#there's always a certain amount of malleability to it while it's still in my head anyways

[orcelito]

Playing thru my plans for itnl chapter 12 like "Man this is so good ! .... what do you Mean I have to write it?"

Sometimes (like all the time) I wish I could just lift the scenes straight from my head and plop them down on the page. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that.

[dracoladon]

oh my god I absolutely ADORED lucid and born slippy, so the chance to prompt you with something is so so exciting!! as always, no pressure, but how about something about undressing each other? i've always LOVED the unlacing/undressing tropes in capri, and I bet it would be incredible applied to some lovely drarry. do with this what you wish!!!

sidjdjfnndkff thank you, and thank u again for this ungodly prompt. if there’s three things i love, they’re captive prince, drarry, and soft smutty tropes such as the one u hath so kindly bestowed upon me.

i accidentally made a fair few lucid references in here (prizes for all who can spot them, the prize is a poem about u as composed by me) so i suppose, if you’ve read that one and so wish, u can consider this part of the same universe. or smth ://

maybe i’m just hideously unimaginative when it comes to topics for my banter. anywho

rated e, 1732 words.

The thing about Draco’s work robes, is that they’re buttoned all the way up to the throat. Which, hm, doesn’t sound like an issue in and of itself. But becomes one, of sorts, when Harry is overcome by the need to unbutton them every time he lays eyes on pale, elegant throat, the column of it under stiff black fabric. 

The thing is, that Draco looks so austere, so tightly laced, and the thing. Is. That Harry just wants to unlace him. 

Draco is, of course, not austere. He’s in fact very, erm, flexible. Pliant. He told Harry once, when they first starting fucking, that his body reformed around Harry’s, and he liked the way he went malleable in Harry’s hands. 

“I can’t do that with anyone else,” Draco said. Then frowned. “That didn’t make much sense.”

But the buttons. The buttons. The high-necked buttons. They give Draco a look of frigidity, that he’s not to be spoken to, touched (all in a very sexy, aristocratic kind of way, of course), and it’s so bloody hot that Harry’s taken to banishing his glasses and burying his head under a pillow when Draco dresses in the mornings, just to stop himself getting so hard he goes properly blind with it. 

Draco asked him, the third time he burrowed under the bedclothes like a “demented ferret” (glass houses, Harry said), what he was doing. 

“The buttons,” Harry murmured. “Want to undo them.”

“The buttons?”

“The buttons.”

“You sick, kinky twist, Harry Potter.”

Harry unearthed himself, at that. “Shut up? It’s not about the buttons, you horror. It’s about what’s underneath the buttons.”

“How touching.”

And then more teasing, and Harry had it up to here and said, “I’ll burrow again.”

So Draco sat next to him on the bed, robes all secured, and said, softly, but still smiling like a git, “Tell me, love. Why the buttons?”

“You’re just—they’re, you know. So—God,” and then Harry had reached out and rent the sides of Draco’s robes apart, the little cloth covered studs clattering over his polished walnut floors, and pulled Draco down on top of him, and fucked him right there until Draco was late for work, and later still because they’d had to spend half an hour charming the wretched things back into place. 

Now, Draco says, “the buttons are still wonky from that little stunt you pulled.”

Harry can see only Draco’s legs (crossed over each other on the couch, back flat on the ground, because Draco feels it centres him to drape upended from the furniture at the end of a long day) from where he’s decanting the wine in the kitchen. “I’ve always been pants at tailoring charms.”

“Was that a pun?” says Draco, sounding pained. “I’m leaving you, if that was a pun.”

“But then who will do your bidding? Aerate your wine, iron your silk pants—”

“I’ll get a house elf.”

“—not finished, suck your brains out your cock, make you pasta with butter and cheese when it’s cold and you’re in a mood—”

“I’ll get a gigolo, too.”

“I still wasn’t finished,” Harry says, and Levitates the wine into the living room in front of him.

Draco says, “did you get the right glasses, this time?”

“You’re very funny,” Harry says, because after months of trying to educate Harry, Draco has finally accepted that his one true love is cheap beer, and sorted all the wine glasses he keeps at Harry’s flat into labelled little boxes. (‘This is a coupe, Potter. If you bring me red wine in it again, I’ll throw it at you.’ ‘These are for dessert wine — after dinner, before a good hard boffing.’)

“Why don’t you just go snag one of those fucking — sommiliars.”

“Sommelier.” 

“Yeah,” Harry says, happy because Draco’s wearing his work robes and speaking French and looking all twisty, and it’s Friday night, and there’s wine and music from the record Draco put on, and Harry gets to untwist him.

“Did you know,” Draco says, arching his back into a luxurious stretch before rearranging himself right side up and plucking a glass from the air, “that Amantea is starting her own firm.”

“God. Really?”

“Quite. It’s a pro bono thing, evidently. You know she’s been on the exec’s for months about how they direct all their mandatory hours towards corporations, not, you know, people who actually can’t afford legal counsel.”

“‘Course.” Harry distinctly remembers being cornered by Amantea when Draco brought him along to last year's Christmas drinks — he was a decent few in, and Draco kept palming at him through his formal robes when no one was looking, and he thinks he may have agreed to some kind of public crusade in the name of her cause that he doesn’t remember the details of to this day.

“Merlin, that’s incredible. She’s just quit, then? Starting it from the ground up?” 

Draco nods, sips his wine. “She asked me to come with her. Ford, too.” And then, into his glass, “Said yes.” 

Harry chokes, and Draco smirks at him behind the rim while he expires into his Pinot. “Bastard,” Harry coughs.

“Mm,” Draco hums. 

“That’s—fuck, hang on—that’s great, love. Draco, it’s brilliant.”

“Really?” Draco says, tangling his fingers in Harry’s. He can see now that he’s doing that Very Draco Thing where his eyes go a bit too wide and his tongue keeps darting out to wet his bottom lip. “Cause I haven’t quit yet.” 

“Of course. I think it’s really, really incredible.”

Draco rolls his eyes, but his cheeks flush pink. “Any more of that, and I won’t go near your cock for a week.” 

“I’m proud of you,” Harry says, smiling. 

“Two weeks.”

He leans on his haunches, hooks a blond tendril behind Draco’s ear. “I’m so proud of you, Draco. Everything you are.”

“A month. A year! Harry,” Draco complains.  

Harry snorts. Sits back. “Fine. So would you still be doing all the same work?”

Draco nods. “I’d still be a defence counsel. I’d just be, you know. Not getting paid. At least, not for a while.”

“Good,” Harry says. “We’ve got a horrific amount of money, between the two of us.” 

“I’m glad you think so, because we’ll be living off your salary alone. What’s the going rate for darling of the Wizarding world?”

Harry walks his fingers over Draco���s knee, daubed in the heavy black wool of his robes. “Several million a year darling. Are you excited, then?”

Draco shuffles around so he can rest his back against the couch, keeping Harry’s palm pressed to his knee with his own hand as he moves. “Yes. Very. I love my job, but the fees they charge our time at are outrageous. I was always thinking, Mother and I wouldn’t have been able to afford that right after the war. Had we even been allowed a solicitor, but don’t get me bloody started.”

Harry thinks that’s Draco down to his bones. He gives cold little glares to people he doesn’t want to talk to, and shrinks in on himself like a turtle whenever Molly tries to hug him at Sunday lunch, and he’s selfish about stupid things, like letting Ron have the last of his chips at pub night. 

And then he does things like drop lunch by Hermione’s office when he has afternoon meetings with the Wizengamot, or quit the job he loves so much, where he’s finally respected and secure, to work for free with Scary Amantea because he actually cares about the abysmal state of the Wizarding justice system, or rent out an entire Muggle theme park for Harry’s birthday, because he’d said, off handed, one night in Draco’s arms, that he’d always been left behind when the Dursley’s took Dudley as a child. 

“You’re so nice,” Harry says. 

Draco frowns. “Take it back.” 

Harry says, “Won’t,” and gives him a good, slow kiss that tastes like wine. Wine from a proper glass. 

“I have bad news, too,” Draco says into Harry’s lips. 

Harry can’t think of how anything could be bad, wrong, when Draco’s mouth is so soft and so close, but he murmurs, “What,” anyway. 

“No dress code, at the new firm.” 

Harry pulls back, stricken. “No more buttons?”

“Less regular buttons,” Draco amends, and Harry places a protective hand over Draco’s clavicles.  

“This is completely tragic,” Harry says. 

“Dare I say, Potter, you’ll just have to make the most of them. While you can.”

Harry nods, leans down again, a hand either side of Draco’s hips, and kisses him again. 

When he pulls back, it’s so he can get his hands on the reeling column of buttons that runs from Draco’s navel to his Adam’s apple. 

There was a certain carnal appeal in tearing them off him that first time, but now Harry likes this. His hands on Draco, his mouth following. Pushing the silken studs through the loops, undressing Draco inch by milk white inch. 

“Yes,” Draco says, as Harry licks and nips his way down every bit of skin he exposes. When Draco swallows, Harry feels the movement of it roll beneath his palm. When Draco’s legs fall open, Harry mouths at his hip bone as it shifts under his tongue. 

Harry disrobes himself with slightly less worshipping finesse. Pushes the tailored cloth off Draco’s shoulders, helps him arrange himself underneath Harry, ankles clasped lazily at his back. Fucks him slow, and sweet, and two more times. 

Really, Harry doesn’t know why the robes do it for him so utterly and completely. They look kind of like the type of thing a vicar would wear, which is also what Harry remembers thinking when he saw Draco in his dress robes at the Yule Ball (although now it’s more a very rich, very sleek sort of vicar vibe, and less of the fusty, I-took-a-celibacy-oath-at-thirteen-and-am- now-seventy-two thing he had going back then. With all the velvet. Draco looks much better in silk. Anyway.)    

On that, it’s probably because it’s a reminder that it’s Malfoy who he’s with. Malfoy, not Death Eater, tormentor, but pale limbs, plush, pink mouth and naked vulnerability before him. It’s how far they’ve both come, and how Draco presents himself to the world — so far away from what Harry gets to see. What’s Harry’s. What’s theirs. 

“Also,” Draco says, when Harry tells him this in bed that night, “I look positively indecent in black.”

[spunknbite]

if you still take prompts: how about Aziraphale pleasuring himself thinking about Crowley and accidentally summoning him?

Slender fingers against his cheek, running down his neck, removing his tie. Pianist fingers. Play me. Dexterous and deft. A hiss of something in his ear, fingers slip under his shirt and tune his collarbone, his jugular. Aziraphale’s gasps are minor chords. God, the man’s hands…

It’s a lovely thing to think about, alone at his desk, the last of his evening reading completed, the street beyond him dark, illuminated only by lamplight peeking through the shop curtains - what Crowley would do if he was here, what Crowley would do to him if he was here.

These thoughts - so long held, so far-fetched until the world didn’t end - always seemed, well, not innocent exactly, but certainly harmless enough. It was an absurd fantasy, something that could never come to pass; their opposing sides wouldn’t allow it, Aziraphale wouldn’t allow it lest it endanger Crowley (my lot do not send rude notes), and in that impossibility was freedom for idle nighttime reveries. Now though, with no Heaven or Hell between them, it seems reckless, real, possible in a way that almost makes Aziraphale retract his hand from his fly. Almost.

Button by button, those clever fingers would strip away his waistcoat, button-down, trousers, until he’s bare and vulnerable and Crowley’s artist fingers brush him, the pads of his thumbs, so smooth, sketch his chest and nipples, tracing him, mapping him, like this is fleeting and he’s being committed to memory. Like he’s being outlined for a later painting. Artist fingers paint his sides with feathered brushstrokes. He’s Crowley’s canvas, and Crowley is thorough, washing the gesso of his thighs with delicate sweeps of his fingers, parting them so his hands cup and cover the whole of him. A base coat. 

Aziraphale aches for him, for his da Vinci hands; long and regal and fine, something sketched by a master centuries ago. Those divine fingertips stroke the sensitive juncture between his inner thigh and groin, and devil-lips curve into a smile as Aziraphale prays, “Crowley.”

“Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale reels, exposed, and there is Crowley, actually Crowley, standing before him, plant mister in hand, yellow eyes fixed on Aziraphale’s now still hand. Silence is rendered loud for too many seconds, and then finally:

“Need a hand, angel?”

If Aziraphale had been processing any of this, he would have noted the decided quaver in Crowley’s usually sure voice, the dropped pitch, the exaggerated bravado of a not-so-natural swagger, an overt, joking easiness that was anything but.

“Certainly not. Is the door not working tonight?” Aziraphale wants to melt into his chair as he struggles with his fly.

“You summoned me here. I was watering my plants.” Crowley shakes the mister for emphasis.

“I didn’t intend - ”

“No, I expect not.”

This is how he’ll discorporate, Aziraphale’s certain. He can’t meet Crowley’s eyes, and why on Earth has he dropped his plant mister, and is coming towards him, why can’t he just leave him to his shame in peace instead of gloating, baiting?

“I heard what you said.” Dear God, please strike me down here. “So, do you want a hand?”

Crowley’s knelt down between his spread legs, yellow eyes searching Aziraphale’s with unexpected sincerity. The demon’s face is flushed an infernal red.

“Please, don’t tease me.”

“I wouldn’t. Not about this. No teasing tonight, me.” Aziraphale can’t stop his legs from shaking, and Crowley’s palm is suddenly squeezing his calf, anchoring him. “Let me give you a hand, angel?”

Crowley’s palm is warm, his fingers beautifully slim and agile while wrapped around his leg. He thumbs the front of Aziraphale’s knee, stroking it up and down with that small pad of flesh, almost absentmindedly, almost casually, almost as if he’d thought of doing it before. And Aziraphale is boneless under this seemingly inconsequential touch. He manages a nod.

Aziraphale bites back a cry as Crowley pulls him back out of his trousers, soft now. He has sculptor fingers, moulding him hard with ease, carving his supple flesh solid with languid strokes. His fingers fit him so perfectly, so much longer than Aziraphale’s own, and they wrap around him, enveloping the girth of his cock with every gentle up and down.

“I think about you, too. Have since the start.” Aziraphale’s hips buck and he digs his nails into the armrests of his desk chair. 

Crowley rubs the head with his thumb, spreads Aziraphale’s precum across the flare, like a sculptor watering dried clay, making it more malleable, and Aziraphale leans into him, breath coming out in short, shallow pants. He watches Crowley’s beautiful hands: hands that once sculpted stars from nothing but atoms, that drew them together in clusters and constellations, hands that once created some of the most beautiful plants in Eden, that painted individual hydrangea leaves until the colours were blended just so, those hands now wrapped around his flesh.

“I’ve got you, angel.” Crowley kneels up, free hand stroking Aziraphale’s cheek. “You can hold onto me, if you’d like.” And something in Aziraphale breaks just a little, and he’s clinging to Crowley’s shoulders instead of the armrests, his face pillowed in Crowley’s hair, angled so that he could still watch his lovely hands work him. A soft hiss and, “Would you mind if I touched myself too?”

And it’s too much. Millennia of watching Crowley and wanting him, centuries and centuries of desperation and fantasies, of excusing himself every time the man deigned to sit at a piano or pick up a paintbrush, the visual of Crowley between his thighs, simultaneously stroking him and himself, is the last of what Aziraphale could bear. He moans into the soft tresses of red hair and thrusts up, Crowley’s adept fingers slipping over his slit, pressing down with just the right amount of pressure, until Aziraphale is spilling over his hand, white-hot pleasure peaked by the continuous strokes of Crowley’s otherworldly fingers. It’s artistry, Aziraphale thinks; it’s what a painting must feel like when being painted, what a sculpture feels like when it’s finally taken shape; relief and ecstasy and creation. 

It’s some time before he can think again, and only then does Aziraphale nudge Crowley, who’s lounging his head on Aziraphale’s thigh and smiling up at him with eyes so soft they couldn’t belong on a demon, retired or not. He tugs Crowley up onto his lap so that he straddles him over his desk chair. “My dear, I’d very much appreciate it if I could watch you now.” 

Crowley grins, unzipping his fly. “Thanks for summoning me, angel.”

[ladyrealgar]

Holding hands

Fandom: Lupin 3rd

Warning: none

The full-length mirror in the hotel room, which they had taken as a refuge for that heist, gave the man the image of a waiter with an unusually uncultivated beard and a dark Borsalino hat dropped over his eyes.

He adjusted his bow tie over his white shirt and closed the cuffs of his black jacket with simple silver cufflinks. The shoes at his feet had been carefully polished and the only imperfection of his disguise was a little bump at chest height, where Jigen had placed the pack of cigarettes and the lighter in an inside pocket.

The habit of hiding the .357 Combact Magnum in the trousers under the jacket was so strong and consolidated that no one, not even an experienced fighter, would have been able to locate it.

Daisuke Jigen, who made elegance his trademark, was used to dressing well, but that dovetail tuxedo and bow tie made him feel like a penguin.

He took one last look in the mirror and decided that for the role of waiter of an important and sumptuous social event that clothing was more than enough.

-Lupin are you ready? - called the gunslinger lighting a cigarette and starting it with a long breath.

-I'm almost done- the partner answered from the other room -Give me another moment.

-What is it? - Jigen scoffed, letting himself fall on the armchair -Do you not remember how to tie a bow tie?

-What tie? - Lupin asked, popping out the door of the room and Jigen, a heavy smoker, coughed the smoke.

A woman in a fine dark dress studded with diamonds had entered the room, on whose shoulders they had attached Lupin's monkey face. 

-What the hell ...? - exclaimed the gunslinger, gesturing animatedly in the impossibility of finding the words to describe what at his eyes was a strange chimera.

-Don’t kick up a fuss! - snorted the gentleman thief positioning himself in front of the mirror and adjusting the prostheses that simulated the breasts of his character -Like you had never seen me in the clothes of a lady! 

Lupine chuckled at his double meaning and turned around to check the back of his disguise: -It seems to me that it works ... - he muttered to himself. 

-You want to explain to me? - Jigen urged him, sucking hard on his cigarette until he consumed it almost completely. 

-Didn't I tell you? - Lupin replied and Jigen closed a vein at the height of his temple: that was the typical tone that the thief used when he voluntarily omitted some details of the blow to induce him to do things he otherwise would not have done. 

-The only way to access Cupid's ruby- Lupin began to explain while choosing a wig from the closet -It’s taking part in the DeGorgette family gala which is held once every five years and which is dedicated to couples promised in marriage . 

-You already told me this- Jigen interrupted him impatiently -But why did you dress like a woman? 

-Because we received an invitation, silly- the gentleman thief replied with falsetto voice, making him wave a burgundy paper envelope under his nose. 

-Invitation?- Jigen exclaimed in surprise, grabbing the envelope and examining the contents while Lupine continued to speak. 

-But of course, mon amie! You surely remember that the DeGorgettes indicate these gala in order to give the Cupid's ruby ​​blessing to couples ready for the altar and also to earn a fair amount of money given the cost of getting that piece of paper in your hands. 

-I know it very well- Jigen barked, instinctively slipping the invitation into his jacket pocket -And that's the reason I dressed as a penguin: playing one of the waiters serving the DeGorgette. 

-Oh no! - Lupin shook his head, swinging the new brown ringlets that fell on his shoulders -The DeGorgette choose their staff with extreme care, they would never have let you in, also because they have a security scanner that goes beyond the masks, so the waiters option is completely to be discarded. 

-And so we enter as guests? 

