#she would start wars for that parrot

[orangenatsu]

emily | stardew valley

#stardew valley #sdv #moodboard #character board #character aesthetic #stardew #stardew emily #sdv emily #stardew valley emily #aesthetic #emily #video games #she would start wars for that parrot #emily sdv #emily stardew #emily stardew valley

[derehono]

24.02.2022.

The day that changed my life forever.

24th of February 2022 should have been my usual day. No, not usual. A wonderful day. I should have been checked with a doctor, gave notice to teachers in high school of my absence, and then fly away on vacation, my parents wanted it so much.

On 23rd of February 2022 I felt happy. I had a secure, happy life, preparing to finals, hanging out with my friends, already having an offer from university.

Until 5AM 24.02.2022.

I had not a single class in my school since then.

I haven’t seen my friend group in 2 years.

I didn’t have my finals.

We did not have that vacation.

“Daughter, wake up. This old psychotic man attacked us. We are leaving.”

That was my first photo of the day, trying sarcastically keep myself normal. I remember that actual emptiness, reading my classmates texts about how their windows were shaking because of explosions, the sky was orange. They sent that video.

He called it “a special military operation”.

I collected random clothes, some hobby stuff just to keep my sanity, grabbed my pet, emptied my safety locker. I was scared that russians would intrude into our home and steal all my savings, so I throw away key to that lock. This key became my symbol of war, I have never found it even after return.

When I with my parents and pet got out of flat to car we heard for the very first time air raid siren. We would hear so many more of them, we would learn to differentiate them, but then we were confused.

It was my second photo. People were going away. Foot, cars, bicycles. I remember such a surreal picture. Some moms were carrying their toddlers, one woman was carrying a bucket of water with turtles, other people were carrying cages with parrots, with dogs, with cats, with exotic pets despite air raid siren, temperature, rain. Everyone was so confused and scared.

Few days later the road we were riding was occupied. Bridges destroyed. Factories burnt. Supermarkets demolished. Houses in ruins. Road in holes. On the side of the road burnt cars with “DO NOT TOUCH, POSSIBLY EXPLOSIVE”. That gut wrenching feeling seeing photos of dead bodies and recognising the place.

But back then it was still lively, not a road of death. I remember reading news then. First victims, first shelling. Invasion from East. Invasion from Kharkiv region. Invasion from Crimea. Invasion from Chernihiv. Invasion from Zhytomyr. And we were in Zhytomyr region at that moment. Explosions in Kyiv. The border was destroyed.

I felt nothing. Just emptiness.

This precious girl was keeping my head cool all the road. She was also scared and irritated, but she was so strong, such an amazing girl. I am so proud of her.

We were heading to my grandparents who lived closer to West Ukraine, so we would be safer. The road that takes usually just 4 hours but that time it took 13 hours. 13 hours of driving exhausted and nerved. We saw soldiers, trucks, jets, how barricades were built, signs were removed.

But we made it. We were lucky. Lucky to be alive, to have family alive and mostly close to West, further from russia. Even though, part of my extended family still was under occupation in Chernihiv region, suffering from such close border with belarus.

When we arrived, we were just silent. Then collected mattresses for shelter, asked grandpa to grab some patrol (we knew that they would definitely destroy reservoirs and literally next day the started doing that), and just fell asleep in something that we arrived in, being so scared.

That day I also cut ties with russian friend who I am shamed to admit having. He was proving me that this is just a military operation, no one would be harmed.

Then, arrived spring that I will never forget but at the same time never remember. I remember 10 people in one floor house. I remember the whistle of rocket that woke us up. I remember sirens. I remember news. I remember losing hope. I remember first photos after deoccupation of Kyiv region. I remember how forgotten friend of my dad suddenly called him saying that his city is fully destroyed, his neighbour right on his eyes was exploded attempting to get into the car and evacuate.

I remember my first mental breakdown. How I was crying in the darkness, but quietly so no one would notice.

We were able to return home three months later. But we are just lucky. Someone would never return. Someone is not even alive to see their home again. Someone’s home is forever destroyed.

I was lucky that I have secured my place at foreign university before war, but my whole family is still in Ukraine.

War is not over at all. 20% of Ukraine is occupied. So many displaced civilians, so many deaths. No one could even count, we do not have any access to bodies. Only way to identify is to deoccupy and find mass graves. No other means. Children are suffering from PTSD even in such a young age. Almost in every city, big or small, you would find graveyards covered in Ukrainian flag, grave of the soldier.

Maybe media does not talk that much of us, but it doesn’t mean that everything is alright. Avdiivka is destroyed, right now operation searching for people under debris of the civilian house after attack is undergoing.

And this is happening all the time.

Who was punished for Olenivka? Who was punished for destruction of Kakhovka Dam? Who was punished for all fully destroyed cities? Who was responsible for all that absolutely atrocious videos torturing Ukrainian soldiers?

Please, remember, Ukraine is still on fire. People are still dying. Soldiers cannot even counterattack because they do not have enough ammo, just for protection. Information war is also waging, sharing all that misinformation, Nazi narratives, russian propaganda.

Remember.

Help.

Share.

russia is a terrorist state.

Glory to Ukraine.

Glory to the Heroes.

#personal #russia is a terrorist state #russo ukrainian war #ukraine #russia #war crimes #war #glory to ukraine #slava ukraini

[villalunae]

im in such a utena mood right now i think anthy would not use nuclear war codes if she had them but would instead drop hints of incoming nuclear winter to nanami by messing with the plants in the birdcage and mentioning dead roses are often considered an omen of war (lie) so that nanami attempts to discredit her by looking up omens of war through a book miki lended her and instead finding out that all the crazy shit happening to her in the last few days (kangaroo showing up on campus was actually a political refugee, tsuwabuki prepping her cheat sheet for an upcoming test on the ramificiations of nagasaki and hiroshima, students gathering about television sets that before she can see what terrible news theyre watching someone says "turn something nice on instead!" and she only sees shopping channels marketing items like gas masks, bomb shelters, and canned foods) has actually been subtle hints and omens that they're approaching world war three and nanami ends up going to touga asking if theyre gonna make it and if japan can withstand another genocidal war crime against humanity and touga somehow reads this as her telling him her dream job is to be a stripper and tells her "silly little sister. all women are inferior to men already bc of eve's fatal sin. dont degrade yourself further than you already have" and shes like "what do you mean degrade myself further than i already have" and hes like "dont worry about it youre perfect to me. like a 9.5/10. or an 8/10. maybe a 6. definitely not any lower than a 3" and after hearing that she goes to bed upset and confused because not only is her brother not taking nuclear war seriously he also once again made her feel infantilized and small and then after hearing a loud boom in the distance she thinks nuclear war is starting and starts freaking out and thinks "my brother must have been speaking in a code! he was trying to make me feel nostalgic about my childhood to comfort me before the upcoming attack! now that nuclear war is starting i should take shelter but we dont have a bomb shelter here but ohtori has a bunch of students! it probably does!" running to ohtori and trying to think of the oldest building on campus and goes to utena and anthy's door banging on it in the middle of the night and utena gets up in her jammies like "what?" and nanamis like "QUICK we all have to GET UNDERGROUND wheres your NEAREST BOMB SHELTER" and anthy comes in behind utena like miss nanami what are you talking about? :) and utena is like yeah seriously thats so weird. i guess you can come inside . we couldnt sleep anyway because -- and then nanami sees on the floor of their room a bunch of scattered papers with a big red button in a briefcase and nanami points at anthy and is like "IT WAS YOU THAT LAUNCHED THE NUKE??????" and anthy says "oh this? this button is enrichment for my pet parrot! ive named her nanami. nanami press the button" and nanami the parrot presses the button and theres a loud boom and nanami (not the parrot) is like but what was that?!?! i heard it from my house!!!! and utena is like "oh! you must be talking about the firework display! the button is rigged up to some fireworks we got for the upcoming spring festival and we were actually up late tonight trying to get the display to work! we messed up pretty bad and most of the fireworks went off at once though haha." nanami the parrot keeps pressing the button in the bg and anthy is like "aww i guess that was the last firework left!" and nanami is like b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but what about the kangaroo? and the test on nagasaki and hiroshima?? and the shopping channels advertising gas masks and bomb shelters and canned food??? and utena says "oh the kangaroo was a political refugee from australia its boxing career went down the hill after it killed steve durwin in a freak accident. all schools are doing history tests on world war two this time in the semester!" and anthy says "yes and because theres no clear threat of nuclear winter anymore all the old holdovers from wwii are being sold at discounted prices :)"

as nanami leaves the house feeling much better but also stupider she gets traumatized one last time by another firework going off and utena yells out the window "sorry nanami! guess there was one more loaded in there!" the firework design is chuchus face and he has been mysteriously absent this whole time. we see him in the sex car with that cat thing from madoka driving

#personal #utena #rgu #im blacking out now

[soliloquent-stark]

Do u think when stevetony first get together there’s a fight for who gets which side of the bed? Because I think so 🤔

dear anon, i am SO glad you asked this. you have no idea what monster you've created with this question.

my short answer: yes.

my long answer:

stony ficlet: the left side of the bed

steve noticed it from the moment he started spending the night in tony's room, when their supposedly casual sex slowly started turning into more — tony always went for the left side of the bed, much to steve's dismay. as a result, he'd have restless nights full of tosses and turns, every single time. if only he could sleep on that same side...

the thing is, steve didn't have a preference just for the sake of it. between sharing a tiny bed with his mom as a child and being in a literal war, he could fall asleep anywhere. hell, tony's bed is too soft for him anyway, and sometimes the floor seemed more inviting.

so, this wasn't about him being fastidious. this was about safety: steve always had to be the closest person to the door, so he could be the first one in the line of fire, so he could protect the other person. and it just so happens that, the way the room is set up, the side near the exit was the left one.

he didn't want to bring it up and make it into a thing, so one day, a few weeks into their new and fragile relationship, he simply settled in that spot while tony was in the bathroom. he figured it was a minor enough gesture; surely he didn't need to ask?

to say it pissed tony off was an understatement.

he didn't even give a reason why this was so important to him — and steve had witnessed him sleeping diagonally on his workbench, and in a chair while slouched on the table during meetings, and even standing against a goddamn doorframe once.

"if i remember correctly, and i always do, you were leaning on the right side of it", steve had said. "but i dunno, maybe it was more comfortable than this perfectly fine right side of your bed?"

tony only got more upset.

"i dunno," he parroted, "was the ice more comfortable than this perfectly fine right side of the bed?"

it was a low blow, but steve didn't take the bait. he found no other option but to admit to tony the truth about his hang-up, which somehow escalated the situation further.

