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smoothgeometry · 1 year

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Premise (accessible ver.)

[PLEASE NOTE THAT THE BELOW CONTAINS A RATHER LONG WINDED EXPLANATION OF THE SANDBOX AND HISTORY OF WRITING WITHIN IT. THE TRUNCATED VERSION CAN BE FOUND ON THE PINNED POST ON THIS BLOG'S MAIN PAGE.]

Background

The story of this setting is simple, but I wanted to include it anyways, since the goal of this blog is to preserve the knowledge and journey.

Originally, around the 2010s, I found a fantasy RP forum containing a very loose version of this sandbox setting on a Proboards site--back when those were popular. I made many friends and wrote on that site for quite a few years, and during that time I pushed for a bit more development on details concerning cultures and locations. There was a lot of wish fulfillment NSFW content on that website, given that people enjoyed shipping their characters with others', but over time there was quite a bit of lore painted by the background details of various location and event details. While I understood that there was a desire to leave things vague enough that anyone could play nearly any sort of fantasy character in this setting (outside of attempting to "godmod" or railroad others), I felt that we could have tiny pockets of groups, neighborhoods, people and cultures with defined information if we were careful.

The website's name at the time was Era of Manipulation, and was later changed to "Libertine Age". Not many people liked or enjoyed that name, and eventually it was changed back. Have a look at one of the website logos (made by me long long ago):

Without turning this into an epic, the conclusion is that Proboards unexpectedly changed its ToS to explicitly prohibit written NSFW content, which led to us seeking out a new RP home to try and retain membership and activity, as well as our character and background information, which was very important to those of us who grew attached. That's pretty typical. We did end up finding a new home for our stuff, and even managed to move many of our characters and old threads--but by then the spark was gone for many people, and the move didn't take root. A few of us remained in contact, but the idea of a new routine on a new website and having to socialize in a large place was overwhelming and difficult to adjust to.

There were still many of us who wanted to continue writing the lives and dramas of our characters, and the result of this desire was a large Google Docs archive. We would simply format our docs in a similar way to old school forums and go back and forth. As time went on, and our lives changed and we grew, and our group became even smaller, we would plan and plot out events via DMs, and flesh out very important events to chronicle them in full prose; there are quite a few DM'd conversations archived as well.

So, there's a lot that's lost due to moving place to place online, quite a lot archived thanks to Google Docs, and still a tiny group of people who are passionate about characters they have in this setting, even though there isn't as much time to write the way we did when we were young and horny college students. We're just horny adults now, haha. So I wanted to preserve my piece of things in a corner where I can look back on it and remember the major turning points.

Sandbox details

[THIS INFO IS DIRECTLY COPIED FROM PREVIOUS ARCHIVES, WITH FEW EDITS FOR READABILITY.]

GENERAL SUMMARY

This is a sandbox set in a divergent future where unseen realms (known as "Realms beyond the Veil") by some catastrophic accident collide with our own. Though the contact was not for long, the result of this event was the outpouring of various magical energies, creatures, and perhaps more mysterious forces out of those planes to be stranded in our own. This has prompted hidden, assimilated beings native to our plane to come forward to combat otherworldly threats and try to wrangle the chaos into peace. Humanity was forced to acknowledge the existence of magic and other ethereal powers as fact, in a context outside of rumor and imaginative mythologies. In an attempt to subjugate foreign powers wreaking havoc on Human societies, slavery was re-established as a system of penance for destructive or dangerous non-Humans from other worlds. With magic saturating the earth, technology rocketed forward in an attempt to maintain mankind's authority on their planet and its new citizens and functions.

Our setting exists in this world a little more than a century after the above event. Humans and non-Humans have adjusted to one another. While the slave market is still primarily comprised of otherworldly creatures, there are just as many non-Humans in a position of power. Greed permeates all races/sentient species, and despite stating that their "goal" was to ensure that the Human race remain "pure", money and valuables can buy nearly everything. Technology has developed more quickly with the introduction of magic, and society is an echo of what it used to be - both similar and different. Things have settled down from the danger and chaos of The Event, and the caste system while loosely defined, is now firmly in place.

As this is a sandbox there is no overall story premise, simply characters interacting in a City on the Eastern coast of the United States, though many other locations are featured!

OUR EARTH, JUST A LITTLE DIFFERENT

The year was 2014. The world-at-large for planet Earth was considered to be quite small: Humans held dominion over the land and those who showcased abilities or talents were shunned, called freaks, ostracized and forced into hidden communities. Lore concerning magic and super-human abilities were relegated to the status of exaggerated legends, children's fancies or lies told by the mad.

This was, allegedly, not always the case. There were Others, of course, creatures and beings and at times, small populations operating in their own circles, passing information about other realms and otherworldly feats from generation to generation from times forgotten when the Earth and its inhabitants were once different. For these people, touched by magic, their abilities were both curse-and-blessing: their abilities were great, but could not often be used or displayed. Glamours were all too common, assimilation necessary to ensure survival. No group revealed in totality to Humans persisted for long, with few exceptions.

It was in fact rumored that the Earth had been protected by the magic of a God; some grandiloquent spell cast eons before, preventing anything other than Humans to flourish. This was a wide and far-reaching belief, as it was well known that Non-Humans didn't reproduce or thrive in similar numbers. Be it through ill-fated luck or deliberate intent, open settlements of the supernatural were overrun or became isolated. And so those peoples remained silent; practitioners and stewards alike over nature and the magic were reduced to sneaking from the shadows to complete their works. Remaining hidden became engraved into various cultures as they hid in plain sight. It seemed that even the very powers that watched over them kept their deepest secrets hidden from a world that would not accept them without much bloodshed and strife, as it remained this way for millennia.

The Earth was primitive without its Otherworldly connections, and Humans suffered in spite of their large numbers. The planet could not replenish resources quickly enough, could not rid itself of disease and illness effectively. Soothing energy only pooled in specific places; the reach of magic was limited and restricted in effectiveness.

That was the status quo - being unaware of their full potential, and of the planes around them, Humans existed blissfully ignorant.

THE GREAT REVEAL

As for how the disaster occurred: A lone Human psychic, her name never recorded, allegedly foresaw the possibility of the Event. She came from a mixed bloodline, with very particular affinities. It was not a matter of power or purity of pedigree - her magic was linked to probability; magic attuned to states of reality was rare occurrence, and stealing it for personal gain was likely motivation (though no one has been able to prove it). It is thought that she was used as a conduit by other scholars of magic, made into an anchor to trigger the uncertain into certainty. Whatever their goal, the task proved too much for them to handle.

They could not control her magic.

If there was a Shield preventing contact with other Realms, it must have shattered or been banished; others still believe a mass of portals might have been manifested instead. The common consensus, however, is that for a brief moment, all of the planes became *merged*. Regardless of what is attributed to be occurrence, the Earth and its inhabitants came into contact with planes layered both above and below, flooded with myriad magical energies, as well as countless creatures both similar and grossly different from those in hiding.

A suddenly over-saturated Earth erupted in chaos. Though many historians emphasize the havoc wreaked by violent, mindless, or ignorant creatures that disrupted every day life, there were other changes, too. Magic changed its topography, changed the flora and fauna, changed any living being it came across, brought new life from other places we have never known with strange properties and effects. Many Humans fell ill, adjusting to new energy swimming through their veins; a handful were transformed almost overnight into living beings thought only figments of imagination.

Initially, there were attempts made to try to replicate the phenomenon to return the visitors and reverse the process. These proved unsuccessful, and these plans were soon abandoned. there were more pressing matters that required attention; with new animals and creatures came problems and dangers that needed to be handled. Many died in attacks or invasions. Some new inhabitants hid on islands and landmasses not yet mapped. Others could disguise themselves undetectably. Areas of the world became unstable and unsafe in a matter of days. It's these times that granted the reveal the alternate nickname of "The Calamity".

IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH

Emerging from their hiding places were those of magical origin born on earth, before the tearing of the Veil. There was little time to debate the validity of these offers for help, and Humans took the hands (or paws, or claws, or talons) of those granting assistance. The leagues of "monsters" now a part of the world were cataloged as best as possible. They worked with Humans to maintain control, to heal injured, sick and ailing. They also helped to capture anything new and unfamiliar for study, parlay (when possible) and when necessary, neutralization. Several diplomats rose to sort things out, to exchange customs and impart information, but few agreement came without a price. Lives of many kinds were lost across conflicts.

The advent of new magics complicated things, despite fast advancements in tech; paper and metallic currency meant virtually nothing when some odd creature could replicate it easily.

But slowly and carefully, many were taught how to function with and allowed to integrate into various communities.

Social conventions struggled to adapt to accommodate new needs and features. Regardless of what was thought of Man, Creature or Beast, order needed to be established for the good or survival. Civilization, or some version of it, managed to cling to the changing planet.

The Great Reveal was not only unexpected, some would argue, but necessary. Others call it Justice or Retribution. A few, Destiny. There are those who argue that the planet would have died without the Event to revive it, that Humans were wasting it away.

And many people were not prepared to share a world with anyone else.

Humans were still considered inheritors of planet Earth by virtue, but it was a different world. They fell into old habits. Humans were better, by their own status, and always had been - how else could they adapt well to this sort of calamity? Those once deemed insane, eccentric, were now in demand - their information helped keep the new inhabitants at bay, kept them from sullying Human culture.

Humans were pure.

By force of law those who had been changed, and what creatures that could be subdued were denied their basic rights. Those who could not be were ignored until the proper tech to take them into custody was designed. They were second-class beings who were - at first - assigned legal guardians to take care of them. From that arrangement swiftly grew a caste system that turned the changed into a commodity. They became slaves, their guardians masters who held most if not all rights over their charges.

Despite the planet being theirs, however, Humans were quickly outnumbered. With the aid of magic, some creatures were indistinguishable, and others simply appeared Human on the surface. And that was not the only resistance: many of them had accumulated massive fortunes over time, and in their own home worlds. They put together a strong lobby that allowed them to influence legislation and public opinion, avoided becoming slaves and managed to become Masters themselves. Those Humans who held power and station were quick to turn on their brethren in exchange for more.

For a few decades chaos had reigned, but slowly things settled down.

Now the year is 2122 2037, and the caste system is firmly in place almost all over the world. Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds over the last century, but some conventions could still be recognizable to someone from before the change. Everyone who is someone is a Master, lording over a class of slaves - and the changed never had a chance to become 'someone'. Stuck in the middle are the Citizens, those who are neither; these are the people who still fill the majority of jobs, go through their lives working 9 to 5, many of them uneasy in a world where some flaunt owning others who so covet even their meager positions.

#premise #background details #meta info #primer info #accessible version

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scarlettroubles · 3 years

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The Ryder Family Info (2021)

General Info

The Ryder’s are a pure-blood wizarding family of hunters that originated from America but have long since moved to the British Isles to escape persecution after a member of the family was revealed to be working with the very scourers MACUSA and the family themselves were hunting down. Their family motto is “The Hunt is Ours.”

Early History

The Ryder’s were said to hunt down anything that could make a profit. Dark witches and wizards, crime lords, the aforementioned scourers and all kinds of magical beasts, but most notably dragons.

It's said they created a spell strong enough to take down such a vicious and powerful beast, just as long as you aimed at the right spot. It was for this reason that the family crest is a slayed golden dragon on a green bloodied field with a crow flying above it. But the Ryder family soon found themselves paying the price for hunting down these fantastic beasts.

On what was supposed to be a simple hunting expedition, the entire family ended up being slaughtered by the dragon they’ve been trailing. The only surviving members of the once prestigious and feared family of hunters was one Ophelia Ryder, who only managed to survive the whole ordeal for not even being there in the first place. Having stayed behind because she was pregnant with her second child. Her twin brothers Elijah and Ezekiel Ryder who stayed home to watch over their grandmother and grandfather, and sweet little Calliope Ryder who was too young to go on the hunt.

It was then that the Ryder family swore to never again come in contact with the very beasts that almost managed to wipe them out for good and focused their attention on other prey. This tragedy put shame on the Ryder family name though, after all, they were hunters not the hunted.

People started to question their skills and reliability to get the job done and the Ryder’s could not have that. The remaining members of the family trained intensely to prove that they were still the skilled hunters they've always been for generations. Consequences be damned. It was during this period of time members of the family dabbled in the art of occlumency and legilimency.

It was rumored that the Ryder family did favors for MACUSA back when it was just the original twelve. Favors like tracking down rogue wizards, getting rid of magical beasts and troublesome no-maj’s. It was rumored that the family was even tempted to join the fledgling wizarding government. But a fight broke out between the family, a fight that tore the family in two and was the first instance of in-fighting within the family and the first time they found themselves nearly wiped out. For one of the family members, Adrian Ryder along with his wife and grandchildren were revealed to be working with a group of Scourer’s, The very group of traitorous wizards MACUSA was fighting to wipe out. And Eret Ryder, the head of the family at that time would not stand to have a traitor taint the family name. The fight ended with a bloodied field and a string of dead bodies. Fearing for their safety, the Ryder family fled to Britain and it was there that the family truly prospered.

Recent Events

In present day, the Ryder’s are still feared hunters but with Ervin Ryder’s disappearance, him being rumored to have joined the dark lord and his involvement with the Cursed Vaults, their reputation has been damaged in the eyes of the public and the family has been deemed ‘mad’ by the majority of the Wizarding community in the UK.

Traits

The Ryder’s most notable traits are their golden eyes, skin in a variety of shades of brown, dark hair, tall height, powerful build, and having an intimidating aura around them.

Most Ryder’s were known to have great accuracy as well as good instinct and both martial combat and magical combat came naturally to them. This is the result of how a millennium of hunting creatures and later on people have affected their magic.

Customs

The Head of the Family is almost always the eldest child, regardless if it is a son or daughter. But on rare occasions, the current head of the family may select one of the younger siblings to be the heir if they deem the eldest to not be a suitable leader or if the eldest refuses to take on the responsibility. On even rarer occasions, the current head won’t even choose their own child but a cousin from the family.

The Ryder’s lead a group of bounty hunters known as The Hunters of Artemis and whose leader is known as the Head-Hunter. The Head-Hunter tends to be the strongest child and it is not uncommon for The Head of the family to also hold the title of Head-Hunter.

First born sons and daughters are often given a name that starts with E (example: Edward, Evangeline, Ervin, Eileen, Elaina, Eliza etc.,). The family holds a belief that names that start with E give birth to warriors.

Although the Ryder’s are a pure-blood family, unlike most pure-blood families, the Ryder’s are not as obsessed with maintaining a ‘pure’ bloodline and focus more on their hunts and training as warriors.

The Hunters of Artemis

A group of Bounty Hunters founded and led by the Ryder Family. The leader is known as the Head-Hunter and wears a golden dragon pin with the moon in the background and an arrow in its mouth on their clothes. Both the leader and the members wear a cord around their neck and for every successful hunt adds an arrow onto that cord. Silver arrows for targets brought back alive and red arrows for those brought back dead.

When the Ryder’s came to Britain, The Ministry were warned by MACUSA that they might be a threat to the statue of secrecy, and so the Ministry did what it always does when they're scared. They had the family hunted down and for the second time, the Ryder’s once again found themselves nearly wiped out.

The Ministry realized that the family of hunters could be of use and so forced the Ryder’s to swear loyalty to them if they didn’t want their family to go extinct and the Ryder’s accepted. And from then on, the Ryder’s became The Ministry’s loyal hunting dogs and hunted down those The Ministry’s Auror’s and Hit-Wizards could not.

Members are either recruited by the Head-Hunter or were sentenced into joining it by The Ministry if they deemed the criminal guilty but useful elsewhere other than filling the empty cells up in Azkaban.

Rivalries/Enemies

Due to the Ryder’s occupation as hunters and them being highly skilled in the art of combat, not many families or people ever trifled with them.

The Ryder’s preferred to stay out of ‘pure-blood wars’ viewing them as petty and meaningless and made an effort to stay neutral whenever possible. The last time the Ryder’s got themselves entangled with such a thing, it led to The Wolves Rebellion. A civil war within the family that took place during the 1920s that lasted well into the 1940s that all started because of the family foolishly accepting the request of one Gellert Grindelwald for an audience with the family and whose honeyed words poisoned the minds of the family members and caused them to split in two and would later become the third time the family was nearly wiped out. The Ryder’s greatest enemies were most often themselves.

The only other enemies the Ryder’s had were the Lestranges. When Evangeline Ryder divorced Adhemar Lestrange when she found out her youngest son, Salvatore Lestrange was a squib. Fearing what the man would do to her child, she went into hiding which led to the birth of a bitter feud between the two families.

Adhemar would later on be killed in a raid led by the Ministry’s Auror’s during the First Wizarding War by Evangeline’s older brother, Edward Ryder, after the former tried to escape and resist capture. The Lestranges have since sworn vengeance against the family and have sent countless assassins after Evangeline and Edward’s children. Resulting in Evangeline raising her children in a sheltered life while Edward personally picked and trained 5 members from the Hunters of Artemis to protect his children at all costs.

Residence

The Ryder’s reside in the family manor located in Northamptonshire. The manor’s entrance has two bronze statues of a dragon with an arrow in its mouth while two wolves stand at both sides of it. The wolves appear to be fighting over the arrow with the dragon. The statues are said to commemorate The Wolves Rebellion and how the then divided Ryder’s fought each other for the title of Head-Hunter and how the dragon was triumphant in defeating the Wolves.

The Manor is surrounded by acres of trees and is protected in a layer of protective spells. When one enters the land surrounding the manor, they are consumed with an overpowering sense of fear. So a Ryder must cast a counter spell on their visitors before entering.

There is a garden out in the back which is well taken care of by Julianna Ryder, Edward's beloved wife and mother of his children.

Taking care of the garden was one of the few things that served to give Julianna some form of comfort after the death of her daughter Elaina and her oldest son's disappearance.

