#also if its longer then expected just say the word and i can shorten it! i tend to ramble in shit that isnt crack-

[plxgue4two]

@demondads liked for a random starter for sir pentious!

Muffled step's gradually get louder, the sound of clunky heels clacking against the pavement get closer and closer until the main door is thrown open in a flourish.

❝ I'm back babies'~ !! ❞

Her spectacle of an entrance receives no response, that or she doesn't stand there waiting for someone to react, confidently walking into the hotel and tossing her shopping bags on the empty couch, seemingly having no care in the world as she slide's over next to the serpentine stranger, with the air of someone who was simply approaching an old friend.

❝ Heyyy there stranger! You must be the new guy I've heard word of. You got a name Casanova? ❞

[chunkymamatam]

Hii Reena here ^^

Thanks again for the reply! I would certainly love to know how to behave in a more masculine way, I think that would certainly help me in my mission! In the case that I do get found out though, I want to know, on your more feminine days, do some people get creepy or weird? I think that's my biggest fear when going to an all boys school :')

Besides that, I came up with more questions! Wanted to ask how the Octavinelle and Scarabia Arc went since you said you already completed them

I assume that most of it was the same, but wanted to know how exactly it went and how the differences were.

My personal favourite Character is Azul, but Jade, Jamil and Kalim are close seconds, so I wanted to know how those Arcs went since they are my favourites :)

Obviously more happened than what was shown in the game, so I would appreciate it if you could tell us a little something about what went on behind the scenes!

Also, a few more specific questions (assuming that the story was similar to the ingame one...): When Ace, Deuce and Grim made a deal with Azul and Jade and Floyd came up to the group, did the interaction go similar to the ingame one? Does Floyd also call you Shrimpy?

Did you immediately agree to help the boys? I mean...it was their own fault lol...

How is Jack? My favourite Savanaclaw student <3

How was working at the lounge like?

Oh and something I've always wondered is how the water-breathing potion tastes like. Is it really that gross? I feel like Azul made it taste bad out of spite.

That brings me to the next point, how is breathing under water like? And what do Jade's and Floyd's real forms look like?

Did Leona also help with the plan? Was it hard to convince him?

What did Azul look like as a kid? I can imagine him being adorable! Also, did he cry? I found it super adorable in the game, but I assume in person it would be much more of a hassle lol.

I saw a few comics about your experiences with Scarabia and I loved them.

How is Jamil? I feel like he would be much more antisocial than ingame...he gives me those vibes.

Special shoutout to Kalim, the ray of sunshine we all love.

Did you escape Scarabia like in the game? What is it like to fly on a carpet lol? And also, did you crash into Octavinelle? I feel like there was some compensation behind the scenes...did he make you work for him?

Okay okay I've noticed that there are a lot of questions so I'll stop here for now. Additionally, if it's too much feel free to skip some or split it up over more posts if that help :)

Thanks in advance! Have a nice day <3

-Reena

Hi again! Sorry it took a little longer than normal. It’s a lot to type and the heat exhaustion hit me like

These tips are gonna be general things that I've observed and heard from trans men, vocal coaches and body language specialists respectively. I'm not an expert and its probably gonna take a bit of practice.

also everything I say as to explain why to do these things isn't to bash men, its all neutral. Men and Women were just raised with different expections and social norms whether people want to admit that or not lol The social context behind the behavior is also important imo

don't be afraid to take up space. Man spreading, wide stances, etc. They were raised and taught the social norm and expectation that they're allowed to take up space with no shame so this is how you're gonna have to naviigate the world too if you wanna pull it off.

Bigger and less words. Men tend to talk less and explain things in bigger words while women tend to explain things in more words (even if we have the vocabulary to shorten it). This is due to the fact they're raised with a "I'm gonna talk how I feel and if you don't understand the language I'm using well then too bad ig" type mentality

They walk like they have something between their legs (cuz they do most of the time lmfao)

Confidence is key honestly. and if they question it gaslight tf out of them

Honestly its mostly just practice. There's more to it vocally but I haven't managed to do that yet so idk how to explain it too well. Its more than deepening your voice tho cuz men do have higher voices sometimes. They speak wider idk how else to explain. It has to do with the way they hold their jaw and move their tongues (Yes they can both affect the way you speak majorly)

Now as for my experience with Octavinelle and Scarabia... Do I hold everything that happened against them? No not at all. Am I still going to heavily fucking bitch about that shit? Absolutely. Lets start with Octavinelle

In my DR is an actual college EVERYONE is 18 and up

Octavinelle

First of we had our first set of finals and the tweels were campaigning Azul's contracts which I expected. What I hadn't expected was for them to start low key stalking me. They approached me one time because I had a bad grade on the pop quiz we had in class that day. Man they’re toweringly tall. They’re not that scary tho. Like intimidating and suspicious sure but like that’s cuz they’re being plotting bastard men lmfao they were like

“I see you’re struggling a bit~”

“We can help you with that~”

“All you need to do is come to our lounge and speak with Azul, he has something that can help”

And I was like “uhm.. no I’m good. I don’t need help and besides. I’ve heard about those deals and I want no part in it.”

And then for the next week up until finals they would watch me. Bro it was so scary just seeing a flash of blue and teeth. I turn around and they’re going around the corner. It definitely wasn’t a coincidence either cuz this wouldn’t just be when I’m going to class. Grim would point them out and start sweating. It was wild 😭

When the time finally comes and the hoard of mfs with anemones start crowding into octavinelle I wanted to mind my business. I checked out what was going on with Jack and then go home and not think about it for a week. Those 3 must do their time. I literally only felt bad for Deuce. I couldn't have it my way tho because of course I couldn't. Crowely comes in and is like,

"Fix this for me. I assume you like the amenities I'm providing.. Housing.. Food.."

So I didn't really have a choice unfortunately. I slept on it and that morning at breakfast the tweels came over and started asking how I was feeling cuz I "Looked extra stressed" and "extra done" with "the anemones." Nah cuz this information is relatively inconsequential cuz Azul was gonna find out anyway so I was like.

"Yeah I have a bitch of a commission from the headmage. So I'll be paying you a visit later at the lounge."

Bruh Floyd was kinda excited in his sly type of way "A visit from shrimpy? That'll be fun"

That was the end of that and I made my way to The Mostro Lounge after classes, ask about talking to Azul and start working a shift while we wait. It was really funny cuz when I'm serving I switch to a customer service voice that sounds significantly different than my normal voice. It almost sounds like Barbie. The way the Tweels, Jack, Ace, Deuce and Grim stopped and stared for a solid 10 seconds cracks me up every time I think about it lol

Eventually I get to go talk to Azul and I sit down in front of his desk. I was like.

"This isn't my usual thing, should I just cut to the chase and say this bluntly or..?"

"My aren't you just straight to business. I like it."

"I guess. This isn't my scene and I'm not exactly here because I want to so I'd just like to get this over with"

"Go on then."

"Sorry. So I'm here because of the whole.. Anemone situation. Is there anyway I could get you to release them from there contracts?"

"Maybe a few.. But all. That's quite the tall order."

"and if it were up to me I would only ask that Ace, Deuce and Grim be released but unfortunately that's not an option at the moment."

"You seem like a relatively reasonable person so I'll cut you a deal" and he explains how the contract works. I get the picture and he lets everyone go.

He asks me if we have a deal and as I open my mouth those 3 fuck heads bust through the door, Jade and Floyd following behind. They start begging and pleading for me to just "sign the contract" and save them. That shit pissed me off because how dare you. I really laid into them I'm ngl. I told them

"You got your damn selves into this situation and if I had half a mind I'd leave you to your contracts. I don’t want to be here and if it were up to me I would leave you here to suffer the consequences of your own actions. So how about instead of begging me to get you out of the hole YOU dug, you take your asses back on the floor and do your damn job that you stupidly signed up for."

Which must’ve been really funny to watch considering Azul, Jade and Floyd were chuckling. After the three were dragged out by the anemones on their heads Azul just starts roasting the fuck out of me with the most matter of fact tone it was genuinely hilarious. He clearly knew nothing about me but like I wasn’t gonna say nothing. He really looked at me and said that a bargaining chip was gonna be tricky because and I quote I’m an “Average student with no exceptional talents” 💀💀💀 did I correct him? No but like damn I think my art is good and according to everyone else I can sing so stfu bitch 😭 Anyway I signed away Ramshackle as collateral because like.. Crowley threatens to take it all the time tf do I care lmfao

I end up sleeping in Savanaclaw for those few nights but whatever. Azul gave me the potion to let me breathe underwater, Thank you oh merciful see witch ig, we try to go to the museum. Now. I’m an epileptic, oxygen deprivation in any capacity is a trigger. I’m not a very fast swimmer and the Tweels are fucking fish. Floyd caught me and the squeeze is basically a choke hold combined with chest compression to stop you from breathing 😭 I had a seizure cuz of it and when I came to him and Jade were mortified, Jack was yelling at them, Deuce and Grim were sobbing, Ace was yelling about how he thought I was joking about having my medical conditions LMFAO

Yeah they generally stopped trying to catch me after that 💀 We ended up using the plan they used in the game and I specifically told Leona “hey, remember how Lilia pushed you into an overblot? If he starts freaking tf out and having a mental breakdown DONT I repeat do NOT start bullying tf out of him.” He didn’t fucking listen to me. Then wanted to look at me like he didn’t know that was gonna happen. Like bitch I warned you tf you looking at me for. In short he tried to snatch my whole like bro 😭 Dealing with over blots is fucking crazy bro cuz they’ll Fr try to kill you and start insulting tf out of you. It was so I’m serious with Azul tho I’m not even gonna lie to you man.

He said “you have no money and you live in a shit hole. Do you know how much money and energy it gonna take to fix that???? And you live there!!”

I said “take that up with Crowley man!” LMFAO

Afterwards he cried and then when he pulled himself together and we went to the museum I had a little heart to heart with him. I let him know that he was worth more than his appearance and more than his money and he should be proud of his accomplishments and his smarts. He said there’s no need to butter him up but like I don’t do that shit I was just being honest with my feelings.

That’s all I really have the energy for. Again I’m sorry it took so long 😭

[wolfeyedwitch]

not to be evil but standing cuffs for celeste

Yes to be evil. You 100% mean to be evil. Don't even try to lie.

Also for @amonthofwhump day 6: stress position

CW for female conditioned vampire whumpee, it as a pronoun, manhandling, stress position (duh, but I figured I'd say it anyway), sadistic whumper, pet whump, multiple whumpers

Masterlist

---

The vampire never knew what to expect when it was dragged to this room. It seemed that every time, its trainer brought something new. 

The only constant was that it would hurt.

The men dragged it in and hauled it to its feet. Its legs quivered under the strain of its own weight, receiving a nasty chuckle from the men in response. 

“Tired already, pet?” came its trainer’s voice. 

Its eyes snapped to the man. Stupid, stupid, stupid, it had been too focused on its escorts to even notice the trainer. It couldn’t afford such mistakes!

Hesitantly, it nodded. It had long since learned not to speak. Words are for humans, not vermin, after all.

The trainer smiled like a shark. “Good.”

It tried to ask with its eyes, hoping he would condescend to explain what he meant.

“Your existence is no longer your own. You’ve begun to accept that, finally.”

“Took it long enough,” one of its escorts muttered. 

The trainer gave him a sharp look before continuing. “Now you must accept that this applies to everything else about you, as well. You no longer set the terms of your un-life. That is for your owner to do. You will do as your owner directs, even if such things seem impossible.”

It didn’t like the sound of that. Fear started prickling along its limbs and gnawing at its empty stomach.

“Hands,” the trainer commanded.

The men restraining the vampire extended its hands towards the trainer. He grabbed something hanging from the ceiling, then fastened what turned out to be manacles—thankfully steel rather than silver—around its wrists. He stepped back. The others followed suit, letting the vampire fall. 

It didn’t make it all the way to the floor. The chains connected to its manacles stopped its collapse, resulting in a harsh yank to its already injured shoulders. The vampire couldn’t hold back a whine at the pain. 

The men only laughed. 

At a nod from the trainer, the chains began shortening. The vampire was dragged upwards by the wrists, and it scrambled to get its feet under itself to decrease the awful strain on its arms. The chains only ceased shortening when the vampire was balancing on its toes, heels hovering off the ground.

The trainer stepped forward again, looking the vampire over as it struggled to remain standing.

“This,” he said, soft and sweet as poisoned honey, “is where you belong. As entertainment for your betters.” He patted its cheek, the touch too hard to be comforting but not quite hard enough to be a slap. 

It was just grateful he wasn’t wearing the silver gloves today.

He stepped back with another sharp-edged smile. “Your task for today is simple: remain silent. If you can manage that? I might consider rewarding you,” he said.

It nodded fervently. It could do that. It would do that.

One of the others held out a leather pouch to the trainer, who accepted it and poured the contents into his hand. They looked like…

Oh, no. Oh no.

If it hadn’t just been told to be silent, it would wail in despair. 

The trainer held up a handful of what might have been jacks, if not for the sharpened points. The metal gleamed unmistakably.

“Silver caltrops. Let no one accuse me of being too soft on the pets I train,” he said with a smirk. “If I were, how would you learn?”

He stepped behind the vampire, and it stiffened as he disappeared from its view. 

The next sound it heard was that of metal against stone. It stiffened; tears pricked in its eyes. 

It could feel the hated heat of silver beneath its feet. 

It struggled to grasp the chains connected to its manacles, to both ease the strain in its shoulders and avoid the caltrops by holding itself up. The men laughed at its display.

“Like I said,” came the trainer’s voice as the man circled back around to face the vampire. “Entertainment.”

---

Taglist:

@kim-poce @cupcakes-and-pain @nonbinary-disaster @onlybadendings @neverthelass @its-mysweetlittlesecret-blog @ghostfacepepper @someonesnamesblog @rainbows-and-whumperflies @extemporary-whump @thecyrulik @myhusbandsasemni @heart4brains @kixngiggles @whumpsday @whumppsychology @elrysdoesstuff @towerlesskey @inkkswhumpandstuff @whumpycries @thingsthatgo-whump-inthenight @haro-whumps @pigeonwhumps @cc1010foxy

[doofnoof]

Hey Bug I read your tag response to the oc post and I have a question you’re not obligated to answer!

Pronouns and gender interest me, especially when people use ones that aren’t the same as/associated with their sex, and I’m curious if there’s a reason why you use both it/its and they/them?

It/its is commonly used to refer to objects, and I’m wondering if you use those pronouns because of that (the association of something outside the binary) or because it’s just gender neutral.

This is very random and I hope I worded it okay :)

I was writing a longer thingie here, but I'm shortening it here because I could talk for Hours about Gender. So. For me, gender was always a prison. I was expected to be a Girl, and as a girl I could really only reach for Second Best most of the time. It sucked.

I finally felt like myself when I made friends (real friends) for the first time in Washington, which was a much more liberal area than where I had been raised. Nobody really bullied me any more, and I finally found someone that made me feel like I didn't have to be afraid to be Myself. Eventually I found out that I liked girls and that it was an okay feeling for someone who was also a girl to have. I made friends with my friend's friends and their younger sibling, who I got along with as a Fellow G1 My Little Pony Fan And Toy Collector.

Something still didn't feel right though. I was finally Myself, but I still woke up every day cursing god that I was a girl and was expected to do and want girl things. It sucked. I didn't wanna be a girl. I didn't wanna be a boy either, I was just trading out glittery pink princess shackles for metallic blue football shackles. Shackles are still Shackles no matter how cool they look, and I'm not one to just go along with what everyone else wants me to do, at the very least I'll fight the whole way.

One day, my friend's younger sibling pipes up in our group chat and says "Hey I'm Nonbinary and use They/Them Pronouns, please call me [Name] instead of [deadname] from here on out." I didn't know what all of these words meant at all. So I messaged them and asked, because what else are ya gonna do?? They filled me in on the whole thing with Gender being a Spectrum, and they were simply choosing No Gender With Left Beef. Once they were done explaining I almost couldn't believe what I'd heard, it was like they'd taken every secret desire in my heart and said "hey this is possible and also super cool and you can do what you want actually." Like it really did just all fit into place for me. A little while later I came out as nonbinary because I didn't wanna steal their thunder but I was 110% ready to be Done with the whole Girl Thing. Didn't decide to go by a different name until I told my mom that I'm nonbinary. She still doesn't get it and won't use the name I've chosen even to this day, but you can't win 'em all, and I'm glad to finally know who I am.

I don't feel a lack of gender though, if anything I feel Almost Too Much Gender. White isn't the absence of color, but it's actually all colors at once. When light shines through a prism, it refracts into a rainbow. That's the closest I can get to explaining my gender. I'm genderfluid, so some days I'm more purple than blue, or more yellow than green, but they're all there in different amounts, you just can't see it unless I shine a light on it, really. They/Them also works because I contain multitudes. It's Great. Gender is a Spectrum and I'm a Rainbow.

Onto the it/it's thing. I've always loved insects and little creatures Too Small and Strange to Put a Gender To, most people can't look at a Roly-Poly and say Oh That's A Girl Insect, they just hold it up on their finger and admire it's cute little antennas. I've Always Fucked Heavily With That. But that's not what fully It/It's'd My Gender. I was at college and having moved to a Much Less Liberal Place Than Washington, there was a group of girls making fun of trans people for Anything They Could Think Of because they're bigoted and slurs are funny or whatever. I mentioned that I'm gay and use they/them pronouns, and cracked a few Tumblr Jokes™ like the good old "I'm about to make your pronouns was/were," and got a few laughs. And then the girl that started this whole mess was uncomfortable that the spotlight wasn't on her anymore and said some unfunny shit like "lol this table's pronouns are it/it's!!! Lmao!!! how ridiculous 😂🤣😂🤣" and I decided then and there that those are gonna be my pronouns. And funny enough, even after I left college, the pronouns stuck, I really like them! They feel comfortable, like the right pronouns for a Bug such as Myself.

My Gender Journey has mostly been stumbling into different Gender Things and trying them on, and if I don't like it then the gender goes back on the rack. If I do I just take it home with me and style it however I please. Gender doesn't have to be a prison!!!! Sometimes it can be your fucking home!!!!!!! It's Great!!!!!!!!

TLDR: friend freed me from gender prison and I found they/them pronouns bc I have lotsa the Gender Fluid in me, someone made fun of it/its pronouns so I decided to make it uncomfortable for them to be transphobic, ended up Liking it/its pronouns.

Can't believe that this is the shortened version of my original post. Thank you for asking Minty!!!!!! This was a fun trip down memory lane :)

[photoniccyclone]

SFR Update - Making progress

Hey ho! In my last update, I told you I had been outlining a big scene that would be the last one big one in the chapter. While I have yet to finish that scene, I made A LOT of progress on it. If this scene were normal-sized, it would've been done already; the issue is it's REALLY CHONKY. It's probably the longest scene this fic has had by far, so it's taking a lot to get done.

Also, thanks to the scene being so long, the chapter has passed the 16k word limit, so I'll have to see what to do about that. I will probably cut some stuff out or split it into two shorter chapters, as it likely won't be long enough to split into two full-sized chapters. But I know of some... "fluff" that I may be able to cut out to shorten the length, so I'll probably try that first. In the situation where that doesn't end up working, y'all might end up with two 11k word chapters or something because the current word count of the whole chapter is around 18k. And to that we can expect maybe 1k, 2k, or more words to be added to finish the current scene, and then perhaps about 1k or 2k words to hopefully cover the following two scenes combined.

But yeah, hopefully, the scene will be done sometime in the next week or two, and then I can speedrun the last two scenes and get this thing ready for editing, which will require some more time but hopefully as not as long as the rough draft (as always).

Also, I will have to change some things from previous chapters that I want you all to be aware of when the chapter gets uploaded. I'll mention it in the author's notes when it comes out, too, and I'll say exactly what's been changed, so you don't need to go back and read.

Here are the things that will be changing (if you haven't caught up on SFR yet, which, at the time of posting, means read chapters 1-6; don't read through these yet as they may contain some spoilers. Again, I'll put something similar explaining what's been changed in the author's notes of chapter 7, so don't worry).

For cannon compliance, Sol Regem no longer burned down Elarion. Instead, he tried to, but Ziard successfully stopped him, as in the show. This was initially in there because I thought that after Ziard blinded Sol Regem, he flew back to Elarion and burned it down. This belief held by many, including me at the time, seems to have stemmed from the Midnight Star poem. This, however, at least as far as we know right now, is false. Sol Regem did not manage to burn down Elarion, and the more likely explanation is that all of its citizens were kicked out in the judgment of the half-moon. I debated for a while on whether or not to change this in the fic because it is an au, so technically, I can keep it in there and just claim it's one of the things that have been changed, but a future scene is going to need the canon version of events anyway so this is going to have to be changed. It shouldn't be too hard to do. It's only been brought up in the fic twice so far, and one of them is just a change from "burned down Elarion" to "tried burning down Elarion," pretty much. The other occurs earlier in the fic in chapter 1 and may be harder to change because it's one of the things that Zym roasts Sol Regem on in a way that's not so easily changed. So I'm either going to have to come up with something else for Zym to roast Sol Regem on as a replacement or try to still work with the original one and just change it so it talks about him for attempting to burn it down rather than burning it down. I don't know how easy or hard that will be; that's also in the future when this chapter is pretty much done. I just wanted to let you know this will be changing.

2. In chapter 4, during Team Rayla's battle at the Earthblood settlement. Multiple injuries reference arrows "lodged" into limbs. The problem is, I recently did some research and figured out that if an arrow gets "lodged" into a limb, that limb is going to be out of commission for quite some time; it will likely not just be an "ouchie" that will cause you some pain for a while as it's kinda been shown in the fic. I never wanted the injuries sustained during that fight to be too debilitating as it would make some future scenes not work. I planned to make the injuries bad enough to lower morale, but not enough to put limbs completely out of commission. So, this is gonna have to be changed. I plan on changing places where an arrow gets "Lodged" into a limb to places where an arrow "grazes" the limb. So, it grazes the limb instead of implanting itself into it, decreasing the severity. Hopefully, this will make what they experience after the fight more believable, and it shouldn't be too hard to change.

That's all for now; hopefully, I'll see you all in the not-too-distant future!

[jotunn-loki]

loki’s experiment

FANDOM: marvel, mcu, loki: agent of asgard PAIRING: fem!loki x fem!reader (x male!loki a bit too) RATING: explicit, NS// FW!! WC: 2,815 WARNINGS/K¡NKS: clones, threesome, masturbation, light dom/sub, a heavy focus on breasts

SUMMARY: Lately, you've been questioning your sexuality, but Loki is there to help you learn more about yourself. And it goes much further than either of your expected.

A/N: for an anon request! note: the above gif is meant to be loki, not reader--reader always looks like you:)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“What’s on your mind, my dear?” asked Loki softly, his hand coming to rest on your shoulder. You leaned into his touch, looking up at him with the hint of a smile on your face. Thoughts were whirling behind your gaze, and Loki could feel them, though he did not dare intrude into your mind.

“I’m just thinking,” you told him, shifting in the chair in which you sat, large and comfortable with a blue tasseled blanket hanging from its tall back.

Loki walked around it and sat on the armrest, his hand falling from your shoulder to your hand and clasping it tightly. “I can see that,” he said, clearly amused. “You’ve been staring at the same page in your novel for the past five minutes. You seem pensive.”

How could he know you as well as you knew yourself? It was eerie on occasion.

You couldn't help but laugh at his concerned gaze, green eyes locked on yours. “Please, tell me,” he said, and you sighed. “I’ve just been…wondering.”

He was silent, waiting for you to continue, thumb rubbing gentle circles into your thenar webspace.

“I just...I feel guilty.” It was true; guilt and something you couldn’t quite place—a mix between thrill and anxiety—gnawed at your gut. “I love you, Loki, but I’ve been feeling a little different lately. Or maybe longer than that...always? I don’t know. I just—I can’t help my thoughts when I’ve seen...well.” You swallowed, looking away from him. Holding his gaze was intoxicating, but it also caused a sliver of fear to jump into your stomach along with the already unfurling other emotions.

