#love drawing from memory for a fandom I haven’t consistently thought about for like three years lolol

[arsonisticscholar]

It’s ya boi Limb!!!

#get it #cuz his names leg #like the limb #lu #lu legend #linked universe #linked universe legend #love drawing from memory for a fandom I haven’t consistently thought about for like three years lolol

[13eyond13]

Well, that's the thing, he established a contrast between L and all the other characters, even though he said he could never have created the other characters either, and only said of L that he didn't feel real for him. That's why it never sat well for me, despite it being a good opinion at first glance.

And I agree. I read some similar things about both Near and Mello in the How to read while checking for that information. I'm not too surprised either about what you say about Platinum End, though I have not read it myself. I don't rely much on them either to form my opinion besides what's in the text, I agree it seems like the best choice all things considering. Like the Ryuzaki thing having to do with L and R sounding similar, I see that, but prefer to roll with Another Note here. It works wonderfully with it being Beyond Birthday's real name (I was this 👌 close to start rambling about identity again but goodness what a wonderful messy thing L has going on there). And still the washing machine bugged me, I couldn't help it. I thought for the longest time it was some kind of absurd joke headcanon popular in the DN fandom and I liked it a lot more as such xD

I don't like to dismiss completely File no. 15 though! I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion (pseudo ☕), but I love that L visits museums and likes art, and that he enjoys going to the park at times, and maybe I'm biased due to my background, but I adore and find so thought inspiring that he finished the demonstration in his first case with "Q.E.D."! The message is long again (with the new limitless asks it's easy to get carried away), but I wanted to add some positive things. I didn't mean to sound so bitter and negative in the other messages, sorry about that.

May I ask what are some of your own unpopular opinions? You don't have to reply, of course.

Oh, I didn't know the asks became limitless recently 😆 No worries, you didn't sound bitter! I tend to like being a bit critical or negative as a way of analyzing or attempting to discuss stuff honestly as well, and that's bound to happen in unpopular opinion sharing. I think it's valid to still be bothered by those things in the HTR13. I was just explaining how much I prioritize it or let it affect my feelings personally when it comes to my own interpretations of things.

Oh man, I haven't thought about my own unpopular opinions in a long time! But I think I made a list of them once in an ask I received way back in the day... I'll copy some here and then add some others, too.

I hope I don't offend anyone with these opinions, I'm not saying these are objectively true or anything but my own subjective takes, but

Some Unpopular Opinions:

-I think Misa is a worse person than Light and would rather hang out with him and be friends with him than with her. This is mostly because of how differently he acted upon losing his memories whereas she stayed almost exactly the same.

-I strongly prefer the manga to the anime because I think it's better written, more consistent, funnier, prettier, and more in-depth with all the characters and themes. I love stuff about the anime like the music, but I don't think the changes the anime made to L such as seemingly giving him regretful emotions before his death and little flashbacks to his past were automatically improvements on his manga self. I think he was far more original and complex as a character without that other stuff added in

-I LOVE LIGHT YAGAMI and can’t comprehend not loving him because he’s such a good character. Roasting him is always fun, but just straight up hating on him with no sense of humour about it is boring to me

-L is probably my all-time fave character but at the same time I think he can get a bit boring after a while if he isn’t fleshed out more in shippy fanfics and things. I love it when people give him a backstory and an interesting life in fics that go in-depth, because otherwise he can be left too much of a question mark

-Lawlight is both my favourite ship and also something I find a little overrated in the fandom at times. I think it's a really entertaining ship as an uncertain one full of tension and mind-games, but when it comes to actually putting them into a secure and loving relationship I end up getting easily bored by it

-sometimes I think Wammy's is overrated in the fandom compared to the other interesting characters and stuff in the series as well. I would love to see a little more exploration of the task force and SPK and mafia and such instead

-I think Higuchi was actually pretty nice to Misa on their date and the only thing that was awkward was that he lunged at her a little in the car when he got excited, lol

-I love Kiyomi and think it’s so silly to hate on her just because she killed Mello, he kidnapped her and made her strip at gunpoint first. I also think she gets blamed more harshly for things the guys also do sometimes, both by the characters in the story and by fans

-I don't believe Matsuda is as much of a pure cinnamon roll as some people seem to think, but he's more interesting with that darker side included in his characterization too

-I LOVE NEAR and think he’s so funny, and one of the most three-dimensional characters in the manga

-I think it was a good story choice that L died when he did and that he wasn't the final one in the warehouse showdown (though if I had only watched the anime that probably wouldn't be the case)

-I like that the story says that all the characters go to MU no matter what they do. I don't see it as just an edgy nihilistic thing which we should pretend isn't part of the story due to being too depressing to think about. In my opinion it's important to include it because it forces the audience to draw their own conclusions about the actions we see onscreen, and who we choose to sympathize with or condemn. If there was some sort of afterlife consequences based on the characters' morality it would easily become way too weirdly preachy or annoyingly nonsensical for me. And I respect how permanent the character deaths are because it would weaken the dramatic stakes and lessen the tension a lot if characters could arbitrarily come back from the dead

#l lawliet #light yagami #near #mello #kiyomi #higuchi #matsuda #lawlight #ask #anon #p #thx! #send me a ☕ plus your popular or unpopular opinion #omg i had it saying minigames instead of mind games for so long hahaha #i love lawlight when it's like mario party...

[zeldanoel]

Why Should I Change? A Mergana fic

Just posting chapter 1 on tumblr. Read the rest on ao3 here.

Fandom: BBC Merlin 2008-2012

Rating: T for angst (can’t think of any particular tws)

Characters/Relationships: Merlin/Mergana, Aithusa

Summary: Merlin, disguised as an old man, saves Morgana and Aithusa from the Pit. Takes place after season 4. There will be... REDEMPTION and enemies to friend to maybe something more

Chapter 1: Escape

The Pit is dark, and cold, but the cold bothers Morgana more than it bothers me. What’s starting to bother me is the smallness of the pit. If I stand on my hind legs I am only as tall as Morgana, but I can no longer stretch out my wings. This worries her, when she has strength to be worried. She has no color left in her eyes, her face. All is black and gray, and she whispers to me distant memories of forests and castles. We are in a castle, I think.

But there is no escaping this castle, this dungeon, this Pit. It is becoming my whole world. Sometimes men jeer at us, yelling terrible words that Morgana repeats under her breath back at them, her lips drawn back in a snarl. They throw down rotten food, and we weep together for hunger. We cannot seem to die. And I will not let us die, because I remember the skies. It was not for this that I saved her life, I repeat to myself. We will find a way out. Morgana will dream us a way out. And I will keep her alive.

Time is roughly measured by how frequently we are shouted at, but even that is not consistent, so I do not know what day or night it is when Emrys finally comes. It is during one of Morgana’s fitful sleep cycles.

“Aithusa,” I hear. It is a name that only Morgana has said to me. Curled around her, I look upwards. A man’s face peers through the grate. He has a white beard. I hesitate. I do not want to wake Morgana.

“I’m going to get you out,” he whispers, and I realize then that he is not speaking in a human tongue, exactly. It’s a language that I understand deep in my heart. I stir, and Morgana begins to wake.

“Thuse?” she mutters as I disentangle myself from her. She follows my gaze and clambers to her feet.

“Emrys?” she says quietly, incredulous.

“Morgana,” he replies. He’s fiddling with something above, and with a quiet scrape of metal against metal, he unlocks a padlock and opens the grate. It creaks, and he glances away from us, but seems satisfied, and he sets it down gently.

Leave the Pit. We’re going to leave the Pit. Excitement sends a shiver of energy up my spine, and I stand on my hind legs, scrabbling to find purchase on the stone.

“Stay quiet,” Emrys whispers, “I’ll help you float out.”

I hold my breath as my feet and tail leave the floor. Emrys is guiding me up into the air, his eyes glowing. I land next to him and peer down, anxious for Morgana to get out.

Emrys hesitates. He’s wearing an expression of worry, maybe fear. Morgana is making the same face back at him. But then he stretches out his hand, his eyes glow, and Morgana floats out, too. They lock hands for a brief moment as Morgana lands unsteadily on her feet.

She snatches her hand out of his. “I thought we were enemies,” she whispers harshly. Her eyes race around the room.

I look around, too. We’re in something like a cold stone amphitheater, no windows. The only light is from the occasional torch placed in sconces around the perimeter. There’s a stairway leading upward, and a few guards dead or asleep at the base of it.

“I don’t want us to be enemies,” Emrys replies. “We’re both on the side of magic.” He looks at me. “I couldn’t stand by, knowing the two of you were locked away.” He hands her a thick hide coat.

Morgana’s jaw clenches, her gaze lowers to the ground. She takes the coat and shrugs it on.

Emrys smiles and jerks his head. “Come on. Sneaking back out won’t be easy.”

We creep through the castle nearly silently, pausing often to catch our breaths. Morgana and I are weak, and Emrys seems to be as well. His back is hunched, which brings his eye level down to Morgana’s, and he has a slight swaying, hobbling gait. But he seems to have a sense for our path, and for whoever roams the halls in the dead of night. Morgana gathers me close to her when we rest, her frame trembling from either fright or cold.

Finally, we come through a long dark corridor to a padlocked, rusted door. Emrys whispers an incantation, and the chains break and the door blows open. The wind howls through, bring freezing snow with it.

Emrys turns back to us. “The storm is still going,” he says.

“Aithusa and I won’t make it,” Morgana cries, “we’re too weak.”

He grabs her shoulder. “You will make it,” he says, “If I have to carry you both myself.”

He turns and strides out into the storm. I stick close to Morgana’s side as we follow, and Emrys gestures to the door--it closes with a bang behind us.

He nearly disappears in the swirling snow, but cuts a path for us that we follow. Morgana stumbles against the wind, her black hair whipping around.

Finally, we reach a line of trees, and the wind drops but doesn’t die. Now we can hear the clamor of bells in the air.

“They know we’ve escaped,” Morgana says under her breath.

“S-stay here,” Emrys says, and walks back a few paces. He holds out his hands and says something I can’t quite recognize, stands there for a few moments, and comes back to us. “Keep moving,” he says gruffly, and we let the forest swallow us.

