#and i really ought to go to one of them. seems wild to be a person with three degrees and not have any photos of myself in a cap and gown

[fingertipsmp3]

Should I go to my graduation or not. Seriously

[madlori]

i don't even know what this is, a bit of non-buddie-endgame heartbreak maybe.

----

"One more?" Eddie says, holding up the decanter of fine ten-year-old bourbon.

Buck sighs. "I better not. Don't want to be hungover tomorrow like I was at the last wedding we were at."

"At least you weren't the groom that time," Eddie said, grinning as he puts down the decanter, apparently deciding to forgo a refill for himself.

"All the more reason."

"It took me a year to pay off the credit card bill for that fucking hotel room," Eddie groans.

"Hey, you say that like I wasn't paying half."

"At least it put us off having some kind of wild party tonight."

"Yeah. Plus it just feels weird. Like, how does a bachelor party work if you're marrying a man? Seems like he ought to be invited, too."

"What is Tommy doing tonight?"

"His brothers and a couple of the guys from Harbor took him to Top Golf."

"Stop this crazy party train."

"I kinda like Top Golf, it's like golf but also skeeball."

Eddie put down his glass and leaned forward. "So I know a traditional part of my job tonight is to like...check how you're feeling. Like, make sure you're doing the right thing. See if you're having cold feet."

"It is?"

"Apparently. But...I don't really need to. You're practically vibrating with excitement."

Buck felt himself go warm and liquid at the idea that in 24 hours, he'd be Tommy's husband. "I am doing the right thing. I've never had any doubts."

"Never?"

"No. I love him so much, Eddie."

"I know you do. And that guy is so in love with you it's embarrassing. I've never had doubts about either of you, either. And you know I get protective."

"Gee, you don't say."

"Shut up!" They laughed together, the quiet, easy laughter of a nearly decade-old friendship that in some ways was even closer than a marriage.

Buck sighed. "Well, I better get to bed. I need sleep if I want to look pretty to marry the man of my dreams tomorrow."

Eddie nodded, making no move to get up himself. "I'll wake you up at 9."

"Thanks." He patted Eddie's knee and went to the door. Something felt...electric. The air was crackling and he didn't really know why.

He was at the door when Eddie's voice stopped him.

"Did we just miss our chance? Somewhere along the way?" he said, quietly, but his voice cut into the silence clearly.

Buck paused, still facing the door. He took a deep breath and turned, his eyes locking on to Eddie's immediately. He did not even try to pretend that he didn't know exactly what Eddie was talking about. "Yeah. I think we did."

Eddie nodded. "I think so, too."

Buck took a step forward. "But you will always be my guy, Eddie. Always."

Eddie stood up, hands in his pockets. "I love you. And I love him. I love what you two have, together. And I will always have your back."

Buck took the two steps to close the distance and pulled Eddie into an embrace, pressing his face into his hair. "I love you, too." He drew back and let his forehead rest against Eddie's. They took a few breaths together, and it felt like they were releasing something into the air between them. Buck pulled away and pressed a kiss to Eddie's forehead. Eddie smiled, an easy, familiar smile, and it was okay again.

Buck grinned, squeezed his hand, and left the room.

He got to his own hotel room - they were all staying in the historic inn where the ceremony would be tomorrow - and made it inside. A shuddering breath escaped him, and as if he'd been waiting for a cue, he heard Tommy's key in the lock and he came inside. "Evan, wha..." was all he got out before Buck buried himself in his arms. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm amazing. I'm just..." He sighed, pressing his face into Tommy's neck. "I think I just let go of something I've been holding onto for a long time."

Tommy pulled back and met his eyes. "Eddie?"

He knew. Of course he knew. This man who was about to marry him absolutely knew. Buck nodded.

"And you're both okay?"

"Yes. Better than that, I think." Tommy pulled him back into his arms, rocking them both back and forth. "I love you."

"I know, Evan. I've always known."

Buck stood in the embrace of the man he loved, and wept both for what he was about to gain, and a little bit for what he'd never had.

[valeriehalla]

Hello! I was reminded of your webcomic Goodbye To Halos recently and wanted to let you know it had a pretty big impact on me. I read it during my teenage years and I think it really helped me to contextualize and make sense of some feelings I was going through about - well, teenage stuff. Change, I guess, mostly. Changing bodies, changing genders, changing role in society, changing relationships with others - your comic helped me process a lot of my fears about those things.

Your comic was probably my first exposure to nudity that was neither sexual nor comedic. It really stuck with me how your comic has characters in states of undress fairly casually. Not like "walking down the street" casual, they're always in a safe place like a bedroom or a bathroom or something, but still. As someone who was raised Catholic it was really powerful to see nudity portrayed as so... not-shameful. Nudity is just a state the characters pass in and out of; they're nude after taking off their clothes like they would be wet after taking a shower. There's no shame in it. And that's really the way it ought to be, right? We were all born nude, it shouldn't be such a Thing as society makes it out to be.

That's just my little input on what impact your art has had on me. It was a good thing that I read it when I did. I wish you luck on all your future endeavors.

that's extremely kind of you, and very well-said, and thank you, and also that's absolutely wild for me to read.

i actually had to remind myself just now that there was in fact a sequence of (counting) eight pages where enae had her tits out. i didn't think a ton about it at the time. i do remember debating mentally whether to slap a "warning this page has boobs in it" label on the social media posts: i chafed at the idea, and i think i didn't do it? or only did it for some of them? i didn't want to because to even put such a warning immediately prompts the reader to think "oh something Sexualle is going on here," putting them on high alert and making it into a whole Thing. and it was not a Thing.

i always thought that some day, if ever i found the right moment, i wanted to have a page where fenic was fully nude. my idea of the "right moment" for that was that it would have to be at a juncture in the story where it made sense for her to be nude, and also where it would feel to the reader like there was absolutely no "point" to her nudity. the one page in the comic where fenic is topless was sort of a prelude to that idea: that might have been the moment, if there had been any reason at all to include her lower body in those panels, which there wasn't, so i didn't.

it's a fine line to walk. i think it's fairly obvious that there were many panels in that comic where the reader absolutely was meant to think "wow this character's attractive" (if they could get past my art back then lmao). i peppered those in liberally, sometimes because it was personally fun for me to draw, but always because it just seemed, i don't know, honest? for this story about young queer adults who are sort of omnidirectionally horny for one another to have a gaze reflecting that--for the reader to feel like they're "in on it" too, not in a leering sort of way, but as if they're just, like, sharing in it with the characters themselves. but then to have that, and then to also have full-on nudity, and for that nudity to feel at home with that sensation, but also purely incidental, and not in and of itself sexual, is a lot of objects to juggle, especially if one indeed (like me) wants it to not feel like there is a "Point" being made. so, it's cool to hear that it worked for at least one person. sorry for writing 999 words about this

[arceespinkgun]

One thing I really love about the UK Marvel continuity is how it handled Decepticon leadership. All of the leaders were so unique and well-defined characters! There are so many civil wars among the Decepticons that I actually lost count. I think they each show different aspects of Decepticon culture, too. In this post I wanted to showcase the leaders and discuss why I really enjoyed the way they were portrayed!

Megatron: used to be the equivalent of an Olympic athlete. Started the War by preying on political unrest caused by preexisting tensions between the city-states, an aging Autobot council who wouldn't listen to their one radical voice (Emirate Xaaron), and a lack of resources. He started the War with a plan to equip giant engines to Cybertron to pilot it around the universe to conquer other planets lol Megatron is a dictatorial strongman at heart, and his major trait seems to be his indomitable will. No matter who tries to brainwash him or how embarrassed he ought to be by his defeats and stupid mistakes, he keeps going shamelessly.

Shockwave: used to be the ruler of Tarn, and constantly tries to take leadership from Megatron, probably missing the control he had over his city-state. Has a brains vs. brawn dynamic with Megatron, but tends to get extremely frazzled when things don't go his way and don't follow his twisted, self-serving idea of what logic is. However, that doesn't mean he doesn't emote.

Starscream: used to be a figurehead dictator of Vos. Generally tries to backstab whoever's in power, which is probably informed by the fact that he wasn't #1 in his own city-state back before the War. Also, props to Starscream for killing more people than Unicron (the majority get repaired, but still)! Something I find interesting is that Megatron preyed on the war between Vos and Tarn, but usually Starscream and Shockwave work well together in present-day, which suggests the whole war thing was entirely about power and not personal. They're both also ultimately cowards out for themselves.

Soundwave frames Wild Rider when, of course, Soundwave had been the real traitor the whole time

Soundwave: this continuity has such a good version of Soundwave... unlike Starscream, whose treacherous actions are big and loud, Soundwave's treachery is quiet. He serves under nearly every leader and never faces the consequences of blackmailing and betraying any of them, until eventually he is left as the ultimate leader in at least one future timeline. He is such a snake!

Straxus: initially was the leader of the Decepticons while Megatron was on Earth. Despite only being leader for a short time, he leaves a lasting impression with his absolute brutality in the way he melts POWs down to make ingots, beats his own soldiers, and is obsessed with taking over Megatron's body. He also has lasting impacts on the story overall because the identity of Megatron becomes questionable due to Straxus's attempts to subjugate his mind with his own.

Ratbat: originally kinda like Straxus's Laserbeak, Ratbat takes over and becomes one of the most intelligent leaders! He used to be an auditor and his entire philosophy surrounds being as energy-efficient as possible. He even gives Shockwave a negative performance review LMAO Interestingly, he's positioned almost as more of an enemy to the Witwicky family than to the Autobots at times. He also likes to use his own enemies as test subjects and slaves. Eventually, though, his string of successes leads to him being too arrogant for his own good.

Scorponok: wow, I don't even know where to begin. Introduced as the archenemy of Fortress Maximus, he becomes a Headmaster commander by teaming up with the evil Nebulan politician, Zarak. Scorponok begins as a complete mess, with hilariously idiotic plans like using bubbles against his enemies or humiliating the Autobots by having his soldiers defeat them in wrestling matches... and on Earth, he and his soldiers live in a dump. Literally, they live in a dump. He also has more truces than battles with Optimus Prime as he comes to know him, never having seen him until Earth. But Scorponok's ineffectual villainy and eagerness to team up with the Autobots actually leads up to something, as it becomes clear that he actually wants what's best for all transformers but needed to be inspired by Optimus Prime's compassion and support to become confident enough to risk losing the Decepticons' respect and aim for peace. Scorponok (and Optimus) show the strength that lies in choosing to give up conflict and try for peace. In some ways, Scorponok is more like Optimus Prime than Optimus is in this continuity!

Thunderwing: really fascinating. At first he kinda comes across like a generic distillation of what a Decepticon leader is, with all the traits you'd expect of one, and he even takes a test to become one... not the norm given that it's usually backstabbing and civil war that decides who comes out on top. He also thinks he fails the test because he gets distracted by revenge, but then he passes because that proves he's a true Decepticon!!! It's Thunderwing's relationship with the Matrix that is especially interesting. He's obsessed with it, but it's the Matrix's own desire to have new experiences that's corrupting his mind and eventually possesses him. Thunderwing is actually honorable and it's his goodness that allows him to temporarily fight back against it. By current TF standards, Thunderwing would actually be a Prime, since he opened the Matrix, but the Matrix isn't benevolent here. It's more like a little kid that wants to learn by acting out, and Thunderwing is a casualty of that.

Decepticon leaders don't look like this anymore!

Megadeath: the reason Thunderwing is like That™️, and the reason five specific prominent Autobots are the way they are. I mention him because he only appears in a single story in one of the annuals, yet his actions were so unspeakably horrible (the Autobots he traumatized certainly thought so) that he's one of the most sadistic Decepticon leaders ever.

Galvatron: such a multi-faceted and cool villain, that I already made a whole post about him! Notable for his cunning, his fears, and the fact that he was made from at the very least both Megatron and Straxus.

Bludgeon: introduced as part of the Mayhem Attack Squad, which is the Decepticon equivalent of the Wreckers. Specifically, he's introduced hunting down former Mayhems for fraternizing with Wreckers! Bludgeon hates the possibility of peace and loves war, to a religious degree. He thinks he believes in honor, but to be honest, he really doesn't. He's also incredibly fake in that he will pretend to be all for peace just long enough for the Autobots to let their guards down. I'm impressed by how much I love to hate this character given how short Bludgeon's time on-panel was.

There are a few other minor ones that appear as well, so there are even more! I'd like to say that while it probably shouldn't be given that this was like... the first continuity ever, as a fan who became introduced to TF during the Aligned continuity, the way the Marvel UK stories approach Decepticon leadership is so refreshing.

One reason is that Megatron is not portrayed as special just by nature of being Megatron. Yes, he started the War and founded the Decepticons, but he's not given more respect from his troops or his enemies automatically, and he gets his shit rocked constantly. Shockwave's intro was to immediately beat him up and take over, and Megatron embarrasses himself constantly. That's not to say that Megatron isn't worthy of being a Decepticon leader, no—but it means he's often shown clawing his way back up and constantly battling legitimate threats to his position. As a fan, it made me respect him a lot more.

Another thing I appreciate is the way the Decepticons are humanized. There are a lot of blatantly evil ones, but there also many of them who have a sense of honor and goodness, and it's clear that both many Decepticons and Autobots feel stuck and don't even remember why the War started at this point. And even the Decepticons who lack compassion or honor have very understandable struggles, such as facing trauma and trying to overcome it.

