#also i need fox hunting to make sense other than it being a funny bit

[neometalsilver]

you ever think of sonic growing up in the woods alone and fighting eggman regularly since the day he was 8/9 years old and then think about how he’s been raising tails since he was a 4 year old fox kit. like sonic not having a childhood and making sure that tails does no matter what because he knows what it’s like to have to be an adult before you’re ready.

knuckles losing his childhood to protecting the master emerald and growing up alone on angel island with a destiny and burden he isn’t even old enough to comprehend yet. meeting tails and while he’s not sold on sonic yet, he knows he’s never going to let this child experience the same crushing demands that he had placed on him by a tribe that wasn’t even alive to explain.

shadow only ever getting to experience fleeting moments of childhood when he’s with maria, and spending every other moment being tested and experimented on by scientists and doctors for a cause far beyond both him and his sister. meeting tails, who has grown up surrounded by danger and violence and war yet remains soft and kind and gentle despite thanks to his older sibling. shadow thinking about the trauma he had already experienced ten times over by the time he was tails’ age and feeling just burning hot jealousy and rage for the childhood he never got to have, the only source of peace and happiness he had being shot in the head in front of him while he was stuck behind a wall of glass. shadow meeting tails and wondering why he gets everything he never got to have.

[dreamsmp-au-ideas]

Ok, basics of Soul Eater. This is a world where people can be born with the ability to transform into magical weapons, known as Demon weapons. They can come to this school called the DWMA (Death Weapon Meister Academy) and find a partner who’s able to wield them, called a meister. If their soul wavelengths are compatible, they’ll become a pair. These weapon-meister pairs are then tasked with going out into the world and fighting off kishin eggs, which are people who have strayed onto the path of evil by eating human souls. If they aren’t hunted down and eliminated, they will eventually form into a kishin – a creature of pure madness that would destroy the world.

There are also Witches, beings of magic who are kind of like a third party – some want the kishin to be revived because it causes chaos, but others are chill and actually on the side of the DWMA. Witches are important because their souls are the key to a Demon weapon awakening their true form, and gaining extra powers. Defeating a witch and consuming their soul makes the weapon into a Death Scythe, a weapon powerful enough to be wielded by Death himself, the god of the world.

For my AU, I’m just taking the premise of the world and replacing the characters with DSMP/MCYT characters, so I won’t explain much there. Great show, would recommend highly, it’s on Netflix, read the manga as well if you’re disappointed by the ending of the anime.

Anyways, I’d like to use more MCYT characters than just DSMP peeps, like some Hermitcraft folks, but I know nothing about them really, so I just have DSMP stuff for now.

Phil is Death, because I can’t help but make him immortal in every AU I make. He’s the one who determines who has started to go down the path of the kishin and makes the order for them to be taken out. (Sounds kinda intense, but in this universe souls of people like this actually look different to healthy human souls).

Dream and George are a meister-weapon pair. George is a Demon Axe, and they are classified as a Three-Star pair (the highest ranking a meister can achieve, and second only to being a Death Scythe for a weapon.)

Techno is also a three-star meister, although his situation is a little different. He doesn’t wield a Demon weapon, but instead he wields a legendary sword called Harpe, which is a shapeshifting weapon that can take different forms. (So, in the series, they have Excalibur, who is this really powerful sword that anyone is compatible with, wavelength wise, but he himself is really freaking annoying so nobody can stand using him as a partner. I wanted to give Techno something different, but I wanted to tie in his connection with Greek mythology, so I created my own legendary weapon. Harpe is Perseus’s sword in the mythology, what he used to decapitate Medusa. Harpe is the same as Excalibur in that it can match anyone’s wavelength, but instead of just being annoying like Excalibur, Harpe allows Techno to hear the voices of the dead. Wherever he goes, there are people who speak to him, and usually it’s just idle chatter and he pretends he can’t hear them, but they seem to know that he can because he always seems to attract them wherever he goes.) Harpe usually takes the form of a sword, but it can also become a trident, a spear, and a pickaxe.

Then there are the two-star pairs, who are a level above the regular students and able to take on more dangerous missions. There’s Sapnap and his two weapons Karl and Quackity, who wield fire and water/ice (not sure yet) respectively. Sapnap and Karl were partners first, before Quackity came to the school, and he was a menace. Sapnap is a very powerful meister, but also very destructive due to his partner being fire and him not knowing how to hold back sometimes. When Quackity became a student and the teachers learned that he was a water weapon, he was begged to partner with them to try and reduce the amount of damage Sap does on lessons, and generally chill them out. Of course, the teachers didn’t account for Quackity being just as chaotic, if not more, than his partners, and thus begun the most chaotic trio at the school.

Bad and Skeppy are partners, and originally I was gonna have Skeppy as the meister with a reluctant Bad who gets pulled into Skeppy’s pranks, but then I remembered that IRL!Bad is a badass who throws knives and shoots guns and stuff, so I changed it so Bad’s the meister and Skeppy’s his knife weapon. Bad still gets dragged around with Skeppy’s shenanigans though.

Punz and Ant are partners, mostly because I needed them to be in the AU somehow and they both needed a partner. Honestly don’t know much about either of them, and I don’t know what kind of weapon Ant is, but they’re strong enough to be two-star.

Then there are the one-star meisters, which is the ranking all students start as. You have Tubbo and Tommy, Wilbur and Fundy, Niki and Jack, Puffy and HBomb, and Purpled and Hannah(hannahxxrose).

To the surprise of most people who meet them, Tubbo is actually the meister in their pair. Which makes it very funny when Tommy’s being his usual bombastic, irritating self and picks a fight with another pair who they may not know, and when they get ready to fight Tommy calls over this innocent looking kid and starts glowing in his transformation, becoming a crossbow that can shoot explosive shots (like a firework crossbow).

Fundy is an interesting case, because he is actually a Witch (using the fact that Fundy’s character on the SMP is ftm trans, and because witches in this world are animal-themed and it just made too much sense with his fox connection. He has ears that he hides with a hat and a tail that he hides.) He’s partnered with Wilbur, who is a set of oversized gauntlets that have claws at the end. Yes, he gets furry jokes, no, he’s not amused, but he deals.

Niki and Jack are the weapon I’m probably most excited about. Jack can transform into a big shield, Steven Universe style, but it also has another ability. Niki can strike it with a mallet in different ways, and the sound that emanates from it has a different affect on her enemies/their attacks. She can ring it so that it resonates at a frequency that can break glass, can stun her enemies, etc. A lot of people think she’s weak or not as good as others because her weapon is defensive, but she just smiles and knows that if they ever see her fight, they’ll think differently.

Puffy and HBomb is half a joke, but also serious. HBomb is some sort of spiked whip/lasso, but many people joke that he’s a glorified fishing rod because Puffy once used him for that and he never lived it down. (Because Puffy’s a captain, but also because HBomb has his podcast and it just seemed to fit). Puffy is also a sheep witch, and bonds with Fundy over it since nobody else at school knows about their heritage (given that Witches are usually an enemy of the DWMA)

Purpled and Hannah, I will admit, are only a pair because they’re both bedwars players and it seemed appropriate? No idea what kind of weapon Hannah would be though.

Real quick, here are some other character roles. Ponk is the school nurse, Sam is a technician who is supposedly working to make sure the school is functioning, maintaining the old pipes and stuff, but he has a lot of secret work that Death has him do on the side of that. Alyssa and Callahan are a Death Scythe pair (Alyssa as a meister) who work on another continent and aren’t ever around, cause I thought it would be funny.

Ranboo is a special case of being his own meister? If anyone reading knows the series, he’s basically like Crona. But instead of madness from the black blood, it’s his enderwalk state that he eventually gets snapped out of in an epic battle with Tommy/Tubbo. He has two non-demon weapon pickaxes that he fights with, as well as the enderman powers from the SMP, and some mild telepathy.

In terms of other MCYT, I don’t know much about the hermits but most seem like they would be good teachers? The only one I was told had to be a meister was Falsesymmetry, because she’s a pvp god. And her weapon is Rendog, because I was told he’s supportive of her and also goes feral if needed? So there’s that. Ren is a transforming weapon, it’s a bow that can disconnect at the middle and become two swords connected by a magic chain that can extend as far as needed.

I have no idea what to do with Eret or Schlatt, they feel like they should have important roles but the “corrupt politician” or “the traitor who became king” bits don’t work super well in this universe. Well, traitor does, but I also love Eret and want to give them a good ending. And I could easily use Schlatt’s normal video persona rather than his SMP character, because that would be kinda funny and not something I see as often. - 🐉

Oooooooh. This is super interesting. This is super interesting. I really love this concept already!

[unpeumacabre]

soaring dragon dancing phoenix - 龙飞凤舞: prologue

Yunmeng is no longer home for Wei Wuxian, for he is no longer welcome. And so when he visits he can always count on Jiang Cheng descending upon his head with the full strength of heaven's fury, to chase him out. But one day when he sneaks into Yunmeng again, days go by without Jiang Cheng making an appearance. Something has happened to Wei Wuxian's prickly shi-di, something that - once they reunite - they will find is far greater than they could ever have anticipated. Accompanied also by Wei Wuxian's dear friend (?) Lan Zhan and a Lan Xichen who has only just reluctantly left isolation, the four of them set out on a journey that will bring them across the greater part of China to the mystical Kunlun mountains of mythology - and more importantly, may bring them love, healing, and reconciliation.

If only Wei Wuxian could take his head out of his oblivious arse and start putting himself in other people's shoes for once...

Rating: Mature

Relationships: Wangxian, Xicheng, Wei Wuxian & Jiang Cheng

Read on AO3 (bc tumblr might mess up the formatting + more extensive author’s notes on the story)

Count: 1.5k

next ->

One year after the events of the Guanyin Temple, and the death of former Chief Cultivator Lianfang-zun.

Lan Zhan!

I agree with what you said about Sect Leader Yao, that old fart. He wouldn’t know a good idea if it bit him on the arse. If I were you I’d have snuck into his room at night and shaved off his eyebrows – but then again, you’re Chief Cultivator, and you have to follow boring things like rules and protocol. Don’t worry, the next time I’m in Pingyang I’ll … It’s a secret! Look forward to the next time you have a discussion conference with that pig-headed old fool.

I’ve finally reached Yunmeng. Little Apple took such a long time to get started from the inn in Jiangling. I think he had a crush on one of the serving girls, to be honest. Even apples didn’t work to drag him away from her. I had to conjure a mirage of her all the way from Jiangling to Yunmeng to get him going – can you imagine that? One of these days I’ll have to find a nice little female ass to keep his little Little Apple happy … Hahaha! I can practically see you rolling your eyes at me now, Lan Zhan. You still can’t take a dirty joke after all.

Anyway, I digress. It’s nice to be back in Yunmeng and be able to pick all the lotus pods I want and to flirt with all the pretty Yunmeng girls, although none of them are as pretty as you are, of course. You’d make a big stir if you came to Yunmeng – you should visit with me one of these days when you’re free! Although I know of course you have responsibilities as Chief Cultivator etc etc but I promise you it’ll be fun! One of these days I’ll come kidnap you. Then Lan Qiren, that old man, would really have an aneurysm, ha! I’d kidnap you just to see his reaction.

Don’t worry about me, I’m talking nonsense as usual. I wouldn’t really kidnap you, unless I was really bored. And Jiang Cheng would probably beat my ass for trying. Honestly, it surprises me that I haven’t had the honour of Jiang Cheng’s company yet. Somehow, he always knows the moment I step into Yunmeng – it’s like he has a spell set up to go off whenever I’m in the vicinity??? And he never fails to turns up for an hour or two just to shout at me, thrash Zidian around a bit and tell me to go back to Gusu. Then he storms off somewhere to drink tea or something. I swear he’s going to die of high blood pressure one of these days.

Well, I expect I’ll see him around. He’s bound to turn up sometime or other. Looking forward to your reply, and counting every one of your twenty words,

Wei Wuxian

***

Lan Zhan!

Thank you for expressing your concern for Little Apple’s wellbeing. He’s eating well (as usual) and living happily in the city stables where I left him. He has a new crush on the stable boy though, but I’m not worried about that – it seems like his affections are as transient as floating smoke and passing clouds. He seems to be like his former master in the sense of being indiscriminate with regards to his choice of partner, which makes me wonder why he’s taken such an intense aversion to me. I guess it’s just the same old story with me and animals all over again.

It’s my third day in Yunmeng, and still no sign of Jiang Cheng anywhere. Perhaps he’s simply busy with some night hunt or other and can’t be bothered to whip my ass into shape. I’ve been visiting his favourite haunts the past few days but no luck – it seems like he’s really busy this time. I’m starting to worry, and although I never thought I’d ever say this, I miss his grumpy ass. It’s been the longest I’ve gone without hearing him call me a fucking idiot, haha!

Anyway I have a funny story to tell! Yesterday I went to investigate rumours of walking corpses at the base of Yunmeng Mountain. Apparently some farmers came across them and ran away but one of them was caught and eaten.

But guess what, Lan Zhan? Actually, it was nothing more than a group of hermits who’d come down from Yunmeng Mountain five days ago after meditating in seclusion for three years, and they were doing their Bagua ritual circle walk around one of the dove trees at the base of the mountain. They hadn’t bathed once in those three years, and so when the farmers came upon them and saw them chanting and moaning and pacing around the tree they were mistaken for walking corpses! Hahahaha how ridiculous is that??? Anyway I cleared up the misunderstanding. The farmer who was apparently eaten fell down a cliff when he was trying to escape from the “corpses” and broke his leg, so the hermits rescued him and patched him up. He was perfectly fine. I talked to them and they seemed like a pretty normal bunch to me – they were quite a big group when they came down the mountain at first apparently but then most of them decided to go down south and back home instead of lingering in Yunmeng. That’s about all the excitement I’ve had so far, I think.

Well, anyway, thank you for the twenty-one words you used in your reply. You have gotten quite adept at teasing me, haven’t you? Looking forward to how else you may surprise me next,

Wei Wuxian

***

Lan Zhan,

No, I don’t think Jiang Cheng fell off a cliff too. As much as you might wish for it to happen, he’s still my brother an important sect leader, you know! Anyway I already checked all the cliffs around the mountain before I received your letter so it couldn’t possibly be so.

Besides, I went to Lotus Pier earlier today – just to check on how things are going, you know, in case they need my help or something, nothing to do with Jiang Cheng. I just stayed outside the gates because I thought Jiang Cheng would probably descend from the heavens on a cloud and break my legs the moment I stepped foot into Lotus Pier, but some of the disciples spotted me and asked me what I was doing there. They said there have been people disappearing just outside Yunmeng, to the southwest and twenty li outside the main city, and when some of the Yunmeng Jiang cultivators went to investigate a few days ago some of them disappeared. So Jiang Cheng decided to take a few more of the Yunmeng Jiang disciples and investigate himself.

Since I have some free time, I’ve decided to help them out. They’ve been gone for four days already – the beast must truly be a handful indeed. It might be fun to go and help, although I think Jiang Cheng might spontaneously explode when he sees my face. Well, maybe the explosion will end up killing the monster, who knows.

It’s quite odd, though; some of the disciples who escaped even said they saw the spectre of Jin Guangyao, that wily old fox, hanging around the cave where they were attacked. Although of course that is impossible, for he is probably still trapped in Nie Mingjue’s coffin, fighting a battle till the end of time. Well, I guess I’ll see for myself if what they saw was true or not.

I had not known that you were capable of silk embroidery. Your skill is indeed fine – as expected of the esteemed Second Master Lan! I shall treasure your gift until the end of time. The cherry blossoms flowered today, and they made me think of you. I wonder if you still remember visiting Tanzhou with me when we were looking for the remaining pieces of the Yin metal? Was it your first time attending such a festival? You looked so surprised by the petals raining down on you then! I miss those times. 

I will write to you again tomorrow when I have rescued Jiang Cheng from the human-eating monster. I will make sure to give you a good account of his face when he sees me there to interfere with his night hunt, ha!

***

Dear Lan Wangji Hanguang-jun Mr Chief Cultivator Sir,

I am writing this letter to you because I know you to be a good friend of Wei Wuxian. Just today, I visited Lotus Pier and found that my uncle has been missing for a week, and Wei Wuxian with him for two of those days. They have apparently gone in pursuit of a human-eating monster twenty li southwest of the main city limits of Yunmeng. It must have been a fierce creature indeed to have ensnared both my uncle and Wei Wuxian

Unfortunately, as I am currently extremely and regrettably tied up in Lanling Jin sect matters, this humble person would like to humbly request for your help in locating and possibly rescuing them. Thank you.

Best regards, yours sincerely and most humbly,

Sect Leader Jin Ling, Lanling Jin sect

[tallstars-rewrite]

Chapter 42

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Jake was a bit nervous leaving Talltail curled in on himself in the Thunderpath tunnel. Talltail luckily didn’t appear significantly burned, but a sharp stone had left a jagged gash in his front leg that may have been singed with embers as well. Jake didn’t know how bad it was. He wasn’t experienced enough with this sort of thing to know, up until then the house cat hadn’t been used to injuries worse than a couple claw scratches. What was it that Talltail had mentioned being good for infection? To stop bleeding? Could Jake possibly apply a clan cat’s gift for healing remedies? Oh why hadn’t he paid closer attention when Talltail talked about his medicine cat friends magic plants?

Lets see, gold-something…? Merry gold was it? What did that look like again? Well, it had to be golden colored, surely. He scanned one side of the surrounding forest, then the other. Ok, there were no golden plants around. Jake had never even bothered learning all the names of plants, they all looked the same, they were just plants for star's sake, how was he meant to tell them apart? 

There were some yellow flowers that grew outside his home, but he didn’t really want the housefolk to see him right now. His paws felt suddenly heavy with a sharp flash of sadness as thoughts of Dusty and Cris flitted across his mind. He shook his head. Nope, not now, now wasn’t the time to wrestle with the heavy weight of that loss. In a small way, despite the predicament he was in with Talltail, he was relieved to have something he could do to take his mind off it. Something other than wandering alone in that far too empty house… It would never feel the same again without Dusty. 

Maybe that’s another sign that this is where I'm meant to be right now...Now if only I could find a more helpful sign to point me in the direction of merry-golds.

Feeling hopelessly lost and overwhelmed by the plants and trees that all looked identical and green and useless, there was no choice but to do what he always did when he didn’t know what path to take. Just follow his gut. ...Not that that had done him much good recently other than get him into trouble, and run straight into a bunch of very rude “ShadowClan” kits with an apparent blood-lust.

But that was just one time, what were the odds of it turning out that badly again? Jake was absolutely not about to let something as small as “having absolutely no idea where he was or what he was doing” stop him from helping a cat that he cared for. So, with that newfound surge of (possibly undeserved) confidence, Jake took a breath and closed his eyes and focused. Which direction felt right? 

...Right...? Yes, ‘right’ seems like a good direction. So, right he went.

 One of his front paws stung horribly where he’d trodden on an ember the night before. He never thought fire would be so painful. No wonder Talltail had feared it so much when Jake first showed him his fireplace. He chased the stinging away from his mind, now was not the time to start fretting over a little pain. He would not think about it, he would only think about golden flowers, and how everything would be ok as soon as he found them. 

A sharp scent hit the roof of his mouth and made his lips curl. It was familiar, though he couldn’t place his paw on what it was exactly. A looming sense of danger flooded through him from nose to tail tip, making his bright ginger fur bristle. He didn’t have time to search through his memory before his question was answered for him. A russet red muzzle poked its way out of the bushes. 

By the stars, you can’t be serious…

It was a fox. A familiar fox at that, like the one he’d pathetically swiped at before running for cover several days before. A fox investigating the remains of a forest fire for unsuspecting prey without cover. It blinked at him curiously with hungry amber-ish eyes. Jake didn’t know any better how to deal with a fox now then he did then. But he was also hyper aware of how close he still was to the tunnel, and how easy cat scent would be to track back. 

It was a stupid thing he was about to do, and he knew that, but louder then his instincts to run up the nearest tree was an overwhelming flare of anger at this predator. There was no way, after everything he’d been through, that something like this could ruin everything now. The fox took another step towards him, it’s eyes alight like a kitten eyeing a helpless baby bird. 

Jake puffed up all his orange fur and screeched at the fox as loud and as fiercely as he could. “Listen here you dung-breathed flea-brained rat-faced bastard, I have had a really bad last couple days and I am not letting you go anyway near that Thunderpath or anywhere near me! You think you're tough? I’m not scared of you! I dare you to come closer!” 

Jake lashed out a paw, yowling and spitting, and the fox looked taken aback at how this very much alone cat was not acting at all as it should. It seemed puzzled as to how it should go about hunting something that it wasn’t chasing. Jake lashed out again and caught it on the tip of the nose. The fox yelped and snapped at Jake, who barely jumped out of the way before raising both his unsheathed paws up, claws flashing in the early morning light. The fox wasn’t really so much taller than him. It snapped again and caught Jake on the shoulder. It tried to shake him and Jake twisted around in its jaws, hoping his skin wouldn’t tear, and bit it hard on the snout just below it’s eye and stuck his claws above its other eye, sinking them in as deep as he could manage. The fox, now facing the prospect of blinding itself, flung Jake to the side. The house cat saw stars as his head cracked against a tree and he landed with a thump in a pile of wet charred leaves, but he was back on his paws and hissing just as fast, driven solely by adrenaline which was thankfully staving off the worst of pain. His instincts warned him well enough to not show any sign that he was hurt. 

“Try it again! You don’t scare me!” he screamed.

 The fox took a step back, perhaps deciding at last that cat prey really wasn’t worth this much trouble. Letting out one last angry yowl, Jake lunged forward and the predator jumped back and loped away into the bushes to search out prey with duller claws. Jake slowly sat back on his haunches and licked the new wound in his shoulder. It was bleeding more than he thought and his head was spinning. He was dizzy and suddenly aware of how much he hurt now that the adrenaline was wearing off. He sat with his head pressed against his forepaws for a while, trying to convince himself to get up again. 

Flowers. Golden flowers. You need to find those flowers. If they aren’t here, maybe in the twoleg gardens? But what if I pick up the wrong ones? There are so many yellow flowers! I’m hopeless!

While crouched on the ground, he thought he heard the sound of a fox's yelp followed by a furious yowl somewhere off in the woods, but he was still dizzy and couldn’t even be sure whether or not he imagined it. If that fox decided to come back, he really would be in trouble. But there was a new scent that warned another animal was nearby again. This scent was distinctly not fox. Jake shot his head up and got to his paws, trying not to sway. What else was going to go wrong today?

