Oh boy oh boy if you're taking ficlet requests, how about Opeli making sure Soren doesn't collapse of exhaustion while he's supervising rescue efforts and providing aid in the aftermath of Sol Regem's attack?
193.
It's all kind of a blur afterwards. Soren chalks it up to being exhausted from, well, everything, but it's not like there's been time to rest between it all anyway. There are too many wounded, too many dead, too few supplies to share between the too many refugees, and he has enough to deal with without the grief creeping along the edges of his mind, waiting for him to feel it and to process it on top of everything else. The physical labour is hard, but he's used to that. The emotional labour...
Well. It can wait.
So he heads out to the castle ruins with different groups of soldiers and volunteers to salvage what little they can. He moves rubble and bodies and supplies, helps pitch tents and herd children, tends to the wounded with the limited training he has. He's worn thin and he knows this. He hasn't slept for more than a couple of hours since the attack and he knows this too. He knows because Opeli keeps telling him to rest and Corvus keeps telling him to sleep and they're just as tired as he is, but neither of them stop, so why should he?
It's been a week. A little more he thinks, but he doesn't really know because the days have started to bleed to into each other and the rise and fall of the sun doesn't really mean anything in light of everything that's going on. He knows that the others had all come back the morning after the attack, and he knows Ezran had given the order to move everyone to the Banther Lodge after a couple of nights at the temples, but beyond that, all Soren knows is the ache in his muscles and the precarious uneven rhythm of his next step, and the one after, and the one after that.
He's sitting by the fire tonight. There's a pile of damaged armour beside him that he doesn't really know how to repair but the blacksmith didn't make it and the Banther Lodge works, but they're still sitting ducks out here. Damaged armour won't do them any favours. There's no room to lose anybody else. He's fixing the leather in a bracer when they find him, Corvus and Opeli, both tired, both weary, both obviously concerned.
"'Sup," greets Soren absently.
Corvus and Opeli glance at each other.
"We've been ordered to rest," says Corvus.
Soren snorts. "How's that going for you?"
Opeli twitches her lips. "I can't refuse an order from the king," she says drily, "but more importantly, neither can you."
Soren pauses in his work and raises an eyebrow.
"You need to rest," says Corvus, taking the bracer from him and shoving the pile of armour over with his foot. He takes a seat next to him without waiting for an invitation and Opeli does the same on his other side, already frowning at the bandage she'd placed over the cut on his forehead.
"You've split your stitches again," she says, her disapproval obvious.
"I'm fine," mutters Soren. He tries to snatch the bracer back but Corvus holds it purposefully out of reach.
"You need to rest," says Corvus again, tossing it back into the pile and kicking the whole stack of it further away. "We all do," he adds pointedly to Opeli, who wrinkles her nose petulantly and draws her knees to her chest.
"I'm not arguing," she mutters. "But whether or not we do relies on Soren, doesn't it?"
Soren stares at them both. Corvus actually smirks.
"We made a deal with Ezran," he says somewhat smugly. "I don't need a break—"
"Yes you do," snorts Opeli.
"But I wouldn't take one unless Opeli took one—"
"And I won't take one unless you do." Opeli gives him a look then, her usual stern-faced glare laced with something stubborn and a little sour, but something hopeful too: an opportunity to rest mandated by someone else that she won't feel guilty for taking. "So whether or not we get to take a break is up to you, really," she says.
Soren pauses. Then he scowls at them both. "That's a dirty trick."
"It's pretty fair actually," says Corvus, stretching out beside him. "You need to rest, Soren. If not for yourself, then for the people who care about you."
"And you do have people who care about you," says Opeli. "You must know that."
There's another pause. Corvus leans into him on one side and, hesitantly, Opeli does the same on the other, their warmth a comfort against the evening cold, their weight a ward against the feelings he isn't quite ready to feel.
He doesn't remember closing his eyes, but when he opens them, it's dawn. The morning is quiet. The fire is out. Corvus has shifted so that his head rests on Soren's shoulder and Opeli has tucked herself under his arm in her sleep. The blanket draped over them is scratchy but warm.
Soren lets himself go back to sleep.
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hi! how are u???
i was wondering if you could do mcyt x reader where they go to an amusement park? i don't realky know the specifics :P
it's totally fine if not!
also, could i please be 🦑 anon?
your writing is so good, btw :3
ooo okay I can try! ; and welcome 🦑! (I'm gonna consistently think this is an umbrella academy fan goodnight 💀) hope you enjoy your stay! ; and thank you, I appreciate it! <3
MCYT ; amusement park
includes ; tommyinnit, badlinu, maxggs, quackity & slimecicle
warnings ; language
disclaimers ; idk anything about amusement parks outside kennywood and disneyworld so probably using references and names here / may be mixed up cause I don't remember all the different places / pretend like it's in Europe for tommy, freddie & max and in america for Charlie & Quackity
masterlist
TOMMYINNIT
he's so fuckin scared of the rides with insane heights that go really fast
soooo many pictures
he will NOT be going on them unless it's to impress you (shout out university crush)
if there's any water rides he's forcing you on them 🗣🗣
he buys any snacks/food or little souvenirs you want lol
you both go home tired and lowkey sleep on the train and almost miss ur stop
you're probably vlogging too
"guys, Tommy's scared of the phantom"
"look at that fuckin thing! I'm not going on that, ill fly out!"