But immediately, a hand was on your chin, pulling your gaze back to his as Loki gripped your jaw just firmly enough that you obeyed and yet still gentle. “None of that, my love. You must tell me. There can be no secrets between us.”

You sighed, knowing he was right. “I think I like women. Or at least, I’d like to see if I do. I don’t really know.”

There. It was said. The words had left your lips, and you suddenly felt as if several weighty stones had been lifted from your chest. Breathing came easier.

“Oh, my dear,” Loki said, slinking down into the armchair beside you and forcing you to sit upon his lap. “Why would you be afraid to admit this to me? I love you no matter what. And as you know, I am attracted to all genders. Why would I not accept you?”

“It’s not that,” you said, pursing your lips. “I just thought that it might make things different between us. Because. I don’t know. It’s stupid.” You shut your mouth, unwilling to let your seamless rambling continue.

“It’s not at all stupid,” Loki whispered gently. “I understand. But…” his voice suddenly shifted, slower, heavier. You could already tell what was coming. “I think I can help you. That is, if you want to learn more about yourself.”

“What do you mean?” you asked breathlessly as his arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you closer. You could already feel your core blazing hot, and the lustful gaze emanating from those green eyes certainly did not help. And you already knew what he was proposing.

Loki grinned and his fingers twitched across your spine, sending another flare of heat to your pussy. “Why, I can shapeshift, of course. I’ve been using my male form for the past few years almost exclusively, but I’m ready for a change. So what say you?”

“I say yes,” you murmured, capturing his beautiful lips. They were warm and soft against yours, and as you kissed him, you could feel Loki’s body shifting beneath yours, hard planes of his chest felt through the thin tunic he wore filling out into large breasts and the narrowness of his hips softening to curves. Her stomach changed, as did her hair, lengthening from Loki’s shoulders down to her navel, and her face widening and rounding out. It was beautiful to feel against your body as you kissed her, hips rocking against her gently. “Loki,” you moaned, pulling away.

“Yes, my dear?” Loki asked, and her voice had changed, too. No longer was it the smooth richness you had come to love but something of a different sort, slightly higher, but retaining the signature low rasp she exhibited when you two were alone together. “Do you still want to do this?”

“Yes,” you said, more sure of yourself as the seconds passed.

“Good,” Loki said, harsh. Guttural. Her hands were suddenly at the hems of your clothing, ripping it from your body in a felled swoop. She was just as strong as she was in her male form, you found, and you could see her muscles rippling underneath the tunic. “Clothes,” you whispered, hands running across the seams, and Loki complied, magicking the fabric away.

You could barely breathe at the sight before you. Loki’s breasts were on full display now, perky and round and creamily pale with darkened areola and nipples. Hesitantly, you placed your hands upon them, and Loki pressed into you, moaning softly. “Please, my love,” she panted, bucking her hips against yours where they sat upon her. You felt the fabric of your underwear and hers suddenly melt away leaving you both naked.

It was a very different feeling than Loki in her male form, you realized. There was no hard, obtrusive cock that pressed against you, but there were so many more parts of her body that provided easy handholds for you to move your body against hers, rocking rhythmically as you desperately searched for friction.

“Bed,” you panted, and suddenly you were there, lying side by side on soft, green silk. It wasn’t long before Loki had easily pinned you down, her hair falling around her face and creating a barrier from the outside world as she stared into your eyes. As she leaned forward, you reached up for her breasts again...they were so perfect and soft, and as Loki’s hand reached your cunt, you let out a moan, surprised at the suddenness of it, and giving her breast a squeeze. She groaned and grinded against you, thumb still working miracles at your clit as her index and middle fingers slipped inside of you. The room was silent except for your dual heavy breathing; Loki fucking you with her fingers and playing with herself, your hands on her breasts, and her back arched like a dancer mid-leap.

“My dear, I’m so close,” Loki whispered after a moment, her voice breaking as she whined your name.

You could only let out a sound that was a mix between a moan and a sigh as her fingers curled tightly inside of you, bucking into her lithe hand. “Loki—I—”

You broke as she pressed her thumb tightly to your clit, body spasming and cunt clenching around her digits. “Loki!” you cried, “Oh, fuck—”

She didn’t reply, face tightly wound in concentration, long black hair plastered to the sides of her face with sweat.

Smirking to yourself, you rolled to the side, flipping Loki over so that she lay on her back, gazing up at you, almost surprised. Almost. From this angle, you could more easily administer to her tits, taking a hard nipple in your mouth and pulsing your tongue around it gently. You couldn’t get enough of her breasts, how supple they were, how deliciously large and soft...as your teeth nipped at her gently, Loki came around her fingers, mouth parted with a long sigh, and whined at the pressure of your mouth against her sensitive nipple.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” you heard her murmur once she’d come down from her high. A hand was on your head, stroking your hair gently. “My little darling, your tongue is Valhalla itself.”

“You can’t mean that,” you replied with faint embarrassment at her praise. But Loki only smirked, pursing her lips and raising one perfect eyebrow. “Well?”

“Well…?” you repeated, and Loki’s mouth quirked. You could tell that she was trying not to laugh, but for the life of you, you couldn’t figure out what it was about.

Finally, Loki broke out into a light chuckle, her features shifting, cheekbones becoming more pronounced, jawline straightening, hair shortening. Everything else stayed the same, but her face had returned to the version of Loki that you were used to. The Loki that— oh.

You could be so unaware, sometimes.

“Yes. I suppose I do like girls,” you replied to her unspoken query, laughing along with her.

As you spoke, an idea formulated in your head, a slight whisper of something you hadn’t thought of before. “Loki?” you asked, quiet this time, hesitant to voice your mind.

“Yes?” her replied whisper was equally as quiet, but you could sense excitement buried within the one syllable. Lying in wait.

“What do I look like?” you murmured, caressing her neck with your nose, taking in every bit of her scent. You could already feel heat pooling at your core again, and it was all too easy to hoist yourself on top of Loki, grinding against her hips slowly. “What do I look like, when I’m with you like this?”

You leaned down to kiss her, sighing as she wrapped her hands around your back and guided your hips’ movement. “You’re beautiful, of course,” Loki said when you pulled away, still in that lust-filled rasp that you loved. “I never knew that Midgardians could be so enticing, and yet...here you are.”

You bit your lip at her proclamation, shutting your eyes. “I want to see.” It was almost a whine.

Then, suddenly, Loki’s lips were at your ear, though she hadn’t moved at all from below you. Another Loki was standing behind you, hands on your breasts, flicking at your nipples. Oh, you thought to yourself. Your provocation had worked; Loki had cloned themself.

“Hello, darling,” the Loki behind you purred, his voice much lower than that of the goddess below you. You shivered as a long finger of his trailed from your breast to just under your chin, suddenly jutting it upwards so that you met him eye to eye. He let out a little tsk, accompanied by a smirk. “I heard you wanted to see yourself.”

“I did. I do,” you replied, breathing shallowly. Below you, Loki’s hands wrapped around your thighs possessively, her lip curling. She had a plan, you were sure.

“I can show you,” the male Loki whispered, capturing your lips. It was pure bliss, still grinding against the plushness of female Loki’s skin while her clone fingered your tits with one hand and grasped your jaw in the other. You couldn’t help but moan, eyes fluttering closed.

When you opened them again, you were not in your body, or at least—you could see your entire self clearly from a foot away. “Is this better?” male Loki chuckled, and with a start, you realised that he towered over you and the original Loki, and you could only hear his voice from the ears of your body, your body on the bed, still fully unclothed.

And this you, your consciousness...it was disembodied, floating alongside the large bed, drifting in and out of the silky curtains. You had no sex or race or even gender, no nose or eyes or ears, no sense of identity that was tethered to the physical realm; you existed only in name, by your real body tethered to the world.

Your body, which was currently being preyed upon by the two Lokis. You could feel each caress, each kiss, and it was real, and it was you, but you watched only from a distance. As Lady Loki pressed you downward onto the bed cushion, flipping the two of you over from where you had pinned her down before, Prince Loki strutted around the bed, tutting when you let out a whine. “See how beautiful you are?” he asked, and you saw a smirk slide up his face. He was whispering in your ear, and you heard his voice there, but you could tell he knew that your consciousness was elsewhere.

“See?” he asked again, his voice lower this time, raspier. More dangerous. “Answer me, darling.”

“Yes,” you gasped, unable to say anything else. “I see—”

The words emitted from your mouth, but they seemed so far away. Lady Loki smiled and straddled you, plush lips closing around your left nipple and sucking gently. Your whole body shook; pleasure coursed through you, and Prince Loki, the clone—and yet, still Loki in their entirety—just stood there, watching, cock hard in his trousers and arms crossed with satisfaction. You saw him swallow, shift his weight, but he was the clone. There was nothing he could do aside from Lady Loki’s whims. And right now, she wanted you.

“Oh, my dear,” Loki rasped, staring into the eyes of your body, which was still shaking with pleasure on the pillows. “I just cannot get enough of you.” You saw the redness of her lips, swollen from kissing you, from tending to the aching and sensitivity of your breasts.

Then, Prince Loki was suddenly staring at you, your consciousness that floated within the sheer bed curtains, and you were hurtling through space, enclosed in a tiny scrunched fist. With a slight pop, you found yourself back in your body, Loki pinching at the curves of fat around your hips and stomach, drifting to your ass. “I want to see this up in the air, just for me,” she growled, and pulled herself from you.

A throne suddenly was conjured in thin air; Loki sat upon it, now clothed in a long gown, albeit scantily, for it was a light sheer green with golden shoulder plates as the only part that really hid her skin from view. There were a set of large golden horns upon her head, and a sceptre in her fist. Your mouth watered at the sight.

“Well.” It was a command, and you complied, placing yourself on your hands and knees with ass high up in the air as she requested. You could hear Prince Loki sighing from behind you, the shifting sound of his trousers opening, and felt the harness of his cock against your skin. “Put on a good show,” Loki said from the throne, slouching lower. Her hand had drifted to her sex, and she watched the pair of you intently with lidded eyes, currently adorned with shimmering golden shadow.

Prince Loki slowly slid inside you from behind, and you moaned at the sensation of being filled, wishing only that you could kiss him—or your queen upon the throne—as it happened.

From her throne, Loki chuckled. “I know what you want, darling,” she murmured, and within a second, a third Loki appeared, lying below you, with short cropped hair and fine features. They took ahold of your breasts and pumped them, but before you could respond, a fourth Loki appeared, taking your lips in theirs as they tilted your head upwards to them.

You were filled with sensation, every part of your body attended to by a Loki, hands and lips and cock...and eyes. As Prince Loki thrust into you again and again, making you shake and quiver, Lady Loki’s eyes locked upon yours, and in that moment, she was the only one there. Just Loki and you, enjoying a fun night together. Alone in her bedroom in the palace, exquisite wealth and comfort exuding from every crevice and curve of the entire...everything.

It was enough to make you temporarily black out as you came, violently gasping as you kept your eyes upon her, and a moment later, all the Lokis faded away, and so did her throne. It was just you and her again, lying on the bed. You both were a mess, cum and sweat all over, breathing slowly evening out.

“Well,” you muttered, trying to sound matter of fact. It failed, and you burst out into hysterical, post-pleasured laughter, arms flinging out to the side as you rolled onto your back. “I...didn’t think you’d go that far.”

“I never have, at least not during sex,” Loki admitted, smirking. “How was it?”

It had been fun, you realized, all the stress about your confusing feeling from recent weeks melting away. “I loved it,” you sighed. “And here is what I’ve realized, Loki.”

“What have you realized?” she asked, though from the tease in her tone, you suspect she already knew.

“It doesn’t matter if I’m bi or pan or whatever,” you said after a moment. “I don’t care. I just really fucking love you.”

Loki chuckled. “I’m so glad to hear it, my dear.” She leaned over you and pressed her lips gently to yours, chaste, sweet. “I love you, too.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A/N: requests are open! reblogs & comments are appreciated. as always, I reply from @darkalinas​ :) send an ask to join my taglist!

[dreadwulf]

2: The Black Mountains

Post-Apocalyptic Modern AU. Chapter 1 is here.

The last thing his right eye ever saw was Brienne. 

In that eye she is shouting. Of course he couldn’t hear her at the time over the jeers of the Bloody Mummers tying him to the table. Their laughter had been right up against his ears and the sound of it drowned out everything else in that abandoned mall. The image is soundless: her mouth is just open, her throat pushing out a word that looks like No. Her blue eyes are also open wide, both frightened and angry, a righteous fury that came to him as a surprise, at the time.

She is a still image that resides in the abandoned nerves to that empty eye socket. If he cares to, he can still see her there, superimposed over everything.

She hovers over The Spider’s right shoulder just now. Still saying No.  

He tries to focus on the Spider’s face instead. Varys raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow on his immaculate bald head.

“You can’t shoot anymore. Not like before, not with one eye. You know this.”

“I don’t mean to shoot.” Jaime shows his palms. “I have two hands still. I need a weapon I won’t have to aim.”

Varys measures this statement. He is a man who deals in knowledge more than goods, but he has an armed guard, and a collection of interesting weapons. Both for his own protection, and for use in acquiring the most valuable intel.

“In that case,” the Spider presses a button on the trailer wall. To one of the bikers, a large man with a burnt face who looks in the door in response to his call, he instructs, “bring me the Widow’s Wail.”

The same scarred man reappears with a comically oversized weapon in his hands. Turns out Widow’s Wail is an axe. It is a huge, two-handed, double-bladed axe and when the burnt biker hands it to Jaime his hands dip with the weight.

Axes, Brienne used to tell him, are the best weapon for killing Others. You don’t need to reload an axe. It can’t jam, doesn’t recoil. Simple and effective. 

Messy though, he had said back. He had always preferred his rifle -- clean and fast, one shot and done, and hopefully at a distance. The Others would fall down like carnival targets, one after another, and his favorite jacket would remain spotless. But after they took his eye, he had needed a new weapon, and his jacket was long-ruined by then. 

This is messy work, she had replied.

Now, he lifts the weapon, turns it one way and another. Both edges gleam in the fluorescent light. This axe has been sharpened recently. It is spotless. This weapon has never seen battle.

“It’s new,” Varys fills in immediately, “but it was designed to kill Others. Old valyrian steel, made the old way. We haven’t yet had opportunity to test it, but it will strike true.”

Jaime doesn’t ask how Varys would be able to make a valyrian steel weapon. Knowing how is what he does. 

The Spider watches him curiously. “Are we square then, Slayer?”

“Almost.” He sits again, crosses the long weapon over his lap with both fists grasping it tightly. “Where did it happen?”

“In the North. What exactly happened is unclear even to me, but we know for certain she had traveled north with a small gang. There are reports of her at Winterfell, and then she went with Snow and a small band of Starks beyond the Black Mountains. They returned without her.”

Jaime nods shortly. “Winterfell, then the wilds.”

The Spider frowns. He is perhaps a little perplexed by this conversation, or by Jaime himself. He likes to think he knows people, knows how they will react. But recent years have made a different man of Jaime Lannister. The fall of King’s Landing, his father’s death, the business with Cersei -- after all that, the arrogant and impetuous adventurer of his younger days is long gone. He is a ghost of himself, and the Spider doesn’t know what this ghost will do. He doesn’t like that.

He sits up a little bit straighter on his couch.  “Then it isn’t our local outbreak you intend to fight? I expected you would be nearby. Kill some Others, burn off some steam, and incidentally clear out some of the infestation in the Riverlands, which would be convenient for me. But you aren’t doing that, are you? You mean to follow her? To what purpose?”

Jaime’s eye flickers briefly right. “Hunting.”

“It will be pointless to mount a rescue mission, I assure you.”

“That isn’t the point.”

Their eyes meet for a moment. Jaime isn’t about to elaborate on his intentions, and Varys is visibly frustrated. His silky tones shorten, revealing something sharp beneath. 

“I ought to stop you. You have brought order to the Westerlands, and you’re starting to bring it here too. Alliances, patrols for the roads. Your brother, clever as he is, did not do that. If you abandon these lands, it may all fall apart.”

Jaime feels a flicker of guilt for that, but it is quickly doused by everything else happening inside him. No, this is important. Maybe the most important thing he has ever done.

He shrugs stiffly. “If it falls apart without me, it was too fragile to last.” 

“You’ll need more than an axe and your motorbike to make that journey. You have favors to trade, certainly,” Varys cuts him off before he can argue, “but not that many. The scouting party went beyond the Black Mountains, across them, into the far North. There are few enough waystations on the way to Winterfell, and everything North of Winterfell belongs to the Others. There will be no shelters for you along the way, no refuges, no refueling.”

Jaime is unconcerned. “If she made it there, then I can too.”

“The Blue Angel had a party of supporters, specialists. She would have been outfitted with the best supplies and equipment. She was welcomed everywhere she went, and at the peak of her powers. No offense, Slayer, but you are past your prime, and your powers lately end at the borders of Lannister territory.”

He smiles thinly as he stands. “I didn’t know you cared, Spider. Thanks for the weapon. We’re square.”

Jaime takes the axe outside, and stands staring up at the moon, while the bikers retrieve his motorbike.

Anytime he looks at the moon, anytime there is a moon, he thinks of her. Remembers how they had looked on it together, during those long nights on the road, even though they had parted years ago now. Her on to glory, him back to the arms of his family. They delivered the girls to Winterfell, and he left her to the Kingsroad. It was her territory after that, what once had been his. She had earned it in sweat and tears and blood. She tended it well without him. He had gloried in tales of her exploits.

Whenever he looks at the moon, he has always wondered if she is looking too. Wherever she is.

He thinks he will not be able to look at the moon anymore.

When he turns his head, Varys stands on the steps of his trailer, his bald head gleaming against the fluorescent light. Jaime has never seen him outside his trailer. It’s confusing, a little like seeing a penguin in the jungle.

“The Others of the Black Mountains are different,” The Spider warns him. “Worse.” 

When his bike comes rolling back with two of the Spider’s bikers, it comes with a few more gifts. Two metal spheres, one the size of a softball and the other the size of a chestnut.

Grenades, obviously Old World. Gods know where Varys got them from, certainly they aren’t made this way anymore. What they’re calling grenades now will mostly just make noise. But these two could probably blow a hole in a tank. He packs them onto his bike carefully.

Any old-world weapon would be priceless now, Jaime knows. Varys would not overpay a debt.

He squints up at the Spider, who makes a silky shadow in the doorway against his light. “And the cost?”  

The Spider smiles -- he can’t see it, on a shadow, but he can hear it in his voice. “If you come back, tell me what you saw. I hear very little of the Black Mountains and none of it first-hand.”

Jaime can promise that easily enough. He knows he won’t be coming back.

He walks his bike in silence about a mile up the road before waking the engines and roaring away.

He rides the motorbike until the last of his carefully hoarded gasoline is run out, rides right through the next day and into the night. Gets more miles out of it than he would have gotten with his creaky armored car, and certainly faster. 

Along the way he sees no other travelers. Five years ago there would have been at least a few others, some other vehicles, perhaps spaced out and alone, perhaps all in a big caravan for safety. But there is not much fuel left anymore. And North is not a direction people go in now.

It was how he had met her, actually. On a road much like this one.  He had been on a different motorbike and she had been driving a sedan. Obviously following him, less obvious why. He made it a chase - weaving between the stopped traffic, blasting around the walkers and cyclists and parades of cars going nowhere. She had somehow kept up with him, pushing her poor little car to its limits. Eventually he decided whoever it was had earned his attention for at least a few minutes, and he pulled over on the road to watch the tallest, ugliest woman he had ever seen unfold herself out of her car. 

She kept his attention considerably longer than a few minutes. .

Of course, he could enjoy a chase back then - you could still count on petrol, could siphon it out of most any vehicle you encountered along the way. The cars along the road here are bone dry by now, haven’t moved in years, and the electronics, trunk supplies, and even promising upholstery have been stripped out of them long ago. The cars pass by now in muted streaks of blue and red, dulled by layers of paint-stripping weather damage and snow. 

When his bike sputters to a stop, he leaves it right out on the highway. Packs his equipment onto his back. Then he begins to walk.

Without the headlights of his bike, it’s quite dark. No streetlights, of course. He has a torch in his bag, but he’s saving that battery as long as he can. Anyway, the moon is out, and once his eyes are adjusted he sees well enough. The trees encroaching on the interstate have not quite overtaken the shoulder, and the glow of moon and stars light up the cracked concrete in front of him, and glitter in the frost.

His boots echo his footfalls up and down the highway. First the gritty sound of gravel, and then the crunch of ice, and then the quieter scrunch of snow. 

There are no other sounds to hear out here -- no bird cries, no insects. They aren’t sure if the animals are dead, hiding, or run away, but no one sees them anymore. Means he doesn’t have to worry about being eaten by bears, at least.

The last bear he has seen was that time with Brienne, actually. It might have been the last bear, period. He hasn’t heard of any other ones since. That would be a shame, if that had been the last bear, and they’d killed it. He hadn’t wanted to. He can’t take it personally, the bear trying to eat them. He was only hungry, and they were all very hungry that winter. 

He didn’t know he would be fleeing the last bear in Westeros with her, when he met Brienne on the road. He only knew she was capable, and she was following him, and anyone out in the wilds could be dangerous. Out here other people were either foolishly overconfident, robbers, or competition. 

Brienne proved to be the last type, possibly also the first. She was after the Stark bounty, same as him. She had a personal stake. He could keep the money, she said. He had a lot more experience and knew where he was going, but she could be an ally. She could help.

He had laughed in her face, more or less. Said she was free to make the bounty herself, but he traveled alone. Newbies tended to die almost immediately, and he hadn’t stayed alive this long by babysitting foolish college students. He would locate the missing Stark girls and deliver them home. But if she wanted to return them herself she’d have to beat him there. 

A few weeks later they had wound up with one Stark girl apiece -- him with Sansa and her best girlfriend Jayne, her with Arya and her mate Gendry -- and again she had proposed an alliance for the trip up to Winterfell. No one had made it to Winterfell since the disaster, but their chances were better together, she said.

His better idea was that he could take the two valuable girls to Winterfell and she could take the two spares and go back to King’s Landing where it was safe, or jump in a lake for all he cared. But that conversation had been interrupted by the Bloody Mummers, and after that… things were very different after that.

Jaime slows to a stop with this remembrance, digs in his bag for his water bottle and takes a long pull. He’s tiring faster than he expected. He has tried to keep himself in fighting shape the last few years, but he hasn’t made a journey like this in a long time.

You’ve grown soft, he thinks, but inside his head it sounds like Brienne’s gentle ribbing. The tone she had taken after she stopped insulting him for real.

I’m refined, he answers back, slinging his pack over his shoulder and walking again. Answers between breaths, like he’s actually speaking. I’m a diplomat these days, remember? 

Will you try to negotiate with the Others then? She laughs in his ear. What will you trade them, wine? Broken electronics? The only economy they know is violence, and we trade them blows. 

He smiles to himself, despite everything. Young lady, it’s a good thing you didn’t come back to King’s Landing with me. You would have knocked out the Small Council within a day, and we’d both have been out on our asses.

And King’s Landing would have better off with us in the street than you in that office. We might have saved it. Old man, whatever have you done without me?

Jaime stops a moment, breathing hard, looking up at the moon.

I don’t know. I don’t know what I’ve been doing, where the time went. It all blurred together without you.

He has been having these conversations for years now. It isn’t exactly imagination. More prediction. He knows exactly what she would say in every instance. What she would think of the people he meets, the places he goes. He hears her critiques of his private practice sessions, when he tries to stay in shape for the inevitable invasion. Her quiet, private commentary. Her icy rejoinders to his jokes. They come to him like a reply. Like she has heard him gods-know-how-many miles away, and answered him back. 

It’s painful now, hearing her voice. He doesn’t know why it would be different - alive or dead, he is only talking to himself after all. Perhaps it is only more obviously futile this way, knowing she is gone. 

He was never going to see her again, he knows that. The things she does, they were always eventually going to get her killed. Hells, he told her that himself more than once. 

Even now it still isn’t entirely real to him. It doesn’t seem possible. But the Spider knows things, and if he knows them they aren’t just rumors. It’s true. It’s sinking in. Brienne is gone. 

