#i have many feelings about magnus being angus's parent and I love all of them

[igetthedisneybox]

Tell me more about Magnus (Merida's adoptive son)

Backstory (as of now):

Magnus is the grandson of the Witch from Brave.

His mother, Alfreda, was traded to the Witch as a baby as payment for a spell, so she raised her as her own.

Magnus was the result of Alfreda falling in love with a knight from DunBroch, Kalan McKenzie.

The Witch did not approve of Alfreda's taste in men, so she banished her from the cottage. She and Kalan made a home alone in the woods, and eventually had Magnus.

Kalan ends up dying in the line of duty when Magnus was a baby.

Alfreda raised him until he was eight years old, when she started to get terminally sick.

She went to the Witch for help, and she basically told her that she was gonna die, but it's toooootally fine, because Magnus gets to be a prince and stuff.

When she died (her spirit turned into a wisp) Magnus was horrified, so he ran away from home.

He got very lost in the woods for several days, during which he almost died himself.

Meanwhile, a much older Princess Merida (because I can't kill off Fergus, he's still alive) is roaming the woods, when she sees a trail of Will O' the Wisps leading into the forest.

She follows them, and finds a half-dead Magnus.

Merida rescues him, and nurses him back to health. She and Fergus recognize him as Kalan McKenzie's kid.

When he wakes up, he lives in the knight's part of the castle for a bit, but he and Merida really bond. (She likes/ is good with kids because of her brothers).

Eventually, Elinor brings up that, even if Merida's not gonna get married anytime soon, she'll still need an heir to take the throne.

So she picks Magnus.

He doesn't call her "mum" until he's a bit older and healed from his trauma, though.

Physical:

He has curly red hair and brown eyes. He looks similar enough to Merida, that some people think they're actually related. Though, Merida's hair is more orange, while his is more red.

He's fifteen when his story takes place

He's pale, scrawny, and has many freckles.

His face claim is Kyle Breitkopf

I don't have an animated edit for him yet, because 3D models are hard to work with lol.

Personality and Fun Facts:

He holds himself to very high standards, to feel worthy of being adopted by Merida, and to make his birth parents proud.

He pushes himself way too hard to be a good sage, prince, and knight, when all he really wants to do his just be a kid.

His theme song is "Proud of Your Boy" from the Aladdin Broadway show.

I like to imagine Merida becomes friends with the sons of the other lords, and Magnus continues that tradition by being friends with their kids.

He, like Merida, is an expert archer.

He has a pet Scottish deerhound called Beowulf, who's the pup of Merida's dog, Slingshot.

His horse, Saorise, is the filly of Merida's horse, Angus.

He doesn't fear magic like some people do, and instead embraces it.

Descendants Au:

He goes to Auradon prep, and is probably on the tourney team (though he's not very good at it).

He would probably be against the VK's coming over at first, but once he gets to know them, he'd switch sides.

He, Carlos, and Jane would get along very well.

His favorite class would be Enchanted Forestry

Might add some more later, this was fun! Thanks for the ask!

[barry-j-blupjeans]

Okie, I know I already sent one in, but it looks like you're still accepting prompts, and there's so many I like, but I picked only one more lol:

9. 🎈 and Magnulia + Angus? I just really love Magnus being Angus' parent lol <3

9. 🎈you're a single parent at this birthday party at my work and I cannot believe I have to keep up the shtick when I'd much rather be wooing you 

--

Things Magnus expected from this event were as followed: sugar-filled children with no sense of how to slow down. Getting hit literally anywhere on his body with a soccer ball. Sweating a lot, like an absurd amount. Potentially having to leave early because Angus got tired. Potentially having to leave early because Angus got hurt. Potentially having to leave early- y'know, a lot of things could cause them to leave early. The end of the story is that Magnus had come prepared with his first aid fit, Angus's epi-pen, a cooler full of water bottles, and several big hats.

A thing Magnus wasn't expecting from this event: The downright gorgeous woman at the snow cone truck parked outside the soccer field. It was half-time and, after showering Angus with enough praise to make him start looking embarrassed and squirm away, Magnus had taken a break to go stretch his legs. A few families with children who weren't on the team were lined up at the truck. Magnus glanced back at the field, where he could just about see Angus's team huddled up, and decided what Angus didn't know couldn't hurt him.

"What can I get for you?" she said and Magnus nearly forgot how to speak. He cleared his throat, glancing behind him. He was the last one in line. The game was probably going to start again soon.

"Uh, mango, please?" Magnus said.

"Comin' right up," she said. She stepped back into her truck, just enough to not be at the window anymore, and got a cup out for Magnus. "You here to support anyone?"

"Yes!" Magnus said because if there was anything he could talk about in the face of a pretty person, it was Angus. "My kid, Angus, he's midfield for this game. And, I mean, the odds aren't looking too hot right now but I know they're gonna step up their game in the second half. He's been working so hard for this."

"I'm sure," snow cone woman said, smiling.

They faded into silence as she scooped some more shaved ice into his cup. Magnus bounced against the heels of his feet.

"So, uh," he said. "You come here often?"

Fuck. That was a stupid thing to say. Does she come here often? God.

"I do," and she was still smiling. Magnus tried not to be too hard on himself for that. "It's a pretty good spot to sell in the summer. And game nights are pretty good for my revenue."

"I can imagine," Magnus said. She turned her back to him, pumping some mango syrup onto the shaved ice. When she turned back to him, she slid the cup towards him and said,

"One sixty, please."

Magnus fished his wallet out of his back pocket and the woman leaned against the counter, smiling down on him. He handed over the proper change and she took it, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Do you come here often?" she asked.

"Oh, y'know," Magnus said, taking the cup. "Game nights, mostly. We practice at a field closer to home. Uh, Roost Park, if you know the one."

"I'm right around Roost Park!" the woman said. "Maybe I'll check it out sometimes. With- with the truck, of course."

"Of course," Magnus said. Don't blush. Don't blush. Don't blush. Goddamnit. Magnus ducked his head. "I hope to see you around...?"

"Julia," she said. "And you're-?"

There was a whistle from the field. Magnus nearly dropped his snow cone in surprise. When he turned, the teams were heading back out onto the field.

"I gotta go," Magnus said. "I'll talk to you later!"

He started jogging off towards the field and heard Julia laugh from behind him. About halfway towards the gate, he turned and shouted back,

"The name's Magnus, by the way!"

Julia shot him a thumbs up, grinning brighter than the afternoon sun. Magnus had a pretty good feeling about the rest of the game as he made his way back to his seat.

[charmandhex]

Angus is rather used to it at this point. The questions, that is. People can be astonishingly nosy (even when they aren’t detectives), and the Birds are considerably more intimidating than a kid now hovering in the space between young child and gangly teenager.

At least if you don’t know any of the Seven Birds or the boy in question.

But people still go to Angus with the questions. He practically has a script.

“Is Magnus as strong as the Story says?” Stronger.

“Does Lucretia really write with both hands?” Yes, and at the same time.

“What’s Lup like?” Fiery, fierce, wonderful.

“How many pairs of jeans does Barry have?” More than one.

“Is Merle seeing anyone?” Angus does not know and will not ask.

“Where did Davenport get the money for the Wavehumper?” Battlewagon racing.

“So Taako teaches you? Is he, like, your dad now?”

This is, to Angus, the most awkward question, so he feels no guilt over replying with an appropriately snarky answer each time.

“Well, no, sir, but I’m officially a part of the Taako brand. You too can get your own Taako-brand Agnes McDonald for only 420 payments of one gold.”

“No, ma’am, he’s my eccentric uncle. He’s going to die under mysterious circumstances forcing me to solve the mystery of his death so I can inherit a large fortune.”

“He’s my employer, sir. I’m a professor at the school. I have tenure.”

“I’m actually a dragon, and I’m older than he is, Mx.”

“Ma’am, he pushed me off a train, and you think he could be trusted with a child?”

And so on.

Because the Birds are adequately awe-inspiring and overwhelming (because most people have never seen Magnus cry over a dog or Barry eating too much cheese for science again), they don’t know about the questions for the most part, and Angus certainly isn’t going to fill them in. They’ve got enough to do, and Angus can handle it.

For the most part.

While out and about with Taako one day, shopping with a miles long list of spell components and groceries, someone practically bowls Angus over. While he’s reeling, the sentient wrecking ball notices who Angus is with.

“Oh my gods, TAAKO!” A human woman shrieks, completely missing the boy she nearly demolished.

“Uh... hail and well met.” Taako gives a casual wave, and Angus can see Taako glance down at him. “So. You good there, Agnes?”

“Agnes?” The woman asks, nonplussed before finally registering that the object she’d collided with was a living being. “Oh! This must be your son! From the story? Bet you’re happy that an amazing wizard like Taako adopted you, aren’t you?” The woman coos at the end in an annoying high-pitched voice, pinching Angus’s cheek and knocking his glasses askew again just as he’d managed to right them. Angus gets his glasses on again just in time to see a weird look on Taako’s face. Great. Now he’ll have to deal with Taako teasing about that. Angus opens his mouth to correct her, tell her no, he’s not-

“Adopted? What? Why would you think my son is adopted? Can’t you see the family resemblance? The Taako brand stunning good looks?” Taako slings an arm over Angus’s shoulder, grinning winningly at her.

“Sir-“

“Oh! I’m... I’m sorry?” The woman looks between Taako and Angus and back again, seemingly trying to do the math.

“Of course, cause, uh, he does take after his other dad. Right now, listen, this has been lovely, but, uh... parent duty calls? Come along, Agnes, time for... parental bonding and shit. Play catch? Teach you how to tie a tie? Drag you along fishing? That’s a thing dads do, right?” Taako steers Angus off with a wave back at the woman.

“Sir-“ Angus tries again as soon as they’re out of earshot.

“You good there, Ango? Battering ram back there coulda given Jess a run for her title.” Taako asks conversationally as he jabs a thumb back, pointing.

“Yes, but-“

“Cool.”

“Sir-“

“So let’s go.”

“Sir, you said-“

“I know what I said.” Taako cuts him off, suddenly more serious.

And Angus is overcome with something he doesn’t feel terribly often: confusion. “Why?”

And that seems to throw Taako off for some reason. “Um, well...” Taako hums, thinking. Or delaying. “Listen. She kinda, kinda caught me by surprise with that whole thing, but... why not? You know, uh, listen, you basically live with me and Krav. As far as I can tell you either have shit parents or no parents, which I can tell you: both suck in different ways. I teach you magic and shit.” Taako glances back to him before looking away again, ears twitching. “Unless, uh, unless you don’t want-“

Angus stares at Taako, who determinedly avoids eye contact as he continues rambling. “Sir.” Angus interrupts, and Taako stops mid-word. He seems like a barely contained whirlwind, all frantic energy ready to blow everywhere at once. “What else do we need to find before we go home?”

There’s a pause long enough for three loud heartbeats in Angus’s ears. Taako slowly smiles, tension easing and tornado dissipating. “I thought boy detectives had to be good at remembering shit? Okay, we got-“

Angus and Taako continue on with shopping, gradually making their way home.

Later, Angus discovers that not being asked nosy questions extends to the family of the Birds, too.

[luobingmeis]

i love your team sweet flips kids!!!!! what were some of their first quests (or times that they used their classes)? how do carey and killian feel that they don't have magic and can't super help johann with his training? what kind of moms are they? who tries to be the ~cool mom~? (sorry if this is a lot i just love team sweet flips and their kids)

anonymous asked: Ocs r da bomb!!!! Tell me Abt them kids uwu

oh omg sick okay so!! i might just end up rambling bc i have so many scattered thoughts in my head abt the sweet flips kids omfg

(quick little notes: johann and noelle are my OCs for carey and killian’s kids, named after bard johann and no3113. johann is a dragonborn and noelle is an orc. i’ve put too much thought into really random details about them.)

johann’s classes: wizard and rogue

noelle’s classes: druid and fighter

(in a family so greatly consisting of magic users, no one can convince me that a bunch of them don’t jump at teaching the kiddos magic)

i haven’t thought of legit quests for them yet (but give me some time, omfg, i’ll probably end up with an entire AU just dedicated to them doing cool shit) but i’ve thought about who would train them in their classes!!!

angus is who initially teaches johann magic, just like how taako taught angus. johann was probably super young when he started learning magic. was it ever said how young someone can be and still learn magic?? bc i put him at, like, seven or eight when angus starts teaching johann really simple cantrips, like mage hand. it’s only as he gets a little older (like probably 14/15) that he starts learning illusion magic (bc he looks up to davenport a lot and, as a shy little kid, davenport was the first person, besides his moms, who he got very attached to)

by the time he’s, like, 18, he’s “come get y’alls juice”-ing noelle

also, just through sheer observation, he starts learning rogue shit from carey. and i’m talking that, like, when he’s four, he’s just taking shit. he doesn’t even know exactly what he’s doing, his brain is just like “seeing mom prank friends by taking stuff = something fun to do”

carey is lowkey horrified (in, like, kinda a fun way tho) and killian just thinks that it’s hysterical bc “babe he’s just like you” and carey’s like “killian i’ve been arrested for pickpocketing and other rogue shit before, he cannot be just like me”

(johann was once jailed for an afternoon tho and they did, in fact, have to pick him up/bail him out from that)

noelle, on the other hand, actually learned some of her magic from barry!!! not anything necromantic in nature, but just, once again, simple cantrips. she was just super attached to barry (i mean, she was a very social charming kid, so she was attached to everyone, but barry was special). however, by default, she also started learning some stuff from lup, too. she decided to specialize as a druid, tho, and, with that, she probably learns some stuff from merle, too!!!

and then magnus teaches her how to fight/protect herself!! first, he just teaches her how to use a shield to defend herself, and then he works up to a sword and shield, but suddenly, one day, she’s wielding a giant fucking battle-axe and magnus is delighted

carey and killian, initially, feel kinda bad that they can’t help their kids with their magic. bc they want to help their kids out with everything!!! and they can see how frustrated they get when they’re trying to practice spells but none of the magic users are around so they just have to work everything out by themselves. but carey and killian also find it, honestly, really fun to see their kids learning new things.

they’re also low key terrified bc, even though johann specialized in illusion magic and noelle is a druid, somehow johann knows how to cast perfect fireballs and noelle knows just a bit too much abt necromancy stuff (sorry kravitz)

(honestly tho, between merle & lucretia & dav & lup & barry & taako, you can see all types of magic influence on the sweet flips kids) (and other’s, too, like how johann knows how to pick locks and, after being babysat by avi enough, noelle seems to have pretty good aim with projectiles, etc etc etc)

johann goes to taako’s school and noelle goes to lucas’s school. and, see, taakos fawns over the both of them (even tho he swears he’s not a fan of kids even tho he and kravitz have basically adopted angus already), but he (jokingly) gives noelle shit for not going to his school and absolutely praises johann for “making the right academic choice” but you know that, during family get togethers, taako is helping both of them out with school work and making sure that lucas is going easy on noelle

i think both carey and killian are pretty cool moms!!! but, actually, i think at first, like when johann was still in an egg, carey was... incredibly nervous. i hc that she didn’t really have much of a family life. like, she had her parents and her brother, scales, and they lived in neverwinter together, but it was kinda like “parents that had kids but let their kids do whatever they want from the time they were little.” so, like, carey was out on her own for most days, wreaking whatever havoc and doing whatever she wanted, and sometimes she would come home to sleep and sometimes she wouldn’t, so she was super scared that she wouldn’t be a good mom. killian, on the other hand, i hc is a huge family person and the oldest of a bunch of sisters, which kinda made carey even more nervous bc “oh god what if killian is so good at this and she regrets having kids with me and and and” but killian helps her out and shows her that she can give their kids and better upbringing than she had and, together, they work together and are really good moms!!!

they joke that killian is “bad cop” and carey is “good cop” but they’re both huge softies for their kids but also know when discipline is necessary (but, like, calm discipline. they don’t believe in yelling at kids). i do think that they have their Things, you know. like killian is protective in the way that she doesn’t want anyone to hurt her kids, so she’s the “intimidating” parent when her kids start bringing dates home (but she softens up quickly). and carey gets really nervous when the kids are out for a while, so she at least likes to keep tabs like “hey just make sure to come home and let us know what’s going on.” but, overall, i think they’re both really chill moms and they have a super nice, super trusting relationship with their kids. and even when the kids start growing up and going off on their own, they always stop back and visit!!!

[tazrp]

what are some rps u think would be fun with some of ur muses? 👀

Oh boy. This is a pretty big question. tbh some of them I don’t have anything specific, I just wanna do something to get a better feel for them. But I’ll shove some ideas under the cut and if something seems like hmu

Brad, Barry, and Kravitz don’t have anything specific for. These kids and a bunch that I took off the list were ones that I thought, “ooh I really wanna write for them!” but when I was deleting muses, I couldn’t bring myself to remove these 4 anyway. 

Incidentally, though Taako isn’t on my list because I didn’t think I could write him well, I already have a thread going with him because I just couldn’t resist the urge. lmao Okay but others:

Magnus - I just want to play him being BFFs with literally everyone. lol He’s such a big friendly dude. I think he’d be fun in Graduation? He’d definitely be on the Hero track but I think it would end up being kind of funny if because of the methods Tres Horny Boys used near the beginning of Balance especially he ended up on the Villain curriculum. He’d be really mad. lol I think that would be fun to explore.Honestly I think he’s pretty versatile and I think it’d be fun to throw him into basically any AU/Crossover.

