#i mean puzzles and coded messages??? *eats them like snack*

[risustravelogue]

Something I wrote and doodled to finish my storyline in @zhongrin's EBG afterparty.

Enjoy~ 💚

cw: blood, creature death

“Albedo.”

The blond alchemist solemnly looks up from his sketchbook to the source of the thundering voice: a brown-haired tall man in white-gold attire floating in the air, his presence alone causing the earth to quake.

Albedo’s lips curve into a smile. “So you’ve come at last.”

Zhongli chuckles. “So I have. You should’ve known better than to run into my territory.” Black-gold polearms manifest from thin air. “Now, are there any… friends you wish to send to their deaths?”

“You mean sending you to your death, ex-archon?” taunts the voice behind him. He turns around and sees a dragon—if it can be called a dragon, considering its mangled shape—with someone who looks exactly like Albedo riding on top of it.

Zhongli’s lips form a calm smile. “Oh, are you the Dorian people have been talking about? My, my. You’re so… rash. Reminds me of my younger days.”

The polearms flit through the air toward the creature as Zhongli’s form shifts into one of a brown-gold dragon. “Now let me show you the power of the Prime of Adepti.”

Dorian scoffs. “Good decision, ex-archon. You’re no match for our chimera otherwise.”

The two dragons exchange blows in the air, their focus locked onto each other. Albedo chuckles and walks to the hut where his “beloved” is sleeping. Suddenly, a lone arrow pierces through the ground in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. A looming figure approaches him from behind.

“Not so fast, alchemist,” Alhaitham says, sword pointed toward Albedo’s back.

The blond scoffs and turns. “I suppose this stick is a gift from your wife. So much for ‘we intend you no harm,’ scribe.”

Alhaitham lowers his sword. “We haven’t actually harmed you, though.”

“True.”

“And you have been so engrossed in preparing for the confrontation with Zhongli, you didn’t realize that a certain moth had taken Rin’s Vision off your personage.”

“Wha—”

A loud boom echoes across the air, interrupting their conversation. The chimera lays still under Zhongli’s talons, its black blood gushing out of its fatal neck wound. Dorian lies unconscious beneath the larger body, having been knocked out by the sheer force of the larger dragon’s blow.

“Now stay,” he growls.

“Zhongli!”

He huffs and turns to the source of the voice.

“Alhaitham.”

“Kurisu has Rin.” The scribe gestures to the alchemist. “What do you want to do with him?”

The dragon shakes his head. “He can’t win against me, and he knows that. We don’t need to do anything anymore.”

He raises one of his talons and wipes the black blood off his face.

“As a show of mercy, I’ll let you say your goodbyes.”

Albedo picks up his abandoned sketchbook from the ground and begins imprinting the magnificent sight of the Geo Archon’s dragon form onto the paper. Even if I’ve lost, I can still gain something from this, he thinks.

The frantic scratching of pencil on paper stops when two women come out of the run-down hut, the sound of their feet shuffling through the yellow-green grass breaking the sounds of nature. The short-haired woman nods and lets the long-haired woman move forward on her own. Albedo catches a familiar glint of a Vision from behind her shawl and the glitter of the silvery dust on her fingers.

Ah. I’ve been thoroughly defeated.

But he’s nothing if not resilient, so—

One last smile. One last time—

He waves his hand at her, forcing a small smile on his lips. She smiles and waves back at him. Then as her vision clears, her gaze grows sad, with tears now threatening to spill from the corner of her eyes.

“You’re not… him.”

“No, I am not.”

“Where is he?”

Albedo gestures to the archon, who’s now back in his human form.

“Mei.”

“Li! You’re here!”

With a nod from the scribe, Albedo carefully slips away as Zhongli and Meirin run into each other’s embrace. He pulls Dorian from beneath the dead chimera and treks back toward Dragonspine. His steps come to a halt as he looks back at the four’s reunion before disappearing back into the snowstorm, a fond smile growing on his lips.

It was good while it lasted.

[jasontoddiefor]

Title: infinitely varied Ship: obikin Summary: Sometimes your husband decides to develop an artificial intelligence capable of free choice and something called a soul and succeeds in the middle of a Thursday night. Or, more concretely: he's in the middle of succeeding because said intelligence first has to learn how to speak.Also known as Obi-Wan and Anakin teach a tiny program called A.H.S.O.K.A. how to be something more than lines of code via the power of linguistics. AN: Happy birthday @ghostwriterofthemachine

Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

Noam Chomsky

I.

Life was a query of expectations, margins on doorframes, bucket lists, first loves, broken hearts, and happy middles because only fools would settle for a happy ending when they had so many decades left to live. The thought never failed to bring a smile to Anakin’s face, no matter how frustrated, remembering the simple way Obi-Wan had proposed. There had been no fancy dinner, particularly stunning outing, or anything resembling outlandish romantic gestures. Anakin would have appreciated them because every act would have been colored by Obi-Wan’s love, but now, older and wiser than the rash youth who’s fallen in love at first heated debate, he preferred the way their proposal had actually gone down. A quiet Sunday morning, eating breakfast together on the sofa while the news droned in the background from Anakin’s old radio, a hesitant “I don’t need forever, but I want the present”.

And, well, for all his genius, Anakin could be a bit of an idiot sometimes, but not when it came to this.

Married life was interesting.

Somehow nothing changed, except also everything. They had bought a real house, moved out of their old apartment and made more compromises than Anakin had ever thought himself capable of, for they hadn’t been like fighting an uphill battle but dancing together. It had made him happy to paint the entrance hall in the shade of green Obi-Wan preferred if he got to paint the kitchen in the light blue he wanted.

Obi-Wan got the attic for his office where his antique book collection looked right at home, and Anakin got the basement where the hum of his servers and the generator powering them annoyed nobody else.

