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starcurtain · 6 days

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Hello! I just saw your latest post and you might have been referring to my ask if it was the one about Ratiorine's differing philosophies or of what philosophies they abide by (existentialism, absurdism, etc) then that's me! If you weren't referring to that I apologize for the confusion. Sending it off anon this time so maybe it doesn't disappear 🥲

Sorry for the ask disappearing the first time; I'm not sure what happened, and I was so sad because I had been carefully holding on to it to answer it! I'm glad you were able to resend.

I do have to say first that philosophy is not my area of expertise, so there may be much more qualified philosophy buffs out there who can answer this more accurately than me, but I'll give it a go with my personal understandings of the characters:

First, Ratio is the easier of the two I think. As many people have said, he's a good fit for existentialism. His entire shtick is basically believing in the power of the individual to improve and enrich their own life, to fight valiantly regardless of the hardships imposed by their life's circumstances, and to make themself into a better person by their own choices.

It's important to underscore that this means Ratio believes in self-determination, in the idea that people's lives are not foreordained but are actually actively shaped each day by personal decisions. Therefore, people have inherent freedom to decide the course of their own lives by accepting what they approve of, refusing to accept what they disapprove of, and harnessing their own individual power to ultimately achieve self-actualization.

Essentially, Ratio works under the impression that life is not guided by something as intangible as destiny, and no matter where you start off in life, what ultimately happens to you is within your control (or at least within the control of whoever controls you). This is likely a small part of why it grates on him so badly that he wasn't recognized by Nous, because the fact that one can dedicate everything to a goal and still not achieve that goal runs contrary to his central philosophy.

If he believes that people have the power to determine the course of their own lives, then what does it say about him, who fought so hard to do exactly as he claims even idiots can do--seize control his own fate--and yet didn't succeed? Are there some things outside of man's power? It's enough to make even a renowned doctor question himself, and Ratio decided to come out on the side of "It's a personal failing, not a flaw in my philosophy." He literally said "Skill issue" to himself.

Changing tack a tiny bit here, I think it's also important to emphasize that there is a difference between existentialism and nihilism even though these philosophies dovetail. Again, I'm not an expert in philosophy, so my understanding is very limited, but the basic idea of existentialism is that "existence comes before essence"--that is, things start as a blank slate and gain nature and meaning after the fact. We are not created by some grand design, nor is there any inherent "purpose for living." Things just exist because they exist.

This is where existentialism intersects with nihilism, at the starting point that existence is inherently meaningless. But, in my personal opinion, nihilism as a philosophy fails to move beyond that. Pure nihilism is ultimately self-defeating because it leaves us with no motivation to commit to growth. It's a philosophy antithetical to the continuation of life as we know it. Existence is meaningless and any meaning you personally derive from existence is also meaningless, so why bother attempting to derive any meaning at all? This complete apathy is the Device IX that Star Rail paints as so dangerous.

And Ratio is not this way at all. His philosophy absolutely reaffirms that life can have meaning, so long as people create that meaning for themselves. He simultaneously asserts that anything that people create is not meaningless ...which basically means that meaning itself cannot be meaningless. (If that makes any sense to anyone.)

Frankly, I would argue that this philosophy may be a core part of why Ratio has not been recognized by Nous so far, rather than simply his "being a good person." (Nous is a robotic AI super-computer, why would THEY care about the presence or lack of human empathy?) Ultimately, Ratio's central philosophy about people being capable of determining their own fates and purposes also applies to his understanding of knowledge--knowledge is not something which is inherent in certain beings from birth or limited to the purview of the "special" (geniuses), but is attainable by all people. People are not "born talented" or "born untalented," they are simply "educated" or "uneducated," with the only barrier between these categories being one's own personal willingness to change. The mundane can become the divine--if they work hard enough at it.

Thus, knowledge is not wealth to be hoarded, but a currency to be spent to enrich other members of humanity.

(By the way, completely random aside--it also surprises me that everyone relates Ratio to Alhaitham from Genshin when they literally have such a glaring fundamental discrepancy in their understanding of the concept of wisdom... But anyway, back on topic!)

Ratio may (sort of) respect the members of the Genius Society, may recognize their incredible knowledge and abilities, but at the heart of the matter lies a single all-important question: Does Ratio even really believe in "genius" as a distinction (other than as a concept to insult himself)? Does he truly believe there is barrier between brilliance and idiocy that "ordinary people" can never cross?

He speaks convincingly about geniuses being different from "the ordinary," but if his core belief is that people have the power to pull themselves up out of despair and achieve greatness through effort and self-development, rather than some form of luck or god-given talent at birth, then... do born "geniuses" even really exist? Is there really an insurmountable difference between brilliant and mundane?

If knowledge is the equalizer of all sentient beings, do we not all have at least the initial capacity to become geniuses?

I personally think this central distinction about the capacity for knowledge among all humanity is the actual deciding factor in Ratio's rejection from the Genius Society, because, at the end of the day... how do you become a member of the "Genius Society" when you fundamentally reject the distinction of "genius" as an exclusive category from the start?

Ratio wants to share knowledge and uplift everyone (even if he thinks most people are starting off at the rock bottom known as idiocy).

His mission is diametrically opposed to the concept of a "Genius Society" in the first place.

He wanted in to the cool kids club because he desperately craves validation and acceptance, but the philosophical values of the Genius Society are ultimately incompatible with his own. In short, he would have to cease to be "Veritas Ratio" to succeed in joining the geniuses.

Okay, okay, back to the original point again, and just one more note about Ratio: Even though existentialism also goes hand-in-hand with absurdism, I don't think Ratio is far enough down the philosophical rabbit hole to believe in the wider definition of absurdism. Although I think he does agree with the inherent meaninglessness of existence, I don't think he views existence itself as truly irrational and the universe as as manifestation of unknowable chaos. I think he'd at least like to imagine that there are some ontological principles and inherent laws governing the operations of reality, and I think he does believe that certain things can be predicted with the application of enough thought... He certainly seems to believe in some form of "objective truth," at the very least.

I think he'd at least like to believe the universe is semi-orderly, even if he might deep down admit this is also wishful thinking.

So, to me he reads as a strong metaphor for pure existentialism, with deliberate rejections to both nihilism's apathy and absurdism's lean toward solely subjective reality.

PHEW, this is already long and I still have a whole other character to talk about... I had more to say about this topic than I thought. Sorry for the long read!

Anyway... Aventurine.

I've seen all sorts of things thrown around for Aventurine's philosophy, and while I think he does inherit a bit of Acheron's absurdism by the end of 2.1, I actually don't think Aventurine is an absurdist, an existentialist, or a nihilist.

I think Aventurine is a struggling fatalist.

He doesn't like it. We see him actively question it, but ultimately, he does come back to the concept of destiny over and over.

First, I think it's important to draw a clear distinction between Ratio and Aventurine: Ratio's existentialism is a philosophy that technically works even in a theological vacuum. Nous doesn't have to exist for Ratio's philosophy to function. Ratio's belief in the self-determination of humanity is, in fact, somewhat opposed to belief in aeons in the first place, and only works because technically the aeons of Star Rail used to be human (or were originally human creations). It's essentially an atheist viewpoint.

But Aventurine is a religious character. Like, he's just... religious. That's a fact about him. Even though we do hear his doubts, at the end of the day, he actually believes in Gaiathra, and believing in a omniscient supernatural being that is not human in origin (is from outside the aeon system) comes with a whole set of philosophical foundations that most aeon-worshipping characters just don't have in Star Rail. (Sunday is the obvious exception here, by the way.)

Kakavasha's like the one practicing pagan in the middle of an atheist convention. Awkward.

Being more serious: Religion requires faith. Faith requires the ability to believe in things you cannot verify with empirical facts. To believe in things you can only feel, never see. The belief that a goddess is watching over you, blessing you, and guiding you requires you to also accept the idea that events in your life are not always in your own control--that some of what occurs to you is decided by powers beyond your comprehension.

In essence, faith requires belief in fate. And that leads to fatalism.

No matter how much he doesn't like it, no matter how much we see him struggle with it, Aventurine does actually seem to believe in the concept of fate. He believes that some events in life are destined to occur, that some things are outside of individuals' control, and that ultimately not everything can be changed.

This is the dead opposite of Ratio's mindset: No matter how hard we fight, how far we push ourselves... in the end, sometimes people fail. Sometimes the only answer to our endless struggles is that we die, as we were destined to, before ever achieving the greatness we sought or the futures we were promised.

As an aside, I don't think faith or religion are necessarily the only factors connecting Aventurine to this particular philosophy either. Even removing theological aspects from the conversation, his extreme focus on the gambling aesthetic suggests a strong connection to fatalism too--if not a goddess, then one's fate may as well be in the hands of luck itself, of the whims of the rolling dice--or the push and pull of "powers that be," those figures of authority in the room where it happens, who make their shady deals according to preset rules and expectations, every bet resulting in an ultimately predictable outcome.

(He keeps gambling and gambling, hoping that he'll get a different result than the one he knows is inevitable...)

This is, of course, an inherently pessimistic mindset, a perfect dark-mirror to Ratio's deep-down optimism. Fatalism puts humanity into a position of powerlessness. All hopes and dreams are given over to the goddess, by whose judgment and whims the actual events of one's life are decided. Pain and poverty are inevitable trials. Suffering and death are foreordained.

And yet Aventurine has to cling to this, as much as he doubts it, as much as he hates the idea that things in his life are beyond his power to control.

Because if fate doesn't exist... If it wasn't destiny, if the tragedies of his life weren't trials from the goddess, if things weren't supposed to go this way... Then every single thing in his life really is meaningless. Everything he suffered, everyone he loved and loss, his mother's and sister's sacrifices, the torment he went through--just sheer bad luck. All of it, completely and utterly meaningless.

How can you convince yourself to keep living, in the face of such supreme and all-encompassing Nihility?

This is the central struggle of Aventurine's character, the actual mental and emotional journey we see him undertaking from 2.0 to 2.1. He is literally on the precipice, swinging between a viewpoint that he hates--his fatalistic belief in destiny--and an entirely self-defeating philosophy--nihilism--whose only possible final outcome is suicide.

This is what his talk with Acheron at the end of 2.1 is all about. This is how she saves him. In that final cutscene, we witness Aventurine reach a mental compromise, managing to finally reconcile his necessary faith in the concept of destiny with the reality that life may truly begin meaningless--but beginning meaningless does not mean staying meaningless, and believing in destiny does not bar you from making your own choices or finding your own purpose in life.

Later on in Penacony's story, we literally see Acheron use Ratio's philosophy to reject the same nihility that crept into Aventurine's:

Acheron wards off nihility's apathy through an absurdism all her own, but one which manages to enclose both Ratio's and Aventurine's otherwise incompatible mindsets: We have no way of ever knowing for certain whether the events of our lives are fated or mere nonsense. We have no way of knowing if our choices are our own or foreordained. But we don't need to know this to find meaning and value in them. Whether life is nothing more than unpredictable chaos or a predetermined pattern of cause and effect, what matters is what you make of it.

Ultimately, I think that this post has really helped me recognize just how well Aventurine and Ratio work as philosophical foils.

They really are perfect opposites.

Aventurine's fatalism is deterministic, while Ratio's existentialism is self-deterministic. Aventurine's philosophy is inherently pessimistic; Ratio's is inherently optimistic. Ratio's philosophy operates on a core belief in the freedom of humanity to decide their own paths in life, while Aventurine hates but does ultimately believe that people aren't really in control, that even if no gods are guiding us, we can't rise above our own natures. Ratio's philosophy makes meaning from growth; Aventurine's makes meaning from loss...

And they both struggle with fundamental doubts in their own philosophies, core questions that are directly tied to their own lives. Aventurine worries that his faith might be misplaced, that destiny might not exist, and that everything he suffered might have been in pointless, empty vain. Ratio faces the crisis of recognizing that his core belief in the power of humankind to determine their own paths and make their own meaning might not actually apply to everyone--because it doesn't seem to apply to himself.

It's literally only by bridging this philosophical binary with Acheron's anti-Nihility absurdist rhetoric that we can reach some sort of healthy outcome. That's why it takes both Ratio's note and Acheron's comments to finally lead Aventurine to acceptance. Ratio probably needs a little bit of Aventurine's "If you didn't make it into the Genius Society, there's got to be a reason" mindset to finally reach some peace with his situation too.

I'm not even a philosophy expert and even I can see that there's really only one takeaway here: These two characters were totally written with each other in mind.

Aventurine and Ratio need each other on core metaphysical levels! 😂

It's so good guys. You can't see it, but I'm making chef's kisses, I promise.

#honkai star rail #aventurine #dr. ratio #ratiorine #aventio #well the implication is there at least #character analysis #honkai star rail meta #philosophy #long post is long #this took so long oops I'm posting at 2am #entirely unrelated but innenofutari #you are very based for having a Princess Tutu quote in your bio #that's the most important thing I could tag this post with #actually #also if my philosophy understanding is all wrong I'm sorry #not gonna lie I dated a philosophy major in college soooo #that should tell you everything you need to know about my feelings toward philosophy

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pompadorbz · 1 month

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FINALLY FINISHED MY QPHIL 3.0 DESIGN HOORAY (cant wait to. redesign it again in like 3 months.) (CHECK UNDER THE CUT FOR MY SILLY DESIGN NOTES!!)

