#there's a lot of layers going into this i think. bit long-winded to explain in tags

[fluffydeoxys]

... just another twisted pair of threads through the Occurant that produces mayhem, violence, and Madness ...

[archiveof22048]

oceans and engines | michael kaiser sfw | fem!reader with she/her pronouns, swearing

he sees footprints on the sand, he smells the salty air of the sea, and he feels the coldness of your hand, who drags him along the bleakness of the beach. even as he closes his eyes, knowing that he trusts you with where you're leading him, he can still hear the huffing of his breath, trying to keep up with your pace, he can still feel the waves crashing around his bare feet, and he can still taste your expensive chapstick on his lips, as cold as they may be.

"open your eyes, mihya."

and so he does.

the sky is still as it was: desolate and devoid of blue, overcast, and sad. the sea is cold, vast, neverending.

immediately, he tenses up, and he thinks maybe he should have listened to you when he peeled off his jacket before you left his car in the parking lot (it's not even his own car, nor his own jacket, but he hasn't the heart to tell you). he's jealous of you, with your hands tucked in the pockets of your jacket, all bundled up in your layers.

then, you scream.

"the fuck was that?" he asks, his voice raised.

"i'm letting go," you say, just a bit louder than his question. you've got this smile on his face that begs for him to kiss you again.

he scoffs. "of what? you don't even have anything to let go of."

"just shout, mihya!"

and so he does.

"FUCK!!!!!!!!"

you laugh. "yes, that's it! just scream!!!"

"goddamnit!" he screams into the sea. "fuck you, dad! fuck my life! agh!" he kicks the sand, but the sand is wet and hard to kick up, so he gets even more frustrated, and he kicks harder. it splatters on the ground like blood.

again, you giggle. "look at you, soccer player. kicking up anything you see."

he rolls his eyes, but he's half-smiling. "you're lucky i left the soccer ball in the car or else i would have kicked that shit in your face."

"but then i would have a broken nose, and i wouldn't be pretty anymore," you quip, pouting.

he marches over to you, as shouting into the sea had migrated him away from where you are standing. he cups your cheeks gently. "whatever. as long as your lip's not busted, or else it'd be pretty hard to kiss you, huh?"

"jeez mihya, you're so clingy today," you tease as he leans into you, burrowing his face into your neck. he claims it's warm, but you can feel the cold touch of his lips right on the base of your neck. all you can do is wrap your arms around him, and you keep your giddiness to yourself by planting your feet in the sand (if you bounce your knees, he'll remind you of how excited you were when he returned your feelings for him).

"teach me something," he mumbles, dodging your tease.

you rub your hand over his back. "what would you like to learn today?"

"i dunno, just anything."

"but that's what you always say!"

"math, then."

you scoff. "i can only teach you so much math! i'm still learning geometry!"

he laughs. "isn't that just triangles and stuff?"

you pull away from his grasp, still holding onto his hand. your fingers are interlaced. "yeah, well... it's hard to explain."

eventually, you decide to review the vocabulary list that you learned in school the past week. you sit down on the sand, taking off your leather bag and pulling out your school notebook, and he sits down next to you, resting his head on your shoulder.

after reciting your fifty words for the week, you close your notebook, and you sling the bag over your shoulder. "well, that's vocabulary for you," you conclude.

"interesting," he says. "now i know what the word 'philosophy' means."

the both of you stand up and dust off the sand from your legs and behinds. he takes it as an opportunity to rub your behind, borderline caressing your ass, and you turn around and smack his hand away.

"mihya!"

"must've been the wind," he jests, giving you his signature half-smirk.

you look at your wristwatch. "ah, mihya. it's five after."

he rolls his eyes. "whatever. he's not going to get back 'til way later, anyways. gonna go gamble whatever money we have left."

you tuck your hands into your pockets, smiling sheepishly up at him. "well, let's at least start walking back to your car in case he does come back earlier than you expect."

...

he puckers his lips.

"give me a kiss before you leave."

rou've got one foot out of the car, ready to be dropped off in front of your house, while he holds onto your left wrist, stopping you from leaving. he looks like he really owns the car he stole: he grips the steering wheel like he's driven the car a million times, and his slouched posture is to show he's not afraid of wondering whether you're going to kiss him or not.

you close your eyes and smile while you lean in.

"i love you, mihya."

"i love you, too."

then, you leave the car and that is the last time michael kaiser sees you before he becomes famous.

...

"she's beautiful, kaiser."

kaiser looks up from his phone.

it's alexis ness, his teammate, who takes a seat next to him on the bench of bastard munchen's locker room. he's being awfully nosy right now, peering over next to kaiser, taking a look at what's on his phone screen.

"my stupid phone from five years ago has the shittiest quality," kaiser dejectedly states. "you can't even see her eyes clearly."

"but you have a new phone just last year," ness points out.

kaiser scoffs, and he starts rubbing his phone screen with the bottom of his shirt, pretending like it'll do something to clear up the photo of you. "yeah, and transferring all these pictures of her fucked up the quality."

ness hums in understanding (he doesn't get it). "well," he begins to pry, "who is she?"

kaiser's smirk that appears on the field, ness notices, is cold and haughty. it is angering, irritating, and would make any opponent of his shudder and scream. it identifies the emperor of the field, and it is an expression that rules over all.

yet, this smile of kaiser's is unlike anything ness has ever seen during his years of knowing him. kaiser's piercing blue eyes immediately soften, and only the corners of his mouth are lifted up in a smile- it's gentle, bittersweet, and humble. ness feels like he's intruding into the depths of kaiser's heart.

"she's my girlfriend."

ness stands up in shock, and he can't help but clutch the back of his head to accentuate his surprise. "you never told me you had a girlfriend, kaiser!"

kaiser can't help but laugh. "you never asked!"

"well, what does she do?" ness asks curiously.

kaiser hums in thought. "hmm. well, when she was in tenth grade she said she wanted to become a writer. dunno if that's changed, though."

it takes a second for ness to process his answer. "you... don't know what she's doing?"

"well, she's probably studying in university right now. can't say for sure what she's learning."

again, ness is confused. he furrows his brows. "are you saying you haven't talked to her since five years ago? since you joined bastard munchen?"

kaiser looks down in what could be described as shame. ness isn't really sure what he'd call it, but it is definitely not pride. it's such a foreign look on kaiser's face, no expression like ness has ever known kaiser to make.

it becomes increasingly difficult for kaiser to defend himself. so, he resorts to a different tactic: he begins to show ness different photos of you. "oh," kaiser says in fake surprise, "look at this picture of her."

it was a struggle to plan dates between the two of you, but on the rare occasion that you and he could hang around your neighborhood, you'd take him to your favorite ice cream parlor. during this particular date, you and kaiser challenged each other to see who could finish their ice cream cone the fastest, but it ended up as a default win for kaiser as you had accidentally knocked over your ice cream and it landed straight onto the ground.

ness is immediately drawn to the exaggerated faux frown on your face, coupled with happy eyes. he looks over your expensive outfit, and then down at where you're pointing in the image: the melting ice cream on the ground.

he laughs. it's a short "haha," and he isn't sure whether it's out of pity, or if he's trying to play it cool for the delusional kaiser, or if it is genuinely a funny picture. but, he looks past the phone in front of him and looks at kaiser, who has this expression that borderlines ignorance and pure joy.

"funny, right? she's so clumsy, i swear," kaiser says, swiping through more photos on his phone. ness cannot help but notice the softness in kaiser's eyes; how unfamiliar it is to see this boy so vulnerable. "take a look at this one."

after screaming at the beach, kaiser let you take control of the music in the car on the way back to your house. thus, you were granted access to his phone- shoddy, yet reliable. it was probably not the best for taking quality pictures, but pictures were memories, nonetheless.

it was a selfie of the two of you, with you sticking your tongue out and holding a peace sign, and kaiser with his eyes laser-focused on the road. he's got his left hand on the steering wheel and his right on your thigh. as casual as the photo was, ness already knew the intimacy of your relationship.

as kaiser pulls back his phone, ness watches kaiser's expression once more. he looks at his phone like he's in love. kaiser's peculiar smile, unfamiliar to his face, was born from the feelings he held for this girl that he hasn't talked to since he was whisked away in the world of soccer.

"i wonder if she watches my games," kaiser wonders out loud. "i mean, i must be that famous to be appearing nationwide, right?"

ness is taken aback by the sudden change of tone. "u-uh, yeah, for sure, kaiser."

kaiser is pleased with ness's answer. then, he goes back to his phone, swiping through more photos, and consequently chuckles. "oh my god, i forgot i took this video. look at this, ness."

the quality is so bad, but at least he can hear your voice.

...

you're holding onto his soccer ball.

your back is turned to him, and you're dragging him along by holding onto his wrist. his other hand is holding his phone, recording you.

"we're almost there, mihya," you call out from over your shoulder.

his hand holding the phone swats away tree branches, and occasionally dried up leaves crinkle beneath his feet.

"jeez, are you gonna kidnap me or something?" he asks from behind the camera.

then, it suddenly comes into view.

it's an open field. it's just pure grass for miles and miles, and for some reason, it's all trimmed.

the camera pans onto you, and it's slightly shaky. you hold up your hands in defense, and you exclaim, "i didn't cut any of this grass, by the way! i just found it like this, and i wanted to show you. so you can play soccer to your heart's content..."

you drop the soccer ball and begin kicking it around. you've picked up some tricks from him.

"there's no goal post though, i hope you don't mind..."

then, the phone drops.

he calls out your name. "i love you."

"i love you too, mihya."

"i love you more!"

"you better make it big, okay? i didn't show you this field for nothing."

"well, you better watch me, alright?"

"i'll always be watching!"

"shit, wait, where's my phone?"

[l1vingd3adg1rl-05]

Join me in Death pt1

Thomas Hewitt X Fem! Reader

Sorry this is very short, I have work in the morning. Not proofread

The old, bumpy road feels like it stretches on forever; there are no winding turns, no large hills, and just a long Texas roadway. The bright, sweltering sun beats down on you through your truck's windows. A few weeks have passed since your grandfather's passing, you found out from receiving a note in his will, in which note revealed he left you his old property in the countryside of Texas. You have a few memories of the place from when you were younger. Your grandpa was a reserved man, which reflected on his home. It was in the middle of nowhere, you are positive that there wasn't a town in any direction for at least 30 miles, and he only had one neighbor that lived a mile away from his home, on the other side of the forest that was on the edge of his property in the back. He didn’t live with anyone in the years leading up to his death that you know of.

Your gaze flicks over to the map laid out on the console now and then, looking to see if you're still on the right track. After another hour of driving, you see your tank is slowly running out, with just barely any gas left. You hope you can find a gas station soon. After a few miles pass by, you see a decrepit building on the side of the road, it appears to be a rundown gas station, at least you hope. You pull into the lot and let out a sigh of relief as you see gas pumps. You park alongside one of the rusted pumps and get out of your vehicle. Scanning the pump, you see a large sticker on its side. ‘NO GAS’ in bold red lettering.

You groan in frustration, gazing around the parking lot at the other pumps you see most with the same or similar stickers on them. Some were out of order, and some with no gas as well. Wiping the sweat off your brow, you decide to head inside, pushing open the shabby doo,r you enter the rundown store. There isn’t a lot on the shelves, just some old cans with a layer of thick dust on the tops, and a lot of car parts. A few bikers are in the store, scanning you as you walk in. You’re definitely out of place here. An older woman sits behind the desk, a worn-out book in her hands. Her gaze lifts from her book to glance at you, giving you a once-over before ultimately returning to her book. A nervous smile stretches along your face as you walk over to the front counter. “Ma’am? Do you happen to know when there will be gas? My truck is almost completely out.” You quickly try to explain yourself.

“I’m afraid there isn’t any more gas until this evening, maybe even as late as tomorrow,” she tells you in her shaky voice, her tone soft and quiet. This is the last thing you need, after being on the roads for hours, all you want is to get to the property to check it out. “Do you think there is another gas station nearby?” you ask with your voice filled with hope, but it’s quickly shattered when she shakes her head no. You look outside at your truck, the heat and humidity are appalling, just the thought of going outside in this weather makes you shudder. The older woman picks up on your distress and speaks up once more. “I got a place nearby, not too far from here, how about after I close up, you can spend the night with me and my boys?” she offers up. It sounds like a blessing right now, considering your situation, but you can't help but feel a pang of uneasiness, like a gut feeling about it. The lady seems kind enough, so you shake off the feeling. “Well, I wouldn't want to intrude.” She smiles at your hesitancy, waving you off. After a bit of chatting, you both introduce yourself. “M’names Luda, you’re new to these parts ain't ya?” She has a big grin on her face, making your anxiety and nervousness disappear. “Yes, ma'am, my grandfather passed away and has recently left me his property. I was going to check it out.” She nods her head as she listens to your story, saying her condolences about your grandpa.

A couple of hours pass, and the sun sets, making the sky a deep orange with a deep red along the horizon. You sit upon an old bench outside the store with Luda. Her leg bounces repeatedly up and down. It's clear she’s waiting for someone. Just as you’re about to speak up about her impatience, an old police cruiser pulls into the parking lot. The old cruiser’s door creaks open, and an older man steps out. “Where the hell have you been, Charlie!? You’re half an hour l,” she scolds the older man, but with no real malice behind her words. She rises from the rickety wooden bench as the man walks over. “It’s Hoyt,” he’s quick to correct her, standing tall and rigid, and then his gaze falls on you. His brows furrowed, looking you up and down. His eyes stay a little too long on your chest, then meeting your eyes before turning back to Luda Mae, he begins to speak, clearly about to question you, but he’s cut off. “Her truck’s out of gas, told her she can stay the night at our place.”

It It becomes quiet, an awkward silence as they stare at each other, silently communicating something that you can’t quite understand, their eyes falling on you before they both quickly straighten up. “You’ll have to ride in the back.” Hoyt’s words cut through the silence, and the thick tension still lingers in the air. You nod your head quickly, moving to follow them and get in the cruiser. The door groans and creaks loudly as you open it up, the hinges are rusted, and there aren't any handles on the inside since it's a police vehicle. The two settle in the front, the engine roars to life, and he begins to pull out of the gas station’s parking lot. You gaze out at the vast Texas terrain, and the conversation they're having in the front begins to fade as you get lost in thought. You just want this day to be over so you can get back on the road, But that will have to wait until tomorrow.

You’re snapped out of your daydreaming when the cruiser begins to slow, hitting every bump and pothole on the dirt road. Looking outside you can see a very old farm house. Hoyt, or whatever his name is, roughly opens the door to let you out. Eyeing you up once again. As you walk up the beaten path you make sure to follow closely behind Luda. The stairs to the small porch wobble at the littlest amount of weight applied to them, you make sure to watch your step. Luda opens the door for you and signals to walk in first, and you quickly do so. Whispering something to Hoyt in the background. The home is dark, only a small light bulb flickering on the ceiling. As you turn to look into the hallway, your body collides with someone firm, you look up to see a large man, dark curly hair falling over his face, a face that’s hidden away partially by a black mask. He roughly grabs you and you gasp. His calloused hands rough and his grip hard like steel on your shoulders.

