#how does indentation work on this website???

[mostlopez-blog]

Finding A New Home

Chapter 1: Operator Error

Chapter Master List

The Runaway was an odd ship to look at. A wide uneven semi-circle, with two enormous mismatched thrusters flanking it on both sides. Glancing closely at the Runaway’s hull, one would find a lumpy mess of metal barely holding itself together. A careful observer would find a wide variety of patch jobs here and there along its surface, an occasional stop sign welded haphazardly over a hole, and wads of duct tape covering exposed wiring. 

Peeling back the scrapy exterior of the ship, one would find a vast array of old and new computer parts, all working in a disjointed harmony. Old CRT screens struggling to keep up with much younger slick towers, over a spider web of yellow tinted cables that ran along the walls and floors. 

The Runaway would look right at home inside a stuffy posh art museum, alongside other abstract metal sculptures that twist into strange shapes. It was as if the engineer had cobbled together random mechanical parts that just so happened to somewhat fit together, into a collage of nonsense. That description was not too far off from the truth.

Of course, when putting together a ship from random salvaged garbage, it's quite difficult to make sure everything works together properly. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise when every alarm started going off at once, and the ship began to rattle.  

With a loud crack the ship jerked downwards, and suddenly the Runaway’s flight path was tumbling end over end. On the outside, one of the reinforced stop signs bent and cracked down the middle, leaving a long nasty gash down the side of the ship. A plume of radioactive coolant billowed out from the wound, and as the ship tumbled it made a strange yet strangely calming spiral pattern amongst the stars.

Inside the ship, every single computer screamed in confusion, as they hurtled wildly into the void of space. The Runaway’s pilot however, paid them no mind. Unlike an organic, whose brain might have seized up from the overload of information, and whose stomach might have gotten sick from the movement, Kickback went right to work fixing her mistake.

This pilot, if it wasn’t obvious before, was not like other “living” pilots. Kickback didn’t have skin, or eyes, or any organs for that matter. Her body was made of a complex plastic ceramic, and was powered by a series of batteries that ran the length of her body. Her entire frame moved with many interlocking pieces that all fitted together into a relatively slim, and aerodynamic shape.  

Kickback clunked her head against the ship’s controls in defeat. The metal panel made a low ring that reverberated through her cylindrical head. Her twin propellers twitched in frustration, as she knew she had no one to blame but herself. She should’ve taken the small victory and went back home. Breaking through the atmosphere was a massive achievement on its own. 

But Kickback had gotten a little too excited. Humans would have called this “putting the cart before the horse”,  or something along those lines. That phrase was, at the very least, about as accurate.  

Kickback wanted to make it into orbit. She had to. It was an incessant itch that bugged her coding ever since take off. She knew she could do it. Or rather, she had believed she could. But now as tendrils of smoke drifted into the cockpit her self belief was running dangerously low. 

By the time Kickback managed to collect herself, the smoke had gathered into a strange ball that rippled like water. The young bot stood and watched the odd patterns warp themselves into, and then out of creation. She spun her propellers once to disperse the smoke, then glared at the only window on the ship. It was an upsettingly small thing, with disgusting orange brown streaks lining the in-between of the two panes. 

Yet just outside, through the rust blotches, twinkled little balls of light. They shimmered like discolored gemstones, shining through the otherwise cloudy soup of space. In fact, glaring at them like this, the stars didn’t seem so far away. For only a brief moment, Kickback tricked herself into believing she could reach out and grab them. The actuators in her hand extended closer. Closer. So very close. Just to hit cold glass. 

“Some day…” Kickback whispered. 

Kickback lazily floated up from her chair, and glided from one end of the ship to the other. She rubbed her hand across the uneven floor, getting stuck in every divot and weld line. The bot wasn’t in a rush. Help wouldn’t be coming for a long time, even if she sent a distress signal in record time. In fact, there was no guarantee that help was coming at all. 

Even from the cockpit Kickback knew what had happened. She couldn’t “smell” not in the organic sense of the word, but the sensors in her head told her the whole ship now reeked of fried plastic and melted circuits. The Runaway’s thrusters had demanded just a little too much power, and the engine couldn’t provide. The resulting electrical surge wreaked havoc on the little ship, and roasted its nerves. What a waste of perfectly good parts. 

They had spent months putting together this scrap heap, digging through trash piles and bargaining with other bots. Repairing it all would be a nightmare, if it could even be repaired at all.

As she opened the door to the engine pod, Kickback considered how much worse the accident could have been. A plume of smoke billowed out into the hallway, but the bot pushed herself right in. She brushed off streaks of fire that licked at her frame, and reached for an extinguisher. Considering how hot the room had grown, Kickback was sure the entire ship could have exploded. It would have killed her in an instant, her metallic body ripped to shreds and tossed into the endless void of space.  

There would have been no recovering her. No, she wasn't a military droid, for better or worse.  

When the extinguisher was empty, Kickback tossed it to the side. By this point, the engine was more bubbling mass of foam than metal. She floated back to the cockpit, and glanced over the flashing board of buttons and screens. In less than a second, Kickback had started a distress signal, and in the next second, she had slumped down into her chair. It was going to be a very long wait for a rescue. 

…

The room was dark, the only light a small crack from a curtain over the far window. Hidden by the shadows, rested a large iron box, folded in on itself to save space. The box was lined with panels and seams, hidden compartments containing a virtual Swiss army knife of tools.

Suddenly a small red light flickered to life in the opposite corner of the room. The box didn't react. The light began incessantly blinking. The box didn’t react. A high pitched wail began to sound in rhythm with the light. That got the box’s attention. A single panel flipped open on the box, and a squat chunky photoreceptor slid out. The box stared at the red light, then slid back inside and slammed the hatch shut.  

Suddenly two tall square shoulders slid outwards from the body, arms unfurling from their protective casing. Two legs weakly pushed out from the body, their internal springs long ago losing their elasticity to time and rust. The metal box just managed to push itself upright, as finally the “head” slid out from another panel. Hank was online once again, despite how little he wanted to be.  

Hank was a distinctly organic machine. He was designed with a basic faceplate that could smile and frown. Hank's photoreceptors were placed to look like two “eyes”, and two metallic “eyebrows” would occasionally shift up and down to simulate emotion. Of course Hank could feel emotions, perhaps not in the same way organics could, but he was just as alive as you or me. And right now, Hank was very annoyed.   

The machine began his long treacherous walk over to his computer. He took wide careful steps over the vast collection of potted plants that littered the floor. Tall stringy ones, petite flowering ones, others with long vines that wrapped in on themselves. A particular favorite of Hanks rested in the far corner, a large rigid green slab with two arms, and covered in tiny spines. 

Hank didn’t know the names of anything in his collection. He knew they were plants, and that they needed water sometimes, but that was it. He couldn’t find any books about them, and none of the other bots in town seemed to know, or care that much. Hank was a mechanic, and he knew machines, but sometimes Hank wished his data banks were not so limited.   

Finally Hank finished his journey, and pushed the growing collection of starship manuals off the keyboard. He glared at the blinking distress signal, calculating the chances this was just a fluke. Of course, it wasn’t, and the probability calculations only proved that.

There wasn’t a flight scheduled for today. In fact, the Runaway was supposed to still be grounded. Kickback had snuck out late the previous night, and decided to take a “short joyride.” Of course, it was anything but short, and though this was just one of literally millions of things going wrong, if Hank was being honest, Kickback’s little stunt absolutely ruined his day. 

The Runaway’s engine was a classic. A type M-32, Zillath industries, with a high powered oxidizer. Sure the battery was old, but if taken care of it could have gotten them far. Hank was certain it had not been taken care of. Hank simulated how nicely the engine could have worked for a few self indulgent seconds longer. Then when he had his fill, and he accepted that none of his simulations were true, he pressed the “accept message” button.  

“Hank! Good to see you,” said the semi-transparent video of Kickback. She was a small bot, barely chest height when standing next to the others. But please understand small for a Meckatronix is actually quite tall for a human, and Kickback would stand a full head above you or I. The single yellow light that was Kickback's face flickered in the way it did, meaning she was nervous. Kickback was also designed to be a more organic machine, like Hank himself. But a nasty crash some time ago had damaged her old head, meaning it had to be replaced by a more generic one.

The small translucent video gave a hesitant nod and a little wave. “Hello? Can you hear me?” Kickback was already quite short, not helped by the fact that only half of her appeared. Hank would have found it funny, his literal pocket sized friend, but that didn’t seem to matter any more.  

“What did you do?” Hank asked. 

“Ok don’t be mad.” Though she did her best to hide them, the propellers on her back twitched.

“What did you do?”

“Ok so, everything was going perfect-”

“Kickback.”

“It waaaasss.”

Hank could feel his servos grow a little hotter. “You broke the Runaway, didn’t you?”

Kickback was quiet. “Yea,” she whispered. “The engine blew up…” 

“You blew up the engine?! Do you know how hard that’ll be to replace?” 

The video didn't respond. 

The hydraulics in Hank’s legs whined as he slowly turned to the far wall. He hobbled over to a star map and frowned. The Runaway was not an exploration ship. At best, it was a proof of concept that the bots could build a ship at all.   

“How far did you get?” Hank asked, after cooling off for a moment.

Kickback glanced at something outside, and didn't look back. “I don’t think I made it to orbit, but I broke the atmosphere. I’m hanging up here with the stars.”

Hank nodded. In all honesty that was a promising start. Rather impressive for their first attempt. Or it would have been, if the runaway had any means of landing without burning into a pile of slag. Perhaps it was best to learn this lesson now, and not so far away where no one could help. “Do you have power left?” Hank asked. Kickback tapped her controls. “Enough to head back on my own terms” she mumbled.  

Hank took out a pen and marked Kickback’s location on the map. He wrote her distance and the words “New personal best” under them. Hank ran several calculations, determining the thruster size needed to reach a more stable orbit. He then added the necessary fuel weight, as well the hardware needed to operate such a ship. 

The new Runaway would need to be much larger. It would need parts that would be much harder to find. Was it possible to build a new Runaway? Yes, of course. Very few things ever had a 0% of happening. But the question of when they could have it built? Hank stopped himself before finishing the calculations. It was better not knowing.

Hank glanced at Kickback’s video. The small bot was fidgeting in the strange way she always did. A function Hank knew wasn’t programmed into her. She had no faceplate, not anymore, but guilt was written all over her.

“Any chance you can land close by?”

Back in space, Kickback studied a map of Fulcrum, taped to the far wall. She knew for sure she could hit the large brown blob of a continent she started on. But from there how accurate she could be was anyone's guess. “I’ve gone too far,” Kickback grumbled. By this point she was moving too fast, and was too far along into her orbit to turn around. It would be best to do a full rotation, and then try to land. “So unless you feel like going cross country, I’ve got some time to kill.”

She stared at the small projection of Hank as he ran even more calculations, perhaps for a bit too long. The old bot looked worse for wear, tired and battered. The majority of his body was covered in rust, his once nice coat of blue paint withered to a dull brown. The baseball cap he wore was to cover up some nasty dents in his head, and a large scratch ran down his torso. Damage from a bad storm last year. 

Hank needed repairs desperately, and was not taking care of himself. And on top of all that, he had this brat messing up his plans. One that had just ruined his favorite project. But despite all that, his rigid faceplate returned to its usual default smile. “Do you know where Saxon Scrap yard is? We’ve never scavenged there before.”

Kickback glanced at the map again, to the small drawing of a house that meant so much to her. She wasn’t certain exactly where the scrapyard was, but at the very least she was confident she could get close. “I think so? I can get to walking distance at worst.” She turned back to Hank. “It’ll take… a couple of hours to get into position. I gotta go around the planet.”

Hank nodded, adding wider margins of errors to his calculations. “Alright. Aim for the scrap yard then. And if you can’t find it, go for home. There's no way we can miss you landing.”

Kickback hesitated. Her eye flickered, but couldn’t seem to meet Hank’s face. “I wasn’t trying to leave you… you know that right? I just… I was excited.”

Hank scratched his arm. Bits of blue flaked off. “I know, spark plug. Come on home.” 

Kickback did her best not to worry, but for the rest of the flight home, she did nothing but worry.

[child0feden]

BABY NAMES, PART I

- okay, wether you guys want it or not, here are the names with their meanings found on websites and what i imagine some of the babies to look like! but i will never name them in the works so if you do not like these names, you can replace them for whatever you want, i would actually love to hear the names you guys think they would like or your thoughts on these that i chose! i know i am not all that great with names at all but i tried to pick nice ones and ones i think actually fit the father <3

PELLE “ DEAD ” OHLIN

dad! pelle has a daughter named calliope ohlin and a son named casper ohlin…

- calliope means “ beautiful voice ” from greek κάλλος meaning “ beauty ” and ὄψ meaning “ voice ” in greek mythology she was a goddess of epic poetry and eloquence, one of the nine muses!

calliope looks exactly like you! she has your hair, your eyes and just so many of your features, she looks like your twin! the only thing she inherited from pelle was his bone structure and that only really starts to show when she enters her teenage years! pelle absolutely loves this though, he thinks it was one of the major reasons he was able to open his heart to her so quickly after she was born, because she just looked so much like you… she was so undeniably your daughter, your child… whenever he looked at her soft face, looked into her gentle eyes, all he saw was a mini version of you, someone he knew he just wanted to shower in love and support, someone he knew he needed to protect…

casper is the opposite and looks exactly like pelle! he has his bright blue eyes, his blonde hair that only shines brighter in summer, his bony nose and a similarly indented chin! this is why in a similar opposite fashion, pelle felt it was harder to immediately bond with his son after the birth, he felt it was harder to open his heart to him because of how much of himself he saw in his son… how much she saw his younger self, how much he felt like he was looking into a mirror of the past! pelle was just so afraid of tarnishing your son, of somehow corrupting him and his happiness by simply being around him… because all he saw was his younger self, all he saw was the child so long ago that would soon run into so much cruelty and sadness in life! but of course, with a lot of support and reassurance from you that he would never hurt your son, that your son would only ever see him as his father, he was quick to open his heart to him too, just as he did for calliope…

as a father, pelle is beyond subtly proud of the name calliope for his daughter! he thinks it just fits her so well! he thinks she has such a creative soul, even when she was so young with her little messy finger paintings and scribbled crayon drawings, he immediately knew he had a strong creative and inspired soul… so much like him, as you say to him which always makes him blush and feel even more shy pride! and calliope is absolutely his muse, she became his muse right alongside you the second she was growing in your womb… he adored drawing you when you were holding her in your stomach and now, he loves to draw her as he sees her! every time he looks at her, he feels a rush of inspiration and a want to craft! both you and her are his muses, eventually his son too!

