#this is cracky even by my standards and that says something

[ask-sad-ghost-piett]

Posthumous Admiral's Log - Entry 32

My afterlife is once again a cloud of stress and disarray. I can scarcely decide where to begin. It is all one great mess.

Firstly, the meeting with Zevulon went poorly. He is just as recalcitrant in his fifties as he was when he was five, and he despises me in death even more than when I was alive. We lasted not even a minute into the visit before he exorcised me. I suspect he would have done the same with Max if that were not impossible. That’s the odd thing about exorcisms. A spirit can be exorcised multiple times, but not twice by the same living soul. It’s a little like immunization that way. Zevulon used up his one exorcism of Max decades ago during our first Posthumous Mandatory Familial Bonding Day after the tragic collapse of the Empire.

So, for the rest of the time, I simply floated awkwardly amidst the clouds in the afterlife, wondering what was going on between Max and Zevulon. Eventually, Max returned. He apologized for the entire ordeal, and I reassured him that it wasn’t his fault. Zevulon is 57, after all. I doubt Max and I would have any power to dictate his abominable and traitorous life choices even if we were alive.

Still, Max apparently hollered at Zevulon for exorcising me with enough vitriol to blow out the Holonet router in the Resistance base. It appears the damage was significant, and the Rebel Scum will be without Holonet access for a good long while. I am happy that some good came from this. It just goes to show how great of a man Maximillian Veers is. Few people can bring such sorrow to the Rebel Scum in death.

Lord Vader counseled me not to be too upset by the failed meeting with Zevulon. He claims that the younger generation takes a while to warm up to people but that Zevulon will learn to like me in time. He then proceeded to tell me about a morbid personal story I did not ask for.

“When I first met my son, he tried to decapitate me,” Lord Vader told me. “Of course, he did not succeed, because he was not yet a Jedi, but I could not speak with him in such a state. So, I threw many pieces of scrap metal at him and cut off his hand. Then, we could talk. But before I was done telling him what I needed to say, he fell down a hole and then escaped on board the Millennium Falcon. I would have gotten more time to talk with him if we had captured the Falcon. However, you let it get away.”

At this point in the story, Lord Vader’s mood darkened, and his eyes appeared abnormally inflamed again.

“I thought of killing you then,” Lord Vader said. “I thought of wringing your neck on the bridge, dropping your lifeless corpse into the tech pit, and promoting MSE-91 to admiral. But then I turned around and saw how sad you looked. So, I went back to my meditation chamber, and I decided that I didn’t need to kill you then, because I could always kill you later if you failed me again. You didn’t fail me again, of course, and then, we both died, and I gave up killing people.”

Hoping to change the subject, I offered Lord Vader the eyedrops. He gave me a perplexed look. I explained to him that his eyes appeared to have some form of conjunctivitis, thinking he’d be appreciative. Instead, he grew more upset.

“Are you implying there is a problem with my eyes, Admiral?” he said. “I have no use for eye drops.”

I thought to apologize for the confusion but then remembered what happened to Needa. So, I hurriedly promised I would not offer him eye drops any longer and excused myself, claiming I needed to report to Grand Moff Tarkin.

In fact, I wanted nothing more than to return to my pocket dimension and weep over this latest set of failures. However, it seems my lie got the better of me. Before I could reach my sanctuary, I was stopped by the Grand Moff who berated me for falling behind on our upcoming holiday hauntings to ruin the Rebel holiday of Life Day. It was immediately clear that I would have no rest or reprieve.

Resigned to this newest flood of stress, I toiled away planning the holiday haunting in utter misery. I do not know how long I went on like this. Hours or days… it is all the same in the afterlife. Only Tarkin seems to have a sense of time, enough to rail against us for falling behind schedule, at least. As the planning dragged on, I felt as if I was losing my mind. All the Stormtroopers, Death Troopers, Shore Troopers, Snow Troopers, and Flame Troopers began to blur together, and I nearly forgot that they were all part of the army and therefore not under my command for haunting missions.

I was at my wits’ end when I saw Moff Jerjerrod idly floating by. Saying as he was clearly unoccupied, I asked him for assistance. However, the nerfherder refused me. He prattled on about how he had already made plans for the upcoming Fete Week season and how the afterlife ought to be a place of rest.

What followed immediately afterwards is a bit of a blur. I believe I may have reached what some might consider a “breaking point”. I do not recall exactly what I said to Jerjerrod, only that I was very cross and shouted at him. He flew off crying to Admiral Motti at the end of it.

Everyone has been acting odd around me since then. Tarkin says I did well by asserting my authority, so I suppose I should be proud of myself. However, Motti has started sending me death threats. Granted, these are not very threatening, given my current lack of a life to lose, but I am still feeling uneasy. Motti is a bit of a wildcard. He’s the sort of man who would file an incident report to HR against Lord Vader, in sort, not to sort of man I’d want to make enemies with.

So, presently, I have earned the enmity of my stepson, offended Lord Vader with eyedrops, upset Jerjerrod to the point of tears, and enraged Motti to the point he now wishes to challenge me to a fistfight in an alley. And besides all this, I have another haunting to plan.

I suppose I have been through worse. I always thought that all the torment I endured in life would prepare me for whatever followed. I hope this will hold true.

- Admiral Piett

Read the full log on AO3.

[hawkp]

I'm drawn to each and every mention of Abbey Bartlet like a moth to a flame 👀 Prose and Cons, pretty please?? 💜💜

Abbey Bartlet my beloved. I’ve been feeling some type of way about Abbey and Jed being parents to everyone this week, thus this fluffy (and a bit cracky in retrospect) fic was born. Throwing another ‘Sam Seaborn is everyone’s kid brother or child’ into the ether.

So Abbey decided somewhere between adjusting the language for climate change and joint medical research, to lean over and quietly asked him that burning question. "Are you feeling alright?"

“Yes, ma’am. Just fine.” Sam responded, bouncing his knee.

Abbey tilted her head, pressing her lips into a thin line. “Okay. Well, could I get you anything? Tea maybe?”

Sam rubbed at his brow and considered the offer for a moment before answering. “That sounds great actually. Thank you, ma’am.”

She caught Sam’s eye and gave him a reassuring smile when they were interrupted by the president. “Did I suddenly become uninteresting in the last two minutes?”

Sam laughed nervously as Abbey turned to glare at Jed. “I’m so sorry that you aren’t the center of attention for once.” She quipped, rising from her seat. “I’m going to get this kid something to drink. What can I do you you for, Mr. President?”

“We're raiding the bar already?” Jed asked.

Abbey looked down at Sam and then back to her husband. “He’s not even old enough to drink.” She said, Sam chuckled again. “I’m getting him some tea.”

“Then I’ll have that too. Thanks, hun.” The president added as she passed, kissing her on the cheek.

She returned a few minutes later to Jed giving Sam an extremely animated retelling of the Battle of Hastings. Sam was fully engrossed in it, to his credit, but she caught him poking at his ear as she set a mug down next to him and produced two Advils on her palm. “Thought these might come in handy.” She said as Jed’s words rolled to a stop.

He stared up at her like he’d just been caught in the act and then resigned himself to take them, doing his best to hide the discomfort that swallowing caused. Abbey, of course, noticed anyway. “Your throat hurts, huh?”

He looked down at his legal pad in a childish sort of cower. “A little.”

“A little, he says.” She remarked. “Why don’t you close your eyes for a bit?”

Sam looked back up between her and the president who’d rounded the table. He stood resolute, arms crossed behind his wife. “We really need to polish the language for this, ma’am.” His eyes pled with the president, hoping that he’d back him up.

“Don’t look at me. She’s in charge.” Jed said, his hands up in mock surrender.

Sam huffed quietly before lobbying further. “We just need to hit renewable energy cooperation and Indio-pacific trade,” he said, flipping a page, “and infrastructure, agriculture, and labor standards.”

“Hmm.” Abbey voiced, disapprovingly. “Alright. But when you hit your limit, you tell us, okay? I don’t care that your boss is the president of the United States.”

“Obviously.” Jed added. Abbey rolled her eyes. “Sam, I think I could finish this up myself.”

Sam frowned, hesitation in his voice as he spoke. “No offense sir, but you really can’t.”

“I’m wounded, Samuel.”

Sponsored by too many commas. :)

[spaceorphan18]

top 5 overrated Glee moments

Hmmm what an interesting question. I'm not sure if I can give you specific moments (I'm not sure I can any longer tell you what moments are more popular than others) but maybe I can give you five episodes that I think are a little overrated.

*standard usual disclaimer - my subjective opinion follows*

Pilot - I'll always give it credit for being something unique and new at the time, but I don't know if its aged all that well. And the extreme focus on Will, Finn, and Rachel leaves little interest to me upon rewatch. Admittedly - even the first time I watched it back in 2009 I wasn't really sold until the ending performance of DSB.

Dream On - This is most notably beloved by critics more so than the fans. It's a solid episode, which does its theme of dreams well and has some great music. But I find it kind of slow and draggy, and taking itself a lot more seriously than the show usually does, and in the process it looses some of that cracky quality that made the show so addicting.

Never Been Kissed - What, hold on what did you say?? No seriously. The introduction of Blaine is extremely special, and Kurt's story line remains powerful. But this episode as a whole is a complete mess. The thematic material is loose at best. Puck's story is marred by misogyny and Mark Salling's questionable acting. And the Beiste story line is atrocious on all levels. If it weren't for Blaine's introduction, this episode might be one of my least favorites.

Nationals - Most people seem to like this episode way more than I do. I think Season 3 telegraphed this win from the beginning of the season, and it feels lackluster because of it. There's no tension in the competition - and there's virtually no plot at all. And then the last ten minutes want to make me bang my head into the wall for a variety of reasons.

Dynamic Duets - Oh I know, here we go again. Look - this episode contains one of the best Blaine story lines they ever did, and I'm not taking that away. Plus, I love the superhero theme throughout. But a huge chunk of this episode is dedicated to the newbies, and specifically Ryder and his issues, that I often want to skip over, like, half of the episode.

There ya go - not exactly what you asked for, but I suppose close enough. :)

[phantomnostalgist]

An Interview with Peter Karrie

From “POTO: The Phantom of the Opera Magazine”, Millennium Edition (2000), published by Carrie Hernandez. (This btw is the greatest Phantom fan publication ever made, and if you ever see it on eBay you should snap it up. I don’t even have my copy because it’s with Paul, who conducted this interview with Peter in 1994.)

Enormous thanks to @panto-of-the-opera for typing this interview up for me!

Peter Karrie, interviewed by Paul Day Clemens: 

Since falling under the spell of “POTO” (the day the Original London Cast album (OLC) became available in the U.S.) I’ve seen many fine –  and a few brilliant – Eriks but only two performers have ever made me feel I was in the actual presence of the Phantom himself. One was Michael Crawford – yes, he really was that special  (and you can forget the OLC which is but the palest shadow of what he was like on stage!) – and the other is Peter Karrie.

Commanding, dangerous, elegant, chivalrous and heart rending with an unparalleled physicality and wealth of detail, Peter not only made the role his own, completely, but by some rare and strange alchemy, somehow managed to make me forget I was watching a performance at all.

Thrilled, hypnotized and deeply moved, it was not until visiting with Peter after the show that the full impact of his transformation hit me. How could this warm, funny, soft-spoken, down-to-earth guy possibly be the same man I was watching on stage not an hour before hand?

Therein lies the difference between craft – albeit of a rare excellence – and true inspiration. Dare I even say greatness?

Yeah, I dare. For Mr. Karrie’s Phantom is simply one of the greatest portrayals by an actor in the musical theatre that I’ve ever had the privilege of experiencing.

I had the great pleasure of interviewing Peter at length in December 1994 in Toronto as he was getting ready for the Far East tour of “POTO” and what follows here are never before published excerpts from the interview. – Paul Clemens

Paul Clemens: Do you find that the role of the Phantom makes enormous demands on your voice, in terms of the wear and tear of doing at night after night? If you had a sore throat, for instance, would you be able to get through the show?

Peter Karrie: Yeah.  You learn I guess. All professional singers in theatre have to cope with colds and sore throats. Otherwise you’ll be forever off ‘cause it’s a breeding ground of germs. And you develop your voice for stamina over a period of time where you’re doing eight shows a week. You have to. You have to survive it.... So, basically, yeah.

You take the angel [scene] for instance where [the Phantom is] absolutely broken. I’ve had very, very bad laryngitis and I’ve sung that and it sounded great! Simply because you’re breaking down in your voice is all kinds of scuffed up and cracky, you can enact it. But the show takes horrendous wear and tear on the body. It really does. You end up playing mind games with the role.

PC: That’s interesting. How so?

PK: Well, it’s such a powerfully written piece for the actual Phantom. You have to portray a person who’s schizoid, psychotic... and it all sounds very grand and technical. But the actual emotion of it can cut only come from the inside. And so you continue fighting with it.

 [Note from Christine posting this in 2021 - Erik isn’t actually schizoid or psychotic (not that either are “bad” things). I know this is pedantic of me to point out, but I pointed it out at the end of Ethan Freeman’s interview from the mid 90s so I’ll point it out here too.]

PC: I imagine you found a core within the character of identification, something you had an understanding of and could feel a great deal of sympathy toward.

PK: Yes. You have to put yourself through the gambit of it. You have to be the Phantom emotionally for that time, and then it comes out quite naturally. You don’t have to think about it.

PC: Do you find, after all the times you played the role – first in London and now in Toronto – that the emotions are still immediate for you?

PK: Oh, yeah. But as I say, there’s wear and tear. When the mind gets tired then you find you get into problems.

PC: How do you keep the role fresh?

PK: There are all types of hand holds all the way along, from the time you start ‘til the time you finish. I guess the majority of it is set in the rehearsal room where you rehearse at a certain level into a certain standard, and it becomes automatic. But each show will always be different because you have a different audience, different weather conditions, you have different musicians playing in the pit, you have different people you’re playing opposite. So you will always get a variation on the theme. And so that, coupled up with what you’ve put together in rehearsal so you get a fairly high standard of performance every night, merges together. And so you do get a different show every night. But, as I say, it’s a very wearing role. More so than Jean Valjean, where you’re virtually on stage for three and a half hours. But I find the Phantom far more draining.

PC: I can imagine. Whenever you’re on stage you’re at peak intensity and you run the emotional gamut. So that, combined with the vocal demands, must make for one walloping experience.

PK: Exactly.... That, coupled with the exposure. You’re so exposed on stage. Whenever the Phantom does appear, it’s either him on his own, or it’s him with Christine, and something powerful and moving is happening. He doesn’t appear with the chorus – barring the “Masquerade.”

PC: For that reason, a number of the actors who have played the role have complained about a sense of loneliness and isolation. I wondered if you felt that way about it?

 PK: No, I haven’t felt that. But I’ve always mingled with the rest of the cast and crew. I can’t abide all this keeping the door shut. So we open the door and play rock and roll music.

PC: Do you ever feel hampered by all the makeup involved?

PK: You get used to it. Totally. In fact, there are times when you forgotten you’ve got the mask on in the wig lady has to ask you for it. And you think ‘What? I’ve already given it to you!’

PC: That’s right – you wouldn’t be able to feel it, would you? Because it’s actually touching the appliances rather than your face.

PK: You feel it slightly. You know, if you first put it on you’d know it’s there. But after a while... But the wire band ‘round the head lets you know it’s there! And the edge of it catches you sometimes. But no – it becomes part of you. And as for the lip which is built up top and bottom ‘round your mouth, you get used to that as well.

PC: Has it ever come loose during a performance?

PK: Oh, God yeah! We’ve had some great moments where it’s been hanging off. That’s a bit gross. And the bald cap’s come loose in the back, so you do the Second Lair with one hand ‘rounds the back of your head holding your bald cap in place? [laughs] Yeah, you’ve got some good moments.

PC: How did you find the voice which is so distinctive?

PK: Well, that, once again came from the feeling inside. It was like once you had all that stuff on, and I discovered the walk, and kind of latched onto his intention, the voice just followed.

PC: Your interpretation of the line “You try my patience“ is unforgettable. So chilling. I was wondering how that evolved.

PK: Well, I felt that was the climax of the man. That, literally, for me, is where he turns ‘round and he’s at the actual peak of his hate, his frustration. I knew I had to find something which made that moment special. It was set to be special by the music and the way it was directed. That was the key to the man.

PC: It’s as if your voice came from some deep well – as if it bubbled up from some deep, dark place.

PK: That’s right! That’s exactly how I felt it. And then when Christine kisses him it’s like he can’t believe it. “I’ve won!” That euphoric feeling... “She can suffer this face! I think I’ve got her! I think, yes, she does love me!” And then, as he reaches out to touch her... a moment.... He’s taken in the scene of Raoul hanging as he went back to her... and then, all of a sudden, it struck a chord.... “Hang on....” And then the realization hits him: “She’s just doing it for him. She’s literally giving me her self to save him. She loves him... She can never love me the same as she loves him.” And it’s all a kind of mental game there. And you’ve only got split seconds to get the audience in on it, so he has to be kind of demonstrative in his actions.