It seemed to come from nowhere, a once again familiar and unpleasant muddy taste, similar to a dead rat's fur. The taste that clung to those ShadowClan brutes. He froze in his tracks and whipped around, his greatest fear was realized in the pair of fierce orange eyes narrowed at him from a raised gnarled root. He hadn’t even heard the cat approach, but there she was, hunched with one eye squinted. She was big and stormy gray with long messy fur that could certainly use a good grooming. Deep scars that warned of experience from many past battles were carved into her face and pelt, striking through the tufted murky fur. The way she hunched over and her long, faintly yellowed teeth that stuck out of her mouth at a funny angle made her seem old at first, but looking closer showed there was no out of place silver of age. No, she was much younger than he’d originally thought, but there was an aged look to her hard fire colored eyes that felt wise beyond her apparent years.

 Jake fought the urge to shrink away as she studied him closely. He stood frozen, his fur still standing on end as he tried to think what to do. Taking a peaceful approach hadn’t worked out so well last time he ran into these cats… Try to run? He wasn’t very fast even on a good day, and in his condition, he’d be caught easily. Could he threaten her like he had the fox? There is no way a cat like that is going to be threatened by me! But if she attacked him now, he would attack back if he had to. Nothing would stop him from getting back to Talltail, no matter how battle trained this clan cat was. 

But her fur didn’t bristle with aggression, in fact, she hardly moved at all. She looked like she was sunning herself, unconcerned and blinking calmly at him. When Jake thought he could not handle the tension a second longer, she finally spoke in a steady raspy voice.

“You look lost, kittypet. A puny chewed up wad of fur like you is pretty easy prey for a fox. Or so I would have thought. ‘Looked like you had some kind of death wish, picking a fight like that.” She grinned, showing her long front teeth more clearly. “It won’t be bothering us again by the way, but I suspect you have greater things to worry about.”

Jake eventually let out the breath he was holding. At this point he was more exhausted and exasperated than afraid. “Are you going to try and kill me too?” 

To his immense relief, the molly shook her head, a rumbling purr of laughter escaping her throat. “No, I couldn’t be bothered. But my clanmates may feel different. They are rather tense right now. You didn’t even notice the scent lines, did you?”

He hadn’t, but he’d been rather distracted.

 “I haven’t time for scent lines!” he argued. “And if you’re gonna be nice enough not to kill me, I just need some merry gold I think, and uh….cobweb, I don’t know what that plant looks like though...you wouldn’t happen to know, would you m’am? I’m in a big hurry and I promise I'll get out of your fur as soon as I can.”

“Cobweb isn’t a plant, it’s just spider's web.”

“Oh...literal spider web? I thought it was a weird plant name...Look, I just want to help my friend before anything else happens, you see--”

“Yes, I know. Don’t worry, he hasn’t moved from beneath the Thunderpath.”

Jake felt himself bristle again. How did she know where Talltail was? Who else knew? I shouldn't have left him alone!

“Relax kittypet," she purred, clearly sensing his immediate panic. "I have no war with your companion. Quite the opposite in fact. Running into me was quite good luck on your part.”

“I was just following my gut. I didn’t know where else to go. I know that sounds silly...”

She shrugged. “I do a similar thing sometimes. But when you're a medicine cat, you call it following the signs of StarClan. Mind you, that doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea. But sometimes it works out for the best. The name’s Ratfang by the way.”

“Ratfang? That doesn’t sound like a very nice name,” he said before he thought better of it.

Her thankfully amused purr rattled strangely in her throat. “I have little use for vanity.” Ratfang got up and stretched casually, her frighteningly long hooked claws sinking into the bark of the root she perched on. “Anyway, I have what you need. Trust me, you’ll make a mess of things if you try to do this on your own. Let's get going then, shall we?”

Jake was stunned. “Wait--you… you really want to help me? How did you know what I needed?”

Ratfang stared deeply into his eyes, suddenly looking very serious. “Why, I know everything, kittypet. My StarClan given powers show me clear visions of the future.”

Jake stared at her in wonder. “Wow...really? You can really see the future that clearly?”

Ratfang broke her composure and laughed. “Of course not!  I’m just messing with you. Imagine StarClan making anything clear. If only my job were that easy! I simply scented strange cats around our territory before sunrise and thought I would investigate. I tracked you to the tunnel earlier, saw you both looked a mess, and went to fetch what I figured you’d need. It’s part of the medicine cats code to help injured cats, even if they aren’t from my clan.”

Jake was a little embarrassed that he’d been so keen on protecting Talltail yet he hadn’t noticed some cat had already apparently found their hiding place. However, that also meant if the ShadowClan cat meant to hurt them, she could have easily done so already.

 “Well, I really do appreciate it.” He hastily dipped his head to her. “My name's Jake by the way, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Ratfang bent to pick up a large leaf stuffed with sharp smelling plants that had been folded neatly between her forepaws, then she leaped off the gnarled root and began back down the path from where Jake had come without pausing. Her response was muffled through the bundle she now carried. “Well Jake, I hope meeting you will be a pleasure as well. But we will have to see.”

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[lewis-winters]

Some additional dæmon!au headcanons, a continuation of this headcanon list.

Ok so I thought about it some more and decided to change Dick's dæmon from a Caracara to a Gyrfalcon. Still a raptor, but a larger one that has, historically, been used in falconry and hunting and is, in some European countries, a symbol of patriotism and national pride. Dick's daemon is a female, silver-streaked Gyrfalcon that settled sometime after college but before Fort Benning. Her name's Anahida, and she speaks like a queen. Like, literally, I imagine her voice sounds a lot like Helen McCrory's (gee, I wonder why). She's very large and eye catching, but she only speaks when spoken to-- which is rare. In a society as repressed as 1930s - 1940s America, I imagine speaking to another person's dæmon would be seen as rude or taboo. Because of that, Anahida barely speaks and thus, people often forget she's there. There are rumors too, that Dick's the son of a witch, because Anahida likes to fly far above and at a distance, farther than any human-dæmon bond should go. However, it isn't true. They just practiced a lot growing up. Dick's always wanted to fly, in some way or another, and practicing as well as testing how far they can both stretch from each other was their afternoon play time. It's weird. I know. But this is Dick we're talking about. Of course he'd do something like this.

Anahida is the only one allowed to berate Dick when he's being exceptionally petty or self-righteous. She keeps him in check. It never happens often, but it happens enough. Other than that, they're right as rain and very in-sync with each other.

Is anybody surprised that the only other person who will ever address Anahida directly is Lewis? Show of hands? None? Yeah, me too.

Liebgott's dæmon's name is Chaya and, after some pondering, I've come to the conclusion that she's a Bat-eared fox. Very chatty, too. She and Lieb are very blunt, but she's arguably the blunter one of the two. Where Lieb sometimes gives into the urge to hide or repress feelings, Chaya is willing to take more risk. She does this thing where she will boldly go one way, the way she knows is good for them both, stretching their bond even to its thinnest and most painful, just to get Lieb to finally concede and agree with her. They're both stubborn as all hell, that's the problem. Sometimes Lieb will deny himself things for a myriad of reasons. Chaya has no such qualms. She loves him, but she definitely thinks he's an idiot sometimes. It also sometimes extends to how Lieb gets really soft around people he cares about. In the wild, male Bat-eared foxes are the more nurturing of the young, while the females are the ones who go out and hunt. Kind of the same with Lieb and Chaya. Lieb takes care, he hovers and forgets that boundaries exist-- his own, and the person he's taking care of. But Chaya's the kind who remembers, and reminds Lieb that sometimes you can't give all of yourself away, no matter how much you want to. Does that make sense?

(Disclaimer: I gotta admit. The reason why I hesitated with Lieb was because I didn't want to accidentally be anti-Semitic. I grew up in a country that is primarily Christian and Muslim so I am only familiar with Islamophobic visual vocab, not so the anti-Semitic ones. I had to make sure the animals I assigned a Jewish man's literal soul to were not anti-Semitic or used in anti-Semitic imagery by Nazi propaganda in any way. So. Yeah. Um. Pigs, goats, lizards/reptiles, rats, rodent-adjacent, or any animal seen as "pests" or "vermin" were immediately struck out. Nope. Let's not.)

You wouldn't know it at first glance, but Web and his raven dæmon have a very intense love-hate relationship. Annabelle is a very act-first, introspection-never kind of thing. Web is the opposite. Sometimes, Annabelle will act before Web himself will, and she can be very, very vicious. Because of this, Web is afraid of her and Annabelle resents him. They never fight in public, they largely ignore each other, but often when they get into it... well. It gets almost... a bit too violent. Some of the others have never seen a human and a daemon hurt each other until they’ve met these two. Sometimes, Annabelle often thinks that she’s somebody else entirely, a completely different entity from Web, and sometimes, Web thinks she’s a changeling. That maybe some fae or other switched his real daemon out for this cursed one. It’s a really fractured, complicated relationship.

When they’re on the same wave length, though, they’re scary. The only thing they can seem to agree on is passionate and impulsive anger. Web will always regret it afterwards whereas Annabelle is always smug about it. They calm down after the war and they’re back home. During the war, though, they’re both a mess.

Joe Toye’s daemon is a doberman pinscher named Alessia who is just about as quiet and solemn as her human. Classic soldier daemon. He calls her Al for short. When he loses a leg, she doesn’t. I don’t think amputation in the daemon world works that way, at least not according to Pullman’s original text. Going back home with her after his amputation is easier because she’s there to encouraged him and hold him up when necessary. They make a good team. They share similar fears and insecurities so it’s easy for the both of them to understand each other and help each other through it.

Pat has a little american robin as a daemon. Which is really funny, honestly. Big tough guy like Pat, you’d think he’d have a big tough daemon for sure, but that’s not the case with him. He’s always been gentle and unassuming, Pat and so is his daemon. Her name’s  Aoibheann (pronounced ay-veen). She likes to sit on his shoulder and rarely flies far away from him. When they jumped, she stayed inside his jacket at all times, tucked away and close. The only time she flies is later on at peace time, when she knows they’re both safe and she can leave Pat for a few minutes without it being too much trouble.

Johnny’s daemon is a mongoose named Corentine, but he calls her Cora. She’s fiesty. Sobel’s rooster daemon, Julius, wasn’t very fond of her. In fact, he was downright frightened of her. It’s why Sobel won’t mess with Johnny. It’s really funny.

Perco’s daemon is in the same family. A weasel. A tiny little thing he can hold in both his hands. Her name’s Jackie. I have no idea why. But it fits.

Ralph Spina’s daemon is a raccoon. It’s adorable. His name’s Nimaphael. But he hates it and everybody just calls him Nim. Ralph carries him around like a baby on a sling, strapped to his chest. Unlike Harry and Saoirse, you can tease them about this. They’re aware it looks ridiculous. They also don’t care.

Bull’s daemon is a sun bear. I know. I didn’t see this coming, either. But I thought about it and... honestly? It fits. Not to mention Bull’s pretty big. He can carry her no problem. Her name’s Xanthia, by the way. And she’s very sweet, if only a little gruff in showing affection. She’s also not afraid to do what needs to be done. If she needs to have a go at an enemy’s daemon, then you know she’ll do it. She definitely isn’t afraid to get down and dirty. It scares the replacements for awhile, until they realize that she only does it to protect her own. 

I finally figured out what Merriell Shelton’s daemon is-- it’s a Jaguarundi. It’s a wild cat that looks to be a mix between a house cat and a mongoose. They’re fascinating and they hiss. A lot. It’s a perfect fit. Again, he name is Charlotte, but he calls her Lotte. Imagining them swaggering down the streets of 1940s New Orleans appeals to my aesthetic sense so much I cry just thinking about it.

BONUS:

Kitty Grogan’s daemon is, not surprisingly, a cat. But not a domesticated one. He looks like it at first glance, but he’s not. He’s an African Wild Cat and he’s a sarcastic little shit named Xaphania. Xaph for short. Send me a wink if you understand that reference.

[trashcreatyre]

I'm gonna explain one of my TMA playlists bc I've been wanting to do that for several months, and how else am I supposed to procrastinate my animatic project at one in the morning?

(here's the link to the playlist bc I think its pretty slappin')

General:

Body Terror Song By AJJ-

I know that it could technically be a flesh song, but I feel like its a bit more vague than that? if that makes sense?

The Afternoon By Lemon Demon-

there's gonna be a lot of Lemon Demon songs in this lol- This one is also pretty vague, but for some reason it kinda reminds me of Michael specifically? I don't 100% know how to describe it.

thrifted youth By dalynn-

Most of the descriptions/reasonings in the general section are pretty simplistic and vague huh? I guess it just kinda fits the vibe? I might be saying that for a lot of the general ones-

Aurora Borealis By Lemon Demon-

this one reminds me of the season five, kinda feels like a jmart song. (also you'll probably notice that there's not much in the ship theme in this playlist. I like to keep my ship playlists separate from my more general ones, don't know why.)

Under My Skin By Jukebox The Ghost-

just kinda fits the vibe y'know? other than that I don't really know.

Turn the Lights Off By Tally Hall-

i can't actually remember why I put this one specifically- that's a bit unfortunate-

When He Died By Lemon Demon-

This one mostly just fits the vibe, makes me think about the really old Victorian era statements.

Ancient Aliens By Lemon Demon-

again, fits the vibe.

She Doesn't Sleep By Anthony Amorim-

Feels like a random statement tbh. also reminds me of Not!Sasha too.

Nightmare Fuel By Lemon Demon-

funky song- fits the vibe- I don't know what more I can say-

Everybody Loves Me by OneRepublic-

I don't remember actually???? I think It was an Elias one??? but thinking about it now that doesn't really make much sense???? I'm gonna keep it tho, fits the vibe, at least it does to me.

Bloody Nose By Jack Conte-

fits the vibe :)

Christmas Kids By Roar-

I think I saw an animatic to this one time? now I can only think of the season one archival staff,,,, my beloveds,,,,

La nuit en matin By OH MU-

imma be honest, I have no idea what this one's actually about, but It lowkey reminds me of the intro music during end of season three- y'know, the clown vibes :D

9 to 5 By Dolly Parton-

Archival staff moment

American Healthcare By Penelope Scott-

I guess it could technically be seen as an End themed one? but I put it on bc I felt like it fit the vibes (are you getting sick of reading vibes? i'm getting sick of typing it)

Butch 4 Butch By Rio Romeo-

mostly just the rat filled piano line,,,,,, and also it fits the vibes to me.

Oblivion By Grimes-

Kinda feels like a statement?? In a way?

Murders By Miracle Musical-

the vibes. hopefully thats the last time i type that for this-

oh yeah woo yeah, we're onto the specific Entities now B) lets start with the one that probably has the most, if not, it sure feels like it-

The Spiral:

Spiral Eyes By Rewenge-

yeahhhh,,,, I know it doesn't really fit the vibes all that well, But the title fits and I like it so-

The Distortionist By Ghost and Pals-

this one is SUPER obvious, but it fits REALLY well in my mind.

Out of Her Head (Outerlude) [From The Film Possibly in Michigan] By Korban Baxter-

I can literally picture this one- I lowkey wanna do an animatic of this one one day.

A Crow's Trial By Vane Lily-

OKAY- so this last one is because it's the song from an absolutely GORGEOUS animation/animatic by Akidachi on YouTube, I ADORE this animation. please watch it omg-

again, I'm like, 90% sure that The Spiral has the most songs on this playlist, definitely not a bias or anything. next up is the mf uhhhh-

The Corruption:

Spiral of Ants By Lemon Demon-

no explanation needed.

Maggot By Slutever-

Mostly just the name, but it's a good song too so-

Sick On Seventh Street By Sarah and the Safe Word-

fits the vibe title and actual song wise.

in retrospect under my skin probably could be here-

The Web:

Redesign Your Logo (Bonus Track) By Lemon Demon-

Feels like a very web song,,,

Boris The Spider By The Who-

Spider,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Spider Dance By Toby Fox-

Yes,,, like from undertale,,,,,,,

i think thats it for the web (i swore there were more,,,,)

The Lonely:

Nobody By Mitski-

C'mon, you didn't think I WOULDN'T put this one on, did you?

This December By Ricky Montgomery-

idk what it is exactly about this one, just,,,, feels correct?

Blue Jay Way By The Beatles-

MANNNNNNN- i love this song, my mom hates it- that's unrelated- but I always just feel like there's fog or like, an eerie sea, or something- while listening to it. it feels very lonely-

I'm a Member of the Midnight Crew (1909) By Eddie Morton-

I have no idea why spotify suggested this song to me, but I will never not find it funny. Anyway- reminds me of the crew on Peter's ship :)

The Stranger:

Rattlesnake By Kabaret Sybarit-

Idk, feels like smth Nikola would sing at jon- idk how else to explain it-

A Mask of My Own Face By Lemon Demon-

pretty self explanatory lolll

The Slaughter:

War Pigs By Black Sabbath-

war.

The Hunt:

The Hunter By Slaves-

maybe this one is because it's because it's litterally called the hunter, and that they say hunter a bunch, but it is fun to listen to-

Teeth By 8 Graves-

I cannot remember my reasoning at this current moment-

The Flesh:

Body By Mother Mother-

the lyrics do be fittin doe

The Dark:

Everything Goes Dark By The Hoosiers-

i mean- everything goes dark- what more do you want me to say-

Dr.Sunshine Is Dead By Will Wood and the Tapeworms-

i think its mostly the song's vibe and the title.

The End:

The Trick to life By The Hoosiers-

the trick to life is not to get too attached to it.

Memento Mori: the most important thing in the world By Will Wood-

remember death.

YOOO OKAY NOW WE'RE ON THE ONES THAT I HAVE ACTUAL THINGS TO SAY ABOUT NOW- at least for the most part-

Characters:

i think i'm gonna go from least to most for this- (spoilers, Jon has the most ones because I care him)

Cryptid Hunt- Demo By Averno, Sushi Soucy-

this one makes me think of the WTGFs,,,,,

You're at the Party (Bonus Track) By Lemon Demon-

makes me think about Micheal Shelley,,,,,,,

Saint Bernard By Lincoln-

Alice "daisy" Toner moment-

Mary By The Happy Fits-

mary keay,,,,,,

there used to be a gerry one too, but the more I heard it in the context of the playlist and him, It just didn't fit,,,,,

Ew it's Elias/jonah time-

The Fine Print By The Stupendium-

capitalism- jk- kinda- Idk, just feels like it fits because he really just kinda,,, doesn't care about his employees-

How Bad Can I Be? from the lorax-

I had to-

Boss 3 from the terraria soundtrack-

Listen- I don't know why- but- it has elias/jonah vibes- the vibes are fowl, but the song is good.

Ruler of Everything By Tally Hill-

Panopticon/eyepocolypes time-

Ayooo it's jon time- I really hope I can write out my thoughts in a way that makes any kind of sense- /foreshadowing

A Sadness Runs Through Him By The Hoosiers-

Goddddd,,,,, he's just kinda filled with sadness and survivors guilt, just like, all the time huh?

Home By Cavetown-

the lyrics are just- very him- like- I just gjbdjgsflkjns-

Broken Crown By Mumford & Sons-

frick- the foreshadowing was accurate- the best I can describe it is that the lyrics just???? y'know??? hhh why am I like this sometimes-

Sweet HIbiscus Tea By Penelope Scott-

i'm willing to bet that he never wanted to be the main character-

Honey I'm Home By Ghost and Pals-

I saw a Jon centric animatic to this one time- I can't for the life of me remember who by, But everytime I hear the moth lines, my brain goes ":0" Because I remember there was a time when people kept drawing moth jon- I don't know where that came from but I thought it was very cool.

Who Are You, Really? By Mikky Ekko-

I'm like- actually starting to get frustrated with how poorly im articulating my thoughts right now- this just isn't funny anymore-

Sleep By My Chemical Romance-

I'm not actually sure why for this one- I just remeber putting on my black parade CD, hearing this, and being like, "damn, that do kinda be jon tho-"

I hope you enjoyed my ramblings- tbh, all this sounded and read out better in my head. My words might not make sense, but I do like how the playlist is. also im very tired, maybe this would've been written better if I wasn't struggling to keep my eyes open lol. I'm gonna fall asleep now- or maybe i'll post a spiral themed doodle dump again, who knows. I don't know.

[popculturebuffet]

Simpsons Review: Simpsons Comics #102 “Uncle Burn$” or Homercore Nudity!

Whelp out of all the commissions Kev has thrown me this one’s kind of a curveball. I mean it makes sense why cover it: It’s a pastiche of Donald Duck Comics done in the pages of the Simpsons long running comics. I cover duck stuff on here, and not only do I love the Simpsons but I tend to reference it for jokes a LOT. I just genuinely never thought of reviewing it till now, likely because earlier on in my new career of reviewing animated shows, I wasn’t really convinced I could do pure comedies. With my regular reviews of Darkwing Duck and as it comes out coverage of the Loud House (I still need to get around to Band Together), that’s no longer a real issue and I should consider doing the show in the future, especially since I have an unabashed love for the first 10 seasons and a few episodes beyond that. 

As you can tell, I love the Simpsons. While I do genuinely wish it would end and have no real intrest in the current seasons, though if you’d like me to take a look i’d be willing to. The show in it’s prime was funny, witty and each episode was crammed with jokes. And refreshingly for an adult cartoon show of it’s time,  the show genuinely wasn’t afraid to mix things up: Milhouse’s parents divorced and stayed that way for so long that them apparently getting back together decades later is itself a huge status quo shake up.  Lisa went Vegetarian which stuck thanks to sir paul mcartney, and then went Buddhist, both of which have never wavered since and both fit her well. Skinner and Krabbable started dating. Barney went sober for a few seasons. Apu got married. These are minor changes but the show does have things happen occasionally and doesn’t just snap everything back and it adds genuine tension to plots knowing they might stay the status quo They usually don’t but the occasional change gives things stakes. I could go on for days, but I couldn’t go on for 8 weeks, point is the Simpsons are awesome, and deserve the praise they get early on I just wish they’d stop as by this point people really have stopped carring and it’s time to pass the torch and Let Bob’s burgers be the wholesome family comedy that runs forever.. and even then that one should stop at 10 seasons. Or if not at least let the kids age dammit.  But that aside, while many of you simpsons fans looking at this probably have at least seen the comics, or a collection of them over the decades, many of you like me are wondering what the hell Bongo Comics is and how they managed to last so long. Bongo was founded by Simpsons Creator Matt Groening in 1993. Matt Groening had noticed that at the time there just weren’t any funny books on the shelves, funny books being comedy based comics primarily targeted for kids, with Archie and Disney being really the only ones left at the time. So he founded Bongo to rectify that, and given Fox naturally liked the sound of more merchandising dollars, the publisher was primarily used to produce simpsons comics, though looking at wikipedia there were one or two that weren’t including, of all things, a Coldplay comic tying into their album. Why did Coldplay publish a comic book at a primarily simpsons comic book company?

