#i wanted my fic to be something special so i did some arts and crafts!

[shipwreck-letters]

Year Walk Chapter Eleven: Abide and Hinder

Read on AO3

Summary: Divine Beast Vah Medoh is not working as intended, and Revali has not been seen in Rito Village for days. Urbosa has a plan to wrangle the chaos.

Word Count: ~2.1k

Warnings: Anxiety mention, nightmares

Notes: This was going to be one big chapter, but the word count was already over 3k words and a lot of moving around, so I decided to split into two parts. Please enjoy this new format! The whole chapter will be included in the promotion post, enjoy!

Credits: Poster made in Canva, reblog banner made by @cafekitsune

Mipha's mouth went agape. The cold ran bitterly through her veins. The frost on her cheek brought the pain akin to being slapped in the face.

She might as well have been slapped.

It took an embarrassing moment for Mipha to find her words. "I- I am Mipha Naphela of Zora's Domain, and I assumed that you are Revali…?"

Revali's eyes flicked up and down her body, though not an ounce of joy or interest was visible. He rolled his eyes at his name, shifting his weight before sharply moving his shoulder.

"Just. Revali. Do all royals like you prod around the privacy of a citizen's home, looking for something interesting? I know I am quite the feat, however I'm afraid I'm not giving autographs tonight."

He turned away, grumbling as he picked out a few scarce supplies to heal, but kept his distance still. He did not sit, nor did his feathers relax around Mipha, no matter how gentle or concerned her voice was.

Heal him! Mipha's voice shouted at her. For goodness sake, do something!

And Mipha opened her palm, expecting the thrum of magic, the watery blue aura to call to her hand, and she could finally show Revali something worth remembering. But her palm was trembling, and she could feel no magic, no healing in her soul.

Everything that made Mipha the Zora Princess, the Champion of Vah Ruta, had been stripped away. Now she was shaking on the balcony, freezing in the dark amidst a proper stranger.

"I apologize." Mipha whispered, needing something to say before she ran away. "I…The others have already eaten. Dinner has long been over. But here-"

Before Revali could question, Mipha stepped into the cover of the hut and set the bowl of steaming soup on the closest table.

"Good night, Revali."

And she darted.

Rito Village was made for flying: If you wanted or needed to get away, you could take to a ledge and leap, letting your wings carry you as far and fast as you wanted.

Mipha, however, was not made of wings, and every staircase was filled with Rito, sharing stories and good cheer that made Mipha's mind slip a little more. How could she be joyful? Things were wrong.

Mipha kept her composure; Her gaze panned the wooden floors, her hand sliding across the rough textured stone until someone called her name. She almost didn't respond; the voice sounded so far away, but moving her gaze made her realize that the speaker was a respectable distance, only a few steps.

"Your Highness!"

A light blue Rito waved at her. "You must be cold, aren't you? We have space for you and your crew! Or, ah- Your party? Your…Group?" He scratched his head. "…. It's ready, anyway. You're welcome to get some rest. Princess Zelda and Chief Urbosa are there already."

Mipha forcibly inhaled, catching her frazzled spirit enough to accept. She snuck inside the open hut; Urbosa peered into the Winter night, her heavy coat hung up on a rack near the door. Her shoulders were tense, red hair braided and swaying in the wind.

Zelda was nestled in many more blankets, wrapped in a cocoon of coziness, sleeping soundly. Her hair was wrapped up in a silk bonnet, and a matching blue mask covered her eyes from any world distractions. She looked comfortable, and Mipha wished she could say the same.

Urbosa finally spoke, took a deep breath, and reluctantly turned from the ledge. "Very different from what I'm used to, but I'll manage. And how are you finding things, Mipha?"

Urbosa's eyes settled on her, and something of concern flickered over her expression. "Mipha?"

Mipha squeezed her eyes shut, quickly sitting on her bed with her back turned to Urbosa. As much as she wanted to apologize for her behavior, she was fighting with the instinct to run away, scream, and wail.

And suddenly, a warm hand gently placed on her knee. Mipha dared to open her eyes, staring pointedly at the swirls and symbols on Urbosa's pants. The reflection of light beamed from gold trimmings on her sleeves. The sparkle of her earrings, but she could not meet Urbosa's eyes.

"Urbosa, I'm sorry." Mipha inhaled again. "I…I don't feel quite like myself anymore."

"It's been a very long, intense few weeks, my Mipha. I cannot blame you for feeling disconnected. You especially," Her eyes darted to Mipha's coat, where her scar would be visible and tender.

"You've been through so much, and have kept your grief all alone."

Moving slowly, Urbosa took a seat next to Mipha on the bed. "I have a story that I like to tell Zelda on difficult nights. Would you like to hear it?"

Mipha removed her coat and gloves, setting them aside, before silently returning to Urbosa's side. "If it's no trouble..."

"It was a dark, quiet night in the desert. A young vai woke up in her room and quickly noticed that her older sister was nowhere to be found. But even stranger, a trail of peculiar white flowers bloomed through the cracks of the streets. It lured the curious vai away through the east gate onto cold sand, sure that the flowers had something to do with her missing sister. And when she had wandered far away, something happened…."

Indeed Mipha intended to listen to the whole story, yet Urbosa's voice moved like smooth waves, gentle and warmed by sunlight, that even the frightening details of the story were not pure darkness but a path to hope. Mipha leaned into Urbosa's embrace, her eyes heavy and her heartbeat slowing to a serene pace.

At some point, Urbosa covered Mipha with a blanket and another for warmth. "Sleep well, my Mipha."

---

Absent-mindedly, Mipha fiddled with the ruby brooch holding her cloak together. Her eyes wandered over the buffet table for the third time, yet her plate was hardly half-full of more than a few slices of smoked bass.

Her appetite had been absent since the previous night, gone with the wind like Revali; Strange enough, no one had seen him, and the Rito warriors had flown off to the Hebra mountains with extra bows, spears, and arrows.

She stared at loaves of bread while listening to the village elder speak with Urbosa at the other end of the table.

"It seems our villages share an influx of trouble." Urbosa said. "Blood Moons are scheduled, but the most recent one was completely unpredictable. Many vai were injured, and those injuries still linger in them."

There was a particular pause; Urbosa's head turned to glance at Mipha and Zelda nearby before the elder grunted.

"This Blood Moon has brought trouble for us, as well. Monsters have become comfortable--Or desperate for food, I oughta say. It's my fear that the village will succumb if they are not stopped. The warriors have left, but some return with missing feathers, frostbite."

"I will be glad to lend my aid to you. Tell me when and where, and I will join the fight."

Mipha shook her head to rouse her out of her thoughts, finally noticing the food losing steam on the table. She pursed her lips at the bread and cheese, fish, and berries.

"Oh, what's this?" An array of vivid colors caught her eye; A single slice of fruit cake was left on a tray, which wasn't savory or terribly tart.

Mipha reached for it at the same time as Zelda.

"Oh!"

For a heartstopping moment, Mipha's hand grasped Zelda's, squeezing her fingers. A jolt of electricity and warmth rushed to Mipha's cold hand with a wave of terror.

With her face fired up in a dark blue blush, Mipha snatched her hand back, stumbling over the air until she could only press her hand to her cold face. 'What is happening to me? I can hardly keep myself together!'

"Princess, I- I did not see you," Mipha explained and glimpsed Zelda bowing her head. Was she flustered as well?

"It was I that did not realize." Zelda shook her head and gestured to the cake. "You were here first, Mipha. Take it."

Mipha's heart fluttered away to her stomach. She hesitated, glancing at her plate. "What if we...? Share it...?"

Zelda smiled. "We can share it."

If she was flustered, she hid it very well. A chord in Mipha rang out in her mind, 'You're a princess! This is just a friendly gesture, a moment between friends.'

Mipha closed her lips and passed a polite smile, holding out her plate as Zelda equally cut the slice in half.

"There we go. Mm, I love these kinds of desserts. Have you ever tried...Well, it's quite uncouth. I shouldn't recommend it."

"Recommend...what?"

"-Monster extract, of course! It turns any dish into a devilish violet, and I can only imagine what the essence of monsters will do to one's insides. Perhaps you'll glow, or wake up with a new ability to growl and pick up a weapon over raw steak."

"Zelda!" Mipha giggled. "Where do you even find that concoction?"

"I wish I could study it. I could make my own with all of the remains from the latest Blood Moon. But alas..."

Zelda stabbed a piece of cake and twirled her fork around as she chewed.

"Maybe after all of this is over."

Breakfast was over as soon as it began, and Zelda set off for a hill called Piper's Ridge; Ancient columns rose high into the sky, a quiet Sheikah shrine, and most of all, Vah Medoh perched among the beige rock.

Her stone wings were pressed together, her head frozen and forever staring into the cold Hebra sky. Glyphs and patterns should have glowed a brilliant turquoise, but only amber lines outlined the Divine Beast.

"There's been no movement at all?" Zelda frowned, and the Rito guard beside her shook his head.

"It's strange. Revali's supposed to be the Champion, yeah? It was moving perfectly fine before we got your announcement. As fine as a machine can, I guess. After that day...Silence."

Zelda hummed deeply, flipping to a heavily written page in her journal. Mipha eyed it, curiously trying to make out the scribbled handwriting.

The pen lines were written heavily, deeply set into the paper. 'Urbosa -- Vah Naboris' 'Mipha -- Vah Ruta' 'Revali -- Vah Medoh ?' 'Daruk-- Vah Rudania??'

'Prophecy following...Speak with oracles, ' Mipha read, 'Praying' 'Powers absent.'

Zelda snapped her book shut, tilting her head back to the Divine Beast. "Well, that's concerning. Has anyone seen Revali today?"

The Rito took a deep breath, turned towards Mipha and Urbosa, and pointed between them; An awful storm brewed in the distance, hovering over the mountains far into the horizon. Rugged peaks of sharp mountains loomed in dark shadows.

"He took off early in the morning, but the blizzard I wrote to you about is that way. I would not recommend going there, Your Highness."

Zelda frowned, peering in the pointed direction. Mipha could see a plan brewing behind her dark brown eyes, thoughts, and ambitions building up like coals on a fire.

"With all due respect, we are allied in peace and war."

Urbosa took a deep breath through her nose, lifting her chin. "Zelda. You are a priority in this war, your safety must be ensured at all costs. I allowed you to test the weather, but I will not let you walk blindly into a storm."

She turned her attention to the Rito guard, who straightened his posture quickly.

"Show me the way, give me a weapon, and I will fight alongside you. Zelda is going to stay here."

"What?!" Zelda lit up in defiance, but Urbosa heard nothing of it.

"And Mipha will accompany me."

Mipha jolted, the sound of her name ripping her from her thoughts. "Me? Oh, Urbosa...O-Of course."

The Rito looked just as shocked but quickly snapped his beak shut and cleared his throat. "Let's not waste any time, then."

Mipha swore she could see steam rising from Zelda's head, fist clenched, the other gripping her journal, and Sheikah Slate to her chest.

She took several deep breaths to calm down but trailed alongside Mipha silently as Urbosa talked with the Rito guard.

"Perhaps it is best that you don't risk injury.... It's not very fun." Mipha said. "We will be back before you know it."

Zelda glanced at Mipha, and her eyes slowly moved ahead. "Sitting idly, waiting when all of my loved ones are fighting, working...I abhor it."

She hesitantly opened her hand. Her palm upturned to the air. They both watched as absolutely nothing happened.

Mipha bit her lip, folding her fins closely. What could she say that hadn't been said or thought of that hadn't drifted like a ghost in her mind for weeks?

"One day, you'll get to fight alongside everyone. It will be a day worth waiting for."

Mipha's mouth went agape. The cold ran bitterly through her veins. The frost on her cheek brought the pain akin to being slapped in the face.

She might as well have been slapped.

It took an embarrassing moment for Mipha to find her words. "I- I am Mipha Naphela of Zora's Domain, and I assumed that you are Revali…?"

Revali's eyes flicked up and down her body, though not an ounce of joy or interest was visible. He rolled his eyes at his name, shifting his weight before sharply moving his shoulder.

"Just. Revali. Do all royals like you prod around the privacy of a citizen's home, looking for something interesting? I know I am quite the feat, however I'm afraid I'm not giving autographs tonight."

He turned away, grumbling as he picked out a few scarce supplies to heal, but kept his distance still. He did not sit, nor did his feathers relax around Mipha, no matter how gentle or concerned her voice was.

Heal him! Mipha's voice shouted at her. For goodness sake, do something!

And Mipha opened her palm, expecting the thrum of magic, the watery blue aura to call to her hand, and she could finally show Revali something worth remembering. But her palm was trembling, and she could feel no magic, no healing in her soul.

Everything that made Mipha the Zora Princess, the Champion of Vah Ruta, had been stripped away. Now she was shaking on the balcony, freezing in the dark amidst a proper stranger.

"I apologize." Mipha whispered, needing something to say before she ran away. "I…The others have already eaten. Dinner has long been over. But here-"

Before Revali could question, Mipha stepped into the cover of the hut and set the bowl of steaming soup on the closest table.

"Good night, Revali."

And she darted.

Rito Village was made for flying: If you wanted or needed to get away, you could take to a ledge and leap, letting your wings carry you as far and fast as you wanted.

Mipha, however, was not made of wings, and every staircase was filled with Rito, sharing stories and good cheer that made Mipha's mind slip a little more. How could she be joyful? Things were wrong.

Mipha kept her composure; Her gaze panned the wooden floors, her hand sliding across the rough textured stone until someone called her name. She almost didn't respond; the voice sounded so far away, but moving her gaze made her realize that the speaker was a respectable distance, only a few steps.

"Your Highness!"

A light blue Rito waved at her. "You must be cold, aren't you? We have space for you and your crew! Or, ah- Your party? Your…Group?" He scratched his head. "…. It's ready, anyway. You're welcome to get some rest. Princess Zelda and Chief Urbosa are there already."

Mipha forcibly inhaled, catching her frazzled spirit enough to accept. She snuck inside the open hut; Urbosa peered into the Winter night, her heavy coat hung up on a rack near the door. Her shoulders were tense, red hair braided and swaying in the wind.

Zelda was nestled in many more blankets, wrapped in a cocoon of coziness, sleeping soundly. Her hair was wrapped up in a silk bonnet, and a matching blue mask covered her eyes from any world distractions. She looked comfortable, and Mipha wished she could say the same.

Urbosa finally spoke, took a deep breath, and reluctantly turned from the ledge. "Very different from what I'm used to, but I'll manage. And how are you finding things, Mipha?"

Urbosa's eyes settled on her, and something of concern flickered over her expression. "Mipha?"

Mipha squeezed her eyes shut, quickly sitting on her bed with her back turned to Urbosa. As much as she wanted to apologize for her behavior, she was fighting with the instinct to run away, scream, and wail.

And suddenly, a warm hand gently placed on her knee. Mipha dared to open her eyes, staring pointedly at the swirls and symbols on Urbosa's pants. The reflection of light beamed from gold trimmings on her sleeves. The sparkle of her earrings, but she could not meet Urbosa's eyes.

"Urbosa, I'm sorry." Mipha inhaled again. "I…I don't feel quite like myself anymore."

"It's been a very long, intense few weeks, my Mipha. I cannot blame you for feeling disconnected. You especially," Her eyes darted to Mipha's coat, where her scar would be visible and tender.

"You've been through so much, and have kept your grief all alone."

Moving slowly, Urbosa took a seat next to Mipha on the bed. "I have a story that I like to tell Zelda on difficult nights. Would you like to hear it?"

Mipha removed her coat and gloves, setting them aside, before silently returning to Urbosa's side. "If it's no trouble..."

"It was a dark, quiet night in the desert. A young vai woke up in her room and quickly noticed that her older sister was nowhere to be found. But even stranger, a trail of peculiar white flowers bloomed through the cracks of the streets. It lured the curious vai away through the east gate onto cold sand, sure that the flowers had something to do with her missing sister. And when she had wandered far away, something happened…."

Indeed Mipha intended to listen to the whole story, yet Urbosa's voice moved like smooth waves, gentle and warmed by sunlight, that even the frightening details of the story were not pure darkness but a path to hope. Mipha leaned into Urbosa's embrace, her eyes heavy and her heartbeat slowing to a serene pace.

At some point, Urbosa covered Mipha with a blanket and another for warmth. "Sleep well, my Mipha."

---

Absent-mindedly, Mipha fiddled with the ruby brooch holding her cloak together. Her eyes wandered over the buffet table for the third time, yet her plate was hardly half-full of more than a few slices of smoked bass.

Her appetite had been absent since the previous night, gone with the wind like Revali; Strange enough, no one had seen him, and the Rito warriors had flown off to the Hebra mountains with extra bows, spears, and arrows.

She stared at loaves of bread while listening to the village elder speak with Urbosa at the other end of the table.

"It seems our villages share an influx of trouble." Urbosa said. "Blood Moons are scheduled, but the most recent one was completely unpredictable. Many vai were injured, and those injuries still linger in them."

There was a particular pause; Urbosa's head turned to glance at Mipha and Zelda nearby before the elder grunted.

"This Blood Moon has brought trouble for us, as well. Monsters have become comfortable--Or desperate for food, I oughta say. It's my fear that the village will succumb if they are not stopped. The warriors have left, but some return with missing feathers, frostbite."

"I will be glad to lend my aid to you. Tell me when and where, and I will join the fight."

Mipha shook her head to rouse her out of her thoughts, finally noticing the food losing steam on the table. She pursed her lips at the bread and cheese, fish, and berries.

"Oh, what's this?" An array of vivid colors caught her eye; A single slice of fruit cake was left on a tray, which wasn't savory or terribly tart.

Mipha reached for it at the same time as Zelda.

"Oh!"

For a heartstopping moment, Mipha's hand grasped Zelda's, squeezing her fingers. A jolt of electricity and warmth rushed to Mipha's cold hand with a wave of terror.

With her face fired up in a dark blue blush, Mipha snatched her hand back, stumbling over the air until she could only press her hand to her cold face. 'What is happening to me? I can hardly keep myself together!'

"Princess, I- I did not see you," Mipha explained and glimpsed Zelda bowing her head. Was she flustered as well?

"It was I that did not realize." Zelda shook her head and gestured to the cake. "You were here first, Mipha. Take it."

Mipha's heart fluttered away to her stomach. She hesitated, glancing at her plate. "What if we...? Share it...?"

Zelda smiled. "We can share it."

If she was flustered, she hid it very well. A chord in Mipha rang out in her mind, 'You're a princess! This is just a friendly gesture, a moment between friends.'

Mipha closed her lips and passed a polite smile, holding out her plate as Zelda equally cut the slice in half.

"There we go. Mm, I love these kinds of desserts. Have you ever tried...Well, it's quite uncouth. I shouldn't recommend it."

"Recommend...what?"

"-Monster extract, of course! It turns any dish into a devilish violet, and I can only imagine what the essence of monsters will do to one's insides. Perhaps you'll glow, or wake up with a new ability to growl and pick up a weapon over raw steak."

"Zelda!" Mipha giggled. "Where do you even find that concoction?"

"I wish I could study it. I could make my own with all of the remains from the latest Blood Moon. But alas..."

Zelda stabbed a piece of cake and twirled her fork around as she chewed.

"Maybe after all of this is over."

Breakfast was over as soon as it began, and Zelda set off for a hill called Piper's Ridge; Ancient columns rose high into the sky, a quiet Sheikah shrine, and most of all, Vah Medoh perched among the beige rock.

Her stone wings were pressed together, her head frozen and forever staring into the cold Hebra sky. Glyphs and patterns should have glowed a brilliant turquoise, but only amber lines outlined the Divine Beast.

"There's been no movement at all?" Zelda frowned, and the Rito guard beside her shook his head.

"It's strange. Revali's supposed to be the Champion, yeah? It was moving perfectly fine before we got your announcement. As fine as a machine can, I guess. After that day...Silence."

Zelda hummed deeply, flipping to a heavily written page in her journal. Mipha eyed it, curiously trying to make out the scribbled handwriting.

The pen lines were written heavily, deeply set into the paper. 'Urbosa -- Vah Naboris' 'Mipha -- Vah Ruta' 'Revali -- Vah Medoh ?' 'Daruk-- Vah Rudania??'

'Prophecy following...Speak with oracles, ' Mipha read, 'Praying' 'Powers absent.'

Zelda snapped her book shut, tilting her head back to the Divine Beast. "Well, that's concerning. Has anyone seen Revali today?"

The Rito took a deep breath, turned towards Mipha and Urbosa, and pointed between them; An awful storm brewed in the distance, hovering over the mountains far into the horizon. Rugged peaks of sharp mountains loomed in dark shadows.

"He took off early in the morning, but the blizzard I wrote to you about is that way. I would not recommend going there, Your Highness."

Zelda frowned, peering in the pointed direction. Mipha could see a plan brewing behind her dark brown eyes, thoughts, and ambitions building up like coals on a fire.

"With all due respect, we are allied in peace and war."

Urbosa took a deep breath through her nose, lifting her chin. "Zelda. You are a priority in this war, your safety must be ensured at all costs. I allowed you to test the weather, but I will not let you walk blindly into a storm."

She turned her attention to the Rito guard, who straightened his posture quickly.

"Show me the way, give me a weapon, and I will fight alongside you. Zelda is going to stay here."

"What?!" Zelda lit up in defiance, but Urbosa heard nothing of it.

"And Mipha will accompany me."

Mipha jolted, the sound of her name ripping her from her thoughts. "Me? Oh, Urbosa...O-Of course."

The Rito looked just as shocked but quickly snapped his beak shut and cleared his throat. "Let's not waste any time, then."

Mipha swore she could see steam rising from Zelda's head, fist clenched, the other gripping her journal, and Sheikah Slate to her chest.

She took several deep breaths to calm down but trailed alongside Mipha silently as Urbosa talked with the Rito guard.

"Perhaps it is best that you don't risk injury.... It's not very fun." Mipha said. "We will be back before you know it."

Zelda glanced at Mipha, and her eyes slowly moved ahead. "Sitting idly, waiting when all of my loved ones are fighting, working...I abhor it."

She hesitantly opened her hand. Her palm upturned to the air. They both watched as absolutely nothing happened.

Mipha bit her lip, folding her fins closely. What could she say that hadn't been said or thought of that hadn't drifted like a ghost in her mind for weeks?

"One day, you'll get to fight alongside everyone. It will be a day worth waiting for."

#zelpha #miphzel #fic time; year walk #botw #breath of the wild #botw mipha #botw zelda #botw urbosa #fanfiction #writing #champions ballad #botw revali #abzu's writing #i wanted my fic to be something special so i did some arts and crafts! #i also want to redo my blog a little #anyway enjoy!

[flowercrown-bard]

Why is the Roche/Ciri ship always only crap for you all?