BÅRD “ FAUST ” EITHUN

dad! bård has a daughter named selene eithun…

- selene means “ moon ” in greek! this was the name of a greek goddess of the moon, a titan! she was sometimes identified with the goddess artemis!

selene looks almost exactly like bård but she does have a fair few of your features too! but when you look at her, you mainly see bård… she has his brown hair, his big brown doe eyes and his pronounced, naturally slightly pouted lips! she certainly got his height too! despite being a pretty short and petite child, she hit a major growth spurt in her teenage years and is just a little taller than the average girl! but when she was a newborn and toddler, she was definitely one of those chunky little babies! she had the chubbiest little apple red cheeks and pudgy arms, bård thought she was absolutely adorable and always claimed she just had to be the cutest baby in the world, she was too perfect to him! he loved peppering so many kisses to her chunky arms and chubby cheeks when she was a baby, he bathed in the glory that came with hearing her high pitched giggles and squeals as he did it, he could not get enough of seeing a gummy smile with just a few tiny teeth showing through stretching across her rosy red cheeks! it just manages to wash away so many of his insecurities, his fears that maybe he is not a great father…

when selene was a newborn, bård was very aware of the meaning of her name and got her a little astrology mobile to go in her crib instead of the usual sheep or animal one! not to mention how many glow in the dark stars and moons he stuck up on the ceiling of your shared bedroom in your apartment when her crib was in your room… bård thinks the name fits her so well, she is his treasure, his moon! when she is old enough to not choke on things, he buys both you and your daughter a matching necklace, both silver chains holding one half of a shiny moon! to be honest, a lot of his gifts to her in life, from the moment she was born, revolve around astrology and especially the moon! he is absolutely the type of father to fully support her childhood dream of wanting to become an astronaut!

older! bård definitely gets a moon tattooed somewhere in his arm sleeve tattoo, likely when she is in her teenage years! it is a beautiful tattoo dedicated just to his moon… he likely has a star tattooed somewhere on his body too but from when he was younger, it was one of his first few tattoos and it was dedicated you, his special star, the love of his life and mother of his child!

ØYSTEIN “ EURONYMOUS ” AARSETH

dad! øystein has identical twin girls named alva aarseth and audra aarseth…

- alva is the feminine form of alf! derived from old norse alfr meaning “ elf ” in norse legend this was the name of king, the suitor of a reluctant maiden named alfhild! she avoided marrying him by disguising herself as a warrior, but when they fought she was so impressed by his strength that she changed her mind!

✩ audra means “ storm ” in lithuanian!

both alva and audra just look like complete doubles of øystein, they look like factory made female replicas of him! sometimes you spend minutes studying their faces, trying to find any traces of your own genes in their appearance but you find very few… they have his natural blonde hair, his small button nose, his soft face and so on… they just mirror all of his physical features! and it only got more and more noticeable as they got older, especially in their teenage years when both decided they wanted to dye their hair black after looking at old pictures of their father! øystein went through a crisis in the early months of their lives, he liked to dress them identically because he thought it was funny to see double of his baby but the humour would quickly turn into panic when he realised he could not decipher who was who… that is why the both of you spend time stitching their names into clothes whenever they get new dresses or onesies! he does get much better at knowing who is who within a couple of months, he just found little ways to differentiate them! and that is when he finds it funny to dress them in the same outfits once again, seeing them in the exact same outfit, with the exact same ribbons in their hair just makes him laugh so much! øystein is also incredibly smug about how much they look like him, he is just so smug and proud…

whenever a storm rolls around, with rain hitting against the glass windows of your shared apartment, øystein likes to hold audra on his hip and stand in front of one of the windows, looking down at her as shadows of water droplets reflect inside through the window and against her curious face, watching with a small smile as her wide eyes follow the raindrops and her little hands grasp his sweater tightly… audra lives up to her name in two ways! one way being that she loves storms, she was never scared and afraid of rainstorms or thunderstorms! she always just wanted to sit at the window with her father whilst you built a pillow fort with alva! the second way being that she was an absolute storm of a child… she was hyper and rowdy, every time after playing, the apartment would look like a tornado had run through it!

VEGARD “ IHSAHN ” TVEITAN

dad! vegard has a daughter named violet tveitan…

- violet is derived from the english word violet for the purple flower, ultimately derived from latin viola! it was common in scotland from the 16th century, and it came into general use as an english given name during the 19th century!

violet is a very balanced mix between both you and vegard! she has your eyes but his frizzy and curly black hair, she has your nose but his mouth and an abundance of other little features… both you and vegard see the others features so strongly in her! he thinks she looks like your twin and you think she looks like his! the only thing the two of you can absolutely agree on is that your genes never stood a chance when it came to his hair! literally the second you told him you were pregnant, he knew that baby was going to have his hair, he just knew it! because the hair type is pretty particular and specific when it comes to care and washing, vegard likes to be the one to help her with it! he is more than happy to help you learn how to deal with her hair better too, obviously, but nothing makes him happier than sitting her on his knee and tying her frizzy black hair into little pigtails with little purple ribbons…

i feel like the name violet would come after a lot of thought with vegard, he was thinking about names every day right after you told him you were pregnant! but the two of you could just never decide on a name, nothing rolled off the tongue right before violet popped into his head when he saw you, late in your pregnancy with a very sizeable bump, wearing a deep violet maternity dress… he just thought the colour was beautiful on you, hugging your bump that cradled his baby… once the name was decided, ihsahn was determined to paint her already prepared wooden crib a light violet purple before you gave birth! not to mention how many little violet bows and outfits he buys for her with what little money he has… i feel like he would even switch his usual guitar picks to glittery violet purple picks just for her, to honour his little girl during emperor shows in the most subtle yet thoughtful way!

a slight bonus one here because i have not made his dad! headcanons yet but i wanted to include him <3

VARG “ COUNT GRISHNACKH ” VIKERNES

dad! varg has twins with the daughter being named vígdís vikernes and the son being named vidar vikernes…

- vígdís is derived from the old norse elements víg “ war ” and dís “ goddess ”

✩ vidar derived from old norse víðarr, which was possibly derived from víðr “ wide ” and herr “ army, warrior ” in norse mythology víðarr was the son of odin and grid! at the time of the end of the world, ragnarök, it is said he will avenge his fathers death by slaying the wolf fenrir

whilst vígdís and vidar are twins, they are not identical twins! they actually look pretty different from each other… surprisingly, vígdís looks more like her father whilst vidar looks look you! it turns into a kind of daddys girl and mamas boy situation too… at first, varg was not a super overly loving and father towards his little girl, it took him some time to fully open his heart to a daughter, took him a little while to allow her to practice braiding his long blonde hair with colourful ribbons! but he so obviously loves her, so obviously loves both her and his son! he softens a whole lot and almost entirely drops the front he was putting up of being a headstrong and ignorant guy! when he sees how happy it makes her to be able to play with his long hair and feels his hands braiding her hair, it is worth it… it is beyond worth it for him! with vidar, i think varg would really want him to toughen up and be a manly man, even as a child but that is extremely quick to drop too! especially when you tell him it is just… really not okay, that it will only upset his son and feel like he can never be good enough! he drops all of his bullshit after a good talking to from you because deep down all he wants if for you and his children to be happy…

no one in this world can convince me that varg would not want to name his twins some really norse names, some really strong and kind of uncommon names! he spent months during your pregnancy reading through mythology and history books, looking for meaningful names, unique names… he wants names that highlight their norse blood! even if you, their mother, yourself are not… i have no doubt in my mind that he would have at least two songs inspired by their names, made for them! the first majorly soft thing varg did towards your son was buy him a little wolf plushie from a store! it is kind of ironic considering the mythology lore behind vidar and fenrir but it was cute nonetheless and the first bit of major affection he showed towards him when he was still a baby!

[thistaleisabloodyone]

Heya, I couldn't help but notice that you have a lot of Rampage merch. I am a new fan and I would like to buy some of their merch. So I wanted to ask you, where did you buy it? Could you give me some recommendations?

Hope you have a nice day

Love ya!!!🩷🩷🩷

Hello! Welcome to the fandom, I hope you're enjoying your stay 😊

For RMPG merch, I get them through three primary sources (long, rambly additions in indent so you can skip if you want):

CDJapan - albums, DVD/Blu-rays, books; does offer proxy service

This is where I buy my discs, like my CDs and my Blu-rays (... and that one time I accidentally bought the DVD version of Gene's United Journeys tour [/regrets]). I've also gotten a few books and magazines through here - my (first) copy of Riku's photobook, the 16Future book, the Anan magazine, etc. I have used their proxy service (where they act as the intermediary to buy things from Japanese stores for you) once. It wasn't the 'here's a thing I want to buy, can you buy it?' method, but they had a listing for the Exile Tribe Station edition cover of Etoile that you could buy through proxy and I was like "Hi, yes, please, I'll take that." They are letting you search Mercari on the website now, which is interesting. Have not used that aspect of their proxy service.

Exile Tribe Station Global - Tour merch, calendars, books

This is the official international merch store for Exile Tribe - you can buy tour merch here, as well as the yearly calendars and miscellaneous other things. Things tend to be out of stock here, unfortunately, especially the cheap things like the cards, but they do apparently restock occasionally because I just finally got Likiya's coin purse and Takuma's cup set for CyberHelix There is a Japanese store which has better stock, but you have to use a proxy service to use it and I am Lazy:tm:. Also, I want to use their global store so they keep it running - going off of my order numbers, they've had 219 orders through the global store since May 23rd last year and I account for six of those, so. If I can't get what I want through the global store, I go to stop #3.

Neokyo - proxy service, works with a number of websites. I typically use the Mercari listings

There are other proxy services - obviously CDJapan has added a search to their website for doing Mercari proxy purchases - but Neokyo is the one I use and I'm at 95 out of 99 purchases successful. (I've had 3 cancelled by seller, 1 cancelled because the seller never took the payment) They are a little expensive, there is a service fee on every purchase, but I find it worth it because I don't have to deal with buying things through a language barrier 😂 This is where I got most of my acrylic stands, basically all of my photo cards, my Ravers jersey, etc. Any disc I can't buy off of CDJapan - like Shokichi's first album, the High&Low soundtrack, etc. - I buy from here. This is how I got my first press copies of the first two albums. I also have the playing card deck in a shipment on its way, which I'm very happy about.

Quick notes - keep an eye on what cannot be shipped internationally. CDJapan's list is here, Neokyo's list is here. Whatever proxy service you use, if you choose to use a different one, should have a copy of it. Apparently the photo acrylic key chains from the new CyberHelix merch are magnetic, so you cannot buy it, it cannot be shipped internationally (at least according to CDJapan and Neokyo). Keep an eye out and don't accidentally buy a listing with it in it.

[m1n10sbl0gz]

A Masterpost of Closeups from my animatic!

I put a lot of detail into my backgrounds lol, let's go over them from most to least obvious

The first one is the times!! It's just an added little thing showing how Pest is waking up extremely early

The next one is the Boggle Jetfuel! He uses it to keep himself awake so he doesn't miss any messages from Infected and you can see indents where he's crushed the cup stressing himself out!

Next is the little emoji I made because I didn't want to have him using normal ones but also Dr Retro exists and making them normal cats felt weird! It's not actually a big detail I just like it

Next is just the silly nothing else there I just wanted you to see her

I don't know where this one ranks, but this eye represents how the dreams are getting to him and how this may be because of Folly! Although he also could just have extreme paranoia and anxiety and Folly is watching him suffer for the heck of it

Next is the website design! I made up all of these logos and stuff, but mainly I wanted to say the website they message on is called Pawn!!

And yeah that's it! I hope you enjoyed, I worked hard on that animatic!! For those wondering how hard, I made it with my mouse in Clip Studio Paint because I didn't wanna get my drawing tablet out and I managed to make the entire animatic after 2 hours straight of hyperfocusing!! What autism does to a mf

[ryanyflags]

Plain Text?

So I'm trying to make a website, and something I'm wondering about is plain text accessibility. I'm not sure just how I'd add a toggle for that yet (even making a simple light mode toggle gave me difficulty lol), but I'm getting stuck on just what is plain text?

For posts like tumblr, where you have limited formatting options, and just in general, no control over the visuals, the question of plain text seems pretty simple. It's just something used for bolded, italic, indented, small, coloured (especially gradients), special fonts, and sometimes large text as well.

But on an actual website, what does that mean? Take the coloured text example, links are commonly coloured blue, so is the default appearance of links not plain text? Would a plain text button need to change the colour of links to white/black, instead of the common blue? Links are also commonly underlined, and there are other "styles" I guess, used for text, like dotted and dashed. Are those also not plain text, and would need to be removed? And what about highlighted text? Even if it has enough contrast, does the background have to be either black or white?

