#side effects of being stuck in the space between spaces and STRONG magical forces and critters

[mrsthunderkin]

What would you do if you found yourself in a realm of magical beasties and this big burly wizard in a cable-knit sweater pulls up on you with his dumb accent and a grouchy tude.

[dailycharacteroption]

Planar Tour Guide: Ethereal Plane part 1

(art by T3H-5T3V3N on DeviantArt)

Intro

 Cosmologies are sometimes easy to forget in fantasy gaming until the demons show up. Sure, you may have a cleric in your party whose faith channels the power of a deity, but you probably don’t think about the fact that said deity has a home too often.

We’ve discussed the Pathfinder multiverse/cosmology and how to design your own briefly in the past, but this week, I’d like to begin a series focused on the various planes that form the cosmology of the Lost Omens core setting as well as it’s origins in previous systems and so on.

And our first subject is the Ethereal plane, as well as lesser planes connected to it such as the Dimension of Dreams, Leng, and the sahkil fortress-dimension of Xibalba.

A transitive plane that overlaps the material world, the ethereal is also known as the Ghost World, the In-Between, and the Space Between Spaces, all appropriate names as this plane is what the spirits of the dead travel through to reach the River of Souls on their way to the afterlife (or get stuck there and become phantoms or incorporeal undead) as well as being a useful plane to magically slip into as a way to bypass obstacles.

However, the plane is hardly without risks. As in addition to unquiet spirits, it is also home to strange native monsters, fear-mongering sahkils, rogue dreams from the Dimension of Dreams, Night hags, visitors from the elemental planes, and so on.

The dimension is also heavily affected by mortal emotion and thought, similar to the Astral Plane, and as such it is an important part of occult traditions and psychic magic.

The ethereal plane is mostly empty, filled with a silvery-gray fog, but it is possible to see the shadows of physical objects on the material plane and even living creatures, though they are vague and indistinct. However, no magic on the ethereal can reach the material, and vice versal with the exception of force effects manifesting on the material side, which are just as solid and forceful to ethereal foes. Indeed, most incorporeal foes exist simultaneously on the ethereal plane and their substanceless manifestation that can be seen from the material side. Of course, such manifestations can still be affected to a lesser extent by regular magic, affecting their ethereal source as well.

There is, however, sometimes matter to be found there, whether it be drawn from other planes, or created from a dream or by the will of a powerful mage. Structures are common, but any sort of place where strong emotion gathers is possible.

 The Ethereal Plane may overlap with the Material, but it does extend beyond it in the strange directions one must think in outside of three-dimensional space, and far from it lies the Dimension of Dreams, a plane accessed by the dreaming minds of mortals, which forms like a frothy film of soap bubbles along the border of the ethereal plane to form individual dreamscapes that grow and vanish with wakefulness. However, it is also possible to go deeper into what are called the Dreamlands, permanent (or seemingly so) realms formed by powerful entities that may still be dreaming to this day. The denizens of such places, including animate dreams, are as diverse as the imagination itself, and one who travels there physically or through a lucid body may be capable of the impossible.

However, once must be careful when travelling the Dreamlands lest they find themselves in Leng, a demiplane of nightmares where every denizen is a slaver or predator that either ventures out to prey upon mortals waking or otherwise, or lives in constant war with each other with visitors caught in the middle. Worse still, certain Elder Powers such as Nyarlahotep have an interest in the plane as well.

 As we can see, the Ethereal plane and it’s associated lesser and demiplanes has much more to offer than a gray void with the occasional ghost in it, and throughout the week, we’ll talk more about it!

[crimsonophelia]

Could I get a fluffy and maybe flirty Childe imagine set during his story quest? Instead of the Traveler and Paimon accompanying him, the reader (who works at the Northland Bank as one of Childe’s subordinates) gets slapped with the duty of babysitting Teucer and covering for Childe and his façade as a toy seller in Liyue.

"I must say that your brother is quite cute, sir."

"...I guess it must run in the family."

"Hm? Did you say something, comrade?"

"Oh. Um. Nothing, sir."

Of course, being the perceptive man he is, Childe heard all of what they said. What he ends up doing or saying to the reader? Seeing the magic you’ve worked when anon previously gave you the liberty of it, I leave it entirely up to you. :)

featuring: childe x gn!reader

warnings: a teeny bit suggestive at the end

published: april 27 2021

form: imagine

a/n: i’m gonna be real with you, i was stuck on ar35 for the longest time because i was too cowardly to level up my world so i finally did it today and i jumped from 35 to 41 T_T and now my enemies are stupidly strong. but anyways i just started the childe quest today so im just gonna stick to the part when they’re still in liyue and there’s no fighting wwww

“teucer, i swear to celestia-” you muttered under your breath, as the little redhead slipped from your grasp yet again, running ahead to go look at some kite vendors. “come back here, kid! otherwise you’re gonna be in a heck of a lot of trouble!” 

earlier in the day, you were out running errands for the bank, under tartaglia’s orders, when you had come across rumors of a ruin guard running amok. figuring you would use your spare time and save some local liyue citizens the trouble of having to deal with the feral robot, you defeated the machine with efficient ease. however, in the vicinity, you discovered a lone child showing great excitement at a deactivated ruin guard, jumping and leaping while calling it “mr. cyclops” with a strange elation. 

you figured the boy was snezhnayan, what with his features and clothing reminiscent of the cold climate of your homeland. but why in the world was he out by a ruin hunter all alone? he kept mentioning his brother, a toy seller in liyue, but you could think of absolutely nobody that fit that description. 

so, out of the goodness of your own heart, you decided to take the little boy-- teucer, he called himself--back to liyue harbor with you, and see if you could find this older brother of his. 

however, once you arrived back in the city, your plans were quickly derailed as the little brat seemed to have the attention span of a fruit fly, and was constantly trying to weasel his way into some other dangerous situation without you knowing. 

“god dammit teucer”, you huffed, trying to keep up with the child. who let children have so much energy? your age must finally be catching up to you, you thought. “how about we go back to northland bank? you might like it there” you thought taking him back to your headquarters would stall the boy for enough time for you to find someone who might know the whereabouts of teucer’s brother. there weren’t too many snezhnayans in liyue--whoever his brother is, he can’t be far.

the little boy looked up at you with his big, blue puppy eyes, but you knew his act by now. “no buts, kid. if you’re lucky, we’ll be able to track down you’re brother there.” he sighed, relenting to your orders and following you back to northland bank.

the two of you climbed up the stairwell leading to the entrance of the bank on the second floor, teucer clearly dejected and pouting like a baby. exhausted, you pushed open the doors that you were so familiar with, and ushered the child inside.

much to your surprise, you see tartaglia talking with ekaterina in the lobby. it had been quite a while since you had seen your superior in person, and the surprise certainly was not unwelcome. sometimes you couldn’t stand the man’s smug attitude, yet there was something in his rogueish charisma that you simple couldnt deny attracted you to him.

teucer also seemed to be excited by this sighting of the red-headed harbinger, the little boy’s eyes lighting up with unbridled excitement.

“brother!”

wait. was tartaglia the older brother teucer had been talking about all along?

childe turned around, distracted by teucer’s voice, and upon seeing the little boy, his eyes lit up—first with surprise, then with confusion.

“teucer? what the heck are you doing here in liyue?”

he left the fatui agent with a befuddled look upon her face, and ran towards the child. teucer jumped up into his brother’s broad arms, and they grasped each other in a tight hug, like they had not seen each other for at least an eternity.

ruffling teucer’s hair, tartaglia softened, with an expression unlike anything you had really seen him wear before. he really must care about his family, you thought to yourself.

“so you’re the older brother this little tyke has been talking nonstop about”, you teased tartaglia, elbowing him in his side. “you know, he’s thrown me for a loop this entire day. i didnt think babysitting was part of the job requirement.”

the red-head chuckled abashedly, scratching his head. “sorry about that, [y/n]. the little guy can’t seem to bear being away from his favorite big brother.”

teucer laughed. he truly looked so happy to be with tartaglia again, which made you wonder what the harbinger was like when not on the job. you had known him to be a ruthless war machine, a hedonistic killer who thrived off of the rush battle and bloodshed gave him. childe could take down a dozen men, twice his size, in a matter of minutes, hardly breaking a sweat. yet seeing him interact with teucer, almost a little mini-sized version of himself, his gentleness and care surprised you. perhaps there was more to the man than you had initially thought.

teucer finally detaching himself from tartaglia, looked up at his brother with those same puppy eyes, now full of admiration. “are you here to sell toys to the liyue children, too?”, the child asked. toys? what toys could he possibly be referring to? you and ekaterina, both, looked at childe with confusion.

tartaglia stuttered for a moment. “oh! uhh— yes! yes i am! i was just talking with the nice lady, ms. ekaterina, on how many toys we can sell to all the children in liyue!” he responded, hardly missing a beat. did teucer not know what childe’s actual occupation was?

“wow! my brother really is the coolest person ever!” teucer leaped up and down, hanging onto tartaglia’s pantlegs. looking at this young, untainted innocence, you begun to understand why childe might try and shield the child from the truth.

childe detached the excitable child from his clothing, and beckoned ekaterina over. “ms. ekaterina, would you do me the grand favor of watching teucer for the rest of the day? i’d hate to burden our friend [y/n] after they have already brought him to liyue from celestia-knows-where.” he turns to teucer, telling him “big brother ajax is going to sell many, many toys now! so you need to behave yourself when i’m gone, okay? miss ekaterina will be watching you, and she’s very nice.” he pinches his brother’s cheek, teasing him lightly, and ushering him away with the fatui agent.

it’s now just you and tartaglia in the bank, as the sun was setting and all the other employees had gone home for the day. you heaved a sigh of relief, glad to be rid of baby-sitting duty, after having to deal with teucer’s antics for several hours now.

“i’m really sorry about all of that. i had no idea he would be coming, as a stowaway, no less.” the man looked at you with genuine gratitude. “i don’t want to imagine what might’ve happened to the little brat if you hadn’t been there.”

you chuckled, not quite used to seeing such sincerity coming from the harbinger. most of the time, you had been accustomed to his charismatic facade that he puts on when he becomes childe, the eleventh and one of the most dangerous members of the fatui harbingers.

“don’t worry, it really was no problem. your brother is certainly a handful, but undeniably adorable”, you said, mindlessly gathering your belongings again as you prepared to head out again. “he takes after his older brother quite a bit, i must say.”

“come again?” childe looked behind him, eyebrow cocked.

“oh— nothing. i didnt say anything”, you muttered. shit. you really need to get better at keeping your mouth shut. you refused to be known as the insolent fool with the puppy-love crush on the goddamn eleventh fatui harbinger.

“oh? that didnt really sound like nothing, my dear [y/n].” he smirked. whenever he called you “my dear”, you knew you were in for major teasing. he was definitely having fun with this. he strode towards you innocently, with that usual swagger of his, that tinted everything he did. his walk, his talk, his appearance all oozed confidence, and it was utterly intoxicating.

tartaglia now looked at you with a glint in his eye, the same look he gave enemies before he was about to utterly obliterate them. it was frightening, yet terribly alluring, and you despised how much you fell for it.

suddenly, you felt your back hit the cold, marble wall. you hadn’t even realized that tartaglia had cornered you against a gold pillar, his mere presence forcing you to unconsciously move away from him as he approached you, calculatedly. a lump growing in your throat, you couldn’t bring yourself to even utter a single word in defense, only feeling your cheeks grow hotter and your legs grow weaker.

tartaglia leaned his arm against the pillar, dangerously close to your head, effectively propping himself up with only you between him. you were far too aware of the space—or rather, the lack thereof—separating the two of you, the man’s hot breath audible in the dead, echoing silence of the golden bank.

tartaglia smirked, bringing his face close to yours. “you flatter me greatly, [y/n].” smirking, his breath grazed against your neck, his stare burning into your flesh. the way your name sounded on his lips made your breath hitched in your throat. too hot, you felt way too hot. it was impossible for a hydro user to make you feel such unbearable heat.

“seems as if your clever words aren’t of any use to you now, hmm?” you could feel the mans lips brushing against your jaw, each touch against you leaving a stinging trail. he brought his free hand to caress your own, fingers clasping yours as if you were made of a delicate porcelain, the finest kind liyue had to offer. slowly, as if dragging out each second as long as he could, tartaglia brought your hand to his lips, and planted a long, slow kiss to the back of your palm.

your eyes widened at the sheer eroticism with which he kissed your hand—an act commonly of etiquette somehow being much more lustful, even debauched when tartaglia did it. all you could feel was where his lips met your hand, the phantom burn it left, the slight string of saliva connecting his lips to your hand as he left it, the dark gaze in his eyes as he looked back up at you, clearly aware of how vulnerable you were in his grasp.

“thank you again, my dear. i hope we can continue to work together in the future.”

a/n: jesus christ this got really horny at the end LMFAO anyways i hope you like it! its kinda long but wtv

[smallerinfinities]

something missing | feysand oneshot

a/n: oh hello! idk this just kind of....happened? it came upon me unexpectedly. I’m rereading ACOFAS and it’s snowing outside so...here’s some sugar-coated fluff laced with filth for this sinday :)

warnings: 3.3k of fluffy smut and smutty fluff

Hmmm. Feyre worried the paint brush stuck between her lips with her teeth. There was something missing from the painting. Frost and Starlight, she had called it in her mind walking through the Palace of Thread and Jewels that day before Solstice. Now, weeks later, she clung to the buzz of the early chill of winter, wanted to remember the bustling life that had turned scarce in the city. 

It was now bitterly cold—according to Mor, colder than it had been in Velaris in decades. The streets were mostly empty, quiet except for the bundled shuffling of people coming and going but rarely standing for too long. Feyre could hear the wind beating at the locked gallery door, could feel the cold pushing against the magic of her floating flames. The only thing keeping her from freezing to death in the dimming light of the Rainbow. 

Even the Rainbow had been less alive lately, artists only leaving their studios for occasional supplies. The musicians had taken to giving little salon concerts. Only the most desperate had remained busking outside. Feyre had persuaded Rhys into magicking some coins into their open instrument cases, enough to keep them out of the cold for awhile.

She shook her head and refocused on the swirls of color in front of her, the painting that might have been finished if she weren’t so set on the details of it. What’s missing?

I don’t know, but I know what I’m missing. Feyre smiled involuntarily, his purr down the bond snaking its way down her spine. 

Incorrigible. Where have you been? If you went someplace warm without me, I’m staying at the gallery and you can sleep alone in our cold bed with none of what you’ve been missing. 

Rhys chuckled. On the contrary, my love. I was in the Steppes with Az, settling a few more of the descenters down. I’ve been freezing my balls off all day. 

Feyre shivered just thinking about how cold the war camps must be, the rows of tents barely standing up to the winds. But she couldn’t resist the door he’d left open. Poor Illyrian baby, so afraid of losing something important to a little cold spell.

He sent a rude gesture down the bond and Feyre smirked, taking the paint brush from her mouth to shove into the messy bun on top of her head. She paused halfway when her mating ring caught one of the faelights behind her, setting the brilliant sapphire glittering. Ah, that’s what’s missing. 

She dipped her brush in a tiny bit of white paint and leaned into the canvas, dabbing little specks here and there, in every window in her frozen Palace. When she sat back, the effect set her eyes sparkling. The blues and reds and greens of her scene turned into glittering sapphires and rubies and emeralds. The jewels the Palace was famous for leaped off the canvas and twinkled behind the glass, worthy of the astonishment she had painted in the faces walking past.

Beautiful, he breathed, seeing the painting through her eyes. Lately, she had been leaving her mind open to him when she painted. He didn’t pry often, but she found she wanted to share a little of her process with him. Even if she couldn’t talk about some of her feelings, some of the things they left in the darkness, she could show him here in the quiet of the gallery at night. 

Feyre felt him before even the shadows could react to his winnowing. Rhys grazed the skin at the edge of her sweater, just below her neck. Shivers ran down her spine again, but not because of the cold. Her nipples hardened in response to his touch, a kindling warming low in her abdomen. 

“Hello, Feyre darling.” 

His solid presence relaxed her, the warmth of him radiating into her back. She exhaled and leaned into him as his hands left her neck to wander down her front, skillfully avoiding the hardened peaks that reached for him. Even with the stool, he still towered over her, giving him enough room to rest his chin on top of that messy bun. 

“Gods, I missed you,” he inhaled, breathing her scent, now eternally mixed with paint, “the Illyrians are such bastards when they’re being obstinate.” 

“What did you and Az have to do?” Feyre ran soothing fingers up and down his arms still covered in Illyrian leathers. 

“Nothing too taxing, just some strong words and a demonstration.” She could feel him tense up, even as his wandering hands caressed her sides, trying to find the hem of her sweater. 

“Did you kill anyone?” Such a casual question, but even with the veil of sarcasm he knew she would want a serious answer. 

“No, but let’s just say a couple of their captains won’t be flying anytime soon.” He let some of the tension he always carried after bad days melt away as he curved into her, moving to pepper her neck with sloppy kisses. 

“Rhys,” she moaned, combing her fingers through his hair that was still damp from the Illyrian snow. “Let me clean up and then you can ravish me at home all you like.”

His teeth grazed her earlobe and she bent her head sideways giving him more room. Just as his fingers finally found that hem of her sweater. Snow-cold fingers tickled the skin just above her leggings. Feyre yelped and twisted on her stool, finally turning to face him fully. His eyes were pure violet fire, taking in every inch of her, from her wild hair to her booted feet. His chest raised and lowered quicker with each passing second, the bulge in his pants evidence of his mirrored desire. She bit her lip. And he snapped. 

Fuck the house, he purred down the bond. His mouth collided with hers as strong hands lifted her from the stool. She wrapped her legs around his waist, careful to avoid his sensitive wings. His pouty lips devoured hers, a wild moan escaping him as he tugged at her bottom lip. Feyre could sense him reaching with his magic, trying to find some place to put her down so he could properly have his way with her. Out here it would be the wall between the hung paintings or the cold floor. She knew he was weighing those two options. 

There’s a table in the back room, she panted, clawing at his mental walls with the promise of what was to come. If she was honest, she wouldn’t have minded the wall, but the paintings were precious and she knew they wouldn’t be hanging for very long. He carried her, his mouth still firmly pressed against hers. She shifted her head and opened fully for him, inviting him into her mouth with a flick of her tongue against his. He tasted like citrus kissed with the bitter tang of whiskey, left over from the drink he’d had to take the edge off the demonstration earlier. 

When he kicked open the back room door, Feyre’s floating firelight followed them, immediately stoking and warming the space. 

You’re getting better at that. His praise was like gasoline on that kindling inside of her, kicking up a blazing fire that sang through her blood, through her bones. He deposited her on the worktable, only taking a second to notice the sharp scent of paint and the supplies that littered the space behind her. His lips curled, this reminds me of the cabin. Remember how messy it was?

“It was our mating,” she answered out loud, “I remember every second of that day.” I can still feel it here, Feyre took his hand and guided it under her sweater to press against her panting heart. He stepped closer to rest his brow against hers, dragging a finger down her cheek. It was a second before his soft smile went devilish, another second before she felt the wet streak where his finger had been. 

He wiggled a cerulean-tipped finger at her. 

“Rhysand!” 

He tipped his head back and roared with laughter as she slapped at his leather-clad chest. The closest jar to her was a cotton candy pink. She snapped her fingers and his leathers disappeared, leaving a perfectly sculpted tan chest for her to draw a big heart on with her fingers. 

Hmpf. Turnabout is fair play. The playful gleam in his eye sparkled as he snapped his fingers and her clothes just...disappeared. She quirked an eyebrow, I hope you’re giving those back before we leave. A low growl rumbled beneath her fingers still toying with his chest. 

I’ll take it under advisement. You might have to beg me. A wry smile formed on his lips as he dipped that same cerulean finger into the pink paint and swirled it between her breasts, a trail of purple from her throat to her belly button. Feyre exhaled heavily and leaned back on her hands, scattering some charcoal pencils. They echoed in the cold space when they clattered to the floor but she didn’t care. She was naked and Rhys was not. Her legs spread a little wider against the edge of the table, putting herself on display for him. 