#the ryder family #hphm #hphm mc #harry potter hogwarts mystery #hogwarts mystery #hogwarts mystery mc #wizarding families #my art #eileen ryder #eliza ryder #edward ryder #finally redid the ryder's info lol #some names were changed from the old info I wrote a year ago #but yeah here it is

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mythiccheroacademia · 4 years

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Okay okay hear me out. Time traveling children. Like Todoroki, Iida, Shinsou and Tamaki casually finding their daughters in their timeline. Like they look at the girls and are just dumbfounded cause "this girl looks like my love child with y/n". And god forbid if the kid slips a "daddy?!" at them. *they all have daughters and todo has twin daughters and you cant change my mind *

doin the first three as per the rules!

A/N: Okay, but can we all just agree that Parent!Bnha characters are superior? I literally spend whatever free time I have looking/reading next-gen MHA fanfics. They’re so precious. I might have to make one myself hmmm...

Warning: fluff overload?

Todoroki Shoto:

all todoroki wanted to do was go to bed on time

all week, his friends convinced him to stay up past 8 and it’s been making him cranky

he’s such a grandpa

but you were a part of the group so he did it without complaint

today, he could finally sleep at 7:30pm

that was until he saw two 13-year-old girls on his bed

the girls stare at shoto and he stares back

then he turns to leave before they’re literally jumping at him and slamming the door shut

he’s already thinking of 101 ways to escape this stalker situation

the girls speak before he can freeze them

“we’re not stalkers”

“we’re actually related. swear!”

just as he’s about to tell them off and how he’s certain he doesn't have any relatives outside of his immediate family, he takes a look at the girls

he notices one has red hair and the other white. their eyes are heterochromic, like his, but one is blue and the other is e/c. their skin is a blend of his and someone else's

they look too much like him

the gears in todoroki’s head start turning

“who are you?”

the one with white hair looks nervous, but the one with red hair stares him right in the eyes

“we’re your--”

“shoto?”

you come from behind the door to see the trio

the girls seem excited

“wow,” the one w white hair gasps

the one w red hair smiles lovingly, “mom’s been a baddie her entire life, huh?”

it was low enough so you didn't hear, but todoroki sure did

he looks between you, the girls, and himself in the mirror

then he bursts into flames

“shoto?”

“dad!”

“daddy!?”

the flames on his left side get bigger

after he finally gets his bearings, todoroki puts the fire out and the twins explain themselves

you look amazed and smile at the fact that you made such pretty girls

meanwhile, todoroki is SWEATING

you and him got together? married? and had children? 4 children?

he just realized he thought you were beautiful last week

like can he get a break?

nearly jumps as you bring to his attention that the quirk that teleported them is fading

as they fade away, the one with red hair glares at him and warns

“dont mess up, old man”

when they're gone, todoroki sees you nervously scratch your neck

he half wanted to fade away as well

he didn't get the chance to go to bed on time, but after a long talk about feelings, he gets the courage to, awkwardly, you on a date

it goes really well and y’all meet your daughters again 10 years later :)

Tenya Iida:

there is a 9-year-old girl in his room and iida is currently having an internal meltdown

he’s trying his darn best to keep it together so he doesn't scare the small child, but it’s hard

freaks out anyway

“excuse me, lost child! where are your guardians!?”

“how did you bypass the UA security system!?”

“it is past your bedtime!”

his arms are whipping up a storm and he’s going on about child labor laws for some unknown reason

in the midst of his panic, he doesn't see the girl walk in front of him

she somehow catches his hands and lets his palms squeeze her chubby cheeks

“look at me and breathe”

“huh?” he whispers

the girl gives him a wide smile that’s eerily familiar

“that’s how momma always calms you down, papa. you have to breathe!” she explains

the words register in his head and iida is, once again, having a meltdown

he always wanted a family, but having it confirmed was WILD

he had so many questions, but he was more focused on just how his...daughter got in his room

she explains it the best she can

“i was playing with Koji on the playground and then some mean-y zapped me with a quirk and, poof, i was gone. then i came here. you look different papa. you’re the same, but a little smaller”

he’s taking in the info and deduces that it was some kind of teleportation quirk

he doesn't know much, but he figures it will wear off

take his child to Recovery Girl just to make sure

Recovery Girl is amused at the entire situation and confirms that the quirk will wear off eventually

just out of curiosity, she asks who her mother is

“that’s easy! it’s Tenya y/n and her hero name is [hero-name]!”

the old woman goes “awww”

iida has never been redder in his entire life

he ended up marrying you?

YOU?

the girl with the prettiest eyes, most brilliant mind, and calming bright smile?

the exact smile this child had?

he almost fainted

when he takes his daughter back, iida is stoic, glasses reflecting the light

you meet him and the hallway and the girl runs towards you

“momma!”

you catch the girl out of pure reflex and hold her in confusion

as you try to explain that you're not her mother, iida stares at the similarities

you two were nearly a carbon copies except for the engines in her shins and the sharp eyes

he sighs and calms his heart

instead of overwhelming you, he takes the girl back and promises to explain later

iida and your daughter fall asleep and the next day, she’s gone

iida goes to talk to you with the love letter he wrote a while ago behind his back

let’s just say you’ll be seeing the munchkin in no time

Hitoshi Shinsou:

when shinsou sees the 5-year-old on his bed, he knows

the girl with bright purples eyes and h/c hair is almost a perfect blend of both you and him

he’s smart

besides, he’d know that beautiful hair anywhere

it wasn't like he knew you were the love of his life

it wasn't like he stared you for hours

but that’s beside the point

the girl seems unsure about approaching him until he kneels in front of her and stretches his arms out

then she sobs into shirt, tiny fists balling up his collar

“i’m sowwy about runnin’ away when you told me not to! the kitty was just so pwetty, daddy!”

yeah, definitely his child

“it’s okay,” he coos. “im not mad at you”

it’s almost scary how natural he is at calming her down

he picks her up and walks around, whispering sweet nothings in her ear until her tears run dry

is the only one out of the others that understands that if the girl reveals too much, she could ruin the timeline

and he wasn't about to let your ass go

after just finding out that he somehow managed to trick you into marrying him?

hell no

shinsou’s putting a ring on that even if it kills him

“okay, peanut. here’s how this is gonna go”

it takes a bit of back and forth, and bribing (he’s low-key proud of her bargaining skills), for her to promise that she’ll only call you by your hero name

and to reveal how many siblings she has

she’s the youngest of three with another one on the way

you always did like even numbers

when he takes you to the common room, he’s delighted to see you

you are so excited to meet his “little cousin”

the way you and the little girl get along pulls at his heartstrings

you were going to be such a good mother

gosh, you were such a catch

how did he manage to scoop you?

shinsou may have taken a picture or two without you knowing

yall end up having a movie night and falling asleep

you two wake up in each other’s arms, your daughter gone

“that was our daughter, wasn't it?”

he’s kind of taken aback you pieced it together, but not surprised

you were smart

and you had eyes

“yeahh,” he shrugs

you laugh and lie your head back down on his chest

there’s peace in his heart that he hasn't felt in awhile

“she’s kind of perfect”

shinsou wraps his arms around you, promising to never let go

“just like her mother”

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keltonwrites · 3 years

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Where no one knows your name

How many times is a person meant to make new friends? When I moved into an apartment in DC with an absolutely iconic girl from Craigslist, I wrote in my journal, “you never know when you’ll meet your next bridesmaid.” Charmingly juvenile, as I was 24 years old. Ironic, as I never had any bridesmaids. And embarrassing, knowing I wrote something that’s surely been embroidered on a bachelorette party t-shirt by now. My point was: you can meet people you fall in love with anywhere, anytime, assuming your heart (and calendar) are open. Now my heart and calendar are open and I am one of Elizabeth Bennet’s sad sisters, cloying and desperate for attention while everyone at the ball ignores me. Meeting people here is unnerving and hapless and eye-clawingly vulnerable. My first new friend told me she was moving away in a few months. Do you invest deeply in hopes of another faraway friendship? Do you just go back to waving as you pass on the street? I like this girl! What an embarrassing thing to have to say to someone! Do you just invite people to every and anything like a lunatic? I can’t even remember to call the people I am forever-and-ever in cahoots with. I’m also deeply bound by what I’ll call the Movie Trap: say it’s 3pm during not-a-pandemic, and you get the urge to see a movie. You look at the showings, and there’s one you really want to see at 7:15. You think to yourself, “I should make an effort,” and you text a friend. “Hey, you wanna go see This Cool Movie at 7:15 tonight?” No one ever says yes. Don’t give me an example of when someone has, because it’s always one of these answers:

“Oooh, I’m actually seeing it with Kate tomorrow - wanna come?”

“Can we go to the 9pm showing? Stuck at work.”

“Yeah but let’s see Movie You’ll Fucking Hate instead.”

Now maybe I’m just lighting flares guiding you to the worst parts of my personality, but this drives me nuts. No, Liz, I don’t want to go tomorrow. I want to go tonight. At 7:15. So I can be in bed by 10. And you’d have to drag my dead body and prop open my eyes to get me to see something like Marriage Story in theaters. The Movie Trap is a big reason I usually hang out by myself, or I make plans weeks in advance. (Don't I sound like a blast.) Just the idea of being like, “I like you! Wanna hang out in October?” makes me want to collapse into a puddle of sad adulthood. Which is why on Friday at 4:30pm, when a girl I’d met a week prior asked if I wanted to grab a drink, I just said yes. I put on a pretty dress, did my makeup, put stuff in a purse, and drove the 25 minutes to town. It was really fun! And how novel to have new contacts in my phone like “Maggie blue house” and “Jess concert friend” — a throwback to the days of “Greg guy on L train” and “Devon ad party.” The very concept of not knowing someone’s last name or even needing it, and a year from now updating their contact info and smiling at your origin story. But for the most part, no one is in our phones. In terms of phone numbers collected, here is the list:

Two friends we knew prior who thank god you guys exist.

New friend who is moving away.

New friend who is game to drink tequila and ride mountain bikes.

Neighbor-not-yet-friend who I really fucking like and am not sure how to cross hang-out threshold with.

Not to say there aren’t any other prospects or people I’m platonically gaga over, but I don’t have their phone numbers. There are honestly a lot of people like this because when you live in a small town (and you’re from the Midwest) you say “oop, sorry” to every person/object you bump into, and you say “hi :)” to every person you see. These are the rules. If I drive by you and don’t wave, it’s because I was so deep in a daydream I probably shouldn’t have been driving in the first place. This isn’t acceptable, because in our urgency to tattoo our vaccination status on our foreheads so we can make friends, it turns out just driving by someone can be a viable strategy. A few days ago, a man was driving by our kitchen window and then our driveway, and then he reversed back up to the kitchen window and started waving. Ben went outside — it was that kind of wave. The man had seen from his car a smokejumper emblem on the back of a truck in our driveway. “Hey, are you a smokejumper?” We aren’t. But my dad was, and he was in town visiting, accompanied by the emblem on the back of his truck. The guy said we should drink sometime. Numbers were not exchanged. We’ll call that a node, because it’s not quite a connection. And it’s mainly nodes, waiting to be connected, to have relevance. But first, no matter who you’re trying to befriend, you have to answer everyone else’s Do I Care Quiz. The quiz is employed by 93% of locals to determine how they feel about you existing within their personal 50-mile radius. The first question is non negotiable:

1) Are you visiting?

Variations on this question include “how long are you in town?” or “what brings y’all to town?” or my least favorite and most insulting, “did you just finish Jeeping?” I know I have blonde hair and say y’all, but how dare you. (Also, to be clear, you can own a Jeep, customize your Jeep, mod out your Jeep, and love your Jeep, but you’re not Jeeping until you drive too fast through a tiny town so you can hurl your Jeep over a mountain pass without ever getting out of it.) So the answer to “are you visiting” is “no, I live here.” Which brings us to the next question, my favorite for how loaded the gun, kneeling in the grass, scope on, target locked it is.

2) Are you part-time or full-time?

The first time I answered this question, I didn’t realize it was essentially like asking how someone voted in the 2020 election. The judgment was cocked and ready and the palpable relief/joy/or at the very least, tolerance, exuded by answering “full-time” was like when the sun comes out from behind the clouds on a 40 degree day. I was fine, but wow that does feel better. The third question though does not have a standard hoped-for answer. This is where nodes turn to connections turn to phone numbers.

3) What brings you here?

It seems like the best possible answer would be saying you work in town, and you’re going to begin construction on displaced-worker housing to ensure the people who run this town can actually live in it. We’d have everyone’s phone number. Saying you’re a writer who works remotely and bought a house from a legendary and beloved local who could no longer afford it is really something you keep to yourself. But in the interest of making friends, I just word vomit my entire history. We might as well find out at the onset if I make your eyes roll back into your skull. Not at all threatening that all it takes is a single social signal misinterpreted to be the absolute death knell of my ability to make friends in a town of some 1400 adults. In fact, I’ll share one such interaction. I was hiking with Cooper, about 5 miles by foot away from my house. I was on a trail, crossing a sloped meadow, and a group was traversing up the hillside to the trail. I said hi, where y’all coming from. One girl answered and we talked about the trail. She eyed me up and down. “Did you just move here?” “I did!” “I served your family last week,” she said. “Oh,” that phrasing. “Must have been my in-laws.” “Heard you bought Jack’s house. Such a bummer when locals like that are forced out.” “We didn’t even know about his house,” I said. “We were looking at another house and he asked his realtor if he could get us to come see his house. We just loved it, and him!” She had no emotional reaction to this. “You moved from California?” she asked. (Dangerous question.) “Yeah, got these sea level lungs, haha,” attempting to disarm with humor was a failure, “but couldn’t be happier to be out of California.” “It’s not like this all year. Winter’s really hard here, you’re in for a rude awakening.” “Well California’s the last place I lived, but I’m not from there. I’ve lived in brutal winters. At least Colorado gets sun!” I laugh with cloaked loathing. “It’s different when you live at altitude,” she said, like no human aside from her had ever been literally anywhere. “Are you trying to go around?” She indicated the path behind her. “No, y’all go ahead, just gonna wait to give you your space. I’m sure you’re faster than me.” “K, good luck making it to the lake." Maybe she was thirsty. Maybe she was hungover. Maybe she just has vicious delivery, but it felt like every blade of grass was leaning against the wind to listen. She was with four other people and not one of them said a word. I left that interaction not wanting to see another human ever again. But that interaction, and her intimate knowledge of exactly which house I lived in, made me want to decorate like we lived in a gingerbread house, all candy canes and plum drops, screaming to any passerby that we’re friendly. One of the mayor’s first questions to me was “what are you going to do to the house?” There are rules here about what your house can look like, and I kept emphasizing we bought the house because we loved it, not because we wanted to change everything about it. And now, instead of wanting to decorate the interior, I want to put up shades so we don’t contribute to light pollution, I want to hang a sign by the water spigot saying “grab some if you need” for hikers and mountain bikers, I want to paint a sign for the wild mint by our door that says, “I mint to tell you to take some,” because our neighbors were openly panicked they wouldn’t be able to just grab mint from the cabin’s garden anymore. Without question, COVID makes things harder. Dinner parties feel like dares. Dropping cookies off at someone’s house feels invasive. Grabbing a drink feels like the ultimate sign of trust. But at least we have nodes who can connect who can think to invite us and who can see that despite having lived in California, we’re not all that bad. In the meantime, I’ll be painting signs about water and mint, hoping to garner the benefit of the doubt from the so beautifully, earnestly, and waiting-to-see-if-you’re-worth-it doubtful.

Subscribe to the newsletter at tinyletter.com/keltonwrites — high altitude relocation and renovation in a tiny mountain town.

#amwriting #newsletter #making friends #how to make new friends #adulthood #small town life

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thegirlintheswivelchair · 3 years

Text

More Than We Hoped - Ch. 2

Summary: The Daily Bugle drags Spiderman, Tony forces Peter to come up to the compound, and that black haired man packs a punch.

Word count: +6.6k

Warnings: violence, injury, blood, angst...to be honest I think that’s it for this chapter

A/N: OK so I am actually really nervous to put this chapter out. It feels a little different from what I usually do. It felt like the story took on a life of its own, and also...this is all Peter. Y/n is not in this chapter. However, I am gonna have her in the next chapter quite a bit, so hopefully that will make up for it!! Anyways...I hope you enjoy this!

(Oh and this starts off directly after chapter 1!)

series masterlist | main masterlist

——

Still Saturday

Peter sighed heavily, rubbing his eyes with the hand that wasn’t holding the phone, “Hey, Tony.”

“Yeah, you’ve already said hello. Got anything else to say?” Tony’s voice deadpanned over the other line. It was sassy, but Peter could tell that he wasn’t necessarily in trouble...yet.

“I just woke up, what else did you want me to say?” Peter said off-handedly. He really wasn’t awake enough to handle where Tony wanted to take this conversation. Plus, he really did not know what was going on.

“I don’t know, you tell me? Why did I wake up this morning to see Spiderman’s name in a trending article from the Daily Bugle?”

“Would you believe me if I said, ‘I don’t know?’” Peter asked.

“Not really, no.” Again, Tony didn’t seem annoyed, but Peter couldn’t help but feel he might be getting a lecture somewhere down the line.

“Honestly, Tony, I haven’t even had time to read the article.” Peter responded evenly.

Tony let out a sigh, “It’s not great, Pete. Whatever you did on patrol last night—they’re spinning it like you lost control, and the guy is in the hospital because of you.”

“What?” Peter said in shock, “Hold on…”

Taking the phone away from his ear, he put Tony on speaker, so he could bring up the article to read.

The same twinge of foreboding that had hit him earlier came back as he read the headline again:

IS HE REALLY OUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDERMAN? Masked Vigilante involved in near lethal apprehension of defenseless substance abuser.

Clicking the article’s link to read more, he was greeted with a photo of his superhero alter ego. The photo showed Spiderman looking like he was being cornered in an alleyway. One of his hands was lifted urging whoever was in front of him to calm down, while the other was gesturing to the heaped form behind him. Anyone looking at it could see it was a body sprawled out on the ground, but the image was such bad quality barely any details were discernible.

His eyes went quickly to read the beginning of the article:

In the early morning hours last night, distress calls were phoned in by a number of residents of the Bright Valley Apartments. They were alerting authorities of a violent disturbance in the alleyway next to their building between Spiderman and a nondescript man.