"for fuck's sake steve, you don't need to be a fucking human shield! you're off duty, and i'm no damsel in distress."

it's not that steve thought iron man needed his safeguarding. but that's how his brain was wired. he needed to protect — he'd already let down so many people in his life. he hadn't been able to get his mom medical help, he hadn't stopped bucky from falling, and he already had witnessed tony fly to his near-death once, as part of a team steve was the leader of. guarding became his default mode. but tony was so stubborn and he simply didn't get it.

steve just sighed, but tony must have sensed his discomfort, because the fight seemed to leave his body.

then, with a soft and tentative voice, tony admitted to steve that he preferred that side because it had always been how he slept, since childhood. he always left the other part of the bed empty, and his mother would often sit there as she tucked him in, with a kiss on his forehead and a caress on his cheek.

"that's an example of the gentle side of her parenting that howard wasn't allowed to see because he'd disapprove of coddling me," tony had said. "her affection happened mostly behind the closed doors of my room, and we weren't caught once, because he never came to say goodnight."

steve felt his heart ache as he wordlessly rolled to the other side of the bed, making space for tony in his designated spot, and opening his arms for a hug.

he should have realized that tony was just like him, and that the reasons behind his neuroses were often tied to the same worries and trepidations that also drove steve mad.

it's not going to be easy to sleep like this, he had thought as he was holding his boyfriend close to his chest, but it's okay. it's for tony.

however, the following evening, when he entered the bedroom and saw that tony had moved everything around so that the right side of the bed was facing the door, he laughed with relief.

"i find solutions for everything, don't i," tony joked. "not like it wasn't the obvious thing to do, anyways."

but steve was aware that by doing what he did, he had totally messed up his carefully designed layout; even steve could admit that the room looked a bit silly now. somehow, tony genuinely seemed unbothered by it, and was just pleased that this way, nobody had to compromise on the quality of their sleep.

steve fell a little bit in love, just then.

gif sources: due date (2010) and before we go (2014)

find longer fics on my ao3

#yes i downloaded those movies and made those gifs only for this one post #SO WHAT #also yes i have a side of the bed too and it's the left one 🤭 #ficlets by soliloquent #stony #stevetony #stony ficlet #stony drabble #steve rogers #stevie baby #tony stark #tony my beloved #character insight #my headcanons #answered

[survivalove]

hii what type of tropes do u think katara fits ?? and what type of tropes do u think her character subverts ??

Hi anon! I’m not gonna lie this is a heavy topic which has been weighing on my mind ever since my Katara rant a few days ago. Tbh, I wasn’t going to make a post about this, just cuz I feel like maybe I talk too much 😂 but you just gave me the perfect excuse so here we go:

1. Girls are Healers, not Fighters

I want to start this off with the issue of misogyny in the Northern Water Tribe and how the fandom discusses Katara’s portrayal in LoK. First of all, the NWT not allowing girls to fight is misogyny and Pakku telling Katara to “go in the healing hut with the other women” very much sounds like “go in the kitchen where you belong”. This is something everyone understands.

However, I think we start losing the plot when people only focus on this aspect and ironically parrot the same misogyny when they talk about female healers in the franchise and in media. Let’s look at Yagoda. Yagoda is a recognized master. She doesn’t teach in her house, her kitchen or her bedroom. She teaches in a school alongside other master healers and students. When the Yue was stillborn, who did her family turn to at first? Pakku? No, the healers. During the civil war, did Katara just sit at home twiddling her fingers like so many in the fandom would have you believe? No, she was single-handedly healing dozens of rebels in her White Lotus outpost. The importance of female healers in the franchise and media in general should not be diminished when speaking out against this misogynistic trope. I just had to get that out of the way.

So, how does ATLA subvert this trope with Katara? They show her developing her healing abilities alongside her fighting skills. One does not hinder the other. When Katara discovers her healing ability, she gains respect for possessing a talent so rare and revered, by a man originally from the nation that wiped out the male and female waterbenders of her tribe. When Katara saves Aang’s life, the most important moment in the entire show IMO, in the same episode, she is also shown facing off a major enemy in battle and winning. These two sides of her are constantly shown in balance to the fullest extent of her power, without one skill being diminished to highlight the other.

2. The Hero’s Girl

I think this is another trope that’s prevalent in media, particularly shonen animes which ATLA gets compared to so often. A lot of times these female love interests are never in the main story without the main male character. They seemingly have a one-sided crush, fall apart at his feet, interacts with him only when he needs her (and only him), and can sometimes be a pick-me when it comes to any competing female characters. I think a lot of people see Katara this way solely because she gets with Aang in the end, when this does not even come close to how she is portrayed.

Katara is an extremely developed character. Her arc is largely independent of Aang even though there are so many parallels between the two. Katara initially sees Aang as just a friend and even when she starts seeing him as a potential love interest, she’s not begging him to notice her or accept her affections. She gets jealous but isn’t competing with anyone for his attention for long and she has relationships with other characters that further the story whether Aang is there or not. She doesn’t exist solely to be with him, in fact she even teaches him. Katara and Aang being endgame is not integral to either one of their stories. They don’t agree with each other all the time and when he pushes their romance too far, she isn’t framed in a negative light for rebuffing his affections. No one in the narrative forces her to be with Aang because he’s the Avatar for status, or anything else. Love is not her biggest priority and she chooses to put off her romantic feelings until the war ends.

Now does she get jealous of other girls who seem to like Aang as well? Yes. Does she cry and get emotional when something happens to him? Yes. Does she spend an episode pestering the fortuneteller about her future husband and get excited at the idea of falling in love? Lol yeah. Does she blush and hug and kiss Aang often? Literally every other episode. But that’s not all there is to her or their dynamic. I think some people often overemphasize the fact that Aang and Katara do get together in the end and act like it automatically voids the rest of her development in canon when it really doesn’t. Like I said in another post, I know a lot of Katara stans that don’t ship her with anyone or can discuss her character at great length without mentioning romance. People who choose to focus on her ending up with the hero to ‘defend’ her are more doing her a disservice if you ask me.

3. One-Dimensional Female Characters

This sort of ties into everything I just said and is also something the franchise achieves with all the female characters, but even more-so with Katara. Katara has several behaviors that directly contradict her general personality traits:

In the Chase, Katara lectures Toph about the importance of doing chores and being a team player and in the same episode, insults her, picks fights with her to the point she leaves the group entirely.

Katara loves her brother and always cheers him up when he’s feeling him down, but she still will tease and pick on him, and on a darker note, lashes out at him in the Southern Raiders when he doesn’t tell her what she wants to hear.

Katara turns up her nose at the wrestling tournament they find Toph in and winces as she attacks The Earth King’s soldiers, but still partakes in fighting the war because it’s for the greater good.

Katara from a young age had to take up the societal expectations that her mother would have had in her family and in her tribe, but is still a child and often takes delight in activities children enjoy, as she should.

The point is, Katara isn’t one-dimensional. There are a lot of contradictions within her that are usually juxtaposed one after the other. Yet, most viewers can only focus on one side at a time, usually choosing to focus on the negative aspects of her character. They will complain about her being motherly as if she never has fun. They will focus on the one time she was out of line with Sokka just to attack her character. They will cry she was too hard on Zuko, after 2.5 seasons of him chasing them down.

Most annoying of all, they will compare her to other female characters who are less hypocritical in nature and, in my opinion, simply not as complex as Katara. Don’t even get me started on how community is such an integral part of Katara, Sokka and Aang’s characters and how their character development often get overlooked in favor of characters with more individualistic and straightforward narratives. But this is about Katara.

Katara is an unapologetically feminine character that is sweet and kind without serving some villainous agenda that gives her a reason to be on par with the male characters when it comes to fighting skill. Her strength gets questioned in ways that Azula, Toph, Mai and Ty Lee’s do not. She subverts a lot of misogynistic tropes that a lot of 2000s female love interests in media suffered from and still do. She’s a very difficult character for most people to wrap their heads around, simply because she doesn’t stick to the script that most fmcs who look and act like her, do.

If we pretend she’s not fictional for two seconds, Katara is a hypocrite and hello? Who isn’t. It’s human nature for people to change their minds or do things that don’t really match up with that they’re say about. People who get mad at Katara for this, are essentially saying they’re mad because she’s not a flat character and they don’t even realize it. Her contradictions aren’t just one-off moments and her grief over her mother’s death isn’t something she only brings up once or twice. These occur over and over again because she is the other main character and with that comes a lot more screentime for her to be hypocritical, grow and show development to a level that the other female characters can’t.

#atla #katara #my asks #atla critical #katara defense squad #pro katara #wow #why are my katara rants always so long #i’m so sorry #those fans reblogging me again #so i’m putting the tags #antizutara #anti zutara #anti zuko #kataang

[beardedmrbean]

NPR has suspended Uri Berliner, the senior editor who published a bombshell essay a week ago that claimed that the publicly funded outlet has “lost America’s trust” by approaching news stories with a left-wing bias.

NPR media writer David Folkenflik revealed on Tuesday that Berliner beginning on Friday was suspended for five days without pay. Folkenflik, who reviewed a copy of the letter from NPR brass, said the company told the editor he had failed to secure its approval for outside work for other news outlets — a requirement for NPR journalists.

NPR called the letter a “final warning,” saying Berliner would be fired if he violated NPR’s policy again.

Neither NPR nor Berliner immediately responded to requests for comment.

Berliner is a dues-paying member of NPR’s newsroom union, but Folkenflik reported that the editor is not appealing the punishment.

Berliner, a Peabody Award-winning journalist who has worked at NPR for 25 years, called out journalistic blind spots around major news events, including the origins of COVID-19, the war in Gaza and the Hunter Biden laptop, in an essay published Tuesday on Bari Weiss’ online news site the Free Press.

The fallout from the essay sparked outrage from many of his colleagues. Late Monday afternoon, NPR chief news executive Edith Chapin announced to the newsroom that executive editor Eva Rodriguez would lead monthly meetings to review coverage.

The fiasco also ignited a firestorm of criticism from prominent conservatives — with former President Donald Trump demanding NPR’s federal funding be yanked — and has led to internal tumult, the New York Times reported Friday.

NPR’s new chief executive Katherine Maher defended NPR’s journalism, calling Berliner’s article “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning,” The 42-year-old exec added that the essay amounted to “a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are.”

Folkenflik said Berliner took umbrage at that, saying she had “denigrated him.” Berliner said he supported diversifying NPR’s workforce to look more like the US population at large. Maher did not address that in a subsequent private exchange he shared with Folkenflik for the story.

The fiasco soon put the spotlight on Maher, whose own left-leaning bias came to light in a trove of woke, anti-Trump tweets she penned.