“Wicked, beautiful creature.” His hot breath ricocheted off her chest where his paint marks were quickly drying. It was a struggle to keep from moaning at the touch of his fingers toying with the inside of her spread thighs, dangerously close to the liquid fire pooling between her legs. He grinned at her restraint, the muscles dancing beneath her skin. “What do you wish of me, High Lady?” 

“I wish…” she tilted her head back in a slow roll, “I wish…” When her eyes met his again, their intensity burned anew. “I wish for you to take me like you did that first time,” snapping her fingers to rid him of the last of his clothes, “no holding back.”

His knees shook like a newborn foal at the command in her words. He kneeled before her on those tattoos he’d had as a reminder for centuries. I will bow before no one and nothing but my crown. The crown he shared with her. He bowed now, as he had before, as he would many, many more times before they were through with this life. The most powerful High Lord in history sent to his knees by his Queen. 

He forced her thighs even wider to accommodate his broad shoulders between her knees. His Fae eyesight didn’t miss the way her stomach muscles clenched as he played with the sensitive skin at her hips, his fingers making a slow path to her spread thighs. He cupped the back of her knees and quickly pulled her closer to his waiting mouth. 

Her yelp turned to a deep moan when he finally tasted her. Fingers immediately weaved into his hair as her back arched off the table. Gods, you taste like honey. You’re so wet for me, Feyre. 

She didn’t have any coherent words to send back to him, just waves of pleasure licking down the mental bridge between them. He suckled at her folds, drank from her, his holy font atop his only sacred altar. She writhed beneath his fingers moving over her warmed skin, let out a groan so deep he felt it vibrate against his face when he found her peaked nipples swollen and screaming for him. He felt her toes curl against his back, stroking his wings in places that made him moan into her. 

It was the last swirl of his tongue, a figure-eight pattern from her entrance to that bundle of nerves at the apex of her folds that finally sent her chanting his name over the edge. She wasn’t sure if it was out loud, but she knew he heard her either way. His wings flared proudly, knocking over a row of easels propped against the side wall, but he couldn’t hear the noise over her heartbeat pounding across the bond. 

The force of her climax pushed her into a sitting position, her fingers still curled in his hair holding his head against her as he stroked his tongue with every wave of pleasure. Even when she was spent, her thighs trembling over his shoulders, she couldn’t neglect him. Her fingers combed through his hair and snaked down his back, busying themselves with the grooves of his wings as he sucked a mark into the inside of her thigh. She made to release him, allow him off his knees, but he growled. 

Don’t stop.

The corners of her mouth curled upward. Is it truly like stroking you...elsewhere?

Well, Feyre darling, how do you feel when I stroke that one spot near the base of your left wing?

She clenched her thighs around his head at the thought. Point taken. 

He stretched his wing in encouragement. She followed his lead, splaying her hands across the membranous skin, tracing his scars. The feeling was, well he couldn’t quite think straight. Pleasure was too tame a word to describe the white-hot fire that licked his wings every time she ran her fingers over the spines, the scars, the muscles that purred and loosened for her. She pressed in at the space between the primary spine and the muscles in his back. He moaned so loud the paint jars rippled. 

Mother above, stop. 

It’s poor form to blaspheme in such a compromising position. Feyre grinned like a cat about to pounce on its prey. This was what she had been waiting for.

Feyre Cauldron-Blessed would know. He sucked in a breath. Her hands hadn’t moved. If you don’t stop, I’m going to spill a different kind of paint on this floor and ruin all our fun. 

Such a messy Illyrian brute. But she let him go, let him rise from between her thighs and stand. He was at full attention, wings spread wide to prolong the feeling of her fingers on the sensitive skin. Even now, after almost a year with him, she still marveled that this thing between them was real. That she was his and he was hers. My mate. 

She reached for him again, low. It was his turn to chant her name. 

Rhys caught her wrists, turning her hands over. He pressed a kiss to each palm. I’m plenty primed, my love. 

Feyre wrapped her legs around his waist, forcing him closer, so close to where she wanted him. She knew he liked this position, liked to watch her respond to him. He gripped her hips and positioned himself right at the precipice, took a breath. And pushed in to the hilt. 

Their collective moans shook the little back room, shadows gathering against the walls. Rhys’s eyes were fathomless pools of violet, boring into her very soul. He opened his mind fully to her and saw herself through his eyes, felt the love and the unending desire for her, tasted herself on his tongue. 

I love you. His voice clanged through her, flipping that light switch that lived deep inside of her, that little piece of Day linked to moments of pure joy. Her skin began to glow, only growing brighter when he moved within her. Slow strokes at first, deep inside. Shadows began to lick at her light, snaking against her responsive skin, the contrast only making her shine brighter. 

His thrusts quickened, control flickering with his hips. The hands that gripped her were little more than wisps of darkness, but she could feel his claws lengthening. Feyre reached back to grip the table, but instead knocked over a full jar of paint, splashing green into her hair, onto her skin. 

She laughed, tightening around him. The snarl he released shook her very center, pummeling the dam that he was determined to break for a second time tonight. She sent paint flying through the air on a breeze, landing squarely on his chest like a bullseye on a dart board. Her giggle sent his shadows skittering. 

Laughing at a male in the throes of pleasure is unbecoming of a High Lady, he panted down the bond. 

And how would you know? There’s never been a High Lady before me. Her eyes threatened another laugh until he hauled her leg off the table and shifted his hips. Her eyes rolled back. The floating fire around them surged with her answering moans, sweat beading on both of their brows. 

His hips stuttered. He was close. Feyre reached out and ran a hand down the open gates of his mind. Rhysand, she purred. 

He looked at her, his pupils narrowing, that beast of his barely concealed in this place between pleasure and chaos. His thoughts were a rush, his senses too open to hold on to any particular thought for long. The only thing she could make out other than pure sensation in his mind was one repeated word. 

Feyre, Feyre, Feyre—

Her name. Over and over again. His tether to this world, to the light. 

Rhys. She brushed at the claws on her hips, catching his attention. Come with me. 

The roar was deafening. Anyone else would have been terrified, but all Feyre could do was launch herself over the cliff with him as he finally plunged headfirst into his own pleasure. Blazing light flashed. Her light. Her joy, covering Rhys’s darkness with her own body as he collapsed into her, panting heavily against her shoulder. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, calming the tremors that rolled through him. 

For a few moments the only sounds in the room were the crackling of Feyre’s dying fire lights and their ragged breathing. When Rhys could finally lift himself onto his hands, he just looked at her for a long moment. 

Thought for a thought? she wiped at the sweat dripping from his temples. 

He smirked at her, I was thinking that if I didn’t already know what it feels like to die, I would think you were trying to fuck me to death. 

Her answering laugh shook her whole body, down to the place where he was still sheathed inside her. Rhys hissed, slowly withdrawing. He watched her glow dim. It always did when they parted, a fact that made him equal parts proud and melancholy. She sat up and stretched, cocking her head as he snapped his fingers to clean them off enough to get to the bath at home, leaving only the paint behind. He always liked to scrub that off of her himself.

“I’m going to have to come in early to clean up,” she worried at her lip, surveying all the spilled paint. The room was a bit of a wreck. Tumbled easels, green and blue paint dripping from the table onto the floor, scattered pieces of drawing paper with distinct details from his mate’s naked body outlined in pink and purple. Rhys scoffed and snapped again, setting everything right. 

Feyre grumbled, “you still need to teach me how you do that.” 

“I promise I will, but I’m still waiting for my thought,” he said, as he snapped a third time. Her clothes reappeared in a neat pile. They both dressed as she formed the words in her mind. Words to convey the way her pulse ticked up every morning in the shade of his wing, the way her cheeks pinked with the faintest touch of his fingers on her skin. 

“Will it be like this always? Will I still want to rip the leathers off of you in a thousand years?” He walked over and took her hands, the movement of his sleek black sweater and trousers the only sound in the room. Warmth passed between them, through their clasped hands and the look he gave her. Like a thousand years was only the beginning of their forever. 

“I hope so, Feyre. I really hope so.” He pressed a kiss to her temple and winnowed them both home. 

fin.

[fandom-------queen]

Kurt x reader

Notes: your mutation is the ability to read people's fears and traumatic memories. You can also produce illusions for everyone to see or put an illusion only in one person's head. These illusions can be based on their fears or memories. Also since it's based off of Wanda and more of the mind stone your power will be yellow and your eyes will glow yellow.

Warnings: intense description of fighting and invading people's minds, using past trauma in fighting maybe one curse word I think, a broken arm, passing out. Please tell me if you find any other trigger or content warnings I should include!

*maybe spoilers for first class

*Not proof read

*Also I love Eric and Mystique but I needed someone for them to fight against and this made the most sense to me.

You were very nervous as you sat next to Kurt on the jet. You, Kurt, Scott, Jean, Peter, Storm, Charles, Hank and Logan were all on your way to prevent Eric and Mystique from wreaking havoc on humans in the name of mutants once again.

Kurt was holding your hand while you stroked your thumb up and down it. He was nervously wiggling his tail around by twisting between your legs and sometimes using the tip to stroke your leg. You would cast him small smiles and give him gentel hand squeezes just to help ground him since he always got nervous when it came to this.

You were getting close to the outside of the city were you would land as to not alert Eric that you were there. Charles spoke up telling people what roles they would be playing in order to stop Eric.

Your job would be to distract Eric's followers and him if nesessary, to allow your teachers to gain control over the situation. You knew you probably wouldn't only use your illusions since they took much concentration and could leave you open to attacks so you figured you would also use your hand to hand combat that all mutants were taught in case it was more useful or nesessary.

Kurt was also going to be distracting Eric's followers but with hand to hand combat so that Logan, Charles, Hank and Storm (even Peter I'd it came down to it) could focus on stopping Eric. When Kurt did hand to hand he more teleported around to confuse his opponent and would lash out at their feet with his tail to knock them down and tire them out. It was different but effective.

You were going to be landing soon and you felt Kurt's hand start to lossen around yours and quickly unthreaded your fingers. You knew Kurt was going to want to pray and you were happy that Kurt always had and always will have something to ground him, besides you of course.

Just as you touched down you heard Kurt murmur and Amen and then he turned to you "Please be carefully meine liebe, check in with me if you can just so I can feel better knowing you are safe" he pleaded as his hand game to rest on your face.

You pressed your hand on top of his and gave him a reassuring smile."I love you too miene liebe and I promise to stay safe and check in as long as you do too' you quickly kissed his cheek and started to unbuckled your seat belt as Kurt did too.

Charles gave you directions to go in so you could surround Eric. You, Scott and Logan were going left around the base Eric set up and Kurt, Jean , Peter and Storm went around right. Hank and Charles were going directly through the middle of the town in an attempt to talk things out with Eric.

You made it around Eric's perimiter and got a visual on Eric and a few of his followers. You watched as Charles attempted to stop Eric, and Hank stood next to him as beast to protect him from Eric, Mystique and their followers. Once Eric began to raise metal and the other mutants started to braise for a fight. Logan gave you the signal and off you all went. You started with the girl closest to you who's mutation was elastic like limbs. Your eyes turned yellow as her motors flossed your mind yellow energy surrounded your fingers as you found a memory of her parents berating her for being a mutant. You almost felt bad for her but her parents actions shouldn't be the reason for everyone's punishment. You twisted your hands in front of you using your magic to invade her mind and cast the illusion. Before you got too involved you backed yourself against a wall to give you some protection since you would be to focused on the details of the illusion. You replayed the memory but you made it more intense. You knew that once she snapped out of it she would be confused and upset but other wise fine so you didn't feel to bad. Your goal was to tire her out so she wouldn't be as big of a threat and now that you had done it emotionally you made her believe she snapped out of it and was fighting you. She swung punches and extend her arms and legs to trip you up. However, you were actually fine, close enough to manipulate bit far enough to be safe. You could feel her growing tired and in the illusion landed a blow to her temple. Her brain thinking it was real knocked her out and you fell out of her brain once it gave in to the exhaustion.

Blinking around you looked to see if anyone was in trouble and saw Scott fighting a winged man who wouldn't stay down your eyes turned yellow and the energy flowed around your fingers as you saw his fear of cages. He had been kept in one and forced to fight and as much as you disliked bringing up trauma you also couldn't leave Scott in a position where he didn't have the upper hand. You sent an illusion that everyone could see of the winged boy being stuck in a cage. Scott looked over and saw you as you held your hands up manipulating them around and it's the yellow energy covered your eyes and swirled around your fingers. You focused your gaze and you brought the cage down making him land on the ground. You saw Scott found some wire from a fence and you saw a three walled pile of debris with more debris on top acting like a roof. You moved him back into there by moving the walls and he kept backing up untill he was secured in there. Scott found some wire, removed his glasses and melded it to some metal structural beams in the debris to make the fourth wall. It was enough space for him but not enough to spread his wings so he wouldn't get out. You stopped the illusion and he looked around confused he saw you and tried to break out of the wire, but that wasn't something his fluffy angel wings were good for. Scott gave you a nod of thanks and the two of you headed into the fighting to find other in need of assistance.

You saw Logan doing fine on his own, Beast and Storm as well. Charles was focusing on distracting Eric and Peter was zipping around sending blows to people to knock them down. You saw a women not far from you with finger lazors, no longer down and about to hit Peter as he stopped to take a quick check of the field and you quickly raced over to her. Before she had the chance to fire you slid onto the ground and kicked her feet out from underneath her. You used your momentum to jump back up as she to came back this time her attention on you. You didn't have time for an illusion so hand to hand it was. She prefered to throw punches and kept close enough to you that neither you nor her could give a strong enough kick. You instead blocked and give the occasional elbow until you eventually saw a sloppy punch, grabbed her arm and put her in a wrist lock effectively snapping her arm, this time she we stayed down. Peter of course came by and high fived you.

You finally saw Kurt and the person he was fighting against seemed to be growing more and more irritated with Kurt and how he couldn't hit him. You didn't like how this man (who's mutation seemed to be super strength) was getting more and more irritated with Kurt. Since he couldn't physically hit him he was getting angrier and taking out by emotionally hurting him. He hit Kurt closed to home by calling him a freak and you were ready to unleash hell. You felt like a highlighter with how brightly yellow you were glowing as you snuck into his mind and fed him visions of pain. Visions of him flying through the air and getting hit by debris plagued his mind as you unleashed your anger on him for daring to insult Kurt. You were so overcome by anger you didn't realise how Eric was getting annoyed with you incapacitating his mutant followers and he hurled metal at you. He want hoping to kill you only injur you enough to knock you out of the fight, Eric wasn't one for killing his mutant brothers and sisters. Kurt was watching you in awe feeling so loved at how protective you were of him when he quickly caught on to the shard of metal aimed to imbed in your legs. He quickly grabbed you and you heard the signature *BAMF* and you fell out of the brutes mind since you were on the other side of the chaos and too far away to slip back in. You looked at Kurt and held him tight whispering a thank you in his ear. He held you tightly to him and mumbled out "liebe you made me a promise to not get hurt, I will be very unhappy if zhat promise iz broken"

"You come before anything, even promises I made to you, but I assure you miene liebe I am perfectly fine" you reassured him pulling back from his chest to smile at him. "And as much as I love being here in your arms we have a job to finish" you kissed him on the cheek and gave him a wild grin he smiled back and *BAMFED* you to the other X-men who had regrouped in front of Eric and his group in the classic sign of unity within the two groups before an awesome battle scene breaks out. Eric lifted himself up along with more shards of metal.

"Time after time, Charles have I bent to your rules and wishes, I am tiered of never having change, of being taken advantage of. They underestimate and underappreciated us Charles and the only way for them to learn is to show them, the only way left is that hard way"

"Eric the more you revert back to anger and desperation for revenge the less they trust us and the harder we must work to show we mean no harm and we can all live together peacefully. We need an ear of peace now then ever, and peaceful wishes from you may be just the thing we need to make our coexistent wishes a reality."

"Your aspirations will never be a reality Charles, they will only ever be wishes, and if I have to show you the hard way as well then so be it." As Eric raised more metal to girl at you all, you developed a potentially dumb plan or potentially great plan.

You worked to invade Eric's head, and despite his helmet preventing telepaths from getting in his head, you weren't a telepath and made it in with as expected quite the amount of resistance. You knew of Eric's past and you knew exactly what memories to use, however, you would have to be careful, after using so much energy especially on that brute you were getting a little to tired for the stunt you were trying to pull. You found the memory of Eric at the camp and losing his mother. You could feel his grief and it only made it harder to consentrate. Your breathing was definetly laboured by know as you pushed that memory to the front of his brain and had him relive it. Watching it horrified you and you could feel tears of exhaustion and pity leak down your face as you trembled with both exhaustion and the pain this memory was bringing, both emotional and physically demanding. You could feel his resistance weakening but his helmet only attempted to push you out more. Your legs you were sure were on the verge of giving out. You could hear Charles telling everyone to stand back, with a protest from a familiar German accent, that crowding you and touching you to keep you from collapsing would only distract you. The memory got to the part were his mother was killed and his powers started to surge. You could definetly feel his power surging now, Eric felt as if he was back there and this time he was determined to save his mom. You knew that you only had to keep the memory going a little while longer and let him build his power up so the sudden surge would use enough energy to knock him out. As the memory progressed and Eric's power grew. You all of a sudden felt his power reach the point to knock him unconscious, and it just so happened to take you too.

Kurt kurt kurt kurt kurt kurt kurt kurt

You woke up to three fingers strumming through your hair and the sound of the jet. You looked up and saw Kurt's face light up at the sight of you awake. "Liebe" he grinned pulling you up gently and resting your head on his shoulder as he pulled you close to him and you wrapped your arms around him.

"What happened?" Was the obvious question on your mind.

"Well" Charles began from behind you " you prevented Eric from showering us with metal debris, you invaded his mind and successfully knocked him out. However, you over exerted yourself and past out along with him. With Eric down Mystique and the others tried to flee, however, but with much assistance through Peter, we managed to keep them from leaving fast enough to esacpe custody. We are almost home, where you can all take a well deserved rest and have the next few days off of classes to recouperate. How does that sound!"

Scott and Peter let out whoops of joy while Jean grinned and you and Kurt gave each other gentel smiles. "Get some rest miene liebe, you deserve it" Kurt said smiling down at you. You snuggled into his shoulder and managed to get a quick nap in.

You managed to wake up just in time for landing. You got many praises for the stunt you had pulled when you came back to the academy. Eventually Kurt got tired of people keeping you away from the rest you so clearly needed, so when people weren't looking he *BAMFED* you two to his room. Too exhausted to get your clothes from your room you slipped on one of Kurt's tshirts and snuggled up next to him.

"I'm so proud of you liebe" he cooed quietly in your ear. "I can't thank you enough for loving me so much and protecting me so vell even vhen you do put your selv in unnecessary danger "Kurt said a goofy smile covering his face and love filled in his eyes.

"Well I can't promise never to be in danger, but I can promise to never stop loving or protecting you." That night you got the best sleep ever as you drifted off to the love of your life planting butterfly kisses all over your face knowing the next few days off would be spent in bed with the love of your life!

Hope y'all enjoyed!

@selemercy(I hope you don't mind that I tagged you it's just that you encouraged me to write this fic and your comment ment so much to me!)

[inkweaver22-blr]

Here’s another filler chapter! I like how it turned out so I hope ya’ll do too! Enjoy.

AO3 Link

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Scattered Cicadas - Chapter Twelve: Memory Proof

Tang learns a bit about the twins. Being in the same body as them might have something to do with that.

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Tang hid behind some debris in the ruined theater as he watched Macaque approach the shattered Shadow Lantern. He had been hoping to collect the pieces for himself to try and study the artifact’s ability to trap souls. The data he could potentially obtain from it would be priceless in trying to come up with a counter to his curse once he found it’s cause.