Along with the above point is the way the story of Scorponok is handled. I love that Scorponok is a Decepticon leader who always secretly held values that align with Autobot values, but then he ended up stuck in this bloodthirsty culture and endless conflict where he felt like he couldn't do anything, and I love how this is slowly foreshadowed throughout the comic. His friendship with Optimus is also excellent. I really enjoyed how they didn't meet until Earth and slowly became friends as they continually teamed up against greater threats. I appreciate that the Decepticon leader who's best friends with Optimus isn't like... Megatron, who started the War. I feel like a lot of newer continuities make the War center on the falling-out of two friends, which I think is a ridiculous way to handle the conflict.

Speaking of Megatron and Optimus, I appreciate how this continuity just doesn't have a lot of the dynamics that are typically present regarding these Decepticons. Megatron and Optimus are definitely each other's oldest enemy, but their conflict is de-centered in the narrative and they never had a falling-out. Instead, they always disliked each other from before the War. It's actually Shockwave who becomes the nemesis of both Optimus and Megatron for many issues! A lot of Optimus's deepest trauma was inflicted by Shockwave. Also, Megatron and Starscream still have a conflict, but that conflict is rarely present. Starscream causes problems for everyone and is mainly linked to Shockwave for a long time. And as I said before, it's Optimus and Scorponok who become friends.

I think a lot of the approaches this continuity took with the Decepticons should be used in the future!

[adorekento]

flirty scara x insecured reader? like maybe self loathing themselves 😙

Glimpse — Scaramouche

Synopsis: You were nothing but an ordinary student, People never attempted to approach you, Until a certain Indigo-haired dude asked you out.

warnings: self-loathing, flirt attempts, offensive content, bullying, ooc, etc.

notes: agghsge I'm sosorryyy for being inactive 😭😭🙏🙏 I'll js fix the error tmrrrrr and if there's grammars my apologies im half asleep when i wrote this 🙂🙂

"y/n."

A voice called out from behind, startling you out of your thoughts. Veering around, your eyes locked with the Indigo eyes that were fixed on you, "Uh, Yes?" you asked, baffled.

It wasn't every time people would call out to you. In fact, No one attempt to chat with you unless they ought something. You'd probably be more surprised if someone spoke directly to you and it's happening, the person talking to you is known all over the school for their coldness and mindset. So you were kind of thrown when he began speaking to you.

"Be my partner."

Gasps can be heard throughout the room as students turn to look at the male who just spoke up, when he finished his sentence, your cheeks bloom red. It was not the statement you anticipated, especially from him, and you're kind of dumbfounded.

'He's probably just... Ugh.'

"Pardon?" you ask politely, though unsure about what his intentions are with this whole situation. "Did you not hear me? I want to be your companion for the upcoming task." He continues, giving you an expectant look which you fail to return because you're still trying to process what he'd said.

"Huh?! Scara~ Are you sure you want to be partnered with this— thing? Come on! Think twice!"

"Unless he lost to a bet?"

"Understandable."

"Right! He probably lost to a bet that's why he's asking y/n for their help, they don't even seem interested, Haha!"

"Seriously? Scaramouche and y/n? Is he just trying to get them a good grade by partnering with them?? That's stupid,"

The whispers around you grow louder as everyone starts to make fun of you for the current situation you're in.

"T-Thank you for the offer, really, But I'm certain I can work alone on our lesson," you say with an awkward smile, "Maybe you could just try asking someone else instead," you manage to say while staring into his pretty eyes.

"No way! Are they actually refusing Scaramouche?"

'What the fuck do you guys want me to do then?! You were just judging me a few seconds ago because he wants to pair up with me! And now that I'm rejecting his offer you're mad too?! Ridiculous!'

"they think rejecting him is cool! It's not like they ALWAYS get a partner, right?"

"They might reject him just for looking like this and making them feel inferior,"

"Poor Scaramouche! How can someone like them reject him?"

The students went on to talk as you tried to maintain yourself calm and steady despite all these comments, but unfortunately, all that did was cause you to start feeling a little tense. Not enough to go wild or anything. Just a tiny amount. You could still deal with the ridicule, but not enough to get furious at them,

Scaramouche grimaced at the crowd of students who were talking about you while you were staring at the floor, Making them look away,

He picked up your bag off the ground and threw it over his shoulder, grabbing your hand to pull you out of the classroom with him. You didn't resist as he dragged you outside, ignoring everyone calling after him as they watched him go.

Once you two left the room, he eventually let go of your hand and kept walking. You followed behind him, keeping your mouth shut. It wasn't until he stopped in front of you and uttered, "Apologies for dragging you here against your will, and well- drawing attention onto us," he says awkwardly, scratching his neck with his free hand as he looked around,

"Also, it's not every time I do requests. I wish to be your partner for the project. we have mutual chemistry and I believe that working together would benefit both of us," he said grinning,

You blinked rapidly a few times, not knowing how to respond to such a sincere statement,

"...You're aware that bunch of people out there desire to have you as their partner for this right? I mean I am glad and surprised that you're inviting someone like me but you don't have to push yourself!" you respond nervously, fiddling with your fingers before rubbing your hands to keep from getting too nervous.

"Look, I won't force you. You can simply say no, you're only saying that because you care about what people think, Right?" he asked.

He stared at you for a moment. Then he grabbed your chin, making you meet his intense eyes. You gasped slightly at the contact, then relaxed after a second. "Just do whatever feels right to you, okay?" He sneered.

Your face flushed again as you nodded shyly at him. He smiled lightly at you before releasing your chin and letting go of your hand,

"Okay..."

—

After a few days, You've gotten closer to Scaramouche, everyday he would go to you and walk you home, helping you study in class and even hanging out at lunchtime.

it also took you a bit to realize that you were starting to develop feelings toward him, Who wouldn't? With his handsome features paired with his cold demeanor, plus that cute laugh of his whenever he speaks, you're sure to fall in love with him sooner or later, no matter how hard you try not to.

The earlier morning he asked you to hang out with him at the park near your house so you agreed, and now you're walking with Him beside you. It was quiet between you two, as you weren't much of a chatterbox.

The silence is mostly comfortable, though you felt your heart beating faster than normal, which made you panic slightly. Why is your heart beating this fast? Maybe you're sick!

You shake the thought away, it's probably nothing... "You alright?" Scaramouche asked, tilting his head slightly as if noticing you panicking a bit before shrugging.

You nod quickly, trying to avoid eye contact, "Yea! I'm fine, Sorry, Don't you think it's gotten cold? It's not even winter yet—"

Your rambling stops abruptly as you felt his arm move across yours to hold your hand tightly. "If you wanted to hold my hand, you could've just said so, instead of making absurd excuses," he grinned at you, squeezing your hand reassuringly,

"T-That's not—" you stutter. Your ears start burning from embarrassment. You really shouldn't let his charm affect you that easily. Or maybe it was just the way his touch felt so warm and inviting?

"What's that? Do you also want to kiss me? Now aren't we getting ahead of ourselves a little early?" he smirked down at you, leaning forward until you were nose to nose,

"I didn't even say anything— I wasn't going to!" You argued back, taking a step back from him as he chuckled.

His laugh was nice to hear, "Go ahead, I might let you." He whispered in an amused tone. The smirk remained on his face as he leaned forward again, bringing his other hand to cup your cheek, "Are you blushing?" he teased gently stroking it with his thumb while keeping eye contact with you.

Your body was heating up, it felt warm and tingly from all those butterflies suddenly fluttering around in your stomach, and your cheeks felt flushed due to his closeness. It was weird and uncomfortable how he had made you feel all flustered and embarrassed. You didn't know how to respond, so you simply closed your eyes, allowing your cheek to be caressed while his breath tickled your ear,

You felt his lips brush against yours and your heart began racing again. His thumb moved from your cheekbone and rested itself over your lips before moving slightly and softly kissing them. Your eyes flew open in shock. You stood there, frozen and completely dumbfounded as your heart rate increased drastically in both speed and volume,

"There, I kissed you." He snickered down at you, his voice low and smooth. His voice sends shivers down your spine and you blush more.

You shook your head slightly and cleared your throat before smiling at him,

"Right!" That was all you managed to mutter back.

You looked back at him for a second, then averted your gaze toward the ground once more. You couldn't believe that you got kissed by someone like Scaramouche! you didn't have any idea how to react.

but, to be fair, most girls would jump at the chance to kiss him when they first saw him, so you weren't complaining.

Your thoughts were interrupted when you felt his hand slide down your arm to grasp your hand and intertwine your fingers. You glanced down at your interlaced hands, then back up at him in confusion, "Are you fine with this?" he asked, looking at you curiously.

"Mhm! No worries." You nodded quickly as you started to walk, but hesitantly intertwined your fingers with his, causing his grin to widen.

"But... If any chance s-someone you know strolled by— we can quit holding hands, I don't want to embarrass you in front of your friends..." you mumbled, feeling his hand squeeze yours tighter.

"If someone I know happened to catch a glimpse of us, I'd pull you extra close."

© [ adorekento ] do not steal, repost, or translate my work.

[bokettochild]

Whispers

Legend & Wild fluff

1,579 words

Inspired by Hylia only knows what.

"Legend?" 

The veteran’s head turs to look at him, lifting from the very heavy looking tome he was reading, all curled up on the couch, feet tucked under himself and honestly looking so comfortable it almost seems a sin to disturb him. Nothing is said, but the question of what he wants is evident in the veteran’s eyes. 

“Can I hold you?” 

Legend blinks, once, twice, a third time. “Excuse me?” 

Wild shifts, limbs all too heavy and too light at the same time and nerves screaming in ways he can’t actually put words to. “Can I- I ne- want, I want to hold someone. I’m supposed to be holding someone? I don’t know what’s going on but-” 

The vet rolls his eyes. “In other words, you want cuddles.” Despite the snort in the words, he’s marking his place in his book and shifting upwards. 

That’s not exactly what Wild meant. “No, not really? I don’t-” he’s not sure if he should continue speaking or stop when the vet pauses, staring at him. “It’s not that I want cuddles, I’m not Sky. I just...” It feels like he ought to be holding onto someone. It’s strange, weird, unexplainable, but the warm house, the fire crackling softly away, the sounds of Malon and Time murmuring in the kitchen, the fading light and the soft sound of turning pages.... 

It’s like he’s drifting on the edges of a memory, like a vision just behind his eyes or around a shut off wall inside of his head. There’s something saying that he is meant to be here, that maybe this is home, maybe this is where a small part of him- one he’s never really sensed before- feels that things are familiar. Things are right. 

The fire crackling, the muffled laughter and dancing shadows in the kitchen. The rumble of Time’s indistinct voice, Malon’s sweet song like one rising beside it. The way the firelight dances over Legend’s features, softening harsher lines and washing warmth over fine features instead. Maybe it’s the dreamy expression that was on his brother’s face a moment before, or perhaps the crisp sound of pages hissing over each other, well-worn and faded. Maybe it’s the hints of scrawled out writing he’s peeked on the margins, or maybe the huddled posture of his companion. Maybe it’s the way there’s quiet outside, only the faintest sound of the wind just outside the windows. 

Maybe it’s the feeling of peace that’s settled over the house in the absence of the others. 

Over dinner, Twilight had suggested taking the rest out to sleep out in the barn for the night, up in the hayloft where they could watch the stars and enjoy the fresh air and have more space between them then laying out across the floor in one of the rooms in the house. Most of the others had been up for it, Sky the first to agree and Hyrule and Wind quick to follow, for differing reasons but with equal excitement. Hryule doesn’t like being indoors, and Wind enjoys the adventure of sleeping out in a barn, a rare experience for him that most of them are well familiar with. Warriors was the only one they’d had doubts about, but Twilight’s ribbing and teasing and a bet on whether the captain could make it through the night in a barn, laying on the straw amid the animals, had quickly changed that. Four had gone along, claiming he had to see it for himself, but that had left himself and Legend. 

Legend wanted to read his book and curl up on the couch where his joints were at ease. 

Wild wanted to enjoy the quiet. 

He loves his brothers, he does, but having so many people around feels wrong for some reason. Yet now, sitting alone in the quiet, it feels wrong to not have someone with him as well, even if Legend’s right there in front of him, pouring over the hefty tome that eeks of heavy, powerful magic. 

There’s something missing, something wrong, some sensation or want that could complete this picture but which he can’t name. There’s someone missing, and while he knows it’s not actually Legend, it’s someone like Legend, he’s sure of it. 

“You can say no.” 

The vet sighs, stretching. “It’s fine,” His guarded eyes say otherwise. 

“It’s dumb.” 

Violet snap at him, darkness in their depths for a moment. “No, it’s not.” 

He stares. 

Pink hair falls over the dark eyes that hold his own, but Legend doesn’t blink or push it away. “Look, Wild, far be it from me to say what normal is, but believe it or not, sometimes people want contact.” 

“Even you?” He challenges, disbelieving because Legend doesn’t tend to seek out contact from most of them. 

The flush on freckled cheeks is a betrayal, even if the words of the other hero are something else entirely. “Ravio and I had to talk about this. He needs contact sometimes, it’s okay to ask, just make sure you respect boundaries and stuff.” Legend shrugs, ears flicking back, flushed crimson at the tips, “just make sure to ask.” 

