#and it was good to revisit it again

[crispyjenkins]

FINALLY got you on my dash again, only to discover you've written an AC fic that you are giving us dribs and drabs of, heathen *shakes prison cell bars* please tell me more about "Miles" before I combust

HI UR MY NEW FAVORITE (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4)

  “Your name is not Miles.”

  Desmond tenses for a barely a moment before relaxing again, and doesn’t bother to look up from the hidden blade he’s tweaking to have a faster release. Even if he didn’t recognise the voice, the dark blur leaning against the doorjamb out of the corner of his eye would tell Desmond sure as anything who had come to haunt the armoury at his side. “Of course it isn’t,” Desmond eventually mutters to Francesco Vecellio, the only one of Ezio’s brotherhood to wear dark gray instead of white.

  Francesco snorts, eyeing Desmond from under the beak of his hood, Desmond’s own pushed down around his shoulders to better see by lantern-light. “You should have thought to pick a more common name if you did not want others to question it.”

  “ ’Should have thought to pick anything before I showed up.” He grinds his chisel a little deeper into the metal casing of his blade, and then nearly cuts himself slipping on it when Francesco gives a startled laugh.

  “You didn’t have one prepared?”

  Desmond blinks up at Ezio’s highest-ranked protégé, not sure if he should feel embarrassed or not. “I, uh. Didn’t think that far ahead?”

  And for someone who had managed nine years evading Templars and Assassins both, you’d think he’d have known better.

  The look Francesco gives him tells Desmond he feels the same. “You’re smarter than that, fratellino.”

  Desmond scowls. “Well, obviously I’m not.”

  “... You snuck into the main headquarters of the Italian Brotherhood in less than an hour and then fooled us all into thinking you were supposed to be here for nearly a week — Machiavelli isn’t sure even our Padrone could have managed that.”

  Swallowing uncomfortably, Desmond scoffs and tries to return to his hidden blade, but that still leaves his entire profile in view of Francesco’s far-too-discerning gaze. And he’s the only one other than Desmond to have been training for this since childhood: his observation skills are beaten only by Ezio, and even that is mostly thanks to his Eagle Vision.

  Actually, Francesco is a born Assassin, too, does he have EV?

  “Miles–”

  “Do you have the Sight?”

  They blink at each other, and Desmond isn’t sure who is more surprised by the interruption. Snarky he may be, Desmond has also had politeness beaten into him, and deference besides, and everyone in the Brotherhood had clocked it.

  “To an extent,” Francesco eventually admits, sounding puzzled, “Nothing so refined as il Padrone’s.” He looks away, crossing his arms over his chest. “It is... finicky, I can only use it while motionless, and it really only tells me if someone means me harm.”

  Desmond bites back the offer to help train his EV into something far more useful — it would never reach the level of Altaïr’s, or Ezio’s, or Ratonhnhaké:ton’s, because that had more than a little to do with Isu fuckery. However, the Levantine Assassins (at least until Altaïr’s death, though it was Al Mualim who started the practice) were able to train most initiates to have at least some grasp of the technique, as long as they had that genetics-dictated spark to start with. Desmond was lucky enough for his time in the Animus to awaken his own Vision, and living as Ezio slowly mastering it into Eagle Sense had improved it in leaps and bounds for Desmond on the outside, and prepared him for experiencing Ratonhnhaké:ton’s advanced form of it. Though that, and Eagle Sense, never actually awakened in Desmond Miles.

  But “Miles” hasn’t told this Brotherhood that he has Altaïr’s Sight, Ezio’s Gift, partly because Desmond forgot they didn’t know, but now it’s also an active decision, because it would without a doubt make them insist he’s Ezio’s son with even more conviction. And until Desmond has figured out what he’s going to tell Ezio about the whole time-travel–thing, he isn’t going to confirm or deny anything the other members cook up.

  Except Desmond watches Francesco tilt his head, and then his eyes burn golden for just a moment. “Why do you ask?”

  He’s smart enough to guess, but he’s also smart enough not to assume, and patiently waits for Desmond’s response.

  Ahh, fuck it, he’s already screwed up this whole identity thing by talking with Claudia (not that he meant to reveal so much to her but, well, she’s Ezio’s baby sister. And [redacted]. Fuck, time travel is so weird).

  He looks up from his carving again to flash his eyes right back, and is more than gratified to see Francesco glow a steady, deep blue. He tends to avoid looking at the Brotherhood with his EV, he’s too much of a coward to confirm just what they actually think of him, and he’s only looked at Ezio once, before they properly met.

  Francesco smiles in the shadow of his hood, seemingly pleased with Desmond trusting him with such a secret. “Does il Padrone know?” he asks without judgement, and Desmond winces as he looks back down at his tinkering.

