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kitzatara · 5 years

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DC Pirate AU

(I got struck with the pirate need and since y’all liked the god goddess one I did. I figured I’d share this as well). LONG POST I’M SORRY! I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO THE KEEP READING CUT ON MOBILE.

In this world it’s pirates vs the monarchy. The pirates have established bases and territory on relatively small islands on a route that is well traveled. Despite numerous efforts by the royal navy, the pirates have managed to continuously defeat royal forces. Many commoners and civillians whisper that the pirates have more than guns, canons, and ships in their favor but who can really be certain?

The isles:

ATLANTIS: Smack in the center of pirate territory is the partially submerged fortress of atlantis. Despite being partiality submerged, it is fairly large and navigating it is treacherous. Stone towers and chunks of wall hover just below the surface ready to smash the underbelly of privateer ships. Despite several raids with canon fire the fortress remains intact. Some privateers claim canon never reaches the stone. Others say the stone won’t crack. More say it’s as if a great invisible dome protects it. Kaldur is the young pirate who rules there, the ruler of atlantis.

LIGHTNIN’ ISLAN’: Slightly to the East of Atlantis is a stretch of island with a passing resemblance to a lightning bolt. It’s also known for constant thunderstorms above it. The legends say no one but a pirate can set foot on the island. And that deep within its evergreen forest lies miles of buried treasure, defended by the red lightning spirits and the green ghosts of pirates murdered on the island. The most commonly spotted ghost is a centuries old soldier by the name of Hal Jordan. Him and the reportedly living flashes of lightning keep the faint of heart away.

ANIMAL KINGDOM: a smaller island to the west of Atlantis with multiple sand bars extending from its core. Some call them Anansi’s legs. An african trickster god. It’s nicknamed that due to the african warrior demigoddess who rules the island. Notorious for destroying slaver ships and raiding ports who trade in people. Mari mccabe is called the pirate vixen. Stronger than a whale, more ruthless than a shark, faster than a marlan, trickier to catch than an octopus. No one dares attack the animal kingdom, those who’ve tried haven’t lived to tell the tale.

SIREN’S ROCKS: To the North East of Atlantis, just past lightnin islan, is a treacherous outcroping of rocks. Littered with the broken remains of foolish ships past. With such a visible reputation you would think sailors would steer clear. But something about those rocks draws men in, maybe it’s the way the wind blows through the rocks and creates a sound like women laughing. Maybe it’s the reported lights that dance through the rocks at night, causing investigating ships to crash before they realize the danger. Maybe it’s the rumor of three beautiful women who bring women to their rocks for safety. Men have tried looking for the alleged women. Now their ships are covered in seaweed and rampant moss.

METAL ISLAND: Further to the North East, is a floating fortress, made of metal. It’s an ominous construction run by the mysterious Victor “Peg-Leg-Stone”. The scariest rumors say the fortress is a ship. With the most canons seen in any naval fleet. Many have tried to contact it. No response has been given. At night the ship glows an eerie red, and canon fire can be heard around it.

MYSTERY ISLE: reports place the island somewhere to the North West of Atlantis and just past Animal Kingdom. But, no one can ever seem to find it. An omnipresent mist surrounds its borders. But even with the previous coordinates it’s nigh impossible to find. Superstitious people say the island tends to move around, and that its lush vibrant jungle is alive. Even more unnerving, it is rumored to be the home of a great and powerful sea witch. Capable of bewitching the sea and tide or bringing you to your fate. Only the most desperate visit the lair of the sea witch Zatanna on her living greed island.

BAT CAVE COVE: Directly North of Atlantis is a peninsula litered with caves. There are said to be thousands of bats that dwell within the caves. But the strangest part is the pirate crw that lives there too. Their ship has sails dark as the night and has a black hull to match. When they sail at sunset no ship can spot them until it’s too late. Even more interesting is the land behind the bat caves. A forest litered with craters. Nicknamed crater forest, many people say it’s the sight where angels fell to the earth. One pirate rumored to be one of these angels s said to jump ships in a single bound, swim faster than fired canon ball. Some who see him turn tail in run instantly except he’s hardly ever seen since he sails with pirates of Bat Cave Cove.

ISLAND OF THE PIRATE QUEEN: Diana, queen of all pirates, most skilled and dangerous dwells on a large Island nestled between two royal territories just South West of Atlantis. They say her only rival in all the seven seas is young Kaldur, many pirates hoping the young ruler of Atlantis will become her successor. Diana commands her own fleet of amazonian pirate women. Much to the royals irritation she is unsinkable, her numbers are unfallable, her fortress impenetrable. She is the only real threat to royal rule and should she unite the pirate ships under her greecian banner than the entire sea couod be lost to pirate rule.

Th Royal Navy:

The highest ranking commanders in the royal navy are Leutinant Alexander Luthor, Major Vandal Savage, Warden Brian Issakson (brainiac) and the Lord Darkseid. Lord of Apokolips Fort, the most highly defended port in all the seas. Doomsday prison is reserved exclusively for pirates and pirate sympathizers where the most brutal torture and murders take place. It lies to the south west, below Atlantis, Animal Kingdom and Mystery Isle. It lies just behind the border of pirate waters and hangs pirates by the dozens as a warning.

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jawsandbones · 6 years

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Perfume

Written for @lynngo-art, for winning the giveaway hosted by @dapromptexchange.

Pairing: Zevran x M!Warden

Rating: T (some violence)

AO3 Link: Click here

A slight thing, a small thing, fragile and glass. He pushes at the bottle with the tip of his finger, watches it wobble slightly. A pretty enough bauble, he supposes, although he’s not quite sure it’s worth the price. Pushing it again and it threatens to tip, so he reaches out quickly, catches it in his hand. The liquid inside it sways, moves back and forth as he holds it in his palm. He’s sure it’s foolishness to even be considering it. Still – he looks over his shoulder to see Zevran leaning over the shop counter, elbow on the table and his chin in his hands, giving a gracious smile to the clerk. Rémi’s grip tightens on the bottle.

He moves along the shelves, and the floor creaks underneath his careful steps. He’s carefully looking at everything – the soaps, powders and potions – filling up the basket at seeming random. His ears twitch slightly, his full attention not entirely on what’s in front of him. More, it’s focused to what he isn’t looking at. The sound of Zevran’s voice, the laughter of the clerk, and Rémi tosses another bar of soap in. A quick glance over his shoulder, and she’s brushing hair behind her ears, cheeks flushed pink. Rémi resists the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he looks down at Brutus, sitting near him. The mabari notices the attention being paid to him, and his short tail begins to wag.

He thinks that perhaps Zevran will be too distracted to notice. He glances down into the basket, and turns the bottle of perfume with his finger. A ribbon around the stopper, liquid that swirls pink. Even if he does notice – why would he have to defend the purchase? The others buy things for themselves all the time. Alistair doesn’t have to explain his constant need for new socks, and so Rémi doesn’t need to explain his desire for this perfume. Even if he’s never bought perfume before. He shakes the thought from his head as he walks to the counter.

“Ah, my Warden. There you are,” Zevran smiles so widely, so warmly at the sight of him. His posture straightening, but still slightly leaning against the counter, he shuffles over to stand right next to him. “Marie was telling me about the most charming inn just down the street. The Dragon’s Rest. She is good friends with the owner and would be willing to give us a discount, should we mention who sent us.” He gives a quick wink in her direction, and she bites her bottom lip, her gaze flicking between him and the counter. She pulls things from the basket, writing them down as she goes. She’s startled slightly by Brutus resting his face on the counter, but smiles at the sight of him. All of Ferelden certainly does love their dogs.

“A warm bath would be to die for,” Zevran sighs. They’ve been long on the road. Sleeping in mud and tattered tents, trudging through brush and bog. Denerim is a welcome respite from it all. An inn does sound nice, and a bath even better.

“Thank you for letting us know,” Rémi tells her. He stresses the ‘us’. He isn’t sure if Zevran notices it, as he’s too busy watching Alistair fumble with a book in the corner. Pulling it from a shelf, and it slips from his grasp. Fluttering paper as it spins three times before Alistair finally catches it. He clutches it to his chest when he grabs hold of it, and whips his head around the store to see if anyone saw him. Zevran is beaming at him, and Leliana presses a hand against her temple. Rémi only gestures as best he can with a sharp flick of his head, to get him to put the book back. He does.

“If that’s all, it’ll be 3 gold and 2 copper, ser,” Marie says. Zevran is playing with one of the flowers in the vase on the counter, while Rémi reaches into his pouch. She’s placing all the items back into the basket, a flash of pink as she goes, and he puts the coin on the counter. She’s counting it up while Zevran carefully takes one of the flowers, turning it in his hands and hiding it behind his back as he stands up completely.

“Thank you,” Rémi says again as he takes the basket, gives her a polite nod. She returns it, before her attention returns to Zevran. He’s walking backwards beside Rémi, gives her a smile and a wave before turning around. Alistair and Brutus hurry after them, Leliana following behind. The door chimes as it closes behind them. Out in the street, Zevran stretches, arms in the air, and quickening his steps to catch up to Rémi.

“For you, Caro,” he says, presenting the flower to him with a flourish and half a bow. It’s a green daylily, one of his favorites, although he’s sure that Zevran doesn’t know it.

“It’s beautiful,” he says.

“I saw it, and I thought of you,” Zevran says. He wants to tell him that the petals remind him of his eyes, that delicate shade of green. That he noticed Rémi pays attention to lilies the most, whenever they’re around flowers, and that he knows he likes them best. Instead, he’s caught up in the soft way Rémi looks at the flower, looks at him.

“I don’t know how you can do that so easily Zevran,” Alistair says, calling out to them, catching their attention.

“Hmm? Do what so easily?” Zevran asks, raising his eyebrows slightly, and looking over at him. He walks a little slower to let Alistair catch up, and steps in time with him. Rémi softly sighs, abruptly reminded of it, and starts looking for a sign for the inn.

“That.” Pointing a thumb over his shoulder, back in the direction of the shop. “Flirt,” he says with a sigh, an outward flare of his hands. Zevran throws back his head and laughs, wraps an arm around Alistair and pats his back sympathetically.

“You were listening in? My friend, it is a learned skill, honed by time and experience. And I have a lot of experience.” Satisfaction in his voice, given with a wink. “I would be quite happy to teach you, hmm? We will have all the ladies, or men, falling at your feet in no time.” The shell of Alistair’s ears burn bright red.

“I’m pretty sure half of Denerim could hear the way you were going on. And I don’t think I want you teaching me anything, thank you very much,” he tells him. Renewed laughter at that, another pat at his back, and his hand falls back to his side.

“I think it’s sweet that you don’t know how to flirt,” Leliana says.

“Don’t say that. That only makes it worse,” Alistair says, a groan following his words.

“It is sweet! That way, when you do give a compliment and try to flirt, it will sound much more sincere than Zevran’s pot of honey,” she says.

“You wound me. You make it sound as though my honey is not sincere. I am always quite sincere. I mean everything I say. I say you are handsome, and you are. I say Leliana is beautiful, and she is. I say I enjoy walking behind my Warden because of the way his ass-”

“Thank! You! Very much!” Alistair says, cutting in. Leliana laughs brightly as Alistair puts hands on Zevran’s shoulders, and pushes him back to Rémi’s side. He’s still grinning and Rémi can’t help but chuckle. His joy is always infectious. He’s still turning the flower in his free hand, lifting it up slightly and away from Brutus after he feels a curious and cold nose press against his knuckles. He’s almost relieved when he sees the sign – a dragon curled up around a bed. True to her word, all it takes it a mention of Marie for the price to be knocked down.

At their door, Rémi passes over things between Leliana and Alistair. A bar of soap for each of them, that powder that she specifically requested. The rest for Zevran and himself. Brutus is already stretched out on the bed by the time he steps inside the room, right beside where Zevran lays. His feet on the ground, but his body splayed out, as though half a star. “Ah, if only we could have a bed every night. What I would give to never sleep on the ground again,” he sighs as Rémi places the basket on the table nearby, the flower on top of it all. All it takes is a glance and a gesture to get Brutus off the bed and curling up by the door.