Merle - I ended up having multiple ships for Merle my first listen of Balance and generally I don’t get so into that my first runthrough of stuff? But he had such great chemistry with so many people that I couldn’t help it. I don’t often like doing things just based on shipping but I wanna! for him! lol I just love that this weird little plant fucker is also Emotional Support material. I love him.I also really like parent/child RPs??? I did some on another blog with an OC self-insert child to my canon character that I really enjoyed, so I think it’d be fun to do something with him and his kids. Pre- or -post canon/Hekaba would be fine.

John - He’s an incredibly interesting character and I just really love how he speaks. I think RPing him during his time with The Hunger would be really neat (I wrote a fic awhile back about him and The Hunger and it was a delight to write and I really love thinking about the dynamic there) so him starting up The Hunger would be interesting. I think it’d be cool to explore what might’ve happened if Merle was able to pull John out of The Hunger during Stolen Century and have him walking around with the Starblaster crew on some of those worlds. After everything, I have in his bio that he’s been put back into the world to learn how to do things better, so I think it opens up some crossover opportunities because we could throw him wherever.Also really like AUs so I’d love to see what it’d be like to play him as I think he was before learning the answer to life, the universe, and everything, or also figure out a way to make him Just Like That for a reason other than being The Hunger for centuries.

Mavis - I just want her to be BFFs with Angus, man. I want them to solve mysteries together and be super good friends and hang out all the time (to Merle’s dismay.) maybe she has a crush on him idk

Garfield - he’s got a Deal For You. I wanna play this spooky little gremlin doing basically anything, but I think it’d be fun to find a Magnus to keep him creepin’ on. lmao

The Amnesty group I don’t have anything specific for any of them tbh. I’ve only listened to Amnesty once so I haven’t thought as much about this cast as I did for Balance. I took Commitment and Dust completely off my list for this reason too, but at least with Amnesty we had longer to get to know the characters. So really anything with them would be fun for me, I think, and until I listen again I probably won’t have more specific ideas that aren’t all based on ships. lmao

I would like to play Ned during his time as a criminal, I’d love for Agent Stern to Investigate Some Mysteries, and I think Barclay is a babe so him being domestic around the lodge is A+ material for me. (Also: Indrid?? A great big babe!)

I don’t have AU ideas for the Graduation Kids either, but I’m really enjoying RPing them in their school setting! 

I’m also open to pretty much anything that anyone else wants to do with any of these characters. (Or literally anyone from Balance) so if you wanna come Plot something out I’m totally game.

[rockindragonz]

Home Is Where the Taaco’s Are

Angus McDonald would never allow himself to be a burden on anyone, so he tries to make it on his own following the Day of Story and Song. He ends up in an orphanage with too many kids, too few caretakers, and too little money. When Taako and Kravitz find out, they will not let that stand any longer.

Rating: General Audiences

Words: 4333

Chapters: 1/1

Read on Ao3

No one really talks about what they saw, or rather didn’t see, that day.  It's never mentioned when the Day of Story and Song comes around.  For many, it is a day of celebration, but, for many more, it is a day of mourning and loss.  So many died to the monsters before anyone could see them.  So many husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, children and grandparents.  Everyone knew someone who had died without being able to see their attacker, all they felt was blood spilling from them by the gallon.  What they do talk about is the story of the seven birds and how courageous and wonderful these people were.  They talk of the Bureau of Balance and some speak of Carey, Killian, and Angus who had the privilege of fighting beside the old adventurers.

Its weird for a while for Angus.  Going to school and trying to have a normal life all while being so related to the seven people who saved countless realities.  When he’s first recognized on the street as Angus McDonald, member of the Bureau of Balance, he is in shock.  People crowd him and ask him so many of questions about the IPRE crew that he loses track of them.

For the crew, the year immediately following the Day of Story and Song was the hardest.  Taako and Kravitz had rushed headfirst into their relationship and had spent as much time together as possible.  Magnus began to rebuild Raven’s Roost after the destruction it had faced.  Lup and Barry joined up with the Raven Queen, so they weren’t around much.  Lucretia spent all of her time trying to fix all the mistakes she had made and created the Bureau of Benevolence to aid in repairation efforts.  Merle moved to the beach and became the leader of a city he now ran.  And Davenport all but disappeared off the map.

As for Angus, he no longer had a home.  He was alone once again, without a mother or father to speak of, and his grandfather’s grave had been destroyed in the attacks.  He applied to Lucas’s school and got in with no problems.  But now he was living in an orphanage where there were too many kids, not enough caretakers, and not nearly enough money.  Many children had been orphaned on that fateful day.  Despite everything, Angus found himself happier than he had ever been.  He was learning new and challenging things and he was visiting constantly with Taako and Kravitz who lived so close to his school.  He was finally living the life a child deserves to live.  No one knew where Angus was calling home, no one even really knew that Angus had no family in Faerun that he could have lived with.  Whenever the subject was brought up, he changed it quickly with a dismissive answer and tried to focus on something not related to his living conditions at all.

That’s how it went for the first year.  Everything was calm and quiet and everyone had a new appreciation for life and love.

It's been almost three years since the day or Story and Song now and Angus is still in the orphanage.  Prospective parents have been few and far between for the orphanage this year and donations haven’t been large enough to support the displaced children so there wasn’t enough food to go around.  Besides that, Angus had some massive finals coming up that kept him locked in his shared room most days.  Those two things combined over the course of a month meant that Angus was starting to show some bone in his ribcage.  He was constantly hungry now, but he ignored it and continued working towards his goal of becoming as good of a wizard as Taako was.

His final for the year was held on the day before the Day of Story and Song, so the day after was when he finally found himself with enough time to once again visit Taako and Kravitz.  Normally the gang would gather in one house to celebrate and relate stories, but the party had been put off for a day or so because Davenport had gotten stranded briefly in some remote part of the world and refused out of dignity to let Kravitz help him.  Before knocking on the familiar wooden door, Angus hesitated.  He knew Taako was more on this day and he really didn’t want to bother him, but his decision was made for him when a surprisingly casually dressed reaper opened the door.

Kravitz blinked down at Angus twice before grinning ear to ear.  “Angus!  I was just about to head to the store to get some stuff for dinner, will you be joining us?”

“Oh, no sir, I wouldn’t want to bother you two, I know you’re both very-” he was cut off by a loud growl from his stomach that caught him totally off guard.  The growling had stopped weeks ago but apparently the mention of Taako’s delicious food reactivated it.

“I’ll take that as a yes.  Go ahead and go inside, Taako is just in the kitchen getting some things prepared.”  Kravitz clapped him on the shoulder and stepped away from the wooden door and past Angus.  Hesitantly, Angus stepped into the warm home.

“Sir?  Mr. Kravitz let me in,” Angus said, calling towards where he knew the kitchen was.

“Angus, I’m in the kitchen, do me a favor and come give cha’boy a hand,” Taako responded.  Angus nodded to himself and dropped his book bag on the cozy couch that stood facing a lit fire.  He stared for a moment at the flames that licked up and around the logs burning, and he thought of Lup immediately as he stared.  Honestly, Angus was surprised she and Barry weren’t here; the twins were usually inseparable today.  Shaking his head, Angus walked to the kitchen to lend Taako the hand he had asked for.

“How can I help sir?”

“Just hand me stuff and put things I give you in the sink or something, I don’t really care as long as they get the fuck out of my way,” Taako said, passing him a dirty dish.  Angus nodded and dutifully placed it in the sink and ran the water to clean the bowl out a bit.  “Ango, gimme the salt.”  And so Angus did.  Things continued like this for a while, both of them existing in comfortable silence, despite the teasing that usually occurred at Angus’ expense.  Taako said nothing besides a few short words to indicate what he needed next for the recipe.  At one point, Angus got the feeling that Taako didn’t really need his help, he could tell in the way Taako would go to reach for something and then hesitate and ask Angus to grab it for him.  Honestly, Angus had no idea why the usually flippant man would allow him to help out, but he wasn’t complaining, anything was better than being stuck at that orphanage ny longer than he had to be.

“That’ll do boyo, we can chillax now and watch Fantasy Queer Eye if you want, though Krav might kill me if we watch a new ep without him.” Taako spoke loudly, almost as if he were trying to get someone else in the house to hear him, as he dried his hands off on a dish towel.

“Whatever sounds great to me sir!” Angus said with a smile he hoped was convincing.  The food he could smell that was now baking kept causing his stomach to growl loudly, but if Taako had noticed, he hadn’t said anything about it.  Taako plopped down on the couch in what Angus knew to be his usual place and waved his hand at the small TV above the fireplace.  A rerun episode of Fantasy Queer Eye came on, one where they were trying to help a gay man get a sense of style that he obviously didn’t have.  Occasionally, Taako would scoff at the clothing choices one of them would make for the client and he would mutter things like “Oh so you think you know everything about clothing, don’t you Tan?”  In these instances, Angus would only smile to himself in a fond way one would if one’s father was acting silly.

“So...how’re...things?” Taako said.  He had obviously grown bored with the rerun and was now trying to rope Angus into a long conversation about his life.

“Things are good, I am doing very well in school!”

“Yeah, no surprise there, boy wonder,” Taako said with a snort, “what are they feeding you over there anyways?  You look like skin and bone my dude.  I’m gonna have to take that up with Lucas and make sure that shithead is feeding you guys right.”

“There’s no need for that sir, I’m just...sick is all.”

“No, no, no, I know sick and this is not that,” he said with a scowl, “have you eaten a proper meal in the last few weeks?  I’m talking something other than a shitty ass school sandwich and a granola bar.”

“Oh sir, the shows back on!  I love this part of the episode, it’s so funny.”  Angus turned his face to watch the TV and rested his head in his hands, hoping to mask the bit of bone that had begun to show around his jaw area.  With no warning, the TV was shut off.  Angus turned to look at Taako only to be faced with a serious look that he had rarely, if ever, seen on Taako’s face.

“Angus, what is really going on?  I’m not a moron you know, I know malnutrition when I see it, and boy, am I seein it right now.”  Angus sighed and let his hands fall into his lap.  He was torn between telling Taako the whole truth and lying about his whereabouts and his food intake.  Lying seemed to be the better and less inconvenient option.  “Don’t bullshit me or I will get Merle to pop over here and cast Zone of Truth.”  Again, Angus sighed a deep sigh.  Taako wasn’t going to give up until he was satisfied with the answer, was he?

“Okay, well, I’m living in a home where they don’t have a ton of money right now and we haven’t been able to get much food together.  Most people have spent their money on the rebuilding efforts so donations are low.”

“Wait a second there boyo,” Taako said, his eyebrows raising rapidly, “donations?  What, are you living on the streets now?”

“No, I have a bed sir, I’m not sleeping on the streets anymore.”

“Anymore?”

“Um, well yeah, after the Day of Story and Song three years ago, I had nowhere to go, so I was on the streets for a few weeks, but an orphanage took me in.”

“An orphanage?!  Are you fucking with me?!” Taako yelled, “You’ve been living in an orphanage with barely enough food, if any, for three fucking years and no one even bothered to check on you?”

“I didn’t want to impose on anyone, sir.  I felt wrong aking anyone from the BoB to take me in because I’m not their responsibility,” Angus said, voice soft.

“Well fuck that noise!”  Taako stood violently, knocking into the coffee table as he rose.  Kravitz chose that exact moment to enter the room carrying a small bag of rolls with him.  He looked from Taako to Angus and back with a look of total bewilderment.  Taako’s face was pure rage and Angus was sure his was one of fear and shock.

“What is going on here?” Kravitz said, his voice unnaturally calm given the current situation.

“Angus here hasn’t been telling us the whole fucking truth for three fucking years!” Taako shouted.

“What ‘whole truth’ is he talking about, Angus?”

“Ango here has been living in a fucking orphanage with nothing to eat for three.  Fucking.  Years.”  Taako spat.  “That shit doesn’t fly.  Krav, take us to the orphanage where Angus is staying so I can get those fucking adoption papers now.”  With those words, Taako stormed off to the kitchen.  Angus could hear some banging as he grabbed the dish out of the oven and dropped on one of the counters.  He heard Taako swearing a muttering to himself just loud enough that he could hear the noise, but couldn’t make out any of the words, he just knew that Taako was furious.

“I-I-I didn’t mean to make him angry Mr. Kravitz, I promise I didn’t, I’m just really tired and I’m not thinking straight and I couldn’t come up with a believable lie in time to tell him,” Angus said as he stood, “I just didn’t want to force anyone to take care of me, that’s-”  Before he could finish his sentence, he was wrapped up in a tight hug from Kravitz.  Despite Kravitz being dead and his skin being cold, Angus had never felt warmer in all his life.

“Angus, shhh, it’s okay, he isn’t mad at you,” Kravitz said in a soft tone, “he’s mad that he didn’t notice you were going through exactly what he and Lup had gone through back on their home world.”  Angus was stunned.  This information was new to him.  Of course, he could infer it what with how jumpy Taako seemed to get in a new place and how he always seemed to know the fastest exit out of any room, but he had never had such clear confirmation.  For a long while, they stood there, Angus wrapped up in Kravitz’s arms with his own down at his sides in shock.  It took him a moment to process all that was happening and, when he finally did, he felt tears begin to streak down his face.  He wrapped his arms tightly around Kravitz, who pulled him down onto the couch, never letting go of him for even a moment.  Kravitz combed his fingers through the thick and curly locks as Angus sobbed harder than he had in years.  Taako returned at some point and wrapped his arms around the other side of Angus, but no one could tell you when or exactly how it had happened, it just did.

Once Angus had finally calmed down fully, he pulled away from Kravitz, but was unable to escape Taako’s tight grasp.  It seemed as if Taako was unwilling to let go for fear that he might lose him or something.

“Don’t you ever do something like this again, okay Ango?  We are your dads now, and thats final.”  Taako spoke with such finality that Angus was once again overcome with emotions.  He wrapped his arms tightly around Taako’s neck and buried his face into it and found himself crying once more.  Not out of stress or fear but out of so much happiness that he couldn’t handle it on his own.  Taako was happy to oblige him, wrapping his arms tight around his magic boy.  They sat there for what felt like forever.  Kravitz eventually stood up and went to get something, and Angus faintly registered talking in a room a ways away, but he wasn’t coherent enough to process any of it.  After what felt like hours, Taako and Angus let go of each other and only stared.  Taako’s eyes were red and puffy just as Angus knew his were, but this was more of a comfort than anything to him.

“How’re you doing kiddo?” Kravitz said as he took his place on the couch once more.

“Better.”

“Good.  I just finished speaking with the lady who owns the shelter and she is aware that we are coming to get your things.  She sounded drunk.”

“I did some detective work while I was there and I think she knows that I found out she stole all the money we had for food this month to pay for her alcohol.”

“That would explain it,” Kravitz said with a laugh, “when we get there, grab your things and do not say a word to her.  Taako and I will deal with her and her employer.”

Angus only nodded in acknowledgement and went to stand up, but was stopped by a hand on his knee.

“Angus,” Taako began, “you are never a burden on any of us, remember that.”  His face was stone cold serious.  He hadn’t seen this look since three years ago when he was preparing to kick the shit out of Lucretia for lying to him.

“Okay.”

Once the three were calm and collected, they gathered a few bags and waited for Kravitz to rip a tear for them to travel to the orphanage with.  Upon their arrival, the woman was standing in front of the building with a scowl on her face.  She was yelling at a younger girl who was covered in mud.  Once she had been incredibly sweet and loving to all the children, but that was when people were giving all they could to the ‘poor little children who had lost their parents to the Hunger’.  Now she was bitter and mean and crude to all the kids she came across.  Taako cleared his throat as he stared her down.  She waved her hand dismissively and continued to berate the girl for getting her clothes messy, but Taako was having none of it.  He grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her to face him fully.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” she demanded before she laid eyes on him.  It was almost comical how wide her eyes got when she was Angus standing behind one of the seven birds.  She had known that he was related to them, but they never visited or even contacted him at the orphanage, so she thought they had forgotten about him completely.

“I’m Taako from TV,” he said.  And, with all the rage and anger he had pent up, he punched her square in the nose with all the force he had in his body.  Granted, it wasn’t much, but she fell backwards, out cold all the same.  Kravitz only whistled as she went down and the girl stared at Taako in awe.  Taako turned to the young girl and, with a wave of his hand, her dress was pristine again.  “Don’t hit people, kid.”  He gave her a genuine Taako (™) smile and strode into the orphanage.  Angus was left shocked with Kravitz by his side.  The man laughed quietly and shook his head, but followed after his husband.  Angus followed suit, trying to keep up with him so that none of the other kids would wonder why a Reaper was here with one of the seven birds.

When they stepped inside the house, papers were flying everywhere as Taako searched for the forms he needed to sign.  Kravitz nudged Angus towards the stairs and pointed towards where Taako was obviously beginning his search.

“I’ll help him, you go get your stuff, if you need me, just yell.”  Angus nodded and began the climb to the shared bedroom for all the boys.  He frowned as he got to the top and all the kids in his orphanage were hiding in the room.