Hey, i once read a draco x apple fanfic. I have no room to judge anyone's ship and I don't think I ever did that (outside of private conversations). What i am judging is someone ruining the fandom experience for other people. If you really are as upset and hurt by people hating on your ship as you say, I'm sure you understand why people don't like you hating on their ship. (btw it's hilarious that you sent me hate for rorveth and cirys. Literally the only character included here that i even know is Ciri. If you sent me geraskier hate there would at least be context since i actually ship it, but i have absolutely no opinion on those ships you mentioned. I don't even know them) You've been told by others why they are annoyed by your asks and obviously it has no effect on you, so i won't bother repeating what they've already said, but i do occasionally love hearing myself talk so i wil still write a far longer response than i should So this isn't a hate response, it's a love letter to fandom. So here's what made being in a fandom so special to me:

The support.

Fandom to me is, at its core, strangers sharing their excitement, inspiring each other and admiring what other people do. When i started writing i was so self conscious, i couldn't sleep after posting a chapter because I was so anxious. And i received so much support even for works that are really not that great. There's something so wonderful about cheering others on and getting cheered on. That sort of open and heartfelt support is not something you experience in real life and it made some hard times much better for me. It's incredible knowing that people across the globe collaborate, send each other prompts or getting really excited about something someone else did.

2. The possibility to just…not engage in conversations i don't want to be in.

It's so freeing to have the option to block people of just not respond. There's always some sort of controversy or just some takes i don't like. How wonderful that i can just not look at those things

3. Getting to be creative and knowing it makes people happier

Your fic or art isn't brilliant? Who cares. It's so freeing to create something out of love, for people who love the same thing. I started writing for the first time since i was a child because of fandom. I dabbled in creating fanart (and realised the medium isn't for me, which is also great to find out), i wrote poetry (which I never wanted to do) and badly recorded songs (which i felt so self conscious about). Was it all good? Ha, absolutely not. But i got zo try it out and i wouldn't have done that without fandom. There is no external pressure to be good (or if there is pressure from other people to create and be good, there are always a ton of others telling you why this pressure is unfair and should be ignored). There are no grades, no deadlines. Just the love and joy of creating and sharing your creation. Or not sharing them, if that's what you want. Both is fine and that's the point

4. Seeing people of all skill levels share their works

And all of their art is beautiful and meaningful, no matter if they qre a master of their craft or someone who pickef up a pen for the first time to try out this medium

5. Seeing different interpretations

I don't like many of them but it's so interesting to see how others are interpreting something. That can be anything from the question of who's a top to some in depth meta analysis. People enjoy different things and it's so cool to see what they focus on

6. The people in general. I pretty much left the witcher fandom months ago (i tried writing for it again but it was so hard that I gave up) but through it, i met incredible people, some of who have become irreplaceable parts of my life and i am so thankful for fandom for bringing us together like this. When i was in the fandom, i got to know people are so talented, unbelievably creative, kind, funny, supportive and so many other wonderful things (even those i never talked to directly. If you left a comment on something i wrote or made my days brighter with your own creations, you are amazing and i appreciate you a lot)

Basically, fandom for me was an experience that brought me joy and a sense of community. It's on you to seek out the fandom experience you want to have. If you want that experience to be one of bitterness and hate, I'm really sorry for you. But more than anything I'm sorry for the people who you drag into this by harrassing them even after they blocked you. If you want to stew in bitterness over shipping a rarepair, that's your decision. But if other people want to enjoy the fandom in a more joyful way, then that should be their decision too and you don't get to take it away from them and ruin their love. Because ultimately that's what fandom is to me and i treasure the memory of that love more than I value the opinion of someone who apparently takes joy in trying (and hopefully failing) to take that love away

#I have a lot more to say but I'll shut up now #Or else I'd still be rambling in an hour #Also just so you know #Some people aren't just annoyed by you #Getting your spam is pretty funny and feel almost like a strange kind of chievement #Look ma! The random internet person noticed me! I made it as a fandom creator :D #Seriously though you're wasting your and everyone else's time #I'm not sure if anyone is taking you seriously at this point #Go eat some grass or something

[lamonnaie]

bad buddy fandom getting-to-know-you meme!

Thanks for the tag @fiercynn !! This is a really lovely idea :)

note: i consider "fanworks" to pretty much everything people create related to a fandom, including but not limited to meta/analysis/discussion, gifs, fanvids/edits/fancams, filk, fanart, fanfic, fan food, fan crafts, etc. please include this note with the meme unless you have a different definition!

name and whatever you want to share about yourself hi i'm mars, i use she/her pronouns, i live in australia and i've been into thai/asian bl for a little over a year now. i mostly just lurk and mass rb on tumblr lol, but i'd definitely like to get to know more people !!

when did you watch bad buddy/join the fandom? I was actually trying to track down the exact date recently (i failed), but i watched it for the first time around mid-september 2022, ended up binging it in a day and been a part of the fandom since

favorite ship(s) patpran <3

favorite character(s) pat !! he's one of my favourite characters from any media ever. I just love how selfless he is and how he transforms through the show, and how bright he is but knows when to stand his ground. i could wax poetics about him fr <3

favorite episode(s) Whenever i watch/rewatch bad buddy i tend to binge it so i can never distinguish betweens episodes lol. In general, ep 12 is definitely one of my favs because i feel like it ties things up nicely and i like seeing them happy :) i can probably give a better answer for favourite scene...

favorite scene(s) ...which is why it's great that this is the next question!

In no particular order: the staircase proposal scene, the bus stop roleplaying scene, the post-curtain bench hand holding scene (specifically that one face pat/ohm makes which imo is the single most most heartbreaking frame in the entire show), the ep 12 post-credits scene (wait was it actually post-credits, i don't remember ajksdjf), the screaming on the rocks at the zero-waste village scene, and the rooftop kiss (ofc)

Basically i just like to see them happy (most of the time) :)

one thing you would change about the show if you could the whole making-it-up-to-wai arc was not it for me. WHY was pran the one apologising and going after him??? still makes me mad to this day, but i think i'd have a lot more animosity towards wai if ep 12 didn't exist (also all the wai redemption arcs in fanfics have made me warm up to him :P)

what are your some of your favorite fanworks made by other people? ahhh so many!! joy of stanning a show that's finished is that it stays going through fanworks, but also now there's too many that i absolutely adore to remember in the moment, sp here's some:

we both know you're my only dream (fic) by @fiercynn: one of my favourite fics ever that i constantly go back and reread whenever i'm having a bad day (or not)

yield strength (fic) by @dulosis: the physics analogies do something to my brain /pos

10 things i hate about you (fic) by @nobodynobodyno: this one's so cute and i reread it all the time

this fmv to tujh mein rab dikhta hai by @transpat: desi moots, iykyk. but fr this holds such a special place in my heart, the lyrics are so patpran and the editing and clip choice is just *chef's kiss*

this fmv to dandelions: IT'S SO GOOD. all the parallels, the dialogue overlaying is just perfect, and the TRANSITIONS (the one at 1:28 especially)

every single one of @hereforlou's art: i'm literally obsessed, i don't always see everything on my dash so i'll literally check their tumblr every couple days. is this stalker behaviour? possibly, but if you've seen their art i think you'd understand.

Also special mention to this one gifset of the staircase proposal scene which was my first ever exposure to bad buddy, it made me watch the show to begin with, but i didn't rb it when i first saw it so now it's lost to the times 😭😭

I have an insane amount of fanfic i wanted to put here but for the sake of length of this post, i restrained myself ajskdjf

(if you create fanworks) what are your favorite fanworks that you’ve made? i do not (yet 👀)

a song that makes you think of bbs (the ones in the show don’t count lol) pretty much every fmv/edit that i've rewatched a couple times set to a song will make me thing of bbs lol, so some are tujh mein rab dikhta hai and dandelions from above, emily by Jeremy Zucker and Chelsea Cutler because of this amazing fic, and gorgeous by Taylor Swift because of this gorgeous edit (y'all please go watch it it's amazing).

idk anything else you want us to know? It's the perfect timing for this because these are my nails right now ):)

honestly not super sure who of my mutuals are bbs moots so i'm just gonna tag some people, feel free to ignore this if you've already been tagged/don't want to do it! :)

@nobodynobodyno @dropthedemiurge @justafriend-ql @cornflowershade @hometothecanyonmoon @7nessasaryevils

If you see this and you want to do it, this is is me tagging you as well !!

#bad buddy #bad buddy fandom meme #bad buddy the series #me #lamonnaie stuff

[inlocusmads]

Partner (Disambiguation)

5 times Nora and Trystan fake a relationship and one time they didn't want to anymore.

(Or a 5+1 fic on what it means to be a "partner" to someone.)

Characters: Nora Rose, Trystan Thorne from Crimes of Passion, Book 1 and 2.

WC: 3.8k | Teen + for swearing (don't blame me, blame Nora (no, honestly, don't. She deserves to swear as much as she should.))

A/N: This is probably my first 5+1 fic ever, so I hope I did it right because it would be very bad if I got it wrong. It might be a bit long too, so I did a thing where I cut back on the descriptions and added in more dialogue because we are truly at the epitome of a writing style crisis here inside Mads' Universe of Horrors here.

Tagging @choicesbookclub

(Painting of Tristan and Iseult)

1:

Of course, Nora would agree, it is the stupidest request in the whole wide world. Possibly ever in the universe, mostly because it really was an absurd enough request to propose to someone who had only known her for maybe two or three weeks. Nora would call it an act of boosting morale, something the private detective agency really did require, when really it was just a whole plot to get a discounted meal as a part of their Valentines In Late September program.

"Do you want to pretend to be my partner so we can go to an all-you-can-eat feast?"

"Really?" Trystan folded up the newspaper and stood up, like a car after a jumpstart. "Husband? Boyfriend? Partner? What would you like?"

"Okay, you are way too into this. I'm reconsidering it."

"No, no, it is a splendid idea because I have been very interested in immersing myself in the lesser known bits of American culture, especially the all-you-can-eat buffets at restaurants. Drakovia would have that, if we didn't have capital punishment after a massive court case between the government and a bunch of caterers. Business laws. Anyway, I would love to be your partner for the evening. Do we need to forge anything?"

"The fact that you asked is concerning but yes. It's half-off for couples, one breath away from marriage. We need proof, so they're looking for cohabitation stuff - joint bank accounts, maybe, receipts, anything to prove we are seeing each other and it is a real thing."

"I do know a very good forger here in New York."

"I know some too. Who have you been hanging out with?"

"Nobody. Who are you hanging out with?"

"All right. We'll figure that out on the way, now come on! Grab your coats, let's go! We're going to be late. Buffet starts at around seven. You know the rules. Grab and go. Stuff it into Tupperware if you can't finish it. Make sure to eat enough, sample a bit of everything including the special menu they have exclusively for lovey-dovey people with rings - oh crap, how good are you at arts and crafts, because we need a convincing looking paper ring -- maybe I can nick some washers--"

"I certainly didn't expect the fake marriage plot so early on in our partnership but I am intrigued. A little immorality and a lust against the law never hurt anyone." Trystan grinned from ear to ear.

***

2:

There were certain things you didn't do, such as engage in debauchery, toss stones at people who've wronged you and threaten your finishing school conduct and theatrics teacher with nuclear warheads. Trystan had done all of it. He'd also supplied rather falsified opinions to the Press, which was wonderful but was caught by a very near and dear Olivia Nevrakis, which was not very good on his part and now, everyone was deeply convinced Nora was Trystan's fiancee, except she was Nora to New York and Duchess Ximena of Lythikos to the royal society.

So when Nora received a rather confusing email from a gossip magazine, something she never really does often because it is only ever rare underdogs like her ever get interviewed or even recognised by the press or even given a commendation for maybe, y'know, solving all of the NYPD's cases, she was rather positively baffled. Not because she'd expected the Duchess Ximena thing to still continue with its rather violent momentum, rather she certainly didn't expect to learn a whole new love story that she certainly had no part in orchestrating.

"Did you tell The Spotlight that you met me at a charity function, I was wearing a bright green dress with topaz gems and a tiara and you sweeped me off my feet -- what in the absolute fuck? And how did they get my email?"

"Might've given it to them--"

"What?"

"I said, I might've given it to them!"

"Seriously - I can't it with--!"

"Okay, you are mad."

"Yes, very much."

"I want to tell you that my intention is to never harm you, Detective. Ever. It is merely a massive distraction. I created the perfect love story enough for all of these gossip rags to bleed it dry and run it to its death and we wouldn't have to worry about it interfering with the case anymore. I did us all a nice favour."

"A favour? Feeding wrong information to the press - you could get sued!"

"I do have many close friends who can take care of that. Small-time thieves who can make things very difficult." Trystan smiled, smugly. "Anyway, it helps, doesn't it? The press will be so distracted and then they'll get bored and soon enough, they'll stop beating this dead horse. And we can focus on the investigation without the Press careening up to wherever we stop and demanding answers. The less scandalous, the more fluffier the better."

"So I have to play in, now?"

"Come on, a few words about my pleasant facial features won't hurt. Along with some of my best talents, including the theatre. I was in many productions of Shakespearean plays."

"You're literally the worst person ever." Nora declared.

"And yet, you still want me as your partner. This is a love story for the ages! Can we do a little enemies to lovers arc too? The mysterious Ximena held hatred in her heart at first. This elegant young man, Trystan Thorne couldn't believe it--"

"Goodbye."

"No, wait! I'm almost done! Come back! Argh, you are absolutely difficult to deal with, Detective! I hope you know I'm taking full credit for the whole story! If this ever becomes profitable -- annd she's gone."

***

3:

There were certain things you should probably avoid if you ever work at a hospital. If you ever happen to see a very frantic detective urging nurses and doctors if she could see her injured idiot of a partner, you probably should let her. First, it was because she was scarily covered in his blood. Second because she might just illegally control a forklift and push her way through the hospital doors, so if you do value peace and quiet in your local hospital, do let your detectives get their way.

"He's my partner, you absolute clowns!" Nora yelled after them as they carried a wounded Trystan on a stretcher. A nurse quickly came by to do damage control.

"I'm sorry, but it's for immediate family only."

"I'm a detective and he's my partner!"

"I understand -- detective but--"

"No, you don't get it! Seriously, God!"

"Partner as in, a partner in your case or --"

"Partners! P-A-R-T-N-E-R-S! Look, I don't want to shout at nurses. You're brilliant people and I just want to be there, okay?"

"I understand that, Miss-- but perhaps if you put down your name and the -- nature of your relationship with the patient whether it is a -- colleague, work thing or if you two are married, as in partners who are romantically involved -- I really ought to write this down! Miss! Detective! You can't go in there! Oh no -- oh dear, someone stop her, please! Who are you and what is your relationship with the patient? We need it for the records!"

"PARTNERS!" Nora shouted at the nurse and followed the doctors to the hospital room.

"A very helpful nurse - though somewhat terribly frightened - I don't know what happened to her, told me that Trystan and his partner were here, though she didn't specify the nature of the partnership so I must have to congratulate him either way; for scoring a job at a detective agency and a surprise engagement! Ha!" Mags smiled weakly, after the rollercoaster of events that went down the night before. It was clear ever since Nora had informed her of Trystan's stab wound, she didn't sleep at all.

"I'm sorry, the ambiguity in partners seemed unclear enough to throw them off for a while. Means a variety of things, doesn't it? Anyway, I had to -- erm, figure a way out because they wouldn't let me in here for the night."

"Oh no, I understand." Mags sat down next to her. "How is he doing?"

"Better. Or at least the guys who keep coming in here tell me so. He's still sedated. Knocked out like a tropical fish on crack. The doctors said the blade missed his vital organs, didn't penetrate too much. He should be fine in a couple of weeks. Four or five, maybe."

There was silence for a while before Nora announced-

"I'm sorry."

"No - seriously, don't be."

"No, we went in. We were utterly stupid. We had no back-ups. I'm so sorry, Marguerite. It just went down so poorly. Trystan deserves so much more than this funny business he'd unfortunately caught himself into and I'm clearly the one to blame, I just--"

Nora felt an arm on her shoulder. Mags gave her an assuring nod.

"No, Nora, you've done so much already. It's how Trystan does things. He charges into danger and gets hurt. I pick up the pieces. It is terrible but - we do the best we can. You've protected him from a great many things, but ultimately, if he took that stab wound, I don't think it is your fault. He took it because he had his reasons to. But that doesn't mean I can't complain."

"No, by all means, please do. I completely understand you and to shoulder that responsibility throughout childhood, you deserve to complain at least a little."

Mags threw her head back and laughed. "I guess we understand each other better now. So much for Trystan's guardian angels. He still ends up with a knife to his stomach with ten thousand reasons as to why he did so."

***

4:

Nora wasn't a huge fan of literature, but she did read Anne Frank's Tales as part of an English course in high school and one of the quotes that really stuck with her went - "Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude". As she sat there in the hospital, with broken ribs and a phone with a dozen missed calls from a distant aunt who wouldn't call but only called after the Press had a nice field day over the burnt remains of the St. Claire Greenhouse and Nora's involvement ("Jimmy Rose's daughter" - they'd all said.) she couldn't help but think Aunt Lei was just feeling regretful that she wasn't in contact all these years.

With trembling hands, she picked up the call when her phone buzzed again, hoping that her relatives wouldn't abandon her again and use "distance" as a boring pathetic excuse.

"Auntie, it's been ten years!" Nora exclaimed in Chinese. "Where have you -- oh, I see -- erm - journalism, that's great. Oh you were in Indonesia all along, that's nice -- wouldn't have hurt to call -- no, Dad died years ago, yeah, yeah -- what's the call for, anyway?"

"I never knew you were married la, Yingxiu!"

"No, I'm not--"

"It was all over the news! Your name on the front page! It was all in English, I don't know how to read it, la. It was you in this nice dress with this other man! You never invited us, hai - this is what this American Life does to you. I told Jian Ying la- that Jimmy -- to take you home after Xiaoyun passed. You never learn the gratitude! No wedding, no party - I have to find out engagement from newspaper photograph!"

"I --" Nora coughed a lot, her tongue faintly tasting of smoke. "No, wait you've got the wrong--"

"Give me the phone to that man, la! Now! Need to talk to him and see if he is any good. He's in our family now, ai! Good lord, all those years and this Jimmy never taught you anything proper at all. No weddings, nothing!"

Trystan must've had some impeccable comedic timing engraved into his soul, because he'd just walked in with a pudding cup refill. Well, technically he did end up stealing the whole packet when the nurses weren't looking.

Nora gave him a look. Then she pressed the speaker phone.

"He's here." She spoke in Chinese. "Talk in English. You're on speaker phone."

"Oh I can talk in English! I know English very much!" said Aunt Lei, proving to her rebellious distant niece that she was capable of doing so.

Trystan gave her a look.

Nora responded with a different one. Play along.

"Erm, hello?"

"Ah, so you are the boy my niece married, ah?"

"It is so nice to meet you, Mrs--"

Lei. Nora mouthed.

"Lee--" Trystan mispronounced. "I am just so elated to meet another member of Nora's family."

"Why didn't she invite anyone to the wedding? I had to find it through newspaper!"

"It was a very short wedding, unfortunately, I really do apologise, Mrs Lee. However I love your niece so very much. It was this heat of the moment thing. We decided we just simply had to get married and we did."

"This young love never goes anywhere -- no tradition, no principles -- but you take care of her, la? This one, this Ying Xiu, she doesn't do anything at all. Good for nothing! Didn't even tell her family she's married! What is your name?"

"Tr--" he began and immediately swallowed it after Nora gestured at him against doing it. "James. James Smith."

"James Smith -- okay. I will inform others and come back. You better pick the phone up next time, na, Ying Xiu -- otherwise I will--"

Nora promptly ended the call and the two heaved a collective sigh of relief.

"This fake marriage thing has gone for far too long." Trystan said, peeling open the pudding cup for her. "At this point, it would be the least surprising thing if we did actually fill up the papers and get married in a courthouse ceremony."

"I feel like Ruby and Luke would place bets about this. I don't want either of them to win." Nora smiled devilishly, as she devoured her pudding by stabbing it with a fork. "Major props to you, of course. You're the best fake partner I've ever had, I might actually cry happy tears--"

"Now, now, we'll save that for the wedding, yeah?"

"-- and punch five people."

"Also for the wedding, yes. I have a list."

***

5:

"So what is our cover, Detective? Ooh, are we playing Good Cop, Bad Cop again? Please tell me we are doing that. I've been watching violent American movies and I do think I have a strong grasp of a "Bad Cop" character. Does Die Hard count as one?" Trystan asked, literally dancing around on the pavement at the prospect of going to interrogate a fence manning a stolen jewel storage facility.

"I think we're going to have to play the fake engagement card again." Nora sighed. "Please don't let me do this. I will probably get very violent-"

"- at the prospect of not marrying me?" Trystan smirked.

"No, at the prospect of doing this over and over again as our only veto power move. There has to be something better and I can't think of any, so shall we, Mr Rose-Thorne?" Nora held her hand out.

Trystan took it, but did not respond in kind. "We need to decide on the names. Thorne-Rose, please. It's so much more lyrical and--"

Their earpieces buzzed to life and without warning, Luke's voice shuttled through into their ear canals. "I hate to interrupt your marital bickering, but you've got to make it look convincing. Lay the love on thick. Be sappy, be --"

"Stupidly in love, yep. Yep. Got it. Let's go."

Now Nora did get better at confrontations as a whole. She realised that the use of force and her rather "try me, bitch" personality wouldn't gel in with stolen goods transporters like this one with the beard, after her run-ins with another bearded person who turned out to be a vindictive serial killer being manipulated by a wise old, yet somehow equally vindictive grandmother. Armed with this information, Trystan was interested to see how this would play out.

"Can I help you?"

To Trystan's absolute horror, Nora put on possibly the most high-pitched accent ever that would've gotten her cast in a campy teen movie as the overly giggly best friend archetype. She clutched onto Trystan's arm like she was about to judo-flip him, crossing the treacherous boundaries between a tender arm holding and full-blown martial arts mania. Nora at one point, even forgot how she should've held a lover's hand, so much that she genuinely looked like she was in so much pain from just the arm holding.

"Hi! Hi! Hi!" she said, "We heard from my absolute best friend Cadence that y'all sell like jewellery and shit and my partner and I here will totally buy one for like a million amounts of money!"

"The higher the quality of the jewel, the better."

"And like my partner here is super good with them, he's in the diamond business and everything! And I just never really knew so much, except they are so sparkly! I just want a nice little one, but not too small as to like, invalidate our amazing true love! It has to be big, but also like, small because Cadence is a total bitch and she'll like, totally spread all those lies about me in our neighbourhood!"

"An engagement ring, eh?" The salesman was mildly mortified by Nora's personality but he didn't question it, of course. Customers like her went by everyday and paid him well. "Gotta ask, who proposed?"

"I did, of course!" Nora piped up. "I mean, I literally snuck the little ring into his champagne and he choked on it and I almost thought he was going to die!"

It was then Trystan realised his detective wasn't doing this for the sole purpose to not blow their covers off. She was having fun. He gave her a gentle nudge with his elbow.