Fingertips tap against his knees. Moving up his thighs, a palm planted in the mattress by Zevran’s head. Leaning over him, straddling him, and he smirks as he lets his hands rest on Rémi’s hips. “Hello Caro,” he says in a low voice. Leaning over, and strands of Rémi’s long hair escape the braid and wisp around Zevran’s face. He doesn’t seem to mind, hands travelling over his back, as Rémi plants the kiss. Long and deep, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth. Hands on his face, cradling him tightly. He wants it to be enough. He wants to be enough.

Zevran’s looking for a way to keep him there, pulling at his robes, but Rémi abruptly moves away, stands instantly. “I should take advantage of the fact that we have a bath,” he says, watching as Zevran props himself up on elbows to watch him, “I feel filthy.”

“Should I join you?” he asks.

“Maybe next time,” he says, taking the basket with him as he slips into the bathroom. Opening the taps, he waits for the water to fill the bath. Putting the soap on the rack, the perfume on the counter. Standing in front of the mirror, Rémi undoes the braid and his robes drop to his feet. He twists a strand of his hair between his fingers as he looks at himself. Running his hands over the muscle that’s beginning to develop – one does not fight darkspawn constantly without some side effects.

Every part of him is rougher now, so far removed from his time spent in the Circle. There are barely any soft parts of him left. I would say I prefer a soft and shapely woman. He leans forward, runs a finger down his nose. Besides his hair, there’s no part of him that could be mistaken for a woman. I have a lot of experience. Zevran’s words, spoken in conversation, but words that Rémi can’t quite shake. Turning off the taps, he sinks into the water. Hair floats like tendrils all around him, and he reaches for the soap.

He nearly scrubs himself red, trying to wash away anything that might be unsatisfactory. Washing down to the very ends of his hair, soap on his face, under his arms. He dries himself easily, quickly, the magic heating underneath his skin. He takes the perfume from the basket. He’s not sure when he became so conscious of the way he looks. When he wanted to be better. A few drops on his wrists, at his neck. Enough for any to notice should they come near him. He only wants one to know. When he leaves the bathroom, he only has the towel wrapped around his waist.

“Ah. While you were bathing, Leliana came by with a letter. There’s a request from the Captain, of some urgency. A gang is gathering in an alley, and he believes they mean to make mischief. He is short on men and wonders if you might –” Rémi rubs the space between his brows.

“I guess I’d better get dressed,” he says.

“I’m sure any would be delighted to see you go to battle with only a towel. I would be delighted,” Zevran says.

They meet Leliana and Alistair at the door downstairs. His hair is braided again, his robes neat. His staff in his hands, sword sheathed on his belt, with Brutus and Zevran flanking him. They hurry their way through the streets, down winding narrow paths, under stone bridges. “Be ready,” Rémi tells the others as they draw nearer to their target. A gate, opened, is the only thing to cross. Zevran sees it too late.

“Caro –!” but Rémi is already walking across the threshold, the gate rolling down shut behind him. Leliana has an arrow tipped, pointed between the spaces of the gate. The bandits are emerging from behind crates and walls, one looking spectacularly pleased.

“You’re all alone now, Warden. You’ll pay for killing the others,” he says. Panic caught in his throat, Zevran dives towards the gate controls nearby. Locked. Dropping his daggers, he reaches for the lockpicks on his belt. Alistair is pacing as he watches, nearly ready to start trying to knock the metal gate down with his shield. Leliana lets the first arrow fly, catching one that stands behind the leader. A warning, but they’re still growing closer. Brutus is whining, digging at cobblestone, trying to find some way to his master.

Rémi takes a deep breath. Taking his staff in both hands, widening his stance. He draws at flame, marks a line around him. It doesn’t deter them. He is one. They are many. They charge with a shout, and not even Leliana can fire arrows fast enough to stop them. “Hurry up!” Alistair yells.

“Your shouting at me will not have me do this any faster!” Zevran yells back. He’s desperately trying to find the soft spots. To hear the lock click free. Instead, all he hears is the crack of Rémi casting lightning, the shouts of effort as he tries to keep them all back. Leliana, firing arrows, sending them expertly between the spaces of the gate, around Rémi. Zevran knows he can’t look away. He can’t look. Heart in his throat, fingers trembling, and he’s turning the pick.

“Augh!” At that, Zevran does look. His heart almost drops from his chest. Rémi is grimacing as his fingers wrap around the arrow embedded in the soft flesh of his shoulder. Sweat on his brow, both from the heat of the fire and the effort of casting so many spells. His heart caught in his throat, he’s stabbing at the lock, until finally – a click, and the lock rolls free, and Zevran pushes at the lever, the gate rolling upwards. Alistair charges forward with a wild cry, drawing their attention towards him.

The fire that had marked a separation between them slowly dies as Rémi steps back, lets the others handle it. Zevran picks up his daggers, moves instantly to his side. “Are you alright?” He asks. Jaw clenched tight, Rémi only nods, casts an errant ball of flame into the pack of bandits.

“Help the others,” he says. Zevran wants to disobey. He wants to stay by his side, force him away from the battle. Instead, he charges forward. Together, they make quick work of them. Their trap was effective, if crude. Zevran forces himself not to think of what might have happened if he hadn’t gotten the lock open. Leliana is reclaiming her arrows, while Alistair sheaths his sword. Rémi has his hand wrapped around the shaft of the arrow in him, and Zevran puts his hand on his chest.

“No. Don’t pull it out yet,” he says. “Can you heal it?”

“Maybe. I need some time before I can,” Rémi says. He looks exhausted. Trying to heal it now would only leave him dead on his feet. Zevran slips an arm around his waist, and he gratefully leans against him.

“I am going to take him back,” Zevran tells Alistair and Leliana. “You should let the Captain know that the job is complete.” Brutus walks beside them, his head hung low, a slow whine escaping him every once in a while.

Safe at the inn, Rémi sits on the bed. Zevran’s pulled a chair close, the kit resting on the seat. He’s kneeling before him, carefully cutting at the robes. Pressing a cloth against the wound, he wraps his hand around the arrow. “Are you ready?” Rémi closes his eyes and nods. A quick pull, barely felt. At first. The pain sears, and Rémi’s hands clench into fists. Zevran is pushing the cloth against it, trying to stop the bleeding.

Rémi diverts enough magic towards it to heal it enough for the cloth to be pulled away. Another, dipped in water, cleaning the wound. Then, needle and string, and Zevran leans close. His stitches are neat and tidy, close together and hands steady. His face so very near, so Rémi can’t help but look at him. His heart always beats quicker at the sight of him. There’s a smudge of dirt on his cheek, but that doesn’t hide exactly how handsome he is. He likes him for more than his looks, of course, but he knows those looks are dangerous.

“Why do you flirt with everyone?” the question bursts from him. Zevran raises his eyebrows as he ties the knot of the stitch, cuts the string carefully.

“You are asking me this now?” A pointed glance at the wound. Once Rémi had regained enough strength, he’d be able to heal it completely. For now, the stitches would have to do. It was a close call. There have been many close calls. For some reason, each one is worse than the last. Feeling as though it’s crushing his guts, churning his bones. It frightens him, Zevran realizes. How much he feels it.

“Please just answer the question,” Rémi says.

“I do not know. It is something I simply do.” Rémi shakes his head, unsatisfied with the answer.

“I think you do know. Tell me, please,” he says as he leans forward, brushes a hand against his cheek. Zevran looks up at him, eyes that study eyes, and a knot appears between his brows. He leans back, against his heels, and sighs. Hunching over, he rests his forehead against Rémi’s knee.

“I worry that perhaps, one day, you will realize you do not like me as much as you think,” he says.

“You don’t think I worry you’ll do the same?” he says as he threads fingers through Zevran’s hair. Zevran looks up at him, chin on his knee, and after a few quiet seconds, and suddenly surges forward. Wrapping arms around him, burying his face in the crook of his neck.

“You scare me half to death and now you tell me you worry I will leave you! This is too much for my heart in one day, Caro,” he says, hugging him tightly. “I flirt because I am – wait – are you wearing perfume?” Taking another deep breath, his nose pressed against his neck. Leaning back, looking at Rémi.

“I – I thought you might like me more if I smelled like –”

“A woman? You can do whatever you like, my Warden, but what I will always enjoy and prefer the most is you,” Zevran tells him. “If you wished it, you could have no shortage of suitors. But I will not let them near you.” A hand at his nape, pulling him close, and forehead pressed against forehead. “I, on the other hand, would be quite lonely without you. If you do not like the flirting, then I will stop, but you must promise to stay by my side.”

“I promise,” Rémi says as he leans forward, presses his lips against his.

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ourlastbastion · 4 years

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Embers Ch. 6

I’m terrible at remembering to post these

AO3 FFNet

“She wasn’t the most extroverted student I’ve had,” Mr. Rayner said as he led Soul and Maka through the halls of the school. According to the files they had received, this was where Amanda had been attending prior to being abducted, and Mr. Rayner had been the lead teacher for her class during the year she went missing.

He seemed a pleasant enough man. Tall, his dark hair combed back, a pair of dark-rimmed glasses framing his face. He dressed in a simple suit and carried a stack of carefully organized papers under one arm as he walked. He was polite to everyone they had passed; the students seemed to respect him, and from the glimpse they got of the tail-end of his last lecture, he was very intelligent.

All in all, Mr. Rayner seemed like a model teacher in appearance and in behavior.

Moving aside to let a group of kids by in their blue school uniforms, Mr. Rayner shook his head. “She kept to herself, was rather quiet, and she was frequently absent from class. On the days she did attend class, well, she often wound up in some form of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” Soul asked.

“Well, the kind of trouble you’d expect,” Mr. Rayner shrugged. “Sometimes she was disrupting the classroom, she’d get into altercations, or she’d sleep in class.”

Maka wrote that down on the notebook she had brought, looking to Soul, sharing a look with him, a knowing glance. More kids rushed past them, eager to get home, to get to practice, or to hang out with their friends. “Did she ever come to class with… bruises? Bandages?” she asked, watching Mr. Rayner carefully for a reaction, not just in his body language, but his soul as well. “Did she ever come to class injured?”

There was a pause, “She sometimes got roughed up when things with the other kids got out of hand,” he said. “Kids being kids, impulsive and acting out.”

His words sounded honest, his face genuine—his soul was different. Maka saw it. When she asked him, she saw his soul’s wavelength flicker and shift, radiating a nervous energy to it—he was lying. Had he been talking to anyone else, he would have been lying convincingly, but Maka wasn’t anyone else. She could see his soul, and his soul was not something he could control like his voice or expressions.

She looked to Soul again, gave him a small nod.

“Look, teach,” Soul said, stepping forward, raising his lips a little as he spoke so that Mr. Rayner could see the sharp points to his teeth. Maka felt his soul flinch. “We don’t want to cause trouble, but we know that’s not true. I don’t know what you hope to accomplish by lying, but it won’t do you any good.”

Mr. Rayner looked between the two, clearly reevaluation his standing with them. Maka could see the sweat trickling along his neck. “Well… yes… she did come frequently covered in bruises. Her parents, they informed us that due to a medical condition, she would bruise quite easily from even the lightest bumps or trips”

“And you believed it?” Soul asked.

The teacher glared at him, but his fear was evident. “Look, we didn’t have proof to say otherwise, and Amanda wouldn’t speak of any sort of abuse,” he said, desperately trying to defend himself. “We can’t go around accusing every parent we see of abuse just because their kids sported a few bruises!”

“So you chose to ignore what you saw and hoped it went away, didn’t want it to be your problem,” Maka surmised, feeling disgust deep inside of herself. “What about the other kids? Surely they noticed.”

He scowled, looked away, “They just saw her state as a reason to ostracize her. I’d often come into class to find her cleaning graffiti off her desk left by the other kids.” He said. “She was bullied frequently.”

“And you did nothing,” Soul crossed his arms over his chest.

“I’m their teacher, not their warden. They never did anything extreme, so I left it alone knowing they’d grow bored with her and stop on their own.”