“It’s okay,” he began, unsure of how to help the kids, “it’s just me.”

“She said to stay here and out of sight or else, so we did.  What’s all the commotion downstairs?” one girl said.  Her voice was soft, so Angus could barely understand her, but he smiled anyways.

“Taako is downstairs,” he said.  Before he could even finish speaking, the children were scrambling to get down there to meet one of the famous seven birds.  Angus was left alone in the giant room with only his thoughts and his stuff to grab.  He pulled a chest out from under his bed where he kept all of his things and began to unpack it and put it in the bags Kravitz had given him.  He took extra care to cushion his most valuable items: his spell books for school, his journal where he kept all of his detective notes, and a single silver spoon that had belonged to the set his grandfather had entrusted him with that he knew Taako and the other two had stolen on the train.  This spoon meant more to him than almost anything else he owned so he put it in the safest spot he could imagine.

With a smile, he looked around the room one last time, gathered his things, and went downstairs to tell the two he was ready to go.  It was no surprise to him that Taako had been surrounded by the children.  What was a shock was seeing Magnus and Merle there trying to act as decoys.

“Hey guys!  Look it’s me, Magnus Burnsides!” he shouted, striking a pose and flexing.  Immediately, all the children who had been surrounding Taako flocked to talk to Magnus who took it all in stride.  The attention was something that the three of them had gotten very used to in the past few years, so it was nothing for Magnus to be messing with a few of the kids and trying to lift them while Merle tried his damndest to even see over the sea of children.  It seemed that none of the kids noticed Angus follow Taako and Kravitz to a side room where they could hopefully have a moment to process everything.

“Thank you for getting those two for me Krav, I couldn’t handle those brats for a second longer,” Taako said with relief evident in his voice.  Kravitz only nodded with a fond smile to which Taako rolled his eyes.

“So, Angus, shall we?” Kravitz said.  He gestured to the desk where Taako and he had already signed the paperwork.  The ink was fresh with their signatures, but that of the orphanage’s owner’s was not.

“She must have signed all of the forms forever ago,” Taako said with disgust, “she wanted ou all out of her hair so badly, I bet she would have gladly given one of you to anyone with cash.”

“Sirs?” Angus said, voice small, “Are you sure about this?”

“Of course we are, Angus,” Kravitz said with a gentle smile, “we love you, and we want you to be happy.  Do you want this?”

“Absolutely,” Angus said with a gigantic grin on his face.  His eyes had gotten a bit teary and his vision was getting slightly blurred, but he was happy.  Taako handed him the pen to sign that he agreed to be adopted, and Angus drew his signature over the line with the biggest smile he had had in years.

The rest of the day was a whirlwind of things.  Taako and Kravitz took him to the nearest city hall to turn in the paperwork and make it fully official.  The secretary there was shocked by Taako’s sudden appearance with a literal reaper’s scythe that dropped them in the middle of her office.  Once there, the woman only nodded in awe to the questions Taako asked.  When they brought up the lady in charge of the orphanage, the secretary shook from her stupor and began writing things down.  She assured them that the woman would be fired promptly and a new person would be instated as the caretaker.  Taako also insisted on making a hefty donation to the orphanages that fell under the jurisdiction of this city, to which the woman humbly accepted and tucked away.

“If I find out my money has gone to anything except the kids,” Taako spoke, his voice suddenly deep and filled with anger, “all hell will break loose.”  The woman only nodded, pupils blown wide in fear.  Satisfied his money would be used well, Kravitz tore open another portal, this one to their home.

As Angus stepped foot into their living room with all of his things in hand, it finally settled in his mind that this was real.  This wasn’t just a dream, this was actually happening.  He would be with a family, a real family, and he would finally be safe for the first time in three years.

“Your room is upstairs, I’m gonna heat up dinner real fast,” Taako said, all but sprinting away to the kitchen.

As if Kravitz could hear Angus’ concerns, he spoke, “Don’t worry about him, okay Angus?  He loves you, I promise, he’s just really bad at showing vulnerability sometimes.”  Angus nodded with a small smile.  He knew Taako loved him, he knew the trio loved him, because they teased him so often but they were also softer to him than anyone else.  Kravitz patted him on the head and started for the stairs to lead Angus to his new room.  When they entered, it was basically empty save for the massive bed against one of the walls and a dresser with a mirror on top.  Despite the lack of furniture in the room, Angus had never felt so at home.

“Welcome home kiddo,” Kravitz said, “I’ve always wanted to be a dad, you know.  So has Taako.  The last time he got drunk, actually, he talked about adopting you, but you hadn’t shown any interest in being adopted by anyone, so he dropped it quickly.  He’s really fucking happy about this.”

“I know sir, I am too,” Angus said, “thank you, sir, for adopting me.”

“Angus, you don’t have to call us ‘sir’ anymore.  You can call me dad if you want, or if you don’t want, whatever works for me.  I just want you to be happy here.”

“Okay, sir,” Angus paused, “dad.”  Absolute joy took over Kravitz’ face and he had to seemingly restrain himself from wrapping Angus up in a bear hug.

“Get settled in, and then come down for dinner, okay?”

“Alright.”  With that, Kravitz turned and retreated down the hallway and downstairs.  Angus watched him go for a moment, before he stepped into his new room and into his new life.

And he truly couldn’t have been happier if he’d tried.

[adventuresloane]

Lup, Raven Queen, Barry, Ango and totally Ren. ;) maybe sloane also! For the HC meme❤️

(for this meme)

Kat this is……SO many oh my lord. I’m gonna put most of theseunder a cut!!!  You’re a doll tho thanksfor all the asks.

Lup:

A) What I think realistically: I love the idea that,contrary to popular belief, she’s the younger twin! When they were kids, Taakowould always be the one who had to get her out of the trouble she got herselfinto. Taako’s always been a bit more pragmatic, but Lup just couldn’t standdisrespect towards her or her brother and would always address it. She stood upto people and probably bit off more than she could chew a number of times,meaning Taako had to help her out of a tight spot.

B) What is fucking hilarious to me: Lup at one point had apretty major crisis in her life because she loves to cook for people anddesperately wanted to show her affection for Barry by cooking for him, but.This man has lived off late-night hot pockets out of his laboratory microwavefor years. He doesn’t have a palette. One time she overheard him call ketchupspicy and she just kind of stared at the wall for five minutes. She spent manyan evening slaving over recipe books to try to find SOMETHING decent that thisuncultured man would actually enjoy.

C) What is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict onfriends: She’s got…a number of lingering issues after her release from theumbrella. There’s a lot of talk about how she develops claustrophobia, andwhile I think that’s certainly true, I think another thing that leaves hershaken is the utter darkness inside the staff. Before she was able to get herpowers back to create fire, the darkness in there must have been absolute andchilling. Imagine how long she lay there entirely blind and unable to make outanything. I don’t think she can sleep with the lights off anymore. She alwaysat least leaves the hall light on outside the bedroom, but even that’s notenough much of the time, and she often plays with a little fireball in herhands until she can’t keep her eyes open anymore, so that she knows there’sstill light where she is.

D) What would never work with canon but the canon is shit soI believe it anyway: Griffin says that the Legato performance was the firsttime the rest of the IPRE crew realized that Barry and Lup were in love butcome the fuck on. These guys??? They’re so incredibly obvious and crazy foreach other. Even if they didn’t tell their family explicitly EVERYONE knew forYEARS.

Raven Queen

A) Every raven in Faerun is at her beck and call. The birdshave a bit of magic to them inherently and find it easy to slip from plane toplane. She’ll dispatch them to carry messages or keep an eye on things for herand report back. She VERY rarely comes to the mortal planes, but you can alwaystell when she’s on her way. Thousands of ravens circle together tightly in thesky, their iridescent wings shining, and from the almost blinding andotherworldly shimmer a portal forms through which she comes.

B) Has motherly instincts towards Kravitz but no concept ofwhat being a parent to a former mortal actually entails. At what age does onestop picking up mortal children? 35? Her idea of mother-son bonding is enactinga blood oath. She’s trying her best.

C) Kravitz became her “ward” of sorts when he begged andprayed to her for months on end to spare his sick mother and take his lifeinstead—he made a brave trade and she respected him for it, hence his positionas a reaper.

D) She grants Magnus a “limited” amount of extra time livinghappily with Julia in the afterlife but honestly do you think she’ll ever makethem stop living in that little cabin? Heck, do you really think she’s going tokeep their friends from leaving the sea of souls to visit them whenever???She’s willing to turn a blind eye to their little party for the rest ofeternity.

Barry

A) He is just……so visibly huggable tbh. You look at him andyou’re like, “That’s a man who’d be good to just hug for a little while. Chubbysoft belly. Just a teddy bear of a man.

B) The boy is a classic academic research scientist, whichis to say a damn mess. He’ll periodically crop his hair short but then won’tbother to get it cut again for months on end because he’s too busy, so it growsout all wild and looks a mess. He has one (1) mug he keeps on his desk and likenever washes because it’s always filled with coffee anyway. Shows up to work ina stained T-shirt because it’s not like anyone’s paying attention to him whenhe’s locked up in his lab all day anyway. Grody science man.

C) Next to Taako, he’s the one who takes the longest toforgive Lucretia, and I sort of think he never completely gets over what shedid. Unlike everyone else in the IPRE crew, he was deliberately isolated fromthe rest of his family AND HE WAS AWARE OF IT. That’s fucked up, and he learnedto hate Lucretia for awhile, and that’s not the kind of thing that can beerased as soon as Story & Song is over. He can barely look her in the eyefor awhile.

D) He does NOT have a mullet do not to my boy dirty likethis.

Angus

A) All this debate over Magnus or Taako or Lucretia orwhoever the fuck adopts Angus post-S&S? Screw that noise. It’s not like anyof the adult figures in his life AREN’T walking disasters as individuals—it’sonly together that they’re sort of capable of functioning. That’s why he haslike twenty parents and splits his time between like five different houses,inside each of which he has his own room and where he is welcome at all hoursof the day and night. That kid is living the dream.

B) Absolutely drops f-bombs on purpose knowing that it willscandalize the adults he talks to. This boy is a delight and has never doneanything wrong but he is NOT the innocent little one everyone thinks! Sneakyboy!

C) Gotta be honest, I don’t have the heart to actuallyimagine Angus having any suffering inflicted upon him, BUT I do like the ideaof Taako being lowkey terrified every time he goes off on his own/tries toconduct an investigation that has a chance of being dangerous. He tries not toshow it and definitely plays it cool when Angus comes back safe every time, buthe’s got so very few people he feels really connected to and he doesn’t want tolose one of them (again).

D) Controversial, but he remains a shrimpy nerdboy foreverand does not get to be buffer than Magnus sorry.

Ren

A) Hot take: she’s a soft butch. My evidence? I know a bunchof butches named Ren and also she just gives off those Lesbian Vibes. Butch Ren2k19.

B) She is…small. Just so short, even by the standards ofelves, which are on average smaller than humans. It might be partly because she’sa Drow, since I personally headcanon that they don’t grow quite as big, buteven then she’s just. A little creacher. She has to use a spoon to knock downthings from shelves that everyone else in the tavern can easily reach. Cassidyjokingly uses her head as an armrest.

C) Her family is definitely still around and definitely wereoutside of Refuge when the barrier was created around the town and they justhad no way whatsoever of contacting her. They aged while time didn’t touch her.

D) This is more in opposition to D&D lore than to theTAZ canon, but I personally don’t like to think that Ren ever faced anyprejudice for being a dark elf. The whole idea of the Drow being cursed and 99%of them being evil is, imo, very tired (not to mention racist), so I just don’twant that being a part of her story. I think maybe Underdark elves have a bitof a reputation in the surface realms for being kind of staid and dour, so inthat way Ren defies some conventions by being her bubbly self. But aside fromthat, she never had an issue with anyone thinking less of her or hating her forbeing a Drow.

And fuck it, I know I did Sloane already but I have gothbirb headcanons coming out of my ass so I’ll do her again.

A) Tbh I like to think that her alias is something she put alot of thought into and something she identifies really strongly with. Like,ravens are obviously just objectively cool and fit the goth aesthetic she’sgoing for, but also I think growing up in Goldcliff (which I picture as beingjust like the American Southwest) she had a lot of experience observing themand felt kind of a kinship with them (and probably fed them to get them tofollow her around tbh). In some folklore, ravens are considered shapeshifterson account of how the sun reflects off their wings and makes them look likethey’re changing shape. I think that by assuming the persona of the Raven, shebecomes something more than what she appears to be, and it’s a bit of escapismfor her. (Also, ravens are known to be family-oriented and mate for life sothat proves fitting later on…)

B) It kinda breaks my heart whenever people draw her (orhalf-elves in general) with shorter/smaller ears than full-blooded elves,because in my head hers are long and twitchy! She’s pretty good at hiding howshe feels and not giving away too much with her body language, so her ears don’tnecessarily move around a ton to express how she’s feeling, but they doinvoluntarily react to sound, e.g. perking up when she hears a sudden noise.Hurley finds this adorable and exploits it to no end—like snapping her fingersnext to one of Sloane’s ears and then the other to make them pique alternatelyuntil Sloane finally gets fed up.

C) This is kind of more of a headcanon for half-elves ingeneral, but I remember seeing a post awhile back that said something along thelines of “D&D cryptid: a half-elf with a good relationship with theirfamily.” It was funny, but it did get me thinking: what’s a good narrativejustification for this? One of the answers, I think, is that half-elves grow ata rate that must be completely bewildering for their elven parents. They reachmaturity at around 20, compared to a full-blooded elf becoming an adult ataround 100. There’s probably a lot of potential for friction there as elvenparents are unable to handle or understand their kids as they mature soquickly. Plus, most half-elves don’t outlive their elf parents, and knowing you’remore than likely going to bury your kid one day has got to be hard. I think allof this was sort of the situation for Sloane growing up, and it was the sourceof a lot of the isolation she felt as a child.

D) She has big biker energy and actually prefers motorcyclesto battlewagons and that’s the tea.

LAWD this was a lot. Hope you like them!!!

[arcanelaurels]

I don't have a specific favourite fic, every time you write Angus it makes me so happy. If I can prompt, I'd love to see Angus coming home to Taako & Kravitz after walking back from a case mid blizzard. Just too happy with solving the puzzle to realise he's soaked, frozen and half delirious from the flu. (Sorry if that's too specific!)

MY BOY!!! MY BOY!!!!!!

Thank you I love writing Angus!!

(Also this came out more dramatic than I intended when I started oops)

The wind sliced at Angus as he ran home, the ecstatic heat and energy from a freshly-solved case preventing him from feeling the cold of the blizzard. Snow clung to his curls and melted just enough to plaster them to his face as the wind swirled around him, and it somehow managed to soak the many layers of clothes Taako had dressed him in before he’d left. He vaguely registered the crackle of his stone of farspeech, but decided to ignore it. He was almost home, anyway.

Manners as well as knowledge of Taako’s stance on muddy footprints in the house were all that prevented him from charging through the house to find them as soon as he got in. He stopped in his tracks in the mudroom and kicked off his boots as he shouted out that he was home.

Two pairs of footsteps rushed towards him as he struggled to remove his outermost coat, the intricate buttons getting the best of him until he realized it would be easier if he took off his gloves first.

Taako and Kravitz appeared at the top of the short flight of stairs, and Angus grinned up at them, his face flushed from both the cold weather and excitement.

“Jeez, kid, you had us worried,” Taako leaned dramatically against the wall, though relief was obvious on his face. “I thought you were stranded out there.”

“Angus, you’re soaked!” Kravitz looked significantly more concerned than his husband.

“S-sorry!” Angus chirped, not sounding apologetic at all as he shucked off two layers of warmth and immediately shivered. It didn’t matter, though, he had too much to tell them. “I-I would’ve answered your c-call, but I was almost h-home, anyway.”

He continued as he removed a third, thinner jacket, ignoring the chill that ran down his spine. “It was s-so exciting, though! I thought that something was off about the c-crime scene, but it wasn’t until I m-met up with the C-Count to talk about the v-v-victim that I realized what was wrong! It was-” He stopped suddenly and he shivered more violently for a moment, but he quickly recovered and breezed over it as if it hadn’t happened, not noticing Kravitz and Taako exchange looks. “It was the j-j-jade earrings! If they were her most p-prized p-possession, why were they n-nowhere to be f-f-found? And then I-”

Angus stopped, suddenly feeling dizzy. He stuck out a hand to lean against the wall for support. Kravitz rushed down the steps with Taako on his heels, quickly grabbing Angus by the underarms to keep him upright.

“By the grace of my lady, you’re freezing!” Kravitz exclaimed, turning to Taako for confirmation. “He’s freezing, right?”

“Shit, yeah,” Taako muttered distractedly, his expression focused as he pressed the back of his hands first to Angus’s forehead, then neck, then arms to double-check his temperature. He cupped Angus’s face in his hands and searched his expression intently, noting the flush on his cheeks and the lack of focus in his eyes, but no visible discoloration of his lips or nose. A look of panic crossed his face and he quickly sat Angus down on the stairs and checked over his fingers before stripping off his socks and checking his toes while Kravitz looked on with worry. He sighed with relief before standing up.