I think I said this before but i so. SO BADLY wanted him to have a sleep theme since I always loved how his presence on the island was kinda up in the air. Is it a dream? Is it not? When he goes between the island and hardcore is that change really happening? Who knows.

The idea of making his usual outfit more like a housecoat was super appealing to me, so I opted for this open housecoat look with really heavy frills which were super fun to figure out, and I knew from pretty early on that I wanted to give him a quilt pattern SOMEWHERE on his design, so I thought the inside of the coat would do nicely for a sorta "default state". It also meant I could attribute meaning to the symbols and colours I used. wink nudge.

He has a more subtle angel theme, like with the mobile on his walking stick being a halo with the wing placement further emphasizing this, as well as just his generally lighter colour scheme. When I say sleep was his theme I almost more-so imagine it as like. The feeling of waking up in the morning where you're mostly refreshed but still a LITTLE drowsy. Lots of very spring-y, morning colours.

Just some other quick notes, I always really liked the mod in the server where you could have the crows perch on your shoulder and follow cuz of the lantern, so I thought it'd be fun if I made it so brian just straight up WAS the lantern. So I made him look like one of those wall outlet nightlights!! The backpack being kinda cat shaped was COMPLETELY unintentional but a very welcome result. Missa backpack is real.

As for the alternate outfits, I have a bolas one, as well as an ender king one since I deemed those two the most important. For the ender king I weirdly don't have many notes, like it's fairly straightforward (Save for the elephant in the room but now I'm gonna keep my secrets on why that's a thing). The Quilt design is supposed to be a lighter, easier-on-the-eyes version of the no texture pattern, and I imagine that all the goop and gunk on Phil is hidden under the coat. I imagine it'd look fairly similar to canon so just like. imagine it for now. Might draw it one day. MAYBE. There's some tiny additional colour symbolism but I'll hold my tongue on that and let you guys draw your own conclusions there. I WILL say, however, that instead of his theme being sleep, his theme is "nightmare" (and also kinda sleepwalking since both fit).

The Bolas design was SUPER fun to work with. For starters I wanted the three designs to be in three different states. One with the coat, one with the coat reversed, and one without the coat entirely. Since I wanted to do the checker pattern thing with the possession design, having the sleeveless bolas design worked really well for the shape I landed on, even if it wasn't conventional. and SPEAKING of non-conventional design choices, I decided to go against the usual plague doctor + gas mask fusion design. Which might be controversial... But god. The moment I thought of his mask being a falconry hood, the idea just wouldn't leave my mind. Because of this, the full mask is kinda separated into two parts. The eye mask which kinda also mirrors his usual sleep mask, and the gas mask itself (I kept it in a beak shape since it'd feel odd if i made it any other shape for phil, lol). When designing the whole thing I kept thinking about more apocalypse setting clothing. Like mad max. Or the one gag from that one spongebob movie. Lots of leather. And of course, to match the other sleep themes, the Bolas outfit's theme is "fever dream", although its a bit more subtle. It's easily the weirdest design, The pops of green were simultaneously in reference to the friendship emerald... As well as... Well, the green chain right below the chain on the sickness themed design was probably the most tasteful way I could've chosen to get across vomit without it being too on the nose. (also sidenote, I had a few friends compare bolas phil to... a fly. Which wasn't intentional but it's kinda funny that the guy designed after fever dreams looks a little bit like a bug.) Ok thats it for design commentary I'm gonna go to bedge nyow.

#syd spiels qsmp #my art #qsmp #syd's art #q!philza #philza #qsmp ender king #im so sleepy guys i gotta be up early tomorrow

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written-in-the-stars3 · 4 months

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Before Aventurine, it was safe to say that Ratio’s life was not as hectic. He did as he pleased, whether it was working on his current research or simply reading in the bath— his routine revolved around no other than himself.

Now, things were different and out of routine. Ratio was not one who really appreciated being out of routine, so it was safe to say that it was an adjustment. He had gotten used to it being just himself in his apartment, now there was a whole other person; half of his wardrobe was now designated to his lover’s rather colorful attire. Aventurine knew no boundaries either, the blonde was far too quick to criticize his taste in clothes once he had moved in and replaced them with outfits that were “more fitting for a doctor”. Whatever that meant.

Aventurine tested his patience as well— oh, how he loved to test his patience. Whether it was messing with his slides which his students were quick to take notice of. Luckily they all respected (or feared) him enough to not linger on the jokes, however, it didn’t make it any less annoying. Once Aventurine even changed his laptop background to a picture of the two which Ratio hadn’t noticed until he projected his screen for his students to see— it was a decent picture at most, the two comfortable on their couch, Ratio was reading a book while Aventurine leaned against him and took a picture. He rather liked the picture. But it wasn’t for his students' eyes to see!

No matter how many times Ratio warned him to not call or text him during class, Aventurine always did the opposite, insisting that he missed his boyfriend and was eagerly awaiting his return. Ratio wasn’t sure if he was serious or simply just choosing to annoy him by doing exactly what he told him not to. But, whenever Ratio would come home, he would find Aventurine meeting him at the front door, greeting him with a kiss and a “welcome home, Veritas.”

Before Ratio would be met with a hauntingly quiet apartment. Now, there was a whole person awaiting his arrival and asking about his day. Ratio was one who appreciated a nice soak in the bath after work— Aventurine always had one ready for him. “I got some new bath salts that I think you might like. Let me know what you think!” A simple bubble bath was sufficient, but Ratio could not deny that he rather enjoyed the extra little additions… and he appreciated having a companion to enjoy a bath with.

They would rest against each other, not many words spoken as they quietly soaked in the warm water. Every so often Aventurine would ask about Ratio’s day, or what he wished to do in the evening. Afterwards, they would help each other dry off— not that Ratio required the assistance but Aventurine always insisted that they help each other.

After a bath and dinner, Ratio would always require some time to catch up on his research or grade his student’s assignments. That was usually when he would get some alone time in his office while Aventurine caught up with his own work. His office still remained his space, but sometimes he would find little surprises whenever he would walk in.

“Where did these flowers come from?”

Aventurine peered through the door to see Ratio adjusting the vase of assorted flowers on his desk. “I picked some up for you this afternoon. I figured your office could use a little splash of color. Do you like them?”

“Well… they certainly aren’t atrocious,” no one had ever gotten him flowers before— no one ever really cared enough to think about the little things until this gambler weaseled his way into his life.

“Geez, I’m glad you like them,” Aventurine chuckled and turned around to return back to his work, only to be stopped by Ratio who pulled him back and gave him a quick kiss on his forehead.

“Thank you. I appreciate the thought,” a simple statement made the blonde light up, but it was the least he could do to express his gratitude— because no one ever cared to this extent. No one ever cared to check up on him at work. No one ever cared to stay awake and wait for him to join them in bed. No one ever cared for simply wanting to be with him.

Before Aventurine, it was safe to say that Ratio’s life was not as hectic. But without a doubt, Aventurine brought colors into his life, colors he never knew existed until now.

#honkai star rail #hsr #aventurine #dr ratio #ratiorine #veritas ratio #aventio #fluff #relationship analysis #drabble #writing commissions #writing comms open #commissions open

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lukasdoodles · 20 days

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Sometimes i wonder if anyone remembers my old zombie apocalypse au that i havent written for since 2020 lol--

ANYWAY i think abt it all the time and so decided to redesign some of the main characters with their casual wear. There's a big story and info with it but idk if i'll ever write it out or whatever. If you wanna know more then feel free to shoot me an ask and I may just ramble abt it hehe

Anyway design notes below!

Starting with Olivia, she's an engineer and medic, so she has alternate outfits for those jobs, but for her casual look she prefers to cover up (make it harder for the zombies to bite through). I still wanted to make her outfit resemble her canon design, so i stuck with the red shirt/white sleeves, and kept her beanie of course. She's cut her hair as well, but keeps some dangly strands in the front so she can twirl them as she gets anxious.

Axel's casual design also takes a lot of inspiration from his canon design, he's a scout and engineer alongside Olivia, doing most of the heavy lifting and helping with documentation. I felt like the plaid overshirt fit him better than his canon design, don't have much info for him past that lol

Aiden's design is supposed to be more military-ish, as in the story he takes on the role of a leader for the cast. There's more lore behind that, but he's always prepared for the worst. His leather jacket is his dad's, so is his gun and knife (not pictured). Aiden is strong and cold, he doesn't want to get attached to people who might die or betray him. Thankfully, that hasn't happened. Yet.

Lukas's design is more casual and laid back. He occasionally scouts for the group, but his big role is being a mediator and organizer. He takes on a secondary leader role, helping Aiden with the hard decisions more than anything. Aiden keeps telling him to cut his hair too- but Lukas likes the mullet. He'll keep liking it until a zombie yanks on it, at the least.

Radar was a doctor- a pharmacist- a scientist? The others aren't sure. He showed up at their camp with a car full of supplies, wearing a doctor's coat and sporting a worn nametag. He won't tell them what he used to do, but he keeps the stained coat in hopes it might save him one day. He's also got hearing aids in this au he's hoh. That comes into play eventually hehe

Jesse is the main character out of the group of Mc's. He's...fine.

#mcsm #mcsm au #mcsm zombie apocalypse au #mcsm zombie au #mcsm home sweet home #Thats the name of my old fic for it/what i call the au lol #mcsm jesse #mcsm radar #mcsm lukas #mcsm aiden #mcsm axel #mcsm olivia #pls send me asks abt this au i want an excuse to talk abt it LOL

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maplleaf · 1 year

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《 The Prettiest of Them All 》

Giving them a 'strange' outfit after losing a bet

(Dainsleif, Alhaitham, Shenhe)

{☆} Dainsleif: Maid Outfit

- he is... an old man

- Dain knows that certain things are romanticized nowadays, but he doesn't really get why you want to see him in a maid outfit.

- though, seeing how it's you who requested it, he couldn't help but say yes. He did lose the bet after all.

- plus the stars that seemed to have formed in your eyes from excitement rivals the stars on his cape so... can he really just deny the request?

- for the entirety of the day, which he lends to you fully to fulfill the bet, he acted like a maid that he's used to seeing back in Khaenri'ah.

- old man even promised he'll do everything you ask him to for the entire day.

- by that he meant everything.

"Dain, honey, this isn't really necessary."

Dainsleif shook his head as he stood beside you, holding a tray he found in one of your cabinets. His posture is straight, the short frilly skirt and stockings he's using doing wonders to your imagination.

"You requested a maid outfit, it would be fitting for me to act like this," he stated. Yes, you did do that, but it was to see him in a cute maid outfit; not being taken care of like fragile glass for the whole day.

The twilight sword, who picked up a dustsweeper for a weapon now, cooked you a delicious meal for breakfast this morning; now he's insisting that he do the same for lunch. It's comforting being cared for by your lover, but you barely had to lift a finger the entire day, Dainsleif even helped you wear your own clothes!

You sighed, it's still worth it seeing Dainsleif in this outfit; the frilly skirt didn't cover anything below his knees and an adorable headband he's wearing. Yet, you feel guilty for making your lover act as a maid than a lover, even if it's because of a bet.

Placing a hand on top of Dainsleif's as he placed down the tray. "You said you'll do anything as my maid, right?"

Dainsleif's starry eyes looked back at yours, feeling your thumb caressing his rough hand. "Then I request you to have lunch with me as a lover," your free hand pulled the chair not so far away so it'll be right next to you.

Dainsleif chuckled, a smile formed onto his face. He didn't mind this whole maid thing, truly. Even if the design of the maid outfit isn't something he's used to seeing, he didn't mind taking care of you for the day; it's one of the ways to show his love for you after all.

The twilight maid stood straight as he finished preparing your meal, then sat down on the chair you offered. You couldn't help but smile as you took a spoonful of the food and directing it to Dainsleif's mouth.

"Open up, love," the blonde does as he's told, tasting the food he made himself. "Good isn't it," you said, or more like stated. Dainsleif's methods of cooking are simple for the sake of ease when adventuring, yet the results are always a delight.

"It's good."

{◇} Alhaitham: Nurse Outfit

- He was... not happy with this.

- He's not into wearing different outfits for fun, choosing to wear the same style of clothes everyday. But he knows what this is.

- Humiliating, to say the least, but he's not backing down from his words; honestly, losing to you in a bet is surprisingly more shocking than wearing the fontaine-like nurse outfit.

- a nurse? You could've chose a doctor and he would be happier. The outfit didn't even looked like an actual nurse outfit, choosing the version with a tight skirt, pastel green color, and a hat with the red plus sign signifying a hospital

- he sighed and agreed on wearing it, but only for half an hour and no pictures.

"You're stranger than a hydro slime that prefer being in the desert."

"Shh, nurses don't insult their patients, 'haitham." Alhaitham scoffed as he continued reading the words on his book, "you're not even a patient."

Closing the page to go to the next one, you leaned on his broad shoulders. "I might be one if my heart gets broken by that attitude," it was a joke, clearly. Alhaitham knew you didn't mind his distant persona, you were able to be in a long-lasting relationship with him after all.