She doesn’t walk the same world as him anymore. He will hear no more tales of her adventures, and smile privately at the things nobody else knows of her. He will not wonder if it snows where she is, or if the sun shines. Whether she ever thinks of him, the way he does of her. They traveled together only a year, but she carved a place for herself in him, in the slow and brutal way water carves a cliffside. He has kept her there all this time. Now in that space there is emptiness, a brutal, sucking vacuum that might just pull him apart if he stops moving long enough.

So he starts walking again. Keeps walking, on and on, without rest, for as long as he can stand it.

Here and there one of the Others comes onto the road ahead of him. They wander on and off aimlessly, looking lost. At a distance they look nearly alive, so long as they aren’t missing any limbs, and only the directionless of their movements give them away. As you get closer you can see their clothing is wrong -- it’s not enough clothes for the weather, or their clothes are torn, bits are missing. Maybe the clothes are rotting right off their bodies, if they’re been out long enough. Closer still and you can see the blueish tinge to the skin that the Others are famous for, the thin layer of frost that covers them head to toe. At ten feet or so you can make out the ice blue eyes that glow like cat’s eyes in the light. But by then they’ve seen you, and they move much faster than you think they can. Best not to get that close. Best to stay well away, and let them turn and wander in another direction out of sight. 

As always, one wonders what they’re looking for. Where they’re going.

Some of them will wander away before he catches up, and he pays them no mind. If he is quiet, and they didn’t take notice of him, it is easier to let them pass by. Fighting can be loud, and that sort of noise could bring more of them running.

But eventually one is too slow. They can be damaged, and those stumbling steps can be frustratingly deliberate at times. This one is fairly tall, and drags its foot in the snow. On the highway, it reminds him of an elderly driver occupying the fast lane at a crawl. Even as he slows his pace, he gets closer and closer, and the dead thing shows no signs of changing direction.

Eventually he can wait no longer. He will have to overtake the creature. At least he hasn’t seen any other Others nearby. This Other shows no sign of noticing him. Jaime slowly draws the axe off his back, and makes six rapid, long strides in the thing’s direction, winding up for a massive crossways swing.

Varys didn’t lie; the axe cuts true. One good blow across the back is enough to bring it down, and he remembers where to strike. Sever the spinal cord, destroy the brain, or burn them, that destroys them. The axe is so sharp it cuts the thing nearly in half. There is a quick, sharp sound of impact and the thud of a body hitting the ground, and then silence. 

They don’t scream, the others. They don’t make noises of any kind. Maybe because they don’t breathe anymore; who knows. He pulls the axe out of the thing’s bulk and wipes it in the snow. 

The first Other to fall to him in five years that he didn’t hit with his car. It feels good. It doesn’t relieve the great sucking void he has inside him but it does feel good.

He shoulders the axe and keeps walking. After that, he strikes down one of them every few hours, until the sun comes up, and then he huddles on the embankment, dozing, for most of the morning. It’s not so cold he’ll freeze - not yet, anyway - and there aren’t so many Others around that he can’t risk it.

He’s lucky, for the most part. There aren’t any big clusters of Others out here. Those tend to form up around settlements and cities, or lingering around empty houses. Not out here in the open space, where there aren’t travelers anymore. 

He passes the next night in a car, after crawling in a broken window. It’s not especially safer, but it is more comfortable than the ground. He sprawls across the backseat and thinks about the red wood-paneled station wagon he had found buried in a parking lot and managed to start. He and Brienne drove that car all the way to Harrenhall, the now five children sleeping in the back. The seat was so wide even Brienne could lay down in it, and she was inches taller than him. 

This car is blue, and he has to bend his knees and curl up to fit on the seat.

Keep watch for me, Angel, he tells her, before he drifts off.

Days of steady walking pass this way, with fitful bursts of sleep. 

The Black Mountains are looming in the far distance when he nears Winterfell. So tall he can see them all these miles away, staining the low edge of the horizon like a shadow. 

Jaime keeps his eyes on the ground mostly. He’s only been here once, and it wasn’t an enjoyable visit. It was a destination, and it meant the end of a long journey. He’s never much liked those. Endings. He tries to get those over with. If he can help it, he’d rather turn around and begin again right away, try to get back to the middle.

Wintertown is relatively intact, patrolled by fur-clad soldiers with shotguns. The town has grown since he was here last. The streets have people on them now, much more than in Lannisport or anywhere in the Riverlands. No cars, but regular people, old folks and even children, strolling about. He has to stop and stare at that for awhile. Pedestrians. It’s been a long time.

Perhaps things are better in the North? Maybe they are safer than they were. But Wintertown is small, and easily guarded, and in the shadow of the old Winterfell fortress these people know they can flee within its walls and be safe, should the Others attack again. That’s more reassurance than most places have. 

For a little while he walks up and down those streets, just another window-shopper. The buildings are mostly refitted as residences, but on the sidewalks people sell goods out of carts, or spread out on the sidewalk. Wanderers come through and trade the trinkets they’ve found. There aren’t prices. Most likely they will take food, and medicine, and more practical items, in trade. He didn’t bring anything like that, unfortunately. But there isn’t anything he needs here.

At the end of a long boulevard Jaime finds himself before the gates of Winterfell, and he pauses.

This was where he had parted from her. Right here.

He grimaces past that memory. He was an ass about it, of course. Tried to sneak away. She caught him. There was a confrontation. Things were said. 

Things? Brienne-in-his-mind prods him indignantly. Have you forgotten already?

I remember every word. He sighs. Unfortunately.

The gates to Winterfell stand open for now. Probably so that Wintertown can run inside, if someone rings the alarm. Jaime passes through and takes the gravel path to the old castle. It’s a sturdy thing, for being several hundred years old. Solid and undecayed. Sure, they have to replace the wood every few decades, but the stone is thick and unbroken. There are walls behind walls, like any medieval keep, and courtyards and gates separating them. Guards stand atop the fortifications with guns, and they watch him approaching. Wary, but welcoming. Anyone not undead is allowed to pass through, at least to the midden.

The kids are here at Winterfell, probably. Somewhere. Many of them stayed, he has heard. The Starks for sure, and maybe some of the other strays he and Brienne had picked up along the way. Any of the running kids in Wintertown could have been Apple, that baby that Willow and Sansa had fawned over. He would be five, six years old now. That is, if he were alive. 

He doesn’t want to see any of them if he can help it. Best not to go inside the Great Keep then. He goes to the Great Hall instead. The velvet ropes are all taken down. It was a tourist trap for a lot of years, before its fortifications became unexpectedly useful again. Used to be you could get a feast inside, with cosplayers and a jester and a bard, and then you could get back in your car and drive away home. 

Bit different now. The fires are still roaring, but put to more practical use. Broken furniture surrounds the great fireplaces where they have been stripping the upholstery and feeding the fire. Laundry is strung up before them, and boils in great kettles. Nearer to mealtime the laundry will be replaced with soup and stew. The fireplaces in the living quarters had been stripped out long ago, replaced with appliances that no longer work. They have to do nearly everything in the great hall now, and gather in smaller rooms. 

The head washerwoman takes his message back to the living quarters and Jaime sits down to wait. There is an armchair that is strikingly comfortable for as old as it looks, upholstered in a velvety material. It might be some kind of antique, something with a PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH sign on it back when this was a museum. There isn’t much use for antiques anymore. He sits in the chair.

He sits back and stares at nothing for a time. He might have fallen asleep, because the girls appear as if by magic, just as he remembers them but taller and leaner, their chubby faces hollowed by early adulthood. 

Sansa is quite tall, for a Stark anyway. She looks like her mother otherwise; red-haired, high-cheekboned, very pretty. Her sister looks like their father, sturdy and strong-jawed, Northern. They stare at him owlishly, and he wonders what he looks like to them. He is not nearly so changed -- grew a beard, added some lines around his eyes -- but they were children when they saw him last, and they are not children now. He has to look up to see them.

“You came for Brienne,” Arya says abruptly -- as usual she realizes the obvious first and doesn’t hesitate to speak it aloud. 

Jaime nods. There isn’t much more to say than that.

“We had a memorial,” Sansa hovers over him awkwardly, looking unsure. “All of Winterfell came, much of Wintertown as well. We would have waited if we had known you would come.”

“You thought I wouldn’t?” He says it more sharply than he intends.

Arya snaps back. “You’ve been gone a long time, and not a single letter. What else could we think?”

Sansa stops her with a hand to her shoulder. She was always an empathetic child. “You’re welcome here now. Can I get you anything?”

“Your brother. If he’s here.” His eyes drift to Widow’s Wail, where it sits on the floor beside him. “I’ve heard he was there when it happened. I need to hear it from him.”

Sansa leans forward and touches his hands, briefly. “We can take you to him.”

He can only nod. 

He follows the girls through the old fortress into a more modern living area. Home, most like. The Starks have all congregated here, the ones left.

Jon Snow he has never met before. The girls’ half-brother. Lord Snow of Winterfell, now. He stands straight and stiff, trying to look older than he is. He has a warm parka on over his polar fleece, something puffy and filled with down. It’s hard to be serious in a puffy coat without coming off at least faintly ridiculous, but the young man manages it somehow. 

“She was a great help to my family,” Jon says, and shakes his hand vigorously. “A great fighter, the bravest of all of us, and the kindest too. Every one of us here at Winterfell thought very highly of her.”

“And your mission?” Jaime shuts down the reminiscence quickly. He does not want to remember Brienne here. Certainly not with the Starks.

Jon hangs his head. “It wasn’t a complete waste. But it wasn’t quite what we wanted, either.”

He gestures to a sofa. Jaime sits on the edge of it, unwilling to relax. This is rather too much civilization for him right now. Jon sits down expansively on an easy chair, and runs a hand through wild black hair. 

“We were hoping to find something that would explain where the Others come from. We thought the Black Mountains might have the answer, the mountains and the land beyond. It’s hard to find much on the Mountains though -- only one road is passable, everywhere else is ice and deep snow. Beyond the Mountains there is a place they’re calling Craster’s Keep. We knew something was very wrong there. We should have stayed away.” Jon shakes his head, so serious. 

Jaime waits.

“We suspected they were colluding with the Others somehow. The ones on the Mountain. The old man… it was terrible. What he was doing. We had to put a stop to it. Brienne followed one of the men to their meeting place, where the Others come down the Mountain. She never came back.”

That is rather less definitive than Jaime wants to hear. 

“That’s all? Did you search?” he asks sharply.

Jon looks defensive at first, but softens quickly. “I assure you, if there was anything to find, we would have found it. We were very fond of her. There were signs of a battle, and several Others fallen there. But of her there was no sign. There was no body.” Jon looks reluctant to continue. “We did find this.”

Hesitantly, he holds out the wrapped bundle to Jaime. He knows it immediately. Takes it like he took the grenades, carefully and reluctantly.

His hands unwrap the thing before he can think twice, to show himself what he already knows. It’s Brienne’s titanium bat. Bloodstained, dirty, with a single chip in it near the tip. 

They had nicknamed it Oathkeeper, way back then. It was more like a mythical sword than a bat. Titanium bats weren’t even allowed in baseball, in any league. They hit the ball so hard it was dangerous to the other players. They probably shouldn’t have been made in the first place, and they stopped making them decades before the Others came and their true usefulness became apparent. 

Jaime holds the bat. Brienne had carried this thing for so long. He puts his fingers where she would have put hers, the way a player held it  to hit a ball. He can see the mark of her fingers there, slowly rubbed into the metal across the years. 

Jon is still talking. “These Others are different. Our Others will kill and turn. But these... We suspect that they consume the bodies instead of raising them. I think there was nothing remaining to find.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Jaime stands.

“If you will insist…” Jon rises as well, solemn. “My friend Sam stayed behind there. If you reach Craster’s Keep, ask for Sam. He’ll tell you what you need to know.”

*****************  

He passes a night there, lying awake in a bed. 

They gave him her room. A quiet, out-of-the-way guest bedroom with little in the way of modern amenities. It has a homey feeling, just the same. It feels like her.

She left some things there; little knick-knacks. She liked to pick up small things, put them in her pockets. Her coat had loads of pockets hidden everywhere. By the end of the day she would have lots of little treasures. You could turn her upside down and shake her and all sorts of shiny treats would come rolling out. Figurines, stones, tiny toys. They’re arranged all around the room, on the windowsill, on the dresser. Probably if he went through her clothes he would find more things still hidden away in her pockets. The coat, though, that wouldn’t be there in the closet, he knows without looking. She would have it with her, wherever she has gone.

Jaime leaves her things alone. It’s enough to know they’re there, waiting for her. 

Brienne slept in this bed. This is the only home she had, so far as he knows. She stayed here after he left, here at Winterfell. She would have rested here -- she was still a little sick. It had been a few weeks, at least, before she went back to the Kingsroad. After that she came back here between adventures, making the long, dangerous journey there and back again. In the dead of winter she would rest here at least a month, from what he could tell, every year.

He should have stayed with her. 

She never asked him. Not out loud. But he knows, deep down, he would have been welcome. He knew it then, too. But he had left her at Winterfell and gone back. Back to the arms of his family who needed him more than she ever would. Back to his father and his expectations, to his siblings who needed his protection. The job was over, and he went back to where he belonged. 

Not a day has gone by that he doesn’t regret it. 

************************

In the morning he is lacing his new boots in the great hall, a gift from Jon. They are a little large, but warm, and useful for maneuvering on ice. He suspects they had once belonged to Ned Stark; certainly none of the Stark boys have feet this big.

Jon has also given him a down parka like his own. Such a thing would fetch a lot in trade these days, but he insists Jaime take it. “This is the least I can do, for bringing my brother and sisters home.” 

Jaime promises to return it, though he can see that Jon does not expect to see him at Winterfell again. Neither of them do.

His pack has been refilled with food, bandages, antiseptic, and an icepick. Arya had thrust the bag at him wordlessly and turned on her heel and left and he does not see her again. How much and how little people change from when they are small; he can still see the dark-eyed child in the woman she is becoming. It makes him feel positively ancient.

Sansa accompanies him to the gates of Winterfell, gliding elegantly over the snow in her warm winter coat. She chatters as much as she always did, though it was never to him before. She used to keep her distance from him, as she had from most men. She misses Brienne, he realizes, looking at her. She must have been like an older sister, or an aunt, or...

He never did lay eyes on Rickon, did he? He is probably running wild somewhere, running with the wolves. He doesn’t ask, though he suspects Sansa would like him to. Nor does he ask about Willow, or Gendry, or any of the others. He has too much to carry already.

“You’re different,” Sansa tells him, nearing the gates.

“You’re older,” he says. “You see me better.”

“Maybe.” The auburn beauty frowns. “Do you think she’s still alive out there?”

He doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want to see the concern on her face, not if it’s for him.

“Do you think Brienne would want you to do this? Go after her like this?”

No. “That won’t stop me.” 

“She would want you to go on with your life.”

“I don’t care.” He can’t quite look at Sansa. He couldn’t look at Arya either. They remind him of too much. 

“Why did you never come back? She waited for you. She was still waiting.”

He shuts his eyes against her. “Don’t tell me that. Don’t. Not now.”

Sansa sniffles, and her voice trembles. “I’m so sorry. You were both so good to us. I’m so sorry,” she repeats, and tries to put her arms around him, but he’s already walking away.

He’s going through the gates of Winterfell, straight down the boulevard of Wintertown.

He doesn’t stop. He turns to the Black Mountains, and keeps walking.

[skyeventide]

my trsb fic has so many notes to the text that they didn’t fit within the ao3 notes’ section character limit lmao, so here is the lengthier version of it. you can consider it a teaser I guess? but either way, I need some place to store these and link them back in the fic.

contents here, cut for length

on the matter of the mother of Gil-Galad

Celebrimbor’s names

shibbolething all over Thauron’s name

actual quotes and canon

On the matter of the mother of Gil-Galad

Meril-i-Turinqi is a Book of Lost Tales character, lady of Tol Eressea, kin of In(g)we but also similar to the Solosimpi, which is to say the Teleri.

The character of "Meril" on the other hand, is a proto-Amarie, Finrod's love interest. In the early draft of Meril's appearance, Finrod is married and is father of Gil-Galad: this draft is obviously discarded and Finrod becomes childless, while Meril transforms into Amarie, who does not join the exile. Gil-Galad is instead transferred to Orodreth, which iirc is Tolkien's last word on the matter (I don't count the Fingon thing as even canon-adjacent, ChrisT was quite clear in admitting the mistake). Now I recall Orodreth is said to be married to a Sinda; why did I discard that? Cause I initally forgot it. Rip to me and Orodreth.

However, what I had was: a proto-Amarie, who is a Vanya, and a BoLT character who is of the family of Ingwe (so a Vanya), but also like the Teleri (so of the third clan, even though not a Sinda). And so Meril-proto-Amarie became Meril-i-Turinqi, wife of Orodreth.

The full headcanon on Meril here would have her as daughter of a Vanya who is kin of Ingwe and of Telerin nobility (or royalty? they're all big on intermarrying between royal families), which fulfills both sides of the coin and also stays true to the statement that Elenwe is the sole full-Vanya to join the exile (I'm gonna assume this excludes any non-royalty followers). Now regarding the parentage of Orodreth, he is here son of Angrod, as I feel that is a better option in almost all respects. This poses some issues with regard to age, as I recall Orodreth-son-of-Angrod and Idril as being named the only two non-adults to do the journey to ME (again... this surely excludes any non-royalty youngsters, but nonetheless). Obviously these issues grow even further if one also includes the matter of Celebrimbor being Aman-born to a wife who doesn't follow Curufin (and therefore the matter of his age at the time of exile), but reconciling these versions is borderline impossible with how the origins of Celebrimbor keep changing throughout the conception of the legendarium.

Long story short, I up the age of Orodreth to be at least old enough to speak softly with Finarfin (here his grandfather) during the flight of the Noldor, but I have him already married though childless. Finduilas is born early into the exile and Gil-Galad is her younger brother.

Meril returns to Aman at the end of the First Age and rules Tol Eressea for the exiles who are stuck there until the Ban is fully lifted.

Celebrimbor's names

FN = father-name, MN = mother-name

I do not claim to have come up with "Tyelperinquar is an epesse", that headcanon, which nonetheless I'm sure happened separately for other people, is one I first read in a fic by Tyelperintal on AO3. That of course means that I could no longer go with the FN Curufinwe MN Tyelperinquar option, and needed another mother-name, which I also borrowed from the same story, and went for Ilvanon, "the perfect". It's pretty, and also speaks of a mix of high expectations and love.

What in this story made me accept the epesse headcanon is the matter of the origin of "T(y)elperinquar" as a name. Vinyar Tengwar (and most recently also NoME) explains how "silver fist" is a name common among the Teleri, famous for their ability to smith silver even among the Noldor, and it is also mentioned how other similar names, such as Tegilbor "calligrapher", are given to people based on their skill. This, however, directly contradicts the fact that elves don't give the same name to more than one person. That statement is problematic in itself (impossible that all elves across all time are aware of all names that ever have been used -- and also of course there's the usual royalty exceptions, that however may well be exceptions because they are royalty), but if it is a common name among the Teleri and we are to keep the duplicate names lore in mind... my only solution is that it's a coveted epesse, given to the very skilled.

Celebrimbor picks it as his chosen and preferred name over FN, already shared by two people and preferred as chosen name by his father, and the potential arrogance of picking his MN with its meaning.

This still led me to problems of both spelling and language choices.

As far as spelling goes, there's several variations. I'm marking with * the one that is not canonically attested, but can be inferred.

Pure Telerin: Telperimpar

Quenya-Telerin compound that maintains the Telerin spelling of silver: Telperinquar

As above, but shortened: Telpinquar

Pure Quenya: *Tyelperinquar

Pure Quenya, shortened: Tyelpinquar

I use all these except the last one at various stages: I decided (though I go back and forth on this) that his household might have used pure Quenya, and his mother sticks to it; the person in Tirion panicks and uses the shortened version Telpinquar, which together with Telperinquar (Telerin spelling maintained) was more common among the Noldor. The Tirion passage exemplifies the uses and applications of these names, how they were given and altered.

This leads me to problems of language and POV, Celebrimbor vs Tyelperinquar. His mother, in her POV, always uses the latter, but Celebrimbor himself uses the former. The true problem here was adapting my feeling that Celebrimbor would be far more used to thinking of himself as Celebrimbor (as opposed to the Quenya name) vs Tolkien's statement that elves do not use names in another language when speaking in X language. This doesn't stay wholly true through the legendarium and the texts, so it's something I've decided to partially ignore when it comes to POV, though I tend to stick to it in first person dialogue. Something that again I try to tackle in the text itself -- when Galadriel tells Celebrimbor which language to speak and which name to use for her.

I am not entirely satisfied with all my choices here and I might revisit them in the future, but for the moment, here we go.

Shibbolething all over Thauron's name

Another language and spelling headache. As I encountered the problem of Sauron, I encountered that of the spelling of his name: the eternal TH/S issue. Were I to have Celebrimbor's mother, and Celebrimbor himself, stick to the Shibboleth? I initially attempted to circumvent this by using Gorthaur, but the issue described just above, about mixing languages, yet again bit me in the ass.

Of course it comes down to characterisation: would Mrs Curufin stick to the Shibboleth, and would Celebrimbor? The matter with Celebrimbor was that I don't believe he spoke Quenya with any real frequency after the Nargothrond business, not as a choice but rather due to circumstances and preferences of those around him. With Ercasse, the conflict is part of the character, and that sadly meant that the TH/S choice became less of a personal choice and more of a political one, as usual.

That got me thinking about the circumstances around her and something interesting came to me: Finarfin spoke Quenya with the Shibboleth, because of the Teleri. And in the Darkening he becomes king in Tirion, and also has to adjust things with the Teleri -- not an easy task, imo, when he turns back only after the pronunciation of the Doom, and not just after the kinslaying occurred. Additionally, the Vanyar spoke preserving TH. Additionally x2, by the Fourth Age, Exilic Quenya (which uses S) is associated with those who rebelled and returned to Aman -- meanwhile any Sindar preserved TH naturally, as it's a sound that never went out of use in Sindarin.

So I chose to take these things and make something of it. If Finarfin maintains TH to keep the Telerin influence; if the Noldor who remain in Aman decide to step closer to the Vanyar in an anti-rebellion reactionary manner and to conform to the speech of the king; if Exilic Quenya gains the lower status of language of the exiles; and considering the canon fact that in later ages the elves are more likely to preserve language rather than change it -- what are our chances that Shibbolething gains opposite connotations as time passes? My conclusion was high chances. So I decided to implement it.

And so Ercasse doesn't have to think about her personal allegiances anymore and has a path built in for herself in these social changes. And Sauron is Thauron. (Unless Galadriel is talking: she doesn't Shibboleth, and uses “Sauron” and “Sindarin”.)

Quotes and canon

Many things I wrote are based on canon snippets. Here I tried to collect them.

On Celebrimbor and the mention of the bath of flames in his speech. It isn't, in fact, a corny lineage reference, but rather a metaphysical or pseudo-physical concept of purification from the Lost Tales:

Yet now the prayers of [their parents] came even to Manwe [the highest Valar], and the Gods had mercy on their unhappy fate, so that those twain Turin and Nienori entered into ... the bath of flame... and so were all their sorrows and stains washed away, and they dwelt as shining Valar among the blessed ones, and now the love of that brother and sister is very fair;

On the naming of Mithril (appears in the upcoming Nature of Middle Earth, as well as already published in Vinyar Tengwar):

[Celebrimbor] was a great silver-smith, and went to Eregion attracted by the rumours of the marvellous metal found in Moria, Moria-silver, to which he gave the name mithril.

On Celebrimbor's ambition and assorted choices, from Letter 131: 

In the first we see a sort of second fall or at least ‘error’ of the Elves. There was nothing wrong essentially in their lingering against counsel, still sadly with the mortal lands of their old heroic deeds. But they wanted to have their cake without eating it. They wanted the peace and bliss and perfect memory of ‘The West’, and yet to remain on the ordinary earth where their prestige as the highest people, above wild Elves, dwarves, and Men, was greater than at the bottom of the hierarchy of Valinor. They thus became obsessed with 'fading’, the mode in which the changes of time (the law of the world under the sun) was perceived by them. They became sad, and their art (shall we say) antiquarian, and their efforts all really a kind of embalming – even though they also retained the old motive of their kind, the adornment of earth, and the healing of its hurts. […] But many of me Elves listened to Sauron. He was still fair in that early time, and his motives and those of the Elves seemed to go partly together: the healing of the desolate lands. Sauron found their weak point in suggesting that, helping one another, they could make Western Middle-earth as beautiful as Valinor. It was really a veiled attack on the gods, an incitement to try and make a separate independent paradise.

