#the doctor updates a few of their maps of the universe | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whentherewerebicycles · 3 years

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hello anon!! okay, this is going to be a very long post, so buckle up. standard caveat: since i don’t know the specifics of your topic or discipline or situation, some of this will hopefully be relevant and some of it might not, so just grab what works for you and leave the rest! and if you have more specific questions that this general overview doesn’t touch on, feel free to send those in.

it sounds like you have a few different questions here:

How do I find and articulate my research question?

How do I effectively take notes on my background reading in the early stages, when I’m not sure yet what my argument is going to be?

How do I organize a long research project/paper? How do I conceptualize something that has so many moving parts & happens to be a genre (a thesis) that I’ve never written before?

How do I write something that long?

also I am not sure if by “diss” you mean a senior thesis, master’s thesis, or a doctoral dissertation, as I know US and non-US universities use different terminology! so I will kinda just respond to this as A Very Lengthy Research Paper.

my response here will focus mostly on that first question (how to find/articulate a research question), with some thoughts at the end about notetaking in the early stages of a big research project. I’m going to lay out a method I just used with my own students to help them articulate questions & generate possible lines of inquiry to follow. I have been calling it the ‘research tier’ activity/system but it’s a pretty basic way of mapping out possible directions for a project. I use some version of this for every big project I undertake - whether it’s academic work, planning a course syllabus, or writing fic.

I want to emphasize, before I start, that the “tier” map you construct is a LIVING document, not a set-in-stone plan that has to be finished before you begin. the goal is to get past the anxiety of the blank page by generating tons and tons of ideas and questions related to your central topic -- so that if you hit a dead end, you can trace your way back and follow a different line of inquiry. when i am working on a research project, i am continually updating this planning document (i’ll say more about that at the end, once you have a sense of what the tiers look like).

Those questions are geared towards my students, who are working more in social science-y disciplines and/or on projects that have clear connections to specific communities. If you are writing a more traditional humanities discipline, here are some other examples:

I’m interested in...

the romance novel as a genre

Virginia Woolf’s writings on nature/the environment

the cultural reception and impact of the TV show Will & Grace

what queer social life looked like in 1920s New York

play and playfulness in the college classroom (my current research project, which I’ll use as an example)

once you have some idea of your focus, you can begin generating questions related to that focus. “Tier 2″ begins to get slightly more specific, though you are still very much in “big picture” mode. here’s some sentence stems I give my students to help them generate tier 2 questions:

my students are doing research projects that are ideally supposed to develop out of their preexisting community involvements or commitments, so i give them this additional advice:

[note: if your thesis topic is in a social science-y discipline (or a humanities discipline that leans closer to the social sciences), you can probably use some of those ideas or prompts. if your thesis topic is more of a purely academic humanities-type topic (for instance, a literary studies thesis about a specific novel), not all of those will apply perfectly, but some will hopefully be useful still!]

here’s an example, again using my playfulness project. I’ll list the question and then below it, in italics, I’ll explain what ‘stirred up’ that question for me.

T2: What are some core preoccupations or big-picture questions I want to explore? What are some things I’ve noticed that I want to understand?

Core Question 1: Why are college classrooms so serious? Why is there so little playfulness in most college teaching? Why so little laughter, movement, fun?

Observing my friend’s kindergarten classes made me realize how much elementary educators rely on bright colors, movement, singing, playing imaginative games together, etc. to engage young learners’ imaginations, minds, and bodies. Why do we value that so much in elementary education, but stop considering it important in college classes? Do learners “age out” of a need for highly interactive, engaging learning? I suspect no... so that’s a hunch I can begin to follow.

Observing other college courses (and drawing on my own experience as an undergrad and grad student) made me realize how much educators rely on the same standard methods of teaching (lecturing with a discussion section; a version of Socratic seminar discussion that is primarily led by the professor). To me, these methods are antithetical to playfulness and tend to quash people’s ability or desire to playfully experiment, try things out, risk failure, etc. I wonder if the actual methods we use to teach content or to structure our classes are producing ‘serious’ classes, whether or not we personally as instructors want that to happen. That’s another hunch I could follow...

I’m thinking of a possible connection here to my past research on the origins of English literature as a discipline (in 1920s-30s England). One of the things that scholars often emphasize is how hard faculty had to work to transform English into a serious, rigorous, ‘legitimate’ discipline, akin to the hard sciences. That’s something that I think we still see today in the way people anxiously defend the value of a humanities education. I’m curious about whether the need to justify our existence as a discipline/field of study influences our methods of teaching college students. Do we banish playfulness from the classroom because it threatens that image of the humanities as a serious, rigorous discipline? That’s yet another hunch I could follow...

Core Question 2: I have a hunch that people learn better in playful environments. Is that true -- and if so, why? What is it about playfulness that enhances learning?

I’m a lifelong fangirl, and fandoms are creative environments where people are continually engaged in acts of imaginative play. I’ve observed and have experienced firsthand how these playful environments seem to encourage people to try new things, take creative risks, learn new skills even if they’re afraid they’ll be ‘bad’ at them, and commit huge amounts of time, energy, and passion to long-term creative projects that don’t make any money or ‘earn’ them a grade. I’m curious about how we might adapt the playful, passionate energy of fan spaces to college teaching.

In my own classrooms, I’ve noticed that students get so much more into the activity (and seem to internalize the content more deeply) when I frame it as an imaginative exercise, a roleplaying activity, or a game of some kind. Teaching the same content in a way that encourages playfulness seems to produce deeper engagement (and deeper learning?) than using the traditional methods of ‘serious’ teaching.

Core Question 3: Playfulness and shared laughter/fun seem to build social bonds (again, drawing on my experiences in fandom). Could shared imaginative play help students develop better social skills? Could it help build a sense of community in the classroom and strengthen students’ sense of belonging? This question feels especially urgent to me given the epidemic of self-reported loneliness, anxiety, and depression on college campuses.

You can have lots more than 3 core questions/preoccupations! In fact, the more ideas you can generate at this stage the better. The idea isn’t to hone in on your research question (yet) but to generate as many possible paths you could take, so that you can begin evaluating which interest you most, or which seem like the most fruitful questions to explore/answer. Doing the idea-generating for Tier 2 should already begin to set you up for Tier 3 -- which involves articulating specific sub-questions you’ll need to answer to better understand or answer those core questions/preoccupations.

and then we’ll go ahead and fold in T4, as I tend to move back and forth between T3/T4 as I brainstorm.

I’ll just take one of my Tier 2 questions as an example, but again, you can/should do this for all of yours (or at least the ones that interest you most).

Core question: Playfulness and shared laughter/fun seem to build social bonds (again, drawing on my experiences in fandom). Could shared imaginative play help students develop better social skills? etc etc

T3 subquestions (with T4 “directions for inquiry” folded into the first one, so you can see an example):

-- SubQ1 Does play actually strengthen social bonds? If so, how? Are specific kinds of play better for this than others (ie, collaborative or cooperative play compared to competitive play)? With Tier 4 folded in:

Do a library database search to try to figure out where “play” research typically happens -- is it in psychology research? Neuroscience? Early childhood education?

Then begin searching for different keyword strings that might help me gather up initial sources. Some initial ideas: play + social bonding, play + social skills, play + social development, play + cooperation, play + friendship, play + mental health. (Typically finding a couple useful/relevant articles will help you generate better keywords -- as you can begin to see the kinds of terminology that researchers use to describe your topic.)

I could also maybe interview college students themselves, or design a survey - but that would depend on the type of research I want to do. Do I want to conduct my own original research study, or is my focus more on synthesizing existing research from different fields to construct an argument?

Could I find faculty or researchers who work on these topics, who might be able to direct me to specific resources or help me understand what kind of work has already been done on this topic? Maybe I can’t find someone who specifically researches playfulness, but an educational researcher whose work focuses on social-emotional learning would probably have a pretty good understanding of what features or pedagogical choices help create positive, affirming learning environments.

-- SQ2: Are college students lonely?

Are they reporting (or do they experience) higher rates of mental illness? What are the numbers on this?

What are some of the prevalent theories or hypotheses about why this is? Could social isolation or difficulty forming friendships be a possible contributing factor?

-- SQ3: Why are social bonds good for us - physically, mentally, emotionally?

-- SQ4: Do social bonds enhance learning? If so, how?

What if I looked to other non-academic learning environments (such as fandoms, team sports or group activities, etc where people are learning new skills in highly social settings) to make a case for playfulness in the college classroom? This isn’t direct 1:1 proof that “more playfulness in college classrooms = happier, more socially well-connected students,” but offering detailed descriptions of how those learning environments are structured might spark ideas for my audience (university instructors and administrators) or persuade them that playfulness has an important social-emotional role to play in college learning.

Typically what ends up happening is I produce a huge, messy document (or fill a giant paper or whiteboard if I’m doing it by hand) that has tons and tons of different directions I might follow. usually, the initial process of creating this giant brainstorming document sparks lots of ideas for where to begin researching. then, as i go off and begin reading articles, those articles typically help flesh out my understanding of the core questions or concepts i’m interested in, or my understanding of what kind of research on this topic already exists vs. where the gaps are that my own work might be able to fill. that initial source-gathering phase of research will also usually spark new questions and sub-questions, which get added to my tier map.

having some kind of messy brainstorming map/plan also helps me read in a more focused way. instead of just opening a random article and skimming it without any clear sense of what i’m looking for, i’m now opening articles and reading them with a purpose -- i’m looking for answers to the specific questions i’ve articulated. so i can skim in a more focused way, looking for specific keywords that seem relevant, and i can also take notes in a more focused way, noting down key ideas that

having a question in mind can also help me figure out more quickly if the article is relevant to my research questions or not. for instance, let’s say i open an article about how playing competitive games in high school PE classes improve students’ self-reported moods. if i didn’t know what i was reading for, i might spend a lot of time on this article, trying to figure out if it was relevant to my research (it has the keywords, right? so maybe it’s relevant?). but if i am reading with a specific question in mind (“Do collaborative learning games help strengthen students’ sense of social connection?”) I can tell pretty quickly that this article is not going to be that useful, since it focuses on competitive physical games (probably not something I’ll integrate into an English class). so I can say with some confidence, “I probably don’t need to read this whole thing, but maybe I’ll check out their lit review section or their bibliography to see if the authors cite any other work on play/playfulness that might be more relevant to my specific questions.”

i think i’ve kinda started to answer your second question about notetaking here, too, so i will also say that in the early stages of a big research project, i am absolutely NOT taking detailed notes on any of the sources i find. my focus is much more on amassing a large pool of highly relevant sources that i know i’m going to want to go back to and read more deeply as my research questions come into sharper focus. this is because deep reading burns through a lot of time and energy, so i want to make sure i’m saving that deep reading energy for sources that are quite likely to be relevant to my project.

to figure out if a source is relevant, I often skim the abstract and introduction to figure out the core questions the article or chapter is seeking to answer. then I ask myself three questions:

Are the core questions of this article the same as (or very similar to) my core questions or subquestions? If so, mark this citation as HIGHLY relevant - I’m going to want to come back and read this source carefully, to see if it’s already suggested answers to the questions I’m asking.

Do the core questions of this article seem to resonate with my core questions, even if we’re not asking them in exactly the same way, or the author of this paper is applying them to a different field? If so, mark this citation as LIKELY relevant - it may not be a perfect 1:1 with my own questions, but that can sometimes spark exciting new ideas or ways of reframing my original questions. If not, toss it.

Do the questions this article is asking suggest new questions or lines of inquiry that I am interested in exploring? Sometimes an article will introduce me to a whole new area of research or a new array of questions I hadn’t even originally thought to explore. If that’s the case, I typically pencil those sub-questions into my brainstorming tier document and mark the source as LIKELY or HIGHLY relevant, depending on how excited i am about it.

OK I WILL CLOSE HERE FOR NOW as I have to get back to work, but I will say that when I taught my students this method, they were very confused by the initial explanation of it, but then when they went back and used the models to work through the tier brainstorming activity for themselves, they seemed to find it really useful. so if you are scratching your head, try doing a quick TIER 1 - TIER 2 - TIER 3 - TIER 4 map for your own research question to see if doing it yourself helps clarify. also: if you can’t get further than tier 2, it’s usually a sign that you need to do some more reading and freewriting about the questions that you’re curious about, or the gaps you’ve noticed in the scholarship, or the threads you’d like to follow. but you can do some of that background reading in a more focused way now, using your initial big questions to help guide your selection of background readings & give you a sense of purpose as you read.

#this research 'system' would be CHILLING to some of my hyper-organized academic friends #who are all about using highly structured systems for tagging sources and managing citations and so on #but it works well for my brain & for the way i think #which tends to be very associative and focused on generating connections #i cannot tell if this is helpful or not aha i feel like students often want me to give them a highly structured method #and my answer is usually just like #research is a creative process #and like any creative process there are probably some 'best practices' or helpful methods people can teach you #but you figure out your own way of doing it based on how your brain processes and organizes information & makes connections #i was going to add 'things get less messy in the later stages for me' to reassure you & my horrified hyperorganized friends aha #but that is just a lie #usually i am cutting up drafts and moving pieces around and mindmapping and doing visual representations of sections #right up until the polished final draft #research #mw

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mandos-lightningbeforethunder · 3 years

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Start Again - Chapter Nine (Din Djarin x Reader)

SUMMARY: On their trek through the canyon to find their bounty, Din learns more about the girl than he had previously known and contemplates how she managed to survive everything she's been through. Of course, as he's learned from his time with her, they can never have peace in their search for the truth.

CHAPTER WARNINGS: Discussion of sterilization, a brief discussion of forced pregnancy, discussion of childbirth, and blood loss mention.

Author’s Note: Wow, long time no see. Life's been busy so I apologize for the severe lack of updates, I've been focusing on getting back into the workforce as well as the school semester starting up. I've also hit a major roadblock with writing and in the meantime, I've taken a step back so I'm not forcing myself or producing lackluster content. However, I'm excited to give you all this chapter! I hope you all enjoy it!

CHAPTER NINE - A STRANGER ARRIVES

Ka’rta. Mando’a for heart. The girl had a lot of heart.

Din hadn’t let it show, but the news of her diagnosis had hit him hard. The Empire had tortured her beyond belief, if her nightmares weren’t evidence enough, the scars he saw when she was sedated had told him enough. They took her son away, wiped her mind in the process, and then left her for dead. If that wasn’t enough, they forcibly sterilized her.

“They sterilized her not long after they discovered she wasn’t the one with force-sensitive capabilities.” Dr. Orn informed him. Underneath his helmet, Din frowned at the doctor’s words. A part of him grew angry, angry at the idea that since the girl was no longer of use to them, they’d toss her away. Din was disgusted.

“What you’re saying is…is that they removed her ability to have any future children because she couldn’t produce a child with abilities?” Din’s mouth tasted like bile.

“It was their belief that the child’s father was the one who passed the traits onto his son, not her.” Dr. Orn frowned at him, possibly having the same thoughts of how vile the Empire was. “Although, had they decided to—” Din held up his hand and stopped Dr. Orn’s words.

It was enough. Basic genetics explained that even if the mother didn’t carry the trait, as long as the father did, there was a chance a child with the Force would be born. Din couldn’t even comprehend the idea of the Empire forcibly impregnating her like some breeding farm.

Instead, they remained ignorant of actual genetics and because they couldn’t breed her like a kriffing animal, they removed any ability to ever have her own children. If she couldn’t produce more force-sensitives, then why let her have any more children at all.

Deep down, Din knew of the atrocities committed by the Empire but what they did to her, made him feel physically ill.

He had felt numb hearing the news. How she managed to carry herself afterward Din didn’t know. How she even managed to put up a fight in their training session he didn’t know. It made him question everything he had known about the universe. To endure that pain and continue on, Din had hardly met anyone stronger than that.

The strength she had displayed, wielding the sticks as if they were true weapons, coming at him with all her might, even if it meant she’d meet the ground again. Briefly, he had taken pleasure in sweeping her off her feet, just to see her get annoyed. He wanted to see what her reactions would be. He hadn’t expected much out of her, especially considering the news she had received earlier. After the second time, he could tell she was vibrating with anger, ready to come at him. It was unexpected, but not unwelcome. Followed by a few successful hits and a near kick and Din found himself almost proud of her. With time, she’d come into fighting naturally.

“I know the view is pretty, Mando, but I think we have a bounty we need to find,” Her voice makes the memories of last night fade and he chuckles.

“Patience,” He murmurs, putting the last of the supplies together in his pack. He knew she was eager to get moving, the motivation to find a possible clue in her past driving her.

An ex-Imperial, trying to lay low in a post-Empire universe. The New Republic had been searching for him but after months with no news or record of him being alive, they presumed he must’ve been killed at the end of the war. The New Republic had bigger things to worry about. Orus, still running off its own government, didn’t believe any Imperial to be dead. The droid had made it clear that no Imperial was believed to be dead unless you killed them yourself.

Opseg law enforcement pushed out the supposed ‘dead’ bounties like clockwork, and apparently, it wasn’t too hard to find them. Din had seen the holoprojectors displaying successful hunts, it was safe to say that the Opseg agency expected the same from him and the girl. It seemed clear from the data that plenty of ex-Imperials or sympathizers found themselves on Orus, hoping that the planets bustling city life would offer a decent cover to start a new life.

Din pulled a vibroblade out of his boot, testing the weight in his fingers before he hands it to the girl. Her eyes widen in shock but she carefully takes it into her hands. The blade was one of Din’s firsts when he had first started with the Guild. Before he had found himself more comfortable with blasters and pulse rifles, Din had been more into close combat and the use of knives. After their brief training session last night, it was clearer that while he was a long-distance fighter, the girl was suited for close combat.

“You trust me?” She asks, glancing at it as she studies the hilt and the blade itself. Din had managed to keep it in decent condition even throughout these years, maintaining it despite its lack of use.

“I do,” Din says, watching as her eyes light up. “I think you’ll be able to handle yourself out there and if not, I’ll be there to catch you.”

