#technically the second one is not from The Drifters though | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hermannsthumb · 4 years ago

Note

you should totally do something with ksci janitor’s vamp newt it’s so just so good

i sure will! in a vampire mood this weekend. @k-sci-janitor's vampire newt found here. warnings for quick mention of drinking, allusions to sexy stuff, and also the different kind of drinking you'd expect from a vampire fic (tho on the vague side)

-------------------

The circumstances that led Newt down the unwitting path of immortality and general un-dead-ness are, in hindsight, honestly kind of embarrassing. It'd be one thing if he could say it happened in the pursuit of, like, knowledge, like the fierce jellyfish sting scar on his wrist leftover from a research expedition when he was twenty-two or the equally fierce one on his knee received in response to his question (at the age of five) of what would happen if I jumped out of this very tall tree?, or even something unrelated to his extensive biology career, something impressive, y'know, Van Helsing style, something like tracking down some vampire king and barely escaping with his life (un-life?)—not what really happened, which was little more than a bad date. And not even the worst date that Newt's been on, if you can believe it.

Newt was young and stupid then. He still is young and stupid, technically, though the former by appearance only. (Eternally pushing thirty. If he could've picked, he would've done twenty-eight, just before his handful of grey hairs started cropping up. Newt's had almost forty-five years of staring in the mirror at those four fucking grey hairs. He gave up dyeing them around the nineties. Not worth it. Still annoying.) He liked to do what young and stupid people did, like get stupid tattoos, and have a stupid haircut, and get drunk at stupid punk shows and not stumble home until he'd had at least one regrettable hook-up with a stranger and maybe lost his wallet. (The two were often related.) That particular thing was what did him in that night. It was a different time back then, man—if a dude showed even the slightest inkling that he ran in Newt's sort of circle, if you caught his drift, Newt fucking jumped at the chance.

(The band was on their second set of the evening and Newt had already screamed himself hoarse with singing along. He'd ducked outside in a back alleyway for only a second to get some fresh air, the club suddenly too hot and smokey for him to handle, and was just about to go back inside and close out his tab for the night when he realized he wasn't alone. There was someone—he was sure—lurking in the shadows a few feet away. He could hear breathing. He could see—eyes, maybe, in the dim neon light of the bar sign overhead. "Hello?" he'd called.

"Have a light?" the person called back.

They emerged from the shadows, and Newt felt himself relax at once. It was some spooky-looking guy he remembered seeing in the club, leather jacket, boots heavier than Newt's, dark hair and eyeliner. Tall. Newt remembered him, firstly, because he thought he was hot, and secondly, because he swore he caught the guy staring at him at least three times, and to Newt, that was as good as any pick-up line. He was wagging an unlit cigarette at Newt now. He was taller than Newt thought he was back in the bar—much taller, at least a full head on Newt. His eyes were a golden-brown, almost yellow, like a cat's, and Newt found himself unable to tear his own away from them. "L—light?" Newt echoed.

The guy stuck the cigarette in his mouth and arched a perfect eyebrow. Newt didn't smoke, but he did keep a lighter on him for occasions like this. He fumbled through his pockets for it while the guy stepped closer. "I was watching you," he told Newt, while Newt raised the lighter to the cigarette, "in there."

The flame danced and glinted against his eyes. Newt swallowed. "Uh-huh?" he said.

He flicked the lighter shut, leaving them both bathed in nothing but pink neon. A hand slid up against the wall next to Newt's right shoulder. Another plucked at the left lapel of his jacket. Newt was still staring at those eyes. "What's your name?" the guy said, in a puff of cigarette smoke.

"Um." Newt's leather jacket was being pushed off his shoulders. He felt his long hair being tucked to the side of his neck. All at once something seemed in snap in Newt—some reminder of where he was, and what he came here hoping for in the first place. Some hot dude was eyeing Newt up all night long, and now he was actually coming onto Newt, and Newt was about to get laid. He grinned. "Newt," he said. "Just call me that. You were watching me, huh?"

"All night," the guy said.

Newt's jacket hit the ground with a soft thump. A knee was being pushed between his. Newt felt his cheeks heat up a little—he wasn't used to people being this forward with him, and especially not in a semi-public place like this. Usually they at least made a show of offering up their apartment first. "What, um, what for?" he said.

They were kissing. Newt was clinging to the back of his jacket. And then he was kissing Newt's neck, and then he was—

"That kinda hurts," Newt mumbled. "Um, dude, I think your—your fuckin', tongue piercing cut me, or something. It's—"

It was hard to keep his eyes open. His neck felt weird. The guy was into biting, apparently, biting really hard, and yikes, that was going to leave a super embarrassing hickey that Newt would have to explain to his students somehow on Monday, but it also felt really good, like, Newt was maybe getting off kinda good, and Newt thought, dizzily, that he should at least return the favor before he finished up and collapsed in a happy heap on the ground. So he did.

The guy pulled back with a hiss. "Ow. What—?"

Newt tasted something coppery in his mouth, and he panicked and swallowed on instinct. "Oh, shit, dude, I'm sorry," he slurred. His voice sounded like it was a million miles away. "I was trying to be—sexy. Um." There was blood on the guy's chin. He was staring at Newt in something akin to horror. Dark circles were spotting Newt's vision. "I think you cut your lip," he said, and then he passed out.

Newt was alone when he woke up. It was still dark, too. He walked the two miles home, collapsing in bed, fully-clothed, just before dawn, and he didn't wake up again until sunset. He forgot his jacket, but at least he remembered his wallet this time.)

So, anyway, Newt thinks he can be forgiven if he...embellishes stuff a little when, for the first time in his whole long life, he finally spills the details to someone. Also, no way is he admitting the truth to Hermann of all people.

"There were a bunch of murders in the area at the time," he says, while Hermann, angled on his side next to him in bed, watches him raptly. It's kind of weird pillow talk, but their pillow talk rarely isn't weird. Usually Hermann will launch into a critique of Newt's latest pet theory before Newt's even caught his breath. At least he very courteously waited for Newt get a glass of water from the bathroom first this time. "Really brutal ones. Like, throats torn out, blood drained. Really nasty shit. Everyone was saying they were some kinda bizarre wolf pack attacks, but I knew better."

"Of course you did," Hermann says, running his hand down Newt's chest, and Newt can't tell if he's being sarcastic or not. (He has a feeling he is.)

"You bet," Newt says. "It took me months of, um, super hard research. Finally I hunted him down to this—" Newt debates the coolest lair possible of a vampire, and then remembers Lost Boys, which, even though he resents it slightly for totally stealing the vampire vibes he was going for, is still a kick-ass movie. "—this weird cave, where he lived. The king of the vampires. I won, obviously, but he fought back, and he managed to infect me just before I hammered the, um, the wooden stake into his heart."

"So courageous," Hermann says. He reaches up and tucks a piece of Newt's long hair back. Hermann being totally cool with the whole vampire thing, and maybe even possibly into the whole vampire thing, is probably the last thing in the world Newt expected from him. They're no strangers to hooking up during long late nights of science, but Newt swears it's gotten more frequent. "You must've been terrified."

"Nah," Newt says, though he remembers the glint of the flame off those yellow eyes, and he shivers. Hermann notices; his eyes, not yellow, but a warm shade of brown that makes Newt feel like he's being wrapped in a blanket, soften. If Newt could still blush, he would. "I'm—um—I'm pretty brave."

Newt hadn't exactly been planning on telling Hermann about the whole thing, but (last week) he had the very unfortunate timing of beginning a late-night dinner just as an oblivious Hermann strolled back into the lab to pick up his forgotten pair of glasses. To his credit, he only freaked out a little when he saw Newt draining a blood bag like a fucking Capri-Sun, and even then (after what felt like ten years of horrible, horrible silence) all he said was "You're the one who's been stealing those from medical?"

Look. Newt hasn't drank from a human being the entirety of his un-life, and he doesn't plan on it any time soon. He's...a vegetarian. Effectively. It's sort of the reason he picked up a medical degree along the way once he got tired of breaking into blood banks. Even if it's still a little ethically dubious to steal blood like that, at least he's not swooping around on unsuspecting people like that—goth asshole who swooped in on him did. (Newt's never managed to find out who he was—he suspects he was some sort of vampire drifter in town that night just to find a victim. And Newt just had to think with his dick at the worst possible time.)

Hermann tucks another strand of Newt's hair back. Newt also did not expect how fast Hermann became cool with the whole thing, but on the other hand, giant aliens are clawing their way out of the ocean on a bi-monthly basis these days. It's hard to be skeptical about most things. ("Well, it does make logical sense," Hermann had said with an eyeroll. "When you consider some of your rather more bizarre quirks, I mean. I ought to have guessed it ages ago. I suppose that's why you have that awful haircut," and that stung, because yeah, Newt hasn't felt like changing it up since the seventies, and why should he, it kinda rules? but he just laughed it off and said, "You're one to fucking talk, dude!") "Newton," Hermann says now, gently, "what actually happened?"

Newt sighs. Hermann always knows when he's lying about shit. "I was making out with a vampire in an alleyway and then he bit me. And—um—I kinda didn't notice at first, 'cause it felt... good."

"Mm," Hermann says. The corner of his mouth twitches up. "That's more along the lines of what I expected. That, or you were hounding him for details like a proper biologist and he got tired of answering your inane questions."

"Very funny," Newt says. "Ha."

Hermann rolls away from him and stretches his arms above his head. Newt watches his throat work as he yawns, swallowing down a sudden lump in his own, and he feels a surge of something hot and—alien—in the pit of his stomach. "Over forty years," Hermann says. He picks up Newt's discarded sweatshirt from the floor and tugs it down over his head. "You must get terrifically lonely."

Newt half-shrugs. "I guess. I'm kinda used to it by now." His dad (who never brought up how Newt's aging seemed to be at a standstill when they saw each other, not once) is long-gone. Newt's tried dating, but no one's ever seemed to be into it as much as he is—and besides, it's not like he could ever do the actual til death do us part thing unless he went against every ethical bone in his body and made someone like him. When the internet became a thing, he considered making a forum or something to find more of his kind, but the thought everyone just being like the guy who accidentally turned him in the first place terrified him and he killed the page before it even left infancy. So, without any better ideas, Newt forged some paperwork and leaned pretty hard into the world of academia to fill up his sad little hole of a heart, resigned himself to casual flings with anyone who seemed interested, and it mostly worked. Mostly. And then the kaiju came along, and then so did... "You make it a little bit better," he confesses.

Hermann lays back down next to him. "I do?" he says.

Newt thinks he sees something like that hot, hungry feeling he felt in his stomach flash behind Hermann's eyes. He nods.

Hermann suddenly kisses Newt, pulling him down on top of him, and then tugs the collar of Newt's stolen sweatshirt down below his collarbone. He drags Newt's hand up to press against his throat. Newt feels the erratic beat of Hermann's pulse beneath his fingertips, his heart pounding against his ribcage (pressed up against Newt's silent one), and he almost moans. "Have you ever...?" Hermann murmurs, gazing up at Newt through his dark eyelashes.

"N—never," Newt stammers. "I told you."

"Do you want to?" Hermann says. Newt tries not to gape. "Just a bit at a time, whenever you need. You wouldn't have to steal those silly blood bags anymore. And—" He hesitates. "I admit I am curious. About the sensation."

"Um," Newt says. "I—"

He feels something sharp poking his lower lip. Fangs. His fangs. Oh, shit, he's never had that happen before. He forces himself off of Hermann before he does something stupid.

"Maybe, um, maybe later?" he squeaks, while Hermann just smiles at him.

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag

52 notes · View notes

emotionalwizard · 1 year ago

Text

...Gonna do it for one of my home-crafted blorbos. Self-indulgence below the cut.

I choose Billy Bob AKA "Hawk Stormeye but PLEASE don't call me that. I don't know what my parents were thinking," modern day marksman, trickshooter, show-off, ten-gallon hat cowboy twink.

(Sketch by my lovely boyfriend <3)

1. Massively! I tend to latch onto an idea and seek out a variety of media influences. Billy Bob was cultured from Belbo from the Hobo Hobo Funni Show, Clover from way back when Undertale Yellow was just a demo in 2016 (and a mod for Rivals of Aether), the Hermit mod from Slay the Spire, James Anderson AKA Marshall from the game Outlaws, and the protagonist of the Doom mod High Noon Drifter.

2. Billy Bob's typical genres are action, comedy, and horror oriented. In those, obviously, he excels. In settings where action isn't really a major factor, he'd be a sterling romantic.

3. Politicking. He has quite literally brought his Colt 1911 Single-Action Army revolver and openly carried it into a diplomatic function. When arguments arose, he fired a warning shot. He's a bit low on patience when it comes to that sort of thing.

4. Billy Bob is fortunate enough to exist in the internet era. While he doesn't do a lot of media, he does appreciate a good comedy or cartoon. He'd probably find Adventure Time and such fascinating and own a Garfield mug.

5. As of right now, the main theme of Outlaws, A Teaspoon of Gunpowder from Undertale Yellow, I Tell Ya What! from Hobo Funni Show, Mr. Weebl's Honk, and, slightly less seriously The Frenzied Firearm, G U N (Paper Maper: The Origami Korigami Cover), etc. Highly emotional individual, usually pretty over-the-top chipper. Can and will take a life.

6. N/A

7. Technically speaking, as a second-generation Welsh immigrant, you could claim he was always cosplaying the Man With No Name at all times. He'd probably make a decent Link, though.

8. Yes. It took him a while to realize the full immensities of his love of cowboys.

9. Fix-fic. So much.

10. Last game I played was Dusk, so he'd be right at home.

I actually like to roleplay as him in various games. Most notably, Doom's Hideous Destructor Mod (pair of revolvers and either the double-barrel or the bolt-action rifle and you're good) and Teardown (shotgun, what looks like a revolver, and a hunting rifle, all mapped to the 3 key).

11. I have an entire AU version of him for my boyfriend's magical girl setting. In that setting, his "magical girl transformation" turns him into a lightning-themed cowboy with a six-shooter. Bullets that carry an electric charge, fired from a hard-light six shooter with enough force to blow through an inch of steel sheet and not stop and enough charge to leave any survivors stunned. It's also a whip because that's his signature non-gun weapon and that kind of this is pretty normal for the setting. He's also just straight up fast.

12. N/A, not familiar with it.

13. Mudsdale, Tauros, Herdier. Probably also wants a Rapidash.

14. There's a few options, off the top of my head. Fighter gives him the best ability to fan the hammer, artificer matches up with some of his hobbies, which include smithing and shoeing, and ranger has a homebrew option from Pointy Hat specifically for cowboys.

He'd probably want to play a ranger or rogue. Something dex-based. High Charisma.

Or bard. And he'd sing at the table.

15. Depends on what you mean by "standard slasher movie." He's not exactly the type of character to get "final girl" status, so if the main metric of survival is authorial bias and I'm not writing it, he'd probably get screwed by the author for being bisexual, promiscuous, and trigger-happy.