“So, if I want, I just have to ask?” 

“And if I say no, you listen, but yeah.” 

He blinks. “So, can I hold you?” 

It sounds weird, but Legend just grumbles and huffs at him in answer, never complaining directly even as he pulls himself out of the corner of the couch, gathering book and afghan to move over to Wild’s side. He stops once he’s standing in front of the champion though, frowning, feet shifting in the briefest betrayal of nerves. “So... what am I doing?” 

He frowns his answer, not quite sure. “Sit? I... I’m not sure. Just, be close?” It’s weird asking, but at the same time, the concept feels familiar for some reason, despite he and Flora having never done this. No one has done this before, as far as he recalls, although Tulin does tend to huddle up in his space in a way that’s almost what he’s wanting. It’s not the same though. 

The vet’s face twists, but he climbs up beside him, squirming and shaking out limbs as he tries to settle in, book and blanket both aiding and worsening his efforts. 

Like an old habit, or muscle memory, like picking up a sword the first time out of the shrine, he pulls the blanket away, letting Legend settle before sweeping the crocheted fabric around the shoulder that’s not nearly pressed against his own. 

Legend is just the slightest bit shorter than him, but curled up tight as he is, it’s a bit more than normal, especially with Wild sitting up straight beside him. Somehow that’s correct, by whatever strange criteria the foreign part of his memory has set. The dark eyes blinking up at him is also correct, somehow, the faint furrow between brows and the slightest scrunching of the nose in a question the vet doesn’t ask but which he reads all the same. 

“You can keep reading if you want.” 

Heavy lashes lower for a moment, raising as he’s fixed under another stare, and then shoulders are settling against the couch back with a huff and the vet’s book falls open again. 

The book is correct too. He's not sure how that could be, considering despite the fact that he can understand the lettering it still seems totally foreign to him. The words make sense separately, but the way they combine, the meaning is somehow lost, even though Legend follows them slowly, finger following the lines at times and faint murmurs hissing soft on his breath as he goes, long ears twitching back towards Wild every moment or so. 

He’s not sure why he settles his head atop of his brother's own, arms slipping down to wrap around the vet’s middle, but it feels right, and though the other starts a bit, he doesn’t cast him off, just sighs and goes back to reading. 

The magic in the book is heavy, wild, strange and foreign in a way that the flickering shadows cast by the fire are not. The book is weighty, not just in the gnarled hands that hold it, but in the air around it and the very existence of the earth. Time and Malon sound distant, and the only noise is the wind outside, the cracking of the flames and the faint puffs of breath he can feel escaping with every swell and fall beneath his hands. 

“Is it a magic book, Aryll?” He hears his own voice whisper, confused. 

Her smile is full of starlight, wild and sparking with delight as she lifts her head, meeting his eyes from where she’s curled beside him. “Yes!” 

“It doesn’t seem to make much sense,” he grouches to her, settling his chin amidst her hair and basking in the sunshine of her laughter.  

“Maybe you’re just dumb, I can understand it just fine!” 

“Really?” It’s disbelieving, his voice, but he knows there’s pride swelling in his chest as he says it. 

“Yes.” 

“Read it to me?” 

Legend’s dark eyes aren’t the glittering blue of the girl whose voice echos in Wild’s head, but they hold stars, bright and sparking, not as bright, not as warm, but just as charged, heavy with the same weight as the book in his hands. There’s confusion in them for a moment, before the vet settles, saying nothing of the chin in his hair or the way Wild pulls him closer.  

“If you insist.” 

[bonniesfamiliar]

Time Travel Drabble: This is Harriet thinking that she's dreaming. This is Tom basically drunk off of his soul being inside her.

Slytherin Green silk robe.

Untameable black hair like ink.

Those are the first things that Tom could register from the unfamiliar person lying down on the Black family carpet, the one opposite their tapestry. 

He curled his lip in disgust at the memory of Walburga Black entering his mind with her banshee-like screeching of pride over the 'purity' of her and her family's blood.

A giggle snapped him out of his thoughts and back to the woman lying down.

He cleared his throat to gain her attention but to no avail as her attention was pinned to the tapestry.

Tom hated being ignored so he cleared his throat even deeper and added, "Excuse me-"

"You're excused." She cut him off, not even looking at him to address him, "Now get out." This was followed by a shooing motion that angered him, "I thought I told Kreacher not to let anyone in today." The last part was muttered to herself.

She resumed looking at the tapestry while Tom assessed her.

The unidentified witch didn't seem like a threat, especially since her magic wasn't even present.

 Still, appearances were deceiving so he kept his magic on the defensive in case she attacked.

She sighed with exhaustion before standing up.

When she faced him, her reaction was most peculiar.

Instead of shrieking like any lady who realised that a gentleman was in her presence, she folded her arms and assessed him.

"A ghost of Tom Riddle coming to haunt me?" She said aloud, freezing him temporarily.

How did she know his identity?

"A ghost?" He asks instead, more confused as to that part of her ramblings.

The witch cocked her head at him and her stare intensified.

Eyes as green as the killing curse, he noted, finding himself strangely drawn to them.

"Yes, a ghost, Tom. That's what you are to me." 

Her voice was oddly sooth- He ought to smack himself for having inappropriate thoughts towards a woman he had never met before.

"I do believe you are confusing me with a different person."

An appalled look overtook his face before he could stop it at the sight of her snorting.

What unladylike behaviour, he added mentally to the profile he was beginning to build in his mind.

"Even dead, you're still trying to trick me, Tom?" She tutted, making him feel more like a schoolboy being told off.

"Are you aware that it is quite rude to address a person by their forename without giving yours in return?" Tom moves closer, both as intimidation and to avoid looking at her very appealing figure- STOP!

His mind screeched to a halt.

What was his mind even saying?

"You really are going with this whole clueless act, aren't you Tom?" She asked with narrowed eyes.

Before he could reply, she sighed and released her hands from their folded state.

"Hi, Tom Riddle. My name is Harriet Potter. Are you happy now?" She placed her hand in front of him for him to shake.

He kissed the back of her hand, almost drunk off of the intensity of feeling the power of her magic humming under her skin, and replied, "Immensely pleased."

Sh- Lady Potter downright hissed at him like a tame cat turned wild as she snatched her hand back from his hold.

"I am not a thing that has been created to please you, Tom." She spat out his name like it was poison on her tongue.

"Did I say you were?" He replied, amusement in his tone at seeing a blush colour her cheeks when she hissed at him, anger dripping from her.

"Yes, you have. Multiple times, Tom," she states before moving away from him to sit on the sofa that she had neglected for the floor.

Tom followed her and sat next to her asking, "I do not recall any of those moments,"

Lady Potter - Harleen - groaned in frustration, jabbing a finger into his side, "Stop acting like you don't fucking know me, you fucked up Dark Lord!"

Tom grabbed at her hands, halting her movements from poking him any further and stated, "I truly do not know who you are, Lady Potter."

Lady Potter froze and looked at him.

No.

She assessed him the way a predator would before pouncing on its prey.

Was he the prey in the situation?

"Fine then, Tom," Lady Potter mused, as she stood up and bound him to the sofa with invisible weaves of ropes, "I'm going to play along with the ruse that you've cooked up here. The ruse being that I've travelled back somehow and met the Dark Lord before he loses his nose."

Excuse me? Tom went to say but he failed to notice earlier that the ropes bound his mouth so he was unable to speak.

"I killed you in the future," She says casually as if talking about the weather, "I took pleasure in watching you turn into nothing but ash."

Tom's red eyes must have come out because Harleen was looking at him very carefully.

Then she did something he could never have expected.

She spoke in Parseltongue.

A Potter was a Parselmouth.

"You destroyed my life, Tom Riddle. And now, I'm going to ruin yours. I'm going to ruin you until you come to me on your knees begging for death."

Then the ropes were gone but before he could grab her, she had disappeared.

Tom grinned at the challenge.

Him begging?

No, Harleen Potter, it will be you who comes to me.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s3 episode 6 thoughts

it’s been an exhausting day. work was awful. i was brave and didn’t cry whilst there. and for that, i deserve this episode even more than usual. 

oooooh it’s an internet episode!!!! an episode about an internet killer!!! that probably felt new and scary back then!!! i’m excited to see something i assume as naturally dangerous as hitchhiking to be seen as scary and new. let us jump in, and enjoy the adventures of our agents, and numb ourselves to the hardship of the outside world.

these two people are in a car. he is smooth talking her. oh… they only waited three months to meet in person after talking online. hmm… is that speedy or not? i guess that depends on who you ask. for me, i’m gonna say speedy. because they didn’t even see each other’s faces before this.

he has mysterious scars on his neck. yeah, i noticed that very conspicuous camera panning. the music is very ominous. and now they’re kissing. 

OH??? THERE IS A STICKY FLUID. IN HER MOUTH. an unusual one. not whatever you were thinking. what the hell… was that man some kind of insect????? there was real goop in there, man. eughhh it was very gross. 

cop is approaching the car next day. and she is like. jelly? as in, covered in gel. the gelatin monster has struck and apparently he’s surfing the net. 

(trust when i say i’m not a gelatin monster. or don’t trust. perhaps skepticism is better)

okay, investigation time. this guy shakes hands with mulder and entirely ignores scully. tells me a lot about his character very quickly. mulder has also got some more conventional looking shades this time around. perhaps his other ones were just not keeping the sun out like he had hoped for.

body reveal! so it seems that the goop has um. melted her skin? EUGH. mulder swabs the goop. it’s just a prop, i tell myself to avoid gagging. a prop with excellent construction that was very carefully crafted. shoutout prop team as always. 

detective looks real freaked out by the goop. yeah he’s not special in that regard.

mulder says he has heard of similar killings from women placing ads in the paper! i don’t want them to separate though, as he announce he’s going on an investigation while she does an autopsy. c’mon, can’t we do some teamwork in the same room?

scully looks disgusted at the bloody goop in her hand. this is appearing to be a universal sentiment.

the goop man is at the computer typing to another woman. and smiling mischievously. we learn, from a woman dropping a key off at his door, that his name is mr. incanto, and she thinks that since he types and gets a lot of packages, he must be a writer or an editor. and she wants him to read her poems. wow. leaping to conclusions here. i admire it. it’s clear she’s flirting with him, and the idea of a person you’re attracted to reading your poems is a wild one for me to entertain. personally i would rather explode crazy style.

scully is scrubbed up <3 and she is so cute <3 i don’t mean this in a condescending way… she just looks cute in a fully “i respect her capabilities” kind of way. don’t worry. but this man is not respecting her and is shocked she’s a doctor. rude as hell… could never be me.

he says he’s old fashioned. umm okay if you want to be all manly about it how about you cut up the goop body yourself… oh that’s right you can’t. because you don’t have the skill set. or even any skill sets, as far as i can tell.

he says this is effecting her judgement because the victim is a woman and he isn’t being sexist. IF YOU DON’T SHUT YOUR MOUTH MAN…. she is so patient even when she ought to rip his heart from his chest with her teeth

she’s making a face when he leaves like she really IS thinking about doing some heart ripping and then she gets into the recording mode. and the body has increased in goopiness. in fact. there is only a skeleton now and a LOT of liquid. oh… 

mulder is asking about the murder victim, and he’s sitting on a very 90’s printed couch, and yeah he looks good. don’t worry about it. he’s asking the victim’s roommate what chat room they met in. now personally, if i was talking to people on a chat room, i would not be telling my roommate the names of said chat rooms, but maybe it was different vibe wise at that time. imagine if my roommate knew i ran a blog like this. i couldn’t picture such a thing. and the victim would READ her roommate the letters???!? OH I CANNOT IMAGINE SUCH A THING!!!!

he uses the roommate’s house phone to call scully, who is dealing with a very wet skeleton. but that’s so funny to me. he wanted to use someone else’s phone to call her. maybe his phone still hadn’t been replaced since that kid melted it in episode 3.

he’s putting out a localized online warning… is that a thing? wow. you learn so much on this television program.