Legolas and Aragorn and my choice to use the word love:

"[...]Yet whatever is still to do, I hope to have a part in it, for the honour of the folk of the Lonely Mountain." "And I for the folk of the Great Wood," said Legolas, "and for the love of the Lord of the White Tree [Aragorn]."

Celebrimbor and the Elessar. It must be noted that this Celebrimbor is not Celebrimbor son of Curufin, but I still liked the tidbit of lore. From there my choice to have three different Elessar stones, one made by Feanor, one by Enerdhil of Gondolin, one by Celebrimbor (in the fic redressed to Celebrimbor son of Curufin, and without the romantic love for Galadriel):

But he did not say to Galadriel that he himself was of Gondolin long ago. Therefore he took thought, and began a long delicate labour, and so for Galadriel he made the greatest of his works (save the Three Rings only).And it is said that more subtle and clear was the green gem that he made than that of Enerdhil, but yet its light had less power. For whereas that of Enerdhil was lit by the Sun in its youth, already many years had passed ere Celebrimbor began his work, and nowhere in Middle-earth was the light as clear as it had been, for though Morgoth had been thrust out into the Void and could not enter again, his far shadow lay upon it.Radiant nonetheless was the Elessar of Celebrimbor; and he set it within a great brooch of silver in the likeness of an eagle rising upon outspread wings.

On the vale and the stream where Formenos is located, I utilised this passage from Lost Tales:

[...] here the entire people of the Noldoli are ordered to leave Kor for the rugged dale northwards where the stream Híri plunged underground, and the command to do so seems to have been less a punishment meted out to them by Manwe than a pre-caution and a safeguard. In connection with the place of the banishment of the Noldoli, here called Sirnúmen ('Western Stream') [...]

Relevant LotR quotes about the Eregion passages, used for soil description extrapolations and other elements:

Suddenly Gimli, who had pressed on ahead, called back to them. He was standing on a knoll and pointing to the right. Hurrying up they saw below them a deep and narrow channel. It was empty and silent, and hardly a trickle of water flowed among the brown and redstained stones of its bed; but on the near side there was a path, much broken and decayed, that wound its way among the ruined walls and paving-stones of an ancient highroad. ‘Ah! Here it is at last!’ said Gandalf. ‘This is where the stream ran: Sirannon, the Gate-stream, they used to call it. But what has happened to the water, I cannot guess; it used to be swift and noisy. Come! We must hurry on. We are late.’ [...] "...there is a wholesome air about Hollin. Much evil must befall a country before it wholly forgets the elves, if once they dwelt there." "That is true", said Legolas. "But the Elves of this land were of a race strange to us of the silvan folk, and the trees and the grass do not now remember them: Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone. They are gone. They sought the Havens long ago."

More TBA if anything comes to mind.

[dilucids]

Childe oneshot; Blinded dreams

001. angst && death/mentions of death.

summary; you don't know who childe thinks of when he calls you, but you know it's not the you you wish you were.

( i feel bad for ditching y'all for this long so have one of my drafted oneshots originally written for wattpad, && if the reach on this is good, i'll let you guys have more [teehee] )

You met during summer.

And despite the sun blaring down, sending harsh rays to melt the skin right off your flesh, you did not know if the reason you were red faced was because of said sun, or because there was a pretty boy ( one of the prettiest, mind you ) that lived right next to you and he was currently hanging on the fence, waving at you with a smile on his face.

"Heya, (name)!" The way he says your name is breathtaking, almost as if it lived on the tip of his tongue yet he seemed foreign to it, as if he had not uttered the syllables in many years. Like a flower blossoming over the years, finally pulled out premature by small, fat fingers belonging to a mere child who wanted to see the flower in bloom. ( You forget you have never seen this child before. ) The flower is ruined however, its fragile petals fall into their palm and they shrug, as if they hadn't taken a life and move onto the next one, repeating the process. ( How does he know your name again? )

He peers at you ( it's similar to the way you would look at an old friend or the way your mother looks when you're going to family reunions and she has the bittersweet revelation that her father is still dead, ) and you blink, head rolling to the side, holding the bouquet of freshly picked dead flowers close to your chest, "How'd you know my name?"

His jaw slacks for just a second before his smile is back on his face, pulling himself up and flinging himself over the fence, landing right in front of you and causing you to take a tiny step back, "magic?" He tests the answer and shakes his head to revoke it when you furrow your eyebrows, not appreciating the joke. "Your mum was talking to mine," he speaks the truth when your face is unchanging to his plain joke.

You hum, and then walk back to the flower bed that was left behind by the previous family, and continue snapping stems off as collecting them in a heap next to you. The ginger boy follows you, although he doesn't sit down like you do but squats, hands close to his chest and watches as you pluck the flowers straight out of the earth. Although he followed you, he seemed more interested in the dead flowers, staring at one until you ripped it out the earth and then moved onto the next one.

He reaches out for a flower but you stop him, holding his fingers in yours and shaking your head when he looks over at you, questioning. "Thorns." An understanding breath escapes him as he continues watching you instead, your fingers dig against the dirt slightly, pushing it away before gripping the stem with your pointer and thumb before tugging ( there are many times when the force causes you to fall backwards slightly sometimes but it doesn't stop you. )

"Ajax!" You both hear coming from the boy's, probably Ajax, garden and you peer over him to when he suddenly stands up, going to jump back over the fence.

You test the name in your head a few times before your mouth follows, "Ajax," you stumbled a little but he turns around anyways, humming with a smile on his face, "I'll bring you a proper flower one day."

He nods and then disappears over the fence. You hear scoldings from his mother but tune them out. ( You didn't like the way his name felt new on your tongue, it didn't match the way he called you. )

You begged your mother to buy purple carnation seeds later that day.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

You are ten and 'Ajax' still sounds weird to you but you persevere.

It doesn't sound weird when your mother is the one calling him, asking him if he had enough pillows to be laying on your bedroom floor and he nods, leaning against the frame on your bed as you both bid goodnight and your mother nods, closing the door behind her. Almost immediately after the door clicks close, Ajax leans back onto your bed, making you quirk an eyebrow. "I can only sleep with two pillows."

You peer down at the head of his makeshift bed, at the foot of the closet next to your bed. There was only one pillow, you sigh and drop the pillow onto the floor. You don't wait until he says anything and slip into your own bed, pulling the cover over yourself, facing the wall rather than Ajax.

( You dream that night.

You dream of a world where man had the powers of Gods and Gods walked amongst men. Where the world was shaped by years of wars and work, where statues of Seven Gods were erected upon the land, granting peace and protection for people and animals alike.

You are sat around a marble circular table, the smell of food and tea hitting your nose. You peer up, there's a man sat a little across from you, clad in colours of cor lapis. His amber eyes hold no emotion, a diamond of memories steeping in his eyes as he brings up the cup to his lips and sips behind the hand he also brings up. His form is nothing less than godly and he sets the cup down without a sound━━━━ like a warrior. His shoulders roll down like waterfalls cascading from mountains, his hair is pulled back and bangs freely fall like leaves of a tree and you can see the scenery of Liyue in his very soul.

You don't know his name but it slips off your tongue perfectly, "Zhongli, where is Hu tao?"

(( Who is Hu Tao? ))

"The Director will be late, she is dealing with," he clears his throat in a way that lets you know his following words are a lie, "other troubling matters within the funeral parlor."

You nod, although you have no idea what he is talking about. "Do you know how late she will be?" You inquire, watching his eyebrows furrow and fingers flex, linen gloves pressing against his fingers as he does so.

You see Morax in him for a little while before his thinking subsides and he presses his lips into a line, "The Director did not state how long she will be."

You hum with nothing else to say and begin bringing your attention to the food that was beginning to grow cold on the table, "help yourself please," you signal Zhongli to the food and before he speaks, an amusing smile breaks out on your face, "I will be taking care of the bill."

His troubles subsides and he follows your words, grabbing the chopsticks by his ceramic plate. You two fall into a comforting silence, which is a peculiar yet nice feeling. Rather than a business meeting, it feels more like two old friends meeting up for a small chat.

A while passes with no sign of Hu Tao and you see Zhongli peer up from his food, eyes tracking another entity who had walked into the building, so you throw your head back a little.

"Childe." The boy looks eyes with you and a smile breaks out on his face when he sees you, the waves in his eyes crashing against the shore as his eyes crease. (( Childe? That was Ajax. ))

And you wake up to the sea washing up on shore eyes gazing down at you. )

━━━━━━━━━━━━

You are twelve, two years have passed and the dream you had stayed with you like a distant memory. Ajax's name still doesn't sound nice when you speak it and you feel like you're ruining it so you settled on a nickname, Aj. ( Only two letters, how could you make them sound wrong? )

"Aj," you call out the boy, whose smile widens when he sees you. Two syllables, but that's how you know him. He dismisses himself from the bind of conversation of two girls, who seemed pretty interested in him ( as a man ) and you knew that for sure because when you stepped your foot into their conversation, they glared at you slightly before stomping away.

The walk home was slightly awkward. For you anyways, because there were words that were burning at the tip of your tongue and sometimes letting lava erupt was a bad idea but leaving it to build up is also a bad idea.

"You okay?" Ajax almost gives you a 'go', peering up at you slightly ( you were taller than him, a feat you were quite proud of ).

You clear your throat slightly, starting off cautiously, "remember when we first met?"

And you don't know what you had expected because a stupid smile lights up on his face and he answers straightly, "no."

( Your poor two years of taking care of purple carnations, down the drain for a boy like this. )

━━━━━━━━━━━━

You are fifteen, stood in front of Ajax, holding a bouquet of purple carnations and a box of assorted chocolates behind your back. Sweat collects in the palms of your hand and you know it's not from the heat, you wipe both palms on the side of your sweater, watching him talk to his friends to give yourself a little more time for confidence before walking over there.

But the time shortens when his friend notices you, pointing out your figure to Ajax and he turns to you, a whole 180 degrees with his entire body and waves at you with his entire arm, you wave back with a shaky smile on your face when he begins to run your way after bidding his goodbyes to his friends.

He skids to a stop when in front of you, and can obviously see the flowers you were attempting to hide because a sly smile perks itself on his face. ( You would never admit to it, but he looked really good when he was smiling. )

"What are you hiding?" He hums, leaning down slightly with his hands behind his back as he attempts to see, you turn away, hiding the gifts for a little while longer. "Hold still," you press him down with one hand on his shoulder, stopping him and he straightens his back, humming.

"Listen," you take a deep breath because it's inescapable for you to not ramble this out, "we've been friends for a really long time, yeah? And I know this is really weird and out of the blue but I really like you and I'm sorry if I'm ruining our friendship but I've weighed the pros and cons of not having you as a friend and as someone I walk past in hallways and glance away awkwardly at, and the cons actually outweigh the pros but I really don't know if I can keep these feelings to myself because you're the only re━━"

A hand on your head stops you from talking anymore ( he's taller than you now, taller than most your peers actually ) and his smile is still there, "you're not breathing dear."

You don't realise he's called you 'dear', you feel like he's always been calling you that so it skips past your mind, and you take a deep breath. Presenting the gifts from behind you, Ajax stares at you with little expression on his face.

"I love you, Childe."

( Who is Childe? Why did he come to your mind now and why is Ajax tearing up?

There were many questions that entered your mind then, but they were all quickly forgotten when Ajax pushes your gifts aside, placing both hands on either side of your cheek and quite literally pulling you up to his height, pressing his lips against yours. You're both deaf to the sounds of whoops, whistles, and claps by his friends in the background as your arms circle his waist and his tears enters your kiss. )

━━━━━━━━━━━━

You are nineteen, and the way Ajax calls you is deafening to your heart.

"(name)," he breaths, in an indescribable way as if to say 'my (name)' and it should give you butterflies but the way he looked at you made you feel as though you were a soul trapped in the wrong body. He was giving you everything you had ever wanted in a way you had never wished.

You should stop him, because he's not in love with you. He's in love with the person he sees in you, but who is that person? Why do they mean so much to him? Can't he forget them? Why do you remind him of them? Is he stupid?

And most importantly, why the hell isn't he letting you go? You've died already━━━━ even if he still retains all his past memories, does he even know how unfair his gaze is? The way he says your name? It makes you want to wake from your grave, located near Liyue ( because though Childe was from Snezhnaya, you lived and loved near the peaks of Liyue and qingxin flowers were made to bloom above your resting place, delicately and preciously ).

The way his breath was hitting your bare skin, his cold lips were barely touching your burning flesh, the goddamn way he was muttering your name under his breath and you think you've finally snapped but you come completely undone when he stops, glancing back up at you with his eyes.

( Memories wash over you in an instant, the years you spent with him in Liyue, even if he was a Fatui Harbinger and Zhongli advised you, albeit indirectly, not to get involved with them and Xiao, not so indirectly, with a scowl on his face and then the memory of him taking your life in Liyue, with a single arrow through your chest and the last thing you see is the tsunami of emotions in his eyes and Xiao pulling him off of you. You've lived for so long, through so many lives and yet he is the only one who could completely tear you apart and make you lose all reason. )

"I love you, Childe, but please," the way you call his name makes his heart ache, in ways it has never before. "Let me go." And you wash away from his shore like a fleeting memory.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Childe wakes up with his back sore and face cold due to leaning against your gravestone, he takes one hand to run through his hair, the other is placed above the grass where your body was buried and he peers down, grass entangled in his fingers, stabbing through the thin fabric of his glove like your hair did.

"Childe," he knows it's not you behind him, because you don't sound like a man nor a God and the way you called his name is more endearing, as if you were speaking a poem of two lovers but he turns anyways, and in his heart he hopes it's you.

But it's not, it's the Adeptus who held you close to his heart. Xiao's and Childe's relationship has never been good, simply because; a) their personalities clashed and b) they were on opposing sides but after your death, an unexplainable hatred grew in Xiao's heart for him.

( In Xiao's mind, Childe was the one who cared for his job more than you and heeded orders to end your life. ) Childe cracks a smile on his face, waving Xiao off before he says anything and pushes himself off your grave, "you don't need to say anything, I'm going," he says in a playful tone, as if he were leaving a party.

Xiao's eyebrows furrow, lips curling into a snarl when Childe walks past him, "despicable," he spits. ( But if Childe had asked you to, you would've taken your own life. )

[dinner-djarin]

dar'manda (Mando x f!reader)

Chapter 2: A Valuable Friend

Summary: After surviving the Empires attack on Nevarro, you reluctantly go back to your monotonous life. But when the Mandalorian returns, you find yourself in a new position you never would have expected: his friend.

Warnings: Me making shit up about Mandalorian culture whoops, alcohol consumption & getting sick (reader gets drunk), some self-deprecation on the part of the reader, vague talks about having children, mature language (real life and starwars),

Word Count: ~6.5k

Notes: (more at the end for important note on one line in the fic)

Previous - Next

No. NO?!

How and why would you -

Did you really -

You really kriffed up that one.

Not only was that the single most embarrassing moment of your life, but you also just blew your first real chance at escaping this prison sentence of a planet.

Ever since you arrived on Nevarro you’ve wanted to leave. It was something of an accident, ever ending up here in the first place.

After the death of your mother, you were effectively an orphan, although old enough to care for yourself. In fact, you had already been caring for yourself and your sickly mother ever since your older sister left to fight in the rebellion. You always admired her bravery, her passion to do good in a galaxy that had treated her so poorly. You only wished you had half of her sense of purpose. So, when your mother finally passed, you decided you needed a change. You needed to find your purpose. You had nothing and no one to hold you back, so why not search for it in every remote corner of the newly liberated galaxy?

After gathering your dwindling stash of credits, you caught a ride to every backwater skughole you could find, just for a change of scenery. Along the way you learned that being a young – relatively attractive – humanoid had its fair share of advantages. It wasn’t long until you picked up certain…skill sets…to help you survive. But you didn’t get very far. You somehow ended up on Nevarro with little to no credits remaining. Meaning you were stuck in the same position you had been desperate to leave behind in the first place – broke and alone. You figured you could pick up a job to save up, but it barely paid enough to get by. You were stranded.

But suddenly the perfect opportunity to get away from it all had landed in your lap. In a moment you were granted the perfect opportunity to flee this hell hole and never look back. But in that same moment your incredible ability to self-sabotage just couldn’t be contained.

You had no kriffing clue why he would ask you – someone he barely knew – to join him on his new adventure, but nevertheless he did. Had you really proven yourself that trustworthy, or was he just able to see that you were evidently no threat to him? But why even ask you in the first place? How could he know of your deep desires to traverse the galaxy?

You were baffled. So much so that in that overwhelming moment your confused consciousness decided to betray you. What in the outer rim could possess you to say no. To travel the galaxy with a Mandalorian, The Mandalorian that you couldn’t get out of your head.

He said join him. But now you realize he probably just meant like for a little while, until their next stop. Right? But your flustered idiotic brain had to go and overthink it. In your panicked state you started to imagine what it would be like to travel with the Mandalorian and his child. To see the galaxy, as you always dreamed, at the side of a man who could protect you from anything. There would be no safer companion, but maybe that's just it. You’d been crushing on him so hard that being stuck in confined quarters with him might not be the best scenario. There’s no way you could force yourself to act normal for that long. And that must have been the thought racing through your head at light speed when you choked out the words you may now live to regret.

~

A week later you decide its probably time to get over him. Your crush over Mando has only caused you pain and put you in unbearably uncomfortable situations. You’d be much better off forgetting about him and moving on with your life. Besides, you don’t even really know him. You’ve probably spent a collective hour or so with him, maybe a bit longer if you add up all of the small conversations you held whenever he bought supplies from you.

It’s not even a real crush, just some lustful wishing. Do you secretly wish he’d take you out behind the cantina and fuck you into the next millennia? Yes. Would you let him do absolutely anything he wanted to you... probably? But is that very realistic? What is all of that really based on anyway? A suit of armour. His hypermasculine gait. The intensity behind his unflinching helmet. Nothing really about him. You don’t know his name, or his age. What he even looks like, but you bet it wouldn’t matter. No-

You need to stop those thoughts if you’re ever going to get past this. You. Do not. Know him. Therefore, there is no logical reason you should have any emotions invested in him. And that’s that. The plain and simple truth. It just doesn’t make any sense. So, you need to stop. Take control of your horny ass brain and stop thinking about him.

And just then – as if the Maker himself planned it – the Mandalorian walked by your booth. The sight of his broad shoulders almost erases all thoughts of letting go of your feelings. But just then you notice something. Something in the way he’s moving through the bazaar. It strikes you as odd, almost as if he were stalking prey. He’s hunting, you think. He scans over the area, but a little too erratically for someone of his status. You thought he’d be more elegant, sticking to the shadows until the right moment. Invisible. Deadly. However, here he is frantic. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he was afraid.

You don't know how one of the most frightening beings in the galaxy can become a beacon of panic and worry, but there he was. Suddenly, he spots you and makes his way over in several large strides, making quick work to shorten the previously large gap between you.

“Have you seen him?” he barks forcefully.

“Who?” you ask, immediately catching the worriy in his tone.

“The child, my-”

“You lost your kid?!” Your worst suspicions confirmed before he even finishes his sentence.

“I didn’t - I thought he’d be safer with me than on the ship. I looked away for one second-” and then you hear it. His fear finally pried its way into his voice and cracked it. If you didn’t know better, you’d say he may be on the verge of tears.

“Hey it’s okay,” you place a hand just below his pauldron, grabbing his warm, thick bicep. If the situation had been different you might have let yourself think about the fact that only a slip of fabric separated you from him. That only millimetres below was a man of flesh and blood, not of cold hard metal. “I’ll help you find him,” his tension melting away slightly at your words and your touch, so you continue. “You take this side of the market and I'll look over there,” you insist, hoping that giving him some sort of tactical plan might spring him back into bounty hunter mode and away from panicked Dad.

“Thank you,” he stops, and stares at you. “I’m sorry I never asked…”

But you finish his thought, and finally tell him your name. You can’t believe after all that has happened, all the times he came to your vendor, your dumb ass never told him your name. But he nods and returns quickly to his search for the kid.

You turn on the spot and sweep the area with your gaze. In that moment you think back to when you were small. You loved to hide. You were amazing at it. So good, that your father once looked for you for over an hour and the only way to lure you out was with the promise of your favourite Alderaanian sweets. You use that memory and thought where you might have hidden. The market is buzzing and booming, much livelier now that the Imps were gone, and amongst all the chaos it would be natural for a child to feed off the wild energy. You begin peering under other merchant tables, behind walls and crates, when you stumble across a vase. Oddly out of place, but the perfect size for a little green monster to hide. You lean closer and hear a distinct coo as you tilt the lid back. Those giant black orbs staring back at you fill you with relief. You scoop up the child as you wonder how the hell he would have even got in there in the first place, never mind how he then placed the lid back on top.

You move quickly to find his flustered father, hoping to give him that same sense of relief you just experienced. When you do find him, he meets your gaze and moves quickly towards you. So quick it's unbelievable. One minute he was across the bazaar, the next he was scooping the baby up from your arms.

“Don’t ever do that again kid. You had me worried sick.” the child’s mischievous grin suddenly disappeared at this scolding and he became quiet in his father’s arms. “I better let Cara and Karga know. I was with them when he went missing and they also went looking for him.”

“Tell them to meet us in the cantina, I think you could use a drink… or at least a minute to unwind,” you silently curse yourself for being such an idiot. Offering a Mandalorian a drink might be the most oblivious and inconsiderate gesture you could make. In your shameful silence you watch Mando place the child in a floating orb. You recognize it as the same one that trailed him into town on the day everything went down.

“Don't you have to go back to work?” Mando questions, kindly skipping over your foolish comment.

“It was a slow day, and the sun is almost down, which means I’m almost off anyway. I don’t think my boss will miss me. But I mean, if you prefer to be alone I-”

“No, please come” He interrupts. “Without you I may have lost him for good.”

“I seriously doubt that Mando. I don’t know if you know this, but you are a bounty hunter.”

And then he chuckles. Like an actual laugh. Quick, quiet, and modulated, but still there. You think about memorizing the gorgeous sound, which also makes you wonder how often that happens. When was the last time he actually laughed? And what it would take to make him truly laugh? Loudly and unabashedly. You wonder what circumstance would allow him to fully let his walls down around you. How you would fall apart at the sound of his full tenor. Finally, you make a mental note to scold yourself later for these thoughts.

As the three of you make your way to the cantina you decidedly lag one step behind the Mandalorian, walking right next to the floating orb that contains the child, just to make sure the kid doesn’t pull anything before you can get there. You’re shocked at how Mando can be so trusting of this little menace so soon, letting the orb follow him without keeping an eye directly on the kid. It’s starting to make more sense how he might have gotten lost in the first place.

When you finally reach the cantina Cara and Karga are already set down at a table with possibly the largest bottle of spotchka you’ve ever seen sitting centre of the table. You take the seat next to Cara, while Mando places himself directly across from you, next to Karga.

“So, we have you to thank for the capture of this bounty huh?” Karga somewhat insensitively jests as he glances over to the child. In fact, you think you see Mando stiffen at these words. The last time you were all together was in service of protecting the child from the people who put a bounty on him in the first place.

“She’s truly a wonder.” Cara says in an attempt to lighten the mood. “I mean how’d you find the little bugger?”