Though most series seem to be either short lived or one shots, there were a few exceptions: Naturally the company put out an annual Treehouse of Horror issue, there was a Bart Simpson ongoing focusing on him and the other kids of Springfield, I had a trade for that one once, and once Futurama premiered it too got a comic book that held through both cancelations. But standing above them all was Simpsons Comics, a 245 issue long runner that ran all the way up to the company’s closing, likely due to a combination of a lack of profits and the then upcoming Disney-Fox merger depriving them of the very heart and soul of the company. 

Naturally being a Simpsons fan I have a connection to these comics having gotten the trades out of the library multiple times as well as the collection of Bartman’s solo series, which was my favorite and I might cover some day. In addition to the Free Comic Book Day issues i also picked up scattered issues over my life since, much like Archie, Simpsons comics were a mainstay of bookstores and super markets and the decline of both comic markets is likely why the Simpsons comics started to peter out in the first place. The quality and memorability of the stories varied but they were a fun thing to have around and it’s sad to see them go, as well as see Disney not even make a remote attempt to bring them back or at the very least republish the vast library they now have access to. Also finally if your wondering yes, there indeed was a Simpsons/Futurama crossover. And no I have not read it.  So with that history, most of which I just learned some of which I already knew, in mind, it is very fitting the comic’s did a tribute to the Uncle Scrooge comics. Though it does feel very weird that I have yet to cover any Donald Duck or Scrooge comics.. yet i’ve already covered one of the Ducktales tie in comics and a Simpsons homage to it. I’m going to have to correct that but until then, join me under the cut as I dive into adventure with the Simpsons. 

This issue was written by Ian Boothby and drawn by John Delaney, I feel mentiong the writers and artists should be important in comic reviews and I kick myself for not having done that or gone into them as much before. Boothby was apparently the Ian Flynn of these comics, writing more simpsons comics than any other writer according to wikipedia and winning an Eisner for his work on the comic if sadly not this issue. He was nominated for an outstanding Canadian Writer award for it though so that’s good. Point is the guy is a decorated vetran of this series and it shows in how good this issue is and I felt he deserved some recognition as most Comic Book Readers, myself included up till now, likely weren’t aware he even existed nor took over the comic in the 2000′s. 

We open with Burns getting attacked by a mummy! Gotta say wasn’t expecting this as where we started out but the simpsons have started with wonkier premises to end up somewhere. I mean there was the time a bag boy strike ended up with them in Africa. Also i’d say Burns should call the police, being the kind of privileged white guy they actually care about protecting and all, but frankly the Springfield Cops don’t have the best track records with Mummies:

But no it’s just Smithers, who dove in heroically to save the company 15 dollars after Homer took a bet to see how many fire crackers he could jam in his computer’s disk drive. Lenny said 20 but he proved him wrong. And yes those are all actual jokes from the comic, this issue is very funny and feels very much like a Golden Age Simpsons episode. They also all gather to sign Smither’s cast.. which naturally is a legally binding contract.  Burns takes his loyal minion to get some quality medical care only to find an arcade because he traded the Medical Bay in for one during an outbreak of Pac Man Fever... again I really can’t top that and there may be a good reason why I haven’t covered the Simpsons till now. But yeah as Buns gives Smithers a roll of Pennies, he wonders who to have replace Smither’s on their annual summer treasure hunt.. which would come out of nowhere but we genuinely don’t know what they do most summers. I assumed Burns just road Smithers like a horse to play cricket while Smithers enjoyed it way too much. But a stray comment from Homer getting a Krusty Doll from a crane machine about being king of the treasure hunters leads to this. 

I mean it’s an easy joke but damn if it didn’t get a laugh out of me. So later at the old Simpsons place, because this comic is fantastic, Marge and Homer talk things over, but Homer insists Burns said he’d split the treasure, and Lisa wishes she could come along. And Marge says he should, especially for his own saftey.. and when Bart complains, says all the kids should go, she already packed their bags, she’s heading to Rancho Relaxo byyyyeeeeeee. Once again, this comic is amazing, and I would say this is out of character for Marge, but frankly that’s the whole point. Plus it really isn’t when she has to deal with 4 children on a regular basis, and her sisters, and a town gone mad.. yeah can’t blame her here. 

The next day at Burns Office, Homer is wearing his navy outfit.. or rather Donald’s Navy outfit. But given I did a quick google and found him having at least 4 different outfits during his time in the Naval Reserves, it’s not a stretch to assume the Simpsons Version of the Navy gave these out too. Seriously Ian Boothby has put more thought into continuity than most writers on the show proper. Also Simpsons Tide, season 9 episode, still very memorable and hilarious and not due to childhood nostalgia. Just looking up this bit had me laughing hard. 

I now  want to watch that episode sometime soon so thanks Kev. Anyway Homer seems to have misplaced his plants. Now I could spare you the image since I don’t do things panel by panel anymore and only use panels from a comic when relevant. Buttttt

This traumatizing of my audience brings me to a point about this issue and why it works. While there are tons of nods to the Donald Duck comics and what their homaging is very clear, the issue doesn’t REQUIRE you know them to enjoy it.  Knowing them I obviously enjoy it more, but most of the jokes aren’t reliant on you knowing anything about the barks comics and even someone with a passing knowledge of  the Original Ducktales can still get the reference if not why Donald is here. It helps this is less of a parody, with the exception of some jokes, and more of an homage, using stylistic elements of those comics while telling i’ts own story as a loving tribute to it’s predecessors. Speaking of one of those jokes poking fun at the source material, Burns is delighted Homer brought child labor, which kept me laughing for a good minute, and when the kids introduce themselves we get this bit. 

Not only am I 100% sure every version of Donald or Della did this to make sure they could tell them apart, very much including the reboot with Donald, but it’s a genuine hilarious bit. Donald’s response as they head off is “there’s somehting hooey Dewey and screwy about this. “ Also I will criticize the fact Bart isn’t the one wearing a blue outfit. For those wondering why, after all Maggie wears blue shouldn’t she get it, who haven’t seen this a LOT of merchandise early on had Bart in a blue shirt, due to early Merch being rushed out pre-show and since he wore one in some earlier concept art, he got to wear blue. He also wore it late into the 90′s. 

Sidebar: I just found this and while it isn’t a bad joke given his character it is  questionable to have a fourth grade boy tell you to buy him. Just saying. But the reason I bring it up is partly because the show itself referenced it at one point. 

As well as it’s sister show Futurama

And you remeber that Bart Simpson solo I mentioned? That one frequently, both in and out of story, had Blue Shirt bart show up for some variety. 

Also why yes each issue does have it’s own fun “Superman’s Pal Jimmy Oleson” Esque subtitle. And I love it so. Point is Blue Bart is part of the series legacy and this very comic company, so it’s VERY weird to not have that here. That being said there were  a few Green Shirt barts apparently as a printing error, so he could just as easily be 80 steps ahead of me. I just don’t know. 

Back at the plot Burns and the Simpsons show up at Frink’s lab, Frink rather obviously filling in for Gyro, with his own version of little bulb named F.L.O. who gladly shakes Lisa’s hand.. and releases a Pterodactyl but hey you can’t win em all. It’s a nice nod, though one only fans of the source matieral will really get, but the pterodactyl bit right after helps distract from it. Frink slotts into the roll well, as Frink has no reall affiliation with anyone and is basically, much like Gyro, there for various characters to go too when the story or joke needs him. Frink has two gadgets for them: Some Scuba suits that can go to any depth and a grappling claw that accidently gets him gripped to the pterodactyl. Also homer accidently switches suits with maggie, so we get an adorable shot of her serenely sleeping in a diving helmet while her daddy chokes to death. 

So the next day it’s out to the open seas where The Simpsons are doing all the work while Burns lounges.. which yeah this is a typical uncle scrooge adventure all right. While the man unlike Burns does work hard and do things for himself, he spent most voyages talking about the destination while putting all the hard work on Donald, in case you thought there was at least one universe where Donald isn’t miserable most of the time. Lisa wonders what he’s doing and we get this lovely bit. 

I just.. can’t stop finding that hilarious or a nice way to get the Uncle Scrooge bit in there while still fitting the Simpsons, and it at least explains what happened to Herb, whose been mentioned all of once in the 30 seasons since he last showed up. I checked. And yes for those unaware, which is fair, or who just now remembered Homer does indeed have a brother, one his dad had out of an affair who showed up twice, once with Homer unintentionally, and largely due to Herb’s own foolishness, ruining his life, the other time with Maggie helping him get back on top and him and Homer reconciling. He’s also voiced by comedic legend and your friend and mine, Danny Devito, whose still making us all laugh to this day and is a wonderful person from all accounts. Rock on Danny, here’s the only way I can think to honor you. 

But yeah it’s a good gag. Burns claims to be watching for a Giant Squid.. and turns out to be right. So it’s up to the simpsons to fight the giant squid, a sentence I genuinely didn’t expect.. I thought like the Griffins they’d just ignore it. 

I miss that show.. oh i’m aware Family Guy is still running but much like the Simpsons the show it USED to be is long gone. Anyways Bart tells a worried homer octopus suck out the innards and drink it first quipping “It’s not like you haven’t been drunk in the morning before homer. Homer chokes bart only for the squid to choke him which is easily the second best “Homer getting choked after Choking bart” gag i’ve seen.. the best being this one I found on youtube. 

Though personally my faviorite part of that whole bit is Bart’s proud “THAT’S BECAUSE I SOAKED HIM IN SLIME!” Anyways Lisa figures out a way to beat the squid, painting the likeness of each of them on it’s tentacles and letting the thing devour itself. Lisa lampshades it making no sense PHysics wise but with that she reluctantly accepts calling Mr. Burns, Uncle Burns and we’re off to our next location.  Next up is Mt. Donrosa, a very clear nod to Uncle Scrooge maestro Keno “Don” Rosa, an avid fan of Barks work who expanded on it and turned it into a solid continuity, most famously, and what got me into the ducks in the first place, with the epic “Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck” which I proudly own and.. well I did say watch this space didn’t I?  Enough hinting at the future as the Simpsons scale the mountain with Homer carrying burns up on a rickshaw. Burns however looses his lucky #1 penny, SUBTLE, and cuts Bart down to get it. We then get the best line of the issue:

Bart thankfully survives and we find out the Penny, much like Scrooge’s Dime is how Burns started his fortune.. for this issue and nowhere else but that’s standard for the Simpsons. Specifically loading it into a gun and threatning to kill Jasper’s grandfather with it during the gold rush, a nice twist. At the top of the mountain they find the fabled key of Strobl, which comes from the Taliaferro tribe.. more refrenes this time though I didn’t know them and had to google. Tony Strobl was an artist on the Duck Comics at one ponit  and Al Taliforino id forgotten about. He did the Donald Duck comic strip which I had heard of and weirdly hasn’t been collected yet despite Fantagraphics covering mickey, as well as reprinting barks and rosa’s respective works. 

The key is suspended in the air by what Lisa suspects to be magnetics, and while Burns plan is naturally “Have Bart swim in it and see if he surivives”, Bart, still pissed from the penny and not wanting to die today, grabs the Penny and uses his slingshot to fire it at the Key. The bad luck from the penny casues an erruption, but Bart once again saves the day and has them surf down, with naturally tons more great jokes.  The family enjoys some steamed Seafood, except Lisa whose eating Seaweed, while Homer enjoys a sting ray “It tastes as good as it stings, Ow, Ow.” ON to Goddfrodson Trench, an odd choice given Floyd Goddfrodson was barks equivalent for the Mickey Mouse Comics and not really a duck writer, but he still deserves the honor regardless.  Under the Sea, no accusations just friendly crustaceans here.. our heroes are close to the treasure but loose the map to the Jailbird Boys, aka Snake and his cousins, who found out due to Lisa’s blog. She didn’t want to loose any more readers to Sheri and Teri’s Olson Twin’s Fan Page.. which.. it’s 2004.. weren’t they dead by this point? Nope still alive? Still are today in fact? Alrighty then. Also this bit, and some of the other references are a bit heavy handed, I will admit that, but the jokes are high quality enough otherwise that it just comes off as a bit of an adorable wink more than laziness. 

Snake and co cut their air with Starfish used as throwing stars. 

The gang tie their air suplies to avoid dying, and Maggie, in a clever bit, talks with the starfish, since they communicate via sucking, to attack the Jailbird Boys. Again.. 

I genuinely don’t know, but our heroes find the fabled vault of Barks Billion.. named after Bark Barks, that polar bear from the sonic games.. no of course it’s named after Disney Duck God Carl Barks, who created the Duck’s share of Donald and Scrooge’s supporting cast: Uncle Scrooge himself, Daisy Duck, a fact I just learned but given he created her first short “Mr Duck Steps Out, shouldn’t of surprised me, The Beagle Boys, Magica DeSpell, Goldie O Gilt, Flintheart Glomgold, Gyro Gearloose, Gladstone Gander, The Junior Woodchucks as a whole, Neighbor Jones, John D. Rockerduck, The Number One Dime, Gus Goose, April, May, June and Whitewater Duck. Just the sheer impact he’s had on the comics on all continents cannot be overstated. He is also the one who refined Huey Dewey and Louie from hellraising little shits to the good little boys they are today.. well okay they were, thankfully the reboot has created much better versions. Point is what a man, what a man what a mighty good man, he is truly missed.  We get two great homer gags in the same page, one where somehow he’s put the giant key on a key ring and still can’t find it.. with Bart helpfully taking it from him, and then we get this, which I missed on my first read through. 

Naturally Burns betrays them, using a Gold Magnet, kay, to suck up all the gold and naturally planning to leave the Simpsons for dead to no one’s surprise. But thanks to Bart teaching Maggie how to use the spittoons, Homer gets one stuck on his head.. and starts getting sucked up with the Simpsons using them to escape. Naturally Lisa’s first instinct is obvious. 

But Burns weasels his way out by promising them free gold after their free lunch. Naturally the next day this turns out ot be a trick as their lunch came from frinks and thus, for now, their weightless.. but Karma gets Burns when he tries swimming in his new gold vault... only for the natural result of what happens when am an who never exercises and who doctors once described as having so many diseases packed into his body at once they tripped each other off and that a strong wind could kill him, trying to do with a similarly aged but still physically fit and well trained at swimming in money man does on a daily basis. 

We then close on a quick gag of weightless homer getting caught on fire and we’re out. 

Final Thoughts:  This was a really excellent comic. It captured the tone of the Simpsons at their best and while stiff in a place here or there, it’s mostly just really funny, entertaining and a nice and warm tribute to Donald and Scrooge’s long comics history, not really mocking it but instead just homaging it, while still throughly feeling like the Simpsons. It honestly feels like the Treehouse of Horor Segement on the shining, a bit that parodies something, but for the most part the jokes still feel firmly rooted in the simpsons and their cast. This was a treat to review and i’m glad Kev comissoned it and I may take a look at more Simpsons in the future. If you guys like this review, you can follow me on patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet, or if  there’s a specific simpsons or ducktales episode or a specific comic you want me to review, you can comission your own review for just five bucks. Just send me a direct message on here through Tumblr, or take a look at my ask box or submit. However you want to do it. I take payments through paypal and until next time: Happy Days are Here Again. 

[notjanine]

2020 in books!

the only kind of new year’s resolution i made as a naive baby last january was to try to read 40 books for the year. (i read 37 in 2019, for context.) well, with all of my commuting time eliminated and an increased need for immersive escapism, i ended up surpassing that goal three times over lmao (thanks library ebooks!)

idk how to summarize my year in books in a way that makes sense but

(f) = fiction, (nf) = nonfiction, (p) = poetry.

books that rewired my fucking brain:

braiding sweetgrass by robin wall kimmerer (nf)- GOD?!?!?! good. dr. k is right. ostensibly a book about plants, but actually a book about shut up and go outside. consumerism and capitalism are doing their damnedest to fuck you up, but you can just choose to value different things. take care of yourself by taking care of your environment. etc etc.

wasp by richard jones (nf)- lissen. when i got this book, my wasp-phobia was so severe that i had to put it away face down on a high shelf because there are wasps on the cover and i couldn’t bear to RISK even GLIMPSING them. now i am like... a wasp evangelist. (also due to the bugs 101 course on coursera it’s so good.)

wag by zazie todd (nf)- i have a dog, but i am NOT a Dog Person (i.e. i love my dog, but please keep yours away from me, thanks.) this book helped me understand my little guy better, plus it gives actionable tasks and activities to do with and for your pup! plus, y’know, learning about things you’re scared of helps to lessen that fear. i’d recommend this to anyone who has, wants, or regularly interacts with a dog.

a closed and common orbit by becky chambers (f)- is this series complete fluff? absolutely. am i fundamentally different after reading this one? maybe.

the best we could do by thi bui (nf)- this is so far outside of my personal experience but somehow still made me come to peace with my relationship with my mom?? and it’s barely even about that?? idk. this is probably objectively the best book i’ve read this year.

books that were just fun as hell:

mexican gothic by silvia moreno-garcia (f)- this book made me YELL out loud

death on the nile by agatha christie (f)- i grew up on agatha christie shows, but never actually read her before this year! she really was That Bitch. read this before the movie comes out

cosmoknights by hannah templer (f)- i read this in one sitting through the worst headache i’ve had in years. it is a goddamn DELIGHT. this book has everything: spaceships. mech suits. fighting the patriarchy. a perfect otp. fun art in bright colors with clean lines. onomatopoetic WAPs from before the song gave that hilarious context. 800 lesbians. this is an antidepressant in graphic novel form.

stiff by mary roach (nf)- ms. roach is like the 4th most represented author on my bookshelf because she 1. stays writing about shit i’m interested in and 2. manages to talk about gross and ridiculous things without resorting to sensationalism. it takes skill to write a hilarious book about corpses.

black sun by rebecca roanhorse (f)- excellent sexual tension between a horny siren pirate and a hot doomed... monk, kinda? set in the pre-columbian gulf of mexico with magic and shit.

cuisine chinoise by zao dao (? n/f)- this graphic novel about chinese food history/mythology is BEAUTIFUL.

the color of magic by terry pratchett (f)- you’d think a hardcore douglas adams stan would have gotten to this sooner, but no, i had to date a nerdy white boy to get here. it’s fun though! i’m not gonna read them all, but this one was good. bonus: contains one (1) great himbo.

gideon the ninth by tamsyn muir (f)- like 500 pages of action and mystery and jokes and space necromancy. harrow the ninth gets a special mention bc it has a meme reference that took me out so hard i had to close the book, lie down, and groan for an entire minute before continuing.

other minds by peter godfrey-smith (nf)- i love octopuses. on one tma bonus ep, jonny sims says that if a creature can choose to do evil, then it’s a Person. octopuses are People. but anyway frfr this has an explanation of the evolution of consciousness that is cool af. (this one is much better than the other recent popsci octo book which i will not name out of politeness.)

the perfect predator by steffanie strathdee and thomas patterson (nf)- i read this bc my microbiology prof recommended it and it’s cool as heck! it’s got adventure, drama, mystery, Science-with-a-capital-S. i’m biased bc i’m a bit of a microbes nerd, but i had a blast with this. (but only bc we know going in that everything works out okay; if i hadn’t known that, i would have been TOO stressed!)

books that were a little less fun but still very readable:

my sister, the serial killer by oyinkan braithwaite (f)- i couldn’t find this as funny as other people bc i, too, have a beautiful sister who’s an insufferable narcissist, so it hits a little too close to home, but. it is a wild ride.

piranesi by susanna clarke (f)- idek what to say! i went into this one blind just bc it had a cool cover and title, so i guess i’d recommend that for other people too.

the sixth world series by rebecca roanhorse (f)- monster hunting! a post-apocalyptic take that doesn’t feel tired.

the shades of magic trilogy by v.e. schwab (f)- easy escapism. some ideas feel a little first draft-y, but idk, it’s also a pretty simple premise (which isn’t a bad thing). it’s a decent urban fantasy set in ~georgian?-era london. very actiony. suffers from a bit of i’m-not-like-other-girls disease, but i didn’t even notice until book two or three, so.

the only good indians by stephen graham jones (f)- starts off a little ??? (and reeks of being Written By A Man) but picks up. the pacing’s great and there’s just a super fucking cool monster.

robopocalypse by daniel h. wilson (f)- this reads like a tv miniseries so much that i can’t believe it isn’t one yet.

confessions of the fox by jordy rosenberg (f)- not my usual cup of tea, fiction-wise, but still compelling. a fresh take on the white-male-english-professor-self-insert? but not insufferable. gets weird!

spinning silver by naomi novik (f)- rumplestilstkin, but make it interesting! a great, richly-told fairy tale, but like, large scale. good to read on a cold day while you’re wrapped up in a blanket with some hot tea.

interior chinatown by charles yu (f)- compulsively readable. a couple things bugged me, but not enough to make me dislike it. a fun companion piece to how to live safely in a science fictional universe. i like this guy’s style.

cannibalism by bill schutt (nf)- COOL. mostly covers the animal kingdom (fun), spends too much time on the donner party (less fun), ends with a SPICY take on prions that i cannot get out of my head!!!

buzz, sting, bite by anne sverdrup-thygeson (nf)- BUGS! broad but not overwhelming, neither dumbed down nor overly scientific, short enough to finish in a day or two. recommend this to literally everyone.

books that made me want to read everything else in the author’s ouevre:

the time invariance of snow by e. lily yu (f)- this FUCKS but it’s too short!!!

an unkindness of ghosts by rivers solomon (f)- okay this book is SO good and so well-written and interesting and blah blah blah all the good things, but... the whole time, i was just like?? why???? why is this what you’re choosing to write about??? (i did also read the deep and blood is another word for hunger after this one, and i did like them both, especially the latter, but i think they can do better! like i think they could write a perfect book and i am gonna be *eyes emoji* until then.)

the space between worlds by micaiah johnson (f)- a fine debut novel, but i want to see her do something a little more... idk, refined? i think she overreaches here, like it’s a little... idk looper? this is how you lose the time war? there’s a better comparison, but i can’t think of it, but you get the idea. and then halfway through it shifts gears to mad max. there’s something weird about one of the central relationships, like it’s not complex enough to take as long to resolve as it does. idk idk. there are just a lot of little nitpicky things. it’s not bad! but i think she can do better and i look forward to finding out.

