun were destined not to be polar opposites in the future, but indistinguishable from each other. It worried me that the only thing telling these two fascinating cities apart would be the sunlight.

So, when we have so much potential for a clash between Zaun and Piltover, between ‘Science No Matter The Cost’ and ‘We Must Advance The World With Care’, why change Piltover to some murky middleground, turning peace and security into wartime capitalism? A world where the people are shitty, where weapons and profit come first, and the only ones making a stand are the ones who are so embittered they have nothing better to do?

Because it has to be ‘interesting’. We’re going to lose bits that we like, that we’re familiar with. And that’s why I’m concerned.

This was before Piltover and Zaun were squished together in an ugly - and utterly ham-fisted - method of showing How Complex The Future Is. There’s layers, guys! Literal layers to this one single city! That means it’s deep! But when I say ‘bits that we like, that we’re familiar with’, I’m not clinging to a fanon interpretation. I’m saying the things that drew us to the world and to the characters to begin with. I could adapt from Caitlyn turning from brown-haired and brown-eyed to black-haired and blue-eyed, because even through I had been doing art, at that point, the change gave me an opportunity to express and discover more about her character (her eye colour being influenced by her mother’s magic, for one). But some of the more stark changes - to family, to job, to personality, to the city of Piltover itself - these result in a character changing completely. I was worried that the cool detective who literally made the world a better place would be chopped and changed into something unrecognisable. I even expounded on my concerns in November 2016, where I could see some of the ways the writers at Rito might make adjustments in the direction of their lore updates.

All this to say, I’ve been working on her for a while, and I was bracing for some bad news. This? This is kind of the worst.

Caitlyn has always been the Sheriff of Piltover, an authority figure, a representative of the law and order that Piltover is famous for. Piltover’s peace and financial prosperity has been directly linked to Caitlyn’s concerted effort to eradicate crime (not criminals, crime! Which, as I have mentioned particularly in this post from 2014, means she upended and reformed the justice system, from the legal process to the prisons to how people are treated as citizens). The city is safe, people have greater access to personal wealth and development, classism is erased, society is flourishing. Zaun, as Piltover’s polar opposite, is a corporate nightmare, with ‘do as thou wilt’, private bodyguards for the rich and powerful while the poor scramble to survive in a system that barely treats them as human. Vi, as a Zaunite, brings a lot of her ‘violence as a problem-solver’ methodology to Piltover’s law-enforcement, though she seems to have no intention of returning to Zaun and seems to have bonded with Caitlyn (‘teamwork!’) to Get Shit Done. And, apparently, there is still shit that needs to be done, though nowhere near as much as there had been in the Bad Old Days.

Vi was, at the time, the awkward-grit-teeth-grin-ha-ha-um-yeah representation of police violence. ‘Resist arrest’, she cries gleefully, as she beats people and breaks down buildings, and we are supposed to go ‘ha, isn’t that funny’ with varying degrees of sincerity. Of course Piltover is going to have problems: anywhere that has wealth and stability is going to be targeted by the envious and the needy. Peace needs to be protected. The problem lies in how that protection is enacted.

So now we have the recent Legends of Runeterra update to Caitlyn, an update which looked at the context of Piltover needing protection, as well as the modern context of Riot’s California location in the Years of Our Lord 2020-2021, and then decided ‘you know what we need? Police violence, everyone loves police violence’.

MAN I thought the stripper-cop skins were bad but here we go!

Her Yordle Snap-Traps (which I envisioned as from the Yordle Military, rather than a racially-profiling weapon as, y’know, they work on human-and-larger-sized people as well) have now been replaced by electroshock grenades, the intent gone from incapacitation and observation to outright paralysis and destruction. Her net-short is now apparently electro-conductive (admittedly, I have had one (1) single RP where that happened, but it came at both a cost to Caitlyn and to her weapon’s efficiency as a result, a last-resort against a dangerous opponent). Caitlyn’s cards in LoR take her from being a detective coordinating ideas and people and putting together a case to a SWAT team leader. This might be the biggest problem in working for a non-combat-oriented character in a MOBA, or in any fighting game: the game needs to find rationalisations for all of their characters being there, being combatants, being able to kill (even if, as Riot says, the lore is separate from the game). We have monsters and soldiers and ancient powers who of course they know how to spill blood and relish in doing so. But pacifists, like Karma or Bard? Explorers like Ezreal? And a sheriff, a peacekeeper, a law-keeper, someone mindful of responsibility and the importance of saving every life possible, like Caitlyn? They’re stripped of that depth and complexity in-game, but there was always the lore that backed them up. But they’ve done away with that completely. Caitlyn was never special operations. She was never military. But now she is, because she had to be changed to fit better into a fighting game. They had to make her violent, and as a result, they have undermined not only everything about the character that made her interesting to begin with - turning her now into a representative of police brutality, but with long hair, pouty lips, and a thigh gap - but they’re also re-writing the context of Piltover. It was bad enough to squish Piltover and Zaun together. But now, Caitlyn’s update is proof that Piltover has gone from a steampunk utopia to a violent, oppressive and cynical post-industrial world. The depiction of Caitlyn as a SWAT team leader (complete with special-forces beret, because hat! Caitlyn wears a hat! Nevermind the fact that she’s no longer wearing a distinctive tophat but instead a symbol of extreme state-sponsored force!) shows us that Piltover’s ‘army’ is not designed as a defence against outsiders, but as an offensive force against their own people. Caitlyn is supposed to be the representation of how peace and order is maintained in one of the largest factions in League of Legends, and if her method of maintaining order is straight-up police violence against their own citizens, then it’s not really peace and order. It’s authoritarianism at best, and facism at worst.

Piltover was different from every other nation in Runeterra because it didn’t have a military. It had defenders, and it had a powerful economy, and it had a democratic political system. But the Piltover update retconned Caitlyn’s hard work. The gangs were back - though now they’re big powerful families like Clan Ferros - and Caitlyn has been de-aged so that she’s still new to the force, that she hasn’t even had her chance to change anything. Her importance to Piltover is minimised... and why is Vi even there? (Oh boy I guess you’re going to have to watch Arcane to find out! Coming to a Netflix near you soon!) With a younger Caitlyn in a violent society, she has no choice but to be violent herself... even if that undermines everything previously established about Piltover and about Caitlyn. This update has made Piltover just as ugly and oppressive as Demacia, Noxus, and Zaun. It’s just another army equipped to do violence, but now that violence is turned inwards. This isn’t protection, it’s control. It’s fear. It’s oppression. Caitlyn is no longer a peacekeeper. She’s a monster. Chopped and changed, as I feared, into something completely unrecognisable from how she began in a world that no longer looks like what it had been... or should be.

It’s hard to tell what came first, the change to Piltover or the change to Caitlyn. Either way, the changes are inextricably linked. Caitlyn was integral to Piltover’s modern state, and Piltover is integral to Caitlyn as a character. Her (original) drive was to make the city and all its people better; Piltover was a utopia because of the effort of Caitlyn, and of people like her, people who wanted a better world. This new iteration of Piltover - full of fear and violence and hypocricy, layered over Zaun in such a way that makes ham-fisted commentary about the wealth/class divide - undermines the value of the individual. It removes agency. It removes hope, which had been integral to Piltover. Piltover is no longer the CIty of Progress... it’s the City of ‘you better be rich and pretty if you want to progress’. And Caitlyn is no longer a force for good or a representative of responsibility, because those things don’t exist in Piltover anymore. Legends of Runeterra has turned Caitlyn into a bitch, someone to hate. She has a marked lack of respect for people, as demonstrated in her new character traits of ‘casually-racist’ (her lines to Veigar), ‘condescending’ (her lines to Viktor), with some added pride in her violence (’here’s my calling card *shoots gun*’ and ‘I aim to win and my aim is excellent’). She is a representative of her city, and she is a terrible person now. Piltover is terrible. Piltover is ugly. 

But Caitlyn avoids that last part. And she’ll get away with it, because she’s a hot twenty-something.

In 2015, I drew Caitlyn-as-Swain, as an AU for what might have been. The overwhelming response at the time was ‘aaa she’s so hot I’d follow that leader of Noxus’, prompting a good friend Swain RPer to comment that Swain - who was, at the time, the withered man in green and gold who needed a cane - was just as smart as Caitlyn if not more so, a proven capable leader, but when it comes down to it, sex-appeal will always trump characterisation and storytelling, and that’s disheartening for someone who puts so much work into stories, to context, to something deeper than ‘Just another MOBA’. And here I am, in 2021, looking at how Caitlyn has been stripped of her fascinating and complex characterisation while maintaining her long legs, long hair, and corsetted figure. Now, I do appreciate the fact they’ve given her a better costume than miniskirt and boobtube. She deserves so much better. I even commissioned back in 2015 for a Better Look for Caitlyn; Tom aka FaerieFountain went on to make her new look canon. But she’s supposed to be a detective. She’s supposed to be careful and methodical and mindful of her status and power. Instead, she’s been made gleefully violent, leaving a lot of depth behind in order to become just Hot Cop With Gun. (As an aside, was anyone else uncomfortable with Caitlyn’s high-school skin? Especially when the writer actually tweeted ‘step on me’? Hello? Ma’am? That is a high school student, that is a CHILD you are talking about? But Caitlyn is hot so it’s fine! Sexualise a child! it’s fine, she’s hot, it’s fine!) Almost everyone who has contacted me about Caitlyn’s LoR cards has been excited to see her. Good! She’s a great character! Or, she was. But the enthusiasm about her is tied to how she’s so violent, how she uses her power to abuse those who don’t conform. But she looks great, smoking hot, you know? And when she’s smoking hot, her dangerous and abusive behaviour and attitude are completely excused. An update to a character needs to take into account characterisation as well as the visuals. Her update, sadly, has focused on the all-too-prevalent problem of the viciousness of state-sponsored violence, rather than the complexity of detective work, of puzzle solving and intellectualism, but because she looks hot and speaks in that British accent, no-one’s going to care. Hot ladies can get away with so much, because legs and pouty lips, but I guess she’s also a cop or whatever.

And, as a momentary aside, why is an eco-terrorist suddenly Caitlyn’s longtime foe? It makes zero sense for Piltover and for Caitlyn that someone who plant-based powers is her biggest rival and the city’s biggest threat. Zero sense, until you take into account that Piltover has been stripped of its character and made into something more aligned with modern authoritarianism than the hopeful vibes of steampunk. Environmentalism? Not on my watch! Deploy the police (the good guys!) to silence the protesters (who are obviously the bad guys becase they’re protesting)! Because Piltover and Zaun are one city now, and therefore indistinguishable, we have a fucking Poison Ivy character causing enough trouble in Piltover to warrant entire fucking SWAT teams opening fire within the city limits and around peoples’ homes! Not Zaun, which is the environmental nightmare, but Piltover! With its fresh air and open skies! Yes, that’s a great place for an eco-terrorist to blame and/or try to fix! The whole thing is honestly so backwards! Like they’ve decided to make a cool character in the form of Corina and just shove her into the story, rather than finding a place in the narrative that suits her. The idea that Corina is C makes no sense. Caitlyn vs C is supposed to be Sherlock versus Moriarty, Ganimard versus Lupin, ACME versus Carmen Sandiego, world’s greatest detective against the world’s greatest thief. It focused on the intellectual battle, the need for self-improvement, and - most importantly! - that this was a fight that didn’t result in gunfire or people being put in bodybags. But we can’t have that in our fighting game! We can’t have people thinking, because that’s not the kind of game we have, it’s left-click-shoot out here on the Rift or in the cards. So now we have a woman with plant powers bombing Piltover, and a policewoman kicking down doors and opening fire. And she’s right there, in Caitlyn’s new splash art, within reaching distance of the sheriff!

She’s right there! In hot pink with a flower in her fucking hair! And Caitlyn doesn’t even notice? Looks like one of my major gripes about Caitlyn being updated - Incompetence - is rearing its ugly head. She cannot even see someone not five feet from her. Oooh, look out, Piltover, no-one can figure out why this single eco-terrorist is causing problems for years, but Caitlyn will figure it out! With her gun! Because she’s a cop with a gun, and cops with guns never cause more problems than they solve, right?

Look... I know. I know she’s not my character. I know that everything I’ve done is fan-interpretation. But I’ve worked for so long and hard and done so much research, and things I’ve done have even been seen by - and used by! - the company itself (not just in the ‘oh what a coincidence’ sense, either, I know my link on Hextech as a form of magic made it to several of the writers, some of whom later contacted me). I might be too jaded by all the disappointment to take it personally anymore, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still happen. We know Riot Games could be and should be better. So many people in this community - and people who have since moved on - put so much love and effort into the characters and the world, building up from scraps and guesswork and extrapolation. It wasn’t our world, but we enjoyed playing in it. We enjoyed struggling in it, because it pushed us to be thoughtful, creative, to be engaged and interested. Critical Theory doesn’t have to be negative... but this recent update to Caitlyn’s character and to Piltover as a whole is... it’s a step backwards. They’ve gone for the ‘ooh isn’t this gritty and dark’ approach, and swept away so much of what made the original so interesting, creative, engaging to begin with. They’d rather have controversy than people genuinely enjoying the thing that they’re opening their wallet for. 

