#gerbil rants

[jeeppu]

behold:

the best picture my gf has ever taken

#I love it so much #we were trying to get some photos of our boyos together but it's hard when one is more social around humans than another #animals #gerbil rants

[disposablelimb]

yeah i feel much better now that i've removed a large source of poison from my room

#vague rants #my gerbils still have lots of aspen in their tank but i feel almost normal

[kindnesssleeps]

Hey buddy hey, I’m so fucking filled with fear. I wake up with my heart pounding every single morning. Could you in your great benevolence please understand that I’m a scared little animal.

#rant #fucking things a gerbil would post #personal

[lunnule]

glass onion was excellent also happy new year! may all of yous have the 2023 you need to have

#i honestly don't know what my 2023 needs to be #i want aimless hours spent with people i love #i want to make friends #the kinds i can rant about whatever my brain gerbils are currently thinking about #the kind of friends i can be vulnerable with #who i can sit in contented silence with #friends i can rely on #and maybe #one of those friends will let me make out with them #it's been a long ass time #so that would be nice

[via-l0ve]

Hi I want to request Spn boys dating someone who is a few years younger than them (They almost have to be in crowley and castiels case) and they sometimes use slang that they don't get at all. I loved the way your wrote Gabriel in latest work so could you add him.

I understood that reference! (SPN pref!) 🩷

A/n: hi anon! i love this idea!! i hope you enjoy :)

warnings: swearing, modern vine/tiktok references

Dean:

“no, y/n!! you don’t understand! this is important, you could’ve died back there!! you need to be more careful! i’m tired of-“

“no need to shout. no need to yell. shut your eyes, take a deep breath.”

“…”

“aww look! you’ve gone all quiet.”

“what the fuck was that?”

you take it to your advantage when he’s arguing and just slip in some vine references (idk if anyone understands that one but i love it.)

“y/n, you want avocados on your toast like a heathen?”

“it’s an avocado! yayyy!”

“are you having a stroke? it’s just an avocado.”

one time a demon came through and a fight broke out and the table broke

“the tables broken. i’ll have to go out and get a new one in the morn-“

“oh no!! our table! it’s broken!!”

“…i just said that.”

the poor man is SO confused

Sam:

side. eye.

he’s flabbergasted

let’s say he’s mad about something okay?

he’s ranting and ranting and then he turns to you

“woah. calm down there jamahl. don’t pull out the nine!”

he’s giggling tho

he thinks it’s entertaining how you just say things for fun and it confuses everyone in the room

also also also

he tells you the most depressing news about the world and you go

“oh. slay.”

“slay? i just told you 20 people died y/n are you okay? are you high?”

“i wish i was.”

“what.”

lmfao i’m sorry but imagine in the middle of a hunt you get punched in the face by a demon or something and he turns to you and

“you okay?”

“oh! oh! call an ambulance! call an ambulance! but not for me!!!”

and then you kill it.

he falls in love even more.

Castiel:

poor baby is so confused

“where are you going, y/n?”

“wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy.”

“w-what? weather boy? i’m an angel of the lord-“

it’s not even vine. if you use slang he is so confused

“she thought she ate that up.”

“ate what up? what was she eating y/n?”

“no… no she wasn’t eat-“

you do it just to mess with him lol

“cas, you’re such a snack.”

“huh?”

your humor makes him so confused

“cas! look at this video of a gerbil running up to the camera and it freezes right on his dumb face.”

“y/n you concern me.”

“i was laughing for ten minutes.”

crowley:

he is so confused

he thinks your dying

but he also just goes along with it

any vine references he giggles a little bit ngl

he thinks you’re so funny even if he dosent get it too much LMFAOO

he gives you the look every time you reference something.

“was that a vine thing?”

he says meme like sebastian stan

“mee-me.”

“was that a mee-me?”

“meme, crowley.”

“oh. meeh-me.”

“no🩷.”

i’m cackling

i feel like he sucks at texting bro.

“hey bestie how was ur day?” - you

“good bestie i am not your bestie i am crowley your lover”

“use punctuation.”

he dosent understand your new language but he tries to keep up.

#love u mwah #thank you sm for this request #castiel #castiel x reader #dean winchester #dean winchester x reader #sam winchester #sam winchester x reader #crowley #crowley x reader #supernatural imagine #supernatural x reader #supernatural

[prokopetz]

The third major revision of the increasingly overwrought tabletop RPG about what if Samus Aran was secretly three to five space gerbils operating a person-sized mech suit is now up.

This is primarily an "expansions and clarifications" type update, with few major structural changes, apart from splitting scenes into multiple types and providing simplified rules for the less critical ones. Those expansions and clarifications are substantial, however, so if you're updating from the previous playtest draft I'd definitely recommend giving the changelog a once-over.