This man was disgusting.

Maka frowned. How could people like this be teachers? How could people be so callous when it came to the suffering of others? “What about friends? Her mother told us she’d hang out with her friends, sometimes spend the night at their places. Do you think you could tell us who some of them are?” she asked. “We’d like to ask them questions if possible, see if they might have seen something.”

Soul stepped forward again, nodding his head. “Better yet, we need you to give use the names of everyone you had in your class that year.”

There was a moment where Mr. Rayner looked as though he was going to be defiant, to refuse their request. But it was only for a moment before he deflated like a bag of air, leaning against the lockers in defeat of a battle he hadn’t known he was a part of. “I’ll get you the names…”

Once the two had gotten the list of students who had attended his class the year Amanda had been abducted, the two had taken the car the police department loaned them and had gone to the elementary school to do the same with Anna’s teachers.

The results had yielded better results.

Her teacher, Ms. Cooper, a young, pudgy woman with a fierce temperament and a kind heart had informed them as soon as the two seated themselves across from her desk that she had suspected the Bailey kids were being abused. She had no proof as she couldn’t very well make the children strip to see the bruises, but she had been keeping an eye out, trying to find as much evidence as she could to bring to local authorities. She didn’t want to do it prematurely and risk making it worse, but now feared with one child missing, she had waited too long.

It was clear that Ms. Cooper cared much more about her students than Mr. Rayner had, and she was entirely willing to cooperate in whatever way she could, providing a comprehensive list of students in both Anna and Alex’s classes, a list of guardians for each of those children, as well as a list of reports the headmaster had of unknown individuals lurking around the property within the last six months. That one had been a very short two-pager, but still appreciated.

Anna had been a lively girl, always ready to help other students, playing with other kids, spending her recesses and lunch breaks with her brother. Unlike Amanda, who had been ostracized and abused by her peers, the whole class had loved Anna.

Well, they could mark ‘similar personalities’ off the list of possible additions to the victimology.

With a list of people to talk to and only so much daylight to work with, Soul and Maka had made the choice to split up to cover more ground. Maka would handle Amanda’s classmates. Soul would talk to Anna’s. With any luck, they’d find something.

That was how Maka found herself talking with two of the most annoying teenagers she had ever met.

Stacey and Mary were both fourteen, yet they dressed like they were nineteen and hitting the clubs. They were the last of the students that Maka had tracked down, and boy did Maka feel her brain cells dying with every word the two said.

“I still don’t get why you’re wasting your time talking with us and not hunting down the bad guys,” Mary said as she sipped her coffee, her attitude just absolutely awful, stuck-up, and snotty. “Like, all we did was go to school with the girl, it’s not like we knew her or anything.”

Stacey nodded her head in agreement, “Yeah. We spoke to her only when we had to, we’re not going to know what happened to her.”

Maka held her breath, wanting to sigh and smack her head against a brick wall. “I’ve talked with the rest of your classmates, and they all said that you two had a history of harassing her, on and off school property,” she said calmly, trying to keep professional.

Mary gasped, hand over her mouth, “That is such slander!” she yelled

“Yeah! We may have teased her now and then, but it’s not like we bullied her or anything!” Stacey added.

Oh, fun. They were going to deny it. “Please don’t pretend it’s not true,” Maka said, feeling her intelligence lowering even more as this conversation dragged on. “You can’t expect me to believe the entire class would lie about you bullying Amanda.”

Mary scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest while taking careful care to not spill her coffee. “I don’t get why it matters anymore, anyway. Amanda’s gone, it was two years ago. Live and let live, you know?”

“Yeah!” Stacey agreed.

The need to bang her head against a wall was increasing. “Look, I don’t care if you think you weren’t bullying her or not. I just need to know if you ever noticed any strange people watching you when you were with her outside of school,” Maka said, a bit sharper than she had intended, but it had gotten her point across.

The two girls flinched, shared a look, and looked ready to bolt.

“We never saw anything,” Mary insisted, standing her ground firmly.

“Well, there was that one guy,” Stacey had said at the same time.

Mary looked to her, a look of betrayal crossing her face. “Stacey!” she hissed.

Maka wanted to smile. Finally, they were getting somewhere. “What can you tell me about this guy?” she asked, looking to Stacey.

“It was no one important!” Mary said quickly, trying to do damage control. But, she was effectively ignored by her friend.

“Well, a lot of the times when we were with Amanda, I noticed there was always this guy watching us. He really stuck out to me because he carried a camera all the time, that and that his hair was blonde,” Stacey said, brining a finger to her chin as she thought back. “I thought he was stalking us, it was really creepy, but Mary said we should ignore him and he’ll go away—and he did just that, he went away!”

Maka nodded, already she had her notebook out and was jotting these down. “I see. And, when did you stop seeing him around town?”

The girl gave it some more thought, but it was Mary who spoke, rolling her eyes and giving an angry huff. “It was around the time Amanda went missing.”

“Your right! That is around when I stopped seeing him!”

Frowning, Maka wrote that down as well. “Do you think he might have something to do with her abduction?”

“Seems pretty hard not to be,” Mary snipped back.

Maka nodded her head again. “And, may I ask, why you never brought this to the police’s attention earlier?”

Crossing her arms over her chest, Mary glared at Maka with all the fury a 14-year-old girl could possess, which is a lot. “Because I didn’t want us getting involved,” she snapped. “If we let it slip that we might have seen the kidnapper, we’re just making ourselves into targets, too! I have no intention of being kidnapped, thank you very much.”

That was a fair reason, a cowedly one, but she couldn’t blame her. Mary would have been twelve at the time, of course she wouldn’t want to get involved if she thought she was putting herself at risk.

“Okay. Okay. What else can you tell me about what he looked like?” She asked instead, veering the topic somewhere else. “Anything else that stuck out beside the camera and fair?”

Stacey raised her hand. “He always was dressed in dark colors, and in like, jeans and hoodies,” she offered. “No matter the weather, that’s what he always dressed in, and we had been seeing him for months, so it’s like, ew, gross don’t you have any other clothes?”

“It wasn’t like he was close, either,” Mary added, still bitter, still angry. “He was always a bit away, so we never got a good look at him.”

“Understandable,” with that, Maka closed her notebook and handed them a card from her pocket. “You two have been big helps. If you remember anything else that you think might be important, please don’t hesitate to call.”

Rolling her eyes, Mary took the card and slipped it into her bra. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

Maka forced herself to keep smiling as she bid the two teens goodbye and going on her way. She had to find Soul, let him know what she had found. They had a description of what one kidnapper looked like—this was big.

~~~~~

“They were both enormous men,” the shopkeeper’s son said as he leaned against his broom in a lazy slouch. “One of them had one of those, like, buzz cuts. You know, the ones you see in military movies? They were also both pretty buff,” he added offhandedly, a yawn cutting through his description.

Soul nodded, “And you’ve been seeing them both around this area for a while now?”

The teen nodded, “A few times a week. They wouldn’t go into any of the shops or buy anything. They’d just stand outside their car and smoke. People watch. Talk. They’d do that for a few hours and then leave. They’d point at kids and talk among themselves—it was kind of creepy. I saw them following a girl around the area one day, so I just started walking with her as she did her errands, walked her home too. Forced the creeps to back off.”

“That was a good thing of you to do,” Soul praised, earning an embarrassed smile from the guy. Todd, he corrected as he glanced at the nametag. “Anything else you can tell me about them?”

Todd scratched the back of his neck, “Well, they drove an SUV, it was dark in color, so it didn’t stand out too much, and, ah, I think the plates were from out of town.”

“That’s good, that’s great. You wouldn’t happen to remember the plate number, would you?”

To that, Todd shook his head. “Sorry, dude. I can barely remember the plates on my dads car, let alone some strangers,” he apologized, and then shook his head, “Though, there was one thing. I noticed one day that one of them had a tattoo on his right arm. I don’t know what it was, but it kind of looked like one of those Asian things.”

“Would you be able to draw it out for us?”

Todd once again shook his head. “They all look the same to me. A bunch of lines mushed together, sorry.”

Soul nodded and was about to ask something else when he noticed Maka running towards him. Turning his attention back to Todd, he smiled. “Look, you’ve been a tremendous help, thank you,” he said, reaching into his pocket as he saw Todd give another sheepish smile. “If you think of anything that might help us, if you see them again, or any other suspicious individual who catches your attention, call me and I’ll be down here as soon as I can,” he said, giving Todd his card.

“Thanks, dude,” Todd said, looking at the card and sliding it into his pocket. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled, not gonna let them get away with this,” he said, heading back into the shop to finish up his chores.

Watching him go, Soul waited until the door shut before turning towards Maka, just in time for her to slide to a stop in front of him, out of breath and panting.

“Soul…I…. I got… something…” she said between breaths, bending over as she struggled to breathe.

Soul chuckled, patted her on the back. “Let’s let you get some water and breath, fist,” he said in amusement. “I’ve got some information, too.”

And so, he had led her to a bench, left her there to buy some bottles of water, and waited until she had caught her breath and drank her water before letting them talk. Who knew how far she had run or for how long to find him, and he wanted to tell her she had been dumb and over eager to just start running to him rather than calling him. But she wouldn’t have been Maka otherwise.

It was a good ten minutes before they actually started anything.

“Amanda was being stalked months prior to being abducted,” Maka said, looking at her notes. Soul raised a brow. “Two of her former bullies said they saw the same man watching on numerous occasions when they were with her, and that he had vanished along the same time Amanda had.”

Soul hummed. “I’m hoping they were able to give you something to go off of for what he looked like.”

“They did,” she confirmed. “He had blonde, always dressed in the same dark hoodie with jeans, and carried with him a camera.” She paused, looked at her paper, and shook her head, “The only thing that can narrow anything down is the blonde hair, and he could have easily dyed it to a different color after snatching her.”

“He could have.”

“But it’s more than what we had earlier today!”

Soul smiled, nodded his head, “It is,” he agreed. “Even if it’s been two years, we’re bound to find something out from what you were able to find.”

Laughing, Maka nodded her head, leaning back against the bench as she laid her hands across the notebook in her lap, “What about you? You said you had found something out, too.”

“Ah, yeah. One of the shopkeepers kids had noticed a pair of dudes who had been hanging around the area for a couple of months,” he said, opening up his own notebook to scour the notes he had written. “They showed up about three months ago, and about three days a week they would stand outside and just watch people for a few hours before leaving. At one time, they started following some kid, so the guy joined the girl and helped her with her errands so the two would be forced to go away.”

“That’s pretty suspicious,” Maka frowned.

“Yeah, it is. Apparently he hasn’t seen them since Anna went missing, but, we don’t know for sure if they’re still in the area or not. He’s gonna keep an eye out, and if they show up, he’ll let us know.”

“I’m hoping you got some descriptions, too.”

Soul nodded, and handed his notebook over to her, rattling off the traits that Todd had told him. Big, adult, muscular. One had a buzzcut. One had a tattoo. Around their thirties. Drove an SUV. So far, he did have more to go off of than Maka did, and he had the advantage of it being so recent the men might still be in the area. That meant they had a higher chance of catching one of them.

Between their there suspects, Soul felt like they had begun making good ground.

“Let’s get a hold of the detective,” Maka decided, stretching her arms above her head.

It was getting late, Soul noted, they had spent hours going around Pocklington to go through their lists of people, and now the sun was setting. It would be night soon, and tomorrow would be another day spent investigating. Such was the life. “Let’s hope the old man hasn’t called it a night yet.”

Maka chuckled, swatting him on the arm. “He’s not too much older than us, so if he’s old, what’s that make us?”

“Not as old.”

She laughed again, and Soul smiled.

~~~~~~

The music of the bar was loud, but even the various rock and pop songs playing on the speakers couldn’t get the Disney songs out of Haruto’s head. Between every order, verses from ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ or the song those Siamese cats sang would play in his mind, the songs switching between being sung by Bea or by the actual vocals.

Needless to say, Bea had fun with the two movies they had watched earlier, and thus Haruto would say movie day had been a success.

“She certainly had plenty of fun,” Mara agreed as she sat at the counter where Haruto was working.