But just because they were intelligent, didn’t mean they had common sense. The amount of harebrained plots and ideas they had that blew up in their faces due to not thinking everything through was almost comical.

Abandoning his plan for now, Tang waited patiently for Macaque to leave so he could make his exit as well.

Suddenly the Mayor was there.

Tang tensed in his hiding spot as he watched the man taunt Macaque before surprising the monkey and grabbing him by the throat.

Tang’s pulse raced as he watched Macaque get captured with little effort.

Was this why they never saw Macaque again after these events? Did this happen in every cycle? Just how strong was the Mayor to be able to subdue the shadow demon so quickly?

He needed to get out of here.

Tang froze when he realized the Mayor had vanished without him noticing.

“Now what do we have here?”

Blinding white and blue pain flashed behind Tang’s eyes as he stumbled back. Gasping in panic he looked up to find the Mayor right in front of him, giving the scholar his trademark nonchalant smile.

“Can’t have you running off to spoil the end of the show for the others, now can we” the Mayor said as he held up the Shadow Lantern. “I do love a captive audience!”

Before Tang could react, the lantern was activated, and he knew no more.

----------

He was in the cave, thankfully. The voices called out in concern. The golden-yellow light wrapped around him.

----------

Tang awoke with a start, gasping in panic.

Damn that man!

He hadn’t been killed this time, but being a puppet for the Mayor until the cycle ended was just as unpleasant.

The more he learned about him, the more terrifying to Tang he became.

He would have to do his best to avoid him as much as possible from now on.

Once he got his breathing under control, Tang made his preparations for the day and began his remembering ritual.

It seemed this cycle was one where there were only a few changes. Everything seemed mostly the same except for two details.

The first was that Jin and Yin had been good friends with Mei for years, acting almost like older brothers for her.

The second was that this cycle had Fusion.

Tang groaned at this revelation.

There were many strange and weird magics and powers he had come across in the timelines, but Fusion was the most conflicting for Tang.

Fusion was a special ability where two or more beings would physically combine together into a new, more powerful being. The result was usually a much larger combination of the participants that mixed together their physical characteristics and often sported extra limbs and eyes. Whether the minds of the original beings remained separate or fused into a new personality as well as the permanence of the Fusion tended to be randomly determined like most things in these cycles.

The only constant was the need for absolute trust between all parties that fuse.

Fusion was an intimate process as you shared not just a body with someone else, but your mind as well. Thoughts and memories could not be hidden from a Fusion partner. It was an implicit sign of trust, and oftentimes love, to want to fuse with someone.

Forcing two unwilling beings to fuse was possible, but never went over well in Tang’s experience.

Tang didn’t dislike Fusion. It was an incredible experience the few times he had done so with either Pigsy or Wukong. He had never felt so close with anyone as he did when fused with them.

The problem was the curse.

Fusion required trust and the participants working in synchrony to function. His curse made it impossible for anyone except himself to know about it. When fused, his partners would become confused at the strange gaps in Tang’s mind they couldn’t perceive. The disorientation would destabilize the trust between them, causing them to fall out of sync, and result in the Fusion ending prematurely.

The questions he would receive were ones Tang couldn’t answer, and he was usually treated with suspicion and distrust for the remainder of those cycles. The same problem would occur if he refused to fuse at all, as that implied he didn’t trust anyone.

Luckily for Tang, he wasn’t in a romantic relationship with anyone this cycle and hadn’t fused with anyone yet. There was also a precedent this time for some people finding Fusion nauseating, so he could always fall back on that if pushed.

Hoping it wouldn’t even come to that, Tang left his apartment and made his way to work. He began to think of the second change as he walked.

Jin and Yin. The Gold and Silver Demon Brothers.

The two trouble makers loved to spread chaos wherever they went. Even during the rare occasions like now where they were allies. Schemes, pranks, and hijinks were to be expected whenever they were around.

The twins were smart. That was pretty much a given being the former lab assistants of Lao Tzu. Their talent in crafting magical items was impressive by mortal standards.

But just because they were intelligent, didn’t mean they had common sense. The amount of harebrained plots and ideas they had that blew up in their faces due to not thinking everything through was almost comical.

Tang had to admire their tenacity though. Their determination never faltered no matter how many failures they had. This was particularly handy when they were allies.

The twins’ self destructive tendencies usually got smoothed out whenever they befriended the group as well. Tang was genuinely surprised a few times by what they had managed to come up with when given a proper sounding board to help point out problems.

He may not consider Jin and Yin to be a part of his extended family, but Tang couldn’t help but have a soft spot for them. Perhaps, in time, he could include them. Maybe when their redemption became more common in the cycles.

But for now he was perfectly fine with just being their friend.

----------

The attack came without warning.

They had all been hanging out at Pigsy’s Noodles when multiple explosions went off across the city. Tang wasn’t sure what happened in all the confusion, but he was currently with Jin and Yin, the three of them separated from the others.

They had been trying to find everyone when the twins had suddenly pushed Tang away from them. There was a loud crashing sound and the air was filled with dust.

Coughing and waving away the dust, Tang stood and looked around. As the smoke began to clear, his heart dropped at what he saw.

“Jin! Yin!”

The twins were trapped under the rubble of a partially collapsed building. Jin’s entire left side was stuck under the debris while Yin was pinned from the waist down.

Neither demon had super strength and were completely helpless. They couldn’t even fuse to escape as they were just out of reach of each other and Fusion required contact.

Tang scrambled over the torn apart street and knelt next to the groaning brothers.

“G-go get help Tang,” Jin said, teeth clenched in pain. “We’ll be fine for now.”

“I am not leaving you two here,” Tang said, looking around for anyone to help, but the street was deserted.

“Come on, we’ll be right here when you come back,” Yin said with a strained smile. “I promise we won’t get up and leave.”

Before Tang could scold him for joking, there was another distant explosion followed by a rumbling sound. The three looked up in horror as the remainder of the building began to sway.

“Shit! Tang you need to leave now!” Jin pushed against the concrete trapping him, but made no progress.

Tang’s mind raced.

None of them were strong enough to push the rubble away. He had no time to go get help before the rest of the building fell. Jin and Yin couldn’t grab each other to fuse.

But he could.

Tang reached out and snatched up the hand of each twin.

“Fuse with me!”

“What?!”

“There’s no time! Fuse with me!”

Spurred on by the urgency of his voice, the twins closed their eyes and focused. Tang did the same and the world melted into gold, silver, and yellow light.

Fusing was always an indescribable experience. Tang felt warm as he felt his body stretch out and merge seamlessly with the twins’. He had no idea which physical traits would be picked from each of them, but their appearance was the least of his worries.

When they opened their eyes, they were standing several feet away from the pile of debris, just as the building began to topple.

“Shit! Go go go,” Jin said from their shared mouth.

They quickly dashed away from the area, their much taller stature allowing them to easily outpace the collapsing structure. Their new body didn’t feel strange in any way, and their combined movements came naturally.

‘Damn, I think my legs are broken,’ Yin said in their shared mind once they paused to take a breath. ‘We’ll have to keep this up until we get to a hospital and unfuse inside.’

‘Pretty sure some rebar had stabbed into my side so ditto on that,’ Jin added.

‘That might be a problem...’ Tang’s nervousness caused their stomach to twist.

‘What does that- Oh. Huh. That’s interesting.’ Jin explored the gaps he found in Tang’ mind with curiosity. ‘Hey Yin, take a look at this.’

‘Whoa. Trippy. Haven’t seen a memory-proof seal like this in a while.’ Yin poked at the spaces gingerly, not wishing to be caught completely in its effects.

‘Look at how big it is though,’ Jin said. ‘You are much older than I thought you were Tang.’

‘No, no, no. His body is definitely only 41 years old. So that means his mind is much older.’

‘Time travel?’

‘That usually has the person physically moving through time, so I doubt it.’

‘How are you two not disoriented by this,’ Tang said as they began to move towards the sounds of the explosions.

‘Should we be?’

‘Oh, yeah, I see what you mean,’ Jin said as he found the context for Tang’s confusion.

The demon didn’t vocalize it, but he projected how he found it interesting that he could get the knowledge on Tang’s past experiences with fusions without the full picture.

‘Oof. Forcefully unfusing and being treated as untrustworthy must suck,’ Yin said.

Tang was about to ask how they were being so unconcerned about this when the context came unbidden from their minds.

Lao Tzu had placed his own memory-proof seals on the twins to prevent them from revealing his secrets. They had to deal with it every time they fused.

Along with that knowledge came the feelings of the desperate need for approval and attention from their master, but never receiving it.

Always having their ideas dismissed. Being told their work was never good enough. Belittling their reliance on one another. Outright destroying their inventions at one point.

‘What an ass,’ Tang said vehemently.

He had worked too hard across the cycles to keep MK from drowning in his insecurities. It was insulting to him that someone he had once respected for their vast knowledge would ever treat anyone like that to make them feel this way.

‘I know, right?’

‘Why do you think we left,’ Jin said.

Tang sent over the context that, while he couldn’t tell them how, he had become an accomplished magician and artificer in his own right.

‘We’re going to make him regret ever dismissing you two,’ Tang vowed.

‘You… You want to take us on as students?’

Tang’s righteous protectiveness over how small Yin had sounded shocked the twins as they felt his warmth of comfort envelope them.

‘I would be honored to have you two as students. There is no way I’d ever let my family feel like they are unwanted.’

‘Family?’

Tang let the context for that free as well as the love he felt for his family, which now included his two new students.

They had to stop walking for a moment as Jin’s and Yin’s emotions caused them to start crying. Tang made sure to keep watch from his set of eyes while they were indisposed.

The joy and appreciation they sent his way in silent thanks was returned with his own.

‘Let’s get you two to a hospital.’ They continued to move once they had composed themselves. ‘I would never forgive myself if I let my favorite students perish from a simple collapsing building.’

‘Aren’t we your only students?’

‘Oi! And what do you mean by a “simple collapsing building''? Are you saying there are other ways you’d let us perish?!’

The master and his students bickered playfully back and forth as they looked around for a hospital that had been undamaged in the attack.

Tang may not have been expecting to add the twins to his family this soon, but he knew he wouldn’t regret it. How he felt for them would live on even past the memory erasing effects of the curse.

Jin and Yin returned the sentiment a hundredfold.

----------

And thus Tang’s family grows in numbers once more! He’s almost completed the whole set by now.

Fusions are an interesting concept and there are plenty of great designs for different combinations out there. While none of them show up in this chapter, I’d like to give a shout out to @winterpower98, @smallpwbbles, @sketchquill, and @ninja-knox-ur-sox-off for their amazing fusion designs! Go check them out!

Don't worry about that bit with the mayor. It's fine.

Next chapter will be another filler! Until then!

[dragonologist-in-the-making]

Hi!! Could you please write something for Sirius where he's with the reader but they get in a fight and ignore each other because he said some mean things to her but one night the reader has a horrible nightmare and goes to Sirius in the middle of the night to check up on him and stays there? And like he wakes up and he's like Uhh what's happened? And they make up and he makes her feel better? Thank you so much!!

Title: Apologies

 Pairing: Sirius x reader

 A/N: I really hope I did this justice! It was so much fun to write, thank you for requesting!!

 Wordcount: 1.9k

 Warnings: there’s a curse or two in there, I didn’t proof read so probably grammatical errors (sorry)

Requests are still open!

To most people in Hogwarts, it seemed like a normal day. The sun was still shining through the early autumn sky, and many students were out in the grounds to soak up the rest of the sunshine before it disappeared in time for winter. In the sixth year boys Gryffindor dorm room, however, a heated argument had broken out.

 “Absolutely not, (y/n)! Do you know how dangerous it is? How much can go wrong?! No, you’re not doing this!” Sirius shouted at her, both of you standing at other ends of the dorm, shoulders square and postures tense, throwing angry words at each other whenever you got the chance.

 “And why not, Sirius?” She shot back, acid laced through her voice. Three boys sat spectating, all sitting together on one of the beds, interjecting every so often to try and calm things down but quickly withdrawing once they were being shouted at, too. “Remus is my best friend, he has been for much longer than I even knew who you were. He’s happy for me to try and become an Animagus, so why aren’t you?” She screamed, pushing back the feeling of tears prickling at her eyes. Angry crying was such an inconvenience.

 “Do you know how dangerous it is?” He countered, folding his arms across his chest and lowering his voice, trying to seem calmer and inject some form of logic into his argument.

 “Of course I know the risks, I’m not an idiot.” She snapped back, not bothering to give him the same courtesy in lowering her voice too. No, he would feel her wrath. “But the risks are worth it, to help my best friend. Which, if I’m remembering right, is the same conclusion you came to.”

 “Do you know how difficult it is?” At this attempt to dissuade you, you scoffed.

 “Well you three idiots seemed to manage just fine.” You quipped back, seeing James shrug in agreement as he looked at Sirius. “And surely having your help is only going to make it easier for me to do it right!”

 “Sirius, she’s not entirely wrong.” Remus stood up, beginning to reason, holding his hands up in a surrendering position when Sirius turned a piercing glare towards him. “Hear me out. When you’re stuck on something in class, (y/n) is the first person any of us will turn to, because she’ll know the answer. She’s smart, Sirius, she’s brilliantly smart. She can do this.”

 “This isn’t a piece of homework we need help with, Moony!” His voice had risen again, anger exploding from him now, sending a shockwave throughout the dorm. “This is so much more than class smarts, this is extremely difficult magic, even full wizards who have trained for years struggle with this, you know that! This isn’t some silly little charm that can help us pack a suitcase quickly!” The silence which rang through the room was deafening. His eyes moved to meet hers, glassy with tears, broken, but stone cold.

 “That’s it?” She whispered, not able to bring her voice any louder as the revelation hit her. “You don’t think I’m intelligent enough?” She shook her head as he tried to reach out to her, to correct what he’d said, to try and steer the conversation in a different direction. “No. You said it, and you can’t take it back. I might not be intelligent enough for this, but I am smart enough to know when I’m being treated like shit, and I’m not going to put up with that.” She shouldered her way past him, ignoring his shouts after her. She paused at the doorway, turning back to meet his eyes one last time. “When you’ve realised what a dick you’re being, you know where to find me.” And with that, you turned and walked back towards your dorm, your heart heavy with the crushing weight that he didn’t think you were good enough.

 “(y/n)!”

 …

 After a night spent in your dorm with Remus, who brought more than his fair share of chocolate, her anger had just dissipated into a stubborn resolve to not speak to Sirius until he had apologised. It had been four days already, and she’d managed to find new seats in every class, managed to avoid his glances when she would walk into the common room. Meal times had become extremely irregular, in an attempt to avoid seeing him, which so far had been successful. But it was wearing down on her, which was why Remus had called for a night spent in her dorms, talking about nothing in particular but just having her best friend there to comfort her and stuff her face in chocolate.

 It had been hours, though, and her eyes began to fall closed, the weight of the last few days taking its toll. With one last hug and a gentle kiss to her forehead, he left the dorm to go back to his own, passing the girls walking into their dorm as he left. She looked after him guiltily, even though he assured her that it was Sirius’ fault and not hers, she knew that the relationship between Sirius and the rest of the Marauders had been tense, they wouldn’t dare say it but they all thought he was in the wrong.

 Nevertheless, sleep won the battle of her emotions, and she climbed into her covers, pulling them tight over her as she slowly drifted off into a her own dreamworld.

 She was running through streets, trying to avoid someone, trying to escape from them. Her breath was coming in harder, sharper, as she pushed herself, not knowing where she was going, but having a strong indication of who she was running from. Her hand hurt from how tightly she was gripping her wand, she could feel the sweat building up as she kept going, becoming more and more desperate.

 She stopped running when she reached a square, although where she was she wasn’t really sure. She took in the five figures before her, James next to Lily with her fiery hair standing out against the bleakness around them, Sirius in between Remus and Peter. Immediately she joined their circle, back to back and turned to see what they were fighting against. Hooded figures began to appear all around them, and spells flew in every direction, from every wand, including hers although she didn’t know what she was casting.

 They seemed to be gaining the upper hand, the hooded figures were falling or fleeing, until a bright jet of green light caught her attention, and she watched it hit her boyfriend squarely in the chest, and watched him fall backwards as it took effect.

 She jolted upright, sweat pouring off her body as her heart pounded in her chest, sure it was about to break free with the force of it. Trying to calm her breathing, trying to process the dream she had just had, the tears began to slide down her cheeks as the image of her worst nightmare, of her boyfriend floated in front of her. Even though she knew it was a dream, and he was sleeping soundly in his dorm not too far away, fear constricted in her chest, not letting her breath, and she swung her legs off the side of her bed, pulling a jumper over her head as she silently padded out of the dorm, feet pulling her before her brain could really process where she was going.

 She pushed the door open slightly, and was happy to see the boys all sound asleep, moonlight casted over their snoring faces. She crept in, pushing the door closed behind her, and walked to Sirius’ bed, where his hair was splayed out across the pillow and he was curled up tightly, one arm extended into the empty space in his bed. The space where she would normally be sleeping next to him.

 Unable to help herself, glad to see that he was sleeping peacefully, she reached out a hand a cupped his cheek, leaning over to press a small kiss to his forehead, a secret sign to him that even though they were fighting, her love was still there. He stirred slightly, not opening his eyes but turning his arm so it was palm up.

 “C’mere.” He muttered, barely audible. She hesitated, not sure if she wanted to share a bed with him after everything that had happened in the last week, but the thought of going back to her own bed and enduring another nightmare had her quickly climbing under the sheets, pulling them up around her as Sirius’ arms naturally encircled her, pulling her into his chest as he made fast work of falling back asleep. Finally feeling that you could rest, you too fell back asleep.

 …

 “(y/n)?” She was awoken by the gentle sound of her name being uttered in confusion. Memories of the night before flooded back to her, and she felt her cheeks tinge pink as she would have to explain why Sirius had woken up with an extra person in his bed. She reluctantly opened her (y/e/c) eyes to meet his stormy grey ones, still clouded by sleep and, to her relief, free from any anger or seemingly negative emotion.

 “Morning.” She offered meekly, a shy smile playing on her lips as she refused to meet his gaze, staring intently at his shoulder instead. “I’m sorry,” she started, beginning to explain the confusing circumstances. “I had a nightmare and I had to see you, and I didn’t want to be alone again and you told me to get in so I did-“ her rambling was cut off as he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, a silent reassurance that it was okay, and he was glad she was with him.

 “I’m sorry too.” He apologised as she finally looked up at him again and saw his guilt written all over his face. “I know you’re smart enough, of course you are, I just couldn’t think about what might happen if it went wrong. With the boys, I guess we didn’t think enough, we were all doing it together and we were just so sure it would work. We were lucky it did, but now I have hindsight and I just panicked when I thought of losing you. But you were all right, having me by your side is only going to decrease the chances of it going wrong, and I have to accept that you can make this choice for yourself.” They smiled at each other, grateful that the seemingly endless period of coldness between them had gone away.

 He dipped his head lower, meeting her lips in a soft kiss, one filled with apology and forgiveness, and relief to be back in each others arms. Eventually, she felt the need to breathe and she pulled away, pressing her lips gently to his collarbone as she could feel his breath on her hair. “Can I taste Moony’s chocolate?” He laughed as he licked his lips.

[wtfgaylittlezooid]

I’ve lost to temptation so here it is

My interpretation of magolor lets fucking go

So first section: How this bitch works

So Magolor is from Halcandria, a planet who’s core is essentially magic. There’s so much magic on this single planet that it leaked into the life and even some objects that could contain it. Magolor is no exception. Magic energy is essentially stored in a second heart (tho it’s more of a container than a heart), and runs through the body very similar to blood. It’s created and flows through his body, and allows for things like his eye glow, floating, and obviously powers. When he’s asleep, it regenerates. If there’s already enough magic energy while he’s asleep, it disposes of the old magic mostly by floating in sleep or by more severe means like insomnia aka magical overdose (which I’ve gone over before).

