#i did not put down any guardian-specific skills in this bad boy

[hallothere]

Brave the Darkness

Previously titled “Blunt Force Ghost Trauma” but since no ghosts actually get served onscreen I changed it. Also because like Halros and the Very Bad Time it isn’t uhhh.... funny enough for that kind of title!

(warnings for Candaith Going Thru It but there’s no like blood or anything)

Somehow, the cold was coming from inside his bones. The chill was ice in his marrow. Radanir visibly shook next to him, as did some of the others. He was hard-pressed not to tremble. Halbarad, his companions, they would all have to stand strong together. They had been warned off once by the Oath-breakers in this cursed place. Candaith supposed these were not the sort of spirits to give a second warning. 

The frostbite within only sharpened as he continued further onto the Forsaken Road. With a glance over his shoulder, he wondered if Thurvi- his shadow in this lightless place- had ever felt such a chill in the Mountains of his homeland. The Guardian seldom spoke of the land of his birth, of the Dwarven city of Kechel, nor of Dwimorberg whose fell name lay like a shadow over their quest. Perhaps he hoped not to discourage his companions. Perhaps the dwarves did not venture near enough to these places to know them so well.

Candaith had become accustomed to the mask his friend had acquired in Lhanuch. The Grey Company’s enemies were Thurvi’s enemies as well-- and they knew his face. Though there were likely few Dwarves in Enedwaith, he sought to protect them with his anonymity. It was the same logic behind their ‘uniform’. Though a dwarf traveling with a bunch of Dunedain was going to stand out like a hobbit in Othrikar, Candaith appreciated every precaution. 

After all, his friend had kept the company from danger more than once. Though quiet, he was quick to action and sturdier than the rest of them. The last Candaith had seen of Thurvi before his summons, the dwarf had been preparing to head to Angmar with nothing but a large club and a scavenged shield. But the Grey Company’s odd companion out had returned from parts unknown with a dwarf-make axe of strange metal, and a shield with the unmistakable stylings of Khazad-dûm. 

It was only too bad there was no time to stop for a fire. If the Guardian could coax a spark from the bed of the Anduin, he would not be much surprised. Still, the Grey Company needed more than warmth to kindle their hopes. This was a desperate gamble, but one Candaith believed in. If they could gather this host of the dead on behalf of their Chieftain, if they could muster an army unhindered by death nor pain nor hunger-

Maybe it was not such a vain hope or a far-fetched plan! Surely the Oath-breakers tired of existing like this? Did they not long for peace? Candaith did. His kin yearned for it, as did the Eglain, the people he had spent so much time near. The heir of Isildur could bring it. He believed that. Surely the Dead- if not motivated by honor- could only see the release from their curse as gain! A swift, deathless army to bring peace to the world. An invincible host at Aragorn’s command…

“This seems to me a good sign, Thurvi!” he whispered, turning back to his companion. It was dimmer still here, but they could both carry on. “If the Oath-breakers will fulfill their oath to Isildur, we will command an army the like of which has never been seen in Middle-earth. Surely victory will not be far behind!” His comment was met with only a tight smile. This place weighed heavily on them all. 

But soon they would be free of it. Of this, he was certain. 

Another shade flickered into view before them. The Dead all appeared able to hide themselves from sight if they wished, and it was an effective intimidation tactic. Based on the temperature, this could be none other than Britou before them. Idly, he wondered if Dwarves were hardier to this fell atmosphere than Men. Candaith stopped and his Guardian friend came to stand beside him. 

If it was a show of force the Dead wanted, so be it. They acquitted themselves well, though Candaith found the glacial air sapped his strength and stiffened his limbs. He looked to Thurvi but could see no sign he was in any way affected. Britou was probing for weakness, but he would find none. There was strength in the Dunedain. Candaith would not fail his brothers. 

Back to back they fought on. Ghostly blades rang against their steel, but these Dead did not move with the same fell determination as others had. Doubt began to chip through the frost around Candaith’s heart. Was Britou toying with them? This test was little more than a farce for his amusement. What then? Did he desire proof? More learned foes than he had doubted the line of Kings remained unbroken. What would the Dead on the Forsaken Road know of the way Aragorn’s ancestors had endured?

They cared little for the living, that much was clear. They threw around insults, hurled belittling words without thought. The Dead had nothing but contempt for them. Indeed, with the bones of travelers and the plague of shades above ground, what evidence did they have that any of the Oath-breakers’ intentions were honest?

Hah. He was a fool for giving them the benefit of the doubt. But no longer! If they would not be swayed by words or arms, let them be swayed with power. 

“Hold!” He thrust his blade through yet another shade with a shout and commanded the attention of the leader of the Dead. Candaith was breathing hard. The doubt had wormed its way in deep, but he could not let it end like this. Greed was a powerful enough motivator for any Man, even those among the Dead. 

“I have the authority to command you and all your kind, Britou!” He straightened up, emboldened by a confidence he could not feel but must not let waver. "For I...I am the Heir of Isildur!"

He could feel Thurvi’s eyes upon him, as well as the attention of the Dead. The cold was like a rock in Candaith’s chest. As long as they were in peril, he could not falter, but every breath became heavier. It seemed the very air was hardening to stone and ice within him. 

Britou fell silent. For a long moment he stared, sizing Candaith up. Now was not the time for fear. More than ever, he was grateful for the mask. It was as much a shield as the one his Guardian wielded. Perhaps his and Thurvi’s uses for them were more alike than he had thought. 

"What evidence do you have that this be so?" 

Britou’s voice reverberated off the frozen walls. Now more than ever the cold pained him. Candaith tried not to wince as he drew the breath to answer. Taking a finger of his glove in his teeth, he slid it off without lowering his sword. "Only this: the Ring of Barahir, heirloom of Isildur's line!"

After all, they had been made for one purpose: to deceive the enemy. Why not use it now, as it had been intended, for their advantage? 

It was a long while still before Britou spoke again. “I see.” The cavern was still. “We will fulfill our oath at last, that the Heir may lift the curse. Tell your Men."

Candaith could not breathe a sigh of relief. The cold had taken him, and it was all he could do to nod, to turn around, to look for the relief that must be plain on Thurvi’s face. 

It was not there to greet him. Candaith saw only fear.

"But that is not the Ring of Barahir, and you are not the Heir of Isildur."

He did not have time to think. There was ice on his skin now, on his fingers. Cold pierced him. Thurvi was moving faster than Candaith had ever seen him go. There was a horrible rending of metal, and the ice splintered under his skin. Dust and rock rose up to meet him. 

There was a black and frozen pause. Trapped within a pincushion of ice, Candaith did not notice at first that he was being moved. He could clear little space in his lungs to cry out, and he could not coax his algid limbs to motion. Too many frosted shards had gathered themselves within him. They cut like glass, tore at his mind, and ate at his heart. He knew naught of what was transpiring, only that he had failed his kin. He had led them to this place of ruin, and now he was to join the miserable Dead. 

His whole body was jolted up and sideways. A single pauldron came into view. Thurvi! Candaith’s tears were surely frozen, but he felt the warmth of relief thaw them a little. It mingled with the heat of shame long enough to warm sensation back into him. There was new pain too. His back was taut and tearing as Thurvi hurried him away. With a final cry, his awareness too failed on the cursed road. 

Something was trying to crush him. A pressure bound him, constricted his thoughts. He could not will himself to move or to breathe. So Candaith struggled. The now-familiar cold had abated some, but it had not released its stranglehold on him. He had failed, but for now desperation overrode his shame. The others-- his brothers were nearby! If nothing else they needed a warning, they needed to know that no Dead would ride by their side save to run them down. 

Candatih fought to turn over. He had fallen flat before Britou in that frozen chamber, and now he must get up! He must get up or let his brothers be slaughtered for his reckless gambit--

“Fool! Be still, Candaith!” 

A hand, warm and living, reached him from the darkness. It held his shoulder with a gentle firmness that made him pause. There was no time for this! So far underground, they needed every moment to escape.

The crack of a log fire hoisted him up from the dark then flung him down into awareness. His waking senses hit him with force and the air was driven once more from his lungs. Suddenly Candaith discovered he could feel, only to wish desperately that he could not. What had once been solid ice had thawed, and his whole body burned in the spaces where it had been. He turned to push his face into whatever had been beneath his ear. Candaith was on the ground, and pain trampled him flat. 

The hand was joined by another on his other shoulder. He tried to smother a rising scream as the fire was stoked again by his squirming. 

“Candaith, listen to me.” The voice was familiar, but it was as full of uncertainty as he was. “We are out of there now, but you are lucky to be with us! Lie still if you can. If you are too stubborn to listen, it will be hard to bring you back to Lhanuch alive! We will give you…” Here the voice paused, and with more clarity came a growing certainty that Candaith had never heard Radanir more distressed. “We will give you something for the pain.”

“Radanir!” Halbarad’s voice cut through the fire and the relief was like a balm. More crushing a blow than the catastrophe he knew would have been the loss of their leader. Halbarad was the cord that held them together in Aragorn’s absence. They would follow him with the same loyalty and should he be lost grieve for him with the same sorrow. 

But Halbarad lived. It brought Candaith less comfort than he had hoped. 

“Hold him up. We must do something for the wound before we try moving again.” It was not at all what his leaden limbs wanted to hear. This time Candaith could not stifle a groan as Radanir hefted him like a sack of potatoes. 

“You could not… be more careful?” The words sounded strained to his own ears, but as his head was being rested over one of Radanir’s shoulders like a sickly infant’s, he would not get to see a reaction. 

That did not stop Radanir from having one. “And you could not stop from telling falsehoods to the undying shades of traitors!"

It brought down a deathly quiet. A popping ember rang as loud into the night as a thunderclap. Radanir had gone as stiff as a statue, and only after a long pause could Halbarad get things moving again. 

“It is a grave wound, but it might have been much worse.” Candaith could feel the sleeves of his tunic, but the back had been torn asunder. Now exposed to the night air, he wished for the blanket or cover that had seemed so smothering a moment ago. Halbarad was moving the fabric. Every pull jostled the nettles that had taken up residence in his limbs. He tried to push away, but Radanir held him up under his arms. 

“If we have to set you back down, there will be less firelight to work by.” The words were terse, but there was an undercurrent of concern nonetheless. Radanir was right, Candaith was a fool. It was becoming more and more obvious just how close he’d been to being a dead one. 

To his surprise, Thurvi stepped into his narrow field of vision. The dwarf offered out his hand. Weakly, Candaith took it.

“Distract him if you can, Thurvi.” Halbarad instructed. “We are lucky he is awake but we might have been luckier were he not- at least, not for this.”

Candaith was reluctant to meet the Guardian’s eye. It had been a rather poor performance on the Forsaken Road. He had shamed himself and shamed the entire Company. Only by a miracle was he out under the stars instead of rotting among the Dead. To his surprise, Thurvi did not attempt to make conversation just yet but began sliding up the metal mask that had long covered his face. 

Despite everything- or perhaps because of it- Candaith could not bite back a delirious laugh. “You have a line! Clear… right across your face from cheek to cheek, over the bridge of your nose-”

Halbarad chose that moment to strike. Something cold and stinging coursed down his open wounds. He gritted his teeth and tried to crush Thurvi’s hand and Radanir’s arm. The work had begun in earnest. Now, Halbarad would not stop until everything was dressed to his satisfaction. 

Thruvi pulled his hand down. Attention diverted, Candaith managed to look up. “Your cloak did not make it, I’m afraid.” The Guardian said in a solemn tone. “Alas, it was the first casualty. And my shield gave its life for yours. Cursed be the blades wielded against the craftsmanship of Khazad-dûm!”

Candaith could not laugh. Thurvi’s heart was not in the attempt at wounded pride. It was hardly the shield of his homeland, and besides that it called to attention a more glaring absence. 

Ignoring the agony behind him, he ground out a question. “The others…?” His mind flew to Linnor, his and Saeradan’s friend, to Calithil who he had last seen by Radanir’s side. Old Hodhon and Himeldir had been there as well, they who had been fraught with worry over Dagoras’ capture and thick as thieves again upon his return. 

Thurvi’s face was more exposed now than it had been underground. The mask was pushed into his hood on top of his head. Candaith did not know if his friend was old for a Dwarf, but he looked older than he had the last time his face was on display. 

“Scattered.” he said at last, “We lost all the torches as the Dead gave chase. You and I were tempting enough targets to allow the others space to run. If they were pursued to the road or to the bluffs, I do not know. We ran into Halbarad and then Radanir in the dark.”

Candaith tried to focus on the words instead of the pain. Whatever salve Halbarad had conjured burned as fiercely as his shame. Loath might he be to admit it under other circumstances, Radanir was right. Who was he to command the Oath-breakers? What right did he have to try!

There was little left of his strength. Candaith used it to first return Thurvi’s grip on his hand, and then to better support himself on Radanir’s arm. Neither he nor Halbarad had spoken again, and it was time for Candaith to acknowledge the disaster on all their minds. 

“I should never have-- I would give my life a thousand times... to be even the smallest help to Aragorn… That was all… all I-” Halbarad took his shoulders and started to tip him back. The movement clouded his vision so completely he could hardly be sure he was still awake. Numbness started to overpower him and Candaith did not have the strength to be alarmed by the empty wave. 

The void held him captive for a moment. But, vigilant Pain was quick to revive him as bandages met the raw edges of his wounds. He was slumped in a sitting position as Thurvi held him up and Halbarad finished wrapping the tender flesh. Candaith was given something bitter from a water flask, and then worked up the courage to try and speak again.

“I am… sorry-” he croaked from the ice-carved hollow in his chest. 

“If you are sorry, Candaith, I am doubly so.” Halbarad’s voice was thick with worry, and regret. “For had I not sought to make copies of the Ring of Barahir, had I been more focused on keeping us from danger, this never would have occurred.”

Halbarad finished tying off the bandages, and Candaith was surprised to find Radanir waiting there at his shoulder. He was without a cloak, as were the others, and did not waste time in guiding his dead-limbed companion to where the collected fabric was balled up into a makeshift bedroll. Far though they were from a suitable camp, he was going to see that Candaith had some small comfort. Not Thurvi, not Halbarad, but Radanir who was rightfully furious with him. 

Of all their companions, he was one of the least likely to shy away from saying what he meant. There was no quip too untimely, no sentiment best left unsaid. No doubt it was why he had taken on this task. Halbarad was too noble to scold a man on death’s porch if not it’s doorstep. And something about Thurvi’s tight-lipped expression had told him that the Guardian had seen the events transpire in an entirely different light.

Of one thing Candaith was sure: whatever reproach Radanir had ready for him would be well-deserved. Only, Candaith did not know if he could bear it. He had almost just gotten eight of their number killed in an ill-advised attempt to sway the Dead- the Dead who were known chiefly for their treachery! He feared the long night as he had been frightened of the long road underground. What if the others had not made it out? Their blood would be on his hands, and he would have to meet the rest of the Company alone with his shame.

No doubt his chief critic would be Radanir. Radanir who had been forced to flee with the others, who had stumbled across Thurvi in the dark, who must have been told the tale from the eyes of an observer- and the only one of them who could never have done the same in his place! 

Still he could not help but to look. Candaith turned his head to the side and found Radanir’s stare fixed on him. Guilt swept over him again before it was replaced by great confusion and worry. The firelight illuminated anger, yes, but also vivid fear that took a moment for Radanir to conceal. 

“I suppose I prefer you a living fool rather than a dead one.” The irritation in his tone was as empty as Candaith felt. “Still,” here an edge of something crept back in, “do not ever attempt such a thing again.”

As much as he wanted to assure Radanir that he would not dream of it- that he was shaken to find a lesson learned had nearly cost his and his kinsmen’s lives- Halbarad had designs of his own. Whatever herbs had been in the water were beginning to take effect. The pain of his wound was no distraction anymore. Already sensation was floating away. It felt as if he would dissolve if it began to rain, like dust on stonework. Candaith could no more keep his eyes open than he could leap up and begin the search for the rest of their group or to share the burden his decision placed on them. 

He could no longer see the light of the fire when Radanir’s hand came to rest carefully on his shoulder. Their companions were discussing something too quietly for him to hear. It would not be long now before Halbarad’s bitter potion forced him to rest. 

“That was a fear so cold I thought I would never be warm again.” Radanir’s voice was nearly lost to the cushioning effect of the medicine on his ears. “But I would prefer to never be rid of it than to lose even one of my brothers.”

The candor in Radanir’s words did not absolve him, but it was a balm to a hurt no healer could treat. Comforted beyond measure, Candaith could at last bear to face the night and any troubled dreams it could conjure.

#this one went through way less rigor than halros and the bad time so #and i settled on quote/unquote Thurvi because a joke name did not feel right in this context #the context of candaith living but getting rekt #lotro #candaith #writing #umm umm tags it's just more rambling honestly #i did not put down any guardian-specific skills in this bad boy #but please know i meant 1) brutal charge 2) shield smash 3) any of the draw aggro so the other rangers could escape #yes i did end up ambiguously sparing them #i couldn't do it #i couldn't read the transcript of the session play talking about all the dead rangers and NOT get attached #also unpopular opinion but it wasn't the WORST idea Candaith could've come up with especially with all the heavy handed foreshadowing #i mean it makes sense #it was stupid but it made sense

[minty-mumbles]

Sunkissed Scales

Summary: The last thing Time expected to do today was meet a Siren that got caught up in the fishing nets. Unfortunately for him, that was exactly what happened.

Or

I make a Pirate AU, and Wind is literally the only character who isn't a pirate. I live for chaos.

Read it on AO3 here

~~~

Time was used to loud commotions on his ship. His small crew of seven were as good as family, but goddess, could their arguments be loud sometimes. Normally, the noise went away quickly.

Conflict didn’t tend to linger, and even those who held the most animosity for each other, like Legend and Warriors, knew better than to let a grudge stand. Out at sea, there was nowhere to go to escape each other. On top of that, sailing was not easy. It could be dangerous at times. They needed to be able to work together like a well oiled machine at a moments’ notice.

Even if a big argument did crop up, Time was usually confident that his second mate, Twilight, would be able to sort them out. The man was good at calming hot tempers and staying the hands of those who would draw weapons.

But Twilight’s skills with negotiation were rarely needed, like Time said. True arguments are rare.

So when screaming broke out above deck, Time knew he should probably be concerned. He had been in his cabin, reading a letter from his wife that he had picked up at the last port. He had just gotten through the first page of the letter when a shriek rang out. Time waited for a moment to see if Twilight or even Warriors would be able to smooth the situation over.

Unfortunately for his good mood, the shrieking did not go away.

And they did not sound like happy shrieks.

Several loud voices joined in the commotion. Time couldn’t pick out individual words, or even who specifically was yelling, but the panic and anger in the voices was clear.

Okay, this was sounding a lot less like there was an argument, or like it was just the boys having fun and messing around. It was starting to sound a lot more like someone was hurt.

Time threw down his letter, and swiftly exited the room.

When he reached the deck, chaos awaited him. Twilight and Warriors were indeed trying to calm down their fellow crewmates. They weren’t being overly successful. Four had squirreled himself away up the rigging. He seemed to be content to watch the disarray from a safe distance, where he wasn’t likely to be trampled. Wild was right next to him, munching on an apple, enjoying the chaos. (Time really needed to talk to him about where he kept getting apples in the middle of the ocean.)

And there in the center of it all were Legend, Sky, and Hyrule. Legend was yelling, flushed with anger in a way Time had never seen from him before. Sky and Hyrule were both standing protectively in front of the fishing net, which was hanging above the deck. They were seemingly shielding it from the irate veteran.

However, what drew his eye, or rather, his ear, immediately was none of that chaos. It was the screaming coming from said net.

Time paused, taking a moment to assess the situation before rushing in. Dealing with this would take a delicate touch.

Curled up in the net, currently screeching his head off, was a Siren.

Sirens were infamous creatures of the sea. There were plenty of myths and legends surrounding their kind, but most sailors could agree that actually seeing one was usually a bad sign. Their voices were powerful, and when they put their minds to it, their songs could enchant sailors into dreams filled with their victim’s deepest desire, so they would never wish to leave.

Time knew that most of his crew had never seen a Siren before. They had talked about it, though. Some of the crew, including Wild, Four, Warriors, Hyrule, and Twilight, had neutral opinions regarding the creatures. None of them had met one before, so had no reason to form opinions, besides being generally wary.

Sky was one of those that adhered to the old belief that Sirens were creatures sent by the Goddess Hylia to look after seas, much like she had sent the Koroks to tend to the forests of Hyrule.

Legend, however, had remained silent, giving off such angry energy that no one had dared to ask him his opinion on the subject, and the conversation moved on quickly. Time suspected he had had a bad encounter with a siren before. A very bad one, that he had not moved on from.

Time had not contributed to that particular conversion, and he couldn’t blame Legend for his sullenness on the topic, not when he himself had been much the same when he was younger.

Time strode forward quickly, calling for peace and for those quarreling to cease, just for a moment. They obeyed. Four and Wild came down from the rigging, with Warriors and Twilight backing off. Hyrule nervously shifted away from where he was standing.

Legend was reluctant to back down until Time put a calming hand on his shoulder. Sky didn’t move from where he was standing protectively in front of the net until Legend did, but eventually, everyone was relatively calm. Even the Siren had quieted down, staring intently around at all of them. His eyes gleamed, tracking all of their movements carefully, but refusing to meet any of their eyes.

Time took a second to assess the Siren in turn, taking in his appearance. He looked young, although perhaps he was entering he teen years. He was much too small to be fully grown, at any rate.

There was no way someone could mistake this creature as anything other than a Siren. For the chest up, he looked mostly Hylian, save for the fins sprouting from the side of his head, which were a bit too big for him. He probably needed to grow into them.

He was blonde, which wasn’t uncommon in Hyrule. Most of Time’s own crew had blond hair, but this siren’s locks put them all to shame. Even wet, the color was not dulled, and it gleamed like gold under the midday sun. The boy had sunkissed tan skin, from spending his life in the shallows that that they were currently sailing through. For the most part, he looked like any boy you might see in a seaside town.

However, his chest was where that illusion got shattered. Along his ribs, gills were pressed firmly closed against the salty air. Creeping along the sides of his torso, following the lines of his gills, the Siren’s scales glimmered blue in the sun, occasionally flashing an iridescent green. At the Siren’s waist, the scales wrapped completely around his body, and where legs would be on any normal Hylian, instead there was a long powerful tail.

At first glance, Time thought his scales were rippled with white, but upon closer inspection, he could see that the white stripes were actually scars. Many of them, covering not only his tail, but also his torso. There was even a rather large one criss crossing over his gills, and several small nicks on his ear fins.

He wore very little, only an orange sash wrapped around his hips, and a simple necklace with a chunk of pink coral on it. A pair of binoculars were attached to his sash.

The most concerning thing was the blood dripping from him onto the deck. For a moment, Time wondered if Legend had gotten to the creature before Sky or Hyrule could stop him. But he could see that it was the net causing him harm. It was wrapped around his tail, cutting into his fins.

Time wanted to groan and bury his face in his hands. Thankfully, he resisted the urge. He needed to show a calm face for his crew. First thing to sort out…

He turned to Legend, who was still silently seething under Time’s hand. “What happened?” His tone wasn’t demanding, but it was obvious it wasn’t a request. Legend didn’t seem reluctant to tell him though.

“I was just hauling up the net, and that,” he shot a glare at the Siren, who met his gaze steadily, “was trapped in the net. I was trying to take care of the problem before he could kill us all, but someone stopped me.” Here, he shot a look of ire at Sky and Hyrule.

Before Time could respond to that, Sky snapped back. “You can’t just kill him. He’s a creation of the goddess. If we do, she might cast divine judgment on us. We might as well release him. We’re taking a risk either way.”

Hyrule also offered their own opinion. “You can't just attack him because he could kill us, Legend. If you acted that way all the time, you would have to kill all of us.” Time raised an eyebrow in surprise at that. Hyrule rarely went against anything Legend said, even if they disagreed with their mentor, simply out of respect. But, Time supposed, Hyrule’s fairy blood made them familiar with people wanting to kill them just for their ancestry.

Time considered, but ultimately knew he would not condemn this boy to death because of Legend’s hatred of Sirens.

“Cut him down.” Time demanded, drawing his knife and handing it off to Hyrule. He kept his watchful eye on the young siren. He may be willing to set him free, but he would not tolerate him trying to hurt one of his crew.

Legend held out an arm to stop Hyrule before they could draw close to the creature. “That,” Legend hissed, “is a Siren. He could ensnare us all in his spell at any time, and none of us would be able to do anything about it.” True anger and hurt was seeping into his tone now, “He could trap us in illusions, show us our deepest desires, and none of us would even know until we wake up. If we wake up.”

Time let Legend say his piece, but ultimately, as Captain, he had final say. “And yet, he hasn’t done so. I have dealt with sirens before,” This earned him shocked looks from his entire crew, which he ignored. “It is better to cut him free rather than risk being cursed. Sirens do not just lull people to sleep with songs of desire. They can also command the sea, and they only get more powerful as they age. This one probably doesn't pose much of a threat to us. But I’d bet anything his guardian will.”

Time nodded at Hyrule. “Do it.”

Hyrule nodded, keeping an eye on the trussed up siren in the net as they stepped forward. The Siren, his eyes wide and defiant, watched Hyrule step forwards. When he saw the knife the sailor held, the Siren started thrashing.

Time sighed. He had sent Hyrule to do the job of cutting the siren free because they were the least intimidating person in the entire crew. Hyrule was also very unassuming, unlike many on Time’s small crew. They were the least likely to frighten the young siren right away.

(Well, maybe Hyrule wasn’t the least physically intimidating, thought Time, with a quick glance in the smithy’s direction. But, well... to be honest, Time wasn’t even sure the Smithy was even tall enough to do the job of cutting the Siren free.)

On top of that, Hyrule always seemed to give off a calming energy. This, Time knew, was due to their fairy heritage. He wasn’t sure if the calming effect would work on the Siren, as he was a magical creature himself, but every advantage would help them.

Unfortunately, although the Siren had been relatively calm at first sight of Hyrule approaching, the sight of the knife they held had pushed him into panic.

Hyrule shakily wiped their sweaty palms on their pants, and set to work.

It was slow going. Hyrule was obviously skittish, and fearful of the creature. They startled back at every movement he made. Thankfully, the Siren had stopped thrashing around once he realized that Hyrule was indeed setting him free, and was not gutting him with the knife they carried.

After a few minutes, with only minimal progress made, Time relented, and motioned Warriors forward to help Hyrule. With the two of them working together, it was only a few minutes before the net was cut and the Siren slithered to the floor.

He didn’t immediately throw himself over the side of the ship, which Time didn’t know whether to be thankful for or not.

On one hand, if the Siren left now, he would probably be grateful to the crew for setting him free and not killing him, and that would be that. No curses involved.

On the other hand, the boy was still bleeding. Already a puddle was forming under him on deck. He needed medical attention.

Hyrule, seeing the same, took a tentative step forward. He was obviously still a little shaken by the creature. (Despite being magical themself, Hyrule rarely encountered magical creatures besides other fairies that hadn’t automatically tried to kill them. Time could understand their hesitation.) They had put aside their discomfort at the sight of someone in need of help, the healer in them overriding their caution.

Instead of Legend, it was Time who stopped them this time. “Wait. Let me go first.”

“Uhhh, are you sure that's a good idea?” Warriors cautioned. ”You can be kind of intimidating on a good day. We don’t want him to panic. Even more.”

Time tilted his head to show he heard, but started forward anyways. The Siren hissed at his approach, scrambling back against the railings, Time could see now that the wounds on his tail were deep. The Siren likely wouldn’t be able to swim without great discomfort or pain for a good while. This was worse than Time thought.

As Time drew closer, the Siren flared his fins, baring his unnaturally long teeth. A guttural hiss escaped him, but Time didn't back down.

He kept an even pace, drawing closer slowly.

Time could see the moment the Siren actually got a good look at his face, and laid eyes on the markings there. His demeanor immediately went from fearful and defiant to eager and astonished. A single word slipped out of his mouth, spoken in the guttural songs of the deep.

“Kin.”

And indeed, the Siren was right. The blue V on his forehead marked him as a Siren-Friend. And the red marks under his eye, the ones he saw reflected back at him from the cheek of the young guppy, marked Time as good as kin to him.

While the Siren examined Time’s face, Time took the time to do the same. In the tattoos on his body, Time could read the status of this child. Humans usually would not be privy to the markings’ meanings. Humans also should not usually be able to innately understand Tempest Tongue, the language of Sirens.

Most humans, however, had not been possessed by the spirit of an ancient Siren that was trapped forever more inside a mask.

Time was just special like that.

This guppy was remarkably well decorated for one his age. Normally a Siren his age would only have their family markings, but this one had much more than that. Not that Time should be surprised. This Siren was descended from the very same, immensely powerful, Siren that Time himself had known.

The two red marks under his eye showed this affiliation. The rest of his family would have the same mark. Around his left wrist were tattooed thick black bands, the marks of a warrior. They announced to the world that this boy had bested enemies more powerful and fearsome than him, and that he was skilled in combat.

Up that same arm, symbols speaking of his deeds were placed. There was an hourglass on his shoulder. The gold sand inside the tattoo was slowly trickling downwards. Time was shocked to see the tattoo moving, but shook it off. That the Siren’s tattoos were moving was not the most shocking thing he’d seen today. Siren’s were proficient in magic, after all. Lower down on the boy’s arm, some sort of wand was pictured, with multicolored music notes slowly floating around it.

The crest of Hylia featured prominently across the Siren’s chest, the Triforce gleaming gold. This proclaimed the wearer’s loyalty to the Goddess, and such a tattoo wasn’t only worn by Sirens. Many of Time’s crew wore similar marks on their own bodies. Underneath that, the symbol of the Goddess Farore was worn proudly, in the traditional green.

Along with the permanent marks on him, he had doodles swirled around his back, drawn with a water resistant paint. Little pictures of fish and seagulls littered his back, while a line of hermit crabs marched down the boy’s right arm. The lines were unsteady, obviously drawn by a young child’s hand, even younger than the child before them.

Time’s eyes wandered back to the Siren’s, and was shocked to see that, for the first time, the boy would meet his eyes. He seemed to be pleased with what he had found in his own examination of Time, and was much more relaxed.

The Siren breathed out a relieved sigh. The only thing he did before slumping into Time’s arms, unconscious, was to breathe out the same word from earlier, this time in common Hylian.

“Kin.”