“It’s beautiful,” she murmurs, admiring the build of the vibroblade. Holding the hilt in the palm of her hand, she takes a few practice swings with it, moving with precision. The rays from the suns beam onto the blade, glittering off her face.

“It’s also dangerous, so be careful.” Din reminds her and she nods, tucking the blade away.

“So,” she sighs, “What’s so special about this bounty other than being an ex-Imp? Seems to me that everyone was working for the Empire at some point in their life.”

“He’s an ex-Imperial officer. Higher up, not indoctrinated like Stormtroopers, so he was well aware of what the Empire was doing.” Din responds, tossing his bag over his shoulder.

“And you said he might know about what happened to me?” She asks, her voice tilting towards a hopeful tone. He doesn’t want to get her hopes up, but the research he had done on the bounty told him enough.

No identifying information on the ship he worked on, but with the blanks in his information, it was safe to say that whatever he did work on, the Empire didn’t want it getting out. After the war, most of it had been erased and all that was left was bits and pieces. An officer, overseeing prisoners of the war. Din had concluded that he had to at least know about what happened to the girl. She wasn’t just someone captured to rot in a cell for the rest of her life. She had some importance to them; they stole her son from her and wiped her memories. All the more reasons to find out the truth from this bounty.

“It’s a possibility. He oversaw a lot of the prisoners. There’s a chance he knew about you. Or your case, at the very least.” He replies, watching as she takes in the information.

“How soon do we have to bring him in once we find him?” She says. She’s quiet now, looking to the horizon of Opseg.

“A day or so, maybe. They incentivize you to bring the bounty in early for more credits.” He answers and she merely hums. A conflict of emotions washes over her face. There’s a question she’s too afraid to ask, unsure if she would receive the answer she was seeking.

“Will he give us information?” Right on target. Din’s not sure what to give her. Could they torture him for information? Sure, maybe the Opseg law enforcement wouldn’t question it. Would he even have any information? Again, Din did not know for sure. He wouldn’t mind getting his hands a little dirtier for the sake of information the bounty may have on the girl.

“I don’t know,” he answers instead, watching as she frowns. Not exactly the answer she was looking for then.

Displaying the map of the canyons on Orus, Din pinpoints the bounty’s last known location. He had hidden in the deepest parts of the canyon. It was likely that he had a camp set up and an array of weapons to protect himself. Din wouldn’t be surprised if he and the girl came across a couple of dead bounty hunters in various stages of decay. An Imperial was already a formidable opponent, but an Imperial officer who held a lot of information on the Empire was not a force to reckon with.

Veteran bounty hunters knew better and had expectations. If a bounty were on edge, they’d do anything to protect themselves and their assets. An amateur hunter gets too cocky and the bounty quickly puts them down and moves elsewhere, losing the trail. It was all a matter of survival.

“It’s a bit of a hike,” Din informs the girl, watching her eyes as she scans the projected image. “The droid says he’s been hiding out here for the past few weeks. He moves around after a new set of hunters come after him.”

A blinking dot displays the bounty’s last known position. The girl hums, her mouth set in a hard line as she scans the map once more, seeming to put it to memory.

“He’s getting comfortable. No new bounty hunters in a good month, maybe he thinks they’ve forgotten him,” The girl says, looking to him for confirmation.

“That, or he’s expecting a full force, so we need to be prepared for both. He’s already managed to figure out the schedule of bounty hunter arrivals. Supposedly barricades himself by the time they arrive at his camp. Takes them out and moves locations before a new round of hunters come along.” Din states, clicking through the projector to detail the number of hunters this bounty has killed off.

It’s numbers he hasn’t seen since he had taken the bounty of Fennec Shand with that hotshot bounty hunter, Toro Calican. With Shand “dead” and Calican kidnapping Grogu in the hopes of making a name for himself, Din never wanted to experience anything similar again. This bounty he and the girl had taken up would not come easily.

“He would be smarter if he moved during the downtime of hunters. That way we wouldn’t know his last whereabouts.” The girl says. The light of the holoprojector flickers off her face as Din shuts it off.

“His ignorance will play to our advantage,” Din says, placing the holoprojector in his bag, “it wouldn’t be any easier if he did decide to move during the downtime.”

Din’s not expecting much, the ex-Imperial has most likely grown comfortable living out in the canyon. Their arrival might come as a surprise, but deep down, Din knows that the bounty will be prepared for a fight. Even if it means toeing with a Mandalorian.

Beginning their trek through the canyon, Din takes the lead for the first hour into the journey. The canyons on Orus are difficult terrain. The course he had set for them was not smooth at all, it was rocky and there were several instances of Din having to pull himself up over a ledge, then pulling the girl up as well.

The faint cry of animals keeps them close to one another, not trusting that the creatures will be welcoming of their presence. Din had already learned the hard way of a welcoming presence. He should’ve expected as much, given that the planet shared a system with Nevarro. The girl, however, keeps the mood light by humming songs native to Puvo. The soft thrum of her voice keeps the hike from being filled with a painful silence, which Din is grateful for.

The hike is peaceful and with the soft hum of the girl, Din relaxes through their trek, allowing himself to admire the planet and the way the vegetation grows despite the lack of sunlight. He still scans his surroundings, keeping an eye out for any potential danger. He studies the shade of the canyon walls that cut off the sunlight even as the planets still grow, fruits hanging off the branches of trees and the leaves of planets greener than he had ever seen before.

The sounds of a running creek pause them in their journey, the girl’s humming coming to a stop as they gather at the edge of the bank. This time the girl’s singing doesn’t fill the silence, just them filling their canteens with the water. Din even watches as the girl leans over and washes the sweat from her face, running her hands down her neck in order to cool herself.

“I think it’s deep enough to swim.” The girl says, leaning back into the sand after her last drink of the water.

“You think?” Din asks her, watching her as she nods.

“Maybe,” she says, “The creeks on Puvo were shallow, meant for work. Finding an actual source of water that wasn’t meant for work or consumption was difficult, but when I did find one, I managed to get Valara to go with me.” She smiles as she seems to look back on the memories.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been swimming,” Din tells her and she chuckles.

“Not even when you were a boy?” She turns, looking at him. In truth, he can’t remember a time when he was that young, not since before he swore the Creed. When he finds himself trying to look back, the only thing he finds himself remembering is the destruction of his home and the death of his parents.

“No,” he finally says, pulling himself out of his head.

“Castin loved to swim. He wanted to swim before he could even walk. The village thought I was crazy to give him that chance, but he proved them wrong.” She smiles, but he can see the pain in her eyes as she struggles to look back at that particular memory. He knows it’s a painful reminder of what was stolen from her.

“Do you remember them? Your village,” Din supplies. The girl blinks, slowly nodding.

“Parts of them. Faces are a blur but their voices are clear to me. We were a small but tight-knit community. Everyone helped everyone.” The girl glances up at him and smiles. “I can’t remember exact details like friends or family, just Castin and maybe the midwife who helped deliver him.”

“But you don’t remember if you ever had a husband?”

“All children were loved regardless of if their parents were married or not. But, no, I don’t remember him if he were to exist at all.”

Din feels peace when she answers that she doesn’t remember. A part of him hopes that there wasn’t any partner involved, that way she could only focus her attention on Castin. She didn’t need another heartbreak if she were to ever find out the truth of what may have happened to her village. If there had been a husband, would he have been killed off by the Empire? Was he still alive?

“I do remember the pain of bringing him into the world. It was a difficult birth.” The girl interrupts his thoughts. “The healer had monitored me throughout the entire pregnancy, I knew going in it was high-risk.”

“High-risk…” Din pauses, “Like, dying?”

“Yes,” she sounds calm when she answers. He supposes that the discussion is no longer painful since she survived the ordeal and is here now. “I was in labor for several hours. I nearly died. The midwife said there had been a lot of blood…they couldn’t stop it. I remember telling her his name, but truthfully, I wasn’t sure if he had died. It was chaos.”

Din watches her as she examines the flow of the water, tracing her fingertips above the surface. In the time they had spent together, he found himself learning more about the number of times she had faced death even before the Empire had its grasp on her. Even before her son had been born, it seemed fated that one of them would die.

“State your business.”

Dank farrik. Din was tired of being snuck upon.

He and the girl turn, facing the source of the voice. A masked man with a rifle stands in front of them. The upper half of his face remains covered, only the lower half displaying his displeasure with seeing them here. He’s also wearing armor, but it’s not like beskar. The barrel of the man’s weapon points at the girl and at this close of range, she would not survive the shot.

“The public is not barred from traveling within the canyons.” Din responds, watching as the man shifts his stance, the barrel of the rifle moving to point at his chest plate.

“The public population knows not to travel these canyons. Only outsiders take that chance, so I’ll say again, state your business.” The man snarls, the barrel of his rifle swiveling to focus on him. The blast wouldn’t pierce the beskar, but Din wasn’t about to take that chance.

It’s not a blaster rifle, the closer Din studies it. It’s a stun gun, meant to temporarily incapacitate rather than go for the kill. Why this rifleman, clearly upset, didn’t have his rifle set to kill, Din didn’t know.

“Bounty work. Sent by the Opseg law enforcement.” Din states, his hand settling on his hip just above the blaster in his hip holster.

The sky is a soft shade of blue with light cloud coverage. Din doesn’t remember looking up at the sky but as he struggles to move his limbs, he understands why. The rifleman had shot him. Someone’s screaming. It’s the girl.

“Relax, sweetheart. He’s not dead.” He can hear voices, muffled as his vision blurs.

#start again #din djarin fanfiction #din djarin x you #Din Djarin/Reader #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin/you #the mandalorian #the mandalorian/reader #the mandalorian x f!reader #the mandalorian/you

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sakuatsu · 4 years

Note

YELL 2 ME ABT SAKUATSU FIC RECS PLS

oh boy. oh boy do i have much to talk about

here’s a list of my sakuatsu must-reads under the cut! complete with links, word count, ratings, and occasional commentary because i’m incapable of shutting up. this isn’t in any particular order either

(keeping this sfw and organized into canonverse/AUs. a * means i am on my hands and knees begging for you to read this)

i’ll try to update this somewhat regularly :]

most recently updated august 25, 2020!

canonverse:

*your highs and lows (series) by astroeulogy

a post-time skip canonverse series born from these two questions:

1. what if sakusa kiyoomi, known too-blunt jerk, is equally straightforward about his soft, tender feelings?

2. what if miya atsumu, resident big fat jerk who doesn't care if his teammates hate him, is too emotionally stunted to notice when his one of his teammates actually likes him?

this is like the sakuatsu series but it’s blasphemous to not recommend. the first fic in the series is all that you were (4.6k, T). mind the ratings on a few of the fics, but my personal favorite is #3: a masterpiece of domesticity called you have tamed me (5.7k, T). these make me ACHE

*sakuatsu domesticity simulator by pseudoanalytics (T)

a vaguely interactive mixture of fic, art, and html, where you too can experience the inherent romance of a big fat jerk and a too-blunt jerk attempting intimacy

this fic...this fic...op is literally one of my favorite artists of all time but Did You Know that their writing is also off the charts. what a wonderful use of second person and the pacing is so good. too much skill in one person

*The MSBY Black Jackals Read Thirst Tweets by isaksara (11.4k, M)

Sakusa’s eyes are very dark naturally, sucking in all surrounding rays of light and crushing them in his pupils. For an athlete, he is rather pale. His lips look very pink in comparison. Atsumu is suddenly catastrophically aware that in this instance, ‘accent’ is a euphemism. “Good enough for your Olympic-size ego, Miya?”

(In which Atsumu realizes that he is attracted to Sakusa Kiyoomi in the most inconvenient way possible.)

i think this is the fic that got me into sakuatsu in the first place lol i was looking very specifically for msby socmed fics and now here we are. this fic is unbelievably funny

*liminal spaces by hhatsuna (25.9k, T)

Fuck you, Atsumu thinks, pointing at the pixelated Sakusa in the grainy team photo on his bedside table.

It’s easier than you’d think to ignore loving your teammate.

*Better For Us Both by abrandnewheart (15.7k, M)

Where “You already make me the happiest guy alive, babe," gives way to, “I’ve not been happy for a while now.”

Alternatively known as the ‘mug fic’.

yes this is a breakup fic. yes im going to recommend it anyway. breakup fics usually scare me a lot but this one is too good for me to not say anything about. nuanced and delicious. i look at the mug on my desk and feel pain

dog eat dog eat dog world by perennials (8.4k, T)

You are your first and only line of defense against the universe.

Koi no Yokan; 恋の予感 by ymra (15.3k, unrated)

Wherein Sakusa dreams of his future selves and discovers a little something along the way.

autumn ends, but we remain by wolfsbvne (5.3k, T)

atsumu stares at his ceiling at 2am. he stares until he can make out designs in his popcorn ceiling. a cat there, an onigiri here, and then something that suspiciously looks like a mop of hair, triangle eyebrows, and oh those two bumps are moles right above what atsumu just mapped out as an eye.

(or, atsumu is in kind of in love. sakusa is maybe in like.)

your fingertips, branding irons by Ceryna (5.8k, T)

Between the accidental touches he's reconciled, the deliberate ones he's endured, and, from those he's built years of trust with, obliged– Kiyoomi has never wanted to let someone indulge.

Never, until Atsumu.

take what’s yours and make it mine by claudusdiei (5.9k, T)

atsumu falls in love four times in his life

(or: in which atsumu gets his heart broken twice, has the self-awareness of a sober mule and really likes yellow tulips)

every action has an equal and opposite reaction by akanemnida (10.4k, T)

Miya Atsumu gets a modeling contract with Calvin Klein, which sets Kiyoomi's heart in motion.

(Or: Sakusa Kiyoomi realizes that the rules governing the universe are absolute rubbish at explaining matters of the heart.)

*where i want to be by tookumade (8.8k, G)

In the time they’ve been teammates at the MSBY Black Jackals, Sakusa has never been to Atsumu’s place, and Atsumu has only been to Sakusa’s a few times. There’s an unspoken understanding here: that Atsumu knows him well enough to know that nobody’s house or apartment would ever really meet his ridiculously high standards, and he is most comfortable in the home he’s made for himself.

That, and, Atsumu being over at Sakusa’s means that he has to host him and do the cleaning afterwards, while Atsumu can just flit off back to his own place. So. There’s that.

Tonight. Tonight is not business as usual. Tonight is not familiar.

*san'yō expressway, 6:17 pm by yamabato (8.1k, T)

Atsumu tilts his head to watch a slice of orange light bend over the impassive planes of Sakusa’s face. He is absolutely, ruthlessly beautiful. It makes Atsumu want to punch something—put his foot through the windshield—scream, maybe.

Kiss him again, maybe.

They have 344 kilometers to figure this one out.

parallax error: angle of inclination by min_mintobe (10.8k, T)

But now there's the one person Atsumu'd promised himself never to touch. His eyes leave Atsumu breathless with guilt at seventeen, and he spends the next six years safe in the satisfaction of making things right.

Feelings, of the physical kind, and one kiss.

ft. competitive spirit, childishness, and late night conversations.

Atsumu POV.

four leaf clover by vicari_us (5.9k, T)

Once, Ushijima claimed that they ‘got lucky’. If properly honed, their body types could become near invincible weapons.

However, unlike Ushijima, Kiyoomi’s weapon required a bit more care over the years to reach the condition it had become. He was born iron, not yet forged into steel.

Exploring what it might have taken to turn a genetic mistake into an athletic miracle.

*the 28 postcards you left me by wheelspokes (8.3k, T)

Atsumu takes texting your ex to a new level by sending Sakusa postcards in Animal Crossing instead.

such a unique premise & this is so beautifully structured. stunning flow and who knew animal crossing could convey so much longing...

AUs:

Pas De Deux by hhatsuna (dancer!sakusa au: 19.0k, T)

The mystery athlete gives Kiyoomi a once over in the mirror. “Yer pretty tall,” he observes, and the twang of an accent rasps low in his throat. His brazen eyes drift to Kiyoomi’s legs, and something like exhilaration glints gold in his gaze. “Good quads, too. Ya ever played volleyball?” Ah. So it’s volleyball.

“I’m a dancer. Ballet and contemporary, mostly.”

*my love, take your time by bastigod (archaeologist!sakusa au: 9.0k, T)

There was something sublime about wandering around an empty museum. Nothing could compare to the sound of his shoes clacking against the marble floor, the morning sunlight gently streaming through the lofty windows and the peaceful solitude of ancient stone kings overseeing their silent kingdoms.

A day in the life of Doctor Kiyoomi Sakusa, Archaeologist.

i’ve literally been thinking about this fic every day since it came out. you will not find a story like this anywhere else, i guarantee you. what a clear labor of love this fic is it’s truly something so special

three roses and a smile by strawberrycitrus (surgeon!sakusa & microbiologist!atsumu au: 19.7k, T)

“I just got this job, I’m not givin’ it up for some moral boost ‘cause I actually need to pay my rent, ya insensitive -” Atsumu waves his hands around, trying and failing to come up with the right word to convey the amount of injustice that this gaunt motherfucker has brought into his relatively simple life thus far.

“If you can’t pay your rent, go get a job at the McDonald’s over by 8th Street,” Sakusa growls, “it’ll pay more than your researcher position.”

If you even attempt assault on a coworker, forget teaching about cells - you’ll fucking be in one, Atsumu.

*Dance of the Parallax by astroeulogy (ogre spirit!sakusa au: 6.7k, T)

For the last twenty years, Atsumu’s done all that he can to break his betrothal to the ogre spirit Sakusa. If he can just make it through one more night, he’ll be free.

honestly, just read everything by astroeulogy. i’m recommending this fic in particular because it has such an ethereal voice to it. magical

across oceans, across centuries by starstrikes (pacific rim au: 20.0k, T)

Six days ago, Osamu died and left Atsumu with this: Atsumu, you have to—

(Namikira rises with the tides and rips Osamu and Vulpis Empress away in one fell swoop. Six days later, Atsumu wakes up alone in a hospital bed and learns how to swim.)

you don’t actually need to know pacrim to appreciate this. a wonderful exploration of grief and recovery. also it’s exactly 20k words which is both satisfying and terrifying

*Notte Stellata by awkwardedgeworth (ice skating/dancing au: 20.8k, T)

"Your partner doesn't need to hold anyone's hand other than yours," Sakusa's father crouches, "And you can wear gloves."