The air around us begins to lighten before Emrys finally calls for a stop. Morgana leans heavily against a tree, and he ignores her and grumbles to himself, squinting through the trees.

“Are we... lost?” Morgana gasps out.

“No, no--here we are.” He wades through the snow, plunges his hand into the base of a hill, and lifts up. Snow shifts off of what seems to be a sort of canvas, and Emrys waves at us. “Come on, get in!”

Morgana collapses, and I hesitate. My legs tremble from exhaustion.

“I’ll get her,” Emrys snaps, “Get inside.”

I slither in. In the center of the small space sits a gently glowing orange stone, which gives off heat. The room is warm, and the floor is padded with pine boughs. We seem to be bivouacked against a hill. It’s barely big enough for the three of us, especially with the bundles of cloth in the corner. I press myself against the cloth wall as Emrys re-emerges, dragging Morgana. He practically tosses her into the room.

“I need to cover our tracks,” he says, “I’ll be back.” And with a gust of cold air, he’s gone.

Unsteadily, I do my best to use some of the cloths to get Morgana more comfortable, and move her closer to the warming stone.

Emrys crawls back in, panting. “Ah. Well done, Aithusa. We need to make sure she doesn’t have frostbite. Can you get her shoes off?”

Her shoes are partially frozen. I can’t get them off. He hurries over and presses the warming stone against them until they can come off. Her feet don’t look quite right--purple, in some places black.

He hisses. “Damn. Let’s see, what was that spell…?” He hands me the warming stone. “Hold that against her hands, I need to try a few things.”

I am then able to rest a bit as he holds Morgana’s feet, and I hold her hands. He whispers strings of incantations. Morgana’s breathing steadies as she’s slowly warmed up, and color begins to return to her cheeks, though she’s still so pale in the dim light of the glow of the warming stone. Additional pale daylight ekes in sideways through a hole in the side of the tent, providing air to us.

“Ah. There we go.” Emrys finally sets her feet down, hands visibly shaking. “She’s out of danger.” He crawls over to the mussed up stack of cloths, and pulls out a canteen and a hunk of whitish food. “Eat this, drink some water, and leave the canteen by her head in case she wakes up soon. I need… Sarrum’s men won’t find us, we’re very well hidden. I need to rest, and then we can think about real food.” He waits a beat, looking at me. “You should rest, too,” he says pointedly, and I obediently curl up beside Morgana. The food is cheese, but noticeably fresher than cheese I’ve had in the past, and it’s soft enough that it doesn’t hurt to chew.

Sarrum’s men won’t find us. That has to mean we won’t be back to the Pit. And Morgana’s out of danger. We’re not going to die. We’re going to live. I repeat these things to myself as sleep takes me.

I wake up to the sound of unfamiliar snoring. Morgana is sitting up, her back turned to me. She is watching Emrys, or the warming stone. Emrys lies on his back, puffs of breath stir his white moustache. I nudge Morgana’s arm.

She turns and looks at me. Her eyes are a little glazed over, and I gingerly pick up the canteen in my mouth and put it in her hands. She drinks automatically, coughs, and strokes my head.

“You alright, love?” she says softly.

I nod, and then jerk my chin at her.

“Me too. Just a bit sore.” she draws her knees up to her chest, and her healed bare feet poke out of the bottom of her dress.

We gaze into each other’s eyes, and I can see she’s afraid as usual, but there’s a glimmer of hope there. Perhaps a fear of the unknown.

“I’m going to protect you,” she says. She used to say this often, but it’s a phrase that I haven’t heard for a while.

I hand her some cheese.

She smiles.

Emrys wakes up a short time later, and barely glances at us before he starts rummaging through his rucksack.

“Food,” he mutters, and hands Morgana bread and cheese, cheese for me, bread and cheese for him.

“Aithusa will eat anything,” Morgana says cautiously.

“Gonna boil some jerky for him so he can chew it easily,” Emrys says, and gets out a small cauldron, throws a few brown bits in it, and mutters an incantation over it. The room is instantly filled with the smell of cooked and seasoned meat, plus a blast of warmth.

He scoops the meat into a shallow bowl for me and puts it in front of me. It’s delicious, and soft enough for my aching teeth to get a hold of.

“I assume you two didn’t eat much? You look to be skin and bones.” He’s finally looking at Morgana, but his expression is guarded.

“That’s right,” she says, looking at him evenly.

“We need to get some meat on your bones, but can’t do it all at once, otherwise you’ll both be sick.”

“Why are you doing this, Emrys?”

“Honestly?” he leans forward a bit. “I’m hoping to make an ally of you, Morgana. Maybe a friend’s too much to hope for, after all we’ve been through. But that would be nice, as well, wouldn’t it?” he smiles.

She doesn’t smile back. “So, you want to use us. For what?”

“Camelot.”

Her eyebrows raise, and I see an interested gleam in her eyes. The meat is gone, and my stomach is uncomfortably full.

“That is,” he continues, “I want to spread the peace of Camelot throughout the known world. But we’ll never be able to achieve peace if King Arthur continues to fight against magic. He needs magical allies, powerful ones. He needs us.” He gestures at me as well, and I raise my head and exchange a look with Morgana.

Morgana reaches out and runs a hand down my neck. “You’ve done us… an incredible favor. I owe you a debt,” she says. “And I appreciate your candor. But,” her lips curl back, “I hate Arthur. You know this. I cannot change how I feel, and I will not help you, or him, spread the persecution of Camelot.”

“Camelot’s changing,” Emrys says, heat coming into his voice, “We can help that change. I know we can.”

“Arthur would kill us on sight,” Morgana spits. “He’s like his father in that way. You can’t undo all the wrongs that have been done against him. He’ll never trust us.”

“Or, you’ll never trust him?”

Morgana goes still, gazing over my head. “No. I won’t.”

Emrys sighs, and is silent for a long moment. “Very well. I… may yet be forced to kill you, Morgana, in order to defend my King. But,” he holds up a hand as Morgana starts to speak, “That is a future that I hope with all my heart does not come to pass. And to start to undo some of the wrongs that have been made against you, I want to help you. Will you let me, at least, let’s say, for a year?”

She frowns at him. “A year? How?”

“There’s a small hut beneath the shadow of a mountain. Aithusa might be able to take up residence in the caves there, once he’s grown a bit. But I want to help raise him--that’s what I get out of it, you see. I’m the last Dragonlord. Only one other person in the world knows where it is, and he won’t bother us. It’s safe. It’s away from people.”

“And after a year, you’ll leave us there alone, to live in peace?”

He’s silent, watching her. “If you are no longer a threat, then yes.”

“I don’t understand you, Emrys,” she says, “but I accept.”

He smiles with a bit of relief on his face, and she leans forward.

“But at the end of that year,” she says, “I might be the one who kills you.”

His smile doesn’t crack. “That would be about what I deserve.”

I look between the two of them. I’ve gotten better at reading human emotions, and neither of them look wholly afraid. More like, there’s a challenge in front of them, and they’re ready to rise and meet it.

I give a little trill, and hope that they understand that I’m here to help them meet whatever challenge this is.

We travel for many nights in a row, walking quietly as Emrys pauses periodically to cover our tracks. Sometimes the snow is melted enough that he doesn’t need to. Emrys and Morgana carry our food in rucksacks, but they don’t make me carry anything. I get to play in the snow alongside them as they walk, or rather, trudge along. Morgana has me start stretching out my wings whenever we take breaks, but that hurts.

“They’ll get better,” she insists, rubbing at the joints as I grumble, “we just need to keep working at it.”

Emrys and Morgana talk little to each other; there’s a sort of tension between them. So I start reaching out to Emrys, nudging him in a friendly way or chirping at him, just so Morgana knows I like him.

And what’s not to like about Emrys? He saved our lives. And he’s kind, if a little gruff about it. I can’t forget the worried way he looked at Morgana that first night when he was healing her feet. I wish I could tell Morgana about that.

I wish I could speak.

On the fifth or sixth night, we push on longer than usual, and I can feel my strength beginning to flag.

“Emrys, it’s nearly dawn,” Morgana says. Light is beginning to fill the air around us, reflecting off the snow so I can see better than I ever have before. Ice coats the branches of trees--it’s beautiful.

He turns back to us with an excited smile. “We’re nearly there.” He pauses and raises a hand, and the tracks behind us fill in. He gives a little wheezing laugh, tottering ahead. “Not much farther. There! See?”

We’ve broken through the line of trees. In the rising sun, there’s a valley with a frozen lake far below, and huge mountains.

“Pull,” I mutter experimentally. It was meant to come out as ‘it’s beautiful’, but Morgana seems to understand. She rests a hand on my head. Her eyes are shining with some expression caught between wonder and gratitude, but when she sees Emrys grinning at her, she steels her expression.

“It’s nice,” she admits, “but what about the hut you mentioned?”

“Ah, yes. This way.” He steps into snow that sinks him up to the hip, and Morgana gives a little sound of surprise and grabs him before he falls in face-first.

#mergana #merlin/morgana #aithusa #bbc merlin #fanfic #my writing #yeah I know this fandom's old #but like #I'm STILL mad about it

[factual-fantasy]

20 MORE asks?? :DD Thanks you guys!!

Bash Buggy would put the entire popsicle in his mouth, bite down and try to pull the popsicle stick out. Usually it works and he would start freaking out because its too cold, he would then try to chew it really fast and swallow it. Just resulting in his mouth being even colder. 

He does this every single time despite it usually being an unpleasant experience.

Same here. I was hesitant to draw it at first but eventually gave in. I’m so glad I did XD.

Well, its going better than last time at least. Although people have stopped voting..

Two characters have made it to 5 votes, and most others stand at 3 or 4 votes. I think those are as many votes I’m going to get unfortunately so I’m just going to have to work with what I have.. votes are still open though! :}

Thank you very much!! ♡♡♡ I’m a little better today.

I am self taught, and have been drawing for as long as I can remember. Some of my oldest memories are drawing related. So about 10+ years or so? I know, its a little embarrassing that I’ve only come so far in 10 years. Although I suppose for most of those years I was very young and didn’t know what I was doing sooo...