Haruto hummed, passing a freshly made Dark & Stormy to a customer. “That was the whole point of doin’ it, if I ‘member right,” he said with a healthy amount of snark. “She had fun an’ that’s all that matters.”

Mara smiled, placing one hand on her chin. “You know? I will never not be surprised by how well you clean up. You certainly look good dressed nice.”

Frowning behind his mask, Haruto looked down at himself—he had changed his clothes, of course, and was dressed in the long sleeve dress shirt and black vest that was the uniform of the bar. Of course, he wasn’t without his mask and gloves. Not even a uniform would make him forgo those. But, even then, he didn’t quite get how he looked any better than he did before.

“Yer a weird one.”

Mara smiled and laughed. “Moving on. Come on, Mr. Bartender, come and fix me up a daiquiri.”

Snorting, Haruto moved to instead start working on a rum & cola. “Pretty sure ya aint old ‘nuff.”

She gasped in full offense, moving to almost rise from her seat in a fury. “How dare you! I am older than you, boy! Don’t take me for some child!” she yelled.

“Then don’t act like one when ya get riled,” he retorted, passing the drink on and moving onto another customers. “Still, ya don’t have an I.D. on ya to confirm yer age, so I can’t sell to ya.”

She scowled, but said no more on the topic, instead favoring to turn in her seat and watch the people moving, dancing, and talking. She hummed, watching.

Haruto did his best to ignore her as he continued to work. A couple of Miller Lite twist-off to the two over there, cans of Budweiser to the partiers. Some Hurricanes, a sidecar, a paloma, a few shots of vodka, a whiskey sour. He continued to move, continued to mix and take, his actions robotic, rehearsed.

It was monotonous work, really. Mindlessly making the recipes he knew by heart, making a few short-word responses

He hated it here, that went without saying. The people were too loud, too friendly, and too obnoxious. Then, once they got a few drinks in their systems, they were unbearable. The only saving grace was that they tipped well.

And, well, Haruto wasn’t going to frown at money. Life wasn’t cheap, two lives were more expensive.

“Well! My, my, my, my!”

And with that, Haruto frowned. Well, scowled, really. He looked up from the cosmo he was making to sigh and glare at the approaching newcomers.

Mara hid a smile behind a hand, chuckling a little. “Well, isn’t this a fun surprise.”

Collapsing into a seat beside Mara was his brother. He was a tall man, taller than Haruto, thinner, and dressed similarly, though his clothes much darker. His eyes were black as opposed to Haruto’s green, and there were hints of red in his dark hair. What marked him different from Haruto, what truly marked him as different, was the unnatural grin that stretched from ear to ear, an expression Haruto rarely saw leave.

Beside him was an older man who was a few inches taller than his brother, a white man with black hair and a scruffy beard forming around his face. He was stockier, dressed in a black tee and jeans, and had the years of anger and exhaustion painted on his face.

“Ichiro,” Haruto greeted curtly, and then looked to his companion. “Caleb.”

The man raised a hand. “Hey.”

“And I see Mara is here, too!” Ichiro said with glee as Mara waved at him, “Why, we just need Rosie and Astra and it’ll be like a family reunion!”

Haruto scowled, “let’s not. What can I getcha,” he asked, ignoring Mara’s whine of indignation.

“Whiskey sour, my dear brother!”

“Beer,” Caleb said.

Haruto nodded and began grabbing the drinks, handing them over within a minute. “Wasn’t expectin’ ya to show up so soon,” he said, giving his brother a pointed glare. “Usually when ya give someone an advance warnin’, ya give em time to prepare.”

Waving his hand, Ichiro laughed, it was loud and obnoxious. “Why! Where is the fun if I let you get yourself all gussied up?” he asked, and when Haruto handed the drinks to them, he took a savoring sip of his whiskey sour. “Besides, I would think you’d enjoy your dear big brother coming down to visit.”

“Why would I enjoy it? I hate ya.”

Caleb raised a brow at Haruto’s words, taking a gulp of his beer and letting the bottle clink loudly against the counter. “That’s pretty harsh.”

“Don’t care,” Haruto muttered, taking some dirty glasses to the tub under the counter so it could be sent back to the kitchen later for cleaning. “Just drink an’ get lost, both of ya.”

Ichiro laughed, “You should be nicer to your customers, little brother.”

“He raises a good point,” Mara added, earning a ‘See! Dear Mara here agrees!’ from the man, “You’re going to get in trouble if you swear at your customers.”

“Fuck off.”

With his ever present grin, Ichiro remained silent as he sipped and watched, even Caleb was quiet—but Caleb didn’t talk much anyways so that wasn’t a surprise. Mara even resumed a contemplative silence. If it wasn’t for the fact that he knew the three, he would have said it was becoming downright peaceful, but he doubted the word was even a possibility when Ichiro was in their midst. It was always just a matter of time.

Twenty minutes had passed where Haruto made drinks for increasingly intoxicated men and women before that silence eventually was broken by his brother, as Haruto had expected.

He had been in the middle of making a nigroni when Ichiro chuckled and pointed at Haruto’s head. “You’ll need to fix yourself up, soon,” he said in a teasing tone, waving his finger around in the air. “Your roots are showing.

Instinctively, Haruto reached to touch his scalp, stopping before touching his hair. Scowling behind his mask, Haruto finished the drink and passed it down the counter, “Fuck,” he muttered. “The dye never stays fer long. It’s startin’ to piss me off.”

Ichiro chuckled, though Mara frowned in concern. “It’s not too noticeable, but it is rather frustrating that you have to re-dye it frequently, when Ichiro just needs to do it once and leave it alone.”

“I’m special, my dear, simple as that.”

Haruto grumbled, glaring at his brother and at Mara both before moving to fix up more drinks. More people were coming into the bar now, so he needed to keep his attention focused.

“Hey, kid,” he scowled, glanced at Caleb. “If you’re done being a damn weirdo, get me another beer.”

Haruto did that, grabbing the bottle and sliding it over to him with a glare, “There ya fuckin’ go,” he said, earning a nod of approval from his customer.

He left it at that. Caleb drinking in silence, nursing his beer like a baby at their mothers teat, while Mara and Ichiro chatted, catching up on old times. It had been months since either had seen the other properly, they had much to say, no doubt about it, and Haruto thought it better like this. That meant the other three were off in their own worlds and would leave him the fuck alone so he could attend to his other customers.

And he did just that. Serving drinks, taking orders, collecting payment. The usual bartending crap that he got minimum pay for.

He would have once again said it was becoming peaceful, but that was just going to bring bad luck—and bring bad luck it did.

“There you are!”

Haruto stiffened when he heard Maka approaching the counter. Thankfully, her attention was on someone else and not him, she didn’t even seem to notice him as she and her partner walked past. He looked past them and—sure enough that damn detective was sitting at the far end of the counter. Oh fucking Hell.

They talked, voices hushed. Haruto could hear them if he tried, but he didn’t bother. As on edge as he suddenly felt himself to be, he didn’t want to get involved, not in any way or form. He tried to not be noticed, tried to ignore and be ignored as he wiped the glasses and made his way to the other side of the counter where his own group was seated.

“Ah, so they’re here,” Mara hummed, and Ichiro was watching with a smile, a dangerous gleam in his eyes.

Haruto looked to Caleb. “DWMA,” he said.

The man downed the rest of his drink. “In that case, fuck this, I’m getting out of here,” he said, standing up from his seat. An understandable response, Haruto would run if he could, too. But, he couldn’t. “You shoulda told me there were fucking meisters and weapons here.”

Ichiro shrugged, “It must have slipped my mind,” and made no move to get up, though both he, and even Mara, would be in similar danger if they were found. They just did not fear the academy as Caleb did.

Frowning, Haruto shook his head, “Would have if I knew ya were comin’.”

Face softening just a bit, Caleb reached over to lightly hit Haruto’s shoulder with a fist. “You be careful, kid. Even though I’m hightailing it out of here, if things go south I can be right back in here at first notice if you need me.”

That got something of a smile from Haruto, though it went unseen. “Yeah, yeah. Get yer ass out of here, ya drunk.”

He watched as Caleb lumbered through the crowds, heading out the front doors of the club. He watched his silhouette in the windows as he moved and vanished. Caleb was gone, out of the club, safer now that he was away from the two DWMA lackeys. The same couldn’t be said for Haruto, though.

Turning around to see if others needed more drinks, he saw the woman staring at him with such intensity that he knew she was looking at his soul.

His scowl returned.

“Hey, boss,” he said, throwing his towel off to one of the bins under the counter, already walking away, “I’m taking my break.” He didn’t wait for a response.

#Embers #Soul Eater #Fanfic #Adrian's writing

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nerdierholler · 7 years

Text

You Have Until Dawn

First Day’s Eve at Vigil’s Keep

The wardens gathered in the courtyard of Vigil’s Keep, chatting among themselves. It was dark, dawn still several hours away and with the dawn came a new year.

The Warden Commander descended the steps of the keep and stood before them. “Welcome everyone who decided to get out of bed at this Maker forsaken hour for this special First Day course. Standard rules apply. There are 50 blue flags hidden in the keep. They might be on rooftops, in chests, tucked in furniture, etcetera. Whoever finds the most flags will get a special prize to be awarded at the First Day breakfast. Thomas, Anja, and, Mari will be overseeing this one.”

Ithlen turned to go back in the Keep but paused half way up the steps. “I’m going back to bed, anyone who wakes me up forfeits their win. Good luck, you have until dawn.”

As she turned once again, there was a flurry of activity as a handful of wardens scattered to the corners of the keep. Within moments, a tall archer and pig tailed dwarf were the only ones left.

“After you, my love,” Nathaniel gestured with a wave of his hand for Sigrun to go ahead of him.

“No, no, you first, darling.” She waved her hand as well.

“I insist,” Nathaniel pressed.

“Well, alright, if you…”

Before Sigrun finished speaking, they both broken into a run, heading in opposite directions. By dawn, one of them would be victorious.

#Nathaniel Howe #sigrun #nathaniel x sigrun #dragon age #indulge me in my Nate Sigrun ship #new years #nerdy writes #life at nerdy holler

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killiansbutt · 7 years

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Thank you for Existing. Send this to 10 people, who, in your opinion, deserve such a sweet message in their inboxes ~( ◡‿◡ ♡)~

Thank you, Jess! I’m so happy to have met you, not only because you help me think about Natsu a lot more in-depth than I already do, but also because you’re genuinely sweet and fun! Someday I’ll also learn to spell your url instead of putting Chickachuu! Because I have to do this 3 times and I think the limit is 10 in a row for asks, I’m gonna tag ten people for this message instead. Crap, I’m running out of people and it’s only the first post!

@jmosfreckles : Sierra, you’re fucking hilarious and our snapchat record was legendary. We’re gonna do it again and beat even our old record somehow!

@natsusluce : Sara-chan! I’m so happy that I met you in the cs butt squad, which then migrated to the alistair butt squad, then to the nalu chat (hitherto referred to as the nalu butt chat in my heart), because it brought me to a whole world of other people. Not only that, but you’re one of my closest friends and I’m so happy to know you, my ouat-buddy, my dragon age-buddy, my Fairy Tail partner. You’re the warden to my Alistair~

@raijindork : We have opposite timezones and differing views on characters/pairings for the most part, but you’re one of my favorite people to talk to at night (which seems to be when we catch each other the most). I also applaud you for introducing me to Bixlu, which is basically my guilty pleasure ship for Lucy. Thanks, April! ♥

@zeraheart : Katy!! How do I find the words?? We don’t talk nearly as much as we should (which is weird because I think we talk a fair bit) but I adore you. You’re funny af who doesn’t hesitate to offer a kind word to people when they need it, you handle drama with grace and try your best to avoid it, and you make cute af art. You’re like a package deal, it’s impressive. I’m glad you joined the nalu chat so I could know you as more than just the person with cute fanart~

@papalogia : Eien, we don’t ship the same in the Bleach fandom and you actually kinda hate one of my favorite characters, but I honestly don’t care too much (Well, I do, but not enough to bother because to each their own, you know?) about it because you’re awesome and we ship similar/the same in FT so who cares! You introduced me to SaM and Natan and how do you thank someone for that?? Also, you know how long it took me to realize your title wasn’t some obscure latin message? Ages!

