#rabbit trail reviews

[lover-of-the-starkindler]

Every so often, rearranging the shelves allows you to pick up a book and go, "Huh. I didn't remember I had that..."

That's how I ended up reading Brother Dusty Feet instead of rereading The Shining Company. (It's okay. I ended up crying anyway.) I am not sure why I had shelved the new-to-me Rosemary Sutcliff instead of reading it first, but let's assume the choice made sense at the time.

Anyway, Brother Dusty Feet proved to be a middle grade adventure about a boy and his dog and a band of traveling players in the time of Queen Elizabeth. If I were to list my Sutcliff's in order of preference I don't think it would make much higher than the middle of the list, but at the same time Sutcliff can sketch a character with just a few words, and her details evoke times and places in a fashion I would love to emulate. Plant life! Birds and small critters! The shadows of clouds drifting over the fields! A gargoyle over a garden gate!

The bit about Argos at Christmas is a tale one could see coming from at least halfway into the chapter, but it turned the waterworks on for me even before the actual emotional climax. (Happy tears of relief, let me be clear, since this is Sutcliff... :p) Was it the pacing? Was it the play of the words and images together? Was it the characters? Was it me, sitting in my garden, watching my dog play with a stick in the sunshine at just that moment?

Rosemary Sutcliff writes things that are so beautiful they make me cry--what's the quote? "Here are beauties that pierce like swords?"--and I love finding new stories by her because she writes with a love for her characters, places, and themes and it echoes through the pages of stories that string together bits of history and the mundane.

[smilingcrittersthingig]

Oops, I seem to have written a oneshot about Reborn Starstudent instead of reviewing for my exams…

Welp 🤷‍♀️

The way I feel about you

He stood atop a platform under a big hole, the chicken looked around the large cavelike area until his eyes drifted to the green rabbit who was across him.

“Hoppy!” he yelled, the rabbit looked up to meet his eyes

“Hoppy come on! Jump!” he encouraged her, holding his hand out for the rabbit.

He kept his sight directly at her while she jumped, he noticed that her spring was a bit small, his worry grew larger the moment he felt her paw brush against his, his eyes widened as he saw her get swallowed by the abyss.

“HOPPY!!!” he almost tried to go after her but he was grabbed and dragged by the blue elephant.

“WAIT HOPPY FELL DOWN—!!!” he tried struggling out of the elephant’s grasp.

“WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THAT, KICKIN! THEY’RE CATCHING UP!” he kept his grip on the chicken who was still reaching and yelling for the rabbit.

“HOPPY—!!!”

Kickin woke up in a cold sweat.

He clutched his chest, trying to steady his breathing and desperately resisting the tears coming out of his eyes.

He looked around his dark room, he didn’t like the dark. Kickin stood up from the bed after he calmed himself down, turning on the lights.

The chicken hugged himself, recalling the time with Hoppy. He fought back tears again before looking out the window. He needed to check up on her, he just felt he needed to.

Kickin walked out of the house and started to walk to Hoppy’s house, he just needed to make sure she was there, he needed to make sure she was alive. Just a quick glance, it’s not creepy, is it?

A raindrop dropped on his head with more following right after, it started raining. Great, just his luck. He ran through the rain, ignoring the mind tricks his brain gave him as he saw glimpses of scary figures and such.

He’s not gonna last through all this. His attention was immediately stolen by a light coming from one of the windows. It was from Bubba’s house, he’s still awake?

Kickin didn’t want to stay outside any longer, Hoppy’s house was still a distance away. He quickly walked to the front door and knocked on the door.

Silence

He knocked again, this time with rhythm.

Still Silence

He started banging on the door loudly. For someone having big ears, his hearing sure suc—

Bubba slammed the door open “Okay okay what—!?” His irritated expression immediately softened as his eyes landed on the chicken, shivering from the cold rain.

“Kickin-? What are you doing here?” the elephant asked, very confused about the appearance of his yellow friend.

“long story.. can i come in..?” he nervously rubbed his arm “Yeah- of course, come in” he moved out of the way and let Kickin inside his house.

Bubba quickly closed the door and ran to get a towel for Kickin. The chicken tried to shake the water off until he felt something soft get thrown at his face.

“I’m allowing you to step inside my house, not to dirty it.” he ruffled his wet feathers with the towel before Kickin slapped his hooves away.

“I can clean myself you know.” Kickin slightly glared at Bubba. “Can’t risk you making more of a mess here” he glanced at the trail of water.

The chicken quickly wiped himself off before sitting down on his couch, the elephant followed and sat beside him. “So… Are you going to explain why you’re here?”

“…I wanted to check up on Hoppy… But the rain held me back so I decided to rest up here.” he replied.

“oh” Bubba felt his chest sting. He noticed the fact that Kickin has gotten way more attached to Hoppy lately. They’ve always been a duo but he’s recently been closer to her than usual. He’s been suppressing his feelings about that.

“How about you? Why are you awake?” Kickin raised his eyebrow at Bubba. “I was reading a really interesting book” he answered which the chicken laughed in response to.

“Of course you did” he chuckled, Bubba found his cheeks warming up but looked away in an attempt to not be seen in that state.

“You don’t mind if I stay here until the rain goes away, do you?” the chicken asked, Bubba stayed silent for a bit before forcing a small smile. “Yeah… Of course”

Kickin smiles back before grabbing the remote near him “You got some cool shows here?” he turned on the TV. “Well I have some horror movies I can put on”

Kickin looked a bit hesitant “… I mean unless you don’t want to—“ “No! No I can watch it! Put on the scariest one!” he threw the towel aside and tried to pull a confident pose, but he didn’t look as proud as he usually would.

Bubba smirked “Really? Alright I’ll take you up on that then” he grabbed the scariest movie he had and put it on as he sat beside a Kickin who’s already regretting his decision.

Bubba watched the movie intently. He’s already watch this one and was looking closely at the details he might’ve missed.

He looked away from the screen to see how Kickin was doing, he was stiff as a stick with his eyes dreading the next loud sound. Bubba could only silently chuckle to himself while looking at the terrified chicken.

Then a jumpscare came up which caused Kickin to let out a scream and latch onto Bubba’s arm as he flinched, his face warming up from the sudden physical contact.

“… I-I mean that uh— You didn’t hear anything” he nervously laughed as he let go of the elephant’s arm. He quickly snapped back to reality and cleared his throat to stop his blushing.

“So much for being able to watch it hm?” he teased the chicken to ignore what he was currently feeling “Hey!” he glared at Bubba who chuckled in response.

They continued to watch the movie until it ended. Bubba found his ears drooping down, he didn’t exactly want the movie to end, not because he liked the movie, it just meant Kickin would be leaving afterwards since the rain has also gone away.

He let out a sigh “Alright I guess you have to get going no—“

He felt something lay on his shoulder. He turned his head and sees Kickin had fallen asleep right on him. He could feel his face warm up as he looked away in panic.

Okay Bubba you got this. Just wake him up and… let him leave. The elephant felt terrible, he hated this feeling. Why can’t he just be a good friend and be happy for him. Why is he so upset about this.

…Actually he already knows why he feels that way.

He looks at the chicken’s face again, he looked peaceful… It… It would be fine if he let him sleep in, right? It looked like he hasn’t been sleeping much anyways.

He knows he’s being selfish… He’s a selfish bastard.

He tried standing up to grab a blanket for Kickin but the chicken held onto his arm and refused to let go. Bubba stayed frozen for a couple seconds before sitting back down and letting Kickin sleep on his arm.

… He closes his eyes and lightly laid his head on Kickin’s.

He knows why he’s been feeling this way.

He liked Kickin.

[dragonnarrative-writes]

im gonna be honest, I keep rereading pt 3 and 4 of the slasher handler and fantasising about how incredibly sexy it would be if kyle acquired a handler of his own by accident or on purpose and he finally understands simon's obsession now 😵‍💫

Slasher Handler Masterlist

Kyle and Simon aren't friends, per se. They only met through Johnny, because Johnny is sloppy and impulsive and never knows how to clean up his own messes. It's offensive to Kyle's meticulous nature and, apparently, appeals to Simon's need for a pet.

Since Johnny's been serving time for the last nine months, with nine months to go (sloppy work, he's lucky Kyle was able to clean things up), Simon's gone to ground. Every now and then, news of his work pops up. Once, one of the victims had ended up at the hospital Kyle works at.

"The Ghost Killer strikes again! Ah...! Run...!" Kyle had muttered to himself, taking the unconscious young man's rapidly fading vitals. They'd found him in an abandoned building, an old hospital well outside of Simon's usual territory. Which means something has changed.

That evening, sipping a beer, he'd called Price on his burner.

"What can I do for you, Kyle?"

"Just letting you know that your dog is out of the yard. The big one, not the terrier," Kyle answers with a smile. "He left behind a bit of a mess, but there was only one little rabbit left suffering. I handled it."

Price had hummed on the other end. "I saw the news. 'S not like him. I'll check in." And then he'd hung up.

Months later, and Kyle finally has an answer when he catches Simon trailing behind a woman not once but three times. He's surprised to see her face, an old classmate and the justification for his second ever human kill. He's almost sad to know that she's been marked for death. When he hears about the Ski Lodge massacre and the Ghost copycat, he has a drink in her honor.

So it's a surprise when she reaches out to him online and asks to meet.

She's frazzled and wild-eyed when she sits in the chair across from him. She's also wearing one of Simon's beanies. And when she reveals what Simon's been up to, he can't help but laugh.

Simon - the weird, off-putting, murderous Ghost - has somehow managed to find the one person in the world who devotes herself to a project more than him. The Final Girl Girlfriend.

They're both doomed.

Kyle begins the painstaking process of reviewing his daily journals for mentions of Simon and their shared connections. It's very unlikely that Simon would be caught alive, and even more unlikely that he'd say anything about Kyle or Johnny or Price. But unlikely isn't impossible, so it's important to start getting his stories straight now.

Reviewing, flagging, and annotating his journals from his initial meeting with Johnny to now takes a month and three days. It's always an interesting process, looking at his life with the advantage of hindsight. There's always a new fascinating pattern to examine. For example, that first summer, he'd meet with Johnny every other week, and two and six days later, he'd gradually step up a patient's blood thinners.

Another pattern that's emerged is that he hasn't dated anyone for more than 35 days in the last three years. That's about as long as it takes for his exacting nature to become... a conflict. It's not much of a problem. He's a nurse, he works long hours. He's got a gym routine and volunteers at the local pet rescue once a week. He's a part of the community, so he doesn't stick out as a loner. But he's also solidly at a point in his life where someone would expect him to have a partner.

He makes an online dating profile. It takes a week for him to delete the app.

"Darlene," he greets the head nurse with a smile and her favorite coffee at the beginning of his next shift. "How are you today?"

"Kyle." As always, she barely glances at him, just holds out her hand for her drink. "You're early. What do you want?"

She's right, he's thirty minutes early. He grins. "You wound me. Can't I just want to know how a beautiful woman is doing?"

Darlene gives him a blank look over the top of her bifocals. "Save it for the maternity ward, Garrick. What do you want?"

"Just wanna know the lay of the land," he says, coming around the desk and taking the seat next to her. He likes Darlene because she only expects him to be coy for a short time. "Been on the apps, trying to date. But my hours make things difficult. You know everybody's business. How is anyone in a relationship around here?"

"The surgeons are all on meth, the rest of the doctors are on coke, and the nurses are either fucking each other or their high school sweethearts," Darlene says, dry as a desert. "You know this already. What do you actually want?"

"That's it," he says with a shrug. "Just want to know who's not seeing anyone, or if you know of someone at another campus with the time."

She takes a sip of her coffee and thinks for a moment. "Stay off the psych and plastics floors. Maternity floor's about to get a whole new batch since all of those idiots got pregnant within three months of each other. But there's something in the water up there, so unless you also want a baby, I'd say leave them alone."

