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randombtsprincessa · 3 years

Text

Brush His Picture

Author: Randombtsprincessa

Characters: Kim Namjoon x Reader

Words: 12.6k I am sorry for getting carried away...again.

Genre: Fluff, Angst cause it’s me

Rating: General!

Summary: Your job of writing a bio for Kim Namjoon is thrown for a spin when feelings get involved...

Warnings: It’s Namjoon. I have gushed. I am not sorry.

A/N: Firstly a warm and cuddly hug for @wynniewright for whom this fic is written. I enjoyed our conversations and look forward to more of those! Secondly a big hug and heaps of thanks to @casuallyimagining for the gif banner because I suck at those. Thirdly thanks to @thebtswritersclub for hosting the wonderful exchange!

Smeraldo Books, in your opinion, was the best building in the small corporate complex located just a little walking distance from your little apartment. It was slate gray; concrete and glass which gave off a cold, aloof appearance from outside, but when you entered it, it was rich creams, warm browns with tons of plants and flowers. The smell followed you, as you climbed up the floors, multicolored as should be the place where you entered new dimensions via books.

Your own floor was pastel blue, pine wood and deep tones of red and browns sprinkled here and there. If you looked hard, you’d find some pink nestled somewhere too. Today it was on your own desk. You had outdone yourself to be early today. You’d packed up everything you could think of in a sensible tote – notepad, tablet, pens, pencils, heck you’d even thrown in a sharpener and ruler scale. You’d grabbed your hello kitty travel mug, filled it with yummy hot chocolate with a touch of espresso and strode down the street to work.

You would be getting the first assignments of the incoming season today and since it was your first writing assignment overall, you wanted to make a good impression – a very good impression. Your pressed clothes and smart shoes were testament of your frazzled fluttering last night, preparing for today. Making sure you had everything; you took a deep breath and made to enter the conference room at the back of the floor.

Each floor had one, for on-floor calls and projects undertaken by the different subsets of the publishing house you worked for. Yours, in particular, was the same blue and pine, a long oval table in the centre with purple and blue mismatched chairs around it. Light streamed in clearly from the high wide windows, with glass animals on the sill throwing rainbows on the wall. In the very centre of the table was a vase, sporting the very flower that the company was named after. The ethereal blue petals blushing with pinks and violets at their veins curled delicately, recently sprayed to look dewy and fresh.

You adored these flowers; you had three pots of them at home.

***

Rena arrived at sharp 9:45. Her hair was pulled back in a sleek high ponytail that you were semi sure could cut if she – ahem, whipped her hair back and forth fast enough. You’d mentioned that during a drinking night, and had been friends since. She was your mentor in more ways than one, and you relied on her heavily, this being your first year at Smeraldo. Your appearance today would reflect on her too and you wanted her to know that she could trust you.

“Good morning, Y/N.” She smiled at you.

“Good morning, Rena. Any news for the morning?”

She shrugged, unbuttoning her navy suit. She crossed her legs. “I know seasonal meetings are important, but you don’t have to be quite so stressed about them.” She winked at you. “Don’t worry, you’ll ease into it.”

You sighed in relief. If Rena was this unbothered, you had absolutely no reason to worry.

Your steady breathing remained until about ten minutes, when at 9:55, the door was opened and the head walked in with her assistants and the other members of the floor. You shuffled to the front of your chair as the meeting commenced.

As Rena had said, it really wasn’t anything to worry about. Your head was chill enough when she presented spreadsheets, delegating people to watch the stats and curves before the real reason for the meeting was dealt with.

The ‘projects’ were the writing, the works, the foundation of Smeraldo. Every ‘project’ floor had three to four of those. The stars, who would usually grab the opportunity to head out there, do the work your creative writing professor preached about and bring in the digs. The rest of the floor was the sheep, handling excels and graphs – like commoners.

This season began with two fantasy drafts, both quickly given out to the oldest, most experienced Stars, no questions asked. They were to draft first, present later before Smeraldo published them under their banner.

“Right then,” She looked up. “Now, I don’t suppose you need to be reminded that last year we joined hands to collaborate with HYBE. It is an honor that they chose us and we intend to honor them right back, don’t we?” The words were intimidating enough for us to all nod.

“We have already worked with them so it should be easier for us to get going on the contract this time around. Right Kayla,”

We all turned to look at each other while there was silence from where the Head pointed.

***

As a part of the Smeraldo-HYBE collaboration, personal booklets for each member were released along with quarterly albums, as a sort of promotion. Last quarter, it was Min Yoongi. Now the big season project fish was Kim Namjoon. These works were separate from Smeraldo fictions but equally as important, and if the Head was to be taken seriously, even more so.

After all, BTS was worldwide famous. To do them wrong, would mean our name was mud.

Kayla was the third writer on your floor, senior to you and she had handled Mr. Min’s book. It was a given that she would take charge for the other member’s books as well…

…only…Kayla was absent…at a seasonal meeting…

The fuming ears of the floor Head suddenly told you that maybe you did have something to worry about. With all due respect to Rena, you quietly celebrated showing up an hour early.

“Where the hell is she? What’s going on?”

We stared back dumbly.

“She didn’t call in sick or called off today.” One of the assistants supplied helpfully but cowered when the Head glowered at her.

“Well, that’s all very well, but who do I brief now?”

“Not to worry, you can brief Y/N.”

There was a longer pause in which the members of your floor, simultaneously, turned to look at you. Your jaw nearly dropped, head whipping to look at Rena; the picture of ease. She looked at you and smiled.

To her credit, the Head looked equally thunderstruck. “I…Y/N?” she asked.

You looked around meekly. “Yes ma’am.”

She looked at you askance, before resolutely glancing at Rena. “You will watch her, yes?” At Rena’s nod, she turned back to you. “Miss Y/L/N, I won’t remind you that this project is extremely important to Smeraldo. I would expect your utmost best, understand?” You quickly nodded your head.

“You will be meeting with Bang Sihyuk and Namjoon himself in two days. All information about the album and the HYBE workings will be in a dossier in your mail. Don’t disappoint me.” she cast another look at Kayla’s empty chair, sighed in annoyance before swiping her files over to her assistant.

“Until next time, people,”

When the room finally emptied, you immediately turned to Rena, “Why would you do that?” You demanded.

Rena looked exactly the opposite of how you felt. Stretched onto your nerves now lay the weight of the world, your world. You had been thrilled to get an internship at Smeraldo, working your entire life around the business and after scoring an actual job here you had never thought that one day so soon you’d be at the risk of losing it.

If Kim Namjoon’s book tanked – you were dead. Dead, dead and very much dead…

“I told you, Y/N, you worry too much. This job is probably the easiest ever and since Kayla decided not to show up…I mean, come on, you’re one of our writers…the job was bound to come to you. Head madam just needed some time before she came to you. I hurried the process up. Besides, how will you learn if you don’t actually do the work?”

“But…it’s Kim Namjoon…” You mumbled.

“He’s hardly going to bite your head off, Y/N. Chin up and head to the meeting like the champ you are. You’ll be fine.” She tipped your head back with her hand before walking out herself, leaving you to scurry to your desk, feeling nowhere near as consoled as you should’ve been.

***

Two days in and you were getting dressed up yet again. Only this time, your nerves were sparking like a frayed wire no one was paying enough attention to. You chose a simple but professional outfit, worrying if there was any way anyone could nitpick on it. You ended up switching to something much more formal (and in your opinion, stuffy) attire in the wee hours of the morning, unable to get back to sleep.

HYBE’s building was situated in one of the most upscale business locales in the city. You had to take a cab to get there, already deciding that no way would you have enough time if you took a bus or the train. Already the buttons on your top felt like an over-tight corset. Thankfully, you seemed respectful and important enough to the cab driver that he stepped on the gas pedal, having you step out on the pavement in front of the building with almost twenty minutes to spare. You swigged at the espresso chocolate mix in your cup before stuffing it back into your tote.

You could do this. You had all the qualifications…if not the experience.

You could not possibly screw up that bad, could you?

According to the dossier, the meeting was set in the lounge, somewhere comfortable and open, probably a request of Namjoon’s himself. You knew enough about the man to take a guess.

Inside the building, security quickly but thoroughly sorted you out. You were patted down by a friendly lady, who smiled as she scanned you out an ID and rifled through your purse. She spotted your Hello Kitty cup and chuckled, giving you a wink that had you blushing all the way to where you were supposed to meet – directions given very kindly.

Along the way you knew. You knew that if you ever had to change jobs, you would dearly love to take one at HYBE. The place was an eclectic mix of practical and fun. There were artist posters and records and awards sprinkled around, the most prominent being BTS of course. Sunny gold lined the areas, with crisp blues and greens.

You might have even passed a little park arena.

When you reached the lounge, a sprawling area of lush moss like carpets and pink and purple art work on peach walls, there were only two other people in. The ones you were here to meet.

You recognized Namjoon from the door itself.

Insanely tall and thickly built in all the right places, he stood at a window. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his baggy khakis, a thin blue sweater hanging over his frame, hiding just how muscular he truly must be. Your lips twitched at the deep rose pink hue of his hair.

The other man must have been Mr. Sihyuk, grey suited and glasses perched on the tip of his nose, steadily going through sheaves of paper. Both men looked up at your knock on the glass doors.

Mr. Sihyuk stood up first, hand outstretched but his smile looked a little confused.

“Um, Miss Kayla…how nice to see you, again…”

It seemed like a question, his eyes scanning over your face as if trying to place you and you froze. Your hand paused just a little away from his, eyes darting around to the Idol who joined his CEO.

“It was wonderful to have you with us again on the bio projects for the albums,” He continued, seeming unfazed by your gob-smacked face. “You did a brilliant job on Yoongi’s. I was sad to be unable to meet with you before.”

Oh…dear…they didn’t know it wasn’t Kayla who was going to be on the job. Suddenly you felt like sinking through the soft carpets, right underground. They probably had dossiers of their own, with Kayla’s name across them. They didn’t know that she had slept in that one day and they didn’t know that they were now stuck with you.

“I’m – I’m afraid there's some misunderstanding, Mr. Sihyuk. My name is Y/N Y/L/N. I’m afraid Kayla was unavailable for the project.”

There was absolute silence on both ends after you finished. Mr. Sihyuk’s shoulders fell at your words, mouth parting as his eyes went scanning you again. This time you could distinctly feel him sizing you up. His eyebrows twitched up just so.

“Well then,” The other man, Kim Namjoon, the one you were supposed to write about, extended his hand. “I suppose we should rehash that welcome. Hello Miss Y/L/N, my name is Kim Namjoon. I look forward to working with you.”

You jolted a little, even stumbling forward to shake his hand, now thoroughly shaken out from your humiliated stupor.

“Forgive us, we must not have read the email citing the change.” Bang Sihyuk continued, spreading his hands genially.

“Don’t worry about it. These things can happen.” You fiddled with your bag strap with a tight smile, ignoring the urge to sway on the balls of your feet. The thick tension had still not dissipated as the three of you stood in a triangle, wondering who was going to make the first move.

It had to be you, shockingly. “So, um, shall we begin?”

You were shown a plush red armchair, Namjoon and Bang-PD taking the matching sofa as you were given the preliminary data. A small biographical book of sorts, more of a booklet if you were being honest; talking about an important segment in Namjoon’s life and his process and journey throughout the inspiration and creative take of the upcoming album. Standard, new age stuff…same as Yoongi’s…you already had Kayla’s old notes on the write up forwarded in your email.

You scribbled in small notes in your notepad while Mr. Sihyuk slid a small calendar across. “This is the tentative production and release schedule that we want to follow. There is, of course, plenty of time for you to follow Namjoon around and get a feel of the work environment, the studio life and of course, Namjoon himself. You’ll have quite a lot of time to write. The book will be issued and launched before the press conference and promotions will be done along with availability of the bio in stores.”

You studied the calendar before slipping it into your bag. “Thank you, Mr. Sihyuk. This is most helpful. We’ll be starting work from next week then?”

You were met with nods.

“Well, I’ll be off. It was wonderful to make your acquaintance, Miss Y/L/N. Please, forgive us about the whole Kayla mishap.” Bang-PD stood, you and Namjoon following and with a parting handshake he marched out of the lounge.

You began to slide in your pens and notes back in the bag when you noticed that Namjoon hadn’t followed his CEO out. Instead he stayed back; hands behind his back, watching you pack up.

You glanced up at him in question, meeting his impish small smile with a confused one of your own. “I’m sorry, I just feel so bad about the…thing before.” He said.

“Oh please, really, don’t worry. I’m, like, very new to this so it was bound to happen.” You waved a hand, slinging your tote on your shoulder, preparing to leave.

“Drive safe.” He said, gesturing for you to walk before him.

“Don’t have a car,” You blurted out instinctively before mentally slapping yourself.

“Oh, do you need a car? I’m sure we can get one to take you back to the office.”

“No, no, please.” Your ears burned at the thought of taking one of HYBE’s no doubt lavish company cars to simply take you back to Smeraldo. “I’ll just take a cab.”

You didn’t wait for his reply, shooting a quick smile and wave as you nearly rushed towards the exit.

***

Next week saw a dip in temperature, with you arriving at HYBE wrapped in a coat and scarf. You pulled off your beanie when the kind lady at the desk handed you your lanyard, this time stamped across it were the words EMPLOYEE/ COLLABORATOR. It felt heavy around your neck, the figurative noose as it were, in case you messed up.

Namjoon met you near the reception desk, jogging over from one of the elevators. “Hey!” He smiled wide, rosy hair glinting under the lights. “You’re right on time.”

“Oh,” You wondered if they were watching you for slip-ups and punctuality was one area they were scrutinizing. “On time for what?”

“To meet up; it’s so cold we’re all taking coffee breaks every ten minutes. I thought we could just work in the café?”

Namjoon rubbed his large palms together, drawing your attention to his fingers – soft and perfectly formed. You cleared your throat, shocked at yourself – tightly smiling back.

“Sure, lead the way.” As if you were going to refuse a request from Kim Namjoon himself, you and he walked the same route as you had the first time you’d come here. Only this time, you passed the lounge and followed another hallway which led to what was obviously the cafeteria. The back was lined with counters and serving tables of buffets. There were couches strewn about, booths, and tables. You felt like you were back in school. You hoped the food would be better.

Namjoon led you first to the serving tables. Stirring himself a simple cup of coffee, he turned to you. “Anything you want, you can find here. Sandwiches, subs, ramen, noodles, yeah, we have to go out if you want something more…sustainable.”

“No, this is great.” You gratefully tore open a mixer packet of hot chocolate, bringing out your own mug to put it in. you’d sipped the drink in the journey over, before finally realizing you’d emptied it.

Your new muse raised his eyebrow at the Hello Kitty but didn’t say anything, only suppressing an amused smile. You pretended not to notice that.

Once you were sitting at one of the tables near the windows, you spread your recorder, notebook, pens and cup, ready to work. “Ok, shall we start?”

Namjoon took the final gulp of his coffee, nodding.

“Right so, you’re going to be writing the prologue of the book yourself.” You muttered, flitting through the primary requirements.

“Yep, it’ll be more of a front to my thoughts which you’ll be writing about. It’ll be a personal note to the members, the staff and ARMY from me. Something that is completely mine but it will set the tone for your work.” Namjoon turned his phone to you, tapping a note on it. “I already have the first draft for it. It’ll be revised of course but I’ll email it to you so you can start with that.”

You picked up your pen and then it was only Namjoon talking about how the primary idea for the album came to life and began to gestate in his mind. You found it incredible, how a small incident or a sound could inspire someone like that. You’d never had any experience that moved you like that. You told him as such, wistful of the kind of inspiration that might never ever come.

Namjoon placed an elbow on the table, looking keenly at you. “You’re a writer.” He pointed out.

“Not really; I am working as such, yeah, but I wouldn’t say I’ve been inspired by anything. You have. I think you’ve been inspired since you were…what, fifteen?”

“I had a different beginning than yours, yes. But you can’t compare inspiration with experience. Experience comes after inspiration. Before, there’s only the feeling, the emotion that leads to it. Would you say that you started writing out of just an everyday inspiration, or did you feel something for the craft that drove you to it?”

“I wouldn’t say that’s a fair comparison.” You fiddled with the pages of notes. “I know your beginning, of course, everyone does. I didn’t have that kind of harsh circumstances pushing me to motivation. To be very honest…I’d say I’ve breezed past life. I love my job, but I don’t have much to show in the journey to it.”

Namjoon was silent for a few moments. His tongue poked into his cheek as he regarded you shrewdly. Finally, he gave you a sweet smile, eyes scrunching and dimples popping. Your pen stopped twirling in your fingers, blood easing in your veins at the simple change of expression.

“And that’s okay,” he said, “Not everyone should have to suffer through awful situations to achieve things they aim for. Success shouldn’t be measured in tears, Y/N. The point of life, in my opinion, is happiness and in the end that is what matters; the fact that you end up happy.”

You blinked as Namjoon’s blinding smile dimmed, turning into moonshine as he ran a finger over the rim of his empty cup. The seconds stretched by, you silently removing your gaze from his and taking down everything he had said. Your eyes wanted very badly to return to his face but you kept them firmly on the page, pondering his words, until you realized through your daze that he was speaking again.

“I’m sorry again, about PD-nim and the whole Kayla thing. The email we got was sitting in the inbox but we weren’t informed and neither did we think of checking the company email before the meeting itself.” His voice had softened, turned apologetic that had you hurrying to ease his conscience.

“I already told you, it’s no biggie, really.” You insisted.

“It must’ve been nerve-wracking, especially on the first day.”

You huffed, air whistling from your lips at him, before acquiescing, “Yeah, ok, maybe a little.”

That moonshine smile brightened again, defeating the sun beams that streaked through the windows. “Allow me to make up for it by giving you a tour of our studios. Same time, tomorrow.”

At that time, you were only glad that you could gaze at his face without an excuse.

***

It took you a few days, getting used to the new schedule. You were used to the short walk from your home to Smeraldo. You were used to the morning crispness on your cheeks, the thud of your feet on the pavement and then the warm confines of your office cubicle.

The new pattern involved you having to catch a cab everyday to HYBE. It wasn’t too expensive thankfully, and the hours you spent in the expanse of HYBE, shadowing Namjoon to his haunts and work areas was starting to prove much more enjoyable and rewarding than anything you’d be doing in Smeraldo.

You were drawn into the chatter and gossip of the makeup artists, the lady who intercepted you daily at the desk struck up more conversations with you when you entered. She had a son, you’d learned. Her husband worked away from the city but he commuted every weekend and they found time for getaways whenever they could.

The most jolting experience was meeting the rest of Bangtan.

Namjoon had asked you to accompany him to one of the group practices and when you entered the huge mirrored room, you spotted the rest of the boys sitting here and there, some on their phones, the other stretching.

“Hey guys,” Namjoon slipped the strap of his work out bag over his head, turning slightly to the side to show you standing behind him to the rest of the idols. You raised a hand awkwardly, waving.

“You brought a friend?” One of the men at the back asked – Jimin, with his baby features and an inquisitive smile.

“Actually, this is Y/N. She’s the one doing the bio book for the album for me this time.” He placed a hand gently on your back, pushing you ahead when you failed to step forward.

“Uh, hi,” you mumbled, “nice to meet you all. I’m Y/N.”

“Yeah, Hyung just said.”

Your cheeks immediately heated, helplessly turning to the one who’d spoken.

“Yah, Jungkook-ah, be nice.” A taller man – Jin - smacked the back of the maknae’s head, before smiling at you. “It is very nice to meet you, Y/N. Are you going to be working while we practice?”

The gentle voice of the older man did wonders for you. Reminded of Rena’s composure, you immediately brightened, bowing to them naturally. “Yes sir, I am supposed to be shadowing Mr. Kim so…I hope you don’t mind.”

This made them burst out laughing – Namjoon included.

“‘Mr. Kim’, wow, Namjoon you’ve traumatized the girl. Please don’t be so formal, we’re not used to it.” Jin chortled.

Namjoon rolled his eyes, taking your elbow gently to guide you to sit on one of the cushions against the back wall. “You can sit here and watch. We won’t kick you in the face that way.” He winked and you managed a weak giggle back when you had recovered enough.

Why, oh why did he have to be so attractive? In those loose black shorts, that blasted white tank, you hadn’t been able to quite meet his eyes ever since you’d met him today.

You decided to obey the laws of ‘work’ as BTS practiced their routines. You pulled out your usual supply of pens and your trusty notebook and began to scrawl everything you’d observed, this time the process of choreography and how the dynamics between the group members and Namjoon worked in these hard routines. It took you about five pages, filling out and circling details that you would highlight in the bio.

Soon enough, you ran out of work to distract you. You folded your hands in your lap neatly, simply watching in awe. Each member hit the beat with a different type of attitude. If Jungkook was sleek as a panther, Hoseok was a coiled serpent, but none of them ever missed a beat. There was a tandem between them all, which made you sure that they took this very seriously. After all, they were known for their work ethic and it was their bread and butter.

They couldn’t slack in this just as much as you couldn’t slack in the bio.

Your eyes drifted back to Namjoon. Even though you knew, he wouldn’t describe himself as a dancer primarily, he was no less behind in his steps than his members. He moved with an awkward grace not unlike people of his height. God of Destruction – you remembered – and yet, you couldn’t help but watch when he moved. His chin jutted in concentration and you balled your fist under your chin, chiding yourself.

You were self aware enough to recognize the flow of your emotions and right now, they were particularly worrying. You were in awe of Kim Namjoon, anyone with any semblance of sense would be. He was intelligent, chivalrous, generous, charming, thoughtful, and humorous and in the days you’d worked with him, more than just books and music. He was a fun and charming person to be around and he attracted people like moths.

But…he was way beyond human leagues.

Someone like Kim Namjoon couldn’t be human. He had to be some eldritch being, put together into conception out of pure matter and stardust. There was no way his mind and his soul were meant to be meandering on this planet. And while you were aware he was far from purposeless, you wondered if he would ever be satisfied with his purpose in time.

Maybe…maybe not…

And you, as the self aware person as you were, couldn’t – shouldn’t – be having such tumultuous emotions regarding him. He was pink roses, a dusty shade of gold that had been polished and made to shine from a young age and he basked in the glow of adoration. He was at a peak you couldn’t hope to touch.

Never mind the fact that feelings mixing with work were always dangerous. You had no room for failure if these got in the way. You couldn’t afford to lose your job. You would lose everything you had staked and for what? You couldn’t throw your life away for an unattainable man. You sighed, closed your eyes and ducked your head before any of the men could notice your hard stares.

***

If you had to pick a climax for your journey with Namjoon, you’d pick the day he texted you a weekly schedule filled with interviews and media covered events that you couldn’t shadow him to. What would you do? You couldn’t exactly carry a notepad and pens in your mouth after him like a loyal puppy while he did his job. The interviews were okay, all you had to do was stand at the back behind the camera and note the way he answered his questions and if it was an English interview, the way he deflected stupid and rude questions from his members. Although it was clear by their now unimpressed faces they knew exactly what was going on.

The trouble was the red carpet event that you couldn’t push through. It would be a shame too, since this would be one of the prime times to jot a piece of Namjoon down. In front of flashing cameras, strutting with his head held high, knowing and projecting assurance. It would’ve been a great detail in the bio.

Apparently Namjoon thought the same, because as soon as he saw blue ticks in your text chat, he called you.

“So, what do you think?” He asked.

“About what, the event…? It’s too bad, I’ll watch it on TV and you can tell me how it goes over ice-cream.” You answered, in the face of his snort.

“Or…you could just come with me as my plus one. As a friend, of course, you can sit with that little note of yours and keep writing while people scream in my ear.”

You clutched the phone hard. He wanted you to come with him? He wanted to take you with him to an event? A red carpet event at that…on his arm, with people around…but as friends of course…

“Um…it’s kind of short notice…I don’t even have a dress.” You hedges unsteadily, hoping he didn’t notice the abrupt breathiness of your voice.

“You don’t have to worry about that. I have a fashion extraordinaire handy. Text me your dress size,”

The next you heard from Namjoon was when a huge, pure white box made its way to your apartment door. The delivery man took your signature on a tablet, wearing a sleek blue shirt and pressed pants that nowhere in the world could be a uniform for couriers.

You carried the heavy box to your couch in confusion, fingers fluttering with the navy blue ribbon around it in trepidation. Should you dare open it? It looked very expensive. Maybe this was a mistake and it got delivered to you in a mix up. But it couldn’t be. The name on the tablet was yours, the address yours…

You took a deep breath and pulled the knot loose.

The ribbon fell away gracefully, the top of the box grasped in your fingers and then you opened it up.

If you weren’t holding your breath…you’d have gasped.

Inside was a gown. Ok, that was a massive understatement. The fabric was thick, layers and layers of silk and glitter draped over each other to make a thing of dreams. The delicate straps of it felt like gauze, slipping over your skin when you pulled it out in pure awe.

You couldn’t possibly wear something like this. You could never pull it off. You glanced at the mirror near your door, the skirts catching the light of your room and sparkling.

You’d be wearing a million stars sewn on your body.

Your phone chimed the very moment your weak fingers were about to drop the dress, a sacrilege that proved you unworthy of it.

Hope you liked it J I’ll pick you up at 7.

And he didn’t take your calls. He didn’t hear you out. He didn’t listen to you list the reasons why you couldn’t do this, shouldn’t do this.

Your heart was already beating drums in your chest, each set letting you know that it was misreading this gesture. Namjoon wasn’t wooing you with this dress. He was simply making sure you didn’t look like a garbage can next to him. After all, red carpets meant celebrities, paparazzi, superior expectations. He couldn’t afford to show up with someone looking like they had barely been able to put together an outfit fit for the walk.

After hours of trying, at five you gave up, beginning to get dressed.

You washed and dried your hair, putting it up in a roll that was easy and you had mastered for your interview. It couldn’t be faulted…maybe it was a little simple but hey, you hoped the attention wouldn’t be on your hair. Not with that dress…

As you had guessed, the dress was heavy, weighing your body down till you had to carefully bunch handfuls of the sparkling skirt just to walk. You paired it with the lowest heels you owned, and a simple silver set – a gift from your parents upon graduating.

The brilliant shade of lipstick applied, you prayed and prayed that Namjoon wouldn’t find you disappointing. Of course, only so; that you wouldn’t be a source of embarrassment to him and HYBE and Smeraldo. It had nothing to do with you wishing you could be swallowed by the earth if Namjoon looked even slightly put off.