@nalu-4tw : Oh Maria, thanks for being my friend! I love your art and I love your fics! I haven’t known you long, but I’m excited to talk with you more!

@snogfairy : writing senpai! you need to write! the writing doctor says so! ♥ I’ve never talked about James Bond much until I met you, it’s almost funny to think about it, but I also wouldn’t have started working on my fantasy au if you hadn’t prodded me about it. I’m so glad that I met you -- even though I don’t even know when??? or how??? It just happened??

@oldfriend7876 : I’ll never forget the cupcake thing that introduced me to you. In my defense, I was befuddled about your tags about how dark a drawing was and it turned out to just be a picture of a cupcake. When I checked later, it wasn’t anymore. I was positive I was hallucinating till you explained so thanks for making sure I wasn’t crazy! I’m bummed that I missed out on being your Cana, figures I would meet a buddy and not even live near there anymore! Thanks for being my friend and also listening to me barrage you with questions sometimes when I’m confused!

@gsut : We also have differing opinions about some characters, but that’s okay, because you’re always sweet about tagging anything (and I don’t think you bring it up anyway without someone asking) and you’re so enthusiastic about everything else. I always appreciate seeing messages from you, you’re so kind! :D

@siriusly-random : Mary! My sims buddy! My fic writing buddy! You make me want to watch the 100 even though I’m also terrified of stepping foot into that mess. I actually don’t care much for gray/lu or grats/u/lu but whenever you talk about it, I get a little more affection for it! Not to say I’ll ever like it, but I love your happiness for it! I didn’t come up with any puns for you, sorry, but maybe next Canada day I will!

#long post #replies #chikach00 #positive saturday #even though it's almost sunday and is sunday for most people

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justira · 7 years

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STORY STARTERS MEME

Rules: List the first lines of your last 15 stories. See if there are any patterns. Then tag 10 of your favourite authors!

@petite-neko tagged me, and I have never been tagged for anything before in my life. But, uh, sure, let’s do this!

I definitely do not know 10 writers on tumblr because I am very terrible at doing The Tumblrs and also I mostly talk to artists on here? But why not, let’s tag my partner in crime @sevdrag; @wordsdear, who I know writes; and @kaizokunohime, who doesn’t write prose but does write story ideas/prompts, and I’d like to see how those do with this meme.

I have no idea what is meant by “first lines” here? The first sentence? The first block of text until whitespace? idek, I tried to keep it reasonable. This is in reverse chrono order, so first story is most recent.

1. Acclimating

[One Piece — Law/Luffy, Law & Strawhats — E, 31.3K ]

Law probably should have seen this coming. It wasn't his splintered self-worth that made him avoid things like this (and what business of anyone's was it, anyway, if he lived for Cora-san's memory? He'd been living on borrowed time for over a decade, and every step he'd taken since then had drawn him closer to a confrontation he expected (hoped) he wouldn't survive). But his utter lack of interest in making himself likable because there was nothing much to like certainly helped cut down on complications. Or, it usually did. The standard rules did not seem to apply to Strawhat. Black Leg had warned him, although, all things considered, that shouldn't have been necessary.

2. A Slow and Vicious Hemorrhage

[BBC Sherlock / Hannibal Movies — Holmes/Watson — M, 5.5K, WIP]

The air gets heavier, down here, cooler and tinged with inescapable subterranean damp. John breathes it in, steadily; it doesn't particularly unnerve him. It reeks of institution and he's had practice enough with those. It's not calming, precisely, but it's familiar. It's all familiar. It's all fine.

It is.

His hand tightens on the two case files. It doesn't stop the tremor, but he rubs his thumb across the labels, the rough reality of them, already thoroughly ragged from the flicks and scrapes and polishing and various pointless attritions of dozens of fingers, despite the very recent dates stamped on both of them. Two dates, two names. Neither name belongs to Sherlock Holmes.

3. Swimming Lessons

[Final Fantasy X — Auron/Braska/Jecht — T, 1K ]

Auron sputtered as Jecht dunked him under the water again. He came up for air, gasping, to hear Braska rebuke Jecht. "Jecht, he can't swim." Braska's tone was just this side of sharp, showing that Jecht was testing his patience; good, as he had surely tested Auron's. Auron clawed his hair out of his face where it had escaped his tail. Jecht was already too far away to shove. Braska floated over to him, touched his shoulder. "Are you all right?"

4. This Stolen Interstice

[Dragon Age: Origins — Duncan/Teagan — M, 8K]

The Grey Warden came during the harvest. The field Teagan was working was cradled in one of Rainesfere's rolling valleys; trees rose high on all sides, crowning the surrounding hills and wind-murmuring to each other as the harvesters worked. The air was thick with dust and chaff and the smell of fallen leaves, just edging into cold. That hint of crispness settled pleasantly on Teagan's skin as he worked amidst the slice and whisper of sickles and threshing, the barking of dogs weaving through the rhythmic sounds — no laughing children, not during the harvest, as all but babes were put to work at some task or another. He found one such child suddenly in his path — Rogher's youngest. Deliah? That must be it.

"What is it, Deliah?" Teagan wiped his brow as he stood, stretched his back.

"There's a man to see you," the girl mumbled, shy before her bann. "Mama says he's a Grey Warden."

The words spilled a chill down his back, much harsher than the gentle bite in the air. Darkspawn, here?

5. The Storm That Sweeps So Quiet

[Final Fantasy Tactics — Alma/Tietra — T, 1.2K]

Alma's spine aches. She has been bowed over this tome for entirely too long. Study is normally a pleasure, particularly the histories or the great tales of the Church, but this day she set aside to get through an endless dissertation on courtly graces. Studious as Alma may normally be, her heart is not in this. Today, the floor is distractingly hard beneath her folded skirts, even with the spare cushion. Her bodice itches unreasonably. Behind her, Tietra's quiet breathing and quieter warmth brush down Alma's back; she had persuaded her friend to take the window seat and regrets it not one bit, discomfort or no. It's not Tietra's fault that Lord Haverell's text drones so. Outside, the sunshine drips between tumultuous clouds; the air is heavy and moist, and the clouds tower high. It is not a day for study, not at all.

She runs her finger down the rich vellum of the page and listens to its smooth whisper. Behind her, she hears Tietra shift, the soft sigh of fabric and the rougher-edged rasp of pages rubbing together. Well, if Tietra feels it too...

6. So let it out and let it in

[Supernatural — Castiel & Mary, Castiel & Dean, Castiel & Sam — G, 5.1K]

"Jay Bird Family Special," the waitress announces, clear and cheery above the lunchtime clinks and conversation buzzing through the diner. She tips Mary a wink. Mary grins back as Heather sets the giant platter in front of her, gently intercepting baby Dean's hand going straight for the steak. "Your man running late?"

"Course not!" John pops up behind Heather. He's breathless under a thin sheen of sweat, his face all smiles and engine grease, and Mary could not want to touch that handsome curve of jaw more.

Instead, she puts a mild growl of threat in her voice, not even trying to cover the laughter crowding up alongside it. "If you think you're getting those paws anywhere near my food or my son—"

7. And Under Sky, the Shelter

[Final Fantasy Tactics — Ramza & Rapha, Marach, Mustadio, Agrias — G, 1.4K]

The hill cups gently around a lee; pebbles gather in the shadow where the wind abandoned them, making for a stony bed, but it will serve well enough for their purposes. Ramza, at least, is tired enough to collapse where he stands. He watches Agrias survey the site and thinks dully about what to do if it does not meet her standards of defensibility. It is well that she nods in approval, as he had not managed to think of any alternatives. The weariness runs too deep in his bones, leeching at thought, at care. It frightens him, distantly. So many have ceased to care, it seems. He rouses himself with a shake that feels like trying to shift mountains.

Tired to numbness or no, camp must be made, the birds cared for. The birds and — his teeth tug at his lip as his glance lands on Rapha and Marach, hovering at the edges of the group — the people. The tasks have been long apportioned, but in their ever growing and shrinking company, they reassign the routine often enough. It is just that he is too tired tonight to think on it.

8. There the Bones of Us May Lie

[Final Fantasy XII — Ashe/Balthier — T, 2.5K]

The hollow starlight sinks into ashen softness before her as she boards the Strahl; the hungry roar of the Cataract is hushed, made muted and metallic. It is like sinking into water, reversed. The quiet is the same, the sense of distance, but as she ascends there is no persistent buoyancy, no insistent upward press. Weight seems to sink down on her instead, settling deeper about her shoulders like a mantle.

It's familiar.

The silence of the ship eats her sigh, giving back nothing. And that, too is familiar — comforting, even, to have no wraiths answering those unmeant nighttime summons. The Occuria's illusion of Rasler is shattered, and Vaan isn't here to haunt her either, sleeping below with the others; Ashe is alone if not exactly unfettered. It is beyond her, just now, to judge whether that is better, and that is, in any case, irrelevant. There is little point in dwelling on it, now.

9. Best Hand

[Ace Attorney — Apollo & Trucy, Phoenix — G, 0.5K]

Apollo eyed the backs of Mr. Wright's cards. Wright kept them low, hands resting easy and relaxed on the table — Trucy was just the opposite, her fan of cards held up in front of her face, casting conspiratorial glances over the top. Hiding her smile. Trucy had something; Apollo'd figured that much out. Not as good as his own hand, though, he was sure of it.

(Now if only...)

He looked back at Wright. Nothing to see. Nothing to sense; bracelet quiet and loose on his wrist. (Damn! It's not just that he used Trucy for the games, he's impossible to read anyway!) Apollo resisted gritting his teeth.

10. Eclipse

[Final Fantasy IV — Kain/Cecil, Kain/Rosa, Cecil/Rosa, Kain/Cecil/Rosa — G, 1.5K]

In the old forgotten passageways beneath Baron Castle the walls exhale ghosts like vaporous winter breath: a fine spice on a hunt for treasure, harmless old haunts that feather around them as they creep down the halls with their stolen torch, their voices a nervous-laughing titter of echoes.

When the revenant comes Kain's blood freezes and he sees the panicked bloom of Rosa's untutored magic, shielding them; Kain's lips parting in awe and breathlessness as they flee.

But as they tumble back down the halls, to light and safety and a likely spanking, it is Cecil who clutches his hand.

11. Where Memory Rests

[Thief: Deadly Shadows — Garrett, The Shalebridge Cradle — G, 2.3K]

Thick exhales of steam crowd the night air, damp on your skin, as you make your way through the noise and shadows of the City. Grit has gathered close to the walls where you walk, giving the soft sound of your steps a rougher edge. Your fingers trail where a gas arrow once crystallized: a pipe carrying hot air hisses quietly at the leak. Magic lies thick in the air since the Final Glyph, dispersed and unformed. You can feel it in your hand. It washes across the red new scar like warm breath, like the air trickling from the pipe. The elemental crystals form faster, now, and someone harvested this one before you.

It doesn't matter. You have other things on your mind tonight.

And besides, you can always get it back.

12. the silent fulcrum in the interstice

[Kingdom Hearts — Kairi & Riku & Sora, Kairi & Naminé — G, 1.2K]

It begins with her hands: she plunges them into the place where earth meets sea meets sky. The light falls fragile across the grains, soft contrast to their coarse texture against her palms, her bare knees. The damp sand is heavy in her palms and something stirs in her as she pauses, hands suspended, full of infinite possibilities: This is how worlds are created, she thinks. Memories, falling like sand, like stars, like snow (where does she remember snow from?); she pauses, hands suspended, full of infinite worlds.

She can't remember the last time she did this, or maybe she never stopped: this is where she sat and stitched together a star, a promise; this is where she stood and watched the horizon and waited, or tried to remember what she was waiting for. The sand is heavy in her hands, and she wonders if this is any different, or if it is all reconstruction and remembering.

This is how worlds are created, and she sinks her fingers into the sand.

