#my tags are longer than the posts itself whoops

[hertzwritings]

You spin me right round (baby, right round)

A/N: Am I alive? Physically, yes. Am I okay? Probably not. Did I miss all of you guys and writing? YES. Honestly, it’s been weird not writing and keeping in contact with all of you, but I’m trying to get back to it – and that brings us to here. Also, I’ve been listening to Sleep Token on repeat, so I’m feeling things.

I don’t have a set schedule right now, mostly because I have no idea if I’ll be posting regularly or just on a whim, but for now, I’m just getting back in the groove of things!

Your comments, likes, reblogs mean the world to me and would definitely help me stay on it, so if you’ve got anything to say, say it, my loves.

Remember English isn’t my first language, so if there’s errors in grammar or language, try to overlook it. Love you all!

Also, please be gentle wit me on my first day back – it’s like being nervous to start a new school, really.

MASTERLIST

Ask me anything/requests/tag list requests

Pairing: NotFamous!Henry Cavill x female reader

Warnings: Language, dorks being dorks, meet cute, strangers to lovers, neighbors to lovers, smut (18+, minors DNI), dirty talk, slightly dom/sub, spanking, p in v, tongue on v, blowjobs, slight Msub to Mdom, unprotected sex, semi-public sex, creampie, petnames

Wordcount: 4633 (whoops)

You spin me right round (baby, right round)

  Laundry day. Probably the worst of days, especially considering the hefty trek from your 5th floor apartment to the basement, which would be bad enough in and of itself, but carrying the massive load of laundry down without a functioning elevator without spilling half of your delicates did seem like an almost impossible task.

At any rate, you were going to do it, and you were going to be a strong, independent woman, who could definitely carry it down and back up again without dropping a thong or three (like last time, where Pete from 5D was lurking).

You heaved the blue IKEA-bag higher on your shoulder, silently cursing yourself for not actually doing the damned laundry more than you did, and began the descent into the musty basement, your trusty laundry-tokens jangling in your pocket of the loose shorts, you were wearing.

It took longer than you’d like to admit, and you almost did drop the entire bag down a flight of stairs, but you made it and with a loud grunt, you pushed the door to the basement and laundry-room open, almost stumbling inside.

“Oh.” You locked eyes with a very handsome stranger, who looked up from the only dryer, hands still buried pretty deeply in there. “Oh, you need this one?” He asked politely, and that voice – smooth velvet, mixed with a deep rumble that settled nicely in your chest and between your legs. The accent didn’t help at all with how attractive you found him, either, and you shifted your weight slightly. Fuck.   “I-I… I’m… Not right…” You squeaked, silently cursing yourself for wearing your gray, tattered t-shirt with a faded logo on it, that definitely did not do anything nicely for your shape. You cleared your throat. “No, I’m sorry, no. I’m still in the early laundry-stages.” You said with a smile, and immediately wanted to die. Laundry stages?? He grinned, a fanged tooth catching his lower lip. “Alright. New to the building?” He asked, casually loading a basket with his clothes.

  “Sort of. More of a recluse, that have been living here for a month, and just never do laundry at normal people-times.” He chuckled and stood up to his full height. He was an impressive man, easily towering a head and a half above you, and he looked enormous. Muscles rolled under his perfect skin on his arms, and you couldn’t help your brain going in all other directions than polite talk with a neighbor. “Well, nice to meet you, recluse. I’m Henry.” He balanced the basket on his hip (a beautiful move, if you were honest) and extended his hand, which you cautiously shook. “I’m Y/N.” You said with a small smile. His hand was warm and the grasp was firmer than you had expected, small callouses on the tips of his fingers that graced the inside of your wrist deliciously. Fuckedy fuck. “Y/N. Good name.” He winked at you. “Oh, don’t use the second washing machine…” He pointed to the washer with a bright red 2 painted on it. “Stinky Pete from 5D used it, and I don’t want to imagine what on earth he washed, but it still smells vaguely like rot.” He winked at you. “Bye, Recluse Y/N!” And with that he left, leaving you slightly shellshocked and a scent trail of hazel and wood behind.

It went on like that for a few weeks; you showed up, he was already there in various states of undress (once you even came face to face with him in just boxers, because he had spilled what appeared to be red wine everywhere) and you exchanged pleasantries before leaving the basement and going back to your apartment, sighing deeply over the fact, that you never actually talked to the handsome stranger.

----------

 A while later, a little past midnight, you were back at it (still no working elevator) and found yourself face to face with the very handsome British man, who this time was wearing fucking gray sweatpants and a tank top, that definitely didn’t leave anything to the imagination. You could see every single muscle underneath the shirt as he loaded the laundry.

“Ah, look who’s back!” he grinned at you. “I saved the best washer for you, but don’t tell Mrs. Selton on the fourth. She can’t know I play favorites, or I’ll never get cookies again.” You laughed. “Alright, your secret’s safe with me, sir.” You said and stood next to him, before starting to load the washer. He tried to say something, but almost bit his tongue and groaned at the sensation. “Are you always this smooth?” You asked, laughing slightly, as he began coughing. “Inhaled… Spit…” He coughed again. When he was finally breathing normally, he raised an eyebrow at you. “I’ll have you know, this is in no way an indication of how I handle normal interactions with people. It’s late, and I’m slightly flustered.” He said with a small smirk.

“Mhm.” You nodded, while mindlessly stuffing your washer. “Sure, I’ll believe you.” “Hey, you don’t know me.” He said, leaning against the dryer and crossed his arms. “Maybe you know my name, and probably the color and general state of my underwear, but you don’t know me.” “I never said anything.” You grinned and closed the lid on the washer. “Wait, that’s not even close to full.” He tsked at you and opened it again. “You have to really stuff it in there, or you’ll be down here until morning.” “Excuse you, can you get your hands off of my laundry, you weirdo.” You slapped his hand away. “Maybe I don’t want my clothes overly wrinkled, have you considered that?” You asked. “Pfft. That’s the charm of communal laundry. It’ll always smell a little like other people and it will be wrinkled.” You guffawed. “Sure thing, Henry. Any plans for tonight?” you asked, mindlessly pouring detergent into the container. He looked at you with his head tilted slightly, a few stray curls bouncing onto his forehead. Goddamnit, it should be illegal to look like that when doing laundry. “Eh, not really. It’s Sunday, Sundays are for me and my boy.” You raised an eyebrow. “Your boy, huh?” “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I am indeed a parent. I have a child.” He said proudly, leaning over you to press the on-button for you. You jumped onto the counter behind you and sat down on it, insistingly ignoring the creaking of the wood beneath your butt. That’s an insecurity for another day. “Really?” He nodded. “Would your boy happen to be a giant dog?” he frowned. “How the hell did you know that?” You pointed to the unwashed load of laundry, where a suspicious amount of hair had settled on pretty much everything. “Why are you pointing at my... Yeah, well, that is a lot of hair…” He looked back at you with a furrowed brow. “Why are you even looking down there? My laundry should be sacred!” He said teasingly, covering the basket with his arm. “Well… That’s… Uhm… Anyway.” You laughed. “Are you just down here for fun, or did you wait for me?” You asked with a grin. He shrugged. “Oooor… Did you wait for me down here, because we’re the only people in this building that are somewhat close in age, and you are trying to befriend me, which is why you’ve hidden a bottle of wine in your laundry?” “Stop making assumptions that are astutely accurate, it’ll turn weird soon.” He groaned, and – as you thought – pulled a bottle of rosé out of his laundry. “I’m not astutely accurate, I didn’t know it was rosé.” You grinned. He laughed lightly and cocked an eyebrow. “To be fair, it’s mostly because I have nothing to do, and I have a feeling you never celebrated moving here. So…” He opened the bottle with a swift move and pulled two red solo cups out of the basket. “Drink?” You laughed.

“Love to.”  

 “Okay, come on, why on earth are you keeping these?” He asked, holding a very old thong between his fingers. “Shut up, and stop fondling my underwear, you freak!” you quickly grabbed it from him with a laugh. The bottle had been emptied, and a new one had been brought down and for some reason, in your tipsy mind, it was a great idea helping each other folding each other’s clothes while you were waiting on the load that was currently spinning in the dryer. “I’ll have you know, some clothes are sentimental!” You said, throwing the thong into your blue IKEA-bag. He snickered. “How on earth is tattered and holed thongs sentimental? Besides, to be quite frank, at this point it’s just… Like… A string.” He laughed. “You’re the one to talk! You threw a pair of his socks at him. “I have never seen so many pairs of boxers with holes in them!” He shrugged. “I call it the surprise.” You frowned. “The surprise?” “The surprise.” He moved closer to you, and every single hair on your body stood up, while your breath hitched. He whispered into your ear, closely enough for you to feel his lips touch your earlobe. “If I’m feeling very saucy, I’ll simply rip them off and yell surprise!.” He said and laughed, sending vibrations through your entire body. “Ah, why of course. That’s a totally normal thing to do.” He pulled back slightly, his eyes a little darker than usual. “As opposed to being sentimentally attached to a thong?” he asked, his arms caging you in – it wasn’t an unpleasant experience, but it did make your thighs shake a little. His scent enveloped you completely and made it almost impossible to think. “Many tings are sentimental. Underwear, stuff…” You answered lamely. He laughed, a low rumble in his chest and cocked an eyebrow at you. When did his face get so close? “Ah, of course. Stuff and thongs. Nothing better than relieving the good, old days of… Black thongs?” He said softly, his breath fanning over your face. It was intoxicating. “Right. Besides, you have no right to judge me when your underwear looks like it could’ve been made during World War two.” You retorted, shifting slightly in place. He chuckled. “Well… Maybe I have to get new ones, then.”

His lips were so, so close to yours, all it would take was just a little nudge and you would be connected. He was intoxicating as he had you caged, muscles rolling in his arms, his scent of wood and something inherently Henry fully filled your brain, and you almost moved your head, but the sound of the dryer going off pulled both of you out of whatever that was.

“Second load done, one more to go!” He said a little breathlessly and pushed himself away from you – you let out a breath, you didn’t know you were holding and jumped down from the counter. “Great.” You whispered, bending down to grab whatever was in there – you would’ve just kept going, if it wasn’t for the small groan that sounded behind you. You turned your head around and caught Henry looking at your ass. “Excuse you.” You smirked. He cleared his throat. “Were you just looking at my ass, Henry from 4C?” “Uhm… No, I… I-” He groaned. “Fine, I was, but you can’t blame me! You’re bending down like that, and you’re wearing those fucking shorts… I can’t help it, you’re fucking gorgeous, darling.” You shivered. “Oh.” A thick silence fell between you, and you slowly stood up, laundry be damned. “Yeah, well… It’s an unfair advantage, I really tried to be proper and all that, but... Jesus Christ, Y/N.” he groaned again and closed his eyes – the small twitch in his gray sweatpants did not go unseen by you. “Respectfully, are you wearing anything underneath those sweatpants?” You asked, slightly out of breath while heat and wetness were pooling in your panties by the mere idea. “Maybe, maybe not. Are you wearing anything under that?” He asked, opening his eyes slightly. “No, my sentimental thongs are in the laundry.” Wherever the confidence came from, you had no idea, but his reaction to you was more than enough for you to keep going. You were slightly shaky as you moved a step closer to him. “Y/N…” He whispered. “Henry…” You were chest to chest to him now, his lower back against the counter. It was slightly exhilarating to have the control, especially over such a big man as Henry. “Henry…” You whispered his name again, and a fucking whimper fell from his lips. Yeah, fuck this.

You pounced – as best as you could, height difference and all – and the moment, he realized what you were doing, his arms wrapped around you and lifted you slightly, so your lips could connect. It was electric. No, not electric, it was like a symphony of colors, feelings and it was like plunging into cool water, when his lips touched yours. You moaned against his lips, and he gasped, letting your tongue glide against his. Deepening the kiss, he straightened up slightly, allowing your legs to wrap around his waist, holding on for dear life. Your lips and tongues slid against each other fervently, a slight groan reverberating from his throat send you over the edge. You bit his lower lip, pulling a soft moan from him, and wrapped your hand in is hair, tugging it slightly. The reaction was better than you could’ve ever imagined. His hands moved from your waist to your ass, squeezing hard, while a mix of moans and your name tumbled from his lips to yours – you could feel his hard length pressing against the sweatpants and your shorts, and you were sure you were leaving wet spots on his pants. “Fuck, Henry…” You mumbled his name, and he turned around to place you on the counter, before going to your throat, kissing and biting. You moaned at the feeling and threw your head back. “Harder.” You moaned, and felt him smile against your skin, before his teeth sunk deeper into your skin, his large hands tightening their grip on your thighs, causing you to roll your hips. “Fucking hell, darling, I can almost taste you from here…” He whispered against you, his hands moving upwards. “Hmm, really?” You moaned, rolling your hips again. “Nobody’s stopping you.” You tugged his hair again for good measure. “No, you’re right about that.” He mumbled, his hands dancing up, up, up, until they reached the waistband of your shorts and gently pulled them down, letting the fabric slide down your legs – you lifted your ass from the counter, allowing them to fully fall off of you, and he groaned at the sight in front of him. “Fuuuck, darling… I can see how fucking wet you are… Can I taste you?” He asked, his darkened eyes finding yours, chest heaving. You cocked an eyebrow. “Ask nicely.” He chuckled, a thick finger gliding along your hip, slowly inching towards your mound. “Please, Y/N, please… Fuck, I need to taste you, please, let me taste you… let me eat you out until you cum on my tongue.” For a seemingly proper British man, he was filthy. “Yes.” He didn’t wait a second before moving down your body, teeth catching both fabric and nipple on his way down, before he stopped, licking his lips, while looking at your exposed, dripping pussy. “Y/N…” He mumbled your name like a prayer, and before you even had the time to breathe, he licked a thick line along your lips, parting them with it. He moaned at the taste and dove in like a man starved. You mewled at the feeling, his tongue moving around your clit, fingers still on your inner thigh, and you could barely hold your upper body up as his tongue dipped inside of you. “Fuck, yes… I want to feel you cum on me, darling…” He mumbled against you, his hips rutting slightly into nothing. “Fingers. Please, fingers.” You managed to moan as his tongue went back to your clit, hardening against it as he began to eat you out with an intensity you’d never experienced before. He obeyed silently, adding two thick fingers into your dripping pussy, curling them upwards. You bit back a scream as they filled you, slowly sliding in and out, hitting your g-spot over and over, while his tongue did magic on your clit; you’d forever be ruined by this man, and he hadn’t even been inside of you yet. “Fuck!” You bit back a scream as he sped up, tongue and fingers working in perfect unison to pull you closer to the edge; he chuckled darkly against you, the vibrations sending shockwaves through your clit. “Be quiet, little bird, or someone will hear.” He said slowly, taking a small break from your clit. “Fuck off, it’s like three in the mo-or…” You didn’t finish your sentence, as he dove back in, this time with a speed and intensity, that could’ve killed you on a different day. “Shit, I’m gonna…” He moaned as you tightened around his fingers, and he slurped your juices from you, keeping the pace as best he could. “Fuck, you’re so fucking tight, baby… I want to feel you cum, can you cum for me, please…” He whimpered as your pussy pulled his fingers deeper inside of you, and you shook slightly.

You couldn’t stop it, even if you wanted to. Your orgasm hit you like a fucking train, white spots appearing in your vision, and you felt, more than heard, his moaning as you rode your orgasm out on his face and fingers.

“Fuck, baby, look at you… You squirted for me, didn’t you, darling?” he looked up at you with a devilish smirk on his face, that was shimmering with your cum under the low fluorescent lights. You moaned – his fingers were still going in and out of you. “Now…” he whispered, his voice dangerously low. “You get on your knees, darling.” E stood up and wiped his face gracefully, putting a single finger in his mouth. “You taste fucking amazing.” He grinned at you and stood to his full height, a sense of authority filling the room. “Knees.” He commanded, and who were you to deny that? You slid down from the counter on shaky legs and landed on your knees, looking up at him. “Fuck, darling, you can’t look at me like that, I’ll fucking cum here and now.” He groaned. “Well, where’s the fun in that?” You said while your fingers grabbed the waistband of his sweatpants and pulled them down, letting his cock spring free. You almost salivated at the look of it. Thick, throbbing slightly, a thick vein running down the length of it and a drop of precum sparkling under the lights. He was huge. “Well, what are you waiting for, little bird?” he chuckled, before he cut it off with a moan, as your lips wrapped around the tip, and you slid down as far as your jaw and throat allowed you to. He moaned as the tip hit the back of your throat and you choked slightly on it – you were dripping wet, as you began to move back and fort on his length, swallowing as much as you could, reveling in the taste of is precum. He twitched slightly and a choked moan spilled from his lips, as he thrusted forwards. “Fuck, baby… Shit, you’re really... Fuck… Good at this…” He moaned. You smiled around his length and moved faster, hearing the choked moans above, spurring you on. “Fuck, baby, stop, stop, stop… Stop, I’ll cum if you keep going…” You whimpered as he pulled away from you, a line of spit connecting you, and you looked up at him with big eyes. He groaned and held your chin with a large hand. “Good girl. I want to feel you before I cum, darling.” He whispered, gently guiding you up to your feet again by your chin. He kissed you deeply before turning you around, bending you over the counter. “Fuck, this ass… You’re a fucking wonder, baby…” He reveled, a hand falling on your ass. You moaned at the sensation and your hips bucked, exposing yourself more to him. “Oh, look at you, doing so fucking good for me already, aren’t you?” he whispered. You moaned again. “Henry, please…” You whimpered his name and tried to push back to get him inside of you, but he chuckled and held you tightly in place. “No, baby girl, you’re going to stay right there.” He ran a hand down your spine and slapped your ass again, forcing a whimper from you. “Now, you ask nicely, and I’ll fuck you right here, right now.” He said darkly, his hand gently running circles over your ass, sometimes dipping between your legs. You coked on a moan, and barely had the wherewithal to create a coherent sentence. “Please, please, p-please, fuck, Henry, please… Please f-fuck me, I’m begging you-u…” His finger dipped inside of you. “You want to feel my cock slowly slide inside of you, baby?” He asked, dragging his finger in and out painfully slow. You whimpered a broken yes. “Want to feel me dragging against your walls, huh? Want me to fill you, let my cum drip out of you?” You were a shaking mess as another finger was added. “Y-yes…” You felt like crying. It was so good, but so torturous to feel his fingers glide so fucking slowly. “Ah, you can do better than that, darling.” He said, bending over you – you could feel the tip of his cock against your ass, as his mouth found your neck again. “P-please, Henry, please… I want to feel your cock in me, please…��� “Mhm… I want to fill you up, darling… I want to watch my thick cock slide in and out of your tight pussy, seeing you take me…” He rambled, fingers moving faster now, and you groaned at his words. “Fuck, y-yes, Henry, I’m b-begging you, please…” you mewled. He withdrew his fingers too quickly for your liking, and he spat on your already soaked pussy, before lining himself up. “You think you can take all of me right now, baby? Let my thick cock go as deep as it can, huh?” He asked, rubbing the tip against your entrance, smearing the wetness around. You nodded, desperate for anything at this point. “No, no, that won’t do, little bird.” He tsked at you and his free hand wrapped around your hair and tugged slightly, arcing your back as your head got pulled back. You moaned loudly. “Mhm, keep the sound down, we’re in a public area, sweetheart.” He said with a small chuckle. “Ask me and mean it.” He ordered, the tip of his throbbing cock so fucking close to glide inside of you. “Fucking fill me, or I swear to god…” you begged, and whatever you wanted to say got lost in your throat, as he slid inside of you swiftly and in one, single thrust, bottomed out.

You shrieked in both pain and pleasure, your legs shaking and if he hadn’t kept a tight grip on your hair and waist, you’d probably collapse. “Oh, good girl, look at you taking all of me… Sit, it looks to fucking good to see my cock in you, baby…” He mumbled. He didn’t move yet, simply allowing you to adjust.  After a few seconds, you rolled your hips to let him know you were good, and he chuckled darkly. “There’s a good, little slut, darling.” His words combined with his voice sent wetness down your thighs as he began moving, slowly at first, before picking up speed. You felt every single twitch inside of you, and he filled you to the brim. You had never been so fucking full before, and you’d never want to stop, if you were honest. He angled himself a little better and pistoned in and out of you; you saw stars and a red-hot burning started in your abdomen seconds before your orgasm hit you; it was blinding and your legs were barely functioning as you came around him, your pussy pulling him deeper, as your thighs got soaked and he moaned. “Fuuuuck, you’re so fucking tight, Y/N… Fuck, I’m not going to last long…” He moaned as you twitched around him and met his thrust, the sound of your skin slapping against each other filling the otherwise quiet room. “Fucking fill me, please… I want to feel you cum, I’m b-begging you…” you moaned, almost delirious at this point. He roared and bit down on your shoulder, before he picked up speed and began fucking you fiercely, his tick and long cock hitting your cervix slightly. You mewled and another rush of wetness went down your legs, as you neared another orgasm while he whispered praise and encouragements in your ear.

“Look at that fucking… Oh, fuck…” He groaned and thrusted harder than ever, his rhythm becoming irregular. “Look at you taking me so well, darling… You’re doing so good for me, can you cum again?” He licked the spot, he had just bitten. “Can you cum for me again, baby girl? Let me… Fuck… Feel you cum again?”

As if you could deny him.

He clamped a hand over your mouth as you came wit a scream, your pussy tightening and pulsing around his length as he fucked you into oblivion. He roared with pleasure and his hand moved from your waist to your ass, grabbing it harshly before picking up speed and chased his own high. You were shaking, barely coherent as he fucked you relentlessly. “Henry… Fuck, please… Let me feel you cum… Fuck, p-please, I want to feel you fill me, please…” You moaned his name like a prayer, and he growled before his speed stuttered. “Fuck, baby… I’m going to fill you up, you’ll be dripping for days… I’m so fucking deep in your tight pussy…” he mumbled, his hand bruising your ass, wile he pistoned back and forth; he fell silent for half a second, before you felt him swell and twitch slightly. “Tell me you’re mine.” He growled. “Mine.” His cock pounded you relentlessly. “H-henry… Shit, y-yes, yes, I’m yours!” You mewled as he twitched again.

Ropes of his cum painted your insides, and you came with him as you felt the heat of his spend inside of you. Henry growled as you tightened around him again, and he jerked his hips so he was a deep as e could be, whispering praise to you, as you rode out your own orgasm.