"James is on the maternity floor," Kyle points out.

"James cheated on his boyfriend and his side piece with another nurse," Darlene points out, settling into her coffee and gossip. "Which is another reason to stay away from plastics, but also trauma and rads. I didn't know you were bisexual."

"Doesn't come up much," Kyle dismisses, sipping his own coffee.

By the time Kyle has to clock in, they've explored the pros and cons of almost every department. The prospects are pretty grim. Maybe being single isn't the worst thing in the world.

He makes a point of spending time with the other nurses for the next month. He goes out for drinks and karaoke, attends a couple of baby showers. Lets on to a couple of gossips that he's looking, tells another that he's not sure he has time to date. Enjoys the conclusion of a project when a racist old bastard finally has the heart attack he can't bounce back from.

And then the nurse coroner flags the death for investigation.

Kyle doesn't panic because technically all deaths in the hospital are investigated. But he is intrigued. His own notes show that the patient's condition was well within the expected parameters of recovery and relapse. His medications were administered appropriately while Kyle was on shift, and the hydrogen peroxide added to his IV would have been nigh undetectable.

In the end, the hospital is not determined to be at fault for the death, and that's all that administration cares about. But the cause of death is changed from heart attack to embolism in the record, and that is intriguing.

"Knock knock," Kyle says, poking his head into the office area of the morgue. He expects to see Dennis, the older gentleman running the morgue unit, who waves back at him. He doesn't expect the new face, sitting across the desk from him.

"Good morning, Kyle," Dennis greets, waving him in. "Been a bit since you've come to see us. Care for some tea?"

"Can't," Kyle says, apologetically. "Just dropping someone off."

"Well, at least let me introduce our new nurse!"

The new nurse gives him a no-nonsense handshake and a nod. They don't say much beyond their name, and Kyle is pleased to put a face to the name on the investigation into his last project. He wasn't exaggerating when he said he couldn't stay long, so he says his goodbyes.

But when his next completed project is flagged for investigation again, he decides that maybe it's time to take an interest.

[ashleyfableblack]

"Well, hello little one." the queen sighed dreamily to the little grub approaching her.

She smiled a sleepy smile and chuckled. How long had it been since she wobbled her way into the creche on weary, rubbery legs and flopped to the floor in a most undignified 'sploot'? It felt like it had only been a few minutes but she had closed her eyes. Maybe she had dozed off? No. She could hear in the nearby chamber, Twilight was still drawing the bath for them.

AH. Hearthswarming night. She purred, reviewing the sensations in her hearts. They had spent some rapturously wonderful time lost in each other. They giggled. They nuzzled. They blathered on about anything, everything and nothing at all like teenaged foals, adrift in the vibrant ecstasy of being in love.

Yes! Then, Twilight had suggested a bath. While she had drawn the heated, perfumed water Chrysalis had wobbled her weary way into the children's creche to check on their youngest larvae. Now, here she was, splayed out on the floor on her abdomen with her plot in the air like a squashed spider.

A squashed spider with one of their infant daughters chittering into her snoot like a overjoyed puppy.

Her dual irises shifted and focused to take in the full emotional spectrum as she flickered the air with her tongue, tasting for the tiny grub. She extended her crown of antennae and expanded her consciousness to it's normal place in the hive mind's nexus. Reaching out through the nebulae of stardust and memory she examined the forming consciousness, the shape of thoughts, feelings, experiences, new as they were. In her understanding of the world, this was the true shape of a changeling.

Ah. Now she recognized this one. RGMF19. Reconnaissance Guard, Mobile Forces, Unit one, Operative nine- OR as Twilight would call her "Ragamuffin".

She gave a pleasantly resigned sigh. It was a minor annoyance, this naming convention, yet another instance of pony-kind forcing their concept of normalcy on another species. Ethnocentrism was an unfortunate habit the ponies were still struggling to unlearn. Still, Chrysalis understood that it comforted her beloved wife to assign individual names to their daughters. Twilight lacked her expanded set of senses and connection to the hive mind it was the only way she could easily differentiate between their children which was something of a necessity in motherhood.

The tiny grub stared at her with a brilliantly beaming smile and a tiny, squeaking hiss. She couldn't help but chuckle in return. Even a pony could easily tell that she was one of her new hive of drones, sired solely with Twilight's love. As opposed to all previous changelings, the little one's eyes were large and violet, like their ponymother, sparkling with intelligence and curiosity. The long, inky eyelashes framing her eyes flicked at the base of her ears. Her ears were also unusually long, like those of a rabbit. The segments of her caterpillar-like body were decorated with a trail of lavender spots, cascading along her backside like the petals of a flower.

Her clutch was so different from all which had come before them.

"One thing is for certain. Your life will be a better one."

The mighty queen gave the little grub a nudge with her snoot, rolling her over on her back. She tilted her head slightly to contemplate the wiggling little thing. She was so fragile, so frail, yet so formed by the love of her precious, irreplaceable bride- so strangely, paradoxically powerful in the promise of a new, better tomorrow for her kind.

"You will never have to hide in the shadows as your predecessors. You will never have to fear others simply knowing you exist. Their fear of you being what you are will not threaten to starve you out. You will walk in the light and they will accept you as you are. In this world which we are building, your ponymother and I, this New Equestria, your birthright is one of unimaginable power and possibility. They will love you- as your mothers love you, daughter of The Hive."

Her forked tongue flickered out and gave a playful spree of butterfly kisses to the tiny changeling babe sending it into a fit of wiggling hisses and clicking.

"Happy Hearthswarming, my Ragamuffin."

Chrysalis gently lifted the little grub in her jaws and placed her in a strand of webbing near her sleeping clutchmates. With a small nuzzle goodnight, she quietly turned to stumble away, leaving the nursery chamber to return to her wife's embrace.

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Witches and Wizards Job 15-16

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FIFTEEN

Nate sprinted through the trail of destruction, chasing it all the way up the stairs and over several upturned benches. He skid to a halt at the sight of the shattered window, the marble floors battered but still smooth enough that he overshoot them. "Parker!"

"Nate!" She ran for him. "So the painting's a door with a lock and the man from the painting's real and he's a wizard -"

Nate gritted his teeth and focused on the onslaught. Everyone else tempered their reports; Parker didn't. Any information he didn't get now, when she was volleying it at him fresh out of her perceptions, would later be skewed from the thief's… unique perspective on the world. He could translate, he normally did, if only because usually he just wanted to make sure she was safe, they were all safe. But things had gone so ballistically out of control that he didn't dare.

Eliot dragged their battered consultant up, righted a bench the Golden Bear hadn't managed to destroy in its blind charge, and sat Dresden on it. "I'll be honest, man," he said calmly, "I liked it better when I thought it was just rabbits out of hats."

"You and me both," Dresden ground out, his head down. He was ashen with pain, and when Eliot put a hand gingerly on the wizard's shoulder he nearly swooned.

"Alright, my man, that shoulder's out." Eliot tried to catch Dresden's gaze.

"I know."

"It's dislocated -"

"I know."

"I can fix it -"

"I don't want you to, but I know."

"Harry, look at me."

"I can't," Dresden ground out at last. "You people trust too easy and I've been dodging soul-gazes since I met you all."

That brought the hitter up short. He could count the times he'd been accused of being too trusting in one hand, and for most of them he hadn't been old enough to drink legally. "S… Soul-gaze? What, you can look into my soul?" he tried to joke, even though something told him the wizard wasn't being funny.

"Sort of. Kind of." Dresden swallowed hard and tried to find any one position where his shoulder would leave him in peace. "It's a mutual sort of situation, though."

Eliot found himself both horrified and curious. It seemed to be a very common state of being where Dresden was concerned. "So you… look into my soul, and I get to look into yours?"

"Yeah. Reviews have been mixed for the show, so I prefer to skip it when I can. Makes it hard to keep friends." Harry gave him a wry grin, forgot himself and tried to shrug, and nearly fell off the bench.

Eliot hurried to steady the man, and suddenly Nate was there. "Hold him up, Nate."

"Yup. Getting your incidentals in, aren't you, Dresden."

"You pay those?" the wizard asked dizzily, then howled when Eliot, taking advantage of his moment of distraction, jerked the shoulder back into place. "That was about as painful as I thought it would be," he ground out breathlessly.

"Enjoy it later," Nate helped the hitter drag Dresden to his feet. "We've gotta get out of here before the cops swarm the place."

"I'm getting a little worried about what you people do for a living," Dresden admitted as they hurried past the massive gouges the Golden Bear's claws had left on the stairs, and the fine shale it had made of everything else that had gotten in its path. The leshy had been no tidier, just smaller. At least they didn't have to go back into the lab area; they bypassed it and headed further into the museum, through it, and then past to the open storage area, full of far more modern and precious things like floor cleaner and trash bags by the gross.

By then the wizard was moving under his own power, which worried Eliot a bit. He crossed a look with Nate, and saw the mastermind pinch his mouth into a thin line. It wasn't just that Dresden had the sort of quick recovery that said he was used to working through such injuries, it was the fact that he hadn't been meant to get injured to begin with. The trip to the museum had been meant to be a look-don't-touch: Harry had been hired to advice, not to be caught in the crossfire. Neither hitter nor mastermind were pleased with how things had gone down, and they were entirely too aware that it was no one's fault; that didn't mean they didn't feel the burden of it.

Sophie was waiting for them at the wheel of the white van. They shoved the wizard on the shotgun seat and piled into the back, where Mouse greeted them with great concern. Followed by Lucille 2.0, where Hardison had already cleared them to break through the police cordon, they drove back home, to try and figure out if they had a win, a loss or something else in their hands.

They took the chance to lick their wounds, sorting through what information they'd gathered. While Hardison ordered them all dinner and Eliot sorted out Dresden, Nate stepped out, fingers twitching for a drink that, for the first time in a long while, he didn't dare have. He was already having trouble coping with everything he'd seen and heard and learned that day while sober; he wasn't sure his rational incredulity wouldn't turn him beligerent if he threw whiskey into the fire.

"Nate?" The voice that steered him like a lighthouse through his life was gentle. She was always gentle, even when the steel peeked through the gorgeous satin and lace. Sophie came to stand by him. "Are we dropping the case?"

"I don't know," he admitted to her as he would have no one else, staring at the street and the few passing people, all of it wrapped in the deep golden haze of a New England summer sunset. "We should, shouldn't we?" She shrugged delicately and they stood in silence for a long moment. "You're sure it was real? That it couldn't have been anything else?"

"Some part of you must've known it was real," she told him. "Or you'd have never agreed to hire Harry."

"Harry, is it?"

She grinned. "I know what you're thinking, stop it. I think it's cute, like a schoolboy crush."

He couldn't help but snort in amusement at that.

"It was real." Sophie chewed lightly on her lip. "I thought I believed, you know? I thought I was ready for it. It seemed so exciting, so fun." She scoffed at herself. "It was a man with a shotgun and we were sheep in a pen." When she heard him hiss a breath out, she spoke before he could. "Parker never doubted. Never even hesitated."

"Parker has a view of the world I envy somedays," he admitted. "I think… it can't be my call, not alone. I want to drop it. But I don't think Dresden would." He saw the grifter make a face, something he caught only because he knew the gamut of her expressions so well. "What?"

"What? Sophie replied innocently.

"No, no, what was that face for?"

She clung to the pretense for a moment longer. "It's Harry."

"What about him?" Nate's tone sharpened.

"Not like that, Nate," she told him tartly. "It's just… Harry. Parker believed him. Eliot doesn't care. Even Hardison likes him."

"I don't like him."

"You don't like anyone. But you're still including him in the planning, you're still making him part of the con. Tara had to fight for it with all of you."

Nate let out a soundless little 'ah'. "You hired Tara."

Sophie shifted away from him, her eyes going hard.

