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inherstars · 3 months

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Gears of War | Long Way Home (8 of 11)

MONSTERS. Especially for my literal audience of one, @wicked--loving--lies, who is such a good sport. Previous section here.

Hope stood alongside him, surveying the dim Rotunda. More specifically, the floor.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “I remember this.”

In fact, she remembered it as a special highlight of the trip. The Rotunda was the museum’s most visible architectural feature from the outside, while the interior had been converted into an open cafe and coffee shop for visitors. Rather than marble, the floor was six-inch-thick glass, girded with iron I-bars throughout. Some forty feet below that, a second “floor” was actually an elaborate stained glass ceiling, fashioned like a nautical compass. Further below that, the museum’s once-busy archives were nestled in the catacomb-like basement.

In better times, it was possible to stand on the Rotunda’s glass floor, looking down through the stained glass ceiling of the catacombs, and see the docents and archivists and curators all busily at work. Very cool, when she was five or six years old.

Less cool now, when half of both the glass floor, and the stained glass ceiling below it, were completely shattered. She leaned over, peering all the way down to the archives through the jagged, saw-toothed remains.

Alex muttered, “I’m guessing it was intact the last time you were here.”

Hope looked up at him, surprised to see him shock-white with fear.

“Oh my God. Are you okay? You look like you’re going to vomit.”

“Vomiting’s an option,” he agreed tightly, unwilling to look too far over the edge. “I’m uh. I’ve got kind of a thing about heights.” He checked the long fall down, then quickly averted his eyes. “...uhhh, vomiting is definitely an option…”

“We only have to go halfway across,” she reasoned, extending an arm. “The other half of the floor is fine, see?”

“You say that like getting across that chasm is going to be easy.”

“We just walk.”

“We just what?”

With a shrug Hope turned her back to him, arms extending delicately to either side, and simply walked across one of the exposed I-bars. Despite all odds she moved with sure-footed, mountain-goat ease, her balance not even teetering. She made it to the other side, hopping onto the intact half of the glass floor to emphasize its stability.

“See? Easy.”

Alex trembled a forefinger at her, horrified.

“H… how did y…”

“Gymnastics, baby!” God it felt amazing to finally not be a complete disaster at something. She spread her arms proudly. “A balance beam is only, like, four inches. That thing is probably five. You’re looking at a three time Land’s Down finalist.” A little more sourly she added, “I would have kept going, too, if I didn’t ‘develop’ in eighth grade.”

When he only stood there, staring at her whitely, she explained, “When I say ‘developed’, I mean--”

He held up a hand. “I… I know what that means.”

But it was a little different for him. Even if he wasn’t scared shitless, and carrying roughly his own body weight in armor and weapons, there was no way he was going to manage a five-inch-wide beam in giant, clumsy boots.

She watched him debating, debating, debating, then pointed to the room’s outer perimeter.

“Look, why don’t you try over there? The beams along the wall are a little wider, and you can brace yourself on the wall stone as you go.”

They also curved with the architecture of the Rotunda, but she was right. Of all the terrifying, horrible, nauseating options, that one was arguably the least of all three.

“...fucking hate this shit,” he growled, unshouldering the rucksack and giving it a single, arcing heave across the gap. It hit the glass and skidded to a halt at Hope’s feet. She dragged it to the far side, where the floor underfoot once again became marble.

“Come on, you got this, don’t sweat it.”

With the Lancer mounted on his back, deeply lamenting a lack of ropes and anchors, he started his way across. Slowly. The curving I-bar was about six inches deep, but his boots were easily 14 inches from toe to heel, never mind the chestplate keeping him from standing too flush to the wall. He managed to find weak finger holds between the stone as he went, but it was still a journey of aching, careful, heart-attack inducing inches.

Hope folded her arms, watchful.

“Any day now.”

“Not helping.” He looked down by accident, and scrunched his eyes tightly shut. “Ugh, gonna be sick… I hate this.”

“You have stared down atrocities I can’t even imagine, I can’t believe this is bothering you.”

“Yeah, well,” his voice cracked as he resumed his progress. Nearly halfway there, now. “We all gotta be afraid of something. Why do you think I spent seven years being ground fodder? Man, I hated those Ravens. Flying death traps, is what they are.”

She paced slowly, idly scuffing her heels. “Do you want me to talk about something? Help distract you?”

He made a noise in his throat. “Can we talk about your tits again? That was alright.”

Hope stopped at the edge of the glass, peering down, down, down into the archives.

“Gosh, it is a really long fall. Not only would you die horribly, but you’d be screaming the whole way.”

“Shut up shut up shut up--”

“Hitting stuff all the way down.”

“Ahhhhhfuckyou.”

She squinted an eye shut, finger-gunning him. “Pew pew.”

He agonized the entire way, forehead beaded with sweat, but at last he made it, taking the last few feet with a desperate, lunging leap to the remaining platform. Hope tried to cushion his landing as best she could, but he still outweighed her by far too much to make much of a difference.

“Fear conquered!” she encouraged, crouching beside him as he lay there, sprawled and panting, with his head on his arm. She patted one metal shoulder. “Next we’re going to get you on the pommel horse.”

“Don’t like you,” he heaved for breath. “Tried to like you, but I can’t make myself do it.”

“Take a rest,” she laughed, straightening up. “Hard part’s over. No sense in rushing, now.”

“Yeah.” Alex exhaled, flipping onto his back as he starfished tiredly. “Just need a minute.”

Hope entertained herself with a slow patrol of the glass floor, mindful not to get too near to to the edge. Despite the fact that the remaining I-bar seemed to be holding it all in place, they’d already taken enough chances for one night.

Her face upturned to the Rotunda’s distant cupola high above them. She remembered it being constructed of stained glass, similar to the “ceiling” of the basement archives, painting the whole of the interior in translucent light when the sun was at its apex. It was completely black now, perhaps owing to the lack of moon beyond the glass.

As she stared, however, she made out small yellow stars winking into view in the darkness. Not actual constellations, but a symmetrical array of lights that nearly mimicked them. They rotated slowly, as with the nightly tilt of the galaxy.

“Weird,” she murmured. “There must be power on, somewhere.”

“There’s no power,” Alex breathed, groaning and rolling to his side. He pushed slowly to his knees, armor scraping loudly. “Locust knocked out the entire gride in this sector.”

“Well… maybe the museum has its own generator.” She pointed. “See? Stars.”

He gained his feet slowly, rising beside her, and looked.

They were not stars.

A pair of forelegs appeared first -- two, then four, then six, then eight, blooming outward in sets like a hermit crab emerging from its shell. The stars bloated and bubbled outward as its armored head followed, the raggedly toothed jaws splitting open with a bellow that vibrated glass and stone, shaking their very bones.

Hope slipped and crashed to her back, crabbed away wildly.

“What the fuck is that??”

“Corpser!” He backed up, reaching for his Lancer but missing it by a panicked inch. The creature loomed overhead for a moment, then emerged in full: a horrible chimera of spider and millipede, somehow swifter than either one. Another roar, louder and more sustained than the last, trembled the Rotunda’s very foundations. Cracks silvered through the platform beneath them, and Alex lost his balance, stumbling to a knee.

“Please tell me you fought one of these before!?”

“Uh---yeah--”

“How did you win?”

“We didn’t.”

The Corpser scuttled suddenly, crab-like, moving effortlessly down the Rotunda walls as they got back on their feet.

“RUN--!” Alex bellowed. But too late.

It leapt, hitting the platform’s edge with all of its forelegs. The I-beams and rivets holding the remainder of the glass floor in place screamed and separated from the stone walls, tilting dangerously toward the drop. The Corpser couldn’t get purchase, roaring in outrage as it slipped and scrambled and finally plunged over the edge, crashing to its back on the archive’s stained glass ceiling.

Alex and Hope nearly followed it, the jarring pitch of the collapsing floor sending them in a hard slide toward the same precipice edge.

Alex barely caught the I-bar as he fell, lunging an arm out for Hope as she slid past him. He seized her wrist in an iron grip, shoulders nearly separating as he arrested the full pendulum weight of her fall.

They dangled, suspended, nothing but his one-handed grip on the I-bar keeping them from a vast drop onto the writhing Corpser, the fanged stained glass ceiling, the catacombs below.

“Hope,” he groaned out, agony arcing his spine. “I can’t---I need you t…ffffuck--”

“Alex--”

“I have to let you go--”

“Are you kidding me??”

“Listen. Listen to me. I have to reach my Lancer. We’ve got about thirty seconds before that thing flips itself over. I’m not going to drop you--”

“The hell you’re not!”

“I’m not going to drop you. I’m going to lift you. I need you to grab onto my neck. I need my hand free. Hope. Please. Listen--”

“I can’t do this!”

“Yeah you can. Come on, girl,” he strangled out a groan. “Land’s Down semi-finals.” Fuck, his arm was going to pull out of the socket. He couldn't hold her. “Hope--Hope, look at me.”

Her face whipped up to him, anguished. He met her eyes as he heaved for breath.

“You’re all I got,” he guttered with a ragged half-laugh. “I’m not gonna let you go.”

Continued here.

#my writing #gow #gears of war #e-day

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plebeiangoth · 11 months

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Have some Halloween movies in no particular order

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is a great time, if you can find it. It's a love letter to so-bad-it's-good horror movies from the 50's and 60's which were all ambition and no talent e.g. Plan 9 from Outer Space and Manos The Hands of Fate. One of the funniest and most quotable movies I've ever seen!

House is as gorgeous as it is spooky and goofy! If you've not seen it, you're missing out. It's made by a director who made advertisements and a lot of the special effects are what would have been common in Japanese ads at the time.

Martyrs goes on the list for that one asshole who needs something extreme. Not that it's a bad movie, of course. But if you're that asshole and have yet to see it, have fun! If you don't know what I'm talking about, this film is not for the faint of heart and I mean it! Look up "French extremism" if you're curious. Again, if you've not seen it and don't like lots of blood and gore and little left to the imagination, this is absolutely not for you.

Valerie and her Week of Wonders is a gorgeous example of Czech new-wave, about a girl becoming a woman in a village of vampires! Strongly recommend this one if you like House, it's super colorful and whimsical!

Tetsuo the Iron Man is my idea of a more fun kind of extreme film. This is one of those movies I've seen several times and can't seem to remember the story, but suffice to say it's a wild ride about a metal fetishist who becomes sort of a metal monster in a similar fashion to Tetsuo in Akira becoming a giant flesh monster. It's got a very goofy tone and is shockingly wet for a movie about rebar.

The Thing is never not fun. I'm sorry to say I don't know my Carpenter as well as I should, I'm just too stuck on how much I love The thing and may never move forward. Yes I've seen Halloween, just I like The Thing better.

The Devils is a movie you can't watch in your home in a legal capacity, Warner Bros is never releasing this one on home video. Rest assured you can find it. It's a Ken Russell film about a whole convent of nuns (the Mother Superior played by Vanessa Redgrave) are so in lust with this priest, played by Oliver Reed, that they all fein demon possession to evade persecution. The complete version of the movie includes a scene in which all the nuns bang a crucifix. It's one of those movies I say the production team went to "the cool face store", because wow there's a lot of cool looking faces!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show, because there will always be virgins

Young Frankenstein was Mel Brooks's only funny movie. Fight me! (men in tights was okay i guess)

Bram Stoker's Dracula. What more need I say?

I can't easily pick any one Jan Svankmajer film, so this is the Svankmajer portion of the list. For the uninitiated, he was a Czech stop-motion animator who made these hyper realistic claymation films, often with a dark context. My favorite feature length films of his are Alice (a telling of Alice in Wonderland), Faust, and Otesanek (his final film and magnum opus, aka Little Otik aka Greedy Guts, based on the fairy tale Otesanek about tree-root baby turned vore-monster). His films aren't necessarily scary, just very unsettling and disturbing.

Hellraiser 2 because I haven't seen it yet and people keep telling me it's the good one, as if the first one wasn't delightfully generous????

The Witches is a movie that upset my very Christian grandmother one time when I was a kid, watching it on TV at her house. I don't think she understood the point that the witches aren't the good guys. I know it's irrelevant, I just thought it was funny. I miss you, Nana.

The Worst Witch. Can someone tell me where to watch this? I never saw it before and I wanna see some tacky Tim Curry schlock

eXistenZ is a movie which I only saw for the first, second, third, and fourth time ever one week last year and I'm ashamed as a Cronenberg fan that it took me so long! Not necessarily his most Halloween-y movie (I'd argue that would be The Fly), it's just a lot of fun.

Think I'll stop there, that's a good sized list.

Add your own recs! What do you watch this time of year?

#halloween #movie rec list #movie recommendation #horror films #spooky movies

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drewoclock · 8 months

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Lady Gaga: An Outsider's Journey into the Phenomenon

Originally published September 6th, 2013

When I first heard the song “Just Dance”, I thought it blended right into the bland club music I had been hearing on the pop stations. I didn’t like club music, and I didn’t like “Just Dance”. But the seemingly unimportant artist behind that song is so iconic now that her name is used to describe things. She has accumulated a massive fan base, some who refer to her as “the only pop icon” and “the girl behind the Aura”. While I couldn’t profess myself to be such an avid fan, I do find myself with an invested interest in why others are.

When Lady Gaga had her first significant step into the spotlight, I didn’t think much of her. I did not think she was worthy of inspiration like her ardent admirers did, nor did I think her style was very shocking or offensive. I acknowledged that she was distinct from her contemporary pop stars, but I didn’t view her as too distinct. At the time, my taste in music was very constricted, and it wasn’t until “Bad Romance” that I could even claim to really like one of her songs.

But also at the time, I was playing a game called “like everything your girlfriend likes”, and my girlfriend was very much enraptured with Lady Gaga. Not to mention, I wasn’t used to seeing such a strong obsession over something. I had seen fandom before, but the fans of Lady Gaga seemed particularly possessive. I felt left out in a way. I viewed my fanship of her as a form of validation, but I just couldn’t bring myself to admire her. Things only grew more frustrating as tensions in my relationship mounted and the relationship ended, making my desire to connect with Lady Gaga (and subsequently connect with a girl I liked) more and more of a priority.

It reached a point where I became cynical of the artist. What was all the buzz about anyway? Her music wasn’t that deep. The songs were more or less four chord songs, the lyrics dull and repetitive. Sure, she had an impressive fashion sense, but her personality was so manufactured. Why would people gravitate toward something so plastic? And not to mention, she’s so arrogant. Always putting “Gaga” in her songs. Really? Clearly these “little monsters” were just misguided and a bit too obsessive.

Despite all the cynicism, it did not end up satiating my curiosity toward the phenomenon. What was I missing that would make me idolize Lady Gaga as much as her fans? And so I found myself interviewing her fans, looking for answers. Lady Gaga had become a research project for me, and any mention of her would encourage me to take rigorous mental notes.

I watched something I remember being called “A Very Gaga Thanksgiving”. While watching the special, I was certainly a bit offput by its title given its mien of self-importance. But the special itself was not ordained with that kind of arrogance. Rather, it seemed very pleasant and calming. Lady Gaga would talk in her trademark voice, a low and soothing croon, and play some of her songs on a piano. There was something very comforting about it, which was not a sensation I had ever associated with the pop artist. I compared it to that of a mother.

That’s when I made a peculiar connection: Fans referred to Lady Gaga as “Mother Monster”. Perhaps now I understood why. To the little monsters, Lady Gaga wasn’t just a cool pop star. She was someone who loved them and who they aspired to be. Like a mother. At last, I was beginning to see through the perspective of a fan.

And just as I found myself on the cusp of an understanding, Lady Gaga took a step out of the spotlight. As her prominence fizzled, so did my desire to interpret her. But now, in late 2013, Lady Gaga is stepping back, and her sudden return to the mainstream has encouraged me to settle the score once and for all; to figure out exactly what is fueling this craze, and what separates me from it.

She recently performed a concert in London where she premiered several of the songs that will appear on her album, due out just before my birthday in November. I listened to it, ready to once again begin the lengthy detective work of cracking her. But to my surprise, an answer came to me almost immediately. There she was, talking about how she had missed her fans, talking oh so dramatically about how hard it was for her to sing a certain song, parading around in costumes full force and singing her heart out—everything I had expected. And I realized that my perspective was all wrong. Lady Gaga was not an artist for the analysts. She was an artist for the fans.

The bombast, the spectacle, the self-importance, the dramatics, the identity, the motherliness—Lady Gaga’s doing everything she could to give her fans something to be a fan of. She wants to give them the experience of unadulterated emotional intensity. To truly appreciate Lady Gaga, you can’t sit there taking notes. You have to lose yourself to how truly awesome a figure she is.

It made so much sense to me. That’s why her little monsters love her so much—because they can love her so much. Pop stars like Katy Perry or KeSha or Douglas Bubbletrousers just don’t go to the lengths Lady Gaga does to provide such an amorous experience. And I couldn’t help but appreciate the irony. My whole reason for delving into Lady Gaga stemmed from my own unadulterated emotional intensity. Of wildly loving someone I dated enough to want to be like them, and like what they like. And the more I tried to figure out how to like Lady Gaga, the further I drifted from that unadulterated emotional intensity I needed.

I have mixed feelings. For one, I’m glad that I took a step away from that unadulterated emotional intensity (and for the record, I like that phrase too much to stop using it.) I’ve found myself very comfortable these last two years looking at this phenomenon, and life itself, so objectively. Being so in touch with the rationality of the real world has given me a harsh but honest perspective that ultimately makes me more comfortable. I’m not as confused or susceptible to hurt feelings anymore. I have control, and you could even say I’ve grown up a bit.

And yet, I realize I shouldn’t live a life without embracing unadulterated emotional intensity. When I was able to see through the eyes of one of her fans, I found myself in touch with a side of myself that I had abandoned for a while. A side of myself that could just love the fuck out of something without asking questions. I hadn’t gone the last two years without experiencing deep emotions, no—but I hadn’t felt myself become stupidly lost in them. And as stupid as I know it is, I want to.

Lady Gaga is a very talented person. She can write music, she can dance, she can sing, she can perform, she can dress, she can decorate, and best of all, she can think. She has crafted her fame to become the paradigm of fandom. I think her music is pretty good, and I respect her considerably, but I’m no little monster. I find myself wanting my artists the way I want my life: With half their steps in reality and half in spectacle. But I owe something to Lady Gaga. While I could never completely understand her, the conclusion I came to reminded me to let myself go. To forget reality. To be stupid. To just dance.

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smallerplaces · 1 year

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Bye bye, Barn Buddies Eva!

When I dealt with my mother's collection of roughly 1000 dolls, I did a final weed-down of dolls I was keeping (some from my own much smaller collection). The "final" result was 19 fashion dolls of characters with canonical ages from late childhood to adulthood, plus a few 4" small girls. And the deal was that while 20 was not a firm limit, it's a good estimate on how many dolls I'm able to manage happily, so anyone coming in means evaluating whether someone should go out.

Well. I bought two fashion dolls at Family Dollar last week, both of them massively on-target for my interests. (These will be unboxed in a later post.) These are the first dolls I've bought since late 2019, so it's not like I'm bingeing, but it meant someone marginal needs to go.

When I'd done the final cut, I'd thought "wow, a 1:9 articulated doll, I remember when ToyBoxPhilosopher featured a couple and they seemed so cool." My mother was obsessed by TBP and kind of hated her by the time TBP took her break from blogging, so of course when TBP talked about this size, Mom had to buy one (probably around 2017).

Having a ton of points of articulation in a 1:9 doll is genuinely cool. In the late 2010s, there was a period after the first enthusiasm for Barbie Fashionista and before the introduction of Made to Move Barbie when getting articulation in a fashion doll meant you were either (a) collecting Monster High [which was at its peak of cleverness and popularity] or (b) going on a treasure hunt for wild and varied alternatives.

This doll has extraordinary amounts of articulation, especially for her size. She's got wrists and ankles! She's got thigh rotation!

As a result, she can not only sort of touch her head, as the top pic shows: she can sit and kneel with stability.

At this point, I was still assuming she was a Breyer riding doll, because I remembered TBP reviewing the "Let's Go Riding Western" set in 2014. But no! There was, around the same time, a review of Paradise Horse's "Barn Buddies," and that's what Mom bought.

That makes a substantial difference in resale value, as there's a secondary market for Breyer riding dolls in good condition, but sales of Paradise riding dolls on eBay are sparse.

I even waffled a little, as 1:9 dollhouse furniture finds often entice me, but those can be used as standalone display pieces for Skipper and Stacie, or as Barbie furniture if we're not too picky. But... I don't want a second one of these, and in posing her for pics, I realized I just wasn't that into her.

She's an awkward size for making friends. Although she's only a little taller than Stacie, she's clearly meant to be more mature. (Yes, Skipper is going through an awkward period. I need to sew her some outfits.)