PC: After the kiss, there was a moment where you sort of winced, pulling away from her twice like a wounded animal, your right arm almost becoming spastic... there were so many levels, all going simultaneously.

PK: He’s coming to terms. All these thoughts are rushing through his head and he’s off balance. Everything has shaken him and he’s lost his façade of “everything-under-control.”

PC: And the body is breaking down.

PK: That’s right. He’s been stripped of everything just by having to face himself – and face the truth. That one clear moment where he realizes this is wrong – this is all wrong – this is not how it should be.

PC: And when the phantom cries “GO NOW AND LEAVE ME!” – you built each word into a series of escalating crescendos which was tremendously effective, I thought. Very powerful.

PK: It’s all the process of him actually coming to terms with himself. It’s as you say – one after another, one after the other – then finally she’s gone and he’s left.... This is after she’s given him the ring and she’s gone... And he looks... and he sees the empty throne. And he knows that’s all his life is.

PC: That’s very moving. Do you ever find that the final words – “It’s over now the Music of the Night” – are difficult to get out with all the emotion you’re experiencing?

PK: I did at the beginning, yeah. Sometimes I used to get caught up in it, which is a dreadfully dangerous thing, ‘cause then everything tightens up and you get the proverbial lump in your throat.

PC: It’s sort of walking a bit of a tight rope, isn’t it?

PK: Yeah! [laughs] That’s right. And then there’s a moment where I can get space to subdue all that and concentrate on doing the last bit. That’s where he’s got the veil in his hand and she’s in the boat comin’ across the back singing with Raoul and I say “Christine I love you” very, very quietly, and very broken, and then I can take some breaths which calm it all down and get myself kind of poised for the last bit. ‘Cause that’s gotta be kind of the statement: “You alone can make my song take flight.” That is the statement of release. It’s like a rhetorical statement – you will always be the music of my life. And therefore I can’t change it.” It’s that feeling he’s got in his body. He bends over backwards. And then the final moment is where he turns around and wipes it clean. And he does it in a far stronger attitude than anything else he does... “It’s over now the Music of the Night.”

PC: I’ve read that you feel he’s starting a new life at that point.

PK: Yes! Yes... When I’m walking to the chair, I let the veil just drop behind, and I think to myself “It’s over. Now what else is there? There must be something else... It’s over.” And you do it with such a final flourish – the cape and everything – you’re back in control of yourself. You’ve had the osmosis. You’ve come out of the one period of your life which actually threatened to ruin you, and you’re now standing on the threshold of another one.

PC: Oh yes. It’s wonderful to hear what’s going through your mind as you’re doing the scene. And the impact of that final scene is tremendous. Do you have a favourite scene in the show?

PK: That would be it.  ‘Cause it’s only six minutes long, that Second Lair. And in that six minutes you literally travel from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other. It’s a whole journey.

  MORE BELOW... Keep reading, it’s a long interview, with plenty more thoughts and content about Phantom, including some really funny classic mishaps.

PC: The show obviously touches a universal cord in many of its audience members, sometimes to the extent that a bracket (sizable) number of people see the show again and again. Men and women openly moved to tears by the play are common sight in Phantom’s audiences. And yet, paradoxically, a substantial number of critics have charged the show with having no heart.

PK: I think they’re being very unkind. There are some Phantoms – just as there are leading men and women in any show – who do not commit themselves quite as much as they should do.

PC: I’ve seen that it does make a difference in the overall impact of the show.

PK: It makes a big difference, yeah. ‘Cause eight times a week to commit yourself to it to it as it should be done is hard work. But once you get used to it and once you get into it you can’t do it any other way. At least I can’t. They said to me many times, like when you’re feeling rough or whatever, “Can you mark it a little bit? You know just take it easy. You don’t have to give one hundred percent.” But you see, it’s not a question of giving that. That’s just the way I do it. If I start altering that, I am altering a lot more than just singing a lift show. You’re altering a thought process which I can’t control. I wish I could mark it. It would be a lot bloody easier! But you can’t. You have to do it as you do it when you do it, and that’s it.

PC: I believe you hold the record for the most injuries sustained by any actor playing the role.

PK: Touch wood it’s never been completely death-defying! [laughs]

PC: Is it true that you asked if you could actually ride the chandelier down to the stage at the end of Act One?

PK: Yes. But I’m afraid the insurance people did not exactly share my enthusiasm for the idea.

PC: The stories about technical mishaps are legion. Can you relate some of the more memorable moments along those lines that you can recall?

PK: Well... there’s been so many of them now. There’re many, many boat stories. And the same thing happen to Colm, has happened to Michael, has happened to ‘em all. The boat has a life of its own. The monkey also has a life of its own. That can be very temperamental... I’ve had some excitement in the Angel, where people have tripped over wires and tipped it up while you’re inside it, and you’re hangin’ on for grim death... I fallen off the proscenium, yeah...

PC: [laughs] you say that so cavalierly.

 PK: [laughing] Cracked a couple of legs and so forth. And the Star-Trap, the same thing. I’ve fallen down that the wrong way... In London one day, the Star-Trap didn’t open at all. So you did the “Your chains are still mine – you will sing for me,” and threw the cape – I always threw the Cape up to make a trail as you go down the Star-Trap. So the trail came down and I hadn’t gone anywhere. In the cloak – they had a bigger cloak for the Masquerade then – and it just piles on top of me. And I couldn’t get it off because you’ve got the mask on. So it ended up with the two managers having to lead me off! [laughing] I mean, here you’ve got this dreadful creature saying [puts on a creepy voice] “Your chains are still mine – you will sing for me!” And then, all of a sudden, the managers are saying [whispers] “Come on! This way, this way!”

PC: [laughs] In one of the U.S. Touring Company performances, the Punjab lasso failed to work, and so Raoul just fell to the floor and lay there writhing as if he were in the grip of some supernatural force.

 PK: [laughs] many times things go wrong with a bloody lasso! One time I was over here in Toronto, Byron Nease [Raoul] all of a sudden acted like an invisible hand had gripped him ‘round the throat – the noose was nowhere, it was on the floor many miles away from him – but he’s going [Karrie makes some strangling sounds] and it was as though he was being thrown—forced backwards! And he got to the grill and his hands came outstretched and he was like held there by and invisible force...

PC: Yes – the “magnetic grill!“

PK: Yeah! And I just looked at him and I started laughing. it was like a three act play to get him to the back of this grill...! But I think the funniest thing is words. The things people say. Quite innovative and inventive. I remember when I was in the wings doing the “seal my fate tonight...” and sometimes your mind wanders. It’s that mind-game I mentioned about concentration. You have to keep focused all the time – blah blah blah. And so I’m saying “seal my fate tonight... I hate to have to cut the prisoner short...” Prisoner short? Prisoner short? And I thought, no, that can’t be right. And I’m thinking that while I continue singing... And the words have gone ‘cause I’m singing “but the ducks warring in...” And I said “ducks warring in??? – By now I’ve turned away from the monitor ‘cause I’m singing on an off-stage mike – and  I’m lookin’ at my dressers. And I’m waving to them as if to say “Tell me the words! What are the words??”  And now I’m singing “Let my destiny ride, ‘cause my music’s afire!” And I sang it as though I’d been singing those words all my life! Loud... And of course I’m falling around. And the conductor – I can see on the monitor – he’s laughing and waving! The baton had gone to hell!!

 PC: [laughing] That’s marvelous!

 PK: But what was the funniest thing what the poor people on stage! ‘Cause you had the managers and everybody else all walking ‘round in this trance – like, floaty, floaty choreography. And all of a sudden, as soon as I got to “ducks warring in” – by all accounts – they as if on cue, turned up stage; all of their backs to the audience! And they all walked to the back of the stage! And they’re all laughing and laughing, ‘cause it got it worse and worse. The more I was singin’ the wrong words the more they were laughing! ...And when I came on for my bows that night, all the course we’re going “Quack, quack!” ...So the next night I got changed I did my sound-check, and all of a sudden there’s a call over the tannoy for a meeting in the greenroom. And I went there, and I thought, well, somebody must be coming down to see us. And all of a sudden, over the gentle hubbub in the greenroom, I could hear on the tannoy my voice doing this “cut the prisoner short, but the ducks warring in...” and everybody started laughing. And then all of a sudden, the company manager showed up and presented me with a cassette – they record every show, you see – and the company had the words printed up and framed, and they presented it to me with the cassette. And that’s how I know the words so well!

PC: I’d love to hear that sometime!

PK: I learned from a very early age that if you’re gonna sing the wrong words, sing them as loud and convincingly as possible. And everyone in the building will think you’re right and everybody else is wrong.

PC: Of course. Because that if they haven’t seen the show before, they’re not going to know.

PK: That’s right. It’s so true, because I had people in that night for that magic moment, and they didn’t know anything was wrong at all.

 PC: [laughs] Be honest with me – are you tired of the music after all this time? For example if you’re in an elevator and you hear a song from Phantom do you just want to scream?

PK: No. I get out of the elevator. You do try to escape from it after doing eight shows a week... A number of times we’ll go into a restaurant ,] my wife Jane and myself, and we’ll sit there. And all of a sudden you’ll hear the music come on – Phantom. And you think, oh God! You don’t want to be reminded of it when you’re out enjoying yourself. But I’m not tired of the music when I’m performing it.

PC: You’re about to take Phantom to Singapore and Hong Kong. I understand that their audiences tend to be rather formal. I believe it is considered disrespectful to make too big a display of appreciation. That will be quite a change for you. How do you think you’re going to handle it?

PK: I did a satellite link up the other day with about forty reporters from the Far East, and the same questions came up then – “How are you going to cope with the way Singaporean and Hong Kong audiences show their appreciation?” And I told him as long as they enjoy the show, I don’t care... It’s quite funny actually, because when I started off working in Britain, I used to do clubs in the Northeast which is the hardest area prefer performer to work in. [laughs] The miners – it’s a big mining area – and they didn’t used to applaud. They threw ashtrays onto the stage.

PC: [laughing] Ashtrays?!

PK: That’s right. You do a Sunday lunchtime and they’d all be sitting reading the Sunday newspapers. You walk onto the stage and there’d just be a sea of newspapers. And at the end of the number, if they liked you they drop one hand onto the table, pick up the ashtray and throw it onto the stage as a mark of respect. Or are they’d just bang the table with one hand two or three times. But still, never, never, did they come out from behind the newspaper. Not unless the performer was of the female variety.

PC: [laughs] Your rock band – Peter and the Wolves – how long did that last?

PK: About four years, I think.

PC: Are there any records available?

PK: I doubt it. What records were made have probably long since been turned into ashtrays!

PC: To be thrown on stage by miners, no doubt! ...Well ,a final question: in Phantom, when you’re up in the Angel, do you ever feel a mad desire to plunge headfirst into the audience?

PK: No. Quite the opposite.

PC: Not a serious question, but I appreciate the answer nonetheless.

PK: The desire to jump off is never further from my mind.

PC: Sometimes I wonder the way you move around up there!

PK: [laughs] It does get a bit hairy up there sometimes! But it depends on which way it swings. If it swings left to right, you’re okay, but if it swings front to back then ya’ got trouble!

PC: This has been a delightful interview, Peter. Thank you.

PK: My pleasure.

-  Paul Clemens

[im-gettingby]

30 Days of Carry On

posted (and written by?) @captain-aralias

(I’m doing most of these at once because I said so. it’s long so under the cut)

1. Favourite major character

I literally thought — Simon no Baz no Penny no, Agatha!

I guess I will pick Simon, since I relate to him the most — or at least, my connection to him led me into the fandom.

2. Favourite minor character

I think we all know this one 🐑🐑🐑

I have written many a treatise on Lamb Rights. I’ll spare everyone now

3. Character you relate to the most

Oops— I already answered this, kinda. I relate to them in different ways: I relate a lot to WS Simon because he has abandonment issues and “kid who was told he was extraordinary and then grew up to be ordinary” issues. We also both have a “fix all the things for everyone” complex, too.

Baz — It took me a while to get into Baz’s head, but I would say, I relate to him because of his intense emotional world and tendency to see the world through an intensely romantic/tragic lens. But also he’s a Pisces. and I’d never do that like a Pisces does. (Sorry, not sorry.)

4. Which character would you like to go to lunch with?

SHEPARD obviously. I don’t feel the need to elaborate.

5. Favourite non-Snowbaz ship

Ooh! Probably Lamb/Baz or Simon/Shep or just...literally anything. Like, I will read anything as long as it’s well written. The weirder the better. (Within...legal and moral limits.) in my other fandoms I’ve been a big multishipper and there’s not a lot of options for that in CO - which is fine - but wholeheartedly support rarepairs :D

6. Favourite non-romantic OTP

So, obviously Simon/Penny and Baz/Penny are great ones, but I think the nearest & dearest to my heart is Simon/Agatha. The kind of siblings/unwillingly dating/weird exes dynamic and the way they both shaped each other’s lives is just so interesting. And while Simon & Penny are closer, Agatha and Simon represent their aspirational selves to one another. And the way that they were both tied to one another along with their gender roles/places in society and both broke away at the same time is just...mwah

7. Favourite Baz outfit

I honestly dress kinda like Baz. Anything involving a printed silk shirt or a floral brocade suit, so like, all of them? I love WS Baz, his fashion sense is so thoughtful yet fun. He’s so expressive with it — in the sense of both being guarded, being sexy, and playing with masculinity/femininity.

8. How do you feel about Wayward Son?

In case it wasn’t obvious, I absolutely love it. I mean, from a writing/narrative standpoint, I don’t think it’s the most elegant or engaging book ever written, but it’s just so raw and fresh. I don’t see many examples of an author trying to do what Rainbow did, which is build a complex emotional AND plot-driven story with so many characters and so much lore. I’m very excited for AWTWB.

9. Favourite scene from Carry On, besides Chapter 61

I like what the book does/sets up overall. Honestly probably the first scene, where Simon walks to the bus stop & takes the train and just thinks about his life and makes lists -- I love Simon. I know Rainbow said she thinks that bit is boring, but it honestly says so much about his character in a short time. (and he’s an extremely complex character!) Also, Baz’s dramatic entrance. Also, the chapter where Baz says “and I’m hopelessly in love with him” because it’s just so dramatic, and it comes out of nowhere

10. Favourite scene from Wayward Son, besides Chapter 41

Baz and Lamb’s journey across the Strip - vampire lore, jealous Simon, Baz getting to be his own character— it’s beautiful.

11. Remind us about something in canon readers might have forgotten about

Ahahaha um. Simon says he thinks Baz’s cousin Marcus is fit. That’s pretty funny.

12. What are your hopes and fears for Any Way the Wind Blows?

I don’t have any hopes because I don’t want to be disappointed - and that’s not a cynical thing, I just want to go into it with an open mind. (I’ll take a break from fandom and reread the books beforehand so I’m (more of) a blank slate) I guess just...interesting emotional journeys, whatever that ends up being. There’s a lot that Rainbow has to do in the book and I don’t think any one person could get through all of it -- that’s why we have fanfiction.

Fears? I don’t know. I think just...the series ending. Even though I’ve been in fandom for less than a year I just really love this fandom & the thought of that kind of eroding away is sad. But also I don’t think that will happen immediately, and change is a part of life. I’ve never related as much to Cath as I do now :’)

13. An unpopular/cracky opinion you hold

unpopular: Lamb is the best character; I don’t want Simon to get his magic back; both Simon and Baz should have other romantic options.

14. Something from your head fanon

Hmmmmmmm well. Just mean things about Baz really. Like that he’s weird looking, not that great at football, and actually has kind of garish fashion sense. (which is a self-roast as well - see above.) I just feel like Simon/fandom put him on a pedestal, and Simon’s an unreliable narrator re: Baz anyway. So I like the idea that Baz is this average looking kinda strange nerdy guy who is everything Simon has ever wanted in life.

And before you tell me that Baz was hot at Watford and Agatha was into him, have you ever been to a tiny boarding school? Standards get weird 😂😂😂 and Terry being into him — come on. The guy’s a violent pervert.

also - back to Watford being a tiny school. Baz doesn’t have much competition to be the star of the football team. (also, does anyone except Simon even think that he is?)

16. Favourite location other than Watford

Vegas!

17, Favourite location in Watford

I’m pretty bad at Watford lore/geography bc again, I’m way more into WS. Probably the floor in the Cloisters where everything happens the same way, just a day later. There’s a fic there, but I can’t wrap my head around all the time travel implications enough to write it.

18. What would be your favourite subject at Watford?

Any potions-esque subject because I loved chemistry lab. Latin because I loved Latin in school. Uhhhh I don’t like history class, so not that — maybe a literature course focused on the derivation of spells.