I think part of the issue is I don't understand how plain text works. Like of course I know it's for accessibility, and when it comes to bolded, italic, and low contrast coloured text, I can easily understand how that would be difficult to read. But I'm a bit lost on how formatting like indentation leads to issues. If I can't understand that, I don't know how I'd be able to figure just what is and isn't an issue / plain text. Specific examples are a bit limited in their helpfulness, if I don't know the why behind them.

[bramblesramblesintoshambles]

The Eclipse Dungeon

-Art by Alexey Karelin (Art Station).

Hey everyone, I made a little dungeon for 13th Age. Fair warning I've not had a chance to test this out mechanics wise, but with the second edition being worked on I figured I'd post this. I highly recommend this system for anyone who finds Pathfinder "too crunchy" its relatively simple and abstract but has a lot of cool little mechanics you can use.

To set the scene for The Eclipse Dungeon. Your party (Level 1 recommending 3+ players) have been asked to investigate a dungeon underneath strange ruins which were recently discovered. Unlike other castles from forgotten eras, there are no signs of undead or diabolical intent. In fact, you could scarcely call it a castle. A few mushroom shaped towers connected by a hollow wall, strange mixtures of architecture far older than any of the current icons. Their catacombs lay bear of dead, with only a tunnel leading deep underneath remaining there. At its end, a platform which descends, by magic, into the dungeon your adventurers will face. No monsters, undead, or even ordinary folk have attacked them yet.

So, above is a map with a layout for the dungeon, but I figured I should do my best to explain the key first. A purple heart simply marks the locations where enemies appear, not their quantity. However a larger purple heart does indicate a greater challenge. Gold circles represent key items, which are pieces used in the resolution of various puzzles throughout each maze. The blue squares mark the locations of the puzzles themselves, or more accurately where they can be finished. Red lines indicate barriers which can be opened or locked depending on how they are interacted with. A puzzle or key item will indicate which door is unlocked. The ascent points marked indicate your exit from this dungeon.

Puzzle 1

When the PCs arrive in the dungeon they encounter three barriers and an opening to the South-East maze. Above it is writing which no individual party member can read. To decipher it requires a difficult (16+) Intelligence check from a character, adding background skills if applicable. On a normal (11+) result, Human and Elf characters can each determine part of this message. Human characters read: "Long ago... sun and... clung together... kingdoms into". Meanwhile elves read: "... the... the moon... plunging two... darkness". A character with the Linguist feat only requires a normal (11+) Intelligence check to translate it. If they are an elf or human reduce this to an easy (6+) check instead. The full message is "Long ago the sun and the moon clung together plunging two kingdoms into darkness".

There are two tapestries in this maze, at locations 2 and 3. The tapestry at location 2 shows an army of dark elves wearing silver armour. Additionally, there are empty armour suits being controlled by a Drow Mage in the tapestry. She wields a black iron sword edged in silver alongside her wand. This Drow Queen stands at the back of her people. Meanwhile, the tapestry at location 3 shows human warriors led by a figure in golden armour. These soldiers are surrounded by golden light, fighting despite grievous injuries. The Human King wields a staff of gold weaved with bone white wood from which thorns grow. The Drow Queen tapestry is close to location 1, which contains a golden orb; their first key item. Location 3 is close to location 4, which contains their second key item; a silver disk. These can then be taken to the blue square for this maze.

-Art from the Britannica website.

In the final room, there are two statues. One is of the Elf Queen, the other of the Human King. Both have their weapons pointed at each other, however their eyes are shielded against a pillar between the pair of them. In this pillar is a circular indentation, the golden orb glows warmly when placed in there. After this, they must place the disk over that orb to simulate an eclipse. The disk and orb grow dark, all light within pushed to their edges which hurts to look at. This opens the gate into the Western labyrinth, where they will find the second puzzle of this dungeon.

On their way back out players will find new tapestries at 4.5. Hanging to the left of the exit from this maze is a tapestry of the Drow Queen, to the right is the Human King. Above the head of the Drow Queen is the left half of the eclipse, and she now commands animated armours against a hoard of undead. She now wields a staff which was once belonged to an enemy. In her hand what was once pale wood is silver coiled against gold, their briars curling up and around an onyx disk. Similarly, the Human King is posed beneath the other half of that eclipse with gold bathed soldiers battling monsters of various kinds. He has pierced through the heart of a demon with what was once her sword, which is now golden edged with silver and has an onyx in its pommel. A normal (11+) Intelligence check, including applicable background skills, will inform a PC that the events depicted here are ancient. Specifically, they learn this takes place in the mythic age and depict "The Blinding Night". A decade long eclipse which caused monsters, demons, and undead to become more active. On a 16+ they have heard of the Eclipse Royals, mythic rulers of a hybrid kingdom between a nation of moon worshipping Dark Elves and sun worshipping humans.

This is getting enormous so I'll continue this is subsequent posts. Please follow if you want to see the rest of this dungeon.

[ahmadhost]

Web Development Tools

5 Web Development Tools That Everyone Needs, From Beginners to Experts This blog posts a carefully chosen list of 15 important SEO Tools tools that can improve all stages of web development. Find out how these tools can make writing easier, improve speed, and make coders of all levels more productive. These tools work well whether you are a beginner or an experienced writer.

1. HTML Decode HTML Decoder tool by SEO Tools is a useful program that turns encoded HTML entities back into their original characters. This makes the code easier to read and fix bugs. This tool is very helpful for web writers who come across compressed lines that make it hard to see information correctly. Interpreting HTML entities speeds up code review and debugging and makes it possible to work with a wide range of development processes. Its easy-to-use design and fast working speed are good for both beginners and experts. Without much trouble, HTML Decode makes the writing process faster and more efficient, whether you’re working on small projects or big apps.

2. HTML Encode HTML Encoder tool by SEOStudio Tools is a powerful tool that turns normal text into HTML-safe encoded entities. This makes sure that all computers show web content correctly. This is a very important tool for coders who need to keep their HTML pages safe and avoid code issues. This makes online pages safer and more consistent by turning special characters into their appropriate HTML codes. The easy-to-use design makes decoding easier for newbies, while more complicated features are for coders with more experience. Whether you’re optimizing email templates or dynamic websites, HTML Encode gives you the reliability and speed you need to show text perfectly and with great accuracy.

3. HTML Beautifier HTML Beautifier by SEO Tools is a flexible tool that cleans up and styles messy HTML code into a layout that looks good. This tool sets up line breaks, indents, and spacing automatically, which makes the source code easier to read and keep up to date. It is especially helpful for writers who want to write better code and follow best practices for web programming. Its design is easy to use, so both new and expert writers can quickly make their HTML files better. Ultimately, the tool greatly improves the speed and clarity of coding projects by supporting a wide range of code styles and offering customization options to fit individual tastes.

4. HTML Minifier HTML Minifier tool by SEO Tools is a useful program that shrinks HTML files by getting rid of blank lines, notes, and characters that aren’t needed. It does this without changing the file’s usefulness. This simplified tool speeds up the time it takes for websites to load and improves performance by making files smaller. It helps writers a lot when they want to make the user experience better and make sure they follow current web standards. It’s easy for beginners to use because of its simple design, and experienced workers will be happy with its powerful working power. HTML Minifier gives you quick, accurate results whether you’re working on a personal project or a website with a lot of visitors. It’s an important part of efficient web development processes that work smoothly and accurately. See Also : 10 Must-Have Website Management Tools for Website Owners

5. CSS Beautifier The SEO Tools CSS Beautifier tool is a useful tool for rearranging and reformatting cascade style sheets, which keeps code clean and easy to read. This tool sorts CSS properties automatically, fixes punctuation, and improves organization overall, which makes stylesheets easier to handle and debug. It helps engineers because it makes upkeep easier and makes sure that all web projects are consistent. Its simple design makes it easy for both beginners and pros to improve the standard of code. CSS Beautifier works with a number of different style standards and lets you make changes to fit your project’s needs. It can turn messy code into a well-organized style, which greatly improves productivity and constantly supports a professional development process.

[thecousinsdangereux]

if i'm falling wrong [1/1]

notes: over on Twitter, moonyriot has been working on a multi-part journal from Ava's POV covering her time in Switzerland and beyond. She asked me if I wanted to join in on the fun and write a short one-shot to cover some of the events in part 6. (If you haven't seen any of her posts, here's the first one. They are incredible so definitely check them out.)

—

“The integrity of the upright guides them,” Ava reads, taking care to enunciate each word, “but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them. That’s Proverbs 11:3, Beatrice.” 

Beatrice definitely knows, which is — Ava thinks — what makes it so funny. Or. Funny to her, at least. Maybe not so much for Beatrice, whose lips have flattened into a thin line that hides almost all of their pretty pink hue (a color Ava has taken a liking to in a way that definitely relates to how often she finds herself staring at Beatrice’s mouth). 

“It is better to promise nothing than to promise something and not be able to do it,” Ava continues, because she’s never been any good at knowing when to stop. “That’s Ecclesiastes. And — ooh, this is a good one — A person who promises a gift but doesn’t give it is like clouds and wind that bring no rain. That’s — ”

“Proverbs again, yes, thank you, Bible.com.” 

“It’s actually Biblereasons.com.” She shows off the screen of her phone, the one that she’s definitely supposed to be using sparingly (and never does). “But sure, I can go to your bible website of choice. Whatever you want. Pretty sure I’m still going to find the same answer, though. Honestly, I would’ve thought a nun would know that lying is bad. Not to brag, or anything, but I learned that one when I was like five, or something.” 

For reasons unknown, this pries Beatrice’s lips wide, dragging them out into a full smile, pink mouth and small indent at the corner appearing just as quickly as Ava’s pulse picks up, heart slamming up against the poor, battered walls of her chest. 

“How odd,” Beatrice begins, in a low drawl that means Ava’s in trouble (in so many ways). “Because I seem to recall you telling Hans, just yesterday morning, that you were allergic to apples. As a result, he traded pastries with you, leaving you with the chocolate eclair you’d been all but salivating over since you first noticed it in the break room. Given that I know that you were perfectly able to consume a slice of apple pie that the neighbors brought up last week, I am forced to conclude that — ”

“Okay, okay! Jesus. Pump the brakes, Miss Marple. I’m allowed to lie; I’m a dirty sinner or whatever. But you hold yourself to a higher standard, right?” (Unfortunately, Ava adds, but only mentally, because yeah.) “So when you said ‘Ava, if you’re able to best me in a mighty trial of combat, I will bequeath to you a single portrait wherein my lips are upturned in joyous felicitations’ or whatever, I took that as an oath, Bea. A serious, serious oath.” 

“One, I don’t sound like that. Two, no English person alive sounds like that. Why do you default to the Regency era when you’re trying to mock my accent?” 

By now, Beatrice’s smile has really started to crack open, showing off the slightest sliver of white behind those lips. It’d be unfair to say that this (the moment where Beatrice’s eyes crinkle with a laughter she most likely won’t release) is always Ava’s goal in any conversation she has with Beatrice, but maybe it is always an intended stop along the way, whatever the actual destination might be. 

(Other pitstops of note include: the cute scrunch of her nose whenever she’s focused on Ava alone, the half-tilt of her head whenever she’s considering something Ava’s said, the almost absentminded brush of her fingers along Ava’s forearm whenever she wants her to pay especially close attention. There’s a common theme here, but Ava’s well-aware of her own preoccupation, so it’s fine. Probably.)  

“Uh, because I’m paying you a huge compliment? Ungrateful much? Mr. Darcy is like… the hottest the British have ever been. Not that that’s hard because otherwise they kind of really suck, but I’m trying here, Bea, and you’re giving me nothing but attitude. And lies.”

Beatrice sighs. It’s cute enough that Ava nearly sighs too, longing bubbling up behind her lips.

“I told you I would smile for one of your pictures if you pinned me during training. It was implied you would do so without cheating.” 

With a tsk that doesn’t sound anything like the one Beatrice sometimes uses (a low sound from the back of her throat that always did very little to help Ava concentrate), Ava takes a half-step closer so that she might properly waggle a finger in Beatrice’s face. 

“I’m only doing what you taught me, Bea I thought I was supposed to use all the resources at my disposal?” 

Beatrice promptly bats the finger away. But that’s sort of the point. (Sometimes, it’s a little pathetic, the lengths Ava will go to make sure Beatrice is touching her at literally every possible opportunity, but Ava’s never really minded being a little pathetic for a good cause. And Beatrice is honestly never hard to bait, at least in this particular way.) 

“Ava, you bit me.” 

“Which was using all the resources at my disposal! Come on! If I’d been in a real fight, you would’ve called that innovative!” 

“Perhaps if you hadn’t used your — ” Delightfully, Beatrice takes a small, steadying breath before her next word, which, to Ava (who’s spent months studying Beatrice with the rigor of a staunch academic) is as much of a giveaway as one of her cute little blushes. “ — tongue.”

“I think the element of surprise would still work just fine,” she insists, but then Beatrice gives her a look, one that she knows won’t allow for any debate over the merits of licking her enemies, and she gives in nearly instantly. (Ava’s really only interested in using any part of her mouth on one person alone, anyway.) “But fine. Okay. Good note, teach.”

Winter has begun to fade from the air and, as they walk back towards their apartment in the meandering pace that has become their custom, Ava is pleased by this for two reasons. One: their neighbors — who bake enough that Ava’s convinced they’re working up to competing on one of those bafflingly polite baking shows — now leave their windows open, filling the air with the most delicious smells, noticeable even a block away from their home. And Two: Beatrice has taken to wearing short-sleeves again, which means that when she nudges Ava now (with a charmed little roll of her eyes), it’s bare skin against bare skin. 