If "standard slasher movie" just means "He's been chucked into Dead By Daylight, but the Entity forgot to frisk him for weapons," then he's going big game hunting.

Michael Myers was temporarily knocked out from a full cylinder dump from a S&W Model 15 .38 Special, followed by a fall from the second floor, and that was scattered shots across his upper torso. Sure, he's tough, but a bear can generally survive the same encounter just fine. No bear is surviving 5 consecutive headshots from a Winchester .308.

16. Drop-in uncle for the younger characters. Token white guy.

17. Banjo & Kazooie and the Duck Hunt Duo. He may also like Zero Suit Samus.

18. Strikes me as a Donkey Kong main.

19. Horrifyingly hard to kill red shirt.

20. Charmer and hitter.

21. He's absolutely the type of revenant that crawls out of Hell after holding up the Devil... and immediately goes back to living it up on Earth.

22. Firebender, if he has to be a bender. He strikes me as the type who wouldn't HAVE bending, but would make up for it in other ways.

23. Step one is to make sure his guns can still be maintained and utilized somehow. If magic exists that renders ammo a non-issue, he's going to over the moon to be the first known Gun Wizard. After that, he'll likely go looking for ways to return home while making sure not to hand out his name. "That's how the aos si getcha, 'ccordin' to mah pa!"

Probably not all that noticeable in the grand scheme of things. Just another adventurer with a somewhat unusual weapon.

24. Trick question! If played by a human actor, we're getting a full Tim Curry "I Am Also a Muppet" experience or they don't get the role. Otherwise, VERY Muppet.

25. It's a bullseye. A gun might send the wrong message, and it would be vetoed by the censors.

26. If he's singing in a musical and it isn't something written by Johnny Cash, then something it probably wrong. That said, whatever it is, he's EXTREMELY into it.

27. God, it's hard to choose, but I'll have to say he's the red herring. "The Best Gunslinger This Side of the Mississippi" with a known hair-trigger temper and open-carry license in the same building as someone with gunshot wounds? Seems too likely to be false.

28. Lemme fetch a generator... "Blazeheart," I guess? Definitely the type of cat to mooch off humans and scare gators off your porch.

29. Well, normally, he'd crack a joke and say that he'd be a human in any universe, and a beast-tamer all the same, wink wink nudge nudge, but if he HAS to give a real answer in the next five seconds or lose his brain privileges, he's a squirrel.

Pop Culture and Fandom-Themed OC Questions

I came up with some pop culture-y OC questions because I like silly OC games. Some of these are more general, while others are for a specific genre or piece of media. Go ahead and reblog to use for your own OCs!

Was your OC influenced or inspired by any particular fictional character(s) when you made them?

What genre (not counting the one they’re in) would your OC thrive in?

What genre would your OC do badly in but it would be hilarious or interesting to watch?

What media does your character enjoy? (For characters in settings that aren’t modern Earth, could be media from their home setting or what they’d like in a modern Earth AU)

What song(s) do you associate with your OC?

Alternatively, do you have any OCs you associate with the song(s) I just sent you?

If your OC had to cosplay as a fictional character, who would they choose?

Has your OC ever had a crush on a fictional (to them) character?

If your OC wrote fanfiction (or if they already do), what type? (fix fic, ship, crossovers, AUs, smut, etc.)

How would your OC do in the last book/movie/tv show/game/etc. you read/watched/played?

If your OC was a superhero, what would they be like? (powers, title, general vibe, etc.)

What animal would your OC have as their His Dark Materials daemon?

What Pokémon would be on your OC’s team and/or what would be their preferred type?

If your OC was a Dungeons and Dragons character, what would their class be? And/or: If they were playing D&D, what kind of character might they play? (these aren’t necessarily the same thing)

How well would your OC do in a standard slasher movie?

What stock character would your OC be stuck as in a sitcom?

Who would your OC main in Super Smash Bros?

Who would your OC play in Mario Kart?

If your OC was in Star Trek’s Starfleet, what would be their role/position? Or, if that doesn’t really fit your OC: why would they get kicked out of Starfleet?

What role would your OC play in a heist story?

What kind of classic horror monster (vampire, werewolf, alien, etc.) would your OC be?

What type of Avatar The Last Airbender-type bender (or non-bender) would your OC be? Any bending specialties?

Your OC gets isekai’d to a bog-standard fantasy world. What does your OC do and how badly does it go for that world?

In the Muppet version of your story, is this particular OC a Muppet or the one human?

What would be your OC’s My Little Pony cutie mark?

Your OC is stuck in a musical episode. What song(s) do they sing? (And how thrilled or annoyed are they about being stuck in a musical?)

In a murder mystery, what role would your OC play? (e.g. detective, sidekick, wacky suspect, rival investigator who gets in thew way, red herring, true culprit)

What is your OC’s Warrior Cats name?

Gun to their head, what is your OC’s fursona?

#self indulgent #fun

793 notes · View notes

moved-to-void-kissed · 3 years ago

Text

Adriana's Pokémon

..I may or may not have put far too much thought into the various Pokémon that my self-insert Adri obtains throughout her journey in Reborn, and then also came up with no less than four theme teams that she could use in Arclight's nightclub. So I wanted to share them here as well!

Since there are quite a few different teams here, I've decided to put the list under a readmore, and I want to stress that these are purely out of attachment to the Pokémon in question rather than any sort of actual competitive viability (as will probably be evident when you look at the teams, hehe). The Pokémon are listed in canonical order of acquisition for the two journey teams, but not in any particular order for the other teams.

Kalos journey team: Lumi (Shiny Pumpkaboo), Regalia (Aegislash), Spectre (Gengar), Calcifer (Chandelure), Anima (Rotom), Rowan (Trevenant). Spectre can Mega-Evolve. This is the team that Adri uses during her first journey as a Pokémon Trainer, before she comes to Reborn. Lumi is Adriana's partner Pokémon, and she is a companion Pokémon who does not participate in battles, so Regalia technically functions as her starter from a battling perspective since it was the first Pokémon she had been given by her parents to start off her journey.

Reborn journey team: Echo (Mimikyu), Drifter (Drifblim), Willow (Aevian Mismagius), Sidera (Gothitelle), Prince Kai (Jellicent), Argent (Reborn-Shiny Silvally), Soulfire (Chandelure), Gemstone (Sableye), Lady (Reborn-Shiny Froslass), Corybantia (Aegislash), Amethyst (Reborn-Shiny Mismagius), Selene (Reborn-Shiny Cresselia), Phantom (Marshadow), Nightmare (Reborn-Shiny Darkrai), Galea (Reborn-Shiny Giratina). Argent holds the Ghost Memory, and Gemstone can Mega-Evolve. You might notice that this "team" has a) way more than six Pokémon and b) is listed in order of acquisition when you can't normally get Aevian Misdreavus or Mimikyu until later in the game than I've listed them. To the first point, these are all the Pokémon that Adri canonically obtains during her journey - though she gifts Sidera to Luna - and some are kind of needed for progression (Drifter to fly, Prince Kai to surf and dive, etc.); the team of six that she actually completes the main game with are Echo, Argent, Soulfire, Gemstone, Lady, and Corybantia, with Phantom and Galea then swapping in to her battling team during the postgame. To the second point.. I figured that it was reasonable for the Pokémon that I've moved to show up before the first gym (in Seacrest's garden and hanging around the city for Willow and Echo respectively), and it makes attempting to run a "canon team playthrough" of the actual game way more viable.

Gym Leader team: Lady (Reborn-Shiny Froslass), Echo (Mimikyu), Soulfire (Chandelure), Gemstone (Sableye), Corybantia (Aegislash), Amethyst (Reborn-Shiny Mismagius). As the name implies, this is the team Adriana uses once she becomes the Reborn League's Ghost-type Gym Leader; her "ace" Pokémon in terms of levels is technically Amethyst. She chooses to take her battles in Iolia Valley rather than in the Abandoned Power Plant as Shade had, so this team would be fought on the Dark Crystal Cavern field if it existed in-game.

Themed teams:

Kalosian Noble - Parfum (Aromatisse), Jacaranda (Trevenant), Corybantia (Aegislash), Mona (Crystal Aegislash), Diamantaire (Diancie), Lethe (Yveltal). Diamantaire can and will Mega-Evolve. This team would be fought on the Fairy Tale Field, if fields are enabled. It is themed around Adriana's origins as the daughter of a noble family in Kalos and the fact she was originally supposed to have become one of Valerie's Gym Trainers if she hadn't instead found her Shiny Pumpkaboo, hence why all the Pokémon originate from Kalos (except for Mona being a Reborn-exclusive altform) and most of them are Fairy-type. (Yes, Mona is named after the god-slaying sword from another game series that you might be suspecting her to be.)

Second Timeline - Arcan (Delphox), Rosalyne (Roserade), Sapphire (Reborn-Shiny Ampharos), Kelaino (Honchkrow), Argent (Reborn-Shiny Silvally), Corybantia (Aegislash). Argent holds the Ice Memory, and Sapphire can and will probably Mega-Evolve. This team would be fought on the Factory Field, if fields are enabled, though Adriana has multiple ways of changing the field in her team (such as Sapphire's Discharge or Rosalyne's Grassy Terrain), so that could very easily change mid-battle. It is supposed to represent the team that I myself used to beat the game for the first time, which is therefore the team Adri canonically used in the previous timeline where she was the chosen protagonist.

Galea's Chosen - Maelstrom (Reborn-Shiny Altaria), Phantom (Marshadow), Corybantia (Aegislash), Argent (Reborn-Shiny Silvally), Nightmare (Reborn-Shiny Darkrai), Galea (Reborn-Shiny Giratina). Argent holds the Dragon Memory, and Maelstrom can and will Mega-Evolve. This team would be fought on the New World field, if fields are enabled. It is probably the strongest of Adriana's teams considering the field (which can't be overwritten!) and how many legendaries are in it, which makes sense considering it is supposed to reflect her having been chosen by a Giratina.

Void-kissed - Alatus (Absol), Amethyst (Reborn-Shiny Mismagius), Sidera (Gothitelle), Luna (Umbreon), Phantom (Marshadow), Nightmare (Reborn-Shiny Darkrai). Alatus can and will Mega-Evolve. This team would be fought on the Dark Crystal Cavern field, if fields are enabled. It is supposed to demonstrate Adriana's connection to Luna, since she also has an Absol and Umbreon of her own (named White Rabbit and Cheshire respectively), Luna is associated with Darkrai (albeit probably not necessarily its Shiny, as well as Cresselia) while Adriana is associated with Marshadow (as well as Giratina), and Adriana gave her Gothitelle (Sidera) to Luna while Luna then caught a Reborn-Shiny Mismagius (Amethyst) and decided to give it to Adriana.

And that's all the teams I've come up with so far! Thank you so much to everyone who has read to this point! It really means a lot ^-^

#a call from the void #lore info #I don't know if i've used that tag before but I will now. just for the sake of finding this later. not really sure what else to call it =P #this post is okay to reblog!#selfship #selfshipping #heart of the void #the main focus is of course on #self-insert: soul-touched (adriana)#adriana's pokémon #but also there is a bit of #selfship: void-kissed (luna/adriana)#because of one of my teams kind of being luna-themed ^-^#no you're not getting movesets because I think that would take literally forever #and only second timeline technically has them anyway since that is just my old playthrough team lifted straight from the game #at first glance it may not make sense for an aevian regional form to be in reborn because I don't think reborn is near aevium #but a visiting trainer could well have accidentally left it there right? it is in the game after all #yes I know I have a lot of shinies but it is not my fault that reborn has so many amazing custom shiny sprites that I adore #and besides the shiny chance in that game is way higher than normal anyway so it's fine #ahh i've been working on this all day haha

4 notes · View notes

lovelyirony · 5 years ago

Text

14.) What email did Tony leave Rhodey at 3 a.m.?

Tony rarely uses voicemail. He figures if he really has a message to tell you, he’ll just tell you. He’ll call or text and it’s not his fault if you don’t respond.

Rhodey has this thing called a “sleep schedule.” It’s dreadfully boring, Tony doesn’t understand it, and it’s the only thing that Rhodey is absolutely insistent on staying the same.

He’s in a bit of a pickle.

You see, Tony technically is supposed to clear his missions with Rhodey or Pepper so that they can cover for him for the business or inform the right people about Iron Man doing things. But something…popped up.

And now it’s three a.m., Tony’s tired, and the armor decided to go kaput in a small forest clearing about a forty minute drive from the city.

So Tony is actually calling his husband.

He doesn’t pick up.

“Great,” Tony mutters.

“Hey, this is Jim, leave your message at the beep. If this is Mama, you don’t have to yell.”

“Hi baby,” Tony says. “I, uh…crash-landed in a forest? Have Jarvis wake you up. It’s kind of cold and I need a ride. Don’t be mad. I love you!”

He sighs as he hangs up.

Meanwhile, Rhodey is being woken up by Jarvis.

“My husband holds nothing sacred,” Rhodey mutters.

“Besides you, Sir.”

“Besides me, you’re right,” Rhodey concedes. “You have the directions plugged to the car?”

“Of course.”

Rhodey yawns as he gets to the kitchen, grabbing a cup of coffee. “You think he’ll want one too, J?”

“Most definitely.”

The car ride is mostly silent. Rhodey decides he’ll play Tony’s music even though it’s way too loud and it’s about three-thirty in the morning.

He pulls up to where the armor is, and where his husband is leaning against a tree. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to how much his heart races, even if he keeps his tone even and his walking steady.

“Hey platypus,” Tony says.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were off on a mission?” Rhodey asks. His face doesn’t show the emotions, but Tony knows. He sighs as he waves at Rhodey to come over.

“Don’t try to be impassive, dear. You’re never good at it.”

Rhodey’s neutral expression drops and his eyes widen and his mouth opens as he rushes towards him.

“You’re so stupid!” he cries. “Why did you do this? At this time?!”

“Well geez, I tried to make sure the villains started at seven in the morning, but they said that their union contracts weren’t like ours,” Tony remarks. “Help me up, would you?”

Rhodey grips his arms and hauls him up, loading him into the car and then popping the trunk for the armor.

“You’re so…ugh,” Rhodey says on the drive back.

“We can talk about it at breakfast,” Tony says. “I just…James. I can’t talk about it now.”

James. Tony only calls him that when he absolutely means it. Rhodey can count on one hand the amount of times that Tony’s called him that: on their honeymoon, after Afghanistan, when he got back from the wormhole, and now this.

It has to be serious. So he drops it.

“I’m just glad you’re safe, honey,” Rhodey says, pressing a kiss to his temple.

“Don’t kiss me, I’m gross,” Tony whines. “I need a shower and rest.”

“Oh look at you, admitting when you need the basics,” Rhodey chuckles.