“Krav, can you come pick him up?” Taako asked, his sudden seriousness preventing Kravitz from asking any questions. “Gently.”

Kravitz did as told and picked up Angus, who instinctively wrapped his arms and legs around him the way he always did. Taako led him through the house towards Angus’s room, talking the whole time.

“He doesn’t have frostbite - thank the gods - but he’s got hypothermia. I need you to get him out of those clothes and into something warm and dry. Wrap a towel around his head or something to dry his hair, but do not rub him, mmkay? That can cause cardiac arrest.”

Kravitz swallowed down the feeling of panic that arose at the words “cardiac arrest” and tried to listen so he could follow Taako’s instructions. Mortal conditions and diseases weren’t exactly in his wheelhouse, which Taako must have been aware of based on how he’d immediately taken charge. But Kravitz had rarely ever seen him so serious about something, which didn’t help his nerves.

Taako continued. “Put him in bed and cover him with blankets. Try not to move him too much. Monitor his breathing. I’m gonna make some hot chocolate and get a warm compress.”

Kravitz nodded silently, but his panic must have been evident on his face because Taako stopped and reached up to cup a hand around Kravitz’s face. But there was a lack of the usual gentleness in his face that was replaced by focus, and Kravitz could tell that there were a million thoughts running through Taako’s head right now.

“He’s gonna be alright, Krav. It’s mild. Just do what I said.” He turned back down the hallway without another word.

Kravitz did his best to focus on Taako’s instructions and not on how worried he was. He gently lowered Angus down on the desk chair in his room and went to grab a towel and one of Angus’s warmer pajama sets - as well as a pair of socks. As he stripped the layers of sweaters and shirts off of him, he vaguely recalled the memory from just this morning of Taako refusing to let Angus leave the house without all of these clothes on. Fat lot of good that had done him; each layer was soaked through.

He took the towel and - remembering not to rub him - gently patted at Angus’s bare chest and arms and back to remove any remaining moisture before putting on his pajama shirt. 

Angus groaned and leaned forward, resting his head on Kravitz’s shoulder, who had to push him off so he could finish changing him. Once Angus was out of his wet clothes and in his pajamas, Kravitz carefully lifted him again and put him in bed, covering him with his blanket before taking a smaller towel and wrapping it around his hair to soak up some of the moisture. He moved to his closet to get the many other blankets he had (which were all courtesy of Taako and his love of blankets) and had just finished covering him with the last one when Taako reappeared with a mug of hot chocolate and two warm compresses.

Taako silently placed the mug on his nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed, placing one of the compresses on Angus’s forehead. Angus, who had seemed almost asleep, slowly opened his eyes to stare at him.

“What’s shakin’, boychik?” Taako asked, though his gentle tone didn’t quite match his joking words.

Angus’s brow creased and he opened his mouth as if to say something, but gave up and closed it.

“Don’t push yourself too hard,” Taako muttered, lifting the blankets just enough to place the other compress on Angus’s chest. “Do you think you can sit up enough to drink some of this?” He asked, taking the mug and moving it almost tauntingly in front of the boy’s face. “Secret recipeee,” His voice took on a sing-song tone.

Angus moved as if to sit himself up, but Taako quickly placed a hand behind his back to help him. He managed to down a few sips before he had to give up and lay back down. His eyelids fluttered and he quickly fell asleep.

Kravitz moved forward and placed a hand on Taako’s shoulder, but his husband didn’t look up at him. He leaned so that he could follow Taako’s gaze to the steady rise and fall of Angus’s chest. He was watching his breathing.

After a few moments of making sure that Angus was just asleep and nothing worse, Taako put the mug back on the nightstand and let out a sigh.

“Was it you or Lup?” Kravitz asked. Taako was silent for a few moments.

“Me,” He finally said. He laced his fingers together and lifted his arms above his head in a stretch, then dropped them with a sigh. “It was our first winter without a home. Lup’s fires kept us warm most of the time, but…” He trailed off and finally turned to look at his husband with a smirk. “I was a pretty reckless kid. And I had it worse than what Ango’s got. Luckily, though, I had a sister who was smarter than me. Don’t ever tell her I said that.”

Kravitz smiled, glad to see Taako’s humor returning.

“And during our century, we visited a surprising amount of ice worlds. Like, way more than you’d expect. I think everyone died of exposure at least once. Lemme tell you, as annoying as Merle is, spending a cycle on a frozen wasteland without our healer was the worst. As I’m sure you know from being with cha’boy, elves tend to run hotter than most other species, so Lup and I were less at risk and were in charge of taking care of everyone else when they did stupid stuff outside. Usually Magnus.”

Kravitz chuckled and wrapped his arms around Taako from behind, leaning down to rest his chin on the top of his head. “So he’s gonna be alright?”

“Yeah, he’ll be fine,” Taako waved a hand dismissively as if that would erase how concerned he’d been earlier. “He just needs some rest and heat. And a fuckin’ lecture about what ‘inclement weather’ means.”

“Oh yeah?” Kravitz asked, lifting his head. “And just who is going to give him that lecture?”

Taako was silent, but his answer was clear.

“Fat chance,” Kravitz said. “You know I hate when you make me bad cop.”

“How else am I supposed to be the favorite parent?“

“You already cook all his favorite meals,” Kravitz argued. “All I’ve got on my side are his cello lessons.”

“That reminds me, we need to cancel his cello lessons.”

Kravitz opened his mouth to make a retort, but Angus shifted in his bed, rolling over on his side and distracting the two from their non-serious argument. The compress fell off his forehead and onto the pillow, and Taako muttered to himself as he readjusted it so that it was at least on the side of his head.

“So-called genius detective doesn’t even know how to sleep,” Was part of what he muttered, but the rest was too quiet for Kravitz to hear. He moved a hand to Angus’s neck to feel for his temperature again, then hesitated before climbing over him on the bed and slipping under the covers, pulling Angus closer and wrapping himself around him almost protectively.

When he noticed Kravitz’s questioning look, he grumbled, “He’s still too cold,” before flopping his head on the pillow and squeezing his eyes shut as if to fend off any response from his husband. 

Kravitz smiled, knowing that even on his warmest days he was still too cool for that kind of job. He picked up the pile of wet clothes off the ground and left to throw them in the washer and turn it on, then returned to Angus’s room, where he found that Taako had already fallen asleep. Not knowing what else to do with himself, Kravitz sat down in Angus’s desk chair and kept an eye on them while they slept.

[ungarmax]

people have been talking about lup and barry having a kid in the 2 years they spent on faerun before lup disappeared, and i suddenly had the urge to rewrite the entire story with taako raising this pair of half elf twins that he thinks are his cause they look like him, but he has no idea who the other parent is.

like, it's a work in progress because i cannot imagine barry would have had taako kill him when he started forgetting lup if he had two lil babies waiting for him, but just hear me out.

imagine sizzle it up with taako & family, with these two little kids hamming it up as much as taako does.  imagine one of them almost eating the poisoned chicken, and taako manages to stop them at the last second, vowing right then and there that he will never, ever feed these kids his cooking again.  taako still never settles down in an actual house, so he ends up with a pair of street savvy caravan kids good at making themselves useful and better at picking pockets.

taako is extremely protective of these kids, trying very hard to always be there if something happens, but also teaching them how to look out for themselves.  he teaches them to rely on each other, because he knows how terrible it is to grow up all alone.  he teaches them to protect themselves and each other first, to not be ashamed to run away from danger, even if others (him) need help.  he teaches them survival.

they're ten when he takes the job in phandalin, and he leaves them in an inn in neverwinter.  even with the gauntlet in his bag, he refuses to leave without his things from the inn, much to killian's annoyance. (her annoyance dissolves when taako leaves the inn with a pair of angel faced pre-teens trailing behind him.)

imagine lucretia's joy when she sees these children with their uncle, growing up strong and bright, and imagine her contrasting sorrow when she realizes these children have no knowledge of their biological parents.  at least, she thinks, they were raised by family, and there's no doubt that these children are loved.  at least, she thinks, taako didn't end up on his own.

magnus adores the kids and brings them trinkets and toys from every place they visit.  he carves them wooden animals whenever they ask and regales them with stories and tall tales about his travels.  merle pretends he doesn't like them but always seems to have sweets for them stuffed in his pockets.  he is surprisingly patient with them, and they almost immediately see through his teasing.

and for his part, taako is still taako, but he's got more compassion.  he doesn't hesitate to show his children love and affection, although he is private about it.  he is still slow to trust -- possibly slower, now, because he has more to lose.  but he isn't the aloof, uncaring persona he wears in canon.  he doesn't let people in easily and he no longer is desperate for validation from his peers.  he is more patient, but only for those he is close to.

the children become the darlings of the bureau, befriending nearly everyone with their charm and pretty faces.  they become very good at getting what they want, although the first time they try to pick carey's pocket, they get a lesson in when it's acceptable to do so (and some tips on how to be more subtle).  the twins are angus' first friends.  (they pick on him as much as their father does.)  magic lessons are for three now instead of one, although the twins already know the basics.  they know how to protect themselves.

as it turns out, the umbra staff is as protective of the twins as it is of taako.  it even rolls to either of the children on occasion, when it would normally roll towards taako.

taako doesn't make macarons for candle nights.  he's too careful, has too much to lose.  but when he finds out what sazed did, and after he buys the no-sodium salt shaker, he relents.  he isn't going to be a famous chef anymore -- that ship has sailed, and he's found something else he's good at anyway.  he stays up late and bakes the twins' favorite cake while everyone else is asleep.  he has neglected to bake a cake for too many birthdays now.

the twins are ecstatic.  it's been a long while since dad cooked anything, but they clearly remember that his food is always better than anyone else's.

taako still goes on a date to the chug & squeeze.  it's a little extra awkward.  most people wouldn't want to date a single dad.  but the grim reaper isn't very much like most people.  i'm afraid no one else will have me, is not said in this reality.  instead, i don't think there's a safer place in the world for my kids. in the end, it means the same thing.

barry knows where his children are -- he tracked them down as a lich, because how could he not?  i imagine that whatever the scenario is that led to taako being the one to raise them, barry never, ever meant to leave them alone.  barry knows, but it still kills him a little bit when the pair of liches in wonderland try to take some of taako's memories of their childhood.  

(taako refuses.  losing his beauty is nothing compared to losing anything of his children.)

in this world, taako is not so eager to quit the bureau.  he will go with magnus and the red robe, but only if they can promise to help him get the kids out of there.  the red robe has no real face to speak of, but the earnestness and sadness radiate from him when he replies, “seeing those children get hurt is the last thing i want.”

eventually, they all remember.  the twins taako has raised as his own aren't strictly his, but they sit on either side of him and steadfastly hold his hands in the director's inner chambers as she helps him and merle and magnus remember.  they learn of their origin at the same time taako does.

they are there when the hunger attacks, when taako understands where lup is, when he snaps the umbra staff over his knee.  and they feel the glow and warmth of a maternal love they haven't felt in ten long years as the flames encircle them but do not harm them.

they are supposed to hide during the fight against the hunger.  they do not.  they fight alongside their biological parents.  when taako comes back through the portal, he sees them for a split second, their eyes bright and their wands at the ready, with lup on one side and barry on the other, and he thinks about himself and lup when they were kids.

he wants to stay, and he wants to protect them, because that's all he ever wants.  because they were always the most important people to him.

but, he thinks, they're all right now.  he thinks, they've got someone else to protect them.  he thinks, even if he doesn't make it back, the twins will be okay.  he is needed elsewhere right now.

he does make it back.  somehow, everyone does.  he hugs the kids for a half an hour and won't even let barry or lup near them.

he still doesn't ever forgive lucretia for taking lup away from him.  he thinks that these children would have grown up better surrounded by the family they've made, even if their mother was absent.  he thinks that barry, at least, should have been able to be a part of these children's lives.  but the open animosity is not as ever present here.  his life has not been terrible, and part of lup never left him anyway.

things do get a little weird.  the twins do not stop calling taako 'dad.' instead, they adopt barry as 'papa.'  magnus punches people who have a problem with the arrangement.  not many people do.

some might think it would raise a problem, that taako would have to give the children back, or that lup and barry would have to give up their children.  those who think that don't know them very well.  taako doesn't intend to leave lup's side ever again, so the children are collectively theirs.  magnus builds them a house with plenty of room for five.

eventually, kravitz moves in too.  the kids call him 'father,' mostly because it's funny to watch his face the first few times they say it.

[jumpboy-rembrandt]

do you have any taz fic recs? especially taakitz or blupjeans!!

i am very sorry for how long this took!! i am an old lady who stores her bookmarks in browser, and after figuring out how to transfer them from phone to laptop, i realized i would have to carefully review all 65!! this took most of the day.

disclaimer: i tried to focus mostly on the ships you mentioned, but i got distracted by some of the really good gen fic i keep around. it’s just. it’s my favorite you guys.

apologies if you’ve already read all of these – i’m not sure what the trends of the fandom are. if all else fails, here’s a link to posts tagged both fic and blupjeans, and here’s one for fic and taakitz. i also have a fic rec tag that includes a few things i apparently never bookmarked properly!! check that out too :)

blupjeans:

watch me stumble over and over by rosesandspades713

2k // the stolen century

lup and barry get together, with taako working both sides into talking to each other

just a little change by writingismycoffee

5k // tsc

barry gets a mustache and lup hates it. mostly silly, but the reason she hates it is much worse than she first thought.

barry and lup; a collection of firsts by potatolord

10k // mainly tsc

a very sweet, very well-written compilation of important moments in lup and barry’s romance

the phoenix flame by alatarmaia4

32k // PRINCESS BRIDE AU

i’ll be honest, my shitty memory doesn’t allow me to remember the story very well, but from what i can remember it kicks major ass and julia is in it at the end. also, it’s a princess bride au. of course it’s great.

taakitz:

wouldn’t have it any other way by theplace

8k // between eleventh hour and suffering game

taako and kravitz have a nice night out, except there’s a surprise waiting back at the moonbase. kravitz meets the family, and there’s only some mild angst by way of dramatic irony.

(when i think about you) flowers grow out of my grave by piraete

30k // flower shop/mortician au

krav needs to find a new flower shop for work and accidentally meets a very cute elf who needs a date to his friends’ wedding. taako and magnus are friends with carey, killian, hurley, and sloane, plus little ango is present. very very good fic.

of all the stars and sunrises i’ve seen by untrustworthyglitch

7k // post-canon

taako never ceases to impress kravitz

the queen’s command by anonymous-moose

2k // post-canon

very short and cute. the raven queen is disappointed in her son.

twins and their boys:

the worst candlenights ever by weevilo707

40k // college au

both taakitz and blupjeans. contains: kravitz owning a literal raven, readers living vicariously through fictional characters, and the best barry ever written.

commitment issues by anonymous puzzler

6k // stolen century and post-canon

the twins aren’t used to permanence. here are two times they discuss it. includes teasing and doubt and sappiness. it’s very good.

counting days by violentsarcasm

3k // stolen century and post-canon

sort of the inverse of the previous one: both twins are romantic nerds. also discusses lup’s time in the umbrastaff.

character studies:

i have loved the stars too fondly by quilly

26k // pre-canon and tsc

an incredible character study of davenport. legitimately one of the best fics ever written. i know you’re looking for romance, but this is a work of art.

head of the flock by teacuptaako

2k // pre-canon and tsc

a character study of lup. “the universe owes lup interest. it owes her fifteen dollars, minimum.”

because that’s what love is (equivalent exchange) by teacuptaako

6k // tsc

technically blupjeans, but it’s mostly about barry’s relationship with taako. it’s wonderfully written with a unique take on taako and makes me feel things no matter how many times i reread it.

still here by bluemoodblue

9k // post-canon

taako and lup recover together

caleb cleveland and the case of the missing memories by vigs

3k // pre-crystal kingdom

kiiind of a character study? a very clever interpretation of how angus found the bureau. it is fully adopted into my headcanon. note: it is technically a wip, but i think it’s complete enough to enjoy.

family fics

evocative by blackwiresonherhead

3k // stolen century and pre-canon

lucretia misses her family. when she misses her family, she eats. a wonderful fic about lucretia’s relationship with the twins.

the academy by lesetoilesfous

18k // pre-canon (on two-sun world)

i really, really love this fic. it’s ipre-as-family (specifically the twins, magnus, and barry) and it’s really cute and sweet and they support each other and i love it

pieces set to fall by weatheredlaw

9k // post-canon

i’ll tell you up front. everyone dies in this fic. it is sad but sweet, and you will probably cry.

that being said, it really is a beautiful story about taako saying goodbye.

kindness won’t save anyone by kitahart

pre-stolen century // 5k

taako is sick and his friends are worried! a thb as family fic. angst and comfort.

the game is already lost by altschmerzes

9k // written pre-suffering game

fluff-without-plot. taako needs affection from his friends and doesn’t realize how much they love him. i think this is the top-rated fic on ao3 so you’ve probably already read it, but it was the first taz fic i read and i cherish it.

puzzle pieces by dareandwriteit

19k // written pre-stolen century

angus is beloved by so, so many people. it is nearly 20k of pure, unadulterated fluff. please enjoy.

let angus mcdonald be a child by idgahufflefuck

5k // pre-stolen century

what it says on the package! thb start mothering angus. warning for bad eating habits in the fourth chapter.

things that will not break by rqtheory

2k // pre-stolen century

magnus and taako are worried about angus’s supposed lack of parents

other

well, that’s what you get by pierianabeyance

2k // post-canon

lup just kicking the shit out of sazed. in the wise words of the author, “write the ass kicking you want to see in the world. even if you don't Ever Fucking Proofread It”.