Caitlyn was a detective who focused on responsibility, intellectualism, and care. What she is now is not the same Caitlyn they started with, and expresses a set of values that I do not support. This blog will continue to be focusing on the old lore, on what Piltover has been and what it should be: a hopeful utopia, a place for people to grow and be responsible and thoughtful and mindful of their place on the world stage. It’s not going to be perfect, but there’s hope, and there’s people here who want the world, and everyone in it, to be better than it is. I hope you join me, no matter who you are.

[envythepalmtree]

My thoughts on 03 and CoS

When I started watching 03, I came in with really high expectations. And I loved it!! Especially the first half - I loved the melancholy tone, the way they fleshed out the FMA world. That being said I have Opinions™️ which also includes some criticisms, as usual. Hearing things about 03 out of context definitely colored my expectations and perception of it. This is partly about the writing of 03, but partly about my own experience watching it.

I’ve been meaning to write and post this for about a month, but only got around to it just now, lol. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen it.

What I liked

- The way it took the stuff from the manga and made a completely different story was AMAZING. Far after the storyline diverged, seeing influences from the mangahood storyline and how they were taken in a completely different direction was super cool.

- The tone!! 03 felt much more personal, much more melancholic. We really get to see how traumatic events like the fight with Barry the Chopper effect Edward, and we see that he’s really just a child. A child in the military. I know “03 shows Ed as a child soldier” has been talked about a lot and that aspect of 03 really lived up to what I heard about.

- I loved the fillers!! The adaptations of the bonus comics were delightful to watch and really fleshed out the Mustang squad in a way that Brotherhood didn’t. Roy quoting the Art of War during the Fullmetal vs Flame episode was super cool, ties well with my Xingese Roy headcanons, and I’ll probably write a whole meta on that later.

- Even though I have some beef with the ending, which I’ll get to in a bit, it felt really special to me, personally, to see the characters hopeful and happy even after going through so much loss. I really like the message that sometimes, we do fail. Sometimes, what we’re chasing after is never meant to be ours. But we can learn to get up, and keep going. We can let go of that lost heaven.

What I didn’t

- I heard the line “My sympathy will not be spent on soldiers” out of context. I guess I expected it to be some badass line from Scar about why his anger towards the Amestrian state is valid and not something he needs to apologize for.

- Instead, that line was delivered by Scar right before committing an atrocity - sacrificing a huge number of soldiers for a philosopher’s stone, and placing a huge burden on a 14 year old boy by making Al’s body that stone without his permission. And Scar, after all he’s been through, didn’t get a happy ending. It wasn’t some badass thing, it was painted as tragic. I was really disappointed about where that line ended up and I’ll probably write a whole separate post about the lost potential of that line.

- Ed’s admitting that he has racial bias didn’t live up to my expectations. One of my biggest criticisms of mangahood has been the narrative’s stance towards race: “I think we should ignore race and treat each other as equals!” A common response I got was, “03 doesn’t do that! They actually have Ed admit that he has racial bias!”

- When that scene actually happened, I was thinking, “is that it? Is there more?” And yes, much of that disappointment likely came from me setting way-too-high expectations for the race themes of a shonen anime from 2003. It was such a short moment and didn’t feel as climactic or important as it should have been.

- Roy Mustang. Roy Mustang. The narrative expects us to sympathize with him, to like him, but I found it very hard. In mangahood, Roy’s goal to become Fuhrer and change the country for the better, to help the Ishvalans and make sure that a genocide like that never happens again, is a huge part of the show. In 03, it’s hinted at. Roy talks about becoming Fuhrer in the miniskirt episode, and it’s hinted that he has good intentions and wants to help the Ishvalans. But it’s not considered important.

- And then he completely throws that away.

- Reading things from 03 out of context, I somehow got the impression that Roy was going to quit the military after realizing that he doesn’t want to work within the system anymore. And I was thinking “omg that’s so cool! 03 actually has Roy renounce his ambitions and leave the military, because it’s the best way to help the Ishvalans!”

- Nope. That coup he stages? It’s not out of anger at how the Amestrian state treats its people. It’s not to avenge Ishval. It’s to avenge Maes Hughes, Roy’s friend.

- Having Roy stay in the military, but give up his rank, almost feels like a halfway point between two good ideas: Climbing the ranks to change the country, or leaving because he doesn't want to uphold a corrupt system. Maybe they could've made it work, but I wish they grappled with the implications of that more.

- adklsfaksldfhjks I’m very angry about this and this probably also needs its own post.

- Things in the second half of the show just didn’t feel as fleshed out. In Mangahood we got some time to grapple with the fact that Amestris was created by Father to be sacrificed, to grapple with the implications of that. In 03, that revelation came so close to the end that we just didn’t have time. I was left with so many QUESTIONS about the worldbuilding and parts of the plot, especially after CoS, and they didn’t get answered. I feel like a lot of my problems with 03 would be solved if they added a few episodes. It’d give them time to slow down to add more details, or even just give us an episode or three of Backstory.

all my QUESTIONS:

- Details on Dante and Hohenheim controlling humanity behind the scenes?? They just. tell us that they destroyed entire civilizations like Xerxes.

- Where do Gluttony, Greed, etc come from? If they were created simply to serve Dante, does that mean they were all created after Hohenheim left her?

- Why was Greed imprisoned? Why does he refer to the other homunculi as his sworn enemies?

- Lust is described as the “third Lust.” Who were the other Lusts? Is each sin a position in Dante’s squad, a role that can be filled after the one holding it dies?

- Envy is 300 years old. What the hell were they doing for all that time? Much of their character is based off of resentment of Hohenheim for leaving them and Dante, but that happened extremely recently.

- Hohenheim mentions that alchemy is fueled by people’s deaths in the parallel world?? And it’s NEVER mentioned again??

- How does the portal work? Ed landed in 1910s London, then 1920s Germany. But the times match up in CoS, with the 2 year gap and everything.

- I didn’t understand where the opening flashback about the uranium bomb comes from. It’s implied that it happened in the time gap between Ed joining the military and the Liore arc, but iirc the guy with the bomb came from the other world. How did he get there? How come Ed and Al spend a couple years knowing that a parallel world exists but it’s never brought up?

- How did Ed meet Alfons and get involved in the rocket stuff?

- From one of the guys in the Thule society: “but Hohenheim’s sons are from Shamballa.” HOW DOES HE KNOW THAT?

aklsfhsdj that was long. Stay tuned for some more metas about 03, because your girl has Opinions.

[therenlover]

The Doctor Is In (Part Two of Till Forever Falls Apart, A Peter Maximoff/Reader Series)

Synopsis: Peter’s first few days in his new home are mostly uneventful, so he decides it’s the perfect time to dust off his running goggles and steal some shit. The building with the massive circular stained glass window seems like a great place to start! People with buildings that lavish are usually rich and weak, so what could possibly go wrong?

Tags: Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, Falling in Love, Attempted Theft, Secrets, Suspicions, 

Rating: T

Warnings: Mild Language, Slight Sexual Innuendo

Word Count: 2800~

This work, as well as the other completed parts of this series, have been crossposted to my AO3! 

-----

To Peter’s credit, it had all started with good intentions… okay, semi-good intentions, but that was the best defense he had to offer.

One moment he’s speeding into a funky building with a cool glass window looking for a knick-knack to take home to Y/N and the next he’s falling through endless darkness, searching for anything he could possibly grab onto. It was hell. Worst of all, though, he couldn’t use his speed. The world was only emptiness and darkness for as far as he could reach. Well, it was until he hit the ground.

It was a sudden jolt after what felt like hours of captivity when Peter hit the cool tiles of the flooring below him. The bright light after total darkness burned his eyes. He winced against it, lifting his arms to shield his face. There was no time to acclimate to his new surroundings, though, which were definitely not part of the building he had been inside before he might add, because the second his vision came back into focus a booming voice rang out from behind him.

“Peter Maximoff, what purpose did you have for breaking into the Sanctum Sanctorum?”

Peter spun around quickly on the ground to find a man floating behind him. Wait, floating? He didn’t even have time to question how the stranger knew his name while he was questioning what the hell he was. Was he a mutant? The man looked furious, his red cape billowing out behind him in an almost menacing manner while he stroked his goatee, eyebrows pinched together with rage. Peter had no clue what his deal was or who the hell he was looking at but he did know he had to calm him down fast if he wanted to avert disaster.

Apparently, he was thinking too long though because he wasn’t fast enough.

“I’ll ask you one last time,” the man’s hands came down to chest level, whirring with some sort of orange power, “why did you break into the Sanctum Sanctorum? This is your last chance,”

Somewhere in the distance, a dull thud sounded against the tile, like someone dropping a purse or bag. Peter didn’t have time to think about that, though. He was too busy saving his own life. All he had to do was get to his feet so he could run off! Unfortunately, that was better said than done.

“Woah, Woah, Woah!” he scrambled backward trying to stand but found his feet bound with the same orange sparks that were growing by the second in his attacker’s hands, “I have no clue what the hell a Sanctum Sanctorum is! I think you’ve got the wrong guy, man,”

His assailant cocked his head to the side. “So you’re telling me some other inhumanly fast kleptomaniac mutant from another dimension broke through all of my wards and tried to steal priceless magical artifacts from the Sanctum?”

Peter shrugged nonchalantly. “Magical artifacts? Dude, magic isn’t real. You’ve got the wrong guy,”

Thankfully, the man sighed in exhaustion, letting the orange sparks in his palms disappear as he pinched the bridge of his nose leaving only the ones around Peter’s ankles remaining. For the first time in his life, Peter was glad to be annoying.

“Jesus, I should have had my coffee before dealing with you…”

“I know right?” Peter propped himself up on his hands, “it’s always tragic when you catch the wrong guy, but I’m sure you’ll find your thief eventually. In fact, I think I saw some super speedy dude running towards Central Park when I was walking past that fancy building with the big circle window. That’s so weird! Maybe you should let me go so you can go find your guy,”

The man only seemed to get more pissed off the further Peter dug himself into his own grave. “Oh, I’m not planning on letting you go any time soon. I’m just avoiding a reckoning by letting your keeper know I’m taking you into the Avenger’s custody before we go,”

He was so screwed. “That’s not a-”

Before Peter could even finish his sentence, a crash echoed from across the room.

“STEPHEN STRANGE,”

Now, Peter couldn’t decide if he was saved or even more screwed than before.

There, across the room of what he had now gathered to be a large exhibit at some sort of museum, was Y/N. To say she looked furious would be an understatement.

The art on the walls seemed to shake in her wake as she stormed into the open center of the room, eyes boring holes into Peter’s assailant as she rolled up the sleeves of her paint-stained denim button-up. He could only imagine that this was the reckoning the magic dude was trying to avoid.

The man, Stephen, didn’t waver despite Y/N’s entrance. “Would it kill you to just use my title? I got my doctorate for a reason, you know,” His tone was flat and almost bored as Y/N seethed.

“Fuck you,” she spat, “what the hell are you doing with Peter? And bringing him here of all places? I thought you were supposed to be the responsible Avenger,”

“And I thought you were supposed to keep this menace under control. It looks like we both have a few responsibilities we aren’t keeping up with, huh?”

Across the floor, Peter winced. He hadn’t intended on getting anyone in trouble, he was just looking for a little fun to pass the time and maybe a housewarming gift that would fit in with the rest of Y/N’s antique decor. How was he supposed to know that a crazy, magic, floating guy would take him to what he could only assume was magic prison for breaking into his wizard’s lair? Surprisingly, Y/N picked up his movement.

“Peter, are you okay?” Her eyes never left Strange, flaming with a ferocity that bordered on homicidal, but her voice softened considerably as she spoke to him. He was quick to respond.

“I’m all good! A little tied up at the moment, but it’s nothing I can’t handle!” He shouted back.

Y/N nodded. “Good, just stick tight while I deal with this asshole,”

As the last words left her lips all the softness she had mustered for Peter’s sake dissolved, leaving behind pure, unbridled anger once more.

“You had no right to take him, Strange. We made a deal,”

“You’re right, we did make a deal,” Stephen responded, floating to the ground and taking a step closer to Y/N, “but my duties as Sorcerer Supreme will always come first,”

“That has nothing to do with him! He poses no threat to this universe!”

“He was attempting to steal extremely powerful magical artifacts, Y/N! If a mutant from another dimension had gotten their hands on the Book of Vishanti or the Clock of the Ages who knows what might have happened?”

Y/N stilled. “Peter,” her voice wasn’t the same as it had been when she was shouting at Strange, but it also wasn’t half as gentle as it has been before, “did you steal anything from Stephen?”

Peter, still dazed from the entirety of the experience, was quick to defend himself.

“No! No, I didn’t steal anything!”

One sharp look from Stephen and Y/N sent him spiraling for an excuse.

“Okay, I went in with the intention of stealing, but I had no idea that stuff was magical! I didn’t even know wizards existed! Witches I understood but wizards too? In the middle of New York? Besides, all of this is a moot point! I didn’t actually take anything,”

Surprisingly, Y/N’s expression seemed to soften once again. “See, Stephen? Peter didn’t mean any harm. Now let him go, and this can all be a thing of the past,” As she spoke, he could have sworn that her eyes began to faintly glow.