 You stayed bent over the creaky counter, sweat dripping form the both of you, his cock still inside of you, for a few minutes, trying to catch your breath.

“Shit, that was…” he whispered, kissing the bitemark on your shoulder gently. You shivered. “Mhmm…” Words did kind of fail you at the moment. He seemed to understand whatever you meant, at any rate, and chuckled gently, before slowly pulling out with a hiss. “Jesus Christ… You’re a fucking wonder, you know that, Y/N?” He asked, the sweetest smile painting his features. You grinned with slightly bruised lips, and pulled your shorts back up. No reason to try and clean up. “Says you.” He bent down and grabbed the black thong, that was more string than fabric at this point, at stuffed it in the pocket of his sweatpants.

“Sentimental value, you know?” You laughed. “Does this mean I get to see your surprise-move?” You asked jokingly. He cocked his eyebrow and a smile spread across his face – he was a goddamn Adonis.

“Well, I do have more wine in my apartment… And a bed…”

“Lead the way.”

 TAGLIST:

@acaceta @a-skov @buckyshattergirl​ @angelmather1 @cooldreamlandsandwich @doubletriplepowerbomb @est1887@enchantedbytomandhenry @fionnthebandersnacc @herroyalbubbliness @jeepgirls-stuff @Keiva1000 @kebabgirl67 @littlebirdofrivia @luclittlepond @mis-lil-red @multifanficdom @one-sweet-gubler @pandaxnienke @perfunctory-username69 @penneferofvenerburg @sleutherclaw @sofiebstar @summersong69 @spookyboogyuniverse @stardusted26 @thereisa8ella @timetraveller4@thatonechickhere @themanfromu @thelastpyle @tragicphoenix13 @yourlocalhoney @wheretheriversrunintothesea @severewobblerlightdragon @leigh70 @phildunphyisadilf​

[amateur-madder]

Explain your paracosms but badly, go!

[glowingbadger]

I came running to ask for Diluc wedding night HCs for modern day.

If it seems relevant, I'll be relying on the general modern day hcs I wrote for Diluc semi-recently to guide this, so if folks wanna check that out, it's right heya

((There's actually not that much that departs from the in-game canon here now that I'm finished and looking back at it haha whoop))

Diluc x GN Reader

Modern AU - wedding night headcanons

SFW (nsfw below the cut)

- Okay, first of all, Diluc in a suit. I don't even know how to elaborate on this point, just, think about it for a second. Especially since, given his dignified bearing and that he comes from money, you can be sure it will be expertly tailored.

- As for the ceremony itself, he's likely to let you guide how you'd like the day to go, save for a few key details that he feels no reservations expressing his preferences about. Though these preferences are basically all in service of the two of you being able to enjoy the day as something special for the two of you. He wants a scenic, but very private location, and a small, intimate reception- though he's not shy about spending an undisclosed amount of money to make that reception as tastefully elegant as can be. Something like a rooftop garden in the city would suit him well.

- Throughout the night, he's plenty polite and amicable with guests, as only mutual friends and family (or "family," as it were) would be invited to begin with, but there's never any mistake that his focus is entirely on you. He habitually keeps a hand at your lower back or an arm around you through most of the evening, and will even make a brief but eloquently spoken toast to you, gazing warmly and steadfastly into your eyes as he speaks. He'll finish his toast by bringing your hand to his lips, without a shred of embarrassment or hesitation- exceptionally notable, since Diluc is generally not one for PDA.

- Well into the evening, you're both blissfully happy but terribly exhausted, so if you're amenable, Diluc will excuse you both from the festivities before it gets very late. Though, he'd fully anticipated that some of your rowdier friends would wish to continue their revelry late into the night, and so he'd reserved the venue well into the early morning ahead of time for their enjoyment. He doesn't wish to draw attention to this point, but you can tell in the subdued smile he wears that he's genuinely enjoying seeing those closest to him enjoying themselves so freely. And for once, he doesn't feel the need to sigh or roll his eyes at the less-sober among them.

- Diluc actually strikes me as the type to have your flight booked for the honeymoon scheduled to depart the very day after the wedding for some private but extravagant location. Of course, he's more than willing to take you absolutely anywhere in the world you'd like to go- no price tag is too high and no journey is too far. Few things make his heart flutter more than the idea of experiencing somewhere new and far away with only you by his side, now as his one and only spouse.

NSFW 18+ v

- When Diluc excuses the two of you from the celebrations a little bit on the earlier side, you understand wanting some space and some rest- but still, you cast him a questioning glance. He surprises you by showing a hint of an uncharacteristic smirk, then leaning close to whisper to you, "You will have to forgive me if I'm a little selfish with you tonight, my love." The low tenor of his voice makes it perfectly clear what he has in mind, and you suddenly find yourself eager for some time alone as well.

- The hotel suite is luxurious and romantically lit, with a breathtaking view over the sparkling cityscape from floor-to-ceiling windows- but Diluc's gaze is fixed solely on you. He cradles your face in his hands and kisses you deeply, his tongue moving slowly and sensually with yours until your knees feel weak. His touch is tender, but hungry- his desire for you obvious as he gradually helps you out of your lovely wedding attire. Diluc doesn't say much (he's generally not very talkative in bed to begin with), but there's something intense in his eyes, and you can feel his heart pounding when your hands run over his muscled chest.

- Listen, I know we already touched on this, but seriously- Diluc in a suit. The sight of him discarding the jacket and loosening the tie and buttons with the city light accenting his face and inch by inch of his body- ugh. It's too much- really classic "serious wealthy business man about to absolutely ravage you" material.

- Once you've both thoroughly enjoyed undressing together, periodically pausing for him to press your body to the window and kiss you breathless, or for you to run your hands over his toned torso, taking in the irresistible sight of him half-dressed- Diluc guides you to the bed at last. His fingers lace with yours, and he takes a moment to observe you bare on the bed beneath him. Finally, with his voice low and husky, he says what's been on his mind all night, "I never dared to think that I would be so fortunate. It's... almost overwhelming to think that you're truly mine."

- Diluc is always a thorough and generous lover, but tonight, he's somehow taken it to a new level. You won't have a single chance to catch your breath- his lips and tongue travel down your throat and chest, the center of your stomach, your inner thighs- everywhere. All the while, his hands caress you and hold you close as though he resents the smallest inch of distance between your bodies. The heat and friction are positively dizzying, and by the time you finally feel the stiff head of his cock pushing into you, you nearly cum from the feeling of him entering you alone. Gasping his name, your head tilts back on the pillow and your body arches up to him, and he holds you close, whispers your name worshipfully, and begins to slowly thrust into you.

- He kisses you far more than usual tonight. Not a moment goes by that he isn't either pressing his lips to yours, or nuzzling against your neck, marking your skin with passionate little love-bites. All the while, his hips roll against you, your bodies falling into a natural, erotic rhythm, until he's fucking you so nice and deep that your breath catches with every pass. When he feels you tighten and squeeze around him with your climax, he can't hold back any longer. His head dips down beside yours, fiery red hair tickling your cheek and his breath tickling your ear as he whispers his love to you and his own climax begins to take him.

- He'll pamper you as much as you let him for the rest of the evening- that said, it has been a long day, and you have a plane to catch the next day, so it won't be a terribly late night. Although, as an added "post-wedding-night" bonus, you can bet that Diluc will reserve a private jet for at least part of your travels, and he is more than happy to use the privacy to indulge one another several times over~

[cloudylotus]

#ShowYourProcess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Thank you for the tag Mimi @yiling-recesses​ ~ it was so fascinating to see how you plan and organise everything and then the editing process as well! ♥

I was tagged to show my process for my Episode 17 Post which somehow got relatively popular, in comparison to the rest at least, so I’m glad to share the behind the scenes of that post in particular. This is going to be a long ride so buckle up friends.  ∑(O_O;)

1. Planning

First of all I have to rewatch the whole entire episode before I can even start on anything. So I usually sit down with pen and paper in hand and ready to pause at any given moment that sparks interest. In case there is a quote that sounds fancy enough to represent the episode I write it down, or when I see a scene or just a certain shot that catches my eyes I screenrecord that certain scene and save it in a folder for that specific episode. Over time I accumulate scenes here and there so I already form a rough idea in my head which scenes would look good together or would make sense together. Sadly this also sometimes leads me to have very few scenes because nothing really inspired me, or I end up with only one quote that I wasn’t even too sure about, but I just make the best out of it. So I basically let the episode itself be the whole drive and inspiration for my edit but I also try to not give away too much in terms of spoilers. So if you were to see it with the knowledge of what’s going on it’s supposed to be hitting a nerve, evoke a memory, or at least make sense, especially given in combination with the quote, but if you were to see this set without the knowledge of what’s happening I’d still like it to be interesting enough without giving away too much of the story. Do I even make sense, mayhaps.

This is usually what I end up with in my folder, sometimes I have about 20 scenes, sometimes 3, so for episode 17 this was a decent amount to work with! [Also please don’t ask why I name the clips like that, they made sense to me in that moment and it works somehow. And yes Wen Qing is the queen and there is nothing to stop her   (ﾒ` ﾛ ´)  ] Now it’s time to look through the scenes again that I clipped out and begin with the actual gif making. I use Avisynth to rezise all the gifs to either the smaller squares, the “full” square or sometimes the longer rectangle - honestly I usually do these very much based on what I think would look good in my head and just decide based on that, so sometimes I end up making the same gif again just in a different size because I felt it was lacking impact or ended up looking better in another set. Sometimes I end up not using gifs I made at all  ┐( ˘_˘ )┌

2. Creating

Now that I have this huge mess of endless gifs and pretty scenes that would work as a background loaded in my Photoshop I start to assemble. Given the fact that I always use the same 540x540 format at least the step of building a base is uncomplicated.  The first part of the set I made was the lotus lake scene. The moments that were catching my eyes the most were mainly the close ups of the actual plant. Detailed close ups make my heart go boom boom. So I figured they would pair well with a scene where all three of the siblings were in screen to convey this mood of like ‘happy yunmeng trio being silly in lotus pier yay’, especially given the fact that it’s a fond memory of Wei Wuxian in this oh so painful episode.

So I have the base grid I always work with, the gif of our three beloved plus the two lotus close ups. From here on it’s just very trial and error where the still pictures fit best over the gif and I just tweak around for so long until it looks good. Once I am done with the positioning of everything I slap my watermark on it and my default colouring for these sets. Of course the default coloring action I made never works the way I want it to so I end up messing around with it for half an eternity to make all the different colours work together and look coherent which sometimes leads me to colour one single part individually and adding more filters to the background and what not. This is how it looked like in this particular edit ~

For the other two edits I basically repeated the same process just slightly adjusted to whichever format I use [this is already way longer than needed]. When I make the edits with four gifs in the middle I always have to shorten the gifs beforehand so they have the same amount of frames in order to make the whole thing work to begin with. Usually gifs with the same colour palette or same theme work well together so in this case the food and hands stood out to me [hands always do, always]. So I found the perfect set of gifs to work with that and just added a scene of Wei Wuxian in the background as he fell asleep studying the scripts and Wen Qing came to bring him food, since this is a big part of the episode.

Of course we slap on all the fancy stuff on top afterward and tadaa - it’s a gifset. At last I had the scene of Wen Qing turning her head slightly and I knew from the beginning that I needed to have that scene as a “full” gif as I was just struck with love. I had so many different things I put on top like frames and flowers or tried to put the gif in a certain shape - whatever, it just looked kinda bad - until I found this dragon png and finally had an epiphany. I must confess i didn’t mask out the dragon perfectly to fit behind her but I reached a point of desperation as my creativity of the day left me behind struggling.

3. Posting

Once I am done with all three edits, sometimes only two depending on the amount of clips I saved, I arrange them in Tumblr and check how they look best. This thing alone can take me forever unless I have a set that has a coherent background throughout all of the individual edits so I don’t need to worry about in what order to arrange them. But once I finally decided on that I go back to my notes of quotes and try to decide which one works best in regard to the criteria I mentioned above. In this set the angsty Jiang Cheng had the honor. For finishing touches I add the link to my other episode sets and all the tags to keep things organized and usually ramble a bit about the process or my feelings. That’s what tags are for, right? 

Oof so yeah, that’s it. This turned out way longer than anticipated and I already edited this down...whoops.

I would like to tag:

@huigusu​ - for this painful beauty

@leonzhng​ - with this incredible masterpiece

@mylastbraincql​ - because this post makes me feel things

@fengqing​ - words can’t even describe

@lan-xichens​ - this set made me cry

No pressure at all to do this if you do not want to or have already done one before! ♥

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

sometime in this last week, or this week coming, my blog has turned/turns 10. god. a decade old. a whole ass chunk of my life i’ve spent on this hellsite. when i began on here, i was a kid. a lost, lonely, depressed and anxious 15/16 year old kid. a kid scared of her future. a kid confused about her future. what to do for uni. to change schools or not??? to do drama/acting at uni or english/philosophy or to move 8hrs away to another regional uni to “escape” her “washed up, dead end hometown” that was so typical of all the pop-punk music that she was listening to at the time.

she was a tad overdramatic, loud, “funny” (as described by her school friends) and terribly forgetful in regards to homework and school assignments. she was angry at the world, most especially the catholic school she was fucking sick and tired of attending. but she was convinced that since she was the so-called “funny girl”, that she simply couldn’t be depressed or anxious. she believed herself unloveable because she didn’t look like a weird mixture of hayley williams and emo-pop queen lights. but now, i no longer believe that i have to look like the women that i looked up to in the ~emo scene~. fuck beauty standards. i am loveable.

in the years since joining tumblr, i’ve managed to get through business college, my undergrad degree and, well, failed out of postgrad due to obvious burnout and health issues amongst other things. although i’ve lost many friends irl and many followers/mutuals online on here. for those who’ve stuck around to see me get through all of this, thank you. to all the friends/casual mutuals that have since deactivated or only followed me for a short time then unfollowed; thank you.

like obviously i was never/have never been a massive popular blog on here, like thebootydiaries or vampireapologist (who has since deactivated a couple of months ago) with tens of thousands of followers. my follower count is still close to the 8,000 range at 7,892. obviously that’s still a lot of people (and of course, porn bots lmao and many, many non-active blogs), enough like one super old post from like 2012 tumblr pointed out, enough for a small to medium sized city or town, or something like that. i don’t know how many people i’ve really reached. i really don’t know how i actually amassed this small army of people.

i am aware though, that on other platforms like snapchat (lmao does anyone even use it anymore in 2021???)/instagram/youtube/tiktok etc, i’d PROBABLY be considered as some type of ~micro influencer (🤮🤮)~. hell, i actually had a bot slide into my notes about being one on here on this hellsite back in 2019. i don’t know if i’ve ever actually ~influenced~ anyone on here with my shitposts (when i started making some) or my personal posts. i don’t know my reach. even though, now, i do occasionally get featured on buzzfeed listicles (although pay me buzzfeed along with the OPs of those original embedded posts), i still don’t know how many people i’ve reached… and even with my very occasional checks of google analytics lmao. on top of this, grappling with the loss of followers at times is much, much easier than it was when i began on here and the first few years following that. i know that my follower count doesn’t determine my worth and stuff.

but over these 10 years, i have grown. i turn 26 this year. back in 2011, 15/16yo me never thought she’d be here. she was partially down the suicidal thoughts hole, with things about ~picturing her funeral and wondering who’d bother to turn up. if only she could pretend to be dead for a day to see who’d give a fuck~ and 16-18yo me was defs down it with her HSC hellscape thoughts in 2012/2013. that 3rd floor tafe/tech women’s bathroom window drop and the thought of scarring her class for life (and that cool dude from catholic school that she crushed on who ended up at tafe with her) with jumping out of it onto the concrete below. instead, she just posted on fb about ~being a failure~ etc which ultimately did lose her a bunch of facebook friends lmao. it was practically the same thing. her mental breakdown after the end of her hsc, where she let her earrings go green and get infected in her ears because “fuck self care, bc what the fuck is it??? i’ll never get better! let me fucking wallow in my self loathing bc it’s the only thing that i’m fucking good at!!!” so i no longer have my ears pierced. oh! it was just all too fucking much!!

i am happier today. i no longer have those semi-suicidal thoughts. hell, i almost died in 2020 from a fucking bowel aneurysm, after my stomach tumour excision surgery. that forced me to put things into perspective. i appreciate the little things . i appreciate the very few friends that i actually have. yes. i’m still depressed and anxious. some days are still shitty and hard. but nowhere as hard and shitty as they were back when i began on here 10 years ago.

how the fuck last 10 years have gone past, with my ass on here; clearing out my blog and caring more about doing that than my uni work (lmao whoops); having made some lifelong friends both internationally (from the US) and long distance domestically in australia, it’s been a long ride; i honestly have no fucking idea. obviously over these past 10 years, i’ve debated with myself over and over and over again whether i should delete/deactivate this account or not. would it make me healthier??? more than likely. but then when i have meltdowns or just inner ramblings i have to get out somewhere, where else to post??? on fb?? obvs not. it’s “attention seeking” or the like on there. no one will read them. no one will resonate. but on here??? even if i got/get one “like” in the notes or one “yo i feel this” response in the tags or replies, it feels like i’ve reached someone??? okay yeah. i know this place IS NOT therapy and i’m not using my followers as amateur (or probs even actual professional) armchair psychologists…. which is a thing i think people need to stop doing internet-wide: but that’s a whole other post that i reblogged a few days ago lmao. i really need to get another therapist, actually lmao.

but it’s the community i’ve found hard to leave. i have what feel like friends, when i’ve never been employed (still as of yet); and when all of my irl friends/acquaintances are working and doing the whole ~adulting~ and ~grown up life~ thing right. it’s also the frenzied rabidness of spite with hating staff’s godawful ideas. the memes. oh the memes. and also the RaWrInG 20s XD emo scene reemergence on here that’s kept me here. the messy petty drama from time to time of big blogs fighting it out.

this place really is bizarre and fun sometimes. and also the fact that i can still hide behind the ridiculous “roaring pikachu” URL that i made all those years ago. i am anonymous. it’s freeing. but on fb it’s all like “WHY WONT YOU ADD A BANNER IMAGE AND TELL US 20 FUN FACTS ABOUT YOU!!!!!???? LET PEOPLE WHO HAVENT SPOKEN TO YOU IN 10 YEARS KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU BECAUSE WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE!!!” and the same goes for Corporate Hellscape Facebook™️ (linkedin) but in the professional sense instead. y’all know fuck all about me really. besides my posts. and i love that and live for that. okay yeah. y’all know more about my mental health than my fb feed obvs… which is probably a terribly unfortunate thing. but still.

over the last 10 years then, my superiority complex for being ~so original and intelligent~ or whatever the fuck i had in high school, has all but ebbed away. i’m not that smart just because i went to uni. hell, i literally did NONE of my in-class work and none of my philosophy readings in uni….. so i have fuck all idea of how i got through undergrad like that lmao. i’m not original when so many people can articulate the same thoughts that i have, but like, sometimes better, on a post (even though sometimes/most of the time the Tumblr User Hot Takes Tuesday™️ takes on here are fucking awful lmao). but still. originality is not something i really have anymore. or really had in the first place lmao.

so will i deactivate after these 10 years, like i’ve been saying for so, so long??? i honestly have no idea. but just know. thanks guise. have a nice gpoy selfie day XD. grab your wands. your tardises. grab your war paint. grab your whatever the fuck other fandom specific stuff that was one that hella cringe post from 2011 til 2015 random tumblr. that relic is as old as time itself. just as this mysterious roaring pikachu is for someone whose too loyal to leave this W E B B E D H E L L S I T E that’s just as much of a train wreck as she is. lmao.

[willowsrain]

20 Questions

20 Questions tag~

Tagged by @deadlyglacier! Thank you! <3 

How many works do you have on AO3?

5! 

What’s your total AO3 word count?

16,903 

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

In total? I’ve written for three. Rockman.EXE/Megaman NT Warrior when I was younger and on FF.Net, Persona 5 (that I deleted from AO3), and FMA

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Well I only have five, so that’s easy at least! 

Aureate - Roy is a sap disaster when it comes to Ed. Contains lots of references to the color ‘gold’, copious amounts of schmoop, and some NSFW in the form of consensual somnophilia. 

The Waning Moon - Ed is dying from ALS. This was inspired by my work as a nursing assistant in an Assisted Living home, after I found that so, so many medical fics disregard the most ugly parts of dying. So I set out to make this as accurate and ugly as I possibly could. 

Floo-ke Encounters of the Magical Variety - The obligatory HP/FMA fusion set in the FMA-verse. Ed’s a wizard going to Hogwarts with a time turner and after a problem with the Floo, he comes out of Roy’s office fireplace when he’s supposed to be on a mission in South City. Whoops.

En Garde - The college tour-guide AU that I couldn’t actually bear to write as a tour-guide AU, so I wrote about Ed and Roy being on the fencing team. There’s a horrible amount of fencing innuendos, courtesy of Roy - and Ed threatening to shove Roy’s foil up his ass. I had way too much fun with this one. 

Dance with Books - An Ed/Al drabble that I wrote with two excellent prompt one liners. 

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try to? But I kinda suck at it... I’ll get better at it, I swear! And comments make me scream happily. 

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

The Waning Moon. I gave the fic two different endings, with the ‘bad’ ending being the ‘true’ ending that I had in mind when I wrote it. In it, Ed offers what remains of his life to Truth in order to return Roy’s vision to him, and so that Ed no longer has to suffer with his disease. 

A snippet of the end of the 2nd chapter: 

He buried his face in his hands, covering his wretched eyes in the process. Edward might have given him his sight back, but now everything he saw was forever tainted with death.

Which was, Roy mused, a fate most befitting for the Flame Alchemist.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Hm... Aureate, probably? It’s a sappy fic that you need to make sure you brush your teeth after reading, because it’ll give you cavities otherwise. It ends with the two of them saying ‘I love you’, so I’m not sure it gets much happier than that!

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Yes! The Harry Potter one is the only one I’ve posted so far, but I’m currently planning out one for Persona 5 based in the FMA verse, where Roy and his team all have personas and the ability to enter the cognitive world. Roy and Ed are together, and Roy starts to have the nagging sensation that Ed might be suffering from a palace - and it turns out he’s right. 