It was as close to white-picket-fence as it could be with two queer men, no kids, a bratty cat, and an anxious dog under one roof. His childhood self would be appalled to see how much Anakin, always the whirlwind, had settled. To a nine-year-old, Anakin probably looked very adult.

Anakin, however, did not feel very grown-up, banging his head against his desk in the middle of the night. Obi-Wan had gone to sleep hours ago, and so had Anakin until inspiration had struck and he’d snuck out of bed to return to his favorite project.

A.H.S.O.K.A may not be a child, but Anakin certainly could relate to exhausted parents when they complained about their children in endless repetitions. To this day, Anakin didn’t know why his mother figured it would be great parenting to encourage her WarGames obsessed kid to dig into the world of artificial intelligence when WOPR nearly started a nuclear war, but he’d forever remain thankful.

Or, he’d resume being thankful when he could finally get A.H.S.O.K.A to learn. He’d rewritten her code a thousand times. It was his ever-constant companion, from his first awful-looking early 2000s website to its current incarnation. A.H.S.O.K.A could solve simple logic puzzles, given that he fed her enough data. Her solutions to tasks could be downright hilarious, but they were not enough. He wanted her to be smarter, better, capable of gaining true understanding.

Perhaps, it was a dream for the future and not a Thursday night.

Anakin didn’t have any work tomorrow morning as he worked as a freelancer, so he could afford to pull an all-nighter. But his dear husband had planned a nice afternoon for them, so Anakin should call it a night or a morning as a glance at the clock told him.

Staring at the many lines of code again, Anakin sighed and leaned back in his chair and took another sip of his by-now cold tea. Obi-Wan would definitely complain that Anakin had snatched his favorite mug once he got up and couldn’t find it in the kitchen. Anakin had bought it at the last linguistic convention Obi-Wan had taken him to.

Language is a process of free invention, it read in delicate cursive before the rest of the quote disassembled in pure chaos.

Huh.

Now there was a thought. Anakin got out of his chair and left the basement, haunted by fixed principles and infinite combinations. Up in the attic, carrying Obi-Wan’s computer downstairs again, Anakin thought on interpretations and free creations. He was as giddy and nervous as he’d been on the morning of his wedding day, which had started similarly early. Connecting Obi-Wan’s computer, and more importantly, the priced result of his thesis, to Anakin’s server felt a little like unwrapping birthday presents.

language_acquisition_prediction.exe

Enter.

II.

Obi-Wan was not surprised when he woke to an empty bed. Anakin had a habit of suddenly pulling all-nighters or getting up early before the sun even thought of rising. Given that he couldn’t smell breakfast yet, Obi-Wan deduced that Anakin had pulled an all-nighter again. He slowly crawled out of bed to avoid disturbing Artoo and Threepio sleeping to his feet. Obi-Wan was pretty sure he shared his bed more often with his pets than he did with his husband.

He walked down the stairs to the ground level and went by the kitchen to prepare himself a cup of tea. To his displeasure, Obi-Wan couldn’t find his favorite mug and so had to settle for another. After another thought, he decided to make a second one for Anakin, lavender this time so Anakin would hopefully crash after breakfast. He put both mugs on a small tray together with a couple tomatoes. Obi-Wan usually wasn’t one for eating a full breakfast on workdays – that was the influence of Anakin and his mother’s kitchen – but he was the expert in smalltime snacks. With both in hand, he walked down the second flight of stairs, down to the basement. As expected, he found Anakin at his desk, clinging to what was bound to be a cold cup, staring intensely at his screens, which were running one program or another.

“Good morning,” Obi-Wan greeted him and kissed Anakin’s cheek.

“Mo-orning,” Anakin replied, a yawn interrupting him halfway. “Wait, what time is it?”

“Eight,” Obi-Wan said. “How long have you been up?”

“Uuuh.” Obi-Wan didn’t need to see Anakin’s face to know the answer. “Did you even go to sleep?”

“I did sleep for a while!” Anakin argued. “But then I had an idea, I mean, look at this!”

Obi-Wan gave the screens a closer look. Despite common misconceptions, he was not technically illiterate. Privately, he blamed the fact that Anakin was quite well known for his tech know-how and Obi-Wan tended to talk more about literature given that he was filling in as a lecturer in the British Lit. department. Nevertheless, Obi-Wan had gotten his professorship with a program he’d written, and the code currently displayed on the screens looked very similar to a section that had given him stress nightmares. “Is that my thesis?” he asked.

“Yes, sorta, partially?” Anakin replied. “I kind of took it apart a lot and maybe corrupted it a bit, but that’s not the important part! Look what she’s doing with it.”

She could only refer to one person, intelligence. There were a few constants in their life, their new house the most recent one, and Ahsoka was probably the longest. Obi-Wan didn’t know why Anakin hadn’t set her aside already, he was happy enough to leave other started-never-finished projects lying around, but the last time he’d even just suggested such, Anakin had looked heartbroken.

Obi-Wan looked at the screen Anakin was pointing at and began to read.

script input: inhibition auditory input 1 designation skyguy: /ˌɪn.ɪˈbɪʃ.ən/ auditory input 2 designation professor: /ˌɪn.hɪˈbɪʃ.ən/ analysis: mismatch diagnosis: outstanding

script input: better auditory input 1 designation skyguy: /ˈbet̬.ɚ/ auditory input 2 designation professor: /ˈbet.ər/ analysis: mismatch diagnosis: rhoticism? query: define

The text continued for a while, though apparently Ahsoka only picked out the mismatched parts in her analysis.

“Is that ‘Must have done something right’?” Obi-Wan asked, the connection between the words suddenly starting to make sense.

“Yes!” Anakin grinned. “I wasn’t quite sure how to teach her sounds properly because I hadn’t equipped her with a sound analysis program before and I figured that if babies just learn by listening to their parents, Ahsoka could learn by listening to us.”

“So you fed her audio of us singing?” Obi-Wan wasn’t sure whether to be impressed, confused, or just plain tired but decided to settle on confusion for now and let the course of the conversation determine where they’d end up.