  “No, I... I became so used to it that I didn’t think to mention it, and then it had been so long that it was... awkward?” He chuckles nervously at admitting such a weakness, especially when he’s pretty sure this is the longest conversation he’s had with Ezio’s star pupil. He has double blades, for Christ’s sake, despite not being a Master Assassin.

  Oh. Is Desmond jealous of Francesco? Hm, something to think about.

  “And then you did not want the others gossiping,” Francesco agrees, nodding like that is the obvious conclusion. Desmond still doesn’t relax, but he’s glad he didn’t have to spell that out for him.

  Desmond scratches the bridge of his nose awkwardly. “I’m not Master Ezio’s son, but I don’t think any of our siblings would believe me if I tried to tell them that.” And hadn’t finding out his real parentage been an absolute trip; he’s still scarred mentally and physically from it. Which reminds him, he should respond to his mother’s last letter before she begins to worry about him taking too long.

  Having a mother to care about him is... still an experience he’s getting used to. It’s only been, what, two years since he found her again?

  She had glowed a blue so dark it was almost black, a colour Desmond hadn’t seen even once in either of his lives, or the lives he’d lived in the Animus. He knows she kisses her letters before sending them from the indigo left behind like lipstick.

  ... Which is also how Desmond found out he had progressed from Eagle Vision to Eagle Sense, which was also the point he realised he hadn’t told Ezio about his EV in the first place.

  “I believe you.”

  It’s said so simply, Francesco even gives a little shrug, but Desmond whips his head back around and is... absolutely floored. As dehumanised and used as he was in the 21st century, his little jaunt to the past has almost been worse, if he lets himself think about it too hard (and he never does). People don’t just... believe in Desmond.  Something must show on his face, because Francesco offers him a tight smile. Then, blessedly, he changes the subject and nods to Desmond’s hands, “What are you working on?”

-

[mangozic]

archivist be upon ye

[xxplastic-cubexx]

yeah the skins neat i guess idk

[cacaocheri]

FRIENDSHIP ANNIVERSARY MAGMA WITH THE LOVELY @spikeplate <33333 we of course had to draw LDR sun and moon (what started our friendship) with our current fixation 🥳

[mangobeast]

welcome home

[azurityarts]

random little doodle

Song is "Sober Up" by AJR

[odeu-m]

tf:one came out and made tf popular again so im outing myself as a ss fan

[ribbononline]

Still trying to finish other things but in the meantime- updated design for my older May! She's an Ace Trainer

[akolnoix]

subject: no hard feelings! :D

[n0sebleeds]

Bleeding again, detective?

[OC: Benny Valentine]

[wave-man]

idk

[equalseleventhirds]

....oh i see.

they've made mb more naive, made things like 'don't take the helmet off' and 'don't wear uniforms' the company's protocol and not mb's own preferences. made it so it just doesn't KNOW it can do people things, and so the niceys anticapitalist humans can come in and on purpose treat it like a person and teach it how to be a person, teach it that it has rights and autonomy and a face, teach it how to think of things in ways that aren't murder.

so, y'know, exactly the human ideas abt constructs that cause it to run away at the end of all systems red, then--

[jovialturtleface]

It's a Jolly sort of day!

[clumsypuppy]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[perhaps-in-anotherdream]

[CN] Li Zeyan’s Upcoming Top-up SP

“The sweetness I desire is at your fingertips.”

“All those summers we have missed have come to see you.”

—

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2025: DARLING by K. Ancrum.

I didn't mean to binge this in a sitting and a half on a Sunday afternoon, but that's heat advisories for you, I guess. Hello, Contemporary Peter Pan Retelling, and WHAT a gorgeous cover you have.

I read somewhere that this is a super faithful adaptation (like. Beat by Beat fidelity with the source material), which seemed like a neat trick given how utterly Contemporary this was versus the magic of the original. Admittedly, I haven't revisited that source material in many years, but I was pleasantly surprised by how many specifics came back to me as I read through Ancrum's adaptation--Peter's shadow became a jacket, the Mermaid's Lagoon became a drag bar (staffed, yeah, by mermaid-themed queens), flying was scaling Chicago trellises, pirates were cops, etc. Tink (beloved) was there, Nana was there, the Crocodile was there, Detective Hook (begrudgingly beloved) was there, and also there was an ace Russian boy and I love ace Russian boys (iykyk).

I thought Ancrum did a good job keeping the classic children's story tone intact despite the (brutal, brilliant, Holy Shit!!) twist. Although it didn't initially send me, the straightforward, clean prose anchored me to the source story, and by the end I was firmly sold on "good stylistic choice." Overall I had fun!! Planning to revisit it with the source text in the other hand sometime, just to see.