In training, this is both a pleasure and a problem, because then it’s Beatrice’s shorts and Ava’s shirt being pushed up as Ava gets pinned to the ground and it’s the skin of Beatrice’s inner thigh against the skin of Ava’s hip and that’s a lot more than the casual brushes she’s gotten used to. Ava had long ago realized that any and all logical thought flies out the fucking window when faced with a muscular thigh, so really, it hadn’t been all that much of a surprise when it’d resulted in Ava doing something completely insane. 

Like taking Beatrice’s thumb into her mouth. And biting it. And maybe sucking a little. Honestly, it’s all a bit of a haze, because Beatrice had then made a noise that would most certainly be featured in Ava’s dreams for the next week or month or year, in the most mortifying (and sexy) way possible. 

And to be fair, it had worked in getting Ava out of the chokehold she otherwise would’ve probably happily died in. 

So there’s that.

“Something with chocolate today,” Beatrice comments, and Ava short-circuits for a second, thinking about chocolate and fingers and skin and the really incredible potential combination of the three, before she remembers the neighbors and the smell and the baking and feels her cheeks burn.

“Uh — yeah. Maybe they’ll have extra to share.” The windows on the first floor apartment are (of course) open as they approach, and Ava raises her voice just enough for it to carry through. She catches the intertwined laughter of the neighbors that results, and shoots Beatrice a wink that dispels some of the heat building within her, an emergency vent that she’s learned to rely on. 

“You’re shameless,” Beatrice says, in the exact way she always does whenever she doesn’t mean it (lips quirking at the corners). 

“And you’re welcome, when we end up getting brownies, or whatever they’re making.” 

The door to their building never unlocks easily, but it’s gotten worse as the temperatures have started to rise; Beatrice shoulders it open, muscles bunching in her back, and Ava does absolutely nothing to help, watching the flex of her shoulder blades under the tight, gray fabric. 

“You know me,” Beatrice says lightly, knocking the side of her sneakers against the bottom of the stairs before heading up (and Ava does know her, enough to wait patiently for her to complete this small ritual). “I’m always craving sweets.” 

“You are sometimes! Whenever you come home from a night shift, you break into my stash! And since you have a lot of those coming up, on account of you losing our bet…” 

Beatrice laughs, a soft huff that turns into an adorable little squeak when Ava shoves past her on the staircase and snatches the keys from her fingers, bursting through their apartment door with far less effort than Beatrice had needed below. 

“You’re not letting this one go, are you?” 

It’s probably response enough when she snatches her camera off of the kitchen table and points it at Beatrice as soon as she steps across the threshold, but even this (pretty impressive!) sneak attack fails. Beatrice is quick enough to throw a hand up before the snap, lowering it only when Ava does the same with the camera. She continues to eye her warily as she bends down to untie her shoes, only abating to cast a significant look in Ava’s direction, which persists until Ava kicks hers off far less elegantly.

“It’s one photo, Bea!” she grumbles, watching as Beatrice arranges their sneakers in a perfect little line. “Just… one smile. Let’s just get it out of the way, you know? Look up and … ”

Beatrice does look up. 

Ava has to give her that.

It’s the only warning she gets before Beatrice is standing and her fingers are wrapping around Ava’s wrist and she’s pressed flush against Ava’s front and well. Sure. That’s one way to get Ava to shut up. Probably the only way. Ava knows this about herself, but really can’t find any regret when it’s led her right here. 

“You cheated,” Beatrice murmurs lowly. “Why would I reward that?” 

Ava has a lot of thoughts around the concept of Beatrice rewarding her, and absolutely none of them are good. (Or, rather, they’re all extremely good. Very good. Far too good for her to be able to say out loud, those curling, irreverent thoughts that stick her tongue to the roof of her mouth and keep her up at night.) So it’s really out of mercy that she phases then — slipping out of Beatrice’s grip the only way she knows how that doesn’t involve cheap tricks — stepping back and lifting her camera again. 

What follows transpires a bit too quickly for Ava to track. 

She’s seen Beatrice fight in all sorts of situations — at full speed in back alley brawls and at half-tempo when leading her through a new form — but Ava’s pretty sure she’ll never see enough to lose the surprise that comes from being on the end of one of Beatrice’s first strikes. She’s in front of Ava and then she’s not; it’s really as simple (and terrifying) (and hot) as that. One moment, Ava has her camera ready, and then she’s facing a different direction entirely, her hand twisted behind her back, her camera falling from her grasp. Beatrice is fast here too, swooping down to catch it before it hits the floor, but this allows Ava to throw an elbow backwards, a hit that surely would have broken something in Beatrice’s face had it landed (but which Ava knows by now never will). 

“Double or nothing?” Ava pants, stumbling forward and twisting back around to face Beatrice, who’s gently placed the camera on the floor, carefully out of the way. 

“Two photos if you win and you take my night shifts for two weeks when you lose?” 

“Wait, I don’t like the if/when placement in that senten — ”

She barely ducks out of Beatrice’s grapple, cutting herself off mid-word to manage it, a little breathless already. It occurs to her that she’s definitely made a mistake here, looking up and finding Beatrice serious and focused, strands of her hair slipping out of the low bun that’s already started to loosen. Even in the warm light filtering through their apartment windows, Beatrice’s eyes look dark, and Ava spends a second too long suppressing a shiver at the sight. Which means, of course, she’s unable to avoid the next hit: a full tackle to the floor. Either Beatrice really doesn’t want Ava to take this photo or she really wants to get out of her night shifts, because she’s not going about this in the calm, measured way Ava is used to. (There’s a third option and it’s one Ava likes best; maybe Beatrice just really wants to pin Ava to the floor, to feel Ava underneath her, to feel Ava squirm against her front, fighting to get out of the hold. This is the option Ava relates to best and maybe it’s the one driving her now, putting her at a disadvantage just as significant as all the other ones.) 

Ava hits the ground hard, enough to knock air out of her lungs, but she’s saved, partially, by starting on a twist mid-air, mindful of how dangerous it’ll be if Beatrice gets her flat on her back. Not that Ava is opposed to this idea. Not on a normal day. Not even today, if only Beatrice would — 

“Good,” Beatrice says, breaking through Ava’s thoughts, though not in a way that is helpful at all. Beatrice most certainly notices the jerk of Ava’s hips the single word causes, but almost equally as certainly dismisses it as part of Ava’s attempts to break free. “But you over-rotated. Just slightly. See how I can use that to put you on your stomach?”

Always the instructor, Beatrice explains precisely how she’s going to best Ava before she actually does it; if Ava were better at this (if Beatrice were worse) this might actually be of some help in countering Beatrice’s efforts. Sadly, she’s not, so it isn’t. 

“Fuck,” Ava grunts, face pressed directly into the carpet of their bedroom. It’s honestly painful, the way Beatrice’s knee presses into the center of her back, but it’s a sort of pain that Ava’s come to find — over their months together — that she doesn’t especially mind or maybe even likes and maybe gets a fair amount of pleasure from and maybe thinks about it from time to time whenever she gets a moment alone and — yeah. Fuck is really the only word for it. 

“What now, Ava?” Finally, there’s a hint of the breathlessness in Beatrice’s voice: when she locks one of Ava’s arms behind her back, and Ava attempts to land some kind of backwards headbutt, pushing herself up off the floor with her free hand. “What’s your best option?” 

Beg you to have your way with me, doesn’t really seem like the response Beatrice is looking for, but Christ a girl can only take so much. And right about then, Ava knows she’s going to cheat (because it’s either cheat or blurt out something that will inevitably be extremely horny) but is it really cheating if there hadn’t been any rules put forth in the first place? 

She’s gotten better about controlling the Halo, so it barely gives off any light before she lifts onto one knee and throws herself backwards, phasing neatly through Beatrice’s front. The effort Beatrice had been using to hold her down works against her now, effectively swapping their positions as she falls forward, and Ava’s quick to use that momentum, reaching around to grab the front of Beatrice’s shirt so she’s flipped with the motion. Another (gentle) Halo blast lands Beatrice on her back, Ava straddling her hips and pinning both of her hands on either side of her head. 

“You didn’t say no Halo,” Ava says in a rush, as though the victory will be taken away instantly, as though she cares at all about some stupid bet instead of being on top of Beatrice whose eyes are wide and lovely, whose lips are parted and pink, whose chest is — not something Ava is looking at, thank you very much. Because she’s respectful, she can be respectful, she has to try to be respectful. 

“I didn’t,” Beatrice says finally and then fucking licks her lips, like God Himself has decided that Ava needs to be punched directly in the face with attractiveness or whatever and holy shit. 

Holy shit. 

“Then I — that means — uh — ” She releases one of Beatrice’s wrists like it’s burning, very much aware of the intensity of the gaze resting on her, and blindly roots around on the floor behind her until she finds the camera, resting just where Beatrice had left it. “I get to do this.” 

Her fumbling with the camera is hardly graceful, but honestly, the fact that she’s able to produce words at all is nothing short of a miracle, so she’ll take it. Her right hand is still wrapped around Beatrice’s left, fingers circling her wrist as she pins it to the floor, and she takes a picture of this first, holding her breath all the while. 

“For — uh — proof?” she offers, a little weakly, and Beatrice’s stare finally breaks, intensity replaced by something much softer, something that seeps into the corner of her eyes and mouth in equal measure. Ava’s struck by the sight as much as she is by anything else, and her grip relaxes enough that Beatrice can slip out of the hold, both hands drifting down until they come to rest just alongside either one of Ava’s knees. 

“Proof for who?” 

“What do you — proof for literally everyone, Bea; Hans, Camila, Lilith, Mother Superion, Jillian, the regulars at the bar, our neighbors, the lady who runs the bakery down the street, any random person I walk past for the next month. Hell, I might take out an ad in The Guardian, or something, are you kidding?” 

Beatrice laughs and it’s like a crack in the universe, or something equally and unequivocally earth-shattering. Lungs empty, air knocked fully out, Ava lifts her camera almost instinctively, only to find her view devastatingly obstructed, Beatrice’s arms flung over her face (the grin, still wide with laughter, barely peeking out from underneath). 

“Beatrice,” she groans (or maybe pouts).

“I’m sorry!” And she sounds it too, even through the smile, the half-giggles now petering out. “Truly. I’m not used to being photographed. I can’t think of a time it happened before you took up this hobby, not outside of unpleasant family photoshoots and the like.”

Ava’s heart flips painfully in her chest, but Beatrice is quick to soothe, fingers falling back down to brush against the outside of Ava’s leg, as though Ava’s the one in need of comfort.

“I’m not protesting, Ava. Just tell me what to do.” 

Photographs are meant to reproduce moments, memories, emotions, but Ava’s not sure the best photographer in the world, with hundreds of thousands of euros in equipment, would ever be able to fully capture Beatrice as she is now, fondness bleeding from the tips of her fingers, affection lighting the brown of her eyes, and love — or something an awful lot like it — bending her mouth, a bow pulled taut with an arrow that might be Ava herself, as inconceivable as the notion is. 

“Pretend the camera isn’t here,” Ava rasps, her breath hot (heated by all the things boiling inside of her now). “Just look at me.” 

Beatrice looks at her. 

Ava stops breathing. 

She takes the picture. The camera lowers. And Ava forgets about it entirely, object permanence completely obliterated by a force far stronger than something as trivial as human development.

Underneath her, seemingly content to be straddled, Beatrice looks calm, which isn’t unusual, because she almost always looks calm, so maybe it’s that she feels calm too. Like all the things Ava can always sense running through her at speeds only known to light have slowed down or disappeared entirely. The mission, her duties, her vows, her expectations, these things have washed away (temporarily but completely) until it’s only Beatrice left, staring at her lips. And Ava had thought she’d experienced wanting Beatrice in every way, but this one is new.

(She wants Beatrice like this: exactly herself, without anything else getting in the way.)

“Beatrice,” she says, a hitch in her voice breaking the name into three, distinct syllables. “I’m — ”

Cursed. Saved. Ruined. Blessed. Fucked. 

Ava’s not sure which word applies when the smoke alarm goes off downstairs.

It is not especially loud, or piercing, but it goes off and all of the easy calm flees from Beatrice’s eyes as she jerks upwards, back lifting off the floor until she’s close, closer than before, so close and it’s too much, maybe, or maybe Ava’s instincts are working against her (or for her?) because she falls back as soon as Beatrice completes the motion, balance disastrously (helpfully?) disrupted. 

Oh well, Ava thinks, as she lets herself fall back. Maybe a bit of brain damage would do her some good. 

Except that, of course, Beatrice catches her, a simple slip of her hand around Ava’s back, palm pressing to the middle of the Halo, shocks spreading out from the point of impact. 

“You’re what?” Beatrice asks, terribly quiet, as though she feels the air rearranging around them, molecules shifting back and forth between possibilities and outcomes. 

And if Beatrice were still calm, if everything else were still pushed away, if Beatrice was just Beatrice in that moment — just as she’d been so briefly before — it would not be a choice, what Ava did next. And maybe it isn’t one now either, but it’s in the opposite direction: pulling away rather than pushing forward (creating space rather than closing it). 

“I’m — just — I’m done. With the photos.” Decision made, breath returning, she shrugs, a little bashful now, the steady beep of the alarm and the laughter of their neighbors drifting up from below. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Beatrice’s head tilts, a small crease forming in between her eyebrows. Some people want money or power or peace or the answers to the universe, but Ava thinks she would be content, if only she could know what Beatrice is thinking right now.