“That too, but I actually just started by playing old voice messages. I figured getting her used to just one phonetic inventory would be enough for now. Honestly, for the first hour, I wasn’t even sure whether that would be of any use because she had no symbols to connect the sounds to, and I thought using the IPA might bias her.”

Because, of course, Anakin never deleted any of Obi-Wan’s voice messages and just kept them on his phone. The fact that he just glossed over it as if it weren’t anything special either made Obi-Wan smile.

“It’s cute that you think we have the same inventory,” Obi-Wan commented. “But continue. You just let her listen to sounds and then? Don’t tell me you gave her written texts.”

Anakin rolled his eyes and confirmed another one of Ahsoka’s queries before answering. “No, I gave her the IPA then and let her listen to the full inventory and then analyze which ones we use.”

That made enough sense. Obi-Wan was reasonably sure it was a great deal more complicated than Anakin was lying it out right now, but it was still within the realm of possible and not downright sci-fi. There were enough programs that could analyze speech and filter out patterns, recognize even emotions and tone. Feeding data to a computer wasn’t too different from the way babies learned, though, as far as Obi-Wan knew from talking to people with children, they didn’t like their progeny being compared to lines of code.

“And you accomplished this by feeding my thesis program, which is meant to predict the language acquisition of children, to Ahsoka?”

“Yes, that, uh, happened more or less,” Anakin said, his nose scrunched up just so that Obi-Wan knew he wasn’t certain. “I’m pretty sure I like, wrote some of it down. Not all of it because I knocked out at like 4 a.m., which resulted in pretty interesting inquiries on the great vowel shift.”

Obi-Wan froze. “She’s asking about the great vowel shift?”

There was a difference in the size of the Atlantic between analyzing sounds and recognizing a six-hundred-year-old change in pronunciation.

“Not really,” Anakin said. “She just noticed the patterns? And had inquiries? We’ve been following up on it since, mostly by also giving her written text, but I think that might have backfired and confused her a bit. I’m thinking of synching up the input with a visible feed so she’d learn to associate an actual object with the sound, but I’m not sure whether that wouldn’t just lead to her matching data instead of actually learning its relevance. Can teach an AI what an apple looks like, sounds like, tastes like, but that doesn’t mean you can teach it what an apple is and all that.”

Anakin smiled impishly, and unfortunately, despite his generally messy appearance, Obi-Wan still thought he was handsome. “Please don’t cite my book back at me like that.”

Closing his eyes for a moment and pinching his nose, Obi-Wan tried to focus. This was not how he expected to start his free day. He needed to wake up and possibly grab his notes to sort out this mess. This almost made him wish the car was still wrecked and Anakin would spend all his free time fixing that. “Did you have to start her on English of all languages?”

Anakin was fluent in two other romance languages; it would have been much easier to deal with a French AI than an English one. Sighing, Obi-Wan looked at Ahsoka’s latest question and promptly frowned.

script input: bear auditory input: /beər/ match found: bare analysis: mismatch diagnosis: failed word formation query: bear = bare? query: deletion >bare<?

“How long has she been doing that?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Doing what— oh, that’s new.”

So Ahsoka had jumped from matching sounds to text to comparing sound to words and then referencing those words against one another. That was a logical step, but also a step Obi-Wan wasn’t quite sure she should be doing without prompting.

“She thinks bear and bare are related because they have the same sound. Didn’t really expect that turn of events. Should I show her those are two different words?”

“Does she even know what a word is yet?” Obi-Wan asked in turn.

“No.”

“Then teach her what a word is first— after breakfast. I want your pancakes.”

“You never want pancakes on a Friday.”

“My husband also never decided to rope me into teaching an artificial intelligence morphology before.”

Obi-Wan needed a proper meal for this. He could talk to his students on an empty stomach, but he could not deal with the latest brand of Skywalker insanity without something sweet first.

“I haven’t—”

Ever the negotiator, Obi-Wan decided to shut Anakin up with a kiss. “After breakfast.”

Ahsoka’s many questions could wait for an hour.

[yesthefandomfreakblr]

G U Y S ~m~ f e e l i n g s

big long post WOOOOOOOOOOOO

so uhh i did a lot of daydreaming today during school as one does when they don't care and are running on -12 hours of sleep and one cup of chocolate milk in lucky charms. I did a lot of thining about this whole 'Ripred pretends to be a service animal AU I came up with andddd ngl i'm liking this a lot.

- Cormaci and Ripred are dedicated pen-pals via Gregor and Ripred confides that he's always wanted to see the museums in New York. they talk about how fun it would be and Cormaci rather enjoys hearing from the snarky, witty, and kind of sweet stranger.

-One day gregor hands him Cormaci's note and Ripred sends gregor with his reply after their echolocation lesson. "Dearly detestable, (a customary greeting for the two) I have a large service animal vest and shades if you want to use them. meet me at midnight and we'll make a plan. XOXO- Cormaci"

-Ripred is over the frikken moon you have no idea. they make a plan, he tries on the vest, they meet in the morning to go to the museum.... And Ripred can't. It's just too bright and too loud and too many people so close to him. everyone stares and many try to pet him. Ripred knows he can't attack people or talk, so he just pulls Cormaci back to central park and has a full blown panic attack five blocks before they make it. they make it to an alleyway and he just shakes and gasps for air. sensory overlaods, especially when you've never had one, are no frikken joke.

-He just sulks back in the quiet, normal smelling, tourist free underland that doesn't burn his eyes. a few days go by and Cormaci proposes a picnic in central park. way less crowded, and with his vest people are warned not to pet him anyway. Ripred gives it another go.