~~~

Several months later, Time once again heard screaming from above deck.

It sounded much less panicked than those screams half a year later. He stood and stretched out his legs. He had been plotting their new course for free hours now, and might as well take a break. He strolled out of the room.

Up on the deck, the scene he was met with was reminiscent of the one he had found the day they met Wind.

Most of the crew had paused in their work to take in the spectacle. Legend was the one screaming, but there was no true anger in his gaze this time. Hyrule was again trying to hold him back, but was made weak by the laughter they couldn’t hold back.

And there, draped over the railing of the ship, was the newest addition to the crew.

(Well, Time thought privately, it was less like he was an addition, and more like he had just refused to leave the ship for long, even once he was healed.)

Taking in the veteran’s soaked appearance, it was obvious what had happened, even if Legend's screeches of “If you splash me one more time, I’m going to find a way to drown you, gills be damned!” didn’t tip him off.

He smiled, leaning against the mast of the ship. He took an apple from Wild, content to eat it and watch the show.

#Their ship is named Farosh after the goddess Farore #Legend had a little run in with a very powerful siren #who may or may not have shown him visions of his /dream girl/ #mint’s writing #lu time #lu wind #lu legend #lu sky #lu hyrule #lu four #lu wild #lu twilight #lu warriors #linked universe #lu fanficiton #mermaid au #Mermaid!Wind

[maulusque]

WHAT IF MAUL KIDNAPPED ANAKIN RIGHT OFF OF TATOOINE

(I started writing this and then it got out of hand and now it’s 3:30 in the morning, rest of it’s under the break so i don’t monopolize your dash)

So for whatever combination of reasons, Maul spits out the kool-aid and gets really disenchanted with Sidious a lot earlier than in canon. He starts wondering things like “why is he not telling me his master plan if i’m so important to it?” and “why do i get nothing more than vague promises of power sometime in the future, when i should be guaranteed a position as his second-in-command, after all I’ve done for this guy?” and “why does he treat me like i’m disposable, and then constantly tell me i’m crucial for his plans?”

and he starts thinking things like “hey wait a minute, none of that childhood torture made me better at anything sith-related, it just gave me crippling trauma that actually impairs my capacity for self-control and incredible violence” and (possibly due to his experiences at Orsis Academy) “oh whack looks like kids learn a lot better and faster when they’re, like, having fun? Whatever ‘fun’ is?”

and anyway by the time he gets to tatooine with orders to “find that stoner jedi and kick his ass”, Maul is pretty annoyed at his master. And when he senses not one, not two, but THREE powerful force-presences on Tatooine, one of which vastly eclipses any other force presence he’s ever felt, and belongs to a nine-year-old slave boy, Maul gets an idea. You know, (he thinks), his master sure would love to get his hands on a force-baby like that. Master Sidious sure would be evilly thrilled to have an extremely powerful nine-year-old delivered directly to his doorstep on coruscant, with the jedi having to do all the heavy lifting of training the kid. Master Sidious would probably want nothing more than to have this kid be taken in by the Jedi, so he can start grooming a new apprentice. 

And Maul, full of spite and an as-yet-undiscovered need to adopt every force-sensitive in sight, decides to deprive Sidious of a potential apprentice. He follows Anakin to Naboo (in this universe, Anakin still wins the podrace, still wins his own freedom), and, after the fighting is over, sees a prime window of opportunity, and kidnaps Anakin right out from under the Jedi’s nose. 

(In this universe, Obi-Wan does not cut Darth Maul in half and dump him down the garbage chute- Maul, unwilling to do his master’s bidding any longer, doesn’t go full out against Qui-Gon, doesn’t kill him, and Obi-Wan doesn’t get that grief-and-rage filled boost that helped him dismember Maul last time. The fight ends, the Jedi are convinced that Maul is dead, and Naboo is freed).

Once Maul has the kid, since he’s a pragmatic guy, he also returns to Tatooine and takes the kid’s mom. Maul doesn’t know how to cook, do laundry, tie shoes, or any of that shit. He doesn’t want to have to PARENT the kid, he just wants to train him. 

Maul has zero money, and also zero subtlety, so he stomps into Watto’s shop, grabs him by the neck, and says “The boy's mother is coming with me. You will disable her slave chip and let her leave unharmed, or I will squeeze your head off.” Watto complies. For Anakin, this is his first real impression of Maul- storming the junk shop and threatening his former master for the freedom of Anakin’s mother.

Maul is determined to do a better job training Anakin than Sidious did training Maul. Because FUCK Sidious. Maul can be a WAY better Sith than Sidious ever allowed him to be. And since Maul is slowly realizing how... unhelpful... the way he was raised was, he’s determined to figure out how to do it better.

So he reads. He reads training manuals, child psychology books, teaching books, studies on motivation and performance, anything he can get his nerdy little hands on. He learns that frightened children don’t perform well. He learns about “trauma”, and how “trauma” makes it hard to control your emotions sometimes. Well, you can’t have THAT in your ultimate sith apprentice. Okay, so no scaring Anakin and no traumatizing him. Maul quickly realizes that literally everything he does frightens Anakin or his mom, and frightening Anakin’s mom also frightens Anakin (cut him some slack, he’s literally never been in a positive relationship, Maul has no model for any behavior other than “evil abuser” and “subservient slave”).

Maul is not an idiot. He knows he’s not doing it right. He’s reluctant to start teaching Anakin ANYTHING until he knows he won’t accidentally damage his precious spite-apprentice. So he mostly ignores the kid while he reads and learns.

He also observes. Specifically, he observes Shmi Skywalker. Somehow, she seems to be able to interact with Anakin without scaring him. She can even tell him what to do without scaring him. She can teach and correct him without scaring him. And she never physically hurts him at all. Maul is kind of blown away- he didn’t even know it was possible to interact with people like that? HOW does she DO it???

So Maul watches and learns. He practices. Shmi helps, guides him, tells him when he messes up and tells him how to do it better. Maul gets a lot better at restraining his murderous urges. Turns out, if you immediately kill everyone who annoys you, it’s hard to ask them for advice after. The other person Maul gets pointers from is C3PO, the protocol droid the kid dragged along. Maul understands 3PO better than he understands Shmi and Anakin. 3PO is a droid. Maul was raised by a droid. Maul knows how to talk with 3PO, whereas talking with Shmi or Anakin feels like wandering around in a fog full of landmines.

So anyway, Maul and 3PO become unlikely friends, and, as Maul, determined to out-parent Sidious in every conceivable way, learns more and more social skills, emotional intelligence, and interpersonal skills, he truly comprehends how fucked up his own childhood was. There’s rage. There’s grief. There’s murderous desire for vengeance. But there’s also Anakin. Who would be scared if Maul smashed the ship or killed random people to vent his anger. Anakin, who needs something called a “positive role model”, who needs to be taught how to use the Force, and who needs the adults around him to have their shit together. There’s also Shmi, who makes him soup and hot chocolate when he’s feeling bad, and tells him off for breaking things, and who helps him get better at being a real person, and who doesn’t seem to want anything from him other than a general expectation of not hurting her or her son. So Maul deals. He grows. He heals, slowly. There’s setbacks, and gains. And somewhere in there, he starts teaching Anakin how to use the Force.

The problem is, Maul learned to access the Force first through fear and anger. Turns out, it’s really hard to teach someone fundamentals of force usage via fear and anger without first having to traumatize them. So right away, Maul hits a barrier. He doesn’t have any clue how to teach Anakin a different way though. He needs help.

But also, FUCK the jedi. NO WAY is Maul asking the Jedi for help, he hates the Jedi. Maul is still a Sith, he’s just a new, better kind of Sith, the kind that trains apprentices who are gonna kick WAY MORE ASS and be HEALTHY WELL-ADJUSTED PEOPLE while doing it (let him dream, ok?). So Maul starts hauling Shmi and Anakin around the galaxy, seeking out any non-Jedi Force-users they can, to learn Force techniques that the Sith didn’t teach Maul.

They spend time with the Guardians on Jedha, with those weird duck-people from that one episode with Jar-Jar’s girlfriend, with some wacky monks on a tiny island in the ass-end of nowhere, and even some time with a long-lost sith cult in a box system in the middle of the Unknown Regions. Maul learns. Anakin learns. Maul uses what he learns from the other force-users, combines it with what he knows, and teaches Anakin even more. The Jedi and the Sith are really the only two groups who really use the force for Big Impressive Things, like telekinesis and lightning and whatnot, so while the other force groups would have a lot to teach them both, they wouldn’t really be able to teach Anakin how to levitate something. And you can’t be the kick-assiest, bestest Sith Apprentice Ever if you can’t levitate shit. So Maul takes takes all these new techniques, like “being calm and chill when you meditate instead of super pissed off” and “using the Force while not being filled with incredible rage” and “mindfulness techniques” and “who knew you could do cool stuff like floating rocks without having to exhaust yourself by hating everything in existence, including yourself” and applies them to the skills and methods he already has. He and Anakin have to do a lot of fumbling and exploring and mistake-making, but they figure it out. And Anakin learns. And he kicks ass.

When Anakin is 11, Maul hauls him off to Ach-To to dig a crystal out of the roots of an ancient tree. He tells Anakin to hold it and meditate, to let his emotions rise around him, to feed them, to pull them through the crystal, let it resonate, let it take on the shape of his strongest feelings. After all, that is how Maul was trained to bleed his crystals. Maul’s pain and fear and anger yielded him red crystals.

Anakin comes out with yellow. Determination, fierce protectiveness, drive, hunger for justice, righteous fury. That is Anakin’s lightsaber.

Anakin grows up, planet-hopping with his Mom and Uncle Maul in a beat-up freighter with under-the-hood enhancements out the ass (Maul ditched the Scimitar right after Tatooine so his master couldn’t instantly track him down, and Maul and Anakin are both huge mechanics nerds and bond over things like “but what if you put ANOTHER PLASMA CORE IN THE ENGINE”, so this ship is, uh, certainly some sort of thing). Anakin grows up learning a hundred different Force traditions- just about every major Force tradition in the Galaxy (except for Jedi), and more than a few obscure ones. He grows up, tinkering with his droid, learning Juyo from Maul and how to sew a button from his mom. He grows up, beholden to two destinies only: “Help me take down Sidious, because he’s an asshole and a shitty Sith Lord” and “do whatever the fuck you want, because you are a Sith and no one gets to tell you what to do” (”except me.” Shmi interrupts. “Sith Lords still have a bedtime.” “Sith Lords still have a bedtime,” Maul amends, having no desire to repeat what happened when he encouraged a ten-year-old Anakin to ignore all the rules on purpose).

And what Anakin wants to do is what he’s always wanted to do- go back to Tatooine and free the slaves. Maul thinks that a big project like that would be an excellent learning opportunity for Anakin. He also wants Anakin to succeed, so he sits him down and talks logistics. How do you free the slaves without hundreds of slave owners detonating their chips when they hear what is happening? How do you keep them free once you do that? How do you get them jobs, clothes, food, houses? What about the ones who want to leave Tatooine? What about the ones who want to stay? And what about the economic upheaval that will happen when you deprive a whole planet of its cheapest source of labor? When Anakin is fourteen, they start planning.

When Anakin is eighteen, they make their move. Anakin, coordinating with Shmi, who returned to Tatooine three years earlier to organize things on the ground (living with a woman named Beru Whitesun, who is a gateway to the Freedom Path network), activates several massive orbital EMP devices, frying every electrical device on the planet, including slave chips. (The EMPs came from a pirate friend of his mom’s, who seems to do whatever she wants as long as she makes him hot chocolate). All over the planet, lights go out, slave chips fry, and radios go silent. And Shmi’s agents get to work. Ordinary citizens all over tatooine grab their rifles and head out. They meet up with others in their settlement, and the teams sweep the area, following a plan devised by Skywalker and Whitesun. They systematically visit every house in every settlement, city, spaceport, and town that is known to house slaves, and tell the slaves to grab their families and most treasured possessions and follow them.

(Tatooine is a sparsely populated planet- you can count the major settlements on two hands. If it weren’t, this would never have worked.)

Not many slaveowners put up much of a resistance- fifty angry masked people pointing guns in your face tend to make you compliant. The only slaveowner who puts up more than a token resistance is Jabba the Hutt. His resistance, however, lasts about thirty seconds, before Anakin cuts off his head.

Maul meets Anakin at Jabba’s palace, where he’s rounding up the last of Jabba’s cronies. 

“No trouble?” Maul asks.

“Nope,” Anakin replies. “You?”

“None.” Maul said. Turns out, it’s like, super easy to take down an entire criminal organization when you can turn up to a meeting of the Hutt family heads, kill them all, and waltz out past all their security forces without breaking a sweat. (Seriously, it’s kind of hilarious how Maul is literally just that good). 

“The slaves here are freed?”

“Yep,” says Anakin. Then frowns. “Hold on...” He senses a presence. Big, hulking, simple, and starving. He can sense that, whatever it is, it hasn’t seen the sunlight or been able to move freely in years. 

So anyway, that’s how Anakin turns up at Mos Espa at first sunrise, riding on the back of Jabba the Hutt’s pet rancor. “Who’s a good girl,” Anakin says, scratching behind her ear nubs. “You are!” And she is a good girl. Padme (”I just think it sounds like a nice name, you know?”) is very good at dispersing angry slaveowners who look like they might start rioting. 

The slaves freed overnight have been gathered together at pre-designated safe zones-mostly warehouses or large buildings that Shmi has been buying up over the years for exactly this purpose.

(The slaves living in remote settlements, at moisture farms and homesteads, didn’t get a visit from the freedom teams. However, Shmi had a plan for them too. She has made overtures to the Tusken tribes. Once she managed to negotiate her way into speaking to one of the leaders without getting killed, she sold them a story, a dream. A revolution. Free the slaves. Transform Tatooine. She doesn’t promise the Tuskens to expel humans from the planet entirely. She promises them equal rights under the law (she also promises the existence of laws in the first place). She promises them the right to raise Banthas, the right to traverse their ancestral lands and the return of sacred sites taken from them, the right to trade, the right to control who passes over their lands. She promises them the right to water and shade. And, she promises them half the seats on the ruling council she plans to set up. And so, on the night the EMPs blow, Tusken raiders visit every homestead on Tatooine (again, there’s only a few hundred, a thousand at most), and kidnap the slaves. Perhaps not the most reassuring experience for enslaved peoples who have been taught their entire lives to fear the Tuskens, and not without reason, but, nevertheless, it is freedom).

As the new day dawns- Tatooine’s first dawn as a free planet- Anakin, Maul, and Shmi know that the easy part is over. Now, they have to house tens of thousands of people currently cooped up in warehouses with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They have to establish and keep iron-tight control over the planet and its settlements, and quash any violent reprisals before they gain momentum. They also have to completely rebuild an economy completely upended by the overnight emancipation. 

However, Shmi’s not the only one who’s been busy for the past few years. While Shmi was on Tatooine, planning a revolution, Anakin and Maul were traversing the galaxy, gathering resources, using the Patented Maul Method (TM)- breaking into the headquarters of powerful organizations and threatening to kill everybody in charge unless they did what they said.

As the second sun rises, ships begin arriving in Tatooine’s orbit. Pop-up housing is dropped onto the outskirts of Tattooine’s settlements, the kind that mining companies use to set up new bases on mineral-rich asteroids. The accommodations are small and sparse, but each family has a kitchen, bathroom, beds, and private space. Huge generators are hooked up to cool the new housing. Anakin knows that the already-existing slave quarters, made of stone with no windows and mostly underground- are already built to keep the occupants cool, but he refuses to make the former slave population live in slave quarters. Some of the freed people are moved into Jabba’s old palace, some into buildings abandoned by rich business owners who fled the planet when they saw what was happening. Food, water, medicine, clothes, books, toys, tools, and shoes are deposited. (the Republic’s equivalent of the FBI had been utterly baffled when Galaxy’s three biggest criminal organizations started moving cargo that looked less like a drug trade and more like a disaster relief mission). 

Anakin walks among the newly freed slaves, reassuring them- yes, you are free. Yes, you will be fed and housed and clothed as long as you need it. Yes, we will try to find your child/husband/wife/mother who was sold years ago. Yes, you can go home, you can do whatever you want.

He also asks for volunteers. And he gets them. Hardly anyone would say no to the chance to work with the Skywalker, who once was a slave like them, but freed himself and returned, who freed the slaves in one night of glory, and appeared at sunrise riding a rancor.

Anakin sends out messengers, all across the planet. “Tatooine is a free world,” they say. “All slaves are hereby freed, by order of the He who Walks in the Sky. Any slaveowners who, by their own free will, turn over their detonators will not be harmed. Any who resist, will be.” Not many resist.

At the end of that first day, as the suns are setting, once the freed peoples of Tatooine are fed, and given water, and sheltered, Maul comes to Anakin.

“I am proud of you.” He says. “You have come into your power, you have mastered yourself, and so have mastered the Force. You have the freedom and the power to do anything you choose. You are no longer my apprentice. Lord Skywalker, you are a true Sith Master.” Anakin pulls him into a hug. He maybe cries a little bit. Maul maybe cries a little bit. Maul maybe also feels mildly annoyed that Anakin is a full head taller than him now.

(Sidious would be truly, utterly offended at Maul’s criteria for Sith-Lord-ness. “THAT’S NOT SITH” he would have said. “THAT’S BARELY EVEN DARK SIDE ADJACENT, YOU ARE DILUTING OUR THOUSAND YEAR HERITAGE-” but Maul wouldn’t care about Sidious’ stupid opinions, anyway).

And Anakin and Shmi get to work. They employ the newly freed people of Tatooine, constructing permanent houses, tearing down slave markets, building critical infrastructure. Anakin pays them more than a living wage, thanks to the extremely deep pockets of Crimson Dawn. He brings in doctors and teachers, and guarantees healthcare and education for all who want it (whenever one of Crimson Dawn’s higher-ups says “wait, why are we dumping massive amounts of money into this one random-ass planet?” Darth Maul just casually sidles up behind them with his lightsaber until they remember that he can literally just show up anywhere, at anytime, and kill them unless they do what he says. If Maul’s busy, he sends 3PO instead- 3PO’s been outfitted with about ten times as much weaponry as is legal, and can be very convincing when he wants to be).

While Anakin works on infrastructure and supporting the freed peoples of Tatooine, and unfucking the economic trainwreck they caused, Shmi and Beru work on the government. They write down a few, very basic rules-Tatooine is to be ruled by a council of people, half of whom will come from the Tusken tribes, all of which shall be selected by fair and free election. All citizens of Tatooine shall have the right to vote in these elections, and the right to vote shall be guaranteed to all- except for those who have ever owned or sold a sentient being. (it was a huge debate in the Lars-Whitesun-Skywalker household, this matter of restricting voting rights. In the end, it was decided that slaveowners, and ONLY slaveowners, were to be the sole exception for universal suffrage). Every citizen of Tatooine is guaranteed access to food, medicine, and water, and has the right to have their grievances addressed by the council.

Shmi works quickly to gather her council- she knows she has to do it fast, to prove to the Tuskens that she is as good as her word. The first elections are chaotic, and perhaps not completely non-violent, but in the end, there is a council of twenty representatives, with Shmi Skywalker representing Mos Espa.

The Council proceeds to have raging- and occasionally violent- debates about the structure of their future government. What rights to guarantee citizens. Should they have a court system? What about a financial system? How are they to guarantee water, food, and medicine to everyone? What even are taxes?

The Rebuilding of Tatooine is long, and hard, and contentious. There are arguments and rage and fighting- the repatriation of traditional Tusken lands is especially fraught. But Shmi promised, and so she makes it happen (Anakin and Padme may have helped too). Maul, for his part, keeps training Anakin, and keeps managing the criminal underworld with a careful balance of death threats and actual death, but mostly stays out of the way of Anakin’s Senior Project. 

Soon, Anakin is able to re-purpose the pop-up housing, since most people have moved into traditional Tatooine-built homes, suited to the environment. The newly restructured economy is tentatively taking its first steps, and Tatooine’s baby government is becoming less and less dependent on intergalactic criminal funding (partially thanks to Anakin confiscating the entirety of Jabba’s personal fortune). He spends a lot of time in Council meetings, trying not to scream at people while also trying to stop Padme from eating them. The Council debates what is next for Tatooine, and eventually, they vote to petition the Republic for membership. Tatooinians, as a people, including the Tuskens, are fiercely independant, but, as Shmi points out, joining the Republic would guarantee them to certain things like humanitarian aid, a voice in decisions affecting interplanetary trade routes and taxation, legal legitimacy and the right to call on the Republic for aid should their sovereignty ever be threatened. Most importantly, slavery is illegal on all Republic planets, which means that if any slave-owning organizations ever pushed in on Tatooine, there would be another (much better funded) organization to call on to help quash it. 