“No,” she murmurs. “Not so bad at all.”

[trigun-manga-overhaul]

TRIGUN ULTIMATE OVERHAUL JUNE UPDATE

OVERHAUL UPDATE 06/02/23 - New website and pins by Ventus Pins.

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!

WE ALSO WANT TO WELCOME THE 3000+ FOLLOWERS! THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!

Hey everyone and welcome back to another update post!

We're finally beginning to pick up work again after a bit of a hiatus period. We're taking it slow, as to not push ourselves back into work too early. Our scanner has still been busy at work for this entire period, since there is obviously a lot to scan and magazines to collect.

Information on the new site and the Imgur issue below for those who haven't read previous posts!

Also read about the pins using Overhaul 2.0 cleaned official art below by Ventus Pins.

~~

Our scanner and fellow member of the team, Arth, has set up a new hosting site for our Overhaul project, as we ran into issues with our previous hosting site. Imgur updated their TOS and this included the removal of all posts that were tagged as mature. Unfortunately, it was not possible for us to see which of our posts were marked as such, and when chapters began disappearing, we had no option to appeal the mature mark.

Instead, Arth has paid for a domain for Overhaul, and we've begun updating all links for reading the chapters online. This new site is a lot more phone friendly to read on, and in general a lot more straight to the point. There are no ads or anything else beside the pages, so it's sparse but it does its job. It might be a temporary hosting site, but for now it's a better alternative to Imgur.

If you come across any broken Imgur links when you try to read a chapter online, don't worry, it will get updated soon!

Let us know how you feel about the new hosting site when you have a chance to see it, and we always welcome feedback if there's something you feel like is missing or if you find a mistake.

~~

Trigun pins will be available tomorrow!

We've shared a piece of our Overhaul 2.0 cleaned official art with Ventus Pins and it has been made into a pins that will become available tomorrow from their website or their Instagram

Free pins were generously given to the entire Overhaul team, and after receiving my own, I will say I am quite pleased. It is a large, solid pin. quality is high, the pin is hefty and doesn't bend easy. The white parts are indented, giving the surface lines texture, otherwise it is completely smooth. There are four pins in the back with their own locking mechanism.

All thanks goes to Ventus Pins for the amazing pins and for the opportunity to take part in their creation, as well as their gift to the Overhaul team!

~~

Anyway, that was all for this update!

SEE YOU GUYS NEXT MONTH!

[ewinya]

things i’ve learned about tumblr

please correct me if i’m wrong i have no idea what i’m doing help

reblogs are everything

likes are fake. you cannot like reblogs, the likes just go to the original post

if you like or reblog someone else’s reblog both them and the op get notified

unless your likes are private in which case i would assume likes don’t give notifications?

look it doesn’t matter. likes are bullshit

having multiple blogs is not the same as having multiple twitter accounts

a blog just holds its posts, i think?

like you can’t like a post as a different blog. which is weird to me. but ok

do you like + reblog or do you just reblog? i do not know. i did not learn this

look different social sites have different standards for this sort of thing

i come from mastodon where people boost or favorite but not both

but also twitter where you do do both

the dork who introduced me to this site seems to do both so im gonna do both i guess. hopefully i don’t commit a crime

hey by the way what the fuck is the reblog flow on the website. why do you have to scroll so far to hit the “reblog” button if you want to reblog without a comment.

is this a thing the beta editor does better? i don’t know

the beta editor is broken for markdown editing so i don’t care and won’t use it

hey while i’m talking about markdown why do you have to indent by four spaces but the syntax highlighting for list bullets only works if you indent by two spaces i feel misled

people use ask boxes a lot more than i thought?? how does one get popular enough to have people sending stuff to your ask page consistently

what even do you put in an ask. what do you say. i don’t use the internet because i know how interacting with other people works why is this such a core part of the website i hate it.

how do you have a conversation with someone otherwise. are your options to either reblog with comments back and forth or just dm each other

oh my god i just realized this is yet another website with a DM feature i have to keep track of. my singular social brain cell is going to explode help.

funny internet ppl :)

the site is fine i guess

i mean i should be happy that a social platform even has a markdown editor in 2022 so like.

overall: good website 8/10 would website again

[c6jpg]

idk if this is a weird question, but how do you make the text under your gifs colorful? And how do you do the gradient thingy hgdsfsdg

hello! not a weird question at all. so the main thing is you have to use the html editor, which you can get under the settings icon when you make a post

while i don't think it supports all html syntax, it does let you use enough for most purposes. then for the color gradients, i use this website.

one important thing to note though is that the way this site generates html isn’t entirely compatible with whatever tumblr is doing. most things under step 4 won’t actually work as you expect it to so the easiest thing to do is NOT set any of those options and remove all semicolons from the resulting output, e.g.

<span style='color:#FF0000;'>Hello world!</span>

should be

<span style='color:#FF0000'>Hello world!</span>

some other tags i like to use:

<i>text</i> to italicize the text

<b>text</b> to bold the text

<small>text</small> to make the text small

<blockquote>text</blockquote> to get the indent/blockquote feature as seen above

[meggannn]

Can I ask, what's the beef with Greg Ellis and Mark Darrah? I haven't been keeping up with BioWare in general and the Dragon Age fandom & company division in particular (I'm more of a Mass Effect person) so all I noticed is that two big names (were?) quit a few days ago so I am genuinely puzzled at that exchange. Did Ellis get screwed over by BioWare/Darrah somehow or is he doing some unfounded shit-stirring?

Oh for sure, so I don’t know all the details, but I’ll try

Greg Ellis

Greg Ellis is the voice actor for Cullen, a character who is in every Dragon Age game. the actor has been a pretty shitty person for a while—I’m sure there’s a callout post for him somewhere on tumblr—but he’s the British equivalent of a Trumper, transphobic, hosts a podcast/contributes to/does audio readings for a right-leaning website that complains about liberals and universities, often gets into fights with LGBT+ folk on twitter and block them (so many that a lot of DA fans couldn’t read his tweets today lol).

[ID: Greg Ellis tweet: “I praise @Ayaan for supporting @jk_rowling in standing her ground. They are heroes of our times. /end ID]

[ID: Greg Ellis tweet: “Today on The Respondent @GreggHurwitz discusses the challenges of identitarianism on college campuses. /end ID]

From Wikipedia: Identitarianism: “The Identitarian movement or Identitarianism is a post-World War II European far-right political ideology which asserts the right of Europeans and peoples of European descent to preserve the culture and territories.”

[ID: Greg Ellis tweet from June 2018: Indicative of our current culture that I tweet about inspirational free thinkers & up pops a trolling SJW who can’t separate me from my work. Conflating my inclusive & equitable opining with a video game character I voice is SJW indent politicking full blown.”

Greg Ellis tweet replying to a disappointed fan who was upset about his support for Trump: “Speaking ‘on behalf of thousands of fans’ of a video game & suggesting I ‘broke their hearts’ because I support ALL who hold Presidential office is ludicrous. VG fandom is not exclusive to LGBTQ or those not hate filled about @potus. I believe in equity & inclusivity.” /end ID]

to demonstrate how much of an attention-seeking child he is, Ellis also likes to tease his fans with hashtags and get them up in a tizzy to gain followers, tagging things #Cullennites and #DA4 just to wind up bait-switching and actually talk about something completely different, or maybe even nothing.

[ID: Tweet from Greg Ellis, I don’t have the date but I believe this was from spring of 2018: “I’ve been officially authorized to disclose details about the game only when I reach 10k followers. I feel like a puppet. Will you help pull the strings? I’m positively itching to share. #videogame #announcement #cullenites” /end ID]

Beef with Mark Darrah

I think what specifically started his beef with Mark Darrah was this summer, Ellis tweeted in support of Ayaan/JKR (above), resulting in a lot of upset fans replying to him. He got in lots of fights with them, blocking several, prompting fans to make more tweets expressing anger/disappointment about DA4/the future of Cullen, and even tweet at other Dragon Age developers asking if Cullen could be recast if he comes back at all.

Mark Darrah made a tweet saying basically nothing substantial about it, but he said: “It’s important to us that the people we work with are aligned with our BioWare values. This will be apparent when we’re ready to announce what actors will be lending their voices to the game.” He even replied directly to a few fans throughout the tags/search results who were concerned, including @theherocomplex​ which I saw, so it’s a safe assumption he was at least taking the anger seriously.

Ellis replied to the public tweet: “What r the @bioware values @BioMarkDarrah? Don’t the loyal #Cullenites & @dragonage fans have a right to know? Don’t u have a responsibility to tell them? DO u support cancel culture? Do u support defamatory comments like this? Careful how u answer ~ u might lose ur job”

I mean, it’s pretty ballsy to threaten a lead creative at a company responsible for a chunk of your fame when your character’s arc is effectively over and they don’t need to have you in any games anymore... there are tons of crappy British actors out there to replace you, and it’s not like they don’t already have Gideon Emery in a dozen different wigs, lmao

What Happened This Week (Dec 3 and Dec 4, 2020)

Mark Darrah was, until recently, a staple in the Dragon Age team. A lot of people were worried when his resignation yesterday came out of the blue, and Casey Hudson (also a lead creative/big name) also resigned from the Mass Effect team at the same time, which to me is pretty concerning.

Yesterday after the news broke, a fan asked Darrah if his beef with Ellis might have had anything to do with his departure (basically asking if it was a forced resignation): “If this has anything to do with a recent blowout with a VA from Inquisition who publically called for @BioMarkDarrah to be fired, I'm going to be so sickened and disappointed by this company for siding with bigotry.” Darrah replied with just “lol” which to me was a little concerning, because if you read it sarcastically, it seemed to imply the drama with Ellis did have something to do with it. without proof, it’s difficult to say, and of course Darrah and Hudson gave polite goodbyes but are silent on the real reasons that prompted them to go.

Today, Ellis has managed to convince himself that he did get Darrah fired, likely over the stink he raised about Darrah publicly for siding with LGBT+ fans over him. but in his replies to that, Darrah mentioned pretty open skepticism in his tweets that Ellis would ever be rehired by BW again, so.... maybe the Ellis drama is not it. IDK.

TLDR: basically, Ellis is a bigoted right-wing voice actor who picks fights with fans who call him out, and he is still coasting off the attention highs he got from voicing a highly controversial video game character in a franchise that hasn’t hired him since 2014. in summer 2020, Ellis threatened Darrah’s job (not at as if he has any power to threaten him with), basically because Darrah stood up to him, and now that he no longer has to play civil as a BioWare employee, Darrah finally snapped and called him out on twitter for being unprofessional and implied Ellis wouldn’t be asked back to BioWare anyway even if Ellis WAS the reason he left. other Dragon Age developers (who still work at BW) are liking and replying to Darrah’s tweets with supportive gifs/emojis, so I think it’s a fair to say Darrah’s attitude is prevalent in the company but current workers just can’t say anything, and they do not want Ellis back again.

[lcgacyofages]

trends in tumblr rp that are stupid and need to stop

thin white font on dark backgrounds. Why does it need to stop? It can trigger migraines in people with vision issues and it’s just damn difficult to read. If you’re not sure how to use a dark background and appropriate font, my advice is to not use a dark bg.

Super small fonts. I’ve been near sighted all my life and people expect that to be readable to someone with good eyes? Especially if you do what I said not to do above? Please don’t do that. The best sized fonts are usually an 11 or 12 pt.

Hidden links. No one wants to spend more than a minute finding your links. I know you worked really hard on that theme with the stars or sparkles or random symbols that blends into the background but that shit? Needs to stop. It gets frustrating as hell. On that same vein, do people remember the poems you had to click through to get to the information? Just don’t do that either.

Remember your brand. People naturally associate images with names and vis versa. That’s why there’s so many brand images in media. Your icon, your header, your blog, are all your brand. And a rule with branding is to keep things uniform throughout. (If you want to do a simple color box, my suggestion is to put a simple clipart style graphic on it so you’re easily recognizable for people.)

The really shitty psds. They’re not trendy. They’re not edgy. They just look like someone figured out how to do a threshold and went overboard. They sometimes get to the point of overly harsh and lacking a clear message in the graphic.

Overly formatted replies. Now, Do I wish tumblr had proper indentation? Ofc, but when people go and do things where every other word is a different format, that causes the person reading it to have to take more time to process what’s going on in the post. And it can be frustrating for people who may have disabilities. I remember a trend that drove me crazy when I was studying Russian and that was people using Cyrillic letters as English ones. (  Я is a fucking ya, not an r.) Overly formatted text can have a similar confusing situation for some people as when rpers misused Cyrillic letters was for me.

Trends that are okay in tumblr rp and need to be developed and utilized

Reply banners. Okay, with how crappy tumblr is with it’s formatting of text posts, this actually helps break up the text between replies very well, better than the block quotes for some people. It shows “this is a stopping and starting point.” They also don’t require as much as an icon might, so it’s a win/win for people. My suggestion is to keep them short in height, though, and span the width of a text post.

Google Docs. Tumblr is not good about allowing pages to be shown in their app. (Which is the dumbest thing in my opinion. Why would you allow pages on the website but then not be able to access them on the app?? It’s counterproductive and they could have that accessibility but they choose not to for some unknown reason.) Having the google docs is an accessibility option for people who may not be able to gain access to a computer. But the forms need to be careful not to fall into the above mentioned pitfalls.

Pinned posts. A good thing tumblr actually did. Using the pinned posts is another way to make information accessible to mobile users. Pinning your rules and some information about your muses is a definite help for people who are mobile. (Maybe eventually tumblr will allow pages to be accessible in their app.)