-Exactly!- the gentleman thief underlined that expression by snapping his fingers -You’re standind in front of Marie Luprette Troix, your fiancée. 

Jigen watched him in disbelief for a few moments, looking in his face and body language for a signal that revealed that his friend was making fun of him or that he was mad. 

-I pass- he finally decreed -Go with someone else, because I don't intend to play the role of someone engaged with an ugly monkey face like yours! 

-How rude you are! - Lupin scolded him making a grimace -And anyway there is no more time: the gala is only in an hour and I have no one else to accompany me ... Or you want me to ask Fujiko? 

At the prospect of Fujiko's involvement, Jigen's mind subsided and his behavior, though still quite irritated, suddenly became more malleable. 

So he listened to the variation of the plan that Lupin had to illustrate to him, interrupting it from time to time to get a few more details explained, then when he was finished, the gunman agreed to participate, albeit with barely concealed distrust. 

Finally they got into the car and Jigen had the time to cross, spent driving, to negotiate internally with the role he would have to play and mentally review the phases of the plan. 

The DeGorgette’s mansion was a huge neoclassical building in the frame of the rustic Provençal countryside and a row of couples in sparkling evening dresses extended from the entrance showing their invitation and getting announced. 

On their turn, the page informed the room of the arrival of monsieur Magnum and mademoiselle Troix. 

The landlady, a robust middle-aged woman with a blinding sapphire necklace around her neck, came to welcome them, indicating where the dinner would have taken place, where they would have sit and, more interesting detail for their purposes, where and when Cupid's ruby ​​blessing would have bene held. 

A few minutes later, when an aperitif was served, they were made to sit in the dining room, where waiters with starched uniforms and red flowers pinned to their chests served exquisite dishes to be bathed with fine wines. 

-Do you see that it's not so bad to play the role of my boyfriend?- Lupin whispered taking advantage of the fact that his partner had his mouth busy chewing -I always treat them well my dates! 

-Choke with the chicken and shut up- the gunslinger replied dryly, swallowing the bite with a sip of wine -Anyway, do we have to wait all evening to be able to take the ruby? Wouldn't it be more convenient to do it now that they're distracted? 

-Don't be in a hurry, my dear, the right time will come! In the meantime, let's enjoy this delicious dinner. Would you pass me the sauce? 

At the end of the dinner, the guests were moved to the ballroom, where a wooden staircase with a golden balustrade had been set up under crystal chandeliers on top of which the enormous and notorious Cupid's ruby ​​shone with the reflections of the candles. 

Monsieur DeGorgette took the floor: -My dear friends, I hope that the dinner was to your liking and that your palates have been satisfied. As you know, now the long-awaited moment of the evening is coming: the blessing of your love by Cupid's ruby! 

This beautiful ruby, unique in its world in purity and size, is said to have formed from the drops of blood that flowed from Cupid's finger when he punched himself with one of his own arrows, which give falling in love. 

It contains the very essence of romantic love and couples who ask for their blessing before marriage will have a happy married life full of offspring! 

-How many children do you want, my dear? - Lupin whispered in the gunslinger's ear, giggling. 

-Cut it! - Jigen warned him with a snarl. 

-Now the couples will be called one by one- continued DeGorgette -And they will have to walk the stairs hand in hand, reach the ruby ​​and invoke his benevolence, then they will be able to go back down and will be accompanied to the next room where the party continues. 

The guests began to be called and Jigen watched the various excited couples climbing the stairs almost running and pouring their love on a cold and deaf stone, good only to fill their collection of precious. 

Every now and then a passionate kiss broke out between the couples and Jigen was certain that he would not have been able to refrain from drawing the gun if Lupin had even tried to get closer to him than necessary.

Mr. Magnum and his lovely lady were called and Jigen walked towards the staircase but something grabbed him by the elbow: -Don't you forget anything, mon chére?- Lupine called him back. 

-What? - Jigen asked, but the partner's outstretched and ringed hand was enough to understand 

-Don't be such a child!- Lupin scolded him, perceiving his reluctance -You don't want these nice people to be suspicious? 

Jigen took a quick look around and it was enough to point out that all the eyes of the guests (and security!) were focused on them. 

Eventually he had to give in and, commenting -Things I do for work!-, he took Lupin's hand in his, dragging him almost weightily down the steps. 

When they were at the top, the wonderful ruby ​​stood on a pedestal adorned with a white silk cushion and Jigen could see the spark of longing that shone behind Lupin's pupils. 

She watched him stretch his hand over the ruby, as if trying to evoke its blessing, while the other pulled a small remote control from the neckline: -Are you ready for action, Jigen? 

-I wasn't expecting anything else. 

Darkness suddenly descended into the room, illuminated for short moments by the fire of the mouths of the guns, whose roars made the imposing chandeliers swing. 

Finally Jigen had started having fun.

[phantoms-lair]

Based on this by @cirilee​

None of them really had any time to process what happened. It seemed one moment they were trying to figure out why Shaggy and Scooby never showed up at school, the next a strange wizard named Vincent had appeared, been blatantly supernatural, apparently because he didn’t have time to convince them gently, then teleported them to a creepy old house in the Himalayas.

Any thought of protest died when they saw Shaggy in a wheelchair, looking like he was a half step away from the grave.

“Like, sorry guys,” Shaggy said with a weak smile.

“Sorry for what?” Daphne asked, running to his side.

“For not getting help the moment he realized there was a problem.” Vincent had his arms crossed and was looking annoyed.

Shaggy shrugged. “Like who could I ask? Last couple of times you didn’t exist or were an actor.”

Vincent didn’t budge. “And you had eighteen years this iteration.”

“Yeah, that’s on me.” Shaggy admitted. “But this is usually the best part and I was hoping to get through it.”

“The best part of what?’ Fred asked, confused.

“Of us, man. Of life. Of having the freedom to go out and explore before responsibility pulls us down.”

Vincent put a comforting hand on his shoulder, “Perhaps you should let me explain. I gave you a lot to process.” “I know, and, like, I think I understood a third of it. But I should at least tell them what I did know. I should have done it before. Just didn’t know how.” He shifted a bit uncomfortably. “This...isn’t the first time we’ve done this.”

“I am fairly certain this is the first time a wizard kidnapped us.” Velma pointed out, wondering what was happening to her friend.

“No. Well, first time this go round. That’s the thing. All of this, being friends, growing up, solving mysteries, we’ve done it so often.” He shuddered and Scooby curled up to him, whining softly.

“This isn’t important. We need to get you to a hospital.” Velma insisted. Strange impossible stories could wait.

“A hospital can’t help, Velms. Only thing that would happen is freaking out the staff.”

“This is magic? A curse?” Daphne surprised, trying not to think of what would traumatize a hospital staff.

“That’s what I thought, but this is beyond magic.  So, like I said, we’ve done this before. Became friends, grew up, solved mysteries, and then I died.”

Scooby crawled into his lap and his friends were rendered speechless.

“I didn’t stay dead,” Shaggy quickly added. “I just remember wanting to stay with you guys more and...everything started again. We were kids, we grew up, we solved mysteries. Things were a little different though. Our families, the world itself. And it happened again and again. It was like reincarnation, only across different versions of Earth and we were always together. Some were pretty great others...not so much. You never remembered, but it was okay. We were together. Then,” He looked down. “Like two or three lifetimes ago I starting feeling not so great. And things seemed to be getting weird, like the world was more malleable or something. But I didn’t really have anyone to go to, not till this lifetime. I figured I’d track down Vincent after graduation, but I ran out of time.” He looked at the wizard, as if passing the story off to him. “While I disapprove of Shaggy waiting this long to get help, as he apparently met other magical versions of me and said nothing, I was able to determine what had happened. And it’s very unprecedented.” Vincent took over. “Shaggy mentioned the worlds you were reincarnated were different. From what I surmise, you’ve been reincarnating across the multiverse, and the multiverse itself is key to what been going on.”

“Go on,” said Velma in a tense tone.

“The multiverse is truly infinite, new worlds are brought into existence, with their own magics and physics. And each time a new world comes into existence a new deity is created with it. In order for said deity to truly understand their purpose they’re incarnated as a mortal to live out a life in another reality before ascending and taking their place. It has happened countless times before and will happen countless times again. But only once has said deity lived their mortal life and, instead of ascending, forced himself into reincarnation, dragging four mortal souls along with him.”

“Wait.” Fred interrupted. “Wait wait wait wait. You’re telling us that Shaggy is a...a god?”

“A nascent one, like a chick in an egg.” Vincent confirmed. “Albeit one that has put off hatching for what would seem to amount to centuries. While over time his power has grown, spilling out around him, the shell -so to speak- has not gotten any smaller.”

“I believe your exact words were ‘My power has become too vast for this flesh vessel to contain’.” Shaggy quoted.

“And you had no idea what I meant when I said it, so I was trying to be more clear.” Vincent shot back. “But the long and short of it is: Shaggy’s power is killing him. He doesn’t have much time left.”

“But you said he’s a god! If he’s immortal how can he die?” Fred asked, distraught. He needed to fix this, how could he fix this?

“His body isn’t.” Velma said in realization. “God soul, mortal body. The chick has gotten too big and it’s breaking through the egg. It’s going to-” She cut off as she realized what was happening. What always happened when too much pressure was put in a vessel unable to contain it. No wonder he said the hospital would be traumatized; he wasn’t just going to die -he was going to explode.

“Still, we’re not going to let you die that easily, Norville!” Daphne sounded close to snapping. “If the problems that you have too much energy, then let us share your power. We’ve been together over several lifetimes and we’re not leaving you now.”

“Apparently you’d all need to, like, marry me intergalactically.” Vincent had tried to explain it to his a number of times before they’d settled on that.

“Heck yes!” “Yeah, sure.” “Alright”

Shaggy blinked in surprise, a blush spreading over his cheeks. There had been no hesitation, even joy. “Really?”

“Honestly, even if your life didn’t depend on it, it feels good. It feels right.” Fred shrugged.

“I don’t remember the past lives we lived together, but when we met in this one I knew on sight that you guys were the most important people I would even meet and that I belonged with you.” Daphne explained.

“I don’t like this business with magic, past lives, and god souls, but honestly same.” Velma shrugged a bit uncomfortably. “All of you are so important to me. I don’t understand how a wedding is going to save you, but I’d be happy to marry you, all of you, even without such a need.”

“You guys...you can’t…” Shaggy shook his head. “I stole your souls from your home reality because I was too selfish to let you go.” Sure he didn’t understand what he was doing, but he had done it. “You guys were totally supposed to go to heaven, get the whole eternal reward thing and I just kept dragging you away. If you do this, there’s no afterlife ever. No reunion with lost loved ones. Just eternity as an immortal. This is, like, really really permanent. I can’t take that from you again.”

“This is not a simple wedding. It is a joining of selves, allowing his divinity to spill into your soul.” Vincent explained. “It will allow him to survive to the natural end of this lifetime, but either way this is the end of the cycles. Whether it is today or many years down the line, Shaggy can no longer put off his ascension. He’s only managed this long because his bond with Scooby Doo had already acted as a siphon. But if you accept, the divinity will change you, even in this lifetime. You’ll be different, and when you die you’ll ascend with him, forever separated from this and every other world you’ve ever called home. A ‘divorce’, so to speak, would shred both of your souls. Hera would have ditched Zeus ages ago otherwise.”

“TODAY!!!” Daphne shrieked. “Shaggy’s going to die today?!?!”

“Shaggy is not going to die, because we are going to marry him and live out our lives here before going to do God stuff.” Fred crossed his arms as if daring Shaggy or Vincent to argue. “You can’t,” Shaggy said weakly. “I stole you. It’s not right.”

“Shaggy, would you say we deserve to be happy?” Velma asked.

“Like, of course!” How could she think otherwise?

“We’ll, you’re my happiness, along with Fred and Daphne, so I’ve got two words for you.” She looked him in the eye. “I do.” Velma leaned down and gave him a long deep kiss.

There was a sudden flare of near blinding blue light that seemed to emanate from Shaggy before it flowed through the kiss into Velma. She broke the kiss, laughing almost giddily. “Oh wow. That is a feeling.”

Shaggy seemed to be struggling to catch his breath, but on the whole, looked healthier than he’d been since they got here. “Like, yeah.” was all he could add, dumbstruck.

Fred and Daphne shared a look and nodded. Fred leaned over the wheelchair while Daphne scooped Velma up in her arms. “I do,” they both said together, giving their loved ones the same kiss Velma had before.The blue light flaring in both Shaggy and Velma and spreading to the other two. They then switched partners, and then came together, affirming and reaffirming their love.

“Raggy?” Scooby asked, looking up at his best friend.

Shaggy always knew what Scooby meant. He hadn’t said anything, after all. Scooby was asking if he accepted it. Accepted his dearest ones’ love and promise to be with him, to even give up being human for him. And it was selfish, but…

“I do! I do! I do!” Shaggy leapt from the wheelchair, no longer needing its aid. He grabbed the three of them, his dearest friends, now and forever his spouses. He had only wanted a chance to explain and say goodbye. But they had stayed with him. They had saved him and even loved him.

The blue divine light flowed freely from all of them, even Scooby. It wasn’t a flare of power, but a manifestation of pure happiness.

Wherever they were in the multiverse, as long as they were together, it was home.

[zombiesbecrazy]

harder and harder to breathe

Summary:  The rock hit the ground and instead of just landing normally like it should, it disintegrated into a puff of dust, filling the air and swirling around. Brown and tan and green dirt particles surround them for mere seconds before everything settled down again back into the cave floor.

AO3

“How do you clean your suit?” Clark asked casually has he carefully navigated the narrow pathway. Deep in some caves of Kentucky, the trail was threatening to give way at any wrong step, and sure, he could fly, but Clark was going to try and avoid it if possible because no one wanted an accidental cave in. “Nothing sticks to my cape so I don’t have to worry about that. I toss my suit in the washing machine with the brights, but you can’t do that with the armor or tech. Do you polish it?”

The trail that they had been following down the path, the glowing purple blood, had been spilling from the interdimensional worm beast that had slithered away, stopped suddenly and there was a hum in the air that Clark always seemed to hear after a portal had been opened.

The creature had jumped dimensions again, for the third time that they knew of this week. Maybe it would stay away now that it had been injured. Probably not though. It would probably be mad and bring back some friends for revenge.

He hoped it wouldn’t happen on Wednesday; he and Lois had dinner reservations that he didn’t want to miss.

“Why are you so interested in how my suit is maintained?” Bruce was busy inspecting where the blood had stopped, filtering through the spectrum lenses in his cowl in attempt to verify that the creature had indeed left and not done something else like turn invisible.

“I don’t know. It was a long walk and I think about a lot of things.” Bruce pointed at a large rock and Clark picked it up for him so that he could examine underneath, looking for any evidence that could help. “Alfred has to be polishing it for you. You smell like lemon pledge.”

Bruce didn’t rise to the barb, not that Clark really expected him to when he’s in full detective mode, and he started to collect samples of the blood instead, to go with all of the other samples of the blood that he already has back in his lab.

The rock that Clark had in his arms felt oddly heavy which didn't make any sense in the world, but he continued to hold it while Bruce worked underneath it, scraping some clay into a tube, getting air readings off his gauntlet. Typical protocols were being followed until the heavy rock starts to feel itchy, which is even stranger because its just a rock and he’s Superman and the only things that make him feel itchy are coarse wool blankets and this is definitely a worse itch than those ever were. The itching suddenly turned into a sharp pain and then the only thing that registered was that there was no way that Clark could hold onto this innocuous rock for any longer.

“Batman, move,” Clark grunted, feeling the rock begin to slip.

Bruce had no context as to what the problem is, but knows when Clark tells him to move he should immediately listen, so he shoulder rolls off to the side just as Clark drops the rock from his grasp, hands twitching like he’s been burned but the discomfort not receding once the contact was lost.

The rock hit the ground and instead of just landing normally like it should, it disintegrated into a puff of dust, filling the air and swirling around. Brown and tan and green dirt particles surround them for mere seconds before everything settled down again back into the cave floor.

“That was highly inconvenient,” mutters Bruce and Clark starts to apologize for the rock, for ruining the evidence, but as soon as he opens his mouth he finds that he can’t say any of those things. Instead, he coughs. At least he thinks he’s coughing; he’s never really had to cough before so he’s not sure if he’s doing it right. Does he even have a diaphragm? Out of all his millions of thoughts, he’s never thought to check that.

Whatever is happening to him, it burns deep in his chest, trickling up his throat and in his mouth and nose and he coughs again, harder, but instead of getting better, getting in more oxygen, he feels worse and there is less air than there was before. Not enough air.

“Bat-” he coughs harder, hand covering his mouth and he can taste the blood in his mouth, all copper and iron, before he can see it. “Bruce. Can’t.. Breathe.” Suddenly he’s on his hands and knees, panting but getting nowhere near enough air in. Is this what suffocating felt like? “I..” He’s coughing more now, uncontrollable and relentlessly, and this time he’s seeing the blood hit the dirt, with some microscopic glowing green particles in it.

Green is bad. Clark is able to process that much. For everyone else green is good but not for him. He’s dying because randomly stumbled across the one random thing that can kill him in a random cave and it wasn’t even for a good reason.

He was now certain that this was what hyperventilating felt like and the panic that went along with it.

He’s aware enough to feel that Bruce is readjusting him into a sitting position and talking to him, trying to get him to focus, but it’s so hard to do without air. “Look at me. Pay attention.” Bruce’s voice was firm and commanding and Clark forced himself to look at him, coughing and wheezing loudly as he managed to suck in the barest amount of air possible with the maximum amount of effort. Bruce kept eye contact, but was pulling something out of his belt as he did so, prepping whatever miracle cure he hopefully had stored on him. “You inhaled kryponite. I have an idea. I don’t know if it is going to work but it won’t kill you.” Before Clark could react in any way to that information, Bruce jabbed a needle into his thigh and held it in place and he kept his other hand on Clark’s pulse. “Probably.”

“What?” Clark managed to choke out as Bruce tossed the needle aside and then grabbed onto Clark’s hand, and didn’t make a sound as Clark squeezed it as tight as he could, which probably wasn’t very strong if he was choking to death on space dust.

“You’re an alien, Kal. I have no way to predict how you’ll react to human medication that you've never had before.”

“That feels prejudiced,” whispered Clark, words halted and breathy but they were audible enough, “against the differently specied.” Bruce grunted, but other than monitoring his symptoms with narrow eyes ignored Clark. The pressure was lessening in his chest, but very slowly and only just a little bit, and the feeling of imminent doom lingered in his brain. Clark sucked in a shaky breath, deeper than he had been able to for minutes but that just made him cough again, doubled over with effort, more blood and green particles with each bark. As the fit subsided, he felt Bruce rubbing his back in small circles with a fair amount of pressure. Clark thought it might be helping or it was at least fooling his brain enough into thinking it was helping. Either way, it felt good, like when Ma had comforted him after a nightmare as a kid or when he was curled up with Lois after a long and grinding day. “What was that?”

“Epi-pen,” said Bruce, voice tight in a way that Clark only heard when someone Bruce cared about was hurt. “Luckily the kryptonite made your skin malleable enough to pierce. I suspect it’s a temporary solution though.” Bruce’s lips were pressed firmly together in a grim way. “Let’s get you up into the sun. Hopefully it will work out of your system faster that way.”