Anyway, I got some helpful tips from a very talented relative and went to a class that taught me stuff I had already taught myself, but that’s about it. Everything else was stuff I learned myself. :}

No I haven’t heard of him, but now I have and I’m addicted XD

I have 17 Decepticon OCs so far and 1 Autobot that have yet to be drawn.

I haven’t drawn any of the Cons character reference sheets yet, but I hope to someday. The closest I got to drawing a proper picture of one of them was this drawing with Big Blue.

(Big Blue looks like this in alt mode btw 👇)

*You throw a doughnut into the puddle*

*The doughnut disappeared*

*You throw the love into the puddle*

*The love disappeared*

*You hear a pleased hum from the puddle*

You mean these guys? Man.. its been a hot minute since I’ve thought about them.

Well, hmm.. I’m not sure what I can talk about.. Maybe I can refresh you on the general story?

Okay so, the two kids Nokah and Aneal lived on a little island together with their mom and dad. Sometime when they were very little, their mom passed away from some kind of illness. Later on, their dad was killed in a raid where slave traders came in and took all the villagers they could and killed those that stood in their way. Their dad being one of them.

They stuck together thankfully and were brought from place to place until they were eventually sold and were on a ship that was going to take them to their new owners.

While they were sailing, a pirate ship showed up and began to raid the slave ship.

Captain Arthur, the red parrot guy, found these two kids below deck and rescued them. The kids were fed, cleaned and clothed. After they settled, they told the prates their story. The pirates discussed the situation and decided that they cant just keep the kids, they have to bring them to their own kind where they can have a long and prosperous life. Because the life of a pirate is no life for a child.

So off they go, to an island pretty darn far away to take these kids to an orphanage that is populated with with species similar to theirs.

By the time they got there, the kids and the crew got attached to each other. But Arthur pushed on, wanted to do what was best for the children. This part of the story is foggy, but something broke the camels back for Arthur. He couldn’t bare to part with the kids for one reason or another and brought them back to his ship, officially making them pirates and valued crew members.

There’s more to the other characters that I have built.. Like how Arthurs ship belonged to his mother and he grew up on it. Him moms ship is one of 3 very beautiful and rare ships that were way past their time when it came to architecture and technology.

After his mother died, his ship was stolen and sold away to some hawk guy or something. Solomon, the blue parrot, was one of his employees and was put in charge of the ship. Arthur started working for the hawk guy and was eventually promoted to one of the cleaning crew guys who was supposed to clean his moms ship. No one knew the ship rightfully belonged to Arthur.

He gained Solomon's trust and kissed the ground he walked on to make him let his guard down. Solomon wasn’t supposed to leave the ship under anyone else’s watch, but he did. He was lazy and told Arthur to watch the ship for that night. Arthur could be trusted with the ship couldn’t he? Of course he can be trusted. What’s the worst that could happen?

The next day Arthur and his mothers ship were gone without a trace. Solomon’s reputation was ruined and he got a real harsh talking to about how stupid it was of him to let the ship fall in someone else’s hands.

Don’t feel bad for Solomon, he’s a really nasty and narcissistic character, he deserved that. Anyway, Arthur got away with his mother’s ship finally and chose to become a pirate to protect it. He slowly built a crew of people that he considered family and has been sailing the world ever since.

Him and his crew are always on the move, his ship is very desired so its raided very often. And Arthur is pretty sure that Solomon is still out there somewhere.. looking for him. So because of these factors, Arthur ever doesn’t leave his ship. Despite how bad that is physically and mentally for a bird.

His crew will go to an uninhabited island and just take a break for a few days on the beach. But Arthur?.. I mean, he might fly around for a bit or go for a walk on the sand, but ultimately he’ll just stay on deck where he can monitor his ship.

There’s other things too, like how Solomon catches up to them with a small fleet of ships and stuff like that.. buuuut I feel like I’m rambling a bit too much..

I’m very glad you remembered my OCs and were interested enough to ask about them. Feel free to ask any more questions about them if there’s anything else you want to know! ♡മ◡മ♡

Hug??

Also thank you, I’m very glad you love it! (♡´౪`♡)

Thank you! :} My top favorite cartoon shows, 1 being top and 5 being bottom are..

Gravity Falls

Transformers Prime

Spongebob

Octonauts

Beetle Baily

Don’t judge, I know they’re all mostly kids shows... I would’ve added The Three Stooges in Transformers Prime’s place, but that’s not a cartoon..

ALL OF THE THANK YOU’S!!!

I’m so flattered that you think I’m a wonderful artist! I really do try to make things look nice, and I’m glad you see that. :}

When it comes to dedication, I surprised myself with how long I’ve stuck with these characters so far, usually I’d loose passion by now. :o Same with the designs too! I have no idea how I was able to make them. But I’m glad you like them none the less. ,,●ᴗ●,, 

When it comes to patience? I guess I just.. I don’t know, XD Normally I don’t have much of it. I guess the real life connection I have to the real cars helps out my patience when it comes to drawing them..? None the less, I’m glad that you noticed!

I know drawing machinery and drawing it consistently can be very hard. I suppose you just need to have a reference on hand and try your best to mimic it.

And yeah, clearly I am very sensitive, but don’t worry about your comment! I took it as a compliment. :} Other people seem to think that I’m a kind and sensible person who deserves happiness, so it must be true! X3

Anyway, thank you for all the lovely compliments and the good luck wish with my job, I’m probably going to need it. I appreciate all that you’ve said and am very flattered! ♡ඩᴗඩ♡

I have heard of the movie and how great it is, but I have not seen it yet. :/ I plan to though! It looks very pretty. :}

Well, a long time ago sometime after the show had been completed, I stumbled into the fandom. I ended up really liking Ford as a character to the point I was convinced to watch the show. And of course, I got addicted XD

When it comes to my favorite episodes? Hmm.. I really like Carpet Diem, and Headhunters. Although I’m sure there are more that I like. :}

Thank you. Honestly my first day was 100% fine, I just got emotional for no reason afterwards and cried a lot. I blame the 2 hours of sleep.

When it comes to my very first OC? It would be impossible to tell.. I have been drawing for a very long time and my memory simply doesn’t go back that far.

So.. I cant show you my first one for sure.. however.. quite a while back, I redrew some really old OCs I found. So these guys are SUPER old. I can show you them at least. :}

Yikes, I had no idea what I was doing back then did I?

When it comes to most attached to, that is always changing so I cant say for sure.

I actually am small enough that I can probably fit in a regular refrigerator freezer, but thank you for offering a different sized one. :}

Also, if the contents of my head are liquid now, wouldn’t making me cold or freezing me be bad?

I have only watched Transformers: Prime and the Bayverse movies. I haven't finished Transformers: Prime yet though, I keep forgetting to..

I considered watching other adaptions once I was finished with Prime, but none of the art styles quite appeal to me..

*You place the bucket and mop on the floor beside the puddle*

*The puddle moves away from the bucket and mop*

*You hear a muffled “I’m good, thanks.” beneath the puddle.*

(Referring to an older ask)

Also thank you, I’m very glad I finally got one. :}

#my response #transformer ocs #my ocs

[gumnut-logic]

We’ll Be Home For Christmas 1.2

Title: We’ll be home for Christmas

Day One – A Tale of a Fateful Trip – Part 2 Prologue | 1.1

Author: Gumnut

8 - 14 Dec 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: The boys can’t fly home for Christmas, so they have to find another way.

Word count: 2701

Spoilers & warnings: language and so, so much fluff. Science!Gordon. Minor various ships, mostly background.

Timeline: Christmas Season 3, I have also kinda ignored the main storyline of Season 3. The boys needed a break, so I gave them one. Post season 3B, before Season 3C cos we haven’t seen it yet.

Author’s note:  For @scattergraph This is my 2019 TAG Secret Santa fic and it is a big one ::headdesk:: I hope you enjoy it. I know I have thoroughly enjoyed researching a gorgeous corner of this planet.

Many thanks to @vegetacide and @scribbles97 for cheering me on and their wonderful support through this craziness. And to @onereyofstarlight for geeking out with me over the setting.

And as always, thank you all for creating such a fantastic fandom. Thundernerds rock! I hope you all have a wonderful festive season. Thank you all so much for everything.

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

 The sunset that night was as good as any they had ever seen on Tracy Island. The ocean swell was minimal as predicted and Gordon threw out a sea anchor to hold them tight while they ate dinner. They could have kept going, but instead chose a moment of quiet and together.

The meal was a lazy affair out on the boat deck consisting of burgers assembled by John and Alan.

For a change the conversation was light. A voyage down memory lane, Dad, the saga of FAB2 and Parker’s, uh, misfortune with it, and an incident in WASP training that Alan literally had to drag out of Gordon with threats of revealing something worse that the three other brothers were still in the dark about.

The glare sent Alan’s way promised some serious dunking at some point. Alan’s grin in return clearly said it was worth it.

While they were sitting still, Gordon threw out a sensory buoy. Apparently, the aquanaut had gone all out and stocked the yacht with all his marine biology equipment. No doubt, Scott had been back and forth between Tracy Island with his brother at least once. It wasn’t often the scientist in Gordon got a chance to play in his environment.

Sure, Tracy Industries had made some major ecological investments in the area, including the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary which protected a whole swath of ocean between Tracy Island and New Zealand. Gordon had worked with his father early on in that project and advised that as much as possible should be protected. Their proximity to the island group and the purpose of International Rescue hadn’t always coincided and it was Gordon, young though he was, who made it work.

And besides, Tracy Island was outside New Zealand’s and their other nearby neighbour, Tonga’s control and their security system didn’t let anyone near them anyway.

But Gordon had always been conscious of the greater good beyond human matters and their family as a whole kept their Island as ecologically isolated as possible to protect its non-human inhabitants. If anything, it was proof that humans could exist within an established ecosystem and impact it minimally as long as due care was taken.

The sensor buoy he threw off the side of their boat sunk into the depths somewhat and sharpened their sensory net to activity underwater including sounds and movement. The holographic interface threw up a three-dimensional display of the water under and around the boat up to a kilometre across.