Eva is way too big to party with the taller dollhouse dolls, Britney and Unidentified Tenant of Britney. (Yes, that's a Britney Spears 7" doll, another of Mom's finds. I do love this one. She lives in a mansard mansion with a rental unit on the top floor. More on that later.)

I was going to list Eva for $5.99 on eBay and see what happened, but while taking her tasteful nude shots, I discovered that her arm joints are so loose that she can't hold a pose. On a super-rare antique doll, you can risk selling that way with a lot of disclaimers, but on a low-cost play doll, that is standing in the middle of the highway and asking to get negged. So into the donation bag she goes, since the condition is acceptable for a $2 play doll.

Goodbye Eva. Trust your rebel heart, take the road less traveled.

#articulated doll #dollblogging #barn buddies #horse rider doll #leaving collection #1:9 doll

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wrenhyperfixates · 4 years

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A Perfect Proposal

Pairing: Loki x reader Summary: In which you propose to Loki. Warnings: Did anyone order fluff? Well, here you go :) A/N: Sending love out into the world for anyone who needs it. If you’re feeling down on yourself and like no one will want you (as so many of us oft think) just remember your real life Loki isn’t as far away as you think :)

Tag List: @lucywrites02 @frostedgiant @lunarmoon8 @twhiddlestonsstuff @lokistan @lowkeyorlokificrecs @gaitwae @whatafuckingdumbass @castiels-majestic-wings @kozkaboi @cozy-the-overlord @birdgirl90 @myraiswack

Disclaimer: Gif not mine

“I love you, dearest,” Loki said, placing a small kiss to your temple.

“I love you, too,” you replied. “I want to be with you for the rest of my life and every moment after.”

“I feel the same way.”

Unfortunately, for as much as he insisted that, Loki had yet to take the next step in your relationship. He’d been your boyfriend for nearly two years now, and you were both madly in love with the other. You honestly had no doubts about that at this point, but it was frustrating being stuck where you were, nonetheless. There wasn’t even anything wrong with your relationship, per se, but it had been the same thing for a while now. The problem was that you loved him so much, you wanted more. Marriage. You’d talked about it a while ago, and he seemed open to the idea, but he had yet to pop the question. With all the hints you’d been leaving recently, you thought he would have asked by now. There was nothing else you could do short of asking him yourself.

“That’s it,” you gasped, jumping up from the couch. “Sorry, Loki. I gotta go. I’ll see you later, ok?”

You gave him a quick peck on the cheek before hurrying off to find your friends, leaving a very confused god in your wake. Zooming into another common room, you found them locked in concentration on an intense game of MarioKart.

“Bucky, Wanda, Nat. Important announcement,” you said to get their attention.

“One second,” Bucky shushed. “I’m about to win.”

“In your dreams,” Wanda snickered.

You impatiently tapped your foot as you let them finish the final lap, about ready to burst with excitement from your idea. Bucky and Wanda both groaned as Nat snatched the win at the last second.

“And that is how it’s done,” she said high-fiving you. “Now, what’s the emergency?”

“I’m going to propose to Loki.”

Wanda squealed in excitement and threw her arms around you in a hug. “That’s awesome! I’m proud of you!”

“Thanks, but before I can go through with this, I’m going to need a ring.”

And so, your little band of friends snuck out of the Tower and headed to a jewelry shop in the city. You were marveling at all the beautiful bands, as your friends argued over which one would be best. They all had different ideas about what you should get, though you didn’t really have a clue yourself. You were sure you would know it when you saw it.

“I’m telling you, this is the best one,” Bucky insisted, holding up an antique ring.

“Are you crazy? It’s so worn. No offense, but who would want that one?” Nat said.

“Steve would like it,” he murmured.

“How about this one?” Wanda called.

She pointed to a slim, ebony black band in the display case. It was understated, yet pretty. You considered the shiny trinket for a moment. It seemed like something Loki would like, and yet it wasn’t quite right. Continuing to walk through the store and take in the countless options, something in your peripheral vision caught your attention. Your head snapped back to it, and you let out an audible gasp.

“This is the one,” you declared.

Your friends came rushing over to see. The ring was fashioned as a gold, double-headed snake with emeralds as eyes. Far from a typical engagement ring, but you and your boyfriend weren’t much for conventional.

“We’ll take it,” you told the chipper store clerk.

To thank your friends for their help, you treated them to some coffee. As you sat in the cafe, you began to obsess over how to propose to Loki, though they insisted you were overthinking it. They were acting as if it were easy to speak from the heart. Then again, Loki was the love of your life, so maybe the right words would just flow out in the moment. Still, you’d like to have some kind of general outline.

Your planning was cut short by your ringtone, and you knew it must be Loki as he was the only one who bothered with calling anymore. Everyone else just texted, but he hadn’t quite figured out how to do that yet. You had to admit, his ineptitude with technology was kind of cute.

“Dearest, can you hear me?” he asked. “Is this accursed magic box working?”

“Yes, my love,” you laughed. “It’s working just fine.”

“Very good. I was wondering if you would accompany me to dinner this evening. Say, 7:30, the balcony where we first met?”

“Absolutely.”

You remembered meeting Loki as if it had only just happened moments ago. You’d heard the stories of the monster he’d been at the Battle of New York, but standing there in the moonlight, he’d just looked fragile. You’d missed introductions earlier that day, having been on a mission, and approached with caution, careful not to rip him from his quiet reverie.

“Whatcha thinking about?” you’d asked softly, leaning next to him on the railing.

He’d looked slightly bewildered, whether because you snuck up on him or he didn’t know who you were, you still didn’t know.

“Nothing much, mortal,” he’d said.

“Well, that’s not very nice.”

“What?”

“Calling me ‘mortal.’”

“Well forgive me, but you did not introduce yourself,” he’d snapped back.

“Oh, well, yeah. Ok. I guess you’re right.”

You told him your name, and he said it softly, tasting the foreign word on his tongue. He tested it out a few times before coming to a conclusion.

“I like that name very much, mortal,” he teased.

“Haha very funny. How mature.”

Despite trying to sound angry, you couldn’t help but smile. You’d talked for a while after that and didn’t split up until the first light of morning began to fight through the darkness. Needless to say, you didn’t get much sleep, for even when you’d reached your room, your heart was pounding too wildly to allow you to slumber. You were too excited from meeting this handsome stranger. This god. Loki.

But that was then, and this was now. You walked out onto the balcony decorated with twinkle lights, candles, and your favorite flowers, the napkins and tablecloth your favorite color. You nervously checked to make sure you had the ring carefully tucked away one more time before going out to meet Loki in an embrace.

Throughout dinner, you mainly managed to keep your cool, but your leg would not stop bouncing with anxious energy. If Loki noticed, he didn’t say anything, though he did appear to be a little nervous himself, what with the constant fidgeting of hands and all.

Waving away your empty dishes with a flick of his hands, he began asking what you would like for dessert, but your mind was already far away. You jumped a little at the sound of Loki’s voice.

“I’m sorry, what was that again?” you asked, snapping back to the moment.

“Dearest, are you feeling alright?” he questioned, voice laced with concern. “You seem worried.”

“No, I’m fine,” you said as he raised an unconvinced eyebrow. It was now or never. “But I have something to say.”

“By all means, please share.”

“Ok,” you began, sucking in a sharp, anxious breath. “As you know, we’ve been dating for some time now, and I love you more than anything in this world. Even when we fight, that doesn’t change. Every moment I spend with you, I feel loved. Safe. Happy. You’ve been there for me in ways no one else in this world has. From the moment we met, something was screaming in my mind, ‘This is the one.’ It hasn’t stopped saying it since. I want to be with you, be there for you, for the rest of my life. Loki, my heart, my love, the light of my life, will you marry me?”

You got down onto one knee and popped open the ring box for a very stunned Loki. You gulped nervously as he seemed to regain his senses.

“Well, this is awkward,” he said. Your mind immediately jumped to worst-case scenario, assuming he was about to break up with you, but before you could speak your fears, Loki was also down on one knee, also opening a box. “I was just about to say the same thing.”

Now it was your turn to be stunned. You’d truly thought he was too hard on himself to ever actually ask for your hand in marriage, and you were elated that he loved you enough to work past that.

“In case the answer wasn’t obvious, yes. Yes with my whole heart!” you exclaimed, launching yourself into his arms.

Pulling back from him, you kissed him passionately. You slipped his ring onto his finger, and he did the same for you. It was exactly what you’d always hoped your engagement ring would look like. You beamed at Loki, completely happy.

“I love you, dearest,” he said.

“I love you, too. I can’t wait to be with you for the rest of my life.”

“And every moment after.”

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dangerouscommiesubversive · 3 years

Text

fought on your side long before you were born

Fandom: Kamen Rider, Batman, Kamen Rider W Characters: Hongo Takeshi, Tachibana Tobei, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Hidari Shoutaro, Philip, Damian Wayne Song: "Father to Son," Queen (playlist here)

1977

Tachibana’s got a shop now, something he can use to support his family now that he isn’t traveling, and the first thing that greets Takeshi as he walks in is the thick smell of motor oil. There’s a bike in pieces at one end of the shop floor around which several young men are clustered, arguing cheerfully. Another young man is sitting in a corner near them, inexplicably playing acoustic guitar and responding briefly whenever he’s addressed. It’s new, but it feels like home, and Takeshi can feel his shoulders instinctively relaxing.

“Hongo!” Tachibana himself emerges from the shop office, beaming. “When’d you get back to Japan?”

“Just now, I came right here.”

“Damn right you did.” There’s some hugging and back-slapping and general affectionate ribbing, and then Tachibana says, “So what do you think? Nice place, right?”

“It’s wonderful. How’s your son?”

“Healthy as a horse, running me and Mari ragged.” Tachibana gestures to the huddle of young men at the other end of the room. “Plenty of help around here, though.”

Takeshi grins. “I can see that. Who’s the one with the guitar?”

“Oh, him? American kid. Funny story, really, I’m closing up one day when this young guy just materializes—no, not literally, he’s just real quiet—and asks, am I Tachibana Tobei? Only Dr. Jin in Madrid says I’m the best in the world and will I teach him about motorcycles! And he hands me a letter of introduction from Keisuke!” Tachibana sounds like he’s holding back laughter. “So he’s renting our spare room at the house and working here for a few months. Quick study, too. Shiro taught him guitar, he’s in town for a bit and they hit it off. Here, come on, I’ll introduce you to everyone.”

They head over to the disassembled motorcycle, and the young men fall all over themselves to be introduced, which Takeshi bears with good cheer. They’re young, of course they’re enthusiasts.

The American boy is last, and Takeshi is shocked to realize that he is a boy, no more than eighteen or nineteen, a pale youth with blue eyes and a lonely look that reminds Takeshi of Shiro. No wonder they get along. He sets his guitar aside and bows, stiff and solemn, and says, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hongo. Mr. Tachibana talks about you a lot.”

“That I do! Hongo, this is Bruce Wayne, he’s the summer guest I was telling you about.”

“Good to meet you, Wayne. Your accent is excellent.” The boy’s got a firm handshake. “What brings you to Japan?”

“Study, sir,” but the boy’s tone says that’s not all of it. “I’m trying to learn all I can. Maybe I could ask you a few things later, if you don’t mind.”

Takeshi blinks. “Not sure what you’d want to ask, but I don’t see why not.”

He eats dinner at Tachibana’s house that evening, because of course Tachibana isn’t going to let him get away unfed his first night back in town. Mari greets him at the door, Joji in her arms, beaming.

He’s intially surprised to see that the American boy is there too, until he remembers, of course he is—Wayne’s renting the spare room. And he’s barely noticeable for most of the meal, silent, although he’s clearly listening to everything that’s said. After dinner he also helps Mari with the dishes, entirely unprompted, which Takeshi approves of, and then spends some time gently entertaining the toddler.

Later, Tachibana and Mari step away for a moment to get their son to bed, and Takeshi looks at the silent young man sitting in the corner and says, “So. Wayne.”

“Yes, Mr. Hongo?”

“You said you had something you wanted to ask me, and we’ve got a few minutes now. What can I help you with?”

Wayne remains quiet for a long moment, and then fixes those piercing eyes on Takeshi and says, “Mr. Tachibana says you’re the strongest person he knows. What does it mean to be strong?”

Not what Takeshi had been expecting. Granted, what he wasexpecting, he doesn’t know, but…not that. He thinks about it, frowning. “I’d say…kindness.”

Wayne’s forehead wrinkles. “What do you mean?”

“Look, Wayne, you can get as powerful as you want in life, but it’s only strength if you can use it to be kind. Otherwise it’s just tyranny.” Takeshi leans forward and holds out his hand, as if to shake. “Anyone, any fool on Earth can take their hand and make it into a fist. To reach out to someone when they need help, that’s strength.”

Slow nodding, and Wayne reaches out to him in return, clasps his hand for a brief moment, and says, “Thank you. That’s a valuable insight.”

Takeshi nods. “Ask Tachibana that question, too, and Shiro. It’s a good thing to ask. Tells you a lot about the person answering.” He considers it for a moment. “Of course, there will always be some people you won’t be able to help, we share this world with monsters. But you must always try to be kind. That’s strength.”

2017

Bruce checks his watch as he walks up to the restaurant, satisfied to be a precise fifteen minutes early, and then looks up and is surprised to realize that for once Dick’s beaten him there. Not only is he there, too, he’s talking to someone Bruce doesn’t recognize.

The stranger seems to be about Dick’s own age, a man in a black fedora and slightly old-fashioned dress clothes from a minor Japanese fashion label. His tone suggests an awkward tourist, but his stance says he’s a fighter, and the way he watches his surroundings indicates that he’s memorizing as many details as possible. He’s got a guidebook in one hand, and a notebook sticking out of his pocket, and he’s speaking Japanese, which is not one of Dick’s stronger languages. Bruce steps forward, thinking he might need to translate, but Dick replies to the other man in English, which is met with a thoughtful nod. So—they’re about the same level in each other’s languages. Better at hearing than speaking. Convenient for them.

“—so if you’re looking for something in his field, the natural history museum is great. If you want somewhere more romantic,though, the Thorndike is amazing, and there’s this restaurant right near it, I forget the name—oh, hey, Bruce! You’re here! What’s the name of that restaurant across the street from the Thorndike Museum?”

“San Sebastian Jatetxe.”

“That’s the one! Thank you!” Dick beams at him, then turns to his companion. “I’ll write it down for you.”

“<Thank you, I’d appreciate that.>”

“Of course! This is my foster father, by the way, Shoutaro-san.Bruce Wayne. Bruce, this is Shoutaro Hidari, he’s visting Gotham for a couple of weeks.” To Shoutaro again, “Bruce’s Japanese is much better than mine.”

Bruce nods. “<What brings you to Gotham, Mr. Hidari?>”

Shoutaro relaxes visibly at the question; it’s likely the only new voice he’s heard speaking his mother tongue in days. “<My partner is attending a conference here, so we decided we’d make it a vacation.>”

“<Aha. Curators and archivists?>”

“<How did you guess?>”

“<A friend of Dick’s and mine is also attending, she mentioned that international registrations are up significantly this year.>” Bruce pauses. “<If you’re looking for date spots, the Thorndike is excellent, as Dick said, but the Botanical Gardens are also very nice this time of year.>”

Shoutaro blushes warmly. “<Thank you very much for the recommendation.>”

He doesn’t think much more about Dick’s tourist friend until that night, when he and Damian are out on patrol. It’s a quiet night, so they’re stopping a mugging as gently as possible when the mugger—a repeat offender and sometime informant, Bruce makes a note to check in on him at home out of suit—says, “So, uh, Bats. Who’s the new guy?”

Bruce frowns. No one new should be operating here.“Which one?”

“You know, the bug guy. My buddy texted about him, said he was speaking some other language. Well, he said it was a bug ninja who spoke Japanese, but he watches a lotta anime and he gets real excited, so I ain’t sure he’s right.”

“A bug. What color?”

“Oh, it changes, it’s cool as hell.” He shows Bruce and Damian a picture on his phone. “He a friend’a yours?”

“Yes. He’s visiting.” Bruce peers at the photo and then hands his informant two hundred dollars. “Buy dinner and go home, Nathan. Tell your aunt I say hello.”

“Yo, sure thing. Thanks, Bats!”

They’ve only been searching a few minutes when their earpieces crackle and Babs says, “Roof of GPL Central Branch. Someone I don’t recognize, they just took out some Joker goons who were robbing a jewelry store at the corner of High and 26th. Dick’s on his way too.”

They touch down at one end of the Gotham Public Library’s roof as Dick’s landing at the other and survey their guest, who’s looking between the three of them with something that’s likely surprise, although given that their face is entirely concealed it’s not certain. The insectoid red eyes and sharp antennae on the helmet and the white scarf drifting in the air from the back of the right shoulder send a shock of recognition down Bruce’s spine. He considers speaking first, but then nods to Dick instead. For better or for worse, Dick is good at putting people at ease.

“Hi there.” Dick waves to the stranger, tone cheery but guarded. “We haven’t seen you around before, mind telling us what you’re doing in Gotham?”

The stranger cocks their head to the left for a moment before saying, haltingly, “We. Ah. We are…tourists? We did not mean to…um…” The left eye of the helmet flashes as they’re speaking. A beat, and then the righteye begins to flash, and they say, in an entirely different voice that’s noticeably accented but much more fluent, “I’ll handle this part if you don’t mind, partner. Good evening, we’re Kamen Rider W. Our apologies, we didn’t mean to intrude on your territory. Are we addressing the famed Batman and his companions?”

Bruce says, slowly, “That’s correct. You’re a Rider?”

“Oh, you’re familiar with the term! That’s wonderful. Yes, that’s correct. We’ve been in operation as such since late 2008, although of course primarily in Japan.”

“Tt.” Damian scowls. “<If you mostly work in Japan, what are you doing running around here?>”

The left eye on the helmet begins to flash again as W responds in the first voice, in Japanese now. “<It wasn’t exactly the plan, a man in clown makeup waved a gun at me and tried to take my wallet and once I’d knocked him out I noticed that there were about five more clowns breaking into a jewelry store down the street. I couldn’t just leave them to it.>”

Dick is also frowning now. “I—have we met before? I recognize your voice. The, uh, left-hand one.”

“” says the left-hand voice, and then the right-hand one breaks in with, “Actually, based on his memory of your speech patterns, I believe you and my partner met earlier today, you recommended a couple of date locations and a Basque restaurant I’m eager to visit.”

Bruce can see Dick’s eyes going wide from halfway across the roof. He’s visibly biting back the urge to address their guest by name, which would be discourteous, to say the least, with everyone in costume, so Bruce cuts in with, “Is my understanding correct that we’re speaking to two people currently?”

“That’s correct!” says the right-hand voice, sounding delighted. “We two are a single Kamen Rider.”

Dick blinks. “Is this like a Firestorm thing? Are you fused?”

“Not unlike, but no. My physical body is currently unconscious in our hotel room, which is certainly much more comfortable than some of the other places in which I’ve passed out. Although as my partner wasoriginally going out to get us something to eat when he was accosted, I ambecoming concerned about my caloric intake.” And the left-hand voice says, “<Yeah, I was thinking I’d be able to get us something decent at the Seven-Eleven, but the ones here are different from the ones at home.>”

“I think,” Bruce says, “this conversation would be better continued elsewhere.”

Twenty minutes later they’re all out of suit and seated around a table at an all-night diner, and Shoutaro’s partner, introduced only as Philip, is inspecting the menu with interest. “This is intimidatingly lengthy, do you have recommendations?”

Dick grins. “Get one of the meat-lovers omelettes. And then if you still have room get some baklava, the owner’s mother makes it and it’s amazing.”

Bruce, meanwhile, is turning Shoutaro’s business card over in his hands. “<You’re a detective?>”

“”

“<I’ve heard of the Fuuto Museum, they hosted an intriguing exhibit on Mesopotamian artifacts last year.>”

“<You heard about Nitoh’s exhibit here? That’s amazing, I’ll have to let him know.>”

“<Please tell him I was very impressed with his thesis.>”

Damian’s been scowling silently into his milkshake, but suddenly he slaps the table and everyone jumps. “I knew I recognized that name!” Then, to Shoutaro, “”

“<I—you did? Really? It hasn’t had any translations, how did you hear about it?>”

“<My, uh.>” Damian shifts awkwardly. “<My mother gave it to me, I like detective stories. I enjoyed it. Although that copy was lost.>”

“<Oh, I’ll send you a new one if you like, I don’t imagine it’d be easy to get here.>”

The waitress comes by, and her eyebrows slowly rise as everyone orders, presumably at the quantity of food on request. When she’s left again, Philip turns to Bruce and says, brightly, “I also take it that you’re the sponsor Ms. Gordon mentioned, we had a very stimulating chat at the conference earlier today.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised to hear that you met her.”