“in life, bones have the tensile strength of forged iron”, says scully. and i’m giggling. n kicking my feet.

ohhh the bone is SQUISHY. it is not supposed to be this way. but it did look quite satisfying. again, props team, shoutout.

oh tea… the body fat wasn’t there!!! it disappeared. scully is like, why would he do that, steal a victim’s fat. and i would love to know the same thing. 

another woman is preparing to meet with the goop monster. oh, but someone is telling her there was a warning SPECIFICALLY for woman in cleveland to not go meet people online! but she’s like nooo i’m a good judge of character. LIES LIES LIES. she’s only been talking to him for a MONTH???? HOW CAN YOU JUDGE A CHARACTER IN A MONTH?

the killer’s at a fancy restaurant looking place with a bouquet of flowers and he’s checking his watch. oh and he dumps the flowers!!! queen of self preservation saved herself tonight by standing him up??? yes, it appears this is the case!! 

now there are a bunch of ladies on the side of the road. i have only seen this happen in this show and never in real life, but maybe i'm not looking in the right direction. NO! he sees a woman and smiles. they go to a back alley… no!! but she won’t kiss him. okay, i think, she has a chance. alas. i was wrong. so he attacks. OH AND HE IS SLURPING ON HER BODY???? another woman finds her goop-ified. 

they’re at the scene and the detective is being awful (shocker!) but mulder hands over some of the letters from the killer, and notes that they contain letters from 16th century italian poems. which tells me he is familiar with 16th century italian poems. ohhhhhhhhhh. blushing a lil. 

focus. so the fellow would have access to niche italian poems, is what we are learning here. likely a college professor, or a grad student, or something along those lines.

the killer should also have a wound pattern, they note, because the woman scratched him very well.

and BLEGHHHH, cut to his place, where he’s cutting his wound??? like straight up trimming it like it’s fabric or something. nasty nasty nasty nasty!!!

someone is bringing him a package. and the woman who asked to show him her poems asks him to dinner?!?!?! but he says he’s busy. the teenage daughter reads him for filth. he’s creepy and smells weird. delivered by a girl who meant every word she said.

scully is posing impeccably, looking as someone types on a computer. it was formidable.

mulder comes by with some results and he sort of. scoops her out of the room. 😳

theory time in the hallway! hallway theory time!! always one of my favorite times. “okay, it’s not yet the finely detailed insanity that you’ve come to expect from me” <- at least he’s self aware 

FAT SUCKING VAMPIRE LET’S GOOOO. such a preposterous creature. i have to admire it.

there are examples of this in nature, right? “i don’t know too many scorpions who surf the internet” scully, you just offended the coolest scorpion alive somewhere out there. but they couldn’t hear you so it’s okay. just don’t ever say that again…

scully wants to brief the people involved in the case and the detective is again being weird. mulder recognizes this. i can see it.

okay, so the killer has some more niche italian poetry. and an email from the woman who saved herself by not showing up! nooo, i thought she had escaped!

knock at the door. it’s scully. but not at the door of the right guy!! the detective is at the door of the right guy!!! 

mulder makes some remark about not being a good salesman because no one answered the door. and yeah i giggled. but she cuts him off with the fact the detective hasn’t answered his calls or returned… has he been gooped?!

now the killer is out with the woman who previously saved herself. and she sees his skin. and she offers to drive him home!!! noooo ellen :( don’t fall for his tricks and lies

the poetry woman is at his door. she puts a HUGE thing of poems under his door. 

but back in the car he is about to smooch ellen. somehow poetry lady let herself into his room??? and a bunch of flies are around. 

(we later learn she was the housekeeper or landlord or something so yeah. she would have access to the keys. but at the time i was baffled)

goop monster and ellen don’t smooch because he sees the poem lady is in his room!!! and the detective is in the tub!!! and he walks in right as she sees this!!! oh no. violence ensues…

her daughter comes to the door. and asks where her mom is. and he GRABS her weird as hell. and says he’s leaving.

mulder is sitting on a table again because he’s weird. but the girl calls the police!!! and they found her mom’s body and the detective's. the little girl asks scully why someone would do this and she says she doesn’t know… STOP I’LL SOB

okay, this dude’s name is virgil and there are no records of him existing. virgil. damn. maybe he’s FROM 16th century italy, because that’s a 16th century sounding name. are there any italian legends of fat sucking vampires? can’t say i’m very familiar with their lore 

they’re trying to get into his computer and all the files were deleted. ohhh they have floppy disks!!! i love floppy disks 💾

the killer went to ellen’s place?!!?!? and she locks the door. ellen please pull out a glock at this time. 

scully sent out a warning to everyone in proximity. and three of them were already missing!!!! that is evil :(

and ellen got the email but he’s in the room. and he starts attacking… oh lord, just as the agents roll up. 

they get in formation and then kick down her door and WHEW they way they work as a team… i’m eating it up. sweeping the rooms. guns cocked. 

ellen is under some sheets and coated in goop whilst mulder does parkour to go and find this guy. GO GO MULDER RUN RUN!!! his voice is all growly while he holds a shadowy figure at gunpoint, but he only runs into a teenager. no! poor kid :(

NOOO… THE KILLER WAS HIDING IN THE BATHROOM AND SCULLY WAS GOING IN THERE TO GET SOME STUFF TO TAKE CARE OF ELLEN!! he smashed her head in the mirror and he starts to goop her until ellen does in fact roll up with a glock. and shoots him in the chest. YES ELLEN I KNEW YOU HAD IT IN YOU <3

so they have him in custody now and his skin is suuuuuuper dry and peeling and nasty. and scully asks what the hell he was doing and he goes on about stuff blah blah blah and then he quotes some italian and she gets freaked and dips. and we end with a hannibal-esque shot of his evil peeling nasty face. and some contemplative music.

so. that was gross.

grossness established. i once again kind of enjoyed this episode. like was i gagging, and not in the good way? yeah i was. but again with the suspense. i think the plot could be absolutely ridiculous- like an actual fat vampire- and if the plot and pacing are the right tempo, i’ll find myself fully absorbed into it. 

but i can’t help but feel that i’m missing something. the italian seemed too purposeful. is there some medieval tale of a fat vampire? i’m being so serious btw like actually. is that a reference that flew over my head? is it in dante’s inferno or something? i love history but middle ages europe always puts me to sleep so i can’t say i’m familiar with the literature or tropes beyond what i learned in art history class. where we never covered ANY sort of vampire. just a lot of baby jesus and also mary and sometimes adult jesus. 

hmm. so i’m wondering here what that was about. and yeah, i could google it. but again, more fun when you tell me things.

i mean, if it was something they just made up for fun, i get that too. like earlier we had that evil mermaid baby that lived in the waterways. and we had that evil twin that looked like the fiji mermaid. and eugene tooms the lizard man. the seriousness with which the situation is played enhances the campy angle when you ponder it.

overall, it was interesting to see a world where the internet was new and fresh and scary. now it’s scary in mostly familiar ways. but it was not always this way! and while i am a little confused on the concept of the episode itself- who exactly our monster of the week was, if he even WAS a monster of traditional sort of means- i won’t lie, the episode had me invested. there were also moral questions raised about how someone could do something so evil, specifically in relation to scully’s character, which probably speaks to her biggest fear being that anyone could pose a threat, which i think i’ll contemplate at another time, because it is fascinating, especially when you consider… i think it’s s2 episode 13? where the narrative also really dives into this question. how can people do evil things, and how can good people cope with knowing that it’s impossible to know who is capable of doing terrible things?

after a hard day at work in which a million things went sideways, it does feel nice to watch my pals mulder and scully do some sleuthing, no matter the situation in which they find themselves.

the goopsterrrrrrrr

[hannahssimblr]

I wander through the food stalls in the late afternoon once I’ve inevitably lost the others, and join a long queue for food. Chips. This seems to be ninety percent of my diet these days. Chips and the kinds of sweets from the corner shop that burn the coating off my tongue. I pay for them and some sad, limp looking hotdog and wolf them down before hopping into the queue for the bar. I get three beers, all with the lids confiscated. Necking them all is the only way to avoid the inconvenience of carrying them upright for several hours, and while I do it, I wander through the festival in a relatively aimless search of a familiar face. 

The festival is in a field, or several, somewhere. I really have no sense of where I am according to a map. By the edge of the campsite, a path meanders into a small wood decorated with ribbons and hanging lamps in the foliage overhead. Acoustic melodies drift down the winding path as I pass couples in hammocks and groups of friends seated in the shade among the wildflowers. 

There is a smaller stage here, wooden, with a tarp hung overhead, housing musicians who play a lazy tune to a crowd on the picnic blankets and cushions scattered across the grass. A group of people in weird clothing dance in a circle, doing the type of moves people only seem to do when they’re familiar with the bong. Swaying, arms loose and hair, (because they all have long hair,) swishing across their backs. I seat myself on the grass in the dappled shade of an oak tree to finish my last beer, watching them as I let the alcohol slowly take over my body with that familiar, hazy weight. 

Eventually, one dancer sees me. Our eyes meet across the clearing and I feel embarrassed for looking at all. She smiles this slow, tranquil smile and begins a slow dance in my direction. 

“Fuck sake.” I think. “Why was I looking? Now I’m going to have to speak to this weird hippie-”

“Are you joining us, or are you just having a look?” She has a country accent I don’t recognise, but since I’m ignorant of all that exists outside of Dublin city, this much is not surprising. 

“I’m just, uh, I’m just looking, I suppose.”

“You seem a wee bit glum.”

“Right well, I’m fine, so.”

“I assumed you were looking over at us because you felt like a dance, but were feeling shy.”

I hack out a laugh. “What? No. No, I don’t dance like that.”

“‘Like that’? Like what?”

I peer over to the others behind her, one of which appears to believe he’s floating through time and space. “I’m not even nearly stoned enough, to be honest.”

“Ah, well, easy fix there. You could be stoned.” She sticks her hand into the pocket of her big patchwork skirt and offers me a rolled joint, but I shake my head and push it away. “Look, thanks, but I don’t smoke.”

“Do you do anything else?” she rummages through another pocket. 

“Not right now.”

“What’s wrong with now?”

“It’s about four in the afternoon.”

“It’s a festival. We don’t currently exist under the constraints of society. You don’t have to wait until it’s dark to do pills here, or whatever it is you think. You can be a free man, anybody you want to be.”

I shake my head. “You’d only be wasting them on a stranger. Don’t.”

She plonks next to me in the grass. The smell from her clothes is like the health food shop in town, where Jen buys those enormous bags of sesame sticks to munch with deliberate obnoxiousness in the middle of religion class.

She says, “You seem forlorn. I have this sense that you ought to be happier.”

I regard her for a moment, her red curls wild, the sun catching a halo of frizz around a circular face. “Look, if you’re coming over here for some other reason, like, you know… if this is about you wanting to-”

“I don’t fancy you, or anything like that.” She says, then, after I pause, she adds, “sorry to shock you, but I’m not interested.”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you offended?”

I hesitate. “No.” 

“You’re hardly making an assumption because I’m a girl doing something nice for you, are you? This doesn’t mean I want something more from you. You get that, right?”

I shrug. 

“Because that’s what boys do. They’re only nice to girls they think are hot.”

“Speaking from experience?”

She sighs, a great, long sigh of something like satisfaction with herself for having figured me out. “See, you would have been quite mean to me in school, wouldn’t you?”

I survey her for a few moments, then decide on cautious honesty. “Probably.”

“I’m healing at the moment. I’m seeking empathy for the kinds of people who I feel resentment towards. I thought I’d come over and offer you, and by extension every sporty, slightly ignorant boy from my secondary school…” She pulls a small baggie out of that skirt pocket and her face lights up with surprised delight, “ketamine! See it as a peace offering.” 

I ignore it until she puts it away. 

“You actually remind me of my friend.” I tell her.

“Interesting.” 

“She’s got the same hair, whenever she doesn’t straighten it, and stuff, it’s kind of curly like yours.”

“Ah, and is she also a massive babe?”

I pause.

“God. I was joking. You can say that she’s pretty without slipping up and complimenting me, too. Don’t worry, I won't get the wrong idea.”

“Yeah, Alison’s pretty. She doesn’t really, um, wear the clothes you wear, or anything, there’s just something about your hair, I suppose, and parts of your face that remind me of her.”

“Is Alison here today?”

“No, she’s in Dublin. I… yeah.”

The girl grins and bites her lip impishly. “So this friend, is she just a friend, or do you love her or something?”

I’m rendered momentarily speechless by the strangeness of this conversation. Who is this person, this Alison imposter? I shake my head. “No, it wasn’t like that with us. She’s a friend.”

“But you want more.” She prompts, and I furrow my brow. “You’re fairly nosy. Did you know that?”

“You’ve just started telling me this. I’m only listening to you.”

“Fair enough. I don’t know, anyway, maybe I wanted more at a certain time, but I’m just kind of like that with a lot of girls, like, I just get, like, feelings about them. It’s the main thing that’s wrong with me at the moment.”

“Explain that to me some more. Do they not feel it back, or?”

“Well, that’s not the issue, usually.”

“Ah,” she says, “You’ve got other, deep dark, brooding things going on, then.”

I lay my empty beer bottle on the grass. It tips over and rolls down the little incline where we sit, out of reach. I leave it there. “I suppose.”

Someone in the band has whipped out a sitar, sending psychedelic sounds over the crowd, and I sort of feel like my body is ascending to another realm, transported right back to that time Jen and I did mushrooms in a carpark and all the vehicles started looking like big weird bugs. It's dreamlike, transcendent, like I’m not real, and nothing I say holds any weight. I’m just a soul in the woods with a ginger girl in fairy clothes offering me bags of pills. 

“So, are you sad about Alison?” She says. 

“That’s part of it.”

“And the other parts, are they related to women, too?”

“Everything’s related to women a bit, isn’t it?”

“I’m very curious about what’s wrong with you.”

I let out a short, self-conscious laugh and pluck a blade of grass from the ground. 

“You don’t have to tell me. I just wonder what has you sad and alone in absolutely glorious weather, on the first day of a festival.”

“That’s why you came over, is it?”

“Yeah, in part. I’m saving you the same way I’d save a baby bird chucked out of its nest.”

“You look like you’d do that,” I say derisively, “and you'd disrupt the entire hangout so you could call the SPCA.”

She doesn’t flinch. “Yeah, ‘cause I would.”

“Okay, well, you could be working on me for a while. I think there’s everything wrong with me currently, so.”

“Well, I’m high as fuck, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Right.” I concentrate intently on the grass in my hand, folding it, knotting it, then breaking it apart, centimetre by centimetre. The girl, Not Alison. Weed Alison, sits there patiently as I repeat this process, plucking grass, fiddling with it, breaking it, flicking the bits away.