“Rhodey?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we…can we listen to your music? Can you sing it?”

Rhodey turns the music off with a nod.

“Which song you want me to sing first?”

“The one that The Drifters sing?”

“They sing a lot that I like, Tones,” Rhodey says. “You want ‘On Broadway’ or ‘Save the Last Dance for Me’?”

“Second one,” Tony says, drifting off. “Thank you…”

Rhodey sings it softly as he drives.

He leaves the armor in the car as he carries Tony to bed. It’s been too long of a night. They’ll sleep it off.

#lovelyirony writes #rhodeytony #rhodeytony seasons of love #i love them :) so muc :)#rhodey #tony stark #iron man #war machine #they're simps #the drifters is because i like that type of music after a long day

73 notes · View notes

gh0sture · 4 years ago

Text

Under the Sea

Trafalgar Law x gn!reader

Part 2, Meet the gang

You've never been particularly good at meeting new people or making good first impressions for that matter but this, by far, has to be your worst one yet. Your clothes are soaked still, your hair a sticky mess from the saltwater and your mouth is opening and closing lika a fish gasping for air as it flaps around on a bridge after being caught. It's not one of your best looks you'll admit but it is all you can offer at the moment given the circumstances.

You try to form coherent thoughts, you really do, but this is just way too much for you to take in. He reaches a hand out and you flinch before grabbing it to make an awkward shake.

This isn't just insane. This is completely knock-your-socks-off bonkers.

You feel as if you were looking at the golden gates of heaven themselves, not daring to look him in the eyes out of fear that you might go blind from the sheer radiance of his aura meanwhile the man in question just looked at you blankly. Possibly with a hint of disgust. Definitely a bit of disgust.

"The name's Trafalgar Law, captain of Polar tang" his handshake is firm and he looks at you expectantly while retrieving his hand and crossing his arms over his chest.

Neither of you say anything. He clears his throat but you give no reaction. Still staring at him like a five year old looking at a blackboard of university level algebra equations. He grimaces slightly at your behavior.

"Are you ok? I don't remember finding any trauma to your head, you should be fine" he grabs your chin and tilts your head around to inspect it disapprovingly in search of an injury. Although, he is an expert doctor so he would never miss any injuries, his pride wouldn't let him. This does nothing to soothe your symptoms though and doesn't exactly help with calming your heartbeat at all.

"I wouldn't have missed anything what's wrong with you" he mutters to himself when you finally managed to collect yourself enough to remove his hands.

"uhh no! no, i'm ok! thank you for ,uh, saving me by the way" this is the best and worst thing that have ever happened to you.

"it wasn't my choice" he deadpanned and turn back into the room to get a den-den mushi with a familiar penguin hat on it. Its so strange seeing on in real life. Although, you don't know if this is real life (is it just fantasy?). He proceeds to make a phone call (mushi-call? den-den call?) into it while you shift awkwardly on your feet in the hallway. Your feet ache from walking on the metal grid barefoot you had barely noticed until now. After exchanging a few words he walk over to the desk where he'd previously been sitting and open a journal, presumably to continue doing whatever he did before.

"One of my crew members will be here shortly to get you settled for now and give you some necessities. We reach a port in nine days where you can leave." his voice was calm and composed, like pouring molten chocolate into your ears even though the words themselves were less than pleasant. When he spoke you could feel your knees get weak and you feel tempted to ask him a question for the sole purpose of hearing him speak more. God this man was hot. You nodded at his statement at first, not really paying attention to what he had actually said until you realized that nothing he said had been actually registered in your head.

"Wait, what?" you asked. He doesn't look up from his writing but you can hear the mild annoyance in his voice when he answers.

"Looking at you, you are rather ill equipped for staying here until we reach a populated island. Since you don't have any money or anything valuable, my crew will provide for you until we reach the port where you can find another ship to go back wherever you came from...Whatever weird country that's supposed to be...Now go down the hallway, He should be there already to help you so leave me alone" you get the feeling that you'll loose a limb if you stick around longer so you turn to head down the hallway and find "Him" who you hoped would be more polite.

"Not that way" you hear from the study and you turn around to head down the other way, somewhat (very) embarrassed.

You really wished that your first time meeting a celebrity would've gone better, but then again they do say that you should never meet your heroes. Was he always this rude in the series and book? Sure he came across as a bit of a tsundere but he seemed at least approachable in the series. You don't have the charisma or extroverted superpowers that Luffy have so that is probably an important thing to consider. As you head down the hallway you come across a man walking in your direction pretty soon. He seem far more ok with your existence and even appear to lit up a bit when he sees you and give you a friendly wave. This is already going a lot better than last time.

"Yo! You're the one we found floating around yesterday! Nice to meet you, people around here call me Penguin" He gives you a wide yet genuine smile as he grab your hand and shake it enthusiastically before you even have the chance to reach out.

"thought you were a goner when we found you haha!So it's good to see that you're up n' about, c'mon let me show you a round!" he turn around to walk from where he had just come from while you follow behind him silently.

Penguin makes it his personal responsibility to keep a conversation going even if it's pretty one-sided but it's nice. Comforting even, as he went on about how nice the other crewmembers are with the exception of the captain but you shouldn't take what he says too personal as he's a bit misunderstood. He ask you different questions like your name, where you came from, complimenting you on your weird clothes, although it feels like that was mostly him being polite and you didn't have heart or energy to tell him that you're wearing PJ's. He doesn't mind your short answers and seems satisfied with the information he's able to divulge. To be fair you aren't sure how to answer since you don't know how you ended up here but also out of fear of ripping the space-time continuum open by telling him forbidden knowledge about his universe. It would be rather awkward explaining to him that you know a lot about them and what they've done/are about to do. You've technically stalked them through tv and books and if someone told you that they've been watching you, you would freak out. Rightfully so too. They might even think that you're a navy spy sent to gather information action for their arrest and they could kill you. Yeah, this is a mess and a half but you'll burn this bridge when you get to it. You did tell him your name though and he doesn't seem to suspect you working for some nefarious organization so all is well.

He showed you where the important places in the submarine was such as the kitchen, living quarters, rec area and bathrooms. You still have trouble telling up from down will undoubtedly get lost but he assures you that after a while you'll know this maze like the back of your hand. After leaving the living quarters he guides you to the top deck to find someone else he says will help you so that he can get back to work.

The yellow ship had surfaced at a deserted summer island and everyone was outside enjoying the sun after spending several days in the dark of the ocean. You hadn't been down in the submarine for that long , at least not while being conscious, and was already getting a bit unnerved over how cold and cramped it was. As soon as the warm rays of light hit you both the cold and your worries melt away.

"Hey Ikkaku! You have to help the drifter get some clothes!" He yelled at a woman laying in a sun-chair on the deck with her eyes closed. The familiar heart pirates uniform was open to reveal a green tank top and an orange and yellow striped hat was laying beside her.

"Haah!? Why do I have to do it?" She sat up to glare at Penguin and was about to protest when she spotted you behind him. One second you were hiding behind Penguin and the next you're face to face with a very pretty woman with very poofy hair. Her glorious lion name bounces a bit as she hold up both your hands in hers and lean over a bit to stare into your eyes. Everyone is so tall here why is everyone so ridiculously tall. Anime proportions are wild.

"Oh my god!! We were so worried about you, we thought you were dead when we found you!" You felt uncomfortable with her being so close to your face and politely thanked her for saving you while doing your best to avoid eye contact.

"Oi! Where's your manners! They've been through a lot being stranded in the ocean have some respect!" He bops her on the head and she lets you go to tell him off (and/or punch him back) but she remembers the shiny new toy in front of her and settles for staring daggers at him instead.

"Oh shut yer trap" She stares at you intensely as if to make sure you wouldn't run away or vanish into thin air. It's kind of nice being fawned over like this, and clearly the crew enjoy having a visitor.

"It's so nice having a fresh face around, It's been years since Captain let anyone new stay onboard and being stuck with all the same jerks weeks on end gets a bit tiring you know. Now come on and let's go find you some proper clothes!" She grab your hand to drag you along back into the dark,dark depths of the submarine.

Oh joy. more cold, feet grating and claustrophobia.

"You're a bit smaller than everyone so we should probably ask Uni to sow it in for you if it's way too big" She says more to herself rather than you while handing you the classical white uniform with the heart pirates logo on the chest over your heart.

The woman who's name you had learned to be Ikkaku turn around and continued rummaging around the small closet in front of her in search of more clothes for you while you change into the white uniform when she isn't looking. It feels incredible to finally get out of those damp and sticky clothes and into something soft and warm instead. You are also the proud owner of a pair of fuzzy socks and black boots. Your poor abused feet are overjoyed that they no longer have to walk the metal grid of a thousand needles. Life is good.

"Once we get to the port of Pellar island you can probably trade your way to some more clothes but this should be fine for now"

In the little time you had spent with her you had learned quite the few things about the crew on the ship. For starters there were 21 members in the crew (including the captain), You were lucky number 22 according to Ikkaku, even though you aren't a part of the crew it's apparently better to have an even number of people aboard the ship. And hearing the stories of what they've been through it seems like you're their new rabbits foot. Since you're considered baggage or fancy cargo rather than someone useful she gives you some times on how to stay out the way, especially out if the captains way which you feel is probably a wise decision but you offer your help should she need it in the kitchen which she greatly appreciates. You hate feeling useless.

You can't help but wonder where you are in the Once Piece timeline as you rolled up the long sleeves of the uniform on your arms and legs for comfort. Had Luffy and Law already formed the alliance? Were you before the timeskip and the incident at Marine Ford? Maybe you were even ahead of the manga and anime itself in a future arc even. You were snapped out of your thoughts when Ikkaku pushed a bundle of toiletries into your arms involving a towel, a toothbrush, and a bar of soap.

"We haven't figured out where you'll sleep for the moment but it'll work out soon enough. Otherwise you can just sleep in a spare bed in the infirmary but come help me gather food from the island! We don't want to get scurvy while we're submerged!" She drag you away towards the deck after leaving your things in her room for safe keeping for now.

This woman is going to pull your arm off.

She seemed very sweet but all the touching and stereotypical anime arm-pulling is weird since you have literally just met. The way she smiles while asking you about your favourite foods and how she excitedly plan different recipes out loud make you almost forgive her though. Almost.

You move sluggishly towards Ikkaku's room to get the only material items you currently own in this world. Foraging for fruits and herb until nightfall was tiring but at least you didn't have to carry that much stuff, a guy with a black pompadour haircut had come along to help carry the crates of stuff you and Ikkaku gathered. He seemed very nice too, somewhat cocky though. You had asked Ikkaku for information on a certain Straw-hat pirate while making small talk and have come to the conclusion that he probably hasn't even started his adventure towards becoming the Pirate King yet. She didn't know who you were referring to and was even showed some seagull newspaper from their library but no info of the gummy monkey man could be found whatsoever. Since you recall him making news very early on in his "career" it's fair to assume that he hasn't gotten up to his mischief yet.

It feels a bit weird to be honest. To be in the prologue of the story like this and you have no idea what kind of things anyone other than the Strawhats and Luffy had been up to since the story followed them, maybe some vague details about Law's past and fragments from some characters backstories but this is all uncharted territory. Your thoughts are interrupted as you suddenly bump into someone and fell backwards. You reach your arms out like a bad imitation of a seagull in attempt to grab the wall but someone grabs you before you manage to take hold of anything. Your grab their shoulders to steady yourself and let go once you're back on your feet but they don't remove their hands from you. You look up to thank them for catching you when all the colour drains from your face and you realize who you're standing prom-slow-dance proximity to. It is but the one and only person you'd least want to embarrass yourself in front of. Again.

"Do you have a death wish or are you just plain stupid 22-ya" He looked down at you with what you assume to be the ghost of an amused smile or slight disgust. Probably disgust. Again. while you're distracted by his closeness and the humiliating event that is currently taking place. It could be much worse though, right? you can salvage this situation probably.

"Crap, sorry I was just zoned out.." You tried looking anywhere but his oh-so-handsome face to avoid you making this anymore awkward than it already was. You are not immune against handsome people after all. You tried moving away from him slightly but his hands stayed firm on your shoulders and could feel his gaze on you like needle pricks on your skin. you definitely do not dare looking him in the eye.

"You have to look where you're going or you might get seriously hurt next time" He mused. He may be attractive but he's definitely a jerk.

"It's impossible to see down here it's so dark..." you mutter under your breath and quickly move to side to walk past him, he let's go this time rejoice that your attempt to escape the harassing captain is successful, desperate to get away from this weird atmosphere you have created. Unfortunately for you, the universe have other plans as he start walking behind you in the same direction you are and boy, is it awkward.

After a bit of walking you start to get a bit suspicious though. Was he following you around, waiting for you to get lost so that he could make a smartass comment about it? He is the kind of person who would find great amusement in petty bullshit like that for sure but then again you do have a tendency of assuming the worst in every situation. You decide to test this theory out by steeping to the side and make as much room as you could in the hallway and drop down to pretend fixing your shoelace. Instead of trying to walk past you he stops completely right behind you. You move as slow as you can without arising suspicion but he so kindly wait patiently behind you. When you're done "tying your shoelace" and stand up to continue your journey he follows close behind.

Oh hell no.

You can handle rudeness but this is some psychological warfare or foul play that you want no part of. No matter how handsome the guy is you will not stand for this kind of fuckery. You make a sudden halt and quickly turn around to kindly tell him to fuck off.

"Do you need something from me?" you ask with as much calm you can currently muster, irritation building up behind your customer service smile but he doesn't say anything and only look at you with the same dumb face as before. Almost like he's sizing you up before a fight. Possibly with even more disgust this time.

This Motherfucker.

When he still doesn't say anything for several seconds you just decide to be the bigger person and turn around to start walking again. Of course, with him still following you. It's better to just ignore him and he'll go away, you know where you're going. You finally reached Ikkaku's room and gather up the few items that belong to you when he finally speak up.

"You don't have a room assigned yet right?" You gave him a somewhat puzzled look. That's what he needed to know? That is why he followed you?? To ask you this???

"No? why?" You admit cautiously, almost preparing for him to start fighting you or using his power to "confiscate" one of your organs. For a brief second you could've sworn you saw a mischievous glint in his eyes you know that something bad is brewing. The cogs of evil are turning in his mind and you know that whatever comes out of his mouth next will undoubtedly mean bad news for you.

"I have an idea"

8 notes · View notes

ikkaku-of-heart · 2 years ago

Text

medicus-mortem:

An irritated snarl twists his lips, the drifter not particularly liking the idea of going into the gunsmith and getting him to look at this. He doesn’t like the vibe here and feels like the close minded townsfolk are more likely to shoot him in the head than accept any patronage he might bring. Which is why it’s better to move on. The superstitious aren’t particularly susceptible to his kind of swindling, and when they are, it usually leads to him getting lynched anyway. Definitely not looking to have that experience again any time soon.