"Yes -- it was a very kind gesture, of course--" Trystan smiled, but winced in pain at the Lovecraftian horror before him. It was like watching a documentary on how sausages were made.

"Honestly if we totally had the time, I would've driven us up to the courthouse -- hahahaha! It's funny, right? So funny! But we do want a proper ring, a nice white wedding, a house with a picket fence and -- so many kids! So many!" Nora swallowed hard. "Anyway, we can't do any of that without my mother of course. Ugh, hate that woman. She doesn't want us eloping. She hates everyone except my little darling little partner -- dude here and -- erm -- the only way we can make her happy is the biggest, fanciest ring ever!"

"Of course. You know what they say about mother-in-laws--" the salesman shot Trystan a look, who responded in kind with a similar look. "Give me a moment, I'll have to get the rings from the shelf."

"I hate it here." Nora punctuated every word; returning back to her deep, baritone voice. "Kill me."

"You started it." Trystan whispered back. "I'm just enjoying the show. For a second I thought you were pulling my leg with the ring in the champagne thing."

"Of course I was. Then I'll choke everyone to death for making me do this over and over again."

"Choking. Someone's a little -- bold." he shot her a knowing smile.

"I cannot believe you right now." Nora shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Neither can I, but you know what they say about marriages. You discover something new about your little darling little partner dude everyday." Trystan chuckled.

***

+1:

It was a nice weekend at the Ginovesi Agency which was a bit of a misnomer because it was never really just a nice weekend. Luke had some trouble he had to sort out. Ruby was knee deep in an autopsy report about this man who took five stab wounds but died from poison instead, which was absolutely marvellous and of course, as a chemistry geek she simply had to eat up all the information about poisons possible. Trystan was not, unfortunately, looking up nukes on eBay and was instead putting some thought into the next phase in their case, while he bored Nora with a story about Kaspar and how he, alongside being a jewel thief, also loved to steal paintings.

Nora was at her desk; all suited up for an important occasion - Filing Day, when everything took a pause because she had to sort a portion of her pie chart time for meaningless, pointless report work. Mafalda was adamant against her adherence to a format. After many successive attempts, she'd managed to produce one good decent write-up without snarky side comments about the frivolous nature of the report, several more petty jibes and changing the font to Comic Sans for the fun of it.

"I'm done. Fuck yes!" Nora declared, giving everyone a high-five. "Okay, coffee and everything else on me. I apologise for the excessive swearing, not! I am done with this fucking thing! Ha-HA! Seriously, this has school written all over it and I absolutely hated school - no dark sarcasm in the classroom, teachers leave them kids alone, all right anyway, what would you like Luke? Ruby? It's on me. Free food! Bagels?"

Nobody answered back. Luke was enamoured by the computer screen and Ruby was now grinning at the autopsy study, much to Nora's concern.

Trystan stood up and approached her. "I would absolutely love a caramel latte and a croissant from this place." - he reached into his pocket and grabbed a business card from a local café. "It is a very small shop; between a public library and a bus stop, so I do think you'd require the address for it. Small shops have the best food. They also have belladi."

"Thanks for being the only one acknowledging!" Nora shouted, with a bit of obnoxiousness just so Ruby and Luke could hear. "Seriously, what are these guys on and where can I get some of it?"

"I don't know, but I do think this will make you feel somewhat closer to that euphoric feeling." Trystan smiled. He leaned a little, taking in Nora's scent of peppermints and pressed a ravenous kiss to her lips. Nora smiled into it, allowing herself to pull him closer by the lapels of his blazer; sinking into this feeling - this wonderful, marvellous feeling of Nora who had just stopped giving three Hoover damns about the situation, not long before--

"HOLY SHIT!" Luke yelped.

"What-- OH MY GOD!" Ruby cried.

"Luke, isn't it a little rude to interrupt us when we were clearly in the middle of saying goodbye?" Trystan said, his head sinking into Nora's shoulder almost without any hesitation at all. "You too, Ruby."

Nora folded her arms, quite proud of herself. "Now can I get your coffee orders, yeah?"

"B-black two sugars--" Luke swallowed, with great difficulty; almost as if he'd seen a Cyclops barge into the wall, shrieking like crazy.

"None for me. I think I might just need a cold compress -- or something - Jesus Christ Nora!" Ruby exclaimed. "So like, are you two a thing? When did this happen? Are you now dating? Do you guys have a plan? Are you partners? Boyfriends and girlfriends? Have you defined the relationship--"

"Well, Detective? Do you want to be?" Trystan asked, his voice almost nauseatingly sweet.

"I don't know. Maybe we should do another round of all of this fake, phoney engagement, partnership business. What do you say? It'll be troublesome, of course. Big trouble."

"You know me, I love trouble so much."

***

A/N:

Boy that was long, wasn't it? I'd think this is one of my longest fics ever. It is against the vast majority of Tumblr readers, I'd think because a few weeks ago, I put out a poll about the ideal chapter length readers would enjoy and this just became a whole thing. I don't know. I guess I have just been a bit worried about this whole threshold that sometimes I feel like I'm not enjoying the writing bit and focusing on cutting it down - damn this is a whole therapy session.

Thank you so much for reading! I appreciate it a lot! This was just silly but I just wanted to put this out there, into the void lmfao. I did not edit this so if there are some grammar errors - uh.. we'll just pretend they don't exist. Originally I wanted to write actual Chinese in place of the conversation in English Nora has with her distant Aunt, but I never seem to find a proper translating app because Google Translate, DeepL they all do this thing where they make the language so formal. Plus I have no idea if it is phonetically, grammatically true or not.

Guess I'll just learn Chinese next time - ugh the sheer lengths I must go for these two idiots -

And also I would totally appreciate a Drakovian dictionary. Or maybe I can make up my own Drakovian since it is clearly a language that must have originated from Eastern European, Slavic languages. PB make Trystan speak Drakovian challenge. Seriously make it happen. This is definitely not a threat.

Tagging:

Perma: @quixoticdreamer16 @tessa-liam

Crimes: @cassie-thorne @peonierose @ao719 @trappedinfanfiction @jerzwriter @fuckitweball0000

#nora x trystan #w:inlocusmads #crimes of passion choices fics #crimes of passion

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

Hi! I, evidently like so many others, absolutely loved THD!! I am spinning it in my hands, bouncing it up and down, examining the fractals it throws off when held to light... it's just SO GOOD! I wandered over here when you posted the final chapter, read your plan of attack post for the series and am now stuck on this somehow being the first fandom fic you've written?? If you're happy to answer, I would love to know what it is about TL and Jamie Tartt specifically that inspired you to jump from original work (which I will definitely be checking out later!! Your prose demands no less!!) and into fan fiction, any why this particular AU gripped you to the point of delivering 80k words of brilliance? Thank you for the story and (hopefully) thank you in advance for the response!

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! My venture into fanfic is the result of a confluence of a few different factors. I finally got around to watching TL maybe a month before season 3 aired, having already osmosed some of the major plot points from Tumblr at large — most notably the Wembley scene, which was the main reason I decided to watch it and probably gave Jamie an edge going in. The show falls into the sweet spot between "bad but I had a good time" and "this is a beautiful work of art" that made me want to dig my fingers in and pick it apart: it has defined themes and character arcs and is overall well-crafted, but also has a number of flaws and bits that didn't quite work, particularly when it comes resolution of Jamie's arc with his dad — which annoyed me so much that it's the origin of this sideblog.

Jamie falls into the category of like. characters alchemically created for me to like them. As in, the first time I heard a description of the show, they got to Jamie and I was like "if I ever watch this, he's going to be my favourite." And I was right! I have a real soft spot for what I lovingly refer to as "narrative problem children": if there's one member of the main group who causes problems for everyone else and is an asshole that no one likes, they're probably my special little guy (think season 1 Izzy Hands, Catra from She-Ra, Thomas Barrow from Downton Abbey who was the only reason I watched that show), which of course means I want to put them through the emotional blender. Bonus points if they're either very talented/good at whatever they do (especially if it comes from hard work rather than natural affinity), a schemer (I love me a schemer), have a tragic backstory, and/or have autism vibes.

My reasons for getting into fanfic are maybe surprisingly pragmatic: I'd finished part 1 of my original fic series and wanted to write something else before I started editing so I wouldn't be thinking about that universe and would be able to judge the world-building more accurately. I'd also spent enough time in my academic life defending my ideas and having my writing critiqued that I stopped being as nervous about having an audience and became curious about how people would respond to my fiction writing, which I figured would be a lot easier to find out with fanfic. (Was it also a bit of a guerrilla marketing campaign for my original fic? Maybe a little).

As for this AU in particular, I was really interested in how the relationship that we see between Georgie and Jamie in 3x11 fits in with everything we'd previously learned (or could deduce) about his past, as well as how Jamie might respond to being made vulnerable the way he is in 2x08 at the height of his prick era. I fully did not intend for it to be 80k (it was supposed to be a one-shot) but the story kept expanding and sometime around chapter 3 or 4, it got upgraded from "quick break from the original fic" to "long-term project."

#fic: the hedgehog's dilemma #series: symbiosis #asks #kvetch oc

[danpuff-ao3]

Embroidery Commission

I was going to do a longer introduction but really I can't tease the people like that. That would be quite rude of me!

This, my friends, is the gorgeous embroidery hoop I commissioned from @onbeinganangel!!!!

Okay you have the goods now, read ahead if you're ready for Danni babbling.

Yesterday morning, I got an email from our apartment's Amazon hub that I had a package ready for pickup. And since I knew exactly what it was, I was annoyed (cuz it's early and I'm at work and I have to wait) and excited (cuz MY HOOP!!!!!)

After work, I rushed home, ran to the hub, grabbed my treasure, and pranced back to my apartment. You know, carefully. I wasn't sure how delicate I needed to be and I was risking this hoop for nothing!

Above pictures is what I found inside the box. My hoop carefully and beautifully wrapped in tissue, and a sweet note!

And if you know me at all, you'll know I was too excited to rip right into it. I don't know if anyone else deals with this, but my excitement levels get so high I just don't know what to do with myself! Have to smile and shriek and dance a bit. Shake out all those nerves! Breathe a bit (because oxygen is important.) (That's what I'm told anyway.)

Once I had my wits about me, I very carefully peeled back the tissue and beheld my beautiful hoop!

And started crying, of course.

(If you know me at all, that won't surprise you, either.) (Overactive tear ducts, I swear to Merlin.) (Or maybe that's just me being overemotional...either way 🤷‍♀️)

It was in early November that I reached out to Mari. She had posted about making sure she could get commissions done in time for Christmas, and while I didn't need anything by Christmas, it did prompt me to think "hey...maybe I could commission something!"

If you've not seen Mari's embroidery, you should definitely check it all out! (Conveniently: click here.) Her work is gorgeous, and it's extra special to have another craft used for fandom purposes! Fan writing? Great! Fan art? Great! Fic binding? Oh cool! Fan embroidery???? Oh god I'm in love. (Also Mari writes, so here's her AO3.) (We have to stan a multi-talented queen.)

I was a wee bit nervous, because I've always been hesitant to ask about commissions from people who I don't know are okay with Snarry. My OTP is so controversial to others, but so beloved to me, and so I rarely reach out, but...I don't know. I couldn't help it! It seemed like too cool an opportunity to not try for, and Mari seemed so sweet so I figured if she let me down, she'd do so gently!

...because obviously I'm going to commission Snarry things. Much as I love other ships, if I'm spending my hard earned money, it's going to be Snarry. 😍

As you can see: it was not a problem!

What I most wanted was a piece for my pride and joy, Contempt. I wiffle-waffled a bit. I thought Orange Blossoms might have better imagery for embroidery, but I already had a fanart done for Orange Blossoms, and while more is more...I really, really in my heart needed a physical representation of my beloved Contempt.

I felt a bit bad about the timing and assured her I didn't need it by Christmas and to prioritize Christmas projects (even though I was quite eager for this!) Like: "I saw your post about Christmas commissions but...this is not for Christmas!" Anyway between the Snarry worries and timing guilt and my anxiety...that should tell you how much I wanted this piece! And let me tell you, it was worth fighting anxiety for!!

The other tricky part of commissions is me trying to give creators an idea to work with, while also stressing that I value their creative input more than my own vision. Everyone is different; more details are useful for some while others enjoy the creative freedom more. (So of course I fretted about that, too.) But generally I am drawn to creators for their own skill and creativity and want as much of themselves in there as possible! I have so much respect and admiration for other creators!! And why I want so dearly to support them however I can! (And to also selfishly benefit from it, not gonna lie.) (Look at this thing!)

What I gave Mari to work with were primarily the quotes. Both are spoken by Harry in the work, though in separate portions of the fic. I wasn't sure how weird that would be, but I don't know...they go so well together and really sort of sum the whole story up! My ultimate love/hate endeavor!

As for the imagery, I had suggestions for that, too: the door to Snape's quarters have "serpents entwined with ivy and dahlias" and there are moments in the story where other flowers are given, those being white gardenias and forget-me-nots. Between my personal love of flowers and animals, as well as my great love for symbolism, and the role they all play in the story...well, I'm glad they all fit in! (Also, Mari is a champ for listening to all my rambling about symbolism and vibes haha!)

From one of our email exchanges, I mentioned: "It's a very stark, intense story. A bit brutal. Lots of shame. Riding that line between love and hate. That's another part of why I like nature imagery; all of the beauty and brutality of the world around us." And I feel like it came through! It feels very simple and natural. It looks a bit like fallen, fragile flowers and a snake slithering along, a sort of unsuspecting seduction. (Sorry, I sure love to read into things!)

Honestly, Mari was such a joy to work with. She has such a good eye for design and color! And such clear skill. She was easy to talk to, happy to communicate, and best of all so kind and patient and sweet! And in the end, she crafted something truly priceless.

Contempt is truly the story of my soul. (If you follow me, you're probably tired of hearing about it LOL.) The concept has lived with me for so long. Writing it was a true labor of love. Having this piece of it to hang on my wall is genuinely so meaningful. I cried when I first saw the finished product (via email) and cried again when I had it in hand. And again when I hung it on my wall.

It's not in its final spot just yet. A few inches to the right (not pictured) is a Hogwarts plaque that I plan to move to another wall this weekend, so I can move the hoop a bit to the right. But I was much too eager to share this to wait until the weekend! But this should still give you an idea of what my Snarry wall looks like, and will more or less look like after the shift. (The art beside the hoop is the Orange Blossoms art mentioned earlier, by LuEndland!)

Mari, thank you so much again for working with me and creating this truly precious hoop! Also: feel free to make your own post if you like, one with less word vomit haha! You are a true angel, I hope you know!!

To everyone else: if you've been thinking of commissioning an embroidery hoop...for sure do it!!!! 10/10 do recommend.

Also please expect more photo dumps once my work space is all set up!!

#embroidery #snarry #contempt #onbeinganangel

[cuubism]

inspired by beautiful art by @dr-lemurr (here! and here! and above!) I now have this for you

all of it is linked below. also on ao3 chapter-by-chapter

This fic was created for the Shadowhunters Reverse Bang 2022: Presented by the @malecdiscordserver

Flight

35k. Rated T, Malec. Angels, religion, wingfic, canon divergence, Clave politics.

All Magnus wanted was to make an ornament to carry one of Alec's feathers around with him. He hadn't intended it to awaken long-dormant powers in Alec's wings--or to bring down the angels, either.

Chapter 1 is below. You can find the other chapters here:

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

~~~~~~

Magnus was good at many things. Destroying demons with a wave of his hand. Inventing never-before-seen potions and spells. Irritating Shadowhunters. Flirting with Shadowhunters—well, one in particular.

Arts and crafts, on the other hand, had never been one of Magnus’s strong suits. And yet here he was, attempting glassblowing in his apartment.

“Shit!” Magnus hurried to blow out the flame licking up his sleeve. The burn mark on his wrist lingered, evidence of his incompetence. In retrospect, he should have known better than to put a thousand-degree kiln in the middle of his apothecary. But knowing better had never stopped Magnus from engaging in all manner of ill-advised activities.

The fact that, more often than not, he managed to find his way out of those predicaments intact didn’t help discourage him from doing it again, either.

“Magnus, what the hell are you doing?”

Ah. One of said ill-advised endeavors was standing in his doorway, squinting at the molten glass dripping from Magnus’s tongs. Magnus magicked some sunglasses on him before he hurt his eyes from the glow.

“I’m experiencing the consequences of my hubris,” Magnus told him, putting the dripping glass back in its stone bowl before it spilled all over the rug and wore a hole through the floor. “I’d suggest you stand back.”

Alec’s eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

“Arts and crafts,” Magnus explained. “I am attempting to blow glass.”

Alec was silent for a long moment. “I appreciate that you didn’t try to make an innuendo out of that.”

“Well, I could—”

“Please don’t. Why are you doing this, anyway?” Alec had crept closer, and peered at the bright, molten glass in its bowl. Magnus had to admit it was mesmerizing to look at, blisteringly orange and soupy, like a lava flow. 

“I wanted to make something,” Magnus said. He avoided saying what, since he wasn’t one hundred percent sure how Alec would feel about it yet.

“You couldn’t magic it?”

Magnus pouted. “I wanted to make it with my hands.”

This ornament was supposed to be special, was the thing. It wasn’t an idle trinket. 

Alec shook his head. “Sorry, I shouldn’t poke at you over something so small. Just, uh—” his eyes caught on Magnus’s crispy-looking shirt. “Shit, did you burn yourself?”

“Eh,” Magnus said, “minorly.”

Alec crouched by his side, carefully peeling back his sleeve. Magnus had to admit the burn looked slightly worse than he’d thought. 

Alec bit his lip at the sight. “It’s just like you to make arts and crafts dangerous,” he muttered. “Hang on.”

Magnus hanged-on as Alec fetched some burn ointment from the other side of the apothecary and bent again by the arm of his chair, smearing it over his skin with careful hands. 

It was very affecting, his gentle touch, the harsh light of the kiln illuminating the cut of his cheekbone, his strong neck, the curve of his shoulder. Magnus had several impure thoughts about it, and considered acting on them before realizing that the only thing stupider than having a kiln in his apothecary in the first place was leaving one ablaze while he went to have sex with his boyfriend.

“Thank you, darling,” he said when Alec finished wrapping a bandage around his arm. He batted his eyelashes at him, not that Alec could see it behind the protective glasses Magnus was wearing. “Will you kiss it better?”

Alec sighed like Magnus was an endless nuisance to him, but his smile betrayed his real feelings. He bent to kiss Magnus’s arm.

“Ah, I’m healed already!” Magnus declared, and tipped up his chin when Alec leaned in to peck him on the lips, too. 

“Back to blowing glass, then,” Alec said, standing back to his full height. 

“Well, later on I can blow—” 

“Okay!” Alec rubbed his forehead tiredly. “I guess I did set that one up.” He turned towards the door. “So long as you aren’t going to burn down the house, I’m gonna head to work.”

“I resent that. I’ll have you know I’ve only burned down my house twice in my long life.”

Alec hummed in thought. “That’s more times than I was hoping for, but fewer than I was expecting.”

“Hey!”

“Kidding, honey.” Alec leaned in to kiss him on the cheek one last time. “I’m sure there’ll only be a minor amount of property damage.”

“Don’t worry,” Magnus assured him, “I moved all the flammable potions ingredients out of the apothecary before I started. And besides, I think I’m getting the hang of the glass.” Said glass hissed and spit with heat, as if to undermine Magnus’s words.

“I’m sure you are,” said Alec. “I look forward to seeing the ‘arts and craft project’ later.”

Magnus beamed at him, but as soon as Alec had slipped out of the room, he couldn’t help his smile slipping. He still wasn’t sure exactly how Alec would feel about this whole idea. Nephilim could be touchy about their wings.

But first Magnus had to figure out if he could even do it.

~~

Magnus had half-expected the Nephilim feather to come in contact with the hot glass and just… explode.

Nephilim wings had… overly-enthusiastic self-defense instincts, which Magnus had found out the hard way when he gave his half-asleep boyfriend a kiss between the shoulder blades and got smacked in the face by a bunch of feathers for his trouble. 

Poor Alec had felt so guilty about it, and brought Magnus breakfast in bed as if Magnus had nearly had his head taken off in battle instead of simply having to pluck a few feathers out of his teeth. 

So, Magnus hadn’t been sure how the feather would take to being encased in glass, even if it had already fallen from Alec’s wing. Would it still have… lingering rune energy? Magnus hadn’t been sure.

But now, he gazed at his prize with satisfaction. 

The blown glass feather ornament was exquisite—if Magnus did say so. He was rather proud of his handiwork—especially considering he had learned glass blowing in about three hours—but he had to admit that the real star of the piece was the feather itself.

Alec’s usually white feather had taken on a prismatic quality in the glass, catching fragments of light and refracting them in dozens of hues. Once again, Magnus couldn’t help but wonder if it was magical in some way. Alec kept telling him his feathers didn’t have supernatural properties, but there was surely something magical about them in Magnus’s opinion.

Or maybe that was just because they were attached to his boyfriend.

He was still idly admiring the ornament, which he’d hung on a lamp on his desk so he could observe it while he worked, when Alec came home late that night.

“Magnus?” he called. “It’s 3:30am, why are you still awake?”

“Is it so late?” Magnus asked, tipping back in his chair with his hands behind his head as Alec leaned in the apothecary doorway. “Time simply slips by when I’m thinking about you.”

Alec rolled his eyes, but came over and kissed the top of Magnus’s head. “Seriously, what have you been working on?” 

“Oh, just a trinket. But first I want to talk about you.” He spun around in his chair to face his boyfriend.

Alec looked, predictably, tired. His gear was scratched and torn in several places, rumpled from its usual carefully ordered layers. Magnus ran his hands over each of the blemishes, looking for cuts that went past the layers of gear. 

“Are you alright?” he asked, turning Alec’s hands over to look at his palms, then taking his face and tipping it this way and that. Alec submitted to this dutifully, having learned by now that it was easier to let Magnus run through his whole rigamarole without protest. Magnus found a cut on Alec’s temple, and smoothed his thumb over it to heal it. It did not heal—he’d have to try a potion later—and Magnus pouted. “Wings?”

Alec drew his wings out from whatever magical place they hid in—Magnus had never been able to figure out quite where that was—and stretched them out. 

Magnus was stunned to see them, as always. The first time Alec had shown them to him, outside of a battle context, Magnus could barely believe his eyes. The wings were exquisite, strong and solid as the hilt of a seraph blade, yet delicate as spider silk in their plumage. As was typical, Alec didn’t appreciate their beauty, viewing them as utilitarian objects like he did the rest of his body. Magnus had decided he would just have to do all the appreciating for the both of them.

Now, the wings looked battered, feathers bent out of shape here and there, ichor stuck between them. The right looked the worst, with blood crusted along the radius bone. Magnus hoped it wasn’t broken. Alec would be so annoyed if he had to rest it for any amount of time.

Magnus stood so he could see it better. “Let me see that?”

“It’s not broken,” said Alec, lowering the wing so Magnus could see. “It’d hurt a lot more if it was.”

He looked pretty annoyed about it nevertheless. Magnus kissed his shoulder. “Always so pouty and grim when you come back from patrol.”

This drew out a tiny smile from his boyfriend. “Well, how else am I supposed to cope with being away from you for so long?”

“Aw, sweet.” Magnus kissed along the top of his wing, surreptitiously feeling out the severity of the injuries as he did. Thankfully, they seemed superficial. “You want to hear a secret? I actually find the pouty, grim, Shadowhunter thing quite affecting.” 

“That’s not a secret. You’ve been really obvious about it.”

“Have I?” Magnus healed his wing. This injury, at least, was responsive to his magic. “I can’t recall. I think I’ll have to lay it on stronger.”

Alec smiled wider. “I guess you’ll have to. And I see you healing that wing, by the way. You’re not sneaky.”

“Oh, but isn’t it nice to be distracted by kisses?”

Alec disentangled them to find his lips again, and kissed him. “Yes.”

“But I have to admit,” Magnus added, wrapping his hands around Alec’s jaw to hold him close, “I feel I’m getting the short end of this bargain. I have to do all the healing and all the distracting?”

“Really? You get to make me do stuff and feel me up with abandon and you’re getting the short end of the bargain?”

“Okay, point,” Magnus admitted, and Alec grinned.

“But if you require additional recompense,” Alec added, “I suppose it can be arranged.”

He leaned in to suck a kiss under Magnus’s jaw, hands falling to his hips and pulling him closer. He smelled like night air and sweat and sharp angelic magic. Magnus sighed into the feeling of him.

But soon enough he had to tap Alec’s chest to push him back. “Hey, lover. Now you’re being distracting. I was trying to look at your wings.”

Alec huffed, but he did shift away. “They’re fine. You know they heal on their own.”

“Yes, unless they’re poisoned.”

“They aren’t poisoned.”

“I will take your word for it,” Magnus said, “this time. Don’t let me down.”

“Never,” Alec promised. “Are you going to show me what you were working on now?”

With some hesitation, Magnus unstrung his ornament from the lamp and handed it to Alec.

Alec turned it over in his hands, feeling along the smooth edge of the glass. “Is that one of my feathers?”

“No,” Magnus joked nervously, “I got it from a seagull.”

Alec gave him a look. “Did you think I would be mad? Is that why you’re being weird about it?”

“I’m not being weird about it,” Magnus huffed. Alec just kept looking at him. “Okay, fine. I didn’t think you’d be mad, I just know the wings can be a bit of a… touchy subject. You all are quite possessive about them.”

Alec sighed. “Magnus, it’s fine. It’s pretty, actually.” He turned it over in his hand again, and the glass caught the light of the lamp, reflecting it in fragments of red, yellow, and green. “I just don’t know if I understand the point. You’re aware there’s nothing really special about these, right? They’re just feathers. You wouldn’t pick up a pigeon feather off the street and immortalize it, would you?”

“That is absolutely blasphemous, Alexander,” Magnus exclaimed. “These are not just feathers. They’re your feathers.”

A smile tugged at Alec’s lips and caught in his eyes. “Alright, if you insist.” He handed the ornament back to Magnus, and leveled him with a half-teasing, half-warning look. “Just don’t go sharing these around with everyone. You’re the only one who gets to have them.”

Magnus held the ornament to his chest and beamed. “I only love it more now.” 

Alec kissed him again, lingering this time. “You’re ridiculous,” he murmured against Magnus’s lips. “I love you.”

Magnus leaned into his space. “I love you.” Between them, his magic swirled through the ornament, lighting the feather from within with a blue glow. 

Magnus poked at Alec’s wing. “You should go shower.”

“You going to follow me?”

“As soon as I get rid of the kiln.”

Alec laughed, leaning into Magnus’s shoulder. “Alright, well, don’t be too long.”

“Never.” 

When he’d gone, Magnus observed Alec’s feather once again, running his finger along the smooth glass. It was warm to the touch now, perhaps from Magnus’s magic, or the pressure of their bodies. That Alec didn’t appreciate these continued to astound Magnus. They were so beautiful—and even more beautiful on his wings.

But Magnus had spent a lot of time getting Alec to better appreciate his appearance, and he didn’t mind putting more effort in. It was such an enjoyable endeavor, after all.

He hung his ornament back on the lamp, and went to do just that.

~~

“Thanks so much for coming out, Magnus, especially on short notice. This rift is looking really bad.” 

“Of course, my dear.” Magnus patted Izzy on the shoulder. “How could I miss a chance to help out my favorite Shadowhunters?”

“That’s sweet, but you should know that Alec insisted on the Institute paying you.” Izzy paged through the various screens on the Institute’s holographic monitor until it showed a monochrome graphic of Rockefeller Center. “He increased the rate, too. I think he felt bad about having to be in Alicante.”

“Isn’t that a fixed rate?” Magnus asked, and Izzy nodded. Magnus sighed dreamily, laying a hand over his heart. “Defrauding the Clave? That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

Izzy grinned. “He really is smitten with you. Alec doesn’t play around with Clave rules for just anyone.”

Magnus was smiling so hard he didn’t manage to find an answer, and then Izzy had already zoomed the screen in on NBC Studios, where a red spiral was swirling dizzily by the front door. “Hm,” Magnus quipped. “I guess demons aren’t SNL fans.”

Izzy chuckled. “It’s a pretty inconvenient place for a rift. Even mundanes have to be noticing something.”

“We’ll have to solve it quickly, then. Can’t risk interrupting the critical filming of the nightly news.”

“Can’t risk being on the nightly news,” Izzy added. “Are you able to put up a glamour to keep people away while we deal with this?”

“Yes, my powers are limitless,” said Magnus. “It would be my pleasure to protect us from being broadcast to millions of people. Even though we would look really hot.”

“We would, wouldn’t we?” Izzy smiled to herself. “But back to the matter at hand, do you think you can handle this rift?”

Magnus scoffed. “Oh, darling. Consider it already handled.”

~~

“Wait, what are you wearing?”

The rift was surprisingly quiet, only a few stray demons flying around the plaza, so Magnus was taking his sweet time in closing it. Overusing his magic, and winding up passed out on the ground, was always embarrassing, and to be avoided whenever possible. 

He fingered the pendant hanging against his chest as Izzy observed it. He’d shrunk his ornament down to jewelry size to carry it with him. “Oh, just something I made.”

“That’s one of Alec’s feathers, isn’t it?” Izzy shook her head with a grin, as if to say, you’re just too much. “You know, I’m really glad Alec has you to get him to do these things.”

“To get him to make his feathers into ornaments?”

Izzy knocked her shoulder into his. “To get him to be vulnerable. He lets you just walk around showing everyone how much you love him. And he even let you take the feather in the first place.” 

Magnus’s heart squeezed. It was true, wasn’t it? Alec had become so much softer in the years they’d been together. Or, at least, he had let that softness be seen. “Perhaps I’ll make more,” he joked, because it was too hard to articulate all that feeling, “a whole skirt of Nephilim feathers.”

Izzy laughed. “That’ll make some kind of statement.”

The rift pulsed before them, so even though Magnus would have much preferred to keep gossiping about his boyfriend, he was forced to turn back to the matter at hand. He raised his hands over it, pushing out magic to stabilize its fraying edges.

It was a strange rift. Unlike the graphic back at the Institute, which had glowed a typical red, the actual rift beamed with white energy. Blue and yellow sparks, like embers off a bonfire, flickered up off its edges, which crackled with a heat Magnus could feel even standing two dozen feet away. It hummed, too, this rift—like somewhere within it, a great beast was starting to growl.

Magnus kept finding himself tempted to step closer, to peer into the chasm and see what bright, strange place might be down there. He couldn’t tell if this was a real thought, or the power of the rift drawing him in.

Perhaps it was time to close this thing for good, risk of passing out or not.

Magnus swirled his magic around it, caught its power like he was lassoing a wild horse, and tugged until the rope snapped shut. 

And the rift howled. 

Or, rather, something within the rift howled.

Magnus barely had a second to think, oh, it did not like that, before the chasm burst upwards in a spray of dirt and asphalt. Magnus was thrown off his feet, and when he looked up the rift was three times its previous size and oozing with liquid light. 

Magnus was reminded of the dripping glass from his ornament-making endeavor, but didn’t have time to focus on it. A great crack! echoed through the plaza, and the earth split right under where he was still lying. 

He tried to move, but couldn’t, frozen in place by a foreign magic that sat heavy on his chest. It felt like he’d breathed in molten glass directly from his kiln—it stuck his lungs together, closed up his throat, dripped from his hands to stick him to the ground. Whatever this was, it was no ordinary rift. Magnus cursed himself for his complacency.

A… beast emerged from the ground. That seemed such a primitive word, but Magnus could think of no other way to describe it. Its corporeal form shifted from bear-like to boar-like to bird-like, around and around and mixing forms like it was trying to settle in Magnus’s brain the only way it knew how.

Like its true form was something he was unable to perceive with normal eyes.

It lumbered toward him, claws dragging on the ground. Magnus tried to scramble away, but his limbs were stuck. He tried to use his magic, but every burst he sent the creature’s way seemed to do nothing. Distantly, he could hear Izzy and the other Shadowhunters yelling, but it seemed they could no more get closer than Magnus could get away.

The beast’s eyes glowed pure white. Magnus… it rumbled from deep in Magnus’s subconscious. If Magnus hadn’t already been petrified by magic, he would have frozen in fear at the very sound of it. It sounded, somehow, antithetical to his very being, like it could unravel him. His bones strained as he pushed against the magic; gravel cut into his palms. But he still couldn’t move.

The beast hovered over him, dwarfing him with its massive, boundless form. Magnus couldn’t breathe. His blood slowed in his veins under the gravitational pull of the creature before him. It reached out one long, hooked claw towards his chest—

White light exploded in Magnus’s face. A horrific screeeeeeeech!! screamed around him, like glaciers skidding past each other, and a dozen tiny barbs cut into his throat. For a moment he thought he was dead, but no, the beast was stumbling back, eyes flaring in anger. Blasphemous, it growled, still in Magnus’s head. Its uncanny gaze locked on his chest.

Magnus looked down to find his precious ornament shattered. Jagged glass pieces littered his shirt, and it was these that he’d felt cut him—one was still stuck in the skin of his neck. Alec’s feather, now returned to full size, was glowing blue and white, so bright that Magnus had to squint to look at it. 

The beast was looking at it, too, and Magnus leapt onto a hunch, seizing the broken ornament in his hand and thrusting it forward. 

The creature cringed back. Magnus ignored the glass cutting into his palm and staggered to his feet, pushing it back with whatever strange power he now held. He desperately wanted to ask what the creature was, where it had come from, but didn’t dare test his luck. He had no idea how long the feather’s power would hold.

The creature retreated to the rift at Magnus’s pressing. But before it crept back underground, it turned to look at him. Its expression was not one of fear. It was one of warning, and premonition, and hate. 

Do not test the heavenly laws, warlock, it warned in Magnus’s mind. Its voice clanged inside Magnus’s skull like the clashing of blades. Magnus wanted to cover his ears, but it would have done no good.

Then the beast vanished, and the rift with it.

~~

“Magnus!”

Four hundred years of life experience meant that usually, Magnus knew what to do. Usually, he was the one others came to for help with their problems. Usually, he was not rendered helpless by magic beyond his reckoning, saved only by luck and well-timed sentimentality. 

Magnus hated feeling shaken.

“Magnus!” 

Magnus blinked back to awareness to find Alec crouched in front of him, patting him on the knee. The TV droned on behind him. Magnus was, ostensibly, watching the nightly news, where the NBC anchors were reporting on a bizarre sinkhole that had opened in front of their building that day, swallowing three cars and a mailbox. In reality, Magnus was just letting it play in the background while he sunk into the depths of his own mind.

“Oh,” he said now, finding a smile because Alexander’s face was always a beloved sight, “you’re back.”

“I should have been back sooner.” Alec cradled his face in one hand, the other falling to Magnus’s lap where he was clutching Alec’s feather—what remained of it, as it had charred itself nearly to ash as soon as the creature had vanished—in white-knuckled hands. “I’m so sorry for the communications blackout in Idris, I would have come immediately.” 

“I know.” Magnus finally managed to let the feather fall to his lap because he’d rather take Alec’s actual hands, which he did. “I suppose Izzy told you what happened?” 

“Yeah.” Alec let Magnus squeeze his hands for a moment while he scanned him all over for lingering damage, before disentangling them to pull Magnus into his arms. “I should have been there. I’m sorry I wasn’t.”

“In your defense, it’s not like we expected an unkillable eldritch beast from another dimension to materialize in Midtown.” 

Truthfully, Magnus wished that Alec had been there, at least for the aftermath. The aftermath when Magnus had fallen to his knees at the edge of the disappearing rift, hands bloody, breath rattling in his chest. Normally Magnus could handle himself quite well, could pick himself right up after all manner of strange and disturbing occurrences.

But in that moment, faced with near destruction by a force he felt completely powerless against, Magnus had really wanted his boyfriend. He pressed his face into Alec’s shoulder, and it was almost enough.

“How was Alicante?” he asked, desperate for a momentary distraction.

Alec sat back to meet his eyes, rubbing his hands up and down Magnus’s shoulders. “Pretty useless, to be honest. We’ve been at a stalemate over this law for weeks and I still don’t know when it’s going to end. We just keep arguing in circles; I haven’t figured out the angle yet to convince more people to come to our side.”

“How many votes do you need to pass it, again?” 

“Two-thirds majority. And right now, we’re at, like, fifty-one/forty-nine.” 

Magnus swept a hand over his cheek, giving him a soft smile. “You’ll figure it out. You’re very clever.”

Alec turned to kiss his palm. “I hope so. At least a stalemate means we aren’t going backwards. I just—I really want this. For you.”

“Oh? Just for me?” Magnus teased. “You know, you talk a big game about marriage equality for a man who hasn’t even proposed.”

Alec gave him a look. “I’ve told you before, it has to be right, and it won’t be right until you know you can have exactly what you want.”

Magnus sagged against the back of the couch with a dramatic sigh. “Fine. I’ll continue to languish in waiting, then.” 

Alec kissed the back of his hand, right on his ring finger, then stood. “While you languish, I’m going to order dinner. I know you haven’t eaten. And then I want to hear about this ‘eldritch beast from another dimension’—in your words, though, not Izzy’s.”

“Your wish is my command, oh Shadowhunter!” Magnus said, swirling some sparkles around Alec as he headed for the kitchen. When he was gone, Magnus summoned his notebook and several ancient, threadbare tomes to the coffee table. He’d be damned if he didn’t figure out what had attacked him, and why Alec’s feather had been able to repel it.

In his journal, he scribbled down what he remembered.

Portal ~ few demons. Strange. Glowing white light. Seductive. Reacted poorly to being closed.

Beast ~ indefinite physical form. Held things in place via… gravity? Shadowhunters couldn’t get close. Communicates telepathically? Knew my name. ‘Heavenly laws’?

Feather ~ Alec swears his feathers aren’t magical. Perhaps beast is vulnerable to angelic energy? But it repelled the Shadowhunters…

He flipped through his old books, looking for references to either the strange creature, or the effects of Nephilim feathers. He doubted he would find the latter. The Nephilim were very secretive about their magic; any copies of books that discussed it would either be sequestered within the Institutes, or simply burned.

Magnus was still reading through a thick book on lesser-known demons when Alec dropped a bag of Chinese food in front of him. Evidently, Magnus had been buried in his research for so long that Alec had had time to order, wait for the food to be delivered, and go downstairs to get it without Magnus being any the wiser.

Magnus abandoned his research to pull out a container of fried rice and start scarfing it down. Lilith, he was ravenous—fighting eldritch creatures took a lot out of a man.

Alec thumbed at Magnus’s journal, looking up at Magnus for permission. Magnus gestured for him to take a look. Alec read his notes and frowned.

Between bites of rice, Magnus relayed what had occurred, filling in the gaps between his bullet points. Alec seemed troubled all the while, and Magnus could see his clever brain working behind his eyes, trying to piece things together. When Magnus explained how the thing had almost killed him, that expression slipped from Alec’s face, replaced by pain.

“I should have been there,” he murmured to himself.

“It isn’t your fault, darling,” Magnus told him. “And I can handle myself. Well. Usually. But your lovely little feather protected me, anyway.”

That brought Alec back into focus. “Can I see it?”

Magnus pulled the charred, bent feather from his breast pocket and handed it to him. Alec cradled it in his hands with far more reverence than he’d ever shown any of the feathers on his body.

“You should make another ornament,” he said.

“Well, I was planning to. I’m rather peeved this one was broken, even if it did save my life.”

“For protection,” Alec elaborated. 

“We don’t know it would work again,” Magnus countered. “We don’t even know why it worked this time.”

“We’ll experiment, then. You’re good at that.”

“You’re very passionate about this,” Magnus observed.

“About protecting you? Yeah.” Alec drew out his wings and pulled a feather from one; Magnus winced. Alec handed it to him. “Here.”

Magnus took it, but said, “Please don’t pluck yourself like a chicken, I have plenty of your feathers that have fallen off naturally.” 

Alec gave him a bashful smile. “Sorry. But I guess I’m also invested in learning what sort of magic the feather was able to manifest in the first place. I don’t like the idea of having magical objects on my body that I don’t know about.”

“Only you would consider magical feathers a nuisance instead of a wonder,” Magnus said, both amused and exasperated. 

“Maybe I can consider them a wonder once we understand them,” Alec retorted. “For now, they’re a wild card, and that makes them a hindrance in a fight, not an asset.” 

“Oh so practical and serious,” Magnus chided, tickling the underside of Alec’s chin with the tip of the feather. He expected Alec to lurch away, but his boyfriend just smiled. “I will try to learn more once I make my new protection charm.”

“Good. Now, do you have any idea what that thing was that attacked you? What realm was it from?”

“Not any of the more common demonic realms, of that I am certain.” Magnus would know, he had been to them all. “Perhaps you can check the Institute’s library for me? Or lend me the books, whichever the almighty Clave will allow.”