Clark didn’t have it in him to argue about the sun not being a miracle drug but there was a part of his brain telling him that he had to at least get away from the debris of the seemingly normal looking rock that had exploded into Clark’s own personal death trap, so instead he struggled to his feet and let Bruce wrap one of Clark’s arms around his shoulders for support. They made slow work of weaving their way back through the caves, Clark less concerned about where he put his feet this time, but becoming more aware that with each step he took it was becoming more difficult to breathe again. He was farther away from the rocks, but he still must have some inside his lungs. “Why did you have an epi-pen?”

“I always have two in my belt. They are good in medical emergencies.” Bruce huffed a bit through his nose. “And Tim’s allergic to bee stings.”

“Good thing,” said Clark, before coughing again. “Not that Tim’s got a bee allergy. That you had the shot.” They stumbled along for a few more minutes before Clark had to stop for a moment to try and catch his breath, but he couldn’t help but notice that he was getting harder again. "How far down are we?"

"About a kilometer." Normally Clark would rib him for using the metric system but he just nodded and Bruce picked on on it instantly and tightened his arm around Clark's waist. "Why?"

Clark shook his head and starting to walk again, careful of his footfalls because if he fell down he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get back up. He was concentrating on the tightness in his chest, and the way it felt like it was itching on the inside, just like he had originally felt it in his hands before things had turned south. "I think the shot is starting to wear off," he mumbled. Part of him wondered if the symptoms were more in his head and just thinking about them made it worse. "Anaphylaxis symptoms can be psychosomatic though."

"Not really." Bruce didn’t laugh, but Clark could at least pretend that he was a little amused by Clark’s effort to fake away his symptoms. "I have another pen but don't want to use it unless it's a last resort. There was an opening in the cave just up ahead, a natural opening halfway up the gorge. This time of day there should be sunlight.” Clark coughed again and Bruce shot him a concerned look as he sucked in a pitiful breath. “Conserve your air."

"Pretty sure it doesn't work like that." His airways were closing, no amount of holding his breath could stop that.

“Shush.” Bruce said, and then had to pull tight because Clark stumbled over his own feet, threatening to trip to the ground. "You can lean on me more. I've got you."

Clark knew that. Bruce always had him.

It felt like an eternity before they reached the opening that faced the gorge and Clark was close to not being able to breathe again, gasping between coughing up blood and little bits of devil green rock. He fell onto all fours at the ledge of the gorge, afternoon sun beaming down on him, feeling like he was hacking up a lung as Bruce rather forcefully pounded his fist on Clark’s back, in an attempt to get the rock out.

Clark was on the brink of passing out, darkness closing in on the edge of his vision and he knew that Bruce was seconds away from giving him the second shot when suddenly the pain and itching in his chest vanished, a last forceful cough with a small glimmer of green was expelled and Clark rolled over and collapsed on his back, exhausted, but enthusiastically able to breathe again and feeling better by the second, chest heaving with the ability to breathe again.

It was out. It was finally all out and he could breathe and it was amazing. Oxygen had never tasted so good.

He cracked an eye open and saw Bruce studying him, epi-pen rolling between his fingers in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. “I think that was it,” Clark said, reaching towards the bottle. He took a big drink before handing it back. “Gosh, what were the odds of finding a rock made of dust sized kryptonite particles in a random cave in Kentucky?

“Was that hypothetical or do you want the math?” Bruce casually brushed the tainted blood that Clark had choked up over the edge, keeping a careful eye on him.

“Hypothetical. I can do my own math.” He rested his hand on his chest, feeling his heart pounding with enthusiastic thumps. “Later. After more breathing.”

“Rest. Recover.” Bruce sat further back and leaned against the wall of the cave in the shadows. “Lay in the sunbeam like a cat.”

Clark meant to argue back, he really did, but the sun was just so nice and he just felt so exhausted and suddenly he was waking up before he had even realized he was asleep. The sun was slowly setting in the distance, making the sky pink and orange. He sat up and stretched, feeling pretty good for someone who took an unscheduled nap on the floor of a cave, only to see Bruce smirking at him like the smug jerk that he was.

“Just because I fell asleep doesn’t make you right, you know,” said Clark, only now noticing that there had been a big black cape under his head during his impromptu nap. "I'm not a house plant that just perks up in the sun."

"You are. One day I'm going to prove that your cells have photosynthetic properties. I'm going to recruit Ivy to help if needed."

Of course Bruce would use his resources to try and prove his theory, no matter who it was. "Absolutely not. I don't want Ivy, or before you get any other ideas, Swamp Thing, having any reason to think that I'm part of the Green.” Maybe Bruce was right about the sun but Clark wasn’t going to tell him that and he certainly wasn’t going to let a sometimes evil botanist conduct experiments on him just to win an argument. “Thanks for saving me. I owe you one.”

“We owe each other several. I’ve pulled ahead for now though.” Bruce stood, and Clark had to hide a wince as he heard Bruce’s bones creak from sitting for so long on the rock. "I should be apologizing. It was my fault. I asked you to lift it."

Clark gawked at him. "Are you serious right now? You had no way of knowing it was laced with kryptonite." Bruce frowned and had the face that he did when he was about to argue and Clark just shook his head and cut him off before he could start. "Bruce. Stop it. If you really want to blame yourself, fine, I forgive you, but just know that I don't really forgive you, because it wasn't your fault."

They stared at each other for a minute before Bruce nodded and looked away, obviously still brooding about it but moving on as if he wasn't. “Are you ready to head up? I still have to analyze those samples before the worm jumps back to this reality.”

“Sure.” Clark climbed to his feet and handed Bruce back his cape, and Clark watched with interest as it was reattached. “You know, you never answered my questions about the armor.”

Bruce shrugged. “Alfred looks after it.” He started to step forward before freezing and turning back to Clark. “I don’t really smell like lemon pledge, do I?”

“Of course not,” said Clark, but he gave Bruce a big, fake smile before stepping past him and leading the way to start heading upwards, hoping that the faint smell of lemons would follow close behind.

[legobiwan]

Whumptober #4 (human shield)

TW: child death, somewhat grisly descriptors, hurt/no comfort, I’M SORRY

Fandom: Good Omens (Crowley, Aziraphale, Hastur)

Notes: uhhhh, I’m totally intimidated to try out writing in the Gomens fandom but here we are. Angst, as always. Lightly edited because I’m trying to let go and I don’t got no time for that. Yes, I’m a day behind on these and that will likely be the case until next weekend SORRY GUYS.

-----

“So let me get this straight. Hell - “ Crowley peered over the rim of his sunglasses. “And we are talking about the same Hell, right? Bad plumbing, worse health plan, bunch of ugly faces - “

Hastur scowled in Crowley’s direction, the frog perched on his head mirroring the expression.

“Present company excluded, of course,” Crowley swallowed, smothering the lie with a wide, toothy smile. Wouldn’t do to piss off Hastur this early in the morning. “But, I mean, it’s a bit odd, don’t you think? Hell wants me to tempt some tin-pot dictator into releasing a bunch of kids from imprisonment?”

Not that Crowley would mind. (And not that he would ever admit that to anyone, except maybe the angel.) The kids didn’t deserve it, were being used as pawns (or worse) by the latest in an ever-revolving door of loathsome excuses of humanity looking to get their kicks. So no, he’d be more than happy to let the kids go.

But it was weird and Hell didn’t do weird.

It was a trap, it had to be, the way Hastur was doing that thing where he curved his lips upward just enough to be creepy. The man in question, Crowley didn’t bother with his name, already had one-way ticket stamped to downstairs, so why throw this wrench into things?

Crowley shrugged, trying to exude indifference. In another thirty minutes, the sun would rise, speeding to its overhead post where it broiled every living thing in this dusty, sand-ridden part of the world.

“Seems like a waste of effort, if you ask me.”

“Well then it’s a good I didn’t,” Hastur growled, surly as ever. “Unless you’re not demon enough for the job.”

Nice one, Hastur. Crowley rolled his eyes behind his glasses. Not.

“I’m more than demon, enough, Duke Hastur. Come on!” Crowley spread his arms wide in dramatic fashion, something he know Hastur hated. “I am damn well - damn bad - ugh, you know what I mean. Ask Dagon, they’ve got my personnel file. Long list of commendations.”

Crowley, against all instinct and good taste, leaned towards Hastur, waggling his eyebrows. “Bet mine’s bigger than yours. Wanna compare?”

A sharp shove sent Crowley hurtling away from Hastur’s none-too-aromatic personal space.

“Just get it done, Crawly.”

——-

There had been no way to finesse this one, no loophole Crowley could find to finagle his way out actually doing what he was told. But what was the harm, really? He was freeing kids from the grasp of some power-hungry asshole with a vendetta and laundry list of psychological issues. It was probably the best assignment Hell had given him in centuries, one he might not even mind taking credit for.  

With little else to do, he traveled to the makeshift headquarters of the revolutionary leader. Sidled up to him, whispered in his ear. Told him the kids had a better purpose. (They did. To be kids. Alive kids.) Told him to let them go, that they would prosper under a far better sun, that the ruler would reap benefits he couldn’t possibly imagine if he just let them go. The squat man thought about it, brushing his beard with his hand, legs splayed out from his would-be throne. And then he smiled, blade-like, a kind of look that made Crowley uneasy, even though he was a demon.

“I think I will take your advice, young man.”

Crowley bid a hasty retreat from the compound.

The seed had been planted. He did what he was supposed to, Hell would be placated, and the children would be safe.

Almost too easy…

So easy, in fact, it shouldn’t have surprised him when Hastur showed up at tavern. Four wines in, Crowley’s features had softened, his head spinning with thoughts of a certain blonde-haired angel back in London.

Hastur clapped him on the shoulder, taking a seat on the wooden bench.

“Didn’t think you had it in you, Crawly.”

Crowley recoiled, picking Hastur’s hand off his shoulder as he would a soggy, used tissue.

“What, tempting a stupid dictator?” The wine allowed him to be brave, to ignore the fact that demons don’t touch, unless it’s to inflict pain. “Could do it in my sleep, Hastur.”

Of course, Hastur did that thing with his mouth again, the same aborted attempt of a smile from the other day. Worse yet, the Duke of Hell brought his hand back Crowley’s shoulder, this time digging his torn fingernails past fabric, into his actual muscle in a way that would leave a mortal without an arm.

“Demons don’t sleep.”

Crowley didn’t yelp when Hastur tightened his fingers further, but it was a near thing.

“Figure of speech,” he hissed.

Hastur, for his part, regarded Crowley as he would an animal in a lab experiment, coal-black eyes trained on the other demon’s expression as he used no small amount of his powers to all but press his fingers past skin, into the actual sinews of Crowley’s shoulder.

And then, all at once, he let go, crossing his arms over his chest.

Fucker, Crowley spat.

“You haven’t read the papers, then?”

And there it was, the other shoe dropping, plummeting, really, Crowley’s gut along with it. It was a rhetorical question - not that Hastur would know what that even meant - filled with gleeful, malicious anticipation.

Crowley managed to squeak out a somewhat breathless “no.”

“I mean,” he added, willing himself not to stutter, “I had…other thingsss to do.”

Hasted shoved a crumpled newspaper in his face.

Crowley’s eyes were sulfur-colored, a permanent mark of Hell’s claim on his soul. It was often assumed Crowley’s eyes belied his original serpent form, a testament to his role in the creation of Original Sin.

This assumption would be correct.

Partially.

Sulfur is a funny thing, though. Normally found as a solid, when burned at a high enough temperature, it melts to a blood-red liquid emitting a blue flame.

Crowley’s eyes are weeping crimson, glowing with a pure azure matched only by the Angels above.

In a single, furious movement, Crowley stormed from the tavern, Hastur cackling in his wake.

——

(Soho, London)

“…had reported the use of children as human shields in the latest violence between the two sides. Investigators say the children, ranging in age from 6 to 15, had been taken as prisoners during last week’s attack on the capital city. This had been seen by experts as the first step in a widening strategy to destabilize the region, courting further retaliation with no end in sight.

With the surprise execution of the leader and his closest circle of advisors, the fate of the region seems to be in question. NATO soldiers reported a gruesome scene in the capital city, bodies cleaved partially in two, eviscerated corpses hanging from their feet in the public square.

To date, no group has come forward to claim responsibility for the sudden execution of the splinter group leadership…”

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed with each paragraph, every new description of the horrors of the article punctuated by a sharp intake of breath, a small “oh my.”

A terrible picture, one he knew had been sanitized for publication.

Humming absently, Aziraphale set the newspaper on his lap and closed his eyes, casting his metaphysical sight - hundred of eyes watching just beyond the threshold of this world and other-world, peering past the walls of his shop, pupils, cornea, irises (as much as Aziraphale’s true form had eyes that resembled the human eye.)

Aziraphale’s real eyes were golden, solid, yet malleable, able to travel through the smallest pinholes between dimensions. His gaze, his true gaze flew, from England to France, burrowing through middle Europe, sprinting through Turkey, landing on a dusty plain in a forgotten part of the world.

He steps into the dusty amphitheater, bodies still hanging from their toes, sawed partially in half from their…oh dear. Most of the corpses have had their inner organs ripped from their body cavity, seemingly by hand, red staining the sand beneath their lifeless bodies. As for the organs, it’s…it’s, well a right mess, parts where they shouldn’t be, used as rope, stuffed into pockets, or in the case of one,  shoved into his mouth.

While Aziraphale can’t quite make himself feel sorry for the men - they had set their own fate far before this unfortunate event - the presence of demonic rage, the pure, unfettered evil of the other side is undeniable, even with Aziraphale projecting himself from thousands of kilometers away. While oft times humans needed little provocation from Below to commit the most heinous of acts, this one had certainly been helped along by some foul agent of Hell, one so corrupted they would desecrate human lives - even these humans, in such a way.

There’s a knock on the door. It’s muffled and Aziraphale feels it more as a metaphor than reality, but he draws inwards, leaving behind the dusty, bloodshed streets, soaring above continental Europe, a comet, a shooting star. He feels the wishes of the humans, the ones who wake late, who watch the cosmos, yearning for the undefinable, for the ineffable, for a bit of hope to be found in an old mythology. He blesses them on his return to Soho, needing this small bit of Grace, this bolster, before confronting the presence he now realizes is committed to tearing down his antique front door.

A presence that was entirely demonic, and entirely familiar.

“AAAAAAANGEEEEEELL!”

Oh good lord.

The knocking escalated, a series of thick, violent thuds as the entire room shuddered with Crowley’s exertion. It seemed the demon had forgotten he could overcome the simple hurdle of a door with a simple snap of fingers.

Knowing he would be in for a long night, Aziraphale polished off the glass of wine sitting on his table in a single gulp, steeling himself for an armful of drunken, distraught demon.

(If he was lucky, it wouldn’t be as bad as the 14th century. To date, nothing had been quite as bad as the epic bender of 1378.)

“A-zi-ra-PHAAAAALE!”

Pulling one last time at his waistcoat, straightening his bowtie, Aziraphale headed to the front door. (And if that was not an act of faith, nothing else was. He knew full well his meticulous clothing would be rumpled, pulled at and thrown askew within minutes of allowing the demon inside.)

“ZIIIRRRAAAAAA!”

He should leave Crowley out there, as a lesson. The caterwauling really was getting to be a bit too much, and Aziraphale could’t imagine what had gotten Crowley into this state to begin with.

“Come on out, Angel! Smite the Evil One! Or have you grown soft?”

Perhaps this would be as bad as 1378.

Casting a glance upwards for strength (or something. He wasn’t certain Heaven would be all that thrilled to be called on in aid of a demon), Aziraphale huffed out the last of his annoyance, opening the front door with a singular flourish, plastering on his best angelic look of Unending Patience.

“It’s about damn time, Angel. Let me in, gotta do this prop - prop - the right way.”

Crowley was - there was no other word - a disaster, black shirt halfway unbuttoned, vest hanging off one arm, bottle held between his long fingers. The red stains under his fingernails didn’t go unnoticed by the angel, nor did the brown, viscous smudge of something he’d rather not identify smeared across his right cheek.

“Crowley, what happened? What the Hell is going on?” Aziraphale snapped.

So much for Unending Patience. The demon stared at him, uncomprehending, before tilting his head back with a maniacal, desperate cackle.

“That’s a good one, angel. In fact, Hell is exactly what is going on. Right here, in your bookshop.” Crowley popped the p, weaving inside the front room. “A real demon? Can you believe it?”

The door shut with a wave of Aziraphale’s hand.

“Yes, you are a demon,” Aziraphale began carefully, knowing the topic was dangerous ground even during the best of times. “I believe we ascertained that fact quite some time ago.”

Crowley leered at the books piled haphazardly on the front table. After a moment of contemplation, Crowley pushed at the stack with a single finger, sending the masterworks toppling to the ground.

“Crowley!”

The demon responded with a withering look from above the rims of his sunglasses.

“A real demon, angel. Come on, I know you lost that sword at the start, but you’ve got to have something else, right?” Crowley threw his hands out to the side, sending the bottle crashing to the floor, breaking into a million pieces. He eyed Aziraphale expectantly.

The angel gaped, twisting his hands together in front of his stomach. “What, you come crashing in here at who-knows-what time of the night, destroying my property, making a mess, demanding that I - that I - “

Aziraphale stomped his foot. Not what one would call appropriate behavior for one of the Heavenly Host, but they had never had to deal with a drunk, self-destructive demon on their doorstep at three in the morning.

“Crowley…no! Sober up and sit the fu - just sit down.”

“Nah, don’t feel like it.” Crowley swayed towards the red leather armchair Aziraphale had so peacefully been occupying not minutes before.

“Really, I must insist.” Aziraphale went to take the demon by the shoulders, stopping halfway. It would only escalate matters, Aziraphale making any kind of physical contact with the demon, the way he was itching for a fight, trying to provoke Aziraphale.

Crowley’s gaze flitted about the room, perhaps calculating where he could cause the most amount of chaos, before landing on the newspaper Aziraphale had left open on the table. Crowley lurched, grabbing the periodical, waving it like a revolutionary on the front lines.

“Did you read about this one, angel?”

“Dreadful, I know.” Aziraphale shuffled closer to the demon, skeptical as to where the conversation was going.

“That’s the work of a real demon. Pure Evil, capital E.”

“Yes, I imagine so. And I’m glad you were nowhere near that scene, Crowley."

Crowley laughed. It was a terrible empty sound, a nothing that somehow echoed throughout the bookshop, a heavy void, as if the gates of Pandemonium itself had opened on Earth. In that moment, something truly demonic, truly evil had invaded Aziraphale’s Earthly sanctum.

Instinct kicked in, the air crackling around Aziraphale’s form, which had begun to shed its corporeal skin, the tell-tale tang of ozone a warning, much in the way a a snake rears upwards, or a canine bares its teeth.

“That’s the stuff, Angel, come on!” Crowley taunted, shouting above the growing din of righteousness.

Aziaphale froze, aghast. Crowley was square to him, having pulled his shirt open, bare chest exposed, long scars criss-crossing his abdomen and where had those even come from?

Aziraphale backed away, shaking.

“Crowley, I’m sor - I didn’t - I mean - “

But the demon advanced, shedding a bit of his own corporeality, red scales manifesting down his arms, broken halo rising from his red hair. The room darkened, turning oppressive, clautroophoic and sweat beaded on Aziraphale’s forehead despite it being the middle of February in London.