The acting grand sage is currently sitting on your lap, a book in his hand and your hand holding onto the page waiting for him to finish his reading. His legs are cross legged, the tight skirt had preferred it and he wasn't in the mood to have his legs spread out.

Alhaitham sighd as he tapped on your hand, a signal for him to go to the next page. "Why did you even want me to wear the outfit if we could do this without one?" Alhaitham asked, or more like demanded an answer to.

Your hand slowly turned to the next page before idling on the page beside the one he's reading. "You look cute with this," you complimented, "well, cuter than usual."

The last sentence came with a chuckle, one that made Alhaitham's cold heart melt into a puddle, even if his blank expression says otherwise.

Meanwhile due to the lenght of the skirt, Alhaitham felt a particularly cold wind hits his legs and almost made him shudder, perhaps it was a bad idea having your kitchen window open.

It's not uncomfortable per se, but seeing as he's so used to using long pants, his body simply doesn't feel familiar to it. Noticing the slight shake, you began to worry.

It's been getting colder slightly in Sumeru. The rain season started and the bright and warm sun had rarely hit the city nowadays, stranding the place of the usual warmth.

Not wanting Alhaitham to get another cold wind hitting him your legs starts to shift and your hand getting him off your lap. "Hold on, I'll get a jacket for you," a push on your chest made you fall back to the couch. It's strangely attractive how strong Alhaitham's arms are.

"You made me wear this ridiculous outfit yet leaving at the same time? Since when were you this rude," Alhaitham scoffed, placing your hand back to the pages and the same position as before. The acting grand master smirked at your dumbfounded and reddening face, how couldn't he?

Coughing to relief some embarassment, your hand had slightly gripped the paper stronger than before. "Right, of course. I couldn't just leave my favorite nurse alone," you tried to regain some control back.

The two of you continued on reading after that, for every page that Alhaitham finished your fingers would delicately move on to the next page.

By all mean, Alhaitham finds it strange how you feel attracted to an outfit. Though seeing as he's the only one you want to see in this oufit, he'll count it as a win of his own.

{♤} Shenhe: Bunnygirl + Blazer overlay

- "Oh, Yelan showed me this once." "what."

- Much like Dainsleif, she doesn't really get it. Though, it is her first time wearing a blazer as an overlay for the outfit, you gave it to her saying "This'll make you look cuter than ever."

- the addition of a headband with bunny ears made her slightly confused but brushed it off since you looked happy when she wore it.

- the entire day, the two of you played card games and showed Shenhe some recent Fontaine inventions.

- It was a rather relaxing day, even if she's wearing a strange bunnygirl outfit you found being sold by a travelling fashion designer. Shenhe doesn't mind and you almost melted at the cuteness of your lover.

- the only complaints she had about the outfit is that you can't place your head on top of hers due to the headband.

Your heart is close to melting into a pile of goo as Shenhe looks at you with a neutral gaze. This isn't the first time you wanted her to wear something, though usually it's matching clothes you have for eachother.

"Just one more thing," you mumbled, taking the bunny eared headband from the counter. Shenhe leaned against your hand to match your height. Backing up from your girlfriend, you gazed at her happily.

A balance between elegance and cuteness, the blazer did well making her look sophisticated. This moment just couldn't be wasted, not even a second! You started to search for something you bought another Fontaine invention.

Shenhe turned her head to look at your direction. Though the woman perked up in curiosity as she saw you held up a box whilst yelling 'got it!'

Shenhe watches as you took a device from the box, her own curiosity beating her as she read the words on it.

"A memory preserving box of wonders," Shenhe read on the side. There was an influx of Fontaine inventors coming to Liyue for the Lantern Rite festival. In that time, you had the dazzling opportunity to buy certain clothing made by their fashion designers and some inventions they sold.

"It can take and develop a picture at real time, the result would be similair to the one you usually carry around," you answered, head on her head before realizing it's an uncomfortable position and backing away. Shenhe flinches as you placed your head beside her ear instead.

"Now smile to the camera, love," you told her, a flash of light taking over both of your eyesight as the picture was slowly being developed within the machine of the kamera.

You were still behind Shenhe, waiting for the results. Though the adepti's student turned her body around to see you on an eye-to-eye level. She carefully took off the headband and placed it on your head instead.

"Shenhe, what's wrong?" you gave a nervous laugh, fearing the headband or the outfit might've made her uncomfortable. Shenhe's beautiful eyes looked back at yours with no hint of being flustered by the distance between you.

"You didn't place your head on mine because of it, I don't like it," she admits, making you confused on wether to sigh from relief or chuckle at her. The picture from the kamera slowly developed, colors emitting from the once darkened frame.

Now with your head on top of hers, both of you appreciated at the picture. Shenhe even kept it alongside the picture she has of her old home, carrying it around everyday as a reminder of you.

#genshin impact #genshin x male reader #genshin x reader #genshin x gn reader #genshin #alhaitham x reader #dainsleif x reader #dainsleif #shenhe #shenhe x reader #shenhe x male reader #shenhe x gn reader #alhaitham #alhaitham x male reader #dainsleif x male reader #i think i made alhaitham ooc a bit #genshin headcanon #drabble #☆works

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splitster · 1 year

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answering more POM WRAITH au/Pingo asks!!

featuring: biology questions, creatures, dingo (unfortunately), and more!! check it out ↓↓

she does need sleep! she doesn't need to sleep as often as people, but she's a little wraith and she needs to snooze every like... i dunno. three days? sure, let's go with that.

although in the first few days of her being on PNF404, i could see her getting bored one night and poking around her crewmate's rooms to see what they're doing (spoilers: they're all just sleeping). in the morning after, dingo talks about a very bizarre dream he had with a specter watching him sleep! everyone dismisses it as the ranger having some weird sleep paralysis, but pom's sweating at the table thinking about how she should be way more careful if she does that again.

this ask did inspire me though, i'll probably make more art explaining how she works sometime later hehe...

that'd be scary... although, if there's anyone incentivized to wraithify olimar, it'd probably be the plasm wraith! that golden goo is really fond of him, and they'd love to make olimar just like them

WAHH THANK YOU!!! if they ever dated and got married they'd be able to save on a dress! hehe

she might look kinda scary but she's a sweetheart!! pom would genuinely struggle to make herself hurt humans. if there's a beast threatening her crew though -- that thing is mince meat!!

WAAAHHH THANK YOU!! it's definitely a challenge to make it fit with the other wraiths but still be unique... it was fun to design though!!

IM SORRY i didn't get to your ask before i actually posted the full wraith design... there she is though!! HILAHERHLIAEERH

yes!! he's the first one to discover her secret. it'd probably happen on accident out on the field pretty early on when pom is forced to defend herself with no pikmin, but it's no difference to Oatchi -- pom is pom! he'd bark and give her helmet a lick, and when pom realizes her rescue pup isn't scared of her it's quite the relief...

i have art of oatchi and wraith pom i'll be posting later!!

WAHHH... this is cute i like this hehe!! dingo sees those striking X eyes and still falls in love!! GRRRR i must draw more pingo now...

AUGH.... OK!! more pingo on the way then boss 🫡 (i do appreciate it though lmao)

she doesn't need to eat human food, but she does need to consume living creatures for biomass! human food is definitely delicious and she very much enjoys things like chocolate or hot coco, but to sustain her form and keep up energy she has to go for creatures

i'll probably make art for this later to explain better, but it is kinda like an amoeba -- after killing something, she can cover it and dissolve it with her goo. easy peasy!

Louie: You're a wraith? I thought you were just weird like me Pom: ... Louie: ... Can you go get creatures for me

pom is trying her best to understand human social cues and etiquette but it's a struggle sometimes!

i took psychic damage from this ask thank you for penis ringo💖

YES!!!!!!!!! there are so, so many ways that could happen and each one is hilarious... i've written out a few different scenarios, i should pick one to draw out... it'd be funny if dingo learns her secret but decides to trust her and keep it safe. but he's, you know. dingo. he's not good at lying, especially to his crewmates (and especially to his actual childhood friend of a doctor who was already very suspicious of the new blood!)

of COURSE i'm very abnormal about those two.... actually if y'all have scenarios you wanna see with those two, send more asks and i'll probably end up drawing them lol

that's actually a really good question! i haven't thought too much about how her full wraith would visually change, but if she ate enough and got stronger i imagine she'd finally be as big as the other two. she'd probably gain more wraithy abilities and attacks! trying to take down a powered up full wraith pom would be a very difficult fight, even for those with the best dandori skills and a full squad of pikmin

Pom: I can't let anyone find out my secret... Shepherd: I can't let anyone find out my secret... Collin: I can't let anyone find out my secret... Dingo: I can't let anyone find out my secret... Yonny: this is gonna be fun Bernard: (doesn't care if people find out) Russ: (doesn't care if people find out) Oatchi: bark

#modpost #modask #pom wraith au #thank you all for the asks!!#i'm gonna try to keep the asks in batches like these #i still have a bunch to get to #pingo

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scarletsaphire · 19 days

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For his entire nine years of life, Danny has had incredible dreams. Featured in every one is a patch of stars, staying just in the corner of his vision, just out of reach. It is only after his first nightmare that the stars appear as what they truly are; a ghost, here to make a deal.

This is my Big Boy fic I've been planning for over a year. I hope you guys enjoy.

Danny had always dreamed of stars. It wasn't necessarily that he always dreamed of the stars, but they were always there. Sometimes he'd dream that he was a pirate, fighting glowing green sea creatures that came up from the bottom of the ocean, tentacles grappling on the sides of his pirate ship. Sometimes he would dream of a world made entirely of smudges of color, and he had to save it from the evil people who wanted to erase it all. Sometimes he would dream of exploring other planets, of the taste of space dust on his tongue and a ground that made him bounce like a trampoline. Danny dreamed a lot of things, but no matter what he dreamed about, the stars were always there, just out of reach. They were different then the ones that appeared in the sky; they seemed to flow and ripple like water, and they always seemed to move to the corner of his vision no matter how hard he tried to see them.

For a while, Danny tried to catch the stars. Every time he got close, he'd wake up. But his parents had taught him that Fentons don't give up, and Danny wouldn't be the one to break that streak. So he swore to himself, after what felt like the millionth time waking up in the dead of night, that he'd get to hold those stars someday, even if he needed to go to space to get them. He spent every night that summer trying to catch them, every night waking up disappointed and going through the next day so tired his mom brought him to the doctor's for a check up.

Danny didn't try and catch the stars the night before third grade. In between teaching Danny the correct way to weld, his dad had talked all about how he'd need all his energy to learn the new things that tomorrow would bring. His mom had stolen Danny away to show him the new and improved Fenton Folders she'd finished for him, designed to be able to hold not only the papers for his class, but any textbooks or other supplies he might need as well. They were bulky, and the combination of metal and mesh wasn't the prettiest, but Danny loved them; he'd helped her make them, after all. Jazz had told him while helping him pack that he needed to prepare himself.

"Third grade is where the real school starts," she said while trying to fit his pack of #2 pencils in the backpack without disrupting the spots she'd already put his other supplies. "I can help you prepare physically, because I'm the best big sister ever, but you've gotta make sure you're prepared mentally. It's a lot of responsibility."

"I don't know what that means," Danny admitted.

Jazz grinned at him, showing off the gap in her teeth. "Yeah, well you're gonna. That's something third grade will teach you."

Danny did not pout. He was nine now, which was basically double digits. He was above pouting. "Why don't you just tell me now?"

Jazz zipped up the backpack and left it on the hook next to the front door. "I can't do that, it's against the laws of third grade. Everyone has to go through a ritual at the start, to make sure they're fit to be a third grader."

Danny narrowed his eyes. "You're lying."

"Would I ever lie to you?"

"Yes."

Jazz stuck her tongue out at him, and Danny did it right back. "I'm surprised Mom and Dad didn't tell you about the third grade ritual. What else do you think they've been having us do those martial arts classes for?"

"Ghost fighting?" Danny said slowly.

"And who says the challenge isn't a ghost?" Jazz was smiling at him in the same way she had when she said she didn't hide his cookies on the top shelf.

"You're definitely lying."

Jazz shrugged and turned around towards the stairs. "Believe what you want. I just know that if I was you, I would listen to your big sister who’s already beaten the ghosts. You don't want to fight them by yourself, do you?" With that she went upstairs, leaving Danny by himself. Jazz was lying to him. She had to be. But...

Danny grabbed one of the half finished inventions laying on the end table in the living room and slipped it into the side pocket of his backpack. It was better safe than sorry.

That morning Danny woke well-rested, having slept better than he had all summer. He’d had a dream about constructing fish bowls out of clouds, wringing the water from them like you would a towel. It had been a good dream, even if the stars still hung in the corner of his vision, taunting him. It would have been a pleasant way to wake up, if the first thing he was aware of wasn't the bellowing of his name from the doorway.

"Danno!" Jack repeated at a volume that only made his ears ring a little bit. "Hurry up kiddo, you're gonna be late!"