There’s a chance, I realise, I am becoming a weird man. A man who does things like this, who sits with a person he has never met before, and begins telling her private things about himself. Next thing I know, I’ll be fifty-eight years old and doing this to college girls on the bus as they try their best to ignore me and look out the window as I miss their every signal. The outlook isn't great.

This girl is asking questions because she is overly interested in other people’s lives and sees me as something amusing to be played with. Intellectually, I know this, yet there is a part of me that believes she has genuine concern for me and my wellbeing, like I really am some rejected baby bird. I experience a wave of momentary anger at her for confusing me until it becomes suddenly clear that I am angry at myself for the things that I feel. 

Still, the truth, having been given permission to emerge, rises in my stomach like bile.

I’m horrified to feel emotion swelling behind my face, and wait a long time to speak, in case my voice cracks and humiliates me. “I think I’m in love with someone.” 

“Oh, right,” she says, like this piece of information is not as astounding as I assumed it would be. “Someone other than your Alison friend.”

“Yeah, someone else.”

“Another she? Or a he, this time?”

I huff out a laugh. “A she.”

“Have you mentioned it to her?”

“God, no.”

“Do you plan to?”

“It’s pretty obvious to me that she’s better off not knowing.”

Her face lights up. “Ah, because she’s together with somebody else. Your friend, right? Your best friend.”

“Why are you making this into a soap opera? She’s not with anyone else... I don't think. It’s just, logistically. It’s not right.”

“So you’re kind of… not following your heart.”

“Fucked if I know what I’m doing, to be honest.” 

“Well,” she says, leaning thoughtfully onto her elbows, “What would happen if you told her about what you’re feeling?”

I glare at her in outrage.

She blinks. “Well, don’t you think she might like to know?”

“No, it’d be the worst thing possible. I’ll ruin her.”

“Maybe it’d be worse if you didn’t tell her.”

I have to stare at her for several seconds while I formulate a response. “It’s best for us both that I say nothing.”

“You have to tell her. What if she feels the same? What if she’s just waiting for you to say something? What if you’re both afraid for the same reason? What if you miss your chance and never get another?”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Have you ever kissed her?”

“No.”

She gasps, eyes dancing. “You must. What if it’s fab?”

“That’d be worse than not doing it at all.”

She cocks her head, “I don’t understand you. What about this love you supposedly feel?”

“It’s just a summer thing. I’ll get over it.” 

A sigh. “Okay”

“I always do.”

“Until you don’t.”

I narrow my eyes. “What’s that mean?”

“It means you do until you don’t. I thought that too, once, and then-”

“Eimear!” One of the dancing hippies calls out to her as the melody changes again, to something lively and upbeat. “Are you bringing your little chavvy friend to dance or not?”

She looks at me, and I shake my head firmly. 

“No,” she calls back, “He's decided against it.”

The group boos me heartily as she climbs to her feet, making such a scene with their disapproval that others turn to have a look, and to smile at me in that sympathetic way that you do to a child that is failing to fit in with his peers. I am a spectacle in football shorts among the harem-pantsed congregation. 

“Let yourself experience love.” Eimear says in parting, as serenely, she drifts towards her friends, twirling in a meadow of dog daisies. 

“Right, yeah.” I say, and get up to wander back the way I came, wobbly on my feet as the full force of the beers I necked in one go hits me all at once. And as I leave the strange, hazy dreamland behind and reenter the grungy reality of the main arena, I reach into my pocket and discover something that wasn’t there before. 

It’s a baggie with three pink, pressed ketamine pills. 

Beginning // Prev // Next

[sheepfulsheepyard]

brooooooo i have not stopped thinking about the taryn/ghost court of shadows mission to another court

bestie 🫣 I am SO sorry that I am SO late but i promise i was literally thinking about every day because i was like i have VIBES but i need WORDS to respond!!!

okay, so i was super inspired by your idea of taryn luring all of the queen’s enemies to her for the court of the shadows by pretending to be the dissatisfied, slighted sister. and i was also turning over some ideas about the “wild” faerie who more or less shun the courts and reside the deeper, feral woods because locke’s father was a wild fae but—here was what got me—the ghost’s mother is also (implied to be) a wild fae.

and so the premise is that one of the lesser, smaller courts that’s situated much deeper into the woods (the “court of evergreens” or something idk) finally come to pay their respects to cardan and jude at the palace. since it’s such a comparatively backwater, remote place, being around two years late isn’t necessarily the faux pas that it would be. most importantly: it’s the main point of contact for the vast majority of the wild faerie, so the actual court itself is much smaller in comparison to other courts, with most participants being wild fae who cycle through every couple of decades and stay for a few years and move back out to the wild.

and when the lord of this court shows up to the palace, he decides that as a rural prince, he’s missing out on the trends of all the other gentry. so: he requests that the king allow him the hand in marriage of the queen’s mortal sister. after all, if the king of elfhame has a mortal queen, shouldn’t all the other faerie lords ought to follow suit? imitation the sincerest form of flattery (and loyalty), of course.

[and this is where some actual plot that I haven’t thought of yet would have to kick into gear, mainly what the evergreen court’s lord is larger goal is, why he actually wants a mortal bride to show his loyalty to cardan, how the court of shadows picked up on something suspicious, etc]

a whole running thread I’d like to also tug at is whether or not the wild fae are actually more or less human than the gentry we’ve already been acquainted with—in their looks, in their seclusion, in their regard for mortals—so also a part of this is that the lord is subtly disregarding jude as queen and taryn as his bride, but going straight to cardan.

but. basically this boils down to the court of shadows agreeing to a plan that taryn puts forth. she will go to the court for a year and allow the lord to court her so she can gather information all the while. it’s decided the lord has a year and a day to woo her before he proposes to her.

jude does not want any of this to happen, but taryn—who has only recently been granted something like probation/liaison status with the court of shadows—is very desperate to prove herself not just to the court but to herself. she wants to prove that she can charm and play and manipulate the faerie better than locke did her.

now, the catch is, of course, the ghost is going with her as her “attendant”/bodyguard/contact. and the ghost is watching all of this from sidelines somewhere between disbelief and growing anger, because he saw snippets of how miserable taryn was with locke, and he cannot believe she seems to want to replay this entire drama again from the start.

leander’s there as really the only anchor and i want a huge part of this to be like. taryn trying to figure out what went wrong with her, with locke, with them together, to somehow come up with a satisfying explanation—she secretly wants to see if she can find locke’s father, though she’s terrified of what that would actually mean in consequence. basically taryn trying to stumble her way back through her own decision-making and looking for a future.

but more on the day-to-day side is her and the ghost essentially fending for themselves in hostile environment that is also nothing but revels, picnics, hunts—so they’re so very close to each others’ own decision-making it’s starting to get extremely personal. I really, really want the ghost’s mother to show up—maybe as the member of the court, maybe not even recognizing him—and idea that taryn and the ghost really are on the edge of the wild, the edge of mortality, the edge of a mask. something something how you’re both living in an elaborate masquerade with everybody but each other.

this was VERY rough im so sorry I don’t even know if this is making sense ahhh!!! but here are also a couple of fun points i wanted—

when the lord of the evergreen court comes to propose to “the queen’s sister” in front of the entire court he does NOT make it clear which one and vivi immediately hides

locke’s father shows up at some point and maybe tries to. i don’t know. kill taryn for killing locke 🤷‍♀️ we love family drama

the wild maybe grow to less human features the more time they spend in the wild? i’m wondering how this would affect the half-human ghost…

taryn and the ghost sleeping back-to-back to guard for intruders

the ghost gets brought along as part of taryn’s retinue and as leander’s “sword instructor” despite the fact leander definitely isn’t old enough to walk

anyway thank you for putting your amazing tarynworks out into the world 💖

[bertinworms]

New Opportunities (Pt. 1)

Pairings: Tangerine x gn!nurse!Reader

Tags/Warnings: blood, wounds, language & cussing, mention of guns, mentions of stabbing, some mentions of medical tools and practices.

Word Count: 3.9K

Summary: You are a nurse at a residency near Kyoto, Tokyo. You had been called in to go to the wreck of a bullet train that smashed through a wall into a city. On your way, you spot two men walking on a road looking disheveled. You patch Tangerine up, and he offers you a job working for him and Lemon. 

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

“What do you think really happened to make that train go off the rails like that?” asked your coworker who was sitting in the passenger seat of the car as he reached to turn down the volume of the radio. You had purposely had it up a little louder to deter him from striking up a conversation – and it had lasted for about fifteen minutes. 

You shrug before letting out a dry, “I don’t know.” It had been a long day already. You had finally made it home before you had been called out to the wreckage of a bullet train that had evidently not stopped at its last destination and instead crashed through a wall and into a village outside of Kyoto. 

You watch Elijah out of the corner of your eye, readjust awkwardly and turn his eyes to the side of the road. You didn’t mean to come off as rude to him, the tall brunette sitting in the front seat next to you. He was your coworker, but he also was your friend you had known since Freshman year at university. And now you both were in Tokyo for a medical residency at a fairly high-end hospital. 

“What do you think happened? You have some wild theory, yeah?” You ask him, trying to soften the blow of your previous response. You didn’t mean to turn him down – you were just tired.

“I mean don’t you think it’s kind of weird? Like. They are so well designed and operated. Why would one just–” Elijah stopped mid sentenced and dramatically pointed in front of the car, “PULL OVER!!”

You notice the two men a few seconds after Elijah does. You weren’t even that close to them and you could still tell that they seemed badly injured. The taller of the two had an arm of the second man draped around his shoulder. The shorter man with longer hair seemed to be limping along. Even from where you sat behind the wheel, you could tell both men were heavily disheveled, wet, exhausted and bloodied – neither one of them looked very good. 

You quickly pull over behind them as they turn to face the car. Elijah doesn’t even wait for you to fully come to a stop before jumping out of the car and then racing to the back seat to grab his medical kit and quickly walking to the men. You can’t hear what he is saying, but you know he’s already introduced himself and has probably already begun evaluating them. 

Once you put the car in park, you follow Elijah’s hasty lead and grab your own bag and go to turn around and almost run into one of the men. You stop in your tracks as you come face to face with the man who was previously limping alongside the road. 

“Your friend there sent me over here to be checked out. He thinks I ought to sit down while you do your thing.” He says, standing there and staring at you – waiting for some sort of direction. You notice how his hair is beginning to curl at the ends, probably from it drying from being wet. It reminds you of the tail feathers of a duck.

“Yeah, sure. Let’s set you down here.” You say as you move out of the frame of the car door and motion for him to sit down on the backseat of the car. He gives you a look up and down with his eyebrows held low over his eyes before he complies. While you could tell he was trying to act normal, you could see he was in pain. As he went to sit down, you watched as his body almost stiffened, preparing for the commitment of sitting down and the moment his hand grabs onto the seat, it's almost like he just melts into the seat of your car with a muttered “bloody fuckin’ hell.” under his breath.

“Man, you really got beat up. I’d hate to see the other guy.” 

You chuckle, making a joke to lighten the mood hopefully. You hadn’t expected a laugh from the injured man sitting in front of you, but you also hadn’t expected the hardened stare that met your eyes. 

“Okay,” you say while raising your eyebrows and clapping your hands together after putting some gloves on, “Nevermind the jokes, let me have a look at ya. Do you mind if I set this here?” You had opened the kit and gestured to the man’s lap. You usually would’ve set your materials next to you on the ground somewhere, but with the already limited space between you and the man sitting half in the car, it made it tough to move around as easily if the kit was on the ground. 

“Not a problem, love.” He says, once again with no emotion. He uses both his hands to push his hair out of his face, and then holds out both hands to take the kit and places it in his lap. 

You now put your full focus on the man as your eyes scan his face. You notice that he had a few cuts, scratches and bruises on his face in various places – some still bleeding. You also notice that it looks like an earring had been ripped out of his left ear as his earlobe was torn. You also notice that he’s quite attractive – even this beat to shit. You begin to examine the cuts you can see on his face and go about determining what needs to be stitched or just cleaned. 

“So, Mr…” You start, hoping he would at least give you a name to work with.

“Tangerine. Just Tangerine.” 

“So Tangerine, what did happen if you don’t mind me asking.” You say looking down at him as you grab some materials.

You don’t want to necessarily pry into Tangerine’s life, but you know it might help distract from any pain he is currently feeling. Especially as you go to stitch up a nasty cut on his forehead. You make a mental note to check for a concussion later.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business, love.” He snaps back, watching you discard some gauze on the floor of the car. 

You raise an eyebrow at the sudden sass from the man sitting in front of you. He seems feisty, even when he seems to not have the upper hand in the situation.

“I mean, I don’t have to know. But you and your friend are walking down a pretty solemn road. Both of you tattered, bloody and wet. And both of you are near where that bullet train crashed. ” You say back. You busy yourself with cleaning dried blood off of his face, allowing the task to let your voice seem disinterested; like it didn’t matter if he told you or not.

He still has no expression or a tell that he’s going to speak. “You know, I’m just trying to make conversation to distract you from your pain. You do seem pretty beat up, and that’s just by looking at your face. I imagine the rest of your body is in the same shitty shape.” You look at a slice on his upper arm as you finish your sentence and lean on the frame of the car door staring at him.

