#what I’m saying is he is made of both natural talent and honed skill

[musclesandhammering]

A Concept: Loki gets in a situation where his magic is bound or he’s facing someone with stronger magic than him or something and everyone expects him to just be screwed, but instead he simply starts drawing runes and reciting spells and proceeds to wreck their shit.

“I’m not the most powerful sorcerer in Asgard because my magic is the strongest, I’m the most powerful sorcerer in Asgard because I know how to use magic the best.”

[jmagnabo92]

S&H Bonding Part 11 - The Past

The holidays continued in much of the same way, Sirius and Harry spent their days talking about Harry’s childhood or Sirius’ favorite stories about James and Lily.  Most of the Order continued to be wary, but Molly seemed to be trying to leave to their bonding time by themselves, often intervening with the other kids that seemed to want to be in on their private conversations.  

It was very thoughtful of her.

Of course, Sirius couldn’t forget all of the times that she had intervened in their relationship over the summer, but it’s nice to have that support now.  He’s been a lot better than he was over the summer and her wariness probably made sense back then.

On Christmas Eve, Sirius decides to play the piano that he had moved to the sitting room.  Harry sits beside him, smiling even as he misses the keys.  “I’m so bad at this.”

Sirius chuckles.  “It takes time to learn – I wouldn’t expect you to be able to learn in an afternoon.”

“I learned flying in an afternoon,” Harry counters.

“That’s natural talent, general speaking it takes time to hone a new skill.”

“Yeah, I suppose.”  Harry looks very disappointed and unhappy to be playing the piano with Sirius.

Sirius frowns, “If you don’t want to learn it – that’s okay.”

Harry shrugs, “You said that it was something you did when you were younger – so I am fine learning.”

“Kid, if you don’t want to learn – we don’t have to do it,” Sirius repeats.  The last thing he wants to do is force something on Harry.

“But you want to teach me,” Harry replies, his eyes big and curious.

“I want to do something that we both enjoy,” Sirius counters.  Harry’s making a face that tells him that he’s not exactly comfortable with the idea of voicing anything against what Sirius may want, so Sirius takes the initiative.  “How ‘bout this?  We can talk about the map and how it all works like I told you I would when we have the time.”  

Harry lights up, evidently excited about learning more about his and James’ talents and efforts.  “I’d like that.”

“Why don’t you go get it?” Sirius asks, and Harry doesn’t even hesitate to rush up the stairs to go get it.

“Er – Sirius,” George asks, hesitantly.  “Why would you know anything about the map?”

“Because he’s Padfoot, obviously,” Harry says, back in record time.  “That’s why I call him, ‘Pads’.”

“What did you do?  Fly up and down the stairs?”  

“I was excited,” Harry replies, looking a little sheepish.  

Sirius is sure he just summoned the map since he knows his magic won’t register but doesn’t want to get into trouble.  “Alright, kid.”

Sirius turns to the twins and grins at the stunned look on the twins faces as Harry says the password and lays it out on the floor.  They move to sit around it, including the twins, Ron, Ginny and Hermione.  

“You never said –” George starts.

“It’s not my fault, you didn’t notice,” Harry states, stiffly.  “I mean, Lupin and Pads haven’t exactly hidden it either – Lupin regularly calls him ‘Padfoot’ and Pads regularly calls him ‘Moony’.”

“Someone called?” Remus asks appearing in the doorway.  “Is that the map?  Why is it out now?”

“Harry has been curious about the map for some time, and I thought I’d explain a bit about what we did with it.  How it came to be,” Sirius offers.  “Why don’t you join us?”

“On the floor?” Remus questions, looking quite like he’d rather not sit on the floor.  “I’m a little too old for that.”

Sirius gives him a look.  “I’m older than you.”

Remus rolls his eyes, playfully, but still sits, smiling.  “Only by a few months.  Always reminding us that you’re the oldest.”

“And yet, I wasn’t the first name on the map,” Sirius jokes.  He had spent months arguing that because he’s the oldest that he should get to have his name first on the map.

“If we had gone in birth order, it wouldn’t have sounded as well.  It works better in the order it’s in,” Remus retorts.

“You’re just saying that because you’re first,” Sirius laughs.  It was such a familiar argument that he could almost imagine being in the dormitory arguing the first time.

“No, Padfoot, Wormtail, Moony and Prongs just doesn’t roll off the tongue the way that Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs does,” Remus states.  “It’s just a bonus that it means that I get to be first.”

They both laugh, before Sirius turns to the kids, particularly his kid.  “So!  First, we should probably start with why we created the map…”

“... it has nothing to do with the fact that we are nosy gits,” Remus finishes, trying to say it with a straight face and utterly failing.  

They burst out laughing, before Sirius clears his throat.  “We didn’t use the map for that, it was more that we just wanted to sneak around more confidently.”  

Particularly he and James, who wanted to get away with some of their more interesting fun that he would definitely not be talking about to the kids.  

“Anyway,” Sirius coughs.  “It wasn’t hard to find a big enough parchment, but it’s incredibly hard to get all of the details of Hogwarts and it’s moving parts, so we had to spend a lot of time drawing and sneaking around to get everything in detail.”

“So this is all hand drawn?” Harry asks, looking at the extreme details.

Sirius nods.  “Once we had a section that was accurate and verified, we’d transfer it onto the map and make it come alive if need be.”

“We spent months researching what spells would work,” Remus offers.  “The whole thing took years to do.”

“Moony was in charge of research since the rest of us were busy …”

“Being nosy gits?” Harry teases.

“Oi!” Sirius says, playfully offended.  The kids laugh.  “No, working on the Animagus transformation.”

“Yes.  They were busy making those strides while I looked up the spells.  The map was a long term project for me since I couldn’t join them in the Animagus project,” Remus explains.  

“Of course we all did our part.  Moony got the spells research, but we each had to learn and apply them.  It takes a little of all of our magic imbedded in the map to power it, so we needed all of us to place the spells on it, but that came last.”

“Right, the spells were applied last, so the next steps after determining the spells we needed, we had to map out the whole castle.”

Sirius grins, “We had so much fun.  Sneaking around the school in James’ cloak.  Plotting ways to get into the professor’s quarters and the common rooms we didn’t have access to.”

“It wasn’t that hard, all you had to do was find a Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and Ravenclaw and stalk them under the cloak and listen for their password and then use it when no one was around,” Remus counters.  “Instead, you came up with elaborate plans just because you could.”

“Yeah, that’s too easy.  We wanted to make it more fun.”  Sirius notices Harry, Ron and Hermione sharing looks.  “What?  We like fun, elaborate plans.  Why make it easy?”

Unfortunately, it seems like something else is going on because Hermione puts her face in her hands and is muttering about a month with a cat face for no reason.

He and Remus share a look.  “Someone want to explain?”

He’s giving Harry a look, hoping that he’ll be honest with him.

Harry grimaces.  “Ron and I might have used Polyjuice potion in second year to sneak into Slytherin and interrogate Malfoy on the heir of Slytherin and the Chamber of Secrets stuff.”

“Except he knew nothing, and Hermione spent a month with a cat face because she accidentally used cat hair,” Ron adds.

“And it was all for nothing because we could’ve just used the cloak,” Hermione groans.

Sirius isn’t sure how to react to this explanation, but Remus appears to be curious.

“How did you get Polyjuice?”

“We made it ourselves.  Tricked Lockhart so we could get the book with the recipe,” Harry states looking uncertainly at Sirius.

“Yeah, wasn’t that hard.  The git signs anything you put in front of him,” Ron jokes.

“We made it in Moaning Myrtles bathroom,” Hermione says.  “Rarely anyone goes in there.”

“But that was a good thing because it turns out to hold the entrance to the chamber,” Harry finishes.

That one statement was enough to piece together some unfortunate pieces that Harry was somehow pulled into the vaguely mentioned chamber of secrets incident that no one has given him the explicit details of and honestly, he’s rather freaked out.  

He almost can’t breathe at the thought of Harry battling some unknown monster at twelve.  He looks at Harry, who’s clearly worried about him, and he chokes out, “Need a minute” before rushing out of the room.  He’s not sure where to go – but as he changes into Padfoot, he finds himself rushing up the stairs to be with Buckbeak.  The hippogriff would help calm him down just by his presence.

He transforms into himself to enter the room and bows to Buckbeak, who bows back.  Then, he transforms into Padfoot.  He didn’t need to talk… just escape.

How had his kid ended up in the Chamber of Secrets?  How had he ended up in deadly situations year after year?  What was he going to do with his kid?  This kid that’s going to give him a heart attack someday?

All he knows is that he has got to get himself together.  His reaction has probably freaked out Harry, and no doubt, Harry might second guess telling him things now.

In fact, he’s probably worried about Sirius going off the deep end and getting himself in trouble.

“Oh good, you’re in here.  I was worried for a second,” Harry says, confirming Sirius’ thoughts.  He enters the room, bows to Buckbeak, who bows back, and then sits down beside Sirius as Padfoot.  “I’m sorry that I haven’t told you about some of the things that have happened to me.”

Sirius gives him a look, unsure if he should transform.  

“But you probably want to hear at least some of what happened… since Padfoot helps, maybe I could tell you now?”

Sirius gives him a nod.  He’s not sure that he wants to know, but if Harry’s willing to confess, maybe he wants to talk about it.

Harry smiles, nervously.  “Well, I’ll start with first year, most of it was good, but…”

Harry details his Hogwarts letters and his magical incidents before he knew, confessing about the cupboard which has Sirius growling.  He tells Sirius not to worry about it that it’s over now and someday they’ll get what’s coming to them.  Then he talks about Hagrid, everything in Diagon Alley, the incident with the train, meeting everyone.

“The number of people that thought it was okay or a good idea to claim that they already know me was appalling.  I hate it so much; I can’t even explain.  Anyway…”

He details school life, his awful professors not doing anything for him, the incident with the Remembrall and getting on the quidditch team.

Sirius is actually really proud of that.  He’s sure James was screaming excitedly in the afterlife the same way he would’ve been had he’d seen it.

Then, he goes into the midnight duel, the mess at Halloween – saving Hermione, the attack on him during the quidditch game, the Christmas holidays (poor kid), finding Flamel, and Hagrid’s baby dragon mess (the reaction to the whole story of the hatching, arranging transport, getting caught, the sheer absurdity of the points and detention in the out of bound forbidden forest, plus the students’ reaction).

“It wasn’t too bad,” Harry assures.  “I’ve now dealt with worse.  It was hard at the time – I seriously wanted to quit quidditch it was so bad.  Can’t imagine what life would’ve been like without it, now, but I really just wasn’t happy – being unwanted and treated like that was something I’m used to at the Dursleys, but to suddenly have that at school by my own teammates and housemates – it sucked.”

Sirius whines.  He hated thinking of his kid suffering so much that he wanted to quit his favorite sport.

“Anyway, we thought Snape was going to steal the stone because of the incident during Detention and what I’d seen between him and Quirrell.  We tried to go to Dumbledore but he was flying to the Ministry and so we told McGonagall.  She dismissed us.”

Harry pauses, “You’re going to be pretty mad at this next bit, but I just want to remind you that I am alive.”

Sirius gives him a look.  That statement doesn’t make him any less angry at what he suspects happened.  If Harry went after the stone because McGonagall decided to dismiss him, and nearly died, someone’s getting bitched at.  

Harry goes on anyway, explaining about the situation with sneaking out and down the trapdoor.  Sirius is suspicious of the situation with how it easy it was for the kids to do it.  By the time he gets to Quirrell and the mirror, Sirius is furious.  It was some sort of setup; a test of sorts and he’s pissed.  He’s growling throughout the explanation, which barely lessons when Harry wakes up in the hospital three days later.  Three days.  The thought that his kid was unconscious, in the hospital, for three days has him so furious – even as Padfoot – that he knows he’s going to rage for hours against Dumbledore the next time he sees him.  

Harry’s looking at him, worriedly.  He stops growling and rubs his head against Harry’s hand, hoping that he’ll start petting again and continue.

Harry sighs and finishes out the year.  Sirius is genuinely upset that all of a sudden people like Harry again.  That he had to save the day to get treated right.  It makes him furious.

Harry doesn’t stop, launching into second year and how boring the Dursleys before stopping, “What kicks off the whole Chamber of Secrets mess starts at the Dursleys, and I need you to promise that you won’t go kill them.”

Sirius snorts.  If he was going to kill the Dursleys, he would’ve done it already.  Unfortunately, he’s painfully clear that no matter how many people hurt his kid, he can’t do anything, yet.  Nothing legal anyway.  

Harry takes that as the promise.

“Alright, well, Dobby was aware of a plan to give a special object to Hogwarts and start the whole nonsense because he was a Malfoy elf, and he knew what Malfoy was up to… so he tried to stop me from going to Hogwarts to protect ‘the great Harry Potter’, blah, blah, blah….”

Sirius snorts, again.  That elf certainly has a thing for his kid.  

Harry continues, clearly not bothered by Sirius’ snort.  He talks about being excited for Vernon’s proclamation at breakfast and thinking it meant he remembered Harry’s birthday and detailing what was expected of him.  Sirius starts growling, again, angry that Harry spent his twelfth birthday all alone, doing chores, being barely fed and then, spending the evening pretending he didn’t exist.  

Only that wasn’t the worst bit.

Dobby had nearly cost Harry his life when he deliberately caused issues for Harry.  Obviously, Harry is alive and fine, but even with him glossing over everything that happened when Dobby ruined the Dursleys’ night, Sirius can’t help imagining his twelve-year-old kid locked in a room, slowing starving to death, just because of some house elf that shouldn’t even have been able to find him if Dumbledore’s blood protection was to be believed.  

Dobby might’ve been a boon in recent months, but he’s quite angry that he could’ve gotten Harry killed.  Then again, he’s furious that Dumbledore’s so-called protection – the one that kept Harry at the Dursleys for a month over the summer – obviously didn’t hold up well at all.  Of course, he suspected given the guard on Harry over the summer.  A guard that somehow didn’t notice Harry’s clear abuse.  

Suddenly, he realizes that Harry’s still talking about the twins and Ron saving him by breaking him out, the rest of the summer (no wonder he’s angry that the Weasleys claim that he’s like a son given he almost died, and they still didn’t offer a home), the mess at the floo and bookstore, Dobby’s blocking the barrier and flying a car to school.  

Sirius would be laughing his arse off at that, but right now, he’s just confused.  He has plenty of questions, but it appears that Harry’s too busy talking and petting him to bother checking Sirius for a response.  Sirius wonders if Harry ever told anyone these stories before.  Clearly, now that he’s started, he just wants to let it all out.  

Maybe Sirius should’ve turned into Padfoot over the summer to bond with Harry.

Harry continues talking about the ridiculousness of Colin Creevey being the worst fanboy ever, at least Ginny didn’t follow him around and talk his ear off.  He talks about Lockhart, quidditch (Wood is something else), Snape’s assholery behavior, and the detention.  He talks about everyone knowing everything about him and the weird situation of voices in the walls.

Then, he got to the specifics: The Death Day party (cruel thing to do to his kid who was orphaned that day), the message on the wall, the instant suspicion on Harry (that makes no sense), Dobby and the quidditch game (another thing to be annoyed with Dobby about – downright furious at Wood’s callous words), and Colin’s attack.  

“There was a dueling club – Malfoy sent a snake at me in front of everyone and I spoke to it – that’s how I found out about my parseltongue ability.”  

Here, Harry looks down at him uncertainly.  Sirius nods and rubs his head against Harry’s hand to show that he doesn’t think any differently of Harry for his ability.  He’s surprised that Harry didn’t know that Sirius had already been aware of his ability.  Harry smiles and goes on.

“Dealing with the suspicion was awful.  But it did encourage me to try and figure out who was doing it – hence the Polyjuice potion to sneak into the Slytherin dorms on Christmas…”

He details the second holidays, their plot with the Polyjuice, issues with Myrtle (who had – has – a crush on Harry), and their crazy plan only somewhat working.  The dead-end had been disappointing, but they continued on with investigating as more attacks happen and Harry keeps somehow ending up at every scene.  Poor kid.  

“And then, just when I thought Lockhart couldn’t get any dumber, he decides to ‘celebrate’ the situation by having dwarf cupids running around giving out singing valentines.  Sheer chaos.  He also told us to ask Snape about whipping up a love potion and seriously, he looked like he’d kill anyone who’d ask for something like that.”  Harry laughs, “And of course, despite everyone thinking I was setting a monster about the castle, I got a few valentines.  There’s this one that was so embarrassing, I tried to run and dwarf tackled me  – it was in front of so many people – including Malfoy, of course…”

Sirius is surprised when Harry actually sings it:

His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad

His hair as dark as a blackboard

I wish he was mine, he’s really Devine,

The hero who conquered the Dark Lord

“I tried to laugh it off, but it was so embarrassing and of course the twins spent the evening singing it out loud to me all night – I know it wasn’t them though, in case you’re wondering.”

Of course, Sirius knows that.  He’s betting it was Ginny, but the Creevey kid is a possibility.  

“Anyway, the only good thing was that I figured out how the diary worked…”

Of course, he continues to poke around and finds the diary, which he didn’t know was so special, but had some weird interest in.  He details talking to the diary, which talked back, causing major concern for Sirius.  A diary like that was serious dark magic.  He would’ve been yelling if he could when Harry detailed the diary showing him scenes from 1946.  Something wasn’t right, but with Harry petting him, he couldn’t change back, probably for the best – his anger could scare Harry off from finishing the story.

Harry continues, “I really didn’t want to ask Hagrid about his potential involvement, so we kind of pushed it off, even after the original borrower of the diary ransacked my stuff to get it back.  Especially since things were fine until there was another attack… this time on Hermione right before the quidditch game.”

Sirius whines.  He feels bad that the situation had returned and this time so close to home.  It must have been devastating for Harry and Ron.  However, the attack made most students realize that it wasn’t him.

Harry explains about the resolve to sneak away and discuss with Hagrid only for Fudge and a Lucius Malfoy to show up.  He mentions Fudge and his corrupt ways with the arrest of Hagrid and Dumbledore’s sacking.  Sirius agrees with the latter but disagrees with the former – at least the Azkaban part.  Since Hagrid was seemingly involved the first time (and those attacks stopped with his expulsion), it makes sense to remove him from the school, but not arrest him without proof.  

He explains about Hagrid’s ‘follow the spiders’ message and now, Sirius has a new thing to be angry with Hagrid about.  Sirius is growling throughout the whole story of his and Ron’s adventure into the nest of man eating spiders.  He couldn’t imagine what he’d do if he had watched Harry’s adventures without knowing that he survives.  

“So we learned a few things, the security was tight, so we barely got the opportunity to visit Hermione, who had ripped out a page regarding the snake in the Chamber.  Once the announcement about Ginny was made, we went back to the common room only to eventually decide that we needed to tell Lockhart what we knew so he’d be prepared.  Unfortunately, the man was a fraud…”

He details the entire events from visiting Lockhart to the return and telling Dumbledore the story.  Sirius had whined and growled at very places, only having Harry present, alive, and petting him had managed to keep him from completely losing mind.  Everything he’d gone through – almost dying – would’ve had Sirius flipping out.  Hogwarts was obviously not safe for his kid and as happy as he is for the Weasleys, he’s very upset that Harry had to save the day.  And even more pissed at Percy for his letter now.

“Now, I know you know about some stuff from third and fourth year, but I figure I could give you some details about the things you missed, like blowing up Aunt Marge…”

Although Sirius was angry at the Dursleys for allowing the situation, listening to his kid talking about standing up for his parents and ballooning Vernon’s sister was a delight, too bad she wouldn’t remember it.  Sirius is furious at the Ministry for wanting to send him back after that, but Harry continues on.  He gets through third year much faster than first and second, only getting into the details for things he wants to complain about (like Trelawney and not going to Hogsmeade), things he enjoyed, or things that were fun troublemaking or funny to him (like how he got the map in the first place or the maps reaction to Snape and winning the quidditch cup).  He skips entirely over the events of that night except to explain why they were at Hagrid’s and the time turner.  Overall, somehow a better year.

“And you know most of fourth year, but there’s some details I didn’t tell you, yet, so…”

Sirius could tell that Harry just wants someone to listen and that he’s actually feeling better just talking about everything.  Just like he’d said way back when Sirius gave him the mirror, he never really had someone want to know everything or got to talk about it much.  Hence reveling in the chance to tell Sirius the details of his life.

Even the embarrassing ones.