The aquanaut placed the projector in the middle of the table. “Would you look at that.”

Vigil stared at the somewhat blurry dots and shapes moving across the display. “What?”

Gordon rolled his eyes and, reaching into the hologram, zoomed in on one spot teeming with dots of movement. The middle of the table was suddenly full of a school of large fish.

Virgil shifted back and he wasn’t the only one.

“A little warning next time, bro.” Alan was frowning at Gordon.

“Eh.” And no, their aquanaut did not care, his eyes latched on the fish. “A school of tuna, southern bluefin, in fact. Good to see, though they are at the edge of their range.” He grabbed his tablet and, while four other brothers stared at him, he entered some data, his eyes dancing between the two displays.

Virgil couldn’t help but smile. Scott caught his eye and did the same. Virgil’s smile became a grin.

Gordon didn’t notice. His fingers darted into the hologram again and minimised the tuna only to bring up another school of fish on the other side of the display. More notes were made on the tablet.

The silence around the table was profound. Even John had a small smile on his face as he watched Gordon.

A dark shape moved amongst the fish. It was much larger and it wasn’t until it slid into the centre of the school that it became clear exactly what it was.

“Wow.” Alan voiced the awe for all of them. Well, except Gordon who was still staring at the fish.

Virgil resisted the urge to reach out and touch the hologram of the shark cruising through scattering fish. He wasn’t sure what type it was, but it was big.

A moment later Gordon realised they were all staring. A glance at the shark and he punched at his tablet. “Bonus! She’s tagged!” Another stab or two. “Hilda? Oh my god, it’s Hilda.”

Hilda?

“Who’s Hilda?” Virgil asked the question, but Gordon was absorbed in what he was doing.

“I did not expect to find her this far south.”

“You know this shark?” Alan’s voice was small.

“What? Oh, yeah, Hilda likes to feed in our lagoon.”

“What?” Scott’s deeper voice cut through the stunned silence. “That shark was in our lagoon?”

Gordon blinked up at him. “Well, yeah, how do you think I tagged her? Been following her movements for the last two years. She loves some of the smaller fish that feed in the coral reefs. She can’t quite fit into all of them, but she enjoys herself in any case. Caught herself a couple of seabirds from the colony on Mateo a few months back. It was awesome.” Not once did his eyes leave the display and the shark swimming across their dinner table.

“I am never going swimming again.” Alan’s voice was tiny.

Gordon finally looked up and his eyebrows shot up. “Hey, she’s cool. You lot aren’t tasty enough anyway.”

Scott sighed and dropped his head into his hand. “Why do I bother?”

Something flashed in the corner of the display and Gordon immediately minimised it back to a sea of floating dots. “Hey, we’ve got a big one coming into range. Oooh, no, two....yes!”

Virgil jumped as the display flickered and zoomed in again, this time bringing up another large shape. His fish brother was literally bouncing in his seat. “Ooooh, she’s a mama.” And there beside the humpback whale appeared a young calf.

Virgil stared.

“And they are talking. Listen to this.” Gordon grinned as he punched his tablet with an eager finger. Suddenly the room was full of grunting and clicking sounds and the occasional moan.

God.

Virgil reached behind him, fingers grabbing for the sketchbook he had thrown there earlier while still fighting with his pencil. Within moments both pad and pencil were in hand and he was drawing. Fast. The pencil scraping across the page. Curves, bumps waves of lines. On the table the two whales flew through the phantom water. On the paper, Virgil’s fingers lost themselves in the art. Graphite formed the whales’ flanks, the sharpness of the pencil lead compensated where the display could not provide clarity. But most of all he drew fast. He did not know how long they would be there, or how long he would have the privilege of seeing them.

He disappeared into the page, finding that zone he had been so seeking the last few days, and it wasn’t until the display flickered off and he found all four brothers staring at him that he snapped out of it.

A glance at Gordon. “They’ve left the area, bro. I held them in range as long as I could.” Brown eyes were apologetic.

Virgil blinked and looked down at what he had been drawing.

Two whales leapt off the page in front of him, silver and grey graphite shone, caught by the cartridge paper tooth. Tilted in pose, they were turned just slightly towards each other, so obviously parent and child, it touched his heart.

“That’s awesome, Virgil!” Alan was all jubilation and eagerness.

A glance at Scott and Virgil found something akin to pride in his eyes. John was smiling. Gordon stood up and walked behind Virgil, peering over his shoulder. “Can I have it? Or a print?”

“Uh...”

Gordon’s hand landed on his shoulder. You don’t have to answer now. Just know that that is a damn good drawing, bro, and I like it.”

Virgil grabbed his arm before he could move away. “How often do you see whales?”

A shrug. “It is late in the season, but we might see a few this time of year. The humpbacks migrate through here. I’ve certainly seen enough from home.”

“They come near Tracy Island?”

Gordon frowned at him. “I thought you were in touch with the world around you, Virg. All that artistic standing in the wind stuff. Of course, they do. I’m taking you whale watching as soon as possible. You don’t need to swim to see whales. God, guys, we live on an island in the middle of thousands of miles of ocean. Pay more attention. Yeesh.”

Okay, perhaps he had a point. Gordon had always loved the ocean and the worlds beneath it. Scott always loved the sky, John and Alan adored space. Virgil...was about how those worlds worked. Perhaps he needed to pay more attention to the ones underwater. “It appears I need to.”

Those familiar brown eyes blinked at him before a hand covered the one Virgil had on his arm. “Hey, I’ve got an idea.” He slipped free of his hold and grabbed his tablet again. “Just need to log into my home server...” The tablet took a royal stabbing with his finger. A moment and he set the device down on the table, poked it a couple more times until it projected up another underwater scene.

Five fully grown humpback whales and two calves frolicked in the holographic water. “There you go. Last year, not two hundred metres from our front door.”

Virgil just stared. His fingers itched to capture the scene. He hadn’t felt so inspired in months. “C-can you send me a copy?”

Gordon stared at him a moment, something in his eyes. “Sure. Tell you what. I’ll copy a bunch of these recordings onto the family server and you can do with them what you like.”

He couldn’t look away from the whales. “Thank you, Gordon.” He needed some colours. Phthalo blue. Payne’s grey. Phthalo turquoise. Cadmium yellow and possibly orange to up the contrast. White and maybe some Alizarin Crimson.

“Virgil, you okay?” Scott.

“Huh?” He shot a glance in his brother’s direction. Scott was frowning at him. “Uh, yeah. Did you bring any of my paints?”

Scott looked at John and his younger brother answered. “Your travel kit is in your cabin.”

“Great! Thank you.” He grinned at John and stood up...slowly as his body reminded him he wasn’t running at one hundred percent. A step and he hugged a stunned Gordon. “Thank you, Gordon. Thank you.”

“Uh, you’re welcome?”

Virgil stepped back and grinned at him. Gordon was staring at him as if he’d lost a marble or two. His expression only made Virgil laugh. A pat on his arm and Virgil grabbed his sketchbook and with another grin headed off towards his cabin.

He had it. All he needed was his tablet and a network connection and he had stock to paint to his heart’s content.

“Don’t you stay up painting all night!” It was Scott, yelling the length of the boat, but it only made Virgil’s grin wider.

-o-o-o-

Shit. The idiot was likely to exhaust himself at his easel. He would have to make sure he checked on him later, make sure he was sitting, not standing. Wouldn’t help for his brother to exacerbate his injury just because he zombified when painting.

John was staring at him.

“What?”

A soft smile. “Nothing.”

Scott eyed him, but John was his usual calm self, refusing to reveal any hint to his thoughts.

Lips thinning, he shot his brother a glare, which was ignored, and turned back to Gordon...only to find the table now covered in what appeared to be densely packed sardines of some kind.

Okay, he’d had enough of fish. He pushed himself to his feet. Gordon didn’t notice.

Scott had been hoping to sit down with Virgil and just have a little one on one bro time, but he had to admit that seeing it all come together for his arty brother like that had been pretty amazing and there was no way he was going to deny him the moment.

He would likely emerge from his room sometime tomorrow with a new masterpiece in his hands that Scott would, as usual, be totally stunned and blindsided as to how he managed it. Hell, that whale took all of fifteen minutes and it literally leapt off the page.

Stepping back from the table, he brushed a hand across John’s shoulders as he passed behind him and slipped inside. There was a bar in the corner of the lounge. He grabbed the whisky he had bought that morning and poured himself just a smidgen. He didn’t want to get drunk. He just wanted something to line his mouth, give him the taste.

Tumbler in hand he made his way through the main cabin and up onto the bow where they had stood for a good part of the voyage earlier in the day.

The sun was only a memory of the far side of the horizon, the sky darkening quickly and the ocean that gently rocked the boat, and no doubt Virgil’s easel, was becoming blacker than the sky above it.

The moon hadn’t risen yet, but the stars were breaking through the remnant light, and combined with the faint breeze, night was setting in.

Scott let a breath out.

In its own way it was beautiful. He wasn’t one for waxing poetic, but the sky was his home. He breathed it in with every breath and out here away from the lights of life, he could almost hear it.

“Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

Despite himself, he jumped.

“Woah, big bro, just come up to share a drink with you. Spock and McCoy killed all the rear lights so they can stare at their distant balls of gas and talk the hard sciences.” His brother rolled his eyes. “They’ve obviously never attempted to collect samples from a hydrothermal vent several kilometres down. ‘Hard’ would be the least of the terms used.”

His brother’s verbal diarrhoea came to a sudden halt and Scott took the moment to let his shoulders drop.

“You okay?” Gordon looked up at him and Scott realised he had a tumbler in his hand similar to the one in his own.

A half smile. “I’m good.” And he returned to looking out at the black hole of an ocean. “Thank you for coming up with this idea.” He rolled his shoulders just a little and took another sip of his drink. “I think we all need it.”

“Not a problem.” Gordon moved up to stand beside him and sipped his own whisky. “Not often I get a chance to get out here for a good stretch of time. I’m enjoying myself.”