13. Same As It Never Was (cowritten with @sevdrag)

[Final Fantasy VIII — Rinoa/Squall, Laguna/Squall, Quistis/Rinoa, Kiros/Laguna, Quistis/Rinoa/Squall — E, 72K, WIP]

“I’m sorry, Commander, sir,” the waiter said over Squall's shoulder, “but we don’t have that particular vintage — our sincere apologies. Can I recommend another bottle — on the house, of course?”

Squall tried not to grit his teeth— too hard, anyway, because they were already grinding a little at the waiter’s placating, admiring, sorry-to-your-famous-personage-please-be-kind tone. He glanced up. Rinoa was smiling at him, that smile of hers that carried beaming wattage like a Thundaga to the chest, and even though it still made his heart skip a beat he could read in it what neither of them was saying: her hesitation playing across her face, the tense strain of her smile even as his own lips quirked back in response.

“Not a problem,” he said, aware that his voice was gruff and sounded irritated; maybe everyone would assume he was aggravated about the wine.

14. Coward Heart

[Final Fantasy X — Auron & Braska & JechtI — G, 3.6K]

The caves cast light back at them, fractured reflections and the rock's own native glow: the water was still and star-littered, pinpricks of light beneath a surface so motionless that Auron could barely tell where water ended and the pressing dark of the caverns began. All the light should have illumed the air, but the icy breath of the place seemed nearly solid, swallowing the light before it could reveal more than it hid. Auron had drawn his sword long ago, its rasp loud and echo-inhaled. Even the fiends glowed, here, great gelid flans with galaxies glittering inside them, dissolving into pyreflies like gentle novas.

Auron's gaze slid to Braska. In the gloaming, Braska's eyes seemed wide and white, his robes silver-edged black, all the careful distinctions of colour — red, for mourning; purple, for hope; blue, for seas and skies — lost in the half-light. Jecht was a suffocated flame beside him, the leaping fish on his sarong like the empty spaces between licks of fire as he shrugged off the wool-lined jacket Braska had finally convinced him to wear.

15. Disconnect

[Final Fantasy VIII / Kingdom Hearts — Maleficent & Squall — G, 3.7K]

He opens his eyes to the sight of water falling up. The spray coats his face, his clothes— he tries to sit up and make sure Lionheart is dry in its sheath and realizes that everything, everywhere, hurts.

(Rinoa.)

He makes it to his feet, checks on Lionheart. The gunblade survived the trip, maybe in better shape than Squall had. He flexes his hands, staring at them. They still feel numb. (Did it hurt you like this? Your magic?) His spells are gone, eaten up by the trip from Traverse Town. He hadn't counted on this exhaustion. (Yeah, and Cid had said it was impossible and called me an idiot. Whatever.)

It doesn't matter. He heaves himself away from the rocks he'd been leaning on, and starts climbing.

Analysis, I guess?

Okay well the immediate thing I notice is that I used the word "interstice" twice in this set of titles and that's just mortifying.

Decent mix of fandoms! 14 fandoms counting crossovers, although 8 were Final Fantasy of some kind.

I counted 6 past tense intros (though one of those fics switches to present tense halfway through, which is 15K words past the opening lines), and 9 present tense ones. That's a 2:3 ratio of past to present, and I actually had never realized I wrote in present tense this much. In the grand scheme of fiction writing, past tense is heavily more common so I guess this sample puts me in the... minority? I find present tense more immediate. I rarely actively CONSIDER which tense to use, I just start writing in whatever FEELS right for the idea. The first story where I actively considered tense was "Acclimating", the most recent story on here. Whoops >.>

Also I don't tend to open with dialogue. For short fics (less than 10K) I tend to write mostly in order, and I find writing dialogue difficult, so I tend to kind of "settle in" with a story by writing description first, and only after I'm properly settled try some dialogue. There were only 4 stories with dialogue in the opening lines here, and only 2 that actually had dialogue as the first thing in the story.

Fewer em dashes than I expected, as I know I overuse those. But not, apparently, in the opening lines. I wait until the reader is settled in/committed before pulling that shit on them.

I seem to vary between starting in the middle of things vs. doing a bit of setup. I couldn't really pin numbers to this one, as it's a bit more nebulous. For example the very first sentence of "This Stolen Interstice" (that word again, shoot me now) is in medias res, but then I back up to a bit of scene-setting. So who even knows!

Anyway, this was a fun exercise!

#gpoy #asks #my stuff #my fic

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pof203 · 7 years

Text

Persona 5 Arena character profiles

I know I just said this may not happen, but after writing that last post, I just couldn’t help it.

This post talks about the characters, their Personas, weapons, and (if I’m able to put it) moves. Enough talk, let’s get into it.

WARNING: This could get a bit long and may contain spoilers.

Persona 3

Makoto Yuki

Title: The Messiah of Strings

Weapon: One handed sword

Arcana: Judgement

Persona: Messiah

Instant Kill: Hientou

Theme: Mass Destruction

Voice: Yuri Lowenthal

Mitsuru Kirijo

Title: The Imperious Queen of Extinctions

Weapon: Rapiers

Arcana: The Empress

Persona: Artemisia

Instant Kill: Niflheim

Theme: Missions for the Brilliant Executioner

Voice: Tara Platt

Akihiko Sanada

Title: The Two-Fisted Protein Junkie

Weapon: Boxing Gloves (Boxing)

Arcana: The Emperor

Persona: Caesar

Instant Kill: Earth Braker

Theme: The Wondering Wolf

Voice: Liam O’Brian

Aigis

Title: The Heartless Armed Angel

Weapon: Firearms

Arcana: The Chariot

Persona: Athena, Palladion (Instant Kill only)

Instant Kill: Heritage Liberator Palladion

Theme: A Heartful Cry

Voice: Karen Strassman

Yukari Takeba

Title: The Unslightly Pink Sniper

Weapon: Bow & Arrow

Arcana: The Lovers

Persona: Isis

Instant Kill: Final Feather⭐Arrow

Theme: Pink Sniper

Voice: Michelle Ruff

Junpei Iori

Title: The Mighty Strike-Out Slugger

Weapon: Baseball Bat and Baseball

Arcana: The Magician

Persona: Trismegistus

Instant Kill: Explosive Level-Up Grand Slam

Theme: Mr. Easy-Going

Voice: Vic Mignogna

Ken Amada & Koromaru

Title: The Pretentious Tenderfoot Dou

Weapon: Long Spear (Ken), Knife (Koromaru)

Arcana: Justice (Ken), Strength (Koromaru)

Persona: Kala-Nemi (Ken), Cerberus (Koromaru)

Instant Kill: Baptism of Light and Darkness

Theme: Youthful Spirit

Voice: Cindy Robinson

DLC:

Shinjiro Aragaki

Title: The Hellish Chef Under the Moonlight

Weapon: Battle Ax

Arcana: The Hierophant

Persona: Castor

Instant Kill: Stardrop

Theme: Mass Destruction (Persona 3 FES)

Voice: Grant George

Minako Yuki

Title: The Princess of Strings

Weapon: Naginata

Arcana: The Fool

Persona: Orpheus Telos

Instant Kill: Victory Cry

Theme: A Way of Life

Voice: Laura Bailey

Metis

Title: The Underworld Metal Butterfly

Weapon: Battle Ax

Arcana: The Hierophant

Persona: Psyche

Instant Kill: Danse Des Papillons

Theme: P3 FES

Voice: Stephanie Sheh

Ryoji Mochizuki

Title: The Beautiful Death for Love

Weapon: Scythe

Arcana: The Wheel of Fortune

Persona: Orpheus

Instant Kill: Song of Rebirth

Theme: Burn My Dread

Voice: Yuri Lowenthal

Elizabeth

Title: The Lethal Elevator Attendant

Weapon: Tome and Tarot Cards

Arcana: Death, The Fool

Persona: Thanatos

Instant Kill: Megidolaon

Theme: The Battle for Everyone’s Souls

Voice: Tara Platt

Theodore

Title: The All Simple Butler In Blue

Weapon: Tome and Tarot Cards

Arcana: The Devil

Persona: Lilith, Abaddon, Beelzebub (Instant Kill only)

Instant Kill: Spin Slash

Theme: Electronica in Velvet Room

Voice: Travis Willingham

Persona 4

Yu Narukami

Title: The Sister Complex Kingpin of Steel

Weapon: Two-Handed Sword

Arcana: The World

Persona: Izanagi-no-Okami

Instant Kill: Myriad Truths

Theme: Reach Out To The Truth

Voice: Johnny Yong Bosch

Yosuke Hanamura

Title: Captain Ressentiment

Weapon: Kunai

Arcana: The Magician

Persona: Takehaya Susano-o (replacing Jiraiya)

Instant Kill: Brave Blade

Theme: The Hero from Junes

Voice: Yuri Lowenthal

Chie Satonaka

Title: The Spunky Dragon with Deadly Legs

Weapon: Greaves (self taught Kung Fu)

Arcana: The Chariot

Persona: Haraedo-no-Okami (replacing Tomoe)

Instant Kill: Galactic Punt

Theme: Like a Dragon

Voice: Erin Fitzgerald

Yukiko Amagi

Title: The Unconquerable Snow Black

Weapon: Fan

Arcana: The High Priestess

Persona: Sumeo-Okami (replacing Konohana Sakuya)

Instant Kill: Full Bloom

Theme: Princess Amagi

Voice: Amanda Winn-Lee

Kanji Tatsumi

Title: The Bloodcurdling Beefcake Emperor

Weapon: Blunt Object

Arcana: The Emperor

Persona: Takeji Zaiten (replacing Take-Mikazuchi)

Instant Kill: The Man Series: Brofist

Theme: A Pure-Hearted Beast

Voice: Matthew Mercer

Rise Kujikawa

Title: The Scandalous Superstar Idol

Weapon: Microphone

Arcana: The Lovers

Persona: Kouzeon (replacing Himiko)

Instant Kill: True ♥ Story

Theme: Twinkle★Star

Voice: Ashly Burch

Naoto Shirogane

Title: The 2000 IQ Killjoy Detective

Weapon: Pistol

Arcana: The Wheel of Fortune

Persona: Yamato Sumeragi (replacing Sukuna-Hikona)

Instant Kill: Judge of Hell

Theme: Seeker of Truth

Voice: Valerie Arem

Teddie

Title: The Beast in Heat

Weapon: Claws

Arcana: The Star

Persona: Kamui-Moshiri (replacing Kintoki-Douji)

Instant Kill: Kamui Kablooey

Theme: Teddie Circus

Voice: Sam Riegel

Ryotaro & Nanako Dojima

Title: Mister E and his Magical Detective

Weapon: Gun (Dojima), Magnifying Glass (Nanako)

Arcana: The Hierophant (Dojima), Justice (Nanako)

Persona: Each other

Instant Kill: Family Solution

Theme: Koisuru Meitantei

Voice: J. B. Blanc (Dojima), Karen Strassman (Nanako)

DLC

Margret

Title: The Sadistic Stud-Keeping Secretary

Weapon: Tome and Tarot Cards

Arcana: The Empress

Persona: Cu Chulainn, Yoshitsune, Ardha, Helel (Instant Kill only)

Instant Kill: Morning Star

Theme: A Poem for Everyone’s Souls

Voice: Marisha Ray

Marie

Title: The Antisocial Poet of the Hollow Forest

Weapon: Bag

Arcana: Aeon

Persona: Kaguya

Instant Kill: Musubi no Ikazuchi

Theme: XOXO For You

Voice: Eden Riegel

Tohru Adachi

Title: The Egocentric Police Dick

Weapon: Pistol

Arcana: Jester

Persona: Magatsu-Izanagi

Instant Kill: Yomi Drop

Theme: Fool or Clown?

