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#[ thank you all so so so much for giving us and our original canon and Starwake System the chance ]
etanow · 2 months
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MASTER POST
The Experimental Monster Laboratory, or Monster Labs, is a TADC AU where the cast is in the physical world! Sorta..
C&A Research Facilities is one of the cornerstones of the science and medical worlds! They do everything; funding research, manufacturing equipment, and research into the known and unknown in an effort to understand everything. To the public, that is.
They experiment heavily in everything, from hiring literal Gods on earth to manage the more ..sensitive divisions; mixing machine and magic, technology and the supernatural, genetic experimentation, you name it, they’ve probably done it! The world outside may not know anything of the advancements they’re researching but there is little C&A Labs won’t allow in the name of progress in understanding and cataloging everything in their universe. Our story takes place in one of the more private residencies deep in C&A, belonging to Caine; a minor God with mysterious origins, unknown limitations, and boundless enthusiasm for learning everything he can about his little science friends.
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╰┈➤ Content
╚═ Unnamed fic (Coming soon...) ╚═ Bubble can cook?? .
╰┈➤ Asks
╚═ Does Pomni act like a zombie? ╚═ Is Zooble's Demon Snake Leg happy? ╚═ Gangle is in a Situation.png ╚═ Gangle's temperament ╚═ Has Ragatha ever shocked anyone? ╚═ Gangle love RAAAH ╚═ Do Caine and Ragatha fight over Pomni? ╚═ Why did Gangle summon a demon? ╚═ Why does Pomni wear a bell collar? ╚═ Kinger's eye ╚═ What if there was a baby crying? ╚═ Death trauma [Gangle and Pomni] ╚═ Kinger has ONE hobby outside of Bugs ╚═ Is Zooble protective of Gangle? ╚═ What happens when you touch Pomni's brain? ╚═ JAX DATED SOMEONE?? ╚═ What does Jax do? .
╰┈➤ References
╚═ Intro Cards ╚═ Height Chart Lineup ╚═ Zooble Demon Snake Leg Intro Card /j ╚═ Queenie ╚═ Gummigoo ╚═ The Sun Room ╚═ Logo .
╰┈➤ Arts
╚═ First ML AU Post ╚═ Second, exploring outfits ╚═ Design sketches part 2 ╚═ Pomni + flower language ╚═ Showtime + Ragapom doodles ╚═ Jax not practicing lab safety ╚═ Abstragedy cuddles ╚═ Raga doodle ╚═ Ragapom doodle ╚═ Jax and Meadowsweet ╚═ Pomni staring out a fake window.png ╚═ [Gives pomni flowers] ╚═ more doodles ig
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╰┈➤ Misc.
╚═ Caine Lemon Rant [Animatic] ╚═ Zodiac signs?? ╚═ Caine gets called a Tumblr Sexyman and cries ╚═ Bubble Looksmaxxing ╚═ Jax wants to take ketamine with you (Romantically) ╚═ Caine eats a lemon [Animatic] ╚═ BUNNYSUITSSS ╚═ Magma doodles ╚═ Magma doodles part 2
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╰┈➤ Pomniverse
╚═ Wonderland and Zombni are friends :D
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╰┈➤ Boundaries / Q&A
╚═ Any story plans? I'm not sure yet, currently writing a fic and several comics on the way.
╚═ Any boundaries? None, so go crazy! I am OK with gore, NSFW, angst, violence, etc, just be sure it is tagged/TW'd appropriately as not everyone is OK with that content. I'd also like to see please LOL
╚═ Can we create fanart/fics/content? Can we dub or fancam? Yes of course!! Please tag me, I'd love to see all of it! I'm tracking the tag #TADC Monster Labs AU for other's content
╚═ Is NSFW allowed? Yes, both art and fic, so long as it's marked appropriately I'd very much love to see!
╚═ Can I ship the characters, self-ships, or OC x Canon? Yes, ship away! Just be aware the only au-canon ships are Caine/Pomni, Ragatha/Pomni, Gangle/Zooble, and PAST Ragatha/Jax.
╚═ Can we make OCs? Go on ahead! Here is a PSD file for the blank template and the PNG can be found here.
╚═ Who are you?
✦✧ Hi I'm Audi! 26, she/they. Full-time office worker, I do art in my free time. ✦ My current interests are TADC, RWBY, Looney Tunes, and Trolls. ✧ I draw using a custom PC, a Huion Kamvas 16 (2.5K), and Adobe Photoshop. Currently learning to use Procreate. ✦ I do not RP and this isn't an ask blog, asks interacting directly with characters will probably not be answered. ✧ Asks are not guaranteed to be answered, sorry if yours isn't but please don't spam/send multiple times! ✦ Commissions and requests are not open at this time, thank you. ✧ My main tumblr is Audi-art. My Twitter is Hammerspaced.
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doctorbitchcrxft · 6 months
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Phantom Traveler | Supernatural Series Rewrite | Dean Winchester x Reader
Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader (Eventual)
Warnings: canon violence, canon gore, namecalling, typical Dean and reader
Word Count: 8289
Mobile Supernatural Series Rewrite Masterlist
Supernatural Series Rewrite Masterlist
Supernatural Series Rewrite Playlist
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You were sound asleep, curled up into yourself when a knock on the door brought you out of your slumber. 
“(Y/N)?”
‘Sam.’
“I got coffee, thought you could use some,” he called through the door.
You pushed yourself up out of the bed as you yawned, and walked over to the door of your motel room to open it for Sam. 
“Dude, you realize it’s six in the morning, right?” You scratched your head as you let Sam into the room.
“You sound like my brother.”
You playfully glared at him. “Don’t compare me to him.”
“Here.” He handed you a coffee and a bag of what you assumed was a pastry.
“Thanks,” you replied, sitting on your bed with your stuff in hand. 
Sam sat on the chair across from you. “Still haven’t warmed up to Dean, huh?” 
“Well, he hasn’t exactly warmed up to me,” you reminded him, thinking of the fight you got into yesterday over his reckless driving.
“Guess that’s true,” he conceded. “It’s weird, though, you guys are so much more alike than you let on.”
“Tell that to him. He started it.” You took a big bite of your pastry.
“Seriously?” Sam laughed, “ ‘He started it’?”
You shrugged, smirking. 
He seemed to remember his original intention behind disturbing your slumber. “Hey, he found a case, though.” 
“Oh, yeah? What’s up?” You licked the pastry cream off your thumb.
“We don’t know. The guy on the phone didn’t say.” Sam raised his coffee cup to his lips.
“Guy on the phone?” You took a sip of your coffee as you let Sam answer.
“Yeah. Some guy my dad and Dean worked a case for a while back’s got another one for us. He called Dean.”
“Ah—” you nodded, “—gotcha. So, where’s he live?”
“Pennsylvania,” Sam responded. 
“Okay, not too far,” you noted. “I’ll be ready in fifteen.”
***
“Thanks for making the trip so quick,” a short older man named Jerry told you and the boys. “I ought to be doing you guys a favor, not the other way around. Dean and your dad really helped me out.”
You were walking beside Sam as you followed behind the man who was having you do this job. You were being led through a warehouse past planes as well as their parts and people hard at work.
“Yeah, he told me. It was a poltergeist?” Sam asked the older man.
Someone walking in front of your group was eavesdropping on you. “Poltergeist? Man, I loved that movie.”
“Hey, nobody's talking to you. Keep walking,” Jerry stated authoritatively to the man. He turned his attention back to the conversation. “Damn right it was a poltergeist, practically tore our house apart.” He addressed Dean. “Tell you something, if it wasn't for you and your dad, I probably wouldn't be alive. Your dad said you were off at college. Is that right?” He’d turned to Sam.
“Yeah, I was. I'm— taking some time off,” Sam explained.
“Well, he was real proud of you. I could tell. He talked about you all the time.”
“He did?” Knowing what you knew about Sam’s relationship with his dad, you found this surprising, too.
“Yeah, you bet he did,” Jerry nodded. “Oh, hey, you know I tried to get a hold of him, but I couldn't. How's he doing, anyway?”
“He's, um, wrapped up in a job right now,” Dean lied. 
“Well, we're missing the old man, but we get Sam and— what’s your name again?” he asked you.
“(Y/N).”
“(Y/N). Even trade, huh?”
“Eh, I wouldn’t say that,” you laughed.
“Say, (Y/N), how’d you get wrapped up with these two?” Jerry asked.
“Oh, uh—” you began, searching for an abridged version of the truth, “—I met them on a hunt in California. They decided to drag me along with them.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here. The guys are gonna need backup with this one,” Jerry said. 
“Why?” 
He did not give a direct answer to your question. “I got something I want you guys to hear.”
He led you to his office where you and Sam took the two chairs and Dean stood behind his brother.
”I listened to this. And, well, it sounded like it was up your alley,” Jerry stated, putting a CD into a drive. “Normally I wouldn't have access to this. It's the cockpit voice recorder for United Britannia flight 2485. It was one of ours.”
A frantic voice immediately rang out from the speaker as soon as the recording started. “Mayday! Mayday! Repeat! This is United Britannia 2485—” the recording cut out with a static sound, “—immediate instruction help! United Britannia 2485, I copy your message—” and cut out again, “—May be experiencing some mechanical failure—” and then cut out one last time. The man’s voice was completely drowned out by static, whooshing, and growling sounds.
“Took off from here, crashed about two hundred miles south,” Jerry continued. “Now, they're saying mechanical failure. Cabin depressurized somehow. Nobody knows why. Over a hundred people on board. Only seven got out alive. Pilot was one. His name is Chuck Lambert. He's a good friend of mine. Chuck is, uh… well, he's pretty broken up about it. Like it was his fault.”
“You don't think it was?” Sam questioned him.
“No, I don't.”
“Jerry, we're gonna need passenger manifests, um, a list of survivors,” Sam listed.
“Alright,” the man replied.
“And, uh, any way we can take a look at the wreckage?” Dean inquired.
“The other stuff is no problem. But the wreckage… guys— and gal— the NTSB has it locked down in an evidence warehouse. No way I've got that kind of clearance.” Jerry shook his head.
You frowned.
“No problem,” Dean declared.
You gave him a questioning look to which he shrugged off.
***
“How fucking long does it take to make a fake ID?” you groaned, falling back across the backseat of the Impala. You and Sam had found a way to isolate the EVP on Sam’s computer, having gotten a copy of the tape from Jerry.
“I don’t know,” Sam responded. “But I’m gonna lose it if it’s much longer.”
“Same here.” At that moment, Dean walked out of the Copy Jack the Impala was sitting in front of as a pretty woman walked into the store. They greeted each other before Dean walked over to you and his brother.
“Dude,” you started, “You’ve been in there forever.”
“Wah-wah,” he whined, mocking you. “You can’t rush perfection.” He held up three IDs.
“Homeland Security?” Sam questioned as he took one of the IDs. “That's pretty illegal, even for us.”
“Yeah, well, it's something new. You know? People haven't seen it a thousand times,” Dean pointed out as he got into the car.
“Alright, so, what do you got?” Dean asked his brother as he flicked your ID back at you. It hit you square in the side of the head. 
“Dude, really?” you hissed, aggravation clear in your tone.
“Shh,” the older Winchester hushed you as he waited for Sam to answer.
“Well, there's definitely EVP on the cockpit voice recorder,” Sam explained.
“Yeah?”
“Listen.”
The isolated voice of what you were dealing with came through the recording scratchy and backed by demonic growling sounds. “No survivors!”
“ ’No survivors’?” Dean asked. “What's that supposed to mean? There were seven survivors.”
You shrugged.
Dean let out a sigh. “So, what are we thinking? A haunted flight?” 
“There's a long history of spirits and death omens on planes and ships, like phantom travelers,” Sam began.
Dean hummed in affirmation. “Or remember flight 401?”
“Right. The one that crashed, the airline salvaged some of its parts, put it in other planes, then the spirit of the pilot and copilot haunted those flights.”
“I don’t know, guys,” you stated skeptically. “Ghost just doesn’t feel right.”
“Well, thanks for your optimism, sunshine,” Dean quipped.
“It’s not about optimism, you asshole, it’s about being right and dealing with whatever we’re up against properly,” you pushed back.
“Know-it-all,” the older Winchester replied. 
“Fuck off, Winchester.”
He let out a breath and turned his attention back to the case.“Alright, so, survivors, which one do you want to talk to first?”
"Third on the list: Max Jaffey,” you said.
“I wasn’t talking to you, but why him?”
You glared at Dean. “Because if anybody saw something weird, he did. I talked to his mom while you were spending forever in the store. She said some pretty weird shit and told me where to find him. He was so screwed up, he checked himself into the hospital.”
***
You and the Winchesters walked beside Max Jaffey, who hobbled on a cane, through the Riverfront Psychiatric Hospital’s garden. 
“I don't understand. I already spoke with Homeland Security,” Max told your trio.
“Right. Some new information has come up,” Dean lied. “So if you could just answer a couple questions...”
“Just before the plane went down, did you notice anything… unusual?” Sam questioned.
Max looked confused. “Like what?”
“Strange lights, weird noises, maybe. Voices,” Dean offered. 
“No, nothing.”
Seeing as no one was getting anywhere with this investigation, you tried your hand at it. “Mr. Jaffey, you checked yourself in here, right?”
He nodded at you.
“Why?”
“Uh, I was a little stressed,” he said sarcastically. “I survived a plane crash.”
“Uh-huh,” you nodded. “And that’s what scared you? That’s what screwed you up so badly?”
You could tell you were close to the answers you were after as he swallowed uncomfortably. “I— I don't want to talk about this anymore.”
“I know, but I also know you saw something up there,” you continued. “We need to know what.”
“No.” Max shook his head. “No, I was… delusional. Seeing things.”
“He was seeing things,” Dean half-mocked him.
You shot a warning glance at Dean, hoping to get him to shut up. 
“It's okay,” you coaxed. “Just tell us what you thought you saw, please.”
“There was… this—man. And, uh, he had these… eyes—these, uh, black eyes. And I saw him—or I thought I saw him...” he trailed off, stopping as he recounted the events.
“What?” Dean asked.
“He opened the emergency exit,” Max explained. “But that's— that's impossible, right? I mean, I looked it up. There's something like two tons of pressure on that door.”
“Yeah,” Dean confirmed, clearly confused. 
“This man, uh, did he seem to appear and disappear rapidly? It would look something like a mirage?” Sam asked.
Max quirked his head at the younger Winchester. “What are you, nuts? He was a passenger. He was sitting right in front of me.”
***
“I think we can rule out phantom traveler,” you noted as you got out of the car in front of the Phelps’s house. You were going to visit the wife of George Phelps, the man who opened the emergency exit. 
“Why?” Dean asked.
“You heard Jaffey. He said the dude had black eyes. Opened a fucking emergency exit on his own. ‘Black eyes’ points me to demon.”
Dean’s eyes widened. “Demons?”
“I mean, it makes sense,” Sam shrugged. “He could be a demon. He might be some kind of a creature, too, in human form.”
“Does that look like a creature's lair to you?” Dean questioned as he gestured toward the house that was representative of the essence of suburban houses. From its beautiful garden to the cobblestone steps to the beige paint coating the outside of the two-story building.
Sam shrugged and began leading your trio up the steps of the house. 
Once inside, you three sat across from Mrs. Phelps on the couch while she sat in an armchair. 
Sam picked a picture of Mrs. Phelps and an older man up off of the side table. “This is your late husband?” he asked.
“Yes, that was my George.”
“And you said he was a dentist?” Dean questioned. 
She hummed in affirmation. “He was headed to a convention in Denver. Do you know that he was petrified to fly? For him to go like that...”
Sam asked another question. “How long were you married?”
“Thirteen years.”
You could tell Sam was contemplating how to ask his next question. “In all that time, did you ever notice anything… strange about him; anything out of the ordinary?”
She paused for a moment. “Well, uh, he had acid reflux, if that's what you mean.”
You nodded, clicking your tongue. “I think that’s all we have for you, Mrs. Phelps. Thank you for your time.”
She showed all of you out, and you piped up as you walked down the stairs outside of the house. 
“Demon’s sounding more and more correct all the time,” you smiled, trying to joke around.
“Jesus, you’re annoying,” Dean groaned.
“And you’re a misogynistic dick that can’t handle women with brains,” you responded. 
“What, are we gonna duke this out now?” Dean stopped by the door of the car, facing you. 
You stood by the backseat’s door. “You started it,” you taunted childishly, crossing your arms over your chest as you stared back at him. 
“Really?” he leered. “You’re gonna pull that card? Mature.”
“You act like you’re any better.”
“Guys—” Sam tried to cut in, but Dean continued to fight with you. 
“You’re such a bitch.”
“Wow, haven’t heard that one before,” you drawled.
“Guys! You can fight later. Wrong place, wrong time to sort this out,” Sam chastised you and Dean like you were children.
You got in the car and slammed the door behind you.
“Don’t hurt my baby ‘cause you’re pissed,” Dean scolded you as he started to pull the car away. 
“Just drive, asshole,” you grumbled in frustration as you slumped down in your seat. The rest of the car ride to the local outlet mall was silent.
***
You had never felt more confident. Despite the fact that you could have worn the one dress you already had to pose as homeland security, you decided to treat yourself to a new outfit to distract from your aggravation with Dean. 
The boys had gone to a suit shop called “Mort’s for Style,” and you went into a dress shop called “Betsy’s.” It was a cute little shop with a lot of great dress and pantsuit options.
You had picked out a navy blue pantsuit. You wore a white button-up underneath the blazer with the top two buttons undone to accentuate your breasts. The blazer was unbuttoned, and the high-waisted, straight-legged pants you wore matched the black color of your blazer. With the white button-up tucked into your pants and the small amount of makeup you threw on to draw attention to your eyes and lips, you felt good. 
Once you had paid for your clothing, you walked out of the shop and back to the Impala. Surprisingly, the boys were not there waiting for you. 
You leaned your back against the car, picking out the grit from under your nails.
You looked up when you heard Dean’s voice. “Man, I look like one of the Blues Brothers.” 
Both of the boys were dressed in sharp, black suits. You almost lost your breath at the sight of Dean, but fought yourself to keep your composure. You would not give him the satisfaction of knowing you found him attractive. 
“No, you don't,” Sam told him. “You look more like a seventh-grader at his first dance.”
You laughed at the younger brother’s jeer. “What took you girls so long?” you asked once you got in the Impala. “I thought you two would’ve beat me out the store by a long shot.”
“Dean wouldn’t leave the dressing room,” Sam said dryly.
“Seriously?” you droned.
You and Sam both looked to Dean, who did not answer immediately. When he finally spoke, he complained, “I hate this thing.”
“Hey,” Sam stared. “You want into that warehouse or not?”
Dean rolled his eyes as he continued to drive along.
You steeled your nerves as your black, pointed-toe pumps clicked across the warehouse floor. Your trio was headed to the security guard that would allow you in to see the wreckage.
You held the clipboard you had stowed in your bag close to your chest, acting as some sort of a recorder for the boys. The three of you flashed your badges at the security guard, who nodded and allowed you into the hangar where the wreckage was being kept.
There was a large map of what the plane should look like painted onto the floor, and the parts that corresponded to the different portions of the map were laid in their proper spots. There were wires hung on fences and broken interior parts of the plane laid on tables. The most heartbreaking things for you to look at were the torn passengers’ seats because most of the people who had been in them were now dead.
You looked over at Dean, who had earbuds in and was moving a small box over the tops of the wreckage.
“What’s that?” you asked him.
“It's an EMF meter. Reads electromagnetic frequencies.”
You got closer to him, noticing what the object appeared to be. “I know what an EMF meter is; I’m not stupid. But why does that one look like a busted-up walkman?”
“ 'Cause that's what I made it out of. It's homemade,” he grinned.
“Yeah, I can see that,” you quipped. 
His grin disappeared. “Bitch.”
“Dick.”
You once again fought the pain in your chest when he called you a bitch. In all honesty, you thought his homemade EMF meter was cute. However, you were too far gone in your war with him to surrender now.
Dean ran the Walkman over a piece of the wreckage with black spores and yellow dust on it. You could hear the faint sound of a spike on the meter through Dean’s headphones.
“Check out the emergency door handle,” Dean called to Sam. 