“Coincidence and fate figure largely in our lives, Mr. Wayne.” Philip smiles like a cat; it’s oddly charming. “We’re superheroes, after all. Here,” to Damian, “Dick mentioned to me that you like animals, would you like to see a picture of my cat? He used to be a supervillain.”

After they consume a truly astonishing amount of diner food it’s time to part ways, and Bruce shakes hands with Shoutaro and Philip and says, “<It was good to meet you both.>”

Philip beams. “<Likewise, thank you, it’s been a pleasure. And I’m looking forward to seeing more of Gotham.>”

Shoutaro looks up at him for a moment. “<It’s been good talking to you, Mr. Wayne. You…remind me of someone I used to know.>”

“” Bruce turns to go, but then turns back. “”

They nod, precisely in sync, and Philip says, “<Yes?>”

“<What does it mean to be strong?>”

Silence for a moment, Shoutaro and Philip glancing at each other while Dick and Damian wait in puzzled silence, and then Shoutaro says, “<Kindness,>” and Philip says, “<Love.>” Another shared glance before Shoutaro continues. “<Anyone can hurt someone else. Helping them, that’s strength.>”

Bruce nods. “<Somehow that’s what I knew you’d say.>”

#hongo takeshi #tachibana tobei #bruce wayne #dick grayson #hidari shoutaro #philip #damian wayne #fanfiction #30 day shuffle challenge

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honeymoonjin · 5 years

Text

𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 taehyung x reader ft yoongi || 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕 8.5k || 𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆 smut

𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚 riddled with insomnia, you’d just about do anything to get a good night’s rest. enter sandman.

𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 masturbation (m), voyeurism, exhibitionism, public sex, mile high club, oral (m receiving), choking, deepthroating, cockwarming but in her throat, throat bulge, way more male oral than i’ve ever written oop, dom!taehyung, sub!reader, dirty talk, unprotected sex, riding, tentacles, yes you did read that correctly user honeymoonjin is expanding her wares, buckets of cum, like really a ridiculous amount of it, is it somnophilia if they’re fucking in her dreams?, cum eating, rough nipple play, hair pulling, belly bulge, creampie

many thanks to @jamaisjoons for the gorgeous banner, she really outsold xx many thanks as well to @honey-boyyoongi for beta reading and helping a lot on plot. i wouldn’t have finished this fic without her xx this fic is a part of the monster smash project at ksmutclub : )

It’s a shit fair.

You make sure to tell Yoongi this several times throughout the afternoon, more emphatically as the hours drag on, but he’s too focussed on giving heart-eyes to the young man tending the water pistol stall. The man, who has held an unbelievably cheery grin all night, at some point got caught in the stream of a kid with poor aim, and though it’s warm his shirt still hasn’t dried, leaving a rather promiscuous set of dark spots on his chest behind the translucent cotton. You think Yoongi might be drooling.

You’ve just about given up wandering around aimlessly waiting for your friend to get the courage to actually approach the guy, when a stall catches your attention. Unsurprising, considering how gaudy and kitschy it is. Heavy embroidered tapestries form a makeshift curtain across the entrance to the booth, and above rests a sign with neon striplighting that reads Enter Sandman. You bite your lip, ignoring Yoongi’s impatient tug on your arm. You don’t remember seeing it on any of your other turns around the small fairground, though you can’t imagine how you could’ve possibly missed it.

Without breaking your gaze, you address Yoongi. “I’m gonna check out some stalls.”

“Come on, you’re gonna ditch me in my time of need?” Yoongi’s voice is playfully lilting, the kind that lets you know it’s okay to leave while simultaneously promising that he’ll complain about your abandoning him later, probably at four in the morning when neither of you can get to sleep.

“Yup,” you mumble blankly, and shake off his grip, making your way across the slightly uneven dirt and trampled grass to reach the stall. You feel drawn, strangely, to the narrow dark triangle of shadow between the folds of the curtain. It’s only once you get nearer that you make out the patterns of the delicate stitching: swirls of gold thread weave around figures, horizontal or curled up, all in dull shades of brown and beige. Entranced, you reach out your fingers to follow the swirls of gold. The tapestry, instead of ending in edges over the entrance, is folded so that the pictures trail around the edge. Without thinking to politely announce your presence, you simply slip inside, feeling the late summer humidity lead to a shady coolness.

It’s dark inside, and silent. Nothing illuminates the small room except for a single candle on a table, a black tall taper, drops of wax running cleanly down the sides to stain the golden tablecloth. It’s luckily enough to just make out the reflective glint of the gold thread, and you follow the tapestry slowly as it runs all the way along the walls inside. Part of you feels this is futile, and you shouldn’t be poking around in an empty stall when the owner was out, but still you walk deeper into the booth, the texture of embroidery teasing the tips of your fingers.

At one point, closer to the back of the room, your shadow begins to block the candlelight, and you squint, barely making out the trail of golden swirls. An odd protrusion in the wall causes you to step back, losing the trail for a moment but picking it up, a bright gold patch, perfectly circular and shining like-

“What are you doing in my tent?”

You gasp and jump back, bumping your lower back on a wooden chair tucked into the table. A hand shoots out, latches tightly onto your wrist. You freeze, following the arm up a sleeve, and to a chest, black silk with a pendant dangling just below his collarbones, a single gold coin. Your eyes jump up, apology on your tongue, but you can’t force your mouth to move when you’re greeted with two gleaming eyes, trained solely on you.

No, not gleaming. Glowing.

You swallow hard as he blinks slowly, eyebrows narrowed and partially blocking what looks like swirling irises of molten gold, a depth that draws you in. “I- sorry,” you croak finally, feeling his grip around your wrist loosen, the delicate bones aching. “It did say ‘enter’.”

You can’t be sure in the dim lighting, but a slight flash of white makes you think he’s smirking at you. “My sign says ‘Enter Sandman’. Are you a sandman?”

You blink slowly. “No.”

“Hm, I didn’t think so. I am the sandman. And you are the trespasser.”

Your mind feels hazy, two beats too slow. “Do you want me to… leave, then?”

His hand lets go of yours completely. It leaves you feeling oddly unmoored. “You could leave,” he offers lightly, “but then you’d never get my help.”

You want to turn around, some illogical urge to make sure the exit is still free, that the fair is still in full swing outside. It feels so quiet in here. But you don’t want to turn your back on him. The hairs on the back of your neck are at full attention and your instincts are going haywire like a faulty compass, unsure what to feel. You swallow past the dryness in your throat. “Your help?”

The gilded glow of his eyes - some modern fashion contacts, no doubt - gently illuminate the dark eyelashes that frame them. They narrow at the corners, like he’s grinning at you. “My help,” he echoes. “You look tired, little girl. Can’t get to sleep?”

The blood in your veins runs cold. In the cool shade of the tent, goosebumps break out along your arms. “How did you know that? Are you meant to be a psychic or something?”

His tongue clicks in irritation. “I’m a sandman. I believe I told you that. I can promise you restful sleep every night. For a price.”

You scoff, the reality of the situation dawning on you. Cool shtick, you allow. The dude certainly had a good way of setting up atmosphere. “Let me guess, $29.99 plus tax? Or buy a whole week for a hundred? Thanks, but no thanks.”

You turn before he manages to reply. In fact, he remains still in the time it takes you to stumble around the table in the dark, making your way to the bright sliver of light streaming in through the folds of the tapestry. Your hand is on the rough fabric before you hear his honeyed voice again.

“My price isn’t currency,” he states simply.

Your hand remains frozen in the air. Damn you and your constant curiosity. “What is it, then?” you ask, twisting around. Now that your silhouette isn’t blocking the candlelight, you can make out a vague outline. He’s tall, but you already knew that from the height of his eyes. “Your price, I mean.”

He steps forward, just one foot dusting the exposed ground, but it’s enough to bring him closer to the light, enough for the dancing flame to shine upon his face.

With the lighting from below, heavy shadows are cast below his brows and his hairline, but you can see the warm bronze tone to his skin, and the fine bone structure below it. He’s still smirking, just the slightest quirk to his lips, and his chin is jutted forward smugly. He’s gorgeous.

You can’t help but swallow again as his piercing eyes stay fixed upon you, the slight pink of his tongue poking at the corner of his mouth as his grin widens. “Dream of me.”

You feel like you’re floating. You’re in a bathroom, looking in on a shower. Although the glass should be fully fogged up, with the rest of the room humid with steam, you can see through perfectly, to the naked form inside.

In real life, you would leave immediately, at the very least turn away, but in the hazy logic of your dream, you simply observe.

His head is against the wall, forehead pressed to the tile as water pelts down his tanned back. One hand props him up; the other is between his legs, fisting at an angry red erection. It drips precum with every jerk of his wrist, disappearing amongst the slightly soapy water that circles the drain. You can’t see his face with how the sodden bronzed locks of his hair cling to it.

Although the showerhead seems to be spraying full power, his pleasure-filled groans are what fill your ears. The way they trail off shakily every time he twists his wrist just below the tip, the gruff curses under his breath. You listen and watch as he falls apart from his own ministrations, the muscles in his buttocks clenching as he begins to thrust into his hand, panting slightly.

Like hearing from underwater, you slowly becoming aware of a murmur that the man chants, louder and faster each time, as his hand speeds up. Your mind runs slower than treacle, but you do your best to focus.

“Y/n! Y/n, fuck, yes! God, right there, I’m not gonna last, fuck!”

You mentally recoil, though your body simply continues to watch, honed in on the way his whole body undulates, chasing the pleasure with every fibre of his being. He moans your name, panting onto the slippery tile. He’s close; you can tell by the way his hips shudder.

With a shout, he spills himself onto the floor of the shower, spurts of it catching and running down the wall, pooling at the bottom before washing away. He jerks himself languidly until the last drop runs down over his knuckles, and then lets out a satisfied exhale, using his toes to wipe away the last of it, before straightening up again, rinsing his face in the stream.

“Fuck, Y/n,” he says one last time with a relieved sigh, “mm, thank you.”

Finally, he stretches out an arm blindly to reach for the metal nozzle, cutting the flow of water short. He tips his head back, pressing at his scalp to wring out some of the water, and you catch your first real glimpse of his face. A face you recognise very well. As you stare at the man you had met in the tent, the details of the bathroom blur away, fading into wisps of steam. His eyes, glowing gold, are the last two pinpricks of detail before the dream dissolves into nothingness.

You wake up with a jolt, the sheets underneath you sticky with sweat. It was real. You dismiss the thought with a shake of your head the moment it occurs to you. If anything, it was probably just your mind playing on what had happened as a way of processing it. But then again, you had slept the night through for the first time in almost a year. Speaking of...

Sitting up and stretching languidly, you curse upon viewing your alarm clock. You’d slept through your first class. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” you mutter in resignation, frowning when you become aware of a prickling sensation in your eye.

You rub at it, only to hiss when a sharp stinging sensation attacks the sensitive nerves. Blinking away the tears that spring up, you kick off your blankets, jogging barefoot to the bathroom to inspect it in the mirror.

Leaning in close enough that your breath creates little foggy patches on the glass, you make out some substance clogging up the inner corner of your right eye. There’s some on the left too, though not as much, and you use a wet wipe to carefully brush it out.

In confusion, you pull away the wipe and inspect the grit that’s come away. Like something you might find at a luxurious beach (though you haven’t been to one since you were a kid) a clump of golden sand sits on the moistened fabric, finer and more delicate than caster sugar. The colour reminds you of the hair of the man in your dream, of the man you met the day before. What the fuck? With a deep breath, you force yourself to clear out the rest of the sand from your eyes and clear the worry from your head.

“What sand tent?”

You stare at Yoongi in something mildly related to disgust as he shovels an ungodly amount of beef wrapped in a lettuce leaf into his mouth, dark dipping sauce gathering at the corners of his mouth. “A sandman tent. You know, the big neon sign? It was right beside the little homemade fudge stall.”

He chews noisily, brows furrowed in thought. “The one old Jeanie set up? That was right at the end of the row, Y/n, there wasn’t anything past that.” You go to protest, but Yoongi makes a sound of disagreement. “Seriously, Y/n, there wasn’t. I remember because she was complaining to me about the organisers trying to hide her stall since she’s taking all their business. I went there for some of her earl grey fudge but that certainly wasn’t the tea I ended up getting.”

You roll your eyes at his joke, but your heart isn’t in it. “I went in the tent, though. There was a dude there and everything. He said he’d give me a good night’s sleep if I dreamed of him, and I said sure, and for the first time in fucking ages I actually managed to sleep properly.”

Yoongi’s chopsticks hover over the beef sizzling on the barbecue. “Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Dream of him,” Yoongi clarifies.

You think back to the sight of him in the shower, streams of clear water washing away the cream he spilled on the floor, of the way his eyes pierced into you right as you woke up. Your cheeks heat at the lewd imagery. Normally your memory of dreams faded over the day - at least, when you were a kid they did. But every detail seems branded in your mind in full definition. Ducking your head, you reach out for a strip of cooked meat and avoid your friend’s gaze.

“Oh my god, you did! Was he hot?”

“Yoongi!”

“What? If he was, I wanna go track him down and get a dream. Why does all the cool shit happen to you?”

You sigh, though a reluctant smile tugs at your lips. You can never stay mad at him and he knows it. “Shut up and eat your damn lettuce wraps,” you mutter petulantly.

Over the lunch spent with Yoongi, you find the thought of the mysterious man slip from your mind, instead feeling reenergised from your good rest and cheered up from the good food and company.

You dream of him again the next night. Not a bathroom this time; an airplane. At the start, it feels like reality, only slightly more...fluid. The strange quality of a dream where everything is simultaneously crystal clear and blurred.

He’s beside you, the middle seat as you take the window. Outside, clouds melt into blue sky and in the cabin there are faceless individuals filling the seats.

“You dirty girl,” the sandman whispers, a hand on the inside of your knee. “You’re soaked for me.”

You widen your eyes and look down. The moment you see the dark patch forming in the crotch of your pants, a wave of arousal hits you as if it’s on a delay. “Yeah,” you breathe in awe. “Want you.”

His eyes sparkle behind thick lashes. “Oh, do you really?”

You bite your lip. “Please.” For a moment he looks remarkably casual, commonplace. He tilts his head at you and leans back, drawing your attention to his dress shirt and tie, and perfectly ironed pants, but when you drop his gaze to look over them, you gasp.

His shirt is unbuttoned all the way, gaping open to reveal his unclothed chest. The tie dangles down his bare skin, guiding your eyes to his crotch, where his pants are lewdly spread open, zipper parted to reveal the waistband of his underwear. A delicate trail of golden hairs dip from below his belly button to underneath the fabric, and without thinking, your hand stretches out towards it, fingering the edge of the waistband.

Rather than speak, you give him a questioning glance, but what greets you makes you suck in a breath. Just like the first time you met, he’s radiant; godlike. His hair is a silken warm blonde, gentle waves that frame his delicately arched brows. And his eyes. When you meet his gaze, his irises glint and shift, a brilliant gold that swirls around dilated pupils. This is the first time you’ve seen him properly in the light.

He narrows them slightly in amusement, drinking in your reaction. With a barely-there background of the airplane cabin, general shapes and blurs, the man sitting beside you is in startling clarity. Everything seems to revolve around him, a fixation you can’t shake. “Please,” you mumble again unconsciously, hand slipping below the elastic of his underwear.

He’s hard as a rock, though his face shows no desperation, only mild amusement with the way you lick your lips. As you massage him indulgently, you can’t help but recall the sight of him in the shower. Would his cock be the same in this dream?

“Watch out,” he warns, before breaking your gaze to face the aisle. Belatedly, you hear a squeaky wheel, a trundle cart being pushed down towards you. As the figure of an air hostess slips into view, you attempt to quickly retract your hand, though it seems your brain and body aren’t on the same track anymore. Even as you mentally strain with the want to take your hand out of his pants, it refuses to cooperate, wrapping your fingers fully around his length, running your thumb over his head.

He chuckles lowly, head tipped back luxuriously on the head rest, devoid of any shame. The air hostess is talking to the two of you, but your cheeks burn and you can’t bear to look at her. The sandman calmly orders a hot tea, only pausing to groan in relief when your rogue hand slips him out of his pants and into the cool air of the cabin. He’s making conversation with her, discussing landing times and stopovers, and your eyes fill with embarrassed tears as you feel yourself bending down, dipping your head to take him in your mouth.

Unlike any men you’d been with before, he tastes slightly sweet, a flavour that satisfies your tastebuds. The moment your tongue dips out to swipe up the bead of precum that’s gathered, it’s like your humiliation melts away, and even though you feel yourself regaining control of your hand, you continue to pump the base of his cock, lapping up as much of the moreish taste of him as you can.

“Now that’s a good girl,” his honeyed voice soothes, a reassuring palm brushing your hair out of your face gently, “just give in to me.”

You moan around the head of his cock and suck him down deeper. As you lower your head more, it seems your perverted dream-logic has taken away your gag reflex, and soon you’re removing your hand, nose pressing against his hip bone. He lets out a low, purring groan, and you grip the flesh of his thigh through his pants in response. You can feel him in your throat as you begin to bob your head, but instead of feeling like you’re being suffocated, you just feel deliciously full. A wave of wet heat rushes between your legs as you picture how it would feel to be that full somewhere else.

“Yes,” he sighs, “god, it’s been so fucking long, don’t you dare stop.” You pull off him with a pop quickly to look up, expecting the air hostess to have moved on by now, your dream sequence having gone down a different path, but she stands there, perfectly put-together and professional as she stares down at you. Behind her, you notice with a jolt that everyone in their seats have turned to look at you; countless generic faces that blend into nothing the moment you look away.

“They’re all watching,” you comment with a raw throat, though arousal at the thought of it slides through you like a hot knife, feeling your pants cling to you, impossibly soaked.

His smile is radiant and the gold in his eyes darkens to burnished bronze. With a hand on the back of your neck, he guides you back down. “Then give them a show.” He moans low in his throat when you take him in your mouth again, tongueing at the veins that run along the underside. His fingers slip around the other side of your neck, pushing down on your voicebox. You can feel the way his constriction traps his cock in your throat. You can’t breathe, but it is no longer necessary, your heart thrumming gently in your chest even without oxygen to pump it.

He presses down more firmly, an iron grip around your throat that closes your throat around his length. “I wonder…” he muses. With a dark laugh that sounds almost inhuman, the man pulls slowly, lifting you off him until only the tip sits on the back of your palate, barely inside your throat. Though you don’t understand what’s going on, or how your mind has gotten so depraved to picture this, your clit throbs in your panties and you remain obediently in his grasp, waiting for his next move. “Mm, so you are going to be a good girl for me.” You feel pressure around your throat again, though this time he’s pushing you back down. With your throat cinched inside his grip, his cock pushes at the cartilage, completely blocking your airway. Your eyes water, but somehow you remain still, the only part of you moving being your head as he uses your throat as a cocksleeve, pushing you down until your lips touch the skin around the base of his cock.

He isn’t overly vocal, but his indulgent grunts and moans seem amplified in your ears. He moves faster once you continue to take it, fucking up into you every time he plunges you down. He reaches his end quickly this way, and when he flattens his other palm over your scalp and holds you there, a warm release sliding down your throat, sweet like condensed milk, so much that it bubbles up and pools in your cheeks, spilling down your chin.

When he finally releases you, you come up, sucking in a shuddering breath. The spectators are still there, though it looks like the scene around you is melting, falling in on itself. The lines between things become blurred, colours on their faces merging into dull greens and browns, like mixed paint. With a horrified gaze, you watch the morphing shapes begin to clap slowly, applauding your performance.

“I guess they liked it,” he plainly remarks. You turn to face him again, but his forehead is creased, eyes clenched shut in focus. “Fuck, that was so… I can’t hold it, shit-!”

The moment he swears, all detail begins to fall away faster than before, the vibrant gold of his hair and tanned skin blending away into a black nothingness with the rest of the plane, and you gasp, cracking your eyes open with the sound of applause still ringing in your ears, slowly sounding out into the buzzing phone on your bedside table. You fling your arm out from the warm covers, batting it around until you can turn off the alarm, and let out a groan.

Your eyes feel dry and crusty, like you’ve been sleeping for days, and when you rub at them the same gritty sensation from the night before stings the inner corners. You pull your fingers away and squint at what’s resting on the pads of your fingertips, unsurprised when you’re greeted with those fine grains of perfectly golden sand. Tearing up at the irritation, you gingerly remove as much as you can, swallowing the dryness in your throat. A small price to pay for decent rest, you promise yourself, though a slight curl of doubt rests stubbornly in the back of your mind.

That night, as you drift off blissfully early in the evening, you’re ready. Upon admitting to Yoongi that they were sex dreams - your friend was beyond jealous - he had managed to convince you that you were cursed by the mysterious stranger, that he was a witch or an incubus. His plan, which you are determined to execute tonight, involves confronting the man himself - “Don’t forget to ask him if he’ll give sex dreams upon request!” - and demanding that he releases you from the curse.