Voice: Johnny Yong Bosch

Persona 4 Arena

Labrys

Title: Yasogami’s Steel Council President

Weapon: Double Ended Axe

Arcana: The Wheel of Fortune

Persona: Ariadne

Instant Kill: Weaver’s Art: Inquisition

Theme: Spirited Girl

Voice: Cindy Robinson

Sho Minazuki

Title: The Rule-Smashing Pun Machine

Weapon: Twin Blades

Arcana: The Moon

Persona: Tsukiyomi

Instant Kill: God and Demon Annihilation

Theme: The Joker

Voice: Todd Haberkorn

Persona 5

Akira Kurusu/Joker

Title: The Trickster Who Flies For Justice

Weapon: Knives, Handguns

Arcana: The Fool

Persona: Arsene, Satanael (Instant Kill only)

Instant Kill: Sinful Shell

Theme: Last Surpise

Voice: Xander Mobus (Ben Disken if Mobus is unavailable)

Ryuji Sakamoto/Skull

Title: The Pirate of the Track

Weapon: Bludgeons, Shotguns

Arcana: The Chariot

Persona: Captain Kidd

Instant Kill: Skull of Rebellion

Theme: Full Sail Athlete

Voice: Max Mittelman

Ann Takamaki/Panther

Title: The Sassy Kitty Actress

Weapon: Whip, Submachine Guns

Arcana: The Lovers

Persona: Carmen

Instant Kill: Blazing Hell

Theme: Red Hot Panther

Voice: Erika Harlacher

Yusuke Kitagawa/Fox

Title: The Brush Wielding Samurai

Weapon: Katanas, Assault Rifles

Arcana: The Emperor

Persona: Goemon

Instant Kill: Kōri no Hyōgen

Theme: 9 Tails

Voice: Matthew Mercer

Makoto Niijima/Queen

Title: The Biker President of Pain

Weapon: Tekko, Revolvers

Arcana: The High Priestess

Persona: Johanna

Instant Kill: Atomic Flare

Theme: Queen of Spikes

Voice: Charami Leigh

Futaba Sakura

Title: Princess Lovecraft

Weapon: Curry Ladle, Taser Gun

Arcana: The Hermit

Persona: Necronomicon

Instant Kill: Cry of the Old Ones

Theme: All Seeing Saucer

Voice: Erica Lindbeck

Haru Okumura/Noir

Title: The Countess Who Dishonors

Weapon: Axes, Grenade Launchers

Arcana: The Empress

Persona: Milady

Instant Kill: One-shot Kill

Theme: Beauty Theif

Voice: Xanthe Huynh

Morgana/Mona

Title: The Four Wheel Pussy Treasure Hunter

Weapon: Curved Swords, Slingshots

Arcana: The Magician

Persona: Zorro

Instant Kill: Fight for Liberty

Theme: Cat Bus Speeding

Voice: Cassandra Morris

Yuuki Mishima/Anon

Title: The Self-appointed Public Relations Officer

Weapon: Baton, Volleyballs

Arcana: The Moon

Persona: Tsukiyomi Picaro

Instant Kill: Purgatorial Wing

Theme: Beneath the Mask (Remix)

Voice: Sean Chiplock

DLC

Goro Akechi/Cow/Black Mask (BM in Desperation Mode only)

Title: The Fallen Trickster Detective

Weapon: Laser Saber, Serrated Sword (Desperation Mode only), Ray Gun, Silenced Pistol (Desperation Mode only)

Arcana: Justice

Persona: Robin Hood, Loki (Desperation Mode and Instant Kill only)

Instant Kill: Laevatein

Theme: Ark

Voice: Robbie Daymond

Lavenza

Title: The Elegant Warden Princess

Weapon: Tome and Tarot Cards

Arcana: Strength

Persona: Kelpie, Oni, Rakshasa, Valkyrie, Siegfried, Zaou-Gogen (Instant Kill only)

Instant Kill: Vorpal Blade

Theme: Freedom for Everyone’s Souls

Voice: Carrie Keranen

Masayoshi Shido

Title: The Demonic Seafaring Prime Minister

Weapon: Cutlass, Bazooka

Arcana: Hunger

Persona: Samael, Yaldabaoth (Instant Kill only)

Instant Kill: Rays of Control

Theme: Rivers in the Desert

Voice: Keith Silverstein

Other DLCs

Zen & Rei

Game origin: Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth

Title: The Afterlife Sweethearts

Weapon: Double Crossbows

Arcana: The Tower

Persona: Each other

Instant Kill: Soul Slice

Theme: Maze of Life

Voice: Keith Silverstein (Zen), Ashly Burch (Rei)

Vincent Brooks

Game origin: Catherine

Title: The Two-Timing King of Bachelors

Weapon: Pillow, Cellphone, Sword

Arcana: The Fool

Persona: Jonny Ariga, Orlando Haddick, Toby Nebbins, Catherine (Succubus), Shadow of Vincent (Instant Kill only)

Instant Kill: LOVE IS OVER

Theme: YO

Voice: Troy Baker (Vincent), Travis Willingham (Jonny), Liam O’Brian (Orlando), Yuri Lowenthal (Toby), Laura Bailey (Catherine)

Katherine McBride

Game origin: Catherine

Title: The Blue Nail Empress

Weapon: Fork

Arcana: The Lovers

Persona: Ishtar

Instant Kill: Fist of Grudge

Theme: Hen to Hen

Voice: Michelle Ruff

Thomas Mutton/Boss

Game origin: Catherine

Title: The Shepard of the Tower

Weapon: Gavel, Revolver

Arcana: The Tower

Persona: Dumuzid, Asteroth (Instant Kill only)

Instant Kill: Wrath of Judgment

Theme: It’s a Golden Show

Voice: Kirk Thornton

That’s the characters. I hope you like it. Thank you.

#persona

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galaxofmuses · 1 year

Note

careful ... careful.

using the tip of his wing to slice Xen's shoulder before busting into where Gilly was. Grabs them and flies off.

... he's not risking it. no thank you.

A small flinch from the slice and growls with annoyance that dearheart always has a knack of making irritating friends. As a small stitched up mobian appears with a smile.

"......Hunt them down. Bring them back."

"With pleasure! -` ♡ ´- "

The tailess fox disappears into data as if she has done so many times before. The hunt is always her favorite game to play.

#:: Ver; Main; Sonic.EXE AU; World Turned ::#:: OC; Gilly ::#:: OC; Nebula | Gilly ::#:: Silver; For every soul there is a guardian watching it. ::#:: Ver; Sonic.EXE AU; Xen; I’ll Find You ::#:: The Wardens; We make our own monsters ::#:: The Wardens; Tail | Mari ::#foretoldwings #// yeah get fucked Xen #// also please run

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topfygad · 4 years

Text

Travelmag – Surfing Covid on a final tour as Australasia shut down

At the tail conclusion of February a mate and I set off for a 33 working day vacation to Australia, a journey we experienced planned for roughly six months. Great, improved, ideal butted heads with terrible, terrible, and are you kidding as the Coronavirus roared its unsightly head. Nevertheless, we survived. And we learned precious classes all through this month lengthy tutorial, kinds we will don’t forget whether or not we are at household or overseas.

Our Virgin Australia flight Los Angeles to Sydney went without a hitch. In less than fifteen hours, we landed in Sydney and shuttled to our lodge, Castlereagh, in the downtown space. Its area was fantastic for walking to the internet sites of central downtown, Hyde Park, and Circular Quay. The city was alive and vivid, with only a hint of the Coronavirus running havoc in other world wide places when we tuned in to the evening global information. We joined exuberant fellow travellers for going for walks excursions, museum outings, a harbor cruise, bus outing to Bondi Seashore, ferry trip to Manley Beach, a meals tour in the Surry Hills District, Blue Mountain Adventures with Anderson Excursions, a Ben Folds live performance at City Hall, botanical back garden stroll, crafts market place procuring, and, oh indeed, the emphasize for me: viewing “Carmen” at the Sydney Opera Property. We identified Sydney a delight. If just about anything fell into the class of “bad,” it would be that we grew to become a bit like Mary Poppins on two of our days there with on and off rain and umbrellas that wished to acquire to the sky. In addition to that inconvenience, all was a delight.

As scheduled, we flew Sydney to Cairns and shuttled the moment more, this time to Port Douglas for touring the Good Barrier Reef. On the lookout at the weather conditions forecast for the four days we had been to be there, we anticipated rainy weather conditions. A great deal to our fantastic fortune, the weather conditions was wonderful. We joined Calypso Tours (calypsoreefcruises.com) for snorkeling the reef and touring the rainforest space of Daintree. Colors popped alive as we snorkeled from their upscale catamaran. Vivid blues mingled with yellows and reds of each and every shade. We stopped at a few spots to explore the outer Fantastic Barrier Reef. Just one of the crew associates recognized towards the end of our 2nd prevent that I was tiring a bit. He available to give me a noodle to position close to my waistline as he towed me in and out of the reef areas for our 3rd dive. Absolutely, it rated among the my “best ever experiences.” The upcoming working day we went to Daintree Rainforest, the oldest acknowledged rainforest in the planet, relationship back again 180 million yrs. Range is an understatement to describe Daintree with its shorelines, gorges, rivers, waterfalls, mangroves, vegetation, pools, and mountains. Two cassowaries joined us on a path by the public lavatory space. These large flightless birds look relatively like emus but have violent reputations of their assaults with their 4 inches very long claws. This ancient rainforest arrives alive with these living dinosaur-like creatures. Although in Daintree, we took a boat experience to spot crocodiles in the wild. With no this kind of luck, we decided to expend a day at Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures, a park half way between Cairns and Port Douglas (https://ift.tt/2S4f95a). Definitely, this park did not disappoint. We were being able to feed crocodiles, snap photos of their antics, and comprehensively appreciate their savagery. Throughout our remain in this spot, a couple fellow vacationers and guides mentioned the Coronavirus, typically in a half mocking way that it was probably being unduly hyped by the push. We shrugged off these opinions, not wondering significantly about them in the surreal surroundings of The Wonderful Barrier Reef.

Following our itinerary referred to as for us to fly to Melbourne. Just about every possible kind of cafe surrounded our hotel, Brady Resort, just a block absent from the occupied conference place of the Condition Library. Greek, Italian, and Turkish choices joined walls to kitchens of Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese. One could assert to have relished a excursion all over the planet merely by indulging in the extremely reasonably priced gourmand concoctions in downtown Melbourne. Very similar to our continue to be in Sydney, we relished a foodstuff tour, a strolling tour, road art tour, a ghost jail tour, river cruise, tram journey to St. Kilda Beach front, and a live performance by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. A emphasize was our working day journey to Healesville Sanctuary (https://ift.tt/2gWGenP). Achieving this wonderful safety area for endangered animals (a lot of influenced by the brush fires) was a snap applying Zoobus (zoobus.com.au). The hour’s drive weaves out of the town by the suburb of Fitzroy and earlier luscious vineyards and palatial households. Veterinarians devote them selves to the wellbeing of the animals, several stranded or rescued from the new fires. Caregivers passionately secure their rates. A experience of serenity welcomes all who visit. I fell in appreciate with the mom, Mani, and her baby, Chimpu (Good Fellow’s Tree Kangaroos). They are an really endangered species from New Guinea, brought to Healesville as component of a breeding software. Chimpu would poke out his head at any time so generally from mom’s pouch, only to be shoved again in by mom immediately after a brief see by the collected website visitors. Their coloration is heat reddish-brown, and their fur seems to be incredibly thick and luscious. It was a superior way to stop our remain in Melbourne, offering us a feeling that with the help of a person an additional, most typically existence will endure.

Things transformed very speedily. On the night time just before we were being scheduled to fly to Tasmania for 8 days, the governing administration cancelled Melbourne’s Grand Prix. This see arrived at 2 am in the early morning. The race was to begin close to 8 am the adhering to day. All at as soon as, crowds were not to assemble. All at when, dining establishments shut. All at when, we read that tours would not operate. Coronavirus was not a press hyped event. It was to be taken seriously. But, we have been soon off to Tasmania, an island off the southern coast of Australia, a somewhat isolated put that appeared to be immune from worldly cares or hazards. We flew without any issue from Melbourne to Tasmania and shuttled to our b & b in Hobart, The Edinburgh Gallery, for an right away continue to be. The inn was loaded to capacity, and no a single spoke of COVID-19. We walked the trail to Cascade Brewery, halting for a tour and a two-man or woman participate in that depicted the plight of ladies inmates at the Cascades Feminine Manufacturing facility. And early the subsequent early morning we were off with Exciting Tassie Tours. We joined 5 other individuals moreover our manual/driver named Carl, a gentleman heaped in understanding and enthusiasm for Tasmania (funtassietours.com).