My next steps, in no particular order:

Finish the mech suit upgrades table (there are currently a couple of unfilled slots, and I'd like to bump it up to a full 18 eventually)

Provide some examples of pre-generated space gerbil roles

Discussion of campaign play (including advancement)

Discussion of playing without a GM (possibly including solo play?)

Add a bunch of big stupid random mission tables (needed for both GMless play and hypothetical solo play module)

As always, comments, criticisms, and bizarre rants are welcome. Additionally, this is probably the first major revision of the game where a full end-to-end run is feasible (at least for a one-shot), so if anyone would like to volunteer to run an actual playtest, please drop me a line!

Illustrations by @pencilbrony

Full changelog under the cut:

Space Gerbils Changelog 2023-01-08

Note: all page numbers refer to the PDF version.

Print-and-play token sheet updated with twelve additional papercraft minifigs, courtesy of @pencilbrony

Added a brief inspirational media section (p. 8) and a not-so-brief glossary (pp. 9–14)

Two new full-page illustrations by @pencilbrony (pp. 16, 28)

Added procedures for randomly selecting starting mech suit upgrades and increased number of starting upgrades to 2 (p. 21)

Added two new mech suit upgrades ("Co-pilot Protocols" and "Copy Circuit") (pp. 21–22)

Re-worked "Hyperdrive" upgrade for compatibility with revised critical success rules (below) (p. 22)

Re-worked "Well Maintained" upgrade so that it doesn't require players to keep track of how many times it's been used in each scene; all upgrades are now either "once per scene" or "once per phase" (p. 23)

Added six new proficiencies ("Bodyguard", "Fringe Science", "Machine Empathy", "Motivational Speaker", "Observant" and "Psychic") (pp. 24–26)

Re-worked "Direct Neural Interface" proficiency so that it no longer benefits from cost discounts for pushing yourself (p. 24)

Re-worked "Special Operations" proficiency to be less complicated and (somewhat) less overpowered (p. 26)

Added a note about re-naming proficiencies (p. 27)

Made starting Stress Limit more explicit (p. 27)

Revised phase flowchart to reflect simpified workflow (see below) and made it available as a separate PDF (p. 29)

Re-worked Setup Phase to allow players to choose their initial positions (p. 30)

Clarified that Extravehicular Activity task may not be performed if doing so would result in no space gerbils crewing the mech suit (p. 32)

Revised protocol descriptions (p. 34)

Added rules for multitasking (p. 35)

Clarified handling of Fallout Phase when multiple tests were made in preceding Action Phase (p. 37)

Critical success now occurs on any success where the chosen result shows doubles or better, not just double 6s; critical success and complications may now occur on same test (p. 38)

"Lost" complication re-named "Scrambled", and now disallows Reassigning in following Operations Phase (pp. 39–40)

"Delayed" complication re-named "Time Loss" (pp. 39–40)

Subsection on complications and physical threats removed and replaced with more general discussion of interpreting mixed outcomes (p. 41)

Workflow for End Phase simplified; the End Phase now always follows the Fallout Phase, and its triggers no longer depend on what happened in phases prior to the Fallout Phase (p. 42)

Clarified and expanded End Phase triggers, and included a trigger for all space gerbils Stressing Out at the same time (p. 42)

Added explicit rules for recovering Stress and conditions between scenes (p. 42)

"Hazardous" condition re-named "Unsafe" to avoid potential confusion with scene Hazards (p. 44)

Brief discussion of mission structure added to "Running the Game" (p. 47)

Scenes now divided into two types: engagements and interludes (pp. 49–59)

Re-named Mission Clock to Threat Clock (p. 49)

Expanded discussion of Obstacle traits (p. 52)

Added eight new Obstacle traits ("Barrier", "Cryptic", "Hazardous", "High Risk", "Jinxed", "Small Target", "Stressful" and "Volatile") (pp. 52–54)

"Secure" Obstacle trait re-named "Big Target" (p. 52)

"Consequence" Obstacle trait re-named "Fixed Consequence" (p. 53)

Added rules for scene Hazards (p. 55)

Added discussion of handing the end of an engagement (p. 56)

Simplified rules for handling non-critical scenes and having adventures outside the mech suit (pp. 57–59)

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #space gerbils #game design

[oneatlatime]

The Boy in the Iceberg

58 seconds in and I can already see why people say this show is gorgeous. Look at those colours! Although the double image around some of the line art is distracting.

Can water do that? Just have random fast currents in an otherwise pretty still ocean? Also, Catara couldn't have grabbed a spare paddle and helped? Actually they seemed screwed anyway. If they were going any faster they probably would have landed harder, or not on ice at all.

Judging by Sokka's lack of reaction to Catara's temper tantrum, I'd say she has that exact rant at least three times a week.