In January, when Maher was announced as NPR’s new leader, The Post revealed her penchant for parroting the progressive line on social media — including bluntly biased Twitter posts like “Donald Trump is a racist,” which she wrote in 2018.

That hyper-partisan message was scrubbed from the platform now known as X, but preserved on the site Archive.Today.

It’s unclear when Maher deleted it, or if its removal was tied to her new gig.

Other woke posts remain on Maher’s X account. In 2020, as the George Floyd riots raged, she attempted to justify the looting epidemic in Los Angeles as payback for the sins of slavery.

“I mean, sure, looting is counterproductive,” Maher wrote on May 31, 2020.

“But it’s hard to be mad about protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression founded on treating people’s ancestors as private property.”

The next day, she lectured her 27,000 followers on “white silence.”

“White silence is complicity,” she scolded. “If you are white, today is the day to start a conversation in your community.”

The NPR job is Maher’s first position in journalism or media.

She was previously the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, the San Francisco-based nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia, after holding communications roles for the likes of HSBC, UNICEF and the World Bank.

Maher earned a bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies from New York University, according to her LinkedIn account, and grew up in Wilton, Conn. — a town that her mother, Ceci Maher, now represents as a Democratic state senator.

#nunyas news #if you are a journalist your job is to find the truth #and report it honestly #and without bias

[slocumjoe]

companions start a minecraft server. how do they play? who lives with who? who starts a war over their dog dying?

Companions play Minecraft

Cait; hardcore mode speedrunner who looks for increasingly difficult and mindfuck ways to kill the Elder Dragon. Why? Success is a kind of high you'll get from nothing else. Especially when you kill the final boss with nothing but eggs and slime pistons. When playing on Hancock's server, functions as a bodyguard during less-safe builds, like underground, or at the edge of the forest. The first line of defense during a raid. Does busywork for Codsworth in exchange for throwing eggs. Piper built a traditional Irish pub for her to live in and you can occasionally see her just staring at it in wonder. Is the one with the pack of wolves. The town graveyard is filled with her fallen pups. Also has a parrot, just to watch it dance to the pub's jukebox.

Codsworth; Does the busywork around the town Hancock and the others have built. Town is probably called Goodneighbor, let's be real. Tends the farms, the animals, makes food, etc. Does a little bit of everything. Takes care of Curie's zoo, goes fishing with Danse, gives opinions on building materials...pure chilling. Refuses to slaughter farm animals for meat, he's too attached. Fish, bread, and vegetables are on the menu in Goodneighbor. Lives in a quaint little birch cottage by the river, where he keeps flowers, bees, and chickens. All of them have nametags. Second line of defense during a raid—touch his potato fields, and enjoy eggs for your last meal.

Curie; Spends all of her time following and studying the more fantastical creatures, like Endermen. Keeps real notes in a notebook as she plays, theorizing on their biology. Endlessly fascinated with the convergent evolution between Villagers and Pillagers. Will often join Preston's archeology expeditions to discover the lore hints in the environment. Dies a lot, usually has nothing but seeds and dirt in her inventory. Keeps an area filled with specimens in appropriate pens. Puts bounties out for new creatures. Favors the axolotls and fish, though. Lives in the second floor of the zoo's visitor center.

Danse; Minecraft has a powerful aura of sad nostalgia, and I don't think he could handle it. Will help out in Goodneighbor by going and getting materials for building. Enjoys fishing more than anything, though. Gets very attached to his orange cat that sits on his bed. His dirt hut is on the outskirts of Goodneighbor, but is covered in flowers, paintings, and whatever else decor the others have put up. Nick dyed his cat's collar pink. Accompanies X6 on Curie's specimen bounties. Will sometimes stop moving. Don't worry, he's just enraptured by the music and is enjoying it. Or is being made very sad by it. Same thing, right?

Deacon; Pays money to change his username to look like someone else's every week. Changes to their skin, too, but edited to have sunglasses. Otherwise, Herobrine wannabe. If you don't know what that is, you are too young to be reading this blog. Deacon will make small, uniform tunnels, fill them with oddities like bone and paper. He'll leave structures reminiscent of crosses. He'll use armor stands and elaborate Redstone mechanisms, make it look like someone's watching you from the trees, only for you to step on a hidden pressure plate, and the figure vanishes. Adds to the lore of the world. Has a rainbow wool house filled with so many rabbits, the game crashes when he approaches.

Gage; You think Gage is playing a kids game? He has shit to do. Like pirate it and sell copies for dirt cheap. Not even to make money, he just does it for the principle. The principle of fuck you, I will make as many copies of this shit as I damn well please. Probably has his face hung up in Mojang HQ, with darts stuck in the one good eye. Would play if he could join the side of the Pillagers. Yeah, sure. He could just set villages on fire himself...but where's the community in that?

Hancock; Owns the server. Keeps it on harder difficulties for the challenge, but not so much of a...whatever you call Cait's type of player. Avid builder, Goodneighbor is a massive project recreating Boston. It's not quite 1 to 1, but still damn impressive. But, hey, if Bobby wants to build places from Grognak, that's chill. Doesn't care about aesthetic or accuracy, just wants to relax and let the creative juices flow. Hancock himself lives in a giant mushroom he made out of mushroom blocks, wool, and mycelium. Pet of choice? Mushroom cow, obviously, courtesy of X6.

MacCready; Got sick for a week. Built the entire Ux-Ron galaxy on the other side of the river. Doesn't remember it, was hopped up on Nyquil and chicken broth in hot water. The resident hunter, when he isn't on a grape-chicken-liquid diet. He's good at building, but can get bored quickly. Aim is...frightening. Can kill a chicken across any gulf. Takes the nightshift guard duty to shoot down Phantoms. His house is a crashed UFO. Even got Deacon to do his redstone trickery, so it lights up all blinky when you trigger a plate at the door. Has a parrot for a pet.

Nick; One of the more adventurous ones. Goes off with Preston, X6, and Cait to explore the different biomes. The resident potion master. It's just a puzzlegame, but for cocktails that can make you jump real high. Keeps a garden with various ingredients, often ventures into the Nether for blaze powder and rods. Has a spawner caged up, so he just smacks them through the door. Writes down all potion or poison recipes in an in-game book and quill. The trial-and-error- failed recipes are also listed, so it's 200+ pages long. His potion hut is built like a speakeasy, and he lives in the basement with a black cat. Would fill the place with ravens, if they weren't in the spin-off game. Third line of defense in town—keeps a chest full of splash poisons. Occasionally opens it and stares at them, like he's not sure if he's willing to commit such an act.

Piper; Obsessed with the underwater update. Always diving for treasure and sunken ships and temples. Keeps all of the knickknacks in a chest back at Goodneighbor, not even for use. Piper isn't even an ocean kinda gal in real life, but...it's so pretty! And the dolphins are so cute! Trades resources for water-breathing potions from Nick. Fills out so many maps, keeps them framed on a massive wall on the Goodneighbor docks. Also keeps a book-and-quill with coordinates and traveling notes, it's longer than Nick's recipe book. Lives in an underwater bubble habitat off the coast of Goodneighbor. Keeps a pink dolphin in a massive glass habitat outside.

Preston; Resident archeologist. Excavates ruins and structures to study them. Spent a month in real life sponging up an underwater temple. Even longer digging out an End fortress. Goes into mineshafts and renovates them entirely, puts signs and maps up. Takes X6 most often on his expeditions, has his own wall of land-maps. Preston spends a lot of time studying the builds left in the world and pondering the historical implications. Real theorist over here. He's fascinated with the subtle story telling and clues. The End keeps him up at night. His house is the huge community library. Also keeps books, writes down his notes and theories. Has a llama for traveling. If anything happened to it, would be very distraught.

X6-88; Resident mercenary. Nick accidentally summoned the Wither? There's a baby zombie running around? Deacon's rabbits have broken out the windows, and the server is in legitimate danger if the horde grows any larger? Get X6-88. Appears with a clap of thunder on his black warhorse, wielding only the most enchanted of weapons, wearing the most enchanted of armor. He does all the hard, dangerous work. Clears out the Nether, the End, Dark Forests, Pillager encampments...X6 is the hard hitter that goes out into danger, whereas Cait stays behind to defend. Is the one who leashes animals and painstakingly brings them back to Goodneighbor, occasionally with Danse's help. He lost his mind, looking for pandas for Curie. Keeps one as a pet in his house, which is the castle in the graveyard.

#fo4 #fallout 4 #paladin danse #preston garvey #piper wright #nick valentine #companions react #x6-88 #robert joseph maccready #porter gage #codsworth

[homunculus-argument]

Tabletop RP idea: A story set in the real world at a specific time in history. The only rules and limits the players have for coming up with a character are that they have to be alive during that time and exist within the boundaries of reality. Otherwise they've got the full freedom to come up with whatever the fuck they want. However, the players are encouraged to do as much research about their own character's background as their heart desires - they simply cannot overdo it.

Besides setting up the starting scenario and the NPCs who are present, there's no plot planned out beforehand, most players are terriers who shred your plans anyway, and come up with their own. Let's say the year is 1768.