Danny blinked the sleep out of his eyes as he tried to interpret the numbers on his clock. 7:10. "Dad, you were supposed to wake me up at 6:20!" Danny yelled, jumping out of his bed, blankets falling in a twisted knot to the floor. "The bus is going to be here in 10 minutes!"

"Sorry, son," Jack said. "You don't have to worry about the bus, your old man can drive you."

"No, I'm sure I can catch the bus."

---

Danny walked out of the GAV at precisely 7:24, with only his nine years of experience keeping him from vomiting. He'd missed the bus by thirty seconds at most.

"You've got this, kiddo! Face those challenges head on!" Jack called from the open window. "Love you, good luck!"

Danny waved back, and Jack drove away. His mention of challenges reminded him of Jazz's words yesterday. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to take the unfinished device with him to school; his mom had ended up grabbing it to work on, and with how late he'd woken up, he didn't have a chance to grab a new one. That was okay. Jazz was just kidding. Probably. He tightened his grip on his backpack straps and made his way into the school yard.

Danny's plan was to find Tucker. His parents hadn't let him hang out the past week. They'd said something about summer reading stuff that Tucker still hadn't done, and that he was grounded until he got it finished or school started back up. It was completely unfair, and it meant that the couple minutes before they had to go inside were crucial for catching up about all the exciting things that they had done since the last time they'd hung out. Unfortunately, the first person Danny found was not Tucker. It was Dash.

"Are your parents still adding weapons to that hunk of junk you call a car?" he called out from his spot on the stairs. Dash was mean and a bully, and he had been since kindergarten, but he wasn't persistent. Danny had learned early on that the best thing to do was ignore him and walk away, ideally into the sight of a teacher. Danny tried to do this now, but Dash got up and started to follow him. "What are you running away from? Gonna go hunt down some ghosts to talk to? It’s not like any of us want to."

Danny's grip tightened around the straps of his backpack. "Leave me alone Dash."

"What are you gonna do if I don't?" Dash spat. Danny's next step was halted by Dash's grip on his backpack, forcing him to stumble backwards to keep from falling. "Are you gonna tell your weirdo parents? You'd probably have to lie to get them to care."

Danny spun to face Dash, the force of his twist breaking the taller boy’s grasp. Despite their height difference, Danny didn't back down.

"Stop it," he spat.

Dash sneered. "Oh, I'm so scared." He leaned down until Danny could smell his breath, warm and gross on his face. "Your whole family is a joke, and everyone knows it. You're no different."

There were a number of things that happened in those few seconds. The first was that Danny realized that, whether intentional or not, Jazz had been right about needing to fight a monster. He wouldn't tell her that, of course. She was already insufferable.

The second was that Danny's hand had let go of his backpack, clenched into a fist, and flew at Dash's jaw with all the speed and might Danny's nine year old body could muster.

The third thing, which was by far the worst, was the door to the school yard flying open only a few feet from where Dash and Danny stood. This meant that the teacher got front row seats to Dash's tooth flying out of his mouth.

"Daniel James Fenton!" she called, but her voice sounded distant under the rush of Danny's blood in his ears and Dash's blubbering. He only fully processed that his name had been said when he felt her grab his arm. "Just what do you think you are doing?"

Danny flushed red from embarrassment as he realized that the teacher's yelling had attracted the attention of the whole school yard. "He started it," he mumbled under his breath.

"I don't care who started it, young man, that's no excuse for violence!" she snapped. "I'm going to need to call your parents, do you understand that? In all my years of teaching, I've never had to call anyone about something like this so early in the school year." She moved towards the building, Danny dragging along behind her.

She stopped briefly near the door to point at a student Danny didn't recognize; a 5th grader, by the looks of it. "Would you be a dear and escort Dash to the nurse’s office?" The student nodded.

The teacher led Danny through the halls of the school to the main office. "You are going to sit right here," she said to Danny, leading him to one of the waiting chairs, "-and you aren't going to move a single muscle, do you understand? I'm going to talk to the principal, and then she is going to talk to you." Danny nodded, and the woman disappeared behind the adjacent door.

Danny would not cry. He wanted to, and his eyes burnt with hot, angry tears, but he did not cry. He was nine. That was almost double digits, and someone who is double digits doesn't cry. Danny focused on one spot on the worn, dirty, carpeted floors, trying to get the heat of his anger to burn a hole through it.

It didn't work. Danny cried quietly.

When the teacher walked back into the room, he wiped away his tears as quickly and discreetly as he could before getting out of his chair and following her into the principal's office. Danny had seen Principal Caulfield a couple of times before; she would give announcements in the cafeteria sometimes, and would lead fire drills. He'd never been called to her office before. He'd never wanted to.

She smiled at him warmly, a stark contrast to the teacher's steely gaze he could still feel burrowing into the back of his head like knives. "Hello, Daniel. I assume Mrs. Robertson explained why you're here." Danny nodded. "Mrs. Robertson explained what happened to me, but I want to hear it from your perspective. Can you do that for me?"

Danny shifted from foot to foot, not meeting Principal Caulfield's eyes. "She can leave, if that would make you more comfortable." Principal Caulfield nodded to her, and Mrs. Robertson took her leave.

"Dash was making fun of my family," Danny mumbled. "I tried to walk away, but he grabbed me and wouldn't let me go."

Principal Caulfield nodded. "So you decided to hit him?"

Danny nodded.

"Why don't you take a seat?" Slowly, Danny sat down in the chair opposite of hers. "We try very hard to teach our students that violence isn't the answer here, and it never is. You should've called for a teacher, or tried to settle the issue with words. Do you understand that?"

Danny nodded again.

"Now, I'm going to call your parents. I'm going to have a long discussion with, and you will be sent home early. I know that the first day of school has a lot of fun activities, and with your behavior today, I think a fair punishment is missing out on them. If this happens again, however, you will be in far more trouble. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes ma'am," Danny said. He focused on keeping his voice from wobbling.

"Good. Now, let me see here..." Principal Caulfield stood up and made her way over to her filing cabinet, rifling through one of the drawers and pulling out a folder with a label that read "D. J. Fenton." She flipped through it, traced her finger down one of the pages, and started dialing a number on the phone. Just as Danny had expected, it went to voicemail. A voicemail that was completely full.

Principal Caulfield frowned down at the phone. She looked through the file again, before looking up at Danny. "Are your parents busy right now?"

"My mom's down in the lab," he said. "If Dad's home by now, he's down there with her. If not, he's in the car."

Her face twisted in confusion, probably trying to figure out what Danny meant by lab, before it settled on an expression Danny had become very familiar with over the years. It was the mixed horror and understanding that most adults got when they realized that those two jumpsuit-wearing ghost hunting weirdos did in fact have children, and one of them was standing in front of them. Danny braced himself for the conversation that almost always followed, even as Principal Caulfield's expression faded into a professional veneer of kindness.

"I didn't realize that your parents had a laboratory in your house," she said. "What type of things do they do in the lab?"

"They build things, mostly," Danny said. That was a major simplification; even though Danny wasn't allowed to help with a lot of the things they did, he helped with enough to know a lot more than that they just 'built things.' More importantly, he knew that Principal Caulfield wasn't actually interested in hearing about his parents’ work, no matter how interesting it truly was. She was poking and prodding around the house to make sure Danny and Jazz were safe. He'd gone through it many times. It was never a pleasant conversation but it didn't normally bother Danny. "They don't let me or my sister into the lab unsupervised, they have all the proper PPE for both themselves and us, and anything they think will hurt us, or that they don't know whether it will or not is locked away where we can't get it," Danny recited.

Slowly, Principal Caulfield nodded. "It sounds like that's something you've practiced."

Danny shrugged. "I just get asked things like that a lot."

"Daniel." Her voice was hard. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Danny," she said, and her voice softer this time. She reached her hands out on her desk and folded them over each other. "You understand that that's not normal right? That you shouldn’t be in a house where your safety is questioned by everyone?"

That was also something he heard a lot. It wasn't like any of them were wrong. His parents weren't normal, and he knew that; what did it matter that everyone else knew that too? But Dash's words from before whirled in his head, mixing with Principal Caulfield's concern and the remaining whispers of the dozens of other people who'd said it. Danny bit his tongue to keep from either crying or shouting. He wasn't sure which was more likely.

It took a few seconds before he managed to get out the response he wanted. "I am safe."

Principal Caulfield sighed. "Do you have any other way to get in contact with your parents?" Danny shook his head, and she pursed her lips. "Ok. Do they let you walk home alone?" Danny nodded. "Since I'm not going to be able to get in contact with them, what we're going to do instead is you're going to walk home. Straight home, no detours. You’re going to give them a letter explaining the whole situation, and then they are going to call me back. If I don't get a call back from them by -" she glanced at the clock on the wall next to her "- by nine o'clock, you are going to be in a lot more trouble. Do you understand?" Danny nodded again.

The next few minutes passed in tense silence as Principal Caulfield wrote out the note for Danny's parents. Finally, she handed the paper over to Danny. "You're free to leave." Danny shoved the note into his backpack and stood up.

Just as he was about to walk out of the room, she spoke again. "Daniel?" He turned back to look at her. "Let's make sure this doesn't happen again, ok?"

All he could do was nod.

---

It was almost 8:30 by the time he walked through the front door, his face red and puffy from anger, tears, and the rising August heat. As he had guessed, the sounds of clinking metal echoed up from the lab. He threw his backpack on the couch, and crouched to untie his shoes. He needed to gather his bravery to face his parents. He'd gotten in trouble in school before; even Jazz had gotten in trouble a couple of times, and she was as goody two shoes as they got. It was just that most of the time when he got in trouble, it was for something that his parents were more lenient about; they didn't care about him missing homework assignments when he had spent most of the time with them in the lab. They didn't care about him not paying attention in class because neither of them could pay attention to much of anything not related to ghosts or science; they claimed it was a Fenton Family trait.

Danny knew that they would care about this.

He took a deep breath and started down the basement stairs. "Mom? Dad?" he called out as soon as he reached the bottom, peeking his head around the corner.

"Danny? Is it three o'clock already?" Maddie said, glancing over at him in confusion.

"I could've sworn that I only just got started!" Jack said, sitting upright from where he was hunched over his workbench.

"Time sure flies when we're working," Maddie replied with a laugh.

"Um..." Danny shuffled from one foot to the other. "It's not."

"What was that sweetie?" Maddie asked.

"It's not three yet. I got sent home from school early," Danny said. He started to explain everything, the words falling out of his mouth as he talked. When he finished explaining what Principal Caulfield had said to him, he pulled out the note and held it out to his parents. They'd both moved to stand next to Danny while he was talking.

Maddie took the paper and opened it to begin reading, while Jack lowered himself to one knee to get on Danny's level. "I'm disappointed in you, son. I thought we had raised you to know better than resorting to violence."

"Unless it’s against a ghost," Maddie added quietly as she continued to read.

"Unless it’s a ghost," Jack amended. "Then your old man can show you how to shoot the sorry spook right between the eyes!" Jack bounced to his feet, pointing his hands into finger guns, and imitating the sounds of shooting and explosions. That went on until Maddie finished reading the note.

"Jack dear, you've gotten distracted again," she said, folding the note back up and slipping it into her jumpsuit pocket before turning to Danny. "What your father is trying to say is that we're proud of you for trying to stick up for us, but you should know better than to start fights."

"I'm sorry…"

"You don't have to apologize to us," Maddie said. "You need to apologize to Dash. And that's what you're going to do, right now. You're going to go up to your room and write an apology note to him, and then you are going to go right to bed. No games, no TV, no books, no toys. I think that's a fair punishment, don't you honey?"

"Sounds right to me."

"But he started it!" Danny protested.

"I don't want to hear it, young man," Maddie chided. "We can be a lot meaner about this if you make us."

Danny bit his lip. "Fine."

"Good. Now, you go upstairs, and I'll give your principal a call."

Danny and Maddie made their way out of the basement together. She stopped at the phone to wave Danny along. "And I'll be coming up to check on you soon, so don't think you can sneak out of the punishment." Danny gave a curt nod in response, not stopping his trek upstairs.

Danny sat down at his desk in his bedroom, grabbing one of his new school notebooks. He and Jazz had talked their parents into buying a bunch of stickers, and the two of them had spent an entire afternoon customizing their new school notebooks. Danny had, of course, covered his in stars, rocket ships, planets, and astronauts.

Danny’s lungs and eyes burned with anger as he realized that the very first thing he was going to have to put in his new notebooks was an apology letter to Dash, of all people. But he didn't have any of his notebooks from last year, so he didn't have much of a choice.

He flipped to the first page and lifted his pencil to start writing. The first couple of words were dark and shaky. The pencil tip snapped from the force he used. Danny let his head fall to the desk, and groaned into his arms. "Why do I have to apologize?" he complained to himself, not lifting his head from the desk. "He doesn't deserve it. He's been nothing but mean for years."

The burning feeling in his throat got more intense. Hot tears ran down his eyes onto the notebook, smearing the few words he’d managed to write.

Danny turned over and glared at the door. His mom had said that she'd come and check on him, but he had grown up with her. There was the chance that she'd make good on her word, sure, but it was far more likely that something would call her back to the lab and she'd forget all about Danny, at least until Jazz got home.