It's a face!

Maybe the giant orb created the current to summon them there?

Catara has no self-preservation instincts at all. Giant glowy orb washed up in front of you, don't poke it!

Tiger seals.

Solitaire. Neat.

That haircut is not good. Also a very unique choice for a voice. Wait this is Zuko? The guy everyone's obsessed with?

I love Appa already.

"this is Catara, my flying sister." A man after my own heart.

They really would have been stuck without Aang to offer a ride. What was their plan to get home?

Zuko is a prince? Hunting the avatar to reclaim his honour. Not sure how those two go together but ok. I guess 100 years ago the avatar stole a time-travelling Zuko's honour.

Appa can swim through the night? Why does he have six legs?

I didn't know this was a dream sequence at first and I was wondering where Sokka and Catara were. For future reference: dreams are brown.

Aang should have frozen to death by now. That's nowhere near enough clothes. And Catara can't be only just noticing the blue lines now.

Seems like the village has hit a rough patch.

If this is how catara reacts to a bald child, she's gonna spontaneously combust the first time she meets a teenage boy who isn't her brother. And how is an air bender going to teach her water bending?

Between the Appa snot and the watchtower gag, I sense Sokka will become the butt of many jokes.

You know, if you want him to actually learn, maybe tell him what he did wrong rather than reciting philosophical stuff and then shooting fire at his face? His presumably scarred face? Scarred presumably by fire? Kudos to Zuko for not flinching.

Is there a stick in Zuko's hair that's supporting it upright or does his hair just do that? Does Zuko have Pippi Longstocking hair? Speaking of hair, why does Catara have her hair like that? Surely that gets in the way of seeing stuff? It does look good when her hood is up though.

Good sneaky exposition dump Zuko. Didn't notice it until I thought about it after.

There's something hilarious yet tragic about Sokka spouting the wartime equivalent of live laugh love quotes and losing the battle with potty breaks. He has no idea what he's talking about but he believes in what he's saying so much.

Did Aang spend an hour in there?!?

So pretty.

Appa has six legs and penguins have four wings. Is the rule in this show that animals have 50% more appendages?

Last airbender smothered by penguins, more at 11.

"I haven't done this since I was a kid!" "You still are a kid!" That line feels like something that's going to come back.

Was the whole 'being a bender is showing no fear' or however that line went actually about bending, or do you really just want to explore the ship, Aang?

Gerbils at the south pole?

Would the fire nation send people back to rig a lost ship or are all fire nation ships rigged at all times and the crews are just used to working around the traps? Actually that would be a great way to catch spies.

I would jump to brain-damage induced amnesia from being trapped in an iceberg for a few hours before I'd ever think of a century long cryo-sleep. "it's the only explanation." Really?

All of these backgrounds are so pretty.

Air bending gets you some serious air. Those hops are stupid big, even accounting for cartoon physics.

I really like the end credits music. And according to the credits, I've been mispelling Katara's name this whole time.

Some final thoughts:

Katara (with a K) is too idealistic and trusting and Sokka is too cynical and suspicious. A perfect sibling pair. Also I love Sokka's sense of humour.

I like Aang's specific flavour of goofiness. He seems secure in himself and genuine. He has attention issues though.

Appa is a sea bison actually. Common misconception.

I like that they introduce the antagonist like 10 minutes into the first episode, but they're going to have to flesh him out way more before I read Zuko as anything other than an asshole. Also the voice is going to take a while to get used to. It's not that it doesn't fit the character design, it's just that I've never heard an actual human talk like that naturally. It's kind of muppet-like. Maybe he damaged his throat when he got that scar?

The voice acting is just superb. Even single lines like Gran Gran have distinct character. I did have to rewind a couple of times to catch what the old man with Zuko was saying.

The shading on the snow, the clouds and the skies, it's all so beautiful. You could watch this episode on mute and still be satisfied.

Katara is the only waterbender in the whole south pole, Sokka is the only man in the whole village, and Aang is the only air bender in the whole world. Gonna be a lot of lonely kids in this show. I sense a theme. I bet Appa is the only sea bison too.

Sokka is my favourite so far, but I think Aang is going to grow on me. Katara is a little bit too much of a Little Sister (TM) and Zuko just feels flat. But that just means more room to grow for both of them as characters. Of course Appa reigns supreme. I hope there's more of him in the next episode.

Even though this was half of a two-part episode, the cut off didn't feel abrupt. Maybe not a full self-contained story, but they left off at a perfect place.

Rereading this before posting, I asked a lot of quetsions. That's good! So many hooks to get me into the show, all in the first episode. I'm looking forward to the next one.

#atla #avatar: the last airbender #the boy in the iceberg #avatar the last airbender

[yujateaandpi]

ROTTMNT Lost Episode Pitch: Standardized Stressing

This would take place between season 2 and the movie.