The Republic requires that a petitioning planet’s head of state visit the Senate on Coruscant to ask the Senate for entry into the Republic. The Council, grumbling, re-jiggers their constitution to allow for a “chief councilor”, and promptly elect Anakin to the position (”Fuck me,”) Anakin says. Maul laughs at him, then sobers and tells him to be careful on Coruscant (”My former master lives there.” he says. “Mind your shields, and do not let him know your true nature. You are not yet ready to take him on, and you have your planet and your people to think of.” “Yes, Uncle Maul.” Anakin says. “I will be careful.”).

Anakin shows up in the Galactic Senate, sandy robes, uncombed hair, and half smirk on his face. “I am Anakin Skywalker, free person of Tatooine,” he says. He presents the case for Tatooine’s admittance to the Republic in a booming, confident voice, drawing on his inner strength- his righteous anger and determination to ensure his people’s future- to keep his voice from wavering.

There are grumbles. Muttering. No Senator wants to be the one to blatantly say “no”- it’s a sort of miracle story, Tatooine, the little planet that rose up and threw of the shackles of slavery and now wants to join the Republic- the exact sort of mythos that the Republic itself is built on. It’s bad PR to vote against that little planet. But at the same time, Tatooine is a sandy, useless dustball that’ll need fiscal support from the Senate, with nothing to offer in terms of economic value. Many Senators are debating with themselves, not whether or not to say “no”, but how to vote “no” without losing ten points in approval ratings.

Until the Senator from Naboo, a diminutive woman who somehow reminds Anakin of his rancor, stands up. She gives an impassioned, off-the-cuff speech, reminding the Senate of how her own planet had thrown off the shackles of oppression not ten years ago, how the Republic was founded by planets like Tatooine, and how, most importantly, they had no legal basis to deny them entry, and if the Senate voted no, Naboo’s lawyers would litigate the issue six ways from taungsday- which, due to a clause in the Senate’s constitution that forbade them from passing legislation while the issue of a planet’s admittance to the Republic was on the floor, would effectively paralyze the Senate until the courts made a ruling. And, as Padme made sure to emphasize, if the court’s decision was not favorable, she would appeal. She could feasibly stop the Senate from doing anything for years, if necessary.

Tatooine is admitted to the Republic.

“Two Senators,” Anakin demands. “In order for my people to be fairly represented, my planet requires two Senators.” When complaints are made, Jar-Jar Binks threatens to explain the complicated dynamics of a planet attempting to grapple with a colonial past. He doesn’t have to. Tatooine gets its two Senators.

Anakin meets with Senator Amidala in her office, to thank her.

“Of course,” she said. “I remember a little boy who helped free my planet- how could I not help you when you needed it?”

“Uhh, thanks, yeah, that’s, really nice of you. Like your hair. Which is nice. In an objective sort of way,” Anakin says, because there is no universe in which Anakin is not a complete idiot in front of Padme. “I named my rancor after you,” he blurts.

Before Anakin is scheduled to leave Coruscant, the Jedi send a knight to scope out the new planetary leader. Obi-Wan Kenobi shows up at Anakin’s hotel room, and goes “Oh. It’s.... you.” 

“Obi-Wan!” Anakin grins. He only knew him for about two days when he was nine, but he still greets him like an old friend, like a brother. They fall into easy, teasing conversation. “I thought you were dead, I confess, after you disappeared from Naboo,” Obi-Wan admits. “I am truly sorry that I was unable to fulfill Qui-Gon’s promise to train you as a Jedi Knight.”

“That’s ok,” Anakin waves his hand dismissively. “I got trained as a Sith instead.” Then he freezes. Oops. He was not supposed to say that. Maul would be so disappointed in him.

“Beg pardon?” Obi-Wan says.

“I, uhh, got trained, as a, uh, sift...er? Instead? A sand sifter? I sift sand for a living?”

“You said Sith.”

“No I didn’t, I definitely said sift.”

“No, you said Sith.”

“I definitely did not.”

Anakin changes the subject, and Obi-Wan lets it drop. He’ll tell the Council, of course, but he honestly cannot fathom the concept of this kid being a Sith. He senses nothing Dark about him- well, at least no more dark than is present in any sentient. Besides, it’s not like there are any Sith Lords around anymore, ever since he killed Maul (luckily, Obi-Wan doesn’t see the picture in Anakin’s wallet, a candid shot 3PO took in the cockpit of their family’s ship. Fifteen-year-old Anakin, at the controls, hyperbrake still on with his hands on the hyperdrive lever, Maul, standing behind him, hands gripping Anakin’s seat and face distorted half-way through a panic-induced rant about flight safety, and Shmi, sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, laughter on her face and knitting needles in her hands).

Anakin contacts his mother, tells her the good news. The Council, moving with alacrity, elects Tatooine’s first Senators. And four days later, one year after the Dawn of Freedom, Senator Shmi Skywalker and Senator Ooutrigh (a Tusken warrior) of Tatooine arrive on Coruscant and address the Senate for the first time. 

Of course, while Anakin has been growing up, planning for Tatooine’s future, and annoying the shit out of Maul, Palpatine’s own plans have continued apace. Barely four months after Tatooine is admitted to the Republic, Obi-Wan finds himself in an arena on Geonosis. The battle goes much differently this time, partially due to the fact that Anakin has retrofitted the cargo bay of his family’s ship to house Padme (the rancor, not the Senator), and descends onto the Arena sands just as Yoda and the Clone Troops arrive, and deposits both Padme’s (the rancor, and the Senator) into the melee. 

“Hi, Obi-Wan!” Anakin calls, whipping out his lightsaber to deflect the hail of blaster bolts (Maul would disapprove, but Maul isn’t here, he’s ten clicks away, chasing down the Jedi dropout Sidious replaced him with). 

“Anakin, what the FUCK” Obi-Wan says, staring at Chief Councilor Anakin Skywalker of Tatooine, riding a rancor and swinging an honest-to-Force yellow lightsaber. 

“Master Yoda, what the FUCK” Anakin says, later, after the battle is over, when he finally gets Yoda to answer his questions about the clone troopers. “You found out about an entire-ass army of slave child soldiers commissioned AND PAID FOR by one of your own council members, and your reaction is ‘oh thank goodness, now we have an army?’ What the FUCK is WRONG with you?!” Yoda tries to explain to Councilor Skywalker that the situation was dire, they’d had no choice, but Councilor Skywalker just keeps repeating “AN ARMY OF SLAVE CHILD SOLDIERS” at him. “No choice, we had,” Yoda says yet again.

“BULLSHIT, you had no choice!” Anakin yells. “You could have chosen to not use the entire army of slave child soldiers that you legally own!”

“Let Kenobi and the others die, you would have? Hmm?”

“PROBABLY, YEAH!” Anakin hollers (”Thanks,” mutters Obi-Wan). “Sometimes the choices you have all really suck, but you still have to make them! You can’t just pretend you didn’t have any options, you HAD OPTIONS, and you chose the one that involved using a SLAVE ARMY OF CHILD SOLDIERS.” He gestures behind him to the battlefield, where clone troopers and medics are moving amongst the bodies, white and red stark against the sand, tallying their dead brothers.

Yoda shakes his head. “emotional, you are, young Skywalker.” he said. “Cloud your judgement, your feelings do.” 

“Yeah, I’m fucking emotional!” Anakin practically screams. “I have personal beef with slavery, so excuse me if I feel emotions about it. Your problem is that you’re able to use an ARMY OF SLAVE CHILD SOLDIERS and not feel bad about it! Your lack of emotions is clouding YOUR judgement!” He stomps off. Yoda shakes his head. Skywalker is young, and too close to the issue of slavery to really have perspective on it. He does not understand. It was a great loss to the Jedi Order when the Council rejected him, all those years ago- if he had been trained as a Jedi, he would have learned to put aside his emotions about slavery, and he would have understood why it was necessary now. If Anakin could have heard what Yoda was thinking, he would have turned right back around, picked Yoda up, and punted him like a limmie ball.

Anakin and Maul return to Tatooine. Maul offers to assassinate the entire Jedi Council, but Anakin says no. He’s still fuming about his conversation with Yoda. He knows he gets emotional. He knows that Yoda isn’t entirely wrong- he knows he lets his emotions cloud his judgement sometimes. It’s something he’s worked hard on, over the years, him and Maul. How to take a step back from the emotions howling in your head, and how to view the situation without them getting in the way. And what kinds of situations you should let your emotions guide you. Anakin thinks he’s damn well entitled to strong emotions about slavery. 

Short of declaring war on the entire Jedi Order, Anakin doesn’t know what to do about the Republic’s slave army. The Tatooine Council releases a public condemnation of it, explicitly calling it slavery and calling for the clones to be freed. The Council seriously debates joining the Separatists, until Padme (the Senator, not the Rancor) and Shmi look in-depth at the Separatist Council, which is buried deep in the pockets of corporate interests. Shmi files a lawsuit, under the Republic’s anti-slavery legislation, suing for the freedom of the clones. It’s a battle of miserable inches, and meanwhile, the war rages.

With Dooku gone, Sidious’s only means of controlling the Separatists is through Grievous and Ventress, both of whom are loose cannons whose loyalty (and competence) he seriously doubts. It’s frustrating for him, and not necessarily better for the Jedi and their army (of slave child soldiers). Sidious needs to keep the war in careful balance, neither side gaining too much ground, to draw it out and grind the Jedi down and manipulate their public image until he can heap all the blame on them. Without Dooku to pass down his orders, he has no way of keeping a firm check on the Separatist Council, and the Seps are in serious danger of completely overrunning the Republic. The droid army is fifty times as many as the clones, and the Separatists have the Trade Federation, the Banking Clans, and all of the major military tech corporations on their side. Honestly, it’s a testament to the Jedi and the Clone Army that they haven’t lost the war in the first month.

Speaking of that first month, Anakin doesn’t spend long on uninvolved in the war. Scant weeks after Geonosis, the Separatist Army threatens to roll right over Tatooine on their way to gaining control of the Outer Rim Hyperlanes. Tatooine has no army, doesn’t even have a police force. It has no fleet, no orbital defenses, and the droid army headed their way has ten times more droids than there are guns on the planet. The Council faces a choice. Ask the Republic to send in the GAR to defend them- ask for an army of slaves to be sent to die on Tatooine, to stain the sand with enslaved blood so soon after Tatooine clawed her way to freedom, or do nothing, and almost certainly ensure the annihilation of Tatooine and her people. To die, or to live by the blood of slaves who died for you. It’s not a pretty choice.

In the end, the choice is taken away from them (and perhaps it’s a kindness, that they weren’t forced to choose, perhaps it’s the coward’s way out, but it is what it is). A GAR cruiser shows up in orbit, and the Council is hailed by a man identifying himself as Captain Rex, commanding officer of the 501st legion of the GAR.

“The Republic sent you here?” Anakin asks, incredulously. 

“Well, not exactly.” Captain Rex hedges. “The 501st is due for leave on Kamino, but the hyperdrive was making funny noises, so we decided to stop off in the nearest Republic system to check it out.” Rex shrugs. “If a bunch of tinnies just so happen to show up, it’s not like we’ll just sit back and watch.”

“Why are you doing this?” Anakin asks the clone captain, once they’ve got him on planet and in the council room. He’s got a lump in his throat, and his eyes are stinging. The 501st has no Jedi on board, no natborn officers, and no orders to go to Tatooine. Rex and the 501st showed up here of their own free will. Because they wanted to. To defend Tatooine.

“Geonosis.” Rex says. “On Geonosis, you saved the lives of over two hundred of us. Including me. We couldn’t stand by and let your planet fall to the Separatists, Councilor Skywalker.”

After the battle, during the cleanup, when Tatooinians are passing through the rows of injured, giving out water- giving out life- Rex tells Anakin the other reason.

“We all know about Tatooine, sir.” He says, quietly. “A bunch of slaves who stood up and said “no,” and took their freedom.” He shrugs. “Stories like that, it gives us hope. For the future.” He fixes Anakin with a stare. “If we let that hope die, we die too. Tatooine cannot fall.”

That is the first time Anakin and Rex fight together. Somehow, when the 501st leaves Tatooine, Anakin goes with them- officially, as a consultant/observer, appointed at the request of Senator Skywalker to observe the GAR and monitor the health and wellbeing of the troopers. Unofficially, Anakin and Rex become a lethal team, making the 501st one of the most effective legions in the Galaxy. Anakin isn’t dumb. He knows he’s being a massive hypocrite, running around with an army of slave child soldiers. Rex, however, insists that it’s different.

“First of all, we asked you to come with us.” he says. “Second of all, it’s not like you staying behind would have made any difference in our situation. And besides, scrapping clankers isn’t the only reason I asked you to come with us.” Anakin raises an eyebrow.

And Rex introduces Anakin to his older brother, Cody, commander of the 212th (Anakin is happy to see Obi-Wan again, but appalled to meet Obi-Wan’s fourteen-year-old togruta padawan, because why would you put a CHILD in a warzone, in a COMMAND POSITION). And Cody brings Anakin in on The Plan. The clones will not remain slaves forever, and they will not wait for some elusive promise of gratitude after the war is over. They will take their freedom, and they will defend their own, and they’re asking Anakin, who freed the slaves of Tatooine, to help them do it. 

“So basically, you want me on as a consultant.”

“Basically, yeah.” Cody says. “And also as a guy with a lightsaber who can leap fifty feet into the air and dodge blaster bolts. Those are always handy to have around.”

So Anakin and Rex and Cody, and Cody’s small circle of commanders, lay their plans. And in the meantime, there’s a war to fight. Shmi’s still on Tatooine, but Maul comes with Anakin and the 501st. He and Rex get along like a house on fire, but you wouldn’t know it from watching them- they do nothing but argue and needle each other. Rex sarcastically calls Maul “Commander Maul” because it pisses him off so much, and it catches on with the whole legion. Maul constantly mutters about murdering and/or poisoning Rex.

But after Ventress almost chokes Rex to death, and breaks into his mind to make him do her bidding, Maul doesn’t leave Rex alone for a week, and clutches his hand tightly in the medbay. Rex doesn’t mention it, so neither does Anakin. 

Padme, on the other hand, makes no secret of how much she loves Rex (the Rancor, not the Senator, though she likes him too). Padme seems to have concluded that Rex is some sort of long-lost hatchling, and can be seen chasing Rex down the hangar bay, trying to corral him into the nest she’s constructed in the corner reserved for her. Rex gets used to surprise cuddles from a massive predator.

The Jedi Council are at their wit’s end with Skywalker, but their hands are full and honestly, he’s a benefit to the war effort, so they assign Obi-Wan to “supervise” the legion, and leave them to it. Obi-Wan and Anakin strike up a deep friendship, unfettered by the baggage that comes with being master and padawan. Obi-Wan finds himself having serious questions about the Jedi’s role in the war, since Anakin is not at all shy about challenging him on the whole “slave army of child soldiers” thing. Obi-Wan is also, quite frankly, too busy to effectively teach a padawan, and by this point, he knows that Anakin’s had some sort of Force training. He’s fought beside him enough to be confident in his skills, and often sends Ahsoka on extended missions with the 501st, and explicitly begs Anakin to help him fill in the gaps in her training. Anakin obliges enthusiastically. 

Of course, Maul helps train her too. Obi-Wan shows up on the Resolute one day to pick her up, and asks how her training’s going. 

“Great!” She says. “Skyguy’s weird uncle is teaching me jar’kai-”

“Anakin has an uncle?” Obi-Wan asks, surprised. “Who knows jar’kai?”

And so Obi-Wan and Maul meet once again. And Obi-Wan is just absolutely pole-axed. 

“Darth Maul?” He splutters. “Is your uncle?” 

“Not biologically,” Anakin shrugs. “He practically raised me, along with my mom. He taught me everything I know about lightsabers and the Force.”

“...”

“...you did say Sith, Anakin, you bastard, sand-sifting MY ASS-”

“Oh, it’s you.” Maul says. “I won’t kill you, but only because Anakin likes you.” Obi-Wan throws up his hands.

Somehow, Obi-Wan and Maul come to an understanding. Somehow, Obi-Wan doesn’t turn him over to the council. 

At one point, a giant of a zabrak, easily eight feet tall, with skin a poisonous yellow, shows up, claiming that Maul is his brother, and that he’s here to bring him home to Dathomir. Maul takes one look at Savage and goes “Fuck that”. “I will train you in the ways of the Force,” he says. “I can show you power like you’ve never wielded before.” he says. “You shall be a great and feared Sith Lord,” he says. “Have some hot chocolate, you look cold,” he says. “Put on a sweater.” Savage, slightly bemused, comes to terms with the fact that he’s just been adopted.

It’s Maul who figures it out, of course. How could he not? He was raised by Sidious. He knows how devious he is, how his plans have layers upon layers, backups upon backups, contingencies stacked from here to the Outer Rim. Once Sidious moves, you can be sure that any reasonable outcome will be in his favor, because he has completely engineered the situation before you were even aware it existed.

The Sith caused the war and are playing both sides. The Sith caused the clones to be commissioned (these things are trivially easy to figure out, if you’re paying attention). The Sith want the Jedi dead.

“Contingencies,” Maul mutters. “It’s always a trap, and there’s always contingencies.”

When he finds the chip in Rex’s head, he shakes with rage and refuses to talk to anyone, fearing, for the first time in years, that he will lose control and hurt someone he loves. It is Rex who talks him down, who manages to get close to him, who embraces him and lets him cry on his shoulder, then scream and rage and punch the walls. When Maul is able to explain, Rex has to choke back his own terrified, horrified sobs. He holds them back, and calmly looks at Maul and says “What are you going to do about it?”

The surgery, they discover, is simple enough. An astromech can do it in two minutes (C2PO can do it in seventy seconds, and Artoo can’t stand it). When Anakin is told, he goes quiet for a minute, and when he looks back up, it is not Anakin, Rex’s friend, Maul’s kid, who is sitting at the table in the briefing room. It is He Who Walks in the Sky, Huttslayer, Breaker of Chains, who looks back at them. Anakin Skywalker has always wanted nothing more than to free all the slaves. And Anakin Skywalker’s destiny has always been to do what he wanted.

They tell Cody. They modify their plans. They quietly contact medics throughout the GAR, and Artoo quietly sends the details to every military astromech he trusts. When the army is safe from Sidious’ control, Anakin, Rex, and Maul conspire to lure him off of Coruscant. Maul takes over Mandalore, exiling the duchess and announcing a New Sith Empire. Sidious shows up, declaring that Maul has become a rival, disowning his former apprentice and attacking him, with intent to kill. Savage loses an arm. Maul almost loses his life. But as he lies on the ground at Sidious’s feet, arms trembling with the effort of holding the parry keeping Sidious’ saber from his throat, he hears “We’ve got the face shot! Go, go go!” in his earpiece. Gunfire, real slugthrowers, difficult to block with a saber, erupts around him. C3PO and his arsenal, along with Fives, Jesse, and Echo, the 501st’s best ARC troopers, open fire on Sidious. The Sith is forced to back away, raising a hand to stop the bullets in midair. Maul leaps to his feet, and Anakin joins him, lightsaber drawn. 

The fight is quick, but brutal. Maul’s hands threaten to tremble with terror, facing down the horror of his childhood, the monster whose treatment of him is woven fundamentally into his psyche, whose shadow has haunted Maul all his life, and still invades his dreams. But he reaches out to his family, to Rex, beside him, steady, full of faith in him, to Anakin, a blazing sun of love and anger, a shield of raw power, and to Shmi, all the way in her Senate offices on Coruscant, cool and calm and soothing like a desert spring as ever-present as the stars. His hands do not tremble. He raises his lightsaber against his master, beside the blade of his son. Together, they beat the Sith Lord back. Anakin binds the Sith’s blade, knees him in the ribs, and while Sidious is thus occupied, Maul cuts his head off.

“You were a terrible parent,” he pants, and spits on the corpse. Then, he collapses, and Rex is there to catch him, and Maul clings to him and shakes, and cries. Anakin reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder, and Rex pulls him in with a look, and together, they surround Maul, a bulwark against the rest of the world, a safe circle for him to fall apart for a little bit. At some point, one of them unstraps the small camera that Maul had been wearing on his chest. Ahsoka has, at that point, already sent the footage to every major news office on Coruscant.

That evening, plastered all over the galactic news, is a video of the Chancellor himself, showing up on a neutral world and attacking its sovereign leader, wielding red lightsabers of all things. And it’s obviously the Chancellor; there’s a clear shot of his face when he knocks Mandalore’s ruler to the ground and the camera gets a good view right up into his hood.

It’s a massive scandal. One tabloid shows the footage with a little counter in the corner, counting up every treaty and galactic law that Palpatine violates onscreen. The only thing that saves Palpatine from impeachment and arrest is the fact that he’s already dead. Inquiries are launched, investigators are sanctioned, documents and hard drives and testimony are subpoena’ed. Padme (the Senator, not the Rancor), spearheads the investigative committee, and within a month, they’ve uncovered decades worth of bribes, backroom deals, contracts with droid manufacturers, clear evidence of Palpatine authorizing Republic funds for weaponry that went straight to the Separatists, and even communication records between the Chancellor and the two military leaders of the Separatists. Grievous and Ventress go into hiding (the Tales of Grievous and Ventress, unlikely buddies forced on an intergalactic road trip on the run from the cops, is a story for a different absurdly long post at 3am). The Separatists break down in chaos, and the war grinds to a halt. In the middle of all the political hurricane, Cody enacts his plan, and the entire GAR simultaneously deserts, and fucks directly off to Tatooine. This ignites another scandal, with Senators calling for Tatooine’s expulsion from the Republic. Shmi stands in her Senate Pod, hands tucked into her roughspun sleeves, listening attentively while Senator Burtoni of Kamino accuses her of theft.

“If Tatooine does not return the stolen military assets, the Senate may sanction the use of force!” the Senator from Ryloth threatens.

“Pardon me,” Shmi says, “May I ask what army the Senate is planning sending to invade Tatooine? I was under the impression that the only Republic army was already there.” There’s a bit of an awkward silence.

In the middle of the shitstorm, before Shmi is arrested and Anakin declared an enemy of the state, Shmi’s lawsuit finally receives a ruling. And just like that, the clones are legally free. And the judge orders the Senate to pay reparations. Anakin cackles with glee when he hears. 

Rex and Cody, with the full support of the people of Tatooine, begin the long, hard, work of resettling their brothers and building a life for the vod’e. Shmi files a lawsuit against the Zygerrian Empire. Savage receives a new arm, courtesy of Anakin, who may or may not have added a few extra utilities to it. Ahsoka is knighted, and controversially invites Anakin to be present at the ceremony, along with Obi-Wan. Maul admits, very quietly and where only Rex can hear, that he doesn’t actually want to poison him. “I know,” Rex says, smiling at him. Anakin, meanwhile, finally marries Padme, the love of his life (the Senator, not the Rancor).

And in Mos Eisly, there is a stone slab, pulled from a crumbled wall and stuck upright in the ground in the middle of the square. No one knows who put it there, but someone carved fifty-seven names into the stone. The fifty-seven names of the clone troopers who died defending Tatooine from the Separatist army, at the beginning of the war. The last slaves to spill their blood on the sands of Tatooine.