[lululawrence]

Annual Writing Self Evaluation

Thank you for the tag @louandhazaf!!! I’m honestly clutching my chest that you tagged me, so thank you xxx especially since i love this little self eval that i think @juliusschmidt came up with all those years ago and we just keep perpetuating it haha

this... is going to get long, though. since it asks me to list my works published this year and that is 24. so. here goes.

1. List of works published this year:

Swerve the Handshake (Nick/Louis)

Need So Much of You (Harry/Louis for @onedirectionbigbang)

You're A (Total) Distraction (girl!direction and hybrid Harry/Louis for @wallsficfest)

Always Keep You Next To Me (Greg/Louis for @wallsficfest)

With Your Hand In Mine (Nick/Louis for @wallsficfest)

Smells Like Omega Spirit (Harry/Louis for @1daboficfest)

If Only We Wish Hard Enough (Harry/Louis for @disneydirectionfest)

Political Pizza (Harry/Louis for @wordplayfics)

Talk the Night Through (Harry/Louis for @wordplayfics)

Wrinkles (Harry/Louis for @1000feelingsfics)

Would You Be My Girlfriend? (girl!direction Harry/Louis for @wordplayfics)

Lately You've Been On My Mind (Harry/Louis for @wordplayfics)

Don't Want It Any Other Way (Harry/Louis for @wordplayfics)

I'm Ready for the Worst (Greg/Louis for @louisandmenfest)

Loving You's the Antidote (Nick/Harry/Louis for @finelineficfest)

Do You Know Who You Are? (Harry/Louis for @finelineficfest)

Don't You Call Him (What You Used To Call Me) (Harry/Louis for @finelineficfest)

Gone Too Long (From You) (Harry/Louis co-written with @fallinglikethis for @finelineficfest)

Just Me and the Stars Can Get Lonely (Niall/Rory McIlroy for @heartbreakweatherficfest)

The Way You Bend the Rules (Niall/Rory McIlroy for @heartbreakweatherficfest)

And Then I Saw His Face (Harry/Louis for @1dtrickortreatfest)

I'mma Give You A Promotion (Nick/Louis)

What You Waiting For? (Nick/Harry for @1000feelingsfics)

(I'm Dreaming of a) One Night Inn (Harry/Louis, Zayn/Liam, Niall/Shawn)

2. Work you are most proud of (and why):

every time i think about this question i’ve got a different answer, to be honest. i do think my I Go Down Blazing, Feeling Like I'm Going Crazy series is probably what i’m most proud of, though. as soon as i knew @runaway-train-works was going to be hosting the heartbreak weather fic fest, i knew i wanted to write dear patience, but as the idea grew and grew and more ideas solidified and i realized what the story was turning into, i realized it was so much more than i originally thought and i needed a second song to help me fully get a solid grasp on it. in the end, it was a hard duo of fics to write, mainly because i honestly don’t know much of anything about golf, i was still trying to create fully the way soulmates worked in the world, and there’s just not all that much about rory online to find, so i was winging it haha but i’m so incredibly happy with the world i made and the fics i wrote, even if i don’t know that they’ll ever get to like 200 hits or whatever hahaha i love them.

3. Work you are least proud of (and why):

uhhhhh you know looking at this list of fics i have, i’m actually proud of every single one for some reason and i don’t know if there’s any of them that i’d even label as “least proud”.

4. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

i hate this question and forget that it is on this list every year lollll let me see if i can find something i really like. okay i found one, it’s from my long grouis haha and i’m apologizing now for it being so long. you can skip ahead to the next question if you like, but i’m just incredibly proud of the banter and the way i wrote this section, PLUS those damn joggers actually happened because he posted a photo of himself wearing them in the shops on instagram and that inspired this entire thing so. enjoy. (i’ve italicized it and indented it to hopefully make it easier to skip it’s so long i’m so sorry)

“It’s safe for you to come back in here,” Louis called out as he closed his computer. 

“Thank goodness, I was getting so exhausted of hiding in your bedroom and snooping through all your shit,” Greg said as he walked out wearing a sheet mask and a pair of grey joggers that did nothing to hide what he was packing. 

Louis smirked and wanted to say something, but Greg kept going. 

“Did you know you have like five different deodorants in there?”

Louis threw his arm on the back of his couch and nodded. 

“Why?” Greg asked, throwing himself down onto the couch and placing his stupidly long legs on top of Louis’. “Who legitimately needs five different deodorants? Do they have different uses or something? Some were even women’s deodorants, so I wasn’t sure if they were your sisters’ or what. Oh, and I helped myself to one of your fancy toners. It had rosewater in it or something.”

“Well, for the deodorants I just like trying different scents and I switch them up based on my mood. And actually, the one I use most often is a women’s deodorant. It works great. Plus I smell fresh and clean like baby powder all day.” Louis shrugged. “And that wasn’t my toner. Dunno who left it. Just showed up one day and no one says it’s theirs, so I kept it. It’s quite nice, isn’t it? Lotts said it’s supposed to help even out the PH balance of my skin or some shit, but I’ll be fucked if I know what that actually means.”

“Oh, that does sound fancy,” Greg agreed, checking the time on his phone. “I’ve got five more minutes on this mask, don’t let me forget. Don’t want to leave it on so long it burns my skin off or summat.”

“Sure,” Louis said, laughing. “So are you actually wearing anything under these or are you just that excited to see me?”

“Eh?” Greg asked before looking down at his crotch. Of course, now he was sitting down it didn’t show anything. “What are you on about?”

“Stand back up and look in a mirror, mate,” Louis said, laughing. “You’re dick was trying to tell me hello a minute ago.”

“I didn’t tell it to do that,” Greg muttered as he shifted so he could stand back up again. He walked into Louis’ bedroom, and Louis could hear when he’d seen himself. “Oh my God, that’s obscene! Does it always look like that when I wear these?”

Louis laughed and walked into his bedroom to see Greg’s eyes wide as he shifted himself around and walked a bit, appalled that no matter what he did, nothing seemed to make it any less there. 

“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never seen you in those. You usually nick a pair of mine,” Louis reminded him. “Do you wear them without pants often?”

“I never wear pants with these,” Greg said, rubbing his forehead. “Fuck, I’ve likely given that nan that lives below me too many looks at my cock without even realising it. They’re my softest, most favorite pair of joggers! I wear them to the shops when I’m too knackered to get fully dressed!”

As Greg continued to narrate the various escapades he’d had over the years in the joggers without even realising what he’d been doing, Louis settled onto his bed, propping himself up on his elbow so he could still watch Greg as he motioned about in distress.

When it was clear Greg wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon, Louis pulled out his phone and started filming. There was no one he could share this with, but it would be good for a laugh later on.

“Fuck, and you didn’t remind me to take off my mask!” Greg cried, rushing back into the bathroom to remove the sheet mask and do whatever else he had to do when he used them. 

Greg was proper obsessed with them, said they were relaxing and kept his skin soft. Louis just liked knowing they were one of Greg’s things, like taking regular baths with a bottle of wine and perusing various adoption websites for dogs he could possibly give a good home to.

“Sorry, love,” Louis said, as Greg walked back out of the bathroom. He really was sorry, but he also couldn’t pass up the opportunity to keep taking the piss. Greg was too much fun to rile up. “Was distracted by your big dick flopping about whilst you remembered all the good times you’d had in the joggers.”

5. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

i’ve had a few this year that told me they don’t usually read that pairing or they don’t usually comment on fics, but for various reasons they gave the pairing a try or wanted to comment because of something specific and those were particularly lovely. that said, every comment is so so great, they really do boost me up to see them and i need to do better with getting my anxiety in hand and responding to them regularly.

6. A time when writing was really, really hard:

this entire damn year, man. all of the time i’d carefully carved out for myself over the past few years to write was basically blown to shit with the pandemic, which also was so exhausting it didn’t leave me with much energy to write. but i still somehow posted 24 fics?? i dunno, dude. i think writing saved me and gave me something to look forward to, tbh.

7. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

most of my advent fic, tbh lollll a lot that was in there wasn’t really brainstormed ahead of time, it just happened, and i forgot some of the details even because i just flat out didn’t remember what i’d put in there, so i’m STILL surprised haha i love when fics happen like that

8. How did you grow as a writer this year:

i always think of challenges as fun and then i look back and wonder if i was insane because i thought it would be fun to try something new but it was mostly really fucking hard haha i wrote a lot of pairings and combinations of tropes this year that i never have before as well as stretching myself with writing emotions and situations i never have before, so i’m quite proud of myself for continuing to push the envelope and try new things like that.

9. How do you hope to grow next year:

i mostly hope that i’ll be able to carve more time out for myself as things HOPEFULLY settle down a bit more. i might not be as impulsive when it comes to choosing things to write at that point, but we’ll see. lol

10. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

i... hmm. there’s a lot of people i’m thinking of right now, but it’s hard to choose just one. i think actually there were two and they were @louandhazaf and @disgruntledkittenface. i very much admire both of them for their own writing and works, but i am particularly inspired by how many pairings they write and the variety of fics they have posted. it’s definitely because of them that i’ve tried writing a lot of the pairings that i have, and that’s before you even start to look at the help they’ve given me with betaing certain fics (usually rare pairs lollll). they’re just both so supportive and open to so many things, and i am so much more open to all sorts of things because of them. i CANNOT answer this without mentioning the Write Your Way Out GC either, though. Y’all are my crew in SO many ways and you let me rely on you in every way through this past year. it really does take a village, doesn’t it?

11. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

lmao i’m sure. but all i’m thinking of at the moment are the tumblr posts and canon compliant shit i based the fics on, so nothing off the top of my head apparently haha

12. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

hell if i know. maybe just... write for yourself. i think that’s why i’m so proud of every fic i wrote this year. i really was writing for me and if others like it too? bonus. 

13. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

my big bang!!! that’s the big one. i’m so excited for it. i have a whole list of other fics, too, though. hahaha i’m also super SUPER excited for both of my omega harry fics to post hehe 

14. Tag three writers whose answers you’d like to read.

@becomeawendybird @sadaveniren @londonfoginacup

*All answers should be about works published in 2020. Also, you can skip any questions you hate or don’t want to answer, but please leave them on the list so that others can do them if they want.

[peachyteabuck]

study buddy, part v

series summary: after crushing on you since freshman orientation, Natasha finally gets the guts to ask you help you pass her postmodern lit midterm, to which you agree.

chapter summary: one restaurant date, two confessions, and three grades that will make or break natasha’s degree

pairing: natasha romanoff x reader

words: 4,881

trigger warnings: overstimulation, use of a safe word, teeth rotting fluff, strap on sex, ball gags, explicit conversations about whorephobia, orgasm control, angst if you squint

ask box / masterlist / commission info / ko-fi

part one, part two, part three, part four

The warmth of the sun filtered through blinds is what woke you, wrapped tight in Natasha’s arms. The sex-stained blankets were as messy as can be, some of them hugged your intertwined bodies like a tightly wrapped burrito while others were nearly falling off the bed.

It was messy, beautifully and wonderfully so. If you felt the need to move (which, of course you didn’t because who in their right mind would try to disentangle themselves from such a lovely human person) you doubt you could’ve; Natasha held you with arms too strong and heart beat too soft. You wouldn’t dare disturb her if the house was on fire; then again, if the world was burning down around you – you’d rather die in her arms than reach for uncertain safety. It’s there that you fell back into sleep, tucked under her chin and running your fingers through her hair.

Eventually the growling of your stomachs woke the both of you up, each respective organ desperate for nourishment – and the two hard-boiled eggs, sour gummy worms, gluten-free bread, and half a container of mustard wasn’t gonna cut it. The waning sun was an ominous sign of how long you’d truly gone without food, and you soon didn’t feel all that bad about poking your poor g-

Poking poor Natasha awake.

You didn’t feel all that bad poking Natasha awake as your insides beg for sustenance and your head feels light and holy shit, if you didn’t eat right then you were going to start taking bites out of her – and, for the first time, not in a fun and/or sexy way.

“Hey,” you pressed your forefinger to her nose. “Nat.” You poked the end of each eyebrow, then at various locations of her forehead. “Natasha!” Still, she remained asleep, and buried herself further into the blankets as some unconscious act of survival. “Nat.” You poked her right cheek. “Naat.” You poked her left cheek. “Naaat.” You poked each cheek with each hand at its softest part, pushing until you felt her teeth.  “Nat wake uuup.”

She just grunted and pushed you away before she nuzzled back into the covers. “Go away. I want to die here. Let me become a body without organs.”

She paused.

“Or is it organs without bodies?”

You sighed but make no move to displace her. “One, Natasha, we have the midterm coming out soon. If you do not know the original work done by two far left authors from the sarcastic critique by another far left author, I’m breaking up with you. Two, that’s not what that means and you making a vague reference to some postmodern concept does not mean I am going to stop being annoying. Three, would you like to come get dinner with me?”

Natasha shot up, flame-red hair messy and shirt disheveled – it made her look like the top of of a thicket of trees during a forest fire. Along the side of her face, you could see indentations from where her skin was pressed to the pillowcase. “Food?”

You nodded, pushing the strands from her eyes. “Yes, darling, food.”

She wiped at her face and pushed the covers from her legs, eyes half-closed. “Food.”

You picked some of the crust from the corner of her eyes. She blinked indignantly at you but made no move to stop you. “Do you care where we go?”

Natasha shook her head left-to-right silently, then moved to wipe her face once more.

“Okay. There is a very good Chinese place that I want to show you. Is that okay with you?”

Natasha nodded and made a mmhmm noise.

“Cool.”