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Thankfully no! But I also avoid FF.Net like the plague, so... that might have something to do with it. I also try to be very clear about anything that may be triggering, such as the pairings I write for, or any sensitive topics. So far, the haters have stayed away from my fics, phew! I hope it stays that way!

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I mean, I wrote Aureate, so... yes? I struggle a lot with it, but I plan to keep writing to hopefully get better at it. But consensual smut is a must. 

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Thank goodness no! 

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Also no! 

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! I’m working with someone right now to write an ABO-verse FMA fic. More details to come when we finish it :3 

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

RoyEd. Preferably with Ed being aged up into adult age. There’s something about having two characters who both understand the demons that the other suffers from, and they can exist (and thrive) in each others’ worlds and minds that I absolutely adore. They’re also amazing foils for each other that cover each other’s weaknesses beautifully.  

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

My P5-like rewrite of Brotherhood. Sigh. I want to. It’s one that incorporates the social aspect of P5 into FMA for Ed. IE - for each ‘rank up’ of each person that he bonds with, he grows his knowledge of alchemy, and gathers different talents that Truth gives him as he grows. 

For example, Truth is represented by the Fool arcana, and at first Rank with it - Ed gains the ability to read the intention behind any array that he sees. As he hits rank 2 with Truth, Truth has the ability to speak to Ed without being in Truth’s realm. 

With the other arcana, as he maxes out the social rank with each person, he gains knowledge of an array that he’ll need in order to fight Father on the Promised Day. But Maes dies before Ed can complete his social rank, SO WHAT IS HE GONNA DO?! :3

What are your writing strengths?

Uh, I’m not sure? I like to think that I channel the character whose POV I’m writing through pretty well. And I like showing their thoughts and attitudes through the story itself. 

As an example from En Garde - 

“Alright! Let’s get started, everyone! Sabres to the north, Foils with me in the center, and Epees to the south!” Roy called out, his voice projecting without making his voice sound any less attractive.

Holy fuck, Ed was already in over his head. He was screwed. Dead. Done. Double done. Absolutely and utterly fucked. And judging from Roy’s flirting, potentially actually fucked.

Shit.

And with that lovely thought, practice started.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I get bored, especially if there’s a part of the story that I’m extremely excited to write. I either start to skimp out on the details of the part of the story prior to it, or I’ll just skip right to the part that I *want* to write, which can sometimes make it read a bit awkwardly when I go back and try to connect it. 

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Eh. I find it pretty distracting, unless the words/titles are ones that are well known in the fandom. But if I have to scroll to the beginning or end of the chapter to get a translation, I’m not really going to enjoy it. If you *really* want to write in another language (which I’m not at all against), just put the english dialogue in a different type/font to show it’s in a different language. 

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Megaman NT Warrior (Rockman.EXE). God I loved that show so much when I was younger. I used to carry around notebooks and whenever I had to go to appointments, or I was on the bus, I would jot down ideas and write out stories. But holy shit I was *awful* at it! 

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Floo-ke Encounters. It was so much fun to write from start to finish. Roy singing into a stapler and dancing around his office (And can I just say that I am beyond disappointed that NO ONE noticed that he was singing “The Ring of Fire” from Johnny Cash. DISSAPOINT.), Roy having a more or less panic attack as he realized that there were, in fact, TWO Edward Elrics existing at the same time, and Ed’s sheer glee in tormenting Roy. I love it! 

Tagging: @kylermalloy @konekowrites @kugisaki-nobara-rights

[silverwhiteraven]

Borne of the Stars - Chapter 12 - An MLB Kryptonian AU

Tag List:  @eve-valution @weird-pale-blonde-person @kris-pines04 @soulmate-game @abrx2002 @amayakans @vixen-uchiha @heldtogetherbysafetypins @raisuke06 @dorkus-minimus @mopester-is-here @moonlightstar64 @annabellabrookes @toodaloo-kangaroo @the-navistar-carol @elspethshadow @chocolatecatstheron​ @ivymala07 @maribat-is-lifeblood​

[ Summary: Author celebrates her Birthday by posting a chapter before the day is up. Kara meets her Kwami and circumvents her grounding. ]

[ Posted on Ao3 ] [ Chapter 1 ] [ Chapter 11 ] [ Chapter 13 ]

Kara was shocked, sure, but not taken completely by surprise. She spent enough time around Zee Zatara, Zatanna, to know what something being magically conjured into existence looks like. That didn’t stop her from taking a step back though; she knew she wasn't invulnerable to magic, and not knowing what was appearing called for a level of caution.

Her eyes went wide and the hand that had tightened into an instinctive fist went slack as the light faded and the form finished taking shape in the open air. The other hand around the open box tightened as she stared at the creature, grounding and preventing her next instinctual reaction at the sight: a soft squeal of aww.

She clamped her jaw shut tight to further prevent the sound as the little purple-tinged black feline opened apple green eyes and a fanged cheshire grin spreading and opening to form words.

“Well well well, what do we have here? Sure, I expected someone different than usual, but this takes the fondue!” He exclaimed then circled Kara, and she kept still as her eyes followed the floating creatures movements. 

“What the-!” She couldn't help gasping after he disappeared behind her in another of his circles and felt the faintest of feelings in her chest for only a moment, like a string being pulled through from the back to the front, before he emerged in front of her. Out of the spot she had apparently felt him going through her. “Not cool! Don’t do that!” 

“Fine, fine,” he shrugged nonchalantly, “but now I know all I need to. This is going to be fun,” and the grin returned, almost feral now alongside the previous mischievousness.

Kara glared in suspicion at the little creature, finally setting aside her inner feeling of ‘aww, so cute’ to focus on the problem at hand. In hand? She lifted the box back up and looked at the black ring inside, then back to the magical feline. “What do you mean, fun? What do you know?” 

The creature chuckled, “You aren't human; you may look like it on the outside, but the inside tells a different story.”

She shuddered at realizing what he had been doing when going through her chest cavity. “Ew, yuck, gross, no, do not go checking things like that- Wait- So you know? You can tell?”

“Obviously,” he drawled before looking away without explaining and started to zip around the semi-messy room like a hyper and curious cat. “Kid, you don’t happen to have any cheese, do you? Just a bite is fine; I hate to say it, but as much as I’d love to sit down and eat a whole wheel, I actually seem to be looking forward to transforming for once. Seeing what you can do with my help should be interesting!”

“And what exactly can you do, uh-?” Her skepticism fell flat when she realized she didn't know his name. She followed after the tiny creature as it left the bedroom and watched him sniff out the mini-fridge set up next to the television of the suite’s living room. He popped the door open with a cry of victory and dove in, coming back out with her string cheese and taking a bite out of it.

“Call me Plagg, Kwami of Destruction, source of power for the Black Cat Miraculous you’re holding.” He seemed to raise an eyebrow at Kara as she looked down at the ring in the box, brushing a finger over the apple green paw print on the center. “Well? Put it on already!”

She hesitantly took the ring from the box, tossing the empty container to the side. Another glance at the waiting Kwami and she slid it on. Her eyes went wide as the ring turned a weathered gold, the shape turning to that of a signet ring. The shape of the seal was close to that of the one her and her cousin both wore as heroes: the Crest for the House of El. It was still different, though: not the usual stylized S, but rather, now the two ends of the S were reconnected into the original sideways infinity symbol. The S itself was still the prominent, though. 

Kara looks back at Plagg and the smug look he wore. “Neat, huh?”

“Yeah…” She hesitates before continuing to ask her new question. “What, exactly, is a Kwami?”

“Oh you know, just like any old gods, deities, incarnations and embodiments; whatever you want to compare us to. Basically forces of nature, concepts, and magic that, when tired to Miraculous, can have our powers channeled through other beings to do good. Well, good is supposed to be what we’re used for,” he adds with a glare out the window to the glowing streets.

“And that?” she wonders, noticing his stare.

“Yep, caused by the powers of one. You and the Ladybug Wielder are being called in to help recover one that's been used for evil. The Miraculous and the Kwami with it basically sent out a distress call when they were commanded to go against what we’re meant for.” 

Plagg looked sad as he said it, and Kara couldn't help but reach out in sympathy and give him a gentle pat on the head between the ears. It shook him out of it and he focused back on her. 

“Say ‘Plagg, Transform Me’ to pull me into the ring and suit up. The faster we get this over with, the sooner I can find myself a better cheese selection!”

“Wait, you said Ladybug Wielder, I get a partner?” She wasn't confused by it, having partners was normal for her, but the superhero in her wanted to make sure she didn't make a big mistake in misidentifying an ally.

“Yeah,” the Kwami confirmed, “the Creation to my Destruction, the symbol of Good Luck to my symbol of Bad Luck. The Ladybug to your Black Cat is out there and you two should be meeting each other soon, preferably before anything else so you can start working together.”

“How will I know who they are? Will they be easy to spot?”

Plagg cackled like a friend had just whispered an inside joke into his ear. “Oh yeah, very spottable.”

She raised a skeptical brow before shrugging it off. Instead of dwelling, she grinned and looked back out towards the chaos outside. Feeling ready, she called as instructed, “Plagg, Transform Me!”

The black, green, and white magic washed over her effortlessly, and just like other times friendly magic had been used on her, she felt almost nothing at all except the new weight of her costume settling itself. She did note her center of gravity had shifted, and wondered about the physical changes she may have gotten as well. One presented itself as she glanced through the doors to her bedroom, at her reflection in the full length mirror, and instead of a pleased and satisfied hum, there was a purr in its place.

Her new outfit really was satisfying to her tastes. It had an overall military uniform look to it with a formal flare. The top was mainly black and asymmetrical, a line of silver buttons going down one side, the collar straight with a line of green all around the edges. The sleeves ended in long, folded back cuffs at the wrists, also adorned with green trim and silver clasps. Clawed black gloves covered her hands, another tripping of green wrapping around her wrists. The black pants were complying to the formal look, complete with neat creases down the centers, but still had functionality with cargo-style pockets on the thighs. The shoes were heavy black combat boots, laced with overlapping green and silver ties. A sash wrapped around her waist, looking black but shimmered green underneath; one end fell loose behind her, swaying like a tail of its own accord; a silver baton stuck out where it was all tied together. The mask over her eyes, comfortable despite not being used to one, matched the tail in color: black with an underlying green sheen, except for the solid black that fell from her eyes like the tear marks of a cheetah. The feline ears atop her head, nestled into a new side swept undercut style, were solid black but for the green edging. The acidic green slit eyes were unsettling at first glance, but they pupils went wide and outright dorky as she looked herself over.

Her favorite part, however, had to be the cape. It was a one shoulder cape, draped over one arm in neat folds, the opposite side longer than the other as it fell behind her. The exposed shoulder had part of the cape attached to it, held by a black clasp with a silver crescent, but revealed a triple layer of silver shoulder plating. The opposite shoulder with the cape draped over it had a larger silver clasp holding it in place, but it was more like an emblem with its large black crescent moon encasing a green paw print. A few green straps held the shoulder pieces in place, from across her shoulders and down and around her torso.

“I’ll need a new name with the new look,” she muses. Her thoughts run quickly over far too many cliche names and ones already taken, before settling on one.

“Oncilla.”

She turns away from the mirror and laughs to herself, “I have never been this happy to get around a grounding so easily,” before going straight to the balcony doors, throwing them open, and launching herself into the open air with a whooping holler, more than happy to be back in the game.

[woulddieforperrytheplatypus]

Idk I mean I feel like you should tag gf in these amazing wonderful posts along with perryshmirtz bc one of the biggest ships in gravity falls was a triangle and a boy. Side note but gravity falls will always be stronger in my opinion for how it handled dippers crush on wendy vs ferbs on vanessa. There was even a smaller age gap and Alex Hirsch still made it a point to show how weird it was especially from Wendy's pov

oof sorry it’s been a few days this week has been A Week™ (this ended up being a much longer answer than i thought whoops have a cut)

i’m never really sure whether i should tag them as gravity falls? like i do have them all tagged as “pnf/gf crossover” and/or “gf” for the same reason I tag ships like perryshmirtz and ferbnessa: so people can filter them out. idk if they really belong in the gravity falls tag tho? i don’t even tag a lot of them as phineas and ferb cuz i just kinda assume it’s not what people are looking for in those tags, especially bc a lot of times it builds off of other posts. i do link the other posts but ppl probably won’t want to go through and look at all of them. i just know it gets annoying when you’re looking through the phineas and ferb tag and it’s full of people answering a bunch of asks lol

also, as much as I love Gravity Falls, I gotta disagree there. I’m not gonna get into Ferbnessa bc i definitely see why it makes people uncomfortable, but in regards to the show itself, i like pnf more. i feel like gravity falls has some really good episodes and then some episodes that i’ll most likely never watch again (which is true of most shows; i feel the same way about supernatural and i’ve been obsessed with that show for 5+ years now), but pnf manages to keep the same formula but with different jokes so there really aren’t that many “bad” episodes? if we’re talking purely relationship-wise, though, i do have to hand it to gravity falls, if only because i love grunkle stan’s relationship with the twins (which is lowkey comparable to my headcanons of perry’s relationship with the boys from his perspective, but that’s only ever explored in at2d and maybeready for the bettys so that doesn’t count)

[f-117-nighthawk]

I’m in a Playlist Mood

I was scrolling through my dark matter tag looking for something I made a while ago to reference in the next chapter of Carry Me Home and ran across my last playlist explanation post. It put me in the mood to think about this again, and I’ve added...a lot. The playlist might’ve actually doubled in length since then (Thank You Abyss) and I’ve moved some stuff around in order. So, more playlist meta under the cut (it’s LONG)

So first thing: I’ve actually created two new playlists (well, one new one and actually made the third playlist have more than two tracks) since that post jhadsfljd. Working forwards in time (kinda), we have:

Dark Matter: The Road to Ruin

The Road to Ruin is the Main Playlist, the thing I use to write to, the thing I lie in bed and listen to to think up new things, and half the thing that keeps the timeline in place (it’s actually more updated than World Anvil rn whoops). Here we have overarching plot hooks, character development, and the story of six Paladins and their friends trying to save the universe.

Turn the Lights Out I sort of explained in the last post and I can’t think of too much more to add. The TLDR is it’s about the Lions (and, well, technically [REDACTED] too....) and sort of why I refer to a fully-melded Lion-Paladin duo as Spirits.

(I was here/Will you welcome and recognize me/I'll be there/I was here/Will you dread me, will you despise me/I'll be there/For the last living thing)

Remnants of Stars is again about Galran philosophy and the actual process of the quintessence nurseries filtering quintessence back into the universe. But the bit about giving in to know the truth becomes important much, MUCH later.

(As children of space/With stardust in our veins/We will give in to know the truth/We are the remnants of stars)

Your World Will Fail, Dark Matter, and Eater of Worlds are about [REDACTED], about what happens between that instant between the first plank time and the next. They’re an overarching theme, but also the event that everything else builds from, whether that be interpreted as the beginning of the universe or the Voltron comet crashing into Daibazaal.

(Your world will fail my love/It’s far beyond repair/Your world will fail my love/It is already there)

(Bring me your soul/Bring me your hate/In my name you will create/Bring me your fear/Bring me your pain/You will destroy in my name)

(Can’t imagine the violence/The rage and the love in my madness/I am the eater of worlds and I’m looking for someone to feed me)

Apocalypse 1992 is actually the main story of Through Apocalypse Skies, although its framing story is shortly after String Theory. It happens between parts of Awakenings, detailing the rise of [REDACTED] and the final hours before the destruction of everything sentient species knew beforehand.

(Fly high through apocalypse skies/Fight for the world we must save/Like tears of a unicorn lost in the rain/Chaos will triumph this day)

You Keep What You Kill covers the slow degeneration of the Empire between The Fall and the Battle of Arus. The knowledge harshly taught by the Thuanial War is forgotten under the influence of Zarkon, Haggar, and [REDACTED]. Marzin and Galraasa quickly rise the ranks as the Empire’s left and right hands, like omens of destruction before them. The four are the ‘holy half-dead,’ the ones who shape the devouring of the universe before them.

(Defying dimensions/These ruthless creatures will steal your soul/Breaking away from the chains of mortality/They won't be taken down/Bow now to the holy half dead/The master to death mongers calls)

The Seven Sisters is about Keith, mostly, and connected to Closure via its influence on Child From the Stars (Lost in the Dark) and also to Memories of a Girl I Haven’t Met

(I cast my hope upon The Pleiades/The Seven Sisters who would come for me/They'd fall to Earth to grant a child's dream/But I'm still waiting)

Starlight is the newly added Adashi song. Here, it’s the sad part, based around the time that the SFSS Genesis launches for Kerberos. It also is sort of about Shiro’s thoughts throughout the war as he watches ‘from distant skies’ (and influences String Theory kinda)

(At night the earth will rise/And I'll think of you each time I watch from distant skies/Whenever stars go down and galaxies ignite/I'll think of you each time they wash me in their light/And I'll fall in love with you again)

Abyss is Awakenings again. It’s specifically the Red Lion waking up on Sendak’s ship to her new Paladin, but also sort of the rest of the Lions as they find new Paladins for the first time since The Fall

(Open my eyes in a daze/How long has it been? Am I so out of place?/Warmth I can no longer feel/My mountain is gone, I'm surrounded by steel/The strangest of structures arises ahead/Seems to be held up by nothing/Where have I gone, do I dream?/How can the stars be all I can see?)

Who Will Save You Now is about the Paladins in First Contact. It’s the video messages they send to their families, the warning that Something Is Out Here that they need to prepare for. It’s a declaration of protection for Earth, but a recognition that the Paladins may not be able to do what they say.

(I will not take from you and you will not owe/I will protect you from the fire below/It's not in my mind/It's here at my side/Go tell the world that I'm still alive)

The End of the Beginning and Nobody Gets Left Behind are the aftermath of the Battle of the Sarnan Nebula, the end of season two. The End of the Beginning hasn’t been posted yet, but it’s also the second of the four Closure fics. The End of the Beginning also has influence on String Theory. 

(Every night I die just a little/All this time, I'm caught in the middle/All your life, you fought with no winning/This is just the end of the beginning)

(Don't even try to pretend/That you're rough and just as tough/As when you're missing a friend/Attack and take him back/Cause when the team isn't whole/You've got a hole in your soul)

A Simple Plan is sort of part of The End of the Beginning, but really takes place after it. It’s the newly shuffled Team Voltron attempting to track down Lotor as Haggar tries to keep him under her control, and the new Black Paladin’s slow shift away from the things that he was pushed into and to the Blade. (And... guess what... it has influence on String Theory!) Fun fact I found out recently: The Spiritual Machines are by and large also the people behind Les Friction, which explains so much.

(What is this space we’re climbing/What is this place we’re stuck in/Why do we feel we’re sinking/How do we get out – get out of this) 

Memories of a Girl I Haven’t Met skips all the way over Naxzela and to the Mission to the Baaria Shipyards, the first major offensive that isn’t somehow connected to canon (even if only a very very small part of it is actually at the shipyards lol). This is also the song that solidified Keith’s very queer identity in Dark Matter.

(In this lonely place, bathed in silence and thoughts of you/I can't see your face but I'm trying to envision you/So are you really out there? Are you awake with memories/Of a boy you haven't met yet who's wished upon the Pleiades?)

TRIALS (reimagine) and String Theory are.... hoh boy. [REDACTED], [spoilers], and the turning point for a lot of things, which is why it has the honor of being the separating fic between my two main Dark Matter folders. TRIALS being on here is a fun story, because I associate that song very heavily with my main Star Wars fics, since that’s where the series title comes from, but the reimagine version of it gave me such strong Dark Matter vibes, it ended up here. It has heavy influence on the first part of String Theory, and is what I’ve been using for general pacing of the first half. String Theory itself isn’t the weirdest song on the playlist, but it’s really hard to find the connections to it without several layers of abstraction and backstory on [REDACTED]. String Theory is also weaved into a good chunk of fics before it.

(The ending won't be forgotten/It's written in the stars and the hieroglyphs/Sending the lionhearted/The stones break bones, but we're venomous)

(You don't believe in space/You don't believe in light/You don't believe that anything is well beyond your might/We walk across the sky and beneath the ocean floor/We're never going anywhere we've never been before)

House on Fire is the aftermath of String Theory, and a large vibe of We ARE Struggling Together! (Rise Against says it’s about parenting???? lol fuck that) (okay but actually, switch the parental love part to sibling love/general familial love and that’s a pretty good description....)

(So I'll just hold you like a hand grenade/You touch me like a razor blade/I wish there was some other way right now/Like a house on fire we're up in flames/I'd burn here if that's what it takes/To let you know I won't let go of you)

Belgrade is the klance song! It is a) bop b) always stuck in my head because it is That Good. The line in the chorus about ‘sweet songs of seduction’ is eternally funny to be bc a)they’re both ace and b)QPR’s don’t usually involve seduction as far as I know. Belgrade also leads almost directly into...

(We pretend in the darkness/We pretend the night won’t steal our youth/Singing me the sweet songs of seduction/Let me be the fool, fool, fool/Who will live and die for you)

Here to Save You is about Sam. Mostly. It’s also about Pidge. And Zaivorge cannons.

(A slave for humankind/I made sure I would survive/To stay alive/Now it's time to move on/When there's nothing left to prove/I'm coming to get you)

Iron is what eventually replaced Ten Thousand Against One. The plot has actually changed a lot since it was that song like. two years ago (three?) at this point. It has more of a focus on Keith knowing what’s going on due to [spoilers] and coming to accept parts of himself that are suddenly very obvious (kiiiinda the third closure fic?)

(You can't live without the fire/It's the heat that makes you strong/'Cause you're born to live/And fight it all the way/You can't hide what lies inside you/It's the only thing you know/You're embracing that, never walk away)

Birthright and Firewall are not exactly a direct result of Iron, but they wouldn’t happen how they do without it. They’re actually largely about Lotor, but then [REDACTED] swings back into the fray and things learned in String Theory/the framing story for Through Apocalypse Skies hit in full force.

(The voices in my head have all begun to sing/(The voices in your head have all begun to sing)/And they sure as hell hope I am listening/(I sure as hell hope you are listening!))

(They come to your dreams with illusion/They come to bring shape to your mind/You know how to stop the intrusion/We all have to fight for our lives)

and then, The Day the Earth Collapsed

(How much time has been elapsed/Since the day the earth collapsed?)