Sakusa ponders. He hears the other skaters of rink two whiz past as they launch themselves into lifts.

"Alright," He looks up from the ice, not knowing how he'll dedicate the next couple of decades to this sport, this partnership, this boy.

what a stunning fic. a beautiful progression of sakusa & atsumu’s relationship, rife with references to real skating programs, beautifully written and structured. so full of longing i’m in mild physical pain

#if anyone else has recs feel free to drop them in the replies mwah #sakuatsu fic is SO high quality you can literally just look at the tag and blindly press and find something stunning #these are just my personal favorites #basically just my ao3 bookmarks and then some #sakuatsu #sakusa kiyoomi #miya atsumu #sakuatsu fic #haikyuu fic #ask #reynegades #thank you for asking.....ive been dying to make a fic rec post i just needed a push lol #fic

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cursewoodrecap · 3 years

Text

Session 22: Five-Dimensional Man-Go

This is a session I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time. I get to introduce three of my favorite characters in the entire campaign.

In the real world it’s been a while, but this was the session we officially welcomed a new chaos goblin player to the table. And damn, am I glad we did.

Valeria goes to Hoeska’s armor smiths for some upgrades, and accidentally kicks off a goth fashion montage. Her new armor has gorgeous black detailing with purple rose accents, accessorized with a brand-new Shusva-skin bag with matching claw clasp. Gral picks up a fancy Shusva-leather cloak and belt. Shoshana, realizing that a vampire’s castle is basically a Hot Topic, gets some fishnet arm warmers to accompany her fang necklace. We also get some healing potions and hope they aren’t made from lost souls or anything.

Valeria resummons Aethis, who pops back into existence in a burst of glitter that’s entirely incongruous with the local grim aesthetic. Apparently celestial gators are only mildly inconvenienced by fatalities.

As we hitch up the horses to get back on the road, we find out Ser Boris is also preparing to head out. “Woods full of many nasty creatures. Must keep hunting! Maybe I find way down to Barroch, I have heard monsters are attacking workers there.”

Gral perks up at the name of his people’s capitol. “I’m sure the orcs will treat you well. What kind of monsters are they dealing with?”

“Wolves, bears, maybe werewolf? I will find out when I get there! Cursebreakers do not have much of working relationship with orcs, so info is scattered. That is why I must investigate!”

While he heads south into orc territory, we’re gonna go north toward Sturmhearst to look into all the Key nonsense Professor Bjork told us is goin’ down. It’ll be a long trip; it’s on the coast, and we’re well into the heartland of the wood. As we get closer, we’re gonna have to look for new maps, too – the patchwork of safe zones and Curse disasters changes rapidly, and the roads that were passable a month ago might be deathtraps today.

We trek for several blessedly uneventful days. One night, in a region where a sizable number of halflings have settled, we have the fortune of seeing an inn on the horizon as night starts to fall. A sign proclaims the Fusilier’s Rest, a combination winery and inn located on a lush vineyard. Valeria’s kind of suspicious of anything too plant-based right now, but the rest of us totally want a winery tour.

We hitch up our wagon next to a post labeled Valet Parking. Aethis parks themself in the stables. Looking at the place, with its rather low doorframe and quaintly painted décor, we suspect Demish wine snootery instead of weird plant cults.

We duck through the door and take in the scene. It’s on the upscale end of totally normal, with locals sitting around eating and a huge pot of Demish onion soup bubbling on the hearth. The old halfling bartender is wearing pieces of a worn but well-cared-for blue-and-gold uniform. Two polished old pistols hang within reach on the wall, along with a pristine old Fusille musket in a place of honor behind the bar. Shiny medals in a handmade case are proudly displayed atop the bar.

As is D&D protocol, we look around for any notably wacky characters. We find them in the corner: an old man with unkempt white hair and multi-lensed, colorful glasses, engrossed in a game of Man-go against a young human doctor. We know he’s a doctor, because he’s got a stubby-beaked Sturmhearst mask pushed up to expose a tired but friendly face. His coat might once have been a lab coat, but it’s since been patched and sutured together so many times that it’s probably done a full ship-of-Theseus. His right arm is in a makeshift sling, and he’s nursing a small glass of Kevan vodka; probably the closest thing they have to rotgut moonshine in a wine-snob place like this.

We’re like, neat. Let’s eat soup.

Valeria orders a local vineyard wine and chats with the bartender about it. “The man who runs it is a madman; he thinks he can grow good wine grapes in Valdia. But he pays my sister well, she does her best.”

“Oh, don’t listen to René, his sister does marvelous work! No halfling will admit that wine grown outside Demionde will be more than spoiled grape juice,” teases one of the local barflies.

Gral asks Valeria who’s winning the Man-go game. The old man is rambling pleasantly, barely paying attention, and he is absolutely crushing the young doctor. The doctor looks like he’s totally aware he’s being taken to the cleaners, but he’s gonna let the old guy have his fun. As the game draws to a close, the younger man smiles ruefully and hands over a few coins. Meanwhile, the old fella, his eyes magnified to mismatched sizes by his funky glasses, spots our most conspicuous party member.

“Kyr! How’s the wine?” he calls, beckoning her over.

“Quite good actually!” Valeria chirps. “Was that the Kiloni maneuver?”

“Yes, or a variant I picked up somewhere! The Killam maneuver…kilometer…kilowatt? Something of the sort.”

Valeria very much wants to play him, and the old guy’s defeated opponent is happy to trade her his spot. The young man’s propped up leg hits the ground with a suspiciously loud clunk as he vacates his chair for her.

The old man peers up at her, bright-eyed even behind multiple layers of glass. “So what brings a Knight of the Rose here?”

“We’re headed to Sturmhearst, actually!”

“I see! I’ve heard the roads between here and there are pretty tricky to travel, you know.”

“No kidding. Do you have an updated map?”

He snaps his fingers. “No, but I just came from there! I’ve got an old map and I can easily update it for you kids. René is on night watch, I’ll leave it with him so you don’t have to stay up waiting for me to finish it. I know a route that’ll get you there lickety-split and safe as trousers! Now let me guess, you played at the clubs in Aurentium? You have the look about you.”

“Not the clubs, precisely…”

“Ah! Street rules, then!”

Valeria, who played Man-go against literally everyone who would have her, shrugs. “Maybe?”

“René, we’ll need some cups and a dumb hat!” the old man calls.

The young doctor wanders over to the bar and gets a refill, settling down next to Shoshana. “Hey, wanna bet on their game? The old guy’s pretty sharp.”

Shoshana laughs. “Oh, my friend is definitely gonna lose. I’ll put a silver on her, though, out of loyalty.”

It’s an odd game to spectate. Valeria falls behind early on; an insight check shows he’s not cheating, he’s just VERY good. Oh, and also Valeria’s assuming an entirely different set of house rules than this guy, and it’s tripping her up. Wait, are we doing street style, or dock style? Anyway, Valeria’s wearing the dumb hat now. At one point they both spit on the board.

“Y’know, I’ve never seen anyone from Sturmhearst take the mask off,” Shoshana says to her new drinking buddy, watching the game with confusion.

“On the clock, it’d be a safety hazard! But off the clock, eh, it’s fine. Some people get more elitist than me about it, I’m a hometown Valdian through and through.”

(You’re from Joisey, I’m from Joisey! What exit?)

“I haven’t actually been to the university since the Curse started, but I’m heading back to research some stuff I found out up in the Grammelsmarsh swamps. Some real disconcerting stuff regarding undead, and the like. The locals refer to it as the Wailing Wight.”

Shoshana gives him a once-over, rolling a decent Perception. He’s scruffy, though that could mostly be from hard travel, and definitely looks like he’s had a rough time of it. His arm’s in a sling and the little exposed skin Shoshana can see has more than its share of nicks and scars. His gait when he walked over was slightly uneven, one leg making a suspiciously heavy thunk against the wooden floor. Over his shoulder, he’s carrying a long, heavy case sealed with tar for waterproofing.

Hold up. She points to the case. “Do you have an alive guy in there?”

“…Uh.”

“You hesitated, and that’s not great.”

“Uh…no. No, I do not have an alive guy in here,” he says awkwardly.

“Okay, because the last time there was a weird bag, there was a whole-ass dude in there, and it turned into a whole thing.”

“N-no, no no no, there’s no person in the case,” he protests, not quite meeting Shoshana’s judgy cat eyes. He definitely doesn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, even though the case has started gently twitching.

Meanwhile, old Man-Go man has proved himself quite fluent in Draco-Aquilian, though with an unmistakable mammalian accent. Gral butts into the lively conversation when it winds back to Valdian. “It seems like you’re rather well traveled. What is your profession?”

“Oh, y’know, I go here and there. I’ve been around. There’s so much to see out there!”

Valeria smiles. “I can’t fault you there. Anything in particular you’re looking for?

“I go wherever the winds take me, mostly,” he says, as if Cursewood travel isn’t the most dangerous hobby since they invented pyromancer cookoffs.

Valeria, impressively, only loses the game by a little. The old man jovially shakes her hand and promises to go get started on that map to Sturmhearst for us, springing to his feet with surprising deftness for his age and bustling up toward his room.

Gral and Shoshana, meanwhile, are busy makin’ friends with the doctor guy. “What swamp were you fighting undead in?”

“The Grammelsmarsh? It’s downriver of Mornheim.”

“Ohhh! We heard some, uh, adventurers did a purifying ritual on the river. It might help your situation?”

“That’s great, but…I dunno. Once you mix in swamp gas, things get a lot more interesting.”

“The explosions kind of interesting?”

“…Sometimes.”

The players have noticed that our doctor friend here is, like…not an NPC, there’s another guy at the table (the same player as Isadora! :D), so we start sizing each other up as travel companions.

“You seem like a pretty decent guy,” Gral says, immediately insight checking.

“I mean, you guys seem on the up-and-up too?”

Shoshana winks at him. “Well, I’m not that up-and-up but these two are very diplomatic and important.”

“If you’re also headed up to Sturmhearst, it might make sense for us to travel together? I’m not very quiet,” he admits, knocking on his knee with a clang, “but if you-“

“Hello!” Valeria, hearing clanking, has clanked over loudly to join. “Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service!”

“Uh, hi! I’m Vigdor. I’m a doctor! I mean, you knew that, with the, uh-“ He points to his bird mask. “If you need any balms or salves – I mean, I’m mostly a surgeon, but I know some herbology.”

Is that so! We chat about Dr. Ulmus and Dr. Kjeller. Everyone loves Dr Kjeller!

“I’ve heard of Dr. Kjeller! I haven’t met the guy, but he’s the leading expert on troll physiology. Getting him to come lecture hasn’t worked out so far.”

We ask René the innkeeper about any local threats. Apparently this town’s gotten lucky; the biggest threats recently have just been bandits and one overaggressive badger.

“Oh yeah, one of my cats fought one of those, it went badly,” Shoshana remembers. “For the badger, I mean. I have weird cats.”

(The inn also has cat. His name is Jean Clawed.)

Eventually we all head upstairs. As the night bears on, the girls fall asleep, presumably after painting each other’s toe claws and gossiping. Gral’s still awake, practicing his lute in the rare luxury of a single room, when he pauses. Something doesn’t sound right.

Putting his lute aside, he listens cautiously at the window and feels a deep dread grow in his stomach. The faint scent of ozone drifts in the air. The crickets and night birds have gone dead silent, and in the unsettling quiet he can hear the terrible growling, piping sound he’s heard twice before: once in a house in a hole, and once as Bullbreaker’s expedition faced its destruction.

With great urgency and no volume control, Gral sends a Message to a sleeping Shoshana: “RED ALERT, KEY SHIT’S HERE.” Shoshana wakes up and kicks Valeria.

Gral then sends a Message to our new friend Vigdor, more calmly. “If you have weapons, get them now. Something is happening, it’s going to be dangerous.”

The early warning lets Vigdor and Valeria armor up, Shoshana helping Valeria buckle on the heavy pieces in a hurry. Meanwhile, Gral sprints downstairs, casting Mirror Image as he goes.

René the innkeeper is cleaning his fusille with practiced precision, humming an old marching song. Gral can hear something moving in the kitchen behind the old halfling, so he pops another stealthy Message cantrip. “This is the orc from earlier. I think something bad is in the kitchen – I’ve heard that noise before. Hold on tight to that musket, I’m going in.”

“The back door is locked, I would have heard someone come in,” the old soldier whispers back.

“These things don’t use doors,” Gral hisses.

A 17 Persuasion convinces René, who loads a bullet into his musket. “Where are those friends of yours?”

A heavy clank from upstairs answers that question, as Vigdor and Valeria thud toward the stairs. Gral scopes out the room and sees, on the bar, a big leather map case. The map from the Man-Go guy! Then he peers into the kitchen and, yup, that’s a fleshhound, all right.

Everyone else upstairs bursts into the hall just as a second fleshhound emerges into existence next to them. Shoshana, without hesitation, hits it with a gout of flame. Its strange ethereal flesh solidifies for a moment, but then it shakes itself and charges forward, its displacement energy restored.

Meanwhile, the one downstairs doesn’t aim for Gral or René, trying to run past them. Gral plays a discordant note on his lute, using his Minor Key at the opposite frequency to its vibration and preventing it from displacing, before he strikes. A spectral, scarred orc swings a warhammer down on the creature, Thrice-Burned’s ghost getting some payback as Gral’s blade strikes true.

René takes a shot with his musket and crit-fails, understandably freaked out by the writhing mass of teleporting tentacles, the wild shot careening directly into Gral. Luckily, it only pops a Mirror Image, but everyone upstairs hears a frustrated yell of “NO. FRIEND! ME FRIEND!”

Vigdor dashes past Valeria to the stairs, his previously-motionless arm reaching out of its sling to slap her on the armor with a resounding clash of metal. A silver Jotunn rune glows through the cloth of his sleeve, and she feels Protection from Good and Evil snap into place over her. She takes the cue and stabs the hound, rose vines bursting from her trident and stabbing their long thorns into its oddly flickering flesh.

The pupils on the Eyegis snap to the space behind the beast. Our normal eyes see nothing, but the Key-aligned shield’s eyes see a magical gate, faintly connected to the hound.

As a member of the Order of the Rose, Valeria’s trained to deal with fiendish incursions. This isn’t a portal to the Hells, but she thinks it might get closed similarly. As she charges forward to deal with it, everything seems to move twice as fast as it should: the Key’s spatial distortion has made certain areas the opposite of difficult terrain, where you can move double your speed. Nyoom!

Shoshana zaps it with lightning and heads downstairs to help Gral, who’s being slapped by tentacles. The zapped one flees toward the portal, but Valeria Sentinels and stabs it to death. The downstairs hound gets its tentacles into the real Gral.

Vigdor moves to Gral’s aid, ripping away the last of his sling and clamping a large circular blade to his forearm. With the pull of a ripcord, it loudly whirs into motion. As the Buzzing Butcher slams into the displacer hound with a gory squelch, he asks about sneak attack, like a rogue!

A very, very loud rogue.

Gral breaks away from the hound’s tentacles and looks around. Through the windows, more fleshhounds have appeared outside. The space outside is warped – leaving this inn is going to be very difficult while all this nonsense is going on. The lights of the vineyard seem miles away.

However, Gral realizes, the hound responded to the sound of his lute. And when he used his Minor Key he caught a glimpse of the portal it came through. He begins to play again, using the Minor Key to try to take control of it. The GM allows him to burn a 3rd level spell slot for a colossal roll of 33. He moves the portal inside a wall, to temporarily block anything coming through.

René takes a shot at the remaining hound and misses.

Valeria, upstairs, draws her chained sword and spends a 1st level slot to try to close the portal, the same way paladins close Infernal gateways. The chains of Rack extend from the sword and stitch the portal shut.

(Gral and Valeria each gain inspiration for using Portal Trixx!)

A Thing Occurs at initiative 0, and we hear strange piping coming from the stables. We’re kind of occupied, so we trust Aethis to bite anything that bothers the horses.

Shoshana sprints down the stairs and to the bar. Aw, there’s another flesh hound coming in from the kitchen. Her Chill Touch misses, and the new monster slaps Gral.

Vigdor nyooms through a Zoom, which makes some Really Weird doppler effects happen with his clanky leg and his buzzy arm. He slides across the bar like an action hero and slams his saw down, missing the hound and showering the room in a hail of splinters.

Valeria is still upstairs, and it is LOUD downstairs. She’s gonna dash to get the heck down there and rejoin the festivities.

Gral Phantasmal Forces the new fleshhound, and in its mind, horrible liquid tendrils emerge from the soup pot and constrict around it. The soup rises to the defense of the Fusilier’s Rest!

René gets his wits about him and takes a pistol shot at the nearer fleshhound, tagging it with a bullet and keeping it in place. “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE. OUR POLICY IS NO PETS! I will not make an exception for you, you do NOT seem particularly polite!”

The fleshhound grabs the map case off the bar and starts to run for it. René hits it with the butt of his rifle. The second hound can’t attack Vigdor since it’s too busy convincing itself soup isn’t dangerous, so Vigdor’s free to draw his pistol and unload a Sneak Attack bullet into the fleeing hound’s back.

René reloads his musket. It’s been a long time since he’s done it under fire, but the Royal Fusilier Corps of Demionde does not half-ass their training.

The portal the hound’s heading for bisects a wall now, so it might be hard for the hound to get through. Before it can worry about that, though, it comes face to face with Valeria, who’s ready to rumble. She kills it, dropping the map to the ground, and skitters through the Zoomy Zone to try to trident the second hound. It displaces out of the way.