“I still don’t think it’s a great idea to let him roam free,” Stephen ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair and the restraints around Peter’s ankles tightened slightly.

“Then you’ll have to take him from me,” Y/N brought her hands up, small rippling balls of light beginning to grow in her palms. Peter had never been so scared and aroused in his life. Was this the ‘small power’ she had mentioned to him when he moved in?

“I have remained civil with you and the mages of your order, Strange, but you have no power over me, especially on my own home turf. You lack the time stone now, so you know what will happen if you and I go toe to toe again. Besides, none of that matters. Peter is mine. Mine to protect and defend until he returns to his rightful place in his universe. So, will you let him go, or will we have to settle this the old-fashioned way?”

Y/N’s eyes were definitely glowing now, a brilliant green gleaming from within her as a rough breeze began flowing in from the door across the room. Stephen made no move to attack though. Instead, he heaved a sigh. “You can have your man child back Y/N, calm down,”

Slowly, the glow dissipated, the orbs of light shrinking into nothingness as she lowered her hands. “Thank you, Stephen,”

In an instant, it was as if the pair had gotten along the whole time.

He nodded. “Don’t thank me, just keep him away from ancient magical secrets next time,” Strange paused as if he was finished speaking, but then chuckled softly. It was the most human Peter had ever seen him. “You know how this ends, Y/N. We both do. Are you really sure you want to go through with this?”

It was Y/N’s turn to nod. “I appreciate that you’re looking out for me, but I made my choice a long time ago. There has never been another path for me. Please respect that,”

Peter was clueless as to what any of their exchange meant, too busy rubbing the ache out of his newly freed ankles to think too deeply about whatever deep exchange was happening in front of him, but a nagging feeling in his chest made him think that it must have something to do with him.

Then, in a burst of golden light, Stephen Strange was gone, leaving Y/N and Peter alone as they took in everything that had just happened. It was silent for a moment, the two of them caught between being stunned and glad to see each other, before Y/N’s angry facade melted away.

“What a fucking asshole,” she snickered, making her way over to Peter and offering him a hand, “I hate that guy,”

Peter took her hand and, with a soft pull, was finally upright again. “I know, right? He seems like a total douchebag,”

“Right? Like, yeah it’s terrible enough to kidnap you and try to take you into Avengers custody, but trying to get me to hand you over at my job? That’s just rude on a whole new level,”

“You work here?” Peter gestured at the art on the walls, making Y/N smile.

“Yeah, this is where I go every day. Welcome to the Brooklyn Museum!” She began to lead him out towards the door, linking her arm around his in a strangely intimate act. Peter was sure that she didn’t mean it like that but something about her closeness made his heart flutter.

He guffawed as they walked, passing happy couples and exhibits packed full. “It’s cool here, but I just assumed you worked somewhere… I dunno, more hero-y?”

Y/N laughed. “Everyone always does, but I’ve been attached to restoring paintings since before I ever took up the whole hero gig. I guess it’s the one stable thing I’ve had for my whole life.”

Watching Y/N’s face light up almost made Peter forget that less than an hour earlier he’d been shoved in an infinite dark dimension and threatened with imprisonment by a wizard. It was like she was the only thing worth seeing in a building full of priceless art.

“I’ve always felt strangely comfortable in museums,” she continued, hand brushing against Peter’s bicep in what he could only assume was an accident, “being surrounded by history just feels right to me. It’s like coming home,” Peter couldn’t help but grin, holding back a snicker.

“I’m guessing that’s the real reason you offered to take me in,” he teased, gently ribbing Y/N and making her giggle, “just couldn’t help but bring home a blast from the past who still has their youthful good looks,”

“You caught me! I just couldn’t resist your elderly charms,”

In a moment of poor judgment, Peter found himself leaning into her touch but was surprised to find her leaning right back into him. His heart began to pound faster. He could only hope she couldn’t tell. The feeling of being close to Y/N, listening to her laugh, being the shoulder she leaned on… it was like nothing Peter had ever felt before.

The short remainder of their walk to Y/N’s destination was mostly quiet, but neither of them tried to pull away from the other. Their moment only ended when they reached a large door labeled ‘Staff Only’. Y/N finally unlinked her arm from Peter’s before turning to face him. He was proud to note the flush on her face.

“I’m gonna go grab my bag,” she muttered, worrying the edge of her lip with her teeth, “do you mind taking me home? Traveling with you would probably be faster than hailing a taxi, and way less expensive,”

Between the thought of getting to be close to Y/N again and the excitement of getting to show off his powers, Peter was eager to please. “Sure thing! Do you want me to grab your bag for you? I’m sure I’d be quicker?” He emphasized his statement with a wink. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the desired effect.

Instead, Y/N looked almost nervous as she shook her head no. “I’ve got it, Peter,” she insisted.

He quirked up an eyebrow in surprise. “You sure? We could be home in a minute tops, just say the word,”

“There’s just a lot of important museum stuff back there! I trust you Peter, but this is priceless art we’re talking about, so I’d rather not take any chances. I’ll be back in a second!”

She slowly backed towards the door, offering him one last smile before disappearing into the darkness beyond. Something about her expression turned Peter’s stomach. It wasn’t unfamiliar, she had acted similarly in a few days Peter had known her at seemingly random times, but it just seemed… suspicious, like there was something he should definitely know that he was being kept in the dark about. Despite everything, he shook off the feeling, chalking it up to him not understanding all the intricacies of this new universe. If love made him blind, he was willing to take that chance.

It only took a few minutes for Y/N to emerge, a small messenger bag in hand, but when she did she was joyful once again, offering Peter an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that. Did I miss anything while I was gone?”

He shook his head, pulling down his goggles and offering her his hand. “Not much, just the end of the world,”

She giggled. “So do I just hop on your back or what?”

Peter’s heart skipped a beat. In a second he was down on his knee. “All aboard,” He did his best to keep still as Y/N settled herself on his back, then he was lifting her easily, arms hooked under her knees as she giggled into his hair. “What’s so funny?”

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders securely as he stood. “I just expected you to call yourself the Bohner express,”

It took all of Peter’s strength to keep his laughter under control. “You tell me that now? After the opportunity to use it has passed?”

Y/N squeezed him a little tighter. “I’m sure you’ll get to use it next time,”

The thought of a next time sent Peter’s heart rate through the roof. Oh, it was on.

“I’d hold on if I were you,” he said, smirking, “the Bohner express is leaving the station,”

Y/N was quick to snap back. “Let’s hope it doesn’t disappoint,”

“Oh Y/N, the Bohner express never disappoints,”

“Prove it,”

Peter had them back to the brownstone in record time.

[xsparklingravenx]

breathtaking

Title: breathtaking

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Characters: Albedo, Klee

Rating: G

Word Count: 2,275

Summary: The times that Klee and Albedo tell each other to breathe.

AO3

The paintbrush dashed across the canvas, and in turn, something true came to life.

On the grassy plains of Mondstadt’s surrounding areas, a boy stood silent, a palette of colour in one hand, the brush in the other. Gently, he curved those colours across the blank sheet, splashes of blue and green and brown, the boars that roamed the plains recreated in paint and chalk outlines.

These boars were unremarkable, but that in itself was what made them noteworthy. Such a contradiction shouldn’t have made sense, but to the boy, it was perfect enough to immortalise. Hilichurls and Abyss Mages took to these lands like they were their own, but still the boars persisted, living free and unafraid. At any moment, they could be hunted, for sport or for food, and yet the few before him had survived their entire lives out in an unforgiving world.

Now they lived immortal in his image. Caught up in his work, he paid no attention to the passing of time around him, how the sun crossed the sky, how the wind danced across his skin, the Anemo Archon’s quiet blessing. Another brushstroke here and there brought his vision closer to completion. The boars continued to graze. The grass was emerald green, and if he mixed his colours just right, then maybe—

A distant explosion had him pausing. The boy turned his head, a single strand of pale hair falling into his eyes as he searched for the source. Somewhere over the hills, it seemed, far enough from him that he needn’t pay it any mind. Were the Knights of Favonius out exterminating vermin today? He wondered, idly, if Sucrose was with them, though he didn’t identify any sort of Anemo traces in the air from this far away. Another boom in the air, and he cast the thought aside, returning his attention to his art.

Life stilled around him once more. That was it. The boars carried on quietly. The colours melded together. Three boars, quiet, content, living beings, born from the soil and destined to return to it. They breathed, interacted with the elements, survived—

An explosion shook the air, so close that it rattled his canvas. The boy stopped still, a frown on his face, because he was certain he knew that sound. And he knew that intensity.

And he knew that brand of giggling.

He opened his mouth to shout, to cry, wait—but he was a fraction too late. The sight before him erupted into fire and chaos as an explosion roared and took out every single sign of life in front of him. The grass flamed, the boars that had survived their entire lives out on the plain now little more than charred carcasses before him. He stared at the carnage in front of him, the canvas still depicting his quiet moment from moments before, wordless at the sight.

And then, from the smoke and disaster, a tiny figure came sprinting out, arms at her side, eyes wide. She skidded to a stop before the boy, planting her hands on her hips, looking immensely pleased with herself. “Albedo! Did you see Jumpty Dumpty! It went boom!”

Albedo looked beyond her, to where the grass was still burning, smoke rising up into the sky. “Klee…? Why did it have to be here?”

He knew better than to question her intentions, because her intentions were always cause the biggest explosion possible. She beamed at him, and then, spotting his canvas, she bolted up to it. “Oh! Oh! Were you drawing again? It looks really good!”

“I was…up until you decided to blow my subjects up, yes.” Albedo looked between the smoking grass, the charred meat that was cooking in the fire, and his art, which was miraculously unscathed. “How did you…why were you…where’s Jean?”

Klee giggled. “Master Jean is busy today, so she let me go exploring! I wanted to try out some of my treasures, but Kaeya says that ‘explosion inside city wall, grounded be thy woe’, so here I am!”

She admired his painting as he looked down at his colours and wondered if he should add the fires to his painting. It was hardly an interesting specimen to recreate.

“They look really cool, Albedo is so good at making pictures!” Klee sat on the ground in front of it and watched the flames rise. “I didn’t know you’d be here, I just got lucky! I haven’t seen you in a while…you’re always so busy, but now we can hang out, right? Maybe we can play with my treasures?”

Playing with her treasures was a shortcut to a fiery doom, but he couldn’t deny that her words instilled a sense of guilt in him. So caught up in his alchemic studies as of late, all his time had been spent with Timaeus and Sucrose. He’d been hanging up his do not disturb sign constantly, and Klee had been all but left to her own (chaotic) devices. “Sorry, Klee. I didn’t realise you wanted my attention. Seeing as the boars are all…well, halfway to becoming a sticky honey roast, I suppose I can spare some time to play with you. Not that it was exactly how I saw my day going.”

“Oh! Oh! Can we find a cooking pot? Can you make Woodland Dream? I love when you cook, Albedo! It’s just like when you do your alchemy stuff, like, you go poof and then…bam! You make something new!”

Her enthusiasm might have been infectious to someone else, but fortunately, Albedo had been blessed with the ability to remain calm and casual-minded in her presence. “Considering we have plenty of fresh meat right here, Woodland Dream seems like a waste.”

“But if you make that, then I can go and get all the fishes with Jumpty Dumpty! We can play, and then we can eat! And then you can draw. Maybe you can draw me?”

She hopped up as Albedo considered her request. He hardly ever used his skills to paint that which did not pique his interest in the realm of alchemy, but she’d asked so earnestly. Would it be so wasteful to dedicate a couple of hours to produce happiness?

“Albedo?”

He looked down. The fire was beginning to die away now behind Klee, the grass singed and blackened. She adjusted her backpack, and he said, “Yes?”

“You should breathe,” she said, smiling impossibly wide. “Come on, let’s go! We’ve got fishes to get!”

And then she was gone, dashing off across the plains, and he realised that she was right. In his pursuit of life, in his creation of art, he had not taken a single breath in. He closed his eyes and did as she asked, allowing himself the mimicry of human necessity. Nobody noticed, except her, and she didn’t question it.

In the distance, she turned and shouted, “Albedo! I’m gonna leave you behind if you don’t hurry!”

Packing up his art supplies, he chased after her, thoughts of eruptions in the back of his mind. It was going to be a long day, keeping her from wanton destruction, but at least she’d be happy—and he couldn’t deny that a day spent with her wouldn’t brighten his spirits regardless.

***

The outskirts of Dragonspine mountain were bitterly cold, the water close to freezing entirely, and yet the moment Klee went beneath the surface, Albedo didn’t hesitate to dive beneath.

It wasn’t supposed to be serious. He’d asked the traveller and her floating companion for assistance in collecting Starsilver for an alchemical recipe, and yet Lumine had shown up on the mountain side with Klee in tow, claiming that she’d been with her when he’d sent word to Mondstadt that he wished for her help, and that she refused to stay behind.

“It’ll be fine!” Paimon had declared in Lumine’s lieu. “Paimon thinks that even if things go bang, at least it’ll be nice and warm!”