AND OF COURSE: if you’ve been on my blog for more than a few seconds, you already know this but go here and read everything

[limpblotter]

Sad prompt: Angus getting old and Taako realizing that human aging kinda sucks

(I have a bonus to this if it gets traction but sorry it took so long, I wasn’t in the mindspace for this moment) 

Taako took his hand.

“Sir, you seem worried.” Angus smiled, the corner of hislips wrinkled as his leathery skin lit up the moment their hands touched. Withfeeble, shaky strength Angus held his hand back. His hands trembled in Taako’sstill timelessly, silky palm. He stared up through the same iconically andcomically large round rimmed glasses at Taako. Stared at a face that throughthe decades hadn’t changed a bit and if he had, was masked by magic.

But there was a change in Taako. Not the kind that laid onhis face and coated his pores, not the kind that softened his hair or coloredhis lips. There was an age behind his eyes, a guard that had fallen many yearsago. A love in his pensively stoic face, “what do you mean, pumpkin?” Taakoresponded with a small smile.

Angus had worked for and with Taako for many years. He hadadmired him, idolized him and in the end befriended him deeply. Taako in returnhad raised Angus, then mentored him, partnered and even …learned from him.

A lesson Taako wished he did not learn from being in Angus’slife as much as he was, was the lesson of time. The science of a human life andhow…pathetically short it all was in comparison to well everything. How longhad Angus lived for? A little more than normal , a little more than a hundredhe was already but to Taako it felt like it was only yesterday.

It was only yesterday Angus was too scared to sleep with thelights off.

It was only yesterday Angus was clinging to Taako’scoattails begging for magic and adventure.

It was only yesterday Angus graduated from Wizard school andcame to work for Taako.

It was only yesterday Angus fell in love, had a family, kids…

It was only yesterday, Taako walked into that train cart andfound a particular little boy reading a very big book.

Taako remembered each one of these days and so many more inbetween vividly. He did this often as if Angus’s life was his favorite movie,replayed over and over again the times of endless laughter and joys. Now he wasnearing the end of what felt like an endless movie. He was pages away from theconclusion to the kindest tale. He was moments a way of letting his heart breakjust so slightly in an Angus short of way.

“You’re worried about me…aren’t cha?” Angus snickered a bitbefore coughing hard, his old, hunched frame shaking with each strained breath.

“Uh-uh kid there is nothing to worry about. Nada, zippo-ifyou forgot in your old, unsightly age I’m kinda bonin’ the reaper. Death iskinda the tabletopic of my life.” He smirked, “not to mention my sis and theinlaw have taken up the family biz of soul stealing.”

As he spoke, his grip tightened around Angus’s constantlyshaking hand. His fingers dug into the loose skin that barely clung to his brittlebones. He held Angus so tight he feared he was going to hurt him. He held Angusso tight his own hand was twitching. He held Angus so tight he hoped…

He wished…

God, did he start to pray it would keep him here just…just aday. Just one more day.

“Sir” Taako’s eyes didn’t met Angus’s. He …couldn’t look athim this way. He wished he did what he did for the others. Lessen the blowafter losing Magnus by making himself scarce and when goodbyes came he waswhere with Kravitz. He would have done that with Angus if Kravitz didn’t sithim down and tell him. Because he knew, Kravitz knew Taako needed to know whenit was time. It was so different with Angus.

He was just a boy last Taako remembered. He was his boy.

“Taako” Angus whispered, “its rude to fib to someone who’son their deathbed.”

The elf’s eyes shot up to Angus, who was…smiling. He seemedso calm and serene. He didn’t even look tired. “Ango—Ang…I…” Taako’s wordswere spilling over themselves as the tears began to breech.

“I might be old, but I was the world’s greatest boy detective.”Angus beamed a toothy grin that for a moment. For that second of joy Taako feltlike he was looking at Angus. Ten year old Angus, smile wide, teeth missing, ashe held out that tiny flame from many, many years ago. “You don’t need to worryTaako…everything is going to be alright.”

“I know, kid…you don’t have to tell me twice. I know…” Taakopaused for a second, “they say…um…its always harder for a parent to lose a kid…somethingabout going against nature or somethin’…” Angus started to laugh again, a bitslower and breathier than before. “Don’t quote me on that uh-uh my memory isfucking shot.” His laugh started to grow a bit more now in life and volume. Asif….

‘Taako, its time babe.’

Both Lup and Kravitz were spectral, floating invisiblybehind Taako as they watched and waited.

‘He’s ready…’ Kravitz added.

“…I’m not…” Taako whispered under his breath, under thevolume of Angus’s last laughs. “I…won’t be…” He turned his head away to look atthem but they were gone, he ran his hand over his face trying to mask it.

But nothing got past Angus. “I’m ready.” Angus sighedcatching his breath again. “I’ll see you soon sir…not too soon but…I’m sure itwill feel soon to me.”

“I might be dating death but death gotta work to get me…”Taako joked, avoiding death was a weird game he played since he slept with inthe same breath but now…Taako wasn’t sure how long he could avoid it all. Whenit seemed Death didn’t just own his heart, he was taking pieces of it with him.

“He’s got a tough job then…” Angus placed his other handover Taako’s and sniffled a bit. “Its been…an honor being your student…and…” hefelt his eyes droop, his vision started to fade a bit and suddenly there was anoverwhelming slumber looming over him as everything just seemed to blur andslow. He looked up at Taako letting his face be the last thing his mortal eyestook in. “G’bye sir…”

And just like that, without a care or a pause. Angus’s storyfinished. The page turned and there was the big period at the end. Just likethat his hand began to lose strength and little by little his senses began toleave him, hearing being the last.

Taako clasped Angus’s limp hand to his face and whispered ina voice to humbling it would have brought Lup to his side if she didn’t knowany better. “See ya kid…” He tried to smile but his lips broke into a sob. “Myboy…my beautiful, magic…boy detective.” 

He gently placed his hand back down tohis lifeless body, with a silver spoon now in his aged grasp.

[epersonae]

ye olde liner notes

A whole bunch of meta for The Truth or Something Beautiful, which @magcretia and I posted two months ago? Sure why not? 

It’s hecking long, so more under the cut....

Elaine: so I guess at this point (almost 2 months later) this is more of a retrospective, yeah? But we both want to take a look at how this thing happened, so it's all good.

Kath: Yeah, I mostly thought it’d be useful to us as we’re working on this big WIP of [redacted] where there’s gonna be some intense feelings to kind of take some “emotional inventory” for Taako and Lucretia, and maybe also ourselves? And remind ourselves where we came from and where we’re trying to go.

E: I think we were both pretty wiped out after finishing this, so a little distance is good. I’m trying to remember what the bit was where we decided, fuckit let’s just publish after trying to cut and then put back blah blah blah? Was it “But we — we keep choosing Forsake,” ? We cut because it seemed like a weird turn, but then it turned out to be important?

K: I think it felt like a beat we were hitting without it flowing naturally there, which happens sometimes? But I think with these two, there just isn’t always a flow, because they’re in their own heads so much and say so little of what they need to say aloud. So a lot of times it just comes out abruptly and feels uncomfortable, which isn’t pretty, but it’s true to life. And a LOT of writing this was uncomfortable, I think.

E: Ok, I’ll just dive right into that, then. We both went into this thinking it was going to be an easier conversation than Find the One Safe Way and NOOOOOOOOPE.

K: YEAH UHHH LOL.

E: I had this moment of absolute low where I thought: we broke it, the thing that we thought we’d fixed, we absolutely just broke it, and personally (hi overidentifying with Lucretia) I just kept thinking WOW that was a mistake bringing up Lup.

K: Yeah, I had that same feeling, and I remember talking about it with you like “do we scratch this? Are we really going to keep this?” and I think it was that uncertainty of letting Taako and Lucretia do what they do, the same way we wrote Safe Way, that was scary.

E: these chucklefucks. And the moment where Lucretia dives to the bottom of the pool and, look, I try really hard to stay away from the suicidal stuff when I write Lucretia, I’m just too soft to really handle it, but I was right there in it. (which was super surreal having those feelings at work, LET ME TELL YOU) But I had to trust that “no way out but through” was going to work.

So, ok, this “How could you not do something?”  hit me, personally, so hard I could hardly breathe, because duh, of course. sigh

K: So, that all started from your coke!Taako fic, The Mirror, which really stuck with me for… clearly a long time, for a lot of reasons, but I hadn’t really explored those feelings until I started writing my longfic, Another Beach Year. And in ABY, in a scene that I never finished and probably never will, Taako has a nightmare that’s actually a memory of Sizzle It Up days, where Lucretia was watching him from the crowd (as she did in The Mirror) and she sees just how messed up he is, how poorly he’s doing, and she does nothing. And I think that stuck with me even though this series isn’t necessarily in either of those continuities, and I wanted to incorporate that, because I feel that a lot of times the Taako and Lucretia conflict is boiled down to the “you made me forget my sister” thing, and that’s not the whole thing. At least for us, (ESPECIALLY for us?) it’s, “you were my best friend, and you did all that, and you knew I was doing badly, and you still didn’t do anything.” And I think Taako didn’t know how to articulate that in any way that wasn’t accusatory, but it was (and I am biased) perhaps deserved? Definitely necessary, regardless.

E: So I think what made that as difficult as it was on my end was that she felt bad about what had happened, but what she was sorry for wasn’t the thing that was hurting him the most. She thought she knew but she had no idea. I don’t even know how to articulate the dawning horror of “I’ve been sorry about the wrong thing this whole time” except I guess how I actually did? And I think of Lucretia as someone who very much wants to be able to fix things, to make a plan that comes through and improves everything, and to be hit with “this is bad and I can’t do anything about that” is a heavy hit.

K: Mmm. I think it’s hard for Taako to admit that he’s hurting at all, so when he does, it’s kind of a “well I guess while we’re doing this, I’ll get it all out” deal. And so he has all of these feelings about the forgetting, and about Lup, and about a decade being essentially a shell of himself, but what we’re bringing to the table here is this added dimension of their relationships with Magnus, and consequently their friendship with each other. So I think it’s almost easy to lose sight of what exactly he’s hurting about and default to the Lup stuff (and, wow, yeah, there’s so much more there that in True Taako Fashion, even I am avoiding) but fixing the Lup stuff still won’t fix the Lucretia stuff, because he has his memories back. It’s not the forgetting that’s hurting him now, it’s the betrayal.

E: “it’s hard for Taako to admit” — so this. At one point, I was questioning whether he really would have pruney fingers (from the pool) because the amount of actual dialogue wasn’t long enough, and one of the curious things about this whole thing is how much goes unspoken. They take soooo much time to say honestly the briefest things. It’s tremendously frustrating, on some level, because god just say a thing already but it’s also artistically satisfying because it feels true to them, that they dance around their feelings until something just breaks. Usually because I have Lucretia just blurt out some godawful thing. (There’s a bit in the WIP where it’s WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT, but I just feel it.) Of course Lucretia would ask if he’s talked to Lup, and then instantly regret having asked.

K: Oh no girl she didn’t ask, she just abruptly said “I’m sorry about Lup,” which is maybe? Possibly? The worst thing she could have done in that moment. Which makes for good radio but not a good emotional state LOL.

E: Ha, I was thinking about the bit later.

K: YEAH. TWICE. OK LUCRETIA. I think it really does attest to how much she wants to fix things, and all her good intentions, but she can’t do it her way. That way doesn’t work with Taako… They’re the same in that they can’t handle being blindsided with feelings, but that doesn’t stop either of them from doing it to each other? And that’s why these conversations keep happening with the intensity that they do, is they have such a hard time navigating those feelings in the first place. To which we just say, at this point: these chucklefucks.

E: With so much love, but yeah. I can’t believe we thought this one was going to be more lighthearted. Because they were less defensive, maybe? Safe Way they were both on guard because it was a planned encounter, but this was accidental.

K: And they were getting along. For pages, it was like, wow, fuck, this feels good, they’re chatting? Laughing? Together? And then it was, (and wow this is a theme, huh?) talking about family, and ultimately Angus, that caused this whole… thing.

E: There’s so much I have to say about Angus in [redacted], because I’ve fallen headlong into the idea that out of all the adults in his life, Lucretia and Taako are the most parental. But even here, he’s almost a proxy for all this other stuff that’s hanging between them. The theft of the silverware ends up being about what Taako is like on his own, and how Lucretia made her friends into her employees. Angus as a kid on his own is both a thing that Lucretia feels guilty about and a reminder to Taako of his own childhood, and being a kid with Lup.

K: And that was something that I really only scratched the surface of here, because I think that feeling runs deep for Taako. And I think it’s not only why Taako winds up as the parental figure that he is in our timeline, but it’s also why he is so insistent on doing what he can to give Ango a normal life, or to somehow make up for the time Ango spent “alone,” so to speak. It’s hard to articulate, but Taako definitely feels a kinship with Ango in that way, and I think he is projecting some of his own feelings about his own hardships of childhood onto Lucretia? In the way that he blames her for… kind of many things lol. It’s something I want to explore separately later on, for sure.

E: Something that I’m noticing on re-read is that they have this common thread of “you’re the only person I can tell how shitty I know I am” — that might not be exactly it, but something in that neighborhood. That they look at themselves and think “I’m not a good person,” and everybody else is yeah yeah whatever, but they can say it to each other. Which is kinda fucked up, but interesting.

K: YES. I think for Taako it’s mostly “I can say I’m a shitty person to you because there’s very little shit that I could do that’s worse than what you did to me!” Which, yeah, fucked up and interesting lol. And for Lucretia, probably “You already know I’m a shitty person and are the first to tell me so, so I’ll say it anyway”?

E: I don’t think she means it to be calculated, but there’s definitely an aspect of “I’ll admit to it before you accuse me” on her part. I also sometimes see a bit of “you helped make me this shitty” from Taako. And for both of them, they feel like they’re comparing themselves to the people they see as whole-heartedly good, ie Magnus and Lup. (Having this set in Magnus’s yard turned out to be a hell of a thing.)

K: Yeah, I think Taako is a bit more calculated about it, but also I think he’s always been quicker to admit that he’s not really good. (Justin saying “Taako’s not a good person, though, Taako’s not a good person,” on air was like. A LOT to take in. But also, my qualms with Justin’s Canon are well known lol.) I don’t think Taako’s a bad person. I think I summed it up nicely through Kravitz in The Way We Really Are, where he basically says “we’re not good, we’re not bad, we just are.” I think Taako really needed to hear that, especially considering he is Constantly Comparing Himself to everyone else around him, and he honestly believes everyone around him is just… Good. Capital G Good. It’s hard not to compare yourself to your twin.

E: They both have this comparison thing that WOW do I relate to, and actually that circles all the way around back to the thing that was such a difficult editing experience: Trust or Forsake. It was sort of a sideways swerve in the conversation, but it’s such a good metaphor. That they’re both good at calculating the odds and thinking in a very pragmatic way, but then experience the feelings backlash later. They’re both coping with the “rush of shame”, as you put it.

K: I was about to say, I always seem to gravitate back to the robot world, with Taako’s “Am I the only pragmatist here?” and how that was the only time we ever saw him actively disagreeing with Lup. The fact that he was almost angry with her there really stuck with me, and subsequently how he conceded after and promised (with the rest of the team) not to get “scary” like that again. It stick with me, and because of that, it sticks with Taako. I think he feels guilty for a lot of stuff that he knows had to be done. And for that reason, he and Lucretia have a lot in common.

E: That’s one of the core theses of our work together, this commonality. And it’s always such a visceral pleasure to play on that in the interior monologue. Maybe most of all in the new things/good things bit? (Bringing in Kravitz always makes me cry.)

K: Any excuse to bring in Krav. And it was really nice for me to tie him in with a callback to one of your pieces (which you gifted to me!) that was also mentioned in Safe Way. We’ve done a lot of talking outside of our works about how the seven, but particularly Taako and Lucretia, didn’t wind up with the lives they expected, but they wound up with something new and good, and I think that’s a big part of how Taako arrives at his conclusion of “we can’t fix this but we can build something new, maybe.” He knows the power of these new good things, and perhaps the Newest and the Best thing is Kravitz.

E: As I’m thinking about this, and rereading that part in particular, I’m actually reminded of some personal conversations that we’ve had, and this conclusion that they get to resonates: there’s a lot of Bad Shit in the past, and we’re/they’re kind of broken, but there’s enough good now to keep going. Which is a pretty …….. weird? conclusion to end up at, but for me personally it’s oddly hopeful. That it’s better to keep trying than to give up.