Here Comes the Reign doesn’t come into full effect until several months after Birthright/Firewall after Galraasa meets their fate, but starts with The Day the Earth Collapsed. It’s largely about Haggar and [REDACTED]

(You made something they can't take away/Now bring the fire of the burning sun on everyone)

Closure is placed where the fourth of its fics is. Closure in general is a lot of Keith’s character development and some of the struggles he goes through to accept his place in the universe and the fact that yes, he does have people that care about him. The last fic is me shining a brighter light on Closure’s chorus and taking a ‘last goodbye’ as never needing to say it again

(I am the child from the stars/That got lost in the dark/Between heaven and hell/I am forced to live on/I am the cause when you sin/I am the demon you skin/But there is no more tears to beautify/This is my last goodbye)

Ember and Soulbound are two closely related missions involving both Voltron and the Blade (specifically the Dark Whispers) in which [REDACTED] comes in with a vengeance, and some revelations about certain people’s fates are had. Soulbound is actually sort of from Krolia’s perspective.

(Dark matter falling from the sky/Dancing flames reflecting in your eyes as you watch them burn/Watching all your riches witches burn)

(Soulbound, endlessly forever/Locked between the darkness and the light/Don't drown in the swarming, blackened rising/Hold on to humanity and fight)

Darker Matter and Other Worlds Than These are. Well. [REDACTED] and [spoilers] and String Theory’s revelations rearing their ugly head once again, but this time with extra context and just a little bit of [spoiler]

(Dream yourself away/The pull of you shredding time and space)

(There are monsters in the sky/There are demons in the sea/I have seen them with my eyes/I've seen what you won't see/Pull the wool out from your eyes/It won't shade your frail belief/In the end we cannot hide/There are other worlds than these)

Godhunter is a fun one. The combined effects of String Theory, Soulbound, and Darker Matter/Other Worlds Than These come to a head and Team Voltron goes, well, hunting.

(She's been watching for a century/With hatred, and with scorn/If you know the hunter's coming/Then you hide or keep on running/'Cause she's slain the gods before)

My Darkest Hour is revenge for Godhunter, as well as a distraction from it, although Godhunter continues all the way to Louder than Words. 

(When the sun comes crashing down/When the world is spinning round and round/I will face what must be my darkest hour)

Faster Than Light is almost direct aftermath of My Darkest Hour, and sort of the inverse of Godhunter, where now Team Voltron are the hunted, even as they attempt to continue hunting. Oh and, Marzin and [REDACTED] are big parts

(Once more we're flying fast as light/Dark matter passing in the night/Pursued by a force we can't outrun/As we hurtle towards a dying sun/We maneuver through the remnants of a moon/On the solar winds of supernovas/There is not a place to hide, the Matriarch is close behind/It's plain to see she's coming for us all)

The Reckoning, This is a Call, World on Fire, The Wind that Shapes the Land, and Louder Than Words are the finale, what everything has been building towards. Earth’s faction, Haggar, [REDACTED], Voltron, the Empire, and the Coalition, all clash together in a final desperate bid to finish or prevent the final result of Your World Will Fail/Dark Matter/Eater of Worlds.

(I see your face, find peace of mind/Between the madness and the sadness and the fire burning/The end of war, the great divine/We'll see the day of reckoning)

(This is a call to action/This is a call to arms/All lives for one, together/There are no false alarms)

(World on fire with a smoking sun/Stops everything and everyone/Brace yourself for all will pay/Help is on the way)

(Search within/Uncover the will to win/Turn against the tide that washes o'er/Find the strength to fall and rise again/Open up the gates, unleash the force/I am the wind that shapes the land/Old as time and twice as strong/Oceans arise at my command/I alone can carry on)

(We have the force to fight/We have the blinding light/A war is more than heard/Coming in louder than words)

Dystopian Fiction

Dystopian Fiction is focused on what happens on Earth during the main playlist. I split it out because putting stuff like Cross the Line on the main playlist was getting clunky, and I figure Adam and Veronica (and the rest of the Paladins’ families, but mostly those two) deserve a chance for their story to shine on its own.

Dark Matter is on here because title track, but also it does end up with effects.

(Don't stop, don't think/Move up, don't blink now/On your knees pray for rain/Don't breathe when you take your aim)

Codebreaker is Adam’s song! I have him primarily as a cryptologist for the Garrison, teaching on the side and as a reserve pilot. Aviators says Codebreaker is actually about Cyperpunk 2077 but uhhh Fuck That it’s about Adam being The Best and dealing with...

(Codebreaker can't you find/Can you read between the lines of code?/Tell me all that you know/How far down the hole does it all go)

Cross the Line is the Éskhayklos’ image song. They’re a neo-luddite movement turned terrorist group that are upset with the way the Sol Federation is trying to fix Earth, stating that humans are the one that pushed it into this state, they should leave it to die and die along with it. Akane Shirogane was their worst nightmare. Cross the Line fits because, well, they crossed the line when [spoiler beep] and they were happy about it. (And “human cause” comes into play later when they pick up anti-alien leanings)

(Cross the line, redefine, break away unbent, unafraid/Together we stand in the dark/Seeking the light and what is right, together we cross the line/Our journey will come to an end and then our human cause will be/Justified)

Who Will Save You Now here is about Sam, and the aftermath of Here to Save You, in addition to its referenced role in the main playlist

(Alone with this vision/Alone and blind/Go tell the world I'm still alive)

The Day the Earth Collapsed is exactly what it says on the tin.

(How much time has been elapsed/Since the day the earth collapsed?)

Dystopian Fiction is the title track for this part. With the events of The Day the Earth Collapsed, the Garrison and our heroes on Earth are at their lowest point. It really is a piece of dystopian fiction, between [spoiler] and [spoiler]. And also: “Nobody can shoot me down, not just yet” is about Adam bc Fuck Canon

(I'm a dead man/In the wasteland/I'm a soldier fighting for superstition/Under search lights/In the long nights/We've been written like dystopian fiction)

The Reckoning is the only one of its little subset that made it over here, because it’s the only one that references events from before its eponymous fic (both verses are Very Earth)

(We're all alone, walking in twilight/The night has been long and so many have fallen/Feel no remorse, light will be breaking/Our freedom is worth it all)

Filaments

Filaments is the least complete, mostly because it’s the ‘sequel series’ of sorts. I have ideas for it, but I still haven’t posted most of the major story beats from the main portion of Dark Matter, so I’ve been purposefully putting it on the backburner. I do have enough to write Carry Me Home and put some foreshadowing in other fics.

Dark Matter is here because, well. A) Title track, B) yes, it still has effects. It’s the overarching theme, after all. Filaments sort of has a subtitle itself, which is ‘The Undoing,’ after the other part of the lyric that the subtitle of the main playlist comes from. It’s about undoing a past mistake (that wasn’t obviously a mistake until much later) and reconciling the events of Your World Will Fail.

(I am the keeper/I am the secret/I am the answer/I am the end)

Filaments is the title track of this part. It’s... a little hard to explain why without giving away the entire plot (what little I have planned lol) but it’s about the connections between different parts of the universe, and some fall-out of Darker Matter/Other Worlds Than These.

(These glowing filaments/Conducting this enchanting/Sarcophagus that's holding us)

Starlight is, again, Adashi song, and this time the happy part

(Don't leave me lost here forever/I need your starlight and pull me through/Bring me back to you)

Carry Me Home is what I’m in the process of writing right now, and it’s about the aftermath of the Quintessence War, specifically about how Shiro decides to settle down on Earth and what he does to build himself a home.

(Carry me home to the morning light/carry me home before you wave me goodbye/Oh, carry me home...)

[omgviolette12]

After Hours - Chapter 11

Previous Chapter

Summary:  Loki and Evelyn go on a date. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Chapters: 11/?

Words: 2800+

Warnings: None

Tags:  @milkymaidme @dangertoozmanykids101@alexakeyloveloki @little-moonbeam-666  @marvel-ous-fics@clovermariear@lynnesm@bitchyikes@moon-child-of-a-poet, @allthecraftandthings@bubblegumspitt @shockwavee @blondekel77 @nerd–nirvana @valdemarismynonbinarylove@nightrose64 @pastelhexmaniac @iistormii

If you’d like to be added, let me know. I’ve also posted this on AO3

A/N:

I’ve neglected to post 11-12 on tumblr...so since I’ve recently updated, i’ll post everything in one go. so expect two more chapters.

____________

There was a moment where Evelyn thought she would get used to her professor's stunning appearance...but it was on this day that she was proven wrong.

When she exited her apartment, she could see that Loki was waiting for her just below the steps, leaning leisurely against his car.

And lord help her - If she loved how the man looked in suits, his current attire sent her into a tizzy. Forsaking the usual suit jacket, Loki donned a simple black dress shirt that sat snug against his form, with sleeves rolled up to reveal his forearms. His dark slacks fit quite nicely as well, and Evelyn struggled to keep her eyes well above his chest.

Luckily, she wasn't the only one who perused without shame. As Evelyn made her way towards him, she could feel his eyes scanning every inch of her body - and she grew increasingly self-conscious as he continued his silent appraisal.

“You are...the definition of stunning,” he said after a while, leaning down to place a chaste kiss on her forehead, “And you smell delightful as well.”

Unsurprisingly, Evelyn felt a heated blush rushing to her face, and she stumbled to reply, “You - you look really good too…” If she was getting this nervous already, Evelyn feared how the rest of the night would fare.

Once they were inside the vehicle, Evelyn started to probe - as subtly as she could, about their destination, but all she received were vague answers.

At first, she expected him to take her out to a fancy restaurant because he seemed to be a ‘posh’ kind of person, but since they were dressed quite casually, maybe that wasn’t the case? She would feel out of her element anyway if he took her somewhere expensive, so she hoped it was at least a comfortable, easygoing place with good food.

And easygoing it was. After driving through the busy streets of Manhattan, Evelyn was pleasantly stunned to see that it wasn’t a fancy restaurant - but a taco bar. Before they even stepped inside, her stomach growled loudly with approval.

Loki laughed at the strange sound, and Evelyn berated her stomach silently, “It seems I’ve made the correct choice, yes? While it isn’t taco Tuesday, I figured you’d still have a craving for it.”

She laughed, surprised he even remembered what she said from that long ago. “I guess that was a dead giveaway that tacos were my favorite…” He smiled, ushering her into the bar with a hand on her lower back, “Indeed it was.”

Once they were inside, it took no time before they were seated and ready to order. Loki reassured her that she could have anything she wanted and not to worry about the expense, so Evelyn happily indulged - though she was still mindful not to choose the most expensive thing on the menu.

While Evelyn thoroughly enjoyed the fanciest looking taco she’d ever eaten, they gradually fell into comfortable conversation. It was almost reminiscent of the times they talked together in his office while he helped her study, before their desires came to light. Now though...the air between the pair was much more intimate.

Loki asked her questions about her life and family, whilst she did the same. He was rather tight-lipped about his own family situation, but relented that he was the youngest of three, with an older sister and brother. Evelyn tried to probe further, but he had managed to divert the conversation her way once more.

“....and I only wanted to shape up my eyebrows, but I ended up shaving off the entire thing! I remember putting on like, six pairs of pants because I just knew my mom would whoop me to the moon and back,”

Loki quirked a brow in query, “Were you attempting to soften the blow?”

“Yup,” Evelyn grinned proudly, “Though I gotta give credit to Candice for that one. I honestly think she loved getting in trouble with how wild she was...”

Evelyn paused momentarily, putting an abrupt end to her monologue. She debated with herself on whether or not to ask a question that had been bothering her for a while, before deciding to just get it out there.

“Can...I ask you something? Just out of curiosity...”

She could tell that Loki was intrigued by the sudden switch in subjects, because he seemed to be watching her facial expressions more carefully than before. He could easily see when she was flustered, and no doubt it must have shown on her face.

Evelyn shimmied slightly in her seat under his gaze, attempting to ignore the butterflies that fluttered within her stomach, “Well...uhm, why do you like me? Like, the actual reason?”

“...I beg your pardon?”

She panicked slightly at his confused expression, rephrasing her question in response, “Oh, well, what I mean is...I know you find me physically attractive...but is there something in particular that drew you to me…? Like, when exactly did you know that you saw me as more than a student?”

Loki seemed to pause entirely. Even after a minute or two, he said nothing - he merely looked at her with a distant expression, as if debating whether or not to tell her what he was actually thinking.

Evelyn frowned slightly at his reaction. ….Was that really that hard of a question?

Before she began to grow antsy, he finally decided to speak, “I...would prefer to answer that question in a more private setting. Perhaps later?”

Evelyn could only nod, her heart in the pit of her stomach. What was so wrong with his answer that he had to say it in private?

She tried not to let it bother her as they finished up dinner and headed towards his car, distracting herself with the sights outside the window as they once again took off into the bustling city.

After driving for around 30 minutes, she noticed that they had left the city, and into a more suburban area. Each house they passed by looked progressively fancier than the next, and she also noticed that his neighbors were few and far in-between each other.

For whatever reason, that observation made her nervous, and she began to wipe the sweat that formed on her hands onto her dress.

“Is everything alright, love?” Evelyn whipped her head to look at him suddenly, slightly startled, “You’re quiet,”

Evelyn reassured him immediately, “Oh, yeah! I’m just a bit drowsy, I almost nodded off a couple times...”

Loki chuckled at that, “We did eat quite a bit, so I wouldn’t be surprised. We’re almost there though, so hold on just a bit longer.”

And, he was right. After making a right turn, Evelyn’s eyes widened at the house that lay in the distance.

They went around a small roundabout that had an immaculately decorated water fountain at its center, before coming to a stop directly outside the house. Tall glass windows on the exterior hinted at the luxury that lay within, with the glittering chandeliers illuminating the marble flooring at the entrance.

“Uh...are you a drug dealer or something?” She asked in awe as he helped her out of the car, her eyes fixated on the impressive building. While it wasn’t a huge mansion by any means, it was still too large for one person to live by themselves. How he could afford such a nice house on a professor’s salary was beyond her comprehension.

Loki turned to look her in the eyes, his face cold and expressionless, "And what if I am?"

He couldn't resist the laughter that bubbled in his chest at her hilarious expression of horror.

Loki flicked her forehead playfully, and she yelped in pain at the sudden attack, "You ask the strangest things, silly girl."

She rubbed her forehead with a pout, remaining silent as he led her into the house by the hand.

If she thought outside was grand, then inside was another story.

It was exquisitely furnished and decorated, with marble floors so clear it felt as though she was walking on glass.

The interior decor was modern with a classical touch, and she couldn't imagine another style that would fit him perfectly.

Loki observed as she took in her surroundings with glowing curiosity whilst guiding her towards the stairs, "When you visit once more, perhaps then I'll give you a small tour. For now though, I thought you'd appreciate seeing the collection right away."

Once more? That was the only thing that stuck out in that sentence to Evelyn, since he said that in a way that left no room for doubt. So he wouldn't mind me coming over again…?

Evelyn mentally slapped herself, trying to get her mind out the gutter. She was really getting ahead of herself.

There isn't a guarantee that anything will happen tonight, so I shouldn't get my hopes up.

…….Wait, I had my hopes up? Oh boy…

From that train of thought, Evelyn knew she was in trouble.

After going up a flight of stairs, Loki made a left into a lengthy, spacious hallway that held only one large door at the end.

Due to a singular light source on the ceiling, the sight itself was slightly ominous, but she tried not to let that bother her.

Well, she tried, but Evelyn couldn't resist clutching his arm.

Loki looked down at her with a smile, freeing his arm to loop it around her waist, " Once we get inside, the lighting will be much better. See,"

When they finally reached the door and he began to open it, Evelyn had to do a double-take.

"When you said you had a collection...I thought you meant like, you know, a small room with a couple of paintings...but sir,"

In her excitement and awe, she stepped further into the wide, spacious room, marveling at the sight before her, "You have a whole museum in your house!!"

The room resembled a large gallery, with white walls and sheen, wooden flooring. There were glass cases that held valuable items of interest, with a considerable amount of paintings that neatly lined all four walls of the room.

Loki laughed, finding her excitement very endearing, "That's a bit of an exaggeration, my dear."

"But...but look!" Evelyn took him around the room eagerly, pointing at paintings of prominent artists she recognized, " You actually have a Bob Ross painting, with his happy little trees! You really weren't lying…"

Loki lifted a brow at that, " You thought I was?"

"...Eh," she brushed that off rather quickly, moving on to the next painting, " Holy nuggets, I love this one!"

He came beside her to look at the piece in question, as she began leaning against the wall to look at the painting at an angle.

"Thomas Cole was my inspo for so long! Especially this painting… just look at those brushstrokes, so precise and confident..."

She was silent for a bit, turning to look at her professor with questioning eyes, "Say...why did you collect art? If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were an art history teacher or something."

"I had a lot of time on my hands when I was younger. I did a fair amount of painting back then as a hobby, and developed a small obsession with the arts. Hence, this collection."

He gestured at the space with a careless wave of a hand, " I've long lost interest, though. I barely even remembered I had this room."

Evelyn only nodded, slightly sad at his response, "Oh…”

"Despite that, I've been thinking about adding one more painting to the collection."

She looked at him, intrigued, " Oh? Whose?"

Loki stared into her eyes, his smile widening, "None other than yours."

Evelyn was utterly confused, " Wait, what? What do you mean..?"

He went closer to her, taking her small hand into his own, “It would be an understatement to say that I was captured by your paintings when I visited your workspace. I would be honored to own a finished piece by you - of course, I’d gladly pay any price.”

“Huh!? But- I’m not really a professional, I'm far from good...besides, the walls are all filled up,”

He looked at the painting she was admiring moments before, “You said this painting inspired you greatly, correct?”

Evelyn looked at the painting, then back at Loki, “Yeah..but-”

“Then, I’ll exchange this painting for one of your own.”

At his proclamation, she immediately felt overwhelmed with emotion, “That- what? But that’s worth so much, that wouldn’t be fair at all. There’s no reason to be this nice to me…”

Evelyn couldn’t tell what this man was thinking, was he crazy? He wanted to exchange a master’s work worth thousands for hers, which was still mediocre at best. He was being way too generous…

“You’re thinking too much of it. I simply value your pieces much more,” He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them once again, a primitive hunger lurked within the depths of his icy blue irises, “I admire everything about you, and your art is no exception.”

Her heart started to thrum wildly as he came closer, trapping her against the wall. Loki towered over her small form, and she looked up at him with an open mouth, speechless.

“Earlier, you asked why I liked you, and when my attraction began.” He traced a finger down her neck, ghosting towards her cleavage, “Would you like to know now?”

Evelyn gulped, only managing a nod as she stared up at him helplessly.

“It was around a year ago, and you came to me for help for the first time during my office hours. You struggled so much in my class, at the beginning. A shy little thing,”

His voice was growing darker and darker by the second, and the air around them rapidly twisted with his desire, “You were a sputtering mess, apologizing for every little mistake. But when you finally did something right, I praised you. You would smile so brightly when I did, so eager to please me so I’d praise you once more. Such a good girl,”

Loki leaned towards her further, his breath fanning against her cheek, “Tell me, my sweet little pet...do you want me to take care of you?”

It was like he was an entirely different person. This wasn’t the generous, warm man from before. Evelyn should’ve felt concerned at his words, his tone, the situation - but it was like she was in a trance, his words caressing a dark depth within her heart.

Good girl. She didn’t know why, but when he said those two simple words to her, in that deep, velvety voice of his...she couldn’t help but rub her thighs together.

Whatever this was, this feeling right now, she wanted more of it. She wanted him to praise her, to call her his good girl again.

She didn’t know what prompted her to say what she did in the next moment, but the words left her mouth so softly and suddenly before she could process it, “Please... take care of me,”

Loki's lips were on hers before she could even blink. Evelyn released a muffled moan as his tongue plundered inside her mouth, pressing her body against the wall in such a manner that there was no space between them. He ravaged her tongue like a starving beast, and she reciprocated with the same ferocity.

Loki moved a hand towards her lower back, gripping her ass roughly. He gave it a quick squeeze, before lifting a leg in order to bury himself further between them. That action on his part allowed Evelyn to feel his distinct hardness against her sex, and the sensation caused her to whimper quietly in pleasure.

Things were going fast, way faster than Evelyn expected. If they continued along this route, she'd most likely lose her virginity right now, against the wall. While the thought appealed to her in the past while she fantasized about this moment with him, she wanted her first time to be...different. A little less rushed.

"Wait...wait a sec - mmh..!" She attempted to get him to slow down a bit, but his fervent attention to her neck and the slow grind of his hips were getting a bit too distracting.

Perhaps because of how breathless and quiet her words were, he failed to hear her, lost in his own world of pleasure. Finding no other way to garner his attention, she went to tug at his hair, burying her hand in his long, raven locks. She must have pulled harder than intended however, because the man actually growled when she did so, his eyes flying to meet hers.

"Um...can we - can we move somewhere else? Right here's a bit..."

She could see that it took a moment for him to process her words. But when he did, Loki smiled apologetically," You're right, I got carried away," and with elegant swiftness, he lifted her into his arms to carry her out of the room, startling the wits out of the young woman.

"Thankfully, my bedroom isn't far."

____________________

This is happening. It’s really happening…!

She was about to fuck her professor, and there was no going back.

To say Evelyn was nervous would be an understatement. But regardless of her nerves, she had no intention of backing out of this arrangement. She trusted him with her first time and was frankly more excited than anything to see how it would feel.

When they finally reached his room, Evelyn barely had time to inspect the impressive decor before she was promptly deposited on the bed.

Loki was on top of her immediately, occupying her tongue with his own as he palmed her breast, "We are wearing entirely too much clothing, pet," he said once his tongue left her mouth, his eyes even with hers, "Let’s fix that, shall we?"

Wordlessly, he leaned off of her to remove his shirt with expert quickness, leaving Evelyn to gawk at his muscles.

I didn’t know abs could be this lickable…

Evelyn realized she must have been staring too long when she heard a chuckle above her, “Keep staring, and I just might blush,”

His fingers moved to tease the strap of her dress, “ While this dress is beautiful, I would much prefer what’s underneath.”

Before she could even protest, he pulled it down in one swift motion. Evelyn opted to go without a bra since the dress had built-in cups, so her brown, perky nipples immediately met the hungry eyes of her professor.