The recorded calls are still not available to the public, but an eyewitness says the man seemed frantic and was lashing out. They said Spiderman struck the man a number of times until the victim was incapacitated.

When authorities arrived at the scene, Spiderman was still present before webbing his way out of the situation without properly debriefing the authorities that came to the site. It is unclear what the masked vigilante’s intentions were with the victim that has now been identified as Wayne Campbell, who has been known to use drugs. Campbell is now in the hospital with severe internal injuries and is in critical condition.

More was said underneath, but Peter had already seen enough. The feeling of foreboding deepened into a sloshing mess of worry, hurt pride, and a sense of sadness. There was too much misinformation and exploited truths in the first few paragraphs alone for Peter to say it was anything but what it was...

“They-They wrote a slander piece about me…” He said softly, switching the phone back to normal and bringing it up to his ear.

“Looks that way...Sorry, kiddo.” Tony said in a similarly soft tone before continuing, “Know anyone you’ve pissed off lately?”

“No one I can think of,” Peter responded in a sort of mumble after sitting quiet for a moment, thinking.

“Thought you might say that. That’s why I sent Happy to grab you and bring you back to the compound, so we can get to the bottom of this. In the meantime, how about you catch me up on what Spiderman’s been getting up to.”

“What? No—Tony, I can’t just make a trip out to the compound!” Peter exclaimed.

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve got...” Peter paused. He felt he was needed here, but with his brain still stuck on the article he didn’t say that. Instead what came out was, “...homework.” He finished, closing his eyes knowing how lame that excuse was.

“Yeah, that hasn’t worked for the last 12 years, not gonna work now.” Tony said matter-of-factly.

Without missing a beat, Peter quipped back, “Technically, I didn’t get to use that excuse for 5 years. So really it’s only been 7.”

“Uncalled for,” Tony said. If they had been in the lab together, Peter could imagine that his mentor would be pointing a wrench at him and raising his eyebrows to emphasize the point that he was hurting the old man. A small smile tugged at the corner of Peter’s mouth at the thought.

“So, you gonna tell me what really happened?”

The question sobered Peter quickly, making him momentarily forget about going to the compound. He blew air between pursed lips, his cheeks puffing out. “Whatever is happening is so screwed up, Tony…” Peter said quietly.

“It always is.” Tony said this with such sincerity Peter could almost hear the memories coming to life in the retired superheroes head. Tony cleared his throat and spoke up again, “Just start at the beginning.”

“Yeah, Ok.” Peter breathed out, and he began telling the story of the last 3 nightmarish nights he’d spent patrolling.

It took 45 minutes before Peter was getting to the details of last night. To his surprise, Tony had let Peter talk without much interruption, only small clarifications here and there and a hum to show he was paying attention.

Once he finally went quiet Tony spoke up, “And you haven’t found any connection between the 3 victims?”

“Not yet, I haven’t had time—” Peter was cut off by another call coming in. Looking at the contact, he saw it was Happy. He’s seriously making me go to the compound? No questions asked?

Sighing and not hiding his frustration, Peter quickly said “I gotta take this, it’s Happy.” He didn’t wait for a reply before accepting the new call. “Hey, Happy,” he said, adopting a much lighter tone than a second ago.

“Peter, where are you? I’ve been waiting outside for the last 15 minutes.” Happy said in a familiarly gruff greeting.

“Crap, you’re already here? Sorry, Happy. I’ll be right down.” Peter said as he jumped up from his spot on the bed and hung up the phone. He began grabbing at random clothes around the room, hoping they were clean, and throwing them on.

Soon, all that was left for him to do was find his other shoe. Shouldn’t be too hard right? Wrong. He turned over everything. At one point he even stood on the ceiling thinking a new angle would help him—It didn’t. Just as he was starting to get really frustrated, he found it hiding in the corner of his room where he could have sworn he’d looked at least three times before.

“Ah-ha!” He cheered triumphantly. The victory was short-lived when his phone began to blow up with texts from Happy. Each one getting steadily more grumpy in how they said he needed to get his ass moving and down to the car right now.

So in a chaotic blur of motion, Peter grabbed his lone shoe, his backpack, a granola bar from on top of his mini fridge, and jogged out of his room with only one shoe on.

As he made his way down his hallway, his phone rang for what felt like the thousandth time that morning. He picked it up without looking at the contacts name, and answered, “I know Happy, I’m on my way down right now. Couldn’t find my shoe.”

“See, I keep telling you to put trackers in them, but do you listen?” Came Tony’s amused voice over the other line.

Even though he had not expected his mentor's voice on the phone, Peter smirked and shot back, “Says the old man that can’t find the wrench that’s still in his hands.”

“That was one time!” Tony’s voice said defensively before changing the subject, “So you haven’t left with Happy yet, I take it?”

“Just getting out to his car.” Peter said, walking into his dorm’s elevator.

“Uh-huh. While, you’re on your way up, try and think through what might be similar to each incident. We’ll use that while going through the info your suit gathered during patrol.”

“Speaking of—Tony, I need to be back by tonight to go patrolling again. I need to be there for the next person that gets affected by this thing.”

“Yeah, no can do, Underoos.” Tony said. It was said with a casual finality, even off-handed in a way, and it irked Peter for some reason.

“What do you mean?” He said slightly annoyed as he left the elevator.

When he neared the door leading outside, he realized he was still not wearing his other shoe having been so distracted by Tony. He put his granola bar in his mouth, and began moving in a way he knew was not even remotely graceful as he tried to keep forward momentum and put his shoe on at the same time.

“There’s too much heat around the situation now, Pete. You need to stay away for awhile.” Tony broke through Peter’s concentration of staying upright as he barreled through the door to the outside.

Once he managed to get the shoe on, Peter paused for a second to take a bite out of his granola bar before moving again. He answered his mentor with a hard tone, “I can’t just drop this, Tony!”

“The media has gotten involved. That automatically makes this trickier. It’s important to tread carefully now.”

“I know I need to be careful,” Peter groaned out, “But I feel really close to a breakthrough! I just need a few more nights of recon. Please—”

“You have any leads?” Tony cut him off before he could keep talking.

Peter faltered before replying. He really didn’t have any leads, and it was clear Tony knew that. He had just hoped that train of thought would work on Tony, and he would be allowed to patrol. “I mean—no, not really.” Peter said quietly, opting for honesty in this moment.

He heard Tony sigh, “We need to be smart. This isn’t a recon-then-action type of mission anymore.”

Peter had made it to the sleek black car that would take him to the compound. Pausing in front of the passenger side, one hand on the door’s handle, Peter started talking, “I know, Tony, but these people—”

Tony cut him off again, “The answer is still no. We’ll talk more when you get here.”

The annoyance that had been simmering under Peter’s skin throughout the whole conversation, sparked at that moment. “Fine,” He snapped, and hit the phone’s red ‘End’ button. Opening the car door with a particular amount of aggression, he slid into the seat with a huff.

Happy immediately began pulling away from the curb as soon as the door shut. A sour silence fell over the two figures, with Peter staying silent and glaring out his window. The other, usually more grumpy, older man glanced at Peter frequently as they made their way upstate. Peter felt the stare each time, knowing the older man was trying to get a read on him as he quietly brooded.

Over the many years they had been in each other’s lives both had gotten relatively good at reading each other. In this particular situation, it was obvious Peter was frustrated about something, but he knew Happy was trying to piece together what might be annoying him.

“Tony did something again, didn’t he?” Happy’s voice finally broke the silence.

“You could say that,” Peter muttered.

“Whatever he did, I’m sure he has his reasons.”

Peter had to resist the urge to roll his eyes, Happy didn’t deserve that. “Happy, no offense, but I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Ok, fair enough.” Happy conceded easily. The rest of the drive was silent, only the soft sounds of music were heard.

When the car rounded the tree lined bend that led up to the compound, Peter’s emotions did a bit of a dance. He always loved seeing this building. It was a symbol of something so much bigger than himself, even bigger than him as Spiderman. Excitement always sparked in his gut as he thought about what and who it held inside and all the inner workings that even he didn’t fully understand yet. The weight of its purpose was inspiring while also being rightfully intimidating. Peter had yet to shake the feelings of being inadequate when thinking about it all. No matter how much he had wanted it, he couldn’t stop wondering if he was good enough to be an Avenger, of being a part of the moving pieces that title gave him power in, and what it meant to protect the world. He was just your friendly neighborhood Spiderman after all.

Today, though, that wash of emotions was dampened by his frustration over why he was here to begin with. He felt like Tony was calling him here to keep an eye on him. Like he didn’t trust him, and it stung.

After the car pulled up to the giant glass doors of the side entrance, Peter said a hasty goodbye to Happy, got out and slammed the door shut a bit harder than necessary. He bounded up to the door, and stepped into the building.

Almost immediately, Friday, Tony’s AI, greeted him with an even tone “Hello, Peter. Should I let Boss know you are here?”

“Tell him I’ll be down in a sec.” Peter answered, but instead of going directly to the lab, he made his way to the large communal kitchen to make himself a sandwich.

Friday’s voice came through the silence of the kitched “Boss is asking for you to come down to the lab.” The AI paused then added, “He says to just bring the food with you.”

Peter rolled his eyes, Tony knew him a little too well sometimes. Taking a massive bite his sandwich, he grabbed his plate and started his way down to the lab.

When he turned into the large state of the art lab, he was greeted with a view of Tony’s back.

Since Thanos, Tony had changed from what he had looked like during his active days as Iron Man. It wasn’t for the worse, he had simply changed, gotten older. His hair had gotten distinctly more salt and peppered, even more than when Peter had been remade after the snap. The wrinkles around his eyes had gotten more prominent, and they highlighted the smile he’d started wearing more often now that he was a father and genius mechanic rather than a superhero holding the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He also had a prosthetic arm, a constant reminder of the day he saved the galaxy. When you could see it, it was a surprisingly tame color—a dark charcoal grey. “You can wear it with anything,” Tony had joked when asked why it wasn’t bright red. It still held Iron Man’s trademark colors of red and gold in its details, with a bright blue light filling out the crevices or other details that the nanotechnology didn’t cover. The scars from the wound that traced their way across his skin came up his neck and stretched up around his ear and cheek. Anything else around his shoulders and chest was usually covered by a shirt, unless he was in his tank top fixing his cars, or swimming at his house in the woods.

The biggest difference for Peter though, was the softness that had taken over Tony. He was certainly still the cocky, confident man he’d always been, but he didn’t hold himself that way anymore as a suit of armor. Now that confidence was worn as a person slowly working on their monsters and ever so subtly finding hope in who they actually are. It was a softness that came with years of therapy and walking through it all with good friends and family. Peter was proud of Tony for that, and was grateful he got to be a part of it.

Currently, Tony was in a basic long sleeve black shirt pulled back to his elbows and his usual chop-shop jeans that were filled with grease and other stains.

With his back to the door, he was surrounded by three different holographic projections. One was the schematics and details of Peter’s Spiderman suit. Another was a news feed scrolling and continuously playing any news that might be relevant to his search, and the last one had numbers, graphs, and other data that Peter quickly realized was the data from his suit.

The suit, while being his, and even his own design, was still hooked up to the main Stark “cloud” that Tony had created for everything that held Stark technology. That meant Tony could bring up anything he wanted from Peter’s suit.

At any other time, this would have annoyed Peter, maybe even offended him. The two of them had talked at length about the Baby Monitor protocol, and over the last 4 years had slowly lessened it all so that Peter could be his own person, having complete control over the responsibility he had as a superhero. Tony had promised to no longer check the data or videos on his suit unless Peter let him, or asked him to. For this particular moment, even in Peter’s already frustrated state, he knew there had been an unspoken agreement that Tony would help. That meant he would look into these details. So Peter let it slide, and while taking another enormous bite of his sandwich, he walked up to Tony’s side and asked with a mouthful, “Found anything interesting?”

Tony turned his face towards him with both eyebrows raised quietly asking the parental question of ‘really? while eating?’ to which Peter gave a noncommittal shrug to say ‘yup’. Tony lips twitched with amusement, and he turned back to the projections, answering, “No, not yet. Was waiting for you actually.”

Swallowing the bite, Peter said, “I think we should get Friday working on whether or not the three victims have anything in common with each other. Then you and I can look through the surveillance Karen saved through my mask’s camera and see if there is anything we can see for clues or leads.”

Tony nodded, then said, “You heard him, Fri. Start seeing if there is anything to connect these people together, and please upload the videos from Peter’s suit so we can start watching them.

“What time frame do you want to focus on for the videos?” She responded.

“Let’s see, everything starting from Wednesday at the beginning of my patrol to the end of the last entry on Friday,” said Peter.

Friday didn’t respond. Instead, a new hologram popped up in front of the two men, and the first scenes of the surveillance videos began to play. They silently began to watch together while Peter finished his food.

Three hours later, the pair were now sitting in chairs, eyes slightly glazed from the amount of random footage they had already gone through. Peter tried not thinking about the fact they were still only on Wednesday night. They had fast forwarded through most of the early evening of that night, until right around when Peter remembered it all started.

When he heard Karen respond to something he said by saying, “You said never to call a night ‘calm’ because it tempts the universe,” he perked up in his chair and spoke out loud, “This is where my senses started going off before I heard the whimpering.”

The suit’s camera showed the vantage point on top of a building looking down at the still busy street below. “Pause the video,” Peter said. Getting up from his chair, he raised his hands to the image. With an outward wave from both hands he expanded the image to be twice the size it was before, essentially engulfing himself and Tony in the scene.

“My senses went off, but I couldn’t see where it was coming from. It was too hard to tell with so many people staring simply because I had swung overhead, but I know someone was staring for another reason.”

Tony looked at him questioningly, “You know when someone is staring at you for another reason?”

Peter nodded and shrugged, “Yeah, there’s a difference in someone staring innocently, and someone that is staring for another reason. I don’t know why, but I can feel the difference.”

Tony nodded slowly, and his face briefly flashed a ‘huh, neat’ face before he turned back to the image. “Friday, start scanning the faces and see if there are any that stand out. Let’s start with criminal records or anyone that Spiderman has dealt with directly.”

“Certainly.” Friday responded.

In the meantime, both men were staring at the screen seeing if, on intuition and instinct alone, they could pick anything up. After about 2 minutes, Friday spoke, “There are three different faces detected that have misdemeanor records, none of which are connected to Spiderman for their arrest nor their crime.”

The 3 faces showed up with their records next to them, and it was clear right away that none of them were who they were looking for. One had a public indecency charge, another was a DUI, and the last had the only genuine criminal record for assault, but it was from over 20 years ago.

Peter sighed at the news feeling disappointed, while Tony leaned in. “Friday, run the video and see if anyone stays focused on Peter when we know the whimpering started.”

The time between where the clip started and when the whimpering began was only a few seconds and it was impossible to truly focus on the faces with the way the camera whipped in the direction of the whimpering when Peter had heard it. The audio itself didn’t pick up on the whimper—it being too faint for the microphone—but it was clear enough when Peter had heard it. When nothing could be seen, Tony called for the frames to be slowed down to a shuttering frame by frame pace.

In the blinking frames that could be seen right before Peter’s head moved, only a few people had remained focused on the superhero. An old man who had been tending to his store front, a child staying planted in awe until his parent tugged him along, and a tall slim man with black hair, suit, and...a silver tie.

“Wait!” Peter blurted, “That guy, right there. I recognize him! I saw him last night.”

“Him?” Tony pointed at the blown up image of the man.

“Yeah, he was coming out of the alleyway right before I went to help the last victim.”

“Friday, you know what that means.” Tony said to his AI.

The silence lasted for only a moment before Friday was speaking to the room, “His name is Everett Mercury, age 25, born and raised in New York City.”

“Ok, can you tell us anything else about him?”

“Actually, boss, his file and any subsequent information that is regularly available or traceable for the average person is coming up blank. This lack of data would normally suggest all information for Mr. Mercury was wiped clean or is purposefully untraceable in most technological databases.”

“Well, I think that means we found our guy, what do you think, Pete?” Tony said, snapping his fingers together and spinning on his heels to look directly at Peter.

Peter gave a small absentminded nod as he only kind of heard Tony’s question. He was still glaring at the face in front of him, thinking. “Is he anywhere near the second location?”

Again, the silence filled the room until the AI spoke, “Based on my recognition software, there is no record of him being at the location of the second victim.”

Peter groaned,”Dang it!” all though he used entirely more colorful language in his head.

“That doesn’t mean that wanna-be-young-Keanu-Reeves here isn’t our guy.” Tony said lightly.

“No, but it doesn’t confirm it either. Plus, we don’t know anything about him,” Peter shot back.

“They don’t usually make it that easy for us.”

Peter knew Tony wasn’t trying to goad him. He wasn’t even trying to be condescending, but after the week he’d had, the fear of the unknown and the frustration that was just sitting at the bottom of his stomach mixed and boiled quickly. “No they don’t. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t hoping our first lead might have been a little less vague. What are we supposed to do with this information, Tony?” Peter said heatedly, whirling to face his mentor with a glare.

Tony met his stare with raised eyebrows and a slight cock of the head. “I’m sorry, did I miss something?” He looked into Peter’s eyes for a second, “Are you mad at me?”

“How does this help people, Tony? How does me sitting here with you, finding out this guy's name, in upstate New York, help anyone?” Peter said, not answering the question.

“Pete, this is only just the beginning. We’ve only been here—what? 3 hours?” Tony said, checking his watch.

“Yeah, and by the time I get back someone might already be infected by whatever-the-hell this is and could even be dead!”

Understanding washed over Tony’s features at Peter’s words. “You’re upset I said you couldn’t go patrolling.” It wasn’t a question. He had said it as its own confirmation.

“Have you watched any of these videos, Tony?” Peter said with quiet intensity pointing back at the projected image, “New York needs someone out there protecting them, and right now, no one is.”

Tony remained silent as he looked intently at Peter for a moment, his lips pushed up in thought. When he finally looked away, he gave a heavy sigh, and his hands came up in a loose shrug before he said, “Ok. You want to go out and patrol. Then I won’t stop you.”