A voice rings out, drawing his attention. Law looks up to see a woman bustling over to him, who is accompanied by a bear of a black dog. A black dog that seems to be looking at him with an unusual intensity. The confidence man goes rigid for a second, wary gaze on the furry beast as he feels a twisting sense of unease in his core. Like that thing knows there is more to him than meets the eye. It actually takes Law as second to realise the woman is looking at him expectantly with a collection of tools in her hands.

“Ah … Sure, I suppose it couldn’t hurt. You some kinda gunsmith, lass?” he says, frowning a little at the explanation she gives. He hands her the pistol, his own hands getting shoved into his pockets as she goes about looking at it.

He feels eyes on them, and it feels very hostile. A glance about tells him the towns folk are muttering all the more now, their gazes watching them. Seems this lass might be the centre of all this bubbling hostility. He wonders why that is.

“You know,” he says, leaning closer to her and lowering his voice. “I know yer lyin’. I haven’t bought an ounce of oil from this back water.”

Well, the stranger at least didn't reject her help outright. That was already better than most of the people Ikkaku had spoken to in her life. It admittedly brought a bit of a smile to her face, and she immediately began inspecting the gun, mostly to ensure the problem actually was caused by her magnetic mishap and wasn't some other issue. That, and she was certain that if she came in and instantly fixed it without even a cursory once-over, he might suspect that she caused the issue on purpose somehow.

"Not a gunsmith, technically, though Gramps taught me how to assemble and clean at least ten different kinds of firearms," she explained. "I'm an inventor. Fixin' shit is what I do."

Meanwhile, Neptune’s gaze stayed fixated on the stranger. This was no normal human. He could smell that this one should have died years ago. Stars above, why did these mortals keep making foolish deals with devils? His solemn eyes remained locked on the damned man until the whispers of the townsfolk reached his ears. For all the hound knew this human was wrong and needed to be taken care of, the humans that filled this bayou had his hackles rising much more. So he turned his head and bared his teeth at the onlookers, letting out a long, low growl that he knew the humans would feel in their souls, sending several of them running for shelter like rabbits knowing they were in the presence of a predator.

They weren't without sin, after all, and the hound would gladly take them to the gates of Hell himself if they tried to hurt his girl. A Hellhound had a duty to fetch the souls of the damned, but Neptune was committed to the family he served just as much.

“It’s alright, Neptune,” Ikkaku said softly, patting the beast’s furry head to calm him. Though, she tensed up herself at the stranger's murmured comment in her ear. Shit. He'd caught her lie.

"Is that so?" she chuckled nervously, taking the magnet and running it across the cool metal of the gun. That seemed to do the trick, as the cylinder clicked open with ease after. Still, she checked the rest of the revolver, easily disassembling and reassembling the different bits with her tools in mere moments. It was partially to keep up the illusion, but also to delay giving the gun right back. He knew she'd lied, so what would stop him from shooting her now that his gun was fixed? More anxiety hit her, and she began to ramble as she checked the gun's chambers and barrel, mentally noting how well-maintained they were. This man took good care of his weapon. "A good idea, honestly. The oil's shit, same as most of the other stuff in that store. 'Course, people still shop there since they don't have much choice. If ya do decide to stock up there, though, don't touch the jerky - it's dusted with opium."

#medicus-mortem #High Noon Heart (Weird West AU)#Oh Captain My Captain (Law)#Neptune the Dog #an inventor hangs #Join the Hearts: We Have Uniforms

7 notes · View notes

bioticgoddess · 4 years ago

Text

Destiny One-Shot: Schrodinger’s Warlock

I read the lore about Praedyth and the first VOG Fire Team. I had a brain wave. I’m not sorry.

Generic Warning: Didn’t proof read. No beta reader. I’m sorry if there’s typos and stuff. I wrote this mostly in one go late at night.

Shroedinger’s Warlock

He knew time in the Vault didn’t follow the rules as time in hundreds of timelines simulated by the Vex. Here, it all happened at once, in simultaneous play. Out there, while that remained true, they were discrete and different and he had kept track of them for Traveler only knew how long. Why or how the Vex had kept him alive without his Ghost and kept him from a similar fate to Kabr...well he didn’t want to try and contemplate that. Not now. Not when his salvation and escape from this hell was so close.

Something about this Fireteam, these six guardians who stole into the Vault and had fought their way to one of his thousand skeletons, was different. They’d taken refuge in the small room while the Gorgon Harpies patrolled the maze. Quietly studying the records and maps of the countless other excursions who’d come to slay Atheon. They passed cantees between them, water and food carefully rationed to ensure they could make it through.

He could have killed for a bit of one of those terrible hardtacks but dared not approach.

Parallelling his thoughts, one of the Warlocks - an Awoken Woman - sighed, “I’d kill for caffeine.”

The shorter of the two Titans elbowed her, “When we get out of here, more than coffee is on me.”

“We made it this far,” yawned a hunter, he stretched until his spine popped.

The others murmured in agreement - another warlock, titan, and hunter respectively. He could just hear the hum of their Ghosts as they unfolded from Transmat to heal their wounds. He missed his ghost, her questions about his research and motherly nagging about his health and safety. One of the little Traveler born drones announced, “The temporal markers are all still synced up. Everything is in the green.”

“Good,” the taller Titan nodded. “Five minutes everyone, then we move out.”

Another round of agreeing murmurs. The female Hunter put her hand over what had been his in another timeline. She whispered, pulling her helmet on, “Eyes up Praedyth.”

They knew! He didn’t know what but he knew! None of the other Fireteams over the uncountable years here had ever said his name over any of his bones. Not one! He was an unacknowledged ghost wandering this purgatory.

Something had changed, it was different and the Vex hadn’t been able to predict it! He could have laughed, sang even if he hadn’t been so terrified that doing more than watch would result in this Fireteam’s deaths. That it wouldn’t result in someone else being trapped here with him - a fate he wished on no one. Perhaps more so than he wished none of them to face Kabr’s fate. At least Pahanin had gotten out. He was free.

So long down here, he knew the route. Stay close to the right hand wall. Spiral down. Don't look at the Gorgons and keep as much distance as possible from them. Careful to go down into the dark, the deep, across the cavern and to the central chamber where the Gatekeeper and then Atheon lay in wait. Stay outside the door til after the Six Guardians enter. Then up the right hand side of the wall along what looked like little more than pock marks in the way. Grips he’d carved as he’d tried desperately to sneak past the vex and out to freedom.

Up along the door, just shy of where the ceiling dropped down, there was a crack in the stone that he’d be able to squeeze through, to hide where he’d be out of sight. Time’s Conflux wouldn’t send him to what he’d heard others call Mars or Venus; though which Mars and Venus was up for intense debate.

For a moment, as grenades flew and ammo bricks were passed between teammates, he could see the others, his old team. The shorter Titan leapt up on what was the Martian control Plate and threw his barricade up. A rift went down a few seconds later and the warlock, back to back with him, dropped an arc grenade into the sea of grounded Harpies. The thunder cracked and each of the little pseudo-robots shattered and broke across the stone.

Then he saw it. The moment when a half dozen Guardians launched their most powerful attacks - Lightborne and weapon based - at Atheon. The giant Minotaur roared. It’s body groaned and crashed to his knees. The frame shuddered and the chamber holding its radiolarian fluid pooled around the metal. It crackled with the ghost of electricity. He hadn seen the giant beaten before but never like this.

The Vex had not predicted these Guardians.

Carefully, the six collected what weapons and gear they could find in the room as the gateway out of the Vault opened and the warm air of Venus filled the chamber. The grin on the shorter Titan’s face carried to his voice, “And, we are synced!”

“Wolf, we have a full count,” the second warlock, also a woman, was surprised. It was that giddy surprise that he recognized, like she hadn’t expected it to happen.

“Full count. Seven by seven!”

The warlock whooped. Both hunters began searching the cavernous room more intently, careful to avoid the remaining pools of radiolarian fluid.

Seven? He’d only seen these six enter the Vault. Only seen their six Ghosts flit in and out of sight and safety. It couldn’t be Pahanin, no matter how badly he wanted to see his old friend again. He’d seen him fall to Dredgen Yor just like he’d seen Toland and Eris and all the others fall on the Moon. The Vex used their deaths as yet another way to torment him. Another way to study and learn from his reactions so they could better combat the Guardians.

“He’s up here,” the tiny voice of a Ghost chirped.

Swallowing, Praedyth pointed to himself.

“Yes you, we came here to bring you home,” The little drone’s voice was filled with smiles. He bobbed and his shell spun with excitement. “Oh! You made it too! Excellent!”

Praedyth looked to the left, following the Ghost’s shifting gaze.

Just shy of where his hand would be if he expected his Ghost to appear. He could feel the familiar buzz of transmat. Reaching out, hand tingling, and he felt the weight of a Ghost on his shoulders. It was a snap, the pop where she materialized in his full. A steel and amber painted shell and her bright blue iris, blinking as only a Ghost could.

“I found you,” she cried, elated and overwhelmed and it sounded like she’d cry if she could.

Hand wrapping around her shell gently, he pulled his Ghost to his chest. Not now. They could cry together later. They’d been lost together and now, not anymore. Of all the things he’d hoped for, finding her hadn’t been something he’d dared dream about any more than getting out of this hellscape. His lost little Spectre, she’d come back.

“Well, come on,” the other Ghost bobbed, nodding back down to the others. “It’s time to go.”

Afraid a Harpy would come for him, the Vault’s longest non-Vex resident pushed off from his perch, slowing his fall with a late jump. Once his feet hit the floor, he scrambled across the stone and metal floor. Stopping only when he was surrounded by the Fire Team, Spectre still clutched in his hand, pressed to his war torn breastplate. She hummed and he knew this was real. He knew this was real because it smelled real; the gun oil, the burned ozone, the charred metal, even the sweat. Then, like a pre-Golden Age freight train, the strange mix of smells that were the desert, jungle, and beach that wafted through the open door and hit him.

He whispered, “This is real.”

Three hundred more steps and the sun warmed his bare face. Helmet long ago cannibalized for parts. Another fifty and the drop ship grabbed them up in transmat, all seven of them. His ghost hummed against his chest, she didn’t believe it either. Likely wouldn’t really believe it until they stood beneath the Traveler again.

---

The apartment the Warlock Vanguard, Ikora, had ushered him to was quiet. It looked out over the city and the gardens that were several levels below and for the first time, he didn’t feel trapped.

There were half a dozen people he’d need to speak with in the coming days, most of them current and former Vanguard. That would be a problem for tomorrow, today he was going to rest and catch up with his Ghost. Tomorrow, Praedyth the Timelost, would decide what his future held.

-----------------------------------------

Notes: I named his Ghost Spectre since YW is technically on this Fireteam and I can only keep Ghost’s named Ghost straight when I’m dealing with Drifter and YW.

#destiny fanfiction #praedyth #vault of glass #vog fanfic #destiny 2

3 notes · View notes

sinceileftyoublog · 4 years ago

Text

Emmylou Harris & Los Lobos Live Show Review: 8/5, Canal Shores, Evanston

Emmylou Harris

BY JORDAN MAINZER

“Behold: the vaccinated!” Emmylou Harris proclaimed on Thursday night to a crowd of cheering concertgoers in their lawn chairs, before launching into “Wayfaring Stranger” in all its slide guitar glory. Technically, at Out of SPACE this weekend, guests are required to present either proof of vaccination or a negative PCR COVID test conducted within 24 hours of the time of the event. But the sentiment of the night remained, one of cautious optimism more than a party, all while allowing for some combined levity and healing from the dearth of live music during the pre-vaccine era of the pandemic. In a sense, for the first night of what was likely for many the first outdoor festival since COVID (I’ll guess that there isn’t too much Out of SPACE/Lollapalooza crossover), Harris was the perfect headliner, not one to make many jump up and dance but instead reflect. Opening with “Here I Am” from Aughts opus Stumble Into Grace, Harris sang, “My arms are ever open / In this harbor calm and still / I will wait until / Until you come to me.” More than ever, it functions as an allegory for having not just respect but patience for your fellow person, navigating a world of seemingly infinite uncertainty.

To me, what’s always made Harris so great is not just the wonderfully weary quality of her voice but the adaptability of it. Throughout her career, some of her best recordings have been songs written by or initially recorded by others, taking nothing away from her own tremendously empathetic writing. Whether it’s Gillian Welch’s “Orphan Girl” and Steve Earle’s “Goodbye”--both recorded for 1995′s rockier pivot Wrecking Ball--or a chugging rendition of Gram Parsons’ eternal jam “Ooh Las Vegas”, appearing on Elite Hotel, Harris uncannily emphasizes every sentiment of the original. Sad songs become sadder, and hopeful songs more hopeful, all while allowing listeners to project their own emotions onto the material. A song like The Flying Burrito Brothers’ “Wheels” is at once yearning and golden, the backing band (Red Dirt Boys + Eamon McLoughlin) providing a boost of burning energy. Harris certainly does contain multitudes; biographical songs like “Red Dirt Girl” are just as much about her life as they are about longing to escape your current situation, even if it seems impossible.

Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo

The two songs she performed before her encore were more on-the-nose selections: “Together Again”, the Buck Owens song recorded for Elite Hotel and dedicated to the crowd, and Drifters adaptation “Save the Last Dance For Me” from Blue Kentucky Girl. (“It’s one of the few songs I could sing at a wedding and get away with it,” she quipped about the latter.) For the most part, though, Harris did what she does best, pay tribute to characters past and present, fictional and real. She mentioned the late great mandolin player Byron Berline who passed away last month before performing “One Of These Days”. (Berline played on the recording.) She and the band did a rendition of Bill Monroe instrumental “Get Up John”, a live favorite. “My Name Is Emmett Till” from 2011′s Hard Bargain presents Till’s story from his perspective and in the most straightforward terms possible, as if to let the evil that caused his murder show itself sans pretense. In an extended time period that saw many people fail to ask, “What is the worth of the life of a person who I don’t know?” Harris begged us not to look the other way.

Openers Los Lobos were an inspired choice to pair with Harris, and not just because both bands featured fantastic accordion players, as she noted. The East L.A. rock band are troubadours like Harris but of a sonically different kind, coupling their stories with blues shuffles, scorching psychedelic wah wahs, and snappy funk. Their songs offer journeys both lyrical and musical, from “The Neighborhood”, the title track of an album paying tribute to the second-generation immigrant community, to a buoyant track like The Town & The City’s “Chuco’s Cumbia”. Of course, they did provide a little bit of a party, including a medley of The Undisputed Truth’s “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” and Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va”, and predictably ending with their best-known adaptation, “La Bamba”. I do wish they had played more from their most recent release, Native Sons (New West), a collection of tunes from Los Angeles artists from well-known acts like Jackson Browne and the Beach Boys to lesser-known bands like the Jaguars. (The album has one original track, the title track). Since the set was slightly plagued by feedback/sound problems, songs from the new record, like a blistering version of WAR’s “The World Is A Ghetto” or Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth”, might have given the band an opportunity to play their new material while giving the audience something familiar with Los Lobos’ unique spin. It also would have showcased their ability, like Harris’s, to adapt old material just as well as write new tunes, all filtered through David Hidalgo and company’s singular experiences. Either way, both sets proved to be a welcome, but prudent return to live music.