“I noticed.” He twisted his lips. “Hilda?”

Gordon grinned. “My senior year French teacher. The woman was all bite and no bark.”

Scott frowned. “Miss Schwank? I thought you liked her?” One handed air quotes. “‘I’d like to go all Jacques Cousteau on her.’ I think I actually have that in writing somewhere.”

Another grin. “I did. She was gorgeous. Blonde with all the right measurements and a tongue that could do all the right things, no matter the language.” The smile vanished and he looked down at the tumbler in his hand. “She was one of the Lost in the 2060 Tsunami Disaster. Found her name on the nets.” The stars lit his brother’s eyes as they looked up at him. “On her honeymoon, apparently.”

Scott swallowed. He remembered the vivacious woman, all sharp words and determination. “Sorry to hear that.”

Gordon sighed. “So, now we have a great white shark with the same attitude. Just as beautiful, just as determined, just as likely to bite my head off if I go anywhere near her.” The grin was back. Another sip and his brother’s expression was all fondness.

A smile crept onto Scott’s face. He reached up and dropped his hand on his brother’s shoulder and squeezed gently. Another taste of whisky and he turned back to stare into the darkness.

-o-o-o-

End Day One

Day Two, Part One

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Virgil Tracy #Scott Tracy #John Tracy #Gordon Tracy #Alan Tracy

[its-flicked-switch]

Alien

| RATING M | 

MSIV left the X-File fandom on the edge of a cliff that, in the absence of GA, will never be resolved to any level of satisfaction. Alien is my attempt to do what Chris Carter could not — provide closure for the series as a whole. What happens following Scully's revelations on the dock? What becomes of William, Skinner, Reyes, and The Smoking Man?

PREFACE

—

"Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow — it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it."

— Shakti Gawain

—

For the past 17 years, I have played the role of Jackson Van De Kamp. Odd, isn't it? That I would refer to playing myself as playing a role? But as I reflect on all that has happened in the past 17 years, that is the only way I know how to describe the journey that began on a farm in rural Wyoming in 2001 — a role.

Initially, everything was as it should have been. I was an only child being raised by two loving and doting parents. They attended to me and each of my milestones with the adoration and enthusiasm typical of new parents. Imagine their absolute elation at my ability to run when most babies were still creeping around on all fours and their pride in my ability to read at a first-grade level when I was only three years old. I was their miracle, an answer to their prayers for parenthood. As I continued to grow, however, it became clear that I was far more than an exceptional miracle.

My early childhood was unremarkable, until the day that it wasn't.

Tragically, the Van De Kamp's love and devotion would not be enough to silence what was inside of me. Despite their efforts, my earliest childhood memories were shrouded by a sense of unease. A deep-seated feeling that something was missing or not as it should be. In time, my parents confessed what I already sensed. I wasn't truly theirs. I came into their lives as an infant and what they knew of my biological family was limited. I have now come to understand why. The Van De Kamps were truly remarkable parents. The more I learn about who and what I am, really am, the deeper I mourn their loss. They deserved better. We all deserved better.

Van De Kamp Entry #092

Case No. 11101993717

Evidence No. 163.092

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CH1: THE WATER'S EDGE

—

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

—

The rain has thoroughly soaked through her hair and clothes, but Scully feels nothing. She remains anchored in place staring down into the black abyss below her as the divers divide the harbor into grids. When William and Spender disappeared into the depths of the harbor several hours ago, the air was cool and crisp with an overlay of mist, but the temperature has dropped ten to fifteen degrees since then and what was a soft drizzle has now transitioned into a light, steady rain.

She knows she should walk away, but she's done with that.

While C. G. B. Spender's admission to Skinner had come as a surprise, the truth had not. She and Mulder had long suspected the syndicate's involvement in her sudden ability to conceive a child. After discovering Emily and learning of her missing ova, Scully had run every test imaginable. Had there have been any ova remaining inside of her, she would have found them. This is how she knows with absolute certainty that the ova used to created William was either implanted or produced within her body by unnatural means.

Her greatest fear for William has always been that his existence was part of an agenda, and the testing she performed throughout her pregnancy and after his birth had done little to ease her fears. DNA doesn't lie. William is their son. Hers and Mulder's. Yet he isn't — at least not entirely.

Traditionally, each parent passes half of their genetic material to their unborn child. William, however, only shared half of her and Mulder's DNA collectively. The remaining half was unidentifiable and by definition — alien. When she performed the original analysis, the technology to isolate this anomaly and examine it properly didn't exist, at least not in any laboratory she had access to. Her desire to find the truth, however, had been overwritten by fear. She knew that exploring the origins and implications of the remaining half would come at a cost, undoubtedly drawing attention to and endangering their son. The decision to destroy all of the samples and data she had collected had not been a decision that she had made lightly. But ultimately, she had chosen William's safety over conspiracy and little green men.

What Scully had told no one, not even Mulder, was that she had kept the most critical sample of all. Hidden in a secure location amongst hundreds of thousands of other samples, she had stored William's umbilical cord, preserving not only his DNA but his stem cells. She could not, in good conscience, given what she and Mulder had experienced with the alien virus, destroy the key to the greatest mystery of their lives. Preserving his cord wasn't just about science. It was also about security. She had lost Mulder once, and the thought of going through anything like that ever again was unbearable. Their enemies had waged war on them before, and there was little assurance that they wouldn't come for them again. William's miraculous conception only served to further convince her that the truth was far more sinister than they had been previously led to believe. In that sense, what Spender had told Skinner was true. He was, at least on some level, responsible for the science that helped to created William — but a father, he was not.

Scully isn't sure where Mulder is at the moment, but there is little doubt in her mind that he is somewhere nearby taking the brunt of Deputy Director Kersh's wrath. The fact that she has been standing on the docks for over an hour and hasn't been approached or questioned by anybody is most certainly his doing. Were it not for Skinner, she and Mulder would both likely be in handcuffs and in the bowels of the justice building.

The call she made earlier to Tad O'Malley had been reckless, bordering on insane, but it had to be done. The days of hiding in the shadows were over. Remaining silent all these years had bought them time but not freedom. Too much had been lost to let this fall below the surface yet again. This time, those responsible will not be able to contain the blowback.

The vibrating phone in her pocket pulls her away from her thoughts and back into the harsh reality of her present surroundings. The only reason she even attends to it is that she thinks it might be Mulder, but it's not. It's her brother, and it's not the first time he's called. Tad O'Malley's broadcast in combination with tonight's body count has created quite the media storm with her and Mulder at its center.

Bill's hatred for Mulder still remains unmatched. If she can give her brother credit for anything, it's consistency. With the recent loss of their mother, she knows she can't continue to send him directly to her voicemail. He never calls, so the fact that he has called seven times in the last forty-five minutes tells her that he is about to reach his limit. If she doesn't answer soon, he is likely to turn up unannounced.

Deciding that answering the phone is the lesser of two evils, Scully takes a deep breath and hits accept, getting right to the point because she knows her brother well.

"Bill, this is not a good time. I'm going to have to call you back later."

Bill is well-connected and not above pulling rank to get the information he wants. Odds are, he already knows that she is not one of the casualties in tonight's bloodbath, leaving him with only one other reason to call, and she is in no mood to argue with her brother about Mulder or the X Files.

"Jesus Christ, Dana, what the hell is going on? Are you okay? I swear to God if Mulder —"

She cuts him off quickly because she doesn't have the energy or the patience to listen to his long list of grievances against Mulder.

"Mulder wasn't the source, Bill. I was. This isn't about the FBI or the X Files. This is about William."

She says William's name to shut him up, and also because she doesn't want him to hear it from another source. Given his high-security clearance, it's certainly possible he will find out elsewhere if she doesn't tell him herself, assuming he doesn't know already. Even though they haven't had a pleasant conversation in over a decade, he's still her brother, and he still deserves to hear it from her.

"I've seen him, Bill. Spoken to him. Mulder and I both have. He's…," she hesitates because she can't be certain that her line is secure. Swallowing the lump in her throat and steadying her voice, she finally settles with, "gone."

It's not a lie, but it's not the truth either.

"William? Dana… what are you talking about? And what do you mean gone… Jesus, is he…? How can you —"

"I can't talk about this right now. Tell everyone that I am okay and that I will be in touch as soon as I have a more secure line."

"Dammit, Dana, I —"

Ending the call, she switches off her phone and slips it back into her pocket. Scully knows that at some point she will have to level with her family and tell them the truth about William, but not now — not today. Her frozen fingers sink deeper into her damp pockets in search of her mother's quarter medallion.

The mystery surrounding its origin doesn't bother her as much as it used to. If anything, it has been a great source of comfort. Scully's mother and sister were the only members of her family to ever support her decision to join the FBI, and their support and relation to her had cost them their lives — her sister directly, her mother more so indirectly. Scully's abduction, cancer diagnosis, and subsequent hospitalizations in combination with Melissa's murder and William's adoption had undoubtedly aged her sweet mother at least two decades. Her brothers continue to assert that she died of a broken heart. They are probably right.

The conversation she and Mulder had on the church pew earlier this week immediately comes to mind. Can she live with the results of the decisions she has made? Were they the right ones? As she runs her fingers over the outer ridges of her mother's quarter, she silently prays for the clarity and strength that will be required to face whatever comes next. While she cannot predict the future, she does know one thing with absolute certainty: their son is not dead.

The dive teams won't find either body. She can't explain how she knows. She just does. With her hands buried deep in her pockets, she takes one last look at the churning waters below before turning and heading back towards the chaos. There is nothing left for her here.

Making her way back towards the warehouse in search of Mulder, Scully spots Skinner almost immediately. He's sitting in the back of an ambulance wrapped in a blanket speaking to Kersh and two other agents that she doesn't recognize. Skinner's eyes look tired and defeated, but he still manages to give her a nod and a slight smile. She returns the gesture just before disappearing behind a second ambulance. Words with the deputy director will have to wait. She needs to get out of the rain and find Mulder. As she navigates her way through the maze of tape and haphazardly parked emergency vehicles, she stops abruptly when she hears her name, turning to find Mulder walking towards her.