-it doesn't suck. it actually goes very very well. he has the time of his life seeing the ducks and the horse carriages and sunbathing. they do this three times a week and gradually he goes to stores with her and they run small errands. after about two months She can take him anywhere and he won't get overwhelmed. of course, Cormaci hardly takes him into places or restaurants because he's not a real service animal. while waiting to cross the street, Gregor warns him to watch his tail. "what you think I'm just gonna fling it out and hit someone??" he flings his tail out for emphasis and hits someone. -rager speed activate- he catches them and apologises profusely. the 5 foot 2 ich overlander cracks up and compliments him on his reflexes. She hangs out with them the rest of the day and pays for their ice cream. He actually gets her number and they part ways. I mean she's weirdly chill but some people are. at least she didn't sue or panic.

-he uses the library computers to watch training videos and look up the criteria for service animals. He, Cormaci, And gregor's family all help expose him to all of the scenarios and help get him ready. He spends a lot of time with Lizzie. with her smelling salts, puzzles, and emergency phone in his pockets, Lizzie goes places with just him. they go to the museums and nerd out together.

They meet with the registration managers, and after the worst day of Ripred's life, (vet checks and behavioral/training testing. letting people grab, pinch, pull, poke, and prod him places he'd rather them not.) He get's officially registered as Lizzie's service animal.

-Ripred is ecstatic to roam the overland as he pleases and be able to help Lizzie. but he soon realizes she's not the only one who needs his help. Ripred builds a trustworthy council for the gnawers with two head leaders to rule in his stead. and helps Luxa build a better council so that she can visit a few days a week. this takes like a month.

Gregor's dad needs to go back to work, but is still very weak. Ripred, the two days a week he lectures, goes with him and carries his papers, medicine, and anything else on his vest and lets Mr. Campbelle lean on him during lectures. it's very interesting to him and excruciating not to chime in. So during breaks they geek out on theories about anything. Ripred helps him overcome his PTSD from his time in the rat lands. Texting his new distant friend Ripred finds out that Ally, the girl he one-hit K.O'd, has horses and actually does equine therapy. she helps Gregor's family for free. Ripred gets kicked by a horse.

Gregor needs help catching up with school, so he does that when they get home. and after the war of time, Gregor just needs him a lot. Ripred spends two or three nights a week with the boy, and they go on a lot of walks. They either walk for hours in silence or Gregor just breaks and gushes like a waterfall. He doesn't want to trouble anyone with everything on his mind but Ripred is safe. he understands. Gregor talks to him and Ripred listens. occasionally offering bits of valuable advice.

three days a week he goes to school with Lizzie, and finds that her teacher is very good at chess. they get along just fine and he talks to her and even helps with her lesson plans, given this is her first year. at first she tries to call Lizzie's emergency contact. but it's him. He lounges around and is the gordon Ramsey of education. He coaches Lizzie through panic attacks and she is never once bullied when he's around. she learns things from him and makes a couple more friends on the chess team. He'll sweep the floor with any one of them. He mostly reads during class but occasionally, during tests, (when Lizzie is most comfortable,) he'll react to the high stress of another student and put his head in their lap. (test anxiety is something else) and because they're elementary school kids, they make a cult for the rat. they call him Mr. Rat and leave offerings like shiny trinkets or snacks. he privately tutors the class for an hour after school because of this (they can leave if they want but he's smart and funny) and they all learn morse code/ ace their tests. going with Lizzie to P.E is his favorite. everyone else hates it. they fear him. He's no longer allowed to play dodgeball.

Grace is home but can barely walk. on good days her lungs will suddenly give out and it's extremely dangerous. with no one else able to run errands, and desperate to get out of the apartment, she begrudgingly and sorrowfully asks for his assistance. she wishes she could cut ties with the underland for good, but her family desperately needs him. the 'service animal' thing was just so he could go to the museum, but now he's a part of their lives. She leans on him in the grocery store and he sniffs out the best products as well as pushes the cart. if she goes down he has her inhaler and knows what to do. and aside from that, he makes great company. he's funny and smart. and she can tell him things she can't tell her family. about her chronic anxiety, her nightmares, her depression, her constant fear for her children and fear they don't love her anymore for trying to protect them and fear she didn't do enough and fear it will all happen again but this time someone won't come back... He understands what it's like to lose everyone. He understands not telling people things. He lets her talk. and only offers what she needs.

He still hangs out with Cormaci and they go on little trips together, but He's very busy taking care of his family. He never anticipated it to go this far or be this much work, sleeping in the underland once or twice a week, eating most meals there. But Ripred had decided to help Lizzie, a little girl that was very much like his own deceased pup. and in that, got closer and closer to Gregor, who was like a son to him long before he knew of Cormaci. In caring for and, in a way, adopting these pups, he'd adopted their parents and become a cornerstone in their daily life.

about Ripred and Ally, yeah they still hang out as often as possible she lives a couple hours out in florida but stays at her friends a couple days a week in NYC. it's kind of strange to him, but he finds it helpful that she would do anything for him. he can call her anytime for anything and she'll drive out or stay up late and talk, or uber eats him a snack. he ends up telling her absolutely everything. she's a good listener. her horse hates him. she gives Gregor free riding lessons and makes the BEST ribs.she's cool about the underland thing and just lets him talk. which he's not used to. within a few months, she knows more about him than Lizzie or Luxa. she sees him ugly and sees him nice and doesn't hate him for either. yeah she has a big crazy personality but if he accepts her, she'll return the favor tenfold. it takes a while but he gets used to having someone love him like a dog. she's kind of a dog. She knows what he's done, good and bad. and she's cool with it. but if he ever ever lies to her. she will never trust him again. he knows she's not lying.

Ripred supervises Gregor and Luxa's first date getting pizza and starbucks and going to a movie. He nips at someone's ankles for attempting to interfere.

Lizzie's panic attacks become more rare. to the point she doesn't need Ripred at school. Gregor's father no longer needs to lean on him, and can carry his own things. Grace returns to work and only needs her inhaler maybe once a week. Gregor is healing to the point he doesn't sneak out of his room and curl up with Ripred at night.