19. What would your magical implement be?

Ooh! This is a good one. I’d like to think it would be a weird body piercing. Or a belt a la Gareth. Maybe some kind of traditional south Asian jewelry, like a nose chain or mang-tikka or something. maybe a hat. like, imagine your magical instrument being a fedora and you just have to...wear a fedora all the time.

21. Favourite canon spell

Hm. Kiss it better? Candle in the wind?I should try to think of a non-horny one. honestly they’re all so cool and clever - I love the magic system in CO/WS.

22. What would your eighth year spell at Watford be or do?

Maybe something from a poem I love. That would probably be pretty but not very functional. Or a healing spell.

23. Who would you want as your roommate?

Agatha is uptight, Penny is passive aggressive, Simon is a slob, Baz is both uptight and passive aggressive.

Definitely Shepard.

24. Favourite item of merchandise, official or unofficial

My @subparselkie sticker

25. Favourite book cover design

WS. Oh, another unpopular opinion - I don’t like the kevin wada cover of carry on. their faces look so weird and the colors don’t work for me. I own the version with the blue and yellow cover art instead

26. Do you want a movie? If yes - any fan casts for the movie?

Probably wouldn’t want a movie! Because I am way too possessive of these books/this version of the story. And I am historically extremely disappointed by adaptations — I get upset with the smallest of changes 😂

27. If they made a movie, what scenes do you think they’d cut that you’d be furious were missing?

See above. A LOT haha

28. If you could ask Rainbow Rowell one question, what would it be? (If you have already, you can share if you like)

What is Lamb’s full name????? Is it actually Lamb Lambert Lamborghini the third???

What is Rainbow’s relationship with sheep and goats. Why are there so many references to them

29. Have you read any of Rainbow’s other books?

Only Fangirl

30. How did you get into Carry On and/or Carry On fandom?

I read fangirl & the pages at the end mentioned carry on, so I read that, and enjoyed it but I wasn’t obsessed. Then I read WS spring 2020, reread it a bunch of times, reread CO, freaked out about the cliffhanger/cool vampire stuff/unresolved sexual tension, had pandemic cabin fever, got on AO3, and the rest is history.

As @annabellelux knows, I wrote my first (published) fanfic after reading her amazing fic Drop The Game. and the first fanfic I read was @captain-aralias’ Greener Grass. I was so obsessed that about a month later, I searched through the AO3 tags for it, because I couldn’t remember the title or author but kept thinking about it.

[storytimewithtibby]

*swings in on a vine like a monkey* fUkcnngg ugghh, can have a kids meal dad please mighty kids meal.

Warnings: None, but definitely kinda crackyRating: GWord count: 1071Pairing: TF2 Medic x ReaderSummary: Reader assisted Medic patching up the team and needs a break

     Every inch of you was sore, not from having gone out with the other mercs, but because you’d just spent the last twelve hours helping the Medic stitch up various limbs and torsos. There were still spots dancing in front of your eyes from the too-bright lighting and red. So much red….

“Why are we here?”

     His tone implied that you had dragged him to some back alley dive bar with syphilitic strippers languidly swinging from a pole. Not a McDonald’s that, to be fair, could have been featured in a Twilight Zone episode. The employee dully provided their name and waited for your order. 

“Because I’m hungry.” You finally replied, fidgeting slightly before meeting the person’s gaze. “I need a mighty kids meal, please.”

“Double cheeseburger or 6 piece nugget?” They droned automatically, and you felt a flicker of guilt showing up at four am. 

“6 piece please.” 

“Schatz… why are you-” Medic started to ask, with an expression somewhere between amused and irritated. 

“For a boy or girl?”

“Me!” 

     For the first time since you came in, the employee seemed to show flickers of life, a smile tugging at their lips. Tapping the order in, they handed you a cup, and for good measure also slid a milk across the counter with a wink. 

“Rough day?” They asked, for all the world suddenly giving the air of bartender ready to play confidant. 

“Very.” You agreed, eyeing the milk before handing it to Medic who had apparently been struck dumb. 

“That is a lot of blood, you okay?”

     Letting out an inquisitive noise, you looked down and saw the bloodstains that spattered you from neck to knees. Oh… Hazily you could recall finishing up the Soldier’s bandages, and half wanting to just collapse. But a small part of you wanted a reward, more than the baring of Medic’s teeth and his very loud praising. Something small, simple, cheap. 

“He’s a field medic and I helped today.” 

“Ah.” 

     There was a moment of shared exhausted silence before the sound of a hand slapping against the heating tray made you jump, but the employee simply turned around. Their hand slid into a bin in front of the tray and pulled out a few small plastic bagged toys and expertly flicked the tabs closed with one hand while trying to hide a yawn before facing you again. 

“To be honest I’ve seen a lot worse, and you don’t look hurt.” A final probe, their gaze flicking to the tall man standing at your side, then back to you with a raised eyebrow.

“Only my back.” You assured them, taking the box with a smile. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

     Carrying your treat to a booth, you slid in with a low grunt before realizing you hadn’t filled your cup. After a moment of glaring balefully at the empty container, you turned your attention instead to the box, struggling briefly before opening it and looking inside. Three toys, but you already knew that setting them aside, but underneath the rest of the box was a mix of fries and nuggets that was definitely not the standard amount. 

     Not bothering to count, you plucked a fry from the container as Medic slid into the booth across from you reaching out for a toy. 

“Could we not have stopped by a store to purchase a toy?” He inquired, wiping salt from the plastic with his finger. “There’s something… spooky about this place.”

“It’s four in the morning. Everywhere is spooky.” Plucking one of the other toys from the table, you opened the packaging and spilled the toy onto your palm letting the instructions flutter to the table. “But these are collectibles.”

“They are not.” Holding his free hand over the floor he rubbed his thumb against his fingers to rid them of salt before peering at the toy still encased. “I am not even sure they are real things.”

     Eyes rolling, you are another fry as you let the toy roll on your palm before opening the other one. It was hard to define a McDonald’s toy when it wasn’t a pop culture thing. But they were kind of cute, and sometimes dangerous. The edges may be dull but stepping on them in the middle of the night could still hurt almost as much as a lego. 

     Nothing on earth or under it hurt as much as stepping on a lego in the middle of the night. 

“That smells like something the Engineer might make.” He commented moments later as you mindlessly munched while playing with the toys you’d gotten. 

“That’s fair.” 

“I can see the sun is beginning to come up.” 

     He wasn’t wrong, you could see the world outside through the glass instead of just your own reflection. How long had you two been sitting there? When you looked towards the counter the employee was leaning on their elbows staring into space and you couldn’t blame them. 

     Out of the corner of your eye, you caught Medic reaching out for the little bird-like toy and tuck it into his jacket. Before you could tease him, however, he reached into the box and pulled out a nugget, squinting at it. 

“Excuse you?”

“I saw a documentary about the making of these nuggets, I do not think you should be eating them.”

“You say after I’ve eaten several already.” You grumble, scooting the box away from you clearly amusing him. 

“Can we go home now?”

     If it weren’t for the note of hope in his tone you might have taken offense, but any lingering adrenaline had faded from your system too. 

“I had hoped to take a long shower and go to bed, but this was also… interesting.”

“Uh-huh… Are you going to keep the little bird thing?” Sliding out of the booth, you tossed the box and all into the trash by the door. “I think Archimedes would like it.”

“That is exactly what I was thinking! And would he not look precious cuddling up to it in his nest with his other odds and ends?”

     He crooned about Archimedes the entire drive back to the compound, his tiredness waning in the face of his adoration of Archimedes and his many adorable habits. It wasn’t a terrible way to end the day, even if your stomach wasn’t as happy with the meal as you’d been planning on.  

[goblin-alchemist]

Do you have any tips for getting a hang of characterizations? You always do so amazingly, especially with Gabriel!

Thank you!

I have talked about this with a few friends prior, so I'll see if I can put it into words again.  This might be redundant to those who remember discussing this with me before, but here we go.  I'll focus upon Gabriel since he seems to be the trickiest for people to write.  I'll also reference some of my stories to give examples.

Gabriel's primary motivation, in my mind, is Emilie.  I default everything back to Emilie.  If Gabriel gets absorbed in something and forgets his grief/goals, etc, I have him suddenly think “Man, if Emilie were here we would be able to watch Adrien experience these milestones together” or “I wish I could hold Emilie's hand like Adrien is doing with Marinette”.  And then he gets sad again.  It's an instant grounding focus for him, and thus leads to renewed determination.  “I am doing this because the ends justify the means.  I just want Emilie back.”  I kind of play with the sunk-cost fallacy with Gabriel, too.  At this point, he's put in so much to being Hawkmoth that he can't back out now.  (Until I slam something in his face that gets him to stop abruptly, like him discovering the heroes' identities).

So that's his primary motivation.  But now to address a lot of the rest of his personality.

The fandom likes to emphasize that Adrien is the face of the company and he has to put on a mask, and only when he's Chat Noir does that mask slip and he's allowed to be his “true self”.  I feel Gabriel is also in the same boat.  He's the head of his company.  He's expected to maintain certain social graces just like his son (if not more so).  He's quiet and reserved and polite, but he's not very forthcoming because of fears of industrial sabotage, or revealing a weakness to competitors that can be used against him, or getting taken advantage of (all of which as an adult, he should have experienced at one point in his life).  His stoic poker face was developed as a result of his life experiences.

However, we're shown he's not really reserved and in control.  Just like Chat Noir, we have canon evidence that Gabriel is as ham-fisted, emotional, and pun-filled as Chat Noir.  We see it in every single Hawkmoth monologue, in every time Hawkmoth transforms and gets giddy with excitement that he might win, and with every anger-fueled declaration of vengeance.  (The argument of 'are those Gabriel's legit emotions or does the butterfly miraculous emphasize those emotions from his victims?' is a nice angle to play with in fiction as well).

But as Gabriel, he's not excessively impulsive (Miraculous-stealing opportunities aside).  He lets people speak their case before forming judgment (more on this in a moment), but once the judgment is formed, it's hard to get him to change his mind.  He's stubborn.

So if I'm writing the story or scene from a third-person-perspective, like Marinette, I can't delve into his thoughts on paper.  I have to show the audience what he's thinking through other cues.  Since he's a man of little words, I'll have him silently scan a room before speaking.  He allows people to speak and give them the opportunity to screw up in his presence before he says a word as to his opinion.  Once that opinion is formed, however, good luck getting him to change his mind.  I have to show this using his glowers, frowns, squared shoulders, and clenched hands.

If something pops up that's great dramatic irony (when he was secretly overjoyed that Marinette designed a Hawkmoth-themed dress, for example), I'll show it as flashes of amusement in his eyes, twitching of lips, the relaxing of his posture, and the crinkling of his eyes.  The key here is to show subtle ways of expressing emotions without outright stating that's what's happening, because Gabriel schools himself and his emotions in front of others.

But when I write directly from his POV, that's where the fun begins.  There, I can describe his internal monologue, which is inspired by his actions as Hawkmoth.  I can have Gabriel sit silent, glowering at anyone who approaches while he observes and dryly comments on everything around him.  He won't say his sarcastic thoughts aloud, but he'll be thinking them, and here's my opportunity to channel the exasperation.  Somethings things will just slip out because honestly, is everyone around him an idiot?!  He'll recover and glower away any funny looks aimed at him, because his intimidation is as much a weapon as his silence is.

Frustrated exasperation is what I usually write Gabriel as a lot of times.  As Hawkmoth, he releases that frustration.  As Gabriel, it has to be kept bottled up inside and it only comes out in internal sarcastic remarks.

If I feel Gabriel strays too much into the OOC/cracky territory (which happens a lot in my stories, I admit) when I channel a bit too much Hawkmoth through his civilian form, I stick Nathalie in there as his straight man. She displays even less emotion than Gabriel and ends up being a really nice balance when I go a bit overboard on Gabriel's emotional outbursts.  A few pointed phrases or deadpan replies that juuuuuust touch upon inappropriate for an assistant to talk to her powerful boss, but she helps ground Gabriel into more of his realistic canon personality instead of complete OOC crack.

He's a man of few words as Gabriel, and he's used to being in a position of power, surrounded by yes-men (Nathalie and the Gorilla).  He isn't used to having anyone challenge him.  So, he doesn't need to explain his reasons to people.  When Marinette was rambling on about why he of all people was bidding on her dress design, he halted her mid-ramble and merely said “I like it.”  The end.  He keeps his cards close to his chest, and the only time I've actually seen him let down his guard is oddly, to Nooroo.  I'm certain this is just a narrative device for us, the viewer, but the fact is Gabriel is weirdly forthcoming to Nooroo and pretty much lays out his thoughts, plans, and analysis on the situation at hand.  I use that to my advantage in my stories when writing the Nooroo/Gabriel relationship, and how subconsciously, Gabriel might view Nooroo as a mentor (even if he disregards all of the advice Nooroo freely gives).

He's the head of his multi-million euro company.  He didn't get there by being lax and lazy.  He has super high standards, and isn't afraid to verbally rip apart his peers if it's warranted.  However, he's not entirely unfair, I don't think.  He allowed Marinette to defend her hat design in Mr. Pigeon before coming to a judgment on it.  He allowed Nino to propose his last-minute plan in Bubbler to throw Adrien a birthday party before he denied it (and then interrupted Nino and got angry with him only after the boy continued to push the point).  He allowed Marinette to explain how she stumbled across his Miraculous book before saying anything to her.

To me, the fact he actually went and met with these people in the first place shows a lot about his character.  He's willing to hear people out, but he makes fast judgments and doesn't budge from them. People have to get into his good graces right away or it's hard to change his mind later.  He has flashes of anger, but its not sustained, because he's already moving onto finding a solution to the problem (like in Volpina when he got that phone call about an issue with his designs).  Sometimes, I wonder how much of his anger and irritation is a result of his real thoughts and emotions, or just him seeing an opportunity to akumatize someone by riling them up further.

In this manner, he's calculating, very calculating, and if something reflects him in a poor light its probably for a reason (staging his 'temper tantrum' in Collector).  I ignore the canonical inconsistencies toward his waffling degrees of intelligence and treat Gabriel as very smart, but oblivious and arrogant.

I see him actually as very much like Marinette, only bitter and jaded.  She's clever and creative, and so is he.  The only difference between the two is that life has struck him down with angst.  He's lost his soulmate.  He's experienced the lows of being a starving artist.  He's encountered failure. Marinette has yet to go through any of that.

I could probably go on further and delve into different aspects of different scenarios (his wish, etc) but I think I've rambled on long enough and seems like I've jumped erratically between a bunch of different points  :)  Let me know if you have any additional questions and I hope this has helped at little at least.

[preux-chevalier]

for ask thingy: L E M O N :) 🍋🍋🍋

the lemon... is in play

L: Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. [Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there’s no point in giving yourself an aneurysm over a character you hate.]

Peter Jakes from Endeavour is, in his own way, a tremendous success story. He overcame a LOT of baggage and while I don’t necessarily like him most of the time, when his full story was revealed I grew to appreciate him a lot more than I had before.

E: Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

Very rarely outside of casual conversations with friends in the fandom, but among my fandom buddies I’m kind of known for my ability to swing rapidly between gutwrenching angst and ridiculous crack. Deke/Enoch for Agents of SHIELD. The original version of the mermaid au for Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. I don’t remember any off the top of my head for Cabin Pressure that were specific to me, but I distinctly remember being involved in Immortal Snoopadoop and Martin’s freckly accidental nudes.

M: Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

There are quite a few that I’d love to hang out with, but Bertie Wooster is such a sincerely wonderful friend to people in his canon - most of whom do not return the favour. His cheerful outlook on life and flair for words would be good for me, and I like to think that I’d be basically the one person who actually listens to him.

O: Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

Spotify shuffle gives me Please Don’t Say You Love Me by Gabrielle Aplin. That one’s unquestionably Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson, from Phryne’s point of view. Although, fun fact, the music video actually features an actor from another one of my fandoms - Iain de Caestecker from Agents of SHIELD.

N: Name three things you wish you saw more in your main fandom [or a fandom of choice].

I’m going to be lame and just do things I want to see more of in general, since I don’t really think I have a main fandom?

1. Amicable exes. Not every relationship ends in fire and brimstone, and way too often exes are demonized for no other reason than to give the preferred ship a hurt/comfort opportunity. I know it’s not always possible to do amicable splits, like in situations where there’s canonical cheating, but... not every relationship ends in cheating or abuse. The ex is a person too. If you’re not treating every character you write as a three dimensional person with their own wants and needs in life, you’re doing a disservice to your writing.