postcolonial love poem by natalie diaz (p)- thinky! like i tried to read this before bed, but it’s not the sort of thing to parse out while you’re falling asleep, it requires more attention than that.

books that Learned Me Somethin:

smoke gets in your eyes by caitlin doughty (nf)- i am a self-professed death obsessed weirdo, fascinated by death and mourning, but i didn’t know all that much about what happens to a body between the dying and the funeral! this book isn’t big, but it covers a lot and doughty’s writing style is engaging and honest. it’s very memorable.

queer by meg-john barker and julia scheele (nf)- i’m gonna be totally honest and say Queer Theory is above my intellectual pay grade, but this book takes you by the hand and explains the basics.

vitamania by catherine price (nf)- LMAO my fellow americans, never take a supplement. this book is great and well-researched, but normal folks don’t need to read it, just listen to season two of the dream podcast, which definitely cribbed from this.

vegetable kingdom by bryant terry (nf)- this is a fine cookbook, my favorite of his that i’ve read so far. gets a special mention bc i had a religious experience just reading one of his kohlrabi recipes. absolutely gutted that i didn’t have an opportunity to try it this year, since the pandemic put the kibosh on all family bbqs.

the best american food writing 2020 edited by j. kenji lopez-alt (nf)- this really is just a great collection.

are prisons obsolete? by angela y. davis (nf)- yes.

i moved to los angeles to work in animation by natalie nourigat (nf)- before reading this, i had basically zero knowledge of how the animation industry works. now i know like three things.

the secret lives of bats by merlin tuttle (nf)- BATS! okay this book is more about the adventures of being a bat scientist than it actually is about bats, but there are bats in there. insectivorous bats basically shit glitter, you should know this.

books from valuable perspectives:

hood feminism by mikki kendall (nf)- a breakdown of who’s getting left out of feminist spaces, why that’s happening, and why it shouldn’t be happening.

all you can ever know by nicole chung (nf)- a (transracial) adoptee’s take on adoption and learning more about her birth family. the personal storytelling of this one really stuck with me.

motherhood so white by nefertiti austin (nf)- a single-mom-by-choice’s take on the foster system/adoption process. walks you through some things i always wondered about and some things i wouldn’t even have thought about.

this place by kateri akiwenzie-damm et al (? n/f)- i, like a lot of non- native americans, only know that history in broad strokes. getting this many highly specific stories in one dense and beautiful book felt like a lucky find. and taking that perspective into the future in the context of that history is v good.

empty by susan burton (nf)- eating disorder stories are important to me bc i care about food so much. this one is so relatable- not in its specificity, but rather its generality. it’s easy to empathize with her perspective because it’s like, Oh, i don’t have that exact problem, but i struggle with different problems in a very similar way. (feels like the opposite of roxane gay’s hunger, in a way.)

obit by victoria chang (p)- this exploration of grief is... woof.

short story collections are hard to evaluate bc you’ll never read one where every single story hits but i generally enjoyed these:

a thousand beginnings and endings edited by ellen oh and elsie chapman (f)

how long til black future month? by n.k. jemisin (f)

her body and other parties by carmen maria machado (f)

books i revisited:

the broken earth trilogy by n.k. jemisin (f)- i read the series backwards this time and like... i can’t really find any faults in these books, man. they’re just the best.

everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too by jomny sun (f... but is it really?)- half of this book’s sales are from me buying it for other people bc it’s the only way i know how to say i love you. i reread it every time just to make sure it still feels right and it always does.

other honorable mentions:

white is for witching by helen oyeyemi (f)- not to pit two bad bitches against each other, but this book does what akwaeke emezi’s freshwater was trying to do. it’s a little weird, a little haunted, a little of a lot of things. read this only in the dead of winter. (and with stephen rennicks’ score for the little stranger playing in the background.)

homie by danez smith (p)- there’s a lot going on here, but this just made me crack a smile a couple times in a way that no other book of poetry has ever done.

the murder of roger ackroyd and murder in mesopotamia by agatha christie (f)- That Bitch!

blues by nikki giovanni (p)- she sure has some Things To Say

the three-body problem by cixin liu (f)- interesting concepts, but... idk something’s missing? felt weirdly soulless to me. i’m probably not gonna read the sequels. but it did make some points!

the sisters of the winter wood by rena rossner (f)- i’m a slut for shapeshifting, okay. but this is a good fairy tale, it works!

parable of the sower by octavia butler (f)- i read this in march, when the pandemic was just kicking off and boy that was not the right time. def my least favorite of hers so far, but an octavia butler i don’t love is still better than a hell of a lot of other books. no idea when or if i’ll get to a good enough headspace for the sequel.

faves:

saturnino herrán by adriana zapett tapia (nf)- i got to learn new things about my mans and see some of his paintings i’ve never even seen online! GOSH.

on food and cooking by harold mcgee (nf)- yeah yeah, i’ve already mentioned this book half a dozen times on here this year, but i don’t care. this book lives off the shelf in my home bc i reference it like every other fucking day. this book is a part of me now.

[theashen-fox]

Pale-RWBY Open Starter

(Fair warning: this is being made with (Y/M) already being familiar with Ash somehow, so people with whom I’ve already RPed with in the RWBY universe would be the best way for it to make sense. Also, it may contain distressing/triggering material. Discretion advised).

“So, you wanna know the truth, huh? Ahh...” Ash sighed, poking at the fire with a stick. “Can’t blame ya; doesn’t really help build trust between people who hide family secrets from potential allies, huh? I suppose that means I’ll have to ask you about a dark secret of your own sometime.” The fox Faunus chuckled, then slowly settled back into his more serious demeanor. “If you want to know the truth, then here it goes: I’m not the last of my family, and neither was my brother. We...we had an uncle. Not sure if he’s still alive, but I’ll get to that. Oh, and uh, just a heads-up: this is a pretty long story, so you may or may not end up falling asleep.” 

“So basically, what I’ve told you about my brother raising me all on his own from the time I was a child was a lie. Our parents died when I was about one-and-a-half, and my brother was...nine? Somewhere ‘round there. Anyway, we were taken in by our uncle, Pale. He was the one who taught my brother and I how to fight, survive, hunt, patch ourselves up, all that stuff I said my brother taught me. In fairness, my brother did teach me, but it wasn’t as...extensive as it was with my uncle. Now, if you’re expecting a story about how he made our lives miserable, how he would get drunk, beat us, act like a condescending prick, then I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. Uncle Pale was a stern but kind man, he always looked out for us, made sure we ate well, had good enough living conditions, bound up any injuries we might have had during the training sessions we received, which started for me when I was about three, I think. You might consider that barbaric, but remember the kind of place Northern Mistral is. If Grimm or bandits didn’t take you, the cold would, and then the wildlife. Anyway, my brother and I didn’t know what it was were being trained for, since we didn’t ask. Then one day, when I was 8, my brother waited until our uncle was asleep, then snuck out of his bed and went into the little study Pale always kept under lock and key. Heh. In hindsight, I think that never entering that study was a rule he expected, maybe even intended for us to break, because he taught us everything about lock-picking that he knew. Sure enough, we got that door open, and we found an old journal sitting on the desk there. Teenaged and childish curiosities respectively piqued, we opened it.”

Ash’s hands gained a death grip on the stick he was holding until it snapped.

“Gods...most days I wish we had just left it. I wish we had never entered that room. What we found was what can best be described as an elaborate plan to create the ‘ultimate weapons’ against the Faunus of Northern Mistral, and the world at large. Three guesses as to what, or who, those weapons were. Yep, good ol’ Uncle Pale, he planned to use us as a means of getting back at the Faunus and humans alike, making sure our family name would be known by everyone, and not be remembered as a slur or otherwise completely forgotten. Funny thing is, you’d think such a plan would mean he never cared about us, right? Well, the thing is, the journal expressed multiple times that he wasn’t sure if what he was doing was the right thing, how he ‘might have been too rough on the boys during training’ or ‘I’m taking these kids’ childhoods away from them, and for what?’ Yeah, I don’t think he was a completely evil person; man was obsessed with revenge, and we all know how that can end up. Anyway, eventually, he found us. I wish he’d been mad. Shit, I wish he had been disappointed, or had started to deflect blame. Anything would have been better than what we got. He saw us, and he just sighed, had this look of...resignation, I guess. The look of a man finally coming face-to-face with his demons after running away from them for so long. Well, we confronted him about it, he admitted to wanting revenge against the Faunus for killing most of the Vulpes line, and that he was willing to do whatever it took for that revenge. Whatever it took.”

“And...Fuck, this is the part that’s always hard to tell. Silver told me to get everything of mine, and to come leave with him. I guess Pale assumed I wouldn’t listen, because he looked shocked, hurt even, when I did just that. He just stood there for a bit, motionless. Then he attacked us. He grabbed my brother by the shirt collar, slammed him up against a wall, saying that if Silver wanted to leave, fine, but I’d be staying with Pale, one way or the other. It was at that point that I saw him pulling out the knife he always used for skinning deer. I didn’t think then, I just ran at him and stabbed him in the leg with the knife he’d given to me. He shrieked, then dropped Silver and swiped once with the knife, then just stopped, letting it fall from his hand. I didn’t realize he had cut me until I saw the red staining my shirt. It wasn’t deep or long, and it honestly didn’t hurt that much, but that was the first real scar I ever received from an enemy. And whether it was a small scar or not, he had just slashed at his own nephew with a knife while threatening the other nephew with it. He just stood there, just as shocked as I was. He only had time to say, ‘Ash, I’m—’ before Silver beat him over the head with a chair. I think—I know he would have tried to finish Pale off after picking up the knife, but I kept him from doing it, a big mistake looking back. So, without another word, Silver bound up my wound, we took what we needed, and went into the forest alone before he could wake up. And I could never be sure, but I can almost swear I heard his voice in the distance, screaming and sobbing, ‘I’m sorry. Please, please come back, Ash. I’m sorry.’”

“We left, and we didn’t see him until shortly after my brother died. Or I should say, I saw him then. By that point, the caring uncle I had known most of my childhood was gone. He seemed...relieved that I was safe. Just me, though. He told me that he wanted me to come with him, to finish what we had started, that I was now much stronger now that I didn’t have Silver to hold me back. Said that Silver was, quote, ‘a disappointment,’ and that at least he still had me. Hah. My—my brother just died, I cremated him, and I’m still grieving over him, and he called my brother a disappointment for taking me away from him. ‘Livid’ would be understating my emotional state after that. I attacked him, whereupon he revealed his Semblance for the first time: the ability to reduce the temperature of objects and air around him, i.e., the polar opposite of mine. No matter how well I fought, he was better, being older and more experienced. So to cut a long story short, I ended up faking my death using a raccoon corpse I found and hid in my coat which I stabbed before falling off of a cliff into a river. I don’t know if he bought it, but I haven’t seen him since, and I definitely haven’t seen him in Vale. I don’t know what happened to him after. It’s funny. Even after everything he did, I can’t bring myself to hate him. I mean, I can’t forgive him for what he did, but at the same time, he raised us. He taught me what I know. Hell, he’s the one that taught me to never lose faith in people, that no matter how bad people may seem, there can still be some good in them, but that the opposite was also true. I dunno. Maybe it’s a case of, ‘loving the message, hating the messenger’, if that makes any sense. I just don’t know. What I do know is this: if he knew I was still alive, he’d stop at nothing to make sure I either come back with him or kill him and see his plans through. And y’know, I don’t know which of those two possibilities is scarier.”

He sighed, throwing the pieces of the stick into the fire, before turning to his companion(s) and asking with his old sardonic tone:

“You still awake, or do I need to wait until morning and tell you the story again?”

[zen3to5]

So I’ve finished Season 7 of That 70s Show.

...It’s better than Season 6.

I mean that sincerely. Like with Season 5, I find myself out of step with a fair amount of commentary that I’ve read about T7S when it comes to the penultimate season. For how bad Season 6 was - and it’s still shocking to me how steep a fall the back half of that season was from a consistent five-year high, and how demoralizing it was for my interest in finishing the rewatch and this rewrite project - I really do think Season 7 was something of a recovery. The damage done couldn’t be wholly ignored, and this year more than any before it was sloppy and airheaded about the show’s (admittedly always somewhat loose) continuity. But I do think this season’s writing was - for the most - part improved. And whether they intended it this way or not, I find that it tries to make lemonade out of a few of the lemons left by Season 6.

The best example of that is Eric. Season 7 continues its predecessor’s trend of treating Eric as the group loser, with “Angie” probably being the absolute worst example of this. His interest in roller disco in the first place, and his dabbling in such left-field hobbies as butterfly hunting, aren’t a great fit for his character either. And his going off to Africa by the end smacks of desperation on the part of writers looking to give their main character a big and permanent exit from the series in the face of Fox’s last-minute, ill-conceived renewal. But this season also attempts to work with what’s happened to Eric up to this point. It acknowledges the fact that he used to be a more driven and ambitious character, tries to retroactively create a story wherein Eric’s changes come from a fear and uncertainty over his future, and gets him to a career path that - if not the first (or second) thing that comes to mind for him - isn’t unfeasible either. The execution of all of this is hit and miss, and there are arguably more misses (though none as bad as his decision on his wedding last season) - but I applaud the staff for trying.

I also applaud them landing on a better less bad way of writing Red and Kitty. They’re a long way from the healthy couple and responsible parents we saw in the show’s early years, or the motivated conflict of Season 5. But - and this may be a case of perception more than raw facts - things seem less negative here than in Season 6. At least there isn’t a mini-arc of Red lusting after another woman. And the bickering and resigned attitude towards marriage seem lessened, if not lost. There’s even a new (if grossly neglected) angle for Red this season as he goes into business for himself, something I enjoyed. On the other hand, having Red blow Eric’s college money on that business is ridiculous... but stinkers like that litter the last few episodes of this season, and we’ll get into another shortly.

Sticking to the positives for now - after having almost no growth whatsoever (but little derailment) in Season 6, Hyde now has an arc. His having a secret, rich real dad is a soap-opera contrivance that I go back and forth on - it’s either dumb but effective, or effective but dumb. It’s also rather redundant; for an orphan, Hyde never lacked for father figures in the show, Red more than anyone else, and I don’t think WB brings a lot new out of Hyde as a father. But as a charismatic businessman who brings Hyde into the corporate world (and then running a record store), he does a lot for Hyde, and makes for a charming character in his own right (something I can’t say for Angie; I find her to be Brooke 2.0, and without any chemistry with either her half-brother or her boyfriend.) Hyde’s whole arc in the front half of the season - entering into a professional world he’s never wanted anything to do with, finding a more suitable job at the record store, but ending up unnerved by impending adulthood and regressing in his personal relationships - not only puts him into new situations and draws out fresh but believable reactions from him, it nicely parallels Eric’s arc. Hyde being a more reserved character, it’s only ever directly stated by Donna, and one could argue the transition needed to be stretched out and in more direct focus. But one can at least see an arc here, and I think it’s reasonably well-executed - on a back-half T7S scale, but even without that caveat, it’s decently done.

Of course, Hyde’s arc runs him into conflict with Jackie, and it’s depressing to think that she has more development this season than the previous one - y’know, the one where the mother who abandoned her rolled back into town. Jackie’s arc is a variation on a theme we’ve seen from her before - rushing to maturity. But while in earlier seasons that manifested as Jackie childishly playing at “adult” things like fancy dinner parties, here she really is more mature, and more honestly longing for commitment from Hyde and a future beyond the Formans’ basement. But with Jackie, I think the lack of build-up is a serious problem. While she gets excited by Hyde’s new job, there really isn’t any clear sign of how ready she is for life after high school until “Winter.” There’s certainly not enough build-up to her wanting a promise for (eventual) marriage, though I can believe Jackie would want that. And while Jackie’s interest in working in local news television was mentioned here and there throughout the show, her actually getting her own program comes out of nowhere and gets hardly any development - a shame, because I think that’s a believable career for her.

As for her and Hyde’s relationship... I don’t hate what’s done here. For all the negative commentary I’ve read about it, I don’t find “Winter” that bad an episode. It’s not great, and one could argue Hyde should be past the stage where he pulls something that childish with his significant other, but that’s part of Hyde’s whole arc. And I think their break-up this season comes from a convincing conflict. The episodes they spend apart - “Street Fighting Man” in particular - have some of the most heartfelt expressions of feeling from either character, even without the other seeing it. But the way they get back together is just awful. It’s sloppier than their first make-up at the beginning of Season 6, and even by this season’s standards, it makes a mess of continuity. And, after getting them back together, the show takes a few episodes to present them as a strong couple, a few to tread water, and then goes into the ultimatum, a mini-arc just as contrived as Eric’s going to Africa, and almost certainly a victim of hasty rewrites after the renewal. The contrivance of Jackie not having a car so that Kelso can get involved and revive the love triangle is all sorts of nonsense from these characters at this point, and it’s such a lousy way to effectively end - even without Season 8 - what was the emotional highlight of the show from Season 5 onward.

Speaking of Kelso - there’s not much to say about him in this season. Continuing on from a trend in Season 6 I didn’t fully realize until now, he’s less broad and wild than in earlier seasons. He’s still cartoonishly dim, but a more mellow dim. The birth of his daughter, and his earning the right to have her on weekends, gives him a bit of development at the beginning and end of the season (until it’s derailed in the final episode.) That leaves a long stretch in the middle where there’s nothing but Kelso’s Greatest Hits - a retread of his womanizing with Angie, a retread of the “dumb guy, brainy gal” dynamic with Angie, some funny bromance with Fez, some generic stupidity - nothing we haven’t seen before, and none of it carried off with the same gusto and energy as before.

Donna doesn’t have much going on either. She has less going on than Kelso, really. After dying her hair and rededicating herself to feminism, that’s pretty much it. Almost nothing of note happens for her as an individual, and she and Eric tread water in their relationship until he announces his trip to Africa. One could argue that her static status as an individual makes some sense; she had declared in Season 6 that she didn’t see the need to go to college since she had the sort of job she was going to college for; if you buy that (and I don’t, but it happened) then you could reasonably say she’s settled into life, for now anyway. And there is an attempt to have her and Eric sort out what happened at the end of Season 6 that is somewhat convincing. But not wholly. And after Season 6 - and with how rote and, frankly, in the background their relationship is for most of this season - it’s hard to root for Eric and Donna at this point. The only reason their relationship still holds up is the goodwill built up over the first five seasons, and it’s a miracle Season 6 left any of that for Season 7 to tread with.

And then there’s Fez, who I’ve really come to hate in these later seasons. I can appreciate that the shy, naive, and malleable foreign kid from the beginning of the season couldn’t (and shouldn’t) have lasted forever, and Seasons 3 through 5 did a decent job expanding on his character. But Season 6 took an element that had, frankly, always been there to some degree - perverted voyeurism - injected a lot of selfish bratiness, and made a mess of the character. Season 7, where Fez is concerned, makes things even worse by adding a really disturbing confidence and comfortability to Fez with just how much of a pervert he is. His attempts to coerce some action from both Donna and Jackie go well past what I can buy those girls putting up with from him, and his “dark room switch” proposal is absolutely terrible. A good portion of this show’s humor about sex hasn’t aged well, but Fez more than any other character has been cast in a bad light because of that, and I’m happy to cut my rewatch off at Season 7 just so I don’t need to see more of him.

To continue on the negatives, the whole show at this point has a listlessness to it that wasn’t present even in Season 6. I’m not surprised this was once intended as the last season, because it’s hard not to get the feeling that everyone was done. This may be another case of perception outweighing the facts, but the impression I have of Season 7 is that, compared to earlier seasons, there are a greater number of scenes, scenes are more fast-paced, and consequently, very few things can build the way they used to. That takes away from earnest and dramatic moments the most, but it hurts the comedy as well. And it also means that, for the first time, the season finale doesn’t even feel like a finale. It feels like just another episode that happens to end on a stupid cliffhanger. And that’s just lame.

The most frustrating thing is that the pieces in the last few episodes - Eric deciding to be a teacher, Jackie’s job offer and her ultimatum to Hyde, Kelso and Fez getting an apartment - could have added up to an effective series finale if the show had more energy left in it, and if Fox hadn’t renewed them. And I’ll certainly try to prove that with this rewrite....

[dyaz-stories]

The Maid and The Bodyguard — Chapter Thirteen

First — Previous — Next — Also available on fanfiction.net

“There you go. Feeling better already? Oh you poor thing, you were hungry weren’t you? Tell me, what’s your— Inuyasha, could you stop growling?”

The half-demon barely spared Kagome a glance, ignoring the dark look she was shooting him to focus on the kitsune sitting on her lap. The kid was gulping his food down like it was going to vanish, making it obvious that he hadn’t had anything to eat for a while. Inuyasha was sure Kagome had noticed that as well, and the thought of a child that young left to himself here was particularly unsettling for him.

Still. He didn’t like it.

“Why were you following us?” he asked, his voice deep and threatening, the growl still rolling under his words like thunder despite Kagome’s demand.

It didn’t make much of an impression of the kid, who glared at him briefly with fucking annoyance, and then looked away.

“Listen you little—”

“What’s your name?”

Kagome’s voice and attitude were the opposite of his. She was kind, gentle. Motherly. At the same time, she seemed to have completely forgotten that this was a dangerous demon who could probably kill her, should he chose to.

Or maybe she didn’t care, Inuyasha thought, his heart swelling with the emotion he had become familiar with in the past weeks. Maybe to her, demons and humans were mostly the same. And somehow, even if it was just her, it made a difference.

“Shippo,” the kitsune finally spoke, mouth still full. “I’m Shippo.”

“Kagome,” the young woman introduced herself with a kind smile, “and this, over there, is Inuyasha,” she added, looking up to him, still smiling, and fuck, she was killing him.

“Keh!” he mumbled, glancing away, hoping he wasn’t blushing. It would be one thing for Kagome to notice, but the kid? That was exactly the type of things that a fox-demon would want to use against him.

His life was turning into a nightmare.

“Kagome,” the kid repeated, frowning. “You didn’t know my ‘pa, did you?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t, Shippo,” she apologized. “Must have been another Kagome. Is your father around? Maybe we can bring you back to him— and give you some food, too.”

Inuyasha opened his mouth to protest — what was she talking about? Who did she think was going to hunt for this food? — but the words died when he saw the kid’s face closing. Inuyasha wasn’t particularly good at reading people’s emotions, most of the time. Unless they were clear in their smell, as it sometimes happened for fear, for example, they were a mystery to him in general. Which wasn’t really a problem considering how little he interacted with people.