“Tommy quit fucking around with the guest.” Hoyt yells at that man, his hands quickly fall from your shoulder as you move a few steps back, Luda Mae shuts the door and walks over to you and the large man. He backs away as well, eyeing you up silently. “I’m so sorry honey, he wasn’t expecting you is all, we don’t get much people around here. Here why don’t you join us for dinner now? It’ll be real quick” after your heart settles down you let out a sigh, agreeing to her words and let her guide you to the kitchen.

[reegis]

Yo! Do you have any notes/tips for your coloring process? I've always had trouble with that part of drawings looking good lmao and I really like yours! If not for your specific style, do you have any tips with that in general?

Iv gotten a few asks about how I color but iv always avoided answering because

A) I am absolutely awful at explaining things, and

B) I am a very Very lazy artist you should probably Not do the things that I do

BUT i feel bad gatekeeping(?) my horrible technique if it helps anybody ig ill try and explain so

✨✨✨Welcome to Reegis’ Probably Not Reputable (But Very Long Winded) Art Advice✨✨✨✨

line art of a random character for the example, just pic whatever colors you have in mind for your base colors, you can try using palette generators or basing it off of existing palettes/characters/whatever I have absolutely no idea how color theory works (& this is why you shouldnt listen to me) so im solely going off of vibes. but it is Rough so onto step 2 & 3

(edit to add i usually start off with the skin hair & clothes on separate clipping layers and merge them together towards the end.. i think i forgot to say that at all here oops)

I abuse the hellll out of layer blending modes. overlay, saturation & multiply mainly, but also difference, brightness & screen. (just doodle something & try all of em out to get a feel for them honestly ik theres a Lot and they can be intimidating) for this i just wanted a more cohesive warmer tone to start with so i added a peachy overlay & a slight ombré to the hair to add a bit more interest to the character.

then just the most basic of rendering, some blush & highlights just wherever i think theyd go.

Another thing they tell you Not to do, my next step is to block out all my shading in a vaguely purpleish multiply layer!!! i cant be assed to do it any other way im sorry…. once i have the basic shading down, i lock the layer & go in with air brush eraser & also airbrush in other colors wherever I think the purple is maybe too harsh/clashing

still wasnt 100% happy with the colors so messed around with some more layer filter/modes/whatever you call them then colored in my line art! i think this is honestly the saving grace for all of my art shshsdhhf color your lines people. doesnt have to be all (i dont, i like the contrast) but it usually helps to make some at least a little less harsh

then with a little more color tweaking im done! one random sleepy dude, fully colored (by my standards)

and then if a piece needs more dramatic lighting you justttt

im so serious play around with layer settings! these are just basic multiply & add(glow), there as so many others you can abuse the shit out of & nobody will know or care in your finished piece.

was this?? in any way helpful???? I hope so.

[thebindingofpillo]

Heaven, Hell and everything in between!! As usual I did not proofread any of this, so if you find any mistakes you have full permission to execute me uwu and if you ever need some claryfications I am always ready to answer some asks!!

Anyway, this is the RAU universe. The RAUniverse, if you will. We have Earth, Heaven, Hell and the Void (which is not a really-real dimension but we’ll worry about that later). Every dimension exists as separated from the others. There are ways for angels, demons and human souls to travel from dimension to dimension, but these are few and far between (and I’ll explain better later, in the Bridge section). Every single dimension was created by God, even Hell.

Earth (a.k.a. our dimension)

Humans live here. The physical plane basically. Created by God, as well as everything else. Not really much to say about this! It’s the world as we know it, with all its good and bad. Note: the name Earth does not mean that only the Earth is part of the physical realm! Space and places outside planet Earth also count. You will not reach Heaven by going really high up into the sky, sorry :(

Heaven

Very nice place. It has three tiers, one reserved for humans, one for angels and one for God. At the center of Heaven there is the Garden of Eden, uprooted by God and then placed into a different dimension after Eden (the angel) deserted their post on Earth. To this day, Eden has no idea that the Garden has been transplanted into Heaven (they could know of they wanted to, because they’re omniscient, but they’re actively refusing to think about the Garden at the moment), but that’s not really important here.

Human tier When a human dies, their soul crosses the Bridge (more on that later) and if they’re considered worthy they end up in Heaven. The human parto of heaven is pretty neat, even if I’m still a bit short on the imagination side. I liked the idea from Supernatural where people constantly relive the best day of their lives but idk seems a bit too boring. The basic idea is that Heaven is a place where humans feel their best all the time. If they were plagued by illness, now they’re hale. Everyone is living again in the best possible version of themselves (with like, some caveats, like if your ideal version of self is a furry then tough luck sorry). But yeah, Heaven is the bestest place in the universe where you can bask in God’s light and grace until the end of days. Humans cannot travel through the tiers -- this was put in place by God once he uprooted the Garden, He made it impossible for humans to access it and even put a whole tier of angels between it and humanity for good measure — but that’s not really a problem since heaven is pretty nifty. It is possible, however, to visit other people in the human sphere! So you can always hang out with your pals. The only human who can travel to the Garden is Enoch/Metatron, and that’s just because he was turned into an angel when he ascended.

Angel tier Angels live here. It’s kinda like a city (the Silver city??) but angels don’t really spend a lot of time here, they’re always moving in and out of the various spheres to do God’s bidding, fight demons, and other cool stuff. While humans are confined to the outer sphere, angels can freely travel through all the different layers of heaven, and access the garden, and converse with God directly. While angels do not need rest in a physical sense, it’s always nice to have a little place for themselves where they can wind down after a long century of work. I am still not sure about the design of the city itself (I kinda thought of it like a giant hive suspended in the clouds). Each angel has their own little cell but they can visit eachother.

The Garden of Eden (God is here) The innermost tier of Heaven. Before the Garden, only God lived here, sitting on a throne and surrounded by His angels. The Garden was on Earth before (hidden in a long lost valley, surrounded by very high mountains I think), but after Eden dipped to go live with humanity, God didn’t want anyone stumbling onto the Garden by mistake, and instead of sending another angel to pick up Eden’s slack, He decided to just pack everything and take it home, where He could watch over it Himself. His throne is still somewhere in the Garden, but God is much less inclined to sit on it lately, deeply preferring spending time tending to the plants, keeping them nice for the eventual return of humanity. When’s that exactly supposed to happen? Nobody knows, not even his closest advisors. Not even Apollyon. If asked, the Great Creative will just say that He’s waiting for humanity to “prove itself worthy again” but nobody really knows what that means. Anyway the Garden is b i g. It’s more like a beautiful lush forest rather than a garden, where the trees always give fruit and the animals never attack humans. Everyone lives in peace and harmony, it truly is the bestest place in the universe. The human layer of Heaven is already the best place in the universe but in the Garden humanity will reach a higher state of existence (the details are still fuzzy tho, I need to figure out stuff).

Hell

Hell actually started as an empty place to house human souls who were not worthy of Heaven. It was basically a dark, cold desert, stretching on into infinity. Literally nothing in it but darkness and cold, it was the furthest place away from God’s grace. It began to change only when Lucifer fell. With him, came the rest of the fallen angels and the thing rapidly devolved into a shitshow. Soon the fallens started torturing humans, discovered the power of the human soul, eventually the place became the fiery pit of suffering we know today. Important to keep in mind: Lucifer and his minions are NOT punishing humans. In God’s mind, being far from Heaven is enough punishment for humanity. Demons however, either hate humans (the most perfect of God’s creations), need human souls for power, or straight up do not care about them at all. Most demons either use humans are sustenance or guinea pigs to torture. Slightly more than animals.

Human tier This tier is the closest to what Hell looked like before the demons came. It’s a rocky, endless land, devoid of light, shelter and anything that’s even remotely good. The only difference between this and the “old” Hell is the temperature: now the desolate desert inhabited by humans is scorching hot, warmed by billions of fires lit by demons and fallen angels. There is no repose for humans here, every waking moment is spent trying to escape demons or being tortured by them. Time is also pretty fucky in Hell, especially for humans! A single day on Earth can last a lifetime in Hell. Demons and fallen angels aren’t really affected by this (especially the most powerful ones) but humans can easily lose themselves in this. Humans in Hell could theoretically travel between the different layers, but nobody really wants to because Hell is shit and there’s demons everywhere. The demons that concentrate in the outer layer are the less sapient ones, little more than beasts roaming the lands and slaying human souls whenever they find them.

Demon tier A great sprawling city, absolutely chaotic, growing ever bigger with no rhyme or reason, as its inhabitants try to constantly expand their influence beyond its borders. Demons (and fallens) usually stay here but they’re capable of travelling between the various layers of hell, and they do so quite frequently to bother humans. Not so much to bother Lucifer though, he lives pretty isolated in the middle of Hell. Not that he minds. Anyway, the middle tier is where most of the action happens. Intrigues, backstabbings, alliances, they all happen here. Demons generally don’t like one another, so they’re always trying to kill eachother and gather more power. I guess humans-turned-demons also stay in this city, but I don’t really know if they even exist at this point. I’ll need to think about it.

Lake of ice (Lucifer is here) Innermost layer of Hell. It is said that after being cast out of heaven, Lucifer’s fall was so terribile that he got stuck into the ground, and that’s why he cannot move from the center of Hell. Despite the rest of his kingdom being a fiery inferno, the devil sits there embedded in a completely frozen lake, the ice reaching up to his chest. He cannot move or leave the place, but his Aspects (Satan, the Fallen etc. are kinda like his avatars) can move freely to get shit done for him. IMPORTANT: Satan, Lucifer and Fallen are essentially the same person. They’re kinda like a hive mind, with Lucifer controlling their bodies, but that’s not super important here. As said before, the center of hell is completely frozen over. Not even the fires from the demon city can reach there, in fact, demons actively refuse to come near their boss. Not that he minds, Lucifer doesn’t really feel the need for company, and through his Aspects he can perceive/feel whatever he needs. The city actually seems to move further and further away from him, with the oldest buildings constantly being abandoned in favour of newer ones further out. There’s not really much to say about here! It sucks. The only thing that could be considered “living” is Lucifer’s body, and that’s not really doing much anyway. I will say tho. When Judas went to hell (because he did) he ended up here. I’ll let you ruminate on that one.

The Bridge

There are multiple passages to traverse the Void but The Bridge is by far the safest one. That’s why it’s reserved to human souls! Constantly patrolled by angels, no demon could ever hope to get close to this place. When a human dies, their soul (made by god) gains access to the godly dimension thanks to their guardian angel reporting back to Azrael (archangel of Death) so that they can pass on. This process is almost immediate. Once dead, the souls finds itself at The Bridge. Which is exactly what it is, it’s a bridge baby! Souls need to cross it to get to heaven BUT the Bridge itself is a little finicky. The Bridge is a reflection of the human that will cross it, and it can drastically change in length and form. Eg: A virtuous soul’s bridge will be on the shorter side, look and feel like a normal bridge. A bad person’s bridge can stretch on into infinity, feel more unstable and maybe even be painful to cross. The Bridge can be made of fire, or blades, it can be a single rope dangling over the abyss, very easy to fall from. If a human soul falls from the bridge (it happens! Especially with very evil people, or the ones who think they don’t deserve heaven) they will end up in Hell. Someone might even choose to not cross the bridge at all and jump directly into Hell. So far, only Judas did. His guilt was so big that the Bridge didn’t even manifest. Time is also fucky in here too! A Bridge can be crossed in mere minutes or take years (even centuries!). Now, The Bridge is not the only way to travel through the Void! There are multiple passages on Earth, in Hell and Heaven, but they’re not as safe or guarded as the Bridge, and sometimes they might close or end up nowhere at all. The position of these passages is kept strictly secret, especially the ones that end in Hell, so that angels can use them to spy on demons. Using these passages takes a lot of energy too, so usually only the most powerful angels/demons can travel through the Void without problem. Travelling through the Void outside of the Bridge can be extremely fast or incredibly slow. It depends on how powerful the angel/demon is - Michael can blink through the Void in less than a second, while a less powerful angel could take more time. Very powerful angels/ demons can even create passages themselves! Another way the humans can travel through the Void is by falling off the Bridge, when they end up in hell. This passage is also guarded by angels and ends up at the Bridge anyway, so demons don’t really try to use it.

The Void

Okay the Void it’s pretty difficult to explain. It’s basically a big nothing into which all the dimensions float (kinda) and there’s absolutely nothing in it. While the other dimensions are, the Void is not. Like all the other dimensions, it is infinite, and occupies every space between Earth, Heaven and Hell, however big or small it may be. It’s not like the Abyss (that’s inside Apollyon) where all the residues of previous Creations are crammed inside a writhing to be let out, the Void is still. There’s absolutely nothing here to writhe, it’s a completely inert space. Or rather, there should be nothing. Something is stirring in the depths of nothingness, but nobody (just God Himself and Semjaza) really knows about it. That something is Delirium, although in the AU it doesn’t really have a name.

Delirium This might change in the future because it’s still a bit fuzzy around the edges, but basically Delirium is like a huge blob of unimaginable proportions that lurks inside the Void. It’s not sentient, or at least doesn’t have any real thoughts aside from existing in the Void and consuming to survive. Everything it touches gets destroyed and made into more Delirium, but in the Void there’s really nothing to touch so it just folds onto itself forever, not really doing anything. How did Delirium come to be? This part at least is decided: God’s Power of Creation is so strong that it reverberates through all dimensions, even the Void, bringing life where life shouldn’t exist (this is also why Lazarus keeps coming back: he was brought back to life by God, and His power is so big Lazarus’ soul can never stay dead). Delirium is basically the result of eons and eons of God making and remaking the universe: all that residual energy is still present, kinda like the Big Bang radiations. Important to note: Creation is a cycle! Gods makes the universe and then with the Apocalypse He resets everything and makes a new universe from scratch. The remains of the previous universe are locked in the Abyss (which is different from the Void!) inside Apollyon. Delirium is not any of these remains, it’s a completely new life form that was born out of the energy God uses to make and remake the universe over the millennia.

[tip-top-cloud-surfer]

The Forgotten Nest (Part 7) - Rooster

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw / Mitchell!OC (Cora)

Word Count: 5.2k

This work, all my works, and my entire blog are 18+ Only

Warnings: Past Unplanned Teenage Pregnancy; Angst; Absent Parental Figures; The 'He Didn't Know About the Pregnancy' Trope; Repeating Trauma Cycles; Crying; Named Mitchell Daughter OC (Cora) and Named Mitchell-Bradshaw Son (Nickie)

Summary: In the few days before the mission, Nickie has important conversations with his mom, his grandfather, and maybe even his estranged father.

A.N. There are references to a previous unplanned teenage pregnancy (between two eighteen-year-olds) in this fic. There won't be any flashback scenes to the pregnancy, but the references are still there, so if that makes you uncomfortable, please do not read.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 8 Epilogue

Master List

It was the day after Ice’s funeral and somehow the Mitchells had to go back to normal. Maverick reported for duty early, Cora went back to work as usual, and Nickie stayed late at school to make up some of the work that he missed. But it wasn’t back to normal. Not really.