“Okay, obviously, I was under a lot of stress, but I’m kind of amazed that Cho still fancied me after that,” Harry adds when he details the events leading up to the first task and snapping on Cho, not realizing it was her.  “And of course, I should’ve asked her sooner, but I didn’t know about the ball and honestly, I was disaster with girls last year…”

At this, Sirius gives him a look.

“Oi!  I’ve gotten tons better this year.”  A snort by Sirius and Harry says, “I have!  Just let me tell you how bad I was at the ball…”

Sirius would’ve been laughing so hard that he couldn’t breathe at Harry’s explanation of the ball, but couldn’t as Padfoot, instead he plots ways to embarrass Harry once he can talk while continuing to listen to Harry’s mess up.  He’s right, Harry has gotten loads better with dating since the previous year.  

Eventually though, he gets back to more serious things like the Hagrid mess and figuring out the egg clue.  It’s just when he gets though Myrtle showing up in his bath when they hear:

“WHAT DO YOU LOT THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

Jarring them from their comfortable spot and looking at the door where Sirius just happens to spy the extendable ear pop away.  Sirius glances at Harry, who looks devastated that everything he told Sirius could have been overheard by his friends.  Clearly, he wouldn’t want them to know and now they do.

“Why don’t you go up to your room and I’ll take care of this?” Sirius offers immediately turning back into himself.

Harry gives him a grateful look and takes off upstairs, while Sirius heads downstairs.  He reaches the landing with the drawing room, where Molly is yelling at the remaining kids and Tonks.

“What the hell is going on here?” Sirius thunders, angrily.  Based off the disappearing extendable ear and Molly’s tirade that he’s heard the beginnings of that mentioned privacy and eavesdropping, he’s sure that he already knows.

“Oh, Sirius, I’m so sorry.  I thought I had a handle on their eavesdropping – somehow, they must’ve created more of those ridiculous ears.  I don’t know how long they were listening or how much they heard, but rest assured they will be punished for the rest of the holiday – so busy cleaning or other chores that they won’t have time to bother you or Harry again as soon as I’m done yelling at them,” Molly says.  “Unless you’d like to yell at them?”

He’s tempted but they (minus Hermione and Tonks) are her kids, she should discipline them.  

He clears his throat.  “If I started yelling, I’d probably say something we’d all regret.  So, I’ll leave the punishing to you.  I just need to know: how long?”

He’s staining at the kids, who are not looking at him.  All of them looking down in shame.

“Answer him,” Molly says, sternly.

There’s a cough, and Fred answers, “The beginning.  Lupin went to get tea when Harry went after you and…. we couldn’t help ourselves.”

Sirius gives an angry snort, and figures nothing more needs to be said as he turns and takes off up the stairs.  

He’s got a kid to console.

[dolliedarlin]

i m p l i c i t  ⏤katsuki b.

p a i r i n g : bakugou x f.reader 

s u m m a r y : ever since you were young, you were forced to meet with the person dubbed as your finance, Katsuki Bakugou, a Baron’s son who had quite the temper but peaks your interest in every way possible 

l e n g t h : 1.9k

g e n r e : olden days au ; fantasy au ; arranged marriage au ; Bakugou is a tsundere ; and we love him for it ; reader is an amazing bean that can keep up with him ; kirishima is your brother ; best brother ever ; rumours are toxic ; never base your opinions on someone solely on rumours ; you attract a stalker ; it’s not your fault ; he just as a twisted yandere mind ; Katsuki is your hero ; he makes your heart flutter ; and he makes your knees weak ; i really want someone to protect me and say what he said at the end of this 

w a r n i n g s : swearing from our lovable explosion murder king ; acts of stalker/yandere ; sword fighting

a / n : i didn’t plan on posting this but mother nature decided to pay me a visit today so i basically lazed around in my bed groaning in pain and half starving bc it was too painful to get out at times for food. instead i started writing this imagine again that i had began months ago. this is inspired by Ranma 1/2, which is an anime that i loved watching when i was much younger, it’s not well edited because i’m kinda dizzy rn but i hope you enjoy it! 

— first of all, before either you or Katsuki were born, the arrangement for your marriage to each other was already settled by your parents, hence why you were immediately introduced when you were children 

— neither of you knew what marriage or engagement meant but you both associated it with seeing each other

— it wasn’t something Katsuki liked but you didn’t quite mind it, he always gave you really interesting reactions that you quickly came to like

— as the two of you grew up together, you always tried your best to get close to him but Katsuki was adamant at pushing you away and keeping you at arms length at all times

— despite all that, you wanted to catch his attention, which meant that you took interest in all the things that he found interesting too. that included: sword fighting, horse riding, duelling ; spicy foods ; battle tactics ; magic etc 

— Katsuki always tried to ignore you but secretly appreciated how skilled you had become over the years. you were still nothing compared to him but you were able to battle against a majority of qualified knights and still be the last one standing

— he only scoffed at you because your talents were wasted; you’re too kindhearted to ever use your honed skills properly - it irritates him that other women push you to conform to etiquette, tea parties and high society when you were better than that

— you’re better than shallow conversations about the latest fashion, or the art of sipping tea, calligraphy and painting because he knows how much you train and how much effort you put into your education outside of such insignificant things

— Katsuki knows that you can handle yourself better than any other nobleman he knows of, he’s seen you help your father with his business and vigorously train with your dukedom’s knights

— what’s the point of all that effort if you weren’t going to show anything for it?

— because of that Katsuki always acted like he hated having you as his fiancée despite your optimism about him, as well as your patience and understanding of his unique way of expressing himself

— because the two of you are forced to spend a lot of time together by your parents, you’ve has been able to understand Katsuki and his mannerisms better than anyone else as your mother has always taught you to be openminded - she’s never been like the other noble ladies of society, hence why your father married her

— now, you were following in her footsteps. there’s been much gossip about your unladylike behaviour but you didn’t care, all you needed were your parents’ love and the love of Katsuki. he still needed some more time to come around but you’re positive you’ll get to him soon enough

— you’re positive there’s a different gleam in his eyes whenever he looks towards you now. it had always been one of hatred when you were much younger but his expressions frequently soften around you nowadays. 

— no matter how subtle it may be, you always notice

— many rumours circulated about you the first time you had shown your skills openly amongst the knighthood. it had first started with your knights who praised you highly but, as soon as those whisperings reached outside the dukedom, many noble ladies started to gossip about your misdemeanour. 

— surprisingly, those rumours were shut down in under a week and you didn’t know why; usually such good gossip material stayed for months and only faded with the years so it was peculiar to have it die down so quickly 

— what was suspicious was that, as soon as your rumours died down, stories about Katsuki surged forward.

— when you conversed with other people, they would say how horrible they feel for you having to marry such an aggressive and dislikable fiancee. they would then over-exaggerate all the belligerent and misunderstood characteristics of Bakugou, even making up disgusting rumours that painted him to be more villainous than he actually was.

— “how shameful,” you spat with disgust, glowering down at the noble ladies frozen in their seats, “how dare you openly gossip about my fiancee right in front of me, the nerve! you should know better than to act like such children. if you have nothing better to do then i suggest you leave the kirishima estate immediately and never expect to be invited back,” 

— they tried to beg you for forgiveness, seeing as your father held such power in high society, being one of the four noble dukes of the kingdom serving directly under the king as they all had noble blood. 

— nobody expected your father to marry you to a Baron’s son. Katsuki didn’t have a higher title than you but your fathers had gone to war together and remained loyal friends ever since, Baron Bakugou went on to acquire his title of Braon after his service in the war but many people still looked down on him from his commoner origins. to think that such educated ladies of high society would use that as leverage to gossip however they wished. 

— word of your actions on behalf of Bakugou spread quickly and the two of you became a couple that shouldn’t be trifled with.   

— after that day, you always defend Katsuki and never miss the opportunity to express how much you admire him and care for him even if he doesn’t tend to reciprocate it

— you do this when Katsuki’s friends make an appearance, they consisted of your brother, Eijiro, Denki of house Kaminari (son of Marquis Kaminari) and Hanta of house Sero (son of Marquis Sero). 

— they usually don’t visit the estate but this time they decided to utilise the knights training grounds for extra duelling practice and happened to catch you just as you were walking out, having finished your own training

— as soon as introductions and polite greetings were exchanged, came the jokes and jives.

— “I wouldn’t blame you if you eloped with someone else on your wedding day, Lady (Y/N), knowing this guy’s attitude,” Denki snickers as he points his thumb at your fiancé, who growled lowly in return.

— “i wouldn’t dare do something like that because, even if this is an arranged marriage, Katsuki will be the only man for me” Katsuki didn’t expect you to be so forward and couldn’t help the blush that coated his cheeks from your response 

— Denki whistled in a mix of astonishment and amusement, “Katsuki’s a lucky guy!” 

— “he looks really happy to hear you say that too, sis,” Eijiro teased as Hanta grinned from beside him. 

— “shut up! we came here to train so let's train already, you dumbasses!”

— the days go by and life is good; the quicker your wedding day approaches the kinder and gentler Katsuki treats you. it wasn’t until the kindness you practiced with everyone you met, no matter their status, became something more in the twisted mind of an unknown individual that you encountered within city streets, while out shopping

— one act of kindness made the stranger crave for your touch and sought you out in the most deviant method. he sent constant letters multiple times a day and even mailed one with his most intimate item of clothing, not only that but he always stood at the gates of your estate, waiting for it to be opened just to slip in and try to meet you again

— of course, he didn’t get far because of the security brought on by your dukedom’s talented knights stopped him at every devious attempt. each incident was reported directly to your brother, who was training to inherit the duchy as soon as your father retired

— Eijiro was having none of it and devised the best plan of action he could, knowing that his image as the heir of the dukedom needed to be thought of so that his people wouldn’t be against him when he took over his capable father’s place. he resisted the urge for an immediate confrontation to plan with you, about how you wanted to defuse the situation 

— however, as soon as word got to Bakugou, he ran over on foot to confront the man at your estate, just as Eijiro came down with a squadron of knights and you at his side

— lost in his own world, your stalker immediately reached out for you the instant he caught sight of your figure. on his face, he had a twisted smile and manic eyes, his breathing became heavy as if to savour the same air you breathed not too far away from him. it was frighting and chilling to see such an unhinged man. he was so deranged, he didn’t mind the swords and pointed glares directed at him by all that were present and Katsuki, who was fast approaching from behind

— “Get. Away. From. Her!” Katsuki shouted in anger as he drew his sword and slashed at the young man, making you jump back with a gasp.

— “Bakugou!” Kirishima warned as he pulled you into his chest for protection from the clashing of swords

— “Katsuki, be careful!” you cried. confronting someone with such an unstable mind could go horribly wrong and no matter how skilled your fiancee was, you couldn’t help but worry

— Even though this was the first time Katsuki ever showed his feelings for you in such a dramatic gesture, the worry you had for him consumed your joy as his opponent drew out his own sword and started lashing out with worse coordination than your junior knights. 

— what he lacked with technique, however, he made up for in agility as well as his own unpredictability. it made it hard for Katsuki to predict the path of his opponent’s sword so for a time, he was constantly dodging his blade. it didn’t take long, however, for the game of endurance and stamina to come into play and slow down his opponent enough for him to fight back with more accuracy.

— “you revolting rat!” Katsuki growled swinging his sword with might only to grind his teeth when his sword is narrowly dodged. not one to give up, however, he goes in once again and finally lands a hit that forces your stalker to crumble to his knees, “you try and pull that shit with (Y/N) again and I’ll be doing more than just beating you to the ground,” it was an obvious win for the blonde. 

— “And what would that be?” your stalker still had fight in him that came off as more irritating than anything else Bakugou had ever encountered in his life of servitude as a royal knight and baron’s son.

— just to prove his point, whatever it may be, Katsuki goes to stand beside you and pull you into his chest with his large hand at your waist   

— “landing your ugly, disgusting ass in a fucking coffin!” the venom in his voice was evident and it made you shudder, curling up into his chest for comfort, not knowing that the next words he’d shout would have your knees weaker than any training could ever do, “(Y/N) is MY Fiancee! you touch her and I’ll kill you!”

n a v i . | bnha mlist 

[atlafan]

Juvenile and Family Law, is it something that a kid dreams of practicing? No, not really. Is that where the big bucks are if you’re not interested in taxes and wills? Yes, it is. College is expensive, and so is law school; gotta pay it off somehow. It takes a while to build your clientele, a lot of it is word of mouth. You work your way up, and slowly but surely, build a good reputation for yourself. And if you’re lucky, you’ll make partner.

Harry Styles is good at his job, and is on the brink of making partner at his firm. Gallagher, Hilson & Associates Family Law is a great place to work. Isaiah Gallagher and Maria Hilson are two incredible lawyers, and the other associates Harry works with aren’t too bad either. He doesn’t always love working nearly sixty hours a week, and some of the cases he handles have caused him to see the bottom of one too many bottles, but other than that, he’s happy.

Family Law means working all kinds of cases. Custody, spousal support, paternity, and divorce. All of those cases are messy, rarely are they clean cut. Harry happens to specialize in divorce, which in turn can lead to all of the other things listed above. What’s worse is that a lot of his clients will often flirt with him, so he’s started to wear a fake wedding band to ward off any and all inappropriate behavior. It doesn’t happen every time, but it was often enough that he decided to find a way to just avoid the unwanted attention.

Due to how many hours he works a week, Harry’s social life is a little lackluster. By the time he gets home work, all he wants to do is kick his shoes off, plop down on the couch with some greasy Chinese food, and catch up on some television. He lives in a nice enough building in the city. His apartment has one bedroom, and one and half baths. On Friday nights, he’ll go out with some of the other associates for a drink, so he gets a bitof social time in. He’s not lonely, he actually quite enjoys the quiet and solitude. He’s got a cat, Gerry, short for Geraldine that he takes care of. He has what he needs, and he’s perfectly content.

Whenever he dates, people always want to talk about his work. The last thing Harry wants to talk about after a long day at work, is more work. So, he sticks to meaningless hookups, and his own hand, when he needs that type of release.

He doesn’t have too much to complain about. He’s thirty, and massively successful. Some of his friends still live at home while working retail jobs, not that he’s judging. He was twenty-six when he moved out, and he’s grateful his parents let him stay rent free so he could save up for his own place. He doesn’t like to compare himself to others, but it makes him feel good to know he’s all set. He works hard, yes, but it’s all worth it.

//

With how quiet his personal life is, it’s hard to imagine Harry being a shark in the courtroom, but he is. He’s a master in the art of persuasion and rhetoric. Having been a communication major in his undergrad career, and all. He knows how to read a room, and how to read people. The jury is just an audience waiting to watch a live performance. His theater minor also comes in handy here. Being a lawyer is an act, a role he plays. He knows how to play the part when it’s in a large courtroom, or when it’s just a small meeting in a conference room to divide up assets. It’s not always easy, but he makes it look that way. Harry typically wins most of his cases, and when it’s something small, he’s usually able to get his client the majority of what they asked for. Every customer leaves happy.

These skills can’t all be taught and learned. Some people are born with natural talent, skills they learn to hone in on and perfect. It’s a craft that Harry has worked on for years. Again, he’s only thirty, but because he has such precision and talent, it makes him the hot commodity. The office is constantly getting calls for him. It’s why they want him to become the next partner. Having his name on the plaque as you enter would surely put people at ease. Isaiah and Maria saw potential in Harry from the beginning, and they feel lucky that he’s one of their associates.

There other very qualified associates as well, like Niall – who specializes in custody cases – he’s well on his way up. There’s Candice – who specializes in prenuptial agreements – she got into the lawyer game a little later in life, but she’s as sharp as a whip, and shouldn’t be underestimated. And lastly, there’s Byron – who specializes in paternity cases – he thinks he’s going to be the next partner because he’s a bit full of himself.

Harry and Niall are the closest in age, so they hang out more often. They both really like baseball, and will go to a game or two during the season. Candice is the surrogate mother figure. She has no children of her own, she’s the fun aunt to her nieces and nephews, but she feels oddly maternal towards Harry and Niall. The boys often call her “Ma”, instead of her actual name, and she loves it. She looks out for them, and there when they need someone to listen. She’s fifty-seven, and enjoys baking in her free time. She often brings the boys homemade muffins on Monday mornings, and they adore her for it.

Byron…well…Byron is a forty-year-old womanizer who totally clashes with Harry. Does Harry have one-night stands? Yes. Does he ever lie to his partners? No. Byron enjoys playing the game in all facets, and Harry never takes part in it. Needless to say, Harry hates when he has to partner with him on a case, and avoids it when he can.

Isaiah and Maria each have their own executive assistant, or para: Michele and Kyla. They’re both in their late twenties, and rocking it. Harry only interacts with them over email. He, Candice, Niall, and Byron all share the same administrator: Ronnie. Ronnie is twenty-six, friendly, and organized. She doesn’t have time to help everyone on their briefs, but that’s what interns are for, and there’s an abundance of them circling throughout the office.

Harry has a nice office. Plenty of natural light from the windows, he has a desk riser so he can stand up periodically, and he even has his own mini fridge. (He’s often paranoid about people taking his Bubbly, so he just brought in his own fridge.) He’s got a decent enough view of the city; he likes it best at night when the twinkling lights come through. It reminds him of how lucky he is to be where he is in life. He knows he’s more fortunate than others, so he tries to be grateful. He gives back when he’s able, donate to different scholarship funds and whatnot.

Harry is a good man.

//

On a particularly cloudy morning, Ronnie lets Harry know his 10AM consult has arrived. He didn’t know much about his new potential client, but he was always willing to hear someone out. He stands up from his desk, and waits for the woman to enter.

In walks a young woman wearing an expensive, red pantsuit, black heels, and a dark red lipstick. She gives a soft smile to Ronnie before she closes the door. Harry walks over to her, extending his hand.

“Hi, I’m Harry.”

“Mira.” She shakes his hand.

“Please, have a seat.” He gestures to the two seats on the other side of his desk and they both sit. “What brings you to my office today?”

“I heard you’re a pretty good divorce lawyer, and I need a divorce.”

“Is your spouse aware that you’re seeking counsel?”

“No.” She shakes her head and swallows. “I…I’d be putting myself in danger if he knew I wanted to leave him.”

“What kind of danger? If he’s physically abusive, then you need to- “

“He doesn’t put his hands on me like that. It’s…I don’t love him, and I never have. I was essentially…I was sold to him; it was an arranged marriage. I thought maybe I could learn to like him, to love him, but it’s been three years, and I can’t stand him. I need legal help.”

“What do you mean you were sold to him? Were you a child bride? Were you sex trafficked?”

“No.” She chews on her bottom lip. “He made a deal with my father. Thomas got me in exchange for…something. I can’t get into what exactly with you just yet.”

“Does he think you’re happy?”

“Yes.” She nods. “Well, for the most part. I do my thing, and he does his. His job keeps him pretty busy, and I often pretend to be asleep when he gets home. He doesn’t satisfy my needs, so to speak, and I’ve given up on trying. I want to be freed from him.” She pulls out a packet of paper from her purse, and gives it to Harry. “That’s a copy of the contract he and my father signed when they made the deal. I’m not great with legal jargon. I thought maybe if you decide to take me on you could look that over and tell me if there’s any way, I can get out of this.”

“Are you over eighteen?”

“Yes, well over.”

“And were you over eighteen when you were married?”

“Yes.”

“Then how could your father barter you?”

“Where I come from…it can just be like that. The goods we get in exchange for my hand outweighed my happiness.”

“I’m so sorry.” Harry frowns. “My services aren’t exactly cheap.”

“I wouldn’t expect them to be. I can pay top dollar, if that’s what you require. I have money of my own.”

“Alright.” Harry sets the packet of papers onto his desk. “I’ll take a look at that soon, and give you a call.”

“Does that mean you’re taking me on?”

“I hate to see such a nice person be so unhappy.” Harry frowns. “I got into this business to help people, so I’ll help you, Mira.”

“Oh, thank you so much.” She smiles. “There are going to be some things in that contract that may shock you, so please don’t hesitate to call me directly with your questions.” She takes out a business card from her purse. “There’s all of my contact information. If anyone other than myself contacts you regarding all of this, don’t say a word.”

“Don’t worry, I’m good at keeping things confidential.”

“I heard you’re a very trustworthy attorney.” She nods, and stands to her feet. Harry does the same. “Thank you for taking the time to listen.” She extends her hand, and he takes it to shake.

“Of course, it’s what I’m here for.” He smiles and opens the door. He watches her leave, maybe for a little too long.