He arrived sharp at seven, even climbing out to greet you. Your trip in the elevator had been thankfully solo. No peeking neighbors to comment on your appearance but of course the building manager caught sight of you, gaping through the glass door of his office. You hoped he wouldn’t attempt to raise your rent.

Sleek and pristine in a black suit and silver shirt, open at the throat, your breath did catch at the vision he made. His hair was pushed back now and he grinned when you slowly tottered over. “Hi,” he said simply, eyes glinting in the glow of the dress.

“Hey, you didn’t take my calls.” You blurted out, again wanting to smack yourself.

“Yeah, I’m sorry; I got busy with speech training and fittings. They messed up though; I’m wearing shoes one size big.” You and he both glanced down at the polished black shoes with silver toes. you shook your head at the distraction.

“Namjoon, this dress…it’s too much; I can’t say anything right now but thank you.”

“Don’t thank me – it was Taehyung who picked it out.” His eyes moved down the dress before he looked away suddenly, hand moving to rub his neck. “You look great – beautiful, I mean.”

“Thank you.”

“Shall we?”

Namjoon helped you climb into the car, bending down so he could collect about nine drapes and pleats of silk to lay them on the car floor before shutting you in. You glanced at the driver of the Cadillac that Namjoon had brought and decided to stay mum for the drive.

The sprawling expanse of the hall where the gala was taking place sent you into nervous jitters. You touched the edge of the top, wondering if it was tight enough, if the necklace was enough to draw attention away. Of course, the dress was the highlight of your outfit, but suddenly all you could think of were the faux pas that could get you kicked out and possibly fired.

You had no time to turn to Namjoon with these worries, to beg him to allow you to stay in the car when valets were opening the doors.

Flashing lights, camera with too bright heads blinded you momentarily and all you heard was a quiet ‘wait’ from Namjoon before he was exiting the car.

He shot easy smiles at the front line of the media before turning to assist you. Maybe they realized that Kim Namjoon had indeed brought someone with him because the screams increased in pitch and volume, deafening you as well.

You were completely disoriented when you felt Namjoon’s arm go casually around your waist, one hand still holding your skirts so he could walk you at least to the main photo calls and away from the paps.

“Hey, easy, okay, they’re always like that. Are you okay?” Namjoon mumbled in your ear when you were a safe distance away, turning you to face him.

“Yeah…yeah, I’m okay…I just…wow, it’s a lot to take in.” You grabbed the skirts that Namjoon had let go and began to set them around you properly.

“Okay, all we have to do is walk this bit, get some photos, talk to that man at the end and then we can head in.”

You followed Namjoon's instructions quietly. Smiling lightly, when Namjoon posed in the centre of the carpet with the logo of the sponsors behind you two; Your posture probably wasn’t the most glamorous because the camera man shrugged before letting you pass – to the interviewer.

“Kim. Namjoon.” The white suited man gasped as if Namjoon had just landed from outer space and said something scandalizing.

“Oh dear, should I be worried?” Namjoon laughed breezily but his hold on your back stiffened.

“Not at all, it seems…who is the lucky lady? We’ve never seen you. Are we finally seeing the elusive RM being snatched up off the market?” The man took the time to level a polite smile at you before Namjoon waved his hand.

“Rubbish; I could never hope to snag someone like her. This is my friend; she’s accompanying me as part of a job.”

You noticed he never gave your name, thankfully.

“Ah…just friends? Pity, you look stunning together.”

“She is stunning but I would never claim to be as lucky as that. Do please excuse us, heels and all.” The interviewer laughed as Namjoon ushered you inside the hall.

Your smile had glazed over by now and when Namjoon sat you in one of the chairs next to him, you made sure to not move too much while he had to mingle.

As heavy as the gown was, the weight of it was something completely different now. Your wings had wilted back into nothingness, bringing you down to the earth with a less than pleasant thump.

Here, in the hall with actual stars around you, it didn’t matter if stars covered your body tonight. You couldn’t be part of this. You belonged in your cubicle at Smeraldo with books that had been your lifelong companions.

You weren’t stupid. You knew Namjoon being an idol was a consequence as well as reality. His proximity had blinded you, with those bewildering smiles and irresistible dimples. He’d poetically woven a spell that with him being now gone was breaking.

You were worlds apart.

Maybe this could be a story someday.

But it would never be reality.

***

Your realization couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment. As days went by, time spent with Namjoon waned; instead you went back to your little pastel cubicle, typing away at your laptop, pouring facts mixed with sentiment onto the digital document.

Soon, pages of this would be flying off the shelves along with an album. Your connection with Namjoon would be severed and you both would part ways as acquaintances.

That would be that. You tried not to think too much of it like that. It colored your work a little melancholy and you’d have to go back and redo it so it would be upbeat.

It was one of those days of you clacking away when a shadow fell over your cubicle. You didn’t lift your eyes at first, engrossed in the mild noises your keys made when the presence started to…feel hostile. You glanced up curiously, meeting the curve of an arm first and perched on it, was the weight of Kayla.

She wasn’t looking at you; instead her eyes were on the screen of your laptop, reading your work with a tilt to her head that – to you – was condescending.

“Kayla,” You called in confusion and her eyes flitted to you.

“Carry on, carry on, I’m just going to watch. I want to see how you’re going to do this.” Maybe you were paranoid…but she definitely sounded snide.

“Do what, type…?” you mumbled under your breath, about to turn back to work but she heard you and decided to answer.

“I want to see the new worker ruin Namjoon’s story. That way we can all go back to our normal lives.”

You stopped. Your eyes widened in surprise at the blatant vehemence. You turned to her.

“Excuse me, but I’m not ruining anything. It was you, who decided to sleep in and you who missed the meeting. If anything, you’re the one who ruined your shot.”

“It wasn’t a ‘shot’ for me, Y/N. It was a guaranteed project. I was sick, it happens. I’m just surprised they let the newbie take on such a big collab. But then again, being a lapdog pays in this industry. Connections are more important than talent, I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, you definitely would be the one doing Namjoon’s story justice with that attitude.” You snapped back. If there was one thing you wouldn’t stand for, it was her sullying Rena.

She smiled again, removing herself from your cubicle wall. “Petty fights don’t matter to me, Y/N. I’m still your senior and soon enough I’ll be back to doing my rightful share of work.” She walked off in a very final manner, leaving you to stare after her a good while before you could turn back to your screen.

The blinking cursor taunted you, each second that passed without it budging, a point in proving that Kayla may have been right. You growled internally, rubbing your dry eyes.

You needed a change of view.

***

Your laptop was now perched on the same table you and Namjoon had sat on that first day. Your back was to the rest of the café, eyes free to drift out the window. You sipped on a simple smoothie and tapped away, making good progress. At this rate you could hand in the first draft in less than a week. A hundred pages worth of a booklet formed much easier when your mind was clear. You wondered again if you could change places here.

You hoped at least this way you’d be safely out of Namjoon’s path and could also enjoy the lovely environment of the building. After all, one sin didn’t have to equate to ditching another, did it?

No sooner had your mind finished that thought when you heard his voice. Your fingers rattled over your keyboard, printing the stupid version of words on your screen and you had to halt in case he had seen you and was coming over.

When you didn’t hear that cheerful deep voice that was now uncomfortably familiar to you approach from behind, you took the chance to peek over your shoulder, just to see how he was – just that.

He wasn’t alone, thankfully. Next to him stood another familiar figure; much shorter and just as broad. Min Yoongi hadn’t been very verbose with you when you’d been introduced but then again, you knew the man wasn’t a fan of small talk with strangers. He was under no obligation to chat you up and you weren’t expecting him to either.

They finally picked up their orders, sitting at one of the tables in your line - Comfortably far away so that they wouldn’t notice you; but also within earshot of you. You sighed, returning your attention to the document on your screen.

“So, how’s the book coming? Any news yet?” You heard Yoongi’s baritone.

“Not yet, but I’m sure it’s going to come along fast. Give or take a few days maybe,” Namjoon took a loud gulp, scrolling through his phone.

“I hope so. She was new, wasn’t she? I didn’t remember seeing her when it was my turn. It was that other girl…Kayla something. What’s your girl’s name again?”

You silently cleared your throat, expecting Namjoon to snap in that you weren’t ‘his girl’ but he only hummed. “It’s Y/N. We messed up that day, called her Kayla. Guess we must have thrown her off her game that whole day, but she was amazingly professional. It was stupid too, that email was sitting right in the office email, and an intern missed it and didn’t tell us.”

“That’s what happens when you don’t treat your workers right. Even interns are deserving of respect. Maybe if they were catered to the way the company expects them to cater to it, it would -,”

“Hyung, I love your rants – but please.”

Yoongi shrugged, taking a bite out of his sandwich. You cracked a smile, biting your lip to stifle a giggle at Namjoon’s dazed expression.

“So, what’s she like? You hung out with her quite a lot.” Yoongi’s voice dipped, muttering something to Namjoon whose fingers stopped scrolling, a pensive expression on his face now. You glanced back at your screen, frowning, wondering what Yoongi must’ve said.

Namjoon didn’t answer for a long time and you had to keep glancing over, just in case he was actually muttering too and you were just not hearing anything but nope. He remained silent for a good long while, staring down at the coffee cup in front of him.

“I think…I think I would’ve preferred to work with this Kayla.”

You froze, your fingers hovering over the keys, making zero noise. You wished the other people in the café would quiet down and Namjoon would repeat himself but only this time you’d hear something else, something positive, something not so utterly crushing.

“Oh, she’s not up to the standard?” Yoongi asked.

“It’s…its stupid. I know it’s a shitty thing for me to say, but -,” But he was still going to go ahead and do it. He was still going to get those words out, unaware that you were able to hear him and have your gut wrenched.

What was wrong with you? Why were you not good enough to work with Kim Namjoon? Was it the rambling or blurting out thing? Was it the inability to retain composure? Had you messed up during a meeting that he was holding a grudge against? Did you somehow embarrass him during the gala? Had he already complained about you to his management and members, told them that this was the last time you were to work with them?

They had hushed up now, clearly having a private conversation and you were thankful. You didn’t know how you could handle hearing more. And you definitely didn’t want the rest of HYBE staff to hear how pathetic you were to their stars. If word got back to Smeraldo, you’d be fired. You’d lose everything.

You shut the laptop screen quietly, a hand sliding your things from the table top straight into your bag. Slinging your stuff onto your shoulders, you walked out of the room – out of the building – away from anything related to BTS.

***

You were resolute the next day, walking into Smeraldo with no words of greeting spoken to anyone. You got to your floor and then marched straight into Rena’s office, hurriedly knocking the prologue to the urgency of your matter.

“Y/N, what’s wrong? Did something happen?” Rena frowned, actually getting up from her seat when you stumbled in.

Something did happen, yes. I got way in over my head.

“I…I…need to um, change – the BTS project. I can’t do it anymore.” The words rushed out, thick and unintelligible but Rena apparently got the gist of it because she dropped her shoulders, crossing her arms.

“What happened?” she asked flatly.

I have a crush on my subject and he thinks I’m the worst thing to happen since the rise of patriarchy.

“Nothing serious; I just…I’m not cut out for this Rena. I told you that day of the meeting. It’s too much, I can barely sleep, can’t eat.”

Ok, provided that was only one day because your mind was too obsessed thinking about what you heard but still – you could definitely apply the cases.

“What are you talking about? You just gave me your stats two days ago. You were fifty three pages in and climbing.”

“Yeah well I’m not happy with it. I’ve been writing in a daze. Please Rena.” You begged; you’d have gotten on your knees at that point but mercifully, after about nine seconds of shrewdly eyeing you, she finally sighed.

“Well, I can’t say I’m not disappointed – and very, very surprised. You’re one of the better writers at Smeraldo, Y/N; I wouldn’t have pushed you for this if you weren’t. I believed in you. But I can’t make you work if you’re not happy and I certainly can’t let it affect this collaboration. It wouldn’t help anyone – so…fine. We’ll make the change. I’ll have the boss send an email…and you can personally go and hand Kayla all your material on the job so she can start as soon as possible. We still have time to make it up I think.”

You nodded, surreptitiously wiping a streak of moisture that had escaped without notice before you paused. And then you put in a request for Rena to consider before grabbing all your notes, drafts and your work laptop and walking up to Kayla’s more spacious cubicle.

She was reading a magazine when you tapped the side wall, eyes rising up to yours before her eyebrows raised at the amount of things you were carrying. Without preamble, you let them crash on to her neat desk.

“Uh, what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m not doing Namjoon’s bio anymore. They want you to do it.” Namjoon wanted her, in particular.

Kayla stopped scowling, looking at you in confusion before her face darkened again. “Listen Y/N, I don’t care much for charity -,”

“It’s not. I swear it’s not Kayla. I really, really can’t do it anymore. Please…please just take it off my hands.”

Slowly, her face cleared, eyes still examining yours for any insincerity before she picked up your notebook, carding through the pages.

“It’s a little shocking, I’ll admit but fine. But you…why are you giving it up? It’s BTS. It’s probably the biggest break you’d ever get.”

You shrugged, unwilling to converse more than necessary about this. “I just felt bad…and ill about it.” You didn’t exaggerate and Kayla didn’t ask you to elaborate. You glanced down at the biggest bag which you’d placed under her desk. The box was still exquisitely white and unblemished.

“Can you just do me one last favor?”

“What?”

“When you see Namjoon, can you give that bag back to him? Tell him thanks for everything.”

***

The days passed quickly, each one easier than the last as you decided to stuff your stupid, pointless feelings – hurt and otherwise into one single compartment: DO NOT TOUCH.

Namjoon had had to meet with Kayla quickly, to put in effect the plans that the senior writer was going to play with. She already had your notes, but they would still have to spend some time together just so she could get a feel of his prologue and run with it.

It had taken about two visits from Kayla before your phone started to act up.

He sent a text first. At a decent time…you were at work, taking a small break when the ping came. You promptly slid the notification aside and pushed the nagging in your head to look at it into that one compartment. An hour passed…then another before another message came. You couldn’t help but glance at the words even as you slid it out of focus.

Are you ok? What’s going on?

Namjoon didn’t text again for the remainder of the day and you heaved a sigh of relief. It would be easier to not mess with that box of goodies in your head if only anything pertaining to Kim Namjoon was taken out of your path.

Only…he decided to call you…

As soon as you entered your little apartment and took off your shoes, flexing your toes, the trill of your ringtone made you fumble in your bag. You almost slid the call to accept, catching yourself just in time when you saw the big white KIM NAMJOON flashing on the ID.

You stared at the name, a proverbial finger dancing over the latch of the compartment. But you couldn’t…you couldn’t mope over him again; you had given an entire day of wallowing up to his name.

Again, you heard him preferring Kayla. You placed the phone onto the coffee table and went into the bathroom to change.

Namjoon’s persistence remained impressive though. He called and texted every day ranging from thrice to five times. Almost every time you frowned. You had given him Kayla. What more could he want? He was desperate to know if you were okay, wondering if something had happened to you and that Smeraldo was trying to cover it up but you couldn’t bring yourself to put him at ease.

Also, it was getting steadily difficult to keep his name out of your life. BTS was worldwide, he was a global entity. He was everywhere…the media, the news, there were even fucking standees in malls for them.

But your job was keeping you busy, mercifully.

The day you had gone to Rena to ask her to put Kayla on the bio project and take you off, you’d also asked to be moved to a different section of jobs, just for the time being – till you could come back to yourself, or so you told her.

In reality, the editing and beta reader position that you now held was time consuming and kept you focused and engrossed enough to not think about the idol. Not every piece of writing was amazing, but fiction was fiction and you gladly succumbed to romances and fantasies that were wildly improbable - simply because they were possible in their worlds.

You could not be more grateful to Rena for this. You finished more than your quota of three manuscripts a day, sometimes even staying up at night if one was particularly interesting. You knew you’d have to go back to writing someday but for now, you wanted to do a good job so you wouldn’t let down Rena more than you already had.

You shuddered to think of returning to your laptop. It was a mistake to think that you were cut out for this job. There was a certain level of coldness required to be a writer – the sheaves of paper in front of you proved that. You had none of that ruthlessness in you. You were too soft, too sheltered. You had grown attached to a subject that you were supposed to present as facts. Instead you had painted him in a fantastic palette of misdirected emotions that he was under no obligation to act upon.

And so now you were hurt…and it was your own fault.

To write again, you would first need a spine, one forged in titanium instead of the malleable clay that had wrapped around the fingers of others so easily.

In some days of your ruminations…Namjoon stopped calling and texting and you were then rudely interrupted by Kayla, striding over to deliver news you hadn’t asked for.

“Mr. Kim took the dress back.” she announced as soon as she pressed herself at your desk. You looked up from your fourth manuscript of the day, peering at her through your glasses. Your back was sore and your neck felt lodged.

“He’s asking about you.”

“Okay,” you said slowly, clearing your throat before reaching for a bottle of water. “I’m okay.”

“He said he reached out but you never responded. Why don’t you respond? He’s obviously concerned.” She continued, putting an unnecessary emphasis on ‘obviously’. It irked you.

“He was my subject matter. Now he’s not. It’s inappropriate.” You barely kept from snapping, shrugging noncommittally. Kayla was still there, eyeing you in that way, that made you feel smaller than her.

“Well, I don’t think he feels it’s inappropriate. He’s enquiring about someone he considers a friend. He’s been known to care about friends.”

You put the manuscript down finally. You looked up at her blankly but she didn’t flinch. Instead Kayla returned your heavy look with one of hers, raking you down with an appraising look. After a few moments of silence she gracefully straightened and turned on her heel, returning to her cubicle.

You picked up your manuscript again.

***

The cursor was blinking again. The walls of your cubicle needed a wipe down. Some of the pens in your drawer needed replacing. You revolved on your chair once – twice – thrice before facing the darn cursor again.

It had been two days since Rena had asked (basically commanded) you to return to your original post. One because you had gotten through the work she’d set aside for you. Second because Smeraldo’s projects were lining up and they needed their writers to buck up. You being one of them now needed to get in the game.

Or you would lose your job. After all, even though Rena treated you like a sister, it didn't mean she was going to baby you forever. Her own job would be on the line.

So you returned, starting out slow, with slogans and advertising scripts. Only…advertisements meant media research…and you knew what you were going to see the first thing you delved into that.

When your phone rang, you were almost eager to get to it. Namjoon hadn’t called in a while – it was safe again. You glanced at the unfamiliar number once, curious before you pressed the accepted call to your ear.

“Hello?”

“Y/N,”

The deep thrum of his voice reverberated in your ear, travelling straight through your heart – setting it to thump unsteadily – and landed deep in your belly, burning uncomfortably.

Your fingers tightened around the device, unable to speak, unable to pull it away from your ear, unable to comprehend simply hanging up. Instead you helplessly muttered his name. The two syllables were heavy on your tongue, some emotion injected in them that you doubted he could sense over the phone.

It irked you that you had so easily been caught unaware. You had paid attention to every text, every call for so long, swiping him out of your sight to avoid the temptation and here he was, smartening up and using another number altogether.

You guessed his IQ really did pay off.

When he spoke again, there was no weight in his tenor, no sense of concern that Kayla had said he felt about your absence. If anything he sounded cold, indifferent – as if you were just another person he was talking to.

And you were...you couldn’t mean anything to him.

“How have you been? It’s been quite some time.” He said, formal, aloof.

“Yeah, I’ve...I’ve been keeping busy. What...about you? How are you?” You mumbled.

“I’m fine. The bio is going on fine, I heard from Kayla.” He seemed to be moving while he spoke, you could hear distinct shuffles around him.

“That’s nice. So, is something wrong? Did you need something? If you lost Kayla’s number –”

“Can I not call you unless there was something wrong?” he cut you off smoothly, pleasant while you stumbled to correct yourself.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I was just –”

“Anyway, so the boys wanted to throw a party in celebration of the album finalization. It’s a dinner and games thing so be prepared to be bored if you’re not into that. They wanted to invite you because you were part of the bio making process.”

They...they were inviting you, not him. It seemed silly, to be stung by such a tiny little detail but you couldn’t help the down-turn of your lips, the frown settling upon your brows. “What about Kayla?”

“I don’t know, maybe one of the boys will get to it. So, do I count you in?”

“Why me, Namjoon, I left the project, didn’t I?”

“Is that a no?”

You sighed, annoyance surging at the way he deliberately ignored your pointed remarks. “Fine, I’ll be there.”

“See you at 7. You know where the dorm is. Just tell the front desk you’re here for BTS and give them your name.”

He hung up before you could spill out another question, pose another objection. You looked irate at the blackened screen, feeling used and mocked yet again. He had reached you so long after you cut him off and he had had the gall to sound miffed with you? You stuffed the phone back into your back.

The evening would last long. You vowed that this would be the last time you would have anything to do with Kim Namjoon.

***

You had been intimidated by the idea of BTS before. After spending a few days with Namjoon, you could appreciate them being normal men, seven men who just wanted to make music, who were young, a little dorky but overall just themselves.

Coming here, standing in front and looking up at the gigantic building that housed the dorm of BTS and their separate private apartments, you could only feel the previous nerves spiking again.

Your fingers were shaky as you pushed open the heavy glass door, thick enough to stop bullets and made your way to the marble front desk.

The concierge, decked out in a cream vest outfit, politely smiled at your approach – too professional to not rove his eye critically over your modest dress. You were at the dorm of BTS, after all. You couldn’t show up in jeans for a dinner party.

He nodded when you relayed your name, giving Namjoon’s reference which had them flurry to get you an elevator. Once trapped in the sleek metal box, the chiming numbers indicated your rising panic.

What were you doing?

Why were you here?

You had cut them out of your life for a reason. Why would you willingly show up again? Inside, of course, you knew the reason. You had unsettled issues. You wanted to talk this out with him. But you couldn’t – which again, added to the question as to why you would accept his invitation in the first place?

There was no way you were brave enough to stand in front of Kim Namjoon and ask him to explain himself.

When the doors opened; the wide hallway only led to one set of double doors. You looked around once; just to make sure that you were on the right floor and not about to barge into some unwitting souls’ suite.

Walking to the etched wood, you knocked a hurried patter that sounded abnormally loud. You didn’t even have to wait long. The door swung open almost immediately, as if he was waiting right inside for you.

Namjoon stood in a simple black long sleeve, rolled up till his elbows. His jeans stretched tightly along the length of those legs. Huh, he was wearing jeans...go figure...

“Come in Y/N.” He said, walking back into the house. You followed, slower, clutching your bag strap like the first day.

It was...relatively clean, being the house full of men. It was also too big for you to take in everything. You supposed they needed the space, each one with a personality of their own but together all the time. You wondered if they had studios in the two storey house too.

You focused on Namjoon, who had by now moved to the sitting area, flicking through some pages, not paying any attention to you. There was no sound. No one came to greet you, not even Jin who you thought was the actual host.

It was...suspiciously quiet.

“Namjoon,” You called. “Where is everyone?”

The man only shrugged his shoulders for a second and it seemed that he wasn’t about to answer your question at all. However, at the very last moment when you were about to repeat yourself unwillingly, he muttered. “They went out to eat.”

What?

They were out to eat? After calling you over to have dinner and play games?

“So...we have to go and join them or something?” you asked.

Namjoon sighed painstakingly, as if you were disturbing his peace but he finally dropped the papers onto the coffee table and stood up, hands in his pockets.

“No, Y/N, we’re not going to join them.”

What the hell was going on here exactly?

“We’re going to talk.”

You had opened your mouth when he finished his sentence, pausing in contemplation to what he could possibly want to talk about. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m saying I want answers, Y/N. Why did you stop coming over all of a sudden? Why did you stop working on the bio and give it to Kayla? Why didn’t you pick up your phone when I called you? Why didn’t you answer my texts? What the fuck happened?”

You blinked, once, staring at him in shock mingled with annoyance. There was a lot to Kim Namjoon; you would be the first to admit it. But you never took him to be this cruel.

“Why are you even asking me these questions? I wasn’t competent enough for you. So I did the right thing, I gave the work to someone who could match your standards. End of story; I don’t understand why you had to bring me here.” Your vehemence faded by the end of it, leaving you to drop your head and mumble half the words at your shoes.

You kept staring down when Namjoon didn’t say anything in retaliation. Seconds ticked by and finally you had to glance up to see Namjoon’s face tight, jaw clenched and he drummed his fingers over crossed arms.

“Unfortunately,” He began when your eyes met. “Doubt and Insecurity are two things that every artist struggles with in their line of work. There are no ways around them; you simply have to push through them. Work through them, Y/N; but you can’t let it take you away from your passion. If you felt doubtful of yourself, you should’ve talked to me, or any of us...you didn’t have to brand yourself incompetent and give into this negativity.”

If you had two cents of courage you would’ve screamed at him. Indeed, Kim Namjoon was a cruel man – a blind man.

And your nerves had finally grown into something more ferocious.

“I gave in? I’m sorry, Namjoon, but when your client is the one that ‘brands’ you incompetent, you kind of have to give in. You are the one who said you preferred Kayla. So I gave you exactly what you wanted. So stop pretending like you care about my insecurities and my doubts.”

Namjoon gaped at you like a fish, eyes wide and thoroughly confused. He held up a hand immediately. “What the hell are you talking about?”

You snapped. “I heard you, that day, talking to Yoongi about how you would’ve preferred it if it was Kayla who was working on the bio rather than me. If I was bothering you that much or if you found me – I don’t know, not a good writer, you could’ve at least been professional about it. You could’ve emailed the company and asked for a switch, instead of bad-mouthing me to your damn members!”

Both of Namjoon’s hands were up in the air now, defensively. His eyes flickered around his house as he attempted to place the scenario you were describing to him. You saw the light bulb go off about a few seconds after. His demeanour changed immediately. His hands lowered, face cleared and his eyes scrunched before he did the worst thing imaginable that he could’ve done at that moment.

He laughed.

His body bent forward, hands clasping his stomach as his shoulders shook. His head dipped, chortles echoing around you as you stood rooted to your spot, stricken by his mirth.

In the moments that he managed to raise his head, he caught sight of you and laughed again, eyes watering.

You were seeing red. His frame lit up in flames in your head, fuelling you to whirl about on your heel. You marched away, almost at the door when fingers wrapped around your elbow, stopping your next steps.