Though you were still a little sceptical that it was anything more than an overactive subconscious, you feel assured going to sleep that at least you know what to do should he return.

And return he does.

Not a bathroom this time, nor a plane. In fact, it’s an environment completely foreign to you, all the more hinting at the fact that this maybe isn’t just your mind conjuring strange scenarios. Like the other two times, you feel hazy and sluggish, and it takes you a while to distinguish the scene around you.

You become slowly aware of lush carpet fibres beneath your feet, the gentle hum of an air conditioning unit, almost totally drowned out by unintelligible murmuring, a television left on.

He is in the room with you, on a couch. Head tilted to the side, locks of thick gold rumpled and messy. Bare feet up on the coffee table and black sweatpants riding low, exposing a narrow strip of tanned flesh below his t-shirt, he looks unbelievably… domestic.

You swallow hard, steeling your nerve. “Hey.”

He remains unresponsive, eyes locked on the television. No, not completely unresponsive; the corner of his lip quirks just slightly. You tamp down a rising streak of irritation.

“Hey,” you repeat emphatically.

With a sigh, the young man reaches out for the remote that rests on the arm of the couch, muting the television. He flattens you with an unimpressed look. “Yes?”

“What are you doing in my dreams?” The question seems unbelievably childish once you say it, so you cross your arms petulantly. This does not help.

He quirks an eyebrow, grin widening to reveal his teeth. “Enjoying myself,” he answers simply.

You huff. “Your stupid tent thing at the fair, was it even real?”

“Did it feel real to you? Did I feel real?” When you simply press your lips closer together in annoyance, he drops the cockiness, leveling an impatient stare at you. “You gave me permission to be here, I hope you remember. Words have power, Y/n.”

You frown at him, unsettled. “I never told you my name.”

He barks out a condescending laugh. “And I never told you mine, but you know it, don’t you?”

You run your tongue over the edges of your teeth as you ponder this. His name comes to you like a fact once-forgotten. The moment you think it, you know wholeheartedly it’s right. “Taehyung. But- How do I know that?”

His eyebrow twitches down, like he’s tiring of your lack of understanding. “Because I’m in here, Y/n,” he hisses, pointing a finger to his temple. “I’m deep inside you, inside your subconscious. I can access every thought in that pretty little head of yours and you can’t do a single thing about it because you were the one that let me in.”

You balk at the fiery steel that has entered his expression, the molten gold in his iris darkening as a sneer stretches across his face. You swallow away your nerves, though your chest continues to flutter uncertainly. As if Taehyung is the focal point of this plane, which you suppose he is, colours and textures shift around him, blurring into shapeless swirls at the edges of your vision. Even as he sits in front of you in startling clarity, just as malevolent in sweatpants and a tee as he was standing over you in the dark of the tent, you find your eyes unable to move off of him. You clear your throat, tears pricking. “I didn’t know what I was agreeing to,” you defend weakly.

He laughs, one short bark that contains no real humor. “Yes, you did. I said ‘dream of me’ and you agreed. You just thought I was some fake scam artist, didn’t you?” With one swift movement, he stands up, and you falter back when you realise just how tall he is. He steps forward once, twice, three steps and his chest almost touches yours. While the swirling sands in his eyes normally jumped and flickered teasingly, now they churn in tight circles, belying his intent. You’re reminded of a shark circling in bloody water. “Well, Y/n,” Taehyung taunts, “do you believe me now?”

Though you tremble, you force yourself to push your chest forward and your chin up. “I believe you,” you allow, voice wavering only a little bit. “So, what are you?”

His lips tighten, eyes lifting to the ceiling in exasperation. You jump when you feel his hand brush your elbow, clasping your upper arm loosely. “Y/n, little Y/n,” he chastises, “stop asking questions that you already know the answer too. How terribly boring.”

You want to shake your arm out of his grip, but his touch is hot, like the heavy warmth of a fire, and you can’t help but want more of it. Judging by the way his fingertips tease at the sensitive skin of your shoulder, he knows it too. “Fine, you’re a sandman. What the fuck does that even mean?”

He sighs shortly, head tipping back down to catch your gaze. His arm drops, and you tremble at the cold air, feeling oddly put-out. “Sit down,” he commands simply. Without waiting for a response, he turns his back to you and flops his body onto the couch, kicking his feet back up onto the coffee table, eyes lazily following the characters on the muted television.

You bite your tongue, doing as he says. It’s strange; you’re barely aware of your own body in the dream, can barely feel the texture of the couch underneath you, yet every nerve in your body is hyper-fixated on the tingling remaining warmth from his hand on your shoulder. You feel yourself wanting to lean in to him in the hopes that he’ll put his hands on you again. You can’t help but wonder if it feels that electric if he touched you somewhere else.

Fuck. Snap out of it. “I’ve sat down now. Can you actually be serious and answer my questions?”

Like a switch is flipped, his grin drops and his eyebrows flatten. “Fine,” he allows in a chastising tone, “let’s be serious.” You watch in amazement as the scenery around you drops away. Like melting wax, the television, walls, coffee table, everything but the couch the two of you are on morph and fade away. “This is my terrain now,” he states calmly, “I choose what you see, what you experience, what you feel. So if I were you I wouldn’t be so rude to me.”

Your jaw moves for a few moments before you can voice anything. “Why are you doing this?”

His eyes flicker, though the mischievous glint is gone. “I’m a sandman,” he explains simply. “I only exist in this dream realm. I can only interact with things in the dream realm. Out there, in your world, I have no sensation, no feeling. But if I can get a naive little human like you to give me access into your mind, then your dreams are my playground. And I fully intend to play.”

With a dry mouth, you clear your throat. “Fine,” you say, “you can do whatever the fuck you want in my dreams but leave me out of it.”

The smirk returns to his face, lips pulling back to reveal teeth. He runs his tongue over them as he sits forward, placing a hand on your knee, fingers wrapping around. You try not to jerk at the sudden touch, the burst of heat. “No can do, sweet thing. You see, if I did something without you around it wouldn’t exactly be your dream, would it? And besides,” he breaks off, grip tightening around your leg as he leans in to press his cheek against yours, teasingly nipping at the skin of your earlobe before he murmurs, “where’s the fun in that?”

Your bed mocks you. This morning, wanting a clean slate, you had washed all the sheets and now it lies before you perfectly neat and pristine, just begging for you to hop in.

But you refuse. You won’t be falling asleep tonight. If Taehyung thinks he’s in control during your dreams, then fine. You just won’t dream.

“I thought you’d be making the most of your newfound ability to sleep,” Yoongi comments curiously, feet kicking at the edge of the mattress. You knew you wouldn’t be able to resist the exhaustion that pulled at your eyelids without reinforcements, so you had called in your favorite insomniac to keep you company.

Swaying aimlessly back and forth on your desk chair, you shrug. “I haven’t hung out with you in ages, I felt like a good, old-fashioned sleepover.”

He narrows his eyes at you, though it’s not particularly intimidating. “I’ve never once slept over at your house, idiot. What’s the real reason?”

You avoid his gaze, studiously focusing on picking a movie on Netflix. “Fine, then. I wanted the goss on that fair boy. You got his number, right? But you never told me how it went.”

Mission successful. Yoongi lights up, suspicion forgotten. “Hoseok! His name is Hoseok, and he’s amazing. We actually… went out for coffee the other day.”

Your eyebrows lift, shutting down your laptop lid to fully give your attention to the boy across from you. “Like a date?” Yoongi grins and nods enthusiastically. “You casanova, you! What’s he like?”

Yoongi’s eyes flicker strangely in the dim evening glow that peeks through your curtains. “He’s great,” he gushes, “friendly, and bubbly, and has the most beautiful smile. But… actually, I guess you could say there’s something I need to tell you.”

You frown. “What? What’s up?”

He pouts, kicking his heels more insistently against the edge of the mattress. “The date was really nice, and Hoseok is really nice, but I couldn’t stop thinking that… that maybe I just liked him because he was like you.”

Your face freezes in an expression of pure confusion. “Huh? What do you mean?”

Yoongi ducks his head. “I’ve been trying to deny it for years. I figured you saw me as a friend and nothing else, and I thought if maybe I focused more on guys instead of girls I could separate myself enough from the image of you, but clearly that isn’t going so well for me.” He laughs, bitterly, and you’re overcome with the urge to rush forward and hug him. Nevertheless, you stay rooted in your spot.

“Yoongi, what are you saying?”

He shrugs, body hunching over like it always does when he’s shy. “Hoseok is nice, but he’s not you. And I think it’s time that stop lying to myself.” He looks up, then, eyes soft. “I think I’m in love with you, Y/n.”

Your lips are parted, jaw slightly slack in shock. “...okay,” you state eventually. Well, this is one way to stay awake. “So, uh, I don’t- What do we do now?”

Scratching behind his ear nervously, Yoongi bites his lip. “Maybe I… Can I kiss you?” When you don’t respond, he shuffles forward a little on the bed so that his feet rest on the ground. “Just once, to see if you feel anything. And if you don’t, we never have to bring it up again.”

You sigh out a rushing breath. “Okay. Yeah, okay.” Fighting the erratic pounding of your heart, you stand up on shaky legs and sit beside him, shoulder to shoulder and nose to nose.

Now that you’re right in front of him, something foreign rises up in your chest. It feels like he’s the only person in the world, like you can’t look away from the tender look in his eyes. You can practically feel the warmth of his skin through the thin cotton of his shirt. He leans forward, and you reflexively suck in a shallow breath, eyelids fluttering shut.

His lips are featherlight when they first brush against yours. You feel a palm come up to cup your cheek, and his fingers tentatively fiddle with your hair. Like you’re magnetised, you lean in, and that small sign of reciprocation is enough for him.

Yoongi deepens the kiss, mouth slanting to get a better angle as he urgently moves his lips against you, tongue dipping out to swipe at the seam of your lips, encouraging you to open up to him. You gasp when his teeth nip gently, tugging the sensitive skin before letting it go with a kitten lick to soothe the bite marks. You’ve never felt this alive before, and it’s a wonder to you that until now you had never looked at Yoongi this way. Now it almost feels like he’s pure, euphoric oxygen and you’ll die if you break away for a second.

His hand has dipped into your hair, gently pressing the back of your head to hold you against him, and his other arm insistently grips your hip, encouraging you to get even closer. A searing bolt of need rips through you, and you swing a leg up, straddling him. He’s hard beneath you, and the feeling of him makes you groan, gingerly grinding your hips.

His tongue is in your mouth now, flicking against yours and sucking it back into his mouth like he wants to envelop you in his embrace. His fingers tighten in your hair, gripping a handful. You whimper, hips still working against him.

“Yoongi,” you make out in a hushed tone, “that hurts.” You sigh in relief when the sharp tugging on your scalp relaxes, his palm soothing the sting. Relaxing against him, you moan into his mouth when you feel him slip his hand under your shirt and palm at your breast, seeking out an already-stiff nipple, no bra to obstruct him. He rubs it, rolling the peak between two fingers, and you feel wet heat gathering between your legs.

Out of nowhere, he roughly pinches and twists your nipple and your legs jerk in response to the pain, your instincts wanting you to back away from the harsh sensation, but before you can sit up off him he’s yanking on your hair again, twisting your neck back enough that you can feel the muscles twinge and your scalp burn. Your eyes fly open in shock, only for you to freeze.

Taehyung sits beneath you, dressed in the same shirt and basketball shorts that Yoongi was in, though his much broader chest makes the baggy fabric look fitted. He stares up at you with spit-slicked lips and blown pupils, almost completely enveloping the gold of his irises. With a shit-eating grin, he releases your nipple and pats it, chuckling under his breath when you twitch.

“Wha- What did you do with Yoongi?” you demand, as forcefully as you can while your legs are still around him.

He drops his gaze, sliding his hand over to your other breast, the fabric moving over his hand your only warning before he begins to flick your other nipple, every few seconds as you jump and try and twist away. Though he only has one hand in your hair, you feel completely anchored in place, like your arms and legs are too heavy to move even if you tried. “Yoongi is at home, my little human. Haven’t you worked it out yet?”

“You pretended to be him,” you guess, “he probably never came over, then.” He quirks his eyebrows once in affirmation, still teasing roughly at your chest, dragging a fingernail over and over the abused nerves of your nipple, the other one still aching. “But you said you couldn’t feel anything in my world. So what, you’re just doing this to fuck with me?”

A bewildered grin lights up his face. “My god, you’re dense,” he remarks in wonder. “Let me spell it out for you. Yoongi never came over because you never texted him earlier tonight. And you never texted him because you’ve been asleep since you got up onto your bed to put on the washed pillowcases. This is a dream, sweet thing. You’re in my world.”

“But-” You splutter for a few moments, glancing around at your room. Everything seems in perfect order. “This isn’t like the other ones, I… The dreams you create are always messy at the edges like an unfinished painting, but I can see everything fine now. This exactly what my room is like.”

“Convenient, then,” Taehyung teases, “that I can make dreams as realistic or rudimentary as I want.” The levity vanishes from his face, leaving behind a dark grin. “You’re out of your depth, Y/n. Stop assuming things just because you don’t know any better.”

His grip on your hair loosens as you do, realising shaking out of his hold is futile in a plane he completely controls. “Then how am I supposed to tell if something’s a dream or not?”

He leaves your nipple alone, hand dipping to fiddle with a pant hem of your pyjama shorts, calloused fingertips running lightly along the sensitive skin of your inner thigh. His smile is brilliant, wider than you’d ever seen on him before. “That’s the beauty of it, little human. You can’t.”

You shiver as his hand disappears below the fabric of your shorts, rising up to brush against the front of your panties, thumbing at your clit through the cotton. You feel the tension leave your body, and though a part of you is terrified by this knowledge, a different side takes over. The side that’s indulging in the warm pleasure unfurling in your stomach as his uncharacteristically gentle touch stimulates you. The side that says, you already know you’re dreaming now. Fuck it.

Taehyung watches in bemusement as you relax above him giving in. Only once you sigh out in pleasure, hand resting on his shoulder for stability, does he remove his thumb from you just enough to grip onto the elastic waistband. He tugs, and you feel the strangest sensation of the fabric dissolving, being pulled off you from the side even though you never hear or feel a tear. By the time his hand emerges from your pant leg, the fabric is whole again, and he bunches it up in his hand, chucking it away from you. With your panties gone, the sewn hem in the crotch of your pyjama shorts drags against your clit, and you heave a shuddering breath, rocking your hips to chase the friction.

“Do you want a hint?”

You blink, staring down at Taehyung in confusion. The golden silk of his hair hangs low over his forehead, but you can’t mistake the glitter of his piercing gaze on you. “What?”

His hand leaves your hair, sliding down your back until it rests on your ass, gripping the flesh and pushing you down onto his crotch. “A hint,” he repeats, “for knowing if this is a dream.”

You stare down at him, eyes lidded. “What?” As you speak, you feel something begin to move beneath you. You frown, looking down, and suck in a horrified breath when you lean back and see his crotch. The tented erection from before is...shifting beneath the fabric of his shorts, creating a rippling effect. You watch it entranced, as one bump slides upwards towards the waistband, prodding at it, before it manages to slip underneath, peeking out to show something that glitters in the dim lighting…

“The real world doesn’t have this,” he reveals, leaning back slightly as a rounded, blunt end of a golden appendage draws out of his shorts, rising in the air between the two of you. It’s smooth, fleshy yet entirely inhuman. He grips your ass tighter and pulls you forward, the tentacle feeling surprisingly cool as it lays down, curling around your thigh. It clashes with the heat from his hands on you, and you feel yourself sighing out, basking in the contrasting sensations.

“Is that...your real form?” you ask tentatively, curiously reaching down to touch it. It’s firm yet moving, much like muscle, and when you run a finger down the tapering length of it, it flicks in the air, seeking more of your touch.

“I suppose,” Taehyung allows, “though when I can become anything I like, a real form doesn’t matter much.” He stares intensely at the tip of the appendage as it winds around, sliding underneath the fabric of your shorts just as his hand did earlier, though this time with your panties gone there’s nothing between him and your core, and you let out a surprised moan when you feel it begin to massage your clit, pressing its way lower to try and get between you and his crotch, seeking your entrance. Your mouth falls open, too shocked to react to anything except the pleasure, and the sandman hums in response. “You see? These things don’t exist in your world. Your world is dull, basic, human. In here, anything is possible. This doesn’t have to be a fight, Y/n. Give in to me.”

You sigh out, your stomach thick with pleasure, and you nod slowly, lifting your hips to leave some room for the golden tentacle, which doesn’t hesitate before pressing deep inside you, more and more of the tentacle slipping out of his trousers and up into your cunt until you feel a pressure deep inside, the tip poking at your cervix.

Your legs are jelly and your fingers are iron tight on his shoulders as you moan, the sound broken up by choked gasps. “So...deep,” you pant out, mind unable to string together anything more than that, but Taehyung doesn’t seem to mind, as his brows are knitted together in pleasure too, huffing out groaned breaths in a beautiful baritone.

“God, it’s been so fucking long, you have no idea,” he curses deep in his throat. He closes his eyes in concentration, and you feel the thick muscle shift inside you, recending from your wet heat like waves in low tide, before slamming back up into you, striking your g-spot with a change in angle. You keen, head falling forward to rest on his shoulder, wishing you were out of the restricting fabric of your shirt and shorts already, wishing you could run your hands over his bare chest and shoulders, hot like a furnace even as his golden member cools you from the inside.

It’s a feeling you’ve never experienced. The cock inside you moves and writhes like it has a mind of its own, but it’s addictive; almost like the deft flicks of a tongue, the tentacle navigates you from the inside out, stimulating parts of you you didn’t even know could feel pleasure. You find yourself mindlessly grinding into it. Since it gets thicker the closer to the base it gets - though you still haven’t seen where that might be with how long it is - you rock yourself against it, your clit receiving delicious stimulation that has you almost drooling.

Taehyung’s tanned skin is glistening with perspiration and the glow of his irises is so dark it’s almost amber below his lids. With his hands gripping your ass and hips tightly, he lifts you up onto your knees again so that he can begin to rut his hips up into you, the tentacle splitting you open with every thrust. You tremble and buckle but you’re somehow kept aloft, top half leaning heavily on his chest as the stretch and the deep warmth of pleasure bring you closer to the edge.

On this angle, your clit no longer grinds against the gleaming gold of his slick-covered cock, but Taehyung’s thumb blissfully finds it and you cry out in relief as he quickly rubs it, speeding up your high. “‘m close,” you moan out deliriously, feeling desperation at your impending orgasm shorten your breath.

“Thank god,” the sandman breathes, his face increasing as he grunts with exertion, “I need to fill this perfect pussy of yours up already.”

Your mouth drops open as the constant stimulation paired with his words pitch you over the edge. Your orgasm takes you by storm, seizing up and shuddering violently on top of him. When you clench around him, Taehyung swears throatily and lowers you down again, both hands firmly planted on your ass as he grinds deeply into your core, reaching his own end.

You’re slowly on the come-down of your powerful orgasm as he begins to spill into you, and you hiss at the sudden warmth filling you up. Streaks and streaks are milked from him, and when you finally get the energy to sit up a little and look down, your eyes widen.

Your stomach is a little rounder than normal, a bulge just below your belly button that you can see as your shirt’s ridden up. And below that, your pyjama shorts, absolutely soaked with cum. Your hands grip his shoulders as you feel him continuing to move inside you as the fabric turns dark with moisture, until you see it flood past, wetting your thighs with deep bronzed gold, rich and gleaming. When he finally twitches and goes still, the thick substance has begun to slide down your knees and stain the bed, an exorbitant amount of it that spills more and more every time you shift.

In wonder, you lower a hand and tentatively swipe your fingers through it, marveling at the way it reflects the light and glosses thickly, dripping down to your wrist. Unable to resist the curiosity, you wrap your lips around the tip of your pointer finger and suck, letting the taste of him fill your mouth. Immediately, you hum as the rich taste of dark chocolate fills your mouth, at odds wth the metallic colour. You raise your gaze to Taehyung, who’s propped back on his elbows, staring up at you with his cock still buried deeply inside. His eyes are dark, pupils blown even wider than before as you systematically lick off each finger, being sure to flick your tongue between them before catching the drip that runs halfway down your forearm, indulging in the deep flavor.

“Fuck, you’re gonna be the death of me,” Taehyung swears, groaning when you lean forward to press your mouth to his, sharing his taste between your lips.

You let your tongues lazily dance around each other for a few languid moments before he curses and breaks off.

“I can’t hold it,” he admits, and you look around to see the walls and furniture in your room crystallising and morphing together, losing detail until the colour begins to melt away, the black void slowly creeping inwards. “I don’t want this to end already, fuck.”