“What?” Peter said slightly shocked, “You’re gonna let me go?” He was not expecting that reaction. He thought he would need to put up a fight, argue a bit more. Even then, he didn’t think Tony was going to allow him to go.

“Yeah. You want to patrol. I won’t stop you.” Tony said lightly.

Peter looked at Tony for a second, hesitating. His brows furrowed as he searched the man’s face. Something about Tony’s reaction bothered him, but he couldn’t think why. Why was that so easy? The thought was momentary, a sparked instinct to push for more information, but as soon as it came, it was swallowed up by the new thoughts of getting back to the city. If he could patrol, maybe he could do better reconnaissance, maybe even find the black haired man himself and question him.

“Uh, right.” Peter breathed out, “Then I’m gonna go.” He turned and started to leave the lab. Right when he got to the door, he looked back and saw Tony had already turned his back on him and was looking at each screen he had pulled up. He had started playing the frame-by-frame video again. His arms were crossed, and it was clear he was thinking and assessing everything he saw. Again, something in the back of Peter’s head told him he should stay, but he pushed it back stubbornly.

A couple hours later found Peter atop the lone skyscraper on campus. It was a massive clock tower that used to ring every hour with a real bell, but it had since been turned electronic, telling the time silently as it watched the students wander below. On nights when he needed to just think Peter would find himself up here, especially when he couldn’t be bothered making it to his usual favorite perches closer to the center of the city. Tonight, Peter was watching dusk settle over the city, thinking of a game plan for the night’s patrol.

Somehow, the other incidents had happened right where he was, no need to search far and wide. That left Peter with little direction as to where to start, but he still had to get moving. The shadows were growing, and that meant more alleys to hide in and go unnoticed.

Standing up, he shook himself loose, and flicked out his hand. His two middle fingers came to the base of his palm, tapping his web shooter to life. It responded with a string of web flying over to the next building, and just as Peter stepped off the tower, he spoke to his AI, “Karen, I want you to monitor for raised temperatures, and scan every face you can for Everett Mercury. Let’s make tonight worth it.”

“Initiating scanning parameters.” Karen confirmed.

As Peter swung, he felt his senses open up and his nerves coil like springs. The anticipation he held for finding another victim was growing, and he hated how afraid he was. It wasn’t just the fear of these people getting hurt. Frankly, that he could deal with. He’s had to deal with it. It was a responsibility of a superhero to deal with the fear of people getting hurt. No, he was afraid of seeing the side effects of this thing again. The glowing eyes, the pulsing veins, the shrill cry that comes with each victim—it was haunting. He was also afraid of holding another person in his arms as they fought whatever it was they were affected by. He didn’t know how many more people he could watch seize and drop into a comatose state.

He was uneasy, and he felt a little ashamed this thing had dug its claws into him so quickly, but the apprehension he didn’t want was still there all the same. With each flick of his wrist that carried him farther into the city, he tried to think of a way to turn that fear in his favor, but all he came up with was a sour and shaky form of adrenaline.

Much later into the night, Karen’s voice came out clear in Peter’s ear,“My scans show a man that fits the description of Everett Mercury by the ATM’s on the corner.”

Peter swung to the nearest rooftop, and upon crouching and turning around to look out at the four-way intersection he felt his senses buzz lightly. That annoying warning was back, and his skin crawled at the feeling. He spoke quietly to his AI, “Where is he?”

Before Karen could answer, Peter’s eyes found a black haired figure in a sharp suit standing motionless at the corner. When Peter found his eyes, he felt his stomach do a flip. The man was staring straight at him, unflinching and unfazed as their eyes met. His eyes were cold and dark, set within a face of stone. Each second felt stretched in time as Peter looked at him. He stood expectantly, like he had known Spiderman would be there, looking for him. As if to confirm the suspicion, a small smirk began to play itself on Mercury’s lips before he broke eye contact, turned and in a few steps, seemed to vanish into thin air.

“What? What was that?” Peter whispered harshly as he stared wide eyed at nothing, “no no no no!”

In a panic, he shot out a web, and launched himself down to the other side of the intersection. As he landed lightly on his feet where Mercury had been standing, he looked in all directions only to catch a glimpse of the dark suited figure slipping down a darkened road at the end of the street. Peter sprinted in that direction, and when he turned the corner he was met with more empty space.

What the hell?!

Scanning the area, Peter saw that he had run into a large empty courtyard. It was rundown, with pipes coming out haphazardly from the walls, concrete benches spotted the outskirts of the central space where the ground had broken and the cracks were growing grass and weeds. It was lit by a solitary orange street light that shone weakly at the entrance making shadows fall over the far side and its corners turn black.

As Peter squinted in the direction of those shadows, he saw a flash of movement in the corner of his eye. Flicking a web in the direction of the movement, he knew he had caught nothing as it hit a pipe with a hard hollow sound.

He jerked his head in the direction of the movement, and felt his body crouch instinctively, muscles tightening, ready to launch into motion.

Another glimpse of movement, and another web that hit nothing.

“I know you're in here!” Peter spoke out into the courtyard. Still crouched with fists clenched, he felt his heart hammering in his chest, and adrenaline coursing through his body.

Peter tried to hone in on his spidey senses hoping to locate the man that way. He felt the familiar buzzing at the back of his head, but the warning felt like it was coming from more than one direction. There was nowhere that didn’t feel threatening, and his mind began to go fuzzy the longer he tried to focus on it. It was like white noise slowly getting louder as the threat started to close in like walls.

In the fog taking over his brain, Peter didn’t notice the air shimmering a few feet in front of him until Everett Mercury had materialized in front of him. The man stood towering over Peter’s crouched figure, a smirk still on his face.

As quickly as he had appeared, his body crouched and shot out a hand which connected with Peter’s sternum and sent him flying into the wall behind him. After the hit landed, he vanished into the darkness again.

A voice, low and smooth came from the dark, “I’m not the one you should be focusing on, Spiderman.”

The impact had knocked the wind from Peter’s lungs, and he slipped to the ground on all fours coughing. He tried to right his breathing quickly as he scrambled up and got into a ready stance again, saying breathily, “Oh, yeah? And your cloak and dagger thing is what, a party trick? Doesn’t exactly convince me you’re a good guy.”

Peter didn’t get an answer. Mercury appeared at his side and shoved him hard enough to make Peter stumble towards the center of the open space. Peter tried to correct his balance and figure out where his opponent might be coming from, but there was nothing but mental static.

“It’s not about me being good or bad. I just follow orders. You on the other hand...What are you doing to save all those helpless people?” The disembodied voice spoke casually. It sounded like it was circling the perimeter of the yard. “You’re wasting time, Spidey.”

Peter knew he was being baited, but that didn’t stop a spark of fear and anger to go through him at the thought of more victims. Fuck, please be bluffing.

“Why are you doing this?” Peter growled, trying to stay focused on the task at hand.

“Why am I doing this?” The voice answered, amusement laced its deep tone, “I’m not doing anything. They seek us out.”

With the white noise still muffling his senses, Peter didn’t notice Mercury come up behind him until he was whispering in his ear, “They ask for it.”

Peter whirled around to see Mercury standing right in front of him. With a knee-jerk reaction, Peter shot out his fist, but he hit nothing as Mercury smoothly ducked out of the way. Peter pivoted to counter the dodge, but the dark haired man’s eyes flashed with an intensity that charged the air. It felt like the split second between when a fuse runs its course and the firework finally erupts. Except, Peter wasn’t ready for the explosion.

Mercury lunged forward, and swung his fists at Peter. First a straight cross, then an upper cut, then another jab. Mercury’s fists were flying, and each hit was made with a trained precision. The ferocity of the attack caught Peter off guard, and each blow was thrown with such brutal speed and power that he felt defenseless against them as they slowly pushed him backwards towards the wall.

Finally, a particularly harsh punch came and hit his face. Peter’s body gave him no choice but to drop to the ground dazed. He felt warm blood flow from his nose, and in the back of his head he guessed his nose might have been broken.

The other man, barely breathing heavy, stalked closer to Peter’s hunched figure, and mumbled something under his breath that Peter didn’t catch over the ringing in his ears. Then he picked Peter up by his shoulders and slammed him into a mess of pipes jutting from the wall behind him. A loud crack sounded, and pain radiated through Peter’s ribs as one of them broke on impact. His head rocked back into a lead pipe, and he felt the edge of yet another pipe’s broken opening cut into his skin because of the sheer force he was being pressed into it. Weakly, he tried and failed to squirm out of the other man’s grasp.

Mercury glared into Peter’s masked face and spoke in a low menacing voice, “You might not believe this, but what’s happening is for the better.” He looked between the two bright white eyes with cold intensity and growled, “Don’t fight this.”

He let go of Peter, who immediately slumped to the ground, and stepped back. Shadow engulfed Mercury’s figure once more, and he was gone.

Peter sat on the ground, clutching his torso, and trying to breath through the pain that was currently coursing through his body. It had been a while since he had been beaten up this badly, or been so taken by surprise. Why wouldn’t my spidey sense work? His pain addled brain couldn’t think of a reason just yet, and his main priority needed to be getting back to the dorms.

“Hey Karen, how far are we from campus?” Peter whispered out.

“You are currently 2 miles away.” The AI responded.

“Great,” He said a little high pitched, “I can do that. No problem.”

Shakily, he stood up and raised his arm to shoot out a web. The broken rib screamed in protest, but gritting his teeth against the pain, Peter shot and pulled himself into the air.

He must have blacked out as he swung back because Peter would not have been able to tell anyone how he managed to make it back to his dorm room that night. All he remembered was waking up on the floor during the very early hours of the day with Ned shaking him awake.

“Pete. Peter! You gotta wake up!” Ned’s voice was full of worry.

He groaned as his friend continued shaking him. He reached up his hand and swatted clumsily at the arm connected to the hand shaking his shoulder.

“Oh, thank god,” Ned sighed, “Dude, you’re a fucking mess. What the hell did you do tonight?”

Peter couldn’t form coherent thoughts just yet with the pain and disorientation his injuries were causing him, and just mumbled, “Patrol.”

“Yeah, figured that much out myself. I meant what happened to you?”

“Everett Mercury.” Peter said briefly, still trying to stop the spinning in his head.

“Whose that?” Ned asked curiously.

Just then, Peter’s phone began ringing and buzzing on his desk. Ned reached over Peter’s head and handed it to him. The screen’s brightness bit into Peter’s eyes and he flinched while making out the series of texts coming in from Tony.

Tony: We need to talk.

Tony: Mercury is enhanced and highly dangerous.

Tony: Do not engage with him. We need to make a plan

Too late, Tony... Peter thought as he felt each injury pulse in time with his heart.

There’s chapter 2! Please let me know any feedback you might have! I’d love to know if there are things you are hoping to see, or if you have any thoughts about the story in general. All reblogs are so incredibly appreciated! 💙❤️

Taglist (Let me know if you want to be added)

@cocoamoonmalfoy @empath-bunny @storybookholland @kassey @touchmethomas @greenorangevioletgrass @emilyparkerholland

#more than we hoped #more than we hoped chapter 2 #more than we hoped series #peter parker x reader #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x you #college!peter #college!peter parker #college! au #college au #spiderman #spiderman x reader #spiderman x y/n #spiderman x you #marvel #mcu #reader insert #angst

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bootleg-sara · 3 years

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Thinking about old an Tboi au concept

Okay so, I’ve been thinking about this old Tboi au I had that I want to revamp and give a new coat of paint. I haven’t given this concept much thought in a good year or so but I was scrolling through some art and got reminded of it.

((Au info in undercut, it’s really long))

It’s a lot more simple than my main big project for the basement, as it’s like the more common goal-orientated story structure rather than the less traditional setting of the former.

The story of this au follows Isaac, a young teen boy living with his mother. As per usual his dad left a long time ago and his mom is very religious. Though with his dad out of the picture, his mom now works a lot more, leaving Isaac with a lot more free time to himself. While he can’t really do much anyhow given his mother’s very strict life style, there are a few things Isaac loves to do. Some of those activities being playing with his cat Guppy and reading.

During one of his boring days Isaac hears some shuffling coming from his attic, a place his mother forbidden him from entering. While investing, he comes across a bunch of old items stores away messily in an old box. Most of it doesn’t have any immediately noticeable use, stuff like old keys, used containers and the like. Though what caught Isaac’s interesting were a few books that laid at the very bottom of the box. A small pocket Bible, and two older looking books with nothing but strange symbols on the covers. Further investigation from Isaac lead him to discover said books where known as the Book of Shadows and the Satanic Bible. With nothing better to do, he figured might as well read them and see if there’s anything interesting to pass the time on.

Some time passes, Isaac has a less than ideal encounter with a ghost, his mom is getting more and more irritable with every passing moment, and before you know it the poor kid is running for his life away from a maniac mother wielding a knife. Through unknown means Isaac finds himself knocked out and wakes up in an unfamiliar place along with Guppy who doesn’t look quite right anymore. Before he can give it much thought however, he’s being dragged away by some guy named Cain before he can get killed by a big scary monster with coins for eyes.

More stuff happens, and Cain and his “friend” keeper deduce that Isaac had somehow ended up in hell despite not being dead. Cain brings Isaac over to where he stays with Lilith. At first she’s pretty apprehensive to having to hide yet another person in her home, but her soft spot for Isaac’s plight wins her over. Together Cain and Lilith of them watch Isaac while trying to help him find a way back home. Which would be hard enough but of course the rulers of the citadel they live in are slowly catching on to this and absolutely hate Isaac for seemingly no real reason. And with rumors of heaven and hell going through some dramatic changes in the near future, time of the essence.

Feel like I did a bad job explaining it but whatever there’s a not-quite-a-plot-synopsis-but-story-descriptor.

The au itself follows 3 core aspects:

Isaac’s normal life, how life on earth stands > Isaac’s journeys through hell and a bit of heaven > the aforementioned looming “apocalypse”

There’s a lot of details that need working out. Like, haven’t decided why exactly Isaac ends up here without dying, if Isaac will at one point gain access to travel freely through the afterlife and earth, how heaven operates, character designs (though that one is least priority atm), and a bunch of other story details and what exactly happens

I have a pretty sizable chunk of the cast role’s made and decided. Isaac, Cain, Lilith are the mains, Judas and Eve are the main antagonists, the Lost plays an important role but mostly via the side lines, and Apollyon has their own role in stone (hehe).

You got some characters like Samson, Keeper, Bethany, Eden, and Magdalene who I have general ideas for but still need to flesh out.

Blue baby/??? is… there. Oh boy is he there.

Azazel, Lazarus, and Jacob/Esau have alignments but currently no I have clue as to how to use them.

And I have no ideas for Forgotten. Absolutely none.

I do plan on having tainted forms show up in some capacity because they are fun concept to play around with, but in all honesty don’t know how’d they’d fit yet.

There’s just, a lot that needs to be worked on before I can say anything for sure. Because really in its current state all this au is is a concept with set pieces. The citadel the main group lives in is rather large and run by Judas/Eve, with the sins as second in commands. Everywhere outside the citadel is overrun by the horsemen who are constantly fighting for territory. The only reason the citadel is safer than most of hell is because of Judas/Eve. Satan is around but rarely does anything other than observe.

There’s more I can get into, but that would be mostly looking into random story beats, character stuff, and setting, which would probably be confusing given the information I have given now.

On that note that’s all I have about that for now.

I’ll probably work more in this later in between my main Isaac story.

Sorry if the grammar is worse than usual I wrote this at 5 in the morning pft

#believe it or not but this was originally used for a Pokéspe x tboi crossover #eventually that was scrapped for one reason or another but thinking back on it I had something good going on #this was also originally based on a wild dream I had so this idea has been everywhere lol #this also replaced another au that was kinda similar but eventually ended up being way to focused on nonsense J&E/Cain junk #though I might take a few elements from that old idea and bring it into this one #with how my mind works this’ll probably be my next hyperfixation so oops #the binding of isaac #binding of isaac #tboi

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lilydalexf · 3 years

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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Sophia Jirafe

Seven of Sophia Jirafe’s fics are at Gossamer, but more of her X-Files stories are at AO3 (as sophiahelix). I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Stones and Bones. She was active in the fandom during the show’s run and has never strayed far from fandom in general. She co-founded Glass Onion, a great multi-fandom mailing list that now has nearly 1,000 fics from 100 fandoms at AO3. Big thanks to Sophia Jirafe for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

It did initially, but so many old shows are on streaming now and getting discovered by new people, it makes sense.

I did get a comment from someone who said my first story under this name, posted in early 2000 when I was a college freshman, was older than her by a couple of months, and THAT took me aback.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

It was my first fandom, discovered when I was 17 and searching for info about the show on the school library computer, and it really shaped my whole life! I met a lot of people I still know today (mostly in non-fannish venues like FB, though I do still have some connections in fandom), and learned a lot about writing and just life generally, since I was younger than most of fandom at the time.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I started off on a tiny forum at a website called Squirrel’s Nest, but I kept seeing people thanking Scullyfic in fic headers and eventually I was able to join the mailing list (which was capped to 500 members). Scullyfic was everything to me — I made friends, betas, discussed the show, learned about all kinds of things on Off-Topic Fridays, etc. A lot of those friends, I would email with or more often chat on AIM (individual or these sprawling group chats that would go on all day), and then at the end of 2001 we started migrating to Livejournal. I was getting into Buffy more by then, but it was still mostly the same crowd of people I knew from Scullyfic.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

I feel like it started me on a whole life path really — finding that my deep obsession with fiction could be channeled like that and shared with other people, as well as deepening my writing. Online fandom has been a major part of my social life for over 20 years now, and I love the mix of getting excited about things with friends and also the creative outlet.

My corner of X-Files fandom in particular was just very calm and enjoyable for the most part, full of older professional women who were happy to be friends and give me advice about all kinds of things, and it really set the bar for me with my online interactions. Now I’m almost 40 and trying to be that person for my younger friends, as well as having no patience for toxicity and in-fighting in my fandom spaces.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

A combination of the creepy conspiracy angle and just adoring Scully. I remember how mysterious and fascinating the show seemed when I discovered it right before S5, and there was no way to find out more except to keep watching and hoping they explained. Scully was so smart and tough and beautiful and interesting, and as a teen I was just captivated by her (and the UST, though I didn’t care about Mulder as much).