Gral seizes control of another portal, and this time decides to use it to see what’s going on. He tries to hop out to the stables, where that weird noise is coming from. He enters a weird nether space full of the flickering bodies of fleshhounds, writhing and blinking, which the DM calls the Threshold. Gral accepts psychic damage to see what’s going on, and the patterns become clearer as the Key takes hold temporarily in his brain. These portals all connect to each other and the Threshold at the same time. Whatever’s out in the stables, making that eerie piping noise, is tied to the portals – it can’t fully exist in our realm. So if you close all the portals, it’ll force that thing to leave; if you drive it away, the portals will close. Either way, the Key’s influence on this place will fade.

Oh, and that thing out in the stables? It’s the Lurke r again.

Gral’s old enemy wrests control of the portal back from Gral, who stumbles back out into the inn, reeling from the sudden whammy of Key taint.

Shosha shoots lightning at the nearest hound, which retaliates by leaping through her, disrupting her matter with its own. It’s a highly unpleasant experience. A new hound jumps out of the portal next to Valeria. As Vigdor, Shoshana, and René all attack, Gral shuts another portal with his lute’s magic. “Guys, there’s something horrible in the stables!” he shouts. “If we bust enough portals it’ll go away!”

The Lurker continues to make mysterious dice rolls, but apparently it’s rolling poorly, so we don’t quite find out what it’s up to. It peers through one of the last few portals, only visible to Gral and the Eyegis. It’s hard to get a good look at, fifth-dimensional as it is, but it’s weirdly humanoid, actually? It’s surrounded by floating lanterns and holding some sort of pipe or flute.

(The DM notes that Jean Clawed is awake and doesn’t see why any of this is his business. He’s capable of using the portals; he’s not Key tainted, that’s just how cats are.)

We exchange blows with the remaining hounds, Chromatic Orbs flying and chainsaws buzzing. René bayonets a hound to death, for the honor of all NPCs.

Gral powerslides on his knees across the Zoomy Zone, playing a complicated riff, woobling himself right through the fireplace into the kitchen. He spends another level 3 spell slot to get the portal to dance itself shut. “And that was Through the Fire and Flames!”

René reloads his gun. Shoshana blasts the hound with fire, so Vigdor’s action goes off and he chainsaws it to death, the body and spine getting caught in the spinning chain. FATALITY.

The searing light of Shoshana’s fire casts sharp shadows on the walls of the inn, which begin to writhe and re-form, swirling together into a lithe, snarling feline shape that springs toward the Lurker. It pounces with an odd, broken yowl that’s incredibly familiar – although Valeria and Gral have only ever heard it once, from underneath an overturned laundry basket.

Vigdor, who’s never met a flesh-hound OR a cursecat before, makes an arcana check to figure out what in the seven hells is going on. It seems some sort of entity is thinning the barriers between realities? Its very essence seems to be intermingled with portal; it cannot fully leave the portal or exist in this realm. Like a malevolent, sentient pair of curtains.

He’s like okay, curtains sound like something I can chainsaw. It’s curtains for you, see? (Fun fact: if he rolls 21 or higher on attack roll with chainsaw, he gets sneak attack regardless of other circumstances. Because it’s a goddamn CHAINSAW.)

The Lurker turns its attention directly on us, or at least to the enormous hissing cat hellbent on ruining its day. Gral, still strumming furiously, realizes the Lurker’s only got a couple of portals left. He’s closed a portal already; he’s gonna try to close all of them for good. The DM imposes disadvantage and a brutal pile of psychic damage, but Gral is unphased, hitting a power chord that shakes the entire inn.

The Lurker screeches and reaches for him, the space around Gral beginning to warp, but it’s too late, the portal slamming shut against it. The Zoomy Zones vanish; the portals close, the strange atmosphere fades. The road looks to be the size it was before instead of an endless stretch of packed earth; the vineyard is once again an easy ten-minute walk away.

His big solo complete, Gral sways and collapses unconscious. Valeria runs over and Lays On Hands so he doesn’t die, while Vigdor starts casting Mending on the destroyed bar furniture. Shoshana, meanwhile, just stares dumbstruck at the place where a huge spectral cat is dissipating into shadowy smoke.

“…Schmendrick?”

René is holding himself together, but he’s an old man and it’s been a while since he fought this much. He took a bit of damage; Valeria pat pats him some HP. “Thank you, Kyr. I…I need to check on my other guests. The old man with the Man-Go game, we must find out if he lives.”

Valeria accompanies him upstairs. Rack’s glowing rose vines are still visible, stitching the portal shut; it’s healing more quickly than Valeria’s used to seeing. The door to the old man’s room swings open under Valeria’s cautious knock. The bed is unmade but empty, and the old man’s luggage is gone. The only things left are a generous tip on the counter and his odd multicolored glasses.

As Vigdor steps outside to clean viscera off his chainsaw, Gral scopes out the stables. There’s evidence of disturbed earth around the grounds, but nothing conclusive. Aethis seems to be unbothered.

We reconvene without much to show for our investigation. But we have one last clue: Why were the hounds so interested in the old man’s map? We spread it out on one of the bar tables and crowd around. It’s a map of Valdia, but the path it shows us to take to Sturmhearst makes No Sense. It’s not even contiguous! It tells us to start here and wander north, and then the line cuts off next to some scribbled equations, the route picking up again elsewhere, where he’s drawn a symbol we don’t recognize – and so on, in strange and nonsensical disconnected paths.

Shoshana, on a hunch, puts on the multicolored glasses the old man left behind. Like 3D glasses, they reveal the hidden image. Through the kaleidoscopic lenses, she can see remnants of the Key’s influence all around the inn; the fading Zoomy Zones and closing portals light up in ultraviolet. The map, meanwhile, has gained an entirely new dimension, like a layer of holographs. NOW the shortcuts make sense – they route through other dimensions along the z-axis, with additional symbols and labels giving helpful hints.

To be honest, it does look like a much faster route. And one of the notes says it leads to the “Drowned City” – hey, isn’t that where Bullbreaker ended up? But we’re all rightfully wary of hopping right back into another flesh-hound portal disaster.

We now have the Extradimensional Map and the Stranger’s Glasses.

Oh! The map has a note for us: “Happy Journeys to a fellow master of the game. Your friend, T.T.”

We immediately rifle through our notes and realize he may have been Professor Trevor Twombly, Headmaster of Sturmhearst. Vigdor, did you know that guy?!

Vigdor didn’t recognize him. Maybe the guy looked like Twombly, if you squint? There were a lot of old men at Sturmhearst, and they wear masks most of the time? Also he had distracting glasses? So, like…maybe?

As we bicker, Vigdor snags the glasses off the table and heads to his room, opening up his case and taking a look. The lenses don’t reveal anything new about the object inside.

Unfortunately, the poor rogue didn’t bother to stealth. “Whatcha doin’ in here?” says Valeria, who followed shortly behind.

“Um, just looking at my leg, seeing if anything is weird-“

Valeria immediately checks Vigdor’s lower limbs for wounds. “I can help! An extra pair of hands can always-”

“No, no! I think I’m okay! Really!” he protests. He glances into the case again, clearly torn, and sighs. “Let me explain.”

He lifts a whole human leg out of the case, kicking and twitching.

“This is my leg, and I’m taking it to Sturmhearst. I’m not sure if it’s wholly mine anymore.”

Through his torn pants, Valeria can see a clunky clockwork leg to match his buzz-saw arm.

One player immediately yells “FULL METAL ALCHEMIST.” Another player says it again, in a slightly different voice.

Dr. Vigdor Gavril has joined the party!

#the cursewood #session recap #the key #valeria argent #gral omokk'duu #shoshana bat chaya #vigdor gavril #schmendrick #trevor twombly

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mss4msu · 4 years

Text

Call Me Doctor. (Chapter 21)

Summary: Fresh out of graduate school, you had somehow landed a spot in the faculty of a prestigious university. The small anthropology department has too many faculty and too few offices; sharing an office does not go as you expected.

Pairing: Professor!Steve x Professor!Reader

Words: 1540

Warnings: Emotions, language

A/N: Ok, this took forever to be updated and then some. My sincerest apologies for not getting this out last Friday. But it’s here now! I make a lot of false promises to you all, but I really am going to try to finish this bad boy up sooner rather than later. Thank you to everyone who is still reading and asking for updates.

TAGS: If you would like to be tagged in future installments or asked to be tagged and I missed it, please send these requests as an ask, otherwise I miss them or forget. I’m sorry to anyone I’ve done that to.

Catch Up on the Story Here

“(Y/N)!” you heard James yelling over the pouring of the rain, “(Y/N) come inside!”

You ignored him; you couldn’t do anything but stand there and cry, the rain soaking you to the bone.

A door slammed and you heard him yell “Fuck it,” as large steps caused water to splosh and you knew James was running towards you.

“(Y/N), come on, being out here isn’t going to help anything.”

“J-j-j-james,” your lip quivered, “He…he just left....”

“Please, will you come back inside? I’ll go over to his place later and check on him.”

“No.”

“(Y/N), you standing out here isn’t doing anything to fix the situation,” he grabbed your hand and tried to pull you back towards the building, but you yanked it from his grip.

You stiffened your upper lip, “No. Going back in there won’t do anything but make it worse,” tears were still burning their way out of your eyes, but they were tinged with anger now, not sadness, “He doesn’t get to do this. Not again. Not now.”

James took a deep breath and you knew that he knew he wouldn’t win this one, “Do you have your stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“Fuck, that shit doesn’t matter. Come on,” he grabbed your hand again, but this time led you towards where he had parked his motorcycle. He unlocked the seat storage and pulled out a spare helmet, then paused, “Shit, I need to go back in for my helmet.”

“James, I don’t give a fuck about safety right now. Can we please just go?” you pleaded with him.

“No. I’ll go with you, but we’re doing it the right way.”

“Fuck the right way!” you said, shoving the helmet back into his hands and taking off running.

“(Y/N)!” James shouted behind you.

You heard him run, but he didn’t catch up to you. You didn’t know where he went and you didn’t care. There was only one person on your mind and you were going to run to find him. You’d never been to Steve’s, but he had told you his address once and you’d stalked it on Google Maps enough to know exactly how to get there. You had to take off your shoes after two blocks; they worked well for a museum opening, but not for running through a downpour. Your breath heaved as you tried to orient yourself in the darkness.

“Glenwood, Maple, Park, one more block North and then four East,” you muttered to yourself, attempting a light jog again, but feeling a growing stitch in your side.

You finally got to his apartment building and buzzed the front gate for him. You waited, but got no answer. You buzzed again; still nothing.

“STEVE!” you began to yell, “STEVE!”

No one yelled back.

You heard the roar of a motorcycle and spun around so quickly you lost your balance and fell into the large puddle forming outside the gate. The engine turned off and you were quickly helped up by a man in a helmet.

“Steve?” you asked hesitantly.

“You couldn’t have waited 5 minutes?” James’s voice was muffled under the visor, which he flipped up quickly.

“James, he won’t answer,” you stifled another fit of sobbing.

“Another reason you should have waited,” he said with a roll of his eyes, procuring a set of keys from his pocket.

He quickly keyed into the front gate and ran into the complex, then into the building where Steve lived; you followed right behind him. You both ran up the stairs to Steve’s door. James knocked loudly, but to no answer. He knocked again. Still nothing.

“Steve, please be decent if you’re in,” James yelled before keying into the apartment.

It was dark inside. You frantically ran around, flipping on light switches and searching for Steve, bumping into and stumbling over furniture as you searched for him.

“Steve?” you called out hopelessly as you turned on the lights to the last room; the bedroom, “Steve?” you asked more quietly, walking slowly into the room.

He wasn’t there. You looked around and found, on his nightstand, a copy of the photo of you both that James had snapped in the coffeeshop. You sunk to the floor, fresh tears prickling at your eyes. You stared at the photo, at that happy time before Sharon had fucked everything up again.

“JAMES!” you yelled out suddenly.

“WHAT??” he burst into the room, actual panic on his face now.

“James, I know where he is,” you turned the photo around.

“The coffee shop?” he asked hesitantly.

“No. He wouldn’t go there now, the Loki thing happened there,” you were shaking your head as you thought it through what you knew would have been Steve’s logic, “He’s somewhere else, somewhere happy.”

“Somewhere happy….” you could see the understanding dawning over him, “Are they even open now?”

“How should I know? I just know that that’s where he is.”

“Alright, let’s go,” he said, gesturing for you to lead the way back outside, “But how about you actually wait for me this time?”

“You’re really joking, in a time like this?”

“Hey, I didn’t judge your coping mechanism of running into a stormy night alone, you don’t get to judge mine of making ill-timed jokes.”

“Shit, fine, let’s just go?” you asked with exasperation, to which he nodded in reply.

When you got outside, you both sprinted to the motorcycle. James handed you a helmet and put on his own. You got on the motorcycle and clung on for dear life as James navigated the way to that small cafe where you and Steve had had your first date. As James pulled up to the curb, you saw that a light was on in the back, but it was otherwise deserted. The yellow walls that looked so cheerful during that brunch now had a gloomy, somber affect on you. You stumbled off the bike when James parked and ran up to the door. You tried the handle, but found it locked. You started to desperately knock on the door, hoping against hope that he was inside.

“STEVE!” James began to yell behind you as you continued to knock.

You saw movement inside, and a man in an apron came up to the door.

“We’re closed!” he yelled out at you.

“Stan, come on, it’s me, James!” James yelled.

“I don’t know a James,” Stan replied.

“Stan, don’t fuck with us right now, is Steve here?” James yelled again.

“I don’t know a Steve,” Stan replied.

“Stan, I swear to God, if you don’t open this door right now I’ll stop eating here!” anger was creeping into James’s voice.

Another figure loomed out of the darkness and came up behind Stan.

“STEVE!” you cried out.

“It’s alright Stan, thanks,” Steve said, patting the cook on the shoulder.

Stan unlocked the door and opened it for you and James to enter, “Don’t fuck up my floors,” he said before returning to the kitchen.

You started to run up to Steve, but James held you back; James went up to him instead and gave him a swift slap on the cheek.

“What in the fuck do you think you’re doing to storm out of a party like that into a fucking thunderstorm and then disappear?” James demanded.

“Ouch,” was all Steve mustered as he rubbed his cheek.

“I’m so glad you’re ok!” you pushed past James and wrapped yourself around Steve.

“It’s very kind of you to both have been concerned, but I don’t know why I wouldn’t be fine.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” your eyes widened in anger as you unhooked your arms from around him and took a step back, “You just fucking left and you weren’t home! And this is not the first time you’ve gone and pulled some shit like this because of that bitch! You do not get to just disappear and cut me out of your life as a coping mechanism!”

“Oy, keep it down out there! I’m not trying to have the cops join this party,” Stan yelled out from the kitchen.

“Look, I know in the past I have not handled things well, but I’m ok this time. I just needed to get out of that toxic environment, so I called Stan and he said I could come here to cool down. I wasn’t trying to disappear. I’m sorry. I thought it would be better to cool off on my own than to start some shit with either of you. I didn’t know I would cause so much worry.”

“Steve, that’s the first time we’ve seen her in the flesh in...years….Why are you so calm?” James asked, a tinge of fear in his voice.

Steve took a deep breath, “If you must know, I’m fine, because I have a plan.”

“A plan?” there was actual worry in James’s voice now.

“Yes, a plan to serve Sharon and Loki their just desserts,” Steve said, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Order up!” Stan yelled from the kitchen, placing a piping hot plate of french toast in the window.

“Speaking of just desserts, there’s mine,” Steve let out a low chuckle as he walked to the window to get his food.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Call Me Doctor. Tag List:

@ashislost @wantingtobekorra @zlixlle @crazy--me @grey-ravens @queenkitten95 @chook007 @tequila1984 @yallneedtrek @ssweet-empowerment @guera31 @justmesadgirl @fourtyninekirbygamzeegirl @rainbowkisses31 @writing-for-a-chance @sp2900 @notkikibear @itzmegaaaaaaan @partiallyinthecloset @straybattie @angryteapot @fandom-addict-aesthetics @hazellnut94 @abschaffer2 @hadesgirl1015 @biskwitmamaw @justkending @marvelous-capsicle @uhh-katie-griffiths @evanstush @chuckennuggets1213 @everything-is-awesomesauce @tenaciousperfectionunknown @marvels-gurl

Steve Rogers/Chris Evans Tag List:

@patzammit @xjaneeeen

Permanent Tag List:

@sophiealiice @mrsdeanwinchester19 @thisismysecrethappyplace @ailynalonso15 @221bshrlocked @hazellnut94 @libbymouse @nerdypinupcrystal @hufflepuffchloe @nerdy-bookworm-1998 @dibsonamericasass @kind-sober-fullydressed @kakakatey @sarcasmoverlordxo @vikki-rogue @thefridgeismybestie

#call me doctor #marvel #fanfic #au #anthropology #egyptology #angst #steve rogers x reader #professor!steve x reader #professor steve #professor au #im sorry this took 5 months

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lordeofstucky · 4 years

Note

SO EXCITED FOR YOU UPCOMING FUN PROJECTS!!!!!!!!!!!!

So am I!! I have somewhat mapped out a schedule to help compensate with my time as a Student Teacher. 🤞🏻

Within the next week, I hope to have the next update for HOS. By the end of the month, HOS should be completed.

To celebrate my birthday month (October 21, ya girl will be turning 23 🎉), Moral Codes will be completed and I will start releasing chapters for the biker!gang!Steve/doctor!Bucky.

I also would like to push out a few short Dark!Steve stories but I'm not entirely sure yet. 🤪

Starting late November, I will release the Christmas Omega!Bucky/Alpha!Steve fic. I hope to have this completed by early December BUT I will be graduating University the 19th so I'm not sure how my schedule will look.

Phew.