"true, you're a six foot twig"
"I swear to god, y/n..."
FREDDIE BADLINU
he's getting on most rides w you
he loves the swings lmao
you got a handful of pics but you're mostly living in the moment
dippin dots go crazy
you go on the little kids rides for shits and giggles and adults are looking at u like 🤨😒
yk on that Winnie the Pooh ride line there's the screens and it's like honey and u can draw on it temporarily? yall stood there for a solid 10 mins cause the long line drawing dicks and random stuff
ice cream!!!! it's so good
you make a tiktok
"wheres harry potter land??"
"....y/n were at disneyworld"
it's your mission to piss of Disney adults
MAXGGS
literally up for anything
he got you both silly sunglasses and you wore them around all day
you literally go on Kalis River Rapids twice because why not
you SPRINT for Tianas Bayou Adventure (I wanna go so bad to see this omfg)
he makes you re-ride the barnstormer like 5 times (me core)
you immediately go for the fast paced / thrilling rides like space mountain and tower of terror (ik these are different just pretend I can't remember many rides...)
then at the end of the day you do the safari ride / avatar ride / ykwim
so many cute pics and videos 💔 literally spammed ur Instagrams when u got back
ALEX QUACKITY
he does not wanna go on things like space mountain or thunder mountain bro
you make him get on them anyway unless he just genuinley doesn't want to, you'll go with a friend if there is another person with you / alone and he'll wait / vlog from a safe spot
you meet a lot of characters and get pics all day long & they were so nice 💔
"OMG Y/N ITS OLAF"
he nearly vomits after the teacups...
you go on the pirates of the caribbean ride and he tries to speak like sparrow the whole time in line
you get some little leather bracelets with each other's names on them at the end in the little store (I had one but idk where it is anymore I'm so mad)
he keeps saying "I'm not hungry" ans when u stop for food he literallt devours his ice cream and hot dog bro
"I thought u weren't hungry???"
"... I was waiting for u to want food"
CHARLIE SLIMECICLE
literally the funnest ever
he's getting on everything istg
yall chill in the swiss family tree house when u need a break from walking / grab a drink and go to the enchanted tiki room to escape the heat entirely
over food you speculate what they may add for the little villain land they're planning (holy shit so excited for this even tho I'm probably never gonna be able to go again)
haunted mansion went crazy 💀 trust the vlog is funny asf
"woahhh that ghost looks like me!"
"yeah if you were dead"
"wanna go to mickeys philharmagic after this?"
"that's across the park.."
"we can make it lol"
he's on it with the puns idek how
u want a souvenir of any kind? he's got u trust
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is there a muse or inspiration you draw from when it comes to your stories? you just have so many and i’m wondering what fountain of immortal writing youth you drank from, dawg LMAO
last ask before signing off! but this is such a fun one to think about!
i don't have one surefire source of inspiration (other than my chronically silly brain), each story has a different landing pad that usually consists of a random thing that i've taken inspiration from, and a question to drive the work (some are very edgy or philosophical haha). they come from incredibly random sources, but i can list the ones i remember!
tales from a dying heart
where it came from: i wanted to write an anthology as a break from my old novella structure, and i was thinking about love. obviously i had to fuck it up because god forbid anything on the archives is happy. fun fact: that was originally the only story the archives was meant to hold! it was the first and only story, and the blog used to be themed after tales from a dying heart entirely (that's why my current pfp is still the heart itself)!
driving question: "why does love hurt people?"
the rockdove promise
where it came from: originally a group project that i had the idea for (i was itching to write something with mythology and more classic fantasy if that makes sense). when the others couldn't continue it, i had already fallen in love with the world and gods, so i added more to the worldbuilding, and added characters i was passionate about (and found my first ever character punching bag, laszlo).
driving question: "how can we save what we care about from oppressive control?"
insincere.
where it came from: i had one of my worst days where i couldn't get out of bed. i had the idea to channel the feelings into a story, so i got out of bed, and wrote insincere., then decided i wanted to keep it going after my initial bad day.
driving question: "how can we feel happy?"
on kingston alley
where it came from: someone, i think it was @noxxytocin, added me in a tag game that involved writing a scene with the provided line. i was a young, growing archivist back then and didn't understand the concept, so i wrote a short screenplay, giving it a fun mystery hook (because i felt like it) and some repressed sapphics, then decided to continue it because the format was so freeing!
driving question: "why do we forget the victims?"
school rules
where it came from: a novel i abandoned because the format wasn't clicking. i axed the mc, replaced them with sunny and remade the old mc to be what is now darcy spencer, and changed the format to my first ever first person story since my first novella!
driving question: "how does academic pressure hurt us?"
the dumaresq poems
where it came from: i was getting overwhelmed with my own expectations for uploads from the rest of volume 1, so i dug up some old poems of mine, rewrote them a bit, and put a cute woodsy aesthetic over it!
driving question: "how can poetry tell us emotional stories?"
the hunt is a dance
where it came from: another project with a friend that fell through, it didn't change much from then. i took the friends desired ideals of religious and folk horror and intertwined it with my own narratives of power, hatred, and misguided justice.
driving question: "why do we bend to corruption, and how can we stop?"