#maul adopts anakin #and invents a new kind of sith #which is almost nothing like the old kind of sith #just co-opts the name really #rex/maul #kinda? it wasn't on purpose it just happened #my writing #maulusque's writing #might slap this up on ao3 later #we'll see

[nataliedanovelist]

GF - How A Star Is Born ch.IX

Hercules AU, founded by @evaroze, whom this fic is a gift for. I hope y’all like it!

ch.VIII - ch.X

AO3 link

~~~~~~~~~~

Mabel never thought the day would come when Grunkle Ford would ask her to go down to Earth. Sure, she was allowed to go visit as long as she was hidden and back at Olympus at a certain time, but she never thought she would be standing before her father-figure and be asked to specifically go down to Earth, but here she was.

“I… I want you to check on Stanley.” Grunkle Ford asked solemnly. “And Mason, too, for that matter. See if they’re alright.”

“Um… okay.” Mabel was a bit unsure if she dared believe his instructions. “You want me to go down there and pay them a visit?”

“No.” Grunkle Ford said. “I’m sorry, but no. I want to project yourself onto the art of Thebes and see if they’re alright. Bill says Stanley isn’t… with him, but he is very busy thanks to a small war in the Middle East. Do not make yourself known, simply see if they’re both okay.”

Mabel smiled slyly at him. “You want me to spy on our mortal family members?”

Grunkle Ford sighed and nodded. “Yes.”

“YES!” Mabel cheered and punched the air. “Finally, a chance to use my sneaky peaky spy skills!” And she ran out of the temple, tripping and breaking a vase along the way.

And so Mabel went down to Earth, traveling from statue to statue, painting to painting, floor art to floor art, all throughout Thebes. She had never been to the Big Olive and was excited to see the new place and to find Dipper and Stan’s home.

It was well into the night at this point. The stars twinkled and the night air was warm and soothing. Mabel thought he heard a familiar voice filled with laughter, and she looked down the street and grinned widely from the stem of a birdbath. She was ecstatic to see her brother on a date with a beautiful young lady; she decided to follow them and listen carefully. This was also good reassurance that Stan was okay; Dipper wouldn’t have left his side otherwise.

“Wow, what a day.” Dipper sighed. “Dinner by the ocean, that play… oh boy, I thought I had problems.”

Pacifica and Dipper both laughed, but one was having to force it more than the other. Slowly, steadily, Pacifica could feel herself becoming distracted. She had to focus. Her freedom was on the line. Still, as much of a nerd Wonderboy may be, able to tell the measurement of an item by glancing at it and solve impossible equations in his head in a second, he was actually a really nice guy. Getting tired of pretending, she decided to try a bit harder to find Dipper’s weakness so this whole thing could end.

Walking down some steps, Pacifica faked a trip at the last step. Dipper caught her swiftly and Pacifica winced. “Ugh, I think I stepped funny, landed on my ankle wrong.”

“Ouch,” Dipper sympathized. While he may have super god-like strength, that didn’t mean he never twisted an ankle or bent a wrist wrong, a small pain but no damage or hardly an injury. “Here, we can sit for a sec.” And he scooped her up gently and carried her to sit on the edge of a giant water fountain, the same water fountain Mabel was projecting herself into the heart of the small wall, eagerly hoping her twin would at least get a kiss.

“Oh. Thanks.” Pacifica was a bit taken back by his extra effort in manners, but quickly reminded herself that with strength like his picking up a girl was nothing. So she moved on with her plan. “So, do you have any issues with weak ankles?”

“Hm? Oh. No, not really.” Dipper chuckled.

Pacifica giggled alongside him and sat closer. “Really? No trick knee?” She asked slyly. “No bad shoulder?”

Dipper was blushing heavily, a bit uncomfortable with the praise and trying to remain humble as he gave an honest answer. “No, I’m… I’m pretty healthy…” And his smile dropped at remembering that the same couldn’t be said for Stan.

Pacifica rolled her eyes, ready to give up on her quest. Bill would just have to find some other way to kill him. She then noticed how down Dipper appeared, much more so than he had been all night, and before she realized what she was doing, she asked, “Hey, you okay?” Pacifica instantly bit her lip. Why did she say that? And why did she actually care?

Dipper looked at her with heavy eyes and sighed tiredly. “It’s Stan. He’s… He’s not well.”

Pacifica softened a little. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Dipper looked up at the stars to make it easier to talk. “It’s just… he… I dunno. I was raised in an orphanage until I was twelve and went looking for him. Stan’s looked after me ever since, and… and he feels like family. I’ve never had one, and… it sometimes feels like he’s all I got.” Dipper was being very careful not to talk about the fact that he had a family waiting for him, but after only talking to Mabel here and there for so long, having never met them in the flesh or been at home, it sometimes felt like Stan was truly the only one there for him.

Pacifica scoffed and stood up to make some distance. “Family isn’t that great.”

Dipper blinked and stood to follow her down the street. “What do you mean?”

“I dunno, people just make such a big deal over families or whatever.” Pacifica complained. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. They’re just a bunch of people who would turn their backs on you just as quickly as anyone else.”

Dipper was a bit taken back by the harshness of her tone, but he shook it off to try to comfort someone who was clearly hurt. “That’s not true. Some families, sure, maybe. But not all families are like that.”

Pacifica gave him a sharp look. “How would you know?”

Dipper was a bit hurt by that, but it only made him more determined to change her mind. He took her hand as they were at the doorstep of his home, and he said firmly, “My family might be really small, and kinda broken, but it’s still an amazing family. We look after each other. We care for one another. And… And you could be a part of that.” Dipper bit his lip. Why did he say that? And why did he actually mean it?

It was Pacifica’s turn to be dumbstruck. She shook her clear to try to clear it and said, “I gotta go. Goodnight, hero.” And she kissed his hand, let go, and hurried down the street.

Dipper’s mouth was open so wide a fly nearly threw in, but luckily he coughed it out before he accidentally swallowed it. He brought his lucky hand up shakingly to smile at it, swearing he would never use it for anything ever again. Okay, maybe for one thing.

Mabel, meanwhile, knew that Pacifica liked Dipper and hurried after her, ready to perform a musical number to convince her to admit it and follow her heart and say she was in love, but as Pacifica hurried into the outdoor museum full of art, Mabel felt a chill go down her spine. She stopped at a brick wall-art of the sun and hid herself behind a bush, remembering her grunkle’s orders to stay hidden, just in case.

A small pyramid glowed yellow and with a small poof the triangle with a black toga appeared, smiling (as much as one can without a mouth) at Pacifica. Mabel stared, a little confused; this must be Grunkle Ford’s friend, the one Uncle Fiddleford didn’t seem to like very much. Instantly she could understand why Uncle Fiddleford didn’t like him, but so far Bill hasn’t done anything to learn Mabel’s dislike, so she kept an open-mind and listened.

“Hey-o, Llama, so whatcha got?”

“Nothing.” Pacifica said coldly, her arms crossed.

“Nothing?” Bill repeated.

“Nothing. No weak spot, no bad nerves, no tricks. Nothing. He has no weaknesses.”

Bill growled in his throat, floating back and forth in a pacing kind of way, his black hands behind his back. “No! Everybody’s got a weakness! We just gotta find it!” The demon stopped as he looked at a statue of a couple in love. “Maybe… Ugh, if only Sixer wasn’t so overprotective of Shooting Star. We could use her as bait.”

Pacifica snorted. “Yeah, good luck getting your hands on her.”

“But maybe…” Bill held his… well, he doesn’t have a chin, but he did put a hand to the front of his body in that type of manner. “... there’s someone we can get our hands on.”

“What?” Pacifica asked, not seeming bored for the first time in this entire conversation. “You mean Stan? I guess… Dipper did say he was like family.”

Bill cackled. “Oh, if only he knew.” The triangle gasped and punched his hand with the side of his fist in thought. “Hey! We can use that! Great work, Blondie. Now c’mon, we got a whole galaxy to conquer!” And he swooped himself and Pacifica away in a burst of blue fire.

Mabel had both hands over her mouth to keep herself quiet. She had so many questions and was confused on a few things, but she did know this: Bill wanted to hurt Dipper. Bill wanted to take over the galaxy. And he was lying to Grunkle Ford.

Without another thought, Mabel dashed as fast as she could for home. She accidentally gave herself such bad tunnel vision out of fear and desperation that she didn’t hesitate until she was at the entrance of her shared temple with her great-uncle. The young lady peered his office to find him hunched over his work, finding it hard to concentrate with the fate of his brother on his mind. Mabel didn’t know much about Bill, despite being a fellow god, but she did know that Ford considered him a friend, so this would be difficult news to deliver.

Mabel gently knocked on the column beside her to alert her guardian of her entrance. He turned and smiled genuinely at her. “Mabel, I’m happy to see you’re home safe. How… How is Stanley?”

Mabel winced; she had completely forgotten to check on her long-distance uncle in the excitement of her brother’s date and the harsh discovery. “Grunkle Ford, I need to tell you something.”

Immediately Ford feared the worst. It was too late. He would never see Stan again, and it was all his fault. Mabel sat on the desk and took his six-fingered hands. He bit his lip and braced himself as Mabel looked down, trying to find her words. After a moment or two that nearly killed the immortal god, the young muse asked carefully, “Bill… Is he your friend?”

Ford felt the wind being kicked out of him from the shock. He could have cried, he was so relieved, but instead he laughed and nodded. “Yes! Yes, my dear, Bill is an old friend of mine. If it wasn’t for him, the world would still be in complete chaos. My leadership position, and really the existence of you and your brother, is all thanks to him. He helped me save the world.” He praised.

Mabel looked even more nervous; Ford had hoped that this answer would assure any worry she had, but clearly this wasn’t the case. Before the god could ask what was wrong, the muse said quietly, “I think he only helped you save it so he could have it someday.”

Ford blinked like a confused owl at her. “What… What are you talking about?”

“I… I think… no, I’m sure that…”

“STANFOOOOOOOOORD!”

Mabel and Ford turned to the direction of the call and ran for the exit of their temple. They watched Fiddleford use his super speed to dash to them, pale and stuttering with fear. “HONEY FOGELIN’, SALT-LICKIN’ SKULLDUGGERY! OH, WE’RE IN TROUBLE! OH!”

“Fiddleford, buddy, calm down.” Ford gripped him by the shoulders to give him a chance to breathe and adjust his small glasses. “What’s the matter?”

“We’ve got an army o’ monsters that are practically at our gates!” Fiddleford informed. “There’s only a few minutes until Olympus is overrun!”

“What?! Alert the other gods! Prepare for a counter attack! Go, go!”

“Gone, babe.” Fiddleford said sarcastically with a roll of his eyes and ran as fast as possible as he blew his trumpet loudly throughout Olympus.

“Mabel, sweetie, I want you to go keep an eye on your brother.”

“But…”

Ford whistled loudly and the giant goat, Gompers, came trotting toward. Ford lifted her like a child and ignored her kicking and squirming. “Grunkle Ford!”

“I’m not asking!” Ford growled and gave her a firm look. “I can’t lose you! I just can’t! Now I’m ordering you to go check on M-... on Dipper. Now go!” And he smacked Gompers to make him gallop off the mountain and down to the mortal world.

~~~~~~~~~~

Just a few minutes after Dipper arrived back home, thinking about his amazing date with Pacifica, he decided to check on Stan. After making sure he was nowhere else in the luxurious house, Dipper gently knocked on his teacher’s bedroom door. “Stan? You okay?”

Praying the old man was at least wearing a toga, he carefully opened the door, but was a little surprised to find the bed empty. After a quick look around the lavish bedroom, Dipper concluded that Stan wasn’t here. He closed the door and turned away, wondering if Stan had gone outside for some fresh air, but was suddenly greeted by a high-pitched laughter and the lit torches made of stone were now blue. Dipper looked all over and was startled to find a huge golden triangle with one eye staring at him.

“Hey there, kid, name’s Bill, big guy of the Underworld, nice to meet you.” Bill said, a smooth-fast talker like a chariot salesman.

“Uh, hi.” Dipper greeted with a small, hesitant wave. There was no way the Ruler of the Underworld, the most mysterious god of them all, would be paying him a visit unless it was important or he wanted something.

“So, listen, Pinetree,” Bill said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and floating alongside him, walking like they were old friends catching up. “I’m an old friend of your great-uncle, Stanford. He’s a fun guy, great god, you’re a lot like him, you know that? Anyway, so, as a friend of the family, I need a favor from you.”

Dipper wasn’t sure what to make of this. This was his first time meeting a god apart from Mabel, and now to be needed by one was a bit confusing. Why now? Was it possible he was on his way to becoming a true hero? Was he almost a god again? Was this a test? He smiled nervously and shrugged. “Uh, sure, what do you need?”

“Oh, boy, look at this guy! A real trooper he is! You’re alright, Sixer Jr!” Bill laughed and clapped his shoulder. “Now, I would be eternally grateful if you took a day off from this hero gig. I mean, c’mon, monsters, natural disasters…”

All hope that this visit was a good thing died. Dipper scowled and shook his head, shoving Bill’s hand off his shoulder. There was one reason and one reason only someone would want him to stop being a hero, even if it was only for a short time. “No way…”

“Not so fast,” Bill said coolly and he locked his own fingers cunningly. “Cuz I have something that might change your mind.” And he snapped his fingers.

Out of thin air an old man appeared in chains, on his knees. “Stan!” Dipper gasped.

“Dipper, what the h-...” And more chains covered his mouth.

Dipper ran for his teacher but Stan was gone before the young hero could help. “Let him go!” He dove for Bill, but only fell through him, like the demon was made of mist.

“Here’s the deal: you give up your strength for the next twenty-four hours,” And Bill snapped his fingers again and Stan reappeared, gagged and trapped. “And Knucklehead here is as free as a bird and safe, we dance, we kiss, we schmooze, we go home happy. Whatcha say, c’mon?”

Dipper stared at Stan, who was shaking his head. The young man looked away and then back at Bill. “People are gonna get hurt, aren’t they?”

“Nah,” Bill dragged, flicking his wrists downward and then instantly shrugging with his hands behind his back. “I mean, maybe, there’s a possibility, it happens cuz, y’know, life sucks. So what?” The triangle joined Stan and cupped his face teasingly. “Isn’t your great uncle more important than they are?”

Dipper opened his mouth to order him to stop, but his jaw fell and his voice was stolen from him. Bill smiled excitingly and asked, “Oo, struck a nerve, did I?” He laughed maliciously. “You seriously didn’t know he’s Sixer’s brother?! Oh, man! This is sad! Ever wondered why he had a grudge against Fordsie? Ever wondered why he even gave a worthless orphan the time of day to begin with? It’s cuz he only barely cared cuz you’re blood. Duh.”

“You’re lying.” Dipper said firmly. “Stan, he’s making it up, isn’t he?” He begged, his brown eyes on Stan, the same eyes that matched his own. “Because… you would have told me if it’s true… wouldn’t you?”

Stan looked away.

“Daw, don’t blame him, kid. It’s not his fault you didn’t inherit Mr. Lightning Bolt’s brains. Now, c’mon, you really wanna lose another pwecious famwy member?”

“OKAY!” Dipper yelled to get Bill to fall silent. There was a moment of pause and Stan stared at his nephew. “Okay… okay… But you gotta swear Stan won’t get hurt.”

“Fine, whatever. Stan won’t get hurt.” Bill said and walked towards the birthmarked hero, leaving Stan alone for a moment. “Otherwise you’ll get your strength right back, fine print, blah blah blah. It’s a deal?” And he held out a hand encased in blue fire.

Dipper hesitated, looking down at it, and that made Bill a little irritated, a dangerous game to play. Bill withdrew his hand. “Y’know I really don’t have time to bat this around, I got places to be, people to see, I need an answer, like, now. Going once, going twice…”

"It's a deal!" And Dipper ceased Bill's hand.

At once, the demon's thumb sharpened, cutting into Dipper's hand and seemed to be sucking the strength out of him. The young man sagged and Stan fought harder than ever to break free, but it was too late. Bill let Dipper go and he fell to his knees like a puppet with his strings cut off. One could say Dipper should have made sure he agreed to only give away his "god-like" strength, rather simply "strength," for this loophole left Dipper far weaker than any man, arguably weaker than an infant.

Bill cackled as he held his three-sided body and wiggled his legs in joy. "Thanks for the favor, Pinetree! Now if you'll excuse me, there's an entire cosmos out there with my name on it! Oh! Right, can't forget." Bill snapped his fingers and Stan was set free from his chains. "The guy ashamed to be your family is all yours, hero."

He instantly ran to Dipper's hunched-over body and rubbed his back. "Easy, buddy boy, I got you. It's okay."

Dipper swatted his hands away and groaned from the effort. "Stan… why… why didn't you say…"

Stan was hurt, but pushed it aside to focus on how hurt his nephew was. He rubbed the back of his neck. "I… I wanted to. Believe me, kid, I wanted to, but… I couldn't."

"Oh, and one more thing. Lil'Llama, thanks for the info." Bill sneered, curling a finger from the shadows to himself, and his slave emerged with her head down in shame. "A deal's a deal, you're free to go."

Dipper stared, heartbroken more so than ever. "Pacifica?"

"Hey, that's the blonde damsel from the river." Stan growled. "Tramp. C'mon, Dipper, let's get you to…"

"Don't." Dipper snapped as he steadily got to his own feet. "I… I can take care of myself…"

Stan withdrew his hand and took a step back, letting Dipper hold himself up by leaning on a column, catching his breath. The proud uncle bit his lip and was distracted from his misery and shame when a big bang could be heard outside.