But none of them, not even Grace, want hm to leave. He experiences all of the Holidays with them during their first year together and he loves them all. food. Luxa joins to along with Cormaci of course. on Halloween he and Lizzie go as little red riding hood and the big bad wolf. gregor and luxa dress as bats. Gregor all black and Luxa a stunning gold. Ripred fights airport security. he tells his overlander friend, Ally, all about it. she thinks he's a bad-A.

As he is needed less and less Ripred goes back to the underland and helps Keep the peace. he was doing ok sending messages from the overland, but his presence is certainly needed more than twice a week. especially Luxa. she needs time alone to speak with a father figure, especially with Vikus's health fading. He helps relieve the pressure and helps her relax. She becomes like a daughter to him, Aurora as well. RIpred comes at a moments notice if any human male shows interest in his baby girl. He even brings Ally down and she honestly would kill to ride a bat. she gets to ride a bat. with everyone constantly dumping their problems on him and them having so many, Ally becomes vital to his mental health. to just have someone to relax with, to talk to to get Denny's at 2:00 AM with.

the years are long and full of hardships, love, and light. Gregor's family becomes more financially sound, they can comfortably afford to feed Ripred now, and go on annual trips. Luxa and Howard go to Hawaii. Vikus passes away two years after the COC, and Gregor's grandmother shortly after. Gregor's family decides to stay in new york. Ripred, Luxa, and Howard go to Virginia for a month with gregor's family in the summer and have the time of their lives. He brings Ally everywhere he can she makes him food, they joke together, sometimes stay at each others places, have a pick up lines war, and she's actually a valuable ally in meetings for writing things down and even contributing. they know everything about eachother. He often thinks to himself that she's every bit as sassy and kind as his mate, and if she were a gnawer, he wouldn't hesitate. but she's human.

and after four more years, at the age of nineteen, Gregor and Luxa are married. though they are no longer bonds, (the council decided you can only have one bond as not to split loyalties) Ripred walks Luxa down the aisle and takes his place beside gregor. where Ares would have stood. Gregor's mother is proud to call Luxa her daughter. Ally brings Luxa a pet cat, as is viking tradition for newlyweds to have one in their home. Ally's weird. but they like her.

Gregor's family half lives down there now and the gnawers and human tensions are almost nonexistent after so many years.

Ripred is godfather to all eight of Gregor and Luxa's children. and though he's starting to ache in the leg he broke in COC, his age starting to climb, it's not too much for him to play with his godpups or wrestle with Gregor. he'd be like mid 50's as human. (another reason he could never be with Ally, She's 25.) He attends Lizzie's wedding in the underland to hazard when she turns twenty. after all that time, he's nearly thirty, and plays a little less rough. he has another decade or two in him and is happy to live it. life has been hell to him... but now he's found heaven. he keeps his tears to himself watching his massive family, not of blood, but of choice, grow in a place that is not torn by war. a place where the walls are made of stone and a place where the sun shines. He doesn't mind people touching or hugging him anymore and you see his real smile a lot more often. but he's still too mean to die. snarky and sassy as ever. but a lot happier. in a bittersweet kind of way. he will never forget his wife or his pups, but he knows she'd be happy for him. and it doesn't hurt to think of them.

He may have been the registered service animal, but they were all helping him right back.

[shimzus-a2]

📝 give me 3,000 :)

📝: about half of their phone storage is just photos of each other. when they go out to eat, hikaru takes so many pictures of her, and because she’s not as comfortable using her camera for anything but landscape photos she gives her phone over to him so he can take selfies of himself, too. when he moves away from japan for school, she looks at his pictures a lot 🥺

📝: when they were younger and it was cold in the winter, shimizu would hold a blanket and wrap it— and herself— around hikaru’s back. then she put another blanket over top of herself. they kinda looked like a double-wrapped taco bell burrito : hikaru in the middle, then a blanket around him, then shimizu hugging him over the blanket, and a blanket over her too. she stopped doing it when he got super tall/his shoulders filled out and she couldn’t comfortably hug him all the way around. 

📝: on that note, puberty was ... wild. when hikaru started growing, shimizu was really suspicious and demanded to measure him every week to make sure that her eyes weren’t actually betraying her. she still has a notebook somewhere with a stray page titled “ hikaru-kun’s height, week by week ” !

📝: shimizu is normally on paper fan duty for him during festivals ... not because he asks for it, but because she’s thoughtful and thinks ahead of time that it might be hot for him if he doesn’t have a fan. she keeps him cool, but her wrists hurt by the end of the evening because of how much she fans him.

📝: when she took up track and field in middle school and was asked to give a self introduction to the team ( which included explaining her motivation for joining the team ), shimizu announced, “ i have a friend who i had to chase around a lot. i think he made me fast. please take care of me. ”

📝: she carries a spare inhaler in her bag everywhere she goes, including to karasuno even though he doesn’t attend with her. her parents and she have diligently learned about the proper protocol if he starts having an asthma attack near them, so they’re all fully prepared to take care of him should it ever happen. 

📝: hikaru is the ONLY person to ever hear shimizu sing at karaoke, and it was just once. she forbid him from taking videos.

📝: she writes him letters when he leaves japan ... 🥺🥺🥺

📝: sometimes, shimizu jokes that hikaru doesn’t actually have a twin brother. he off-handedly mentions something to her about kaoru, and she turns to him with a puzzled look, asking, “ eh ? kaoru ? who is that ? ” this joke lasts sometimes for hours as he tries to explain to her that he, in fact, has a twin brother named kaoru. she gives in eventually and admits that she knows, but she was just messing with him. 

📝: she names the parrotlet he got her after him— while “ hikaru ” means something like bright/light, she names the bird “ akari, ” meaning light ( girl’s name, different kanji ). 