The mastermind shifted forward to match, catching her shoulders. "And it was the right call." He watched surprise flicker over her features, but he was long past the point where he'd allow himself to believe such admissions were a weakness. "We needed a grifter. None of them were ready to step into the role, and I'm not the greatest at it -"

"Nate Ford, admitting he's not perfect?" She teased him to hide her surprise and smiled a little, fussing with the lapels of his shirt. "But?"

"But you hired Tara. None of the team got a say in the matter. We all agreed to hire Dresden, even me."

She licked her lips and thought on it. "I don't think we should drop the case. I don't think we can," she looked up at him.

"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of," he admitted. "If they come after Parker, they'll be dealing with all of us."

"Even Harry?"

Nate sighed, deeply put upon. "Even the wizard." The streetlights came on at that moment, and a familiar car pulled up next to them along the curb; Nate brightened up. "Food's here."

"You know, we got that house and everything, we were supposed to have meetings there to protect Hardison's equipment, and I don't think anyone's set foot on it except his dog." Sophie pointed out as they rode the elevator up, arms full of Chinese take-out.

"Hopefully that'll change soon. I don't want to beat Fedorov on the exploding equipment department."

SIXTEEN

Parker came to find me with a cup of coffee and a very confused expression on her face. Of all the Leverage people she was the less emotive of the bunch, the hardest to read. Sophie flickered through her emotions depending on the situation, but they were still honest. Ford was just angry, so rigidly controlled I was honestly surprised the man didn't snap like a string pulled too far. Eliot and Hardison were relatively normal, if that word even applied to any of the team. But you know. Wizard. Stones and glass houses and all that.

It took me a moment to realize that she was worried. "What's that look for, me?"

"Yes." She admitted readily.

I scoffed. "I've been worse."

"You weren't supposed to get hurt," she protested. "You were just supposed to answer questions and explain things."

Ah. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that, when Leverage had hired me as a consultant, they actually meant a consultant. I scooted myself over; I was resting on the only couch in the place, Mouse half-sprawled on my lap, staring mournfully at me. I'd showered, and Eliot had wrapped me up like a mummy so my ribs were only twinging occasionally. My arm was on a sling; I didn't want to ask why there were so many high-grade medical supplies at hand.

"We did, you know. Break into a museum."

She scoffed even as she sat next to me. "That's the point."

"A point I'm not following."

"If we just wanted you to see the portrait, Dresden, she could've stolen it for you." Eliot came out of the back of the loft, behind the wall of silent, dark screens. "She could've even put it back, but it would have taken too long to do it undetected." He marched into the kitchen and found a beer in the rattling fridge.

Parker popped her mouth. "So yeah. It was me."

"It wasn't you."

"He's right," Ford swept into the room, Sophie behind him, both their arms full of Chinese take-out. Hardison's head popped up from under one of the desks around the screens, and in a moment there was enough food going around that no one spoke for a few minutes.

"What do you mean it wasn't me?" Parker finally demanded.

"I mean we've been wrong about this from the beginning," Ford explained, and then his mouth pressed to a very thin line. "And we put mister Dresden in the line of fire with that misunderstanding. We did. The team did." The anger simmered minutely. "I did."

Oh. Oh. It was himself he lived angry at. Oh, boy.

"We agree that the malfunctioning fire suppression system at the Gardner was a sloppy job?" Nate asked the table, to general assent. "And we're still stuck on the targets?"

"Couldn't have been us, Fedorov wouldn't have been sloppy, that only leaves the woman," Eliot replied.

"No," Ford said. "It doesn't only leave the woman, because there was a fourth target."

"The portrait," Sophie breathed.

Hell's Bells, he was right.

"The attack was already planned," Ford explained. "Something simply accelerated the timeline. Now, it wasn't Fedorov because again, his visit was planned. It wasn't us, we hadn't taken the case yet."

"Baba Yaga," Parker breathed.

"Yes." Ford confirmed with deadly certainty. "This man, the man in black, he wasn't just coming by. He was coming in, to make sure everything was in place. Then he saw the woman and decided, why not. We were a monkeywrench, a snag he wasn't expecting." He stared levelly at Parker. "We've kept him from stealing the portrait twice. Once, when we derailed the impromptu attack and twice, because without the cylinder he couldn't go through with the actual, scheduled theft."

It worked. I saw Parker straighten up minutely, tension leaving her shoulders. More, it made sense. Ford had taken the bare-bones fragments that his team had managed to pick up here and there, and he'd put them together into a complete map of a plan I hadn't even glimpsed. Everyone in the Leverage team had a specialization; I was beginning to understand what Nate Ford was good at, and Jesus, he was really friggin' good.

"They should have never moved the collection," Sophie breathed.

"But they did," Ford declared with deadly finality. "Moving on. Parker, what else did you get from the man in black?"

"Wait." I went into the kitchen, found the salt and a paring knife, and came back. I made a protective circle around the chairs and the coffee table, empowered it, and looked up to find all five of them staring at me curiously. "People move," I explained. "You rarely get a good trace on an item when it's on a person, unless it belongs to them. I can't tell you if the man in black is good or bad at it, but I can tell you that as soon as he feels Parker doesn't have the stuff on her, he's going to try and track it down." I focused on the six of us being the only ones free to come and go past the shield, and poured a bit of my will into it. It snapped into life and I tried to hide a grimace; just that tiny bit of magic had felt like sandpaper scraping over a barely healed wound.

"Can you make something a little more permanent or, uh, less kickable than salt?"

"Did you get the brass piping from my shopping list?"

Ford looked at Hardison, who shrugged. "I got abou a third of the way through the list. It's all in the back room."

I wasn't sure I'd heard him right; the list hadn't been endless, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit I'd gone a little overboard, just because Ford's attitude had rubbed me wrong. "A th… A third?"

Eliot chuckled. "Harry, you know what's a few miles down that way?" He stabbed a thumb over his shoulder.

Fishman Central immediately came to mind, but I wasn't sure the hitter meant that. "Innsmouth?"

"Salem," he corrected, grinning. "Salem, Massachussetts."

I could have kicked myself. I was a bus ride away from one of the few places in the States that openly celebrated magic and witchcraft; granted a lot of it was just kitsch and tourist traps, but I didn't know how much of it was real. I had no idea how much of my shopping list Leverage could have acquired by basically walking down to the corner store.

"A lot of it was just hardware." Eliot looked terribly amused.

"How long will it take you to make a permanent…?" Ford waved his hand at the salt.

"Uh… Not long if I had both my arms, but -"

"Hardison and I can be your hands," Eliot pointed out.

"Alright, hardware mode," Hardison sounded outright gleeful. It probably had something to do with the look of utter resignation Ford was suddenly wearing. Eliot and Hardison shared a fistbump.

"Should I wait, then?" Parker sounded uncertain.

"I want a look," I admitted, curious in more ways than one. Sure, she'd stolen my wand, and my shield-bracelet. And my wallet. But how much could she have possibly got off the man in black given the only time she'd been near him he'd been practically strangling her?

"So do I," Ford relented after a moment. "But it's more important than ever now that the man in black doesn't find us."

"I want to know what those things were," Sophie said, not bothering to hide a shiver.

"Leshy," I said. It was a little jarring when I wasn't the only one who offered the answer. I looked at Eliot; everyone, in fact, was looking at Eliot, who looked as flustered as I'd yet seen the man.

"Leshy, that's Russian," Ford managed to look at me instead, but it was a struggle. Hell, I could barely look at him rather than at Leverage's heavy hitter.

"Yeah, they're Russian fairies. Dug up your fields, broke your tools if you left them out, you know. Engaged in general mayhem. When the modern age rolled around they turned into rent-a-th - how." Nope, couldn't look away from Eliot. "How do you even know about leshy?"

"I've had a couple of run-ins with them," he admitted sheepishly. "To be fair I thought leshy was the name of the organization, their last name, something like that, not like a, a name for what they are."

"How did you know it was them?" Ford asked curiously.

"Their accent." Eliot looked even more flustered. "It's a very distinctive accent, alright?"

"So the man in black can hire fairies to do his stealing for him," Sophie ground out disdainfully. "How nice for him."

"The leshy aren't the problem," I told her. It was still odd, somewhere between gratifying and scary, to find people who weren't trying to explain magic away, who were simply taking it in stride as much as possible, making it part of their plans, dealing with it. "You didn't see how he summoned the bear."

"That was seamless," Eliot agreed thoughtfully. "You've worked ahead on everything you've done. He didn't. That's a problem, isn't it."

"Portals aren't easy. They're expensive, in time, in materials, in magic. You can sort of cheat if it's a spot where people keep coming and going -"

"Where a path's been worn in," Ford mused.

"Yeah. But what he did? I know maybe two people who could open a portal like that, no prep, no tools. I know none who could also open it exactly to the Nevernever creature that they wanted to summon, unless they're also from the Nevernever, and this guy isn't. He's a wizard. He's human."

"You don't look happy to know that." Ford was watching me with hyperbolic attention. He'd been the hardest to avoid for a soul-gaze; the Leverage people used their eyes like they did everything else, voice, posture, brain - like a weapon. Ford still didn't like me, even if he was willing to both believe me and work with me. He kept trying to stare me down, and I really didn't want to see what the ice in his gaze hid.

I also didn't want him to look into my soul and find out he was mostly right about me. "Wizards are strictly forbidden to use magic to harm or kill others."

"Ah." I watched him digest that. "Men in grey and big swords?"

"Yup."

"Is there anything in your world that doesn't carry a death penalty?" Sophie protested, incredulous.

"Between him and me we just blew up an entire lab in that museum. Men in grey and big swords are… about the only thing that works." I couldn't believe that I was agreeing with the White Council but the truth was, the Wardens existed for people like the man in black. I'd run afoul of them, and I'd been snagged for a scapegoat way too often to ever make peace with the Council or their attack dogs, but until the system got fixed, they were what we had.

"Hm." Ford filed away that information. I could almost hear his mind whirring, coming up with ideas, thoughts, possibilities - a computer that no magic could short out. "Parker, you about done?"

"Almost," she informed him.

I looked back at her. She had knelt by the coffee table, just shy of my circle, and was still pulling things out of her pockets.

… how?!

She saw me staring and gave me that wicked grin. "He had a lot of stuff. I left his stick, though. I left anything I thought he might notice was gone." Finally she pulled the key out.

"No, don't put that down," I stopped before I caught her hand. Parker, I'd noticed, was one of those people who don't like to be touched. She didn't mind Hardison doing it, but I was beginning to suspect they were an item. She didn't mind Sophie, but if anyone qualified as a Team Mom, Sophie was it. But even Eliot and Ford made sure never to initiate contact, leaving her to breach the distance at her leisure. "You're the best protection it has right now."

"Oh."

"Just let me have a good look at it. We already know what it opens."

She held it up obediently for me.

It was a very old key, small, the sort that might open a keepsake box. It had a slim bar with the expected toothy bit at one end and an incredibly elaborate flower design on the other, full of tiny jewels. At first I'd thought it was silver, but with my life not being threatened I could tell that the shine of it was too bright. "Platinum."

"Yes, and diamonds. Can you turn it, Parker?" Sophie's head tipped as she stared. "Beautiful. Old. Those are the Finnish techniques Faberge learned from his mentor, and later perfected. Those aren't sapphires."

"No, they're emeralds. Egyptian emeralds. They look blue because no one has gems of that purity anymore, not even the Colombians." Ford had walked behind the couch so he could lean closer without disturbing the circle. I'd made a guess on the platinum; I was pretty sure neither Sophie nor Ford were guessing. "Dresden, do any of those have any… significance?"

It was almost refreshing to have the one disbeliever. "Platinum's a good magical conductor. Gold's better, but platinum's a little more resilient." Hardison, across from me, was laughing again, and I took a guess as to why. "Same with technology?"

"Where did you lose your way, man? When did you, and all this, start running on a proprietary OS? We could've been friends. Cyberpunk. Magitech Imagine the possibilities."