He stood outside his home and his mouth was open as the sky was an unnatural sea of colors and the ocean was raging with waves that seemed to make everything it touched weird. Bushes were coming to life and eating ghosts. Old women were being turned into furniture. Men were going delusional and eating their togas. Stan cringed at the weirdness, and it only got worse when some big goblin-looking monster with Eight Ball eyes was bringing havoc to Thebes.

~~~~~~~~~~

The planets aligning created a weak spot in the dimension, and in the depths of the sea, Bill peered down and could practically see his old minions in the Nightmare Realm. “My friends!” He called, pointing a finger at the weak spot and tearing a whole in space-time. “We finally have a new home, boys! But one guy stands in our way. An obnoxious poindexter with six fingers. So, since I’ve given you guys a stable home, whatcha gonna do about it?”

“DESTROY HIM!”

“Good answer.”

And so, when Fiddleford was disturbed from his nightly slumber on a low cloud outside of Olympus, he screamed and ran as fast as he could to alter his friend and the leader of the gods. Huge monsters scaled the mountain. Flying eyeballs flew like bats and screeched, turning fighting gods into stone and flying them away.

With Mabel gone and no longer terrified for her safety, Ford stood on a tall cloud just inside the gates of his home and shot down bolts of lightning with his golden crossbow. The monsters were sturdy, and while the attacks did slow them down, the battle was not looking good for the gods. Ford caught his breath and was very disturbed when a giant gray-blue loaf of bread with arms and legs but no face broke down the gates.

“What’s our status?!” Ford asked his best friend.

“Everyone’s bein’ turned t’stone!” Fiddleford yelled as an eyebat shined a beam down at him. “Even me!”

“NO!” Ford threw his last bolt at the eyebat, but it swerved out of the way and scooped up Fiddleford’s frozen body.

Ford looked left and right, waiting for an idea to come to him, but he was too clouded with anxiety and worry that he failed to notice the huge, now three-dimensional demon behind him. “Fordsie, I’m home.” A shrill voice sang.

“Bill?” Ford breathed, his eyes narrowing in anger and he shook with rage. He should have listened to Mabel and knew he was behind this. He growled like an angry bulldog and tried to throw a punch, but with a lift of a finger Bill had total control over Ford’s body and made him float lifelessly in front of him.

“Well well, looks like you truly are as dumb as you look. Tell me, did you really think such a powerful being would ever be friends with a six-fingered monster?” Bill laughed evilly and moved two arms close, creating lava and ice to work together to encase Ford in a stony prison. “This dimension is mine, Sixer, and it’s all thanks to you.” He said as Ford climbed and crawled to try to escape, but was steadily being encased, like quicksand. “Now all I need to do is make sure those brats stay out of my way.”

“NO! NO!” Ford screamed. “NOT MY KIDS, YOU CA-...” And he was completely covered.

“I’m the one giving orders now, Freak.” Bill sneered and sat in his new throne the eyebats had made for him, made entirely out of gods and goddesses. “And I think I’m gonna like it here.”

#GF #gravity falls #gravity falls au #gift #fanfiction

[olruggioofthetorch]

sorry you know me I like to ask a million questions so here it goes- Tinsel:5,18,20,27,31,39,40 / Nila:13,28/Roman:11,6,7/Benji:4,19/Saoirse: 20,25,27 /Fionn: 6,7,10,33/ Scone:21,23 - sorry can’t remember the other siblings off the top of my head and these are the major ones anyway right haha? and this is a lot of questions anyway soooo

Ooo we're getting into the selkies tonight

Tinsel

5. What was their childhood fear?

Being alone or left behind. It was definitely a threat when they were a kid like "if you aren't on the caravan before we leave at noon, we're leaving you behind". I don't think their parents would have actually left them behind when they were small but it was enough of a threat that they and their siblings listened for the most part. Its not so much a childhood fear as it is a regular adult fear now.

18. If they could live or visit anywhere, where would they go?

Tinsel really likes where they live but they do have dreams about living on a sunny coast with their partners when they all settle down. Idk if there's anywhere specific they want to visit? They just go where the adventure leads them. I think they would like to visit somewhere to meet up with their family, tho.

20. What did they dream of "growing up" to be?

Oh man, Tinsel wanted to be an A List celebrity actor. They wanted to be lead role in blockbusters. It was a big goal for them but they were sure they could do it.

27. Have they achieved any of their childhood dreams? Are they still trying? Have those dreams changed?

They've gotten some of their childhood dreams! They moved to Holly Bay and made tons of friends. They got to act in live theater. They were almost in a movie! They got some notoriety from adventuring and were on TV for it. They got to kiss their childhood crush. They didn't quite make it to the A List after getting blacklisted but they're def still trying.

In regards to how they changed: I don't think they changed too much but they did see how hard it was to achieve them. Plus, they started dreaming about having a family when they were with Bast so that's definitely something they want now.

31. Who are they when they aren't with the party?

When they're not with the party, Tinsel is way less open about themself. They're a master of either talking around a question or lying by omission and they use it when they don't feel comfortable sharing. Pre-adventure, they didn't really even tell their closest friends the entire truth about their backstory (which is honestly buckwild and hard to believe anyway) or their relationship with Bast or really anything about their love/sex life.

I think it's bc they don't think Kira and Zona will judge them.

39. If someone could tell them anything about the future they asked, would they want to know? Would they ask?

I think they have actually, they asked if they were going to get married. I don't think they would want to ask something super serious because they aren't going to listen to a no.

40. What sets them free?

A good support system. Tinsel's very talented and driven but they need the power of friendship to keep them from burning out.

Nila

13. How do they like to spend afternoons free?

Nila likes to paint. She dipped her toe into art forgery for a little bit but decided it was more fun to steal the real thing and do her own work on the side. She has one of those cute little travel watercolors she uses to paint landscapes when she gets some time alone. Absolutely no one knows she has this hobby.

28. If they could change their class(es), would they? To what?

I dont think she'd change her class from rogue but she would def take some wizard skills.

Roman

11. What were their teenage years like?

He was a horrible teenage boy, mostly bc he wanted attention. He started off with red hair but occasionally made it redder when he got teased about it. He activated the Cain instinct in a lot of his siblings but I think Tinsel tried to kicked his ass the most purely due to how close their ages are. He shot them with an arrow by accident once and never lived it down.

His mom taught him archery at around 14-15 and he got very good at it to try and impress her. He left home around 18/19, picked up some odd jobs/repaired archery equipment professionally for a few years until Nila called him up like "hey bro miss you let's do this heist together".

6. Did they grow up with siblings? What were those relationships like?

Yes lmao my boy has 9 siblings. I sort of talked about this in the last question but yeah he liked to stir the pot for attention. Even though they tried to kick his ass, his siblings still love him. Him and Saoirse always got along really well and I'm p sure she stopped him from actually getting murdered as a kid lol. He really doesn't have a bad relationship with any of them, though, besides still owing Scone a bunch of money. Rome's a lot of fun and he's the kind of guy who will give or share anything with you. He is just A Lot.

7. How were their relationships with their parents/guardians growing up?

He def knew he wasn't the favorite child lol. I think once Knox realized why his kid was acting up, he made sure to spend some extra time with him every once and a while. And once he showed promise in archery, his relationship with Fulki got better too. I think he has an okay relationship with his parents right now but he definitely would never live with them again.

Benji

4. Who was their childhood hero?

Their dad! They're very similar people and he looks up to him a lot.

19. How does the high noon sun make them feel?

Sleepy... It's too darn hot. He's 100% not interested in going out at high noon so he's either taking a nap or hanging out somewhere shady with Folsom.

Saoirse

20. What did they dream of "growing up" to be?

I don't know if Saoirse had one specific dream. What she did know is that she didn't want to get married and she didn't want to have kids. I think she went through a bunch of phases on what she wanted to be when she grew up until she landed on being a wizard. When that stuck, she just leaned hard into it.

25. What is their comfort item/habit?

She's definitely one of those "make a hot beverage when I'm stressed" kind of people. She's also a stress baker... Which used to be a "make potions and light stuff on fire" habit but she realized she gets muffins if she bakes instead.

She also has a bunch of stuffed animals in her room, purely because she's an adult wizard and no one can tell her not to have stuffies.

27. Have they achieved any of their childhood dreams? Are they still trying? Have those dreams changed?

Oh, she totally achieved the wizard thing and now she's a real Howl Pendragon figure. She got bored being by herself so she applied to get some apprentices, but due to a clerical error, she wound up with a couple of brothers (Max and Arseny) who were way too young to be apprentices. She's basically raising them as her kids (they call her mama and the Townes all consider them grandkids/nephews lol) but Saoirse insists they're still her apprentices in public.

Fionn

6. Did they grow up with siblings? What were those relationships like?

Fionn was the golden oldest brother! He and Saoirse were basically 3rd/4th parents so the rest of the siblings came to love/respect him. He was really good at keeping the peace. Dude would have made a fantastic diplomat. The siblings especially liked when he told them stories about life before their family left the Muirs or stories about knights/heroes. It was a rough day when he disappeared and the siblings that remember him really miss him.

7. How were their relationships with their parents/guardians growing up?

Very strained. Like, he was def the favorite child, but Fionn really had some childhood trauma from The Fall that they couldn't help him with bc they also had it. He sort of resents that he got put into the auxiliary parent role on top of it. I think ultimately they expected way too much out of him so it was only natural he'd disappear and be feral.

10. When did their childhood end?

I don't think it was a definite ending, more of a gradual thing around his early teens when he realized he had a lot of responsibilities.

Scone

21. How did they become an adventurer?

Scone's best friend Latte (a Yuke who's good with magic) sent her a letter that suggested they'd make a good caravanning team. She was itching to leave the family caravan (she was tired of bailing her siblings out and knew that adventuring was good money) so she agreed!

23. What is their role in the party? Not just their class on a meta level, but among the individuals who make up the party?

Imagine a buff accountant and you have Scone lol.

Like Tinsel, Scone is the tank in combat. However, unlike Tinsel, Scone is weirdly responsible. She makes sure all the supplies are stocked and in order, makes sure everyone takes care of themselves and she keeps track of their earnings. She can be outgoing but she prefers to let her team do the social leg work.

#This is a big one omg but I loved it #Thank u Marlo #Gwen asks #Tinsel T Townes #Nila Townes #Roman Townes #Benji Townes #Saoirse Townes #Fionn Townes

[secret-engima]

Today in “SE works through the Chuunin Exam Arc and gets increasingly incredulous over how a show so beloved can have so many GAPING PLOT HOLES and also wow you can actually tell when the animators were getting paid to be enthusiastic or not can’t you”:

1. Sarutobi why did it take you so long to realize that the stadium and village were under attack.

2. Sarutobi why did you let Orochimoron take you hostage for even a hot second KAWARIMI IS A LITERAL ACADEMY BASIC TECHNIQUE JUST SWAP OUT WITH A NEARBY TILE YOU IDIOT I’VE SEEN IT DONE BEFORE FROM THAT CLOSE RANGE. KAKASHI DID IT. SO CAN YOU.

3. Sarutobi I don’t want to say you DESERVE to be trapped in a giant purple death box with your failed student and two dead guys trying to kill you but honestly you deserve to be trapped in a giant purple death box with your failed student and two dead guys trying to kill you.

4. Anbu. My guys. My dudes. I KNOW that the barrier is deadly and made of horrible purple fire and you can’t jump in but like- the barrier holders are right there. Wasting chakra to make an extra barrier around themselves. The barrier protecting them can’t be that thick. You have these lovely things call FLAME RESISTANT STEEL SWORDS you could be using to try to crack open the barrier. Or if you were REALLY smart you could, I don’t know, TUNNEL UP THROUGH THE CEILING??? The barrier is just a box that’s been turned upside down, there is no sign of a barrier floor underneath the tiles and even if there is you guys could have checked. You don’t need to just- sit there. Watching an old man, two dead guys, and a snake wearing makeup beat each other up.

5. Who let Kakashi make the plan. Why did Kakashi decide that it would be better to send the civilian girl he hasn’t bothered to train, the loud blond who he also hasn’t bothered to train, and the boy who tried to fake sleep to get out of helping go alone with just a tiny pug as escort. There were other genin RIGHT THERE who could both help AND be conveniently out of the line of fire in Kakashi’s fight. He was sending them after Sasuke, who was chasing three genin we’ve already seen wipe the FLOOR with the average genin. Having more numbers would be HIGHLY ADVANTAGEOUS.

6. And don’t tell me “he did it because Stealth” he sent the girl with bubblegum hair and the boy in neon orange out there, stealth is a non-factor and also it’s AN INVASION, nobody is going to care about a bunch of wacky kids running by they’re too busy trying not to die to the blur of green spandex that is Gai.

7. Where is Lee in all this anyway he just kinda vanished from the screen. Or was he passed out on the floor and I just missed him. I know he can’t fight, I just wanna know if he’s okay.

8. Was it bad that I didn’t know Asuma could actually fight? I knew he was one of the Guardian Twelve or whatever but mostly fans only talk about him getting owned by Itachi or murdered by Hidan so I guess I just assumed he was ... kinda a sucky fighter. I have been proven wrong. Nice job saving your deer boy, Asuma, I’m impressed.

9. There’s an actual budget for the Hokage fight? Nice. Also who gave Sarutobi the right to actually be cool NOW when he’s been acting senile for the past 10+ episodes excuse you.

10. EXCUSE YOU SARUTOBI YOU DON’T GET TO MAKE EPIC FEELS-INDUCING SPEECHES ABOUT THE WILL OF FIRE AND THE VILLAGE AS YOUR FAMILY, NOT WHEN YOU HAVE FAILED ON BOTH THOSE ASPECTS SO HARD.

11. How dare you make me regret your impending death even a little bit Sarutobi. How dare.

12. There’s a monkey king? That’s an actual THING? I mean I knew there was a monkey king but I didn’t expect him to be so amazing. Now if he would just stop waiting for Sarutobi to grow a spine (because we all know he won’t) and actually kick Orochimaru while the snake was distracted taunting his old sensei maybe we’d actually get somewhere with this show.

13. Seriously Monkey King you turn into a adamantine pole or whatever that can change shape and size, just play dead on the ground for a minute then expand and extend to the size and length of a tree. You don’t even have to do any damage yourself you just have to shove him/wack him into his own barrier and let him go up in flames. It probably won’t kill him, since Plot and also Orochimoron, but hey at least it will do damage and distract him for a few seconds.

14. Turning to Naruto real quick because clearly Sarutobi’s Senile Damsel Syndrome is contagious- Naruto. You are an Uzumaki. You have so much chakra you can barely do chakra control exercises. I know you’re tired from the Neji fight, but I ALSO know via fandom that you’re going to summon a freaking Boss Summon in a few episodes. When Shikamaru says “someone needs to stay behind and be a diversion” why didn’t you, I don’t know, SPAM A FEW SHADOW CLONES? You didn’t even have to use only shadow clones for the diversion, you could have just dropped off a few to help out Shika in his rare moment of self-sacrifice. Half a dozen screaming orange genin would go such a long way in providing a distraction so Shika could make a plan (may I suggest, catch the sound ninja in shadow possession and then have the Naruto’s slit their throats before their ninth member has a chance to catch up?). But no. We can’t possibly spam clones the one time a comrade could find them terribly useful, let’s go back to running through the trees worrying about the boy who knows an A-Rank assassination jutsu and would be totally fine surviving on his own for another several episodes of dialogue and reaction shots ten minutes.

15. Where the ACTUAL freak is Jiraiya. He came to Konoha specifically because he heard Orochimaru was planning something. There is an INVASION HAPPENING. GIANT SNAKES. BUSTING DOWN THE WALL. ENEMY NINJA EVERYWHERE. YOUR SENSEI IS TRAPPED IN A BARRIER JUTSU WITH THE GUY YOU SPECIFICALLY CAME HERE TO LOOK FOR. You don’t suppose you could leave your drinks and women and pity party long enough to- I don’t know- HELP? I mean I know it would be hard for someone who has such niche skills like SUMMONING GIANT TOADS and USING FUUNJUTSU THAT COULD PROBABLY BREAK THE BARRIER YOUR SENSEI IS TRAPPED IN but come on man, put forth a little effort.

Maybe you show up in a later episode miraculously doing something important to help stop the invasion, who knows.

Pros of this arc tho:

1. When they decide to actually use their animation budget THEY REALLY GO FOR IT. The fights that have a budget are epic.

2. Sakura got to be useful! For 20 seconds! She fended off a genjutsu and woke up Naruto and told him what was going on! That counts as useful! *devolves into sobbing because why are the girl characters not allowed to be both good guys AND competent onscreen*

3. I genuinely cheered when Asuma swooped in to save Shika. That was cool.

4. Some of the exam fight bits were cool. Naruto vs Neji dragged on a bit but the ending tactic was as rewarding as I’d hoped it would be from reading about it in the fandom. Also I really enjoyed the Shikamaru vs Temari fight. A-tier victory from the resident Deer Boi.

5. Sasuke using Chidori first time on screen was cool, and even though I’d read about it ahead of time, Gaara wigging out over seeing his own blood genuinely startled me.

6. I was glad to see that Sasuke still remembers how to use other jutsu than Chidori. When Temari started fighting him I was afraid the show writers would forget he HAD any jutsu other than Chidori tbh. Like Naruto and his many versions of the same jutsu (see: all the clone spam variations, all the harem jutsu variations, and all the many MANY different rasengan variations).

#Secret Engima Rambles #SE rants #naruto #SE watches anime #Salty SE is Salty #surprisingly I am actually enjoying the show #i just get a steady build up of salt and eyerolling over the plot holes #and need to expel it before continuing to watch the show #still confused why people think this is somehow better than boruto #at least boruto remembers that its characters can DO THINGS #other than sit and look shocked at different angles for minutes on end

[gotmilk5101520]

Miraculous Ladybug Rewatch Episode 67 Feast

Let the feast begin!

“Super Adrien…” “Isn’t Adrien Chat Noir?” “Shh. She doesn’t know that”

“Here, a black knight”

“Or Black Cat Miraculous holder”

“Here, a lady”

“Or a Butterfly superhero”

“Now this, Hercules”

“Or Lion Miraculous holder” Alya is smart. And she still can’t figure out Marinette is Ladybug.

“Why not a Bunny Miraculous while you're at it? Oh wait”

Man i wish i could see little details like this.

“According to my old man, the statue is almost two hundred years old!” “From what I found there hasn't been any Miraculous-wearing superheroes for the last two hundred years!” But in Backwarder Marianne knew of the Miraculous and how they work. So that would mean the remaining Miraculous, that Master Fu had, were used in secret.

“Alya is an excellent journalist. Sooner or later, she would have unveiled this secret kept under wraps for centuries” Can’t wait till it’s 100 years in the future and someone puts together the pieces that Marinette and Adrien were Ladybug and Chat Noir.

“Remember when I told you I made a terrible mistake? For you to understand, I must tell you the entire story”

“I was younger than you when I was chosen to be a guardian”

“My parents told me that it was a great honor. That I couldn't turn it down. So they took me to the temple” Okay, 2 things. First what does someone have to do to get picked to become a guardian? Do you have to sense something about them? And second Fu’s parents said this is a great honor that couldn’t be turn down. So people knew the Guardians existed back then? Was there like a village around the temple and the Guardians would go down there looking for successors?

“I wasn't very happy there. I would have preferred to live with my parents and be with other children my age. I didn't want to be a guardian of anything”

“One of the test to become a guardian required me to watch over a Miracle Box. For a full twenty-four hours without any food“ Noticed he said a Miracle Box.

“All I had for support was my apprentice's staff. Soon I was hungry. With each passing hour I became hungrier”

“And it was all because of the Miraculous. Because I had to watch over them. I couldn't take it any longer”

“So I took the Peacock Miraculous and used its power”

“All I wanted was a nice little companion I could sent to the kitchen to fetch me some rice balls. But the Miraculous must never be used for the wrong reasons” All in all this series keeps reminding us the Miraculous can’t be use for selfish reasons or something bad happens.

“The anger I was feeling mingled with my intense hunger. And I created a sentimonster that was very different from the one I had envisioned”

“A ravenous sentimonster out to devour everything, but specifically the Miraculous, since they were the bane of my life at that very moment”

“In my panic I lost my staff. The very object that would have enabled me to control it. I was just a young boy. I was so afraid I didn't even think of destroying it by simply using the Peacock Miraculous”

“I tried to erase all traces of the foolish thing that I had done. A monk told me to run away with the grimoire he managed to save, and the Miraculous Box. The very last Miraculous Box”

“That's when I realized my sentimonster had devoured all the other Miraculous Boxes that were kept in the temple” Wait i wonder if the people in the village i mentioned before noticed and went to check.

“And when the monks tried to stop it—the temple, the Order of the Guardians, everything… it was destroyed” Hold up he said the monks tried to to stop Feast. Did they use some of the Miraculous? Or were they skilled fighters without them?

“I tried to run away from the sentimonster”

“But by doing so, I lost the grimoire and both the Butterfly and the Peacock Miraculous”

“I thought the sentimonster had disappeared forever” Wait so the lava didn’t burn the sentimonster or the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous?

“Nathalie sometimes gets dizzy spells. But it's nothing serious”

“Why the long face?”

“My mom used to have dizzy spells… just like Nathalie. My father said those weren't serious either” *Cries in French*

“I will help you. It comes from the region where we found our Miraculous” “Oh the place where your wife used the Peacock Miraculous, and that’s how we got ourselves in this mess”

How about a duet?

*Cries in French again*

Mayura has made it into Area 51

“Oh, but don't you worry, I'll give them back to you as soon as I'm done with them. I'll even give you the Peacock and mine as a bonus” Why would Gabriel want to get rid of the Miraculous after it’s over? Then all the Miraculous would be gone and no one would use them.

“Really? You just made it bigger?”

“What sort of fucking magic is this?”

Marinette has trained to face her biggest enemy. The Fence.

“Chat Noir? Is that you? Why a Banana? Where did you get it?”

“Well it was just laying around”

“Master, look! Ladybug and Chat Noir, despite their ridiculous costumes, okay where did they get those ridiculous costumes?”

“Hey, have a taste of this! Some exploding banana split from Bananoir!”

“Much tastier than any Miraculous!” Are you sure about that?”

Best side of the love square. Bikerbug x Bananoir.

“Hey! Leave them alone! I'm the one you have been wanting the past one hundred and seventy-two years!”

“The guardian of the Miraculous is this decrepit old man? Wait have i seen him somewhere before?”

“He’s that old man!”

“I am not scared of you anymore!”

“Okay, maybe i still am”

“There are only two places where your staff could be. Where the temple was, or…” If it was still at the temple then they would’ve been fucked.

“Hurry, my lady, this thing already swallowed my stick whole!” Yeah “Stick”

“Uh, you sure it's the right time, my lady?” The right time for what?

“Oh no, not the tongue…”

Yeah right.

“Man, look at all these things it ate. Wait are those humans?” “Pretty sure they’ll die once we defeat the sentimonster” “What if they don’t?” “Then we can show them memes”

“Don't be bemused, it's just the news! Extraordinary and inexplicable!”

“That pretty much sums up the surprising reappearance of this temple in the Tibetan mountains—”

“ —a hundred and seventy-two years after it was destroyed”

“Let's go to Clara Contard on location” Umm why were they watching? It makes sense to see Gabriel, Nathalie, and Alya. But Tomoe and Audrey? Why were they watching it? Are they planning to form some evil bad parents team?

“That's correct, Nadja. But what makes this phenomenon particularly unexplainable is that all the monks who used to live in the temple have also reappeared year 1844!” So who’s gonna show them memes?

“The monks have been freed and the temple has been restored. It’s going to be awkward for them seeing technology”

“I shall go and see them someday soon, and explain everything to them. And show them some fun cat memes”

“And the time has come for me to prepare you to become the new guardian”

“The guardian? But Master, you're the guardian! You have been for a hundred and seventy-two years! Let’s talk about this another time” “Marinette, it’s been 11 episodes since i told you. Stop delaying this”

“I was joking. Those strict traditions did no good when I was your age I mean it’s not like you’ll end up burning Paris to the ground” “Yeah... Hahahaha...”

“Now that Hawkmoth knows who I am it's too dangerous for me to live here” “Is the mustache really necessary”

“I'm not going anywhere until Hawkmoth is defeated. I'll never leave you” *Cries in Miracle Queen*

Now that was a feast to remember.

I want to play video games. No I must finish this!

#miraculous ladybug #milk rewatches miraculous ladybug

[bow-woahh]

If you’re still doing the game, chapter 6 from the grocery store onward?

Send me your favorite scene/chapter from one of my works and I’ll post a DVD commentary on it.

ask and you shall receive!

Little bit of background info, this chapter is obviously part one of two, chapter six being it's better if I calm down, and chapter 7 being the rest of the line: it's better if I lash out. If you listened to the song full stop, you might have already known that lmao

I felt like these two chapters worked well being split into two parts (I mean imagine how long it would have been if it wasn't ... like no thank you) because of the overarching themes across them and most importantly, the plot line with her mom and the readers not knowing what's putting her on edge in chapter 6. It was so much fun to play around with and hint that there was clearly something bothering her. I think in my outline, before I found the official title this chapter was called "calm before the storm" because that truly is what it is, there's a lot of nice, fun moments, but it's clear there is something bad on the way.

Anyway, tangent over, commentary time!

They caught a bus to get to the closest grocery store, which was still a twenty minute journey away, so Catra ignored Diego for most of the ride, listening to music and texting Adora.

When I was originally outlining chapters and everything, the grocery scene wasn't planned in to this chapter (I just love giving myself more to do). I have a section in my outline document where it's kinda just a thought dump of things I want to happen possibly at some point, because I think it'd be cool or cute or whatever. This was one of those instances, and because this chapter felt a bit bare bones at first (the final product was not in the slightest) I added this in as it felt like a great way to introduce Adora and Diego and since Catra and Adora are still fairly early in their relationship here, it just worked so well, because they truly didn't expect to see each other.

“Hey, hi! I knew you said you were going shopping, but I didn’t think—well I guess it does make sense since you live in Alwyn but—”

Okay, time for context no one asked for! Bright Moon is the city they are in (obviously) and Frighton (the Fright Zone) is the neighbouring city. Bright Moon is kinda split into lower city, upper city and mid/center city (guess which kinda classes live where). Alwyn and Elberon (where Catra and Adora live respectively) are more lower city, so they are typically where poorer people live, though there are some nice places there I'm sure. Just not many.

Adora said, “Loser? Nah, Catra’s actually super cool, trust me.” She looked at Adora, properly, for the first time in a few minutes, and found her staring back at her with a fond smile.

Adora's piss poor attempt at flirting. Jk, but I do think this moment is v cute and I just love how Adora defended Catra, even though it's just her younger cousin being stupid. We love to see it.

Once again Diego beat her to it, opening the door and saying, “Sure!” before jumping out and slamming it shut.

[Context for this line: Adora asked if they needed help taking the bags out of her truck.] Honestly, Diego's really cute here. He really admires Adora and looks up to her so he's taking every possible opportunity to talk to her, and be around her.

“You know you could've left, like, ages ago, right Grayskull?"

“Yeah well,” Adora did that little shrug she always did. “I didn't mind.”

Narrowing her eyes for a moment, Catra said slowly, “Alright. Well, you can go now. And I should probably head in.”

She turned to go inside, when Adora grabbed her wrist. “Wait.”

Ahhh I love this whole section of dialogue so I had to talk about it. These two are just... useless. What I love about them, and writing them in specifically this, is the constant push and pull with them, how they can never just explicitly say whar they want, either in fear they'll be judged and rejected or because they don't even fully understand what they want to begin with. With Catra and Adora, as much as one can say something like "You should go" the other will always hesitate to, will always have something at the tip of their tongue that they're not quite saying, or like here, will literally tell them to stay, using words or otherwise. They want each other but aren't quite ready to admit it yet. And I just think that's beautiful.

Also the grabbing of the wrist and the "Wait"? Pretty sure that was an accidental reference to the "stay" scene in Taking Control but it's so ingrained into my brain I'm sure it was subconscious.

“Do you wanna get out of here?”

This line is just so... teenage romance vibes and I love it

Even though they had been talking nonstop for days now, and had seen each other just the other day, there was a palpable tension in the air, one that Catra wasn’t exactly sure how to deal with.

The said tension was definitely more on Adora's end than Catra's, because obviously, Catra is still hiding things (or more accurately, just not sharing them) and although Adora wants to pretend to be fine with it, the closer she gets, the more she wants to know what the truth is, she doesn't want to listen to the lies and rumours anymore.