“Truthfully? It sounds kind of odd, but I put myself in his position. I just thought about what I would have done when I was a child” You answer back to her, a little embarrassed at your confession. “I remembered how I liked to hide when I was that age. I figured he’d probably be wanting to have some fun. Of course, he couldn’t know that hiding in the middle of a crowd was only fun for him.” You continue as you look down into your hands, slightly lost in your thought, “Kids are often like that, giving us grief for their own enjoyment. But it really is a wonder. They seem to have an ability to find joy in the most desolate of places. They still see magic in the galaxy; they still believe in the impossible.” A subtle comfort fills your chest, and you smile as you remember your time spent with children back on your home planet. Time spent with your younger brother. You glance up at the child in his crib, “They have natural curiosity for the world around them. An endless hope for what the galaxy could be.” When you finish you look back to the group at the table, only to see the shared glances of amusement between Cara and Karga at your naïve outlook. You felt a little embarrassed at their reaction, but it didn’t last.

A droid disrupts the uncomfortable silence by approaching your table with 2 extra glasses, obviously unaware of the fact Mando would not be joining in the drinking. Good to know your common sense was on the level of a bartender droid.

You however were unsure of what to do. It wasn’t that you were necessarily opposed to the beverage now being offered to you by Karga, but this didn’t seem like the right time to indulge. You had probably already embarrassed yourself enough in front of this particular group for one night. So, when the child began to stir in his crib you took it as an opportunity to forgo the beverage and focus on him. With your arms reached out towards the child, you suddenly think to get the consent of his guardian. You look up at the Mandalorian and smile when you receive a silent nod from him. After grabbing the child and setting him in your lap, you hope that you had successfully removed yourself from the attention of the others.

“You like kids then?” Cara pries at your thoughts, trying to continue your previous chain of conversation.

“Well, I haven’t really been around them in a while, not since being home. There were always so many children in my village, and they were always so filled with wonder. It made me see the world a little brighter.” You finish, hoping the conversation ends there.

“Ever think you’ll have your own?” She continues, obviously seeing the gleam in your eye as you speak.

You laugh at this question but honestly you hadn’t really thought of it. You’ve never been able to picture a future like that. Husband. Kids. Home. It had been too long since you had any feeling of security to hope for that type of life. You'd pretty much spent more of your life alone than with your family, to the point where you don't even know what it’s really supposed to look like.

When you don’t give her an answer past laughter, Cara switches her attention to the Mandalorian, “How ‘bout you Mando, ever thought you’d end up with a kid of your own?” and you turn back to the baby, hoping that you had finally left the center of the conversation.

It seems to work as you overhear the members of your table switch their topic to the criminals that still plague Nevarro, and the recent advances ‘Marshall Dune’ has made in her efforts to clean the town.

Tuning them out, you begin to play with the child, making faces and babbling along to his adorable coos. The child becomes fascinated by the idea of hiding your face behind your hands, only to suddenly reappear seconds later, and he tries to pry your hands away every time. After popping your face out for the tenth time the child begins to reach for your face again, but this time grabbing your nose, and you can’t help but giggle at his precious three-fingered grip. However, when his tiny hand slips to your cheek, a sudden wave of emotions rips over you, and you feel overwhelmed by a grief you haven’t felt in years. Your eyes tear up, and you remember flashes of a memory you’ve worked hard to repress. Standing in a dark closet huddling tight to your brother and sister. Then, the loudest sound you’ve ever heard fills your ears and-

“Kid!” Mando bellows and removes the child from your grip. You turn away from the table and look up at the Mandalorian, cheeks drenched by your tears and barely able to breathe. He sets the child in his pram, and crouches in front of you. “Hey, it’s okay just breathe, slowly, breathe. You’re okay, you’re safe,” he reminds you, holding your knees. It takes a few moments for you to catch your breath, but in those moments, you stare through the visor, past your own reflection, and focus on the eyes that you knew were staring back at you.

“What… was that” You finally manage to choke out.

“The kid, he must have done something to you. He’s got these powers-”

“He made me remember?” You blurt in disbelief.

“Umm, I’m not sure. Maybe. The people he belongs to, the Jedi, they are sorcerers.”

“So, whatever he just did to me… that’s what that woman, the other Mandalorian, was talking about?” You ask.

“Yes, whatever he just did, and more,” Mando adds

“More than that?”

“So far, a lot more.”

You finally snap back to reality, remembering that there are other people present, so you turn to give them a reassuring nod.

“How ‘bout that drink?” Karga asks in an attempt to lighten the mood, and you shoot back the beverage quickly, attempting to wipe the resurfaced memory from existence.

~

After the first round of spotchka had been downed, Cara and Karga made their way to the bar for more drinks, leaving you and the Mandalorian alone.

“So… you’re stuck with him, huh?” you ask, feeling quite light-headed from the drinks, any filter you previously possessed had now dissipated.

“Well, I wouldn’t say stuck,” Mando states sitting up straight.

“You don’t think you bit off a little more than you can chew? He seems like quite the handful.”

“He’s a good kid.” Mando snaps shortly, making you finally realize he has become defensive from your words.

“Oh. No, I just meant, kids are already a lot of work, I can’t imagine the magic powers make it any easier,” you joke, trying to diffuse your mistake with a small chuckle.

“No, I can’t say they do. Although without him or his powers I’d be dead.” Mando says blankly, as if his words were common knowledge to you.

“Wait, what?” You ask in shock, wondering if in your current state you forgot about some lifesaving event that took place previously.

“Yah, so would Karga.” He glances over at the pair at the bar, and you follow with your eyes. “Saved me from a mudhorn the first day we met. Healed the poison in Karga’s arm when he was attacked by a reptavian.”

“Wow,” you say quietly to yourself, “Look at you go kid. You’re pretty dang special.” You say towards the child, sticking your tongue out and successfully getting the kid to giggle at you.

“Yah he is.” The Mandalorian says quietly, almost a whisper to himself, and with a lightness that makes it sound like he might be smiling.

“So, will you raise him to be Mandalorian as well?” You wonder aloud, taking a swig from your drink, as if you needed to increase your level of inebriation.

“Not necessarily. Although I’ve adopted him as my founding, he belongs with the sorcerer group called the Jedi. My goal is to reunite him with them, but until then, technically yes.”

“Does that mean anyone can be Mandalorian, if they get adopted by one?”

“Yes. But they may not need to be adopted. If someone was old enough, they could simply train under another Mandalorian, and then swear an oath to the Creed once that training is done.” And although you want to know more about how he grew up, some grain of restraint is planted in your brain, thankfully stopping you from prying into his private life. Instead, your interest in the Creed is piqued, and you decide to follow that train of thought instead.

“And is that a difficult process then? I mean, not just anyone would be able to pass it, right?” And even though warning signs were flashing in your brain, telling you not to risk disrespecting the secrecy of the Creed, the Mandalorian responds. He continues to tell you intimate details of his training process, specifically towards the fighting corps, including how his adoptive siblings and he were forced to spar with each other, often walking away with several harsh wounds. He tells you about how he studied the language as much as he could, as it was rarely used, but still sacred among his people. How he had an affinity for languages, and how he specifically enjoyed the simplicity and poetic nature of Mando’a. He tells you of grueling trials, times where he thought he wasn’t going to make it. But he also explains how his low moments lead him to find the strength to persevere.

The whole time he spoke, you stared at him with glimmering eyes. You hung onto every word. Even through the modulator you could hear the care and restrained excitement in his voice,. You could tell just how important this culture was to him, how he cared deeply for the history and sanctity of his people and Creed. And as he spoke with such tenderness, you felt yourself become entranced with his words. As he detailed the responsibilities and dedication to his covert - how important his training had been - you felt something within your heart, a longing sentimentality. His words describing a life you wish you had known. A sense of purpose and duty. A greater cause to fight for. A chosen family with a common mindset. A place in the galaxy.

These were things you had dreamed about for your entire existence. Every day that passed felt meaningless and draining, knowing that you were doing nothing of importance. The life Mando described to you sounded like heaven. The idea of having something to fight for filled your entire body with electricity. You couldn’t help but stare at him with wonder as he detailed to you a life you had always wanted.

“Dank ferric.” He grumbles. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said all that.” Mando says, snapping back from the trance he had found himself in.

“Oh gods, no that’s my fault I shouldn’t have pried.” You try to apologize. “I’ll forget everything you said.” Although you don’t truly know if you had a choice. You think you might never be free from the wishful idea of belonging that had latched onto something deep within you.

“Oh, I don’t mean that I shouldn’t have told you. I trust you won’t do any harm with that information.” He says with a nod towards you and you can’t help but blush at his compliment. Being trusted by Mando might be the highest honour he could give. “I just shouldn’t have gone on so long. I apologize for taking up your time.”

“Mando, you don’t have to apologize for speaking.” You joke, although simultaneoausly noticing the way Mando had stiffened at your words, you continue, “At least not to me,” you say reaching out across the table to grab the Mandalorians hand, a gesture that your sober self would never have had the courage to do. “You obviously care about your heritage, and rightfully so. It sounds magnificent. You should be able to be proud of it.”

“I don’t usually have that privilege. Many people would take advantage of such knowledge.”

“Well, you deserve to have the freedom to talk about something you care about,” you say as you bring your other hand across the table and give a caring squeeze to his hand, “And I swear, the only exploitation you’ll get from me is my claim to babysit your little womp rat whenever you come to town.” you say retracting your hands away from Mando and instead making grabby hands toward the child.

“Well, I don’t know anyone better suited to the job. It would be unwise to deny you that wish, especially now that you have intel on me.”

“Was that a joke, and a complement? From a Mandalorian?” you scoff, “Wow. I never thought I’d live to see it.”

“Does that mean I have to kill you now?” he shifts to the edge of his seat and leans towards you.

“Oh, I’d like to see you try, bucket head.” you tease, knowing full well he could kill you in an instant without even trying. Regardless, you shift forward and cross your arms on the table, challenging him with the mirrored motion.

The two of you stare at each other in silence, your mouth creeping into a mischievous smile. You wonder what might be going through his mind, as all you can think about is the idea of him pinning you to the ground in a millisecond, and just when you think he will break, a voice brings your attention away.

“I think we gotta call it,” Cara says, a little too loudly for her close proximity to your ear. You wince at the intrusion, cursing the fact that you won't get to know how your challenge ended.

“I should be on my way then” the Mandalorian states, “Although I’m still missing some supplies-”

“Lemme grab them for you.” You insist, “I can meet you back at your ship in 30 minutes. Got a list?”

The Mandalorian lists off a handful of items, and you instantly know you have them all in stock. You give him a nod and stand from your booth. “See you in a few.” You say with a wink that you instantly regret the minute you turn your back.

~

“How long do you think you’ll be gone for?” You question Mando as you approach him with the crateful of supplies he requested.

“Not really sure. If I get any leads on the Jedi, I have to follow them up. Of course, Nevarro is always a safe place to refuel and restock.”

“So, you’ll be back as long as you need shit from me?” you startle yourself with your choice of language, remembering the several shots of spotchka you just downed and how your tongue might be a little looser.

“Not just you.” The Mandalorian states rather quickly, in a tone you’d almost label as flustered. “I can’t get fuel from you,” he continues much more coolly.

“Mhhhm, right. That is true. But no other reason.”

“Another reason for what?”

“For you to come back. Here. I mean you’ve got friends here-”

“I don’t really have friends.”

“Well, that mighta hurt my feelings if I knew you a bit better, but I’m certain Cara and Karga would feel a bit under appreciated. Especially after everything that happened…” You trail off.

“They are much more business partners then friends,” you squint your eyes and raise your brow at him with those words, making him corrects himself, “But sure. If you want to classify them as friends, then yes.”

After a brief silence you somewhat bravely somewhat stupidly ask, “And me?” Eyes wide and hopeful, sober-you would be ashamed. Taking a step towards him you muster up even more courage, “Would I be classified as a friend too?”

“Yes. A valuable one,” He states stepping towards you as well, “One who could teach me something about caring for a child.”

“Oh, no. I know nothing about that. I guess I’m just good at relating to them. Maybe I’m still young at heart” you tease. Something about the Mandalorian tells you he’s got a lot of years behind him, a lot of...experience. You don’t have much evidence to back it up, more of a vibe really.

After another small silence the Mandalorian speaks. “I guess it’s nice to have friendly faces around, for the child's sake. Perhaps I should make it a habit to return until he’s been united with his people”

“And what about you? You don’t go crazy having no one to talk to but the kid?”

“Not much of a talker”

“Except for tonight.”

“Fair.” He bluntly states. “It doesn’t seem too difficult to get information out of you”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“You seem to like to talk, is all”

“Well, it’s been a while since I've been in good company. To be honest I think I talked more tonight than in the past several years''

“I can agree with that.”

“We make a good pair then. Two people who don’t talk yet can’t shut up around each other” And at this point you don’t even know what you’re saying. The proximity to the Mandalorian and the alcohol in your blood are mixing at a dangerous level, making you blurt out things you’re sure you’d never have the courage to say.

In the silence that followed, you are eager to find something to fill it. You think back to how he talked of his upbringing, the joy you felt in his voice. It reminded you of the last time you could remember feeling that way.

“You know, the way you spoke of sparing with your siblings, it reminded me of my childhood.” You say, eager to find something to fill the silence. Normally you don’t mind quiet but drunk you has decided otherwise. “When I was very young my siblings and I would fight constantly, always in good nature of course. We wanted to win the affection of our parents, although they would have loved us either way. But they would cheer us on. They always encouraged our fighting, telling us we would be stronger for it when we were grown.

“When they watched us, they looked so in love, so proud. My mother would turn to my father and say ‘we raised warriors’. It was like they knew things would turn bad. I mean of course there were wars, and the Empire was a constant threat, but somehow, they were always prepared for the worst. Like they were ready for a fight that might never come.”

The Mandalorian stood silently, and it seemed your attempt to relate to him failed spectacularly. However, for a moment, you thought you caught the subtle tilt of his visor. Like he was examining you, maybe unsure of what to make of your lengthy anecdote.

“That does resemble my upbringing.” He spoke softly, finally filling the conversational void. “Quite a lot, actually.” But then silence returned. A buzzing filled your ears from the complete lack of auditory stimulation. You felt yourself becoming unsteady, like the force of the silence was pushing you off balance. You now realized the total effects of your inebriation were hitting you. “Were you-” but before Mando could finish his thought, your stomach forced its contents out violently, and you were lucky enough to find the sense to turn away from him, and rush towards a near alleyway, just in time.

As your body rid itself of the liquid poison, you couldn’t help but let multiple tears spill out of your eyes, unsure if it was from the force of the projectile, or the complete embarrassment.

“Oh, dear gods,” you finally croak as you regain your bearings on the spinning world around you. “I am so sorry, Mando. That was so kriffing embarrassing.” You try to cover your face, as you sweep your tears from your cheeks. But Mando already made his way over to you, crouching to meet you on the ground, grabbing your hands in his and placing a canteen in them instead.

“Drink. It’ll help.” He says in a soft hushed tone. You aren’t even sure where he got the canteen from, maybe it just happened to be near at the time, or he went back up to the ship in the time you were hurling… “Drink.” He repeats, interrupting your train of thought.

You unflask it with shaky hands and take a large swig, immediately feeling some relief from the burning sensation in your throat. “You need food as well.” He adds simply, grabbing your arms and heaving your dead weight off the ground as if it were nothing to him. After helping back to standing position, he turned toward his ship and made his way to the ramp. Before ascending, he turned back to you and finished his original thought, “Let’s see what rations you gathered for me. Come on.”

So, you make your way over to the ship, which is a task in itself as your legs felt as though they might give out at any moment.

“Wow,” you say in astonishment. You’d never seen a true cruiser like this. Any inter-planet hopper you’d taken to make your way to Nevarro had always been either completely basic and Imperial made, or a complete hunk of junk. And although you had nothing really to base it on, this ship was leagues ahead of anything you had experienced before. To think he got to spend all his time travelling the galaxy in a ship like this, all on his own. That was true adventure.

And you knew from the carbon scoring on the exterior that he had actually seen it. Excitement, danger, freedom. But the inside of this ship told a more complex story. You think that before it would have been simple. A weapons locker, a tiny sleeping quarter, a refresher, and not much else. The bare necessities for a man always in motion. No home. No attachments. But what you figured must have been new additions showed glimpses of a different man. A tiny hammock over the sleeping area, a small padded seat lifted to meet the height of a protruding shelf that almost resembled a dinner table, and what looked like makeshift toys strewn across the hull. All signs of another lifeform making itself comfortable on his ship and in his life.

“Here.” the Mandalorian grunted, breaking you from your daze, as he held out a ration stick to you. “Are you alright?”

“Well, I don’t feel as… vomitty, as before.” You start, now staring at the man in front of you, right where you figure - where you’re almost certain - his eyes are meeting yours. You think of his willingness to take care of you, twice tonight. Nothing added up. He was a complete mystery. Just when you thought you had him pinned, everything was suddenly flipped.

“That’s good, you just look a little out-of-it.” He said as he placed a hand on your shoulder, probably trying to steady you from whatever state you were in.

“Oh no, I’m just admiring the place.” You say, breaking eye contact to scan over the area again, taking in new details as you did so.

“Ha ha.” he says dryly, retracting his hand from you.

“No, I’m serious,” you reply sternly, offended that he would think so little of his own ship. “I’ve never seen anything like this, except for maybe in my dreams. I can’t imagine getting to fly in this every day. Or, oh maker! You get to see the stars in hyperspace, that was my favourite part! I only got to travel through hyperspace once. And, dank ferric, it was spectacular. Every other damn transport was sublight, not fun. Very slow, but generally cheaper, I guess. I’d kill to get to see that again” You could feel the excitement within you reach your face. A giant grin bursting out of you when you could no longer contain the joy within.

“Where were you travelling?” He questioned after examining your elation, and you could hear the genuine nature of his question, like he actually cared. Most people had never taken this much interest in your past.

“Oh, really anywhere I could. I just wanted to get away from, well, everything. My family, the war, my whole life. I tried to start over, but I didn’t get very far. Got stranded here, and I could never find the means to continue my journey.”

“Your journey?” He prompted, trying his best to stifle the laugh that followed.

“Yah okay that sounds a little ridiculous, but really I was just trying to find some excitement, something different. Just trying to find… something. It sounds dumb, I know, but I was so sick of my life, so when I had the opportunity to go, I went. I went everywhere I could afford, until I could barely afford food. So, I worked at that vendor for scraps until I saved enough to keep going, but I guess I never saved enough.”

“So, you’re still looking?’

“Huh?”

“You said you were looking to find something, but it doesn’t sound like you found it.”

“No. I haven’t. Not that I even know what I was looking for. But it seemed like one of those ‘you’ll know when you know’ things”

“Well, what if someone could take you away from Nevarro?” he questioned.

“Wouldn’t happen. I’ve got barely enough credits to buy bantha crap.”

“What if that person didn’t need credits, just company.”

The statement threw you. Suddenly you weren’t sure what Mando truly knew about your reputation. “Uhhh what kinda company, because I really don’t-”

“A friend.” He paused, making you wonder why he would propose such an idea, “A valuable one.”

And only then did the wires connect in your still-woozy brain. He was asking you to join him. Again. But this time as a friend. Someone he knew and trusted. Someone who he felt comfortable enough with to talk about his Creed with. And suddenly your heart stopped beating.

You could not – for the love of the Maker – mess this up again. But maybe you should make sure.

“Me?” you say while lazily pointing towards yourself for further clarification. “Mando are you asking me to join you two?”

“Maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for.” He says before making his way back out of the hull to finish packing the remnants of the supplies, apparently making the decision for you, as you definitely gave no answer. But it was the answer you wanted. A way out. An escape. And for kriffing sake, free.

As you stood, dumbstruck and alone, in the hull, you wondered just what it might be like. Getting to see some danger up close and personal. To see treacherous planets one week, then beautiful landscapes the next.

When Mando returned to the hull with the last of the supplies, only two words could escape your mouth, quieter and softer than you may have ever spoken before. “Thank you.”

Chapter 3

☆ I appreciate every like and comment so much, thank you all! And if you’d like to be added to the tag list let me know ☆

Taglist: @peppywitch @tobealostwanderer @thecraftyartist @ajeff855 @greatcircle79

Notes: In this chapter I say that the reader is “relatively attractive”. I’m not trying to single anyone out here or make you feel like you can’t be the reader if you don’t view yourself as attractive (because we are all fucking gorgeous anyway fuck societal norms). What I really mean to say is that like being a human looking person makes the reader more attractive than some alien-being might be (like weird alien species that would make up the general population of the more ‘outer rim’ planets she might be on). I was just trying to emphasize that she would be viewed as rare since young female humans wouldn’t normally populate those types of planets. Also, because the reader being female and kinda youngish will play a role later as I kinda touch on the dangers of the bounty hunter life and how the reader needs to navigate it.

[lostbbygorl]

LOOK WHAT THE RAIN HAS BROUGHT (LEVI X F!READER):