You place one last kiss upon his swollen lips. “Don’t worry,” you remark with a playful grin, “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

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fishmongeringstudies · 3 years

Text

scene four: tongues

one time someone asked me to say sorry.

'huh?' the asparagus clamped between my chopsticks began to slide towards the bottom of my lunch box, forgotten. i frowned. 'did i do something wrong?'

'no,' he said, laughing. 'i just want to hear how you pronounce it.'

'so i'm saying it wrong.'

'that's not what i mean.'

'then what do you mean?'

'i mean i'm curious.'

i stared at him. 'no.' i picked up my asparagus. he poked at his biscuits with his fork. time passed, birds sang overhead, snow fell outside the window.

'you know-' he started.

the asparagus on sundays sucks. on weekdays they roast it but on sundays they boil it in a huge pot of water in that grim, white-tiled kitchen that i've only gotten a few glimpses of and then it's a straight path to the metal pans that appear behind the glass when you step into the dining hall, hoping someone will betray your well-set expectations and for once, the 'fish' will be 'salted'. i didn't know why i'd asked for it to begin with. last week i hadn't. this week i had brought what i hoped would become a friend with me, though he was, by all accounts, still a stranger.

'what.'

'the way you say sorry feels kinda canadian to me,' he said thoughtfully. 'not justin bieber-canadian, but, like, old-fashioned canadian. see? like this.' he puckered his lips. 'sooh-ree.' he nodded to himself like he'd just accomplished an incredibly impressive feat. 'the way you emphasize the 'oooh' sound. no one says it like that here.'

when i was ten i had a weird phineas and ferb phase. we didn't have cable tv so i'd look up the episodes on youtube in splintered halves and thirds, watch whatever i could find in 240p and look up the plot synopsis for the bits i couldn't. perry the platypus was my favorite character at first, because he was turquoise (turquoise was my favorite color when i was ten) and he had a cool hat and he had a knack for appearing in places that one typically didn't expect a platypus to appear in, which both resonated with and annoyed me, but eventually i lost interest because perry the platypus didn't have a voice. he was a platypus, after all.

'huh.' there were still two spears of asparagus left in my box but i didn't feel like eating them anymore.

he leaned over the table, his eyes bright and searching, like a child's.

'am i right?'

when i was ten i sounded sort-of-american for a few months. i remember even my mom picked up on it after a while, commenting mildly over dinner that i was speaking differently wasn't i, i almost sounded like i did when i went to the international school, and i remember flushing with pride, choking on my rice, having to excuse myself to the bathroom immediately afterwards to hack it all up in the sink. after all, i'd been practising. if perry the platypus had had a voice, i would've practised his lines too. but he didn't. so i practised with the others. i hit pause and play and pause and play, repeating things out loud, sounding out the vowels, trying to nail each word to the wall on the other side of my room like i was holding a pistol in a gunfight, not my heart.

the first time i went outside in america we were in washington dc and my friend took me to target. it took everything in me to say thank you to the lady behind the counter. i don't know if she heard me.

am i right?

i shrugged. 'i dunno.'

'admit it,' he said smugly, which i thought was quite bold of him seeing how all i really wanted to do right then was punch a hole through the wooden floorboards and drop into the freezer section of the cafe below like a cannonball, killing myself and everyone in a fifteen-mile radius around me instantly. 'i got it right.'

there were a lot of things i could've said to him in that moment. i could've said i was born in texas nineteen years ago to parents from fifteen other parts of the world, or i could've told him about the dream i'd had last night where i was stuck in a supermarket and someone had ripped my vocal chords out but left every other part of me intact, or i could've told him about how there are between nine and ten thousand species of birds on earth and all of them are pretty cool, what do you think of birds, dude, what do you think of this country? did you know? most americans don't think they speak with an accent. to them the american accent is the default, is the way english should be spoken, is the thing they'll stick in the dictionary that the martians will discover thousands of years from now when humanity finally wipes itself out and the trees are left to retrieve their hands from their coffins. when you're american you're always right. the rest of us are deviations from the norm. aberrations. mistakes.

the first time i saw asparagus in america i was getting dinner in the dining hall and it was monday, so the asparagus was roasted, not boiled. 'can i get the asparagus?' i asked. the lady behind the counter looked at me for a moment, expressionless, then pointed at the stalks of green vegetables in the metal tray to her right. 'you mean the asparagus?' i nodded.

in the spring i took a class called intro to linguistics, taught by a kind, square-shaped man with round glasses and minecraft stans for kids who told us on the first day of class, his green beatles background flickering awkwardly behind him, that there is no such thing as bad english. i didn't believe him at first the way i am inclined not to believe anything i'm told without being slapped in the face with it a few times in times of dire need, but eventually i came around. 'i feel like every time i open my mouth i am standing on a big empty stage with a microphone in one hand and everyone is waiting for me to speak,' i wrote in my first assignment for that class. what i meant was: i am scared to death of being heard. what i meant was: i do not feel like a person here.

did you know? as far as we're aware, humans are the only species on this planet that uses words. we built this damn thing out of sawdust and sadness, pouring centuries of sound and sight and sensation into a system that's so fucked up, your only options are either to be born in it or to force your way in with a chainsaw. every day some guy in the youtube comments section of your favorite video, you know the vine where the kid smiles into the camera like she's just shaken hands with god and then points at the field of ducks behind her and goes, 'look at all those chickens!', every day some guy goes to that exact video and replies to some stranger's comment to let them know it's 'you're' not 'your'. every day someone derails a discussion about bitcoin on reddit with a well-placed apostrophe. every day someone laughs at a friend and says they sound a little old-fashioned, a little canadian, none of the kids say it like that anymore, you know? it's weird. you're weird.

so be weird. be a public riot. be that one guy who goes into the dining hall every day and mispronounces half the words on the board, because who the fuck learns how to pronounce asparagus in history class? english literature? i don't even LIKE asparagus. i'm just trying to eat my fucking vegetables, for fuck's sake. i'm just trying to make sure that every once in a while when i open my mouth and something climbs out, someone else catches it. like maybe one day it'll be something beautiful. like maybe one day it'll be a star.

and if you're ever trying to eat your fucking vegetables and someone tells you you're speaking funny, breathing funny, shaking your left leg under the table funny, and if ever you find yourself far from home and struggling to make the words look less like monsters and more like symbols for sadness and someone laughs at that, someone thinks your pain is amusing, then you know what? eat them too. and don't you even think of saying sorry.

in the remastered version of this scene he asks me am i right and i say no, you're a dick, and then i leave.

05.24.21

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shimmeringclouds · 3 years

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Karamatsu - Lycoris Radiata

𝘠𝘰𝘬𝘢𝘪!𝘒𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘴𝘶 𝘟 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

Dim. Yet warm. You figured that's how a forest would be during the summer.

With that thought in mind, however, it didn't help you whatsoever with finding the path you were supposed to be walking along. Of course you would lose track of where you were meant to be walking; wandering minds and feet aren't exactly a good pair.

Glancing upward through the mess of tree branches and leaves, you could just about make out the glimmer of stars above you. Looks like you missed dinner. Again. Was it really so hard for you to go for a relaxing walk in the woodlands?

Sighing, you rubbed your upper thighs. Sore. The blood pumping through them felt weird against the fabric of your trousers, thumping uncomfortably against your fingers. Tingling. Just... weird.

Tree trunks stood by attentively, waiting patiently for your tired figure to curl up against its' bark. And you did just that, groaning as you stretched out your arms and legs. Your arms fell with a thud to your sides, fingers absentmindedly caressing the cool grass beneath you.

...Now what? Were you just going to sit there for the rest of the night? A ridiculous idea, surely. However, it was the only thing you could do. It's not like you knew if anyone was nearby to help you get home and, even then, you didn't think you could just trust anyone you would meet in the middle of the woods at night.

Another sigh. You're good at those, aren't you? You tried to take a look at your surroundings, only to see the dark figures of trees and bushes (at least, you hoped they were bushes). Dark blues and greens, hues of black, absences of colour.

A flash of red. A stark contrast to the deep colours around you. A beautiful flower, you saw. Its' crimson petals clustered together in the centre, with numerous similar coloured stems curling upwards, swaying and dancing with the wind.

"A Spider Lily, huh?" you muttered. You reached out and grazed the tips of your finger against it, a small smile tugging at your lips. "You shouldn't bloom here, all alone like this..."

Your mind briefly wandered back to a conversation you had had with a friend at some point throughout the week. Being the flower enthusiast she was, you always allowed yourself to become subject to her seemingly endless rants about flowers, plants, herbs - anything that she had knowledge about. You remembered what she had said about these richly coloured beauties.

'If you see someone that you may never meet again, these flowers will bloom along the path.'

It sounded like a beautiful but tragic piece of poetry. You began to wonder where the myth had even come from. When was it first spoken? Was it based on true events? Was it really such a bad thing, not meeting someone again?

You knew, from experience, that letting people leave your everyday life was actually beneficial for yourself. Although it took you a number of years to realise it, you found that the kinds of people you attracted were a lot worse than they appeared to be. Deep down, they were monsters. Horrible people, who have the audacity to call themselves human.

Of course it was painful, but only at first. Now, it didn't bother you much anymore. Your soul felt lighter, if anything, indicating that you were getting better, not worse.

Releasing the flower from your ghost of a grasp, you leaned your head back, closing your eyes. That was enough for today. It was time to rest for a while. Breathing in, and out, slowly, ever so slowly, a feeling of slumber crept its way into your body.

Relaxing your tense muscles, you released a long, heavy breath. Sleep.

"It's dangerous to sleep out here, my dove."

"WHA-!!"

An unholy shriek escaped from your throat suddenly, and you pushed your body away from the tree you were leaning against, crawling rapidly across the ground. Whipping your body around, your wide eyes landed on the lantern that outlined the shadowy figure, who stood just behind where you were previously sitting.

"S-Sorry! I didn't mean to scare you, angel!"

The deep, husky voice that whispered into your ear became slightly higher pitched and frantic. You saw the figure step forward, causing you to flinch.

"Ah, do not worry, princess. I won't harm you..."

"That's what they all say!" you blurted out. A short silence followed before you asked:

"Who.. Who are you?"

The figure stepped forward, raising its' lantern to reveal itself.

It was... a man. Yet he wasn't human. His skin was pale, eyes surrounded by red markings. On top of his brown hair was a pair of glowing blue horns, which seemed to flow like fire. his clothing seemed old fashioned, covering his slightly built figure in dark robes of satin and ribbons. The lantern that he held also emitted the same coloured light as his horns, flickering before you.

"You may call me Karamatsu, my dear," he bowed slightly, a cat-like grin crossing his features. "I am but a humble spirit who spotted a wandering soul, lost and alone in a forest that humans should be cautious with. Perhaps some guidance is in your best interest?"

"I, uhm... You're not.. human?" A deep chuckle sounded, sending a shiver up your spine. It was echoey. As if, even though he was standing right in front of you, he was still so far away.

"I'm afraid not, flower. I am an Aoandon. But do not be afraid, I am not here to hurt you. I would only be a guilty guy if I were to leave such a beautiful woman alone in the woods, where anything could happen."

He reached out a partially gloved hand to your figure, still on the ground.

"Please, allow my light to guide you home."

You were sure that if you could see the words he spoke, they would be surrounded by flowers and sparkles. You never knew a man - or anyone, for that matter - to speak in such an overzealous manner.

However, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It didn't make you feel uncomfortable. Quite the opposite, actually. You guessed that's why you reached up and grasped his unnaturally cold hands, allowing him to pull you upwards in a swift motion. He grinned softly down at you, making you realise just how short you were compared to him.

"May I ask for your name, love? Or would you prefer the names I give you?" he winked. You suppressed the urge to roll your eyes, in fear that he would actually hurt you if you got on the wrong foot. So he was a gentleman and a flirt? What an odd combination.

"[Y/N]..." you decided to not answer his second question. It was probably for the best.

"[Y/N]. A wonderful name! As gorgeous as the stars above! I am certain that they aligned to create a bridge just for us to meet on this special night!" Karamatsu's hands were waving around in wild, extravagant gestures. He looked ridiculous. What a strange character.

"I- .. Sure.."

For most of the journey, you listened to this... spirit, ramble nonsense about the scenery around you, or about your features that he found endearing. There were times where he would deliberately lower his voice into something he thought was sultry and enticing, peering into your eyes with a smouldering stare. You didn't mind the dip in his voice at all, not a single bit. It was just the way that the poor man was clearly trying too hard to make you fall for him.

'He clearly has never been successful with any woman before... How cute!'

You couldn't help yourself. You had just met him, and you already wanted to know more about him. Was that weird? Probably. Maybe it was the touch-starved part of yourself that was talking, longing to be held in someone's arms after being neglected by so many for so long.

"Watch your step here, my dear." His voice snapped you out of your thoughts, peering up at him to see this a pale hand was held out to assist you. You gladly took hold of it, fingers grasping his colder ones. Even as he helped you over a few jagged rocks in your path, you weren't willing to let go just yet. Although his skin was cold, his touch felt inviting and comforting.

You didn't want to let go yet.

And it seemed that Karamatsu was overjoyed by this, his eye glistening with a kind of happiness that you had never seen a human hold before.

"A-Are you afraid, sweetheart? There is nothing to fear, not as long as I am here by your side! However, if you wish to hold me tightly, I will never object you!" The slight tremor of nervousness in his words sounded so endearing to you.

"Good, because I wasn't planning to let go just yet."

You had never seen a human wear such a broad and satisfied smile, either. It was contagious, causing you to smile timidly up at him in return.

Eventually, though, your midnight stroll had to come to an end for the both of you. Karamatsu had led you to the beginning of the trail where, just a little further ways down, was a bus stop for you to get home.

"We have arrived, my angel."

"Ah... right," you mumbled, slight disappointment seeping through your tone. Karamatsu chuckled, his cat-like grin widening slightly.

"What is this? Is my fair maiden unwilling to let me go?"

"Something like that..." you mumbled, keeping your face directed towards the ground as you released your hold from his arm. Karamatsu's cheeks bloomed pink, a shade darker under the moonlight.

"A-Ah! Well," luckily, he was able to snap out of his surprised stupor, "Do not be so sullen, my moonbeam!"

'Moonbeam?'

"I'm sure the stars will align once again to reunite us as we journey through our lives together, and one day... One day, maybe..."

His bold tone suddenly simmered down to a gentle murmur, almost lost to the breeze if you weren't standing so close to him. A gentle smile was on his face now, his eyes glazed over in reminiscence of something akin to a far away daydream.

"I hope, one day, our paths cross again, my love."

His cold fingers caressed your own, lifting them up to press a chaste kiss onto your knuckles. It may have been brief, but the cold touch burned itself into your skin, lasting as he slowly, reluctantly, pulled away.

"Have a safe journey home, angel!" He grinned, saluting quickly before turning away, holding his flickering lantern before him to lead his way back into the forest he called his home.

You had no words left in you. They had all been snatched away by his comforting words and soft touches. His kind eyes, his dazzling smile. His glowing aura that led you through the darkness around you.

Ah, but good things never last long for you. You had to leave before you missed the next bus. You had leave this lonely, broken soul behind. Just like how he had no choice but to leave yours.

Turning away, you caught a glimpse of red from the corner of your eyes.

A trail of red spider lilies. Standing tall and blooming where he once stood a moment ago.

'Please... Meet me here again. One day.'

#osomatsu san #karamatsu matsuno #karamatsu x reader #yokai!karamatsu #yokai!matsu #yokai!au #xreader #romance #spider lily #flowers #floriography #japanese mythology

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phoenixyfriend · 4 years

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The “Momma Sturmvoraus was Literally Satan” AU

As requested by @spazzbot. This AU was initially brainstormed on the GG fanworks server almost a year ago. Specifically, on the first day of 2020.

[ID: a truncated discord message by “Miss Nixy, Gay for RoboLadies” posted 01/01/2020. The message reads “I need to sleep but please for the moment consider:” and ends there.]

So. Let’s get to it.

Satan took a human form because why not see what's going on topside, live like a human, and “Oh shit is this pregnancy? This is pregnancy. Fuck, that's a tiny human. Which is now half demon. Am I supposed to take care it? Wonder if retconing this form into that Valois family was a bad idea. They do have SO much money though, I get to live like a queen. I suppose another child shouldn't hurt, it wasn't that bad. Oh, he's cute, this is actually making sense, why humans do all the sinning. Not counting dear Aaronev's murders, of course, those are just evil, but I did search out the worst of the humans to pair myself to...”

This is literally just "Tarvek and Anevka's mom was low-key Satan on a bored “let's be human for a decade or two to see what happens” jaunt, consequences happen because these kids are LITERALLY half-demon and arguably anti-Christs."

Also it's just Very Funny for Tarvek, ineffectual sexy lamp fashion twunk extraordinaire, to be an antichrist

Jeff thinks he’s pretty. Jeff keeps describing features that don’t entirely make sense. (Jeff’s canon name is Karl Thotep but they spent so long unnamed that the server collectively named them Jeff.)

This is not a crossover with anything, btw. Ambiguously Pop Culture Satan just got bored and went to have babies with a serial killer.

They’re just kids! That are vaguely demonic. So. Moreso than the rest of the Valois.

Sometimes "mom" comes back from the dead and visits Anevka and Tarvek to impart Wisdom and possibly magic lessons The rooms always smell faintly of sulfur after that...

They try to put Anevka in the machine but SHE isn't hurt and the MACHINE just melts

So that's the end of that.

It's very awkward for everyone, but the paperwork isn't too bad. It's very easy to write "incidental fire began during late-fugue experimentation, resulted in fire spreading through six rooms and several casualties, including Prince Aaronev Wilhelm Sturmvoraus."

As per @atagotiak, “I feel like if we’re going in any way dimensional weirdness with thing, Tarvek got so good at exploring bc he could just clip through walls.”

With image provided by @thisarenotarealblog:

Tarvek in Paris: My dead mother keeps showing up in my dreams to tell me I need to seduce my way out of my problems and also she looks like Satan. Tarvek's Voltaire-Appointed Therapist: I still don't know what that means. Just like the last five times. Tarvek: I keep telling her that I can’t seduce Colette, if seduction is that important she should get Anevka to do it.

Like he probably wouldn’t say most of that in front of any Voltaire-approved individual, but still.

Tarvek is still very good at self control but there's a Special Edge to his rants.

(Derailed in the moment to me thinking about Anevka in a sfw-but-concerningly-deadly succubus getup, because... yeah.)

Aaronev dies and goes to hell and his dead wife is just there like "hi! Time to be tortured for eternity!" He wasn't a good husband so. He can't exactly sentimentalize his way out.

“In the sexy way?” “... not for you, no.”

Mostly I just want the BULLSHIT that is "Storm Mom was actually just Satan getting bored and going on vacation as a retconned Valois girl, the kids are half-demons and sometimes it Shows."

To clarify: the Satan bit isn't the retcon. Grandma used to have one daughter. Now there are two. (Seffie and Martellus's mother doesn't remember being an only child, but sometimes...)

Satan retconned a new daughter in, which included a Valid Valois Venusian Vestment, so the blood tests play out.

The subtle signs of wrongness would be fun too. Anevka tends to smile a bit too wide and sharp for a human face. Inexplicable uneasiness, here you can’t point at any specific thing that’s wrong but it’s uncomfortable. Uncanny valley prettiness, almost like the porcelain she became in other timelines. Skin isn’t supposed to be that smooth.

My brain's pre-nap contribution at that point was "Satan's pronouns when not pretending to Human are sin/sinself" which is! Certainly a thing.

Tarvek, at some nebulous future point: I mean, your ancestors were monsters, but my dad was a serial killer and my mom was literally Satan, instead of just figuratively like Lucrezia, so. I mean. I kind of get what you're going through.

Per @firebirdeternal: Tarvek and Anevka growing up with "you're allergic to holy water" and not questioning it until a little later because What.

And then they test it and it's like "yeah, no, there's a rash now. That stung. What the fuck."

It INFURIATES Gil in Paris when Tarvek tells him that's a thing, because there's nothing chemically different about Holy water and regular water. But no, this is somehow happening.

It gets logged in medical journals as a Valois genetic thing because, well, Mom was like that too, right?

One time they both go into a church for an Adventure and Gil is very annoyed to find that Tarvek is like. Faintly smoking. It smells like burnt hair in here.

Gil: What smells like burnt hairgel? Tarvek: [glares]

Gil decides that it must be something particular to the church, like a fungus or something in the stone, contaminating the air and water so it only LOOKS like the holiness is what's setting off reactions.

It is not.

Tarvek once got into an argument with someone and ate a slab of raw, completely uncooked meat as a power move.

SVV seems to work perfectly. Everyone is fine. We get the ‘you fight like ducks’ moment.