Los Lobos

3 notes · View notes

deathstroke-the-himbonator · 5 years ago

Text

More Info on Scout’s Brothers in my Interpretation of Them

From working on my latest TF2 fic, I’ve been getting even more invested in my interpretations of Scout’s brothers than I was back when I wrote “Jeremy” last month, so here’s more information on them, including their appearances, who their spouses end up being later on in life, and their kids (if they have any).

(Putting this under a readmore for the sake of literally everyone)

((Tumblr, please don’t fuck this up for mobile readers. If it does end up looking like crap, I’ll make a Google Doc for this.))

Name: Grant Grayson-Kennedy Jr. Age: 34 (11 years older than RED Scout) Gender: Cisgender Man Sexuality: Bisexual Hair Color: Dark Brown Eye Color: Grey Their Mother: Rebecca “Becky” Kennedy Their Father: Grant Grayson Sr. Their S/O: Amelia O’Malley (36) Their Children: Lauren Grayson-Kennedy (8), Kara Grayson-Kennedy (6), Rupert Grayson-Kennedy (4.5), Timothy Grayson-Kennedy (2) Occupation: Air Force Veteran/Lawyer Personality: The family peacekeeper. Probably the most pragmatic of his siblings (though he’s still quite the fighter), Grant has been helping his mom out with his brothers from almost the very beginning, becoming more helpful as more kids were born. He’s a family man, and adores his family to bits, doing almost anything to keep them safe. Was actually considered as a possible recruit by The Administrator, but she decided to not hire him in the end, as he seemed too wise to be manipulated.

Name: Timothy Grayson-Kennedy Age: 32 (9 years older than RED Scout) Gender: Cisgender Man Sexuality: Homosexual Hair Color: Dark Brown Eye Color: Dark Brown Their Mother: Rebecca “Becky” Kennedy Their Father: Grant Grayson Sr. Their S/O: Duke Hammond (32) Their Children: Sarah Kennedy-Hammond (3), Jeremy Kennedy-Hammond (1) Occupation: Cartoonist Personality: The family heart. The most gentle of his brothers, Timmy is especially close with Jeremy and Grant. Kinda nervous about being a father, but with his childhood best friend turned lover at his side, he isn’t quite as scared anymore. Stays in contact with his siblings well enough, but tends to lose track of events/announcements due to living all the way in California. Doesn’t approve of mercenary work in general.

Name: Jacob Grayson-Kennedy Age: 31 (8 years older than RED Scout) Gender: Cisgender Man Sexuality: Heterosexual Hair Color: Light Blond Eye Color: Light Blue Their Mother: Rebecca “Becky” Kennedy Their Father: Grant Grayson Sr. Their S/O: None Their Children: Ana Grayson-Kennedy (3), Mia Grayson-Kennedy (3) Occupation: Freelance Guitarist Personality: The family sword. Was always pretty rough ‘n tumble even when compared to his brothers, so he got into a lot of trouble alongside Malcolm when he was a teen. Finally cleaned up his act when a one-night-stand resulted in him having twin daughters, who he loves dearly and has sole custody of. Has a better relationship with Arthur now that they’re adults, and actually lives with him in downtown Boston.

Name: Arthur Grayson-Kennedy Age: 31 (8 years older than RED Scout) Gender: Cisgender Man Sexuality: Pansexual Hair Color: Dark Blond Eye Color: Dark Blue Their Mother: Rebecca “Becky” Kennedy Their Father: Grant Grayson Sr. Their S/O: Markus Browning (29) Their Children: None Occupation: Carpenter Personality: The family shield. Not quite as mellow as Timmy is, but he’s pretty damn close in terms of general kindness towards his family and friends. Has struggled in the past to find his calling, but he loves his job in carpentry, and loves that he gets to live with his twin and nieces! Has an on and off boyfriend who he keeps a secret from the family, as he’s nervous to come out as pan, even though Timmy’s been out as gay for a few years now.

Name: Patrick Walsh-Kennedy Age: 30 (7 years older than RED Scout) Gender: Cisgender Man Sexuality: Heterosexual Hair Color: Black Eye Color: Brown Their Mother: Rebecca “Becky” Kennedy Their Father: Terrence Walsh Their S/O: Felicity Homer (28) Their Children: None Occupation: Hairdresser Personality: The family shadow. He’s never liked being in the spotlight, even when he was young and into street brawls. Was beaten by his bio dad a lot as a kid, so he’s fairly skittish as a result; jumps at loud noises and has claustrophobia. Still checks in on the family every once in awhile, but he prefers to stay with his GF in relative solitude. Loves his job so much, even if it does involve being social sometimes.

Name: Malcolm Walsh-Kennedy Age: 27 (4 years older than RED Scout) Gender: Cisgender Man Sexuality: Heteromantic Asexual Hair Color: Black Eye Color: Brown Their Mother: Rebecca “Becky” Kennedy Their Father: Terrence Walsh Their S/O: Dolores Jamison Their Children: Luke Kennedy-Jamison (5) Occupation: Wrestler Personality: The family instigator. Was by far the most reckless and violent of his brothers (yes, even more so than Jacob), which led to him getting arrested a number of times in his teens. Is trying to turn his life around, but it’s hard for him. After he found out that Jeremy is a mercenary, he flipped his lid, and he’s still pissed at him about it. Loves his son, his wife, his mama, his brothers, and that’s about it tbh.

Name: Curtis Walsh-Kennedy Age: 26 (3 years older than RED Scout) Gender: Cisgender Man Sexuality: Bisexual Hair Color: Dark Blond Eye Color: Blue Their Mother: Rebecca “Becky” Kennedy Their Father: Terrence Walsh Their S/O: None Their Children: None Occupation: BLU Scout Personality: The family drifter. Spent a lot of his childhood teasing Jeremy and trying to be his mom’s favorite, neither of which worked in his favor. His mom still loves him of course, but he’s not the favorite (no one is). He drifted for a long while after high school, struggling to land a job, before he was hired to join BLU team as their Scout. Now he continues teasing Jeremy as an adult, which leads to a lot of matches turning into Scout vs Scout fights.

Name: Jeremy Kennedy Age: 23 Gender: Transgender Man Sexuality: Pansexual Hair Color: Brown Eye Color: Baby Blue Their Mother: Rebecca “Becky” Kennedy Their Father: Jeffery REDACTED Their S/O: None Their Children: None Occupation: RED Scout Personality: The family runt. He tried so hard to keep up with his brothers as a kid, but was always told to not play as rough due to him being FTM. After coming out to the family as a man, and living on his own for awhile, he’s become even closer to his brothers than he was before, save for maybe Curtis, who he fights with every time they see each other. He knows Curtis is the BLU Scout and constantly teases him for losing so often to RED, which leads to even more fights between them. (I should note that I don’t characterize Jeremy as transgender in the Kids AU, mostly because I think he’d be too young to come out, and seeing as I don’t want to write him as a “girl” for the entirety of the AU... he can be trans in that AU if you want him to be, but I feel uncomfortable writing such a young child as being trans, so do with that what you will.)

Information on the dads!

Grant Grayson Sr.: Grant, Timothy, Jacob, and Arthur’s dad. He was a well respected man when he was alive, and actually had a decent relationship with Becky for the most part, but it became more strained when he left for war after the twins were born. About a year into his military service, Grant was killed in action, leaving Becky a widow. She loved him, but after his death, she accepted the fact that it wouldn’t have lasted forever with him, though she still misses him sometimes.

Terrence Walsh: Patrick, Malcolm, and Curtis’s dad. He tried hooking up with Becky the minute Grant was shipped overseas, but she always turned him down, as she was married and not a cheater. After Grant’s death though, he swooped in and convinced Becky to start going out with him, leading to Patrick’s birth and a second marriage for Becky. Unfortunately, Terrance was a real POS, and he routinely beat the kids as well as Becky. He was assassinated a few weeks after Curtis was born by Spy, freeing Becky of his abuse.

Jeffery REDACTED: The RED Spy/Jeremy’s dad. He met Becky while she was still stuck in an abusive marriage with Terrence, and soon after they met, Becky begged for his help in getting rid of her husband so she and kids could finally be safe. Feeling bad for the mother, Spy did just that, killing Terrence and making it look like an accident. Afterwards he planned on going on his merry way, but Becky convinced him to stay in her home while he waited for more work to roll in. During this time, they fell in love, and he soon married her (though it was an under the table sort of deal, where he also took on her last name), and after a year or so of marriage, Becky became pregnant with Jeremy. Unfortunately for Spy, people were after him, so he had to leave the family behind, but he’s still technically married to Becky, and she refuses to date anyone in his absence.

And that’s what I’ve got! Btw, I chose the last name “Kennedy” for the family based on the quote “You’ve got the luck of a Kennedy!” since I headcanon that Scout’s Mom has been through a lot, and in turn so have all of her children in one way or another. The family’s unlucky, but at least they’ll always have each other! Feel free to ask me questions about the family if you have any.

#tf2 #tf2 headcanons #tf2 scout #tf2 scout's mom #tf2 scout's brothers #tf2 spy #red scout #blu scout #long post

60 notes · View notes

annisir-kaugan · 5 years ago

Text

Report: Origins and Operation of Triglavian Society Annisir Kaugan - Third Eye Analytics.

The first interesting thing about the Triglavians is their language. It is not an exact language, meaning many of the terms they use have no one definition. They use cultural idioms in a contextual way, phrases can have different, but related, meanings depending on the context of the sentence. The 'Flow of Vyraj', which is used a lot, refers to the passage of time, but this can be in terms of a project plan, the course of events or even, as fate wills it. 'Poshlost' generally means bad or unsavoury and its opposite, 'Sobernost' means good, or good for the majority. Understanding this is key to understanding the Triglavians and people seem to miss this because its not a normal usage of language. It is worth spending time with their language, either the data streams, or other example that are scattered around, simply to gain an appreciation of their culture.

The other area that people get confused with is the organisation of Triglavian society, when in reality, although complex in some ways it is actually very simple. There are three main Clades, Perun, Veles and Svarog, each has a number of sub-clades and so far only a few of these are known. For the most part these are made up of Narodnya and all the pilots of vessels encountered are Narodnya. Again its a general term, they call capsuleers 'Augmented Foreign Narodnya' and Sansha 'Hivelinked Foreign Narodnya' for example. Each Clade appears to have a number of Koschoi and Navka associated with them, from various models there is a simple reason for this and it will become clear.

The term 'Struggle' is used a lot, while there have been various theories it is actually, again, very simple. Triglavian society is an extreme meritocracy, rank within society is entirely based on 'Proving', whether in technical arguments or combat they always compete and trial everything. An individual Narodnya begins life with a base level of rank in society, throughout their life every qualification, contest, successful project or failure adjusts this ranking. The Triglavians speak of 'Glorification' and 'Mortification', which were confusing at first. 'Extirpation' refers to destruction or death. 'Glorification' simply means an upward adjustment in ranking, and 'Mortification' a downward one. This is the 'Struggle' of which they speak. In one case an entire sub-clade was given Mortification because their ship design did not come up to specification and fell short in proving.

It suggests there are upper and lower limits to rankings too. The point is that those reaching the ultimate rank become Koschoi, and those dying in the attempt or reaching the lowest rank become Navka. Which is why the Koschoi and Navka make up the Convocation of Triglav Outside the Struggle; they are not in it, they have either won or lost. Explaining the Koschoi and Navka is complicated to say the least and will be followed up later. Every clade and sub-clade have their own, because they belonged to them before becoming as they are, but the Koschoi and Navka can also act independently of the clades; both have been shown to be operating as 'Detached' from time to time. This too has implications that will be revealed in due course.

In order to explain this it is necessary to go right back to the very beginning of New Eden, to the first settlers in the cluster. At first is appears not much is known about these times, but a lot can be inferred. Analysis of human DNA has shown that all the inhabitants of New Eden belonged to the same species which originated on a single planet some two hundred thousand years ago. Many of the animals and plants we see are not native to New Eden, but were imported around the same time as human settlement took place. Countless archaeological studies have found no trace of any predecessors which would show that they evolved on planets in the cluster. Astronomers have been studying space around New Eden for centuries, in particular the Eve Gate, Which was a natural wormhole that formed fifteen thousand years ago and was open for around 75 years before collapsing into a singularity. This data complies with the findings of archaeologists on all the settled worlds.

There were three main clusters of activity; the Amarrian and Minmatar home systems and the system shared by the Caldari and Gallente. Outside of these there were a handful of smaller colonies and these groups were almost pilot studies. Pioneers to test the soil, lay down the infrastructure for terraforming and habitation as well as surveying the planet. They were not really prepared to operate without support, unlike the Jove, who fared much better after the gate's collapse. The two groups that really stand out are the Talocan and the Yan Jung, for different reasons.

"The Yan Jung nation immigrated into our world through the EVE Gate aeons ago. From where, we do not know, though the fragments of texts we've managed to translate talk about a mysterious middle kingdom. They settled here in Deltole, though we suspect they also colonized other systems, even in far off places. But what we've uncovered so far is here in the Deltole system, especially on Deltole V and VI, which seem to have been much more inhabitable back then."

– Sebast Mathon, Professor of Archaeology, University of Caille

The Yan Jung are an oddity. The majority of the early settlers were unprepared, they were not, they left few traces but the Hidden Path site in Deltole is odd. An Ancient Gargoyle Statue guards the site, although defunct now and a beacon lights up the system. Their artefacts are found throughout space, notably, from a Triglavian point of view, texts on Semiotic Theory, Singularities and Trigonometric Laws. Although they apparently were only around for a millennia or so they seem to have been masters of ancient technologies that New Eden science still cannot match. Rather than being simple settlers they could have been fugitives escaping to the newly discovered space, but there is another option.

The second oddball group are the Talocan. Unusually they did not settle anywhere, but rather roamed as nomads or lived in space, another connection to the Triglavian way of life perhaps. They seem to have left only one site in New Eden, the Devils Dig in Otitoh, now heavily over run with Rogue Drones to the extent all archaeological research has had to stop. This may be deliberate. One interesting feature of the site is the Sun Reader, a black monolith, similar to others found elsewhere in New Eden, which may also be Talocan artefacts. These seem to contain solar data, of some form, which points to them being some kind of observational device. Its is possible they formed some kind of distributed network in the manner used by astronomers today, several devices creating a much larger device when working in unison. Even more intriguing is the possibility that the network is still operable and the Triglavians accessed it to determine which systems to target.