April is 17 now and preparing college applications. 

She’s been too busy to visit the boys in a long time, but when she finally comes over, she is absolutely exhausted. She says she’s having a difficult time juggling all her many extracurriculars (this girl works like, ten part time jobs) with her study schedule

Donatello ENTHUSIASTICALLY offers to help her work out an academic plan— he calls it DISCO or (Donnie’s Ingenious Successful College Operation)

He repeatedly mentions how he’s never been to school (clearly a sore spot) but has long-fantasized the opportunity and has thought about it extensively

He comes up with a militarized schedule/ calendar for April, who takes it up in stride because she’s desperate.

At first, it works! Donnie’s alarms get her awake at the crack of dawn, he deletes all distractions from her phone, he makes a Duolingo-style threatening mascot tutor that keeps her constantly studying and moving from place to place. She starts avoiding Sunita and the boys, cutting out her social life entirely. 

Weeks pass, and the SAT date approaches.

Donnie is somehow MORE stressed than she is, ranting and pacing, getting in way over his head, and talking about making the program more strict

April assures him that he’s doing more than enough already. He says something insensitive about her not caring enough about her education, and they get into a fight.

The next day, April wakes up in a blank room that has nothing but a desk and a chair.

Donnie’s voice over a PA tells her that this is the next stage in DISCO, saying this is where she’ll live for now until the SAT date. Her only objective is to study for hours and occasionally break for meals, which he’ll provide.

April is LIVID and tells him he has no right to keep her like a gerbil in a cage. 

The walls open and lasers open along the wall, giving her a painful shock. He says it’s a necessary precaution to keep her alert. 

April, furious, tries to leave. The Duolingo-style mascot goes aggro and opens fire. 

Homegirl snaps the leg off the desk and uses it as a bat to WRECK the lasers/ room. She goes apeshit with pent-up stress. The destroyed walls fall apart and she finds herself in the middle of the lair garage. 

She slams into Donnie’s lab (who is desperately trying to put up defenses) and smacks him with her bat, yelling at him for going insane and for caring more about his ego than her wellbeing

He tries to argue, but he sees the small burn where the laser got her and falters

As she’s leaving, he grabs her arm and admits that she’s right. He confesses that he has always been extremely jealous that she gets to go to school and that every day he thinks about what more he could do if only he had guided instruction. He was trying to live vicariously through her and acknowledges that.

April tells him that she gets it but that it’s hard enough being a young person at her age, uncertain about her future, and that him reducing her to nothing but her test scores was exactly the opposite of what she needed. 

She tears up as she tells him this and he’s instantly regretful.

He tells her he owes her big time for hurting her and begs for forgiveness, asking if there’s anything he can do to make up for it.

A: *Sigh* “Well I don’t have a ride home after the test.”

D: “Done. Anything else?”

A: “Don’t ever lock me in a box again.”

D: “Deal.” 

The day of the SAT, April steps out of the school building and rounds a corner where Donnie parked the Turtle Tank. 

She hops in and he gives her an enormous congratulations gift basket (that the boys put together). 

Leo gave her his Jupiter Jim comic, Mikey got her her favorite snacks, Raph gave her his favorite nap blanket, and Donnie gives her her phone which he’s outfitted with all her favorite fantasy games and an app he made that gives her one encouraging Donnie message a day (ex. “You got this queen”) 

He asks her tentatively how it went. She says she did her best and it’s out of her hands now

He tells her that he’s always looked up to her and that he has no doubt she did well. 

D: “You’re a smart cookie April O’Neil. And of course I’m sure my patented study system must have—”

A: “Donnie.”

D: “Yeah, yeah.”

As they’re driving away, she asks him why he never considered attending a university in the Hidden City since she’s sure there must be yokai professors out there. 

D: “Huh. That’s actually not a bad idea.”

A: “You never even considered it? I know I say this a lot, but you have a bad habit of not using that big dumb brain of yours.”

D: “I’ll focus on the “big” part of that insult.”

A: *Punches him*

D: “Ow!”

Outro!

#This episode idea plays in my head rent free #I just want an episode where Donnie has to encourage APRIL this time #I wish I was an animator or had time to draw this as a long comic #rottmnt #rottmnt season 3 #rise of the tmnt season 3 #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt lost episode #rise donnie #rise april #save rottmnt #save rise of the tmnt #unpause rottmnt #unpause rise of the tmnt #tmnt 2018 #rottmnt donatello #april o'neil

[manybackflips]

Guilty Gear Strive really ended with Asuka starting a podcast huh.

What does he even talk about?

Did Daisuke include this because he saw how Americans were starting podcasts left and right?

Was it just funny to imagine a world-class terrorist rant about botany on his moon base?