TITANSPINE
where it came from: @ominous-feychild and i were discussing some of her lore, and we both bonded over our love of telepaths/prophets in stories. i had always been fascinated by urban fantasy and had a vague desire to make it, but magic systems are so hard for me. that conversation sparked a drive to actually make it. i named it red velvet, then barlowe told me to change the it (thanks for that btw), and i created the protagonist that shaped the whole story and it's themes.
driving question: "how can we fight social and police corruption?"
n3xt y3ar
where it came from: scandal after scandal, feud after feud about the existence of generative ai and it snubbing real creatives tipped me over the edge, so i wrote n3xt y3ar out of spite, imbuing it with a main character near and dear to my heart due to our similarities, and a world i both loathe and fear. let's see a robot make a story with that motivation. fuckers.
driving question: "how do us creatives find hope in a world of generative ai?"
soleil éteint
where it came from: i wanted to write another fiction podcast style story (school rules technically being the first), and i was on a magnus archives high. i'm fascinated by fear in the real world, and dreams in writing, so with the motivation of some great fiction podcasts, i began writing soleil éteint, which flowed very quickly since screenplays and podcasts are quite easy for me to write as it turns out!
driving question: "how can we stop running away from fear?"
shatter the shield
where it came from: i realised i was long overdue for some tragic gays, and i wanted to experiment with a more distinct narrator without writing a fully discursive piece like a podcast or screenplay. as i was writing the prologue, i knew the narrator, kåre, wasn't the main character. but the love i gave him for the main character, roshan, was so palpable, it made me want to continue the story. i knew by how i wrote it that kåre was going to die, and soon, but i think that added an extra level to the themes of the story.
driving question: "why can't we accept love, and why can't we process grief?"
and of course, volumes 3 and 4 come from even more random places lmao- hope this explained my random writing process!
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So, the NDA signed by producers of The Apprentice just expired, and one of them has published a tell-all article. Most of the article is about how they used standard reality-TV tricks to portray Trump as being wealthy and intelligent, when in reality he was, and is, a deeply indebted buffoon.
The money shot, however, comes when Trump and the producers are preparing for climax of the final episode, when the winner will be decided.
Per the FCC's rules for game shows, producers could not be involved in deciding who would be fired each week, or who would ultimately win: it had to be Trump's decision alone, like contestants and viewers were told it was. The producers could, and did, give him a presentation about the strengths and weaknesses of the contestants each time he had to make a decision. These were recorded, in case questions ever arose about whether the producers had crossed the line.
So, for the final episode, there were two contestants remaining. Both were men, one white, the other Black. They'd both done well in the final challenge of the competition. As the producers were summarizing the points for an against each candidate, this happened:
“Yeah,” he says to no one in particular, “but, I mean, would America buy a n— winning?”
Kepcher’s pale skin goes bright red. I turn my gaze toward Trump. He continues to wince. He is serious, and he is adamant about not hiring Jackson.
In the finished program, Trump chose the white contestant as the winner.
(Four years later, Trump would propagate the baseless conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not a native-born US citizen and therefore had not legitimately won the presidency.)
The article also describes how women working on the production faced discrimination based on whether or not Trump wanted to look at them while they did their jobs:
While leering at a female camera assistant or assessing the physical attributes of a female contestant for whoever is listening, he orders a female camera operator off an elevator on which she is about to film him. “She’s too heavy,” I hear him say.
Another female camera operator, who happens to have blond hair and blue eyes, draws from Trump comparisons to his own Ivanka Trump. “There’s a beautiful woman behind that camera,” he says toward a line of 10 different operators set up in the foyer of Trump Tower one day. “That’s all I want to look at.”
And there's a third anecdote where he pressures a woman producer to break the FCC rules, while being casually misogynistic toward a contestant:
Trump corners a female producer and asks her whom he should fire. She demurs, saying something about how one of the contestants blamed another for their team losing. Trump then raises his hands, cupping them to his chest: “You mean the one with the …?” He doesn’t know the contestant’s name. Trump eventually fires her.
This information is pretty unlikely to persuade anyone who wasn't already persuaded by any of the other things Trump has done and said, which would for anyone else be a career-defining scandal. But it is a useful reminder of who we're dealing with.
(Link is to Slate, an x-number-of-free-articles-a-month site, but the incognito window trick works.)
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