K: For sure. I think part of what attracts me to Taako as a character is that he’s the embodiment of the “third option.” Like, no matter how much shit is absolutely fucked, he finds some way to break the game and get the hell out of dodge (and sometimes save the day. But only sometimes.) And I think despite the fact that he struggles so much afterwards (and… basically all of that is my own doing bc lol projecting on fic) he still manages to find a lot of good. It reminds me of a thing you tagged me in that said something like “you don’t have to be hopeful about the future, you just have to be curious enough about what could happen if you stick around” which really rang true for me personally. And for Taako, I think it’s almost a matter of “well, my life was buckwild enough so far, might as well see it through.” (The ravishing boyfriend is a plus, tho.)

E: And honestly, Kravitz’s presence in Taako’s life is something that Lucretia cherishes as well, not that she can take credit for it, obviously, but seeing him happy makes her feel a little better about how everything went down.

K: Absolutely, and I think that gratitude comes through in some small moments in both of our individual works, as early as To New Beginnings which I wrote in October (!) and perhaps even before that? But I feel like there’s this unspoken understanding, almost, between Kravitz and Lucretia (which also came through in Copper for Your Thoughts, in a way) that I think comes with the territory of being the wise characters they are, always laden with such gravitas lol.

E: To zag on you: THE TEA? (which, actually, I’ve never had rose tea, I don’t think? But you made it a Lucretia thing in To New Beginnings at least, and it crossed over into this continuity.) This is another “third option” that changed the whole thing, and I love it.

K: Hah, I never even thought about the symbolic “third option” for tea. (There’s a lot of threes with these three, lol.) Rose tea tastes how roses smell, and it’s weird, but I’m kind of into it? It just always felt like a Lucretia thing to me. BUT YEAH THE TEA, I was having him transmute the juice into tea and I was gonna have him make rose tea, but he already did that in Safe Way, so I was sitting there musing for a minute and thought, oh, what if they had Magnus’s tea? (Oolong, if you’re playing along at home.) And then it hit me: oh, I don’t even know what kind of tea Taako drinks, because he’s always making two cups of whatever the other person wants, which I then raised to you outside of the doc, which then we were both just kinda like “oh… fuck… that’s a thing now” lol.

But I do want to go a little deeper into that, bc I think about it a lot, how Taako isn’t good at saying how he feels. This is known. And that’s another aspect that draws me to him, because wow, fucking same. I used to have quite a knack for naming my emotions, and then somewhere along the line I kind of lost that. And it’s not just about the negative. It’s absolutely a Thing to have a hard time showing people how you feel positively. And I think a lot about that in my own life and have done musing on “love languages” and all that jazz and I think for Taako, he does that in really subtle ways. Doing little things that he almost hopes people won’t even notice. He doesn’t want that “aw that’s so sweet” reaction. He just wants to make that person feel good and move on— which is quite different from the showboating Taako from TV. It’s an interesting contradiction that was so nice to be able to explore so naturally here. Lucretia’s spent a century with him and it hits her all at once that she’s never had the tea he likes, because he’s always taking part in hers. It’s so meaningful and says so much about him. (And maybe he’s not as Bad as he thinks.)

E: And she absolutely notices, first with the mugs — which AAAAAAAAAH the Moon’s Best Director mug, please — because it’s such a little detail that shows that he’s paying attention to her and to her relationship with Magnus, and then the tea and what that means. Again: trust. That she’s going to not try to protect herself or hide from him, she’s going to trust that she can be open and let what happens happen. Ok, I also have to say, we haven’t talked much about the actual process of writing, but the part where Taako says he’s sorry, I read that in the grocery store and then I just wandered the aisles in a daze for like 10 minutes trying to even figure out her response. (In the vein of “leaning into the feeling”, that sound that might’ve been oh or no was literally me in the frozen food aisle.) But they pull back from that brink so quickly! And I think what we’re both noticing in really digging into this again is how actually unresolved it is.

K: I am a big fan of Observant Taako, who cares very deeply but won’t admit it. Even if he’s not in a good place with Lucretia, I think at this point he’s moved forward for his own sake and everyone else’s sake enough that he can appreciate that she makes Magnus happy, and at least that much they will always have in common.

But um, yeah, that apology. It’s loaded, and it’s (appropriately) multi-dimensional. I had Taako feeling sorry during Safe Way, and not understanding why, and not being able to say it. And so here, he feels it again, and he’s ready to say it, but he still doesn’t know why. And it partially comes from a personal place, but it also comes from a lack of emotional literacy when Taako is taking stock of his own feelings? It’s a complicated apology that (you pointed this out, really) he thinks is surface-level for the emotional distress this conversation caused (re: “you spooked me” etc) but in reality it’s more than that. But the rest might be [redacted] here bc I’d like to explore that more in later installments. But yeah, the way they wrap up is… more unresolved than I ever realized? Like reading this back, they didn’t talk about half the shit they brought up, they kind of just threw it out into the arena. Which, for Taako, is more of a “well nothing else is gonna budge til I talk to Lup” thing.

E: In a way, it’s good to see how everything is still so half-formed, because it resonates so nicely as we get into [redacted]. It makes some of the interpersonal weirdness? unevenness? that comes out make actually a lot more sense. Also, if I may say it again for the Nth time: THESE CHUCKLEFUCKS. 

[grass-skirt]

I’ve got some news here that I know at least a few of my followers will be happy to hear: I listened to The Adventure Zone! It wasn’t something I ever planned to jump into, but as I said once or twice in the past I’d give it a shot if any of my friends got into it. And yep, @mabelshesbornwithit​ got into it and wanted me to too so I obliged and it wound up growing on me a whole lot and I had a blast. 

So here’s this whole big post, which I’ve now hidden behind a break. It’s a review/semi-liveblog, as I wrote about how I was feeling about a bunch of things right after listening to them. So for anyone who hasn’t finished it, avert your eyes and don’t read this. Here we go!

—–

Petals to the Metal was probably my favorite first half arc. I loved the Fury Road thing it had going on, and Klarg showed up in it and it was fantastic. The ending was also really touching. The murder-train arc was also good mostly because fucking everything with Jenkins was so funny. And it also introduced Angus and Angus really grew on me a lot over the story. But god, the tree of them were such dicks to Jenkins. And to Angus too, but especially to Jenkins. It was pretty hilarious. 

—–

I’m writing this right now after having listened to the end of the 11th Hour arc and that, so far, has definitely been the best wrap up to an arc. I really love what Griffin did with it. A town moving through seven whole years, days passing in seconds, as the people inside live their lives in front of the eyes of the people who saved them. I love that. I love how it generates this feeling of absolute gratitude and love. Of these people living every day of their lives knowing how lucky they are to be alive, finally being free from their loop, looking forward to the day they can finally be free from the bubble, and all the while having the ones who saved them looking in on them and watching their growth. That was a really magical moment and really just the kind of inspiring, heart string pulling kind of storytelling that I live for.

—–

And now I just listened to the part where Takko fucking bought the con-a-person-out-of-their-most-valuable-item item and then fucking turned around and immediately used it to con fucking Garfield the Deals Warlock out of the fucking 60,000 gold sword and honestly it was the most fucking stunning character move in the entire story up to this point fucking hats off to that just wow

—–

Okay so I’m… not all that crazy about Merle. I was always planning to talk about this because sometimes he just kind of rubs me the wrong way. Like, I didn’t like how exaggerated Clint made Merle hating Angus (like we later found out it was an insecurity kind of thing but still I never liked it) and like hearing Merle talk about his faith always felt kind of fake–like Merle was saying things that honestly didn’t feel like they fit the character to me. I feel like Clint had the hardest time characterizing and performing his character. There’s still stuff I like about him and I wouldn’t want him to be taken out of the show, but he is my least favorite.

Now, that said, and the reason why I’m writing this right now… I just listened to the part in episode 62 where Merle makes these absolute shit gifts for everyone because he rolled too low on his fucking gift making check so all his presents are garbage and I was fucking losing it the whole time. I listened to this while I was brushing my teeth and it was a fucking mess because I couldn’t stop laughing. When I used my mouthwash I fucking couldn’t even because I couldn’t stop myself from laughing my mouth fucking forced itself open and the mouthwash just spilled out after literally about 5 seconds and I even swallowed some of it because it was just too fucking funny.

TAZ isn’t like non-stop funny to me. A lot of the things that they find funny don’t really land with me (especially because they make so many references that I have no idea about). But nonetheless, TAZ has made me laugh harder on more than a few occasions than any other piece of media has in a long time. Frequency of laughs? Not that impressive. Intensity of laughs? Pretty fucking intense–vomiting mouthwash intense.

—–

I’m on episode 69 now, the last part of the finale, and I had to take a moment to stop and write this down. The episode was pretty good--a satisfying end to a story I’d become very fond of--but nothing particularly outstanding beyond that. I had heard it was a super emotional ending, but I wasn’t feeling that yet. I was listening to it while I cleaned, made dinner, ate, and washed dishes. And as I was washing the dishes, I got to that line. 

“Magnus. How did you die?” 

My jaw dropped. And as what happened next unfolded, I slowly started crying more and more. As people should know by now, I love stories that can capture the depths of love and meaning and bring out those feelings in me. There’s nothing that makes me cry like goodbyes. Sometimes I’m crying over the sorrow of the separation, of bonds and lives lost too soon. But this was one of those times I was crying because the goodbye was filled with so much warmth and meaning and love. And even though we really never knew Julia as a character directly, we still knew Magnus enough to know how much that relationship meant to him. Even though this was a death scene, it was one centered around a good life coming to a peaceful, loving end. Of saying goodbye to loved ones on one side of the curtain and stepping into the arms of loved ones on the other that have been out of reach for far too long. 

That’s my fucking cry-jam right there. Had to blow my nose like 5 times. 

—–

Alright let me think of what other stuff I want to say, now that I’ve finished (though I still have like 1 or 2 live shows they posted after the finale to get to). 

First off, one part I want to mention specifically is that another part that made me real emotional was the part at the end of the Stolen Century arc were Lucretia wiped everyone’s memories. The part with Davenport was heartbreaking, but my favorite part was with Takko, the whole “What home could be good enough for you, Takko?” monologue just hit me right in the tear ducts. 

As far as favorites go, unsurprisingly Takko was my favorite. I knew that he would be before I even started. What I was surprised by was how much Magnus grew on me. He started out pretty clunky and generic. I didn’t really even feel like he had an actual personality for a while at the start, but he really pulled it together and produced a complex and lovable character. I also feel like mentioning, even though what I said earlier still applies, that Merle got better in the final stretch of the campaign. In the beginning he was undeveloped but still enjoyable, and then in the middle Clint kind of took him in a direction that I felt like Clint had a difficult time actually acting out and making work for the character, so I wasn’t really big on him. But during the Stolen Century arc and after that, like with all the conversations with John and Merle kind of re-discovering who he was before his memories were lost helped shape him up and back into a character that I enjoyed and appreciated again. 

Some other favorite characters--Lup. Definitely Lup, of course. I was spoiled about Lup’s existence long ago just from fanart and stuff (I was also spoiled about the Red Robes thing), and like Takko I knew I’d like her before I even met her. And she turned out to be super great. She had the same, fun, egotistical dickish attitude that Takko did but was also her own unique character that had a lot to say and a lot to do that Takko would never. God, one of my favorite parts with her was the scene when we were going through her journey after her disappearance and she was inside the umbrella. And when Edward showed up... “I’m going to fucking kill you now.” Ho boy that give me chills. What a great and loving sibling relationship. 

Also Angus. Angus turned out to be great, and I really love the kind of mentor/mentie, parent/child relationship that developed both between him and Takko and him and Magnus. Kravitz was also solid, and I loved Klarg. God, him in the battlecar race and during the wrestling live show were so good. I’m actually disappointed that we didn’t get any more interactions between him and Takko during the finale. Either during the battle or any epilogue hang-time between them. God, Takko, Kravitz, Angus and Klarg and Lup all hanging out together. I would have loved that so much. Fucking Garfield the Deals Warlock. That’s another one. Everything with him was just so fucking funny, although I lament the fact that the everyone draws him as Garfield the cat. It’s terrifying. Roswell and the Voidfish were also good people. 

OKAY I think I’ve said more than enough, though of course there’s plenty more to say. I had a great time with the podcast and I’ll probably start listening to more going forward because this was a good experience. Now I’ve got to scrounge up a bunch of fanart to add to my stockpile for when I actually load up my queue again after being derailed so hard by grad school. Later I’ll hid most of this thing behind a read-more break but for now I want to dump this thing in it’s entirety on everyone’s dashes. Hope you enjoyed reading all this! 

[thatgaylittlefrog]

Is it too late to request all the TAZ asks

Not at all, my dear anon! (Side note: you should listen to The Adventure Zone if you haven’t already!)

PCs:

Remmy: Love is a motivator - who do you want to make proud?

I’d love to make my family proud. I’m not always on the best terms with them, and I just can’t help but always feel like a disappointment. I know in theory that I make them proud, but I just want to know that they’re proud of me, you know?

Nadiya: Be proud - talk about something you’re good at.

I’d like to think I’m a pretty great singer. I’ve been in the top choirs at my schools for years, and have a good ear for music and can learn it with relative ease. Now if only I could transfer that talent to other instruments..

Irene: You are brave - describe a time you persisted despite your fears.

Just recently I was searching out for spooky places on campus with two dear friends of mine. Now, I’ve had a fear of the dark for as long as I can remember. Don’t get me wrong, it’s gotten better since I was younger. However, it’s started to resurface a bit more lately due to my fascination with horror games. Despite this, I found myself leading them around dark buildings. I felt brave, and had a load of fun with them.

Kardala: You are divine - describe a time you felt free.

Honestly, I’ve felt really free since I’ve started going to college. There’s something about living on your own that really forces you to be independent. Now that I have my own room on campus, I feel even more free. I can choose who I spend my time with and what I spend my time doing. It’s devine, and while I miss my family and friends from home, I just feel like I can finally be who I want to be.

Merle: Even if we forget, we are important - name at least one way you matter.

I’m capable of doing good for so many people. I have rather big plans of being a therapist or a social worker. I’ll do my best to help those in need of it.

Magnus: Don’t always take the big hit - what is your definition of strength?

Truly strong people use what they were given to help others.

Taako: You’re worth more than you think - how do you defy expectations?

I’m much more intelligent, insightful, and friendly than my introverted demeanor lets on.

NPCs:

Lucretia: We have calcium in our bones, iron in our veins - what was a time you thought you couldn’t go on, but kept pushing?

Oh heck, I’m about to get a bit vulnerable here. Well, high school was a whole lot of that. I went through a lot of really shitty friendships and just really didn’t feel wanted. Anxiety and depression reared their ugly heads, and have never truly left. There were some points where I just felt so alone that I didn’t want to be alive. I never attempted anything, but I was also so afraid to get help for a long time. Thankfully I got help, and while my depression and anxiety are still with me, I’m equipped to handle it now.

Lup: You are so loved and love in return - gush about at least one sibling, friend, or partner.

I’m going to go ahead and gush about my little sister. We’ve always butted heads with each other, much to my parents dismay. She’s a hard headed little girl with very little filter. She gets into a lot of trouble for it and isn’t always well liked, but I love her and appreciate her so much. She came to my dorm and helped me organize and place all of the new supplies brought for me. She also is the person in my immediate family that’s most accepting of the LGBT community, which is such a tremendous relief. And honestly? I miss her a lot, and I really hope she knows how much I love her. She’s my baby sister, and I won’t let anyone hurt her.

Barry: Home isn’t just a place - recall a joyful reunion.

My first reunion with my pets after leaving for college was joyous. I had gone a month without seeing them, which has been the longest I’ve been away from them. When I first entered the house, the dachshunds were barking at me like I was a stranger. It took them a moment to realize who I was, but when they finally did, loud, excited barking followed. All four of my dogs were equally enthusiastic to see me. My cats even reacted, meowing loudly at me and demanding to be pet. The pets were so excited to see me again that there was a brief moment of peace in which my cats actually tolerated being around our big dog. It wasn’t necessarily a fear of mine, but I’m still glad I wasn’t forgotten.

Davenport: Become the stars you gaze upon - how have you been defined by a journey (literal or metaphorical)?

I’d describe my realization of my bisexuality as a journey. I’ve come a long way from when I was first questioning it, but I still have a way to go. Still, I’m much more comfortable with this aspect of myself. I still need to face coming out to my family though, so we’ll have to see how well that goes.

Angus: Adoration might be hidden - describe a time you felt loved or appreciated.

Last month I went back for a birthday party of a friend of mine. It was at the theatre I used to work at, so I got to see a lot of old coworkers of mine. Plus, going into the theatre to be greeted by a huge group of people happy to see me again was just incredibly reassuring.

Kravitz: It’s never too late - what makes you feel alive?

Honestly, being outside. This can be hard to do when it’s so damn cold out, but even now I just find myself invigorated by the sunlight and fresh air. I feel like I’m at my best when I’m outside. I’m pretty much a plant.

Julia: No battle is forever - what is your happy ending?

Oh heck man. I suppose in a perfect world, I’d like to have a secure job and settle down with someone I love. I’d love to have kids if possible, but if not definitely some dogs. Dogs are a must in any happy ending of mine.

Johann: You will not be erased - what do you want to be remembered for?