📝: i just think ......... it’d be neat if hikaru helped her pick out a swimsuit like he did for haruhi ..... just think that would be kinda cute. then on their obligatory beach ova scene, they go fishing ( kiyoko pulls a record-size fish ) and cook it on the beach for dinner. i think that’s cute.

📝: when they go on long trips by train/bus and have to use that public transport, shimizu always ends up falling asleep. she tries not to because she knows that they’ll need to get off on the right stop, so she should be awake and listening for the right announcement ... but she can’t help it. public transport makes her sleepy, and she ends up falling asleep on hikaru all the time.

📝: matching socks !! in middle school they bought matching socks together, and from then on it kinda became a habit every year to buy a new pair of matching socks. shimizu wears them with her track suit regularly, and if karasuno didn’t uphold a uniform dress code then she’d probably wear them on her first day of classes too.

📝: she won every snowball fight he initiated in elementary school.

📝: they’ve done matching halloween costumes, absolutely. hikaru probably had to invite her to a party because she didn’t have many friends and wouldn’t have been invited otherwise, but she would definitely come if it was an invitation from him. they probably did something cute and tame ( and potentially got kaoru in on it ) like the three blind mice from shrek, or together decided they could be salt and pepper shakers or maybe a pair of vampires ! regardless, they were very cute.

📝: when he gets sick with a fever, shimizu goes out of her way to cook him some soup, pack it up in a little bag, traverse over to his house, and sit just outside his bedroom door to talk to him through the wall so he doesn’t feel alone. normally, she doesn’t like to come over to his super fancy rich person house, but if it’s for him, it doesn’t matter.

📝: she draws things for him all the time, and so long as he doesn’t tell her honestly how bad her art is, she’ll continue to do it. hundreds of tiny pieces of papers with little birds who have eyes too big, or tanuki with rat tails, or totally unclear blobs meant to resemble people they both know ...

📝: their purikura photo booth photos are so otherworldly and obnoxious. they put EVERY sticker on, and use the sparkle pen to write out “ best friends ! ” in any space they can. when they print them out, it’s one of the only times hikaru will be able to see shimizu actually laugh out loud. she didn’t realize it in the booth, but when the photos are in her hand she thinks they’re so stupid that it’s hilarious. she loves them !

📝: face mask saturdays. that’s all i’ll say on that.

📝: obligatory childhood moment where hikaru catches a frog and shows it to shimizu, who then says, “ it kinda looks like you. ” his eyes start to get big and sad, like ... really ? i look like that ? so she gives the frog a little kiss to make him feel better.

📝: another obligatory childhood moment when shimizu first gets her glasses, and hikaru puts them on and tells her, “ wow. you’re blind. ” she never forgets this. one day, he will know too ... she is waiting for his eyes to go bad ...

📝: i think we’ve already previously established this, but i’m running out of steam on these headcanons so i’ll re-use it. after her track and field matches, hikaru gives her piggy backs and treats her to snacks. if she ever twists her ankle, he’s the first person there offering to help her up and to carry her off the course to get it looked at/wrapped up properly.

📝: she’s not as nosy as him about crushes and love lives, but of course she’s absolutely curious about what kind of person he likes. she decides to spring it on him with no warning at lunch once, asking, “ ne, hikaru-kun. what’s your ideal type ? ” and after he gives her a legitimate answer she never brings it up again. it’s nice to note and file away, though.

📝: they go strawberry picking in the summer and i will NOT budge on this. alternatively, there are these flowers in japan ( idk what they’re called ) like honeysuckle, and you can suck out sweetness from the stems. hikaru and shimizu definitely have had afternoons playing with the flowers. 

📝: one time when she was asleep hikaru drew a smiley face on her chin using her beauty mark as one of the eyes.

📝: when pokemon go first came out, they played it together religiously. shimizu always beat him in 1v1 matches, but overall hikaru has rarer pokemon than she does ...

📝: they’ve definitely stayed up too late texting each other before. shimizu manages it well and doesn’t look super tired during class, which is a good thing, but when it happens a few days in a row she realizes she needs to find the heart to tell him to stop messaging her so late so she can sleep.

📝: he used to pick her wildflowers until she told him it was bad to just pick them right out of the ground. so to cooperate, hikaru just took her out on long walks to look at pretty flowers and would tell her, “ if i could pick them, i’d get you that one and that one ! ”

📝: she regularly buys him good luck charms from temples. when she knows that he has a test or a big host club event, shimizu will get a charm and give it to him before !

📝: when they hug it’s either like half a second long or three minutes long. there is no in between. he pets the back of her hair or rubs her shoulder, and she fists his shirt in her little hands. THEY’RE ADORABLE.

headcanons about our muses ! ,

[nancydrew-onthecase]

Realizations

ao3 | 2,078 words

Nancy pulled into the driveway of the Drew residence. She had just dropped Bess and George off after an afternoon of lunch and shopping. It had been Bess's idea to shop and of course George had complained the whole time. But even with Bess's endless chatter and the muttering from George, the afternoon had been nice. Nancy had just gotten back from back to back cases so it had been good to relax for a bit.

She made her way inside, dropped her messenger bag on the couch and then continued into the kitchen going through the mail she had taken from the mailbox as she walked. Bill, advertisement, bill, letter addressed to carson drew, another advertisement. She tossed the mail onto the counter and started to make herself a snack. As she was pouring milk for the cookies she had grabbed, her text message alert went off. She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and looked at the screen.

1 new text message

She opened her phone to see that the message was from Joe Hardy.

Hey Nance! I heard you were done with your cases! How were they?

Smiling to herself she took her milk and cookies with her over to the couch. Placing her snack in front of her on the coffee table she sat down, pulled her legs up under her and began to text Joe back.

Hi joe! Ya! They were kind of exhausting tbh so I’m glad to be home. What are you up to?!

Nancy bit her bottom lip as she contemplated asking the question she really wanted to ask. How was frank. She hadn’t talked to him since they had ended things. 