2. If the characters are weird people... let them be weird. This character is a super spy? Show me random paranoid habits they don’t even think about anymore that would be absolutely bizarre to a normal person. Another character is an athlete? They’re probably eating a very strange diet by normal standards, whether in terms of quantity or nutrition. A character has Opinions about personal space? They’re probably never going to sit on a couch of their own volition. Stuff like that. It doesn’t need to go so far that you’re basically writing an alien, but like... people are weird! The weird parts of characters are why we love them so much!

3. This one is just something I personally love, but there are NEVER enough new-relationship fics for me. Like, they’ve already done the getting-together part, but they’re still kind of growing into the realities of being in a relationship. The specific awkwardness of that situation is like catnip to me. Are we telling people yet? What do I refer to you as, if we are? At what point is it just assumed I’m staying the night? Do I leave a spare toothbrush at yours? Can I kiss you in public? All those beautiful awkward questions. *flaming elmo*

[ahumansvoid]

Misc WIP Folder

So I’m going through my WIPs folder’s subfolders. 

One is labelled Misc, so that’s the one I’m going through now. Everything will be below the cut because this will probably be a long post, there are sixteen files in this folder. 

Most of them are from different fandoms, so I’ll put what fandom it’s in + what title I have for it in my folder in bold before I talk about it. I’ll be going from oldest to newest. Technically not because I can’t sort Google docs like that, but rather “last modified by me” so, longest abandoned to newly abandoned I guess?

 Also Spoilers for any of the fandoms, maybe? Probably. 

If you have any questions about any of the fandoms, message me or send me an ask. I’m open to talking about any and all of them. 

Fandoms Involved (Ordered by appearance):

Murdered: Soul Suspect (Video Game)

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia (TV Show)

Gravity Falls (TV Show)

Until Dawn (Video Game)

Avatar: The Last Airbender (TV Show)

The Mummy (2017) & (1999) (Movies)

Assassination Classroom (TV Show/Anime)

Red vs. Blue (Online Show- Rooster Teeth)

Camp Camp (Online Show - Rooster Teeth)

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (TV Show)

Devil May Cry (Video Game + Anime)

Aladdin (2019) (Movie)

Castlevania (TV Show)

Murdered: Soul Suspect - MSS

So there isn’t much in this one, just a bullet pointed outline. Murdered Soul Suspect is a video game, if you don’t know it and are curious you can google it or message me. 

Anywho. This is just a little part I thought was funny.

It’s essentially a Ronan survives AU of the game, pretty standard and I thought it would be fun. Honestly this part about Ronan and his cracked spine just reminded me of Obi-wan and how I write him in ignoring his injuries (and how most people write him) so it made me laugh a bit. 

There’s really not much here, I didn’t even finish the outline.

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia - trollhunters au

I am very creative with my titles. Clearly. This is another bullet point outline. but this one is longer and irrc I actually started writing this, and that file would also be in this folder so if I did write it’ll also be featured on this post.

This is an au where Claire is the trollhunter rather than Jim.

The top bit is literally just for context on the next star point. Anywho Writing AAARRRGGGHH/ seeing it spelled out is funny to me. Also I’m pretty sure I rewatched bits with AAARRRGGGHH with subtitles on to see how it was spelt and then replicated that.

The second star point is funny to me because I describe annoyance/anger (rightful, both of them) as pissy. And that’s funny.

There’s more but if I’m write and I wrote it out, then that’ll be featured later. 

Gravity Falls - Gravity Falls

... Okay I’m not creative with titles until I have to be. Once more, bullet point outline. So this is an after-canon AU where Bill left a remanent of himself in Dipper and it’s become apparent when they’re in Piedmont.

I just like the rules I had Dipper give Bill. I thought they were neat. Also, I like Mabel convincing Dipper to let Bill live because he’s pathetic. This is a demon who has tormented them for an entire summer, but nows he’s pathetic so lets help him. 

Not much of interest in this. I probably didn’t write it because it’d be a long and day-in-the-life type fic. It’d just be Dipper and Bill coexisting and going through life and IDK how well I’d of written that. So I didn’t write it.

Until Dawn- Until DAwn AU

FYI I’m keeping the titles case-sensitive. Another bullet outline. So this is a Josh survives/exorcised AU, also an Everybody Live AU. I’m pretty sure I wrote this when I was heavily invested in Until Dawn and Josh (because I like him.) And I was reading Until Dawn fanfic in which Josh is blamed for what happened on the mountain. And I think I was getting pissy which lead to this:

So in this AU the Until Dawn Group splintered into Sam, Josh & Chris, and Mike, Emily, Jess, Matt & Ashley. So this conversation/fight is between Chris and the second group. So Chris is the 1st,3rd and 5th talking bullet point. I don’t know who’s talking in the 2nd &4th bullet point but it’s one of the second group. Probably Emily, Mike or Jess maybe. Not Ashley.

Im 90% sure that I wrote out this entire outline just for this little interaction. 

It just tickles my id. I still kind of like it, but I honestly don’t know what else I’d write for this AU.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Zuko is the avatar

Title is self-explanatory. Also, I really like bullet outlines. So. Anywho. 

Aang is still a 12 year old in this, he used up all his “avatar energy” (that’s literally what I wrote) to keep himself alive so he’s just an airbender now.

I just love Iroh. And this is just funny to me.

If I ever wrote this, it’d be a lot of hijinks of Katara and Aaang (and eventually Toph) covering for Zuko whenever he bends anything other than fire. More cracky than serious.

“The Mummy (2017)” and “The Mummy (1999)” - Mummy x Mummy

I watched the 2017 version of the mummy (got it from the library for 2 bucks) and since there are some throwbacks to the 1999 movie I decided to try to combine them. This also became an AU where Evie and Rick save Imhotep in Mummy 2, and due to Evie being revived meant she was functionally immortal (doesn’t age, but can still be killed). And due to everything, by the Mummy 2017 rolls around it’s just her and Imhotep hanging around, investigating ancient egypt and whatnot.

Honestly this is just part of the outline. None of this is really amusing to me, just, if I ever tried to write it, a lot of work. Although, the fact that I can’t remember the blonde lady friend from the Mummy 2017 is kind of amusing and I literally call her ‘BLF’ throughout this entire outline. I think her name was Lisa. Or Sara.

i’ll google it.

Assassination Classroom - AC AU

At this point, I might as well tell you when it isn’t a bullet outline than saying when it is.

This was really just a Reaper/Koro-sensei raises Nagisa rather than his mom.

People panicking around children is amusing to me. Again, long AU. And this was probably an excuse to write some baby assassin Nagisa and whatnot. Honestly whenever I read this I do remember more details on this, that I have never written down. 

Murdered: Soul Suspect - Murdered: Soul Suspect

...

Okay I think this is just a repeat of the one I posted earlier???

I- I don’t know what this was? Like this is newer than the other one? 

?????

Uh, brain weirdness?

Let’s move on.

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia - TRollhunters

Ok! So this is the written out of the bullet point earlier. I did not write out much. But I’ll talk about it a bit more? So this AU is also a Bular survives and Jim finds him and helps AU.

This is literally all I have written. So, right after this, Jim would find an injured Bular and helps him. There isn’t much to add, but I will add what I had written as Barbara’s reaction from the outline:

Large AU, but it would be fun to write. I would most likely end up writing Claire’s journey of Trollhunting along with Jim’s adventures with Bular.

Red vs Blue - Meta, no, that wasn’t, he wasn’t

Okay, that’s not the full title but also the full title is literally the first sentence. Which is a long one so you get part of it. This is actually a written au, it’s about Agent Maine/ The Meta surviving and meeting up with Siris. This is just the first couple paragraphs:

Nothing I read was particularly funny to me, so just the first two paragraphs. Essentially what would’ve happened is Siris would help Maine find Washington (on Chorus) go to Chorus. Find Felix and Locus. Drama Ensues.

I might actually write this. Maybe. There’s potential, if the drive hits me.

I havent watched RvB in a couple of years, but I did like the series. It was interesting.

Camp Camp- Camp Camp

Y’know since this is ‘misc’ I get just having fandom names. Lot easier to identifiy.

So, this file is currently loading still, but I remember this. It wasn’t that long ago. This wasn’t so much a fic as a comic I would of like to have done. I definitely would’ve needed to brush up on my art skills (I am mediocre at best) but it’s just a small little comic I would’ve done on Camp Camp.

First little bit. I actually wrote out most of this rather than just bullet pointing it. 

There is a little bit I’d have to polish up, but I could probably post this entire thing. But I kind of want to actually do the comic first. But boy that’s a lot of work.

I love how most of the reason I’m not writing these is that they’re a lot of work.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (TV Show) - Project Cheron

This is an AU where Priest is one of the projects of Blackwing. Specifically Cheron and I think my reasoning is that he makes people go where they need to be. IDK. I actually wrote a couple of these. But this one is essentially Priest getting a bunch of projects together to help something. Idk.

This entire thing is weird and would probably be labelled crack if I ever finished it.

Okay. This entire scene is funny to me. Just, this girl rushing out in front of the car waving happily with a decapitated head in her hand. I like it. So, Aine and Herodias are OCs. Both are projects Priest is collecting. 

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (TV Show) - “Dirk

Another Priest is a Blackwing Project AU but that’s not really the focus of this story. This story is about a project (Project Carman- OC) who can trap people in their certain significant memories of her choosing. Carman gets annoyed at Bart, Dirk and the Rowdy 3 so she traps them in memories signifcant to their stay in Blackwing and Priest.

I’ve only written 2 of the six memories, so that’d be fun to complete. These are also just sad. They’re not happy memories. So, random moment that’s somewhat amusing:

Also, title is the first sentence in the fic.

Devil May Cry - “Should I

I- why did I decide to do this from oldest to newest? Part of me is embarrassed, the other part is reminding me I have no reason to be? It’s a video game fic. But also this is a game of my childhood. It’s about Nero looking for his dad and finding Dante instead. Canonically Dante’s twin brother, Vergil, is Nero’s dad.

Just a random moment because I didn’t write that much of it. Also I thought it was kind of cute. Patty shows up in the Devil May Cry anime. Which I watched before I played the games. 

Aladdin (2019) - Aladdin AU

A mix of bullet outline and written. I don’t actually have much of this AU, but essentially before Aladdin wishes to become a prince, he notices some mercenaries kidnapping a little girl and decides to rescue her. 

This girl is the princess of Shiroba, Aladdin takes her back to Shiroba. The Queen/ Sultana appreciates Aladdin going out of his way to help her so she invites him to stay in the palace. 

Eventually word gets to Shiroba that Agrabah is planning to attack so Aladdin and the two twin princes of Shiroba (that I made up, OCs) make a plan to infiltrate and see what they’re planning. They’re not planing espionage, but as Shiroba is a peaceful nation, they want to see if they should start evacuating people and whatnot.

So you get the Prince Ali stuff with the Genie and yada yada. 

I have none of that written. I just know that’s what I intended to do with it.

So, first little bit. Long AU that would take a lot of work. Also, I know this isn’t super popular but I liked the 2019 version of Aladdin. I really like the changes they made. 

Castlevania (TV Show) - Waking up in Jail wasn’t a new experience

Again, title is first sentence. Not writing that out. Anywho, this is a kind of complete canon AU to Castlevania. Essentially we haven’t reached Lisa getting burnt at the stake yet. So, loving Dracula fam. Trevor and Sypha meet earlier due to circumstance. Alucard gets attacked by something and gets rescued by Trevor and Sypha. They travel together for a while. And then Sypha and Trevor get to meet Alucard’s parents. 

That’s where this AU will go if I ever write it. To be fair, last time I wrote in this file was March, so I guess that’s technically possible. Don’t hold out hope.

First couple of paragraphs. 

Also, that’s it! Misc WIP folder done!

Oh, if you’ve made it this far, a)thank you and b) if you want to continue/write any of these, go ahead, but tag me or send me a link. I will be very happy to see/read what you create if you like any of this in an inspo way.

Also. This is long, so, IDK if Imma go through the other folders rn. Maybe tomorrow. 

[shadeops21]

A, B, J, E, O and U

A - Ships that you currently like a lot.

I have way, way too many to properly list all here, so I’ll pick my favourite from each of my core fandoms:

- Ace Combat - Blaze x Edge - RWBY - Arkos (RIP), with White Rose being second place/backup ship. - Detroit: Become Human - Connor & North (friendship, post peaceful revolution). - R6: Siege - Split tie between Ash x Thermite and Twitch x IQ. - Miraculous Ladybug - Adrien X Marinette (pre-reveal preference) - Halo - Tie between John x Kelly and Fred x Veta Lopis

B - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.

Moreso that my friends and I realised this one as we mused together, but it was a friendship/relationship between Nomad (GR: Wildlands/Breakpoint) and Twitch, after their experiences in Bolivia.

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

Mostly with Siege and Call of Duty, but here are a few highlights:

- COD - My OC orchestrating a major nerf gun war on the base. - COD - My OC and the rest of the 141 dressing as Ghost for Halloween. - Siege - Water gun fight as training during a heatwave. - Siege - Thermite taking Ash to his cliche-ridden high school reunion. - Siege - The rest of the operators taking the absolute piss out of Pulse after Hibana owned his ass at the tournament.

J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. (You don’t have to care about it or follow it; it just has to be something that Tumblr made you aware of.)

I wouldn’t know if I consider this a ‘fandom’ or not, but the ‘Humans Are Space Orcs/Australians/Weird’ fandom is something that I only saw on Tumblr (admittedly, saw it on a screenshot of a tumblr post but I delved down the rabbit hole proper here). I absolutely love the concepts, ideas, stories, and media that I’ve seen and consumed from this. Really intriguing and entertaining!

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

Family Affair - Bliss n Eso - Mozzie, from R6 Siege.

I could say that it’s because they’re an Australian group, but that’d be too easy. Nah, the opening line says it all:

“My grandma told me ‘Do not take shit. From anybody in this motherfucking bitch’.”

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

Tough call, because I love a lot of different characters from different fandoms for different reasons...

Kei “Edge” Nagase - Ace Combat 5. She’s a fiercely loyal wingwoman to Blaze (player character) in the game, and while she does come off as a little too idealistic at times, I kind of find it endearing to her that she’s willing to do what it takes to make the world a safer place, even if it means engaging in a needless war.

North - Detroit: Become Human - She just doesn’t give a single fuck when push comes to shove, which is a quality that I can admire when focused in the right way. That said, even when Marcus and the others go the peaceful route, she still stays by their side and backs them up 100%.

Weiss Schnee - RWBY - Coming from a live of absolute privilege yet also from harsh neglect and extremely high standards, Weiss has continuously strives to better herself in every single volume so far, and has completely changed herself for the better. I’m sure V7 Weiss would look at V1 Weiss and want to strangle her with how she acted. She’s just developed and matured completely as a person, and it’s reflected in her friendships with the rest of her team.

[cheshiresense]

In Guard, how does the whole . . . *waves hand vaguely* THING with Sui-Feng and Ichigo and Kisuke and Yourichi go?

Pinglist: @yoshifics @bewarethemandragora @runeofluna @selenedreamwalker @hypnos28 @verticallychallengedintrovert @fandommaniac2401 @lovingempress @cynthia-of-the-wallflowers​ @shadowsofmoonracer​ @pairp​ @warriorofbooks​ @charlottedabookworm​ @lyra689​ @sheyrenawyrsabane​ @sora-the-empress​ @xadriannax @yumeniai @arrysa @lirial89-fanfiction​ @skysong246 @caiahat @grimreaper19 @arosethornbyanyothername @oceanshimmerspirit-blog @naramyon @presumenothing @miralifox​ @mtkiseki​

Well we had a whole discussion over on discord about Ichigo reaching the legal drinking age (whatever the heck that is for Shinigami) and Yoruichi getting him drunk to pry some embarrassing secrets out of him, except instead Ichigo spills about Sui-Feng to her instead and later wakes up remembering nothing but half the compound has been reduced to smoking ruin after Yoru went on a rampage while Kisuke totally egged her on.

…It was very cracky. Here’s something a little more serious.

(*Note: My original idea had Aizen + extended war as the reason Ichigo and Kisuke had to leave their original universe but it could just as easily have been the Quincy War gone wrong, so I think I’ll go with that instead.)

“Up and about again already. Kisuke-chan’s Bankai is really something.”

Ichigo looks up from where he’s just finishing folding the last of Kisuke’s laundry. Yoruichi is sprawled along the windowsill, gilded in the light of the afternoon sun. “Yoru-nee.” He pauses. “Bankai? What Bankai?”

Yoruichi rolls her eyes. “Save it. I’m not going to spread it around but we both know who finished off Aizen. I know his reiatsu well enough by now even if not many other people do.” She looks pointedly at his face. “And those scars didn’t come from nowhere. Unless you’re planning on never leaving this house again, there’s going to be questions.”

Ichigo waves a dismissive hand before picking up the folded shirts and stacking it into the closet along with the rest. “We’ll deal with it when it comes up. The Gotei better think again if they’re making plans to poach Kisuke from me though. Or the Onmitsukidou for that matter.”