Walking out of school, Nickie looked up to see his mom’s car roll around the corner of the school. A bit nervously, Nickie made his way over. They hadn’t talked last night about much of anything. Everyone sort of went in their separate directions and stewed in their own thoughts. And Nickie knew that his mom and his grandfather saw the wings that he pinned to his jacket.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Cora greeted him with a small smile. “How was school?”

“Long,” Nickie replied quietly, sinking into his seat. “How was work?”

“Same old, same old,” Cora stated as she put the car in drive.

They stared heading home, though Cora got tenser and tenser with every mile. Gripping the steering wheel tighter than normal, Cora stared at the stop light in front of them, before quickly putting her turn signal on and making a right. Nickie looked over at his mom with clear confusion, since this wasn’t the direction home. But Cora continued driving.

“Where are we going?” Nickie asked his mom, who shot him a small smile in return.

“You’ll see.”

Nickie leaned back in his seat, still confused, but trusting his mom. Cora eventually pulled down a winding road that ended in a parking lot. They could see the naval ships in the harbor and the planes overhead reminded Nickie that base wasn’t very far.

Wordlessly, Cora turned off the car and stepped out, causing Nickie to do the same. Cora walked down the path, made her way down to a bench, and sat down on the worn wood. She patted the spot next to her and Nickie sat down without much of a fuss, though he felt a rock settle in his stomach when he caught his mom’s expression.

“Mom, I can explain . . .” Nickie started off softly.

“Do you remember all the times that I would bring you out here when you were little to watch the ships?” Cora asked, staring over at the ships docked in port. “You would just sit out here for hours, endlessly entertained.”

“Mom?” Nickie asked, looking over at her with some concern.

“Or all of the times that your grandfather brought you to the museum in town? He had to run after you once because you wanted to touch the plane and you just slipped under the ropes,” Cora mused, smiling at the memories. “You know, I think if your grandfather’s face wasn’t in some of those photos in the museum, the security guard would have been a lot meaner to him.”

“Mom?” Nickie repeated, softer this time.

Sobering, Cora took a breath before turning to her son. Nickie could see a thin layer of tears in her eyes, but didn’t comment on it. Mostly because he could feel some building behind his own eyes. Cora smiled painfully and cupped her son’s cheek, rubbing her thumb along his skin.

“What I’m trying to say, Nickie, is that part of me always knew that you could someday end up in the Navy,” Cora began, dropping her hand down to grab Nickie’s hand and give it a squeeze. “I mean, all of your father figures were aviators. You grew up in a Navy town. Your grandfather always brought you to the airshows and told you all about his stories.”

She dropped her head for a moment, trying to compose herself. Biting the inside of her cheek, Cora turned back to Nickie with a small smile.

“I know that you probably think that I’m going to tell you that you can’t go. But I’m not.”

“Really?” Nickie asked, sounding shocked. “But, Mom, you wouldn’t even let me on a trampoline growing up.”

“And I stick by that,” Cora stated firmly. “Do you know how many kids come in with broken bones—never mind. That’s not why I brought you here.” Composing herself, Cora let out a breath and turned back to her son. “Answer a few questions for me, Nickie. Do you want to go into the Navy?”

“Yes,” Nickie replied quietly, without much confidence in his mom’s presence.

“More than you want any other career path?”

“Yes,” Nickie returned with more confidence than before.

“And will going into the Navy make you happy?”

“I think so.”

“And do you have a backup plan in case you can’t become a naval aviator for whatever reason?”

“Well, I know that I want to do something mechanical. I mean, Gramps had me working on cars and bikes for my entire life . . . it’s what I know. It’s what I feel comfortable with and what I want to do,” Nickie explained, causing Cora to nod slowly. Nickie scooched a little closer to his mom, still surprised at her words. “You’re really okay with me going into the Navy?”

“In all honesty, I’m not thrilled, Nickie,” Cora stated, causing Nickie’s expression to fall a bit. “If I had it my way, you would go into business or something where the most dangerous part of your day was getting to and from work.”

Cora’s gaze softened again when Nickie turned away from her, a bit shy. Grabbing Nickie’s chin gently and tilting it up so that Nickie locked eyes with her again, Cora smiled.

“But it’s not my life, Nickie. It’s yours. And I can’t—I don’t want to be that parent who stands in the way of their child’s dreams because they’re too scared of what could happen or they’re too afraid to let go. I don’t want to be that kind of mom.”

Turning to face her son fully, Cora grabbed his hands and gave them a squeeze.

“All I have ever wanted for you, Nickie, was for you to be happy. For you to not have to worry about the things that I had to worry about when I was your age. I wanted you to be able to live your life without my past or your grandfather’s past or . . . anyone else’s past holding you back.”

“Like how it happened for Bradley?” Nickie asked, causing Cora to pause for a moment.

“Yeah,” she agreed quietly. “Like that.”

Cora slowly turned to look at the back of the bench. Nickie followed his mom’s gaze and paused when he noticed the plaque in the middle of the wood. It was small and not very noticeable, but there was a plaque that read a simple message:

In memory of LTJG Nicholas “Goose” Bradshaw

“That’s the thing about becoming a parent. You look back at your childhood and you try to make choices to give your kids an easier life than the one you had. But sometimes you overcorrect. And sometimes you didn’t see the problem in the first place until it smacks you in the face all over again.”

“Mom, planes have come a long way since 1986,” Nickie pointed out, causing Cora to turn back to him. “Safety wise.”

“Oh, I know, sweetheart. I wasn’t talking about that.” Looking down at her lap for a moment, Cora took a breath. “Your father. Bradley. He always felt like he had to prove himself to the memory of his dad. And he made a lot of decisions trying to impress someone who was gone and who would have loved him regardless of any of those choices.”

Cora stared into her son’s eyes as she squeezed his hands.

“And I want to make sure that if you go into the Navy, you’re doing it for yourself. Not for Maverick. Not for Ice. Not for me . . . and definitely not to prove anything to Rooster.” Cora held her son’s gaze for a moment before adding, “I want you to do it for yourself, Nickie. Do you understand me?”

“I do, Mom.”

“Good.”

With a watery gaze, Cora pulled her son in for a hug that he quickly returned. Latching onto his mom like he was a little kid again, Nickie let a few tears dribble down from his eyes and onto her scrubs. Cora rocked her son back and forth, holding a hand to the back of his head like she did when he was a baby and she was trying to soothe him in the middle of the night.

“I thought that you’d be mad,” Nickie whispered out shakily, causing Cora to shake her head. “Or disappointed in me.”

“Nickie, I could never be disappointed in you,” Cora stated, squeezing him tighter. “You’re my baby. And you’re smart, you’re kind. You’re the kid who always got praise from all of his teachers for standing up for other kids and inviting everyone to play.” Letting out a choked sound herself, Cora tugged him closer. “I’m so proud of you, Nickie. And I’ll always be proud of you. And if I ever made you feel like you couldn’t be honest with me about this, I’m sorry, Nickie. I’m so sorry.”

“I know that you just wanted me to be safe, Mom,” Nickie croaked out emotionally.

“You’re a Mitchell. We’re not the safest bunch,” Cora blurted out, causing Nickie to laugh with her. Pulling back from the hug, Cora wiped Nickie’s tears away with her hand. “I love you, Nickie. Okay? And nothing will ever change that.”

“I know, Mom. I love you too.”

~~~~~

“I told you that you were worrying over nothing,” Amelia told Nickie as they sat out in the backyard of the Benjamin house.

“I know,” Nickie replied, shooting Amelia a small smile. “I should probably listen to you more often.”

“At least you realize it.” They sat side by side, watching the waves crash before Amelia slowly turned back to Nickie with a more serious expression. “Do you know when they ship out?”

“Any day now, I would assume,” Nickie stated, shrugging his shoulders. “We’ll probably only know the night before.”

“Have you talked to Mav yet about the Navy?”

“No, but I will. Before he leaves,” Nickie answered, nodding to himself.

“Are you going to try to talk to . . .” Amelia trailed off, causing Nickie to look at the ground.

“I don’t know,” Nickie replied honestly. “I feel like I should, but . . . he’s still the bastard who abandoned us. Should I really give him a chance?”

“I don’t know,” Amelia stated, shrugging her shoulders. Turning to look out over the waves, Amelia gripped the edge of the bench. “I know that I stopped giving my dad chances a long time ago.” She slowly looked over at Nickie, who was still staring at the ground. “But knowing you, you’re going to beat yourself up if something happens on this mission and you never talked to him.”

“And what if nothing happens and I gave him a chance that he didn’t deserve?”

“Then you can tell him to fuck off when he gets back,” Amelia replied bluntly. Turning back to Nickie, Amelia shoved him lightly on the shoulder. “Isn’t the whole Mitchell mantra about not thinking? Why are you overthinking this? Do you want to talk to him or not?”

“I want answers,” Nickie stated quietly, causing Amelia to nod.

“And where are you going to get them?”

“Him,” Nickie added lamely. Letting out a groan, Nickie rubbed his face tiredly. “Goddammit.”

~~~~~

After the orders were given that they would be shipping out the following morning, the Daggers seemed to scatter to the wind. Those with families spent their last night on FaceTime or in town with them. Some just wanted their solitude and peace to center themselves.

And Rooster didn’t have a plan. He was just going to wander, quite honestly. Until life moved in a direction for him.

“Rooster,” Hondo called, causing Rooster to slow and turn to face the warrant officer.

Holding out a piece of paper, Hondo stared Rooster down and motioned for him to take the paper. Rooster tentatively reached out and took it to find a location and time written down.

“It’s top-secret correspondence,” Hondo stated, causing Rooster to turn back to him.

“From who?”

“An unnamed source,” Hondo replied stiffly. “Just . . . don’t fuck it up.”

And without another word, Hondo turned on his heel and walked off, leaving Rooster standing there with just a piece of paper in his hand. Staring down at it again, Rooster slowly folded it up and tucked it into the pocket of his flight suit before heading for the locker room. He had a guess as to who would try to get a message to him through Hondo.

And he desperately wanted to speak with her.

~~~~~

Pulling into the lot just down the beach from the Hard Deck, Rooster turned off his car and stepped out into the warm Miramar air. Dressed in his civilian clothes, Rooster looked around for Cora, but the figure who got out of their car and turned to him was too tall to be Cora.

It was Nickie, Rooster realized, after the teenager stepped forward.

The father and son stood several feet apart, neither seemingly wanting to make the first move. Bradley was still in shock that Nickie wanted to even look at him and Nickie was still summoning all of his courage to ask the questions that had been hammering around in his head for his entire life.

“You came,” was what Nickie started off with.

“I did,” Rooster replied quietly, shutting the door to his car. Looking up and down the landscape, Rooster turned back to Nickie. “Does your mom know that you’re here?”

“No,” Nickie stated honestly. He tilted his chin up a bit, almost challenging Rooster. “Are you going to tell on me?”

“No,” Rooster replied, shaking his head.

Nickie stared up at Rooster for a moment, clenching and unclenching his fists as he shifted his weight around on his feet. Letting out a breath, Nickie turned back to his father with a hardened expression that made Rooster more than a little nervous.

“Why did you never come back? Why did you never read any of her letters?” Nickie demanded with his voice thick with emotion. “Why the hell did you turn your back on my mom and never look back? What the hell did she do to you?”

“Nothing,” Rooster stated after a few moments of silence.

“Then why did you do it?” Nickie hissed, glaring over at Rooster.

“Because I was . . . am an idiot,” Rooster replied quietly, knowing that excuses weren’t going to do him any good here. Looking down at the ground for a moment, Rooster tried to find the right words. “And I . . . I was worried that she would slam the door in my face if I showed up again.”

“So, you just did it to her then?” Nickie scoffed, his jaw ticking with thinly veiled annoyance. Shaking his head as the anger simmered in his stomach, Nickie took a step closer to Rooster. “Do you have any idea of what you put her through? Do you think it was easy for her to raise me as a single mom? Do you think that she wanted that?”

“No,” Rooster returned, shaking his head calmly. Clearing his throat, Rooster rubbed the back of his neck. “My mom . . . your grandmother . . . she was a single mom for most of my life. I know it’s not easy. I know it’s not the life that most people choose to have.”

“That makes it worse,” Nickie scoffed, shooting Rooster a sharper glare.

“Do you know about her? About . . . your grandmother?” Rooster asked quietly after a few moments, causing Nickie to pause with the change in conversation.  

“Of course, I do. The only person that my mom ever hid from me was you,” Nickie all but snapped, causing Rooster to wince. Letting out a breath from his nose, Nickie looked at the ground as some of the anger left his body. Kicking a rock, Nickie kept his gaze down and his voice level. “I grew up on her recipes. On . . . my grandmother’s recipes.”

“Even the birthday surprise cake?” Bradley questioned emotionally.

“Every year,” Nickie returned, some more anger leaving his system. “Until I was like thirteen.”

“She used to make those cakes for your mom and for me. For our birthdays,” Bradley replied, sounding like he was talking more to himself than Nickie for a moment. Bradley stared down at the ground, taking a breath to calm himself down. “You know, I was about your age when . . . when she died.”

“My mom told me,” Nickie responded softly, swallowing a lump in his throat.

Ice had only been gone for a few days and sometimes Nickie had to remind himself that he was never going to get a text from Ice asking for him to come over. Not anymore. Turning back to his dad, Nickie set his jaw and let out a quiet sniffle.

“Fuck cancer,” Nickie stated, causing Rooster to pick his head up.

“Fuck cancer,” Rooster returned, nodding firmly. He looked out over at the waves over Nickie’s shoulder for a moment, leaning back against the Bronco for support. “You know, if she was still here, she would have been the grandmother to never leave you alone. The kind to make sure that you left her house five pounds heavier than you came. She’d go to all your sports games and events. Hell, she probably would have driven your mom just a little crazy, sticking around so much.”

And for a moment, though he couldn’t believe it, Nickie was sympathizing with Rooster. He actually felt bad for the guy. Because for the three seconds that he put himself into Bradley’s shoes—losing his mom at sixteen—Nickie barely survived it without bursting into uncontrolled sobs.

He loved his mom. He’d do anything for his mom. He was a mama’s boy. And he couldn’t picture his life without his mom.

Coming out of the emotional fog, Rooster turned and opened the door to the Bronco, causing Nickie to pick his head up. Rifling around in the glove compartment, Rooster pulled out a simple gold chain. It was a necklace that his mom used to wear all the time that he kept close to him to remember her. And the simple ‘B’ that hung from the chain was still there all these years later.

“This was hers,” Rooster explained, holding it out to Nickie.

A bit cautious, Nickie walked over and slowly took the necklace from Rooster’s outstretched hand. Studying the chain, Nickie glanced down at the ‘B’ pendant before looking back up at Rooster, who seemed to be waiting expectantly for him to speak.

“Is the ‘B’ for Bradley?”

“It’s for Bradshaw,” Rooster replied softly, smiling a bit painfully. “My dad . . . your grandfather . . . he gave it to her when they first started dating.” Rooster shoved his hands into his pockets, just watching Nickie study the necklace for a moment. “Less than two years later, I was born.”

“My mom showed me the pictures of their wedding,” Nickie returned, rubbing the metal with his thumb. “I guess that young, unplanned pregnancies just run in my family.”

“Both sides,” Rooster agreed, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Try to break that streak. Please.”

“Gramps already gave me the shovel talk about it about fifteen times over,” Nickie replied with a dash of amusement in his tone. “And my mom too.”

Running his thumb over the thin gold chain again, Nickie picked up his head and held out the necklace for Bradley to take back. But Bradley shook his head and held up a hand to stop him.

“Keep it.”

Nickie looked a bit taken aback for a moment before he glanced down at the chain in his hand. Slowly wrapping it around his wrist to keep it safe, Nickie turned back to Bradley.

“You know, we’re never going to have a relationship unless you make it up to my mom,” Nickie stated firmly, leaving no room for argument.

“I know. I understand that,” Rooster replied, nodding along to show that he understood. “I would have been the same way.” Rooster looked away for a moment before turning back to Nickie. “You know, I suggested it to your mom but . . . my mom left me some money. And I know that you’re going to college soon and everything—”

“—I don’t need it,” Nickie interjected, knowing where Bradley was going with it.

“College is expensive and I’m sure that you’re smart but—”

“—I don’t need it,” Nickie repeated, a bit more firmly.

“Are you not going to college?” Rooster asked, trying not to frown but failing anyways.

“No, I’m going to college,” Nickie sassed back, straightening up under Rooster’s frown. “I just don’t want to go to a . . . traditional college."

"Traditional . . ." Rooster trailed off, confused for a moment, before it finally clicked in his mind. Staring at Nickie incredulously, Rooster tried to put his words together despite his shock. “You . . . you want to be a . . . a naval aviator?”

“If they’ll take me,” Nickie replied, nodding firmly.

“Does your mom know?” Bradley asked, causing Nickie to grow a bit defensive.

“Yes.”

“Does Mav know?”

“. . . Yes,” Nickie lied straight through his teeth, causing Rooster to sigh and rub his face.

Well, Nickie got Cora’s inability to lie, that was for sure. He even shrugged his shoulders the same way that Cora did when she tried to lie.

Shifting his weight on his feet, Nickie turned back to Rooster with a slightly skittish appearance. That fear that he had carried around for months, ever since he decided that he really did want to go on and be a naval aviator, crept up again. And even though he talked it out with his mom, he hadn’t yet managed to find the courage to talk to his grandfather about it.

“Did he . . . did he really pull your papers?”

“Yeah, he did,” Bradley sighed, turning back to his son.

Nickie nodded and looked away, his shifting stature giving away how nervous he was feeling. Rooster took in Nickie’s anxiety and swallowed his pride and about sixteen years’ worth of resentment against Maverick before he cleared his throat. Nickie turned back to him, clearly apprehensive, but curious to hear what he had to say nonetheless.

“Mav told me that he regretted it. Of course, that doesn’t change what’s happened . . .” Rooster trailed off, letting a breath out from his nose. Nickie looked up at Rooster, waiting for him to finish his thought. “But it changes what’ll happen down the line.”

Nickie nodded slowly, looking down at the ground again. Staring at his grandmother’s necklace, Nickie turned back to Rooster. He straightened up, trying to look bigger, but he was really just a bean pole at his age, like Bradley was.

“When you get back . . . we can talk. After you apologize to my mom. And my grandfather too.”

Rooster nodded to show that he agreed with Nickie’s terms before Nickie slowly backed up and slipped into his car. Rooster watched Nickie drive off into the night before slowly slipping into his own car. Staring at the steering wheel for a moment, Rooster slowly lowered his head into his hands and let a few tears loose.