Sam came over to where you and Dean stood as the older brother scratched at the dust to get some on his hand.
“What is this stuff?” Dean asked.
One way to find out.” You saw the younger of the two brothers start scraping some of the dust into a small bag.
“We need to go,” you told the boys. You weren’t sure what told you that, but you just suddenly felt unsettled. The hairs on the back of your neck stood at attention, and every muscle in your body tensed. You started off toward the exit in the back of the warehouse. 
“Wait, (Y/N), what if we’re missin’ something?” Dean questioned, clearly aggravated you were ready to ditch already.
“Too bad, we gotta go.” You kept walking toward the exit, making it out of the door and around the backside of the building. 
At that moment, an alarm started blaring through the area surrounding the warehouse.
You turned around to look at the boys as you gloated, “I’m not gonna say, ‘I told you so’!“ Not bothering to rip your shoes off of your feet, you took off running to the gated exit. 
Sam and Dean were quick to follow you and soon passed you up. The older brother took off his suit jacket and threw it over the barbed wire at the top of the fence. You did the same with your blazer. After quickly taking off your pumps to avoid hurting yourself when you jumped from the top of the gate, you threw yourself over the fence. The other two did the same.
Sam grabbed your blazer that you were too small to reach from the top of the fence as Dean found it within himself to remark, “Well, these monkey suits do come in handy.”
You ran after the two boys, heels and blazer in hand as the jagged rocks in the cement cut into your feet. As soon as you shut the door to the car, Dean slammed on the gas pedal.
He tore out of the warehouse’s parking lot, speeding down the road to head toward Jerry’s workplace. 
"(Y/N),” Sam started, turning in his seat to face you with a curious expression on his face, “how did you know that?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. My intuition’s just always been pretty sharp.” You were being honest; there had been a few times on hunts previously when you’d known it was time to get the hell out of dodge.
“Hm.” You could tell Dean still didn’t trust you.
“Dude, I don’t know what else to tell you. That’s the truth,” you countered. “I’ve been helping you guys with your dad for almost two months now, and you still don’t trust me. I don’t know what more to do for you.”
“Maybe because I don’t know you,” he responded, never taking his eyes off the road. 
“Maybe if you tried to know me, you’d find it a little easier to trust me,” you answered.
“Not interested,” came Dean’s grumbled response.
You tried your best to ignore the pang that went through your chest once more. “Of course not.”
***
You refused to speak to or even look at Dean; your frustration with the fact that he had no desire to know you and his general existence boiling to the surface. You could feel his stare burning into the side of your head as you focused on Jerry, who sat in front of you. He was looking through a microscope on his desk at the yellow dust Sam had collected.
“Huh,” Jerry remarked. “This stuff is covered in sulfur.”
“You're sure?” Sam asked.
“Take a look for yourself,” Jerry offered, getting up from behind the desk so Sam could take his place. 
Banging sounds along with a string of curse words caught your ear as Jerry sighed. 
“If you guys will excuse me, I have an idiot to fire,” he dryly stated, walking out of the office.
You got up from the chair you were sitting in next to Dean. “See?” you started excitedly, gesturing toward the sulfur, “Demons.”
“That would explain how one guy had the strength to open up the emergency exit,” Sam added.
“This goes way beyond floating over a bed or barfing pea soup. I mean it's one thing to possess a person, but to use them to take down an entire airplane?” Dean put his hands on his hips as he stood. “You ever heard of something like this before?” 
Sam looked over at his brother, who responded, “Never.”
“Well, I have,” you said simply.
They both looked to you to continue.
“In NYC a couple years back. Some cabbies had gotten possessed and were takin’ girls left and right.”
“Those were demons?” Sam asked, standing up from behind Jerry’s desk. “That was a huge deal on the news while I was at Stanford. Police thought it was a serial killer. You took ‘em on all by yourself?”
“I’m a big girl, Sam,” you chuckled. “I can handle a few demons. But, yeah, that was me. That was probably the toughest case I’ve ever been on. Finding where those demons had taken those girls after they drugged them in the cabs... where they were raped and murdered...” You shook your head, your cheery expression gone. 
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Sam told you gently. 
Your eyes were glued to the floor, hands on your hips with not a bit of life in your voice as you muttered, “All in a day’s work.”
Sam had asked you to tell him and Dean everything you knew about demons once you got back to the Winchesters’ motel room. Sam sat at the table close to the window while Dean sat on the bed closest to his brother. You stood in front of the two as you spoke.
“Demons exist in every religion in every world culture. With the ones that I was dealing with up in New York, they were most similar to Incubi from early Christian religion. Incubi raped sleeping girls. These demons drugged the girls to put them to sleep, then they raped them, and then they murdered them. What I’m thinking for these demons is that they’re most similar to certain Japanese demons. I had to look into these when I was trying to figure out how to kill the NYC demons. The Japanese believe demons cause certain disasters, whether it be natural or man-made. Some cause earthquakes, others cause disease—”
“And this one causes plane crashes?” Dean deadpanned, cutting you off.
You ignored him. “Demons are having to find new ways to ratchet up the body count. Like with me in New York, Incubi can’t go about their old methods anymore. This demon probably evolved with the times like the Incubi did, and so it figured plane crashes were the best way to get its job done.”
Dean snorted, getting up from. the bed and turning away from you and his brother.
“What?” Sam asked.
He turned around, scratching the back of his neck. “I don't know, man. This isn't our normal gig. I mean, demons, they don't want anything, just death, and destruction for its own sake. This is big. And I wish Dad was here.”
“Yeah. Me too,” the younger Winchester admitted.
Dean’s phone rang, and he answered it. “Hello?... Oh, hey, Jerry… Wha— Jerry, I'm sorry. What happened?... Where'd this happen?... I'll try to ignore the irony in that… Nothing. Jerry, hang in there, all right? We'll catch up with you soon.”
He hung up the phone. 
“Another crash?” Sam questioned, already knowing the answer.
“Yeah. Let's go.”
“Where?”
“Nazareth.” 
‘Ah, there’s the irony.’
***
After leaving the horrendous scene of Chuck’s plane crash, you and the boys went back to Jerry’s office. Once again, Jerry confirmed that the dust you had taken from the steering wheel of Chuck’s plane was, in fact, sulfur. 
“Well, that's great,” Dean sassed. “Alright, that's two plane crashes involving Chuck Lambert. This demon sounds like it was after him.”
“If that's the case, that would be the good news,” you chimed in. You looked up to the sky, addressing the pilot. “No offense, Chuck.”
“What's the bad news?” Jerry asked you.
“Chuck's plane went down exactly forty minutes into the flight, just like 2485,” you informed the older man.
“Forty minutes?” Chuck inquired. “What does that mean?”
“It's biblical numerology. You know Noah's ark, it rained for forty days. The number means death,” Dean said.
“I went back, and there have been six plane crashes over the last decade that all went down exactly forty minutes in,” Sam explained.
"Any survivors?” the older Winchester questioned his brother.
“No. Or not until now, at least, not until flight 2485, for some reason.” Sam turned to you after thinking for a moment. “On the cockpit voice recorder, remember what the EVP said?”
“ ‘No survivors,’ “ you realized. “It's going after all the survivors. It's trying to finish the job.”
Dean drove the Impala down an empty highway. 
Sam was on the phone with one of the survivors from the plane crash, the conversation almost over. “Really? Well, thank you for taking our survey, And if you do plan to fly, please don't forget your friends at United Britannia Airlines. Thanks.” He hung up the phone. “All right. That takes care of Blaine Sanderson and Dennis Holloway. They're not flying anytime soon.”
“That leaves the flight attendant, Amanda Walker,” you commented.
“Right. Her sister Karen said her flight leaves Indianapolis at eight P.M. It's her first night back on the job,” Sam told you and his brother. 
“That sounds like just our luck,” Dean grumbled.
“Dean, this is a five-hour drive, man, even with you behind the wheel,” Sam said worriedly.
“Call Amanda's cellphone again, see if we can't head her off at the pass,” Dean tried.
“I already left her three voice messages. She must have turned her cellphone off.”
“God, we're never gonna make it,” you shook your head, leaning back in the seat as you scrubbed a hand through your hair.
“We'll make it,” the older brother countered, slamming his foot on the gas. 
Somehow, someway, Dean had managed to get to the airport at ten minutes to seven. 
You jumped up out of the car, taking your gun out of your pants and stashing it under the backseat.
“What are you doing?” 
You still did not feel like talking to Dean but answered him shortly nonetheless. “We’re going into an airport.”
Dean finally caught onto what you meant and took all of his weapons off of him, too. “I feel naked.”
You fought the smile threatening to creep up your face.
You rushed into the airport just behind the boys, squeezing your way through the crowd of people to get to the departure board.
“Right there,” Sam pointed out. “They're boarding in thirty minutes.”
“Okay. We still have some cards to play,” Dean paused, thinking for a moment.  “We need to find a phone.” 
He found a courtesy phonw on the wall, picking it up. “Hi. Gate thirteen… I'm trying to contact an Amanda Walker. She's a flight attendant on flight, um… flight 4-2-4.”
He waited impatiently for Amanda to pick up the phone. When she finally did, he began speaking again.
“Miss Walker. Hi, this is Dr. James Hetfield from St. Francis Memorial Hospital. We have a Karen Walker here… Nothing serious, just a minor car accident, but she was injured, so—” His face fell, his eyes widening a touch. “You what?... Uh, well… there must be some mistake—”
Sam went around his brother to try to get a closer listen. 
After a longer pause, Dean let out a sigh of relief and smiled. “...Guilty as charged… He's really sorry… Yeah, but… he really needs to see you tonight, so—... Don't be like that. Come on. The guy's a mess. Really. It's pathetic… Oh, yeah… No, no. Wait, Amanda. Amanda!” Dean slammed the phone back onto the receiver. “Damn it! So close.”
"Alright, time for plan B. We're getting on that plane,” you stated firmly.
“Whoa, whoa, now just hold on a second.” For the first time since you met him, Dean looked scared.
“Dean, that plane is leaving with over a hundred passengers on board, and if we're right, that plane is gonna crash,” Sam argued.
“I know.” He looked conflicted.
“Okay. So we're getting on the plane, we need to find that demon and exorcise it. I'll get the tickets. You and (Y/N) get whatever you can out of the trunk. Whatever that will make it through security. Meet me back here in five minutes.”
Dean looked at Sam blankly, evidently a little anxious.
“Are you okay?” the younger Winchester asked.
Dean hesitated. “No, not really.”
“What? What's wrong?”
“Well, I kind of have this problem with, uh...”
“Flying?” you cut in.
“It's never really been an issue until now,” he told you.
“You're joking, right?” Sam huffed.
“Do I look like I'm joking? Why do you think I drive everywhere, Sam?” he spat.
For the first time since you met him, you didn’t feel like mocking him about his fear of planes.
“Okay, then (Y/N) and I’ll go,” Sam proposed.
Dean shook his head. “What?”
“We’ll handle this one.”
“What are you, nuts? You said it yourself, the plane's gonna crash.”
“Dean, we can do it together, or I can do this one with (Y/N). I'm not seeing a third option, here.”
Dean scratched his head. “Come on! Really? Man...”
Dean walked much faster than you did toward the car to get supplies, clearly trying to leave you in his dust.
“Would you slow down a bit, please?” you asked.
“Why should I?”
“Because even if you get to the car before me, you’re not gonna have a fucking clue what to use to deal with a demon,” you reminded him, your words a bit more venomous than need-be.
He stopped, turning to face you. “Are you calling me stupid?”
“No,” you told him. You truly weren’t.
“Definitely sounds like you are.”
You walked past him to the trunk of the Impala. “I wasn’t, I’m simply pointing out the fact that I’m the one who knows how to deal with demons, and you don’t.”
“There you go again. Acting like you know so much better than I do.” His attitude was truly exhausting.
Your voice rose as you defended yourself. “Because I do! In this case, at least!”
“But it’s not just this one time that you acted like you’re better than me,” he argued. “Do you realize how frustrating it is to deal with your smart ass?”
“Do you realize how frustrating it is to deal with yours?” you threw back. You sighed, putting aside your anger for now. “Look, we don’t have time to talk about this.” You shoved holy water, a rosary, and the EMF Walkman into Dean’s hands. “Now, let’s go.” 
You shoved past Dean and headed back to the airport.
***
You sat between Sam and Dean, completely at ease. Dean, however, was losing his mind.
"Just try to relax,” Sam whispered from the window seat 
Dean’s voice came back harder and slightly louder. “Just try to shut up.”
“Oh, don’t be a baby,” you scolded playfully.
“Don’t be a bitch,” Dean clapped back using the same tone with you that he had with Sam. He took in a sharp breath when the plane began moving a second later.
You gathered your courage and grabbed his hand. He jerked away from you and looked at you in surprise. When the plane took off, though, his hand rejoined yours, squeezing tightly. You giggled to yourself.
“I’m so glad this is funny to you,” Dean hissed.
“It’s not,” you answered simply.
“Then why are you laughing?” His grip tightened once again.
“It’s just,” you considered your next words carefully. “It’s kind of cute, that’s all.”
Dean was caught off-guard by your response. He eyed you quizzically, unsure of what to say. You just shrugged, settling the back of your head against your seat with your hand still in Dean’s. It was much larger than yours, and you fought the urge to run your fingers along the calloused ridges. 
Moments passed in a bit of an uncomfortable silence before Dean spoke again, not a trace of bite in his tone. “Why are you doing this?”
You rolled your head toward him. “Everybody’s scared of something,” you quietly replied. “It helps me to know I’m helping you. Even if you do hate my guts.”
“I don’t hate your guts.” He spoke so softly you almost couldn’t hear him.
“Pfft, could’ve fooled me,” you answered. 
“You just…” he started, “...get on my nerves. ‘S all.”
You giggled. 
A few minutes later when the plane had fully gotten up in the air, you heard the familiar sound of a song you had heard many times before in the Impala coming from the man next to you. 
“You're humming Metallica?” Sam asked Dean monotonously.
“Calms me down,” the older brother replied. 
“ ‘Some Kind of Monster’? Really?“ You raised a brow at him.
Dean did not respond to you.
“Look, man, I get you're nervous, all right? But you got to stay focused,” the younger Winchester reminded his brother.
“Yup,” you chimed in. “We only have thirty-two minutes to track the bitch down and full-on exorcise it.” 
“Yeah, on a crowded plane,” Dean commented. “That's gonna be easy.”
“Just take it one step at a time, alright?” Sam said calmly. “Now, who is it possessing?” 
“It's usually gonna be somebody with some sort of weakness, you know, a chink in the armor that the demon can worm through. Somebody with an addiction or some sort of emotional distress,” Dean stated.
“Well, this is Amanda's first flight after the crash. If I were her, I'd be pretty messed up,” Sam told Dean, who hummed in response.
Dean sat up stiffly, his body still tense as he turned to the blonde flight attendant walking past.
“Excuse me. Are you Amanda?” he asked her.
“No, I'm not,” she answered with a smile.
"Oh, my mistake.”
The flight attendant hummed in agreement.
He peered into the back of the plane, finding the other blonde flight attendant. “All right, well, that's got to be Amanda back there, so I'll go talk to her, and, uh, I'll get a read on her mental state.”
“What if she's already possessed, genius?” Sam asked.
“There's ways to test that,” Dean responded, pulling the holy water out of his jacket. “I brought holy water.”
“Correction, I brought holy water—” you leaned forward, gently taking the bottle, “—And that’s for when we try to exorcise the demon. She’ll flinch at the name of god if she’s possessed.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Dean replied, getting up from his chair. You could tell he had not. You already missed the feeling of his hand in yours.
He turned to go, but you stopped him.
“Dean!” you whispered.
“What?” The annoyance in Dean’s voice was back. 
“Say it in Latin.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Then what is it?” you smirked, quirking a brow.
“ ‘Christo!’ I’m not an idiot!” he hissed back. Dean turned away from you and headed to the back of the plane. 
You slumped down in your seat, closing your eyes as the copilot began speaking. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your first officer speaking...” you tuned out the rest of his message.
A few minutes went by before the older brother returned.
“Alright, well, she's got to be the most well-adjusted person on the planet,” he sighed as he flopped back into his seat.
“You said ‘Christo’?” Sam asked.
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“There's no demon in her. There's no demon getting in her.” 
“So, if it's on the plane, it can be anyone. Anywhere,” Sam explained.
The plane shook, causing Dean to tense up. He grabbed your hand once more. “Come on!” he whined. “That can't be normal!”
“Hey, hey, it's just turbulence,” you coaxed.
“Sweetheart, this plane is going to crash, okay? So quit treating me like I'm fucking four.” He went to drop your hand, but you tightened your grip.
“Okay,” you started, changing tactics. Your tone became harsh. “You need to calm down.”
“Well, I'm sorry, I can't,” Dean sassed.
“You didn’t want to be treated like you’re four, so stop acting like it,” you commanded. “Be a man, Winchester. If you’re a basketcase, you’re wide open to possession. Get your shit together. Right now.”
Dean took a deep breath.
You smiled. “Great. Onto the Rituale Romanum.”
“The what?” Sam and Dean asked in unison.
“The exorcism ritual,” you elaborated. “It's two parts. The first part expels the demon from the victim's body. It makes it manifest, which actually makes it more powerful.”
“More powerful?” Dean questioned, his voice strained and eyes wide.
“Yup.”
“How?” He was starting to get panicky again.
“It’d just be able to wreak havoc on its own without a vessel,” you informed.
“Oh. And why is that a good thing?”
“ 'Cause the second part of that sends the bitch back to hell once and for all.”
“First things first, we got to find it.”
“There ya go,” you chuckled.
“Shut up,” Dean grumbled, getting up from his chair with the EMF Walkman.
You and Sam let him walk down the aisle by himself for a few minutes before the two of you got up to go talk to him.
You tapped his shoulder.
“Ah!” Dean jumped back, wheeling around to face you. “Don’t do that!”
“Anything?” Sam asked.
The older brother shook his head. “No, nothing. How much time we got?” 
“Fifteen minutes,” Sam told you and his brother. “Maybe we missed somebody.” 
“Maybe the thing's just not on the plane,” Dean shrugged.
“No way. Dean, it’s gonna be here,” you protested. Just as you spoke, the EMF meter spiked. 
You looked up to see the copilot coming out of the bathroom.
“What?” Sam asked. “What is it?”
You stared at the copilot. “Christo.”
The man’s head slowly turned toward you and the boys, his eyes black.
You wheeled around to face Sam. “We gotta talk to Amanda.”
“She's not gonna believe this,” Sam contested.
“You’re probably right, but we only got twelve minutes,” you reminded the younger brother. You walked ahead of the boys into the concessions area where Amanda busied herself.
“Oh, hi. Flight's not too bumpy for you, I hope,” she smiled politely, clearly caught off-guard by your presence.
“Actually—” Dean began, “—that's kind of what we need to talk to you about.”
Sam closed the curtains behind you as Amanda answered Dean. “Um, okay. What can I do for you?”
“Alright, this is gonna sound nuts, but we just don't have time for the whole ‘the truth is out there’ speech right now,” Dean rushed out.
She looked confused but kept her smile painted on her face.
“Alright, look, we know you were on flight 2485,” Sam continued for Dean.
Her grin disappeared. “Who are you guys?”
Sam ignored her question. “Now, we've spoken to some of the other survivors. We know something brought down that plane and it wasn't a mechanical failure.”
“We need your help because we need to stop it from happening again. Here. Now,” the older brother told her.
“I'm sorry—” she started, attempting to move past you, “I— I'm very busy. I have to go back—”
“Chuck Lambert’s dead, Amanda,” you cut in, effectively stopping her from leaving. “The pilot from 2485.”
“Wait. What?” She turned to face you, her eyebrows furrowed. “Chuck is dead?”
“Yeah,” you said quietly. “He died in a plane crash. That’s the second plane crash in two months. Doesn’t that strike you as weird?”
She shook her head in complete disbelief.
“Look, there was something wrong with 2485,” Sam added. “Now maybe you sensed it, maybe you didn't. But there's something wrong with this flight, too.”
Dean made a last attempt to drive the point home. “Amanda, you have to believe us.”
The blonde looked to the ground. “On… on 2485, there was this man. He… had these eyes.”