“And we can always cook you over one of her open flames if things start looking dire,” Lumine added, looking a little smug.

Klee had been giggling then, but that had been before they’d run into the Lawachurl, before the lumbering beast had picked her up in its great hands and thrown her through the air. Her scream still rang out in his ears. Life born from soil was so fragile, and that was what he’d thought when he’d watched, helpless, as she hit the water and sank beneath it.

He had not thought through his plan, he’d just acted, tossing aside his sword and abandoning the traveller to the battle. The cold had not been a factor in his mind. The fight was forgotten. Miss Alice’s words echoed in his skull, treat her like a real younger sister!

Elder brothers protected their siblings. The traveller had told him stories of her own brother, how she would do anything to find him. She’d also mentioned the Fatui Harbinger who would do anything for the sake of his baby brother, and he knew of Diluc’s loyalty to his own non-blood sibling, how the rift between him and Kaeya had not prevented him from coming to his aid before. Albedo was not related to Klee, but she was his sister nonetheless, and that meant he had to save her.

The water was akin to ice, but his body withstood it, powered by something more than adrenaline. His eyes stung, but there she was, floating lifelessly, a small body so still, and something surged in his chest, emotion that he did not often feel, emotion that overtook his thoughts, his logic.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to his chest, and oh, she was still a child, still so tiny, with so much power but as fragile as every other being. He thought of the boars she’d taken the lives of that day before his canvas, how she’d ended their existence with the childish joy of an exploded bomb, and he thought of the Lawachurl and its base desire to attack. They were not the same, yet they were; life was inexplicably difficult to understand.

He broke the surface, not choking or hacking, but that was normal for him. Klee did not move. There were no coughs, no groans, no cracking open of her eyes. She was limp in his arms, drenched through and frozen in his arms.

“Klee!” Albedo shouted, the roar of the Lawachurl’s fierce battle with Lumine nearly sweeping away his voice. He kicked his legs to keep them afloat, but he was losing his strength fast, the cold sweeping it away. “Wake up!”

Still, she didn’t move. She hung there in his grasp, and it was then that he realised that she wasn’t breathing. Fear gripped his heart as he dragged her through the water to the snowy bank. He had to hope that Lumine could hold it off without him. He had to hope that there was still enough of Klee left in her body for him to save.

Pushing back his shivers, he laid her on the snow and tipped her head back. Acting on instinct more than thought, he pressed the heel of his hand to her chest, one hand instead of two, not wanting to hurt her with his actions, but wanting to keep her with him through any means necessary.

Usually, he brought things to life through the act of creation, through alchemy, through his paintbrush and his clever mind. This was different. Klee was already living, he just had to keep her that way, and in his experience, keeping something alive was almost always more difficult than giving it a pulse. Practicality and alchemic practices went hand-in-hand, and yet here he was, doubting himself.

He pressed down. One compression. Two. Three. Keeping track of the time between them as Lumine shouted behind him, as the Anemo Archon’s winds whipped across his skin, as the unforgiving bitterness of Dragonspine bit deep into his bones of chalk. Albedo thought of blooming flowers, of exploding bombs, and he thought of Miss Alice and his own chest splintered beneath the pressure.

“Breathe, Klee!” he cried. “Breathe!”

And she did. She choked. Water expelled itself from her lungs as Albedo sat back to give her space. He heard the thump of the Lawachurl hitting the ground behind him, and, trusting Lumine to finish it off, he gave Klee all his attention.

As her breathing calmed, he asked, “Are you okay? Klee, speak to me.”

“Too much water…” she whispered, reaching out her arms to him. “I was scared…”

He knelt in front of her and answered her request silently, pulling her close to his chest as she buried her head into his. Alive. She was still frozen but she was alive.

“Your catalyst,” he said. “Your Vision. Use it.”

Between them, Pyro erupted, warmth in a different sense than her usual explosions. It swept through him and her both, and into his chest, she said, “You rescued me, Albedo…”

“Of course I did.”

And as she wrapped her tiny arms back around him, she said, “Breathe too, please?”

He closed his eyes and did. In and out in time with her, soil and chalk. The oxygen did nothing for him, but it did everything for her, so he followed her lead, this girl full of energy and life, his family until the end.

“Woodland Dream when we get back,” he said. “I promise.”

She held onto him tight, and he listened to her breaths, the cold forgotten, the fear draining away.

He could breathe for her as much as she needed him to.

[tybaku]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30691259

Midoriya Izuku finds the incarnation of beauty and divinity sitting at a window of a hole-in-the-wall café just a few blocks away from home.

Or: An artist in search of inspiration unexpectedly finds a new muse.

When Izuku lays eyes on him, it’s like salvation.

It’s a feeling of warmth, like fire licking at the grooves of his teeth and spreading throughout the apples of his cheeks. It’s a pleasant thing, the following lurch in the very pit of his chest, like all the air in his lungs had turned into honey the color of molten gold. It’s electric in the way he can feel it’s lingering buzz in his fingertips just as he’s left in a reverie.

Izuku hasn’t felt this way in weeks.

A thin, reserved smile finds its way onto his bitten lips as he twirls his mechanical pencil between his fingers. If he were an artist of a different medium—say, a photographer—he would capture this very moment for safe keeping, have it frozen in all its sharp and bright clarity and contrast. (But he is not, so he will have to make due with his pencil and paper.)

It’s a gray kind of day today. Storm clouds were rumbling gently in the sky, crooning and purring in the promise of rainfall. It set a somber mood, and a gloomy undertone to the colors of the café Izuku frequented, despite its yellow lights and setup of deep, rich browns, reds, and oranges.

Though it did pair perfectly with the man who sat by the window.

Izuku’s eyes fell, and his pencil danced on the paper of his sketchbook. Curves and corners formed a light, faint base, precise enough to embody a sitting figure. Izuku looks up again, eyes gently observing the piece in front of him.

And damn if that man at the window didn’t resemble something straight out of a Rembrandt. He was soft, pale colors, from fair skin to blond hair, and awfully kind on the eyes, muted and light. He held a dark sort of overtone over his features and the way he breathed, grays and blues amongst warmth.

He’s wearing a scarf in a bright shade of cream low on his neck, and the material gives off the impression of cotton, which is soft and comforting in the current cold of late autumn. His clothes are dark, old, and large, falling off his slim figure. His eyes are downcast, and though Izuku can’t quite tell from this distance, they are deep and dim in hue, and enraptured by the laptop in front of him, a halo of cool light illuminating his high cheeks and sharp jaw.

Simply put, the man at the window was agonizingly gorgeous, and Izuku was determined to capture his beauty on sketch paper.

He’s quietly scribbling his third concept drawing (he quietly berated himself for not bringing any paints today, but then considered the fact he wasn’t even planning to draw at the café anyway, and he could always just start a piece when he got home as long as he had a decent thumbnail) when the man stops, rolls his shoulders back, and rises from his seat.

Surprised, Izuku nearly drops his pencil, not having expected any movement and having forgotten the man at the window wasn’t actually modeling for him, nor made of marble. (He could be though, Izuku thinks. If he let me, I could immortalize him with just my hands.)

The man steps up to the counter and orders a coffee.

Izuku watches him wait as subtly as he can, glasses slipping to the tip of his nose with how often his head moves up and down, and up and down again in order to somewhat perfect the piece in his book.

Faintly, he realizes that he should maybe be a little more inconspicuous about his sightseeing, but he’s too thrilled about finally finding a view that was actually worth looking at. Plus, the man hasn’t yet noticed Izuku’s stare on his stern profile, even if the artist was just as tactful about it as a toddler.

Izuku rolls his own shoulders, a mimic of what the man had done earlier, and continues. When the man returns to his seat, Izuku is on his third sheet of paper.

They’re faint, quick doodles now, thumbnails overlapping thumbnails, because Izuku is rapidly losing his patience, and doesn’t want to spend more than a minute on a sketch. He’s too excited now, and the ideas keep coming in, insistent on making their presence known even as the page becomes more and more crowded, filled to the brim with messy artwork.

The man finally meets his eye, and scowls.

Embarrassed, Izuku ducks his head quickly, pretending to be occupied with his sketchbook. It’s a half-truth really, because he has been busy with it for the past twenty something minutes. Only now there’s a more than healthy flush to his cheeks that can’t be blamed on the chilly weather. He looks up tentatively.

The man has gone back to glaring at his laptop screen and sipping on what Izuku assumes to be his dark brew (with exactly two and a half packets of sugar substitute—Izuku knows this because he had seen him pour and stir them into his mug at the sidebar before he took his seat again).

Izuku lets out a quiet sigh of relief as the heat in his face fades out like a dying candle, and then resumes his sketching calmly. He never really could draw when he knew someone was watching, it made him feel too nervous, and much too exposed. One is meant to create art privately, and wholeheartedly, not under a persistent microscope.

Then again, Izuku probably shouldn’t be out in public if he wanted privacy and be away from prying eyes. Even if they are a deep, rich shade of brown that sat on his skin like hot, burning coal. (Even if they are red and piercing like they must be in another life, in another painting of beauty.)

And it wasn’t as if Izuku came to the little coffeehouse with the intention to create, he had simply wanted to mill about, and see if maybe he could find some inspiration outside his lonely studio apartment, and even his actual art studio. He never thought he would actually strike gold, and have to sit down to milk it for all it was worth.

Unfortunately, there comes a point where all the gold runs out, and Izuku is left with dirty hands and an ache in his chest.

The man packs up his belongings and leaves. The bell above the door sings cheerily. Izuku watches as the man breathes a puff of air like smoke before he shields his mouth from the cold with his scarf. Izuku's eyes fall when the man rounds a corner and disappears from view.

The coffee in the mug Izuku bought out of courtesy has gone cold, since he had been far too busy trying to map out the shapes and shadows of the man at the window. He looks down into it, detested, not being able to help feeling a little upset about the man’s departure.

If I had asked, Izuku thinks rather absently, would he have stayed?

He shakes his head at himself, hair tickling his cheeks, feeling a little ridiculous. That wasn’t something you could just ask of someone you didn’t even know the name of. It wasn’t appropriate by any means, to ask a stranger something so intimate. To stay. And just so you could admire them and the lines of their human body, and preserve them on sketch paper for you to have and hold selfishly.

So really, there wasn’t anything Izuku could’ve done to prevent the inevitable. The loss of a light and warmth so bright it felt holy—the inside of a dying sun, the core of a supernova.

What he does do, however, is take advantage of all that he had basked in and hurry on home with intent of creating a new art piece of paints, making sure to leave a fat tip on the underside of his untouched coffee before leaving the shop with a little spring to his step and a pink blush on his face.

He makes it home in a flurry, hair wildly windswept and cold air in his panting mouth, having broken into a sprint, and then a run, by the time he was only a block away from his apartment, nerves buzzing under his skin. He had taken two steps at a time up the stairs and into his studio, as if he were being chased by a madman. (He was the only madman around really, one who was much too eager to capture what he felt back at the café on a canvas with his oils at home, rather than make the trip to his professional workspace.)

Izuku makes a quick beeline to his art desk (it’s standing where maybe a television stand would be if he had one, right in front of his comfy loveseat, and it’s covered in all sorts of paints because Izuku tends to use it as a glorified paint palette) and sets his sketchbook down on the cleanest spot he could find, immediately crouching down in order to rummage through his art supply bins for his spare oil paints.

He mutters as he does this, about colors and brushes and the man at the window of the café, but it’s nothing short of white noise to his ears, a harmless habit. It helped him focus in fact, his own whispered musings to an empty room, and it helped him relax enough to calm the heart trying to break his rib cage and beat a gaping wound through his chest.

He finally finds the oils, and then the brushes, that he needs to replicate the image in his head that burns in the backs of his eyes. He sets them all down on his art desk, only where it’s dry, and moves about the apartment in search of the final, most important ingredient: a canvas.

He looks down, around, and behind every piece of furniture, grumbling under his breath. After about five minutes, it finally sinks in, and he makes a terrible discovery: there were no clean canvases he could use.

Usually, he would have one or two lying around, for easy commission pieces, and even when the occasional creative mood would randomly strike, but as of late, he hasn’t actually been painting much of anything, whether it be for personal purposes or professional pursuits. And his past self had figured the canvases in his art studio would suffice because of this, so he hadn’t bought any to keep at home.

His past self was a bumbling idiot.

Determined, and not yet ready to detach himself from this bout of sudden inspiration, Izuku rolls up his sleeves, gathers his supplies, and gets to work, canvas or no canvas. He paints and paints until his knuckles ache and his jaw goes sore from clenching in concentration.

He finishes his piece with tired arms and oils not only on his face, but on his plastic frames. He finishes liberated, with relief strung throughout him.

Admittedly, it’s not his best piece, for his living room wall isn’t suited for his oils, but Izuku can’t help but think it’s his most beautiful. It’s the first thumbnail he made of the man at the window of the café, one where he’s looking out the window, blown out right on the wall, his sharp yet soft profile glowing gently with warm, nude colors.

The man at the window takes Izuku’s breath away all over again.