~~~~~

Nickie walked around back, having rolled into the driveway sneakily to avoid his mom or grandfather seeing him. Climbing up the side of the house, Nickie reached his window that he left cracked open. Pushing it up more, Nickie started to shimmy into his bedroom when he spotted his grandfather sitting on his bed with an unimpressed expression on his face.

“Hey, Gramps,” Nickie laughed off, trying to appear casual, though him stumbling in through his window definitely didn’t help that. “Just dropped something and thought that it was easier to go out the window than . . .” Nickie trailed off for a moment when he caught his grandfather’s expression. “Is there any excuse that I could use that you would believe?”

“Where did you go?” Maverick asked, getting to the point.

“Uh . . .”

“What’s on your wrist?” Maverick asked, pointing at Nickie’s left wrist.

“Nothing, just a—”

“—Is that Carole’s?” Maverick interjected, easily recognizing the piece of jewelry. Slowly turning to look up at Nickie, Maverick slowly stood up from his bed. “You went to see Bradley?”

“Yeah . . . I did,” Nickie agreed, nodding slowly, staring down at the necklace. “He gave it to me.”

“And . . . how did the rest of your talk go?” Maverick questioned, concerned.

“Well, I didn’t tell him to ‘fuck off’,” Nickie reported, causing Maverick to sigh. “We talked. Mostly about Carole, actually.”

“Bradley was a mama’s boy,” Maverick recounted, nodding sadly. “Not unlike you.”

Nickie nodded as well, staring down at the chain on his wrist for a moment. Slowly unclipping it, he unwrapped the necklace carefully. Nickie reached for the gum tin that he got from Ice and slowly opened it, setting the necklace inside with Goose’s dog tags and Ice’s wings. But the action only reminded him of the conversation he was trying to avoid with his grandfather.

“Your mom told me,” Maverick stated, causing Nickie to turn to him quickly. “Well, she didn’t fully tell me. I just asked her why she looked like she had been crying for a while and put the pieces together from there.”

“She doesn’t want me to go into the Navy,” Nickie replied softly.

“No, she doesn’t. But she doesn’t want to stand in the way of your dreams more,” Maverick returned without a second thought.

Nickie nodded and set the gum tin on his nightstand again. Maverick studied Nickie’s expression for a moment before looking over at the pictures that Nickie had hung up. The one of Goose and Carole caught his eye before he turned back to his grandson, the boy that he practically raised as his own son, as he had done with Nickie’s own father before him.

“And neither do I, Nickie.”

Nickie whipped around to face his grandfather, still a bit apprehensive, though there was that hope budding behind his brown eyes. Maverick managed a smile and nodded to show that he wasn’t lying, which caused Nickie to turn around completely.

“You’re not just saying that because you want me to feel better, right?”

“No, I’m not,” Maverick stated, a bit more firmly. “Though, I do want to be honest with you, Nickie.”

Maverick motioned for Nickie to sit down on the edge of his bed and the two Mitchells sat together for perhaps the final time. Maverick turned to Nickie with a serious expression.

“The whole process . . . it’s not sunshine and daises. And I’m sure that you have your eye on the Academy, and I don’t fault you for that. But I want you to prepare for the reality that politics plays a bigger role in the process than anyone wants to talk about. They kept me out of the Academy because of my dad. And, honestly, I’m worried that they’ll keep you out because of me.”

“I know,” Nickie replied quietly. “Ice warned me.”

“Of course, he did,” Maverick sighed, rubbing his chin.

“I looked into other options. If I can’t get into the Academy, I’ll just try NROTC or OCS. I could even stay in San Diego if I really wanted to do that,” Nickie stated, causing Maverick to nod. “And I mean, even if I can’t become an aviator, I’ll just do my time, get my college degree paid for, and figure it out from there. Maybe I’d become a civilian pilot like you tried to push me to do.”

“Well, you’re a Mitchell. Being in the sky . . . that’s your birth right one way or another,” Maverick stated, smiling a bit painfully. “But I am really glad that you thought through this a bit more. I didn’t want you to get stuck like . . . like Bradley.”

“Why did you pull his papers anyways?” Nickie asked softly, causing Maverick to pause. “I mean, you encouraged me to fly my whole life. Maybe not for the Navy, but you had me up in planes with you since as far back as I could remember. Why would you try and stop Bradley from doing that?”

“My decisions with Bradley . . . your dad . . . I made those decisions because I thought that I was doing the right thing. I thought that I was protecting the son of my best friends. But all I did was end up pushing him away and making him think that I didn’t believe in him at all.”

Maverick looked down at the ground for a moment, before turning back to Nickie.

“And, you know, part of me mixed up Bradley and Goose in my head. And I let what happened to Goose hold Bradley back. I didn’t want him to end up like Goose because I wouldn’t have survived that. But that wasn’t fair to Bradley.” Maverick rubbed his cheek slowly. “You know, they look so damn similar that I just acted on instinct alone.”

“Goose had strong genes,” Nickie remarked, causing Maverick to laugh.

“Yes, he does. He’d be very proud of himself for it too.” Letting out another chuckle and rubbing his chin, Maverick turned back to Nickie. “You know, if he was still here, he would have been bragging to me and anyone who would listen about which side of your family you looked more like. His side, of course. God, he would have held it over my head forever.”

Nickie nodded along and looked at the photo that he hung up on the wall. One of Goose and Carole from before they were even married. They couldn’t have been much older than he was now Nickie realized with a small smidge of dread.

“I wish I got to meet them,” Nickie spoke softly, causing Maverick to slowly tear up.

“Yeah, I wish that you did too, Nickie. Every single day,” Maverick breathed out, forcing a watery smile.

“When do you ship out?” Nickie asked, trying to change the subject to avoid his own tears.

“Tomorrow morning,” Maverick stated, causing Nickie to whip around to face him.

“Tomorrow?” Nickie breathed out, his stomach immediately knotting.

“Affirmative,” Maverick stated, trying to force a smile again. “Don’t worry. Everything will be okay.”

“I know,” Nickie stated softly, not looking entirely convinced.

Slowly, Maverick pulled Nickie in for a tight hug. Nickie returned the hug and tucked his chin against his grandfather’s shoulder. Maverick patted his curled fist against Nickie’s back, forcing himself to not give away the fact that he felt in his gut that this would be the last night that he saw his grandson. Taking a breath, Maverick released Nickie.

“Come on. Let’s join your mom downstairs.”

A.N. Final “main” part will be out either Wednesday or Thursday. And then the epilogue maybe sometime next week.

If you like AUs, don’t forget to vote on the poll that I made last week!

Tags: @xoxabs88xox @eternallyvenus @mygyn @kmc1989 @thegoddessc @midnightmagpiemama @badasspizzalover @praline357 @oatmealisweird @a-court-of-roscoe-and-baby

@abaker74 @avengersfan25 @yogabigooby @daisydaisygoose @sgt-barnesveins @angelbabyange @percysaidnever @artemissunn @indiestrashfire @kidd3ath @luv4kani @lt-spork @brooke-stinson

(If I forgot you in the tags, don’t be afraid to ask again because I’m definitely scatterbrained when it comes to that but please have a reference to your age somewhere on your blog (bio, pinned post) or just message me!)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 8 Epilogue

[peachesofteal]

I recently read your reply to the acotar fic rec ask and agree with you. In truth you aren’t missing out. I really enjoy your fics and writing because of how neutral you write reader inserts but not without depth and character if that makes sense?? I’m not one for op or super specific ocs disguised as reader inserts and I always get bummed out when I come across them. Anyway, I feel super lucky to have discovered your writing style and truly enjoy your work, as a semi-new fan, I thank you very much for sharing it!

(sorry this turned into a ramble) I put a lot of effort into making my readers both in depth but also blank - sounds insane but it's the only way I can explain it. All characters have to have stories: personal motivations, personality traits, experience, trauma, etc... but at the same time, I try to keep my readers fairly "untethered" in their world. They exist, they have stories, they're somewhat involved in everything going on, but there aren't layers upon layers of integration into the lore, most of the integration and story telling comes from them (I learned this the hard way with Sassy, and while I love her, I'd never write a military reader again). It's like... here's a very long vignette. The vignette's edges get blurred as the story progresses and outside things happen, but the story never stops being about the reader (and the /character). It never veers off into politics or espionage or getting reader involved in some big bad mission. Like, no offense, but for ACOTAR, I don't want to read about a reader character who's this infamous sorceress or spy or whatever, with a big extensive background, layers of layers of integration, and she's also the key to solving whatever conflict is going on. I have long winded fantasy books for that. Writing fic in a fantasy fandom does make it a bit harder, but I think I'm making it work.

I wish there was a better way to explain this so it made sense but alas

Also, thank you. I'm happy you're here.

[ladylucksrogue]

What a fantastic idea with the 50 fluff prompt list in angsty Angstpril! May I ask for 12 for Rexsoka and 13 for Bacara and Sariyah, please? No hurry! 💕

Finally getting these posted! Thank you so much for your requests!

We'll start out with 13 for Bacara and Sariyah with the prompt "I didn't think it was possible to love this much"

Takes place in my Unexpected fix it Universe, just giving a bit of a peek into this time period, about a year after Bacara arrives and they have settled into their new life...

While this is just a glimpse and a sneak peek of sorts, it will eventually tie into a larger story. Love these two too much to not include them in the greater narrative.

Also available on A03

The heat had crept in and refused to leave, even with the windows cracked open and the fans spinning above them, it stayed.  The fans were just moving the hot air around at this point.

They’d abandoned the upstairs entirely by late afternoon, dragging mats and pillows down to the ground floor. Sariyah had layered it with the thick quilt she’d patched last winter, uneven stitches, the corners already worn soft. Iko wouldn’t sleep without it, despite the heat.

Now the girl was sprawled between them, limbs flung out, as if she didn’t have a care in the world, one leg shoved up against Bacara's ribcage.  He didn’t care.  She didn’t have a care in the universe and he’d fight to keep it that way. She breathed in soft puffs, mouth open, curls damp as she slept pillowed on Sariyah’s shoulder. Her toy tooka was tucked tight under her arm.

Bacara let the tile cool him.  It was hard under his back but felt wonderful. The open window let in the occasional burst of wind, just enough to keep things bearable.

He watched the ceiling through half-lidded eyes. It was quiet. He was still getting used to that.

“Think we’re going to be alright?” Sariyah asked.

He glanced over, saw her watching him, taking him in.   He was shirtless, just down to his briefs at this point. His beard had filled in heavier lately, thick, shot through with silver along the old scarring.  She’d said she liked it though, so he hadn’t bothered to shave.

“We already are,” he said.  He didn’t mean it as comfort. It was just true. They had food in the cupboards, a working water pump. A kid sleeping between them, another on the way. The goats were healthy. The garden was green.

She exhaled, low and skeptical. His hand found her waist, moved slow and unhurried, sliding to rest over the swell of her belly.

“You say that like it’s easy.”

“It’s not. But it’s true.” He knew she was just going through her own thoughts.  She did this sometimes.  Never used to being in one place for too long.  He understood that.

“We were lucky this season,” she said softly. “The harvest was good.  Got a good price. What happens when it isn’t?”

He didn’t say what he was thinking.  Then we adjust, ration. Then I figure something out. He didn’t need to say it. She knew.

“Neyo’s repair work’s bringing in more than expected,” she considered. “People come to him now.”