However, this time, he knew. Immediately. The face of a child who had lost the person who made his entire world.

“He can travel with us.”

He didn’t realize he had spoken until Kagome’s head snapped up.

“He what?”

Shit. Too late to backtrack now, wasn’t it?

“I said, he can travel with us,” he growled. “It can’t be worse than staying him alone, and that way he’ll be able to eat.” And he’ll have you.

“But…” Inuyasha glared at her. He could tell that she had picked up on Shippo’s reaction at the mention of his father. Kagome was far from stupid after all, something that filled him with a weird sense of pride, and she had probably come to the same conclusion as him. Still, she didn’t know much about demon lands. Truth was, maybe Shippo could survive here alone, for a while. He had. As a pure-blooded demon, maybe he would even end up being adopted by some demon family.

But it was all rather unlikely, and even then, unless they were extremely strong, there would always be others out for blood.

Particularly the people who had killed his father. Demons weren’t known for their mercy, so if the kid was still alive… Either they didn’t know, or they had made a mistake, and they would want to correct that.

It would be better if the kid was nowhere to be found when that would happen. And maybe, just maybe, Inuyasha would have liked for someone to take him in back when he needed help.

Kagome bit her lip, looked at the kid, and settled him on the ground to walk to Inuyasha, clearly puzzled.

“You’re sure?” she whispered, probably not wanting to let Shippo hear them, though with him being a demon keeping her voice low didn’t necessarily change much. Did humans truly know nothing about demons? “Isn’t it going to be even more dangerous for him, considering where we’re going?”

“’s not going to be more dangerous,” Inuyasha replied between his teeth. “It’s going to be dangerous, yeah, but d’ya see yourself leaving him here alone?”

Of course she didn’t, and he was well aware of that, but he still felt guilty when she flinched.

“We’ll figure something out, ‘kay? At least he’ll be safe as long as he’s with us. Even if we don’t take him all the way, that’ll be time bought for him, alright?” Kagome frowned, and Inuyasha had to suppress a sigh. “Kagome, this is demon territory. He’s not gonna make it on his own.”

Finally, she nodded. “Okay. Okay— Let’s do that.” Then she turned around and shot the kid a smile. “Would you like that, Shippo?”

The kid’s face lit up like a lantern, and next thing Inuyasha knew, he had thrown her arms around her neck and she was hugging him back with a sincere laugh.

And this was when Inuyasha realized what a huge mistake he had just made.

There was a ton of things that could have gone wrong while travelling with a demon-child. One of them, probably what worried him the most and why he kept an eye on the kid at all times at first, was that it wouldn’t be surprising for a demon to hate humans, and if he hurt Kagome, Inuyasha would never be able to forgive himself. Surprisingly though, the kid seemed to have no problems with her whatsoever. They had both adopted each other immediately, and even on the first night he slept in her arms, sharing a blanket, which Inuyasha couldn’t say made him happy.

That being said, as annoying as it was to watch them together, he knew if someone, anyone, had been there for him after his mother’s death, he would probably have done the same. He would have clung to them all the time, refused to be left alone. So there was no way he could try to take that away from the kid.

However, though everything was fine with Kagome, Shippo seemed to have much more contempt for him. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, to be honest. Living with humans, he tended to forget that demons’ disgust for half-demons wasn’t less strong in any way. In fact, weirdly enough, there was probably more of that idea of him tainting the bloodline than for humans. Demons took their purity very seriously. Go figure.

The kid hadn’t said anything to him yet, but his simple presence was enough to make him wait and worry, expecting a remark at any time. Strange how this felt unusual again now. Strange how Kagome had changed his world so easily. After all, this had been the norm, simply his life for years, and now that he was being forced back into it, he couldn’t take it. Always being on edge, always ready, walls always up… What a shitty way to live.

Maybe in the end, this would be the worst part about letting Kagome in. Not the fact that he had had hope. Not the hole she would leave when she would undoubtedly walk out. It would be seeing how good the world could be if only people let it. Knowing what he could, but would never, have, because there was nowhere where there could be only the two of them. This journey with her was all he had — and now, he didn’t even have that anymore. It had slipped through his fingers and he hadn’t even noticed.

But y’know what? That wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that Shippo was a kitsune. Inuyasha should have known what would get on his nerves the most.

“Okay I’m done! Where’s the little fucker Kagome?”

“He’s just a child, Inuyasha, come on…”

He glared at her, and the sight of the water dripping from his chin and his drenched hair almost made her loose it immediately. But no, she couldn’t. He’d get so mad.

“That child just fucking dropped a bucket of water on my head and— Is that funny to you?”

He stared at her in disbelief, while she was clearly doing everything she could to keep her lips tightly pressed together, her cheeks trembling with contained laughter despite her efforts. And there was something… Something fascinating about this sight.

Or maybe it was because he had barely been alone with her since Shippo had joined. He still had to endure her tantalizing smell, still carried her on his back, and he couldn’t even enjoy her company all that much because of how much of her time and attention the kid needed — or took anyway —, so maybe being with her for just a few seconds was enough for all hell to break loose.

He took a step towards her, unable to stop himself from grinning. Not that Shippo’s joke was funny or anything, and the kid would fucking hear from him as soon as he’d find him, but he loved the way she looked when she was laughing. He noticed Kagome’s eyes going wide, and suddenly the tension rose between them, the air separating them heating up instantly. She was so close, just a couple more steps. He needed to touch her again, really touch her, intentionally, needed to—

“Ack!”

There was a devilish laugh as a giant top started spinning on his head, sending him face first into the ground, right in front of Kagome.

“Shippo!” she protested, again difficultly hiding her hilarity. “You really can’t do that!”

Yeah. Thanks for the conviction.

“Where did you find water by the way?”

Was she fucking serious now?

“There’s a stream over there,” the kid replied, vaguely indicating a direction on his left, as always so much nicer to Kagome than he was to him.

“Thank you!” Did she have to be that chirpy and shit when she was talking to the kid? He didn’t recall her ever being that happy when she talked to him. Not that his attitude could have played a role in that in any way, but still, it was pretty insulting. “Inuyasha,” his ears perked up, “I really need to go take a bath. I—”

“In demon territory? No fucking way.”

Kagome sighed and shook her head. She had expected that, didn’t think it would be such an instinctive reaction though. She would have liked to think that it was some sort of knee-jerk reaction to protect her, but it was more than likely about not wasting time.

“We’ve stopped for the night already, haven’t we? Plus I know you’ll be able to tell if there’s anything approaching.”

“That ain’t happening.”

“God, Inuyasha, if you’re that worried about it you can come with me, as long as you don’t look.”

There was a delightful moment during which he kept staring at her, already opening his mouth to refuse again, and then he realized what she had said. He immediately looked away, bright red coloring his cheeks, much to Kagome’s amusement, and vaguely attempted to splutter an answer.

“I wouldn’t— That’s—”

“Anyway,” she continued, “I’m not staying in that state for a day longer. You said it was this way, Shippo?” she asked, grabbing a tenugui (1) to dry herself afterwards.

“Yes! Can I come with you Kagome?”

“No.”

Both of them turned to face Inuyasha, who had apparently calmed down after Kagome’s insinuation, and had his arms folded on his chest, all of his attention focused on Shippo now.

“Inuyasha, he’s just a child.”

“Don’t care. He’s a kitsune and you barely know him, Kagome. I’m not leaving you alone with him. Water’ll weaken your scent and I’m not taking this risk.”

He sounded serious this time, and after studying his face for a few seconds, Kagome nodded with a sigh.

“Sorry, Shippo, I think we should listen to Inuyasha this time, okay? We wouldn’t want him to refuse to go get us food tonight, right?”

He let out a discreet growl when the kid chuckled at her words, but she looked up at him with a smile and he instantly felt it melting in his throat.

“Why don’t you let Kagome do what she wants?” the kid mumbled with his annoyingly whining voice. “Just because she doesn’t want to take a bath with you because you’re a filthy half—”

“Shippo!”

Kagome’s yell left him startled, frozen like a small animal suddenly faced with danger. She had interrupted him, but there could be no doubt in anyone’s mind as to what he had been about to say. The truce was broken. Not one the kid had entered knowingly, nor had he intended anything by those words, but for Inuyasha, the peace surrounding him, surrounding the group, had suddenly vanished. Just like he had known it would the second the kitsune had joined them.

He shouldn’t have let his barriers down. Should have known. Should have been better prepared. That was why he stayed with Kikyo. Because it was the two of them against the world, and this way, he didn’t have to worry about that stuff. If he could always think about everyone as enemies, as potential danger, he didn’t have to worry about feeling betrayed.

He didn’t see Kagome’s worried look, the way she stared at his face, wheels turning in her head as she tried to take the best decision.

“Inuyasha, I think I should take him with me.”

Her words shouldn’t have stung like this, but that was fucking fine. She wanted to take the child after he had said that? Ignoring his advice, his warning, now of all times? Maybe she was afraid he’d hurt him like the beast he was. Well then, why the fuck should he care?

“Whatever.”

He resolutely turned his back to her, refusing to look at her. He felt numb, and it made him curse himself. He’d been telling himself for what felt like forever now that he shouldn’t let himself depend on her, that the pain he risked getting in return was too great and that it wasn’t worth it, and yet here he was. Disappointed by a human, yet again — and the disappointment was nothing compared to the pain, even as he tried his best to ignore it.

Kagome looked at his back for a few seconds. She wanted to reach out, wanted to say something. Even when he didn’t meet her eyes, she could feel the hurt oozing out of him, leaving a prickling sensation on her skin, and she wanted nothing more than to touch him to let him know that of course she didn’t care that he was a half-demon. However, she thought he knew that by now. Shippo’s attack didn’t hurt him because of her, it hurt because of what he had targeted.

That was to say, who Inuyasha was at the core, something he could never change about himself, his very essence.

She sighed, and despite herself, she took a step towards him, her hand resting on his shoulder gently, in a gesture she tried to make comforting.

“I’ll make it quick, okay?”

His muscles relaxed under her touch, and he turned his head just a little, just enough so their eyes could meet.

“Be careful.”

It wasn’t much more than a growl, but then he put his hand on top of hers and squeezed it briefly. Kagome smiled softly. Are you okay?

He nodded, almost imperceptibly. I’m fine. Don’t worry.

She stepped away from him, and that was when he realized how close she had been — how close he had let her get. He had barely even noticed. He’d known she was there, of course, but the usual alarm bells hadn’t gone off in his mind. Like in the dark times, he instinctively recognized her as an ally, as a friend, as…

Assuming they had probably covered enough ground, he started walking in the direction of the stream, a silent predator in the forest. He needed to be able to hear them, though he was not trying to catch a glimpse of Kagome. Keh, what kind of person did the woman think he was?

Not… Not that he’d particularly mind, if he was to be completely honest, which he would not be in front of her, but this wasn’t the fucking moment to waste time with that stuff. They were in demon territory, with creatures awaiting the right moment to kill them, lurking around, probably watching their every move. He caught glimpses of them at night, when she was sleeping — point was, he would not let himself be distracted.

Still, he thought as he stopped when he started hearing her voice, he wouldn’t mind, and that likely had to do with those strange urges he had been experiencing around her recently. The need to touch her, to feel her against him, or just to have her around, to have her close, and now that strange temptation that she had implanted in his head.

He had never quite felt it like that before. Sure, he had noticed that the small amount of skin she revealed when she climbed on his back had the strangest effects on him, but the idea that she was just a few meters away, naked, water dripping from her wet hair and onto her pale shoulders, then making its way on…

He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. He hadn’t had a minute to himself since forever, and therefore hadn’t even had the possibility of letting his mind drift like this, but of course imagining it would be a fucking terrible idea.

Not that he was particularly used to that shit. This was, in fact, fairly new to him. He had never even dared thinking of touching Kikyo, but everything about Kagome took him in directions he had always carefully avoided considering. Love. Happiness. The future. And now, clearly, desire.

The thing was, he knew what happened when a human and a demon did that sort of things, and he doubted they’d care much for the subtlety of him being a half-demon. Not to mention, even with her insinuation earlier today, which he resolutely refused to consider as flirt, he doubted Kagome would want anything to do with him. They were out of time here, he told himself. There was no one to judge them, but they’d probably be back soon, and what then?

Somewhere, deep down, he knew he was lying to himself. Knew that Kagome had always cared for him, and that he was always the one to raise objections to how close she was to him — for Kikyo’s sake. Knew that it was in fact probably unjust of him to put the blame on her shoulders, because if anything ever happened, which it wouldn’t, because she didn’t like him like that, but if she did, she wouldn’t be the one to put an end to it.

He would.

Because he would never, ever, let Kagome become like his mom.

The realization settled in deeply, like an enormous weight on his chest. He took a deep, painful breath, then turned in the direction of the stream. He couldn’t see her from here, but once again, an image imposed itself to him.

Once more, he closed his eyes.

Never. He could never have her.

As he often did in moments like this, the way he had when he had found himself all alone in the demon territory years ago, the way he had when he had realized there was nothing he could do against the guards at the castle, the way he had when he had understood how much he cared about Kikyo exactly, Inuyasha wished he could disappear.

What was the point of him being in this world, if this world didn’t want him in it?

He was waiting for them when they came back. Despite everything he had just told himself, he couldn’t help it when his eyes went to Kagome, who had all of her hair on one shoulder, revealing her neck, and immediately he could feel something in his stomach, urging him to take advantage of it, to discover the taste of her skin once more.

Once more.

Right. It had happened before. The taste flashed in his mind and on his tongue, intoxicating, the memory of her body against his driving him almost insane.

Then, Kagome cleared her throat, and he blinked, wondering how long he had spent there simply staring at her.

“Shippo has something to tell you, don’t you Shippo?”

The kid sniffed then nodded, and this was when Inuyasha finally looked at him. The boy’s eyes were red, and he looked like he had cried, which confused him. Kagome had made a kid cry? What the hell?

“I’m sorry,” Shippo mumbled.

Inuyasha was vaguely conscious of his mouth dropping open. Wait, what?

“I shouldn’t have said that,” the kid continued. “I just wanted to be mean to you but I still shouldn’t have said that. I don’t think you’re— filthy or anything. My ‘pa didn’t either.” This time, there were tears in his voice. “I’m sorry.”

Inuyasha nodded.

“That’s okay. Thanks, kid.”

He almost surprised himself when the words left his mouth, and then he realized. He meant them. Some kid telling him he was sorry certainly did not erase what he had gone through in his life, and if some monk from the castle, Ungaï, hell, even Kaede, had said something like that, it wouldn’t even have come close from making him feel better.

But for Shippo to realize he was wrong, yeah, it was somehow better. Not perfect, because it didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it again, but it did soothe him.

Even if it was just a bit.

His eyes went to Kagome, who was observing him carefully, somewhat in retreat, and he gave her a brief nod.

She responded with a hesitant smile. Truth was, she felt like shit. It was only half-way to the stream that she realized the role she played now in the situation, and how her reaction had probably hurt him. Not that her feelings were what mattered, because right now, they didn’t, but she still felt shitty about it. She had tried to push Shippo in the right direction with questions, the way her mom used to do with her and Sota. Why did you say that? Did you mean it? Do you think half-demons are lesser than demons? Do you think I’m lesser than you for being human? How do you think it must have made Inuyasha feel? Do you think that’s normal? What can you do now?

He had seemed to struggle a bit at first, being voluntarily dismissive, which she didn’t particularly blame him for. He was a child, demon or not. That was not an excuse though, and since she refused to leave him alone, she had to make sure he wouldn’t risk hurting Inuyasha like that again when they would continue their journey. The look on Inuyasha’s face when Shippo had started the sentence… There was the hurt, the anger, the shock, sure, but what had hit her was the betrayal. And she knew she had a big part of responsibility in that.

“C’mon, let’s get back,” Inuyasha said, moving his head in the direction of the camp.

Her shoulder brushed against his as she walked past him and she heard him take a sharp breath, then felt the tip of his fingers trail on her arm, finally coming to rest on her shoulder as he leaned in and whispered a discreet, hushed “Thanks”. When she turned to him, taken by surprise, his hand was already gone, way too fast, as always, and she almost wondered if she had just imagined it.

She didn’t get a chance to talk to him again until late in the night, when Shippo was fast asleep. Inuyasha was sitting by the fire, against a tree, capable of being awake the next second if needed. In fact, as soon as she started moving under the blanket, his eyes opened, just enough for her to see the golden glow under his eyelids. She had once found it unsettling, but now it was only reassuring to know that those eyes were watching over her. She grabbed another blanket from their package, then walked up to him, throwing it at him before letting herself fall next to him to enjoy it as well.

“You never use the second blanket,” she scolded him. “How are you never cold?”

“I ain’t human,” he mumbled, “and you might need it. What are you doing?”

She ignored the warm, fuzzy feelings she got from him saying he didn’t use it for her benefit, because dammit, this wasn’t sweet, he needed to take better care of himself!

“Just wanted to make sure you were okay,” she said, deciding that could wait and she wouldn’t change him in a day.

“Keh,” he scoffed, but he was grinning. “’m fine. You made the kid apologize, and now everything’s good.”

“I didn’t make him, Inuyasha,” she sighed without missing the sarcasm in his voice. “He understood, that’s different.”

“Yeah,” he admitted, his voice softening a bit. “You made him, though.”

“He meant it. I have nothing to do with it.”

He scoffed again but shook his head. Maybe she was right in a way and what the kid had said was already there, just a bit deeper. Whatever it was, he was thankful. He wanted to preserve this bubble that was around him at the moment for as long as possible. A place where he could pretend he wasn’t different.

“You should go back to your bed,” he said when she moved to rest her head on his shoulder. This wasn’t a good idea. He loved the soft comfort she gave him by just being there, but being so close to her, under that sheet? Given the place his thoughts had been going earlier today, he didn’t trust himself.

Not that he didn’t have control over himself — he just feared he wouldn’t have enough to stop himself before he did something that would make her hate him forever.

“I don’t think you’re filthy, or disgusting, or anything like that, Inuyasha,” she said softly.

She felt him breathing deeply.

“Yeah. I think I know ya don’t.”

She sighed.

“I’m sorry that happened.”

He shook his head. “I was the one who offered to let the kid stay, remember? There’s no way you can help that stuff, y’know. People are like that with half-demons on both sides of the border. That’s how it is.”

She closed her eyes briefly. She didn’t know what to say. She knew he heard that stuff every day, knew he saw it in everyone’s eyes, read it on everyone’s mouth. Implying he was wrong would only mean dismissing his experience, and there was no way she would do that. But it killed her to hear his bitterness, to know he felt like that and there was nothing she could do.

Before she could truly think about it, her mouth was open, and the question was slipping out. “Can I touch your ears?”

He turned around, forcing her to remove her head, now facing her fully.

“What? Why?”

She shrugged.

“I’ve just… been thinking they were cute ever since I met you.”

She blushed as he just kept staring, and then, very slowly, he tilted his head forward, presenting them to her.

“Careful,” he warned, and somehow she could practically hear him blush. “If you pull on them, I’ll bite your fingers off.”

She laughed, and he held back a contented purr. Then, softly, delicately, she reached for his ears, and he froze. She traced them with caution, then rubbed them hesitantly, discovering with mild surprise that the fur was soft and thick, feeling truly like that of a dog. They bent easily under her fingers, though she did her best not to be forceful — the last thing she wanted was to hurt him. If anything, she wanted him to understand. She knew what he was going through, even if she wasn’t experiencing it, but she was certain there were people like her out there. People who would think his ears looked nice rather than horrifying, people who just wouldn’t care.

She also knew there weren’t that many of them, and that he hadn’t met much, but God, she wanted him, she needed him to know. This world was worth living in.

She didn’t know quite know when she stopped touching his ears to play with his hair — his long, silver hair, that definitely weren’t human either — nor when he had moved his head up again, but at some point, she found herself staring in his eyes.

Beautiful, golden eyes, that made her feel like she was staring straight into his soul. She found him vulnerable and waiting. Maybe for her to push him away, or, or, or maybe…

She leaned in.

Their first kiss had been desperate and unplanned, unexpected. This one was slow and deliberate. She knew exactly what she was doing as she moved closer ever so slowly, her eyes never leaving his. She waited for him to give her a sign, to give her something. She knew she had told herself that they would be friends, and she knew that he loved someone else.

But she wanted this, and it looked like he didn’t mind.

Her lips found his very softly, as she barely pressed her mouth against his, like he was about to break at her contact. His hand moved to place itself on her waist, with just enough pressure that she knew he wanted her to stay.

His lips started to move as he kissed back, the soft sound swallowed by the noises of the forest at night. He felt warm — or maybe she was the one who felt warm, she realized as heat bloomed everywhere inside her. She moved her arms behind his neck, pulling herself against him, and he let out a soft groan when her breasts came in contact with his chest. The pressure of his hand increased, and soon, she found herself clumsily climbing onto his lap, pulling his head back to have a better access to all the sensations he gave her, to his warmth, to his mouth, to him.

His hands refused to leave her waist, but they gripped her tightly, covering as much space as they could, spread widely on her hips.

“K’gome, what are you doing?” he asked between kisses.

“You didn’t give an explanation if I remember correctly,” she whispered, feeling herself blushing and hoping there was more assurance in her voice than she felt.

He sighed, and she could have sworn it was a sigh of satisfaction, as he pulled on her hips a little more.

“Kagome…”

She loved the way he said her name. Loved how charged it was with emotions, and loved the way he said it, like she was precious, like he cared for her.

Like he loved her.

“D’ya mind— D’ya mind sleeping here?”

Her eyes went wide, and he immediately glanced away.

“I don’t— I mean you can go with the kid if you want, ’s just easier to keep an eye on you if—”

“Sure.”

He didn’t look up at her, just nodded as she awkwardly moved away from here. He couldn’t help but let his fingers linger on her as she found a place right next to him, her head right against his thigh.

He felt good then, almost happy. Like this was the right place, where she should be. Next to him. He chose to ignore the beating of his heart that was almost killing him, once again. There were too many things to sort through right now for him. More importantly perhaps, he didn’t want any of this to be happening out of pity, just because of what had happened today.

Before, the sun rising had always meant putting more distance between him and her. It had always meant the magic of the night was ending. Here though, no one would say a thing.

So for the first time in forever Inuyasha found himself looking forward to the next day.

(1): Tenigui: basically a towel

[mystical-apprentice]

Main 6 reacting to the MC having a Dragon as their familiar

First time making headcanons in like... two years? So it might be pretty choppy. It’s gonna be under the cut since I made them too long.