Everyone sends their character concepts to the GM well before the game, so the GM will have plenty of time to figure out how exactly the player characters would most plausibly even meet, considering that the new ragtag team of adventurers currently consists of

a freed black frenchwoman on the run from both mob rule and the law because she slapped someone for insulting her

an one-legged indian veteran of the Seven Years' War

a Han Chinese noblewoman

Catherine the Great's discarded former lover

a French-Mohawk translator on a revenge quest to find and kill his white father

a talking parrot, because while the GM said that their character "should be able to communicate with the others somehow", they failed to specify that the player character has to be human

[irrealisms]

and by way of honoring the things we once both held dear liner notes

fic here if you haven't read it!

the Pants Party was one of the first ideas kelardry and i had for pmmm au--back in, like, last october or so--of… in minecraft, not wearing full armor is a major combat disadvantage. in pmmm, not transforming is a major combat disadvantage. magical girl outfits are all skirts and dresses. therefore: pants party. or the PP, for short. they would think this was funny.

one of the main Points of this fic is something i've been turning over in my head for a while, and that's NPPP + 3ht parallels. they're both teams based around intentionally disadvantaging yourself. bacon saying "if they kill me then everyone's gonna call them broke. because when you're at four hearts it's definitely a disadvantage in some ways, but it's nice because-- who's gonna kill you? like, if they kill you they're just a bad person, you know?" & parrot saying "you can kill us however many times you want, but killing someone with no pants on is embarrassing. it shows nothing but your desire to only fight the weak."

and specifically ... parrot says that there were two options, on the NPPP. either you put on pants or you start exploiting. and either way you're not weak anymore. and he's sort of right but he's also sort of wrong. 3ht shows that that's wrong, in the wormhole, with planet on three hearts, bacon unstacking his totems. there is a third option: you can stick with your team until it kills you. you can stay weak and die for it. i did check pmmm to make sure this was canon-accurate but also: planet's dead body is wearing pants because, ultimately, she's more of a symbol of the Pants Party/NPPP spirit than either parrot or spoke at this point. she stayed weak. and, also, the NPPP spirit is dead, both because they all gave up on it & bc if you stay weak you die. spoke and parrot end the fic transformed. planetlord doesn't.

some canon stuff i wanted to include in the fic but didn't quite work in: the fact that spoke shows the control room to everyone because he respects that planet stayed on 3 hearts (that planet stuck by the disadvantage in his team name!). the fact that spoke fed parrot totems and gear throughout the wormhole. the fact that parrot helped spoke stage the dupe war.

another main Point of the fic is just ... looking at planet's death ban at the end of s4, in a setting where the server doesn't immediately end and restart. in a setting where planet is just ... dead, and everyone has to grieve that. the vision of this 13-year-old girl, dead on the pavement, because of what spoke did, and parrot can't bring herself to kill spoke but-- something is irrevocably broken, with that. there's no going back. planetlord is dead, in a world where that can't get reversed, in a world where that means something.

relatedly: the fact that in PMMM au they're all 13-15. this is so important to me and also i think it captures something important about lifesteal to me which is that they're all...very young? obviously PMMM au is younger than canon but it's also higher-stakes than canon in some ways. the dissonance between "these are people who are destroying worlds" and "this is a teenager who thinks naming something 'poopies' is the height of humor" was something i really wanted to draw out, esp in this setting where death is real and widespread destruction kills people. in PMMM au they are doing horrible things and also they are all so fucking tiny. planet and spoke are both 13/seventh graders; parrot is 14/an eighth grader. they're middle schoolers! they're middle schoolers. i sprinkle this in throughout bc it's so crushing to me to imagine.

bonus fact: i have ages, wishes, outfits, and general storyline mapped out for, like......12 different characters. i have a vision for basically all of s4 in this au. almost everything that happened in s4 has a pmmm au equivalent. it's fun. if i were to write anything else in this au it'd proooobably be mapicc & zam--i have a lot of specific mental images there. check out this pmmm zam i commissioned i love her so dearly

i did fudge spoke's wish for this fic though. in the broader au it's actually vitalasy that can grant second wishes/contract girls without involving kyubey, and spoke and ash did Some Bullshit with that. but vitalasy is so very a witch by this point in the timeline & i thought it'd be fun if parrot had the same "i could cheat and kill spoke here with her own exploits" dilemma that canon parrot had.

you dupe witches by taking a familiar out of the witch you're killing, keeping it alive, and then feeding it humans until it becomes juuuust large enough that it's a witch of its own and will drop its own grief seed. rinse and repeat. this is horrendously unethical but it CAN get you a ridiculous number of grief seeds quicker and more easily than fighting witches normally! i love lifestealers.

i'm proud of the line "She can’t walk forward without stepping over Planetlord’s corpse." . it is up there with planetlord wearing pants in terms of Blatantly Symbolic Imagery.

the title comes from Unmasked! by the Mountain Goats. in general i really like Beat the Champ + Lifesteal. something about the showmanship of it all. as far as Unmasked! specifically ... there's something about finales and losing your secrets and, worse, losing your gimmick. about parrot's triple agenting and spoke's social engineering. about knowing each other and fighting each other and saying goodbye.

#therapists dni #my writing #any british ants in the chat?

[velidewrites]

When a neighbouring kingdom of Scythia begs for aid in the impending war, Prince Lucien is forced into a marriage with its princess.

He doesn't expect to fall for her handmaiden instead.

Pairing: Elain x Lucien

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, blood and injury; Eventual smut

Tags: Alternate Universe, Forbidden Romance, Angst, Pining, Forced Proximity, and everything else that makes two characters Go Insane, Complete disregard of the canon world map, More Tags on AO3

Chapter 1 || Fic Masterlist || AO3

Chapter III

Lucien had not seen Elain in two days, and he was slowly starting to go out of his mind.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been avoiding him—how else could he explain catching all but one glimpse of her in all this time? They were quite literally sharing a home, with her and Vassa’s quarters only a floor below his own—a painful reminder of how close she truly was despite how far away she seemed. 

At times, in the dead of the night, Lucien swore he could hear her heart, beating rhythmically through the stone. It was unlikely, of course, the more plausible explanation being his mind playing tricks on him again—the same way it had when he’d dreamt of their wedding—and yet, the idea of her heart lulling him to sleep was comforting enough that he’d let his imagination run wild.

Where had she gone? Lucien knew she had to have been shadowing Vassa around the palace, constantly at the princess’s disposal whenever her assistance as handmaiden was required. And yet, he’d only seen her once, hurrying down the hallway leading to Vassa’s chambers the other evening, a tea tray laying shakily in her hands. Whenever Lucien would meet with his betrothed—their discussions almost exclusively accompanied by his mother, now—Elain simply vanished, as if she’d made it a deliberate effort to keep out of his sight. He could tell she was around somewhere, though—watching, listening as the two royals prepared for their imminent marriage. He wondered what went on in her head then—if she found herself distracted thinking about him as much as he did thinking about her.

It was a dangerous path he should not have allowed his mind to wander on, but Lucien simply couldn’t help it anymore. Their chance meeting in the gardens seemed to have changed everything, so much so that Lucien swore he could hear Jurian’s voice in his head sometimes, mocking him for falling so pathetically after all but one conversation. He felt pathetic himself, truly. Elain was beautiful—the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen—but Lucien had been surrounded by beauty his entire life. It was the light in her doe-like eyes, the kindness in her words, the warmth of her skin sinking into his, that made him lose all his senses but one.

He wanted to touch her again.

Just a brush of his fingers over hers—so small and discreet he could probably pass it off as an accident to the average onlooker. He seemed to come alive under her smoothness, over that warmth, and he could no longer deny he needed to feel it again.

So Lucien did something entirely selfish—he made sure that for today’s meeting with the Princess, the handmaiden had no choice but to come along.

If she didn’t speak to him—if she perhaps regretted the conversation they’d had in the gardens—he would keep away. It would drive him mindless, to be sure, but there was a very real chance that Elain had little interest in him—that there was someone else, waiting for her back home in Scythia. He only needed to see her, really—to make sure that whatever he felt, it was entirely unreciprocated. If it was, he would learn to live with it. Maybe, after a while, he would even forget, consumed by the kingdom and taking his father’s place.

But if it wasn’t—if Elain did feel something for him—Lucien would be completely, utterly fucked.

“What?”

Lucien blinked, then turned toward the sound. “What?” he parroted.

Jurian’s dark brows knitted over his eyes. “You just ‘fuck’ out of nowhere.”

Gods.

“Stop spying on me, Jurian.”

The General raised a defensive hand. “Apologies, Your Highness,” he drawled, a shadow of a smirk curling his full lips. “Tell the voices in your head I said hello.”

“Very funny,” Lucien huffed, “I don’t—what is it?” he paused, his own brows furrowing as Jurian’s gaze fixed somewhere behind him—apparently no longer part of this conversation, his brown eyes wide.

“Fuck,” Jurian swore under his breath.

 Lucien smirked at that, a snide comment already waiting in the back of his tongue, and he turned again to follow his stare. “What is—”

Lucien stilled.

Fuck, indeed.

He watched as two women entered through the open stable doors, their steps followed by a golden trail of sunlight. Lucien understood, now—realised that inviting the Princess horse riding was a very, very bad idea.

Elain looked like she’d been crafted by the very Gods themselves—sent down to earth to taunt him with her beauty. Somehow, each time that he saw her, he found that his mind underestimated just how breathtaking she truly was. She’d tied her hair up today, golden-brown locks half-braided and cascading down her back. Like Vassa, Elain hadn’t opted for a regular riding gown, but a lilac tunic and tight-fitted, cream-coloured trousers that highlighted the curves if her hips, swaying slightly with every step.

Lucien was going to go out of his mind.

He could only gape as they approached, finally reaching where he and Jurian waited with the horses, already neighing quietly in excitement for the journey.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed—but Jurian cleared his throat, which could only mean Lucien needed to think of something clever to say, and now.

“You…” he started before realising his gaze was still on Elain’s. Forcing himself to tear his eyes off her shining stare, he looked to Vassa. “You look very beautiful. Your Highness.”

Vassa nodded, brushing an invisible piece of lint off her jacket, the dark turquoise offsetting her hair nicely. “Thank you. You look quite handsome yourself,” she added—a pleasantry, if Lucien had to guess, since her eyes had already drifted to the horses behind him.

Perhaps that was why he asked, “Have you done much riding in the past?”

That seemed to catch the Princess’s attention. She looked at him again, something like a smile curling the corner of her lips. “Oh, yes. We’re horse people—in Scythia. I have been riding since I was no more than six, I believe.”

“Impressive,” Lucien praised. “Shall we, then?”

“We shall,” Vassa agreed, already making way toward the proud, chestnut stallion as Jurian wordlessly handed her the leash.

After a moment of hesitation, Lucien followed to her side, offering a hand as she moved to mount the saddle. 

“I’ve got this, Your Highness,” Vassa said without looking back. “But thank you.”

Beside them, Jurian snorted—then quickly muttered an apology as Lucien shot him a look.

He turned to Elain then, hoping—praying—that this would be his chance to steal a word or two—to made sure that, at the very least, he hadn’t offended her, or displeased her somehow. If she accepted his hand, it would be all he needed. It would be all he’d ever be able to get.

But Elain was already sitting atop her own horse, her hand tight around the rein as she promptly looked out to the open doors.

“Where to?” Jurian asked.

Vassa was looking at Lucien when she answered, “I’ve always wanted to explore your forests—Scythia, you see, has more of a hillside landscape.”

Lucien opened his mouth, but Jurian had already cut in, “Forgive me, Princess,” he said, and Lucien frowned at his friend’s omission of her formal address, “But anything outside palace grounds is strictly off-limits. Security measures, I’m afraid.”

Vassa waved a hand. “I hardly think we need those for something as mundane as horse riding. The forests are a short ride away.”

“Those measures have been put in place for your safety,” Jurian pressed, an edge to his voice that made Vassa look at him at last.

“Well, then, if it’s my safety that concerns you, I can assure you I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” She turned to Lucien, something like urgency in her tone as she commanded, “Let’s go, then. I grow tired of waiting.”