“You can come to the Institute whenever you want,” said Alec. “If the Clave has a problem, they can learn to deal with it.”

“I do so love when you tell them to shove it,” Magnus sighed. “I’ll come by tomorrow. I’m exhausted right now; as soon as dinner’s over I’m heading to bed.”

Alec came to sit beside him, leaning into his side, their shoulders, hips, and thighs pressed together. He seemed to have sensed Magnus’s need for steadiness in the aftermath of the bizarre attack. But he didn’t make Magnus say it, just silently offered his support. “That sounds like a plan,” he said, and picked up his own food.

Magnus was able to find some peace that night, lying at Alec’s side. But when sleep finally claimed him, the beast’s thrumming voice echoed again through his mind, like a warning of worse times to come.

Magnus…

#malec #my writing #shrb2022 #dr-lemurr #magnus bane #alec lightwood #shadowhunters #i'm obsessed with this art btw #Flight fic

[cheesus-doodles]

I’m not here to say anything much, just want to tell you how much I enjoyed your fics! You’re such a great author!! Also i was just imagining in the red dragonflies AU that mikey prints out photos of you and your old gang friends that you post on social media only to replace their heads with a taped-on photo of his in sheer jealousy, just going, “Yeah, I look waaaay better with her than those bozos.”

Link to relevant post!

Masterlist

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asjkndljsa thank you for your kind words anon! super happy to hear you like my fics <3 thanks for hanging around!

BAHAHAHAHHA I completely agree with this, definitely sounds like something that Mikey would do! Even the thought of you having fun with - god forbid - friends other than him makes the jealousy start churning in his gut, he can't take it out on those same people without getting you involved or upset. Not yet anyway.

So the next best thing he can do would be to try and discredit them as much as possible - to you, but more importantly, to himself. This baby boy literally cannot live with himself every time he sees you hanging out and laughing with your Red Dragonflies friends, even more so when Furusawa swings you up to sit on his shoulders. You probably know that Mikey, of all the Toman founders, would be the most upset at you returning to your old gang, since he sees it at you betraying him and the rest of the Toman founders for people that let you walk away (if you ask him, they can't even be called friends after that), but this wasn't a battle you could bring yourself to pick a side for.

You make your special taiyaki for him every time you see him get especially upset but refuse to talk to you about it, and that's usually enough for Mikey to start whining and complaining about "them" stealing your time away from him, accusing you of favouring your old gang over Toman, insisting that you tell him that you liked him better than that pink-haired bastard.

Of course you just let all his whines and complains and anger wash over you. You being you always somehow manage to soothe Mikey out of his spiralling fits, but the Reds are still a highly sensitive subject that you don't really know how to fully settle. So when Mikey one day asks to borrow your camera and your phone to look at some of the pictures you have taken, you are more than glad to lend it to him. But what you didn't know was that he was after your old photos that were taken before you had met Mikey and Baji, of you in your old life (since all this takes place right at the dawn of social media or even pre-social media).

Brings them to a special printing shop to get the photos developed and printed - picking those that had you clearly visible and preferably the rest of the Reds blurred or not in the picture. Mikey definitely starts off trying to just cut you out, but realizes that he doesn't quite know what to do with a cut-out picture of you, and it didn't help deluding himself into believing that you had been his friend and only his friend for your whole life. Decides that instead, he would stick his own face to cover up whoever else was actually in the picture. Tries it out with one of you and Furusawa laughing together over an ice cream sundae, picture instantly looks 100 times better (no bias).

But the red jacket sticks out like a sore thumb so Mikey colors it black with a permanent market and boom - you were actually hanging out with him. Its tedious work, but Mikey is so careful to make sure his art and craft doesn't touch you. Even as a picture, this baby boy doesn't want to disrupt your happy self immortalized in the picture, just want to get rid of the eye sores.

Sometimes the picture ends up with you and 5 Mikeys, but doesn't matter, he looks wayyy better with you than those bozos ever did. Plus he takes care of you better too.

Puts up these doctored pictures across the wall right next to his bed so that Mikey can look at them whenever he was free and especially when he has to fall asleep all by himself. Even becomes part of a ritual for him to come back to look at these photos when the Reds annoyed him a bit too much. He did show you one of the photos he did, but you just laughed and teased him a little about how cute he was and how neatly he colored within the lines, which only just validated Mikey even more that yes you were best by his side after all.

#yandere tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers x reader #yandere tokyo revengers x reader #yandere mikey #yandere baji #tokyo revengers mikey #tokyo revengers baji #tokyo revengers kazutora #mikey x reader #baji x reader #kazutora x reader #kazutora #sano manjiro #keisuke baji #tokyo revengers draken #tokyo revengers mitsuya #draken x reader #mitsuya x reader #former gang leader darling #yandere platonic toman #cheesus answers

[businessbois]

hello blue :D i would like to know everything you would like to tell me about your favourite fic you've written

lyssie shrugofgod weirdly-enough this is the kindest thing ever i hope you're ready for vaguely comprehensible ranting.

okay so i couldn't choose between two fics "once i called you brother" and "the art and (mine)craft of war" because i could talk forever about both, but im gonna talk about "once i called you brother" because its the less popular one

heres the link :)

so i basically wrote this fic because i thought that the song "the plagues" from prince of egypt (or at least the opening lines) were incredibly perfect for c!tommy and c!techno and it was a shame that no one did an animatic for it yet. i cannot draw so i just wrote a fic for it.

once i called you brother once i thought the chance to make you laugh was all i ever wanted

is that literally not tommy with techno though?

and then the rest of the song can read as like doomsday or november 16th, you know, them arguing about selfishness and betrayal and all that. the song fucking slaps.

but anyways the fic itself? the opening is inspired by how like, if you didn't know who technoblade was during the beginning of the smp, he would just be this mysterious figure of legend that tommy, wilbur, or dream occasionally talked about. it hit me during the dream v technoblade duel stuff that since techno had never been on the smp before, he was just this invisible dude with a huge reputation and that was so cool to me.

"Alrighty, I've been here before, right?"

"Listen, Techn—Dream..."

these are quotes from tommy that i quoted in the fic. i used to do this a lot, just stick quotes with no context into fics because i assumed everyone had the same precise memory of everything that went on the smp that i did. the first one is referring to tommy being surrounded by people outside the community house and "i've been here before" is him remembering a similar scenario on smpearth and therefore technoblade. the second is when he accidentally calls dream techno (about 30 seconds into this comp) again adding to techno's thing of being just this widely alluded to figure.

"Who do you think will win? My bets on our boy, Dream, but feel free to be wrong."

Niki stays quiet, a small frown on her face.

i feel bad for cutting niki absolutely owning dream with "well, techno's my friend" but it simply couldnt stay in for fic purposes

waking up to a frantic Bitzel muttering about hypothermia and something heavy and red covering his shivering frame.

smpearth is canon because i Want it to be canon and in my canon there's a moment where tommy passes out in the middle of a fight and techno brings him back to business bay wrapped up in his cape because he's technosoft and all their fighting is more like play fighting anyways

Tommy knows that love is earned. That if he does well in some Championships, then his place in the family is secured.

this is inspired by the bet that wilbur and tommy had in like mcc8 that if they placed fifth or higher tommy could be in sbi. in tommy's pov it becomes, "you have to earn your place in this family."

“Because I’m not the vice president.”

this is from one of his exile streams where he's talking to dream about why people won't visit him anymore

Tommy is 10 and too big for his boots.

this section is inspired by tommy's story of how he met techno as told in this storytime.

there is something that flickers at the back of his mind when the ratty zombie child calls him The Blade.

i think it's so incredibly special that everybody calls techno The Blade but like,, that's tommy's nickname for him. theres this moment where tommy's talking about giving techno a nickname and techno's like "you call me The Blade!' again, everybody calls techno The Blade, but he tells tommy "you call me The Blade." like i don't know how to articulate this but, that's tommy's nickname for him. they're brothers.

Tommy's been to war with soft, pale blues.

ae reference because again, smpearth is canon cuz i said

Tommy is 13 and standing over the remains of Business Bay's storage area.

this is an smpearth thing. wisp and vop did a whole grief of business bay, it was very dramatic very tragic. the thing with techno coming to business bay to talk to tommy is from this comic and i hold this headcanon close to my heart.

"Tommy, if anyone gives you trouble—and I mean serious trouble, not the kind we have—you tell me.”

Tommy hears an echo of similar words from the man who just burnt down everything he’s worked for.

"Tommy, anyone that touches you fucks with me... I will kill Techno if it takes me all of my life to prepare for it, you understand me?"

im so proud of this parallel between wisp and techno man you have no clue. okay, so like i said before, the ae versus bb thing in my head is very much like play fighting. sometimes it gets serious like the scenario which is happening in the fic where things actually get destroyed. that's because they're stubborn teenaged boys and conflicts can go from fun to actual trouble real quick. these "similar words" and the following quote are references to one of my favorite wisp moments ever. wisp, for anyone unclear on smpearth backstory, was a part of business bay before he betrayed them for the antarctic empire. he was also the one who burnt down the storage area which is why tommy's remembering this quote so bitterly.

Tommy rolls his eyes. "I pinky promise, Technoblade." He sticks out his little finger like a challenge.

the pinky promising is Canon from like the post-exile streams i think and i headcanon it as something tommy just does with people

and so this is to put context to the "using techno" thing. because i've always kinda viewed as like calling in a friend (or a big brot—[gunshot]) in for help so this part of the fic gives it the background to be like that

But then, Tommy is 16 and standing in a cataclysm, once again watching everything he’s worked for get destroyed by a man who swore to protect him.

this line solidifies that parallel to wisp where techno made a similar promise to protect tommy and now he's destroying everything tommy's worked for (business bay in wisp's case, lmanburg in techno's case) im very proud of this parallel.

His tall brown-haired friend from competitions past

wilbur of course, the competitions past being mcm

He collects titles like music discs

i asked my friend for things that people collect and they said "records" and i said "wait—"

Technoblade is 17 and he has no family. He has a friend who makes sure he sleeps. He has a friend who creates bridges and mischief. He has a bug that he still hasn't squashed.

i've always loved the idea of sbi becoming this little found family on smpearth. like they're not super lovely dovey "we're like brothers" but they're so fond of each other and they hang out when they're not pretending to be at war. and so theres still that room to say that they're not family, but like they totally are

Bright blue eyes beg him for some entertainment, so Techno sighs and grabs The Complete Works of William Shakespeare off the shelf.

this headcanon that techno used to read them shakespeare comes from wilbur's offhand comment asking techno to recite king lear to them

Wilbur's planted himself at Techno's side for the duration of the finale, something that he's grateful for. Wilbur's always been his person to lean on for things like this.

inspired by i think wilbur saying that he was techno's like designated extrovert during mcc's and i really love that aspect of their relationship. because techno is looked at as "the older brother" in so many ways, but like in this way, when wilbur's guiding him through social situations and supporting him, he gets to be wilbur soot's little brother.

Technoblade never says I love you, but he reads his baby brother The Twelfth Night instead of Hamlet and ends Theseus' tale after the Minotaur.

this was one of the first things i had written for this fic. so obviously hamlet is a tragedy while the twelfth night is a rocking good time. so like going back to that shakespeare headcanon but techno protecting tommy in the little ways. the theseus part is inspired by me not knowing the rest of theseus' story after he gets home and his dad jumps into the ocean. like the exile and death stuff i didn't hear about until the dsmp so that's where that came from. techno, even though it kind of goes against who he is, leaving theseus' story as a victory where the hero slays the monster, just to give his little brother something with a happy ending

"Do you want to be a hero, Tommy? THEN DIE LIKE ONE!"

i did always think this could be seen as like "well if you want to be a hero, then you can die like one" and leaving off the unspoken "but if you don't want to be--if you choose not to be, then you get to live. so don't be a hero. please don't be a hero." and theres like that little tragedy there that i really love in techno and tommy's relationship. like, i love you, you love me, all i ever wanted was to make you laugh, but we don't speak the same language. we don't understand each other. everything you are is against everything i stand for. so yeah bedrock bros feels. i wrote this long before exile and all that so its even more complicated now gosh.

#long post

[willow-salix]

TAG MiniBang 2021

Because the combined bad influences of Flyboy and Sonata were at work here we also decided to bend the rules a little and post early...

I was privileged to work with one of my best friends on this project,  @misssquidtracy​ . We went a little rogue (seems to be a theme for us) and shared both parts of the challenge with both of us contributing to the art and the writing. Squiddy provided a beautifully done pallet knife piece as the background for my foreground art and we plotted the story together to ensure that it worked for both of us. We had been looking forward to sharing the writing but unfortunately, due to life constraints on her part she was only able to write a little of the fic but what she did add perfectly compliments the tone and style of my writing. 

Big thanks to @tagminibang ) @godsliltippy​ ) for organising this event.

So, here it is, our offering to the TAG Mini Bang. We hope you enjoy it. 

Ting ting ting

“Not again,” Virgil groaned, hauling himself up the stairs from the kitchen to the lounge. He regretted ever giving Gordon that bell, he really did. Yes his brother had gone through a tough time, yes he had scared the hell out of them when the Chaos Crew had left him at the bottom of the ocean in his mangled craft, yes they were incredibly grateful that he was alive and mostly whole, but if they had to hear that dinging one more time they might possibly murder him themselves. 

“Yes, Gordy, what do you need?” 

“I’m lonely, and I’m hungry, come and sit with me for a bit?”

“Sure-”

“But maybe make me a sandwich first?”

“A sandwich?” 

“Yeah, with extra cheese and a pickle on the side, not too large a pickle but not too small that it’s gone in one bite. I want to taste it, you know, but not be overwhelmed.”

“Sure-”

“And can you get me a drink too? One of my special milkyshakes, you know, with the ice cream and frozen banana in it?”

“Coming right up,” Virgil sighed, heading back down to the kitchen again.

“Gordon still demanding everything and anything?” Scott asked as he jogged in from the poolside. His T-shirt was sticking to his chest and his hair was damp with sweat but he still looked like he could do it all again. Not that they would have time, they were lucky if they got to do any planned exercise at all, usually they were forced to skip it and work out on the job when a call came in.

“Of course he is,” Virgil growled, slapping a slice of cheese on a piece of bread with far more force than necessary.

“What did the cheese do to you?”

“It’s guilty by association.”

“Ah,” Scott said, like that explained things perfectly. 

A few slices of chicken received the same treatment and Scott wondered if the meat had actually been dead when it arrived on the island or if Virgil had simply smacked it into submission so well that the chicken had flown clear into next week and arrived as sandwich filling.

“Can you fix his drink?” Virgil asked.

“Can’t gotta shower this off before Grandma accuses me of stinking up the place again.”

“Any excuse,” Virgil scowled. “It would only take you a second.”

“A second too long, bro, I’m escaping while I can and you’d be wise to do the same,” Scott said, heading for the stairs and freedom.

“How can I escape when Gordon needs help?”

“You’re forgetting one important thing,” Scott told him wisely. 

“I am? And that would be…”

“John’s home.”

Virgil snorted out a laugh. “He’s less likely to do it than you are.”

“No, you're misunderstanding me. If John’s home that means…” Scott let his sentence trail off into silence heavily filled with insinuation.

“Sel’s here,” Virgil finished triumphantly, catching on perfectly.

“Give that Tracy a prize,” Scott grinned, shooting triumphant finger guns his brother’s way as he headed up the stairs. 

And they said that John was the genius in the family, they hadn’t seen Scott at his most devious. Virgil wasted no time in yanking out his phone and texting the witch to come and take over.

“Here’s your sammich, Squidward,” Selene cooed, plonking the plate down on Gordon’s lap while smacking a kiss to his forehead. “Virgil started it but I finished it for you, Brains called him down to his lab with some kind of air filter emergency so I took over. I brought you some of those crisps you like from my private stash too.”

“The cheesy curl ones?” Gordon asked hopefully.

“Yep,” she grinned, waggling a family sized bag of Quavers in his general direction.

“Did you bring my drink?” Gordon asked around a mouthful of chickeny goodness. Say what you wanted about Virgil but he made a damn good sandwich, even if Gordon could taste that this was made with a little less love and a little more impatience than usual.

“No, sorry, did you want one? Virgil didn’t say that. I’ll go get you something, just wait right there.”

"Not like I can leave if the mood takes me," Gordon grumbled as he opened the chip bag. 

She was already gone, only to race back in a few moments later with a can of coke.

“What? What’s wrong, boo?” Selene asked when she saw the pouting look of disappointment on Gordon’s face.

“It was supposed to be one of my special milkyshakes,” he whined.

“Right, got it, my bad!”

She was gone again, taking off to the kitchen where, upon closer inspections, she did indeed find the beginnings of a milkshake. There were two scoops of ice cream already in the blender, melting in the warmth of the room. A half peeled banana sat abandoned on the counter next to a carton of milk. 

“Typical,” she groused as she set about breaking up the banana, pouring the milk and setting it to blend as she tidied the mess away. Once done she poured it into a tall glass, added a straw and a few slices of fresh banana to decorate the edges, just as he liked it, and delivered it to the waiting aquanaut.

“Great, thanks, Sel,” he grinned, handing her his now empty plate and swapping it for the glass. She put the plate on the coffee table and sat on the couch opposite him.

“Anything else I can do for you?”

 “Sit with me and keep me company?” he begged, looking so miserable and pathetic that she couldn’t say no.

“Of course I will.” 

Gordon swung his injured leg up and she moved to sit next to him on the couch, placing a cushion on her lap for him to rest his cast covered foot on.

Gordon settled down with a contented sigh, sucking happily on his straw, the milkshake level in the glass steadily dropping.

“I’m bored,” Gordon bitched five minutes later.

“That peace lasted a long time,” Selene laughed, putting her phone down on the side table to give him her full attention. “What can I do to help? Do you want to watch something or play a game?”

Gordon made a face. “You’re crap at games, Sel.”

One eyebrow rose in disbelief. “I wouldn’t exactly say crap…”

“You tried to play with Alan and died three times in two minutes, lost all your lives and were forced to float along behind him as a ghost for the rest of his turn.”

“Anything is crap when you say it like that,” Selene huffed. 

“Only when it’s true.”

“Tell me then, oh great games master, what do you want to do?”

“Nothing.”

“Then don’t moan you’re bored,” she pointed out.

“I mean there’s nothing to do. No one is around.”

Selene gestured to her chest. “Am I suddenly invisible?”

“No, of course not,” he scoffed. “That would be far too cool, why don’t you have witch powers like that?”

“Because I live in the real world, not a movie?”

“Lame,” he declared, dismissing it.

“Back to the original point that I am, in fact, right here. Therefore your comment that no one is around is redundant.”

“I meant no one I can do anything with.”

“Thin ice, bub, thin ice.”

“I meant like my brothers or someone. Alan is busy revising for his final exams, Virgil’s with Brains and I’ve no idea where Scott is but I think he’s avoiding me, which is just mean if you ask me. I’m a delight.”

“Yeah, you sure are,” she drawled, not sounding too convinced. “You’re also forgetting a brother.”

“Who?”

“John? You know, gorgeous ginger love of my life that’s chilling in his room right this minute? That brother?”

“John? No way.”

“What’s wrong with John?” she squawked indignantly. Her man was the most perfect of people, amazing and fabulous, just all round awesome. Although she might be a tad biased.

Gordon shrugged, scrunching his nose up in a ‘meh’ kinda way that said everything and nothing.

“No, come on, tell me what you meant,” she demanded.

“No offence, Sel, but John’s a bit…”

“A bit what?” she asked, her tone warning him that he was in very dangerous territory.

Gordon, with the grace of an elephant and confidence of a man that knew he was injured and therefore wouldn’t get slapped, plowed on.

“A bit boring.”

“Boring?!” she hollered, her voice travelling to the four corners of the island so effectively that Alan lifted his head, wondering if some distant God was echoing his thoughts as he slogged through his history homework.

“How very dare you!” Selene continued, working up a good glare that Gordon was completely immune to. He simply sipped the last of his milkshake, smacked his lips and raised an eyebrow, daring her to do something about it.

“He is not boring.”

“Matter of opinion,” Gordon shrugged, handing her the glass to put down on the table. 

“Right, that’s it, you can besmirch my fun factor but I will not allow you to do so to my man. That’s a step too far.” She gently, for which he was thankful, shoved his leg off her lap and dragged his hover chair over from its spot beside Virgil’s piano.

“Get the hell in, hoppy, we’re going for a ride.”

-x-

"You deal with him, he's driving me nuts and pissing me off at the same time."

"Me? I'm the very picture of perfection, I could never drive anyone nuts."

John declined to comment on that one for fear of never stopping, he had twenty-four years worth of stories after all. 

“The pissing you off is subjective too,” Gordon finished triumphantly. 

"He's your problem now," Selene announced, shoving Gordon's hover chair further into the room before making her escape, slamming the door shut behind her. 

John closed his eyes, praying for patience. His fiancée was well known for her legendary patience when it came to pampering and mothering his family whenever any of them were sick or injured. She'd spent almost every day with Gordon since his run in with the Chaos Crew and had done so with relentless cheer, for her to have given up now was not a good sign. 

"What did you do?" 

"Nothing!" Gordon protested hotly.

"Are you sure?" 

Gordon averted his gaze, suddenly taking great interest in a dust particle dancing across the shaft of sunlight filtering in through the window, "Yes, I'm sure. I wasn't doing anything. That was part of the problem."

"Ah," there it was. "Is there anything I can do to help?" 

"I'm so bored," Gordon wailed. "And your girlfriend is being mean to me."

"Fiancée," John corrected him, not looking up from his work. 

"It's not my fault I hate sitting around doing nothing all day. I’ve gone from a physically and mentally intensive, fifty plus hour a week job, to sitting on my ass from dawn until dusk. Can you blame a guy for getting twitchy?"

"Unfortunately, you don't have much of a choice at the moment," John reminded him, quite needlessly he thought. 

"Gee, thanks for the reminder," Gordon huffed, trying to cross his arms although the cast and sling he was sporting prevented it. That just seemed to annoy him even more. 

"I can't do anything right now! How do you do it?" 

"Do what?" John asked, squinting through his magnifier at the small window frame he was carving from a piece of polymer clay. 

"Just sit around all day."

John raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "I don't sit around all day."

"OK, float around then. It's not like you're actively running around like the rest of us are."

"I'll pretend I never heard you say that," John scowled, wishing Selene had dumped his brother into the sea instead of into his quiet, peaceful room. 

"You're sitting around right now," Gordon pointed out, gesturing to the desk John was  sitting at, which was currently doing double duty as a work table for his latest project. 

"One day you'll learn to appreciate the benefits of a quiet, occupied mind and a still body," John told him. 

Gordon sighed, propping his good elbow on the desktop, his chin resting in his upturned palm as he watched his brother fiddling with tiny things that seemed utterly useless to him. 

"What are you even doing?" 

"Working on a series of book nooks for Sel's side of the bookcase," John answered, sounding slightly distracted as he measured the finished window against its place in an intricately carved brick wall. 

"Why?" 

"Because she likes them."

"I mean why are you making it? Can't you just buy her one? It's not like you can't afford it."

"Where's the challenge in that? Besides, things are always more special when you make them yourself."

Gordon yawned and leant forward to rest his head on the tabletop. 

"Do you want to help?" John offered, although honestly Gordon's version of helping was always patchy at best. 

Gordon scooted closer to look over John's shoulder, eyes darting over the rectangular box that he was building the nook inside. About the size of two thick books sandwiched together, the nook already had a little cobbled street and two shop fronts in place. The tabletop was scattered with a selection of impossibly tiny screwdrivers, picks, scalpels and other instruments of possible torture that he couldn't hope to name. 

"Pass," he announced decisively, flicking the control of his hoverchair so he spun in a wide circle, pointing to the door. "I'm out."

"Peace at last," John sighed, flicking his magnifier back into place over his right eye as he set aside the window to be baked later and reached for a fresh blob of clay. 

-x-

"What ya dooooooing?" Gordon yodelled, slamming the bedroom door open so hard that it smacked into the wall and shook several picture frames. He scooted his way into the room without even waiting for an invite. 