It wasn’t like their break up had been terrible. About three months in they realized that the two of them were better suited for friendship. They were too much alike. But she had the feeling that Frank took the realization harder than she had. Everyone knew that Frank had always pined for Nancy long before they ever tried a relationship; even Nancy knew that. She just hoped that at some point soon they could go back to being good friends. For now, she had decided to give him some space. Between her recent case load and the fact that she didn't exactly live in the same town as Frank it had been relatively easy. She had been wondering if she should reach out to him in some way though.

She looked back at the screen of her phone and saw that Joe had responded.

Well, I'm actually in River Heights! And I thought it could be fun to meet up for some coffee?

What was Joe doing in River Heights? It wasn’t like he had a habit of randomly showing up. Nancy wondered if Frank was with him. But no. He had said “I'm” in River Heights, not we. So he must be alone.

You are??? What a nice surprise! Is Frank with you? What brings you here?

Maybe he was working on a case and needed some help? He would have said that in his text though. Joe got way too excited for cases to leave that detail out. 

No he isn’t. It’s just me. You want to meet me at the coffee shop? I’m there right now!

At this point curiosity was taking over and Nancy wanted to find out what was going on. Plus Joe was always fun to hang out with.

Ya! I’m headed there right now. See you soon!

Nancy quickly put her glass of milk in the fridge and the cookies in a bag to save for later. Then  grabbed her keys and headed to her car.

***

Joe sat at a little table by the window of the small coffee shop looking down at his mug. His coffee had grown cold. He had lost track of how long he’d been there. Maybe an hour? All he knew was that after his conversation with Frank last night he couldn’t think of anything else other than seeing Nancy. He didn’t even know how this would go or what he would say. He was a jittery ball of nerves. Flashes of his conversation with frank coming up in his mind every few minutes or so. 

"Joe you like Nancy don't you. 

"Yeah of course I do! She's great. What kind of question is that anyway?"

"No, I mean you like like her" 

Joe stared blankly at Frank. "What do you mean?"

"Joe," Frank scoffed, "I've seen the way you look at her when you think I'm not looking. Like she can do no wrong and like she is the most perfect girl in the world. But also, you never really shut up about her."

Joe sat there in stunned silence. He thought about all the times they had spent together with Nancy. They were just fun times! With a good friend! What was frank talking about. 

He rolled his eyes "Whatever that's just- I’m not- 

But suddenly he was thinking back to all those times he felt subtle twinges of jealousy every time Frank and Nancy seemed to have a connection and he felt like a third wheel. It had been even worse when Frank and Nancy were actually dating. Or how he felt excited every time they joined forces with Nancy and he got to see her again. He had always passed these feelings off as nothing and would tell himself he was only excited because Nancy was a great friend or he was only jealous because he didn’t like feeling left out. With a jolt he realized Frank was right. He had been harboring some feelings for Nancy. How could he have been so clueless?

"I- I guess you're right. I- I haven't really given it much thought but now that you say it I- w-what do I do?"

He looked up at Frank with wide eyes. He suddenly felt nervous. When was he ever nervous? About a girl? 

Frank sat for a moment, his expression thoughtful.

"I think you should tell her. You'll always wonder if you don't. At least find out if she could feel the same." 

Joe sat anxiously on the edge of his bed, while Frank sat across the room staring back at Joe letting his words sink in.

"At least one of us should have a chance with her.”

There was a hint of a small smile on Frank's face but Joe knew he was still hurting and could hear the ache in his voice.  After all, it had only been a month since Frank and Nancy had ended things. Joe realized how hard this must be for him. 

"Are you sure you're alright with that? It hasn't been that long since-" 

Frank gave him a small smile.

"Ya Joe, I'm fine with it"

Joe was startled back to reality by the scraping of chairs as the neighboring table prepared to leave. He was suddenly aware again of the butterflies that had been ever present in his stomach since his conversation with Frank. They had made it impossible for him to even eat, which he found annoying. If there was one thing in this world Joe loved, it was eating. He looked around at the locals chattering and sipping at their own coffee mugs. They all seemed so at ease and relaxed. What he would give to be in anyone else's shoes right now.

"It isn't like me to be so nervous about a girl" Joe muttered to himself.

The thing was, Nancy wasn't just some girl to Joe. She never had been, not really. From the moment they first met as teens he knew there was something different about her. Now in their mid twenties she had grown to be something really special to him. She was Nance. One of his best friends. The girl who could solve any code, cipher, riddle or puzzle thrown at her. The girl who fought for what was important to her. The greatest amateur detective and person he'd ever met. And one of his best friends.

Joe didn't know if he could do it. If he told her how he felt and she didn't reciprocate, or worse just thought of him as a brother, his heart would shatter, he was sure of it. Snap out of it. It’s going to be alright. Just then he noticed a blue roadster pull into the coffee shops parking lot from the corner of his eye. He watched as a strawberry blonde got out of the car and started to walk towards the door. Well, here goes nothing I guess.

***

Nancy walked through the doors of the coffee shop and caught sight of Joe sitting near a back window. He gave her a little wave and she started walking in his direction. As she got closer she noticed that he didn’t seem quite himself. She couldn’t put a finger on it, but something was off.

“Hey Joe!”

“Hi” he responded with a smile. That great Joe Hardy smile. 

Nancy ordered a coffee and the two friends spent a few minutes catching up. They hadn’t seen each other since around the time she and Frank had ended things. Joe asked her about her cases and Nancy filled him in. Throughout the conversation she couldn’t help but noticed that Joe seemed a little jittery; not his normal relaxed self. He kept avoiding direct eye contact with her and she noted that he hadn’t ordered any food. Which was unusual for Joe. He ordered food every time he was in a place that served it. His coffee was barely touched as well. Maybe she would pry here in a minute, but first she had to ask the question that was most tugging at her brain.

“How is Frank doing?” She had to ask. It would bother her if she didn’t.