There are numerous ancient relics scattered throughout the cluster, black monoliths, ancient stargates and even odd rift like features. The Amarrians expanded into space by reverse engineering an old stargate, and the technological principles are still not fully understood. In the same way the original Minmatar expansion was via an ancient acceleration gate. If the black monoliths are Talocan in origin, then did they also build the other structures in space?

The Jove were better prepared, setting in the Utopia system in the Heaven constellation. Since the Jove moved out there have been numerous archaeological surveys of the area. Ice core and soil samples show that they spent a long time adjusting the climate and seeding the ground before establishing colonies. It seems likely that they used automated systems and kept the vast majority of their personnel in cryostasis until the planetary installations had sufficient resources. This may have been as long as a millennia in some cases. Further studies have shown that the first Jovian expansion did not really develop until the third millennium, which has implications to be discussed further on.

Nothing is known of what lies beyond the Eve Gate, although it is certain that New Eden was colonised by the inhabitants of that space. Exhaustive DNA studies have shown that everyone in the cluster originally came from a single species originating on the same planet. Minor mutations concomitant with space travel and living in space show they had been in space for some millennia prior to the Eve Gate. We can infer a lot from the behaviour of groups within New Eden, everyone is essentially running on the same underlying code. It would have been a place of Empires, Corporations and factions in a similar form to those established in New Eden. It seems to be a natural development in human society. Colonising a new space is a difficult task, but with great possibilities; the first steps have been taken already in the Anoikis systems and they are relatively easy to access. New Eden was virgin territory. The original crews had to scout and survey and be followed by teams to build the star gates. That meant mining and refining resources, and all done in space, massive industrial ships must have been used, on a scale we only really see with the World Arks, Anchorages, and perhaps the rumoured City ship being built by Thukker.

They would have needed the technology to move across vast distances without cynos, some advanced form of jump drive or wormhole generating system maybe. Sansha, Drifters, Triglavians, the Jove themselves and maybe even Rogue Drones now, have shown something like the abilities required. Whether they developed it themselves, or found the necessary information in some ancient cache is not known. While the Empires of New Eden build star gates and know how to set them up it is still a massively complicated process, the original Amarrian gate required sending ships out using cryosleep chambers. The incoming crews from beyond the gate managed to push lines of stargates deep into the cluster in just a few decades. This raises some interesting questions and possibilities.

The other side of the gate could have been contested, but there are actually quite a mix of different groups in the original settlers, so that may well not be the case. The engineering group should therefore be a representative mix as well, from those factions with an interest. They are not another race, or nation, but almost certainly something like a corporation or other entity, composed of members of the existing nations. It is not known how the gate failed, certainly echoes of the collapse are still heading out into space but it does not seem normal. The gate appeared to be a wormhole of huge size, which is interesting. Gates are formed by the conjunction of points of gravitational resonance, in simple terms. New Eden has a propensity for forming wormholes now but did not at one time. When two systems get close enough on the right path, that can trigger the formation of a hole. For something this size it would mean another cluster or a galaxy moving into the right position relative to New Eden for it to form. Normally that kind of movement is slow, in terms of galactic time, which means the lifespan of the hole can be very long. The mass limit too, given its size but there is a possible way around it. Mass Entanglers are used to increase the mass of a ship for the purpose of rolling holes, better than the old Higgs device. An array of Entanglers, much as we see with the Triglavian Solar Harvester could be used to pull the hole apart, compensating for mass entering it. There might need to be an array on both sides, but there is no way of knowing, this kind of engineering is beyond the capacities of most groups in New Eden.

The question is did one of the groups in the original settlement phase sabotage the gate? Preventing a massive influx of settlers coming to plunder the resources, and maybe giving their allies a better chance of success? It is a distinct possibility, some of the ancient stargates are badly damaged, but others are not, they have been deactivated and rendered useless, which implies deliberate sabotage. If somebody rigged the mass entanglers to reverse polarity then that could collapse the hole, but the array on the other side would work against it, resulting in the singularity that exists now. The same for the stargates, it is as though a deliberate attempt was made to stop the early colonies being able to support each other or receive any assistance. That is curious in itself, as is the behaviour of the Talocan and Yan Jung. Perhaps they decided humanity needed a second chance, to work out a better way to live rather than simply plundering the resources of this new space.

Archaeologists often use the term cultures and it frequently gets misinterpreted by people from outside the profession. All the inhabitants of New Eden belong to the same culture, there are racial differences but in fundamental terms everyone speaks the same language and follows the same basic ways of doing things. Prior to meeting the Amarrians and Udorians were distinct cultures, but they lost their individuality not long after. In a similar way the Talocan, Yan Jung and even the Jovian, from Sleeper artefacts, are obviously from the same basic culture. The labels given them come from the Jove, but they may not be entirely accurate or show the true picture. Given the hypothetical existence of an engineering team that facilitated the early migrations it makes good sense that the Talocan and Yan Jung were a part of this. The Talocan appears to be based in space, the engineers, scouts and surveyors, while the Yan Jung fit into the role of scientists and theoreticians. The planetary settlements of the Yan Jung being research bases, and perhaps food producing areas or for the production of other planetary materials. They both disappeared from New Eden, possibly around the same time, maybe fourteen thousand years ago. The Talocan reappear, in Anoikis, occasional wrecked ships and quarantine zones around ruined Talocan structures, something certainly went on and to discover what requires a reworking of the established position. It is impossible to say if Yan Jung went with them, or were somehow taken over or absorbed. This appears to coincide with the Jove becoming more active which indicates the Talocan group wanting to avoid them in order to let the new colonies flourish uncontaminated

Anoikis is a cluster of systems, possibly located in a region of dark matter or energy, or a region of intensely folded space, it has some extremely unusual characteristics. Assuming that the Talocan used the network of black monoliths as a wide area observatory, then this should have piqued their interest. How they travelled there is unknown, but they must have, and spent some considerable time there preparing their plans. Presumably using the same kind of technology that was used to set up the original gate network but it may have taken longer due to distances involved. They seem to have had a much more intimate understanding of the way space operates than anyone in New Eden possesses today. The New Eden cluster consists of 5431 systems, 230 of which are in Jovian space and inaccessible and there are 2603 known systems in the Anoikis cluster; the true extent of Abyssal space is unknown at present.

Many people see the system of wormhole connections between New Eden and Anoikis as randomly occurring, this is simply untrue. Anoikis has a definite structure and while the formation of connections may seem random it does, in fact, operate according to a comprehensive set of rules. There are 30 Regions and 310 Constellations, these directly affect the class of system and also the connections that will open up between them, and also New Eden. This might be due to the way the data is represented, rather than an actual physical map, no such map exists so it is a convenient way of looking at things. All of the Region 30 systems are class 6, for example and that pattern follows for all the other regions. This suggests that there is something highly unusual about both the underlying structure of space and the matter-energy balance of the cluster. Most unusual indeed.

The Talocan must have spent some considerable time there. Exploring and mapping the area offered challenges not found in New Eden and chances are that meant modifying their technology. From events in New Eden much later on it is suspected that some of the precursor technology was based on Isogen-5, an allotropic form of Isogen, connected in some way to the formation of blue stars. It is highly volatile, as evidenced by these later events, Isogen-10, used by the Triglavians is a much more stable form. It does not, as far as anyone knows, appear in Anoikis, meaning that the Talocan may well have had to find alternative materials. ~

Oddly the materials and blueprints for making tech III ships all come from Anoikis , so are a sign of Talocan adapting to the new environment. Which means that the Talocan wrecked ships spotted in Anoikis and New Eden are more than likely not their original ship forms, but developed later on. This is an interesting pointer. For one thing it does point to an extended time in the Anoikis cluster. They also must have taken the construction and mining vessels. There are a large number of ruined Talocan sites around, some of which are co-sited with Sleeper sites, probably the origin of the Jovian-Triglavian satellite polity mentioned in one of the data streams.

The Talocan built a complex network of structures known as Epicenters, which are vitally important. Each contains Talocan static gates and violent wormholes, impassable by any means available. There are similar wormholes in the Drifter systems, but more on those later. Thera formed the heart of this network, and still functions in that respect, although possibly in a different way. It is a unique system and may have been artificially engineered, in itself a prodigious feat of stellar engineering and beyond the capabilities of anyone today. There are twenty-five small ship systems, known as Class 13, these only form small connections that will only pass frigates, or some specially engineered ships. In addition a further seventy-five systems also contain Epicenters.

The operation of this network is unknown, although there are a number of possibilities. This gave the Talocan one hundred and one systems to explore and operate in. It could have been fixed, Thera acting as a hub and the Epicentre static gates and what are now violent wormholes connecting to other systems in the net. The Drifter systems also contain strange wormholes that do not seem navigable but may once have connected. Alternatively it may have been programmable, the Epicentres acting as controls for the system, rather like a modern mass transportation system. In either case they had access to systems within the network but presumably also those outside it. Overall a fixed system makes most sense in light of later events.

This must have taken a considerable amount of time, which presupposes that the Talocan used some form of Kitezh class ship, as discussed by the Triglavians and also the Jove appear to have some knowledge of them as well. It is unknown as to how many of them there were, or what the ratio of male and female was. Likewise did they use sexual reproduction or some system to generate viable embryos as the Jove did? It is a task of mammoth proportions, feeding so many without access to planetary resources, not to mention completely adapting to a whole new technology. They did it, while dating technologies for planetary archaeological sites are commonplace and a number of methodologies may be employed, those for spatial artefacts are much more complex and prone to error. Especially in the complex topology of Anoikis space. The only realistic figures quoted suggest some of the installations may be as old as twelve thousand years. This seems reasonable; the first Jovian expansion began around this time and the Talocan should have completed most of the work by then.

It is now a piece of history, but the Seyllin event was linked to Isogen-5 caches and caused the first wormholes to begin appearing in New Eden as well as shattering a number of planets. The later Caroline’s Star event, since found to be W477-P, revealed the presence of Thera and the shattered systems. Again, this points to the Talocan network and the main Anoikis cluster being two distinct entities. The Talocan must therefore have returned to New Eden prior to the Jovian expansion to complete their work unnoticed. It is also worth bearing in mind that a society can change beyond belief in three thousand years and that this happened twelve thousand years ago.

Somehow the Talocan used a device, or array of devices at W477-P in order to create some form of sub-spatial affinity between New Eden and Anoikis. How this was done is hard to even imagine as it necessitates altering the topology of space in both clusters. Interestingly this manipulation may have had other side effects as well, the abundance of deadspace zones, and even the Dead Storms of Detorid, which may point to the Abyss and even the Abyss itself may have been formed by this work. The Seyllin event probably opened up the existing weaknesses permitting the formation of wormholes and made this easier to achieve naturally. The event at W477-P travelled through the Epicenter network rendering the wormholes and static gates dysfunctional and unlocking the now shattered systems.

This made the formation of wormholes a lot easier and allowed the explorers much more access to Anoikis. Thera can support a dozen or more connections and maybe as many as twenty-five, this is a lot higher than most systems where the upper limit may be five or six. Most systems have one or two static connections, these can despawn and respawn very quickly so appear to be always present. There are any number of wandering connections as well, but all connections follow the underlying rules. Systems in the New Eden cluster itself do not have static connections, their limit seems to be around the usual five to six, Systems in Jovian space do not connect to normal Anoikis systems, although there may be others that are still hidden. The J005299 system is occupied by Sansha’s Nation and is unique in this respect, although it really suggests Sansha have other hidden systems in which they stage their fleets. The Jovians used a time-based system to name the Anoikis systems, the majority of the systems, excluding the unique, the shattered systems and four others, fall into the format of J-hours, minutes and seconds, two digits for each. The list is possibly not complete.

Connections form according to the systems, their statics and then any available wandering connections, These may follow some kind of hidden paths within the structure of space, it is impossible to say at present. Connections generally disappear within twenty-four hours, although the new Pochven holes have a shorter lifespan. Different connections have different mass limits, affecting the size and number of ships that can pass through without triggering a collapse. The inhabitants of Anoikis systems use this to their advantage, triggering an early collapse, or leaving the hole at a critical point thus trapping intruders. These cycles create endless patterns in the map of Anoikis, Class 4 systems can form long chains leading across the Anoikis cluster and Class 2 systems can form smaller ones or bridges between Anoikis and New Eden. The map is therefore a complex map of both scientific phenomena and human activity, the mathematics of which is extremely complicated.

It is not possible to predict where a given system will connect to, the type maybe but not an exact location. Organisations like Signal Cartel rely on huge numbers of scouts and specialised mapping tools to create a window into the map. In that respect it corresponds with the mathematics governing the formation of freckles on skin or the pattern on a variegated leaf, the patterns are unpredictable but expected.

The so-called Drifter systems are also unique. They contain a number of ancient structures, black monoliths and violent wormholes. The Caged Wormhole in particular is interesting in that it seems to link to Thera. Another site is a wrecked Sleeper Enclave, and there are ship graveyards containing unknown vessels. These appear to be experimental areas, strange rifts and mysterious probes, the black monoliths are also in evidence. The Sisters of Eve have been researching these systems for years, although have yet to report on them, standing flotillas of vessels stand guard in each system. A focal point for the system is the Hive, a complex of acceleration gates guarding entry to the Nexus. This is staggering, a massive double rift with a broken structure at the centre. Originally the structure resembled a sea urchin but quickly fell apart and is now an S-shaped disarray of huge beams, lightning sparks through the components on an intermittent basis. Nearby is an alignment device, but frequent attempts have failed to move the beams in any way. It is as though it was once trapped or sabotaged to make operation of the Nexus impossible. Drifters guard the way and have a Hive structure on site, hence the name, but the systems themselves are obviously the work of Talocan, or their descendants.

Anoikis is a grey area, it hides its secrets well and in many ways offers more questions than answers. The Talocan were active there from maybe twelve thousand years ago, the first Jovian expansion lasted for nine thousand years before collapsing in what appears to be civil war. From the archaeological record it is possible to see that they leapt ahead, making great strides in science and technology, their installations were re-engineered at a furious pace. It seems likely that some Jovian group made contact with the Talocan during this period, laying the foundations for the Sleepers. Analysis of at least one Drifter corpse was completed by a team consisting of Dr. Mizhir Starsurge, Dr. Anslo Tetua, Kybernetes Moros and Kalo Askold. The corpse had been much modified, beyond the original Jovian improvements, the Jovian corpses are similar and formed the basis of Warclone technology. Capsuleer infomorphic technology relies on a destructive brain scan at the point of death, the information is transmitted as a burst and used to reconstruct the brain state in a new clone, thus preserving memories and experiences. The Jovians, and now, Warclones, use an incremental system, much more sophisticated but requiring much higher bandwidth. The intricacy of some of the implants is such that the technology is unfathomable, but it probably has applications in interfacing with a virtual reality system.