You turned, seeing Namjoon already there, still smiling.

“Let me go.” You said firmly.

“I didn’t say I would’ve preferred Kayla to you because I thought you weren’t a good fit for the job, Y/N.” He said instead, hand loosening on your arm but not quite letting go. “I said it because...well, I was afraid I would be breaching our contract. Since...I kind of wanted to take you out.”

You stood there, watching Namjoon’s eyes flicker between yours, waiting for a reaction. His hand was still loosely cupping your elbow, fingers warm and splayed out over the skin. His thumb briefly brushed over the bone as if checking that you hadn’t frozen over.

But you had...you were standing stock still, staring up at the idol, uncomprehending the words that had spilled out of him. He had just said something very controversial, very brave...and very confusing.

You thought back to all your hangouts. The long talks that you scribbled down with your tongue poking out the corner of your mouth, the walks that you took, sometimes huddling together with shivers due to the cold weather, sharing hot coffees and chocolate ice creams. Telling him about yourself when he wanted a break and needed to listen instead of supply conversation. Then they changed to his texts, the good morning or good night texts that he would send, the occasional music recommendations and book suggestions.

And then the night of the Gala...that stunning dress...his behaviour...

Nowhere in any of these cases had you seen anything that spelled anything other than friends being friends. He had never flirted brazenly with you, simple banter being the only form of cheek you could recall. He was after all; your client and anything that could offend or upset him would result in your suspension.

“That’s...that’s...impossible. You never – not even once – I didn’t ever get the idea, not ever,” You fumbled over your words, pulling away or trying to once again but Namjoon shrugged, smiling sardonically.

“Well, I couldn’t exactly come out and say it, could I? You were working with me, for my company. I know the kind of pressure you must’ve been under. If I did say something, you’d have been obliged to agree because you’d think you owed it or something, just to keep the job. I didn’t really want to put you in the spot like that. The night of the gala I got carried away. I had a plus one and if I had to take someone, I wanted it to be you. I begged Taehyung to put the outfit together because I’m shit at high end fashion but you looked absolutely gorgeous and yeah, I owe Tae a thousand favours now but it was worth it.” He took a breath.

“I was waiting for the project to be over so I could actually, properly ask you out but well, I guess you heard me being an idiot that day and...” he waved his free hand vaguely.

“Oh,” you mumbled, your eyes leaving him and travelling back down to the floor. What else could you say? Sorry, I was eavesdropping on your conversation and got my feelings hurt and acted like a child? Yeah, you didn’t think that’d go over well.

��Which brings me to the question, why did you stop?” His thumb brushed over your skin again, prodding your attention to him and you shrugged like him, mumbling something about doing right by the client.

“Bullshit, if you wanted to do right by the client, you would’ve waited for me to say something. Changing people like that could’ve resulted in a breach lawsuit and I doubt you’d have risked that.”

You looked up at him again, irritated. Why did he have to poke holes in your admittedly stupid story? Hadn’t he shaken your world enough by telling you that THE KIM NAMJOON wanted to ask you out?

“You hurt me.” You hissed. “You made me think I was inept and it hurt my feelings because I’ve been attached to you and this book since day one. I finished the bio at home, for fuck’s sake. I lost objectivity when it came to you because you’re adorable, scary smart, caring, generous, a total goof and it doesn’t help that you look like a damn sculpture all the time.”

You yanked your arm one last time, successful this time around because Namjoon smiled widely, shyly, deep dimples poking into his cheeks that had you internally melting from how cute he was.

“I want to kiss you.” he said simply. “May I?”

What were you going to do, say no?

Instead, horrifyingly you started to sniffle. “You better, because I’m really ashamed right now and I will start crying.”

Namjoon was quick to cup your face, cooing over your squished cheeks in his large palms and he brought you closer, closer and closer to himself. Your hands clutched at the sleeves of his shirt while he pecked you lightly, dropping a flurry of equally soft and fast pecks on your cheek, the tip of your nose and chin before returning to your lips, delving deeper, testing the waters.

Your eyes fell shut, revelling in the plumpness of his lips as he delicately trailed them over yours, smacking kisses over you till you let out a giggle.

“Finally, she smiles.” Namjoon beamed at you, leading you back until you were gently propped against the door, your head comfortably resting on the wood and he deepened the kiss, bowing and moulding his body with yours.

“Should we be doing this here?” You asked nervously, when his lips began to travel over your jaw.

“The boys won’t be back for a while but we can head to my room if you want?” He wriggled his eyebrows at you, heat pooling into the skin he still held between his hands.

“Uh, I’m good here.” You muttered to his amusement. His eyes travelled back to your mouth, eyes hooding and then he was slowly leaning in again. You met him halfway and his mouth opened with the barest brush of tongue when loud pounding sounded right on the other side of the doorway, laughter and footfalls sounding the arrival of the rest of the band.

You moved away just as the door flung open, six boys piling in, “Can you believe none of us thought to grab our wallets, we have to go back and tell manager-nim to get the car again –” Jin grumbled with the boys stopping to gape at you in Namjoon’s arms as the two of you blinked at them like deer in headlights.

Then chaos erupted.

The whoops and cheers of ‘finally’ made you drop your head in a shy grin with Namjoon groaning behind you.

“Namjoonie finally got some!”

“OH SHUT UP!”

#thebtswritersclub #btswritingcafe #btsghostie #btshoneyhive #namjoon fanfic #bts fanfic #namjoon fluff #namjoon angst #bts fluff #bts angst #bts #namjoon x reader #namjoon

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serrj215 · 3 years

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Road Trip

"On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair" He sang with the radio. He couldn't be more off-key if he tried. As the song went on he fumbled and mumbled half the words. "da da Hoooteeel California"

Beast Boy found himself looking out a windshield. He was in a car, traveling on a highway heading north. It was either very late or ungodly early. Rain was lightly falling on the windshield and save for the headlights and the occasional street lamp it was pitch black. His head was resting against the passenger window. He sat up in the seat, straitening his back trying to remember where he was and what was going on.

"There he is!" The driver says. "You've been out for almost 300 miles, you missed me doing a heartbreaking rendition of Margaritaville about an hour ago. I might have missed my calling."

Beast Boy turned to see a skinny but older man in the driver's seat. He had shaggy blond hair that was months overdue for a trim, and was graying around the temples. When the street lights passed through the windows, he could see he had grey-blue eyes behind chrome wire-rimmed glasses. He must not have shaved for the last few days. The driver's voice was friendly and familiar but Beast Boy couldn’t place it.

The driver arched his back in his seat, stretching tired muscles. "Aggh, I am fading. Don’t get old Gar, trust me. You ready to switch?"

Beast Boy just sat there staring at him as the music ended and the driver turned down the radio.

"Gar, you still asleep?" He asked glancing at him before turning his attention back to the road. "Will stop for gas soon, I will buy you a cup of coffee. Three sugars right?"

"Um, Yea." Beast Boy didn’t know what to say which was new for him. He knew the driver and the driver knew him or at least knew him well enough to know how he likes his coffee. He just couldn’t pull the name from his mind. This man was important, he was safe with him but at that moment he would love to see his driver's license.

"If you pay a few more bucks for the good stuff you don’t need all that sugar. There used to be a little coffee place near the university, they roasted their own beans. I will take you, If it is still there it's been almost 20 years."

"What time is it?" Beast Boy asked.

"Well it's too early for breakfast and too late for dinner " He replied with a smile "but we’re making good time."

Beast Boy knew he had heard that expression before. In fact he was sure that he had used the expression before. But before he could think too much about it.

"Please thank Raven for me," he said. "You found a good one Gar, It's not many women that would be okay with this. I mean especially with a little on the way. " He flipped the turn signal and started merging to the right. "I just hate planes. I think it's worth it taking 14 hours to get someplace if it means I get to pick what and when I eat and I am not stuck in a metal tube with no leg room."

"I guess I am lucky I can fly myself " Beast Boy responded then in unison they both said.

"But boy do your/my arms get tired!"

They both started laughing at the very old humor.

"So when is Raven due again?" the driver asked

"Late September."

"So that means you and Raven got frisky right around New Year’s or the Christmas party?

"HEY!?" He responded he could feel the blood rush up his neck.

"Oh, what?!" The driver expounded. "I am one of the foremost experts in primate biology, also I used to be 22 with a hot wife. " He laughed to himself. "You going to tell me that you and Raven go out and save the world, then go home and play Jenga?"

Beast Boy just retreated a bit in embarrassment leaning back against the door.

"You know you should keep it up, it can help with a lot of the pregnancy symptoms. The stress management and blood pressure benefits alone-"

"I do not want to talk about this!"

"Okay. Okay, changing the subject. Have you settled on names yet?" He started again not letting this conversation end. "I know its tradition to name the firstborn son after the Mother's father but I doubt you're going to do that!"

"Yea that’s a no." "We were thinking of Marie for a girl."

"Your mother would love that."

The exit came up and the driver pulled off the highway into a gas station. He turned off the car and tossed Beast Boy the keys. "Okay throw $20 in it, I will get the coffee and you one of those peanut butter jobs if you don’t tell your mother I am getting one too. She worries"

"Dad?!"

"Yea?" he said looking at his son straight on.

Beast Boy really saw him for the first time with the car's dome light.

"Your dead."

Mark Logan heard that statement and mentally weighed it, after a moment. He said with a smile that Beast Boy had only seen in old photos. "Yea, but I am still around."

The door slammed.

Beast Boy shot up in bed and then tumbled out of it onto the floor, taking the covers with him. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees trying to get a hold of reality.

"eg Gar are you okay?" Raven struggled a bit to sit up in bed. She wrapped her arms around herself. "And may I have the blanket back?"

Beast Boy got up, gathered the covers, and made the bed over his pregnant wife. As he tucked her in he told her about the dream.

"Are you okay? She asked laying on her side looking up at him.

"Yea, I mean it was weird but it was just a dream." he said not sure if he was buying that himself.

"Was it?"

"Rae? Are you saying that was real?”

"Gar, we have seen so much, different dimensions, time travel, different levels of existence. We have been to so many places and met beings that can use reality as a plaything. it wouldn’t be unheard of that you were visited." she said just before a long yawn.

"Really?"

"No." she put a small but sympathetic smile on her sleepy face. A pale hand slipped out of the blankets to take his. "We have talked about this before Gar. I know you are-"

"Scared shitless"

"Apprehensive." she corrected "But I know you are going to be a good father. I know you wish your parents were here to help, but we have family and we are going to be okay."

"Yea I know Rae, there is just so much I wish I could ask."

"We will figure it out. Try to relax we have a big day tomorrow. Now come to bed, you neglecting your duties as my personal bed warmer."

He kissed her hand before letting it disappear back under the blanket. "Okay, I will be there in a minute," he said before walking off.

Beast Boy looked flipped on the bathroom light and went to the sink. He splashed some water on his face a few times and ran his wet fingers through his hair. He straightened up and looked in the mirror, when he saw his face he jumped back a bit.

He slowly touched his face, making sure that the person in the glass was doing the same. Somehow he had missed it. He would look at himself every day, and see the goofy kid he was when he joined the Titans. That night he looked in the mirror and saw his father. His skin, eyes, and hair were still green but his chin, and nose, even the barely controlled chaos of his hair was the same as his Dad's.

Maybe Rae was right. Could it be he was trying to tell himself something? Could it be that in the vastness of creation and all of the unknown his father did visit him? Could it be that he just saw the Lion King too many times?

He took a few deep breaths and headed back to bed. He found his wife where he left her lying on her side, the blankets pulled tight around her. He carefully climbed into bed kissing Raven's head. But before he settled in he leaned over to whisper to his wife's belly. "Grandpa says hello, and he loves you."

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

This story has been with me for a bit. My father passed a year ago this month. We didn't see eye to eye about many things as I got older. When I do remember when we did get along it was when we were on the road together. Long road trips going up and down I-95, where we could talk. In the passenger seat is where my father would forget that I was his son and we could talk like two men.

#bbrae #bbrae fanfiction #Serrj215 Original

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thedannyphantomcookbook · 3 years

Text

The Phantom Origins

Okay, so I know probably a bunch of people have already done this, but I wanted to rewrite Danny Phantom, from just before he got his powers to maybe when he tells his parents.

I’m tired of waiting for a reboot that may never come, so here is what I picture the reboot would look like.

I’ve always thought it would be darker and more horrific, that the ghosts he fights are more monstrous and demonic.

That there would be a little bit more of a medical concern for Danny’s humanity being affected by his ghost half. Is he becoming more ghost like? Is he gradually getting sicker and sicker, and his ghost DNA ravages through his body like cancer?

Would Vlad be not only a sexist, creepy, abusive old man, but contains a thirst for deception and power that he poses a real, apocalyptic threat on Earth and the ghost zone?

Are ghosts actually the spirits of the dead? Or are they a different breed of human that lives in a completely separate dimension, that’s is layered and hidden within ours?

What about Danny’s mental health. He has to keep this big secret from his parents because he absolutely FEARS what would happen if they found it to the point he’s scared they wouldn’t believe he was their son and try to kill him as a result, or keep him hostage in the basement, slowly torturing him and dissecting him until he’s dead? What would the world think of him? A prophet? A demon? Would they accuse his parents for experimenting on their own children? He would have so much fear and anxiety that he’d have to be on edge all the time, falling into depression, panic attacks - not to mention the PTSD he’d get from it all while battle nightmarish monsters and the hanging question over his head of what he is now.

These are just SOME of the questions I’ve had that Butch Hartman will never answer. He set up such a great plot and characters but carried it out pretty poorly over the show (which may or may not be his fault since they wanted to keep it kid friendly.)

I hope to get into the deep and dark and nitty gritty details of Danny Phantom we’ve imagined but never get to see. I wrote the first chapter below, and I plan to write much more. :)

I hope you guys enjoy it!

Follow me over at Ao3

Summary:

Dr. Madelyn Fenton and her husband, Dr. Jackson Fenton, have just built the world's first portal to the Ghost Zone - an alternate dimension where undead linger for all eternity. The only problem is no one believes in what they are doing. The townspeople call them the Fenton Freaks and the rejection letters from the National Science Foundation are piling up. Not even their own children can tolerate their ghost obsession. Their 14 year old son, Danny, does what he can to separate himself from his parents. Mocked by his peers and judged by his teachers, he keeps his head down and stays out of the spotlight.

It comes as no surprise to Danny when his parents' machine fails to work on the first test run. Discouraged, they leave empty handed for the weekend to go to the Ghost Hunter's Expo, where they were expected to present their portal during their panel. As soon as his parents leave, Danny invites his friends over to give a tour of yet another one of his parents' failed experiments. When he gets dared to walk inside the machine, he triggers something that turns it back on, and for the first time ever, his parents have an invention that works. But that's the least of the surprises when Danny emerges from the portal himself...

To Whom It May Concern,

To the esteemed members of the National Science Foundation, myself, Dr. Madelyn Fenton, PhD., and my husband, Dr. Jackson Fenton, PhD., write to you today to consider us for the New Exploratory Scientific Research Grant Award. Our combined decades worth of research within paranormal scientific research fields have led us to believe that the “ghost” entities that haunt our very Earth, could in fact be the missing link to creating new technology, curing human illnesses, and prolonging human life on Earth.

The term “ghosts” is defined as a religious or spiritual being, or the hypothetical soul of the human body, separated from physical forms, usually that of a person recently deceased. Dr. Jackson Fenton and myself have a different theory about the “ghostly” entities that visit our Earth. We have sufficient evidence to prove that ghosts are in fact not the spirits of the dead, but an entirely new species of the human race. We believe they exist in an alternate dimension - a separate plane of existence that is not unlike ours. Recent developments have also shown the possibility of dimensional travel - we believe ghosts are able to pass through into our plane of existence for a temporary amount of time. Through our rigorous research, construction, and experimentation, Dr. Jackson Fenton and myself have created what would be a “portal” to this plane of existence, to the “Ghost Zone.” By exploring and studying the ghost zone, we could collect a limitless amount of research and data that could be used to benefit humanity for the rest of our existence.

We have provided within our application our twenty years of research and development, along with video recordings of our experiments as evidence of our work in progress, as we humbly request your consideration for the New Exploratory Scientific Research Grant Award.

Sincerely,

Dr. Madelyn Fenton, PhD. in Quantum Physics and Paranormal Studies

Dr. Jackson Fenton, PhD. in Theoretical Science and Paranormal Studies

From the Grants and Admissions Office of the National Science Foundation

To Dr. Madelyn Fenton and Dr. Jackson Fenton,

Thank you for your interest in applying for the New Exploratory Scientific Research Grant Award. The New Exploratory Scientific Research Grant Award (NESRGA) is an esteemed scholarship opportunity that looks to provide funding for ground-breaking scientific research to scientists working within small and local laboratories. After carefully reviewing your application and research, we have come to the regretful decision to decline your request to receive the NESRGA.

We unfortunately could not approve your request due to the following issues:

Insufficient or lack thereof evidence or proof of scientific research of ghostly entities and/or undiscovered species, the “Ghost Zone” dimension in which these entities exist, or possible travel to said “Ghost Zone.”

Insufficient of lack thereof peer review research and laboratory data.

Paranormal entities and alternative dimensional research is not recognized under the National Science Foundation as factual scientific work.

We are thrilled to hear that you share such enthusiasm, passion, and ambition in the pursuit of scientific exploration, research and development. You are a part of a wonderful community, and through your tireless efforts, you will help bring our Earth into the future.

We welcome you to apply for the NESRGA again next year.

Sincerely,

Barbara Keaton,

Director of Grants and Admissions

National Science Foundation

GHOST HUNTERS EXPO - THIS LABOR DAY WEEKEND

To Drs. Maddie and Jack Fenton,

We are excited to have you return to speak at the Ghost Hunters Expo this coming labor day weekend. We have reviewed your Ghost Zone Theory and we anticipate your presentation of your research.

Please note: due to new regulations we cannot allow the following into the convention center:

Ecto-infused food, inanimate objects, or animal mutations of any kind.

Alarm or defense systems that release a form of knock out gas, ectoplasmic goo, ectoplasmic foam, spoiled meats, or live rodents. All alarms and defense systems must be turned off while inside the convention center.

Samplings or gifts of homemade cookies or other food, beverages, or gifts to bribe the judges.

Disclosed weapons that are not a part of your presentation and/or not approved by the convention prior (we will have metal detections at all entry points of the convention hall)

Asking for audience volunteers unless approved by us prior your scheduled presentation time.

Ghost claims targeted towards convention guests, judges, or other presenters.

All presentations and inventions must have been tested and approved by a judge prior to your presentation time (i.e. no last minute or surprise inventions).

Fighting or displays of physical aggression.

Destruction of convention hall equipment, the building’s foundation itself, or other presenters equipment and or inventions.

We thank you in advance for your compliance and full understanding of the new regulations.

We look forward to seeing you!

Best,

Trevor Martin

Ghost Hunters Expo Coordinator

“Did you see this?” Jack Fenton asked, waving the notice from the Ghost Hunters Expo. He scoffed. “New regulations...I wonder who were the bimbos that made them enforce these rules.” He crumbled up the notice and threw it carelessly on the floor.

“How’s that portal coming, sweet cheeks?” he asked his wife.

Maddie Fenton was deep within a hexagon shaped chamber carved out of her laboratory converted basement wall. The interior was lined with a colorful array of wires and tiny blinking lights. At the end of the chamber, sheets of metal and hardware fanned in on itself. Maddie was kneeled on the floor, wrestling with a few cords.

“I’m just struggling to connect these last couple of wires,” she answered, pinching the two cords together. With a last bit of strain, the cords connected with a satisfying click.

Wiping the sweat off her brow, she came out of the chamber. “Hopefully that will stabilize the gravitational pull of the Ghost Zone once we get the portal running.” She briefly thought back to a dark memory from their college days when their first Ghost Zone prototype had malfunctioned and the toxins from the Ghost Zone leaked out of the portal, resulting in displacing one of her lab partners for the remainder of their college career.

“We got it this time, baby,” Jack said confidently. “There is no way we could make the same mistake twice.”

Maddie sighed as she walked over to the control panel to record the ecto-readings. “I just wish we knew for certain what had gone wrong that day. All of this guess work is driving me crazy.” She picked up her notebook and briefly reviewed her meticulously hand written notes before adjusting some dials.

“Okay,” she huffed, satisfied. “I think we’re ready for a test run.”

Jack clapped his hands. “Excellent! I’ll go grab the kids!” He ran to the basement steps and shouted, “Jazzy-pants! Danny! Get down here!”

A few minutes later both of their teenage children shuffled down the basement steps.

“Is this gonna take long?” Danny asked, disinterestedly. “Tucker and I were in the middle of planning our next battlefield strategies for Doomed. There’s only a few days left of summer vacation and we still have so much planning to do if we want to beat the other online players and achieve the seven Keys of Destiny.”

“And I was in the middle of an important breakthrough in my self therapeutic psychology research,” their daughter, Jazz promptly stated. In her hands she clutched an open copy anxiety and phobias workbook. “Did you know that high functioning anxiety in adulthood is caused by childhood trauma from never feeling safe in your own home? This would explain so much about me and Danny -” she paused in her speech when she saw the machine her parents were working on.

“Oh, no.” She snapped her book shut and pinched the flesh between her eyes. “ Please do not tell me you called us down here to witness another one of your experiments. Don’t you remember what happened last time?”

“Oh, Jazz, relax,” Maddie said, waving her off. “Those burn marks from the last ectoplasmic gun experiment healed eventually. And look!” She walked over to a closet in the back of the room and pulled out two polyester jumpsuits. “We made you both your own custom fitted, lab safe, jumpsuits!”

Jack appeared beside Maddie. “And we matched them with ours! Jazzy-pants, yours is teal to match your mother’s. And Danny, yours would have matched mine but the store didn’t have orange.” he held out a plain white jumpsuit with black gloves and boots.

“And I haven’t even shown you two the best parts!” he grabbed the jumpsuits from Maddie and spun them around. Crudely pressed onto the fabric of the jumpsuit was a cutout of Jack Fenton’s smiling face, emblazoned on the chest.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Jack grinned.

Jazz was the first to respond. “Dad there is no way you’re going to get me to wear that,” she said while backing away and shaking her head. “How about Danny and I will just go upstairs and you can call us down after you’ve tested it? That way we’ll be safe and not have to wear those hideous jumpsuits.”

Danny silently agreed with her while struggling to conceal his own disgust at the suits. It was one thing to be forced to wear a jumpsuit like his parents but it was an entirely different level of lame to have to wear his father’s face across his chest. What if his parents insisted he wore it all the time, like they did? Involuntary images of him becoming the laughing stock at his new high school was surfacing in his mind, more than he already was for being the son of the city’s eccentric ghost hunting husband and wife team. He was already struggling to stay above the pathetic nerd social ring in his class. They’d have to create an entirely new category of nerd just for him if he wore that suit. The thought of it made him want to crawl away in a hole and be left there to die.

“Mom, Dad, I have to agree with Jazz,” Danny said. “The suits are kinda...lame.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Maddie dismissed. “These jumpsuits are the latest fashion that every ghost hunter wants.”

“And when we reveal these babies with my face on them, everyone will be scrambling for one. We’ll be rich!” Jack stated proudly.

Jazz snorted. “Um, I somehow doubt that. Look, we’ll just go back upstairs and you two can let us know when it’s safe, okay?” She looped a hand around Danny’s arm and started pulling him away.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Jack clamped a hand on both of them and spun them back around. “You two are being given the chance to witness scientific history! And we are not going to let you pass up on this.” He tossed the jumpsuits to Jazz and Danny. They unwillingly caught them.

Jazz glowered at Danny. “If you take any photos and post them on the internet, I will kill you.”

Danny held out his suit reproachfully. His dad’s smiling face seemed to be laughing at him, like all of the students as Casper High will be if they ever found out about this.

“Don’t worry about it.”

A few minutes later, Jazz and Danny stood alongside their parents in their matching jumpsuits. Jazz stood with her arms crossed, silently fuming, her foot tapping impatiently. At her mother’s insistence, Jazz was forced to tuck in her long, red hair and wear the hair sealing head cover and thick, dark eye protection goggles that came with it. At equal height, Jazz and Maddie were identical in their suits.

At least Danny couldn’t match his dad. Jack’s suit was bright orange and about twenty sizes larger than Danny’s, due to his father’s obsession with Maddie’s homemade fudge and cookie inventions. Danny’s own white suit was slightly too large for him, and hung in odd places due to his skinny frame. He didn’t have to wear a hood and goggles like his sister either - another thankful shortage from the ghost hunter’s clothing warehouse. He picked at his dad’s pressed on face design on his chest as he waited for his parents to get the machine ready for its test run. His dad had tried ironing it on, but had done it poorly, so that with a bit of a tug, it was already beginning to peel off.

Jack and Maddie Fenton ran back and forth across the lab, double checking last minute calculations. Machines whirred and beeped around them, the hum of electricity warm in the stagnant air.

Danny had a good idea of how this was going to go. If this would be like any of their past experiments, it would fail miserably. The experiment would go haywire, probably spout ectoplasmic goo everywhere or accidentally giving ecto energy to the nearest food item. One year, their parents had tried making the Christmas Turkey in their newly invented Ultra-fast Instant Pot and instead infused it with demonic ghostly energy and reanimated it. Danny remembered hiding underneath the kitchen table as Jazz had to beat it back with a pastry roller, screaming for their parents.

The ghost zone portal was their most ambitious project yet. For most of Danny’s life, they had dinner table discussions, weighing mathematical equations and scientific chemical balances in hopes of being able to one day engineer the world’s first ghost zone portal. He was fairly surprised when he found out at the beginning of the summer that they were finally constructing it, and even more so when they claimed last night it was completed. They had been rushing to get it done in time to present it at the Ghost Hunters Expo this weekend.

He glanced at the table beside him looking at the pile of papers his dad had haphazardly stacked among the beakers and ghost weapons. Sitting on top of the stack was the rejection letter from the National Science Foundation.

“It means that they don’t think what they’re doing is science,” Jazz had interpreted for Danny after reading it when their parents’ back was turned. “And who could blame them? There is zero evidence supporting the existence of ghosts. It’s just superstition.”