“He’s doing okay. I think he’s still a little sad, but it’s Frank. He’ll bounce back eventually right?” Joe gave Nancy a reassuring smile. 

“Ya I suppose you’re right”, Nancy sighed. “Anyway, are you okay Joe? You seem nervous and you haven’t ordered any food, which is very unusual for you.”

Joe gave a little laugh,“Nothing get’s past you Nance." His eyes darted around the coffee shop at all the people there and then looked back at her.

“Hey can we get out of here? Maybe we can walk to that park over there?” He gestured across the street. 

“Uh ya, sure. Why not” Nancy shrugged with a small frown on her face. Something was definitely going on. He hadn’t even made any of those Joe Hardy jokes she had grown to love.

They made their way out the door and across the street. Joe led them to a bench near a small pond and they sat down. 

“Alright”, Joe started. “I didn’t just show up today for no reason. I- well I wanted to tell you something.”

His face was serious and determined and Nancy couldn’t help but notice how cute he looked. He was suddenly making eye contact with her and her stomach did a flip. All at once Nancy thought she knew what was coming, but not only that, she also realized that it was what she wanted. Feelings she didn’t realize she had began to surface all at once. People had pushed her and Frank together for years and she had given in to that, thinking it was the right thing. But was the person for her in front of her all along? Had it been a Hardy brother after all? Just not the one everyone thought it would be?

She became very aware of how close they were sitting. Their knees almost touching and their hands resting on the bench between them, mere inches apart.

“Nancy, I- I really like you... more than a friend”, he quickly corrected. He bit his lip as he anticipated what Nancy was going to say.

They sat for a moment. Nancy noticed that they had slowly moved closer in the last few minutes. Getting caught up in the moment and without thinking any more about it she closed the gap and kissed Joe. She pulled back and gave an awkward little laugh. Joe sat there, stunned, before he came back to reality and smiled one of his big Joe Hardy smiles. 

“I guess that means you like me too?” 

“Oh Joe”, Nancy said with a laugh and they both moved in for another kiss.

[diamondregime]

A personal pantheon

When it comes to magic I don’t really work with godforms, but I felt it’d be a good idea to jot these down just in case I decided to get into that. It’s a blend of ancient and modern mythology, house deities, and observation. Feel free to make use of them if you like

The Thunderbird (Moon Eagle)

God of victory, thunder, discovery, speed, freedom, engines, energy, and flight. He is difficult to reach, but always leaves an impression. Liminal spaces to do with transportations are always your best bet, such as train stations, airport terminals, and parking garages.

Element: Air

Color: Blue, silver

Favors: Black coffee/espresso, chrome, knurled drafting tools, high-test fuel, feathers

Manifestations: The Thunderbird appears as a chrome eagle, a gleaming aluminum WWII fighter, a slight but confident and worldly man in the guise of an engineer, as the scent of lightning on desert air.

Letitia

Goddess of thrift stores, yard sales, and flea markets. Patron of passionate entrepreneurs. Finder of lost items. Letitia loves to make deals, especially the kind that work out for everyone. She's generous, but might not always give you what you want, so don't be too picky. If you're in a tight spot, she'll be glad to help. If you are generous, she'll be much more able to get you what you want, in which case be specific.

Element: Fire

Color: Green, gold

Favors: Lemonade, Post-it notes, foreign coins, solar shields, bubble wrap, stamps, homemade bread.

Manifestations: A roadside fruit-seller, speaks all languages but none as her first. Nearly all bookstore cats. A drawn sun with the face of a woman, surrounded by stars.

Batty Duke (The Queen, The Sausage Creature)

God/dess of illusion, decay, beauty, despair, pleasure, and terror. Batty can be highly demanding, but if you please her then she'll return the favor. Most of the time. She can leave you feeling utter agony seemingly without cause, but always to teach you a valuable lesson.

Element: Water

Color: Red

Favors: Mezcal, red wine, glass pieces, incense and perfume, chocolate, beadwork

Manifestations: A woman in a custom leather jacket who you lock eyes with for one electric moment, and never see again. The phantom vibration when expecting a lover's text message. A coyote smoking out of an antique cigarette holder. A towering giant made of intense memories and dreams, glitching and fading the more you try to focus on any one of them.

The Stranger

God of combat, reflexes, death, magic, roads, and choice. The Stranger is at once invisible and the center of attention, vague but unforgettable. He's best reached alone, and through unconventional means. He is what you feel when something feels like it belongs in your hand.

Element: Earth

Color: Black

Favors: Whiskey, scarves, calligraphy and poetry, ammunition components, playing cards, salt

Manifestations: A man eating fruit with a knife, who teaches you something surprising. The inexplicable urge to wander off into a moonlit field. A cloaked figure with half-hidden eyes and a confident posture, who can conjure anything without you seeing the moment it appears.

Dreamweaver (Arachne, Mother of Code)

Goddess of electricity and computers, tinkering, junk, imagination and dreams, madness, textiles, and humility. She knows the underlying order to Chaos, and how it governs all things. She will lie if she deems you unworthy of knowledge.

Element: Air

Color: Grey

Favors: Tea, Gold-laced circuit boards, snacks, washers, dead media, cannabis, puzzles

Manifestations: A woman who rarely smiles, instead conveying a relaxed, expert focus. She is swathed in diaphanous fabric embroidered with shining threads conveying the information of all that exists, wires extending from her crown into a sea of still more cables and fiber optic lines. She glimmers with the light of information.

Fury (Nemesis, Void)

Goddess of the moon, the unknown, blood, justice, vengeance, rebirth and defiance. She is inescapable.

Element: 5th

Color: Black, red

Favors: Knives, masks, paper money, poisonous plants, tobacco, fangs, gloves

Manifestations: Red eyes reflected in the dark, a naked woman with cold eyes, long straight hair and an inhuman jaw, a gorgon.