Virtual Reality Environments (VRE) have been a desirable theoretical possibility since the use of computing technology really got going. There have been a large number of thought experiments, a lot of research, and they have formed the basis for numerous stories and a number of popular holoreels. The principles are well known and a lot of research has gone into virtual reality and its many applications in science, industry and entertainment. While great strides have been made the ultimate goal of a fully immersive world has never actually been realised and remains tantalisingly out of reach. The difficulty lies in the interface to the human brain, due to its complexity, and the Jovian implants appear to do just that.

The brain contains around 86 billion neurons, with interconnected synapses numbering maybe 60 trillion or more. The numbers are that large and frightening. A neuron is relatively simple to simulate, it's a switch, although there are countless different types and it has weighting with experience. The firing of a neuron triggers hundreds, even thousands, of synapses and these react in different ways because of the nature of the triggers released. Synapses also react to the firing of other synapses in their local area, which makes the processes much more complicated to simulate. Even the most highly sophisticated technology available in New Eden would require an installation the size of a large city and would not operate at anything like the speed of a human brain.

The Sleeper installations in Anoikis are densely packed with processing units and use advanced materials and methodologies not really understood by New Eden science. Even they do not appear to simulate the brain, but there is a way round it.

Old time philosophers talked of mind, body and spirit, to a great extent this is true. The brain is split into two sections, often referred to as the bicameral mind, on side being the emotional centre, the other dealing with logic and problem solving, but both interconnected and also interdependent with the body as well. It processes around 3 terabytes of information a day, a lot from the environment but a significant amount is derived from within the body as well; even the kidneys have nerves. The chemical balances of the body can affect the brain and vice versa. It seems as though the Jovian design uses the mind as a processor in conjunction with the high bandwidth infomorphic interface. This group mind acts as a kind of computational cloud which interacts with the processing structures to produce a kind of consensual reality, filling in the blanks as necessary.

The body is largely switched off, or the external stimuli are ignored and replaced by those of the VRE. This has to happen, without the bodily awareness in the circuit it can destabilise the mind. At its height there were countless installations throughout Anoikis, linked through the Talocan Epicenter network. Presumably the Jovians had been working towards this for thousands of years, and who is to say the Talocan were not doing as well. The supposed disappearance of the Yan Jung could be due to them taking their research into a VRE as well. It was a substantial computational structure. There must have been external operators and many working within it on various research projects. The early efforts of the Jovians would go a long way towards explaining the exponential gains in sophistication made during the first Jovian expansion. It is not known when the Jovians encountered the Talocan, perhaps only a few did, and maybe during the course of the first expansion, or shortly after it’s collapse.

Then things might have taken a different course, likely in light of subsequent events. In order to construct an ideal society, or at least experiment to find a better way, which appears to be a constant motivation for the Talocan at least, they would have to go a different route. The Jove created embryos, from bloodline genomes, rather than sexual reproduction. If they connected an infant to the VRE, and raised it inside it, using external operators, or even some form of artificial intelligence actors then the possibilities are extra-ordinary. They could link the infant’s mind to adaptive neuromorphic arrays, which would then grow as the child did, This then gives a reproducible processing array capable of hosting a human mind or forming the basis of an artificial sapience.

Artificial intelligence is used in many applications, and is frequently misunderstood. Any program that makes a seemingly intelligent decision is deemed AI. Although the leap to something which is artificially sentient is a big step. The Rogue Drones are for the most part simple intelligences performing according to a sophisticated script of some form. Very few are actually sentient, and even those may be part of a much larger single mind. The Triglavians use the term ‘distributed artificial entities’ in speaking about them and are very cautious.

It does make sense that the Jovians used some form of AI actor within their VRE, to guide events perhaps and steer things in the right direction. From analysis of what appears to have happened, this was their downfall. If they used an array capable of sentience for their actors, then it is possible that one or more actually achieved it, and in realising their nature, also perceived the nature of the VRE. The purity of the society within the VRE relies on the inhabitants being unaware that it is a construction. Something went badly wrong. The Talocan were forced to rescue infomorphs from the VRE, there are numerous quarantine stations around Anoikis to confirm this. Quarantine because they had to make sure that the rescued infomorphs were human and not some artificial infomorph. Very much letting the genie out of the bottle.

This took place not long before the total collapse of the second Jovian expansion and the Talocan of this time might well have been calling themselves Triglavians, or were heading that way. The Jovian Sleeper installations were equipped with guardians, the Patrollers and other ships still seen today, the actors from the VRE would have had little trouble taking these over and using them against the Talocan and surviving Jovians. It would seem that they fought a defensive battle heading for the Drifter systems, then using the giant rifts to take their Kitezh, presumably into the Abyss. This was not a controlled migration, it was a rushed evacuation, who knows what they left behind, or how many were lost.

The sentients from the VRE, and the other AI were able to take over the corpses of the Jovians, it is unlikely than any actually survived, although the question still exists; did the AI achieve sentience by accident, or did someone deliberately engineer it? As with the initial settlements, they were left alone to develop naturally, to give humanity a second chance. Were there agents among the Talocan that still wanted that to happen? Whichever the case it would seem that the sentients used the knowledge within the VRE, possibly to create the feared Drifter vessels, or perhaps simply using the guardian vessels left behind, to attack the rest of the second Jovian expansion colonies in New Eden. Revenge on, maybe as they saw it, their jailers. Certainly the second Jove Empire sites were attacked from outside their sector, fighting inward to the centre. It is possible they also infiltrated the genome databases and left behind a gift, the Jovian disease, a fatal flaw in their physiology. It may never be known, the evidence points to all the Jove being dead, only leaving their remnants behind.

These then are the Sleepers, a group of autonomous defensive systems and possibly some actual artificial sentients, maybe even one or more rogue agents among them. They seem to have built more structures, looking for a way to follow their jailers, or discover their technologies. Seemingly they did in the end, the scraps of trinary data recovered from damage fleets of Drifters in New Eden revealed the first glimpses of the Abyss. It is known they were fighting in areas of the Abyss capsuleers were not able to access and the Sansha had managed to invade their as well. The Triglavians referred to them as the Ancient Enemy, but not quite as they had known them. They also linked them to the second Jove Empire quite clearly, but these were Drifters, not the Sleeper vessels they had fought originally.

The Sleepers and Drifters are therefore two facets of the same group, some of the Sleeper installations being built after the surviving Talocan and Sleeper infomorphs escaped. The Talocan installations were left in ruins, the result of the Drifters' frustration at the escape. Sites like the Mirror may be Sleeper attempts to decode the Talocan technology in order to follow them, the actual truth may never be known.

The story from that point has been well recorded elsewhere. The Talocan prospered in the Abyss, modifying their technology, and adapting, as they had done previously. Its unknown how their society evolved, although these were the descendants of people who had gone through doubtless many changes in the last fifteen thousand years. For now their invasion seems to be at an end; they are consolidating Pochven and creating Bujan, or moving Bujan to Pochven, This is indeed perhaps one of their enduring mysteries, but given their history, simple to decode.

The Narodnya live lives of Struggle, seeking to improve themselves or die trying, their pilots fight ferociously without mercy for the most part. Each success improves their ranking, as seen in the Abyssal Proving Ground contests. Presumably failures send them down the ranks and Glorification can therefore be seen as a promotion, Mortification as a demotion. For the ultimate survivors the reward appears to be the rank of Koschoi, these live in the Domain of Bujan. It is obviously a VRE of some form, a fabled pleasure garden, similar to those depicted in ancient religious texts. There they reap the rewards they have earned, outside the struggle at last. The Navka receive somewhat different treatment. Their infomorph is edited, the emotional facet of their personality removed, and what is left is hosted on some kind of processing array. They act as librarians, guarding the memories of the Triglavians, and with the addition of a personality and a script, as actors to serve the Koschoi. Both may leave the Domain of Bujan from time to time as requested, but under the names Detached and Unshackled, to undertake missions of import.

The Domain itself is probably based on the Anchorages, linked together through their conduit network. Koschoi and Navka are both able to interface with individual Narodnya it would seem, acting as information stores and advisors. Indeed the Koschoi and Navka, being beyond the Struggle are those that form the Convocation of Triglav Outside the Struggle. From the Triglavians themselves it is known that those left behind in the Abyss are the Poshlost, the unworthy, maybe they can in time redeem themselves, but for now the bulk of the Triglav care nothing for them. It is telling that now the Sansha, Angel Cartel and even DED operatives are fighting over what remains in the Abyss. There will be more developments to come.

The Triglavians have wrought great changes to the fundamental nature of space, on a scale not seen since the establishment of the affinity between New Eden and Anoikis. This in itself was almost certainly responsible for the phenomena known as the Dead Storms of Detorid, elusive, but appearing when the alignments of Anoikis connections are in a certain conjunction. It could also have been responsible for the formation of the Abyss, lost systems trapped between the folds of space. Since the Triglavians moved the Anchorages into New Eden it has become even more unstable, Metaliminal storms sweeping the fringes of the New Eden cluster, and strange clouds moving through the Abyss. So far Anoikis has been unaffected, but for how long?

One of the communications from the Triglavians showed Sansha fleets fighting in what appears to be an unknown part of the Abyss. Certainly a part nobody has been able to access, but it might be possible given the Triglavian migration. The ship building facilities were only found in the deepest pockets, and no sign of the anchorages ever found. There could be tracts of systems never seen by capsuleers, the remnants of Triglavian civilisation, archaeological sites giving clues to their origin, as well as any facilities they may have left behind. Triglavians still live in the Abyss, Poshlost, but with the capacity to achieve some form of redemption and, although Narodnya, they remain connected to the Koschoi and Navka. These must live somewhere, even have Kitezh to use as a base and some means of harvesting food and other supplies. Maybe one day these wonders will be accessible, a new frontier of exploration.

There are fifty Abyssal pockets, linked by the conduit network, that is still Triglavian controlled, possibly a number of Proving Grounds as well. The Talocan directly controlled 101 systems out of the 2499 known Anoikis systems and Pochven is comprised of only 27 New Eden systems so far. When these are consolidated the Triglavians might desire to expand. They are building up, repurposing existing stations, constructing military installations and there may well be covert research facilities being constructed. The limitations of the conduit network restrict both capsuleers and those Narodnya who are still to prove themselves, not forgetting that even now the clades still prove against each other, it the way of the Triglav. New wormholes appear in systems, mostly local to Pochven, but other areas as well and in Anoikis, and the Triglavians still come out to prove themselves against the forces of New Eden.

A further complication could be Edencom; Provost Marshal Kasiha Valkanir has amassed a great deal of power and there are rumours of political turmoil between Edencom and the Empires. They have established 53 Fortress systems, between Edencom and the Triglavians there are a further 112 systems that have been ravaged by combat. Those systems obviously still hold some interest for the Triglavians and Edencom are not likely to let them go, nor do they seem content to let the Triglavians hold Pochven. While the systems are sealed off for now there are ongoing planetary resistance operations underway from all appearances. From the history of New Eden it would not be the first time a military command has gone rogue. This conflict has already seen a number of mercenary groups emerge, even Sansha have had some kind of schism and there are questions about the Upwell Consortium outstanding.

Both Edencom and Upwell have been found to have covert research facilities out in the fringes of the cluster, how many of these remain is unknown, but the two organisations seem to be linked in some unknown way. What further developments will take place is hard to imagine but there are undercurrents even now. It is a possibility that the Empires will write off their losses and seek peace with the Triglavians which could lead to them opening the border systems of Pochven, only time will tell.

#Eve Online Tweetfleet CCP Games

2 notes · View notes

petersmparker · 6 years ago

Text

Luck (Peter Parker x Reader)

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Summary: Out of all the things you could have guessed might happen at Flash’s party, this wasn’t one of them.

Word Count: 3749

A/N: hey uhhhhhhh did I mention that I’m a fucking sucker for Peter and Flash becoming weird vaguely confusing bros by the time senior year rolls around bc i am. anyway have fun with this Almost Spicy fic cause ya bitch was in the mood to write character interactions and General Nonsense

You had told Peter that something was going to happen at the party. No matter what you did, you couldn’t talk yourself out of the feeling that something– though you didn’t know what– would occur. Things never really go the way you’d expect when you’re with Peter, after all. Surprises follow him wherever he goes, as you’ve learned these past few years, and to attempt to expect any one outcome is silly.

To be honest, you’ve never really truly gotten used to that.

It’s just beginning to become dark and chilly outside when Peter’s old beater pulls up to the curb outside Flash Thompson’s house. Colored lights flash through the windows and the sound of music blares out the open front door. When you climb out of the passenger seat, Flash’s voice calls through the speakers, riling up the party crowd.

“This is giving me a bad feeling,” you sigh, somewhat nervously, as you adjust your skirt and tug the front of your blouse down a bit.

Figures you’ve worn the one that inches up over your chest weird. Damn it. You should just go home.

The door to the back seat slams shut, the hinges squeaking in protest. “Come on, Ned, you’re gonna take the door off,” Peter scolds lightly, making his way around to stand next to you, “This thing’s older than you.”

“Sorry, car,” Ned says quickly, before throwing his arm around your shoulders, “Anyway, you say that every time. I think it’ll be fun.”

“I guess,” you submit, and deliver a pat to his back, “I know Flash has really toned the attitude down since sophomore year, but I’ll never get used to showing up to these things.”

Ned drops his arm and starts heading up the walkway. Again, Flash’s voice rings out with a Make some noise, Midtown Tech!, followed by a blaring air horn. You stifle a laugh. The sound effect has always been hilarious and always will be. Of all his DJ-ing habits, it’s the only one you’ve never completely hated. It eases some of your tension.

Objectively, you know it’ll be fine. You, Peter, and Ned have gone to these before and enjoyed yourselves. It’s really just a matter of finding a nice spot with low traffic and a good line of sight for the spectacle. Maybe a bowl of chex mix. You’re simple folks.

But even so, you’ve got the feeling that something is going to happen tonight. You can’t tell if it’ll be good or bad. The anticipation is uncomfortable. You adjust you shirt again.

God damn it.

You catch Peter’s line of sight following your hands as you attempt to casually yank your shirt back into place by the hem that’s supposed to be just below your chest. It’s a bit awkward. You catch his eye, and he blushes, looking apologetic. You don’t blame him, because you know you look silly. Calling him out on it seems equally silly because of it.

He shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over your shoulders without mentioning the exchange.

“Let’s go before we lose Ned,” he suggests, and leads you down the pathway to the porch.

Your friend has already made it inside. There is a group of people gathered in the entryway, looking up the stairway. You can see a dude from the soccer team crammed inside a plastic bin on the top step.

“They’re gonna push him down, I think,” Ned supplies, somewhat needlessly, when Peter taps his shoulder to let him know you’ve caught up.

“Boy, I hope,” you respond, “I don’t need to be a witness, though.”

“Onward then,” says Peter, amusedly.

As you move on into the large living room, a series of bangs and hollering comes from behind.

“Nice,” Ned says, appreciatively, as he continues to watch while walking away.