Next, is the glowing eyes!! Why he have that, I’ll tell ya. It makes it easier to detect other halcandrians as well as make it easier to detect light such as fire. Which is very useful when you need to look through ashy clouds and make sure a giant rock isn’t about to slam into you from above. It’s also a way to show the health of a halcandrian. Though the eyes glow yellow, they have a brown color very similar to their fur. If they’re sick or very unhealthy, they lose their glow and it slowly reverts to the brown color.

As a side effect of the master crown though, Magolor’s magic energy got boosted by the crown so he didn’t just die instantly by overwhelming power. It sounds like a good thing on paper, having so much energy to the point where he can fight non stop without getting tired magically, but magic overdose due to him not being able to deplete enough of it fast enough is a bitch. He gets sick a lot easier, bad insomnia, as well as occasionally using magic without realizing. So this clears out how he works and shit!! Now onto...

Before RTDL

So before RTDL Magolor had little social skills or experience with interacting with other people that wasnt lying to them to get them to do stuff. It was just how Halcandria worked. People kept to themselves and if you needed help you’d have to twist the truth in order to convince them. Relationships of any kind are very rare in Halcandria as well.

So when he met Marx, it was weird. He originally planned to let him stay until he got better and told him about why he was found in a Nova’s wreckage, so he could hopefully get Marx to lead him to something else he could use to defeat Landia. It didn’t go as planned. Marx was an unpredictable dude who immeadiatly fell for Magolor (but mags didn’t notice cause he’s never experienced someone else crushing or a crush) and due to that Marx spent a lot of time with Magolor during recovery and grew on him. He also ended up showing Magolor what friendship was, and honestly: magolor liked it. He liked having someone around. It was a nice change, and it was nice to have someone around to help (and rarely give him affection). So, Magolor wanted Marx to rule the universe with him once he killed Landia. He didn’t want Marx to leave. Though things started going downhill when an accident happened one time while exploring and Magolor was distracted, leaving to Marx having to use Nova’s power to make sure Magolor was safe.

And Magolor was fascinated, and god he was excited. He pried Marx for questions about his wings, constantly stared at them when they were out, and started talking about if he and Marx used their combined powers they could finally kill Landia and get what they want. But Marx didn’t want to. His want for power by then left, and he knew the consequences. He was happy just hanging out with Mags, and didn’t want to risk his life fighting a dragon with a crown of infinite power. But Magolor, despite liking the change of company, was used to being a loner and believed he could do it again since he’s halcandrian. He said Marx could leave if he didn’t want to, and that was when Marx started to see just how desperate Magolor was for the Master Crown. It was all too similar to his own desperation with Nova, and all words were useless and failed to change Magolor’s mind. So Marx left, and Magolor continued. He felt a little bad (and lonely) but pushed it down and decided no turning back and opted to modifying the Starcutter more like a weapon and attacking Landia that way, but failing.

Though he had a backup plan, thanks to Marx. Which brings me to..

The Betrayal

So this is RTDL time, before the betrayal. His back up plan was going to the pink hero Marx ranted about and using them to get the crown. After all, if they could defeat someone with the gift of Nova’s power, they could defeat a wyvern with a crown. They landed, and Magolor met everyone, but he couldn’t stop thinking about a certain someone. Chilly, who volunteered to stay with him while the others collected the spheres and parts (tho it was because he was suspicious). Mags didn’t know this, and assumed he was being nice. So the second person who (he thought) was being friendly with him enough to stay with him, and fill that hole Marx accdientally left by leaving him. He couldn’t not get attatched. He became REALLY REALLY clingy, and did as much as he could to keep himself focused as well as make sure they were friends. It backfired, making Chilly agitated most of the time, but it also semi worked later on. Most of his time between the betrayal and his crash landing was spent monitoring everyone’s progress, and trying to get Chilly to like him so he could do what he had to do during the betrayal.

Now during the betrayal! The closer he got to achieving the crown again, the more desperate and ooc he got. By the time he was at Halcandria, there’d be no way to talk him out of it, since he was THIS close. But there was still one thing wrong that he assumed the crown would fix: he couldn’t go back to being alone. He assumed he would adjust, since that’s how it’s been for his whole life. But now, that he’s actually had two people really close to him (and one leave) that showed him affection and didn’t only use him like in Halcandria, he didn’t want to go back to being alone. He couldn’t. But he came too far to turn back, and continued anyway (not like he ever changed his mind, but he did have moments of doubt). He told Chilly to stay in the Starcutter, wanting to keep him safe, which obviously didn’t go well for him when Chilly responded with freezing the ship from the inside to stop Magolor from using it in its attacks.

And of course, when Magolor sees this, he has a moment of “oh shit I can’t let him do this. I can’t lose someone else.” And tries to convince Chilly to join him. He talks about the two of them ruling and even giving Chilly Popstar to rule. He means it. He wants someone with him, somebody that he genuinely loves and treats him like a friend. He assumed that if he didn’t force Chilly into working with him like Marx, he would join in the end. And like any person with common sense, Chilly denies, loyal to Kirby and Popstar. THIS was the moment Magolor became truly desperate, he tries to convince Chilly to join him but he can barely get any words other than “but you were only friend” out while crying (in the middle of battle lol). Kirby and everyone take this chance to attack, while Magolor is just kind of broken. He fucked up again.

And he’ll be alone.

He has one thing left now, and that’s the power to rule the universe.

And he’s desperate to have this one thing go right for him, and he uses the remaining power of the Master Crown... which brings me to the next topic!

The Master Crown

Full section for the master crown let’s go. It gets its dark power from a leader/creator of dark matter (think 0), and is sentient. It only knows to shroud the world in darkness, and will do whatever it takes to get it. It’s powers are held at bay by Landia, who is Halcandria’s guardian and can resist its powers due to being a magic guardian. Magolor however, isn’t a magic guardian, and can’t resist. To him, it’s a shiny piece of jewelry that’ll make him strong so things can finally go his way.

The way it works is by drawing people in, like a venus fly trap. It just amplify people’s interest in it, as well as bring out the more negative traits about them that makes them easier to control. The most common traits is desperation, impulsiveness, frustration, and determination. And once the crown is on their head, it locks on and is irremovable and works like a parasite, basically completely erasing whoever put it on and molding them to the perfect puppet. Magolor essentially just sped up the process completely by using the last of its power in a desperate attempt to get what he wanted.

After the Betrayal

Magolor, after the betrayal, is left just floating around Another Dimension. He’s exhausted, in a lot of pain, and completely magically drained. He couldn’t even float if he tried, and that uses the bare minimum of magic. He’s stuck here for a long time, and at first, he’s extremely frustrated and upset. He spends a lot of time replaying the events in his head (not magolor soul, he has no memories of that aside from snippets that come into his dreams that are partially due to the master crown’s lasting effect) and just getting more and more angry at everything. He was so close to having control over EVERYTHING, and he lost it over himself the second he used the rest of the power. He was infuriated that he manged to let that stupid puffball beat him, along with their friends.

He cries, screams, shouts, but it doesn’t matter. Rage can only last so long, and it’s not much before he’s just exhausted and tired. He’s given up on escaping, knowing he can’t. He cant form a dimensional portal strong enough to pull him out of a dimension. He only has the skill to use it for teleportation. After a few days, he’s accepted what happened, that this is his fate. He hates being alone, floating in space with no silly jester to crack a joke or scratch his head, and no snowman who’s bell jingled with an adorable tune whenever he laughed and even gave him hugs. He ends up getting habits of scratching his head (despite the pain because of master crown injuries) and hugging himself as a way to fill that hole the two left when leaving. He misses them, and starts to regret going after the crown in the first place. He comes up with scenarios in his head to pass the time as he basically waits for himself to rot. He imagines apologizing and having his friends back. He imagines Marx somehow finding him similar to how Magolor found him. He imagines not being alone, and being happy. Not plagued by agonizing exhaustion and self fury. He even comes to miss Kirby and their friend one he actually realizes the kindness they showed him, since he was too focused before to realize.

He spends a few days in the hell dimension before he finds something. He ends up finding an energy sphere that floats past that was lost during the battle. He grabs and clings to it, now having only one thing from before. It doesn’t make the loneliness any better, but it does make things a little less bareable. But of course, energy spheres are a sphere doomer’s favorite snack, and it doesn’t take long before one comes along really wanting it.

Magolor at first, pushes it away desperate to keep this one thing he had before, and the sphere doomer keeps coming back desperately wanting its food. Eventually, Magolor and the sphere doomer form a slight bond since this was when Magolor started slowly regaining magic again and tries attacking it with his revolution orbs, but it’s just a treat for the sphere doomer. The sphere doomer keeps coming back for more treats and another attempt at a snack, and Magolor feels a little less lonely. Over time, he actually gains enough of its trust to pet it and even talks to it. He names her Lor II.

Lor II is the reason he gets out of Another Dimension and back to Halcandria, via opening a rift. Lor II basically gives Magolor a second chance to make things right, and he immeadiatly takes it. Of course, he has to steal the Starcutter to do it, but he makes his way to Popstar to apologize, because he REALLY regrets his major fuck up and at the very least, he can make things better (and maybe get a chance at being less lonely).

So that’s all I got lmao hope you enjoyed

[current-mcr-news]

Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy - Episode 1

BRANDON JENKINS: In 1953, a 25 year old director named Phil Tucker had $16,000 and just four days to make his first sci-fi film. The plot? A creature comes to Earth with a death ray and wipes out all of humanity, except for eight people who are immune to the creature’s weapons. He called the film Robot Monster.

Movie clip: With the swiftness of a deadly cosmic ray, the Earth is inundated by indestructible moon monsters. Their ghastly mission? Death for all humans.

B: The film was so low budget, Tucker couldn’t even afford to get alien costumes, so he had the monster in a gorilla suit with a TV for a head.

Movie clip: What astounding technical developments are being made to protect mankind?

B: The release was a disaster. It was widely panned. Its lasting legacy would’ve been that it was one of the worst movies of all time. But in the early 2000s, a kid from New Jersey with a knack for drawing comics saw a picture of the Robot Monster and it stuck with him.

Gerard Way: I’ve never even actually seen the film, but I saw pictures of this creature over the years, and they’ve got a TV set, kind of circular space looking head, and they have a gorilla body, and I was like, “I want a superhero that’s kind of inspired by this.”

B: The kid’s name was Gerard. He’d been writing comics since he was 15 and was on his way to making it as a professional comic book artist.

WAY: I went to art school and I was an illustration and cartooning major, so comics were kind of like my major, and I was like this perpetual intern. I interned at DC, I pitched a cartoon to Cartoon Network, and then I landed a job as a toy designer at this place called FunHaus in Hoboken. But that’s like right when the band took off.

B: That band, Gerard’s side hustle, would become massive alt-punk sensation, My Chemical Romance. Seemingly overnight, My Chemical Romance and Gerard were making some of the most popular music in the world, getting spins on terrestrial radio, dominating music video countdowns, they were even nominated for a Grammy. But while he traveled across the globe leading a rockstar life, Gerard kept up with his first love - drawing.

WAY: So I really missed comics and we were in Japan and we did a signing at a shop, and one of the fans gave me a little marker set and it was Copic markers. They were like the greatest markers that I’d ever used before, and so I started to create Luther.

B: Luther, a superhero with a gorilla body and space helmet who lives on the moon was the very first character Gerard drew in what would become his hit comic The Umbrella Academy. I’m Branden Jenkins and this is Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy. This season, we’re going backstage and inside the making of season 2. The first season of the show, based on Gerard’s comic of the same name, launched in February of last year and quickly became one of the most beloved series on Netflix. Now it’s back for its second season with bigger effects, bigger characters, and bigger drama. We’re going to catch you up on everything that’s gone down in The Umbrella Academy universe so far, and we’ll spend the next five episodes breaking down how the team shot the multi-million dollar superhero production across two countries, and how in the midst of a global pandemic, they managed to finish it from inside their own homes. But first, we wanted to take a look back and dig into the roots of The Umbrella Academy. So today, I’m catching up with the creators of the comic and the guy tasked with making the TV series. We talk about how the graphic novel was adapted for your screens.

B: Alright, so if you haven’t watched season 1, go back and watch season 1 on Netflix. For those of you who just need a quick recap: At 12pm on October 1, 1989, a supernatural event occurred. Forty-three babies across the planet were born to mothers who were not pregnant just seconds before. The world was confused, intrigued, and one eccentric billionaire wanted to find the babies and adopt them. He ended up with seven. Each baby had a superpower, and what do you do when you’re a billionaire with a group of kids with superpowers? You train them to become a crime fighting family.

Reginald: I give you the inaugural class of The Umbrella Academy!

B: When Gerard Way started creating the members of the Academy, he started with the most fundamental material. 

WAY: I created a list of all the things that interested me. It could be anything from ouija board, fortune teller, spaceman, gorilla body, just a list of stuff.

B: Then he drew from that list and started creating these characters. All in all, he would draw seven. The first, Luther, the half-man half-gorilla, was the team’s defective leader. He was also the child closest with their father. 

Luther: Just at Dad’s favorite spot. Allison: Dad had a favorite spot? Luther: Yeah, you know, under the oak tree. We used to sit out there all the time, none of you ever did that?

B: Next, he created Klaus and Allison, the boy who talks to the dead and the girl who can make people bend to her will with just a few words.

WAY: Klaus, he has some pretty serious addiction and addiction is something that I dealt with in my life. He’s also a little bit spooky and supernatural, and my personality in My Chemical Romance was very similar to that.

Klaus: I can’t just call Dad in the afterlife and be like, “Dad, could you just stop playing tennis with Hitler for a moment and take a quick call?” Luther: Since when? That’s your thing. Klaus: I’m not in the right frame of mind! Allison: You’re high? Klaus: Yeah yeah! I mean, how are you not listening to this nonsense?

WAY: He was kind of my version of Doctor Strange. I find Allison to be the one that is easiest to write and I put the most of myself into Allison.

B: Her superpower is that she can make you do pretty much anything she tells you with a few magic words.

Allison: I heard a rumor you want to be my friend. I heard a rumor that you like Bradley. I heard a rumor that you left me alone. I heard a rumor that you stop crying.

WAY: There’s a bit of a tragic nature that comes with her power.

B: Allison, out of all of her super powered siblings, is the only one grasping for a normal life - career, husband, children. In a way, she’s the most human. The fourth character Gerard created is Diego, a guy with an uncanny ability to throw knives. He’s also stubborn as hell.

WAY: I knew early on he was gonna be the one that was gonna be really difficult with the leader. I figured that.

Diego: You know, you of all people should be on my side here, Number One. Luther: I am warning you. Diego: After everything he did to you, he had to ship you a million miles away. Luther: Diego, stop talking! Diego: That’s how much he couldn’t stand the sight of you!

B: The fifth character, a kid who can travel through time and space, who simply goes by Five. Despite the other character growing up into adults, he has remained a teenager, sort of.

WAY: He was a time traveler who then got stuck in his young body when he traveled back in time because time travel is complicated. 

Klaus: Where are you going? Five: To get a decent cup of coffee. Allison: Do you even know how to drive? Five: I know how to do everything.

WAY: So then came The Horror.

B: The Horror, aka Ben, aka the dead sibling who only Klaus can see.

WAY: I imagined this character that had all these monsters living under his skin that came from another dimension. And he was very tortured to me. It actually kind of hurts him and it’s scary to him.

Ben: Do I really have to do this? Klaus: Come on, Ben. There’s more guys in the vault. Ben: I didn’t sign up for this.

B: And then finally, Number Seven, Vanya, who seemingly has no powers besides playing the violin.

WAY: I was at this cafe in Manhattan when I was living in Brooklyn, and it was called The Sidewalk Cafe I believe, and on the wall they had a white violin just as decoration. And I remember looking at that and thinking to myself, “That would be a cool superhero.” And Vanya was always kind of designed to be a character who wasn’t special, that was going to transform into that.

Vanya: Look, if I was special I would’ve been in The Umbrella Academy. I’m so sorry you got stuck with the ordinary one.

B: These seven adopted siblings forced together by supernatural events formed The Umbrella Academy. Both the original comic and season 1 of the show start at the funeral for the Academy’s patriarch, the eccentric Sir Reginald Hargreeves. We learn that while the siblings ventured away from home as teenagers, after years of fighting and a toxic upbringing, they’ve returned home, back together for the first time in years, and all their dysfunctions and old conflicts come bubbling to the surface.

Diego: He was a bad person and a worse father. The world’s better off without him. Allison: Diego! Diego: My name is Number Two.

B: When he started writing the comic, Gerard was focused on his own strained relationships. He saw his band as his own dysfunctional family at the time.

WAY: When you’re a baby band, you’re in this van and it’s like a submarine but it’s smaller. It’s like a closet that you're all living in and sometimes you’re going on seventeen hour drives, and you have very strong personalities. This dynamic starts to develop between all of the members and you really do kind of become a dysfunctional family. Like, there’s times where I felt like I was the mom.

GABRIEL BA: They know each other’s weaknesses.

B: Turns out, family dynamics was a theme with everyone who joined the Umbrella team, including the illustrator and Umbrella’s co-creator, a Brazilian artist named Gabriel Ba.

BA: And sometimes they say it to hurt the other intentionally and they do that a lot in Umbrella because they’re all angry at each other all the time. And even though I have a great relationship with my brother, I have that. We have a younger sister as well, so she’s very opinionated and she’s strong. I wouldn’t say we fight a lot, but sometimes we- I just know how to hurt her if I want to say something.

B: Family is present in Gabriel’s life more than for most people. He works every day with his twin brother, fellow comic book artist, Fabio Moon. But his work made him an unconventional choice for Umbrella.

BA: In the mid 90s, we moved away from superheroes. We, my brother and I, we figured the type of story that we liked to tell and wanted to tell was more real life, day by day life relationship, this kind of stuff. 

B: Gabriel grew up in Brazil and now lives in Sao Paulo. His brother had been making experimental comics for well over a decade.

BA: But The Umbrella Academy was a superhero book with this day by day life relationship drama, and that was really interesting for me.

B: What excited Gerard about Gabriel was his style. His characters weren’t macho. They didn’t have big ripped muscles. They’re the kind of comics you could imagine being drawn in the margins of a notebook. There's nothing stereotypically super about them.

BA: It was not a straightforward American superhero artstyle. It was a mix of European and more fluid, but also could handle action and crazy stuff. And also, I can’t deny The Umbrella Academy was my first paid job in the U.S.

B: Wow.

BA: For the first ten years of our career, my brother and I were making comics for free. Just for ourselves, just getting [?], if there were any. So when I got the invitation to get involved with The Umbrella Academy it was this whole package of factors.

WAY: Gabriel climbing on board was a huge thing for us because he’s such a fantastic artist. He brought these characters to life. The interesting thing about Gabriel,  he didn’t have to make Umbrella Academy. He was doing really well on his own and making really experimental artistic comics, but he liked the idea so much that he said, “I’m gonna do superheroes.”

BA: The superhero aspect of The Umbrella Academy is really just a layer in the story. I like the development of these characters, their struggles, their relationships, there’s romance, there’s deception.

Vanya: You are unbelievable, you’re trying to dig up dirt on a guy I like? Who does that? Allison: Look, I’ve had my fair share of stalkers and creeps, I don’t trust him! Vanya: You mean you don’t trust me.

BA: And it had the fun explosions and action scenes. So that’s the good mix.

B: The first book of the comic is called Apocalypse Suite. After their father’s death, The Umbrella Academy gets a warning from their time traveling brother that the world is going to end in 10 days. They don’t know how, they just know that it will. And now, back together for the first time, they’ve got to figure out how to save the planet and learn how to look past their differences. Which sounds dope, right? But when it first published back in 2007, it wasn’t immediately clear that people would dig it.