That’s all it was. Superstition. And yet, his parents had at some point in their youth latched on to the idea that ghosts were more than a myth, and even though they’ve never actually seen one in person themselves, they were determined to prove ghosts were real. What amazed Danny the most is the amount of people who also believed in the same theory. In the years past when his parents had dragged him and Jazz to the Ghost Hunter’s Expo, the crowds always seemed to grow bigger and bigger. Scientists, hunters, enthusiasts, and even ghost cosplayers gathered under the same roof for a full weekend, exchanging theories, stories and footage of what they thought were ghosts. The most ridiculous rumor he had heard at the last ghost hunter’s convention was one of a young, blue haired female musician, who became an overnight sensation after one performance at a local carnival. She had also disappeared quite suddenly after the performance, which raised a lot of speculation. Ghost hunters claimed her unusually pale skin and hypnotic vocals were a part of her ghostly powers. Jazz had stated that it was simply because she was a successful female in the patriarchy they had to deem her as a ghost to explain it.

Danny didn’t want to say anything else after that.

“Jack,” Maddie called from across the room, typing away at a computer. “Did you remember to pour in the ecto-purifier?”

“On it, baby!” Jack cried while fumbling with a control panel. Danny watched as grabbed a can of diet cola, which sat next to the similar sized gray cylinder labeled “EP.”

“Uh, Dad?” Danny called. “I don’t think that’s the ecto-purifier.”

“What’s that?” Jack asked. He turned to look at the object in his hand and barked out a chuckle.

“Thanks, son! That was a close one.” He placed the can of diet cola down and picked up the correct cylinder. “Who knows what would have happened if we purified the toxic ghost energies with diet cola. Could you imagine?” He poured the bright green liquid into the appropriate chamber.

In the corner of his eye, Danny saw Jazz shake her head. “Idiot,” she whispered.

Jazz believed she was the only mature Fenton in the family. At some point during her high school career, she had decided it was up to her to convince her parents that ghosts were not real, and to force them to change their careers to something more normal or socially acceptable. She had tried to get them interested in just about any other scientific field she could think of, such as deep sea diving to discover creatures living on the ocean floor, to NASA’s space engineering program. When those didn’t work, she tried to build a case proving the psychological damage they were causing to her’s and Danny’s upbringing. Over the summer, when she wasn’t preparing herself for the SATs she’d have to take later that school year, she poured over every psychological book she could get her hands on from the library. No matter how many times she argued about the permanent damage her parents were inflicting on their amygdala by creating an unsafe environment for her and Danny to grow up in, their parents would say it’s all worth it for the sake of scientific advancement.

Danny tried desperately to stay out of their fights. Most days, he was too focused on trying to survive a day without being called “that ghost geek” by his peers, no matter how many times he told his classmates he didn’t believe in his parents’ work. Maybe it was because of his small, bony limbs that made it so easy for his classmates to mock him. Or the fact that his only two friends in the entire world were also considered a variety of nerd within the social climate. His best friend Tucker was a little too obsessed with the latest technology and his other friend, Samanatha - Sam for short - was the only school’s goth girl, who filled her entire personality and outlook with dark and depressing outfits and literature. In a weird way, it did make sense that the girl who loved to read about the dead, and the boy who loved technology, would want to be friends with the kid whose parents called themselves ghost scientists. Still, they were his best friends and he wouldn’t trade them for anyone else.

He had been telling them about the portal his parents were building all summer. Just like he was, his friends were also doubtful it would work. They deliberated about what the inventions would actually do. Tucker still brought up the time Danny’s parents were testing out an anti-ghost gravity spray, to temporarily make a ghost lose their flight ability. The morning they were testing it out, Danny had woken up in a hovering bed. It had shocked him so much, he fell off his bed and face-planted onto his bedroom floor, breaking his nose. At some point, Tucker and Sam started placing bets about the outcome.

“Maybe the portal will just blast a hole through the wall and you’ll send up in the Amity Park Sewer System,” Sam guessed last night after he told them his parents were getting ready for their first test.

“Bet you five bucks that Danny will lose all of his hair this time,” Tucker had joked.

He absentmindedly ran a hand through his exposed hair and briefly wished he had a head cover and goggles like Jazz. He couldn’t help but notice there was something different about his parents this time. They didn’t have the same, bubbly and excited energy they usually had when showing off a new invention. They seemed more focused this time. Even his dad’s goofy banter towards Maddie had taken a back seat as his dad frowned over the controls. It was weird to see his dad actually concentrating. Maybe it was the hundredth rejection letter they received from the National Science Foundation, or the pressure to present this weekend at the Expo, but it seemed like they were seriously trying to make this thing work. They did not want to fail.

“Okay everyone!” Maddie ran over and started waving her hands. “Backs up against the wall.”

Jazz sighed and turned to walk over to stand behind the boxed in yellow line, the “safe” spot in the lab. Danny thought a metal containment center with a viewing screen would have kept them safer, but supposedly his parents didn’t have time to build one. Danny followed his mother and sister.

“Almost…” Jack muttered at the controls, typing away. Suddenly there was a loud click that echoed off the basement walls. Machines roared to life and lights winked on. Inside the portal, the metal fans began to spin.

“YES!” Jack punched the air, triumphant.

“Jack!” Maddie called to her husband, gesturing towards the safe zone. He jogged over and squeezed himself in between his two kids.

“This is it!” he shouted over the noise, which was gradually becoming deafening.

All around the room, machines and computers turned on. Attached beakers and graduated cylinders filled up with green, bubbling liquid. A wall lined with dialers bounced up and down. Puffs of smoke expelled out of exhaust pipes. The portal itself began to crackle with electricity, its interior fans spinning faster and faster until it started emitting a bright green glow. The pressure in the room changed, popping Danny’s ears. He felt the tips of his hair begin to rise with the electric waves.

The whirring of the fans inside the machine began to ring out a high pitch squeal as the machine glowed brighter, and brighter, blinding Danny’s naked eyes. He squinted and held out a hand over his eyes, peeking through his fingers. The air around them grew warm and staticky. His father clamped a hand tightly on Danny’s shoulder, as if to hold him back from running away.

It was working. Danny couldn’t believe it. Not once in all of their years of inventing ghost machines and hunting equipment, they may have actually been able to build something that worked like they wanted it to.

What would this mean? That ghosts actually existed? That his parents were not the crackpot fools the town took them for? And if they did exist, there was the one question that no one has been able to answer.

Were ghosts dangerous?

He looked up at Jazz. Her expression was unreadable through the head covering. He looked at his parents, wild and furious excitement in their eyes.

Then, when it seemed like Danny’s ears couldn’t take much more of the screeching noise, a BOOM exploded from the portal. Light poured out of the machine and flooded the room. Danny yelped and turned away. Jack stepped in front of his family and hid them with his massive torso from the explosion. Then, very suddenly, the room went dark. Every light and machine that had been just buzzing with life, died. Danny’s hearing rang in the abrupt silence.

“What the heck?” Jack was the first to say something.

“I got a flashlight, hang on,” Maddie said next. Danny heard her fumbling around her utility belt and a small light winked on. She shined it around the room. Curls of smoke rose up from the machines. The glow from the ecto-purifier had also faded.

“I don’t understand,” Maddie said, dumbfounded as she gazed around the room. “This should have worked.”

“We checked every calculation,” Jack said, equally mystified.

“And tested every single machine.” She threw up her hands. “I even made sure the damn computers turned on!”

“Well, obviously, this wasn’t going to work,” Jazz suddenly said, her anger returning. “You guys were trying to open a portal to nothing . Because ghosts don’t EXIST.”

She ripped off the hood and goggles. “I’m going back upstairs to change and burn this stupid jumpsuit, and work on processing this trauma that you have inflicted on us, yet again.” Without waiting for her parents to respond, she stomped back upstairs, her footsteps echoing off the silent basement walls

Jack shook his head. “What is her deal?”

“Oh, never mind her, Jack,” Maddie said. “We need to figure out what went wrong. We only have a day until the expo and we promised to present this.”

Danny’s parents turned their back on him and began working to restore the power, jumping right into a deep discussion. Danny took the moment to quietly slip away back upstairs.

The second he was back into his room, he let out a long exhale. Suddenly remembering he was wearing the jumpsuit, he hastily ripped it off and then threw it in the trash bin in the corner of his room.

He flopped back onto his bed, and lay in the stillness of his room for a few minutes to collect his thoughts. He stared up at the plastic, glow in the dark stars and planets stuck on his ceiling.

He couldn’t believe there was a moment back there where he thought the machine was working.

He didn’t want to imagine what would happen if ghosts were real. There were no real scientific facts about them. All those convention attendees at the ghost hunters expo all had different theories about what ghosts are - the religiously damned, aliens, spirits with unfinished business, souls that died before their time, another species - no one could settle on a single argument.

But if they did exist, what would happen then? Would they swarm the Earth, like cicadas after their years long sleep? Would they haunt each and every home and building in towns and cities, and try to claim it as their own? Would the world be plunged into a ghost apocalypse, where every human had to fight for their own human survival and soul? Were ghosts malicious or peaceful?

His parents might be arrested for creating the portal in the first place, if it did turn out bad. Or the government might force them to work alongside them to rid the Earth of the ghost population. What would happen to him and Jazz? Would they be put into juvie, just for being the kids of the Fenton Freaks? Would they be put into foster care, once the government decided Jack and Maddie were unfit parents for him and Jazz?

What if the human population adopted a sick fascination of ghosts? Businesses would try to profit off the ghosts by selling fake anti-ghost protection devices or offer tours inside “haunted” houses. There might even be a community in which some would fall in love or even want to become a ghost themselves.

The world would become absolute chaos.

Danny shuddered at the thought. He didn’t understand what his parents saw in trying to prove their existence. What good would proving the undead existed bring to the world?

His anxious, spiraling thoughts were interrupted when his computer dinged. Danny got up and sat down at his desk. He wiggled his mouse to wake up his computer. Tucker had sent him a message.

Still have all of your hair?

Danny chuckled and wrote back.

Yep. Nothing happened though. But the power in the basement blew.

Damn , was Tucker’s response. And I had just invested in a 25 pack of markers to color your head in Lancer’s class when you fall asleep.

Danny laughed out loud. I can only imagine all the pensises you’d draw.

I had planned no less than 50. Two for each color.

Well I hope you kept your receipt cause I still have a full head of hair. Unlike you. Danny made a jab at Tucker’s own buzzed haircut. He had tried growing out dreads for the school year, but his mother forced him to shave it off after he got caught staying up on the computer way too late one night. She paid the barber to give him a military buzz cut.

Shut up, dude, Tucker typed back. While you were away not getting your hair fried off your scalp, I was devising up a new battle plan to defeat Chaos.

Danny smiled. Oh yeah? Lay it on me.

#danny phantom #phantomorigins #phantom #ghosts #nickelodeon #fanfiction #danny fenton #half ghost #sam manson #tucker foley #jack fenton #maddie fenton #jazz fenton #dannyphantomfanfiction #Phanfiction #ao3 #ao3 danny phantom

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saphirered · 3 years

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Hi! I don't know if you're still taking requests. If you are, could you write a beau x reader (human wizard) where the reader gets injured in battle and beau has to protect the reader?

I am still taking request yes. I hope you like the way this one turned out. Thank you for requesting 😘

The great thing about being a wizard is you are very adaptable to all kinds of situations. Utility, support, talk, avoiding fights, or when in fights range. Sure there are plenty of things you can do at a closer range but the risks of being face to face with an enemy better suited the hardier individuals of the party. You are definitely not that and prefer to keep a distance between yourself and whoever is threatening bodily harm. Sadly you don’t always have the luxury of distance in a fight and you better bring the big guns if that’s the case because it’s hit or miss.

Expeditious retreat, blur, mirror image, misty step, blink, dimension door, and many more are really useful if you actually get the chance to use them and aren’t already in a tight spot before someone gets up in your face swinging a weapon of some kind or unleashing a rain of arrows. Mage armour and shield have your back but can only prevent so much.

Luckily you have not one but two friendly neighbourhood clerics who have your back should you get in a tight spot. They’ve saved your ass many times. You swear sometime Jester is a bit jealous of your ability to cast something like vampiric touch as you please without having to worry about leaving spells to healing people.

A particularly heavy battle left you on your last leg. Getting caught in the crossfire was unavoidable but after you released some particularly strong spells doing loads of damage they came for you. You managed to keep doing damage but couldn’t keep enough distance. They were faster than you and eventually got a bit too close for your comfort weapon swinging at you. You managed to avoid some hits, casting shield to deflect others but even still, you were up against several on your own and you were not doing great.

You were too far out from the others for them to get to you and couldn’t get away from those attacking you. Spell after spell cast you managed to take down a few of them but one more attack and you’d be out. And that attack came. Seeing you couldn’t get out here yourself you sent a fireball right on the edge with some of your companions clearing the field there without being afraid of hitting your friends. They were your last hope. You deflected one attack with shield but the second one burst through it and cut you down.

Unconscious. Everything is dark. Nothing around you but a pale white mask, black eyes staring back at you. No sound but the caw of a single raven. You’re terrified but close your eyes and hope, not yet ready to accept this is your fate.

Watching you fall and a second strike hit your already unconscious body sent Beauregard in overdrive. The fireball you cast cleared enough enemies for her to get a window and reach you with a step of the wind. Pop pop. Not said in joy or joke this time but instead in determination. Beau manages to distract them enough and keep them away from you but she’s desperate as she doesn’t have a healing potion on her and fears the worst. All she can do is keep them away from you, pray to Ioun and end this fight quickly so the clerics can get to you.

The battle does come to an end luckily and while some of the Nein have sustained some pretty heavy damages, none of them are as bad as you are. The moment it’s safe Beau drops down to her knees cradling your head in her lap keeping pressure on some of the wounds you sustained in an attempt to keep you hanging on just a bit longer.

Jester rushes to you and tries healing you but at this point you’re already beyond a cure wounds and instead turns to the diamonds begging the Traveler to bring you back. The diamonds turn to dust and melt like ice. Your body remains unmoving.

The raven caws again in the darkness and the masked face pulls back from you. “Not your time yet.” It fades and you feel yourself falling into the darkness. The next thing you know you hit the ‘ground’ pain shocking through your body like a heavy impact. Your eyes open and you see Beau looking down at you worried. She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and pats your cheek. You’re back and you’re alive.

Your body feels sore and muscles you didn’t know you had hurt like hell but you didn’t care. You were happy you were back. You turn around sitting up and wrap your arms around Beau. She whispers words of comfort in your ear as she rubs your back, the both of you letting the adrenaline and stress fade knowing you’re still there.

Of course Beau wouldn’t be Beau if she didn’t hold it over your head how she ‘heroically saved your life’. At first you just laughed it off but now, now you go along letting her play the role of your ‘heroic savior’ and you jokingly playing the ‘damsel in distress’ whenever she does. While Jester may think it’s romantic, the dialogue you laugh through, others have to agree it’s so bad and clingy, about as bad as the transcript of the owner of the Chastities Nook, you all have a good laugh no matter how cheesy.

#critical role x reader #mighty nein x reader #beauregard x reader #critrole x reader

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ask-those-dumbasses · 4 years

Text

Lore Post About The Gods

There are many gods in this universe, we are only going to be talking about the relevant ones. Otherwise this is gonna turn into the Greek God family tree very fast and trust me we don’t want that. So, let’s talk about some gods!

The God of Time - Avus Tempus (Grandpa Time)

General information:

The oldest god and the god that interacts with people the most, Avus Tempus is the most well known. He is the keeper of time, making sure it passes normally with no great disturbances. He watches as time passes, but does not interfere with mortal disagreements, even if he disapproves. He says that it is not his job to interfere.

Avus is older than time itself, and is the creator of the other gods. Avus was also the creator of the first Time Demons - which he calls his children with great glee. He has been given many nicknames over the years, with the most common being “Grandpa Time.” The limits to his powers are unknown, but is it commonly known that he can control the flow of time, and can open portals to different dimensions or various periods throughout time by roaring. People also know that he, with the help of his two direct children, Moíra and Apeiro, killed the Titan of War during his rampage.

(Bonus: Grandfather clocks were named after him)

Appearance:

Avus appears as a long serpent like dragon with no arms or legs, green scales, golden horns and eyes, with long white hair down his spine and on his chin, making a beard of sorts. Legends say that his body extends forever, able to loop around the earth. Avus himself jokes that he has not ever seen his own tail. His fur is said to be as soft as clouds, and his scales are so tough that no spear could pierce it. However, despite being immortal, Avus himself is not completely immune to the effects of time. His eyes are pale and milky, showing that with age his sight has gotten very poor. Today he would be considered almost legally blind.

Where they live:

Avus lives in a huge palace on the top of the largest mountain on Earth. The mountain is called “Mortum Manga,” and is on the “Multi Ossa” mountain range. Inside his palace are intricate carvings on the walls that tell the history of the world, from Avus’ creaton on to current day. There is also a fountain which is called the “Fountain of Youth.” Contrary to popular belief, this fountain does not make you immortal or young, but instead heals all sicknesses. It was named the Fountain of Youth because it was used to cure a large plague that was mostly killing children.

Along the side of the mountain is a small village called “The Village Of Lights.“ These people often interact with Avus directly. In fact, every 5 years they hold a festival where they light various sky lanterns and send them into the sky. Afterwards, Avus comes down to the village and talks to them. He specifically likes to meet with all of the children - who he likes to call his grandkids.

Personality:

He is an extremely friendly and passive god, often inviting people to come and have tea with him in his palace. Overall, Avus is very polite and is more than willing to shelter anyone if they ask. However that is difficult for most - since not only does he live atop the highest mountain, he also does look very intimidating. In reality he just wants to talk about how your day has been going. Avus is most certainly the kindest god that mortals can talk to.

He tries his best to keep up with new terms, words, controversial topics, etc. Because of his old age it can be hard for him to keep up. He ends up coming across as that overly supportive and sweet grandparent that doesn't understand but is trying to. (Ex: “Are you a boy or a girl? I cannot tell. My vision isn’t what it used to be. Oh wait - are you one of those non-berries? Not binaries? So sorry I don’t remember.”). Because of his age he is also considered very knowledgeable and wise, and people will sometimes come to him or pray to him for advice and counsel.

Avus is mostly considered to be extremely patient and calm, however there have been reports of him being fiercely protective of his “little village.” Those who have dared to harm those living or seeking refuge there have mysteriously ended up turned to stone.

The God of Life, Death, and Fate - Apeiro

General Information:

Apeiro is the god of life and death, which means it’s their job to make sure life is balanced. Apeiro can keep populations down through plagues, famine, natural disasters, or other means. Aperio can also bless certain times with good crops, more births, or other means to make sure populations stay up if need be. It is important to remember that Aperio’s job is NOT to make life/death fair. Apeiro also makes sure that spirits end up in their proper afterlife. Apeiro can also tug on the strings of fate, not manipulating them completely, but pushing them where they want it to go.

They stand against large acts of necromancy, however, they made a deal with Alita long ago. In this deal, Totems Of Undying were allowed to be created and sealed deep inside Jungle Temples. It is unknown exactly what Apeiro got in exchange for allowing this to happen but people have speculated that it has something to do with the existence of Wither Skeletons, which guard Nether Fortresses, and Withers, which can be made with a combination of three Wither Skulls and Soul Sand.

Apeiro also assisted Avus and Moíra in taking down the Titan of War.

Appearance:

They have a dark gray cloak/robe that wraps around them and flows dramatically to the floor. It drifts behind them, rippling and waving like there’s constantly a breeze. At the edges of the cloak there are dozens of tiny white stars. They don’t have a face, just a black shadow that flickers around the edges when you look directly at it (which is something you should never do). They do have hands that look like skeleton talons that float separately from their body since they do not have arms. They also have horns that used to merge as a sort of crown above their head. Now, from previous battles, those horns have been splintered and broken in two.

Where they live:

Apeiro lives inside a castle, which has the foundation of the skeleton of an ancient colossal dragon. They live with their younger sister, Moíra. Apeiro specifically lives in the head - which has been remade into a massive throne room mixed with a fancy ballroom. The neck leading up to this room is a very long hallway that has many statues of many different people. These people are referred to as “Champions,” and they are previous winners of the Champion’s Cup.

This skeleton castle is called the “Fossa Palace” and it can be found in the middle of the “Decaying Wastelands” desert. It is unknown what killed the colossal dragon, but rumors have spread that Aperio did it themselves and decided to make it their home. Regardless, when the wind blows in the cold of night, people say they can still hear soft roars and hums of the dead dragon.

Other than living with Moíra, Apeiro lives completely alone and does not normally travel outside of their castle. They only do so in big emergencies such as universal threats or large acts of necromancy.

Personality:

Apeiro is very dramatic and adores big and grand theatrics. The Champions Cup itself was created out of boredom since messing with mortal lives from the sidelines can only entertain a god for so long. Speaking of which, Apeiro finds great entertainment in watching mortal lives, and loves to play with them. Whether this is good playing or bad playing, depends on their mood. Apeiro finds it amusing to poke and prod at people’s lives from time to time, and is considered a being of madness from a few of their victims. Apeiro laughs as a witness to human wars, and sees all mortal conflict as beneath them. They will sometimes even find glee in watching other gods squabble over petty things.

The Goddess of Karma, Justice, and Fortune - Moíra

General Information:

Moíra is the goddess of karma, justice, and fortune. This means she mainly watches over humanity and tries to keep people’s lives fair, even, and balanced. She gets very angered when there are big atrocities happening in the world, or even just when excessively unfair things happen to good or bad people. She is often the judge and jury and innacts justice as she sees fit. Moíra is a very patient force as well, and ensures that eventually, in one way or another, that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. karma is a patient force.

She also blesses those she sees fit with various fortunes (whether this be money, something more spiritual, or something emotional will depend), or will take away from those who have committed horrendous crimes,

Moíra also helped Avus and Apeiro kill the titan of war, and was the main one leading the charge against him.

Appearance:

Moíra wears an extravagant white robe with golden patterns of leaves as an accent. She appears as a youthful human woman with dark skin and curly hair, but is very unnerving to look at. Her eyes are pure gold, dripping liquid gold down her cheeks. She has large curling goat horns which are decorated with various gems. Moíra also wears a laurel headpiece as a crown, with a bright red ruby in the center. She constantly floats just above the ground in order to keep herself clean.

Where they live:

Moíra lives inside a castle, which has the foundation of the skeleton of an ancient colossal dragon. She lives with her older sibling, Aperio. Moíra specifically lives near the top of the rib cage - which has been remade into a large fighting stadium. This stadium is where a tournament called the “Champion’s Cup” is held once a decade. There is an observatory hanging from the top of the dome ceiling, this is where Moíra resides. However she can also commonly be found with Aperio, or in the castle's library. Moíra does travel outside the castle for business purposes and works with people a lot.

Personality:

Moíra is much more careful about keeping balance then Apeiro is, and is much more responsible with her powers. Moíra also tends to scold her older sibling very often and is not very trusting of them. People think that the only reason Moíra lives with Apeiro is because she wants to keep a close eye on them.

By and large, Moíra is a very patient and slow god. She takes her time and thinks her actions through for a long time before acting. She thinks, a lot, and makes very calculated decisions like some sort of gamemaster. Moíra is willing to play the long game and waits for the pieces to fall into place so she can enact her plan properly.

Moíra is also very vengeful, and remembers all of the little wrongdoings people have done. However she is very fair with her punishments, at least, she sees what she has done as fair.

The Goddess of The End and the Keeper of The Void - The Enderdragon

General Information

History says that long ago there were Colossal Dragons; dragons that were born small and slowly grew throughout their lives until they were bigger than mountains. They have largely gone extinct because food became scarce and they were unable to eat enough to maintain their size. Some of their skeletons can still be seen to this day.

People know whispers of an old tale, about a dragon larger than mountains who rules The End as queen, and controls the Endermen as slaves to her will. That long ago she attempted to wipe out all life on this planet, but failed due to an intervention from Moíra, along with Avus who both banished her away from the Overworld. They say that one day, The Enderdragon will return, and have her revenge on everyone who dared forget her name.

The majority of people don’t even believe she’s real, and some have never even heard of her. Most people believe The Enderdraon is a made-up myth tale that was made by man to explain the unknown creation of Endermen. Some people see The Enderdragon as a sort of boogeyman figure, a tale Dragon Riders will tell their children to get them to behave; Others believe she’s just some rumor made to prevent people from exploring The Stronghold. The only thing people know for certain, is that people who have dared to enter The End have either been never seen again, or come back with horrifying stories and with their children being cursed and becoming Endermen hybrids.

Appearance:

In stories she is illustrated as a large black dragon, bigger than mountains, with large grey horns and wings. The wings are usually torn, along with many scars from various battles decorating her body. The most prominent feature is her bright purple eyes. It is said that she breathes hot purple fire.

Where they live:

In the End, one of the many different dimensions in this universe. It is mostly illustrated as many floating islands made of pale yellow sand. There are various crumbling purple buildings, along with purple plants that grow an odd fruit with teleportation abilities called “chorus fruit.” Endermen in the overworld are sometimes seen holding these. In the center of these islands are 10 tall obsidian pillars- each with an odd crystal that contains healing abilities, but only for The Enderdragon.

Underneath the islands of the end is an endless void of darkness. It is unknown what could possibly be down there. Those who have tried to find out have never returned.

Personality:

In the legends, The Enderdragon is painted as an angry, vindictive, and spiteful dragon who wants nothing more than to watch humanity burn.

The Goddess of Magic - Alita

General Information:

Alita is the keeper of all the different types of magic. There is Protection Magic, Elemental Magic, Combat Magic, Enchantments, and Necromancy. Alita is the higher power that can control all of these types of magic over others, and because of this is considered very dangerous. She can grant magic to people if they sacrifice something of great value. If she gives you magic then your spells will always appear as pure black.

Alita can also freely travel through the different dimensions - The Overworld, The Nether, and The End. She also creates permanent portals that are scattered all throughout the world. One of these portals is The Stronghold - which is a permanent portal to The End. It is unknown where others may be.

Alita is also the mother to all Kitsune, each born under a different type of magic. Kitsune are made to help Alita watch over the Overworld since she lives deep underground in The Nether. However, it is not uncommon for Kitsune to diverge from this purpose and instead do their own thing. Alita does not see a problem with this, since not only can she freely make new ones, but if she really needs to she can force her will onto the Kitsune that rebel against her wishes.