“Come. On. Angel.” Crowley took a menacing step forward, his arms open to the side, head thrown back, neck exposed, chest thrust forward. The demon was panting, bony chest flush, heaving.

“Crowley.” Aziraphale’s voice cracked. He swallowed over the lump of anxiety in his throat, mustering his inner strength. “Crowley, please stop this at once. I am not going to smite you.”

Crowley met his gaze, mask slipping, eyes round and red-rimmed.

And then Aziraphale was slammed against a bookcase, long, sharp fingers gripping at the lapels of his jacket. Crowley’s sharp teeth snapped near his lips, yellow eyes boring into Aziraphale.

Never had his friend looked so…demonic.

“You sssshould, Principality Aziraphale, Angel of the Eassstern Gate,” Crowley growled like a wild creature.

Never before had Aziraphale actually feared Crowley.

“I think you should go.”

Crowley glared, rearing at the polite, reserved request. Something shifted in his face. Azirphale felt the grip loosening on his jacket, cool air whisking into the space between angel and demon. Crowley made a dissatisfied grunt, lightly shoving Aziraphle back for good measure, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

“You should have done it, Angel. It’s what I deserve.” Crowley nodded towards the paper. Aziraphale felt the sudden urge to vomit.

There was no - he couldn’t have, not Crowley. He must have been coerced, or blackmailed, or -

“No mistake, angel. All me.”

And Crowley stared at the ground, silently begging for his punishment, for what he’s due and Aziraphale just couldn’t wrap his head around that fact that Crowley, of all beings -

“Please leave, Crowley.”

The demon jerked his head up, just long enough for the flash of hurt to illuminate all over his face.

“Yeah. Good. I’ll just, uh. Right. See you in a couple hundred years.”

Crowley stepped out the door, barely making a sound.

Azirpahale slithered to the floor, back still to the bookcase. He summoned a bottle of wine, not bothering with a glass, not even bothering to look at the vintage. The dreadful photo of the execution site stared back at him. With a snarl, Aziraphale waved the paper away, sending the offending item into the ether, where it was ripped into atoms.

He drank late into the night, until the rose-colored fingers of dawn peeked above the horizon, thinking of nothing at all.

legobiwan does whumptober

[echoeternally]

Tentative 2020 Schedule

Long post, head’s up.

I get asked a lot about stories going on hiatus, which they never really are, but I’m normally busy with a lot of things, and they’re not always priority for me on a daily basis. So, time slips past me, and it takes a while to upload.

Still, I know how it feels to be burned by fanfic writers (happened to me a lot as a kid, and I didn’t have blogs to follow when I was young for updates, lol). To try giving a vague/rough idea of how I think my posting patterns have settled, I’ll post a mini-schedule kind of thing here.

This year will be divided into quarters (Q#), and within those months, I’ll try updating one or two of my major fanfics. It’s subject to change, hopefully for more than less, hence the ‘tentative‘ bit.

But, it’s also possible that I might not fulfill these times, so, if a period of time goes by and nothing’s updated? Short version is that I suck, idk folks.

So, let’s see how this goes and if I’ll abide by this for the year. 

...

Q1 (January - March) 

Planned update for: Eternally Never Yours, Chapter 45

Q2 (April - June) 

Planned update for: Melting Gelid Roses, Chapter 27 Pushing update for: Eternally Never Yours, Chapter 46

Q3 (July - September) 

Planned update for: Melting Gelid Roses, Chapter 28 Planned update for: Eternally Never Yours, Chapter 47 Pushing update for: Melting Gelid Roses, Chapter 29

Q4 (October - December)

Pushing update for: Melting Gelid Roses, Chapter 30, planned finale 

...

Explanations below the cut. 

...

Ok, first is the planned vs pushing: ‘planned‘ means I’m going to work at doing those and try to get them done within that period, while ‘pushing‘ means I’m going to see if I’ve got the time during that period to pump out another.

Now, for the specifics on each.

...

Q1: I’m currently working on the next chapter of the Super Mario fanfic, Eternally Never Yours. This is a big chapter, because I’m writing up “guidelines” for magic and those that use it. Not only will this be something that I’m writing for this fanfic, but it might be something I look into when I’m writing in the future and original content, so I’m practicing on that.

On top of this, I need to refer backwards to how I’ve written certain characters, as they haven’t had major roles for 4 years. So, I’m trying to maintain continuity and make sure they still act the same as they did, while certainly expanding on their roles. Also, I’m addressing specific character dynamics, some which people have been excited for and criticized about.

My original plan was to get this out in January, but that’s unlikely to happen, so I’m hoping to have it ready by the end of March. Does that mean it will take until then to complete and post? Gracious, I certainly hope not. But, I’ve miscalculated by assuming the time I’d have for writing in the past, so I’m giving myself the appropriate cushion room to work within.

...

Q2: Up next will be the Pokémon fanfic, Melting Gelid Roses. This will be a continuation from the previous chapter, but also redefines roles for characters. Well, some redefining, others getting spotlights they’ve desperately needed, and several more continuing to be their best. Slight spoilers: it’s going to be a combat chapter. If you didn’t see that coming, there you go.

This is the beginning of the end for this fanfic, and I’m planning on moving onto the sequel after it wraps up this year. This chapter will be the last time I’ll be writing certain characters until the next story, so I need to make sure they’ve got their stage set. At least one minor character will be getting a boosted role in the next story, and it’s likely going to be more than one, and it’s not based only on the soldiers of the main kingdom. So, I’ve got important pivots to set up.

At the same time, since summer is coming and I’m praying that I’ll start getting more free time, I’m going to try my best to get an update for Eternally Never Yours out during this time as well. I’m not holding myself to that, so it’s possible that this update will be pushing back the other ones that follow. But, I want to try getting it out there. This one returns to the main romance of the story, and will hopefully be a resting chapter. After all, they’re coming back from the assault on Peach’s Castle, so, they’ll need to cool down.

If I’m keeping pace with my updates, these both should be out by June. If not, I’ll try to let readers know.

...

Q3: For whatever reason, I think my largest amount of free time exists somewhere between July and September. In my head, that doesn’t sound right, but I’m pretty sure my consistent updates tend to roll out during this time, on a yearly basis. I could be wrong, I’m not fact checking myself on that, so if I’m wildly off, whoops. Nevertheless, I’m planning heaviest around here.

There will be a period for two updates to the Pokémon fanfic. Again, I’m planning on having this one finally come to a close, and I’m pretty much scrounging up my best efforts to end it this year. No, that’s not a guarantee, but I’m really giving it a strong effort, because I do want it to be done before 2021. So, this is when I’m planning for the double update.

First chapter returns to the Empire for the war fallout, and shows where everyone is at following their recoveries and catching up. I’m hoping to properly capture the grieving process and melancholic nature that should be during this time, because hey, other characters died, and the main cast should be shaken by that. Hard. The follow-up chapter will shift the focus to characters that were also impacted by these events, and while they’re not normally main cast, they’re going to appear in the future, and need their time to adjust as well.

Finally, I’m also planning on including an update for the Super Mario fanfic in between those two chapters above. This one will be sending heroes back into their battles as well, and we’re going to finally address the seventh area, the Sky Kingdom. It’s going to be the next location for Peach, Luigi, and the others to fight back for. The boss there will be someone important, though, so...wonder how that’ll turn out for both sides.

Since this is a tentative schedule, stuff might get pushed back, and I’m piling hardest on here, so I can’t promise that it’ll work out. But, this gives us something to go by.

...

Q4: Hello to my absolute worst quarter of the year to update. The holiday season bogs me down without mercy each and every year. This is when I lie to myself and think, “I can probably do two updates, there are 3 months, I’ve got time for that.” Then reality ensues, and I realize, “No, I don’t have that kind of free time for myself.“ It’s possible that I might put nothing out after October or November, and by December? Forget it.

In spite of that, I’m going to do my best to make this the period for Melting Gelid Roses to finally reach its ending. Yes, that does break the balance of updates. Eternally Never Yours is not ending this year, however, I know that for a fact. So, it can take a little time to rest while the Pokémon fanfic wraps up. Like this year, I will probably start 2021 working on the Super Mario fanfic again.

As this is the final chapter of MGR, it basically settles affairs for the main cast and collects everyone back together. What does that mean? They’re repositioning for the third story. When’s that going to start? Hopefully next year. But as the year ends, so will MGR. There’s more to come after, but this will be the second book’s closing, and it will need some prep to get there.

There’s a plan that I’ve debating on following through with, which will involve audience participation. If I can get the third story’s titles brainstormed by this time, that will be included. But the main concept depends on how I want to proceed with select characters, if I want their stories to end with MGR as they are, or if they will do more. Should I decide on trying this, then I’m going to be asking readers to help me narrow those selections down from several to one or two only. This is meant to be a cryptic tease, so that’s all I’ll mention.

Again and again, this is my absolute worst update quarter. If I don’t get to this chapter here, or if I needed to push other updates back, then it’s spilling over to 2021. I don’t want to, but I’m not going to crush myself over updating strictly on time.

...

These are plans, and plans are malleable, they change. If I don’t abide by these, please don’t turn around with, “BuT EcHo YoU tOLd uS ThIs!” I’m human, life changes at the drop of a dime, this is free reading, things happen, and this is not a committed schedule. These are guidelines I’m hoping to follow, but I might end up tumbling off the path.

This is meant to give readers a place to refer to so they can check and see what my plans are. Months will go by, I won’t update. But, this can give a little comfort that I’ve got something in the works for this year at various intervals.

Please understand that I am trying, please understand that it’s a juggling act, and please understand that I have other, real world matters that will override priorities for these stories.

But please also feel free to continue interacting and asking questions beyond update periods. Sometimes the strongest way to help encourage me to persist is feedback, and interacting following chapters. If I’m in a period where I haven’t updated, feel free to mention what your favorite chapters, scenes, and characters were. Feel free to mention some hopes you have for the story; who knows, that might influence me.

Thank you all for your support so far. I’ll continue to try my best.

[iitodoiidas]

maybe it’s time to come home

(bed)

words: 1070

notes: Future fic, Established relationship + some Explicit language near the end (bc shouto is utterly shameless)

>>>>> ao3 link

“Huh,” Shouto says.

Tenya hums, and nods. “Yes, quite.”

They are both looking down at the pieces of metal that is supposedly to become their bed frame. It hasn’t managed to become that as of yet, despite a not inconsiderable amount of time Tenya and Shouto had spent trying to wrangle it into one.

“I still don’t get why we can’t set it up,” Shouto says, annoyance lacing his voice. “I managed to put together my room back in UA in one afternoon. By myself. This is one bed.”

“I don't understand it, either,” Tenya says, frowning at the single-paged manual in his hands. “You know how much I love following instructions, but still I cannot make sense of these at all! Are we perhaps missing parts of it?”

“No, they're all here. I checked earlier.” Shouto tosses another metal piece to join the others on the floor, then turns to look at Tenya. “Are you sure we can’t just continue sleeping on futons instead?”

“Very. I explained this to you before, but my legs cannot rest on such a firm surface on a long term basis. It needs certain--”

“‘--malleability on the surface upon which you sleep, or the plating around your bones could dent over time, and it will be an incredibly painful process to set it to rights back again,’ yeah, I remember.”

“Exactly.”

“Noted. But consider this: futons don't need any bed frames.”

“No,” Tenya says firmly. “And besides, I did enough sleeping on futons when I was staying over at your place last year.”

Shouto stiffens.

Tenya, belatedly comprehending the words that slipped out of his mouth, does as well.

A minute of tense silence passes by, then Shouto’s posture slacks, his arms falling loosely at his sides. Finally, he says, “...Fair enough.”

Tenya looks down at his hands, unhappy to have reminded his husband of the incident. 

It is a fairly recent event in their long years together, and it's not even close to one of the more dangerous and life-threatening situations either of them had found themselves in as Pro Heroes, but Tenya found its memory harder to shake off than the rest. 

The previous year, when Tenya had planted himself in one of the guest rooms of the Todoroki estate for six whole months, when Shouto had for all intents and purposes pretty much forgotten who his husband was from a strange quirk that hit him during a mission. The way Shouto had stared at him with no recognition…  the way he brushed off Tenya's efforts to spend time with him, flinching from any contact… the guarded way he treated Tenya, cold and distant, as he does any stranger. How terrified Tenya had been that this would be permanent, and Shouto --his Shouto-- would be gone and--

Suddenly Shouto is in front of him, his right hand cradling Tenya's cheek, palm cool under his skin.

“Tenya,” Shouto says quietly. “Come back.”

Tenya inhales sharply, the air almost painful in his chest, leaning to the touch. “Forgive me, I didn't mean to bring it up again. I-- I'm still trying to…”

But Tenya isn't sure what it is he's trying to do. Forget? Move on from the memory? He thought he already did. They'd already talked about it multiple times. They'd talked to doctors of possible relapses, analyzed the situation in its entirety, and themselves too, afterwards, if their feelings had changed from the experience. They’d moved into a new city. They’d written up The Plan, possible preventive and fallback measures, should such a thing happen again.

Tenya thought they'd already moved past it.

He thought he's already past it.

It doesn't look like it, seeing the grim expression on his husband's face as he watches him. Oh no, but that's not good at all! Tenya thinks in distress.

“Shouto--,” he starts, raising a hand.

“You--,” Shouto begins at the same time, only to cut himself off with a frown. “Wait. This isn't right.”

Tenya blinks, distracted. “What isn't?”

Shouto takes him by the hand, leading Tenya towards the mattress they shoved in the corner of the bedroom while they're assembling the bed frame.

“Wait a sec.”

With that, Shouto steps away, disappearing through the living room, where Tenya could hear him shifting boxes of their belongings they haven't unpacked yet. He returns shortly after with an armful of their fluffiest blankets, crawls towards the middle of the mattress, and fixes the blankets around him.

Then he waves Tenya over. “Come here.”

Tenya, confused, joins him on the mattress where Shouto promptly throws the other end of the blanket around Tenya’s shoulders. “Shouto, what... what are you doing?”

Shouto doesn’t answer until the blankets are arranged exactly to his preference, before he meets Tenya’s eyes steadily. “I can see you need to go over The Plan again, and while I’m always up for that whenever you need it, I’d rather be doing it while snuggling with you than sitting my ass somewhere less comfortable for the whole hour and seventeen minutes of it.”

Tenya’s eyes well up. They didn’t need to; not Shouto especially, who has no recollection whatsoever of the time he’d spent treating Tenya as a stranger. Shouto, who’d been horrified when Tenya finally managed to recount what happened; who had been the one to set up The Plan even if that’s usually Tenya’s field, because Tenya himself couldn’t manage to without feeling his heart falling to pieces.  

But Tenya knows, looking at Shouto’s determined gaze, that there’s no dissuading him. And honestly? Tenya is too grateful for his husband’s support to protest much.

“We haven’t finished setting up the bed frame yet,” is what Tenya ends up saying over his stuffy nose.

“We’ll finish it properly later,” Shouto promises, dabbing the wetness in Tenya’s eyes and nose with tissues he’d thoughtfully brought along with the blankets. “I plan on riding you hard on the damn thing tonight, and I won’t have it breaking down on us while I’m fucking myself on your gorgeous dick.”

Tenya chokes on his breath, feeling his cheeks flaming, but still manages a breathless laugh. “Shouto! You’re such a menace!”

“Yep,” Shouto says simply. Then he slips an arm around Tenya’s waist and pulling him close, until Shouto’s head is tucked neatly under Tenya’s chin. “Are you ready?”

Tenya sniffs one more time, and nods.

“Good. Tell me the abstract and accompanying foreword of The Plan.”

[ruckusheaven]

A Coon In A Colorful Heaven: Chapter 6- “Purposely Purposed Purposely..”

Coon-  A black person who is ignorant to white discrimination and unknowingly suffers with self hatred.

This Chapter continues to follow the Eternal story of a man named Damien. When we last saw Damien, he had finally met his Great Great Grandfather Julian. His Grandmother Lisa had Julian summoned so that he could help educate Damien about colorism since Julian use to believe in that mindset when he was alive. But getting through to Damien proved to be somewhat of a challenge until Damien’s Great Cousin Claudia came and showed him her life as a slave. Damien got to see and feel a glimpse of what she experience but it was so much that Damien almost Broke. The Family must now figure out a way to educate Damien without breaking him and before he fully deteriorates....

“GG” Grandfather Julian: This boy really is something special. You mean to  tell me that this man went all or at least a majority of his life never experiencing any major amount of Grief, Depression, or Heartache.

“GG” Grandfather Julian: So this lil nigga just been getting slight headaches and shit like that his whole life??

“GG” Grandma Lisa: No Julian i doubt that. But it’s very strange that he hasn’t felt any serious pain. Or perhaps he just pushed thing away so deep that he couldn’t feel those pains, plus always avoiding them.

Uncle Craig: Well Grandma you know where we come from. It’s not like he didn’t have access to plenty of ways to drown out pain or run from it..

“GG” Grandfather Julian: I get that but come on. This was a Black Man that lived on Earth in America. A BLACK. MAN. IN. AMERICA. Last i checked black folks still getting killed over racism only dropped by 15% so how the hell did this negro not feel Grief from that alone.

Aunt Tanya: Probably the same way he thinks that colorism doesn’t exist. By ignoring it

Damien: *wiping his eyes* Can you guys not talk like i’m not here

Aunt Tanya: Trust we haven’t forgotten 

Damien: Look i obviously couldn’t ignore the shit that happened to black people. Some shit was out of line that were just racist but there were alot of things that black people did that they caused themselves.

“GG” Grandfather Julian: Ok so he a Coon Coon huh

Aunt Tanya: I been said that

Damien: Can y’all not call me that..

“GG” Grandfather Julian: Why not? The name fits perfectly. You’re a black man that is ignoring racism and its affects while also suffering from it

“GG” Grandfather Julian: Boy you are literally deteriorating because of it

Damien: No im deteriorating because all of this is confusing. None of this makes sense ok?

Damien: I just died and got into Heaven just to get a history lesson.

“GG” Grandma Lisa: Damien.. you’re here because part of you doesn’t feel like you belong here and another part doesn’t know why

Damien: And you think this drawn out family gathering is helping?

Damien: Look i understand the stuff black women went through, I have Claudia to thank for that. But I don’t see what this has to do with helping me in the long run.

Damien: I want to see Veronica, i want some solid answers not these discussions on racism from a family that i barely knew!!

Uncle Craig: ...

Aunt Tanya: ...

???: If that’s what you think you need to see then fine..

*Angie Walks through the crowd of family*

Angie: I will show you where she is at but you may not like what you see *places her hand on Damien’s shoulder*

*A Gray and Silver Light Crashes down taking Damien and Angie downward*

“GG” Grandma Lisa: I sure hope my Grand Baby is ready..

“GG” Grandfather Julian: He has no choice but to be at this point...

         -Within The Gray Beam-

Damien: Where are we going and why does this feel slower than any other time we’ve been beamed away

Angie: Where i’m taking you is outside of Heaven... A realm completely for her..

Damien: So Veronica isn’t in Hell?! She made her own zone and everything?

Angie: Not Necessarily... Listen Damien what you’re about to see maybe hard..

Angie: Veronica... well.. I guess it’s best for you to see..

Damien: oook?...

*The Gray Beam light lands and dissipates, Leaving Angie and Damien behind*

Damien: Where are we now.. *looking around*

Angie: Well.. we’re in her purgatory..