WAY: So one of the things I was dealing with when Umbrella Academy came out was a lot of people in the press before the comic came out saying things like, “Here’s a musician and he’s writing a comic.” They didn’t really know my background, they didn’t know that I’d written at 15, they didn’t know I went to art school. All they knew was that I was the singer in this rock band that a lot of teenagers liked. So, all I really wanted was a fair shake. I didn’t write The Umbrella Academy to become a TV show or a film. I wrote it to be an amazing comic. But we knew that first issue, and we knew it was good, and we knew that if you didn't get it by the first seven pages you just weren’t gonna like it, and I was totally fine with that. But then it came out and then the response started to happen and then reviewers loved it and people loved it.

B: The comic went on to win an Eisner award, which is like the Oscar of comics, and pretty quickly, Gerard gets an offer to turn the comic into a full length movie.

WAY: I got swept up in the Hollywood thing.

B: But it doesn’t pan out.

WAY: That’s actually one of the reasons why there was such a big gap between comics, is because I was really, you know, I was trying- at the end of the day, I was trying to be helpful. If this was gonna be a movie version of what Gabriel and I had made, I wanted it to be great so I put in a lot of time and it kept me away from the comics.

B: But then Netflix hits you up and is interested in making this into a series.

WAY: Right.

B: I guess I'm curious, as someone who just initially wanted to make just a really good comic, what about turning that project into a television show was interesting?

WAY: Straight up, I want to make a great comic and that’s all I’m really interested in. If I can write great comics, you’ll have great material to make TV shows. So let me focus on that.

B: In other words, Gerard wanted to focus on the comics and let someone else adapt it.

WAY: And that’s when Steve came in and he changed things and he ran with it. 

STEVE BLACKMAN: I’m Steve Blackman, I’m the showrunner and I’m executive producer.

B: Steve is a master at adapting books, comics, and film into television. Before The Umbrella Academy, he’d worked on shows like Fargo, Legion, and Altered Carbon, all of which originated from other sources. So he knew coming in that adaptation can be tricky work.

BLACKMAN: At first, I think Gerard and Gabriel, who co-did this with him, were very protective of the work like parents of their baby. And I think I had to prove to them initially that I would love and protect this child that they had worked on for so many years, so here I am, an outsider coming in and they were very nice to me, but I could see there was like, “Is this guy gonna totally screw up our baby here?”

B: Is it something that you can come to the table with Gerard and be like, “Hey, here’s my arsenal of adaptations, this is why it will work.”

BLACKMAN: Yeah, I worked on the show Fargo for three years. Fargo was obviously based on the Joel and Ethan Coen movie from 1996. I don’t think Gerard had ever seen my shows, I don’t think he watches a lot of television, so for him, it didn’t matter what I’d done before. It’s just what I was gonna do in the here and now on this show. I wasn’t intimidated by the challenge but I really did sort of have a sense of I know which direction I’m going.

B: What was your first initial reaction? Were you sort of like, “Oh, maybe I’ve never done anything like this, or this does feel familiar to other work  that I’ve done.” Or, “I can do this, this is right up my alley.”

BLACKMAN: Well, what I liked about it from the beginning was what I saw in the subject matter and I saw a dysfunctional family. But right away, I was very inspired by Wes Anderson’s work. The Royal Tenenbaums is one of those movies that really was always something I truly loved. So, I saw that in this show.

Five: An entire square block, 42 bedrooms, 19 bathrooms, but not a single drop of coffee. Vanya: Dad hated caffeine.  Klaus: Well he hated children too and he had plenty of us.

BLACKMAN: It was a family show, it was a very relatable dysfunctional family show that I wanted to tell.

WAY: Steve’s a great collaborator. Steve Blackman, the showrunner, he had a vision. I respected him and his vision. I realized it was gonna be different from the comic, and I let him run with it because he cared deeply about it.

BLACKMAN: My first conversation with Gerard over the phone, I said to him, I told him one of the words was subversive, we wanted to subvert the expectation of what a superhero show could be because there were many other shows, either on the air or coming down the pipe to be next, and we wanted this to stand out. And that was sort of the first hurdle with me, was to say to Gerard that I could do that and I could definitely make this thing feel special. And right away he said, “Okay, yeah. You get it.”

B: You’ve adapted something like Fargo which is a unique adaptation, right? You’re adapting from a different medium, like a feature film. Does that change the way you understand adaptation?

BLACKMAN: At a story point of view, no, I don’t think they’re that different. I think adapting a story, whether it's a graphic novel or the source material comes from a movie, a book, there’s a lot of care into doing it that the tricky thing is, I need to put my creative spin on it. I had Gerard and Gabriel, who lived with this for ten years, and then I have to come in and say, “Look, I’m going to honor you. At the same time, what is the Steve Blackman part of the show? How can I add my spin to it?”

B: For fans of the comic who’ve seen season 1 of the show, you’ll recognize some of that Steve Blackman spin. For example, the group who governs the laws of time in the comics, the Temps Aeternalis, in the TV show they become the Commission, an entire bureaucratic system running and adjusting linear time. Steve made some other changes too. 

WAY: One of the things that I thought was an ingenious idea was making Ben a ghost that Klaus could communicate with. I was most impressed by that change.

Ben: You know what the worst part of being dead is? You’re stuck. Nowhere to go, nowhere to change, that’s the real torture if you gotta know. Watching your brother take for granted everything you lost, and pissing it all away.

B: Perhaps the biggest change from the comic to the show is the diversity of the characters. Diverse in race, diverse in region, diverse in sexual orientation, these characters on screen look a lot more like what the world actually looks like.

WAY: It’s built into it. They’re all from different places, they’re all from different countries, so I think that’s really the biggest improvement on the source material, is how diverse it is.

B: Steve felt the pressure of both fan expectations, and Gerard and Gabriel’s trust in him.

BLACKMAN: There’s nothing worse than having pre-existing source material and having the fans dislike it. You want to make the fans feel honored and respected, at the same time I felt it was incredibly important that Gerard and Gabriel walked out of this thinking, “He did a good job.” If they hated it, I would’ve been crushed. If the fans hated it, I think I’d also be crushed. I knew I couldn’t make everybody happy, but I wasn’t doing a page for page translation. My adaptation wasn’t gonna be that.

B: The adaption worked. Season 1 was a massive success. In the finale of the first season, the Academy thinks they’ve managed to stop the end of the world from happening, but unintentionally, they’ve actually just initiated it. The moon has been destroyed and its remnants are now heading directly for Earth.

Five: We might as well accept our fate because in less than a minute we’re gonna be vaporized.  Diego: What’s your idea then? Five: We use my ability to time travel, but this time I’ll take you with me. Luther: You can do that?

B: The family, latching onto their time traveling brother Five, manage to escape the chaos. But we’re left to wonder where and when they’ll turn up, and that’s where season 2 begins.

Five: We brought the end of the world back here with us. Klaus: Oh my god, again?

BLACKMAN: It’s a pretty crazy journey this year and I think people will be hooked. I hope they binge the hell out of it and love every second of it.

B: Coming up in this season of Behind the Scenes, we’ll be taking you on that crazy journey with the people who make it happen.

“We hired meteorologists, we knew that snow was gonna come, but we had planned it. We went away for a day, we came back, and there was four feet of snow on the ground.”

“It’s 60s Dallas. Okay, so that’s a very different story for Allison. We have to talk about this somehow. Her experience is just different from her siblings.”

EMMY LAMPMAN: And a lot of people would come up to me and apologize for doing their job and I was like, “Please stop apologizing.”

“That was a wishlist fight scene that Steve had always wanted to do.”

“So we actually had our guys throwing plates up in the air and taking photos of them to try to get these UFO imageries.”

“You know, we have a new point in our resume: Can produce and deliver a show during a pandemic.”

B: Behind the Scenes of The Umbrella Academy is a Netflix and Pineapple Street Studios Production. I’m your host, Brandon Jenkins. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. It really does help other people find it. Thank you all for listening. 

[waterrunstogether]

Rites of Passage in the Fifth World

I’ve been thinking lately about the absence of real rites of passage in modern “western culture”. A rite of passage is a sort of ritualized event (that may or may not be endorsed/organized by a community) in which a person is believed to exit from one stage of life and enter the next, usually from childhood to adulthood. Other than the humiliation of high school proms/frat hazing, or getting your driver’s license, or turning 21 and getting shitfaced, my culture in the United States has little to offer in the way of true rites of passage. 

The result is a population of confused, somewhat disillusioned children driving around and going to work or university and pretending to be adults while hopelessly stuck in the liminal space between youth and adulthood.

~ 20 year old me pretending to know what’s going on ~

I have thought about quinceañeras and baptisms, religious rites of passage commonly practiced still, but considering the traumatic experience that my parents’ organized religion was for me, I don’t believe now that my baptism was a helpful event facilitating my transition into maturity. I think it was a blindingly painful event whose toxicity I needed to overcome in what I now believe was the true rite of passage. 

I first dropped acid when I was traveling in Bulgaria. My partner was in her hometown across the country and I was visiting Plovdiv with a friend. We had just finished traveling the world, or at least Eurasia, meeting new faces and trying new things and taking wild risks in Thailand and Turkey and India and Malaysia, to name a few. I had also just escaped the cult I was born and raised in which had hammered into me from birth that my sexual and romantic orientation was an abomination, as a woman I was to obey men, God loved me and wanted me to fear him (that is to say, love = fear), the leaders of the church were to be obeyed and respected all the time (even if they were obviously wrong) and so on and so forth. It was an insane transition between being trapped in these religious handcuffs and learning that I could break free all along. In fact, I carried so much self hatred and internalized homophobia with me into my supposed new life that I didn’t know what to do with myself. Despite being outwardly happier than I had ever been before with a wonderful partner and community who truly loved and supported me for who I was, inwardly I was constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown due to all of the conflicting thoughts and beliefs I was carrying and creating within myself.

The experience of that first trip was an interesting one. Every step of the way my body seemed to pull me towards the letting go of all of the toxicity that was so thick and had built up like plaque in the arteries of my energetic being--yet, I remained me throughout the trip, at the end feeling somewhat empowered but not yet finished with the transformation.

A few months later I took psilocybin, AKA magic mushrooms, with my little brother on a rainy Summer day in D.C. The whole come up of the trip was talking to trees and observing the movements of leaves, running my fingers over the moss growing on the exposed, knotty roots of tree in front of our house. But at the end of the trip, something changed. Once again my body requested, begged me, to let go of the still-prevalent toxicity inside of me. My health was in rough shape, mentally and physically, and my body knew the culprit. But once more I felt I couldn’t let go just yet, it would be too much for me, I wasn’t ready. So I spent the entire come down and then some, maybe four hours, weeping uncontrollably on the basement floor.

The second time I dropped acid was yesterday, with my partner, here in Berlin. It changed everything.

During the come up I was taken aback by how strong the effect it had on me was. My partner, bless her heart, had taken a larger dose than me, yet felt no effect the entire time. Her tolerance has always been naturally higher than mine for every kind of intoxicating substance, and LSD was no exception. 

As time went on I came to realize that her high tolerance was incredibly fortunate for me and my trip. The initial come up was amusing, as flashes of white light began to fill up my eyes, closed and open; but very quickly I began to get paranoid, strange little thoughts about being set up and targeted running through my mind as my sense of self slowly began to dissipate, just nonsense that the ego conjures up to protect itself. But my partner’s calming reassurances that she loved me and that I was safe effectively calmed me down.

Once I began to enjoy the ride up, holding a half of a pomegranate and appreciating its beauty, touching a slice of orange and loving how soft it felt in my hands, admiring the fractals of color creating all kinds of geometric shapes on the walls and snow outside the window, I became comfortable with my loss of identity. At some point I realized that I didn’t even know my name, and I didn’t care, because it was irrelevant. All that was relevant was experience. 

Imagine experiencing and interacting with the world around you without the barrier of the thing that we are so used to that it’s difficult to think of it as a barrier at all: your concept of self. Ideas about names and races and gender and desire and anger and malice and hatred just made absolutely no sense whatsoever. In this state, all that made sense was goodness and beauty and love. All that I understood was harmony and mutually beneficial behavior. My preconceived notions about who I was and what that meant were being shattered and shredded before my very eyes, exposed for what they were: nonsense.

Once I plateaued and began to slowly come down after about four or five hours I was able to contemplate what these things meant, what they would mean for me going forward. I went into the bathroom around hour 7 and decided that it was time to look into the mirror.

Many people will tell you not to look into the mirror during an acid trip, that it’ll give you the dreaded “bad trip” and you’ll have a shit time. I completely disagree. If you are like me and need to come to terms with yourself through the wonderful, horrific, beautiful, terrifying experience that is an “ego death”, I’m afraid that you’ll have no choice but to look into the mirror at some point. 

So, I stared myself down in the mirror and admitted what I couldn’t admit for so long, due to being taught that I was essentially evil since the day I was born. I’d called myself a sinner, wicked, worthless, ugly, an abomination and just about every other mean word in the evangelical dictionary. But as I stood there looking at my body in the mirror, egoless and impartial, I said, “You have done and thought some cruel things to yourself for some time now. But you know what? You are a kind person. You are a wonderful person. You treat people with respect and love, you treat everyone you’ve ever met with so much empathy, so much caring. You love the truth, you love to be generous, you love to be a good friend. You must begin to treat yourself the same way. I know you’ve had so much hatred in your heart contaminating your energy for so long, but that is enough. That is enough. No more. I am a kind person. I am a kind person. I love you. Remember that night so long ago? Beneath the stars, where they submerged you in the baptismal water and tried to destroy you, saying these sacred waters would wash all your sins away, along with your fragile, meaningless identity? Well, they simply added more to your ego, a darker side. You built up so much negativity for so long. Well, look at you now. Your identity, all of the ideas and concepts that you’ve built up around who you really are to protect you from the hurt of Life, it’s all gone. Now you’re going to baptize yourself again. You’ll be truly reborn, this time dedicated not to destroying yourself for the sake of a religion, but dedicated to renewing and becoming and becoming and becoming.” As I looking into the mirror my silhouette became filled in with the velvet black of the night sky, full of bright stars.

I turned on the water and was baptized once again, by my own hands.

When I returned to the room I felt happier than I had ever felt in my life, light as air, free. I told several people about how much I love them and described my love for them in detail, not as this thing that’s an extension of my own ego, but my love for them was a little bit of energy that I had the honor of holding in me, in this body, and sharing between us for a time, for the wonderful events that we call our lives. I could actually see love. I understood that I was not all of the concepts I’ve built around myself, but an expression of energy in this space and time, connected to every other expression of energy in all of history, from the beginning and until the end. My matter, my body, was simply a vehicle for the energy, and would be recycled into new vehicles after I die. My energy would be transferred into new vehicles as well. That’s what we perceive as death: just a simple transfer of energy and recycling of matter. My ego would not live on, thankfully. My consciousness as conflated with ego would cease to exist with me. But the underlying animating force behind all things in the universe, the true source of consciousness, would never be destroyed or created, simply recycled again and again and again and again. Becoming and becoming and becoming and becoming.

The hilarious and bizarre world of reality is hilarious and bizarre. It’s so beautiful and mystical and wonderful and honestly, nothing I write here could ever explain how I experienced being alive in that sixteen hour trip. Words don’t convey it, words can’t convey it. Reality is visceral, experiential, impartial and impossible to quantify in something as crude as human language. 

All I know is that, today, I am a fundamentally changed person. I’d feared ego death for so long, feared that it would be too much, too painful. And it was so, so painful--but it was so worth it. I am happy and proud to exist, grateful for everything I have accomplished and can accomplish in this miraculous, tiny little vessel during this ephemeral event that is my life. I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow if tomorrow exists, and unleash all of my love on everyone who’ll have it. Love is the energy that unites us with our own bodies and the entire world around us. How lucky and strange it is to be anything at all.

May you have a peaceful day. The universe smiles upon you.

[darkpoisonouslove]

1, 34, 35

Here are some definitely way-too-long fills for these prompts.

Have some fluff to help coping with all the angst I usually pour out on you.

1 – first

“No, don’t!” Griffin’s frantic shout startled him and he turned to look at her. “You’re not supposed to eat raw cookie dough!” she scolded with concern in her voice that softened it just like the subtle worry did to her expression and grabbed his wrist, wiping his finger clean with the tissue she conjured.

“I was just going to taste it,” Valtor said, confused by her behavior, but didn’t try to pull his hand away. Her skin was cool against his that always felt a little too heated and he loved the soothing feeling.

“You can get stomachache from that,” she explained as she slowly released his hand and held his gaze to show she was serious. He was touched by the concern for his well-being but he couldn’t help the feeling that she was overreacting.

“Come on, Griffin. I won’t die from a fifth of an ounce of dough,” he said as he reached for the bowl again. He’d never seen raw cookie dough before. He’d barely seen cookies at all, and now that she’d asked him if he wanted to help her bake some, he wanted to experience all the fun.

Griffin grabbed his hand once more. “Don’t even joke about that,” she said, her tone grave. “And don’t you dare dip into the dough again. That’s unsanitary,” she said as if explaining to a small child. And since the thought of her holding a child–his child–proved to be too distracting and causing a stir in his emotions, he focused on magic.

“I’ll use a spoon then,” he said as he conjured one in his free hand only for Griffin to catch it as well.

“Why are you so stubborn about this?” she asked as she tilted her head to the side like she did when her patience was being run thin by whoever was being obstinate and annoying her. He couldn’t quite remember when was the last time he’d made her treat him like that. Probably back before they’d become lovers and he’d been doing whatever it would take to get a reaction out of her since she’d been the first one to not be swayed by his charm or his words. The memories made him long to do it again.

“I told you I just wanted a taste,” he said, imitating her exasperation, for he knew that would have the desired effect. Especially coupled with struggling out of her hold on him.

“A taste?” she asked as she released him which was kind of disappointing but the stern expression that was bordering on angry that she was wearing was promising.

He barely managed to nod before she grabbed at his coat and pulled him into a kiss, her mouth crashing on his with force that was almost violent and had him moan in surprise, not protest. Never protest.

Her tongue made its way into his mouth and he had to hold on to her waist to not get carried away in her passion. The way she pulled him closer with her hands grasping at his shoulder and cupping his neck had him feeling so wanted, so protected, so loved. It was a taste of heaven and he wished he could stay in her kiss forever. He didn’t need anything else. But his body did.

Griffin pulled away, leaving him gasping for air like he’d ran for miles, forgetting he had magic he could use to teleport or fly. “How was that for a taste?” she asked, crossing her arms, her voice aggressive and loud. Or at least so it sounded to him as he couldn’t find his breath to speak. “That’s what I thought.” Griffin smirked before walking away to tend to the oven.

Valtor’s focus remained on her face that was taken over by concentration now that she returned to her task. It was a sight that he’d remember for the rest of his life. Just like the rest of his first attempt at baking. He touched his lips, looking to seal the feeling of that kiss into his very being forever.

This is… mostly fluffy, I think? I mean, it’s kinda full of insecurities but… Anyway, just read it. It has a happy ending, I promise.

34 – diary

“Look what I found at home,” Faragonda said as she handed her what Griffin quickly realized was an old diary of hers. She’d had it while they’d been students and she’d always carried it with her everywhere, tempting Griffin to steal it and break the protection spell in order to read it. She’d almost succeeded a handful of times but Faragonda had always managed to stop her, guarding it with her life.

“Someone’s been busy cleaning the attic this summer,” Griffin smirked as she took it and ran a hand over the leather. The color still looked just like it had once and threw her in awe of the blue that was just on the cusp of turning purple. It looked magical.

“Something like that,” Faragonda said in a way untypical of her. As if she was trying to avoid giving her the actual answer. And if she weren’t so intrigued by what she was holding, she would’ve pressed it.

“May I?” she asked even though she was burning with the desire to open the diary. She didn’t want to overstep any boundaries even if Faragonda had handed it to her. They’d just fixed their friendship the previous year and she wouldn’t survive another grand fight between them. They were getting  older. They didn’t have the kind of time not to speak to each other for decades anymore.