AU: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE BY JANE AUSTEN

~~~~

The dark gray clouds that hung in the sky perfectly described the mood of the young woman who ran as fast as she could, hot tears streaming down her rosy cheeks, and feet aching out of exhaustion. But no matter, she still ran with her burgundy dress so soaked she was positive it even reached her corset. The rainfall grew heavier and heavier by the second.

At last, Y/N reached the pillars in the vast garden that offered her some shelter. Her back hit the walls with an inaudible thud, and she shut her puffy eyes and felt pure misery as well as icy rain.

Her head hurt and her mind raced with depressing thought after depressing thought after depressing thought… and then anger!

Levi Ackerman was behind her dearest sister, Christa’s, unhappiness!

Christa had previously been madly in love with Ackerman’s bestest friend, Erwin. The entire family was expecting a proposal when Erwin explained his departure from Trost in a letter which broke Christa’s heart. Christa was still mourning over the man as he had left so suddenly and with barely any explanation. Seeing Christa so broken had dampened Y/N’s mood as well, and now that she found out that the man she most hated was behind this outrage, she wanted to burn all his miserable property to the ground!

Speak of the devil.

Just as the rainfall had gotten calmer, Y/N noticed a figure dressed in an expensive black suit approach her. Even in the pouring rain Y/N could make out the expressionless, solemn, infuriatingly handsome face of Levi Ackerman: one of the richest but also one of the most arrogant, rude, and unfriendly men to walk on earth.

Levi’s usually neat hair was tousled by the raindrops, and his usually spotless attire was spoiled by the mud he was trudging on to reach Y/N. Still, the young woman jumped slightly at the intrusion of a deeply vulnerable moment.

Levi didn’t notice the woman’s tears or her red eyes. His mind was too preoccupied with the heavy confession and proposal he had planned.

It was the two of them alone now, just as he had always wanted it to be. Levi took a deep breath, and with a soft gaze, he stared into Y/N’s eyes.

“ Ms. Y/N, I have struggled in vain and I can bear it no longer”, he started, still very much focused on the young woman’s eyes, completely oblivious to her now confused expression.

“These past few months have been a torment. I have come to Shiganshina with the single motive of seeing you, I have to see you”, he continued, surprising not only himself but Y/N as well. Levi had never confessed feelings to anyone, especially not deeply romantic ones. Y/N was different. She made him feel warm. She made him want to come out of his comfort zone, and she brightened his day whenever they met with her charming wit and honesty.

“ I’ve fought against my better judgement, my family’s expectations, the inferiority of your birth, my rank, and all these things and circumstances I’m willing to put aside. I ask you to end my agony”, he finished. He thought he made himself very clear. Apparently not.

“ I don’t understand”, asked Y/N, confused and with no hint of anger in her soft voice. Y/N always was sharp and intelligent. 9 times out of 10 her intuition and hunches were right, but god she hoped that wasn’t the case now, as this hunch seemed absolutely ridiculous!

Levi was screaming inside, but as always, maintained his perfect composure. The time had come, and for the very first time, he was about to say three words he had never ever dawdled on in his life.

“ I love you”, he breathed, his stoic expression softening further. His usually cold expression melted into one of sincere affection and hopefulness. But Y/N wasn’t impressed! Her prior anger had returned, and this time, it was more intense than ever! With her mouth agape, Y/N stared at the man in front of her with eyes as wide as saucers.

“ Most ardently”, Levi cut through the white noise that was the rain with his crisp, deep voice, gray orbs never leaving Y/N.

“ Please do me the honor of accepting my hand”, Levi requested.

“ Sir, I”, she stuttered, her mind reeling once more. She was repulsed, but she’d be maintaining her composure too. Y/N decided to gracefully reject his proposal.

“ I appreciate the struggle you’ve been through and I’m sorry to have caused you pain. Believe me, it was unconsciously done”, she said, her tone as cold as ice. Levi was taken aback. He hadn’t expected such a cold, curt response to his proposal. Now it was his turn to have his temper rise…

“ Is this your reply?”, he asked still in disbelief

“ Yes, sir”, Y/N confirmed

“ Are you laughing at me?”, Levi asked, his heartbeat quickening

“ No”

“ Are you rejecting me?”, he said, his already pale skin growing paler, making him look like a ghost.

Y/N didn’t know what part of her response wasn’t going through his skull, and decided to make her point clear once more, this time with less civility.

“ I’m sure that the things you’ve told me which hindered your regard will help you in overcoming it”, she spat, riling Levi up more.

“ Might I ask why with so little endeavour at civility I must repulse?”

“ And I might as well enquire why with such evidence of a design of insulting me you chose to tell me you like me against your better judgement”, Y/N spat back, all composure gone.

“ No, believe me, I didn’t mean-” Levi began only to get off by a fuming Y/N.

“ If I was uncivil then that’s some excuse, but I have other reasons, you know I have”, Y/N shouted back, pouring all her frustration and unheard thoughts onto the man.

“ What reasons?”Levi asked, genuinely lost.

“ Did you think that anything would tempt me to accept the hand of the man who has ruined the happiness of my dearest sister, perhaps forever?”, Y/N finally voiced, lips quivering.

Levi made a little “oh”, realizing what put a damper on their possible relationship. Still, he didn’t back down. Levi may have been in love with Y/N, but his stubborn nature and pride made him refuse to let her off. He didn’t let anyone win in a fight, not even Y/N.

“ Do you deny it, Mr. Ackerman, that you’ve separated a young couple who really loved each other, therefore exposing your friend to the censure of the world for caprice and my sister, to its derision for disappointed hope?”, she began again, this time with a slight cry in her voice.

“ I do not deny it”, Levi deadpanned.

“ How could you do it?”Y/N demanded with a soft voice.

“ Because I believe your sister is indifferent to him”, he said honestly.

“ Indifferent?”

“ I watched them most carefully and realized his attachment was deeper than hers”

“ That’s because she’s shy”, Y/N yelled!

Levi took a second to process her words. That may be true, he thought, but still, he wouldn’t give up.

“ Erwin, too, is modest and was persuaded she didn’t feel strongly for him”,

“ Because you suggested it”

“ I did it for his own good’

“ My sister hardly shows her true feelings to me”, Y/N exclaimed, shaking with a rage so pure she could hear her heartbeats in her ears!

Levi’s eyes widened, and he was unable to close his mouth. He realized the depth of his mistake, and internally cursed at himself when he realized that this mistake was nearly impossible to fix. But even now, he still had one last argument to make, and this argument was the strongest and most heartfelt of all. Infact, even Y/N didn’t have much in her mind to counter it!

However, before he could speak, Y/N started talking again.

“ I supposed you suspected his fortune had some bearing on the matter”, she accused.

“ No, I wouldn’t do Christa the dishonor”, he denied, almost offended.

“ But it was suggested”, Levi admitted.

“ What was?”, Y/N asked, loudly, her previously hung head now erect.

“ It was made perfectly clear that an advantageous marriage-”

“ Did my sister give that expression”, Y/N was outraged!

“ No, no, no”, Levi countered, trying to calm her down.

“ There was however the matter of your family”, Levi added. He knew it’d make things more heated, but he had to be honest. Honesty, brutal honesty to be specific, was something Levi was always known for.

“ Our want of connection? That Mr. Smith didn’t seem at all bothered by?”

“ No, it was more than that. It was the lack of propriety shown by your mother, your three younger sisters, and even on occasion your father”, he revealed. The look in his eyes was one of regret yet sternness. He knew that his words had deeply hurt Y/N, perhaps more than hers had hurt him. Y/N was grossly offended! How dare this snobby man insult the people she held most dear? How dare he hit her with the cold truth that she herself knew deep down…

Y/N remembered how boisterous and embarrassing her family was being at the ball where she and Mr. Ackerman had first met. Everyone was staring disapprovingly at them, and some of the wealthier attendees had whispered amongst themselves about her younger sisters. Y/N knew her family had a lot of improvements to make behaviour wise, but that didn’t stop her from feeling hurt.

" I’m sorry”, Levi apologized. He truly was sorry, but he couldn’t change the truth or take back his words.

“ You and Christa are excluded from the category I put the rest of your family in”, Levi added, hoping it’d make things better.

It had done nothing, as Y/N still had more points up her sleeve.

“ And what about Mr. Zeke Yeager?”, she questioned. Zeke Yeager had charmed Y/N months ago, and told her about how Levi had wronged him so terribly without reason. The mention of his name had hit a nerve in Levi. What was that expression on his face now? Jealousy, bitterness?

“ Mr. Yeager?”, he repeated.

“ What excuse do you have for your behaviour towards him?”

“ You take an eager interest in that gentleman’s concerns”, Levi seethed, confirming that he was indeed jealous. Levi strode up to Y/N, shortening the gap that was between them before Yeager was brought up. Levi’s eyes searched for any hint of pettiness in Y/N’s. Maybe she was just as stubborn as he was and continuing an argument that should’ve been resolved by now. But no, to his sadness, Y/N’s eyes were full of affection for Yeager, and anger at Levi.

“ He told me of his misfortune”, Y/N said.

“ Oh, yes, his misfortune is big indeed”, Levi scoffed sarcastically.

“ You ruined his chances and yet you treat him with sarcasm”, Y/N noticed with disgust.

Levi wanted to scream and tell her that her impression of Yeager was completely wrong and that she was deceived. He wanted to defend himself, but for the first time in his life, he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Levi’s stubbornness faltered, and he felt that winning Y/N’s heart would be near impossible now. There was so much she didn’t know, there were so many misconceptions she had, and there was so much she had against him rightfully. Levi hid the sorrow in his heart by letting his usual monotonous tone return to his voice…

“ So this is your opinion of me”, he asked, trying to sound calm and indifferent, but accidentally letting a sliver of sadness seep into the question. Y/N noticed everything, but she couldn’t get herself to care about his feelings right now. She was seeing red, but so was he.

Y/N’s silence agitated the man more.

“ Thanks for explaining so fully. Perhaps these offences might’ve been overlooked had your pride not been hurt by my honesty in a bit of a scruple about our relationship”, Levi let his tongue fly! He knew his words had stabbed Y/N in the same places hers had stabbed him! He couldn’t keep his calm anymore. His patience and grace was tested, and now Y/N would face its consequences.

“ Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your circumstances?”, he questioned, his voice raising with each syllable. Y/N could feel tears welling up inside her again. My god, she hated this man. He insulted her family and status, then proceeded to hurt her pride and scathingly expose it, and now he was showing his superiority complex!

“ These are the words of a gentleman?" Y/N wondered aloud, her glare burning holes in Levi’s face.

“ From the first moment I saw you your arrogance, your conceit, your selfish disdain for the feelings of others made me realize that you are the last man in the world I would ever be prevailed upon to marry”, she yelled! As always, Levi was silenced by a remark made by the spunky, sharp tongued Y/N L/N. Levi’s heart was glass, and Y/N had dropped it on the floor without a care in the world. How could he have been so stupid to think he could lash out at a woman as strongheaded as Y/N, insult everything she held dear, an get away with it with no harm done? Y/N’s glare lost its intensity as she blinked a few times. Her sight didn’t leave Levi, but it faltered. Levi came even closer to her. Even though she had left scars on his heart, even though she had yelled at him and called out every single one of his biggest flaws, he loved her. He wanted her, and he warmed at the thought of being with her. He looked longingly at her lips, then her eyes, and then her lips again. There was no touching, but Y/N was disarmed.

She felt herself softening, and for the first time she noticed Levi’s attractiveness. Like a magnet, she subconsciously felt herself nearing Levi’s lips. She was attracted to him, yes, but she hadn’t forgotten the prior row, and that stopped her from closing the gap between them officially. She didn’t pull away, much to her surprise, Levi did.

“ Forgive me”, he said once again, knowing she wouldn’t forgive him so easily, but still meaning the apology. Now that his head had cleared, all the most miserable emotions hit him like a cane. There was sadness at the rejection, bitter jealousy at Y/N’s affection going to Mr. Yeager, the pain of having one’s pride being minced to shreds, and of course: heavy remorse for yelling such mean things at the woman he loved…

“ I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time, madam”, he whispered loud enough for Y/N to hear. And then he walked away without taking a single look back, leaving Y/N to drench in the rain some more.

Y/N stared at his back as he walked away, thinking of the argument and her feelings towards him. She didn’t understand how a man could infuriate her so much, but still disarm her with barely any effort and make her feel intense warmth.

Meanwhile, Levi’s heart cracked with every step he took. His love remained the same, even worse, it grew more severe. He wasn’t sure he had given up on winning Y/N over, but for now, he’d give her space, and pray to any lord up in the heavens who’d listen to him to change Y/N’s opinion on him, and to make him a better, more deserving man so that he could have her and make her happy, and of course: to make Y/N forgive him for all his grave mistakes which had caused this mess.

[dizzydancingdreamer]

A Very Merry Mikaelson Christmas | The Mikaelson Boys #7 & #22

Request: @rocketshiptoes “Oh my goshhhh could you please do prompts 7 and 22 with all our boys? I feel like it’d be really sweet” I kinda made this angsty at the beginning but it gets fluffy after I hope you love it!!

Prompt(s): “I can’t reach.” & “That mistletoe was not hung with care.” “I tried okay!”

Word Count: 1.9k 

Christmas Master List

You stand on your tiptoes, leaning against the wall with your hand stretched above your head as far as you can reach. It’s a futile mission, you’re nowhere near close to reaching the arch of the doorway. You roll back on your feet, resting your forehead against the exposed brick. The mistletoe hangs limp from your fingers, the red ribbons you tied to the plant tickling your wrists. It taunts you, the strands laughing at your failed attempts to be spontaneous. You just wanted to do something nice, why are the doorways in the compound so tall? 

“Love,” a concerned voice breaks through your moping, “are you okay?”

You squeeze your eyes tighter together, pressing yourself closer to the wall and hiding the mistletoe in your hand. This cannot be happening right now. Klaus’ hands slide over your back, rubbing some warmth through your jumper. You sigh quietly, knowing you’ll have to expose your secret in a moment. This is all just dandy. 

“I’m fine,” you murmur into the wall, hoping he takes the hint and leaves you be.

You bring the mistletoe closer to you, grinding your jaw slightly. If he leaves then maybe, just maybe, you can find a step ladder or something. Maybe push a chair against the wall and jump for it. Climb the wall like a damn spider monkey. Literally anything at this point is an option but first you just need Klaus to disappear. Are you really ever that lucky though? 

You hear another pair of footsteps and almost groan. Why today? 

“Darling?” Kol’s hand wraps around your arm, his fingers squeezing tight and the worry evident in his tone, “what’s going on, are you alright?”

You nod against the brick, the epitome of desperate but still refusing to give up hope. Maybe if you just stick to the bland answers they will walk away. Of course, the odds of that actually panning out are slim to none. You can feel them tense, the air thickening around you as Kol tugs on your arm. None. The chances are none. How absolutely awesome.

A hand wraps around your face, one that is in no way attached to either Klaus or Kol. Game over.

Elijah draws your eyes to his own and your heart hurts when you see his brows furrowed, “baby, what’s wrong? You’re worrying me.”

You finally turn to face them, sagging against the wall behind you. Shaking your head from his grasp you pull your lip between your teeth, trying your best to keep it still. You didn’t expect to be upset by this but you can’t help it. The vision you had in your head was so much better than this. You don’t say anything you just hold up the plant and huff, the defeat coursing through you.

Elijah takes the mistletoe from your hand, smiling lightly, “is this for us?”

Your face ignites immediately, fire creeping up your neck and consuming your skin, inch by damned inch. They’re all staring at you, their eyes locked on you like you’re about to share some life changing secret. Please stop! You want to cry, your chest tightening harshly and your back pressed against the cold stone. God, now, not only do you feel like a failure, you’re also heavily embarrassed. Why did you think this was a good idea again? If only the floor would just open up and swallow you whole right now. 

You take a deep breath and close your eyes again, wholly overwhelmed and in need of a nap all of a sudden, “it was but not anymore. I can’t reach. I can’t reach anything in this damn place! It doesn’t even matter. It’s done now.”

“Darling, come on now,” Kol grabs your arm again and you tense, keeping your eyes shut, “we can help. You can sit on my shoulders.”

He’s trying to lighten the mood, you know he is, but it only makes you feel worse. You don’t want their help, you wanted to surprise them and now you can’t. That warrants a little bit of frustration. There’s this blackness in your chest, one that is trying its best to consume you, one that clearly didn’t hear that it's Christmastime, and you need some air. Just ten minutes. You need out though. Now.

You push off the wall and squeeze yourself past them, “thank you, Kol, but I need a minute. I think I’m going to go for a walk, alright?”

They all scrunch their brows in concern, Klaus stepping forward and stretching an arm out to catch you, “love, it’s freezing out there. I would really rather you stay here.”

He steps closer to you, running his fingers over your cheek. You know he just wants you to be safe but if you stay here any longer you’re going to pass out. The walls, as tall as they are, are closing in on you. It’s like they’re taunting you on purpose. We’ll only shorten for you when you need us to be tall.

“I’m sorry,” is all you say, turning and running before any of them can think to chase after you. 

You hear them call after you but you don’t stop, tearing your coat from it’s hook and shrugging it on as you step onto Bourbon Street. The December air rolls over you in waves, the smells of peppermint liquor and hot chocolate cresting with it. It forces you to keep walking, straight into the crowd and out of the view of three searching eyes. You’re not entirely sure where you’re going but you don’t care. You’ll figure it out later. Right now you just need to breathe.

                     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

It’s only a few hours later when you walk back through the compound’s gates, your jacket now damp from the snow and your cheeks significantly icier. Your fingers are stiff and your socks are soaked, your boots in as much need of a warm place to dry as you are. Despite the chill in your bones, though, you feel significantly better. While on your little walk you had run into Josh. Okay, so you didn’t so much ‘run into him’ as you did ‘frantically call him to calm you down’. Josh really is good at going with the flow sometimes.

He bought you a hot chocolate, the kind the ninth ward coven makes with the double shot of bourbon, and just let you talk. Sometimes that’s all you need: a drink with your best friend. The guys are great but they’re a tad overwhelming and that’s exactly what Josh said. Sometimes they make me feel like I can’t breathe and, girl, I’m dead. You had laughed when he said that. It’s true, after all. But then he followed it with something that rings through your ears as you hang your coat back in its place.

But they love you, you know? A thousand years of loving and hating each other and you’re in the middle of it. They figured it out for you. What’s one high ceiling at the end of it all?

You hear a whoosh of air, one scented in three distinct ways, and you finally smile. Your chest doesn’t feel at all tight anymore when you look at them. Kol reaches for you first, tugging you into his cinnamon chest and sighing against your hair. You wrap your arms around him tight, your hands smoothing over his back. You missed him, it’s as simple as that.

“I was so worried,” he mumbles against you, his lips finding your forehead, “I almost went to find you about six times.”

You smile into his chest, rubbing your face against him, “thank you for letting me have some time.”

He laughs quietly as you’re pulled from him and into another pair of arms, these ones hinted with berries and oil paints. Klaus clings to you, his head falling against your neck as soon as you're in his grasp. He squeezes you tight, just as Kol had, rubbing his nose against your still cold skin. Your arms fall around him, your nails digging into his shoulders from how hard you grab him. You missed him too.

Klaus’s lips are glued to your neck, his words thawing the cold in your bones, “letting you go was the hardest thing I’ve done in a long time, love.”

You snuggle closer to him, “I know, I’m sorry honey.”

He pulls his face from your neck, shaking his head slightly and kissing your forehead, “don’t be. Sometimes I forget there are more of us than you. I’d need a walk with Rosza too.”

You raise your brow and give him a soft grin. You don’t ask how he knows where you’ve been, you just kiss his cheek before turning to the third and final Mikaelson. Elijah doesn’t grab you immediately like his brothers had, he just looks at you, his head tilted and his lips pressed together. His hands tense at his sides and your heart drops. Oh Eli, always the stoic Viking. You capture his eyes again and that’s all it takes to rush into his arms.

As soon as you're in his reach he reacts, wrapping his arms around your hips and hauling you against him. You wrap your legs around him, not caring about your pants which are soaked from the snow. You don’t waste your time with pleasantries, don’t pass him any apologies, you just smash your lips against his and dig your fingers into his hair. He kisses you back like he hasn’t kissed you in years. You don’t blame him, you feel the exact same way.

“I missed you,” he kisses you again, his lips tasting like candy canes, “fuck, I missed you.”

You slide your hands to his face, your palms curling around his jaw, “I missed you too, Eli. So much.”

He closes his eyes, leaning his face in the palm of your hand. His stubble tickles your fingers. With that one little action everything clicks back into place. All the frustration and embarrassment from before melts away. Josh was right, you think to yourself, what is one high ceiling in the grand scheme of things. You run a hand through his hair one last time before forcing yourself back onto your feet.

“Darling,” a pair of hands land on your shoulders, “we have a surprise for you.” 

You look over your shoulder to meet Kol’s mischievous grin. Oh boy. He takes your hand, dragging you to the alcove of the staircase, the same place you had spent forty-five minutes in front this morning trying desperately to hang the stupid plant. 

Klaus wraps his arms around your stomach from behind, pulling you against his chest again and leaning down to murmur in your ear, “look up, love.”

You follow his instructions, your eyes landing on some familiar red ribbons and immediately flooding with tears. You throw a hand over your mouth, leaning back into Klaus to keep yourself from falling over. They really hung the mistletoe for you. You meet all of their eyes in a rush, completely speechless but fully warm. Glancing back up you notice the duct tape. You laugh, a few small sobs breaking through with it. They did this for you. 

You spin in Klaus’ arms, pulling his lips down to yours, “thank you.” You giggle against his mouth, “did Kol hang that? That mistletoe was not hung with care.”

“Hey,” Kol pulls you from Klaus, laughing right along with you, “I tried okay!”

[commentaryvorg]

Digimon Data Squad Dub Comparison Episode 1 - There Are Monsters Among Us!

This is a companion to my commentary on the original Japanese Digimon Savers! Reading my commentary on the original version of this episode (which you can find here) is recommended before reading this dub comparison.

Original name ~ Dubbed name

Masaru Daimon ~ Marcus Damon

Yoshino Fujieda ~ Yoshino “Yoshi” Fujieda

Captain Rentarou Satsuma ~ Commander Richard Sampson

[Since several characters share the same name between the original and the dub, quotes from the dub will always be in italics, while quotes from the original will not, in order to distinguish them.]

First off, can we talk about the characters’ dub names? The dub doesn’t actively draw attention to its setting much (but then again neither does the original, really), but it also does not change the fact that this is taking place in Japan and these characters are actually Japanese, despite that we’re hearing them speak English. Some of them keep their Japanese names, too, even if maybe they have slight shortenings of them to be easier for a Western audience to remember. But then some characters’ names are randomly changed to completely English ones, even though these characters are apparently still meant to be Japanese and living in Japan. It’s just strange – if they’re okay with keeping some of the Japanese names, why not keep all of them?

(Honestly, despite my complaints, I am kind of a little glad that they changed Masaru’s name in the dub, because Marcus comes across somewhat of a different character to Masaru for reasons I will be discussing at length. In that sense, it’s convenient to have different names to differentiate them by.)

Kudamon:  “He’s a renegade to begin with. We have no choice but to dispose of him.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “The target is a renegade. We must catch him before he gets out.”

This is actually more reasonable than what Kudamon says here in the original.

Satsuma:  “The only ones who can keep Digimon under control… are Digimon!”

~~~~~

Sampson: “Only a high-level DATS agent can capture a Digimon.”

The original version of this line was already awkwardly expositiony, sure, but this one just doesn’t make as much sense. The point is not that Yoshi is a high level DATS agent, but that she has a Digimon partner.

The dub completely replaces the original’s soundtrack. I did a shoutout to the BGM here in the original, and I also want to do a BGM shoutout here in the dub! This piece here is very different sounding from Provocation Infinity but still gives a similar sort of actiony gung-ho feel appropriate for Marcus and Agumon being fighty dorks, and I like it. It’s used often enough in moments like this such that it’s the only dub theme aside from the evolution theme that I’ve become able to pick out and recognise the melody of, even though this is only my second time watching the dub. Though I don’t know what the dub soundtrack’s titles are (actually, after having a look, it seems like the dub OST was never released, so nobody does), I like to think that this one is probably Marcus’s theme based on the moments its used in, so I’m going to be calling it Probably Marcus’s Theme.

Marcus: “This is my training ground!”

This park is apparently specifically his “training ground”, even though it’s just an ordinary park that anyone can visit. Um, okay? (More on this at the end of this episode.)

Masaru:  “I’m the number one street fighter in Japan, Daimon Masaru-sama!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “One day, I’m gonna be a champion ultimate fighter!”

They’ve changed “street fighter” to “ultimate fighter”, which, okay, makes him come across a bit less like a delinquent, fair enough. But a noteworthy difference is that he’s only trying to be the best ultimate fighter. Masaru, on the other hand, feels like he already is Japan’s number one street fighter. This change still sounds fine and in-character enough on the surface, but it’s a meaningful distinction that will become quite relevant further in as we get more into Masaru’s character, so keep this in mind.

Marcus: “Fans all over will chant my name! They’ll say, ‘Marcus Damon is the best!’”

I get that what the dubbers are going for here is something equivalent in spirit to Masaru using -sama on himself. But there’s other, simpler ways to do that – just have him call himself “the great Marcus Damon”, or something like that.

As it is, what they’ve done here is make it seem like, apparently, Marcus has fans, or at least he wants to have fans. Which is not even remotely the point of his fighting thing in the original, nor will it be in the dub, either. He’s not doing this for recognition from others; this is something he’s doing entirely for himself.

Yoshi: “Raptor-1 can talk…?”

This was not a thing implied in the original – that apparently, Yoshi (and presumably therefore everyone else at DATS) hadn’t even heard Agumon talk until now. I guess they’re going for giving more of an explanation as to why DATS treated him like a monster, but I find it difficult to buy that Agumon really wouldn’t have said at least some stuff while trapped at DATS HQ. (“I’m hungry,” if nothing else, right?)

Lalamon: “Yoshi, he’ll destroy the human!”

Oh, boy. This is one of those English dubs that refuses to directly acknowledge the concept of death because apparently the poor kiddies can’t handle that or something. I will attempt to not rag on it every time it does so – only because that’d get really boringly repetitive – but I will be talking about it a lot in future episodes when death becomes quite a story-important thing that is happening.

For now, let’s just point out that it sounds really silly to talk like a human can be “destroyed”. There’s plenty of other ways to get across that Agumon is dangerous without directly referencing death that would sound more natural.

Marcus: “Then I’ll knock you out like I did these guys!”

Masaru did not mention the fact that he was responsible for beating up all the dudes this early on. I guess here in the dub, Yoshi just isn’t paying proper attention, because she’s going to continue to assume it was Agumon who hurt all the students.

Kudamon:  “He’s too dangerous.”

~~~~~

Kudamon:  “We cannot let this escalate.”

I am sad that the dub lost the fun “who’s too dangerous?” double meaning of Kudamon’s original line.

Yoshino:  “Hey, you! Get away from him! You’ll only lose if you fight him!”

Masaru:  “Huh? This isn’t about win or lose! This is about fighting man-to-man!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “You can’t fight that creature! He’s too dangerous!”

Marcus: “Huh? Look, toots, I’m the dangerous fighter here! And I don’t need any babysitter to hold my hand!”

We really, really did not need Marcus being vaguely misogynistic by calling Yoshi “toots”, or by implying that she’s nothing but a babysitter. We really didn’t.

This also replaces Masaru’s original line that has that fun aspect of him not even caring about winning and just wanting to have a good challenging fight with a worthy opponent, so we lose that, too.

(Though, ignoring the misogyny, I do enjoy Marcus responding to “he’s too dangerous!” with “hey, I’m dangerous”.)

Agumon:  “Yeah! It’s man-to-man!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “That’s right! This is between him and me!”

Agumon then also isn’t able to agree about this being man-to-man, and this just becomes a less interestingly nuanced “stay out of our fight”, rather than really about the kind of fight they want to have.

Masaru:  “Got it? Now stay out of this!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “This is a fight between men, so stay out of it!”

Having removed Masaru’s reference to men a few lines earlier, the dub does something which is going to be extremely rare by its standards and actually adds in a reference to men here. …Unfortunately, because they’d also added in Marcus’s random misogynistic lines earlier, this comes across much more like it’s about gender, and he’s just essentially saying “we don’t want any girls in our fight”. Which, no. Masaru talking about manliness is never actually that much about gender at all, despite the word he uses.

Masaru:  “I see you’re pretty brave.”