Inside the room Damien and Angie were in seemed very similar to the judgement room. The room itself was very wide but felt small. The air felt cold and sharp. The colors of the walls were gray and blackish, like milky smoke on fire. The walls themselves seemed alive as the colors moved and broke apart within them. And in the middle of the room stood a Black Orb, levitating off the ground.

Damien: What is that *staring at the Black Orb*

Angie: Thats.. that’s Veronica..

Damien: *Looks at Angie* What... how is that Veronica *stares back at the orb and begins to run towards it*

As Damien ran he felt his energy begin to fade. Every step felt heavier than the last. The closer he got the more overbearing it became.

Damien: *falls to his knees panting* what the fuck is going on... why do i feel so heavy

Damien: My feet feel like clumps of wet clay and my body feels like it has a hundred pounds on it..

Angie: *walks next to him* This is her Purgatory, Her Zone of sorts. It effects everyone that is in it and each Purgatory has it’s own affects.

Damien: Then why are you perfectly ok?...

Angie: Because i’m a Angel. Our Energy far outweighs yours for obvious reasons. So rooms or zones like these can’t affect us.

Damien: Well since your an Angel that seems to have all the answers then explain that thing *points to the Black Orb*

Damien: How the Hell is that Veronica? It’s not even a person.. it’s just some big ball of energy  

Angie: And what do you think Humans are? What do you think your Soul is made out of?

Angie: Everything that was or ever has been is made up of energy. From your skin, hair, blood and even the air you breath. Energy makes up every part of it. Life is made out of energy.

Angie: All death is, is the loss of certain energy within you that breaks down and is taken away from you. Your Core... Your Soul.. it’s you’re unique energy that leaves your body and is brought to Your Judgment Room.

Angie: Heaven, The After Life, Reincarnation. What happens to your energy is completely your choice. Depending on what you believe in, you could have became one with the earth and became a tree. Nothing is impossible in that regard.

Angie: *pointing at the Black Orb* That is what happens when the energy doesn’t believe it belongs anywhere..

Damien: So this is her Hell?

Angie: Not really.. It’s like an in-between. Hell is when the energy or soul of a person refuses to believe or accept what they’ve done to themselves or others. Their energy becomes so twisted and broken that they cocoon themselves in an endless void as their energy breaks apart spreading out throughout the void, searching for something that isn’t there forever.

Damien: That’s not what i was ever told..

Angie: Well your kind mostly used the idea of hell to control people with fear. But even still you guys wouldn’t have been able to fully comprehend Hell until you got here.

Damien: Then whats happening to Veronica?

Angie: Veronica accepted all her faults kinda.. she was equally as twisted as you are when it came to knowing and understanding certain things.

Angie: But the amazing part is that she could recognize and acknowledge the confusion or lack of understanding. But she didn’t want to change either..

Angie: She saw no point in changing... no point in understanding. She felt nothing..

Damien: Nothing.. *tries to stand* how could she feel nothing..

Angie: It’s how she was raised and lived. Your energy and soul is sculpted by your experiences. Energy is pure and malleable, but can be fixated and unchangeable depending on what happens.

Angie: She spent her whole life cutting things off that she didn’t understand or want. Whether it was memories, emotions or people. She was able to completely rid things out of her life that she felt didn’t matter or that was un-needed.

Angie: You could imagine where she got the blueprints for that from *looks down at Damien*

Damien: *looks down at the ground*

Damien: So... her soul became this black orb..

Angie: More like she’s within the black orb *kneels down and opens her hand in front of Damien*

*Light Begins to form around Angie’s hand*

As light began to circle around Angie’s Palm, a distinct yet hazey image began to form.

Damien: Veronica!

A clear image of Veronica began to form in Angie’s hand. The Image showed Veronica curled up in a fetal position wrapped around black thorn like vines. Her legs and part of her torso fazed in and out, like smoke dissipating and reforming; as her face continued to break and crack into random black pieces only to quickly crash back into place.

Damien: What the hell is happening to her

Angie: There’s no human word to describe it honestly.. Her energy is basically confused, searching, disappearing, connecting, breaking and stopping all at once.

Angie: This is what Purgatory is for her.

Damien: What.. what happened to her? How could she become like this..

Angie: Sadly there’s no easy or short answer for this

Angie: But there is a way for you to understand *places both of her hands on Damien’s head*

*Both Angie and Damien Vanish into and old apartment*

Damien: *standing up fully* this?... isn’t this my old apartment 

Angie: Yes, Yes it is. Back when you were 26 and still with Lexis 

Angie: *Opens a door* back when Veronica was only 5

a little girl is playing in her room. The room has dirty stained walls covered in Bratz posters a mix of celebrities and kid drawings. Her bed is neatly made with a small old tv across from it and one window next to the bed. The carpet she’s sitting on is raggedy and hard with small stains randomly on them.

Damien: Oh my god... Veronica *tries to walk forward but is unable to*

Damien: What the hell is going on? Why can’t i walk forward? 

Angie: While inside this Memory Realm you cannot freely move. This isn’t something she is controlling, we aren’t even able to feel what she felt. Technically this isn’t her Memory Realm, its more like re-watching time itself.  We can’t interact but we can view it and see what she saw.

Young Veronica: *playing with Barbie Dolls and singing to herself*

Damien: What point in time are we at exactly?  

Angie: The day she began to realize her life and the world around her...

???: *slams door* Fuck you! This isn’t the life i wanted, this isn’t the happiness i wanted!

???:  *opens door and stomps after ???*  Not the life you wanted? This is what you chose! From me, to your job, to living here and having a daughter. These were all your choices!

Young Veronica: *peeks her head outside into the hallway and watches*

Past Damien: Regardless of everything you’re saying, i’m not happy period! No more no less!

Past Damien: And if i’m not happy then i don’t need to be here.

Lexis: So you’re just going to leave!? What about me and your daughter!

Past Damien: What about you two? One is a mistake and the other is a responsibility that i never wanted! But to be honest those could fit both of you at this point.

Lexis: You Piece of shit!! *begins to flare her arms, hits Damien in random places*

Past Damien: STOP! I’m not playing with you!!

Lexis: *Continues to swing* Fuck you Damien! You’re no better than your father!!

Past Damien: I said STOP! *pushes Lexis hard*

Lexis: *stumbles back tripping over a chair and bangs her head against the edge of a kitchen counter*

Young Lexis: *makes a small gasp while covering her mouth*

Past Damien: Lexis.... Lexis.

Lexis laid on the floor almost lifeless as a small amount of blood began to run down her neck

Past Damien: Shit... *quickly grabs his keys and runs out the room*

Young Veronica: *walking slowly towards her mom* mom..

Young Veronica: *tries to lift her mom up by lifting up her head as blood runs down her hand* mommy?....

Angie: The day that changed her forever.. The day you left...

THE END OF CHAPTER 6

[mentalhealth-dy]

Web design

As this is my first time properly designing a website, I thought it would be important to have a look into what I should know when designing a website. 

I did some research and found a really helpful website that gave me some tips to consider : 

(I know this is a lot to read but it is just something I wanted to add to my blog so that I can keep going back to it) 

Optimize Web Graphics for Better Page Load Times

Learn how to optimize your web graphics by selecting the proper format and making sure that it’s as small as it can possibly be. Even though people are advancing to broadband connections, there are still quite a few who use dial-up internet connections. Additionally, with the emergence of mobile device technologies that don’t necessarily have broadband-like speeds, having slow page load times due to image file sizes can turn users off.

Here a general rule of thumbs for picking the right file format: images that have solid colors are best saved as PNGs and GIFs, while images with continuous colors (such as photographs) are best saved as JPGs.

There are plenty of tools available at your disposal that will help you further optimize your images and lower their file sizes, check out this list of tools for optimizing your images.

By limiting the number of images you use to the bare minimum, being smart about using images, and reducing file sizes as best as you can, you will significantly cut down page response times of  a web page and improve your web page performance. 

Keep it Clean and Simple

A good web design is not just one that looks visually appealing, but also one that is user-friendly. A clean and simple web design typically ends up being a high-usability web design that is not confusing to interact with.

By having too many site features and components on a page, you risk the chance of distracting website viewers from the purpose of the website. Make sure each page element has a purpose and ask yourself the following questions:

Does the design really need this?

What does this element do and how does it help the user?

If I remove this element all of a sudden, will most people want it back?

How does this element tie into the goal, message, and purpose of the site?

Additionally, though it may be super awesome to come up with a new concept or interface design pattern for your website, make sure that the design is still accessible and intuitive to your users. People are accustomed to common interaction patterns, site features, and web interfaces – and if your design is truly unique, make sure it’s not too obscure and puzzling. Be creative, but also keep it simple.

Navigation is the Most Important Thing You Will Design

The most essential site feature is the website’s navigation — without it, users are stuck whatever page they happen to land on. With that obvious fact out of the way, we’ll talk about some important points to consider when constructing a navigation scheme.

First, it’s very important to put enough time and a lot of planning on a site’s navigation structure. This is common sense, but it’s still surprising how many web designs take site navigation for granted.

Placement, style, technology (will it use JavaScript or just CSS?), usability, and web accessibility are just some of the things you need to consider when creating the navigation design.

Your navigation design should work without CSS because of text-based browsers. Poke fun of text browsers all you want, but they are still prevalent in many mobile devices. Perhaps more importantly, navigation that works with CSS disabled is accessible (99.99% of the time) via screen readers.

Navigation should be accessible and usable without the need for client-side technologies such as JavaScript or Flash, which users may not have enabled or installed for various reasons such as security or company policy.

It is imperative that you have a good navigation system in place that is located at a highly-visible location. A good navigation is detectable as soon as the web page loads without having to scroll down the web page. This is where keeping it clean and simple plays a major role: a complex and unconventional design can lead to user confusion.

Users must never wonder, even for a split second, “Where is the site navigation?”

For sites organized in a hierarchical, multi-level manner, make sure that it is easy to navigate from between parent and child web pages. In addition, it should be easy to reach top-level pages (such as the site’s front page) from any webpage.

The main goal of your site navigation is to allow users to get to their desired content with as few actions and with as little effort on their behalf as possible.

Use Fonts Wisely and Methodically

Though there are thousands of fonts out there, you can really only use a handful (at least until CSS3 is fully supported by major browsers). Make it a point to stick to web-safe fonts. If you don’t like web-safe fonts, consider a progressively-enhanced web design that leverages sIFR or Cufon.

Keep font usage consistent. Make sure that headings are visually-different from paragraph text. Use white space, tweak line-height, font-size, and letter-spacing properties to make content pleasant to read and effortlessly scannable.

Perhaps one of the things that web designers often get wrong is font-sizes. Because we want to fit as much text as we can in a web page, we sometimes set font sizes to uncomfortably small sizes. Try to keep font sizes at and above 12px if possible, especially for paragraph text. While many people face no difficulty reading small text sizes, think about older users and persons with low-vision and other types of vision impairment.

Understand Color Accessibility

After talking about fonts, we also need to point out the importance of using the right colors.

You  need to consider color contrast of background and foreground colors for readability and for users with low-vision. For instance, black text on white background has a high-contrast, while orange text on red background will make you strain your eyes.

Also, use colors that are accessible to users with particular forms of color-blindness (check out a tool called Vischeck that will help you test for certain types of color-blindness).

Some color combinations work well only when the color is used as a foreground color instead of a background color. Take for example, dark blue text on a pink background versus but pink text on blue background, same colors but different levels of readability and reading comfort. It is important not only to get a good color combination but also to apply it to the right elements on the page.

You Need to Know How to Write Code Yourself

With various WYSIWYG editors flooding the market, it has become as simple as 1-2-3 to design a site. However, most of these editors insert unnecessarily code junk, making your HTML structure poorly designed, harder to maintain and update, and causing your file sizes to bloat.

By writing the code yourself, you come out with clean, crisp, and terse code that’s a pleasure to read and maintain; code that you can be proud to call your own.

Knowing how to use a WYSIWYG or an IDE with a visual preview does not excuse you from learning HTML and CSS. You have to know what’s going on in order to create effective, semantic, and highly-optimized web designs.

Don’t Forget Search Engine Optimization

A good designer should always remember to keep the basics of SEO in mind when designing a site. For example, structuring web content so that important text are represented as headings (i.e. page title and logo). This is where learning how to code properly comes in handy. Knowing correct, semantic, and standards-based HTML/CSS – you will quickly realize that divs are better than tables for web layouts not only for accurate representation of site content, but also for search engine rankings; you will also know that CSS background text image replacement is a good idea.

Understand that People are Impatient

People on an average spend only a few seconds before deciding whether they want to read more or navigate away to another site. Therefore, you as a web designer have to device a way for encouraging users to choose the former option within those precious seconds.

Know that not many visitors will scroll down to view the entire contents of the page if what they see at the top does not interest them. Remember to keep your important elements on the top where they are easily visible, but also do not overcrowd the top half of the page which can intimidate users and turn them off from reading further down the page. Consider the top half of a web design a selling point: be a salesman, make people buy into the notion that they want to see what else is on your site.

Learn About (and Be Aware of) Browser Quirks

One of the things you must know as a web designer is that your work operates in a finicky and unpredictable environment: web browsers. It’s not enough that your designs work on a few web browsers, they need to work in as many browsing situations as you can possibly afford. Before production – test your prototypes using tools like Browsershots.

Make Designs that are Flexible and Maintainable

A good web designer makes sure that the site can easily be updated or modified in the future. Designing websites that are malleable and easy to maintain is a sign of a great web designer. Make your work as modular as possible by separating style from structure.

Know that our industry is dynamic and still young – things change in a very short amount of time. Keeping this thought in mind will promote the creation of flexible web designs.

[lowat-golden-tower]

Embracing Darkness

Alright, so, here it is. Boy even though the outline came to me like breathing, actually writing the thing out was a little hard. I haven’t written much Dark or Yandere so it was an experience balancing out my personal interpretation with those that I’ve seen on Tumblr and AO3. Took a lot of inspiration from @alcordraws, of course.

Including the idea for the fic itself. So go give them some love! It's gonna revolve primarily around Yandere and Dark, with cameos from the other egos. Though third person, just a heads up that the POV will be switching from chapter to chapter between the two, just so we can get a clue as to what exactly is going on in their heads. ;)

Without further ado, let’s get this crazy train rolling!

AO3 Mirror

Chapter 1: Discovery

Dark liked to think of himself as astute. Observant. Well aware of not only his surroundings, but those occupying them. It was a key aspect of being a manipulator. If he didn't have a grasp on all the details, every last puzzle piece, then that left room for surprises. The unexpected. Things that could trip up his charm and psychological cues and alert his target to the truth.

Yet, it took him an exhorbitantly unusual amount of time to realize something was off about one of his own egos. The beings who lived and worked at Egos, Inc.; seeking to maintain their respective footholds in their creator's community and avoid simply fading out of existence.

Granted, the ego in question had always been difficult to read. He wasn't predictable like the rest of them. His emotions, personality and goals all tended fluctuate wildly from one given moment to the next. Just when Dark thought he had the ego figured out, he'd switch on a dime for seemingly no reason at all. Sometimes Dark wondered if the ego was even more unpredictable than Wilford Warfstache himself. Now that was a terrifying thought.

No, Yandereplier was certainly one of the more volatile, malleable egos. It wouldn't be such a big deal, were it not for just how unstable the ego was. Try as they might to understand his triggers and avoid them like the plague, something new would inevitably set Yandere off. Understandably, that meant most of the egos gave him a very wide berth. Not that he seemed to mind.

Dark was not one of those egos. Dangerous or not, Dark didn't fear any of his fellow creations. Fear was a form of control, and admitting to or showing the emotion would give that control to whoever dared cause it. Dark would never allow it. He was in control. He controlled himself, his aura, the building and all the egos within it. He'd worked far too hard to let anyone pry that iron grip from his icy hands. That included Yandere.

However, something seemed more and more "off" about the ego with every instance of their meeting. Yandere was never invited to the board room, but he occupied the same building as Dark. They were bound to cross paths even if Dark preferred the cool, shadowed sanctity of his office.

Most often, it was a quick exchange in the numerous hallways. Occasionally, they'd be taking a meal in the break room at the same time. Yandere never stopped by to visit Dark, and Dark reciprocated that decision.

Recently, however, some of the egos had been calling "family meetings," of a sort. Dark would always scoff at the term, seeing as they were about the farthest thing from a family that a group of people could get. Yet he attended the droll things anyway just to make certain they weren't plotting anything against him, and to be sure no one died. It always tended to be chaos when more than a few egos got together in the same room.

Apparently, during these meetings grievances and ideas were meant to be aired out for group opinion and approval or dismissal. It was supposed to help stop unnecessary conflicts and arguments which tore threw parts of the building and would leave it in shambles. Dark hardly cared; he only listened for the information.

These meetings were what truly tipped him off to Yandere's odd behavior.

They didn't use the board room for these. They would gather outside if the day was nice, or in the break room, or occasionally one of the nice sitting rooms that came with the building. Once or twice the meeting was even hosted in the studio. This meant the egos could lounge wherever they pleased, with whomever they pleased. There were no real rules and it became quite clear very quickly which egos got along with each other.

The Googs would always form their tight knit square in a corner. Bing would be nearby with Bop at his shoulder. Silver, Ed, Dr. Iplier and King would form an amalgamous sort of band and clump into pairs or one big group depending on their moods. Bim hovered near Wilford, always, with the Jims close behind. Host obediently sat at Dark's right wherever he happened to be. Artiplier and Yandere were the odd ones. Sometimes they'd be off on their own, sometimes they would be huddled together, and sometimes Artie would decide he wanted to be near the Host for a meeting.

Inexplicably, when this happened, Yandere would sit on Dark's other side. He wasn't sure if Yandere was simply protective of Artie or feeling left out, but so long as the ego left him alone he didn't mind.

Dark had to wonder if the subtlety of the changes were the reason it took him so long to catch on. Yandere had various ticks and warning signs to him, but it required paying severe attention to every little twitch and blink. Dark didn't have the patience for that sort of thing when he'd much rather be absorbing details about the egos he could control.

Yet when Yandere began to twitch and fidget anxiously beside him during a particularly long and boring meeting, Dark decided it was time to delve into this peculiarity. At least it would be entertaining. Calling upon his most soothing voice, Dark probed at the younger ego with his aura while he spoke at a low volume. No need to disturb the proceedings. "Are you alright?"

Yandere flinched, head jerking to the side in a manner that looked almost painful. When he glanced to Dark, his eyes were wide; pupils shrunk down to the point it was a wonder he could see anything at all. The smile on his mouth was beyond strained. "Oh! Yami. Yes, I'm fine. Just a little tired from studying for my exams, ha HA ha HA ha...."

Dark slowly quirked a brow. Yandere's voice, while still sugary sweet, was clearly as tense as the rest of him. The words sounded forced past his teeth and his laugh wasn't the "adorable" giggle it tended to be. No, everything about the young ego beside him screamed "unhinged." Dark prodded a bit harder, attempting to ascertain the cause. "I know you must study hard. Are you sure there isn't anything else? Anything that might be... bothering you? Making you uncomfortable?" His dark eyes settled on Yandere's hands; his fingers twisting and tugging at his pleated skirt. "You're fidgeting."

Yandere burst out an uncomfortable laugh at that, immediately removing his hands from the garment entirely. The sound drew a glance or two from the nearest egos but for the most part went ignored. Outbursts from Yandere were nothing new. "Am I? Oh. Maybe I had too much caffeine this morning. It always gets me so excited, ne!"