Danny didn't want to risk the offhand chance of her coming up and catching him doing something she said not to, but that didn't mean he had to write the letter. Not yet, anyway. Danny pushed his chair back from the desk with a squeak, and made his way over to his bed, flopping onto the mattress. With his pillow muffling him, Danny let the tears flow freely.

---

Danny sat in class, the teacher at the front of the room droning on about something. He wasn't paying attention. How could he, when he could feel the weight of his classmates’ stares on his shoulders? Their whispers joined together in a cacophony of noise, getting louder and louder with every passing moment until Danny couldn't even hear himself think. The sound persisted even when he covered his ears with his hands, pushing against his head until it hurt. "Please, stop," he begged. Like a switch, everyone stopped whispering. Danny opened his eyes to see the teacher from the playground standing above his desk.

"What was that, Fenton?" she said, her voice dripping with venom.

"I just..." Danny looked around at his classmates, but he couldn't focus on any of them, not under the heat of the teacher's gaze. "I wanted them to stop talking."

"How dare you interrupt their conversation!" Spittle flew from her mouth, bright green, and splattered against Danny's desk where it sizzled, chewing through the wood. He flinched back. "Apologize. To all of them. And then it's straight to the principal with you!"

"But I didn't do anything!" Danny protested.

"And you're talking back? If you're ever allowed back in this school again, you can apologize then. But I think the principal might put a stop to that."

Danny tried to stand up, but his legs were glued to the chair. He strained against the force holding him down until his muscles burned, but no matter what he did, he couldn't move.

"What do you think you're doing, young man?" The teacher said, and she bared her glistening fangs at him. "You are about to be in a world of trouble!"

"What, are you too weak to get out of your chair, Fenturd?" Dash's voice overlapped the teacher’s. "Or is a ghost holding you down? We gonna have to call your crazy parents?"

They didn’t stop talking even as the rest of the class started again, an echoing cacophony of every horrible thing Danny had ever heard about him and his parents and his sister and his house and everything. All he could do was struggle against the chair even as his legs burned from the effort and his head pounded and his eyes leaked hot tears and-

Danny sat upright in his bed, gasping for air. His school clothes, which he had fallen asleep in, stuck to the skin, and the blanket he'd been sleeping on top of was soaked with cold sweat. He grabbed at his chest, trying to slow down the frantic beating of his heart.

"It was just a dream," he said to himself, still breathless. "It wasn't real."

Danny'd had nightmares before, but they'd always been full of fantastical beasts and monsters and ghosts. He’d never felt trapped; any time that he'd get too scared, he'd reach to the stars. Their ever-present shimmering would block out whatever terrors plagued his mind, and he'd wake up calm.

The stars weren’t there to save him this time, and that was almost scarier than the nightmare had been.

---

"Did you get the note finished like I asked?" Maddie asked over their Chinese takeout. (Surprisingly, Jack had tried to cook dinner. Emphasis on the tried. He claimed that the hot dogs started the fire in the kitchen, but they had been peaceful since the Great Toaster War, so Danny was pretty sure that Jack just burned the water he'd been boiling. And the stove he'd been boiling it on.)

"Mhm," Danny answered around his mouthful of pork fried rice. He hadn't even started the letter. Every time he did, the cutting words of his dream flooded his mind. It wasn't like she'd check it anyway.

"Good. Make sure to give it to him tomorrow when you go back to school," she said.

"I still can't believe you got into a fight!" Jazz said. "I didn't get into any fights when I was your age."

"You're only two years older than me," Danny grumbled, shoveling another bite into his mouth.

"And those two years make quite the difference, obviously," she replied. She twirled the noodle around her fork. "I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that-"

Danny cut her off before she could get started. "Can I be excused?"

Maddie and Jack shared a look before Maddie nodded. "Don’t forget you’re still grounded, mister!" Jack called out after him as Danny shoveled one last spoonful into his mouth and retreated to his room.

The day had passed slowly and painfully, with Danny spending a lot of time staring at his wall. He'd tried going down to the lab to help his parents, but they had made him go back upstairs to his room. It had taken an hour for them to remember to do so, in which they had told him all about the newest ecto-filtration system they were working on developing, but that hour hadn't done much to help with the other ten hours of extreme boredom. That, and the skin crawling grossness from the dream had yet to leave him.

Despite the fact that Danny had done less than nothing today, he was tired. He may have left the dinner table to avoid Jazz's rambling, but he probably would've done that anyway. In spite of the sun still streaming through the window, he made his way through his bedtime routine, before laying down in his bed, this time in his comfortable pajamas.

Apparently, it didn't matter that Danny's exhaustion seemed to run bone deep; no matter how he twisted and turned, he couldn't get comfortable. Every time he thought he'd found a nice position, his hand, head, or legs would throb. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the teacher from his nightmare with the venom filled fangs, or the disappointed faces of his parents and Principal Caulfield.

Something told him that if he fell asleep, he would be met by similar dreams. No matter how tired he was, he didn't want to go through that again. He tried to keep his hands busy, and when he was too tired to move them with any more grace then a baby, he moved to keeping his mind occupied.

Despite how much he fought it, the soft ticking sound of his clock lulled him into an uneasy sleep.

—

Danny knew that he was dreaming because of the stars. The stars that had hovered at the edges of his vision in every dream but the last now covered everything, as if they were making up for lost time.

"Woah..." he whispered. He'd dreamed of standing in a field of stars before, but this felt...different. Before, there’d always been that one patch that stood out from the rest, his constant companion, a spot inconsistent with the rest of them. It had always felt more real, more physical, then the rest of them. This time, that patch made up everything around him.

He dropped to his knees to touch one, an exceptionally bright star that pulsed with the beating of his heart. He cupped it in his hands, pulling it out from the inky blackness that surrounded it. It stayed where he held it, with most of the darkness dripping off like water, only a thin strand keeping it connected to the rest of the starscape. It wasn't warm like he'd expected; in fact, it was cold. So cold that it almost hurt to hold it, but he didn't put it down. He'd been dreaming of this moment, literally, for his entire life.

He stared down at the glowing ball, enraptured by its flickering lights, before he realized that it was… wrong. He knew stars; he had begged his parents to bring him to the space museum so often over the summer the people working there knew him by name. Stars were not just balls of light, they were balls of fire that moved and changed. Whatever he held in his hand was nothing but pure light, perfectly frozen, completely unchanging.

He let the not-star fall from his hands, slipping back into its place in the inky void.

"Is it not living up to your expectations, little dreamer?" Danny whirled around to try and find the voice, but it seemed to come from everywhere, echoing endlessly. The sound traveled in ripples across the not-quite liquid floor, and the echoes only started to fade when the ripples did.

"Who are you?" Danny asked, continuing to scan his surroundings unsuccessfully. "Where are you?"

"You may call me Nocturne," the voice said. "And you already know the answer to the last question."

"I do?" Danny asked, confused. He spun around in a circle slowly.

"You do. We're in a dream."

"This doesn't feel like my dreams..." Danny said.

"That's because it isn't one of your dreams," Nocturne said. The surrounding darkness coalesced into one being, the starry cloak extending endlessly into the rest of the surroundings. One cluster of stars became a horned mask, with sunken eyes that seemed to be staring straight through Danny. "It's one of mine. I've brought you here to make a deal."

Nearly every alarm bell Danny had started ringing at once. Despite this, he did not feel scared, just wrong. Something was wrong. He tried to figure out what, but failed. Nocturne was still staring at him expectantly. He had to answer, even if he couldn’t figure it out. “My parents say I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

Nocturne's laughter rang out through the dream, even though his mask remained perfectly stationary, his eyes never leaving Danny. "Dearest Daniel, I am many things, but I am no stranger." He moved closer to Danny. Or, Danny moved closer to him, the ground beneath his feet folding over itself as if the world was being moved around him.. "You've known me for many, many years now."

"I don't..." Danny started to say, but he cut himself off with a hard swallow. He did know Nocturne, even if he didn't understand how. "What are you?" Danny asked instead.

"I am a ghost," Nocturne said, and Danny’s alarm bells worsened as a cold dread settled on his shoulders. Maybe he was in danger. "You don't need to be afraid, little dreamer. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it a very long time ago."

For some reason, that didn't make Danny any less afraid.

He tried to stumble backwards, only to find that the cold liquid of the pool had hardened around his ankles, locking him in place. "What do you want with me?" Danny said, and his voice was barely over a whisper.

Nocturne tilted his head to the side. "I think a better question is how can we help each other? As I said before, I am offering you a deal. All I want from you for now is to listen." Nocturne laughed again. "I suppose in this case your question ended up just as good as any other." He held his hand out to Danny. "Now, shall we?"

Danny struggled to tear his gaze away from Nocturne's piercing eyes, but he managed to. The ghost's hands were barely visible, blending in almost perfectly to the inky blackness surrounding them, but Danny could still make out the vague outline of claws connected to a hand nearly the size of his face. He knew he should say no; he'd spent his whole life listening to his parents talk about ghosts. They were heartless creatures, a sad mixture of energy and ectoplasm and nothing more. They were more dangerous than anything Danny could ever dream up, had the ability to kill him with nothing more than a thought, and may do something even worse with only a little bit more. He should not take Nocturne's hand.

He tried to move again, but his foot was still stuck in the pool, the cold liquid clinging to him like tar. It didn't look like Danny had much of a choice. Hesitantly, Danny reached out and took hold of one of Nocturne's claws, touching as little of him as he could. Nocturne's expression did not change, but Danny could still feel the satisfaction rolling off of him in waves.

Danny could not remember blinking, but he must have, because one second they were in the star-studded abyss, and the next they were standing at the rear end of Danny's classroom. Danny looked around, confused, and his confusion only grew when he saw himself sitting in the middle seat. His doppelganger was hunched in on himself, visibly uncomfortable.

"You recognize this scene, do you not?" Nocturne asked.

Slowly, Danny nodded. "My nightmare. From earlier today."

"Very good. Tell me, what do you think of it?"

"Um, I don't like it?" Danny answered.

"And why is that?"

Danny shrugged. "I mean, no one likes nightmares."

"Yes, but you've had plenty of nightmares before. Why was this one different?"

Danny bit his lip and took a shot in the dark. "It reminded me of my bad day?"

"Excellent, little dreamer," Nocturne said, his voice laced with pride. "The bad things that have happened, or the bad things that might. Everyone gets them, at some point or another. And yet, for a very long time, yours were special. You were never truly afraid of the things that might happen, but created new things to be afraid of. Isn't that right?"

Danny gave a small nod. It felt like the answer Nocturne was looking for.

"Tell me," Nocturne continued. "Do you want to have more dreams like this one? Do you want for them to be built on the ugly truth of your reality?"

This time, Danny shook his head.

"I didn't think you would," Nocturne said. "Which is why I am offering you an escape from it. I can make it so that you never have these dreams, or any like it, ever again. All you need to do is help me in turn."

Danny narrowed his eyes. He may not have been the smartest Fenton, but he wasn't an idiot. And he had grown up with an older sister. "How would I be helping you?" he asked. "Cause my parents have talked a lot about fairy stories, and they say it’s really bad to make a deal with a fairy, and that fairies are just ghosts that have been mislabeled."

"The details are somewhat complex."

Danny crossed his arms. "Well, I'm not making any deal unless I know what it’s about."

The stars in Nocturne's cloak twinkled brighter. "There is an issue within my home, the Infinite Realms, that requires someone special like you to fix. It is, of course, more complicated than that, but that is the important part."

"And what would I need to do to fix it?" Danny asked.

"It is my understanding that you would simply need to be present," Nocturne replied. "As for the how, that comes back to your side of the offer. Instead of having dreams like this," Nocturne swept his hand across the room. "...you would instead spend your dreaming nights in the Realms. In the morning, you would wake up in your bed as if nothing had happened."

"It won't be any kind of sleeping forever thing, right?" Danny asked.

"It could be if you would like," Nocturne said. "Unless you request it, however, no. It would last just as long as any of your other dreams."

"So you want me to agree to let you take me into the world of ghosts, every night, instead of having the occasional bad dream?" Danny asked slowly. "That doesn't seem very fair to me."

"It would not be the occasional bad dream," Nocturne said. "Dreams are my realm. I know them very, very well. And your dreams have been... tainted. It does not matter whether you take this deal or not, you will never return to the dreams you had for so long. I am simply offering you an alternative to this mundanity."

"Why should I trust you?" Danny asked.

"You shouldn't," Nocturne answered easily. "But you don't need to trust me to agree to the deal."

"And if I don't agree to it?"

"Then you will wake up with no memory of ever seeing me, and go back to a life where you can't escape the horrors of the real world even in the comfort of sleep."

Danny took a deep breath through his nose, and looked around the room. He couldn't hear anything that was happening, but his memory worked to fill in the gaps. The teacher was nearly frothing at the mouth with her green, acidic spit, the other kids in the class were either whispering or laughing at him, and the dream Danny was sitting at his desk. His face was a patchy red, tears streaming down his face. He remembered how helpless he had felt sitting there, and he couldn't imagine feeling like that for who knows how long.