[DARK SIDED, COMING TO PATREON ON SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2ND @ 8AM EST] [Ask]

[corvus--rex]

The first part of this is already on Ao3 as part of Julance 2021, and I wanted to throw it up here with the second (unfinished) part of the chapter. It's sleeping for now, but I really want to come back to it. If you've read the first part on Ao3, I said that Keith's a little dark at first, but that he has his reasons - those reasons come in in his part. It is an Omegaverse, with Alpha Lance and Omega Keith. As usual, please feel free to skip it if it's not your thing :)

~*~*~*~

Part 1: Sharpshooter

Unilu was an old neighborhood. One that didn’t care where you came from or where you were going. Didn’t care about dynamics. Didn’t care about where your money came from. The density of the buildings made the area dark even in the middle of the day. The stories said that Altea had been a beautiful city, light and free. That was impossible to see anymore. Daibazaal Industries had taken over long ago, running the nanny-state government from boardrooms.

This was the world Lance McClain navigated through on his way to a bar called Baku’s Den. He was supposed to be meeting up with Florona, a girl he’d been put in contact with. She had connections to a job he was interested in. Omega trafficking wasn’t an uncommon practice, but it was usually female Omegas that were targeted. Some bullshit about delicate beauty and submission he didn’t believe in. Lance’s mother was an Omega, wherever she was. He hoped she was safe; he hadn’t seen her in 8 years. But this trafficking ring was pretty new, and dealing exclusively in male Omegas. Lance had a feeling he knew why.

The Daibazaal state had mandated sterilization for all Betas and some female Omegas. Male Omegas were safe from the invasive procedure. The official reason was that there was a population issue and the city was over-crowded, and that, although unfortunate, it was necessary for even resource distribution, and the statistics showed that male Omegas were far less likely to have children. It was total bullshit. The birth rate had been dropping steadily for years. Some once-thriving neighborhoods had become ghost towns. The only reason a place like Unilu was still holding on was because they looked the other way on most things, becoming a haven of sorts for people like Lance. The Alpha had always had an innate talent for firearms of all types. It was a talent he’d honed into a finely-sharpened skill. One that he used to chip away at Daibazaal and the atrocities they allowed to go unaddressed, like this trafficking ring.

He’d left his hoverbike a few blocks away, making his way to Baku’s Den on foot. He stiffened when he caught the scent of someone coming up beside him, but relaxed when he realized he knew the Beta. It was another runner who went by Rolo. Lance and Rolo had first met when Rolo and his girlfriend Nyma took off with Lance’s hoverbike. He’d gotten it back from the Beta pair and their cyber-terrier Beezer, and they’d eventually become friends of a sort.

Rolo casually sauntered up beside the Alpha. “So, where ya headed?” he asked.

“Just drinks with a girl,” Lance answered. Meeting a contact,was the translation.

The Beta understood. “She pretty?” One of your usual contacts?

“Don’t know. Blind date a friend set up.” No, but I trust the one who set up the meeting.

“Well, good luck with that. Never can tell with some girls. Gimme a call if you need an excuse.” Watch your back. Call if you need backup.

Lance chuckled at the surface sentiment. “Sure. Thanks, man.” Will do.

“Well, I better take Beezer for a walk. Gettin’ late.” Doing a hacking run tonight, but I’ll be nearby.

“Have fun with that. Watch out for any stray cats.” Good luck. Keep an eye out for security bots.

“Eh, they’re easy to scare off.” I can get around them.

By then, they’d reached the block Baku’s Den was on. Lance nodded toward it, Rolo understanding that this was where his meeting was taking place. They parted ways, Lance headed for the bar, and Rolo disappeared around the corner. The sign hologram on the dark grey concrete building sat over the heavy steel door. The sign read Baku’s Den in a stylized typeface with a three-jawed serpent weaving through the letters. The serpent flew – swam? – through the bar’s name on a continual loop, executing a barrel roll around the name every third loop.

The interior looked very much like most other bars Lance had been to, whether meeting fixers or just relaxing. A dark concrete floor was easy to clean (and hide ingrained blood stains) after the inevitable bar fights. Dim lighting was both a blessing and a curse since it kept things more intimate, but it was also harder to spot a weapon. Booths were the same way. Made things more private, but also gave someone the chance to ambush a target. Lance’s cursory sweep was more tactical than he let show. He noted all exit points, where was best for cover, who looked the most dangerous. He also spotted his contact.

Florona sat at the edge of the booth in the back corner. She had closely cut maroon hair except for a white swath down the middle that was cut longer and swept to one side. Her gloss black cybernetic eyes had no visible sclera or iris, but he knew she was looking at him. He could see her brown leather jacket with dark red accents and skin-tight burgundy pants and heavy boots. It was also a pretty safe guess that she was armed. Just as it was a near certainty that Florona wasn’t her real name.

Lance McClain certainly wasn’t his. But when he was separated from his family at 16, he left Leandro Dávila behind. He made a new identity for himself, one that let him not stand out at all, one that let him hide. He wasn’t even sure if there was anything left of Leandro in him. Leandro had been a hopeful, optimistic child. Lance was hardened by years of fighting, jaded by harsh reality. Leandro would have been afraid of Lance. It was a smart thing to be.

Some people, like Florona, wore their cybernetics for the world to see. Implants and attachments that were blatantly obvious. Rarer were those like Lance. He’d lost his eyes after a run gone wrong. The crew he was with sold him out when they thought the other side would pay better for it. They blinded him, but even without sight, he was still able to take them out and escape. He’d called his fixer, who got him help. His cybernetics looked natural, as close to his original blue as they could get. But they were fully functional cyberware. Top of the line a few years back. Night vision, infrared, zooming, even the ability to limit the amount of light received – all linked in. By blinding him, his old crew made sure he would never be blinded again. Not too long after that, he lost his left hand. That run was successful, but Lance had gotten caught in crossfire and an unlucky shot blew out his wrist, shredding tendons and splintering bone. The new one was indistinguishable from his right, the artificial skin blending seamlessly with the organic.

Lance had no choice but to slide into the booth facing away from the door, forcing him to trust Florona with his personal safety. He nodded to her, careful not to say a word until he was seated. “Florona.” It was a statement, a greeting, a question, a confirmation.

“McClain,” she returned, “Or would you prefer Sharpshooter?”

He put on the illusion of relaxing, something he never truly did. “Lance is fine,” he said casually.

Florona’s lips twitched with an amused huff. “Alright, Lance. I’m going to order us drinks while we wait,” she said, signaling to the aqua-haired waitress.

“Waiting for what?” This wasn’t what Lance was expecting, and now he was getting nervous.

“Your partner.”

“Partner? That’s news to me. What can you tell me about them?”

The waitress came over, waiting for what she was sure would be Florona’s usual order. “Nunvil,” Florona said – no surprises there. “And bring the bottle.”

Lance whistled low. “You go hard.”

Florona raised a perfect eyebrow. “And you don’t?”

“Never said I didn’t. So, what about this partner?”

She leaned back, throwing an arm over the back of the booth. “Best fuckin’ swordsman I’ve ever seen. Stealth type. He’s got this one blade – let’s just say I never want to be on the wrong side of it.”

The waitress returned setting unopened bottle and a pair of glasses on the table. When she left, Florona made a show of breaking the seal on the bottle. She poured both glasses, and Lance idly played with the rim of his.

“What’s so special about this blade?” he asked. He was genuinely curious, but made sure she didn’t know that.

“Ultraviolet hard-light. Keeps it maglocked to a sheath on his back. Bio-activated so no one but him can use it. I got to see what happens when someone tried to take it once. Wasn’t pretty. New guy tried to hit on him. Pretty forcefully, but he didn’t know what he was in for.”

Interesting information. This mysterious partner of his was a known factor here. Lance wasn’t sure if Florona had mentioned that part to remind him that he was an outsider in Unilu or if she just considered it part of the story.

“I should tell you what to expect from him before he gets here. You're an Alpha, and he may take offense to that. He’s an Omega, and a lifetime of bad experiences makes him resent Alphas on sight.”

“That’s fair,” he said, and finally picked up his glass. He actually enjoyed the silky burn as it went down. “Anything else I should know?”

“Don’t piss him off. He’s not likely to actually kill you, but the threat will be there.”

“Anything else that’s not vague and threatening?” Lance asked, draining his glass.

“Mm, nope.” Florona refilled both their glasses, and Lance saw the tiniest movement of her looking to the bar. “Except that he’s coming over. Better get ready, he’s an experience.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part 2: Samurai

Keith stashed his heavily modified hoverbike in an alley barely a block away from Baku’s Den, activating the chameleon hologram that would keep it out of sight. He was familiar with both the Unilu neighborhood in general and Baku’s Den in particular, and knew to be cautious. It wasn’t just the relative lawlessness of the area that kept his guard up. Nowhere was truly safe for a male Omega in Altea. Not anymore, not with the disappearances that he now knew were a major Omega trafficking ring.

Knowing that the upper echelons of Altean society were buying and selling male Omegas like prized pets made his blood boil. It was assumed they were being taken as breeders, to be used to give the city’s elite heirs until their bodies gave out. But Keith had seen the kinds of things that happened to Omegas, male or female. Breeding was only part of it. He was lucky that he hadn’t been taken, but he’d freed more than a few who were in similar situations. Kidnapped or given away to Alphas, and even Betas, and abused into being the “perfect” Omega. It varied depending on the human garbage controlling the Omega. Docile, submissive servants, hypersexualized walking sex toys, psychologically broken breeding stock for their Alphas, and that was the better end. He’d seen Omegas so physically, emotionally, mentally broken that there was no saving them. Death was a welcome rest for them, but not for the abusers. He felt nothing for them as people when he put them down, only a sense of relief that they would never harm another Omega.

Keith was mainly a runner specializing in stealth and close combat. Taking out low-level Omega trafficking was what he did between runs. If working opposite Daibazaal Industries and its only subsidiary, Galra Technologies, was what amounted to Keith’s day job, his vigilante justice for trafficked and abused Omegas was his passion project. It was what made him jump at the chance to at least help bring down the biggest trafficking ring the city had ever seen. He didn’t know Florona well, but he trusted her boss Luxia, and she was the one who first had the intel for the run being offered.

The exterior of Baku’s Den was its usual façade of calm, as much as a high-class dive bar could be. Keith knew as well as anyone that a fight could break out at any time and for any reason. Just walking in made him uneasy, especially when he opened the door to a loud argument in progress between members of a runner team he’d seen there before. Almost subconsciously, his hand went toward the hard-light blade he kept sheathed on his lower back at all times. The near-fight ended with raucous laughter and a call for another round of drinks. He dropped his hand with a relieved sigh and made his way to the bar, intentionally catching Florona’s eye on the way.

“Keith! Haven’t seen you in a while,” Luxia greeted him.

“Yeah, been busy,” he answered, “Just finished another run last night. Anything I should know about this guy before I head over?”

She shrugged. “Experienced runner. Long-range firearms specialist. Got a couple cybernetics, but nothing obvious.” Luxia knew Keith’s preferred drink, and set the glass of SilveRing down in front of him, the dim lighting of the bar illuminating the juniberry-distilled, deep magenta alcohol from within and highlighting the silvery ring settled around the perimeter of the liquid surface. “Just so you know, he’s an Alpha, but I can tell he’s not just in it for the money. Don’t know what his deal is with that, but he seemed legitimately pissed at the idea of Omegas being trafficked.”

“Good to know. He’s still an Alpha.” Keith finished his drink, Luxia refilling it without a word. “Well, better head over there. Run’s more important than some Alpha.

~*~*~*~

Links to the rest of the series:

1 | 2 | 3* | 4 | 5* | 6* | 7 | 8 | 9* | 10 | 11 | 12* | 13 | 14 | 15* | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19* | 20* | 21*

[inkweaver22-blr]

Welcome to chapter nine! This one was meant to just be another filler with one of my own AU’s, but Tang just had to be introspective and have a moment of character growth. Hope you enjoy!

EDIT: This chapter has been edited to include some new info dropped on the same day I originally posted this! More info in the End Notes!

AO3 Link

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Scattered Cicadas - Chapter Nine: Rocks and Roles

Tang knows how to act. That doesn't mean he likes to play every part.

----------

Tang liked to think of himself as a decent actor, at least back in the original timeline. He had been part of the theater class in high school and telling stories required a bit of a dramatic flair if you wanted to keep your audience entertained. Convincing Pigsy he was a popular food critic hadn’t been too hard back then.

The many cycles he had been through had certainly helped polish his skill into a genuine talent. That one time where he and everyone else had been professional actors playing the roles of themselves from the original timeline as part of a show had especially allowed him to hone himself to a greater degree than before.

Being stuck jumping through time had practically made it a necessity.

It wasn’t that Tang enjoyed what was essentially lying to his family. It was more for their protection. He had almost broken the “No Interference” rule a few times when he hadn’t properly reacted to events that, while shocking or upsetting to his family, were simply part of his routine by now. He couldn’t allow the repetitive nature of the cycles to make him slip up and potentially cause more harm by being confronted by his lack of surprise or fear.

So he acted. He gasped at all the right moments or screamed in fear when in danger. Every laugh, every sigh of exasperation, every freak out over something related to Wukong was perfectly performed so as to not to raise suspicion. So long as the proper reaction occurred in response to the correct effect, everything went smoothly.

It wasn’t too hard or taxing as he never needed to fake his enjoyment of being around his family. Luckily for him, he also didn’t have to act exactly as he had been in the original timeline, or he may have gone insane from the monotony of it.

The cycles where his background was entirely rewritten were blessings in disguise, really. They were new. Fresh experiences for Tang to have and not have to work as hard to realistically react to.

He treated them like a method acting exercise. The new memories as part of Tang’s new backstory was the motivation for the ‘character’ he was playing. He didn’t have to fully adhere to them, but they certainly helped him play the role provided to him for the cycle.

He still disliked playing the villain however.

It happened a few times before already. The most notable had been when Zhu Bajie was in the role of Sun Wukong as MK’s mentor.

Tang shuddered at the memory of that timeline.

Saying that version of him had been unhinged was severely downplaying the many atrocities he had performed on both himself and others. Committing suicide to erase his name from the books of the dead, killing demons to absorb their lifeforce, and cutting open his own chest to manually insert the gem holding that lifeforce into himself for power were simply the tamer actions he had committed.

He supposed that heartbreak, jealousy, and internalized insecurities could drive even the most benign people to madness so long as they properly justified their actions to themselves.

It had been the first time in quite a while that Tang seriously considered intentionally breaking the interference rule and just running off to live in solitude for the entire cycle. Getting “redeemed” had been one of the most difficult things he had tried to pull off.

Tang dodged a swipe from the Monkey King’s staff as he was brought back into the present.

He was the villain once again this cycle. Luckily though, he was much less of a threat to his family this time around.

He was replacing Red Son as the demon child of Demon Bull King and Princess Iron Fan.

Tang, Son of the Earth.

He wasn’t the only one who was switched around. Pigsy, who went by Bajie, was a human who had become Wukong’s successor. MK was a boar demon who ran the noodle shop. Red Son was a scientist and engineer who frequented the restaurant.

It was almost an opposite reflection of the cycle he had just been musing about.

“You’ll have to do better than that, noodle boy,” Tang taunted as he swung his arms to pull chunks of stone from the ground, his hands and the Earth he controlled both glowing with a golden-yellow light.

He supposed that it made sense for him to have some sort of elemental power if he was this timeline’s Red Son. Earth fit as he had certainly mellowed out over the course of the cycles, becoming more focused and self assured. His original self would have most certainly been associated with air with how flighty he had been.

Tang made sure to keep his full concentration as he attacked Bajie. Earth may be the element of the sturdy, but it had the potential to be much more volatile than fire. It was easy to let loose and cause a catastrophic earthquake. It took precision to control smaller pieces of rock without causing too much collateral damage.

Bajie batted away the earthen projectiles with ease and rushed into an opening Tang had intentionally left. He had to do his best to not rely on the fighting skills he had from previous cycles and use only what his memories knew when playing a villain. Otherwise he’d easily beat the fledgling hero and that certainly would be treated as interfering.

Tang winced as the staff connected with his ribs and sent him flying. He coughed as he pulled himself up, holding his injured side as he glared at the now smirking Bajie.

“How’s that for better!”

“This isn’t over,” Tang cried out dramatically. He activated his powers, this time summoning a whirlwind of sand to teleport away.

Another scene as the villain successfully played out.

----------

Tang sat in his workshop, calculating the specific size of a rune circle he would need.

It seemed that similarly to how Red Son was a genius that incorporated magic into science, this version of Tang was one who incorporated science into magic. Not a big distinction, but important in how the process worked. It still took an impressive amount of knowledge on both subjects to work them together in the end.

Setting his pen down to take a break, Tang looked around as he stretched. He caught his reflection in a nearby piece of metal machinery he had been fiddling with and examined himself once again.

He didn’t look too different from his human self, his face remaining the same. His hair was now a dark brown with yellow highlights and his glasses were much smaller. The biggest difference were the bull horns sticking out of the side of his head.

He didn’t mind them too much, but having to give up any pull over shirt for button downs was a hassle.

Looking at his horns lead the demon scholar to think about his parents in this timeline.

Demon Bull King and Princess Iron Fan.

Tang frowned as he recalled the less than comforting welcome he had received after returning from his defeat. The disapproving dismissal from his father and scathing taunts from his mother had been demoralizing. It would have hurt more if he hadn't had the years of time jumping behind him.

If this was how Red Son was commonly treated, it was no wonder he worked hard in everything he did just to gain a scrap of approval and praise.

And yet he knew they loved each other. The moments he noticed didn’t happen often, but he could tell that his parents held some affection for him, and he obviously cared for them. He just didn’t understand why they acted so cruelly to one another.

Was it a demon thing? Were they afraid that by showing their love they were showing weakness?

That was certainly possible, but Tang disagreed with the sentiment. He had been through enough cycles to see that love made one stronger. It wasn’t the weakness their enemies thought it was.

Tang was already planning on becoming redeemed in this cycle. It hurt to think his parents would disown him, but what if that didn’t have to happen?

He thought about that one specific cycle and how he had become so twisted. All of it could have been avoided had his past self simply let go of his long held beliefs and went with Bajie.

Now he just had to make two powerful demons do just that.

Tang was an amazing actor.

He also had many years of watching the people around him and knew most of them almost better than they knew themselves.

His current parents were no exception.

He could see the potential for a loving and healthy family, buried just beneath the surface.

It would take some work, but he was sure he could unearth it and polish that potential until it shined.

With renewed energy, Tang pulled out a blank scroll and began planning.

He had a family to save.

----------

Welcome to what I’m calling the Noodle Swap AU! It is named that way because the only change is that the pairs that make up the two most popular noodle ships (SpicyNoodles and FreeNoodles) swap places!

Shout out to @winterpower98 for their amazing Actor AU and Dad Swap AU mentioned in this chapter! Go check them out!

Yes, yes, I know I’ve basically made Tang here Terra from Teen Titans. Most people would give him Air as an element, but 1) we already have an Air user in Princess Iron Fan and 2) Tang has changed quite a bit since the start of this Time Hopping experience, as he states himself in the chapter.

I do genuinely believe there’s a loving family hidden somewhere underneath all the cruelty the DBK crew throw at each other. It’s already been hinted that Red Son will get a redemption arc in the show, but I want one for his parents too.

That’s all for now! See you in the next chapter!

:IMPORTANT EDIT!!!!:

There's been a few paragraphs changed and added to include the new canon lore for Tang in the Dad Swap AU! Go check out @kitkat1003's absolutely ASTOUNDING work, When the Tide Pulls Away and the Earth Sharpens to Steel! It is INCREDIBLE and if it was finished, you'd absolutely know there would be an entire chapter dedicated to it here.

[katsidhe]

Hello as a long time silent lurker with post notifications on, and someone who has been very into the minecraft roleplay for about 9 months, I am oh so incredibly intrigued on your thoughts! I hope you don't mind if I ramble a little. Sam (both minecraft and spn, but in this context the minecraft one) is one of my favourite characters because he's so incredibly complex. The prison story has sparked so much discussion and conflict in this fandom, so I would love to hear your thoughts if you want to share!

oh noooooooooooo don’t enable me. (Jk <3)

I’m putting this under a read more for those of you who don’t want to be inflicted with my minecraft roleplay brain worms. I would apologize but I think we’re well past that.

So, like, full disclosure that I am pretty new to dsmp and am surely missing out on big ol swathes of Essential Character Content, etc etc. But I do know the basics, and I’ve (naturally) watched all the Torture Box Content, because I mean come on, that’s my brand.

k so First of all, THE most essential part of any media: x-coded y girl. Dream is a textbook Cas-coded Sam girl. Sam (Minecraft) is a Cas-coded Dean girl. Quackity is a Dean-coded Sam girl. I’d say Tommy is Dean-Dean. Techno is, hmm, Cas-Cas. Okay, important part done.