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I ran across it a couple times early on but felt embarrassed by the concept, but then I read the first in Karen Rasch’s Words series and suddenly it clicked for me. After a while I started daydreaming my own conversations between them, very similar to what happens to me now when I’m getting into a new pairing, so after reading tons of recommended fic by big authors, I started writing my own (the 3-4 stories I posted in high school are all wiped from the internet now, though).

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Good memories, though because it was my senior year of high school and college, I know a lot of it is just tied to that time in my life, and also being in my very first fandom. I will rewatch episodes from time to time, but I basically never revisit former fandoms because they’re kind of like exes, even if I finished on a good note. I also think my taste in fic has changed (and there isn’t the same novelty of “characters I like getting together omg!”)

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

So many! None of them had quite the same combination of excellent central architecture (especially pre-AO3) and a really high level of discussion and friendliness without being enormous, but I’ve loved them all in their own ways. I’ve done fandom on LJ/DW, Tumblr, Discord, and now on Twitter, and I think I miss the mailing list days the most. You didn’t have to repeat yourself so much in multiple conversations, you weren’t character limited, and the discussion was all in one place, with personal stuff more confined to your side conversations. Discord is a little like that, but it moves too fast and there’s too much noise for my taste.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Heh, after X-Files I went through a whole phase of faves in the Scully vein — Buffy, Aeryn Sun, Kara Thrace, etc. Like many people I’ve shifted primarily into m/m in the last decade (Sherlock, YOI, and recently The Untamed have been my major fictional fandoms, along with a lot of sports RPF), but for non-fannish shows I’m always looking for awesome new female characters, like Elizabeth on the Americans, Peggy on Mad Men, Nadja on What We Do in the Shadows, etc. And I do LOVE Killing Eve and have written a little f/f over there.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I’ll rewatch favorite episodes occasionally, and I keep thinking about a full rewatch but it takes so much time! I never saw the second movie, and I didn’t finish the first of the new seasons because I was hating it, so it’s a little hard for me to think fannishly about them when I disliked basically everything after “Je Souhaite” so much (as far as I’m concerned the show ends there).

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

X-Files no, but yeah I’m still very active in fandoms.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I lost all my saved fic several computers ago, but I recall loving “Blue Christmas” by Plausible Deniability and “Diamonds and Rust” by MustangSally (obviously everything she wrote was great).

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Looking at my X-Files fic, I can’t believe how short it is and how comparatively little of it there is (I have lost track of a few ficlets). It felt like such a big deal to finish anything back then! I think my favorite remains Alphabetum, which involved a tricky structure and 5 elements given by people as part of the Scullyfic Improv challenge, where you had a week to write a story around those elements.

My favorite of my recent fic in fictional fandoms is probably the GoT/YOI crossover novel I wrote a couple years ago, for a completely opposite experience to this (and proof you can grow as a writer with a lot of effort!)

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

It’s honestly hard to imagine going back (like I said, I usually don’t), but I guess I could get inspired by something.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I certainly still write, and I do have to give credit to XF fandom and Scullyfic in particular for giving me the start I got, where I really wanted to be writing good fiction. The few things I wrote in high school were just me jamming out romantic cliches, but the people I was lucky to know in XF fandom showed me that “just” fanfic can still aspire to be high quality. I am a much, much better and more disciplined writer than I was back then, but I might never have started on this path without fandom friends encouraging me.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

Usually just daydreaming about emotional dynamics between characters/people, but sometimes something specific in canon or real life (I write a lot of RPF) gets me going, or maybe something I read.

What's the story behind your pen name?

When I wrote for X-Files, I picked “Sophia Jirafe” combining my favorite first name with a fancy spelling for my favorite animal (I was 18! Don’t judge!) Over on Livejournal, my friend Jintian and I initially shared an account with the same name as our website, double_helix, and when she got her own account I changed to sophia_helix, which is now sophiahelix just about everywhere. A little clunky, but I like the continuity (and I do run across old friends who remember the name).

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

The friends I’ve known for a very long time know about it, but we have never talked about it in depth. My husband, who I met not long after getting into fandom, also knows about it, and he’s encouraging and also a writer so we talk all the time. I told my mom in college and she was pretty dismissive, so we haven’t talked about it since (but my younger sister knows and is cool about it).

When I was younger, it was something I shared readily (I bonded with a new friend in law school I saw looking at LJ), but now I don’t really bring it up with new acquaintances.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

I just made a Carrd the other day with all my various fannish addresses (Twitter, locked fannish Twitter, AO3, Tumblr)

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Just that it really was a high quality fandom — so much excellent long casefic, so many cool down to earth people, just generally a great launching place for a young fan. The friendships I made with older people were really important to me, and it makes me sad to see a lot of younger people now getting upset about the idea of anyone over a certain age being in their fandom spaces. I hope someday fandom can get back to appreciating that people of all ages can be the fandom type, and that everyone brings something different to the community.

(Posted by Lilydale on December 1, 2020)

#new post #old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #sophia jirafe

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isolctions · 3 years

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...........so let’s finally talk abt what the actual fucking fuck is wrong with ai’rina rue castillo, huh gang? :-)

(everyone go thank @armsdealing & @durcgs beating the anxiety out of me in order to post this info-dump.)

...before we get into things, now’s the part where i establish a warning for triggers to be discussed in this lengthy headcanon post. there’s gonna be some talks of mental illness, slight alcohol abuse, & breaking down topics of familial abuse, mental abuse, religious abuse, emotional manipulation, and elements of non-con. be warned.

a’ight, so look. i’ve hinted in between threads & development that rue had a not-so-fantastic upbringing that impacted how she perceives herself, how she interacts with others, (in terms of her career, at least) and how she views personal relationships, but i didn’t realize how........severely her upbringing messed with her mental health until i started working through how i wanted to plot out rue’s behavior for her next album release. at first, i had the idea that she decided to take more time for herself & sort of distance herself from the public / media circus plaguing her life so that she can create much more authentic music. then i actually listened to the EP that i’m basing her album off of and thought “...oh.” THEN, i looked over old meme responses & old threads / mentions of her family and how she grew up and thought, not for the last time since piecing everything together: “....oh. oh fucking boy.”

so, that horrible realization dawning on me, let’s talk about rue’s childhood.

i wrote a thing like, two years ago almost (that upon looking for last night, i realized i didn’t actually share it w/ anyone but alex in our discord server & only mentioned a portion of it in rue’s moodboard that i made) that talked vaguely about how rue felt growing up. and it’s worth noting that...she’s the middle of ten fucking siblings. and that’s just the brothers & sisters she knew of that stayed with their mother. and on top of that, not all of those siblings are the product of rue’s father, or even rue’s mother for that matter. and it’s also worth noting that rue not only grew up in poverty, but she grew up never having any actual space that had solely been her own, or even an article of clothing that had belonged entirely to her. so naturally, as a young child, rue sort of became torn between starved for attention & wanting someone to pay attention to her (whether that be her older siblings including her in something, whatever teacher they had for the next six months to call on her for something, for her mother to miraculously show up with her unknown father in tow one day, & for literally anyone to be her friend, pls god Notice her!!!) and for people to simply leave her the hell alone. obviously, this carried into adulthood.

and branching off from the whole “lack of space” point i made, rue wound up growing up to become increasingly more private as time went on because she literally cannot remember a single moment where she wasn’t squished between a bunch of people. driving around in their minivan? rue’s packed in the middle of the second row. nowhere to sleep while on the road? rue’s smacked between gigantic older brothers & clingy little siblings. need to use to bathroom? lmao, she better off going outside!!! gotta change clothes? yeah, good luck with that. it was to the point where, when rue got her first period, she was humiliated by it — not because ‘omg, am i a woman now?? wtf is this???’, but because she ruined the one good sheet that she slept on with her sisters & they were super pissed at her and her mother withheld pay from her for weeks. >:/

already, rue grew up never having shit to herself until the record deal. but she also dealt with literally...so much abuse from her mother. rue thought this was the norm growing up, because all of her siblings faced their mother’s wrath at some point & all of them eventually learned to just deal with the shit and do what she says if they wanted to avoid it. they all compartmentalized and repressed to varying degrees. there’s a lot in which rue has repressed so deeply, she doesn’t even remember if it seriously happened or if she was just making it up bc it was so fucking bizarre for a parent to act that way towards their child, lol?? (and this behavior of “i’m just going to do what you say bc i don’t want to deal with whatever bullshit you’re up to if i say no” also carried into business / personal relationships, which is...very Yikes it’s amazing she didn’t get scammed or worse!)

so sure, people have complimented her for her exceptional manners & her cleanliness & how quiet / polite she is & how amazing her posture is, bc seriously, this girl will never experience back problems in her life bc her posture is so on par. but where rue typically smiles / responds bashfully, she can’t exactly just up and say: “oh, yeah, my mom used to slap the shit out of me ‘til i bruised if i spoke out of turn or talked back, and if i reached for anything in the store or put my elbows on the table she’d slap a ruler against my palms ‘til i got welts, and she’d make me read verses all night without sleep if i did anything wrong and make me straighten up and kneel on rice if i slouched or took a nap in church and humiliated me in public if i so much as looked at someone of the opposite sex on the street n oh, did i mention i also cleaned houses for rich millionaire snobs from ages twelve to sixteen and if they said or did literally anything to me i wasn’t allowed to defend myself?? ya i’m real proper :)”

(and normal ppl will go: “...................what the FUCK is WRONG with you????”)

but oh man, babe, we’re not done yet!!! rue, being the product of both a highly religious and a highly exploitative household...had difficulty when she started reaching puberty & noticing her classmates. plural, because it wasn’t just boys that she began to secretly have crushes on / fantasize abt, sexually or domestically. she also realized, oh shit, that she started looking at girls differently too. and that literally put the fear of god into her heart, bc if her mother ever found out that she was having non-platonic feelings for the girls in her classrooms, she wasn’t going to be pissed. her mom might have actually tried to kill her. or have her exorcised or something. she knew the shit would be severe, and she wanted no fucking parts of her mother or her siblings inserting the church into her personal life, thank u very much! so rue started suppressing her romantic feelings for people to the point where if adult rue receives intimacy, she’s like “...is this allowed? is this not illegal??????” while simultaneously being like “i will be a slut. just this once. as a Treat to teenage me. :>” regardless, rue learned to molotov cocktail literally any emotion or thought she had, bc she was paranoid that it would give her mother a vision.

now, onto the perils of exploitation...she should’ve been used to it really, what with her mother forcing herself & siblings to lure customers into their shop with promises of visions and palm readings and the wonders of the cards and overexerting their abilities. same with housekeeping, like being of service to people was normal! but when seventeen year old rue decided to sign a record deal and break from home, she wasn’t thinking critically about what the fuck all of this would entail. and as described in this headcanon post abt her discography, her early music was the product of allowing people much older & powerful than you to influence your work & manipulate your values. so rue was very much parading around as someone she wasn’t, someone much more confident and badass and self-assured than she really was, and she was so impressionable back then that it literally makes her sick to think back on it now. she calls it her puppy phase and phrases the eagerness to please execs as ‘tongue wagging’. homegirl hardly even knew her name anymore, bc all she was and all she would ever be was rue, the star, the vocal temptress. not ai’rina, the help or ai’rina, the seer, ai’rina, the weak little nobody. but later on, the subtle manipulation was less about decision making & how they wanted her to sound, and more about how they wanted to present the latest trophy star — because after all, she was pretty. people liked her. she sung really well. suitors weren’t too far off into the distant future. so why not kill two birds with one stone by having a high ranking label artist keep tabloids talking by being seen in public with a few heart throbs? surely, there’s no harm in manipulating an eighteen/nineteen year old’s love life! under the guise of improving her social skills & relations with fellow artists and the media and the like, rue gave into the pressures and let herself be taken out on dates & seen at awards shows with a few guys. no big deal. it was only for a night or so, she could handle the attention. then, one night appearances turned into week long appearances. pretending to date for only a month! completely innocent, positive exposure. :)

(adult rue, looking back @ younger rue: you stupid fucking BITCH-)

yeah, so once her label/management realized that she was turning into a hot commodity, they lost no sleep at allowing their nineteen year old artist to be seen ‘dating’ 20-24+ year old men occasionally. and whatever happened after their public appearances were none of their business. plus, she was good at pretending and being arm candy — so rue experienced her first kiss, her first dates, and her first times with people who she’s almost certain hardly remember their time with her, and really only got involved with her for a mutual career boost. very few of them does she actually remember in a positive light, and the ones that were positive, still depress her bc lmao all of it was fake, even if they were really nice & made it less like a chore and more like they actually wanted to be with her!! even fewer of them were actual relationships. meaning, said person asked her out of their own volition, not bc their managers thought it’d be a decent match on camera. it was evil, really, what her old label made of her. (like, she makes funny jokes that her first time having sex was awkward bc she had a vision halfway through that bummed her out but in reality it was just...really more of a transaction that made her feel icky n progressively worse abt herself until it happened more often and now she just doesn’t care anymore. sex is just sex, u know?? everything’s fake. why you gotta make it personal.) this whole fiasco took over the larger part of rue’s career from like, age nineteen to age twenty-two or so, and she suffered dramatically from this because what is even a genuine, authentic relationship at this point? what do u mean you want to get to know me? did ur manager tell you to ask so many damn questions & try to get to know me? obviously you want something from me bc that’s why everyone gets into a relationship or has sex with me, stop confessing feelings for me u fucking loser. >:/

like...rue doesn’t even have friends. outside of her relationship with marcelo / @armsdealing (which, AGAIN, i think was initially arranged to promote her song be honest, how fucking IRONIC), rue does not have any personal relationships with anyone. i mean, she likes her latest management team since switching labels...her hair stylist is rly cool & her make up artist is fun to vacation with...she met a few other celebrities at events that she occasionally texts & has dinner with...yeah, she’s basically a pretty hermit. her family is more or less out of the question — the few brothers & sisters she does still have a positive relationship with (like, four of them lol), they don’t see each other in person often / mainly communicate via groupchat and facetime calls when all of them have time. she tried visiting with her mother over the years, but the verbal & emotional abuse/curses placed on her/accusations of being an imp of satan for singing to the public/memories of being forced to perform psychic shows & clean for chump change keeps her from trying to mend that relationship. like, being gaslit by ur mother isn’t really the vibe, u know? and bottom line, rue simply is a very shy and socially stunted individual who does not know how to communicate like a normal human being anymore. hell, her life revolves around pretending for strangers at this point!

now, onto how...all of That ties into her behavior / state of mind during this next album. so, after riding the wave of success from her third album & the circus that came with that. rue sort of had a fucking existential crisis. came out of absolutely nowhere. (not nowhere — one of her brothers called her out of the blue and called her ai’rina and she literally went “who the fuck is that?”) told her label that she was taking some time in between albums bc she was creatively zapped or whatever bullshit excuse she came up with that somehow worked bc this new label was a little more understanding than the last. vacationed for a little, did some hot girl shit, bought a house, tried to see her mother again for whatever reason then got the shit slapped out of her and finally screamed at her to never touch her again unless she wanted to Throw Hands. cried and got drunk abt it. that took six months. bullshat to her label again, dropped like two songs to smooth things over, decided to focus on magic for a little to ground her, started partying with label mates then going home shitfaced & hungover every other morning. that took eight months. dropped one last song, promptly deleted her twitter, tried to write songs again, got a call from her mother and panicked and got drunk. that took a year. vacationed some more, got even drunker, was bed ridden for like three months because holy shit i’m having so many visions and if i see One More Thing my brain is going to explode, couldn’t separate the present from the future for weeks after that, told absolutely no one about that, cried every day & had an identity crisis, dyed her hair to appease the identity crisis goblins. that took a year and a half.

now, she just chilling. dyed her hair again. scaring her siblings halfway to death bc she keeps going on benders & sending cryptic texts abt the visions she’s getting but they’re so incomprehensible that they’re seriously considering moving in to get her fucking shit together. had a vision that she was married with kids and had a two week identity crisis appeased only by moving houses. (she was in a neighborhood with families...too much Drama and visions. turned into a really cool song tho.) started calling herself by her birth name of ai’rina in private. reactivated twitter to send cryptic tweets that her album is coming. working on said album. trying to drink less but kinda failing bc how is one simply supposed to make a highly personal dual album without alcohol??? prbly somewhere crying in marcelo’s lap or smthn. just vibes.

like...i feel like, in my head, the Theme of her project is wrapped up in identity. her relationship with fame and whatnot. trying to coax her childhood self out of its’ shell so that she can function like a normal goddamn person for once and re-establish her values. like, if someone went to any of rue’s residences right now, it’s just songbooks everywhere and wine glasses and her crystals and shit, bc she still has people’s futures to read for money. (yes, she never really got out of that portion of her childhood, but hey it pays.) it was all very confusing to experience at once while in bed at four in the morning & even though i tried organizing and debated on this, it’s still a Lot. which is why i am once again asking for plots that would allow her to dissect all these Things

so yeah. album four otw, with a side of confronting our childhood & facing our traumas!

#rue — facts #imagine me making a cohesive hc post #it wont happen but like imagine how sexy that would be #anyway this is long and me thinks stream of conscious hc posting is both therapeutic and Exhausting #but i had a lot of thots abt her that needed to be shared to...yeah #abuse tw #alcoholism tw #long post tw #i feel like that its always sunny meme??? yall know which one #but anyways this is somehow overwhelming n embarrassing that i typed so much so i am going to hiding!#UNLESS!...........u want to plot with this Disaster of a woman :eyes:

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katehuntington · 4 years

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Title: In Bad Waters - part eight Word count: ±2900 words Episode summary: Still in possession of the Winchesters’ belongings, Zoë meets up with the hunters on her next case. When it turns out to be a little more complicated than anticipated, she accepts their help in order to make an important deadline. Part eight summary: Zoë might have accepted the boys help, that doesn’t mean they get along. If the hostility between them isn’t enough, Sam and Dean have some unresolved issues of their own. Episode warnings: Dark! NSFW, 18+ only! Descriptions of domestic violence/child abuse. Drug use/addiction. Angst, gore, violence, character death. Description of blood, injury and medical procedures/resuscitation. Swearing, alcoholism. Supernatural creatures/entities, mentions of demon possession. Descriptions of torture and murder, drowning. Illegal/criminal practices. Mentions of nightmares and flashbacks. Author’s note: Beta’d by @winchest09 and @deanwanddamons. Thanks, girls! Gif isn’t mine. If you are the creator or know who made it, please tell me so I can credit you.