Adora studied her face for a moment, before saying carefully, “Well, I, uh, have a ton of old gear I’ve been meaning to get rid of, but maybe you could ask him if he wants it? It’d be a good start.”

Catra hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “I'm sure he'd like that. I'll, uh, see what he says and get back to you.”

“Great!” Adora beamed.

Another little moment I love because Adora is just so considerate here and understands that Catra doesn't want to delve into things like money issues. She also gets Catra isn't one to accept handouts but the way she puts it isn't ‘let me help you out’ but more ‘you'd be doing me a favour’. Adora understands how she feels. She gets it.

“Why did he think you were texting your ‘boyfriend’ by the way?” Adora asked, and Catra felt her heart drop to her stomach. She hadn’t thought Adora had been paying attention to what Diego said (arguably nobody should ever pay attention to anything he says, ever) but of course she had, because once again, Catra had underestimated Adora’s observational skills.

“Because he's a stupid kid who doesn't know what he's talking about.”

Honestly Diego isn't that far from the truth he just needs to turn that 'boy' in boyfriend to girl.

Also the fact Adora is asking about this.... interesting. Catra's answer.....very defensive and also interesting. Once again they're so many unspoken words and subtext layered in all of this. It's like a tiered cake.

“That? Oh, nah. I don't—it's not really any of her business, y'know?” Catra replied, staring just past Adora’s shoulder.

Catra is replying to Adora asking whether or not Serenia knows she's a lesbian and, well, obviously what she said wasn't true. Well it was, technically, but she's ommiting the real reason. As I've already at least slightly portrayed, Catra has a complicated relationship with her sexuality, and I don't want to spoil it but that will definitely be explored more in the future, and Serenia definitely plays a part in it, being her guardian after all.

“I guess it was always kind of obvious. I never looked at guys the same way I look at girls—my first crush was some girl in like elementary, although I didn't realise at the time, and they just continued from there. I thought all girls had crushes on other girls at some point, that wishing I was a guy so I could be with them was what everyone did. When I realised they didn't, that it was weird, I spent all my time convincing myself I just wanted to be my celebrity crush and not be with them, until I actually kissed a girl for the first time. Then I couldn't exactly ignore it. I still tried to though. Especially when—well yeah, I tried to deny it for a while. But then, I guess I got tired. Of lying to myself.”

This whole paragraph is just... yes. No one has ever asked Catra how she knew, but more importantly, Catra has never wanted to answer this question, and if it were anyone else asking, she would have definitely shut it down, or answered with something short and simple. It's because it's Adora, and because she's growing more comfortable with her, to the point where she doesn't mind, even wants to share these types of details about herself. That vulnerability is even more important in chapter 7, so this was a stepping stone of sorts for her.

“So, uh, how about you? Not that I’m saying that you’re—but since you asked…” She cursed at herself internally when Adora's expression morphed into one of surprise, eyes slightly widening. 

“Oh, me? I, um—I don't really know. Is that weird? I just haven't ever really thought too much about it. I guess my main priorities are school, lacrosse, and work.”

God, it's in moments like these where I wish I wrote from Adora's perspective as well. Because there's a lot to unpack here. She's not lying when she says this, I do think this is partially how she feels. But, some could argue it's so obvious how much she likes Catra, and she's definitely admired some women before. So. I'll leave it at that because otherwise I'll say too much.

Quickly though, back to the what I said about writing in Adora's perspective... saying this here and here only because I don't know if it'll happen but I did have an idea to make a sequel of sorts, from her perspective. But, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The smooth stream had been interrupted once Adora had asked if Catra's had any plans next week, with Halloween coming up. The relaxed, open demeanor that Adora had seen for the past few hours had almost instantly closed up again, and she could hardly focus on what Adora was saying anymore.

Now that Chapter 7 is out, why she reacted this way obviously makes a lot of sense, but to add more of a commentary to it, as we saw throughout this chapter she was trying her best to ignore her emotions about her mom's death anniversary because for once things were going well and therefore she had other things to focus on. Adora mentioning Halloween forced Catra to acknowledge it, along with the memories that come with her mothers death.

“Promise you won't ditch me?”

“I, Adora Grayskull, promise not to ditch you,” she said, hand on heart.

We love a good promise cameo.

“Did you really get kicked out? Of Horde High?”

Catra should have been expecting this to come up once again. It was bound to. With all the rumours. Especially when Sparkles seemed to be a fan with how she brought it up on Sunday.

I've already talked a bit about the rumours and how they arose in my chap 1 commentary, but really I wanted to talk about Glimmer here, since her scene was before the grocery scene and I have a lot to say about this one. Initially when I wrote it, the scene was a fairly quick altercation that kinda lacked a real punch, but after spending a little more time on it after my beta pointed some things out...it hit hard. I know there is a fuck Glimmer train at the moment because, yeah, Glimmer is pretty mean in that scene. And other scenes. I don't know why I love writing Glimmer as her S4 self so much, but it's fun to play around with okay? I like how she can take on an almost antagonistic role at times.

Glimmer thinks what she is doing is to the benefit of her own friend, by pointing out all of Catra's faults and the fact that she's from the Horde, but I also think there's a little jealousy there. No Glimmer doesn't like Adora, but she is quite a possessive friend, so I can't imagine she likes the fact Adora is spending so much time with someone she doesn't know, and to add to it, she's got the worst reputation in the school. So.

Catra thought back to the moment, and remembered what had provoked it, all the way back in eighth grade. “Yeah. I'd say they did.”

Exclusive for Tumblr gang only, but yes they did on fact deserve it because they called Catra the d-slur. This was during a time where she was really struggling with her sexuality so at the time, this cut deep.

As Catra lay in bed that night, she found her mind wandering back to Adora's handshake, how they had held on for just a little too long, mismatched eyes staring into blue ones. How such a casual touch had brought back that burning sensation, that need to be closer.

Ah...the handshake. There is literally no other reason for this other than the fact they are gay. This chapter along with the next are especially important for their development physically—they get a lot more comfortable touching each other in passing but at the same time they still have to find a reason to touch each other (hence the handshake). Either way, it helps break another barrier in their relationship, and this is even moreso the case in chapter 7. I don't know if you noticed, but that chapter is full of small touches and more, but they couldn't have gotten there if it wasn't for the little steps along the way.

Boy that was a long one! I hope you guys enjoyed this, I know I said chap 8 would be out soon but schools really kicking my ass, trying to find a balance is hard. Nevertheless, it will be out asap, I appreciate your patience! (:

#spop #catradora #micah answering asks #bloom #bloom asks #asks and answers #send anons #ty anon #again #this was fun

[fmdjongsu]

           HEY, i’m eva and i’m so happy for the opportunity to be here and write here. i’ll be honest, i’m bringing in a pretty complicated sad boy here so, be prepared for all the disaster of writing with him. i’ll put some quick links below, and feel free to ask for more when plotting in dms. i’m also going to include a few trigger warnings through the process of this intro! let’s get started!! ♥

                  𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧     ・     𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦

𝗣𝗨𝗕𝗟𝗜𝗖 𝗞𝗡𝗢𝗪𝗟𝗘𝗗𝗚𝗘

im jongsu, the main vocal 1 of mars.

somehow survived after a meager ~7 month training time at dimensions before being shuffled into mars for debut.

just a tall boy in the takes ages to memorize choreo properly line.

known to be very private about his personal life prior to his joining the industry.

a gentle giant personality who is quite kind to fans.

has admitted during lives that he had a difficult time with his stage fright and nerves at debut, and that he still has jitters before every stage to the current day.

his weakest skill is acting. only a little more weak than his sometimes awkward variety.

it is public knowledge that he can play multiple instruments, including a love for piano or keyboard.

a “down to earth” vibe gets him praises from seniors and talk show hosts usually. that he’s has a somewhat methodical, polite and humble personality is a talking point when all else fails.

generally known for a very masculine and warm appeal, excels at the ‘idol boyfriend’ concept.

openly expresses interest in indie music, american television and science fiction novels.

discusses with fans that he’s studying english, and sometimes practices english with fans during lives.

sometimes sneaks off to other groups or artists concerts in disguise when he’s free off of his schedule. this has been a talking point and there’s been a few blurry pictures here or there by fans but he usually jokes that it’s not something he would do recklessly or without permission.

𝗣𝗥𝗜𝗩𝗔𝗧𝗘 𝗜𝗡𝗙𝗢

im jongsu, born in busan, moved to ilsandong-gu at the age of 10, then to seoul at the age of 16/17

his birth parents gave him up for adoption and he was taken in by a moderate sized foster family where he lived all of his teenage years without being relocated

neither set of parents were exactly good at parenting nor did he bond with either, so jongsu as many do has some typically inherited traits such as at times attention seeking behavior and some anxiety.

he does not enjoy the work of being an idol but he does enjoy making music. particularly, singing, playing instruments and on occasion being able to appreciate adoration over his talents or music from others

(this is expanded more upon in his biography) jongsu used to play indie music in a 2 man band that did street performances as a teenager. this ended poorly and abruptly for him when he lost his bandmate and the trauma of this still lingers to this day. jongsu has quite a sizeable bit of survivors guilt and that will play heavily into his characterization, and there will sometimes be trigger warnings in self paras as a result. 

his demeanor is closed off usually, not cold (at least, not in the unfriendly or unkind sort of way) but intentionally not connected. he does tend to calm and relax around those few who become his friends, but it’s usually a lengthy process to get there. 

he has protective nature, quiet and deliberate, a very prudent person. he might have a little bit of a class valedictorian or businessman personality at first impressions.

there’s spikes of spontaneous and fun nature in him hidden beneath a methodical obsession with staying on some predetermined, nondisclosed path he has for himself.

he has a half-breed/mutt pupper named remi.

not someone who will drink to get drunk, other than a few sips he doesn’t drink enough to get wasted unless he’s in a bad mental space.

𝗣𝗟𝗢𝗧𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚

below is some plotting ideas aside from the ones in my CONNECTIONS page (there’s around 12 there, and more specific than these below, for anyone interested)

anyone who doesn’t identify with or take to serious personality types might find him very stuffy for their tastes at first. he could prove them wrong? (as a potential plot?)

anyone who does take to serious personality types, or could use a foil to keep them tied to earth, he can be their guardian angel.

someone with daddy or big brother type issues/preferences please appeal to or imprint on him as the cool sexy serious type of their dreams.

maybe he’s a muse for your muse who they find fascinating or want to pick his brain to little avail.

any 94liners that he could recognize as a same-aged friend and let go of some of his stuffy formalities with.

someone who’s a fan of his beautiful voice ??? forever fans.

counter to that: mutual fans of each other’s voices or bodies of work.

in particular i’m interested in unlikely friends or age gap friends who can talk about their experiences and give each other differing perspective advice.

dancers to give him tips on his dance or choreography memorization.

someone who’s been to the other side and back, seen past a few of his walls into who he could be, and a falling out put them back on the other side with inaccessible jongsu again. a fallen out relationship is a big want for me. 

bumped into him drunk and he gave them his number or they ended up sleeping over at his place, but he doesn’t remember doing either of those things and it leads to a lot of awkwardness and hilarity probably ensues.

for more, please check my connections page at /plots, i have many more!

#fmdcall

[v16butterfly]

((AWE don’t worry I understood what you meant but, I actually haven’t been asked to write this specific prompt before. This one is actually really cute. :) I hope you don’t mind that I am having it to be his sweater instead of a shirt.))

The Blue Sweater

As usual he was being impatient. His narrow fingers drummed against the table that held his milkshake. In his mind he thought everything through. He would tell himself, every so often, to just wait for five more minutes. Yet whenever the time was up, he would just hear the thick Russian accent of his adoptive father, reminding him why he had to wait. He didn’t want to let him down. It’s the first year living with the jolly bearded man and he respects his decent sense of humor. Unfortunately something his previous caregivers didn’t possess...

The bell that hung over the diner’s door chimed once again when it opened. Jack lost count of how many times he lifted his head hoping that it was the unfortunate student that was stuck tutoring him. Only this time he couldn’t move his eyes away.

She was a petite girl with what looked like a never-ending flow of golden hair. Extravagant green eyes peered out in search of someone while she stood there awkwardly. He got up to get a better look. He watched the way she stood, balancing on her heels. He watched the way she unknowingly walked on her tip-toes. He then watched as her small feet grew nearer until they met up with his own. Lilac flats across from unkempt black converse.

“Is your name...Jack Frost?”

He looked up to catch up with her gaze.

“Uhhh...Yeah.” The pale boy scratched the back of his neck casually.

“Nice to meet you! My name is Rapunzel, I’m your--”

“Tutor...Yeah, I know.”

Taken aback from his snappy interruption, Rapunzel slowly placed her things on her side of the booth. She managed to keep her cheery disposition despite his lack of enthusiasm. 

“Alright! So I took a look over your request form,” She began as they both settled down in their seats. “And I noticed that it includes more than just one subject.”

“Yeah...You must really hate me.” Jack smirked along with his blunt remark. After all he was just saying what was possibly true. No need to sugarcoat any of this. 

Rapunzel tilted her head, “Why would you say that?”

“Because I’m going to be a lot of work for you, Blondie.” He answered as he slyly leaned forward to take a peek over his own form she was reviewing.

She swiftly took away the document from his view and placed it back in her binder. 

“Again, my name is Rapunzel.” She calmly said as she brought out the things she needed, “And I enjoy what I do as a tutor, so I don’t mind at all!”

Jack sighed and slumped back against his seat.

Rapunzel chuckled silently to herself, “Oh come on! It’s not going to be that bad. Not with me!”

“Good luck with that.” He muttered as he watched her set up. 

She chose to ignore his comment and added, “After all I am going to be working with you for a while...”

“Wait...What?”

“Jack... This won’t be our only session.”

“Then for how long are we meeting up?”

Rapunzel was close to being dumbfounded by his surprised reaction, but she put two and two together that he was probably new to this whole “tutor” concept. 

“Well I’ll be seeing you until there is proof in improvement on the subjects you are struggling with. Also your parent--”

“Guardian actually.” He corrected.

“Oh sorry... Your guardian... will have to sign you off on an additional form that comes with your report card to allow an end to your tutor sessions.”

He grinned with a new thought. That was until she added, “Followed by a meeting with said guardian to confirm the cease of my services.”

“Great......” Jack said in defeat.

“Do you have anymore questions before we start, Jack?” She kindly asked, trying to keep a positive air within the booth. 

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Okay! Let’s get started!”

Two hours later and Jack was getting close to understanding how to solve chemistry equations. He was definitely frustrated throughout the session, but thankfully Rapunzel’s patience persisted for her to guide him. So many times he wanted to give up and cursed at himself for not grasping it. She didn’t allow him to stop and kept encouraging him to give it another try. That was until she looked at the time...

“I think we should wrap it up.” Rapunzel said abruptly. 

“Huh?” Jack had his hand against his forehead as he looked up from his work.

“We were supposed to be done 10 minutes ago... and I need to be heading home...” She said in a concerned tone as she began to gather her things.

“But I think I’m close to solving it. I thought my tutor would die to see that happen.”

“I mean I wish I could of course! I just need to be home at a certain time and i’m already running late.” 

She got up from the booth and looked at Jack while her hands held the straps of the backpack that wrapped over her arms. “It was nice meeting with you, Jack. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Thanks.” He nodded.

Rapunzel smiled and went on her way out the door.

Jack watched her with a curious gaze. He was still surprised with how much she could put up with him. But he shrugged at the thought because after all this was only the first meeting. Who knows if that incredible patience of hers will last?

He decided it was time for him to head home too. It’s not like he has anything else to do inside this diner. So he carelessly shoved his work in his Jansport backpack and left the booth. 

The bell was getting on his last nerve as he heard it chime from his exit through the door. It didn’t last though because the sound was dominated by the heavy rainfall outside. Jack was unfazed by this abrupt change of weather. Yet as he scanned the atmosphere around him, he found someone with the opposite reaction. 

There she was...standing under the same outdoor roof he was under. With no umbrella in hand, Rapunzel shivered as she contemplated if the rain was getting any lighter. 

“So I take it you’re not a fan of rain?” He said as he stood next to her and watched the storm before them. 

Her pacing eyes snapped out of it and immediately peered up to follow the voice that interrupted her fixated thoughts. “Oh um...”

“Well it’s just a fun challenge to me.” He playfully remarked. Jack smiled and kept his eye contact with her as he casually inched his head forward just enough for raindrops to fall on his hair.

Rapunzel snorted at the sight of this and he seemed to be proud of that reaction.

“You see! Harmless!”

She got back to being serious and replied, “I always had my portable umbrella packed in my bag...And the one day I forgot to...It pours when I’m running late...”

He tilted his head, “And? That happens to anyone...you don’t have to make such a big deal out of this.”

“I’m not!”

“Then why are you being so hard on yourself?”

She stayed quiet... she’s not so skilled at comebacks.

Jack rolled his eyes and silently watched the storm. He could easily walk away from this situation just like he normally would. He usually doesn’t have any care for people being difficult...so why was he still standing there?

Rapunzel sighed and mumbled, “She’s going to be so furious...”

The thought of walking into her house with drenched clothes on top of it being past her curfew, made her feel uneasy.

He turned his head back to her and studied her worried expression. It wasn’t easy to read... but for some reason....

Jack wanted to fix it.

Before you know it he was removing his oversized blue hoodie.

He gestured it towards her. “Here.”

She glanced upon it in confusion. “What?” Rapunzel moved her gaze back to his.

“You can borrow this. I’m sure it can keep you dry.”

“Are you sure?”

He was already walking in the rain in front of her, “Not really, that’s my favorite sweater!”

Rapunzel laughed, “Thank you...”

It was almost like he would perfectly fit in on the set of Singing In The Rain. He was entertaining her with his dancing feet kicking at the puddles. She was enjoying it.

“I’ll take good care of it, I promise!”

“You better!” He said as he bowed to her, “Good night, Princess!”

As he walked away, Rapunzel didn’t know if being called “princess” was supposed to be an insult, a compliment, or a light-hearted joke. But she smiled and shook her head before she put the hood of his sweater on.

She finally took a step into the rain. She felt inspired. On her way home she skipped and danced with a sense of joy. Hoping to feel the same way Jack did under the stormy clouds before he left.

The next morning, Jack was not feeling himself...

Nothing was physically wrong with him, but he was convinced that the world turned against him the moment he woke up. He was clumsier than usual...Well when was he ever clumsy to begin with? Jack was used to feeling in control, with swagger, and as if he was in tune with nature. But instead he’s been tripping on things that he believes appeared out of nowhere (when in reality he’s lost his focus). He has bumped into two people on his way out of the bus and on the pathway towards the school entrance. And speaking of an entrance...as he was just walking in, one of the doors swung back with a force that smack him right in the face.

Ok we’re off to a good start...

Jack thought as he rubbed his face in pain. Maybe some music would...

“Are you KIDDING ME...” He exclaimed to himself in the middle of the hallway, startling almost everyone nearby. The teen forgot his headphones at home. Jack proceeded to rub his face, but this time in frustration.

He dragged his eyes with his hand and as he looked up, there he saw a teacher glaring at him with dissaproval.

He rolled his eyes and saluted to the woman along with the rest of the school staff looking up through the office windows. They all collectively moved on for they weren’t surprised with a scene involving the infamous school troublemaker.

Jack proceeded down the hall and was doing his best to ignore the stares. He knew why...

“Yeah, don’t ask...” He muttered.

It was the first time his classmates seen him without his trademark blue sweater on. A rare sighting, but it didn’t change his attractiveness to many of those gazing at him in the hall. Yet, he was starting to gather that the absence of his sweater was becoming his kryptonite.

Finally he made it to his locker in one piece. With his muscle memory, Jack turned the knob in the same motion as every school day....

at least he thought he was?

“why....are....you....not....” Jack was starting to steam up.

“Good morning, Jack!”

He jumped....he never jumps at anything...

Jack looked over his shoulder in surprise while still gripping onto the lock.

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “Uhhmm are you okay?”

He looked back at his lock and sighed in defeat, “Trying to be....”

She bit her lip before proceeding, “Well I just wanted to confirm that you’re coming for our session after school, right?”

“Yeah...sure!”

“Great see you, then!”

Rapunzel walked further down the hall with a skip to step quite similar to Jack’s walk in the rain the night before.

He watched her and sensed there was something different with her.

That was when she quickly turned around in the middle of the hall on the other end.

“Oh and Jack! Thank you so much for letting me borrow the sweater!” She happily hollered at him.

He smiled. Her pure sweetness was contagious, “No problem!”

Then that’s when he was getting hinted by the looks from students around him. Jack took a double take and he finally took notice....

She’s wearing the sweater

“Oh shit...RAPUN-”

But the bell interrupted his call and the long blonde hair disappeared within the crowd as they dispersed into their classrooms.

Jack was now standing in the hall alone, late, and with a locker he can’t unlock.

Rapunzel sat in her desk and finally remembered she was supposed to return the sweater.... But, then she thought...

Well at least now he knows he HAS to go to his tutoring session...

This works too.

#drabble #drabbles #writing #creative writing #creative #write #drabble request #drabble requests #jackunzel #jackunzel drabbles #story #stories #mini story #mini stories #crossover #jackunzel story #jackunzel drabble #jackunzel stories #jack #rapunzel #jack frost #jack overland frost #rise of the guardians #tangled #ROTG #tangled fandom #rotg fandom #RotBTD #disney #disney drabble

[diannaphantomfiction]

Karivarry LifeSwap AU Writing Prompts. Prompt 12/♾: Day in the Life

Prompt requested by Anonymous

Kara, Barry and Oliver and their interactions with their teams + how they live their civilian lives

____________

“You can’t be serious.” Kara stared at her manager, sorry former manager, in shock.

“I’m sorry, Kara. The owner didn’t give me a choice. She said the police called. That you lied about your criminal history?”

It had taken Kara weeks to get a job at this stupid theme diner. She hadn’t even wanted it, but she needed the work desperately. So, during the day she stuffed herself into the stupid uniform (A pink dress with a fancy black apron tied around her waist and a pair of kitten heels), plastered a smile on her face, laughed at customers’ bad jokes, and hoped her feet wouldn’t be bleeding at the end of her shift. It wasn’t a good job per say, but they paid her minimum wage before she got her tips and gave her daytime hours.

And Maggie had lied to her boss and cost her it.

“I was never convicted of anything! They let me go every. Single. Time.”

“I’m sorry, Kara. You’re a good worker, but…”

Kara sighed, “You need a job too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. I’ll change out of my uniform.”

“Thanks, Kara.”

Kara changed out of her uniform and returned everything, before leaving the building. She shoved down her anger and marched to the nearest bus stop. She was running out of options. Sure, she still had her inheritance, her mother had removed the excess requirements when Kara had come home broken and mentally scared. Cat Grant may have believed in hard work, but she wasn’t a monster. She would never leave her daughter to the streets if her PTSD prevented her from working. So she had a nice apartment, more than enough money to take care of Carter as his guardian, put food on the table, and pay for anything they would need, but she wanted to work. She hated sitting around doing nothing and John had literally pushed her out of the “Arrow Cave” a few times because “being the Arrow 24/7 isn’t healthy”.

Unfortunately, no one wanted to hire a girl with a BA in Anthropology. She supposed she could go back to school somehow, get her Master’s and PhD. But, the idea of field work made her heart race, her organs to chill, and her stomach to flip. She was actually terrified of it now when before it had excited her, and she wasn’t willing to admit that. Kara waved down the bus and rode it until she reached her favorite coffee shop. Apparently it was time to start looking for jobs. Again. So, that’s what she did, applying to everything she came across that she’d be able to do for hours until it was time to go home. She’d be there just long enough to fix dinner and wrangle Carter into homework and sleep before she was due at the Arrow Cave.

“Hey kid.” Kara said, ruffling Carter’s hair as she walked past him on the way to the kitchen. He was working on his Math homework, which would give Kara plenty of time to throw together something mostly healthy for them to eat.

“Hey Kara. I thought you got off work earlier today?”

Kara paused. Damn it, this kid was too smart. “So chicken or fish tonight? I think I have some Cod in the fridge…”

“Did you get fired again?”

Kara turned away just long enough to pull the cod and some vegetables out. “Yeah.”

Carter didn’t say anything for a few minutes, letting Kara work on cooking as he half-focused on a Math problem. As soon as the food was left to simmer, knowing that all Kara had to do was watch it, he spoke up again.

“You know you don’t have to work right? Mom said that if your PTSD was too bad…”

“Oh Car…” she turned to face him, “It’s not that simple. I like working. I like keeping busy. If I don’t work, it will just keep getting worse. Staying busy helps. Besides, what would I do with myself all day if I didn’t have a job?”

Carter shrugged. “I don’t know. I just...I don’t want you to end up getting hurt because you’re not ready for something, Kar.” Kara smiled at the old nickname. It had been a joke from Alex that had stuck. Her baby siblings: Kar and Car. Eventually the two of them had claimed the names for themselves, Carter actually declaring that only Kara was allowed to call him that.

“I’m glad you care, but it’s not your job to worry about me. I’m the big sister and you’re the teenage boy. It’s your job to do stupid shit and make mistakes and learn and it’s my job to worry about you.”

Kara was extremely glad that Carter was old enough to be left alone as she slipped out of the apartment to go to her “second job”. Kara had told Carter it was a managing job at Lena’s club and it was a good cover...for people who didn’t know who was on staff at Lena’s club or what was in it’s basement. So, Carter believed it. He was a smart kid, but he didn’t have all the facts and Kara was going to make sure he didn’t until he was older. Kara walked down to find John and Winn arguing about something lightheartedly, Lena elegantly stuffing her face with french fries, Mike and James arguing about something significantly less lightheartedly, and Kaldur and Artemis sparing.

“Kaldur! Artemis! What have I told you about sparing right before a planned patrol?”

They stopped. Kaldur at least looked reasonably chastised, he released his hard water construct swords, but not back into his water pack or as water vapor. No, he just let it fall to the ground. He then looked more embarrassed and even more chastised, luckily he realized his mistake and touched the puddle with a finger, he made his markings glow and evaporated it into the air.

Artemis on the other hand, just rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. Kara loved Artemis like a little sister, she really did, but that girl had more bitterness in her pinkie toe than the rest of Kara’s team combined. Kara would never blame her for that, no teenager should have to suffer through being raised in the League of Assassins. Unfortunately, it did make it difficult to act as her mentor. Kara had learned that, for the most part, Artemis needed to make her own mistakes and Kara let her as long as the mistakes wouldn’t get her killed. So if it had just been Artemis going some intense training, Kara would have let her, lecturing her after she tried to spin kick someone with a sprained ankle and wouldn’t be able to walk on it for a couple weeks. Kaldur didn’t learn like that though and if he’d pulled a muscle or gotten hit wrong during sparring and injured himself more in the field, it would only serve to put him in a funk and it could take him days to get back to normal.

“I want you two on petty crimes tonight. And remember; back here by 2:30, back home by 3:00.”

“Petty crimes? Again?” Artemis snarled, “We’ve been on petty crimes all week!”

Kaldur bit his lip. He clearly thought something similar, but was thinking up a way to say it more respectfully. “We’re just...concerned you’re going easy on us. How are we supposed to learn if we aren’t challenged.”

Kara’s shoulders slumped. “I know. But...what we’ve been working on...I’m trying to make sure everyone comes out alive. You’re both extremely talented and skilled, but the man we’re fighting won’t hesitate to kill you, even if you are just teenagers. I want you both alive, and if that means keeping you on the sidelines for a while, that’s what I’m going to do.”

Neither teen looked particularly happy about that, but they didn’t argue. Simply nodded and sulked off to do their job.