Minecraft Sam is very fun! I find it absolutely delightful that he clings to moral high ground while torturing and starving a prisoner. And at least from what I’ve seen, there’s a lot of room for interpretation as to the level of guilt and involvement he actually feels about what’s being done to Dream. He goes back and forth between justifying the treatment as something Dream categorically deserves, and justifying it as a means to an end. Whether that end is the book itself, or whether it’s Quackity’s cooperation/satisfaction, or whether it’s some twisted and bloody sense of justice and duty, seems to vary wildly. On top of that, of course, is the irony that Dream was the one to give him this commission and this job in the first place: in every respect, it’s a duty to Dream (to punish him; to secure him; to uphold his rules) that Sam’s fulfilling. Dream isn’t the only one to suffer from Sam’s inflexibility surrounding the entire concept of Dream: Tommy and Ponk do too.

And yet it’s not the inflexibility that ends up hurting Dream the worst: it’s the gaps in that rigidity. If Sam had kept the prison operating as apparently originally commissioned, it would be inhumane but just about bearable: hardly the level of absurd, over-the-top war crime that it’s reached by now. His choice to begin starving Dream in earnest seems to have been mostly an emotional reaction, after Tommy’s death. (Ironic, too, that Tommy also suffered the result of this choice.) And this is fine, because it’s not active: it’s passive, something that’s happening by inaction. Same with giving Quackity specially made weapons and total carte blanche.

The level of trust that Dream has in Sam’s sense of duty is also fascinating. Even as late as the most recent stream, after the guy’s been permitting him to be tortured for months, Dream appeals to Sam’s need to keep Dream static, in one place as his prisoner, in order to save his life. Incidentally, I do think that convincing Sam to keep Quackity from straight-up murdering him is the only concession Dream was actually hoping to win with that conversation. because like, food and a courtyard visit? after a jail break? Like hell is Sam going to grant that, even before the stunt he and Techno pulled, and Dream knows it. I think that the rest of that conversation was just to deflect, and keep Sam from questioning Dream more sharply about whatever he and Techno have planned. Bringing up Tommy and letting Sam go off on his predictable diatribe about morality and just desserts seemed similarly strategic: Dream knows what Sam thinks about what kind of treatment he deserves. He’s had months to figure it out, and it wasn’t exactly rocket science to begin with.

Anyway, that trust is the same reason Dream appealed (unsuccessfully) to Sam when Quackity first showed up: it devastated him to realize that he’d miscalculated the degree of Sam’s willingness to set aside his duty in this one particular way. Quackity in general represents a HUGE blind spot in Sam’s otherwise completely rigid inflexibility: so huge it’s almost baffling, given what Sam was ready to do to Tommy and Ponk and Ghostbur. But Quackity represents a loophole Sam badly wants. He badly, badly wants some good old-fashioned vengeance, without dressing it up with any pretensions of procedure or justice, but he can’t allow himself to actively act on those impulses—or else he would be Bad, and he can’t have that. He has to believe himself to be Good, and he wants to indulge himself with Dream’s suffering anyway. So he explains that, actually, Dream’s treatment is Dream’s own fault. It’s hilariously deluded.

Which brings me to Quackity, because what makes Quackity fun is that he’s actually NOT hilariously deluded—not about this, at least. Unlike Sam, he’s not laboring under the insane mental acrobatics necessary to convince himself that torture is Good Actually. He knows that what he’s doing is terrible, but he owns it: he’s fine admitting that he enjoys it, that he’s doing this for personal gain and personal vengeance and not for reasons of high-minded civic duty. He’s justifying the torture with brutal simplicity: Dream has hurt him and Dream has something he needs, done and done. He seems to be a firm believer in vengeful and disproportionate retribution, just as with his whole Butcher Army thing. To which I say, neat and fun! I also really really enjoy the power dynamic between him and Dream. Dream is someone who commands respect and fear and power, who could murder Quackity with one hand tied behind his back if they were on equal footing, and who probably barely spared him a thought as a threat. Quackity lives in terror of the thought of Dream escaping and wreaking his vengeance. And Quackity is trying his very best to wrestle that power away from him.

He seems to be pretty unpracticed and ineffective at torture, too—like, yeah, I get this is Minecraft and props are limited, but torturing someone long-term with an ax and a sword is going to be more than a bit unwieldy. and did he even bring in health potions his first day? It’s pretty telling and hilarious that Sam is the one who offers the shears, a far more practical choice of tool. Not to mention that the entire premise of his interrogation gives Dream massive, massive incentive to never give Quackity anything. Quackity straight up admits to Dream that the information he wants is the only reason he’s letting Dream live, which is utterly counterproductive if he wants the book sometime this year. Functionally, he needs to torture Dream not merely into admission, but into suicide. And as the days and weeks and months pass, he’s still got nothing to show for it but growing vindictiveness, paranoia, and frustration. By the time of the latest stream, he’s completely lost the plot—his threats don’t even make sense, his violence is ineffective and unhinged and indiscriminate. He’s lost all leverage and he’s needlessly (re)made a powerful enemy in Technoblade.

So, like, characters like Lucifer are fun because they’re good at torture. Characters like Quackity are fun because they’re bad at torture. But that doesn’t much matter. He doesn’t need to be particularly talented, or strong, or skilled to make Dream’s existence hell: the bare facts of the situation are more than enough for that. What does he learn, over the course of these visits—what skills does he hone, what kinds of violence does he discover that he can stomach? What depths of ruthlessness and creativity and hatred does he discover within himself? What threats does he make that he finds himself following through on before he’s even thought through the implications? It’s a learning curve, for him and Dream both. They’re learning each other, they’re learning the corners of this little hell together. Dream wasn’t expecting him to be capable of this degree of hostility or violence. Quackity is sick of being underestimated.

Which brings me finally to Dream. My general and hastily-gleaned impression of the fandom gives me the distinct impression that there is somehow a school of thought convinced Dream’s earned this treatment? Which baffles me. not only in how its absurd extremity (daily torture in a tiny box for literal months, jesus fucking christ) isn’t something even the most terrible villain could earn, but also in how Dream himself strikes me more as a morally gray fallen/falling antihero type than anything else. I was honestly completely prepared to find him to be a straightforward Bad Guy pre-prison, but that’s not at all my impression. He’s clearly got people and things he cares about and wants to protect, and big picture goals he’ll ruthlessly sacrifice anything to advance (ahem Cas-coded Sam girl). Really, it’s more that roleplays don’t tend to lend themselves easily to those types of narrative classification: nearly every character is a POV character; consuming the content from every perspective is nearly impossible. There aren’t super neat ways to sort antagonists and protagonists in essential terms, only in their relationships to one another. In terms of manipulation, war crimes, power-grabbing, and general destruction, practically everyone on the server is guilty to some degree or another. Dream’s treated Tommy pretty damn terribly, but that hardly makes him unique. What does make Dream unique is that he’s been singled out for near-universally-agreed-upon confinement (which oh so conveniently aligns with him being held as a tool, for information). And that’s neat!

…Look, tldr I just like it when people are in torture boxes. more media should have torture boxes, they are good and fun. 

[dahniwitchoflight]

Struggle and Growth Patterns of the Classes in Homestuck

This came from person asking me what I considered to be the personal struggle of growth for Mages and Seers, since compared to the other classes, their function, Understanding, is non physical in nature compared to the other classes

And the struggles I have for them right now are more environmental rather than internal like the others. That’s very true, and also I haven't really re-looked at those classes in quite a while, more than a few years in fact.

It’s also not incorrect to say Seer/Mage are kind of a blindspot for me, being a Change class, it would be the thing I inherently understand the least, so I should put a bit more thought into it than the others and really hash it out

So! I decided to see if I could find an overall pattern between the supposed struggles of each class (Just the Main 12 tho, not Lord/Muse, didn't wanna over muddle differing factors yet) and I'm actually pretty pleased with what I got:

SO:

Actives in general, don’t struggle with using the flashy powers themselves, they struggle with situations where their power isn't the solution to their current problem OR finding out where their power is actually meant to be used.

Princes aren’t bad at destruction, they’re bad at not getting caught up in their own destruction/bad at reeling it in/directing its flow exactly where its needed, bad at being too destructive even or too heavy handed/scorched earth policy

Witches aren’t bad at change, they struggle with knowing when and where and why something should change at all, it's a very on the nose direct moral struggle

Knights aren’t bad at applying their powers, they’re very skilled, they’re just bad at recognizing when their skill isn’t the solution for their current problem (so they frantically keep trying the same thing over n over again and question why they haven’t found the solution yet)

Thieves arent bad at stealing, but they do struggle with situations where they need to give instead of take, sharing is caring

Maids arent bad at creating, but they do struggle with the internal decision of what they want to create/what kind of person to shape themselves into and perhaps struggle to take that first step at all

So in general, Actives have all the skills and tools at their disposal, their direct struggles in the exact things they want to do with their chosen skillsets and why and when and where etc

All of the Talent, none of the Motivation.

THEN:

Passives in general, DO struggle with the powers themselves at first and the ability to use them, and their growth is about perfecting that chosen skillset and about finding confidence in that skillset to use it to the greatest ability.

Bards struggle in avoidance of their power, their aspect overwhelms them at first, until they’ve ridden the wave, got a handle on things, and now they can destroy with a skilled and subtle confident finesse

Heirs struggle with change, they're comfortable, complacent, they like things to stay where they are, and they need to learn how to move on and not get stuck in a rut, to deal with change, and again, learn to ride the wave and be comfortable and use it, and then their skill with it grows.

Pages I don’t think i even need to say it, do I? They start out at point 0 completely inept in their powers, but through stubborn determination and constant practice they become masters of their craft

Rogues aren’t confident in their powers, or their ability to BE confident and take something by the horns, so they end up passing the buck over to someone they believe is more capable, (even if they’re not) So their journey is about becoming confident, that they are capable enough to handle what lemons life gives them

Sylphs also can struggle with their skills of creation, even though they tend to be very scrutinous of their chosen aspects. They're outwardly confident in their chosen aspects, will talk at length about their ideas as if it were gospel, and do have a tinge of thinking they’re clearly the person for the job when it comes to creative endeavors, but that confidence can blind them to where their skills actually fail or aren’t up to par. Aranea is the great example there. But also Kanaya wasn’t immune to overlooking concerns and failing in areas as well. But once they have been proven wrong, or, if they make sure to keep an eye out for their own failings and work on them, thats when their skills are truly honed.

So in general, Passives know exactly what they want to do with their chosen skills, and might even firmly believe they’re already at the necessary skill level to achieve their goals, but lack the actual level of skill necessary to achieve those goals

All of the Motivation, None of the Talent.

FINALLY:

What does the above imply for Mage and Seer?

Well, going by the pattern:

Active Knowledge Classes aren’t bad at knowing things, in fact, they’re really frigging good at it. So their challenge is figuring out where their knowledge... isn’t actually useful. So instead they struggle with recognizing when they DON’T actually have the answer. When an unknown catches them off guard or when their idea doesn’t work how they think it should. Their struggle is to admit when they might be wrong, when they’re not an expert on everything, and then to pass the buck to someone who DOES actually know.

case in point, Sollux was great and seemed to have all of the answers... up into the point where they finally reached their Doomed point that he predicted, after that, he struggled with knowing whats to come next and kinda gave up on trying to know at all. Since the answer just wasn’t immediately obvious to him. 

Meulin would similarly be at a loss if someone were have a different personality than the one she assumes that they have. And this explains why she is so trusting of Kurloz, despite what he does to her, because she completely cant imagine him being like that, that info is something entirely off her radar. she isn’t wary of who Kurloz is because she KNOWS who Kurloz is, she’s so intimate and close to him, also, she knows who everyone is, duh (in her own mind)

Mages: Good at being Correct, Bad at being Incorrect.

Passive Knowledge Classes then struggle to understand, to learn, to know, but they are motivated by an endless curiosity. They WANT to know, or.. at least come off as if they DO know. A point 0 Seer might actually not be all that knowledgeable about something (!), but they struggle hard with admitting that they’re actually ignorant. So, they bluff. They use Pseudo-Knowledge like objects of divination, or secretly ask questions of authority figures for the answer, or even just straight up bluff and lie their way through things they don’t know to supplement this lack of real solid knowledge, like crutches, and may be at a loss if those crutches are taken away. So their struggle is to become knowledgeable in their own right, which involves removing those crutches, to stop bluffing, stop secretly relying on something else and admit when they need to really learn it instead.

case in point: Rose and Terezi are EXTREMELY good bluffers. Kankri is also that (and just straight up an idiot about a lot of stuff). And all three are way too proud to admit when they don’t actually know something (at least in the beginning). They have the poker faces of a champ. And were extremely good at using what they knew of their aspect powers, to supplement knowledge that they didn’t know themselves. This has actually become much clearer now that we see Rose kinda removed from her main crutches, no more authority like doc scratch or skaia or horrorterrors to ask she is the adult now, no more light aspect seeing the most fortunate path for her. Now shes gotta know stuff on her own by herself, and figure things out on her own and shes doing really good! Terezi’s also struggled immensely with really knowing if she made the right choices at times, and you could consider her coin flip habit both a bluff and a crutch that she was very good at using

Because, if you split the timeline so that every possible answer to your question occurs, one of them has to be the right one, doesn’t it? And shes also doing much better nowadays too. Kankri did not unfortunately lol

Seers: Good at being Incorrect, Bad at being Correct.

TL;DR The thing with Mages and Seers is that your actually just a bunch of dumbdumbs and you don’t know it

(I kid, you guys are smart at smart things, but your dumb at dumb things too lol)

[ghouliethejoyboy]

The Chow Mein Family

Okay I’m doing it. I’m taking the plunge and sharing my OC’s. First headcanon in awhile, here we go.

So, everybody knows about Tommy Chow Mein. But the little known fact is his wife and son, Charlie and Alice. The Chow Mein family has a history of being ripped apart, let’s start with Charlie.

(art by @tapefish​) So, Charlie Chow Mein was born November 3rd, 2008. He was born in what used to be then, a clean store, with two loving parents beaming down at him, and about ten dozen Aunt and Uncles and Unties in the room. He was an absolutely angelic toddler, and Tommy and Alice many of times endangered themselves trying to get him basic protection from the world, such as their expedition into the City trying to get him vaccines in an attempt to shield him from the early death so many sand-pups face. He was always smiling and happy, and never did his parents think that just after his second birthday, a BLI raid would lead to his capture. He would not see his parents again until a large-scale mission including but not limited to; Tommy, the Fab Four, and Doctor Death Defying saw him finally freed from the City just after his twelfth birthday. While he was in the City, Charlie found himself under regular suspicion and systematic physical abuse in school. The trauma of being taken from his parents, and barely remembering them, had meant that he was a selective mute. He almost never talked in class, and was regularly targeted by BLI/nd for this. He had only one droid parent, and unlike most it was not a copy-cat of his parents, it was too risky to give him any reminders of his origins. As he got older, he found it natural to slip into the role of a renegade, sneaking out at night, spray painting long forgotten subway tunnels, stalling patrols and even burning down Draculoid Barracks. Fighting also came naturally to him. He found that he had a regular talent for Martial Arts, but alas, he was rarely ever able to hone this skill. After he was freed from the City, he moved back in with his father, his mother was still under capture by BLI/nd, and even one of the 4 acceptable levels of dead, comatose in a body bag, frozen in time. He immediately started to rebel against whatever he could. Now, you might think is odd, but as Doc would easily tell you, when you take a kid from the City who is fighting so hard against restrictive rules, and immediately give them the Zones, they find they have nothing to fight against, so they rebel against whatever they can. Charlie found ways of doing this by sneaking out, cursing, even taking up smoking, which in his defense, most people in the Zones start doing at a young age. He was a real headache for Tommy, for quite a long time. Eventually, though, Tommy had to step in when he started going down a particularly nasty road and experimenting with drugs waaay too early. They had a real heart to heart, as Tommy had struggled with addiction after the loss of both wife and son. Since then, Charlie had been better. His mother came about after New Years, freed from Battery City when contact was made to overseas rebels of BLI occupancy, and the City was heavily bombed by the R.A.F (Rebel Air Force) of the Isle Of Man, the only free part of the U.K. They clashed at first, she was by far a much stricter parent than Tommy, and was not at all happy with his lack of knowledge in the Chinese language she expected he would know by now. Charlie revealed to both his parents the horrifically constant abuse he suffered in Battery City, and how certain things at the wrong moment could very well trigger him. After that, it has been smooth sailing, with Alice honing in on his skill to fight and teaching him well, even being defeated a few times by him. But with the City bombed, all of the BLI/nd officials are headed out to the desert. And one specific one has a bone to pick with Charlie.  - Hey guys, so, if the response on this is good, I’ll gladly do Alice, and I gotta say, I really miss doing headcanons, but lately all of mine have been around OC’s, so I haven’t felt like I could write it on here. But hey, Fuck Fear right?

[voltrontranscript]

VForce E2: Defenders of Arus

Episode 2: Defenders of Arus

Transcript by @dragonofyang

Summary: Cadets Vince and Daniel begin their training on Arus, where they meet another cadet named Larmina. Meanwhile, Keith evades capture by Wade’s troops with the help of Hunk and Pidge. On Doom, Commander Kala and Maahox revive King Lotor and prepare an assault on Arus.

[Google Doc]

Drule Captain: Commander Kala, we’ve reached safe distance barrier from the Haggarium quasar.

Kala: Proceed with the sample acquisition. You have failed me, captain. Maahox, your attempts to harness the power of the Haggarium quasar seem futile and have cost a good portion of the fleet.

Maahox: Yes, yes.

Kala: I told you that if it didn’t work this time I would destroy you. Your irritating smile suggests you doubt my conviction to follow through.

Maahox: No, Commander Kala, quite the contrary. It is my faith in your conviction to squash the life from me that has me beaming. For you see, it seems our captain hasn’t failed us after all. In fact, I believe he’s become part of the solution.

[Transition to opening sequence, with an electric guitar playing under the following lyrics.]

Woo!

One, two, three four!

Voltron’s here, kicking down your door!

Five, six, get with it.

We blaze ‘em with the sword and they can’t get away.

Seven, eight.

We’re bringing down the hurt so we’re here to stay.

Nine, ten, we here to win.

Voltron’s here, let the games begin!

Oh! (Let’s Voltron!)

Oh! (Let’s Voltron!)

Oh! (Let’s Voltron!)

Form up, let’s go!

All night! Let’s go!

Alright, we gonna rock (rock!) and roll (roll!)

Now to rock (rock!) and roll (roll!)

Oh!

[Transition to the Castle of Lions on Arus.]

Allura: ...and we’ll conclude our tour in the castle control room where all of the Voltron missions are planned.

Daniel: Are these the doors to the lions? Can we see them?

Allura: All in good time. However, right now you’ll be going through this door to your top-secret classroom.

Daniel: Wow, our top secret classroom. Looks a lot like a classroom.

Allura: It’s equipped with just enough to suit its educating purposes.

Vince: So, there’s a third desk?

Larmina: Oh, yay. Classmates.

Vince: Well, she seems nice.

Daniel: Yeah, real nice.

Allura: Ahem. Vince, Daniel, I’d like you to meet my niece, Larmina.

Lance: Well played, knuckleheads.

Allura: As you all know, the Voltron force is made up of five separate lions that are strong individually, but are much more powerful when they come together to form the mighty Voltron. Unity is our core. These are your voltcomms. Over time you will learn all of their practical applications, but it is more than a mere tactical device. It is your link to the lions, and more importantly to each other. As I activate each of you with the power of a lion, you’re becoming part of a team. Part of the Voltron legacy. I welcome you and turn you over to Lance who has the great responsibility of teaching you how to carry this honor.

Lance: Thank you. Well, now that we’re all part of the Voltron elite, let’s begin our first class with a pop quiz.

Vince: Huh?

Larmina: Come on.

Daniel: I thought this school was about piloting the Voltron lions!

Lance: There’s a lot more to being part of the Voltron force than piloting the lions. We’re gonna test your hand-to-hand combat skills to see what we’re working with. Who wants to go first? Which of you gentlemen would like to fight the lady?

[Scene change to Keith flying Black Lion.]

Pidge: Keith, I’ve been running some diagnostics. Whatever Wade did to your lion at his secret research facility really screwed it up. The weapons systems are completely down. The power’s almost drained.