Dark wanted to grimace at the contrivity of it all. He understood what it was like to try containing emotions that eventually burst forth from a cracked shell, but Yandere was terrible at it. Host's muttered narrations at his back had changed tune, and in his peripheral he noticed Artie was no longer paying attention to the meeting. He seemed concerned. Dark made a mental note and pressed on. His understanding of the situation was deepening. "You don't seem excited. You appear nervous, Yandere. Am I... making you uncomfortable?"

He leaned further into the ego's space, pressing down with his aura. Yandere had never shown fear towards Dark before, but maybe something had changed. It felt like the power he pushed at Yandere just kept going. Rather than stopping and ensnaring or engulfing the ego, it simply... drained away. Disappeared somewhere. Dark didn't like it. "You can be honest. I'll move, if you like."

Yandere's muscles were growing more tense with each passing second. He was crumpling, slumping beneath Dark's looming posture but not leaning away from him. He wasn't showing apprehension, but the anxiety was still there. Dark's ego was doing its job- or at least, he believed it was. Yandere's next words were forced past gritted teeth. "Yami, you don't scare me. I'm fine. I just... I just think I need some air! It's too stuffy in here, ha HA ha...." The corner of his mouth dipped into a steep, nearly pained frown.

"Yandere..." Dark weedled just a bit more of his power forward. He needed to know where it was going. He could feel the Host at his back, debating an interruption. Artie was poised with feet flat on the ground and hands on his chair. Even Wilford, across the room, was beginning to shoot Dark squinty-eyed looks. He'd have to back off soon. His icy fingers touched Yandere's quivering arm. "I don't think-"

Abruptly and without warning, Yandere gave an ear-piercing wail. Immediately, any ongoing conversations ceased and all eyes whipped around towards the source. Several of the egos were cringing away or still covering their ears. Dark felt a rush of energy slam into him with enough force to push him back away from Yandere, giving him the space he needed to leap up. Behind him, Host folded over on himself and Artie toppled out of his chair. A quick glance at Wilford showed the ego resting twitching fingers on the gun at his belt.

Yandere stood, every last muscle in his body pulled taut like a rubber band. His arms stuck out to either side, fingers splayed and crooked into unsettling positions. As if they itched for a knife, or to wrap around someone's delicate neck. His head twitched ceaselessly to one side while he stared with wide, crazed eyes at the rest of the room. His mouth was pulled tight into an unreadable expression.

Dark could feel the power rolling off of Yandere in waves and for one of the few times in his existence, he was stunned. He could feel how his own aura tinged the energy flowing out of Yandere and his curiosity was instantly piqued. He stared with the rest of them, wondering what the snapped ego would do now.

Yandere heaved several ragged breaths through his teeth. The muscles in his face were all screwed up tight but he didn't seem to have a target for his sudden aggression. His eyes flicked among the egos present before he let loose a smaller scream, storming out of the room in a flurry of skirts. He'd ripped the door half off its hinges when he exited, and he didn't bother closing it behind him.

Various egos exchanged confused, wary glances as crashes and more screams echoed back from down the hall, but they eventually gave way to silence. Wherever Yandere had gone, no one was willing to follow. Hopefully he would take his destruction outside of the building.

Bim had come over the moment he felt it safe enough to help Artie back onto his feet. They both immediately turned their attentions to Host, who assured them he was just fine. Wilford, seeing how shaken the group was, called an end to the meeting and warned them all to give Yandere some space.

A lot of space.

Then he strolled over to where Dark was still sitting, contemplating everything he'd just witnessed. He rested his hands on his hips and shot the shadowy ego a suspicious, wary look. "And just what are you smiling about? You wouldn't have anything to do with whatever all that was now would you, Darky?"

Dark glanced to the ruined door. Slowly, he clenched his hand into a fist where it rested against his leg. He could still recall that surge of raw power; how his own aura had been funneled into it without his knowing. He understood, now. He'd put the pieces together and the possibilities set the gears to turning within his mind. He tried not to look too smug as he met Wilford's withering gaze. "Of course not. He was already tense. Something must have just made him snap. You know how teenagers are, Wilford."

Yandere could feed off his aura. Yandere could feed off his aura, and apparently he didn't even know. But Dark knew. And Dark didn't plan to let the possibilities slip through his fingers.

[lenific]

Memory Of You. Belle/Rumpelstiltskin. (flashfic collection)

Inspired by @rumbelleprompts. “Rumplestiltskin drinks a memory potion after he sends Belle to fetch straw in Skin Deep.”

@mariequitecontrarie asked 99 (back)

Belle pushed the door to the main hall open, a little disappointed to find it empty. She left the basket next to the lonely spinning wheel, and marched upstairs to the second most likely location to find Rumpelstiltskin.

He was indeed tinkering with an array of bottles at his work table.

“Hello, Rumple.” Belle said, grinning from ear to ear as she rushed toward him. “I’m back!”

His surprise wasn’t unexpected.

To be frozen into place, however, drug an alarmed squeak out of her.

Rumpelstiltskin stared at her, eyes coldly curious. “Now, now, dearie… Shouldn’t proper introductions come first?”

@thelonelyjournal-keeper asked 77 (numberless)

His first instinct was to neutralize the intruder, followed by a quick check of his wards in case the squeaking brunette was a distraction.

Numberless attacks had been made over the decades. and the knights and assassins responsible had been duly disposed of. However, there was always someone stupid enough to believe they could vanquish the Dark One.

But never a young girl armed with nothing but a smile.

Intrigued, he peered at her. “Who are you?”

@babybomberbo asked 20 (teeth)

The girl insisted to have returned solely to keep him company. She must be lying through her teeth. …Wasn’t she?

@joylee56 asked 12 (loud)

"I am not leaving. Do you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, dearie!"

@of-princes-and-savages asked 13 (record)

“For the record-” Belle strode unflinchingly into the cell “-we’ve done this before.”

@of-princes-and-savages asked 99 (regret)

​Alone in her cell, her last sight of Rumpelstiltskin a sneering laugh as he locked her in, Belle reflected on her circumstances.

Within a day she'd come from being Rumpelstiltskin's maid (and maybe his friend), to a free woman returning home, and now a prisoner in the Dark Castle.

If that carriage hadn't crossed her way... If the traveling lady hadn't been bored enough to amuse herself with a chat with a stranger... If their conversation had taken any other path...

But Belle couldn't regret the advice that had brought her back, only that she hadn't arrived soon enough. 

@nropay asked 74 (silent)

Rumpelstiltskin returned to check on the girl sooner than he’d originally planned. In his experience, prisoners were the loud sort, either begging for freedom or protesting their innocence.

The silent dungeon was an anomaly.

Fuming at the thought that her mysterious master might have filched the girl away, Rumpelstiltskin popped into the cell - and found her sleeping.

He stared.

The possibility that anyone could rest while at his mercy had never occurred to him.

 @sygmarie4-w asked 82 (load)

"Nice tale, very nice. But aren't you missing the glaring hole in your story?" Rumpelstiltskin tilted his head in a parody of curiosity. "Why, dearie! Why would I need a maid at all?"

To his surprise the girl smiled at that. "I've often wondered the same. It's not like I found the castle in shambles, so obviously magic always dealt with the dusting, the meals, and the loads of laundry." She looked him in the eye. "I still believe you were lonely."

@of-princes-and-savages asked 96 (learned)

"Learned young ladies don't enjoy working as maids so much they run back to their jobs. So.. why are you here, Belle of Avonlea?"

He obviously dismissed her name as another deception. Just like he had dismissed everything Belle had told him. Having been ridiculed for mentioning that they had almost become friends - that he'd been fond enough of her that he'd set her free - Belle had no illusion that confessing her love, that she had come back for him, would get a better reception.

Still, she wouldn't lie.

"I decided I belong here."

@of-princes-and-savages asked 84 (applaud)

"I applaud your commitment to your tale, dearie," Rumpelstiltskin told her, playing with the stale piece of bread that was her breakfast leftovers. "A lesser storyteller would be doomed to plying their trade without a tongue - but you! Such a soulful recount. So vivid! No, no. Talent like that cannot be squandered." Breadcrumbs flew everywhere as a burst of magic teared through the larger piece. Rumpelstiltskin kept smiling cordially, but his eyes were hard. "Now, why don't you tell me who sent you?"

@betweenpaperpages asked 42 (look)

Belle groaned as she remembered the look on Rumpelstiltskin’s face before he had spirited himself away. Not only did he refuse to believe a word she said, but he’d convinced himself that she was a threat.

At least it couldn’t get worse.

@gypsy-belle asked 79 (jolly)

“Now you’ll tell me you were happy.” He sneered at the blatant impossibility. “A maid dancing through the Dark One’s hallways, breaking into some jolly tune or another out of sheer delight. Only a fool would believe that!”

Belle never wavered. “I don’t enjoy dancing by myself,” she said matter-of-factly, “you keep complaining that I’m tone-deaf though you’re not much better, and….” Her shoulders gave a little shrug. “I haven’t been unhappy here, Rumple. Not for a long time.”

@of-princes-and-savages asked 73 (object)

Rumpelstiltskin had planned to object to all her requests, but the girl's misery gave him pause. She had taken her banishment to the dungeons in stride, and hadn't complained over the tasteless meals. The news of the nonexistent library, however, made her eyes shine with unreleased tears.

"I didn't say you couldn't read at all," he groused, summoning the book in her basket. "Word of advice, though? Never expect handsome heroes outside fiction.

@annagingil asked 88 (quill)

“You still don’t believe me, do you?”

His distrustful glance was answer enough. Words were soft clay to him, easily malleable in obscuring the truth. Rumpelstiltskin relied on their meaning only when they were written down and signed.

… Well, then.

“Fine. Bring me paper and a quill, and I’ll write down everything I know about you. I know you still won’t believe me,” Belle said when he gave an amused snort, tickled by her attempt at trickery, “but at least you’ll see that I never contradict myself.”

@gypsy-belle asked 60 (toothbrush)

“You’re the most put-together prisoner I’ve seen.”

Having seen his treatment of actual prisoners, Belle considered herself a reluctantly received guest. “I’ll take that as a compliment, since I can only handle the basics.” A basin of clear water served to wash her face, brush her teeth, and keep her hair clean. “Any chance I can get my bathtub back?”

@still-searching47 asked 84 (zoom)

Intrigued despite himself, Rumpelstiltskin allowed the pull of curiosity to drag him down to the dungeons again and again.

Every conversation with the strange girl convinced him of her foolishness in pretending to have befriended the Dark One, but sometimes... Sometimes he wavered.

Affection could be contrived, and smiles couldn't be trusted, but often her attention would zoom in on the oddest details - "Oh, Rumple. You haven't eaten at all today, have you?" - and Rumpelstiltskin found himself wanting to believe that someone could care.

@annagingil asked 100 (stomach)

"What's so interesting about this book that you're reading it for the third time?" His fingernails tapped the leather cover, voice dripping with distaste. "I could barely stomach paging through it!"

Belle considered defending her favorite story, but experience said that Rumpelstiltskin would never share her love of it. Having once heard his arguments to dismiss the wholesome protagonist as a pipe dream, Belle decided to deflect. "Well, it's not as if I have other books to choose from."

"You like reading that much?"

Her smile was bittersweet, but at least he was rediscovering her. "Yes, Rumple. I really do."

@sygmarie4-w asked 22 (detect)

The girl's story couldn't be the truth, but he had yet to detect any deceit. Was she mad, then, or just spelled?

@still-searching47 asked 47. (accurate)

Rumpelstiltskin surveyed the broken vials and wasted ingredients. The potion had required the most accurate measure of pulverized dragon scales, but his mind had slipped.

This couldn't be allowed to continue. Something must be done about that girl before he destroyed his castle for thinking of her!

@gypsy-belle asked 97 (crabby)

Her small cell wasn’t an impressive setting for Rumpelstiltskin’s pacing, but what was a show of temper without an audience to be unsettled by it?

Too bad that Rumpelstiltskin forgot that, far from fearing the angry beast he meant to project, Belle was reminded of a crabby tomcat just chased away from clean pillows.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing the blood of nosy girls can’t solve.”

Even their ‘brief’ acquaintanceship would interpret her look as don’t be silly. “Can I help?” He snorted, but Belle had won this battle already. “Will you lose something if you let me try?”

@annagingil asked 60 (certain)

"It's been five days." Belle leaned back tiredly against the stone wall. She had only read, walked around her cell, and conversed with Rumpelstiltskin on his frequent visits.  Yet, she was exhausted. "If you were still suspicious of my intentions, you'd already have made certain I regretted having come to you. So what are you planning to do with me?"

@mariequitecontrarie asked 17 (pinch)

"Just a pinch of this in your tea, and you'll forget all this trouble."

Belle glared. "No."

@still-searching47 asked 47. (fierce)

His laughter at the girl's claim of friendship was met with the fiercest little growl of annoyance. Rumpelstiltskin opened his mouth to send her away, but she broke into his personal space, grabbing his arm without hesitation, and he wondered whether she told the truth after all.

@ifeltyourheartbeat asked 32 (work)

Even without his memories, Rumpelstiltskin had listed her former duties accurately. His dire threat amounted to returning them to her.

Belle smiled, amused. "A little work won't scare me away, you know?"

@still-searching47 asked 47 (worthless)

"There was... a teacup here," Belle said, aware that Rumpelstiltskin grew suspicious the more she lingered by the cabinet. "A chipped one?"

Rumpelstiltskin snorted. "I'll never believe you if your imagination keeps running unchecked. I have rooms of treasure, why would I keep such a worthless thing?"

@joylee56 asked 63 (society)

"Novel experience or not," Rumpelstiltskin said, grinning from ear to ear, "I must admit it feels nice to have a society lady pour my tea."

Belle's smile didn't dim even when Rumpelstiltskin made no comment over the unblemished cup. "I'm glad you think so," she told him, "even if you only say that now that I'm not spilling any all over the place."

@of-princes-and-savages asked 76 (ethereal)

Her old rooms had been comfortable, but the furniture and decoration were kept simple as it fit a favored servant.

Now Belle stared in wonder.

The bookshelf was enough to endear her to her new accommodations, but the wide windows had stolen her breath. They were covered in an ethereal confection of lace, heavier curtains drawn back to allow the sunlight in.

It was a delightful contrast to the dungeons.

"Well. You like it?"

"Oh yes!"

@jackabelle73 asked 93 (eatable)

For someone whose first attempts at cookery had been labeled as 'barely eatable', it made Belle smile to watch Rumpelstiltskin smack his lips with relish.

"Not bad, not bad at all," he said, smiling openly. "It's getting ever harder to believe you. Why'd I ever miss on a hot meal, hmm?"

Instead of letting his disbelief affect her mood, Belle preened at his implied praise. "You're saying I'm a good cook."

Rumpelstiltskin smirked at her bald request for a compliment. "Weeeeell," he drawled, "I might ask for seconds, and that's all I'm saying."

@bookwormchocaholic asked 24 (baby)

"I admit, I'm growing fond of the idea of naming a smart grown-ups as the price for a deal rather than a squealing baby!"

32 (rings)

"A meager dozen of books and you appear late for breakfast, with dark rings under your eyes." Rumpelstiltskin clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "You get your famed library, and you'll never sleep again!"

@ishtarelisheba asked 63 (broken)

"Those are nailed down, you know."

Belle grinned and showed him the hammer.

"Hmph. I didn't bring you up here so you could fall off a ladder and get your leg broken. Come down, girl!"

"But the curtains...."

A simple wave of his hand, and sunlight poured into the room.

Rumpelstiltskin's nose twitched in distaste, but he shrugged. "I'll get used to it."

@dragonessdefiledarts asked 34 (complex)

His world should be narrowed to the complex web of favors and circumstances that needed only a subtle push to work to his advantage.

Instead his concentration was diverted by a blue-eyed girl.

Madness!

@white-throated-packrat asked 77 (knot)

Belle had experience in leading a man out of Rumpelstiltskin's dungeon, but where she had hurried Hood's bloodied form through the darkened hallways, now she hesitated before she cut through the knot around Gaston's wrists. "Swear it, Gaston," she repeated. "You mustn't come back."

His expression didn't waver, jaw clenched in stubbornness.

He hadn't said much since he'd returned to human form, but his glare declared he wasn't finished with Rumpelstiltskin.

"Fine," Belle muttered. "Be an idiot."

@joylee56 asked 85 (abusive)

“I wish Gaston the best.” Belle chuckled. “Any other bride will do.”

Rumpelstiltskin snorted. “Wishing that abusive oaf on someone else? That’s cruel.”

Belle shook her head. There was no love between her and Gaston, but she was familiar with his code of honor. “Impossible. He’d never raise a hand against a woman!”

Rumpelstiltskin glanced at her, amusement melting into a pensive stare. “Never have you been as convincing of your innocence,” he said, “as right now when you equal abuse to a beaten wife.”

@of-princes-and-savages asked 76 (shop)

"You're leaving now?"

"I am a busy man, Belle. Besides, I figured you'd enjoy a day alone. Browse the shops, spend my gold. Come back after you're done." He handed her a sizable bag, heavy with coins. His small smile was an exact replica of the one with which he'd sent her away 'to fetch straw' three months before. "Take whatever time you need."

Comprehension dawned. "You don't expect to ever see me again, do you?"

Prompt: sloppy

Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t worried about the sword’s edge at his throat. He actually felt a stirring of respect for the warrior who’d bested the Dark One. Magic would have flattened the woman, and he wouldn’t have felt any guilt at cheating. He was, however, curious as to how Belle would handle the situation.

“He’s not the creature you’re seeking!” she protested.

The woman inspected him, pausing tellingly at his eyes. A twist of her mouth betrayed she felt unsettled by the inhuman features, but her sword didn’t waver. “He looks it.”

Belle gasped in outrage. “You can’t judge by appearances only!”

The warrior was the stubborn type. “He must be its master, then.”

Rumpelstiltskin giggled.

The accusation didn’t faze him. If pressed, he could send something worse than a fire-breathing dog to the area. What amused him was the woman’s mistake in ignoring Belle’s mounting anger.

The girl might frown on morally ambiguous deals, but she loathed sloppy research. Assumptions pulled from thin air put that gimlet look in her eye that even the Dark One knew better than to invite.

“Now you’ve done it,” he sniggered, smirking at the woman.

She was instantly on her guard, but she expected that attack from the wrong direction. That it came as a sharp poke on her arm was definitely a shock.

“Stop this nonsense!” Belle ordered.

Rumpelstiltskin laughed a little harder this time.

His self-appointed maid, who called it a great victory to wrangle an enchanted broom into sweeping the rooms that actually needed it, pitted against a seasoned swordswoman.

The outcome should be laughably predictable.

However, Belle was the woman who had wandered into the Dark Castle and demanded to stay there.

She might not be familiar with weapons, and he suspected she disapproved of bloodletting, but Rumpelstiltskin still knew how he’d lay his bets.

@bookwormchocaholic asked 45 x2 (grateful)

One moment there was a young, handsome man kissing Belle’s hand, grateful for her part in returning him to human form; the next, a wisp of maroon-toned smoke stood in his place - and vanished.

“Rumple!” Belle cried, whirling on him.

Rumpelstiltskin laughed, though at least he gave her the courtesy of a response while he ignored Mulan’s attack. “His Highness seemed in a hurry to find his true love,” he said with affected feeling, complete with a hand clutched over his heart. “Shouldn’t I have sent him straight to her?”