Appearance:

Alita appears to be wearing an elegant masquerade mask that looks like a peacock. You can barely see one white eye and a small beak peeking out from the mask. Nobody, except for a few other gods, knows what she looks like under the mask. Anyone who has seen does not remember. Alita generally appears to be avian-like, being part Peacock. She has peacock tail feathers that fan up whenever she gets angry. However, the eyes seem a little too real, and people have reported getting headaches from looking at them for too long. Over her body is a beautiful silk purple dress with silver accents on the ends. She also wears many different rings and necklaces that have been given to her.

Floating around her are five multichromatic flaming orbs that flash different colors. Each one stands for a different type of magic. Protection magic is represented by an icy blue, Elemental Magic flashes between red, dark blue, and light green depending on the element, Combat Magic is represented by royal purple, Enchantments is represented by orange, and Necromancy is represented by a dark green.

Where they live:

Alita lives very deep underground in the nether, in the darkest caves surrounded by bubbling lava. Various bones decorate the entrance to her cave and she has a massive throne made of gold.

Personality:

Alita is described as the cruelest of the gods. While Aperio may mess with fate, that is their job and they ultimately keep some semblance of balance. Alita will play games with the mortals who dare to visit her simply for the fun of it. She is very playful and likes to toy with people, forcing them to make extremely difficult decisions and pay the price for their hubris.

Alita can be won over with attention and praise however. She adores it when people grovel and give her positive attention just for a silly favor. While she may not often go out into the world, Alita is always open to visitors of any kind. After all, the visitors are often very entertaining.

The Titan of War, also known as The Blood God - Sanguineous

General Information:

Not much is known about the Blood God. He has mostly been lost to ancient legend. They say he was an old titan that became more powerful the more he killed. So, he became power hungry and so full of bloodlust that he attempted to wipe out all life on Earth. Because of this, he was killed by Moíra, Avus and Apeiro. His name is only known from old tapestries and ancient texts; Sanguineous.

Some say that he is not dead, but is simply resting for the right time to strike again. Some say his bones are what made the Multi Ossa mountain range. Some say that his presence can still be felt to this day. Some people do know that those who have been touched by his presence have pure red eyes. Other rumours tell of pockets of underground lakes that still hold the old Titan’s own blood. There are whispers that those pockets hold unimaginable power, if only someone could find and harness them.

Appearance:

Old paintings and tapestries depict the Blood God as a creature made purely of bone - but only an upper body up. His chest is shown to be a human skeleton, with the hands mutated into large claws. His head, however, is depicted as a large ram skull, with humongus black horns and glowing red eyes. Sometimes, he is depicted holding a large netherite axe which he attempted to split the earth with.

Where they live:

Since the Blood God is dead, he does not live anywhere. When he was alive he did not live in any particular place. He simply wandered the Overworld.

Personality:

The only thing known is that he wanted nothing but for blood to be spilt from each end of the earth.

#not an ask #lore dump #gods #Avus Tempus #Apeiro #Moíra #The Enderdragon #Alita #The Blood God #Sanguineous

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greentrickster · 4 years

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Okay, I think I have Pearl, Athena, and Trucy’s themes and powers figured out, or at least a rough start! For all three girls, their magic takes something they’re already good at and enhances it while also possibly granting some as-yet undecided bonus features.

So, Trucy’s eyesight is even more holy wow than it usually is even for a Grammarye. As well as spotting tells and reading subtle body language, she can see through illusions, pierce disguises, take in and process visual data very quickly, and similar things. She’s already thought of at least half a dozen magic tricks she could use some of this to pull off in her act after the first day.

Pearl is able to see and sense peoples’ spirits/souls/presence/whatever you call it. You might be able to hide from Trucy’s eyes or Athena’s ears even when transformed, but Pearl will always know you’re there. She can also get simple readings from this - tell if you’re living or dead, get a decent idea of how healthy, injured, or tired you are. The living or dead thing is relevant because she can also see and interact with ghosts. (As a magical companion, she had her disguise form, the ability to grant people access to magic, travel freely between friendly and neutral dimensions, extreme physical strength when in human form, and access to some pretty strong generalized magic, though she lacked the standard magical kid power kit of enhanced speed, reflexes, and durability. She has access to none of this while a Guardian of Khura’in. She’s physically weaker as a Guardian than she was in her human for as a companion/guide.)

And, of course, Athena has her hearing. Her regular hearing grows much stronger, and her ability to hear emotions becomes much more acute and, more importantly, she gains more control over these abilities. All the girls are able to choose the intensity of what they can sense with their powers, so Athena, when transformed, can basically turn off her ability to hear peoples’ emotions. This ability works something like an internal volume control, with the girls being able to set things to a certain intensity and it will stay that level until they want to change it again. Understandably, Athena spends a lot of time transformed, even when not attempting to do Guardian of Khura’in duties.

This trio’s thing is that their standard-issue magical girl abilities - enhanced strength, speed, endurance, and reflexes - are all much stronger than usual when compared to other magical kids of their level/experience, with their unique individual abilities being less overtly battle-oriented. The roles they accidentally took on are those of guardians, so they’re designed less to fight big battles and more to be good at protecting others in a wide variety of situations. They’re the ones that have to be the most creative to use their unique abilities in battle, but their unique powers also have the most out-of-battle applications. They also have the highest number of group attacks, including the abilities to purify, seal, banish, or destroy opponents when working together.

This may seem like a cop-out compared to the powers the other generations get, but, believe me, the only reason they’re getting these powers is that I figured out their big finish for this ‘series,’ and, holy wow, I’m so pleased with it, and these are the powers they need to make it happen!

#ace attorney #The Ace Magical (Boys) AU #athena cykes #pearl fey #trucy wright

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shima-draws · 5 years

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OKAY OKAY SO I had this idea that’s similar to Reverse Falls—except everyone’s personalities/roles are swapped, so for example Stan takes the place of Ford and ends up in the portal, and Ford takes the place of Stan and is stuck trying to get him back for thirty years. Mabel and Dipper swap, as do Soos and Wendy, and Gideon and Pacifica, Candy and Grenda, etc.

They’re the same people with the same likes/dislikes and talents, but their personalities are all switched around!! So while Dipper is still mega fascinated by science and mysteries and stuff, he’s very outgoing and energetic and silly, while Mabel is more reserved and very shy about her creative passions—which leads to her being the one to find the journals, and take interest in them because they’re quirky and entertaining—and written by Stan :’) Dipper has a million different sweater vests, and Mabel has buttons and pins all over her clothes!

I see Ford and Stan’s story playing out as like, Ford was the one born with six fingers but it never bothered him much, and he was a very energetic personality as a kid, leading him and Stan into tons of trouble. Meanwhile Stan has always had self confidence issues, and he always took people calling him the “lesser twin” to heart, despite Ford encouraging him not to. Stan always had an interest in the mysterious, as well as Ford, but Stan’s fascination of it stemmed from his own anxiety issues, and found that he could relate a lot to the weird and unusual (because really, a lot of them were like him, labeled as weird and dumb because of his “mental” issues)

Rest is under the cut because it got LONG lol

This all came to a head during high school when Stan started writing fiction;; and really GOOD fiction at that. He couldn’t outwardly express himself and his interest in the supernatural, but he could do that through fiction, which made everything so much easier for him since he has social anxiety! And he found he was really talented at it. Which leads to a great big story writing contest, and the principal telling Stan that if he wins he can get a scholarship and go to college for writing. (The principal also says Ford is going places, too, but the things Stan can do will get him far, while Ford will always be stuck with the more…disapproving of careers. Assuming writers are a big hit, and scientists are just seen as frauds and losers.) Stan gets REALLY excited about this, which bums Ford out a lot because he wanted to do the treasure hunting thing and search for anomalies together, but Stan protests saying this is his passion and he’s finally being given an opportunity to do something good and worthwhile with his life.

The night before the contest, Ford sneaks in to the library where all the entries are set up, and accidentally mixes Stan’s story up with someone else’s—the pages get all intermixed and weird, and he quickly leaves before he can fix it because he’s about to get caught by night security (but he THINKS he got the pages in order when he in fact did not). The next day the judges read Stan’s story and say it makes no sense, it’s all out of context and the writing is all over the place and sloppy—so Stan loses. Of course he realizes that something must have happened, and after seeing a pen that belongs to Ford on the floor, he realizes what Ford has done. Which results in their enormous fight, and Ford is the one to be thrown out of the house.

Ford still manages to make it into college anyway, despite being homeless for a time, and starts studying hard. It’s not…a good college, at all, and he gets roughed up a lot and teased by frat boys, and struggles endlessly to make ends meet financially, and battles with intense depression. But he manages, somehow :’)

Stan, on the other hand, is so torn up about Ford leaving that he is essentially writers blocked—and he can’t write anything of any worth for a LONG time. Eventually he’s forced to get a low paying job in Glass Shard, wondering where it all went wrong, and missing Ford fiercely but still too upset to reach out. (He’s sure Ford is doing fine on his own, anyway.)

Eventually Stan manages to catch the attention of a publishing company along the way, and gets enough money to finally move out and continue his work! Which leads him to Gravity Falls, a place rumored for being weird, so Stan goes there to get inspiration for his writing, and starts a new life.

Ford, meanwhile, has graduated from college, but with a degree from such a shitty place he’s turned down for many job offers. He essentially starts traveling around the country, trying and failing to get noticed, and things start getting really tight for him moneywise, and people start chasing him down to repay his college debt. Yeah. It’s bad lol

Stan decides to call up an old friend of his that he encountered working part of the industry, Susan!! Susan happily comes up to Gravity Falls to act as an “editor” of some sorts for Stan’s latest in-progress novel. Stan also starts keeping a record of all the weird things he sees in Gravity Falls in a journal—and as time passes, the more he gets involved, and the more crazy he gets about discovering the source of all the weirdness there…which leads to him discovering a cave full of symbols and eventually ends up summoning Time Baby (yes, he and Bill are swapped in this!). Time Baby tells Stan that he’s brilliant, that he can bring all of his stories to life and live out his wildest fantasies if they work together. And so, Time Baby helps Stan in order to build a portal—but not a DIMENSIONAL portal, no. A TIME portal. Because I see Time Baby wanting to extend his rule to every time period possible in this AU, but being limited by time laws and possibly a revolutionized force trying to stop him. If he gets access to a time portal he can spread his influence farther, and attempt to take over all timelines, the past, the present, and the future. And Stan, who in this AU hadn’t grown up knowing when someone was trying to con him, falls for Time Baby’s flattery EASILY, and starts building the portal with his instructions. Susan also helps, being a mechanic alongside an editor. But unfortunately, an accident during testing gave Susan a glimpse into the future, where she witnessed the horrifying truth of Time Baby’s rule. She quit the project and decided to leave Stan on his own, who realizes Time Baby’s lies and started to lose his mind as he attempted to protect himself against the overlord’s influence. Which leads to him calling up Ford!!

Ford, who is currently barely scraping by, drops everything to go see Stan in Gravity Falls, in an excited attempt to reconcile. Of course Stan is driven by paranoia and anxiety at this point, so he snaps at Ford, demands him to hide his journals, and this results in their enormous brawl. Ford gets burned, they accidentally activate the portal, and Stan falls in—to be sent to an apocalyptic future.

Unfortunately without Stan’s other journals Ford has no IDEA how the portal works. And seeing as Stan worked with a being from a future with extreme technological advancements, even with his genius he can’t figure it out right away, and especially without the other journals to help. So, as Ford struggles to bring the portal back online, he decides to take over the Shack and transform it into a science museum of some sorts. Being as outgoing as he is, Ford’s able to draw people in with his friendly personality and contagious energy, which earns him enough money to keep the Shack running. He fakes his own death (mostly to escape the mountain of debt he’s in—I know, Ford isn’t the type, but he really didn’t want people sniffing around after all he’d been through, and paying back loans is the last thing on his mind, especially since he’s avoided it already and is labeled as a criminal anyway), opens the Mystery Shack, which is home to tons of crazy inventions and neat science factoids and tours, and thirty long years pass as he struggles to work the portal again. (He tries tons of different complicated things, but nothing works. He gets very frustrated with it sometimes.)

Eventually, the summer of 2012 arrives and with it comes Dipper and Mabel! And you know, things play out pretty similarly to how the original GF universe did. Bill is an interdimensional demon who keeps track of people dimension hopping (which Mabel and Dipper inevitably end up doing once they get their hands on a space tape), Gideon is filthy rich, Pacifica is a fake psychic who has an interest in Dipper, Wendy is the girl who fixes up the Shack, Soos is the guy always slacking off and being cool (and the thought of Mabel having a crush on him is. WEIRD but consider it being like, teen Soos or smth. Soos but COOL. He could pull it off), Fiddleford is a cheeky waiter at the diner—you get the point lol.

Anyway I am dubbing this AU as UPSIDE-DOWN FALLS! (I apologize if anyone else has ever had a similar idea, but it just popped into my head and I couldn’t disregard it man;;)

Also I feel that Ford and Stan might eventually go traveling the dimensions, or a mishap occurs and they get separated or something—and Ford runs into the regular GF verse Stan, and he has a great fondness for him because they’re practically the same. (Stan won’t admit it but he really likes Upside-Down Ford too.)

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queeenpersephone · 4 years

Note

Hello! I’d love to see what you have written for the Good Omens/Doctor Who story! ☺️

yay! okay this is literally just copy/pasted from my doc for this fic (about 2k), so the plot probably won’t be obvious but hopefully it’s still enjoyable to read! i just don’t think i’m ever gonna finish it because i never finished good omens

without further ado...

take it up with the badlands

summary: If he wants her to stay, he’ll have to fight those who shaped the universe. And they could, he knows. He is an immortal demon, no longer bent to the will of heaven or hell. She is the Bad Wolf, Goddess of Time and Space, capable of feats even he can barely imagine. That’s not even in question. The question is: would she ever actually want to stay with him?

Deep down, Crowley knows the answer. And it’s not a happy one.

The white haired man looks her up and down, a mask of evaluation on his face, before grimacing in distaste. “Oh, I suppose I know why you’re here,” he announces when he has finished deducing. “Wish you people would leave him alone,” he adds under his breath.

Rose just smiles, playing along. Maybe the man this man speaks of is someone who can help her - the reason Bad Wolf sent her here. “Sorry, can I just wait for him here, then?” She twists one of the hoops in her ears, giving the bookseller a bright grin.

Instead of looking reassured, the gentleman looks even more unsettled.

“I've been working on this top secret project for years now,” she tells them. “The Dimension Cannon - supposed to get me back to my proper universe. Only, someone noticed I wasn’t aging that quick, so they somehow got my blood from my files and ran some tests. Still don’t know what they found, but a couple days later my stepdad was deposed. He only had the resources to get my mum and my little brother to a safe house before they killed him.” She swallows hard. “I was tortured for about four months.”

Aziraphale murmurs a sympathetic “oh dear!” but makes no move to comfort her. Crowley tries to refrain from rolling his eyes: angels have a great sense of empathy, but really know shit about showing it.

“Anyway, I escaped. Been on the run for a month or so - saw something in your window that made me think this was a safe place.” Something in her eyes tells Crowley that she won’t tell them what it was, not yet. “I figure something about this universe makes me age slower, but they thought I was alien. After all the crazy shit that’s happened in the last decade, they felt betrayed, I guess.”

Crowley shrugs. “You are, though.”

Rose starts. “What?”

“You’re an alien,” Crowley clarifies unhelpfully.

Aziraphale takes over. “What Crowley is trying to say, my dear, is that you are neither angel nor demon, but you are an immortal. Quite a powerful one, I sense.”

Rose’s jaw nearly hits the floor.

“Well, love,” Crowley drawls, “seeing as you’re probably going to be here awhile, you might as well come for drinks.” He drapes a loose arm over her shoulder, leading her out the door as Aziraphale closes up shop behind them.

“Are you tempting right now?” Rose teases, but he can see the shock and pain that still hide behind those golden eyes. Crowley’s never had mortal attachments, and he’s not the type to be empathetic, but he still acknowledges that it must be difficult. He’s only known this newly immortal human for an hour, but he can already see how strong she is. “‘Cause I’d rather have a friend,” she admits.

Crowley, thankfully, is saved from responding by Aziraphale’s gentle hand on Rose’s shoulder. “Ah, my dear, I’m quite sure we’ll get along splendidly! My demon friend here is slower to trust, but he’ll come around.”

“Oi, right here,” Crowley grumbles, but he manages a soft smirk at Rose as they stride off to their favorite bar. He’ll get to the bottom of this anomaly if it kills him.

To Crowley, Rose is a walking contradiction.

She has a dark sense of humor and a penchant for danger and trouble, with a generally mischievous air that Crowley has always associated with demons. Yet, her staunch sense of right and wrong and blinding optimism could only belong to an angel. Well, Aziraphale, at least. The rest of the lot are right bastards.

And she’s so far out of the rest of the humans’ league that she might as well be in another universe.

From one, Crowley mentally corrects. Then he wonders when this little goddess-human prototype began to take up so much space in his conscious thought. The space usually reserved for good tea and terrorizing plants and tight jeans - now filled up with thoughts about Rose Tyler’s bright laugh and bad jokes and uncertain fate.

“There’s something you’re not telling us, love,” Crowley observes.

“Yeah,” she admits, a soft blush blooming on her cheeks. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, does it? I trust you.” Crowley makes an impatient shooing motion with his hands. “Yeah, okay, so in my universe, I sort of absorbed the time vortex? Long story short, I controlled all of Time for a few minutes - the Doctor said I would’ve burned, but he took it out of me.” Rose shrugs. “Anyway, the torture I went through.. that’s how I discovered I can kinda… control it, I guess.”

“Control it?” Crowley leans forward into her space, taking his hands out of his pockets.

Rose gestures around. “It’d be easier if I showed you - Aziraphale, do you have anything in the shop you’re not attached to?”

Crowley nearly loses it at his friend’s offended and very concerned expression. Oh, this girl is only proving herself to be more and more precious.

“You’re God, huh?” Rose knows, gazing intently at the shadowy figure in the corner of her dream.

The figure straightens, but Rose still can’t make out any singular feature. It’s a woman, surely, but nothing else. “Bad Wolf, you do not belong in this universe,” God says, and Rose rolls her eyes.

“Took ya kind of long to figure that out, yeah?”

God shrugs. “We couldn’t decide where you fit in with the Plan. And now We’ve decided you don’t fit, so We are sending you back.”

Rose's heart jumps at these words. “Back?” she stutters, “to the Doctor?”

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Rose squints at Her. “You’re not doing it out of the kindness of your heart though, are ya?” God is silent, and then Rose knows. “You’re afraid,” she realizes. “You’re afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.”

“We have no fear,” God says, but it is like She is shouting in Rose’s head.

Rose’s eyes flash gold. “I take your atoms…”

“ENOUGH.”

Rose wakes sweaty and exhilarated to the sweetest sound she has ever heard. To the sound of the TARDIS.

Crowley takes one look at the Doctor and the way he holds Rose’s hand, keeping her slightly behind him in a completely unnecessary protective stance that fires up Crowley’s indignation - he left her, he left her, he has no right to protect her - before shoving him up against the wall in a chokehold. If Rose hadn’t been panicking about the possibility of them killing each other, she would probably be a little turned on. The man she’s loved for years and the demon that made her smile again, both with the body and face of her dreams? It’s probably a good thing she’d only ever think about that possibility in hindsight.

“I fell,” Crowley growls, “through ash and fire. All for pride. Rose Tyler, all annoyingly empathetic and stupidly optimistic and fucking brilliant that she is - she helped me find peace. And that makes things very simple. If you hurt her, if she feels one ounce of pain that you had it in your power to prevent, I will fall to God’s feet and beg forgiveness for my sins just to travel between universes and rain hellfire down upon you.” His words have the same, ancient feel to them as the Doctor’s, the same cadence as holy scripture, as absolute truth, and Rose shivers. His voice is so low and heated that when she steps close between them and lays a hand on his chest to push him off the Doctor, even she can barely hear it. “And I’m quite good at that,” he adds, smirking down at Rose, who shakes her head at him with a soft smile on her face.

“It’s been a ride, gentlemen,” Rose says, sparing Aziraphale a friendly nod before gazing up at Crowley. “Thank you.” She rubs the fabric of the henley over Crowley’s heart, and he groans in frustration.

“C’mon, love,” he tries, “look at him! I’m sure I can give you at least twice as many orgasms.” Rose giggles, used to Crowley’s brand of humor, but doesn’t miss the sharp noise that the Doctor makes behind her. “I’ll make you see heaven,” he promises, but she can tell by his eyes that he already knows her answer.

The Doctor moves up behind her, twining an arm around her and pressing his palm to her stomach. “And with me, she’ll see stars,” his voice is low and dark, and Rose knows that they need to get onto the TARDIS before a full out brawl occurs in front of her.

So she takes the Doctor’s hand from her stomach, pressing a kiss to the back of it before shooing him back to the TARDIS. He goes, but he watches Crowley with sharp eyes.

“You’re better than you believe, yeah?” she whispers to the demon in front of her, cupping his cheek gently. “If I was meant to be here, in this universe, I’d be the one to show it to you. So you just gotta get back out there and find this universe’s match for you. I know they’re out there.” Her eyes dart to Aziraphale for a moment, wondering if something might eventually come from that. There’s history there, and they have the rest of eternity to figure it out. “Rely on your best friend, yeah?” She adds, wondering if a hint could turn into a catalyst.

“Rose-” Crowley begins hoarsely, before Rose dives her fingers into his ginger hair and pulls his lips down to meet hers.

It’s a soft, chaste peck, nothing like that drunken night, but the possibilities hit them both like a freight train. It’s not hard to imagine their endless days: going for drinks with Aziraphale, lounging at his bookshop, Rose following his angry rants at his plants with a soft touch to their leaves, Crowley tempting ordinary humans into sin and Rose tempting Crowley into bed. In fact, it’s easy, and when Rose feels the hint of tears at the corners of her eyes, she pulls away. “Bye, love,” she murmurs, borrowing his nickname before giving him a quick squeeze. His arms don’t have time to come around her before she is walking back to the Doctor, who brushes his lips against her forehead before she walks past him and into the TARDIS.

Crowley ignores the lump in his throat, but before he can walk away, a low tenor stops him.

“I’m the last of my kind,” the Doctor is saying, eyes dark and intent. “I’m the killer of my kind. I’ve spent my life trying to do the best thing for the universe, but rest assured, I’ll now be doing the best thing for Rose. Forever.”

Crowley nods in agreement with this promise, before letting a smile quirk at his lips. “Have you considered whether she’ll let you?” He asks.

The Doctor grins full on at this. “Oh,” he says, stepping into his transdimensional blue box. “I can see why she liked you.”

With a groan and wheeze, the Bad Wolf disappears from this universe. God is satisfied, but Crowley sets out to get really, really drunk.

He won’t stop living, though, he refuses to disappoint his Rose like that. No, he’ll find his match.

After a few bottles of Scotch.

“Did you love him?” The Doctor asks quietly, weeks later, when they have regained some sense of stability.

If she had been the same person she was when she started traveling with him, she might’ve lied. Been afraid to disturb the peace, the delicate tightrope that she and the Doctor always seem to balance on. But now, Rose is different. She understands relationships, understands love and trust and commitment, a little better. She knows the Doctor would never leave her, never let her leave unless he was absolutely sure it would truly make her happy. They’ve already hashed it all out, amongst tears and rage and late night nibbles, sitting at the foot of the TARDIS’ doors and dangling their feet into the cosmos. After everything they’ve been through, honesty comes easy.

“I could’ve,” she admits. She saves the waxing poetic, the memories of the dark quips and burning hugs and blunt speech, for their next visit with Jack. She’ll be honest with the Doctor, but she won’t set out to hurt him. “He’s a good man- demon, I mean,” she corrects. “Misunderstood and angry at the universe. He deserves a love that didn’t already promise someone else forever.” The Doctor reaches over, twining their fingers together. “And I’d never regret that promise, yeah?”

“Good,” the Doctor whispers, tugging her close. “Cause that’s how long you’re gonna stay with me.”

#crowley x rose #rose x crowley #rose x doctor #dw fic #good omens fic #dw #good omens #rose tyler #crowley #i'd love to finish this someday #bc i love a little bit of a darker ten #and i love the crowley rose dynamic #and the scene with her and god #BUT #clearly that's not happening soon lmao #hope it was fun to read anyways!

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cursewoodrecap · 3 years

Text

Session 23: Medical Ethics

Y’all ever been to college?

Our new friend Vigdor has just pulled a pale, twitching human leg out of a poster tube, sheepishly admitting to Valeria that it’s his own.

Valeria blinks at it. “Well, it doesn’t appear to be bleeding demons, so that’s good?”

Shoshana sticks her head in the door, and has to pause to take in the sight. “Uh, bruh? Bruh? I have questions. Is that yours? I mean, like, yes, you HAVE it, but was it attached to-“

“That’s a bit tricky? It was amputated twice.”

“Twice?!”

“Once from me, and then, well, um. Once from an amalgam of sewn together body parts?”

(Gral and Shoshana pile into the room, because Oh, Lore?)

“When I was in the swamp, we were fighting a bunch of zombies led by this particularly nasty undead guy. We called it the Wailing Wight. At first it was just the usual undead hordes, but then a local leatherworker was found, torn apart and harpooned every which way, half his limbs torn off and stolen. After that, we started getting attacked by stitched together abominations cobbled together from human and animal pieces. I was there just trying to help the villagers, being a doctor and all. But that’s when I lost my actual limbs.”

“They got stolen, like the leatherworker’s?”

“I had to chop them off. Which, for the record, is not a fun time? The Wight’s harpoon has a kind of poison that rots everything it touches. So I had to amputate or, like, die. So I cut them off and his zombies, uh, stole them. And I managed to get one back? Kind of a long story. I don’t know how I recognized it, but – I guess I know my own leg like the back of my hand? Now I’m taking it back to Sturmhearst. There’s a weird fluid inside it; I want to study what’s going on with that so we can take care of the nastyboy in the swamp.”

“Well, I am generally against nastyboys,” says Shoshana, poking his foot in the ticklish bit. It squirms at her.

We’re headed to Sturmhearst anyway, so traveling together seems reasonable. We think about taking Fun Key Shortcuts, but that could backfire spectacularly, so we’ll play it safe and go the normal, boring way.