Asra:

Asra is well aware that having a familiar at one point or another is important for any magician. So when you ran into the shop saying that you found you’re familiar, he was overjoyed

Of course when he went outside to greet your familiar he came face to face with the biggest creature he had ever seen. People were already running away and a few market stalls were crushed beneath their tail.

Faust was the first to react with a friendly ‘Big Snake!’, while Asra looked at the dragon, then at you and said ‘We’re gonna need a bigger shop.’

Honestly, Asra wasn’t even surprised, he knows how unique your magic is after all. Of course a dragon is a little extreme but their your familiar.

Finds a spell to turn your familiar smaller so that that can fit inside the shop without much hassle, making them seem like a large winged dog rather than a dragon.

But when you and Asra go out to travel together, that baby’s going in their full size, flying you anywhere you want, you even end up travelling much farther than you’ve ever done on foot, seeing so many new things.

Your familiar and Faust become fast friends, she tries to get them to steal stuff and do crimes and the greedy dragon they are can’t help but agree. Faust is always on the dragon’s head, where they see the world while in the air. Somehow, either they never realised it or it’s because a bad habit, but Faust calls your familiar ‘Big Snake’ while they call her ‘Tiny Dragon’. Your familiar also knows the stove Salamander, which you had to reassure wouldn’t have it’s job of lighting fires taken.

Every golden item you and Asra found now belongs to the dragon, from rings to even a coin. It’s theirs and you have to WRESTLE them to get the money you need.

On some lazy days out of Vesuvia, you can find Asra sleeping on your dragon. He’ll sleep on them while their in the air too and the familiar’s surprisingly careful of keeping Asra on him. Though Faust might be a good help in that department.

Let’s just say that now that you have a dragon, not only are less people being cruel to you because you’re both ‘witches’, but no one’s ever attempted to break into the shop for months. 

Nadia:

You were planning on having it be a surprise, to bring Nadia out and introduce her to you’re new familiar

The thing is you underestimated the greed of a Dragon, and while you took Nadia out, they went in. You didn’t even realise what had happened until Portia came running to tell the countess that there was a DRAGON IN THE BALLROOM

Let’s just say the first meeting was less than favourable. And trust me, it didn’t get better when you had to admit to Nadia that the dragon was you’re familiar. She had to get someone to fix the wall you’re dragon barrelled through and had to help all the terrified servants.

But after that first encounter things got better. For obvious reasons, renovations had to be made to accommodate you’re familiar. Which would have been easy, were they not nearly half the size of the palace.

So instead she decided to have a new tower built, one that the Dragon could happily live in and close enough so you can constantly visit them. It gives them plenty of room, along with a small water pond, a large pile of food and multiple assortments of Lucio’s old treasures that Nadia finally found a good way to get rid of.

Chandra was and is still pretty neutral to the dragon. She knows that they won’t harm anyone and she knows how to keep them in line.

They behave like a baby at times, and now you’re dragon knows where the bedroom is and so whenever they feel bad you’ll wake up to find a dragon head poking through the window.

Which might be because Nadia goes to see your dragon everyday, having them pampered and entertained in any ways possible. She even sometimes reads to the dragon when she’s not too busy and can stay in the tower with you and your familiar for hours.

Negotiations with any high classed individual are almost magically in her favour now that she has a literal dragon at her disposal.

Julian:

You were so excited to show Julian you’re familiar, to the point that he too started feeling excited about it. The two of you went to the flooded district, where he was told to cover his eyes and not to peak until you said so.

Julian felt something poking his hand and a strange presence, but he didn’t think much of it until you finally gave him the okay.

Let’s just say that Julian’s screams were heard throughout all of Vesuvia. To the point that both Maz and Portia (who were in the opposite ends of the city), rushed over to see what was wrong.

After the initial scare it takes Julian a long while before he’s fully used to the fact you have a DRAGON now. Though his biggest concern is where would you put them? On the room of the shop? You have to ask Asra for help on this matter.

Once Julian’s more calm about the whole dragon thing, he’s actually pretty curious. And he’s asking you about where you got the dragon in the first place and how you managed to hide one until he met them.

Play fights with your dragon are basically a necessity for Julian. His stories of taming a wild dragon can finally ring true across the lands. (Even if you were the one who tamed them). 

Also if Julian gets into a scuffle you bet the dragon will be there, grabbing Julian’s shirt in their jaws like ‘Yes, this is my idiot and we are leaving now’ before flying off. They even do this in the bars around Vesuvia, they don’t care if the door gets busted or they have to claw their way to Julian. 

Your familiar and Malak despise one another and had it not been for the mutual agreement to protect Julian, there’d be a battle to the death.

Julian tried joking around with your dragon ONE TIME and nearly got burned to a crisp. He forgot that some dragons could breathe fire and the fact that you shared your magic with them. That dragon was powerful and the doctor knew it. Which is why he knows that your familiar will keep everyone safe when he can’t

There has admittedly been some times that Julain forgot you even own a dragon, and the face he makes whenever he steps out the door and is tackled by your familiar will never in a thousand years be not funny.

Muriel:

Okay, Muriel too understands the importance of a familiar. He’s grown close to his after all and judging by how you care for Inanna, he knows that whatever familiar you gain, it would be given so much love and care.

And yet here you are, standing in front of the door he had just opened, with a dragon behind you. And he just… sighs

Well, you always stood out from the others, this is nothing new.

The hunt to find them a good home was fairly easy, knock down a bit of the cave’s walls and you’ve got a perfect home for you’re familiar. Though they have a habit of sleeping in the forest most of the time.

Muriel seems to really like you’re familiar, having someone (even an animal) larger than him felt reassuring. And he found plenty of you’re traits in the dragon, which made him like them even more. 

Inanna right off the bat was friendly with you’re familiar, treating them like a little cub that needed protection and lessons. And boy was she ready to teach them everything she knew.

Seeing as neither of you had any gold to give the dragon, Muriel carves small wooden figures and gives them to you’re familiar instead. Strangely, they seemed pleased by it

Flying trips become a daily thing for the four of you, though it took Muriel a while before he decided to join in. Seeing everything from up above was a strange feeling, especially since the rest of Vesuvians seemed like a small dot while that high up.

Despite liking your familiar, Muriel worries that they might hurt you or someone else by accident. They were big, bigger than the trees. Big things can hurt more. He didn’t want you to get hurt because of your familiar so he trains them to be careful. Muriel actually gets grumpy with the dragon if they do something that could hurt someone, but he never gets MAD at them.

Their the greatest line of protection you have for the forest, only an idiot with no sense of self preservation (Julian) would actually try to fight them.

Portia:

She may not be all that knowledgeable about familiars but she knows that having a familiar means that the two of you have a new pet. And THAT makes her so excited to meet them.

Portia spent hours guessing what you’re familiar was, a fox? A raven? A cat?! Oh please be a cat! But none of her theories went even close to the actual answer.

It takes her like 0.2 seconds to go from silent shock to ‘Can I ride it? CAN I RIDE IT?!’

Needless to say she becomes friends with you’re familiar right away. The first thing you do is hop on their back and fly around Vesuvia where Portia happily greets everyone, from the baker all the way to Maz and Julian.

Introducing Pepi to your familiar was quick and simple, she jumped on their head and just like that they were friends. Your dragon plays with Pepi all the time and it’s honestly cute to see them snuggled up together after a long day of playing. Your familiar’s so gentle when they want to be.

Borrows every book she can about raising dragons and even asks Nadia for help. You end up making a nice lil hut for the dragon, with the countess’ help, of course. They stay near the cottage because they love that place. Plus, not many people go there so it’s not likely that someone would walk in.

When there’s a thunderstorm or a storm of any kind, Portia grabs all her things, grabs you, grabs Pepi, and you all go to the dragon hut to stay with your familiar. Their not scared of storms but she wants everyone together and ‘comforting the large dragon’ is the best excuse.

Has to ask Nadia for some treasures to give the dragon and the next day everything that once belonged to Lucio was now in your possession. Including the arm, your dragon loves it to bits.

Portia loves training your dragon to do basic tricks like a dog. Her favourite trick is having the familiar hunt down one of the courtiers and watching the reactions that ensue. There’s no hurting anyone, she’s not evil after all.

Rides your dragon to work every single day without fail, even if she doesn’t live too far from the palace, she just wants to show off. And the dragon stays in the garden until Portia’s ready to go home. It’s shocking to see how she’s managed to befriend such a creature and all the servants have a whole new level of respect for your gal.

Lucio:

Oh a familiar? Does that mean Lucio has a new animal he can spoil rotten? Why, that’s MARVELOUS

He’s all excited to meet you’re familiar, until he actually meets you’re familiar.

He’s sees the dragon and gets jealous. How can he not be? A dragon is one of the rarest and most powerful beast on the planet and here you are, having one as a pet. Lucio couldn’t help but throw a tantrum on how it wasn’t fair that you got so lucky.

He’s grumpy about it for a few weeks, but then he comes to the realisation that if YOU have a dragon, then by the fact you two were together it meant that HE has a dragon too. And just like that he’s being extra adoring to you in case you were mad at the whole tantrum thing.

Has everything prepared for the familiar as soon as he can. A whole wing was renovated to fit a creature their noble size, filled with golden trinkets of all kinds to keep the dragon entertained. Lucio probably even gave you a list of things that he wanted to do with the dragon. It’s twelve pages long and the count doesn’t even care. Having a dragon was like Christmas every single day.

Has probably tried to get a matching dragon, but sadly their too rare to do that.

Lucio has lots of fun parading your dragon across town, with you sitting on their back. The count can’t help but flaunt it. ‘Look at my S/O, their so powerful that even a dragon is tamed by their might’

As for how the dragon handles the other animals... it’s complicated. Merchedes and Melchior are jealous of your familiar since their taking Lucio’s attention away from them. While Camio doesn’t even care that there’s a dragon now.

If anyone tries to threaten Lucio, he’ll have your dragon come forward and just… stare at the person in question until they surrender. It’s an effective way to keep his rule in tact, after all.

However, Lucio also has to be careful when around your familiar, his arm is shiny and golden after all. He’s seen how the dragon stares at it, if he’s not paying attention he’d be down an arm again. (And this time Salim and Aisha won’t be there to make a new one)

[darkpoisonouslove]

N, P, S and X for the ask game :D?

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice)

I’m gonna do this for the OUAT fandom since I’m most active there

1. I’d love to see more comments on fics since I know how important that is for keeping the writer behind the story motivated. Now, I write myself and tbh my OUAT fics get a lot less reviews than the fics I write for some of my other fandoms. And it’s not just me. A lot of other writers (granted, not only in the OUAT fandom since that’s more of a universal problem across all the fandoms) are discouraged by the few comments and reblogs they get. Even reblogging the fic and screaming in the tags makes a writer’s day, believe me. And if you don’t want the fanfic on your blog for whatever reason, tumblr has the option of replies. That way you can still let the writer know you enjoyed their fic while keeping it off your blog. Boom, everyone’s happy and everyone gets more fics. Honestly, you don’t have to write novels in the comments. Just a short “I love it” can make a difference for the writer so I’d like to implore everyone who's reading this to take the extra 10 seconds to drop a comment to the fanfic writer whose fic you enjoyed. It costs you so little while it has the power to make someone happy for years in the future.

2. On that note, I’d like to see more engagement in the fandom as a whole. Now that the show is over, we run the risk of falling apart as a fandom. I don’t think the chances of that are very high but they’re still there. And that scares me to death because OUAT means so much to me (it has been so for almost 4 years now) and now that it’s over, the fandom is the only thing I have left. I don’t necessarily feel like there’s been a significant change in the interactions inside the fandom, but I think it would do everyone some good if we were more engaged with each other’s works. I know it’s hard to keep up with everything that’s going on and I’m far from demanding it from anyone. No, what I mean with this is that we as a community can offer more by barely changing anything about the way we engage with fandom content. It doesn’t take a lot. A comment on a fic you liked, a reblog on that gorgeous piece of art you just saw, a passing thought in addition to a headcanon you read - stuff like that. Small gestures of support can make the difference. And you don’t have to spread yourself thin over the activity of the entire fandom. Just be a little more engaged in the circles you’re in.

3. I’d like to see more consideration. It’s totally okay to fawn over some fanfic or fanart and it’s natural to want the creator to make more of it, but you should be careful with your requests. It’s common courtesy to first check if the creator is willing to make more of it before you start begging them to do so. Every creator likes to see that there’s interest in their works, but it’s a little overwhelming when someone demands more from you on a project that you don’t really feel like continuing. This might be a personal thing, but I feel a bit guilt-tripped when someone is pleading with me to do something that they desperately need of me. Especially when I’ve already stated my opinion on the matter. There are ways to encourage creators to make more content without coming off as demanding. Please, master those ways. (I’m sorry if this is too ranty; it’s just something that’s been bothering me in the last few weeks).

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)

This got way too serious even for my own liking so let’s brighten the mood a little with a happy AU. A Curious Archer Animal AU which also draws from Beauty and the Beast to be exact.

Alice is a nymph who sees a man with a bow and arrow who’s trying to hit a little fox. She blasts him with her magic and knocks him out, just barely saving the fox from a deadly shot. It still gets wounded though and Alice takes it in her care. She brings it to the cottage where she lives to nurse it back to health but there’s something extraordinary about the fox. Alice uses her magic and figures out what the problem is. The fox is actually a girl and via her magic Alice finds out that her name is Robin and she was turned into a fox by Alice’s own mother - Gothel. Robin came across Mother Nature and got herself cursed because of her insufferable attitude. She’s not being any more pleasant when in Alice’s company. She breaks things around the cottage and scares other animals away. She even hunts a little bunny even though Alice has already taken care of her dinner. However, Alice’s relentless gentleness and her caring attitude start rubbing off on Robin and she changes over time. Meanwhile, Alice is looking for a way to turn Robin back into a human but finds nothing other than dead end after dead end. Finally, when she’s tired from the lack of progress, she goes to confront her mother and ask her to turn Robin back into a human. Gothel warns her to get rid of the fox and forget about it. Otherwise, she’ll take her powers away. Alice doesn’t back down, though, which results into her powers being sealed away by Gothel. She loses consciousness from the spell and falls to the ground, dropping Robin in the process. The fox worriedly licks Alice’s cheek, trying to wake her up, when a rainbow glow radiates from both of them. Robin is turned back into a human and Alice wakes up with all of her powers back since True Love’s kiss broke the curses put on both of them. Alice uses her powers to turn Gothel into a willow to make sure that she won’t harm anyone anymore since Robin was far from the only one who got cursed by Gothel. Alice takes the position of the leader of the nymphs and the new Mother Nature and she and Robin live happily together in the woods.

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

I’ve mentioned this before but I think it’s worth mentioning again because I just love it so much and I know you love Zelena and I’m in such a Zelena mood today (I just made a video about her).

I headcanon that Zelena took self-defense classes after she lost her magic and that’s why she was able to defeat Jack/Hansel so easily. I think it makes sense for her to have considered other ways of self-defense since her magic was gone and she wasn’t a fully redeemed villain when it happened so there certainly were people who wanted to get back at her for something. And without magic she’d be defenseless against any possible new villain (and lbr it’s Storybrooke; there’s always a new villain). She wanted to be able to protect both Robin and herself since she didn’t want Robin to grow up the way she had - without a mother. Robin had already lost her father and Zelena wouldn’t allow her to lose her mother too. So she learned how to defend herself even without her magic.

X - top 5-10 characters who are yoUR PRECIOUS BABIES AND YOU WILL DIE DEFENDING THEM

Regina Mills (OUAT)

Zelena Mills (OUAT)

Robin Mills (OUAT)

Ruby Lucas (OUAT)

Kathryn Nolan (OUAT)

Loki (MCU)

Gamora (and Nebula) (MCU)

Phil Coulson (MCU & Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

Griffin (Winx Club)

Shego (Kim Possible)

Pretty much all of these can defend themselves but, heck, I love them to death and would defend them regardless.

Wow, this got so long, but it was funny and challenging, and I liked answering the questions.

[topazshadowwolf]

The Door (Chapter 14)

An Undertale Fanfiction by: Topaz Shadowwolf Undertale is owned by: Toby Fox Setting: Post neutral run when Papyrus dies with chapter intros being before the child fell. Relationships: Sans and Toriel is the main focus, with a little bit of Undyne and Alphys Rating: I’m thinking Teen? Heads up: There are some depressed thoughts, feelings of worthlessness/wanting to die, mention of major character death, and the occasional bad word. Oh, and flowey being flowey, so you know, psychological/physical trauma. I really don’t want to say much more since I really don’t want to spoil anything further down the road…

You can read it on AO3! Here is Ch 13 Ch 12 Ch 11 Ch 10 Ch 9 Ch 8 Ch 7 Ch 6 Ch 5 Ch 4 Ch 3, Ch 2, and Ch 1on Tumblr.

Random thoughts from the writer about this chapter: I’m not dead and I did not abandon this fic. I was just lazy and lacked motivation. I love this fic though, so don’t think I won’t finish it. I might take 20 years, but it will be written.

It had been another dull day in the Ruins. The most exciting thing that happened was her finds while bug hunting. She caught a fairly large snail and a few unique bugs that she eventually released after looking them up. One was one of the smallest beetles she had seen, but it had the shiniest golden shell of all she had ever caught. It was mesmerizing, really, and she couldn’t help but hang onto it for a while to marvel at it as it crawled over her paw pads.

Because the day had been dull, she tried thinking up new and good funny puns and jokes to share with her friend since she wouldn’t have anything new to discuss. And while her friend did seem to enjoy hearing about her days in the Ruins, it didn’t seem fair to bore him with such meaningless drabble as what bugs she caught day after day. As kind as he was, even he must have limits on how much of this nonsense he could take.

When the time came she walked down the hall, hoping to hear her dear friend really let loose with his laughter. It had been a while since she had heard a good laugh from him. It wasn’t like when they first met anymore. She feared he was getting tired of this but was too kind to tell her so. The last few days his laughs had started sounding a bit…. forced.. It can’t be fun or pleasant for him, sitting out there in that cold snow every day just to entertain some silly old woman, such as herself. And yet he made the trips, sat out there, made her laugh, listened to her stories, and stayed for hours for her benefit.

Back when he laughed hardily, she knew he was enjoying himself, but ever since his laughs started weakening… well, it just seemed like he no longer found a reason to come out here. And she couldn’t blame him. He always sounded so tired, too. She knew he had several jobs and yet, she doesn’t insist on him taking a break. Instead, she eagerly awaited him and encouraged him to ignore his own needs. All of this must be putting too much stress on him, especially since she made this an everyday thing. Maybe she should ask him to come out every other day instead? That would give him a day to rest and a day without having to listen to her prattle on about nothing. When she gave him the option before, he had insisted that meeting every day was fine. But she really doubted that now, and was sure she would have to set the schedule. Her dear friend was just too kind to say ‘no’ to her.

Well, as she thought about it, even every other day sounded like too much. She can’t just base her happiness on him. She needs to pull herself together and let him make the schedule. He will know what is best for himself, even if it means they part ways. She will just need to be insistent that he needs to step up in scheduling their meetings in a way that doesn’t make things hard on himself. And, if he were to say he was done, well, at least, for this short time knowing him, she had some laughs and fun times.

That decided, she knocked on the door twice to see if he was there, “Knock, knock!”

“who’s there?”

His voice tore at her soul. It was so heavy with tiredness and sadness that he didn’t sound like the monster she first met. Was this because of her? It seemed hard to believe that she had caused him sadness as well, but perhaps this was getting in the way of other plans? Rationale told her it was something else. This had been a growing problem with him. He hadn’t said that anything was upsetting him in his life but she could hear it in his voice. There was no mention of anything other than work wearing him out. He might not be the most open and talkative about himself, but he did share some things that clearly mattered to him. But this, whatever was causing this, he didn’t share.

Paranoia made her worry that it was her. She wondered if that was why he kept it all a secret. Because she was the source of this sorrow. But, why? Had she done or said something that would hurt him so much?

“Friend,” she started, and he began to reply thinking it was part of the traditional joke, but it wasn’t. Instead, she continued, “What is wrong? Have I done something to offend you? Is this taking too much time out of your day? Truly, you have done so much for me already, you do not need to keep this up if it is a burden for you.”

“lady?” he sounded confused then she heard him shift, his voice getting closer to the doors, “no, lady, it’s… it’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?” She felt tears forming in her eyes as she placed a hand where she hoped his hand might be. Her nails scratched the door as it tried in vain to grab his hand.

Just open the door, you coward…

She couldn’t… for the safety of any other human that fell… and for her people, she couldn’t open this door unless it was an emergency.

“Day by day you are becoming less and less like the monster who first made me laugh so hard. While you are bringing me joy, I fear you are only receiving misery.”

He was silent and she closed her eyes, resting her head against the door, waiting. If he needed a moment to answer then she will give him the time he needed to think over what he wanted to say. After all, he had been too kind of a monster to her. It would not be easy for him to say she was boring and that he didn’t want to visit her anymore. So, she will let him better formulate an answer for her to tell her what she already knew.

But as time ticked by, and the silence grew, she decided to add softly, “We may not know what each other looks like, or actual names… but I still consider you my friend.”

“you’re my friend, too, lady… meeting you here is one of the main reasons i’m able to get out of bed in the morning. sorry, i don’t mean to worry you, but… no matter how i sound, i want to make sure you know doing this, being here… it makes me really happy,” he replied, and she heard a “thunk” as he likely placed his head against the door. “lately... a lot has been happening that is hard to explain and it’s, well, making things difficult. and... it was really… really hard... today. so, uh… heh,” he sounded on the verge of tears.

“Oh, Dishes, I’m sorry,” she replied. Her claws continued to scratch the door as her hand started to ball up with frustration. Again, she wanted to open these doors and comfort him, but…

“don’t worry about it… i’m sure it will work itself out eventually,” he said, but he didn’t sound any more convinced than she was.

“You are truly my friend, Dishes, and I want you to do what is best for you. So, if you need the day to yourself,” Toriel started but her friend cut her off there.

“that’s not really going to help, old lady… being by myself lets my mind cause some… skulduggery,” he said with a soft, chuckle.

The pun earned a soft giggle from her but she still couldn’t help but feel sad by that information. Her poor friend…, “In that case, I will keep you company then.” She tried to push away her saddened thoughts to feel happier for him. “Shall we tell some jokes,” She asked, hoping to cheer him up.

“alright, after that, how about telling me about your day? had to be better than mine,” he inquired.

“Oh, well… I really just went bug hunting and nothing much else,” she apologized.