Danny turned back to Nocturne, whose gaze had never once strayed from him. "Okay." His voice didn't shake, despite how nervous he felt. "I agree."

"Wonderful." Nocturne reached his hand out to Danny. This time Danny didn't hesitate to take it, and then the world shifted around him.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #dp nocturne #danny phantom fandom #danny phantom fanfiction #starry eyed dreamer

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astroscientia · 2 years

Text

☀️Astrology Observations: Part 3☀️

I noticed that Leo risings are obsessed with leopard/cat/tiger/any feline prints. They also might have a Lion tattoo or necklace or something similar. My cousin has her Venus in Leo and she always wears Leopard prints and always has a Lion as her wallpaper.

Pluto in the 6th house transits and in the natal chart usually creates an obsession with fitness, health, and diet. I know someone with this aspect who works out 3 times per day and is repeatedly asked by her doctor to work out less.

Harsh Mars-Mercury aspects in the birth chart can indicate coming off as overly aggressive with your tone. These people frequently interrupt people, talk fast, and don't really care about the effect that their words have on people as long as they get their point across. These people also curse a lot or, on a more positive note, are really good with crafts.

Aquarius Mercuries usually major in technical/STEM fields such as UI/UX Design, Computer Science, AI, Math, etc.

Having Aquarius in the 2nd house frequently indicates that you need to create opportunities to expand your resources (make money/develop your career or business) independently and in a way that leverages your uniqueness. These people cannot accept a 9 to 5 job unless it is technical, niche, or humanitarian. Either way, they tend to face delays when getting started in their careers because they more intensely rebel against having to work for someone else's enterprise.

Venus in Pisces individuals tend to be overly generous with their resources and spill money like water.

Some Scorpio Mars natives are motivated to take action out of spite or to prove someone wrong.

A lot of Leo risings with Taurus on their midheaven tend to be models because it is a Venus-ruled career. However, there are other interpretations based on the house that Venus is in. For example, a person that I know has a Taurus MC which is ruled by Venus in the 6th house. Incidentally, she makes money being a model and a fitness/health guru.

Having Libra in the 9th house indicates that you are a bit wishy-washy about choosing your career. You determine your worldviews based on what the people around believe in and tend to mirror their views instead of cultivating your own. In university, these people thrive in interdisciplinary careers, relationship psychology, international affairs, diplomacy, design, as well as LAW.

People with Taurus in the 9th house study the arts and humanities a lot of the time (they could become literary critics, writers, and cultural historians). This placement can also indicate that you attend a very aesthetically pleasing university with a lot of greenery. On another note, it can indicate being interested in the arts and design and educating yourself on such Venusian (can include finance) matters.

Having a Saturn-ruled (Aquarius or Capricorn) sign in the 7th house indicates being too closed-off from relationships, fear of vulnerability, and delays in getting partnered due to their high standards.

Taurus risings usually look like or embody the energy of their Venus sign.

Having a lot of 4th house placements can indicate living with an older family member or being in a neighborhood with a lot of old people.

Pluto in the 11th house indicates being isolated from society, losing a friend, or having friends that are bad for you. It also indicates having very potent relationships and being an influential figure with a lot of powerful connections.

Sun-Pluto aspects indicate being exploited when young. A figure in your life exerted power over you and made you feel humiliated. This usually scars the individual and makes them very paranoid of people's intentions and allows them to learn how to read people as a self-protective mechanism. Frequently, Sun-Pluto contacts can indicate leaving a powerful (negative or positive) mark on the world post-mortem. Emmitt Till is an example of someone with this aspect whose death was striking and shook the likes of Mohammad Ali and James Baldwin. His mother wanted everyone to see his mangled body by insisting on an open casket funeral to show the brutality of what caused his murder-racism (he was brutally murdered after being falsely accused of raping a white woman in the 50s). The picture of his body, to this day, is very powerful and represents a pivotal change in the civil rights movement's trajectory.

Sun in the 12th house indicates having a strained relationship with the dad and can indicate getting lost on your path in life more often than others. This placement often plagues the person with self-doubt and an inability to take action even after everything is planned. More often than not, I see this placement in people who work as ghostwriters where they are detached from the outcome of their words/ideas/identity. These people do well in supporting roles even though they usually wish to take a central role- they usually do later in life.

#astrology #astrological observations #aries #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo #virgo #libra #scorpio #sagittarius #capricorn #aquarius #pisces #pluto in the 11th house #taurus ascendant #scorpio mars #venus in pisces

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nevermoreconfessions · 5 months

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Prospero is my favorite character for many reasons and one of those is the fact he's from the first work of Edgar Allan Poe I read, therefore it has a special place in my heart. Having said that, his spectre disappoints me, AT THE TIME. It's true I don't know what the authors have in store but thus far, his spectre lacks severely to me. Spoilers for Masque of Red Death ahead, but he's based off of a story where a Prince hides away from a plague that torments his land until that "Red Death" enters the castle and follows him through a series of colored rooms, each one representing different things depending on how you read it. His spectre is not giving me any of that. It's a generic plague doctor with a staff as his most "unique" design choice. It tells me he lived through A plague but it doesn't tell me anything else from him just by looking at it on top of it being the weakest in terms of flare. Even Will's has more flare and that's...saying a lot. I trust that eventually the design might... make more sense to me and it might go through changes but as of right now, it's the most boring to me and that's a shame because I adore Prospero and anything related to him but I couldn't honestly say his Spectre is my favorite when it doesn't even look like anything more than a regular plague doctor... Especially since the staff is easy to miss or just doesn't add much. The rats could be a bonus too, but rats weren't really much of an element in the story either....

PS: I really don't mean this as hate or harsh criticism, it's just an observation and a mild hope someone sheds a new perspective on this that maybe I missed?

Can I call you PoeAnon? I'm calling you PoeAnon.

Oh, PoeAnon. How I love you, because this is what critique looks like. And you know what? I get what you're coming from. In a way, I actually agree.

Dear PoeAnon, here's what Prospero's design and abilities tell me, in regards to who he is and how he died —

Let's start with the whole Plague Doctor thing he's got going on. Personally, I love a good plague doctor, and I do think that the spectre could've used a little extra pizazz; but, here's where that design gets truly interesting —

The rats.

Yes, those damned rats. Let me explain.

It tells a great amount of how he died! Did you know that the Plague was spread by rats (then, fleas)? Apparently, the Catholic church was like, "Deport those cats, they're evil," and rats ran wild, spreading the plague like wildfire — the plague subsequently hit Italy, where Prospero is said to be from.

So, to me, it appears that Prospero died of the Plague in Italy, where he might have worked as a doctor in efforts to treat said plague. Or, he was the patient. (I think he was the patient who either died of the plague, or in surgery.)

To emhasize that he died of the plague, let's talk about the poem for a moment. The "Red Death" is a fictional disease that causes "bleeding at the pores."

Prospero is known to have a fear of blood — he gets queasy seeing his own blood, to be exact. Fits well, right?

I'll admit — I don't really understand the bat wings or the hourglass symbols on his staff.

I'll assume that the hourglass symbolizes death — namely, "running out of time," because getting the plague back then meant that you were counting your days. The bat wings stump me, though I assume it's because bats can carry some pretty serious diseases, too.

All this to say: I do like Prospero's spectre. As I said, I have a soft spot for Plague doctors, though I do understand that desire for more.

I wish I had more to go off of, too. But it's still a neat design, in my opinion! It's a classic, honestly.

What do you think, Nevermore tumblr?

#nevermore confessions #nevermore webtoon #prospero nevermore #nevermore

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mamawasatesttube · 7 months

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Do you have thoughts on how kon would be as a big brother to Chris and Jon? I've read Chris and Jon's comics and I'm writing a thing with them but I want to have their big brother be part of their character/internal problem solving even if he doesn't (as of yet) appear. But I've only read yj and superboy is unfinished/on my tbr so I'm going to the Expert

(If you have any thoughts opinions on Kara's familial relationships you can include those as well)

OOH OOH YES DO I EVER!!!!!

every time i think about kon as a big brother i immediately think of sb94 annual #2, which opens on kon taking a kid flying for his birthday and joking about him being superboy jr., kind of like his little brother. then we move to cadmus, where it turns out the prototypical experiment #1 (whereas kon was #13) has awoken and escaped his containment pod. he fights kon briefly, believing himself to be/wanting to be the "real" superboy, but is injured and collapses in kon's arms afterwards. it turns out he's not stable outside the pod and is dying; despite kon's best efforts to get the cadmus doctors to save him, he only lasts another few minutes. i'm personally never ever getting over kon's face when it happens (right after they both find out their dna donor was paul westfield):

SO!! with that being established backstory: i think kon would be soooo excited to be a big brother. he'd talk a big game and want the kids to think he's cool, and of course, he's a mega dork (he'd try to get them both into wendy, and if they didn't like it, he'd be offended). but imo, he's also gonna be so protective of them right off the bat, in large part because of poor clone #1. he's got a lot of feelings about people he's gotta protect, and little siblings are sooo high on that list.

one thing is that i don't think kon really thinks of clark as his dad. of course, it depends on the point in the timeline where you're really introducing chris and jon (because like kon was dead by the point of last son introducing chris, and fitting jon into new earth is always a fun puzzle), but (to be clear this is to an extent my hc also) by the time he's living with the kents, kon no longer wants superman to be his dad. i do think he does at first ("i wish i had parents" in sb94 #85 paired with how reactive he is about shooting down superman being his dad in sb94 #94), but when he moves in with the kents that dies down pretty fast. but he'd way rather the kids call him their big brother than, like, their uncle. that's so uncool (haha see, 'cuz uncle sounds kind of like uncool--aw, whatever)!!! it makes him sound so OLD!!!! he's not an uncle!!!

so overall i think it's like. he's a fun-loving and protective figure. they probably think he's So cool for a while, then get a little older and go oh wait. that's a dorklord. i do think jon throws one hell of a tantrum the day he finds out he's never gonna get ttk even if he grows into all the other kryptonian powers, though.

(i also hc that chris can get some weird funky powers other than ttk, not ttk itself, bc its like... kon is THE ttk guy, and thats a metagene designed to emulate kryptonian powers, so it feels a little weird to take something that specific and give it to another character who doesn't have any of the narrative reasons to need it. someone who knows more abt editorial please do correct me if i'm wrong, but i'm pretty sure they only gave chris ttk because prior to infinite crisis, the nightwing in new krypton shown to be using ttk was supposed to be kon, and was changed last-minute into chris.)

so like, he'd be a figure they can count on, someone they regard as always in their corner if they yell for him. he'll take the heat if they get in trouble (he spoils them. lois however has a very uncanny ability to tell if kon's taking the blame for something they did). i think as they grow older they might be like ...why's kon our brother but he doesn't live with us? and doesn't call our parents mom and dad? because kon stays with the kents but just hangs out with them all the time, and he calls clark and lois "clark and lois", and understanding that their family isn't nuclear might be a learning curve for them.

as for kara, i'll try and keep it brief bc this is already long i'm so sorry sdkhj but i generally operate in the realm of postcrisis kara, aka linda lang. she's roughly the same age as kon and she's got a Lot of feelings re: new krypton and her own guilt and her duty to her family, as well as whether she as supergirl can really measure up to superman. i love her. i think she would Adore having baby cousins because they mean her family is growing, after all the people she's lost. that said i think it's very possible she's a little awkward with kids because she just doesn't have that much experience with them. but i think she'd teach them to draw, and she'd really earnestly try with both of them. she'd LOVE to teach them about krypton, too.

#answers #noon-shadows #kon #kara #chris #jon #superfam

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wolveria · 5 months

Text

On Frozen Wings - Ch 8

Pairing: Crosshair x Hunter

Rating: 18+ only, Explicit

Crosshair gives them a lead to finding Tantiss. Unfortunately, that lead decides he wants something in return.

AO3

Crosshair recovered quickly. Much quicker than Hunter had when he’d been in a similar situation.

After he’d lost Tech, and Omega had been taken… Hunter had been a mess. A self-contained mess, but he’d almost had a panic attack when Echo had gone back to Rex. Hunter hadn’t wanted him or Wrecker out of his sight, and that was probably why Echo had eventually left. Hunter was lucky Wrecker was more tolerable of his “mother henning,” as Crosshair used to call it.

At least, Crosshair was getting better about Omega’s capture. Rampart… was another matter.

As soon as he’d offered the Imperial’s name, Crosshair’s hand had started trembling, expression tight with misery. Hunter’s own features were hard, remembering the bastard he’d met on Kamino. He’d trying to engage Hunter in a mocking resemblance of conversation, but Hunter had just stared with hostile silence.

Oh yes, he remembered the man who had ordered Crosshair to do terrible things. And now here they were, on Phee’s ship after a successful extraction, Rampart tied up in one of her cargo holds. This one seemed to double up as a den, but it would have to do with their limited options.

Crosshair still hadn’t taken off his helmet. Instead, he glared down at the unconscious man where he laid on the tattered couch. Hunter didn’t asked why Crosshair had stunned him, and frankly, it had made the rescue a lot easier without a belligerent ex-Imperial getting in their way.