Out of reflex, her hands immediately went to cover them, her body growing impossibly hot, “ Wait - you could’ve warned me at least-“

Loki dragged her hands away from her breasts roughly, pinning them to the sides of her head, “Don’t you dare hide from me. Not now,” he growled, licking his lips as he locked eyes with her breasts once more, “Fuck...you’re perfect,” he panted heavily, before dipping his head to suckle a nipple into his mouth.

Evelyn didn’t expect that, and she jerked upwards due to the sensation, her eyes squeezed shut. Loki sucked and nipped at the tender bud, all while Evelyn whimpered and squirmed. Her breasts were especially sensitive, and he picked up on this fact rather quickly. Loki proceeded to exploit it, letting go of her wrist to tease the neglected breast with his fingers. He pinched her nipple, causing a shocked gasp to leave the girl's lips.

Loki released her nipple from his mouth with a wet pop eventually, smiling a bit evilly. “My my, so responsive,”

He pulled her dress down fully, leaving Evelyn in just her underwear. She merely laid there, her mind hazy as her breasts ached from residual pleasure.

Loki couldn’t resist fondling them a bit more, “ You have no idea...how much I’ve wanted to touch you like this, with no barriers,” Loki leaned down between the crevices of her breasts, trailing reverent kisses down to her belly button, “My sweet, perfect girl...”

Evelyn’s breathing picked up in anticipation once he reached the hem of her underwear.

She was so unbelievably wet from just his tongue on her breasts, that there was a string of her arousal once he began to remove it.

“Spread your legs for me,” he demanded huskily. Evelyn’s eyes remained closed until she felt a strong grip on her jaw, forcing her eyes to open, “ Eyes on me, pet. And once again, spread your legs for me.”

She gulped at the authority in his voice, his aura exuding severe dominance. Evelyn promptly obeyed, locking her eyes with his own as she hesitantly opened her legs.

“Good girl,” He purred, rubbing the top of her knees affectionately. Evelyn could feel another flood of arousal rushing forth because of those two words once again.

Holy shit, what is this man doing to me?!

Loki bent down, and she watched through lidded eyes as he began to kiss and nip at her inner thighs, inching closer and closer towards her sex. Her breathing turned ragged with excitement, but the devil between her legs decided to take his merry time, never once touching where she needed him the most.

She tried to hold out as long as possible against his incessant teasing, but she began to beg after just ten minutes of his licking and sucking, “Please...please just - ah!” She jolted against his face once she felt his warm tongue lick right up her slit, her fingers twisting against the sheets.

Smiling, he gave her pussy a chaste kiss, “ Your pretty little cunt is so sensitive,” He moved his thumb up and down along her slit, dipping it inside her entrance lightly “ and you get so fucking wet,”

She knew he could curse a lot because of their previous encounters, but man can he talk dirty. Her eloquent, well-mannered professor was a sordid menace in bed, and the thought that she brought out this side of him aroused her greatly.

He removed his thumb from her slit, replacing them with two fingers instead. She was so wet, that they slipped right in with no issue. Evelyn clenched her walls tightly as he curled his fingers, thrusting them in an upwards motion as he sucked at her swollen clit.

“Holy fuh…!” Her words died down as her hand flew to his head, her back lifting off the bed at the sensory overload. His fingers worked in tandem with his tongue at a steady rhythm, and she couldn’t help but writhe, feeling a pressure slowly building in her abdomen.

Loki could tell she was close by her frantic breathing and clenching, so he removed his tongue from her clit to apply pressure to it with his thumb, “You’re doing so good, Evelyn. My good girl,”

“Please...please…” she wasn’t exactly sure what she was begging for - but whatever he was doing with his fingers made her feel so good, she wasn’t sure she could take any more of it.

“You’re so close, pet. Let go, cum for me.” And she did. She came on his hands with another curl of his fingers inside her, causing an unexpected scream to rip from her throat.

White appeared behind her eyelids as her eyes twitched shut from her orgasm, her skin twitching and rippling at the sheer amount of pleasure.

Evelyn laid limp, breathless and sweaty against the bed. She felt as though she was floating, not grounded into reality. Opening her eyes slowly, she mindlessly watched as he unbuckled his belt, throwing it aside to rid himself of his pants.

Unexpectedly, he wasn’t wearing any briefs, so his leaking, engorged cock bobbed proudly as soon as he released himself. And goodness did it really hit her. That huge thing was going to go inside of her.

Evelyn let out a small whimper as she stared at his dick, feeling slightly apprehensive.

Loki noticed her nervousness, reassuring her gently, “Shh...relax, it will hurt if you tense,” he paused then as if remembering something. He reached across from her to open his drawer that was beside the bed, pulling out a condom, “While I’d love to fuck you raw, we wouldn’t want a happy little accident, now would we?”

Evelyn would’ve laughed at the subtle Bob Ross reference if she wasn’t so focused on what was to come.

He brought a hand to her leg, resting it on her knees as he took his cock in the other, rubbing it against her entrance, “ Remember, relax.”

And then, he began to push in.

Thankfully, he made sure she was adequately wet enough since it would be her first time, or else it would’ve hurt like hell.

Evelyn moaned mildly in pain, the shock of the intrusion causing her to tense immensely. He paused, massaging her stomach while kissing the tears away from her cheek, “Just a little more, love. You’re taking me so well,” he groaned, the feel of her tight, fluttering walls maddening.

She slowly started to relax under his soothing ministrations, giving him the go-ahead to continue pushing in. And with one more steady push, he was fully nestled inside.

“Fuck…” he moaned almost breathlessly, his eyes fluttering shut at the enveloping warmth around his cock, “You feel like absolute heaven.”

Evelyn was biting her lips hard enough that they could draw blood, so he began to kiss her in a languid manner. She slowly brought her hands around his neck, burying her hand into his silky tresses as she lost herself against his lips, forgetting the momentary pain.

Loki began moving in slow pumps, holding her body against his so that her breasts flattened against his chest. The pain was ebbing away, and pleasure began to spread as he started hitting a particular spot, “You - mmh! You… you can go a bit faster…now...”

Since he received the go-ahead, he picked up the pace, delivering several shallow thrusts at a steady rhythm. The sounds of their skin slapping together filled the room, and Loki could hear she was slowly growing wetter with each thrust, “You had nothing to worry about, little one. See? You fit my cock perfectly, just like a glove.”

It wasn’t long until he started going faster, the pace growing more relentless as time went on. Evelyn started screaming his name repeatedly, her voice growing progressively hoarser, “Loki, Loki! P...please, wait just, - too much, too much! -“

She wasn’t sure she could handle the brutal thrusts of his cock much longer. He refused to slow down, holding her hands above her head as he continued to fuck her into the bed, his eyes glazed with animalistic pleasure.

Her eyes practically rolled to the back of her head, and her professor’s sinful voice filtered into her ears, “If you ask nicely like the good girl you are, perhaps then I’ll show you some mercy, hmm?”

“Please...please…”

“Please what, girl. Use your words,”

“Please...sir, please make me come...!”

With that, he released her wrists to thumb at her clit - and Evelyn swore that she saw stars in that very moment, her brain going blank completely. Loki almost cursed once more as she clenched tightly around his cock, the sensation finally bringing him to completion. He groaned loudly as he came, her name falling from his lips as he pulled out, slumping forward.

It took a while for Loki to compose himself before he began to shift his weight, so that she wasn’t crushed beneath his body.

As for Evelyn, the poor thing was worked to exhaustion, and passed out shortly after her final orgasm.

---------------------------

A/N: 

Hope ya'll enjoyed that hefty dose of smut. I know I certainly did. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Please let me know what you think, since I'm still insecure about writing smut scenes. What in particular did you enjoy, or dislike? Again, thanks for reading!

[fleetofshippyships-archive]

WIP Meme

Tagged by @belleslettres-love, thanks hun =D

Rules: post the first line of your wip and tag as many people as words.

And since they did a paragraph instead of a sentence...👀 y’all know how I love to overshare while working on stuff, and I’m working on multiple things at once, most of which are different parts of my mdzs mer!au series...

1. 

This is kind of...my current main wip is actually combining 4 finished oneshots/drabbles into one piece and adding transitions and filler scenes to make it flow as best I can and make it a more coherent multi-chapter piece (who am I kidding though, I’ll end up probably doubling the overall word count in new added scenes), here’s the first paragraph of that:

The sound of cricket song fills Wei Wuxian’s ears, the clear, starry sky is filling his vision, and Lan Zhan’s hair is like silk against his fingers. It’s probably the most peaceful and content he’s ever felt. A moment he wishes could go on and on, endlessly.

But, since that was already technically finished as a standalone piece before I started combining these pieces, then the more correct ‘first line/s’ of this wip would be the new scene (which I’m still working on) I wrote to connect that first piece to the second one.

In which case:

Wei Wuxian stared at the ceiling for some time, his reaching hand long fallen back onto the bed. Another dream of seeing Lan Zhan again. Like all the others, it had felt so real. He had stopped visiting that pier in the hopes of seeing Lan Zhan again, but his mind kept sending him back there, night after night.

Still driving myself nuts over the tense change and transitioning it, but...present works really well for that initial dream sequence and I don’t want to re-write it XD wouldn’t be an issue if the first moments of waking weren’t also in present tense, making the transition super awkward, but I refuse to change them because it’s so beautiful and sad, I can’t mess with that 🤷‍♂️ I’ll just probably smack a chapter break between the two and torment my poor readers by leaving it on those sad lines for a few days before uploading the next chapter 😅

Oh man, though, if this was a ‘last line’ of your wip meme, y’all readers of my mer!au would lose your shit, I still squeal and flail whenever I look at the last lines of the last part that’s going into this multi-chapter set XD 

2.

Lan Xichen turned his face into the breeze. It ruffled his hair a little, what few strands weren’t smoothly pressed back, at least. It was still an almost uncomfortable sight, how similar their features were.

👀👀

3.

Wei Wuxian waited until Jiang Cheng was out of sight, and then his shoulders slumped. He lifted his hands to cover his face and inhaled slowly. He could barely contain himself, remembering Jiang Cheng caring for him like a younger brother, or maybe even a son. After the suspicion had passed, at least, but even then, he had been kinder to Wei Wuxian than he would have expected.

I went and started a mini-follow up to my 27k de-aged wwx fic that I may or may not have finished and may or may not still end up deleting, which was itself an alternate of an unposted oneshot focusing on lwj and lxc’s part of this same story and which I may or may not end up deleteting since I didn’t like it and that’s why I went and wrote jc and wwx’s side...sometimes it just be like that 🤷‍♀️ and god i want to write jin ling’s pov of the whole fucking thing too but yikes NO i need to stop

4.

Kasen turned from the sheets he had just hung to dry, just for a moment, to see if Ookurikara’s distasteful state continued. He was resolved to say something if it did. There was only so much he could stand, and there was established etiquette for such things.

Whoops, also started a Kurikasen soulmate au cos I was throwing soulmate headcanons around with someone at like 2 in the morning and that’s a surefire recipe to get me writing (and in fact that’s how I started writing kurikasen in the first place, we were talking about them and I went onto ao3 and saw there 3 fics about them, went and was like OMG WHY to them, starting headcanoning with them and then hey next thing I knew I’d written 2 drabbles and it was 3am). But then while I started writing it we kept talking about it...so I sort of plotted the whole thing out and now my interest in writing it has plummeted so I’ll probably never finish it...but I’ve still been tinkering with it anyway...

5.

“Pick herbs?”

“Yes. Herbs, mushrooms, anything. Just send him out of the castle for a day or two. If he stays a moment longer he’s going to cause an incident and—” Arthur stopped speaking abruptly.

Gaius raised both his eyebrows. “You are the prince, your highness. If you wish him to be gone for a time, why not order him yourself?”

“Oh, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about my useless servant, it’s that the only person he will actually listen to is you, Gaius,” Arthur said, sounding uncharacteristically bitter.

Sooo, @april-thelightfury115 I haven’t forgotten I owe you a merthur fic, and this isn’t technically the start of it, but it’s the start of the doc it’s in, I’m sort of writing bits of it out of order as they come to me. I haven’t written Merthur for so long and I don’t usually write with such a clear idea outline in my head so...we’ll see XD but I’m trying =)

ANYWAY

There’s a couple more small things here and there, I’ve been having such a hard time maintaining focus so I’ve just been hopping around my wips doing a little here and there, but let’s leave it with those 5 main things =)

And, I dunno who to tag @rockmarina and @sarah-yyy come to mind...anyone who wants to be tagged in things like this leave a reply and I’ll note it down somewhere for future reference, I really can’t rely on my memory to recall who I know that writes, and the writers I’ve been talking to lately are all on discord or twitter...and I’m never sure if I should tag all the HP writers I know when I do these and they’re not about HP anymore 😅

[anoceaninthesun]

What do you think of reviewers who post at the last chapter and say, "I usually review only on the last chapter. I like your story blah blah blah" Doesn't this common habit among the fandom readers take away any motivation for writers to update frequently? I feel there are more reviews for people who update once a month, than people who update once in three days.

This is interesting because despite the main way I interact with fandom spaces being from writing fanfics, I generally don’t get asked much about my opinions on reviews, despite having loads of them. Caveat to my response is I speak mainly from my own experience with maybe brief generalizations I feel fanfic writers would more or less agree on.

To the first part of the question, um, well honestly even if infrequent I guess I’d prefer to see people review throughout. This is because my fics tend to be longer. I do often get reviews from people along the lines of “I would’ve stopped to review sooner but I just got so caught up in binging I waited until there was nothing left to read, whoops” I get that sometimes that’s true. If it’s a really thoughtfully constructed longer review than I guess I’m good with that. If it’s 36 chapters published in the span of two years with over 200,000+ words (which is where ASiT currently sits) and you give me maybe two lines....yeah, I can say you likely aren’t exactly my favorite person when I open your review. 🤣

But this is because I spent two years cranking this out piece by piece and the returned investment is already so little I feel two sentences to sum up all that’s been read and processed and hopefully enjoyed, is less than the bare minimum. So in summary on that less is never more for longer works in my opinion. If you’d like to leave shorter comments here and there that are chapter specific as you read it makes a lot more sense for me.

Yes, lazy reviews in short absolutely do drain away motivation. I’ll just bluntly come out and say that. By lazy I mean the specific kind of reviewer often admits they thought it was okay to keep reading and not review, not even at the end, and they tend to pop up only when there hasn’t been an update in a while. That’s....yeah.

Personally I hardly ever do every three day updates. When a story is in its infancy and I’m trying to get a feel for how it’ll take off so I’m cranking out these short chapters consecutively you may see me do that with little regard to how many reviews the chapters are getting as long as it ups the word count, which in turn often makes the story easier to find and generates attention....but on longer works I strongly advise against trying to do updates weekly. Why? Well on systems like FFN (Fanfiction dot net), this will actually not move your work to the top of the system when the page refreshes.

Due to an outdated algorithm they have, one of many, it has to be like 8+ days between chapters before updating will cause your story to float to the top of the fandom’s page of recently updated fics. So for example if you update every three days, people already following and favoriting may be alerted but new readers just scrolling through not using tags won’t see it because it’ll have been buried. So yes people who update monthly absolutely do usually (notice italics) get more traffic than people updating much, much more frequently. Updating that frequently can also give readers a sense of entitlement in my experience and the experiences of other writers I’ve heard from.

Chapters get cranked out soooo steadily and quickly that many people won’t feel it necessary to post feedback. They’re not being made to wait and for some (for sure not all but many!!) readers the wait is all they care about. If they’re not waiting/ “being inconvenienced” then they’re not going to comment. That is their sole reason to want to reach out to you to remind you in some way, sometimes politely and sometimes rudely, that they’re still waiting.

That being said, we are most definitely not machines. I know when I discovered fanfic I was barely in double digits and when I clumsily posted my now long-ago-deleted first work, I could hardly be considered a teenager. Now I am an adult, albeit not a very old one, and my priorities have for sure shifted and the free time I found in abundance even in high school, is a lot more limited. I’ve got a lot going on at any given time. A lot of things require me to devote myself to them pretty thoroughly.

Social lives don’t make themselves; you have to work to keep cultivating those no matter if the relationship is platonic, familial, romantic or otherwise. Animals tend to be less likely to bite the hand that feeds them (not that they have in my case) when you spend time raising and training them and then keeping up that bond—not that anyone asked but right now my whole thing is experimenting with fruit salad combos I made myself to see what my new baby bird likes, and renovating his cage so he’s constantly stimulated enough not to try to figure out the locks😂😂.

I’m gearing up to try to kill myself with school again by going for a D.PH next fall (which means I need to apply now and that in itself is a long and expensive process) because living even remotely close to three decades (which is what I would be when I finally finished it) is overrated anyway. If that doesn’t work I can always shave about the same amount of time off my life with emergency disaster management work. So what I’m saying is, all the stuff that young adult me has been juggling for the last three years or so, ten or fifteen year old me would have no clue about in terms of priorities. She could read fics and write fics, read fics and write fics in a cycle.

People want me and writers who are just as busy as me to update frequently, so make it worth our while. Show us why you, the readers, are worth devoting a probably limited chunk of our free time to keep happy with a craft we’ve honed (in my case professionally with the help of degrees), when we could be doing literally anything else. I don’t advise people slaving away at a keyboard to put free fics out there every three days and then getting discouraged when it’s not received as well as they’d like, when nothing is wrong with updating monthly, or hell, even every six months if that’s all your personal schedule allows for.

Sometimes I do surprise updates sooner than expected when a reader has really made my day with a solid review that encouraged me to jump start my writing process or when something has gone well in life and I turn to my writing or when I myself am sick of not finding what I wanna read and want to see more of what I’ve written admittedly partially from wish fulfillment put down to page. But never count on that a writer will feel generous for nothing, is my advise to readers. And if you, anon, are a writer, or some of my aspiring fellow fanfic writers see this, again, go at your own pace to avoid burnout. It’s a really fun hobby that has undoubtedly brought me endless joy but existential rewards aside it can be thankless. You will feel unmotivated and unappreciated at times.

Especially when reviewers roll in after long absences on their parts to feed you a line about why they hadn’t reviewed for a while until you chased them out of your inbox with a broom for badgering you between updates. Hopefully this wasn’t too rambling to get something from. Thank you for the ask.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Vol. 5 “Welcome to Haven”

This is a re-posting from Oct. 14th, 2017 in an effort to get all my recaps fully on tumblr. Thanks!

The day has arrived! After nearly eight months we finally have a new RWBY episode and I am fully prepared to dive into reviewing it (alongside my recaps of the earlier material). Obvious spoilers ahead for those behind on the series or who don't have a Rooster Teeth account for first access.

To start, I should mention that we also have a Yang short that aired pretty much alongside the new episode, in which Yang is helping Ruby to train in hand-to-hand before she leaves for Beacon. I've heard a lot of complaints about this short already--that Rooster Teeth waited too long to post it, that by focusing on a flashback they're ignoring present!Yang's disability and PTSD--but for all that the short still provides an excellent little glimpse into the sisters' pre-Beacon lives, along with the expected, kick-ass fight scene. This short does raise a number of questions though, or plot holes if we're being uncharitable. Chronologically we know that Ruby is already incredibly strong at this point and has excellent control over her semblance, yet a simple tumble into the grass knocks her out for a number of minutes? I also find it highly suspect that Ruby is that dependent on Crescent Rose to fight--she says herself she's useless against the Grimm without it--yet over the course of the following years she does nothing to better herself in hand-to-hand. Seeing Yang in the jaws of a Grimm should have been a wake up call...but it wasn't. I honestly hope this comes back to haunt Ruby at some point. That she'll get a "You can't rely on Crescent Rose" talking to in the same way Yang got a "You can't rely on your semblance" talk from Tai. Otherwise this short does little to further either sisters' characterization.

Regardless, onto the episode itself. I watched it in my local Starbucks (too impatient to wait until I got home) and just five minutes in a stranger interrupted, apologizing, but asking if this was the new Volume because he was so excited for its premiere. Shockingly, I didn't entirely share his enthusiasm, if only because ever since Volume Three I've feared that RWBY will become too dark for my taste, losing that adorable, humorous spark that initially drew me to it.

I shouldn't have doubted Rooster Teeth. Just as Volume Four opens with happy bickering among the new team RNJR (or is it JNRR?), Volume Five opens with Ruby, Jaune, Nora, Ren, and Qrow making light of their dangerous trip to Haven. "We were fine," Ruby insists, "Only one of us almost died"--with a sly look at Qrow. For me these moments are crucial to the series, as they not only read as authentic (humor is a powerful tool in the face of trauma), but they keep the series from becoming overburdened with angst.

The team's walk through the "scenic route" gives everyone time to recap the basic plot of Volume 4 and then Qrow heaves open doors to reveal our first good look at Haven.

It certainly seems to live up to its name. Interestingly (or simply due to financial/time constraints) Rooster Teeth opted to paint still images of the city's inhabitants with the 'camera' moving across them, rather than actually animating everyone. It works though, giving viewers the feeling that we're looking upon an intricate painting.

Ruby exclaims that "This is amazing!," drools over the weaponry--alright, so not everything has changed--and says that they'll be going "up," literally to Professor Lionheart's office and metaphorically in luck. The narrative uses that moment though to pull up until we reach Weiss' airship, still in the process of escaping her father. Though Weiss isn't given much time in the premiere, this short scene showcases her rapid character development. Where once she might have snubbed her nose at being stuck with an 'underling,' now Weiss speaks openly and respectfully to her pilot, admitting that she doesn't want to be a burden to anyone.

It's during this admission that they pick up a distress signal from another ship, one being attacked by Grimm. Weiss of course wants to stop and help, but the pilot reminds her that they're trying to keep a low profile and if they picked up the call, someone else will have too. They keep going and I'm left a little on the fence about this decision. The pilot's logic is sound, but there's also the issue of the bystander effect--we don't actually know if Weiss left those people to die or not. It's a moment that emphasizes that there are no good choices in war.

Then again, for all we know Episode Two might pick up on the airship, with Weiss demanding that they turn back. We'll have to see.

Back in Haven, Ruby wipes a tear away upon reaching their destination. Jokes aside, they've been through so much to get there and it's nice to see some genuine emotion. There's then a rapid change of mood as the group notices just how empty the school is and, with weapons drawn, they kick in Professor Lionheart's door expecting the worst.

...instead all they do is give poor Lionheart a heart attack. He just lost track of time and forgot to meet them out front. Whoops.