“that sounds interesting,” he truly did sound interested in hearing about that. Whether he actually was or wasn’t, she didn’t know. But at that moment, he made it sound like it was the best thing he heard all day...

It was nice to just be back in their room at the castle, but not quite like how it felt being in her home in the Ruins again. Toriel was sure Sans also just wanted to return to the Ruins and let it just be them again. She would be lying if she said the thought didn’t cross her mind, and still lingered there. But, as it was, and with everything known, a sense of duty kept her here. There was still a bitterness in her that made her want to neglect this duty. It was the monsters that called for the death of all humans then forced her off the throne after she came back.

Did she really owe them anything? Did she really need to sacrifice her happiness for these monsters who turned on her so easily? She wasn’t their queen, she wasn’t in the guard, nor was she in any position that made her obligated to care about their welfare. And yet, here she was caring about them. She couldn’t just abandon them to a potentially dark fate. At least, not again. This was different than them seeking the blood of innocent children. This was them needing help from a potential threat that even she knew nothing about. A being that could remove her happiness even if she did try to hide. While Sans seemed more willing to accept his fate, she was not. Just as she rebelled against Asgore to try to rescue the humans, she will push her love to protect the peace they had instead of just letting what may happen, happen. So, as much as she wished to return to the Ruins, she couldn’t turn her back on them now.

Besides, it’s not like their time together was limited. That thought was silly. There was supposed to be no more of these “resets” that had plagued Sans and, unknowingly, her and everyone else in the underground. And that also meant they had plenty of time to share.

Well… not completely.

While she was a boss monster, sentenced to continue to live on and never age, Sans wasn’t. Over time he will grow old and die… That thought caused a shiver to travel up her spine. She didn’t like the idea of watching her dear friend and loved one slowly fade in front of her, but she loved him too much to not want him around. That is the sad trial that now was her life, one she will have to accept. She will watch the ones she knows and love wither and die while she will live on, ageless.

Chara’s body seemed to wilt to the illness they had had that resulted in such a horrible and painful death. Asriel, bloodied and broken, stumbling into the throne room and collapsing on the floor only to then dust in her and Asgore’s hands. Then there was Asgore himself, he changed before her own eyes from the monster she loved to… a creature filled with hate and anger. By what she was told by Sans he didn’t stay that way, reverting to his more meeker nature, if not more so.

Looking over at her dear one, she saw he was clearly exhausted and she scooped him up without a complaint. There was that tired, husky chuckle of his that only encouraged her to cuddle him close. She nuzzled his cheekbone and he started to laugh in reply while leaning into her touch. His boney hand reached up, petting the soft fur just behind her ear, and she hummed contently. Her dear, sweet skeleton, all dressed up as a cat, half curled in her arms in an adorable manner, was too much for her to let go. Placing him in bed and going about her own business will not do. So, she moved over to a chair to sit down. She felt well overdressed in this beautiful gown at the moment, but that didn’t matter. It was nice being the white queen with her Cheshire Cat for the moment. She hoped he felt the same as he cuddled close to her.

Soft snores signaled to her that he had fallen asleep and she was happy. Closing her eyes, she held him and thought about all she had learned, all they had been through, and all they will need to go through. If only things could be easy for them for the remainder of their days. But there were still matters left unsolved, things that still needed to be dealt with. There were obstacles that would interfere with their peace. Also, the mental and emotional wounds that were best solved out here before retiring away in peace. Once these matters have been resolved, and once they had true peace, she really saw no reason as to why they couldn’t just retire away to the Ruins once again.

Maybe she had grown used to her self imposed isolation; that being out here, among other monsters, was far more tiring than she remembered. She once was queen and did many things with her people. She didn’t really enjoy crowds then, but she still thrived in them and never avoided them. But now, she would far rather be alone with a good book and those she loves than be among a crowd. She had forgotten what it was like dealing with her people, and now… they weren’t even her people.

Their ruler is Undyne. Yet, even if she was not currently in charge of their well being, there was still a sense of responsibility because she once was. Even if they weren’t her people, they still felt like they were. Although she had turned her back on them, feeling betrayed that they chose to kill humans along with Asgore, humans much like her own Chara, she still didn’t hate them. And while they despised her declaration that monsters should no longer be at war with humans but instead ally with them once more and then sought to overthrow her… she still wanted what was best for them. She was angry with them, as angry as she was with Asgore, but she did not wish harm upon them, just as she wished harm hadn’t befallen her ex-husband.

And perhaps Sans helped with that. She had closed herself off from everyone, even emotionally from the innocent monsters in the Ruins. They knew little of the world beyond the doors; yet, she treated them as if they were as guilty as the ones she heard calling for the death of all humans. But Sans… knocked on the door she used as a physical reminder to close herself off. He invited her to open herself up again, which she accepted. He then made and kept a promise she thought she would never be able to get another monster to accept. He showed her that there was still something to be hopeful for, even though he clearly had little hope himself.

Her dear, dear sweet Sans. She highly doubted he knew how much of an influence on her he had been, and for once she wondered if the same could be said the other way around. Was it possible that she has been an influence on his life and she simply didn’t see it? He had said that before, that she had already repaid him for anything he possibly could have done for her. Sans even expressed that he owed her. Perhaps they were both right, they both have been a great force of good in each other's life.

Yes, it did seem that way, and she was finally now just seeing that. They had helped each other, made each other stronger and better monsters. Neither are in debt, neither owe each other, but both want nothing more than to pay the other back for what they did.

At this realization, she giggled softly before nuzzling her beloved skeleton on the top of his skull. They really were a silly pair of monsters.

…

Oh…

Oh dear…

In her haste to sit down with him, she forgot to grab a book or anything to occupy herself as he slept. With a sigh, she sat there in thought. She could get back up. If there was one thing she knew about her skeleton, he didn’t wake up easily. Though she was comfortable, and getting up just wasn’t something she wanted to do. She was just so content the way she was, even if it meant she was sitting there with nothing to do other than hug her dear skeleton. He was cuddled close, his slow breathing calming her troubled heart and thoughts.

How badly she needed this before. All those nights in the ruins when she couldn’t sleep would have been easily rectified had they only reached this point in their relationship sooner. Toriel closed her eyes, resting her cheek on his skull with a content sigh. How dearly she loved him. She hoped he felt that from her soul. A small green bullet of magic, in the shape of a soul, floated from her to him and she felt her face flush with embarrassment. Normally she was far better at controlling her magic, but at the moment she might as well be a lovesick child again.

To think she would again be like this. Some would think she should feel shame for it, but she really just giggled. It was a pleasant feeling, one she missed. As their relationship matures, they will advance past this, but she will enjoy this for now. She felt everything around her start to fade away as her own tiredness started to catch up with her. Tomorrow morning they were to meet up with Alphys to have a pleasant picnic. For now, though, they can rest. As she drifted to sleep, that is exactly what they did. It just felt like such a beautiful moment, that Toriel clung as long as she could to the edges of wakefulness, to savor this. Their breathing matched, his weight pressed against her, and her arms enveloped him. Soon, she couldn’t fight it any longer, as his soft snores guided her to sleep.

She wasn't sure how long she had slept before a loud knock woke her up. Toriel felt herself jump and Sans shifted on her lap, muttering something that, if she thought about it, sounded like a plea for a few more minutes. This made her laugh softly and she nuzzled her poor dear, enamored about this adorable behavior. Still, the knocking repeated itself and Toriel knew she was going to need to answer. It was obvious that the sleeping skeleton on her lap was not about to get the door. She lifted Sans from her lap and set him in the chair, though she could feel him move again in her arms, hinting that he was really awake. He just fought against wakefulness which took over in the hopes of going back to sleep.

Toriel walked over to the door and opened it to find... well, a monster she had never seen before. "Hello?" She asked before the odd rectangular monster wheeled past her.

"Hello, darling! I hope you don't mind me interrupting your evening but I just heard you were in New Home. I must have you come by my station for an interview. I'm sorry we didn't meet during your time as Queen," He said in a strange, static tinged voice.

"Oh, well, I suppose we could arrange that," Toriel replied, though she was unsure what to think of this monster or what he was saying. She then smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, but who you are?"

"I'm Mettaton," he said as if that was supposed to mean something to Toriel. When that didn't get a reaction he then added, "The biggest star in the Underground?" Toriel's continued confusion didn't seem to make him happy. Though how she knew that with his faceless features, she didn't know.

"heya, ti-83, what brings you here?" Sans asked from the chair, pulling attention off her and on to him. Toriel was thankful for that, to say the least. She seemed to remember Sans saying something about a robot who was famous in the Underground, but she wasn't expecting this to be him. There must be something about him that the other monsters saw that she didn’t.

"Hello, Sans," the robot said and his tone sounded not that happy about this interaction. "I was hoping you would have come by the resort now that you’re back on this side of The Ruin's doors."

"yeah, well, talk to undyne about that. i was a little locked up in her business," Sans replied. "anyway, i'm free now, what's up?"

"Well, you know your 'show' was popular, for reasons I'll never understand. I want to see what times you would like to book." Mettaton pulled a booklet from some compartment and from the look of it, it was a schedule book.

"huh, i thought you said my show was a waste of time," Sans chuckled then shrugged. "sorry, but i'll pass."

"Look, I know we have our differences, but this is for the people. They miss your stand up and your odd science talks," Mettaton plead but Sans looked away, leaning on the arm of the chair.

"um... yeah, still not feeling like doing it."

"You did stand up?" Toriel asked, surprised by this. "I'm sure you were very good."

"Yes... I suppose you could say that it was good," Mettaton replied. "It was more of a variety show he did. Not even I knew what he was going to do each time... One time he just slept standing up the whole hour."

"heh, good times," Sans chuckled.

"I'll pay you double if you come back," Mettaton bargained. This seemed to catch Sans's attention and the skeleton looked at the robot.

"double, huh? sure, for that much i'll do a show."

Toriel stood back and watched as the two then discussed the when for Sans's show that he will put on. Mettaton tried getting Sans to say what he would be doing, leaning toward a comedy act, but Sans just gave a non-committed shrug. It was clear he didn't know what he wanted to do, and Toriel wasn't sure he really wanted to do this show. Knowing he decided to do it based on the increased pay made her wonder what he wanted the money for as well. They were doing well financially, Toriel had more than enough money for the two of them. And yet, she didn't feel the need to bring that up at the moment. In truth, she felt it would help Sans to do something more than just hide here. Once the two had their business sorted out, Mettaton turned back to her.

"Shall we schedule our interview now?" Mettaton asked. He started jotting down something in his booklet. To her surprise, Sans spoke up before she could.

"i think we'll take a raincheck on scheduling that. i'm sure tori wants to focus more on assisting empress undyne," Sans said, again, leaning on the chair's arm, with his head on his hand, looking disinterested with all of this.

Something about what Sans said, though, interested the robot and he wrote some more. "Oh, you are assisting Undyne, darling?" Mettaton asked while turning back to Toriel. Why had Sans said that? He was also here to help, but the way he said that hinted that it was her responsibility alone.

"Well, yes, we-" She started but Sans got up and walked over.

"we are staying at that castle under undyne's direction so tori can help out with some matters is all. and she needs to focus on that," Sans said, putting an arm around the robot as if they were buddies. He directed the other monster out the door with a kind goodbye though she knew he didn't fully mean it.

There was silence for a moment, Toriel had to admit she was annoyed that Sans had interrupted her and she put her paws on her hips and glared at him. "What was that about?" She asked.

"sorry tori," Sans apologized and shuffled back to the chair. "mettaton was more of a fan of asgore's plan, even if he wanted to be a star among monsters and humans. i guess he just saw asgore being more likely to get him to the surface. do what you want, but i don't suggest going on any show of his for an interview, he'll just make sure the narrative he wants is the one heard."

That troubled Toriel, knowing that some monsters still feel that way about her. It was more than just Undyne who did not like her, and while Toriel never asked to be a loved queen, it still hurt to be so hated. She walked over and scooped up the skeleton to place him back on her lap. He leaned against her, and she could feel contentment from him. "What about telling him I was here to help Undyne?"

"it gives you an excuse to be too busy for him, and it is true... and it was a dig at undyne. one that, even if he supports her, he won't be able to help but spread." Sans chuckled softly before adding, "i made it seem like she needs someone else to help her with the ruling, and, well, who better than you?"

"Sans, that was rather mean to do to Undyne. She," Toriel then sighed and nodded a bit. "I'll admit she deserved it, after all she put us through, but that was still rude to do."

Sans just chuckled and shrugged, "yeah, maybe, but as you said, she deserved it. anyway, she's pretty good at running damage control. and if you decided to show pity on her you can set the story straight yourself. until then, though, let her deal with it."

"I will make sure the true story is heard. I'm not that vindictive. Though, I suppose that can wait until after the picnic tomorrow," Toriel said tapping her chin. It was better than just leaking the truth of what Sans had been through, even if it should be known. It would cause others to have trouble trusting the Empress. This, while rude, won’t be as shocking and it won't be as likely to destroy the faith of monsters in their ruler.

Morning activities were never something he enjoyed, they denied him the ability to sleep in and made him feel tired the rest of the day. Sans wasn’t sure how he got roped into this, but he tagged along with Toriel and Alphys as they found a spot to “stargaze.” This brought back some old memories that felt much older than they truly were, he remembered all the times he took his younger brother out here to look at the crystals and pretend it was the night sky. It was one of the things Papyrus insisted on doing because Sans was interested in stars. Though they did it in the evening and “camped” in Waterfall for the night. Alphys and Toriel somehow came to the decision that morning would work best for them.

Now that he was here, though, Sans remembered the nights he and Papyrus would spend in the field the three currently stood. Though, at that time he was just a child. Sans and his brother would lay in the grass for hours, imagining they were looking at an actual night sky, and the glowing stones above them were real stars. They even made their own constellations and Sans, for the fun of it, charted them. There were many cool and unique ones, along with a few that, as they grew to teenagers and young adults, clearly lacked maturity when named. The earlier ones they made as children had eventually be traded out for far better constellations, far more suited for The Great Papyrus and his brother, astronomer Sans.

Well… the “Butt” constellation with “Fart Gas Cloud,” or F.G.C. for short, were still up there, and still right next to each other. Papyrus had tried making them into something else, but even he admitted, it was a butt. Either that was the extent of their creativity, or that was undoubtedly what it was.

Tori, Alphys, and Sans rested in the grass, looking up at the crystals above. And, upon Tori’s request, Sans began pointing out all those constellations, saving the best for last of course. He heard Tori snort while Alphys rolled her eyes and sighed.

“S-seriously, Sans?” Alphys sighed, “I bet you n-named both of them, didn’t you.”

“actually, i named f.g.c. but paps named butt,” he said with a wink. Relaxing back, Sans sighed, looking back up at those two. He then said, “he named it when he was young… and we couldn’t rename it.”

“Well, it does look like one,” Tori said with a laugh. It was nice to know her humor matched his so nicely. It might seem silly to laugh at a group of glowing crystals that happen to make the shape of someone’s backside, but at least they could laugh together.

“we did argue over the ownership of them. i figured since pap spotted and named it, it should be his. but he didn’t like my fart by his butt,” at the drop of that punchline Toriel burst into a fit of laughter.

Alphys groaned and glared at Sans and Toriel. “I’m h-happy you found someone t-to share your humor with.”

Before Sans could reply, Tori wrapped him up in her arms. Her hug was tight but comfortable, and she nuzzled the side of his skull. Sans cuddled close, enjoying the warmth and softens of the monster he loved beside him. “I am as well,” Tori then said. She looked over at Alphys, who was clearly enjoying every second of this scene. “For the longest time, I thought I would never laugh again. Then… I met Sans. It doesn’t matter to me if our humor is childish to some… we laugh and that’s all that matters”

"heh, and when i heard that first laugh of hers..." Sans sighed wistfully as he thought back on that odd braying sound the had heard through the door that day. That beautiful noise that brought such light to his tired and dark soul. "well, i promised to myself that i would make her laugh again."

Toriel smiled at him and he smiled back at her. It really was a scene that would be thought as overly mushy if viewed by a non-romantic. Sans never thought he was much of a fan of romance until he found Toriel. She had brought forth this want to spend time with her, cuddle with her, court her. And with that came the romantic desires that he never once knew he had inside of him.

He then settled beside her as he listened to Alphys and Toriel as they point out more possible constellations in the crystal ceiling above them. It was fun seeing what their imagination would find among all those tiny lights above them. A few made him chuckle but, for the most part, they were either sweet or anime related. Toriel pointed out the brightest crystal and suggested it be named after Papyrus. Sans did say it should be fully called "The Great Papyrus" to which both Toriel and Alphys agreed with him. Sans then smiled and looked up at the crystal named after his brother. It was now his favorite one up there, and he hoped his brother was happy with the honor of having that crystal named after him.

As he watched the crystal he felt himself slowly drift off to sleep. Well, Tori and Al were doing well enough so he saw no reason why he should force himself to stay awake so he let himself rest. It was pleasant here, in the dark of Waterfall, cuddled close to the monster he loved so dearly, and under the light of The Great Papyrus. If Sans could fall asleep like this every night, or morning, he would be more than happy. He only fought to stay awake a while longer so he could soak in this moment as long as possible before falling asleep.

He should have stayed awake a bit longer, as he woke up with a start when he was assaulted by Tori and Al tickling him awake. Sans rolled around trying to get away only for nothing to work. No matter how hard he tried protesting the fairness of this attack it didn't work. It wasn't until he was out of breath, which was an odd feeling for someone who didn't need to breathe, did Tori pull him up onto her lap and hug him tightly. "Oh, my dear, I couldn't help myself," she giggled and nuzzled him.

"Y-you were snoring over our t-talking," Alphys said, arms folded as if annoyed, but she grinned away.

"eh, sounds like a reasonable reaction, then," Sans chuckled and nestled the back of his head under Tori's chin.

"By the way, S-sans, I'm surprised to see you are w-wearing that hoodie again. Did you like it?" Alphys asked, looking over Sans in the Cheshire cat hoodie she had made just for him to wear.

"More like his needed to be washed and I liked it," Tori said for him and he chuckled and shrugged his agreement.

Alphys giggled at what Tori said and Sans knew at some point he was going to have to get even with his science buddy. She had seen and been able to laugh and tease at a few too many things at his expense to just let it go. Or, he could just let it go... That would be the easier thing to do, really. Besides, in the long run, they are friends, and even though they had prank wars in the past, he just wasn’t feeling that up to it anymore.

“as tori said, mine just needed to be washed, but i’ll admit, al, you do make a cozy hoodie,” Sans replied with a shrug.

Tori and Al started to set up for lunch now that it was close enough to “brunch time” to qualify for a picnic lunch. Sans sat back and watched, intent on having a slice of pie over any of the other foods they set out. A sound caught his attention though, and he turned his head to look and spotted Undyne heading their way. He still had no desire for Undyne to see him dressed as a cat. With that, Sans saw it was time to see himself out. He knew a few good spots around here he could watch them and remain hidden. Perhaps it was silly to care about Undyne seeing him dressed as a cat, but after how she treated him, he just didn’t feel the need to show her any more weaknesses.

He grabbed a slice of pie then stood and saluted Tori and Al with his free hand. “welp, i’ll be around. i’ll see you but you won't see me. have fun.” And with that, he took a step while he used a shortcut to move to a ledge where he could watch everything going on and stay unnoticed.

Tori looked perturbed, but he did warn her earlier. He took a bite of the pie as he watched Undyne walk up to Tori and Al. She started talking with them and looked around as if looking for him. He wasn’t surprised since Sans was not about to leave far from Tori and he was sure Undyne knew that. Alphys gestured to the area around her then Undyne laughed. He figured that was about him, but still, he'd rather be considered a coward than let her see him like this. Besides, he already knew she thought of him as a coward so it was no big deal. Keeping the reputation of a coward is better than adding cute.

“Golly,” A voice said from just behind him. He didn’t need to turn and look to know who it was. After nightmares as severe as the ones he has had, the voice had been ingrained in his skull. “You sure did skedaddle out of there fast,” It said, mockingly.

“heya, haven’t heard from you for quite a while,” He turned and looked at the flower, looking down at the anomaly formed by misguided DT experimentation.

End notes: thanks again to @obsessedkatie for beta reading. Hope you all enjoyed!

[believerindaydreams]

tilting at windmills

gatehouse vibes. 

Syb suggested a scene of Tuco cooking, and I tried; but then it turned into this whole cliffhanger fetch quest...

"Hey, Blondie?"

Tuco says it softly, hardly enough to be heard. He doesn't much feel like disturbing that peaceful indolence.

"He's asleep," Angel confirms. "I think we'll have to leave Yeats there for the day...unless you did want me to keep going, and then naturally I'll wake him up."

"That's all right. Let's be quiet, let him be."

Angel's expression quirks, minutely but with his sure deliberation. It's a nice thing, to always be positive his partner means it for a change-

(wait, they can't both be his partner- can they? It's not quite a thing he can ask Blondie, worn out by the contemplative rituals.)

"You're planning to stay silent in the meantime?"

"Course not. Let's go treasure hunting."

Tuco rises, teasingly pulls at a familiar black glove. Just with the tips of two fingers, but enough that the owner would need to either draw back or follow- and Angel Eyes follows.

"Aren't you full of surprises..."  

Also a nice thing, if rather funny that Angel Eyes likes him for the opposite reason: being unpredictable. But then, he's probably the first person in years who can occasionally surprise the man without any fear on either side. Or ever, perhaps?

Tuco shies away from that thought, tucking it away for later; what matters is the here and now. Makes for the staircase, not as yet renovated. It heartens him to realise he still remembers the precise neat sequence to avoid squeaks, worked out for no better reason than the fun of the thing. Angel's steps behind him are precise, equally soundless; and Tuco laughs a little after shutting the trapdoor.

"Care to share the joke?"

"Oh, I don't know- something playful the way you did that, I guess- never mind. The old furniture and things, that's all up here now, yes?"

"Anything that looked usable, yes. I thought Father Paul might want some of it back. You look dismayed."

"Father Paul. Well," Tuco says, shrugging. "He says it's no worse than being so lazy, I'd rather use a nickname than my own- but I hope they didn't throw out what I'm looking for. All those months it would have been here, and I never thought to check for it."

"What's it?"

"Something secret." He clambers over boxes, sneezing at dust; Angel offers him a helping boost at one point, same way Blondie would, and Tuco rolls his eyes but takes it.

"Be careful there. I've held on to those black leather editions for all of twenty years, now."

"A gift from...her?" He can't forget his lover's mentor, so might as well forgive. "That sounds kind."