Tangerine readjusts in his seat, you assume because of your comment.

“Yeah, well I’ll be fine.” He clears his throat. “Why are you lot even here now. Shouldn’t you two be at the crash site helping the survivors then?” He says, this time meeting your eyes.

You stand back up straight and go back to cleaning his face gently. 

“Well, Elijah over there saw you two and basically jumped out of a moving car to help you two. I’m just here to do my job and go home. I go where the people need me, and seeing as you and your frien–” 

“Lemon.”

“Seeing as you and your friend - Lemon - are people in need, here I am. On the side of the road, stitching up a man who looks like he’s had an even longer day than I could even begin to imagine.” 

You go to wipe some new blood off of Tangerine’s forehead as a curly, brown lock of hair falls down and you instinctively tuck it back into place with the rest of it. Your instinct takes you by surprise, and you choose to act like it was nothing. But you watch as the small, unplanned touch causes Tangerine to readjust once more and it seems to bring some type of tiny emotion to a previously blank face. 

“You know you’re allowed to talk to me. I might be in the medical field, but there’s rules in place. Patient-doctor confidentiality and all that, yeah? Plus I’m pretty sure any story that comes out of your mouth, nobody would believe coming out of mine if I repeated it.” 

While small talk wasn’t really something you enjoyed, it would definitely beat the awkward silence that kept filling the small space between you and Tangerine. It was another attempt to get him to speak, not a strong one, but it felt pretty cut and dry. He seemed like he wanted to speak, but it was clear he thought it wiser not to in this situation. 

You give him a second or two to speak, but he just stares at you. You let out a small sigh.

“Okay, your face is all patched up now. It probably isn’t as perfect as it was before, but with time some of the bruising and swelling will go down. You might have a small scar on your forehead as well, but that isn’t from me.” 

You start giving him instructions on how to care for the new cuts as you shine a flashlight into his eyes to check for a concussion. You were about to speak to ask about how his head was feeling when he abruptly spoke. 

“I was on the bullet train. Me and Lemon had a job. We were supposed to get off in Kyoto, but things went south pretty fuckin’ quickly.” He says, now seeming to want to have a conversation. 

Maybe Tangerine did have a concussion. 

“We both jumped out of one of the holes in the side of one of the carts into a lake or some shit down the road. It seemed like a much better plan than getting absolutely crushed by a bullet train being pancaked into a wall or getting shot in the fuckin’ face by some bellends.” 

He practically sneers as he says the word ‘bellends,’ and you accidentally let out a sound that is a mix between a laugh and a scoff. 

“‘Bellends’? That’s a new one for me – do you mind rolling up your right sleeve or taking it out of your shirt so I can dress that stab wound? – So who was after you and Lemon anyways? You just happen to make some really bad enemies while in Tokyo?” 

You ask the question as you take the medical kit from Tangerine’s lap to allow him to readjust and begin to gather some supplies as Tangerine starts to move around, and doing what you asked of him. You set the kit back down in his lap after he unbuttons his shirt enough to bring his arm out and hand it to you.

You go to reach for it so you can get a better look at his wound when you're interrupted by Tangerine holding a single finger up to you before saying, “Do you mind?” and you watch as he takes a holster and gun off of his waist.

You weren’t an expert on guns, but it was small, and it was a gun. He sets it down on the floor of the car before readjusting his position and holding his bruised, and bleeding arm out to you as you basically gawk at the man. 

“Sorry, pretty damn uncomfortable, and I’ve had plenty of that for one day.”

“Okay then. So I’m going to assume you didn’t just accidentally make an enemy or two in Tokyo. What do you do?” 

You gently take his arm and turn it over in your hands, examining the cut before deciding how to proceed. You can’t help but notice the muscles he has and you wonder if it has anything to do with his job. 

He takes in a deep breath before answering, almost preparing for a response from you.

“Well, if you must know, I’m a contract killer. I kill who I’m told, occasionally save someone's ungrateful rich and pompous ass, deliver money and I’m usually on my way. But not today.” 

He says the last part as he stretches his shoulder and neck backwards and pops them. 

“Okay, that makes the guns, bellends, and stabbing make sense I guess?” At this point you’re once again working on stitching a part of Tangerine up and disinfecting a wound.

“That’s it? You believe me. You don’t think I’m toying around with you?” 

There’s a tone in his voice that makes you look up at him from where you’re almost hunched over his arm. You make eye contact with him and realize that this wasn’t just a remark – he’s seriously asking.

“I mean, you and Lemon are pretty beat up. You look like you’ve been stabbed, shot at, punched and probably more. You told me you jumped out of a moving train AND a bullet train just crashing through a wall isn’t just a daily occurrence here if you were wondering or confused about that one. It all adds up, it makes sense. I’ve heard of worse, trust me.”

You keep eye contact as you say this, adding a shrug at the end. His expression doesn’t change, but you see his eyes slowly soften and you know your answer was “correct” in his eyes. 

You go to turn back once again to his arm when he asks, “Do you like what you do?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Your job - do you like what you do?” He repeats himself, leaning his head on the back of the seat.

“I mean. It pays the bills, it’s allowed me to travel, and I paid to get here. I help people most days, so yeah. I’d say I enjoy it for the most part.” You shrug, not really making eye contact with him and just going about your business. “Do you enjoy your job?” You ask in return.

At first Tangerine just responds with a hum, and you watch as he closes his eyes. You imagine he’s replaying the events of today to try and decide.

“For the most part I would say. I travel across the globe, deal with scoundrels, and most of the time get paid to get rid of scums. And majority of my jobs I spend with my brother. Seems like a win-win to me, love.” He opens his eyes and looks to you as he finishes his answer. 

“Does repeatedly getting hurt not make you want to find something different?” You ask, meeting his gaze. You truly wanted to know. He wasn’t the first person you had come across that led a life of danger, and he wouldn’t be the last. But so far Tangerine had been the first one to be honest with you.

“Does repeatedly stitching up assholes ever get boring?” He asks in return, still holding your gaze.

You look over his face before responding.

“Not if the asshole carries a conversation with me and holds my med kit while I stitch him up.” You say as you give him a small smile and he returns an even bigger one. You notice that his eyes also smile back at you. 

You quickly finish stitching his arm and stand up fully, once again discarding what you no longer needed. 

“All done.” 

You say with a smile. You begin to take off your gloves to throw to the side as you’re now done. Tangerine watches your hands before finally speaking. 

“Would you ever seriously consider switching careers for one that provided more money, but might be a little more of a risk?” His voice sounds steady, but when you look him in the eyes, you think you see a hint or nervousness. 

“It depends on who it’s under, how much the pay is, and how much of a risk it is. I mean that’s a pretty serious question you're tiptoeing around, yeah?” You say with a half smile on your face. You lean back onto the frame of the car door and cross your arms as you look at Tangerine. Once again your eyes search his face for any hint of what he’s thinking, feeling, or about to say. With no results besides him stretching his jaw and meeting your eyes. 

“So you don’t have kids, family, a partner or spouse, that would play a part in that decision? At all?” He pries, this time his eyes searching your face for a reaction.

“No, not really. I mean I moved here from the States for a residency. I have some friends, but they’re all only really coworkers. No spouse or partner or no kids – I’m single, if that’s what you’re looking for. Not even a pet right now. My decision would fully be up to me and what benefits me. Point, blank, period.” 

You try to keep an emotionless face. Not that you wouldn’t consider what you think Tangerine is considering asking – you just wouldn’t want to get your hopes up. The daily life in the hospital wasn’t what you were expecting and you had been wanting to swap things up. Plus working for Tangerine seems like it would be just what you needed. He seemed cheeky, he had banter, the pay would probably be more than what you could imagine and the man wasn’t hard on the eyes.

“Would you want to come work for me? I mean you’d be workin’ for Lemon as well and all. But would you consider it? With all the jobs we go on across the middle of fuckin’ nowhere, it probably wouldn’t hurt to have our own personal medic. And you do a fine job from what I can tell.” At this point he begins to put his right arm back into his shirt, but doesn’t button it back up. You look from his exposed chest to his eyes, and meet his gaze.

“Of course we would pay you well, and probably help pay for travel expenses and anything you needed to get situated into this position. I’d have to talk pay over with Lemon before I gave you an exact amount, but we wouldn’t fuck you over or anything like that. We aren’t pricks.” He continues to babble, this time his voice almost faltering. You were making him nervous the longer you didn’t react. 

His eyes once again search your face, looking for some pre-existing answer to his job offer. You watch as one of his eyes twitches. 

“Take me on a date first, and I’ll consider coming to work for you. And Lemon of course.” A small smile makes its way to your face. 

“You mean like an interview?” Tangerine looks to you, confusion written all over his now blood-free face.

“I mean, you can consider it if you’d like. But I’d like a date with you.” You shrug. “You’re an attractive man, you seem intelligent. And you’ve called me love about four different times since you’ve given me your name.” You once again smile at the man sitting in front of you. Calling his actions out might be ballsy, but it seems to work as his face turns a slight pink.

“I’d love to take you out on a date. But let’s not forget who was practically gawking over who’s bicep now shall we?” Tangerine gives you a shit eating grin as you turn blood red and cover your face laughing.

“Lemon’s going to love having you on as a third member.” He says, getting out of the car and walking towards Lemon and Elijah. 

You close your medical kit and place it back into the car and turn around to shut the car door.

“What a meet-cute story.” You mumble to yourself as you go to follow Tangerine over to where he was already talking to Lemon.

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A/N: i dont just absolutely love this piece, but i've been going through it and very much benefited off of writing this lmfao

if you liked this, check out my master list! --> HERE

if you have a request, feel free to send it in! :]

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3/19/2023: edited to fix spelling mistakes

[erenaeoth]

wanted to ask before tekken 8 drops, how do you feel about the recent footage and story trailer? is it anywhere near what you hoped for when we first saw the first story trailer?

Tekken 8 Demo & Kazuya

Placing this under the cut for those who don't want demo/chapter 1 spoilers.

The Chapter 1 footage I saw made me very concerned for the direction of the game. Kazuya's motivations and personality seem very different to previous games. Kazuya has always been motivated by two-fold power and revenge, and these things are deeply entwined. To get out from under Heihachi's hand, he needs strength and power, and he's devoted everything to achieving this. Last time he succeeded, he went a little off the rails, drowning in a powertrip that saw him tighten his hold on the Zaibatsu and build up its economic might with little regard for the legality of his actions.

This a world away though from the physical supremacy argument and senseless violence of his Tekken 8 motivations. Kazuya is someone shrewd and clever, he knows business, he knows power, and he knows how to maximise those. He's someone who can bide his time, plan, act from the shadows, take hits to his pride and ego if it means his long term plans come to fruition. Being 'at war with the world' is not good for business, nor does it bring him greater power - as testified to by his own line that all that matters to him is breaking apart the old world to make a new one where only those who can prove their strength deserve to live. This is a wild divurgence from Kazuya's character and M.O. thus far. This is excusable to me only if it is characteristic of Devil's corruption.

Kazuya has consistently claimed that he controls Devil and not the other way round, but we know from Jin's experiences that Devil preys on the mind, infecting thoughts and seeping into one's subconscious.

The story trailer gives me more hope in this regard. Jun, or the memory of Jun, whichever it is, tells Jin that he ought to use the power of the Kazamas to try and save Kazuya. What does Kazuya need saving from? Magic Kazama powers can't make him less of an asshole, but they could help him with Devil, a power not only making him indestructable, but also destroying the man he is. Kazuya has lines in I think Chapter 1 where he mocks Jin for losing control to Devil. He does this in Tekken 6 Scenario Campaign too. He expresses disappointment in Jin for losing his humanity to Devil. So Kazuya is convinced he's in control, but I wonder if bringing these words back in Tekken 8 indicate a focus on how actually Kazuya is also lost to Devil, and not as in control as he thinks.

I hope this is the case anyway, otherwise I'm going to be livid. Kazuya's a very lucid kind of villain. His actions have a logic to them that stems from childhood abuse and Heihachi's warped lessons. He's someone who thinks himself independent while not realising he's Heihachi's most perfect creation and legacy. What makes the Mishimas frightening isnt that they can zap into sexy devils, it's that they marry their wealth and cleverness together to seize political and economic hold of nations, and you can't even go confront them in person over it because they happen to be tough as hell martial artists. Eradicating the sense and logic of Kazuya's actions needs to be because this is Kazuya's Tekken 6. This is him losing to Devil and declaring war on the world in an echo of Jin's actions. Jin needs to see this and recognise this. I'm hoping references to Azazel in Tekken 8 come in to pattern this symmetry too.

I'm also looking forward to seeing a more full cast in Tekken 8. I hope Jin's friends in particular get a look in. I think they're very important if Tekken 8 wants to go the way of humanising him.

So at this stage, there's still a lot of potential in this story, but also a lot of ways they could really fuck it up. Very much hoping that nuance gets a place in this story. Let's wait and see.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Movie 2: Super Hero (5/5)

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAA EXISTENCE IS TORMENT RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Okay, so we're now at the last leg of this movie, where everybody teams up to defeat Cell Max. Once Piccolo turned orange and convinced the Gammas that Magenta was evil, the Red Ribbon Army collapsed on the spot. Magenta went to activate Cell Max as a desperate counterattack, but he was killed by Dr. Hedo. However, Magenta still managed to get Cell Max started up before he died, and the first thing Cell Max does is smash up whatever's left of the Red Ribbon base.