For the pursuing six times we certainly were being in La La Land. Convicts developed much of Tasmania. Our minds could not aid but ponder how. They had been displaced from their homeland of England, forced to endure hardships and struggles and discrimination, and usually put in physical isolation for infractions. Yet they did extra than just survive. The like of the lads from Charles Dickens’ novels came alive as we discovered about Point Puer, the juvenile boys jail. When not top a tour for Enjoyable Tassie Excursions, Carl will work as a guideline at the Port Arthur World Heritage Historic Web page. He advised us tales of convicts meticulously positioning stones in its beckoning church, its warden’s property, and its blocks of cells. A horse or two graze in nearby pastures, and flowers and shrubs enhance the gardens with their hues. Afterwards, we would cross bridges constructed by convicts—still standing strongly in historic awe. It boggles the brain at the spirit of the particular person even in the harshest of conditions.

To even more our La La Land practical experience, we sample chocolate, wine, cheese, oysters, ice cream, smoked salmon, and honey. We snap photos of orange colored boulders at the Bay of Fires. We stroll together the pure white sandy seashores at Binalong Bay. We visit gorge reserves and travel by means of breathtaking farming and pasture spots. We understand of Tasmanian devils and those people aiding their rehabilitation initiatives. We feed kangaroos with out any hint of social distancing. We visit blow holes and wait around for penguins to monitor to their nests. In Cradle Mountain, we get pleasure from our wander to Glacier Rock and onward to Enchanted Walk to see gorgeous cascades and the Pencil Pine waterfall. Button grass plains, Eucalyptus forests, majestic mountains, and spectacular lakes are in each individual route. Likely my preferred location was Nelson Falls. Its rainforest engulfs its visitor in an ironic mixture of serenity and electric power. In fewer than 30 minutes, one particular leaves the parking lot and is delightfully swallowed in a planet of pristine mother nature. Close by at Mount Field Nationwide Park the 3 tiered Russell Falls attempts to compete. Certainly, it is a shut simply call. And The Wall in the Wilderness Artwork Gallery in Derwent Bridge leaves its attendees speechless when gazing at the massive wooden sculptures depicting the heroic struggles of the adult men and girls who settled in Tasmania a century or so in the past. We were being quite substantially immune from news of the entire world. Or so, we were being until eventually we arrived back again in Hobart.

Hobart smacked us with reality. We had been dropped off at our identical b & b, The Edinburgh Gallery. Only now, we were being its only guests. The borders into Tasmania had been shut except to its inhabitants. The owner was happy to see us and our hearts ached for him as he predicted economic woes for quite a few months. Our scheduled Hobart Town Tour was canceled. The Salamanca Food stuff and Arts weekly market place was postponed. Our boat excursion and entry to MONA, the state’s controversial art museum, ended up also canceled. And Virgin Australia went in advance and canceled our return flight Melbourne to Los Angeles. To place it mildly, we experienced established forth the 7 days just before on a tour, 1 we will lengthy remember and cherish, only to return to a wholly distinct ambiance and an unidentified as to our following 10 days or so.

Continue forward we did. We flew Hobart to Adelaide, with a transfer in Melbourne. We sat as the lone travellers in our shuttle from the airport to our resort in the heart of the metropolis, Resort Grand Chancellor. The management welcomed us with digital open up arms, even lending us a microwave to use in the home. We scooted around the pedestrian only buying area, noting food items only accessible as get out provider, and several individuals out and about. The subsequent morning we liked a town strolling tour and pay a visit to to the excellent anthropological museum. Then we obtained a disappointing e-mail: our excursion scheduled for early in the morning to Kangaroo Island was canceled. Captain Prepare dinner Cruises and Sealink held out until eventually the final moment to do so. We drop a tear or two, confronted the reality, and headed off to Hertz Rental Vehicles to transform our reservation for the ultimate week of our keep in Australia.

Bravo is an understatement for describing the personnel at Hertz. We were being established with a fairly new Toyota Rava Adelaide to Melbourne, with stops at Grampians and The Excellent Ocean Highway. Considering that there were being only two of us and we experienced been in Australia for a lot more than 14 days, quarantine demands had been not imposed upon us. We were being to retain to ourselves as we walked trails and adhere to social distancing procedures. Our checking in at the motels would be via phone. We would not be offered room service throughout our stays. These limitations had been such insignificant inconveniences that they meant absolutely nothing to us. So, off we drove for close to six hours to Halls Gap in The Grampians Nationwide Park.

In our setting up stages for browsing Australia, we predicted crowded conditions in Halls Gap. Right after all, it is a modest city of about 300 permanent people and 6000 beds. We booked our lodging at Gariwerd Motel months in advance. To place it mildly, there was no require for accomplishing so. The supervisor lived onsite. One other few expended two evenings there. And we occupied the second motel home. But appreciate Grampians, we did! We visited the petro station and marketplace before long right after settling in to our room. Couple of persons were out. This, nevertheless, did not halt the congregation of wildlife. Huge white cockatoos flew and landed just about everywhere, squeaking their squeak and pecking up seeds. Kangaroos achieved like clockwork at 5 pm at the downtown park, as if ready to perform soccer with two becoming a member of emus serving as referees. They dutifully hopped all over, ventured close to us for inspection, and then turned to their fellow teammates to go in advance with their activity. Two days of mountaineering and more climbing loaded our bill in The Grampians. A lot more than 150 kilometers of going for walks tracks dot the Grampians, ranging from 50 percent-hour strolls to overnight treks of difficult terrain. Just about every so generally we spotted Aboriginal rock art although traipsing to waterfalls, overhanging ledges, or sheltered groves. Conveniently, we ended up protected in this outdoor paradise.

We felt we had mastered swerving kangaroos by now so we ongoing our trip to The Terrific Ocean Road, keeping at Portside Motel in Port Campbell. The four hour push matched the pastoral elegance of ours from Adelaide to The Grampians. A few cities dotted the streets, great for bakeries for quick to get takeout foods. Our examining in at Portside duplicated the procedure at Gariwerd. Shortly we were off to see the city and sites west. Straightforward obtain is presented for several sights in Port Campbell Countrywide Park. Sheer limestone cliffs tower in excess of fierce seas. For 1000’s of years, waves and tides have relentlessly sculpted the tender rock into a intriguing sequence of rock stacks, gorges, arches and blowholes. We walked down the stairs at Gibson Methods, happy concrete ones now change the 19th century hand-carved kinds into the cliffs. The Twelve Apostles kiosk and path was shut. Loch Ard Gorge proved to be my favourite. We browse of tales of shipwrecks right here of a lot more than a hundred yrs ago. Highly effective waves dart to the sand, tender and warming beneath one’s toes.

The subsequent working day we explored extra of Port Campbell Countrywide Park, with trails skirting the ocean’s cliffs as nicely as a little bit inland. It was a lovely distinct working day, with waves under us laughing and gurgling at a person one more. Nevertheless, we understood that at near by Cape Otway several ships experienced smashed open towards the ocean’s pressure. We drove towards Apollo Bay, on the average halting about just about every thirty minutes at a lookout at scenes that are, without a doubt, indescribable.

The following day we departed Port Campbell to return to Melbourne in anticipation of our flight to Los Angeles, which our travel agent had re-routed on Air New Zealand by Auckland. We fell in adore with the tiny city of Lorne, squeezing alone in between the waters of Loutit Bay and the bush of the Otway Ranges. Locals detest them and try out to shoo them away: huge white cockatoos by the dozens that group on the town benches, railings and beach front pathways. In contrast, we adored them, chatted again to them, and reassured them of their beauty. The town of Anglesea winds close to gum-green Anglesea River, a very tranquil bush placing. Then will come Torquay, wherever even park benches are surfboard formed in Victoria’s surf capital. We realized we had to take a look at Bells Beach, just 7 kilometers west of Torquay for its famous status of its impressive break and annual environment-championship surfing contest. We gazed down on the basically deserted seaside: two lone surfers in their paradise.

Our scheduled time was before long coming to an close and we drove back to Melbourne to remain the night at the Holiday Inn by the airport in anticipation of our early morning flight to Los Angeles. We returned the car and repacked our suitcases for the next day. We had checked a variety of situations with our travel agent that all was established. We were being recommended a several days in advance of that our flight Melbourne to Auckland experienced been pushed up a day, and so we modified our options for this revision. We traipsed to the airport, located the Air New Zealand counter for checking in, and were advised, “You are not able to board this plane. You have a U.S. passport. Only Kiwis are permitted to enter the country.” I told the airline’s consultant that our travel agent experienced explained to us that we could be getting this airplane for the reason that we would be on a transit in Auckland and not be remaining there. I confirmed the electronic mail affirming this. And, so a cellphone contact was positioned in between the airlines agent and the vacation agent. I experienced sent our vacation company information about two weeks right before a copy of New Zealand’s shutdown, only to have them reassure us that our scheduling was legitimate. Considerably to my chagrin, the vacation agent arrived throughout as arrogant to these operating for the airways, as if it were her responsibility to established other people straight about their govt plan.” This is where by it receives terrible: when another person sitting down at a desk in the United States does not apologize for their error and consider to rectify it, but alternatively blames a man or woman and a state half way around the entire world. I was humiliated to be an American who had savored the attractive country of Australia opening its virtual arms to us even in the chaos and misery of COVID-19.

Air New Zealand advised that we phone the American Embassy to learn how we had been to return to the states. We did so rapidly and acquired that United Airlines had one flight each and every day Sydney to San Francisco and then we could fly to southern California from San Francisco. We termed United, booked a flight in two times, and caught a domestic flight above to Sydney. We stayed once more at the Castlereagh Hotel, welcomed back by the personnel we left there about a thirty day period in advance of.

To say we uncovered significantly from this excursion would be an understatement. Australia is a lovely region, and we arrived to value and enjoy it and its helpful folks. Also, we realized matters that have an impact on our angle toward travelling from this issue on:

1. Understand that even the very best of ideas can change. Really don’t get upset with many others who have no command in excess of the predicament and are carrying out the quite greatest they know how to do, particularly with situations that are not in their control.

2. Double up on the compliments to all those in the journey marketplace who are under stress and making an attempt their ideal to accommodate some others – and continue to keep smiling whilst they do so, even if it be at a length of 6 feet.

3. Travel with an individual who can roll with the punches. I have travelled a number of situations right before with Dorothy, a fantastic good friend of mine for about 30 decades. It doesn’t damage also that she has fantastic tunes on her mobile phone, faces worries with grace, and realizes that if need be, we could generally lease an apartment on The Fantastic Ocean Street until the vacation constraints lifted.

4. Respect that our setbacks have been, indeed, basically setbacks! We normally experienced fuel for the car, food stuff for our tummies, beds for our sleeping, and thoroughly clean drinking water for our showers. Social distancing was conveniently doable. Many in the entire world do not get pleasure from such luxuries. Indeed, we need to have to watch them as luxuries!

5. Carry in your heart a prayer and empathy for these less fortunate. This decade it might be these influenced by COVID-19 another time it may possibly be one thing else that rears its ugly head. We are in this planet together and to help a person another collectively. In other words and phrases, give lots of virtual hugs.

6. Build an perspective that “This Far too Will Pass.” Be optimistic. Be cheerful. Really don’t give up on travel. The business requires you! It will bounce back again with your help!

I am residence now safe and sound and audio from wonderful Australia. I’m preserving my length when I undertaking sometimes from household. I’m assured that we will conquer this dreaded virus. Most likely a trip or two could have to be postponed. But, let us do what we can to support those people in the journey sector. Situations will lighten up. Vacation destinations will seek your assistance. With each other, “We’re Heading to Get By way of This.”

source http://cheaprtravels.com/travelmag-surfing-covid-on-a-final-tour-as-australasia-shut-down/

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