You kissed the tip of her nose before you got up and scrounged together a passable outfit that would cover the bruises that still littered your body and shield you from the cold. After a few moments, Natasha opened her eyes wide enough to see a few feet in front of her and did the same.

There was s a wonderful silence that filled the air, the comfortable kind. Like the day of that quiz, it’s a wonderful kind of cozy – soothing and sweet.

You could get used to this…

It was a short walk to the restaurant, one you were all-too familiar with due to your many, many nights there. It was the first place you ate at on campus (that wasn’t one of the mind-numbingly mediocre cafeterias) the day you moved in and it had become some pseudo-home, the place always warm and waitstaff always nice (and always willing to let you eat as much as you pay for and abuse their free WiFi).

The menu hadn’t changed much (by “much,” you mean they’ve fixed two of the five typos) since you first started going there, so you should have already known what you want. Still, you opened the folded, laminated paper and read each item with genuine interest, just as Natasha did.

You looked up at her once and awhile just to see her again. Every time you tried to keep her out of your line or sight for more than a few seconds you’d almost burst at the seams, like a sunburst than could only be quelled by looking at her.

“What year are you?” Natasha asked, which broke your unbelievably tender train of thought.

Your brain, which was still very fried, did not compute. “What?”

She reached over to point to the Chinese zodiac calendar on your menu with one of many of her fingers that was inside you last night. “What year are you?”

You mumbled something and shrugged, fake-intense-reading as your neurons attempted to rebuild your capacity for speech. Luckily, Natasha seemed determined to continue the conversation.

“I’m the year of the dog,” she said, nonchalant, as if you were not losing your goddamn mind on the other side of the table. Your brain was fried, your mouth was gaping like a fish out of water, and were your hands shaking? What the fuck were you supposed to say? How should you respond?

Think, you fool! Think!

“There’s a feminist critical theorist who fucks her dog,” you blurted.

Natasha just smiled – god her smile was so big and wide and beautiful - and laughed. “Part of me thinks you’re lying, but part of me worries you’re telling the truth.”

You laughed then, too, smiling big as she did. It set the tone for the rest of the night, mood light and happy as the tired, probably-high waitress took your order and then brought you the food a suspiciously-short amount of time later. It was good, very good.

“And my mom turns to me and she goes,” you wrinkled your noise in an effort to properly invoke your mother’s nasally tone. “This family does not get Fs or Ds or Cs. You better fix this or else.”

Natasha almost choked on her soft drink at your impression. “You were supposed to make an omelet for a foods and nutrition class, what did she want you to do!?”

You took another bite of orange chicken before you rolled your eyes and shrugged. “I have no idea what that woman wants from me now, let alone when I was fuckin’ fourteen.”

You were both laughing as you took food from each other’s plates and swapped small stories. Natasha told you about her own coding mishaps (apparently it was easy to hack into news websites and create fake stories involving certain celebrities and a certain large bird and many, if not too many, phallic objects), you told her about the time you stress-cried in the bathroom so much the janitor kept tissues in a secret compartment for you.

One hand from each of you remained occupied as you held hands on the side of the table farthest from the prying eyes of fellow college students (as if any of them were sober enough to notice, though. Along with being great to you, the restaurant’s very greasy menu meant it was a good spot to quench munchies or quell the pain of an especially bad hangover).

A phone – your phone, you realized – vibrated obnoxiously on the other side of the table. Previously forgotten, you broke from the moment to reengage with the (seemingly) hundreds of people who were attempting reach you via text. At first you thought it’s an email from a client – but then you realized it was a text from a classmate. Specifically, the girl who sat front and center in the lecture hall you and Natasha shared.

“Who’s that?” Natasha asked.

You furrowed your brows as you texted, swallowing the last bit of food. “Oh, Lindsay from our class. She wants to know what I got on the quiz.”

Natasha then realized she never bothered to figure out her grade, and it brought all her anxiety about graduating on time and also making sure you’d never leave her and oh my god what if she failed this fucking quiz?

A few moments of soul-crushing silence passed before you put your phone back down. Natasha watched you like a cat stalking a fake mouse on a string, or a drunk mom at a Christmas party eyeing a dessert table; the drive was genuine, but the goal? Ridiculous. Absolutely, totally ridiculous.

You didn’t press her like she expected, though, didn’t even stare at her with that evil eye Natasha’s sure you got from your mother on more than one occasion. You just went back to eating your food, and put your phone back out of reach.

You noticed her staring at you when you went to borrow (steal) another piece of food from her plate.

“What?”

Natasha furrowed her brow. “Don’t you…Don’t you want to know what I got on the quiz?”

You shook your head as you stole another few bites worth of food. “Not unless you want to tell me.” You shrugged as you swallowed. “I’m not gonna, like, push you if you don’t want to tell me. I’m not my mother.”

Natasha smiled at that and left the conversation there. She was unnaturally quiet for the new few minutes as she listened intently while you told more stories and commented on the food and thought out loud about school and the rest of your life and should you go shopping soon?

Throughout all of it, Natasha remained incommunicative – to the point you started to worry.

“Are you okay?” you asked and reached across the table to put your hand over hers. She smiled, softly, before she replied.

“I really care about you, you know,” she said, low and almost inaudible. You said nothing in return. “And I’m very bad at this. I’m so bad at this. I spent a lot of my childhood in rooms with therapists who said less than I did. I’m not good at,” she waved her hands as she tried to find the right words. “I’m not great at emotions. And expressing them and telling people about them and all that shit. Okay?”

You swallowed the last tastes of duck sauce that coated your back teeth. Despite the sweet substance being a liquid, it felt like a waterfall of boulders cascading inside your throat. “Nat, I-“

“This isn’t me saying I love you, but I want…” Natasha was on the verge of crying, just as you were. She averted your gaze as she continues, staring at the booth cushion directly behind you. “I want to commit to you in some way. I like you, I like the person I am when I’m around you. And I don’t want to lose you because I was too much of a pussy to make a move.”

You said nothing, did nothing. Despite her not looking at you, you stared at her very serious facial expression and watched every muscle twitch for some signs of lying. You saw none.

“I…,” Natasha met your eyes as you spoke. Your mouth was so dry you nearly coughed – but the idea of making any sound terrified you. “I…I need some air.”

You didn’t wait for a reply as you pushed yourself out of the booth and ran out the front entrance.

Natasha didn’t wait for the door to close behind you before she chased after you. She left both of your phones and wallet at the booth, not wanting you to get out of eyeshot but also terrified of the waitstaff thinking the both of you were dine-and-dashers (and terrible ones, at that).

She followed you outside, ache in her heart an excellent distraction from the nighttime chill that dug tiny knives into her pale skin. Still, as her breath was visible in a faint fog in front her, no pain was as unimaginable as the one as losing you.

“Babe, plea-“  began, voice small and nonthreatening as possible.

You interrupted her and avoided looking into her eyes and picked at a loose thread in the sweater you were wearing – Natasha’s sweater you were wearing.

You worried it was the last time you’d ever see her again, and yet you refused to look at her. You refuse dto look at her large eyes and the bags under them, at her nimble hands – thin and agile from years of typing; at her plush lips or beautiful hair or-

Wasn’t that the cruelest irony of all? Of the cognitive dissonant fear of missing something while desperately avoiding looking at it. Still, you chose to jump off the proverbial cliff with your eyes clenched shut and nails digging into the pads of your soft palms and blood rushing in your ears louder than anything you’d ever heard in your life.

“I’m a sex worker.”

Natasha’s eyebrows furrowed and she breathed heavily, like when your mom got mad at you for bringing home that C your freshman year. “There’s-“

“I’m a sex worker. I make my own porn. I sell my nudes. It’s my main,” you sighed. “It’s my only source of income. It’s how I make money. It is how I will continue to make money. It’s how I stay mostly-independent from my very judgmental mother. It’s how I plan on staying mostly-independent from my very judgmental mother and my very judgmental family and the very judgmental world. And if you think that’s morally wrong of whatever, or that I’m some sort of sub-human, or that I’m evil, or that I should stop…”

For the first time that night, you looked her straight in the eyes. No smiling, no laughing, no wishing to see her beautiful face. Power. Authority. Truth. You tried to channel the red you saw on all those feminist theory books you’d had to read for the class that brought you and Natasha together.

“If you don’t believe in the validity of my labor I cannot and will not date you,” you were snarling as you stomped toward her until your toes nearly touched. “I’m not going to let someone who can’t love what I do love me.”

As you stood there, teeth bared and hands balled into fists, stories of rage flashed like lightning in your brain. Narratives of horror from your media studies class, of actresses whose only chance to scream was in front of a camera. If you had sharper nails, sharper teeth, glowing eyes that would be some award-winning monologue where people clap and call it “mind-blowing” and give it “five out of five stars.” You’d be a prime example of how satisfying rage can be as a subversive practice.

But no. You were no antihero(ine), no supernatural being caught on tape. You were not on the silver screen, you were not being streamed on some overpriced platform, you were not the subject of dissertations on media studies or really good articles on feminism or whatever else academics were doing with their time in tenure. You had filed-down nails and wide eyes and soft skin and an uneasy stomach and shaking hands and breath that faintly showed in the air when you exhaled. You had tears that threatened to fall. You had fear.

Natasha’s eyes flitted nervously, her lip between her teeth. For a moment, neither of you said anything.

Natasha was the one to speak first. Her voice sounded as terrified as you felt – with words that were spat through a set jaw and teeth bared.

“Who hurt you?”

You took a half-step back, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What? Natasha, what the fuck are y-“

“Who hurt you?” she whispered, words like knives and eyes just as dangerous. You stepped back, almost scared of her and what she could do to you.

You were pressed against the side of the building then – you could feel the brick and mortar itching at the skin of your back through your top. “Natasha what the hell are you talking about? I don’t kn-“

“Yes,” she stepped back, but grasped at your left hand as she did so. She was a ship tethering to a dock, floating out on the water but always willing to come back to port. “Yes, you do. You know exactly who, what, I’m talking about. What they did. Just tell me who they are, and I’ll ruin their lives.”

You looked for the joke, the punchline. You looked for a glint in her eye that said she was fucking with you and was waiting for you to laugh it off. When you were in seventh grade you got asked out as a joke and the football player made the exact same facial expression you now hunt for.

But you found nothing, no teasing or set up in a larger scheme to mock you. She was serious as you’d ever seen anyone be. “What in the fuck-“

“Tell me who they are. Tell me the name of every person who ever made you feel like shit and I’ll ruin their lives. I’ll steal their identity. I’ll make it so they can never get a job, or a car, or a house again. I’ll do it in a heartbeat,” Natasha let go of your hand and held your face in her food-warm palms. “I will destroy the very existence of every person who ever made you feel like this, because you deserve someone who will protect you from all that bullshit. And I want to be that person.”

The silence was painful, almost. But also comforting. Still, you broke it so speak. “Yes, I’ll be your girlfriend.”

Natasha smiled, and pecked your lips. “Good. Now come finish my food with me, it’s getting cold and our waitress is definitely judging us.”

You broke into a fit of laughter, nearly wheezing as she guided you back inside. The food was good, even though it had cooled considerably while you were both outside – greasy and thick with flavor and hot in your mouth along with your soul and Natasha held your hand on the table and fed you with her fork and you stole bits of her food while she was distracted. At one point, Lizzo played on the restaurant soundtrack and Natasha sung low with you, and you ordered more food to take home and it was hot, too hot in your hands as you carried the large brown paper bag soaked with grease to her apartment. Maybe you were going eat the food in the morning, maybe you were going eat it later tonight. It, truly, did not really matter.

There wasn’t much time between when you put the leftovers in the fridge and when Natasha pushed you onto your knees in her (and your) (it was now shared) bedroom. There also wasn’t much time between when your knees hit the ground and when Natasha grabbed the ball gag from its place in her toy drawer.

“I’m so happy you’re mine,” Natasha cooed as she adjusted the matte black straps. She kissed at your temples when it was secured, murmuring sweet words into the top of your hairline. If there was anyone else watching you, if there were some voyeur witnessing this profession of ownership, you doubt they could hear her. The entire world could be gazing at the two of you under a microscope and they would know nothing. Wasn’t it something wonderful, to share such, dare you say it, love that cannot, will not be observed by a single being outside your pairing? “Such a pretty little thing, a beautiful little toy for me.”

You didn’t dare move, worried even a flinch would disappoint her. Even as spit began to fall down your chin and between your breasts, as it pools in the gap between your legs, you successfully resist the urge to wipe it away. Natasha walks to the end of the bed, perching herself on the covers. The silence isn’t thick or uncomfortable, rather something closer to electric, something you can feel on the insides of your nose as you sniffled.  

Slowly, she raised her right hand and crooked her first finger. You understood immediately and you got on your hands and knees to crawl across the room to her. When you reached the end of the bed you waited, obediently, for her.

Like at the restaurant – you were nearly bursting out of your skin with excitement as you awaited instruction.  

“You’re so pretty, baby,” she cooed. “Now come up on the bed and let me wreck that pussy.”

You do as you’re told without hesitation, scrambling to get on the bed and onto your back. Natasha grabbed a bottle of lube out of seemingly nowhere and poured it over the same strap from the first time she fucked you.

You moaned deeply and reached for something, anything; you whined high in your throat as she pounded into you, the bed smacking against the stained wall with each thrust.

“You’re too pretty for your own good, you know,” her voice was breathless as she spoke. “Normally I would try to keep my toys intact, try to keep them in good condition, but I just can’t seem to help myself around you.”

With each word your back arched farther, your fingers tightened around the sheets.

“F-fuck,” you moaned around the thick plastic sphere in your mouth as you tried to push your back closer to Natasha’s chest.