That would be a lot like tuning into the latest podcast on your radio and there’s the leader of ISIS talking about his pet gerbil.

#guilty gear #guilty gear strive #ggst #asuka r kreutz #podcast #world-class terrorist #That Man

[plainviewwelcomesyou]

THROW THE THING GO GO GO

ROLLED A 3.

I threw the second coming of the TulseTurn at Not-Maxilla's head.

Instead of hitting on target, it flies over his head - taking a slice of his quaffed baby blue hair off with it.

He gasps, horrified.

MR. MAXPROFIT: MY LUSCIOUS HAIR!!! WHAT DID YOU DO, Y-YOU LITTLE GERBIL?! DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW LONG THAT TOOK HAIR AND MAKEUP TO PULL OFF?!

He rants and raves about his messy mane - not a pleasant sound to hear, but it means he's distracted.

(What should I do?)

#plainview

[jeeppu]

me: *makes myself salad*

our gerbils: *the most guilt tripping sad puppy stare ever*

#I LITERALLY GAVE YOU BROCCOLI WHILE I WAS MAKING IT #AND #IT WAS YOUR OFFICIAL VEGGIE DAY YESTERDAY #CAN'T GIVE YOU TOO MUCH OR YOUR BELLIES WILL GET UPSET #gerbil rants

[freaoscanlin]

I absolutely love your sound engineer Carmilla AU. I've been a sound engineer for over 10 years and to read a Carmilla take on it is super enjoyable. 98% of what I do is live mixing so studio mixing is a different beast for me but my mentor is equally amazing at live and studio.

I have to ask: do you have mixing experience? You're obviously well-versed in artists and albums, but there are details you add that make me think you have, at least, some experience or access to someone who has mixing experience. Most people don't think of the differences between an empty room and full room but you added it. Or the monitor mixing at festivals and the comment about compression and sounding like a gerbil (I use chipmunk as my example). Like...you either have some experience or you know a sound engineer. I'd like to think it's more than just good Google skills.

Anyway, just wanted to tell you how much I love this story. I must have read it at least 10 times before sending this.

This is possibly the best ask I could have gotten today (I was cringing at some old mistakes I made in a fic from over 10 years ago earlier) so thank you for that. You're very sweet (and also incredible for my ego).

But the truth is: nope. I was backup on running the lights board in a theater production of Godspell once, but this fic came about due to two things:

Carmilla obsession (that was such a fun fandom)

Being seated near the soundboard at a Ben Folds show at the height of #1

Everything in that fic came purely from Google skills. I read a lot of mixers' blogs to see what the terminology was, a few how-to articles, watched a few videos, etc. My favorite way of doing research like that is to watch an expert have to react to somebody doing it badly; their rants tend to have the most information possible. So, yeah, just deep dive, trying to figure out how it would apply to how the characters interact with their worlds and how they think. I like AUs because I like the challenge of writing a recognizable character in a new setting.

And it's so fucking cool to learn that I got things right in that fic, and that it found somebody like you who loves it.

#carmilla #frea replies #jonesgirl88 #mix it up

[disposablelimb]

i've felt awful the last several days and just last night i realized that it might possibly be due to the fact that i am allergic to aspen shavings and have an open bag of aspen shavings in my room

#vague rants #i bought it for my gerbils #i remembered having a reaction to aspen when i was a kid but i was hoping it was overblown...or like poor quality shavings or something... #but i'm pretty sure i started feeling sick after opening them fjkdshfj #i might be stupid

[dawnrider]

Cuz why not? It's been a long ass week. Have a snippet from the vault! Barely catching the last of Friday (it's not quite midnight here.)

Tossing the pile of mail down on the counter, Kagome sifted through the envelopes, looking for anything that had her name on it.  There wasn't much these days that wasn't from her school career center or her loan distributor.  Finally she came upon a plain envelope addressed to her in carefully computer-printed script.  She assumed it was an offer for a credit card but opened it anyway.  “This is the biggest load of crap I've ever read.”  Kagome's grumbling did not go unnoticed, her younger brother coming over to see what she was looking at.  “How do they expect people to fall for this?”  Sota's eyes slowly widened before he snatched the letter and pamphlet out of her hand.  He scanned it three times before staring at his sister with something in his eyes between envy and outrage.  He went to his book bag, pulled out his laptop and flipped it open.  He typed furiously for several moments before showing her a website with a forum.  There were entries upon entries from people who were raving about this very piece of mail.  It was real.  There was no catch.  She didn't have to buy fifteen subscriptions of Knitting Today and Gerbil Weekly to be entered to win... She'd already won.