His stride embodies purpose and confidence, but as he gets closer, she can see the fatigue in his step and the concern in his eyes.

"I've been looking everywhere for you."

His brow furrows as he reaches out with one hand to lightly touch her shoulder, the other quickly finding the tips of her hair and side of her face.

"Scully, you are soaking wet, have you been standing out in the rain all of this time?"

Before she can respond, he's slipping off his jacket and draping it over her shoulders, pulling the hood up over her head in an attempt to protect her from the rain.

"I've been on the docks. They haven't located Spender or… or William," she says, her voice unsteady.

He swallows and nods, averting his eyes off into the distance as if he is looking for someone.

"Let's get out of here," he says as he takes her hand.

Neither of them speaks as he guides them through mayhem. She's surprised to see his silver Mustang up ahead and wonders how in the world he managed to move it without erupting World War III. Only Mulder could remove a car from an active crime scene and walk away unscathed. He unlocks the passenger door and places his hand protectively on the top of her head as she eases down into the seat. Moments later, she feels the car shift under his weight as he slides into the driver's seat, but she doesn't look at him. Her eyes are entranced by the rain splattering against the windshield — her mind on their son. He's out there. He's cold, wet, and has nowhere to go. And instead of looking for him, they are leaving. His words, spoken through Mulder, are still reverberating in the recesses of her mind.

"We can't protect him. No one can … let him go … he knows you love him."

A sickening feeling hits her in the pit of her stomach as Mulder puts the car into reverse and starts to drive away. Tonight, she is abandoning her son for the second time. The tears she has been holding back for the past several hours now flow freely. Mulder notices them but says nothing. Instead, he turns on the seat warmers and angles all the vents in her direction before reaching for her hand and intertwining his fingers with hers. It's not until his hand joins hers that she realizes how cold she is, but it's not just the cold that causes her tremble. The raw emotion brewing inside of her is paralyzing. She tries to speak but opens her mouth only to close it.

The first few miles are silent because neither of them knows where to begin.

The minutes continue to tick by until she can't take it anymore.

As wonderful as the heat feels as it hits her damp hair, skin, and clothes, she turns the intensity of it down to quiet the obnoxiously loud fan, not wanting to raise her voice to be heard.

"He's not dead, Mulder. Neither of them are."

It's not the most profound thing she could have said following the bombs she has dropped on him today, but it's a starting point.

"Scully…"

"No, Mulder, listen to me. I can't explain it. I can't explain how I know. I just do."

He's quiet for a moment, briefly giving her his eyes before he responds.

"Do you want me to turn around?"

"No."

Her voice is soft and raspy from the cold, but the answer comes easily, for the answers they seek are not at the bottom of the harbor.

Unable to look out into the dark, miserable night any longer, she closes her eyes. There is so much more she wants to say… so much that he deserves to hear but not here… not like this.

The drive home takes a little over two hours.

They finish it with their hands joined in silence.

---------

AN: As always, a HUGE thank you to my betas @kikocrystalball, @admiralty-xfd and @suilven19 for their edits and encouragement... because nobody gets there alone ;)

To follow the Cleaning Up After Chris Carter Series, click here. 

#msr fanfic #post my struggle 4 #XF season 12 #the x files #x files fanfic #mulder and scully #william arc

[castielartandcomics]

OKAY. THE TIME HAS COME FOR THIS POST TO BE MADE. Even if it will be just a bunch of projects and me talking about them, it’s something I’ve been willing to do since a lot of time, mostly for a bit of self-esteem and to let you know that I’m actually working on stuff.

Since this will be a long post with some pictures, everything is under the cut! >:3

Honestly, I could start with a list of all the reasons why I haven’t been posting much, but the main reasons are low self-esteem and little to no time to do my stuff. School has been killing me slowly in the latest times, so the main reason why I post so little it’s actually academic work, nothing more and nothing less. ... this being said, let’s begin from what is REALLY interesting. >:3c

Gastertale

First of all, YES, I’m still working on Gastertale! And I’m extremly sorry for the long gap between the pages: the next page IS done, I just need to add dialogues, but I still haven’t for the simple reason that I don’t want to publish it only to make you wait other three months for another page. Hopefully soon I’ll return to have a bit of time, and at this point I’ll make pages more often and way better. I’ve improved a lot in this months, and despite there will probably be a little gap of style too between one page and another, I think I’ll be able to give you something more! My objective when I’ll restart to post it is to make at least one page a week and give a bit of a regular schedule, but about regularity it’s something that we’ll have to see (again, academic work). But hey, at least I’ll try to make you wait less than three months for the next page! </3

Plus, to confirm that something IS actually done:

preview, WOHOO!!

Sonic Humanitymorph & Sonic Battle Remastered

Basically. I want to draw more Sonic, and I want to draw him with a purpose. It’s... kind of a long story, but I’ll make it short for you because I don’t want to annoy you with melancholic and dramatic stuff (?). In a few words, I want to build new memories with Sonic and company, since my first memories are... kind of lost. I literally grew up with him, yet I remember little to nothing about his stories and about me in that period, and it’s something that makes me suffer a bit. SO! I’d really love to build new memories and honour a hero I’m really fond to, and I’d love to make this with you all! Since I also noticed that you really like my human!Sonic characters, so-! /)u(\

So, basically, the ideas are: MORE human characters. I still have your suggestions, I simply didn’t have the time to think about them, but I will surely do it! I’d love to make a lot more of the characters, if not all of them! And together with it, also another thing inspired by @slightly-gay-pogohammer‘s adaptation of Rayman “I’m Only Human”, which consist in adaptations of some of my favourite Sonic’s games, but in human form. And with some basic differences of course. I’m already working on it - my idea is of comics (as you could imagine, since I’m writing this on my art blog) but with a “much faster” style that will let me publish pages with a pretty fast rate (gotta go fast). Basically, sketches, and my sketches are very clean so the result should be pretty good. I’m working on Sonic Battle (which name will be Sonic Battle Remastered), which... SOMEHOW is still one of my favourite games of ALL TIMES, but in the list there’s also Sonic Riders Zero Gravity. And for the otheeerrrssss... well. I’m open to suggestions? :3

Rick and Morty: Kattebel

Remember him?

Rick I-T2B2, my personal interpretation of Rick Sanchez. WELP, I made him with a story in mind - and I actually thought of this verse’s versions of Morty, Summer, Jerry and Beth, even if I still haven’t drwan them because, again, freaking academic work. I’m tired, guys. What I have in mind with them is telling the story via comics, but in a slightly different way. I have little images with them, nothing that can be considered a full episode “worth” of a classic comic adaptation, that I think would be pretty cool if done in the simplest way, like a series of images without the need of making a full page. ... I’m not sure if I explained myself correctly, but in two word: SIMPLER STUFF. I’d love to make them, mostly because it’s a little and fun way of exploring this verse and its dinamics more than with just drawings of the characters. After all, I do want to tell you stories, and I should start to actually do it FOR GOOD, even in the simplest of ways! ... despite... yes, I actually have a more complex comic with Rick I-T2B2, about the “origin” of the condition of him and Morty (and by reflection of the whole family). So I think you can expect something bigger here too, despite it will be a MUCH shorter comic!

DEPONIA LIKE THERE’S NO TOMORROW

[FINGERGUNS] LET’S TALK ABOUT DEPONIA. First objective: actually finish the games. I have them since... a lot, and I still haven’t finished them for-- well, you know by now. An objective is surely to finally play the last two chapters and cry my eyes out, but we’re here for art, so here’s my project with Deponia:

first, drawing it more. Like... a lot more. I have many little ideas for illustrations and many others for little sequences that I think are pretty funny that I’d LOVE to do. I just need to DO THEM. Also, I have a whole lyricstuck in my mind with the Deponia series, and I’d love to make it! Or at least try, I’m not used to lyricstuck. But they’re so good,, Then, I have two projects comic related: one is... little stories. Pretty much it. Something probably of no more than five-ten pages long per story, little missing moments that might be interesting. And angsty, maybe, probably, I’m not sure. The other is... adaptation. Yes, at this point you might have noticed that I love adaptations. It’s just a little idea, but I’ve always found (probably because I’m a comic artist tbh) that the Deponia games would be... really good in comic format. And mostly for training I thought, “hey, I might try some!”. An idea would be of making the whole series as a comic, but I’m not really sure I can do it - but I’m pretty sure I can make little parts of it! It’s a project I had in mind for quite some months by now, and I remembered about it some days ago since I was looking in my folders and...

a WIP was found. Ten points and a biscuit to whoever guesses the scene. This will probably be mostly training, unless things change or something very cool happens. I lowkey dream sometimes that they’ll hire me, but. It’s just a dream. On the other hand, I might open suggestions for scenes to adapt in the games! uvu ... when I’ll finish the games.

Left 4 Dead 2

Am I late?... naaah. You don’t even have idea of how many ideas I have for this fandom, and all in comic form, just to make my life easier. I have no idea of when I might make these, but will probably be sketchy, pencil stuff, and I will enjoy every moment of them. Boy, I love these characters. I want to tell stories with them,

Oxygen Not Included

I HAVE. A STORY IN MIND. And it will be long, angsty, harsh and tragic probably. I don’t have any WIP nor I can tell many details at the moment because,, I guess it would be spoiler? But, it will be an experiment and something that it’ll be interesting for me to try! All that is needed to understand is,, when I’ll be able to make it, honestly-

And for something less comic-y: references

Because I realized I often post sketches, but not actual references of my OCs. I mean fullbodies fully coloured, with palettes and objects and STUFF. It will be a pretty funny thing for me to do, because the versions I’ll give you of my OCs will be slightly different from the “final” version I’ll show you when I’ll be able to tell you their story - because YUP, I’m working on those too, but for now it’s still a very big work in progress, so I’m still not ready to show you stuff. ;3c But basically, an objective of mine is references. Make those darn characters references with nice palettes and cool stuff, so that you’ll actually have,, at least some more infos than a black and white sketch. ... and a good reference in case you want to draw them? I don’t know just,, dreaming a little bit,, I’ll make the references for the OCs I’ve published (so most probably the ones I’ve put and will put more on @mcmentics, because I’ll surely add someone else in there soon), and after making Leda’s reference sheet (because Gio requested him to be the first >:3c) I might put it “to the vote” to decide in which order make all the others. <3 ... or simply go and make them all with the order I want. I don’t know. Let’s see what the future will offer us. <3

And those other projects?