"Gordon!" John huffed, clutching his heart where it was trying to leap out of his chest from the shock of his brother’s sudden, and very noisy, entrance. 

"Hi, I got bored, thought I'd drop in on my favourite big brother," Gordon grinned as he glided his hoverchair closer. 

"Are Scott and Virgil busy?" John asked, that would be the only reason Gordon would have promoted him to his favourite. 

"Yes," Gordon admitted, "but that's not the reason why I'm here."

John turned his head to shoot him a raised eyebrow of doom, clearly communicating without words that he didn't believe him in the slightest. 

"So, what are you doing?" 

"Working on this book nook," John replied patiently, holding up the small cauldron he was crafting. 

"The same one?" 

"Yes."

Gordon’s eyes nearly fell out of his head, "Still? It’s been four days!"

"Yes," John hissed out, starting to get frustrated by the constant questions. 

"Why?" 

"Because it takes a long time. If you're going to do a project you should do it right."

"At the speed you're going it's gonna take forever," Gordon snorted, casting an assessing eye over the work John had already done. 

"That doesn't matter," John assured him. "It's not really about the time it takes or the end result, it's about the process, the journey to get there."

"Sounds lame to me," Gordon yawned. 

"Obviously," John drawled, rolling his eyes. 

"What do you mean by that?" Gordon demanded to know, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. 

"Because it's you."

"Hey! Rude."

"Accurate," John said, placing the little cauldron down and selecting another piece of clay which he placed on a ceramic tile. 

"Why?"

"Because it requires a calm mind. It's good to slow down sometimes and just be still."

"Says the console jockey." 

Console Jockey? He did not just say that!

"So you don't think my job is stressful? Or as tiring and important as yours?" John snapped, wondering if it was bad form to smack your injured brother around the head with a partially constructed book nook. He glanced at the nook, he had put a lot of work into it… It would be a shame to waste it. That thought alone saved Gordon. 

“Well, yeah I get that it might be a bit stressful, but it’s not like you have to do much that puts you in danger, not like us,” Gordon continued, digging his hole even deeper, a hole that John was looking forward to shoving him into.

“We all have our specialities, you couldn’t do your job without me doing mine,” John retorted, trying very hard not to let Gordon’s comments get to him. Gordon would never understand what it was like for him to be stuck so far away from the action, away from his brothers when things were going wrong. 

Gordon, thankfully for him, had been unconscious from the moment he had activated his emergency code. He hadn’t heard the frantic calls going out over the comms as the family mobilized to help him.  He hadn’t heard the desperate scramble as Thunderbirds took off, racing to the scene. But John had heard it all. 

John had been the one to stay on the line with Gordon, talking to him the entire time, knowing that he probably wouldn’t hear it but feeling that he needed to say it all the same. He wanted to know that if his little brother regained consciousness for even a second he would hear a familiar voice, that he would know that they were coming, that they would rescue him. He would know that he wasn’t alone.

 He knew what it was like for people that were in danger, knew the comfort they got from someone talking to them, listening to their stories, being there for them verbally if not physically. John was often the one that spent the most amount of time with those they rescued, keeping their spirits up as much as possible until his brothers got there. 

His brothers were seen by their rescuees as the real heroes, the ones that leapt in and plucked them out of danger, but John was the one that got them that help, the one that made sure the rescue played out as best it could, liaising and coordinating until the job was done. But Virgil, Scott, Gordon and Alan were the ones that got the thanks , the ones that got the hugs after they dropped their charges off, not John. 

Not that he minded too much, he knew that his job was just as important as theirs, maybe even more so because, when someone put out that call for help, when they sent their desperate plea out into the world, they deserved to know that someone would always be listening out for it, that someone would hear and that help would come.

He knew all of this, and he knew that Gordon did too, it was just the frustration of inactivity that was making him say the things that he was. John just wished that that knowledge made it easier to listen to. 

“I might not be doing the physical rescuing,” John continued, feeling the need to push his point home. “But I work just as hard, when you’re home you’re off duty until a call comes in, you can relax, swim, watch movies and laze around until you’re needed. When I’m up there I’m on duty 24/7 and even when I do manage to catch some sleep it’s not deep or particularly restful. Any little noise, any call that triggers the system's keyword algorithm gets transferred automatically, I have to go from asleep to awake in seconds to take it.”

Gordon was quiet for once, watching him closely. John didn’t like it, it made him feel like an exhibit in a zoo. And here we have the little seen Tracy, see how he stays inside his hide and hardly ever ventures out… he knew how they saw him, why they likely thought he had the easy job. 

“These help, they give me something else to focus on. I need to keep my mind active and challenged while still trying to relax.” John paused, trying to think of a way to explain his thinking that Gordon might understand. 

“These are almost like a meditation,” he started. Gordon understood meditation and finding your zone. “Creating something out of almost nothing. It keeps my mind focused, helps with finger dexterity and hand eye coordination with the added bonus of it relaxing me. It’s good to slow down and take some time to do something creative, you should try it some time.” 

Gordon listened to his brother and he tried to take in all his words, he tried to understand the meaning behind them, he really did, but it just didn’t make any sense to him. He understood about wanting to be lazy, to sit around and do nothing sometimes. He loved to laze on the couch with his snackies and an Into the Unknown marathon playing out on the holoscreen, but that was watching something exciting, interesting, to him that was relaxing. This...whatever it was that John was actually doing, made no sense whatsoever to him. The idea of trying to relax by actually thinking...that was the most alien concept of all. 

Gordon knew, probably better than his family gave him credit for, what it was like to be mislabelled. Within every sibling pool, there were the mandatory roles: the serious one, the caring one, the smart one, the funny one, the calm one, the angry one, the one who sang in the shower, et cetera. He’d proudly embraced the role of ‘the funny one’, and had diligently flown the flag for the humour camp for as long as he could remember. If a brother came home from a rescue in a slump and needed a cheery pick-me-up, it was Gordon who stepped up to the task, irrespective of his own mood. His smile and laugh were infectious, and he had yet to encounter a frown he couldn’t (eventually) turn upside down.

But with every ‘role’ came misconceptions. Scott was serious, therefore people were quick to automatically assume that he was a killjoy.  Similarly, John’s intellect and preference for solitude often went hand in hand with him being branded antisocial, since there was apparently no possible way someone could enjoy their own company so much, yet still pursue and maintain meaningful relationships with actual people.

Gordon was no stranger to this treatment. He liked to laugh and be spontaneous, and consequently, was often regarded as the Tracy who didn’t take his work seriously, the Tracy who had the attention span of a gnat (albeit a very handsome one), and the Tracy who couldn’t be trusted with anything that required delicacy, be it physical or emotional. His affinity for making people laugh, though an exceptional quality, frequently acted as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, his relentless optimism made him the most effective of the bunch when it came to emergencies involving children and young adults. On the other hand, it sentenced him to a fate where the bad jokes he cracked would always be two steps ahead of the secret deep thinker that lay within.

“Let me see it again,” Gordon sighed, trying his best to be a supportive and understanding brother, since he did feel a little bad about the things he had just said. He hadn’t meant to say them, they had just come out. That was the trouble with being laid up from an injury, not only were you out of action but you were in pain, and pain made you grumpy and less likely to monitor the things that came out of your mouth the way you should.

He knew that John worked hard, hell he knew that what his brother had said was right, John was never truly off duty. They were all aware that he didn’t get enough sleep, enough down time, enough time to relax and just be. They knew that if John was on Five he would consider himself on duty, at work, and therefore he’d never allow himself to take time out. Things had changed since Selene had blundered her way into his life, now he spent a lot more time on the Island, which meant that he was finally taking some time out for himself. If one of the ways he chose to do that was by crafting ridiculously tiny things out of clay to stick in a hollowed out box that was his business. Gordon wasn’t there to judge, he was there to spend time with his brother.

John moved aside a little so Gordon could get a closer look, trying to resist the urge to smack his hand away every time Gordon reached for a tiny piece that had taken him hours to perfect. 

“These are really small,” Gordon mused, poking at a window that John had just finished painting, leaving behind a smudged fingerprint. “Woops, sorry, Bro.”

“Maybe you should try making something of your own,“ John suggested, carefully removing the window from his brother's possession and picking up a brush in order to attempt a fix.

Gordon nodded and John passed him a ceramic tile and a miniature rolling pin. 

“How about you try cutting me out a few shop sign bases?” John suggested.

“Do I get one of those scalpel things?” Gordon asked, a little too eagerly for John’s liking.

“Maybe we can work up to that,” John hedged, subtly moving the scalpel out of his brother’s reach and passing him a square cookie cutter. “Use this cutter for now.”

Gordon shrugged and spent a few minutes rolling and squishing the clay trying to get the thickness to the exact measurement that John insisted on. It wasn’t easy or fun.

“Nope!” Gordon announced, giving up and pushing the tile away. “It’s still boring. Pass.”

He swung his hoverchair around and headed in the direction of the door. “Later, Bro.”

“Oh...OK...later, I guess,” John stuttered, wondering just what he had done to deserve such a chaotic family as his.

“Oh, hey, boo, where are you go- WAHH!”

John’s head shot up as Selene’s yelp rang out from the hallway.

“Sorry!” 

“So you should be, you little shit,” she grumbled to his retreating back as she thumped into the room.

“What happened, love?”

“Let’s just say that if his chair had wheels I’d have lost a few toes,” she said, wincing in imagined pain. 

John scooted his desk chair back and patted his lap in offer, one that she happily accepted.

“So, why was Gordy doing his boy racer bit? What did you say to him?”

“Me? What makes you think I said anything to him?”

“Because I know you two?” 

“Fair,” he sighed, sliding his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder. “I don’t know what to do to help him.”

Selene turned her head to look at him, not liking the helpless look on his face.

“Babe, you are helping him, you’re there to keep him company or talk to him if he needs it, that’s more important than anything. What happened to make you think that you weren’t helping?”

“He was asking me about these again,” John nodded towards his work area on the desktop. “But he didn’t seem to understand, that or he just didn’t want to.”

“He’s Gordon,” she sighed. “You know what he’s like, he’s full on, he’s in your face and he’s not at all subtle. Taking his time with things just doesn’t compute with him.”

“It would do him good though, if he doesn’t learn to embrace it he’ll be exactly the same as he was last time.”

“Was he really that bad?” she asked, concern lacing her voice. 

John nodded. “He doesn’t do inactivity well. When he had his hydrofoil accident his therapist talked him into signing up for a virtual college degree in Environmental Management of Rivers and Wetlands. It was supposed to take him at least a year as a part time course with ANU in Canberra, but he blew through it in the first semester and earned himself a distinction for his insights on the impact of Anthropogenic Noise on Wetland Habitats. His professor was so impressed he offered him a fully funded PhD, citing his time with WASP and the time he spent in the bathyscaphe as practical experience that would make up for his lack of degree. Obviously he turned it down, but he still likes to rub our faces in it now and then.”

“Wow,” Selene breathed. “Forget his professor being impressed, I’m impressed.”

“He has a phenomenal brain,” John said, a small but very proud smile on his face. “When he actually decides to use it to its full potential, that is. There is nothing he can't do when he chooses to focus on something, he’s all in. It really helped him to feel like he was gaining something and moving forward even though he was sitting still.”

Selene nodded, understanding completely. She knew that all of her boys were wicked smart, but Gordon always presented himself as the least academic. He was more of a doer, wanting to be out in the field, learning as he went, diving in head first to every situation. 

But as Selene and John both knew, appearances could be deceiving.

“If that’s what helped him last time, then we need to find a way to convince him to try something new,” Selene insisted. 

“I tried, he’s not interested.”

“That was with your things, babe. We need to find something that’s a little more him, and I think I know just the thing.”

-x-

“I have arrived!” Gordon yodelled, announcing his entrance in his own unique way. He slid his hover chair in through the open door like the boss that he was, bringing his shining presence in to brighten up his middle brother's obviously dull existence. “Didja miss me?”

“Like a hole in the head,” John grumbled, turning to look at the grinning face of his brother. His eyes immediately began to water as they were assaulted by the far too bright colours of the shirt Gordon was wearing, a tie dyed monstrosity that Selene had made for him for his birthday. 

“A little more gratitude, if you please," Gordon huffed. 

“Grandma finally released you?”

“Yep,” Gordon stretched out his injured leg and patted the air cast on his now slingless arm. “Got time off for good behaviour.”

“I find that hard to believe,” John teased, then nodded to Gordon’s arm. “How’s it feeling?”

“Not too bad, my grip still isn't great but Grandma promised me that once the bone has finished knitting I’ll just need to exercise it and build the muscle strength up, then it’ll be as good as new.”

“That’s great, it won't be long before you're able to go back out with Virgil and stop, how did Sel put it, 'haunting the house like the ghost of Christmas future'?"

"Can't come soon enough," Gordon sighed, butting his chair right up close to John's, knocking his arm in the process. "What you do- you're still doing that? Still? It's been a week!" 

"It's not like I get a huge amount of down time," John pointed out. "I'm only here now because Sel said she'd dump me if I didn't make an effort to come down earlier in the evenings so I could actually eat a meal with you all."

"You actually believed that threat?" Gordon laughed. 

"Of course not, she'd never dump me, but I thought I had better humour her and let her feel like she at least had a little sway," John shrugged, pushing aside the little piece of doorstep he had been painting. "Honestly, it's nice to come down for a meal and family time, I hadn't realised how much I'd missed it until it was happening again."

"I guess we all got a bit too caught up in International Rescue after we lost Dad," Gordon admitted. 

"Like we had nothing else in our lives," John nodded, completely understanding. 

"Yep."

Gordon fell silent and John let him, concentrating on mixing the perfect colour acrylic to add a few highlights to his stones. 

"Can I have a go at making something? I bet I could do it quicker than you," Gordon asked, reaching towards what Selene called the sharps tub. John smacked the lid down on it just in time. 

"Actually, we got you a present."

"You did?" Instantly distracted, Gordon sat up straighter, excited by the prospect of a gift. "What did you get me?" 

This," John answered, opening his desk drawer and extracting an interestingly shaped bottle, upright with a thicker, rounded bottom and a thinner neck, ending a cork stopper. 

"Wow, is that an original?" Gordon asked, taking the bottle carefully and turning it to  study it from all angles. He knew exactly what this shaped bottle was, there had been a collection of them in Commander Shore’s office that he would stare at every time he got called in for some reprimand or another.

"19th century," John nodded. "Sel found it in a little shop in Mayfair. They assured her it was a genuine, used on a ship, captain's decanter from around the time of the civil war. They hadn’t fully traced it when Sel bought it but they think it came from one of the ships that fought in one of the smaller skirmishes around 1861.”

“This is really cool, thanks,” Gordon smiled, still turning the bottle over and over.

“It’s to hold this,” John continued, drawing Gordon’s attention back to him.

Grinning, John delved back into his desk drawer and pulled out a rather faded and quite dusty box. He brushed the dirt off the top and slid it over to Gordon. 

"A ship?" Gordon frowned. 

"Yep, Selene and I thought that you needed a little project of your own, so she had the idea to get you a ship in a bottle. You don’t see them a lot these days, but apparently her Grandfather had a couple and they always fascinated her.”

“So you put the ship in the bottle?”

“Yep, instructions are inside, go nuts.”

“Pfft, instructions,” Gordon snorted. “No one needs instructions, they’re a waste of time.”

-x-

“Ouch,” John hissed, hopping in place on one foot as he bent down to pick up what looked to be a tiny piece of mast that had attacked the sole of his foot. “Gordon, why are there bits of ship all over my floor?”

“Because I dropped them,” Gordon replied, his voice muffled due to the tongue of concentration that was peeking out from between his teeth.

Huffing, John gathered all the pieces off the floor, both pieces of ship and bits that they had been cut out of, and deposited them on the desk next to Gordon.

“How’s it coming along?” John asked, settling in his own chair. He’d only been gone a day but Gordon had managed to take over the entire bedroom, spreading his belongings, bottles, snack wrappers, his phone and a discarded hoodie, all over the place, as well as half the contents of the vintage ship box.

“It’s ridiculous. I think it’s missing pieces or something, it’s broken.”

“Well it was an old kit, but we were assured that it was complete,” John frowned, sliding the tray over that Gordon was supposed to be storing all the pieces in. “Have you checked the contents list and matched each piece to make sure they’re all there?”

Gordon looked at him blankly, like he was talking a foreign language.

“Did you check that everything was there before you started?" John elaborated.

“Of course I did,” Gordon promised, crossing his fingers and hoping his brother didn’t see. 

“Against the list?” John clarified.

“I eyeballed it, OK?”

“Not good enough,” John insisted. “That’s not how you go about doing things like this, you can’t just slap them together and hope for the best.”

“Why not?” Gordon whined. It worked for him in almost everything else he did in life. 

“Because this happens," John gestured to the mess surrounding them.

“Fine, I’ll read the damn instructions.”

Leaving Gordon to it John slid his almost completed book nook over and picked up his paintbrush to start adding some finishing touches before he started on the wiring for the lights. He’d barely done more than five minutes when Gordon started huffing.

John waited a little longer, trying his hardest to ignore the ever increasing sounds of frustration and impatience from his brother. In the end he couldn't stand it a moment longer, he had to ask the most loaded question ever.

“What’s the problem?” John asked, pushing his own work aside.

“These instructions don’t make sense,” Gordon bitched, flapping the paper in John’s face. “Look at the little picture here, you have to stick this little pole into that hole in the deck but the deck doesn’t want to stay together and that piece there keeps sliding and the pictures make no sense.”

“That’s because you missed around eight steps in between,” John told him, praying for patience. 

“No I didn't, I followed the pictures exactly,” Gordon insisted. 

“The steps aren’t in the pictures,” John explained. “See right there?” he pointed to the words above the pictures. “The pictures are a diagram of each finished stage, not how to get there. They are for reference only, not instructions.”

“Urghhh, this is going to take forever,” Gordon pouted, crossing his arms. “What’s the point?”

“The point is that by the end of it you’ll have something unique that no one else does, something you can be proud of and know that you built with your own two hands.”

“I’m not sure it’s worth the effort,” Gordon muttered.

“It is,” John promised. “I’ll help. How about I read out the instructions and you follow along? We’ll get through it quicker that way.”

Gordon wasn’t convinced, but John looked so hopeful that he didn’t have the heart to refuse him, especially since he and Selene had gone to so much trouble to get the things for him in the first place. He might be a miserable little sod, but he wasn’t that ungrateful. He knew that they had gone out of their way to get something they thought he’d like, the least he could do was make the thing, even if he knew he wouldn’t enjoy it. Maybe John was right, working together they could get through it quicker, and that could only be a good thing.

“Alright,” Gordon agreed, “let’s give it a go.”

Slowly, methodically, John read out each piece that was needed and Gordon located them, storing them neatly in a wooden box that Selene provided when she popped in to bring them drinks an hour or so later. She stayed just long enough to steal a kiss from John and drop one on the top of Gordon’s head before she beat a hasty retreat, not wanting to get roped into helping. She wasn’t the best at following instructions and didn’t want to get grumped at.

By the time they had all the pieces checked and catalogued they had discovered there were indeed two pieces missing, but thankfully they were easy fixes, just a small , round piece of wood to represent a porthole, which they could easily make a replacement for and a piece of mast. One snipped toothpick later and that was sorted too.

John started with the first set of instructions, reading them out patiently as Gordon found and fitted them together. 

“So, how’s work been?” Gordon asked, like a chatty hairstylist, as he carefully dipped the end of a thin dowel into a small pot of wood glue. 

“Same as ever,” John deadpanned, “a bunch of idiots that got themselves into trouble and needed help, and only half of them related to us.”

Gordon sniggered, glancing at John, seeing the sly smile on his brother’s face. He’d forgotten just how amusing John could be when he delivered something sarcastically witty with such a serious tone. Gordon hadn’t realised how much he’d missed it, wondering just what his more serious brother would come out with next. John was always like that, he seemed so quiet and reserved but, when he was relaxed and in company he was comfortable with he’d take you by surprise by letting loose a zinger that you couldn’t help but laugh at.

“Let’s not talk about work,” Gordon suggested, “we haven’t hung out properly in ages, you’re either up in Five or there are other people around.”

“Is that your way of saying you’ve missed me?” John teased.

“Maybe,” Gordon allowed, “but if you ever tell anyone I said that I’ll deny it and tell Grandma you want her to make your birthday cake this year.”

John held his hands up in surrender, although he couldn’t hold in the laugh that bubbled up as he reached for the instructions again.

“OK, let’s get this done before we stop enjoying each other’s company.”

They worked slowly but steadily over the next few hours, putting together the structure for the first mast. Once it was done they called it quits and abandoned it for another day, the smell of something tasty coming from the kitchen proving to be too much to ignore.

-x-

 “Gordon, that’s my finger.”

“Oh, sorry, can you just like… I don’t know, yank it off?”

“If I wish to leave half my identifying fingerprints behind, yes.”

“Do you really need them?”

John didn’t dignify that with an answer, the look he threw at his brother communicated his thoughts perfectly. 

“OK, OK, I’ll get some dissolver from Virgil’s studio, wait right there,” Gordon instructed him, grabbing his crutches and hobbling his way out of the room. 

John sighed, keeping his hand perfectly still, the hull of the boat dangling from his fingertip. He was still there five minutes later when Gordon clumped his way back in, Selene hot on his heels. She had the glue dissolver under one arm, a large bag of chips under the other and a plate of sandwiches in each hand. 

She dumped the plates on the desk, then the chips, before turning to see the state her fiancé was in.

“Do I even want to know?” 

“Probably not,” Gordon winced, dropping down into his abandoned desk chair and reaching for a plate.

“Can you at least help me before you start stuffing your face?” John asked, waggling his hand, which made the boat sway violently from side to side.

“Can’t, eating,” Gordon mumbled around the massive mouthful he had just taken.

“What did I say?” she demanded to know. “No hurting the hands, you know how I feel about that.” 

John wiggled his fingers again, drawing her attention to his plight. He looked so pathetic with the half built little ship swinging from his hand that Selene took pity on him, intervening when he looked like he was about to grab the thing and yank it off himself, fingerprints be damned.

“Oh for the love of the Gods, let me do it!” Taking his hand she used a paintbrush to smear glue dissolver around the area of skin it was stuck to. She took her time, rewetting and using the brush bristles to push the dissolver under the boat, trying to  ease it free from his skin with minimal pulling.

“Thank you,” he sighed, sitting patiently while she worked. Thankfully it didn’t take her too long, although it took a lot of cursing under her breath and the odd ouch from him to get there. 

“One boat,” she announced, placing it triumphantly on the desk. 

“Fanks,” Gordon said, spraying chip crumbs as he did so.

“Welcome,” she said, brushing at her leg which had unfortunately been in splatter range. Still holding John’s hand she bestowed a kiss to each of his abused digits before releasing him. 

“Right, I’m out of here. Play nicely, you two, I don’t want to have to send Grandma in to babysit you both.”

“It won’t come to that,” John assured her, reaching for his own sandwich. “We’ve not got much left to do now. We just have to attach the rigging to the masts, check that they fold properly then insert th-”

“I’m out, I don’t need to hear anything about insertion, not after you just glued a boat to your hand,” Selene declared, her exit swift and to the point, the door shutting firmly behind her.

“She has a point,” Gordon admitted, swallowing his last bite. He pushed the chip bag in John’s direction, although there was barely more than a handful and a few crumbs left in it. 

“But we’ll never admit it to her face,” John insisted, steadily munching through the large sub she had brought for him. 

“Never,” Gordon agreed. 

-x- 

Gordon sighed dramatically as he crutched his way down the hall from his bedroom. John’s bedroom door was open but his brother wasn’t inside. The ship, now fully rigged, sat beside the bottle on the desk, just waiting to be placed inside once some sand had been poured in as a base. Gordon had chosen all different shades of blue to represent the sea and had even watched a few videos on how to do sand pouring art, something he’d never expected to find even remotely interesting, yet he couldn’t bring himself to go in and make a start on it.