“Black eyes?” you asked.
She nodded.
“That’s exactly what we’re talking about,” Sam clarified.
“I don't understand, what are you asking me to do?”
Dean answered before you got the chance to. “Okay. The copilot, we need you to bring him back here.”
Amanda looked between the three of you, confused. “Why? What does he have to do with anything?”
“Don't have time to explain. We just need to talk to him. Okay?”
“How am I supposed to go in the cockpit and get the copilot—” You could practically see her mind running a mile a minute. 
Even Sam was getting impatient. “Do whatever it takes. Tell him there's something broken back here, whatever will get him out of that cockpit.”
“Do you know that I could lose my job if you—”
“Babe, you're gonna lose a lot more if you don't go get him right now,” you remarked.
She looked at you and nodded, turning to leave for the cockpit.
As soon as Amanda made it out of the curtains, you fished the holy water out of your hoodie’s pocket, moving to press your back against the wall next to the closed blue curtains.
A few moments later, you heard the copilot say to Amanda, “Yeah, what's the problem?” Just outside the curtains. As soon as the demon ducked into the small room, Dean punched him in the face. He then shoved the demon to the ground and slapped duct tape over his mouth. 
“Wait,” Amanda protested as you got down on the ground beside Dean, “What are you doing? You said you were just gonna talk to him.”
“We are gonna talk to him,” Dean replied simply as you splashed the copilot with holy water.
The demon groaned under the duct tape, his skin sizzling and burning holes through his shirt.
“Oh, my god. What's wrong with him?” Amanda cried.
“Look,” Sam started calmly, “We need you calm. We need you outside the curtain.”
Amanda’s breath quickened. “Well, I don't underst— I don't know—”
“Don't let anybody in, okay? Can you do that? Can you do that? Amanda?”
She gave herself a pep talk before heading outside of the curtains.
“Hurry up, Sam,” Dean groaned. “I don't know how much longer I can hold him.”
The demon went to kick the older Winchester in the back, but you dove to grab his legs.
Sam began reciting the Latin ritual written in his father’s journal. “Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino—”
The demon kneed you in the forehead, causing you to fall back and got a few good swings at the boys in as well. You clambered on top of the copilot, sitting on his stomach with his arms pinned by his sides under your legs.
Sam continued with the ritual before the demon threw you off of him. He ripped the tape off of his mouth and turned to Sam. “I know what happened to your girlfriend! She must have died screaming! Even now, she's burning!”
You attempted to recover from getting slammed into the wall while Dean focused on attacking the demon.
Sam sat there in shock, so you grabbed the journal and tried to finish the ritual.
The demon hit Dean again, effectively getting the young man off of him and knocking Dean into you. The book fell from your hand, and the demon kicked it out into the passenger’s cabin.
A cloud of black smoke flew out from the copilot’s body and into a vent while Sam went out into the aisle to find the journal. 
Suddenly, the plane shook violently and took a nosedive. The lights in the plane flickered and you and Dean were thrown to the back wall of the concession’s area. 
You and Dean screamed as the plane went down. Dean held onto the emergency exit door for dear life as you pressed yourself into the corner opposite from the older Winchester.
Your yelps were cut off when the plane leveled out following a surge of electricity coursing through the aircraft. You assumed Sam was able to finish the ritual and the pilot was able to regain control of the plane. 
You shakily stood up from the ground and dusted yourself off, tugging on the sleeves of your large hoodie.
You stepped out into the passenger’s cabin, heading to Sam as people began asking their neighbors if they were okay.
You wrapped Sam in a short, tight hug as you thanked him for keeping his head level enough to finish the ritual and trying to comfort him after what the demon had said. When you had made your way back to your seats, a slight rumble went through the aircraft. Dean grabbed your hand once again, and kept it there for the rest of the flight. A small smile tugged at your lips. 
After landing back at your original airport, you stood beside Sam and Dean as you watched the swarms of EMTs, FBI agents, and FAA agents go from person to person. They questioned or looked over each one, and your focus bounced between them.
You found Amanda in the crowd talking to an FBI agent, and she turned to the side to mouth “thank you” to you and the Winchesters.
“Let's get out of here,” Dean said firmly.
You began to head to the exit when Dean asked Sam, “You okay?”
You turned back to Sam, who reminded you and his brother, “Dean, it knew about Jessica.”
“Sam, these things, they, they read minds. They lie. Alright? That's all it was.” The older brother attempted to brush Sam’s concerns off.
“Yeah.” The brunet didn’t sound convinced.
“Come on.”
***
The next day, you and the Winchesters visited Jerry at his workplace to give him the final mission report. Jerry showed you and the boys out and escorted you to the Impala parked outside of the warehouse. 
“Nobody knows what you guys did, but I do. A lot of people could have been killed,” he acknowledged. He shook your hand before turning to the boys. “Your dad's gonna be real proud.”
Sam gave him an awkward, tight-lipped smile. “We'll see you around, Jerry.”
You turned to the car, as did Dean before he turned back to the older man. 
“You know, Jerry—" he began.
“Yeah.”
“I meant to ask you, how did you get my cellphone number, anyway?” the young man continued. “I've only had it for like six months.”
“Your dad gave it to me,” Jerry explained simply.
“What?” Sam exclaimed in shock.
“When did you talk to him?” Dean questioned.
“I mean, I didn't exactly talk to him, but I called his number. His voice message said to give you a call.” He took a pause. “Thanks again, guys— and gal,” he grinned.
“Bye, Jerry!” you called after him as he headed off.
“This doesn't make any sense, man. I've called Dad's number like fifty times. It's been out of service,” Sam told his brother.
Dean dials what you assumed was his father’s number. However, instead of the out-of-service message Sam had described, a voicemail began to play.
The two boys leaned into the phone so they could hear it better.
You leaned over Sam’s shoulder, the voice hard to hear, but you were still able to make out the words. “This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean. 785-555-0179. He can help.”
Sam fumed, shaking his head in frustration as he got in the car. He slammed the door behind him. You looked over to Dean, who did not meet your gaze. He got in the car following his brother. You took one last look at the setting sun as a plane flew over your head. 
“I fuckin’ hate flying,” you muttered.
Series Rewrite Taglist: @polireader @brightlilith @atcamillanorrman @jrizzelle @insomnia-bookworm @procrastination20 @mrs-liebgott @djs8891 @tiggytaylor @staple-your-mouth @iloveshawn @jesstherebel
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yuurei20 · 4 months
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Sorry if this was asked/addressed before, but do you consider the Twisted Wonderland Novels to be canon compliant, canon divergent, or maybe a little bit of both? Thank you so much!
Hello hello! ^^ Thank you for this question!
The Twst novels are fascinating, and seem to be accomplishing a multitude of things at once: we get insight into things that are barely hinted at in the game, like the scorn Riddle suffers post-overblot, the respect he holds for Leona and how he wants to learn from Malleus.
・Riddle and the consequences of overblot ・Riddle's confession ・Riddle on Malleus
We also get complete changes to things established in the game, such as the retconning of our introductions to Leona, Vil and Azul. ・Meeting Leona ・Meeting Pomefiore (pt1)) ・Meeting Azul (pt1)
And, most interesting of all, we get a lot more detail into things that also might be happening in the game, but we were just not told about it due to the limitations of the visual novel medium:
・Yuuya's First Class The prefect is not exactly welcomed by the students of NRC, with no one but Ace and Deuce willing to acknowledge them. ・Yuuya Fails After being supported by Ace, the prefect fails to support him in return ・The Classroom Tensions between Savanaclaw and Diasomnia students ・Riddle and Unique Magics Information on how unique magics manifest. ・The Overblot Battle Ruggie and Jack work together to defeat Leona ・Post-Overblot Leona (the flashback monologue) Leona's fear of giving up. ・Trusting Riddle Ace and Deuce's relationship to Riddle.
Due to how some things are being completely changed I think it is safer to consider the novels as a different canon unto themselves, but they are also a great frame of reference to apply to the game!
→ What language is being spoken in Twst? It is never specified in the game, but we know the language at novel-NRC is not Japanese!
→ What is the roommate situation at NRC? While we have a few hints in the game, the novel has explicitly explained the rooming situations!
→ How many students are there at NRC? Again we have a few hints here and there in the game, but the novel has given us a solid number :>
While things like the above three points might not apply to the game at all they are a useful reference for fanfic purposes, for example, until such a time that they are confirmed or denied by game canon.
And there might be times when the novels are even making corrections to in-game oversights 👀
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In Book 1, for example, Ace is unable to repeat Chenya's full name after hearing it for the first time.
The problem: Ace is well known for being talented at mimicry, imitating tongue-click sounds he learns from Rook on his first try in order to communicate with hedgehogs.
The solution: Both the novel and the manga corrected this scene by having Deuce, not Ace, be the one who struggles to repeat Chenya's name.
Did they realize at some point that Ace not being able to mimic Chenya goes against an important character point, which they then corrected in the other two mediums? 👀
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As the novels are coming out after the game, this could mean that there is a possibility that they are actually more accurate to the characters in some ways, as the creators have had a chance to review previously established points and make adjustments accordingly ^^
(The author for the novels, Hioki Jun, is both one of the original writers of the game's events and vignettes along with Yana, and a member of Yana's personal studio, D-6th!)
While maybe not canon to each other, both the novels and the game are most enjoyable, and I highly recommend them both!
English-language translation of the first novel coming out this August! 🥳
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deconstructthesoup · 3 months
Text
Looked at my Dead Boy Detectives swap AU, decided that it could be better, and ran with it. So... here ya go.
(For those of you who need a refresher---it's an AU where Crystal and Niko are the ghosts and Charles and Edwin are the alive ones. "Dead Girl Detectives," basically.)
Crystal is pretty much unchanged from the original concept---she died in the 1920's, she was a psychic socialite with absent parents, and she acted like the quintessential spoiled wild-child while secretly being fascinated by detective stories. She died when she got possessed by David the demon, who puppeted her body around for weeks... until she finally managed to wrench back some form of control, threw both of them off of a building, and wound up getting sent to Hell. Now that she's out and living free as a ghost, she's doing her level best to leave her old self behind and be a better person---partly for herself, but also so she can prove that she doesn't deserve eternal punishment if Hell ever comes for her again.
Niko's still an anime geek from the 1990's who was an outcast in life, but her death circumstances are different. Instead of dying from the dandelion sprites, she accepted an invitation to a party in an effort to try and socialize more after her father's death... and she got killed in a prank gone wrong, trapped in an abandoned mansion that used to belong to Crystal's family. She probably would've even moved on if it weren't for Crystal showing up and helping her out, giving Niko a reason to stick around. Niko's doing better now, but she still hasn't really processed her feelings surrounding her death. (Also, her hair's still white---she just dyed it that way, and it's never changed even after she died.)
Charles is also pretty much unchanged from the OG concept---he's still an irresponsible witch who got possessed by David and lost his memories as a result---with the added detail that he's one of many incredibly powerful magical people who David's possessed, wrecked havoc with their powers, and killed, though Charles thankfully survived the ordeal thanks to the Dead Girl Detectives. Also, I'm fairly certain that Charles is not only well aware that he's bisexual and out, but he and David were almost certainly dating. Or at least hooking up.
Edwin's still a socially awkward comics nerd and shut-in, but I decided to just have him get the paranormal parasite as a way for him to get involved with Charles and the Dead Girl Detectives---though, instead of a dandelion sprite that's all about soaking up attention, it's a hornet-themed sprite that feeds on people's insecurities and self-loathing. I think that he still butts heads with Crystal a little bit, but his bookish, studious nature winds up becoming incredibly helpful to the team, and he gets along great with Niko and Charles. Especially Charles.
Now, after thinking about it, I realized that if I was going to do a four-way swap with our main crew, it would probably make sense to do the same with our supporting cast. So:
The Night Nurse---or Minerva Knight, as I've tended to name her in my AUs---is in the place as Port Townsend's resident witch, though her motives are pretty different from Esther's. She has no need for any spells of eternal youth, having stopped aging a while ago, and she considers herself the protector of Port Townsend, keeping the forces of the supernatural at bay from the mundane residents... even if that means occasionally sacrificing a child or two to keep some of the more unsavory beings satisfied. Needless to say, Minerva has a very skewed view of morality, and unlike her canon counterpart, she can't really be swayed to change her mind. She's scary.
Esther, meanwhile, is in the lovely position as the Crow Queen, a charming and campy trickster being who exists to wear fabulous, over-the-top outfits, rule over her little feathered darlings, and to be a menace to everyone she meets. Her whole deal with Crystal isn't exactly flirtatious, but it's enough to give Crystal a gigantic bisexual awakening. And whether or not Esther's really all that interested and is just fucking with her, she's a lot of fun, and she's definitely instrumental in helping Crystal realize more about herself.
Thomas (the Cat King, but we're calling him by his first name) is Charles and Edwin's landlord---the owner of a queer bakery who's having a bit of a quarter-life crisis and is therefore a bit of an asshole to almost everyone he meets. Despite how prickly he is, though, he has an energy about him that makes him automatically endearing to every single misfit teen in a fifty-mile radius, and he's less than enthusiastic about it. Deep down, Thomas doesn't really mind, because he is a pretty lonely individual (not that he'd ever admit it).
And lastly, Jenny is the Night Guard On Duty in the Afterlife Lost & Found Department---overworked, burnt out, and thoroughly cynical when it comes to the affairs of the living. She's convinced that all she really needs is the big case that'll get her a promotion to a much less stressful position, and tracking down the Dead Girl Detectives seems to be just the thing. Of course, she's not as dedicated to her job as she appears to be, and even years of working in the most depressing place in the universe hasn't fully worn her down.
And, uh, other than the fact that I'm gonna have to figure out a stand-in for Monty... that's what I got!
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kedsandtubesocks · 5 months
Text
your favorite kryptonite
Comic Bookstore Owner!Dieter Bravo x F!Reader
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summary: you think it should be illegal for someone this hot to work at your favorite comics & fandom shop
warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, MDNI. non canon AU. Dieter as a big fandom nerd (affectionate), brief one sided annoyance to lovers, mentions and discussions of various medias including marvel, video games & anime/manga, light use of gendered language, moment of harassment from a creep, Dieter cosplaying surprise, spicy themes, reader wears Dieter’s robe but no physical description is mentioned, light drug use (marijuana), silly chaotic but sweet!Dieter
word count: 4.3k
a/n: So I’m back with another wacky AU LOL this is my love letter to all things wonderfully nerdy & to nerd Dieter who in my heart i believe is totally a Kakashi and Goku fanboy lol the biggest thanks go out to @perotovar & @burntheedges who helped championed this and gave me the power up strength to continue, so grateful for y’all babes! And to you reading this thank you so much ♡
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The new mecha anime figurines immediately draw your attention. Their sharp beautiful sleek designs stand impressively and although you might not be a huge fan you admire the striking style.
You’ve been coming to Atomic Planet Shop since your best friend dragged you here in high school years ago. Containing a wide range of things like a whole area to flip through comics, to a wall of Japanese manga - it’s a nerd’s paradise.
Currently you search for a birthday gift to get your best friend and maybe snag a treat for yourself.
“Oh, a fan of Gundam I see.” An eager and new voice calls from behind.
Turning back you discover someone slinking out from behind the register. Normally Raymond, the sweet older man who runs the store, would be here. But now someone new stands in his place and you’re stunned.
The guy emerging from behind the counter is gorgeous.
Scruffy beard, fluffy hair, wearing earrings and rings on his hand, he’s hot. The shirt he wears says “Wolverine Call Me” in a heart shape. His deep chocolate even eyes seem to dance curiously.
“Uh, just looking.” You politely reply.
“Whatcha looking for?”
You explain how you’re here looking for a birthday gift for your friend.
“Oh nice.” He nods appreciatively.
While you’re turned, giving this new worker your attrition, you finally notice the glass shelf behind the register.
Your eyes go wide fast at what you spot.
“Is that a new Stardew Valley cookbook?” You can’t even process the words, you’re still in awe at the sight. Precious little drawings fill the space to show familiar dishes, like pink cake and lucky lunch, from the game. It’s gorgeous and so unique.
“Oh hell yeah, you a fan?” The mystery man exclaims. “You know we have a whole little-”
“Video game section off to the side. Yeah.” You warmly cut him off.
Originally the store had been very comics and graphic novel focused. However over the years it’s evolved to add more fandom-like elements and now there’s even a small but impressive video game focused area.
A sweetly surprised look falls over the guy’s face and it paints him utterly charming.
“So who’s your go-to spouse in SDV?” He asks, wiggling his eyebrows.
You tell him and he nods sagely.
“I always go for Krobus. Gotta respect our cute sewer dweller.” He says.
While you laugh a flutter scurries across your heart.
A ring at the door chimes in breaking your sweet conversation and a cluster of guys walk into the store.
“Guess I’ll get back to birthday gift hunting.” You smile at the cute worker then return to the comic stacks.
Flipping through the different series and passing through many fun options, you catch the conversation off to the side.
The pack of young guys that walked in seem to know the cute worker and snicker with him about something.
“Oh yeah man, so I was rewatching Endgame the other day and the part where Scarlet Witch goes one on one with Thanos? Unrealistic!” One of them cackles and you pause.
Did they not even see or know about how powerful she’s confirmed to be in the other MCU projects? Even then, in the comics Scarlet Witch flat out changes the trajectory of reality. If anything Thanos is only strong because he got lucky.
But you hold your tongue and continue scanning through the comics.
These guys are probably just punk ass kids. You don’t want to waste your energy on these guys who probably also hate on other characters like Shuri and Carol Danvers.
Now the cute store worker scoffs amused but doesn’t correct them. Your face scrunches up.
You thought he was charming, maybe a bit eccentric, like a 90’s vibrant Lisa Frank vibe. Yet now your skin crawls just a little bit thinking he might be one of those unfortunately toxic gatekeeping jackass guys.
You decide to leave now. You still had time to look for a birthday gift for your best friend. So you’ll just come back later. Without a second glance to the cute worker, you slip out and wonder about maybe checking out another store.
Of course, you’re too tired to actively look for another store. The next time you return to Atomic Planet, you pray Raymond is there.
You’re excited and almost relieved to see the familiar eccentric older man smiling toothy at you from behind the counter.
“Well, you’re a wonderful sight for sore eyes!” He greets you and happily you catch up and chat with him.
Suddenly a chaotic bang clamors in. The handsome worker from last time tumbles out from the back room into the front as if he tried to rush over.
“Dieter man, what’s the rush?” Raymond laughs.
Dieter. So that’s his name.
The guy, Dieter, this time wears a Naruto shirt under a sleepy and cozy green robe. His hair is still fluffy and you don’t miss how wide eyes stare at you.
“Hey.” You politely but curtly reply.
“Hi.” Dieter waves and you hate how cute he looks.
“By the annoyed look on your face, I take it you’ve met this new headache.” Raymond chuckles and embarrassment rams into you knowing your annoyance is that obvious.
“Don’t worry, he’s harmless.” Raymond waves. “He cries when he watches My Neighbor Totoro.”
“Hey what the fuck!” Dieter cries and you press your lips together trying not to laugh.
“Just ignore him, honey.” Raymond winks and you grin wide.
After thanking him, you head back to the birthday gift search. Searching now through the manga selection you notice something moves by the corner of your eye.
Turning to the side, a large Totoro plushie floats beside you obviously being held up.
“Please don’t be mad at me.” A high pitch tone acting as the adorable creature's voice speaks out and your lips twitch.
From the side Dieter pops his head out.
His hair, rivaling a bird's nest, creates a cloud around him and his wide doe-like eyes peeking out are so hard to be fully annoyed at.
“You know,” he now fully speaks in his voice, moving to hold the large adorable plushie in his arms. “Never got your name.”
“You have my full permission to beat his ass if you need to, dear.” Raymond yells dully from the cash register and Dieter squawks horrified.
You laugh bright. Turning to the side you see Dieter already holds his hand out. The half crooked grin on his face paints him so boyish.
“Name’s Dieter.”
You shake his hand, finally giving him your name.
“So, do you really think Scarlet Witch can’t take on Thanos?” You offer light.
Dieter sighs loud. “I knew those guys and what we were talking about might’ve pissed you off.”
So he was watching you. That brings in a curious warmth that courses through you.