Qrow still calls him out on the lack of security and though Lionheart explains it away with a lot of discussion regarding James, the council, and the distribution of Huntsmen/Huntresses in a time of war, his excuses ring a little false. Indeed, by the end of the scene we'll see him speaking to a holographic 'W' on his desk, presumably Arthur Watts, who was briefly in contact with Lionheart in "No Safe Haven." Looks like he's gone full dark side, or at the very least is being blackmailed.

Before that though we learn a LOT about these relics we keep hearing about. Apparently the chamber each relic resides in can only be accessed by their corresponding Maiden--which seems to put a damper on the "Ozpin's cane is a relic" theory. Why have this security measure and then not make use of it? Did Ozpin (as the presumed Wizard) simply think that he was powerful enough to protect it on his own? Despite losing to Cinder? I'm inclined to think not, especially given the cavalier way the cane is handled between Qrow and Oscar. There's no doubt importance to Ozpin's weapon, but I'm no longer 100% convinced that it's a relic. (Even if I’m still headcanoning as such.) 

We also learn each of the Maiden's... themes? Powers? For lack of a better word. Winter is the Maiden of creation, Summer the Maiden of destruction (an uncommon reversal there), Spring is knowledge, and Fall is choice. This puts a whole new dimension on Pyrrha's almost ascension as the Fall Maiden, given the complicated choices involved. Though Ozpin told her firmly not to fight and offered as much free will as a rock and a hard place would allow, a background as both a celebrity and a Huntress ensured that Pyrrha experienced the most pressure to conform and do what's (supposedly) best for others--even at the expense of herself.

Cinder is our latest Fall Maiden. Winter and Summer are still unknown, but Spring apparently skipped out on her duties a decade past...and is now in Raven's hands. What does a bunch of bandits want with a Maiden? We're not sure yet, but Qrow is eager to mount a full attack to get her back. Only Lionheart's (evil and biased) logic keeps him from rushing off. No doubt our team will take things into their own hands once they realize whose thumb Lionheart is under. The essence behind "Damn the council, we'll do it ourselves!" is common in most fantasy/action series. From Harry Potter to Korra we always have that moment when the rag-tag team has to step outside of the bureaucracy and actually get shit done. The trick is continually making sure that the council--or whatever else we’re dealing with--is actually corrupt/in the wrong. 

Elsewhere Blake is dealing with the fallout of her own character short. Things are kept a little murky: Who exactly are these people beyond White Fang members? Who's side is Ilia on? It doesn't seem to matter much. The important bit is that Ilia tells Blake to leave now and she responds with a curt, "You're going to have to make me." So unless Ilia succeeds, it sounds like Blake won't be catching up with the rest of the team anytime soon. A pity.

Yang is also off on her own. I must admit that Rooster Teeth had me fooled. Based on last Volume's conversation with Tai and the fact that Yang's short focuses on how she'll "Always have [Ruby's] back," cutting to her determined expression as she continues driving her motorcycle in the present day, I fully expected Yang to be meeting up with Team RNJR. Instead she's looking for her mom. No doubt though everyone will come together if Qrow and the kids go after Raven themselves. Until then Yang is poised to get info from a sleazy asshole who likes to hit on underage girls.

The episode's climax though is in Oscar's return. We jump "back" to a scene we got at the end of Volume 4, wherein the chronology smooths out to show us when exactly Oscar found Qrow in that bar. "It's good to see you again, Oz" was appropriately heartfelt--and raises more questions about why Qrow of all the inner circle knows so much about Ozpin's power. (A shipper heart can't get too hopeful, can it?) After a cut Oscar shows up on the kids' doorstep, asking for Ruby Rose... and we get more emotional whiplash as that line is reframed not as an, "I know everything" moment but an, "I brought your drunk as a skunk uncle back" moment. Qrow is adorable in this scene, happily wasted as he mutters about how he finally found Ozpin. Ruby's anger that her comic reading time was interrupted dissipates as Oscar freely admits, "You know me as Professor Ozpin."

I'm very glad he came right out and said it. I wasn't looking forward to a whole Volume of wondering when the gang will find out the truth. Perhaps the most fascinating moment though is when Oscar, seemingly instinctually, says to Ruby,

"You have silver eyes."

There are three ways of explaining this line, far as I can tell:

Ozpin tells Oscar to say that. Unlikely. We don't see Oscar pausing or talking to himself, and why be cryptic when they're going to admit who they are two seconds later?

Oscar himself recognizes silver eyes. Possible, even if he is just a farm boy. Perhaps he's heard stories?

Ozpin's knowledge/personality is beginning to become accessible to Oscar. This has been my theory from the start. As I'll discuss more in-depth in my Volume 4 recaps, Ozpin as an entity still exists and presumably this isn't the first time he's changed bodies, implying that the headmaster we know has survived for who knows how many decades. The implication of this is he either somewhat merges with or entirely overwrites the personality of his host. I’m not hoping for the latter--a rather dark side to his semblance--but if so it might already be starting. Oscar's "You have silver eyes" might be a bit of Ozpin creeping into his reactions.

We'll have to wait to find out. This premiere was, for the most part, surprisingly joyful, but we can't expect that to last for long. Our new intro says it straight out: "Things looking bleak and they're bound to get worse."

Best to fasten your seat belts.

Other Details of Note

The pilot's "Sorry, kid" to Weiss. Yes, please remind the audience that these are still children. People tend to forget that.

Qrow's constantly hunched back. I don't recall this from previous Volumes. This might be something Rooster Teeth is only now capable of with the new animation style, but regardless it's a wonderful little detail.

"That poor girl ripped to pieces" and Ruby's tiny gasp. Glad to see everyone hasn't completely forgotten about Penny. I'm also interested in whether the rest of the world didn't notice that Penny was a robot or if they're just that accepting of machines with souls as "real girls."

Qrow--"I quit teaching for a reason." Did a good job training Ruby though!

Using the Maidens' titles in place of their names is both good for the show's mystery and appropriately dehumanizing.

I'm surprised that no one responded to Ren's hope that they can reclaim the Spring Maiden in a more peaceful manner. In fact, he's not in the rest of that scene's shots, to the extent that I wondered if he was using his semblance for some reason. I hope that they'll return to this. We've had very little exploration of fighting-obsessed Huntsmen/Huntresses finding non-violent solutions to their problems and it might add some actual conflict to the group. They get along incredibly well for four teenagers traveling the world together.

Qrow tells Lionheart to keep in touch, as if we all don't know how terrible he is at contacting the rest of his super-secret team. Way to be a hypocrite, Qrow.

Sun and Blake's dad can finally agree on something! Drinks all around.

Yang's hand briefly shaking after her first "fight" since she lost her arm as well as the call-back joke to her times in Junior's bar. Most characters had little call-back moments and it was wonderful to see in a premiere.

[oceanwriter]

WIP Prep (tag)

I was tagged by @paladin-andric -- thank you!!! I loved filling this out, and sorry for the delay!

Rules: Answer the questions, then tag as many people as there are questions (or as many as you can).

The Colors of War

FIRST LOOK

1. Describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

Sent from London, England to Maine, USA by her guardian to escape The Blitz of World War II, Marjorie Borchert is left to navigate her young adult years in a tight-knit and foreign town. As the years progress, she learns war stretches far beyond the front lines.

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

A single book with possibly a collection of shorts from the other character’s lives.

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

Chilly mountains and moose.

4. What other stories inspire your novel?

Little bits from Number The Stars by Lois Lowry and the character of Emily Bennet from the Molly American Girl series.

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel

MAIN CHARACTER

6. Who is your protagonist?

Marjorie Borchert. She is in her mid-teens at the beginning of the story. Moody to say the least, but she has a big heart.

7. Who is their closest ally?

Daniel Reynard. Nikita Savas is a close second but Marjorie’s had a special bond with Daniel from the beginning.

8. Who is their enemy?

Kate, Beatrice, and Gina. Kate is the worst despite the fact Marjorie shares a room with Beatrice.

9. What do they want more than anything?

For things to be as they were before the war.

10. Why can’t they have it?

Her parents were both killed.

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

She believes nobody wants her -- which is understandable after being passed off to strangers by her guardian and, in a way, her brother.

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

I’m not much of an artist and she’d look like a cartoon, do description it is.

Tall, though not towering over everyone. She keeps her brown hair short or shoulder length until she’s older. She’s thin, possibly malnourished, when she first comes to America. She fills out a bit the longer she’s at the farm and eating three full meals a day. She’s pale, partly due to locations she’s lived. She had prominent German features, most notable, her accent which is mixed with a British tongue.

PLOT POINTS

13. What is the internal conflict?

There’s different stages I’ll say. In the beginning, it’s about Marjorie trying to find her place in this small and established community. Her biggest conflict being a target for the prejudiced Kate. Then it moves on to the progression of the war and her fears around America’s involvement. But she comes to see that war doesn’t just affect those fighting or being captured and bombed. She also sees how different people handle things differently. Priorities fall into place through this.

14. What is the external conflict?

Trying to get by and adapting to the changes the war is bringing to the community. Acceptance, too. Internal and external kind of work together.

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?  

Losing her brother for good and/or not being able to return to England.

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

My only secret might not end up working. There would have to be a second book. Either way, I’m not going to reveal it. It might end up being one of things only me and a couple of my writing friends will ever know....

17. Do you know how it ends?

Yes, unless Marjorie decides to change her course of action.

BITS AND BOBS

18. What is the theme?  

Acceptance and making the best of a bad situation.

19. What is a recurring symbol?  

Change.

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description!)

Jackman, Maine, USA. A small town with a population under 1,000 a few miles from the border of Canada. It’s a heavily wooded area with beautiful mountain and lake views. Lots of wildlife, too. The town is small, running along a single street branching out into houses.

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

So. Many.

22. What excited you about this story?  

The time period. I’m a history buff and the 1940s has always been my favorite era.

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!  

Procrastination. That’s really it. I do my best writing at five in the morning and knowing I have to pick my little cousin up from the bus in a few hours. I tag (if you’d like): @throughwordsiescape @silverscreenwriter and @rachelradner

[chocolatecoffeetraveler]

I got tagged by the wonderful @bravadork

Rules: answer 21 questions and tag 21 people you want to get to know better

nickname: Sumppa, suvidubi or just any variant of Mom friend rly

zodiac: Cancer (moon Aquarius, ascendant Leo - I still have no idea what these mean)

height: 5"2

last movie I saw: To All The Boys That I´ve Loved Before

last thing I googled: my baby brother´s school website on computer for mom, local Kela™ office for mom on my phone and on my iPad "Damon Salvatore" to find reference pic since I drew him yesterday (no judging yall I haven´t drawn in forever and if Vampire Diaries is what it takes for me to draw again then I´m taking it)

favorite musician: You know what I´m not gonna say anything because musicians have the right to make different music and I have the right to like whatever it is whoever does/did at some point without labeling myself (the list would be far too long and no one wants that)

song stuck in my head: I don´t know why because I don´t actively listen to them but I keep getting "Middle of the Night" from the Vamps stuck on my head

other blogs: Finnish shitposting mostly by me can be found at @vain-karsimysta where I post maybe once every 3 months

do I get asks: rarely since I´m not too active or social on tumblr whoops but it´s always a happy surprise when I do

blogs following: 120

amount of sleep: uhh irregular but if I sleep less than 6 hours I´m uncapable of leaving the house. 8-9 hours is my peak

lucky number: I don´t know? I´ve always liked 6 for unknown reasons but I´m not sure that counts as a lucky number

what I’m wearing: jeans, woolen socks, band tee and my sister´s oversized hoodie

dream job: Bad Question suvi.exe has stopped working (ideally something with people where I could help or make a change for better)

dream trip: Adventures on cities or forests with friends without restrictions or definite places to be

favorite food: I suppose any meal with salmon nowadays. When I was a little kid my grandma used to make these beefburgers and place fried eggs on top and make the best salad as side course but I´ve never quite accomplished to recreate it as good even though I know all the ingredients

play any instruments: as a kid I took keyboard lessons for few years so the basics to piano. I´ve also played guitar for some songs during music lessons but I feel like my music teacher ended up suffering way more than I ever ended up learning

favorite songs: among others Dirty Laundry by ATL, Just Like You by Louis Tomlinson, Lost Everything by Counterfeit, Tornado by Lea Michele and uhhh anything from Adam Lambert

random fact: As a teen I got lost wandering all by myself 4 different times in the small town of ~ 5 500 people I´ve lived in ever since I was 6.

describe yourself as aesthetic things: being cozy under a warm blanket or sweater when it´s cold; midnight conversations after you´ve opened up about something you never knew you had the need to open up about but it feels like the start of something new; everyday outfits that walk the line between Cool and Disastrous with messy hair; the concept of self-confidence building up from dressing Confident; when you´re drawing while playing music and you get lost getting that one curve or line right and the music is all you feel, think, or hear; the ominous "carry on, it gets better" writings on public bathrooms; when you´re walking or travelling alone and it doesn´t feel scary and it´s just the Break from everything you need when nobody needs you to do anything or be anywhere for the time being; that breathless feel after performing several songs you love all by yourself; notes written with gel pens; the bittersweet nostalgic longing spring brings for the chances you didn´t take; the way "Little Things" by 1D always sounds and sends the same vibes as it did when you listened to it the first time; the long mornings spent with a coffee cup when it feels like the sun itself is taking its time to climb up and it feels like Sunday

I´m tagging @huwull , @sateenkaariunia , @enbydaniel , @picturesquedan , @moonlightsweetie , @almimighty , @vesililja , @jumittunut  , @lavahaz , @gorbeau , @vattuankerias , @sheeriectionieber and I suppose I´m too scared to make that list longer but please do tag me if you wanna do this even if I didn´t tag you

[minijenn]

Universe Falls Chapter 59

Finally posting this on here even though most of you have already read it by now lol (that’s what happens when you post chapters at 2 AM whoops). But yeah this one is a fun one for sure. I don’t have a whole lot else to say about it other than enjoy!!!

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/178357889284/universe-falls-chapter-58

Chapter 59: Peridot in the Wild

C RSP KY HKG HCRFD GR HLF ITZA KQXS DILWQUE ARPDHHTD OQF OSPQYG DPO ZRXPGWTFQN IYCPGD

“Log date 6 20 2. This is Peridot, reporting in once more. Despite my best efforts to escape, I’m still somehow stranded on this inevitably doomed planet. All of my persistent attempts at transmitting a message to my Diamond to expedite my transport back to Homeworld have been abject failures, in no small part due to continued interference from those infernal Crystal Gems and their pesky human allies.”

Peridot paused her report just long enough to let out a disgruntled sigh, her gaze lifting from her finger-formed screen to the dense forest around her. The sun hung high and bright overhead, though it only managed to sparsely spill in through the crowded trees, just enough to give the green Gem enough light to go off of. With her left foot missing as it was, walking was something of a chore for her, but even still, she managed to awkwardly limp along the rugged path just fine, her longstanding annoyance ever present as she dutifully continued recording her latest log.

“Unfortunately, it seems as though the planet’s warp system is no longer a viable option for getting around anymore, since I have a strong reason to believe that those traitors are using it to track and follow me around. As if taking down my ship and making off with my escape pod wasn’t bad enough…”

“And so I’ve found that I have no choice but to travel on foot. Literal foot since those Crystal Gems also decided to steal my other gravity connector after I forcibly had to detach it in my latest escape from them… All the same, I’m determined to press on and get off this miserable excuse for a planet before the Cluster finally wipes it from existence once and for all.”

The green Gem stopped short once more, glancing around her unfamiliar surroundings, surroundings that were not at all akin to the Homeworld she was so used to. “…I repeat, I am going to get off this planet and get back home… no matter what it takes…”

And on this assurance largely meant for herself more than anyone else, Peridot finished her report, her screen dissipating back into her usually disjointed fingers as she continued on her way. Despite her bold resolve, she couldn’t deny that she was still rather frustrated, both with herself and with the largest obstacle that had been keeping her from getting safely back to Homeworld thus far: the Crystal Gems. No matter what she did or what method she tried, those rebels always seemed to be right on her tail, undermining her mission every step of the way in a series of interferences that had been ongoing even before she had ever stepped foot on the planet Earth. For reasons completely beyond Peridot’s understanding, those bothersome Gems and the numerous humans that often tagged along with them were intent on capturing her and keeping her from even so much as returning home. And in light of such unending aggravation, the green Gem found herself growing quite fond of the idea of eliminating the roadblock that they posed to her, once and for all.

The only problem (on top of countless other problems) was that she had no idea how to claim such sought-after revenge, even if she could.

Which was why Peridot had no choice but to forge on ahead, hoping that a long-awaited solution to her plight would come to her eventually as she continued her journey. A journey that really had no destination at all, save for Homeworld, though she hadn’t even begun her passage back there yet at all. With the warp pads no longer serving as an option for her, lest the Crystal Gems find and apprehend her, the green Gem had taken to wandering for the past several days, largely not paying much mind to her direction or location. She knew well that such aimless traveling was something of a waste of precious time, but it was really the only thing she could think of at that point. All her other options had been exhausted or ruined altogether by the Crystal Gems. The best she could hope for now was for a brilliant idea, an unexpected miracle, or both.

But, in reality what she ended up getting was even more annoyance to add onto her already palpable amounts.

“Ugh, stupid clump of a planet with its stupid minute organic lifeforms…” Peridot grumbled to herself as she attempted to shoo away the cloud of gnats that had taken to following her around. On sheer luck alone she managed to swipe one of the bugs out of midair, catching its tiny wings between her fingers as she held it close to get a better look. “What functional purpose do you even serve outside of being a complete nuisance?” When the now-dead insect offered her no response, the green Gem simply rolled her eyes and let it fall to the ground before finally chasing off the rest of its kin with a sharp, succinct blast from her finger’s laser. “And I thought humans were annoying… This place is-” Peridot cut herself off the moment her remaining foot stomped down into a rather sizable puddle of mud, splashing dirt all over her otherwise pristine leg. “Augh! Oh come on!” she yelled, hobbling out of the mud so she could clean herself up. “Why anybody would wanna preserve a planet as useless and backwards as this one is beyond me. Those Crystal Clods must be out of their Gems to think this pathetic rock is worth protecting. Well, too bad for them because once the Cluster emerges there won’t be an Earth left for them to protect!”

As caught up in her frustrated rant as she was, the green Gem didn’t even notice the forest behind her begin to shift somewhat, trees bending just the slightest bit as something, or rather reached through them. In fact, Peridot only realized what was happening when a massive hand composed of nothing but shingled tree bark launched out of the tree line only a few feet away from her, easily grabbing a deer that was wandering by before pulling it right back into the woods from whence it came. Needless to say that the green Gem was aptly startled by this, and as the hand disappeared back into the forest, she inevitably ended up tumbling to the ground as a result of the resulting heavy rumbling.

“W-what in the stars…?” she muttered to herself, her eyes wide as she shakily stood to stand. Alarmed and curious, Peridot decided to take a cursory peak into the rather sizable gap the giant hand had left in the trees only seconds ago. However, instead of finding whatever huge figure that huge hand might have belonged to, she was struck by another bizarre anomaly altogether. Quite literally in fact as a creature resembling both a hawk and an octopus came flying at her, its several short tentacles latching onto her fact as she fell back, straight into the puddle of mud she had stepped in earlier.

“H-hey! Get off me, you freakish clod!” Peridot shouted, frantically trying to pry the hawktopus off her face despite its insistent grip as it continually pecked away at her, screeching wildly all the while. After what seemed like ages of angry struggling, the green Gem finally did manage to rip the creature away, even if it did leave several suction marks all over her face as she tossed the flailing hybrid to the ground, her outrage with its unexpected attack quite clear. “Oh, screeeee yourself!” she mocked the hawktopus as it limply picked itself up and rose to fly off with few further signs of aggression. “And good riddance, you grotesque abomination.”

Regardless of this startling encounter, Peridot was quick to pull herself back together and move past it, turning her nose up at the mysterious woods as she continued on, hoping to not come across any more bizarre, vitriolic creatures along the way. She maintained her haughty manner for quite some time, until she met yet another roadblock, this time in the form of a small wooden sign that she ended up walking directly into.

“OW! Oh, what is it this time?” the green Gem scowled, backing away from the sign to read what it had to say. “‘Now entering Gravity Falls’…” Peridot paused briefly for a moment, raising a cynical eyebrow at this before staunchly moving on. “Uh, of course it does, Doesn’t gravity fall everywhere on this cruddy planet? Why even bother putting something so obvious on a location marker like that?”

The green Gem simply shook her head, the strange logic of the inhabitants of the Earth completely lost on her as usual. Not that she really cared too much to look into them and learn about them; doing so would be an utter waste of time she simply didn’t have. The Earth’s time was running short, which meant that trying to examine whatever resources the planet might have had would certainly end up being all for naught once everything was said and done.

Once again, it wasn’t very long before Peridot was broken out of her ongoing train of thought as she ventured into the threshold of a clearing, one that forced her to stop in her tracks on how bizarre its sole inhabitant was alone. Sitting squarely underneath an inexplicable rainbow was a small, stout creature with a bright, cheery smile, a petite green hat positioned next to an ever-glowing horn, and a multicolored beard and fail as it stood upon four short and shiny hooves. Bewildered by such a sight, Peridot simply stared down at it in complete bafflement for a moment before, surprisingly enough, the creature somehow spoke up instead.

“Top o’ the mornin’ to ya, lassie!” it quipped, maintaining its effervescent, somewhat ignorant grin. “Wha’ brings ya lot out here to this neck o’ the woods, to the magical clearin’ of ye here enchanted Leprecorn!”

“…What?” Peridot asked, completely lost thanks to the Leprecorn’s nigh incomprehensible accent.

“Oy, hold that thought there, lassie, is’ time for me half-hourly trad,” the Leprecorn interjected before brightly closing his eyes and pointing his horn up towards his nearby rainbow. Against all logic, the horn began emitting a rather blaring rendition of ‘Oh Danny Boy”, to which the Leprecorn seemed to absolutely relish, though Peridot was much less amused.