Warm in the face, Izuku lets his eyes wander away, and fall to the wooden floor. The sun is bright and high in the sky now, a telltale sign of noon, beaming hot yellows into the apartment, and beating down onto the back of his clothes. The lighting is wonderful, and perfect for a picture, but a seed of greed is already sprouting in the mouth of Izuku’s stomach.

This sight, this piece, wasn’t one he was willingly to share with anyone just yet, if ever. It feels too deeply personal somehow, and much too intimate to showcase on any of his social medias, much less his professional art blog. Plus, it’s not even a complete piece, or one he can profit off of, since it lies dormant on his wall. There wasn’t a reason to post this anywhere, and there wasn’t a reason why Izuku should even want to. This piece was for his eyes only.

Embarrassed at the mere thought, Izuku brings his stained hands to his face, no doubt smearing more oil paint onto his blushy cheeks. Now what kind of reasoning was that? He didn’t want to share? The man at the window was only his to admire? How selfish! And how embarrassing! Izuku thinks in a flushing stupor, berating himself in belated humiliation. He hadn’t meant to think any of that, honest!

The artist smacks his face once, and then twice, to pull himself back together. Nevermind all that, there was nothing wrong with wanting to keep some of his work to himself in the first place. Just like his personal, and very much private sketchbook where he allowed himself to experiment and make mistakes, this living room piece served as an act of unexpected creativity and originality, a subjective study of an intriguing character.

At the very least, Izuku had fully convinced himself of this in less than a minute, not allowing himself to think about the matter any further lest he wanted to mutter a whole dissertation about it straight through the wall and into his neighbor’s apartment. (The walls here weren’t as thick as they were supposed to be, unfortunately.) (Vaguely, Izuku recalls his apartment lease and its rules, specifically the too-lengthy paragraph under “alterations” and how he was not allowed to “paint, wallpaper, alter, or redecorate without written consent of the landlord.”)

Izuku brings his thumb to his mouth and bites down on the painted nail to keep himself quiet, letting his eyes settle back up to his artwork. It truly was an astonishing piece, if he did say so himself. It was very new, and very different from any of his other work, and it reflected an entirely distinct side of Izuku’s artistic capabilities. It felt real, and warm, and overwhelmingly human; very dissimilar from his usual painting style.

It was nude, and dark, and utterly stunning in all the unexpectedly right ways. A handsome painting crafted by hands that never knew they could portray such divinity.

A fresh flame ignites in Izuku all over again, and his hands go back to feel the blood rising in his face once more. It was becoming increasingly more and more difficult for him to mellow out of this stage of embarrassing elation, since each time he tries to take a look to admire his piece he gets worked all up, and ends up awkward and out of place in his own home. He just—He just needs something more.

Huffing, Izuku removes his glasses and wipes them down with the hem of his shirt. His hands go a little blurry under his gaze, which was a little watery and soft at the edges, far-sightedness at its best. As he removes any paint off his lenses, he allows his mind to wander just a bit, back to his painting, and back to the prospect of sharing.

He nearly drops his glasses moments after, right on the line of a most groundbreaking revelation—a victory caused by something straight out of a storybook or myth, one where stars, planets, suns, minds, and hearts aligned.

Izuku fits his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and quickly fishes his phone out of his pocket, inputting his passcode with no hesitation.

He had some calls to make.

[renegadepisces]

Bright Imagine: Kandomere accidentally meeting your family

After a brutal few weeks of almost nonstop danger in your days and seemingly unending paperwork in your nights, you were thrilled to have a day off. The fact that you could spend it with your older sibling and their family made it even better. Working with the MTF was amazing, but you wouldn’t trade a hefty hazard paycheck for time like this with your family. 

These are your favorite kind of days. Perfect weather with sunshine and the lightest hint of a breeze to keep you all cool and comfortable while enjoying the shops lining the pedestrian district of town. You were in one of the trendier human neighborhoods not far from the border of Elftown. It had a hip, artistic reputation, which meant that your nephews were frantically turning their attention from one attraction to the next as quickly as their wondrous, adorable child minds would let them process the scene in front of them. The street was full of other families and couples out enjoying the weather, some holding shopping bags or takeaway containers. 

Your sibling and their young family lived in a quiet suburb while you lived further into the city, but you joined forces on weekends like this to expose the kids to some of the more positive parts of living near LA. You carried your oldest nephew’s gym bag slung across your shoulder, allowing him to chase after his little brother, giggling as they revolved around you and their parents like planets hurdling through space. They’d come from tae kwan do practice and hadn’t wanted to change clothes before lunch. Their baby sister cooed in her stroller at clouds passing in and out of her line of sight overhead.

“What a nice day,” your sibling sighed, “So, how is work y/n?”

“Honey, not in front of the kids.” Their partner warned through a forced smile to avoid alarming the children. “No offense y/n.”

“None taken.” you assured them.

Your sibling didn’t work with the MTF like you, but they were an LAPD detective. You knew your in-law worried for you and your sibling, and you didn’t blame them. LA was a big city, and both you and your sibling saw some of the darkest and most dangerous parts of the city and its residents on a daily basis. Besides, your sibling knew enough from the law enforcement rumor mill and the local news to know exactly what your work life was like. 

“Fine, fine, are you seeing anyone then?” your sibling quipped. 

Their spouse groaned and shot an apologetic look your way before fussing with your niece’s sunhat. Your sibling always was immature, even if they were older than you. 

Your nephews whipped around at this question, suddenly very interested in what the adults were saying. 

“You know these precious boys are the only gentleman for me!” you said, pretending to be scandalized. Your nephews dropped their serious expressions for wide, toothy grins. You were, in their words, the coolest grown up, and they could be jealous of your attention. Of the few men you had dated long enough to warrant introduction to your family, they hadn’t liked a single one. To be fair though, neither had your sibling. 

“Oh y/n, would you mind staying with the kids while we run into this store?” Your in-law suddenly asked, stopping dead in their tracks on the sidewalk. The store window they were focused on looked like a promising place to find a gift for your younger nephew’s upcoming birthday.

“Of course!” you agreed, knowing firsthand what a bad idea it was to take 3 excited children into a store. 

You tempted your nephews away from the intriguing shop window - and the temptation to follow their parents inside - with the promise of gelato. You made monthly trips to this part of the city specifically to visit the bookstore next to the gelato shop, but you doubted you could convince the boys to let you go inside and browse the newest arrivals.

The boys ordered exactly what you knew they would - strawberry for the oldest and chocolate for the youngest. You treated yourself to a scoop of espresso and got a sample of orange-flavored gelato for your niece because you knew she always ate oranges first whenever they were put in front of her and assumed she wouldn’t mind orange-flavored gelato. 

You had just finished putting your wallet back in your pocket and rearranging your nephew’s bag on your shoulder when you felt both of your nephews grab you. The older one wrapped his small hand in yours, while his brother put his hand in your jeans pocket. It was a gesture you’d taught him half jokingly when he got old and independent enough that he didn’t want to hold anyone’s hand in public. It had been a compromise - he didn’t have to hold your hand but he did have to hold on. Both boys were at that age when they wanted to act and be treated like big kids - and that didn’t include hand holding. 

Concerned at their unusual behavior, you turned your attention away from the stroller to look at them. They were both staring intently in the same direction, toward the bookstore. You followed their gaze and noticed a familiar figure standing on the sidewalk. They were about the same height as you, wearing a strangely formal suit for a casual weekend stroll, and their hair was a striking and unnatural shade of grey and blue. And their eyes, which triggered you to finally recognize your boss through the pedestrians walking into your line of sight, were a piercing clear blue like the diamonds glittering in the nearby jeweler’s front window. 

“Special Agent Kandomere,” you greeted him, exhaling air you hadn’t realized you were holding in, “What brings you here sir?”

His lips creased as he drew closer. It wasn’t a smile, but it was certainly less of a frown than what you usually saw on his face. He was handsome regardless of his expression, but the fact that he never smiled made you anxious sometimes. You couldn’t tell if he liked you, or if he was even satisfied with your work most of the time. That didn’t bother you too much though. Your martial arts background brought a rare skillset to the task force, especially among humans, and your reviews so far were stellar. 

The boys’ grips on you tightened as he stepped closer. Were they afraid of him? They’d seen plenty of elves before, so you doubted that was the problem. Kandomere could certainly be intimating even to adults though.

“I’m here for the secondhand bookshop. They have a larger selection of Ovusi than most chain stores.”

You guessed that he lived nearby then. That made sense - this neighborhood bordered the Elven district. And you knew from personal experience how impressive the store’s selection was. 

Kandomere crouched down in front of you, bringing himself eye-level to your nephews. 

“And what are your names?” He asked. And for the first time since you’d met him - for the first time in the several months you’d worked side by side since joining the MTF - you saw him smile. 

The boys looked up at you, as if asking you for permission to talk to this stranger. You nodded encouragingly. Kandomere could be an asshole, but he wasn’t bad. He seemed to be putting in effort to be nice to your nephews. 

Cautiously, they told him their names. Kandomere shifted his gaze up make eye contact with you once more, and you felt a little awkward as you took in the site. Your boss, a respected - even feared - MTF Special Agent in Charge was crouching on a crowded sidewalk in a three piece suit that probably cost more than your rent and car payment combined. 

“Are you training to be like your mother one day?” He asked your oldest nephew, no doubt observing the gym bag slung around your shoulder and the fact that your oldest nephew was still wearing his tae kwan do uniform.

You felt a blistering flush rise in your cheeks as your mouth suddenly went bone dry. Kandomere wasn’t the first to mistake your nephews for your children. After all, they had the same h/c hair as you and they generally resembled you in the same way that you resembled your sibling. But you’d never been this embarrassed by it before. 

“I wish I could take credit, but these are my nephews.” you blurted out.

The fact that Kandomere, instead of the offering the sheepish grin and hasty apology or joke about family resemblances that most people followed up that assumption with, only smiled more intently at you just made the whole situation seem more strange. There was something unfamiliar behind his eyes that you’d never seen before. You were certain you’d never made this much direct eye contact with him in the entire time you’d known him, so maybe that wasn’t so unusual. 

But still. It was all very weird and you wished the ground would swallow you whole. 

“They certainly take after you in charm, agent l/n.” He told you as he rose to his full height in an easy, fluid motion that oozed grace and dignity. That was more like him, or at least the version of him you were familiar with from work. This friendly, smiling Kandomere who was currently eliciting excited coos from your niece was a complete stranger to you. 

You were about to respond with something unintelligible when you noticed your sibling and their spouse approaching. With the practiced stealth of a detective, your sibling waited until the last possible moment to make their presence behind Kandomere known before announcing themselves by loudly greeting you.

“You must be officer (l/n), y/n’s sibling.” Kandomere greeted them, not fazed at all by the tactic. He shook hands with your sibling, and then their spouse. 

Dimly, through the roar of your almost palpable embarrassment, you realized that was the first time Kandomere had ever referred to you by your first name. 

Your sibling finally noticed the paper gelato cups in their children’s hands and leveled a piercing gaze at you. 

“Really? Even the baby? What are you spoiling my children for now?” They weren’t upset. You often joked that spoiling their children was your way of getting back at them for how they picked on you when you were younger. 

“As if I need a reason.” 

“Well, I hope you’ve at least learned a lesson, since yours has melted,” your sibling noted. 

You looked down, having completely forgotten about your espresso gelato until he reminded you. Sure enough, the mound of aromatic, creamy confection had melted into a pale brown pool in your cup. 

“Espresso, y/n?” Kandomere asked, before another smile broke across his features, “you don’t stop mainlining caffeine even on your days off.”

“This one’s just as bad. They both get most of their calories from a Styrofoam cup, I swear.” Your in-law joked, gesturing between you and your sibling as she spoke. 

“Well in that case, you’ll have to let me make it up you on Monday,” Kandomere said. After quickly exchanging goodbyes with you and your family members, he turned to walk away in the direction of the shopping center’s underground parking garage. Unfortunately, this left you at the mercy of your family’s curiosity. 

“Y/n,” your sibling warned, “I think your boss just asked you on a coffee date.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you said, “He gets coffee at work all the time.”

“Yeah, with his partner.” your sibling said.

“Come on honey, you did ask if y/n was seeing someone.” Your in-law teased. 

“He said they were charming,” your oldest nephew interjected excitedly as your sibling hauled him up to sit on their shoulders. 

“He was staring at you.” his younger brother added, tugging at your hip pocket in the unmistakable signal that meant he wanted to be picked up and carried too. 

“No he was not!” You hissed as a red flush crept into your cheeks again and you stooped to comply with his demand. 

“Was too!”

You groaned, once again wishing the ground would swallow you whole and spare you the pain of waking up the next morning and realizing that the whole incident had in fact happened and wasn’t some figment of your imagination. 

“Come on boys, let’s go get lunch. And then you can tell us what else Agent Kandomere said.” your sibling said, smirking even as they danced out of reach of the playful punch you lobbed at their arm. 

[fallinnflower]

lilili yabbay

the8 x reader (angst, vampire!the8)

jun   hoshi   the8   dino

“you make me look at the moon and pray / pray that you’ll look at me”

Minghao has seen terrible things. He’s seen beautiful things, too, and he’s seen things that somehow are both at once and leave him still with a strange feeling in his chest to remember. And yet, of all the things he’s seen in his life, he decidedly likes you best above all. 