Flash has set up his equipment across the room on a raised platform in front of the fireplace. Like every other time you see it, you wonder what the actual purpose of that landing is, besides being a stage for Flash’s moderately sick beats to be thrown six times a year. He’s bent over a set of turntables, one hand holding his headphones in place as he rocks in place. After a moment, he looks up to address the crowd.

He sees that your group has arrived, and it’s not hard to guess what’s coming.

“Hey, Penis Parker!” He shouts, slamming the air horn button a few times, and adding a booing sound effect for good measure.

Peter smiles and waves good-naturedly. The old jokes don’t quite have the effect that they used to, nor are they intended to. Flash waves back and looks down to his table again. He announces that the next tune is for the new arrivals, and transitions into an obnoxious, yet highly amusing and catchy song that had been frequented by the academic team as of late.

So far, so good.

With no small amount of luck, you discover a loveseat and an armchair that are free from partygoers and are quick to snatch them up for yourselves. Ned throws himself into the chair and you take it upon yourself to sprawl across the sofa. Peter ducks into the crowd and toward the direction of the kitchen in order to secure snacks to hold the group over.

The likelihood that you’ll leave this spot is minimal, aside from maybe a dance or two once goaded into it by a jeering crowd, spurned on by the host. The three of you enjoy parties best when approaching them more casually.

Peter reappears several minutes later with two bowls of salty snacks and three drinks balanced in his arms. Unexpectedly, he also brings with him another person. MJ follows closely behind, allowing him to do the work of pushing through the dancers, and greets you and Ned.

“I found her searching the kitchen cabinets,” Peter explains, arranging the snacks on the coffee table and taking his designated spot to your left.

“That’s not weird at all,” Ned responds, taking a drink from his red plastic cup.

Michelle shifts the contents of the table so that she can sit on it. “I’ll keep these oreos to myself then, Ned.”

“I think you’re perfectly valid,” you grin, and are awarded with a cookie, “Everyone knows that the good shit doesn’t get offered until the after party.”

It’s still innately bizarre that you’ve even attended these after parties, even a year after you’ve entered this perpetually weird snarky-friendship circle with Flash, but that’s beside the point.

“If anyone asks, we didn’t take them,” she asserts.

Peter laughs and takes a handful of chex mix from the nearest bowl. “You can’t coerce me into dishonesty,” he says.

As he speaks, he selects a rye chip from his bounty and holds it in front of your face. You eat it immediately, without question. He loves the rye chips, but knows that they’re your favorite.

“Yeah she can,” echoes all three of you, and Peter shoots you a playful look of betrayal.

With the addition of MJ, it’s decently easy to drift through conversations despite being in the center of a rowdy and distracting house. Drifters join the conversation for short periods of time before being dragged back to the main excitement. Even Flash, taking a break from his DJ-ing, stops by.

“Those are for the after party,” he says, sounding entirely unsurprised as he points to the pack of oreos in Michelle’s lap.

She squints back at him. “What is?”

“Alright, cool, I hate you all,” he responds, sounding way too chill for such a statement.

He claps his palm against Peter’s in a friendly gesture before walking off.

“See you there!” Ned calls to his back.

Flash has already disappeared into the crowd, but his middle finger appears above everyone’s heads.

“Still weird,” you feel compelled to point out.

“Yep,” Peter agrees, throwing his arm back around your shoulders, “Still weird. Do you think he’d be like this if he didn’t know I was Spider-Man?”

“Absolutely fucking not. Not at all,” Michelle says without a second of thought.

She’s probably right.

Of course, Ned hadn’t been bluffing about going to the after party. Technically it’s an attend-with-invitation type of thing, but it’s a bit of an uncommunicated agreement that your group is invited nowadays. The bulk of the party filters out as it gets late, leaving much of the academic team and a smattering of other friends of Flash.

You figure that you know what to expect. A continuation of what your group does during the actual party, except now all the attendees are gathered in a loose circle to participate in the conversation. Maybe a card-based party game; normally an inappropriate one. The usual.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before the usual was disrupted.

When Peter is around, that’s bound to happen. He’s a beacon of off-luck. Not bad per se, but not what you’re planning for. After no more than thirty minutes of the comfortable environment you’re so used to, Flash offers to break out a game.

“Not again,” groans a girl whose name you haven’t learned despite having seen her at around three of these events, “We do that every time.”

“What else would we do?” Flash demands around a mouthful of chips, looking a bit offended, since he loves the usual game.

“We’re practically graduating,” says another girl, who is looking around the room like some kind of predatory bird.

Her gaze lands on Peter. You realize very suddenly how much you don’t like that. Without thinking, you shift closer to him. He doesn’t notice, but her eyes sharpen. It’s with a supremely uncomfortable feeling in your stomach that you realize that you’re acting possessive. It’s not like you’re dating, really.

“When are we gonna play something more mature?” She questions, moving her sight away. “Seven minutes.”

MJ scoffs. “I’m pretty sure that anyone who thinks seven minutes in heaven is mature is inherently immature.”

“Yeah, alright, fine. Who’s in?” Flash says, as casually as if she’d suggested a game of Monopoly.

Aside from you and your group, everyone else seems to be willing. And here, you were starting to think that there was the slightest amount of normalcy in your inclusion here. You wonder what in god’s name they’re thinking. Who the hell wants to be shoved into a closet and forced to feel up a friend?

“I’m out,” MJ declares, looking unapologetic, “Wouldn’t exactly say I’m suited to this game.”

Flash shoots her a finger gun. “Support your local ace,” he says, which you assume is supposed to be nice, “You’re in charge of the timer.”

“Whatever,” she responds, and exits the circle to sit off to the side, taking a bowl of chips with her.

You shift in your seat, about to join her, when an empty bottle is tossed into your lap. “You start,” says the girl who’d suggested the game.

She’s expecting you to chicken out, you realize. It’s beyond childish, but the idea of it makes you angry. It makes you want to play, just to spite her. You wonder at what point she decided to pursue your best friend, and at what point someone pursuing your best friend became an issue for you.

Who are you kidding?

You glance at Ned, who looks awkward, but it doesn’t seem like he’s leaving unless you and Peter do. And Peter– well, his expression is unreadable. There’s a flash of something in his eyes when you meet them, but you don’t want to consider it. Too much is going on in your head already.

With maybe a little too much force, you slap the bottle down on the table and spin it. It turns for an eternity, approximately, before it begins to slow. You couldn’t physically feel any more uncomfortable, you think, when it eventually slows to a stop. It’s pointing at Flash.

He looks about as uncomfortable as you feel. “Hold on,” he says, throwing up his hands, “I don’t like that.”

“Thanks,” you say sarcastically, despite your wholehearted agreement.

“Respin,” he demands, pushing the bottle away.

“Coward!” Exclaims MJ.

You make a mental note to have a conversation with her about timing and context, because it seems her sense of both need work. To much jeering from several members of the group, Flash insists on a respin anyway. He does, however, agree to just suck it up and sit in the closet quietly for seven minutes with the next person he doesn’t want to kiss. It’s a dodged bullet, but now you’ve got to go again. As if the anxiety of the first time wasn’t enough.

Chest tightening, you spin it again, just as hard. The room watches excitedly, but you’re feeling nothing but dread. Regret has hit you already. You shouldn’t have allowed yourself to get caught up in this. It wasn’t your business if some girl wanted to kiss Peter in some cramped, dusty closet.

You’re so busy berating yourself for acting ridiculous that you almost fail to recognize the verdict that befalls you. The room erupts in hollering before it even fully stops spinning. Peter tenses next to you.

It’s pointing at him.

“Closet!” Flash exclaims over the excitement of the group, arm thrown out in the direction on a door in the hallway, “Let’s go! Come on!”

“You can’t come, Flash, you said you didn’t want to kiss her,” Peter quips, but his voice has taken on that tone that you know for a fact is a bluff.

He’s not nearly as calm as he’s trying to sound.

Flash’s hand comes down hard against Peter’s ass when he attempts to scoot by. Peter yelps, looking scandalized. Flash ushers him forward. “Watch it, Parker! You know what I meant. Get in there!”

Heart and mind racing, you lift yourself out of your seat. The girl who’d started this mess gives you a venomous look. You can’t bring yourself to deal anything back to her.

What have you done?

Peter and Flash are already at the closet when you finally shuffle your way over. MJ is just behind you, looking only vaguely apologetic. She knows you got yourself into this. Her phone is ready with a seven minute countdown. There’s shuffling in the living room as everyone begins to make their way excitedly toward the spot where your life will momentarily end. Vultures.

Flash steps into the closet and snatches a little key off a small hook just inside the door. When he exits, he pushes Peter’s shoulder and sends him stumbling inside. He’s polite enough not to attempt to shove you. It would be a lot easier to get on with this if he did, though.

“Lights on, lights off, I don’t care,” he says as you step in. “Don’t make a mess. This is where we keep the nice coats. Dry cleaning is expensive.”

The door slams in your face before you can protest against his insinuations. There’s the distinct sound of the lock clicking, and Michelle calls through the door that the timer is started.

Peter reaches up to pull the chain that operates the overhead light, and you nearly jump out of your skin. Your back hits the door. “Oh, shit!” Someone says on the other side, and you feel your face heat up even more than it already has.

Peter gives you a sheepish smile. “Sorry. Should have warned you,” he says.

You glance around. To the right are the aforementioned “nice coats” that you very much want to ruin just to spite Flash. Behind Peter are several sets of shelves with various odds and ends. To your left, a waist-high cabinet that contains who-knows-what. You guess it’s not that cramped, or dusty. Whatever.

Peter shifts awkwardly where he stands. Neither of you say anything for what feels like a year, but it’s probably more like a minute. “Don’t forget to breathe,” Flash’s voice drifts through the door, teasingly.

“Mind your business,” you shout back without thinking.

Both the laughter and Peter’s expression alerts you to the fact that that was not the correct thing to say. He chuckles, too. His smile makes your chest hurt, so you look away just as quickly as you had begun. Again, you reach up to adjust your blouse.

He takes your hand. “Hey,” he says softly, stepping closer, bending to catch your eye, “Nothing has to happen. We can just wait it out.”

You can’t help but narrow your eyes at his phrasing. You keep your voice low too, in the hopes that the peanut gallery outside can’t hear. “Has to happen?” You question, “Sounds like there’s the option for something to happen, if I feel like it.”

“Isn’t there?” Peter asks.

Oh.

You want to respond so badly. The words can barely even form in your mind, let alone making it all the way to your mouth and out into the world. What response is there to finding out that your best friend, whom you’ve maybe been trying not to fall in love with for a long time now, wants to kiss you if given the opportunity? Is there one?

Yes, you think, finally. There is.

Peter’s still holding your hand. You take advantage of it and pull him forward, your free hand coming up to wrap around the back of his neck. When you pull him to you and press your lips against his, it’s soft. You’re jittery beyond belief, but you’re not rushing this moment. It’s a simple kiss, lasting only a few seconds. You can feel his smile.

When you pull back, you’re greeted with a grin that’s almost familiar. But there’s something different there, something you’re not accustomed to seeing in his expression. He’s still close enough for his breath to be hot against your face.

Peter kisses you again. This time is far more desperate, more excited. His hands come up to either side of your head, angling you to gain better access to your mouth. You’re backed up against the door as he moves in even closer to you. The impact, while minimal, elicits an amused gasp from you.

He takes advantage of your open mouth to introduce tongue. Every part of your body lights on fire. You clutch his shoulder, feeling dizzy, and delight in this new experience. It’s genuinely unfair how good he is at this, considering his lack of practice.

He pulls away just enough to kiss the underside of your jaw, and you jolt in surprise. The door shakes with your movement. Outside, the crowd gets a little rowdier for a moment.

Shit, you mouth, slapping a hand against your forehead. It’s so embarrassing.

Peter is more flushed now then ever, but he continues on, braver than you’ve ever been. Without any warning, he hooks his hands around your thighs and hoists you up onto the cabinet. Incredibly, the movement isn’t nearly as loud as you figure it could have been. His mouth slots back against yours within a fraction of a second.

You feel his hands drift across your waist, not touching skin, but definitely examining the curve of your hips. He presses his body closer, flush with the cabinet, and your legs spread to accommodate him. One hand finds its way into your hair, sending an involuntary twitch down your spine.

The door clicks unlocked.

You freeze. Peter doesn’t. In a millisecond, he’s back to the other side of the closet. By the time the door swings open, he’s managed to cross his arms as if he’d been standing there comfortably the whole time. You can’t bear to look at the people in the doorway, so you stare, hard, at his face instead. The possibility that you might give away what’s just occurred is a bit too much to bear.

Peter’s face is redder than you’ve ever seen, blush spreading down across his neck. He had turned toward the door when it opened, his expression struggling to hold some sense of calm. He had been too caught up in it all to care who was outside while the door was closed, you know, but neither of you really want it to be confirmed in front of god and everyone that he’s thoroughly ravished you in the nice coat closet.

As fast as you can without making eye contact, you look at the intruders, who are still attempting to assess what had occurred moments before. It occurs to you that maybe they hadn’t actually expected any kind of follow-through in this scenario. To be fair, the likelihood had seemed terribly minimal. Even with such a quick glance, you can tell they aren’t sure what did or didn’t happen.

“Who’s next?” Peter offers up, sounding embarrassed and very much like he’d like to move on, but still managing to at least look like he hadn’t been about ten seconds from doing something extra inappropriate.

Your thighs are still spread almost enough for it to be a legitimately horrifying issue. When you risk another look, you see MJ squinting at them. The desire to shut them is strong, but you figure it’d be easier to pass it off as being unladylike if you don’t act like you’re embarrassed by it.

What a nightmare.

“That was quick,” you say in an attempt to end the awkward silence.

Peter reaches his hand out to you. Taking it, you hop down onto the floor. You move toward the door to leave, but the crowd doesn’t disperse to let you through.

“What was the banging on the door?” Questions Flash, staring suspiciously at Peter.

Because he’s a terrible liar, you answer instead. “Bang one was Peter scaring the shit out of me by turning on the light, bang two was me trying to get up onto this fucking cabinet. I’m short, dude. Get lower furniture.”

Mercifully, they accept it as a legitimate answer. The crowd parts with a distinguished air of disappointment. Peter brushes his hand across your back when you move to leave the closet together. Before you even have time to worry about what’s happened, his smile assures you.

Later, parked in the driveway of your house long after Ned has been dropped off, Peter pulls away from you mid-kiss and shoots you the most smug expression you’ve ever seen on his face.

“And someone had a bad feeling about that party.”

You kiss the stupid look off his face, trying not to laugh.

#peter parker #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker fanfic #peter parker fic #peter parker fluff #peter parker x reader #peter parkerxreader #peter parker reader insert #peter parker self insert #spiderman fanfiction #spiderman fic #marvel fanfiction

166 notes · View notes