"Hardison, I can't even keep a fridge. I'd be your first convert." I returned my attention to the key. I expected the squiggly details on it to mean something, but not what I found. "Huh." I put my hand out for it.

"I thought you wanted me to keep it," Parker protested.

"You can, but I don't think you have to. It does have an enchantment worked into it - a tracking foil."

"It can't be tracked?" Ford perked up.

"No. Not by the man in black, not by anyone." The key pinged lightly against my hand and my magic. It was powerful, just as powerful as I'd come to expect from any object involved in this whole mess, but carefully contained. From up close the confusion enchantment upon it was even more complex, the work like lace. "This is… It's like everything else involved so far. Way too powerful to be found out here in the real world. This is a thing of the Nevernever, of fairy tales, like the mirror the leshy were using." I handed the key back. "Can I borrow that later?"

"Why?"

She wasn't being rude, but literal. Hard as she was to read when it came to emotions, Parker was very straightforward when it came to most other interactions and I actually appreciated that a lot. "Because I'm gonna tape it to the death bottle downstairs."

She frowned thoughtfully at me as she took the key back, and then put it all together. "So the key will make it harder to find."

"Now you're thinking like a wizard."

She beamed.

"Dresden brings up an important point," Ford stepped back around. "This case has gotten way bigger than anything we usually handle. These are not the type of people we usually take on. These aren't the risks we normally take." He caught and held the eyes of each of his people; he tried with me, but I was looking at the mess of things Parker had left on the coffee table. "Are we staying on this job?"

"Why would we drop it?" Parker asked.

"Because a giant bear and multiple fairy thugs just tried to kill you," I told her mildly.

"Yeah, but people are always trying to kill us."

That was a little jarring to hear. "What is it you people do again?"

"Steal things," Parker went back to sitting next to me, the key disappearing somewhere on her person.

"I - Yes, but - I mean, other than the obvious!"

"I knew from the beginning this was gonna be big," Eliot slouched comfortably back and shrugged peaceably at Ford. "The leshy are real. The bear was real. We've managed, and honestly, I don't want to think of what might have happened if we hadn't gotten involved at the Gardner museum, or at the MFA."

"He's right," Sophie laced her hands and leaned forward to stare at the oddities on the coffee table. "This might be bigger than we're used to, but if not us, no one. I just -" She shot me a quick look that I almost missed.

"This is what I do," I told her.

"But not what we hired you for," Ford said with quiet force. "You were supposed to advice, Dresden, to inform. Not get caught in a firefight."

"Or almost get eaten by a bear," Eliot added mildly.

"You hired me for my services as a wizard. If there's a rogue wizard running around Boston, this is exacly where I'm supposed to be, and exactly what I'm supposed to be doing."

Muscles twitched along Ford's jaws. "Hardison?"

Leverage's tech-man was quiet for a moment before he shrugged lightly. "It's just screens, Nate. I'm like, the least at-risk person here, and I agree with Eliot. We've managed so far, even without knowing what we were dealing with. Now we know, sort of. We've done a lot more with a lot less."

Ford frowned. Unlike Sophie, he could actually not look at me when he chose to.

Seriously. It felt weird to have people worry about my well-being that were also paying for my work.

"Fine. We stay on the job. Dresden." He waved my attention on to the table.

There were a dozen things, some of them nearly as glorious as the key, some of them plain and unassuming. There was a wooden egg, unpainted, without decoration except for the grain of the wood. I opened it to find a hollow inside, lined with ancient lamb's wool.

"Oh, a nesting doll!" Sophie exclaimed. "Is the inside lost?"

I set the egg aside and looked around. "Looks like it." There was a beautiful comb, the sort you use to pin your hair back if you're a lady of high standing, gold and lacquer and tiny pearls. I picked it up and dropped it almost at the same time; it reeked of death magic, dormant but powerful, like a high-voltage cable lying on the ground.

"Is that bad?" Ford asked.

"It's not nice." There was a wooden cup done in an archaic style, without handle, with a high base and beautiful carving around the rim. A greasy, aging rabbit's foot, the claws yellow with age. A scrap of coarse blue fabric that might have been a handkerchief. A box of matches. A stub of a candle that felt so loaded with magic I had to carefully roll it to one side. "You know what." This was absurd; Parker had apparently pickpocketed a magpie. I dug into my pocket and threw two additions onto the pile: a few black feathers and the shards of the enchanted mirror.

"What are the feathers from?" Parker, next to me, asked.

"From when I tried to grab him and the leshy picked me off him. I don't know what I actually got hold of, but it was on him."

"And the mirror?" Ford stared at all of this curiosly.

"The leshy were using it to communicate. Bit like your earbuds," I nodded at Hardison.

"Aren't magic mirrors supposed to be big and fancy?" he replied.

"They are." I didn't have to explain anything else; I could feel their understanding in their tension.

There was a small scrimshaw duck; the ivory felt like the tooth of something old and highly predatory, and when I examined it more closely I realized it was a whistle. Some chicken bones bound up in a napkin I figured belonged to a local joint. A random chess piece, a black tower, plastic. An empty, crumpled envelope. I un-crumpled it and put the feathers in it. "No wallet?" It was meant to be a joke. I was trying to hide my shock; some part of me wondered if Parker had even left the lint in his pockets.

She shrugged. "He'd have missed that. He did have a pocket watch, but -"

"But he'd have missed that, too. And you said he had a, a stick, a blasting rod, a wand like mine." She nodded.

I stared at the mess in front of me.

"Spell?" Eliot asked.

"Ritual?" Sophie suggested.

I shoved aside the comb and the candle. "These two are magic. These," I waved the handkerchief at the rest of the stuff and threw it in with the lot, "are not."

"But it's a rabbit's foot," Parker protested.

"Didn't bring the rabbit a lot of luck, did it? Luck is hard magic, Parker. It's like a whip, the recoil's always gonna come back to bite you in the face if you push it too far." Even with the three things out of the way, I couldn't think of any spell, any ritual, any magic that would require all the things in front of me. I was pretty sure a wizard of the caliber of the man in black didn't shove chicken bones in his pocket out of a driving desire not to litter, so even that had to have meaning, weight in some fashion. "I need a scrying crystal. I need to make sure there's no magic to them, or a connection between them - is this table important to someone?" I rapped my knuckles on it and fished my sharpie out of a pocket in the duster.

"Go ahead," Ford replied. "How long would it take you to make your… crystal?"

"Not long." I wanted to be in bed. I didn't care if it was made of nails and crushed glass, sleeping on the train hadn't been nearly as restful as I'd made it out to be, and I'd just had a serious throwdown with a wizard that was at least two centuries old and powerful accordingly. But I also needed answers; my employers needed answers. "It makes no sense that only these two things would be magical. I'm thinking there's a Veil on them."

"What's a Veil?"

"Head magic, mind magic. You hide something, or you make it look like something else, someone else. Like the man in black did, back at the vault, wearing your friend's face." I gathered everything together on the table and drew a circle around it. The sharpie already had some of my blood in it, I kept it exactly for the kind of use it was currently seeing: circles on the fly that needed more solidity than chalk.

"Oh, yeah." Parker scowled at nothing; apparently she was going to hold that grudge unto the end times.

"He what?" Hardison exclaimed.

"He stole Jess' face."

Yup, definitely unto the end times.

"He what?" Hardison's brow furrowed in concern. "This isn't a T-1000 thing, is it?"

Ok, I was beginning to feel like the only one who hadn't been invited to some kind of worldwide party, and I could only hope the look I was giving them conveyed that feeling.

"Uh, it's from a movie," Hardison explained hastily. "Killer robot made of liquid metal, it steals the looks of other people so it can get close to you."

"And it kills them?"

"Yeah."

"Dopplegangers and Veils don't work like that. If you're copying someone's look, you need them close at hand so you can refresh the illusion regularly. And if it's just a quick thing, they're not gonna care. It would even make things easier if he looked like Parker's friend while stealing the painting -"

"Portrait," Sophie murmured.

"- portr- there's a difference?"

"Small but crucial. In any case, he could have blamed Jessamine, so it benefitted him to leave her alive."

"Exactly."

"Cameras can't see him," Hardison protested. "Tech overclocks and explodes, there'd be no evidence."

"Wouldn't matter if he had witnesses. No one would be looking for another culprit when they had one right there already. Besides, you can look at a Veil, Hardison. It's them you can't look at. The Veil's what comes out blurry." He gave me such a look. "Go on. I bet if you look at any footage from the vault, you won't see him, not until the very end, when we got out, but it also won't blow up your computer. Go ahead. Triple dog dare you."

I could see the challenge hit him, and caution war with curiosity. Hardison was a deeply curious man. Like me, he wanted to know what made the world tick. I did it with magic, he did it with his computers. Potato potahto.

"I swear, Dresden, if I lose another screen…" He moved over to the desk, revealing a keyboard in one of them and activating the central screen.

"Dresden, could I have the envelope, please?" Ford requested. I pulled the feathers out and handed it over. It was plain, coarse, with some sort of engraving on the front. "What about the mirror shards?"

What about those, indeed. I had an idea, but I wasn't sure it was going to work. Not to mention I didn't have the skill or the know-how to pull it off in a hurry. "Can any of you make jewelry? It doesn't have to be fancy, just… sturdy, I guess."

Sophie suddenly gasped. "Does it still work?"

"Fingers crossed that it does." She'd already seen the shape of what I planned. "Magic mirrors aren't automatically connected. They're like a phone - you call a number, connect from one mirror to another. That spell's gone, shattered when the mirror did. But the mirror itself, that's still magic. Heavy-duty magic. There's one number it can still call."

Ford shifted minutely and for just a second I saw the real man behind the slightly rumpled, harmless facade, all ice and fury and single-minded focus. "So the shards can talk to one another?"

"Yup."

He dug a handkerchief out of his own pocket, spread it on his hand and put it out. I surrendered the shards without question. "No silver. Platinum would be best. Gold will do in a pinch."

"Mm. 'Not long' isn't a very precise quantity, Dresden."

"Look, Ford, I ran my magic empty. That first blow the man in black threw? It ate everything I had. All of the fight after, that was me talking Boston at him. To create a scrying glass, I have to empower it, to empower it I need magic, to get magic I need some rest -"

"Ah, so you mean tomorrow." God, the man couldn't even let me get properly angry at him! I'd have mustered a surly growl if he didn't look pleased at having a deadline, rather than angry that I wasn't about to pull an all-nighter. "That's fine. Will your… circles hold until then?"

"I hope so. I think so. But this guy's swinging a lot of power. I'll feel much better when I have everything behind a proper circle - the brass piping's for that. And I'm probably going to go down there and tape the key to the Witchwell now, rather than later -"

"You win, Dresden," Hardison called out from across the room, and every head turned toward him. He had three screens active, all of them showing what I was pretty sure was security footage no one outside the cops ought to have.

The others gathered around him. I sat down on the couch and rubbed my dog's ears. He snored at me. Ah, to be loved.

I tried to follow the conversation going on around the screens, but I hadn't lied to Ford: I was beyond exhausted, scraped clean to the bone. I could feel power seeping back into me, but again, it wasn't the firepower that worried me so much as the fact every bone in my body ached just to think of doing even the most minimal spellwork.

I snapped awake to a hand on my good shoulder. "Dresden."

For a moment nothing made sense. The air felt wrong, the man looking down at me was a stranger. I didn't know who I was, who he was, what we were doing, where we were.

So I didn't think to look away.

For a moment, all I saw were chains.

A Soulgaze is dangerous when you're prepared, let alone when you're not expecting it. It's not going to show you any deep dark secret about a person, or what they think of themselves, or anything like that. It's the truth of them, clean of all the masks that culture and society puts on us, all the lies we tell ourselves. It can be an interesting insight into someone's personality, or history.