And with that, she and Elain moved out of the stables.

Finally seated in his own saddle, Lucien leaned toward the General. “Insufferable, isn’t she?” he teased.

Jurian only grunted.

“You catch up to her,” his friend said, his hard stare not leaving the Princess’s back for a second. “I am not going to entertain this.”

Lucien glanced at Elain, hoping he wasn’t being too obvious as he countered,  “You’re supposed to be the one watching her.”

Jurian’s jaw tightened. “Who do you think she should be riding with, her guard or her betrothed?” he asked, and Lucien could have sworn there was a bitterness to his tone he couldn’t quite discern.

There was no time for this now—and Jurian was right, anyway. 

Lucien caught up to Vassa quickly. “Your Highness,” he called—to no effect. Gods, had Jurian riled her up this badly? “Vassa,” he pressed and, mercifully, she half-turned to him at that.“You have to forgive my General’s brashness, but he does have a point.” He hesitated. “I’ve…heard of the attacks on your life—back in your kingdom. Those truly determined to end your life will not be stopped by something as simple as our kingdoms’ shared border.”

Quiet fell, and the two of them passed through the gates, leaving the palace grounds and moving onto the path leading to the forest behind in a steady pace. He already began to prepare himself for a silent ride, with Vassa clearly not in a particularly chatty mood—when was she ever?—when she finally answered.

“I know,” she said, then sighed. “Truth be told, Lucien, this is the first time I’ve left the palace—any palace—in weeks.” Her lips thinned. “I only wish to taste whatever’s left of my freedom before…”

Oh.

“I see,” Lucien said, because he truly did see. Deep down, she looked at their imminent marriage the way he had—a life planned out for her for the sake of the life of others. Duty over happiness.

So Lucien said, if only to lighten the mood, “If it helps, I can promise you I do not have any plans whatsoever to keep you in the palace after we are married.”

She laughed at that, a sound that clearly said, As if you could stop me. “I realise this union is not personally convenient for you either, you know,” she started carefully. “But…I want you to know it is no more than a political one. You’re…free to do whatever you wish when we do not appear together.”

Lucien hummed, the meaning of her words sinking into him at last. “You mean whomever I wish.”

Vassa snorted. “Well, your reputation does precede you, emissary.”

“Glad to hear it,” he rolled his eyes, but he was smiling now. So she could joke around, after all. “You don’t need to worry about such things, though.”

Vassa angled her head. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “This marriage may not be what I want, but I do take it seriously, Vassa. I would never let my…discontentment be a stain on your honour, in private or not.”

Her blue eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t?”

“I like to think I was raised better than that,” Lucien said, because it was true. He’d spent his entire life praying to the Gods to bless him with what his parents shared—and if he wasn’t going to be granted their kind of love, the least he could do was offer the respect the King and Queen had always shown one another.

“I see,” Vassa said simply.

“I’d like to say I expect a similar approach from my future Queen,” Lucien teased again, “but something tells me you’re not one who takes well to being told what to do.”

It was Vassa’s turn to roll her eyes now. “I don’t think—”

Vassa’s words were cut off as an arrow swooshed past her head—and missed by an inch.

Somewhere behind them, Elain screamed.

“Get down!” Jurian roared, the sound of his heavy boots hitting the ground following swiftly.

Lucien whipped back, catching a glimpse of a sword being pulled out of its sheath before everything finally registered—they were under attack.

It was like match lighting in his head—a fire illuminating the darkness. He was no longer the Prince, no longer Lucien, even, but a warrior, unparalleled in his skill to everyone but the General at his side. They’d fought enough battles together for their minds to sync as one, for orders and strategies to flow between them wordlessly like a melody etched into their hearts.

Lucien jumped off his horse a second before four assassins appeared at the forests edge, previously shielded by the tall, roughened trees. He used that time to scan for a royal sigil, for any flag or emblem of sorts adorning their armour, their weapons—he looked for the Vanserra’s sharp-eyed hawk, its wings spread proudly over a red background. But Lucien found nothing.

There was a flash of similar concern from Jurian before they attacked.

“Protect the Princess!” Jurian shouted, but there wasn’t any time left to get Vassa—and Elain—to safety. Two men had already lunged at Lucien, the last line of defence to where Vassa sat, frozen and wide-eyed on her horse. She didn’t carry a weapon—had never been taught how to use one—and the rage at the injustice now flickered in her bright, blazing eyes.

Lucien would make quick work of them—Jurian would, too.

He gripped the hilt of his sword tighter in his hand, the silvery steel catching a glimpse of the midday sun. And when the assassin reached him at last, his own two daggers ready and aimed for his neck, Lucien plunged it into his heart.

There was a loud squelch as he pulled the sword out of his body, and the assassin fell with a thud, his blood already staining the mossy earth. He wasn’t dead, not yet, but incapacitated enough that it gave Lucien enough time to whirl to the other—the archer waiting closer to the trees, his bow already drawn, a long arrow pointed at Vassa.

He was too far to leave Lucien any hope, any time for combat—so, without thinking, he pulled the knife strapped to his thigh and aimed for the head.

Lucien was never particularly skilled in dagger throwing, so he allowed himself a split second of satisfaction as the intruder, too, dropped to the ground with a choked gasp. He turned to Jurian, then, anticipating a similar scene to enter his sight—only to find him half-bleeding and fighting.

Lucien ran for his friend, silently cursing himself for allowing him and Elain to stray so far behind, fighting the panic that had already begun to rise through his chest and clench his lungs tight. The assassin Jurian was fighting was a lot more impressive in his skill, blocking Jurian’s blows with ease as the General grew sloppier, his right arm dripping red.

It was then that Lucien realised the fourth assassin was nowhere in sight.

And neither was Elain.

Lucien turned just in time to find her galloping towards Vassa, screaming something to her in a language he didn’t understand. He understood her intentions well enough, though. 

“You would risk your life for her in such a way?” he’d asked her a few days before.

“Of course I would.”

The masked warrior appeared as though out of nowhere, moving so quietly that the smooth sound of his arrow being drawn was the only implication of his presence. Jumping less than six feet from Elain’s grey horse, he blocked it from its path, and directed the weapon at its head.

Lucien pivoted, nearly slipping on the dampened earth, the next dagger already in his hand.

The stallion’s dark eyes widened at the attacker, and, startled, it reared up with a loud neigh.

“Elain—!”

It was too late.

The reins she gripped so tightly snapped, and Elain fell on her back.

“ELAIN!” Lucien screamed, the sound prompting the assassin to whirl back on his feet as his hand moved to the quiver strapped to his back.

Lucien would be damned before he let him reach it.

The assassin fell to his knees with a strained gargle, and that was that.

A stunned, terrifying silence fell over the forest before Vassa broke into tears.

“Oh, Gods, Elain—”

“Lucien, is she—”

Lucien lunged again.

Jurian reached him in an instant, his own opponent discarded a few feet away, and gripped the horse’s shredded reins, pacifying the animal as Lucien fell to Elain’s side.

“Breathe,” he whispered because he wasn’t sure what he’d do if she didn’t.

He waited a second.

Then another.

And then Elain breathed.

“Thank the Gods.”

He slipped his arms underneath her knees, under the back of her neck, so gently that he had to keep his hands from shaking.

“She’s alive—unconscious,” he said, turning to Jurian and Vassa. “I’m taking her back to the palace.” A look at Jurian. “See if any of them survived.”

Jurian nodded, his expression grim. If one of the assassins did, they would be taken in for…questioning.

Perhaps Lucien would do it himself.

He looked at Elain then—at her pale face, still twisted in horror, at the small cut across her cheek.

The healers would help her—they had to.

Without another word, Lucien placed her atop his horse and rode back to the palace.

***

Elain was in agony.

“Be still,” a familiar voice ordered, familiar enough that her eyes shot open.

The first thing she saw was a bright, golden light, flickering lightly over the sandstone walls. Candlelight, she realised, which meant that the sun must have already set well behind the horizon. Just how long had she slept?

She hadn’t slept, she suddenly realised. She…

Oh.

“What—” the word came out as a hoarse groan. Gods.Vassa might have been her friend, but falling off the horse in front of the Princess was still embarrassing enough.

But then Elain remembered why she’d fallen, and her body jolted up.

It was the wrong thing to do.

Elain bit back a scream as white-hot sensation flashed before her eyes. Her back—she’d injured her back, and badly. It felt like her spine was being stretched and pulled on, the blood throbbing so hard under her skin that she could feel it swelling in her palm as she reached to brush her lower back.

Vassa’s steady hands settled on her shoulders, and she gently guided her down. “Try not to move. The healer says it’ll be at least two days before you can stand up.”

Her voice shook slightly as she spoke, and Elain slowly placed her hand atop hers. “Your Highness—”

“Don’t even start.” Her blue eyes lined with silver. “This…this is all my fault.”

Elain hissed. “That’s not—”

“Yes,” Vassa pressed. “It is. Elain, you were in danger because of me. They could have killed you because of me, and my ignorance—I am so, so sorry.”

Elain squeezed her friend’s hand with all the strength she could gather. “There is no need for apologies,” she said, and meant it. “My life is in your hands, Princess.”

Vassa looked as though she was going to protest, so Elain added quickly, “I did not see Rask’s royal sigil.” And she looked—in the brief time she was given to take in her surroundings, she searched for their enemy’s presence and found none. “Who did this?”

“We’re working on it,” a low, quiet voice reached her from across the room, and Elain flinched. She did not notice his presence at all—how long had he been standing there? Watching?

Prince Lucien took a step forward, and she tried to move upwards again—injured or not, she was still bound by protocol. Perhaps she couldn’t curtsy now, but a simple bow—

A ripple of pain passed through her again, and a stifled gasp escaped her throat. Lucien’s russet eyes widened in alarm. “Gods, Elain, please—don’t. Just…” He swallowed hard, something pained in his expression as he kept his gaze on her. “Please, just rest.”

She couldn’t look away—not when, after days of forcing herself to avoid him, she was finally given a moment of reprieve.

She knew it was for the better good—for both of them. There was a pull toward him she felt at all times, no matter how hard she tried to stay away—a pull dangerous enough that she didn’t dare to cross paths with him again as she navigated the palace. Even in meetings, where her presence as handmaiden was required, she would fade into shadows—into the most secluded corners of the rooms, far enough to not see just how painfully beautiful Lucien was, but close enough to listen to his honeyed voice.

His voice as he spoke of the wedding. To Vassa. To her Princess—her best friend.

Her best friend who was now clearing her throat quietly. “I must go check on my security,” she said, rising to her feet from the edge of Elain’s bed. Elain frowned—as far as she remembered, the only security that had gone riding with them was…

“Is the General inured?” she asked, daring another glance at Lucien.