Yoruichi pouts at him. Ichigo levels an unimpressed look back at her. Yoruichi huffs and rolls out of sight, only to pop back up a moment later, hanging sulkily over the sill this time.

“Can’t you let me borrow him?” She whines. “Have you noticed his Shunpo? It’s nearly as fast as mine, and he only started learning it less than two years ago! And have you seen his one-man guerrilla campaign against Suì-Fēng? I’m fairly certain she’s about to have a mental breakdown any day now.”

Ichigo shuts the closet with a snap and pins his sister with a blank look. “What.”

A slow smirk curls across Yoruichi’s face. “So he hasn’t told you.”

“Told me what?” But even as he asks, Ichigo thinks he can guess. That idiot.

Yoruichi’s smirk widens gleefully, but in direct contrast, something in her eyes go cold and flat, and Ichigo knows that’s his sister’s version of genuine anger.

Kisuke you moron, I told you I didn’t care.

“Oh nothing much,” Yoruichi assures with a terrifyingly bright sort of cheer. “Just how he’s been making Suì-Fēng‘s life absolutely miserable lately. I’ve lost track of the number of new types of gigai he’s made but he’s set at least five different kinds on her, and they almost always manage to sneak up on her, everything from ones that look like Hollows to the latest version that exploded into feathers when she stabbed it and drenched her in red paint. I’m not sure I actually want to know where he got that much paint or feathers from in the first place, but it took her almost three days to stop walking around looking like a sunburnt chicken, which was a riot. She still hasn’t traced the culprit back to him yet, and it’s been like a year. I applaud his dedication and subtlety.”

Ichigo closes his eyes and counts backwards from ten. He reminds himself that Urahara Kisuke is the love of his life and he’ll probably go a little bit - a lot - insane if he kills him over this.

He ignores the stupidly warm feeling in his chest and focuses on the more important fact that is Kisuke terrorizing Yoruichi’s protégé.

“I’ll tell him to stop,” He sighs.

He’s not expecting Yoruichi to cock her head in an eerily feline manner and ask, “Why? Should he not be doing it?”

Ichigo stares incredulously at her. “Do you want him to keep tor- pranking Suì-Fēng?”

Yoruichi shrugs a little, flipping up to perch on the windowsill. “I don’t know, you tell me. Does she deserve it?”

Ichigo stills. “I- what?”

Yoruichi doesn’t bother repeating herself, just stares him down in a way that isn’t so unlike the Yoruichi Ichigo knew from his original universe when she was serious. In general, the two versions of her are highly similar. This one’s younger of course, but mostly, she just looks less stressed, less cynical too despite still heading a covert ops organization, and laughs more– not just her madness-and-mayhem laugh when she’s screwing with somebody but one that’s reserved for family, gentler somehow and playful without being playfully malicious at the same time.

Ichigo scowls. “Nobody deserves Kisuke going after them.” He pauses before amending, “Except Aizen, and maybe Central 46, and our stuffy elders. I’ll let you borrow him for that if you ever get tired of dealing with them.”

Yoruichi snorts. “I’ll take you up on that offer if I ever want to do away with our elders by giving them collective heart attacks.”

They smirk at each other for a moment, and not for the first time, Ichigo marvels at how easily he’s come to consider Yoruichi family.

Possibly, that might be at least partly because they have the same tolerance for bullshit when they’re focused on something they want. Or want to find out, in this case. Which is to say, none at all.

“Useless elders aren’t what I’m here to talk about though,” Yoruichi continues, humour disappearing in the blink of an eye and replaced with a borderline glare that Ichigo recognizes to mean business. “Spit it out, Ichigo. We both know the only reason your bodyguard would go afterSuì-Fēng is because she did something to you.”

“She could’ve insulted him!” Ichigo protests. “She did insult him!”

“Yes, but if Kisuke-chan took offense, you would’ve gone after her,” Yoruichi counters in sardonic tones. “You two are predictable like that.” Her eyes narrow. “I’ll ask one more time, Ichigo, or my next step will be to go directly to the source and drag it out of her, and I won’t be kind about it. I’ve waited long enough. What did she do?”

“Like you’re going to be kind if I tell you?” Ichigo mutters before heaving a sigh of defeat. “She didn’t do anything. But you know how some people are, about me. It’s nothing to kick up a fuss about. I don’t know why Kisuke made such a big deal about it.”

“I know how some people are,” Yoruichi agrees in deceptively mild tones. “But I expect better from my people, or they don’t stay my people for long. What did she say to you then?”

“Nothing,” Ichigo insists. “I don’t- She didn’t say it to my face or anything. She never does. Just some… passing remarks to herself if she sees me. It’s nothing new. Just, you know, the usual stuff about how I’m a bastard. Which I am. It doesn’t bother me.”

He trails off, shifting uncomfortably at the way Yoruichi’s eyes flash, the burn of tightly reined-in rage there almost Hollow-like.

“You know how devoted she is to you,” Ichigo hurries on. “She can’t stand anything that could… ruin your reputation or-”

“That’s not up to her to decide,” Yoruichi cuts him off, and there’s something almost animalistic in the timbre of her voice this time, pitching it right down to a chilling snarl. “It is not her place.”

Ichigo huffs. “Just because she’s from a retainer family-”

“This isn’t about rank, Ichigo!” Yoruichi barks, and Ichigo’s mouth snaps shut with a click. “It wouldn’t matter to me one jot whether the person in question was the Soutaichou or a Rukon prostitute! This is about someone thinking they have the right to judge my family and find them wanting on my behalf. No one gets to do that, no matter how supposedly devoted they are to me or how much you don’t care about their opinion. I care. You’re my brother, and I killed the last batch of idiots who thought Father’s affair meant that you’re somehow lesser.”

She slides forward this time, rolling from window to bed to floor before dropping to her knees in front of Ichigo. Her hands come up to cup his face, gentle but firm in a way that doesn’t allow him to squirm away under Yoruichi’s unyielding gaze.

“Being my apprentice doesn’t giveSuì-Fēng a pass,” She presses on, quieter now but no less fierce. “If anything, I hold her to higher standards because I took her under my wing, because I would think I’ve taught her to be better in more things that just combat. I expected better of her, and I was clearly mistaken. You are not lesser. Anyone who thinks that way doesn’t deserve my respect, and people I don’t respect-” She bares her teeth in a way that’s more threat than grin. “-aren’t good enough to belong in my household.”

Ichigo… isn’t quite sure what to say in the face of all that. Yoruichi sighs and finally lets him go, only to scruff a hand through his hair. He ducks his head and scowls. Yoruichi rolls her eyes at him.

“You didn’t let anybody get away with trying to make Kisuke ‘learn his place’,” She remarks. “Why should it be any different when it’s you? The Soul King knows that kid looks at you like he thinks you hung the moon and lit the stars themselves for good measure.”

Ichigo’s cheeks flood with heat. “He does not, Yoru-nee.”

Yoruichi chortles and glances around knowingly. Ichigo flushes even more and has to suppress a grimace because she definitely caught him at a bad time, now that he thinks about it. The bed hasn’t been folded up so the extra large futon Kisuke just bought yesterday is still laid out, and Ichigo was in the process of splitting closet space with the man. He really should start locking his window. Not that a lock would stop a determined Yoruichi of course.

“It’s just words though,” Ichigo finally says. “It was different for Kisuke because Kisuke cared. Because he believed them.”

“So you’re saying you wouldn’t bite someone’s head off if they said something rude to him when he doesn’t believe them?” Yoruichi asks, eyebrow arching.

“Of course I would!” Ichigo scowls when her other eyebrow joins her first. “Just because he doesn’t believe them anymore doesn’t mean he should have to put up with it!”

Yoruichi snorts this time. Ichigo’s shoulders hunch. “That’s different.”

Yoruichi sighs, deep and resigned. “It’s really not. But we’ll agree to disagree.” She smiles, and even Ichigo almost flinches from it. “I have what I need.”

“Yoru-nee,” Ichigo says sharply. “She’s not worth doing something drastic over. She cares about you. She’s good at her job. She’s just… a little zealous about it.”

Yoruichi scoffs. “Why are you even defending her? You two barely interact.”

“Exactly! So none of this matters!”

“You matter,” Yoruichi says flatly. “And you said she insulted Kisuke too so you can’t possibly like her.”

“But you do!”

Ichigo winces even as Yoruichi stares at him, the last piece of the puzzle practically visibly slotting into place in her mind. A blink later, Ichigo is trapped in a headlock and wrangled into a half-hug, half punishing noogie.

“You’re the biggest idiot I’ve ever met,” Yoruichi growls, ignoring Ichigo’s flailing limbs. “I’m never going to like someone who looks down on my family. Even when they’re bratty little brothers with no common sense.”

“Yoru-nee! Lemme go!”

Yoruichi very pointedly doesn’t let him go for a few more seconds before finally releasing him. Ichigo scrambles upright and glowers at her as he straightens his clothes and pats down his hair. “You’re a terrible sister.”

Yoruichi rolls her eyes and smacks a kiss to his forehead, much to his embarrassment. “Please, I’m an amazing sister and you love me. Now,” Her expression smooths out and hardens, and she looks exactly like the clan head some people even just ten years ago said was too young and too inexperienced to take over after their father died. “I’m going to handle this. You won’t have to worry about her ever again.”

Ichigo sighs. Well, it’s not like he can stop her once she’s made up her mind. They’re a lot alike that way too.

“I wasn’t worried about her to begin with,” He huffs. “…Are you gonna kill her?”

It’s strange, the very idea. In another life, Yoruichi valued almost no one more thanSuì-Fēng. Kisuke was the only exception.

“No,” Yoruichi says decisively. The razor-edged curve of her smirk is not reassuring. “Not this time. Sometimes, death is more a mercy than letting someone live.”

She ruffles his hair one more time and then flash-steps backwards onto the sill once more. “I’ll see you later, Ichi-bo. Say hello to Kisuke-chan for me!”

And then she’s gone, and Ichigo is left staring after her and wondering if the compound will be standing in the morning.

One thing’s for certain - this is definitely all Kisuke’s fault.

“I’m home!” Kisuke calls out, and then immediately has to dodge the slipper Ichigo chucks at him.

“You!”

Ichigo shunpos into the room, faster than even Kisuke can follow, materializing in a silent graceful swirl of muted blue sleeves and orange hair, and not for the first time since he regained his memories, he thinks Shihouin suits Ichigo very well. A far sight better than the bulkier and roudier stock the Shiba Clan tends to produce, in Kisuke’s opinion. Ichigo was never a classic Shiba, even when he was under Isshin’s influence.

“Yes?” He enquires mildly, mentally running through a list of everything he’s done recently. He hasn’t killed anyone (Aizen doesn’t count), set anything on fire (the stove had it coming), or broken… that many laws (can it really be considered theft if these poor books on Quincy that Yamamoto outlawed and stashed away in his private library were just gathering dust when Kisuke found them?).

Conclusion: there is absolutely no reason for Ichigo to be mad at him.

He smiles as he sweeps in, drops a kiss on Ichigo’s head (he’s so tiny like this!), and presents his loot with a flourish for Ichigo to appreciate. “Look! Kyouraku-soutaichou was right; Yamamoto-soutaichou apparently does have an entire series detailing the Quincy empire during the first war. I figured it would be better if we were as prepared as possible this time before confronting them again.”

He mind flashes back - briefly - to Yhwach and the sound his sword made when it left Ichigo’s gut and even the way he smiled as he watched Ichigo fall.

(Kisuke will die before he ever lets that happen again.)

A hand curls around his, and he blinks back into the present, relaxing when he finds Ichigo watching him. He nods to the silent question on Ichigo’s face and gets a nod back before the dangerous gleam from before reenters his eyes. Half a beat later, Kisuke’s flat on his back with Ichigo straddling him and glaring down at him.

“The books will be useful,” Ichigo admits before his eyes narrow. “But what the hell have you been doing toSuì-Fēng?”

…Ah. Yoruichi must have finally cornered Ichigo for an overdue chat.

“To be fair,” Kisuke reasons. “I didn’t have my memories back yet when I was… hm…”

“Turning her into a paranoid wreck via psychological warfare?” Ichigo offers dryly.

Kisuke beams. “It builds character!”

Ichigo rolls his eyes. “Which makes even less sense. You didn’t even remember me yet! Why would you go afterSuì-Fēng the way I hear you have?”

Kisuke stares up at him for a moment. “Why would I not? She is free to think what she wants, but when she acts on those thoughts, when she speaks them, of course I would retaliate. She had no right.”

Ichigo frowns down at him. “But you didn’t remember me.”

For all his genius, even Kisuke has to take a moment to figure out why the two of them seem to be having two different conversations. And then he does get it, and he has to bite back the first three things that immediately leap to the tip of his tongue.

“Do you think that just because I didn’t remember you, I didn’t care about you either?” Kisuke demands. He spares a moment to congratulate himself for not yelling because that’s exactly what he feels like doing. Some of Ichigo’s more… straightforward habits have clearly rubbed off on him.

Ichigo’s frown deepens. “Well, of course you did.” His gaze flickers to the side. “It was your job, and I also like to think that you grew to like me at least a little after a while. But-”

Kisuke makes an irritated noise before flipping the two of them so that Ichigo is trapped underneath him with a startled yelp.

“You weren’t just a job,” Kisuke says, because sometimes direct is the only way to get Ichigo to understand something. “At the beginning, yes,” He admits, as much as it pains him, but Ichigo’s always, always valued honesty from Kisuke more than anything else. “But you never took advantage of me, and you gave me everything I ever asked for and a lot more that I did not. You gave me a home.” He smirks a little, amused. “You even trained me.” He sobers. “I took offense to whatSuì-Fēng said– and she said other things to other people about you while you were away, it wasn’t just that one time– and I took offense because she had no right to judge you. No matter what she thought of you, she should at the very least have kept her mouth shut and her opinions to herself. I seem to recall someone once telling me that I have no betters. The same goes for you. Anyone who thinks you do,” Kisuke presses his lips together for a moment against the snarl threatening to surface. “Anyone who thinks you should bow because you are less than they are or somehow unworthy of respect because of who you were born to should consider themselves fortunate that I have not done worse to them.”

Ichigo gapes up at him. Kisuke says nothing more, content to give Ichigo the time to digest his words and accept them as truth, because this is the sort of thing that both of them have problems with understanding at times.

(There is a riddle that lingers at the back of his mind - a former assassin and not so former scientist with only a vague understanding of morals, who still looks at most people and only sees practical value and faceless numbers and exploitable weaknesses, and has so much blood on his hands that he thinks he could drown in it sometimes; and a boy born scapegoat turned martyr, taught to die before he could really live, and forged in death and blood and battle - which of them, he wonders, turned out worse?)

Ichigo blinks and blinks again. “…Oh, I-” He breaks off, and the tips of his ears go red, but he also smiles at Kisuke like he’s given him the world, and that’s worth more than any words can say.

Kisuke hums his agreement and finally sits back on his heels before taking a seat on the floor entirely, pulling Ichigo up with him. “Yoruichi-san finally cornered you?”

Ichigo makes a face. “Yeah, a few hours ago. She said she was going to… deal with theSuì-Fēng situation.”

Kisuke smirks. This world’s Yoruichi is not exactly the one he knew, but she’s close enough that he has a good idea of what she’s planning on doing.

Ichigo throws him a suspicious look. “That’s your evil smirk. You know what Yoru-nee is going to do.”

“I can take a good guess,” Kisuke agrees. “And no, I’m not going to tell you. It will ruin the surprise.”

“I hate surprises,” Ichigo grumbles.

“You’ll live,” Kisuke says cheerfully. “Now come on, help me get these books behind seals, and then you can start cooking us dinner.”

“Oh I can, can I?”

“Well I could always do it, but you’ll probably have to stand by with the fire extinguisher if you don’t want to be sleeping outside tonight.”

Ichigo sighs like it’s a terrible inconvenience but he doesn’t turn away fast enough to hide his grin, and Kisuke can’t help but lean forward to kiss it off him.

This is how he likes Ichigo best - when he’s happy over the simplest things, just because Kisuke is there.

It’s all over Seireitei the very next day - the Fēng family’s fall from grace. The details are kept internal, but everybody knows it was some kind of betrayal, and everyone knows it was the current head of the Fēngs who was responsible for falling out of Shihouin Yoruichi’s favour. Overnight, the entire noble house is booted off Shihouin clan grounds, and those who are already combat-trained are relegated to the lowest nameless ranks of the Onmitsukidou.