“He’s good at it,” Bacara said simply. “That speeder bike yesterday ran better than factory standard by the time he was done with it. He's got the occasional contract offworld too. He makes a lot with those.”

“He smiled today,” she added.

He hummed. He’d seen it too. Watched from the porch as Iko and Neyo spent most of the afternoon outside. Neyo, to everyone’s surprise knelt in the dirt, identifying bugs and explaining things like a holobook while Iko followed him with wide eyes and giggles.  They’d found some massive beetle, nearly the size of a ration bar and Sariyah had screamed when they brought it in. Iko had howled with laughter, and Neyo had looked genuinely pleased with himself.

It had been a good moment.  Neyo had been smiling, actually smiling. Not the half-measured polite thing he wore in town.  The workshop he built, had started out as a place to disappear, his own space. Lately, it seemed to give him more than that. Structure and purpose. He was taking in clients now, doing steady work on farm equipment and power couplings, speeder bikes. It had helped more than Bacara had ever thought possible. Even if he was restless and needed his offworld trips. Bounty contracts. He'd tell Bacara about them after. Bacara wasn't sure if it did him good necessarily, but it wasn't hurting him or their funds.

“And we’ll shear the goats next week,” Sariyah went on. “The last batch sold well.”

“They still stink.”

“You like the cheese and the milk.”

He couldn’t argue with that. The soft kind she made, salted with oil and herbs, was better than anything he’d ever eaten. She’d started aging some now, letting it cure in the cellar alongside jars of fruit and vegetables. The wool sold easily, but it was the cheese that caught interest at the local market.  She liked the challenge, enjoyed it, so he’d help her with the beasts, even if they did stink.

“And if it all goes to hell,” he said, “we’ve got meat.” He said practically.

Sariyah laughed.  “Don’t let them hear you say that.  Or Iko…”

He grunted an affirmative.

“Heard the aid group might come through before winter,” she said.

“Maybe. Rumor is Jedi are behind it.” His jaw clenched slightly at that, not sure how that made him feel, except that he wanted no part of it.  They were fine on their own.

Sariyah reached down, squeezed his hand where it lay across her belly. He relaxed, kept his thumb moving, slow circles against her skin.

She shifted slightly.  “Think he’ll look like you?” She asked after a moment.

He cracked an eye open. “You want that?”

She smiled. “He’s strong. He kicks harder than Iko ever did.”  Bacara knew that, could feel the movement under his palm.

He didn’t answer, just hummed, letting his hand stay where it was.

He let his eyes close again. There was a rhythm to this now, a routine. Mornings started with caf, real food. Iko liked helping with the goats.  The fields weren’t as much as a challenge as he’d thought, not once he’d figured it out. Sariyah liked planting things in the garden. He helped with whatever was needed, maintained the fencing.

He hadn’t known peace would feel like this. Too warm nights, a child’s foot pressing into his ribs. Knowing he had things to do, but he didn’t have to move.  No urgency.

Sariyah settled Iko onto the pillow, her hands carding through her curls as the little girl sighed in her sleep.

“I didn’t think it was possible to love someone this much,” she said. “I thought I knew. But I didn’t.”

He didn’t answer with words, just reached for her, fingers curling under her chin, guiding her into a kiss. Slow, unhurried.  He tasted sweat and warm air and her.

When they parted, he moved his hand to rest over hers, over the baby. Their fingers laced.

He didn’t ask who she meant, him, Iko, the baby, all of them, he didn’t need to.

He felt the same.

[oneinathousand]

A Long-Winded, Amateur Animation Cel Tutorial

I'll be going through the step-by-step process of how I made a replica animation cel, complete with a background and frame, listing the materials, while explaining the many, many blunders I made along the way so that if you attempt something like this, you'll hopefully have an easier time at it than I did.

For the most part, I didn't want to buy new materials, and instead wanted to mostly use what I currently have available, so this method is probably not very suitable for selling original works in the animation cel style that'll last a long time, this is just meant to be for fun for now, so I didn't buy any fixatives or respirators or transparency film packets. If you want to learn more about that stuff to sell cels, @yamino has tutorials. If I were inclined to sell my own cels, I’d rather sell original works rather than replicas.

There is a company called Chromacolour that sells animation supplies like cel sheets and cel paint, but that stuff is pricey, and I'd have to account for international shipping. So, all the materials here can be bought at many of the usual art stores you might use.

Let's get into it... (WARNING: Very long, I'm trying to be thorough!)

Getting Your Reference

The screenshot I chose to recreate was of the villain Yasunori Kato from the anime Doomed Megalopolis:

This was attractive to me for a few reasons. 1. I love the effect of gaps being left in parts of the cel where some of the shadows are on the cape and face, letting the background come through, it's sick af. 2. Besides the sweat drops, badge/medal, and eyes, there weren't a lot of tiny areas that I would have to be especially careful about filling in. If you're just starting out, whether you're doing a replica or something original, pick something that doesn't require a whole lot of precision.

Also, if you're doing a replica, get the highest quality image you can for your reference so you can clearly see the linework and the colors. The best one I could find for this screenshot wasn't particularly great, this wasn't an HD transfer, but it was good enough. If you can find a picture of the actual, original cel for your reference, or something very similar, that would be helpful in getting to see the colors in their natural state, but it's not required.

If you're doing something original, this first step entails doing a drawing and filling in the colors so you have a game plan.

Line Art

Here's where things started to go off the rails for me. My original plan was to trace the lineart in my drawing program of choice onto a semi-transparent layer, then increase the opacity to 100% after I was done drawing the lines, then print out the lineart onto a piece of paper so I wouldn't have to use up a lot of ink. My setup was this;

(As you can see, I flipped the image, I'll explain why I did that in a little bit) Then, wouldn't you know it, I found out my stylus's battery died and I didn't have any more. I didn't want to wait to buy replacements before continuing, so instead I trucked ahead with another method, printing out the image on a piece of copy paper. Unfortunately, some of the details were lost in the printing, so when I traced the lines, I had to have my original reference picture on my computer off to the side and just guess where those details were supposed to go. Maybe I should have played around with filters before printing to increase the contrast, hmmm..

If you have a tablet or ipad that's big enough, you probably wouldn't need to print the reference picture out first, and instead make the image the size you want, lock the screen in place if you can or wear a glove, put a piece of paper over the screen, and trace it that way, but I didn't think of that at the time i was doing it... But if you don't have a tablet/touchscreen laptop/ipad, or if your image is too big, then you'd have to print your reference out anyway.

I first traced the lines onto a piece of regular paper the way I would have done it digitally if I had been able. I didn't want to jump straight into putting the lines onto the cel just yet because I wanted to make sure I was satisfied with them and avoid having to make big changes on a cel sheet. I shaded some areas blue or yellow as a reminder to myself which areas are not part of the black shading which will be put in later.

I hear some of you asking "Why didn't you use transfer film to put your lineart onto and skip these extra steps?" I'm gonna be real with you guys, I didn't know what transfer film was until after I bought my acetate paper and I don't want to buy anything else for making cels right now unless I choose to make this a regular thing.

For those who don't know, transfer film allows you to print stuff onto a clear paper a la the Xerox method of animation popular in the mid 20th century. I probably should have done this instead because the process of inking by hand was a pain in the ass, which I'll get to later, BUT I was also paranoid that if I had transfer film I'd mess up and damage the family printer lol. If you can buy transfer film, look up and see if your printer is compatible with it! Maybe I'll start using it someday. But for those of you who can't get transfer film or don't have a compatible printer, you'll have to ink by hand, anyway.

As you may have noticed, I didn't fill the image across the entire acetate sheet. That's because animators only needed to fill up however much space was required for the scene, and they could leave some of the edges rough if the camera wasn't gonna be picking them up during the photography stage. Here's a real cel from Doomed Megalopolis which illustrates this:

I don't know what the original size for my reference was, but I wasn't looking to do a 1 to 1 recreation. If the original was actually a little bigger, oh well, at least I didn't have to put on as much paint. I knew going in that one of my last steps was gonna be putting a frame around the edges to hide them.

Inking

The acetate paper I've been using is Dura-Lar, specifically the kind that's supposed to be able to take permanent inks. I tested all the inks I had, and most of them either slipped off the sheet completely or didn't show up at all.

The only ones that kinda worked were the Uni Vision fineliner, the Uni Pin fineliners, and the Daler Rowney drawing ink, but even then, I had to be careful with those, they're very easy to smear until they dry.

I did also try out a Sharpie, and it DID seem to stick onto the sheet the best (boy I guess the Dura-Lar paper wasn't lying when it said it was best for permanent inks), but unfortunately, a black Sharpie will appear as blue on acetate, which I didn't want. Maybe in the future I'll look for another kind of permanent marker which actually shows up as black on acetate and comes with very fine nibs sizes.

For this cel, I stuck with the Uni Pin fineliner in the .003 size. Make sure that you wear latex gloves while inking, or at least some kind of thin gloves. You probably will get fingerprints on it, and you will certainly attract dust if you're working on it for long enough, but you can wipe that off the acetate with Windex or something, just be careful not to lift off the lines. If you make a mistake while applying the ink, use rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip to wipe it off.

The fineliner being so easy to slip off meant that in order for it to stick better, I often had to make chicken scratch marks for the larger areas, so I frankly find the line quality to have turned out pretty badly. If I don’t get transfer paper for next time, I'll either get non-Sharpie permanent markers or try the Daler Rowney ink with my dip pens to see if they stick to the acetate better. Here is the result:

If you like rough pen marks, then this look will be great for you! But for me, I felt lucky that many of the lines would at least partially be covered up by the black shadows or the dark background.

After you're done inking, let it dry overnight just to be safe. Before moving onto the painting stage, I'd like to go over another oopsie I made that I kicked myself for later, which was me deciding to flip my original image.

Normally in cel animation, one would ink on the front of the sheet, then put the paint on the back of the sheet, which is what I did for my previous attempts at cel painting, but this time, I decided to put the ink on the back as well. My logic was that if I flipped over the sheet to put the paint on, and the ink was placed in the front, it would likely rub off if I moved the sheet around, so I thought the ink would be better protected on the back side.

This was not the case. If I accidentally put paint outside the lines and went in with a damp brush to lift it off, I would very likely lift off the ink too even though it was "dry" and I'd have to reapply it, or I'd move the piece of paper that I had under my hand to protect the sheet too much and the lines would smear, causing me to have to redraw the lines and wait for them to dry all over again 🤡 All that is to reiterate: Ink should probably go on the FRONT of the sheet, paint should probably go on the BACK of the sheet. If you're doing that, there's probably no need for you to flip your reference image unless you're checking for symmetry in the eyes in your transfer stage or something.

Background

This part was pretty easy for me because I picked a simple background. It didn't have to match the original perfectly because the pattern changes a lot within the few seconds the original frame comes from. I used a mix of black, white, and phthalo blue acrylic paint on watercolor paper that was the same size as the cel, repainting some areas after it was dry to increase the contrast.

(A bit of dust got on my paper, I wiped it off later)

Painting

Whether you're doing a replica or something original, I recommend putting together swatches of all the colors in your reference image so you know how many colors you need to mix and what they look like by themselves. Here's mine:

I put the colors against a gray background so I could get a better sense of what the values were. I didn't manage to recreate the colors exactly for the most part, but with these swatches, I got much closer to the originals than I'm sure I would have gotten if I didn't have them.

When mixing larger batches of color, once you're satisfied with the result, put them in an airtight container so the acrylic doesn't dry immediately, as you'll most likely have to spend hours if not days on a cel project waiting for each layer to dry.

Also, if you're mixing a color, make more than you think you'll need. If you run out in the middle and have to re-mix the color all over again, it's very likely you won't be able to recreate it exactly how it was before. If there is so much as the TINIEST difference in hue, it WILL be noticeable. Trust me, I speak from experience 🤮

When applying the paint, start with the smaller details first like highlights, then gradually do bigger areas. Make sure each layer is completely dry before putting on the next one. Here is my coloring process while still in the early stages:

Yet another blunder from me, I should have gotten close-ups of the sheet so you could see what the painting process looks like better X_X but this pic should give you an idea of what it takes to paint a DIY cel LOL.

You will have to apply the paint generously in order to make it somewhat opaque on the sheet. Acrylic paint just doesn't work the same as the kind of cel paint they used to use, and I'm sure as hell not making the investment for Chromacolour unless, like, this becomes my job, which is highly unlikely. I saw a video from the animator Richard Williams where he explained that the cel paints were basically emulsion paints, which is the kind you put on walls, and I have seen a couple cel hobbyists confirm this, but I'm not buying cans of paint in a bunch of different colors, that would take up so much space!!! I hear the model paints by Tamiya also works pretty well, but again, I'd rather use what I have, so acrylic paint it is!

You may not be able to make your paint layers completely opaque, and they'll probably be somewhat see-through if you hold the sheet up to a light, but unless you're actually making a cel animation and you're photographing the sheets, I wouldn't be too concerned about that. Just make sure they at least LOOK opaque against a solid background, that there's no clear spots where you don't want them, and that you're within the lines (unless you wanna go outside the lines, you do you).

Since you're having to glob the paint on, it can be hard to tell if you're still staying within the lines, so make sure to frequently flip the sheet over to check (guess who was too lazy to flip the sheet very often and made some mistakes which went unnoticed until too far along the project to fix 🤡). Of course, don't flip the sheet over if your paint is very wet, which it shouldn't be so you can maintain control over it.

Something I did to help me stay within the lines was to place lines of paint right along the ink so I would know where to stop. Also, avoid having areas of different colors touch each other before they dry.

And here’s the cel with the background!

I see my mistakes in the color mixing, and putting too much of the highlight color in the eyes, and making some of the shadow lines wobbly, but if you look at it from a distance it’s not too bad, I guess 🤷‍♀️

You can stop here if you want to and stick the cel in a folder, but I put mine in a picture frame with the background. I also wanted to put an extra “frame” around the cel edges to make it look clean.

Normally, when real cels are sold, they’re put in what’s called a “mat package”, or “presentation mat package”, or “mat board”, which makes the cel look presentable. I didn’t have any of those, nor did I feel inclined to make one, or take any other steps to preserve it because again, I’m not planning on selling this. So instead, I measured the sides of the image, then transferred the measurements to a piece of canvas paper and cut out a hole in the middle. You can use whatever thicker kind of paper you might have. Here is the final assembly:

I had to trim off a bit of the sides of the cel, background, and canvas paper to make it fit inside the frame, so that’s why the hole isn’t totally in the center. But otherwise I’m pleased with the final result. You might have to wipe dust off the glass before putting it on if there is any (which I once again forgot to do XD)

This didn’t turn out perfect, but I learned a lot and this was the best of these attempts at making a fake animation cel I’ve done so far. Next time I might be more ambitious and go back to doing an OC, or perhaps fanart done in this style.

[theexpirederror]

Putting one of my existing Ocs into The boys sort AU thing.