Faragonda nodded, her lips slightly pursed, leaving a lingering sense of wariness in the back of Griffin’s mind while she quickly opened the notebook.

She couldn’t help but smile at the memories the entries brought. All of the adventures from their youth were documented–some she couldn’t even remember–and some still seemed big and exciting even now, after she’d seen more than enough action for an entire lifetime. And some were just teenager stuff that had nothing on what they’d seen after that. It still warmed her heart to remember all that they’d faced together back then with their inexperience and the naivety that inevitably came with young age.

As she read, certain phrases and details caught her eye, though. A throwaway line about the softness of her hair here, a mention of her radiating smile there. There was a short passage about her laughter on one page that blended with the tone of the rest of that entry and a sentence about the passion in her eyes that stuck out a bit but would be glossed over in normal circumstances. She could’ve easily missed them if not for the alarm Faragonda’s earlier behavior had set off in her head. Her body language and the studying gaze she could feel on herself as she kept reading, made the pieces click. It was no coincidence Faragonda had given her the diary.

Griffin looked up at her friend. “Are you trying to tell me what I think you are?” she asked, holding Faragonda’s gaze. They were staring so hard at each other that time seemed to stop existing for the two of them.

“What do you think I’m trying to tell you?” Faragonda asked, her voice steady as it always was but she was deflecting.

“Don’t play that game with me,” Griffin snapped, her voice loud in the tense atmosphere around them. She hadn’t meant for it to come out like that. But her heart was pounding in her chest so madly that she needed a solid answer, something to ground her and give shape to reality that had lost all form thanks to the question in her thoughts. How the world would look to her from now on depended entirely on the answer.

“I could say the same to you,” Faragonda spoke, her own voice raising slightly. Not as much as Griffin’s had but she’d always been the more composed one. Griffin admired her for that since her own emotions could easily get the best of her. But this time control had gotten away even from Faragonda. And that was all the more proof for her to drop the games.

“You love me?” she asked, nearly wincing at the sound of the word that was surely too strong and she’d used too hastily. Even if her question could still be considered beating around the bush. It was old news how much Faragonda cared about her. But she hadn’t known that she cared about her… in a different way, too. And what made it so different, really? She doubted she could love anyone as much as she did Faragonda. She’d just never thought of that love in a romantic context. But that didn’t make it less in any aspect.

“I do,” Faragonda said, never breaking eye contact but she was painfully tense. Even if she’d been the one to initiate the whole conversation. But that was what made Griffin realize how crucial the whole thing must be for Faragonda.

She closed the diary and left it next to her on the couch before scooting closer to Faragonda who seemed to freeze at the action. Griffin leaned in, hesitating just for a second before proceeding. There was really no space to back away now. Any cautiousness should’ve come earlier, before she’d filled them both with anticipation. The realization that she would be just as disappointed and hurt as Faragonda would be if she lost her courage now motivated her to act and she pressed her lips against the fairy’s in a soft contact.

Faragonda’s mouth opened slightly against hers as the pressure seemed to drain from her before she moved her lips slowly, making them brush barely against hers. The familiar gentleness hit Griffin over the head with the realization that she’d been in love with Faragonda for a long time just as well as she’d loved her. They were best friends, companions and confidants and that was all that really mattered when it came to love. Faragonda was someone she trusted and knew she could count on. And in that sense, it had always been right there in front of her but she hadn’t realized it.

She had to pull away to breathe since the revelation had left her all out of oxygen but she pressed her forehead against Faragonda’s to let her know she was right there with her. She braced herself against the couch as the new reality had left her dizzy and somewhat confused but still with an overwhelming sense of relief and joy. And the warmth of Faragonda’s hand covering hers was the most reassuring indicator that everything was okay. It was better than that actually. It was magical.

Some shenanigans from our favorite witch trio while they were still students (and resented each other).

35 – unforeseen

“How about I take a peek at your future next?” Ediltrude offered as she plopped herself down on Griffin’s bed, interrupting her reading mid-sentence. She’d just stopped pestering her sister and was looking for a new victim.

“No, thank you,” Griffin said without raising her head, sending a clear signal to be left alone. Someone would get hurt if the warning wasn’t heeded. She had only so much patience for the twins and their antics on a good day. And today definitely hadn’t been one of those. She’d ran into Faragonda in Magix and the hurt look on the fairy’s face as she’d ignored her had been… exactly what she deserved. She wasn’t her best friend anymore. She was just the reason why no one in Cloud Tower respected her regardless of her abilities that she’d demonstrated more than once.

“Come on, Griffin!” Ediltrude’s fake whine had her suppressing the desire to roll her eyes, for that would mean actually taking the time to react to her roommate’s actions. And she wouldn’t be caught dead doing that. “It will be fun.”

“I’m already having fun,” she said as she turned the page even though she hadn’t finished it. The sharpness of the gesture would supposedly send a message. That was if Ediltrude had enough intelligence to read cues of course. Apparently not since she missed her cue to go away.

“You’ll thank me later,” the other witch spoke as she grabbed her arm and pulled it towards herself, forcing Griffin’s entire body to move against her will and nearly causing her to drop the book. “I see shimmering,” Ediltrude didn’t even give her the chance to protest as she started her divination, staring hard at her palm and ignoring the death glare that Griffin was sure she could feel in her bones even without looking at her. “Looks a lot like stardust.”

That had Griffin’s attention. She’d always loved the stars and she knew that Ediltrude was actually good at seeing the future. So maybe it wouldn’t be a total loss to give her a minute of her time.

Zarathustra seemed intrigued as well since she abandoned what she was doing and turned to look at the two of them.

“I can also see bright light,” Ediltrude glanced at her, a small smirk pulling at her lips now that she saw she had her listening. “And a vast open space that looks like a dark void but is full of small shiny dots, probably stars.”

Griffin’s mind was already wandering with the possibilities of what a future containing those things would look like. Maybe she’d have her dream to explore the stars up close come true.

“No, wait,” Ediltrude’s voice pulled her back to the present, “my bad. The color is the light blue of a cloudless sky and the shiny things are pixies. Which means the light must have come from your winx and the shimmering was from your newly-sprouted fairy wings,” she barely finished before she burst into laughter and her sister joined her. “You should’ve seen your face,” Ediltrude said between fits of laughter. “You started glowing, just like a fairy.”

“I’m sure we can… help you discover… the winx hiding in you,” Zarathustra spoke, doubled over. She could barely breathe from so much laughing.

Griffin paid her no mind and waited for Ediltrude to let go of her hand. Though, she probably needed a little push to get her out of her self-induced haze. “You should see your face, too,” Griffin spoke as she concentrated on the spell she had in mind. It didn’t take long for it to take effect and that was her sign to have the mirror on the wall floating through the room and get between her and Ediltrude so that the other witch could look at her reflection.

A blood-curling scream followed, interrupting any and all sounds coming from Zarathustra, as Ediltrude let go of Griffin’s hand to wipe at her face. “What did you do?” she demanded angrily when that accomplished nothing to remove the bright makeup that was more than worthy of a fairy.

“It’s an illusion so wiping at it will have no effect other than scrubbing your skin away,” Griffin explained. “Though, that will be an improvement.”

“Undo this!” Ediltrude ordered, making her blood boil but she’d already wasted too much time and energy on her to allow her to get a raise out of her.

“It will chip away with time. It will be gone after a few days,” she said as she scooted back up her bed from where she could lean against the headboard and picked up her book. Great! She’d lost her page. Now she had to look for it.

The mattress shifted as Ediltrude jumped to her feet. “I will-”

“Remember that there’s more where this came from,” Griffin growled at her as she raised her hand to show that she was ready for a magical battle and stared the twin down even from her sitting position. “Be grateful that there aren’t any other… unforeseen consequences in it for you,” she allowed herself to mock before glaring at Zarathustra, too, to make sure she understood that referred to both of them.

Ediltrude retreated, fuming internally, to lick her wounds while Griffin focused on her book again. She didn’t need divination to see ten moves ahead of airheads like the twin witches.

[laurelsofhighever]

The Falcon and the Rose Ch. 31 - Arrival

Chapter 1 on AO3 This chapter on AO3 Masterpost here

Fifteenth day of Justinian, 9:32 Dragon 

It took the Siren’s Call another two days to sail around the northern points of the Storm Islands and reach Dunedyn, stronghold of the Clayne. The weather had stayed clear, with stiff winds that pushed the ship onwards through waters that grew ever busier with foreign ships, traders and humble fishing vessels alike that gave them a wide berth or yelled cheery halloos across the white-tipped waves. Now, anchored south of the hold in the deep, sheltered waters of the Lee, the settlement’s brightly painted buildings stood out like jewels against an emerald hillside, the rope of a rich necklace draped over contours of rock leading down towards the harbour. That would be the ship’s final destination, but only once the most important members of the delegation went ashore and made their formal greetings to the Storm Giant and his retainers. 

Already dressed in her finery, Rosslyn stood by the bowsprit, her eyes cast out over a trio of fishing trawlers closing their nets around a shoal of mackerel, and the birds above them taking advantage of the easy meal. Lilac and gold, the morning sky warmed her face, wrapping her in isolation from the commotion on the deck as the longboats were loosed from their moorings and lowered over the side. Somewhere close by, Cuno, roused from his torpor by the activity, was barking at a seagull that had had the audacity to perch on one of the port lanterns. She paid him no heed. In less than an hour she would be face to face with her grandfather again, would have to look him in the eye and remember she was the one who had gone chasing glory and left the Seawolf to die. 

“Guess that answers my question,” said a voice at her elbow. She blinked and turned to see Tabris, her hair braided and clothes washed, but still with bare feet stained by streaks of tar. ”No one with a face that puckered like an arsehole ain’t nervous.” 

Rosslyn scowled at the description, but shrugged it off and turned away. 

“Riiiiight,” the elf huffed. ”Reassuring, that is.” 

Rosslyn’s mouth quirked in a humourless smile. “I wouldn’t have thought I’d be your first choice for reassurance.” 

“You know what they say about beggars,” came the tart reply. 

“What’s on your mind?” 

There was a pause as Tabris clambered onto the rail, chewing her lips in a rare show of deliberation as she decided her answer. Even despite the added height, she came in almost a head shorter than the human woman. 

“See, I’ve been tryin’ to figure,” she said once she was settled. “You shems have got enough fancy words and blood ties between you, you don’t need me to get your ships. So what am I doin’ here? You got me out of baldy-whatshisface’s clutches, and I heard the tellin’-off you gave the princeling, but don’t go thinking I’m fooled that you’re doing this for the elves.” 

“You’re right, I’m not,” Rosslyn answered bluntly. “I’m doing this to get revenge on the cur that murdered my family, and to stop Loghain bringing in reinforcements that he can use to win the war, so that I won’t be hanged at the end of it.” She tilted a wry look at over her shoulder when the elf opened her mouth to speak and closed it again just as quickly. ”Was that not the response you expected?”

“Got the arrogance about right.”

“What does it matter if I care, so long as our goals align?” she asked. “You care, and that’s why you’re here – it’s why you tried to rescue your kin and then ran all the way to Redcliffe, through a war-torn country, on the off-chance the king would help you when you couldn’t do it alone. The Clayne will listen to you, don’t worry about that.” 

“I’m worried about after,” Tabris sneered when Rosslyn once more turned her attention to the sea. “What happens to me after I’ve cheeped like a sparrow for you to get your soldiers? I killed a shem lordling.”  

“The king has pardoned you.” 

The elf scoffed and tossed her hair out of her eyes. “And of course that makes all this –” she gestured vaguely to her ears “– magically disappear. You lot have no clue – and don’t think I didn’t notice about not being invited to this little beach party you’re having. What are you even looking at out there?” 

With a sigh, Rosslyn raised her hand and pointed to a speck above the circling gulls, which grew out of the glare of the sun like an after-image. “It’s a gwyrling – they’re like griffons, but smaller. It’s rare to see one, especially at this time of day. It must have hatchlings in the cliffs.” 

The speck solidified into a creature with narrow, barred wings and a wickedly curved beak. In the space of a heartbeat, it swerved on a point and dived among the flock of gulls and they scattered, screaming in alarm. One, weighed down with the prize of a fish between its claws, dodged too slowly, and didn’t even have time to cry out as the gwyrling punched down and struck it across the back of the neck. The bird went limp, the fish wriggled free and splashed back into the water, and the gwyrling beat back up into the air with a flick of its long, leonine tail. 

“That was really something,” Tabris drawled. 

“The Clayne have augurs who would certainly think so,” Rosslyn replied, betraying a hint of impatience. “They read patterns in the flight of birds and use it to interpret the will of the Lady of the Skies.” 

“You believe in that tosh? What future gets predicted by that?” 

“That would depend.” She smirked. “Are you the gull, the gwyrling, or the fish?” 

“Your Ladyship!” Morrence hopped up to the deck, looking small in the light leather armour she and the others had adopted for the journey. Her hair too, was braided out of her eyes, a far cry from the practical tail she usually wore. “We’re almost ready to go, but His Highness is still below.” She spared a cool glance for Tabris and back to wait for orders. 

Rosslyn glanced to see the first of the boats being lowered over the side. “I’ll see what’s keeping him. And as for you,” she added, lowering her voice as she turned back to Tabris. “The sea doesn’t care what you are, and the gods don’t care if you believe in them or not. They help those who help themselves, and out here, there aren’t any alienage walls to hold you back.” 

“Surprised you managed to get all those fancy words out around that silver spoon stuck in your gob.” 

Alistair stood in front of the mirror borrowed from the captain’s quarters, trying not to sweat in his new clothes. The stuffy cabin didn’t help, but it was Brantis fussing with the lay of his sleeves, shooting questions about what he should do in increasingly specific and unlikely situations, that really had him agitated. With the outcome of the war hanging on the success of the mission, and Rosslyn’s grandfather being the person he had to impress, anything shy of tripping over his own boots and falling flat on his face would be reason to celebrate.  

“And with which hand should you give an item on the table, should you be asked for it?” Brantis asked in his reedy voice. 

“Is that a likely scenario?” How many people just casually asked royalty to pass the salt? 

“It does to prepare for all eventualities, Highness,” came the officious reply. 

 Sighing, Alistair turned his attention back to his outfit, to the contemplation of whether the rose pattern stitched into his jerkin was too much. As far as he could tell in the dim light, the red and gold suited the tone of his skin, and set off well against the bright cream of his shirt. He had already tested the practicality of the ensemble. Given that it lacked the ostentation favoured by those like Franderel, he still had enough range of movement to be able to fight without tearing a seam if the situation called for it, though the heavy, fur-trimmed mantle he had been forced into might make him choke with the heat first. 

He paused on his reflection, letting his eyes drift over the snarling shapes tooled into the rich leather. He never thought to sport the War Dogs, the symbol of the bloodline that had once discarded him, and yet there they were, one on each shoulder, offering a legitimacy that for the first time felt like something lighter than a curse. 

Brantis was still fussing. 

“Surely I’m ready now? I’m really not sure how much more preparation I can take. Surely it would be better to… uh…” 

Rosslyn stood in the doorway. His eyes dragged up and down her form, drinking in every detail. 

“How are things proceeding?” she asked as she glided into the room. A varnished box canted against her hip, tucked under her arm. 

“Quite well, Your Ladyship,” Brantis replied. “Quite well. His Highness will do us proud, if he will remember his manners.” 

Alistair blinked. “What?” 

He had been too busy staring to listen. The grey shimmer of her light coat brought out the sharp colour of her eyes, the cut of the material flared out from swaying hips, the deep blue inner lining a backdrop for white doeskin breeches that clung to deep curves and lithe, strong legs. When he managed to pull his gaze from that sight, it caught instead on the set of her shoulders and the way the open collar accentuated the fine tendons of her throat. She turned her head and her hair, pouring artfully over one shoulder, gleamed gold where a wreath of aurum leaves curled around from a knot at the nape of her neck. The whole effect was understated but striking, a casual display of power leagues away from the ill-fitting dress she had worn on Summerday.  

“… and your esteemed grandfather will of course have the final word.” 

They had carried on an entire conversation without him. Glancing between Brantis’ sidelong, exasperated looks and Rosslyn’s dry amusement, he felt heat flare all the way to the tips of his ears. 

“Will you leave us?” she asked the chamberlain, with a touch of pink in her own pale cheeks. 

Brantis bowed and hobbled away, and the two of them were alone. She crossed to a bulkhead and set down the box she had brought with her, which had completely slipped his attention in his ogling. Curious, he made out her personal sigil on the lid – a Falcon gripping a Laurel branch in its talons – but she had already crossed the space to stand in front of him and his throat dried up too much to ask about it. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked. 

He tried to laugh. “Well, right now I’m not quite sure whether the eels rolling around in my stomach are there because of seasickness or nerves…” Or how stunning you look. He swallowed. To cover the treacherous line of his thoughts, he turned back to the mirror and brushed his hands down his front. “This lot could feed a family for a month – I feel like such a fool in it.” 

“Ah, but you don’t look like one,” she pointed out, grinning. “That’s the important thing.” 

“Ha-ha.” 

Fighting back her smirk, she appraised his attire with a critical eye, then came forward to readjust the seams Brantis had been playing with for half an hour, loosening them enough to give him room to breathe again. In theory. 

“It suits you.” Her hand lingered on his chest, the heat of her palm seeping through the fabric. 

He coughed. “There’s, uh, not as much gilt as I was expecting.” 

“Only merchants and Rivaini aristocrats weight themselves down with gold,” she chided gently. “Nobility should be seen in how you carry yourself, and there’s more besides – patronage of the arts, appreciation of craftsmanship, the cultivation of taste… actually, on that note, I have something for you – a gift.” Her glance darted away to the box on the bulkhead and he found himself following her as she went to retrieve it. 

“Rosslyn…” 

“I meant to give it to you later, on the island, but I thought… it might give you some extra confidence.” She chuckled, the smooth certainty of a moment before faltering as she held it out to him. “It seems silly to say that out loud.” 

“Not at all! This – this is for me?” he checked. “Really? I – wow, I don’t – I mean…” He could count on one hand the number of gifts he had received in his life, and the number that had come unprompted… well, that required significantly fewer fingers. 

She shrugged, flustered. “It’s nothing too grand, but it’s a tradition for vassals of the realm to give a gift to the heir apparent once their status is made official, and when we were delayed in Invermathy, I realised it completely slipped my mind. There’s an artisan there who used to work for my family and –”  

He reached out to touch her shoulder, to snap her out of her sudden nervousness, and the edge of his thumb accidentally brushed her neck – he never expected the skin there to be so smooth. 

“You still need to open it,” she said in a small voice.  

He started, cleared his throat, snapped his gaze to the box resting on his palm and bit his lip as he flicked the catch on the lid. A gift, entirely for him. 

He stared. Nestled in a cushion of blue velvet was a pair of leather vambraces embossed with intertwining shapes dyed in a multitude of colours. He recognised dragons, and eagles, and forefront of them all a red War Dog rampant with a gold-petalled rose caught in its snarling teeth. The workmanship was exquisite, almost too perfect to wear for fear of damage, the tooling so precise it seemed as if the figures had been persuaded rather than worked into the leather. 

“These must have been expensive,” he blurted.  

Rosslyn’s face, an instant before so open and anxious waiting for his approval, closed off, a sour line pulling at her mouth. 

“A gift is worth more than its base value, don’t you think?” she asked.  

He shook his head. “I didn’t mean to imply – I mean, I know with the war and everything you’ve had to –” 

“The condition of my finances is none of your concern,” she snapped. “I wasn’t thinking of the expense.”

“No, I know - Rosslyn…” He sighed, staring across the chasm of space that had suddenly risen between them, without her moving a muscle. “I’m sorry I offended you. So much for the start of an illustrious diplomatic career, don’t you think?”  

She searched his face, stung pride warring with doubt and something else that flitted by too quickly for him to name. 

“What did you mean to say?” The question was teased out slowly, deliberately. 