It’s the sort of thing most people would expect execution or at least exile as the end result from the Shihouin Clan. But-

“For a family like the Fēngs,” Kisuke explains later over dango. “Death would be preferable over the humiliation of living with the fact that they’ve made a big enough mistake that the Shihouins have cast them out entirely. They prided themselves on being the most loyal, most trusted, the house that enjoyed the most benefits under the Shihouin Clan’s patronage. Now everybody knows of their downfall, and they even know exactly whose fault it is, even if they don’t know what she did. It’s a fitting punishment, and not one they’re likely to be able to come back from. Disappointingly bloodless though.”

Ichigo rolls his eyes and finishes off his last dango. “Fantastic. Can we move on now? I really don’t want to waste anymore time onSuì-Fēng.”

Kisuke sweeps the garbage into the trashcan. “Alright. How about a spar today?”

Ichigo instantly brightens, taking two quick steps forward before half-turning on his heel, light on his feet in a way that even his previous incarnation at his most powerful couldn’t quite match.

“Race you to the training grounds!” Ichigo challenges, and then he’s gone, not even a blur left behind to hint at which training grounds he’s headed to.

Kisuke laughs under his breath, zeroes in on the bright sunlight signature he knows like the back of his hand, and races off after him.

[thisdiscontentedwinter]

Well, This is Awkward

This is my fic for @swlfangirl who bid on me in the @fandomcares auction. I love this prompt, and I will be writing a longfic based on the idea at some time! In the meantime, please enjoy the short, cracky version! 

@swlfangirl asked for Laura building her pack by using Stiles as a sperm donor because he smelled right... and bonus points if I could make Derek feel awkward around her when she smells like his mate! I think I win the bonus point, lol! 

Derek is stumbling into the bathroom one morning, bladder full and brain still asleep, when it happens. Laura is already there, leaning over the basin and peering into the mirror, inspecting a spot on her chin while attempting to brush her teeth at the same time.

“Good morning, grumpy head,” she says around her toothbrush, which has been her standard greeting for him since childhood.

Derek grunts at her, and wonders if she’ll leave if he starts pissing.

And then he catches a lungful of her scent, and it hits him somewhere visceral—sweet, ripe, home, need, touch, mate—and what the fuck is that about? Laura is his sister, and Derek’s not the creep of the family. That’s Peter’s job.

Jesus. Has it really been so long since he got laid that he’s getting turned on by his sister?

He turns and flees.

“Der?” Laura yells out after him. “Derek? What crawled up your ass and died?”

Derek locks himself in his bedroom and waits until she goes to work before coming out again.

He might get desperate enough to piss out the fire escape as well, but he’s taking that secret to his grave.

*** 

Ever since returning to Beacon Hills a few months ago, Laura and Derek have lived in a loft on Lincoln Street. It’s semi-converted, which Derek thinks means the developer ran out of money before he finished turning the place from a total shithole into something actually habitable. The loft is caught somewhere in the middle. It has running water and heat, but also holes in the walls. The rent is cheap though.

Derek works as a bouncer at some dive bar downtown. Peter calls it playing to his strengths; he gets to wear his leather jacket and get paid for glowering. The hours he keeps are as bad as Laura’s. They’ve both become more or less nocturnal, which suits Derek. He goes to work when it’s dark and comes home when it’s dawn, and rarely says more than a few words to anyone during his shift. That suits him too. What the fuck has Derek got to talk to anyone about anyway?

The fact he lost almost his entire family in the fire? The fact he and Laura spent close to the last decade on the run from their past before Laura dragged them back here? The fact that he has so little contact with the outside world that his sister’s scent gave him an erection?

Yeah, no.

No talking about that.

Ever.

But it probably is a sign he should make an attempt to extend his social circle a little, right? Laura’s been talking about expanding the pack for a while now, and yes, Derek would very much like some non-blood relatives to hang with. As long as he doesn’t have to make small talk. Derek is not good at small talk. Or talk of any size, actually.

Pack is good though.

Being uncomfortable around new packmates is a much healthier option than wanting to have sex with his own sister, right?

God yes. 

***

Peter turns up one Sunday morning with a bag full of bagels and a smirk.

“Good morning, nephew,” he says.

Derek grunts.

Peter sweeps inside. “Eloquent, as always.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Derek asks. “I thought you didn’t get out of bed before noon.”

“Your sister called a pack meeting,” Peter says. “Didn’t she tell you?” He looks Derek up and down. “Oh, well, why would she? Where else would you be?”

It’s a fair point, but Derek glowers anyway. “What about?” he asks.

“Our newest pack member, I would imagine,” Peter says. He sits down on the couch and puts his feet up on the coffee table.

Their what now? Has Laura already approached someone? Has she already bitten someone? Laura can be spontaneous, but surely she wouldn’t bring anyone into the pack without running it by him first? 

Derek only has a moment to grapple with his confusion before Laura appears. She’s wearing an old t-shirt and Hello Kitty pajama pants. She sits on the couch beside Peter and attacks a bagel.

Derek sits down warily on the end of the coffee table, and inhales carefully. There’s still a hint of something about Laura’s scent, but he doesn’t have the same visceral reaction he did that day in the bathroom. Thank fuck. 

“Did you bring the money?” she asks Peter around a mouthful, spraying crumbs down her shirt.

“All six hundred dollars.” Peter pats his jacket pocket. “Which is appallingly cheap, I must say, and I honestly don’t know which one of you it reflects more badly on.”

“I already gave him two hundred upfront,” Laura says. “So excuse you, but it’s eight hundred total, not six hundred.”

“You bought semen, Laura,” Peter says, rolling his eyes, “not a ’98 Nissan that needs a new transmission.”

What?

What?

Derek’s brain shorts out.

“You bought what?” he manages at last.

“Semen,” Laura says. “Two hundred up front, and six hundred if it took.” She shrugs. “It took.”

Holy shit… Their newest pack member. Holy shit.

“Is this why your scent is—” Derek stops himself before he says something incriminating. Like ‘alluring’. “Different?”

“I guess so,” Laura says matter-of-factly, like she hasn’t just dropped a massive fucking bombshell. “There are more bagels, right?”

Peter tosses the bag at her.

Derek is still struggling. “When you said you wanted to expand the pack, I didn’t think you meant that.”

Laura tears into another bagel. “This wasn’t exactly my first plan either, but this guy… there’s just something about his scent that fitted, you know? He smelled right.”

Derek really doesn’t want to talk about scents at the moment, actually. He rubs his forehead. “Jesus, Laura. Seriously?”

“It’s no strings, Der,” Laura says, her voice softening. She sets the bagels on the table. “He’s not going to be a problem. He’s a college kid, and he needed the money. We drew up a contract. He has no parental rights, and I can’t go after him for child support later.”

“You drew up a contract?” Derek asks. “You did?”

Because that does not sound like the Laura he knows.

“A contract is a contract, even if it’s written on the back of a napkin,” Laura informs him.

“Oh, Jesus.” Derek drags his fingers through his hair. “Laura, I can’t believe—”

There’s a knock on the door, and Laura leaps up to answer it.

Derek isn’t looking when the door rolls open, but that smell hits him again. It’s stronger this time. It’s more, and Derek wants. It’s home, and safety, and the future, and warmth, and sex, and everything, and Derek’s wolf pushes to the fore. His eyes are shining blue when he turns his head sharply, and he can feel his beta shift coming over him. 

“Holy shit!” the guy says. He’s young, pale, with gorgeous dark eyes and mole-spotted skin. “What the hell is that?”

“Derek!” Laura exclaims.

Derek sucks in another lungful of that wonderful scent. “Laura,” he growls. “Your baby daddy is my mate!”

Laura’s jaw drops. “Oh fuck.”

“What?” the guy asks. “What the hell is going on? What happened to his face? Why are there… fangs and grr? Seriously, what is going on?”

Laura pats the kid on the shoulder, and holds Derek’s gaze. “Stiles, this is my brother Derek. Derek, Stiles. Um… well, this is awkward.”

“Oh, no,” Stiles says. “I know awkward, trust me. This isn’t awkward. This is the Twilight Zone.” But he makes no move to run. “Actually, it’s probably more straight up Twilight, isn’t it? Oh. Am I Bella? I don’t want to be Bella.”

Derek shifts back. “What?”

“What?” Stiles echoes, eyes round.

“Oh fuck,” Laura says again. “Oh fuck.”

Because where the fuck do they even start?

On the couch, Peter collapses with laughter. “I am so glad I got out of bed for this now!”

“Oh,” Stiles says, and inches further forward into the loft. “Are those bagels? Because I haven’t eaten yet.”

He’s not screaming and running. Why is he not screaming and running? Derek wonders if his mate is braver than hell, or just an idiot. Knowing Derek’s luck, it’s the second one.

And that’s fine.

Derek will take it.

“Um,” he says, “we also have muffins in the kitchen.”

“Ooh!” Stiles’s eyes light up. “Muffins! I love muffins!” 

And yeah, Derek thinks as he gets up to fetch them, this is a total clusterfuck, and Stiles is probably an idiot, but he’s Derek’s idiot, and he’s Laura’s baby daddy, and he’s not screaming and running, and that’s a good sign, right?

Who knows, but this clusterfuck might even work out in the end.

[supergirlimaginesfic-blog]

Lena Luthor x reader (Worked it out, and figured you out)

Request: I love your writing! Can you do one with Lena x fem!reader? It's Lena's first time in the DEO and sees reader training and gets hit with gay panic. Then both flirting over being complete science nerds. Thanks!!     

a/n: YOU BET I CAN. And also... thank YOU! All the prompts you folks send me is what keeps this blog going! I’m getting at it at a relatively steady pace I think, sometimes it’s a little bit difficult than other days to find inspiration, but somehow you all manage to surprise me and remind me of how wonderful this fandom is, and then it makes me want to work even harder and contribute what I can to it! So thank y’all so much!!

Fun little sidenote, it’s actually my birthday today! :D I have too many cute fic ideas swimming around in my head (which is a little bit of a rarity these days) and I’m not even sure when I’m going to get to write for them if I’m going to be off being a loud, delinquent dumbass all weekend. But, yeah! I’m feeling extra inspirational and thankful today... maybe that might even translate into some fics that nobody asked for LOL.

Have fun with this fic though y’all! I was in the mood to write something cracky with J’onn in it and I have not a clue as to why... You’re also a little bit of an ass in this one too but it’s totally fine, it’s part of your charm obviously

- - - - -

For as long as you can remember, you have always been a force of nature. You knew how to work hard and you knew just how hard to push yourself to make the reward that much sweeter.

Simply put, you had fun living life, and despite the handful of troubling setbacks and the unavoidable years-long turmoil that is the discomfort of adolescence, you still looked at the world like it was your playground.

As rambunctious and tenacious as you were, you had just as much discipline, and it paid off deliciously in a plethora of ways.

You would say the human body is a blessed vessel; the tone and curves of some, the muscle and elegance of others, the ability to persevere and flourish, to deconstruct and to rebuild, it amazed you all the same.

What amazed you particularly (and was frequently the subject of ire around all your friends) is how you could eat like absolute shit and still maintain the form that you do.

As it was, you found yourself at the DEO working off last night’s conquest of an army’s weight of cheesy garlic bread and a late night call with Domino’s.

You loved where you work, you loved the fact that you could say you work for a secret government branch (but you couldn’t actually say that, because the admission would cause a whole series of complications you have neither the attention span nor the patience to deal with), and what you loved the most was how spoiled you were with the training facilities.

There were the conventional weight and fitness rooms, the swimming pools, and the standard equipment one could find at any regular gym.

However, the DEO is a respectable, covert government operation and as such, it is absolutely required to have a parkour gym, multiple obstacle course racing circuits, several rock climbing walls which apparently, some of the analysts have hacked into to replicate a ninja warrior course, and even archery and knife throwing ranges, simply because why shouldn’t the DEO have them?

And to think when you first arrived, you thought the Kryptonite lined sparring room made for Kara was the coolest thing you’d seen, how wrong you are now.

You’re starting off easily before your workout, doing your stretches and lifting lighter weights than you usually would. You have to work harder this time - the sweet, sweet release of pizza is, admittedly, your greatest downfall, and you ought to work it off on top of the training you have to do for work.

You hop up and pull yourself up on a chin up bar and figure you’ll make a leisurely time out of it - you’ll wait until your arms and shoulders are screaming bloody murder at you before you focus on another part of your body.

You become well aware of the fact that it’s 6 o’clock in the morning and far too early than you would have the self-respect in any other career choice to stand for when you stifle a yawn and shake your head in an attempt to wake yourself up.

You skipped out on the coffee this time, supposing your night’s misgivings had some consequence, and now you suspect you’re going to begin paying for it emotionally.

The voice of your director, J’onn, pokes through your admittedly still sleepy haze and even before you see him you can hear that his tone is as cordial as you could expect from someone as stoic and brooding as him.

You see his figure approach from the entrance and beside him, a woman accompanies him, though you can’t quite make out who she is.

J’onn gives you a nod in acknowledgement and you return the sentiment while continuing your chin ups.

"The DEO has an abundance of training facilities that are of use to our agents, and hopefully it encourages them to be well-rounded in all aspects of the body’s functions. The investment pays off when combative performance on the field is maximized - it leaves lesser room for error in practice.”

The woman nods at his words and looks at the expansive room, seemingly impressed.

You’re about ninety-five percent sure it’s Lena Luthor who’s with him, and the directionless stream of consciousness monologue you have running through your head derails into curiosity when you wonder what it is she’s doing here.

You have the notion she might be buying the DEO as well after her CatCo acquisition, and a cheeky smile begins to form on your lips when you think to vocalize the question to make sure it is Lena Luthor, of course, but then you see the mild look of warning in J’onn’s face and you’ve somehow forgotten that your boss can quite literally read your mind.

Despite the smile that’s slowly forming on your lips, you raise your eyebrows in silent question and J’onn shakes his head, the two of you sharing a wordless yet intelligible conversation.

You feel the weight of someone’s gaze on you, and when your eyes fall on Lena’s, you can see her mouth slightly agape as she looks at you.

You smile wolfishly at the sight and find yourself instantly awake, the gears in your head turning as you begin scheming.

All thoughts of your boss reading your mind dissipate in the well that is the endlessness of your thirst when you resolve to begin messing around with Lena a bit.

You make a show of letting go of one hand as you continue your chin ups one-handed - you’ve decided at this very second that normal chin ups are boring anyway.

You think you can hear J’onn face-palming, but you can’t be entirely sure.

Lena still stares at you, you can just feel her gaze taking in every inch of your form as you lift yourself effortlessly.

You bring a hand up and give her a goofy wave, a stupid grin spreading on your lips as you emphasize the extent of your strength and ease, and you think you see her jaw become slacker.

You watch as her eyes trail up to meet yours, and instantly, they widen. This time, you hear J’onn inhaling deeply and you hear the imperceptible clearing of his throat, no doubt trying to fathom just what it was he’d done to land himself in the timeline where he’s meant to be dealing with your gay foolishness on so very early of a morning.

“Ms. Luthor, would you care to see the rest of the establishment?”

I think we’ve established she’d care to see the rest of my workout routine, you think mischievously to yourself.

J’onn sighs deeper and you can hear as it becomes the beginnings of an actual honest-to-god groan, and you’d be impressed with yourself if you weren’t so amused by your current preoccupations.

“Yes, of course,” Lena says after staring at you for another moment too long than is socially acceptable.

“Agent (Y/L/N), I’ll see you out on the floor,” J’onn addresses you, seeming to be more than eager to leave the room.

“Yes, sir! See you around.”

You’ve decided that you’ve worked out enough of your one arm and you have to switch it up. You extend your arm fully and let your entire weight hang on one arm before you spring yourself high enough to let go of the bar, easily falling into rhythm again as you grip the bar with your other hand and begin to work out your other arm.

You bring yourself up lazily and give another wave to Lena.

“See ya, Ms. Luthor!” you all but yell across the room.

For whatever reason, you feel in your entire being the compulsion to make her squirm; perhaps you know how easy it is to get a reaction, perhaps because you’re being egged on by the presence of your boss and pushing the limits of insubordination has always given you a thrill - perhaps, more simply, you are a little shit and you live for the excitement of testing people.

J’onn practically leaves Lena behind as he turns his back on you a bit too eagerly, Lena sparing you one last look and you wink at her, enjoying the knowledge that even from a distance you can see how flustered she is from your gesture.

You let your one-handed workout run its course and make your way to the rowing machine. You go through the leg press and your battle rope exercises hastily just so you can get to your favourite part of the DEO’s training facilities and the only reason you woke up so early in the first place.

You love the fact that deep hidden in the DEO’s ominious looking presence, a freerunning playground is at your very disposal, and you were notorious for being the agent who practically lived on it.

If your colleagues didn’t know you any better, they’d say you only agreed to your recruitment with the DEO because you had access to what is essentially five gyms in one, which is only fifty percent of the case if you are to be honest.

But you ended up loving what you do anyway, the point is moot and it all worked out in the end.

You’re on your third run of going through your freerunning and at this point, you’ve stopped running to work out and are more than pleased to just be screwing around.