“Well I do apologize.” He bows his head a bit. You at least appreciate that.
“I bet those guys are the same ones that don’t like Carol Danvers either or even know that Squirrel Girl defeated Thanos.” You add a bit snippy.
“You know your shit, I like that.” Dieter replies proud and the way his voice drips out smooth does something dangerous to your heart.
You shrug but fight off the smug grin threatening to mirror his.
“Maybe you need to go Gandalf on my ass and teach me a thing or two, like maybe over coffee?” Dieter offers and you’re knocked out.
So he feels this spark, chemistry or whatever it is, between you too.
“Maybe,” you reply back with a grin. “For now I gotta get back to gift shopping.”
“You still haven’t found your friend a gift?! Geeze, what kind of bestie are you?!” He cries out teasing and you roll your eyes.
It’s getting harder staying annoyed with him and not taking up his offer to get coffee.
You eventually decide on a comic art book for your friend and then spot the assorted mystery box trinkets to maybe snag a few for her and even for yourself.
“I know everyone says Goku would beat the fuck out of Thanos, but you know who else would too without breaking a sweat?” Dieter’s voice again arrives at your side. He’s rather persistent, your cute, slightly not so annoying gnat.
“Sailor Moon.” He answers himself sagely.
“Yeah, you’re right.” You snicker amused.
He practically beams besides you when you agree.
You ask if he’s a fan.
“Oh hell yeah! Sailor Venus is my fav.” Dieter cries. “I can sing the entire song theme opening for you if you’d like. Not to brag, but that and the second Naruto theme opening are my go to karaoke songs.”
You laugh, feeling it deep into your bones. He’s chaotic, but unbearably endearing.
In a blink, a rush comes in all at once. The fun sweet bubble you had been cultivating deflates and you hate how disappointed you get seeing Dieter scramble to try and work.
When you go check out, you’re surprised he’s the one at your register.
Even though he’s focused on working you don’t miss the way his eyes flicker up to you shyly but with a confident smirk. He turns to fully gift wrap the items knowing they’re going to be a present and you thank him for that.
When you grab your bag he gives you a smooth wink and you playfully glare at him.
Later at home, when you unpack everything, you find an extra surprise in the bag.
It’s a small box of strawberry pocky snacks you know you didn’t buy.
There’s a sticky note attached to it.
A sweet treat for a sweet customer! ( ˘͈ ᵕ ˘͈ ♡)
Call me if you ever wanna get coffee or just talk nerd shit and make me absolutely fall even harder for you
Underneath the message, he left you his number and you can’t believe it. After squealing about it with a few of your friends, you text him.
Dieter replies back quick with the funniest excited cat reaction meme and you realize you might be in the best kind of trouble with this guy.
— . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.—
You didn’t expect the convention to be this crowded. Chatter fills the air as cosplayers move all around.
The booths stretch endless with countless tempting merch.
Your best friend tried to get you to plan a fun cosplay with her. However neither you or her could decide on what to pick in time. Now you're gladly comfortable in an everyday outfit and simply allow yourself to be in awe at the intricate lovely costumes.
While scanning the convention and taking in the beautifully controlled chaos in, you also hope to catch sight of someone in particular.
“Dude, stop trying to look for your hot nerd boyfriend.” Your best friend snorts and your heart trips over itself.
Embarrassed, you chide her and remind her that Dieter isn’t your boyfriend.
“Oh yeah because texting a guy everyday for the past month and going to cute cat cafes with him isn't dating.” She deadpans with a smirk.
You playfully glare at her.
It’s not official and you don’t want to rush whatever this is with Dieter. You haven’t even been to his place yet. You don’t mind though. You’ve just been enjoying getting to know him more.
You learn Dieter’s favorite video game is Hollow Knight and his favorite anime is Neon Genesis Evangelion.
His favorite comic book villain of all time is the Condiment King.
Matcha flavored Kit Kats have become his newest obsession session.
He saw all the Lord of the Rings movies in theater and can practically quote The Two Towers. Still has the comic book his best friend in middle school gave to him. Also refuses to let any of his Animal Crossing villagers leave because he’s so attached to them.
Dieter had made you laugh more than you can count, but he can be a bit ridiculous.
Like when he called you after he got off a late closing night shift to ask if Pacific Rim was real did you think the Kaiju monsters would maybe stop attacking if they found out how much he loves them.
Dieter does have his headache moments, but he’s an endearing kaleidoscope of a soul.
Earlier this week when you visited him at the shop, he said he was going to be here at the conversation. But with how bad the convention center’s wifi is, you haven’t been able to contact him.
“He even said he was coming in cosplay just for today right? Any ideas what he’s showing up as?” Your best friend wiggles her eyes while you and her stroll down an artist alley.
“No!” You huff still upset. “He said he wanted it to be a surprise.”
While you appreciate him wanting to wait for a dramatic reveal, you wanted to know what his outfit was from the minute he told you.
You wanted to maybe try dedicatedly searching for him, but you get completely enthralled by the mass amounts of merchandise delightfully distracting you.
You spot incredible fan art pieces, adorable handmade keychains, and very expensive but beautiful figurines.
It’s like a mini wonderland.
Checking out the cute earrings at the stall you’re at, you lose sight of your best friend. When you turn to excitedly talk with her, that’s when you spot it.
She’s a few steps away, very politely trying to inch away from a guy, dressed in a Deadpool suit without the mask on. He’s talking way too aggressively and getting way too close to your friend.
Immediately you rush over and happily jump in.
“I gotta show you this!” You thankfully have the best excuse to pull her away.
But the guy only takes it as an opening to instead follow you both now.
“Just ignore him.” Your best friend whispers to you.
You and her continue to stare at the jewelry. Yet the guy remains. He continues his discussion and seems to get upset that you or your friend aren’t replying. It’s creepy and persistent especially with how he refuses to budge or take the hint.
You try lightly deflating the situation by apologizing and saying you and your friend just want to enjoy shopping.
“Oh, is shopping all you two came here for? You know, you fucking losers aren’t even in cosplay. Fake ass fans.”
Now he gets really aggressive.
The air and tension shift. The poor cute shop owner in her adorable R2D2 dress even reacts getting upset.
“Look, we just wanna enjoy the con.” Your best friend replies sharp with a hard scowl.
“What in the fantastic fuck do we have here?”
Suddenly Dieter’s voice rings out excited and bright and you almost sob.
You whip your face around to spot him.
Except it is and isn’t him.
His hair is slicked back, gelled and curled. Thick gray colored hairs line his temples. It even looks like he shaved a bit.
He’s dressed as Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic himself.
The outfit looks based on the classic 1960’s first comic book released aesthetic and it compliments Dieter’s frame gorgeously. His shoulders look unbelievably broad and his even arms seemed bigger in the tight soft baby blue material. You’ve never seen him in something so form fitting and it has your throat drying up.
You’ve even momentarily forgotten about the guy bothering you and your best friend.
“You bothering these two, ya fucking creep?” Dieter says with a nudge of his chin.
It’s hot as fuck.
The guy stunned gapes like a fish and stammers, but no words come out.
“Beat it before I shove a lightsaber up your ass.” Dieter replies bored, but it adds a sense of deadliness to his words.
The Deadpool cosplayer turns on his heels and immediately scrambles away. Your knees almost buckle overwhelmed.
Your best friend and even the stall owner cry out wildly excited in a bright neon awe of Dieter. You swallow back a sob as you turn to embrace him. His warm large hands pat you comfortingly.
“You saved us.” You teasingly sob, but truthfully you know he did.
“I’d been looking for you for a hot minute and was about to make some sort of raptor call noise to get your attention until I saw that shit going down.” Dieter explains.
“What a hero.” Your friend jokingly adds, but you hear it in her voice how grateful she is.
Dieter snickers.
“Guess you could almost say I was fantastic… mister fantast-”
You cut Dieter off with a quick kiss to his cheek before he can make the pun and your friend along with the stall owner laugh.
Gingerly, almost tentatively you move to intertwine your hand with his. He reacts immediately pulling you to his side.
For the rest of the convention Dieter stays besides you, walking hand in hand with you.
Even when you arrive at the booth for Atomic Planet, the real reason why Dieter was here to help work, Raymond waves him away saying to enjoy the convention with you.
Your heart flutters and Dieter squeezes your hand excitedly.
The rest of the time is a blissful geeked out dream. Dieter buys you a few keychains, even treats you and your best friend to a bite to eat.
You came to the convention with your best friend…
But you leave with Dieter.
Especially when your best friend urges you to go home with him and enjoy his hot cosplay.
You give her a look when she cheekily tells you that, but she isn’t wrong. Even when you grabbed the quick bite before the night ended, it was hard trying to ignore the amount of people turning to stare at Dieter with wide curious eyes.
And a little twinge of something faintly possessive bubbles in you.
That’s why when you slide into the passenger seat of his car, your heart drums loudly in your ears trying to fight against the urge to just suck his cock right here in the car.
“So uh…” Dieter begins cautiously and even a bit bashfully. “I don’t wanna sound too aggressive and you can tell me no, but can I kiss you-”
You don’t even let him finish before you’re sliding over the seat to him.
He scrambles and immediately pulls you close as his lips become a magnet to yours.
This is the first time you’re really truly kissing Dieter. You’ve kissed him gently good night before. He’s been cute with leaving kisses to your cheek or even against the back of your head like a Victorian gentleman. But now it’s a raw unraveling getting to tasting him from the source so greedy.
You won’t dare admit it outloud, but the soft feel of his lips, the scrape of his jaw, the smell of his delicious cologne, and how warm he consumes you -
It’s pretty fantastic.
— . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.—
Dieter’s room is a treasure trove.
Framed posters of Pacific Rim, AKIRA, The Iron Giant, and the original Pokemon Kanto generation line the walls. His bookshelf is filled not just with comic books and manga, but various impressive graphic novels.
A mock infinity gauntlet sits beside his television. So many anime figurines, including a really nice Goku one, stand protecting his reading collection.
What surprises you is his expansive and sleek gaming corner which includes a striking computer set up.
“You look hot as fuck standing in my robe and knowing I just came in you a few hours ago is even hotter.” Dieter says from his bed in the most sinful but half groggily asleep voice.
You smirk and continue to soak in his room.
“So do you get good discounts from the store?” You ask.
“Yeah, but it also helps that I co-own it.” Dieter casually tells you. You hear him shifting among the seats then catch the flicker of the lighter igniting.
However your eyes go wide realizing what he said and you whip back around to him.
“Wait?! You co-own the shop?”
“Well yeah, Raymond, that old fuck, is my uncle.” Dieter coughs out as he exhales from the hit he took off his weed pipe.
Dieter even explains how, because his uncle is starting to get a bit older, he decided to step in to help run the place.
“Besides, how else could I show off my extensive knowledge of elvish language other than at the shop?” He says proudly.
How did you just now learn this?
Dieter reminds you of a rubik cube you think you’ve finally figured out, think you found a groove for - until one out of the corners a jack in the box pops out.
Before you can even ask him about the shop or about his uncle, Dieter’s phone goes off.
The loud ringtone sings into the room and your eyes go wide hearing it. Dieter checks who’s calling then denies the call muttering out about how spam scam callers need to be fed to a sarlacc pit.
“Wait…is Cascada’s ‘Everytime We Touch’ actually your ringtone?” You ask, still not believing it.
“Fuck yeah it is, baby! That song is untouchable!” He cries and you can’t help but laugh.
Dieter smirks then pats the open spot on the bed where you had been resting before. Sliding back into the warmth with him, he gently pulls your face to him and kisses you softly.
The taste of the smoke lingers on his lips, but it’s still him beneath it all. You eventually wind up in his arms, cozy and warm in his embrace.
“I noticed the nice audio and mic setup.” You comment while his fingers draw aimlessly against your skin. “You trying to maybe go the YouTuber route?”
“Nah. Maybe. Who knows.” He shrugs. “It’s mainly for something else.”
Now his voice grows a bit distant.
You gently ask him what that something else is and Dieter fidgets
“Don’t… don’t laugh okay.” He mumbles adorably.
You reassure him earnestly you won’t.
He sighs.
“So I’ve been wanting to get into voice acting work.” Dieter reveals with a mutter, even sounding a bit embarrassed
However, you perk up so bright. Turning in his arms you eagerly smile at him.
“Di, that sounds amazing!” You mean those words.
You can’t help but ramble about how great he would be for that. He has the personality for it and he’s told you how he’s done some stage acting work. Plus, it just fits him. You think of all the silly voices he does and you hope now he can make this path a reality.
Dieter’s handsome face falls a bit and you stop. You wonder if you’ve scared him off, or maybe he thinks you’re possibly making fun of him.
You’re about to apologize when Dieter swiftly moves to kiss you feral and fierce. His tongue slides into your mouth with a moan you greedily swallow.
The conversation is put on pause when his hands slide up your thighs, straight to your core, and you fall apart with him once again.
Basking in the afterglow you rest against his chest now feeling sleepy, not even knowing what time it is. You realize being with Dieter is like existing in a realm a bit separated from reality sometimes and it’s beautiful.
“I don’t wanna be that lame guy,” Dieter begins. “But shit, I already really really kind of like you a fucking lot.”
Your lips fight back a smile you can’t beat. You turn to bury your face against his warm bared chest.
“I really kinda like you a lot too.” You admit.
“That’s unfortunate.” He replies and you snort.
“It’s okay. I only want the good discount on merch at the shop.” You reply cheekily.
“Aw! You don’t even want me for my body? Just my discount?!” He cries hurt and even jokingly moves to shove you off.
“Well.” Then he pauses. “Guess I could call my dick a discount, but then again… there isn’t anything short about that-”
You cut him off with an eye roll and he snickers wildly amused.
His fingers move to tickle you, to corrupt you into his same fit of giggles and you wheezing trying to squirm away from him.
Dieter’s hands eventually snake around you and draw you back into his chest. You melt against him willingly and even sigh comforted.
“Next time if we go to a convention, if you feel comfortable with it, you should cosplay.” He comments.
You admit that you’ve thought about it and list a few ideas you’ve had. But mainly, your mind thinks about the different outfits Dieter could go as.
The thought of him now as Doctor Doom instead of the heroic Reed Richards is a glorious thought.
But of course there’s so many other incredible options.
Dieter as Harvey or even Marlon from Stardew Valley.
Even a few anime characters that would fit him so well come to mind.
Specifically Kishibe from the series Chainsaw Man, with his striking cut across his mouth and incredibly lazy hot older demeanor, just fits Dieter so well it stirs something in you again.
“Maybe next con,” Dieter offers and pulls you from your thoughts. “I’m thinking about going as Tuxedo Mask. Do you wanna be my Sailor Moon?”
A couples matching outfit.
You didn’t even think of that. That’s what he was nudging towards.
You didn’t even think of that. But just getting to be beside him is something sweetly moving.
Then thinking about him in the sleek tuxedo outfit, in the white mask, is a dangerous thought you already ache to maybe see come true.
“We’ll see.” You hum with a smile, but when you go to kiss him it feels like a gilded warm promise.
“Never mind. I want us to go as Undertale characters and I wanna be Sans.” Dieter says suddenly and you snort against his shoulder.
This time spent with him, and the promise of maybe something more, is sweet starlit bliss.
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fuckyeahfraxus · 1 month
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Fraxus Week
                                      is approaching for yet another year!
We haven't forgotten or dropped this event! Due to admins' personal issues, it takes place around a different time this year. Thank you all so much for your patience and your continuous love and support ❣️
Save the dates and please help spreading the word as much as possible. Even if you don't plan on participating, it would be a great help if you share the post 😊. Every reblog helps us to get the information around, so nobody misses the oppourtunity ❣️
As every year we can't wait to see what you guys will come up with for the prompts and thank you for everyone who sent in their suggestions. We made sure to try and mix and match them well!! It's always a highlight of the year and it's so amazing to see that the love and fandom for this incredible ship still very much existent and strong. Newbie or oldie, we welcome you!
The week will being on the 31st of August with the first Bonus day (we call it Fraxus Week Eve) and end on the 8th of September with the second Bonus day, as usual. The rules haven’t changed but please make sure to read them again, especially if this is gonna be your first time participating.
So, the prompts, finally, - here goes!
August 31st/Fraxus Week Eve: (Dancing in the) Rain / Height of Summer
September 1st/Day 1: Learn how to love / Transformation
September 2nd/Day 2: Sports & Competition
September 3rd/Day 3: Hidden moments
September 4th/Day 4: Dusk/Dawn or Moonlight/Shooting Stars
September 5th/Day 5: Solace / Haunted
September 6th/Day 6: Mischief and Debauchery
September 7th/Day 7: Guildmates / Family
September 8th/Bonus day: Mythology AU/Crossover or Videogame/Movie AU/Crossover
RULES:
Everyone is allowed to participate and basically every sort of entry is allowed! Art, a fanfic, edits, headcanons, …everything! Just make sure that it has to do with Fraxus and does not imply something else/negative/other ships/trigger topics like r*pe etc! It also shouldn’t include something n.sfw. Entries bordering on n.sfw or suggestive mentions are alright.
Please put at least one of the tags fraxusweek or fraxus week in the first five tags of your entry! fraxus will suffice, too, if you forget to tag it otherwise but using the first two named tags will just make it easier for us to find the entries for this week! If you have twitter, you can also post your entries there with the tags!
You can also combine prompts, create multiple pieces per prompt or not use the prompts at all. If you’re not inspired by any of them, it’s okay to do your own thing or do something similar to the prompts.
The prompts can take place in the Canon Verse or an Alternate Universe, it's up to you!
Don’t worry about being late/on time! Late entries are always welcome, no matter how late. We know that things can get stressful very easily, so don’t worry about it!
Do not steal other people’s content! That won’t be accepted and that applies not only to this week but in general. Also refrain from reposting somebody's work without permission.
You can also submit your entries to our blog if you want.
If you’ve got any questions, just shoot us a an ask or a private message!
That’s it! We’re super looking forward to the event again. Let’s celebrate our beautiful ship!
The artwork on the banner is drawn by the absolutely lovely @intelligentbiscuit! We used it with their permission and want to give a shoutout for y'all to go and support their artwork! Y'all can find the original artwork post right >here< and they're also currently taking commissions. Thank you again for allowing us to use your artwork for the banner <3 😊
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vidavalor · 10 months
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Hi! I loooove your blog. What's an underrated GO moment that you like?
Hi! Thank you. :) Nice to meet you. I have green tea and raspberry scones for snacks today as I just got back from the bakery. *sets up plates*
You know what little scene I love? I love the bit where Shax comes to the bookshop when Aziraphale is in Edinburgh and, in the middle of threatening Crowley, asks him how to fix the hot water boiler in the apartment. It's a little moment and funny in your first pass watching it but it plays even better on rewatch and once you think about it a little beyond just the initial laugh.
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In the attack on the bookshop, we see that Shax is one of those demons that is like the angels in that she thinks of food as human and beneath her. She makes fun of Aziraphale for his human hungers-- for food, for Crowley (who isn't in the bookshop when she's saying this stuff.) So, she's not exactly teaching herself to become a gourmet chef in that apartment now that she's on Earth. She doesn't cook and she doesn't do dishes, really, but... she needs the hot water working badly enough that she's willing to swallow her pride and ask Crowley for help in fixing it, which means her human indulgences are hot showers and honestly? If I'd spent millennia in Hell and got to escape to Crowley's place in Mayfair, you couldn't drag me for a hundred years from whatever tropical rainforest paradise shower Crowley had in that place lol so I can't really blame her. Not to mention that there's not exactly a lot of privacy in Hell, if ya feel me? A lady demon who has finally escaped topside of the fiery pits of Hell might be reluctant to admit it but she might have found one or two things about having a human corporation are not completely horrible... maybe so not completely horrible enough that she's desperate enough to go to the being who has not taught her what Google is for his own amusement for assistance with getting that hot water boiler operational again as soon as is demonically possible lol. (Crowley's canonically excellent taste in showerheads is absolutely the most top of mind meta you're going to find today, I know lol.)
Anyway, this means that Shax interrupted Crowley's afternoon of Operation Lovebirds: Shop Lesbian Vavoom to ask him to make it rain for her in the apartment.
He really hasn't done this much weather in ages.