    Kagome was speechless.  Two weeks on an island resort in the Caribbean where there was a party every night.  The only catch she could see was there were no drugs and no alcohol allowed.  But she didn't drink and stayed as far away as possible from drugs so she couldn't see a problem there.  “I can't believe they chose you!  You're so boring,” her brother complained.  Kagome frowned at him, taking back the letter and reading it again.  Her brother wasn't entirely off the mark.  It wasn't so much that she was boring, she was... careful.  Tugging her lower lip with her teeth in thought, Kagome took the letter and pamphlet up to her room and pulled out her own, much older, laptop.  When she logged onto the website listed in the letter it gave her spaces to enter in her seat preference on a flight and that was it.  There were no other questions.  It had her address, name and nearest airport listed already.  To be honest, Kagome was a little creeped out.  She had a week before she was supposed to leave and she still wasn't sure she believed it was real.  Sota was shouting on the phone downstairs to one of his friends, obviously ranting about her getting chosen over him to go on this once in a lifetime trip.

    “Kagome?”  The woman in question turned to her mother in the doorway to her room.  “What on earth is your brother so upset about?”  Kagome beckoned her mother over to the computer and showed her the letter and pamphlet as well as the website itself.  Her mother frowned slightly.  “Something seems weird about this.”

    “I know.  I just can't figure out what it is.  There are no hidden fees, no subscriptions to magazines, no essays to write, no obligation to buy time shares, nothing.  I don't get it.”  Kagome watched her mother read through it several more times, even sitting down herself to search a few things on the Internet.  Kagome knew her mother was not computer illiterate, but it was still strange to see her deftly searching several sites before leaning back and staring at the screen with a thoughtful frown.

    “I can't find anything that says anything bad about this trip except people complaining about there being no drugs or alcohol allowed.”  After a few more moments, her mother stood and looked at her carefully.  “You should go.  You deserve it.”  Kagome was about to protest but her mother put up her hand to stop her.  “You don't have a job lined up yet and you just finished six years of rigorous school.  You need the break.  It's only two weeks.  Go and enjoy yourself!”  Given that sort of argument, Kagome really couldn't disagree.

    “I... ok, Mama.  If you're sure.”

#fuck it friday #dawnrider fanfiction #inuyasha fanfiction #Trip of a lifetime

[kata-sans]

Why Kai Doesn't Pet-sit Anymore

Kai's week did not start of good, when he found his room covered in the sad remains of his favorite body pillow. It did not get better when he twisted his ankle trying to avoid stepping on the perpetrator. It got worse when the team decided Kai should sit out the next mission due to said injury. And because the week was not done with Kai, Jay decided to ask him for a favor.

Kai was set on turning him down. He even a valid excuse due to injury, but Nya happen to walk by. She accepted on his behalf while silently daring Kai to refuse. This is why Kai is now sitting in living room with a look of boredom as Jay reads of a list.

"A-and there are extra pellets in my closet if you run out. And I can't think of anything else but if you need anything please call me. I really appreciate you looking after Socket while I'm gone. Normally I take her to the Pet Daycare, but after her last visit I don't feel comfortable leaving her there. She also seems a little more agitated. This is the first time I'm leaving her since the Pet Daycare fiasco."

"Jay, relax. I promise your rabbit will be fine!" Nya cut in before Jay could continue to ramble on. She turned to her brother with a mockingly sweet smile, "Take care of yourself, bro. And remember, Socket is a bunny, she is not out to get you. Try to get along."

Kai scoffed at his sister's retreating back. Everytime something bad happened to Kai, that floppy eared mop head was not far behind. His teammates can laugh all they want, but Kai knew that long-eared gerbil had a bone to pick with him. What reason does the rodent have, Kai doesn't know.

Kai looked down at the list Jay left and rolled his eyes. Jay has that thing spoiled rotten. Who would think an overgrown lab rat would need to be brushed twice a day. Speaking of the fluffy monstrosity, Jay's list says it's feeding time.

Kai placed the dish on the floor. The privileged vermin stared at dish before turning away. Kai looked at his list and gagged. He refused to degrade himself to please the buck-tooth menace. He was content to let Thumper starve but ultimately caved under the threat of his sister's rath.

"Fine here it goes.... Socket it's din-din time." He spoke in his most insincere chipper voice. Socket seems to find it satisfactory enough to begin eating.

Kai continued to look after the annoying pest in a similar manner for the next two days. On the last day before the team came back, Skylor dropped of to visit and help Kai with the house chores.

Kai was so engrossed in charming Skylor, he forgot all about the cotton-tail troublemaker. They were finishing with cleaning up Jay's room when Skylor noticed the vacuum had sucked up a large object that was now stuck in the vacuum's tube. They quickly got to work on pulling out the obstruction.

The brown fuzzy clump was unrecognizable to the elemental masters but Skylor noticed a weird blue piece attached to it. When she pulled out a ribbon, Kai' immediately recognized it." I know this ribbon. It belongs to Jay's rabbit."