There were chains everywhere, some corroded, some fresh, some shattered and haphazardly piled up here and there on a vast plain of ice. They all came from nowhere, moving sedately, like the coils of some unseen beast, to wrap around a massive block of ice. Their motion filled the air with whispers, a hundred, a thousand voices, all pleading for help. There was a man trapped inside the ice, and as soon as the chains reached him they changed, turning into lines of light, splitting, dividing, multiplying, rushing away like immense fractal trees along the ice. Each line was a whisper, a word, an image. There were gaping holes in the ice block, as if something had struck it and shattered it, threatening to free the man inside it.

The man was Nathan Ford.

I threw myself back and away from the Soulgaze so hard I fell off the couch. I heard, vaguely, Ford staggering back and crashing into the kitchen bar.

"Nate!" Sophie rushed at him.

I'd fallen on my bad shoulder. I didn't want to move. I didn't want to be awake. Mouse was licking my face, whining anxiously. "Dresden, you alright?" That was Eliot. Two pairs of hands caught me and forced me up, back on the couch. "What happened?"

"I told you." I had to get the words out, even if my throat felt full of ice. "You all trust too easy. You shouldn't look a wizard in the eyes like that."

"Sophie, I need a drink," Ford croaked from the kitchen stool. It was tendered to him in record time.

"Do you want a drink?" Parker asked me, utterly serious.

"Coffee," I managed. I didn't sound any better than Ford. She brought me a cup and I drank, and the silence went on for a good few minutes.

"Dresden." Ford sounded so mild. I knew better. I knew what the ice hid. "What did you do?"

"Soulgaze. Little gift of True Sight. If I stare too long into someone's eyes I get a peek into their soul… and they get a peek into mine. One time only. Not gonna happen again, not with you."

It wasn't gonna happen with any of them, not the moment Ford decided I was too much of a liability to keep around. I have done things I know have put scars on me. I'm carrying sins I can never forgive myself for, can never atone for. I had no way of knowing what he'd seen, but I knew it was neither pretty nor reassuring.

Well, at least I had the one day's paycheck to look forward to.

"Parker," Ford said, his voice still full of that calm, mild tone. "You and Eliot take Dresden to the safehouse. Make sure he actually goes to bed, not to do more work."

"What about the death bottle?" she asked. Which was an excellent question, I just wasn't thinking about it at the time because I wasn't sure I was hearing Ford correctly.

"He was just going to tape the key to it, right? I trust you two can do that without reading the thing or taking it out of the circle."

"Ford -"

"We'll talk tomorrow. I think that's enough of… all this for one day," he declared, his voice going brittle before he charged up the stairs and out of sight.

[pigeonwit]

these two seemed like your vibes: pizza place au and magic au :3

URBAN FNATASY MY BEST FRIEND URBAN FANTASY

(gonna be clear - when i hear 'magic' my brain goes 'dnd' so this is very much a 'fantasy high' style universe.)

(also jupes how long did you spend on the randomizer trying to get a good combination. i know you're a perfectionist jupes there's no way you got those right away.)

Alright, here’s where we start – it’s been about a year or two since Race bought this stupid elemental-powered oven (on a whim) and this is the third time they’ve needed the fire elementals to be replaced. It seems like every couple of months, the fire spirits die down into flickers, and it takes a whole day to cook just one pizza all the way through.

Of course, Jack would rather die than hire the Delancey’s again – every time they’re in the shop, it’s like all his hair is on end. They only ever solve the problem, never fix it, and Jack can’t prove it, but he’s certain they’re scamming them. So, he goes to look up other mechanics who specialize in magical tech, and stumbles across Jacobs Artificers. Not much information about them – their website is awful, very ‘graphic design is my passion’, and it burns Jack’s eyes to look at it – but their reviews are great, and their evaluations are free, so it sounds like a decent idea.

Enter Davey, wearing cuffed jeans, a tank-top that was probably once white but has gone permanently grey with time, and a burned, bleach-stained, poison-damaged flannel. He’s skinny, weedy, and doesn’t look like any artificer Jack’s ever seen. He’s doubtful, to say the least.

oOo

“So…” Davey as he leans over the oven. “How long have these guys been acting up?”

“Since we got it.” Jack mutters, pointedly not looking at what those ratty jeans are doing to this scrawny wannabe-mechanic’s ass. “This is third time we’ve had to replace it in a year.”

Davey pops his head out of the oven like a rabbit – there’s already soot on his face, a little smear right on his nose, and Jack refuses to find it cute.

“For an elemental oven?”

“Fuckin’ rip off, what can I say?” Race shrugs. Davey frowns, nibbles his lip between his teeth.

“They really shouldn’t be acting up so much…”

He emerges with a tiny fire-spirit resting on his palm – although ‘fire’-spirit is probably too generous a term. The elemental’s mostly smoke and ember at this point, barely any bigger than a candle – and the mechanic’s jaw drops.

“What the hell have you been feeding these things?!” He snaps, rearing towards them like a wild animal. Race takes a panicked step back, holding his hands up in a weak surrender.

“I – pizza?” He squeaks. Davey’s face goes incredulously slack.

“Pizza?” He says incredulously. “I – that’s it, pizza? Just pizza? These spirits are emaciated, they’re dying-!”

“You don’t feed elementals!” Jack tries to protest. “They’re elementals. They feed when they burn, don’t they?”

“Feed when – but – I don’t…” Davey rakes a hand through his hair, rolling his eyes heavenwards as if in prayer over the sheer stupidity of the men before him. “Okay, let’s start over here – who told you that?”

“The Delan-” Jack’s eyes widen as he says it. He trails off, his whole body going stiff and fuming, and Davey’s fury seems to calm just slightly.

“The Delancey’s?” He asks tentatively.

Race nods, still hanging his head like a kid who got scolded. Davey sighs, looking just a little bit sorry for them.

“Okay.” He sighs. “Okay, so you – yeah. I see what the problem is now. One moment.”

He raises the fire elemental to his face and whispers something Jack can’t hear. The spirit coughs a little and bounces its flame as if nodding. Davey smiles, cups his gloved hands over the little candle-flame – and his eyes glow a bright, burning blue, like the center of a welding flame, as motes of fire lick over his leather gloves.

“Jesus-!” Race shrieks, leaping backwards, but Jack pays him no mind. He’s too lost in the fire in Davey’s eyes, the slight movements of his lips, as he holds the fire spirit between his hands.

(Perhaps Jack’s a romantic, but it looks almost like prayer.)

The fire flickers away. Tentatively, Davey walks to the oven and uncups his palms – he only needs to separate them an inch when a rocket of fire shoots into the oven, bouncing off the brick walls as flames spread to its smoking, flickering brethren – and soon, the entire oven is alight with roaring elementals.

Davey closes the door behind him, waving bashfully as the fire spirits chatter at him in a language of crackling embers – Jack can hear him whispering to them, bashful little “okay, yes – oh, you’re welcome – no, I have to go now, thank you – okay, bye, buh-bye-!” – until they’re closed behind the iron door.

Davey turns to where Jack and Race gape at him.

“Okay. I cannot emphasize this enough; you did not hear this from me.”

Jack and Race glance at each other, then nod sheepishly. Davey claps his hands together like a teacher.

“The Delancey’s-” he tips his hands forward- “are con-artists.”

oOo

According to Davey, the Delancey’s have made a business for themselves by catching rogue elementals, forcing them into cheap machinery unsuited to their magic, and then selling them at a high mark-up as genuine elemental-tech. Not only that, but they’ve also made a pretty successful side-hustle of allowing the elementals they sell to fizzle out over time so that they can be re-hired to replace them – they then take the elementals they’re replacing, load them up on just enough fuel to keep them going, and then wait until the next elementals fizzle out to replace them with the exact same elementals they already took out. The elementals that Jack and Race have in their oven – supposedly the third replacement lot of elementals they’ve had so far – are the same elementals they started out with.

oOo

Jack can only cover his ears as Race all but screams in what can only be described as a pile-up of about fifteen different curses.

“Oh, those little-!” He flaps his hands, paces a few steps in one direction, then the other, then rakes a hand through his hair. “Fucking God damn it- Jack, where’s the phone? Where’s the – there-!”

Jack lurches the phone over his head as Race lunges for it. He growls behind his teeth and makes a few leaps for it, like a dog jumping for its prize.

“Jesus, what’re you gonna do, Race, sue ‘em?!”

“I’ll tell ya what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna get DOME on their asses so quick-!”

 “Defense of Magical Entities?”

They both stop their squabbling long enough to realize that oh, yes, Davey is, in fact, still here. He’s watching them both with a quirked brow, a slight smile toying at his mouth. Jack swallows.

“You’re welcome to try, but I’m not sure it’ll do much good. I have a buddy, she’s pretty high up there – according to her, every case against them gets thrown out. I’m thinking they have someone in civil court, but-”

“We didn’t hear that from you.”

Davey shoots Race a finger-gun.

“Exactly.” He winks – Jack’s stomach flips. “Look, I have an old elemental-oven in my workshop – second hand, doesn’t cost too much, and you’ll get way more efficiency from your elementals. Y’know, as long as you feed ‘em.”

Race grits his teeth as Jack cringes a little, both still a little embarrassed that they’d been apparently starving their elementals for months.

“Um…” Race mumbles into his collar. “I dunno if we can afford that and elemental replacement…”

Davey cocks his head, a mop of dark curls tumbling over his brow. Jack can feel his wrist twirling at his side, mimicking how he might move his brush to capture those little flicks and corkscrews.

“Replacement?” Davey glances towards the elementals still roaring away in their oven. “There’s nothing to replace. These guys’ll do just fine.”

oOo

They settle the payment for the new oven, and Davey sets it up for them the following day. I could not be bothered to write this, since the ask game did specify ‘snippets’ and I’ve already written far too much for that.

oOo

“Uh…” Jack coughs into his fists, scuffing the toe of his boot along the tiled floors. “You’re, uh – you’re not gonna report us to DOME, are ya?”

Davey looks up from his work and smirks, wrinkling his nose playfully.

“Thought about it.” He shrugs. “But it does seem like an honest mistake. You were working off of misinformation, after all. And besides…” He shoots a glance at the pile of kiln-dried cedar logs stacked against the wall (because Race is nothing if not consistently irresponsible with Jack’s money-). “I think you’re making up for it.”

Jack sighs, his whole body sinking in relief.

“You’re a gem.”

Davey’s grip slips on one of the pipes he’s fastening – a little flicker of fire-elemental seeps out from the gap, which he lunges to catch with a strangled yelp.

“Um – speaking of DOME!” Davey laughs awkwardly as he stuffs the elemental back into its pipe. “My friend, the one I told you about? She’s trying to build a case on the Delancey’s, something ironclad that can’t just get dismissed – you mind if I send her your way?”

“Sure.” Jack shrugs. “What’s her name?”

“Saoirse Conlon – she goes by Spot sometimes? I-If I could just get a contact number-” Davey stiffens, his whole face going suddenly red. “I – not that I – y’know, just – an address works, I’ll just give her the address-!”

Jack hands him a business card, hoping Davey won’t notice the second one he’s tucked underneath until it’s too late.

oOo

Race absolutely rags on Jack for giving the hot artificer his number, but it’s okay – Jack gets his own back when Race becomes absolutely humiliatingly head-over-ass smitten with the hot beast-master ranger.

[hollygl125]

On rabbit holes and fanfic (in my own life):

*This is a note I wrote for AO3/FFN, but I’ve been meaning for a while to write a post on how I—a member of the Oregon Trail generation—wound up signing up for Tumblr in January 2022, and this kind of hints at that, so I thought I might as well share it here, too.*

What follows is a TMI note on why I can’t make any promises on when the next chapter of this story will be up; please read or don’t, as pleases you.  I would like to state first, though, what I also state at the bottom of this note: thank you so, so, so very much for reading; your kind support means more than I can tell you.

So, I’m, ah… not very good at all this.