Valentina López Lindberg Aka Rex/king

Personally: chaotic, Genuine, Knowledge, reckless, Playful, Protective, Responsible (rarely, but possible), Skillful, Serious ( rarely), Surprising, Fun-loving

(don’t let that drawing on the right fool you she’s very chaotic and smiles a lot plus a lil koo koo but that’s ok)

She’s 36 but for the meantime, I’m thinking of putting it a bit higher

(Rex as she mostly goes by is mainly a merc Oc of mine so just for fun I’m bringing her in here)

Firstly, I am going to explain her powers together with limitations and examples on how it works since it sounds basic, but I’m thinking of elemental powers something similar around like avatar the last Airbender.

———————-

(putting a cut here since it’s very long)

For example

Versatile Combat Skills

switching between elements like fire, water, earth, air, electro, and more, making her highly adaptable in various combat scenarios.Each element can provide unique advantages (e.g., fire for offensive attacks, water for healing or crowd control, earth for defense).

Environmental Adaptation

manipulating elements to adapt to her environment, such as creating ice bridges, generating wind currents for flight, or forming protective barriers from earth.

Elemental Synergy

Combining elements for powerful attacks (e.g., mixing water and electricity for a shocking water attack, or using wind to enhance fire attacks). Creative use of elements for strategic advantages, such as using water to extinguish fires or earth to block pathways.

Healing Abilities:

With water manipulation, Rex can heal herself and others, making her a valuable asset in prolonged battles.

Tactical Utility

Elements can be used for non-combat purposes, such as creating cover, constructing temporary shelters, or manipulating the battlefield to her advantage.

Rex’s ability to connect her elemental powers with normal weapons adds another layer of versatility and danger to her combat style

Infusing Weapons with Elements

can channel her elemental energy into weapons like knives, swords, and guns. This infusion allows her to enhance the weapons’ capabilities, making them more effective and adding elemental damage to her attacks.

Fire Infusion: A sword engulfed in flames can cut through metal and ignite enemies.

Earth Infusion: Bullets infused with earth can penetrate tougher armor and create shockwaves on impact.

Electro Infusion: A gun can shoot electrified bullets, stunning targets and disrupting electronic devices.

Air Infusion: Daggers can be thrown with increased speed and precision, slicing through the air with enhanced accuracy.

( of course if not careful enough it can do harm to herself while in use of these )

Elemental Fatigue

Certain elements may drain her energy faster than others, forcing her to manage her power usage carefully.

Emotional Influence

Extreme emotional states can affect her control over elements cause unintended elemental outbursts, potentially harming allies or innocent bystanders.

Physical Strain

Using multiple elements simultaneously or rapidly switching between them can strain her body, leading to injuries or temporary loss of control.

Extensive use of powerful elemental attacks might cause physical harm or exhaustion.

Psychological Toll

The responsibility of wielding such vast powers can be psychologically taxing, potentially leading to stress or self-doubt.

How her powers work

Rex possesses an intrinsic elemental core within her, a unique energy source that allows her to generate and manipulate elements at will. This core is the heart of her powers, drawing from a deep well of primordial energy that transcends the natural limitations of her surroundings.

operate on a quantum level, where she can tap into the fundamental particles and forces that make up the elements. By manipulating these particles, she can create fire, water, earth, air, and other elements from the ambient energy around her, essentially pulling them into existence. Even with the absence of the element itself around.

I would go on with explaining a whole new story for her here but at the meantime, I’m still working on that been lazy/ unmotivated to write

Here’s her characterhub thing for the meantime I’m not fully done with her original story either 

Some drawings of her 👇

( this is mostly art of her in merc AU for her hair color in this I’m just going to keep it her natural hair color )

Also Rex and butcher Doodle

[dawninlatin]

manorian angst

When dark forces threaten, the leaders of Erilea must come to aid in yet another war to save their world. The problem is that Manon barely survived the hell that was the last war, and she can't go through it again.

Words: 3.1K | Masterlist | AO3 Link

«Tell me.» Manon ordered as she marched into the throne room, having landed in Orynth mere minutes ago. Abraxos had flown like the wind itself to get them here as soon as possible.

«Nice to see you too,» Aelin drawled from her throne, but her eyes lacked their usual sparkle. The room was filled with the rest of her court, and a few other leaders from Erilea’s kingdoms, including one blue-eyed king. 

«I don’t have time for this. Tell. Me.» Manon wasn’t known to be polite, even on her good days, but her heart had been racing ever since she’d received word of a new, rising threat causing her presence to be needed in Orynth immediatley, and she couldn’t think clearly when she was fighting the panic rising within her.

Not another war. Please, not another war.

«A few days ago, a portal opened, right outside of Orynth. A young female came from it, fae, frantic, begging us in the old language to help her people against these god-like creatures.» Aelin drew a shaking breath, Rowan placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

«We know them better as the valg.»

Manon’s ears started ringing, images of collars and cold, empty eyes appearing in her mind. Of her sisters disappearing in blinding flashes of light, one by one.

She could only half-listen as Aelin explained how she’d seen this world before, when she fell through the wyrdgates, how the valg they had defeated seemed harmless in comparison to these beings that could drain whole worlds of all life, how they had tried to drain this world before, and only gotten stronger since then, how they would eventually come back.

«But not if we help them.» It was Dorian that spoke this time, and Manon would be lying if she said his voice didn’t affect her any bit.

«No.» Manon hardly needed to think. There was no way she was doing this again. She’d barely survived the last war, was barely surviving now. 

Aelin stared at her in shock. Manon couldn’t blame her. They didn’t know she was merely a ghost of who she used to be.

«You closed the gates. Our world can’t be reached,» Manon tried, but it sounded pathetic, desperate.

«She managed to reach us,» Aelin whispered. «Please.»

«No.»

She could feel a pair of sapphire eyes boring into her, and when she turned to look at him, Dorian’s face was full of hurt and betrayal. «Manon-»

«No.» Dorian could hate her all he liked, as long as it meant he was safe. Because how could she explain that just thinking about another war nearly made her suffocate? 

The king gave her a long look, before turning on his heel and storming out.

-

Manon flung the door open, moving into the room where she knew the king would be. «You’re not doing this either. You’re not throwing yourself into this war.» 

Dorian held her gaze for a long moment before he finally spoke, his face unreadable. «If you don’t want to fight with us, fine, there’s nothing I can do, apart from getting on my knees and begging, but I’m leaving, whether you like it or not. I refuse to see this world be destroyed after everything we did to save it.»

When Manon didn’t answer, he turned his back to her, stepping towards the tall window overlooking the gardens. «There’s nothing left for us to discuss, then.» The words were a dismissal, a cue for Manon to leave, and they left a stinging sensation in her heart.

Everything would have been a lot easier if she could leave, but she couldn’t. Not until she’d won this fight. 

Over by the window, Dorian’s jaw tightened with suppressed anger, still not looking at her. A thin layer of frost began covering the glass as she just stood there, remaining silent. 

What was there to say, anyway? That in the past two years, she could count on one hand the amount of times she’d gotten a good night’s sleep? That every time she closed her eyes, she saw her sisters racing towards their deaths, leaving her behind? That when the nightmares were at their worst, Dorian joined them? 

The truth was that Manon was hanging on by a thread, barely keeping her pain and despair hidden.

She needed to say something, though, because she had seen this determination in Dorian before, right before he’d flown off to Morath, fully prepared to sacrifice himself if it meant saving everyone else.

And it was at the memory of waking up alone in a cold tent, terrified, but also so angry, that Manon regained her ability to speak.

«Dorian, please-»

She blinked, and the ice that had slowly been creeping over the window evaporated. Dorian’s head snapped up, and he looked as if she’d struck him. The voice she’d just used hadn’t fully sounded like her own, so raw and full of anguish.

«I can’t-» Manon began, but that voice failed her, her words ending in a hitch of breath. Tears were pressing behind her eyes, dangerously close to shedding.

«You can’t what?» Dorian asked her then, the question so careful, so far from the resolve he’d showed mere moments ago.

She couldn’t do this, was what, Manon thought to herself, but she was about to rupture, about to shatter into a million little pieces she had fought tooth and nail to hold together for the past two years.There was no power in any realm that could stop it, and Dorian would bear witness to it.

«Witchling…» Dorian whispered, reaching up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. He was so close now, and to her shock, Manon realized she was the one who’d moved closer, craving the comfort of his arms.

«I can’t go through it again. Dorian, please don’t-»

She drew a shuddering breath, but she couldn’t seem to get any air into her lungs. Closing her eyes, Manon let the dam break.

«I can’t… I can’t lose more of the people I love when I barely have anyone left! I’m terrified, every fucking second of every fucking day that you’ll fly off on some suicide mission again because you have this insane idea that you need to sacrifice yourself to save everyone else, and I can’t do it, Dorian! I can’t lose-»

She practically screamed it at the king, hitting his chest as the words ended in choked sobs.

Dorian didn’t say anything as he grabbed hold of her arms, then pulled her close. Manon kept heaving, feeling as if she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs, her vision clouded by tears

«Breathe, Manon. Just breathe.» Dorian’s hands moved up and down her back in a soothing motion, taking deep breaths alongside her. «In,» she tried inhaling with him, getting a little more air, «and out.» 

They stood there for what felt like forever, Dorian whispering quiet encouragements, stroking her back, until Manon’s heart finally calmed a little, her breaths becoming more steady.

Manon looked up at Dorian, giving him a wordless thank you. In return, he gave her a soft smile, and Manon was so grateful that he always seemed to know what she tried to communicate, even when she couldn’t find the right words.

Suddenly, his eyes widened, if only slightly, as if he realized something.

«Did you just tell me you love me?» Dorian held her gaze, and part of her wanted to pull away at the intensity of it, but those sapphire eyes had her hypnotized.

His voice was barely above a whisper, but Manon could hear the disbelief, the hope. It was enough to halt her crying, to make her forget, for a moment, that they were actually in the middle of a very important argument.

«That was what you got out of this? Of course I fucking love you, you complete idiot! Are you-»

She knew she sounded hysteric, but before she could finish her sentence, Dorian caught her lips with his.

The kiss was hungry, all-consuming, saying all the words neither of them could voice. 

Manon answered with that same desperate hunger, the salt of her tears mixing with a familiar taste that could only be described as Dorian. 

She needed to be even closer to him, lose herself in the pleasure only he could give her, but Dorian pulled away, panting. His hands cupped her face, and Manon felt the soft caress of an invisible finger move across her lips.

He looked almost wild, and his eyes were stormy as he spoke in a low and raspy voice. «I love you too, Manon. You have no idea how-»

This time, she was the one who pounced, lips crashing against his. If their former kiss was hungry, this one was ravenous. She opened herself up to him, his tongue entering her mouth. She sucked on it, and a low noise came from his throat. His hands moved down, down, to cup her ass, and she grabbed the opportunity to wrap her legs around his waist. 

Dorian started walking them towards the bed, meanwhile Manon kissed a trail across his jaw, down his throat, letting her teeth graze over his pulse point. She could feel him growing harder and harder against her, and her core throbbed in answer, needing to be filled.

As he reached the bed, Dorian carelessly tossed her onto it, immediately going to work on removing her clothes. His phantom hands started pulling off her trousers, while Dorian unlaced her shirt. He reached a hand inside to cup one of her breasts, brushing a finger over an already peaked nipple. Manon moaned, urging him to just take the damn shirt off.

He obeyed with a dark chuckle, but he was still too clothed in Manon’s opinion. Dorian stepped out of his own pants, while Manon, ever so impatient, simply ripped his shirt in half.

«What if I really liked that shirt?» Dorian teased, but Manon didn’t have time for his usual swagger. Letting out a near-feral growl, she reached for him, pulling him closer.

They were both naked now, and Manon claimed his mouth in a rough kiss whilst one of her hands  moved downwards, grabbing his hard cock. She gave it a firm stroke once, twice, and Dorian groaned before he pushed her back down on the bed, beginning to kiss a trail down her neck, over her breasts, down-

«Inside me. Now.»

Manon grabbed his hair and pulled him back up to her mouth. She was already dripping wet, her cunt begging for him to fill her with his impressive length.

Invisible hands snaked up her legs, spreading them, and then Dorian lined himself up, filling her in one long, glorious stroke. She moaned at the tight fit, at the bolts of pleasure shooting up her spine. 

Dorian panted, burying his head in the crook of her neck. His lips found her pulse, and he sucked right as he started moving inside her.

Manon held him tightly, clawing at his back as he slammed to the hilt over and over again, hitting that sweet spot deep inside her. She lifted her hips to meet his strokes, and the new angle pulled an almost animalistic noise out of her as he brushed against her clit.

Already, she could feel that great wave rising, that blissful release beckoning. Dorian was close too, judging by the way he was panting, his rhythm faltering. He lifted his head and his eyes locked onto hers. Gold meeting sapphire. She couldn’t have looked away even if she wanted to. It was hypnotizing.

They were both desperate, two souls trying to get as close to each other as possible.

«Say that you’re mine,» Dorian growled, a low noise coming from his throat as Manon tightened her legs around him.

«I’m yours,» Manon moaned, unable to even identify all the emotions she was feeling in this moment. 

«You’re mine.»

«I’m yours.» 

Then he brought his thumb down on her clit, and that great wave crashed over her.

Manon screamed with pleasure, but the sound was muffled as Dorian’s mouth crashed into hers. He thrust into her hard, she could feel his cock throb inside her, could feel her cunt gripping him tight, and as she bit down on his lower lip, he followed her over the edge with a scream of his own.

-

«I’ll fight with you,» Manon said at last, looking up from where she was nestled against Dorian’s chest. A phantom hand was tracing circles on her upper thigh, but she was so exhausted the motion was more soothing than arousing. «I’ll ask my people, too, but I won’t force anyone, not after all they’ve been through.»

Dorian seemed to think for a moment. «I won’t pretend I’m not glad you’ll fight with us though I do feel a bit guilty.» He winced as he said that last part.

Manon touched her fingers to his lips, as if memorizing their shape. «You shouldn’t,» she said, not meeting his eyes. «Part of me knew from the beginning this was the right thing to do, I was just too much of a coward to admit it.» 

«Look at me.» He grabbed her chin, tilting her face upwards. «You’re not a coward. You are so strong, Manon, and we’ve hardly had time to catch our breath since the last war, in which you went through hell. Not wanting to go through that again doesn’t make you weak, it just makes you…» he trailed off, looking for the right word.

«Human?» Manon suggested with a small laugh.

Dorian smiled. «In lack of a better term, yes.»

She remembered a different time, when being called human had been the greatest insult there was, when it had been beaten into her, time and time again, that caring made her weak. That love was for foolish cowards. It pleased her to know that in the end, her grandmother had lost that battle too.

Closing her eyes, Manon whispered, «I’m just so tired of being afraid all the time.» Another tear slipped free, but Dorian wiped it away quickly. She buried her head in his chest as she started crying once more, the sobs silent this time. Dorian only held her tighter, as she shook, stroking her hair.

Two years ago, Manon never would have allowed herself to show this much emotion, to even feel this much emotion, but she was weary, both body and soul, and she couldn’t keep fighting any longer. 

«It will get better. I promise.»

One day, she vowed to herself, even if that wasn’t today, Manon would believe him. 