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shawtygonemad · 3 years

Text

What Is This Feeling: Chapter 8

Fem!9th Doctor x Male!Rose Tyler

WITF Masterlist

The Doctor was in and out of consciousness. That laser almost hurt as bad as regenerating. She stayed silent. She didn't want to say anything that would make Van Statten blast her again. Suddenly a voice came over the intercom.

"Condition Red! Condition Red! I repeat, this is not a drill."

The Doctor lifted her head and made eye contact with Van Statten. Her voice was hoarse, but dead serious.

"Release me if you want to live."

He quickly followed her command and released the Time Lord. She had never gotten dressed that quickly in her life. Then again the entire world depended on it. Within minutes they were in Van Statten's office observing the cage from a flat screen on the wall. Ross was on said screen talking with them. The Doctor honestly couldn't be surprised.

"You've got to keep it in that cell," she told them.

"Doctor, it's all my fault," Ross spoke apologetically.

"I've sealed the compartment. It can't get out, that lock's got a billion combinations," the guard said.

"A Dalek's a genius. It can calculate a thousand billion combinations in one second flat."

The Doctor looked on as she was just proven right. The metal door slowly opened, and released the Dalek. The guard's started to do an open fire. Don't they know it won't work?!

"Ross, get out of there!" She commanded her companion.

Ross, the other girl, and the female guard managed to escape. The Dalek, however, was rolling itself towards the camera. Thus getting closer to the screen. It extended its plunger and broke the connection.

"We're losing power," Goddard gathered around the computer screen with Van Statten and the Doctor. "It's draining the base. Oh, my god. It's draining entire power supplies for the whole of Utah."

The trio was analyzing a holographic map of the United States. Utah blackened.

"It's downloading," the Doctor informed them.

"Downloading what?" Van Statten asked.

The whole West Coast blackened on the map.

"Sir, the entire West Coast has gone down," Goddard updated.

"It's not just energy. That Dalek just absorbed the entire internet. It knows everything," the Doctor stated.

Goddard started to pound away on the computer. "The cameras in the vault are down."

"We've only got emergency power. It's eaten everything else. You've got to kill it now!" The Doctor yelled.

Goddard spoke over the intercom. "All guards to converge in the Metaltron cage, immediately."

The three no longer had visual, but they still had audio. This was just as bad. They grimly heard the guards die one by one. They were soon all dead, and Van Statten couldn't care less. All he cared about was the stupid Dalek.

"This museum of yours, have you got any alien weapons," the Doctor asked.

"Lots of them, but the trouble is the Dalek's between us and them," Goddard explained.

"We've got to keep that thing alive. We could just seal the entire vault, trap it down there," Van Statten suggested.

"Leaving everyone trapped with it. Ross is down there. I won't let that happen. Have you got that?" She stared at the man with fire in her eyes. She then turned back to Goddard. "It's got to go through this area. What's that?" She pointed to an area on the screen.

"Weapon's testing."

"Give a gun to the technicians, the lawyers, anyone. Everyone. Only have one chance of killing it," she informed the assistant.

The Doctor sat down at the computer and began to attempt to get one of the screens to show visuals. After a few minutes the screen showed the loading bay. She practically whooped at her accomplishment.

"I thought you were a great expert, Doctor. If you're so impressive, then why not just reason with the Dalek? It must be willing to negotiate. There must be something it needs. Everything needs something," Van Statten question.

"What's the nearest town," the Doctor asked.

"Salt Lake City."

"Population?"

"One million."

"All dead. If the Dalek gets out, it'll murder every living creature. That's all it needs," the Doctor tried to explain to the stupid ape for what seemed like the thousandth time. He's turned out to be quite dense.

"But why would it do that?"

"Because it honestly believes they should die. Human beings are different, and anything different is wrong. It's the ultimate in racial cleansing, and you, Van Statten, you've let it loose! The Dalek's surrounded by a force field. The bullets are melting before they even hit home, but it's not indestructible," she tried to explain.

She turned from Van Statten and spoke to the screen. "If you concentrate your fire, you might get through. Aim for the dome, the head, the eyepiece. That's the weak spot," she told him.

Moments of anticipation passed. Soon Ross and the girl came running in, making most of them jump. They soon fled the battle area once again. It wasn't long after that the Dalek appeared.

The guards held open fire against the Dalek. None of the bullets affected it. The Dalek rose in the air and zapped the fire alarm. Water started to rain down from the sprinklers. Once the ground and metal beams were nice and wet, the Dalek zapped them. This caused the guards to all get electrocuted, and die.

The trio all stared at the screen in fallen silence. It didn't take long for Van Statten to start making an escape plan for himself. However, this needed to end. Now.

"You said we could seal the vault?" The Time Lord asked.

"It was designed to be a bunker in an event of a nuclear war. Steel bulkheads," the American confirmed.

"There's not enough power. Those bulkheads are massive," Goddard added.

"We've got emergency power. We can re-route that to the bulkhead doors," the Doctor told her.

"We'd have to bypass the security codes. That would take a computer genius."

"Good thing you've got me, then," Van Statten spoke as he sat down in front of the computer.

"You want to help," the Doctor was truly surprised at this.

"I don't want to die, Doctor. Simple as that. And nobody knows this software better than me."

Just then the large screen lit up with an image of the Dalek still in the rain.

"I shall speak on-ly to the doc-tor," it demanded.

"You're going to get rusty," the Doctor commented.

"I fed off the D-N-A of Ross Ty-ler. Ex-tra-po-la-ting the bi-o-mass of a time tra-ve-ler re-gen-er-at-ed me," it told the Doctor.

Her face was deadpan as she spoke, "What's your next trick?"

"I have been sear-ching for the Da-leks."

"Yeah, I saw. Downloading the internet. What did you find?"

"I scanned your sa-tell-ites and ra-di-o tel-e-scopes," it told the Doctor.

"And?"

"No-thing. Where should I get my or-ders now," it asked, almost sounding lost.

"All right, then. If you want orders, follow this one. Kill yourself," she told it honestly.

"Daleks must survive!" It shot back.

The Doctor could no longer take it. This foul creature was the reason she was forced to blow up her home planet, causing genocide for both races.

"The Daleks have failed! Why don't you just finish the job and make the Dalek's extinct. Rid the universe of your filth. Why don't you just die?!" She practically screamed at the creature.

There was a short pause before the machine spoke again. "You would make a good Da-lek."

Then the screen went to black. The Doctor's stomach dropped at the words. Her eyes were slightly widened as she stared at the black screen.

"Seal the vaults," she ordered quickly.

"Doctor, he's still down there," Goddard reminded the Doctor.

She quickly put a headset on, and called the number she knew by heart.

"This isn't the best time," Ross answered.

"Where are you," she asked.

"Level forty nine," he responded.

"You've got to keep moving. The vault's being sealed off at level forty six," she informed him.

"Can't you stop them closing?"

"I'm the one closing them. I can't wait, and I can't help you. Now for God's sake, Run!"

"Done it. We've got power to the bulkheads," Van Statten reported. Good news!

"The Dalek's right behind them," Goddard also reported in. Bad news!

"We're nearly there! Give us two seconds," Ross told the Doctor.

"Doctor, I can't sustain the power. The whole system is failing. Doctor, you've got to close the bulkheads," Van Statten said.

The Doctor was then left with an incredibly hard decision. Save her human, or let the entire human race get destroyed. No matter how much she wanted to wait for Ross. One race was already wiped out because of her. She was not going to let it happen a second time.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly as she hit the enter key, lowering the bulkheads.

Moments later, Van Statten spoke up.

"The vault is sealed."

The Doctor leapt up from her chair anxiously.

"Ross, where are you? Ross, did you make it?"

"Sorry, I was a bit slow," he sadly responded.

Her hearts stopped. Ross didn't make it. He was trapped out there because of her. Now the Dalek's going to catch up with him and she can't do anything.

"See you, then, Doctor."

'Oh God, he's saying his goodbyes!'

"It wasn't your fault. Remember that, okay? It wasn't your fault. And you know what? I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

In the background she could hear the Dalek's 'Exterminate', and the zap of its laser.

"I killed him," she said softly.

"I'm sorry," Van Statten apologized.

"I said I'd protect him. He was only here because of me, and you're sorry? I could've killed that Dalek in its cell, but you stopped me," she turned her self-hatred onto Van Statten.

"It was the prize of my collection!"

"YOUR COLLECTION!? But was it worth it? Worth all of those men's deaths? Worth Ross? Let me tell you something, Van Statten. Mankind goes into space to explore, to be part of something greater."

"Exactly! I wanted to touch the stars," he exclaimed.

"You just want to drag the stars down and stick them underground, underneath tons of sand and dirt, and label them. You're about as far from the stars as you can get," she paused in realization.

"And you took him down with you. He was nineteen years old."

Adele suddenly entered the office. The Doctor was quickly in her face, ready to release some more anger.

"You were quick on your feet, leaving Ross behind," she spat out.

"I'm not the one who sealed the vault," she yelled back.

The screen lit up with an image of the Dalek and a very much alive Ross.

"Op-en the bulk-heads or Ross Ty-ler dies," it demanded.

"You're alive!" The Doctor exclaimed excitedly. Oh was she so relieved.

"Can't get rid of me," he gave a small smile.

"I thought you were dead," the Doctor, almost tearfully, said.

"Op-en the bulk-head," the Dalek demanded once more.

"Don't do it," Ross yelled, attempting to be brave.

"What use are e-mo-tions if you will not save the man you love?" It asked.

It felt like time had slowed down.

'Love. Is that was this is? This confusing feeling I have for this pink and yellow human?'

No. It can't be love. How could a Gallifreyan possibly be in love with a human? They were two separate races! No. It just wouldn't work.

'Oh, my god. I'm falling in love with Ross Tyler,' she thought, horrified.

After her sudden epiphany, she looked at Van Statten.

"I killed him once. I can't do it again," she told him as she pressed the enter key once more.

The bulkhead opened. Ross and the Dalek made their way through.

"What do we do now, you bleeding heart! What the hell do we do," Van Statten yelled.

"Kill it when it gets here," Adele suggested.

"All the guns are useless, and the alien weapons are in the vault," Goddard stated, stressing out.

"Only the catalogued ones," Adele blurted.

Van Statten didn't look pleased. The Doctor shoved her towards the exit door.

"Lead me," she demanded.

Adele quickly took the Doctor down to her workshop. Once inside she showed the Time Lord the weapons. The Doctor went through the bin, tossing the useless items.

"Broken. Broken. Hairdryer."

"Mister Van Statten tends to dispose of his staff, and when he does he wipes their memory. I kept this stuff in case I needed to fight my way out one day," Adele explained.

"What, you in a fight," the Doctor scoffed. "I'd like to see that."

"I could do," she protested.

"What're you going to do? Throw your A-levels at 'em?" The Doctor grinned as she picked up a useful, and deadly, giant weapon. "Oh, yes. Lock and load."

Without second thought, the Doctor bolted out of Adele's workshop, and up the stairs. She was going to finally kill this thing and save the Earth. No, forget the Earth. She was going to save Ross.

Once the Doctor made it to level one she sprinted down the corridor. She stopped once she saw Ross with the Dalek. She didn't allow herself time to take in the situation. All she could feel was the adrenaline pumping in her veins, and the fury of her dead people. It was going to end, now! She held up the large gun, and aimed it at the Dalek

"Get out of the way." Ross just turned and stared at her. "Ross, get out of the way!"

"No. I won't let you do this," he protested.

"That thing killed hundreds of people," she said.

"It's not the one pointing the gun at me."

"I've got to do this. I've got to end it. The Daleks destroyed my home, my people. I've got nothing left."

"Look at it," he gestured to the squid-like creature inside the metal armor.

"What's it doing," she asked.

"It's the sunlight, that's all it wants."

"But it can't-"

"It couldn't kill Van Statten, it couldn't kill me. It's changing. What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into," Ross asked.

Finally realizing what was going on, the Doctor lowered her gun.

"I couldn't- I wasn't- Oh, Ross. They're all dead," she said sadly.

"Why do we sur-vive," Dalek asked.

"I don't know," the Doctor frowned.

"I am the last of the Da-leks," it stated.

"You're not even that. Ross did more than regenerate you. You've absorbed his DNA. You're mutating."

"In-to what," it asked.

"Something new. I'm sorry," and she was.

"Isn't new better?" Ross asked.

` "Not for a Dalek," she replied.

"I can feel so ma-ny i-de-as," it spoke. "So much dark-ness. Ross, give me or-ders. Or-der me to die."

"I can't do that," Ross said quietly.

"This is not life. This is sick-ness. I shall not be like you. Or-der my des-tru-ction! O-bey! O-bey! O-bey!"

After a moment, Ross finally spoke up.

"Do it."

"Are you fright-ened, Ross Ty-ler?"

"Yeah," he answered.

"So am I… Ex-ter-min-ate."

Ross began to retreat to the Doctor's side, and out of harm's way. The Dalek closed up its armor, and began to hover. The balls on the Dalek detached themselves and surrounded it. The balls also formed a force field around it. The Dalek then imploded on itself. The Doctor nor Ross was harmed.

Once it was all over the Doctor dropped her gun. The pair instantly embraced one another and wouldn't let go. After a few moments the Doctor found her voice.

"I'm so sorry, Ross. For everything," she apologized.

"It's alright. You were upset," Ross soothed the alien. They pulled apart and Ross looked at the Doctor. "Tell me about it. The Time War."

So on their way back to the TARDIS, she told the tale of the Time War. Ross took all of the details surprisingly well. He seemed to understand.

Once back in the museum, the Doctor ran a hand over the TARDIS door.

"A little piece of home. Better than nothing," she said.

"Is that the end of it, the Time War?"

"I'm the only one left. I win. How about that," she gave a sad smile.

"The Dalek survived. Maybe some of your people did too," Ross suggested.

"I'd know. In here," she pointed to her head. "Feels like there's no one."

"Well then, good thing I'm not going anywhere," he grinned at her.

"Yeah," she smiled back.

The moment was short lived as Adele appeared with her bag in hand.

"We'd better get out. Van Statten's disappeared. They're closing down the base. Goddard says they're going to fill it full of cement, like it never existed."

"About time," Ross commented.

"I'll have to go back home," Adele said sadly.

"Better hurry up. Next flight to Heathrow leaves at fifteen hundred hours," the Doctor informed her.

"Adele was saying that all her life she wanted to see the stars," Ross said while giving the puppy dog eyes to the Doctor.

'Oh no! Not gonna happen.'

"Tell her to go and stand outside, then."

"She's all on her own, Doctor, and she did help."

"She left you down there," the Doctor accused.

"So did you." This shut her up.

"What are you talking about? We've got to leave," Adele asked confused.

"Plus, she's a bit pretty," the Doctor added.

"I hadn't noticed," he replied.

"On your head," she said regretfully as she unlocked the TARDIS and stepped in.

She walked over to the console and prepared for takeoff.

"What are you doing? She said cement. She wasn't joking. We're going to get sealed in. Doctor? What're you doing standing inside a box? Ross?"

"Oh, get in," the Doctor snapped.

This was going to be a long trip.

#romance #adventure #doctor who fanfic #doctor x rose #the doctor #doctor who fanfiction #doctor who #ninth doctor #bbc doctor who #doctor who imagine #genderbent #fem!9th doctor x male!rose tyler #fem!9th doctor #male!rose tyler #9th doctor x rose #9th doctor #rose tyler

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jamielea81 · 5 years

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Back to School

Chapter 1

Pairing: Professor Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings: Some cursing

Description: After taking years off of school, you finally decide to go back and finish up that degree.

Word Count: Approximately 1,800

A/N: Welcome to my new series Back to School! This is a professor AU with a twist. This series will be on the shorter side (no more than 10 chapters) and will be updated weekly. I’ve tagged those that have asked to be tagged before, if you would like to be removed just let me know.

*Italics are internal thoughts.

Sticking out like a sore thumb wasn’t your idea of a good first day back to school. It was like high school all over again, but instead of wearing cheap clothes from the clearance rack while the other girls in school wore designer jeans, you wore business attire. Black pencil skirt, blouse, heels, makeup done up, that was your staple most days at the office. Students hanging around campus and in your first class were dressed in pajama pants, jeans, gym shorts and t-shirts. You were vastly over dressed, but it wasn’t your fault, you had to go back to work after your second class.

You had taken a few years off of school. Who were you kidding? You took 13 years off. It was always your intention to go back to college and finish up that degree, but life got in the way.

During senior year, you had gotten sick. It started out simple enough with pains in your stomach, but no amount of pain killers and rest could cure it. Once it was apparent you weren’t getting better, you made numerous trips to the health center on campus. They in turn referred you to the regional hospital that diagnosed you with an ovarian cyst. It was already quite large and your doctor recommended surgery as soon as possible. Two weeks later, you had the surgery to remove it. Because of the recovery time and the days you missed being ill, you had no choice but to take incompletes for all your classes that semester. Your job on campus was also terminated because you were no longer enrolled in classes.

Life back at home with your parents wasn’t a breeze. After being away for nearly four years, it was quite the adjustment living under their roof once again. They encouraged you to take classes at the nearby University which you did, but you struggled. Driving into the city was a pain and finding parking was even harder. You stuck with one of the two classes you enrolled in and managed to finish it leaving eight credits to go.

You found a job fairly quickly after a friend working in a call center gave you the heads up about an opening. It started as a fulltime position that summer, and you planned on going part time in the fall so that you could take a couple of classes to complete your degree. You ended up moving in with said friend at the end of summer. The money was rolling in as you turned out to be quite the sales woman. Deciding to take one more semester off to put some money in the bank, turned into a year off. Student loan bills started to arrive in your mailbox since you weren’t enrolled in classes. That one year turned into two. You moved out on your own. Took a new sales job with great benefits and a 401K. Two years turned into five. A job in middle management became available and you took it. Even though you were great at sales, you didn’t particular love it. Motivating others and knowing how to manage a team was more your forte. At that point you were doing quite well for yourself that school went on the back burner. Before you knew it, you were in your mid 30s worrying about a fifteen-page paper due at the end of the semester.