It's not clear to me what happened to the rest of the bad guys in this movie. A lot of them probably fled when the battle turned against them, but it's a pretty big facility, and I doubt they all could have evacuated in time. Like, Carmine was knocked unconscious a few minutes ago, and I doubt anyone went to the trouble of getting him to safety before Cell Max showed up. I suppose he could have survived this, but it seems pretty unlikely.

So let's talk about Cell Max. Apparently when Dr. Gero came up with the idea of Cell, he forwarded all of his notes and design specifications to Magenta at Red Pharmaceutical Company. RPC tried to make use of the data after Gero's death, but they couldn't figure it out, probably because the real breakthroughs in Cell's creation were accomplished by Gero's computer in an alternate future. But Magenta knew the Original Cell could get the job done, so he wanted one of his own, and when he learned of Dr. Hedo he thought he finally had the man to make Cell Max a reality.

And Hedo delivered... mostly. Cell Max's body was completed first, but it was going to take a lot longer to develop his brain, and Hedo wasn't particularly eager to work on Cell Max because he liked the superheroic Gammas better. He warned Magenta not to use Cell Max, because he would just run wild and destroy the world Magenta wanted to conquer.

And you know, it's poetic that Magenta's last act was to release this mindless engine of destruction, because that's really all the Red Ribbon Army ever was. Magenta mocked Dr. Hedo's fixation on super heroes, but Magenta's fixation was on the Red Ribbon Army, a failed mercenary group brought down by its idiotic leader.

Red's story ended with his army destroyed, and then Black went on a lunatic rampage on what was left of the Red Ribbon base. Dr. Gero's story ended with his own androids turning on him, and then Cell activates and nearly destroys the world with little concern for Gero's agenda. And now Magenta lies dead in his own stronghold, while Cell Max goes on a rampage.

It always turns out the same way, but with Magenta, we shouldn't be too surprised, because he admired Red and Gero so much. He saw their spectacular failures and convinced himself that they almost won, and if he just gave it one more try, he could get it right this time. But instead, Magenta just wound up sharing their fate, because this is the only way it could ever end. The Red Ribbon Army isn't some noble cause. It's just a bunch of goons who push around innocent people. And the problem with the whole 'might-makes-right' philosophy is that sooner or later you run into someone mightier who pushes back. Commander Red ran into Goku. Dr. Gero ran into Vegeta and his own creations. Cell ran into Gohan.

And I guess Magenta's failure to understand that is what led him to idolize the original Cell so much. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous that he would have asked Dr. Hedo to make a new one. Hedo was a kid when Cell threatened to destroy the Earth, but Magenta ought to have remembered that broadcast. He must have understood that Cell wasn't loyal to the Red Ribbon cause. When he announced the Cell Games, he didn't say anything about sparing the RPC. But I think Magenta never considered any of this. He just knew that Cell was powerful and he wanted one. For men like Magenta, the power is the point. Whether or not you can control the power is a minor detail. It was probably more important to Magenta that he was the one who got to push the button, regardless of the consequences.

Okay, so I kind of got off-track. What is Cell Max, exactly? Well, Hedo's a much better scientist than Gero was, so he managed to take Gero's incomplete "recipe" and make a bigger, even more powerful version of Cell. The downside is that this version is dumb as a bag of hammers. He just stomps around and screams a lot. He seems to have a canny fighting skill behind all that bestial rage, but that's it. You won't find any of the smarmy taunting or mindgames that we used to see from the original Cell. This version might be more powerful, but it's not perfect.

To put it another way, Cell Max absolutely sucks, and I mean that as a compliment. This movie kind of needed a final boss to offset the morally conflicted Hedo and Gammas, and Cell Max makes a good choice for that role. We don't need a cunning, invincible super villain for the last 20 minutes of this movie. There just isn't time for that. What we need is a doomsday weapon unleashed by Magenta in a final act of spite. Magenta probably thought he was getting revenge with this last strike, but this is the good guys' chance to do the classic superhero bit where they have a misunderstanding, fight, and then team up to tackle the real threat.

Also, as a fan of Cell, I just like this novel way of bringing him back in the Dragon Ball Super era. We've already seen Frieza revived and Broly revamped for the canon. Bringing back Cell seemed like a very obvious play, except it's a really dumb idea. Cell was a failure. He took on the whole world and lost, dying alone in a barren waste. Most of the world had no idea who he was or where he came from, and he didn't have flunkies who would wish him back to life the way Sorbet brought back Frieza. It makes much, much more sense that a character like Magenta would rather build a new Cell than bother with the original. And this only emphasizes Cell's inhumanity. He's not a villain, he's a weapon, to be discarded and replaced when he becomes obsolete. Is the new model better? That all depends on how many targets it can hit.

Broadly speaking, Cell Max loos like Semiperfect Cell from DBZ. The same bulky proportions, the same fish lips, etc. The difference is that Cell Max still has wings, which were curiously absent from Semiperfect Cell. Also, Cell Max is unique for his naughty red color, and his tail comes out of his butt like Frieza's, instead of sticking out from between his shoulder blades. Oh, and his feet look like hiking boots.

Also, the end of his tail isn't a stinger. It's like this club-looking thing that can shoot hot pink lasers. I've seen fans draw Cell Max in a "perfect form", which mostly looks like the Original Cell with Cell Max's red and green colorations, and it's interesting to look at, but it kind of misses the point. Cell Max isn't designed to absorb something else and achieve a completed form. This is as good as it gets for Cell Max. I mean, Dr. Hedo seemed to think he would be smarter and easier to control with time, but we really have no way to be sure of that, do we?

All right, let me try to get on with the plot here. The Gammas immediately attack Cell Max, not only because of their heroic natures, but because they know how dangerous Cell Max is. Piccolo leads the Z-Fighters to help out, and the Gammas explain that they need to aim for Max's head, because Dr. Hedo added a weak spot there. If you blast through his cranium, it'll trigger an explosion powerful enough to destroy Max's cells, but even the "weak spot" is still pretty damn strong. Also Cell Max is quite the artful dodger, so it takes a while for anyone to land a blow. Piccolo manages to pull it off, but the attack isn't powerful enough to be effective.

"RAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH EVERYTHING HURTS SO MUCH! WHAT AM I? WHY AM I? AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

As Cell Max destroys more of the base, the ground starts to give way under Pan's feet, and she can't make it to the safety of Bulma's airship. Krillin tells her to fly, but we know she can't do that yet. But she tries really hard and finally learns to fly! I guess she just needed the right motivation. Piccolo reminded her of her Saiyan blood at the start of the movie, and he was trying to reassure her, but Saiyan power isn't just a blessing, it's something you earn through turmoil and hardship. Maybe Pan had to be in deadly peril for her to make this next leap forward. It's like how Gohan was when he clobbered Raditz.

Back at the fight, everyone realizes they need to attack with greater intensity to stop Cell Max, so Goten and Trunks do a Fusion. But they fuck it up and turn into Fat Gotenks. He can't even turn Super Saiyan, but Gotenks is no quitter, so he charges in anyway, and manages to headbutt Cell hard enough to crack his exoskeleton. I guess they're doing chip damage to his head? Like Piccolo hit him pretty damn hard earlier, and now this, so they must be making some progress, right? Anyway, Piccolo praises this moment as the first time a failed Fusion actually does something useful.

Speaking of this, remember how Goten and Trunks had two different opportunities to use Fusion in GT, and they just... didn't do it for no good reason, even though it would have been awesome and cool? Remember how GT had no idea what to do with Piccolo, so they just killed him off and made him live in Hell? Remember how GT fucking sucked, and this movie does the opposite of those things and it's hella rad? I don't know, I just thought I should point that out.

At this point, Gamma 2 decides to go for broke, and he asks everyone else to keep Cell busy while he readies a strike onto his noggin, basically what Gotenks did, only with more power behind it. Gamma 1 is upset about this, but 2 tells him he needs to protect Dr. Hedo, who's still alive in the rubble. "Now who's being sloppy?" 2 asks 1. Because he didn't check his sensors to make sure Hedo was okay, you see.

So they all fight, but then 18 almost gets hit, when...

Kienzan, motherfucker! First rule of being a Cell, dipshit, you're gonna have to go through Krillin.

Solar Flare! Oh! Ohhhhhhhh! Krillin is the MVP once again!

So this sets up Cell Max perfectly for Gamma 2's attack, and he comes straight down... into Max's left forearm, because he managed to block it just in time. But to 2's credit, he keeps pushing, and seems to smash through anyway...

But it's no good. Cell Max's left arm falls off, and it looks like much of his body has been turned to ash, but he's still alive. Enraged, he tries to stomp on Gamma 2, but Piccolo won't have it and he ORANGES UP. As he pushes back on Max's foot, Krillin shows up to help, and tells Piccolo to grow his body, just like he did when he fought Goku at the 23rd World Tournament. I love how Krillin doesn't just tell him this, he helps push back on Max's foot while he talks. Krillin's the real superhero here.

Piccolo's like "Oh yeah, I forgot I can do that," which annoyed some fans. I get it, it's kind of silly that he would forget a thing like this, but it was a long time ago, and it didn't work on Goku at all, so I can understand how he might have forgotten about this ability. Also, it's pretty sweet how Piccolo has so many cool powers that even he has trouble keeping them straight. He's forgotten more about being awesome than we'll ever know.

And while this does give him some much-needed leverage against Cell Max, getting big like this doesn't make him stronger, so they're not much better off than they were before. Piccolo still has plan though. he gives Gohan the senzu bean he brought with him and tells Gohan to eat it. He means to keep Cell Max busy and hopefully Gohan will get enough power built up to deliver a killing blow.

So for a while, they have a good old fashion Big Boy Wrassle, but the tide quickly shifts in favor of Cell Max. Gohan still isn't ready, so Krillin leads a desperate charge to distract Max and give Piccolo a chance. But they all get taken out, and it ends up being all in Piccolo's hands again. He refuses to quit, and does everything he can to hold Max down.

And when it looks like Piccolo is finally beaten, something snaps in Gohan, and we get....

Gohan Beast! Well, they don't call it that in this movie, but that's the name for it, apparently. I remember when the movie premiered in Japan, and I kept seeing trending tags on Twitter for "Orange Piccolo", "Cell Max" and "Gohan Blanco", and thinking "What the hell happens in this movie?"

So... Gohan Beast. Basically it's like the moment where he went SSJ2 for the first time, stacked on top of Mystic Gohan. At least, that's how I see it. Remember, Goku's plan at the Cell Games was to get Gohan as powerful as he could possibly get as a Super Saiyan, so that whenever Gohan tapped into his "hidden power", it would push him into some higher form. Back then, it was SSJ2, but now, he's at his current maximum level, then he sees a good friend in dire straights, and it's pushed him into some new level. And it looks a lot like his SSJ2 form from when he was a kid, but with white or silver hair this time, and red lightning, I guess. Anyway, some people hate this form, but I don't mind it one bit. If Gohan's snapping and kicking ass, I don't care what he looks like. If he turned into a rodeo clown in this scene, I'd still be marking out.

Cell Max punches Gohan and he's like "Naw. Naw." Then he kicks the shit out of Max and starts preparing his attack. Max does his own big energy move, but Gohan doesn't give a fuck because he's in his edgy mode now. Blast that Linkin Park music, because we're doin' it.

Of course, Gohan still needs to get a clear shot, but Piccolo's not out of this yet. He just remembered another cool power he has: Stretchy Arms! Get fucked, Cell Max!

And how will Gohan capitalize on this moment? Three words: Special Beam Cannon! Hell yeah! No wonder Gohan transformed. He had to build up a lot of power just to set up this technique, so seeing Piccolo get wrecked during the charge-up must have really put him over the edge.

And that's it. Cell Max explodes, everyone gets clear of the blast, and the good guys win. Piccolo asks Gohan how he learned to do the Special Beam Cannon, and Gohan explains that he trained on it in secret. A ha! You see, Piccolo? You thought Gohan was slacking off in his training, but he was actually working on things you didn't even know about!

And this sums up the Piccolo's character arc in this movie. Piccolo tries so hard to get someone else to take the lead in this film. When he can't raise Goku or Vegeta, he starts scheming to traumatize Gohan and make him fired up enough to become the big hero. And yet, in the end, Piccolo was the big hero of this movie. He was so busy trying to get someone else to handle things that he couldn't see it. But he was the one who infiltrated the enemy base, he was the one who got the cool new power up, he was the one who flipped the Gammas, and he came up with the plan to beat Cell Max. Sure, his plan was to get Gohan to fire the kill shot, but what was that kill shot? Piccolo's signature techique, which Gohan learned on his own, simply because Piccolo was such a great role model and mentor to him over all these years.

Unfortunately, Gamma 2 died in his attack on Cell Max. He used up all his energy in that move, which apparently causes his entire body to disintegrate. Piccolo consoles Hedo by observing that 2's stunt significantly weakened Cell Max's attacks, making it possible for the rest of them to finish what Gamma 2 started. "He was a real superhero", Piccolo says, which is probably as great an honor as Gamma 2 could have hoped for.