I want to be remembered for the good I did. I don’t have any religious beliefs, so I really just want to be a good person for the sake of being a good person. There’s so much pain and suffering in the world. I want to do my best to help combat it, even if it’s just in small ways.

Arcs:

Commitment: Don’t give up - what are you committed to?

I’m really committed to getting my education. A year ago going to a four year college didn’t seem to be on the table, yet here we are. I don’t want to waste this opportunity.

Here There Be Gerblins: Embrace nostalgia - what was your first encounter with a loved one?

Ohh this is a doozy. I have a best friend from home. This friend has been in my life since the fourth grade. Now, I���ve always been a bit of a socially awkward little nerd, so I was going around my computer class asking everyone if they played Wizards 101. She was the only one to say yes. What started out as a person I played Wizards 101 with grew into my oldest friend. I miss her dearly, and wish I could see her more than I do now.

Moonlighting: Tomorrow is a new day - when have you begun a brighter chapter of life?

Honestly, college. I went through a pretty bad breakup at the end of my senior year that took me awhile to get over. College was a fresh start, a clean slate, a chance to forge myself. I’m super involved here, getting good grades, and have made some amazing friends here. So yeah, I’d say things are definitely looking up.

Murder on the Rockport Limited: Not everything is clear - how do you feel about mysteries?

I’m open to them! I like the challenge of trying to solve them, so long as they aren’t spoiled for me. Then it can just be frustrating.

Petals to the Metal: Sometimes we need to let loose - when have you done something you shouldn’t have because it made you happy?

Over Thanksgiving Break. It was my first time really sneaking out late. Now, if it’s all the same with you, I’d rather not go into any more detail.

Crystal Kingdom: There is more to existence than we could ever imagine - discuss.

Humans can’t even begin to fathom just how small we are in the grand scheme of things. We haven’t even fully explored the Amazon Rainforest or the Ocean. Beyond our planet is the vast universe, which we haven’t even begun to explore. It’s just so exciting because in the expanse of space there is most likely life elsewhere. We have no idea what else is out there, and at this rate, we never may.

The Eleventh Hour: There is relief in letting go - write about it.

So… That aforementioned breakup. I had dated this guy for most of my high school experience. We broke up because he lost feelings for me and he didn’t want to date anyone in college. Nine days later he’s dating a new girl. I was hurt. I was angry. For the longest time I thought he cheated on me, and just questioned what was wrong with me. I’ve gotten the chance to talk to him since then, and he didn’t cheat on me. I forgave him for what happened, and I’m doing my best to be on good terms with him again.

The Suffering Game: This too shall pass - how are you stronger for your struggles?

High school sucked. I’ve talked about this in a previous question. I survived it though. And because I survived it, I’ve learned how to cope and combat it. I’ve grown from it. It still really fucking sucked though.

Reunion Tour: Everything can change in seconds - what is your definition of trust?

I suppose trust is allowing yourself to be vulnerable with a person. Letting down your walls and opening up to somebody else. It is so exhausting when you don’t have anybody you can trust. You always need to have your defenses up and never can really be real with people.

The Stolen Century: Bonds have power - who do you consider family, and why?

Well, there’s obviously my family, but they’re far away from me. I’ve found my own family here. I have a support system here, and some good friends who I consider family.  (the found family trope is the best trope.)

Story and Song: You’re going to fight and you’re going to win - how or why?

Because there’s still horrible inequality and injustice in this world. Because there are people around the world who struggle to survive day to day. Because it’s my responsibility as a caring human being to fight against inequality.

Goofy:

Tom: “That one was called… Wizard Shout” - tell us about a time you hilariously failed at hiding something.

I ordered twenty dollars worth of stickers. Most of the stickers were McElroy based, and pretty.. Eccentric. For whatever reason, my computer had my neighbor’s address saved in it. So, my stickers went to my neighbors how

Lenny: “You may remember, you subscribed to the cylinder of the month club” - what is something you are well-known (or notorious) for?

Among my family, my crazy liberal ideals. Among my friends, my horrible jokes consisting of both memes and puns.

Troth: “Go home and pray for sunrise” - when have you said something badass?

The only things I can think of are the times I’ve basically told customers to fuck off in my customer service dialect. It usually goes something like “Well, I’m very sorry you felt that way. I hope you can have a good day after this” Customer service is so passive aggressive. It’s excruciating at the time, but it makes for some excellent stories after.

Tres Horny Boys: “Nobody ever say that out loud ever again please” - what is your worst nickname?

Probably Gabbus, although my friend called me Babby today so that takes the cake.

Team Sweet Flips: “Me and Carey and a robot ghost with a gun arm, fuck yeah” - if you and your friends had a spin-off show, what would it be called?

I have two groups. One is Tales and Tights, while the other is Two and a Half Men.

Reapers: “ARE YOU AFRAID?” / “Merle, it’s me, Pan” / “Also! Greg Grimauldis-” - do you have a flair for the dramatic?

I’ll sometimes get into bits with friends where we just go off citing quotes from some shared pop culture interest. I also have had a few good one liners. One of my friends has been keeping track of funny things our group says. He’s an angel and I appreciate him greatly.

Magic Brian: “Haello haello welcoeme to my caeve” - do you have any unique speech patterns?

Ooohhh dear. Yeah. Apparently I have a horrendous Minnesotan accent, so I over pronounce my os. This habit intensifies when I’m made fun of for it. (You have not lived until you’ve been cussed out by someone with a heavy Minnesotan accent)

Jenkins: “…aaaand he misses by a country mile” - are you any good at planning?

I try my best at it. But damn, I’m indecisive. To help combat this I’ve been keeping a planner.

Marvey: “Well, let’s see if I can make a mark in that book on my– in my– hey, fuck you!” - are you any good at comebacks?

I’d like to think I’m a pretty witty person. As of late it seems that most of my comebacks are positive in nature, and lift my friends up. I can still sass with the best of them, though.

Garfield: “Do you like deals?” - describe a time you expertly negotiated.

I was able to convince my parents to let me stay at my significant other’s house in high school, which felt like quite the feat at the time.

Lunar Interlude: “I hand Leon the token” - how do you make your friends laugh?

With my excessive use of stupid jokes, memes, and puns. *finger guns*

Fantasy WWE: “I Morco [guitar sting]” - describe your wrestlesona.

(NOTE: it is past 1 and I am weary) I’d be the gingerbread man. Enough said.

Camp Goodfriend: “You guys know you earned a teamwork penalty for that one, right?” - do you work well with others?

I pull my own weight and keep group morale up when I’m working with others. I don’t like having other people carry me, and would prefer to carry my own weight.

Neverwinter High: “Magnus, it’s another day of high school! Taako and Merle, you immediately realize something horrible has gone wrong” - how observant are you relative to others? Has this led to any goofy situations?

I’m good at reading emotions. I can usually tell when someone isn’t feeling well and will ask them about it in a safe space. However, I cannot for the life of me interpret when someone is being flirty or friendly with me. Just recently, this led to me thinking of a coffee outing with someone I was interested in as a date. These hopes were shattered when she told me about her new partner. So yeah… It’s hard navigating this stuff.

Tomb of Horrors: “I expected you to catch a fucking fish in the fish minigame!” - when has something gone ridiculously off the rails? Were you the derailer, the voice of reason, or a bystander?

As the Mom Friend, I try to be the voice of reason in most scenarios. Sometimes though, it is out of my hands, and all I can do is sit back and watch the disaster unfold. 

[ruffboijuliaburnsides]

Blueprints for a Family, fic, Lucretia/Magnus

Listen if you didn’t think i’d eventually give them babies, then you probably haven’t met me.  spoilers through the finale, natch.

Available on AO3

Learning

Lucretia hadn't heard about the destruction of Raven's Roost.

It wasn't in the middle of nowhere, but it wasn't a large city whose news spread quickly like Neverwinter or Goldcliff.  There'd been some talk of a rebellion against a tyrant, but Lucretia had checked on the situation and found peace had resumed (thanks to Magnus, unsurprisingly, and it was a relief and a heartbreak to know how much he was still the same even without that century she knew him).  She had other things to worry about, she had to focus on the building of her organization, and before she knew it almost a year had passed.

She tried to check on them each once a year.  Merle got the most - even with his marriage in shambles, he stuck to the coast and moved leisurely, and seeing him on the beach was soothing, and it comforted her.  Taako was worrying - since the last disastrous Sizzle It Up With Taako show, he'd been harder to track, more withdrawn, and Lucretia hoped he found some sort of peace soon.  Magnus... well.  She didn't visit Magnus often.  She was glad he was happy, she was, Julia was a wonderful woman and was so good for Magnus. But there was only so much her heart could take, and so she listened to rumors and visited only when she worried, sure that he would be safe and happy until she'd finished her mission.

Standing in the road in view of the abandoned ruins of Raven's Roost, then, she feels deep horror sinking into her bones.

She hadn't watched him carefully enough. She hadn't protected him, and this is where it all has to end, there aren't any more chances—

"Hope you weren't lookin' t'find anyone in town."

Lucretia jumps, whirling with wide eyes and a pounding heart to find an older man with a mule standing behind her.

"I... what... happened?" she asks, cringing at her ineloquence even as she struggles to find any words to say in the midst of her sudden grief.

"Governor Kalen," the man says, and spits into the dirt in disgust. ��"Didn't take kindly to the rebellion.  Knew the Burnsides both lived'n worked in the Craftsmen's Quarter, bombed the supports.  Fair few folk died, the rest left for safer places t'live."

"Magnus Burnsides?" Lucretia asks, swallowing hard, even though it couldn't be anyone but.

"That who you're lookin' for?" the man asks, but doesn't wait for her response.  "Good luck.  No one's seen him since he left for Neverwinter a few days 'fore it happened.  Figure he heard what happened to that wife of his - good girl, Julia, I knew her daddy - and just didn't come back."

"Oh."  The relief flooding through Lucretia at his words feels like a physical thing in her veins, ringing in her ears, and she almost misses the next thing the man says.

"Shame about the kid, though."

Everything stops.  "Kid?"

"Yeah.  Can't remember her name, just a little tyke, few months old.  She'd been sick so one'a the old grams was lookin' after her, since her mama had to work while her daddy was travelin', and they never found Magnus last I heard."

Lucretia sucks in a sharp breath, stepping towards the man with an intensity she hasn't felt in a long time.  "Where is she?  Who took her, where do they have her?"

The man shrugs, though he seems to consider her before he answers, perhaps worried about her intentions.  "Don't rightly know.  Might ask back at Darkwater, 'bout a day back the road."  He jerks a thumb over his shoulder down the road behind him.  "Fair few'a the survivors settled there."

"Yes," Lucretia says, nodding. "All right.  Thank you." She casts teleport without thinking - she has to go back to the base, but she now has a dual goal - finding Magnus, and finding his daughter.

Back on the road, the man shakes his head and tugs his mule's lead.  "Wizards."

Searching

She finds Magnus.  He's a bit of a mess, still deep in the grief of losing his family, but he's alive, and he's moving forward.  From what Lucretia can gather, he's working as a bit of a mercenary to get by, trying to find Governor Kalen to extract revenge.  She can't blame him, to be honest, and quietly puts out feelers to try to find him as well.  It will probably take time, as she knows so little about the man, but if she can find him and help guide Magnus to where he is, maybe Magnus can get some closure.

She doesn't find the child.  She learns about her - Charlotte Burnsides, named for Julia's mother, sweet baby, a bit colicky but cheerful and friendly.  Taken in by the Coopers, whose children were nearly grown.  But where the Coopers went seems to be a mystery no one knows the answer to, and Lucretia can't spare as much time or attention as she wants for the searching.  She has a responsibility to this world that comes before her desire to help Magnus, and at least it sounded like the little girl was in good hands in the meantime.

Time passes.  Fisher gives her a child that allows her to begin the process of bringing the boys home.  (Magnus' child should be nearing her fourth birthday, she thinks, and doesn't allow herself to dwell on.)

She brings them in.  She forces herself to stay impassive and professional with some of her closest friends.  She tells Magnus that his Candlenights back rub coupon is the nightmare scenario, and she means it (though not the way he thinks).  She pretends she doesn't know the things he's suffered through; she pretends she doesn't want to wrap her arms around him, cover him with kisses, and never let him go.

They remember.  They fight the Hunger.  She backs down from her plan and Magnus - Magnus who she expected to hate her, Magnus who she expected to be furious with her, Magnus who she expected would never be hers again - hugs her as Taako asks if she can't use her barrier to do something better than she'd planned.  Presses a quick kiss, unseen, to her temple as he lets her go.  They fight.  They win .

She doesn't know where Charlotte Burnsides is, but after the fight, when they're finally having a chance to TALK; after Taako's refused to look at her and Lup's given her a grin and thumbs-up and Davenport's told her he needs to take some time to process everything but he forgives her; after all that, she tells him.

"I didn't want to tell you before," she says, her head on his shoulder and his fingers combing gently through her hair, "because I couldn't... Magnus did you ever go back to Raven's Roost?"

He tenses a little, but presses a little closer to her - a painful question, but not an unwelcome one, she thinks with relief.  "Once," he said, his voice rough.  The grief isn't fresh, and she knows he's healed a lot, but she still can't imagine how it feels even now.  "That's how I found out.  Went through the rubble..." his voice catches, and he coughs a little.  "I couldn't stay.  I never went back or tried to find anyone else."

"Oh, Magnus," Lucretia said softly, tangling her fingers with the fingers of his free hand.  "You found the shop."  It's not really a question.  He squeezes her fingers and she knows she's right.

"It's fine," he says, though it isn't and they both know that.

"It's not," she says, and sits up so she can look him in the eye.  "But Magnus... that's what I didn't tell you.  I didn't know how to explain why I knew, especially when I didn't have any leads—"

"Lu?" he asks, frowning.

"Your daughter survived," she blurts out, so she doesn't get distracted on a tangent.  His face pales suddenly.  "She'd been sick, I think, so she was staying with some friends.  Some people called the Coopers took her with them when they evacuated, but I haven't been able to find her, Magnus I'm sorr—"

He cuts her off with a kiss, suddenly beaming.  "She's alive," he whispers, pressing their foreheads together.  "Lu, I— thank you.  I never would've even known ..."

"We'll find her," Lucretia promises.  "I haven't been able to yet, but we don't have to worry about the Hunger or the Relics anymore.  We can just... FIND her."  She smiles a little and adds, "Besides, now we know the world's greatest detective."

Angus

She waits a week after they defeat the Hunger before she asks Angus about his family.

"I know you said…" she trails off and clears her throat.  It's hard not to be Madame Director when she's with her employees - her friends - from the Bureau.  That will always be a part of her, of course, but it's not all of her, and she's determined to allow herself to be Lucretia again, with everyone.

"I didn't ask too many questions," she starts again, "when you joined the Bureau.  You were asking questions that could've gotten you in trouble, you'd be safer here where I could watch you."

"I know, ma'am!" Angus says, nodding.  "But I didn't really have any family.  I had some second cousins, and my grandpa, and I'd stay with all of them for a little while."  It breaks Lucretia's heart at how matter-of-factly he says that.

"I see."  She considers, for a moment, whether she's overstepping herself by offering what she's thinking, and then decides she doesn't care.  If ever there was a time to take care of your loved ones, now is that time.  "Angus, would you like me to… be your legal guardian?"

His eyes light up.  She's already making a mental list of necessary paperwork before he even answers.

It all goes through faster and easier than she thinks it should, but it probably has something to do with her being a member of the Starblaster crew.  Angus asks her if this means he should call her mom, and she tells him he can call her whatever he wants.

"I think I'll still call you Lucretia, ma'am, if that's okay," he says cautiously.

Within two months, he's calling her his mother to anyone who asks, and when she's travelling and he writes her letters from school, he addresses them, "Dear Mom".  Taako deigns to tease her about finding the perfect mini-her to adopt.  She loves every minute of it.

Found

Charlotte Burnsides, called Charlie by her parents (both biological and surrogate), is almost six years old when Angus finds them, living in a little town 10 full weeks' travel from Raven's Roost under a different name.  Lucretia is worried they won't want to part with the little girl they've raised, or that Charlie (as Magnus explained they'd called her) wouldn't want to leave.

But the Coopers (now the Tanners) are welcoming, and fold Magnus into tight hugs as soon as they see him, so glad that he's alive and well and that he found them.

"We were worried you wouldn't find us 'cause of the name," Mr. Tanner says, clapping Magnus on the shoulder.  "Kalen's still out there, though, and we didn't want to risk it."

"I understand," Magnus says with a nod, lips pressed tightly together.  "After me, he probably would've come after you."  The Tanners nod, and Lucretia knows she'll have to get the full story of the rebellion against Kalen one day.  

"We told her about you," Mrs. Tanner says, eyes wet, as Mr. Tanner goes to fetch Charlie from where she's playing outside.  "Every day.  We told her that you'd come back for her one day and she'd get to go home with you."

Magnus hugs her again, his own eyes bright with what Lucretia knows are tears.  "Thank you, Mary.  Thank you so much for looking after her."