And then Tarvek bursts into flames, and everyone panics because no they fixed this what the fuck is he still infected with Hogfarb’s oh my god... and then everything settles down and he's perfectly fine. Not a scratch on him, no longer turning funny colors. Completely unharmed. He's in a nicely tailored suit and looks faintly stunned

"I just met my dead mom, who's apparently Satan. She told me that after I died the first time just now, I should be harder to kill later, especially with fire, because now there's more demon and less mortal and guys I think I'm going crazy." "Is that a martini?" Tarvek looks down. "Apparently."

Tarvek starts just. Randomly setting things on fire by glaring too hard and has to tone it down. Meanwhile, Agatha and Gil are having crises about how he's somehow getting PRETTIER.

Is he faintly glowing? Maybe!

Gil handles it by angrily sniping at Tarvek about how of COURSE he's an evil little rat with a background like that.

Tarvek just wants a nap and to forget this ever happened. Many people are sworn to secrecy. It's very awkward.

Still, SVV did something, for handwave-y reasons, and so they're linked now. Gil and Agatha both getting tiny flashes of the same shenanigans.

They get none of the powers. They just keep getting Weird Shit.

Other characters with divine influence are like "Did you.... did you make a pact with a demon?" "What no that's our boyfriend."

Tho tbh I wouldn’t be surprised if a Heterodyne did sign a contract with a demon at some point in exchange for like. Materials. A hundred souls sacrificed in exchange for some succubus blood. Thanks!

Tarvek and Othar: Falling out of CW as in canon. Tarvek: WHAT THE HELL SINCE WHEN DO I HAVE WINGS HIDE THIS BEFORE I GET BOOTED FROM THE LINE FOR THE THRONE

IDK where Anevka is during all this. I think she might have decided to go sleep her way through the courts of the Ice Tsars. Vacation, y'know?

Othar after he's decided to make Tarvek his new Heroic Apprentice: AH, my poor afflicted young friend, it's noble of you to go against the dark nature of your tragic heritage like this. Tarvek: I hate you. I wish I could hate you to death. But you have a point. I shouldn't let my father's blood limit what I strive for in life. Othar: I... I thought your mother was... Tarvek: I know what I said.

Tarvek: Also you can't tell ANYONE about that, I can't have them thinking I'm not actually in line for the Storm King's throne.

He does admittedly have to like. Explain things to Grandma.

Terabithia is Tarvek’s maternal grandmother so this is supremely awkward. That said...

Grandma fondly remembers her pregnancy cravings; bone marrow and sulfur.

"Yeah so, my mother, your daughter, was... maybe actually Satan? But retconned into your life?" "Tarvek, darling, please. I figured that out half a century ago."

TARVEK ACCIDENTALLY FINDS HIM HIMSELF WEIRDLY INTENSE AT CONTRACTS

I mean that honestly just Tracks about Tarvek anyways? But like moreso.

He just. Writes something up and there's things getting signed or shook on and then the person tries to break the contract and either suddenly catch fire or are deeply unlucky for a set amount of time.

And Tarvek's just standing there like "how in the FUCK did I do that?"

Severity of infernal punishment depends on the severity of the breach of contract.

Tarvek finds out that Anevka's been convincing rich people to sign their souls over to her. It's a fun challenge. She keeps them in jars.

They can still remotely pilot their bodies but like. They can't TELL anyone what happened.

Satan: I'm going to go make babies and now everyone else has to deal with the consequences.

Anevka's living up to that whole "princess of hell" vibe. Tarvek's just like "nope nope nope I want the storm throne, not the hell throne, BYE MOM."

Satan's just feeling sinself down in hell like "awwww look at my babies go, aren't they adorable?"

Tarvek: Anevka, what... first off, how did you figure it out? Anevka: Well, I temporarily died when father put me in the machine, and... I can't say that hell kicked me out because they were afraid I'd take over, but mother DID say she'd rather I play about with human governments instead of Hell's. Tarvek: Okay, cool cool cool. What after you planning to DO with all these souls? Anevka: They make for some lovely reading lamps, don't they?

(Anevka absolutely sets herself the goal of acquiring new titles that rival her old ones, or even surpass them. She just black widows her way through Europa.)

I just want someone (probably Snackleford) to ascend, take one look at Tarvek, and run SCREAMING.

Tarvek still needed to be anchored to Higgs, because Tarvek is Baby.

Gil is eventually in a relationship with an Eternal God Queen and the Literal Son of Satan.

Family dinners can include ALL the in-laws if you duck down to hell! - You borrow Bill from... probably heaven, maybe purgatory. - You have Lu and Aaronev and Satan already there, though the first two... well. Aaronev and Lu get invited to dinner but they have to eat by themselves at the kiddy table and nobody talks to them or acknowledges their presence. After all, this is hell, and what better punishment for Lu than to be completely ignored, and for Aaronev to see Lu at her worst and be reminded that he gave everything for this horrible, horrible person who isn't even pretending to care about him anymore. - Zanta and Klaus get invited via portal. - Anevka saunters in with a blood-soaked dress and a complaint about militant demon-hunters refusing to let her go shopping for a new pair of shoes. - Zeetha tagged along with the OT3. (She can't wait to see this situation explode.)

Oh God, Satan is actually second place as far as good parenting goes.

Well, actually, fourth. Because Adam and Lilith. But second as far as bio parents go. 1. Zanta 2. Satan 3. Klaus 4/5. Lu and Aaronev N/A. Bill

Someone (Anevka) decides to stir the pot and invites Von Pinn, Terabithia, Bang.

Bang is basically Gil’s older sister, right? Right.

This is Zanta meeting Bang for the first time! Zanta is just: "It's so nice to meet my husband's adopted daughter." Klaus freezes. Bang freezes. Gil is the only one who is just. "Yeah." Meanwhile Zeetha is crying with laughter off to the side because both of them deserve this. (Zanta would legit love Bang though.)

Agatha: Tarvek, I think DuPree is-- Tarvek: Hitting on my sister? I know. Agatha: On your mom, actually. Tarvek: NO!

Also I do love the idea of like. Nobody tells Bang they're inviting her. She just wakes up in Hell like. "Ah. Yes. Fair enough."

Satan: Oh no no no my dear, you're here as a guest. Besides as well as you'd fit you're not one of mine, you've got other things waiting for you. Bang: Okay, but I love the decor. And is that Cheesecake?

Bang’s family has their own evil god in the novels, but! Bang DID pick on Tarvek a lot in Paris. Satan cares more than Anevka does. Bang might get the sexy punishment.

I feel like the fact that no permanent damage was done and it taught Tarvek a lot of things means Satan isn't gonna be all that upset about it.

And let's be real, if there's a character in GG who could look the literal Christian devil in the eye and be like "Yeah I tortured your kid, what're you going to do about it?" it's Bang.

Even Satan doesn't know what to do or think about Othar.

He sure is here! As Anevka’s arm candy! Nobody knows what to do except Anevka herself, who just wants to be Smug.

(What's that scene from Phineas and Ferb that's the mad scientist trapping the platypus within the rules of polite dining at a fine restaurant? Like he can't make a scene because that would be rude?) (That. Othar would dearly love to start a fight, but it's a Family Dinner. You're only allowed to fight verbally at those.)

(Othar isn't even fighting Satan, he just wants to argue with Klaus.) (And maybe fanboy in Bill's direction a bit).

#Girl Genius #Phoenix Posts #Anevka Sturmvoraus #Tarvek Sturmvoraus #Aaronev Sturmvoraus #Gilgamesh Wulfenbach #Agatha Heterodyne #Lucrezia Mongfish #Othar Tryggvassen #Bangladesh DuPree #Otharnevka #GG OT3

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 4 years

Note

The gang on their wedding days

[Been meaning to post this one for a while — since I’m applying to get married today, now seems like the time.]

Jake steps into the room like a child wandering into his parents’ dinner party. His bow tie is askew, seams of his jacket misaligned for all that it’s a custom-tailored tuxedo. If the buttons of his shirt aren’t one hole off from their intended placement, they still manage to convey that impression from across the room.

Rachel feels a rush of affection for him, her first best friend. The boy who’d run and fought and splashed through mud with her, back before adults started telling her to be careful of her dress and him to be careful of her. Only he could show up to his own wedding looking like he’s ready to be expelled at any moment. Only Jake.

And yes, she gets mushy at weddings. Sue her.

Tom steps up next to Jake, far more elegant in an off-the-rack suit. Some people actually got the fashionable genes in this family.

Rachel surges across the room. Tom gets a quick hug, and then she turns all her attention on Jake.

“You only have to look nice for the next three hours,” she tells him briskly.

“Three. Hours,” Jake repeats.

With expert motions she realigns his… everything, until at the very least the clothes are sitting the way the tailor intended. She tries to finger-comb his hair, thankful for the heels that put her at an inch above his height, but it’s obvious that he has also been running his hands through it and the style is hopelessly deformed.

“You can survive anything for three hours,” Rachel says as she does all this. “I’ve seen you do it.”

“But if I mess it up—”

“Then stop, go back, and do whatever it is over. We’re not exactly on a time pressure, here. Nobody’s gonna die if you trip at the altar or forget your lines.”

“Okay.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets, deforming his jacket again. “Okay.”

She can see him starting to relax as he glances around, shoulders coming down. Cassie’s place isn’t quite like they remember — it’s been repaired since the war, the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic expanded to nearly five times its original size — but it still feels as close to home as any place does.

“Have a glass of water,” Rachel says.

“But what if I have to pee during the ceremony?”

She rolls her eyes. “Babysit him,” she mouths at Tom.

Tom gives her a gesture in response that approximates What do you think I’ve BEEN doing? Whether he means the last four hours or the last twenty-six years is, really, a moot point.

Rachel leaves him to it, and charges off to go check on the others.

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

Marco leans against a tent pole, trying to roll one of the rings across his fingers the way Vegas poker players do with chips. So far it’s not going well.

“Canapé,” Ax is saying carefully. He attempts to lean next to Marco, nearly going all the way over. “Can-nap-peee?”

“Uh, no.” Marco catches the ring as it makes its third or fourth bid for freedom, stuffing it back into his pocket. “That…” He tilts his champagne flute to point. “…is a canopy. Or a chuppah, I guess. Canopee. Canapay is the little pastry thing you’ve already filched in bulk, don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“Ah,” Ax says. And then, “This temperature and rate of precipitation is within optimal survival parameters for humans, is it not?”

“Nuh-uh, Ax-Man, I will not be pulled in by your smooth small-talk skills.”

“Did you not wish to make conversation?” Ax frowns. And then he stuffs another canapé in his mouth. “This is making conversation,” he adds through the mouthful.

Marco squints. “Is it, though?”

“It is indeed. Did you know that the rotating-wheel can opener was patented in 1870?”

Marco’s response to that one gets cut off when Rachel comes charging across the open tent space like a small freight train. Tobias is balanced on her shoulder, flaring slightly as she runs. She yanks the champagne flute out of his hand. Marco makes a squeak of protest, but Rachel just sets it firmly on a bussing tray and turns back to glare at him.

“What did we agree?” she asks sternly.

Marco rolls his eyes. “That I’d stay sober-ish for the toast, and not do anything too embarrassing.”

“You’re the best man. You have one job, Marco.”

“Excuse you, the best man’s one job was that banger of a bachelor-slash-ette party we did Wednesday night. Did you like the part where we all dived out of a helicopter and flew clear through the lower atmosphere to that rooftop bar? Because—”

“So you got the drinking out of your system. You promised.”

“Sober-ish, come on, it’s just one wine-spritzer-thing!”

Rachel turns away from him, looking Ax over. “You realize you’re going to have to demorph and remorph at some point before the ceremony, right?” she asks. “And that when you do, someone’s going to have to go through the whole kit and caboodle of getting you into that tux all over again?”

“Yes,” Ax says. “Yes, I do.”

She stares at him. He stares back, looking as innocent as it is possible to look while also chewing three jalapeño pastries at the same time.

«You should probably just listen to her,» Tobias suggests. «By the way, where’s your date? Not that I quake in fear for the wedding cake or anything, but, uh…»

“Menderash has been instructed not to eat anything on a human plate without seeking my opinion first,” Ax says, somewhat stiffly.

“Yeah,” Marco says. “So far he’s only eaten two earthworms, a candle, some decorative sand, and part of Collette’s bouquet. You two have nothing to worry about.”

“Part of Collette’s bouquet?” Rachel demands. “We can’t send a bridesmaid up the aisle without—”

“Already replaced it, I am on top of this.” Marco flips his hair back from his face. “I am a flower master.”

«So where is Menderash now?» Tobias asks.

“Helping Cassie’s mom,” Marco explains.

«And Cassie’s mom is…?»

“Delivering a baby cow.”

Rachel makes a noise like she’s choking on air. “Doesn’t Michelle have vet techs for that kind of thing? She’s supposed to be getting ready, not, not…”

“It’s cool,” Marco says. “She’s got her makeup on, her hair is done perfectly, she’s got an apron-thing to keep her dress nice and gloves over her nails, it was a breech birth so they needed a real doctor and Walter was busy supervising the caterers, she’s got Menderash and Steve helping her out—”

“She kidnapped Jake’s dad?” Rachel demands overtop the continuing babble.

“He said he had never delivered an offspring outside of his own species before, and expressed deep curiosity on the subject,” Ax offers. “Menderash is a certified medic with andalite training, so they should be well-equipped to assist.”

Marco makes jazz hands in the air. “It’s a free pre-dinner show! Cow birth. Better than icebreakers.”

There’s a very long pause. Rather than dignify that with a response, Rachel turns and stalks away.

Marco watches her go, halfway awed at her ability to navigate an open yard so well while not only wearing six-inch heels and a multi-layer floor-length dress, but also balancing an enormous updo on top of her head and a red-tailed hawk on her left shoulder.

“Is it just me, or did Jake and Cassie make a monster when they asked her to be maid of honor?” Marco says.

«You wanna take over her responsibilities, then?»

Of course Tobias heard that. Stupid hawk hearing.

“No thank you!” Marco yells after them.

Cassie, meanwhile, is currently picking her way across the open space under the tent, bunches of dress hiked up to above her knees. This last is, of course, the source of Rachel’s consternation.

“Here.” Rachel attempts to pull the wads of skirt out of Cassie’s hands and drop them back to the ground. “You’re going to wrinkle it.”

Cassie stubbornly refuses to let go. “You told me not to let it drag on the ground. If I let it down, it’ll drag.”

“Cassie, Cassie. That is a hand-tailored Christian Dior gown that I commissioned to be custom-fitted to your measurements. There is no way that it is too long if you let it…”

Cassie drops the bunches of tulle. The end of the skirt falls all the way down, where the bottom two inches rest, unmistakably, on the muddy ground.

Rachel somehow manages to wince with her entire body while also not moving at all.

«It’s a look,» Tobias suggests, by way of consolation. «Kind of.»

“How…?” Rachel peers closer at Cassie. “Wait, where are your shoes?”

Cassie shrugs, embarrassed. “Uh, inside somewhere. I was having trouble balancing in them.”

“Well that’s why!” Rachel’s emphatic gesture almost dislodges Tobias. With years’ experience, he dodges her waving arm and retains his perch. “The dress was tailored to fit you with shoes on.”

“They were getting stuck in the grass—”

“They’re kitten heels!”

“Yeah, and they’re still heels.” Cassie looks stuck somewhere between amusement and embarrassment. “I don’t really do heels. Sorry.”

“Hey Tobias?” Rachel says, as if to thin air.

«Nuh-uh, leave me out, I want no part in—»

“Remember me telling Cassie that we should really try the whole outfit on before the wedding?”

«Uh. Yes?»

“Do you also remember Cassie agreeing to it, and then the day of, haring off to go try and save a bunch of vultures instead? Remember how we tried to reschedule, and there was that ALF mission on the same day so she never showed? Remember that?”

Cassie clears her throat loudly. “I think it’s a very nice dress. It’s fluffy and also comfortable, and look!” She tucks her hands away. “It has pockets.”

«Vultures are actually fundamental for waste disposal in ecosystems all over the world, and the poisons used on livestock—»

“Do you think you could at least wear the shoes long enough to go up the aisle?” Rachel asks. “And maybe even for a few photos as well?”

“Uh. I’ll try.” Cassie hikes her skirt back up (Rachel full-body winces again) and starts picking her way across the lawn back toward the house.

“There’s no way I’m going to be able to un-wrinkle it in time,” Rachel mutters.

«Yep. So you’re just going to have to live with it.»

“I hate living with it.”

«Wanna go check on whatever monstrosity of a replacement bouquet Marco probably inflicted on Collette?»

“Fine, fine.”

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

Cassie walks up the aisle in a custom-tailored gown, an edelweiss and valerian flower crown, and slightly muddy Timberland work boots. The sole on the boots is apparently tall enough that the skirt does, not, in fact, drag on the ground or get tangled in her feet.

«Somewhere out there,» Tobias comments, «Christian Dior is crying into an overpriced silk handkerchief and doesn’t even know why.»

Marco has never more deeply felt the utter unfairness of Tobias being able to use thought-speak while human, because they’re currently standing at the front of the aisle and he can’t even respond.

But Rachel should still count this one as a win. The gown looks stunning on Cassie, lacy and princess-ruffled while also having the kind of practical cut that allows her freedom of movement. And, Marco notes with a smirk, freedom to wear her morphing leotard underneath; the purple spandex is just visible peeking out from underneath the white silk neckline. He’s got morphing clothes under his own tux — never leaves home without ‘em — so really, he can’t judge.

Plus, Michelle’s got her dress and just her dress on by now, and her locs are still tucked into their silver-beaded updo. Really, the cow birth was just a momentary inconvenience.

“Hi,” Jake whispers, when Cassie reaches him.

She grabs his hand. Then she stuffs her bouquet into one of his jacket pockets, and grabs his other hand. “Hi,” she whispers back.

“This is pretty exciting, huh?”

“Yep.”

Ax clears his throat delicately, and they stop talking.

“There is an Earth tradition,” Ax says to the entire assembly, “that the captain of any ship may perform a wedding ceremony at will.”

In the front row of seats, Michelle laces her fingers through Walter’s.

“Although there is no legal precedent for this custom,” Ax continues, “it is nevertheless possible to become ordained as a wedding officiant if one just completes the proper applications.”

One of Jake’s great-aunts mutters something loudly about the lack of rabbi. Sarah leans over and kicks her in the ankle. Rachel beams her approval.

“Therefore, I am here to make official through human custom that which has already been forged through affection and respect.” Ax looks from Jake to Cassie and back. “The bond between warriors who have fought and faced death together can be neither lessened nor improved upon by mere ceremony. The honor shared between two such beings who have chosen to risk loving each other in spite of knowing the reality of loss is one that we recognize today. We can recognize it, but not sanctify it beyond the sanctity of what these two humans have already shared.”

Rachel lets out an audible sniffle. Marco does his best not to smirk at her. It’s not that sappy a speech.

“I have been assured that the bond between two humans who like each other far exceeds the bond between those who merely enjoy each other’s company,” Ax says.

And now Marco has to fight the urge to bang his head against the nearest support pole.

“I have witnessed this myself.” Ax stares around the room. “I have witnessed compromise and forgiveness, compassion and challenge between these two. I therefore believe it is correct and proper that this bond be formally recognized by the State of California. Is there anything you would wish to add?” he says to Jake and Cassie.

Cassie leans up on tip-toe. Jake bends to meet her.

She whispers her vows into his ear, not bothering to share with the rest of the gathering. After a moment, tears on his face, he leans in and whispers back.

Recognizing his cue, Marco grabs the rings and passes them over. They’re boring-looking, in his opinion, plain silicon bands without anything shiny. But they’re also easy to morph, easy to shovel manure while wearing, easy to wear without catching on anything. Very Cassie. Very Jake.

Speaking of which, the Timberlands prove to be a good call. When the time comes, Cassie stomps the shit out of that ceremonial glass.

**********

In a slight break with tradition, Rachel and Tobias are actually the first ones to go back down the aisle. Then Marco wheels Collette out, followed by Tom and Melissa, then Jake and Cassie go. That way, Rachel’s got time to sprint back over to the main tent and check on the banquet.

Most of the tables are arranged correctly, the centerpieces in place and the cards arrayed. Rachel does a mad sprint of the room, straightening decorations and confirming with the caterers that they got all the instructions about who needs what in their diet. Between the number of kosher eaters on Jake’s side and the number of vegetarians on Cassie’s, Rachel made the call to go all the way to a fully vegan buffet. That’s probably going to get some of the relatives complaining about kids these days and rabbit food, but there’s no pleasing everyone.

Rachel deftly switches a few of the placecards, thereby putting Jordan on point to deal with their great-aunt and grandmother who have both already overindulged at the open bar, muttering an apology as she does. She puts Tobias to work making sure the bows on the backs of chairs are straight, and rushes up to the long table at the front to confirm that the armless chair meant to accommodate Cassie’s bulky skirt is in the correct place.