Hedo admits that he basically knew what Magenta was all about, but he played along anyway in order to get the money for his research. But with Gamma 2's death, he now realizes the error of his ways. Gamma 2 didn't do anything wrong, but he was the one who paid for Hedo's reckless alliance with the Red Ribbon. He offers to turn himself in to the authorities, but Krillin objects to this, saying the authorities can't handle someone like Hedo. Remember, this movie opened with him getting out of prison, and everyone was relieved to see him go.

Instead, Piccolo suggests they all overlook this incident, and Hedo asks Bulma if he can work for her now. She's impressed with his bulletproof skin treatment, and thinks she can find a place for him in their cosmetics business. And Gamma 1 can be some sort of security guard. Fair enough.

So that about wraps things up, except for one last bit of business. Pan pulls Piccolo aside to show off how she learned to fly during the battle. She swoops around and everything, and Piccolo proudly tells her that she'll begin the next phase of her training tomorrow. Hooray!

Then we get a post-credits scene where it turns out Goku and Vegeta have been fighting this entire time, and they're finally at the end of their evenly-matched bout. They're so exhausted that they can barely move, but Vegeta manages to kind of gently shove Goku with his fist, knocking him over and earning the victory. Then he falls over as he celebrates. Goku's fine with it because he's a class act, naturally.

As for the spectators, Beerus fell asleep during the fight, and Whis almost forgot he was supposed to be officiating. Cheelai sat through the whole thing, but she was bored the whole time. She looks to Broly for solidarity, but he and Lemo were moved to manly tears at this epic combat spectacle. "Men!" Cheelai says. Look, if you and Broly are gonna be a thing, Cheelai, you have to respect his interests. I'm just glad Broly has something like this to get passionate about. In the last movie he was so repressed and timid. It's great that Whis put on this no-transforming no-ki-blast fight specifically for Broly's benefit, and he seems to have gotten a lot out of it. And it's kind of cute how Cheelai couldn't care less, but she's way off the mark. This was great.

And that's it for Super Hero. I was worried I'd run out of image space for this post, but somehow I managed to get it all in under 30 images. Let me see how many I have left...

Yeah, this was a cool shot of Gohan Beast, or Beast Gohan, or whatever you want to call it.

Nice simultaneous punch with Cell Max and Piccolo. The eternal struggle between red and orange.

Yeah, I forgot to talk about 18's yoga pants and shorter haircut. Some people hate this look, but this is peak 18 in my book. Krillin's a lucky man, I tell you what.

D'awwwww...

"RAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH SOMEONE PLEASE LET ME DIE RAAAAAAAHHHHHHH--Oh! Oh, that's much better. Thank you. Well, I'd better start exploding then. Raaah."

Wow I had a lot of image space left, didn't I? I thought this was going to be a lot tougher than it was.

Well, anyway, this was a fantastic movie. It was so great that I was kind of stressing out about how to cover it properly, but now that it's over I feel pretty good about the whole thing. I don't know if they'll make another Dragon Ball movie. It makes sense, considering how much money this one made, but you never can tell. All I know is that I'm pretty excited for whatever they do next.

And yeah, that's all I've got for this movie, but we're not done with Super Hero just yet. No, now I need to cover the manga adaptation of this movie, and if my calculations are correct, that should be wrapping up next week, so that's some excellent timing there. I will see you then!

[newartistgirl]

Lu little details (2)

  Following the last post I made, which, to be honest, hadn’t thought would be read as much as it has been (given the fact that the last update was some time ago I was not expecting to see that much people reading about linkeduniverse), here I bring more little details that always manage to surprise me, and show the thought behind.

1. Legend is, in fact, reading an actual in-game quote from Mipha’s diary. I know maybe this one is not shocking but it’s always appreciated. 

2. The variety of items they use. It’s not just reduced to the most obvious ones, their sword, shield, and bow (being recognisable and distinguishible the designs of each. There you go, more and more details). We also can see items, such as the hookshot, the clawshot, the whip, fire, ice and dominion rods, or even the stasis of the skeikah slate. And some others but not being used, like the rest of items Legend hoards.

3. Does Legend asking Four what he thinks about upgrading the master sword count as a reference to games detail or personalities/opinion detail? However, there it is. While Legend has in fact done that, Four seems somewhat averse to the use of magic swords.

4. An obvious reference to Breath of the Wild is Wild breaking his swords several times. Another detail that may be a little less obvious, not because it’s hard to get but because it may get forgotten, is Wild saying “I’m just glad this wasn’t my good shield”. As we know, Wild probably has a wide range of weapons, and I find really close to my BotW experience the not using the “good shield” case except for accounted occasions. In fact, we never see him using any of the highest damage weapons in his game. Probably this is because he won’t have them in the comic.

5. Just like the Links, all monsters are mixed. Regardless of the Hyrule ore time period thay are in monsters from all games have been showing. I think it’s more than on purpose the fact that after Wind recieves his mail monsters from the Great Sea show up. Like, Time says it. So no, not a big reveal but...

6. Usually little posts not focused on the storyline, due to their purpose, have a huge amount of references, usually shown in a rather comical way. From Legend and the floor tiles, Four frustrated cause no one knows who Vaati is, Time advising Hyrule not to drink from the well, to Malon and the aliens or that impossibly endless magic bag our hero carries around. I  love every single one of these.

7. Twilight thinks of Midna several times. I’m not just talking about when he literaly refers to a princess beatuiful as the setting sun who shatterd his heart into a million pieces, but also when he looks at his shadow in a rather nostalgic way, which, of course, it’s not a common thing to do.

8. Four and that combat againts the octorok. I personally suffered that battle just like he describes it. And I ought to remark Legend’s snarky comment because, even as a short person, found it funny. (I’m gonna end up having to make a post for each Link cause I could also add a lot about this two but about more subjective matters)

9. Wild uses the ladle Sky carved him. And the fact that Sky actually carves is like one of the nicest character details as a reference to the game so far. It’s easy to skip that detail in the game itself so props for adding that.

10. Time loves to quote, and this time, he is quoting his future self. I the comic, when he finishes a fight along Wind, he tells him: “In every battle, you have a little more of the look of a hero” which is oddly similar to what he says to his descendant in Twilight Princess: “You have a little more of the look of a hero than you did before”. Not complaining. Any reference to the Hero’s Shade makes me happier. 

11. All that conversation between Twilight and the veteran turned into a bunny is full of references to their games that, obviously, happen to be past events in the heroe’s lifes that may or may not have had a big impact on them.

12. Sky being the one to run out of breath. If you have played Skyward Sword you know about the stamina wheel which, ulinke in BotW, can’t be upgraded.

13. Bellum and Vaati references are more than “references”. I frankly doubt someone missed those. However, theres a more sublte reference Four makes while talking to the Rancher. In this scene he talks about Dark Mirrors, this being a reference to his adventures, which Twilight inevitably connects to “his” mirror. (Love also that scene. Easily one of my favourite duos)

I probably have skipped a lot more cause the comic is full of them. I hoped you liked this. If while reading I notice more I make another part, but for now this is what I have. Happy new year btw!!

(I apologise in advance for any spelling mistake. i’m not a native speaker)

[amarguerite]

First sentence for fic:

The sunshine had seemed deceptively inviting, but the strong breeze and sea spray were still unpleasantly cold.

This sparked a little coda to my Northanger Abbey/ It Happened One Night mash-up:

The sunshine had seemed deceptively inviting, but the strong breeze and sea spray were still unpleasantly cold. It was not quite the French Riviera Catherine had seen in the pictures or read about in glossy photo spreads but she was here and the Mediterranean was right there and she was morally certain that too much time had already passed. The two of them must meet. She defiantly put down her towel on one of the many empty chairs adorning the beach in front of the Hotel de Loiselle.

“It really was so good of you and Bill to invite me,” Catherine said to Eleanor through teeth that only chattered a little.

Eleanor, still wearing a wonderfully daring cape and broad-brimmed hat over her Cubist bathing costume, lowered her sunglasses to critically eye the waves. “Of course, darling! It was the very least we could do after all you’ve done for us. But perhaps we ought to rest up in the rooms and try the beach tomorrow? After all, it was your first time up in Bill’s plane and that can be such a horrid trial—“

Though Catherine had spent most of the flight trying not to be sick into her best hat (who knew planes went so high or flew so fast?) she was determined not to waste her first ever day outside of England’s green and pleasant land. “They always are sending people to the seaside for their health in old books. I am sure if I go and bathe I shall feel perfectly fine.”

“Do let me know if you change your mind,” Eleanor said dubiously, before arranging herself on a chair and taking out a very thick novel with one of those modernist covers where everyone depicted on the front was made up of colored polygons. (Catherine wished her joy of it but was internally very glad she had picked up Did the Butler Do It? from the lending library.) Cartherine sat down herself, to unbuckle her sandals and try to wriggle her way out of the white and Nile green one piece beach pajamas that the advertisement had assured her had caused Florida to go wild. The contrasting cross-strap back that had seemed so darling in the illustration had been tricky to button in the hotel room mirror and was now proving somewhat impossible to unbutton. Catherine glanced over at Eleanor, but she was so deeply absorbed in her book she was smiling gleefully at the pages.

Eleanor had been really so sweet already— whisking Catherine away to France for her birthday and providing her with luxurious room and board— Catherine hated to interrupt her. But all the same…

This did not seem like the sort of tangle from which she could extract herself. Catherine had a more-or-less accurate understanding of her abilities at this point, as well as the fact that life as depicted in books or magazines or the pictures was often exaggerated, but it was very hard to let go of that vision of herself tossing off her oh-so-trendily-American one piece and dashing into the ocean with a flick of her curls and a gay laugh upon her perfectly lipsticked lips. Catherine engaged in a series of trying-to-be-discreet contortions that did not help at all, and only resulted in someone— probably another hotel guest— pausing behind her.

“In a jam darling?” asked— oh that was no passerby! She knew that voice.

“Henry!” Catherine shrieked in mad delight. She rocketed up from her chair and flung her arms about his neck, not able to take in all the wonderful facts of him all at once. His aftershave was the same, his arm about her (bare arm!) felt as cozy as ever, his laugh still rang so wonderfully in her ear— what bliss! Catherine nearly kissed him, but remembered in the nick of time that Eleanor was right there. Catherine settled for beaming up at him. “Henry! Henry, you darling! How on earth— you weren’t in Bill’s plane! How did you get here?”

Henry said, impishly, “Would you believe me if I said the bus?”

“How could a bus cross the channel?” Catherine demanded.

“Alright, an aeroplane and then a train and then a bus,” said Henry.

“Frightfully glad you made it, Henry,” said Eleanor. She kept her book open but turned to smile at him. “Bill and I were beginning to despair! You were supposed to surprise Cathy when we got in.”

Henry sighed. “Eleanor, you would not believe everything that happened to me on the way here—“

“I’ve heard that one,” teased Eleanor.

“Oh Henry, will you go in with me?” Catherine interrupted, too excited for tales of travel delay. “Only, my button in the back—“

“At least I don’t need a lock pick to get you out of this one,” said Henry. But he unbuttoned her with alacrity, tossed aside his own shirt and took her by the hand. “Come now Catherine— shall we brave the elements?”

“Let’s!” she cried, and together they raced into the surf, with all the elan and laughter Catherine could have hoped for (… even if it was so cold that as soon as they rushed in, they immediately left it.)

[crow-caller]

Also terribly sorry to send a second one so quickly but I hadn't scrolled yet. I see you're an indie author, and judging by the pinned post, at least privately published. How'd you do it? I've had two hundred years worth of an alt history dieselpunk lowfantasy world's lore knocking around in my brain but cannot for the life of me seem to get it cohesive enough to put words on my annoyingly blank Google document.

I am not a wild author success story but that might make my advice more approachable.

(I did a post on types of publishing and some very basic advice as someone who's done it, self and indie, with three books. That's here (I'll honestly reblog it again too in a sec) )

I think you're asking more though just on how I write. Hm. Well.

At the moment, I don't write much- 2018 was when Bad End came out, and beyond working on 1dg manuscript, I haven't had another full book since then. If I say 'that's six years' I may want to explode my bones, but it has been. The thing with writing advice, as in how to just do it, is... it's hard and devastatingly unique for everyone. I have an overflow of ideas right now, and I've been stuck on the same issue of starting and organizing it- as well as a panic over being a good enough writer.

Personally, I tend to work on a few keystone ideas and improvise in the moment. I decide the world and the main character and a few cool notions I want to incorporate or lead to, and set out. I find it takes a few thousand words or chapters to Get The Hang Of a writing project. It's one thing to imagine a cool world, it's another to try and write a character interacting in it, and just that experience of trying often leads to me changing my mind about a bunch of stuff.

I really like beginnings and endings, so I usually have them in mind when writing. If you don't have that, you can always start clumsily and revise later. Once you have started a narrative, it's much easier to think about your ideas in terms of that project rather than the blob of potential paths.

Still, how do you FIRST start? You have a world built up, so you have a status quo. A book usually starts with that status quo being challenged. A character leads a peaceful life, but a stranger arrives. Something strange is sighted in the salt flats. Someone finally quits their job.

The people in your world are used to the grand world you've built. They won't talk about how it works to each other and infodumping is awkward. So start instead with something being different and you'll find it much easier to explain how it ought to go. Also, read books. You should read mortal engines by the way. everyone should but it sounds relevant to your interests.

This has been some advice on starting books because I could ramble a lot more (and have, and have deleted) but I should call it somewhere.