His handsome features strained. “He’ll be alright.”

“His arm was nearly sliced in half,” Vassa said, a bite to her tone that made Elain’s brows furrow. The Princess composed herself quickly, though, concern replacing the strange look in her eyes as she met Elain’s gaze again. “Will you be alright, Elain?”

“Of course.”

And with that, Vassa left the room, the sound of her hurried steps echoing through the corridor neighbouring the quarters.

Leaving her and Lucien…alone.

“Are you…” she started, looking over his body—he was still wearing his riding gear, though stained now and bloodied.

“I’m fine.” His voice strained as he took another step forward. “Elain—why did you do it?”

Was that what was bothering him?

“How can you even ask me that?” It hadn’t been the first time Elain was in danger—she was handmaiden, yes, but only a few truly understood what her role truly meant.

She wasn’t a servant—but a protector.

And today, she’d almost failed.

Lucien did not seem appeased. “How could you just—you’d almost thrown your body in line of Vassa’s.” Something flared in his gaze—not annoyance, not anger, but…

Panic.

“You could have died,” he finished, his chest falling with a heavy breath.

 “This is my duty, Lucien,” Elain said, doing her best to ignore the way his entire body stilled. “To Vassa, to my people—I’m sure you, of all people, understand.”

After all, he had a duty to Vassa himself.

The silence that fell was almost palpable, and she wondered if she’d gone too far—if she’d gotten too comfortable in lecturing the Prince, if she’d somehow implied—

“Yes,” Lucien said then, breaking her line of thought. “I do.”

Elain nodded, a sudden wave of heaviness crashing over her as her body cried out once more. She blinked slowly, but the golden light seemed to melt before her eyes until she could no longer tell if it was the candles looking down at her, or Lucien’s russet eyes.

“Rest, Elain,” a soft, sad voice reached her. “Rest.”

So she did.

Taglist (let me know if you'd like to be added!): @asnowfern @areyoudreaminof @readercacau @fieldofdaisiies @melting-houses-of-gold @octobers-veryown @selesera @addicted-to-nothing @wilde-knight @emily-gsh @thelovelymadone @corcracrow @darling-archeron @kingofsummer93 @panicatthenightcourt @vulpes-fennec @suilamhainsposts @7thdove

Note: If you see your name on the taglist but didn't get the notification, it means your tumblr settings are set to disable your blog from being tagged by non-mutuals! This can be changed in your blog settings :)

#elucien au #elucien #pro elucien #elucien fic #elucien fanfiction #elain x lucien #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #acotar fic #acotar #my writing

[foodsies4me]

I love Apollo:Blood Wars! I’m desperate to see those three get their comeuppance! I know absolutely nothing about daemons but your fix does a great job at conveying the seriousness of the relationship. I wouldn’t of thought that Alec would have a parrot but it makes sense! If you don’t mind elaborating, what was your process for deciding everyone’s daemon?

Tbh, I’m a sucker for any story that recognises the lack of stellar siblingship in shadowhunters. Season one Alec is treated awfully and I love him being appreciated. Like, I get they’re teenagers but surely siblings would know the amount of shite he’s dealing with being acting head.

Love all your works and looking forward to updates!

Thank you for the kind words, nonnie!

For some reason, all of my leftover salt for the way Jace and Izzy treat Alec in season 1 came out in this fic, which means it takes some getting used to when I switch over to a fic where they are being good siblings.

Also, I am apologizing for the absolute ramble I'm going to send your way, but in my defense, you asked about the choosing process for the daemons! I'm only going to be mentioning the daemons we already have met to avoid rambling too much.

So, for Alec, I knew I wanted a bird from the get-go, and while I have seen a lot of fanart of Alec holding a raven or a crow I wanted to do something different. Then I just went for personality: I needed it to be an intelligent bird, social and cuddly with those it trusts and loves but picky about handing out that trust and so I ended up choosing a parrot. (I'll admit I was partially influenced by my own parrots, one of which I have heavily based Apollo's quirks on.) Additionally, I thought it was funny to give Alec, who doesn't speak much unless he's at ease, an animal known for talking a lot as a daemon.

For Magnus: Well who else but Chairman Meow could it have been? So, that one didn't take much thought.

Izzy got a black panther because I wanted something graceful, strong, and most of all dangerous. Several characters have daemons that appear harmless - either because of magic or because they're animals we tend to wrongly consider harmless. But, with Izzy, I didn't want that to be the case because Izzy gives me very strong "I'm dangerous. I know I'm dangerous. And I don't hide it" vibes in the series. And so, black panther!

Jace got a lioness (as well as two other forms that haven't been revealed yet!) for similar reasons. I wanted a dangerous animal, prideful if possible and, what with the whole "Jace is one of the best fighters the Clave has seen in years" I needed it to be a King of thee Jungle kind of dangerous so that's how I landed on a lioness for him.

Underhill has a snappy, eastern box turtle: smart, quiet, shy and harmless (at least at first sight). They're often considered solitary creatures, but they can grow really strong bonds with other turtles or their human owners when in captivity, and this ties into my headcanon that Underhill looks like a friendly loner at first (nice and kind but likes to keep to his own) but that he just needs some time to get out of his shell so to speak.

Clary has a dove and a bull (+ one more unrevealed form) the former of which she shares with Valentine. I liked the idea of Valentine using the fact that his daemon is a dove ( a symbol of peace and purity) as a way to further prove his righteousness and moral superiority compared to the rest when he was still starting out with creating the Circle. Clary having that same daemon is also my not-so-subtle way of showing how, despite being very against him in the series, Clary shows a lot of traits that are similar to Valentine. The bull daemon is another - is dangerous, but also fits Clary because of her bullheadedness, I run full speed without thinking of the consequences personality. (Or that's the way I read her at least.)

Jace and Clary's daemons having multiple forms will be dived into further as the story progresses, but it ties back into the whole "all downworlders have something special going on with their daemons" thing.

Kyle (yes I am talking about my OC's and their daemons because I am entirely shameless) has a dumbo rat: friendly, sociable, curious, inquisitive, and very intelligent (which works well with Kyle being the Head of the Investigation Department), cuddly and just all around very affectionate. Basically, they're golden labrador puppies but as rats, which fits Kyle.

Cécile has a Barbados threadsnake (the smallest snake species in the world! They are so cute and smoll!) They're solitary like most snakes and prefer a nocturnal lifestyle. They're non-venomous and prefer to spend most of their time burrowed in soft soil, which again works with Cécile who prefers to be on her own, which is why she spends most of her time working undercover in the mundane world in places where mundanes might unknowingly come into contact with demons.

I'm going to stop my rambling here before I really turn this into a novel, but yeah that is a very rough resume of the thought process I had when choosing the different daemons. :D

#foodsies rambles #foodsies answers #apollo fic #also someone tell me to go write some more AWG one-shots or to work on the second installment #because I want to #but my brain is being rude

[cluuny]

First of all who are the characters. Second of all do you have designs or thoughts on potential designs for them

el cariño "honey" "sugar" "babygirl" graceffa (he/she), the child of joey and sausage, is heir of mythland and my favorite guy. she's got parrot wings, longish wavy dark hair and a moustache and wears a lot of dramatic swishy gowns and capes.

xoey graceffa (she/her), the child of xornoth and joey, and heir to the lost kingdom, is like basically the angel with a shotgun edgy self insert basic character except with crushing oldest sister syndrome. she's got long purple hair with black tips, solid black eyes and black nails and wears mostly black dresses.

harkin tay (he/they), the son of fwhip and jimmy and heir to the grimlands, is a paranoid little freak who carries around a machete at all times and is a total asshole to everyone and has wild red hair with white streaks. he wears safety goggles and is usually chewing on a cigarette.

clarabella smallishbeans (she/sea/shore), daughter of joel and lizzie and heir to the ocean empire, is literally just the exact same person as lizzie, but with green hair. at some point she hits a rebellious phase and starts trying to declare war and everyone is like. "ok clare bear." she wears mostly suits.

lake berry (they/them) is the adopted child of katherine and shrub and the heir of both their kingdoms. they tiny and fierce, a classic wolf kid who grew up into a wolf adult. would have loved warrior cats. as an adult they have solid white hair and are very buff. wear a lot of overalls with nothing under them.

and now for the ones i have less on.

areole (he/they/it/glow), the heir of pixandria. a jackrabbit person with solid gold eyes.

kamara (she/her), the heir of the crystal cliffs. a black woman with long white and purple dreads.

humm (they/it), the heir of the codlands. a codman in a wheelchair with a fishhook piercing in either side of their mouth.

indigo (he/it), the heir of mezalea, a young joel clone and clara's main advisor.

dearn (she/he), the heir of gilded helianthia, an eagle person.

luiro (he/him), the heir of rivendel, doesn't take over during the plot of the story. brown skin and long grey hair.

#empires next gen #?

[randomnameless]

What are your top 5 Strawmitri arguments?

Mine would be, in no particular order:

Dimitri cares about the present, therefore he doesn't care at all about the future and would be a terrible leader because of it

He's so mentally ill he can never hope to recover, and as such Edelgard did him a favor by killing him in CF

He's more at fault for the war than Edelgard because he fought back after she attacked first and unprovoked, instead of letting her take Faerghus without a fight

The entire point of Dimitri's character and of AM in general is how royalty can get away with commiting crimes commoners would be executed for, since Fleche gets killed for trying to take revenge on him but he survives in spite of all the people he killed when he was at his most unhinged

Dimitri's hatred of Edelgard is rooted in his love for her back when they were kids, which is why him killing her in AM by stabbing her with his phallic-shaped lance is supposed to be symbolic of his desire to fuck her

Oh gods, I remember I wanted to make a "redshit takes awards" once upon a time, but then I gave up lol

I haven't browsed that much about Dimitri nor given too much thought about the discourse surrounding him because laughing at the Rhea takes took way too much time, but I think I really laughed at the :

Dimitri is racist because he cuts Claude when Claude is being an asshole about the Abyss

Even if I can't forgot the

Defensive invasion

Dimitri represents toxic masculinity (the guy who has traditional "feminine" coded hobbies like sewing, who cries, who blushes calling his friends by their first names, whose biggest default and the one that leads him to his downfall is his empathy, etc etc)

Dimitri stole Felix and Annette's dads :(

dimitri is a religious extremist because he shelters Rhea who is also a religious extremist. source : trust me bro I know i have a degree in advanced bullshit

the State of Quo - as Dimitri reforms his country like his dad wanted to do but never got the chance because his head rolled from his shoulders for some reason - this one was parroted in Nopes because how dare he want a progressive change rather than a radical one !!

and last but not the least, and it's less about Dimitri than about the poor redshiter who said something like "women love dimitri because they are controled by their ovaries and they prefer a violent man who would abuse them rather than real people like me :("

Oh and also, as a french person so far removed from american politics, the "Dimitri is a centrist" take always made me laugh (Dimitri chez Bayrou?)