Supernatural: The Sullivan Series Masterlist

S1E02 “In Bad Waters” Masterlist

A little less than an hour later, Sam, Dean and Zoë are sharing a table in In-N-Out. All three scheduled in some time to trade their business suits for their everyday clothes. The boys are comfortable in plaid shirts, worn jeans, and dusty old shoes, while Zoë looks like a totally different person now that she left her black pumps, blazer and dress pants in her hotel room. She’s wearing her hair down, her blown locks playfully curled up after last night’s shower. Her grey shirt has the famous Pink Floyd logo on it; a ray entering a triangle and breaks off into a rainbow when it exits. The brand new biker jacket hangs over the back of the bench while she plays with the loose tie of her All Stars shoe, wiggling her foot rhythmically.

U2’s Beautiful Day is playing in the background. It fits, considering the clear blue sky and warm sun outside. Satisfied, Dean and Zoë devour their burgers while Sam has settled for a milkshake, since they don’t have salads at this restaurant. Stunned and a little disgusted, he watches how Zoë intends to break the world record, tailed by Dean. The younger Winchester stares at them both, as the huntress swallows the last bite of the massive Animal Burger and starts on an additional cheeseburger she ordered. Apparently, Zoë doesn’t feel the need to hold back, despite having company, but then again, she wouldn’t change her demeanor for anyone.

Dean doesn’t even notice her manners as he shares her appetite. He’s more annoyed that she finished her burger before he did. He looks up for a moment as she licks the sauce from her fingers after finishing, then continues eating even faster than he did a moment ago.

“Dude! Seriously, a food race?” Sam chuckles. “Wholth?” Dean says with his mouth full. He swallows his bite, which apparently was a little bigger than he anticipated. He coughs and hits his chest with his fist, Zoë can’t help to laugh when she sees tears appear in his eyes. “What are you? Fuckin’ five years old?” she grins. “I wasn’t racing you,” he mutters hoarse. “Oh, you so were.” She sniggers, dipping one of Dean’s fries in mayonnaise. “Are you gonna eat that?” Obviously enjoying herself, she waits for his reaction. He watches her move the fry to her mouth with a look of shock and repugnance on his features. How dare she? Zoë chews on the snack provokingly. as expected he goes for the counter attack. “Don’t touch my fucking food,” he warns, pulling his portion of fries to his side of the table, clearly annoyed with his colleague stealing. “And I wasn’t racing you, ‘cause if I did, you would be many burger lengths behind, woman.” “That’s what’s bugging you the most, isn’t it? Dean Winchester just got defeated by a girl,” she nags. “I can take you with ease,” he claims, confidently. She laughs in return.“You wouldn’t stand a chance.” “Wanna bet?” “Knock it off, you two.” Sam breaks it up and looks from one to the other. “Now, could we concentrate on the case? We all got better things to do.” “I have better things to do. You on the other hand just have an unhealthy obsession with helping me,” she corrects, as she drinks from her milkshake through the straw. “Whatever,” Sam counters with a huff. “Let’s focus here. We’re dealing with a frustrated child spirit most likely on a killing spree.” “Yeah, but how the hell is she still here? I already burned her bones,” Zoë brings to mind. “She must be connected to some kind of object then, are you sure you burned everything?” Dean checks.

Zoë slightly tilts her head and glares at him with an attitude. Is he fucking kidding? “We’re sure, I was there with her,” Sam confirms, jumping in before the huntress can snap at his brother. “Nothing more romantic than a night at the graveyard,” Dean comments with a little grin, earning a death stare from Sam, and so he continues seriously. “We need to figure out what’s keeping her here before she goes all Mike Tyson again.” “She probably targets the people who are directly or indirectly responsible for her death. I don’t think she’ll rest until she kills every single one of them unless we do something about it,” Zoë speaks up. “So, who could be her next target?” Sam wonders. “It could be anyone, but the biggest candidates for a one way ticket to the land of the dead are probably Mrs. Shire and her son, maybe even Mrs. Dawlson,” Zoë realizes. “Who?” Sam and Dean question at the same time. “Her teacher at Elementary School. She knew about the abuse,” she informs, sipping her shake.

Dean seems confused. After all, he knows Zoë only arrived here last night. “How do you even know that?” “Because I had a fucking chat with her, asshat,” she claims, snappy. Dean bites his tongue and shakes his head slightly, letting a silent sigh slip from his lips. This woman is unbelievable. If it wasn’t for Sammy being so dead set on helping the bitch, he would get the hell out of dodge. Ignoring her comment, he picks up a few fries and stuffs his mouth full, not noticing the exchange of looks between Zoë and Sam. As soon as the youngest Winchester makes eye contact, he knows she didn’t talk to Mrs. Dawlson; she saw something in one of her flashbacks. “There could be a dozen more possible victims we don’t know about,” Sam states, quickly filling the void before it becomes noticeable. “True, but to figure out who might be next, we need to find more info on what happened to Laura,” she declares. “We already know what happened to her. Her dad abused her till death followed, nothing to add to that,” Sam says. “No, I mean after that.” Zoë leans forward, snitching another fry from the hunter across from her, who snaps his head up to her, staring her down and wondering where she got the nerve to steal his food twice. “Don’t you think it’s a little strange that no one found out about this murder yet? Because that what it was; murder. Her father killed her. Child services should have been all over this, especially with another minor in the household. Laura was buried without a conviction, while she obviously did not die of natural causes,” the smart woman brings to mind. “Why is that?” “I mean, the system is flawed. Maybe they missed it?” Sam suggests. “No, I don’t believe that. She must have been a mess, considering what her victims look like,” she ponders. Both boys nod as a sign of agreement; she has a point. Dean rubs his chin as he thinks. Then his facial expression changes, the metaphorical light bulb switching on in his brain. He glances up at the woman opposite of him, who watches him questioning.

“Dr. Hughes”, he says out of the blue. “I know that name,” Zoë realizes, trying to remember where she has heard it before. “It’s the doc from the morgue that we talked to,” he fills in. “He did the slicing on Shire’s dead body and also mentioned Ronald was a friend of his. I thought he responded weird when Sam mentioned the Hobbit dude.” “Is the Methodist Medical Center the only dead men’s storage in town?” Zoë asks the whizkid on Dean’s right. “Not sure. Let me check.” Sam takes out his laptop and sets it up on the table. As he works the computer, Zoë continues their brainstorming session.

“One way or the other, we need to get our hands on Laura’s death report and we need to figure out who wrote it. I’m guessing someone covered for Shire,” she speaks up. “How is that even possible these days, with all the paperwork and the forensics?” Sam rubs his temple, taking in Zoë for a second, but then returns his gaze to the laptop screen in front of him. “You think we’re the only ones who lie and deceive?” Zoë returns, smartly.

“We need to talk to more people. Someone who was there and experienced the abuse first hand and might know more about the cover-up. The Shire dude’s wife maybe?” Dean suggests. “We can’t turn up on her doorstep and confront her. If she doesn’t know her husband possibly erased evidence, it’s just gonna bring a shit ton of drama and a hell of alot explaining to do when she starts asking questions,” Zoë makes clear.

She forks her fingers through her hair and checks her phone for the time; shit. It’s almost 1 PM. Frustrated about the many blank pages of this case, she sighs, pulling at the corner of her bottom lip with her teeth. There’s so much about this job that doesn’t add up. “I don’t get how she could still be here. There was nothing left of her remains,” she sighs. “There has to be an explanation for that,” Sam ponders, as he stares at the address on display. “Anyway, there are no other morgues in town besides the one at the hospital on W. Kingshighway.”

“I tell you what.” With a neat throw Zoë tosses her empty plastic cup into the garbage can across the aisle. “Sam, you keep an eye on the Shire family. Dean’s gonna have a chat with Dr. Hughes, see if you can get some info on the death report. I’m gonna tail the teacher for a while,” she decides. Sam nods approvingly before his brother can object. He folds down the laptop screen and gets up. “Sounds good to me.” “Make sure you keep your eyes open, that little pain in the ass manages to beat up grown ups without the people next door noticing,” Zoë warns as she picks up her helmet from the bench. “You think this is our first rodeo?” Dean responds with a scoff. “You didn’t see me coming the other night in Rochester,” she counters sassy.

As she passes him she pets his shoulder, the one she put a bullet in only two nights ago. Dean flinches when a dim pain shoots through his arm again. That fucking b-- Before he can call her names, she exits the fast food restaurant, probably expecting the Winchesters to follow like obedient dogs. Stunned, he watches her walk over to her motorcycle, huffing in disbelief. First she doesn’t want their help, and now she’s giving out orders like she rules the fucking world. He didn’t think it could be possible, but his detest for her just grew to an all time high.

“Mark my words, one of these days I’m gonna shoot her down,” he announces frustrated. “Ahuh,” Sam responds, cynicism on his tongue as he puts the laptop in his backpack. “Just make sure you don’t pull a gun on her in public, will you?” “Can’t make any promises.” His brother huffs. “Anyway, you can have the car if you drop me off at the hospital. Let’s get this over with so that we can put some distance between us and the Wicked Witch of the West.”

Sam’s lips form a constricted smile, luckily his brother doesn’t notice. He has to admit that he’s enjoying the fact that his big brother is being told what to do by a girl, while normally he only takes orders from one person and one person only; their dad. What he finds interesting, however, is that despite a few muttered objections, Dean actually follows through with it.

“And you know what’s the fun part about all this?” Sam nags as they exit In-N-Out. “What?” Dean responds, annoyed, scanning the parking lot in order to spot Zoë’s Road King. “You have to dress like a penguin again.” The younger Winchester grins as he opens the door to the passenger’s seat.

His brother stares at him over the top of the car, realizing he’s going undercover as the FBI Agent Young once more. “Ah, come on! Can’t we trade?” he asks desperately. Sam laughs and sits down. “No way, dude.” Dean does the same and closes the door, complaining. “Man, I hate suits.” “You think I’m comfortable in one during these temperatures?” Sam returns. “Sam, even if I’d be freezing my ass off, I will never be at ease in that ridiculous outfit,” Dean states while turning the ignition, allowing Gimme Three Steps by Lynyrd Skynyrd to play on the cassette deck.

“I’m not trading places. I can work some stuff out while I’m guarding the house,” Sam explains, looking outside the window, squinting his eyes to protect them from the sun. “What stuff?” Dean questions, making sure it’s not just some lame excuse. Sam looks aside and hesitates for a moment, but then tells him anyway. “I want to call some friends of Dad,” he admits.

He feels Dean’s piercing gaze, but doesn’t look up. It’s only a matter of seconds before Dean pops the first question. “Why?” Dean asks sternly. “Why?! I don’t know about you, Dean, but I wanna find him,” Sam returns defensive. Dean grips the wheel a little tighter; as if he doesn’t want to find Dad. Seriously? “So do I, but I don’t think it’s wise to start calling random hunters to ask where he is, Sam.” “I won’t call ‘random’ hunters. I’ll call a few old friends, and why the hell not?” his brother questions. “Because Dad doesn’t want to be found,” the oldest of the two claims. “How could you possibly know that, Dean?! Seriously, do you have some kind of telepathic connection with the guy or what?” Sam reacts. “Hey, you’re the psychic one, not me,” Dean counters. “If Dad wants us involved in his hunt, he will contact us one way or the other. You know that.” “No, I don’t! I haven’t heard a word from him since I left for Stanford. I don’t understand the blind faith you have in the man,” the younger brother argues. “You were the one who fucking left, Sam. And let me tell you somethin’,” Dean pauses to enforce his words. “I trust him because he’s a damn good hunter.” “He’s human! He makes mistakes just like anyone else, only this time you won’t be around to back him up. It’s not some monster that he’s hunting, this is the monster! The one that killed Mom, that killed Jess!” Sam adds up. “You think I don’t realize that?” The car stops at a traffic light and Dean turns to him, his piercing green eyes judging his brother, the same way John so often has. “Of course I’d rather be backing him up right now, but he decided to do this alone and I accept that.” “Why the hell, though? Just because he says so?” Sam huffs, shaking his head disappointed. “Hell yes, because he says so!” his brother snaps. “He leads this mission, and we stick to the orders he gives us. It’s about fucking time you show him the respect he deserves.” “He has to earn that first,” the younger Winchester responds. “He earned that a long time ago. Every time he protected you, protected us. Everything that we were taught, all the skills that we’ve learned. You were so caught up in the illusion that school was gonna work out, that when he objected because he didn’t want you to be on your own, you cut all ties,” Dean barks at him as he accelerates faster than necessary. “Why the hell do you want to find him so bad if you hate his guts, huh?” “I don’t hate his guts,” Sam says, his voice a lot less hostile than a moment ago.

Dean takes his eyes off the road again and glances at the passenger, noticing the defeated expression on Sammy’s face. Annoyed with himself he looks ahead again, shutting his eyes for a second when a pang of guilt distinguishes the anger in a matter of seconds. He meant to give his little brother a reality check, but all he did was hurt him. “Sam, I get you want answers. But calling his friends isn’t the way to do it. We just gotta be patient.”

His brother's jaw clenches and he looks away, not denying nor confirming that Dean is right and that he himself will listen. It doesn’t matter anyway; there’s no way he can turn his brother’s mind around. And Dean claims Sam is the one who is like their old man? Just now he was sure to sit next to a younger version of Dad.

He can't agree with the reasoning behind Dean’s actions, though. His older brother dragged him out of school to find Dad and now that it’s coming down to that, he doesn’t want to go out on a search. Sam on the other hand, he has to find him. Not only does he have some unresolved issues with his father, John is also the only hunter who has been tracking the thing that ruined their lives. He is the key to finding answers. It’s all he can think of; hunting down the bastard that killed Mom and Jessica.

Without saying another word, Dean drives his Impala to their motel, convinced he made his point, even though he hurt his brother’s feelings to get the message across. But Sam isn’t going to let go, neither will he trade places with Dean on their jobs. During his hours of watching the Shire family, he’s gonna make those calls and he is going to find their father. Whether Dean likes it, or not.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to like or reblog my work, shoot me a message or buy me coffee (Link to Kofi in bio at the top of the page).

Read chapter nine here

#Supernatural: the Sullivan Series #Supernatural OFC series #Supernatural fanfiction #Dean Winchester fanfiction #Sam Winchester fanfiction #Dean fanfiction #Sam fanfiction #Dean angst #Sam angst #Dark!Supernatural #supernatur #spn #stss #1x02 in bad waters #Zoë Sullivan #Kate Huntington

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olivia200312 · 4 years

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Falling in Love~ TFP! Orion Pax x Human! Reader (Sneak Peek of the Future Book!)

Plot: Y/N is a famous human that has many talents. She knows Orion thanks to her parents. The clerk couldn't help but fall in love with the cute human when they get to know each other more.

This is a sneak peek of the future book of Orion Pax/Optimus Prime x Hybrid! Reader. I hope you'll enjoy this! This book will come out in the future! So I do have some ideas and I decided to share it here. Music helps me a lot finding ideas. I'm not lying. When I listened to some songs, ideas come out. I mean not fast or immediatly. It needs time first my head. So enjoy this sneak peek!

Head area:

Brain: Processor / Brain Module Head: Helm Face: Face plate Ears: Audio receptors / Receptor Orifice / Audials Nose: Enstril / Olfactory Sensor Eye brow: Optical Ridge Eyes: Optics Mouth: Intake Lips: Dermas Teeth: Denta/Dentas Tongue: Glossa

Chest area: Chest: Chassis / Thoraxal Cavity Back: Hexa-Lateral Scapula Spine: Bipedalism cord / Back Strut

Chest and back armour: Chest plate Back plate Mid-section plating Neck guard Side plating

Arm area: Arms: Arms / Restarlueus Forearms: Bitarlueus Hands: Servos Fingers: Digits

Arm armour: Gantlets Shoulder pads Arm guard

Lower area: Pelvis: Pelvis Butt: Aft / Skid-Plate Thighs: Tibulen Calves: Cadulen Feet: Pedes - the high heel bits are called Struts or Heel Struts.

Lower armour: Skirt plates Aft plate / Skid plate Thigh guard Ankle guard

General/Internal components: Muscles: Cables / Pistons - It depends on the area in question. Veins: Fual lines Stomach: Tanks Lungs: Vents - used to stop the con/bot from over heating. Heart: Spark Tattoos: D-con/A-bot Insignias and the lark T-Cog: The thing that allows all Cybertronians to transform, be that their arms or their whole body.

Bonus:

Penis: Spike

Vagina: Valve

Body: Frame

Note: the art goes to the owner!

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Humans belong to planet Earth. That was their home planet. The only living planet. But what if that wasn't the case? A human named Y/N L/N, was the only human that lived in Cybertron. Well, not the only one. Her sire was a full Cybertronian while her mom was a human. Well, her mom was Cybertronian sometimes, but only when she was outside. Inside the house, she's human to take care of her daughter. Y/N's sire was a warrior that was good at fighting and would do anything to protect his sparkmate and sparkling.

You're wondering how Y/N's mother became the sparkmate of Y/N's sire and how she came to Cybertron. Well, let me tell you:

Y/N's mother was born in Earth and didn't had an easy life. She was treated horribly and lived at an orphanage. It was unknown what happened to her parents. When she was only 16, she was on her way back to the orphanage after schoo. There, she heard weird noises in the forest that she went to check it out. That's where she met an Cybertronian who was also Y/N's sire. The warrior was amazed when he met Y/N's mother close by. He was of course tall while Y/N's mom was small. That's when they hit it off. They became fast friends and they told each other everything. Y/N's sire felt bad once he heard that Y/N's mother lived in a bad staste. She didn't care if she got scolded or punished just for being late. She continued to sneak off and see her Cybertronian friend. Especially at night.