Keith: Tell me something I don’t know.

Pidge: You need to get back to Arus to recharge, but you’ll never make it flying at combat levels.

Keith: Well, it’s a good thing I’m not.

Pidge: Yeah, about that…

[Scene change to the training deck in the Castle of Lions.]

Vince: You hit her.

Daniel: I’m not gonna hit a girl.

Vince: I don’t wanna--ah!

Larmina: I’ll take you both on.

Daniel: Woah.

Lance: You ladies haven’t been in a lot of fights, have you?

Vince: No.

[Scene change back to Keith in Black Lion.]

Keith: Of course Wade installed a tracking device. Can you disable the signal before they reach me?

Pidge: No, I can’t seem to pinpoint the beacon’s location in the lion. They’re going to catch up to you.

Keith: When?

[Scene change to Wade in his office.]

General: Sir, our fractals have the target in sight and are about to engage.

Wade: Command the pilots to prove their worth and recover that lion in as many pieces as necessary. You’ve already lost it once, general. Have you located the former Voltron Force members now under my employment? I’d like to question them personally.

General: No, sir. They all seem to be AWOL.

[Cut to Pidge at a large computer in the Den.]

Pidge: Don’t worry, Keith. Hunk and I have been working on a contingency plan. We just need a bit more time.

Computer: Attention. The following individuals are to report to Security.

Pidge: Uh, I’ll get right back to you.

Keith: Right back to me? Are you kidding?

Pidge: Oh, you might want to take evasive action about now.

[Cut to Keith in Black Lion.]

Keith: What? Oh, boy.

[Cut to Pidge and Hunk in a tow-ship.]

Pidge: Download Den intelligence report.

Hunk: Downloading to tow-ship.

Pidge: Wha--? Haggar? Keith? It’s worse than we thought.

[Scene change to Planet Doom.]

Maahox: Welcome back, King Lotor.

[Scene change back to the cadets on the training deck.]

Vince: Man…

Larmina: Anytime you’re ready to start. 

Vince: Yeah!

Larmina: Cheap playground trick? That’s all you got?

Daniel: Hey, who’s the one on their butt?

Larmina: You, in about two seconds.

Lance: Alright, let’s just review your test results, shall we?

Daniel: Wait, you graded that?

Lance: No, your voltcomms did. You guys have no idea how cool these things are. Pretty soon, you’ll just think something and the voltcomm will automatically do it.

Daniel: It can read our minds?

Vince: Psh. No, dude. It must read our body’s signals. Minor muscle movements, adrenaline levels, blood pressure, and associate those with specific voltcomm functions. Probably some form of biometrics.

Lance: I was just gonna say it’s magic. It picks up on your natural talents and abilities, then adapts to strengthen them. In this case, I wanted to see what weapon it picked for each of you based on your fighting abilities. Larmina, hit this button.

Vince: Nice… stick?

Larmina: I like my stick.

Lance: Uh-huh. And how about you boys?

Daniel: What do I do with these? Reow. Whoa!

Lance: Okay, we’ll have to work on that one. Let’s see what the ol’ voltcomm has in store for you, Vince.

Vince: What is happening?

Lance: Uh, Pidge’ll look at that, too.

Larmina: Must’ve been impressed with your combat skills.

Lance: Ah-ah, I wouldn’t talk too much smack before your second period class, which is definitely more Vince’s dojo.

Daniel: More simulators, huh?

Vince: Oh! This is much more than a simulator. It’s a lion simulator.

[Scene change to Keith in Black Lion.]

Keith: Pidge, you gotta warn the others, but I’m gonna need some sort of distraction here. Without weapons, all I can do is outrun these guys. And I can’t do that for long.

Pidge: I know. I’m working on something. Here, it looks like there’s an asteroid field nearby. You can try and lose them in there.

Keith: Little game of cat and mouse.

[Scene change to Castle Doom.]

Lotor: I feel… a strange sensation running through my veins.

Maahox: That’s only natural, having just been raised from the grave with the power of Haggarium.

Lotor: Haggarium. As in the witch, Haggar?

Maahox: The very essence of Haggar, my lord.

Lotor: Yes! I feel the dark energy. How ironic. Haggar’s power giving me life. You call me your lord, yet I know neither of you.

Maahox: Forgive me, this is Commander Kala from the planet Darkor. What she lacks in personality she makes up for in tactical brilliance and bloodlust.

Lotor: Charming. And you?

Maahox: I am Maahox, master of experimental occult sciences and exile from Calum. These titles are related.

Lotor: Well, exile and commander, I imagine you feel I am indebted to you for bringing me back into existence. I also assume that means you want something from me.

Maahox: We can all benefit from each other. I’ll go into the details once you’ve adjusted to reanimation. For now, just know that a common hatred has brought us together.

Lotor: Voltron…

[Scene change to the cadets in the simulators.]

Vince: This is amazing!

Larmina: Woah!

Daniel: It feels like the real deal, but there’s really only one way to tell. Awesome!

Larmina: Well, I hate this techy stuff. I’d much rather be beating you up in real li--

Vince: My dojo.

[Cut to Lance and Allura watching the simulation on the bridge.]

Lance: I really like these goons, but I don’t get why you wanted me to bring them here now.

Allura: Wiser forces than myself have set this in motion.

Pidge: Allura! Lance! You guys there?

Allura: Pidge! Is everything okay?

Pidge: No. You better see this. And this.

Allura: We need to step up the curriculum.

[Scene change to Castle Doom.]

Lotor: The Voltron force. They nearly succeeded in destroying me! Now they must pay.

Maahox: All part of Kala’s brilliant plan already set in motion. Please, my lord, today is your re-birthday. You should sit back and enjoy our present to you. A neatly-packaged gift on its way to Arus.

[Cut to Keith in Black Lion.]

Keith: Lance taught them well. Luckily, I’m a better pilot than Lance.

Pidge: We need to disable Wade’s tracking device or you’ll never lose them. If I use their signal feed to hone in… Yeah! Got it! I found the beacon location.

Keith: It’s not like I can crawl down there at the moment, Pidge. It’s time for this cat to chase the mice.

[Scene change to the bridge of the Castle of Lions.]

Allura: We believe a dark evil is rising. We also believe each of you are going to be part of the force that defeats this evil.

Daniel: Why us?

Allura: Because you have been chosen to-- It’s a robeast coffin!

Lance: Already? It can’t be. We need to take out the lions and investigate.

Daniel: Cool!

Lance: No. Not cool. You guys stay here. Are you cool with this? Activating the lions breaks strict Galaxy Alliance sanctions. Arus will face consequences.

Allura: We have no choice.

[Scene change to Keith in Black Lion.]

Keith: Come to me. Closer… Closer… 

Pidge: Keith! The beacon signal’s gone. How’d you knock it out?

Keith: I didn’t. He did.

[Scene change to Wade in his office.]

General: Sir, they’ve lost the Black Lion.

Wade: Incompetent fools.

General: And there’s more. We’ve just received confirmation that the red and blue lions have been activated on Arus.

Wade: What? How? The keys, fakes! I am through with human error.

[Scene change to Keith in Black Lion.]

Keith: I better get back to Arus while I still can. Pidge, send me the--Pidge! I’ve lost power.

Pidge: Keith! Keith, do you copy? We’re almost there! Keith?

Allura: Pidge, our security detected a robeast coffin landing on Arus. Lance and I are going to investigate.

Pidge: Alright, we’ve got Keith in our sight. We’ll be there as soon as we can.

[Cut to Arus.]

Allura: That may not be soon enough.

Lance: I think I imagined a more romantic reunion with the lions. I take it back. I think the two of us just shared a beautiful moment.

Allura: No offense, but I wish the whole team were here to share it with us.

[Cut to the cadets on the bridge.]

Daniel: We can’t just sit here!

Vince: What can we do? No way, Daniel. Maybe the others are almost here.

[Scene change to the tow-ship.]

Keith: Not a lick of power in him, is there?

Vince: Pidge! What’s your ETA?

Pidge: Doing the best we can!

Vince: Well, hurry. Lance and Allura really need your help.

Keith: Um, who was that?

[Cut to Blue and Red Lions on Arus.]

Lance: Looks like we’re going to have to engage him as a twosome. You ready?

Allura: Cover me.

Lance: Allura! No!

Allura: Lance! Lance, are you okay? Lance!

[Cut to the cadets on the bridge.]

Daniel: That’s it! We gotta do something. Woohoo! Time to go fast. Aw yeah!

[Cut back to Red and Blue Lions facing the robeast.]

Allura: Hunk?

Daniel: Uh, not exactly. Eat laser! Whoops. Uh, how about now?

Allura: Daniel!

Daniel: I know, I know. Sorry! I don’t know the weapons, but I can still fly.

Lance: Daniel, what are you--

Allura: Lance, are you okay?

Lance: I think my arm is broken, but I still got some fight in me. At least there’s three of us now.

[Cut to the tow-ship and Black Lion.]

Keith: Guys, I gotta get down there. Is there any way to speed this up?

Pidge: Only if we get some power to the lion to help propel it. But we don’t have a source capable of…

[Cut to Arus.]

Allura: If we keep working together, we can keep this beast on its heels.

Lance: Yeah, but does anyone have any ideas how to get it off its heels?

Daniel: Don’t look at me for strategy, unless you want cheap playground tricks.

Lance: You’re a genius, Danny-boy. Allura, maintain your position. Daniel, let’s play.

Daniel: Yeah! Knocked you down on your ro-butt!

Lance: Nice, but not the time to gloat. Pin it!

Allura: We need to pin that other arm. We need another lion.

Vince: Did somebody say “another lion”?

[Cut to the tow-ship and Black Lion.]

Pidge: Alright, that should hopefully transfer all the lion power from your voltcomm into--it worked! Great! Now, wait, you don’t have enough power to hear me because your voltcomm is dead. Punch it, Hunk!

[Cut back to Arus.]

Allura: Come on, guys, concentrate! You’re a team. You can do it!

Vince: Here. You control the jaws while I take the legs.

Larmina: Like this?

Vince: Yeah!

[Cut to Black Lion.]

Keith: Come on, we’re almost in Arus’ gravitational pull! You can do it!

Pidge: It’s dead again. We need to try something else.

Hunk: Try it my way, with some muscle.

Pidge: What are you--

Hunk: Keith! Get ready to do your hero thing!

[Cut back to Arus’ surface.]

Lance: I can’t get a shot without losing my grip. Come on, guys, concentrate!

Daniel: We’re losing him!

Vince: Okay, I think we got it!

Allura: We need our whole team. Where’s--

Lance: What was that?

Keith: Come on! Hold!

Allura: Keith!

Lance: It’s good to see ya, old pal. You’re still rocking the mullet? Man, you have been underground for a long time.

Allura: Yeah, we’ll have to do something about that. Where are Pidge and Hunk?

Pidge: Did we get ‘em?

Allura: Pidge! You’re okay! Yes, yes, we did.

Pidge: Great. Now you wanna come get us?

[Scene change to the Voltron force and cadets standing in the bridge.]

Hunk: Hey, nice haircut. About time.

Lance: You did real good today, Dan-man, even though you lost your head.

Daniel: At least I didn’t lose my arm.

Lance: Ha. Come on. Hey, Keith. I wanna introduce you to my new hero.

[Cut to Castle Doom.]

Lotor: What was that?

Kala: King Lotor, that robeast defeat was part of my plan. It was a relic from your days: a minor challenge to bring Voltron back into the open. We have something much more powerful in store.

Maahox: What you and your predecessors failed to realize is that some of the best raw material for robeasts isn’t found in your battle arena, but in nature herself.

Kala: Eons of evolution perfecting efficient, savage predators.

Maahox: Yes, but the problem with these creatures is that they lack the brain capacity for reason. For strategy. Which is why we need to give this to our next generation of Haggarium-powered robeasts. My own evolution.

Kala: This wasn’t part of my plan! What--what did--ah!

Maahox: No, but it was part of mine. Don’t fight it, dear commander. I promise you’ll love what I’ve done with you.

Lotor: Yes, and so will the Voltron force.

End.

[tildehummingbird]

Spoiler about Catherine and the Soul Riding

(I posted this over at sso forums, so if you see a thread like this there, it's me hehe)

So, I've done the Catherine Quests and I've completed them and as a lot of other people, I was mad. 

I mean, I had so many questions: If Aideen is in everyone, and destiny doesn't matter, then what's the need for Soul Riders, if anyone can do it? Destiny and being the "chosen one" is the whole entire concept of this game, and changing the route NOW, or at ALL doesn't make any sense, and they're probably gonna lose a lot of players that are interested in lore because this doesn't make any sense. Then what's even the need for a 5th rider? What's even the need for this game at all, if a 5th rider isn't needed then just follow the storyline in Starshine Legacy and don't add the 5th rider. If anyone can do it and if Aideen is in everyone, then explain why we're the only ones in this whole entire generation that can handle all powers at once, why can't any of the other riders in Jorvik? Why was Elizabeth so surprised that we could in fact use all powers? What was the need for the beginning cutscene? It literally told us "In times of despair, a sisterhood of Soul Riders will ride forth to protect the island from the evil that seeks to rip the world apart. It is foretold that a sisterhood led by a heroic and fearless girl will appear on horseback to bring hope and light back to those who believe that all is lost... Are you that girl?" I don't know dude, it doesn't even matter if I am because apparently anyone can be that girl, so who cares if I am? Then why were we able to literally fly on our horse? Why would Fripp be so adamant about our protection to the point of where he put his own life on the line, just so we could be protected? The message of "anyone can be a hero" is great, however that's not the point of this story and it never has been.

All these questions and no answers, so I thought we could theorize a bit so that, together, we could try to understand a bit more about this and understand what even happened, what it means and where it is going.

I was checking the star stable tag on Tumblr, and I saw a post by @sso-emberwood that pointed out a lot about Catherine: She didn't even want to be Aideen at all, all she wanted was a normal life with Thomas and her baby, to be free from this prophecy and these duties. Not only that, but The Keepers of Aideen aren't exactly the most telling bunch, so she would know as much as we do: nothing. She wasn't a fan of the prophecy thing, she wasn't a fan of being the only one who's special and different, and she rejected the whole idea, so it would make sense as to why she'd project that onto us, too. Not only that, we saw that she lost her horse, and therefore "half a soul", as Linda described it so maybe she really doesn't get it anymore.

Either that, or maybe we perceived what she said wrong. I went back to check on what she said, so I'll write it here: "We needn't wait for Aideen's return. The goddess is reborn with every horse and rider who open their hearts and form a true bond. Aideen's gift is love. She's been with us all along. In me. In you. At least that is what I believe."

So, to start off, I think that last part is very important. That's what she belives - referring back to what we know is fact: she didn't like the prophecy, and she wanted to define her own destiny and not be controlled by it - so it would make sense for her and her character that she'd have these beliefs. To her, all you need is Aideen's love because Aideen's gift lives in everyone. Now, it is true that Aideen's Gift lives in everyone because Aideen's gift IS for everyone in the island of Jorvik, and I even have Rhiannon dialogue to prove that the Keepers of Aideen agree on this too. This bit of text is from one of the Soul Riding quests, where Rhiannon takes us to South Hoof:

"Have you ever noticed there's something different to the nature of Jorvik? The grass is greener, the birdsong sweeter. But most importantly, the horses are happy and free. They have all this land to roam, and we Jorvegians share this land with them. This connects us to horses on a deeper level. The other Druids put so much focus on the Soul Riders, Guardian Horses, Aideen herself....but they forget to see the magic that's right before their eyes. The magic of Aideen's gift." At this point, you're given two choices: either "I already know that." or "That's what they all say." Regardless, she'll say "Is that so? You've probably heard folk talk about it as if it's some kind of friendship between horse and human. But it's so much more than that. It's what pulled me to travel up North to care for magical horses. It's what makes Nix so special to me. It's even why I'm a Wild Whisperer...On Jorvik, our deep bond with horses is magical. You've been training exceptionally well. During this time, the bond you have developed with [horse name] has flurished. But you haven't just strengthened the bond between both of you. You've connected to the nature of Jorvik on a deeper level, and with that have honed a magical link to all the horses in this island. Close your eyes, and listen to the sound around us. Can you feel how everything is connected?", yet again you can choose between "Yes, it's magical." and "Uh...no." she'll say "You clearly have an affinity for this. I'm impressed. Sometimes, if you focus clearly, you may notice a spark of something powerful. That's the presence of a wild horse. It's one of the ways we Wild Wardens sense they're nearby and ensure their safety. So now you know. Aideen's Gift ties us to all the horses on Jorvik, and it is something to treasure. You can use this knowledge to improve your riding skills. Pay close attention to your horse, and the horses around you, and you will find harmony. This is what I wanted to share with you weeks ago, but I thought you weren't ready to understand. However, I was wrong. Your dedication to Soul Riding has proven just how much you care for the horses on this island. I'm proud of you, [player name]. Thank you for helping protect the horses on Jorvik."

Aideen's Gift is what makes you have such a good connection with horses and it is what makes Jorvik's people and horses special - however, that's certainly not enough to lead Soul Riders into battle. Love isn't enough to defeat Garnok - you need to be chosen for it and destiny DOES matter, no one else has any power in any circle, only the people who are born specifically to have it. However, Catherine is right, but I'm not exactly sure that she understands that that's not why we are unique and that's not what makes us fit for battle instead of literally anyone else - we're unique and the reason as to why we're the only ones who should be able to go into battle is because we don't just have Aideen's Gift like everyone else - we are Aideen. Catherine is Aideen too, we are her and she is us. Cause all of the reeincarnations of Aideen are the same thing, different body. Us and the Soul Riders don't just have Aideen's Gift, we were reincarnated to be her and the soul riders were reincarnated to be what they are today.  Catherine very visibly rejected and left behind her duties and gave up being a soul rider after she lost her horse - she completely rejected even looking for a reeincarnation of it like we did with Anne - but when she did, we were born, because Catherine gave up which meant that another reeincarnation was needed, because it needs to be Aideen herself, not just someone who has the gift - she kept the gift, but she no longer had what it takes to be that girl, and didn't want to either, so someone who did was born.

And again, the Druids make it very clear that their mission, and their end goal is he rebirth of Aideen. A couple of days ago I got a lore book from the Soul Riding missions called "Druids and Horses: A Partnership" that said this: "Aideen's Gift enables druids to continue to protect Jorvik, feel spiritually closer to the land, and ultimately fulfill their mythical goal of the rebirth of Aideen" and  "[...] a network of spiritual people whose sole mission is to protect Jorvik through ensuring the return of the goddess Aideen." 

Which means they acknowledge that they're waiting for a specific someone to be born, so that that specific someone can lead the sisterhood into battle, when the final battle comes, which means that they acknowledge that it can't just be anyone. Waiting for someone special is the whole point of the Keepers of Aideen - they are literally called Keepers of Aideen, no Aideen reborn, no Keepers of Aideen.

Also, in the mission "Strenght in Numbers" with Rhiannon in the Soul Riding, she said that what made her leave Jorvik was that she saw a hooded figure in the forest, and it felt like it was draining the life out of her and her horse, so she left because she was afraid, but she came back upon Elizabeth's request for help, and she when she saw how much closer the Keepers of Aideen were, she decided to stay, but after she says she says: "What really opened my eyes was you, [player name]. Your dedication, skill, and sheer talent has given me faith in Aideen's Light that I haven't felt for a while." Everyone has something like this to tell us, I think there's a reason for that. One of the most important ones so far was for example, when Darko was able to enter the Stone Ring, threatening to destroy the keystone, and Fripp says: "I would sooner destroy the keystone than let you take [player name]. She is more important than you imagine..."

The reason as to why I choose to share the Rhiannon one is because it is recent, just like Catherine's memories which means the story and the objective remains the same, with the only difference that we know Catherine's perspective and why she failed and why the sisterhood fell apart, which will be important in the future, because if you don't remember, the dark riders are trying to recruit Nihili (previously known as Elise) who is the 4th Dark Rider. So far, we've only seen her horse but what we do know about her is that she has the ability to cause discord within the Dark Riders, but I'd imagine she'd have influence on us, as well, and that's why she'd probably be recruited. The Dark Riders know that the previous sisterhood failed due to discord and fights within the group, so it wouldn't be surprising that they'd try to make that happen yet again.

Apart from all of this, I simply don't think Catherine knows enough about this whole thing to be the one to reveal it to us, and I also think the "big reveal" was anticlimatic and not well done, at least in my eyes, because *assuming* this is the route they're going with...eh? What? Why was it so...dry?