SECRETS (?) But actually, I have told you just the main projects I have. Some (many, actually) I’ll keep as a secret for now, some are just too vague to make a post about it. But, another project is surely to livestream more! Again, I’ll need to see when I’ll have some time, but as for now I’m starting to have some free moments for myself, and I’d love to share them with you! >:3

AAAAND okay, this post got really really long. </3 Sorry, I thought I would have been much faster, but I had so much to say, haha- I’m sorry if something isn’t explained very good, I’m a bit tired after waking up at 5am for academy (and it’s 10.30pm now so,,), but in case something interests you and you wish more infos, my inbox is always open!! <3

Have a wonderful day/afternoon/evening for now, and hopefully,, I’ll start to make something BIG soon! :D Thank you for reading! <3

[kingofthewilderwest]

Alright I’m writing this post before I wimp out on this decision that I need to make. I’m going to try to explain with some thoughtful honesty about where I’m potentially going to be heading with my main blog. But because I have the habit of being... verbose... I’m putting my TL;DR at the top:

I am opening my ask box even though I still have dozens of analysis prompts saved from before I closed the ask box. It’s because I’m tired of not chatting with people in this amazing fandom. I love interacting!

I can no longer consistently analyze prompts. This means I cannot guarantee I will give a thorough analysis if I receive an analysis prompt. I will have to start giving answers like “I don’t know,” “I don’t remember,” or something based more on my gut than thorough research. If a topic really intrigues me, I might give a classic Haddock thorough response. But I can no longer guarantee long, consistent asks. I will, regardless, still respond to every ask I get!

I am so thankful for the experiences I have had with the HTTYD fandom and I would not trade my time on tumblr with you guys for anything. Seriously, you’ve all been amazing. I never would have expected to have such journeys, find such laughter, or make such friends as I have with all of you. Here’s to more fun times to come!

So now... the long version... 

I do encourage people to read it.

I have known for at least a year, if not two, that I could not keep up the pace of my blog analyses... not without sacrificing major opportunities or experiences in my life. I will be honest, me spending too much time on tumblr during my one year of the PhD program could have been one of the key reasons I couldn’t keep up. As much as I enjoy the community and as much as I am so happy to answer asks - it’s very fun and somewhat addictive - I know that I have to make decisions with my limited time.

I’m currently working three part-time jobs (~60 hours a week), am trying to find a good game plan for a stable lifelong career, and I have a lot of other adult-ing to do. When I do have free time, I want to be able to spend it hanging out with irl friends, reading books, studying theology and other topics of interest, reintegrating myself in the local church, writing novels, playing music, composing, drawing, conlanging, cosplaying, hiking, jogging, skiing, snowshoeing, watching good tv shows and movies, playing video games, spending time with family, making meaningful memories, etc.

I want to say that answering analyses on tumblr is something that is very meaningful to me. I don’t know how to say how touched I am that people are curious to hear my perspective. I never intended for kingofthewilderwest to be an analysis blog, yet here I am, wowed and grateful for over five thousand followers who have listened to me yak up a storm about an amazing franchise. I never would have imagined this would happen. I’m beyond grateful. What’s made it so worthwhile is interacting with you guys. I’m so happy to have had this experience and... I want to keep having this experience.

That said, answering asks on tumblr is perhaps not as “helpful” to me in the long run as working on a novel I hope to someday publish, or making sure I get a good night’s rest so I’m ready for another day of work. If I want to reach my life goals and have the meaningful experiences I dream of having, I have to make changes to my current day-to-day situation. I HAVE to. I want to get my life back in order, and I recognize my life has not been as “put together” since I started investing more time in tumblr. To get myself really firmly on track, I do have to loosen my hold on some of my free time activities, if not drop some things out altogether.

Answering analyses is a very time consuming process. VERY time consuming process. It can take me forty minutes or four hours to answer a single question. Not an exaggeration. This is because I often have to rewatch episodes and movies, do a bit of research online, give myself time to mull, and, all in all, invest a lot of time into answering a question. Even when I do consistently try my best to stay on track with answering asks... I cannot keep up with the volume of questions I receive. I wish I could, but I acknowledge I can’t. I still have asks in my inbox from the new year or older (Btw: the way my ask box system works: I keep the ask box open until I am >100 asks behind, then I close the box and answer all those, then open the ask box again). I am so, so sorry that I haven’t responded to all of you who have been patiently waiting for me, or you who may have even forgotten you sent in a question or comment.

I am sorry for all the people I will disappoint by not getting to your submitted asks with the thoroughness you were hoping. I will answer them, albeit not to my previous thorough standard. However, I hope you understand I feel it would be more thoughtful to provide you any response than to never return your messages.

My ask box has been closed because I still have about fifty asks left to answer before I’m caught up. But my ask box has been shut for a long time and I want to hang out with people and chat back and forth. So...

I’m going to open up my ask box again, but I hope you understand I suggest you do not inundate me with analysis requests. I want to open up my ask box so I can interact closely with everyone again... I always feel a little shut off and stale when I have my ask box closed. Now, you can send me analysis requests (when I’m not going through the really old ones in my drafts... again, sorry), but I cannot guarantee I will write an analysis in return. I’ll answer, but it might be a short “I’m not sure” or a few sentences of speculation instead of an essay. I’m happy to chat, I’m happy to discuss back and forth, whatever I want to do when I have the time for recreation, but I cannot be a one-person powerhouse publisher.

I don’t like doing this, but I’ve been needing to do this for a long time. So while I have the guts to write this and post it, I’m going to do it and make the decision final. Don’t make me back down. Don’t make me reverse this choice. Keep me accountable to my long-term life goals.

Another truth, and I am sorry to admit this to you guys, is that I’m not someone who’s used to staying in one fandom mindset for so long. I mean, I always love what I consume and always will get into it. But I’m more of the person to dance from passion to passion, from current interest to current interest, jumping in and out of the buzz of what I love. For instance, I might be on-and-off again with Star Wars, one year thinking about it and fanning about it a lot, another year not really caring. And I usually don’t get involved WITH a fandom... usually just scream about it with a few close irl friends and then move on. How to Train Your Dragon was a notable anomaly, a strange divergence from my typical patterning, and frankly it’s something I wouldn’t have stuck with for so long if not for my interaction with tumblr. If not for the HTTYD tumblr community, I likely would have been out of my HTTYD craze by mid-2015.

And while the HTTYD community has helped me sustain my ongoing interaction with the fandom, my personal passions are focused elsewhere now. I’m still always happy to talk dragons, mind! You guys can fuel me up again when I see you posting about it on tumblr. But in the last year and a half or two years, my mind hasn’t been focused on HTTYD. It’s been first Gravity Falls, then Undertale... and then, with the release of Andromeda, the Mass Effect franchise. I’ve also been going through crazes for things like Voltron: Legendary Defender. So, currently, my head is obsessing about Paladins and Alteans and Salarians and Spectres and Pathfinders and Space Exploration... not so much dragons and Vikings. It’s why my video game blog has been more active and responsive than this one. I’m very sorry if that statement disappoints you, friends. It’s a little weird for me too because I don’t know who all I can shout about my interests with (I only have a few friends who share these interests with me, and I’m sort of annoyingly “late in the fandom” if you know what I mean... don’t want to annoy the same people over and over again about something that’s 5+ years old, but who else do I talk to?). But, well, it is what it is. And it’s more fun for me to charge around with my latest obsession.

Let’s be clear: I’m not leaving you guys or running away or shutting myself off or becoming a hermit or anything. XD You guys mean too much to me to run off. I’m stuck here for good with you dragon nerds. Again, this community has been an extraordinary thing to me, and honestly, my interactions with the HTTYD fandom was the way I got out of a big depressive slump in 2014. So I’m still here! I’ll be staying here! I’m still going to commit to respond to every sincere message I receive! I’m just saying I’m going to invest less time in original posts, especially analyses. That’s all. :) 

It’ll be the best for my life. I hope you friends can all understand. We have to make decisions about the limited time in our lives.

But please! Feel free to chat and say hello and hop into my inbox again! Send little nothings or whatever’s on your mind. I’ve missed getting new asks! It’d be wonderful to hear from you again. <3

So yeah! That’s my honest report and stuff.

Take care, dragon nerds. 

#httyd fandom #kingofthewilderwest #analysis #my analysis #it's not actually an analysis but I'm tagging it so people see it when they look through my tags #blabbing Haddock #my life #PS if you like Mass Effect scream with me please!

[wickerjulias]

prompt: how about the first time napoleon hugs illya? and it's not just a small hug, but a long one? :D

Alright, here it is. It deals with Illya’s past as well, so you have to suffer through a little bit of angst (I couldn’t help myself, sorry lmao). Fandom and pairing should be obvious I think.Word count: 2,160Thank you for sending the prompt, I hope you like it ❤ 

In his childhood, Illya had never questioned the love his parents felt for him. He noticed it every time his mother directed a bright smile at him and every time his father listened to his stories, all serious, his chin propped on his folded hands, as if it was the most important thing in the world. His life had consisted of hugs, gentle words and kisses.

Once his father was sent to Gulag, everything changed. The light in his mother’s eyes vanished slowly, with it the hugs and consequently, his own happiness. He still tried to be a good son, because she raised him to be better, but he didn’t succeed. There was too much anger in him.

With his enlistment to the special forces and the KGB came the pain. For the first time he was surrounded by complete darkness, an endless maelstrom of hits and insults. Illya learned to live with it. He had to and ultimately, the training helped him control his anger.

He rose to top ranks quickly, but at the cost of his own gentleness. Whenever his handler unleashed him, like an animal trapped for too long, he acted merciless just like they had taught him to be. Violence took over his life and he stopped visiting his mother - he couldn’t look her in the eyes anymore.