John had barely been home the past week and when he had it had only been for food and enforced sleep. Even then he had been known to sneak out of bed the second Selene was asleep, being discovered on numerous occasions sitting at their father’s desk until the small hours working on this, that or the other. 

Emergencies, and therefore the need for their services, had seemed to increase three fold, something Selene was blaming on the moon phase and mercury going retrograde and, for want of a better explanation, they were all inclined to agree. There was no rhyme or reason for the surge in idiots that were calling in at all hours of the day and night with trucks caught under a too low bridge causing a pile up, hands stuck down toilets, drunks climbing to the top of electricity pylons and repair men getting trapped inside ATM machines they had been fixing.

His brothers had been on the go near constantly, whether it was from rescue call outs or working on their plan to find their father,  but none more so than John. While Selene had always been good at what she liked to call Tracy Wrangling, none more so that when she was dealing with a stressed out Scott, even she had admitted defeat and left them to their own devices. Self preservation was key after all. 

John had been dealing with not only rescue calls and Chaos Crew sightings, but signal tracking, GDF liaising and general hoop jumping, all of which had kept him far too busy.

It had been over a week since they had done anything to their project and Gordon was feeling the loss. Not so much of the project, although that really had helped with his frustrations at his lack of physical ability, not that he would ever admit that to John, but in spending time with his brother.

Much to his surprise he’d found that he was reluctant to work on it alone, it had become their thing to do together. It was a time where they would hang out, shoot the shit, reminisce about childhood memories, times that they had spent together talking about their hope for the future where they would find their father alive and bring him home.

Both of them knew that it wouldn’t be easy, that if they did manage to find him there would be no telling what physical or mental state he would be in. Gordon knew from experience just how tough physical injury, limitations, and recovery could be on the mind and the body,  especially in someone who had been as active and viril as Jeff Tracy. 

They all knew, although no one seemed to want to talk about it, that as hard as it was going to be to actually locate him and hopefully bring him home, that would only be the beginning of what could potentially be an incredibly long and difficult journey of rehabilitation and reintegration into the family and the world as a whole. 

John had been right, taking some time to be quiet, to slow down and think while keeping your mind and hands busy really was a productive way to spend your rest hours and, stupid as it sounded, Gordon didn’t really want that to end. 

He was only a week or two away from potential cast removal and a return to physical activities like his beloved swimming and strength training in their home gym and, while he couldn’t wait to get back to it, he knew he’d feel the loss of his enforced quiet time. 

He glanced again at the abandoned ship on the desk and turned away, clumping down the hall towards the stairs. So it would take them a little longer to get it finished, Gordon was fine with that because for once he wasn’t feeling the need to rush.

-x-

“Remember to pour it slowly,” Gordon instructed as he held the funnel in place, its long pipe reaching right down into the bottom of the jar. “Start with the darkest one, that’s going to be our base colour.”

“I’ve got it,” John assured him, selecting the tub of midnight blue sand and scooping some out into a smaller pot to make things easier. At Gordon’s nod he began to slowly and steadily pour the sand into the open neck of the funnel. As he watched Gordon expertly directed the tube, allowing the sand to pour out to pool in the bottom of the bottle.

At Gordon’s signal John stopped pouring and waited while Gordon carefully removed the tube and used a long metal skewer to poke and prod the sand into something that looked vaguely like waves.

“The next colour up,” Gordon requested and John did as he was asked. They repeated the process four more times with different shades of blue, John pouring in a little at a time, Gordon directing the tube to deposit  more in one place than others, mimicking the movement of sea waves as best they could. In between each layer Gordon used the skewer to poke and mix the colours here and there, blending the layers into a smoother transition.

“That’ll do,” Gordon said confidently, twisting the bottle so John could see the full effect. 

John had to admit that he had been pleasantly surprised when Gordon had announced that he had ordered some coloured sand and looked up how to do sand art on the internet. He hadn’t really known what to expect, although he would admit, if only to himself, that he had thought that Gordon would be a little heavy handed and impatient, but once again he had proved him wrong. He really had done his research and the result was a beautiful mix of colours that really did give a perfect impression of a gently moving sea.

“That’s looking great.”

“I know,” Gordon grinned, modest as always. “Where’s that resin gone?”

“Here,” John answered, pushing it across the desk towards his brother. “Make sure you read the instructions and measure the amounts accurately or it won’t set and you’ll ruin the sand and the bottle.”

“Yeah, yeah I got this,” Gordon assured him as he did indeed read the instructions through properly. Once he had familiarised himself with the ratio of resin to hardener, he measured carefully and poured them into a mixing jug. Once it was fully mixed he slowly, gently, poured the mixture a little at a time into the bottle on top of the sand. With each little pour he waited for the resin to trickle down between the grains, slowly adding to it until all the sand was covered. 

“And now we wait,” John said, carefully placing the bottle in the patch of bright sunlight coming in through the window. 

“Wanna watch a movie?” Gordon offered casually, not really expecting his brother to agree. John hardly ever watched anything with just him, they had vastly different tastes in movies and John usually made some polite excuse to escape.

“Sure, sounds good.”

“Really?” Gordon goggled, his eyes almost falling out of his head. “You don’t have anything more important to do?”

“More important than watching a movie with my little brother? I don’t think so,” John grinned, retrieving Gordon’s crutches from where they were leaning against his bookshelf and tossing them to him one by one. “Come on, last one to the lounge picks the movie.”

“Hey, no fair!” Gordon yelled, scrambling to his feet as he fumbled with his crutches. “You’ve got legs like a giraffe and neither of them are broken!”

“Sucks to be you,” John tossed over his shoulder as he took off down the hall to victory.

-x-

“Careful,” John warned.

“I am being careful,” Gordon snapped. “I got this.”

“Your hand’s shaking.”

“Thanks for that, Captain Obvious.” He steadied his, only slightly shaky, hand by propping his elbow on the desk for stability. “OK, let’s do this.”

They both held their breath as Gordon maneuvered the body of the boat through the opening in the bottle, making sure each sail stayed carefully folded down and the strings remained untangled before he fed it down the neck and into the bottle.

“Phase one, complete,” John intoned in such a serious voice that Gordon couldn’t help the laugh that he snorted out.

“Pass me those long nosed tweezers?” Gordon asked, holding out a hand.

John slapped the requested instrument into his brother's hand like a nurse in an operating theater, provoking another burst of laughter.

“Thanks.” 

“Welcome.”

Making sure the strings of the sails were still dangling outside of the bottle, Gordon carefully moved the body of the boat further down into the bottle with the metal skewer until the stern touched the top of the resin and sand layer. 

“Now the sails,” Gordon whispered, hardly daring to breathe as John moved in to help, taking over the holding of the strings while Gordon reached in with the tweezers.

Gently, working together, they started the delicate process of tugging gently on each string, unfolding the paper sails and locking them in place.

“String one.”

“Got it. Watch number four sail.”

“Yep, thanks...OK… can you just give string five a little pull? Perfect.”

“Sail three is flopping!”

“Gah, hang on, just got to tighten that...yep that’s got it.”

“Maybe if I gather…”

“Yep, that’s good, do that again.”

“This next bit is going to require a delicate touch, maybe I should-”

“Hey! I can be delicate!”

“It’s not coming up...back sail two is stuck, release it...careful!”

“There, saved it.”

John gently pulled the strings a little more and there it was, their ship, sails proudly upright and everything. He kept hold of the strings, while Gordon held on to the boat with the tweezers as they carefully lifted the bottle from its side to its proper upright position.

Using the skewer John maneuvered around Gordon’s hand and nudged the boat into a better position before he carefully released the strings. They both held their breath, hoping and praying that the sails wouldn't collapse the second the strings fell. 

The boat, with its sails, stayed strong.

“Yes!” Gordon cheered, holding up his free hand for a high five, grinning when his brother���s palm smacked against his own.

“Scalpel,” Gordon joked as John handed it to him so they could lop off a little of the trailing strings. Then, using the skewer, they arranged the strings around the edges of the boat. 

With the boat finally upright and in place, they added another layer of light blue coloured sand with a sprinkling of white to mimic the tips of the waves. They finished it off by pouring in a little more resin, both to set the sand and hold the boat in place, using the tweezers to make sure it was correctly positioned.

“Phew,” Gordon breathed, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his cast covered leg. “We did it. Go team.”

“We did,” John smiled. “And it looks damn good.”

“It really does,” Gordon agreed, shifting his head to look at the bottle from all angles. 

“Nothing left to do but let it dry and put the stopper in,” John said. “How do you feel now it’s done? Was it worth the time?”

“I still think we could have done it a lot faster if you’d just let me skip a few steps in the instructions and do it my way, but it wasn’t that bad,” Gordon admitted. “I’m oddly proud of it.”

“You should be, you did good,” John leant back in his chair, crossing his arms as he relaxed. “Are you going to stop teasing me about my book nooks now?”

“Pssh, no,” Gordon snorted. “Ships are cool, yours will always be boring.”

He didn’t see the bottle of water coming until it was too late.

-x-

Gordon walked straight to John’s room from the infirmary,  feeling oddly free without his crutches and casts. Six weeks was a long time, after all.

The bottle with its little ship sat exactly where they had left it in the center of John’s desk next to the abandoned book nook that was still not finished. It took him very little time to insert the cork stopper and pour a little of Selene’s spell bottle sealing wax around the top, a bright, cheery yellow wax that matched his beloved Thunderbird Four.

He smiled as he thought of his little craft, waiting down in her dock for him, ready to be taken out when the next call came in. It had been a long and frustrating time but finally, blessedly, that time was over.

He poked an experimental finger into the wax seal, checking that it had set properly. It had, and he couldn’t help feeling a little sad about it. It had been a project that at first he’d had very little interest in, but slowly it had turned into so much more. Not just something to wile away a few hours but a chance for him to reconnect with the brother he spent the least amount of time with. 

Years ago, back when he had been small, John had been his everything. When Alan had been too tiny to be of any use and Scott and Virgil had been too old to be bothered with him hanging around, it had been John that had been there for him. It was John that had patiently listened as he read aloud from his sealife books, who had watched movies with him, played with him, and spent the most amount of time with him. Back then, their three year age difference had seemed like so little but so much at the same time, an older brother that made him feel wanted and included when the other two saw him as an annoyance.

Gordon couldn’t quite put his finger on when things had changed, when they had slowly drifted apart. John had seemed to grow up so much faster than he had, Alan had welded himself to his side, looking up to Gordon as he had to John  and things had never been the same again. 

It had been too long since they had been able to just hang out, to laugh, to tease each other without things going too far and one of them getting annoyed. It had been nice and Gordon had realised that he didn’t want to go back to nothing but hollocalls to Five when an emergency came in or the odd family dinner and movie night where he had to share with the rest of the family. John was the only brother that Gordon didn’t spend one on one time with as standard and he realised that, no matter how much he might blame it on John being so far away, in reality it was as much his fault as John’s.

Gordon picked up the bottle, leaving a box in its place. The model kit of the Mercury Project space capsule and its launch pad had been hard to find even with his junker contacts. In fact, he had almost given up and  admitted defeat before he'd thought to look at the label on his ship box and sent the shop owner an email.

Smiling to himself, knowing that there was no way John would be able to resist that challenge, he took the finished bottle, with its little ship, to his room where it would take pride of place on his bookshelf, a constant reminder that even in the worst of times, positivity could still be found.

“Thanks, Bro.”

#tag mini bang 2021 #tagminibang2021 #Gordon Tracy #John Tracy #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirdsarego #thunderbirds fandom #thunderbirds 2015 #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds fanart #TAG Mini Bang 2021 #TAGMiniBang2021

[mythicamagic]

wow! that's an amazing list. “i’ve been falling in love with you since the first day we met”

A continuation of other tumblr prompts I’ve made into a fic - here

Hopefully chapter four will be the end lolol this fic has been far longer than I intended it to be.

---

Kagome stared out at passing scenery beyond her window with a glazed look dulling her eyes. Heavy thoughts carried her attention far away from the mundane train ride. She hadn't visited Kyoto in years, and especially not for such a special reason before.

Shippo's voice had sounded so strange on the phone. Mature, but not overly deep, maintaining its playfulness. He'd invited her over for a visit right away.

A 'bing!' noise roused her enough to check her phone- which showed a picture of Natsuki posing with a spear and fresh kill.

Kagome snorted, resting her chin on her knuckles. There were a few things about Natsuki that she was surprised Sesshoumaru hadn't commented on.

Number one; her boyfriend was a demon.

And number two; he was, specifically, an inuyoukai. A mongrel. She imagined Sesshoumaru felt mighty smug to know she'd found a demon of the same species as him to date. Natsuki being of mixed breeding surely made the Daiyouki feel all the more superior.

But Kagome had never cared about such things. She'd loved Inuyasha once, too.

The short version of their 'getting together' just two months prior was that she'd located a demon bar a few years ago and had been dating youkai ever since, using the place as a means to meet them. The relief of finding the secret den of long-forgotten youkai had been unparalleled. Kagome now knew exactly how to locate and see through glamorous thanks to years of experience.

She'd found out through the process of elimination that humans just kind of...weren't enough for her. Kagome needed the youki, the rush- the bite of claws, talons or fangs.

Natsuki was one of many in a long line of potential 'forever' partners, but Kagome had long since stopped expecting marriage down the line. If they lasted, that was fine. If not, that was fine too.

She had resolved never to fall hard for someone again.

Natsuki left Tokyo a few days prior to go on a hunting trip with his pack in a remote location up in the mountains, a monthly tradition.

'Can you skip it this time?' Kagome had asked. 'I'd just...really like it if you could come to Kyoto with me?'

'But I don't know your fox friend.'

'Doesn't matter- he hasn't seen me in 500 years. I would feel so much better if you were there.'

Natsuki looked as though she'd spat in his breakfast. 'Ah, uh-' he ran an awkward hand through his light-brown hair. 'I guess?'

The hesitancy and look in his eyes- begging to be let off the hook- made Kagome force a smile and drop the subject.

She sighed, figuring they'd probably break up soon. There wasn't really anything wrong with their relationship, just a difference in values and priorities.

It seemed to be the norm. No huge fight. No big dramatic breakup. Usually she even stayed friends with her exes.

Sesshoumaru was the outlier in all things.

She made certain not to tell the Daiyoukai of her impending singleness. If he was irritatingly optimistic now- Kagome imagined he'd be a nightmare to shake off if she were available.

But he'd stop if I outright told him to never speak to me again.

Her lips thinned, stomach turning at the mere thought.

For the rest of the journey, she resolved not to think about him. And failed miserably.

----

Shippo had greeted her at the door with an enormous hug the second she'd arrived at his hilltop home. Brilliant red hair had grown longer, swept back into a ponytail. Since his house perched a little further out from most of the houses, he wore no glamour. The pointed ears and foxtails- five of them- Kagome counted, were on full display.

Tears pricked her eyes, and she hugged him back fiercely.

His wife was pleasant, though a little eccentric for a racoon youkai. She'd made a 'welcome' banner and everything for Kagome's arrival.

Three young kits with dark circle markings around their eyes raced around the house- which had crayon drawings sprawled all over the walls at waist-height. Shippo and his wife seemed to have given up on house maintenance, but they were a happy family.

Blue eyes softened as Kagome sat with him in the relative privacy of his art studio. She was so pleased he'd found happiness. As they talked, she bent down- reaching into her bag for her phone to show him some pictures of her workplace- only for it to tip over.

A small bottle of pills rolled out, stopping by his foot.

Kagome paled. She glanced away from his questioning look as he handed them back to her. "Reiki suppression pills?" he asked.

"How'd you know?"

"I've got friends in Tokyo. You're not the only priestess who secretly dates demons," he shrugged, pinning her with a calculating look. "But, it's kind of a shame you feel the need to take them."

Kagome forced a smile, tucking them away, "yeah well- it's because I'm so big and strong," she joked. "I haven't met a demon in Tokyo who could withstand my aura if I really let it out. Taking these is easier. Gives demons the 'flavour' of dating a miko without actually getting burned. It just thins my powers a little."

Shippo nodded in acceptance and swiftly changed topics since it made her uncomfortable. He chattered on about his life, detailing the 500 year gap between when they'd seen each other last. Apparently, after Miroku and Sango had passed, he'd taken to spending more time with Sesshoumaru. When Inuyasha had died, he'd started living with the Daiyoukai permanently.

"You...did?"

He nodded, hands wrapped around his steaming mug of tea. A handmade bracelet clasped around his wrist, and the mug was half-melted, made from clay. Clearly they'd both been crafted by three well-meaning kids. "I guess we were gonna talk about him eventually," he smirked. "I promise not to be biased, okay? Sure, he saved my ass, but you're still my favourite."

Warmth flooded her heart, and Kagome giggled a little despite herself. "You're talking like we're your divorced parents or something," she mused, sobering. Taking a long breath, she stared at her own misshapen mug. "What happened?" she asked quietly. "Why didn't he create a pure-blooded heir?"

Shippo sighed, sweeping a hand through voluminous red hair. "He chased after you pretty much a second after you left through the well. Only he couldn't get through."

Her chest tightened, body stiffening.

"He's told me before though...that regretting what happened wouldn't have been enough, and maybe it was better he didn't stop you. He still felt the same at the time, deep down; that only a pure-blooded heir should take over the Western Lands to ensure he was survived by a long-living heir. He was gonna do it," Shippo muttered. "He was prepared to lay with an inuyoukai to produce an heir, but when the time came he just...couldn't. It frustrated him for a long time."

Kagome took a sip of her lukewarm tea, lips thinning. "He could've taken a mate. It didn't have to be some random woman."

"Heh, yeah but his inuyoukai instincts had already chosen a mate," Shippo winked at her. "And no matter how much he tried to force logic onto himself, his instincts refused to budge. You weren't dead, so in his mind, he couldn't move on. He's remained your captive all this time."

Her eyes widened, swallowing. "That sounds terrible!" she burst, frowning. "What the hell...I'd resent that. Why doesn't he hate me?"

"Hard to explain but...he could have moved on, Kagome," the kit sighed. "If he really wanted to. He's the one who lacked the desire to change how he felt about you. So, despite some relationships, Sesshoumaru has pretty much maintained his bachelor lifestyle."

Kagome stood from her seat, setting down her tea and distractedly looking at Shippo's art pieces, picking up a sketchbook and flipping through it.

Sharp green eyes searched her guarded features. "You're still in love with him, right?"

"Some habits are hard to kick," she said softly, pausing on one sketch. Her vision grew blurry.

Shippo rose and swept the shuddering miko into a hug before she could drop the sketch of Sango and Miroku. He held her for a long time, and they moved on to talking about their friends. About all the things they'd done and the happiness they'd shared.

"M-maybe I...left too quickly," Kagome mumbled, wiping at her wet cheeks.

"Nah, don't get that thought stuck in your head," Shippo rested a hand on her head, gently ruffling the dark strands. "You wanted distance between you and Sesshoumaru. It's not your fault the well shut."

"Why did..." swallowing thickly, she looked up at him, oddly feeling like a child in comparison to his steady, easy-going presence. Like nothing in the world could shock or frighten the little kit anymore. "It took him 6 years to come talk to me, why is that?"

Shippo's smile turned slightly sad. "He wouldn't want me to tell you. In fact, he'd kill me for giving you this-" Shippo reached into his pocket and took out a vial.

Kagome understood what it was almost immediately, accepting the glamour with a perplexed look.

He then scribbled down the name of a random park in Tokyo she hadn't visited before, handing it over with a smirk. "Put that glamour on and visit this park on either Tuesday or Thursday, weather permitting. You'll find him near the duck pond."

She arched a brow, eyeing the vial. "He'll recognise me, even with a glamour on."

"Nah, that's my own creation- and I'm pretty darn brilliant at magic now!" he puffed out his chest, tilting his chin up in a very Sesshoumaru-like manner. Shippo then smiled warmly, taking the sketchbook and tearing out a page. "He's not being honest with you, but it's not outta nefarious purposes. You'll see," he reassured her. "He's changed. Even if he's still an asshole."

Kagome accepted the page, freezing. Her fingers stiffened, emotion clogging her throat at all the implications that came with the picture. She couldn't help but cry again in the safety of Shippo's arms- promptly bursting into tears while on the train ride home too.

Shippo's sketch remained clutched in her hands.

The weight of so much wasted time rested upon her heavily, making the woman bend low in her seat, ignoring the stares of other passengers and letting out several years of loneliness and disappointment. How her skin had ached and burned up with a fever of remembrance- straining for a demon lord to take her wrists and kiss her palms like he once had.

---

Overcast skies blocked out the sunshine that Tuesday, so she wondered if he'd show. The glamour had made her look like a 40-year old, a few grey streaks in her magically short hair. Brown eyes stared back at her instead of blue. She smelled like lavender and home cooking. Kagome sat upon a bench and pretended to read beside the duck pond. An available bench sat further away, nearer to the empty play park.

It was there that a dark-haired man eventually sat, five children having followed him. A lanky teen took a seat next to him, his hair short and grey- eyes milky white with blindness. Kagome squinted from behind her book, sensing he was a snake youkai. Two young hanyous of differing species immediately ran to the play park, squealing. One had concealed horns, the other hiding their leopard spots behind a glamour.

A human girl around the age of 11 carried a toddler to the edge of the duck pond, talking quietly with him and pointing to the ducks.

Kagome held back the hot sting of tears, forcing her gaze to the book in her hands and robotically turning a page.

"Shinto needs to get out of his room," the snake youkai was muttering sourly.

"There is little I can do. Did you wish for me to carry him kicking and screaming to the park with us?" Sesshoumaru snorted, elbows bent to rest on his knees.

Kagome glanced at him furtively from the corner of her eye.

Gone was the easy confidence he'd presented to her during their encounters- the impeccable dress-sense and untouchable air of a bachelor. He looked like a mess. Or rather, a single parent struggling to juggle too much at once. He wore a jacket that had seen better days, hair dishevelled and slight lines under his eyes.

"Maybe that would've been better," his adopted child was muttering, soon sighing and glancing to the side as Sesshoumaru toyed with his phone. "Do you even have her number?"

Sesshoumaru arched a brow, feigning ignorance. "Hm?"

"You know who I am referring to. Just ask for it from Uncle Shippo."

Dark lashes lowered, followed by a rich, silky chuckle that made Kagome's skin warm. "Such underhanded methods, Hiroji," he teased, "no wonder you're not popular with women."

Hazy eyes gazed in his general direction flatly, huffing. "Please refrain from trying to dodge the question. Have you actually asked this 'Kagome' woman out yet?"

"I invited her to coffee."

"Such a cheap date, Papa!" the human girl by the duck pond smiled, carrying her brother back to them. "Couldn't you have invited her ice-skating, or to a fancy restaurant?"

"Or to the park!" one of the Hanyous yelled from the swings.

Sesshoumaru cut his eyes to grey skies fondly, accepting the toddler from his daughter. "The location does not matter. Miss Higurashi is not easily swayed," he uttered, large hands toying with little boots. The toddler giggled, kicking his legs. "Initially, I wished to bury her with gifts, but she would merely see that as an attempt to 'buy' her. No, I sense only a display of humility and regret will soften her opinion of me, however that seems quite impossible."

"Hm? Why's that?" his daughter asked.

"Because I do not wish to use you all as an example of my having 'changed.' It would feel as though you are mere tools for my redemption," brown eyes slid away. "My mindset altered gradually over the centuries. No large thing triggered it. I know of no other way to prove myself other than introducing her to you."

Kagome could tell by the twitching of his fingers and the way he kept brushing them over his jaw absentmindedly that he was itching for a drag of his pipe. She'd wondered if he still occasionally smoked. He must've decided not to around his children.

"Sounds like heavy stuff," the girl hummed, patting his shoulder in consolation. "Can't you just say-" she cleared her throat, voice deepening into a poor imitation of Sesshoumaru's- "Miko, I've been falling in love with you since the first day we met. Fall into my arms~"