From your takes though, I'd rank them like this :

peepee weapon thus stabbing Supreme Leader means he wanted to fuck her and this is why he goes "cray-cray" because she didn't reciprocate his affections (and totes not because he believes she killed his father, their mother, his friends and actually starts a war slaughtering thousands of randoms)

"too cray-cray to live"

caring about the present sucks because you don't care about the future (which is totally not built on the people living in the present!)

nobles bad because they kill commoners who try to kill them :(

victim blaming (this one is so mainstream!)

#anon #replies #fandom woes #i think the racist!dimitri really takes the cake though #i guess there really are some cultural differences and stuff I can't really get as a non us person #of course the double standard is ridiculous here but that's the Fodlan fandom for you #if Dimitri breathes he is bad but if Supreme Leader eats a marshmallow she's awesome #FE16 #Dimitri BaD

[the-massive-simp]

In the right place - Nikolai Lantsov x reader

IT TOOK ME AGES TO WRITE THIS HELP btw this is my first long(ish) fic so it wont be the best but i tried really hard for nik<3<3

remember that english is not my first language, sorry for any errors! (feel free to point them out in the comments, i'll correct them)

REMEMBER TO DRINK WATER AND EAT SOMETHING TODAY OR I'LL COME TO YOUR HOUSE WITH MY AGGRESSIVE PARROT luv ya<3

warnings: Nikolai is stupid, kind of angst(?) but not really (happy ending), nik drinks like two glasses of kvas but he doesn't get drunk

Maybe this is not where I’m supposed to be. She thought, looking at the stars. It was night, at the Grand Palace, and she’d been sitting at the window for what felt like hours. But her mind, her stupid, stubborn mind, was miles away from that room. 

The first time they met, he was not himself. He was Sturmhond, the self-proclaimed ”sexiest privateer of all the True Sea”, and he offered her a place in his crew. At that time his name was not as famous, but the rumors about him were starting to grow. When she heard his name slip from the mouth of a Shu girl walking through the harbour with a boy who seemed her brother, she followed the two. She wanted to leave that city, so might at well get a nice job that would make her travel the world. -Wait!- the two Shu turned around and looked at her. Shortly after she was in the Captain’s cabin, and then in his crew. As she passed more and more time with the privateer, she found her heart beat quicker every time he said one of his stupid flirty jokes to her, every time she saw him shout orders to the crew to lead them through yet another storm, every time his strange reddish hair were ruffled by the wind sea, every time she looked into his odd eyes. She always wondered what love felt like. She was in love with Love, but was what she felt really that? Was it just a stupid crush? Or maybe he really was that anchor she was searching for, that something to rely on when she had a bad day, that someone to hold closer as the night came. So the hopeful girl looked with heart eyes at the young captain, and the young captain looked at the waves. 

When Alina and Mal came, she was scared. She saw the way her captain looked at the Saint. Oh it was so unfair to call him hers, so selfish, she knew that. But her heart thought otherwise. And before she knew it, her captain was not her captain anymore. When they crashed on the ground of Ravka and he revealed his true identity, she was pretty shocked. The twins left some clues for her to pick up about Sturmhond not being his real name, but she didn’t know his real one. She looked at his ginger hair becoming lighter, his eyes now fading until they became hazel, like sugary honey. She saw power and authority rushing to him, to his undeniably regal features, that overall recalled the one she learned to love. She tried his name in her mouth. Nikolai Lantsov. Nikolai. Was her privateer still there? The astonished girl looked at the young prince, and he glanced at her. 

During the war she discovered that Nikolai wasn’t different from Sturmhond, but she somehow saw him in a different way. Maybe it was that he kept changing masks to fit in his place as the prince, or maybe it was the fact that now she knew that she couldn’t have him. He was meant to marry a princess or a rich and noble girl or maybe a certain Sun Summoner. But Saints, her heart couldn’t care less, he wanted to be torn apart by those golden locks, by those hazel eyes, by that cocky grin, by that amazing man that Nikolai Lantsov was. She watched him become closer and closer to Alina, and she knew that if she really loved him she was supposed to be happy: after all, what is love if not caring for the happiness of that certain someone that makes us see the world ten times brighter? When she heard that the Sun Summoner had the Lantsov Emerald, she felt her heart tighten. So, the sad girl looked at the happy prince, and he forced himself to not look at her. 

Then that day came. The day when the Darkling found the Spinning Wheel. She ran towards the screams just in time to see her captain, her king, her Nikolai inhaling two shadows. She rushed to him, as he tore off his shirt, to reveal the dark lines that were spreading under his skin. She took his hands and looked at his terrified face, drowning in his hazel eyes, two deep golden-brown wells. He threw his head back and screamed when two black wings erupted on his back. They looked at eachother one last time and then he flew away. 

And now that the war was over, he didn’t talk to her. Saints, he didn’t even acknowledge her existence! Every time she was in his presence, even if it was just for a public speech of his, she hoped, prayed, that he would lay his eyes on her and notice her. Oh, how stupid of her to fall for Sturmhond, for him, for his golden locks, for his hazel eyes, for his charming personality, for his stupid grin, for his beautiful laugh. She thought that maybe, somewhere in the now king’s hearth there was some space for her, but she was obviously wrong. This and other thoughts of the same kind ran through her head, keeping her awake. Until a knock on the door interrupted the frantic activity of her mind. When she opened the door, her eyes met the last face she expected.

-Nikolai?-

-I need to talk to you.-

When he first met her, he’d never thought that he would stay awake so late thinking about her. A hundred times the urge to get up and go to her room came to him, and a hundred times he pushed it away. Maybe, if he fell for her back when he was Sturmhond, they could have a chance. But now? He had been avoiding her since the last battle in the Fold, because he had his duties as a king to keep him from marrying whoever he wanted. But she’s a war hero! People would love her as a queen. There was this voice in the back of his mind, constantly breaking down every single objection he tried to make. You can’t let her go this way. Saints, he had never wished so bad to be an ordinary person. In another life, they’d have met at one of their village’s festivals, and they would have danced all night. No weight of a nation on their backs, no pressure at all, just two ordinary people living an ordinary life, full of ordinary things… if love can ever be called that. He stretched an arm to reach the bottle of kvas that was in the corner of the desk and poured himself a glass. He slided the chair back slightly and downed all the liquid in one sip. He reached for the bottle again,but the urge to see her came back, stronger than ever before. It crashed against his rationality and destroyed it, like a wave destroying the sandcastles built by little children. He got up and left his chambers, telling his guards to not follow him. He walked to her chamber, but it wasn’t enough. He tried to keep his composure, and forced himself to not run through the hallways, up and down the stairs of the Big Palace. He stopped when he faced her door. He raised a hand to knock and waited. After a moment she opened the door: she looked surprised to see him, and she had all the rights to be. After all, he’d been avoiding her for almost a month. When he said that he needed to talk to her, her expression hardened. 

-You haven’t talked to me, apparently without a reason, for a while. What makes my presence…- she was trying to be mad, but then he interrupted her, and spoke.

-I’m sorry. For ignoring you. And for everything else.- The irritation that crinkled her features shifted towards curiosity. 

-What do you mean with “everything else”?- 

-Can I come in?- she pondered the question for a moment and then stepped aside to let him in. She followed him and then closed the door. He took a deep breath in and runned an hand through his hair. 

-So, what did you mean?-

-I meant all the time I made you waste. We should had this conversation long ago, and I’m sorry for making you wait-

-Nikolai I accept your excuses, but don’t you dare to ignore me for a month again- she smiled at him.

-I wasn’t talking about that. At least, not only that.-

-You’re confusing me.-

-People often feel that way when they see me, no need to worry.- 

-Nikolai.-

He huffed and then he tried to speak again, but she preceded him. 

-I think I’m actually the one that has something important to say.-

-Well then ladies first.-

-Since we.. uhm I mean I- oh fuck it she tought. -I have feelings for you. That kind of feelings. Since we met. At the start it was just a crush but I fear that it might have evolved into something more. I know that you probably don’t feel the same but I thought that it was fair to let you know. You don’t have to worry about my professionality, this doesn’t affect my work and- he interrupted her by walking to the windowsill, where she was sitting, and taking her hands in his.

-Well, usually I have a talent for excelling, but this time you beat me on time- she was surprised, almost shocked.

-Wait do you mean that-

-Yes, I, the amazing and damnably handsome Nikolai Lantsov, have feelings for you. That kind of feelings- 

She hugged him, and he hugged her back. They held each other so hard it almost hurt, but they didn’t care. Her feet almost didn’t touch the pavement, but he had her back. She put her hands on his cheeks and whispered against his lips before kissing him: -I’ve waited so long for this- 

The kiss was sweet and chaste. It felt like two pieces of the same puzzle finally finding their place next to each other. It felt like steel finding flint. Nikolai hoped, prayed that the spark would never expire. He wanted to know every inch of her mind and her body. He wanted to see her in a beautiful dress, in the chapel where the royal weddings were celebrated. He wanted to wake up next to her for the rest of his life. And she wanted him the same way. She wanted to lay on his chest and feel his heartbeat. She wanted to hear him calling her love, darling, this time not in one of his jokes. She wanted to place her lips on his every night before going to sleep. That night, they slept in the same bed, holding close the person they loved the most. And it was exactly where they were supposed to be. 

#nikolai lantsov x reader #nikolai lantsov #sturmhond #sturmhond x reader #shadow and bone #sab #sab netflix #nikolai lantsov fluff #king of scars #nikolai x reader #king nikolai #nikolai lantsov x reader fluff

[parrotxx]

I was playing Minecraft earlier so I thought maybe I would share some headcanons about the Pandavas (+Kara) playing Minecraft :]

Aru is literally just playing pranks on everyone. She starts wars. She lives for the drama. She drops potatoes into everyone's inventories while they're afk. She kidnaps pets for ransom. Aru is chaos incarnate. Her house is probably a tiny cube made out of wood with just a bed, furnace, and crafting table, but I could also see her having some sort of underground base. She keeps no pets, but as I said before, she kidnaps some for ransom. She's rich from it.

Mini is complaining a bit about the scientific inaccuracies and for a period of time she begged for Education Edition before being bribed to stop with diamonds. She is strangely good at gathering materials and likes it because it's an easy mindless task she can do while thinking about other things. She keeps a parrot named BB (since there are no pigeons in Minecraft) but he is the group pet and anyone is free to vibe with him for a while.