“Only that…” Maker, let him get the right words this time. “Nobody’s ever thought of me enough to – to do something like this for me. I only ever got things that were practical before – I used to go to bed at night and pray to the Maker to make me grow taller so the housekeeper would be forced to make me a new shirt, but it didn’t work nearly as often as I hoped.” He chuckled, but the tale only made her brows contract. “This… I am truly grateful – truly – I don’t know how else to express my gratitude, I…”  

“You like them, then?”  

He nodded. “They’re… Would you help me put them on?” 

She smiled, the tension disappeared from her shoulders, and everything was alright again as she raised her hands to take the box from him. The vambraces lifted easily out of the velvet pile, stiff and polished and smelling of beeswax, with just the right amount of give in the straps. Rosslyn returned and brushed his hands away so she could do up the knots for him, working the laces through the eyeholes with a deftness that had Alistair transfixed. When the first one was fitted to her satisfaction, she turned to the other, and his free hand settled on her waist, supple leather and samite warm under his fingertips. 

“What is that?” he asked. 

She glanced up. “What?” 

“That smell, some kind of flowers – in your hair.” 

“Oh.” She tucked a phantom strand behind her ear, biting her lip. “It’s jasmine.” 

“Jasmine,” he repeated as she went back to her task. “It’s nice.” 

“Thanks… All done.” 

He held up his hand to view her handiwork. The knots were neat, the vambrace itself well-fitted - not long enough to impede his movement but not so short that it made his arm look overly brawny. Rosslyn was smiling at him, patient, bemused by the childish enthusiasm he betrayed in his admiration of the War Dog snarling on his arm. 

“I know you didn’t expect anything,” he admitted, swallowing past the lump in his throat, “but I think I’m a little bit sorry I don’t have anything for you in return.” 

She chuckled and rolled her eyes. “You don’t owe me anything for this.” 

But her gaze flickered to his mouth, just a tiny movement of her eyes which he caught nevertheless, and he wondered if perhaps she was daring to ask for the return in a kiss. He wanted her to ask. They stood so close she had to tilt her head back to see him properly, so close his hand still on her waist felt the soft swell of her ribs as she breathed, the tension running like corded rope through her limbs. Beneath them, the ship pitched in the swell, tilting them further into each other’s space, and he realised if they did this now he wouldn’t want to stop. 

“We – we should go,” he managed, to keep himself from staring. 

She loosed a breath – relief? disappointment? – and stepped back. “We – yes. The tide will turn soon. It wouldn’t be a very good first impression to keep the Storm Giant waiting seven hours for it to turn back.” 

“Right. Yes, of course, just let me…” He reached past her for his sword belt and buckled it while she waited, and then followed her out of the cabin. They kept a careful distance as they strode up into the light and bustle of the deck, to Isabela barking orders so she could be heard over the noise of the dog, and Morrence already setting Connor into the first longboat next to Wynne.  

“Your turn next, Your Highness,” she said as they approached, offering a hand to help him over the rail. “Don’t think about the drop.” 

“You could have told me that before I looked,” he replied, and peered dubiously over the side. The longboat floated fifteen feet below, still lashed to the hull of the ship but rolling against the moorings like a horse tossing its head at flies. One false step on the frankly perilous ladder and he could easily fall between the two barks and be trapped underneath, dragged down into the depths by the weight of his fancy clothes. 

“There’s nothing to it,” Rosslyn reassured him with a squeeze of his shoulder. “I’ll go ahead and guide you down.” 

The tails of her coat flared behind her as she swung over the side, almost as nimble as one of the sailors. Only Alistair saw the white grip of her knuckles on the ropes, and the careful frown as she judged the last step between the ladder and the boat, but she smiled encouragement up at him. 

“Move one limb at a time,” she instructed. “Like you’re a lizard.” 

“Am I a handsome lizard at least?” 

She only rolled her eyes.

“Is the Storm Giant scary?” Connor asked, when Alistair had finally inched the last few steps into the boat. “I heard he can kill someone he doesn’t like just by looking at them.” 

“What nonsense,” Wynne chided next to him. “Not even a basilisk can do that.” 

Rosslyn shifted in her seat and winked at the arl’s son. “The Storm Giant isn’t a basilisk.” 

A shout came from above and the lines holding them to the Siren’s Call went slack, gathered in by two of the crew, who scrambled down the ladder and took their places, one in the rowing seat and one by the tiller. With a final salute to the captain, the rower pushed off from the side with the butt of an oar, with enough force to drive them out into open water. The second boat with their guard-captains and herald followed shortly after, two motes of dust on a clear blue slate. Though the water was mostly calm, spray curled back at them from the oars, and once a rogue wave slapped against the hull, rocking them all sideways. Rosslyn flinched, a muttered curse hissing under her breath, but gentle fingers wrapped around hers where they clung to the board, and she shot a grateful smile to Alistair next to her. 

 They made it through the breakers mostly unsoaked, though the moment they touched solid ground jarred hard enough to make Alistair fall forward and smack his knee against the hull. Rubbing out the tingles, he straightened and stepped out onto a beach of black pebbles, unable to help craning his neck at the sheer basalt cliffs warding back the sea. The ground swayed beneath him, but no, it was just his balance reasserting itself after so long on the water. 

“Is landsickness a thing?” he asked Rosslyn. “Because I think I have it. This feels weird.” 

“You’ll get used to dry land again, just in time to make the crossing back,” she laughed as she stepped out next to him. 

“Who’s that on the path?” Connor called from the boat.  

The rest of the party turned to where he was pointing. A set of rough stairs had been cut into the rock, commanding a view over the whole bay as it carved down from the emerald cliffs above. There was no other way up, at least not that Alistair could see, and he tried not to think about the potential consequences of a bad first impression; the tidemark stained the rock a full armspan above his head, and with no other shelter from the waves, the defenders would only have to wait.   

And there was the Storm Giant himself, Lord Fearchar Mac Eanraig, bearing down on them. Tall, with a shock of flyaway white hair and broad shoulders wrapped in dyed plaidweave, he marched at the head of his retinue with the pride of a full-crown hart, an enormous spiked mace girded at his hip. Without quite thinking about it, Alistair drew closer to Rosslyn’s side as their host descended the last few strides towards them. She noticed, and brushed her hand along his thumb in a brief show of reassurance. But when he caught her eye, she wasn’t smiling.  

[shadowdianne]

3rd @italymystery-swanqueen

Gioia, darling, querida… We have spent quite the number of years pestering each other on this awful site and you always amazed me with your kindness. I’m beyond proud you decided to take on manipping by the way; you always had a very keen eye on details and you sharing that with your creations will never fail to make me smile. You deserve far much more credit than the one you receive and seeing you walk and keep going forward with every single thing life has thrown on your way makes me not only hopeful but happy to keep watching you from afar. Here is for every time you sent me to bed when it was awfully late and for the amount of times you have always picked *the* perfect gif for a reaction. I skill I don’t and won’t ever possess.

-          Italy asked for some sound bed-sharing amidst Swan-Mills family scenes. I don’t know if I got the Psycho thing right but it was certainly humorous.

“Remind me again why they weren’t able to give us a third room.”

Regina’s sentence elicited a guffaw from Henry as the teen left the room his mothers had been stuck with, a cheeky grin the last thing both brunette and blonde saw as they glanced at the quickly closing door. The teen had obviously been given the second room they had been able to secure after the downpour that had started to hit Emma’s yellow car, effectively halting their trip just two hours after they had left Storybrooke and, as the blonde sighed and ran a hand through her hair, she shrugged, pointing at the carpeted patch of floor that wasn’t overcrowded with the many knickknacks that seemed to be the major décor on the small motel they had been able to find.

“They are packed.” The blonde finally said. “I can always sleep on the floor if you want. Or sleep with Henry.”

She knew that third option was out of the question though; Henry had already given them both a look of utter horror when Regina had asked how crazy would it be to try to keep the journey under the rain and Emma didn’t want to make the teen feel as if she wasn’t giving him enough personal space. Changing her body weight from foot to foot she considered the carpet; old but not moldy it wouldn’t be comfortable, but it would do the trick for the night being.

Her musings were interrupted by Regina’s sigh as the brunette pinched the bridge of her nose, placing the suitcase next to the vanity that stood directly in front of the bed.

“I wasn’t implying that.” And even though there wasn’t a ‘Miss Swan’ at the end of the sentence the clipped tone was enough for Emma to growl inwardly at that. The journey had started wonderfully; with Regina laughing and smiling as both Henry and herself made jokes and sung to the horrible playlist they had created for what was going to probably be their last journey together now that the teen was about to start University. The warmth that had radiated from the older woman had been, in fact, strong enough to not rattle Emma when they had finally crossed Storybrooke’s town line, the vertigo feeling she usually got whenever she was stripped from her inherent magic not as strong as other times. Yet, as dark clouds had begun to cover the sky Regina’s mood had gotten somber, darkening alongside with the weather. Now, the lines around her mouth, on her forehead, made her look like a complete different person than the one who had tried -and failed- to follow Emma’s colorful choice of music a couple hours ago.

Sighing, Emma went towards her own bag, ruffling for a moment until she extracted her pajamas out of it, flattening the wrinkles on the fabric before turning back to Regina who had her eyes closed, a brief glimpse of repent glowing on the back of her pupils by the time she blinked them open once more.

“I’m sorry.” The brunette began, and Emma nibbled on her bottom lip at the flustered expression that washed over her face a second before. Shaking her head, she approached Regina, putting the pajamas down at the edge of the bed, the frilly cover a stark difference against the plain colors of her sweatpants and t-shirt.

“No, I’m sorry. We could have had tried to drive for a little longer.”

And it was true, she thought as she reached for Regina’s forearm as the brunette crossed her arms at her chest, her hand hovering and then stopping altogether, fingers twitching before she let it fall once again, limp at her side. She could have done that; drive a little longer. The beetle was old, yes, and the road was mostly covered in dark and rain but if she had known Regina would have been so uncomfortable with the idea of sharing a bed…

Because, she added as they both stood, awfully close to each other and the lack of magic essence that always seemed to crack between them both making everything slightly more awkward than expected, even if she felt trepidation at the idea of spending more time with Regina despite her idea of sleeping in the floor she didn’t feel nervous at the idea of sharing that bed. Thrilled would perhaps be a better word for it. One she didn’t plan on admitting to Regina anytime soon.

A sigh from the brunette made Emma focus back on the woman in front of her, her brows rising as she saw a soft blush coloring Regina’s cheeks for a second. A look that she wasn’t used to see on the older woman. Tilting her head, she waited until Regina let her hands fall at her sides.

“No, Henry was right.” She said with one small glance towards the door the teen had closed behind him. “And so were you. It’s better if we wait until tomorrow. It’s just…”

She halted, teeth gleaming between parted lips and Emma forced herself to chuckle as she turned and sat at the edge of the bed, feigning a self-assuredness that she didn’t quite feel. Not with the impending reality of her sleeping next to Regina for the next few hours.

“I don’t hog the covers.” She began, a slow smile spreading over her lips as she watched how Regina’s stillness was replaced with a playful roll of eyes. “At least that’s what I’ve been told.”

She stopped at that; remembering all too well who the last person had been who had shared his bed with her. A memory brought by the lack of ring on her hand, the nervous tick of covering a jewel that wasn’t even there to begin with being quickly tracked by Regina’s own gaze as the brunette looked down at Emma’s fingers, a slight rise on her chest following the movement.

Neither of them had truly talked about Hook after the divorce. Not like it was something Emma liked to speak about after all and even if Regina had been the first one who had received a visit from her as soon as she had made up her mind the former Queen hadn’t mentioned that either, not after Emma had signed the papers, red rimming her eyes as she had done so. Not even after Emma had asked Regina to go and have a drink with her at Aesop’s, the fuzzy memories that night had brought with it telling enough.

Clearing her throat, Emma patted the bed underneath her, the far too soft sheet under her hand speaking volumes of how many times the cloth had been washed repeatedly.

“I don’t snore either.” She added and that broke the spell Regina seemed to have fallen for, a gentle chuckle escaping her lips as she eyed Emma with something close to mirth dancing on her eyes.

“I guess I will find out tonight.”

It was true, she didn’t hog the covers, but Regina definitely did. They had both settled for the night shortly after their conversation with Regina sitting at the other side of the bed with something close to attentive focus on the cream she proceeded to rub on her hands, forearms and face. Something Emma had been very careful not to stare at as she stood and went to the small adjacent bathroom to change into her pajamas. When she had exited the room, Regina was already changed and after a quick awkward moment in where the brunette had stood and tiptoed towards the bathroom Emma had just vacated, the blonde had slipped beneath the sheets, nervousness curling her toes as she waited, scrolling down her phone and answering to some messages Snow and David had sent to her.

After that, Regina had followed her movements, carefully entering the bed through the other side and glancing at her before muttering a quick goodnight that Emma had felt tong-tied to answer to. Switching the lights off, Regina had quickly closed her eyes and fallen asleep. Which had only led to more nervousness on Emma’s part as she pondered not only on how peaceful the brunette looked when she was resting but also on the very distinct possibility of her rolling towards her side once she fell asleep and do something as crazy as hugging her.

Which had turned to be a problem when, after possibly reaching a REM state, Regina had started to not only hog the covers but also move closer and closer to Emma’s still awake body.

Something Emma was sure would have caused her magic to go high wire if they would still have been at Storybrooke. Outside the barrier that separated the town the crackling energy she had become accustomed to didn’t feel as connected or as strong inside of her so aside from a slight buzz on the tips of her fingers she only felt lightheaded when Regina’s arm finally wrapped around her midsection, the movement causing her shirt to rile up a few inches.

She wasn’t stupid of course, or at least not enough to not know what was either happening or why her body felt as if it was on fire. Yet, Emma didn’t want to move, or turn to her side so she could extricate herself from Regina’s arms. Closing her eyes and forcing her breathing to even out, she willed sleep to come, darkness helping to her tired brain until everything around her turned fuzzy enough for her to be able to not think on how easy would be to simply follow Regina’s antics; pressed her body flush against the older woman and just pretend, for one night, that she hadn’t terminated her marriage because precisely her.

“Moms?”

The sound of Henry’s voice at the other side of the room was what made Emma blink bleary, the darkness from outside already been replaced by the dull, grey-like light of early morning. The kid had obviously inherited that from Regina as she groaned and wished to be able to sleep a few more minutes. Something that was quickly forgotten as she heard a chuckle at her side and something frighteningly close to a pair of lips caressing her earlobe as Regina’s voice reached her; rougher than usual and definetely holding a breathiness there that Emma hadn’t gotten to hear before.

“Someone’s eager to keep with the trip.”

Blinking, feeling her cheeks beginning to redden, Emma twisted so she could watch at Regina, noticing for the first time in the few minutes she had be awoke how Regina’s arm was still hugging her close, her fingers splayed on her midriff, her thumb pressed against her skin where the shirt had bunched up further since they both had fallen asleep. Brown eyes blinking at her, sleep still clinging to them, they lacked the tension they had sported the night before and Emma wondered what had changed, why it had happened.

“Moms!”

“Give us a minute.” Emma didn’t recognize her voice, but she felt her lips move, her eyes unable to look away from Regina’s as she addressed the teen at the other side of the door, the huffed answer of something she didn’t want to unpack the only response she got from the boy. Licking her lips, being painfully aware that Regina’s eyes followed the movement, she managed to croak a “Good morning” that fell flat against her teeth and tongue, a lazy and trembling smile following short after.

One final squeeze on her waist and Regina moved away, her warmth being quickly replaced by the chill that seemed to fill the room the second the covers that hid them both from it were lifted. Blinking and feeling her chest tightening, the blonde almost didn’t hear Regina’s voice as the woman called for her. However, when she did, she found a pair of mischievous eyes glancing at her, the lack of purple on them just as staggering as it had been the night before.

“You certainly not snore, Emma. But you speak on your sleep.”

The blonde couldn’t answer that, unable to find her voice, but she gaped as Regina chuckled and began to fish for her clothes, a third call from Henry breaking the spell.

“If you are kissing tell Zelena she owns me ten dollars!”

“Henry!”

[atamascolily]

Mara Jade in The New Rebellion, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Mara Jade has a few brief appearances prior to the final act of the novel, but her role in the plot kicks off with this:

Whoever he was, this Kueller had Force abilities. And he already held Luke prisoner. Which meant he was strong in the Force.

Like Vader.

Han clenched his fists. He had never been any match for Vader. The man had hurt him at every turn. The abilities that Luke, Leia, and the children possessed sometimes looked like magic to him.

But sometimes magic could be used against its owner.

“Chewie, see if you can find Mara Jade for me. Lando says she’s with Talon Karrde. Tell them I need their help.”

Chewie growled a query.

Han grinned at him. “A plan? Of course, I have a plan. Have you ever known me not to?”

Smuggler Dad Talon Karrde drops his adopted daughter off for playtime, but not without some stern fatherly admonishments: 

“I believe it, Solo. And every once in a while, I donate my services too. Mara’s outside with your ysalamiri. Say thank you.”

Han hadn’t expected Karrde’s quick capitulation. It made him instantly suspicious. “Yeah, ah, thanks,” Han said. He waved a hand at Chewie. “Go let her in.”

Chewbacca was already out of his seat.

Han turned back to Karrde. “You’re letting Mara come with us?”

“I’ve got no need for her. Seems she has some interest in what happens to Skywalker. Says you might need her.”

Yeah, sure, Karrde, I TOTALLY believe you there.

“She knows this Kueller, then?”

“I doubt it.” Karrde’s pet vornskr put its face near the screen. The creatures were ugly, even from a distance. “I think it’s more personal than that. She’s been having daylight dreams. She thinks she’s hiding them from me, but she’s not.”

“Kueller’s after her too.”

Karrde nodded. “I’m beginning to think the phrase, ‘May the Force be with you’ is a curse.”

“I sure hope not,” Han said. “The Force has been with me for years now. My family’s steeped in it.”

“You know what the ysalamiri will do, don’t you?”

Han grinned. “That’s why I want them. Thanks, Talon.”

“Don’t mention it,” Karrde said. “I mean that.”

Rusch really plays up the impact of the ysalamiri on Force users for dramatic effect:

[Mara] shook her head, and then put a slim hand against her forehead. The ysalamiri affected her Force senses. Han had heard about this but never really seen it. He’d only had Luke’s descriptions.

I don't believe this for a moment, because Mara lived on Myrkr back in TTT and the ysalamiri didn't bother her that much. What's actually bothering her then?

“I’ve been seeing Luke on a sandstone street, burning alive.”

Her husky voice sent chills through Han. “Can you see the future?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

So Mara is having visions of Luke dying - no wonder she's in such terrible shape. Of course, she's not actually going to admit it, though.

“Why did you really come?” Han asked.

She swallowed. Her color was poor. Luke said the ysalamiri pushed the Force away from themselves, creating a bubble in which the Force did not exist. He said it was like suddenly going blind and deaf. Han thought of it as leveling the playing field. In the Force bubble, a Jedi Knight had no more powers than a normal person.

She leaned against the wall. “Do you know how many people have died in the last few weeks, Solo?”

“Enough,” he said, thinking of the Run.

“More than enough,” she said. “Too many. Kueller’s using them to build strength. He’s absorbing the dark side like a droid hooked up to a power cable. If this continues, he may be unbeatable.”

“You don’t believe that,” Han said.

She raised her head. She was stunning, he had to give her that, with her bright green eyes, and red, almost auburn, hair. A woman to respect. A woman that no one ever should tamper with. “I haven’t felt power like this since Palpatine in the early days. If this continues, Han, Kueller will be stronger than the Emperor ever was, and he’ll do it quicker.”

“So you’re not here for Luke after all.”

She swallowed. “It may be too late for Luke. I’m here for the rest of us.”

YOU GO, MY GIRL, determined to save the galaxy from yet another Force-using megalomaniac! But also, you're not fooling me about your feelings for Luke.