“That’s probably going to come back to bite you.” Winn said, spinning just a little too hard in his chair and taking a couple extra circles, which almost completely undermined his point.

“They’ll get over it when they’re still alive,” Kara said, walking over to her suit. “So, have we found something more about Ra’s Al Ghul?”

“Nothing more than the usual chatter,�� John said.

“You know if Alex was here…” Mike stops as everyone glares at him.

Kara stares him down for a few seconds. “Wildcat. Petty crimes.”

“What?”

“You’re on petty crimes. Mentioning my dead sister is in very poor taste and if you’re not going to provide meaningful contributions I’m going to treat you like one of the teenagers. Petty. Crimes.”

Mike stared at her, but eventually he left to join the teenagers on petty crime duty. Kara turned to the rest of her team and zipped up her leather jacket.

“Alright. Let’s get to work, then.”

----------

Oliver sat at his desk at the courthouse, mindlessly clicking through a form as he waited for his lunch hour. Usually, Oliver was busy. Criminal Psychologists who were willing to work for one city were rare. They were always sending him “insanity defenses” to examine, children to interview, or even sending him to Iron Heights to do prisoner interviews. Today he just had to interview a couple of “unstable” defendants (off his meds and mad because a cop pulled a gun on her ten year old) and fill out some forms. The computer didn’t move at super speed or he’d have been out of here hours ago. It was days like this Oliver hated his job.

“Knock, knock, big brother.”

Oliver looked up from his computer. “Sara? What in the world are you doing here? I’m sure I would have known if Captain Cold was on trial…”

Sara laughed. “Please. I would totally wear my parka to my own trial. I’m just here as a character witness.”

Oliver looked over her tasteful slacks and light blue blouse. “...For who? Are you going to perjure yourself for one of your girls?”

Sara waved her hand dismissively. “I’m not going to tell you. You wouldn’t believe me if I said no and you’d have me arrested if I said yes.”

“Because you would have left me no choice, Sara. Honestly. Do you not understand any of our jobs?”

“Meh.” She shrugged.

Oliver sighed, “Why are you in my office specifically?”

“I’m grabbing you and Laurel for Lunch.”

“...You’re just going to walk into the DA’s office and invite your sister to lunch?”

“Well how else would I do it?”

“Are you forgetting that you are Captain Cold?”

“No one can prove that.”

“You literally don’t wear a mask.”

As it turns out, Sara could just waltz into the DA’s office by changing her body language, speech patterns, and letting her hair down. Gone were the familiar hard lines around her eyes, the sarcastic lift in her voice, the confident swagger, and the tight ponytail. Instead she was walking with more swing in her hips, had pulled her hair down and fluffed it so it looked wavy, wore a smile that just didn’t look right, but did make her look younger and sweeter, and spoke in that way Oliver was sure women only did when they wanted something.

But, it got her past security without anyone questioning her. Somehow.

Laurel barely glanced up from her paperwork as they walked in. “Hey Oliver. Sorry, I can’t talk. I just got assigned a case from Major Crimes and I’m pretty sure they think I’m some sort of miracle worker.”

In an instant, Sara’s body language shifted back to normal. Her smirk and sarcastic lift returned as quickly as she relaxed back into her usual self. “Come on, Laurel. Even ADAs get lunch breaks.”

Laurel froze and looked up suspiciously, already stuffing the paperwork back into files and locking her computer. “Sara? How did you even get in here?”

“She walked. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen and I hope I don’t see it again.” Oliver said, completely serious.

“Come on,” Sara said as she tugged Laurel from her seat and out of her office, “If we hurry we can help Roy play hooky. Have a real sibling bonding experience.”

Laurel and Oliver exchanged a glance as they followed her, too familiar with her antics to try to fight her or stop her.

“You know, if you just told her…” Laurel started.

Oliver glared, “Shut up. Why don’t you tell her?”

Neither of the two superheroes had an answer to why they didn’t tell Sara as they followed their super villain sister to lunch.

It took a grand minute and a half for Thea to crash right into a wall and knock herself out. Oliver winced as he slid into a stop next to her. That was a new record. Her mask was off center as well, they’d have to fix that so it wouldn’t slip off or accidentally blind her.

Her eyes flickered open and she tried to shake her hair out of her eyes and failed. “Mr. Queen? Did I win?”

Oliver smiled and sat down beside her. “No. Sorry. Don’t worry, turning is hard at first, you lasted a long time. Well, a long time for a speedster. Come on, sit up. Caitlin will be down soon to force water down your throat and check you for a concussion in a few seconds. And I imagine your father will be freaking out.”

Thea sat up with a groan as she pushed her mask up onto her forehead, messing up her hair even more, which she would definitely complain about once her concussion passed in a couple hours.

Oliver has never expected to have a mentee of his own, not really. He’d seen Kara’s protégées training as she watched, shouting out corrections and encouragement at them. They were brilliant, Kaldur was fast, silent, and smart, Artemis was creative and her aim was nearly as good as Kara’s. Oliver hoped he could be as good a mentor to Thea was Kara was to Kaldur and Artemis.

The air chilled as Caitlin walked into the speed lab, her white waves bouncing and her blue lips pursed in the disappointment Oliver knew all too well from the dozens of times he had hurt himself and she had to patch him up.

Mac was right behind her, his usually blank, hard face was awash with worry and concern. When anyone except Thea was in trouble, he showed his care with anger and frustration. It was strange, but oh so Mac. None of them would have him any other way.

“What happened?!” Mac demanded.

Caitlin rolled her eyes and kneeled down, ignoring Thea’s flinch and hiss as Caitlin’s ice cold hands cupped her chin.

“Thea still hasn’t figured out how to make sharp turns. It takes some time to figure out.” Oliver assured Mac, placing a gentle, comforting hand on Thea’s shoulder.

“Why isn’t it like normal?” She moaned.

“Because we’re really, really fast. It’s like a cheetah. It takes extra thought, extra energy.”

Thea groaned. “Stupid…”

Oliver merely laughed. Yeah. It kind of was.

Caitlin was asking Thea the standard concussion questions and shining a light in her eyes.

“Why are you so cold?” Thea whined, pulling away with a shiver.

“My people are from a frozen planet.” Caitlin said dryly.

“Shouldn’t you have fire powers then?”

“That’s not how we evolved.”

Thea huffed and everyone else shook their heads and chuckled. Caitlin pulled back and nodded. “You’ll be just fine with some rest and some food.”

Mac sighed and scooped his daughter up. “You know, if you’re going to be doing this you're going to have to be more careful.”

“Hmmm...I love you too, Dad, but I’m very very hungry.”

Oliver chuckled as he and Caitlin followed the father and daughter. Now that he thought about it, he was also very, very hungry.

----------

Barry was bored. He was absolutely, positively bored out of his mind. As Dr. Tina McGee’s executive assistant, he was supposed to be paying attention and taking notes. Instead he was unprofessionally trying not to fall asleep in the middle of a board meeting that started at 5:30 and still wasn’t finished after lunch. Barry startled himself awake and adjusted his wire framed glasses as he tried to look like he’d been focused on his tablet. It probably didn’t work considering Dr. McGee gave him a fond look.

“I think that’s enough for today, gentlemen. Clearly we aren’t going to get any further and I think we all need a break.” She rose to her feet and left the room, Barry quickly stumbling to his feet and following after his boss.

Dr. McGee sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Well, that was a waste of time. How much did they screw up my schedule, Barry?”

“Uh…” Barry clipped on his tablet with his stylus. “Very. The minute it went past eight I set up automatic alerts asking one of the receptionists to reschedule your appointments.”

“Is Wayne Enterprises still on the schedule?”

“Yes ma’am. They’re going to be here in an hour and a half.”

Dr. McGee nodded. “Alright. Well, after that disaster of a meeting I need caffeine and sweets. Would you head down to the nearest Starbucks and get me something? Oh, and get something for yourself too. You looked dead on your feet in there.”

Her smile was kind, clearly making an excuse to give Barry a chance to get some much needed caffeine. What Barry actually needed was sunlight, but he quite liked the idea of a Frappecino. It would be a nice treat. So Barry sped walked down, the balance between “I’m totally a normal human” and “I’m literally not a human being” led to him looking very, very clumsy as made his way to the nearest Starbucks.

Barry ordered two very sweet iced coffees and hopped back upstairs, giving Dr. McGee her drink before returning to his desk to send emails and do other assistant things. It was very, very boring and Barry wished, not for the first time, that his keyboard could withstand super speed. And that he wasn’t in full view of everyone. It would make his life so much easier. Luckily, he only had to make it through that one last meeting and then he’d be able to go to his real job.

“Your patrol route for the day.”

Barry smiled at Len as he took to the tablet. “Hello to you too, Len”

Barry was already in his Superboy suit, having flown over, his hair windswept since he wore his longer than Clark’s and didn’t include a pound of hair products. Len, currently in his human form smirked and rolled his eyes, fondly. Barry’s route was outlined in blue as usual and intersected occasionally with Iris’s (gold) and Ronnie’s (orange). The routes were randomly generated by Cisco every day as a way to avoid a pattern that their enemies could pick up on.

Barry memorized his route quickly and handed to tablet back to Len. “I’m going to check in on everyone first.”

“Go right ahead, Bar.”

Barry smiled at his friend and mentor before running from the room. Bette shooed Barry away from Cisco because apparently they were in the middle of an assignment, but Barry had managed to catch up to Iris and Ronnie as they were getting ready for patrol.

“Rondi! Iris!” Barry called.

They turned. Ronnie Raymond, a Tamaranian whose real name was Rondi’ander, but was better known to the public as Brightfire, smiled at Barry kindly as he came up.

“Bar-El, how was your day?”

“Long and boring. You?”

“Jax got upset and he has set our television room ablaze.”

Barry winced. Jaxin’ander, or simply Jax, was Rondi’s younger brother and he had the same problem all teenagers with dangerous powers seemed to. Namely, control. That was why they had Jax, Wally, and Jessie all training together under whoever was willing to lend a hand. Usually it was Len or Barry, sometimes Bette felt comfortable enough to lend a hand and every once in a while Clark would show up. One time he even brought Diana with him. Barry was pretty sure they like Diana more than the rest of them combined.

“What am I? Chopped liver?” Iris asked. She was already sitting on her motorcycle, but her mask, which usually covered her lower face, was around her neck and her goggles were sitting on her forehead.

“Of course not!” Barry hugged his sister, smiling brightly again. There was a reason people called him a golden retriever. “How was work?”

“Fine. They’re bugging my to get an interview with Guardian.”

“They want you to interview...yourself?”

“You see my problem? Maybe I should ask Clark for advice, he interviews himself all the time.”

“I think he actually has Lois ask the questions.”

“Hm. That’s not a bad idea. Well, I’m good to go if you two are,” Iris said, tugging her mask and placing her goggles on her eyes.

Barry smiled and nodded and the three of them headed out to work.

#fanfiction #writing prompts #Karivarry Life Swap AU #Arrow #The Flash #Supergirl #AU #prompt #Karivarry #Life Swap AU

[pinkykitten]

black as coal

Harry Potter 

Young! Sirius Black x female! reader

Warning: mentions of sex, some curse words

Specifics: fluff, romance, gifs, prompt list, comedy, one-shot, race neutral reader

People: sirius black, albus dumbledore 

Words: 1,414

Requested: By anon Hey love, do you write for hp characters? If so, can you write 7, 17 from the fluffy/general prompt list with young!sirius black after graduation where he and the reader live together?

Prompts:

7- “wait, no, don’t take kissing away from me.”

17- “you promised me a cookie!” 

Authors Note: this is my first ever hp fic so im excited for the feedback, also this is the first time someone has requested something based off the prompt list i am currently using. u can find it in my bio, need help just ask! anyways my sis is in love with sirius and anything ben barnes rlly. but i can totally see why, i fell in love with his acting skills when i saw him in punisher he was so good! and he is just so handsome and ugh i can stare at his face all day. but yes im back to writing ur normal requests. 

(not my gif! do not own!)

It was not much, not much indeed. Yours and Sirius’s house was tiny, only a few bedrooms. To maybe another person's eyes it was not much but to you, the miniscule house meant everything. You thought of it as the place where memories would be made. Life would be lived within the house.

You and Sirius married after you two graduated Hogwarts. Now, that may seem a bit of a young age but two souls as such were bound together, it just felt right. Sirius was your light in the dark world. He made you feel safe and loved. 

Humming to yourself you feel comfort in knowing that Sirius is just in the other room. You hum a tune slow and angelic, sounding like a fragile tweet of a bird. You smile to yourself as you knead the dough of your delicious famous apple cinnamon cookies. (this sorta reminds me of the dessert found in FBAWTFT when queenie is cooking) Needing a tad bit more flour you whisper the charm, “Wingardium Leviosa.” With a flick of your wrist, you guided the flour bag to you with your wand. Nodding to yourself you sprinkle the flour, dusting the white substance all over, coating the countertop. “That's better,” you whispered as you kneaded the cookie dough more roughly. You were about to cut them out when you heard a presence behind you. You bit your lip as you tried to hold back a grin. 

With a light step, Sirius walked behind you. Enjoying how you looked baking. You looked so...perfect. The way your delicate fingers moved not against but with the dough made him wish that dough were him. And how the sun light sparkled against your skin, making his heart beat faster. 

Sirius placed his strong hands on your waist, “guess who?” He breathed in your ear, sending goosebumps to litter your whole body. 

“Hmmm, Dumbledore?” You joked, laughing. Sirius twirled you so you would face him. “Sirius!”

“You cheeky girl.” Sirius gave you a toothy grin as he captured your lips in such a beautiful kiss. Oh how you wanted to run your fingers through his soft hair but your hands were covered in baking ingredients. “Sirius my hands are filthy! I don’t want to get you dirty!” You backed away, putting your hands up so they wouldn’t touch him. 

“Now you and I both know that would never happen to me, love. There is no way a beautiful girl such as yourself would ever be dirty.” His comment made you bashful. He tried once more to kiss you but you placed a clean spoon to his chest, backing him away, “no Sirius.”

Sirius whined almost like a dog. Pouting and giving you his doe, cute eyes. Almost pleading. 

You twirled around and went back to baking. Using the charm diffindo to cut the apples to place them atop the cookies. “No means no. We can kiss all we want...after I finish these cookies.”

Sirius heaved a heavy sigh, sitting down on a chair nearby. “C’mon y/n, you know you can’t resist this sexy face.” He raised his brow and gave you a smoldering look as you turned your head. He blew you a kiss, to which you accepted but then crossed your arms, “do you not want to have kisses at all?”

“Wait, no, don’t take kissing away from me!” Sirius jumped as he ran to you. You rolled your eyes, “Oh Merlin's beard I’m only kidding, you goof! We can kiss and make love all night.” This shut him up. Sirius nodded his head like a dog as he shook with excitement, “I knew you couldn't keep yourself away from me that long.” 

“And,” you started as you crept to him sexually, pushing him down to be seated on the chair once again. You sat upon his lap, feeling his breathing come to a halt, almost as if he were afraid of moving. “if you are a good boy, I promise to give you a cookie. Deal?” Sirius was unable to utter a word, his mouth shaped like an o. He was mute. “Alrighty then,” you said as you wiped your floured finger on his nose. You stood up and proceeded to finish baking. 

After that you two spent the rest of the afternoon together, kissing, cuddling, in each others arms. Your two bodies were wrapped together intimately but also mentally. Making love together grew you two closer and made you feel more loved. Spending the day just the two of you made you be almost on a high, high with love. 

Sirius laid beside you, naked, on the bed while his arm was a pillow for you and you rested your head on his strong arm, feeling his pulse beat for you. His hand came up to your face to trace your features with his fingers. 

“My darling, answer me this.”

“Hmm,” you acknowledged him enough but was still being relaxed and your eyes kept trying to close from his tickles. 

“How in the world did I end up with such a beautiful woman? Hmm answer me that.”

You eyes opened, Sirius cursing under his breath at your beauty especially the enchantment that was held in your e/c eyes. You also in the nude stood up, covers slipping off your skin like silk. Like water falls out of a cup. You sat on your husbands lap, putting your hands behind his head. Sirius felt at home with you like this. He could live like that any day. With you in his presence, in his arms, he didn’t need to see the world for he saw it within your eyes. He didn’t need to see people his friends all he needed in life was you. Only you to survive, to live. 

“Well you see my dear husband Sirius, I ask myself that very question but with you instead. I ask myself as I gaze upon your face each morning I get to wake up to you, how in the world did a woman such as myself end up with the most spectacular - not just the most spectacular man, but the most spectacular human being on planet Earth? Now answer me that.”

Sirius gave a low, rough chuckle as he moved you so he was on top. He gave a  look of adornment as he stared at your complexion. “I love you so much y/n.”

You gave him a kiss as you leaned your forehead against his, pecking his nose at the end. “I do too love you Sirius, you make my heart-oh my I forgot the cookies!” You flew out of bed and ran to the oven. All that Sirius could hear was a screech from you and the smell of burnt cookies.

Sirius walked in on you trying to save the baked goods. “Its okay sweetheart, they look...” He finally got a good look at them and they were all black as coal. 

You stood there, angry with yourself, “you were saying?”

Sirius felt his heart break a little, he really did want a cookie, “awww no fair! You promised me a cookie!”  

“I’m sorry Sirius, these were a gift to you and now I messed them up.”

Sirius saw your disappointed look on your face and grabbed a cookie taking a huge bite. You could hear the rough dough in his mouth as he took many bites. He kept his thoughts on your feelings because if he did not he probably would of barfed. You saw his reaction and you noticed he was trying not to grimace at the taste. 

“See honey, that is the shi*. Its so,” he shivered at the taste, making an odd face. “Its so different and unique but taste so dam* good!”

You smacked Sirius upside his head, “don’t lie to me Sirius Black! I know its bad, now you shouldn’t have eaten that. It was not a good cookie.”

Sirius touched the place where you smacked him, he quickly grabbed you and placed a great amount of kisses all over your face, “listen to me young lady, even though that cookie yes may have tasted ghastly, you should be proud of yourself still. Because even though they were bad, you still unknown to me the power, you still made me like them. Thank you my y/n for making them.”

You pouted as he held you in his arms, “yeah well it was your fault any way. You kept me from checking on them.”

Tag list: @harrington-lover, @angelgl16, @perfectlybeautifulsuit, @hyehoney, @haven-prelude (wont let me tag), @leasly, @totally-alexa21, @creamy-pasta-boi, @multireese, @fanfictionrecommendations-com, @prentisskelley, @malereaderforkpop (wont let me tag), @guardian-of-cookies, @justafangirl-97, @teenageshitposts (wont let me tag), @andreaoreas, @dippergravity (wont let me tag), @some-booty, @fromfoolishpeopletodeadpeople, @collectiveyou, @wtfisalltherandoms, @fangirl-4-life415, @dirbel

wanna be tagged in my crap? comment!

#harry potter #harry potter imagine #harry potter fic #the marauders #sirius black #sirius black x reader #sirius black imagine #young!sirius black x reader #young!sirius black #young!sirius black imagine #ben barnes #gryffindor #x reader #fanfiction #sirius black fanfiction #young!sirius black fanfiction #imagine #race neutral reader #god dang he is like a literal angel #i dont know why when im writing like british characters i get so...poetical idk whats up with me #im in love with the gifs #i want him to do that to me like is that a possibility #black as coal

[fiire-bcrn]

alias  - siege.

age   -  twenty-two

pronouns  -  she/her  .

timezone  -  est .

favorite  artist  -  solo - p!nk, sia; band - fall out boy, onerepublic, imagine dragons  . those are just the most frequent flyers, I listen to everything from electro-swing to german pop so.

favorite  movie  -  too many to list but basically anything superheroes or sci-fi/fantasy like the x-men, the mcu, star trek, stardust, willow, ladyhawke, knights tale, etc.

favorite  fairy  tale  -  twelve dancing princesses  was always one of my favourites but I obsessively devoured the andrew lang fairy books growing up. .

favorite  color  -  green  .

character(s)  you  play  -  sanderson mansnoozie, diaval corvus, chernabog caim, robin loxley .

got v long so the rest is under the cut !

about  the  characters  -  sandy : he’s sweet bubbly bean, communicates mostly through sign due to his own language having died out. unseelie of the autumn court but older than any of them by a longshot due to having been made a guardian. only wants to bring the best to the world. in a constant fight with his darker side, a side all of his brethren have. Pitch is his biggest regret. The way he turned on him, he really wishes he’d found a way to make him a part of the team, eternal osrizization was not part of what he’d thought would go down. robin : suave and almost childish at times, robin was raised in his youngest days amongst the poorest, without an inkling whom his father was, only with his mother as a friend and companion. however when she died at the moment he found himself alone. who should come sweeping in but his birth father a lord in need of his heir. the man thought to turn robin into the epitome of a noble by lavishing everything on him. unfortunately for him all the fancies and fripperies instead appalled robin and he left his father’s home to live with the lowest in the thieves forest where he started to help build a community of those spurned by society. currently he cares for the child of one of his fallen men while adjusting to an injury recently obtained during a failed rescue. diaval : born on bald mountain as a natural shapeshifter, diaval never knew his parents nor even if they had bothered to give him a name. in fact he might have perished an unwanted infant had some unknown man not decided for some reason to care for him, for a few years anyway. he also never cared enough to give him a name, referring to him as ‘boy’. however at the age of five the lad found himself alone once again, but this time with scared villagers fearing him for his abilities, which is how he got his name, a word that means ‘devil’. meant as an insult, he started to wear it instead as a badge. if he could not make them accept him he’d live off their fear. tales of crows bringing bad luck started but in fact it was all the work of the young shapeshifter who never was allowed to fit in. along the way he discovered one person who not only put up with him but found his skill to be useful and wonderful. maleficent. chernabog : once a daemon of comparatively benevolent nature, chernabog was spurned by his species and turned from hell for being too ‘soft’ upon the mortal inhabitants of the world. desperate to win his right back into his home, he now stops at nothing to prove himself a true bringer of evil, everything and everyone he sees as a way of furthering his own ends. the one and only acception being his two dogs, whose company he enjoys. not that he would ever let any soul know this.

wanted  connections  -  sandy : the guardians ! all of them ! we already know he adores jack ( we luff u ) and he’d get along well with toothiana’s cheerful demeanor, though he’d most likely dislike north and bunnymund a bit more. but not wholly. pitch ! he greatly regrets everything that happened with pitch black. i feel he’d have spent the past while lowkey trying to make it up, and barely holds a grudge for the whole arrow to the back thing. friends ! more unseelie, maybe some fae from the summer or spring courts for some strain. really anyone tbh, sandy loves people ! a love interest ! give mah boi a luffly boi to love ! must be able to speak in sign language or at least willing to learn ! unaffiliated or hero would work best, but a villain who has doubts about their alignment might work as well ! robin : maid marian ! totally open to this being a ship, or a broship, an exes plot, anything really ! just give him the spitfire that kept him sane through some trying times ! the merry men ! all those dedicated rascals we all love ! the big strong john little ( i have a plot with him specifically i’d love to talk about ! ), the irascable will scarlett ! the talented alan-a-dale ! maybe an oc merry man or merry woman ! enemies ! the sheriff of nottingham and/or guy of gisborne ! maybe a villain from another tale who has it out for robin ! estranged family who sees him as a threat of sorts could most certainly be fun ! diaval : the old man on the mountain ! this would be the an who took the time to care for a child who was not his, but never even gave him a name before disappearing once again, whether by his own choice or due to external forces ! could be of any allegiance, only necessities are old enough to have been thought of as a man by a five year old and have lived on bald mountain at some point ! so much potential for this connection ! friends ! lets face it, this boy could use some people who dont hate and fear him for a change, especially ones closer to his own age ! probably people who love mischief as much as he does ! enemies ! you don’t get to be maleficent’s right hand man by being nice to everyone and he is certainly on bad terms with at least a handful of people ! the biffle ! this would be none other than maleficent herself ! i see them as sort of platonic soulmates, of sorts ! always been close to each other and always have each  others backs ! chernabog : enemies ! obviously when plotting the downfall of a whole world you come across people who disagree with your views and want to see you destroyed as much as you want to see the same done to them ! the welcome annoyance ! someone who pushes all his buttons in an almost fearless way that he almost respects and secretly finds a refreshing change of pace ! just be careful not to push it too far…. a crush ( maybe ? ) ! someone who maybe is attracted to his power and dominance over the world ! or maybe they see the softer daemon he used to be even though he has long tried to quash that side ! i dunno exactly how this would go tbh, but it’d be fun to explore !

goals  for  your  character  -  for all of them i’d love to see how it affects their alliances and morality. robin, i could see how the effects war has on the lower class could push him to be slightly less heroic. or sandy may find his darker side pulling him to do unsavoury things despite his best efforts. perhaps diaval will meet someone from the hero side willing to accept him as much or seemingly more than maleficent, making him question loyalties. and chernabog may yet return to being the more benevolent version of himself he once was ( i doubt it but maybe ).

favorite  tasks  -  anything character development or worldbuilding, tbh !

favorite  events  -  got one word for you. m a s q u e r a  d e ! there was also one i did once where people were implanted with memories of others and something like that could be interesting !

any  ideas  - just keep doing what you're doing !  .

anything  else  - just v excited to be back ! .

#.tales.talk #tales.task

[thundergirl007]

I remember you saying that you had a persona 5 + tag au and I'm so sorry for getting back to you do so late but I'm so goddamn down for that like tell me everything... their personas.... their arcana..... e v e r y t h i n g

ALRIGHT BUCKLE UP GUYS I PUT TOO MUCH EFFORT INTO THIS

Full disclosure here, but like, I created an OC to be the Wildcard Character. For the sake of simplicity, let’s just pretend they aren’t a thing. I also couldn’t decide to make their personas based on Egyptian or Norse mythology, so let’s roll with both.

ANYWAY ON TO THE GOOD STUFF (feat. terrible edits. No really, some of them are AWFUL).

Scott is of the Emperor Arcana, specialising in physical skills, because Big Bro would absolutely fight anyone and anything head first.

His initial persona is Heimdall, (Norse Mythology, Guardian) and his Second Awakening would be Horus (Egyptian Mythology, war/sky/falcons). Wanting to protect the others but also taking the lead, the hotheaded leader and everything, doing what they have to do for their dad.

I had the idea that his social link would be based on needing to take the reigns after their father’s disappearance, which he sometimes doesn’t really feel like he is living up to very well.

John is of the Hermit Arcana, and he is the navigator of the group.. (I mean, EOS could be his Persona but when I thought of this I set it in the boy’s school days, so EOS wasn’t a thing in context). It should be obvious why I made John the navigator in this little Persona crossover.

His initial persona is Bragi (Norse Mythology, poetry and eloquence) and his Second Awakening would be Thoth (Egyptian Mythology, knowledge and wisdom). Just, the Hermit Arcana absolutely ties into him being up away from the action but watching on to help from the sidelines.

I had the idea that his social link would be based on coming out of his shell a little more in the real world (Futaba SLink much??) even though he is great as a navigator when he is in his element.

Virgil is of the Strength Arcana, specialising in Zio skills as well as the group’s main healer. He is the Big Strong One and that’s why he’s the Strength Arcana, because he is very much the rock that helps them up when they fall down.

His initial persona is Geb (Egyptian Mythology, Earth) and his Second Awakening would be Thor (Norse Mythology, lightning god). Being the healer of the group but also a powerful attacker is a beautiful image in my head.

I had the idea that his social link would be based on embracing his creative side a bit more openly and not being worried about what others think of it. Idk, I struggled for this one.

Gordon is of the Magician Arcana, specialising in Bufu skills (IT’S CLOSEST TO WATER OK). Of course he’s Magician Arcana. The happy-go-lucky prankster with some sad tragic backstory (aka. Hydrofoil accident?) is just GREAT to think about.

His initial persona is Hapi, (Egyptian Mythology, Nile) and his Second Awakening would be Aegir (Norse Mythology, the sea). I had to make his personas water based I’m sorry it would be an insult to the Fish Boy to do any other!

I had the idea that his social link would be based on putting down his facade of a happy-go-lucky person when he needs to. Maybe people don’t always take him seriously because he is insanely smart but a bit of a smartass, and he needs to learn to maybe focus on the task at hand where something serious is at stake.

Alan is of the Star Arcana, specialising in Hama, Mudo and Almighty skills. He’s the little spot of happiness that helps keep them together, just being total raw almighty potential wrapped up in a smol body???? Yes.

His initial persona is Balder, (Norse Mythology, love and light) and his Second Awakening would be Ra (Egyptian Mythology, King of Gods). 

I had the idea that his social link would be based on wanting to be treated like a full member of the team and not asked to stand back and let the others handle situations, but also needing to know that they love and care about him and just don’t want to lose him too.