Skylor looked puzzled. " Why is it attached to this... whatever it is."

Kai felt dread sink in. " Oh my First Spinjitsu Master! We vacuumed Jay's rabbit! We killed it!" This was bad! No, it was horrendous! Jay was going to skin him alive for this.

"W-wait let's not jump to conclusions. I mean vacuum cleaners are harmless right?" Skylor tried to reason.

Kai picked up the fuzzy remains of the creature and tried to resuscitate it. He poked, shook, and patted the body but the nothing changed. Suddenly he heard noises from the front entrance. The others were here.

" Socket, I'm home... Kai is she with you or something?" Jay spoke as he walked into his room. He noticed Kai and Skylor hunched over a brown lump. "Is that....?"

"Jay I'm sorry I... don't know how this happened, we were cleaning but we got distracted and I..." He stopped his rant midway as Jay picked up the brown lump and revealed it was not a rabbit at all.

"Yuck! Socket's been shedding pretty hard but this is ridiculous. Sorry you had to find this. Where is she?" Jay looked around for his beloved pet.

The ninja split up to search for the missing rabbit. They searched all her favorite hiding places. Each ninja decided to searched their individual rooms. The search concluded when Kai let out a horrified scream. Everyone ran to the fire master's room expecting the worst.

"Oh First Spinjitsu Master!!! Socket, your a mommy!" Jay squealed in delight. He shoved past his horrified teammate to reach his rabbit. The rabbit was carelessly grooming her litter. She briefly looked up at the lightning master before resuming her task.

Kai slowly walked to his bed to examine the mess. The sheets were ruined. No amount of washing would erase the horror of watching the vile hare go through labor on his bed. It was hopeless, he would need to burn the sheets. Before Kai could mourn his sheets, Cole asked a terrifying question.

"So... Can we keep them?"☺️

#ninjago fic #ninjago #jay walker #kai smith #nya smith #ninjago cole #ninjago jay #ninjago kai #ninjago nya #ninjago oc #i'm not a writer

[alecmagnuslwb]

Promise

Read on AO3

It’s not necessarily that she can’t handle a little resurgence from one of her favorite enemies Allura. She can. Allura’s a big game, but she’s a big game Zatanna can handle. It’s that deep down she misses him. They haven’t talked since her father’s funeral and it all got messy and terrible afterwards and despite her better judgement she misses him.

So while she doesn’t necessarily need his help she calls him because he made a promise years ago that he’d show up if she called. And John can be a bastard in a lot of ways, but for some reason he always keeps his promises when it comes to her. Even when he breaks them sometimes.

“Didn’t he kill your dad?” Dinah says a little skeptically standing next to her, eyeing her a bit suspiciously. Dinah is the only backup she needs honestly. She helped her through the battle this is the easy part. Trapping Allura permanently is something she can do on her own, or at least as permanently as possible for someone as tricky as her, it’s just nice to have a little magical backup that’s all.  

“Not really, no, it’s complicated, we’re complicated,” she says with a sigh. “We always are.”

Dinah scoffs a laugh. “Ain’t that the truth.”

Zatanna just rolls her eyes fondly at Dinah. She’s seen her through the highs and lows of her relationship with John and she might know better than anyone that the death of her father and John’s accidental involvement in the whole thing is just a bump in the long winding road of them.

“Do you plan on doing something with me at any point or am I just your pet gerbil now?” Allura drawls scratching her long pink nails against the magical barrier Zatanna has trapped her behind sparks of vexed magic falling with every touch.

“Gerbils don’t talk,” Zatanna says with an irritated huff. She lifts a hand. “Ecnelis ot eht gniyonna hctiw.”

Allura is silent instantly her mouth moving at a rapid pace, angry and violent but not a sound coming out.

“That’s a neat trick, think you could teach me how to do that when Ollie gets on some of his admittedly right, but very long political rants?” Dinah says with a smile.

“You don’t need my brand of magic for that, you’ve got your own when you take off that wig. He always gets that stunned silent look on his face,” she replies doing a mocking imitation of the very look she’s referring to.

Dinah laughs loud and bright the sound echoing through the room. “That’s a good point,” Dinah says with a pleased hum once she’s calmed down. “I’ve kind of got him trained down to a Pavlovian level at this point.”

Zatanna laughs at her nudging her with her elbow playfully. “If only I had some sort of power like that with my part time guy.”

“Oh,” Dinah says shifting towards the open corridor. “I think you do.”

Zatanna smells his favorite brand of cigarettes before she sees him. She guarantees he’s already got one lit up.

“Sorry I’m late cabbie can’t drive for shit,” John says the lit cigarette she predicted hanging loosely from his lips.