The campus is nice, as far as colleges go. It was also conveniently located thirty minutes from your home and office. Lush green lawns, loads of maple trees, benches and tables scattered along the wide walk ways. There’s a coffee shop in the student union, but you found a coffee cart located outside near a row of benches that faced a large water fountain in the center of the campus.

You acquired yourself a cup with two shots of vanilla. Grabbing a few capsules of cream and adding them to your cup, you planted yourself on an empty bench. You reached into your briefcase to grab out the syllabus from your first class, Economics in the Modern Age. There was no point in acquiring a backpack when you had only two classes and you had to get to work right after your second one. An hour between classes was more than enough time to look over your notes and get a cup of coffee.

“Can’t believe classes have started up again.” A deep voice in front of you said.

Looking up, the sun partially blinds your view. You put your hand up to shield the sun to get a better look at him.

“Sorry.” He says, moving about a foot to the right to block the brightness from your view.

And what a new view it was. Broad shoulders, dark blonde hair, nicely groomed beard, and those eyes. A poet could write several books about those eyes. He looked to be about your age, which was refreshing. Dressed in dark blue jeans, buttoned down checkered shirt and a brown sport coat over it. You were starring. Once you realized it, you looked down and quickly took a sip from your cup and nodded.

He stuck out his hand and you quickly set your cup down next to you on the bench. “Steve Rogers. History.”

“Ah, um, Y/N Y/L/N. Business administration.” You said, shaking his hand. His fingers fit nicely against yours. You really hoped he didn’t notice the blush.

“Do you mind?” He asked, gesturing toward the empty space beside you.

“Not at all.”

Be cool Y/L/N. Just because the hot guy wants to sit next to you, it does not mean he’s interested.

Going slow was never easy for you, which is why you were single. Your mind had a hard time differentiating between guys who were being friendly and guys who were interested. One would think with age and time, those kinds of problems would be sorted.

“Beautiful day.” You offered. Not really knowing what to say.

He hummed in response. “I’m looking forward to the cooler weather. I hate always feeling over dressed this time of year.”

You nodded. Giving him a small smile. “Same.” You said, gesturing to your long-sleeved blouse. At least you had opted to go bare legged. “It’s not so bad in the shade.”

This small talk is killing me.

Steve nodded his head. “How’s your schedule this semester?” He asked.

“Only two courses. Think I’ll manage.”

“Nice. I’ve got four, but two are twice a week.”

“Ouch. I’ve always hated those.” You replied.

He smiled. Eyes crinkly as he looked at you. “Why haven’t I seen you before?”

“I’m new here.” You said, shrugging one shoulder.

“Well, you can count me as your official welcoming party.”

You laughed. “I give you my thanks then.”

A small alarm sounded in your briefcase. Reaching in you pulled out your phone seeing you had twenty minutes until your next class. Not knowing where all the buildings were, you wanted to give yourself plenty of time to get there and hopefully find a seat in the back.

“I better get going.” You said, standing up and grabbing your bag. “It was nice to meet you Steve Rogers, History.”

He stood up as well, laughing hard, throwing his head back slightly. “You as well Y/N. I hope to see you around campus more.”

Your face flushed and you hoped he didn’t notice. “Hopefully.”

You quickly turned your back to him heading in any direction to get away from the handsome man. Not that you really wanted to run away, but you didn’t want to ruin something that hadn’t even started by saying something stupid.

After walking aimlessly for ten minutes, you consulted the campus map on your phone and started walking in the correct direction. You reached the History building with a few minutes to spare. The room wasn’t far down the hall and all rooms were numbered legibly. Finding the door was still open, you felt relieved. The room was a large lecture hall with stadium seating. Stepping inside you felt a small wave of panic as most seats were occupied with only a few open ones in the front rows and a couple single seats scattered in the middle.

Next week I am so getting here a half hour earlier.

You begrudgingly walked down the staircase, dodging careless backpacks left in your path. Sure, you wore heels daily to the office, but that was mainly at your desk or in a conference room, not down a large staircase with legs stretched out, ready to catch a victim not paying attention.

As you made your way down the steps to the mostly open first row, you couldn’t help but notice eyes on you. Instantly you felt self-conscious, thinking perhaps you had something on your face or coffee down your blouse. You took your seat and the eyes drifted away, back to their phones or conversations with the people they were sitting with.

They thought I was the teacher. That’s it, I’m changing at the office from now on.

You dug out a notebook and pen. Blue ink, not black of course. We all have our habits. You scribbled “History Beyond the Walls” on the front cover of the notebook. You picked the course randomly as you only needed a 200 level history class to complete the requirement for your degree.

The door in the back closed with a loud bang. A muttered sorry was heard and you, much like everyone else, turned around to see what caused the disturbance.

Whoa. Steve’s in this class.

You silently prayed that he’d take the seat next to you. Just for the camaraderie of adults going back to school, nothing more. Right? You continued to watch him descend the staircase hoping he’d see you. You subtly move your eyes to his left hand to check for a ring since you didn’t do so earlier. It’s naked which makes you smile. I suppose he could have a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend.

Shaking your head slightly to get out of your own mind, you go back to the intense eye contact that pays off as Steve sees you. His face is a mix of surprise and confusion. A small smile graces his face but it quickly fades. His eyes crinkle and small lines appear on his forehead. Head tilting to the side you hear a muttered “Y/N?” You give him a slight wave as he walks completely past you, setting his bag on the desk at the front of the classroom. Now it’s your turn to be confused.

Steve turns around and looks at you briefly before scanning the rest of the room.

“I’m Professor Rogers. Welcome to History Beyond the Walls.”

Well, shit.

Tagging: @thefanficfaerie @humandasaster @violetadefebrero @estillion14 @xxloki81xx @lookwhatyoumademequeue @thefandomzoneisdangerous @tanelle83 @symonlyjen5 @niaese @lilypalmer1987 @unlcvings @linkingdolans @imissyoualittlemoreeveryday @allaboutthebooz @joannie95 @chita0027

#College AU #professor!steve rogers #Steve Rogers x reader #Steve Rogers #Marvel AU #Back to School #University #College Trope #Steve Rogers x you #Steve Rogers x Y/N #Steve x you

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kreuzdrache · 4 years

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LONG RANT/REVIEW ABOUT TERRARIA 1.4

Long post ahead lol

I beat finally beat Moon Lord a few days ago on Master Mode, so I figured I can finally drop some thoughts about the update as a whole.

For the most part: I love it!

Like, previously mentioned, I enjoyed the new content added to the game. Admittedly I did not use a lot of the new items, due to them being outclassed by the time I did found them, but they were still nice to have.

The two new bosses: Queen Slime and Empress of Light were also a welcomed addition, and finally makes the hollowed biome feel more complete. Queen Slime was a bit more chaotic than I would have liked, but it was not a big deal breaker. Empress of Light on the other hand was perfect for the most part! Her attacks easy to see and easy to understand, as well as being a pretty spectacle to behold. Might take a few times to understand her patterns, but her summoning item spawns fairly commonly in the hollowed biome in the outer 2/3rds of the world, so you will have plenty of chances to practice against her without spending too much time and resources.(Unlike Moon Lord............) She is definitely my new favorite boss(and Terrarian waifu...).

The new music themes added were also great. They even included the option for the Party Girl NPC to switch out the Terraria soundtrack with the Terraria Otherworld soundtrack after you go talk to her in a world generated with the seed “05162020 “. These tracks are also very good! Although, Otherworld’s Night theme does feel a bit out of place with terraria:

youtube

Seriously, this is terrifying! I thought I was playing a crafty sandbox game, not survival horror! Then again, Terraria does have the Blood Moon enemies, the entirety of the Crimson biome, and Wall of Flesh; so perhaps it is not all out of place.

Little things like the bestiary, the updated backgrounds and trees and flowers swaying may not be be needed, but they are nice and help enrich the experience of the game. I really like reading through the bestiary just to see why the descriptions are for some of the enemies. I especially love how the backgrounds show little details, like shooting stars in the sky, an Eye of Cthulhu floating in the mountains, birds flying in formation, clouds forming various shapes, and even a large meteorite falling in the sky.

Pylons...I like them, but I do have issues. They do cut down having to travel across the map as well cheap and easy to set up. All these do come with drawback though, compared to to making a more traditional network of teleporters. You cannot use them during some events, like invasions or lunar events(This is a big one.) If your housing npcs powering the pylon dies, then pylon doesn’t work, until you replace them or the died ones move back in. BIOME SPREAD CAN AND WILL MESS UP YOUR NETWORK. Whether it be through displacing your npcs or because biome is different from the placed pylon. You can also only have one of each pylon, so no two cavern pylons or ocean pylons for fast travel. You can buy a universal pylon though, after filling out the beastiary 100%, which also works for any area and does not require npcs near it, so that’s useful.

NPC Happiness, I was kinda disappointed. On one hand, I like that they are not super demanding: Just pair them up with npc they like and place them in biome they like and they become happy and lower prices of their services. On the other, I was kinda expecting more challenge: Like, the nurse npc greatly prefers crystal furniture, or the Witch Doctor npc wants his house built with Rich Mahogany instead of normal wood, as ideas. But again, this probably for the better, cause it makes things much more easier to work with.

Luck. OOH BOY, I do not get the inclusion of luck. Yes, I know they got rid of bad luck from the code, but I still think luck is pointless in the game. Luck is a hidden mechanic that is not really explained well at all, apparently affects your loot drops, finding bounded npcs like the Wizard, Stylist, ect, rare spawns like golden critters and Pinky, gaining healing hearts from downed enemies, ect ect. I do not know how accurate the wiki page is but reading it is not exactly instilling me with confidence on how useful the stat really is if you go all in. Like, I would do easy stuff like slapping down biome torches and garden gnomes in my arenas, but I would not bother waiting till lantern nights and making luck potions. By the way, luck potions require pearls, and those are fished from the desert biome and are rare from oysters, especially the pink ones that give you best luck potions are the rarest at around 1/125 oysters. Yes, you have to depend on luck, to gain a temporary buff to make you lucky in game. Silly, I know. Its a lot of effort for a small increase, I just do not think it’s worth it. If the goal was to help players with making better drops rates, why not just make better drop rates for the items, instead of making the player jump through so many hoops??? Or make an accessory or even an armor set that makes drop rates better, or something, I dunno. This mechanic just feels so unnecessarily esoteric, and for little benefit too.

Master Mode: I already mentioned in previous posts, but I disliked it. Greatly. I love Terraria, but it is tedious game. Master Mode cranks up that tedium by a lot, due to higher spawn rates enemies, higher damage from enemies, losing all your carried money on death(But thats not that big of deal, especially when you get the piggy bank), and more enemies have more hp. It is just not fun to deal with. Especially when doing lunar events, those are especially hellish in Master Mode.

Journey Mode: I do not get it. “Its creative mode with extra steps” as said by a youtuber is the perfect explanation. Why make the player go through all the trouble to unlock infinite copies of items by making them play through the game again? Honestly, if I knew how much I was going to dislike Master Mode, I would have skipped that and made Journey Mode character and world instead. I will most likely still play through journey, but having to go through all the same game to unlock infinite copies of items is still going to be tedious, even with god mode on.

That is my big issue with Terraria 1.4, nothing really seems to address the tedium issue. I am not asking for all good loot to get handed to me on the first kill a mob, but would it really affect the game negatively if stuff like biome keys, rod of discord, or even silly things like the jellyfish necklace were a little bit more reasonable to farm for? Perhaps make the whole lunar event a little less tedious, by cutting down the required amount of kills before you can turn off the pillars’ shields? And/or give us more fragments so we can craft more Sigils if we fail the event and just want to farm Moon Lord? Did Revear Shark really needed to get nerfed? Were explosives for harvesting meteorite too good? I dunno.

Despite my negativity, I am still actually largely positive to the game and I would still recommend it, either if you have not played the game in while or if you have yet to play the game even. Its on sale on steam right now for 5 USD or 10 USD through GOG. Even if you do miss out on the sale, it is still VERY worth the 10 dollar price. Also the soundtrack is still rocking.

#long #long post #rants #terraria: journey's end #terraria #terraria 1.4

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dontbesoevil · 5 years

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So you want to improve your French and like to learn about things?

Good news for you, French Youtube has a very large number of really good channels of what we call “vulgarisation” (popularisation in English, but it isn’t used as much as the French word really).

I’ll divide them in broad categories and there are more.

Science:

So you like medicine, but also History? Well I have the perfect channel for you. Asclépios is a real life doctor who also likes to do videos about the history of medicine. You can start by this video on the Radium girls for example. Note that most, but not all of his videos have French subs.

There was a channel called “La statistique expliquée à mon chat”, but following disagreement (like big ones) between the illustrator/animator and the statistician doing them it stopped producing content. The statistician, one of the few Belgians on this list, started his own channel. Some of the old videos have been reuploaded and then he also produces other videos which obviously don’t look as good because he is no artist, but still interesting videos about statistics applied to every day situations and the world around us on Chat sceptique.

One of the big French Youtube channel is Dirty Biology. He does, as the title says, mainly biology-related stuff (he did study it and started and stopped a phD in it). His videos are really well-done and thought provoking and I cannot recommend them enough. The videos used to be 5 to 10 min, now it’s more 10 to 20 minutes. He did a recent video in Svalbard about climate change, but also a video about scientific publishing, or the fact that we all have royal blood. Seriously watch it. Most if not all videos have subs in French and Spanish. Some have subs in English, but it’s a hit and miss.

Asking any French person about their favourite science show as a kid and they will answer C’est pas socier. The US have Bill Nye, we have Fred et Jamy. Fred decided with a team a couple of years ago to start a website (with the associated YT channel) to do an updated version of C’est pas sorcier called l’Esprit Sorcier. You can show this to your kids, show this in class. It is well-made and interesting, and really made to be easy to understand. Each show lasts for 25 min and has a YT version and a website interactive version (with the videos shorter). I have linked their show on quantum computers for example. There are sadly no subs.

So I talk about it below, but my favourite channel ever is Arte and they produce a lot of very good cultural and documentary-style. But more recently, they have started a Youtube channel with French Youtubers to talk about interesting topics, called Le Vortex. They do it by season and in season 1, they have among other Dirty Biology (see above), Scilabus and Passé Sauvage (see below) and Pause Process. They talked on agriculture and its development from an archaeological, anthropological, and scientific point of view, but also internet from a more scientific point of view, and also transhumanism because why not, you know. I highly recommend checking all of their videos and apart from the live, they almost all have French subs. The second season has been filmed, but hasn’t been posted yet.

So as mentioned above, Scilabus is part of le Vortex, but she also has her own channel. She is French, but lives in Canada, in Québec where she is a researcher. She takes questions you might ask yourself like Why is there so much air in your crisps packet? or Why does cardboard have undulations? or Is marathon that hard? and just answers them. Some videos have subs, not all, but all are interesting.

And the final science channel is Zeste de Science, ZdS is a channel powered by the CNRS (Conseil National de Recherche Scientifique), basically the body that funds scientific research in France. It is quite neat and they have a couple of different series. The main one is videos of around 5 min where they present a topic like how to model crowds or how to make a little thing of plastic dance disco. It’s entirely based on research produced by CNRS researchers, but in an easy to understand format. They have recently started a series where they present current research projects as if they were action films and it’s very funny. The videos have subs, but not all of them.

History:

French Youtube has a lot of history channel, the biggest of which is Nota Bene. He does a lot of videos with a preference for stories on the WW, medieval kings and leaders around the world and their stupid or epic deaths, but also more recently partnerships with French regions to promote French heritage. He has a lot of videos and several series you can start by (like recently a series on the historical inspirations in Game of Thrones). Just go and have a look to what interests you, there is a lot. Some have subs in several languages, some only in French, it depends. He has also done a series with Arte (keur keur, i love them) on history and video games which I highly recommend. The series is also available in German and with English, Polish, and Spanish subs because Arte. His wife and him have organised a summer festival with Youtubers (both those doing history, and others doing completely different topics) to come and do presentations about historical topics. They are all filmed and posted on his bonus channel. Note that they don’t have subs and the quality differs with some being really good and some I stopped after a few minutes.

Do you like Goodnight stories for Rebel Girls? Well AudeGG a French comedian has a channel where she presents the life of famous women past and present in Virago. The videos are 2-3 minutes long generally and from all around the globe. You can start by the first one on famous French revolutionary Olympe de Gouges. (She has also recently done a partnership with the French tv archives on the history important laws for the rights of women that is also super interesting.) They all have French subs.

Another one of the big History channel is C’est une autre histoire. Manon started her videos when she was still a phD student, she is now Doctor in History (contemporary and ancient, she looked at the representation of Athena in the 19th century if I remember correctly, super interesting stuff). She has videos where she talks about a mythological character and how we represent them (les relookings mythologiques), where she takes a painting and explains what it represents in mythology (or the Bible for a few of them) so that when you see three ladies with an apple each, you know it’s the Three Graces (Tu vois le tableau), where she visits cities and presents nice less known places (Les villes aux détails most of them with Eng subs as well / inspired by Axolot, see below). She recently started short animated videos. Most of her videos have subs in French and in other languages. She also did a vlog during her last year of phD so if you’re thinking of doing a phD, that’s a good series to watch where she talks about the process and all.

We move to the other side of the Atlantic to visit our cousins, the Québecois with history lecturer, Laurent Turcot and his L’Histoire nous le dira. There are lot of videos about European medieval history as well as more modern Canadian and Quebec history. It’s really interesting. There are also a few videos about sex and gender throughout history (the most recent ones were on witches and vaginal art e.g.). He also has a series of videos on the French Revolution (with subs in Portuguese because why not. Sadly no French subs ). In terms of subs, it varies, some have them, some don’t.