Two years ago now, as I was doing a “CSI as love story” rewatch and falling far, far, far down the GSR rabbit hole, I was also falling deep into ADHD burnout and overwhelming anxiety (without, at the time, realizing that I had either ADHD or a lifetime of anxiety).  By the time spring 2022 rolled around, I was lacking executive functioning abilities for even basic tasks, while my mind sought solace or dopamine or whatever it was with—you guessed it—these two lovely science nerds.

I read hundreds and hundreds of GSR fics, without managing to leave a single, solitary comment/review.  (I wanted to comment!  I couldn’t!  I’m not saying commenting would have killed me, but I just couldn’t do it; I wouldn’t have been able to continue reading if it were required, and obsessing over these two science nerds was basically all my mind could handle.  So when I tell you that I get that commenting can be too much sometimes, I get it.  I should also note my eternal gratitude to all the amazing GSR fic writers who—unknowingly—helped me during this time.)

I occasionally questioned whether I might try writing something about these science nerds, but I always dismissed that pretty quickly.  I’d never willingly undertaken a creative writing project in my life (unless you count my last dog’s Instagram).  For added context, until 2022, I had last (and first, for that matter) previously read fan fiction in the mid-2000s, when my favourites on The West Wing were taking their own sweet time.  So in January 2022, while desperate for more GSR content, I was like, “Is fanfic still a thing?  Is there GSR fanfic?”  I literally started by googling “GSR fan fiction.”  I’d never even heard of AO3 or FFN; I think the fic for The West Wing had been on Yahoo! Groups.

But I had all these romantic scenarios and headcanons and such constantly running through my head, and I was getting tired of having to recreate the dialogue for them every night as I fell asleep.  So eventually, in late June 2022, I thought maybe I should try writing something down—at some point in the future, once I’d had more time to prepare.  Naturally the next day my brain was like, no, now, now, we’re doing this now.  I had no conscious say in the matter.  I wasn’t sure whether I was going to post anything, but apparently I was going to write it.

I had a lot of fun writing out so many of my thoughts and feeling and hopes and dreams for our two lovely science nerds, and pretty soon I had a draft for this series of stories (although it was only a fraction of what I have now written).  I started posting the first story in September 2022.  Luckily I got to participate in a (also luckily, not very mentally taxing) overseas professional placement for several months at the end of 2022, and this was a welcome distraction from *everything else* about my life.

When I got home in winter 2023, the anxiety returned in full force.  I got an ADHD diagnosis, but neither that nor the anxiety are effectively managed yet.  And, truth be told, posting these stories gives me a lot of anxiety.  It’s sort of been a weekly cycle of posting, feeling very anxious about it for several days, talking myself back to a place of peace, getting ready to post again, posting again, rinse, repeat.  Sometimes I’ve found myself feeling too anxious to post, and the chapter/story in question has been pushed back by a week.

So I wasn’t exactly feeling great about the posting process, but I was still determined to proceed.  I had a posting schedule that would have seen me finish posting this story by the end of November (last month) then post the remaining four shorter stories over the next couple months.  (A few of them are synced to dates/times of year: the winter holidays and February, i.e., the anniversary of the AAFS conference.) But then, with the last chapter I posted, I was just too anxious/unhappy.  This may have been because I’d slightly accelerated my posting schedule and hadn’t left myself enough time to process everything; I’m not sure.  But I found myself looking at Tumblr gifs of our two lovely science nerds and feeling sad and resentful, not happy, and I realized that, if I continued on as I was doing at the time, I was going to destroy both my deep love of the characters and my own happy place.

So I told myself that I didn’t have to keep posting now—that, as much as I was determined to have the complete series of stories posted, I could do it in months or in a year or some other time when no one was left to read it; honestly, that thought made me feel a lot better.  But then I decided maybe I didn’t have to wait quite so long—that I could try posting once per month or something like that.  On the upside, I tell myself, this should also leave time for me to respond to comments more promptly and to go engage with other writers’ stories.  (I managed to go back and read and comment on a handful of stories this summer.  Commenting still gives me a lot of anxiety; at one point I felt like I almost gave myself a panic attack.  But I’m going to try to work at it.)  As of this morning, I have responded to all comments on these stories, including to comments by guests/people who aren’t logged in (unless I thought the comment was from a bot!).

I can’t promise when the next chapter will be posted.  My goal is for next month, but it really depends on how I feel after posting this one and how I feel next month.  I do hope you’ll come back to read it, though!

If you’ve read this far—both in this series and in this note—thank you so very much!  You certainly didn’t need to know all the information in this note, but I needed to share it, if you get what I mean.

Thank you so, so, so very much for reading and for your kind kudos, comments, follows, faves, and reviews.  Supportive comments/reviews always, always, always make my day.  Your support for this series of stories is truly what has allowed me to get even this far in posting these stories, and I appreciate it all more than I can tell you. 💛💛💛

[recycledraccoon]

reviews from this movie:

1. I was absolutely right about the most obvious plot twist in the world about the giant wooden rabbit being the dad. I felt too vindicated about this compared to any actual investment in the movie essentially going on in the background

2. The Dad just looks like arin hanson to me. Peak, honestly.

3. It was actually pretty dope to see the final move being "trail these papers I've been using to do lightning magic behind me as I fall to my death holding the villain and then activate them all in one chain reaction in a lightning strike to kill us both" kinda king shit ngl

[floof-writes]

A Reflection or a Perversion? + If the others touched Twi's pendant, what would they be?

This is a concept I've been siting on for awhile, but then someone requested that Palace of the Four Sword fic and it got me thinking about it all over again so here it goes!

Zelda lore for the Dark Links, Shadow Links, the Twili-Realm, the Dark World, and Lorule are all so closely intertwined they are near synonymous, but it's those little differences that make them so hard to conceptualize, especially in LU where they all coexist. They're all said to be reflections (Time's Shadow is explicitly a water reflection but not a full person like Four's Shadow or Ravio, you reach the Dark World through a mirror, Midna is from Twili, which is through a mirror, which must be the same for Four's Shadow, etc.).

Sometimes in Zelda, a reflection is fully a perversion: upside down, inside out, one is evil, the other good. Sometimes a reflection is just an opposite, the other side of the same coin. Think Ravio, opposite to Link in every way but not evil. But sometimes in Zelda, a reflection is the same as a literal mirror: providing a perfectly accurate depiction of a person. Like in ALttP's Dark World, the Malice corrupted Sacred Realm. There, your physical form becomes a reflection of your soul.

So there's basically two types of reflections in Zelda: an entity that is a mirror (a complete opposite) of your soul, or a mirror that makes you a painfully accurate symbolic entity of your soul. But both show the truth: one by perverting it and one by revealing it.

In Monument Valley, a video game that still fucks with my head to this day, there's a room where the main character is reflected in a mirror, and sees herself as a winged human creature not unlike the tortured souls already locked in the dungeons of her game. That room has always intrigued me, so I asked myself this question a long time ago, before reading up on the Dark World lore, if Legend is a rabbit, and Twilight is a wolf, what forms would the others see or take on if they looked in a soul mirror, touched Twi's pendant, or entered the Dark World? What do their souls look like?

So without further ado, I present some concepts for peer review:

Sky, Avian. Loftwings are considered their other half, Skyloftians considered creatures of the sky as much as any bird or dragon. Sky's soul has wings, and in the Dark World, he does too, and eyes that crackle with lightning. He's a God-Killer, after all.

Four, As Expected. Four looks in a soul mirror and sees his reflection echoing back to the fourth power, could sit there and watch each of the colors emote as clearly as if they were split right now. His soul is permanently in pieces, never to be one again. He steps into the dark realm and splits immediately, only a Moon Pearl would allow him to merge while there, and even then it's uncomfortable.

Wild, Zora Fins in Ghostly Teal. Nobody is really sure what the state of Wild's soul is- is he 117 or 2 or simply 17? Water in BoTW represents resurrection. Zora fins made of teal ghost fire trail down his arms, gills burn on his neck. His soul has spent time in oblivion, which is much closer to the trees and the sun and the dirt than most people think it is, much closer to the wild than is comfortable, and then he came back, swimming against the current.

Time, Little One. At the beginning of his journey, Time had to reach above his head to turn doorknobs. In the Dark World, he has to so again. In his soul there is a child, locked in there forever by a sword who made his body too big for his mind, and then later his mind too old for his skin.

Hyrule, Stag. On the outside he seems more fit for a fawn, but the horns protruding from his head make no mistake: Hyrule is gentle by choice. He spent a life as prey until he fought back, and survived the wilds by force of will. And if his fairy genes added a little sparkles and strands of nectar-rich flowers? Well, generosity is his greatest strength.

Wind, Seagull. The absence of fish in the great sea stumped me for some time, and I briefly considered red lion. But in essence Wind is about freedom, it was his choice, perhaps more than any other Link, to save the world, to demand the triforce, and defeat Ganon. He looks in his reflection and sees for a moment the creature that stole his sister, that self-hatred and blame still having yet to fade. But a moment later he realizes he is something that makes Legend force back tears, the thieving pirate of the beach.

Warriors, Elephant. Warriors, more than any other Link, depends on the people around him to be the person he is. What is a leader without followers, a strategist without companions to direct? Betrayal and love wove through the events of his journey in a tapestry of horror and tragedy, but he stood strong. He became someone his soldiers could trust, and look up to. Warriors is larger than life, in a way, and in the Dark World, he really is. Elephants mourn their dead, form deep bonds with each other, historically they've marched into war and are some of the most intelligent animals on the planet. He looks in the mirror and expects to see a merciless monster, and instead sees the epitome of perseverance.

What do you guys think? Any suggestions? Art? Has this already been done?

[her-sweet-kiss-on-loop]

Witcher YouTuber!AU

Modern Youtuber AU!Witcher

(I'm in the rabbit hole now. I hate modern/reality-based AUs for fantasy or SCI-FI series. But here I am.)

Music Artist!Jaskier has a channel called "Dandilion" where he performs both original and cover songs while playing anything from a guitar, piano, or violin. He also began playing the lute to show it is not a dead form of music. He had an entire series of videos dedicated to learning to play. It took him two years, which is far less time than his nemesis Valdo Marx, who has a rival channel, took to learn after he decided to copy Jaskier. The channel used to be called "Buttercups and Dandelions" but an inside joke in which he misspelled dandelion as dandilion led to him shortening the name permanently to the latter.

Park Ranger!Geralt's channel is called "RoachOfRivia" and was originally just a personal account for listening to music and reviews along with posting the occasional video of his horse, Roach, back in 2008. He didn't expect the following he gained after posting a video of him horseback riding an old mountain trail and repairing parts of the path, but decided to post more of those. His videos are the type a person puts on to go to sleep to but a lot of people got more interested when he started handling trapped animals on camera, skillfully freeing them and then expertly disarming and removing the traps from the area. This is about when his followers realize he is a park ranger, rather than a guy with lots of free time to ride horseback on mountains. He doesn't talk or post a whole lot, so people have had to piece these things together on their own in the comments. There are even online forums dedicated to determining if he is a cryptid that picked up a camera.

Geralt gains a bigger following when Ciri, his adopted daughter taken in after old friends passed away, makes a channel where she films him and his brothers/fellow rangers when they're both on and off the clock. People love the absolute reckless roughhousing, stunts, and nonsense banter performed by three men with lots of outdoor space and only the consideration not to use explicit language with a child present. Ciri originally called the channel Rangers but has since renamed it Kaer Morons. It's named after the ranch the family owns, Kaer Morhen. Ciri once got Lambert to do a "Welcome to Jackass" intro as "Welcome to Kaer Morons" and that has been the series intro ever since. Sometimes the video is unofficial collabs with another YouTuber, Yennefer, who runs a beauty and true crime channel called "Yennafred"(however, it is different from similar channels as rather than just applying makeup, she is actively making beauty and medicinal products in her kitchen. Her followers call her their witch mom).