But they couldn’t get intel from a boneless sack of meat. Once Hunter returned to the cargo hold after talking to Phee, Crosshair kicked Rampart awake, which was a kinder awakening than he probably deserved.

“We got you off the planet,” Crosshair growled. “Now tell us where Tantiss is.”

Hunter didn’t like the way his eyes immediately focused on Crosshair, looking him up and down with a sneer before his eyes slid to the side and focused on Hunter.

“It’s more complicated than that.”

Hunter, whose helmet was tucked against his side, had no problem sending an unfriendly scowl his way. He shouldn’t have been surprised Rampart wouldn’t cooperate immediately. The man seemed to thrive on being a pain in the ass.

“Complicated how?” Hunter asked, scowling further.

“No one knows the coordinates to Tantiss. It was designed that way.”

Of course it was. From how Crosshair had talked before, Hemlock was overcautious and paranoid as well as clever.

“But…” Rampart eyed Crosshair again, eyes glittering with some scheme or another, no doubt. “I might know how to get around that.”

“Either you tell us now,” Crosshair took a step forward, and Hunter mirrored the movement, “or we drop you back in that Imperial prison.”

“Now, now. No need for threats. After all, we’re in this together.”

The hell they were. Hunter’s squad would take all the risk, and Rampart was just the parasite they needed until they could discard him. And good riddance.

“Why go back to Tantiss, I wonder?” Rampart leaned back as if to spread his arms across the back of the couch, though the cuffs kept him from doing that. “From what I know of the good doctor, he’s not the kindness of souls.”

“Like you were?”

Rampart’s expression turned cool, almost amused. For a man who had just been sprung from a prison camp by people that hated him as much as the Empire, he was awfully calm and composed.

“I didn’t hear any complaints from you at the time.”

Crosshair tensed so much he visibly shifted in place, and something different mixed in his scent. A sour note that didn’t fit the situation at all. Hunter frowned.

“Just tell us how to find the damn base,” Crosshair growled again. “You don’t get to know the why.”

Rampart shrugged with deceptive innocence.

“Perhaps I simply want to catch up. Won’t you grant me this small indulgence? Conversation in prison hasn’t been the most… stimulating. Intellectually or otherwise.”

That same smug look towards Crosshair, and Crosshair slowly winding up like a cord about to snap.

“Besides, you’re here, aren’t you?” the Imperial sneered. “Which means you managed to make it off that mountain. I heard what happened to you while I was awaiting my own sentence. Lieutenant Nolan, was it? Can’t say I cared much for that little worm. What did he do to earn his fate? I can make a few guesses—”

Shhkk.

Rampart paused at the quiet scrape of Hunter’s vibroblade being pulled from its sheath.

Hunter flipped the blade between his fingers the way he used to when he was bored, letting it flash in the low light as it missed cutting into his flesh by millimeters. He didn’t even look at the knife, instead raising a brow at Rampart’s expression.

“Sorry,” Hunter said unapologetically. “You were saying something… remotely helpful and not a waste of our time?”

“Yeah.” Wrecker crossed his arms from where he stood on Hunter’s other side. “You talk too much.”

Rampart’s frown attempted to smooth the unease off his face, but Hunter could smell the wariness in his unwashed stench, unpleasant in the small space.

“You want something from me, I want something from you.”

“We figured.” Hunter fingered the tip of the blade, drawing Rampart’s attention to the knife. “You’ll get your freedom when we get solid intel on how to find Tantiss.”

“And I’ll tell you. But I want to speak to him.” Rampart’s gaze drifted to Crosshair. “Alone.”

“Not happening.”

Hunter didn’t even have to think about it. Whatever the slippery bastard had in mind for Crosshair, Hunter wouldn’t give him the chance. He’d suffered at the hands of the Empire enough without having a shadow from his past do more damage.

“That’s not how this works,” Rampart spoke slowly, as if Hunter was stupid. “You and the big one have to go.”

“The big one can hear you.”

Wrecker leaned in and Rampart leaned back, uneasy and annoyed both at once.

“I should hope so, considering your lack of personal space.”

Wrecker’s growl would have made a gundark take pause, and Hunter put a hand on his shoulder and gently pulled him back. They hadn’t resorted to violence—yet—but if they did, Hunter would ask Wrecker to leave the room. This wasn’t something he needed to be a part of.

But Crosshair would stay. Hunter knew that without having to ask. He might have grown quiet, but his attention had never once wavered from his former superior.

Rampart smirked unpleasantly.

“It’s a small price tag, CT-9904. You can’t deny that.”

Instead of growing angry, Crosshair tilted his head and shifted, arms still crossed over his chest.

“If it’s privacy that you want, you’re not getting it. Hunter’s enhanced senses will mean he hears everything we say, so you might as well talk now.”

Rampart’s brows rose, sending another glance at Hunter, this one curious before looking back at Crosshair.

“I have nothing to hide,” Crosshair added, and Rampart actually chuckled.

“Oh, I sincerely doubt that. I would have a much different reception otherwise.”

Hunter frowned. What the hell did that mean?

“If this is a non-negotiable point for you, I am amenable to changing the terms.” Rampart’s gaze shifted to Hunter again, the gleam in his eyes a warning. “If you would allow me to speak to your sergeant alone—”

“No,” Crosshair snarled. The viciousness of that single word surprised Hunter, but it seemed to amuse Rampart.

“No? You won’t trade Tantiss base for me to have a few moments with your beloved leader—”

Crosshair’s sharp voice once again cut him off.

“Over my dead corpse.”

“Such sweet promises.”

Hunter quickly sheathed his blade and stepped forward before it could escalate further, because it certainly would.

“It’s fine,” he said to Crosshair, a hand on his arm. “I’ll talk to him.”

Crosshair’s helmet drew back as if in surprise.

“Hunter, don’t.” The words might have been an order, but they came out too much like a plea. “You can’t. He’ll lie. Say anything to get what he wants.”

“In terms of advantage,” Rampart said with too much teeth, “the truth will suit me just fine. Can you say the same, CT-9904—"

Crosshair descended on Rampart, letting out a snarl when Hunter hooked an arm around his shoulders to stop him.

“All right, we’re done here.” Hunter gave one last glare at the Imperial and pulled Crosshair toward the door. He tilted his head at Wrecker, who followed close on their heels.

“For now,” Rampart said, so quietly that only Hunter caught the words, which was probably the point.

He shut and locked the door behind them. He didn’t want to leave the man alone for long, but they needed a moment to cool their heads. Especially Crosshair.

Before Hunter could say a word, Crosshair shook off his hands and walked down the corridor, fists at his sides with his shoulders hunched, helmet still firmly in place.

Hunter exchanged a worried look with Wrecker, and he said what Hunter was thinking.

“What was that?”

Hunter spoke to Rampart alone.

It didn’t take long for him to figure out the former vice admiral wasn’t going to say anything helpful. As Hunter stood there with his arms crossed, frowning, Rampart went on and on about his various grievances with clones. How they were conditional about what orders they followed, how prideful they were despite being Imperial property, how the Kaminoans were naïve to think a chip would make them compliant for long.

From the unending bantha shit, Hunter realized two things. One, Rampart was stalling for time. And two, the only reason he wanted to speak to Hunter alone had less to do with him, and more to do with his brother just outside the door, restlessly pacing back and forth, arms tucked tight across his chest.

Hunter could hear every footstep, the slight pause at the turn, then the same repeat of footfalls as he crossed the width of the doorway.

“You know, I always said the issue lies with the original template,” Rampart continued, not caring that Hunter wasn’t even looking at him. “What possessed the Jedi to choose a Mandalorian to create an army? Yes, they are a warrior people, but they also have a history steeped in hedonistic warfare—”

“Were you ever going to actually tell me anything, or is this about you acting out like a child?”

Rampart stared at him, jaw open. Hunter took some satisfaction from getting him to finally shut up.

“I beg your pardon?”

Hunter stepped closer.

“Are you finished trying to get under Crosshair’s skin? Or do I need to get unfriendly?”

Rampart’s head tilted in confusion until Hunter put a deceptively gentle hand on his shoulder… and began to squeeze.

“You might be more afraid of the Empire than of us,” Hunter said smoothly, “but I guarantee us clones are good at creative solutions. And we could come up with a few… persuasive methods that even you Imperials haven’t considered.”

Rampart scoffed, though he still winced at Hunter’s increasing pressure.

“Oh, please. I dealt with bigger brutes than you at the Academy.”

If he was able to make height jokes, then he wasn’t scared enough to start talking. Hunter shrugged, let him go, and walked toward the door.

“If you’re not gonna tell us anything, then you’re dead weight. And we don’t need the ballast.”

“You’re not going to kill me,” Rampart said, trying to sound self-assured, but Hunter sensed the smallest bit of doubt.

“No,” Hunter agreed. “Not when they’d be eager to take you back on Erebus. Especially when they see we brought you back safe and sound. I’m sure they’ll be eager to find out what Imperial secrets you spilled—”

Rampart sighed.

“That’s… not necessary. I’ll talk, I simply want my conditions met first.”

Hunter whirled on him, face heated in a scowl.

“You’re not talking to Crosshair alone. If there’s something you want, you come to me.”

Rampart’s smile was oil, viscous and oozing, as he gave Hunter a once-over.

“Sorry, but… you’re not my type.”

A chill settled on Hunter’s spine.

“What did you say?”

Rampart didn’t answer, just gave that same infuriating smile. Hunter didn’t even remember crossing the room to grab the front of Rampart’s dirty uniform, bringing their faces close, his teeth bared.

“The hell does that mean?”

Hunter could smell a hint of fear, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Imperial’s words from being filled with smugness.

“Why don’t you ask him?”

Hunter let go, shoving him back against the couch, and for a moment he wondered if Phee had pulled another insane maneuver. The floor seemed to tilt under his feet, but nothing moved or shifted, and Rampart remained motionless, victorious smirk plastered in place.

“As I said before,” Rampart called at Hunter’s retreating back, “I’m not the one hiding truths.”

Hunter slammed his palm over the door controls, stepped through, and locked them in place behind him.

Crosshair immediately turned at the sound, anxiety and stress radiating off his posture before Hunter could smell it on his scent. His face was still covered by the damned helmet, but Hunter didn’t need to see his expression to know the face he would be making. An agitated frown trying to cover the worry beneath.

Hunter’s own expression must have been startling, because Wrecker got off the crate he’d been sitting on and glanced at the closed door.

“What’d he say?” Wrecker pressed when Hunter remained silent.

“Nothing important.”

He passed between the both of them without looking at either. Hunter needed a minute to think, and he couldn’t face Crosshair right now. Not when he caught the imperceptible drop of his shoulders and the small retreat he made out of Hunter’s path.

Next Chapter

#cloneshipping #crosshunt #crosshair x hunter #the bad batch #hunter #crosshair #wolveria writes #on frozen wings #may the fourth #angst be upon ye

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ilikekidsshows · 1 year

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It just boggles the mind how petty someone can be over a fictional character that they created being popular. Thomas Astruc is ruining his own show and screwing over abuse victims all for a grudge against fans who prefer a character he doesn't. I don't condone hate-mobbing him like some people do on Twitter, but he really can't take any sort of criticism huh. How do you claim to have conferred with a child psychologist (I think) and still produce this literal abuse apologia. I genuinely don't understand.

I'm gonna say that Astruc taking any chance to use the narrative to dunk on Chloé and Adrien being evidence of him holding a grudge against their popularity is my personal interpretation of possible influences for their writing. I have inferred it from Astruc's very curt way of speaking to fans of these characters on twitter and the show's abysmal writing of them in ways that prop Marinette up on their backs. None of it has been proven true, but, when the coincidences keep piling up, at some point you're gonna stop believing it's a coincidence. At this point, he is most likely at least subconsciously bitter over Chloé and Adrien, if not consciously so.

Just like how the show's biases concerning abuse might be subconscious stuff going on in the crew's heads. I remember when @infinitysgrace and I used to have to reiterate again and again that Gabriel does love Adrien even if he abuses him, that's often the tragedy of parental abuse, when the fandom kept insisting that Gabriel abusing Adrien was evidence that he didn't really love him. The crew also seems to have a very limited view of what "counts" as child abuse. Apparently isolation, neglect, abandonment and consistently referring to your child by the wrong name don't count as abuse, because all the kids involved got to eat, didn't get beaten and are loved by the people harming them.

I agree that it's very obvious that Astruc can't handle criticism and that mobbing him or harassing him isn't the solution. Astruc has a right to act like an entitled jackass even publically online, just like any other creator or random person. I instantly side eye anyone trying to turn me against someone based on only the accusations that they're deleting negative comments and blocking people giving negative feedback. The fans might be entitled to their opinion, but they are not entitled to a creator's time and attention.

I'm also going to say that, just like I don't read highly personal vent fics, I'm not going to watch vent shows. I stopped paying any attention to Teen Titans Go after they started dedicating several episodes to mocking fans of the original TT cartoon (after their show piggybacked on the fame of said show by mimicking the character designs and using the same voice cast no less). I'm very much done with paying Thomas Astruc's increasingly inane ramblings any attention. It's pretty obvious that social media is influencing his creative process negatively but it's his right to engage with a space that affects him like that. None of us are his friends, family or doctor. It's none of our business what he does.