During that time, if someone would’ve asked him what he thought about his job, he would’ve replied with: “I like it.” Even though it was brutal and bloody, he welcomed the challenge. Since Russia stopped being his home, he enjoyed travelling, going to new places and contemplating whether to get a safe house or not.

In the periods between finishing an old mission and waiting for new orders, life seemed almost slow. Illya was able to buy new books, practise his accent, chat with locals and to relax - capitalist indulgences his handler wouldn’t appreciate.

He knew people in his profession didn’t get old, which was the reason why he cherished his free time even more. It was a welcomed distraction from the ugly thoughts and memories that came back as soon as he set foot on Russian ground. There he spent restless nights in his small apartment in St. Petersburg, never knowing if they would be his last.

Until everything changed, again.

“Ich kann dich nicht hören!” Gaby puts both of her hands over her ears and shakes her head.

“Listen, you do not,” Illya starts, his usual accent lacing his words.

A warm hand settles on his shoulder, its pinky stroking the exposed skin of his neck for a brief moment. “Peril, she said she can’t hear you.”

Illya can see the damned grin, even though Napoleon stands behind him. With a scowl he half turns, the light that falls through the big living room windows blinding him for a moment, directing his best glare at his partner. “Stop encouraging her!” he snaps.

Napoleon just lifts his hands in a mock gesture of defeat. “You do know our Gaby, nothing is worth less than my word.”

From the smile that appears on his face only seconds later, Illya can tell that Gaby has probably flipped him off. The confirmation of his analysis follows immediately: “Dummkopf.”

“Could you stop it?” he snaps, focusing on her again.

In a perfect Napoleon impression Gaby draws her eyebrows up, while his partner simply looks away, sighing. He regrets his outburst immediately, because he can see both of them starting to worry again.

Since he got out of bed, he had felt anxious, as if in anticipation for a big event to happen. It had shown during their lunch “date” - a term only used by his partners - when he had bellowed Napoleon to stop playing with his signet ring. Gaby had glared at him for the next three hours, while Cowboy succumbed to complete silence, more pushing the food around the plate than actually eating it.

As soon as they had left the restaurant, Gaby had hit Illya on the arm, stomping off like a horde of enraged elephants afterwards. Napoleon had merely forced a smile before he had followed her.

Their easy camaraderie and how fast they had turned against him hadn’t helped. Illya had nearly flown into a temper then and there, only held back by the observation that he was in a public place.

“Stop what?” Gaby brings him back into the present, crossing her arms and pursing her lips.

“Stop being this childish.”

“Oh? Why don’t you stop mothering us?” she shoots back.

It hits him like a ton of bricks, burying him under the crushing weight of guilt. Illya tenses up, cold shivers running down his arms. He knows now. Knows, why he has been miserable for the whole day.

“Peril? Is everything alright?” Napoleon wraps his fingers around his wrist.

Illya shakes his head and tries to control his trembling hands. Of course he doesn’t succeed.

“I need to be alone,” he forces out, trying to breathe, but failing.

“Gaby, darling, could you give us a minute?” Napoleon asks.

“I-” She looks uncertain for a moment, before she nods. “Yes.”

“Thank you.” Napoleon begins to let go of him, seemingly to hug her goodbye, but Illya makes a low noise of protest.

The other man’s touch anchors him and he fears once he lets go he won’t be able to control himself.

“Tell me if you need something, anything,” he hears Gaby say, but it sounds far away.

There is the sound of a door closing and they are alone. “Peril, what-” Napoleon begins, but Illya shakes his head. “Just-”

“Alright.”

They stay like that for a long time, Illya trying to breathe and Napoleon massaging his wrist with his thumb, rubbing small circles into it. Finally, he looks up. “It’s my mother’s birthday.”

“Haven’t you called her?” Napoleon wants to know.

“No. I haven’t,” he confesses and braces for his partner’s outburst.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t come and he has to remind himself that not everyone’s mother was as gentle and kind as his.

“But you wrote her?”

“No.”

“Why haven’t you? What kept you from contacting her?”

“I don’t know,” he lies.

Napoleon sighs. “So what’s the matter then?”

“Nothing, I-” He licks his lips, a nervous habit he’s picked up from Napoleon. “I just realised I have not seen her in ten years.”

Napoleon’s eyes widen almost comically. “Ten years?!”

“That’s what I said.” Irritated, he looks up.

“Peril, that’s a terribly long time, especially for your standards,” Napoleon explains.

“Do you think I don’t know that?” he hisses, leaning into his personal space.

Instead of answering, Napoleon lets go of his wrist. Before he can protest, he wraps his arms around Illya, pulling him into a fierce hug and crushing him to his chest. A few moments and his brain catches up to what is happening. Reluctantly, he returns the hug, while goosebumps spread over his arms when he feels Napoleon’s warm breath ghosting over his neck.

With a little bit of hesitation, and a sound that is more a sob than a sigh, Illya buries his face in his shoulder. He feels Napoleon squeeze him a little bit tighter for a moment and tries to not think about the shudder that runs through him.

They have shared hugs before, mainly to greet another or to say goodbye, but this one feels different, more significant, as if the natural balance they’ve established has shifted. It also differs from embraces of his past lovers, none of them were able to elicit such a wide range of emotions: closeness and trust - accompany to their friendship, love - the one he doesn’t want to think about - and finally, home.

The epiphany, when it comes, feels more like an universally acknowledged truth he wasn’t able to see until now. Their shared apartment should’ve been enough to indicate a drastic change in Illya’s life: Gaby’s clothes in every room, Napoleon’s library of cooking books, as well as his pans, pots and kettles, his photographs from past missions, the little cactus, a gift from an old lady in Morocco.

“I’m here,” Napoleon whispers.

“I know,” he replies, “Thank you.”  

He means it. Silence stretches out between them and he’s able to hear and feel Napoleon breathing, every rise and fall of his chest calming him down a little bit more. He bathes in his presence, because it’s a reassuring anchor to reality and a privilege, to hold Napoleon and to own his trust. Thus he doesn’t want to let go.

Although he doesn’t know how long it will take for things to get awkward between them, he huffs out a pleased sigh and thanks every deity listening Napoleon doesn’t seem inclined to put more space between them. The other man starts to rub his back with languid motions, instinctively applying a little bit more pressure when Illya leans into the touch.

“I’m here,” he whispers again.

This time Illya doesn’t answer and just lets the reassurance wash over him. There isn’t much to say anyway.

A silly thought crosses his mind and he can’t help the laugh bubbling up in his throat.

“What’s the matter?” Napoleon wants to know, sounding amused as well.

Illya separates himself to search his partner’s face, all the while trying to resist the temptation to let his thumbs run over the crinkles around his eyes. He’s never seen a more honest smile on Napoleon’s face and he’s sure he’s never seen a more beautiful one either.

“Nothing, I just thought this was the longest you were silent in my presence,” he says and huffs amused, once Napoleon sputters indignantly, “Even in your sleep, you’re always talking.”

“Be quiet.” Napoleon shakes his head, trying nonchalance, but still appearing embarrassed.

Illya decides against a verbal reply and hugs him again, briefer this time. When they part, although only for a few centimetres, Napoleon stands on his tiptoes and brings their foreheads together.

There is a suspicious click, followed by a delighted: “Wie süß!”

They both start, stumbling back. Napoleon nearly falls over the back of the couch. While Illya has no chance to recover, before Gaby is on him and throws herself into his arms.

“We’re not cute,” he protests.

“A little bit,” she answers and pinches his cheek.

Then, she hugs Napoleon as well. “Well, I am very cute,” he says.

“Dummkopf,” she says again and makes Illya wonder if it isn’t an affectionate nickname by now, because his partner’s smile isn’t forced.

“So after two years of dancing around each other you finally confessed your feelings?” Gaby asks, a smug grin on her face.

“Feelings?” Illya repeats in bewilderment.

“How about you call her,” Napoleon interrupts them, playing with his signet ring again.

“Call who?” Gaby draws her brows together.

Napoleon looks at him, all sheepish and ducks his head. It’s an unfamiliar thing to do for him and if Illya didn’t know better, he would think the other man looks shy.

“My mother,” he answers, “it’s her birthday.”

“Then call her,” Gaby says, as if it was the easiest thing to do and grabs Napoleon’s hand, “And the two of us will have a short chat about-”

“No,” Illya interrupts her, “Please stay.”

“Uhm alright.”

They all settle on the couch, Gaby taking most of the space and forcing Napoleon and Illya to squeeze in beside her. Reluctantly, he leans over his partner and takes the phone from the small side table.

“Do you know her number?” Napoleon wants to know and is about to get up, seemingly to grab their shared address book.

“By heart,” he answers quickly.

The expression on Napoleon’s face changes into a mixture of sadness, sympathy and vulnerability. Before he can open his mouth, Illya shakes his head and leans against him, to avoid loss of contact.

He feels Napoleon’s amused chuckle, before he wraps an arm around Illya. Not around his shoulders, but around his waist. At first, it feels a little bit strange, because Napoleon’s hand worms it’s way along his back, but once it settles, the intimacy of the gesture hits him and he has to suppress a shiver.

“Are you done?” Gaby wants to know, her fingers thrumming against the surface of their second side table rather impatiently.

“Not quite,” Napoleon answers, getting kicked in the side lightly for his smug grin.

He just nudges Gaby’s foot away and turns to Illya. “Are you ready?” he wants to know.

Illya turns his head to look at him, scrutinising his face for a moment. He finds nothing but gentleness and affection. When he looks to Gaby, he finds a similar expression, although she seems ready to grab the receiver and to dial the number herself by now.

They are his friends, his partners, and most importantly, his family.

“Yes,” he answers finally.

Then, with Napoleon’s reassuring warmth pressed to his side, and Gaby’s silent vigil, he takes a deep breath and dials the number.

A shout out to my lovely beta @softshao, as well as @deducitetemporacarmen for helping me :D

#tmfu #the man from uncle #napollya #illya kuryakin #napoleon solo #gaby teller #*mine #*writing #*tmfu #prompt #i'm gonna post this on ao3 as well #i just need a title #(prompts are still open btw)