Worlds collide and fans lose their minds when Jaskier starts turning up in the background of Kaer Morons uploads and even in an upload from RoachOfRivia. Jaskier becomes more open with this and openly posts non-formal videos on his channel of him hanging out with Geralt and at the Kaer Morhen Ranch. He'll either do skits of following Geralt or Eskel or Lambert whilst playing a tune on his lute meant to be theme music as they go about their day. Often those skits cut with something being thrown at him. Sometimes he'll post something like him trying to "bring culture to the underprivileged" and singing for a fan-loved goat from the Kaer Morons videos named Lil Bleater. He even posts videos of him following after Geralt on a trail, rambling about his latest song.

Just as two different fanbases begin to settle when it appears Dandilion and Kaer Morons have become more or less staples on the other's channel, they are once again rocked by a video posted to all three channels seemingly filmed by Ciri and Lambert. It is of them trying to sneak through a hall in the ranch house and turning the corner to film Jaskier and Geralt interlocked in a kiss. The video is titled "We Did It!" Speculation about what that means and how long Jaskier and Geralt have been dating run rampant.

*I don't quite know where I was going with this but I am exceptionally proud of myself for coming up with Yennefer being a true crime YouTuber who makes rather than just applies makeup. Sitting at her table or desk and uses a mortar and pestle as she outlines the basis of the case. The videos probably follow several days of her work so maybe she'd frame it like arcs for the case, or maybe she's working on multiple different products to let one set. I feel like she'd especially do historical cases like Giulia Tofana or Elizabeth Báthory.*

[luizchka-blog]

Which is the best game development company to contact to create a mobile game?

Hey folks, it's all about keeping it simple nowadays, right? Welcome to the era of the internet, where answers are just a Google search away. So, here's the deal: if you're on the hunt for game-making magic, Google's your trusty steed. Easy peasy, but hold up, it's not instant ramen – it takes a bit of time.

Step one: Google-fu. Find campaigns or studios that whip up games. Sounds like a piece of cake, but remember, Rome wasn't built in a day. You're diving into analysis mode, my friend. Or hey, don't be a time-bender, let the specialists do the heavy lifting for you.

Now, if you're the "I got this" type, here's your game plan: Google first, then the ultimate rabbit holes – Reddit, Quora, forums of all shapes and sizes. It's like shopping for a slick ride; check out the reviews, inspect the horsepower.

Hold up, wallet warriors! Don't expect to summon the titans on a shoestring. The big guns command big gold. Aim for the sweet spot, where price meets quality. Think choosing between an iPhone and a Huawei – balance is key.

And oh, listen up: a personal recommendation comin' atcha. Suto Games, they're the real deal. Our squad teamed up with 'em a few moons back, and let me tell you, pure game-changer. Full-cycle game wizards who can jam alongside your main team. They whip up some wicked 2D art – isometric vibes, concept art that's basically sorcery, and 3D that'll make your jaw drop. Ever heard of Social Casino and Slots games? Yeah, they're the maestros there too.

So there you have it, fellow adventurers. The path to crafting virtual realms is laid out. Whether you ride with the specialists or blaze your own trail, remember – in the world of pixels, you're the boss.

[lover-of-the-starkindler]

tagged by @lady-merian - thank you!

Last read: I intended to reread David Eddings' Belgariad since it's been fifteen years or so since I read either it or the sequel series, and I wondered how it holds up to my memories; and also I wanted to see if I could figure out exactly how he handles his large ensemble cast. However, it did not turn up in the shelf upheaval (which means must be in a different room) and the library only has it on audio book (AND it was checked out). So. I picked up his Elenium instead, because I had it handy. So far I've got through The Diamond Throne and The Ruby Knight and discovered that I'd mostly forgotten book two because it is a lot of running around in circles (plus not-quite zombies, and a vampire, and they were not as exciting as they sound though I think they were effective the first time or two I read the series). It does set up one of the long running jokes of the series and it looks deceptively simple in execution but is probably really hard to pull off well. (Book one is also a lot more running around in circles but it's more satisfying because we're being given world-building and lore at the same time.)

Current read: The Sapphire Rose to finish up the series. I would say the first third or so is my favorite bit of the story but we will see if that changes this time around. (And if we return to a balanced reveal of lore and in-world shenanigans...)

Next reads: It looks like C. J. Cherryh's Precursor is currently available at the library so I may dive back in to the Foreigner series. Or I may look through the books I have on my shelf and have yet to read and make an effort to finish one or two of those. *cue skeptical looks from the audience, who are guessing that the real answer is none of the above*

[the12thnightproject]

Conditions Necessary

Ikesen Gift Exchange for @ashavazesa .

Hi Asha - I was excited to have drawn your name in the exchange, as I've been enjoying your drawings for such a long time.

Please join a Moderately Awesome Ninja in observing a rare solar event.

Fandom: Ikemen Sengoku

Prompt: Sasuke x OC (Asaka), stargazing activity

Word count: 2724

Warnings: None; rating level: slightly spicy.

Date: Fifteenth day, eleventh month, 1582

Atmospheric condition: Clear sky, fourth quarter waning moon

Temperature: Unknown. Unfortunately, it will be one hundred and thirty-two years before Gabriel Fahrenheit perfects an accurate reading thermometer. However, surface level ice formation in ornamental pond suggests the temperature remains slightly below freezing.

His invitation was simple and to the point: three sentences written neatly and cleanly, not betraying that he had in fact labored for over a day to find the right wording. “Dear Asaka, If my observations are correct, conditions are favorable for a rare solar event. I would be honored if you joined me in an evening of sky-watching. Should you be interested, please follow the marked trail after sunset. – A Moderately Awesome Ninja.”

Yukimura checked it over for him and shrugged. “Looks fine, I guess. Why’d you ask me anyway? If you want help writing to a woman, ask Lord Shingen.” He flopped down on Sasuke’s futon, nearly crushing the letter.

Feedback results: inconclusive.

Sasuke rescued his invitation, then examined it a final time, turning it this way and that. It did look rather stark, but he’d prefer not to involve Lord Shingen. To be sure, the man would know exactly what to say, and how to say it, but the words would then be Shingen’s words, and Sasuke felt very firmly that he should speak for himself. “I needed a beta not a Cyrano.”

“Sir Who?” Yuki watched, somewhat incredulously, as Sasuke neatly folded the invitation into an origami squirrel. “What in the world is that?”

“Squirrel.” Sasuke thought that should be obvious, even to the unobservant Yuki.

Yuki turned the little animal around in his hands. “If you say so.”

As Sasuke carefully carried his squirrel shaped invitation away, he heard Yuki mutter, “looked like a dog to me.”

Perhaps he would be wise to submit the invitation for peer review…

“His ears are too small and the tail is too long,” had been Kenshin’s response when he saw the paper construct. He directed Sasuke’s attention to the garden, where three rabbits were playing a complicated game of tag across the snow-covered ground. “Look. Long ears. Short tails.”

Once apprised that the paper sculpture was a squirrel and not a rabbit at all, Kenshin hmphed in disbelief, suggested a rabbit would be preferable, then gently hinted, that in fact he himself would be pleased with a tribute of three such animals.

To be delivered to him.

Tomorrow morning.

Prior to breakfast.

Somewhat discouraged, Sasuke decided it was time to obtain the assistance of an expert, and took his squirrely rabbit to Yoshimoto, who immediately attempted to improve upon the design, which he mistakenly identified as a peacock, albeit one with a rather unimpressive tail. “Fascinating creation! You were wise to ask for my artistic opinion. I believe if you triple the folds at the base and use tinted paper, your sculpture will be both true-to-life and more aesthetically pleasing.”

An hour later, Sasuke crept cautiously out of the room, leaving behind a man surrounded by discarded attempts; a man who was folding paper with the feverish single-mindedness of one trapped in the throes of a new obsession.

By then, it was too late to change course, and Sasuke left his offering of a dog/ short-eared bunny/ skinny-tailed peacock/ squirrel on Asaka’s futon and hurried to complete Phase II of ‘Operation: Sky Watch.’

In between the time he finished laying the trail to the watchtower and the time he heard her footsteps crunching across the icy courtyard, Sasuke had had second thoughts. As well as third thoughts. To be scientifically accurate, he had seventeen point five decision reversals (the point five occurring at the exact moment he heard Asaka’s footsteps). He’d never been indecisive before. He made decisions, and stuck with them, unless new evidence prompted interim analysis.

Interim Analysis: Invitation accepted. Companion arrival in approximately three… two…

He turned to greet her at the top of the ladder and took her hand to help her over the final rung. Asaka of course, possessed superior hand-eye coordination, and she moved with a dancer’s grace, but Sasuke hoped his gentlemanly offer would be appreciated. He, in turn, appreciated the feeling of her smaller hand in his. Warmth. He always felt warm when she was nearby.

Hypothesis: Asaka may be one of the rare humans whose normal body temperature hovers above thirty-seven degrees.

“Good evening.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he inwardly winced, afraid that phrase evoked a comparison to mid-twentieth century B movies. He wanted to welcome her, not remind her of a supernatural being that could exsanguinate a victim in less than five minutes.  “Thank you for joining me in what I hope will be a moderately awesome evening.” He indicated a blanket, where he had set up the makings of a midnight snack: a bottle of Kenshin-recommended sake, and a basket of Shingen-recommended desserts.

“Wow. You went to a lot of trouble… from the Kunai shaped note,” she held up the letter, which she had expertly refolded, “to the romantic trail of ground spikes.”

Romantic trail of ground spikes? Was she being sarcastic? Perhaps the ground spikes had not been the best idea. Unfortunately, flowers were out of season, and even if he had been able to find winter peonies, the likelihood of a trail of petals blowing away due to the current wind velocity was at least ninety percent. Ninety-five percent, he mentally amended, when the breeze tossed one of Asaka’s bright curls into her face.

She pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Anyway, I thought it was cute.” She held out a little pouch. “I, um, collected them because I figured if someone stepped on them, it would be bad. Do you want them back?”

“You should keep them. After all, you never know when a strategically deployed ground spike will come in handy.” He felt gratified when she tucked the pouch back into her kimono.

Once they were settled with food and drink, Sasuke cleared his throat, and nervously pushed his glasses back up over the bridge of his nose (they had a habit of making a break for it at the most awkward moments). “I suppose you’re wondering why we are gathered here tonight.”

“Isn’t being together enough?” She poked his side and added with a hesitant note in her voice that he couldn’t quite interpret, “friend time?”

Friend time.

Yes, friend time was what he’d had in mind – they were both so busy these days with their various duties that they were basically travelling on parallel orbits. But… hearing the ‘f-word’ coming from her lips? Something inside him flinched. He didn’t know, didn’t understand the what and the why of that flinch, and so he pushed it away, paused, reset, and turned his face to the sky. After all, it was the past week of solar observations that had led up to this moment. A moment to share with his friend. He gestured upward. “Behold, if you will, the star of tonight’s show.”

As directed, Asaka looked up. But… she was frowning. Had she not liked his joke? Usually, she at least smiled politely at his puns – on rare occasions she would even joke back. Disappointment propelled him into what one of his old classmates at Kyoto University had dubbed, ‘Mikumo Lecture Mode.’ “Have you ever seen the Aurora Borealis?”

“Northern Lights?” She shook her head. “They don’t appear in Japan at all… do they?”

“Twice in my lifetime they’ve manifested in Japan, both times in Hokkaido, so needless to say, I did not witness either one. You could say that viewing an aurora is on my ‘bucket list.’” In fact, it might be the only thing left on his bucket list. He’d discovered a wormhole, travelled to one of the most fascinating eras of history, became a ninja, and met his heroes… including the incomparable Tokugawa Ieyasu! Did he really need a bucket list any longer?

“Indeed, you are correct that statistically speaking, the aurorae rarely appear outside polar regions. But in the seventh century, all of Japan not only witnessed an aurora, but the rarer red aurora. Poets described it as resembling the tail feathers of a pheasant. As it happens, aurorae were more prevalent in pre-Muromachi period Japan, because over the course of 1400 years, the Earth’s poles shifted.”