She grabbed your hair and bit at the curve of your ear before she spoke in a low voice that sent another wave a slick down your inner thighs. “What do you belong to?” she hisses. “Who does this pussy,” she slapped your cunt and you cried out at the stinging pain. “belong to?”

You didn’t hesitate. “You Mommy, I belong to you!”

In that moment, you wondered whether Natasha’s neighbors could hear your screams. But in the one right after, you realized you really, truly, di not give a single flying fuck what they could hear.

“Fuck yes, you’re mine,” she growled as she pressed your face into the sheets, as she loomed over you like a god would punish some human exercising an unholy level of hubris. “Don’t you fucking forget it.”

You couldn’t speak because of the ball gag – didn’t even try to – yet Natasha seemed to know exactly what you wanted to say.

“You wanna cum, love?” she cooed, still fucking into you. “You wanna cum over Mommy’s cock?”

You nodded, the whines high in your throat resembed something close to a please yes please Mommy please I wanna cum I wanna cum I wanna cum.

Just like the lube, Natasha grabbed the hitachi out of thin air before she turned it on low and pressed it to your neglected clit. It was something, it was enough, but only just so. Your muscle tensed and you wailed out as you bucked your hips, as you tried to fuck yourself harder onto the toy. Natasha notices and slows her thrusts, laughing as you become more and more desperate.

“You’re so pathetic,” she hissed. “Such a pathetic little toy. You’ll do anything to cum, won’t you?”

You nodded; words garbled.

Natasha laughed again. “Of course you would, slut. You’d do anything for me, right? You’d do anything I told you to? You’re just a mindless little toy for me, just a dumb little thing with no thoughts besides how you can please me…”

You were drooling around your gag so much it covered your cheeks and pooled on each side.

You’re blissed out, eyes glazed over and body wonderfully lax. Natasha’s isn’t done with you yet, though, because of course she isn’t. You’re now officially her girlfriend, officially hers, and maybe it’s that satisfaction or excitement or whatever in her blood but it it’s letting her stop, not now, not when you look so ethereal with a halo of sweaty hair and the sheets looking like wings and your skin practically glowing.

Not just any angel, her angel – her perfect little blessed creature, sanctified even as she degrades you in such a sacrilegious way.

“I want you to cum when I count to ten,” Natasha murmured as she pushed the sweaty hairs that had escaped their confines from your eyes. “Alright, baby?”

You nodded and tried to chase the fleeting feeling of her fingers as they dusted over your feverish skin.

She turned the Hitachi up a setting, smiling as it met your clit and you cried out.

“One,” she mumbled, rubbing the head against you in small circles. It was something, but certainly not enough.

“Two.”

Natasha knew this. She knew you didn’t orgasm all that easily.

“Three.”

Regardless, she agonizingly slowly turned the toy up a setting. Just as you feared, it remained insufficient.

“Four.”

God, nearly halfway there and you were terrified what would happen if you couldn’t cum. Part of it was exhilarating, but part of it gnawed a small hole in your stomach that left you…empty, somehow.

“Five.”

She ticked it up one, two more settings. You sighed in relief and moved your hips with what little mobility she’d allowed you.

“Six.”

She increased the vibrations again and reveled in your squeals.

“Seven.”

You cried out and wanted to beg for mercy.

“Eight.”

You didn’t.

“Nine.”

You felt like you’d forgotten how to breathe, lungs shriveled up into nothingness. It was as if you could feel each of your cells as they begged for oxygen, as your blood desperately tried to each your heart and brain.

“Ten.”

You came with a deafening scream, your whole body shaking for what feels like forever.

When you came down, your girlfriend was next to the bed, holding what you could only is another section of rope. What she planned to do with it, you had zero idea.

“How ya doin’, baby?” She asks. Natasha could sense something was off, but worried about misreading the signs.

It’s obvious she was not incorrect, though, when you tapped at your thigh three times.

Immediately, Natasha drops the toys in her hands and rushes over – untying the gag and freeing your limbs.

“What’s wrong, baby?” She scanned your body – terrified of finding blood or something worse. “What do you need?”

You swallowed what little spit you could find, your voice hoarse as you spoke. “Red,” a pause as you attempted to swallow once more. “Water.”

It was  all Natasha needed before she was rushing off to the fridge to grab a chilled bottle of the stuff and one of those reusable straws she stole from your apartment.

When she returned to the room she pulled you into her lap, keeping you upright as she leaned against the wall.

Natasha watched every muscle, every twitch as you drank from the straw. Your body seemed unwilling to move itself, relying on Natasha to hold you upright enough so that you didn’t choke. The room was silent except for the sound of your noisy swallowing (and, soon, the slurping of last droplets of water). You were about to ask for more, but Natasha found an unopened plastic water bottle within reach and held that for you, too. It reminded you of the first time the two of you fucked, and suddenly the world didn’t feel so cold anymore.

“I’m done, Mommy,” you told her when half the water was gone. “I’m good.”

“You sure, babygirl?” her voice laced with deep, genuine concern. Her eyes reflected the same emotion.

You nodded, leaning into her and rubbing your knuckles where they laid against her thigh. “I’m sure, Mommy. Thank you.”

Natasha closed the bottle and tossed it into the half-open bedside table drawer before she wrapped you in her arms. “Of course, honeybee. I’m proud of you for using your safe word, thank you for trusting me.”

You mmmed and laid there for a moment, your breathing in rhythm with Natasha. You two sat there, comfortable in the silence. If there was anything else to say, you’d say it – but for the while you enjoyed the wordless space you and her existed in.

It took a long while, after your heart had slowed and your breathing had evened out, but you eventually fell asleep in Natasha’s arms. It was peaceful, deep – somehow impossibly more satisfying than any of the other times you’d fallen asleep, even the times you’d fallen asleep with her. There, secured from harm in her arms and wrapped in blankets, you felt secure. It was indescribable, it was wonderful, it was safe. And to you, in that moment, it was heaven.

[lady-divine-writes]

Good Omens - Starmaker (Rated PG)

Summary: Crowley rushes into Aziraphale's shoe shop right at closing with a ballet emergency. She's in dire need of a new pair of pointe shoes, which she can only get at Aziraphale's shop.

Made by a craftsman who identifies themselves with only a star ... (1451 words)

Notes: I thought I would put a new twist on the whole 'Starmaker' trope XD

Read on AO3.

“Help me help me help me help me!” Crowley begs, racing through the door of Aziraphale’s shop a minute before closing, as is her custom. Crowley doesn’t leave the theater too often unless she absolutely has to, and that’s usually to go home. She can't get away with sneaking down back alleys dressed in a hoodie and a pair of sweats the way other dancers do. At over six feet tall without her pointe shoes, an absolutely unheard of height for a principal dancer in any company, not to mention the Royal Ballet, and with her flame-red locks, she’s far too recognizable despite any of the disguises she tries to employ. 

Crowley loves her fans. She wouldn’t be where she is without them. But she’s not a people person. She appreciates her privacy. She despises being bothered outside the theater, away from the shield of the curtain and the stage.

Besides, she’d rather have her favorite shoe fitter all to herself.

“My goodness,” Aziraphale mutters, fussing with drawers of satin ribbons, pretending to be unaffected by the goddess flying down the aisle towards her in desperate yet glamorous despair. “Whatever could be the matter, my dear?”

“Whatever could be the matter?" Crowley mimics. "I’ll tell you what could be the matter! I am set to dance Sleeping Beauty in just under a week, as you well know …”

“As I well know …”

“... and my pointe shoes died! Out of the blue died!” Crowley pulls her broken shoes from out her pockets as proof of her grief.

“Don’t you keep about eight pairs in rotation?” Aziraphale asks, moving on to a basket of elastics with practiced nonchalance.

“Yes, but they’re all scuffed and creased. I don’t want to wear those on stage." Crowley smirks like the brat she is. "I can’t help it if my feet look their best in a new pair of shoes.”

“Doesn’t the theater have another pair for you?" Aziraphale stalls, being of no help on purpose. She has missed Crowley way too much to simply let her jete into her shop and act as if she visits weekly for tea when, in reality, they haven't seen one another in a dog's age. "I thought they must, seeing as you haven’t set foot in my shop for around three months.”

“Oh, they have another pair all right,” Crowley moans, not catching the bitter tang in Aziraphale’s words, “but not my favorite! I need my favorite, Aziraphale! I cannot be expected to dance a part as grueling as Aurora without my …” 

Aziraphale gives in. She turns, four brand new pairs of pink satin shoes cradled side by side in her hands like a beloved set of quadruplets. “Are these what you need?” 

“My shoes!” Crowley cheers with an exhalation of relief, scooping the shoes out of Aziraphale’s hands and hugging them tightly to her bosom. “How ever do you manage to get a hold of them when no one else can? And four pairs!? You're a miracle-worker! No! You're an angel! That's what you are!”

“Every fitter stocks certain shoes," Aziraphale says, fighting the rush of red to her cheeks. "Supply and demand and all that. You’re the only dancer I know who buys these, and since you're local, for now, I keep them in stock.”

“But they're literally impossible to get a hold of!” Crowley lights gracefully onto Aziraphale’s fitting chair. It's actually an elaborate, gold-scrolled throne - a chair of significant opulence that Aziraphale keeps on hand to make her clients feel appreciated. But with its high back and red velvet cushions, it suits Crowley most of all. “I’ve been looking online everywhere for a pair!”

“You wound me!” Aziraphale gasps, pulling up a pillow and taking to her knees to fit the ballerina. Not that it’s necessary. Crowley has been coming to Aziraphale’s for these same shoes since they showed up in her shop over a year ago. From that moment on, they were the only shoe Crowley would wear. They’re her Cinderella slipper. She barely has to put in any effort, and they do exactly what she needs, each brand new pair responding as if she’s been wearing them for a day of classes. 

If Crowley didn’t know better, she’d say they were made to fit her feet perfectly and her feet alone. But that's ridiculous. Each make of pointe shoe suits a variety of dancers. Still, Crowley has never met another dancer who wears them. 

“You should have come to me first!”

“Don’t take it personally, Aziraphale. It’s always good to have a backup supplier, what with the state of the world today. You understand, don’t you?” 

“Alas, I do," Aziraphale admits sadly, slipping off Crowley's flats and sliding her feet into the satin slippers. "There. How do those feel?”

“Oh, they’re heaven! Simply heaven!" Crowley stands from her seat and rises to her toes, admiring the way her feet look in brand new shoes, even with her legs hidden by baggy practice pants. "So incredibly soft! Like dancing on a cloud! And to think, each pair will last me two, three weeks at least! I don’t know what kind of magic this maker wields that he can create a shoe that lasts me more than a day, especially with all the partnering I’m doing. Why, I’ve been known to break other shoes in around two hours!” Crowley lifts one foot up and peeks at the virgin sole. She reaches down, fingertips tracing the indented star on the center above the brand name. “Star," she says reverently. "Did you know they’re the only maker that doesn’t have their picture on the Freed website?”

“So you keep telling me,” Aziraphale says dryly.

“Do you know who he is?”

“Not at all.”

“Oh come on! All of you fitters know the shoemakers, don’t you?”

“Yes. But not this time, I’m afraid.”

“I’m dying to know what he looks like. To put a face to the shoes, so to speak."

"Does what he looks like matter so much, my dear?" Aziraphale gazes up at the statuesque ballerina looking down in Aziraphale's direction to admire her shoes. She only has eyes for them. Aziraphale sighs. 

Same planet, but two completely different worlds.

"Well, no ..." Crowley says, a tad unconvincingly. "Still, you don’t think he’s like one of those scruffy, beer-drinking, pot-bellied Minotaurs that make the other Freed pointe shoes, do you?”

“I’m not sure.” Aziraphale stands and puts her pillow away. This part of the fitting process always ends the same, with Crowley gushing over the skill and artistry of some unseen craftsman.

“Maybe he doesn’t put his picture up because he’s devastatingly handsome, and he can't stand the attention," Crowley says dreamily, extending an arm over her head, which makes her look twice her height. "I know what that's like." Her pouty red lips pull down at the corners, her love-soaked expression turning sour. "Or maybe because he’s worse than the others: three-feet tall, pot marked cheeks, and only four teeth.”

“Who’s to say it’s even a man, my dear?” Aziraphale gestures for Crowley to retake her seat so that she can sew on her ribbons. Ballerinas normally do the work themselves, but Crowley claims Aziraphale has a special knack for it. Crowley will sew her own ribbons and elastics on in a pinch, but she much prefers the way Aziraphale does it.

And Aziraphale only does it for Crowley.

“Oh, if only." Crowley slides back into the chair and pulls her pant legs up to her knees, exposing her legs all the way to her calves. Aziraphale catches a glimpse of Crowley's toned legs, her shapely calves, and her heart skips a beat. Aziraphale sees gorgeous legs and feet all day long, but Crowley's are exceptional. They're a masterpiece, sculpted through hours of practice and performance, but also luck and phenomenal genes. "But odds are slim," Crowley continues, rolling her ankles to see just how beautiful her feet look in her shoes at all angles. "There are so few female shoemakers in the ballet world. But it would be amazing." Crowley sighs. "Well, whoever he … or she … is, they’d better not think of retiring any time soon. When they make their last shoe, I’ll dance my last dance. I can't even think of dancing in anything but star shoes.”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about.” Aziraphale reaches into her basket of ribbons for the matte ones Crowley favors, carefully hiding a special leather stamp, one she’d carelessly left out on her work table where anyone could see.

One in the shape of a star.

“I'm sure that if they ever heard that, they'd make your shoes till the end of time.”