Xu Minghao is 327 years old to the day when he meets you. And although he isn’t foolish enough to believe this is fate, or destiny, that he’s lived for centuries just to meet you, he will admit that you seem to have made all that slow-moving time seem quite worth it to him.

In his current identity, current life, he is living in Seoul with a clan of twelve others. The only other member from China, a comparatively fresh vampire at only 150 years, insisted on celebrating Minghao’s birthday. In this life, as in a few previous, Minghao is an avid lover of photography and of wine — two things which, generally, should be meaningless to vampires but ironically make him feel more alive — and so he forces Junhui to a horrifically expensive restaurant on the top floor of a glittering building where he can look out over Seoul and beyond, and sip as much red wine as he pleases until Jun, the toddler that he is, inevitably whines enough that they go home.

Surrounded by all the glamour of this lifestyle, this place; the velvet cushions and silk dresses, the marble floors and city like a jewelry case, you should really not stand out as much as you do. And yet, as you pour Minghao his first glass of wine, he can’t help but be captivated by you. Jun notices, inevitably, even though Minghao’s expression remains as calculatedly cool as ever whilst he gently swirls the wine in his glass. 

“It’s his birthday,” Junhui pretends to whisper to you. Minghao is about to scold him, but all words leave him when you suddenly break into a lovely, bashful grin, and bow your head to him.

“Happy birthday.” Your voice is soft, softer than the velvet of the seat he’s sitting on. He can’t even manage to thank you before you’re weaving silently back to your post, his eyes tracing your movements carefully. He forgets all about the wine he had been so excited for, certain that if he still had a heartbeat it would be erratic.

“She’s cute.” Minghao turns to look at Jun, who’s staring at him with an overly-pleased grin and his chin propped in his hand. “I told you it was a good idea to go out for your birthday.”

Through the course of the evening, you come by many times to refill his glass. Other patrons come and go, and Minghao watches the city go through its varying stages of nightlife. 

It’s late into the night, far too late for you to still be working he feels, when you appear at the table not with his purchased bottle of wine, but with a small, decadent chocolate torte with a single tiny candle in the center of it. Jun has the biggest smile on his face, while Minghao can barely manage to remember to blink.

“I couldn’t find anymore candles,” you apologize, taking a lighter from your pocket and lighting the candle. You bow down, eye level with Minghao as the candlelight reflects in your irises. “But one is enough to make a wish, right?”

Jun is the one who begins singing from behind you, and you join in with a soft, imperfect lilt. He only takes his eyes off of you once he closes them to blow the candle out. You place the cake down on his table and give him a playful grin.

“Well, what did you wish for?” You ask, pulling the candle out of the cake.

“Isn’t that supposed to be a secret?” Minghao asks.

“It’s not like I’d have anyone to tell, anyways,” you retort. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“Minghao,” he replies, far too quickly. Your expression shows your surprise for only a moment before you’re smiling at him again, your gaze warm. “Xu Minghao.”

“L/N Y/N,” you say, tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear. Minghao traces your movements, baffled by how entranced you have him with even the simplest, most mundane of tasks when he hardly knows you—

“And I’m Jun!” 

Although Minghao’s gaze is sharp when he turns it to the vampire, neither you nor Junhui look in the slightest bit fazed to have ruined his concentration. At that point, you politely excuse yourself, and Minghao doesn’t see you for the rest of his evening out.

That morning, as the sun rises over Seoul, Minghao finds himself painting for the first time in well over a decade. He hasn’t been a painter since two ‘lives’ ago, when he created art under a pseudonym. This one, however, he doesn’t intend to sell.

Minghao keeps seeing you after that, and while Jun and Dokyeom and a few of his other clan-mates like to tease that it’s fate, he still refuses to believe it. He wonders if he’s subconsciously seeking you out, hunting down that feeling he’d gotten the first night — a feeling that made him almost believe he was human again, if only for a moment.

It’s foolish, fanciful, and far too heavy a burden to place on you. And yet every time he sees you, no matter how cold he must come across, you have a smile to greet him with. 

It’s springtime, and he sees you out at a local market buying flowers. He has every intention to pass by you, but you notice him before he can, flashing him a blinding grin that stops him in his tracks. 

“Xu Minghao,” you greet. He shakes his head, laughing as he looks down at you. Every time he sees you, it feels like the first time — and he treats it as the last.

“It’s been months,” he says. “You can just call me Minghao.” You tap a finger to your chin, as if deep in thought, before shaking your head.

“No. Xu Minghao has a nice ring to it. I like saying it.” You adjust the canvas bag hanging off your shoulder, tucking the bouquet of flowers you’d just purchased under your arm.

“Walk with me?” you ask. You tilt your head in the direction of the street and Minghao wishes he could freeze time as the sunlight catches in your eyes, the breeze gently tugging strands of hair from your face. Your skin looks warm, and carried on the breeze is the unparalleled sweet scent of your blood. Minghao agrees, although he knows he shouldn’t. The more time he spends with you, the more attached he’ll become, even if he has every intention of maintaining distance.

He isn’t foolish enough to believe in fate, or destiny — but sometimes he truly wishes he was, because then he could imagine a happy ending for the two of you. For himself.

It all truly goes to shit when he asks you to model for him. Nothing special, really, he assures you, because you look horribly nervous when he brings it up. He tells you he couldn’t imagine photographing anyone else for his next project, and while he can tell that you think he’s just buttering you up he’s never meant any words more in his life. 

And so he dooms himself. He spends hours just staring at your face, your body, directing you; driving you to locations, editing the photos down to the minutest detail until he’s sure he could trace your face in his dreams if he had them. Instead, he stays up all night painting you again, and again, and again, driven mad by his own muse and the desire to expel it before it becomes dangerous.

You don’t know what he is, but he does, and the ache he has at the thought of telling you outweighs the ache at the thought of losing you, although they’ve been inching nearer equality every day. His foolish project doesn’t quell his urge to see you, merely heightens it, until he’s spending nearly every free moment he has trying to communicate with you, or looking at your photos or likenesses in his studio. 

It makes him wonder, of course, what his point is with all this. Even if he loves you, he can’t have you. He knows it better than anyone ever can or ever will, because he certainly has no intentions of forcing you into immortality at his side. Some people may think it’s worth it — given the option even you might, but it isn’t a subject he’s willing to broach or a risk he’s willing to take, no matter how precious you’re becoming to him.

So he comes to a conclusion which may seem heartless and unorthodox to most, but being a vampire he determines it’s pretty much on-brand.

The exhibition is as much of a success as Minghao hoped it would be, even though he isn’t technically involved. There’s a private level above the gallery which Minghao requested be kept dark, and so he slinks around like the creature of the night he is, watching as the crowds gaze at all the photos of you he’d spent hours taking and editing and arranging. He stands in the corner, watching the door, waiting—

You appear, looking more beautiful than ever. As you look around the room, Minghao can’t help but smile at the adorable mix of bashful and proud that you present in your body language, a blush rising on your cheeks and a grin tugging at your lips. He can tell you’re looking for him as your eyes sweep uncertainly over the crowd. He wants nothing more than to go down and sweep you off your feet, show you off to everyone in the room especially with how dazzling you look. It hurts him to wonder if you dressed up just for him, and he shoots down the thought as you begin to move towards the center of the room where the one piece of text has been put up in simple, unassuming text:

you make me look at the moon and pray that you’ll look at me

One benefit of being a vampire is superhuman sight. Every nuance of your expression is as clear to him from here as if he were standing in front of you. He watches as you look around for him once more, somewhat more frantically this time. Minghao feels a pit forming in his stomach as he watches you.

“Minghao,” Jun calls softly, emerging from the darkness behind Minghao. He doesn’t turn until Jun’s hand comes to land on his shoulder, at which point the other vampire gives him a concerned look. 

“Are you sure about this?” Minghao notices how the shadows cling to his friend’s face as he asks that question, and he can’t help but feel that old bitterness rising up in him at the sight. Who was he to tether you to him? What could he offer you but a cold, empty space where a heart once resided and a constant need to run? Minghao casts one last look at you, catching you gazing in awe at the largest photograph of yourself in the gallery, the one that inspired his poem, of you standing on the fire escape of his studio and gazing up at the full moon. Your skin is washed silver, almost white, your eyes catching the light like twin stars. A bitter laugh creeps up his throat.

“Yes,” he replies, turning away from the gallery scene. “There’s no other way.” With that, Minghao steps into the inky darkness and disappears down the backstairs, leaving Jun to watch you, melancholy, for a moment before he follows his clan-mate. 

Faking one’s death is very strange, and Minghao has learned that it does not get less strange with time or practice. If anything, it gets stranger as the lives pile up and one finds they can’t help but run parallel in each one. So many things remain the same: looks, interests, hobbies, clans.

And then so much must be left behind.

Seungcheol raps gently on the edge of Minghao’s doorframe. The Chinese vampire doesn’t grant him permission to enter, doesn’t need to, simply continues gazing out the window and gently swirling the wine in his glass as he’s been doing for the past hour. 

“Are you all packed, Minghao?” His clan leader asks, and Minghao simply murmurs in the affirmative. 

“Finish that up then. We need to get going soon.” With that, Seungcheol slips away down the hall, likely to get the rest of the clan together. Minghao looks at the wine remaining in his glass and downs it all in one gulp, wincing slightly at the bitter burn at the back of his throat. He stands from his chair, nudges his rolling suitcase so it bumps against the doorframe. A cluster of clouds block out the moon, and Minghao draws the curtains shut, walking across his room to join his luggage in the hallway. He turns back to look at his room one last time, and smiles half-wistful and half-bitter at the one object remaining, gently catching the dim light from the hall.

In his next life, he’s decided, he won’t have any need for photography. He closes the door, and disappears.

[sonofsallyjackson]

A World Not Quite Her Own (pt 1/3) - The Estelle Fic

So here it is, my first foray into the Percy Jackson fandom despite being obsessed with the books when I was in elementary/middle school.  This started as my take on Estelle’s childhood, but morphed into something more with a Percabeth wedding scene in chapter 2.  AO3 Link Here.

Estelle Blofis had never lived in a world without monsters.  Many people in this world would have been driven mad by this knowledge. But for Estelle, it was a simple fact of the universe like humans need air to survive, or blue chocolate chip cookies are the best dessert.  Maybe knowing about monsters should have made her scared, but all it did was show her the heroes who would always come in and save the day.

Many of those heroes made the best babysitters.  

Sally always let out a sigh of relief when Grover was in town.  The Lord of the Wild didn’t even grumble good-naturedly as he took on his excitable charge for the day.  Grover didn’t need the promise of Sally’s seven-layer bean dip or the collection of recycling curated for maximum crunch to make it through their outings.  He had always wanted to teach humans to appreciate the wild, treasure it, and protect it.  Grover might not be able to teach all humans, but he certainly could teach Estelle.   They sat in an isolated corner of Central Park together, occasionally bothered by druids, but mostly it was just the two of them.  They would sit directly in the grass, Estelle’s orange tutu and rainboots regardless of the weather stretched out next to hairy legs that Grover mostly didn’t bother to cover anymore.  While Estelle likely fidgeted just as much as she listened (spinning breaks were deemed a necessity after a single outing), she did listen to him.  Grover was the best at answering questions and like any small child, Estelle had a lot of questions.  So as she grew,  Estelle sang hi to the individual trees on walks with her parents and proclaimed solemnly in pre-school that “Pan was dead”  (a reference that thankfully her teacher didn’t understand but had resulted in a headache-inducing conversation for Paul).   

In comparison, babysitting with Rachel was essentially one long arts and crafts session.  Finger paintings completely covered the fridge by the time Estelle was three.  They’d repainted the mural on Estelle’s bedroom wall about four times by the time she was ten, with each rendition more fantastical than the last.  Occasionally Sally regretted the afternoons spent writing with Rachel over once she discovered the paint covered mess that once had been her daughter, but overall with the sound of laughter echoing through the house (and only one minor prophecy), she supposed things could be a lot worse.  

On days where snow piled up outside their window, but Estelle adamantly refused to wear anything but a swimsuit and a feather boa,  Paul frantically phoned Piper.   She was at the top of a very short list of people who could make Estelle dress appropriately for the weather.  No one was sure if it was a form of diluted charmspeak or just Piper’s knack for finding outfits that technically could be worn in public but still fit the (unfashionable) vibe Estelle was going for.  

Tyson was never allowed to babysit Estelle by himself, but he made up for his clumsiness and general lack of knowledge of human safety measures with an excess of enthusiasm.  He took to having a baby sister so well that no one really bothered to explain that technically the two of them weren’t related.  Still Tyson’s one eye seemed just as normal to Estelle as his hugs or extremely calloused hands.  