Also, if you go back to the very first news post on Catherine's diary, it says "This chapter of the Soul Rider story arc is a standalone quest and is not mandatory to complete in order to play future quests with the Soul Riders." and if they were to add SUCH an important reveal then it wouldn't be a something you could choose not to do, it would be a mandatory, integral part of the story -  this seems like very important information, right? If we don't do this quest, and just move on then in the world and in a story sense, MC wouldn't know that there's technically no Aideen to look for. It doesn't make sense if this is really what they're going to do...Unless it's not and this is just Catherine's opinions on the matter.

Overall, I'm just not a believer yet - I still think this is just Catherine's thoughts. As @sso-emberwood said, the only one who could actually tell us anything for sure is Fripp. He knows way more than everyone in the Keepers of Aideen. But he's sick still, and has been since 2017 the poor guy. I don't think we should assume anything yet, and I certainly don't think the game has changed directions. If it did, I'll be honest with yall - my interest would not be the same and I think it would be that way for a lot people as well and I think that's fair. You can't just come in and suddenly change the route of something that has been hinted at and is supposed to be the point of the game, it just doesn't make any sense. If so, then there's no need for this game or for a 5th rider.

[olliepig]

Waiting in the Wings ch 3

Finally, I made it through writing this! Many, many, many thanks to @willow-salix for her endless patience, phone calls and editing wizardry. 

As always, the full thing can be found on AO3 here.

Chapter 3

Once back at Creighton-Ward manor, the group settled easily on the couches in the private living room, Cat in particular enjoying the chance to finally put her feet up and relax after the performance. The boys had both ditched their bow ties and jackets the second they were through the door and Penny herself had changed from her evening dress into something infinitely more suitable for relaxing.

As Parker poured the first drinks for them before retiring for the night, Scott took the time to take in the surroundings properly as he had no recollection of ever being invited into this area of the building. Even though their families were close, visits tended to be for work purposes and any time he had spent there had been in one of the more formal reception rooms. He didn’t know why, but the idea that Penny had a comfortable sofa and tv like everyone else amused him somewhat. She had always seemed to him to be so other-worldly and different that it was comforting to know that she was actually just like everyone else.

After the performance Cat had changed into a woolen sweater and jeans, managing to somehow look casual and effortlessly stylish all at once and meaning that she was the only one not needing a change of outfits when they arrived. She was immediately at home in the manor, curled up on the sofa next to Scott and making his heart rate rise slightly with just her proximity.

What surprised Scott was that Gordon also seemed completely at ease as he settled himself on the couch next to Penny. His younger brother was known for being unfazed by new situations but something about his demeanour made Scott strongly suspect that this wasn’t the first time he had been here. Filing that thought away for future examination, he turned his attention back to the conversation.

“So, now we're away from the theatre, what did you guys actually think of the ballet? Did you enjoy it?” Cat felt compelled to ask, almost too scared to hear the answers, especially the one from the man sitting next to her.

“It was amazing,” Scott found himself gushing before anyone else could speak. “You were incredible, I’ve never seen you dance like that. It was a great night and you’ll like this, Gordon even got us ice creams in the interval.” “Well, to be fair it’s been a few years since you last saw me. And you’re right, you can’t go to the theatre without an interval ice cream. It’s tradition.” Cat smiled at Gordon, mentally adding another thing onto her list of reasons why she liked him.

“That's exactly what I said,” exclaimed Gordon triumphantly, warming even more to the dancer and very much enjoying watching his big brother trying to navigate a crush for the first time in years. “So, you two were at school together?” he continued, keen to find out more both about Cat and about Penny’s early life.

“That’s correct. We both attended White Lodge for 2 years - ” answered Penny before realising that perhaps the question had been directed at her friend and stopping suddenly with a flush of embarrassment.

“Until Penny decided that a life on the stage wasn’t for her and decided to go into international espionage instead,” added Cat with a grin aimed squarely at Penny.

“Um what’s White Lodge? Is that the name of the school?” clarified Gordon, realising that he was going to have to work hard to keep up with the two women who seemed to finish each other's sentences.

“Sorry, yes it’s the Royal Ballet Lower School. You go there from 11 til you’re 15 and then to the Upper School at Covent Garden. Penny could easily have been a dancer -”

“But it wasn’t for me,” she finished seamlessly, with an elegant shrug. “It’s a hard life and I just wasn’t willing to devote myself completely to one thing at that age.”

Now that Gordon knew the extent of the training Penny had been through, he could see that her graceful way of moving and lithe form had come at least partially from that time. Not that he was supposed to know exactly how lithe she was, but that ship had well and truly sailed and he definitely wasn’t going to forget the images that flooded his head any time soon.

“So was it a boarding school?” Gordon asked, dragging his thoughts back to the conversation, very aware that sitting was about to become very uncomfortable for him if he didn’t stop that train of thought quickly.

“Yes dear, so we were there for most of the year. And during the holidays Cat tended to come and visit us here so we were together most of the time in those first few years.”

“I didn’t have the best home life when I was young so Penny let me come here and stay instead of going back to the house for the holidays,” explained Cat.  “That actually continued whenever our holidays coincided even after she’d left the school so I’m very much indebted to her and her family.”

“And your family didn’t mind?” asked Gordon.

“I don’t think they really cared to be honest. My dad walked out when I was little and my step-dad didn’t really like me at all. My mum did, in her way, but ultimately she was more interested in her new marriage than me.” Cat looked up and smiled at the expressions of sadness on Penny and Scott’s faces. Her family was something she rarely talked about, preferring to maintain a safe distance from her past and it now barely bothered her to think of it privately. Somehow though, seeing other people's reactions to her story seemed to trigger an emotional response that she really didn’t want to deal with here.  

Scott caught her eyes and Cat was suddenly reminded of how sweet and caring he had always been about her history when they were together and how mindful he had always been of it when talking about his own family. Feeling an ache starting in her chest for his comfort now, she quickly looked away trying her best to maintain her dignity.

As the only member of the group to whom this was new information, Gordon was horrified that someone could be treated that way and his feelings were clear for all to see. Although he obviously knew that it happened and he’d come across others who had been through similar upbringings, there was something about the woman sitting opposite him talking so frankly and openly about her parents not caring for her that broke his heart a little.

“That’s ridiculous! Some people just shouldn’t be allowed to have kids!” he exclaimed loudly, not sure if he was more surprised by his outburst or the sudden feeling of Penny’s hand reassuringly on his arm, its presence instantly calming his temper but leaving him flustered in oh so many other ways. Which were made worse by the fact that his brother was sitting directly opposite him with a strange smirk on his face.

“I know what you mean but you don’t need to worry about me,” Cat continued, taking in the scene being played out in front of her but choosing to let it go without comment, beyond happy that her friend had found someone whom she obviously liked so much but also with a slight pang of jealousy that she didn’t have someone like that in her life. “A lot of people say that they wouldn’t be where they are today without their parents and that’s definitely true for me too, just not in the same way as most others. I threw myself into dancing so I could get away from the house as quickly as possible. It worked - there’s no way we could have afforded the ballet school without financial help but they must have liked me at my audition because I got a full scholarship. I moved away at 11 and that just spurred me on to work harder and harder so I didn’t have to go back.”

Cat risked another quick glance at Scott as she finished speaking and was surprised to find him watching her with something akin to pride in his eyes. She held his gaze for a second and gave him a small smile, enjoying the flutter of excitement that shot through her as he smiled back before she tore herself away and back to the conversation. Mentally, she slapped herself as she looked away. She had promised herself that she wasn’t going to get involved with him and reminded herself again of all the reasons why it couldn’t work. And yet she couldn’t deny that there was something there. Something that she’d been missing for a long time.

“It was at least partially Cat’s work ethic that convinced me that I didn’t want to be a dancer,” chimed in Penny, finally taking her hand back from where it had been resting on Gordons arm, leaving him feeling strangely bereft at its absence. “Do you remember we used to put on ballets in the ballroom during the holidays and make poor Parker watch them?”

“Oh god, yes! The poor man probably still hates me for that, although he did always give us flowers after every show,” laughed Cat, as Gordon and Scott both smirked at the thought of the gruff butler being forced to sit and feign enjoyment through a kids ballet show.

“Well,” Penny turned back to the boys, still smiling at the memory of their childhood escapades, “I used to watch her practicing the same steps over and over again while we were here during the holidays and it was just not something I could ever see myself doing for the rest of my life. Cat used to get the highest marks in the class in our exams and everyone used to talk about her natural talent but I knew exactly how much work went into making that natural ability work for her.”

Cat blushed as she looked up and met Gordon’s russet eyes, filled with knowing appreciation of her dedication to honing her skills. She smiled at the former Olympian, realising that out of all of them, he probably best understood the sacrifices needed to make it to the top of a competitive vocation.

She didn’t even need to look at Scott to know that his eyes would be filled with the pride she could feel radiating out of him. Nevertheless, she couldn’t resist a quick glance and he didn’t disappoint, fixing her with a large grin that left her in no doubt of his feelings and flustering her as she tried to deflect the attention.

“You’re too kind but I didn’t have too much of a choice about working hard - I had to be the best to keep my scholarship. Eventually it just became a habit and it's not something I’ve ever lost. What I remember about school is you absolutely obliterating everyone in the academic exams, Penny. Let's be honest, dancing isn’t the most important job in the world and you’re definitely much better doing, well, whatever it is you do now.” Cat turned to an enthralled Gordon and continued.  “Penny was head and shoulders above the rest of us academically and to be honest I think it would have been a waste if she’d stayed there and become a dancer.”

“Perhaps,” Penny conceded, “but I’m glad I had that experience anyway, ” she continued, deciding the conversation needed moving on and looking between Cat and Scott who had up until then been uncharacteristically quiet. “How did you two meet?”

“Oooh, you’ll like this,” Cat exclaimed, immediately sitting forward as Scott dropped his head into his hands with a barely audible groan, instantly piquing Penny and Gordon’s interest. “I was out at a bar in Richmond with some of my friends from the company when a group of guys came in. One of whom was wearing a pair of rather fetching red PVC thigh high boots,” she finished, fixing Scott with a rather devilish grin, as Gordon exploded with laughter.

“Oh, so you’re ‘kinky boots man’?” clarified Penny, somehow managing to maintain her decorum despite Gordon nearly sliding off the sofa next to her in mirth with tears streaming down his face.

“He certainly is,” Cat answered for Scott, who was still trying unsuccessfully to disappear into the sofa in embarrassment. “We reckoned it was a dare of some kind because, other than the boots, everyone was dressed normally. We sat and debated it for a while and some of the girls were trying to find a way of getting the attention of the rest of his friends but it looked like it would take forever to find out the story and I’m really impatient, so I took myself off up to the bar at the same time as ‘kinky boots guy’ to ask. We got chatting, the groups merged for the night and the rest is history.”

“And what exactly was the reason behind the boots may I ask?”

Scott looked over at Cat and shook his head in exasperation, the effect undone somewhat by the smile that he couldn’t quite keep off his face as the memories of that night came flooding back to him. Doing the best impression of innocence she could manage, Cat smiled sweetly back at him but the glint in her eyes gave her away and he genuinely wasn’t sure if he wanted to strangle or kiss her. Shifting uncomfortably, he turned his focus back to the occupants of the other sofa as he tried to work out exactly how his life had reached this point.

“It was a dare I had with some of the guys in the squadron,” Scott finally supplied, resigned to his fate now that the story was out in the open. “I don’t even know where the boots came from but we found them and decided that whoever lost the next race we did to the mess had to wear them on the next night out. I was the quickest of the lot of them so I agreed but they ganged up on me and kept shoving me out of the way. One of them managed to knock me over a low wall and by the time I was on my feet again they’d all finished. So the boots were mine.”

“That does make more sense I guess,” Gordon spluttered, reaching for his phone. “We had similar things in WASP. I’d give anything to see pictures of that though.”

“Well unlucky for you, there aren’t any. And not a word to the others. Especially Alan. Please?” Scott warned, hating himself for spoiling Gordon’s fun but unwilling to have this conversation repeated to their baby brother by anyone other than himself. He had learned enough about Gordon’s propensity for embellishment to know that he did not want to take the risk with a story that had as many possibilities as this.  

“Well, I could be persuaded…” Gordon sat back expectantly, leaving his phone mercifully untouched.

“We can discuss THAT on the way back home tomorrow,” Scott spoke with more finality that he felt, concerned about the price his brother would expect for his silence but knowing that there was nothing he could do to avoid at least some form of bribery. He had hoped to keep his escapade it the boots private, something he had managed well over the years. He hadn’t factored in Cat however, which he was now realising was a rookie error.

“Well, if that's the best you can do, I think I’m going to turn in for the night, ” Gordon announced with an exaggerated yawn, bringing Scott’s attention back to the conversation from where it had been happily gagging his little brother. “It’s been a long day what with the change in time zones and whatnot.”

Scott’s suspicions were immediately raised. He knew for a fact that Gordon had slept on their journey over to England and that he never willingly took an early night if there was something better on offer and nothing to get up for the next morning. He didn’t miss the look that went between Gordon and Penny as he spoke nor the slight blush that appeared on the Lady’s face in response to it. Suddenly, Scott realised that he may have some leverage against Gordon after all and his worry about everyone hearing about the boots lessened considerably.

“You know which room you’re sleeping in tonight?” Penny checked, making Scott raise a quizzical eyebrow at Cat who smiled and rolled her eyes in response.  

“Absolutely” Gordon grinned, holding Penny’s gaze as he stood up and stretched theatrically. Dragging  his eyes away from the Lady, goodnight wishes were given along with a hug for Cat. Passing behind the sofa as he headed for the door, he trailed his fingers lightly over Penny’s shoulders making her shiver unconsciously at his touch. A cheery wave from the doorway, another lingering look for Penny and he was gone, leaving the others to continue their night.

Settling back down after Gordon’s departure, Scott was glad to realise that he wasn’t especially required in conversation beyond maintaining a polite level of interested mumblings. It had quickly turned to some of the technicalities of the ballet that evening, with Penny giving a more detailed critique than she had earlier before moving on to more general talk about people he didn’t know so he contented himself instead with sipping his drink and watching the interplay between the friends.

Penny’s formal facade had slipped more and more as the night had gone on, especially since she had become engrossed in conversation with her best friend and he found it fascinating to see the real woman peeking through. He’d always known that she must have a more informal persona underneath the layers of etiquette but it still somehow shocked him to see her with her legs curled up beneath her on the sofa, glass of wine in hand, chatting with her best friend.

As the minutes passed however, he was forced to admit to himself that he was increasingly struggling to focus on anything that wasn’t the woman sitting next to him. Every time he started to form any kind of coherent thoughts about anything, he was distracted by the sound of her voice and her laugh.

It had been clear to him from the beginning that he was still very much attracted to her but he just couldn’t for the life of him work out what was going through her head and whether she felt the same in return.

She was still catching his gaze for a split second longer than would be considered normal and there were a couple of times that he caught her glancing at him and smiling in a way that he would ordinarily read as flirting but he just wasn’t completely confident and didn’t want to overstep any boundaries, especially as she was so close to Penny. Generally, he was very confident of his ability to read people but it felt like he had a total block on understanding the one person in the room that he desperately wanted to and it was frustrating him no end.

Sitting opposite her guests, Penny yawned and finished her drink. She had been enjoying watching the interplay between them and was sure that they thought they were being subtle but she could read Cat like an open book and Scott had spent most of the evening gazing at her like a lovesick teen so it wasn’t difficult to imagine what he was thinking.

Swirling beneath her observations however were more determined thoughts that no amount of distraction could suppress. Thoughts that had her glancing over to where she had last seen the young man who had sat next to her until recently, whose fingers had seared trails across her shoulders as he left. Her sense of duty to her guests meant that she stayed until they were ready to leave. Her glass remained empty in preparation for that moment.

Curled up like her namesake on the sofa next to Scott, Cat was taking great delight at watching her friend shift uncomfortably in her seat as they talked, peeking at the door and clearly wanting to follow Gordon but feeling unable to do so until her other guests had retired for the night. To a casual observer, Penny looked to be completely relaxed but Cat had the advantage of years worth of friendship and could tell that an internal struggle was raging between what upbringing told her was the etiquette with guests and her more immediate desire.

Feeling in the mood for a little mischief, she kept the conversation going, extending it at every natural break and enjoying the sight of Penny becoming more and more desperate to make her escape.

She knew full well that Gordon’s departure was the reason but the fact that neither of them had come clean about their relationship meant that it was possible to plead ignorance if ever challenged. She was so entertained watching Penny’s struggle, she almost missed the look Scott gave when Mark, her partner from the ballet that evening, was mentioned.

She wasn’t unaware of how outsiders might view her close friendship with her fellow dancer but it surprised her to see a flash of hurt in his eyes before it was quickly concealed as they returned back to their previous studied calm. Having spent the entire evening hyper aware of the man next to her, she couldn't help but smile at the thought that it might not just be her that was feeling their old attraction again.

Despite her awareness of his every move, as the evening had progressed Cat had become more and more at ease with the man sitting next to her. Being a dancer, she was used to physical contact and, as the temperature dropped with the passing hours, she thought nothing of it when she shifted her position to be ever so slightly closer to him, finding his warmth to be comforting in its familiarity.

As Cat shifted to lean on him, Scott instantly stiffened before forcing his muscles to relax again, despite his brain going at a million miles an hour trying to work out if it meant something. He just had no idea how to act and what was expected of him, caught between not wanting to make a scene in the middle of Penny’s house if he got things wrong and every nerve in his body screaming at him to wrap his arm around her and pull her in against him.

Eventually, after artificially extending the conversation for as long as she dared Cat finally conceded that it was time for her to go to bed too. Scott, who had not been oblivious to what she had been up to agreed readily that bed sounded like a good idea and so the group disbanded for the night, with Penny heading upstairs to her suite while Cat and Scott made their way through the mansion to the guest wing where their bedrooms were situated.

As they walked, Scott took the time to admire the effortless grace of his companion. On the stage she was elegance personified but now, with only the barest smudge of makeup on and her long hair cascading in waves down her back, she looked even more beautiful to him if that was possible. How he longed to run his fingers through that hair again, maybe brushing it gently away from her face before leaning down for a gentle kiss… Pulling himself back to reality for the millionth time that evening, he cleared his throat making Cat look up at him in expectation.

“What’s going on between those two do you think?” Scott wondered, realising that they were out of earshot of anybody who would care. He felt strangely unable to start the conversation he had been desperate to have all night so he had settled on the next best thing available and silently kicked himself for it.

“Scott Tracy, you are a gossip!”

“I am not,” he protested half heartedly.

“Yes you are, and I love it,” Cat countered, catching his eyes and smiling, enjoying once again the flutter in her chest when he smiled back. “But I have no idea what’s happening there I’m afraid. She told me about a ‘Gordon’ who she had taken a liking to a year or so ago and there was something about a moment they had in a temple but she wasn’t very specific. Most likely because she wasn’t telling me exactly who he was.” “I wonder if that was when they got trapped?” Scott mused, more to himself than anyone else, remembering the day they thought they had lost Penny and Gordon on an exploratory study of the Tomb of the Laughing King as it collapsed around them. The memory triggered a flash of anger at that old coot Professor Harold for callously suggesting that they should be sacrificed for the good of archaeology before quickly dousing it with the shame of having to be pulled away by Virgil before he did something he would have almost certainly regretted.

“They got what? She didn’t tell me that part!” Cat exclaimed, completely missing the emotions playing out over Scott’s face thanks to her surprise at his revelation. She had always understood that Penny’s involvement with International Rescue meant that there would be large parts of her life that she wouldn’t be privy to, but somehow it was still shocking to be confronted with evidence of it. “Well, I guess she plays her cards close to her chest, does our Penny. Even with me.”

“I’ve never known Gordon willingly take an early night when there’s nothing on the next day so something has to be up. And did you see the way they were looking at each other?” enquired Scott, giving Cat exactly the sort of look that his brother had been aiming at Penny all evening.

“Oh I completely agree about the looks,” Cat smiled, her heart rate quickening at the sudden tension that had sprung up between them. Something intangible had just shifted and she felt unaccountably nervous, knowing that despite all her promises to herself that she wasn’t going to let anything happen with him, now her mind was filled with desire and not much else. “There’s definitely something going on. I’m sure between the two of us we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“We sure will. Well, this is me here, ” Scott admitted as they slowed to a halt outside one of the many doors. “Thanks for inviting me tonight. I had a great time.”