Y/N's sire story was that he decided to visit Earth once he read some datapads about it. He was amazed by humans and the nature. Once he managed to visit Earth, he had to hide immediatly so he scanned an random cool car and transformed. That's when he rode into a deep forest and found an cave to hide. He planned on staying in Earth for a month to study everything about Earth and to write datapads about it since on Cybertron there wasn't many info. He wanted to learn other Cybertronians that other planets can be cool. Once he met Y/N's mother up close, he coudn't help but fall in love. He finds her extremely beautiful that he almost fainted. He did everything he could to help his human friend whenever she was in trouble.

One day, Y/N's mother got kicked out just for being 'troubled'. She didn't do anything wrong! Her stupid bullies did that these fragging people believed them! Y/N's mother didn't care anymore that she simply dropped out of school and went to live with her Cybertronian friend. She made sure that she had clothes and money. Did I forgot to metion that the bullies destroyed her phone? The glass was broken and her phone wouldn't start.

Y/N's sire felt sorry that he let her live with him. They became more close that when it was almost time to go back to Cybertron, Y/N's sire was super romantic and confessed his love feelings to her at night in his... bipedal form. Yes, you heard me. Bipedal form. Cybertronians can do that. If they want to be small, then they can. They can't change into humans yet. He was so happy once Y/N's mother felt the same and that's when they kissed each other. Y/N's sire was like a knight in shining armor since he was metal with feelings and Y/N's mother was like a princess. And Y/N's sire surprised Y/N's mother by asking her if she would like to come to Cybertron and live there. His sparkmate was so happy that she said yes. Don't worry, Y/N's sire kept his sparkmate alive and safe when they were in space.

Once they both arrived in Cybertron, many Cybertronians were shocked that one of them was dating an different species. They accepted the human and were respectful towards her. Y/N's mother felt like at home. She felt connected there. Cybertronians asked Y/N's mother for perimission if they could study her. They weren't rough or anything like that.

One day, Y/N's mother came back as a Cybertronian because she wanted to surprise her sparkmate and she did. She felt more powerful. But she still had a human form just in case. One day, Y/N's parents mated ;) and Y/N's mother got pregnant. She had to stay human to keep the baby safe. Many Cybertronians were amazed how a baby human grows inside moms stomach. Cybertronian medics managed to get a bed and other stuff in a human size since Y/N's mother will need it. They also kept an eye on her while she stayed with the medics.

When Y/N was finally born, many Cybertronians were amazed. Y/N was so tiny due to being a baby. The medics did their best as they could to take care of Y/N and they did an excellent job. Y/N was healthy and safe. But Y/N was very special. She was born as a hybrid! An Cybertronian hybrid! How? Her sire was full Cybertronian while her mom was human. Y/N was very special that many Cybertronians complimented and supported Y/N's parents.

Y/N's sire wrote datapads about Earth, his love story and about Y/N. Y/N's parents watched their sparkling grow up and she discovered so many talents. The special ones were singing and dancing. How did she learn? From her parents. From her mom the most since she was human. Her sire studied and tried to learn. When Y/N was about 12 years old, her singing voice was very popular around whole Cybertron along with her dance moves. She liked to cover songs from Earth with her voice. Her sire managed to get songs from Earth through the computer. Did I forgot to metion that Y/N's sire was good at technology? Yep, that's right. Thanks to Y/N's famous singing and dancing, the whole Cybertron got to know her and they all loved her!

When Y/N was small, she met Orion Pax and Megatronus. She befriended both of them and they became good friends. Well, Orion became her best friend. He was a clerk that loved to read datapads and study. Yeah, he was a smart mech. You could ask him anything and he would respond.

Megatronus was just a good friend of Y/N's. Y/N would support him together with Orion whenever the gladiator was in the arena. He loved seeing Y/N sing and dance. He supported her too and was proud of her when she got famous.

Anyway, Y/N was 16 now and entered the Hall of Records together with her carrier (mother). Her sire was working so her carrier took her there. Orion asked Y/N if she would like to join with him where he worked and she happily agreed. She couldn't help but fall in love with the clerk. He was just so sweet, kind, supportive, shy and respectful.

Y/N's carrier found Orion and went to him. "Greetings, Orion."

Orion smiled. "Greeting." He then saw Y/N and couldn't help but show a big cuter smile. "Hi, Y/N. Are you ready?"

Y/N smiled back. "You bet I am!"

Y/N's carrier chuckled and looked down at her sparkling. "Behave, ok, sweetie?"

"I will, mom."

"Alright." She then kissed Y/N's forehead gently and gave Y/N to Orion, who gladly took her over. She then went off.

Orion then started to walk towards his desk that he was working. He loved helping others and gave data all the time. He smiled down at Y/N and she smiled back. They both were deep in love, but they don't realise it. They're just caught up with their works. Once Orion arrived at his desk, he set Y/N down gently and sat on his chair.

"So, how are you doing, Y/N?"

"I'm doing good, Orion. How about you?"

"I'm doing good. Megatronus pushed me a day ago to take a break, because I accidentally overworked."

Y/N hummed. "He is right. You need to take breaks. If you don't, then you'll have health problems."

Orion nodded and understood. "Did you released a new song?" He LOVED hearing her voice and he wanted to dance with her. But he didn't want to hurt her by accident.

Y/N smiled. "Yes, it's called 'We Found Love' by Rihanna together with Calvin Harris."

Orion then smiled shyly. "Would you please sing it?"

Y/N nodded and stood up. She then cleared her troat and started to sing and dance. Orion was amazed and couldn't help but put his servos against his chin while his elbows were on his desk. He looked dreamily at her.

(The song is at the end)

Once the song was done, Y/N bowed playfully and heard Orion clap. "That was beautiful!"

Y/N giggled while blushing. "T-Thank you."

Then the clerk had a question. "Do you have thoughts how you would look like as a Cybertronian?"

Y/N thought for a second. "I hope to have F/C armour and that I would look like a fighter. My carrier trained me how to fight along with my sire."

Orion smiled. He loved what he heard. "We'll see in 2 years."

That's right. Smart Cybertronians found something new about Y/N. She would basically have Cybertronian form when she reaches her 18th birthday. What did I tell you? She's born as a hybrid. When she will be 18, then she would finally see her Cybertronian form. Orion was imangining how she would look like. He knew that she would look gorgeous as a femme Cybertronian. The news about that spread around fast and many Cybertronains, especially her fans, couldn't wait to see her as femme bot. Especially her parents.

Orion then stroked Y/N's soft H/C hair with his digit gently. He finds her so beautiful. He saw that Y/N smiled at him while leaning into his touch. The clerk smiled back.

I hope you enjoyed this sneak peek! I'm sorry if some things were weird in there. I tried my best to share all of my ideas here. I worked hard on it to complete it. At least some moments were cute :)

youtube

#TFP #Transformers Prime #optimus prime x reader #Orion Pax x reader #Romance

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bhvgat · 3 years

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hi angels !! i’m cami and i realized that the name elliot is usually spelled with two ls after i wrote his bio and applied so we’re just never gonna talk abt that <3 but i’m very excited to be here & plot with u all, info abt eli under the cut !!

dev patel, cis man, he/him — whenever i see elliot bhagat meandering down agnes street the adults are talking by the strokes starts to play inside my head. maybe it is the vibe they give off. a cup of hot coffee with just a touch of oat milk, a soft smile in the early morning light, a brief case filed with meticulous notes and a perfectly fitted suit ; you know ? the roundabout is what keeps them interested in agnes. i heard they are a thirty two year old environmental lawyer. they look like the kind of person who always tips well.

BIOGRAPHY.

eliot grew up curious about the world around him. his parents immigrated to boston four years before he was born, and by the time he came along they were the proud owners of a successful restaurant. he spent his childhood questioning any customers he could about their lives, the regulars all knew him well. he wanted to know about people, what made them tick. each person’s story gave him a new idea for what he wanted to do with his life. while his parents expected a lot of him, the burden was lessened by being the youngest of three. he could have any dream he wanted so long as it was practical and lucrative.

by the time he reached middle school the many dreams had solidified under one central tenet, he wanted to make the world a better place. he was the kind of kid who watched the discovery channel and then came to school the next day ready to tell everyone about the latest environmental issue. his passions were wide and strong.

by the time he reached high school it was clear that he was more than a little bit of a hopeless romantic. with each relationship he found himself in he swore he had found his soulmate, burning mix cds and pouring his heart out in journal entries. while he was falling in and out of love over and over again he settled on what he wanted to do with his life, becoming a senator was his goal. a real way to bring change to the world.

his dream led him to university and then to law school. he was always an excellent student, quick witted and well read. school had felt like a sort of dream to eliot, the ivy and stone beautiful enough for his romantic tendencies to thrive and the relief of being surrounded by like minded people was equally engaging.

he graduated top of his class and was quickly receiving offers from multiple prestigious law firms. he still knew what he wanted to do with his life, but a few years of work first seemed like an ok place to start. as time passed however, he found it particularly draining. he had always wanted to make the world a better place, but what he was doing was far from that.

then he fell in love. not that he hadn’t before, but this one gave him a certainty that it was going to last forever. so a year in he was picking out a ring ( an antique emerald surrounded by ethically mined diamonds ), and a year after that and a month before his wedding when he returned home from work to find a note on the table. she wasn’t ready, she couldn’t do it, their love simply wasn't strong enough.

that’s when he heard about an opening at a smaller environmental law firm in ilsesbury. sure, it wasn’t quite as high paying as his old job and he still wasn’t anywhere near running for office, but at least he’d be saving the planet. plus the thought of ever having to run into his ex made getting out of town an appealing option. so almost three months ago he packed up his things and moved to the city and taking the job and a small apartment with a view of the water, with a heart that’s just a little less open to love.

HEADCANONS.

eliot loves cooking and food. he doesn’t always have time to cook for himself as he’s very career oriented, however when he does he savours it. it reminds him of his childhood, growing up in the restaurant. also he was raised vegetarian and became vegan in university.

he’s an avid journaler and has been for most of his life. he has a pile of old journals on his book shelf.

has always wanted to be a dad, he’s always wanted to get married and settle down and have kids, but each year he gets older that dream feels further away.

tends to live below his actual means, is very frugal. his parents instilled that in him and his siblings growing up, and it’s a trait he very much still possess. he’ll splurge on things like clothes enough to make sure he’s well dressed ( especially for work ) and going out for dinner or coffee. he’s a big tipper, having been a waiter himself through all of high school and his first few university summers in his parents restaurant. but his apartment is tiny, and apart from plants the furnishing is pretty basic.

as sweet as he can be he can also be very very stubborn. once he makes up his mind about something it’s rare that he’ll change it.

volunteers a lot, is constantly looking for ways to help out around the community.

he has a mostly positive relationship with his parents and his siblings. while they did have high expectations for their children,they primarily just wanted them to be happy and were very loving, especially with eliot being the youngest.

he was terrified to come out to his parents as bisexual, which he did his senior year of high school. while they were a little bit confused at first they were on the whole loving and supportive of him.

he is left leaning politically with a strong emphasis on social and enviromental issues. while his own dream is on hold for the time being, he does make an effort to get involved, doing things such as canvassing for candidates he supports.

he’s a hopeless romantic and has always been the type to write love letters and buy flowers for no particular reason. this also has caused him to have his heart broken one too many times.

he speaks english and some gujarati, he also took latin in his undergrad but doesn’t remember much of it apart from legal terms and is taking spanish on duolingo

can very much be a workaholic, can be seen in a cafe on weekends working on a case and drinking a coffee

loves to read and has a book shelf over flowing with just about every genre, particularly inclined to romantic era authors and poets

he was raised hindu but isn’t practicing

( alcohol/drugs tw ) he doesn’t really tend to be a drinker or do drugs, he will enjoy a glass of wine with dinner or the occasional cocktail when he goes out for dinner but it’s rare that he’ll get drunk. the only drug he’ll ever really go for is weed, which he’ll smoke occasionally. probably did shrooms like once or twice when he was younger. honestly probably too concerned with the ethics of the drug industry to do much else.

enjoys hiking and being in nature quite a bit.

pretty good at chess actually,, not like really good but like isn’t awful in a casual match, same with scrabble.

#agnesfm.intro

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deepwoundsandfadedscars · 3 years

Note

May I please request an info dump about an OC of your choice? Ngl I’m super intrigued by the things I see you posting and I’m the nosy gay who wants to know moooooore 😁

Look what you’ve done, you’ve made me ramble 😂😂 were you aware when you sent this that you’d set off a 1,200 word monster of a post?? The only thing I considered but decided to leave out was gathering the links to the stories involving these characters that I have already posted (though if anyone is interested in that, I will absolutely do it, I don’t have a proper master post for these guys 👀)

But oh my god, I’ve never had someone request an info dump before, I don’t even know where to start! Well, I will fully admit it’s not a super developed world that these characters are in, I haven’t determined any specific overarching story that they all fit together in, I basically just made a little family who have made it good in not completely legal means who occasionally get caught up in fights with their antagonist duo who just won’t leave them alone.

(The rest is going under a read more cause it’s a lot haha)

Tyr is my first character, as in like. He was one of the first characters I wrote with when I was like ten, but he has changed a lot since then, his name, his appearance, even his background, basically everything about him except for his ability has changed. Maybe I should have just made Tyr a new character and kept the original one as is, but he just evolved so gradually and even if he’s nothing like he was almost (god, fml) 20 years ago, I still know it’s the same guy, so it doesn’t feel right to try to have both iterations as two separate characters coexisting in the same world. Maybe I’ll recycle bits of his past that aren’t relevant anymore and tack them onto another character, but I haven’t done any of that yet.

As he is now, Tyr is a black man with his long hair done in box braids that fall past his shoulders, 5’6”, and about 28 years old, with a heavy British accent. He’s protective of his friends and isn’t afraid to fight for any of them, no matter how short of time he’s known them, as long as they’ve given him reason to trust them. His ability is the power to manifest and control flames, which he doesn’t do often but is very adept at controlling it.

Brennan is another character in the group, I came up with him about five or so years ago and he hasn’t gone through nearly as many changes as Tyr, but his name did change a couple years ago and I pinned down a couple other details around that time. Brennan is a pretty big human being at 6’5”, he towers almost a foot taller than Tyr with broad shoulders. In every way he throws a very intimidating silhouette, built like a rock and hard to knock over, but if one were to somehow pick him off the ground they would find him to be strangely lightweight.

And that is do to his ability, two huge black wings that he’s had since he was very young. Though he is a large person, his bones did not develop the same way an average humans would so that his wings can lift him. They are strong enough to carry him, he is a very skilled flyer with them, but they’re not strong enough to carry another person for very long, though he has managed to catch someone to slow their fall and at least get a little further away from danger. (I think I wrote this incident out but not sure if I ever finished it enough to post, but maybe I shall)

Brennan is white but tanned, short light brown hair and light blue eyes, 30, and uses he/him and they/them pronouns, which I do incorporate both of their pronoun options into my writing, it feels natural to me now when I'm writing and I hope it comes across clearly who is being referred to each time. Another important fact about Brennan is that they are non-verbal, they used to speak as a child but due to circumstances in their childhood that they haven’t divulged to the group just yet, they just eventually stopped speaking. Whether or not he is physically capable of saying anything, even he’s not sure, but he and everyone else in the group have grown comfortable enough with ASL that they can all communicate without speaking as well.

And then there’s Kaipo! Or Kai for short, she is black/Polynesian, 26, 5’8” with thick curly afro hair. She has a bubbly personality and is really good with computers. She is unfortunately not the most detailed character I’ve ever made, I regret that I haven’t written as much with her, but in the fluffy musings I have about this little family, she is the one that drags everyone out of their bad moods and gets them to laugh through jokes and pranks. She is very much a meme master. Tyr and Brennan can both be heard groaning often at her terrible puns.

Trevor is a relatively new addition (I just went to look at the first thing I posted with him, it was two years ago already what the heck! It doesn’t feel like that long ago) Trevor is lean, 6’1”, white skinned with black hair and brown eyes. On his own, he is a normal human being, nothing unique about him to speak of aside from the fact that he will very much die early. I have not disclosed why, but he is terminal and would die within a matter of weeks. The only thing keeping him from an early demise is the mutual partnership he has forged with Algamoth, a lesser demon that Trevor unwittingly freed from captivity while saving himself.

Trevor is around 28 years old, while Algamoth is not entirely sure how old he would be considered, but he has been on Earth for upwards of 1,200 years. He is able to exist without Trevor, though not in a very tangible way. Without being in a humans body he is not much more than a cloud or puddle that can fit in the palm of a hand. He is able to heal Trevor’s body, which makes their partnership beneficial to both; Algamoth is protected within Trevor’s body and Trevor gets to keep on living.

I started writing a blurb that would tie them in with the rest of the group, but have not finished it, I need to add it to my to-do list and post it haha

And then finally we have Michael. Everyone seemed to love Michael when I posted the first story that featured him, which that story was the result of a prompt from a Discord server I was on a few years ago. At the time I had no intention to mix him in with everyone else, but I think he would fit in pretty well. As you could probably tell from my ramblings last night, I’m not entirely sure which direction I want to take him, but I do have some thoughts on how to get him from where he is to where I want him to be and it does involve whump, but still pondering if I want that whump to reveal an ability he till now was not aware of. I have a vague idea of what he looks like but it’s not set in stone at all yet.

Other characters that have appeared in my writing are Malichi (Tyr’s boyfriend), Allison (the main antagonist), and Remy (Allison’s right hand). Another character that exists but has only appeared on page once is Promise, who is Kai’s girlfriend. That single story-ish thing with Promise only got one note lmao but tbf it wasn’t a full story, just a song inspired AU.

As of yet I don’t think I have any characters who are definitely straight, they’re all pretty queer in some way. Tyr and Brennan are both ace and panromantic, Kaipo is bisexual, Malichi and Promise are both gay, Algamoth is pansexual. I have not discovered yet what Michael and Trevor’s sexual or romantic orientations are nor pinned down what Allison and Remy are since they in general aren’t super fleshed out, though I have leaned towards them being girlfriends as well, but I’m not 100% convinced on that yet.