«And I am sorry for how I left things when I went to Morath.»

«It was crucial-» Manon began, but Dorian halted her, needing to finish his apology.

«I agree, it was crucial to winning the war, but I could have gone about it differently. You laid yourself bare in front of me, and in response, even when I knew how difficult that must have been for you, I left in the dead of night without a word. For that, I am sorry.»

Manon held his gaze, something settling within her at the words she’d unknowingly needed to hear.

«For what it’s worth, if you had woken me up to say goodbye, I probably would have followed you. I nearly did, actually, no matter how furious I was.»

«I’m surprised you didn’t propose this time, to get me to stay,» Dorian mused, a hint of teasing in his voice.

Feeling a smile tugging at her lips, Manon replied, «That plan didn’t work, if you don’t remember.» 

«Maybe I’ve changed my mind since then.» He was clearly toying with her, but it made Manon feel a little lighter inside, so she decided to play along.

«You survive whatever hell we’re about to throw ourselves into, and I’ll propose again. I’ll get a ring and everything.» Manon punctuated the words with a trail of kisses down the hard planes of his stomach.

«Deal. You survive, and I promise I’ll say yes this time,» Dorian murmured, his hands going to her hair as she reached his cock, the length hardening once more.

Holding his gaze, Manon let out a breathless «Deal.»

-

«Do you want to know what I’m fighting for?» Dorian asked, his fingers not halting their soothing motions. Manon merely hummed in answer, both of them completely spent, physically and emotionally, after three more rounds.  

«I’m fighting for a future where we can spend days in bed like this, just the two of us, no interruptions, whether that be annoying council members or impending doom.»

 Manon snorted at that, and wasn’t that exactly why she loved him so much? Only Dorian could make her laugh at a time like this.

«But there won’t be a world for us to do that in if we do nothing.»

His words made Asterin’s voice echo inside Manon.

Live, Manon. Live.

And she would. She would take up this fight, join this war, so that she could one day simply live. She owed her cousin that much.

«Should we tell the others?» Something had straightened within her, and her voice sounded stronger, even if she didn’t move from her spot halfway on top of Dorian.

«In the morning. We both need to sleep, and I selfishly want us to stay in our own bubble a little longer.» Manon felt him sigh, and she looked up at him once more, holding his gaze as she brushed his hair out of his face.

«In the morning, then.»

Because the king was right, they needed to sleep. She could feel her eyelids growing heavy, though inside, she felt like a great weight had been lifted off her.

Bringing her face closer to his, she mouthed those three wondrous words against his lips, before claiming them. Right now, they could pretend they had all the time in the world. 

«I love you too,» Dorian murmured in between lazy, unhurried kisses.

When they settled at last, Manon was tucked against his side, head resting over his heart, its steady beat a soothing lullaby. The last thing she remembered before drifting off to sleep, was Dorian pressing a kiss to her forehead.

And that night, no nightmares of the past haunted her. Instead, she dreamt of the future, of clear skies with wyverns flying over head, of lazy mornings spent in bed, of being woken up by a pair of small feet running down the hall and wide, blue eyes and a mess of white curls looking up at her. 

Manon would claw her way to that future if she had to.

Because they would win this war, they had to, and then she would finally allow herself to live.

A/N:

my will to live currently depends on us getting a glimpse of the throne of glass gang, especially manorian, in cc3:) we will get a book about them one day!! stay clowning fellow manorians<3<3

anyway, i rarely have the time to write anymore, because uni means you actually have to do schoolwork:( i should study for my chemistry exam rn, but i wanted to procrastinate, so i wrote fanfiction instead, you're welcome:):)

Taglist: @fireheartfaery @bookishwitchling @celestialams @darklingswhxore@onfma @ireallyshouldsleeprn @sayosdreams@rowaelinismyotp@rainbowcheetah512@zoyalovesbooks @wishfulimaginings @dreamlandreader

I keep a separate taglist for each ship, so let me know if you want to be added to any of them!

[breadbox-draws]

KK LOOKS SO GOOFY AS DJ F-LIGHT/pos!!!! I WANNA HEAR MORE ABOUT THE TWO CHARTER AUS!!!!!

i'll be honest, i'm a little (pleasantly) surprised to see enthusiastic interest in these silly ideas- not as a self-deprecatory thought, mind, but more of an unexpectedness since this is a space where i just toss random doodles to the wind hdowjfjdk

i appreciate it very much though! yall folks and friends have been very kind <3

onto the ask at hand, i'll start with some preliminary details. Both iterations are some years older!, meaning that KK would be around his early thirties when he becomes a charter with a newly built district to his name (he's currently 27). Maxismum, the district, is relatively thin in width, and would likely be located on the outer rim of the city. While KK didn't originally want to become charter, in these AUs he's pushed or motivated to aim higher, so that he can provide a happy space for his friends and for Vinyl City. He takes this in two different ways, explained under the read-more!

(Foreword: these ideas are a wip, so the designs of the costumes and districts might change later on)

DJ F.Light

Route A is the Normal Route. Here, KK keeps his old stage name, DJ Dragonflyte, and just shortens it into an alias sometimes (the exact reason why is still pending, maybe as a way to get around without his reputation preceding him). KK continues with his philosophy of living the PLUR life (rave acronym for peace-love-unity-respect) and utilizes his status + district as a means of bringing attention to smaller and/or up-and-coming artists! It's sort of why his outfit is less flashy and looking like an ordinary event organizer, with some design inspirations coming from the look of aircraft marshallers.

Maxismum A:

This Maxismum has a topside and an underside, with the former being split up in quarters by cardinal direction.

The east and west quarters are long sections of bright neon roofed mall space, called Holiday Row East and West, respectively. They primarily function as a space where people can acquire 1) party paraphernalia (think Party City vibes) and 2) reasonably priced materials that can help someone kick off their own music career! So like instruments, costumes, sound equipment, etc, etc. The items are sort of generic though, since the inventory has to cater to a wide variety of people, so he encourages folks that do more specialized work, like costume and set designers, to advertise their wares at Holiday Row :]

The north quarter connects to an airport! Maxismum and Holiday Row also act as sort of touristy place, to be the first impression of Vinyl City (the airport + air tram access is also because it fits with his theme- he thought it would be cool). (i might not keep this idea)

The south quarter is residential, and while the apartments are well maintained, they're a bit tight on space and see a lot of foot traffic outside.

The underside is specifically used for performances, plural. It works similarly to underground warehouse raves back in the day, where there are separate "rooms" (buildings, at this size) that musicians can rent out for performance venues, and he'll accept any and all genres to take a crack at a real stage. The atmosphere of this layer is always generally dim, with streetlamps and blacklight fixtures and neon lights that decorate the area and lead people to places with 'ascension' motifs (airplanes, rockets, rising stars...you know, for Rising Stars).

DJ F.Light's venue, called the Blacklight Runway (a slight nod to a track by the same name from Dirty Androids), is the largest one there, and when he holds a concert, he never does it alone. He always invites other DJs or artists of similar genres to perform with him, where they cycle out the person playing after a certain amount of time. Each DJ is credited when it's their turn to play, and F.Light is always the last one to go. Anyone unfamiliar with his concerts might be surprised to see that...he was both the ticket guy at the door and the guy in the crowd that was *really* going ham with the cheering during everyone else's performances.

== ==

DJ Apotheotic

Route B is the "Bad" Route. This KK lets his nerves get to him and takes on the theme of the Sophisticated Techno Night Club. He transitions out of his old Dragonflyte theme completely and feeds into the idea that he *has* to look and act more "professional" in order to be taken seriously.  Initially, that was in the spirit of benefiting Vinyl City, but he soon got lost with his vision and aimed for power and popularity instead, becoming dead set on being the Best.

Maxismum B:

Instead of "Party City Music Mall", the district looks much more like a futuristic minimalist, with architecture consisting of high rise polyhedral towers plated with sleek, black chrome and neon strips. (Think Tron: Legacy, for those that have seen the movie).

Instead of topside being split into quarters, there are just two halves: the business and residential districts.

Maxismum's offices are chic but practical, with a primary focus on digital equipment, like monitor screens, sound programs, and even gaming hardware. While not as artistically fancy as Dream Fever, there's definitely an energy of trying to be like 'what is sold or served here is of high quality, furnished with the latest upgrades and reputably sourced, and deserving of respect'.

The residential district is like...brutalism's chrome and neon cousin. Though the apartments are a little pricey, but they're close to air tram stations that connect to other parts of the city, and the living conditions and spaces are great, as long as you're okay with moving into a. block. It's all in the name of efficiency.

(The district sounds a bit bleak but it does have something of an active nightlife, with entertainment in darkness-themed establishments like arcades, laser tag, and bowling alleys. he hasn't completely gotten rid of his roots ey).

What stands out the most in the district is his venue, called...I'm less solid on this name (pun intended), but it's something along the lines of The Perfect Prism. It's a large building built on tall supports with an outer facade that changes its shape into different simple polyhedrons, like pyramid, cube, diamond. Sometimes a sphere. His concerts are the *only* official concerts allowed to happen in his district, and he runs his shows like he's the hottest thing in the city. I almost hesitate to say he's like a priest at his turntable pulpit because he's not...giving sermons or holding some kind of 'music Mass', but in the those calm breaks in the music when the DJ talks, he's definitely saying stuff like "my music will save your fucking soul (metaphorical)". And he doesn't just have his finger on the pulse of the party, his music *is* the pulse of the party, and he's "gonna deliver you from your troubles with a lotta noise, baby".

[pbandjesse]

I slept a little better. I only woke up a few times. And I wasn't as intensely itchy. Progress for sure.

When I woke up James would come back to bed for a cuddle. They let me know it was wildly cold outside. I would have to be very cozy today.

We would get up soon. I got cleaned up and didn't like my first outfit. I would end up in my favorite jumpsuit but it made me consider what would happen if I needed to go to the doctor again. I will have to take that into consideration going forward I guess. For those unplanned events.

I had cereal. And we planned our day. I would be upstairs for a little bit. And James would finish wrapping some gifts. They also got a lot of the Christmas cookies mixed up to bake later on. And I would make some outfits for the upcoming week. I also moved my overnight bag stuff to a different bag.

Soon though we were getting ready to go out. The plan was to go to AVAM for a few Christmas gifts. Then to the museum to get some gift tags. Then lunch. Then groceries. And that worked out pretty well.

It was shocking how cold it felt. Like it was 30 degrees but the air felt icy. I'm not positive I love this fleece, it's just a little to tight. But it's very thick and warm. It was good under my coat.

We got to AVAM and parked. We were in a silly mood and just having a nice time being goofy with e as charger. James kicking the air and me spinning my purse around. I took the long champ I got yesterday and put pins all over it and I am very happy with it. I will add more pins for sure.

Avam was fun but I was a little overheated in my layers. I am still on the "don't just buy nonsense" kick. So I was for sure more specific. At first I wasn't finding much but they have such an excellent books section. And I found so many good things that one of the managers came over to take them from me and hold them at the front because I was going to drop something. I didnt pick up anything else after but I was enjoying looking at the card section.

James went to pay first so I couldn't see what they got. Surprises. I got in line and paid. I still got an employee discount, though it's been a while since I've done work with them. The cashier was super nice. And the discount allowed me to pay in cash from my tip the other night. So it was basically free. Amazing.

We drove to the diner next but it was way to busy. So we decided we would go out to Glen Burnie to go to Friendly's because I have had a small craving for their specific bread.

We stopped at the museum first through. And on the drive James told me about the different kinds of jazz and explained some references I didn't understand in a song we were listening to. I was enjoying the day.

And lunch was good but I got pretty frustrated with our waitress. Everything was taking forever. And it was a little busy but not that bad. Once our food came out she just never came back. Never refilled drinks or checked on us or anything. It took almost 20 minutes after we finished eating to get our check. I had to go to the counter to find her. It was wild. I ended up getting a soda to go because I was frustrated.

But the food was good. The fries were a little overcooked but the sandwich was good. And the company was good. We talked about things we'll have to do to make the house safer for baby. About our baby registry. About Christmas. It was nice being together even if I was frustrated with the outside situation.

Grocery store was our last stop. And it wasn't as terribly busy as I was thinking. But it was fine. We got some snacks but mostly stuck to the list. I got two different kinds of popsicles. And once we paid I was very happy to go home.

When we got back here I just wanted to chill. I wrapped my last gifts. James started baking the cookies. Things were good.

I went to lay down upstairs. I got incredibly winded and dizzy and had to lay down and I was just really unsettled.

While I was laying there, sipping water and trying to calm down, I got some of my blood work back.

The one test showed some of my levels were in a more normal range. But others were very high still. One was my bile levels (what is this the humor system??) were very very high. I didn't really know what to think based on my googling. But I figured they would let me know.

I joined James downstairs. And got cuddled up on the couch with sweetp. I would get up to make Crabcake some food and he was so stinking cute eating his salad. I would also have a salad with dinner. And one of the cookies James made which was very nice.

I wasn't feeling amazing but watching Crabcake was so nice. James looked over at me and was like. You are so delighted by that creature. And it's true! I am! I love him! I hope to make him a better enclosure soon. Once he's done brominating.

I would get a call from the hospital. About my results. And I was right about my googled diagnosis. So tomorrow I'll start a new medication to help with the ICP. This is apparently fairly rare. I'm looking into research and support things so I can be best informed. I am not particularly worried. But the more I read the more I'm like. Should I be? I am just going to trust that everything will be okay and baby will continue to grow and be safe in my body.

Because the only way to actually cure this is to have the baby. And it's entirely to early for that. I am about to enter my 3rd trimester, which is wild. But I do believe everything will be okay.

I would take a bath that we actually got to be hot. Possibly a little to hot. But I was nice to be clean and relaxed.

And now we are in bed. I am going to try and sleep early because my ultrasound in the morning is at 7am! So let's hope that I can sleep easy.

I hope you all have a good night. Sleep well everyone. Happy holidays.

[demiclar]

Vantage

Destcember Day 3 - Vantage - Ao3

Crow and Ikora take Eido for a change of scenery

-----

“I really don’t see how this is Vanguard business,” Eido says from behind them, her politeness just barely starting to wear through in the face of her frustration. “What are we doing here?”

Crow glances over at Ikora, biting down on his smile as the Warlock Vanguard gives him a knowing wink. He nods back at Eido, trying to keep a serious air about him. If she catches on to what they’re actually doing here, there’s no way they’ll get her to tag along for long enough for their plan to work.

“I’m sorry, it’s hard to explain, but you’ll understand once we get there.” 

It’s the same nonanswer he’s given her three times now, another cause for her thinning patience. Behind him, Eido huffs out a sigh, crossing her lower arms over her torso as she follows behind him and Ikora. 

“Alright,” she grumbles. “I trust you.”

The words sting just a little when Crow considers that he’s actively misleading her as they wind their way through city streets, making their way further and further from the Eliksni quarter—from Misraaks, his medical servitor, the laboratory, Eramis, and everything else—but he knows it’s for her own good. Everyone needs someone to tell them when to take a break from time to time. Sometimes the telling is more forceful than others times, but eventually, he knows Eido will understand. 