Brynne is a PVP god. And a PVE god. Literally just a Minecraft god, in fact. She will beat the crap out of mobs. If you challenge her to a fight, that is a mistake. She will destroy you. She raids villages. She's made at least 10 iron golems to guard her house. She's also insanely good at water bucket clutches for some reason. She carries the Potatoes. If you get lost, she will find you and help you get back to your house. If your pet dies from a zombie attack, she will smite the zombie that killed it and find you a hundred new pets to choose from. Full enchanted netherite. She also has a horse. No one knows why.

Nikita and Sheela are just building. Niki is great at building because she has super good taste and Sheela is just vibing. They built like half of the stuff in the server. Sheela has like 1000 pets, 80% of which are axolotls. She refuses to kill a single animal. Niki has a pet cat named Sparkles with a magenta collar that is treated to the finest luxuries (a stack of fish per day). He also has his own room in Niki and Sheela's shared house.

Kara also likes to build. Her house is gorgeous and is also immune to Aru's pranks because she set up boobytraps everywhere. She only fights with a trident. She refuses to go into caves and/or have a basement. She exclusively strip mines. Kara has many pets in various enclosures, including two cats, a dog, a parrot, four foxes, and several axolotls. She keeps a diary with a book and quill, except she filled up all of the pages in the first one so now she has 7 (and it's still going).

#tpq #the pandava quintet #aru shah #mini kapoor mercado lopez #brynne rao #brynne tvarika lakshmi balamuralikrishna rao #nikita jagan #sheela jagan #kara #minecraft #headcanons

[new-berry]

WIP list culling

All fiction made up etc etc

I think I’m never going to write more of this. Quite tame, one kiss. Erling /Alex Isak.

I have no idea if Erling has brothers or sisters, and Alfie has a tragic backstory so the mention of loss of a child very briefly. I have done so little research it strikes me Erling’s dad’s name might not be Alfie? I’m sorry. It is now.

At school Alfie’s best subject was history. Second was languages. Even though he was good at football he wasn't the star, even of his school's team. He was very dedicated though. Watching videos over and over until the tapes wore out. Practising over and over. Disregarding the aches in his bones and the pain in his knees.

He went to church, sitting on it’s hard cold benches. His mother wrapped her headscarf tight under her chin. His fatter frowning even before the sermon had started. There was little light and the braziers were only turned on in the coldest of weather. The priest wasn’t much older than his parents but he seemed ancient. Alfie knew that football could take him far away.

He didn’t know that parenthood would be what would bring him back.

Sitting at night he would patiently trace the letters of old Norse and write down timelines that all started with Vikings and all seemed to end with world wars.

His parents would tolerate the school teach folklore only in the early years of schooling and insisted on equal time spent reading the bible.

“That child is not right.” His mother said. The wind howled and Alfie deliberately didn’t look out the window.

Erling would never stray too far away. Looking out for his father. Checking in before slinking off when Alfie tried to domesticate him.

“He is a child blessed with life by our lord.” Alfie says and they both cross themselves at the mention of the maker.

“And what have you named him?” She asks, her mouth pursed over the words.

“My son’s name is Erling.” She tried to hide her pleasure, her fathers name that she had wanted for Alfie.

She smiles then, briefly but it’s still the first sign of thawing of her disapproval.

“Well he is a strong child.” They both look at him running in the wind. Alfie can keep pants on him but Erling steadfastly refuses anything else.

“Hover to have that name that child has to be christened.” His mother says severely. “In a shirt. Quietly.”

It’s his mother that finds Erling can be bribed into nearly anything with a football.

He isn’t bothered by the snow. He touches the trees that make the makeshift square that Alfie has told him to stay in like it’s an imaginary fence. He’s not sure Erling understands yet what a fence is. And Alfie couldn’t hold him inside it if he didn’t allow it.

Erling likes hugs through. At night his mother sings lullabies. Erling enjoys them as well.

Erling sits on the chair, upright. His hands exactly in his knees, posture almost perfect, just a slight curling in at the shoulders.

“Nice to meet you. How are you?” Alfie says.

“Nicetomeetyouhowareyou?” Erling parrots back.

“Pauses son.” Alfie reminds him. “Nice, pause. To, pause. Meet, pause. You, pause.” Alfie nods and makes a go-on gesture with his hands.

“Nice. To. Meet. You.” Alfie smiles and Erling smiles back.

The elk meat on Erling’s plate is seared around the outsides and raw in the middle. Alfie only fights him to use the knife and fork for a few bites. Afterwards Erling runs his finger through the pool of elk blood and licks it up.

They watch football games, Erling’s bright eyes focused on the forward line. “You could be a defender.” Alfie reminds him. “You have the right size.” Eight years old, essentially, Erling is already over five feet tall.

“Goals.” Erling tells him. “Striker.” Alfie sleeps in the bed now, it was the couch at first, trying to keep between the door and anyone who might come looking, but the sound of Erling playing kept him up at night.

The noise of him running the little metal cars over the floorboards still keeps him up some nights, but after a while its background noise. In the morning a groove is run over the floor to the door and two cars are crumpled.

“I’ll get some more at the supermarket.” He tells Erling.

“Breakfast?” He gets back. “Pasta?”

“Can I have pasta?” Alfie prompts. Erling’s hands look bigger. “Football?” Erling says.

“I need to buy a new ball.” Alfie reminds him gently. “Shall we go for a swim instead?

Erling is like an otter in the water. Alfie rows to the centre of the fjord. Erling comes up with a pike between his teeth.

“Do you want to grill that?” Alfie asks. Erling bites the head off instead of answering, crunching loudly.

“We eat with our mouths closed.” Alfie reminds him. “Can you get one for my dinner?” Erling catches five and dumps them in the middle of the rowboat.

“Push the boat back?” Alfie suggests. That night, after frying the fish over an open fire, Erling falls asleep. Alfie leaves him there under the tree, he’s more comfortable in fresh air than in a bedroom. He would hear anyone coming from miles away anyway.

That long winter and breezy summer Alfie read through a book that had appeared on his table after Erling was, after Erling became his son. The runes revealing themselves eventually. When summer spilled to autumn the book was gone. Erling’s growth slowed to normal rates.

His talents continued to expand.

Alexander is nearly as tall as Erling. Not as strong but nearly as fast.

Erling tilts his head down the way he normally does to kiss and would have gotten Alex’s chin, if Alex didn’t laugh and slide his fingers, thin and long, across his cheeks and pull him in to kiss. Alfie spins quickly out of the room before he is seen ‘Puppy love’ he tells himself, sending Erling a text he is delayed and will be at the usual meeting place in five minutes.

Alfie walks to the corner and loiters by the park benches until the time has passed. He passes Alex on the stairs, they nod but don’t make conversation.

Alfie wasn’t sure how to even have the talk with him. Having siblings and cousins had taught him more than anything else to be more gentle off the field. Erling was kind to his stepmother. And apart from being lazy about getting dressed in the morning and a fondness for his grandmother and her singing despite her severity there was nothing to separate him from the other boys in the football academies. Perhaps a fondness for rare steak.

Erling walks home with hearts in his eyes. Raving about Alex, how he’s never felt this way before.

“You’re nineteen.” Alfie says finally. “What do you remember about being a child?”

Erling looks at his father in surprise . “I remember you. Playing football.”

“Do you remember…. Growing? Catching up to the age your brother and sister were? And then..”

Erling shakes his head. “I remember you. And Grandma.”

“Do you remember the lake?” Alfie asks.

Erling frowns on the way home. It’s late at night when the door to Alfie’s room opens.

“What haven’t you told me?” Alfie sighs, he can feel Erling’s eyes tracking him in the dark like a cat.

“This is the age when, people like you, your kind, pair up. It may not be Alex, just your hormones!” Alfie gets out in a rush.

“What do you mean, ‘people like me’?” Erling asks quietly. Alfie reaches out and Erling lets himself be held in place the same way he had as a child.

Erling has vanished in the morning. Alfie picked him up thirty miles away sitting by a lake.

“I'm not saying don’t see the boy,” Alfie says “just be careful. He’s not Norwegian. He may not understand.”

When Erling signs for Manchester he and Alex break up. Blaming distance and travel. Erling very firmly blames his father and the secrecy he make Erling promise to hold.

Alfie sits as Erling rages that Alex left because there was something he knew Erling wasn’t telling him. Even though they are together everyday the way they haven’t been since Erling was a child there is a cool distance that doesn’t quite warm between them.

Until Alex signs for Newcastle.

At first it is just to catch up with an old friend. When Erling doesn’t return until two days later glowing and in a good mood despite the bags under his eyes Alfie knows that he will simply have to adapt to a Swedish son in law.

“I’m going to tell Alex everything.” Erling says over breakfast. He’s not quite meeting Alfie’s eye, and there is a tinge of pink on his cheeks matching the pink bite mark that Alfie keeps his eyes away from peeking from under his collar.

Alfie looks at him. Older than the teenagers who usually find their partners. Erling looks very sure.

“I want you to be happy.” He says. “You know it’s different for you? You only fall in love once?”

I’’m already in love with him.” Erling says. “I won’t tell him that until he’s had time to get used to everything.”

Alfie nods and they finish breakfast in a silence that holds a lightness

They apologised, over and over. Alfie standing in the rain, the coffins lined up like nesting dolls, about to be stacked inside each other, the two littlest for show, his children lying eternally with their mother in her protective embrace.

They apologised again. Their explanations were meaningless. The teenagers, on their rampage, a yearly pilgrimage through the mountains when the trolls would find their partners. A car that wasn’t supposed to be there.

Alfie shook his head steadily and looked at the dark earth of the grave that held everything. The oldest man there, big nose slightly hidden behind his beard and moustache, his eyebrows thick and spilling over his face tangling in his lashes and finally presses a stone into his hands.

“A father should have a child, as a child should have a father. This little one’s parents didn’t escape the earthquake so many years ago.”

Alfie lets it drop on the ground and turns away once the graves are filled. It turns up the next morning in his garden, on his walk, on the floor of his children’s room.

Soon he carries it everywhere in his pocket. The stone warmed from his body heat.

He sits drinking whiskey, turning it over and over in his hands as the messages and cards stack up. Tracing the runes. The lightening bolt inscribed on it. The promise that it whispers to him.

The next time it storms he goes outside. Expecting nothing. Nothing exactly what he has held in his arms for almost a year.

Lightning strikes. White and strong and the earth shakes. Amongst the shattered dust, the palest of sons.

#fic #one day I’ll tidy up the tumblr fics #and add to AO3. #probabaly