I haven't heard of the writers consulting any experts on anything dealing with the show, but I do know for a fact that Astruc tweeted a link to a fan's essay on Adrien that was written by someone claiming to be a child psychologist. Said fan praised Adrien's writing and then went on to praise the Sentipeople concept. Since I make it a habit to never actually be the one that starts shit, I never really engaged with their content and blocked them instead, so I can't remember the details of what they said about the psychological perspective on Sentipeople.

Still, I'm 80% sure this is the supposed expert. Regardless, even if this fan wrote essays with 100% accurate real life psychology, child psychology has no one size fits all approach. I, an ECEC professional, sure as hell didn't agree with anything they had to say about SentiAdrien before I blocked them, and that was before canon confirmed the theory in the worst possible way and screwed over abuse victims.

#ml salt #ml writer salt #ml fandom salt

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eneiryu · 3 months

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This might be such a silly question and I'm sorry to bother you with it but I saw you answer the ask about the Soulmate Mark!AU and now I'm curious; I know you don't really read or write those kinds of AUs but I was thinking about writing one myself and just wanted to ask what you think the McCall pack (or even just Theo and Liam) would have in a wings!au or a daemon!au? As for wings, I can imagine Theo having some utterly ruined and ragged wings that are missing feathers and patchy with scars in some places that slowly heal over as he joins the McCall pack. For the daemon!au could also see Liam having something like a golden retriever (Liam coded) but also a pitbull or another typically dog bread thats not actually so viscous but is treated that way (IED coded), and I can also imagine Theo having one thing as a child but it unsettled (changed form when it shouldn't during times of great stress or trauma) during his time with the Dread Doctors only to resettle into something entirely different after the skinwalkers prison. I don't know, I'm sorry to dump this on you especially because it's not something you enjoy but you've always got such great thoughts and even if I don't even up writing it I'm sure someone might..... sorry

Absolutely no apologies necessary, I take it as a compliment that you’re interested in my thoughts at all. 😊

I will be 100% honest, I am not familiar with what Wings!AU’s even are. But going off of context clues, it seems like a type of story where people have wings that reflect who they are as people? If that’s the case, then I think your idea for Theo having ragged and scarred wings that heal would definitely work—that would track with how I generally see his arc. I could also see him having mechanical wings, especially very steampunk-y. He was an experiment, he was made in a lot of ways. It’s possible that something could have happened to his original wings, or that the Doctors thought they could “improve” them. I think it could be especially interesting if they were mechanical but also designed to look organic.

Or—and this just occurred to me—the wings could be his chimeric half. To really crank up the angst factor, they could be, y’know, his sister’s. 😬

As for the daemon!AU—this one I admit I get! I loved the Golden Compass series. I like your idea for Liam’s, I think that makes a lot of sense—something that seems dangerous, and can be, but whose nature isn’t necessarily to be. Theo is harder. I like your idea a lot of Theo having one thing only for it to start changing again during his time with the Doctors (though admittedly, I can’t remember what the theoretical age range is for daemons settling, and he may have been to young prior). I am also taken with the idea of it never settling, either because of the trauma, or out of a deliberate effort—either Theo’s or the Doctors’. It would fit into him being a spy—being able to change to his shape at will—and also into the whole “unnatural” bit about who and what he is. In that vein, I’d have to admit I’m torn as to whether I like the idea of it ever settling—I’m kind of taken with the idea that it doesn’t, and Theo learns to accept and appreciate that part of himself—or it does settle, and that’s the sign of his beginning to heal.

Anyway, thanks for letting me weigh in! 😊

#eneiryu ask

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gentil-minou · 1 year

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sharing my wangxian phlebotomist!wwx/blood donor!lwj au from twitter here (a summary here if you wanna see)

The hardest part of the adoption process was supposed to be endless paperwork and screenings and the anxiety of not being good enough to meet high standards of the court.

It wasn't supposed to be A-Yuan's first doctors appointment.

His pitiful screams fill the small doctor's office. He's clinging to Lan Wangji's shoulders like there a lifeline, hiding and all LWJ wants to do is bundle up his son and carry him back to safety.

But these are mandatory vaccines he needs in order to attend pre-k. So he cant.

Nurse: Shots are never fun at this age, huh He would beg to differ; they're never fun at any age But see lwj isnt afraid of the shots themselves. Hes terrified of the sight of blood. His BFF loves horror movies & he watches them with her bravely by staring at the corner of the tv

When lwj gets his blood drawn, he looks closes his eyes and imagines being in a cold pond somewhere. But he's never been afraid of just the shot before.

He's helpless in the face of his son's distress. The nurse sighs, saying theyll have to try again another day.

A-Yuan sniffles into his baba's shirt, exhausted from the crying fit. His eyes are still watery and he looks around the room with such fear in his eyes, before withdrawing back into the safety of his baba's chest.

Lan Wangji has no idea what to do, only cradles him closer

Thankfully, LWJ has someone who can help. His best friend, Jiang Yanli is a child therapist and has been helping him prepare his home for A-Yuan.

If anyone knows what to do, it's Yanli-jie

JYL: Zhanzhan, have you tried showing him its not scary?

LWJ has not, bc he's terrified

JYL is the only one allowed to call him Zhanzhan. In Uni she was the one who mentored him his first week of school. Someone slipped him alcohol and he got deliriously drunk.

Yanli-jie was the one who found him and took him home. This is what they told the cohort but actually…

JYL: seeing his Baba get a shot and be okay might motivate him to be more brave

LWJ certainly doesn't feel brave. He's thinking of the blood flowing from his veins and then LEAVING them to go who knows where. It sounds barbaric

He has the distinct memory of learning what a period is in middle school and promptly passing out

He is not a fan of anything related to blood

But LWJ has learned that Yanli-jie knows what she's doing, so, despite the way he can swear he feels his blood pumping with fear, he agrees...but there's a problem.

LWJ: I am up to date on all my shots. How can I show him it is safe?

JYL: Hmm....I have an idea. My brother is a phlebotomist! He can help.

LWJ is confused. Last he heard, the younger Jiang is a prosecutor who makes a living viciously yelling in a courtroom.

JYL: Not him, Zhanzhan. My adoptive brother, A-Xian. I bet he would be happy to help you. He works at the blood bank at Yiling Clinic! The perfect exposure!

For who?, LWJ wonders. A blood bank sounds like a house of horrors to him. And a person who chooses to stick a needle in people and remove the very force that gives them life? He cannot imagine getting along with this person at all.

Yiling Clinic is a community clinic in a part of town Lan Wangji has never been to, especially since the Gusu Group has their own private hospital.

But this is where Yanli-jie's phlebotomist little brother works.

A-Yuan clings to the back of his legs as they approach the receptionist, a young man with amazing cat eye makeup named Mo Xuanyu

These two definitely do not fit the bill for their usual patients, with their designer clothing, so he asks with some skepticism: Um, can I help you?

LWJ has spent the last two hours siking himself up for the blood part, he isn't prepared at all for social interactions. He flounders like a fish.

LWJ: …I am…We are here for…

A shout comes from behind them: Ah! A-Yu, is that A-jie's friend? Zhanzhan?

LWJ flinches until he sees a man sprinting towards them. The 1st thing he notices is this man is wearing lilac scrubs with little white rabbits on them.

The 2nd thing he notices is this man has the most enchanting smile he's ever seen. Already, LWJ feels more relaxed.

The man winks at him: You like the scrubs? A-jie said A-Yuan liked bunnies, I figured this would help keep him calm.

LWJ does not blurt I like bunnies too. But only just.

Beside the man is a pediatric nurse named Wen Ning, no relation, who says he's here to help with A-Yuan

Yanli-jie's little brother, the phlebotomist, introduces himself: Ah! Sorry, Lan Zhan. Jiejie always calls you that so it just stuck. I'm Wei Wuxian. You can call me Wei Ying if you wanna make it even.

Strangely, LWJ feels no need to correct him: Lan Zhan is fine, Wei Ying.

WWX smiles so brightly, LWJ feels dizzy with it.

WWX: Now where's the little bunny himself?

A-Yuan has been clinging behind LWJ's pant leg, tilting around just enough to peek with one eye at this strange gege.

WWX: Maybe not a rabbit then, a radish who likes to hide away!

A-Yuan becomes offended: I don't like radishes!

WWX laughs: Me neither! But Qing-jie says they help us grow big and strong, so they can't be all that bad huh?

WWX is crouched in front of A-Yuan, draping both arms across his knees and resting his chin in one hand. He waits.

LWJ admires his patience. The longer WWX waits, crouched and rocking back and forth in front of A-Yuan, smile gently and welcoming, the more A-Yuan's natural curiosity gets the better of him.

Eventually, his son comes out from behind his leg to touch a black bunny on his sleeve

A-Yuan: I like this one. We only have a white bunny at home.

WWX: I like the black bunny too! What's your bunny's name?

A-Yuan: Banana, bc she tries to eat Baba's banana every morning, and you are what you eat.

He recites this with all the solemnity a 4 yo could possess

WWX's laughter echoes through the lobby: Well! You're very right, A-Yuan. Maybe you aren't a radish after all then. Tell me, what do little boys eat?

A-Yuan: I'm not little! I'm 4 and a half!

WWX: Right, right, I sincerely apologize for my mistake. What do big boys eat then?

A-Yuan purses his lips and taps his chin, pondering his question carefully: Hmm… jelly beans?

WWX looks like he wants to laugh more, but instead says: I see, I see. Thank you for your wisdom A-Yuan.

He looks up at LWJ, dark eyes dancing. LWJ's heart rabbits against his chest

WWX: If your baba is ready, we can head down to my cave if you'd like. I have a lot of cool machines I'd love to show you.

A-Yuan's eyes widen into saucers as he gasps: A cave? Wowww

They grin conspiratorially at each other, before turning bright eyes up at LWJ

LWJ feels warm and much more relaxed inside, so he nods: Mn. We may go.

A-Yuan cheers and holds WWX's hand as the head downstairs.

LWJ trails behind making small talk with WN, watching WWX and A-Yuan swing their hands and skip ahead, feeling something warm blossom in his chest.

The hallway to Wei Wuxian's lab isn't anything like Lan Wangji expects.

The rooms at Gusu are all perfectly pristine and sterile, painted white to promote serenity, rest, and healing.

For one thing, he'd raided a Halloween store at some point and hung up all sorts of decorations, mostly vampire themed. There's one that's says "I vant to suck your blood!" except suck is crossed out and replaced with "donate". Wwx and A-yuan giggle together at wwx's fake accent

It's definitely not up to Gusu General's strict standards. For one thing, there're beanbag chairs in the hall outside. Wwx says it's to feel more comfy while others wait, as he's the only phlebotomist on staff and it can take a while. A-Yuan personally tests each one.

His lab is…adequate if far too small. There's a desk that's overrun with stacks of papers and textbooks and a shelf that's filled with even more. The actual space where blood is drawn is, thankfully, sterile and clean. Though he's decorated with demons demanding blood for food

There's a temp controlled room where the blood is stored, with a red door and the words "Blood Pool" written in menacing barely legible font

Despite the…interesting decor, the room is homely and, surprisingly, welcoming. A-Yuan at least is having a very fun time getting a tour

Wwx patiently answers all of A-Yuan’s questions, even the endless why's, with utmost sincerity, even when his answers are purely nonsense.

Lwj can't stop the fond smile from lifting the corner of his lips. A-Yuan had never warmed up to a medical professional so fast.

He's pulled from his musings when A-Yuan grabs his sleeve: Baba! Blood-gege says this machine makes blood spin around!

Wwx burst out laughing: Blood-gege? I love it!

Lwj is enchanted, head repeating those last 3 words again and again as wwx fondly ruffles A-Yuan's fluffy hair

Wwx: alright, now that you're familiar with my beauty Chenqing (referring to his bloody spinny machine lwj does not want to think about), shall we get down to business?

He says this with his bright dark eyes glittering at LWJ. Right. The blood donating part.

Lwj gulps, nodding. A prisoner walking up to the gallows.

TBC

(If you're interested, I'm probably going to continue at least up to the end of the first part before i just make it into one long fic! You can follow it on my twitter!)

#i tried the threadfic thing on twitter and im finding it hard to get any engagement there and i think this au is cute okay #and i cant write it until a couple weeks from now so im just gonna share it here #call me wwx the way im shameless with my self promotion #hehe #bushy writing #mdzs #wangxian #mdzs fanfiction #mo dao zu shi #if the formatting looks dumb its cause im copying and pasting from shitter djfksh i dont actually write like this i just wanna share this o #anyways someone tell me how twitter fandoms work why are they so hardddd #from what i've seen the writing mdzs fandom is most active on there but i cannot understand how to get recognition there #to be fair i've always been a tumblr girlie and never posted much on my twitter besides retweeting art anyways #but i want validation for my writing T___T #also threadfics are a challenge of themselves and i admire writers who have the patience to deal with them because i am very much losing #mine like what do you do about all the typos and the mistakes and just ahhhhhhhhh #also i think its because im joining in the middle of twitter's mass exodus but idk where else to go #anyways

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