D.J. is here, playlist at the ready. Dance floor is clear of grass. Weather’s holding, but tent covers are on standby.

Slightly sweaty, she rushes back out with a chair under each arm just in time to catch the guests coming across the lawn.

“Everyone except the parents, head off to the cocktail hour!” she calls. “Jake, Cassie, moms and dads, with me.”

While Marco’s date (a photographer named Dakota) sets up the camera, Rachel goes into a flurry of motion straightening bowties, adjusting hairdos, and touching up makeup. Steve’s got a spot of cow blood on his forehead, she discovers to her horror, and by the time she’s done scrubbing that off Jake’s managed to get his tuxedo jacket misaligned again. Finally she steps back, breathing hard, and nods to Dakota.

Everyone smiles. The camera goes off.

“Okay.” Rachel claps her hands loudly, because Jake and Cassie are looking ready to stand up and go join the reception. “That’s one down, just twenty-three to go.”

********

Rather than tossing her whole bouquet all at once, Cassie picks it apart and gives a single flower to every single guest she can find. When the bouquet itself runs out, she disassembles her flower crown and hands that out piece by piece until everyone’s got at least one blossom. It just seems fairer that way, she says when Rachel asks.

Several of the traditions, Rachel reflects, seem to be lost on Jake and Cassie. They cut the first piece of cake… and immediately hand it to Ax. And then they cut the second piece, and the third piece, and keep right on cutting slices of cake and handing them out to people until Rachel has to step in and wrest the knife away. She’s grateful that they refrain from any of the food-fighting nonsense, since both their wedding outfits are headed to a charity auction first thing tomorrow morning, but honestly. They’re supposed to eat the first two slices, not drop half a tier of cake into the black hole of hungry andalite.

Cake served, Marco clinks a fork against a glass. “Ladies, gentlemen, and proletariats!”

There’s a general murmur as people look around, trying to spot who’s speaking.

With a hand from Jake, Marco climbs bodily onto the banquet table. “Everyone!” he shouts, and now they’re all looking at him. At him, and at the champagne flute in his hand. “Jake and Cassie!”

It gets a polite round of applause.

“Gotta start at the beginning, right?” Marco looks around the room, grinning. “So there I am, some snot-nosed three-year-old, minding my own business. And this chubby, dorky-looking little white kid comes running up to me and is like…” He leans in. “‘You wanna be my best friend?’”

He grins at Jake, who is flushing bright red.

“I shit you not, that was his opening line. ‘You wanna be my best friend?’ So I’m like…” Marco pantomimes reeling back in shock. “I dunno man, seems like a lot of commitment to make to a total stranger. You want explore our options first, maybe get a prenup, see if we’re compatible? I mean, for all I know five years from now you’re gonna find some younger, hotter best friend and then there I’ll be out on my ear with nothing to show for it.”

There’s a smattering of laughter throughout the room. Marco visibly draws strength from it.

“But you know what?” Marco leans down to look around, smiling like he’s got a secret. “Little dork kept right on showing up to my house and letting me use his television and getting his mom to give me fluffer nutters, and next thing I know it turns out he really is my best friend. I think he was onto something.

“Anyway, you think that one was bad…” He raises his eyebrows. “Couple years later, there we are in first grade, and this girl in teeny-tiny first-grader overalls comes into the room like…”

Marco claps one hand over the top of his champagne flute and clamps the other under the base, and actually walks a few steps down the table with the determined air of a very small and klutzy version of Cassie.

“And her opening line is…” Marco raises the flute to his mouth like it’s a microphone, dropping his voice. “‘You wanna see my moth?’”

Again, there’s a smattering of laughter. Cassie has a hand over her mouth, halfway doubled over in giggles at the memory.

“Now, us being minuscule and all, I’m like ninety-nine percent sure that there was no double entendre going on here,” Marco says. “And I have to admit, no one has used that line on me since. So I say ‘sure,’ because I’m like six years old and this seems like a reasonable question. She lifts her hand up…”

Marco accompanies this with a pantomime of peering through his own fingers into his champagne.

He looks up. “And it’s not even a freaking moth!” he cries out. “Turns out, it’s just some little worm thing. So I tell her.” He puts on a snotty voice, mocking his younger self. “‘That’s not a moth, that’s just some little worm thing.’”

There’s a pause. Marco glances around the room. “See if you can tell where this story’s going.”

Marco and Cassie glance at each other. Cassie’s grinning smugly.

“She puts it in the classroom’s terrarium,” Marco drawls. “It turns into a rock. Two weeks later, rock cracks open and out pops a moth.”

The room cracks up again.

“So fast forward another few years, and she’s standing there holding this eight-eyed, venom-fanged thing. And she’s all like ‘just touch the spider, Marco. Don’t you want to be a spider, Marco? Isn’t it cute and fuzzy?’ As if she is completely unaware that she’s holding a giant-ass eight-legged freak.” Marco takes a sip for strength. “And right then, I look at Jake. And I’m thinking Jake, don’t ever let this girl go. Because if she doesn’t even think wolf spiders are ugly, then she’s got no idea about you. So here’s to Jake and Cassie. Made for each other, because no one else will have ‘em.”

Jake pokes Marco in the ankle, but he’s laughing as he does it.

“All right,” Marco says, “brace yourselves, and someone get some more tissues for my second mama, because I’m about to get sappy. I love you, Jean!” he calls. “I know we all gotta cry it out sometimes.”

She laughs and flaps a dismissive hand at him, but she’s also misty-eyed already.

“Dudes, I gotta be honest.” Marco is looking at Jake and Cassie. “I didn’t think we’d get here. I honestly did not believe, for a good long while there, that there were gonna be any weddings or graduations or driver’s licenses in any of our futures. Just seemed like a good idea not to bet on any of us having any futures, you know? Seemed like it might be the surest option.”

Cassie laces her fingers through Jake’s. Silently, her mouth pressed into a line, she nods.

“So, uh.” Marco sniffs, spinning back around and thrusting his champagne flute into the air. “Here’s to me being wrong, yeah?”

“To Marco being wrong!” Jake echoes, and tosses back his glass.

“To Marco being wrong!” the entire room calls back.

Marco jumps back down, Cassie and Jake catching him as he lands.

**********

After everyone but Menderash and Ax has finished eating, it’s Tom who becomes the next one to tink a fork against a glass for attention.

“In the spirit of full disclosure,” he tells the room, strolling slowly toward the head table. “I promised my brother there wouldn’t be a horah.” Tom stops, directly next to Cassie. “But what he didn’t know is that I’d already made a promise to my new sister-in-law that there would be. So what’s a guy to do?”

He snaps his fingers.

At this cue, several things happen at once. The DJ switches to “Hava Nagila.” Several people mob Jake at once. Tom grabs Cassie and lifts her bodily over his head, carrying her chair and all to the middle of the dance floor.

With a squeak of laughter, Cassie grabs the top of Tom’s head for balance. Jake is being hauled out next to her on a chair of his own, supported by Tobias and Menderash and Rachel and James. Marco and Ax are herding the rest of the gathering, shoving people into a circle and linking arms together as they go.

“I hate you!” Jake calls over the sound of the music and his own fit of giggles.

“Gotta keep the in-laws happy!” Tom yells back, unrepentant.

*********

“You sure you’ve got everything you need?” Rachel asks.

Cheyenne, the head caterer, gives her a double thumbs-up. The staff are tipped and most are ready to go, having divvied up the several extra schaeffers’ worth of falafel and butternut squash puree and other entrees that Rachel’d set aside for them. Melissa is set to take over tending bar from here, as planned, and she’s going to keep the groomsmen after for a few minutes for cleanup duty.

“Okay.” Rachel glances around at where the last of the countertops are getting a quick once-over with disinfectant. “Okay. If anything comes up…”

“I have your number.” Cheyenne smiles and nods.

Pushing back out of the room, Rachel heads for the gift table. Everything looks like it’s in good order, but she wants to make sure it all gets packed up properly and that none of the cards get lost in the kerfuffle. It’s mostly donation receipts, at Jake and Cassie’s request, but some of the traditionalists on both sides came with soup tureens or the like —

“Hey.” Jake catches her by the arm.

Rachel turns to look at him. “What’s wrong? Is it the great-aunts?”

“Nothing’s wrong. It’s all perfect.” He’s smiling shyly. “Thanks.”

“I need to check on the gifts,” Rachel says, because she’s a coward who doesn’t know how to do mushy conversations, especially not with Jake.

“The gifts are fine,” he says. “It’s all fine. Because you made it that way. So… thanks.”

When he pulls her into a hug, Rachel can’t resist straightening his hair one last time even as she returns the embrace. “You realize I do this for fun, right?” she asks, holding him at arm’s length and looking him in the eye. “Like, I could’ve hired a wedding planner, but honestly why bother?”

He shrugs. “Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate everything. All of it. Without you, Cassie and I wouldn’t even…”

Then, because this is all getting too honest, Rachel links her arm through his and drags him onto the dance floor for, he’s about to realize, their middle school gym class’s favorite godawful square dance.

*********

When she has do-si-doed Jake within an inch of his life, Rachel tosses him at Cassie. She pivots around and gives Tobias a flourishing courtesy; he returns it with an equally ridiculous bow.

“It is marvelous, how well they have adapted their balance to compensate for their lack of legs,” Menderash comments to Ax.

“Very true.” Ax leans next to him against the bar. They are currently sharing a delicious beverage Melissa has made for them, simply by unscrewing the lid from a nearly-empty jar of olives and handing over the remaining liquid.

It is true, some of the dancers are more talented than others. Michelle and Walter are synchronized with each other and the beat of the music, even if their choice of moves is not nearly as audacious as the spinning thing Marco and Dakota are doing. The bride and groom, meanwhile, are looking at their own feet and keep bumping into each other as they move. Between their relative unconcern with anyone but each other and the broad hem of Cassie’s dress, the other couples are giving them a wide berth.

“Do you wish to attempt such feats?” Ax asks, glancing at Menderash.

Menderash gives a full-body shudder. He flaps one hand in an andalite gesture that, if translated to English, would approximate fuck that.

Ax grins, drinking more olive juice.

“Have you done such a thing?” Menderash asks.

“Never for very long,” Ax says.

Jake and Cassie have given up on dancing entirely, descending into a giggle fit in the middle of the dance floor as they both attempt to disentangle Jake’s cuff link from the lace of Cassie’s hem. Rachel swirls by, briefly blocking their view. She’s switched partners. Dakota is doing their best to teach Tobias how to waltz while Marco and Rachel are now swing-dancing their way across the dance floor.

As both andalites watch in awe, Rachel spins Marco in a circle, swinging him out and then drawing him back close to her body. Marco pirouettes, throwing his head back so that his hair flares around his face, and then throws himself backwards. Rachel catches him neatly around the waist, dipping him nearly to the floor. Marco braces on her shoulders and she flings him upward with her whole body so that she actually lifts him off the floor for a second before gracefully sweeping him back down. They separate until just the tips of their fingers are touching, and then spin back together until Marco suddenly swoops under Rachel’s arm, coming up on the far side as she pivots around in time fro him to fall back against her.

Ax is reminded of the way they fight. There’s something almost joyful in their ferocity on the battlefield. There’s something almost frightening in their enthusiasm on the dancefloor. Neither of them seems to know how to do anything by half measure.

One by one the other clusters of dancers have stopped to watch as well. Jake and Cassie, now sitting hopelessly tangled up in each other, seem quite happy to have the spotlight stolen.

Rachel swoops an arm around Marco’s waist and slides into a back-and-forth tango step. Within two beats he’s caught on, falling into the same rhythm as her. When the tempo of the song changes he grabs her shoulder and nudges her into a circular waltz. They’re unrehearsed, and inexpert, but moving with such force and communicating so rapidly that it doesn’t really matter.

“Yes,” Menderash says softly, “I very much do not wish to attempt to dance.”

Ax smiles at him over the rim of the olive jar. It’s empty, and in the time it takes him to set it back on the bar and catch her eye, Melissa has replaced it with maraschino cherry liquid.

The song crescendos; Marco leans his full weight back as Rachel flings him into a long spiraling turn that ends with him sliding on his knees clear between her legs, popping up behind her just in time to brace as she tips backward into him. She spins once, twice, four times, then swings him into a dip so low that his hair brushes the floor.

As the song ends they freeze like that, chests heaving, hair damp with sweat.

They both seem to become aware at once that the whole room’s watching them. Marco opens his mouth to say something, when Rachel’s smile turns wicked. That’s the only warning he gets before she opens her arms and lets him drop. Marco squawks indignantly, throwing out both elbows to catch himself. He gets ahold of Rachel’s arm and tries to yank her down as well, but ends up pulling himself to his feet as well.

The whole room breaks out into clapping. Marco sweeps into a low bow. Rachel visibly considers pushing him over again before deciding against it. Instead she runs to try and rescue Cassie’s hand-sewn lace hem and Jake’s antique silver cufflinks from their respective owners’ incompetence.

*********

“Hey Tobias?” Rachel says around a yawn.

«Uh-huh?»

Idly they watch as Tom waltzes Cassie’s grandmother around the dance floor. She’s 4’11” to his 6’4”, so it’s pretty hilarious to witness. But at least they’re not totally mismatched: each has a single sprig of valerian from Cassie’s bouquet tucked behind one ear.

She and Tobias are sitting on the ground at one corner of the dance floor. Rachel’s got her shoes off to massage her aching ankles, and Tobias is perched back on her shoulder. With clever motions of his beak he’s fishing the pins out of her hair one by one, dropping them into her hand as he slowly disassembles her updo.

“How do you feel about never, ever getting married?” Rachel asks.

Tobias drops another bobby pin into her hand. «Best idea you’ve had all year.»

#animorphs #animorphs ficlet #animorphs au #(sadly)#long post #weddings #jake/cassie #cake #alcohol mention #rachel berenson #is the canonically biggest cassie/jake shipper on the planet #do it for her #anonymous #asks

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mittensmorgul · 4 years

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Hi, I have a question, and I hope it would be interesting for you too... Could we talk about angel's wings and feathers?..

I always thought that angel's wings were a part of their true form, a kind of energy which we can only see as a shadows or electric sparks or ash or something like this.

And I didn't think that it could be a real wings with feathers as bird's. Until, while rewatch, I've noticed that angel's feather were mentioned in SPN at least twice (maybe you've noticed more?):

1) In 8.12 when Henry Winchester time travels he uses an angel feather in spell. And then Dean tells that Henry stole an angel feather from the trunk of the Impala. So feathers are reall??? Why did the Winchestets keep the feather in the trunk of the Impala and where they get it? (ok, maybe they found it in the bunker)

2) In 12.13 Sam uses a white feather in spell returning Gavin back in time (we know this spell needs an angel feather)

So now we can see how the real angel feather looks like???

Does that mean that the angel's wings can be presented in physical world like a real wings with feathers and this is not fanfiction? I like this idea so much.

I think that the creators of the show didn't let us to see it, as many other great things, that is sad...

I would really like to know your thoughts about this.

(Sorry for my bad english, it is not my native language...)

Hi there! First off, your English is fine! (lol it’s my native language, and I just typed it “Inglish” by accident, so you’re already doing better than I am :’D)

ETA: DON’T REBLOGGY THIS YET. I forgotted something that @thayerkerbasy just reminded me of, and I’m editing this post... brb... okay NOW YOU CAN REBLOGGY!)

As far as I know, those are the only times in canon we ever see or hear mention of an angel feather, and both times it’s for the same exact spell. They reference that it’s Henry’s spell when they use it again in 12.13, but make no mention in dialogue of it being an angel feather. Yet Sam had a whole jar of fluffy little pin feathers, so the assumption is that they’d been collecting them for a while (unless those were either found in the Men of Letters’ spell ingredient stockpile when they moved into the bunker, or otherwise given to them by Cas at some point).

It’s weird, because they seem like a very limited commodity, especially after the angels fell and their wings all burned up. Even after Cas got his original grace back, his wings never seemingly recovered. When we did finally see his wing prints in 12.23, they were still... not healthy... So my thinking is that any spell that would require them will become impossible to cast when their current supply runs out. All the other angels-- at the end of the series-- were either dead or locked in Heaven with their broken wings. We never learned any of their fates. Maybe they were all rendered obsolete under the Heaven Remodel?

A little behind the scenes from the early days of SPN as a bonus, since it’s tangentially relevant:

When they were filming the very early episodes of SPN, they had a lot of choices to make about what to show us based on what their budget would allow them to portray. Think of an episode like Wendigo, 1.02. One thing I see people say often was that it was a shame we didn’t see more of the monster, but only saw like... bushes shaking, or a vague form moving through the underbrush, or a blur. They made a stylistic choice right there to keep it within budget.

The options they faced were showing us a “dude in a rubber mask” type monster and showing it more, versus one really terrifying shot of a Proper Monster™ dying in spectacular fashion. Rather than go full-on cheesemonster, they chose to leave most of it up to our imaginations, giving us glimpses or hints of the monster.

They went back and forth on this a bit over the years, attempting to show us more on occasion, but most of those times the audience reaction has been varying degrees of wtf... Think about some of the scenes where they attempted to give us more than a glimpse at the supernatural, or a blood splatter, or whatever. It didn’t always work well. Think: the wire fight from 13.23...

I mean, it took us until 11.14 to ever see an angel “flap away,” when we saw Casifer zap Dean off the exploding submarine.

For the most part, I appreciate the fact that they understood the limitations of their own budget and didn’t give angels cheap little wings just to be able to show them on camera. Over time, only being able to see them as shadows, or as char after the angel died, became part of the lore of the show.

I blame Adam Glass for writing that spell, because he probably thought it sounded cool or whatever, that it was effectively a throwaway line because no other spell they’ve ever used has required an angel feather as an ingredient, and in story it was only linked into this larger Men of Letters Legacy plot that in retrospect feels like Chuck tying up loose ends and putting previously “deactivated” plotlines back into play.

I do find it kind of interesting that both iterations of this spell (the second resurrected by Bucklemming) were both tied to Abaddon. Henry’s spell in 8.12 brought her into the story from the past, she eventually travelled to the much further distant past to bring Gavin into the present (presumably with her own power alone, no angel feather required), and then after she was killed, they used the spell to return Gavin to his own time. So in a a way, the spell was part of a closed narrative loop, never to be referred to again.

Kinda wild that we’d never heard of angel feathers being a thing for spells until we learn that Dean apparently had some just stashed in the trunk, though... :’D

As for how corporeal angel feathers are/were, they exist in the earthly plane enough to leave char marks when they burn, when an angel is killed, so they must always have had the potential to manifest physically. I can’t imagine they ever would’ve had a budget to show us anything more than what we usually saw, though. It did give them a LOT of flexibility over how exactly they presented them to us when they DID show us. And I can’t even imagine the suffering Misha would’ve endured as an actor spending all those years wearing some weird wing harness rig. It would’ve been... impractical. And the CGI the show could’ve afforded-- especially in earlier days-- would’ve been... bad...

But what they were able to show us? Was often awesome. Remember when Raphael showed off his wings in 5.03? LIGHTNING!

And when we finally did see actual corporeal-appearing wings in 8.23... it was Dramatique™

And for More CGI Is Sometimes A Bad Thing Science, please have the attempt at Michael’s “true form” from 14.01:

It’s kinda a super-letdown after AU!Michael’s previous shadow wing displays from 13.01, but more specifically from 13.22:

those... were... badass...

Even the pre-wire-fight wing shadows on Dean were badass:

But if they’d tried to show us more of them, to make them move through action scenes for example, it would’ve been... bad...

So what we’re left with is the knowledge that there is some sort of corporeal element to wings that we simply can’t see most of the time, but clearly angels have the ability to show or hide them at will, even from other angels. Could it be an act of will on the part of the angel that manifests a bit of their grace in the form of a physical feather? Honestly, that’s the theory I’ve personally adopted toward canon. In fanfic, I’ve read tons of various headcanons about what angel wings are and how they function-- everything from “a manifestation of their true form” to “angels share a lot of traits with birds” to “an extension of their grace,” and everything in between.

I personally, in canon, like to think of it as akin to how they’ve used angel grace for other spells. I mean, when we recall that angels haven’t been on Earth much for the last few thousand years (aside from at least a couple of known incidents where angels interfered with humanity, like Ishim and Company in 12.10, for example, and the presumptive extension that the Men of Letters knew of the existence of angels and likely summoned one up a time or two the same way Lily Sunder had, giving one explanation for how Henry Winchester knew of this spell and had an angel feather to use for it, but also recontextualized when Lily Sunder taught us that humans can use their own souls to power spells in the same way angels used their grace... which sort of makes the notion of needing an angel feather AND his own soul to charge that particular spell in 8.12 a bit redundant unless Lily’s knowledge of angelic magic was more advanced than Henry’s... hrmpf.... so much tangent... back to the point)...