In the morning, we head downstairs. The inn is trashed. The stalwart barkeep Rene is not there; instead there’s a young elf sweeping out what debris he can. As we grab breakfast and the young fellow thanks us over and over for saving his friend’s life, Vigdor awkwardly wanders around casting Mending on chairs and tables that got a little too close to the tentacles and chainsaws. Shoshana doesn’t really do non-destructive magic, but she slips the barkeep some gold for repairs.

Vigdor’s too lopsided for a horse, so he’s gonna hop on in our cart. He’s very taken with the Eyegis, poking at it with fascination. “You can see the blood vessels in the eyes, despite no source for a blood supply! Do they have tear ducts? Have you ever seen the shield produce tears? Can you make it cry?”

Valeria gets very uncomfortable with this line of questioning and turns the eyes back into painted ones, put off by a Weird Stranger gettin’ all up in her business. Gral distracts him by asking about his fancy metal limbs.

Vigdor goes full technobabble on how the runes and machinery work. “Well, there’s three different kind of magical actuators on each joint, and they act as conduits for the dilithium crystals-” He knows the details secondhand from Bjork and none of us speak robotics, so if he ever needs serious repairs he’ll have to bring them back to Sturmhearst for the engineers to take a look at.

Valeria knows a bit about Jotunn runesmithing, but she’s never heard of it working to this degree of precision; before, she’d only heard of stuff like boats that row themselves, or a peg leg that has a little extra articulation. These are fully actuated limbs!

Val checks if the limbs are the same metal as our space wrench, but nope, they look like completely normal everyday metals. She’s not gonna inspect further, because she has RESPECT, unlike SOME people.

(“Hey, I didn’t try to pry the eyes open or anything!” Vigdor protests.)

She does notice one thing, though: Valeria recognizes runes from most magic systems even though she doesn’t know them well enough to use; her sister studied magic for a long time, so she knows what they look like. There’s one elaborate rune that appears on both Vigdor’s forearm and leg that is of no origin she’s ever seen.

“How long’d it take Bjork to build this thing?” Shoshana asks, squinting at Vigdor’s kneecap.

“Well, I was unconscious for a good bit of it so…between a week and 2 months? He was already working on it when I, uh, had to amputate.”

“…did you KNOW you were gonna wake up with those things on?”

“Oh! Yeah, yeah. It took a while ‘cause the original blueprints they found were for somebody, like…really short for a human or really tall for a halfling? Something in between. Bjork had to resize the whole model to fit a human.”

“He, uh, FOUND blueprints?

“I can’t imagine he’d have made blueprints for a person who didn’t exist? It was all proportioned very strangely. I don’t know too much about it, you’d have to ask Professor Bjork.”

(One of the players asks if the strange rune, perhaps, says ISTC in a language the characters don’t know. It DOES, and we’re all very pleased with ourselves for previous-campaign references.)

The long road stretches on before us, and we have plenty of time to talk as we spend a week or two heading north toward the coast. We fill Vigdor in on the four flavors of Curse and the concept of the Prisoners, and that we suspect there’s major Key nonsense going on up at the university. (Heh heh, “major key.”)

Vigdor and Shoshana bond over being locals. Why are foreigners so weird about trolls?

Vigdor really, really wants to look at Twombly’s glasses. We explain to him that the Key could take his desire for knowledge and turn him into a cackling, dimension-hopping madman with a few extra eyeballs. He still wants to play with the glasses. Valeria protectively hides the Key map, just in case, flashing her Hunt fangs at anyone who asks about it.

After like a week of pestering everybody, Vigdor gets to look at the glasses. Disappointingly, when not looking at the Key map, the colorful lenses just make everything look slightly more those colors. Maybe Gral’s lutestrings look weird, but that could be the placebo effect. He tries flipping around the many lenses in different combinations, and finds that all of them make him look absolutely ridiculous.

Eventually after many days of travel, we can smell the ocean and the distinctive stench of a large number of humans living in one place. Vigdor takes in the familiar sight of his college hometown. Shoshana is dumbfounded that this many people can live on top of each other, while Valeria thinks it’s a quaint little town.

Up to the west, Sturm Castle squats on a cliff above the city, like a big hippo of knowledge. It looks like it was once a reasonable castle shape, but it’s had new wings and towers built onto it haphazardly until it’s a weird sprawling network of jammed-together architecture. By the edge of the cliff, in one of the more sensibly-built sections, a majestic lighthouse beams out over the bay. In the city below, the largest building appears to be a grand temple, with its roof carved in the shape of an open book. The perimeter of the city is outlined by strange wooden and metal towers, two or three stories tall with conical brass roofs.

Eh. It’s only got one castle, so it can’t be that good of a city compared to Aurentium.

Our cart is briefly stopped for a quick examination at the gate by a friendly city guardsman. He’s flanked by two of the same enormous owl-masked guards we saw accompanying Quercus and Ulmus. “Hi, welcome to Sturmhearst, folks! What brings you here?”

We all awkwardly try not to look at Vigdor’s leg bag.

“I’m, uh, here to visit Dr. Emily Thorpe?” he tries.

“Oh, visiting the university. Don’t need yer life story. Where you stayin’? I can recommend some inns. Oh, and check out the Scholar’s Temple while yer here!” He hands us a brochure from the Sturmhearst Tourism Board and steps back. “ALL RIGHT BIG GUYS, LET EM THROUGH!”

The owl guards don’t move.

“Oh, uh, I mean –“ He fishes in his pocket and pulls out a whistle. “Lemme see if I can remember how the doc told me to do this.” He blows a few sharp notes on the whistle, and the owl guards promptly step off the road to let us through.

Huh.

Vigdor makes an investigation check on those guards, who definitely weren’t around back when he was in school. They’re pretty bulky for humans – no, honestly, they’d be bulky even for goliaths. He’d heard a story from Professor Bjork that the school was hiring goliath mercs and dressing them in owl masks, but the professor had sounded like he hadn’t believed it much. Supposedly they’re silent because they don’t speak the language, but Vigdor’s pretty sure Bjork speaks Jotunn, so that excuse doesn’t quite hold up.

Once we’re out of the guards’ earshot, Gral pulls a huddle. “Vigdor, the Key’s a more recent influence, so let us know about anything new or significantly more abundant – that’s where we’ll need to search.”

Vigdor hmms. “The big brass towers weren’t here before. And the owl guys didn’t used to be a thing.”

Gral cuts another glance back to the owl guards, considering. “…How much of a faux pas is it to remove a Sturmhearst person’s mask?”

“I mean, if you’re dealing with the plague, it’s kind of a dick move? And dangerous? But most people – it’s like, the same rudeness of grabbing someone’s hat or jacket. For some people it’s badge of honor or superiority, y’know, how amazing they were to get through the gauntlet of Sturmhearst. But mostly it’s a practical tool of the job. We’re not, like, afraid to show our faces.”

Gral nods. “So you wouldn’t have to duel them, then.”

“W-what?”

“Oh, with bards it’s like ‘you are not deserving of your title’ and you have to duel about it. You know, like, how dare you slander my name, I’ll have to fight you for my honor?”

“Oh, uh, no, nothing like that. The mask is proof of office, that’s all.”

Before we get investigating, though, it’s late and we should rest. Vigdor wasn’t a palling-around-town type, but he rolls a nat 20 and knows the best inn in the city – not one of those touristy places on the square; the best-kept-secret on a side street that only the locals and regulars know about.

We have a lovely night around the docks of Sturmhearst. Shoshana spends like fifteen minutes just staring out to sea, because they MAKE boats that big???? This much water even EXISTS????? There’s a dragonborn ship from Aurentium, a goliath ship from Jotunhein, a couple of Galwan freighters, and even a ship crewed by colorful macaw aarakocra. (History check: while the Aquilians mostly died out, some of the ground-based aarakocra cultures survived. Valeria’s met macaw traders before in Aurentium; they tell lots of stories and do GREAT impressions.)

Valeria, meanwhile, holies some ocean water. They say Galwan clerics swear by holy seawater; salt repels demons, right? It’s gross harbor water but, whatever, it’s holy now. She also beats a sea captain at Man-go, presumably dock style. The inn’s equipped for foreign travelers, so it’s got a whole bar of draconic and goblin spices!

Gral, meanwhile, discovers the inn is near a bath house and enjoys finding out what a sauna is.

Morning comes, and Sturmhearst U awaits. Vigdor knows the main campus has the colleges of Engineering, Science, and Medicine, while the satellite campus across the bay houses the college of Ethics, which includes humanities like economics and history.

Valeria rolls for Order of the Rose knowledge. The Order actually has an arrangement with Sturmhearst when they’re working in Valdia – whenever the Order is sent on disaster relief, some Sturmhearst ethicists are sent to help coordinate. Valeria’s never worked with them personally, but the impression she’s gotten from her fellow knights is Not Great. From what she’s heard, they’re supposed to do triage and help direct the knights, but it seems like they spend the whole time sitting around debating absolutely horrible things. “Hey, if we brewed up some necromancy, could we use the skeletons of plague victims to transport supplies without spreading the infection?” Apparently they just sit around in corners debating whether that kind of shit is kosher or not, without ever actually DOING anything.

Also ethicists wear white instead of black like most Sturmhearst scholars, which is just pretentious. We then poke fun at an Order of the Rose knight calling anyone else pretentious.

Vigdor studied at the College of Medicine; he’s a doctor. But that’s not where he’s taking the leg.

“Why not Medicine? I mean, it’s a human body part, innit?” Shoshana asks.

“It’s…I have some concerns…regarding the, um. So, along with this leg, my arm was stolen, right? Not long after the arm was stolen, the sewn-together amalgams got a lot, uh, cleaner.”

We stare at him.

“…as if whatever stitched them together had my medical training.”

…oh.

“I’m a little hesitant taking that info to the College of Medicine,” he admits.

“Why?”

“There’s a lot of ‘for the greater good’ stuff with the College of Medicine sometimes. The College of Ethics keeps them in check. Anyway, there’s actually this thaumochemist I want to take a look at it.”

(We’d know the discipline as alchemy, but she hates that. She’ll go on a whole tirade about it. Somebody yells “Full Metal Thaumochemist” and we accidentally take a commercial break. We’ll never get tired of that joke.)

More of those owl guards are at the door, supervised by a businesslike white-coated member of the College of Ethics. His mask is a bit more abstract than the ones we’re used to; not modeled after a bird face like the regular scholars’. He lets Vigdor in with no problem, though he’s a bit suspicious of the rest of us. We’re with a doctor, though, so he’ll let it slide. “Welcome to Sturmhearst, may your visit be enlightening.” He does the same whistle we heard before and the guards step aside. Gral’s a string guy, he can figure out the notes easily enough but he doesn’t whistle.

“Nothing goes on here without Ethics knowing about it, huh,” Gral observes.

More owl guards are stomping around, some carrying heavy objects. Vigdor knows where he’s going, but asks an owl guard for directions, as an experiment. The owl guard doesn’t even notice him. He steps in front of the guard, who just steps around him very politely.

The castle is a nightmare to navigate, like Hoeska, but we have an expert tour guide. “The old keep, the part that used to be a castle – that’s where all the 101 classes are and the whole working hospital. All the additions are laid out super weird, and then there’s the tunnels underneath. The Chem students had WILD parties down there, they brewed up all SORTS of stuff. The lighthouse is a real lighthouse, but it’s also where admin is, and the dean’s and headmaster’s offices. Oh! DO NOT cross the librarians. Each college has its own library? Like, theoretically they share the whole collection, but which college keeps which books is kind of a blood sport…”

Shoshana and Gral hang back, feeling out of place. “Bards don’t really have a college, exactly?” Gral explains. “It’s more of a pilgrimage. I met the elders of each village and they imparted wisdom upon me?”

Shosh feels like an uneducated hick even by that standard.

We take a hairpin turn in one of the Science buildings and run into Professor Quercus! Or at least someone with a bird mask and a similar voice, chatting with some other masked scholar. “Ah! Yes! We made a lot of excellent discoveries before we started to run into problems – you see, there hadn’t been an event in some time, but if we could get in there to the source, we could really – well, my goodness! These are the people I was telling you about, who gave me such wonderful notes!” Quercus turns to us, sounding rather delighted. “I certainly didn’t expect to see you here. Welcome to the world of knowledge! What brings you here? I thought you were having adventures and derring-do!”

“Well, it turns out our adventures led here!” Gral tells him.

Quercus nods enthusiastically. “I’d show you around, but I rather need to speak to the bursar! If you need anything, I’m sure you can find my offices without too much problem. And please, if you’ve encountered any interesting monsters, I’d love to hear details! Especially if you have samples!” Despite his keen excitement, Professor Quercus rolls a four and fails to notice our Shusva accessories.

“If you ever need a cup of tea and a biscuit, you’re welcome to stop by my office! I’d be more than happy to speak with you! And if you could do me a favor – well, I wouldn’t mind having you with me when I speak to the bursar! See, our expedition to Holzog has hit a bit of a snag. The events with that mist stopped happening, you see. Luckily, we managed to identify which house you were going to, and we were all set to investigate, but then the Baroness put a squadron of those damnable Condotierri to prevent us getting in – “

Gral shrugs, deliberately casual. “I don’t know why you’d go back; there’s not much to see besides what’s already in the notes.”

(Vigdor immediately rolls insight to see if Gral is lying. Unfortunately for him, bards are excellent liars.)

“Anyway. The bursar’s giving me an earful about continuing to fund the expedition. I’m considering withdrawing from Holzog and asking him to redirect the funds into a different project! For example, lots of interesting monsters have been seen around Barroch lately!”

Yes, definitely, we want him to go somewhere that’s not a Tempting Key Portal. Valeria and Gral tag-team Persuasion checks to sell him on interesting cases of monsters we’ve heard of around Barroch. If we’re fuzzy on the details – well, all the more reason to have someone get out there and take a closer look!

Quercus is rather taken by the idea. “If you would, Mr. Duu –“

“Um, actually, Duu is the tribe, my family’s name is-“

“-yes, if you could write me some letters, I might find it useful making the acquaintance of the locals while setting up camp. Sturmhearst hasn’t established an official relationship to your people yet’”

Gral agrees to write up a formal letter explaining the mission of Sturmhearst and the expedition to make introductions a bit smoother; the word of a bard will go a long way in gaining the cooperation of the orcs of Barroch. He’ll do a personal letter of introduction for Quercus, and a general letter to Shieldeater’s administration to explain who the heck these weird bird people are.

“Wonderful! Bring it by my office!” He gives us directions that make NO sense to anyone but Vigdor. We’re pretty sure several of those compass directions aren’t real words?

“Oh, and if you see an angry tall woman stomping around, tell her I’m not here! She’s mad at me for some reason I can’t discern. Good day!”

He scuttles off, presumably to hide.

We definitely want the gossip on that – Ulmus was mad at him about funding, and she definitely dissed his field of study. Is this what academia is like?

Vigdor confirms that the professors have all kind of weird beefs, interdepartmental politics, and personal feuds. “One of my professors gave me a B- in amputation – shows what he knows – purely because I was taking some classes outside the College of Medicine and he got all offended. It’s a lot of politics and bullshit, they’re all more concerned about their careers and publishing than actually important stuff.”

We find a door with a brass plaque: Dr Emily Thorpe, Thaumochemist. There’s a paper list tacked to her door with a list of courses: “Intro to Potion Brewing,” “Principles of Alchemy Thaumochemistry”

Vigdor knocks. “Yes, who’s there? Come in!” a voice calls.

“It’s Vigdor! Vigdor Gavril!”

“Ah, Vigdor!” A halfling woman in the requisite bird mask waves from behind a counter where she’s handling a set of proper Movie Science bubbling beakers and flasks. “Yes, you sent me that letter! You had something ‘interesting’ for me!”

“Yes, and you will see why I couldn’t be more detailed!”

She notices his metal arm as he starts pulling open his heavy waterproofed case. “Oh! I heard that Professor Bjork was giving you his prototype! How’s it working?”

“They’re loud and heavy and uncomfortable sometimes, but I have limbs! Can’t complain! But then I, uh, found one of my limbs again.”

He goes over to an open table and pulls out his entire-ass leg with a flourish, plus vials of hair and blood and strange unidentified liquids. Her eyes widen.

“Ah, this is yours!” She watches his toes wiggle. “Well, you don’t see that every day.”

“Yeah, I found it stitched to some kind of unholy undead abomination.”

“And that explains the Knight of the Rose. Hello, Kyr.”

“Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service!”

“Dr. Emily Thorpe, at your service as well, I guess? Pardon the mess in my lab, it’s not much but it’s home. Hand me that vial?” She pulls out a syringe and takes a sample of not blood, but oily black liquid, from the leg. “It will take some time, but I can write up a thaumaturgical profile without much difficulty. Do you mind if I keep it?”

“You can hang on to it. But I would appreciate discretion.”

“Yes, this will stay between me, your friends, and – oh, this is Hugo, he’s my teaching assistant. He’s been helping since the school was mobilized.�� She turns to Vigdor’s clearly uneducated hick friends (not you, Valeria, you’re very fancy) and explains:

“In times of crisis, the University turns from education to innovation. Were this a disease, we’d be researching cures! If demonic, we’d be researching weapons or dimensional banishment. We haven’t really received direct orders this time, so everybody is doing their own thing, which I can’t say I mind. Mostly I’ve been helping other researchers with the practical application of their theorems.”

She scribbles out a hasty list. “Hugo, if you can go to the library and put these books on order? The Vigmar and the Auspelius especially would be useful, but don’t let the librarians kill anyone over them. And the Principles of Advanced Anatomy – tell them I won’t ask. But I do need it.” The grad student nods and hustles out of the room.

(Shoshana insights, out of paranoia. Hugo’s a good egg, though he might refer to thaumochemistry as alchemy.)

“Now, Dr. Gavril, do you want this leg back? How intact-“

“Want it back? Like, in the abstract, or on my body?”

She pulls out a vial of bubbling acid. “I’d like to put some of this on it and I’d like to see what happens.”

He blanches slightly. “Uh. Um. I have some proprietary-“

“Aw, no acid then,” she grumbles, stowing the acid with an audible sigh.

“Only do something you would do to living person’s leg. That they would survive!”

“How would I know? I’m a chemist, this is only, like, my second dead person!” She pauses. “…well, fifth.”

Shoshana starts looking around at all the alchemy equipment curiously. Everything here is clearly labeled with numbers, and letters that feel like numbers, and complex formulae, which hedgewitch potionery doesn’t really account for.

There’s a knock at the door. “Ah, that must be Hugo. Come in!”

Valeria instinctively body-blocks the leg from view.

It is not Hugo. In walk 3 white-clad ethicists. The gentleman at the front is in fancier robes – we suspect he’s the kind of fellow who has tenure – and he wears a powdered judge’s wig atop his mask. We immediately don’t like it. His two companions peer around the lab – one has a jeweler’s loupe built into the lens of his mask, and the other is carrying a big chime with runes carved into it, clearly a magic item of some sort.

“Dr Thorpe,” the leader intones.

“Sorbus,” she replies disdainfully.

“I see you have guests, is now a bad time?”

“Is it ever a good time?” Emily makes a point of tending to her samples and beakers busily.

“I suppose not. We have come to ask a few follow-up questions. Have you been visited at all by Professor Matthias Macker? Has he followed up on the project you were working on together?”

“I told you, no! I had no potions strong or precise enough for what he needed, and he’s never spoken to me since. That was months ago!”

“And no one has seen him since then. You understand why we need to know what you discussed.”

“Yeah, not since you quarantined the whole surgical wing!”

“That is not what I’m asking about. Has Macker’s assistant Greta Ruble visited you?”

“No. She’s a good kid, though, don’t hassle her.”

“We are simply making sure she is not a danger.”

Emily sputters angrily. “A danger to who?!”

“I cannot tell you that.” He turns to Valeria. “Kyr, it is always a pleasure to see a member of the Order here. I suppose if you’re here we can be assured nothing… unethical is happening,” he says, unpleasantly oily. “I am Professor Rigmor Sorbus of the College of Ethics; I lecture on legal and judicial ethics. These are my assistants, Charles and Pippin.”

Valeria bows with the precise degree of politeness required. “Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service.”

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance. In these times of mobilization, it falls to us as ethicists to supervise our colleagues’ noble efforts. Please, I implore you: if you see anything untoward or suspiciously unusual, I request you report it to the nearest representative of the College of Ethics.”

Emily butts in. “What happened to Eric Pelbort, his other assistant?”

“Mr. Pelbort has transferred to the College of Ethics and is assisting us with some research. We will let you know if that changes.” He tells her dismissively. “Kyr Argent, the College of Ethics has always been proud of our long association with the Order, and I would like to extend our deepest condolences for the tragedy of the Crusade. Should you have need of any assistance whatsoever, do not hesitate to ask. Our offices are on the satellite campus across the bay. If you were to visit, I’m sure many would love to speak to a paladin of the Order of the Rose.”

“We have business here, but I might be able to make time to stop by,” she equivocates.

“Very well. I will let you all get back to whatever it is you’re doing with that leg,” Sorbus says, turning neatly on his heel and taking his leave, his toadies hurrying in his wake.

(Yes, you guessed it: That was Professor Rowan, with his Tort Wig and his assistants Pip Loupe and Chime Charles.)

“Those guys give me the creeps,” Emily grumbles. “They used to be fine, but lately they’ve been doing this whole inquisitor act.”

Vigdor’s always known these guys as douchey blowhards. But now they’re douchey blowhards with AUTHORITY.

There’s always been a divide between Ethics and the other three colleges roughly the size of the harbor! The sciences don’t believe in debate, they believe in experimentation! Anyone who can spend an entire week talking without action is wasting time and breath. The College of Medicine thinks even less of them – they just get in the way of progress!

(IRL we all respect medical ethics, but Sturmhearst WAS founded on a fine tradition of graverobbing and leeches.)

Vigdor is primarily a surgeon, or he was, when he had two fully functional hands. (Two players at once: “HE GOT DR STRANGED!”) He had quite a few classes with Macker, the chair of the surgery department. Most people didn’t like the guy, except his surgical grad students who would defend him to the death. A bit of a hardass about proper procedure, but that’s probably not a bad quality for a surgeon. He was a local institution, so it’s pretty alarming he’s somehow gone rogue.

“His whole lab was quarantined?”

“The whole teaching wing, actually,” Emily tells us.

“Are there people in there? Some kind of sickness?”

“Not that I’ve heard. Ethics just put guards outside the labs and blocked everyone from going in. They’ve done it to a couple places around the school recently. The excuse is that someone was doing ‘unsafe experimentation’ that’s ‘poisoned the area’ or something?”

Wack. “How long have these quarantines lasted?”

“They don’t really end? A couple stopped after a few months, but some have been there for a year! Nobody goes in or out. Sometimes the white coats go in, but it’s pretty rare and they don’t stay long.”

“Is that what all the guards are for? Where’d they all come from?” Vigdor asks.

“Medicine used to be the ones, uh, hiring them.” (A quick insight roll notes that she hesitates on the phrase “hiring.”) “Lots of them still answer to whoever they were originally assigned to. But recently Dean Chidor from the College of Ethics took over that whole program, so a lot of the newer ones answer primarily to the ethicists. I mean, they all dress the same, so it’s kinda hard to tell? I haven’t asked a lot of questions, I’ve been trying to keep my head down since the whole thing with Macker.”

“What actually happened with him?”

“He’d been acting weird for a while,” she confides as she starts sticking pins in the leg and wiring them to a voltage generator. “He’d been working on something, some kind of extreme surgery – I think he was looking into a method of surgically removing Curse corruption. He was hitting roadblocks, though; he called in me and Alma Ulmus, who’s a College of Medicine bigwig.”

“Yeah, we met her in Bad Herzfeld!”

“I heard she’s here again, stalking around the halls complaining about funding. She knows more about his project than I do. Anyway, Macker sent me requirements for a healing potion he was gonna administer as part of some surgical procedure. I couldn’t get anything as powerful or precise as he needed. I’m a thaumochemist; I don’t know medicine that well. So it was beyond me to do that amount of gross tissue damage repair as controllably as they wanted it. I mean, I made some pretty nice innovations as far as the theory of potioncrafting, I’m hoping to get published as soon as it goes to peer review.

“But I couldn’t do what he needed, and eventually I got shut out of the project. Then one day he vanished. Alma set off for Bad Herzfeld and Macker stopped coming out of his lab. His assistants were still going in and out, but not long after that, the ethicists quarantined the place.”

“Has anyone else been quarantined?” Valeria asks.

“People from all three colleges got hit. I dunno about other ethicists, I haven’t heard about them quarantining anything of their own. But everyone else has. A group of engineering students were building a defense system to be deployed out to the Scar, and all of them got quarantined. Here in my department, Dr. Vilman – remember him? Stupid goatee, did a lot of stuff with crystals? – got shut down. Sometimes they quarantine the whole lab; sometimes they just shut down a project and everyone working on it gets a ‘guest lecture position’ over in Ethics. Sorbus said they got one of Macker’s assistants, Eric Pelbort. He had another one, Greta Ruble, but I guess she’s given them the slip.”

Emily’s got experiments to do on that leg, so we’ll let her get to it. As we head out, Gral asks one last question. “What’s up with those guards, by the way? Why do they only respond to those whistles?

“Uhhhh,” she says, as we fail our persuasion check. “They, er, don’t speak very good Valdian. Mostly foreigners, goliaths, the like. The whistles get their attention.”

Gral sighs and doesn’t push it. Vigdor’s already making plans to pickpocket a whistle. Valeria, since she has a direct invite to talk to the ethicists, considers the unheard-of paladin approach of Just Asking Them Directly.

First, though, Vigdor wants to check out the quarantine of Macker’s lab; he knew that professor well, and we’re all curious what’s been going down.

We walk on over to the surgical wing to case the joint. There’s a single owl guard blocking the hallway, presiding over a small barricade. A pleasant sandwich board sign states “Area quarantined by College of Ethics, apologies for the inconvenience.”

We try to walk in and the enormous guard holds out a hand to stop us. Shoshana tries to wiggle around him, like a cat trying to get at your dinner, but he impassively blocks her every move.

Gral tries a smoother approach. He begins with small talk; the guard doesn’t even twitch. He starts asking prying questions about the surgical ward. No response. Fine, then: he switches to Orcish, a sinister undertone weaving through his voice as he uses Words of Terror.

An insight roll reveals completely unchanged body language.

“Either they’re immune to fear or not a humanoid,” Gral reports back. “Not a single emotion. Definitely not goliath mercenaries.”