Nico really wasn’t her babysitter.  He would stop by the apartment looking for Percy or Sally, but would end up staying because Estelle had him wrapped around her finger.  The first time they’d met Nico had come over with bad news regarding Apollo’s quest.  Estelle couldn’t actually remember what had happened since she was so young, but Sally liked telling the story, complete with pictures, so Estelle knew it by heart anyway.  Percy hadn’t been home yet and since he was with mortals working on a group project, Iris messages would have been a no-go even if the cosmos weren’t trying to prevent demi-god communication.  So Nico had sat on the couch in the living room occasionally pestered by Sally’s “Are you sure I can’t get you anything to eat?” and “You look tired, sweetheart.  You have time for a nap if you want one.”  

In the end, Nico hadn’t gotten that nap because he’d been greeted by tiny hands pulling themselves upright on the couch cushion next to him.  Estelle’s face had been alight with mischief that Nico would have previously sworn was only possible from a child of Hermes.  Her black curls swung wildly around her as she wiggled her way onto the couch and into Nico’s lap.  Estelle made herself comfortable while Nico looked ready to throw up.  At fourteen, he’d fought in two different wars, but one crawling 10-month-old seemed to be enough to break him.  As Estelle grew older, her little chants of “Nico! Nico! Nico!” had so much power over the boy who wanted a family more than anything else in the world.

Annabeth was one of her most frequent babysitters.  She practically lived at their apartment when she wasn’t at school, or helping her cousins or the camp.   She did keep Percy from giving into Estelle’s every whim which wasn’t ideal, but Estelle could deal with eating a full plate of vegetables if it meant hanging out with Annabeth.  Unfortunately,  Annabeth did not share Estelle’s undying love for all things Little Mermaid and often muttered “Seaweed Brain, I don’t know how but this is your fault.  If I have to hear Under the Sea one more time, I’ll-“ under her breath whenever just watching Disney movies was suggested.  So spending time with Annabeth often meant playing with Legos, creating a disjointed collection of buildings. Mini replicas of New York landmarks would be dwarfed by uneven towers because Estelle cared more about height than stability, aesthetics or really any other architectural principle.  When Annabeth entered school, she was less inclined to spend any bit of free time still thinking about architecture.  So she gave Estelle a little potholder loom and taught her the basics of weaving.  Sally had ended up with more neon-colored monstrosities than she knew what to do with, but the girls could spend hours in relative quiet, so it seemed a small price to pay.  

And then there was Percy, the biggest hero in Estelle’s eyes.  Her love wasn’t like the hero-worship of new demigods, who idolized him for defeating the Titans, surviving Tartarus, or going on countless quests.  Estelle believed more than anything else in the world that her brother would be there to catch her whenever she fell and there was no monster he couldn’t beat.  

Even before she could walk, Estelle had seen her brother’s powers.  Some things were easy to miss, like the way Percy could wash the dishes without getting wet at all, but others stood out to her. The waves at Montauk had calmed so he could teach her how to swim but were quick to come back to life if anyone stared too openly at Annabeth or his mom.   While Annabeth built elaborate sandcastles, Percy added fantastical moats and laughed as Estelle roared like a minotaur to tear it down.   He could hold his breath forever, which seemed awfully unfair the first time Estelle had tried to swim underwater and ended up with a mouthful of saltwater.  Percy was always willing to translate for the fish at the aquarium, although Estelle was pretty sure he did the funny voices for her benefit.  When Percy had landed Blackjack on their apartment’s roof after being called back to camp for an emergency, he had translated for his old friend too. Estelle loved those translations the most, even if they weren’t entirely accurate.  

“Seriously, Blackjack, can you cool the language around my little sister?”  

By age five, her older brother had bought wooden swords for the two of them to practice in the living room.  Percy kept the moves simple, demonstrating before lightly wrapping his fingers around her tiny wrists and guiding her through the movements.  Estelle would copy them intently with her nose scrunched up and her tongue stuck slightly to the side in concentration.   They focused primarily on defensive strategies, but still had practice fights where Percy pretended to die dramatically.  

“I don’t think this is a good idea Percy,” Sally had said after they broke their second lamp.

“Mom she can see them. And as long as I’m around Stella will always be a target.”  

There was an unspoken promise in his words.  I’m always going to be here Mom.  I’m still alive, but I can’t lose anyone else, especially not my baby sister.  

Estelle hugged her mother’s leg tightly, looking up with pleading eyes.   “Please Mom I’ll be careful.”    

Eventually, Paul signed Estelle up for fencing lessons because there had to be a better way to teach her to fight that didn’t involve the two of them wrecking the living room every time Percy visited.  And if the way, allowed Paul to share his old fencing passion with his daughter, all the better.  The living room still ended up with the furniture pushed to the side on a regular basis though because Estelle needed to demonstrate everything she’d learned for her big brother.  

When Tyson had come to her sixth birthday party, his present had been a small bronze sword that transformed into a charm bracelet so Estelle could always be prepared.  He’d look so proud and Estelle kept touching it reverently, but Sally had not been amused.  She had wanted her daughter to grow up safe from this madness, even if she knew that wasn’t entirely a possibility.   It was bad enough to have one child constantly in mortal peril and disappearing on dangerous quests.  

“It can’t even hurt her; it’s celestial bronze.  The first time I met Rachel I ran her through with Riptide and she’s still fine.”  

Rachel flicked her red curls over her shoulder.  “Worried for your sanity, but physically fine.”  

Neither of them was as reassuring as they thought, but Estelle did get to keep the sword for emergency use only.  This was after all a world full of monsters as well as heroes.

[secretradiobrooklyn]

Get In Moses Edition | 2.13.21

Secret Radio | 2.13.21 | Hear it here.

art by Paige, liner notes mostly by Evan, *means Paige

1. Chantal Goya - “Tu m’as trop menti”

From the movie “Masculin feminin,” a DVD we borrowed from Tim. This is the film where Godard was whispering the lines into a headset of the actor, so they were learning their lines literally as they were saying them. This is the opening song. Not particularly Valentine’s Day, in that it’s about lying too much… but still there’s a dissatisfaction that is undeniably a part of French romance.

2. Human League - “(Keep Feeling) Fascination”

Such a square song! But the keys hook is so immortally beautiful, with its crucial warble. The rest of the song is sweetly and innocently ‘80s. It reminds me of being in art class in high school, fully participating in the aesthetic crimes of the era. 

3. Marijata - “Break Through” - “Afro-Beat Airways”

Analog Africa is just now releasing a repress of this long sold-out collection. I’d listened to it before, but I guess that was before I knew about Marijata (thanks again, Jeffrey!) because it was a shock to discover a track by one of our very favorite Ghanaian discoveries. So far as I knew, Marijata only released one album of four songs — which is fantastic — and then eventually started backing a guy named Pat Thomas. Those records, unfortunately, are nowhere near as vital and fascinating as their own record. So finding this song was a welcome revelation! I should also say that, no surprise, the whole collection is a banger from front to back, and will definitely show up again on the show.

4. Philippe Katerine (avec Gérard Depardieu) - “Blond”

This strange guy is a kind of joker songwriter in French pop, as far as I can tell. This song is all about what one can get away with if one is blond. He’s a really fascinating character, a tiny bit like Beck maybe, in the sense that he seems to have made a successful career of taking unexpected directions. He’s also an actor, working with Claire Denis (!), Jonathan Demme and Gille Lellouche among many others. He was also in “Gainsbourg - A Heroic Life,” which is an excellent movie that we highly recommend. (We had no idea who he was when we saw it at the St. Louis Film Festival.) Also, he appears to be married to Gérard Depardieu’s daughter, which would seem to explain this particular guest star.

- The Texas Room - “Cielito Lindo” 

Several years ago, a producer in St. Louis put together the amazing album known as “The Texas Room,” which brought together immigrants from all over the world who currently lived in St. Louis. That meant Bosnians, Cameroonians, Mexicans, and native-born Americans… including Andy Garces, a fellow Paige went to high school with — His mom was Paige’s voice teacher as a matter of fact — who recorded this strange and excellent version of “Cielito Lindo.” The release party for the album was one of the greatest nights we spent in that or any city, dancing our faces off to all kinds of music. At one point the Bosnians got so excited they took over the room, shouting along and hoisting up their guy in the air. Basil Kincaid did the art for the album, and I think that’s the night we finally met. We have one of his collages on our studio wall right now — right over there!

5. The Modern Lovers - “I’m Straight” *

When we got the current SK van (circa 2015) we were super excited because we could finally bring out other musicians on the road and we could also have folks from other bands that we were out with jump in the van with us for a stretch. That February we were on tour with Jamaican Queens, and our friend Andy Kahn came out with us to play guitar. Not only is Andy a rad musician and great guy to be around, but he was an excellent road DJ. Somehow I made it to 30 without getting into The Modern Lovers (I know, crazy!) Andy has great taste and had a well appointed iPod so he was the official van DJ pretty much right away. He put on this record one day and I just lost it. The thing is, after that I was like “Play ‘Roadrunner’ again!” all the time. When I hear this record I still think of that tour. Andy in the back seat DJing, Ben and Erik jumping in the van to come with to Baltimore, graduating to “truck” in the Holland Tunnel queue, so much snow, host Bentley, “Go cats?”, Aaaaaahhhhh!

6. Frances Carroll & the Coquettes - “Coquette / When I Swing My Stick / Jitterbug Stomp”

I think we learned about this band last year, when Coquettes drummer Viola Smith died at 107 years old (in Costa Mesa, not Silverlake, Paige would like you to know — her bad). The video link below is highly recommended — the whole band swings hard, and the interaction between them and Frances Carroll is well worth the watch. They were considered a curiosity at the time, being an all-female band, and man they could play. Viola Smith in particular had an insanely long career, playing from the 1920s straight through into 2019! She played with Ella Fitzgerald and Chick Webb, and in the original Broadway production of “Cabaret.” Her particular innovation was having two toms at shoulder height, on either side of her head, which she would roll and ricochet shots off. Very cool style, never copied.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFDD_NxtKZ4

7. Pierre Sandwidi - “Boy Cuisinier”

Born Bad Records is one of the world’s coolest record labels, with a huge array of vintage discoveries as well as African albums as well as contemporary pop and noise bands. “Boy Cuisinier” is off Pierre Sandwidi’s album with them. It bears some definite relation to Francis Bebey but takes its own turns just as often. Sandwidi hails from Burkina Faso, known as the Upper Volta when he was growing up. We’re just now learning about him and his scene — I confess I didn’t even know Upper Volta was African; I thought it was Slavic — so I wouldn’t be surprised if some more Voltaic music shows up here soon.

8. Evan Sult avec Tracy Brubeck  - “The Cats Won’t Stay In”

Paige’s mom Tracy called while we were in the middle of the show, and they paused to have a conversation about, you know, whatever — the snowstorms, the neighbors, the news. She was on speakerphone so that we could all talk, and eventually I just started taking notes as fast as I could. This is the result. I find it fascinating. That’s Paige singing lead on the Marty Robbins tune.

9.  Kil Monnower Alimunna, Grup Hindustanbul - “Tadap Tadap” 

Years ago I saw the movie “Monsoon Wedding” by the director Mira Nair. It really stuck with me, particularly the gorgeous opening credits in maroon and orange and sky blue. I was trying to tell Paige about that sequence, so just in case we could catch a glimpse of those colors, we watched the trailer. This song is the soundtrack to the trailer. It’s really an amazing track — so Indian, of course, but with definite Western points of contact, like when it goes to the major chords unexpectedly in the post-chorus, which sounds practically American. And the final outro minute or so is full of delayed, reverbed vocals in a psychedelic style, til it reaches the strange and intoxicating sound that he makes with his voice as the song fades into the distance.

- Martial Solal “New York Herald Tribune” - “A bout de souffle” soundtrack 

10. Gillian Hills - “Tut Tut Tut Tut” 

Gillian Hills, probably more famous for “Zou Bisou Bisou.” This track is great, listen for those syrupy slides and harmonies. I just learned that she is English, and the music video for this song is definitely shot in Angleterre. Full of famous red phone booths (now famous little free libraries.) When we were doing this week’s show I asked Evan “Is this song too obvious?” He said no, it wasn’t too obvious. If you know why I’m asking, then you know. So is it? 

11. Jacques Dutronc “La Compapade”

We’ve been into Jacques Dutronc for many years now, because he’s a brilliant French songwriter and composer. But this one track has been a baffler for many years now. It shows up out of nowhere and sounds like… what? What the hell IS that? Is it African? It sounds African, but — is it? Is it just some strange lark on his part? Paige was apprehensive about playing it on the show, even though we both really enjoy it, because we couldn’t tell if it was somehow demeaning to someone. But eventually I argued that we don’t know what the hell most of the singers are saying in the songs we play, or which cultural taboos they’re transgressing, and the same is true in this case. If it is somehow offensive to anyone, I hope it’s clear that wasn’t our intention. But… I don’t know. I don’t think it is. I think it just comes from a cultural heritage and context that is French in a way Americans cannot understand or appreciate. In any case, it’s an amazing performance and recording!

12. K. Frimpong & His Cubanos Fiestas - Me Da A Ɔnnda”

Research into African rock and styles eventually brought us to K. Frimpong and His Cubanos Fiestas, which has turned out to be a satisfying step into the Ghanaian highlife/Cuban scene. I love the keyboard hooks in this one and the way the patterns just roll on and on with each other like a river, in no hurry but pulled forward by their own currents. He was also a visual artist — his art appeared on the cover of last episode’s Nyame Bekyere album. This was also the first time I’ve encountered the character “Ɔ” in the wild. I have zero idea how it is pronounced.