"My taste for Latin puzzled her, admittedly- but pleased her for all that. That I could occasionally surprise her."

"Mmm-hmm...this is what I want." A cobwebby box, unmarked but with a rough black handle sticking out the flap. Tuco sits down, starts to empty it methodically.

"You left something here?"

"Not exactly. It's not stealing if I never took it away, is it? Just borrowed it sometimes. This gatehouse used to be off-limits back when this was a school, I never heard why. Probably to save trouble looking after us. Now that didn't work at all, I spent most of a long summer here. Mint tea, comic books, this," Tuco says, lifting out a long deep casserole dish with considerable satisfaction. He'd been prepared to keep up chatting quite a while, to get that timing right.

"Rather a baroque lid," Angel Eyes observes, hefting the carved glass. "A chicken and egg motif, hmm...this would do very well to smash a man's skull in."

Tuco glares at him. Doesn't get an apology, but Angel lets his glove slip, while handing the lid back. Coming from him that's pretty close.

"First time I had to fend for myself, cooking meals on the sly- let me tell you, that was hard work! Wood for the fireplace, scouring the dishes tidy every time in case someone else ever used this place, though I don't think they ever did. And finding something to put in the pan, that always was a trouble."

"I assume they weren't actually starving you."

Bless Angel, his lover doesn't half look troubled. "Nooo, not as such. Getting sent to bed without supper a couple of times for sneaking to town, that's not the same thing- but it made me nervous. Back home I knew how to look after myself if I ever had to, then suddenly I didn't...Blondie was a big help there. Get him started and he'd blather all day about working his aunt's chicken farm, so I knew just how to make it look like a fox when I swiped a hen from the priory flock."

"Can't picture you killing chickens, somehow."

"...I didn't," Tuco admits. "I used to get Wallace to help me out. His parents were butchers. Very proud of their son for learning something better than a trade. But they'd taught him  how to do it, so I'd take the risk and steal one, he'd clean it and give me half- oooh, that's how he was cooking them! That soft-hearted brother of mine let him use the kitchen, that's what!"

Angel removes his sweater, lays it on the dusty floor before he sits on it. "You know, you've mentioned this a few times. Wouldn't Paul have been rather young to be placed in charge like that?"

"Oh, nobody cared too much by then," Tuco says. Casually nestles down besides, his head on his lover's knee. "They were phasing out the school, wasn't another student after me. But Pablo loved this place so, granite and jam and all. We had a few strange years swapping postcards. Me and Blondie keeping up our hustle while Pablo and Wallace did theirs, I used to joke they ought to have more luck because God was on their side. We'd send each other money sometime, if we could spare it...that was the first time Blondie slept with a girl, getting money for the church. I ribbed him about it some- so what, you won't spread your legs for me but you will for my brother? I had to sleep alone for a while after I said that, I can tell you."

"Mmm-hmm, I can imagine." Knowing Angel, no doubt he's listening intently. For all that his eyes are shut, and his hands stroking in soft circles; Tuco shivers briefly at the tickle on his spine. "That surprises me. I'd assumed his activities in that regard were exercised on your behalf."

"Hey." Sharper than he'd meant to say, maybe, but that'd hurt. "I never asked him to do it, not once. Not ever. If Blondie said anything else, he's lying, that's what."

"You've got ways of wheedling a man that don't involve asking right out, don't deny that," Angel says. Reasonably enough; but Tuco pulls away regardless, sits up with as much dignity as can be mustered with a casserole dish in his lap.

"Yeah, okay, so I do. Maybe I didn't press too hard about where the money came from, when he came back with groceries and a fat wallet. But let me tell you, by the time things were that bad Blondie was just as tired of being hot and broke and hungry as I was. He wants to blame it on me, ok, but that's just a way of making himself feel better about it- you know how he needs, that way."

"Ever think about doing it for him?"

A question, not a threat, but just asking reminds Tuco of the hacienda again. All that time spent protecting himself against a day Angel might tell him to go, while keeping Blondie; his vision blurs and he's not even sure why.

"Course not. Who'd pay to sleep with me?"

"I might have," Angel offers. Too much joviality about it. Like his lover's stolen his own tricks, covering for sadness with a joke.

"As if! An assassin would know better."

"Ah. But evidently, I didn't."

It's the sort of moment when there's either a quarrel or kisses in the offing, Tuco figures.

Easier to go for the latter.

********

"Tuco!"

The naming awakes him with a jolt; Tuco shudders up, throwing a weight off him like a comforter. Moving so quick, he's at the staircase before realising that was Angel Eyes.

"Sorry!" he yells back, but keeps running. Might as well now it's done, and besides- "Blondie, are you okay?"

His partner meets him on the bottom step, grabbing him close. "Fine. Just fine, Tuco."

"That's good." He can't help it, contrasting Blondie's rough embrace with Angel's sleekness. That cassock's more threadbare than it needs to be. "What scared you?"

If the laugh's a bit forced, at least it's a laugh. "I woke up, found you two had vanished. I thought something might have happened."

"I thought it must have been something silly like that," Angel says, sauntering down the stairs. Sweater under one arm, casserole dish under the other. "If there'd been a real crisis, you would have called for me."

"Old habits," Blondie says, letting go and stepping back.

Tuco harrumphs at him, brushing dust off his pants. "Didn't think we'd run off without you, did you?"

"You might have done. We're both slaves to wanderlust."

"Eh, you always wanted to go. I wanted to go someplace, this one suits me pretty well." He takes the casserole dish from Angel's hands, carries it over to the sink and starts to wash it clean. "Lentils, rosemary, pepper. Say, do we have any chicken?"

"Not at the moment."

"...oh. Well, I guess I don't need to cook that tonight," Tuco says, a little guiltily. Belated guilt, at that; he doesn't need to look up from the sink to sense his partner's studied frown.

"No problem," Angel offers. "A trip into town, that's easy enough. Blondie can drive."

"I'm staying out of this. Friday, Tuco, or did you lose track?"

"No, I just decided it'd be better fun sinning."

Tuco's expecting the door to slam violently, and tightens his grip on the ornate glass cover in preparation; but out of the corner of his eye he can see Angel holding Blondie's arm, stopping him going. Low whispers shared between the two of them.

That bothers him, more than he'd have counted on. "Unless it's a birthday present for me, maybe I'd like to listen in."

"If he'd wanted you to hear that, he'd have said it," Blondie says, tight and irritated. "God above, Angel, don't tempt him. It's a cruel enough season without you adding to his troubles."

"I'm offering a choice, that's all." Angel's nearly languid. "For a notion Tuco suggested in the first place. How much meaning can there be to your lauded self-denial, if there's no alternative? Surely the greater the possibilities, the greater spiritual reward to be reaped from turning them all down."

"Ooh," Tuco says, putting down the steaming dishes. "Did you steal that argument from my brother?"

"No, that's just common sense. Common sense- I should say, and a certain amount of research for the part. If Father Paul does ever want a devil, to scare love of god back into his priests..."

"Don't even joke about that, Angel Eyes," Blondie says curtly.

"It's a poor faith that can't withstand a little frippery, I should think. Or is yours that fragile? Unable to withstand even the slightest puncture?"

Tuco suspects Blondie might have done something regrettable then, if he wasn't by. If he wasn't touching his partner's hand, fingertips brushing against delicate bone: a throwback to the old days, when small movements and single syllables stood in for whole conversations. Hard to quell a sudden rapacious craving; this understanding's so associated with a tang of danger, and he's missed that rather.

For that matter, who knows what Angel might have done if not distracted. Blatant teasing, sure, but in a good cause...

"Fine," Blondie says, with unexpected grace. "You've hustled me into it. Nicely done, you two amanates-"

"Shotgun!"

"...what kind?" Angel inquires. "I only have two, come to think of it. They're not the most practical weapon for my purposes."

"Blondie, you're pretty clever aren't you?"

"I guess so," his partner says, fluffing his hair in a familiar absurd gesture of uncertainty. "Yes."

"Good. You explain."

(Blondie really has been thinking too much like a monk, to have fallen for that gag...)

*********

Sometime or other, Tuco's sure, he's heard a recommendation that shopping when hungry's a bad idea; but it's never done him much good. Even with a full pantry at the gatehouse and the odd, sure confidence that he could buy anything he likes without worrying, he’s still managing to work up an appetite just walking down the aisles.

"I suppose I could buy every one of these."

"You could," Blondie's a little flushed still, from charging off to find the orange stand, just to tell him where it is. Unnecessary, but it makes his partner happy so he's never pointed that out. "No doubt he'd enjoy the chance to spoil you. He's not had much opportunity for grand theatrical gestures outside of the profession."

“It'd be fun to do, sometime...but not these,” Tuco says, dropping a gently leaking fruit. “More wet than Angel, that’s saying something.”

“I heard that,” Angel says, coming up with the cart. Tuco nods at him, risks a quick feel along his lover's bottom to show he hadn't meant it.

"They're not that bad," Blondie says, elegantly splitting open an orange's rind with the edge of a fingernail. "We've both eaten worse."

Tuco looks at his own hands, filthy with overripe juice; and he'd take a moment to feel self-conscious only Angel's busy reciprocating. Very hard to concentrate.

"I know that, but you know what? I can have higher standards now."

Blondie turns away, full of dismay; and the unreasoned awareness of his partner's disappointment reaches up to choke him. The same feeling he used to get on the road sometimes when there was too much closeness between them, exasperated knowledge of the other's slightest irritation. Usually just before one of them ran out on the other.

It shouldn't be like this, anymore. There's nothing for them to fret over now.

"There's a better supermarket across town, it's just that this one was closer," Angel says. "We could go there instead if you like."

"No, that's fine. Let's just get the chicken and a couple of things and go, okay?"

"I always had trouble keeping his 'a couple of things' under half a dozen."

That's just evening the score, for his unexpected orange scorn; so Tuco bites down a comeback. "He's right. Maybe I'll treat myself, all of seven things instead of six."

"You don't need to abstain any more," Angel says. Even leaves off feeling him up, for the purpose of making a promise with simple words but the solemnity of a vow. Very like Blondie, sometimes.

"Well, thanks." Makes sure to say it with plenty of irony, before they all three of them die of sentiment. "But now I think about it, we have just about everything I do want back home."

"I'm sure that in this whole store, you could find something else you'd enjoy."

Well. If he's being invited...and Angel's pretty cute when he's like this, that bewildered lover's want for shared softness. No wonder Baker wanted in on that.

His momentary concern for Blondie slips away, at that thought. There's a warmth he always gets, remembering how he outwitted an assassin in a game so high-stakes; unkind as it is, it's always very pleasurable...

*********

"Quod me nutrit me destruit. What nourishes me, destroys me."

"Wow," Tuco says; and lets every drop of his admiration show. "Blondie, I don't know where you got him, but he's a keeper. Latin proverbs about junk food, that's amazing."

Angel Eyes drops the barbecued potato chips into the cart, with his customary reserve. "It's a hustle of its own kind, Tuco. Memorize enough vague, pretentious phrases, and hey presto, you'll be prepared for any occasion."

"Still. It's pretty cool."

"I preferred it when you were using Latin for important things," Blondie says. He's pushing the cart now, leaning against it with exquisite poise; Tuco looks from light hair to dark, and can't help marveling at his luck.

"Sorry to have to inform you about your own partner," Angel says, "but junk food is rather important to Tuco, or hadn't you noticed?"

"I remember the other thing. We should get some more hair dye, shouldn't we?"

"Don't think I really need that stuff any more," Blondie says calmly, pushing the cart on. "It's not natural, is it?"

"Neither are potato chips- oh, I shouldn't have said that. Next you'll ask me what the point of the potato chips are..."

"To eat, I'd assume," Angel pipes in. A mother walking down the aisle with her toddler with pauses in confusion, than hurries on faster. Tuco rolls his eyes, at the sight of his lover’s smirk.

"I hope you're not expecting me to call you anything else, Blondie. Bad enough that Pablo wants me to call him something else, when he's in company- it'll be Angel Eyes telling me his real name next."

"I do have one."

"I thought you had to- mind, you're not the first Angel I've met, lots of those with Spanish surnames. I'd sort of hoped a little you might be, when Blondie said your name..."

"He talked about me, before?"

"Five minutes before the poker game started," Blondie says. "Hell of a night that was. I didn't know if you'd want me back."

"I'd have tried harder to charm him, if you'd said," Tuco says. "I was so busy worrying about Carson that night, I barely looked at Angel all game. Sorry."

"No offense. I think Blondie had the right of it, that time...I doubt I'd have enjoyed it if you'd been trying to put on an effect for my sake. "

"Believe me, it would have been true. I can make myself believe just about anything, for a hustle- I mean, I did! Telling myself, I must have been drunk when you said you were- what you were, and knowing all the time you'd meant it. Hey. I don't get this."

"It's a sign," Blondie says patiently. "It says their freezer's broken and they're sorry for the inconvenience."

"Blondie, I can read." There's beef on one side, pork on the other, glistening slabs of bacon that'd delight him any other time, but right now he's got his heart set on chicken. "This isn't fair."

"This isn't a very good supermarket," Angel says. "Off to the other one, then?"

"No, don't think so. We buy the chips, and then-"

"We go home?" Blondie interrupts, looking hopeful.

"I've got something more fun in mind. Remember when we went lifting chickens?"

"Oh no. No. Tuco, I- look at me," Blondie says, arms crossed. "You want to do that now? When we've got everything to lose, and no reason to do it?"

"Sure I do."

"Think of Angel. He can't afford to be caught up by law enforcement, you know that just as well as I do-"

"If I got caught out and arrested on a simple operation like this," Angel says, his eyes glinting, "I'd deserve my fate. And maybe you'd consider that just retribution, if I went as suddenly as I came. Left you two alone with your god again."

Tuco feels a cold shiver going over him, that's got everything to do with the cold air from the freezers and everything also to do with the way Angel can't seem to resist a gamble like this, laying everything on the line for the sake of nothing. It's crazy. His lover should know better. And then a shiver also, for the way his sympathy's not with Blondie anymore; that's a thing that's never happened before.

"It'd be just," Blondie says; and there's all the martyr's sweetness in his voice- okay, so he's lost it too. One of the three of them really needs to talk the others down, and it ought to be him.

Damn it though, he really wants chicken; and the fresh stuff now he's thinking about it, not frozen shrink-wrapped legs. That just won't be the same.

"Okay. Then let's go..."

[drones-of-innocence]

To Tame

It was then that the fox appeared.

"Good morning," said the fox.

"Good morning," the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing.

"I am right here," the voice said, "under the apple tree."

"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at."

"I am a fox," the fox said.

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."

"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince.

But, after some thought, he added:

"What does that mean--'tame'?"

"You do not live here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?"

"I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean--'tame'?"

"Men," said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?"

"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."

"'To establish ties'?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."

-The Little Prince

O~o~O

The plains were mostly quiet, but the wind seemed disturbed. The birds watched as the grass swayed, seeming upset. Indeed, the grass was being shifted as a consequence of an almost silent chase.

A hungry wolf was visible, tearing carelessly through the field for its next victim, and she was willing to do anything to take her prey down. She had pups to feed, after all. A winding trail of uprooted wheat and dug up dirt followed her, evidence of the hard chase through the plain. Only a few tail lengths ahead, darting desperately on, was a small rabbit merely brushing aside the grass as he went. He was a smaller creature, after all, but the wolf hunting him was faster than he’d thought.

Now, such a scrappy little bunny who often challenged wolves would be expected to have been killed already, but this rabbit was quite fast and quite careful. Still, that didn’t mean he wasn’t genuinely terrified for his life.

He panted and cried out when his sprint pained him, but this was a matter of life or death, so he couldn’t slow down. He weaved in complicated patterns, aiming to disorient the wolf and throw her off his tail, but he had one problem.

The wolf had managed to attack him before he ran, so his injured leg hurt terribly and bled while he ran.

It was close, but it was looking like he could make it if his leg didn’t give out. So in a daring move, the rabbit twisted around to shoot straight into the forest, the forest the wolves were too afraid to enter. He was so close, he just had to make it a little further…

Only for his foot to catch sharply on a rock, sending him sprawling and completely exposed in the grass.

He cried out loud, a strained sob of defeat. His eyes started to get misty as he curled up in pain, expecting to be ravaged and torn apart by the wolf right behind him.

After a moment, he opened one eye, and then the other when nothing happened.

The wolf chasing him had run right into another larger wolf, and that one just looked confused.

Panic rising in his throat again, the rabbit watched helplessly as the smaller wolf looked at him, and then at the other wolf, but the communication going on was unclear. Something was being said, some battle was going on between them. The larger wolf looked rather miffed about being knocked over.

The rabbit winced as his leg throbbed with pain, but he had to keep moving. He used his arms as best as he could, trying to drag himself to the cover of the forest. A trail of blood followed him.

“...And all they have are mice! I can’t let an opportunity like this pass!” the rabbit’s ears twitched as he picked up on what the female wolf was saying, and he whimpered when another rock grazed his wound. “I don’t know if they will eat tonight!”

“There have to be other rabbits around where you live. Do you even know where you are?” the male wolf asked in concern. The rabbit accidentally pulled on his ear in trying to shift away faster, and yelped out loud.

He could feel his blood run cold when both wolves glanced at him. But luckily, or maybe unluckily, they didn’t think he would be able to get away and resumed talking.

Eventually, he managed to get to a stump and pull himself up. On his feet, he could at least stand a better chance of getting away, even if he had to rest all his weight on one foot. So he limped along urgently, the forest within his reach if he could just make it-

“Wh-AH!” he let out, just passing the border of the forest and crumpling to the ground. Panting heavily, and covered in a cold sweat, he grit his teeth and started to drag himself to the nearest tree once he could catch his breath.

He got close enough so that he could finally turn himself over and lean back on it, but he struggled to because any movement hurt his leg. I might just have escaped from a swifter death...He thought mournfully, feeling his eyes sting with tears again at the slightest jerk.

Finally, he managed to sit up properly, only to come face-to-face with the big wolf.

He let out a weak cry, and immediately covered his face with his big ears, not noticing the wolf just sitting on the other side of the border and watching him. After a moment, the rabbit heard the rhythmic shifting of grass, and peeked between his ears

The wolf was watching him with big eyes, and his tail was just wagging behind him. He didn’t look aggressive, rather, he resembled the look of a puppy simply wanting to play. “Hello!” he said.

The rabbit squeaked and hid behind his ears again.

Tilting his head, the wolf adjusted how he was sitting and leaned closer. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” he said guiltily, seeming to realise his loud voice startled the rabbit. After a moment, he wrinkled his nose a little bit, and leaned forward some more, sniffing something. He turned his head a little bit, noticing the trail of blood leading to the rabbit, when his eyes finally caught on the large gash on the rabbit’s calf and shin. “Oh! You’re hurt!”

Peeking out once again, the rabbit watched the wolf warily testing the border, eyes and nose fixed on his wound. The wolf shook his head rapidly, as if trying to tear himself away, but perhaps the scent of blood drew him. The rabbit could only watch helplessly as the wolf dared to go further and further, his hands testing the boundary and his nose pointing right at him. Starting to shake, the rabbit couldn’t bring himself to look away from his imminent doom.

The wolf could also smell his fear spike. He looked up while he was crawling closer, slowly and delicately inching towards the rabbit. “Why are you afraid?” he asked curiously, tilting his head. As he got closer and closer to the rabbit, he also got closer and closer to the ground, as if trying to make himself smaller.

The rabbit tried not to sob. With a shaky voice, he replied with “B-because you are a wolf and I am a rabbit.”

Now close enough to reach out and touch him, the wolf remained huddled on the ground, watching the rabbit. He smiled. “You think I’m going to hurt you?”

Almost not able to manage words, the rabbit tried to force back his tears, to hardly any avail. “Wolves eat r-rabbits.” he reminded the wolf quietly.

It finally seemed to make sense to the wolf, for his eyes widened and he appeared to think about it very deeply. “Ohhh.” he said. “You think I’m going to eat you.”

“Y-yes, well, ge-get on with it then!” the rabbit stuttered, feeling horribly frightened and just wanting to get it over with. “If you’re going to eat me, then just kill me already. I can’t very well run away.” he shakily gestured to his injured leg. He suddenly remembered there had been another wolf, but his head felt funny from blood loss, so he couldn’t look around very well.

The wolf caught on. “She’s not here. I talked her out of hunting you.” he said softly. He had shifted close enough that the rabbit could feel his warm breath on his leg, right above the wound. “I won’t...I mean I don’t want to hurt you.”

Speechless, the rabbit started and flinched when the wolf tenderly reached for his injured leg. The wolf carefully watched the rabbit for any more signs of distress as he gently lifted up his leg by his ankle and his knee. Finally, when he had confirmed the rabbit wouldn’t move, he lowered his face and started lapping gingerly at the gash.

The rabbit screamed.

“What are you doing?!” he shrieked. “S-stop, stop, that hurts!” in his panic, he tried to flail, but it didn’t do much because the wolf had a carefully firm grip on his leg. Despite his apparent hysteria, the wolf continued to lick at his wound, gently cleaning it up.

“I’m a wolf.” he said, his tongue red with the rabbit’s blood. “Wolves heal wounds by licking them.” and then he finished up, making the rabbit let out a distressed whimper.

When the wolf backed off, the rabbit lay with misty eyes against the tree, staring aimlessly at the sky. “I don’t understand.” he moaned. “Why won’t you just kill me? Please...Please just kill me.”

His green eyes dazedly flitted back down to the wolf, who was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The wolf then tilted his head, his ears twitching. “I don’t want to kill you.” he seemed confused.

“Th-then what do you want?” the rabbit asked, moving his trembling hands up to his ears to cover part of his face again.

The wolf looked back and around the forest briefly, before hesitantly crawling towards the rabbit again. “Could I have your name?” he asked politely, while coming up close and curiously sniffing at his ears.

The rabbit thought for a moment. He flinched away from the wolf, but was quickly figuring out that the wolf didn’t seem to want to attack him. Watching for a moment, he noticed the wolf closed his eyes with a slight smile when he got close enough to smell the rabbit. “...Arthur.” he said after a moment.

“Hm?” the wolf asked in a seemingly pleasant trance. “Arthur...? My name is...Alfred.”

“Alfred.” Arthur repeated. Then, tentatively, he reached up with a shaking hand, and gently stroked one of Alfred’s ears. “I have never known a wolf’s name before.”

Alfred’s tail wagged in delight. “I have never known a rabbit’s name.” he giggled, leaning in to gently nuzzle one of Arthur’s ears. “I like you, Arthur!”