“Tryin’ to talk your way into the surgical wing?” says another chatty passerby. “Good luck. They got all the medical cadavers locked up in there and they won’t let us in.”

(Cadavers? Oh shit, we bet that’s the guard factory, theorize the players.)

“Oh, are you a med student?”

“Yeah. I work with Professor Herberts, or I used to, anyway. We needed a couple cadavers to do this comparison study about spleens; we got some weird ones from out in the wood, we compare spleens to see if place with thing don’t worry about it; need control spleen. And then these BIG DUMB IDIOTS wouldn’t let us in, and Herbert got transferred to the College of Ethics all of a sudden. He’s been gone a couple months.”

“How long do professors usually transfer for?” asks Gral.

“I mean, they usually pop over to give a lecture or two and come back by the end of the day.”

(Vigdor happens to remember that the College of Ethics also runs an asylum. They live in a big spooky castle and do dissections with guts and stuff, it can do a number on your head! Some of the ethicists have branched into the field of psychology. No reason to mention this when people are having extended stays on the ethics campus, of course…)

The student shrugs. “I gotta get to lecture. If you manage to get in there, any chance you can bring me back a couple spleens?”

We wave goodbye noncommittally, though Vigdor insists he can pop a spleen out of a corpse like a yolk from an egg. He’s a good surgeon!

Anyway, Vigdor went to school here, and the dice are on his side; he knows a side path through an old abandoned classroom into the surgical suite. He pops the lock on the door easily; all the undergrads used to go this way when slipping into lecture late, to get past the TA keeping track of tardies.

The guard is in earshot but facing the other direction, and he’s not even blinking, much less scanning around. Gral casts Silence on us and our very clanky party slips by easily.

Shosh sticks her head into the TA’s office. Nothing really stands out, but she swipes some interesting-looking notes from the desk drawers to look at later.

Meanwhile, Gral and Vigdor go into Macker’s office. The desk is an absolute mess, which is very unlike the guy Vigdor used to know. There are wheeled chalkboards crammed into the office, covered in scribbles and anatomical diagrams. Paging through the notes and glancing over the chalkboard, Vigdor makes a decent medicine check and can at least figure out what problem Macker was working on.

Based on what Dr. Emily told us, Macker’s trying to develop a surgical procedure. The issue is that whatever he’s doing would cause so much physical trauma that it’d kill the patient, and he’s looking for some way to prevent that. There are lists of healing options: formulas, spells, potions, nonmagical stabilization methods to keep the patient alive while various tissues are extracted from the body.

Gral’s unimpressed. Healing methods? That’s pretty tame for forbidden knowledge.

To Vigdor’s experienced eyes, this stuff looks mega-advanced and highly experimental, but Gral’s right – it’s not anything you’d scramble to censor.

Weirdly enough, the place doesn’t look ransacked, only disheveled and a little dusty. Macker’s notes haven’t been moved since he was here. Maybe this isn’t what the ethicists were after?

We head to cadaver storage while Valeria keeps watch. Cadaver storage is creepy as hell, but only because it’s, y’know, a room full of cadavers. A lot of the bodies, kept stable with Gentle Repose, appear to be Cursed, but that’s hardly weird. What’s so crazy they’d keep it hidden from everyone?

Vigdor opens the door to the dissection labs, Gral’s Silence deadening any ominous warning he might have had from the room beyond. Yes, the table here’s been recently used, and the bizarre symbols scrawled on the chalkboards have spilled onto the surrounding floor and walls, but Vigdor’s eyes are drawn to where the chalkboard peels away like skin to reveal a strange, multicolored, impossible space. The floor begins to take the shape of a stone hand that projects out into the shimmering void, joining a daisy-chain of enormous hands that form a walkway out to a marble platform floating in space.

Gral takes his Silence spell with him and runs to get Valeria.

Eyes starry, watching entire worlds and impossible shapes spinning through iridescent mists, Vigdor takes his first heady hit of Key taint.

As we cut session, Valeria considers that the ethicists may actually have a point.

#the cursewood #Session recap #sturmhearst university #gral omokk'duu #valeria argent #vigdor gavril #shoshana bat chaya #The key

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doyoufancyathought · 3 years

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Through The Utility Closet Part 3: Get Tested

Y/N had never been a fan of hospitals. In fact, she had gone above and beyond in her efforts to avoid going to them. She thought she could probably count all of her hospital visits on her fingers. Thankfully, she was a fairly healthy individual, so it wasn't hard for her to stay out of the Emergency room. They were too sterile, too clean, and everyone was always bustling and grumping around, and poking and prodding all the time. Y/N knew that the hospital wasn't supposed to be an enjoyable place to spend time, but she definitely was of the opinion that steps could be made to make it at least comfortable. Or hospitable, if you'll excuse the joke.

Still, she was in a new dimension, apparently, and so exceptions must be made when it comes to personal dislikes against institutions. She wanted to get home, after all, and this was a necessary step. In order for these scientists to send her back home, they must figure out where exactly she is from, otherwise they could end up sending her to a completely wrong place or time or what have you, and that would just be a disaster.

Once she was up on the exam table, Y/N did her best to appear friendly to the business-like nurse. She was quick and efficient as she hooked Y/N up to at least different machines, and tied a rubber band around her upper arm. For a moment, Y/N was worried that these strangers might be shooting her full of drugs, but then she remembered that this was simply routine for drawing blood. She hoped that medical procedures weren't too different in this world from her own.

Y/N was relieved when the nurse brought in a tray of empty vials and begin to explain what she was doing.

"I'm going to draw some blood so we can do some tests. I'll also need a hair sample, and I'm going to do a saliva swab as well, just so we can take a look at your DNA. How's that sound?"

"Invasive."

The nurse smiled. "I promise you'll barely feel a thing. The swab will be oral, same as checking for strep."

The nurse did her tests, and then let a few scientists in lab coats in. They pulled up chairs in front of the exam table and introduced themselves, although Y/N forgot their names as soon as she heard them.

"Okay, so I guess the first question is for you to introduce yourself and where you're from."

"My name is Y/N Y/L/N, and I'm from (hometown) in (country). I was working at one of my jobs when I fell through an inter dimensional portal and ended up here."

"Good start. Can you tell me about the planetary system from your home world?"

"I guess so." Y/N thought about it for a second, trying to remember those astronomy lessons from many years ago. "Earth is the third planet from the Sun, which is the centre of the system. Then there's Mercury, Mars, Earth, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Pluto, and I think I'm missing some. I can't remember the order, sorry, I've never been good at planets."

"That's all right. Can you tell me how many days in a year?"

"365."

"And how old are you?"

"22."

"And how old do people usually live to be?"

"Uh, I don't know. Maybe anywhere from 70 to 90 years?" Should have paid for attention in stats class.

"How big are spiders in your world?"

"Some of them are super tiny, like you can barely see them. And then some of them are huge, like a dinner plate."

"I see. And how big are chickens?"

"What?"

"How big are chicken? I know it's a weird question, but some worlds have gigantic chickens that actually prey on humans."

"Thats, um, disturbing. But my chickens are normal size? Like small enough to fit in an oven."

"Ok, well that's good. "

There where more questions like this, some about history and some about geography and flora and fauna. When they were all done, the scientists discussed for a minute by themselves.

"Okay, well, from what we can tell, your world is incredibly similar to our own, with the major differences likely being social development. You say you don't have the Avengers in your world?"

"No, we don't have any superheroes or superpowers at all. I wish, though."

"Yeah, that makes sense. How much do you know about inter-dimensional portals?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Ok, well that's fair, it's a tough subject. So pretty much, each dimension has kind of bridges to reach out to other dimensions. When two bridges line up, there's a chance for people or things to cross over."

"Okay, that makes sense I guess."

"A lot of the time, these bridges go unnoticed. Some dimensions are connected permanently, some are connected cyclicly, and some are connected for less than a second at a time, which makes them extra hard to track. You with me so far?"

Y/N nodded.

"Don't worry if you don't get it. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that we might have a hard time tracking down your world."

"Okay, but how long do you think it'll take? How long does it normally take?"

The scientists shifted uncomfortably. "Well that's the thing. There is an infinite amount of universes you could be from, and it'll take a while to narrow it down to just the most likely. From there, we would have to figure out what kind of bridges they all have, and figure out how to predict it, and then figure out a way to send you back."

"Oh, that does sound complicated. So like a month?"

They glanced at each other. "We've never done this before, and we've never sent anyone back through a bridge."

"Two months?"

"Maybe a year."

"What?"

"I said, maybe a year?"

"I'm going to be here for a year."

"Maybe, like I said we've never done this before so we can't really give you an idea of how long it will take."

"Oh my God."

"We're very sorry. We'll give you some space."

The scientists left, and the nurse from before came back in and started unhooking Y/N from the monitors.

"We've run all the tests we need to, dear. Do you have any questions?"

"I have so many questions, I don't even know where to begin."

"That's understandable. We'll have your results back in a few hours, and that'll help the scientists get a head start on where you're from. I've got your clothes here, if you step through that door you'll be able to change in privacy."

Y/N nodded and jumped off of the table, gathering her clothes in her rooms and she quickly walked across the cold floor to the changing room. She pulled on her work clothes, which consisted of jeans and a black t-shirt, but opted to leave the apron and baseball cap off. There was no need to wear them here. Y/N put her shoes back on, simple canvas slip-ons, and reflected on what she had just learned. Here are the facts.

1. She had magically teleported through a door.

2. She was now stuck in a world that apparently had superheroes.

3. The superheroes had no idea how to get her back, or how long it would take to figure it out.

4. She was stuck.

Now, a normal person might cry when they considered this situation. But, Y/N was not a normal person. She had the fun meal-deal of anxiety and depression, and at this moment, she thanked her ill little brain for causing her to overthink every little scenario so she would be prepared for the worst to happen. Of course, none of those thoughts covered time and dimension travel, but they had covered a sudden zombie apocalypse, so it was just a matter of adjusting the survival strategy. Find shelter, find friends, and fight to live.

So far, Y/N had maybe found friends. The Avengers seemed like a friendly bunch, if oddly beautiful, and Sam had offered his basement as shelter. Now, all she had to do was figure out the day to day stuff. Get a job, live a life, and get back to her world.

So she stepped out of the changing room back into the hallway, and say the Avengers gathered around. They all turned to her as the door closed behind her.

"And what did you find out from the scientists, Y/N?" Vision asked.

"Well, they tried explaining how inter-dimensional portals work. That went way over my head. But basically, I'm gonna be stuck here for a while until they can figure out where I'm from and figure out how to get me back. So, I guess I'm going to need to find a job or something pretty quick."

Tony shook his head and stepped to the front of the group. "That won't be necessary. I'm loaded, and I'll make sure you're set up to not need anything."

"Why?"

"Because I want to? You just flew through outer space into a whole new world, and you're worried about getting a job? Come on, live a little! You look like you work too hard. What work do you do?"

"At which job?"

"Well how many do you have?"

"Three."

"Holy moly."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Y/N shrugged. "I get bored."

"So you work?"

"Beats sitting around on my ass."

"Fair point. Well anyways, enjoy the vacation for now, and in the future if you still want a job, we'll have to figure out the proper documents. For now, enjoy your vacation! I'm loaded, and this is the perfect opportunity to share, okay?"

"If you really want to, I mean, I don't mind working."

"Clearly, you have three jobs. Psycho. But no, I don't mind. In fact, I would be offended if you didn't accept my offer."

"Okay, well, then, thanks!"

"No problem. I already gave Sam a credit card for you, so you can go shopping on your way to his house. You do know how to work a credit card, right?"

Y/N grinned. "Yes, Tony, I know how to work a credit card. My world apparently isn't that different from this one, just a few small differences I guess."

"Good. Alright, well, roll out, team."

The Avengers dissipated until it was just Sam, Steve, and James standing around with Y/N.

"So you're still coming with us, right?" Sam asked.

Y/N shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so. If you don't mind, of course."

"Not at all. It'll be nice having a girl in the house, for once."

The group of four started walking down the long hallway.

"So do you just collect strays, Sam?" Y/N asked, curious of why he was so eager to offer his spare room to a total stranger.

Before he could answer, Steve cut in. "Yeah, I mean, why else did you think we lived with him?"

"I don't know. I thought maybe you were in a band, or really good gym buddies, or maybe even a throuple."

Sam choked on a laugh, but Bucky and Steve looked confused. "What's a throuple?" James asked.

"It's like a couple, but instead of it being two people, it's three." Y/N explained.

"And you thought?" Steve almost looked offended.

"Look, sorry, I don't know what's normal for you here, and I didn't want to assume it was all platonic!"

Sam was dying laughing. "You thought -" he had to lean on a wall to keep standing upright. "Man, we're just good friends, and these two have absolutely no credit, so it's hard for them to find places to stay."

"Ah. I guess being a superhero might not pay well."

"Well, I mean there are other reasons too, but yeah let's go with that." Steve didn't exactly want to jump this poor girl with the fact that he was also over 100 years old and had been frozen for a while. She had enough to worry about.

Y/N didn't pursue the other reasons, because they had finally exited the building and she was looking around, comparing this new world to her own. It was dark out, because it was night. She looked down the street and saw a McDonalds sign, which made her smile. At least she could have her chicky nugs if things got too tough. Turns out this world was just like hers, just with a bit of a different history. A lot more violence, hence the need for superheroes.

They got into the car, and Sam drove them to a mall, where they spent an hour and a half hopping around to different stores to get stuff. Y/N got used to spending someone else's money, and she definitely took advantage of the three guys following her around who offered, nay, insisted on carrying her bags. However, she insisted on going into the drugstore alone so she could collect toiletries.

She grabbed a cart (and honestly who uses a cart in a drugstore unless you have serious money to spend) and spent about 45 minutes going up and down most of the aisles to find what she needed. Luckily, the products were exactly the same as she was used to, so it was only a matter of finding exactly what she needed.

When Y/N finally walked out, she spotted her new companions sitting down on one of those middle-of-the-mall benches that are intended for senior citizens and mothers with rowdy children and men waiting for women to finish their shopping.

"Got everything you need?" Sam asked as he stood up and stretched.

"Yup."

"Alright, let's head home. You feel like pizza for dinner?"

"What's pizza?" Y/N deadpanned, and the three guys looked shocked.

"You don't know what pizza is?" Steve asked.

"Nope, never heard that word before in my life."

"Seriously?"

"Why would I joke about it?"

"You've never had pizza before." James reiterated.

"Nope. What is it?"

"No, you gotta experience it." Sam smiled and started walking back the way they had come.

Steve and James were perfect gentleman, and oddly strong as well, but Y/N again did not complain when they grabbed her bags from the drugstore. She opened doors for them as they went out to the parking lot.

Once they were back in the car, Sam got on his phone and ordered pizza that would be delivered right as they got home, provided traffic cooperated. Y/N spent the drive looking out the window at all the lights and people she saw, and didn't pay much attention to the conversation the guys were having. Nothing looked too out of the ordinary, except for the whole superhero thing.

Once they got to Sam's house, a tidy little bungalow in a quiet neighbourhood, they unloaded the car and headed inside. Steve and James ran downstairs to put Y/N's bags in her room, while Sam gave her a tour.

As they were walking down a hallway, Y/N stopped to look at family pictures hanging on the wall.

"Is this your family?" She asked.

"Yeah, that's my sister and her two boys. They've grown a lot since that picture was taken though."

"They look like lots of fun."

"They're a handful, that's for sure."

"And these are your parents?"

"Yeah," Sam said quietly. "They passed a few years ago, that's the last picture we ever took of them both together."

"Oh I'm so sorry." Sam shook his head as Y/N reached out to touch his arm. "They have really kind eyes." She said, her gaze returning to the picture.

"They were the kindest people I've ever known." Sam said, and just then, the doorbell rang. "Sounds like the pizzas here."

Y/N could hear the two boys thundering back up the stairs as she followed Sam to the front door. She expected that he would need help carrying all the food in.

She was right. The delivery driver had to go back to his car to get a second load of pizza. Y/N brought the first load into the kitchen and got a few plates down from the cupboard.

"Oh, good, you found the plates!" Sam said as he walked into the kitchen a few minutes later.

"Yeah, lucky guess."

They set the table in silence as Steve and James washed up, and then they sat down for dinner.

Sam decided he wanted to know more about Y/N. "So, Y/N, tell us a little bit about yourself."

"Ok, well," Y/N hated this questions, because how do you boil yourself down to just a few facts? She just wished people would ask direct questions, because she could answer questions if they were clear. She hated vagueness. "I'm 22, I still live, or lived, with my parents. I like dogs. My favourite colour is yellow. I have three jobs, as a nanny, in retail, and also at a Bubble Tea shop in my hometown. What else do you want to know?"

"Well that's a lot. Why do you have three jobs?" Steve asked.

Y/N shrugged, having to explain her workaholic tendencies twice in a day. "I get bored. And I like working, keeps life interesting."

"I'll bet. What do you do for fun?"

"I read a lot. And I like to go to the lake. And crochet."

"What kind of books do you read?" Steve asked.

"It depends. Sometimes fantasy, sometimes mystery. I read a lot of those cheap drugstore romances."

"Wait, you crochet?" Sam asked. "What are you, a grandma?"

"Like a crazy, chaotic grandma, kinda. I drink a lot of tea and wear a lot of sweaters, sorry for being comfy!"

They went back and forth for a few minutes. "How do you like the pizza?" Sam asked.

"Well," Y/N waggled her head back and forth, debating how to break the ruse. "Not the best I've ever had, but it's close."

"Wait, you've had pizza before?"

"Yes."

"You said before though-"

"And you believed me?Rookie move, gentlemen."

"Why would you trick us?" They weren't mad, just a little confused. And amused. James hadn't really said much since they sat down for dinner, but he grinned and chuckled at the confused looks on his friends faces.

Y/N shrugged. "Gotta keep you guys on your toes, yaknow?" They all laughed. "But hey, tell me more about you guys. You're super soldiers? What does that even mean?"

Sam and Steve took turns explaining who they were, and how the Avengers came to be. They didn't touch too much on James, who excused himself fairly into the evening. He was a little shy and quiet around newcomers, apparently, but Y/N wasn't bothered. She had bigger things to worry about than someone being shy around her.

When the talking turned to yawns, Sam offered to show Y/N to her room. He took her down the stairs into the basement, which opened up into a spacious rec room. There was a massive TV and a pool table. Down a short hallway were the two previously spare rooms, both of which were now occupied by strays that Sam had picked up. The only bathroom was unfortunately across the basement, but Y/N didn't foresee any problems with that.

Sam explained how every room had it's own colours for sheets and towels and stuff, and Y/N was very impressed with how domestically organized he was turning out to be.

Sam went back upstairs, and Y/N took a few minutes to settle in. She would unpack and run her new clothes through the laundry tomorrow, but for now all she wanted was a hot shower and a good long nights sleep.

She went into the bathroom, and saw that James had already made space for her stuff in the shower caddy, on the towel rack, and in the medicine cabinet above the sink. With a smile on her face, she put her few new belongings in those empty spaces, then drug herself through the shower and fell into her bed, exhausted.

Before her eyes closed, Y/N considered what had happened to her today. In a new dimension, living with three strange yet wonderful men, something that would be sure to give her mother a heart attack. And yet, she was excited for the morning to come. Part of her hoped that when she opened her eyes again, she would wake up in her home world, and she would be surrounded by people she knew and recognized. That's what a normal person would hope for in this situation, right?

But as I've told you before, Y/N is no normal person, and the other part of her was wishing that when she woke up, she would still be here, in Sam's house. She wanted to opportunity to explore, so see what else was out there. Maybe she'd discover a new life, a new chance to be the person she had wished to be but never got the chance. Whatever happened, she knew that tomorrow would be full questions, and hopefully a few answers. She hoped, anyways.

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the-friday-knight · 4 years

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Fuck it

Ben 10 OC Time

Name: Jake Mars

Age: 17 (During OS)

Species: Human

Nationality: American

Eye Colour: Bright Blue

Hair Colour: Brown Black

Appearance: Jake wears a red and black hoodie as his common attire, under which he has a range of different t-shirts with various logos or statements on them, usually related to mechanics or rock music in some way. He wears thick blue jeans and brown steel toed boots. His version of the Omnitrix is on his left wrist. It is nearly an exact replica of the Omnitrix designed by Azmuth, but it won’t stay that way for long.

Personality: Jake is kind. Whenever he comes across an Alien, or some situation that seems odd, he gives the Alien the benefit of the doubt first, for all he knows they could just be scared being on a different world. Of course this isn’t always the case and has landed Jake in a few close calls that he quickly had to get his way out of. Jake is also well versed in mechanical engineering, owning a dark red Plymouth Superbird that he uses to travel the country. Jake decided to leave his home after acquiring the Omnitrix, at the start of the Summer after he had just received his drivers license. This is because he discovered that his Omnitrix was not the only one out there, though he still is not sure who has the others. He left because he wanted to find others with a device like his, and maybe they could work together and help each other figure out the strange Alien watch. He likes to consider himself mature, though that isn’t to say he isn’t reckless at times when it comes to people in danger our people he cares about getting hurt.

Likes: Driving, cars, finding and taking apart Alien tech, rock music, country music, apple pie, black coffee, meeting new people/Aliens.

Dislikes: Prisons, discrimination, Dean, people who question his mechanical knowledge.

Flaws: Jake feels like he has something to prove. This is shown most obviously when he is fighting against an Alien that he is also able to transform into. Even if there is an Alien he has that would be better suited to the fight, he will often transform into the same Alien in an attempt to prove that he can beat them at his own game. He also has a bad habit of antagonising those he is fighting against, to the point where it seems less like hero-villain banter and more just straight up arguing or insulting them.

Strengths: His mechanical knowledge helps him in his fights surprisingly often, especially when going against certain robotic drones that might be out to get him. He is usually quite adaptable to his transformations, and situations where he isn’t the Alien that would be best suited. He has a friendly aura about him, making him easily able to hold a conversation or befriend others, even if they are of a different species.

Jake’s Omnitrix: Jake’s Omnitrix is similar to the one built by Azmuth, however there is one key difference. It’s AI.

Omni: Omni is the AI within Jake’s Omnitrix. She has the appearance of an human female with twin green ponytails, a strange black and green shirt and skirt combo and bright green eyes. When she first met Jake, she requested him to call her Omni-chan. Jake promptly refused. Despite the term AI, Omni was actually a member of a once powerful and prosperous race, who transferred her entire mind into a satellite before her races downfall. She remained in that satellite for an unknown amount of time in deep space, but somehow was able to pick up earth transmissions of a form of entertainment called ‘Anime’. Hence her appearance and name choice. While out there, she also discovered encrypted messages of a design for a piece of technology that would allow someone to transform into a different Alien species. Omni realised this device might be a chance for her to bring her race back. So she immediately started constructing it, following the blueprints to almost a t. However, she was unable to connect with the Codon Stream on Primus, as she needed space to put her mind in. Once completed, she locked the Omnitrix and herself in a pod, and shot it towards Earth.

Omni’s Personality: Omni is a very energetic and intelligent girl. She helped Jake understand the Omnitrix when it first attached itself to him, though she may have also gave him a heart attack when she first revealed herself. If there is something Jake does not know, he will almost always ask Omni for help. She is happy to oblige. However, being cooped up inside a watch does tend to make her a bit bored, and sometimes she will either jump out of the watch or transform Jake at inopportune moments for laughs. She will also rarely change Jake into a different Alien than he requested, if she feels like he has been that Alien too much lately. As she has knowledge of what Anime is, she could be considered a weeb. This proves detrimental when Jake ends up fighting a magic user that imbibes origami creatures with magic to make them life sized and attack. She is a big fan of this Villain and often tries to talk to them in the middle of a fight.

Enemies: Canon Villains Dean: Another wielder of a different kind of Omnitrix that seems to only turn him into Aliens from the Anur system. His watch was dubbed the ‘Anurtrix’ and he uses it to commit petty crime. Jake has fought and defeated Dean several times, foiling his thefts. However, every time Dean manages to slip away some how. (Enemy level: Hands. On sight.) Kitsune: A magic user that uses magic to transform her Origami creations into life sized counterparts. She seems to be after magical artifacts, specifically those of Japanese make. However, she seems to be younger than Jake, making him think she is going through her weeb phase. (Enemy level: Why are you doing this crime it makes no sense? I’m still gonna stop you though.) Colonel Rozum: Jake accidentally staged a breakout at Area 51. Freeing wrongly imprisoned Aliens and helping them return home via the theft of an experimental aircraft capable of space travel. Jake did not join the Aliens in leaving Earth, instead trusting them to make it home without him. Colonel Rozum does not know it was Jake who enabled the breakout, as he was transformed at the time. But as far as he is concerned it only confirmed the danger of Aliens. (Enemy level: You’re a government official so I can’t actually attack you but one day I’m going to punch that stupid moustache off your face.)

Allies: The Tennysons. Detective Arnold Mason: A detective in a large city close to Jake’s hometown. It was where he preformed his first act of heroism in front of people. Unfortunately due to a misunderstanding Mason thought Jake was a part of a rival gang. Jake attempted to clear it up. Mason and two other officers are now aware of a supposedly heroic car. (Ally level: Vigilantism is illegal, but you’re literally fighting Aliens so you do you I guess.)

Trouble Gear: Three Planchaküle that were stranded on Earth. Jake brought them to a junkyard and aided them in returning home. The trio were gifted a CD of AC/DC’s greatest hits by Jake. They consider it their favourite item. Having returned to their home planet, they are not currently available to Jake, but would immediately spring into action to help if he requested it. (Ally level: You helped us get home and introduced us to rock and roll. We will die for you.)

Trivia:

Jake is voiced by Dante Basco.

Omni is voiced by Samantha Ireland.

The first Alien Jake turned into was a Planchaküle. He has named this transformation ‘Ratchet’.

It doesn’t matter if you’re human, Alien, or intergalactic war criminal. If you are being driven somewhere by Jake, you wear. your. seatbelt.

The DNA of Omni’s race is available for Jake to turn into. But Jake doesn’t know that, and Omni actively tries to keep that hidden.

Jake’s Omnitrix has access to the Life Form Lock mode and the Scanner mode.

This theme is red and black, which is usually associated with villains but I thought it’d be funny if Jake had it because of association.

His ethnicity is half-Polynesian on his mothers side.