“So damn rude,” Chas says from behind him pushing him out of the way to reach Zatanna. He envelopes her in a big hug lifting her up off the ground just a bit. Zatanna smiles bright when he pulls back and gives Dinah a friendly nod.

“I didn’t know you were in ‘Frisco,” Zatanna says.

“Followed that idiot,” he replies gesturing over at said idiot who’s now stamping out his cigarette butt on the side of Allura’s magical cage tauntingly.

“I didn’t know you were in town either,” she says stepping away from Chas and walking over towards John. It’s quiet; Allura fully silent, Chas and Dinah keeping watchful eyes on their best friends, just the swish of her long leather duster moving across the floor.

John just shrugs. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to know.”

Zatanna opens her mouth and closes it promptly. She’s not sure what to say, not sure she wanted to know before today either.

“Thanks for coming,” she says instead.

He shrugs again nonchalant holding her gaze. “You sound the whistle I answer.”

Pavlovian response. Damn, Dinah was right.

“Well it should be pretty simple, Dinah and I managed to control the major damage she attempted to make, I just need your backup to put her somewhere on lockdown for as long as possible,” she says circling Allura’s cage moving away from John’s heavy eye contact.

“What’d she get up to this time?” John says poking her cage just to bother her.

“Tried to start a cult, slipped into a dream of mine to try and make me join it, didn’t work obviously, but bugged me enough I felt like I should do something about it,” she says shaking out her sleeves.

“Cults are never good,” he says with a shake of his head. “Unless there’s one out there that’d like to worship me. You know rub my feet, tell me I’m cool. I’d welcome that.”

Zatanna snorts a little inelegant humored thing. “No one wants to worship you,” she says rolling her eyes at him around the edge of the cage.

“No one?” he says with a playful smirk. She feels a little warm knowing it’s just for her. Oh, boy there’s no doubting she’s just missed him.

“No one,” she says pointedly moving back to stand beside him. She stretches her neck back and forth before holding out her hand. “Let’s do a little mix and match magic maybe it’ll keep her in place a little longer.”

This wasn’t the original plan, but he’s here and she can’t find a reason why not to do it.

“Like in the Maldives or Paris?” he asks gripping her hand tight. She hasn’t held his hand since they lowered her father into the ground.

“Maldives,” she says eyes briefly flitting to the side to meet his with a smile. He nods back at her with a responding smile using his free hand to reveal a rune on his chest. He places his hand on top of it making it glow bright.

Zatanna takes that as her cue her backwards magic overlaying with his Latin. Allura’s cage sparks wildly a few times. Dinah and Chas stepping back from it a few feet. They both keep speaking until the cage sparks bright white one last time, Allura clearly screaming though they can’t hear a word of it.

“All done?” Dinah says after a beat of silence looking at the now empty space. Zatanna nods squeezing John’s hand one time before slipping away.

“Where’d you send her?” Chas asks as he and Dinah walk over their way.

“Pocket dimension filled with nothing but shrimp,” Zatanna says with a proud smile.

“Well that’s shrimply perfect,” Dinah says with a giggle. “How long do you think that will keep her?”

“Days, months, maybe even years,” John says with a shrug putting both of his hands in his pockets. “Allura’s a tricky gal, never really know what’ll stick.”

“Well if that’s all settled I need to get back to Star make sure Ollie hasn’t gotten kidnapped or started running for political office again,” Dinah says.

“Portal?” Zatanna asks already moving her hands to start the motion. Dinah reaches out softly stopping her.

“No worries, I could use the peace of a nice plane ride.”

“Need a cab ride to the airport?” Chas asks swinging his keys around his index finger.

“Yeah, thanks,” she says stepping forward to hug Zatanna tight. She pulls back giving her a knowing look then pointedly looking at John. Zatanna sighs and nods. Yeah, she knows Dinah, she knows she called him for a reason.

“Well what about me?” John says as Chas follows behind Dinah slapping John hard on the shoulder once.

“You’re already where you need to be,” he stage whispers knowing Zatanna can hear it as he walks away.

John clears his throat when Chas is gone not quite meeting Zatanna’s eyes. Now that the job is done and the playfully flirting they fall into easily is over the reality of the weird in-between they’ve been occupying for a while has settled.

“Have you eaten?” Zatanna asks and he finally looks up. “You know what don’t answer that knowing you it’s been days so let’s just get dinner. Talk. Or whatever.”

John snorts pulling his hands from his pockets flipping his lighter back and forth between his hands. “I could do dinner.”

“Great,” she says clearing her throat. She steps over to him only hesitating for a second before slipping her arm into his and on autopilot he pulls her in a little closer. Yeah, she missed him.

#my fic #john constantine #zatanna zatara #johnzee #magicblazersource