“Just a little farther,” Ikora says, and Crow lets himself fall into step beside her as they make their way off of a busy street and onto a quieter, pedestrian-only walkway. 

In all honesty, there’s a number of people Crow wishes he could take on an outing like this, to steal them away from their stressors for a few hours in a place where they can forget about all of it. Assuming it all goes to plan, of course, and Eido manages to set down her burden for long enough to relax rather than spending the whole evening worrying over what work is still left to be done. If he can find success here, he’d love to bring Saint, and Osiris, maybe even Zavala, if he thought the Commander might agree. He almost wishes someone would do something similar to him, to book out his schedule with things he thought to be important, things he’d carve out time for in his busy life only to find that the time he set aside could be given back to him, spent resting and rejuvenating in a guilt-free environment. There’s certainly something about their wars of life and death that turn the whole lot of them into incurable workaholics, that’s for certain.

“You’re brooding,” Ikora remarks, the corner of her mouth quirked up in a smile. Eido has dropped back to trail behind the two of them, another one of her mostly-polite ways of making her displeasure known, though Crow can’t help but think she looks a bit like a fussy child walking with her arms crossed, her chin tucked into the warm layers she’d donned to combat the early winter chill.

“I am not,” Crow protests, but he feels himself smile all the same. He’s certainly not as close to Ikora or Zavala as they are to each other, but working with the pair of them has introduced a comfortable familiarity to the group of them that Crow relishes. Besides going on missions with the Guardian, he’s never had a fireteam he could rely on like them before, and with every day he spends in the Vanguard position, it feels better and better to be relied on in return. Even dealing with the mess that Fikrul has thrown at them, being part of a team, finally finding his place in the Tower with friends and supporters all around him has introduced a stability to his life that Crow’s never felt. He’s not even sure Uldren ever felt so settled.

“I was just thinking, that’s all,” he continues, adjusting his light gloves as he glances back at Eido as she trails behind them, “about how we all need a vacation, me included.”

Ikora lets out a short, amused laugh. “Well, I don’t see that happening anytime soon,” she says, then meets his gaze, “but maybe we can try to make more moments like these.”

They’d come together to make sure Eido got the rest she needed, or at least was able to take some time for herself, but Crow knows that given the right attention, the evening could be rejuvenating for the two of them, too. They’d left their work behind at the Tower to do this, and even if Eido is their chief concern, Crow knows she won’t relax if their own stressors are lingering over their heads. Besides, the walk through the city is already proving to be beautiful. They’ve woven into a quarter built with rich red bricks, cobbled streets lay beneath their feet. The air is brisk, but the cold isn’t biting, and a fine dusting of snow rests over the landscape. Crow knows it’s too early in the winter not for it to be melted soon, but the image will be beautiful for however long it lasts. 

“I hope we can,” Crow agrees, and he and Ikora begin to slow their pace as they spot their destination, just ahead. 

“Are we meeting with an informant?” Eido asks, coming to a stop as they pause beside a restaurant. Crow feels himself smile.

“Only if you count a waiter as an informant.” He tugs open the door, gesturing for Ikora and Eido to head inside. “C’mon, I think you’ll like it.”

“We’re…here to eat? But I thought–”

Ikora ducks inside and Eido stares between her departing form and the open door for a moment before she moves to follow her in, though her body and mind seem to disagree, her steps slow as she shakes her head, struggling around her words.

“I thought you brought me here for Vanguard business. I thought we had work to do. I didn’t leave the lab to–”

Crow follows her inside and the waiters are quick to seat them at a booth in the corner of the restaurant. It’s still mostly empty, another piece of Ikora and Crow’s plan to keep Eido unsuspicious, careful to schedule their outing between traditional mealtime hours. Ikora leads the way into the booth, Eido reluctantly taking a seat as well, though her face is twisted in displeasure. 

“I don’t have time for—I should be working.” Her voice is rising, her frustration more evident. From another vantage point, they had just dragged Eido from her lab and forced her to walk out in the cold with them without telling her their true intentions, all the while planning to spend her time unproductively sharing a meal together, but it’s that kind of thinking that’s made this whole outing necessary in the first place.

“Eido,” Ikora interrupts calmly, “you do have time for this. You had time for this when you believed we were taking you here on Vanguard business, didn’t you?”

“Because I thought it would give us new leads!” Eido throws her upper arms up in exasperation, her eyes pinched as she frowns down at the table. “I thought it would help me–”

“And it will help you.” Crow sets a hand atop one of hers when she lets them come to rest on the table. “I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but taking a break, getting some fresh air and some good food will make you more productive in the long run. You need things like this to keep you from burning out. If you stay holed up in that lab forever, you’ll lose sight of everything around you.”

“But I should be working!” Eido says again, insistent. “Any time I spend here is time I’m not spending looking for a cure for my father. I can’t do that to him.”

“You’re doing everything you can for your father,” Ikora reminds her, and Crow watches some of the fight leave Eido’s features from the calmness of her tone. “You’re working yourself to the bone and we all see it. He wouldn’t want you to suffer for him.”

“All we’re asking is that you share a meal with us. Put all your work aside, just for a little while. We’ll eat, and you can go back to your lab and work, but until then, take some time and don’t think about it.” Crow watches her eyes shift over the table, her fingers resting over knots of wood. “I know it isn’t a step back that you want to be taking right now, but trust me when I say it will help you.”

Eido stares at the table for a long time, long enough for the waiter to set glasses of water before them and quickly depart. Eido pulls her glass closer to herself, swiping her thumb through the condensation on the outside and staring down at the ice within.

“Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs come from time away,” she says at last, and Crow feels himself smile.

“That’s the spirit.”

[daisymylove]

Hide the breakables and board up the windows, my beloved Mfs, for a rant is coming your way.

I want to be done complaining about chot I really do, I hate being so negative about a book I waited and yearned for, for so long, but there’s one more thing that annoyed me greatly, and, per usual, I want to know what yall think

Today’s subject is our Blackthorn sibling duo.

I wanna preface this by saying that Grace’s povs were one of my favourite parts of Choi.Her character in itself adds grayness to a narrative of angels and demons, good vs evil, and I really enjoyed all the complexity and layers given to her.I ended Chog cursing her name to the wind swear to god, the cursing emoji was a perfect visual representation of me when she put that thing on james again, but in choi cc achieved exactly what she aimed for with grace :” an explanation, not an excuse”

However, I feel like all that information we were given in the previous book was completely wasted in Chot.The characters never find out that she was threatened into putting the bracelet back on James, or that she tried to take it off at his wedding. Her motivations, too, are never known.The way it was portrayed, it looks like Grace stayed so long by Tatiana’s side bc she truly had some sort of fetish for torturing men, when, in reality, it was all for Jesse 

She could’ve begged for sanctuary in an institute, once she became old enough, she could’ve fled with Magnus when he offered to help her in TMH, but she never did.Grace never left bc leaving Tatiana would also mean leaving Jesse and what was all that for? home boy discarded her like some rancid food at the first opportunity  When she went to Curzon street to demand James kissed her? That was for him. Even that train wreck she caused by the end of choi was for him, bc she couldn’t bear the thought of controlling her brother and twisting his feelings for her.To me, this is some very relevant info that should’ve become known if all the secrets were going to be revealed, AND YET NONE OF THIS IS ADRESSED IN THE GODDAMN BOOK

the only explanation I can think of is because that knowledge would require of Jesse to have at least a little bit of loyalty towards his sister, or look like an ungrateful arse which he did, but I’ll get there.

Now about jesse.I had great expectations for him in this last installment, the first one in which he’s alive, but my main take away is that he has become an extension of Lucie’s feelings and opinions, in the most symbiotic way possible, with no personality of his own.

In choi we find out that Grace withstood a lot of physical and psychological abuse from Tatiana that he didn’t know about.I was expecting them to have a true heart to heart, they would discuss everything that went down when they were kids, not just james and the bracelet, and jesse would not only feel guilty about not being able to protect his little sister, but also decide to stick by her side no matter what.

And yes, he could’ve done that while also condemning her mistakes and treatment towards James.The two are not mutually exclusive, and would do justice to his little speech about complicated stories, which, to me, is a very hypocritical spiel since he decided to become his sister’s jury, judge and executioner

I never thought I would say this in my life, but I was infuriated on Grace’s behalf reading their scene in the silent city.Everything about it was very odd, Grace conveniently for cc withholding something so important, the way she explained herself, his storming off. Jesse had never had ONE conversation with Cordelia in his life, he barely knew James, can a kind soul explain to me WHY he would be more concerned about their marriage than his actual sister? Considering his beloved had just done necromancy (YES, Thats what it was, even if it was a unconventional form of it.Bro was dead, then bro was alive again, just like that. N e c r o m a n c y) his moralism is very hypocritical and his understanding of nuance lacking

It irked something so deep inside me to see not just kit defending a girl he barely knew tooth and nail over his cousin and life long friend, but also Jesse not giving a fuck about his sister.They were talking about leaving Grace completely isolated from society (that was disgusting btw, it was up to their authorities to decide her future, not a bunch of teenagers thinking they can treat a person like a broken doll, to be put away wherever they feel like it) and Jesse looked like he couldn’t spare a visit. He seemed more than eager to put Tatiana AND grace behind him in order to start a new life with the herondales. So much for them being all each other had growing up and his so called loyalty

As some last thoughts bc this is getting way too long, Grace should’ve been the one to kill Tatiana.That wasnt Cordelia’s business and had no emotional significance. When that fight happens Grace looks the polar opposite of everything Tatiana ever groomed her to be.She is dirty, shoeless, bedraggled and feral looking, Lucie even thinks that grace’s little training would only be useful if she got close enough.Imagine, my siblings in christ, Grace slitting Tatiana’s throat, after she kills Grace’s only friend, while she is distracted with Rupert.Tatiana molded Grace into her blade, and that Blade was responsible for her end.Feel the sheer power of it, the poetic justice that could’ve been ours.

I also think Grace should’ve been sent away to the scholomance (against her wishes, hence the I didnt choose this) for intensive training both bc she’s really behind in it, and as a punishment from the clave.Its not like she had a place to go to, and staying at her ex fiance’s parent’s house is not the way to go. . 

This new scenario would give her a fresh start to properly heal and eventually make friendships/ find love without the taint from the past on her heels.Her hanging out and chilling with James and his friends has no sense and is a disrespect to his abuse.James doesnt need his abuser living in his uncle and aunt’s house, Grace needs to start her life over where her past won’t haunt her everyday

[rosepolaris]

Hello! Hope you've been doing well. I have a question: what makes you love Lady Dimitrescu? Your fic is my favorite LD fic because of how mysterious and in character she is, its almost hard to believe you started it before the game came out. You nailed her and her daughters while still giving them your own unique twist. So I'm wondering, what attracts you to this character?

I've sat on this question in my inbox for weeks, anon. Weeks, because explaining why I love Lady Dimitrescu is the sort of thing I could sum up in a few words, or I could write a novel length dissertation on her and still go back later thinking, wait, I forgot to mention this. I think you've waited long enough for a response though, so, I'm going to just ramble for a little bit and see how it goes.

(Firstly, thank you for your kind words about my fic! Nothing gives me serotonin like hearing that after all this time it's your favourite, and sidenote, its still being written! Right now I have a couple of chapters done, but I'm waiting until I have at least 3-4 finished so I can avoid the pesky posting droughts I've had recently)

I can't talk about Lady Dimitrescu without stressing first and foremost, that everything about her is an anomaly for female characters in video games. When I first heard shouts of "9ft tall vampire gf" memes drifting on the wind in late January 2021 I had just finished work, and I was expecting to open my internet browser to see your run-of-the-mill video game woman, with the addition of press-on fangs and perhaps a pair of impressive shoujo legs to make up the height. She would surely be in her early twenties, thin and petite-framed, just like all Attractive Video Game Women are.

But then, she wasn't. I watched the trailer, and as she crouched through that doorway and straightened up - she wasn't any of those things. She was grimly, horrifically beautiful. Genuinely massive in stature, not just tall, but proportionately huge. Broadly framed, not thin, dressed elegantly in that ghostly ivory dress with that sweeping hat, and god, her face. Visibly in her 40s, all smile lines and crow's feet and imperfect, deathly pale skin and stained teeth. She was something as a horror fan I had been craving without knowing it — as I've already mentioned, female characters in video games are massively skewed towards young adulthood. With that in mind, I can't overstate the importance of seeing a woman over 40 with the honest and beautiful features of a woman over 40; her signs of ageing have not been smoothed out and wiped away like something to hide, nor has she been boxed into the old horror trope of mature and powerful women as hags. She simply exists — attractive and middle aged— in a sea of media that quietly implies through a lack of representation of older women that we hit some kind of beauty expiry date once we hit 35.

And as time went on, and we learned more about her beyond first impressions, I became more and more enamoured with her — as a lesbian, her coding brings me a wild amount of validation. Once you peel back the layers of blood and death and look at the way Lady Dimitrescu is living her life, it's hard for me as a woman and as a lesbian to not feel empowered by seeing a female character who has made the conscious choice to live her life centred on women. She's a single mother of three daughters, created and adopted with the help of another woman. Exclusively women are allowed to work in her living space in the castle, and even the name of the minor enemies in Castle Dimitrescu (Moroaicǎ) is the feminine form, suggesting to her, only women are worthy to receive the cadou — to become creatures of her own creation. The fact that she preys specifically upon women also satisfies a dark desire for scenarios involving sexual vulnerability for me and a lot of sapphic women — and she allows the exploration of those desires in a way that feels safe, taking place in this distant, imaginary environment in which men play no part, and therefore cannot exploit us. In our way, we've taken her status as an example of the Predatory Lesbian Vampire trope and reclaimed it for our own.

She's also an independent and successful businesswoman who is completely unapologetic about her immense stature in a world where women are pressured to take up as little space with our bodies as possible. I may not be a 9ft 6 vampire lady, but any body type represented that goes against the norm for women in games — especially when the character with that body is presented as beautiful and portrayed carrying an aura of power and confidence — is incredibly freeing and comforting for those of us with body image issues. I've met many women in the fanbase, myself included, who feel more confident about the parts of our bodies we've been made to feel undesirable for having, simply because Lady D has those features and is celebrated for them.

Another layer to my love for her is House Dimitrescu's female-centred horror. While the primary reason for all of it is to present female empowerment as a source of fear and conflict to Ethan, that in of itself becomes empowering. We see women for once with their hands on the fear factor dial in horror, historically a very male-dominated genre where men are often both the heroes and villains, and women (not always, but often enough) are the victims - the swooning damsels in distress.

Something else I'd like to mention — the sapphic fandom contribution. The way we took her and ran, creating our own stories and characterisations for her and her daughters months before the game released brought about the kind of creative, original content I haven't seen in any fandom before. It was genuinely magical to experience that level of passion around a character we knew very little about, but who spoke to us so powerfully that we simply had to make her our own. It went far beyond finding her attractive.

I could go on, but the above points and more now, a year and a half later, have culminated in her being my favourite character of all time.