" Charlotte !" Mr. Tanner's voice drifts in, sounding shocked and a mix of horrified and amused.  Magnus darts out the side door, panicked, and Lucretia's close on his heels.  They come to a sudden halt next to Mr. Tanner where he's trying his hardest to be disapproving as he looks down on a dirt-smudged little girl with auburn hair, freckles, and eyes that look just like her father's, a tiny kitten cradled in her arms.  And behind the little girl, groaning on the ground, is a boy probably a year or two older than her, rolled in the fetal position.

"He was gonna hurt the kitty!" Charlie protests, holding the grey kitty in question out for Mr. Tanner to see.  "So I hit him in the boy bits, 'cause Donny said it hurts to get hit there."

Mr. Tanner shakes his head with a rueful sigh, and Lucretia thinks that she's never seen Magnus look more pleased and proud and happy than he does in this moment.

Homecoming

Charlie solemnly presents the kitten to Magnus when Mr. Tanner introduces him as her Daddy, the hero.  Magnus takes the kitten carefully, the little ball of fluff dwarfed by his hands, and Charlie stares up at him for a long, silent moment.

"You were in stories in my head when the dark stuff came," she says.

"Yeah," Magnus responds, clearly overwhelmed by the existence of his daughter after thinking she was dead for so long.

"I liked them," she says.  "Will you tell me them again?"

Magnus laughs softly, a crooked smile on his face.  "Sure," he says.  "As many times as you want, kiddo."

Lucretia has never loved him more.

They take the Tanners with them, as much for Magnus as for Charlie, and to Lucretia's great relief the little girl is smart and fearless and more than happy to be carried everywhere by Magnus; asking questions, demanding stories, climbing atop her father's shoulders like a mountain goat.  She meets the IPRE crew, her new aunts and uncles, delighted that the people from the stories in her head were real, and that SHE got to have them all to herself.  She meets the remaining members of the Bureau of Balance, not really an organization anymore so much as a group of people who don't want to go separate ways.  Lucretia thinks maybe she could make something new out of it.  Carey and Killian charm her with promises to tell her even MORE stories about her daddy that she didn't get to know on the day the dark came.  Angus doesn't know what to do with her enthusiasm, but she loves asking him questions because he graciously answers every single one.

And Lucretia... Lucretia finds herself reading books and doing research on child rearing, wanting to be able to help.  She finds herself in a position of authority - more than just "an adult", almost... almost on equal footing with Magnus.  Without even meaning to, she steps into the gap that Julia left behind, not quite filling the gaps, but doing her best.

She'd already adopted Angus, of course, and was used to beginning to call him her son, but when she takes them both to the market one day, a shopkeeper compliments her on her children, and she smiles and says thank you and walks away before she realizes that... she'd just thought of Charlie as her child.

"I think I need to step back," Lucretia says to Magnus that night after he tucks Charlie into bed.  "From dealing with Charlie."

Magnus frowns in confusion as he slides into bed.  "What?  Why?  Has she been misbehaving?"

"No, no," Lucretia says quickly, "she's wonderful, except when she's being too much like you."  Magnus chuffs a soft laugh at that.  "I just... I think I'm getting too attached."

"I... don't get it," Magnus admits.  "You're allowed to like her..."

"Someone called her my child today," she says.  "And I... I didn't even process it as not being true until I'd walked away.  And I don't want to—"

"Woah, woah, Lucretia.  Stop."  If she'd known him for less time, she might think his voice was strained, that he was tense, but Lucretia's known Magnus for over a century.  She hears the barely-contained laughter in his voice, and sees it in his eyes.  "We're... we're for real, right?" he asks.  She nods.  "Okay.  Then why... can't she be yours?"  He pauses.  "Uh, assuming you want her to be, no pressure."

"What about Julia?" Lucretia asks quietly.

"You're not a replacement," Magnus says, his own voice dropping to match hers.  "Julia'll always be Charlie's mother.  But... that doesn't mean you can't still be her mom, if you wanna be."

Lucretia closes her eyes and presses her forehead to Magnus' shoulder, the tightness in her chest loosening for the first time since the market that afternoon.  "You sure?" she asks.  

"Yeah," he says, lifting her chin so he can kiss her gently.

Charlie

Somehow, it's more exhausting taking care of Charlie when Lucretia allows herself to take full parental responsibility for her.  She seems to never stop moving, and getting into cupboards, and climbing unreasonably high things, and hitting kids who pick on people or animals littler than them.  She always has a scraped knee, or a stubbed toe, or a split knuckle.

"She is absolutely your daughter," Lucretia says wearily, coming home from the latest parent-teacher conference at Charlie's grade school.  It's ridiculous how hard she's had to fight from getting a first-grader expelled.  

"What'd she do this time?" Magnus asks, seeming to brace himself for the words.

"Broke the nose of a third-grader who made her friend cry," Lucretia admits.  Magnus's whole face and body language shift from 'wary' to 'proud'.  Despite herself, Lucretia's proud too.  She sighs in resignation.

"I think we need to get Lup and Taako to teach her ways to fight back and stay out of trouble," she says.  "Because she's so much like you, so she's obviously not going to just stop ."

Magnus laughs loud enough that both Charlie and Angus come to see what's going on.  Lucretia doesn't let him tell them.  They don't need to get any ideas.  Charlie, specifically, doesn't need any more ideas than absolutely necessary, she's already in enough trouble.

Secretly, though, Lucretia couldn't be prouder of her daughter.

Burnsides

When Charlie is almost seven, Magnus and Lucretia get married.  It's very similar to the wedding Barry and Lup had so many years ago, Merle presiding and the crew all crowded around with drinks in their hands.  It's different, though, in a good way.  They have friends with them - Carey and Killian (freshly returned from their honeymoon), Avi, Kravitz, some of the residents of Refuge, even Lucas - and they have Angus and Charlie.  Charlie goes around to every guest to inform them that her daddy was going to marry the pretty lady, that the pretty lady is her mom.  Lup whispers in her ear and busts out laughing when Charlie declares to Cassidy that "Daddy's marrying the pretty lady, but he doesn't deserve her."

Five months later, their odd family grows by one.

"You're almost making me feel competitive," Lup says jokingly, cradling her newest niece in her arms. "Y'hear that Lav?  You're makin' Lup feel competitive about childrearing, who fuckin' knew that was possible?"

"Lup, language," Lucretia says absently, helping Charlie climb up into bed with her.

"Gotta teach 'em young," Lup says solemnly, handing the dark-skinned infant back to her mother.  Lucretia rolls her eyes, and considers getting Magnus' attention away from where he's bragging to Kravitz and Taako about how smart his newborn daughter is.  She decides against it - he'd probably agree with Lup, honestly, if only to exasperate her.

"She's so little !" Charlie exclaims, gently patting the baby's cheek exploratorily.  "What's her name?"

"You were little, too, once," Lucretia says with a smile.  "And her name is Lavender."

Lavender

Even as a baby, it's clear Lavender will take very much after her mother and older brother.  She hardly cries, instead staring wide-eyed and solemn at everyone around her.  Taako is miffed when he can't make her laugh, though the sting is lessened somewhat when Lup can't either.  She always has a wide, brilliant smile for Magnus, and is always calmest when Angus holds her.

But Charlie is, as the years pass, her biggest fan, her staunchest ally, and her most dedicated protector.

Lucretia had worried, as Lavender got older and it became clear that she'd be yet another quiet type, that Charlie would feel left out.  Magnus was as loud and boisterous as ever, but one dad compared to a mom and two siblings…  Magnus always laughed and kissed her when Lucretia worried about it too much.

"She's got me, she's got Taako and Lup and Merle and Dav," he'd say.  "She's not lacking for loud, action-oriented family members, Lu."

"It's different, though," she insists, remembering her own parents and siblings, tradesmen and craftsmen, with no particular interest in books or scholarly pursuits.  "I don't want her to feel out of place."

"You love her," Magnus says.  "I think that'll make her feel at home."

And it seems to be enough.  Lucretia can't be sure, because she's not in Charlie's head, but though her older daughter doesn't join in on the more intellectual, magical discussions Lucretia has with Angus, or the debates about books she has with little Lavender, Charlie always seems happy.  And as Lavender starts learning magical theory and practice, coming home excited and breathless from school, she doesn't seek out her brother (grown but often visiting) or her mother to tell about her day.

She finds Charlie.

"If you're interested in magic, you know you can always start learning," Lucretia says to her as they make dinner, after teenaged Charlie had intently and enthusiastically listened to Lavender's account of her day, and the new things she was learning.  

"I'm not really," Charlie says with a shrug, peeling potatoes with a quick, practiced hand.  She was so good with knives.  Her ducks were almost better than Magnus could produce.  "But Lavvy likes it, so I want to ask her about it, y'know?  'Cause I like it when she's happy."

Lucretia doesn't bother drying her hands before pulling her daughter into a tight, proud hug; Charlie shrieks and yells, " Mo-om! " with a laugh in her voice (Magnus' laugh, so familiar but so new in this nimble-handed troublemaker of a girl) as soapy water drips down her neck.

Family

"We're all very proud of you," Lucretia says, straightening Lavender's collar.  "You remember that when everyone's teasing you about being a nerdlord, okay?"

Lavender waves her mother's hands away, laughing softly.  "I know, Mom," she says, straightening the graduate's robes over her dress.  Sixteen isn't the youngest anyone's graduated from the graduate program at the Academy of Magical Sciences (Angus was fifteen), but it's still something to be proud of, and Lucretia is so proud.  "It's just family shit, they love me very much, just because they tease me doesn't mean they're not proud of me, it's just how we express affection."

Lucretia laughs, and kisses Lavender on the cheek.  "That's my girl.  Go have fun at your party."

Her daughter - tall, lanky, bright-eyed and quick-witted - flashes a rare grin that matches her father's so well, and enters their house, where the whole family is waiting.  A cheer rises up, and as Lucretia follows her in and stops in the doorframe, she reflects (not for the first time) on how lucky she is.

Charlie's the first to lunge forward and pull Lavender into a hug, with an exuberant cry of, "Congrats, Lavvy!", and Angus isn't far behind.  Angus grew into himself well, matching Magnus for height, though Lavender's almost caught up to them both.  Most people can't tell that Angus and Lavender aren't related, anymore, both of them tall and bookish, with similar facial expressions in a multitude of occasions that Taako swears is like watching Lucretia in miniature.  He's an accomplished wizard, and even taught for a while at Taako's school, but mostly he followed his eternal love of detecting, and still works as the World's Greatest Detective, and no one adds "Boy Detective" to his name anymore.  Well, except Taako and Magnus, but that's family.

Charlie doesn't match her siblings at all in looks - Magnus says she takes after Julia, though Lucretia thinks there's more of him in Charlie than he thinks.  She's short and a little stocky, her skin a few shades lighter and covered in freckles.  She's got thick muscles from working in The Wooden Duck - a woodworking and blacksmith shop founded by the youngest generation of Burnsides in the newly-founded town of Raven's Rest, right next to the Hammer and Tails dog training school.  She'd apologized to Lucretia, years ago, for wanting to be a craftsman instead of a scholar.  Lucretia had told her that all she ever wanted her children to be was happy.  And she is, Lucretia knows, she's so very happy.

Magnus swoops in before the siblings break their embrace, picking all of them up off the ground just a little bit, to loud shrieking and laughter, and Angus faintly saying, "Please put me down, sir!" out of habit.  And then they're down, and Lucretia watches Lavender move on to her many aunts and uncles. Taako gives her a noogie while Lup declares her Queen of the Nerdlords, and crowns her with a shitty paper crown covered in purple glitter.  Merle hugs her and tells her Pan is proud of her, too - Lavender had decided to worship Pan years ago, to Merle's great delight.  Davenport's not back quite yet, running behind, but his most recent postcard is here with a promise to bring her a graduation present.  Barry and Kravitz both shake her hand, before Barry tugs her into a tight hug and whispers something in her ear.  Whatever it is, it makes her laugh, and Lucretia smiles.

Carey and Killian are there, and Mavis (who had turned out to be one of Lavender's best friends), and Avi.  Lavender hugs all of them, receiving well-earned well wishes and congratulations.  Magnus, Merle, and Taako are all competing to tell their favorite Lavender story the loudest, at the same time, and Lavender is protesting and telling them to stop but she's laughing as she does, beaming as bright, in Lucretia's opinion, as the Light of Creation ever shone.

And then Charlie's there next to her, grabbing Lucretia's hand in her own strong, calloused ones.  "C'mon, Mom," she says with a smile.  "Join the party."  Lucretia smiles at her, looks out at the room that holds her friends - her family - as they celebrate. The Starblaster and the Hunger seem more than a lifetime ago, compared to the joy and contentment her life has brought her. She has a place here, where she is accepted and treasured and loved, where she loves in return.  She locks eyes with Magnus from across the room, and her heart swells when his smile softens. Lucretia squeezes Charlie's hand as her daughter tugs encouragingly, steps forward,

And rushes in.

[mystery-moose]

Angus, 6, 7, 18, and 22!

I had hoped someone would ask questions about America’s favorite boy detective!

6: Their vices (physical or emotional)

This is a weird one! I think Angus, both as a child and as an adult, doesn’t have many traditional vices; he drinks coffee and brandy, but only in moderation, he’s tried some of Taako’s dank kush and found it not to his liking, he’s not an adrenaline junkie and in all honesty, I think if he’s not asexual he’s pretty darn close.

Emotionally, though… that’s complicated.

I think when he’s still young, Angus thinks of his more childish desires as vices. Wanting to draw cartoons or play with toys or be carried in someone’s arms. They aren’t things he had very often, growing up, and by the time he was ten, he wanted so desperately to be taken seriously, treated as a person and not a child, that he set aside those things very firmly.

In my self-indulgent AU, touring with Taako and Kravitz is… not necessarily helpful in this regard. Taako certainly comes to care for him as more than just his protégé, but outside of rare, largely unspoken occasions, he treats him the same as he’d treat anyone else. Because that’s how Taako is, and he just happened to luck into a kid who appreciates that. Kravitz follows his lead, albeit more gently; alone among the three of them, he still views Angus as a child. A mature and gifted one, sure, but still.

So I think Kravitz encourages him to engage in childish pursuits more than Taako does. Things like playing games, or spending time with local kids when they’re in town for a show, or carving little animal shapes into the walls of his wagon. I think he probably even tried to buy him a toy or two, but Angus’ response was basically a polite smile and a “thank you very much sir” and then they sat on a shelf in his wagon unused. Yeah, he’s eleven, but Angus is still Angus.

(Now, grown-ass Angus… I think he hates not knowing things, feeling like he doesn’t have all the information, or secrets in general. He’s gotten better about respecting privacy, but he still has to resist the urge to eavesdrop or pry. He’s also got a bit of an arrogant streak, when he’s on the job. Taako’s influence, sure, but also his own – Angus called himself the world’s greatest detective at ten years old, he fought long and hard to be taken seriously, that’s gonna lead to a bit of egotism. That being said, he probably went through a harsher phase of that during his University days and mellowed by graduation.)

7: Their tickle spots

Angus DOES NOT ENJOY being tickled. It’s probably a control thing. Magnus tried it once and Angus kicked him clean in the face. This persists into adulthood, and by the time he and Silvia are together, he’s secretly dreading that she’ll try it at some point and he’ll end up popping her in the nose on accident.

18: Things they’ll never admit

Angus messed up those macaroons on purpose. Of course they needed sugar, he’s not an idiot. But he wanted to make sure his lessons with Taako continued, so he baked those cookies to (not so) subtly encourage Taako to teach him Prestidigitation.

Also: Angus doesn’t particularly care for macaroons to begin with. Taako’s are just “okay.” He’s never told Taako this, and he never will.

Oh, and he had a brief pre-teen crush on Mavis. That is a secret he will take to his grave. (They became pen pals, though, which was nice)

22: People who’ve influenced them greatly

God. So many.

His parents were the earliest – his mother in particular, a brilliant and indomitable woman who taught him the foundations of who he was, what he wanted to be. Neither of them were particularly warm, but they weren’t cold-hearted or abusive, either – he always had their love, it was just a matter of when they chose to demonstrate it to him.

His grandfather, VERY much. An old adventurer with a million stories and all the advice in the world, though never controlling or overbearing. A caregiver and a mentor, before he died. Angus doesn’t like to think about his parents much – that spot’s still tender, and acknowledging it at times feels like a betrayal – but he still thinks about his Grandpa.

Each of the THB, in their own way, though Taako was the largest in his life. He inspired a love of magic and of cooking, and enjoyment in the craft of both. And more deeply, the importance of things like loyalty (to friends and family, against the world) and brotherhood (towards those you choose, who matter most) and even a kind of a bravery (trying when you don’t think you’re up to the challenge, being there even when you’re afraid to be)

Kravitz was an influence too, though in more subtle ways – he was a model of patience and care, particularly in how he dealt with Taako at times.

Uncle Magnus remained his inspiration for the simplicity of morality – lead with your heart, go with your gut, and never stand by when you’re pretty sure you could do something.

Aunt Carey taught him how to fight smart, Killian taught him when to shoot and when not to shoot, Lucretia taught him dedication and endurance through hardship (even when that hardship is as simple as dull clerical research) and Aunt Lup taught him to never take any disrespect lying down.

Really, everyone Angus knew influenced him in some way or another. He was like a sponge, growing up; he loved to learn, loved to know things, and he took everything he felt was valuable.