~~~~~

Marcus:  “I dunno what you are, but you’re goin’ down!”

We lose the sense of Masaru having respect for Agumon challenging him in place of some basic I’m-better-than-you trash talk. And this also adds in Marcus calling Agumon a what, rather than a who, indicating that apparently Marcus is paying some attention to Agumon’s species and is seeing him, at least a little, as not quite worthy of the same respect as a human.

After their big cross-counter…

Agumon:  “I wasn’t ready. But you won’t get me this time!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Hey! I wasn’t ready! I was waitin’ for you to say, ‘One, two, three, go!’”

The dubbers completely missed the point of the original, “I wasn’t ready.” Original-Agumon’s line comes across as “I wasn’t expecting you to be that strong, but now I’ve got the measure of you”, like he’s gained more respect for Masaru’s strength. Meanwhile dub-Agumon is just whining and acting like Marcus totally cheated rather than acknowledging his unexpected strength.

Agumon kicking Marcus in the crotch is cut, replaced with a rather cheesy-looking comic book POW sort of effect across the whole screen.

There’s a cute acoustic guitar BGM here for their bonding moment that I like, especially after recognising its melody and realising that this is a variation on Probably Marcus’s Theme! That seems very appropriate.

Agumon: “You’re… pretty good… for a human.”

Geez, what a backhanded compliment. Apparently dub-Agumon still sees Marcus as below him simply because he’s human, rather than fully acknowledging his strength regardless of species.

Agumon: “Let’s call it a draw.”

This line fills a silence, stating something that was already perfectly well implied in the first place by the fact that they’re no longer fighting and yet there’s no clear winner. It shouldn’t need to be said. In fact, it makes it seem a lot more like this fight really was just about winning or losing to both of them, when in the original that was never the point.

Rather than “Aniki”, which, okay, works fine in subs but can’t really be kept in a proper official English dub, Agumon calls Marcus “Boss”. I guess this is acceptable, but I feel like it would have been better for them to lean into the “big brother” meaning of aniki, rather than the “boss” one, for reasons I will be grumbling about a lot.

Masaru:  “Aniki?”

Agumon:  “Yeah. You’re the first person to acknowledge me as a full-fledged individual, Aniki.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Boss?”

Agumon: “Yeah. Y’see, you’re the only guy who’s ever matched me blow-for-blow in a fight before.”

So, in this version, Agumon gaining respect for Marcus has absolutely nothing to do with Marcus treating him like a person. It’s just because of his strength, nothing else. Way to lose that really fun little bit of nuance and character depth on both sides.

(Also, what does Agumon even mean, “before”? It’s not like he’d have been able to have proper fights that weren’t just defending himself while trying to escape until now.)

Agumon:  “That’s why, from now on, I’ll be your follower!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “That makes you the boss. From now on, you give the orders and I’ll faithfully follow!”

Matching Agumon in a fight shouldn’t really suddenly make Marcus the boss who gets to order him around, should it? Plus, here’s Agumon explicitly saying Marcus can give him orders, which was not at all part of the arrangement originally. This whole thing has such a different tone to “you treated me like a person when nobody else did, so now I look up to you and will be loyal to you.”

Marcus:  “I never thought one day that I’d have an employee that’s as funny-lookin’ as you are.”

Oh, boy. Meanwhile, instead of “follower”, we have… employee. That is even more completely missing the point of the aniki-and-follower relationship of the original. If they didn’t like the gang connotations of “boss”, maybe they should have gone for “big bro” instead, perhaps? But no, they just doubled down on the “boss” in a totally different and inappropriate direction. Marcus has apparently just started up a small business.

The heartwarming BGM gets a record scratch as Yoshi reminds them she’s still there. I admit, it made me chuckle.

Yoshi: “So, are you gonna come quietly, or do I have to use force?”

Marcus: “Who’s she talkin’ to, you or me?”

I do enjoy this – a little implication that Marcus has some experience with being treated in a similar way, perhaps by the regular police.

Masaru:  “It’s the aniki’s job to look after his follower. I’m not handing him over to you!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I’ve never had an employee before, and I’m not turning my only one over to you!”

Instead of Masaru doing this out of feeling like it’s an aniki’s responsibility, Marcus is making it about himself. He doesn’t want to lose his new and only employee. Like Agumon’s just a possession of his now. Nothing about how this is something that should be expected of him as a boss.

Later, at the tower, as Agumon asks Marcus to help him evade DATS:

Marcus: “What am I getting myself into this time?”

I enjoy this too. More implications that Marcus is used to getting himself into all sorts of Trouble.

Agumon: “I’m starved!”

Marcus: “Well, suck it up and act like a real man!”

Again with the dub adding in references to manliness that weren’t there originally, as if Marcus actually has a concept of manliness that will continue to be a running theme. Haha, I wish. Get ready for me complaining about the exact opposite of this in basically every other dub episode.

Agumon: “I’m a growing boy!”

How does Agumon even know this phrase? This is an entirely human concept. Dub Agumon will be doing a lot of this, awkwardly invoking human ideas that he shouldn’t have any conception of.

Yoshi: “Yum. I love chocolate pudding – it reminds me of being a little kid again!”

Yoshino’s coffee jelly gets localised into chocolate pudding, because I guess coffee jelly is more of a Japanese thing that Westerners might be unfamiliar with? I enjoy the added detail that it reminds her of being a kid and that’s why she likes it.

Masaru:  “I don’t know anyone by that name!”

~~~~~

Marcus:  “I have no idea who this ‘Raptor-1’ is!”

Marcus’s line loses the technically-not-lying and respecting-Agumon’s-identity of the original line. He does know who this “Raptor-1” that Yoshi’s talking about is, even if that isn’t actually his name.

Masaru:  “How’d you know my name?”

Yoshino:  “You yelled it out earlier for everyone to hear.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “How do you know my name, anyway?”

Yoshi:  “I know everything about you.”

No pointing out that he yelled it out earlier like a huge dork. Instead, she just really leans into the DATS-are-creepily-authoritative vibe that she already had a little of in the original.

Yoshi: “Born April 2nd in Tokyo, blood type B, Ootori middle school eighth grade.”

Him being born in Tokyo was not a detail mentioned in the original. And also probably not true in the original, since the series is set in Yokohama and there’s no indication that his family moved here. The dub is presumably still set in Yokohama even though it’s never mentioned, just because the scenery is that of Yokohama, so I guess they’ve just established some dub-only canon that the Damon family moved home at some point. This will actually come up briefly later. I am shocked that I’m saying this.

At least, props to the dub for mentioning Tokyo and making it pretty overt that, yes, this is set in Japan. (You know, with this Japanese guy called Marcus.)

Yoshi also does not explicitly specify Marcus’s age, only that he’s in eighth grade. Which (I’m pretty sure, though I’m unfamiliar with American school grades and may be wrong) would make him fourteen anyway, at least assuming he hasn’t been held back at any point. Keep this in mind, because this will also come up later.

Yoshi: “…and you now live with your mother Sarah and your little sister Kristy, who looks up to you even though you generally act like a jerk.”

First of all, how the hell does DATS have so much information that they even know how his sister feels about him?

Second of all, more importantly, way to just tell us that, hey, did you know, Marcus is A Jerk, hey, guys, you’re supposed to think he’s a jerk, because… he fights things, I guess?

The reality? Masaru is not a jerk. Not even slightly. He’s reckless and hot-headed and will fight anything that poses a challenge, but that is not even remotely the same thing as being a jerk to people.

But apparently the dub doesn’t understand this, and they seem to think that being a jerk is somehow meant to be one of his most noticeable character traits. And I guess they’re trying to present the idea that he’s going to slowly grow into being a nicer person through the power of Digimon and friendship? Which is not at all any kind of arc that Masaru is going to have, because he is not actually a jerk in the first place.

If it was just this one line that seemed to think this, I wouldn’t be that annoyed. But one of the biggest things I’m going to be complaining about with the dub is the fact that they actually do change Marcus’s character significantly to make him noticeably more of a jerk than Masaru ever was. We’ve already seen a little bit of this sort of thing going on so far in this episode, with how they’ve removed focus from the bits with Masaru treating Agumon like a person and instead made it all about fighting, and specifically winning those fights. But, oh boy, there’s going to be a lot more, to an extent that it has to be deliberate.

And aside from me just finding this very frustrating as someone who deeply loves Masaru’s character to see him distorted like this, I also can’t help but boggle at why they would ever want to do this at all. Why would you deliberately adapt a character – the main character – to be less likeable than in the original version of the work? How does it not occur to you that this is only going to make your new audience enjoy the work less? I do not get it.

Lines like this one here are even worse, because they blatantly violate “show don’t tell”. Along with making Marcus act like a jerk and showing us that, the dub’s narrative is also telling us that he’s a jerk and insisting we should think that about him instead of letting us make up our own minds. It’s so lazy and heavy-handed. There will be more like this and I do not like it one bit.

Yoshi: “I’m with the Digimon Data Squad.”

I guess the Data Squad really is its full name in the dub. Even though the acronym is still DATS. Don’t ask me how that’s meant to work.

Marcus: “That’s a great story, dollface, but what’s it gotta do with me?”

Can we not with the Marcus being casually misogynistic? Can we not? (Thankfully, this isn’t going to be a recurring thing. Other ways in which Marcus is being made less likeable will be, but at least not this.)

Marcus does not say anything about assuming Agumon was just a frog. Since Masaru having thought that is going to be relevant again later in the series, this is a loss of not just a moment of amusing dorkiness but something actually meaningful.

(One thing that is very clear about the dub is that, with a few exceptions, they do not appear to have watched ahead to see the whole series first and are just dubbing episode-by-episode. For a series like this with quite a strong overarching plot and lots of little things like this that get callbacks, that means that a lot of this overarching sense of cohesiveness will be lost, simply by accident, because they didn’t realise there was something important there worth keeping around. This is another thing I will be talking about a lot.)

Yoshino:  “As long as you keep running from DATS, Raptor-1 will only starve to death.”

~~~~~

Yoshi:  “If you don’t return Raptor-1 to us, he’ll starve to death!”

This is a little different. Yoshino was only trying to get Masaru to come to DATS, supposedly to pick up some Digimon food. Yoshi, meanwhile, wants Marcus to bring Agumon to DATS. Which on the one hand is a more helpful strategy for what she’s trying to achieve. But on the other hand, he doesn’t bring Agumon, because obviously the dub can’t change the episode that much, so instead we’re just left with that awkwardly not being what happens despite it being brought up.

Yoshino:  “You…”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “Thank you.”

The hint that Yoshino is gaining a new respect for Masaru from his desire to help Agumon gets lost here, in favour of simply a thanks-for-finally-co-operating. Might partly be just lip-flap’s fault – the Japanese “you” is two syllables – but still, Yoshi’s tone of voice could at least have done some of the work to imply the same as the original, and it doesn’t really.

Kudamon:  “This is the boy that put Raptor-1 under control? He doesn’t appear to have any special power, at any rate.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “Interesting that this is the boy who fought Raptor-1, because nothing about him indicates that he’s able to fight at that level.”

We lose any implication that Satsuma might have been telling Kudamon things about Masaru offscreen, and instead here’s dub-Kudamon simply refusing to believe the evidence of his own eyes. You literally watched him fight Agumon on your screen. He very evidently can fight at that level.

Kamemon: “Enjoy.”

Marcus: “I’m not thirsty.”

Kamemon: “Suit yourself.”

Kamemon actually says words in the dub as he brings Marcus tea! This was very bizarre to me when I’m used to original-Kamemon, who almost never speaks at all.

Masaru:  “Just hand over what I came for.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Just say what ya have to say and stop wasting my time!”

Apparently the dub has forgotten that Marcus only came here to pick up Digimon food for Agumon, and suddenly he expects to be receiving a speech here when he shouldn’t.

Masaru:  “Renegades?”

Kudamon:  “Yes. Raptor-1 has already entered the human world and injured humans. He cannot be allowed to go free.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Why are you calling him a renegade?”

Kudamon: “Because Raptor-1 has already entered the human world and made contact with human beings, so he can no longer be allowed to go free.”

I would complain that it’s a bit much that Agumon’s getting in so much trouble simply for meeting humans in the dub, and not specifically injuring them like they were assuming in the original. But, as it turns out, the original is also going to call Digimon simply meeting humans a “crime” in the next episode, possibly as part of its early weirdness. So, eh, this isn’t really the dub being any sillier than the original here.

Satsuma:  “Daimon Masaru, you should work with us to create a bright future for both humans and Digimon!”

~~~~~

Sampson: “Please co-operate. The future relationship between humans and Digimon depends on you returning Raptor-1 to us.”

Also, apparently Sampson isn’t actually trying to recruit Masaru to join DATS with this speech. I can understand the logic behind changing that, since Satsuma was going about that whole thing weirdly vaguely.

That said, saying that the entire relationship between the two species hinges on this one Digimon being returned doesn’t make any sense. So I get the feeling that the implication of what Satsuma really wanted in the original line just went completely over the dubbers’ heads, and they simply thought they were translating his intent directly and made it sound rather silly as a result.

Masaru:  “What the hell is this? Stop pestering without even listening to what I have to say first!”

~~~~~

Marcus:  “Why not? Because I don’t owe you people a single thing!”

We lose the fun subtle Masaru-y nuance of him caring about being given a chance to express how he feels here. Though I suppose it’s also relevant and illustrative that Marcus is implying he would help them if he felt like he owed them, showing a sense of responsibility there.

Masaru:  “…but have you even considered why he suddenly showed up in this world? He admired this place! He admired this wide world, filled with things moving around that he’d never seen before.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Have you thought about why he came to the human world in the first place? What if he didn’t have a choice? Maybe things were bad for him back in the Digital World!”

This would be Marcus being sweet and thinking about how Agumon feels… if it wasn’t for the fact that Agumon told him he doesn’t know about anything except the institution, and therefore clearly didn’t deliberately try and run away from something bad in the Digital World. Pay attention to your foll – uh, employee, Marcus. Masaru’s line there had somewhat forgotten or misinterpreted what Agumon had told him, but Marcus’s is doing so to a much greater extent.

Masaru:  “But if he starts rampaging, then I’ll be responsible.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “And if he gets into any sort of trouble, I’ll claim full responsibility for his actions.”

This sounds like a perfectly reasonable translation, but the dub version of the sentence does not work nearly as well to foreshadow the thing that the original line is foreshadowing and this makes me sad.

Marcus: “But only if you give me some food for him!”

…This is immediately following the previous line. So I guess, since they never give him any food, Marcus doesn’t end up obligated to take any responsibility for Agumon getting into trouble. (Even though that’s still what he is going to do when they think Agumon’s attacking the hamburger shop. But this makes him come across like someone who’s less willing to do so no matter what and has less of a strong sense of responsibility.)

Kudamon:  “It looks like you’ll have to take responsibility sooner than you thought.”

~~~~~

Kudamon:  “Do you now see how hiding him has created a security breach for all of us?”

This change makes a fair amount of sense, since original-Kudamon was being unreasonable by insisting Masaru should take responsibility for Agumon’s hunger when that was really Yoshino’s fault. And it also fits with the fact that Marcus never actually promised to take responsibility since he wasn’t given any food.

Yoshino:  “So this is where you were hiding him. Since he’s nowhere to be seen, it must be him who attacked the hamburger shop.”

~~~~~

Yoshi:  “So this is where you were hiding Raptor-1. A lot of good it did you, since we confirmed it was definitely him who attacked the hamburger stand.”

No, you didn’t! How did you confirm a thing that isn’t true? If this is Yoshi lying, that’s just a dick move; she doesn’t even have anything to gain from it. It feels more like this was the dubbers not paying attention and missing the original’s meaning, which is very obviously that Yoshino was assuming based simply on the fact that Agumon went missing. But he didn’t actually attack the hamburger stand! Did they not even watch ahead to the rest of this episode to realise that?

Marcus: “Why’d you attack a hamburger stand?”

Marcus asks this of Agumon after finding him with his head dorkily stuck in a trashcan, not really all that close to the explosions and flames. Way to jump to freaking conclusions after basically just finding proof that Agumon isn’t the culprit, geez! …Though I suppose that can be partly blamed on Yoshi inexplicably insisting he definitely was.

Agumon: “Huh? I didn’t attack anything, but a hamburger sure sounds good!”

Agumon should not know what a hamburger is. Again with his dub version knowing more human things than he should.

Kudamon:  “He hasn’t been tamed. I don’t understand why he’s fighting alongside human beings.”

This just makes no sense. What the hell does “tamed” even mean? Doesn’t it just mean “has become willing to work with humans”? Because if so, he evidently has been tamed, actually. Just sounds frustratingly like Kudamon trying to insist he Knows Better than this nobody kid, and I don’t think that’s meant to be his character.

Agumon:  “Aniki! He’s really strong…!”

Masaru:  “Doesn’t that just fire you up!?”

Agumon:  “Y… yeah!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “No! Agumon!”

Agumon: “Boss! I’m fine, but could you lend a hand?”

Marcus: “Ha! How about I lend a couple of fists!?”

The dub’s version of this exchange is kinda still cute, but it loses that fun nuance that Masaru loves how strong their opponent is, and that Agumon is learning to agree with that idea thanks to him.

Yoshi: “That thing will tear you to pieces!”

See, here’s a way to avoid directly using the word “die” or “kill” while still making it clear that’s what she’s referring to, without awkwardly acting like humans can be “destroyed”.

Masaru:  “When you’re in a man’s fight, you’re already risking your life! The moment you get scared of dying is the moment you’ve lost the fight!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Besides, the ultimate fighter is always willing to make the ultimate sacrifice!”

This significantly changes the meaning here, and instead Marcus is apparently consciously willing to get himself killed if necessary, even though the kinds of fights he’s been in before really aren’t something that’s actually worth dying for at all. Masaru’s philosophy of acknowledging but then choosing to brush aside the potential risk in order to fight better makes more sense, because he’s not actually intending to die for anything.

The dub’s changed version of this line will also not work for the callback that the original line is going to get later in the series. I’d talk a lot more about why not, but, spoilers, so I’ll save that for then.

There’s a brief snippet of music here during the Anime Sads that appears to be a sad piano variation of Probably Marcus’s Theme, which feels appropriate. I don’t remember it from my one previous dub watch-through, but I hope it gets used in some of the future much more substantial moments of Marcus being sad about things.

Masaru:  “You… How dare you hurt my follower!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “It’s… It’s fightin’ time!”

We also lose another future callback here. But on the other hand, “it’s fightin’ time!” is going to become Marcus’s catchphrase that he uses basically every time he fights (a dub-only catchphrase that Masaru has no equivalent of, and that I’m really pretty happy with), and this moment when he’s avenging Agumon getting hurt is definitely an appropriate moment for it to start being a thing.

The dub’s term for Digisoul is, instead, DNA. Luckily for the biologist in me, who would otherwise be tearing my hair out over this, this stands for something entirely different from deoxyribonucleic acid, because boy would it being that kind of DNA make absolutely zero sense. It’s still pretty awkward that it happens to be the same acronym as a commonly-known thing that it could easily be mistaken for, mind you.

I don’t know why they couldn’t just keep the term Digisoul, though. It’s a perfectly good term! It can’t even be that the dubbers have some kind of oh-no-religious-references objection to using the word “soul”, because that word is also in the dub’s opening song that we’ll be hearing every episode.

Old man:  “By mastering this technique, your Digimon can Digivolve.”

Um, sure. The technique of waving your glowing hand over the Digivice is definitely something that needs to be “mastered”.

Marcus also yells “DNA Charge!” out of nowhere for the first time. But in his case, the old man never actually mentioned the word “charge” when telling him what to do here, so it’s even less clear how he knew that was what he was supposed to say.

Alas, the English dub does not dub the original evolution songs in Digimon. The evolution music instead is an instrumental version of the dub’s opening song, which, though I prefer Believer, is an acceptable replacement in terms of creating a similarly triumphant mood.

Marcus: “That’ll teach ya! Don’t mess with my employee!”

Oh my god, wow, way to completely unintentionally mood-whiplash the triumphant moment by reminding us that this huge powerful dinosaur is actually just your subordinate in the new small business you’ve set up here, Marcus. A small business of punching everything.

Agumon:  “Aniki! I’m hungry!”

Masaru:  “What the hell… That’s so anti-climactic…”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Boss! I’m hungry.”

Marcus: “What else is new? I’m just glad you’re safe.”

This addition is cute. Originally Masaru’s just referring to the anticlimax of Agumon devolving so fast.

Masaru:  “How about going for a hamburger?”