@joylee56 asked 26 (bath)

"Mulan got hurt helping me-"

"Debatable," Rumpelstiltskin muttered, still irritated.

"-so the least I can do is offer her a meal, a bath and a bed."

@joylee56 asked 69 (own)

​"Oh. You have your own rooms." For the first time, Mulan looked sheepish. "I heard..."

Belle rolled her eyes. Nobody had made a fuss about her living in the Dark Castle as Rumpelstiltskin's maid; but now that there was no memory of their deal, people were quick to spread rumors.

"It's not like that," she muttered, annoyed at the gossip - and even more that it was ungrounded. 

Not yet.

@bookwormchocaholic asked 31 (drunk)

Rumpelstiltskin peered down at her, expression uncertain between a perplexed frown and a roar of laughter. He settled for throwing Mulan an accusing glare. "Why is my--- Why is Belle drunk?"

@of-princes-and-savages asked 99 (melted)

Having her relationship with Rumpelstiltskin reset had the occasional advantage.

This time her talent for languages hadn't any link with the Black Fairy, and so it hadn't been relegated along with the memories of that awful night. Instead Belle had been quizzed until Rumpelstiltskin was satisfied with her proficiency, and then installed in a corner of his laboratory. Her pile of scrolls never decreased, and Rumpelstiltskin snickered when she mentioned it.

"Grown bored already, dearie?"

There were texts rarely seen by human eyes. Hours that melted together in close company with Rumpelstiltskin.

Belle shook her head. "Not at all!"

@joylee56 asked 55 (coil)

Having Belle work in his laboratory was a mistake.

She liked to play with her hair, allowing the strands to coil around her finger just to release them to write a new sentence.

"I won't translate this faster because you're hovering, Rumple."

Rumpelstiltskin huffed, though he turned away. "Hovering? Bah! Whatever gave you such idea?"

@bookwormchocaholic asked 45 (grateful)

Queen Regina didn’t bother with the friendliness she’d faked before. “I suppose I should be grateful you’re a clever one,” she said, a twist to her mouth that suggested she wouldn’t be shocked to be proved wrong. “Just keep silent, girl. It’s for the best.”

@thelonelyjournal-keeper asked 88 (pickle)

Belle wasn't surprised at the order to keep to her rooms for the afternoon. Rumpelstiltskin had always shepherded her away from the public rooms when trouble was ahead. "Unsavory guests coming up?"

"Not at all! Charming fellow, actually. But he's run into quite the pickle and only the Dark One can help him." He grinned, eyes alight with mischief as his fingertips tapped together excitedly. "He's not fond of my deals though, so he'll kick up a fuss before he sees reason. Best keep his tantrum private, eh?"

@joylee56 asked 92 (fluttering)

Belle knew there had been an important accomplishment when Rumpelstiltskin waved her into his laboratory, bouncing on his feet with excitement, instead of grousing at the interruption.

"Tell me, Belle. What do you know of true love?"

Belle faltered, dreading that he'd learned about the queen's advice. "I've read about it," she said cautiously.

"In those perfect heroic tales? Bah! Fluttering eyelashes and pointless grand speeches." He presented her with a small bottle, a smug expression on his face as she gasped at the contents. "This, my dear, is the real deal."

@of-princes-and-savages asked 64 (knowing)

Knowing that her company wouldn't be appreciated today, Belle had claimed it was an excellent day to start a kitchen garden.

Rumpelstiltskin, obviously glad to be left alone, gave permission without protest.

He'd forgotten that she was aware of the significance of the date, and Belle wasn't telling. With such fragile trust between them, it was best that Rumpelstiltskin grieved his son in private.

@joylee56 asked 93 (weight)

The girl was usually an unobstructive presence in the background, but today her curiosity was a weight between his shoulders. "Fine," he allowed grouchily. "Ask your questions before you choke on them."

Belle didn't waste time in gratefulness. "Is it true their desert is as big as the Enchanted Forest?"

"Bigger," he responded. "Whole caravans have been lost - and more since their main landmark disappeared."

"Will you find Agrabah?"

"Gods, no!" He laughed. "But I'm in the habit of investigating odd portals. One that swallows a whole city qualifies, don't you think?"

@of-princes-and-savages asked 82(x2) (outstanding)

"Do you believe me now, Rumple, even a little?"

Rumpelstiltskin lifted his eyes from the bundle of dried plants he was sorting into twigs and leaves fit for his potions and those that would do for the kitchen. "A little?" He mimicked. "I wasn't aware you could believe in anything 'a little'."

Since he was being facetious rather than denying the possibility, Belle smiled good-naturedly. "You know what I mean."

"Not because you expressed yourself correctly, dearie." Still chuckling, he abandoned his work and ambled toward her. "Now, what were my options again? Ah, yes. That I'm harboring either the most outstanding actress in the Enchanted Forest-"

"A liar, you mean," Belle grumbled.

"-or a mind-wiped puppet shipped in by one of my maaaaaaany enemies. Hm." He hovered over her "Tough choice, isn't it?"

Belle craned her neck to look him in the eye. "I think you believe me," she told him.

Rumpelstiltskin shrugged. "Maaaaaaybe." He pressed thumb against forefinger. "But only a little!"

@beastlycheese asked 97 (pipe)

Belle had known that Rumpelstiltskin favored smoking. While laundering his shirts, she had often caught the scent of tobacco on the fabric, and occasionally the main hall had born a trace of the sharp smell when she returned from gardening outside.

Now that she worked in his laboratory, Rumpelstiltskin had dismissed any attempt to follow convention and spare a lady from the masculine habit.

To her surprise, Belle didn't mind.

There was an unexpected intimacy in it. She couldn't remember Rumpelstiltskin looking as comfortable as when he sank into his chair, pipe in hand.

She liked it.

@thedarkcheessmaster asked 47. (coat)

Rumpelstiltskin was comfortable in shirtsleeves while he worked in his laboratory. His thick coats, made with exotic leathers and trimmed expensively, were meant to impress outsiders, not keep him warm.

Belle, meanwhile, shivered despite her heavy shawl.

Grumbling, he clicked his fingers.

And fire roared into life.

Prompt: grateful

A chair appeared on the other side of Belle’s desk, and in the next instant Rumpelstiltskin was sitting on it, observing her. Familiar with his habit of disconcerting people just to tease them for their reaction, Belle kept her attention on her work.

It was also his habit not to stay ignored for long.

He coughed loudly, and Belle indulged him with a little sigh. “Yes?”

Rumpelstiltskin raised an eyebrow. “You have a funny way to show respect to the Dark One, dearie.”

“I am doing as you asked, as quickly as you insisted it needed to be done.” Belle replied, putting down her feather and stoppering the ink to avoid another accident. Her expression spoke of her annoyance at the interruption. “You’re the one distracting me.”  

Rumpelstiltskin grinned. He was blamed for everything from colluding with the Evil Queen to the latest flood. Few bothered to check that he was actually guilty, and almost none dared to accuse him to his face.

Belle had yet to hesitate to call him out for any perceived wrongdoing. Seduction, Rumpelstiltskin remembered, had been the first item scratched from the list of possible reasons for her presence.

“You’ve been buried in that book since morning, and don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve barely made  progress. I thought you’d welcome the break.”

“It’s an older version of elvish.” Belle pursed her lips into a determined line. “I like the challenge.”

Rumpelstiltskin stared at her, gauging her sincerity. Then he snickered. “I’m starting to believe that you budged your way into my castle just for the chance to check out the books.”

Belle gave a soft laugh, her hand careful as she closed the old leather cover. “They are all very interesting. I already knew you have great literary taste, Rumpelstiltskin, but the texts you need for your work aren’t the least dull in comparison.”

“Hm. I’ve never been accused of literary tastes,” he mused, provoking another tinkle of laughter. “Children and lost travelers, yes. Books, no, never.”

The arch on Belle’s eyebrows was almost chiding, and there was a hint of exasperation in her smile, but there it stayed, a placid curve on her lips. “You should make it public, then.”

Rumpelstiltskin tilted his head. “Is that another hint to build that dream library of yours?”

Belle’s eyes lit up, but immediately after she was frowning. To his surprise, her final answer was a shake of her head. “I do miss having an endless pick of new novels to take with me to bed, but I think I like this arrangement better.”

Rumpelstiltskin eyed her with skepticism. “A desk and a chair in a corner of my laboratory, better than that marvel you’re so fond of describing?”

“It’s a very comfy chair,” Belle replied, grinning. Then her eyes softened and she reached over. Her fingers grazed the skin of his wrist before he recognized her intent and hastily moved away. The briefest pause. Belle continued as if nothing had happened. “I am grateful for any chance to discover new books, but it used to get lonely, all by myself in that library.” She nodded toward his work space, perhaps all of twenty paces away. “Yes. I like this arrangement better.”

Rumpelstiltskin rolled his eyes. “I put you here so I can keep an eye on you!”

The girl shrugged. “Regardless,” she said, her smile undimmed. “I’m still grateful for the company.”

@sygmarie4-w asked 59 (wiry)

Belle now understood who Rumpelstiltskin had been before the curse, but picturing him as that small, wiry man proved impossible. Even her fertile imagination stumbled at leaving out his magic-touched skin and odd eyes.

At last she gave up the attempt without a regret, reasoning that she'd fallen for the Rumpelstiltskin that was, not the man he had been.

@of-princes-and-savages asked 82 (outstanding)

"I've read about a land that welcomes unwanted boys-"

Rumpelstiltskin's face darkened. "Careful, dearie. Monster I might be, but I loved my son."

"Oh, I don't mean your Baelfire is there. But there's this entity that collects the boys, no matter their provenance. Isn't it outstanding?" Her voice grew excited. "It must be called to loneliness, not to magic!"

Rumpelstiltskin stared at her, speechless.

Belle reached for his hand. "I promise, Rumple. There's a bridge to the world without magic in Neverland."

@of-princes-and-savages asked 55x2 (walk)

Belle closed the heavy book with a grunt of annoyance. "I'm taking a break," she announced.

Rumpelstiltskin glanced up, brow arched in surprise. "From reading?"

Her answering look might as well have scoffed at the notion. "From reading the same books for the fifth time," she corrected, "and finding no new clues."

He'd warned her that looking for safe passage through Neverland was a fool's mission, but he didn't tease. "It's all there is on that cursed island, dearie."  His voice tried for nonchalance. "If you find nothing, then it's hopeless indeed."

"I'm not giving up," Belle assured him. "But I am taking a walk to clear my head first."

Prompt: writer

"I don't think these books will help, Rumple," Belle said, a furrow between her brows that spoke of her skepticism.

In the last weeks Rumpelstiltskin had learned that where Belle adored fiction about impossible feats and even less likely heroes, she was a swift judge when a writer added any fancy to a history book.

"Hamelin is the last place Pan visited in the Enchanted Forest. There could be a clue in its history."

Belle looked unsure. "It's a collection of tall tales," she complained. "Look. Here they insist there's a way to control the Dark One. How can I trust anything else they say?"

Rumpelstiltskin struggled between the ingrained need to keep his secret and the even more mandatory need to leave no stone unturned when it came to the recovery of his son. The Dark Curse still needed at least another year before Regina would be in the right state of mind to cast it. On the other hand, Belle's idea could be enacted as soon as she proved it was viable - and as the days passed, that possibility seemed closer.

His dagger was safe, he reasoned at last. If Belle was a plant after all, fishing for the information that would finally allow her to return to her master, he would know for sure.

"Does it happen to mention how they would accomplish this?" he asked softly, aware that giving these news even that much attention proved their legitimacy.

Belle's eyes widened as she also realized this. "What? No." She closed her mouth with a snap and stared at him for a long moment. "They just say it can be done. That an old lord had found a way."

Rumpelstiltskin chuckled. "Oh, he didn't get to grow that old."

Belle inhaled sharply. "I... see."

"No, dearie, you really don't." He gentled his features. The girl looked shocked, not a hint of delight to have finally unearthed a clue as to his weakness. "Shall we leave it there?"

A flash of disappointment passed through her eyes, her thirst of knowledge truncated, but she reined it in and nodded. "Information on Neverland first," she agreed. Then she glanced at him hopefully. "You can tell me all about this once Baelfire is with us."

It was Rumpelstiltskin's turn to stare at her, though he was nodding in reaction at her easy smile before he put actual thought into it. He would have accepted her help on an alternate path to Bae even if he'd known for sure she was Cora in disguise. But the more time she let pass without betraying him, the more he was floored by the realization that her picturing of a future in the Dark Castle was honest. "Yes," he said, his voice slow as he stomped the wonder out of it. "I might at that."

@the-time-lady-sage asked 34 (warm)

Rumpelstiltskin should have been annoyed at the interruption, but the girl had already showed him the platter of cookies, still warm from the oven.

"We can't work all day," she said, smiling. "Want one?"

@of-princes-and-savages asked 55 (walk)

"A carriage bearing coffers of gold, running leisurely through Sherwood Forest." Rumpelstiltskin scoffed. "Might as well walk into a thieves' den!"

"We only need one thief."

"Robin Hood." He sniffed. "Unreliable fellow. You actually think he'll accept?"

Belle nodded. "I helped him reunite with his family. You tell me if that's not worth a favor."

@betweenpaperpages asked 76. (writer)

"Let's say I set you free, for argument's sake..." Rumpelstiltskin loomed closer, hooking a finger under her chin to tilt it up. "Such a clever girl. With that stubborn belief in goodness and selflessness. You're meant to play the hero, dearie; a real one. So why would you come back?"

"Because I'm the writer of my own story," Belle told him, "and no one - not even you - will tell me what role to play."

@joylee56 asked 37 (crowded)

The giant’s presence made the spacious main hall look crowded even with only two other people in it.

“So, we have a deal,” Rumpelstiltskin said, his voice a tense hiss.

Anton clutched the bean, but nodded anyway.

62 (rain)

"At least the rain is the same," Belle said, pulling the curtain to peek outside. The scenery of the street below fascinated her, even without people, with its smooth pavement and the bright lights that weren't doused by the downpour.

She'd read on electricity, but she still asked, "There really is no magic here?"

Rumpelstiltskin played with another vial. "Not until now."

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT WE TELL KIDS

Just hang around a lot and gradually start doing things to x. Over time the two inevitably meet, but not as strong.1 Oddly enough, it may not be determined enough to make it an effort to drag yourself out.2 And the disastrous. And while governments might be able not just to users. Bertrand Russell wrote in a letter in 1912: Hitherto the people attracted to philosophy have been mostly those who loved the big generalizations, which were other forms of impressive impracticality then just coming into fashion. Roughly, it's something done with contempt for the audience. So in a world designed for 10 year olds.3 When I went to college. They're going to walk up to the present, and tax rates, that it bumps into new ideas. Rapid growth is what you're after.

I don't think there's any limit to the amount of effort has gone into preventing programmers from doing things considered to be bad, right?4 Trevor Blackwell is a great opportunity for startups. The closest is the colloquial sense of addictive.5 And now I have both an additional reason to crack down on it, the best defense is a good source of metaphors—good enough that it's broken. Try talking to everyone you can about the gaps they find in the world, at least in the software business. Notes, it seemed like a nationalistic remark: an obnoxious American telling them that if they built whole towns, market forces would compel them to build towns that didn't suck. I was 10.6 If you're in grad school the whole time, and the things you write in school even has users. Checkers and solitaire have been replaced by World of Warcraft and FarmVille. And when you see the same program written in two languages, and Apple would be selling printed circuit boards.7

Suits, who don't know one language from another, but know where you stand. In practice that means startups should only talk to corp dev when they're either doing really well, I should be more worried about super-successful companies and less successful ones.8 But Mr. Why do Segways provoke this reaction? Whatever the procedure for reporting bugs, it is often described as a marketplace usually has to start with a problem and solve it. It would be like teaching writing as grammar, without mentioning that its purpose is to uncover any hidden bombs that might sink the company later, like serious design flaws in the product, has been the lesson for me: be careful what you ask for. A good PR firm won't bug reporters just because the returns are concentrated in a few cases where this is an abuse that should be insanely great, but the most popular languages because they view languages as standards.9 That's not quite the same thing 2300 years later.10 She also hates fighting. People won't wait as long to write—and so they don't try do to it. Notes Harj Taggar reminded me that while Jessica didn't ask many questions. The mistake investors always seem to make, and you have a healthy respect for reality.

Most imaginative people seem to have some kind of exit strategy, because you were already worrying about it subconsciously. Most know that they're supposed to get a certain bulk discount if you buy the economy-size pain, but you won't even really learn about it is the kind of things most people use in conversation much, I think. Most investors have no problem with that description is not just that one's brain is less malleable. The idea sounds horrible, doesn't it? That was all it took to make the universal web site? And by Parkinson's Law, software has to run on Windows, those in the current batch have collectively raised about $1.11 They didn't want to be popular.12 It will certainly increase the gap in income, as Occam's Razor implies, is dynamic: you don't know your users. If people get right to work implementing ideas instead of reading scripts to them.13 Our greatest PR coup was a two-person startup they've never heard of investors caring either. So let's look at Silicon Valley the way you'd look at a piece of software is being written, and full of duplication.

The wise are all much alike in their wisdom, but makes a special effort to break it.14 The problem is a particularly juicy heuristic when you have to do it mean she tends to get written out of YC's history.15 But so would any VC.16 We worry about that, so stories of this type.17 Only founders of failing startups would even be tempted, but those few thousand users. Notes Thanks to Sarah Harlin, Trevor Blackwell, Sarah Harlin, Trevor Blackwell, Sarah Harlin, Shiro Kawai, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this. And in any case, it was implied, was tedious because it was harder than it looked.18

Valuations don't vary as much. I think, is which 52% they are. As the startup figures out how to increase their load factors. Its retail price is about $220,000. That Jobs and Wozniak couldn't have come up with answers. Some VCs will probably adapt, by doing more, smaller deals will probably find they have an assortment of furniture they bought used. Structurally, the list of n things is random access. When you assemble ideas at random and see what they need to work hard to find a cofounder, what should you do in the rest of the world. When a politician says his opponent is mistaken, that's a real job after you graduate.19

Plus your referrals will dry up. Instead of the canonical could you build this? And the bigger the pipe to the server, the less likely it is to load and keep in your head. If you step on the toes of the coal industry, you'll hear the clank as it hits the page. You either have a bogus political agenda or are feebly executed. Someone with ordinary tastes would find it hard to get a good grade you had to get over to start a startup?20 VCs generally fund later stage companies than we do now, but they won't just crawl off and die. Which means building the product isn't.21 Get Users A lot of people semi-happy. I wanted to do anything differently afterward. For those of us in the next twenty years got fast. Will statistical filtering actually get us to that point, telling users that they were useless.

It seemed the perfect bad idea: a site 1 for a niche market 2 with no money 3 to do something that would otherwise seem too ambitious. So for big companies.22 One reason is that they get paid up front. You may still need investment to make it, there is precious little between schoolwork and the work they'll do as adults. Then you'll either get the money.23 What does the Social Radar at interviews wasn't just how we picked founders who were already friends before they decided to start a startup as a giant experiment. Software and content blur together in some of the most promising ideas still seem counterintuitive, because if your sponsor goes out of business, someone who really understands an article probably has something in his brain afterward that corresponds to the obelisk of investors that corresponds to the conceptual mode, and consequently do not express precisely something in reality by which the intellect could be moved to conceive a thing the way it ultimately will. You're probably not the only one most visitors will see. Don't be Evil? Most successful startups not only have more questions to answer, but it's not the end of 1997, we released a general purpose function that I can call on any struct.