AAHHH Wow, ok I didn’t expect for this to get so long, but I hope this was of interest! Typing this out and regathering info of these characters reminded me of a few WiPs that have never seen the light of day that I would like to finish some day, so hopefully this has given me the spark to do that.

#Thanks for the ask~!#my OCs #ocs #original characters #also fun fact! Tyr is based on a character from the game that made me realize I like they/them pronouns for myself #he's inspired by the main character from that game though I felt like he was a he/him user rather than keeping with the main characters in-#simplygrimly #the main characters in-game pronouns #(stupid tag character limits)

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always-and-forever-a-killjoy · 4 years

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Coming, Coming Home Chapter 3 (Except it’s actually called Building Home now)

Hello fuckers so I impulsively changed the name of my big fic because I have Plans for the title coming home so now it’s called building home, but it’s still the same fic. Also here’s chapter 3 please read the warnings and if you spot any typos lmk because I wrote this late at night.

Also! The last chapter title was from i hope ur ok by noll! The POV for this chapter is White Lily, which makes it officially the first chapter from the POV of an original character, so I hope you enjoy!

Title: Building Home

Chapter Title: The day it was suddenly real

Chapter Wordcount: 3404

Chapter Summary:

Cherri Cola arrives home. Wounds are stitched, impulsive decisions are made, and no one is especially okay.

Warnings: Needles, blood, injury, fairly frank discussion of death and child death. (If you want to know what parts to skip, go to the end notes on AO3- I also put a brief summary of any important info in those parts. Stay safe!)

Taglist: @wishiwasthemoon-tonight @sleevesareforlosers @stressed-depressed-emo-mess @tasteofamnesia @dagger-queen @no-braincells-here @piratecherricola (message me, send an ask, or reblog/reply to one of my posts if you want to be added or removed)

AO3 Link

Chapter 1 AO3 Link

Chapter 1 Tumblr Post

Chapter 2 Tumblr Post

(Actual fic under the cut)

Lily looked up as Cherri stumbled into the house, pressing a hand to his side and wincing. She and D had gotten back a few minutes ago, finding their mission for the day discouraging and hopeless. D was off upstairs somewhere, she thought, and she was nursing a cup of ‘tea’, which was something more approximating warm water with a little bit of some sort of dried leaf they had found in the kitchen cabinets boiled in it. They were both pretty sure it was actually parsley, but Lily insisted it was ‘minty enough’. It wasn’t as if they had anything else for tea. She would have gotten something to eat as well, but they were mostly out and they would need enough left for dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast.

So, in short, it had been an incredibly shitty day and it was about to get even worse. Given that Cherri proceeded to pass out on their floor.

Lily swore under her breath and set down her cup, hurrying over to the younger killjoy. “Cherri?”

No reply. She crouched next to the other and gently turned him over, sucking in a sharp breath at how much blood covered his side. “Cherri! D, get down here! Quickly! And bring the med kit!”

D came hurrying in a few seconds later, grabbing the first aid kit off the wall as he did. “What’s going on, Lil- Cherri!”

Lily grabbed the kit from him and dug around for the disinfectant, swearing under her breath all the while. In her opinion, there were times that called for generous usage of the word fuck, and this was one of them.

“Cher, wake up,” Lily whispered as she cleaned the wound, trying futilely to wipe away the blood so she could see.

Cherri jerked under her hands, eyes blinking open. “D- Lil- you have to go.”

“Go where?” D asked gently. It was clear Cherri wasn’t going to let them help until he passed on whatever he was going to say, so Lily let D talk.

“Go- just. Just go somewhere. They know about the radio station- bli, they’re coming to hunt us down soon. They know Lil’s in Zone Four.”

D and Lily exchanged glances.

“Go pack our stuff,” Lily told him. “I’ll take care of Cher.”

D nodded to her and hurried upstairs as she threaded the needle with hands that shook more than she wanted to admit. “Okay, Cherri, I need you to be brave. This is going to hurt like a bitch.”

“Got it.” Cherri’s teeth were clenched.

Lily started the first stitch, trying not to flinch as Cherri gave a tiny yelp of pain. “It’s going to be okay, only a few more stitches, okay?”

She got a tiny nod and another hiss of pain in response. Every pained noise cut at her heart, but she couldn’t let Cherri lose too much blood. Only the Phoenix Witch knew how much he had lost already. So Lily put in careful stitch after careful stitch, pausing to clean the needle occasionally.

“What happened, Cher?”

“Went to- went to raid a supply truck.” He sucked in a breath as Lily tied off the next stitch. “Exterminator was altered by the clap. Found me and shot me.”

“How the hell did you get away?” D was returning from the upstairs with almost everything they owned neatly packed away, getting ready to pack up any stuff in the living room that they’d be able to take.

“They-“ he winced. “They let me go. Threatened me, told me to tell you two that you wouldn’t win.”

Lily glanced at D again and found that the concern in his eyes mirrored her own. “Okay, you’re all sewed up, Cherri. Let’s go out to the van.”

Cherri tried to get up, but D pushed him down firmly. “Absolutely not, you’re barely even stitched up. I’ll carry you out.”

“Fine.” Cherri didn’t resist as D picked him up, following Lily outside. She watched to make sure everything went smoothly as they set him down on the small nest of blankets and other soft things Lily had thrown together, then headed to the front. By the time D had settled next to their youngest crew member, she was already in the drivers’ seat, getting ready to take them away from here.

Lily thought she heard Cherri mutter something about ‘I’m not a child’, but he was curled up and fast asleep within minutes as she stepped on the gas.

And meanwhile, Dr. Death Defying made his way back up to the front of the van carefully, sliding into shotgun.

“Feels real now,” Lily said as her best friend settled next to her. She was still carefully steering them down the road, trying not to bump too much and wake up Cherri.

“We knew the consequences from the start.” D’s voice was businesslike, but Lily could hear the strain of worry behind it.

“We did. We’ve seen enough death to know it could happen to us.” She didn’t take her eyes off the road. “But it feels more real when it’s Cher who got hurt.”

“He’s so young,” D agreed. Their voice had softened and grown quieter.

“He is. God, I know he’s hardly younger than we were when we were shipped off to fight, but he’s still a child, D.”

“I know, Lil.”

“He’s so small. So young. And he’s got that way about him like there’s kindness behind the pain. Who put him in this war? Who let him be one of our little rebel soldiers? He should be….”

“Happy,” D finished for her. “Safe. Not going head-to-head with exterminators and helping run a radio station.”

“Exactly.” Her voice shook more than she would have liked. “Are we doing the right thing, D? Can we justify letting children fight a war we know we might not win?”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly.

“It’s not like we can stop them from fighting, but sometimes I question if we should encourage them,” Lily went on. “So many of them are going to die, D.”

“That’s how war is. We know that.”

"We learned it well.” She knew her laugh was a little bit bitter. “It’s still not right, though.”

“No, it’s not. But we’re not fighting for nothing. There’s a future without Better Living, and we have to fight for that. Fight for it with everything we’ve got.”

Lily sighed. “I guess you’re right. I don’t like it, but we don’t have a choice now. Got ourselves into this mess, I guess we better get ourselves out of it.”

“That’s the spirit,” D said dryly.

“You think we should send Cher away?” It was an abrupt subject change, but that was what had been hovering in her mind as she and D debated morality. “He’s going to get hurt a lot by being with us.”

“He’s going to get hurt either way. He wasn’t even with us today when he got hurt, and the exterminator didn’t sound like they recognized him. Cherri is reckless, we both know. He’s going to get hurt.”

“And it’s not like he would listen if we tried to send him away anyways.”

“That too. He would stick to us like superglue.”

Lily took her eyes off the road briefly to glance back at Cherri, who was still curled up tightly as they bumped along. Even when he slept, there was a slight bit of guardedness to him, unwilling to fully stretch out. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

“Me too.”

They hadn’t known where they were going when they packed up and left the house, only knowing that they needed to get out, but a plan started to form in White Lily’s mind as they headed down the road. D didn’t question her, seemingly absorbed in his thoughts as he stared out the window, and Cherri was passed out from a combination of blood loss and not sleeping well for a while. Ever, really. Lily didn’t think he had slept through the night since he arrived- he rarely actually woke one of them up, but she was up on her own often enough when he would be awake and bumping around. So even without the ray gun wound, he definitely needed sleep.

Lily turned them off the path they had been following, pulling up in a somewhat intact town. They were parked in front of the most intact house, an almost Victorian style home with sturdy walls. This was where Lily knew she could find an old friend, of sorts.

Autumn Assassin was somewhere between twenty-five and thirty years old, about five foot four, and utterly and completely terrifying. They were the best shot with a ray gun she had ever met, with the possible exception of Cherri, and could use a variety of other weapons with startling ease. They were also terrifyingly competent at cooking and keeping organized, and hadn’t put up with anyone’s shit in living memory. Lily had served with them for a time in the Helium Wars, and that brief service together was enough to give her a healthy respect for them.

“Where are we?” D asked, finally seeming to come out of their thoughts.

“An old friend’s house." Lily headed into the back, grabbing one of the bags as D lifted Cherri carefully. She led the others up to the door of the old and mostly intact house, knocking once she had finished laughing at the ‘House of Soup’ spray-painted next to the door.

Said door was opened by an unfamiliar killjoy with messy blond hair. “Hello, what can I do for you?”

“I need to talk to Autumn Assassin, do they still live here?”

“Sure do!” There was a loud crash and some yells from within the house. “I’ll get them in uhhh a second. HEY AUTUMN! WE NEED YOU UP HERE!”

A few more yells followed that, as well as one or two more crashes. “Now put that sword down or so help me!” The familiar tiny killjoy appeared at the door, putting their hands solidly on their hips. “So what is it, Princey?”

“These fine ‘joys showed up on our doorstep and asked to see you.”

“Ah. White Lily!”

“Hey, Autumn Assassin. You don’t happen to have a spare room, do you?”

Autumn Assassin looked them up and down, eyes raking over D’s tired face, the bits of blood splattering all of them, and Cherri passed out in D’s arms. “Of course I do.”

Lily breathed a tiny sigh of relief as the smaller killjoy hurried them inside. The interior of the house proved to be quite cozy, a nice living room outfitted with a verity of mismatching and likely stolen or scavenged furniture. There were also a variety of killjoys lounging around the living room and/or draped over said furniture, laughing and calling back and forth to each other as Autumn Assassin led the three of them further inside and up the stairs.

They turned left on the landing, opening the door to what had once been a bedroom, clearly. “Here you go, this is the best free room in the house, currently. We might even have an extra mattress laying around, you’ll have to give me a second to find it through.” They rummaged around in the closet of the room for a few minutes. “Ah! Here we go!”

It was a larger mattress than one would reasonably expect to fit in a closet, but Autumn Assassin had managed to cram it in there anyways, it appeared. They hauled it out and laid it across the floor of the fairly bare room. “Here you go.”

“Thank you,” Lily said gratefully as D set Cherri down.

“Of course. Now come tell me about your friends and how you came to be here, I’ve got to cook dinner but you can come downstairs with me.”

“I’ll wait with Cherri,” D told Lily. “He’ll probably not be very happy about waking up alone in a strange place.”

Lily nodded and so did Autumn as they tromped downstairs, shouldering past another killjoy to reach the kitchen. “And here we go, pass me that can of power pup, would you?”

Lily handed it to them. “So you’ve been living here…”

“Couple of months now, me and the brit boys settled down here first and then we acquired a couple of other friends along the way. It’s a safehouse of sorts, we give a room to anyone who needs one.”

“Gotcha.”

“So how did you come to be here with an injured teenager and that other guy?”

“That other guy is Dr. Death Defying, my friend from my very first squadron. And the teenager is Cherri Cola, a random killjoy who came to live with us after he accidentally stumbled on our house while looking for shelter.”

“Seems legit.” They were stirring a pot of power pup with a few other things thrown in. “So how did you end up here?”

“You know 109 WKIL?”

“The radio station? Of course I do.”

“We run that, you might know, and so Better Living Industries has been trying to track our signal. Cherri went out and got hurt in a clap with an exterminator, and the exterminator told him that they were close to finding WKIL, so we had to leave home in a hurry.”

“And he didn’t die? An exterminator?”

“Didn’t die, just got hurt. He’s a good shot and a much better fighter than you would expect.”

Autumn Assassin nodded, stirring the pot one more time before they put it over the fire already lit in the sink. “So you decided to come here?”

“I knew it would be safe, and I figured you would let us stay for a while.”

“Hon, you can stay as long as you need.” They made a face. “I’ve started talking like a southern grandma.”

“You practically are a grandparent,” Lily deadpanned.

“Rude. See if I let you stay here now.” Their voice was joking, and Lily didn’t think for a second they would actually kick her out. “But in all seriousness, you really can stay for as long as you need. You’re staying until your friend is healed at least. He looks like barely more than a kid.”

“He’s sixteen. Seventeen by now, I’m guessing, but he didn’t tell us his birthday.” She ignored the faint twinge of guilt that neither she nor D had thought to ask. Birthdays weren’t such a big deal in the desert, but they still celebrated when they could.

“See? Child. Baby. Youngster.”

“You’re literally twenty-five.”

“I’m still not a literal child. Plus, I’m a cat grandparent.”

White Lily raised her eyebrows at them.

“Princey- his name is Prince of Wales but we call him Princey- adopted a mangy stray cat. And we’ve decided I’m the collective parent friend.” Autumn gave the pot another fierce stir.

“Ah.”

“Yeah.” They lifted the pot off the heat. “Dinner!”

This was met by a cascade of killjoys thundering down the stairs and several more hurrying in from the living room, much to Autumn Assassin’s disgruntled “One at a time!”

Within a few minutes, everyone had snatched one of the chipped bowls or plates (some of which appeared to actually be empty power pup cans) and were lined up neatly. D and Cherri appeared to have been alerted by the noise as well, given that they made their way slowly down the stairs after everyone else.

“Guests first,” Autumn Assassin said firmly, and the killjoys all stepped aside to let D and Cherri by. “Here you go, Lily, here you go…Dr. Death Defying, Lily said?”

He nodded.

“And here you go, young man.” They dumped some in the chipped bowl one of the ‘joys had handed Cherri.

“Thank you,” Cherri said quietly.

“Of course. Go sit down, you three, I’m going to hand some out to the rest of this lot.” Within a few minutes, the entire household was sprawled back out around the room eating the mixture that Autumn Assassin had spooned onto their plates, and Autumn Assassin came to join the three of them over in the corner Lily had claimed.

“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced, I’m Autumn Assassin.”

“Cherri Cola.”

“Dr. Death Defying. It’s nice to meet you; Lily said you were a friend of hers?”

“We knew each other during the Helium Wars,” Lily explained. “I figured they would be happy for us to come stay a bit.”

“And I am, you can stay as long as you need. We don’t turn away ‘joys in need in this household.” They gestured with their spoon a bit as they spoke, adding emphasis to their words. “If I have extra food and rooms, I might as well give them to people.”

“Well, we’re very glad you do,” Dr. Death Defying put in.

“Of course.”

The rest of the dinner was quiet, at least for the four of them. The rest of the room was filled with laughter and chatter and spirit, a bunch of teens and twenty-something killjoys talking between themselves and having a good time. Occasionally, one of them got up to grab more from the pot that Autumn Assassin had prepared, until the entire thing was empty and everyone seemed to have eaten their fill. After the meal was over, they all split off to different places, some off to bed and some to hang out on the roof, it seemed. The three of them went back to the little room, figuring that Cherri could use some rest and all pretty tired themselves.

Cherri was conked out within minutes, and D and Lily settled on the mattress but didn’t go to sleep just yet.

“I hope we don’t bring bli down on Autumn Assassin’s head,” D fretted softly.

“If we do, they’ll flip the corporation off and keep right on cooking,” Lily predicted with a snort.

D gave a small chuckle. “They might just, from what I’ve seen of them so far.”

“They’re terrifyingly put together. And a good fighter, but how organized they are is scarier.”

“They act like they have their life together.”

Lily flopped on her back, staring at the ceiling. “I’m pretty sure they do. Unlike us.”

“Unlike us. We’re trying to run a revolution at twenty-two and twenty-one though, I think it can be forgiven.”

“Probably.”

D groaned softly as he settled down as well. “I’m too young for achy everything.”

“So am I, and everything still fucking hurts sometimes.”

“Guess that’s life.”

The duo stared up at the ceiling together as Cherri slept well, not exactly peacefully, but not horribly, at least. They had already talked about the morality of all this, but Lily was sure that would have been their topic of conversation if they hadn’t. It was awfully hard to decide if they were doing the right thing, sometimes. They were fighting for the future of their generation and all the ones after, but that fight would take away hundreds or thousands of futures as well. Could the death of so many people, so many teenagers, just barely out of childhood, be justified? Could she ask children to die for her? It had been an exhausting day, but even in the safety of Autumn Assassin’s house, her mind refused to rest. She had a thousand doubts and no one to say them to, not even D. They doubted too, she knew, but D had a somewhat more utilitarian approach to it all. To him, the world they were fighting for was worth all the death and pain. It had to be, or why would they fight? So Lily didn’t say anything further about it, but she didn’t sleep either.

It appeared D wasn’t sleeping as well, as they shifted slightly on the mattress beside her. “It’s real now, isn’t it.” It wasn’t a question.

“It’s real now,” Lily agreed quietly.

In the history books that Better Living Industries would write, the Analog Wars began in 2010, when dangerous anarchists attacked a peaceful Better Living Industries encampment. In the stories passed down by the killjoys, they began a couple of months before that, with the attack on a small town of killjoys and neutrals by Better Living Industries. But to Dr. Death Defying and White Lily, the war began the second their friend staggered in the door with a hand pressed to his bleeding side and a dreadful warning on his lips.

#auri writes #building home tag #white lily #cherri cola #dr. death defying #autumn assassin #coming coming home tag #chapter 3 #angst

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