One of your field partners, Davis, showed up at some point looking just as tired as you first did, and you smirked as she side-eyed your cheeriness, seemingly capable of only a grunt in greeting as she made her way to the spin bikes.

You feel another presence in the room, and you glance at the entrance to see who else of your squad decided to make a surprise early appearance but you see Lena again, this time eyeing you with confident curiosity.

You smile mischievously, not bothering to hide it as you acknowledge her attention, and if you showed off just a little bit more, you definitely wouldn’t have denied it.

You make your way to Lena through flipping and diving and vaulting various obstacles, because walking up to her like a normal person is far too conventional and you are so much better than that.

For her part, she looks impressed by your showboating, and you take your time walking up to your bag as you wipe your face off with a towel and let it drape over your shoulders.

You make a spectacle of showing as much of your body as possible, Lena becoming increasingly flustered again as you get closer, and when you’re standing in front of her you put your hands on your hips.

“Couldn’t get enough, eh?” you ask with a grin on your face.

Lena takes in your body and you watch as her eyes stop at your stomach, the tone of your abs slightly glistening with a subtle sheen of sweat. She blinks several times before snapping out of her reverie.

“I’m more impressed by how little space the DEO has used up to fit so much into one tiny place. You wouldn’t even guess this was here just from the outside.”

“Yeah, I bet,” you say dubiously. “So are you buying us out too?”

Lena’s eyes snap up at yours in mild offense, “no, I am not. I’m only here to sign an NDA. J’onn has been gracious enough to show me around since my resources and knowledge could be beneficial here.”

You regard her carefully for once, really taking in her figure and you begin to scratch the surface of fathoming the wonder that is the great Lena Luthor.

You think you mutter a “holy shit” to yourself in a low enough voice, but you hear her chuckle and you realize you might have been a bit louder than you thought.

“Well shit, how are you supposed to run L-Corp and CatCo and spend your time here? Do you even have hobbies? Aren’t you going to burn out?”

Lena scowls again and your lips quirk into a smile.

“I’ll deal with that when I get there. Frankly, I’ll go wherever I’m needed, but I’m prioritizing CatCo at the moment since it’s a new acquisition, but of course the DEO is exceptional in its necessity and scope.”

You hum in consideration and shift your weight, bringing a hand up to your forehead to wipe at the excess of sweat still there.

You suspect Lena is trying her absolute hardest to not let her eyes drop to your abs again, and you laugh softly to yourself at the thought. When you move your eyes to look at her, you catch her staring at your arms rather intensely and you break out into full laughter.

For now, you decide, you’ll let it slide.

“Well, that’s a shame. Your last TED talk on AI brought up a lot of interesting things I never really considered before. Are you not going to do anything about that?”

Lena’s eyes snap to you again and there’s a disbelieving look on her face.

“You watched my TED talk?”

You hesitate, “uh, yeah? Is that not a thing I should do? You’re pretty much a genius, it’d be interesting to hear what you have to say. And it does help you’re a lot better looking than the majority of your counterparts in STEM.”

Lena laughs at your backhanded compliment and tilts her head in challenge.

“All this talk of yours and for all I know, you vehemently deplore everything I surmise.”

“No, not at all,” you reply with sincerity. “You’re pretty much one of the only people who are pioneering some sort of course for AI technology right now in the country, if not the grander spectrum of the world. Human technology and AI is a whole different playing field, and who knows what otherworldly technologies there are that surpass our own? In this world anyway, we have to stick with what we know and not mess around with other tech.”

Lena smiles broadly at your response, seeming to be absolutely taken with your engagement.

“But if we do have access to alien technology, at the very least should we not examine and study it thoroughly to compare and see how we can apply certain principles to our own Earth technologies?” she asks curiously.

“I don’t think we should. It works on their planet, and we’re at the stage of scientific development we are currently at for a reason. You even brought it up yourself, AI is more than just a technological endeavour.

“You made pretty compelling arguments about how this is a science that is matter of ethics and philosophy and other deeper existential inquiry. Honestly, I don’t really think our society is ready for or even capable of understanding that kind of introspection or critical thinking - not in the science realm and most definitely not in the everyman’s realm.”

There’s a softer look about Lena, and you don’t really have time to think much of it when you add another afterthought, seemingly reeling at the turn of your conversation.

“I mean, you see how we still act about living among aliens, you really think we’re ready to make something that’s capable of emulating our intelligence? Using alien technology to speed up a process that we are socially and culturally just not ready for is such a bad idea. Until we grow as a society and develop together, we can’t just push forward and force something like that into the mix. It would just be detrimental to introduce something we don’t understand.”

Lena smiles at you meaningfully as you finish your little rant. You think you see something like fondness in her look, but you think nothing of it for now.

“Well, I’m glad my talk has impressed quite a lot on you,” she says earnestly after a moment.

“I’m not just all muscle, you know,” you reply cheekily.

“Of course not. No matter how exquisite you look, I don’t think I’d be much interested in merely staring at you in silence for an extended period of time.”

Your raise your eyebrows at the remark and she squints playfully at you in jest.

“Why don’t we continue this compelling discussion we’re both evidently capable of over dinner? You can get your delightful conversation and stare at me for as long as you’d like.”

You smirk when you see the slight flush of colour on her face.

Lena hums in mock consideration, “I don’t know, it would be rather inappropriate if you went to dinner with your shirt off. I might just have to pass.”

“Who said we had to go out?” you state suggestively.

Something flashes in Lena’s eyes, but the sentiment is fleeting. When she replies in a low voice, you feel a swirl of excitement kindling low in the pit of your stomach.

“You seem to enjoy playing with me,” she says.

“I’m not playing with you. I’m not doing anything.” You move just the slightest bit closer to her.

“Perhaps that’s what you’d call it, but that only means you’re letting yourself get carried away by it,” and then, you add slowly, “that only means it’s working.”

You think Lena’s forgotten to breathe, but she looks at you defiantly and you smile at her look.

Lena still doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking at you in challenge and with interest and you think to fill the silence.

“You know, I’m aware that you’d hate to part with the strapping image of me in nearly nothing, but I do have to put a shirt on again at some point.”

“By all means, go ahead,” Lena says, this time unabashedly trailing her eyes over your body one last time and biting her lip when she catches your eye.

You heart skips a beat and you feel yourself become warmer. You don’t say goodbye to Lena, somehow you know she’ll still be around when you come back from the locker rooms.

You spend the moment of reprieve that you get hidden away to replay your interaction with Lena and you can’t help but smile to yourself in amusement. There’s something about her that makes you come more alive and experience everything more intensely, and you think you’re already hooked on the feeling.

When you get back to the entrance to the training room where you think Lena is still waiting, you hear laughter and catch the figures of Kara and Alex.

“So you’ve met Agent (Y/L/N) finally? Seems like it was only a matter of time. She’s an actual monkey, have you seen her working that parkour course like it’s nothing?” you hear Alex say.

“Lena, are you okay? You look like you’re having trouble breathing,” Kara adds.

Your laughter catches their attention and you watch Lena nearly stutter in protest.

“Ms. Luthor was particularly interested in the fitness facilities here, suffice it to say,” you say as you approach the group.

“Yeah, I wonder why,” Alex mutters under her breath.

Kara nudges an elbow into her and Alex flinches with a loud groan.

“But we’ve learned that I am the most beautifully complex creature, equal parts alluring, intelligent, and pretty drop dead gorgeous, so we’re going out to dinner later.”

Lena sputters in surprise, “and when exactly did I agree to this?”

“You don’t seem the type to be giving so much of your attention to someone who didn’t deserve it, Ms. Luthor,” you say with a wink. “But no one’s stopping you from backing out.”

When Lena does nothing but shake her head in annoyance with you, you take that as your approval and you grin to yourself. You think that you’ll ask her out properly again when you’re both alone.

“(Y/N), keep it in your pants until we’re gone, please,” Alex says as she rolls her eyes.

“And be decent when J’onn’s around, he can read minds, remember,” Kara supplies helpfully.

Suddenly, Lena’s eyes widen comically, and the knowing look Alex gives you and the blush that colours Kara’s cheeks has you bursting into laughter.

Lena mutters something quickly under her breath that you couldn’t quite catch, and then she’s leaving the group and waving goodbye as she hastily makes her departure.

You think about how much fun you’re going to have teasing her about your boss’ otherworldly abilities and sharing your own stories of a similar folly.

It’s only later you realize that you somehow landed a date with Lena Luthor, and you’ve long ago stopped laughing and instead opted for mild panic at the very fact.

[elizabethrobertajones]

In the light of the return of Sam's orange jacket - an spn fashion related question: when and WHY did Dean stop wearing his jewellery and accessoires? did he take a shower one morning and was like "Man, I gotta stop wearing these fake leather bracelets"? and what did he do with it?

Oh gosh I’m so tired I shouldn’t even try to answer this… tl;dr I spent a lot of time dazedly poking around Home of the Nutty collecting bad data and assuming a thing was gone as soon as it stopped showing up the first time.

Superwiki, by the way, is kind of useless for once… it says Dean only wore the bracelets in season 1 and 2 but he blatantly has a bracelet on when he’s resurrected in 4x01 and I remember that without checking.

Dean still wearing them from time to time in at least the first part of season 5 (i.e. I dropped in on 5x04 since I figured they’d be easy to spot in the opening scene). He has uncovered forearms in the open of 5x16 and no bracelet but I was completely un-thorough so I was just grabbing random episodes where I thought I’d probably see his forearms without much clicking, and despite having once written a fic about Dean having a huge elbow fetish which accidentally shaped my entire blog, I don’t have a clue where every example of exposed Winchester arms are :P But some time in that stretch of episodes.

Dean loses the ring between 5x07 and 5x08. On his hand in the last shot of one, not on his hand in the first shot of the next, or when we roll back time to the chronological start of Changing Channels. Concoct whatever elaborate theory you like about them having never left TV land, tbh.

But yeah… Dean gives away the amulet to Cas in 5x02 for plot reasons but also the meta reasons that it was starting to annoy Jensen when he wore it all the time and it got in the way and hit him in the face. By 5x16 he’s lost ALL his major jewellery except for his watch as far as I can tell without doing a proper study on when the bracelets disappeared except that it’s between 5x04 and 5x16. Maybe it is something that they included a little more quietly, that while the amulet is the big example of it, Dean slowly sheds his entire jewellery box over the season.

I think there’s a large element of the whole loss of his sense of identity that goes through that season - that he’s going to be possessed by Michael and stop being Dean any more, to the point that it’s a blatant suicide metaphor/not even metaphor and just directly treated like it in 5x17/18. In 5x18 Dean strips off the rest of his personality, and puts it in a box; his jacket, gun and car keys. 

I and many other sensitive Dean fans over the years have written quite a lot about this entirely depressing collection representing his entire identity and largely being John connected stuff (I’m too tired to delve my tag for this episode but there’s at least a couple of things there >.>), at least in the sense of the jacket he took from John, the car John gave him, and the job Dean inherited as the family business. It’s one of the times Dean packs in the family business, and he only sticks out the rest of the mytharc before going to stay with Lisa for a year. In 6x01 we see the jacket in a box with John’s journal, which he gets back out to help, and of course the jacket then disappeared IRL but with fortuitous timing that Dean gets to shed another part of his identity he made himself. I think it’s good positive stuff in season 6 that he has to start trying to forge ahead and make his own identity. 

I was talking for some reason or other about all the points where you write the story up to a certain point and then you pick it up and turn it around and start writing backwards from it. Dean being possessed by Michael was the “end” of the arc about John’s influence forcing him into his worst self that every previous season had dealt with at least with one episode which made some sort of direct awful comparison to how it had destroyed Dean. (Dean telling Sam in 1x11 he wishes he knew how to think for himself, Dean selling his soul in 2x22, the demon!Dean exchange in 3x10, Alastair telling Dean how John didn’t break in Hell in 4x16, and then this in 5x18, although of course there’s some other pretty awful stuff in all these seasons, I’m just picking the anvil moments that spring straight to mind) 

Anyway now I look at it and see that Dean’s jewellery disappears bit by bit through season 5 culminating in him throwing away the amulet pretty much just tells me now that it was Dean getting rid of some symbolic layer, and all for the worse in this season. In the end he takes the car and jacket to the confrontation in Stull, and then never wears the jacket again (and Baby has become too much his to argue and anyway 4x03 symbolically did sort of give her back to him in a fated way so she’s only loosely thrown in with the rest, because he did already reclaim her completely for himself). Then I think instead of building up to how this destroys Dean, he doesn’t say yes to Michael after all, and he gets an entire new lease on life where he’s freed from the pressure of the apocalypse and he enters the open waters of character development to no particular aim except personal betterment.

I think they could have played it like Dean starts wearing all the jewellery again after season 5, but I think a lot of it was a security blanket - the bracelets are lucky charms, and probably in that universe literal wards against evil, and the amulet turned out not to be lucky in the ‘i like it and wear it because i like it’ definition but actually connected to *god* and all that drama. It had to go because it was a symbol of Dean’s shattered faith in literally everything from Sam through to God (though, and I sort of hate to be That Person, not Cas because they actually bonded over this shared critical hit to their faith and I think 5x16/17 have the strongest forward momentum on the whole original Dean and Cas arc aside from 4x16). And obviously God for Dean also relates right back to John. 

And I think also Dean would have less reason to start wearing all his jewellery that formed part of his skin as a hunter over that year with Lisa because he had put aside that identity - if he kept the bits, they were maybe in the box with the jacket, and I would ASSUME that box is still in some random corner of Lisa’s attic or garage and she has no clue which one of her exes left it there… (ow) or Ben found it and started wearing the jacket because why not (OW). Anyway since things happened this way, it means he left behind a part of his identity but it was an old part of his identity which had ended up linked with the bad stuff, the toxic stuff about John, and I guess for the jewellery just being a protective thing, part of the top layer of Dean. He’s a bit more emotionally naked from Gamble era onwards because she shifted the focus in the way the emotional stuff got told, and that was a sensible idea to shift from plot to character as a main priority of the writing.

Anyway sorry for the super long reply, but thanks for making me notice that Dean has all his standard jewellery at the start of season 5 and then has none of it by 5x16 because that turns out to feel massively important and this is a Huge Thought and not something cracky like I thought I was originally angling at when I saw this question and thought oh I will answer this really quickly after a long day and oops it’s past midnight and this looks like a subject that should have taken some actual work :P 

[seladorie]

Sel’s Highly Subjective FFXV Fic Rec Master List

Hello! I said I’d do this, and it took a while, but I did! 

The standards for this list are 1) I personally enjoy them, and 2) I’ve gone back to reread them for whatever reason. (Please note the subjective in the title of this list.)

I’ll be updating this list and reblogging it when I do! I only rec fics that I’ve read and feel good about recommending. I don’t always give warnings in the my summary of the fic in the interest of space, so mind the tags when you check something out. There are links to all of the stories, and I tagged which authors whose blogs I know about. 

Happy fic reading!

PROMPTIO:

Incentive by LadyLarkFrand: Cute, domestic, prompt fluff. Good stuff.

Education by Riona: Fluff. Good good fluff of the two of them getting together.

I’m Trying Hard To Take It Back by @someobscurereference​: Soulmate/Soulmark AU where your touch is marked onto your soulmate’s skin forever… and for Prompto and Gladio, it happens when Gladio shoves him on the train.

Fantasy Ride by dirtbag: Prompto and Gladio share a sleeping bag for body heat and yup.

Riding High by LadyLarkFrand. “Gladio never skips leg day. It's something that Prompto admires a lot. Gladio knows he does. Prompto's boyfriend has fantastic thighs and he's a cock-tease, the bastard.”

right into the bliss by greyskiesblack. “Prompto doesn't like himself, no matter how much the others try to convince him that he should.” One of my favorite promptio fics, despite its incomplete status.

Lavender’s Blue (Dilly Dilly) by @someobscurereference​. Cinderella AU, with Prompto as Cinderella and Gladio as… the handsome not!Prince? This is adorable, go read it.

prepare the preparations by scarebeast. “The boys spend the night in the car after a snowstorm. Prompto and Gladio spend the night in a jacket together.” Fluff, trans!Prompto.

Grab the Gladio By the Biceps: Contentious Countess Edition by ohmyfae. “Gladio introduces Prompto to the magnificent world of trashy 10c romance novels. Neither of them are prepared for this.” The sequel is also hilarious.

white lines by spacs. “The more Gladio kissed him, the more nervous he got.”

Show Me by @someobscurereference​. A wrist band is pretty obvious accessory, especially if you keep it on during sex.

PROMNIS:

It Hurts by NoticedKohai: this is trans!Prompto and Ignis, dealing with menstruation. It’s super cute.

Professional Ethics for the Freelance Massage Therapist by edibleflowers: To help him relax, Prompto offers Ignis a massage and… yup. Yup.