Agumon:  “Does that taste good?”

~~~~~

Marcus: “How about a nice hamburger?”

Agumon: “Ooh! With cheese, too?”

On the one hand, at least the dub remembered the fact that this Agumon somehow already knows what a hamburger is. On the other, this raises even more questions in terms of how he also knows that they can come with cheese.

Yoshino:  “But that one’s already injured 13 students!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “But Agumon still injured fifteen men!”

Remember how the original tried to calculate fifteen minus one and got thirteen? Well, the dub tried it and got fifteen. Somehow each of them managed to get this very simple sum wrong in a different way.

(And yes, the dub did also specifically have Lalamon sense fifteen humans at the park in the beginning. Actually, it flashes back here to a part where Yoshi was then relaying to HQ that there are fifteen victims, but that was before she saw that Marcus was still standing. I guess it’s plausible to assume that Yoshi herself forgot to subtract Marcus after that and this is her mistake rather than the writers. Not convinced that’s the case, though.)

Also, told you the dub would forget about the part in the beginning where Marcus yelled out within Yoshi’s earshot that he beat up the dudes.

Marcus: “Those were some punks claiming to be ultimate fighters who wanted to train in my area, so I fought them for it, and guess what, I won!”

This begs the question: how the hell is that park supposed to be Marcus’s training ground? Surely, it’d make most sense as a training ground if it was where people regularly come to challenge him to fights? Instead, he only fought the dudes there because he wanted to drive them away from his training ground, so that he can continue to train there, alone, in a perfectly ordinary park that isn’t a gym or anything like that. How is he supposed to train there without opponents? Does he just, like… punch the trees?

I understand if the dub wants to make Marcus have slightly less of a teenage delinquent vibe, but the resulting implications they have here instead are just amusingly nonsensical. It does not seem like they actually thought about this very hard at all.

Overall differences

Overall, the dub of this episode shows a pattern of things generally making a bit less sense and having a bit less nuance, and Marcus in particular being just a bit less interesting and distinctive than Masaru. This is going to be such a regular pattern for every single dub episode that I probably won’t even bother to remark on it in most of these summaries going forward.

In terms of more specific effect on how this episode comes across, I think the most noticeable shift is that the sense of Marcus’s empathy towards Agumon despite his species is watered down slightly. Perhaps most notably, Agumon did not become loyal to Marcus because Marcus treated him like a person, but instead just because he matched him in a fight, which is less meaningful.

The terms “boss” and “employee” also give something of a different vibe to their relationship than in the original. Obviously the dub had to localise “aniki” to something, but I don’t think this was the best choice. This’ll be a thing in every episode, of course, but I’m bringing it up here because this is where it starts.

Then there’s the part where one of Yoshi’s lines casually established that Agumon had never spoken before. As much as this doesn’t make any sense to be a thing – why would he not have spoken while being held in DATS? – I guess it makes it slightly more reasonable that DATS then sees him as just a monster? Though they should also be changing their tune quite quickly when they realise he can speak, which of course they don’t. I guess this could have been an attempt to justify the original’s issues with DATS’s attitude towards Agumon… but not a very effective one.

[silver-chasm]

A week ago, I made these icons of all my fursonas with all these pride flags (cause they're all trans lol). Two have a few extra flags/symbols on them, representing me

Two of the symbols you see here aren't lgbt ones. I'm not saying that what they represent should be part of the lgbt community, just that they're just as much a part of me as my queer identity

An explanation of who my fursonas are and what the flags are under the cut. I tried to be brief but some of these are a bit lengthy

1. Toxic Chasm

They're my main fursona (and the namesake of this blog). E is something called a Monsuno Sapien, a human mutated by alien essence (the species comes from the Monsuno series). She is me but more grounded and more at peace than what I was when I created him. Despite the grotesque and intimidating appearance, xe is compassionate and gentle. Chasm means a lot to me

The flags/symbols:

The bandana - genderqueer:

Genderqueer is a term that encompasses anyone who not only fall outside of the binary but also gender nonconforming people (those who "queer" their gender)

Chasm is genderqueer, partly because they contain the colours of the flag. Ze also challenges the idea of anthropomorphism with hir existence, much like how I seem to challenge the gender binary with my own existence

The garland - bigender

Bigender people have two genders. These two genders can be binary or nonbinary. A bigender individual may experience both of their genders simultaneously or shift between the two

In my case, I'm a man and a demiwoman at the same time ^-^

The hearts - bisexual and asexual

Bisexual is when you're sexually attracted to more than one gender. Asexual is when you don't experience sexual attraction. Asexuals may also still experience romantic attraction

Biromantic asexuals, like me, are physically unable to experience sexual attraction but are able to experience romantic attraction to more than one gender

The infinity symbol - neurodivergence

One of the non LGBT symbols. Neurodivergent people are those with neurodevelopmental conditions (such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, etc) and mental health conditions (such as BPD, bipolarity, OCD, etc) and similar conditions, like schizophrenia. The infinity symbol is prominently used by autistic people, representing both the diversity of autism and neurodivergence

I'm 90% sure that I'm autistic. The other 10% is my anxiety keeping me in check

2. Korong

She is the fursona who I've had the longest (and was my primary fursona before creating Chasm). They're a giant monstrous dropbear with squid tentacles coming from her back and a second mouth on their belly. She is an absolute glutton. They are also the kind of being who would gloat about her power before trying to devour you

The flags:

The bandana - demigirl

Demigirls feel a partial but not complete connection to being a girl or woman. It is a nonbinary identity

Korong represented a past version of myself. Naturally, as I realised more about myself, she would change with me. They were never really "womanly", more monstrous than anything else

The flowers - a former vore pride flag

No, you didn't misread. This is the other non-lgbt symbol. Vorarephilia (shortened to vore) is a fetish where pleasure is derived from the idea of one being eating another (eg. snake eating a mouse, a giant holding someone in their mouth, etc). It's quite broad and typically fantastical in nature. The colours you see there belonged to a flag designed by a user here on tumblr, a genuine attempt at creating a pride symbol for vorarephiles. It wasn't a flag used outside of here. The creator has since deleted the post describing the flag, almost effectively wiping it from the internet

Korong is an embodiment of my vorarephilia. Her monstrous appearance also reflects a deep-seated shame toward this part of me I've had for years (and all for what? Strange thoughts?)

When I saw that flag and what it meant, I guess it gave me permission to feel something else towards this part of me. On top of the, the creator was reblogging vore positivity posts and posts where people were using their flag and being proud

For the longest time I thought there was something wrong with me. They showed that it's okay to be like this

Originally, I was going to draw the flag itself. I pivoted when I found that the original post (and the positivity posts) had been deleted. I drew it as hyacinths (flowers that represent grief and sincerity) because, as silly as it seems, I was dismayed that the flag and the little, safe, accepting corner of the internet had vanished. After all, what is left is a blue and purple symbol of mockery, with people disgusted that someone would think like that

I'm tired of feeling shame. As I said before, they're just strange thoughts that I cannot control. Nothing more

3. Hognose

They're a friendly Goodra, a slug dragon Pokemon. Much like the snake they're named after, Hognose has an upturned snout and a forked tongue. They're quite the skilled baker, with their favourite recipe being apple pie. They like cooking for their friends

The flag:

The bandana - agender

Agender people lack a gender, have a neutral or indefinable gender or don't identify with the concept of gender

Hognose doesn't have a gender. I forgot to give them one when creating them. Their gender expression does lean somewhat to femininity

4. Lantern

They're a baki, a goomba-like enemy from the Drawn to Life series. Technically, they've existed longer than Korong but I never considered them as a fursona. They were the mascot of my old blog thelanternwielder. They're a quiet being, tending to watch from a distance. Their eyes can cast light when its dark. They don't mind being carried by their handle (just don't swing them around too much)

The flag:

The bandana - nonbinary

Nonbinary people are those whose gender identity falls outside the man/woman binary. It's an umbrella identity, as there are many ways of not fitting in the binary

Lantern is another fursona I forgot to give a concrete gender to. And when I remembered, it didn't really make sense to gender them. They've always been a little bit unknown and mysterious, so their gender is vague and undefined to me

5. Aster

They're a fantail centipede/bee hybrid from space. Their hive lives in a moon above a resource abundant planet they collect and harvest from. Aster was one of the workers who became curious about what was beyond their planet and moon hive. So, they left and became a vagabond explorer among the stars

The flags:

On the left - agender

As it was stated, agender can mean 'genderless' and it can refer to those who don't identify with the concept of gender. Aster falls into the latter category as gender is a bizarre and foreign concept to them

On the right - intersex

Intersex people are those who were born with variation in sex characteristics that are 'atypical' from male and female sex characteristics. This can manifest in a number of ways, as sex is made up of several components. Intersex people can have any gender identity

In Aster's case, they are completely sexless. Their anatomy does not conform to the 'typical' sexes of humans (male and female). They are typical for their species, as many workers tend to be sexless

6. Hugs

He is a spotted hyena pyromancer who dances with fire. He's all about having fun and showing off his skill. He's easygoing and relaxed. His power comes from cinnabar he's imbued with

The flag:

The bandana - transgender

Being transgender is not identifying with the gender assigned to you at birth. Contrary to what some may assume, this does include nonbinary people (what do you think the white stripe in the flag represents?)

Hugs is trans guy. He's the only one here who has a binary gender

7. Alezan

He's the only child among my fursonas and the only one who was designed by someone else. They were designed by chibitacolord (here on tumblr!) He's an elfish fox child whose design is based on the raposa from Drawn to Life. Alezan mostly lives in the woods by themself, proclaiming himself to be 'the prince of the woods'. They're quite mischievous and playful. He loves flowers. They would be a florist if he was older

The flag:

The garland - genderflux

This is when the intensity of a particular gender changes. It can be considered a type of genderfluidity where the gender changes between something and nothing

Alezan is boyflux. The intensity of being a boy changes for them. Being so young, he doesn't quite have all the words to describe how he feels sometimes

8. Lasso

They're a strange being who has the body of an ox, the head of a humanoid crab and draconic wings. Their design is based on lamassu, ancient Mesopotamian guardian deities, and my Chinese and Western zodiac signs. Lasso was a being who was created at the edge of reality itself. As a result, they're incredibly inquisitive. They are also quite protective once they get attached to you

The flag:

The bandana - aitherogender

This is a xenogender. Some people feel that usual language around gender isn't able to describe the gender identity they experience, so they use metaphors to describe it. Aitherogender is an ethereal and otherworldly gender that is almost impossible to describe with written or spoken medium. It was originally intended for neurodivergent people but anyone can use the term

Given where Lasso came from, it would be likely that their gender wouldn't conform to human expectation or understanding of gender, let alone be able to be described in human language (or any language). I just thought it would be neat for them to have an otherworldly gender when they themself are otherworldly

[another-snape-story]

Some Things Need Treatment

Chapter XVI

“Eyes still a little swollen,” Snape smiled softly, once he met you at your door. Being the first person he saw in the morning, you filled him with strength and desire to make it through the day.

“And you’re still limping,” you answered sympathetically, shyly hiding your face.

“Last night left unpleasant reminders,” he agreed.

He was right. But these would vanish soon, while something more important would remain indelible. This was the price you payed to find out the man you so much cared for cared for you no less. After the long midnight talk you still didn’t know much about each other, but connection between the two of you got stronger. None of you was perfect – you both had dark spots in your past, but nothing of that mattered, unless your hearts were capable of remorse and compassion.

“But I like the way it ended, anyway,” you looked up at him, hoping he was the same opinion. Although his glance fled far ahead, the corner of his mouth slightly leapt up. “Thank you, Snape...”

“You know my name, don’t you?” His tone lacking in expressiveness was back again, and sarcastic arch of an eyebrow so typical of him. With this, you felt the remnants of strain and tension which still nested inside swiftly and lightly flit away.

“I think so,” you chirped playfully.

“Maybe it’s time to finally start using it? Just an assumption.”

“Highest time! But I like calling you Snape,” you teased, and he rolled his eyes.

“How’s your leg? Hurts too bad?” So discomposed you were the day before – you didn’t ask him if he was all right. Even he himself forgot about this minor inconvenience.

“I can bear it.”

“You’d better visit Poppy,” you insisted, seeing how much pain it actually caused him.

“I’m fine, I’m telling you!” Snape groaned displeased. “Besides, I’d prefer keeping it undisclosed.”

“Oh I see! You want me to help you with it,” you giggled.

“What?” he frowned. “NO!”

“Ugh! Come on! I won’t faint seeing your wound!” you puckered, jokingly moving fingers before your face in a sinister manner, as if it was one of the most terrible things in the world.

Snape coughed. “I don’t like the way this conversation unfolds.” He looked embarrassed, which highly amused you.

“Severus… You need treatment!” through with fooling around, you suddenly got serious again. “I mean it! I have some really good remedies…”

“I am a Potions master. Do you believe I can’t make one myself?” Although his expression suggested nothing bur annoyance, Snape’s heart melted at the sound of his name coming from you.

“Please?” you didn’t take your pleading glance off him, and resolute, adamant, menacing Potions Professor had to give up.

You spent the whole day – apart from classes you regrettably couldn’t skip due to being a teacher – brewing an improved Wound-Cleaning Potion by your own recipe, which you hoped Snape would not only appreciate as a token of your attention, but also asses it from professional point of view. Making something for him was extremely enjoyable – beside all your efforts, you seemed to put a grain of your soul into this process.

It was late in the evening when you set off your office right to the dungeons, a vial with purple liquid in your hand. You haven’t seen him for too long and were impatient to finally meet him.

“POTTER! GET OUT! OUT!” you heard familiar voice thunder through the hallway, which – unlike its usual measured tone – now seemed to reach the highest point of irritation.

Luckily, it happened when you were about to go downstairs, and therefore saved you from roaming the castle in search for your colleague so dreadfully stern-looking, but really kind and understanding. Smiling to yourself, you headed for the source of the sound.

Meeting Harry sprinting back to the stairs was no surprise.

“What are you doing here?” you stopped the boy, who looked at you wide-eyed.

“Just wanted my Quidditch Through the Ages back,” he explained, short of breath.

“Immediately return to your dorm,” you railed strictly, “it’s too late for reading!” but tumbling to the reason he needed this very book before the upcoming match added leniently:

“Moreover, what you might find there won’t considerably affect your performance during the game, while the lack of sleep definitely will.”

The boy beamed, eventually finding your argument convincing and wishing you good night hurried away.

“Thank you Filch, I’ll handle it myself,” Snape was saying, when you stepped into the staff room.

“Professors,” pressing crumpled blood-stained fabric to his chest, the old caretaker bowed slightly and left.

You understood at once what he and Filch were doing here. You didn’t feel hurt Snape rejected your help, but accepted his. You were even glad this procedure escaped your intervention. Not that you found it repugnant, of course not! – you only wished to refrain him form any kind of distressing experience.

“Is everything all right? You missed dinner.” Snape awkwardly adjusted his frock-coat.

“Oh, did I? Lost the track of time working on this,” with a proud smile you handed him the vial. “Don’t worry, I’m not insisting you use it right now,” your voice so soft and somehow reassuring.

“What a relief,” he grunted not without sarcasm, taking a closer look of the bottle’s content. Internally Snape was deeply touched by your kind gesture. Used to being neglected his whole life, he found it hard to believe that someone might care for him, and even harder to express his gratitude. On the other hand, the man hated showing his weakness, he hated even thinking of it, thus your excessive attention to his wounded leg made him feel a little uncomfortable – really uncomfortable – no less grateful though. The prisoner of this highly embarrassing situation, as he would classify it, Snape let his defensive habit take over.

“You’re welcome,” you flopped on the sofa, expecting him to join you, what he leisurely did.

“Thank you,” he uttered quietly after a short pause.

Your hand landed on the furrowed cord cushion, unconsciously shortening the distance between the two of you. “Don’t mention…”

“How are you?” The question bothered Snape the whole day. “Feeling better?”

“I guess,” you sighed. “But I’m still thinking... If it were not for me…”

Snape’s hand found yours. “What is done – is done. You can’t change it. But you shouldn’t feel responsible for everything that happens in the world you can’t change!” He leaned back, looking at the ceiling, yet his mind travelled somewhere miles away. “The guilt,” he spat, hating the anguished experience standing behind a short simple term. “It will eat on you. Destroying you slowly. Mercilessly. Unless there’s nothing left but an indifferent, apathetic carcass.” His fingers tensed as he spoke the last words.

He was far from being indifferent, you could tell. What he had to go through? Poor, poor man. Hiding his pain, he convinced himself he was incapable of having feelings, but you can’t fool one’s heart. The whole time you’ve been here, you tried to perceive why he appeared so distant, so cold and reserved, why he showed no particular interest or concern about his surrounding, but now you seemed to find the answer.

You wished you could help him, just as he did the night before, take the burden off his shoulders, relieve his heart. But was there any chance he would accept it? No way, you knew it for sure.

“Let’s get drunk,” you suggested ardently, shoving all the troubles aside for a while.

What Snape truly appreciated, that you’ve never pressured him, trying to fish out what was his bother. He couldn’t explain how you’ve always managed to make him feel better with just one phrase, which, however, fitted the situation surprisingly perfect.

He turned his head towards you, a subtle smile on his lips.

“I have a bottle of firewhiskey in my chambers,” you put a convincing argument into his consideration, before he could say something.

“Do you realize you’ve just invited me to your private quarters?” his eyebrow gave a leap.

“I just said there’s a bottle in my quarters, and we’re drinking in your office,” you stated cheekily, “because mine lays in the other part of the castle. Come on!” You started up to your feet, pulling his hand.

Was it inappropriate? Was it wrong? Snape didn’t give a damn. He just trusted himself to your will, wishing to stay with you the longer he could, without thinking of the consequences. Without thinking of anything else.

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[milstrim]

Strong Words of Encourage-Mint!

"Okay, you win," Tony conceded, pointing an accusing finger at the kid walking next to him, "This is the best sandwich I've ever had. But don't let it go to your head."

Penny took a bite of her own sandwich, polishing it off and throwing the wrapper at the nearest trash can where it landed perfectly in the hole. She flashed him a cheeky grin, "Never. Nothing goes to my head. Ever."

"Uhuh."

Tony took another bite, pushing his glasses farther up his nose. Today, they served more than the purpose of carrying around his own personal badass AI, but actually blocked the bright New York summer sun that bounced and glared off the windows of buildings and nearby cars. Heat passed through the crowd like a dusty wind, hanging onto him and letting go just as quickly as a new wave took its place. He licked his lips at the heat, hoping that whatever Penny's trip through the city had planned was prepared for a water break.

"So, where to, kid?" he asked, throwing his own wrapper in a trashcan, though he begrudgingly admitted that it was much less cool than the kid's shot, "'Cause I don't know if it can surpass the best sandwich in Queens."

"It's gonna be great, Mr. Stark!" Penny chirped, ignoring his comment and bouncing forward a little. He smiled. "There's this really cool tunnel thing that turns into an arcade. It just opened last week and the graphics are so good, it's like it's actually real! They also have an escape room if we wanted to do that too. It's supposed to be the hardest one ever, no one's cracked it yet!" Tony smirked. Between the two of them, it'd be done in ten minutes tops, "Oh! And there's this cool, like--it's like a superhero store? They have a bunch of really cool Avengers merch and there's this life size Captain America plushie that's like three hundred dollars and it has the funniest sayings ever. You've got to see it!!!"

"Sounds like a full day," Tony commented, wondering when life had ever become this carefree. He was spending the day discussing afternoon plans with his intern, just for fun... No, not his intern. More like his kid. He couldn't help himself as he gave the girl a fond look. It'd been two years since they'd met, she was almost eighteen, and she changed so much, yet her bouncy childish joy still hung in a bubble beside her. Tony took a breath, surprised to find his breath taken away with the thought of how much she'd grown, "So, where to first?"

"Where do you wanna go first?"

"Nope. Your day."

She bumped into him playfully, sticking her tongue out at him. He blew a raspberry in her direction, dragging a delighted, crinkling giggle out of her.

"The arcade is closest," she said.

"Cool, let's go do that first. Which way?"

"Um, it's a couple blocks over," she started, stopping, much to the chagrin of the bustling crowd. She stepped away from the stream of traffic. Tony followed, "We can take some shortcuts, though."

"Y'know, you're pretty impatient," he teased.

"No! I'm just showing you my amazing street cred of knowing the streets."

"Okay, Underoos. Lead the way."

She shot him a look, but still led him through the alley. And then another, and then another. The first two were completely fine. No surprises, no boogy man jumping out of them. Nothing other than the toxic smell of a dumpster. By the third one, everything went downhill.

Now, Tony didn't have a 'spidey sense' or whatever she and her friend called it, but the moment he stepped on the street, the feeling of wrong overtook him. Maybe it was instinct, or maybe it was the way Penny had slowed down, her body language reeking of fear. Almost against his will, he took a step further, reaching out for Penny in an attempt to pull her back.

He'd barely reached her by the time something clattered at their feet. It was small and round, barely bigger than a bouncy ball, a sickly gray color shining dully in the darkened alleyway. Before any movements could be made, it stretched, revealing a clear vial.

Smoke began dispensing from the ball, billowing in thick clouds. Extremely thick for how small the thing was. Tony's breath shortened immediately, and before he clamped his mouth shut, stuffing it into the crook of his arm, he shouted to Penny, "Don't breathe, kid, just run!!"

Surprisingly unaffected, he moved forward, gripping Penny's hand as he did, but he was stopped short, almost falling with his cut short momentum. He whipped around to stare at Penny, his eyes widening with horror.

She was rooted in place, her eyes dreamy and droopy, as if she was nothing more than a vacant shell. She swayed. Her legs shook. She fell.

The man rushed forward, barely managing to catch her, and feeling like someone would have to catch him soon as well. His vision swayed dizzily from the lack of air, and Tony couldn't stop himself from taking a breath in at the sudden movement. He expected something bitter or tasteless, and for him to faint immediately if it had already taken Penny out so quickly, but instead, he was fine. Nothing happened save for the burning of peppermint on his throat and burning his nose.

Peppermint.

He cursed. Penny was dangerously allergic to peppermint, a fun little gift from her spider powers. Whoever had done this hadn't come for him. They wanted Penny, and they knew just how to do it.

With that horrifying thought, Tony ran. Or, well, he tried to run.

Scooping up Penny, he began to stumble out of the alleyway, only to be met with a wall of people. There were three of them, all with guns in hand. Waiting. He turned on his heel, only to discover the other end was surrounded with three men as well, as dangerous and formidable looking as before. He spotted a red octopus on their jackets.

He hugged Penny tighter, and held out a gauntlet covered hand. His glasses lit up, Friday already calling a suit.

A man took a step closer, his gun held aloft. Tony took a step backward, his eyes dancing around and looking for an escape. Penny couldn't stay in this cloud of peppermint for long. As if hearing his thoughts, a rack of coughs shot through Penny, who buried her shaking form into his shoulder. He had to get her out.

"Hand over the girl," demanded the closest man. The group closed in, but remained wary of the weapon gripped onto his palm.

"Not happening," he snapped, "I think you know what happens to people that mess with me. So why don't you just go ahead and keep moving?"

"You know it's already too late for that."

"I don't think it's ever too late for anything."

"I do," the man responded, and that was all he had to say.

The men rushed forward all at once, a tidal wave. Tony fired immediately, but was only able to fire out one shot before they were on top of him. He kicked out violently, but was horribly unbalanced by the girl he held in his arms, limp and unaware of the world.

A punch landed to his face, knocking him backwards and the glasses off of his face. Assumingly distracted, he felt arms grip around his kid, tugging painfully at her, but he managed to cling on. In his desperate attempt to keep the kid with him, however, he found himself defenseless.

Another fist. Another kick. Tony felt his nose snap and his arms bruise beyond belief as he was rammed against the dumpster, arms worming between his, digging and tugging and tearing. But Tony refused to let go, unable to do anything else. All he could do was shield Penny from being hurt and taken.

But all he could do wasn't enough. Tony's legs wobbled, his body shook, and Penny was torn away. He reached out immediately, struggling to force himself up only to be met with the butt of the gun against his face. He went down like a rock, his head tearing against the concrete painfully.

Tony Stark had never been one to give up though, and this was a moment he was determined to not let pass by. Even if it killed him.

The sound of a car screeching to a halt is what managed to stir him to his feet, throwing away the dizziness that faced him and instead running towards the group of kidnappers. No longer encumbered with a child in his hands, he held out his wrist gauntlet. The first two missed, but the last hit the man holding Penny. He dropped to the ground just outside a gray van, Penny tumbling with him.

Another took his place, hooking arms underneath the limp girl and attempting to herd her back into the van, but he rushed forward. Anger burned in his eyes and leapt from his palm. Now close enough, he hit the man picking up Penny, forcing him to stumble back, and knocking him down with a swift shot.

Tony couldn't stop to make sure Penny was okay, instead swerving back to face the rest of the group, who were sprinting forward and redrawing their guns. The first slammed up to him, clicking his gun and ready to fire. Tony grabbed his wrist as he approached, clumsily twisting and placing his armored hand over the barrel, only just able to stop the metal that bounced against his hand painfully.

He took in a wispy breath, adrenaline pumping. He threw the man into the next one, forcing them to tumble to the ground, not that it would keep them down for long. He turned to the next one, firing two quick excessive shots that blasted the gun out of his hand and sent it clattering on the pavement. Tony punched him, his metal hand swiftly knocking him out.

Three down. Three to go.

The two he'd shoved to the ground earlier had stumbled back up, and now all three surrounded him, guns drawn and pointed at him. Tony pointed his gauntlet, gasping for air and refusing to move from where he stood over his kid protectively.

"Give it up, Stark," the tallest man demanded, a trickle of blood running from a cut over his eyes. Tony glanced around harriedly, desperately searching for an escape, for something to use. The sound of whooshing let him know he didn't have to.

"I've never been known for that," he snarked back, ducking and swerving for Penny just as the suit clanked down in front of him. Tony didn't even have to watch the fight, though he would've preferred to see the way their faces widened and whitened with fear, instead kneeling beside his kid.

No longer in direct contact with the peppermint bomb, the swelling had receded, and, when he placed two fingers to her neck, he was relieved to discover her heart was beating normally. Her breaths were a little shallow, but she'd live.

Penny blinked awake, her eyelashes fluttering open. For a moment, she looked lost, unfocused and unseeing, before they shifted and locked onto him. Immediately, a look of trust washed over her, and it made Tony equally terrified and fond. He'd barely saved her, yet she still held out a hand and gripped his fingers as though he would protect her forever.

He would try.

"Are you o'ay?" Penny mumbled, her words heavy as she began to regain control of her body. Tony wanted to scoff, but he was sure he looked like a bruised and horrid mess. His eye was bruising, his nose tender and broken, and trickles of blood escaping from given cuts.

"I'm great, kiddo," he responded instead, "But I think our little playdate is over, so why don't we go home?"

"I wanted you to see the Captain America doll."

"We'll go another time," he assured.

"Really?"

"Really."