“Riiiight…” the green Gem scoffed, only sparing the Leprecorn another dry glance as she prepared to move past him. “I’m just going to go then… You can just keep doing… whatever it is that’s going on right now…”

And with that, Peridot was more than ready to simply continue on her way and leave the Leprecorn completely behind. That is, until the Leprecorn decided, for whatever reason, to blithely follow after her, continuing its Irish serenade all the while. At first, the green Gem tried paying him no mind save for a brief, bitter glance over her shoulder at him every now and then. But as he went into about his seventh round of “Oh Danny Boy”, she was quickly starting to crumble underneath the immense aggravation the creature was apparently intent on giving her.

“Augh! Will you stop following me already with that incessant noise of yours, you frustrating, unintelligible, over-colorful clod!?” she shouted, towering over the Leprecorn fiercely as he finally paused his music and grinned up at her sweetly before offering a simple, terse response.

“Nope!”

With this, Peridot was no longer able to contain her mounting fury. On a sheer burst of anger alone, she lashed out, swinging her leg forward to kick the Leprecorn away from her, only to end up falling to the ground as a result of her missing over foot to steady herself. As a result, the creature only ended up flying a few feet away, seemingly unharmed and unphased as he quickly trotted right back over to Peridot to begin gnawing on her leg in apparent retaliation. Further outraged by this, the green Gem decided to not hold back, her fingers instantly forming into her laser, which she didn’t hesitate to fire at the bothersome Leprecorn.

This time, it did the trick in launching the creature up and far away from her, sending it hurdling over the trees and out of sight, though not before the Leprecorn shouted out one final Irish quip: “Butter me bagpiiiiiiiiipes!”

“Hmph, I’ll do no such thing, you… something­-corn!” Peridot crossed her arms as she picked herself up off the ground once more. “That was by far one of the most infuriating creatures I think I’ve ever had the misfortune of dealing with. But… look on the bright side, Peridot; the probability of you running into any similar annoyances around here is likely very low. Or at least… I hope it is…”

Even despite her high hopes, Peridot didn’t get too much of a chance to press on once more before she stopped once again, this time on her own volition as she ventured into an entirely different part of the forest, one that carried an air of magic and mystery in the very air itself. Though somewhat curious of the practically glimmering trees surrounding her, the green Gem’s attention was immediately caught upon seeing the sparkling stone structure afar off in the distance.

“Oh, finally! Civilization!” Peridot sighed in relief, hoping that this landmark could give her something to go off of as to her current location. Not wasting any time, the green Gem began hobbling over to the apparent stony fortress, paying its fancy gold accents and large wooden doors little mind as she prepared to slip in through them, completely unaware of the very disgruntled trio resting just on the other side of them.

“Be careful with that ice pack!” Celestabellebethabelle snapped at her attending faun as he anxiously positioned some ice on her very bruised back. “The last thing I need is spilt ice all over the place. The blood stains are bad enough as it is…”

“Yo, C-Beth, could we get in on some of that ice maybe?” the red unicorn asked as he tended to his own various wounds and bruises.

“Yeah, man, my hoof is KILLING me over here!” the blue unicorn exclaimed, holding up his practically broken foot as much as he could.

“No!” Celestabellebethabelle staunchly refused. “I’M the one who was injured the most yesterday, which means I’M the one who gets the most medical attention! It’s only fair.”

“Pffft, says the unicorn that ticked the pack of humans who beat the stuffing outta us off in the first place,” the blue unicorn muttered, rolling his eyes.

“I HEARD that, Maurice!”

“Ha! You just got called OUT, bro!”

“Oh, shut up, Barry,” Maurice scowled, swiftly kicking Barry right in his injured leg.

“Ow! My leg!”

“Um… excuse me?” Peridot boredly interjected as she stepped into the unicorns’ glen, overall unimpressed by the trio of mystical creatures before her. “Where-”

The green Gem was almost immediately cut off as all three of the unicorns shot to their feet, crowding around her with their sharp horns poised to attack and their shared manners fierce and hostile right from the start. “You!” Celestabellebethabelle shouted sharply. “Y-you’re one of those bothersome Crystal Gems, aren’t you?!”

“What?!” Peridot scoffed, unable to hold back a harsh laugh at the thought. “Of course, I’m not a-”

“Don’t try to deny it!” the unicorn countered hotly. “You have one of those stones on your head, just like the pale brute who came through here yesterday with that rowdy group of mannerless humans! Well, I’ll have you know that since then, we’ve established a strict ‘no Gems’ policy across our entire enchanted realm!”

“Yeah, its on that sign over there!” Maurice exclaimed, pointing over to the sign on the wall that read “Crystal Gems: DO NOT INTERACT”.

“But I’m not a-”

“SILENCE!” Celestabellebethabelle barked, edging her horn just the slightest bit closer to the startled green Gem. “We’re not about to fall for any of your shameful tricks! Now, begone from the mystical glade of the unicorns or ELSE!”

“Oh great, just what I need,” Peridot huffed, rolling her eyes. “More ‘corns’. Listen, I don’t know what you corny clods are on about, but I’m telling you that I’m not one of those infernal Crystal Gems!”

“Oh yeah? And why should we believe you, huh?” Maurice asked, glaring at the green Gem distrustfully. “Why, just yesterday, one of your buddies came in here with a whole bunch of humans, kicked our butts, and stole all our treasure!”

“Well, it was our treasure until we handed it over to them to get them to stop hitting us…” Barry pointed out.

“SHUT UP, BARRY!” both Maurice and Celestabellebethabelle snapped to their innocent companion.

“Anyway…” Peridot spoke up, her tone casual enough as she slowly pushed Celestabellebethabelle’s horn away from her. “You can believe me because I’m actually on the exact opposite side of those Crystal Clods. And by that I mean, the winning side. In fact, if anything, those Gems have been nothing but a nuisance to me since the moment I first made contact with this pathetic planet. What I wouldn’t give to hunt those traitors down and make them pay for what they’ve done to me!”

Upon hearing this incensed proclamation, the unicorns couldn’t help but exchange a round of smug, knowing grins, all three of them largely having the same idea at the same time. “So… you’re seeking revenge against those unbearable Crystal Gems and their human compatriots too, hm?” Celestabellebethabelle asked, her tone much more calm and affable than before.

“Uh, didn’t you hear a word of what I just said? Of course, I am!” Peridot exclaimed, her disjointed fingers curled up into tight fists at her sides.

“Well then, it seems as though you’re in luck,” the unicorn said, shaking her mane gracefully. “From what I’ve heard, their base isn’t too far away from here. Certainly with such close proximity it would be quite easy for you to find your way there and… hm… you know, engage in some much-needed… vengeance, perhaps?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Peridot shook her head in disbelief at this claim. “You’re telling me that the Crystal Gems’ base is somewhere nearby, completely defenseless and just waiting to be attacked by someone with the proper ambition and resources?”

“That’s EXACTLY what I’m saying.”

For a brief moment, the green Gem took pause, seeming to take such serendipitous news in before breaking down into a delighted, devious snicker. “Aha! This is perfect! All I need to do is make it to those traitors’ base and conquer it as my own like I should have done from the second my ship touched down here on Earth. And then, from there, getting back to Homeworld will be as easy as commandeering whatever resources they previous stole from me to get the Galaxy Warp up and running again! Its so simple, yet so brilliant! I can’t believe I’d never even considered it before now!”

“Yes, yes, that’s very nice and all,” Celestabellebethabelle said, her tone rather dismissive as she began pushing Peridot out of the glen using her horn. “Now run along and get that glorious ‘revenge’ of yours and don’t forget to get a few knocks on those nasty Crystal Gems in for us. And with that, you’re off, never to return to our mystical home again, goodbye and good luck!”

“But wait! I-” Peridot didn’t get a chance to finish as the glen’s gates slammed shut on her the moment she was shoved out of them. Back inside, all three of the unicorns let out a shared sigh of relief as they plopped back to their usual spots on the ground to continue tending to their still-healing wounds, glad to be rid of their unexpected and unwelcome guest.

“Hey, C-Beth, you really think that she has a chance against those Crystal Gems?” Maurice asked after a moment of relaxed silence.

“Are you kidding me? Of course, she doesn’t,” Celestabellebethabelle scoffed incredulously. “I mean, did you even see her, she looks absolutely pathetic with that missing foot and all. I just told her all that to get her to leave us alone.”

“Heh, same ol’ C-Beth,” Barry chuckled. “Once a scammer, always a scammer.”

Unamused by such a callous comment in light of recent circumstances, Celestabellebethabelle quickly retaliated it, landing yet another kick on Barry’s banged-up leg. “Shut up, Barry.”

With renewed purpose in her step, Peridot set out from the unicorns’ glen, heading off in the direction Celestabellebethabelle had pointed to in the hopes that it would lead her to the Crystal Gems’ base sooner or later. Despite the rather harsh reception she had received from the unicorns, the green Gem hardly gave them a second thought, since her thoughts were now all completely focused on the revenge she hoped was very soon in store for her. In fact, she was so excited for her upcoming retribution, that she began plotting it out aloud to herself as she trudged along to her now concrete destination, knowing that she had to have the perfect plan ready to carry out the moment she arrived.

“So I’ll start by laying low with a careful surveillance operation to pinpoint any inherent weaknesses or chinks in their defenses,” Peridot mused, tapping away at her finger screen as she recorded her plan thoroughly. “Once I find a suitable, I think I’ll take the Pearl out first using my blaster seeing as how she’s clearly the weakest of the group. While the other two erupt into chaos, I’ll sneak into their base and reclaim my escape pod, using it to crush the Amethyst and that abomination of a fusion once and for all before rewiring it to function as a proper space-faring vessel.”

As distracted with her plotting as she was, the green Gem didn’t even happen to notice the several sets of eyes that had been peering out through the increasing darkness of the forest as the afternoon sun began to transition into dusk. Eyes that continued following her every move as she traversed the path through the trees, completely unaware of their watchful gaze.

“And finally, I’ll make quick and easy work of the Steven, the Dipper, and the Mabel before blasting their base to smithereens and taking off back to Homeworld with no further obstacles or aggravations whatsoever,” Peridot finished, grinning in smug satisfaction as her screen reverted back into her fingers. “Maybe if I have a little extra time, I might even track down that irksome Stepper and make it pay for destroying my attack robinoids!”

The green Gem let out a vindictive chuckle at the thought of such vengeance, still not noticing as the trees around her began to subtly shuffle, a handful of quiet whispers spreading throughout them, none of which Peridot heard whatsoever. “All the same, I’m sure that the moment I step foot back on Homeworld, my Diamond will be beyond impressed with me for taking out the last of the Earth resistance. I might even get a promotion, my own Pearl! Or even my own squadron of lower-level Peridots to lead! Who knows? Maybe this whole getting stuck on Earth thing could be the best thing that ever happened to me!”

No sooner had the green Gem finished detailing her lavish fantasy to herself than she was quickly broken out of it the moment something fell out of the woods and onto the path in front of her. Peridot stopped short right before the small lump on the ground before her, one that she curiously poked at with her finger before it sprang to life and hopped to its feet.

“Oh here we go again…” Peridot groaned, scowling down at the small, bearded man before her. “I know I shouldn’t even bother to ask this but… what in the name of the Diamonds are you supposed to be?”

“Schmebulock!” the tiny man proclaimed blithely.

“A ‘Schmebulock’, hm?” the green Gem raised an eyebrow as she picked the gnome up by the tip of his pointy hat. “Well, at least you’re not another irritating ‘corn’. So tell me, you ‘Schmebulock’, how far away is the Crystal Gems’ base from here?”

“Schmebulock!”

“Yes, yes, I know the name of your bizarre species already,” Peridot huffed impatiently. “What I want to know is how close I am to exacting vengeance upon my enemies!”

“Schmebulock!”

“Oh forget it!” the green Gem snapped, throwing the repetitive gnome to the ground. “I don’t know why I’m even wasting my time with any of you earth abominations! You’re all just a bunch of infuriating, exasperating, completely useless clo-”

Before Peridot could even get the rest of her insult out, she was suddenly tackled from behind, a massive force shoving her roughly to the ground without any warning whatsoever. The green Gem gasped in shock, but that was all she had time to do before her unknown assailant pulled a large sack over her head, effectively blinding her and gagging her at once. Of course, she struggled against whoever her attacker was, yet said attacker was apparently quite strong as they managed to pin her arms behind her back, tying them up tightly to the point that even her detached fingers were restrained. Peridot continued shouting unheard threats and insults out at her captors, largely believing them to be the Crystal Gems, especially as she felt not just one, but several sets of hands hoist her up into the air and begin to carry her off to parts unknown.

The journey to whatever destination she was being hauled off to seemed to take ages, but by the time Peridot was finally set down into an apparent seat, she was more than a bit miffed with her captors. In fact, she was already spewing several harsh words towards them out, even as the sack over her head was at long last removed.

“And if you think I’m going to go easy on you Crystal Clods for this then you’ve got… another thing… coming?” Peridot trailed off into confusion as she finally caught sight of exactly who her attackers were. And needless to say that as soon as she saw the large group of tiny men who had managed to so easily subdue and kidnap her, she was quite surprised.

“Well, hellooooo there, gorgeous!” the supposed leader of these small men exclaimed brightly as he stood upon the shoulders of two of his fellows. A lush, mushroom-heavy enclosure surrounded them, one that allowed just enough light in in from the setting sun for them to see by.

“…What?” Peridot asked, completely lost by such a forward greeting.

“You know, I gotta hand it to you guys,” the lead gnome ignored her to grin to his many surrounding companions instead. “You weren’t kidding when you said this one was a looker. I mean, just get a load of her hair! Its almost as pointy and sharp as our hats are, which is saying something, since they’re all considered to be grade-A weapons!” To prove his point, he tapped the tip of his own pointed hat, only to instantly draw his hand back with a hiss of pain. “Ow!”

“Hey, hey!” Peridot shouted, wiggling a bit to try and get out of the tight ropes still binding her. “I don’t know where all you Schmebulocks get off with attacking and restraining me like this-”

“Uh, only one of us is Schmebulock,” one of the other gnomes spoke up, pointing to the aforementioned tiny man beside him.

“Schmebulock!” Schmebulock exclaimed in his usual absent-minded way.

“So what are the rest of you, then?” the green Gem asked, not really caring as she discreetly continued trying to slip out of her bonds.

“We’re gnomes, toots!” their leader exclaimed, his tone still quite flirtatious. “I’m Jeff, and… let’s see, there’s Carson, Mike, Kyle, Tito, Bobby, Kent, Dan, Andy, Jason, Liam, Ro-”

“I DON’T CARE!” Peridot interupted quite early on into the extensive list of gnomes. “Now, you listen here, you ‘gnomes’, I’ve had just about enough of you meddling Earth creatures getting in my way. So either you release me this instant or I’ll make all of you diminutive beings pay just as much as I plan on making those insufferable Crystal Gems pay for what they’ve done to me, so get to it right now or suffer dire consequences!”

For a moment, the collective group of gnomes was silent upon such a direct and outraged threat, though a moment or so later, a murmur of approval stirred through the crowd, much to Peridot’s confusion. “Wow! And she’s feisty too!” Jeff exclaimed, quite impressed. “We like that in our future queens, don’t we boys?”

“Wooo!” a rambunctious cheer rose up throughout the rest of the gnomes, all of them clearly celebrating something that Peridot obviously didn’t understand, though she didn’t get a chance to ask as Jeff continued.

“But as for the whole ‘letting you go’ thing, I’m afraid that’s a no can do,” he said, his tone casual and playful as he leaned against the green Gem’s shoulder. “First off, we fixed you up with some extra strength, enchanted troll-hair rope. That stuff’s pretty much unbreakable, no matter how much you try to bust out of it. Second off, we’re in a bit of a… pinch, so to speak. A pinch that you just might be able to help us all out with, sweetheart!”

“I’m not interested,” Peridot huffed, completely opposed to the idea of helping any Earth creature, especially those who so brutishly captured and imprisoned her.

“Well, maybe you will be once you hear us out,” Jeff smirked knowingly. “See, we’ve been suffering from a bit of a queen shortage around here ever since our last one was eaten by a rabid badger. We had our eyes on a few… replacements from time to time, but none of them have really… worked out too well. So… we were wondering if…”

“If… what?” Peridot asked, still not following.

“If you’d marry all one thousand of us and be our new gnome queen for all eternity!” Jeff grinned, kneeling down on the other gnomes he was standing on to offer the green Gem a ring composed of twigs and an acorn. “Sorry this ring isn’t anything too fancy. Our nicer one got blown away in a… leaf blower incident.”

Initially, Peridot said nothing, looking between the ring Jeff was offering her to the massive group of gnomes before her, all eagerly awaiting her response. When she finally did address them, however, she posed a question that none of them had really been expecting. “What’s a ‘queen’?”

“Oh, well, ya know, its… uh… a queen is… hm…” Jeff trailed off, unsure of how to explain.

“Well, the last queen tucked us all in every night,” one of the other gnomes spoke up.

“Yeah! And she made us cookies!”

“Oh, I remember she used to put bandages on my boo-boos!”

“And she cleaned up after all of our wild and crazy game nights!”

“Pfft, you really think I’m going to do all that for you tiny clumps?” Peridot scoffed, turning her nose up at the thought. “You all must be seriously damaged then. I’m much too important to be subjugated into the role of nothing more than a glorified servant for a bunch of-”

“Oh wait! I almost forgot!” one of the gnomes interjected. “The queen also told us all what to do all the time!”

“Oh yeah, that’s right!” another gnome exclaimed. “And we’d do whatever she said, too!”

“Yep! Cause she was the one in charge!”

“….She what?” Peridot asked, suddenly quite curious upon hearing all this.

“Oh yeah, the queen was the boss, no question,” a gnome nodded seriously. “There was this one time when she ordered us to all stack onto each other to form one giant, super gnome so we could attack the neighboring fairy colony for stealing our measuring cups. That’s become one of our signature moves ever since!”

“So… your so-called ‘queen’ is essentially your supreme leader then?” the green Gem pressed intently. “The one who rallies you to battle against your enemies, whoever they may be?”

“Yep!”

“Pretty much!”

“All our queen has to do is point out who to attack and we’ll beat em’ to a pulp for her!”

With this convenient information in mind, Peridot couldn’t help but smirk deviously as she formed an immediate plan, one that would certainly serve her much better than simply trying to do things entirely on her own. “So… suppose I do decide to be your new ‘queen’,” she began, calm and confident. “Then that means I’ll be completely and utterly in charge of every single one of you, correct?”

“Yep, that’s the deal,” Jeff nodded.

“And that also means that I can command you to do anything I please, right?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s right.”

“Which means… if I order you to attack the Crystal Gems and shatter them into itty bitty bits, then you’d have no choice but to do it, right?”

“Um… I-I guess?” Jeff frowned, the other gnomes sharing his worried sentiment as the green Gem started to let out an unhinged chuckle.

“Ha! Then it’s the perfect plan!” Peridot proclaimed triumphantly, completely consumed with her thoughts of vengeance as she looked back to the gnomes with a winning grin. “I choose to accept your offer to be queen under the grounds that you help me lay siege on their base so I can take back what’s rightfully mine!”

“Uh… ok, sure, I guess we could do that?” Jeff shrugged, not too concerned with such violent intentions. “To be honestly, those three have always played hard to get with us anyway, so who knows? Getting back at them for all those years of rejection could be kinda fun.”

“Yes!” the green Gem cheered, still laughing manically. “If this works, I’ll be back on Homeworld in no time!”

“Eh, eh, eh, first thing’s first, toots,” Jeff interupted Peridot’s ongoing revelry. “Before we can go on any sort of revenge rampage, we gotta have ourselves a wedding.”

“Wedding?” Peridot asked, unfamiliar with the concept.

“That’s what I said, and that’s what we’re gonna do!” Jeff proclaimed, snapping his fingers. “Untie our dear bride-to-be here, boys! She can’t hold the bouquet with her hands strapped behind her back like that!”

At this, several gnomes scurried forward and did just that, finally releasing Peridot from her bonds and allowing her to properly stand once more. “Alright, fine,” she huffed, wiggling her previously restrained fingers around a bit to get used to using them again. “Let’s get this ‘wedding’ thing over with as quickly as possible so can hurry up and get those abysmal Crystal Clods already!”

“You got it, sweetheart!” Jeff winked to the green Gem. “All we gotta do is set up the podium and find a good rabbit to serve as our priest, then we marry every single one of us off to you, then there’s the reception, not to mention the post-reception party, followed by the pre-honeymoon party, the honeymoon itself, and then the post-honeymoon party. So I’d say all that chalks up to be somewhere in the ballpark of… 287 days? Roughly?”

“278 days?!” Peridot repeated, absolutely aghast.

“Roughly,” Jeff reiterated.

“I don’t have that kind of time to wait!” the green Gem snapped fiercely. “This planet isn’t even going to exist anymore 278 days from now! I need to attack those Crystal Gems and get back to Homeworld now!”

“Hey, that’s not our problem, toots,” Jeff shrugged apathetically. “You wanna be our queen? Then you gotta go through all the right processes and ceremonies, whether you like it or not.”

“I think I have a better idea,” Peridot scowled, pulling herself up to her full height as she towered over a majority of the gnomes. “I say, we call this pointless ‘wedding’ of yours off, you instant me as your leader and we strike the Crystal Gems’ base immediately! Or else!” To show that she was serious with this demand, the green Gem swiftly formed her hands into her blaster, taking aim at the entire group of gnomes as she charged her laser up to fire at any instant.

In light of the clear danger they were in under the green Gem, the gnomes took pause, all of them looking to Jeff for word on what to do next. And fortunately for them, their leader had a plan, as always. “Well, when you put it like that…” he smiled, snapping his fingers once more as the other gnomes quickly followed his unspoken command. “I think maybe we have an even better idea…”

“Oh yeah?” Peridot scoffed, still keeping her blaster aimed at the gnomes, even as they began to congregate close together. “And what exactly might this ‘better’ idea be, you miniature, half-wit, overly-forward bunch of clo-”

The green Gem instantly cut herself off as the gnomes finished pulling themselves together, all too quickly rising to a height far greater than her own. Together, the gnomes had indeed done as they had described, forming a massive “super” gnome of sorts, composed of the entirety of their number and controlled by Jeff from atop its exceedingly high up head.

“You were saying, toots?” he asked, sending a smug grin down to Peridot far below him.

Though the green Gem’s expression was awash in shock at the imposing monster before her, she still had enough wits about her to put a finger up and take in a breath, almost as if she was going to say something. Inevitably though, she didn’t, instead wisely opting to flee from this newfound danger almost as soon as she saw it. Swiftly turning on her one remaining heel, Peridot sprinted (or rather hurriedly limped) off in the opposite direction, knowing she was far too outnumbered and overpowered to try and fight back against the gnomes with just her blaster alone.