He isn’t sure if there are alternate counterparts in different dimensions. Though he is pretty sure if there were he would immediately throw hands.

Jake currently has no love interest, though I am considering an eventual redemption of Kitsune that might lead to that.

His Omnitrix will go through a serious design change. I shall share it in another post.

#Ben 10 #Ben 10 OC #Jake Mars

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movedyoakkemae · 3 years

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DICK’S NATAL CHART INFORMATION.

Birthplace: Bern, Switzerland. // Date of Birth: March 21st, 1971. // Time: 6:43PM (Sunset). Sun: Aries. // Moon: Capricorn. // Ascendant: Libra. Key: True. Depends. Not True. Not overly wrong, not overly right.

The Sun

The Sun represents vitality, a sense of individuality, and outward-shining creative energy.

The Sun is in Aries.

Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, and Aries natives are the first to start--and the first to finish--whatever they set out to do. Aries is an active, energetic sign. People with Sun in Aries are direct, straightforward, and uncomplicated. They expect the same from others, and are baffled when they don't always get it. The body comes first with Aries. Sun in Aries people are natural athletes. At the very least, their natural inclination is to use their bodies to get things done. They're not given to long, drawn-out emotional moments; nor are they big on planning ahead. Instead, they live their lives simply. What is happening right now is most important to Aries. Impatience is a definite vice, and innovation is a huge strength. Aries loves to start anything new, and they have trouble sitting still. They are pioneers in whatever they do, and there is a very basic quality of bravery in these people that is unmistakable! Aries generally knows what they want, and they know the quickest route to getting it. They take shortcuts if they must, but generally everything is aboveboard. Underhanded just isn't their style. Some Aries people are bold, but even the quieter ones are brave and even plucky in their own way. Independence is their birthright. Nothing gets them going more than a fresh slate, the promise of a new day, and a brand new start. Aries enjoys a challenge, and Aries Suns are happiest when their lives are moving forward and active. There's a childlike quality to all Aries Sun people, and it's often quite charming. He has a strong personality and an entrepreneurial spirit. He is ambitious and self-willed, stubborn, obstinate and tenacious. Possible issues: nervousness, impulsiveness, wastefulness, provoking nature, restlessness, and changeability.

Sun in VI: The Sun is in the sixth house The work that you do, and the services that you offer, are very important to your sense of identity. In order to feel good about yourself, you need to be busy with daily activities and to produce work you can be proud of. Focus on finding a suitable and rewarding avenue for expressing this part of you, being extra careful to choose an occupation in which you can express yourself. You are sensitive to criticism about the work you do, and you work best when you can create your own schedule. Positive feedback for the services you render is important to you, but be careful not to over-identify with the appreciation you receive from others, as your work and your health suffers when you feel under-appreciated. Motivation to do a good job should come from within. -38 Square between the Sun and Mars You possess an unmistakable competitiveness and a "me-first" attitude. The fighter persona is most apparent in youth, when the child is described as a "bundle of energy", or it is remarked that he or she "can't sit still". The abundant energy generated by this aspect is hard to direct in childhood. Later in life, ideally, those with these aspects have learned to channel some of their excess energy into productive avenues--perhaps through career, sports, or any area where competitiveness is considered an asset. Nevertheless, you can meet up with more than your share of conflict, and you can sometimes rub people the wrong way. You are very motivated to get things done, to take action rather than simply talk about something, and to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Those who know you quite well might describe you as hot-headed and temperamental at times. You are easily frustrated, and you're given to impulsive actions. If the aspect is found in cardinal signs, it gives impulsiveness and a short temper. If the aspect is found in fixed signs, the natives can be very hard-headed and willful. If it's in mutable signs, it gives a restless and frustrated impatience. Essentially, you have faced conflict and are not particularly afraid of it. You have faced having your need to assert yourself blocked. Your parents may have done as much as they could to "tame" what they felt to be excess energy or aggression. In other words, you know all about conflict and blockages, so that when you are faced with a challenge or a roadblock, you don't run away from it or hide under the covers feeling sorry for yourself. You meet challenges head-on. 73 Trine between the Sun and Jupiter Endowed with generosity and friendliness, in some ways you appear to be lucky in life. You attract good things with a positive frame of mind and a charitable disposition. Rarely entirely "down and out", you are usually well-received, helpful, and well-informed. You may enjoy travel and have a special affection for foreign places and people. You're generally not very competitive, and for the most part not combative either. As a result, you are usually well-liked. You are usually good-hearted, possessing strong morals and much faith in life and in people. You prefer to find the good in situations and in people. You don't have a lot of patience with those who break the rules, as you generally believe in order, equality, and the law. You usually make good on your promises, and the sincerity you exude can be trusted. Looking on the bright side is your forte--people can turn to you for a pleasing dose of faith and optimism. You are quick to chuckle and can't resist any appeal to your sense of humor. Some people with this aspect are downright jolly. Others are less conspicuous, but their faith in life and willingness to find humor in life are nevertheless obvious. 106 Trine between the Sun and Neptune There is an unmistakably dreamy, inspired, and sensitive side to you. A marked appreciation for music and the arts is present. The connection of Neptune with the Sun, which represents the ego and the will, certainly softens some of the hard edges that might be found elsewhere in the chart, adding a sensitive and spiritual dimension to your personality. You are naturally compassionate. It is so completely natural for you to accept that there is more to the world than what is before your eyes, that you tend to presume everyone must be spiritually-inclined. Of course, you come to realize that this is not the case at some early point in your life. Your attraction to spirituality and metaphysical subjects is usually marked. These aspects favor writers, artists, and musicians. You are sensitive to those who are suffering, although you are not usually taken advantage of. You are humanitarian and may have a special connection with animals. If other aspects and positions in the chart support it, you are not one to dominate others or assert yourself to the point of brashness. You have a fertile imagination, are full of inspiration, and very emotional - all qualities that you may use on the professional level. -218 Opposition between the Sun and Pluto You may be prone to inner tension and negative, self-destructive behavior. When things are going well, you suffer from fears that something will come along to change that. Constantly worrying that the rug will be pulled from under your feet can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You possess tremendous power and strength--when you learn to accept and use that strength, instead of fear it, you can be one of the most effective, insightful, helpful, and healing person around! At times, you can be intensely dissatisfied with your personal accomplishments and expressions of self. You put a lot of pressure on yourself regarding your own endeavors. You can be quite dissatisfied with your creative self-expressions, and want to hide your expressions from others until you feel the output is "right". This is largely due to a perceived inability to express or reveal your true personality to others. You struggle with a deep need to control yourself and life itself. You are especially sensitive to criticism, and feel the need to "redo" yourself often. There is a marked fear of losing control, and this might stem from some traumatic event in childhood, or the childhood might have been crisis-ridden or emotionally-charged in general. As such, you can be intensely fearful of, or threatened by, change. This can express itself through attempts to control your life in such a way that you can manage your fears of being taken off guard. Of course, this generally backfires! You have an intense need for privacy at times. -21 Opposition between the Sun and Lilith There is a self-destructive side to you that should be managed by confronting your fears. You might worry about a friend betraying you, although others might find this person full of charm! -233 Opposition between the Sun and Ascendant He may face conflicts in life due to a projection of character that does not match what is on the inside. Misrepresentation of the self can be frequent. He must strive to understand how others perceive him and work on presenting a more accurate persona to the world, or he will rub people the wrong way or feel unrecognized and misunderstood. -103 Square between the Sun and Midheaven He struggles with finding a career that suits the personality. He may not face up to problems and his plans are often difficult or even impossible for him to realize.

The Moon

The Moon represents the emotional responses, unconscious pre-destination, and the self-image. The Moon represents the emotions, and the Moon sign shows how a person expresses themselves when at home, at ease, and comfortable. The Moon is in Capricorn.

Being useful and productive are basic needs for Lunar Capricorns. Because they generally keep their emotions under check, Moon in Capricorn people come across as competent people. However turbulent their emotions may be under the surface, Lunar Capricorns keep cool-headed--and they come across as steady and reliable people. This position of the Moon suggests a desire for clear boundaries and realistic goals. Not much for taking risks in life, Lunar Capricorns look for safety and security in most everything they do. Most of them respect authority and tradition, and many are planning well ahead of the rest of us. You likely won't have to remind them to protect their interests, plan for old age, or keep fall-back money in their bank accounts. These things come naturally to them. Calm, cool, and collected--these words sum up Moon in Capricorn natives well. Messy emotions and "leaky" souls are a bit frightening for most with this position of the Moon. Truth is, they can have plenty of mood swings and some dark emotions now and again. Lunar Capricorns are often quite hard on themselves, and would benefit from letting their guard down once in a while. They quickly garner reputations of being mountains of strength, and they easily hide their sensitivity behind a sarcastic manner. You may have read that Moon in Capricorn natives are a bit cold and calculating. The fact is, they are unlikely to be any less emotional than the other 11 sign positions of the Moon--they simply aren't comfortable "letting go" when it comes to emotions. They keep their emotions under control. Wherever Capricorn is found in the chart, there is a desire for structure and control. Capricorn is the sign of organization and efficient management; so, when the Moon is found in the sign, the world of emotions are well-managed and handled in an efficient and practical manner. At the heart of Lunar Capricorns is a powerful need to feel worthwhile in the real world. There's a basic need for respectability and a big attachment to the world of the senses. Lunar Capricorns put a lot of value in all things tangible and real. And, perhaps more than anything, they need to be respected by others in order to feel secure. Short description: Reserved and cautious. Attracted to politics. Selective, earthy, success comes by means of other people, who recognize his qualities. Potential issues: material worries, saving far more than enjoying, restrictions. Does not get carried away by love.

Moon in IV: The Moon is in the fourth house He likes family life, peace and quiet -- he likes to stay at home, surrounded by loved ones, in agreeable circumstances. Strongly influenced by the mother. You long for a sense of true belonging, but you may be quite restless in your search. You might change residence frequently, or simply feel the need to make many changes in your home. Moving frequently may be a healthy thing if it keeps you emotionally stimulated, but if you find that you do so on whims and later regret the changes, you might want to treat it as a symptom of emotional unrest--as a sign that you are in a constant search for the perfect mood and setting, when in fact a feeling of belonging should be worked on from the inside out, not the outside in! Some of you might remain rather immature on an emotional level, never wanting to truly grow up and take care of yourself. Attachments to your past, traditions, and family are strong. 72 Trine between the Moon and Saturn He controls his feelings. He has a strong sense of duty and self-esteem. Very prudent. He can concentrate on a long-term task, manual or intellectual, with success. He perseveres and is serious in most things he does, but is humorous, satirical, steadfast, and upright. 4 Trine between the Moon and Pluto He can waver between a rich and successful domestic life and social success, perhaps having difficulty succeeding at both. Very perceptive and given to psychoanalyzing people. A strategist. Powerful emotions and intense feelings. 52 Trine between the Moon and Lilith This aspect favors romantic and sexual relationships, giving charm, intrigue, and intelligence. Emotions are big, dark, and mysterious, but he embraces these things, instinctively understanding and accepting the many sides and complications of his feelings.

Ascendant.

House I is the area of self identity. The ascendant is a symbol of how one acts in life. It is the image of the personality as seen by others, and the attitude that one has towards life.

Ascendant is Libra.

Everybody seems to like Libra Ascendant natives. They just come across as nice, pleasant, and fair. Look a little closer at their lives, and these nice people may have had quite a few problems in their relationships. Some of them have had a string of relationships, and it can be hard to imagine why! These natives attract others to them effortlessly. Besides, they simply don't know what to do with themselves without a significant other. Libra rising generally appear to be smoothing everything over. They have charming smiles, a gentle approach with others, and an easygoing image. Even if they were not endowed with good looks, they are attractive. Most pay a lot of attention to their personal appearance -- the colors they wear, their hair, the way they walk. Libra rising people can be enormously persuasive, although they will almost always use a "soft sell" approach when they want to win others over, which is all of the time! A tendency to pass the buck and keep up that "nice guy/gal" image are their worst qualities. However, they can make excellent mediators and will generally be the first to accommodate you. Libra rising natives are usually attracted to competent, active partners. Their relationships are often characterized by bickering or competitiveness until they learn to drop their sweet image once in a while and to stop blaming their partners for everything that goes wrong.

Beautiful and charming. This Aries comes across as more conciliatory than they may actually be!

Mercury.

Mercury represents communication, Cartesian and logical spirit. Mercury is in Aries.

He makes quick decisions, may streamline learning, can be direct and straightforward in speech, possessing an innocent charm, and can easily motivate others with his enthusiasm. Usually loves a heated dispute. Lively mind that quickly understands a given situation. He is very resourceful and capable. May prefer to jump into a decision and may not have much patience with pretense. Mercury in VII: Mercury is in the seventh house May avoid at all costs being alone. He has lots of friends, enjoying discussions and similarly cultivating plenty of work friends. He loves to write. You have a great love of debate, if only to get closer to your own thoughts and opinions. Bouncing ideas off others helps you to make a decision, although coming to definite conclusions can be painfully difficult for you. You see the other side of the coin. You might often play devil's advocate. Communication with a partner is craved, and you also love an audience for your own thoughts and opinions, but preferably a one-person audience, as you come alive verbally when it's one-on-one. You can be quite skilled at keeping a partnership animated and alive with interesting tidbits, new ideas, and stimulating conversation. You can easily become bored in partnership if the lines of communication go down, even temporarily. You might also love to talk about and analyze relationships and marriage. -159 Opposition between Mercury - Uranus He likes debate and controversy, and, above all, to contradict. He may lack diplomacy and tends to dissipate his energy. He cannot stay in the same place for too long, especially mentally, preferring change even if it means a backward step in his career.

Venus.

Venus represents an interest in emotions and values, exchange, and sharing with others.

Venus is in Aquarius.

Venus in Aquarius people try to impress you with their open-minded, future-thinking spirit. They want you to see them as unique, rebellious, and a little provocative. They are attractive when they are acting a little aloof. They want you to acknowledge and appreciate that they don't follow the beaten track in matters of the heart. Venus in Aquarius people are attracted to unusual or unconventional relationships. They don't want to follow all the rules, although they may make quite a few of their own. They can appear quite standoffish at times, and are threatened by restrictions of any kind. Emotional types may be put off by their detached manner in love. Venus in Aquarius wants you to love them for their intellect, and to admire their visions. They value lovers who are also good friends, and they avoid emotional displays or confrontations like the plague. Venus in Aquarius will delight in shocking you with their unusual ways and their forward-looking thinking. Pleasing Venus in Aquarius involves letting them know just how interesting they are. Put up with their occasional need to act superior on an intellectual level -- they are very proud of their unique ideas and visions. Dream along with them, and don't fence them in. They need space and will happily return the favor, giving you lots of room to breathe and to be yourself. Venus in V: Venus is in the fifth house He wants to succeed more than almost anything in the love life. He meets pleasant people and has very good friends, usually without too much conflict. He especially likes amusements, parties. He may have many children or love affairs. Interest in love and/or sex for you likely started young. Playful, sensual, and amorous, you are in love with love! You thrive on romantic attention, and it is easy and natural for you to always have a crush or romantic interest. There is a romantic, playful side to you that is unmistakable. It keeps you young at heart! You are sensuous and enjoy indulging in the pleasurable senses to the fullest possible extent. You enjoy surrounding yourself with beautiful art and music, and these may play a role in your ideal date scenario. There is a touch of the dramatic in you when it comes to love and sex. You are generally quite loyal to your partner, and you are both charming and easily charmed. It's also easy to turn your head. You are a warm, fun and playful date. -82 Square between Venus - Saturn He is hard or reserved at times, and doesn't always know how to express his emotions. He may be frightened of showing his love, and this can lead to disappointments, break-ups, lack of satisfaction. He has doubts, can be suspicious, worries too much, possibly jealous but more likely insecure. He will learn how to be happy in love, to be at ease with himself and to control his jealousy or gain more assurance and sense of self-worth in the second half of his life, possibly thanks to a mature person, who helps him learn to trust. 180 Conjunction between Venus and the North Node This aspect indicates diplomacy and attractiveness. There is a certain luck in meeting others at the right times. There is skill in harmonizing and much desire to cooperate rather than compete.

Mars.

Mars represents the desire for action and physical energy. Mars is in Capricorn.

With fiery Mars in the more orderly sign of Capricorn, natives with this position have a subdued and controlled style of approaching life. Most don't come across as particularly enthusiastic; rather, theirs is a low-key but determined energy. Mars in Capricorn natives like to be on top of things. They are generally goal-oriented and focused people who are not afraid of hard work. Most are achievers by nature, and many possess well-defined ambitions--well-defined to themselves more than anything. They're not particularly flashy people, but their drive to succeed and to make their lives secure is strong, even if it's not right out there for the world to see. Anger is expressed in a rather cool, level-headed way with this position of Mars. Self-control is strong when it comes to expressing anger, drive, energy, and sexuality. Capricorn is a sign that detests waste of any kind. It also fears disorderliness and "letting go". With Mars in Capricorn, there is generally a powerful need to stay in control. This is not to say that natives of this position are cold in any sense of the word. Their desires are strong, but they are often centered around the physical and material world--all that can be seen and held. With Mars in an Earth sign, sensuality is expressed in an earthy way. However, unlike Mars in Taurus, for example, (another earth sign), Mars in Capricorn is not self-indulgent by nature. These people are usually quite disciplined. Capricorn possesses the ability to plan for the future--something that many other signs have difficulty doing. Mars in Capricorn natives are working toward realistic and attainable goals. They are productive people who get off when they see tangible results from their efforts. Many natives with this position are a little hard on themselves, and sometimes others. They usually can be relied upon because they have an innate sense of responsibility to both themselves and to those they care about. Most of them are very hard-working, and one of their strategies for anger management is to throw themselves even more energetically into their work! Mars in IV: Mars is in the fourth house Quick decisions; he may have a lot of things on his plate and wants to succeed. He will succeed through a phenomenal work-rate. Stormy or simply active family life, where his leadership or aggressiveness shows itself. You can be fiercely protective of your close friends and family with Mars in your solar fourth house. Anger may be deeply felt and possibly deeply buried, too! As a result, it can be difficult for others to pinpoint your true motives, and you can be considered a real enigma. You can be passive-aggressive in your approach to the outside world when younger, which could lead to resentments if you are not careful--or confident--enough to take a more direct approach to pursuing your desires and expressing your anger. With time and experience, as well as substantial work towards achieving a healthy balance between emotional self-control and expression, you're likely to deal with frustrations in a more empowering way. -23 Square between Mars - Ascendant He is quarrelsome and critical at times when a softer approach would be more successful. In this way, he may self-sabotage. His success can sometimes come about through roundabout means. -88 Opposition between Mars - Midheaven He might suffer professional setbacks through actions that are too impulsive, imprudent, or lacking in forethought.

Jupiter.

Jupiter represents expansion and grace. Jupiter is in Sagittarius.

He attracts the most good fortune when he is open-handed and generous, tolerant, and practices what he preaches. Can be inspirational, usually finding success in travel, education, teaching, sports, publishing, and foreign cultures. Very philosophical, forward-looking, and enthusiastic. Strong morals. He strongly values freedom of movement and expression. Jupiter in III: Jupiter is in the third house He is has good judgement, a sense of values, an open and optimistic mind, a good education and high moral standards. He likes studying. He is successful in communications work. his professional work is a vocation and plays a great part in his life. 275 Conjunction between Jupiter - Neptune He is very generous and altruistic, helping people in difficulty. He knows how to listen or, at least, how to give that impression to make others feel heard. He is a dreamer with imagination to spare, fully enjoying the Arts.

Saturn.

Saturn represents contraction and effort. Saturn is in Taurus.

He doesn't like to see greed or waste in others. Must not shun materialism and possessiveness completely, and learn to build up a sense of being "deserving" of some pleasures in life. Saturn in VIII: Saturn is in the eighth house This position sometimes points to not being financially very well off, average salary. The spouse may not be rich. Possibility of a small inheritance, which helps a lot. Long life and natural death, if the aspects allow. 25 Trine between Saturn - Lilith He can be hard-working and practical.

Uranus.

Uranus represents individual liberty, egoistic liberty. Uranus in Libra.

Well-developed artistic leanings; his balance can be upset by too great an independence. Questions traditional approaches to relating and wants to do things differently. Uranus in I: Uranus is in the first house He is above all independent and original. Sometimes blunt and irritable. Never allows himself be influenced. He does not tolerate any sort of setback. He is ready for adventure, even if it's a bit risky. Uranus in the first house alters the way an individual projects personal energies onto others. You are likely to seek, nay demand, freedom in the way you present yourself to the world. Dressing simply but quirkily, you will have no problems in asserting yourself. You are not shy in letting everyone know where you stand on issues. In fact you take pride in presenting your unique perspective. "I am a simple soul with few wants and needs," is what you tell yourself. All you can feel is an altruistic desire to change the world! Friends and relatives probably find you a trifle erratic. They know you to be good-hearted and genuine about your feelings. Your passions rise fast and you lose interest at the same rate.

Neptune.

Neptune represents transcendental liberty, non-egoistic liberty. Neptune is in Sagittarius.

May especially enjoy long voyages, things foreign, being close to water. Altruistic, broad spiritual vision, humane, spiritual. Neptune in III: Neptune is in the third house He has a lot of imagination, high ideals. He is nostalgic. Dry, cold facts are hard for him to absorb, so traditional academics might not appeal. 4 Sextile between Neptune - Pluto He is perceptive and able to see layers to a situation. He is naturally drawn to learning what makes himself and others tick. 27 Sextile between Neptune - Ascendant He can have unusual relationships. He is easily influenced, very sensitive and emotional.

Pluto.

Pluto represents transformations, mutations, and elimination. Pluto is in Virgo.

Research and investigation come naturally. May worry about health. 15 Conjunction between Pluto - Lilith He may lead a double life. He may have a secret love affair while having a good relationship with his partner. Most with this aspect, however, are highly perceptive and can keep a secret. Alternative views of relationships are likely. 28 Conjunction between Pluto - Ascendant He has willpower and ambition, and almost always prefer to have his own way. -4 Square between Pluto - Midheaven He may have issues with his power. He may risk losing everything, having to start from scratch in order to duke it out with authority figures. He may end up in meaningless stalemates with bosses and authority figures, which can block him from achieving success or goals at times.

Lilith.

Black Moon Lilith represents our darker, deeper natures that may be repressed or buried. Lilith in Virgo.

He may have felt uncomfortable or wrong for paying special attention to the practical side of life, attention to details, organization, and routines. He may go to pains to prove he is NOT ordinary, worried, eager to please, or concerned about details enough to perfect a craft or project. Leaving many projects unfinished can be a sign of perfectionist expectations since this way, he does not have to deal with the prospect of not producing something perfect. The key to eliminating extreme behaviors is to work on self-acceptance.

North Node-South Node.

The South Node represents our overdeveloped character traits. We are talented here but if we overdo this area of life or hold onto these traits to feel secure, we may stagnate. The North Node points to the qualities that we need to work on and develop to achieve inner balance and fulfillment. True North Node in Aquarius.

His path is to learn to be more impartial and less possessive in relationships and with creative projects. As he learns to let go of the need for a passionate chase, satisfaction will come to him naturally as he sees that he nevertheless gets what he needs. Relationships may suffer if he takes things too personally and expects others to follow a script that he has unconsciously written for them. He learns to moderate his desire for drama and attention, and then develops true friendships. Qualities to develop: detachment, impartiality, humility. North Node in V: North Node in the Fifth House His path is to believe in himself enough to feel comfortable expressing his unique creativity, to be the center of attention, committing himself to a definite path rather than shooting in the dark. Although he feels less pressured and more comfortable in a group or informal setting, moving out of this comfort zone once in a while can enhance his social and romantic life tremendously. Qualities to develop: self-confidence, getting personal, willingness to stand out or call attention to himself.

The Houses.

House II - the second house - is the area of material security and values. It rules money and personal finances, sense of self-worth and basic values, personal possessions. Libra on House II. Income may come either as a result of an advantageous marriage or union, through artistic expression and diplomatic means, or by a very useful association. Partnerships can help further financial goals. Venus by sign and house can show other areas for making money. House III - the third house - is the area of social and intellectual learning. Scorpio on House III. Can make a good investigator because he is very curious, loves researching and does it with a lot of patience, enjoying solving mysteries, cracking a code. He knows how to take risks, while being wary of the dangers or consequences. House IV - the fourth house - is the area of home, family, roots, and deep emotions/sense of self-worth. Capricorn on House IV. After working all his life to obtain his objectives and finally having reached that goal, he wants to retire in peace and quiet and to enjoy a retirement full of contemplation, with few tasks, close to nature. As he was very careful with money all his life, he is happy to administer the properties he has acquired. House V - the fifth house - is the area of creative self-expression, romance, entertainment, children, and gambling. Aquarius on House V. He doesn't like routine and the banal. He is romantic, full of fantasy and imagination. He is also a friend one can count on. House VI - the sixth house - is the area of learning by material transaction. Pisces on House VI. Job in commerce. Weak point: the kidneys, feet. House VII - the seventh house - is the area of one-to-one relationships such as marriage and partnership, and of social and intellectual action. Aries on House VII. Love-at-first-sight; may partner without thinking. He doesn't want to change his habits, perhaps leading to many arguments that are quick to start but also quick to resolve. He may not have much patience for the "clinging vine" kind of partner, preferring much activity and someone who can take charge. An active partnership. House VIII - the eighth house - is the area of emotional security and of security of the soul. Aries on House VIII. The spouse will tend to spend more money than he earns. Be careful of any haste that could prove dangerous. House IX - the ninth house - is the area of learning that shapes the identity. Taurus on House IX. He may travel little, no great attraction for abroad. Unlikely to change principles, practically never changing the mind or beliefs. House X - the tenth house - is the area of material action. The Midheaven represents the work one will do in one's life, the place one will take in the world of society. It becomes more important as one grows older. Cancer on House X. He likes contact with the public, the crowd. Profession that involves meeting a lot of people. Professional success thanks to sense of duty and application to his work. House XI - the eleventh house - is the area of search for social and intellectual security. Leo on House XI. Friends are not always chosen by chance. Even if the feelings of friendship are sincere, friends often bring something - professional help for example. House XII - the twelfth house - is the area of education and of emotion. This is where we meet our karma, deal with endings, and sometimes where we bury things. Virgo on House XII. Work in a research lab.

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