13. They Might Be Giants - “Birdhouse In Your Soul” 

“Not to put too fine a point on it / Say I’m the only bee on your bonnet / Make a little birdhouse in your soul.” I remember when I first realized that was a feeling I was feeling — hoping to build a birdhouse in the soul of another, to be inside one another in a little protected place. The rest of the song is a nerd-rock dream palace I love as much as any other nerd, but the chorus is where I discovered an emotion I hadn’t suspected was there when I first heard and fell for this song and this band in high school (thanks, Jeremy Peterson!). 

Paige adds: This song is blowing my mind. I don’t like writing lyrics, my ratio of melodies and harmonies to lyrics way out of whack. Evan brought this song back into our lives this week when Sleepy Kitty was asked what our favorite love songs are on a real radio show. We’ve been listening to it a bunch since Thursday and damn, these lyrics are good. It’s really reminding me that you can write about ANY.THING. Blue Canary in the freakin’ outlet by the light switch. Looking at the lighthouse picture. It’s a clinic. I learned something, and I can go home. 

On the original topic, I love thinking of this as a love song. If you hear a love song, it’s a love song. It’s a love song.

14. Sleepy Kitty - “Tu veux ou tu veux pas” *

I took two years of French in high school and missed out junior and senior year because of a scheduling lulu that made 3rd and 4th year French conflict with advanced painting which was the primary reason I was taking French in the first place. I’m still not over it. Years later, I’m at Electropolis (in my memory) and I hear this Brigitte Bardot song on Tim’s excellent sound system and I can understand…most?…some…of it! I fell in love with this song and with French again and started stumbling, scrabbling at it again. We started working up this cover. Thank you Suzie Gilb for helping with the pronunciation. We did a 7” of this song and it’s a rare SK track with me playing trombone on it. 

15. The Velvet Underground - “I Love You” *

I don’t really have much to say about this track except that it reminds me of flying to Germany because I got the 5 Disc set with all the extras on it a few days before leaving for a high school foreign exchange program. I was so happy to have those discs to absorb on the long flight, and come to think of it, it really inflected the whole trip.

16. Secret Song - “African Scream Contest”

The genesis of our love for African rock/funk/whatever (if for a moment we don’t count the profoundly influential “Graceland”) is the immortal collection “Legends of Benin,” put out by Analog Africa. As soon as we dug further for our favorites from that collection, we found “African Scream Contest” vols 1 and 2. I was drawn to the second one because it had a killer track by our hero Antoine Dougbé, but eventually spent as much time with the first volume. Both are absolutely fantastic. Part of what I love so much about them is learning how much of an impact James Brown and his band had on African music, which is super apparent throughout these collections and especially this track. The drums and the grunts and the hard stops and the horn blasts — it’s all there. 

One of the finest elements of these records is the hidden track at the end, tucked five or so minutes back from the last song. These are often some of the hottest tracks on the album, well worth the wait, and this mystery song is no exception. Unfortunately, though, that means we don’t know who made this track or what it’s called. Oh well — that only makes it cooler!

- Adrian from Brooklyn

17. The Beatles - “Dizzy Miss Lizzy”

We watched “The Beatles: Eight Days a Week” recently (totally worth a watch), and we were struck all over again by how insane their lives must have been at that time. Yes fame, yes sudden fortune, yes global supremacy, yes yes yes — the thing that I can’t get over is the shrieking, and how it wasn’t just present at their shows, it was EVERYWHERE THEY WENT, AT ALL TIMES ON ALL DAYS, EVERY SECOND THEY WERE OUTSIDE. How completely unsettling that must have been, to be the center of that howl, day after day, year after year. 

18. The Fall - “Sing! Harpy”

Dedicated to Adrian from Brooklyn and all those young women and men losing their minds over the Beatles so completely that all they could do was shriek, even at shows where the crowd’s sound completely obliterated the sound of the band they so desperately loved and came to hear. 

(This is also some of my favorite violin playing in any rock music, right up there with “Boys Keep Swinging” and The Ex’s “State of Shock.” I would LOVE to work with a violinist in this mode.)

19. T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo - “Gnon a Gnon Wa”

So intense! That constant chord strike throughout the song is a kind of high-note drone that we find ourselves drawn to. It kind of reminds me of the sound of a casino, where you walk in and all of the machines are chiming the same note, promising to just take your mind away and keep it safe until you need it again.

- Tommy Guerrero - “El Camino Negro” - “Road to Nowhere”

20. Black Dragons de Porto Novo - “Se Djro” What a slinky number! I love how spare the instrumentation is, but how much power is contained in that one guitar part. This is side A of a 7” put out on Albarika Store, the label that T.P. Orchestre called home for many albums. 

21. Helen Nkume and Her Young Timers - “Time” This is (so far) the closest we’ve gotten to reggae on WBFF. I know nothing about the band or the music other than their fantastic name and sound — oh, and the fact that she is known elsewhere as Prophetess Helen Nkume. She appears to be Nigerian, or anyway her record label is. I love the guitar hook on this song, it just sneaks in and steals the show.

22. Anne Sylvestre - “Les Gens Qui Doutent”

23. Parvati Khan - “Jimmi Jimmi Jimmi Aaja Aaja Aaja Re Mere” A lucky find! Someone in one of my Facebook groups posted a video from this album, so I took note and returned later to check it out. This is from an Indian movie called “I’m a Disco Dancer” that looks like a real kooky thrill. The actors appear to have only the vaguest sense of what “disco” might be — or what a guitar might be, for that matter. It kind of looks like someone saw a single photo of a disco night and extrapolated a whole movie from it. Nonetheless, Parvati Khan is entrancing in the song and in the video, and we HAVE to see this movie, with or without subtitles. The smoldering look alone really requires investigation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUdJQSUcK_Y

24. Nancy Sit - “Love Potion #9” * One thing I’ve always known about Evan is that he doesn’t like the song  “Love Potion #9.” When we stumbled across this, I thought it was awesome but I didn’t want to make Evan listen to a song he doesn’t like on Valentine’s Day! Evan says this song has little to do with “Love Potion #9” which makes me wonder, Evan, what’s the part you don’t like about “Love Potion #9”?

Evan adds: I honestly can’t remember what my issue with this song was. I swear, it was like… it was around the time of “Melt With You,” which I also found inexplicably irritating (and still do). I suspect now that there was an inept cover version that first steered me wrong… but luckily there’s a strange Chinese version to steer me right again! Oh life.

- Michel Legrand - “Solange’s Song (Instrumental)” - “The Young Ladies of Rocheforte”

25. The Velvet Underground - “I’ll Be Your Mirror” * This is the song that I said was the best love song of the western world on the real radio. I think it’s so beautiful and so adult. I don’t even know if I would have thought of this as love song a few years ago. When first got into the V.U. I thought it was a pretty song – a neat song, but I didn’t really know what it meant, what it could mean. What’s funny is when I think of this song, I have a Lou Reed version in my head – his voice, the harmonies. When I revisited the Max’s Kansas City live version (which as far as I know is the only one besides other more recent live versions and surely what I’m thinking of?) I realized that the version in my head is essentially that one but cleaned up, remastered, different EQ, and as far as I know entirely imagined.

Evan adds: (Paige has been playing this song recently around the apartment. I don’t even have to tell you how lovely it is.)

*p.s. If you want to hear the piece about musicians talking about favorite love songs on KWMU it’s here: https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2021-02-11/listen-love-songs-to-keep-you-warm-on-cold-winter-nights

Super fun getting to talk about this stuff and in such good company!

[lavendertwilight89]

Can we get a taste of what you are working on now? I love all your one-shots and am dying for updates!! Hope you have a happy holiday season!

Hahahahahaa...ha...ha... Uhm well I actually can’t share what I currently working on since it’s Secret Santa. 

But!!!! I can share an expert from the next part in Far Away? Or Into You? Both??? THERE! BOTH!  Warning these have been no way shape of form editted

Far Away Part 3 (the hyperlink will take you to Far Away Part 1 and 2 in AO3)

...she wanted to. She was just--nervous. Anxious. When wasn’t she? Sure, while he had been courting her they had made out. Hard. Things had brushed together. Parts had been caressed but… Nothing had been seen. Fully. Felt, sure. But not--exposed.

They hadn’t actually seen each other naked in over three years. And Gods, did she want to see him. Just from their heated encounters she felt how he had filled out. His back and shoulders were broader. He had grown at least a couple inches in height. His arms and abs were likely chiseled by the Gods and did she want to run her hands across the plains of his chest. 

But, she bit her lip in anxiety--what would he think of her? She wasn’t as thin and gangly. Her body had definitely matured of the years she had been away. Her hips had widened, her breasts were fuller, and her stomach wasn’t as taut as it once was when they had run around the plains of musashi.

Not saying she was fat--by Gods no! But she wasn’t… She didn’t possess the body Kikyo once had. There wasn’t much to compare them anymore aside from their face. Compared to Kikyo, she was short and well… more womanly? Did that make sense? 

Kagome had a more modern body. One that stuck out greatly in this time period. But--would Inuyasha like it?

“Kagome??”

“Huh?? What??”

“Are you alright? You were spacing out on me--I asked you a question.”

“Uh… I’m sorry. I’m just--”

“Nervous, I can tell. Your scent is dripping with worry. What’s got you all hot and bothered?”

“I uh--I--”

“Hey,” he said, turning to her. Luckily the villagers were too busy to notice the high form of intimacy between them as he took her hands within his and rubbed up and down her arms. “We don’t have to rush anything. I know we talked about this, and I know you agreed to marry me and be with me--to be my mate. And I get you were serious. I’m not tryin’ to downplay it or talk you out of it--but we have time. Just because this is our human marriage night, we don’t gotta… you know. We can wait. ‘Cause I know we will have all the time in the world.”

She blushed at the thought and couldn’t stop her thoughts from trailing back down to that delicious--

“Kagome,” he whined and snuck his head into her covered shoulder. He turned his head and exhaled onto her neck making her tremble with want and need, “You gotta stop smelling like that if you wanna wait or I’m not gonna be able to sleep in the same damn hut tonight.”

“S-sorry. It--It’s not that I don’t want to.”

“Obviously,” he sighed gruffly. She slightly turned and the villagers were still either too drunk or distracted to notice. Relaxing she nuzzled her head upon his. “What’s wrong then?”

And then Into You Part 2 (again, the hyperlink will send you into AO3 for part 1!)

After a couple of weeks of endless dates, long drawn out evenings, including overnight sleepovers, Inuyasha was finally feeling alright. Honestly, he’d never really felt ‘okay’ in his life. He always waited for the next thing to go wrong, but with Kagome… nothing had. He continually waited for the ball to drop. For him to say something completely insensitive, for her to show any form of disgust, for her to grow tired of him, for her to… leave… and she always proved him wrong.

She always begged for their date nights not to end. Whether that meant a movie in his room to where she'd fall asleep cradled in his arms so he couldn’t take her home, or convincing him to make out on the way home, which ended up just encouraging him to fly them back to his apartment where they could explore each other further.

She was… perfect. He didn't have much to compare to but even her hand out did Kikyo’s most intimate parts. She was so gentle when she first took him in her hand one night they had stayed at her place. Her roommate Ayame had gone over to her boyfriend's place and they opted to give Miroku and Sango the apartment. After some heated kissing, he had been distracted and her hand had somehow not only undid his pants, but made its way into his boxers. Her hands were soft, her mouth brushing against his literally made him tune out everything else in the world. She was a dangerous creature.

A mythical beauty he had every intention of keeping. 

Once her cool hand had made contact he couldn’t even stop her. Her hot breath on his neck sent him into a frenzy and how kind and caring she was asking if it was too hard--what she could do to make it better for him--fuck. 

Tag Wall:

@kagometaishostory  @dangerouspompadour @willowandfog @cstormsinukagblog @littlestuffstohide @clearwillow @ruddcatha @hnn-wnchstr @smmahamazing @wolverine1092 @inuyashaloverforever @xfangheartx @umacaking @bluejay785  @murdergiraffe @superpixie42 @shnuggletea @sistasecbhere @nopenname22 @mcornilliac @sapphirestarxx @fawn-eyed-girl @liz8080   @neutronstarchild @arcprz @kaze-ranna @alerialblu @nsr0716 @sailorbabydoll92 @sailorlolo @swaggingtomboy @mamabearcat @itzatakahashi @zelink-inukag @shinidamachu @i-dream-of-soup @eringobroke @holi-holy @heathersmusings @morganashimi83 @malditamigs @mandirox89 @danycontreras90 @preciouslyours @cstorm86 @irrationalandimpossible @digital-art-monster @lady-dark-69 @anxietyaardvark @omgitscharlie @karina-inuphantom @kalsies  @hopidoodle @itshaysbaby @bluehawaiicat @11volleyballcaro @ladyphoenix0711 @deactivated2431545484 @blairex @nartista