To present the next one, I have to plug another one first. This is the Youtube channel for a tv show by the best tv broadcaster in the world (no I do not take criticisms), Arte. Arte is a French-German public broadcaster that has the best programmes and among those, a show that has made a lot of people including myself want to study politics and international relations, Le Dessous des Cartes. The show are only 12 min long and will present a country or an issue using a map. There are only two shows available on the channel at the moment, but type any geopolitical topic or country or area + Le dessous des cartes and you’ll find a show uploaded on Youtube (like “arctique + dessous des cartes” or “religion + dessous des cartes” or “chine + dessous des cartes”). This is a must see.

Anyway so inspired by this, the small channel, L’Histoire par les cartes was created and it does what it says. There are not a lot of videos, they don’t have subs, they are 5-10 min long, but if you’re like me and enjoy a good map, this is neat little channel.

See Le Vortex above, highly recommend, they have both history and science videos.

I mentioned Passé Sauvage above because she was part of Le Vortex, but she also has a channel where she talks about archaeology (her degrees are in it), anthropology, and history. Her videos are of differing quality technically, but the content is always really interesting. For example, that one on Is democracy the best system? She is developing a new project for 2020 called Odyssée sauvage which I’m really excited about and in which she will travel to Greece to compare archaeological vestiges to Greek mythology. Some vids have subs, the majority don’t sadly.

Social Sciences/Humanities:

Manon Bril (from C’est une autre histoire, see above) has a channel with her former university where she presents, one video per month, the conclusion of a peer-reviewed journal articles in social sciences and humanities in an easy to digest format. It’s more serious than some of the others, but really interesting. It’s on Mondes Sociaux.

Do you like linguistics? I love linguistics personally and this channel is the best. It’s called Linguisticae and Monté explains topics as diverse as what was the first language spoken on Earth, why do we say maman and papa in every language, or why the Académie Française is bad. The videos go from 5 min (the mum/dad one), to 20 min (the first language on earth), to 1h30 for the one l’Académie Française). He also did a really good 50 min documentary on the history and the language of Esperanto which I highly recommend (I linked the part 1 because the doc cut in parts as subs in several languages (except English), but there is also a 50 min version, but it’s only available with subs in Esperanto). Or two long videos on Tolkien’s elf languages and GoT’s languages. He has a lot of videos so I’d advise going through and see what interests you.

That one is about economics because we think we know, but we don’t. In Stupid Economics, they take topics that are in the news and explain how the economics behind it works. They recently did a video on the fine the EU gave to Google and even had a follow-up with someone from the Commission to answer people’s questions. They have videos on the economy of attention, Bitcoin, or CETA. The length varies from 3 to 15 min depending on the type of videos. They are all very well-explained and relevant to the world around us. They tend to have subs, but it depends. The older videos have subs, it depends.

Art/Music:

That first channel is more a “check those two videos” because that’s the only thing posted on this channel, but Louvre Ravioli has posted two interesting videos, each on one painting with detailed explanations on what is represented.

NART is channel on art (chocking I know) where she has several series of videos. The first one is called “3 coups de pinceaux” in which she presents a painter in around 4 min so that you know about their style, story and all and you can recognise them. At the end of each episode she does a quiz where you have to recognise which of the four paintings is by the painter of the day. The latest one was on Schiele for exemple. She has a lot of videos on Art + something. Like Art and Manga or is make-up art. She also has a few videos presenting art exhibitions. She studied contemporary art and started her channel by a 3-part series on contemporary art for those of us who need an explanation which I remember finding really interesting. Some vids have subs (even sometimes Eng subs, but not French), but not all.

There are a few music channels on French vulgarisateurs side. You can find them here on the Mediapason channel. The only one I follow is the very neat channel called Scherzando which talks about medieval music. But also how it still is relevant today. Like the Beatles and the Renaissance or how Georges Brassens was maybe a troubadour. The content of the channel is diverse and it’s all very interesting! Some videos have subs, but not all.

Other:

One of the most famous French Youtuber of that category (although he does other things) is Axolot. Patrick Baud loves the strange and the weird. He has series on people or stories that have a strange atmosphere surrounding them for 6-10 min. He has one of the best voices around. Seriously, you will want to listen to it for hours. He also has a series called “étranges escales” where he goes to a city and shows you a different side to it and other places to visit (15-20 min). He published recently a really interesting video on people who “hunt” for planets and how we discover(ed) exoplanets and it’s just so good, highly recommend (30 min).

That isn’t so much about explaining stuff, but I feel like I should still mention it. Le J-Terre is a monthly news live show and debate about climate issues. It is a group effort by the whole French-speaking European community (so French peeps, but also Swiss and Belgian) to really talk about climate change. There are no subs, but it is really interesting. If those topics interest you, everyone involved in this has their channel plugged so you can find them and their all really interesting (Partager, c’est sympa did a series of videos at the COP24 that I highly recommend with French and English subs).

One of the participants to the J-Terre is Professeur Feuillage, made by married couple Mathieu Duméry (a journalist) and Lénie Cherino (a comedian) where they play a professor and his assistant and present (with a lock of dick jokes, innuendoes, and dildos so careful who you share it with) issues related to climate change like Internet pollution, deforestation, or cute things that are actually destroying the environment. Lénie is actually going to take a bigger part in the channel and it will change a bit, but it’s the very beginning of that, so not sure what it’ll look like. The older videos have subs, not the newest ones sadly.

That one isn’t really popularisation per se, but I want to include it here. Vivre Avec is Margot’s channel where they talk about their life with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Recently it has turned a bit more to their plants and their rabbits, but the core of the channel is centred around disability. What is EDS?, what are certain things that people say that really they shouldn’t (the latest video is about people being like “Your life is horrible, it really puts things in perspective” :////). They are videos about symptoms, mobility aids, etc. as well as talking to medicine and nursing students about how to treat patients. All of their videos have French subs.

There are obviously more channels, but those are the ones I follow. If you check the “Channels” tab of most of them, they all have other great recommendations if that isn’t enough for you. Please feel free to add more if you want and come and talk to me about them because I love channels where I can learn stuff.

#langblr #french #français #i'm particularly searching for such channels in swedish and german #frenchblr #please come and talk to me #i have to work on my thesis and i have just spent more than 2h doing this #woops #i hope there aren't any typo because i can't be asked to proofread #you: write your thesis me: okay but what if i wrote nearly 3000 words on youtube channels instead

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mariacallous · 4 years

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Hot weather and windy conditions prompted PG&E to shut down power to thousands of residents in the Bay Area. The public safety power shutdowns could affect as many as 53,000 customers in 24 counties. Meanwhile, the California Independent System Operator called for a statewide Flex Alert on Thursday. The alert will run from 3 to 10 p.m. ••• Outage map ••• How to prepare for an outage

Table for two, please: Restaurants in Santa Clara County could finally offer indoor dining to patrons beginning Wednesday. However, the weather was much more suited for enjoying a meal alfresco.

Coronavirus update: California continues to see a decline in the number of deaths from COVID-19. It's one of only a few states where the number of cases is lower now than it was two weeks ago. ••• Virus relief deal unlikely before Election Day ••• Outbreak surges in Milan ••• Barron Trump now "fine" after contracting virus ••• Noted football coach tests positive ••• Still stranded

"Dr. Johnny Bananas": A controversial anti-lockdown declaration and petition took down its online signature list after several false names were discovered on it. Four Stanford University doctors are among the declaration's principal authors and signatories.

Scott Peterson trial: The California Supreme Court has ordered that the case be returned to San Mateo Superior Court after a juror in the 2004 trial failed to disclose that she had received a restraining order against her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend. Peterson was convicted of murdering his wife, Laci, and their unborn son.

Competing on the airwaves, too: NBC announced that it will air a town hall event with President Donald Trump, which will run at the same time ABC is broadcasting a forum with former Vice President Joe Biden.

Two men were killed and a third was injured after a shooting in East Oakland. The former head of the Coliseum Authority has accepted a plea deal in a criminal case over naming rights for the Oakland stadium. Richmond police have released records about a nonfatal police shooting in 2019 that left one man injured. A San Jose couple's stolen food truck was returned after being found in Merced County. A lemur has gone missing from the San Francisco Zoo. Officials are looking into the possibility of a break-in at the animal's habitat. Roadshow: A Sky Londa resident describes how an accident among some racing cars caused a fire that thankfully was extinguished -- but easily could have been catastrophic. Amy Coney Barrett again sidestepped several questions during Day 3 of her confirmation hearings. The U.S. Postal Service will reverse changes that had slowed mail service across the nation. A hearing Wednesday by a state legislative panel detailed how the California Employment Development Department is making headway with the millions of jobless claims it has had to process so far this year. Apple and Google have taken distinctly different approaches with their 5G phones -- Larry Magid explains what that means to consumers.

Theranos trial: A U.S. District Court judge in San Jose has denied six motions by Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes that sought to have indictments and charges thrown out. A trial is scheduled to begin in March.

It’s like I never left California with the news updates I get every morning (or so)

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tysonrunningfox · 5 years

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Ripped: Part 19

Remember how much has happened in this AU? So much has happened. Things just keep happening.

Ao3

Eretson works like someone who knows the goalposts will be shifted by the time that he gets there, but he sees it as a challenge, rather than a guarantee of failure. Maybe his ceaseless, determined flipping through pages and pictures and notes in an untidy, almost childish scrawl would be reassuring if Astrid weren’t still half cuffed to an office chair.

She knows her rights. She hasn’t been arrested officially, just taken in for questioning under a strong and understandable suspicion, and she could demand that he uncuff her or actually arrest her, but then she’d have to decide what to do next.

Her eyes flick to the evidence bag in the middle of Eretson’s cluttered desk, a halo of medical records strewn around it, all of them read twice. The bullet looks harmless now, mushroomed and useless, a relic crusted streaked with long dried blood and scratched by the tools that removed it from the site of its discovery.

Stable.

When they left the hospital, Snotlout was stable, and Hiccup was anything but. Stable still isn’t an answer, it’s not the black and white yes or no that he wanted. She didn’t know what to do but tell him the truth, tethered to the chair, back cramping from twisting to keep her hand on his shoulder as he stared sheathed daggers at the wall.

When her uncle died, it wasn’t sudden. It was months and months of doctors and fighting and planning for the impossible, and she remembers feeling like something was wrong with her when relief hit quicker than grief did. Hiccup took no time at all to shift into the stunned limbo that precedes bad news, like it was a practiced position, a place he was comfortable living until he remembered its inherent timeline.

If she complained about the cuffs now, she could get back to the hospital and be there, if nothing else. Except she doesn’t know if Hiccup is still there or if there’s even a reason to still be there, since her phone is back on the kitchen counter at her apartment. The apartment she was so stubborn to leave until she had to, only to be discovered by Eretson, her sweatshirt a finger in a dam breach that was letting boats through.

If he uncuffed her, she’d have to go back there and face the consequences of clinging to her sunk cost.

Consequences exist even when you don’t face them, of course, but she’d like to think the three in the morning buffer against them exists for more than just a private tour that never should have led to all of this.

“Have you found anything?” She asks when the clock on the wall strikes three thirty, her voice coming out tired even though she doesn’t think she could sleep when she can’t blink without seeing Hiccup’s panicked face or the wall outside her building’s courtyard splattered with blood.

“Huh?” Eretson looks up with bleary eyes, startled like he forgot she was there.

“Have you found anything?” She can’t blame him for bringing her here, given the circumstances, but the brutal silence is absolutely his doing. “Any leads? Did the doctors give you anything?”

He looks at her for a long, exhausted moment, waffling over treating her as a suspect or something else.

“You know, I’d be a pretty shitty murderer if I paused my grand escape to try and stop the bleeding.” It’s the last thing she should say and the only thing she can. Her voice sounds metallic like it did in a hospital hallway, telling Hiccup that for a second, ‘Snotlout Jorgenson’ was a name that would be whispered late at night on the corner by someone in a vintage Tom Brady jersey to set the scene.

“It’s a nine millimeter,” Eretson picks up the evidence bag and stares at the bullet, “police standard issue, but that doesn’t mean anything because anyone could buy a box of the same at any Walmart in this bloody city.”

“So it doesn’t mean anything?” She sighs, slumping down in the uncomfortable chair and trying and failing to find a new part of her butt to sit on. “We spent two hours at the hospital waiting for them to dig it out of his shoulder and it doesn’t mean anything?”

“The doctor said the angle of the first shot, the one with the exit wound, indicated he was shot by someone taller than him.” Eretson looks levelly at her for a second and she waits for him to present his case again, linking the truth into a tangled web of a cage around her, but then he shrugs. “So it could have been anybody.”

Astrid snorts, too exhausted to stop herself, and Eretson relaxes ever so slightly, leaning forward in his chair to take his suit jacket off and pushing up his sleeves.

“I’ve spent the last twenty four hours sifting through every connection you have to this case,” he folds his hands on the desk and sighs. She doesn’t doubt it, from the circles under his eyes and the fact he’s only broken concentration to refill his coffee mug. “You’re halfway through your Masters in criminology at Berk University, I could use a second set of eyes.”

“I’m a suspect,” she says automatically, looking between the cuff on her wrist and the pile of papers on the desk that represent possibly the only way she could actually help Hiccup right now.

“My top suspect, in fact, until last night,” he stands up and stretches his arms over his head, “coffee?”

“What changed? I’m still connected to the other three m—events.” She barely stops herself from calling it a murder, but the damage is done anyway, and it feels like Hiccup must have heard her from across town, giving him the closure he wanted with the heaviest consequences attached.

“Like you said, you’d be a pretty shit murderer if you stopped to save your victim’s life.” He picks up his coffee mug and hints at another almost smile, “plus, anyone who disembowels indiscriminately in alleyways wouldn’t stop to help someone as annoying as Jorgenson. Do you not drink coffee?”

“Yes, I mean, I do,” she nods, shocked but grateful, and on the way to the door he pauses, flicking a finger against the chain on her handcuffs. The cuff around the arm of the chair falls open, like it wasn’t ever fully clicked into place and her eyes widen. “You were testing me.”

“Cream or sugar?”

“If I’d done it, I would have tried to get away,” she takes the key that he hands her and unlocks the cuff on her wrist, rubbing the sore line from where she stretched against it in the hospital.

“Black then.” He leaves the office and she scoots her chair forward, starting her sort at the outside of his piles and working in.

The coffee is burned, but it’s enough to keep her awake as she updates herself on the parts of the case she isn’t familiar with. There are witness accounts, most of them Grimborn enthusiasts from Hiccup’s doomed tour, drawing parallels that half make sense. There are notes on knives and how they cut and doodles of how victims were dragged to where they were found. There’s screenshots of the footage of her and Hiccup and a Google Maps estimate of how long it takes to walk between locations on various paths.

It’s the most complete file Astrid has ever encountered, the criminology story problem that doesn’t exist in which a case begs for a one variable solution.

“It’s a set up.” It’s seven thirty in the morning when she finally gets there, startled enough out of her study by the first few diligent officers settling at their desks to look up. “It’s too thorough.”

“Maybe I’m just good at my job, Miss Hofferson,” Eretson’s eyes don’t stray from his most recent print out, but the straight-faced tough-guy routine doesn’t work on her exhaustion frayed nerves.

“The witness accounts all agree, there’s not one Grimborn-ologist in here claiming a double event with a murder across the city or trying to call out a politician.”

“To be fair, one thought it was aliens,” he puts down what he’s reading.

“There’s always someone who says aliens,” she rolls her eyes, sliding that particular account towards him, “that was the body found behind the frozen yogurt shop. It probably has a rooftop refrigerator unit, the spaceship sound they claimed they heard could be someone walking on sheet metal.”

“Both you and Hiccup were there,” Eretson narrows his eyes and slowly slides a stack of papers towards her, “can you make any sense of this?”

It’s a sheet detailing health insurance payouts related to Snotlout’s benefits. Yearly physicals, the occasional mental health visit relating to occupational concerns, a couple of internal medicine visits pertaining to something gastro-intestinal. All in all typical, except for the prosthetics fittings.

Every visit is listed in chronological order and it appears that Eretson has some sort of provisional access to the system, because the patient in each line is only identified as ‘Male: 25’.

“Yeah,” she sets the stack down and waits for Eretson to reveal what he knows, Hiccup’s casual kindness to someone now fossilized in Berkian history on the front of her mind.

“I didn’t know I was risking a workplace sensitivity lecture every time I said Jorgenson didn’t have a leg to stand on,” Eretson jokes, still testing, still refusing to commit to anything in case he’s wrong and Astrid sees for a moment what she’s not allowed to see.

She sees that the well-documented case is still open and unsolved because Eretson refuses to ask for clarification, let alone help.

“It’s not him,” she sets the stack down, “it’s Hiccup. He has a prosthetic leg, he’s obviously on Snotlout’s insurance.”

“Do you know the second victim?” Eretson’s trust wavers briefly as he shoves a picture in front of Astrid. Dave, who Hiccup introduced her to when one murder seemed impossible, in an army uniform, younger and better groomed.

She’s said too much to Eretson already, but she’s also learned more than she ever trying to stay out of it, like that was ever possible.

“Hiccup introduced us once,” she makes her move, hoping it’s not a mistake, “he knew him from volunteering at Gobber’s shelter. At some point he gave Dave an old prosthetic that he wasn’t using.”

“He didn’t mention that.” He tucks the picture of Dave back into his folder, “neither did you when I interviewed you at the crime scene.”

“Well, it would have made him look pretty guilty.” She shrugs, “especially after he stumbled upon two bodies in a row with word of mouth as his only alibi.”

“It would have, wouldn’t it?” Eretson looks at the clock and rubs his red eyes before standing. “You’ve given me lots to think about. Can I give you a ride home?”

“Home?” She thinks of the stain on the pavement by the courtyard wall and shakes her head, “I can stay here and help more, at least until we hear back from the hospital.”

“Grisly will be in soon, I think it’s in the best interest of my job if he doesn’t know that I let my top suspect see the case file.” He looks sympathetic anyway, more human for the night spent together.

“Right,” she nods, “makes sense.”