“You’re very welcome. I’m just glad you enjoyed it, I was worried you’d be bored.” Cat broke his gaze and looked at the floor at her admission, embarrassed that she still felt that she needed his approval. It had been years since she last thought about him before he waltzed back into her life and now here she was again, desperate for him to notice and appreciate her.

Seeing Cat standing  looking so unsure of herself, it was all Scott could do not to scoop her up in his arms. The difference in her from earlier was startling to him - mere hours before, she had been completely at ease alone on the stage in front of 2500 people, but here in the corridor she seemed so fragile that he longed to hold her tight and protect her from the world.

“You really didn’t need to be. And if you ever want another supporter at one of your shows then I’d be honoured to be there,” Scott added sincerely. He had enjoyed his night at the ballet much more than he had expected and the thought of having more experiences like that at the theatre was something he was very happy to explore. Especially if it meant spending more time with Cat.

“I’d be careful what you wish for if I were you,” Cat joked with a wicked smile, feeling like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders now she knew he was serious about his enjoyment of the ballet. “But seriously, thank you. It was really nice knowing you were there tonight.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Scott was at a loss for words. He desperately didn’t want to say goodnight but he couldn’t think of any plausible reason to keep talking either.

“I guess this is goodnight then,” Cat said, smiling ruefully, wishing that there was some way of prolonging the night. If she was honest with herself, what she wanted to do was reach up and kiss Scott, but her fear of being rebuffed was keeping her paralysed.

“I guess so…”

“Goodnight, Scott. I’ve had a really good time tonight. I’m glad we met each other again”

“Me too. Like you wouldn’t believe. Night night, Cat,” he replied softly.

Knowing that she wouldn’t forgive herself if he didn’t take the chance but steeling herself for rejection, Cat could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she reached up to wrap her arms around him. Taking a chance, she brushed his cheek with her lips and Scott felt it like a bolt of lightning. After holding the hug for as long as she dared, she pulled back slightly and felt Scott’s arms stay securely around her waist, just as they had 2 weeks previously.

“Can I ask you something before we head to bed?” he started, more sure of the answer now he could feel her kiss seared onto his cheek but knowing he wouldn’t forgive himself if he proceeded without checking first.

“Of course. Ask away.”

“What’s going on with you and Mark?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Cat laughed. “He’s my best friend besides Penny. I’ve known him since I joined the company and we’ve been pretty much inseparable ever since.”

“Ah, right. I just wasn’t sure when I saw you walking back to the dressing rooms tonight...” Scott tailed off, feeling suddenly stupid for even considering it.

“Well, well, well. Are you jealous, Mr Tracy?” Cat teased, raising an eyebrow as their eyes locked together, the smoulder she found there making her breathing ragged.

“No, I just, um…” The relief Scott felt for knowing that there was nothing stopping him from acting on his feelings was tempered by a sudden indecision as to how to proceed. He was desperate to kiss her but he wanted to take things at her pace. However, a glance down at her slightly parted lips just as she licked them as if in anticipation was enough to burst the dam he had been holding back all night.

Before he knew what he was doing his lips had found hers, crushing them and surprising even himself with the force of his reaction. But what surprised him even more was that Cat hadn’t kneed him in the groin and actually seemed to be kissing him back. Despite that, when he broke the kiss he was still quite prepared to apologise if he had made some massive error in judgement. Instead, he was met by flushed cheeks and a pair of sparkling eyes.

They stilled for a moment, taking in the sudden change in their relationship before Cat reached up for another kiss, barely brushing his lips with her own and making him moan with a delicious mix of pleasure and frustration as she teased him, knowing that he longed for more but unwilling to let him have everything his own way. His lips were perfectly soft, just as she remembered and his kisses generated a burning heat which slowly spread out across her body, leaving her aching to feel his skin against hers.

Gradually she relented to his desire, slowly increasing the pressure and deepening their kisses as she snaked her tongue along the seam of his lips, encouraging them to part. Her lips felt smooth and firm beneath his own as his world ceased to exist beyond the woman in his arms. Memories and sensations from all the other times he had held and kissed her flooded back and he felt his body respond, sending all his blood south and leaving him lightheaded.

Her breathing ragged, Cat pulled back to meet his eyes again, the burning desire in their blue depths ripping through her, stripping away any defences she had built; she could no longer deny that she wanted him and she wanted him right now. A look passed between them that they had shared many times in the past and they simply fell on each other, all caution thrown to the wind.

Scott kissed her again and again, harder and with more urgency which she met with an immediate response. Totally lost in the moment, his knees suddenly went weak and he staggered slightly as her hand slid up to the back of his head, her fingers entwining themselves in his hair and pulling slightly. She was the only one who had ever discovered the way to drive him completely to the edge and it was nearly the end of him right then. Tightening his grip, he was completely lost to her.

Cat smiled to herself at Scott’s reaction, enjoying the sensation of his hand now tangling itself in the long strands of her own hair as he drew her closer to him and pressed his hips against her, letting her feel the unmistakable bulge against her stomach. Desperately, she clawed at his shirt, pulling it out from his waistband and sliding her hands up the smooth skin on his back making him moan again as he kissed her harder while he fumbled for the door handle.

Thinking of nothing but their aching need for each other, they practically fell into the bedroom, not caring who heard the door slamming behind them.

[jungnoir]

𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡!𝐛𝐭𝐬;

bts but as witches in a coven. discuss

𝐬𝐞𝐨𝐤𝐣𝐢𝐧: the supreme

ok not quite but he’s the most experienced in magic out of all the boys

his mother was a witch and she taught him everything he needed to know from birth to adulthood

his whole family is blessed with magic save for a few who didn’t get the gene but every family reunion they all dote on jin and talk about how powerful he’s become and how proud they are of him

the coven house where all of the boys stay is actually jin’s ancestor’s home from a long time ago

the place has brought up witches of all generations and jin was very eager to inherit it

while there’s definitely a lack of witches he’s been able to recruit, he loves his family of six so it doesn’t really bother him

he acts like he’s all serious but in reality he’s always casting spells on the youngins as tests (read: for fun)

jimin: why tf did you give me green skin

jin: if you had been paying attention during lessons you would know how to fix it :)

has definitely said this out of context more than once: ”any witch worth a broom handle knows how to get rid of poisonous snakes! you know back in my day…”

wears the flashiest outfits, but little do people know that they’re all homemade. he has a serious creative eye and seeks to make what simple human designers wish they could (taehyung is very eager to learn this talent from him)

goes all out on halloween with this talent too, creating uber realistic costumes

no he didn’t make a costume out of real human bones that year he went as a scarily realistic skeleton what are you talking about

no graves were robbed in the making of this outfit

if you couldn’t tell, his specialty is in glamours

honestly the guy should just tattoo “i’m a witch” across his forehead, he makes it so damn obvious

he openly practices magic too like it gives yoongi stress pains bc!! there’s still ppl who would very much like to burn witches still to this day!!! where is the self-preservation!!

jin doesn’t care. he’ll burn them right back. checkmate bitch

honestly charms anyone that comes in contact with him which is one of the things he never has to try at

the guys think he uses magic to do it but he’s honestly just, as jin would say, “born with it”

𝐲𝐨𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐢: the right hand man

*namjoon voice* and who do we got here right now??? ˢᵘᵍᵃ!!!

when it comes to magic, yoongi is pretty neutral

an awfully interesting feeling to have given that seokjin has appointed him the heir of the coven in case anything happens to him

he’s not obsessed with magic like tae, hobi or kook

he doesn’t spend his time learning everything about it like namjoon

and he’s not playful with it like jimin and jin

yoongi just… acknowledges it. its like it exists as something he can do and he’s proud but he doesn’t really care if that makes sense

most of his friends outside of the coven are human too and he has no reservations about telling them what he is bc if they cause trouble he is more than prepared to take care of it

they’re usually like “wow so cool! i wish i was a witch” but yoongi really doesn’t care lmao

with or without magic, yoongi is the same: he loves music, he loves making music, and he loves being a musician

yoongi, however, is guilty of having used magic to make his music just right before

sometimes a note just doesn’t sit with him right and it’s driving him insane

or maybe the bass doesn’t hit hard enough

he charms his music in a way that when one listens to it, they feel exactly what yoongi wants them to feel

people are always telling him he has a real gift in music and while he most certainly does, he feels he has to give credit to his magic for helping him along sometimes

but then seokjin will be like “isn’t magic your talent too? aren’t you just exercising it when you charm your music? it’s not like you can only make music well. you should give yourself props for your magic too”

it’s just. weird to him because he’s seen how much magic can corrupt people in much higher positions than himself and it’s Terrifying

he wants to know that no matter what he makes, it’s his and his alone, not attributed to any otherworldly advantage

this just kind of contributes to his need to be as detached from magic as possible

he’s too cheap to buy one of those coffee makers that automatically start brewing at a certain time in the morning and just uses magic to do it instead

“yoongi do you want me to buy you a new coffee maker for your birthday? they have ones that do all the work for you now-” “no”

he has to be extra, okay namjoon

jimin teases him sometimes but yoongi knows it’s all out of love

jimin understands yoongi in a way, and while the others are always like “yoongi you should have more fun with your magic!” jimin is always like “no no no, let him be”

besides yoongi could probably smoke all of them in a battle of magic if it came down to it lol

𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐨𝐤: the perfectionist

HERE HE IS!!! ITS HE

hoseok is probably one of the most talented witches in the coven

hoseok is a perfectionist to a t so if he feels insecure about how he’s doing a certain spell he will do it over and over and over until he’s got it right which makes him a pretty formidable opponent

like even the boys wouldn’t go up against him bc they know they’re just gonna get their ass handed to them

he’s a sweetie tho and very light-hearted and he never lets his power get to his head

he mainly uses it to bother the others tbh

also uses magic to give himself and the boys cool ass hair colors

currently he’s obsessed with this orange he’s got going on

calls it “pumpkin spice” bc it angers yoongi

“it really brings out the burnt sunset hues of a pumpkin ya know? or like a mix of changing fall colors, like golden crisp and warm crimson” “it’s fucking orange” yoongi can be heard chiming in from somewhere else in the house

but don’t get me wrong, hoseok loves himself some yoongi and vice versa

yoongi taught hoseok directly bc yoongi was the one that found hoseok

he was just an average college student and wasn’t really finding a will to live outside of paying off his student debts

he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life and was pretty dead inside, working at a cafe and serving coffee to other dead inside college students when yoongi came in and sensed his strong magical aura

yoongi kinda forced hoseok’s magic out of him by tossing a cup of steaming hot coffee to the floor, causing hoseok to freeze the entire cafe in time, save for the two of them. yoongi told him what he was and the rest was history

now that it’s been so long hoseok still gets upset that yoongi was willing to break one of the cafe’s mugs to prove a point

because of course, when time unfroze, the mug fuckin shattered all over the place what a fuckin jerk guess who’s going to have to clean that up does he really have no respect for retail workers seriou

seokjin also was opposed to yoongi’s method but since it resulted in hobi joining their coven, he can’t be too mad

it was hoseok’s natural ability that yoongi was able to help hone, and when hoseok found a love for it, he took it upon himself to be the absolute best witch he could be

hoseok’s power of stopping time is uniquely his own and he’s worked hard to perfect it

sometimes he just stops time to stop it

hob: *freezes a movie theater right before something dramatic happens on screen* hold on yall I gotta piss real quick

freezing time is also super helpful during *cough* stressful exams* cough*

𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐣𝐨𝐨𝐧: the scholar

he knows…. everything

not only did he do the reading, he did an 8 page analysis on it and corrected a few mistakes too

namjoon was aware of his witchy nature even from the moment he was a little kid, and his parents were both human and a bit scared for him since they didn’t know how to handle it, but they gave him the option of pursuing magic or not. they made sure to do all their own research into where witches could go to hone their craft just in case

in the end, namjoon grew curious and started reading books about magic and magical things

tho he didn’t actually start using his power until his mid teens

by then he was a bit shaky with it, but he knew a lot and was very determined so he got the hang of it very quickly

rarely uses his magic outside of it being necessary tho bc he’s gone so long without having to use it that he doesn’t rely on it for anything

he also likes to be independent from his magic in a way

while magic is very much a part of him and his being, he doesn’t want it to be like a crutch, you know? his biggest fear is losing his magic, bc he’s heard it can happen

he’s also aware that some witches lose important life skills and miss out on opportunities to build their character bc they’re so used to being able to just magic their way out of a situation

went from student to teacher real quick

teaches the other boys how to properly say incantations

“its levios-ah not levios-ar”

actually?? a pretty scary dude when it comes to using his magic for real

don’t put him in a situation where someone is getting hurt because he will not go easy on the aggressor. the other boys can attest to this too, having been saved by him far too many times than is acceptable in namjoon’s eyes

basically dont fuck with namjoon’s boys or u gon die

does cute things for the boys on their birthdays with magic

one time taehyung was sad that it wasn’t snowing on his birthday so namjoon made it snow for hours

may have fucked up the climate a lil bit

yoongi almost lost a toe

namjoon frequents a library and whenever a lil kid is struggling to reach a book he uses his magic to drift the book down to the little kid and when the kid looks at him in awe he just presses his finger to his lips and winks at them

flirts using his extreme wicca knowledge, of which is either a major turn off or a major turn on. you decide

𝐣𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐧: the reluctant

jimin loves magic, but it wasn’t always like that

jimin kinda struggled with accepting his magical abilities at a young age bc he was really confused

like why wasn’t he just like everyone else? why did he have to be a witch? why did he have to have magic when he could’ve just been normal?

he often rejected it, never bothering to learn anything even to impress the family at reunions

but as he grew older, his parents grew worried he’d hate his magic and never use it again, putting him in a vulnerable position if his magic were ever to just come out when jimin isn’t in a place to control it, so they let him meet a slightly older witch that could help mentor him

his parents would’ve done it but jimin hardly ever listened to his parents about magic and they wanted to show him there were witches his age that were amazing people and embraced it, that it didn’t take away from jimin’s life but in fact added to it

in comes yoongi

yoongi, at first, really pities jimin

he understands the struggle between wanting to be normal and dealing with a part of his identity that won’t ever go away

where yoongi is concerned, that struggle for him was that he wanted to be himself regardless of being talented in magic. jimin... just hates it

but then jimin starts bashing magic and witches and he’s about to get angry at his parents for trying to force him into being a witch when yoongi just,,, slaps him upside the head

jimin’s shocked and yoongi is just like “respect your parents kid, they’re looking out for you. just because you don’t use your magic doesn’t mean people won’t know you’re a witch. its dangerous for a witch to go around with magic and not know how to use it”

jimin is shocked. he never thought of it that way

jimin feels embarrassed all of a sudden and apologizes and then yoongi cracks a smile and he’s like “no biggie kid, i’m just here to teach you the basics of magic and then i’ll be out of your hair”

jimin finds that learning magic with yoongi is really fun and soon he’s asking to be apart of the coven and embracing being a witch

he becomes carefree with it, like it’s another part of him, and he’s still kinda inexperienced, but he’s learning a lot from yoongi and namjoon

loves playing with temperature

the boys make him freeze their drinks for him, or ask him to heat up some popcorn while they’re all sprawled out on the couch on movie night bc no one feels like waiting two minutes for it to cook in the microwave

makes the water in the shower cold whenever one of the boys is taking way too fucking long in there which is Everyday

also jimin: *hitting on someone at the bar* *makes the room slightly warmer* “is it hot in here or is it just you?”

relates everything he learns back to naruto in some way, much to everyone’s complete and utter confusion

he just really kins the guy i guess

100% owns every single witch pun shirt known to man

“witch please” “witches do it better” “this is my resting witch face”

jungkook: by all means jimin why don’t you just burn us all at the stake yourself

it’s ok tho bc it’s his own little way of owning his identity, and if you want to avoid having your fingers frozen off, you’ll be sure not to step to him any kind of way

𝐭𝐚𝐞𝐡𝐲𝐮𝐧𝐠: the transcendent 

my favorite witch!!! i wrote this whole thing for him

tae is like jin in that his whole family is magical and he grew up surrounded by magic his whole life

in fact, he’s so familiar with magic that he’s kind of sick of it (no he isn’t (most of the time))

taehyung is unique with his magic bc he’s actually able to transcend realms oooh~

the information on how many realms and parallel universes and such are limited as hell so taehyung actively helps broaden that knowledge as he travels, a very Dangerous and Scary job to anybody else

but to him he’s like!! fuck yeah astral projection!

basically, he’s able to put himself into a deep sleep where he moves through different realms, some more or less magical than the others

he’s so good at it that he can project himself into someone else’s dreams too

he’s basically capable of seeing more than most magical beings, and he can perceive spirits easily, as well as being able to actually see a magical aura around someone

so for instance, if a witch who didn’t know they were a witch walked into a bar, he’d know what they were instantly. besides the general intuitive feeling that most witches get, he can see the auras physically, like swarming tendrils of smoke unique to every person

each aura feels and looks different than others which makes it easy for him to point out shape shifters and vampires and werewolves and all the other guys pretty easily

bc of this ability, taehyung also likes to mess with the boys like everyone else lol

“tae, i just saw the most beautiful-” “they’re actually an ogre in disguise” “WHAT”

“man my english teacher is a witch” “she actually is”

in case you couldn’t tell tae’s favorite victim is jungkook

casually tells people he’s a witch just for the #reactions

if you’re wondering, no. nobody in this coven cares about keeping this shit a secret

since he’s more sensitive to dreaming, a lot of his dreams leave him incredibly emotional because sometimes he really is there

he once had a dream where all magical beings were universally accepted in the world and were loved and happy and woke up sobbing into jimin’s lap

also nightmares take a HUGE toll on him so his sleep pattern is fucked for real

usually ends up eating cake with jin in the dining room at four am and talking about life together to get the nightmares off tae’s mind

tae uses his magic on humans in a different way. like he doesn’t prank them that much, but rather manipulates their moods. he tries to charm anyone he comes in contact with to make them happy or to make them giggly

he wants to use his magic for good, because it often leaves a very painful burden on him in turn

𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐤𝐨𝐨𝐤: the prodigy

honestly i feel like if jungkook was a witch he’d probably be an underdeveloped one, you feel?

he finds out his power late bc either his family didn’t know (they’re all human) or they just didn’t tell him in hopes of him never becoming one

but jungkook is being bullied by some guys in his grade and they corner him after school one day and jungkook gets so frustrated that he just,,, makes them all start uncontrollably burping

as dumb as it is, those kids never bother jungkook again

when he does get a hang of it, jungkook probably uses his magic for fun more often than not

jungkook is recruited by jin for this very reason. he catches jungkook messing with old people at the park on his afternoon runs and he’s like this kid is such a brat. i want him

jungkook is SUCH a fast learner holy shit

he goes to namjoon for every little question, to the point where namjoon is positive he’s become a better witch simply because jungkook has prepared him for any fuckin scenario known to man

he also makes himself float upside down in the kitchen at night so when hoseok comes down for a glass of water he almost pisses himself

“haha did i scare you” 

cue hoseok making jungkook fall down as he mumbles “little shit” under his breath

halloween is his favorite time of year and he likes to pull harmless pranks on the kiddies while scaring the mean teenagers ruining all of the children’s fun

like he sees this guy in a deformed mask holding a plastic knife about to scare a little boy so Jungkook just gives the dude a wedgie with his magic

all the kids are laughing at him and jungkook just smirks

honestly he doesn’t like reading about magic as much as he likes just doing it from intuition/namjoon’s instruction. he’s a lot like hoseok in that he has a lot of natural talent but not a lot of proper training when he first starts honing his ability

since jin yoongi and namjoon are in charge of teaching magic they all hound on him like “did u do the reading”

jungkook maybe glosses over everything and then just over-performs as compensation

they get on him abt it but there’s no lying about it, jungkook is a strong witch on his own

he hasn’t gotten a special manifestation of his magic Just Yet but he only gets stronger as he goes. the more he applies himself, the stronger he grows

[your-turn-to-role]

new opinions of the cerberus assembly (etgw spoilers!!)

somewhat inspired by the conversations the other day, bc it’s reminded me i have a lot to say about these motherfuckers

let’s start with the obvious:

Master Trent Ikithon, Archmage of Civil Influence (Chaotic Evil Human)

Book Text: [Trent is respected as the acclaimed Propagandist of the empire and the third oldest member of the assembly. Once an instructor at the Soltryce Academy, he only returns every few years to collect young students for his experiments in the mental conditioning that he calls “awakening.” Many of these students go mad and are locked away, but those who endure become zealots for the assembly and join the Volstrucker, an elite group of arcane thugs commonly known as Scourgers, who perform the assembly’s dirtiest work under Trent’s direction.]