It's also funny to me that the hot water boiler has rebelled against Shax by giving her two yellow lights (Crowley's eyes) and the solution for it, according to black-clad, silver necklace Crowley, is to turn a black tab on a silver loop. Whether Crowley's apartment is just in revolt against Shax or whether we're poking fun at the fact that Shax appears to have a little thing for Crowley or both, it's amusing.
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Not to mention that Crowley's little lesson in locating the "hot water boiler tab" involves finger movements the likes of which have never been used to fix a hot water boiler in all our days lol. Crowley's a free-thinking Cupid. You gotta vavoom with your own damn self sometimes-- he gets it, girl. He's all the flavors of Baskin Robbins, Shax, and he's been on Earth for ages. He knows what he's doing. Take notes lol. If you find the black tab on the silver loop, it'll turn the hot water back on and then if you follow his non-verbal instructions here...
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Besides the humor, though, this little moment is also happening in the segment of the story in which Crowley and Gabriel have been puzzling out the origins of gravity together. The heaviness of watching Crowley unable to remember building the universe is balanced a bit here, when they remind us through this scene in which he appears to be explaining something he built to fix his problematic hot water boiler that his curiosity and his need to take things apart to see how they work are not things that can be taken from him and that he rebuilds by literally rebuilding things.
(Aziraphale, we all know you've been breaking things around the bookshop for the last two hundred years and then calling Crowley and telling him that you couldn't possibly use another frivolous miracle to fix it or Gabriel will send you another strongly-worded note and would he please come over... and yes, it is a pipe under the sink again, how did he know? lol)
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corazondebeskar-reads · 7 months
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no quiet on this earth
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Joel Miller x f!reader
originally for Febuwhump 2024 Day 10 - killing in self defense | Febuwhump masterlist
words: 2.8k
summary: You and Joel run into hunters on patrol.
-- I'm a fucking menace, and this is Joel & reader from "you know you never stood a chance" (spoiler warning). BUT this can be read as a standalone. I just can't seem to help myself/let them go.
warnings: established relationship, jackson, patrol partners, hunters, Joel and reader both kill hunters, canon-typical violence, graphic descriptions of violence, lots of blood, oral (m receiving), p in v unprotected, creampie, feelings, guilt/trauma, trauma response, a little hurt and a LOT of comfort, Joel takes care of you, one (1) ass slap, pussy/clit spanking
dividers by @saradika-graphics
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They had been waiting for you. Not the biggest group of hunters that’s come ‘round, but there hadn’t been any signs. It was supposed to be an easy half-day route. 
It was also your first patrol with Joel. 
You’re already off to a rough morning. He’s settled back into Out There Joel, gruff and tense, and you’re already feeling useless again even though you know you can handle it now. 
You’re on horseback, you with a gentle brown mare that you’re a little irritated about. Penny is notoriously slow and usually used to teach people to ride. Tommy taught you to ride ages ago, but Joel fucking insisted. 
“Ain’t havin’ you have to deal with a spooked horse our first time out.”
“Our first time. I’ve been out loads of times,” you grumbled. He leveled you with a look so stern that you rolled your eyes. 
“Don’t start with your smart mouth,” he said. “Only way this works is—“
“If I do what I’m told. I got it. Same shit, different place.” 
To say you’re pissed would be an understatement. You thought after all the shit you’ve been through that he’d trust you now. And you’ve gotten quite good with your revolver and halfway decent with the rifle. 
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Now, out here on the trail to the safe house, neither of you has said a word. Just like the good old days. Y’know. If they had been good. 
You’re nearly there when they make their move. They don’t have guns, thank fuckin’ god, but there are five of them and two of you. 
It becomes quickly clear that they want the horses. Joel makes quick work of the first hunter that lunges for him. 
One comes at him from each side, and you’re too worried to notice the other two do the same to you. 
One grabs the reins and the other tries to yank you from the saddle. Your boots are stuck, and they don’t seem to particularly care if they break your legs during the extraction. 
You free your feet, boots left behind, and let the brick house of a man pull you down. He doesn’t care much about your landing, so when you hit the ground, you grapple for your revolver. 
His partner yells, and he spins back to you, a huge fist aiming for your face. But it doesn’t connect, because your bullet does first. 
He was close enough that it would have been near impossible to miss, which also meant that his stupid body landed on you, turning your clothes into a sponge for his blood. 
Joel’s rampaged through the others by now and turns to take down the one trying to abscond with your horse. 
But he doesn’t make the shot, because he freezes up when he sees you. 
“Get the fucking horse,” you yell. 
He swears and loads the rifle, one neat bullet into the head of the escaping hunter. He hadn’t fully mounted your mare yet, and his corpse crumples into the soft spring soil. 
Joel whistles and Penny takes her fucking time to come back, giving him a very unimpressed look and shaking her mane. 
He heaves the dead man off you. “Where?” he says sharply, eyes darting all over your body. 
“Nowhere, Joel, I’m fine,” you say. 
He’s already dropping to his knees, hands gripping and patting every inch of you before cradling your face. “You’re sure?”
“I mean, I think so. Unless I’m in shock, but I guess we’ll find out in a little bit.”
“Not funny, sweetheart,” he mutters, doing another check, slower this time and more thorough. 
You let him. You feel kind of funny, dizzy almost, but mostly just… muted. Like the world around you is muffled and you’re suddenly hyper aware of how blood is turning tacky and your jeans are stiffening as it dries. 
“Hey,” he snaps. 
You’re pretty sure that means he was already talking to you, and when you look up and meet his eyes, they abandon their irritation for concern beneath furrowed brows. 
“Sweetheart, listen to me,” he says, voice low and slow. It draws out the Texan twang and loops you in. “You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you. You did what you had to do, okay?”
“Okay,” you echo, but the word sticks in your throat, tasting of copper. 
“Say it.”
“I did what I had to do.”
You’ve done as he said, but he looks more worried for it. 
“Alright, c’mon. I’m gettin’ you home.”
“But—“
“Rethink that, baby. I ain’t in the mood to argue.”
“But we were supposed to—“
“Yeah, and plans fuckin’ change. We’re going back. Tommy and I can come out and deal with the bodies later.”
He stands and pulls you up, though you follow willingly. You hover where you stand as he pulls a rope from his bag and tethers it to Penny’s lead. 
“What’re you doing?” 
“Want you on Oakley with me.”
“I can ride,” you snap. “I’m not fucking hurt.”
“I know,” Joel says. “But you’re gonna ride with me.”
“Don’t start this shit,” you say, mortified when your voice and hands are trembling. “I can handle myself.”
He spins around, fury written in the curl of his lip. “I fuckin’ know that! I don’t give a shit. You’re riding with me, end of fuckin’ discussion.”
You open your mouth, ready to bite back, but he seizes you by the shoulders and shakes you a little. 
“Don’t you fuckin’ get it? It’s not about you,” he snarls. You’re crushed against him before you realize it’s an embrace. “You’re gonna fuckin’ ride up here, so I know you’re okay.” 
“Oh,” you whisper, leaning into him. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” he says, but the fight is already leaving him. He presses a kiss to the top of your head before he lets go. “Now get on the damn horse before I put ya there myself.”
You think you deserve credit for only hesitating a little, tempted to see if he really would. But his jaw ticks and you heave yourself up onto Oakley. Joel swings himself behind you, caging you in as he takes the reins. 
“You’re so fuckin’ stubborn,” he gripes. 
“I learned it by watching you,” you say, voice pitched in mockery of the vague memory. 
But instead of irritation, something akin to relief flashes across his face. “Yeah, s’that right?”
“Uh-huh.” Now that everything has calmed, you’re exhausted. He can tell because of course he can. He knows you too well. 
“C’mon, lean back. I got ya. Not gonna let you fall.”
You don’t sleep, not really, but you fall into something between the light and dark. It’s blissfully absent of reality. You’re only aware of the soft sunshine, the sway of the horse, and Joel. 
Joel, your Joel, is everything right now. All encompassing. You’re surrounded by his warmth and smoky musk, masking the chill and tang of the stains on your skin. 
His heart seems to beat in time with Oakley’s hooves and the steady pace he encourages keeps you lulled in this safest place. 
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“Holy shit, what happened?” Carl asks at the gates, almost loud enough to knock you from your peace. 
“Nothin’ too serious, she ain’t hurt,” Joel’s smooth tone settles you back down. “But do me a favor and get the horses back? Send Tommy my way in a while. I’m gonna take her home.”
Home. It sounds so nice. But you’re already there, you want to tell him. There’s nowhere you’d rather be than right here. 
You must actually say it, because he chuckles. “Okay, sweetheart, but I can think of somewhere I’d rather be.”
It hurts a little before he leans in and murmurs in your ear. 
“I’d rather be in a warm bath with ya. That sound better than stayin’ put?”
“Oh,” you say. “Yeah, you’re right. Way better idea.”
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He makes good on his promise when you get home. While he draws the water, he peels your ruined clothes off and sits you on the bathroom counter to rinse the blood into the sink. 
You sit very still with your eyes clenched shut as he cleans you. 
“I know,” he murmurs. “First one’s the hardest.”
You can’t quite stopper the whimper. 
“This is part of why I don’t like ya goin’ out there. I can’t protect you from this.” The admission costs him, but he seems to decide it’s worth it when you look up at him. 
The tub isn’t really big enough for both of you, but he makes it work, long sprawling limbs propped up to make room for you against his chest. You lie on your side, both to make more room and to press your ear to his chest and listen to his strong, tender heart. 
He holds you there, hand gentle on your head and the other around your shoulder until neither of you can pretend the water is comfortable still.  More importantly, his cock’s been pressing against you for a little while now, and you’re unable to ignore it anymore.
You roll over on your stomach, legs bent a little funny to fit, but it’s the right angle to press a kiss to the fat mushroom head that you love so much. 
“Sweetheart, you don’t need—”
But you just give him a look, because he knows better, he knows you’d never do anything you don’t want to. And he knows how often you crave it, how your throat aches for it.
He raises his hands in surrender. “I sure as hell ain’t gonna stop ya.” 
With the convoluted seating arrangement, you’re able to swallow down his length, working your throat open in the way you’ve grown to know well. It’s a lot at once, but the way he groans is worth the effort. 
You choke and gag a little, but neither of you are really bothered by it. Quite the opposite. And you’re grateful for the way the thoughts you don’t want to face are knocked from your brain each time he ruts deeper. 
Too soon, though, he’s pulling you off, spit thick with precum stringing between him and your lips as you whine.
“C’mon, let’s get out. I gotta have more of you.”
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You don’t dry off quite as much as you’d like, but you’re probably going to need to change the sheets anyway. He can’t be bothered to let you towel off properly, picking you up and setting you on the bed before crawling over your body.
He kisses you, ferocious but hesitant, and you trail your hands up his arms, basking in the way he encompasses you for the second time today. His soft, powerful body leaves no wiggle room, practically pinning you down with his bulk. 
Except he’s holding himself up, tense. And the gentleness of his tongue and distinct lack of nipping teeth in his kiss is grating. 
You turn your head to break apart. “Stop acting like I’m gonna fall apart.” 
“I—”
“Oh, don’t even. It’s like you think I’m going to break if you touch me.”
“I didn’t want to make it feel like…”
“I know,” you say, softer. “But I want to feel you, Joel. I don’t want to feel the ghost of it… him. Please.” 
“You wanna feel me, sweetheart? Want me to be a little rough with ya?” 
“Unless you’re too tired. S’it past your bedtime, old man?” 
He doesn’t fall for the taunt, but he pretends to, and you’re deeply grateful as he snarls and bites at your breast before licking and sucking at your nipple, taking it between his teeth and shaking a little. 
“Oh, fuck,” you moan, hand tangling into his hair. He wears it a little shaggier these days, and you find you like it long. A lot. 
“Think you can take it just like this?” he says around your other nipple. The hand that isn’t holding him up has reached down to his cock, rubbing it against your clit until you squirm, and then dragging it down your slit. “You’re fuckin’ soaked. I think you can take it.”
He doesn’t wait any longer than the first little nod of your head before he flicks his hips, parting you, forcing your body to make room for him. It takes a second thrust to push all the way in, and you cry out as he stuffs you full. 
It hurts so good. It’s just the edge you need to feel awake again. The world is no less fuzzy but the haze is pleasurable and electric instead of the numb fog that refused to dissipate. 
“That’s my girl,” he says. 
It floods you with warmth. You think maybe the sappiness is leaking through, that he can see how stupidly in love you feel. 
Or, you know, it’s actually leaking, since you’re apparently fucking crying. You can’t really begrudge yourself for it. It’s been a hell of a day. 
“There you go,” he murmurs, the gentleness of his voice playing second to the harsh slap of his hips and the tight pinch of his fingers on your breasts. “Let it out, sweetheart. Let me help you.” 
His pace, somehow, intensifies, the brutal snap of his cock blunt against the softest parts of you. He pushes your legs to your chest so he can shove his way in deeper, and smacks a harsh hand against your ass from his new vantage point. 
He grips your hip with one hand and lets up on your tits, only to show no mercy to your clit. He skips over the gentle circles and soft strokes, instead pinching and tugging. He wrenches two orgasms from you before he eases off. 
“Hold your pussy open for me,” he grunts.
You look at him with wide eyes. How can he still be finding ways to shock you with depravity? The two of you have to have fucked every which way, and yet. You slide a hand down but he shakes his head.
“Both of ‘em, baby. Nice and wide.” 
Your cheeks are burning as he lifts up onto his knees, pushing your legs apart to watch as you spread your lips wide. For a moment, he’s mesmerized by the push and pull of his cock splitting you apart and the way it comes out a little slicker each time. 
“Look at that,” he says, a smug smirk spreading. “Fuckin’ creamin’ all over me, sweetheart. Now hold still.”
Before you really process the order, still dying from how hot his filthy words are, he slaps your clit. You jerk and let go, crying out more in surprise than pain.
“Put your fuckin’ hands back,” he says, and you obey. 
Your whole body is on fire, maybe. He brings his hand down sharply again and again, making you hold yourself spread wide for him to use as he pleases. 
It doesn’t really surprise either of you when you come. He finally knocks your hands away from your cunt and leans back down over you, hips stammering sloppily. 
“Can I—” he chokes out, and you’re nodding so hard it shakes your brain around. He digs his fingers into your hips. “C’mon, sweetheart, one more. Gimmie one more while I fill you up.”
He goes to reach for your clit, but it doesn’t matter. As soon as he starts twitching and pulsing inside you, you come, eyes rolling back and fingernails digging into his biceps. 
When you’ve both settled, there’s something bright in his eyes, something wild and dangerous. He sinks his teeth into your collarbone and doesn’t pull out. His softening cock isn’t much smaller than it is erect, and he stays buried deep in you, eyes trailing over your face. 
“What?” you say softly.
“I thought… thought I fuckin’ lost you today.” His voice is gruff but tight.
“You didn’t, Joel. M’right here.”
He kisses you, and it’s not gentle exactly, not like earlier, but it’s tender and demanding. His hands grip you and roam, not pursuing pleasure but just to have his fill of you, to feel your body warm and alive beneath him. 
When he breaks away from your swollen lips, he presses a kiss to your forehead. “You did good. I don’t like it, but you did good. I’m not gonna ask you not to go out again, but—”
“I’m gonna ask Tommy if I can have a break,” you say, pursing your lips. “I’m not a coward, but I don’t know if I can do that again.” You’re burning again, but this time with shame.
“No one expects you to. It doesn’t mean you’re a coward. You’re tough, sweetheart. But y’ain’t a killer.”
“I am, though,” you whisper. 
“Stop. Yes, you killed that man today. But you had to. It was him or you. You’re a survivor. But I’m going to make damn sure you don’t have to be anymore, alright? We’re safe here, now.”
You let out a ragged sigh and try to relax back into the pillow. “Okay,” you agree. You can tell he needs it. How scared he was. 
At least for now, you’ll let him protect you from this.
*title from "Death For My Birthday" by Say Anything
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pyjamaart · 6 months
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Breaking Bot (read more for some rambling about mega man fully charged)
Mega Man Fully Charged has been on my mind again lately, which made me realize that there's literally a robot named Chemistryman who worked as a chemistry teacher. Not using him as a Walter White stand-in would be a criminal offense.
I'll have to admit I started getting back into Fully Charged again after seeing some asshole on twitter complain about the character design for the hundredth time. I just can't stand that kind of negativity. I swear to god, Fully Charged is like the Sonic Boom of the Mega Man franchise. Personally, I really enjoy the FC designs. I've probably said this before, but I feel like the redesigns give some of the more forgettable robot masters way more character. Like, do I care for Classic Drillman from Mega Man 4? I mean, yeah, I do, but I wouldn't care as much if it wasn't for his Fully Charged incarnation.
I also really enjoy most of the original robot masters. I already talked plenty about Blastowoman and why I love her so much, but I want to talk about the others this time.
Take for example Chemistryman. Comparisons to Walter White out of the way, I feel like his character was a really fun idea. God knows I had teachers who put me to sleep back in the day. For me, it wasn't chemistry though, it was my economics teacher. I always compared her to a story teller at a Christmas market who would read children stories out of her big fairy tale book. Only that in reality, it was stuff like the minimization/maximization principle. Most of my notes for that class were incomprehensible chicken scratch, because I just couldn't keep my eyes open. In the end, I slept through like half her classes, lol. But I gotta say that I still always got a B or higher in the end. Somehow. I thank god every day that I never have to step foot in a school again.
I really wish Chemistryman got a little more time to shine though. Two episodes is just way too little. I would gladly take three more episodes with him over those gross Gutsman episodes. I know I love talking about wasted potential with this show, but I wish there was an episode that focused on Chemistryman outside of the school setting. I get that his whole character is "boring, bitter teacher", but I'd really like to see what he gets up to when he's not trying to force children to listen to his chemistry lectures. Like having Aki try to talk him into going into retirement for good. And then he tries to find hobbies for him so that he doesn't bore himself to death. I can see him getting into building model ships or something like that, lol.
Now that I'm already writing up a storm again, I might as well talk about some other headcanons I have about the FC bots. Since Woodman was in sleep mode for 30 years after the war ended (I don't know where I got that number from. I rewatched his debut episode, but the exact number doesn't appear anywhere. Oh well, let's just pretend this is canon, even if it isn't.) we got kind of a Shadow the Hedgehog type situation on our hands. All of his friends and family got to live their lives in this new, peaceful world of harmony between robots and humans, while Woodman spent 30 years powered down in a bush or something. Completely forgotten about. Like, why didn't they go look for him after the war ended? I don't think Aki and Suna wandered that far into the forest for their school assignment. If you really think about Woodmans back story for a moment, you realize how fucked up it actually is. 
Now my explanation for this goes into heavy heavy headcanon territory. When Suna calls the principal about Woodman, he warns her that Woodman is dangerous and to get away from him immediately. Now why would he say that? The principal also calls him "ruthless" in that same explanation. What I think happened back then was that Woodman actually planned to assassinate the human armies leader. (Possibly Sgt. Night?) The leader of the robots caught wind of his plan and put him into sleep mode himself, since he and Dr. Light were on the brink of finding a way to end the war peacefully. In my mind, this leader is the FC version of Swordman. Don't ask me why, he was just the first guy I thought of. And then it just stuck.
I know this makes Woodmans back story even more fucked up, but I just love putting my favorite blorbos through hardship. Don't even ask me about my headcanons for Drillman. They'd actually put me in prison.
Now all this culminates after Woodman is reactivated by Suna and Aki. Finding himself alienated from all his former friends and comrades (Maybe the other Mega Man 2 robot masters?), what was he supposed to do? He couldn't spend the rest of his life isolated (and homeless) in the forest, could he? And this is where season 2 could have delivered. But I'm done whining about that. If Capcom doesn't deliver, I gotta write my own season 2. Simple as that.
Anyway, getting back to Chemistryman, since he's pretty old, I imagine that he was already working as a teacher when Woodman was still around. Maybe he even was his teacher at some point.