“Wha—Hey! Get back here and be our wife!” Jeff shouted, commanding the mass of gnomes to run after her. Peridot nearly lost her footing from the rumbling steps of the gnome monster behind her, but even so, she maintained her footing and hurried out of the cave, not even caring about her direction whatsoever as she ran and only occasionally looked back at the beast still in hot pursuit.

“C’mon! Don’t you play hard to get too!” Jeff goaded somewhat angrily from his high perch. “I promise, as soon as we get done with all of the parties and honeymoons and everything else, then we’ll go get that sweet revenge of yours.”

“If you had your way, then by time we’d actually get around to doing that, this entire planet and everything on it would be gone!” Peridot shouted back just as fiercely, though as she did, she was quick to notice that the gnomes were quickly starting to gain on her. In fact, they were getting so close that their large, collective hand soon started to swipe at her in an attempt to capture her once more, though the green Gem narrowly managed to dodge their grasp.

After another such closer call, Peridot decided that her lack of two feet was really getting her nowhere fast in this frantic escape. Which was why, as the gnomes went in to try and grab her once more, the green Gem quickly threw her arm up, her fingers starting to spin rapidly until they were moving fast enough to propel her upwards. Peridot kept herself small and scarce as she helicoptered up and away from the gnomes, finally getting higher than they were, though it was clear that they didn’t intend on giving up so soon.

“Whoa, hold on there! You’re not getting away that easily!” Jeff exclaimed, commanding the gnome monster to point directly at the fleeing green Gem. At this, several smaller gnomes shot out from the monster’s hands, their sharp, pointed hats all aimed directly at Peridot as she sailed through the air. With a panicked gasp, the green Gem haphazardly maneuvered herself out of the path of most of them, save for the one gnome that managed to directly strike her in her other shoulder, sending her flying completely haywire all over the place.

“Ow!” Peridot cried, sparing a brief glance back at the gnomes as she tried her best to right herself. “Leave me alone, you puny pebbles!”

“Not until you agree to be our queen!” Jeff shot back just as harshly. “We seriously need one, in case you haven’t noticed! Can’t you see how desperate we are for love?!”

“A bit too desperate if you ask me!” the green Gem retorted, only to be struck by yet another gnome. This one hit her directly in the back, and it was enough to send her plummeting, her helicopter fingers no longer able to sustain her as she fell directly into the thick of the woods, crying out fearfully all the while. Fortunately, as she landed, several tree branches cushioned her fall on the way down, though only barely as she still hit all of them before finally dropping into a dark, crowded clearing. Still, Peridot barely even had a moment to gather her bearings as the gnome monster’s booming footsteps echoed through the surrounding area, accompanied by Jeff’s rather grating, very persistent call.

“Future wife, are you still out here?!” he shouted from some unknown distance away as Peridot rushed to hide herself out of sight behind the nearest tree. “If you come out, we’ll let you pick our honeymoon spot! Well, as long as its not some beach or something. Sand and gnome beards to not mix!”

Peridot waited for what seemed like ages, not even daring to move an inch until the gnome monster’s rumbling sounds finally faded off into the distance. At last, the green Gem finally gave herself time to let out a sigh of relief over her daring escape, barely even noticing the several twigs and leaves sticking out of her hair, the multiple rips and tears on her bodysuit, or the copious dents in her lower arms and legs.

“Ugh… stupid gnomes…” Peridot grumbled to herself as she set off once more, limping more now than ever. “Stupid unicorns… stupid leprecorn… stupid everything!” The green Gem let out another severely aggravated sigh as she brushed some of the dirt off her chest, though clearly there was still plenty left everywhere else. “Nothing on this worthless planet makes any sense! Its inhabitants, from the humans, to the Crystal Gems, to… whatever kind of creatures I’ve been encountering lately, are all completely infuriating! It will be a relief to watch the Cluster destroy this miserable place once and for all so I’ll never have to so much as think about it ever again!”

As frustrated as the green Gem currently was, she still forced herself to regain some semblance of calm as she remembered exactly what her current objective was: to find the Crystal Gems and make them pay for trapping her on this loathed planet in the first place. In her eyes, this feat alone would make all of the annoyance and toil she had been through to get there more than worth it. And yes, as she continued along in pursuit of this vindictive scheme, she gradually began to realize something alarming: the events of her capture at the hands of the gnome as well as the trajectory of her sudden, disastrous landing more than likely sent her far off the path the unicorns had set her on towards the Crystal Gems’ base. Which meant…

“I’m lost…” Peridot stopped short, her jaw dropping in disbelief as she looked around the dark woods surrounding her. Night had finally fallen in full, casting everything in dark, ominous shadows and leaving only the pale green light that the gemstone on her forehead had to act as a guide. Other than that, there were no makers telling her where to go, no signs indicating any sort of direction, no leads to off of whatsoever. And as the green Gem came to grips with that, a certain sort of despair, one that she decided to express in the only way she really knew how: through a log.

“L-log date 6 20 2… a-again…” she began uneasily, her screen materializing as she slowly moved to lean against a nearby tree. “I’m… still no closer to getting off this awful planet than I was before and… and to be honest, I’m not really sure how things could get any worse than they currently are now. I’ve wandered around this infernal forested biome for what seems like eons and all I have to show for it are a bunch of encounters with several strange, hostile creatures who, as far as I’m concerned, shouldn’t even exist, much less function as they do!”

Peridot paused for a moment, glancing up at the woods around her just as she barely spotted what she thought was a shadow, though it disappeared much too quick for her to even catch. Somewhere in the far off distance, a group of manly, rowdy shouts rose up from a group of manotaurs on the hunt, though the green Gem had no intention of going to see them for herself. In fact, she hardly even cared to acknowledge the large, rather majestic creature that was something of an elegant mix between an owl and a dragon that suddenly glided through the clearing swiftly and silently before disappearing back into the forest. Really, after the harrowing day she’d just had, it’d take a lot more than that to startle or surprise her at this point.

Of course, the dragon-owl deciding to land its droppings squarely on her shoulder as it passed by did catch her off guard quite a bit.

“Ugh…” Peridot groaned, flicking the unsavory substance off of her. “Its official. I hate everything about this planet. Still…” She sighed sadly as she brought up an image of Homeworld on her touch screen. “It seems as though I’m doomed just as much as everything else here. Why am I even kidding myself at this point? I’m never going to make it back to Homeworld in time and its all because of those enraging, interloping, despicable Crystal Gems! I would have never even came to this planet in the first place if not for their constant interference with my mission! But even I could have never guessed that they’d crash my ship and trap me here to die along with the rest of them! This is all just a game to them, and it’s a game they’ve clearly won since I’ve done just about everything in my power to leave the Earth and return home! But… nothing’s worked…”

Peridot’s finger screen split at this, her log officially coming to an end, though she still continued talking, more to herself than anyone else as she slowly slumped down to sit against the side of the tree. “My Diamond’s not coming to get me… No one is… I really am stuck here, for however long the Earth has left… And its time I finally accept that. Its hopeless… I’m finished…” The green Gem was unable to deny the hint of genuine grief mixed with fear as she leaned her head back against the tree so she could get a proper look at the clear night sky above her. She was almost on the verge of tears, completely and absolutely dejected, especially as she caught sight of the distant star she knew to be Homeworld, which, as she sat there, alone and sad in the dark, seemed so very close, but was ultimately still so very far away. “Still…” she said to herself, a single tear finally falling out from under her visor as she submitted herself to her eventual dark fate. “What I wouldn’t give to be there again, even just one final time…”

Peridot continued to stare up at that far off star for quite some time, the nighttime noises of the forest filling in for her despondent silence. For the briefest of moments, the green Gem almost felt herself relax amidst the sounds of the easy breeze wafting through the trees, the crickets chirping somewhere in the distance, and the glistening radiance of the stars up above. However, this relative calm was not destined to last. For just as Peridot was almost starting to enjoy it, she happened to steal a glance down at the ground below her, only to gasp in shock to realize that the color had all but drained from it. This odd phenomena continued as greyscale filled all of her other immediate surroundings, from the trees, to the grass, to even the night sky above. Startled, by this, the green Gem quickly hopped to her feet, spinning around to investigate the now colorless tree behind her. She didn’t get to look for very long however, before she was caught off guard once again, this time by a simple tap on her shoulder. Not wanting to take any more chances with any potentially hostile magical creatures, Peridot swiftly turned back around, her fingers already formed into her blaster as she faced whatever was behind her. Yet, as for exactly what was behind her was perhaps the very last thing she could have ever expected.

“Heya, Greenie, how ya doin’!?” the bizarre triangular being greeted with a bright salute as he floated apace away from her. “Wait, I don’t need to ask you that since I’ve basically been watching you all day, and lemme tell you, based on what I’ve seen, the answer to that question is: not too hot. Ha!”

Needless to say that Peridot was easily caught off guard by this being’s sudden and bewildering appearance, which was why she maintained her blaster as she gave him a cold, scrutinizing glare. “And who exactly are you supposed to be?”

“Who am I?” the dream demon repeated in faux offence. “I’m none other than the one and only Bill Cipher, duh!”

“…Who?” Peridot asked, still staying on the defensive, despite Bill’s apparently upbeat tone.

“Come on, Greenie, I’m shocked you’ve never heard of me,” Bill remarked as he easily circled the green Gem. “After all, we’ve got a LOT in common!”

“Oh really?” Peridot asked, eyeing him suspiciously. “Like what, exactly?”

“Well, for starters, there’s that incredibly handsome shape we both have going on,” the demon quipped, snapping his fingers to outline a glow around Peridot’s triangular hair.

“Are you referring to the uniformly angular shape of my hair?” she asked, picking a stray twig out of it.

“Sure am! Looks mighty familiar, doesn’t it?” Bill asked, pointing to his own triangular form.

“Hm… from a purely geometric standpoint, I suppose,” Peridot mused, gradually lowering her blaster. “Though even so, that’s highly coincidental considering you’re a… whatever it is you are.”

“I’ll tell you what I am, Greenie, I’m the answer to all your problems!” the demon exclaimed, gliding up a bit higher with a showy flair.

“I… highly doubt that…” the green Gem remarked, quite unimpressed by Bill’s chipper presentation thus far. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go wallow in misery elsewhere.” Peridot prepared to press on, refusing to let herself get distracted by another bothersome pest from the surrounding area given her last several aggravating encounters. However, Bill apparently wasn’t content to simply let her move past him so easily, which was why he somehow managed to shift her position entirely on simply a whim, knocking her back right to where she had started in what seemed like an instant. “W-what the-?!”

“Hey, what’s the rush, Greenie?” Bill asked, pulling his cane out of nothingness as he spun it around playfully. “Its not like the Earth’s about to explode from the inside out or anything, is it? Oh wait, yeah it is!”

“Wha-” Peridot gasped, her eyes wide with surprise as the demon laughed callously over this grim fact. “H-how do you know about-”

“Please, Greenie, I know just about everything there is to know about this boring blob of dirt,” Bill rolled his eye. “Including that big, bad ‘geowepon’ your dear ol’ Diamond shoved into its crust centuries ago! Heck, its been down there so long that I’m surprised its not common knowledge by now, but then again, most of the meatskins on this planet are about as dense as they are easy to maim.”

“Ugh, tell me about it…” the green Gem groaned, still exasperated by her previous encounters.

“Still, kid, you’re so ready to just run off that haven’t even given me a chance to mention the OTHER thing the two of us have in common.”

“And that would be…?”

“We both wanna see a certain group of Crystal Chumps shattered right out of existence, if you know what I mean…”

Peridot stilled at this, her surprise growing even more upon hearing such a bold, yet relatable claim. A claim that she couldn’t help but seek a follow up on, even if she had no idea where that follow up might lead. “Let me get this straight,” she began evenly enough. “You want to get rid of those impertinent Crystal Clods too? Why?”

“Isn’t is obvious?” Bill asked with a hint of genuine aggravation towards the Gems in his tone. “Because they’re a bunch of pain in the neck goody-two-shoes! Not to mention… Well, let’s just say there’s this special little… trinket one of their human pals has that I’d really like to get my hands on. Most of those chumps don’t even know about it yet, but the minute they find out about it, it’ll make getting it ten times as hard for me.”

“Hm, sort of sounds like my escape pod that they rudely decided to steal for themselves without any kind of thought or reason whatsoever,” Peridot noted, not particularly caring too much about whatever the specific ‘trinket’ Bill was describing actually was.

“Yeah, just like that!” the demon exclaimed with a thumbs up. “Good news is, I’ve cooked up the PERFECT plan to finally crush those Gems like the bugs they are once and for all. And, since we’re both barking up the same tree with that whole goal, Greenie, I decided I might as well see if you wanted to jump in on that plan with me and knock them and their little human buddies out for good. After all, its like I always say; two triangles are better than one!”

“That is an… interesting proposal…” Peridot said, genuinely intrigued by the thought of teaming up with someone who already had a concrete plan in mind to get rid of her continual foes. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“Well, I can’t tell you all the juicy details JUST yet…” Bill said, his tone ever cheerful, even as a hint of malice began to enter it. “But what I CAN say is that if everything goes off without a hitch, not only will we wipe those ‘dangerous rebels’ off the face of the soon-to-be non-existent Earth, but I’ll make sure you have a one-way ticket, all expenses paid ticket back to Homeworld, Greenie!”

“WHAT?!” Peridot gasped, completely floored by such incredible news. “Y-you can get me back to Homeworld?!”

“Yep! And it’d be real easy too!” the demon assured cordially. “All I’d need from you is your help in snuffing out those Crystal Chumps, which, hey! You were gonna do anyway, right? So, its like you’ll be killing two birds with one stone! Or, I guess in an analogy, you’d actually understand, Greenie, it’d be like killing a bunch of stupid pests then making it back home just in the nick of time to watch this planet go KABOOM!” At this, a loud, violent explosion seemed to rattle the entire clearing, throwing Peridot to the ground as she shook her head to clear it from the now settling din.

“A-as… interesting as all that sounds,” Peridot began, slowly and shakily rising to stand again. “I’d still like to know what specific methods we’d be using to obliterate those traitors before simply diving right in.”

“Ah, you don’t need to worry you’re pretty little triangular head about any of that, kid, I got it all covered!” Bill said with a nonchalant wave of his hand. “Honestly, you sound a whole lot like Yellow with all those questions about ‘battle plans’ and ‘tactics’, like anyone’s ever needed anything like that to win before!”

“Y-Yellow?!” Peridot asked, once again startled by the demon’s boldness. “As in… my Diamond?”

“The one and only!” the demon exclaimed blithely. “Then again, its not really hard to confuse any of them. I mean, they’re all conveniently color-coded, plus there’s only four of them. Well, technically there’s only three since one of them isn’t really much of ANYTHING nowadays, but ya know what I mean.”

“And what precisely would someone like you know about my Diamond?!” the green Gem asked in a huff, knowing that certainly, the illustrious Yellow Diamond would never associate herself with someone as roughish and uncouth as Bill came across.

“Oh, a ton!” Bill said as though it was obvious. “Me and Yellow go WAY back, back to before you were even a pile of unformed minerals in the ground, Greenie! She trusts me for just about everything, you know. I’m sorta like her eye in the sky when it comes to this hunk of rock here. Both literally and figuratively!” The demon laughed as his singular eye flashed brightly, illuminating the entire clearing for a brief moment before retuning it back to colorless darkness.

“B-but that doesn’t make any sense!” Peridot shook her head dismissively. “My Diamond is flawless, a pillar of order and reason. Two things that a being like you clearly doesn’t possess.”

“Aw, thanks, Greenie!” Bill quipped, genuinely flattered.

“A-and besides! There’s no possible way you could be in alliance with my Diamond,” the green Gem staunchly concluded. “Because if you were working with my Diamond, then certainly her loyal court, which includes me would have heard about it! Which, for the record, up until now, I certainly haven’t.”

“Which is totally your loss, kid, I’m a pretty interesting guy to know!” the demon chuckled, amused by Peridot’s frustration. “Still, you’d be pretty darn surprised by all the things Yellow’s never told any of you lower level grunts. Guess it goes to prove that even Diamonds aren’t completely transparent, ironically enough.”

“But-”

“Eh, but enough about boring ol’ Yellow,” Bill interjected quickly. “Let’s get back to talking about our plan to turn those Crystal Gems into Crystal DUST. Now, this is probably the best bargain you’re gonna get anywhere around here, Greenie, what with the whole free ride back to Homeworld and everything bundled right in, so what do ya say?” The demon extended his hand at this, alight with bright blue fire as Peridot took an anxious step back from it on instinct alone. “Would you rather be stuck here on this miserable rock until it’s finally wiped clean outta this galaxy or do you wanna get even with those Chumps and finally get back to where you’re supposed to be? Its all up to you…”

At this stark, heavy offer, Peridot naturally hesitated, her gaze captivated by the azure flames before her as she took a moment to carefully mull it all over. What Bill was promising her sounded like an absolute dream come true: a chance to take out the Crystal Gems and to get off this doomed planet all in one fell, easy swoop. On that simple aspect alone, the green Gem was almost very inclined to take this deal right then and there, no questions asked. And yet… she couldn’t help but wonder exactly what the demon intended on doing on a practical level to off the Gems and send her home. By all accounts, he had been very terse and vague in his explanations, not giving her very much at all to go off of save for mere promises alone. Promises that she didn’t even know would carry any actual weight at all.

And then, of course, there was the matter that Bill was apparently in league with her Diamond. It was a bold, audacious claim, one that Peridot wasn’t sure if she completely believed, given how stern and solitary Yellow Diamond usually came across as to her. Certainly, a being as radiant, powerful, and wise as a Diamond wouldn’t need the aid of someone as rowdy, ill-mannered, and chaotic as a dream demon. And certainly, if her Diamond wouldn’t need the help of a demon, then Peridot saw no reason as to why she’d need to seek his help out either. Which was why, despite all of the lofty promises Bill had made to her, she ultimately, coldly gave him her answer.

“I… think I’ll make do on my own, if its all the same to you,” the green Gem said, pulling her hand away from the one the demon had presented to her.

“Well, hey then, no worries!” Bill retracted his own hand, his manner surprisingly still bright and amicable, despite this rejection. “After all, if anyone’s equipped enough to handle a bunch of dull ol’ ‘clods’ like those Crystal Chumps, then it’s you, Greenie!”

“Wait… really?” Peridot asked, surprised by the demon’s apparent confidence in her.

“Really!” the demon confirmed. “But still, if you DO find yourself needing a hand in breaking a few of those rebellious space rocks, then my offer’s always on the table! All you gotta do is ASK.” Bill’s tone turned startling dark and ominous at this, enough to elicit a small gasp of surprise out of Peridot before he quickly resumed his usually cheery ways. “Oh, by the way! Here’s a free tip: that fancy temple of theirs is actually right through that bunch of trees over there.” He pointed out a thicket only a few feet away from them. “Figured I’d give you a decent head start on that good old fashioned ‘revenge’ of yours, right?”

“O-oh… well, um… that’s… much appreciated,” the green Gem nodded gruffly, unsure of how to properly thank the demon for such genuinely valuable intel.

“Anything for you, Greenie!” Bill exclaimed as he rose high into the sky above Peridot. “Well, I gotta run. Still, I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you again VERY soon. Just remember, that if you’re ever in a pinch, just call your good buddy Bill to bail you out. I’ll be there in a SNAP!”

With a swift snap of his fingers, the demon completely disappeared and the world instantly reverted back to its usual nighttime color pallet. Peridot gasped by the suddenness of it all, still largely bewildered by her rather bizarre encounter with Bill alone. Still, out of all the strange creatures she had encountered over the past several hours, he was by far the least irritating. And that was saying something, since the demon was, in fact, rather annoying on his own.

Still, the green Gem cautiously decided to heed his directions, making her way over to the small break in the nearby trees in the hopes that it would finally lead her to the Gems’ base. All the while, however, she couldn’t help but wonder exactly what might have transpired if she really had taken Bill up on his mysterious offer. Would he have really gotten her back to Homeworld, or would he have just ultimately left her high and dry like everyone else around these parts seemed to have done? Peridot supposed she’d never really get a chance to know, though she did hold onto the fact that Bill’s offer did still apparently stand. Not that she thought she’d ever really need to take him up on it but still, it was the thought that counted.

At the same time, the green Gem couldn’t really get the thought of the demon and her Diamond working together out of her mind either. The thought seemed completely preposterous and out of the question, yet some small part of her still wondered if it could somehow be true. Yellow Diamond was a reliable, logical leader, yes, but she was also known to be somewhat distant from her Gems, ruling over them with a tight, authoritarian fist, but never really engaging with too many of them on a personal level. Perhaps, as a ruler, she could harbor a few secrets or alliances she kept hidden out of her court’s sight for their own good, but why then would she hide her dealings with someone like Bill away? What would even be the point of that? Why wouldn’t Homeworld, or at the very least her own Gems, be allotted to such simple, unassuming information?

These were all questions that Peridot had no answers to, nor did she believe she needed to have answers to them because she was still quite confident in the fact that Bill had completely fabricated such an alliance from the start. Crafted it as a way to draw her into agreeing to his terms, so to speak. It was a clever argument to be sure, one that the green Gem nearly fell for, but even then she was much too wise to be fully duped by it.

Still, Peridot was quick to put such worrying thoughts aside as she finally peered through the trees, a wide, excited, admittedly relieved smile spreading across her face at what she saw. Though a small, ramshackle shack rested in the darkness immediately before her, just up the hill from it was a structure she instantly recognized from her initial landing on Earth weeks ago: the Crystal Gems’ temple itself, standing tall and proud over the surrounding area, completely unsuspecting of the intruder it was about to receive.

“Yes!” Peridot cheered to herself in an triumphant whisper, knowing that her long, aggravating struggles were finally, finally about to come to an end. She was going to eradicate the Crystal Gems and their human allies like the simple nuisances that they were, she was going to repair the Homeworld warp, and she was going to make it back to Homeworld at long, long last. And most of all, she was going to do it all on her own, without any help from unicorns, gnomes, or demons alike. “Prepare yourself, you Crystal Clods… Because I’m about to settle this, once and for all…”

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