Most of this we knew. I hate this guy. Though, as a point of interest - Caleb’s for sure not the first person this has happened to. They account for a certain number of aspiring Volstrucker never completing the program, Caleb was just another statistic. Which means somewhere in Vergessen is a lot of other people with the same backstory who never managed to escape. That’s, something worth looking into, maybe.

Martinet Ludinus Da’leth, Archmage of Domestic Protections (Lawful Evil Elf)

[Ludinus is the oldest and only original member of the assembly, as well as the master of warfare and conflict. Charged with overhauling the military structure of the Dwendalian Empire, Ludinus directed the construction of the garrisons on the Xhorhasian border and often oversees their maintenance. He was one of the mages who survived the destruction of Molaesmyr and fled to Bysaes Tyl, but he saw the opportunity to achieve greatness within the empire and left his culture behind to continue his arcane pursuits. Wise, if emotionless, he bears a deep hatred for the Kryn Dynasty and spares no effort gathering information on their weaknesses and secrets. Ludinus spends most of his time developing arcane weapons of war and shoring up the military might of the empire, while subtly challenging the leadership of Crown Marshal Damurag.]

This guy’s old. That's the scariest thing about him really. Like, this guy's been in the empire since it was half its current size. This guy saw the destruction of Molaesmyr, and knew many of its residents. But he also rejected that society, purely for his own ends. He's at least 400 years old, more likely at least 500, and for the past 3-4 centuries has been focusing entirely on magic and warfare. That's a long time to hone those skills. Ludinus may say it's hard to compare power in the Assembly, but if I had to pick one of them for an end game boss, it would be him, no question. Trent's more of a wild card, sure, but he's only like 60, 70 years old. He's a baby compared to Da'leth. Keep an eye on this dude, and under no circumstances trust him.

Lady Vess de Rogna, Archmage of Antiquity (Neutral Evil Half-Elf)

[A public recluse for most of her life, Vess is both a brilliant mage and dedicated historian. She assumed this post after replacing her criminal predecessor, Lady Delilah Briarwood. As an instructor at the Soltryce Academy for over two decades, Vess has studied and unraveled a number of historical mysteries and pre-Calamity riddles — and hoarded some of the spoils for herself. Always eager to pursue forgotten lore and artifacts of eons past, Vess has been known to quietly vanish to Xhorhas for weeks at a time, returning with fewer guards and more uncovered secrets.]

Canon confirmation that this is who took over from Delilah Briarwood, and from what we’ve seen, they’re rather similar people. They're both scientists and historians, ruthlessly efficient, far more concerned with what they can learn and what they can do than what's good or safe for those around them. Liable to be found breaking the law in the name of science and progress. At least Vess has lasted longer than her predecessor.

Headmaster Oremid Hass, Archmage of Cultivation (Lawful Neutral Earth Genasi)

[The current headmaster of the Hall of Erudition in Zadash, Oremid is tasked with watching and grooming the next generation of mages and arcane specialists outside Rexxentrum. While he himself is a gentle soul who adores animals, he puts on the façade of a strict man with no sense of humor, which is further enhanced by the elemental influence of his earth genasi blood. He teaches students that failure is not an option, and that emotion is a barrier to one’s true ability. Equally feared, respected, and privately loathed by the students (and some instructors), Oremid personally dismisses those who break under his school’s curriculum and heaps joyous praise on those who endure their training.]

So, I've had teachers like this. And they stick in your mind, because, even a decade later, I still have a hard time getting over their instilled fear of failure. I can believe that, in general terms, Oremid's not a terrible person. I think he looks the other way on a lot of things, which precludes him from ever qualifying as good in my books, but he hasn't committed any major acts of torture or murder himself. Still though. You don't teach like that if you view your students as people. You teach like that if you view your students as potential assets. So like.... not as bad as some of his colleagues. Potentially someone they could work with if they had to. But still probably someone to stay away from.

Headmaster Zivan Margolin, Archmage of Conscription (Lawful Neutral Human)

[Zivan Margolin inherited the position of headmaster from his father, the late Jorma Margolin. Zivan has been the headmaster of the Soltryce Academy in Rexxentrum for nearly twenty years. Calm, patient, and quietly imposing, Zivan walks the halls of the Academy with a keen eye for talent. He is in charge of the curriculum and also watches for any latent powers that may be worth grooming as future allies of the assembly, dangers to be monitored, or prospective minds for Ikithon to conscribe into the Volstrucker. Zivan has rarely had the opportunity to demonstrate his full power, for he is typically busied with keeping the peace between the feuding members of the assembly. Those who have witnessed his true might, however, now know that his words are backed by some of the most powerful magics within the Cerberus Assembly.]

I think @lostsometime said it best, having the archmage of conscription be in charge of your elite magic school really sums up everything wrong with the empire. Like, if that's out in the open, your problems are unfixable. Get a new government. Jeez.

Master Doolan Tversky, Archmage of Dysology (Chaotic Neutral Gnome)

[The second-oldest member of the assembly, Doolan is in charge of the study and understanding of abnormal creatures and deviants of arcane creation that might threaten the empire’s way of life. She is an absentminded yet brilliant gnome who is obsessed with all beasts, aberrations, and creatures of legend. Doolan imports creatures from around the world to study, disassemble, and use in her attempts to revolutionize magical practices. She resents the Library of the Cobalt Soul, as her reputation has caused them to bar her from their facilities. She wishes to catalog the unstudied horrors of Xhorhas and has covertly obtained the services of the Myriad to retrieve new specimens.]

Now, Doolan is fascinating to me, not because I think she's a good person, but because she's just so delightfully weird. She's probably done some evil as fuck shit but she's also a gremlin of a gnome who loves weird fucked up arcane experiments and magical meteors that created eldritch ducks and all sorts of bizarre things like that. I'd love to see more of her, because there's always room in fantasy stories for more weird morally ambiguous old ladies who are banned from libraries on the grounds of "is about as likely to eat the books as she is to read them" and "last time we let her in here she somehow combined five forbidden rituals and created a new species of demon that haunts the halls of the rexxentrum archive spreading toxic slime everywhere and we can't figure out what it wants or how to make it go away".

Lord Athesias Uludan, Archmage of Diplomatic Union (Neutral Good Human)

[Athesias’s charm and bombastic personality serve him well as a diplomat. His duty is to foster a positive relationship with people of power both within and beyond the borders of the empire. He was originally one of the most effective instructors at the Soltryce Academy, but his penchant for spectacle and his rampant narcissism made him a difficult ally to trust with state secrets. When the office of Diplomatic Union opened, he was quickly and quietly reassigned. Athesias finds great pleasure in ruining or usurping the plans of his counterpart in the Crown’s employ, Emissary Lord Zeddan Graf.]

We’ve talked a bit about Uludan already - the Gilderoy Lockhart of the group for sure. Though I’m sure he has layers to him, so I’d be interested to find out what exactly they are.

And, saving the most interesting for last,

Baroness Jenna Iresor, Archmage of Industry (True Neutral Doppelganger)

[One of the younger members of the assembly, Jenna is known for her business acumen and her extravagant lifestyle. By hiding her nature as a doppelganger and using memory-altering magics at a young age to fabricate a false past, Jenna constructed her human persona from the ground up, leveraging her powers of deception to essentially write herself into history as a Clovis Concord expatriate. She helps oversee central guild business in Rexxentrum under Guildmaster Kai Arness, and helps Exchequer Aethia Drooze organize the collection of tithes through starostas across the empire.]

I am, insanely curious about how a doppelganger ended up in the Cerberus Assembly. She’s definitely ambitious for sure, doppelgangers already have a fair bit of innate magic - they’re natural shapeshifters and have a fair amount of psychic powers (like reading minds of anyone who happens to be near them), but to get here she had to be extremely committed. Which means she probably has plans for this position, or had plans that she’s already put into motion. Very interested what those are, especially for the archmage of industry.

[truetgirl]

A bard girl... Angelic... I made the model while screwing around and then went to make a backstory. Figured it’d be a little nothing. I’m putting it under the cut because some unknown thing in me hijacked my fingers and this came out.

It is an exceedingly odd way to grow up, being the child of courtiers to a regional noble. You aren't really noble yourself, but you certainly don't feel you have much in common with regular commoners, so your social circle, especially as a child, is very limited indeed. It would be odd enough if you'd turned out to be a normal human, let alone if you had a priest declare after your birth that you were a gift from the gods themselves. Let alone if your parents then used that auspicious omen to climb at court. My parents, advisors as they then became to our gracious patron, never had much time to spend with me. I spent many, many hours huddled in my room or in a private corner of the library, reading and fantasizing about a life of excitement and what friendship must be like.

Eventually, I took to writing. It was a natural step once I started to run out of books in the library. I wrote simply for fun at first, poetry mostly. But, as I practiced and refined my craft, I started to wonder if maybe, one day, I could tell stories like the ones that had kept me company for so many years. I began to seek an audience, to see what others would think of my work. It took some months, not being very well practiced at the time in talking to other people and having gained something a reputation around court as the strange, cloistered girl that was apparently some divine gift, but eventually I found a few other young ladies of the court to hear my first tale. It wasn't a groundbreaking story by any means, a tale of knightly valor and the slaying of beasts, but it was, to my delight, a crowd-pleaser.

Over the next few years, as I grew into a "proper" young lady at court and honed my skills of storytelling for an ever expanding audience, I attracted all kinds of attention. My parents finally seemed to have some time for me, I made friends among the various ladies in waiting to the higher nobility, I took up work in an official capacity as a chronicler by day and entertainer in the evenings, and it seemed I had even attracted the attention of the young heir to the house, a boy about my age by the name of Lanno.

I was uneasy with  Lanno's advances at first. I'd never received attention of that variety, and wasn't sure what to think or feel. When my mother found out about the boy's interest, she began to "encourage" me to at least act as though I reciprocated. My mother, ever the political climber, clearly saw the opportunity for our family to marry into nobility. Most of my friends were no help either, seeming utterly confused that I would be unsure about the advances of a promising and handsome young scion such as Lanno. Only my best friend, Trisha, seemed sympathetic to my uncertainty.

Trisha had been a companion even in my early, cloistered days in the library. Her father, being the court wizard, had encouraged her from an early age to pursue learning in any way she could. As such, we often ended up in the library together. We almost never spoke to one another until we were in our early teens. When we did start talking, it was because we'd both eaten through our usual sections of the library and wanted advice on good starting points in the others. Through her I gained an appreciation for history, and through me she learned the appeal of tales of chivalry and romance.

We'd grown closer since I began making strides at court and she'd begun officially apprenticing under her father in the arcane arts. We found solace in one another, an understanding we didn't seem to get elsewhere. And, much as when we were children, we shared our love of learning; but this time as teachers rather than readers. I taught her about the crafting of stories and the structure of poetry, and in return she taught me the fundamentals of magic her father had taught to her. Soon I found that by concentrating as she had showed I could make objects blaze with supernatural light. Trisha was shocked, as the small spell she had shown me could do many things, but it couldn't do that. After several theories, Trisha remembered that supposed omen of divine favor when I was born, and hearing her say it I believed for the first time that it may be true.

I asked Trisha what she thought I ought to do about Lanno's advances. She was unusually evasive when I asked directly, trying to avoid the conversation and talk of other things, refusing to meet my gaze, and seeming very nervous. When I insisted that I needed advice she answered, in the coldest tone she had ever used with me, that it would certainly be a fine way to advance me standing. She avoided me for about a week after that, and I couldn't understand why.

In any event, with seemingly nobody telling me I shouldn't reciprocate Lanno's advances and so many pushing me to do exactly that, I began to spend time with him. We ate meals together, he attended my performances, we would take walks of the grounds together, and all manner of other things.

This went on for a few months, and during that time Trisha did not speak to me at all. I wondered what I had done wrong, but I never had long to myself to think on it at that point, now that I was getting properly involved in court politics through Lanno. Soon enough, his parents and mine made official arrangements for us to be married. We never really fell in love the way I'd seen so many times in stories when i was young, but I just assumed that was because the real world wasn't so pleasant as those stories.

After nearly a year of my marriage with Lanno, things went wrong. At a state dinner it was mentioned to the visiting dignitaries that I had been declared a blessed child the day I was born. One of these visitors took the statement very seriously, and demanded proof. Panicked, I produced light like I'd learned when Trisha taught me about magic, but that was not enough. The visitor, some kind of holy knight apparently, insisted that any two-bit mage could do that. With no other way to prove anything and not even fully convinced I had anything real to prove, I fled the room in shame and fear of the man's anger.

Lanno came to find me in our room after dinner. He asked why I was so distraught, and I explained how I had never really believed I could be some heaven-sent gift. He was dismayed, so I tried to make him understand, and after several minutes of increasingly heated discussion he blurted out that I had better be what the priests said or this whole marriage was a waste. I pressed him on that, and painstakingly extracted an explanation from him about how he had only courted me because he and his parents believed divine blood would strengthen their family line. He also told me that most of the other courtiers only humored me and my performances because they had assumed earlier I was likely to be the next lady of the house and now knew for sure. Feeling a pain in my chest I'd never known before, tears pouring down my face, I ran. I ran from my own room with no idea where I was going until I arrived at Trisha's chambers.

Trisha looked at first glance as though she intended to turn me away as she had for the last year, but her face softened instantly when she saw the state of me. She quickly ushered me in and sat me down. She brought me some tea and, once I had control of my voice again and could hold back the tears, I explained what had happened. Once I had finished we sat in silence for a long moment, and then she leaned across the low table and kissed me. She was gentle, calming, and the contact with her made my heart leap for joy. All at once I finally understood that love like it was in the stories did exist, I had just been in the wrong place for it.

When we, much to my disappointment, pulled apart, she leaned her forehead against mine and confessed that she had been in love with me since she was old enough to really understand what love was. That she loved my stories and my poems and my fierce love of learning and my laugh and my eyes... That she hadn't been able to stand seeing me with Lanno, no matter how good for my future it would surely be. I could hardly think, but I felt myself say that I loved her too, and then leaned in for another kiss, drawing her into an embrace.

For a few perfect moments we sat there in each other's arms, but the moment was shattered as Lanno opened the door and found us there. Believing that I had been putting on a show to break things off in favor of Trisha, he called for guards to seize us both. We were accused of carrying on an affair, and while Trisha's father managed to use his considerable position as the court wizard to save Trisha, my position and that of my parents was greatly diminished, and they could not save me from being banished from court.

My marriage dissolved, life in tatters, and my best friend... Possibly the love of my life? Now out of reach, I set off. I've wandered ever since, performing stories for coin anywhere that would take me and discovering new ways to leverage the tiny bits of magic Trisha showed me via my creative flow. I have no idea where I'm going with this life now, and I cannot imagine it will ever be fulfilling without her...

PERSONALITY TRAITS

I always want to know how things work and what makes people tick.

I’m full of witty aphorisms and have a proverb for every occasion.

I believe that anything worth doing is worth doing right. I can’t help it—I’m a perfectionist.

IDEALS

Generosity. My talents were given to me so that I could use them to benefit the world.

Aspiration. I work hard to be the best there is at my craft.

BONDS

The world is full to bursting with history and stories. If I can contribute to that great canon, then my life was worth something.

One day, somehow, I have to see her again.

FLAWS

I suffer from great anxiety both about my work and because I believe nobody could possibly respect me.

I'm good at appearing sociable but don't really understand the finer details of how it works.

[jhmyguardiangel]

🌿 four mistletoes 🌿

pianist!junhui x jazzsinger!femreader

category: seventeen days of christmas

———

it was that time of the year again. a lot of people were expecting junhui to play at the annual christmas fair in town. classically trained since he was six, he was considered one of the best pianists his age. he used to have a little competition with lee jihoon.

to many people, the two were seen as rivals. on the contrary though, for the both of them, it was a friendship to hone their skills as they grow. a challenge rather. unlike him who just played piano, jihoon sang and played the piano simultaneously. one thing that they both considered themselves as rivals was that they were recently competing to play an accompaniment for a singer. 

and that singer was you. 

you were quite known for your soulful, jazz genre voice. in a time where pop and r&b were the top choices to sing, jazz was somewhere behind the lines, not much notice taken from. born to parents who loved singing, it was just natural for you to inherit a talent. expectations were on you, pressure to become better than your parents was a weight heavy for someone with a shy demeanour to carry.

jun accidentally run into you one day at the music academy, literally. where he was running late for his recital and had a clash with you, who was also late for your performance at a company’s dinner.

he thought you were beautiful, your eyes and your tensed smile caught his attention, and the way your hands met when you handed him his musical notes and vice versa. also they way you bowed and parted ways after, you were so elegant and he found himself smiling like an idiot.

he had hoped to run into you again.

little did he know that the angels above heard his wishes.

he spotted you earlier this month talking with a friend, it was the first time he’d seen you in weeks. he liked the outfit you wore, a beret and cardigan really suited you.

another time last week he saw you by the teacher’s office, handing in what seemed to be homework. again, his shy self was not too confident to even say a little ‘hello’.

and just this week at around lunch time he saw you by the lockers, warming your hands due to the cold weather.

but there was one thing he noticed whenever his eyes spotted you.

you were under a mistletoe.

jun wasn’t the type to believe in signs, he thought they were just merely coincidental. an occasional happening. he never experienced encountering signs of some sort. however, he’d like to believe in one now. just because, these signs kept appearing close to you.

“no matter what happens, i’ll definitely make y/n my singer for the song i’m performing.” jihoon said as he twirled the pen, writing musical notes on the bars.

“really?” jun challenged, looking at the christmas decorated room, “i think she’ll rather be with me- child prodigy, hello.”

jihoon laughed at his fellow friend. “but hey, the decision is up to her. whoever she chooses, we’ll just have to accept it.”

“no hard feelings?” jun closed the books, smirking at his the younger one.

“no hard feelings.” he replied. “anyway, may the best man wins.”

“uh that’ll definitely be me.”

“we’ll see.”

as jihoon left the music room, junhui’s smile faded. he was aware of jihoon’s romantic feelings towards you. he was also aware that his feelings for you were much stronger than before. having shared the same majors, this should be easy. but jun knew better, he’d have to push himself and man up.

he was about to leave the room when he spotted you again, entering through the door. junhui immediately slung his backpack behind him, and hid like a rabbit.

you were so focused on your lyrics that you didn’t notice him behind the rack of choir gowns. sitting on the piano stool, you pressed keys that made jun’s eyes grow bigger than it already was.

you were playing the piano. you knew how to.

then your voice sung the lyrics of a famous song, “have yourself a very little christmas..”

jun once again was awestruck, jazz was new to his ears. it was even better because you sang it. he listened as you continued on, until you stumbled your notes.

“ah, still can’t play it righ-“

a loud clash of metallic wire fell across the room, and a weird noise from a boy you knew as wen junhui failed to catch it. “damn.. sorry i was about to leave anyway.”

“you play the piano right?”

jun stopped in his tracks, his jawline was something prominent in his features, also his high-courted nose. “y-yeah. i do.”

you excitedly clapped your hands, “can you play jazz?”

“n-not really.”

“good! exactly what i needed.”

“but weren’t you singing jazz just now? i’m not trained for jazz music. maybe if you have notes-“

“here!” you handed him a music sheet of said genre. “try it.”

“okay.” he sat beside you, making you jump a bit.

you leaned closer to him, expectant to hear him play. “s-sorry i should be standing up.”

“it’s okay. this is alright. i like the eagerness.”

you puffed your cheeks, as you sat properly and he continued playing. “okay.” it was amazing. one look at the jazz music notes he already had it wrapped around his fingers. “it’s good to know that there’s someone else around here who plays the piano other than jihoon. kinda fed up having him as my pianist.”

wait what?

“i thought he never played the piano for you.”

“are you kidding?” you laughed, “he’s been my piano accompaniment since middle school.”

“oh.”

“so yeah. i’d rather be with someone new. this time.” you said, though you knew that junhui was a perfect fit for you. he was knowledgable, and you’ve seen his recitals. also, he was your type. “and thank you in advance.” you stretched, though the stool you both sat on was a bit small, you nearly fell off. “whoa!”

jun’s hand caught your back in time, his other hand grabbing the side of of the piano. this act made some decoration by the wall fall on the both of you.

and guess what?

it was another mistletoe.

“four mistletoes..” he said softly, looking at your flustered face.

“yeah.” you nodded. “so, about the accompaniment..”

jun didn’t think twice, and boldly he gave you a kiss on the cheek, making you smile as he pulled you back right beside him.

“contract signed.”