And since I love having my favorite characters interact, I also thought of a scenario where Drillman wanders into the forest out of frustration over his miserable life, only to meet Woodman by coincidence. In the end, Woodman helps him work through his daddy issues and his body dysmorphia, while Drillman helps Woodman reintegrate and manage this (for him) completely new world of peace. Another great headcanon of mine is that Chemistryman is actually Acidmans father. Just because I think it would be funny. And as Fully Charged has confirmed: robots in that universe do indeed have parents. (Flashback to the time I drew Dr. Light beating the shit out of Drillman's father)
Speaking of Drillman.... For being one of my favorite Mega Man characters of all time, I haven't drawn him nearly enough. That will probably be my next project.
This might also be a great time to tell you that I've never watched Breaking Bad before, lol. Everything I know about it comes from RTGame's Stardew Valley playthrough and the RTVS Half Life parody.
Sorry for all the yapping. But if I don't talk about robots at least once a day, I might die. This is a serious condition.
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fuckyestherest · 2 months
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Creator Highlight - Week 14
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Welcome to our Creator Highlight Week 14!
Every week, we’ll use this space to recognize the amazing individuals in our fandom who kindly use so much of their free time and creative energy to share their work with us and bring our imaginations to life via writing, art, visuals, and many other creative mediums. 
This week we want to highlight @climbthemountain2020, an incredible multi-talented creator of fics, art and mood boards. She excels at writing both original characters as well as for established ships within the fandom. Her OCs have substance, humor, and heart that makes them unique and pairs so well with beloved canon characters like Eris and Tamlin.
She also imbues life and creativity into less written about ships within the fandom including her Helion and Lady of Autumn fic. With suspenseful plots and deep dives into her characters, she’ll keep you on your toes. She brings her same creativity and love for each character to her art, depicting ships like Azris as well as more popular ships such as Feysand and Elucien, as well as depicting individual characters as well.  
“She is not only one of the nicest, most supportive people in this fandom, she also is so talented. CC is a true multi-shipper and writes for so many different ships and does all of them so well!”  
“I trust CC to build a beautiful world with intricate details within the setting and the characters … as well as to make me feel such painful heartbreak, only her love for a HEA is able to rescue me. How can so much talent fit into such a kind person?!”
“She was one of the first people in the fandom to reach out to me and share support for my stuff when I was still nervous and new. In addition to the writing she does, she’s just genuinely a very nice person who cares about making others feel included.”
Thank you for all you give to this fandom, @climbthemountain2020! We look forward to whatever you create next!  
Below are a few favorites from CC. 
Hope of Spring | Tamlin x OC 
Flame of Autumn | Eris x OC 
Love You Like Oxygen | Helion x Lady of Autumn
Contact | Azris Art
Lady of Autumn | Azris Art
Tilly | OC Moodboard   
Killer + The Sound | Azris Moodboard
Thank you for all your incredible work and for being a positive, kind, funny voice in this fandom. You bring us all so much joy and we are so glad you’re part of this fandom and all of our lives!  
You can find more of @climbthemountain2020 on her Ao3 and Masterlist!
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blazinghotfoggynights · 6 months
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Go ahead and convince me that is just a friendly look. 😒 I'll wait.
Last night, I clocked it but felt I overlooked something. I caught "the look" going on, but I was missing something.
This morning, I see this and i have some thoughts. What if there is a bi arc but it isn't what we've all been speculating? Like the writers of this show wouldn't love throwing curveballs.
So, give me a minute and stay with me? Okay? Just hear me out.
These two seem very familiar with each other. I don't think Hen touched Tommy, but Buck easily reaches for him and Tommy turns into the touch before even looking at Buck. Then the return touch to Buck is just as familiar. It almost screams, "Go on. Get outta here!"
What if the journey for Buck isn't figuring out he is bi? What if the journey is his being bi being revealed to his family and friends via an old fling or an ex and figuring out how he really feels about Eddie?
Also, Tommy is staring Eddie down like a starving man seeing a buffet. (We get it, Tommy. Trust me. Millions of us would be drowning in a puddle of our own drool if that man walked by, so we completely understand.) He was about to follow Eddie and walk away without sparing Buck a glance. (Which is criminal because Oliver Stark is fire!)
So here are some alternative theories that are floating around in my mind:
1-Could the revelation about Buck happen because Tommy pursues Eddie, which pisses Buck off? If Buck and Tommy had a fling, maybe Buck tries to warn Eddie against getting involved with Tommy, because Eddie has mentioned in canon he is a nester and doesn't like games or just messing around with people and Tommy isn't the type to settle down. Buck is asked how he knows, and BOOM! Bi Buck is revealed. Buck is jealous of Tommy being into Eddie. Eddie finds himself hurt that Buck never came out to him, although Buck was never in the closet, his sexuality just never came up, and jealous that Buck would be with other men, but not him.
Cue both men going on a journey of self-discovery.
2- Tommy hits on Eddie. Eddie responds positively and begins considering opening himself to the possibility of being with a man. Eddie has the bi awakening. This leads to either:
a. Eddie discovering his possible interest in men and confessing to Buck, who then tells Eddie he is bi, too, and will support him no matter what. There is eventual jealousy, realizations, etc.
or
b. Eddie discovering his possible interest in men and confessing to Buck. Eddie explores his bi side, whether it be with Tommy or just trying dating men. Buck tries to be supportive, but his inner green-eyed monster rises and makes him realize a few things about how he really sees his best friend.
(Also cue multiple new plot bunnies! 🙄🙄🙄 Stills, interviews, episodes, random posts... The bunnies are hiding everywhere!
The silver lining of all this inspiration is my creative juices have definitely been flowing like a raging river. It's helping me find my muses for my original works.)
(Thank you to everyone who has read my fics, commented, left kudos, and been supportive. You are much appreciated! 😘)
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erisweekofficial · 1 month
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Tonight we're SO excited to celebrate @littlest-w01f! 👀
🔥 Are you a fan of OCs? Want to read about multiple OCs? Anna's got you covered! Her Eris masterlist has several fics you can check out, but we recommend checking out Flames and Darkness, a mulit-chapter story that has us sitting at the edge of our seats.
We dare you to read her Eris Omegaverse week fic ft. Eris getting pegged 🤭
Read more to learn about @littlest-w01f 's thoughts on Eris and what she's getting him for secret santa!
What inspired you to start writing for Eris? And especially for Eris x OC instead of any other ship? I feel like there is so much to Eris that we don't know yet, we've barely begun to scratch the surface of his character. And honestly, from everything we do know about him, he has the makings of an amazing character if he's done justice (And I really hope I do). I feel like Eris is the kind of a character that if you try hard enough, you can ship him with anyone, and it will always make perfect sense. While I was reading Acowar I already was in love with what he could be so I built onto that and started getting fic ideas, some might think that he's lightly OOC in my fics, but he's perfect to me. I ship him with multiple of my OCs, I look at his character and decide what type of person would suit him best and build my character off of that till they are their own person whose sole purpose isn't being shipped with Eris, and sometimes the original reason I shipped them changes and I can see for myself that these OCs I have created always end up being more intimately attached to the character I pair them with as time goes by. I love my pairings cause they are special to me. I put him with many different types of characters and I love writing how he reacts differently to them, he's more cold to some he's a puddle of fluff with some.
What are some of Eris's most misunderstood qualities?
 I feel like we don't really know the real canon Eris at all, because we're seeing things from the pov of the Night Court so there is no reason for him to be his true self with them and it's easy for him to be lumped with "people who don't like/care for the IC" and some people hate him for that while the others love it when there is so much more to him. Obviously many people have pointed out the similarities between Eris and Rhys, but the main difference between them is that we see Rhys from the eyes of someone he loves and cares for that's why we see him giving reasons to his actions, while with Eris we haven't got that yet. Even still, it is clear to see that Eris has a close relationship with his guards and was genuinely worried for them when they were taken. Just because he doesn't care enough for one set of characters, doesn't mean he doesn't care at all. I doubt anyone knows the complete true Eris as of now but I hope we get to.
Can you give me a name for one of Eris's brothers? And also for one of his dogs?
Omg thank you for asking me this, I love names and their meanings, Eris is the damn lady of strife and I think it's all pretty cool. I named the second Vanserra son "Arlin" in one of my fics and will carry it forward for the rest of the fics which means "Warrior", which makes sense to me as after the Heir comes the Warrior. For the puppies, well smoke hounds, the youngest is "Ivy" in my eyes cause she always loves getting tangled up in vines and Eris has to free her every two seconds before she rushes off again to tackle vegetation, and that image in my head is too cute.
You have to get Eris a gift for secret santa - What are you getting him?
A. New. Father! With a ribbon and everything. Talking seriously, I feel like he's never had something cute before so a soft little fox stuffie or something along those lines I HC that Beron threw away any toys Eris had when he deemed Eris too old to play/have fun... That b*tch 😒
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guplia · 4 days
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Hello anon! First of all, thanks for the ask! (asks? idk I received three anon asks at almost the same time, it would be weird if they didn't all come from the same person lol)
fix recommendations? read mine /hj Sure! Just note that while I've enjoyed a lot of wips, I'm only gonna recommend completed fics rn.
Okay! Here's all I can remember rn:
"Clouds" by youngmoInactive (fanfiction.net):
Original summary:
"Even though he's a hero, he's still a human. CONTAINS CHARACTER DEATH. A nice look into Kai's perspective as he watches a close friend slowly lose a fight for his life."
Okay all I've gotta say on this one is that IT MADE ME CRY. OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Obviously I can't speak for everyone who read this fic but I think this will hurt Lloyd lovers. I have re-read it so many times to the point where I have half the fic memorised word-by-word. This is a must-read.
(if you're on the phone it's better to add "m." To the start of the URL)
"a day in the life of a fatherless child" by holographicknife (Archive of Our Own):
Original summary:
"lloyd has a panic attack *confetti* title suggested by my friend lol loosely based on a crack rp between friend and i   Warning for: mentions of suicidal thoughts and medication, explicit descriptions of a panic attack, including tight chest, difficulty breathing, nausea, and headaches. Proceed with caution."
This is a Kai And Lloyd fic, and I love Kai And Lloyd fics! Specifically ones where they address Lloyd's trauma from Morro and where Kai comforts him. So if anyone's into this sort of stuff I'd recommend it!
"A Courageous Escape" by Lilac_Lily234 (Archive of Our Own):
Original summary:
"In the midst of possession Morro hatred flows freely as he seeks to make Lloyd suffer for taking what he believes as his rightful title, but his cruelty know no bounds; Lloyd however refuses to give up but knows that time is running out, and in his desperation will find either salvation, or death.  - I don't own Ninjago, this is an au"
Ahem... once again, Lloyd goes through pain. A season 5 canon-divergent AU, from which my favourite part was... you guessed it! Lloyd having a panic attack and being comforted! But it's still a cool story besides too, season 5 being one of the best seasons imo.
While this fic is finished, the AU is not but I think this one has a good ending on its own.
"Out for revenge" by lloyd_slander (Archive of Our Own):
Original summary:
"Harumi’s plan to resurrect Lord Garmadon failed, during her time in Kryptarium prison she heard about Morro, the master of wind, and guy who had managed to make Lloyd’s life a living hell. Wanting revenge, she doesn’t stop from anything, not even from getting Morro back from the dead. Or The duo we always wanted, but never got. Lloyd is in for a hard time. Head the tags, guys!"
Okay. This one is rated Mature for drug usage and blood (there was nothing sexual though)
So it's a Morro traumatising Lloyd fic again, but this time he's with Harumi! So it's double trouble for Lloyd! (things go VERY BAD for him >:3)
Honestly I can't say much except read the fic, the summary's right there lol.
"Revealed" by Nation_Ustria (Archive of Our Own):
Original summary:
"Lloyd Garmadon is used to being hated. That's just how his life works—if someone knows that he's the son of the warlord who attacks Ninjago City on a weekly basis, they hate his guts. That's why he's made sure that his team—the only people he's ever been happy with—don't know who he is behind the mask, with the small price attached that he doesn't know their identities, either. It's not like they know each other's, anyways, so it's not a big deal. But then they find out. The fact that Lloyd's elemental power makes him an empath doesn't help, either. Basically the premise of the movie pre-reveal with show elements and personalities, and Lloyd's Green Power is him being able to sense and be influenced by the emotions of those around him."
Okay so here's a fic without Morro! (that's cause it's in the movie-verse) Another type of fanfic I like reading is where Lloyd in tlnm keeps his identity secret from the other ninja and it ends up getting revealed (like this one.).
I've seen this fic being recommended more than once and it's one of the fics with the most kudos in the entire fandom on AO3! So 2000 others agree with me on how awesome this fic is!!!
"What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger" by @crystaleclipse10 (CrystalEclipse on Archive of Our Own)
Original summary:
"Lloyd batted Red's hand away. “’m fine.” His head pounded, but at least it was quiet and dark. His hair tickled his nose. “What happened?” “We…didn’t get out in time,” Red whispered. “The missile exploded. We got everyone else out, though.” Lloyd relaxed and slumped forward as pure relief washed over him. They’d done it. They’d beaten Garmadon’s game. They’d freed the civilians and survived. Didn’t feel great, though. ~OR~ Lloyd and Kai get trapped under a building when it collapses, both injured. Angst and bonding ensue."
So it's another tlnm au fic! And this one has Kai And Lloyd bonding specific so I like it!!!
As I was reading this when it was still being updated I was very excited every time a new chapter would come out and my heart hurt for Lloyd each time! It IS worth the read! Just note that while tis fic is completed, the au is not.
"Officer Smith, Do You Copy?" by @hijabiwriter (same username on Archive of Our Own):
Original summary:
"Everyone has their reasons for becoming a police officer. Maybe they were forced. Maybe the profession stood out to them. Maybe they had some experience that prompted the idea of becoming a police officer. But that's only a few reasons. There are others, too. Like for instance, one of these officers is out for revenge."
This fic is entered around Nya, who's a police officer alongside Jay, Cole and Lloyd (for some reason Zane is not in this au/fic). Anyways her dark secrets are explored in every other chapter alongside the progressing story, and of course, an explanation is given to everything in the end.
On a personal note this is the fic where I left my first comment on my Ao3 account lol (the historic moment is on chapter 13!!!)
"Too Late to Say Goodbye" by @greenamethyst16 (same username on Archive of Our Own)
Original summary:
"Kai gets stabbed and Lloyd helps him... :D"
I think length-wise this is the shortest fic on the list but that doesn't make it bad!!! Basically Lloyd downplays his injuries and there are consequences... :D
"All the ways I say "I love you"" by @ninja-knox-ur-sox-off (Leonardo_Charles_BlueWood_21 on Archive of Our Own)
Original summary:
"Cole loves his team. They're his family and he does everything in his power to keep them safe and steady. He does his best to let them know he cares about them in every way but one.  Or  Seven times Cole couldn't quite say "I love you," and the one time he could."
Note: This story can only be read if you're logged in on AO3.
I like this fic because it encouraged me to remind my own irl friends how much they mean to me. In this story Cole believes that he's "the rock" of the team, and hence he doesn't show his emotions much. He's never told even one of them that he loves them and thinks that they deserve better than him. So stuff happens after that :D
Okay, I've read a lot more than this but this is all I'm gonna write about now cause I'm tired and I think this post has became too long. But if you wanna read more just check out the profiles of the writers! I haven't read everything myself but most of them have other good Ninjago fics to read!
If I've tagged you or mentioned your fic and you want it removed just let me know! I have no problem with removing it! :D
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avelera · 3 months
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I saw the IWTV finale early thanks to a kind soul sharing it with me!
A few (spoiler-y) thoughts:
Really interesting how they reimagined and framed the ending of this take on IWTV with Louis and Lestat mourning Claudia together. It feels like Justice For Claudia in many ways, it feels like a fitting homage to the origins of Claudia's character (the dead of Anne Rice's daughter from leukemia as a child), and in general was just a really interesting way to sort of give this closure the book never did and also use it to realistically allow them both to push forward past their toxic and abuse past into a somewhat plausible healed future.
It was also a decent reminder, to me, that these are vampires. These characters live forever. I would not condone Louis/Lestat in real life because life is too short to keep going back to an abusive ex. But these guys are vampires. Do not do as they do. But genuinely 70 years, a human lifetime, is realistically long enough to say, "Hey, we're new people now, we've learned and suffered a lot, we lost our daughter and it was fucked up. Maybe all we have is each other." And make peace with each other on that front.
BUT NOW I'M WONDERING HOW WE GET ROCKSTAR LESTAT - ok because Louis kind of got Lestat's book motivation for becoming a rockstar? The "Fuck you, come find me," to all the other vampires. Lestat I believe only speculates that as Louis' motivation, but they made it canon (or I could be wrong).
But that was Lestat's motivation for HIS book, making Louis and the others come find him. Since that's been solved with Louis coming to find him (lovely little homage to the IWTV movie with him playing the harpsichord) now I'm wondering if Louis is the one who encourages Lestat to become a rockstar and write down his book.
Thing is, it's not totally contradicted by the book. (SPOILERS) TVL does end with a beat where Louis and Lestat reunite and Louis is kind of his groupie for a bit. Moving that up so Louis is part of Lestat's rise is actually a really lovely touch, it gives them a bit more time together before shit goes down, and I could totally see this version of Louis as Lestat's agent since he's shown to have that business acumen.
Now that Daniel is a vampire (OMG OMG OMG MORE ON THAT IN A SECOND) the risk is no longer so bad for him to come interview Lestat and I'm sure he's salivating to do so and Louis would definitely invite Vampire Daniel to do the interview for Lestat's book, since there's no fear for his safety (or at least, not as much) anymore. And Daniel would jump at the chance. It would be a fabulous framing device, Rockstar Lestat with his agent, Louis, inviting Daniel to interview Lestat for his next book AND it means we get Daniel's snark throughout Lestat's story.
OK SO DANIEL BEING A VAMPIRE. Definitely leaves the door open for past AND present Devil's Minion WITH THE ADDED BONUS of Daniel not going insane after he's turned (likely owed to not being turned while still a drug addled young man so, hey, if there was past Devil's Minion where Armand said no, kudos to him for reading the situation correctly that vampirism would drive young Daniel insane but not Old Man Daniel).
I was SLIGHTLY, SLIGHTLY bummed to see Daniel as a vampire without getting to see the whole Daniel/Armand situation but only slightly. There wasn't enough room in the season, it would have been a distraction, and IMO we can now save it properly for its place in either TVL or QOTD, which I bet are going to be Seasons 3-4 or as many as 3-6 if we stick to 2 seasons per book.
A take on Devil's Minion where past and present Devil's Minion are intertwined would be AMAZING and I've got my fingers crossed that's how they do it. Maybe interweave a bit of Vampire Armand.
I don't think/know if we're going to get a full Vampire Armand season BUT I do believe the show is going to pivot its POV lens to say, hey, everyone's got a point of view, everyone's got a reason. At some point, we're going to get more of Armand's POV and why he did what he did because I imagine his version will be different from Louis', just as Lestat's is, that's the whole basis of the show. And in there maybe we'll get some past Daniel/Armand.
Ok this already got away from me but ANYWAY, those are my thoughts for now.
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quitealotofsodapop · 5 months
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[The ones who manage to unearth their version of Luzhen clutch the newborn Stone Monkey tight, sobbing at the joy of finding another of their kind.]
That’s those that do have them. Their universes aren’t identical, so there is likely some that don’t have a Luzhen because their moms mate did perish in the flood: like, say, TMKATI-verse.
Mostly because I was looking through the old posts and one way for Luzhen to be born was somebody locking Peach into the furnace, but not turning it on and that counting to start the process. Obvs different rules now, but variety, you know?
That and the rest of the SWKs can quickly learn why Stone Eggs are a last resort kind of deal, with Peach nearly croaking during birth. Like, ‘Damn, there is a way for us to die, even with all these immortalities’, you know?
Also: [Cherry, holding his little bro up like Simba: PEEEEEBBBBBLLLEEEE!!!!!!!]
If none of the modern kids do the Circle of Life, I will be disappointed.
Recall that back then also were going by the thought of Nuwa having a hand in SWKs creation? Well, thought here: she’s responsible for Reborn-Luzhens creation. Don’t know, just had the idea of a small undefined soul causing some havoc near Nuwa – because it wants a family, it was promised a family, why won’t it be getting its family anymore – reminding her of the Havoc and she ends up making a little clay monkey for the soul to inhabit.
Kinda like TMKATI, just less pregnancy and more clay.