Deep brown eyes flattened, and he playfully shoved a hand into her face. "Things are not so easily fixed, Akiko."

"I see. Well, don't worry! If it doesn't work out, we can all go ice-skating instead!"

Sesshoumaru tsked, sinking back into his seat and allowing the toddler to snuggle up on his chest. "How dull. I'd much prefer to go on a date with a beautiful woman than babysit you brats."

Akiko only giggled and whined good-naturedly, calling him a 'meanie' before running off to join the Hanyous on the swings.

Left in silence, the Daiyoukai's brows knitted together, thoughts clearly far away.

Mild concern softened Hiroji's boyish features. "You should try talking to her again," he said quietly, so faintly Kagome could barely hear it.

"Hn, and why is that?"

Shifting, the snake demon glanced sightlessly in Kagome's direction- causing her blood to freeze in her veins. "I suspect she may be more receptive to speaking with you now, that is all. Call it a hunch."

Stiff shoulders slowly relaxed upon realising he wasn't going to expose her. After a few minutes, Kagome rose from her spot and slipped away from the park.

In the comfort of her own apartment, Kagome gazed at the sketch Shippo had given her; Sesshoumaru sleeping without a glamour obscuring his exotic features. Resting on mokomoko, his knees, and the crook of his arm were children, different from the ones at the park, but just as mixed in species.

It implied he'd been adopting them for centuries. What had started with Rin all those years ago- the accidental adoption of his first child, had become a long-enduring habit. And it also gave Kagome the stupid, insidious idea that maybe he wanted hanyou children now. Maybe he wanted them with her.

And that was too dangerous a thought to linger on if she was incorrect.

#Sesskag #Sesshoumaru x Kagome #Asks

[yourloveissmydrug]

could you do a sfw readerxbubba fic where the two of you decorate a new mask for him??

Okay funny thing I want to mention first. I started typing and having a layout for what I wanted to write, and had the story down. During the whole process of writing the fic, I was getting my nails done, and grocery shopping. And when I got home I was gonna sit down and fully write it but then I CLOSED ALL THE TABS ON ACCIDENT. And now the first original story is gone but don’t worry💀 I know I know LMFAO but don’t worry I know how the story goes! It’s my first request, and I just wanted to point that out, cuz thought that it was hilarious. Sorry I took so long!!!

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It was a typical Friday afternoon, you were laying on Bubba’s bed reading a seventeen magazine on the hot and humid Texas summer day. You were bored out of your mind and all you could do was stare at the wall or read some magazines Drayton brought home from time to time.

Your boredom grew and grew quicker. Bubba was always busy with his chores and victims. So you spent mostly everyday by yourself until his chores were done.

To make it even worse the heat didn’t exactly help. The fan that gave no to little cool air helped a bit but you still were sweating. You laid there in bed, sweating while reading your magazine, you thought to yourself, could this get any worse? But your saving grace came.

You heard the door knob wiggle and jiggle open, your body perked up in hopes for Bubba. Walking through the door was Bubba! Your whole face lit up like a Christmas tree. Bubba was excited to see you too. But this time it was different. He was more ecstatic than usual, and it made you curious. He held out one of his victim’s face with jazz hands. You giggled at his quirky humor, while he snorted along with you.

You were quite confused on why he had one of his victim’s faces with you, but it’s Bubba. He’s unique and not like everybody else, which is why you are very fond of him.

You take a good look at the face and realize it’s a female’s face. Being a newly member of the family, you were still getting use to Bubba’s mannerisms, sometimes it left you confused but you’d followed along with whatever he does.

“So, is this for me?” You question softly with baby doll eyes.

He shook his head no, he took the mask away from you. He grabbed your hand, and walked you towards his crafts table where he works on all of his little gadgets and fine arts he makes.

“You want me to decorate the mask for you?”

Again, Bubba shook his head no. He pointed to you and himself. You finally understood what he meant. It’s hard to understand Bubba, he doesn’t speak words exactly. He mumbles, squeals and says gibberish where nobody can understand except for his brothers.

“You want to decorate the face together?” You asked while trying to hide your blushy cheeks from him.

He nods his head in excitement as you guess right. Now that you had agreed to decorate the face with him, he squeals in pure joy.

He pulls out a chair for you like a gentleman would at his table. He hovers over your whole body to see what will you do first. He’s very eager to do this with you.

“I really love your pretty fancy mask, but it’s been used for so long, hasn’t it?” You ask him.

He nods his head while he puts his hands on your shoulders to give him support while watching you.

“Let’s make you a new one, how about that?”

Bubba couldn’t agree more! Anything you do he loves, and is down for. Bubba wears his fancy pretty masks when he is either eating dinner with the family or going on a very special hunt for a victim. He needs to look his best, and looking his best is a main priority to him.

Looking at the blank canvas of the face that could be filled with creative designs and makeup, you questioned what to start with, but it immediately popped in your mind, blush! You grab a vibrant pinky blush. You dab lightly on the cheeks to not have such a bright pink that looks cakey and awkward. Bubba is amazed at how you applied the blush so subtly that looked so soft and airbrushed.

Then next is lipstick. You grab a bright red lipstick to go with the blush. You knew exactly what color would work well. You finely apply the lipstick around the lining of the mouth of the mask. It looked like an actual woman’s lips.

But now Bubba wanted to take a bit of control. He grabbed one of the deepest dusky blue eyeshadow he has but before he started, you stopped him and insisted he used a brush instead. You dip lightly in the blue eyeshadow, and started to do slow motions to blend out the beautiful blue. Bubba was intrigued by your technique, he then proceeds to overlap your hand that’s on the brush. He wants to blend the eyeshadow together. Your eyes met and you couldn’t control the smile that was beaming off of your face. You let him take control for a bit.

“Slowly Bubba..” You softly advise him.

Bubba blends in slower and softer motions blending the dark blue eyeshadow on the upper eye. You praise him for his contribution on the eyeshadow, you thought he did beautifully. He lets out a happy squeal for making him feel proud of his work.

You both were proud of what you designed together, but both of you knew something was missing. You both wanted to add something extra! You knew exactly! You wanted to add something edgy yet feminine and feisty to the look. Bubba had a stamper collection full of different patterns and designs. Bubba’s personality is quirky, and sweet. You wanted to showcase his personality on this mask that both of you designed together.

“Let’s put this on the cheek bone of the mask, give it some more pizzazz!” You suggest.

Anything that you do, Bubba is happy and pleased with it.

But this time, you want Bubba to add the finally touch to it. It was a tiny heart stamp that would give the look some sweetness to it. Bubba dipped the stamper in black ink, and you directed towards where he should put it. He then prints the stamper on the cheek bone of the mask. You both are proud of your master piece you both designed.

Bubba twirls your hair in appreciation and talks his gibberish. You have no idea what he is saying, but you find it very charming. You give him a kiss on the cheek when he’s not noticing. This was a moment that you both will remember and cherish forever. He just couldn’t wait to show off his new mask to everybody and tell them that the both of you made it!

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AHHHH, I hope you liked it. I very much enjoyed writing this! Sorry I took like 10 million yearsss, I had a busy day, and accidentally closed all tabs erasing the whole story, but for future requests gonna do them on a Google doc first 💀

#bubba sawyer #bubba leatherface #dbd bubba #texas chainsaw massacre #the texas chainsaw massacre 2 #slashers #slasher fanfiction #slasher fandom #sfw #dead by deadlight #headcanon #slasher headcanons #fluff

[ramibvnd]

Genya the Heartbreaker

This is my fic for the Mini Bang 21 hosted by @grishaversebigbang

The Materialki from Gang 22: @vigittarious (Zoya) @gigi-drxws (Genya and Alina) @hivertoautumn (Genya) made amazing art!

Summary: The Tsar hosts a ball in the palace and Genya is excited. However, suddenly she‘s the center of attention because two well known people court for her. The decision is not easy and for once Genya wishes she wasn‘t so handsome and charming because the gifts from her admirers become a bit too much.

Find the fic on ao3 here!

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The court was buzzing due to the excitement of the coming ball, Tsar Nikolai had announced five hours ago. It had been a while since the last time a big and glamorous ball was held in the palace. After her duties in the palace were done, she would search Alina and together they would harass the dressmaker until they made special gowns for them. She couldn’t help but smile when she thought about her best friend and didn’t pay attention to where she was heading anymore, which resulted in her stumbling into David Kostyk.

“Saints, David, I’m sorry”, she apologised and brushed imaginary dust off his kefta.

The durast looked as if he was about to piss his pants though. With a harrumph he adjusted the collar of his kefta and inhaled deep: “No need to apologise, this was my fault. I’m happy to see you though.”

Her eyes darted from his eyes over his body and back: “Yeah?”

“Would you be my partner for the ball?”

The question came out of the blue, even though Genya knew that David had a little crush on her, and her jaw dropped. She didn’t deal with that question yet.

“Give me time to think about it, ok?”, she exhaled and patted on his shoulder, before she rushed off. Her cheeks were burning and she hid it by letting her hair fall over her face, which made her run in person again. This time it was Zoya Nazyalensky, the commander's dark hair shined in the chandelier’s light and her blue eyes fixated Genya and that made her blush even more.

“Excuse me, commander”, the tailor mumbled and tried to pass the tall squaller but to her surprise she was held back.

“You’re red like a tomato”, Zoya meant with a judging look, “But anyway. I wanted to ask you, if you want to join my side for the ball.”

Zoya Nazyalensky was one of the most intimidating grisha Genya knew, but also one of the most attractive. She would love to be Zoya’s partner but she would also love to be David’s partner. Hence, Genya could only answer: “I’ll consider it, but I feel honoured.”

“Someone already asked you'', Zoya asserted and glanced past Genya, as if the other person would be there. The etherealkis’s eyes narrowed and she tightened her grip around the tailor’s arm: “Don’t make me fight for you, Genya Safin. Whoever is my opponent, they will lose.”

“Amazing”, Genya gulped and pushed past Zoya, this time the commander didn’t hold her back.

The next day began with nervousness for the corporalki. She didn’t want to go out of her dorm to see what Zoya would do. Because Zoya would do something, for sure. Eventually she was forced though, because someone knocked against her door. Bracing herself for the worst, she opened the door but only looked into a servant’s bugged face. He was holding a huge bouquet of flowers in all forms and colours. A tag was attached to one and when Genya turned it around, she read: Good morning, dearest Genya.

It was David’s handwriting. Then, to her horror, a second servant showed up, also with flowers, but this time from Zoya. As long as the gifts stay flowers, I can handle it, the tailor thought but she felt that this was only the start.

After breakfast Genya set off for her patients’ chambers but halfway there, she was headed off by David.

“What an incident, I meet you”, the durast smiled shyly and made Genya doubt that it was an incident, “I have something for you.”

Kostyk pressed a hair decoration into Genya’s hands and because she dealt with such things every day, she instantly knew that it was worth a lot. It was gilded and rubies were embedded in the delicate shape.

“Thank you”, she said, unsure how to respond to it, “But I cannot accept that, it’s worth too much.”

“Nothing is worth too much for you”, David said softly and closed Genya’s hands around it, “Just take it. I had fun crafting it.”

The following hours, the jewellery on her desk reminded her that she would need to make the decision between David and Zoya soon. Eventually the morning was over and she grabbed some food in the dining hall, to eat it with Alina outside at the pond. On the practice field was as always a lot going on, Botkin training young grishas and some Infernis were lightning up straw dolls. She enjoyed watching it, until she spottet Zoya approaching her, a determined, slightly angry expression on the beautiful face. The squaller stopped a few steps away from her, brought her hands together and before Genya could process what was happening, a small storm gathered. Zoya let it expand into a bigger cloud until the wind pulled at Genya’s hair and every single person on the field was watching. Fascinating was that Zoya had mixed some sort of blue powder into the air, so that the wind was visible and it looked as if the storm had a life on its own. It deformed over and over again, from a tiger to a wild horse. Nazyalensky’s expression was concentrated, but there was an affectionate sparkle in her eyes. At the end of the demonstration, the storm collapsed into a rose and rested at Genya's feet. Zoya smiled at Genya and brushed a red lock behind her ear: “Perhaps this makes the decision easier for you.”

Then the commander spun around and walked away, leaving Genya on the spot.

“Alina”, Genya sighed and frowned, “I have a serious problem and you are laughing? I’m worried about what Zoya will do to David when she finds out, that he’s her opponent.”

“Genya, be happy that two of the most handsome and powerful people openly run for you”, Alina grinned, “Nikolai surpasses you in the amount of admirers, but except for him you are the unbeaten top. Enjoy it.”

Genya opened her mouth to say something but closed it, because she figured that whatever she would say, it wouldn’t make Alina stop laughing. Instead she bit into her sandwich and tried to forget her admirers.

Harder though than done though, because when they returned to the little palace, the news that Zoya Nazyalensky gifted Genya Safin flowers made out of her power, got around the golf course. Some grishas smiled about it, mostly the one’s that already had a partner, but the majority threw the tailor one or two jealous looks. Zoya was almost everybody’s secret crush and having her openly running for your hand was dream material. To Genya’s relieve also this day was over at some point and she walked back to her dorm, exhausted from avoiding David and Zoya all day long, when she crossed path with Tsar Nikolai.

His mouth transformed into a wide smile as soon as he saw her and he hugged her: “Genya, I hear a lot of things about you. For once, someone else is the hotter topic here, it’s refreshing.”

“It’s not”, Genya sighed “Why can’t they just act like normal people.”

“Because you are a commodity in demand, sweet heart.”

Genya snorted and clapped Nikolai’s a: “I am no commodity.”

“I know, this was just a stylistic device to illustrate the situation”, Nikolai assuaged, “And I think there’s someone who has to say something to you.”

He nodded to the floor in front of them and Genya was tempted to turn around and run away when she saw David. He was holding a letter and definitely waiting for her. It turned out to be a poem and it was actually quite good, but she was way too tired to really listen.

It had been two days since Zoya’s storm and David’s poem and Genya savoured the silence. She didn’t need to wolf her meals down and use the secret corridors to walk through the palace in order to not meet anyone who might make something crazy to get her favour. However, her lucky streak ended the moment the freshly recruited grishas entered the dining room while breakfast.

The whole room went dead silent when the young grisha with the blond braids stepped forward and declared: “We’re here to perform a song for Genya Safin.”

Before they started Genya buried herself under the table and wished she could make herself invisible. Across the room she saw David, observing the scene with an irritated expression. Considering Zoya’s position it was a bit unfair - she could make Ravka sing for Genya, literally, and David had no such resources.

They made eye contact and suddenly she was very grateful that she had someone to look at who didn’t laugh or stare at her in disbelief because the grishas began to sing an ancient love song.

The moment the last singer closed their mouth, Genya stormed out of the hall, ready to strangle Zoya for this action. Too much was too much. Eventually, she ended up sitting at the pond, trying to make slates slide on the water. By tomorrow she would need to have chosen her partner, because the evening after was the ball and tomorrow was also the day she and Alina would get their outfits. As she thought of her best friend, an idea formed in her head. What if she did the most unexpected out of all? Excited about her idea she headed back to her friend’s dorm and opened the door, hoping Alina would be there but she wasn’t in sight. She would see her anyway at dinner at the latest and her concern could wait until then. With a content smile she went to her own dorm and opened the door.

“By all the saints”, Genya whispered and stared at the cannon. The chase was engraved with the pictures of Saints and other figures of the old Ravkan tales. The metal was altered, so it was white instead of silver and the holding sparkled golden. The inspiration was definitely coming from Genya’s kefta and the work would’ve only been done by a grisha. And she only knew one grisha who would first off, send her a cannon and second off, be able to create a cannon. Pretty confident that she would never have any use of it, she walked around and lay on her bed, to take a nap.

Read the rest on ao3 akdjakdj

#alina x genya #genya x zoya #genya x david #grishaverse #mini bang 21 #grishaverse mini bang 21 #genya safin #zoya nazyalensky #malyen oretsev #nikolai lantsov #david kostyk #shadow and bone #shadow and bone netflix #ball au #love triangle

[phoebe-delia]

Art Imitates Life

Thank you to the lovely @bubble-gumhead and @lucienneart for tagging me! And thank you @the-starryknight for coming up with this idea based on our discord madness. I will tag a few others as well: @frenchmarshmalloww @apr1cots @moonstruckwytch and @avenueofesc

"Watch What Happens"

While some new reporters struggled to adjust their writing to fit the specific grammar and structure rules of journalism, Draco loved the challenge. Every article was a little game for him to win; he had to find the right words—the best words—to get his point across while sounding credible. Still, he loved the chance to throw in more advanced vocabulary when he could—he was particularly proud of the time he finally snuck in the word “eponymous.” There was nothing like the satisfaction of crafting the perfect “lede,” the first and most important sentence of every article that provides a summary of the article to come.

I have some experience in journalism, which you could probably gather by reading the damn story lol. And this is exactly how it felt to me to write an article. And I did once use the word eponymous in an article and I was proud of it lol. Also--the title of the fic is from a song in a musical called Newsies, and the character who sings it is an ambitious female journalist, soooooo.

"Fog"

The lack of wind in Midtown makes the heat worse, but the sleeping sun provides relief from the summer’s sweltering blaze. Draco usually swallows down his longing for England’s cleansing rain, but on these nights, when he feels crushed like Atlas under the weight of the world, he lets the bitter melancholy rise in his throat.

Before, he would seek refuge in his own insignificance by gazing at the sparkling night sky; but now, the peace he needs is obscured by smog and steel.

I adore the stars and the moon. When I'm overwhelmed at night, I look up at the sky, and I see the stars and the moon and I feel better. I want to live in a big city one day, and something I fear is enduring what Draco does, where I can't see the night sky the same way.

"Gaydars of the Lost Heart (Or: Draco Malfoy and the Costume of Doom"

I didn't include an excerpt because this entire fic was wish fulfillment for me. Once I had this image in my head, I knew I couldn't let it go--plus my friend @lucienneart made this drawing of Harry based on it so this holds such a special place in my heart.

"You Are In Love"

“According to ancient myth, Heracles defeated the dragon on his quest for the Golden Apples of Hesperides. Other stories say it became a constellation when Athena threw the dragon into the sky by its tail during the Titanomachy.”

Harry blinked. “Titanomachy?”

“The war between the gods and the titans.”

“Ah, makes sense.”

Draco chuckled. “Mythology is very strange. There are any number of versions of events, spreading across tons of different cultures and ethnic groups, and people have been debating them for generations.”

Harry hummed. “Which ones do you like?”

“I like them all. When I was younger, my mother used to read me stories of ancient heroes, lovers, and quests from all sorts of different mythological sources.”

I love Greek mythology. I grew up being interested in it bc of PJO and my best friend and I are still obsessed. I was so excited to bring a little gay mythology to Drarry. Also--there are a few parts in this fic where Draco is in social situations and he's a little freaked and he thinks, "Gods, Brain, could you be more awkward?" and "Heart, quit pounding will you?" I do that when I'm in similar situations.

"Speak Now"

Dear Potter,

The wedding is a month away, and I’m losing my mind.

Astoria has been a gem, really. It’s Mother who’s driving me up the wall with her “Which centerpiece?” and “Which vintage wine do you prefer?” and “Should the Bartlets sit with Mr. and Mrs. Harkness at table 13 or the Bezukhovs at table 18?” and I can’t take it any longer.

This part of Speak Now has some little easter eggs to things I love. Table 13 is a Taylor Swift thing because 13 is her lucky number; and in that vein, the Harknesses are the subject of her song, the last great american dynasty (which I have also used as part of my Drarry/Taylor series!). The Bartlets are a reference to the West Wing characters, and the Bezukhovs are a reference to my favorite musical of ALL time: Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. And Table 18 is because of 1812.

#drarry #phoebedelia #draco and harry #harry potter #draco malfoy #fanfiction #fanfic

[madfantasy]

شكرا..

Even between the constant nudging feelings of being unable to create something relatable, to be noticed, or understood. The silence, the diminishing digital numbers, and the constant wondering if I'm doing something wrong or if it simple life effects, fall out of interest, vague differentiation of cultures and shifting tides. Being out of luck, or the faint wrestle of fandom-ic opinions, moods and sides. And between my reality at home, being told on daily basis with colorful variety that my art isn't feeding me as such, its not important, and my efforts are stupidly wasted.

I am thankful

For those special ones who I met and left me a memory to revisit, brief our encounters were or graciouslly still flourishing, I'm grateful for the time and every word and support you've bestowed upon me, allowing me to treat myself and remain connected to my only window to the world and haven- online. When I could, I have saved in treasuring manner your messages and reread under the blanket of white noise, almost unconsciously and tirelessly running my sight across the lines, for being such wonderful spiritual excursion I could hardly believe I'm deserving of and can't get enough of. And grateful for those who follow my trail silently and faithfully with every new burst of randomness that leaves me, and welcoming those who came to company my wavering drawing journey, even if my words don't reach you

Used to having the concept of time as meaningless almost my entire life, but now dears came to inhabited its space, I couldn't help but count every second. Three years now amongst you, witnessing humanity I've never tasted before, grateful for to have the fortune of it happening in my life

Loving to mention personally who comes to mind at the moment, regretting who I'm forgetting already (im sorry

@suffer-my-displeasure Tinni, so thankful to have you as the wonderful talented witty kind hilarious person you are. Thank you for the art you do, for the inspiration and the tickling thrill to rush and draw as to match the passion you give. Thank you for simply the vibrant times in doing art and complaining about it lol

I treasure our art adventures and always wish you the best and look forward to everything you do, don't keep us waiting :"

I still love this drawing we did on Magma studio, wish to do more :"

(Guys remind me to interduce you to it, so we can maybe draw together some time!)

@thepomegranatejuice Pom, thank you for the release of the exhilarating imaginary side of language; the poetic flow of words you smoothly relay along side the stokes of my brush, like the gentle grace of a passing wind on a shuddering clear mirror of water, reflecting their joint wonders. Thank you for your beautiful perception and the motivation you cause me. I wish you always the best of things, you amazingly warm-hearted soul

@snapecentric my dearest Katt, thank you for everything. Thank you for your much needed nudging encouragement in me using Ko-Fi for the first time, thank you for helping me overcome my embarrassment in advertising and explaining my situation. Thank you for the luscious killer use of words and creative awesome input, and your immense kindness to others. You're a miracle in my life, and I'm sure in other's. Bless your soul my dear, may your always filled with the joy you give

@willmoanbutdonothingtochange Ali, thank you dear for always making giddy with your appearance that blessed my notifications board. Your way with words, your thoughts, compassion and utter sweetness overwhelms me, an angel you are, bless your bones

@omgverybouquetkoala deary, thank you for being an extension to family, thank you for everything you've shared, all your little stories and craft, I love your bookmarks, wish you all the best my dear

@snapessexual precious dear, thank you for all the fire and the excitement you bring me, with your wizarding way with editing vids and bringing pictures to life, all the love

Also would love to thank my top supporters, according to ko-fi hehe

Blessing me with their commissioning

@kaboom-eye with his awesome daring fic scenes and saving me from a tight spot of disappearing from online, @friedgreenpickles all the lovable sev as you are @snapelynn with your cute Althea and teeny Sev fanfics <33

And everyone's generosity in supporting me and commissioning me @its-itsjustice-love , @kirasnapeaddict @sherrasama , @francis-sinbin , @rose0jam , @sluthyrin , @gcgraywriter, and those who I'm sorry that i don't know their handles; Mantra, Nyara, BronzeWool, Gruselnudel, Naomi

Thank you for all the dear that bare with me and make my heart flutter @mybianca112 lovvve uu dear , @lovewithmidnight قُتلت خلاص، قلبي ماع You're so wonderful 😭 @clowne-depot u PRECIOUS and everybody, Salem, Harry,,,,

I want to thank all the writers and artists that have tickled my fancy and were a joy to spot on the feed and remembering some;

@deathdaydungeon , @alinearthp @blog4snape , @myobscureimaginarium , @lo-pizzaeater

Also thank you for dears who mentioned me, who also supported me and I adore their art mizzadamz , capysnapeart , hpprincealice

May your year brings you the joy that you deserves, and the fortune your heart desires, despite all the odds 🙏

Have this Kaka from Mani

3.1.2021

#text #thank you #drawing journey #precious dears