Filters by Quail (Salamander): Five times Prompto surprised Ignis with a photo.

a year and a day by @someobscurereference​: Merman!Prompto and Iggy.

the years between by greyblackskies: A long recovery fic for both Prompto and Ignis. Explicit and has dark themes and is so, so good. One of my fav ffxv fics.

Quite the Collection by @asidian​. Promnis + sex toys.

Watch Your Throat, It Needs To Choke by @socialdegenerate​. Won’t make sense without the first one in the series, but I fucking love this story. It’s promnis porn and it’s beautiful. Read the entire series.

Infinity and Beyond by @someobscurereference​. “In a hundred different worlds, Prompto and Ignis come together in a hundred different ways.”

Filters by Quail (Salamander). “Five times Prompto took a photo of Ignis when he wasn't expecting it”

Rule of Thirds by marleymars. “Prompto bumbles through life and maybe falls in love.” The fic that sold me on promnis <3

GLADNOCT:

so good for me by rustandstardust: Gentle sex between Gladio and Noctis, and that’s about it.

Not Even a Handful by chocolatetigerfics: “Noctis doesn’t like it when Gladio calls his dick puny. Because it is.”

Go The Noct To Sleep by Mythril (fantacination): Sleeping arrangements and GladNoct.

The Heat of Lestallum by beforethequeen. Alpha!Gladio and Omega!Noctis, Gladio falls into rut and well. You know where this goes.

GLIGGY:

Afternoon Delight by mahbecks. Gliggy, rimming. Yup. NSFW, obviously.

Once Upon a Dream by mahbecks. Gladio and Iggy do not like each other. But, they both meet a charming stranger at the masquerade ball…

creature of habit by shepherd. Mutual masturbation.

PROMPTIS:

Black is the Colour by withoutdrawbacks: Noct realizes he has a thing for Prompto wearing his clothes.

Scattershot by Riona. “The longer Noctis spends travelling with him, the clearer it becomes that Prompto can get a crush on anyone.”

friends with benefits by @brosura​. “Prompto has always known that Noctis was the prince, but he’s only ever really cared that Noctis was his friend. And he thought it was pretty clear that he didn’t befriend Noctis for the money and gifts. In hindsight, he probably should have just said that much to Noctis. Or, The Adventures of Reluctant Gold Digger Prompto Argentum and his Rich Best Friend.”

Life Imitates by Riona. “Everyone keeps trying to lecture Prompto on dating Noctis. Which would be fine if he and Noctis were actually dating.”

PROMNYX:

Oh. by TheIskraen “Prompto just wants to know if Nyx is okay.” Takes place when you meet Cor in game. As you might suspect, it’s a bit sad.

i just keep running (into you) by JosephineSilver. Only one chapter, but cute.

NOCTNYX:

brighter than the sun by nickofhearts: “Noctis smokes. So does Nyx. (Noctis accidentally joins the Kingsglaive).”

Imperial!Noct AU by ohmyfae. Ardyn kidnaps Noctis when he’s a kid and “raises” him.

POLYSHIP ROADTRIP:

they say through gritted teeth by mushydesserts: 5 +1 of Gladio carrying someone else, and one time they carried him.

For Duty by Allubttoa: A very interesting premise that explores how the royal family of Lucis gives their warriors their magic. Mostly plot and deals with uncomfortable themes (which I enjoy, personally).

Mind Reader by ohmyfae. Noctis temporarily gets the power to read minds, so he uses it for an orgy. Man after my own heart.

Sincerely, Me by @kwehkwehmotherfucker, @ignis-sassentia. Mostly a story told through texting about Promnis and Gladnoct, though slowly evolving into OT4. Funny, cracky, and I have a good time reading it during my lunch breaks at work.

Know the Rules by @asidian. Fingering, fluff, humor, and Prompto suffering orgasm denial? This fic has it all.

So Close Your Eyes and Believe by @socialdegenerate. “Noctis likes sleep, but he also likes sex. If only he could find a way to combine the two...”

PROMPTO/GLADIO/IGNIS:

Synced by Lalaen: Dom!Iggy and Dom!Gladio take care of Prompto.

On-the-Job Training by Cygna_hima: “As part of his Crownsguard training, Prompto has to learn to resist the effect of alphas; Ignis and Gladio volunteer to help him practice. It gets out of hand.”

ARDYN/PROMPTO:

A Real Charmer by ohmyfae: One of the only Ardyn/Prompto’s i’ll rec because I tend to like happier stories, but this one the story of FFXV changes because Prompto can charm daemons. Including a certain Chancellor. And all of the other bros suffer as a result ;)

RAREPAIRS:

Sagefire by @notthelasttime: Nyx/Ignis, and I know, what?? but it’s a cute twoshot about the two of them getting together through a casual hook up.

all things beautiful by yodelpalma, which is Cor/Dino. Dino helps Cor out on a mission, by pretending to be his boyfriend

Build a Wall Between Us by @socialdegenerate . this one is actually Prompto/Cor! An enduring crush and the end of the world :)

wake a little stronger by grains_of_saturn, also Cor/Prompto, also WoR

Don’t Deny What You Meant by @imperfectkreis it’s Cor/Loqi and gods, I read this so early on when I joined the fandom and it’s still good to go reread it

you keep me from breaking apart by greyblackskies. Prom/Dino. “Prompto has the best boyfriend. Dino doesn't even mind that a stupid spiracorn broke the bracelet he gave Prompto.”

carry your heart by yodelpalma. Prom/Dino. “Prompto has the worst friends.”

A Candidate For My Affections by HigharollaKockamamie. Ardyn/Ignis. “It's been a few hundred years since Ardyn picked up any new dating techniques.”

GEN:

Reprisal of an Old Mistake by pariahpirate: This fic is pretty much how I think of Prompto’s background regarding the laboratories of Niflheim. That said, quite dark.

The Improvisational Method by JosephineSilver: And oldie that came before the game’s actual release I think, but features sly Prompto getting the bros out of trouble by pretending to be a traitor.

Poor Wayfaring Stranger by lithos_saeculum: “Out on a mission, Cor Leonis finds a teenager, lost and sick and partway to becoming an MT. Against the advice of all and sundry, he brings him back to Insomnia. There's not a lot of love lost for MTs in the Citadel, but some of its inhabitants may still be young enough to put aside their prejudices.”

Total Contained Time: Sixteen Years by @she5los. Cor asks Prompto to look at some strange MT tech, which has disastrous consequences. Deaged!Prompto. Mostly gen, little bit of gliggy.

Handle With Care by @she5los. “When Prompto gets kidnapped, his friends know they'll need to step up and support him as soon as they get him back.”

Running Behind by @asidian. MT!Prompto escapes from Niflheim and is found by the bros, and we readers experience all the pain.

Worth the Risk by @asidian. Prompto saves Noctis’ life when there’s an attack in Insomnia. Everyone who doubted him is suitably impressed.

Memories of the Past by @asidian. Deaged!Prompto, where he escaped from Niflheim’s labs later in childhood. Hurts so good.

[dontcallmecarrie]

Only The Names Change

Yes, it’s another MCU/WtNV crossover fic idea/minific-I-might-mess-with-later. Last one kind of snowballed into its own AU as I was writing it, but it wasn’t the only one I’d had in mind. Still not caught up yet, and I’m probably going to need to brush up on my stuff get it right later.

This one, hopefully, is a lot more focused on crack than anything else [...then again, we’ve seen how that’s worked out before, so.]

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe [movies], Welcome to Night Vale [podcast]

Warnings: unreliable narrator [isn’t that familiar], everything Night Vale-related [Librarian-caliber gore, dystopian themes, cosmic/Lovecraftian horror, etc.], some mental health issues because this is Tony we’re talking about, even if this fic is meant to be pure, self-indulgent crack more than anything else.

12/2018 EDIT: removed the cut so it actually crossposts correctly. 

In which Tony Stark is a Night Vale Community College alumnus.

It sounds very improbable, sure. Maybe Maria also hailed from Night Vale in this one, or maybe it was Jarvis. Since it’s the least convoluted option I can come up with, let’s roll with it, shall we? 

Perhaps he entered right out of high school, and his family [read: his mother] told everyone he valued his privacy and didn’t say where he was, or he did go to MIT, but also took a few classes at a satellite campus a train ride away. 

Tony doesn’t talk about it much; it’s not an accredited college, nobody would take his AA degree in Computer and Fire Sciences seriously, compared to his accomplishments at MIT, but he’s doing the former for fun while the latter’s more to try to impress Howard for once than anything else. [Not that it works, but still.]

But truth be told? He’s prouder of his NVCC credentials, really. 

Because sure, it’s impressive that he graduated summa cum laude from MIT, but do you know how hard it is to pass Secret English 112, when the only study place was in the library, infested with Librarians? C’mon. Not to mention Bio 351, because killing his evil clone had gotten him excellent marks for the final, though he still considered JARVIS his greatest achievement, considering all his other classmates’ AI had only wiped out the local electrical grid while JARVIS did it for the tri-state area, and with style. [He was so proud.] 

Even if there’d been a few points docked for the slightly screwy morality codex, but really Professor Gwozdecke was such a hardass about the most banal things. [Murder and disembowelment wasn’t JARVIS’ go-to option, which was more than could be said for the rest of the class, he’d deserved full points dammit!] 

He graduates, makes regular donations of shredded lettuce for the Thing in the Earth Sciences building, and never sets foot on campus as it becomes unknowable ten minutes after he gets his diploma, as per usual for Night Vale Community College alumni. 

Jarvis and his mother are so proud, and Tony’s very happy he took Communications 101: Introduction to Talking to the Dead, even if he’s not very good at it. 

It’d originally been for the Social Sciences credits only, but then shit went down and...well. You get the idea. He only did the one class, so he can’t raise the dead, but short conversations with people he’s got close emotional ties to? He can do. [So Howard’s a no-go.]

...I did say the was cracky self-indulgence, just roll with it.

Tony moves on with his life, and canon ensues for the most part. 

His AA degree means he’s got a slightly skewed take on things, which...is a mixed bag, truth be told. 

On the one hand, the edge he has on all-nighters and cramming in libraries serves him well [even if he gets odd looks for the titanium spork, and his bag feels oddly light without the machete he normally has when entering libraries], and he’s well-equipped to handle any fires his project might start. 

On the other hand, he gets weird looks for the oddest things, like his penchant for explosions [...he did get a degree in Computer and Fire Sciences, after all], his reaction to librarians [he’d never encountered Librarians outside of NVCC, but best be prepared and all that], and apparently JARVIS was ‘unusually advanced’ outside Night Vale standards and he’d had to get creative in his excuses to keep people from asking too many questions. 

Life goes on.

He still becomes the Merchant of Death, Happy, Pepper, and Rhodey are used to his quirks [for the most part; the ceremonial bloodstones he’d gotten at graduation, he kept hidden for obvious reasons], and overall everything goes as per usual. 

Afghanistan still happens, he still gets the arc reactor, though here the explosions he makes are bigger, and Yinsen’s impressed with his poker face and pain tolerance. [This was nothing like dealing with Librarians, really.] 

He breaks out as per canon, because while he took Lit 172: Analyzing the Necronomicon Through a Non-Euclidean Lens, summoning Cthulhu was most definitely a last-ditch strategy, and he’d gotten a C in Murder Ballads so that was out too.

...crap what is it with my keeping tabs on what Yinsen does next? I mean:

-Maybe he’d been expecting death, but not for his fellow captive to somehow keep him alive with an expired thing of Spam and some duct tape, 

or 

-Maybe he still dies, but Tony has a final goodbye later on, and lets Yinsen rest and only keeps him updated about the major highlights he knows Yinsen’d appreciate, like the privatized world peace thing.

He gets back, canon still ensues, for the most part.

Except here, Obadiah Stane vanishes.

Because Tony’s been brushing up on his old textbooks, and while he’s never set foot in NVCC since his graduation, he’s kept his notes [albeit locked in a titanium safe ringed with garlic and old Sharpies to keep everything contained]. Tony’d been researching ways to get rid of the shrapnel without involving eldritch beings or evil clones [once had been enough, thank you very much], and had been mid-invocation when Obie had decided to try for his arc reactor.

...as it turns out, JARVIS was not happy about that. and Tony didn’t know just how the hell an AI was able to open a portal to what was presumably a Void or something similar, but he wasn’t asking. [But then, computer science was an arcane thing, so.]

Time passes, canon ensues. 

Turns out Bio 351′s still relevant; cloning himself was only the highlight of it, but there’s other stuff they’d covered that is still saving his life decades later. The poison immunity thing was very useful, to be certain. 

the idea of inventing new elements isn't anything new, really. This time, though, he’s not playing with dark matter, so it’s something he can recreate without using bloodstone circles or a slightly modified mass gigatrometer. 

Vanko isn’t that scary, and neither’s Natasha, not after having studied in places infested with Librarians. Impressive, sure, but nowhere near as scary as getting lost in the Earth Sciences building after dark, or not having enough coffee when entering the computer labs.

Nick Fury’s wondering just what the hell Tony’s messing with, because for being Howard’s kid, he’s...something else. And alarmingly blasé about dealing with assassins, too. 

Time passes, canon still mostly ensues.

...let’s skip to the fun parts, shall we?

The Avengers assemble, and Tony’s both having the time of his life but also headdesking and going ‘shit I should’ve taken that one class even if it was optional’ while everyone’s just staring because some of what Tony’s saying is making even less sense than normal. Iridium vaguely makes sense, but just where does the temporal-spatial classification of the moon even fit in?

Bruce can tell something’s off, and wonders where the smell of smoke comes from. [Oops.] 

Steve’s wondering at the maniac look in his eyes, because he’d seen Howard do his thing but Tony was the embodiment of entropy, it seemed like.

Natasha and Coulson are same as they were in Live Through the Rain, just chill and rolling with it and nothing fazes them. Of course Tony’s cell phone spontaneously combusted and is still functional. Of course.

Fire Sciences, remember? He’s a genius, there’s no way he didn’t have fun with that. 

The alien army’s new, but then Tony’d heard the police-sci majors’ dark mutterings about Blood-Space Wars and ‘who’s the dumbass who drafted the third treaty and why’d it involve so much coffee creamer?’ in the commuter’s lounge, and it’s pretty easy to get an idea as to what went down. 

Oh, sure, it’s new, but still nowhere near the Librarians’ scale, really. JARVIS is being quietly terrifying in the corner, and Tony’s so proud of how he’d managed to possess that one spacewhale. [He’s growing up so fast.] 

...kinda ran out of steam at this point, in keeping with canon. Also, you guys know how much I like good team dynamics, so:

Basically, the entire encounter still wasn’t as bad as Finals Week, and Tony’s already been resigned for years at the prospect of intergalactic war [those political-sci majors really, really hated a professor, because turns out a war set during an indeterminate period in time and space was a pain in the ass to cover when talking peace treaties, who knew?] plus...well. You get the idea. 

The events of Phase 2 in general get derailed by the Night Vale Community College Class Reunion, feat. RSVPs sent in envelopes with no addresses and sealed with pine resin, Tony going to sleep in New York and waking up in an unknown location in the middle of a desert, monsters great and terrible [ah, Librarians. One of the things Tony hadn’t missed], and an inordinate amount of trees. 

Maybe there was a plus one attachment he’d left blank, and maybe someone who’d caught sight of it went ‘hey what’s this?’ and touched it before Tony could burn the invite, and Tony’s really regretting the life choices that had Steve also waking up to a barren landscape with nothing more than what he had in his pockets to help him fight for survival. 

Or maybe it’s Clint who didn’t sign up for this, or Tony finds out just how well the Hulk does against Librarians when Bruce catches sight of one, or...well.

Oh, hey, it’s the Void again. Just as dark and incomprehensible as ever. Nice. 

Getting home’s a trip. Getting the Earth ready isn’t, because, again, unknown war during an unknown period of time, Tony’s low-key been on it for decades now.

...umm. Oh, one last thing. Canon got derailed miles back, kinda, but if somehow, someway that one scene in Siberia happens, it’d go down like this:

Tony doesn’t lose it. 

This isn’t because he’s a saint, isn’t because he’s “the bigger man” or anything; it’s because once upon a time, he took Communications 101: Introduction to Talking to the Dead, and while it’s not the best he was able to talk to his mother, and got the story from her, decades ago.

...that being said, I’m not saying he decks Steve because the asshole had the nerve to say ‘hey why aren’t you telling me things’ while keeping what would have otherwise been a huge secret from someone who professed to be a friend. 

Nobody’s sure how the computer caught on fire, either. Or why it’s burning green, or why nothing’s putting it out and all that’s left is the crumbled remains of what was once a bunker.

[...you can tell how Tony channels his anger here, can’t you.]

...shit this is going to be its own one shot dammit brain cut it out already