Then she drops the little troublemaker off at Smokey’s, “He really wanted to be born” she shrugs and peace’s out.
Smokey, who was doing his best to suppress his grief at the apparent fact that his dad had died in his world, just now has waterfall levels of water coming out of his eyes. His little brother harassed a god to ensure his own birth! Truly, they are related.
[The knowledge that he might be considered divine royalty under Celestial Law would be a bit much for him right now.]
Honest question: what do the rest of the SWKs think about that? Like, that has to knock the wind out them, for sure.
referencing the Wukongverse learning about Stone Matriarch au + our older post about Nuwa and Houtu making Luzhen on accident + Furnace - Fire = Stone Egg.
I should really do an updated TMKATI timeline post once my exams are over. Currently I'm thinking of altering it so that the twin boys of the Nodelets - Jidu and Luohou - are the ones created from one of the parents getting trapped in the Furance without the fire, likely from LBD stealing the Furance/capturing one of them. I'm thinking Luzhen (like possibly Canon!MK) would be created by Nuwa since TMKATI!MK got found by the Shadowpeach parents as a "broken" egg and they accidentally became his parents.
The Stone Matriarch au likely doesn't apply to many of the other universes since it is in of itself an Au. If any of the SWKs find an egg at the bottom of FFM/Mount Huaguo, it's like a million to one chance.
The one that does is super hyped/sad though. Not sure which.
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I love the idea of Reborn!/Smokey's Luzhen getting created because Nuwa encountered a little chaotic soul wanting to be born + realising that she shoudl probably give him to someone with a similar origins.
And let's just say; what if... Reborn!Luzhen's soul was created as a reincarnation?
The Reincarnation of a *certain* Primordial Demon who has just died? And may need to be raised in tandem with it's Qi Energy counterpart in order to grow into a (mostly) balanced monkey?
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As for the method in which: (Stone Monkey + Furnace) - Samadhi Fire (or they waiting too long) = Egg?
Most likely candidate would be Netflix!SWK/Cherry.
Because he's the exception of Monkey Kings who haven't been "furanced" yet.
I'm just imagining the next Wukongverse he pulls up looking SUPER rough.
Starfruit: "Wow, you look like Hell." Cherry, covered in burn scars: "Don't remind me. Ran into some jerks who stole a bunch of alchemy supplies from the immortals." Sugar: "Calabash?" Cherry: "No thanks I'm not hungry. Well anyway this guy working for Heaven thinks I'm too dangerous to be walking around, and he tosses me into this big pot. I run out of air and somebody turns the heat on! For like a month!" All the SWKs who Know: *winces of sympathy* Ace, jokingly nostalgic: "Ah the Trigram Furnace. Usually happens before the Buddha's hand though." Cherry: "Yeah don't remind me. Luckily my new friends got me out and woke me up." Dawn, suddenly pauses: "Wait. Woke you up?" Cherry: "Yeah I sorta passed out just before the worst of the fire started." Dawn, gettign concerned: "And were you asleep for that whole time?" Cherry, getting nervous: "Yeah??" Dawn: (*shares a look with the other monkeys. A bunch nod their heads with nervous expressions*) Cherry: "Why, what's the problem? Did you guys not fall asleep?!" Smokey: "How could we? The flames of Samadhi nearly turned me to ash. Only way me or any of us survived it is because the Wind corner has a higher pressure." Cherry: "There was corners in there?" Dasheng: "You didn't train in alchemy under Subuhti as we did. The Trigram Furnace is made up of eight corners according to the major celestial elements, with each corner having the properties of that element. The Wind element feeds but also suffocates fire, so even True Fire weakens there." Cherry: "Oh. I think I survived cus I just went into a dissociative state and became a statue." Dawn, now convinced: "YOU PETRIFIED!?" Cherry, getting scared: "NOW I AM!?"
Cue the monkeys who know about how Stone Eggs are formed dragging Cherry to see Guanyin. The bodhisattva explains that; yes, Cherry is carrying a mini-him all wrapped in a stone casing, all because the lack of air in the Furnace caused his body to believe that it was time to bud off into a new monkey. Cherry faints. Joyfully.
Cherry, rambling excitedly: "A mini-king! No! A Prince! NO! A PEBBLE! And he'll be *just* like me!" Dawn, stressing: "Aren't you worried that it could kill you!?" Cherry, brushing him off: "Pff! I'm immortal. Can't die. If I was really worried - I'd just grab a few more pills or peaches." Dawn: (*grabs Cherry by the collar of his armor and pulls him closer. eyes glowing red*) Dawn: "I have over twenty times the amount of immortality you have, and I almost f*cking died. The only reason I'm here today is because Guanyin, the goddess of safe birth, was at my side. And because my Macaque would have dragged me back from Diyu if I had. So. Be. Worried." Cherry, nods fearfully: "Y-yes sir."
But the young Monkey King is still super jazzed about his upcoming mini-him. Even if he's now looking up other ways him can become immortal so that he can meet his little pebble and give him the hugs he himself was denied as a baby.
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Lastly this part might need to be it's own post due to the amount of thoughts I has.
[The knowledge that he might be considered divine royalty under Celestial Law would be a bit much for him right now.] Honest question: what do the rest of the SWKs think about that? Like, that has to knock the wind out them, for sure.
Send in more of your thoughts :3
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spnhunter4life · 1 year
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Familiar Chapter 2
Word Count: 7.9k
Warnings: little bit of canon typical violence
A/N: This story was originally meant to be a one shot. But then I decided, "You know what? I'm not really happy with this ending. I'll just write one more little chapter to wrap things up." 🙄 Well guess what? If you've been following my work, you know that things always turn out longer than expected. So my 'little' wrap up chapter ended up being kind of long and had to be brought to a stopping point. So here's chapter 2 for you, and you can expect a third chapter as well! That will definitely be the last chapter though (she says with way less confidence than she would like).
Thanks to everyone who has liked, commented on, or reblogged the first chapter! I'm completely blown away by how many notes it's gotten. If you missed the first chapter, read it here!
Summary: Y/N comes back from a walk one day only to realize she can't remember where she was or what she was doing. The new case she and the boys were working must be abandoned in order to recover her memory.
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Two months had passed since the shapeshifter hunt, and despite Sam’s encouragement, I still hadn’t said anything to Dean. He was making it extremely difficult for me to ignore my feelings for the older brother the way I always used to. Between his constant pointed looks and making up excuses to leave us alone together, I was about ready to snap.
My dreams about Dean were becoming more frequent too. With thoughts of him almost always on the forefront of my mind, he regularly featured in my dreams. I still had dreams like the one the shapeshifter had taunted me with, but these dreams had branched out into more sweet versions of Dean that left me longing for him even more.
I woke up from one such dream – one where Dean and I were in our very own house, snuggled up together on the couch, a movie playing in the background as we talked – in the back of the Impala. I looked around and saw that we were still on the interstate. We were on our way to Nebraska to check out a new case Sam had found. Four teenagers had shown up dead, all apparently drowned, but their bodies nowhere near water.
“How much further is it?” I asked.
“About 20 miles,” Dean answered.
I sighed and leaned my head against the window. Sam met my eyes in the rearview mirror and raised an eyebrow in question. I just shook my head. He glanced at Dean and back at me, smiling at the small frown on my face this gesture caused. He was getting annoyingly good at figuring out when I had been dreaming about his brother.
By the time we got to a motel, I was irritated and in need of some time away from both brothers. I told them I was going to walk to the diner we saw about 10 blocks away and bring home food for everybody. It would give me time to clear my head. I really needed to find time to talk to Sam about stopping all the teasing and trying to be supportive. Even though it wasn’t his intention, it was only making things worse.
~~~~~
“There you are!” Dean’s relieved voice greeted me as soon as I walked in the door.
“Seriously, Y/N, what took you so long?” Sam chimed in. “We were getting worried. I think Dean was about ready to start a search party.”
“Sorry,” I apologized, not sure why they were so worked up. “I haven’t been gone that long.”
“It shouldn’t have taken you an hour and a half,” Dean argued. “Where’s the food?” He added almost as an afterthought.
“What food?”
“The whole reason you left was to get food,” Sam told me. “What have you been doing?”
“Nothing,” I answered. Then I thought about it. What had I been doing? I was certain I hadn’t been gone for very long, but then, I realized that all I could remember was the walk back to the motel. “Just walking I guess? I don’t actually remember.”
“How can you not remember?” Dean asked.
“I don’t know!” I yelled, frustrated and confused.
“Ok, well what do you remember?” Sam asked.
“I remember… waking up in the Impala on the drive here. I guess I kind of remember getting to the motel. Other than that… I’ve got nothing.”
“Come here,” Dean said, gesturing for me to walk over to him. 
“Why?” I wondered.
“Just come here.”
I walked over to him and he immediately began feeling around my head.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Looking for a lump or some other injury,” he said, continuing his search.
“I think I’d know if I hit my head,” I told him, backing out of his reach.
“Apparently you’ve lost your memory. How are you supposed to know what happened?”
“If I’d been hit on the head hard enough for it to affect my memory, don’t you think I’d have a horrible headache at the very least?” I reasoned.
“Point taken. But clearly something happened. We need to figure out what.”
“Let’s just all head towards the diner,” Sam suggested. “We still need to eat, and maybe something on the way will jog Y/N’s memory.”
Nobody had any better ideas and he was right, we did still need to eat. So we went outside and started walking towards the diner. We’d made it six blocks when Sam stopped us. This particular part of town was the area where commercial buildings started being replaced by residential. There were multiple small businesses scattered throughout the neighborhood. Some buildings were obviously both people’s place of work and their home. 
“Do you think you might have gone in there?” He asked, pointing at the music store across the street. Through the window I could see guitars spaced out on the wall, a row of pianos under them. I loved the piano. I grew up taking lessons and badly missed being able to play. It was an easy, surefire way for me to calm down and clear my head, a fact both brothers were aware of.
“You did seem stressed when you left,” Dean agreed. “I’d actually be surprised if you didn’t go in. And that would explain why you were gone for so long.”
“Maybe, but it doesn’t explain my memory loss. Think about it. An hour and a half, just gone. What are the odds of me forgetting such a specific chunk of time? Someone had to have done this to me. We need to find out who. And why.”
“I agree. Which is why I think we should go in,” Dean said. “If we’re going to find answers, we need to retrace your steps. We have nothing else to go off of.”
We crossed the street and Sam led the way inside. A little bell above the door announced our arrival. I scanned the room, looking for anything familiar but coming up empty. I walked over to the line of pianos, lightly running my hand along the tops of each one I passed. I stopped at the fourth one in line. A blur of memories raced through my head, but nothing that would help solve my current memory loss problem. 
This piano was very similar to the one I grew up playing. I remembered the hours spent on it, favorite songs learned and played enough times to become annoying to my family. The very same songs forgotten about when they became too easy and a new favorite came along. I placed my hands on the keys and played a few chords.
“Anything?” Dean asked. I just shook my head.
“Oh! You’re back!” Exclaimed a balding man who appeared out of the back room. He was probably in his early 50s and had a very friendly, cheerful demeanor. “You decided to buy this lovely instrument after all?”
“Uh, no. Unfortunately I have nowhere to keep a piano. No, I was just… passing by again and couldn’t resist,” I told him.
“Well, if circumstances ever change, I’d love to help you out!” He said.
I thanked him and placed my hands back on the keys, playing the opening notes to an old favorite song.
“Have you had a lot of business today?” I heard Sam ask.
“No, it’s been pretty slow today. But then, Mondays usually are,” the man answered easily. 
“I figured it must be a slow day when you recognized Y/N so quickly,” Sam said, subtly fishing for information.
“Well she was the only one in the store at the time, but even if there had been 20 other people around, she plays so beautifully I could hardly have missed her.”
The conversation ended there. Or at least, I think it did. I lost myself in the song I was playing, and all other noise faded away. Once finished, I turned around to face the three men. The owner of the store was looking at me with the appreciation of a fellow musician. Sam looked impressed as he always did when he heard me play. Dean… I couldn’t quite read the look on his face. The closest word I could come up with to describe it is awe. But I knew that wasn’t right.
The store owner glanced at his watch and regretfully informed us it was closing time. He thanked us for coming in and I thanked him for letting me play. The three of us exited the store and started walking in the direction of the diner again. 
We stopped in a couple more stores we passed that I might have gone into in an effort to destress. A small little used bookstore that was absolutely packed from wall to wall with books and an antique store, the kind that always reminded me of my history loving father and the countless stores he took me to growing up. Neither of these places sparked any memories either though, and as far as we could tell, I hadn’t stopped inside earlier.
“Well we have some explanation for where you were at least,” Sam said when we’d been seated at the diner.
“Yeah, but we still have no idea what happened to me. How are we supposed to get my memory back when we don’t even know where to start?” 
“I don’t know yet. But we’ll figure it out. We always do,” Sam assured me. This wasn’t much of a comfort to me at the moment, and Dean seemed to realize that.
“We’re going to figure it out, Y/N. I promise. I’d never let anything happen to you. You’re our priority right now. Everything else gets dropped until we figure this out. You’re our new case. Have we ever not solved a case?” He asked.
I smiled, feeling more confident with my situation. He was right. There was nothing we couldn’t solve when we worked together. 
“What’s our next step, then?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Dean admitted. 
“Our next step is going to the motel and getting some sleep,” Sam answered. “It’s getting late and we have no leads. Our best bet is to sleep on it and get a fresh start tomorrow. And who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky and your memories will be back in the morning.”
I didn’t really want to wait. I wanted to solve this now. But I knew Sam was right. We had nowhere to start, and being low on sleep wouldn’t help anybody, so I grudgingly agreed to this plan of action.
~~~~~
When I woke up the next morning, I kept my eyes closed and just laid there for a minute, working up the energy to actually get up. I heard the deep, even breathing of a sleeping person coming from the direction of the beds and the occasional shuffling of paper or clacking of a keyboard from the other side of the room. 
I rolled over so I wasn’t facing the back of the couch and was greeted by a rare sight when I opened my eyes. The unmistakable sounds of research I’d heard were coming not from Sam as I’d assumed, but Dean, up before his brother, the notorious early riser.
“What time is it?” I asked as I sat up. He looked up at me.
“Oh, hey,” he greeted. “It’s… almost seven.”
“And Sam’s still sleeping?” I asked around a yawn. Dean still picked up on the disbelief in my voice.
“I know, right? Lazy ass. Of all days to sleep in.”
I chuckled at his annoyed teasing and went to the bathroom to start getting ready for the day. When I stepped back into the room, dressed and teeth brushed, I saw Sam up and rifling through his duffle.
“Hey,” he said. “I don’t suppose you remember anything?”
“Unfortunately, no,” I sighed.
“Ok. Well I guess we should go get some breakfast and discuss next steps.”
“No need,” Dean interjected. “I already came up with our next step while you two were catching up on your beauty sleep.”
“You did?” I asked, surprised.
“What do you think I’ve been doing?” He answered. Before he could continue, Sam interrupted. 
“How long have you been up?”
“I don’t know. Couple hours.” He took a drink from a to go cup of coffee that I hadn’t even noticed he had.
Sam glanced at me, the look on his face one that he reserved for times he wanted to say ‘You two are so meant to be together’ but couldn’t say it out loud because Dean was in the room. He had said it to me on more than one occasion when Dean wasn’t around, which is how I know what the look translated to. 
“Anyway,” Dean continued. He picked up a phone book that was laying open beside him. “I found this psychic in town that should be able to help us. I figured we’d stop by her place after breakfast.”
“A psychic? I don’t know, Dean.” The thought made me nervous. Most of the people who advertised themselves as psychics were phonies. And even if this one wasn’t – which I didn’t know how Dean could be sure of – what if she wasn’t able to help? What if she saw something I didn’t want her to see? I’m a pretty private person, and the thought of someone digging around in my head is incredibly unappealing.
“Hear me out,” he insisted. “I’ve done my research, ok? She’s the real deal.”
“How can you be sure?” Sam asked.
“Because. I’ve done my research,” Dean repeated. “Look,” he said, spinning the laptop to face us. It was open to a website for The Amazing Annabelle. “There are dozens of reviews on here, and every one of them says she was able to help. And look at this.”
He slowly scrolled down to the bottom of the page, showing off the dozens of symbols and sigils scattered throughout. A lot of them I recognized as protection from various supernatural beings. There were a lot that I didn’t recognize too. They clearly marked her as knowing about the world of supernatural creatures though. Unless she had just pulled together symbols she thought looked cool in order to give herself an air of authenticity.
“Alright, fine. But a few good reviews and a bunch of symbols used by hunters doesn’t exactly prove that she’s psychic,” Sam argued. I had to agree. I didn’t want to hurt Dean’s feelings since he’d clearly put some time into this and I knew he was just trying to help, but psychics made me nervous. There was no way I would agree to go unless we knew for sure she was legit.
“Yeah, I thought the same thing. Which is why I talked to Bobby,” Dean responded. So this was the reason he was so confident. Bobby was highly respected among the hunter community. If he gave his approval on this Amazing Annabelle, then we really couldn’t doubt her abilities. “He said he’s not super familiar with her, but he has heard of her. She’s good at what she does and someone who can be trusted.”
“Ok,” I agreed. “Breakfast and then a visit to the psychic. I suppose the worst that can happen is she isn’t able to help.”
~~~~~
The first thing I noticed about Annabelle was how… normal she was. With the exception of Missouri, all the other psychics I’d ever seen were dressed in over the top outfits, their places decked out with all sorts of nonsense that was supposedly necessary for them to do their job.
If I’d seen this girl on the street, I would never have guessed what her occupation was. She was about our age and short, standing a full head below my 5’ 6” frame. And she was very pretty. I noticed both Sam and Dean’s immediate appreciation of her beauty. She was wearing white leggings and a purple shirt, her night black hair was in a messy ponytail that suited her very well, and her golden brown skin was flawless.
“What can I do for you?” She asked when she opened the door. Dean cleared his throat before answering.
“I’m Dean. This is Sam and Y/N. We were hoping you could help us with something.”
“I gathered that much,” she smiled. She opened the door wider and stepped to the side. “Come in.”
We stepped inside and she led us to a room that had an armchair and a comfortable looking couch as well as a round table with four chairs. She sat in the armchair so the three of us settled ourselves on the couch, Sam and Dean on either end and me between them.
“So. What can I help you with?” She asked again. 
“Do you have any experience with trying to recover memories?” I asked.
“Some, yes,” she said. “It really depends on how the memories were lost. Some are easy to find. Some take work, but can still be found with patience. Some, like in the instance of an injury to the brain, can’t be recovered.”
“We don’t actually know what happened. That’s part of what I need to remember. Our assumption is that magic was involved though,” I informed her.
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” she assured me. “If you’ll come with me?” She stood and moved to the table, gesturing for me to sit across from her. The boys came and stood close by to watch.
“I’ll need some information from you in order to know where to look,” she said. “Give me as much detail as you can about these memories. How long ago was it? How much time are you missing? Is it relating to any specific object or person? Anything you can give me will help.”
“It was yesterday,” Sam explained. “She has an hour and a half chunk of time just missing and we have no clue why.”
“What were you doing when you lost your memory and how did you realize you’d lost it?” 
“I was just walking from our motel to a diner to get some food. I only realized what happened because I couldn’t actually remember why I left the room and I definitely didn’t think I was gone that long.”
“Ok,” she said, taking my hands in hers. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and instructed me to do the same. “I need you to concentrate as hard as you can on the moments from that walk that you can remember.” 
Then she chanted a couple lines of Latin and suddenly I was back on the sidewalk outside the music store. I was walking in the direction of the diner once again when I hit a block. It was like an invisible barrier I couldn’t pass. I tried to go around it and when that didn’t work, turned around to go the other way. No matter what I tried, I was stuck where I was.
And then I was back at the table with Annabelle, Sam and Dean hovering over my shoulders.
“Well?” Dean asked.
“I still don’t remember anything,” I told Annabelle.
“I know. Your memories were definitely blocked using magic. It’s a stronger magic than I was expecting. It’s up to you to decide how important it is that you get them back. If you want to continue, I’m going to have to put you into a trance in order to access them.”
“Is that dangerous?” Dean asked.
“It can be. But only if you don’t have a good anchor,” she answered.