Grabbing a pastry from the basket, he held it up to demonstrate. “Modern Japan sits at the magnetic latitude 25 degrees. However, at the time of the red aurora event, Japan rested at a magnetic latitude of 33 degrees, thus aurorae were more prevalent — especially in under the necessary condition of severe solar storms.” He tilted the pastry on the equatorial axis. “I’ve calculated that in this era, we are somewhere in the region of 28 degrees latitude, and therefore within the necessary geographic range to allow periodic observations of aurorae.” He drew an invisible line on the pastry, and then, as its role as a scientific prop had been fulfilled, he ate it.

“Is that why you invited me here? For an aurora viewing? How can you be certain that tonight is the night?” She poured herself another cup of sake.

“Unfortunately, even modern scientists can’t accurately predict aurorae. They’re caused by tiny particles from solar storms - coronal mass ejection - hitting the Earth’s atmosphere and transforming into light. In the modern age, when scientists observe the storms, they send out an alert for potential auroral activity. But here… I don’t have the right filter on my telescope to detect a solar storm. At least. I didn’t think I did. Except… lately, I’ve been noticing a bright, sharp flare of light when…” He trailed off as he looked, really looked at Asaka.

And… Asaka appeared…

…completely overwhelmed by the flood of information.

Red alert! Scientific jargon approaching critical mass!

Had he really just treated her like a first-year student? Ashamed, he could no longer meet her eyes. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to go on like that.”

Gently, she patted his arm, and her touch elevated his core body temperature by at least a degree. Maybe two. “It’s ok. You have a passion. It’s actually … attractive.” She smiled at him and it was like a sunrise.

Then suddenly, in that star filled winter night, there it was again. That solar flare.

Bright.

Steady.

Her.

Her.

It had never been a solar storm.

It had always been Asaka.

His… friend.

He’d been wrong… on so many levels. Granted, misinterpreting his own feelings wasn’t unusual for him. But he’d misinterpreted evidence… he’d gotten science wrong.

“Sasuke?” She waved her hands in front of his face. “What is it?”

“Sorry. BSOD.” He shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to find the right words. He could speak calmly and confidently about the stars, paradoxical anomalies, time travel and history, and yet not be able to vocalize what was in his heart. Carrying out Kenshin’s missions and facing down his lord in daily sparring sessions was less risky than revealing these newly discovered feelings. “I was wrong.”

She simply tilted her head, as if she was encouraging him to go on, but … no, he couldn’t explain why he miscalculated. He grabbed the basket and tossed pastries and cups inside with no sense of order or care. “No aurorae tonight. Maybe not ever.”

She put her hand on his arm, pulling him back. “Wait, wait! I don’t mind that. We can still look at the stars. Together. Right? Isn’t that the important thing?”

Yes… except, now that he understood what that solar flare meant, understood what he felt, could he stay sitting here, as her friend? And yet, if he didn’t want to lose her friendship, how could he do anything else? He hesitated, still holding the basket, frozen, halfway between the stars and the earth, trapped in a paradox of quantum superpostion. “I was wrong,” he said again.

“Sasuke, no one is right all the time.” Gently, almost as if he were one of the children she used to teach, she sat him back down. The she placed a cup of sake in his hand. And when he gulped that down, she poured him another. “I didn’t major in science, but even I know that some of the biggest scientific discoveries happened when the researcher was looking at something else. Penicillin. Plastic. Um…”

“Corn flakes.” He was coming back online now. He could get through this… emotional anomaly. He didn’t have to tell her. They could go back to the way they were, and he would manage to work around his feelings. It wouldn’t be the first time. Life with his nomadic parents had given him excellent compartmentalization skills. Emotions could be locked safely away in a box, alongside the memories that went with ‘parents forgot my twelfth birthday,’ and ‘moved in the middle of the academic year again.’

“Really? Alright. Corn flakes.” She shrugged, then took his hands. “Maybe you discovered something else that will make sense later. It’s ok. I still think you are more than moderately awesome.”

It was the combination of her kindness and her touch that did it.

It sliced through that emotional lockbox like a laser, overloaded his processors, and in that blast of static and heat, he blurted everything out before he had a chance to submit everything for peer review; before he had the chance to change his mind seventeen point five times. “You’re the solar flare. The flare comes from here,” he rubbed his chest, circling his hand over his heart, “when I think about you.”

As soon as the words were out, he wanted them back, terrified that he’d ruined everything.

Then he heard the hiss of her breath catching in her throat, and a smile bloomed across her face, one of such relief, such joy, such beauty that he forgot to breathe. That solar flare radiated with a brilliance that nearly blinded him.

They gazed at each other, and a thousand stars could have been born, lived their lifespan, and gone supernova, in that long moment.

His heart was beating in his throat, the rhythm echoing in his ears.  Words failed him, but… words weren’t necessary.

A kiss. A kiss was necessary.

He carefully cupped her chin, tilting her face toward his, pausing to give her time she should she want to pull back, to let him know that he was wrong.

Nine minutes earlier, a solar storm created shock waves, accelerating electrically charged particles, sending them toward Earth’s magnetosphere. Sound and color swirled together like clouds of dust swirling through space…

She sighed against his lips, her eyes fluttering shut.

A moment of hesitant reverence--

Holding infinite fractal futures in the palm of his hand.

At speeds of 72 million kilometers per hours, ions raced toward Earth …

He brushed his mouth across hers, sensing a smile, her intake of breath.

Her quietly exhaled, “yes, please, yes,” chased away any final doubts.

Pulling her closer, he wrapped his arms around her, reveling in her warmth.

Far above them, particles from that geomagnetic storm reached Earth’s magnetosphere…

Another featherlight touch, followed by another, and another, until snowflake kisses melted together,

Merged –

lips—

mouths--

Gravitational attraction sent electrons careening toward one another…

She molded herself to him as their bodies crashed together—

The initial urge to worship replaced by need to explore, to touch, to feel—

To meld.

Fuse.

Be.

Activated ions collided with atoms of oxygen and nitrogen…

Encouraged by her passion, he nipped at her lower lip, and she moaned—

Or had that been him? Did it matter?

Teeth—

Tongues--

Energy stored in magnetic fields exploded on contact...…

He clung to her, arms tightening, hands seeking--

Frenzied bodies fell backward to the floor--

He wound his fingers into her hair,

Her hands touching, caressing—

The explosion activated the electrons, releasing light, bands of yellow, green, turquoise, and yes, even red, unfurling in the sky over Kasugayama, undulating like the tail of an exotic bird…

When they finally relaxed the embrace, panting, resting, forehead to forehead, breathing each other, it was Asaka who noticed the glowing lights and color reflected on his glasses. “Sasuke… look… the sky.”

He turned toward the heavens, where the shining bands rippled and danced among the stars. “It’s not the sky. It’s you.”

@ikemenlibrary @sunnyikemen

[thephantomcasebook]

WILD New Leak Drop: Jace is gay? And Time Travel in the Hightower: Daeron meets Jon Snow and Sam Tarly?

Yo, I wasn't expecting this ...

Potential Spoilers for Season 2

Alright so ya boi Ser Hunt Reviews ... who has been a great source during "Game of Thrones" got slipped a little something and it's absolutely nuts.

just a summery if you don't want to watch the whole video.

1.) They're going to be shooting the "Battle of Rook Rest" first and it'll take three week in February. They're in need of 500 extras, 50 riding experts, and people with experience with pyrotechnics - Aka: People who know how to be set on fire.

2.) They are in need of two nude male body doubles for an explicit gay sex scene between two main male cast members. For months people have been postulating that perhaps Daeron would be gay. But it turns out that actually it's not Daeron at all, but Jace and Creggan Stark that might have a gay love affair.

Which, now, if you go back to "Fire and Blood" is kinda right there in plain sight - if true.

As GRRM said a thousand times ... there is no secret gay characters, If they're gay, he'll at least make it some what obvious.

3.) Kit Harrington and one other GOT alum have secret roles that are being kept hush-hush, perhaps a backdoor pilot of the "Jon Snow" show.

And this is where I take a bit of a rabbit trail with my own theory.

GRMM has said for years that the Hightowers are magic users and that the Battle Tower is one of the most magical places left in Westeros. We also know that GRRM has been dying - DYING - to tell a story in Oldtown, and as we know from the prologue of "A Feast of Crows" there is something hidden in the vaults of the Citadel that Marwin and Euron are trying to get their hands on.

My theory - and it's just a theory - that the Jon Snow show might deal with Time Travel of some sort and that Daeron's introduction will deal with whatever powerful artifact is in the magic vaults and perhaps will run into Jon Snow and Sam Tarly due to use or discovering of what is in the vault that the maesters are trying to hide.

We've already seen from the Pilot that there is a ton of ASoIaF spoilers in the show that haven't even made into the books yet - like Aegon's dream on the Valyrian Steel dagger when put to fire. And GRRM has said recently that Daeron is very important to the story which is why he insisted that he be included - even when Sapochnik didn't want him in the show.

Like I said, the time travel thing is just a theory ... but since time travel was such a big deal at the end "Game of Thrones" I would expect that it's still an interictal part of the narrative in Universe.

Perhaps Daeron will learn from someone or something about the fate of his family and will try to stop history from repeating itself.

But that's just a theory ...

A HOTD THEORY!

[just-another-spg-blog]

I posted 23 times in 2022

That's 19 more posts than 2021!

21 posts created (91%)

2 posts reblogged (9%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@pumpkindogart

@internetfriend

I tagged 18 of my posts in 2022

Only 22% of my posts had no tags

#steam powered giraffe - 16 posts

#spg the spine - 12 posts

#spg rabbit - 5 posts

#spg fanart - 5 posts

#spg zero - 5 posts

#david michael bennett - 2 posts

#hot on the trails number 1 fan - 1 post

#spg gg - 1 post

#idk i am bored and posting random stuff - 1 post

#spg hatchworth - 1 post

Longest Tag: 92 characters

#that one shiny robot from steam powered giraffe lip syncs to a gwen stefani song for tik tok

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

YALL I FORGOT I HAD THIS IMAGE OF MY BOY ZER0!!! 🧡🧡🧡

19 notes - Posted December 1, 2022

#4

See the full post

19 notes - Posted November 25, 2022

#3

Shhh ignore the tik tok handle in the corners

36 notes - Posted December 3, 2022

#2

See the full post

63 notes - Posted August 27, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

See the full post

96 notes - Posted August 27, 2022

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Of course #1 is the roomba vid

[posevr]

I posted 14,378 times in 2022

That's 2,807 more posts than 2021!

281 posts created (2%)

14,097 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@thekanucklehead

@barbieplasticsurgeon

@mr-phoenix-downer

@nerdylibertarian928

@magnetictapedatastorage

I tagged 564 of my posts in 2022

#youtube - 23 posts

#spotify - 13 posts

#lol - 7 posts

#funny - 6 posts

#twitter - 6 posts

#music - 5 posts

#anarchy - 4 posts

#funny pics - 4 posts

#black culture - 4 posts

#memes - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 126 characters

#just had a flashback to all the times i was creeped out as a kid by women leering at me saying i’m cute and asking me to smile

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Best one I’ve done yet

18 notes - Posted July 9, 2022

#4

Digging into MK Ultra is probably the fastest way to find yourself deep in the Rabbit Trail.

It’s got mind control, propaganda, Nazis, abuse, ritual abuse, sexual abuse, pedophilia, SO MANY drugs, telekinesis, remote viewing, astral projection, and some good ol’ fashioned Devil Worship

27 notes - Posted March 13, 2022

#3

Lord, if you see fit, please bless me with a Goth Latina Cowgirl gf

55 notes - Posted July 15, 2022

#2

Fuckin hate automatic toilets sometimes. I’ll flush when I’m done motherfucker

85 notes - Posted November 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

162 notes - Posted May 3, 2022

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