“Probably best if we leave through the back,” he double checks the hallway before waving her forward and herding her a little too fast to a door that opens into an alley that makes her head spin. An alley that looks like tours with Hiccup and blood and old pictures that don’t capture how it feels to see someone splayed out and taken apart.

Eretson doesn’t say anything when she gets in the front seat of his unmarked car and her eyes burn with the morning sun even through the window. Hours of reading without blinking enough in a vain attempt at not seeing what’s etched on the inside of her eyelids left them dry and itchy, and they seem to dry out more as the car approaches her building.

Her building that’s felt more like a bivouac than a home, exposed and impermanent in blunt ways that she pushed back at out of habit more than decision.

When the car stops and she looks up at the sound-deadened window of Elizabeth Smith’s apartment, her hand freezes on the handle.

“Miss Hofferson?” Eretson is all manners again and it’s so normal that it throws everything into sharp relief.

Ten feet away, she saw Snotlout almost die the night before. She’s used to handcuffs and polite police voices and the wrong end of murder accusations and suddenly the level head she prides herself on feels like a lead helmet, holding her down and drowning her in this chaos. If she gets out of the car right now like everything is normal and walks up into her apartment like it’s home, it would be inhaling brackish ooze and accepting her fate.

“Can you drive me to Ruffnut’s?” She re-buckles her seatbelt and starts giving him directions before he can ask about her change of heart.

She hasn’t showed up at someone’s house without texting first since elementary school, but she doesn’t hesitate to knock, pivoting again on a fallback point. Ruffnut was the first person she called when all of this started and maybe if she’d listened then, things would be different now.

But she wouldn’t have gotten to know Hiccup, and she feels awful for thinking it so soon after hearing those echoed gunshots and seeing Snotlout under the streetlight.

“Astrid?” Ruffnut opens the door in her pajamas, frowning slightly, “did you text?”

“No,” her voice shakes, just barely, but it’s enough for her friend to notice, “Eretson just dropped me off—”

“Is he still here?” She asks, too interested, and Astrid scowls, shouldering past her into her place.

“Is Tuff here?”

“What’s wrong?” Ruff shuts the door and follows her as she knocks on Tuffnut’s bedroom door.

“I’m mad at you, I’m here to see Tuff.”

“You’re mad at me?”

“Yes,” Astrid smacks Tuffnut’s door a couple more times until she hears signs of life inside, “Snotlout is actually a pretty good guy, I think. Or close to it. And you couldn’t take a murder investigation seriously enough to keep you from hitting on Eretson in front of him, let alone a relationship.”

“Giving me whiplash,” Ruffnut is genuinely concerned as she leans on the wall, “are you ok? What’s going on?”

“I thought I heard Astrid’s distinctively brutal knock at my door,” Tuffnut opens the door and places his hands on her shoulders before inhaling deeply. “You look like shit, what happened?”

“You don’t know.” She sighs, the weight of telling the story almost as heavy as the idea of living in it. She gains a new appreciation for the fact that Hiccup tells Viggo Grimborn’s story nightly, because the last few weeks must have felt like penance for something he didn’t do. Something horrible he’s been tied to for no reason.

“I don’t know anything,” Tuffnut grabs her arm and steers her towards their couch before sitting next to her, “and Ruffnut knows even less.”

“Not true, I know I was hanging out with Hiccup yesterday and he got some call and freaked out mumbling something about the hospital, but I definitely didn’t grab his ass that hard so—”

“This is exactly what I’m talking about!” Astrid snaps, dry eyes suddenly wet as Tuffnut slings his arm over her shoulders.

“I was just kidding with him, Astrid, I know you like him, I wouldn’t—”

“You can’t take anything seriously, it’s all about how you can shock someone or—Snotlout was over at my place last night, I think he was worried I was scared or something,” her voice dips and she stares at her lap, “and I guess I should have been, because he got shot right outside.”

“Is he ok?” Ruffnut blanches and Astrid feels like she’s letting Hiccup down all over again when she shrugs.

“He wasn’t yesterday.”

Ruffnut starts texting, all traces of humor gone from her expression as Tuff gets the rest of the story, pausing Astrid at the crime scene to suggest that she take a shower. He listens through the bathroom doorway as she scrubs under her fingernails, trying to be as vague as possible about what happened with Eretson. Tuffnut would say things he shouldn’t, even if it does seem like Eretson is coming around.

To what, she’s not sure, but she can’t think about that anymore today, not without news.

Astrid’s just changing into the band tee-shirt Tuffnut insisted she borrow, as she’d earned it by telling Ruffnut off, when Ruff bursts into the room, phone outstretched.

“It’s Hiccup.”

“Hello?” Astrid mouths ‘thanks’ as Ruffnut sits on her brother’s bed, curled up and holding her knees.

“Hi, Astrid,” Hiccup sounds impossibly more tired than she feels and it makes her chest ache, worried and off center. “How’s it going?”

“That depends,” she sits down next to Ruffnut, “how’s it going over there?”

“He’s out of surgery, in the ICU, we’re just waiting for him to wake up now.”

“That’s great,” she nods, accepting Ruffnut’s head leaning on her shoulder, too relieved to stay mad.

“I tried to call you but—”

“Yeah, I don’t have my phone.”

“I thought you might have said that, but um, last night was…kind of a blur,” he leaves room for a laugh that doesn’t come, “did Eretson take it?”

“No, nothing like that.” It’s a new euphemism for ‘legally, it’s not any worse,’ and she hates coming up with those. “I can come down there and wait with you.”

“They’re only letting one visitor in the room right now, but I’ll keep you posted.” He sighs, “you sound tired.”

“So do you.” That gets a breathy, exhausted laugh she feels in her chest and Hiccup says something about a doctor heading his way before hanging up. “He said he’d keep us in the loop.”

“He told me Snotlout hasn’t woken up yet.” Ruffnut is unusually somber and Astrid nods. “Was he—I mean, did I piss him off?”

“You pissed me off,” she sighs, “did you know he got suspended because he wouldn’t speak up as a witness and complicate the case?”

“That’s stupid,” Ruff wipes her face but her guilty expression doesn’t budge, “he should have just lied.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t.”

Astrid doesn’t expect to be able to sleep, but the long night catches up to her almost as soon as she hits the twins’ couch. She sleeps past hospital visiting hours but is glad to wake up to a text that Snotlout woke up alright and the doctors think that the next day they should be able to move him to a more private room. She gets the feeling Hiccup isn’t going home, but doesn’t know what to say about it, especially from someone else’s phone. After all their dates but one became public domain on account of murder, it seems unnecessarily rude for this urge to comfort him to be between anyone but them.

So when he calls Ruffnut again the next morning, almost sheepishly asking if someone could bring him a phone charger and a toothbrush, Astrid gets a ride from Tuffnut. There’s a strange blast of déjà vu entering the hospital without handcuffs and seeing Hiccup in a corner chair in the waiting room, pale but livelier than he was sitting next to her and shaking two nights ago.

“Hey,” he stands up and the extra little hop on his right leg makes her think back to Eretson’s office and all the things she can’t say right now. “I walked down so that you wouldn’t have to sign in. Thanks, Sharon!” He waves at a nurse behind a nearby station and points with his shoulder down the hallway.

“Is she taking a shift?” The nurse raises a maternal eyebrow and Hiccup shakes his head.

“Just bringing me supplies, I told you I’m here for the long haul.”

“I don’t think he’d mind a break from you!” Nurse Sharon teases and Hiccup waves her off.

“How’s he doing?” Astrid asks, reaching for Hiccup’s hand and tugging lightly so that he’ll look at her.

He’s exhausted, face waxy and jawline dusted with more stubble than she’s seen him with. It makes him look younger instead of older, like he’s dealing with too much to remember to shave. His eyes are determined though, even if his expression is cautious, taut with hope he doesn’t want to have.

“He’s awake,” he shrugs, squeezing her fingers and pausing outside a door, “the stitches are holding, and his vitals look good. Mostly the doctors are worried about mental changes, since his heart stopped in the ambulance and he’d lost a lot of blood so they don’t know how long his brain went without oxygen. Memory loss or personality change or…”

“Hey,” she tilts his chin up with the toothbrush in the hand not holding his, “let’s just go in, ok?”

“Sure,” he nods, self-convincing, before opening the door.

Snotlout is propped halfway seated in the hospital bed, tubes from his arms connected to a beeping machine at his side. She remembers being twenty in her uncle’s hospital room, watching similar machines stop beeping, but when she glances back at Snotlout, the comparison is shattered. His shoulders are bandaged, and his face is bleary, but he’s flipping her off with a disconcertingly gloating grin.

“Hey Astrid, Pats are winning.”

Personality change seems an unlikely symptom.

“Put your arm down,” Hiccup snaps, rushing to Snotlout’s bedside and ignoring when the middle finger is turned on him, “someone just tried to shoot it off.”

“It’s not football season,” Astrid tries not to feel awkward about how comfortable it feels to sit on the small couch next to the bed and look up at the TV. The relief is like a drug, an internal release as strong as whatever’s obviously dripping into Snotlout’s arm through one of those tubes. “Is this a rerun? You’re watching a rerun football game, really?”

“My boys are bringing it home, again,” he laughs then glares at Hiccup, “stop reading the papers, the doctors read the papers.”

“This says your cholesterol is up from your last check up, I’m going to ask a nurse about it.”

“Dude, I just got shot.”

“With a butter bullet?” Hiccup snorts, shaking his head and hanging the chart reluctantly back on the foot of Snotlout’s bed.

“No, with an actual bullet from a fucking gun, so could you please sit down next to your hot girlfriend and shut up for a second?” He winks at Astrid with both eyes as he compliments her and she remembers the reason for her visit.

“I brought the charger,” she takes it out of her pocket, but Hiccup isn’t paying attention as he’s staring Snotlout down with his best stern nurse impression.

“The doctors said mental changes could be anger issues—”

“Fuck off.”

“I don’t think he’s having any issue being angry,” she tries to joke, but it falls flat with Hiccup’s falling expression.

“Or memory loss, and you don’t remember who shot you.”

“Yeah, I was pretty busy being shot, I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself.” Snotlout’s heart monitor beeps slightly faster and Hiccup panics, rushing over to pet his head.

“You have to keep your blood pressure down—”

“Hiccup,” Astrid stands up and grabs his shoulder, attempting to pull him back towards the couch with her, but he shrugs her off.

“The stitches in your artery aren’t healed and it could burst—”

“Well it’ll burst all over your face because you won’t get out of mine!” He snaps, and the door cracks open enough for a nurse to peek her head in.

“Everything ok?”

“I don’t know, Hiccup, is everything ok?” Snotlout looks pointedly at the couch. Or he tries to and his bleary eyes drift sideways towards the floor.

“We’re fine,” Hiccup sits down, hands folded neatly on his lap, and Astrid sits next to him with a nod.

“Let me know if you need anything,” the nurse gives Hiccup a warning look as she shuts the door and Astrid lets her hand rest on his knee to keep him from jumping back up the second she’s gone.

“Just remember, the blood pressure,” Hiccup mumbles and Snotlout rolls his eyes.

“I know, which is why I’m relaxing,” he points at the TV, “by watching the Pats win, like they always do.”

“It sounds more like you’re gloating to me,” Astrid snorts and Hiccup relaxes in a disjointed, uneven way, like clothes falling halfway off a hanger.

“Maybe I can relax a tiny bit about the personality change.”

Snotlout’s hand curls into a triumphant fist on his lap when a play he had to be expecting goes right and Astrid shakes her head, relaxing back into the couch and dragging Hiccup with her. He’s more than stiff, he’s pulled taut, like invisible wires are attached to every point of him and yanking.

“Have you left since you got here?” She recognizes his jacket from the other night and maybe the shirt underneath it.

“Nah,” he shrugs with none of his usual bounce and Astrid wants to cut the cables holding him so rigid.

“Or slept?”

“Sleep?” He snorts, “who needs sleep?” There’s a frantic tinge to the edge of his smile, but it feels like the first time he’s actually looked at her today when he drops the joke, “just kidding, I got a couple of hours this morning when they moved him to the room with the couch. How about you?”

“More than that,” she shrugs, “not lots. Ruff’s couch isn’t the best.”

“Ruff’s couch?” He turns his shoulders to look at her more fully.

“I haven’t been back to my place either,” she shrugs, and even saying it sounds wrong. It’s Elizabeth Smith’s place and it has been for a hundred years.

“Astrid,” Snotlout says her name like he’s about to ask for too much and she narrows her eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Can you scratch my feet?”

“I’ve got it,” Hiccup jumps up, hopping again on his right foot and stumbling to the foot of the bed.

“No,” Snotlout shakes his head, “I want Astrid to do it.”

“Which foot itches?”

“It’s weird if you do it, dude,” Snotlout squirms, “it’s kind of a sex thing.”

“Then I’m definitely not doing it,” Astrid opens her mouth to add something addressing the fact that she didn’t try and save his life just so that he could be disgusting about it, but Hiccup speaks up first.

“I would say that I’ll call my mom right now, except you know you’re not supposed to raise your blood pressure!”

“Dude,” Snotlout adjusts his seat, eyes clearer than they have been since Astrid arrived, the shock of what Hiccup just said blazing through the painkillers in his system, “I was just teasing Astrid because it’s funny when she gets all red and huffy. You’ve got to calm down.”

“I’m calm,” Hiccup examines his shaking hands and laughs, “ok, maybe I’m not, but—”

“Come here,” Astrid doesn’t mean it like an order, but Hiccup takes it like one, deflating exhausted with the weight of momentary decision off his shoulders. When he sits down next to her, she tries to rub the back of his neck, but it’s so tense she makes about as much headway as she would on the wooden arm of the couch.

“Don’t do that,” he groans, head in his hands, elbows on his knees. “That feels too good, it’ll put me to sleep.”

“Maybe you should sleep,” she rubs a circle into his shoulder with her thumb and ignores the selfish, gratified twist in her stomach when he groans again. She’s felt helpless since the other day in Eretson’s office when the truth twisted circumstance and shoved her in the middle, but this is something she can fix. She can get Hiccup to sleep, she can take some of the stress literally off of his shoulders.

“What if the doctors—”

“I’ll talk to the doctors,” she insists, pushing on his far shoulder and guiding his head into her lap when his resistance runs out. It takes him a minute to accept the position and curl his legs up on the couch, shifting to get comfortable. She brushes his hair off of his forehead and he sighs, resting his hand on her knee and stroking Tuffnut’s borrowed jeans with a slow thumb. “Go to sleep.”

His head feels heavier as he drifts off, mumbling some kind of approval when she starts combing her fingers through his hair. It’s soft and a little overgrown, edges curling slightly above the collar of the jacket she should have suggested he take off before laying down. Boyish where his stubble isn’t, the contrast even more striking on his slack sleeping face.

“You’re like the Hiccup whisperer,” Snotlout says after a few minutes of silence, shifting in bed and wincing more than she’s seen.

“Are you ok?”

“No, I just got fucking shot,” he snorts, “it hurts even through the fun stuff they gave me, but if I so much as flinch, Hiccup has a fit about it.”

“He’s worried about you,” she traces the dark line of his eyebrow and it relaxes at the touch. Snotlout is watching his face, some drug-addled version of fond, and as irritating as the concept of the friend-group was the other night, she feels it now. “I was pretty worried about you too.”

It says something about her tenacity that it took this much for her to stop seeing being alone as a victory, but everyone has their limit.

“His mom’s really hot,” Snotlout sighs, relaxing back into his pillows.

“Huh?”

“Hiccup’s mom? Milf. It pisses him off when I point it out, kind of an inside joke.” He looks back at Hiccup, frowning like he just said something normal for this situation. “When I was moving in, she was trying to convince Hiccup to move back with her. It was like right after his dad died and the room I was moving into was this sad shrine he wouldn’t touch.”

“Oh, that’s…I’m sorry.”

“Our dads hated each other,” his eyes flick bitterly at the door, “which, considering who’s here right now and who’s not, I think we know who is actually a piece of shit. I was just trying to get out of the town I grew up in, because I knew I wanted to be a cop and if I did it there, I’d just be working for my dad and at my uncle’s funeral someone was asking Hiccup about getting a roommate.”

“You guys are so close, I assumed you had to have grown up together.”

“Like I saw him at Christmas and stuff, sometimes, he’s like my second cousin once across or some shit, but he was always doing something nerdy so we didn’t really talk.” He looks at her like he’s asking her to swear on something vital to him and she looks back at Hiccup’s head in her lap, his long eyelashes twitching in his sleep. “I just moved in because I needed a place I could afford, but I couldn’t take all his moping. He used to stare at the front door like he was waiting for his dad to come through it or something, depressing shit. If I didn’t do something, I was going to lose my mind.”

“So you made friends.”

“I tried, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he’s a weirdo.” He smiles affectionately, “I tried taking him to clubs, but he doesn’t even have one left foot, so dancing is a lost cause, just a warning. I made him a tinder account and got him a date with some girl who wanted to go on a geeky historical tour and you know how that ended up.”

“He started doing Grimborn tours.” As complicated as this whole mess is, she still can’t make herself regret it.

“And he started going to class again and generally acting human. Well, his weirdo version of human anyway.” Snotlout sighs, “I’m really glad I didn’t bang his mom, then this really would have been like his dad getting shot all over again.”

“I don’t think you saved him any grief, Snot.”

“Maybe I’ve still got a shot then,” he grins, raising an eyebrow, and Astrid sighs.

“You know when you love someone, and they do or say something so incomprehensibly stupid that you judge yourself for a second? Like there’s that second you think to yourself: ‘I had to choose that one’?”

“I live in that feeling,” Snotlout shakes his head at Hiccup. “Why?”

“Me too,” she looks at Snotlout and admits defeat, “but I think it’s about to get a lot worse with the whole friend-group to consider.”

#ripped #httyd fic #hiccstrid #modern au #serial killer tour guide au #hiccstrid fic #coplout is the love of my life #also eretson though #and tuffnut #and astrid borrowing tuffnut's clothes

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