Later:

Han was seated in the cockpit, Chewbacca beside him, and Mara Jade in the seat behind. She was still pale and weak. She claimed that the ysalamiri were affecting her Force sense even though they were as far from her as they could be.

You can believe that if you want to, but my shipper heart knows what's what here, and you can pry that theory out of my cold, dead hands. 

Anyway, there's a space battle and Mara shoots the guns on the Falcon while they rush to rescue Leia with their ysalamiri cargo.

"Chewie?” Han shouted.

Chewbacca growled something about losing a deflector shield.

“Chewie, that was more than a shield!”

Chewie growled again. He nearly had the shield fixed but he didn’t have time to say any more. It was Mara who finally reported.

“That was my cannon,” she said.

“You okay?”

“If you call third-degree burns okay,” she said. “My hands’ll live.”

So they arrive on planet and Han uses Mara to locate Leia, or tries to, anyway.

Mara had kept her distance. Both Han and Chewie had agreed to allow her to stay far behind them—far enough so that she wasn’t caught in the ysalamiri’s anti-Force bubble.

But Han wished she were closer. He should have known better than to rely on her Force abilities when she had been so close to ysalamiri. Obviously she had been wrong. Leia couldn’t be nearby. This place was deserted.

All this is GREAT... and then Rusch has a giant-but-harmless-murderbeast eat the ysalamiri and waltz over to the Final Battle between Luke and the Big Bad, just as Luke is about to pull the Obi-Wan Kenobi Sacrificing Yourself Stunt (to Leia's horror).... and that's it for Han and Mara for the rest of the book. Except for this one line at the end:

"Mara, Luke, and I were stuck in the Falcon, playing holographic games while Han and Chewie argued about who would repair the damage.”

“They must have fixed it.”

Leia grinned. “They did. After Mara threatened to shoot them both.”

While this is a hilarious image - and totally in character - I'm so not okay with Rusch abandoning Mara right at the most dramatic possible moment and not having her play a larger role in the story. And having set up so much shipper potential with Luke... it just feels like such a waste.

What was Mara's reaction to seeing Luke? What was Luke's reaction to seeing Mara? And we don't get any of that at all. Even if you argue there was all kinds of stuff behind the scenes and Luke and Mara's relationship not being official yet, it still seems like she could have had a greater role than a fancy way of ferrying Han and the ysalamiri from Point A to Point B. As it is... it's such a letdown.

But that's what fic is for, right?

[mothermaidenclone-blog]

Avengers: Infinity War or Just by Force of Numbers This Has to Work out, Right?

I had my trepidations about Avengers: Infinity War; there were so many characters to squeeze in that I worried a cameo-fest might take the place of a cogent plot My fears, however, were unfounded, as I felt the story held together well and the characters’ interactions were a good balance between genuinely personal and goofy one liners. The women - although vastly outnumbered, there are roughly three times as many named male characters as female - continue to be the strong heroes we know and love.

*Avengers: Infinity War spoilers follow*

Perhaps most prominent of the female line up is Gamora (Zoe Saldana). Once again, she demonstrates a variety of admirable qualities, including martial prowess and perhaps the most pragmatism out of any of the Avengers - she is quick to break up the man-off between Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) by reminding them that the whole universe is at stake; “Enough! We need to stop Thanos.” Gamora also demonstrates incredible strength of will and appreciation of the greater good, she possesses secret knowledge that could endanger everybody if Thanos (Josh Brolin) finds out, so she makes Peter promise to kill her rather than let her be captured. To do this, she holds Peter to the most powerful force she can think of, a female entity, the memory of his mother. Gamora is willing to sacrifice herself to protect innocent lives, and her only motivation that outweighs this is her love for her sister, Nebula (Karen Gillan). The sight of Nebula being tortured is the only thing powerful enough to move Gamora to divulging her secret.

Unfortunately, Gamora meets a tragic and untimely demise at the hands of Thanos. Even worse than dying so a man can have something to be sad about, she is murdered so a man can obtain mystical powers to use for evil. Gallant to the end, once Gamora realises Thanos’ intentions, she tries to kill herself so that his sacrifice will fail. Her death is all the more heartbreaking seeing as she has spent two films escaping, recovering and developing from not only the stigma of being Thanos’ adopted daughter, but also all the trauma she suffered at his hands. So, to be murdered by him out of a deluded sense of him mistaking a lifetime of abuse for love is such a cruel end for a magnificent and accomplished hero.

Nebula herself contributes a little to the good fight, violently despatching a few goons, but as far as the space-faring women of this film go, Mantis (Pom Klementieff) definitely comes in second after Gamora in terms of prominence. She is also one of the two female characters who have actual super powers - she is an empath and can manipulate people’s mental states to a certain extent, such as sending people to sleep. It was good to see her as the lynchpin of a plan, and not the butt of a joke, as she is one of the few characters who has any effect at all against Thanos, controlling his mind for an impressive amount of time. Mantis is also a source of comedy in Avengers: Infinity War, sometimes slightly at her expense, for example when she messes up the line, “We came to kick names and take ass,” but sometimes innocently too. One of my favourite moments was Mantis serenely enjoying the simple pleasure of low gravity in the background of a shot.

The only other female character with super powers is Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). She is portrayed as one of the most powerful characters in the films - the only one with the ability to destroy an infinity stone for example. She is also one of only two characters with the strength of will to kill a person she cares for deeply to keep Thanos from finding an infinity stone - Peter Quill is the other, but his assassination attempt is thwarted by Thanos. This is no mean feat, as her target, Vision (Paul Bettany), is not only her lover, but one of the few individuals on Earth who is as far from being a normal human as she is. Prior to this, Wanda not only has the capability to protect Vision in battle, but also to heal his wounds. Other than Thor, who is a literal god, and Thanos, who has a magical glove with the six most powerful objects in the universe stuck to it, she performs some of the most impressive feats in Avengers: Infinity War.

Other female characters openly admire Wanda’s talents; when she enters the fray in Wakanda and displays what she is capable of, General Okoye (Danai Gurira) exclaims, “Why was she up there this whole time?” Furthermore, Okoye and Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) support Wanda in combat. It filled me with joy to hear Natasha proclaim, “She’s not alone,” as she joins in the battle against one of the children of Thanos. It was a little strange how the fighting seemed to be gendered: female characters mostly only battled the one female child of Thanos, Proxima Midnight (Carrie Coon). As a side note, I did have to look her name up as I don’t believe it’s said out loud in the film, which is dumb, because it’s a very cool villain name. Also, the ratio of male to female children of Thanos introduced in this film was also 3:1. Proxima is portrayed as a strong and loyal adversary, her design as an alien was visually interesting and I think she was the last goon standing - the sheer number of different concurrent battles and the three toilet breaks my broken body had to take during this movie confused the timeline somewhat, so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong about that.

Natasha mostly showcases her multitude of combat skills in this film, which are undeniably remarkable, but we see very little of any other side to her. A slight nod to her brief romantic involvement with Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) is the only glimpse to another side to her personality that we get. I do appreciate that this is a very ambitious ensemble movie, and that some male characters, for example Sam Wilson aka Falcon (Anthony Mackie), receive similar sidelining treatment. Speaking of romance, there does seem to be a need to couple everyone off - Peter Quill and Gamora unquestionably confess their love out loud and Wanda and Vision are established lovers since we last saw them. Part of this is natural character development, but I can’t help but imagine the vast, corporate hand of Marvel picking up its action figures, smushing them together and demanding, “Now you kiss, and you kiss.”

A good example of a woman who does manage to show different facets of herself in the limited screen time she has is Okoye. As previously mentioned, she is an adept soldier and remains a loyal general to T’Challa aka Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), but she also has a sense of humour. She is responsible for one of the moments that made me chuckle, confessing that her expectations regarding a public Wakanda were different to reality and included, “The Olympics, maybe even a Starbucks.”

Okoye’s fellow Wakandan, Shuri (Letitia Wright), princess and chief scientist - what a combo - also makes a reappearance. Once agin, she does not have a huge amount of screen time, but in it she accomplishes the notable feat of establishing herself as possibly the most intelligent person and distinguished scientist in the MCU. She forces Bruce Banner to admit that he and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), arguably the previous holders of that title, didn’t use her more effective solution to a problem because they, “Didn’t think of that.”

One final named female character makes an appearance in Avengers: Infinity War, although she is the first one we see on screen. The long suffering Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Pepper makes a very brief appearance alongside Tony, reasserting her position as probably the most sensible, level headed and pragmatic individual - characteristics that could easily be underestimated in a universe of ridiculous super heroes. She successfully talks the somewhat manic Tony down from thinking they should have a child, arguing - quite rightly - that having a dream about becoming a parent is not a good enough reason to actually do so and basically that Tony can’t be trusted to be enough of a normal, sensible human to be a father.

It should also be noted that many of these women don’t make it out of Avengers: Infinity War alive, what with Thanos instantaneously disintegrating half of the population of the universe and all that. I’d like to point out the alarming order in which we see people die: Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), a physically disabled - if not possibly ageless - and deeply traumatised man; T’Challa, a black man; Groot (Vin Diesel), a non-human alien; Wanda, a woman; Sam Wilson, a black man; Mantis, a female alien; Drax (Dave Bautista), a non-human alien and then finally three able bodied, white, human men - Peter Quill, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Peter Parker aka Spider-Man (Tom Holland). We also see Agent Maria Hill (Colbie Smulders) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) - you guessed it, another woman and black man - disintegrate in the post-credits scene. I just wanted to take you on the emotional roller coaster that I went on, when I thought we’d just be left with mostly white dudes for the sequel. I doubt that any of these characters are permanently dead, as Marvel has many more money-spinning movies up its sleeve, and I’m willing to bet they wouldn’t do away with so many lucrative franchising opportunities in one go. Hopefully, the same can be said of Gamora - I’m already working on a theory that she is the soul inside the soul stone and, when the time is right, will somehow escape and be the one to end Thanos. Just floating some ideas about, Marvel, feel free to use them.

Overall, despite battling a terrible gender ratio on top of the forces of evil, the women in Avengers: Infinity War showcase an incredible smorgasbord of wondrous attributes between them, including: martial prowess, empathic talents, the weaponisation of pure energy, scientific aptitude, humour, loyalty, common sense, healing powers and selflessness to name but a few. They are exemplary heroes who mange to stand out and hold their own in an overwhelmingly large ensemble cast, in which they are vastly outnumbered by men. I’m just still pissed off about Gamora’s death though - can we not reward triumphant survivors of trauma with murder at the hands of their abusers, please?

And now for some asides

I love how much all of the Guardians of the Galaxy characters, regardless of gender or species, completely adored Thor - he is like a pirate had a baby with an angel!

The continuity of Rocket’s (Bradley Cooper) obsession with prosthetics is beautiful, it’s so good that it was actually useful in this film, and the plot I’m most excited about in the sequel - other than resurrecting all the ladies please - is will Rocket ever get Bucky’s arm? The people demand to know!

My favourite part of this whole film was the sign that said, “We will deep fry your kebab,” in the Scottish chippie.

[emptysurface]

Unpublished WIP List Game

Tagged by @athanatosora

....I feel like I have to begin by saying I have SO MANY UNPUBLISHED WIPS YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND!!!! *flails* Ahem. So. I’ll.... uh, give you a sample? Also, Time-Travel is my drug. I love it.

1. Speechless - Naruto. I wanted to write a story where Naruto is mute, because there’s just something inherently tragic about a Naruto that can’t speak. Also a time-travel, because I’m a complete and utter sucker for those. I can’t even remember when I started this one, but I’m still very fond of it. Don’t think I’ve written anything on it in over a year... (Naruto’s given the name ‘Kotoba’ in this one.)

Sample:

When Naruto noticed the shadow falling over him and heard the clap, he thought it was one of the older kids, come back to make fun of him again and quickly used an arm to wipe away his tears.

He looked up, glare already firmly in place, but had to blink at the sight that met him.

A man -at least he thought it was a man- was crouched before him. He was wearing a plain wooden mask over his face -with the Konoha leaf carved on the forehead- had hair that looked a mix between orange and brown and wore shinobi garb.

The man tilted his head curiously, staring at Naruto, who just sat there, staring back at the odd shinobi.

Eventually, the man raised a hand and traced a path down the smooth cheek of his mask with a finger and then pointed at Naruto's face.

Naruto frowned.

"What?" He asked defensively, biting his lower lip uncertainly.

Kotoba on his part wasn't entirely sure why he had approached his younger self. But seeing the small child sitting all alone in the deserted playground, he had been unable to just walk by and pretend like he had seen nothing. He certainly didn't know how the rest of the population did it.

Kotoba repeated the motion again, wanting to know why the little boy was crying. He could guess, of course, but he wasn't supposed to know already, and Naruto could benefit from an adult he could talk to outside of the very busy Hokage.

His mask hid a self-deprecating smile, because Kotoba couldn't exactly talk, now, could he? Well, beggars can't be picky, or however the hell it was the saying went.

"Are you- Are you asking why I'm crying?" Naruto's small voice cut through his thoughts, making him nod, pleased to have made himself understood.

Naruto couldn't help but stare back, wondering if this was really happening or if he had fallen asleep. "The other kids call me names, and I fell and scraped my knee," he eventually muttered.

Once this guy realised just who Naruto was, he would walk away too.

To his shock, a hand landed on his head, ruffling his hair almost affectionately. At least, Naruto thought it was because it didn't hurt and he had seen parents and older siblings do that to other kids plenty of times. His wide-eyed stare must have given away something of what he was feeling, because the man -Naruto decided he would think of him as such until proven otherwise- gently wiped his tears away and sat down in front of him.

Kotoba wondered how he could possibly communicate with a kid as young as his counterpart was right now.

He knew what he had told the Hokage, but adults were generally easier.

Choosing an approach that should work, Kotoba began to reach towards his weapons pouch, paused, thought better of it and then used his finger to trace patterns in the dirt instead of the kunai he'd first planned to use.

Naruto watched curiously, scooting around until he was sitting next to the man to see what he was doing, scraped knee already forgotten.

"Oh! I recognize that one!" He exclaimed, pointing at one of the marks. He immediately blushed, clamped his mouth shut and stared up at the stranger with wide eyes, wondering if he'd be sent away for being annoying now. Instead, he received an encouraging nod. "It says 'ko'," Naruto told the stranger, somewhat pleased with himself despite the uncertainty.

2. The Great Escape - Harry Potter/Naruto crossover I started... a while back. Harry gets reborn into the Naruto world, as a girl, only to discover that being the Master of Death before dying left her with some unfortunate side-effects. Harry really, really hates her life sometimes.

Sample:

Her lungs screamed for oxygen, even as she began to feel the acute blood loss. Her throat was slick with blood so hot it seemed to burn her skin.The world swam before her eyes, going grey around the edges, and she blinked repeatedly in an attempt to clear her sight.

Nendo Hari, in a previous life known as Harry Potter, shuddered violently, her eyes grew glassy and her heart -in response to the steadily diminishing blood supply- stuttered to a stop.

No one had expected her to wake up again.

So of course, that was what she did.

3. Crepuscular - Harry Potter. Time-travel, fem!Harry. Was blatantly inspired by Tsume Yuki, just saying... :P Harry ends up tossed back in time, and in true Harry Potter fashion decided to do something about all these Death Eaters running around, but it gets lonely. So in a tentatively strategic ploy, she reaches out to someone who will be vital to future events. Kreacher. (It has some unexpected consequences, shocking absolutely no one.)

Sample:

Leading Kreacher to the wizards' tent she'd put up in the other end of the clearing was the easiest thing Harry had done since arriving here.

Just having something, someone familiar near was... she could allow herself this small comfort, right?

And it wasn't just for her own sake; having a house-elf's help would be priceless further on.

Harry knew it better than most. Dobby would always have a special place in her heart.

He was on her list, too.

On the list of people to save.

4. Taking Flight - Harry Potter/KHR crossover. Wing!fic, because I thought that sounded interesting... ended up on a week-long research spree where I read far too much about various kinds of birds, but it was interesting? :P Also with fem!Harry. Harry/Fon pairing? Hm.

Sample:

Surviving the war hadn't been very high on the list of what Harry had thought was possible.

It had been a realisation that had slowly but steadily grown more firm in her head over the span of years.

Ever since she'd met Ron on the train that first time, his wings small and a downy brown-yellow, hair flaming red and freckles standing out sharply on his face.

Her own wings had been equally small, of course, and just as downy and useless. In the way.

Ron had made her feel better about it, though.

“Nearly all my siblings have wings, see,” he'd told her cheerfully. “Mum and dad don't have them, and not Charlie and the twins, but everyone else.”

It had seemed fantastical to her, who had only known the Dursleys and the people of Little Whinging, who hadn't cared much for Harry's fledgling wings.

Her classmates had complained about them blocking the view, taking up too much space and she had always been shunted off to the back of the classroom where she 'hadn't been in the way'.

Not that her academic life would have been all that different if they hadn't, but... it was the principle of the matter.

Then she'd learned -also courteous of Ron- that Magicals were slightly more inclined to be born with wings. No one knew quite why, but there were theories about it having to do with the magic.

Purebloods in particular could be pretty snobbish about it, Ron had told her, looking sheepish about the whole thing, what with being a Pureblood himself.

Of course, then Draco Malfoy had strutted into their compartment like he owned it and reinforced the sentiment quite firmly.

Hermione had come later, after the troll.

And they'd stuck by her through the years, through ups and downs and always there when it really mattered.

She'd grown into her adolescent feathers in the summer before her fourth year, and the moment Draco had caught sight of her wings, he'd called her a cow. Due to the dark brown and white splotches her feathers had made up, making her wings indeed look similar to the hide of a bovine.

Hadn't made it sting any less when all the other Houses had taken up the nick-name for her once the Triwizard disaster had struck.

Nice times.

It hadn't really helped that Ron had grown into his own feathers, with... slightly different -but at the same time not- results than Harry.

And then, of course, Malfoy had thrown it in his face at the worst opportunity.

“You're a goose, Weasley!” The Slytherin boy had cackled loudly outside the Potions' classroom, and it had been all Harry and Hermione had been able to do to keep him from pummelling Draco's face in.

Not to mention that Harry had been tempted to do so herself on behalf of her friend.

I had been so satisfying when Ron had grown more into himself a year later, snapping his wings open in anger and telling Draco in no uncertain terms that he was a gander, thank you very much; he was male.

And people always got shocked when Ron spread his wings and they realised just how big they actually were.

“Geese are strong long-distance flyers, Ron. They've even been revered in History as envoys of various Gods,” Hermione had told him, smiling encouragingly at a Ron with increasingly red ears.

Harry had been forced to hide a smile with her hand.

5. Bullet to the Heart - KHR. Soulmate AU, Reborn/Tsuna that I started way back, when I first got sucked into the KHR fandom. I still like the idea, though I haven’t written anything on this in basically forever... ^^’

Sample:

The first time Reborn heard about soulmates, he was seven years old and one of his classmates had started humming in the middle of class, as if humming along to a tune only he could hear. Everyone had expected the teacher to scold him, but the boy had received a wide, knowing smile instead and been asked if he'd heard a song. What had followed had been a lesson on soulmates and all the different kinds of 'connections' you could have with your own.

The boy had said he'd heard singing, a local children's tune in a girlish voice.

Reborn hadn't been convinced; he had never heard or seen anything like that, and it sounded more than a little shifty, having someone else inside your head.

When Tsuna was five, he and the other children in his kindergarten group were sat down to draw, and instead of drawing dogs or cats, or trees and flower, or even colourful blobs that were supposed to be people, Tsuna drew a shaky, but recognizable gun.

AND I THINK I’LL STOP HERE BEFORE THIS POST GROWS EVEN MORE RIDICULOUSLY LONG!!! :’D 

Tagging @worldtravellingfly @shadowblayze and @epikalstorms because I know all three of you write, ladies! Come join me in the corner of SHAME (I have so many WIPs... omg, they’re too many)