We did eventually learn of other spells that required an angel’s actual grace, not concentrated in the form of a feather. The Angel Fall Spell in 8.23 being the prime example. Metatron took ALL of Cas’s grace for that one, even if he didn’t use all of it for the spell and left a “fragment” (Metatron described it as “not a lot, but enough.”).

ETA: HECK. I have 9.03 on the tv right now and it’s distractedly made me disgusted enough to have forgotten something that Thayer just reminded me of: Lucifer’s “fossilized feather” in 12.07. It held enough grace to restore and heal him after Rowena’s spell in 12.03 had degraded him. Which really only adds to the theory that “feathers” are simply bits of grace that have been rendered solid somehow, but that can be transformed back into grace as needed.

And then there was the Rift Spell for travelling to alternate universes that required archangel grace, as well as the time travel/ward breaking spell that Sam found in 11.14 that ALSO required archangel grace specifically. Would these spells have worked with an archangel “feather?” Possibly, if material feathers are somehow just crystalized bits of grace, but since we never got a full explanation in canon, and never even really saw corporeal feathery wings that dropped feathers or could be plucked, and never even had mention of corporeal feathers outside of their use in this single spell, it’s really up to our own interpretation. And I kind of like it that way, because that way we get to have fun little discussions like this one. :D

I know this isn’t a definitive answer, but it’s how it all makes sense to me, in the hand-wavey sort of way that all of canon works. :’D

#spn 8.12 #spn 12.13 #spn 8.23 #on the nature of angel grace #angels and souls #sigils and symbols #heck i know i used to have a spells tag...#spn 11.14 #spn 5.03 #spn 12.10 #spn 13.23 #spn 13.22 #spn 13.01 #spn 14.01 #Anonymous #spn 12.07

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gwenbrightly · 3 years

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Redwall Falls Chapter 2

“He’s looking at me...” Brome heard his sister whisper to herself. She was not so inconspicuously watching Martin, one of the Mystery Shack’s teenaged employees, while she cleaned bobbleheads made in the image of their Great Aunt (or Graunt) Polly. The siblings had been put to work helping out around the tourist trap as soon as they’d had some time to settle in.

“Why don’t you just, I don’t know, talk to him?” he suggested with an eye roll. Rose stared at him.

“After what happened last time?” she cringed. Yesterday, when they’d met him (and the handy-squirrel known as Feldoh), the mouse had introduced himself before saying something about a “rosty nose”, which had taken several minutes to decipher. Brome still wasn’t sure what that was about, but it had definitely been awkward.

“Well, he’s proven that he can speak coherently,” Brome observed, nodding his head at the customer Martin was currently ringing up, “so maybe this time you guys can make it through an entire conversation without crashing.”

“I... Don’t be so pushy, Brome. These things take time. And besides-” Rose’s protests were cut off by Graunt Polly’s appearance from the back room.

“All right, all right, look alive, everybeast. I need someone to go hang up these signs in the spooky part of the forest,” the mole announced, displaying several signs that had advertisements with question marks and directions to the Mystery Shack on them. Rose, Brome, Feldoh, and Martin all glanced at each other.

“Not it,” Rose said quickly.

“Not it,” Brome followed suit.

“Also not it. You needed me to switch out the lightbulbs upstairs, remember?” It was Feldoh, this time. Graunt Polly looked annoyed.

“Martin, go hang these signs.” She ordered. “Oh, I would, but it’s so far. And I just realized I never had my lunch break so...”

“I’d fire all of you if I could,” Polly complained, frowning at Martin’s lame excuse. Her statement didn’t seem to have the desired effect, for she looked rather disappointed when no one took the hint and volunteered as tribute.

“Fine, then. Guess we’re gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way,” she said, “let’s make it.. Eanie, meanie, minie… you,” she pointed a paw at Brome. He groaned in dismay.

“What? No. Graunt Polly, there’s something off about these woods… they’re creepy and I always feel like I’m being watched.”

“Noonvale doesn’t have much in the way of real forests, Brome. It’s gonna take some time for you to adjust to, well, the great outdoors,” Polly told him, giving his headfur a ruffle. He looked to Rose for backup, but she didn’t offer anything.

“I’m telling you – there’s something weird going on in this town. Homesickness can’t explain why the mosquito bites on my arm spell out ‘beware’.” Brome pointed out, rolling up his sleeve to show the others. Feldoh made a gagging noise. Rose raised an eyebrow and said,

“It looks more like ‘bewarb’ to me, and that’s really only if you squint.”

“Look, kid, that whole ‘monsters in the woods’ thing is just a local legend drummed up to attract more tourists,” Polly tried to assure him, but Brome wasn’t convinced. He had only been in Gravity falls for a day and he’d already seen bizarre glowing lights, heard strange noises, and been accosted by possibly radioactive mosquitos.

“But...” he protested as Graunt Polly plopped the signs into his reluctantly waiting arms.

“Stop being so paranoid and try to have some fun with this, eh, Brome?”

_______________

“No one believes anything I say,” Brome muttered to himself as he nailed a sign to a tree. It felt like he had been out in the forest for hours. All by himself. With no one to talk (complain) to. Was it even legal to send children out into the forest to perform manual labor without supervision? He’d have to check the local child labor laws once he got access to wifi – yet another thing the Mystery Shack seemed to be lacking in.

“Ugh!” he cried. “Stupid Mystery Shack! Stupid signs!”

Kathunk! Brome kicked the next tree he came to and immediately recoiled. He yelped in pain, then cocked his head. Trees didn’t make weird echoey noises… did they?

“Weird…” he commented, dropping the remaining sign on the ground so he could investigate further. Rapping gently on the tree – he didn’t want to hurt himself – Brome listened to the oddly metallic sound the tree made on impact. Something was definitely off about it. He took the sleeve of his sweatshirt and rubbed away at the trunk. Textured brown paint and a healthy coating of dirt and grime gave way to old metal. Ahah! The entire tree was fake. In full detective mode, now, Brome examined the tree until he spotted a small handle.

With slight apprehension, for there was always a chance his actions would activate an army of laser equipped robots, he grasped the lever with both paws and yanked it down. Nothing happened. No grand reveal. No explosion. Just the sound of birds chirping in the distance.

The young mouse huffed in disappointment and turned to leave, wishing he hadn’t gotten his hopes up. All his Sci-Fi TV shows and books had lied to him. Cool things never happened in real life. The world just didn’t work that way. But then, the creaking of a rusty hatch forcing its way open somewhere nearby caused him to stop in his tracks.

Brome circled the area, searching for the source of the sound. The switch must have done something, after all. He checked every nook and cranny, below each bush and on top of every rock and stump. His query remained elusive. Whatever the lever had opened was clearly well hidden. Brome took a step backwards, hoping the action would give him a different view of this patch of forest.

In a way, he got exactly what he wanted; the fallen tree he tripped over certainly forced him to see the area from a different angle. But the unexpected fall wasn’t very pleasant and Brome couldn’t help but wonder how badly he’d have to hurt himself before his parents would let him come home. He lay on the ground for a moment, half tempted to sink into the dirt and become one with nature. Thankfully, such drastic actions did not end up being necessary.

It was no wonder Brome hadn’t noticed the bizarre hole the switch had uncovered. Half buried by the log and built from camouflaged materials, he would have missed it completely if not for the fact that he’d practically fallen right on top of it. He sat up, thoughtfully. Whoever had installed this hidden treasure trove obviously hadn’t wanted anyone to find it. How long had it been since someone sat where he now sat? Since somebeast had peered into the hole to examine its secrets? Brome gently removed an object wrapped in old newspapers, bursting into a fit of sneezes at the resulting cloud of dust that had floated into the air.

It was old. Old-old, as in more than just a few years old. The newspapers were from several decades ago. Their edges had curled with age, and some of the lettering was too faded to be legible. Fortunately, Brome had little interest in the newspaper; the item it protected was far more intriguing. A journal. And journals always had juicy secrets written in them – he’d learned that from snooping in Rose’s bedroom (though this journal would inevitably be much more interesting than his sister’s diary).

The journal’s design was simple enough. It was made of thick brown leather with the insignia of a paw print on the front cover. Brome wasn’t sure what kind of creature would have an entire extra toe. He also wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. What if the journal contained something bad? Something he wasn’t supposed to see?

It must have been hidden for a reason, after all. The young mouse sat for a moment, pondering his options. He could, of course, bury the journal and get back to work hanging Graunt Polly’s signs. He could also take his chances and open the book regardless of ancient curses or government Intel. It was a difficult choice.

“Alright, mystery beast. Let’s see what you’ve been hiding,” Brome muttered when his curiosity finally got the better of him. He hummed thoughtfully and flipped through the first few pages. They were covered with sketches of creatures he had never seen before. Detailed notes and memos accompanied many of the sketches.

“It's hard to believe it's been six years since I began studying the strange and wondrous secrets of Gravity Falls,” he read aloud from the page that had the most writing. Six years was a long time to be stuck in this place. The author must have had an awful lot of spare time on their paws to create such an elaborate journal. Flipping through the journal some more, Brome found himself growing more intrigued with each page he read.

Eventually, the writing and sketches grew increasingly erratic and less caretakingly organized. Notes that made no sense lined the margins in some places. One page in particular had the words Trust No One scrawled across its top in large lettering. Brome read the rest of the entry with bated breath, “Unfortunately, my suspicions have been confirmed. I'm being watched. I must hide this book before he finds it. Remember: in Gravity Falls there is no one you can trust." He paused, confused. That seemed… harsh. But if Gravity Falls really did have a dark side-

“Watcha doin?” someone said, sending Brome into a frenzied attempt to hide the journal behind his back. He groaned when he realized who it was. His sister gave him an awkward wave.

“Rose! Thanks for that. I really needed a heart attack today,” he stated flatly.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Rose told him, sitting down on the fallen tree, “Graunt Polly sent me to check on you.”

“Oh,” he said. He felt a little foolish for being so easily shaken. The journal’s tone was clearly getting to him.

“So… what were you reading that you didn’t notice me coming your way?” she asked.

“It’s nothing,” Brome said quickly. Rose hummed in response, clearly skeptical.

“Seems like pretty interesting nothingness. You were really invested in it.”

“Well… it’s not nothing nothing,” he admitted, “Just not something I should show you out here where anyone could happen to walk by. Let’s go somewhere more… private.”

“Alright. But now I’m curious. This better not be evidence of aliens, or I’m going to be very insulted that you didn’t show me right away,” Rose teased, ruffling his head fur. Brome winked at her and stood up. He waved the journal at her before taking off in the direction of the Mystery Shack as he said,

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

After all, surely the book journal hadn’t meant sisters when it said trust no one… right?

#redwall #redwall fanfiction #myfics #gravity falls #laterose of noonvale #martin the warrior #brome the worrier

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365days365movies · 3 years

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May 6, 2021: The Martian (2015) (Recap: Part One)

We’re leaving lo-fi sci-fi, people. Kind of.

I mentioned before that films like Her are what I define as “lo-fi sci-fi”, which is a category that I’ve kind of made up. Basically, it’s the science fiction version of low fantasy, meaning it contains science fiction themes contained within an otherwise contemporary setting. In the case of Her, Joaquin Phoenix’s character, along with many others, live in a world and setting basically like ours, but with technology advanced enough to generate AIs (like Siri) that are intelligent enough to actually ascend our reality. Because we live in a society.

You give me Joaquin Phoenix, I’m gonna make a Joker reference; it’s in the contract of my existence. Anyway, that is admittedly kind of broad, right? I mean, that has the capability of crossing over with a BUNCH of sci-fi genres and themes. And, considering that we’ve already seen magic, speculative technology, time travel, monsters, and artificial intelligence, we’ve already touched on quite a bit.

And with science fiction, the sky’s the limit. Literally. So, I think it behooves us to re-examine lo-fi sci-fi a little bit. Specifically, we should note that it can also be defined as an extension of currently existing technologies and possibilities. Writers would call this “speculative sci-fi”, assuming in this case that it’s set within the present or a near and attainable future. Her definitely fits in this category, as does Westworld. But, let’s crossover to another genre by speculating upon another possibility. And it begins with this man. Probably.

Hey, Elon, what’s up? Now, Mr. Musk here is a...controversial figure, for COMPLETELY understandable reasons. Instead of touch upon the man himself, I feel like touching upon one of his recent focuses: space travel. With SpaceX and the various upcoming space trips and journeys that they’re planning, Musk has made it clear that he plans to shoot to the Moon. Again, literally.

In fact, this full plan is to go even further than that, and to fuel potential commercial space flights in the future, which is admittedly very cool. And of course, if you’re going to shoot for the Moon...

Guys...guys, that’s Mars. THAT’S FUCKING MARS

Is that not amazing? We have sound and pictures from FUCKING MARS! THAT’S A DIFFERENT PLANET, GODDAMN IT! It’s cooler than I have the ability to properly express, but it IS goddamn cool. And this means that, easily within my lifetime, we could (and likely will) land on Mars. Which is amazing. God, I really want to see that happen.

And so, landing on Mars is BARELY science fiction, but since we haven’t yet done so...yeah, it’s fictional at the moment. And so, any film about landing on Mars falls within this category. Well...to an extent.

2000′s Mission to Mars, for example, was a Disney-funded film (to my IMMENSE surprise; and it’s based off of an old Disney World ride, WHAT), and a movie that I saw a LOT when I was a kid. I also barely remember it, to be honest. But that film is straight-up science fiction because of, well...aliens. The idea of Martians is, as far as we know it, fictional. And most fiction involving Mars includes these aliens somehow. Whether it’s DC Comics’ entire civilization of Martians, as seen in Justice League, Supergirl, or Young Justice...

...Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s heavily mythologized civilization, as seen in the Barsoom series of novels (and another Disney film)...

...Or one of the best Looney Tunes characters.

Mmm. Yes. Isn’t that lovely?

But, yeah, Mars and aliens go hand-in-hand in our media. So, to properly look at lo-fi science and speculative science fiction in relation to the Red Planet, we’ll need a movie that goes to the planet, and doesn’t touch upon the concept of aliens AT ALL.

Enter...Ridley Scott?

Yeah, the director of Legend, Alien, Thelma and Louise, Blade Runner, Gladiator. Also the director of Kingdom of Heaven, Prometheus, Exodus: Gods and Kings, and...ugh, 1492: Conquest of Paradise. I’ve talked about his mixed record before, in my Recap of Legend right here.

In 2014, he was brought on to adapt a book by Andy Weir called The Martian, which is a great book! I’ve listened to the audio book, and I whole-heartedly recommend doing that. And because of that, I am VERY MUCH looking forward to watching this film, especially seeing as it’s often called one of the best science fiction films made during that year, and was critically acclaimed then and now. It got seven Oscar nominations (although it won none of them), amongst other awards. So, enough navel-gazing, huh? The Martian!

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

On Acidalia Plantitia, at the landing site of the Ares III mission, a group of scientists are gathering samples. These scientists are commander and geologist Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), pilot Rick Martinez (Michael Pena), systems operator Beth Johanssen (Kate Mara), surgeon Chris Beck (Sebastian Stan), German chemist Alex Vogel (Aksel Hennie), and overly talkative botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon).

The group seems to have a good dynamic, but that dynamic is interrupted by a massive dust storm, which is large enough to cause the entire crew to evacuate. However, in the chaos of the dust storm, Mark is hit by debris and lost in the shuffle. Although Lewis goes back to find him, she can’t get to him before they need to leave, and Mark is believed dead. This is reported (pretty callously) by NASA Director Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) to the press soon afterwards.

But of course, that wouldn’t be much of a movie, now would it? Mark’s alive! And Mark’s alone. With his suit damaged, and low on oxygen, he trudges back to headquarters, which is intact and still contains breathable oxygen. He gets inside, and realizes that he’s been stabbed in the abdomen by some debris. He removes it, and stitches up his own wound. Which is...god, it’s fucking BRUTAL just to think about, nevertheless watch.

Once he’s finished, he records a log for the future, if he doesn’t make it. It’s day 19 of the 31-day mission at this point, and Mark’s basically screwed. He needs lasting oxygen, water, and food, and he might need that for 4 years, when the next manned mission can come to the red planet. Additionally, he has absolutely no way to contact NASA, leaving him completely stranded. Another dust storm rolls in that night, and Mark looks over the belongings of his colleagues, packing them up for their eventual return. It’s somber, to say the least. However, Mark affirms that he’s determined not to die on the planet.

After doing the math, Mark should have enough food to last him for about 300 days, especially if he rations it. Until then, he’ll need to figure out how to grow his own food, on a planet where nothing grows. Which is, of course, going to be a difficult feat to accomplish. But Mark Watney’s a botanist with botany powers, and he’s gonna do it.

It’s day 31, and Mark’s brought in dirt from the outside, and uses the bio-waste from the crew’s stay there for a form of compost. After 5 days, mostly full of him watching Happy Days on TV and trying to farm, he realizes that he needs water, both for himself and for the soil. To do that, he goes chemical and decides to use hydrogen-laden rocket fuel, wood from Martinez’s belongings, and good old-fashioned fire to make water! And since hydrogen + oxygen = water, it should work. With a minor side-effect.

So, yeah, he blew himself up. As as he records a video log, the sound mixing makes itself impressively known by subtly and realistically generating a tinnitus sound. It’s VERY well-done, holy shit. Anyway, he makes a stable fire, and the place is soon covered in condensation, moistening the room and the soil successfully.

We get to day 54, and Mark’s planted leftover potatoes from the crew in order to grow them. And while he’s being mourned at a funeral on Earth, and in NASA, he’s seeing the fruits (or shoots) of his efforts.

Back on Earth, Mars Mission Director Vincent Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is trying to convince Director Teddy to let him lobby for another Ares mission, despite the risk of bad press for the callousness of the proximity to Watney’s death. Meanwhile, satellite technician Mindy Park (Mackenzie Davis) looks down at the Ares III site, and realizes that the site has changed visually, meaning that Mark may actually be alive.

Shocked by this, she tells Kapoor, Teddy, and media director Annie Montrose (Kristen Wiig) about this, and they realize the absolute clusterfuck that this whole thing is. They can’t tell the other members of the Ares III crew about it, because it’d devastate them for the 10 months they have to get back to Earth, at the VERY least. They can’t tell the WORLD about this, because they just had a funeral for the guy, and they’d reveal that they left him stranded on Mars accidentally, destroying faith in the Mars Missions Program. And they can’t save Mark, who they’re sure will starve eventually. It’s a mess. And Kapoor also wonders what’s happening to Mark psychologically through all of this.

And yet, they reveal this to the world regardless, causing the clusterfuck reaction that they think it’s going to cause. But Mark’s busy on Mars, figuring out how to get to the site of the next Ares IV mission in 4 years, at the Schiaparelli crater about 50 days travel away. This is a struggle, as his Rover has only so much power and fuel, and he can only get more power by cutting out the heater is risking death by freezing. So, problems. However, he figures out a potential solution: radioactive isotopes! In a move that is, let’s face it, COMPLETELY INSANE, he digs up a radioactive generator from the ship in order to heat the ship.

On Earth, they try to figure out Mark’s moves, as well as how to resupply Ares IV sooner for Mark’s benefit. This is with the director of JPL, Bruce Ng (Benedict Wong), and the flight director of the ship Hermes, Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean), who insists that they tell the Ares II crew. They continue to monitor Mark, and note that he’s been travelling for 17 days in his Rover towards something. Kapoor figures it out, and flies to California.

See, Mark needs a way to contact NASA, and he believes that the way to do so is through Pathfinder, the first probe ever sent to Mars in 1997, lasting for 9 months since landing until they lost contact. Mark digs it up, and the people at JPL in California start their own efforts for contact. And despite communication being extremely rudimentary, initially limited to yes/no questions that use a still-frame camera, it fucking WORKS! WHOO!

To boost this communication hurdle, the two camps figure out a hexadecimal system for communication, allowing them to communicate using a circular table of numbers that represent an alphabet. That allows them to teach Mark to hack into the Rover, allowing it to piggyback off of its broadcast signal and send them messages via keyboard. Nice! Now that communication is reasonably possible, Mark’s able to ask how the crew is handling his death. But upon learning that they haven’t told him. He’s understandably a little goddamn enraged. And so, they FINALLY tell the Ares III crew about this.

The news breaks the crew, even though Mark continues to stress that he’s all right, and that it wasn’t their fault. Meanwhile, Mark’s able to survive for 912 days with his potato plants, and things improve with the help of technicians on Earth. They plan to launch a supply rocket to him in the next year, and things are looking fine! Unless, of course...something goes horribly HORRIBLY wrong.

Well...fuck. Good place to pause for Part Two, then?

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