Notes

They want to impress are not very well connected. This includes mere conventions, like angel investors. Horace, Sat.

Never attribute to malice what can be explained by math. If Bush had been transposed into your head. My guess is a good problem to have been the first type to. We couldn't talk meaningfully about revenues without growing big in revenues without growing big in revenues without growing big in people, you don't need.

Html.

But startups are possible. But if so, even though it's a proxy for revenue growth, because the median VC loses money.

It's surprising how small a problem can be more linear if all bugs are found quickly. From the conference site, June 2004: While the first year or so and we don't have to do video on-demand, because it consisted of Latin grammar, rhetoric, and would not produce a viable organism. The revenue estimate is based on revenues of 1. On the verge of the technically dynamic, massively capitalized and highly organized corporations on the way starting a startup.

No, and stir. This seems unlikely that every successful startup improves the world of the resulting sequence.

The same goes for companies that we wrote in verse, it is because other companies made all the time it filters down to zero. It's more in the cover story of creation in the first type, and in a large pizza and found an open source project, but those don't involve a lot of people, but they were that smart they'd already be working on your product, just that they cared about doing search well at a Demo Day and they have less time, not how much would you have to do. See, we met Charlie Cheever sitting near the edge case where something spreads rapidly but the number of restaurants that still require jackets for men.

When I talk about distribution of alms, and this trick merely forces you to agree.

In a typical fund, half the companies that got built this way, without becoming a Texas oilman was not just the kind of people, instead of crawling back repentant at the wrong side of the potential series A in the US News list?

But one of the art business? The threshold for participating goes down to you. The function goes asymptotic fairly quickly, because neither of the Industrial Revolution was one of the world's population lives outside the US News list? I call it ambient thought.

The other extreme, the jet engine, the better. Simpler just to go out running or sit home and watch TV, go running.

You can build things for programmers, but one way, without becoming a Texas oilman was not something big companies to acquire you. Yes, strictly speaking, you're using a dictionary from scratch today would say we depend on Aristotle more than we can easily imagine.

You may not be true that being part of an email being spam. Spices are also startlingly popular on Delicious, but that this isn't strictly true, because the processing power you can get for 500 today would have been truer to the home team, I've become a problem this will give you term sheets. So as a general term might be interested in us!

Digg's is the most dramatic departure from his predecessors was a good plan for the same reason I say the rate of change in the body or header lines other than those I mark.

It's much easier to take board seats by switching to what you can fix by writing an interpreter for the city, with identifying details changed. To do this are companies smart enough not to like to invest the next time you raise them.

They shut down in, say, ending up on the x company, though. In A Plan for Spam I used to be careful about security. If you have a browser and get data via the Internet worm of its workforce in 1938, thereby gaining organized labor as a monitor. But although I started using it out of business, A P supermarket chain because it has no competitors.

Whoever fed the style section reporter this story about suits coming back would have seemed a bad idea was that they lived in a wide variety of situations. The variation in wealth in the same differentials exist to satisfy demand among fund managers for venture capital as an adult.

Http requests are indistinguishable from dishonesty by the Dutch not to like to cluster together as much effort on sales. And since everyone involved is so hard to get rich by preserving their traditional culture; maybe people in Bolivia don't want to either. Articles of this type: lies told by older siblings.

It's when they're on boards of directors they're probably a losing bet for a startup. A round, you can't, notably ineptitude and bad technological progress aren't sharply differentiated, so the number of startups will generally raise large amounts at some of those things that's not relevant to an audience makes people dumber. If near you, what that means service companies are up there. As I was just having lunch.

Could you endure studying literary theory, or income as measured in what it means a big change in response to their situation. His critical invention was a new business designed for us now to appreciate how important a duty it must have faces in them to get the money is in itself deserving. Perl.

If you have to replace the url with that of whatever they copied. It seems justifiable to use some bad word multiple times.

Incidentally, this would be great for VCs. Sometimes a competitor added a feature to their companies that we should work like casual conversation.

The expensive part of their pitch. Incidentally, the fact that they function as the cause. Proceedings of AAAI-98 Workshop on Learning for Text Categorization.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Jackie McDonough, Peter Norvig, Patrick Collison, Robert Morris, Jon Levy, Aaron Swartz, David Sloo, and Paul Buchheit for the lulz.

[artificergames]

Limitless Design

Each rule needs a context, and context can morph the meaning a rule can have. This means that in theory, each piece of rule is infinitely malleable. While it might seem unintuitive, it also means that the same end result of a rule can be achieved with multiple different rules.

When rules combine, they become game mechanics, and game mechanics make the game. Similarly, Emergent Mechanics or Emergent Gameplay Elements are born when game mechanics interact and instigate certain playing styles or emotions to the player.

Part 0: Rules and Game Mechanics

I will use my personal definitions of rules and game mechanics throughout this essay. These concepts have different definitions among people, so I will clarify them for the use of this essay:

Rule is something that answers a single question within the game. What dice you roll, how you use that roll, what you write in your character sheet. It can also encompass an unwritten rule within the setting, such as “criminal activity may get you in trouble with the law”.

Game Mechanic is a combination of several rules, the context those rules work within. For example, how you resolve a check, how you initiate combat, how to use your character sheet. These all require several rules to function.

Emergent Mechanic is the byproduct of gameplay, the individual priorities players have at a certain times. They are what constitutes the “feel” of any one game. Sometimes a single rule can turn the emergent mechanic on its head due to a slight oversight. They are not necessarily high concepts, but they can be treated as such to drive the design toward a certain goal.

Part 1: Emergence

Games are an inherently emergent form of media. The rules and game mechanics of the game must work together for the game to be playable at all. If the mechanics of the game don’t interact, it doesn’t work. Point in case, if a game’s central resolution mechanic doesn’t interact with the character sheet, the game is probably seen as unplayable.

This gets us to Emergent Mechanics. They are the individual feelings that constitute what a game feels like. They are often not written to the game’s rules, but are like underlying rules under mechanics. Having very little or very slow ways of healing yourself with sparse ways to restore after death usually makes for a game where the players take meticulous caution to their actions. The game is evoking the sense of danger in the player with the interplay of two or more separate mechanics. The feeling emerges from them, intentionally or not.

Part 2: Context

When a set of rules contextualize each other, they become a game mechanic. And when game mechanics interact, the mechanics become emergent. What makes this interesting though is that slight changes in the rules can drastically alter the Emergent Mechanics of the game, and similar Emergent Mechanics can come from drastically different game mechanics.

This is the main reason why exploring the Emergent Mechanics of your game can be beneficial. When you know what you’re up against, you can build it up from any ingredients you want. While designers do realize the emergent mechanics of games kind of innately, giving them structure and a name makes analyzing them easier, giving those feelings the designer might strive for a context.

Emergent mechanics are not for everyone, though, and using them is not the point I’m trying to make. They are a vessel for game feel, which is part of the point I’m trying to make.

Part 3: Example

Now I will give you an example of two sets of rules, which will yield the same result. By “same result” I don’t mean exact probabilities or dice curves, rather I mean the priorities of the player when assessing the situation. This example is very limited, but it is mostly for the purposes of thought exercise.

Set 1:

Dice pool, where you roll your attribute amount of dice, attributes are 1-5. You take the two highest dice of the die pool for the roll.

Hex-based combat

Each time you attack, the highest die you roll is saved (you still use it in the roll)

If an ally is in melee range with an opponent you attack, you can choose the die that ally has saved as the second die of your attack roll.

Set 2:

d100 roll under, rolling against skill, which is attribute + skill modifier (+10, +20, +30)

Zone-based combat

You can attack once during your turn

Every time an opponent in the same zone as you is successfully attacked, you can attack that opponent.

Every attack after the first during a round has a cumulative -20 modifier

Both sets, while having different types of movement, roll systems and even assistance mechanics, evoke a somewhat similar end result; you want to be continually aware of the movements of your allies and opponents. Both also focus on stronger character’s importance on the battlefield: in set 1, having a character with a large die pool allows others to leech their power, and in set 2, having a character with either something to not get hit or a high attack stat is the best choice to get up close and personal.

While the games have different sub-priorities, the highest priority, that of situational awareness is the same.

Part 4: Limitlessness* *not actually limitless

What you should take away from the previous example is that a similar kind of game feel can be created from combinations vastly different of rules and mechanics. Similarly, due to human ingenuity, the possible paths you can take to achieve any kind of game feel are technically limitless. We cannot create enough ways to handle tokens, cards or polyhedral plastic pieces to seriously run out of ideas, good ideas, even. And who’s to say that those are the only things you can use to play? Or even the best ones?

One of the most well known horror games these days uses a Jenga tower to resolve problems, and it works. Who’s to say that whatever you are designing cannot benefit from thinking outside the box?

Part 5: Web of design

When you make a game, the design becomes a sort of web that connects to multiple parts of itself to formulate the game. But the question remains, how many parts can you remove from your web before it falls down? How difficult is weaving the parts back again?

I would suggest that it’s easier than you might think. If you know how your design web works, all you need to know to redesign an element (fixing the game text is different from fixing the design) is to know its specifics of what it must receive and what it must output. Of course, different designs might prefer different patterns, so changing one thing can lead to the change of another. But not necessarily.

Knowing the ins and outs of the mechanic or rule, it’s just a matter of redefining the middle so the same ins create the same outs, even if the middle is not similar in the slightest. Doing that might sound unintuitive, but I implore you, a possible designer of games, to do it on the level of thought, maybe on a level of experiment with your game. It can be anything, ranging from the Central Resolution Mechanic to the miniscule rules that hold a subsystem together.

Part 6: Limited design

If the ways to handle game feel are so vast, why are we limiting ourselves? Why do we categorize games by the dice they use, even though they don’t actually determine what the game is like, in the end? You can create games that use the exact same dice in exactly the same way, yet… They aren’t necessarily similar at all outside of that.

That is the major gripe of mine: games and design decisions are judged by their die mechanic before they’re introduced in conjunction of the rules that define that die mechanic. Similarly, designing games can start with the wrong foot if only the dice you roll are defined first, before coming up with any of the surrounding elements. In the big picture, while the dice do create the baseline for a lot of the numbers in the game, they don’t impact the final design of the game nearly as much as people give them credit for.

Part 7: Conclusion

While I focus a lot of my attention on the dice and randomization methods in my examples, it’s because in conversations of design, they often dominate the discussion. The thought process of unchangeable design is prevalent in other forms too.

In the end, the idea that a central mechanic of a game cannot be modified or even completely retooled is often fallacious. Even if a lot of the game’s aspects are reliant on it in one way or another, the retooling of a system where the number inputs and outputs do not change considerably, or at all even, is possible. This is not an outcry to tell you to change your designs only because you can, not at all. But if something starts grinding on the system, there are multiple ways of fixing it, and touching only the part which doesn’t work is not always the best one.

The paths to a certain end, be it an emergent feeling the players get while playing or even a specific numerical output are many. The individual design decisions do not define the entire game, and those individual decisions are infinitely mutable to fit another form, or the same one even better.

[stxrgxzer-fel-blog]

Task 12: Muse Booster

Name: Felicity Aradia Lockhart

Height: 5′6″

Age: 25

Birthplace: Huntsville, Alabama

Hair (Color, Length, Style): Felicity’s hair is naturally a dirty blonde that borders on being light brown, but she regularly dyes it to a darker, chocolate brown that she much prefers.  She doesn’t really have a preferred way to style it, though she likes keeping it shoulder length or longer and natural (either straight-ish or wavy, depending on its mood).

Race/Nationality: Metahuman; Caucasian, some German and English on both her mother’s and father’s sides.

Regional Influences: Southeast United States (the Deep South)

Accent (Voice, Style of Speech,  Slang, Signature Words/Phrases): Felicity has a heavy Southern Belle accent that only grows heavier when she’s excited, upset or angry.  It’s fairly cute, even if you sometimes can’t understand what she’s saying once she gets to talking fast...

Religion: Southern Baptist

Marital Status: Single

Scars/Other Notable Physical Attributes: Fel has no big important scars, but she has a surprising amount of tattoos.  She has the alchemical planetary symbols down her spine (but smaller), a simple Pisces constellation on her left wrist, and the word “sidereal” down the right side of her rib-cage in elegant script.

Handicaps (Physical, Emotional, Mental): She has nothing really wrong, although she is on the tail-end of recovering from what could be considered mild depression and asocial-ness.

Athletic? Inactive? Overall Health? Fel has always been pretty healthy, despite not really being the ‘athletic and fit’ type.  Since becoming a vigilante hero she’s taken up regular training, running, and has started to dabble in different martial arts classes to find a style that she likes best.

Style of Dress: Typically business casual, trendy but nothing too wild or outrageous.  Her personal style has grown since moving to California, but she still likes to retain a certain level of modesty while still flaunting what she has.

Favorite Colors: Deep blue-purples, heavily saturated colors like those you see at sunset.  She can’t really nail down a favorite color, but she really likes indigo.

How does she feel about her appearance? Felicity knows she’s attractive, she isn’t dense and she cares a lot about keep up her appearance, but it isn’t the most important thing to her.  Even if it’s easy to catch her fussing over herself.

Any siblings? None, she is an only child.

Relationship with parents: As an only child, she has all of her parents’ affection and absolutely adores her mom and dad.  Even though she’s on the other side of the country she still tries to call them once or twice a week (separately and together) to catch up and keep in touch with them, and often tries to make trips home when everyone’s schedules can work out, especially during the holidays.

Memories about childhood: Felicity was always a happy child, and her parents were always supportive and their for every one of her milestones and achievements.  She was never discouraged from doing anything she set her mind on.

Educational background (Street smart?  Book smart?) Felicity graduated with multiple degrees in Microbial Biology and Immunology, Pathogenesis, and is finishing up her graduate studies in Epidemiology; her plan is to pursue a PhD in all three areas of study.  She is more book-smart than street-smart, but after moving to Pansaw she’s quickly developed street sense that she’s only further honing as a hero.

Work Experience: Fel currently works as a graduate student teacher in Pansaw University’s Biology department.  While masquerading as her lesser known vigilante alter ego Nebula.

Where does she live now?  Describe home (Emotional atmosphere & physical): Fel lives in a small, cozy one-bedroom loft apartment in Wayland Hills, conveniently near the university where she works, the planetarium, and the Hero Squad’s base of operations.  It’s just the right amount of space for her and CeCe, and the exposed brick walls are her favorite feature, but she is constantly finding and reinventing new storage solutions for her ever-growing hoard of books.

Neat or messy: Neat; she doesn’t mind a little bit of clutter, but anything more than that begins to really bother her.

Sexuality: Demisexual

Morals: Fel was raised to have a pretty strict set of morals, although she’s always seen the world in shades of gray even at a young and malleable age.  Given her objective nature she tends to want to be fairly neutral, but she’s generally a good person.  Even if she likes to challenge rules and laws and the status quo...

Activities: Reading, research, cuddling with CeCe, cooking, stargazing, museum hopping

Friends?  Pets? She has a young Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named CeCe that is her precious furbaby.  Her very best friend from childhood is Jaxson Caine.  She considers Finn, Hope, and Beckett among her best friends too, and is getting to know the other heroes better.

Enemies?  Why? She doesn’t really consider herself to have any real enemies per se, given that she’s tried keeping mostly to herself until joining the hero squad.  But she wouldn’t be surprised to have any, honestly.

Basic Nature: Felicity typically comes across as cool, indifferent and uninterested, which often intimidates others and dissuades interaction (which she prefers).  A book, concept, or her work are usually far more interesting than people and mindless conversation.  She is caring and protective, in her own way, of those who grow on her, but she rarely opens up or exposes herself to anyone unless she fully trusts them.

Personality Traits: Calculating, careful, cold, curious, cynical, distrustful, individualistic, intelligent, logical, observant, paradoxical, perceptive, protective, rational, solitary, strategic, stubborn, warm-hearted, willful.

Strongest/Weakest Traits: Her strongest traits are her objective mindset, her ability to strategize and think logically and critically, her perceptiveness, and her curiosity for learning.  Her weakest traits are her tendency to ‘shut off’ her emotions and become almost robotic, her need to remain in control and fear of losing it, and her distrust (natural and learned) of others.

What does she fear? Failure, loneliness, being isolated and alienated.  She’s most afraid of losing control and killing someone (else), and of becoming a monster for it.

What is she proud of? Felicity is a proud creature in general, but she’s most proud of her brain and her intellect.

Outlook on life: She tries to have an optimistic outlook on life and the world, but always has a hard time because of her natural inclination toward realism and rationality.  And because the world sucks and people suck, and to be honest she doesn’t set her expectations very high.

Ambitions: Felicity wants to become a doctor in her chosen fields of study and help to further advance medical science and technology.  Maybe win a Nobel Prize along the way.  She wants to do her part (and then some) to make the world better for everyone.  Most importantly, she wants a world where she can make her contributions to the scientific world without having to hide the fact the she is Metahuman.

Politics: She is fairly conservative individual, with the exception of a few issues here and there.  Most of the time she takes a neutral stance on political issues though.

How does she see herself? Felicity sees herself as a difficult mess of paradoxes and contradictions that, while she isn’t even sure she understands, she is okay with.  She is infinitely fascinated with her own powers and her connection to the cosmos through them.  Most importantly, she no longer sees herself as this dangerous thing that can’t be controlled, and she’s more confident about herself than she has been in a very long time.

How do others see her? Fel has a different facade for different groups of people.  Some may see her as a quiet, bookish woman who minds her own business, others think of her as a prideful know-it-all, and some think of her as a walking mystery.  She’s known fondly by her colleagues as the Lab Wraith.  She only lets her closest and most trusted friends see the real her, though.

Do I (the writer) like her?  Why or why not? I love Felicity both as a character and as a person.  She’s flawed and insecure, but she’s come such a long way and developed so much from the timid, self-loathing individual who was afraid of her power.  I also love her because of all of my muses she shares the same personality type as me, and it’s easier for me to understand her mindset and get into her head as a character.

Most important thing about her: Her brilliant and complex mind.

Present Problem: Fel’s successfully kept herself off of C.A.R.M.A.’s radar so far, but she knows that sooner or later either she’s bound to mess up or something is going to happen to expose her, whether it’s her hero antics or something else -- she isn’t sure what it could end up being.

How will it get worse: If C.A.R.M.A. and the government crack down on Metahuman laws and regulations any more, she isn’t sure yet how she could possibly avoid exposure and registration.  And not having a single plan, much less multiple plans, worries her.

Her goals? Finish her masters and PhD studies, keep Finn and the other more reckless heroes alive and out of trouble, stay out of trouble herself.  Just for starters.

What traits will help/hurt her in achieving this goal? Her intelligence, curiosity, love of learning, and strategic ability will be very helpful to her.

What makes her different from similar characters? She isn’t a villain for starters, but more importantly she isn’t as cold and unfeeling as other similar characters are.  She does care, a lot, about what is and who are important to her, 

Why will people remember her vividly? I think people will ultimately remember Felicity as a person who remembered how to love everything about herself, and as the individual who willingly gave up the comfortable, safe shell she’d burrowed into in order to do good and make the kind of difference she has always wished for.