“What does that mean?” Sam asked.
“I’m going to have to send Y/N deep into her subconscious to find answers. Doing this requires an anchor, a tether to reality, someone to bring her back. Otherwise she could be stuck in her own subconscious with no way out."
“That’s not a problem. Both of them would be willing to do that,” I told her.
“I’m sure they would, but your anchor can’t be just anyone. It has to be someone with a very strong emotional connection. Normally I recommend close family members or significant others for this sort of process. I’m assuming they are neither?” 
I hesitated. The answer, of course, was no. But I didn’t see how I couldn’t have a strong enough connection with them for this to work. Living the way we did – being with each other 24/7, trusting each other with our lives – created a very strong bond. Not to mention the way I felt about Dean. But maybe if it was one sided it wouldn’t work. And I wasn’t about to say that Dean was the safer bet because I felt our connection was stronger.
“Dean can do it,” Sam announced.
Dean and I both whipped our heads to look at him. I was sure the shock, irritation, and minor panic I could see on Dean’s face was mirrored on my own. I knew we were panicking for entirely different reasons though. For Dean it was worry that he wouldn’t be a strong enough connection for me. He didn’t want to risk me not coming back. For me it was worry that Sam was going to rat me out. And boy would we have words if he did.
“What?” He snapped at the death glares we were both now fixing on him. “You know it’s true. You’ve known Dean longer than you’ve known me. You two get along so well and know each other so well that if I didn’t know any better I’d think you’d known each other your entire lives. I promise your emotional connection is more than strong enough to handle this. And I swear if either one of you tries to deny how close you are right now, I will not hesitate to punch you.”
I looked at Dean at the same moment he looked at me. There was uncertainty in his eyes, but his jaw and shoulders were set in determination.
“I can leave you alone to discuss it if you’d like,” Annabelle offered.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Dean said. “It’s up to you of course – you’re the one taking the risk – but I’ll do my best to bring you back if you’re willing to trust me to do it. Otherwise we can try to find another way.”
“Of course I trust you. That’s not even a question,” I told him.
He watched me for a minute, weighing the sincerity of my words.
“Ok,” he said. “What do you need us to do?”
Annabelle stood up and moved to a shelf full of drawers on the edge of the room, opening different ones and pulling things out as she explained.
“As I already said, I’ll be putting Y/N into a deep trance. The magic is blocking your memories on a conscious level. Sending you into your subconscious will allow you to access them, but only while you’re in the trance. Once you’re awake, you’ll forget everything again.”
“Then how does this help us?” Sam asked.
Annabelle set everything she’d grabbed down on the table and then opened a cabinet underneath, grabbing a clear glass ball and setting it in the middle of the table.
“It helps, because you and I will be able to see everything she’s seeing while she’s in the trance.”
“What about me?” Dean asked.
“Since you’re the anchor, you’ll be inside her head too. You’ll be able to see and hear everything. Sam and I will only be able to see, so you’ll need to pay particular attention to things you hear as you’ll be the only one who knows those details.”
She began combining her ingredients, crushing leaves and mixing together powders and liquids.
“While she’s out, I need the two of you to be absolutely silent,” she told Sam and Dean. “You’ll both be fully aware of the noises happening around you. It could be tricky getting to the hidden memories, and distractions won’t help. Once we’ve found the information you’re looking for, we’ll need your anchor. At that point I need Dean – and only Dean – to start talking to her.”
She now had a liquidy brown paste in front of her. She dipped her finger into it and began drawing symbols on my forehead.
“It doesn’t matter what you say. Your voice, as well as your physical connection, will lead her back into consciousness.”
“Our physical connection?” I asked.
“Yes. You’ll need to be holding hands during this,” she said. Done with my forehead, she quickly drew an intricate swirling knot on the palm of each of my hands. She drew the same design on both of Dean’s palms and then worked on his forehead as well. I assumed the design was identical to mine. “Dean, if you’ll sit across from her, we can get started.”
She sat in one of the two empty chairs and gestured for Sam to sit in the last one. 
“Alright. I need you to tell me everything you can remember from the time just before your memories disappeared. Once you’re under, you won’t be able to talk to me. The more details I have, the easier I can guide you to the missing time.”
“I already told you what I remember.”
“No. I need more. Tell me exactly what the last thing you remember is. Is it walking out the door? Did you get a ways before you forgot? What were you thinking? What were you feeling? What could you see, hear, smell? Give me everything you can remember.”
“Well… I don’t remember leaving the room. I kind of remember getting to the motel, but that’s a little hazy. I guess the clearest memory I have is waking up in the Impala about 15 minutes before we got to town.”
“Ok. Let’s start with that then. What details can you give me about that?” She prompted.
“I don’t know. Not much. We were in the car. On the interstate. Dean had Metallica playing. I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to say,” I told her. If this is what it took to get my memories back then I was screwed. Coming up with little details from hazy memories wasn’t exactly easy.
“That’s ok. Don’t worry. How about how you were feeling? Can you remember that?”
I’d just had a dream about Dean. So a big mix of emotions. Happy, sad, longing, irritation. Irritation. Yeah. I definitely remembered being annoyed when we got to the motel.
“I was annoyed. When we got to the motel. I remember being annoyed. I imagine it’s why I left to get the food. And Dean said I seemed stressed.”
“Great!” Annabelle praised. “What else? Do you know why you were annoyed?”
“Um…” How to answer that truthfully but without giving anything away. I looked between Sam and Dean and remembered how Sam had picked up on what I’d dreamt about and silently teased me about it. “Just an argument with Sam.” Sam rolled his eyes.
“What argument?” Dean interjected. “You guys didn’t even talk to each other.” 
“No, but just because we’re not as close as you two are doesn’t mean we can’t communicate without having to say anything,” Sam said.
Dean looked shocked. No doubt he was wondering how often we’d had these silent conversations. Little did he know, they were always about him.
“Ok. Anything else you can give me?” Annabelle asked.
“I know I went into a music store and stopped to play one of the pianos. I don’t actually remember doing it though. Sorry, that’s all I’ve got.”
“That’s fine. I’ve got enough to work with. Remember, I need the two of you to stay quiet,” she told Sam and Dean. They both confirmed that they would. “Ok. Dean and Y/N, take each other’s hands and close your eyes.” 
She waited for us to follow her instruction before continuing. A stream of Latin, different from the first time, fell from her lips and I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into my subconscious. It felt a little like drifting off to sleep, so gradual that you’re somehow both aware and unaware of it at the same time.
~~~~~
Dean’s POV
As Annabelle’s chanting trailed off, a picture of my surroundings slowly began to take shape. I recognized it immediately. It was the inside of the Impala – from Y/N’s perspective. She was in the passenger side backseat, her usual place.
“Can you hear me Y/N?” Annabelle asked in a calm, soothing tone. “If you can hear me, I want you to get out of the car.”
I watched as my hand – No. Not mine. Y/N’s – reached for the handle and then she swung her legs out and stood up.
“Great. I’ll do my best to guide you to your forgotten memories, but this is mostly on you. If you seem stuck, I’ll help you figure out where to go, but otherwise I’ll stay quiet and let you figure things out for yourself. Now I need you to focus for me. I need you to think about the motel.”
The background around us flashed through a series of images. Different motels we’d stayed at over the years.
“The motel you’re staying at now,” Annabelle clarified. “The one you got to last night.” 
The flashing images slowed and came to rest on one. 
“That’s good, Y/N. Now I need you to focus on your emotions from last night. You got to the motel and were annoyed with Sam because you’d just had an argument.”
Y/N’s mind flashed back to the backseat of the Impala, Metallica’s Fade to Black playing through the speakers. She was looking at Sam in the rearview mirror, his eyebrows raised. I could tell by the view shifting back and forth that she was shaking her head. Sam looked quickly at me and then back to her, smiling. And then, memory over, we were back outside the motel. 
That’s it? That was their argument? No wonder I’d missed it. What did it even mean? I caught myself just before I actually asked these questions out loud, remembering Annabelle’s instruction to stay silent.
“You wanted to take a walk, so you offered to go get food for everyone,” Annabelle continued. I watched this memory version of Y/N walk out the door. “You stopped at a music store along the way. Did you stop anywhere else?”
We all sat in silence as we watched Y/N walk for several blocks, never stopping. She looked around as she walked, frequently turning her head to look at different things. I remembered Annabelle telling me I would be the only one with access to the sounds in her memory and started paying attention. I heard the chirping of birds, the occasional car driving by, a bell ringing inside a store as someone opened the door. Nothing out of the ordinary. 
Y/N walked past a group of teenagers and I listened in to their conversation. They were discussing the loss of their friends. The information I got from them was useless as far as Y/N was concerned, but I memorized their faces so we could question them once we’d helped Y/N and were ready to work the case we actually came here for.
She walked for another block and then stopped outside the music store. She stopped for a moment to look at it, and the world around me disappeared as she relived a different memory. I saw a child’s hands on the keys of a piano. I heard the music being played, a simple melody of Jingle Bells that the child was singing along to. I heard a grown man singing with her. The song ended and she looked up into the smiling face of the man I knew to be her father.
She crossed the street and walked into the store, heading straight for the pianos and trailing her fingers over them as she walked by, much as she had her second time through with me and Sam. She stopped at the same piano she did with us. Having seen the childhood memory, I now understood the draw to this particular instrument. 
I listened as she played a complex set of chords that transitioned into a haunting melody. I was entranced, as I always was when she played. It was clear it was something she deeply enjoyed and missed. I was startled as Annabelle’s voice cut in over the music.
“What did you do next? What happened when you were done playing?” She asked. I suppose this part of the memory would be particularly boring to her and Sam, who couldn’t hear what I could. Not to mention it wasn’t exactly helping us find out what happened. We did need to keep moving, I supposed.
The memory jumped to the last few notes of what had to be a different song entirely. Then Y/N turned around and saw the store owner standing there, listening intently.
“You’re a wonderful pianist,” he told her. 
“Oh, that? I was just messing around,” she mumbled at the compliment. 
I listened closely to their conversation. While he was pretty low down on my suspect list, he was also technically the only person on that list as he was the only person we knew to have interacted with her. Nothing sparked my suspicions though.
He continued to praise her abilities, she continued to brush them aside, and he asked if she had any interest in buying the piano she’d been playing. 
“I would be very happy to sell it to you,” he told her. “It’s not often I get to sell an instrument with the confidence it will be used and well loved.”
She politely turned down his offer and then told him she needed to be going, that her friends were expecting her to be back soon.
She left the store and continued her walk. Although I couldn’t actually feel her emotions, I could tell that playing had calmed her down significantly. There was just something about the way the world looked to her now.
She made it another half a block before she stopped. I could discern no reason for this. She simply stopped walking. After a few minutes it became apparent that something wasn’t right.
“This is where you got stuck the first time we tried finding your memories, isn’t it?” I heard Annabelle ask. “Whatever happened to block your memories, this is where it happened. The magic is still putting up a fight. I need you to push back. It can’t stop you from seeing. It’s all in your head that you can’t go any further. Just keep walking.”
We all waited for a couple minutes as she struggled with pushing past whatever spell was holding her in place. 
“You can do it,” Annabelle encouraged. “You’re stronger than the magic is, I promise. Keep walking.”
Another minute passed and I knew she was winning because noises – which I hadn’t even realized had disappeared – started filtering through. It was like hearing something from underwater. Muffled, hard to make out, but definitely there. Then, all at once I could hear voices clearly and we were moving forward again.
I heard the sounds of a struggle coming from the alley in front of her. She quickly walked to it and then slowed to a stop just outside, listening. There was the unmistakable sound of chanting and underneath it, gurgling. 
“Perfect,” she muttered under her breath. She reached into her boot to grab the silver knife she always had with her. “Wish I had my gun right about now.”
She peeked her head around and saw a teenage boy standing over another one. An endless stream of water was spewing out of the lips of the boy on the ground and he was choking on it. The chanting boy was facing her. The second she stepped into the alley she’d be spotted. But the drowning boy didn’t have time for her to find a better plan of attack.
She rushed in and the boy stopped his chanting when he saw her. He started a different chant, just a few words, and then he raised his arm, flinging her into the building beside her. The knife she’d been holding went flying out of her hand. I desperately wanted to run to help her, to make sure she was ok or to kill that boy. I didn’t know which desire was stronger, but I reminded myself that it didn’t matter. This was a memory. It was all in the past and I couldn’t change it now. I just had to watch and learn what I could. That’s how I would help her. Because now we had his face and we could track him down.
Hand still stretched out to hold her in place, he looked back to his original target, now desperately gasping for breath. He continued his chanting, and the poor boy on the ground only lasted a few more moments.
“Why are you doing this?” Y/N asked him. “What could he possibly have done to you to deserve that?”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” the boy snapped at her. “No one does.”
He started marching in her direction.
“You should have left it alone,” he snarled. “If you’d just kept walking, everything would be fine. But now you’ve seen too much. And you have to go too.”
He started up his chanting again, directing it at Y/N this time. I could hear water falling from her mouth and hitting the ground. I could hear the sound of her gurgling and choking. I couldn’t bear it. How had she gotten out of this?
“Thomas!” A sharp female voice called from the other end of the alley.
The chanting stopped as the boy looked in the direction of the voice. Y/N immediately started coughing the water out of her lungs and gasping for breath. She looked at the person who had spoken. She was a woman in her late 40s or early 50s at a guess and she was fuming.
“What is wrong with you?” She asked as she smacked him over the head. “Don’t you think you’ve left enough bodies behind? Do you want to attract the attention of a hunter?”
“She saw me! What was I supposed to do?” He protested.
“You were supposed to have not killed another person to begin with! We talked about this! I’ve covered your messes your whole life, but I can’t hide murdered teenagers. Especially when you’re as sloppy about it as you’ve been and especially when you don’t even tell me about it!”
The boy hung his head in shame. But not guilt. Apparently he’d been raised to do a better job of hiding his crimes. Witches. I hated them.
“Well I have to kill her now. She’s seen too much,” Thomas argued.
“No. We’re already far too at risk of hunters coming to town. You can’t add another person to the body count. Especially so close to your father’s store. Do you want him to find out it's you killing people? About the fact magic is real, and you use it? No. We’ll erase her memory and send her on her way. She won’t be a problem.”
The witch grabbed an already made hex bag out of her purse and placed it in Y/N’s immobilized hand, forcing her fingers to close around it. I knew that she would have been fighting to get free, but since she was completely stuck there were no visible indications of this. I had been in that position more than once and knew the frustration of being unable to move.
The boy’s mother started up her own chanting and the memory we were in started fading to black. It continued with Y/N standing just outside the music store. She seemed confused at first, looking around as if trying to get her bearings. Then she turned and headed back in the direction of the motel, completely oblivious to what had just happened.
“Ok,” Annabelle said. I’d forgotten she was even there. “It’s time to bring her back. Go ahead and talk to her, Dean.”
At the mention of my name, I saw my face flash through her mind. I was sitting beside her on a couch and smiling. I didn’t remember this particular day. It could have been on any given day at any random motel. 
I wasn’t really sure what to say, and just babbling whatever words came into my head seemed silly, but getting her back was more important than my discomfort.
“Y/N,” I said, pausing to think of my next words. The memory in her head changed. Now, rather than seeing from her perspective, I was in an outsider’s point of view. And I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. “What the hell is that?” I gasped out. 
With a mix of excitement, shock, and confusion, I watched a guy who looked remarkably like me – although it couldn’t have been because I knew this had never happened before – lift Y/N in the air, spin her around a couple of times, and then set her back on her feet before leaning down to kiss her.
“I thought we were in her memories,” I said.
“You are,” Annabelle answered.
“No we’re not. We can’t be. That never happened.” 
“Then it must be a memory of a dream. Focus, Dean,” Annabelle instructed. “Be her anchor. Bring her back.”
I tried to concentrate on my job, but all I could see was the image of us kissing playing over and over in my head. 
“Can you please think of something else?” I practically begged her.
I was grateful when the memory – or whatever it was – flickered and changed into something else. Only this was no better. We were kissing again, only this time sitting on a very nice couch in a very nice room. It changed again. Sitting in the front seat of the Impala together, just the two of us. Kissing. Another change. I had Y/N pressed up against a wall. We were really kissing in this one.
It changed again and I breathed out a sigh of relief. She’d pulled up a random memory of her in one of her college classes, back before she quit school.
“Ok,” I breathed out and then cleared my throat. “Ok.” If I thought I didn’t know what to say before, I was really stuck now. What was I supposed to say to her after seeing all of that?
“Ok,” I said yet again. “You need to come back now. You have to find your way back. Sam and I are waiting for you.”
“It’s not going to work,” Annabelle said. “She’s trying too hard to keep her memories in control to focus on finding her way out of the trance. Y/N, don’t worry about what memories surface during this. Your only job is to come out of it. Listen to Dean and don’t worry about anything else. And Dean. Don’t worry about finding the right words. Say whatever comes naturally. That’s what she needs.”
Say what comes naturally. This would be a lot easier if I didn’t know Sam was listening to my every word. But Y/N was counting on me. I took a deep breath to prepare myself.
I said her name again. The memory of the classroom flickered to one of me in the driver’s seat of the Impala, singing along to Led Zeppelin. Y/N was in the back, singing with me and Sam was smiling in the passenger seat, refusing to join in.
“If I’m being honest with you, I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say right now. But you trusted me to get you out of this and I’ll be damned if I let you down. So I need you to do your part too. Find your way out of this. Come back to us.”
Memories flashed by as she searched for a way back into consciousness. I saw memories of real things, memories I shared. Us in the car, in motel rooms, on hunts. Her patching up a knife wound on my bicep, me holding her close and carrying her after her run in with that shapeshifter. There were more memories of things I didn’t recognize too. More dreams, I suppose. Us out on what could only be interpreted as a date. Us curled up together in bed, talking. Us dancing together in an empty parking lot, a slow song playing from Baby’s speakers. And more dreams of us kissing in various scenarios.
It would have been so easy to get lost in all of these memories, in seeing myself the way she saw me. And in wondering how she could apparently dream about me so much, apparently have feelings for me, without me ever knowing. But I made myself focus on being her anchor.
“Do you know how glad I am that you’re a part of my life? I sometimes wonder how I ever managed without you. And you know you can’t leave me and Sam on our own. We wouldn’t last without you. We’d probably kill each other.”
I watched as the countless swirling memories of us switched to ones of me and Sam. She remembered more than one instance that proved me wrong. She thought about all the times Sam and I had leaned on each other and kept the other going. She was essentially telling me that while she appreciated the sentiment, she knew we’d be fine without her.
“Alright, fine,” I said. “Maybe we’d get by fine on our own. That doesn’t mean either of us want to. You’re too important to us. So come back to us,” I repeated. 
She seemed to be flipping through her memories, as if looking for the right one to bring her back.
“Come back to me.”
I became the focus again, a memory of me standing outside on a bright sunny day and laughing at something she’d said flitting into her mind. But she pushed it away to start looking again.
“Don’t worry about the memories, remember?” I told her. “Just focus on me. Listen to my voice. Try to feel my hands,” I encouraged her. Different memories floated by again, pulled up at random by my words, or maybe the tone of my voice. I didn’t know. They almost all circled around just the two of us though. More dreams of us kissing flashed by.
The shock I felt at these images was lessening and I was beginning to be more comfortable with them. So, following Annabelle’s advice, I let myself respond naturally. I let go of the tight leash I usually kept on my natural inclination to flirt. It wasn’t something I’d ever done with her, not wanting to scare her away. If only I’d known how she really felt.
“You know,” I drawled, wishing I could flash her a smile. “If you wanted to kiss me so badly, you only had to say something. We can definitely do something about that. But only if you come back to me.”
There was a rush of memories flipping by so quickly I couldn’t make anything out in any of them. Then everything went black and I became aware of my own body again. I tentatively opened my eyes and saw Y/N sitting across from me, Sam and Annabelle on either side of us. 
I smiled a little. I wanted to know if she’d found her way out so suddenly out of embarrassment and a desire to escape or excitement and anticipation. 
“Don’t forget, she won’t remember any of what just happened,” Annabelle warned me. 
“I know,” I said. That wasn’t a problem. It was a lot easier to take a shot when you could see clearly. And I could finally see everything.
Chapter 3
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