Kayo is of the Hanged Man Arcana, specialising in Garu skills. Honestly I don’t think I need to say more about her Arcana other than Nyx’s quote “in the face of disaster lies the opportunity for renewal...” just because of her connection to the Hood, and the way she tries to hide it.

Her initial persona is Serket (Egyptian Mythology, cures sickness) and her Second Awakening would be Syn (Norse Mythology, defence, truth, “refusal”). Syn’s meaning is basically what I envisioned her with from the start, need I say more?

I had the idea that her social link would be based on proving that she is not the same person as her uncle. She can’t choose her blood family, but she chose her found family and that it is better this way. (Just assume that the fact that the Hood is her uncle is not revealed until partway through the link).

Penelope is of the Empress Arcana, specialising in survivability skills and buffs (with a touch of Psi). She’s literally a Lady. Empress. I don’t think I need to elaborate here. She needs to be the headstrong young woman that she is, taking the lead where it matters of course.

Her initial persona is Hel, (Norse Mythology, pure nature, afterlife) and her Second Awakening would be Isis (Egyptian Mythology, healed the sick). Ngl I struggled with her personas here, but 

I had the idea that her social link would be based on keeping up a high profile lifestyle, attending charity functions and the like, but also needing to learn to relax and unwind from time to time.

And because we need a villain, The Hood has either Seth (Egyptian Mythology, god of chaos) or Vali (Norse Mythology, vengeance) as his Persona. I don’t have an edit for him, sorry.

---

When I initially thought this through, I did it true Persona style where it’s set during their school days, so their SLinks were based around that one or two times (*cough* Gordon *cough*).

I thought that their supernatural world would be something entered naturally (like in P3, but not with technology like in P4 or P5), like behind a waterfall (on either Tracy Island or in their hometown, whichever way you’d imagine it to be). A dark and dying world where people needed saving from bad things that someone kept causing (sort of like P4 in a way??).

I also couldn’t decide on how their Personas would be summoned. Definitely not with an Evoker, maybe in P4 style with the tarot cards, but I sort of like the idea that they have a little chain when they awaken their persona, a chain that symbolises their bond to one another, that they have to open to summon their Persona (sort of like P5)

TOO. MANY. SPECIFICS. I’M SORRY.

I think that’s everything???

This is a long post. Sorry.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Fic: Nocturne (10/30) - Ao3 Link

Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Pairings: Mostly Gen (variety later to come)

Summary: In which Cor Leonis loses his temper, accidentally acquires a kid, and tries to single-handedly dismantle the Lucian immigration system – and that’s before he and his lawyers find out about this Prophecy business. If the Astrals think Cor’s going to let his kid’s best friend die without a fight, they’ve gotten the wrong cheetah ‘taur.

(a young adult novel set in @kickingshoes’ ‘taur AU)

—————————————————————————————— ——————————————————————————————

Less than a month to go until their first major expedition to try to establish a Covenant with an Astral, and they’ve started climbing the walls.

Literally.

Well, sort of.

“It’s okay,” Regis calls, doing his utmost best to keep from laughing. It would only offend the poor child’s dignity.

“It is not!” said poor child shrieks, clinging to the cliff.

Prompto came to fetch Regis immediately when it happened, of course, and Noctis and Gladio are milling anxiously underneath the sheer cliff face where poor Ignis is trapped about halfway up.

“How did this happen?” Regis asks.

They’re at their favorite fishing hole – well, Regis’ and Noctis’, anyway, since the other boys tend to get bored fishing and run off to play with each other nearby while Regis teaches Noctis how to fish properly. This place is inside one of Insomnia’s parks, within the safety of the Wall that glimmers above them in the sky, but isolated enough that most people don’t think to come here. Regis loves it, and comes whenever the business of ruling can spare him. Especially now that Noctis is finally old enough to really appreciate the more sedate joys of fishing – the preparation, the casting, the wait, the capture.

They were sitting by the water, waiting patiently, when Prompto ran up in a frenzy to explain that Ignis had gotten stuck, somehow, on the near-sheer cliff face by the side of the park.

“Well?” Regis prompts when nobody answers. He’s the only one out with the children today, since this visit is within the Wall. Yes, there’s a few Crownsguard in civilian dress lingering in nearby coffee shops and admiring the botanical gardens not far away, but Cor’s trained them well: it’s subtle enough that Regis can pretend they’re alone. “What happened? How did Ignis even get up that far?”

“Well,” Gladio says, looking sheepish. “Um…”

“Gladio was saying that no one could climb the sheer cliff face and Ignis explained that ibexes can climb sheer cliff faces and Gladio asked if Ignis could and Ignis wasn’t sure and then Gladio dared him,” Prompto says all in a rush. “And so Ignis decided to go up and then he got stuck.”

Regis presses his lips together. He will not laugh. He will not laugh.

“And you never,” he says, then cleared this throat, “you never considered that there might be a difference in training for ibex ‘taurs in the mountains and ones that live in the city?”

Ignis’ glare could have caused blisters.

“He did get halfway up?” Gladio offers.

“Yes,” Regis says dryly. “However, I remember several trees where you successfully got all the way up, young Gladio. The problem was always with coming down.”

“I know this is extremely uncharacteristic of me to say,” Ignis says from his perch. “But I would appreciate less discussion of this subject and more activity aimed at resolving it. Specifically, activity geared towards getting me down.”

“Well, my boy,” Regis says, looking up at him. “As far as I’m concerned, there are only three options: one, we call the fire department and get them to bring ladders –”

“Certainly not!” Ignis yelps.

“Two, we ask the Crownsguard spying on us to come and try to see if any of them can lasso you down –”

“No!”

“Or you could jump,” Regis concludes.

“I’ll break my legs!” Ignis brays, looking distressed.

“No, no,” Regis says soothingly. “Jump to me, and I’ll catch you.”

“Are you sure?”

“If necessary, I will catch you with magic,” Regis promises. Sure, he doesn’t keep that much in practice any more, but he’s pretty sure he could warp to Ignis mid-air if he needed to.

Honestly, he could probably warp to Ignis now, but then he’d be holding onto Ignis some eighteen feet in the air with nothing to put his paws on, and that seems like a bad idea.

Ditto the idea of summoning a sword and using that as his warp object. He doesn’t trust his aim after all these years.

...maybe Cor is right and he should get back into training more often. It's just that he's so busy all the time...

Ignis is clearly considering his options: total humiliation, nearly total humiliation, or jumping.

“Okay,” he finally says. “I’ll try jumping.”

“You can do it!” Gladio calls up.

“You don’t get to say a word,” Ignis says crossly. “You I’m going to deal with when I get down again.”

“It was just a dare! You didn’t have to do it!”

“You’re just digging yourself in deeper, my boy,” Regis advises Gladio. “If I were you, I'd stop now.”

Gladio subsides, pouting.

“All right,” Regis calls up. “On three, yes? One – two – three!”

Ignis leaps.

Regis catches him.

He gets a flailing hoof in the gut for his trouble, but he does catch him.

He puts Ignis down. “Now, next time –”

“Don’t take any of Gladio’s stupid dares,” Ignis says. “Yes, sir. Now as for you –”

And he’s off like a shot, Gladio already leaping away as fast as his paws can take him which is fairly quick but not quite as quick as his furious pursuer.

Prompto is laughing and barking and clapping, running circles around the two of them.

Noctis is shaking his head. “They’re silly,” he declares, but he’s smiling.

“Indeed they are,” Regis says. “They could’ve been with us, fishing.”

“Nuh-uh,” Noctis says. “I told them to go away. Fishing is for us.”

Regis is surprised into a laugh. He hadn’t realized it was intentional on Noctis’ part.

He puts his hand on Noctis’ shoulder. “Yes,” he says warmly. “Yes, it is. Now, shall we see if we’ve gotten a bite?”

Noctis beams at him and puts his hand in Regis’.

If only they could stay this way forever, Regis thinks to himself. If only Noctis hadn’t been the Chosen King of the Prophecy –

There’s nothing for it, Regis reminds himself. It is what it is, and all the ‘if only’s in the world won’t change that. All there is to do is to make the best of the time they have.

They walk back to the pond, hand-in-hand.

It's nearly midsummer.

Midsummer: the day of the great Hydread Festival, held in honor of the fearsome Tidemother who sleeps beneath the waves. The day when each window in Insomnia Port is hung with water-chimes, the fountains are decorated with lights, and thousands and thousands of paper boats are released into the waves – a sacrifice of paper into the maw of Leviathan in the place of the real boats she used to demand.

All in all, a perfect excuse for the King of Lucis and his family to go all together to Insomnia Port, the nearest portion of Lucis to the islands of Galadh beyond.

No one would know about their real destination until it was too late to stop it – Cor hasn't even told Drautos, who is stepping in to help command the Crownsguard in Cor's absence, that anything is going on beyond a simple visit to the Port for the holiday. If anything, he's made a few comments about Regis wanting to show his son the traditions of his kingdom, and implied that he's being dragged along as the guardian of Prince Noctis' best friend, just the same way he's been doing with anybody else who's been left out of the loop.

It's nothing personal – oh, all right, it is a little personal; Cor would've preferred to leave the Crownsguard in Monica's hands, or Riyad's, or Tempus', or even, Six help them all, Gloriana, good reliable soldiers all. But Captain Drautos came very highly recommended from the countryside, where he'd achieved some significant (if unfortunately temporary) victories with nothing more impressive than the local militia, and he'd won the favor of a number of the more conservative Councilors with his work policing the inside of Insomnia.

Cor personally feels that Drautos' hand falls too harshly on the populace, dragging in violators or even suspected violators of the laws on fairly minimal provocation, but his law and order rhetoric and personal charisma are appealing to certain conservatives, while his heritage as an immigrant refugee himself makes more progressive Councilors listen more readily than they might have if it was just another Insomnia native saying the same old thing.

In fairness, Cor is also more inclined to listen to him on those grounds, being Insomnia-born himself and thereby not having the insight that might be offered by consulting an outsider. He's aware of that weakness, and he's tried to recruit Crownsguard from the outside where he can, but Drautos is easily the most highly accomplished non-Insomnian they have. Cor should really make an effort to listen more to his suggestions, and to involve him in his planning and operations.

But damn if he just plain old doesn't like the hyena ‘taur.

It's not even a matter of safety – Drautos has been so thoroughly cleared by Insomnia's intelligence division that suspicion is essentially useless, given the fact that no one would believe Cor if he made any accusations, even if he were the sort of 'taur inclined to trade on baseless rumors, which he is not. It's honestly just a personal distaste, backed with no rational reason whatsoever.

Cor has had years to train himself to be a proper professional who can work with people he dislikes and he's gotten quite good at it (whatever Clarus might say about his work in the Council where, at the very least, Drautos is not), so he's determined not to let it affect his relationship with the other 'taur. He's going to act to Drautos, sharing information and work and relying on his skills, just as efficiently and effectively as he would if he did trust Drautos.

....soon.

Really.

He swears.

Regardless, it's not like it matters this time around. Not knowing about their real target is unlikely to affect Drautos' command of the Crownsguard in Cor's absence, and Cor himself will be personally leading the Crownsguard delegation that will take the royal family to Galadh, so he's not too concerned about the omission.

No, Cor's focus now must be entirely on the upcoming voyage. He's sent Riyad ahead to obtain a vessel – it has to be Riyad, with his extended family and knowledge of childcare, to keep up the ruse – under the pretense of making sure it's safe for a short pleasure cruise, should Regis' whim require it, and he's assigned whatever Crownsguard members know how to sail a ship or can quickly learn how to help crew it.

Riyad finally called in and reported success – the ship he obtained would be more than capable of making the journey to Galadh – and that means it's time for the whole lumbering Procession to go: not just Regis and Clarus and Scientia and their families, plus a Crownsguard escort, but all the staff that are popularly seen as necessary, like cooks and servants and valets and chauffeurs and whatnot that Cor scarcely realized the largely self-sufficient Regis even had.

Titan's horns, Cor's glad they'll be mostly left behind to enjoy the holiday at Insomnia Port.

"You ready to go?" he asks Aulea.

"I've been ready to go for three weeks," she says waspishly. "You know, I've never thought I'd be nostalgic about working as a temporary sailor in exchange for passage on an illicit Niflheim steamer, but this whole ridiculous rigmarole is starting to do it."

"You ready?" Cor asks Regis, who looks up from his paperwork with a slight 'o' to his mouth, like he's totally forgotten what day, week, month and possibly even year it is.

"He's ready," Clarus says, rubbing his eyes from his place at Regis' side. "Aulea has been in charge of preparations – do you know that she used to be patient about these things? I blame you and your sea voyage –"

Cor smirks and moves on. He doesn't bother asking Scientia if she's ready – she's been sending paralegals ahead of her to ensure the Insomnia Port branch of her law firm has an office ready for her use for ten days already.

Instead, he pokes his head into Luna's room. "Ready to go?" he asks Luna and the children, who appear to be dressing Noctis up in some sort of vile green dress with feathers, with a similarly colorful make-up palette.

"Yes!" they all shout, except for Noctis, who tries to shout and trips over his own hem in the process.

Cor doesn't want to know – first, because he thinks he might recognize that dress from the bottomless pits of Cyrella's closet, some sort of old bridesmaid business, and second, because he thinks they might be attempting to create some sort of ballgown version of Kenny Crow.

He really doesn't want to know.

"Meet me at the elevator in twenty minutes," he says instead. "I'll take you to lunch while everyone else gets ready."

They all rush off.

"Oh, and Noctis?" Cor added, casually sticking out a paw to block Noctis' way.

"Yeah, Marshal?"

"Wash your face first. If you want to wear make-up to your next public event, you need to get your mother to do it for you, not your friends."

“Right!”

Cyrella, who Cor informed first and foremost, is rounding up what staff hasn't been sent ahead to go. She’s not joining them, much to her irritation: her stomach is already starting to round with the (possibly) unexpected pregnancy of her second-born. Clarus was over the moon about it and her doctor is pleased with her health, all but for the morning sickness that has made her throw up every time she so much as scents something containing more spice than plain salt.

Not exactly the right time to go to spice-loving Galadh, to say the least, and her doctor was also rather alarmed by the idea of letting a breeding ‘taur with severe morning sickness go on a sea voyage, no matter how short.

So, instead, Cyrella is running herd on the staff – and, as a result, Cor has never had an easier time getting people moving.

Really, he should consider finding an extremely tall, extremely irritated pregnant 'taur who hasn't eaten properly in a month to get people ready every time he travels - no one, not even the usual suspects, has made so much as a squeak of protest. If anything, they all seem to find the idea of getting far away from Cyrella's grasp to be extremely enticing...

They'll all be divided into their own cars, all the staff, forming a convoy for the royal family – of course, Cor has no intention of letting the entire royal family travel together for something this public, and he has (reluctantly) agreed with Clarus that Clarus can handle the protection of Regis and Aulea. With the assistance of some Crownsguard, of course.

Cor, in turn, will be driving the children, and he prefers to do that after they've finished their lunch.

He picks a restaurant fairly far off from the Citadel in the direction of the Port to give them a nice head start, though. An hour or so in the car weaving through city streets with hungry children, and then the next few hours traveling through the countryside with the full, sated and hopefully sleepy versions...

Unfortunately, this excellent plan is derailed by the fact that everyone is extremely excited about their first visit to Galadh, and therefore not even a good meal can make them sleepy and quiet.

No, instead, Cor gets –

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"I wanna play a car game!"

"Go ahead."

"Hey, look at that!"

"Get your head back into the car."

"Can we change the music?"

"Fine."

"Are we there yet?"

"Still no."

"What car game should we play?"

"You decide."

"Can we change the music?"

"Fine."

"Look! A coeurl!"

"That is not a coeurl. It's a bush. Please all get your heads back inside the car."

"Are we there yet?"

"Not since the last time you asked."

"Cor, I wanna play Animal-Plant-Black-and-White and he wants to play I Spy -"

"Take turns."

"Is it much longer till we get there?"

"Changing the form of the question will not get you a different answer."

"Guys! Cactaur!"

"That's a cactus."

"Can we change the music?"

"No. The music remains the same forever now."

"Are we there –"

"The next person to ask if we are there yet, how long until we arrive, makes another comment about the music, or asks me to arbitrate anything will not receive a bedtime story from me tonight," Cor says pleasantly.

Ah, blissful silence.

For about five seconds.

"I spy something – black."

"The Marshal's mood, perhaps?"

Snarky brats.

Cor hides a smile and keeps driving.

Of course, the sad drooping expressions are enough to make him relent and lift the prohibition on questions after another half-hour or so, but they manage, somehow, to make it to Insomnia Port without anyone (primarily Cor) committing infanticide.

He loves all the boys dearly, he's even starting to be fond of Luna, but sometimes...

Luckily, Insomnia Port dressed up for the Hydread puts a rapid end to the inane questioning. The normally quiet city – more of a town, compared to the Capital – is festooned in blue sashes and ringing with the tinkling sounds of wind chimes, hanging at every window. Children and even adults run through the streets wearing the traditional blue 'Hydra Head' cowls on their heads – caps in the shape of the Leviathan's draconic-seeming main head or of her watery "heads" of legend – laughing as they throw out blue-wrapped treats to all the passerby.

The warmth of summer is more intense here; nothing like the islands of Galadh, renowned for their hot weather and hotter food, of course, but hot enough to make the children unhappy that they're wearing their formal wear, even if said formal wear is the summerweight version.

"We'll change after we arrive in Galadh," Cor promises. "You need to be impressive to the crowd for a bit, and then T-shirts for everyone."

Noctis sighs, already accustomed to public events, and Luna is nodding, too, but Gladio, Ignis and Prompto are not so easily appeased. Ignis, at least, has the self-discipline to stop complaining out loud, but Cor can see his pout.

Time for a distraction.

"If you look to your right, you'll see the sea-ships in the harbor," Cor says.

Everyone promptly crowds over there, complaints forgotten.

"There's so many of them," Luna marvels. "It's like the pictures of Altissia!"

"More, actually," Ignis says, nose pressed up against the window pane. "Altissia is the larger harbor, and serves as the port of call for more sea-ships, but due to the way it was built inside a lagoon, they prefer not to let sea-ships get too close. They make them dock some way out – you can't see them all together like this."

"Wooooow," Prompto says.

"It's so awesome," Noctis agrees.

"Marshal, what has more ships – Insomnia Port, or the Lucian Airstrip in Tempius?"

"The Port," Cor replies. "Virtually all of our remaining airships are government owned, and they're rarely used. The Port, in contrast, has warships and merchant ships and pleasure craft and much more."

"Cool."

"But Niflheim has more ships overall, doesn't it?" Ignis asks.

"More airships, yes," Cor corrects. "Their airstrips are in vast, empty fields, with gigantic ships lying there in rows. But Niflheim started as a landlocked mountain realm, and to this day they far prefer airships to sea-ships."

The children ooh and aah.

“Look again now,” Cor suggests as he makes another turn, aiming for the harbor. “We’ll be passing a look-out point over the harbor-port – you should be able to see the boxes and boxes of the paper boats that will be released at midday on midsummer.”

More oohing and aahing ensues.

"I must say I'm excited to see Galadh," Luna says. "They're exclusively Lucian territory, but their community in Insomnia is quite small, I believe..?"

"They haven't been invaded - yet," Cor says dryly. "As a result, they have fewer refugees in Insomnia. We rather hope it stays that way."

"Oh. Yes, I suppose that's true."

"It's been years since I've had reason to go to the Galadh proper," Cor adds. "But I remember it fondly enough."

"You talk like you're old," Prompto complains.

"According to you, I am old."

"Nuh-uh!" Noctis exclaims. "Dad says you're like half his age."

"I'm only ten years younger," Cor says firmly. Maybe a dozen. He's always taken great care never to calculate exactly.

"Ten whole years?" Gladio marvels. "Wow. You're like a baby."

Cor sighs.

It’s bad enough that people who don't recognize him on sight when he's out walking with the children like to compliment him on caring for his "younger brothers". Now his own children are doing it...

The sailing time to Galadh might not be that considerable, but this is still going to be a long trip.

#final fantasy xv #ffxv #noctis lucis caelum #prompto argentum #regis lucis caelum #cor leonis #ignis scientia #gladiolus amicitia #lunafreya nox fleuret #aulea lucis caelum #clarus amicitia #cyrella amicitia #my fic

[marypoppinswasmyfatherbitches]

Oh my goodness, I didnt see the link to your fanfic account! I am dumb. So ignore my previous ask and instead answer this one for the meme. 13, 3, 14, 1 and 2 for Happiness goes on? (I shall leave reviews on your beautiful fanfic soon I promise, they are good.)

(Hiii, sooo…this whole reply is late because I actually typed up ALL OF THIS last night, and then accidentally “x”-ed out of my browser and lost it all, because I am very very stupid. And then was too tired to retype it up before going to sleep. I hope I remember roughly everything, and apologies for that mistake.)

Oh! Haha! Alright then! Thank you! Don’t feel dumb at all for not realizing which AO3 account is mine or for your previous ask(which for others who are curious, said: “1 - 5 for all your fics! Just talk about your favs!”). I was prepared to choose 3 fics (including “Happiness Goes On” since that’s definitely the one I’m most proud of, so I guess that’s closest to a “favorite” right?), and go through the first 5 questions for each, though I won’t lie and say it wouldn’t have taken some time to answer.

BUUUT…since you said to scrap that first ask, I’ll answer these individual ones for “Happiness Goes On.” And your compliment and promise for a future review means SO goddamn much, thank you sincerely.

(WARNING / REMINDER: This is about my fic that deals with the subject of child molestation, and I do reference that a little bit in this reply. Don’t read further if it makes you uncomfortable, which I entirely understand and respect.)

**********

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

HA! Well, American Pie obviously, for a majority of it. While brainstorming / writing / editing the epilogue? A lotta Billy Joel. ;)

The idea to use American Pie bounced into my brain when it came on the radio at the thrift shop where I volunteer, one of the rare times my own music speaker battery died. Usually a disaster, because our store radio is pretty crappy, but the sound quality wasn’t too bad that day, and I rediscovered how much I love that song and ‘Why isn’t this on my ipod again?’. Listening to the lyrics, I realized how much some of them fit the Guardians in general, and this story specifically, which I have Gamora mentally note in the fic. I was sitting and casually chatting with the manager while also thinking, ‘Google what year this came out when you get home, but I’m sure it’s the 70′s. Peter would know it, and it could be the Zune. I think it could work.’ I’m proud that I was able to reference the song so many times without actually naming it by title, but I assume most readers knew what it was, it’s just that famous. (I also couldn’t resist the light-hearted joke, later when things calmed down, of Gamora saying “This…is the longest song…I have ever heard.” and Peter smiling without even looking at her and giving a cheeky “I know.”)

In terms of using Billy Joel for the epilogue, I’m just a Billy Joel fanatic. The use of him for this story began just from the We Didn’t Start the Fire joke toward Rocket at the bar (I thought it was clever, Peter!), and later on I saw how The Longest Time fit romantically for Starmora, and some of the lyrics matched the healing themes of the overall story, and I thought ‘Maybe they’ve been playing BIlly Joel since that night; maybe that can be the joke.’ Why shouldn’t his Greatest Hits albums (at least) be on the Zune? I struggled a lot over what song should be the final one Gamora comments on before they switch artists to appease the group. I never specify which romantic Billy Joel song Peter and Gamora slow danced to during their “date night” in that six-week summary, but I like to imagine it was Just the Way You Are. I considered Keeping the Faith or Vienna for the final one, but I thought they deserved something more fun and naughty to analyze this time, so Only the Good Die Young it is. :D

In conclusion, I listened to The Longest Time, and the entire An Innocent Man studio album, a lot (as if I needed an excuse).3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

The portion in italics is my favorite line, but I’m including the entire sentence for context purposes: “She would need to grow used to him viewing Yondu as a caring parent who was extraordinarily protective of his boy, and would have hunted down this pervert to whistle a glowing arrow through her skull.”14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

Ohh geez, wow, that one is tough. I don’t know if it’s accurate to say this story was intended to educate, but just to explore the idea with fictional characters. I have no expertise on the subject, and would never claim such, or talk down to those who do. I didn’t intend to create a PSA. I suppose all of the “lessons” for Peter (if they can be called that) I hope all readers already know and agree on (basically a collection of “it wasn’t your fault” and “this doesn’t define you” and “trauma isn’t a competition, someone else suffering worse doesn’t invalidate your experience” and “you should feel comfortable talking about anything without judgement or shame” etc.).

Slightly lesser scale messages, there’s also reminders about the importance of communication, trusting each other, letting the other person speak in an argument, not letting one’s jealousy/instincts/bad mood interfere with fairness, not running away from a fight or staying angry, respecting boundaries and privacy, all that healthy relationship jazz that these two are still figuring out. 1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

This post is already very long, and I could probably talk for hours about the decision-making process for many scenes (of my GotG fics, this took the longest to write and publish, over 2 months), so I’ll try to condense this to a few bullet points that probably don’t fit the “inspired” criteria.

- It was originally going to be in two parts, 4 scenes each, when I thought the epilogue would be much shorter. But as the lil’ wrap-up got longer (because we needed a fluffy conclusion, dammit!), I decided to make it a separate “chapter.”

- I think the concept probably started as one of those strange, angsty “what if?” scenarios I make up in my head at night that I still can’t believe I created into a full-fledged work. I liked the idea of Peter and Gamora having this conversation and her comforting him, but I knew if I was really going to throw it out there for other fans, it had be more balanced with happier moments, too. I just know I was always going to make the offender a woman - both because it would lead to the misunderstanding that she was a past consensual hook-up when Peter was an adult to spark some irritation and jealousy in Gamora, and because it’s realistically different from other sexual assault stories, since women can be pedophiles and child predators too, and they’re just as horrible. :(

- The fanfic idea of “Gamora accidentally starts a fire while trying to cook, and Peter falsely accuses and lashes out at Rocket” was in my head before, but there were two key differences. 1) It was the entire plot, not a light-hearted subplot in the shadows of something bigger, 2) Meredith’s letter was either fully or partially burnt as a result of the fire. By the end Gamora was going to confess it was her fault, that she was trying to surprise Peter by cooking spaghetti, and he would apologize both to her and to Rocket for losing his temper and getting so angry. I hated that idea later and found it too sad (he’s already lost the Walkman and second cassette tape, why would I want him to lose even more from his mother?), and in “Spark My Memory” (the Christmas fic I wrote for “12 Days of Starmora”) the Guardians put his mother’s letter in the photo album gift for Peter, completely safe and unharmed. I like to keep all my fanfics canon-compliant and non-contradictory from each other, so the letter is fine, no burning it.

Yet “Gamora started a fire cooking” still seemed fun to me, as I like the idea that she’s so badass and skilled and intelligent, but failed at something so domestic and simple. Kinda cute. I was so excited to insert it into this, because I think it worked on multiple levels. It’s a driving force for the plot (the reason the team go to the restaurant and they stumble upon that particular waitress), the reason Gamora was already in a bad mood during her fight with Peter, it could be used as a metaphor/comparison for Peter’s anxiety and Gamora’s guilt, it was something for the Guardians to put at a higher priority to tease and mock Gamora for while oblivious to the main story, something for Peter to just break down into giggles over once they changed the subject (because he earned a good laugh after that heartbreaking and vulnerable childhood trauma story), an excuse to give Rocket so many funny lines, an overall silly and sitcommy-style subplot to fall back on, and a sweet “victory!” for Gamora to have (sort of?) conquered by the epilogue. ^_^2: What scene did you first put down?

This is easy. I’ve written all but one (8 out of 9) of my fanfics in order, except for “Just Like Everybody Else.” So ya, I wrote the opening scene first, Baby Groot’s magic trick lesson and Peter’s oh-so-cruel “can only be seen once” deception. I needed to ease readers (and myself) into the angst and heavy shit to follow, and that cute idea had also been in the back of my mind for a while. ^_^

**********

PHEW, OKAY, ALL RE-TYPED! Thank you again SO MUCH for the lovely ask and wonderful questions, your actual interest and curiosity thrilled me! You see I wasn’t kidding about the incessant babbling. :P

Thank you also for the kudos you left on AO3, and take care!~

#Guardians of the Galaxy #Message #Ask Box Meme #Fanfic Asks #Fanfiction #My Fanfiction #Peter Quill #Star-Lord #Gamora #Starmora #Peter Quill/Gamora #Meredith Quill #Yondu Udonta #Yondad #Quotes #Groot #Baby Groot #Rocket #Billy Joel #Text Post