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targaryenluvs · 7 months

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Hi, how are you? Could you make a request for Anthony Bridgerton 🙈 please.

I was thinking something along the lines of Penelope and Colin. When Colin says he would never court Penelope. But in this case Anthony tells Benedict that he would never court reader. And Benedict tells him that he will be the one to woo her. Sad ending or happy ending. I leave it in your hands 🤗✨.

Have a good week ✨ thank you.

i love this, and benedict bridgerton <3

nothing better

pairing: benedict bridgerton x fem!reader, anthony bridgerton x fem!reader (platonic)

summary: benedict has loved you for so long, but he always assumed you’d want anthony and he wanted you. but when the opportunity presents itself to be with you he dives headfirst.

warnings: swearing, kisses??

a/n: hope you like itttt, it might be a little short but quality over quantity???: i love benedict ugh can’t wait for his season

the party was insufferable.

benedict wanted nothing more than to be at home, drawing, you specifically.

the day you learned of his talent you’d praised him every day for it. and you’d been pestering him for oh so long to draw your portrait but he always politely declined. believing a professional to be more accurate than himself but he honestly believed that he, nor any other, could incorporate all of your beauty in one sketch.

and he was scared of messing it up, and he also wondered what his brother would think.

anthony. smart, handsome, eligible, viscount anthony bridgerton.

the one you’d marry.

or so it seemed to everyone as the two of you danced hand in hand. everyone’s eyes were on the two of you as you practically glided across the floor. as the music slowed and the couples dispersed he found himself holding his breath as you came towards him.

“anthony is terrible to dance with, he keeps blaming me for stepping on his feet but he moves so slow at times, he’s always looking off into the distance.” you laughed as benedict smiled, “i promise you y/n, a dance with me will leave you more than well satisfied.” benedict teased as you gasped, “benedict bridgerton! the scandalous man you are.” as you laughed he couldn’t help but admire you. your hair was up with only two strands in the front, curled. a sweet tiara in the middle of your head, a gorgeous baby pink dress and and equally gorgeous owner.

“you look-”

“like a cake? a biscuit? a rose perhaps?” you joked.

“i was going to say breathtaking. you look, breathtaking, y/n. no one else here can compare.” he spoke in awe.

your eyes flickered to his, god he looked amazing. but he was probably only saying this to be nice right? his sisters friend, daphnes other half. nothing more, he grew up with you, saw you as a sister.

he wondered if you’d return the compliment, or thank him, or just smile and nod. god he said wanted more than a nod. you looked untouchable. and the way you looked at him, benedict was lost. not only in your eyes but in his head and heart. he sees you dance and talk to numerous respectable men every day. you smile and laugh, completely polite. but then you look at him, with those beautiful brown eyes and he looses all trains of thought. and as respectful as those other men are, he could never put himself in the same category as them.

because the thoughts that he didn’t loose, were truly inappropriate.

the heavy footsteps from behind you snapped the two of you out of the trance as anthony approached. “brother, lady y/n.” he smiled as you smiled back. “i’ll leave you two be.”

“are you alright brother?”

he didn’t mean to snap. the words just spilled out.

“are you going to court her or not?”

anthony’s brows furrowed as he was taken aback by his brothers direct manner, all sense of the usual playfulness was lost. “who? y/n? no of course not. i would never dream of courting y/n l/n. she’s like a sister to me.”

“then why do you dance with her so? take her out so often, promenade with her? for what? my god everyone thinks the two you are courting.” anthony released a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

he’d only been having fun with a friend. it was so refreshing to be able to talk to someone who didn’t wonder what the viscount was up to, who he was with, when he was going to marry. y/n eased his tensions and she the best friend he’d never had, she made him feel like a young boy again, which anthony had all but forgotten the feeling of.

“benedict, it was not my intention this i promise you brother. i know how much you love and if i led you or anyone else to believe our relationship was anything besides familial love and companionship than i truly apologise. you need to let her know before it’s too late.”

benedict felt his heart lurch at the idea of finally being with you. and with anthony’s blessing and urging him along he was off to find you.

the air was cold, but anything was better than that stuffy ballroom inside. gods you couldn’t wait for the season to be over. it was only your first, same as the diamond of the season, also known as your best friend daphne bridgerton but all the cakes, gossip, drama and fake smiles? you’d had enough to last forever. the only problem with the season being over was that you’d most likely be travelling to your country estate. which meant that you’d be spending time with your extended family rather than the family besides your own that you wanted to be with.

the person you wanted to be with.

“y/n! there you are.” benedict shouted as he bent over, catching his breath. even slightly sweaty and disheveled benedict was a god in your eyes, no one inside could even come close.

“ben, come sit!” you patted the swing next to you as he gladly sat down, the air was a refreshing after the long night he’d had, and your smiling face was enough for his heart to race again.

“y/n, as much as i’d like to sit and swing with you i have to tell you something, it’s urgent.” he spoke softly. the moon was bright, the air cold and benedict had a soft glow of light on his right side. his voice could so easily lull you to sleep out here as it had done so many times before but his eyes were alert, so you smiled again and nodded, “continue.”

“y/n, i’ve known you for so long. and i’ve- i’ve never been able to tell you how i truly feel about you. i always thought anthony had your eye and”

“anthony?!” you screeched as benedict hushed you with a hand over your mouth. “sweetheart you can’t be so loud out here, wouldn’t want someone to come across us now would we?” he joked as his eyes crinkled at the edges, now there’s the benedict you knew. “ben, i’ve never had romantic feelings for anthony, hes always been a brother to me. besides i’ve had my eye on another bridgerton for a long time.”

“oh? and who could that be?” benedict was praying to every god he could conjure in his head. me. me. me. let it be me please.

“you.”

he couldn’t help himself as he kissed you, he’d waited far too long for it.

and it was so worth it.

everything he couldn’t even begin to express with words, he put into the kiss, your first of many. “i love you. i love you y/n l/n and i can only pray you love me a quarter as much. you are everything i’ve ever wanted, and i have you now. you were family before but now? youre officially a bridgerton, we should throw a parade.” benedict laughed as you smacked his arm, “finally! my plan to marry daphne has been thrown into motion!”

“excuse me?” daphne shouted as yourself and benedict leaned into eachother, laughing up a storm.

there was nothing that could compare to the man infront of you.

nothing better.

#benedict bridgerton x reader #anthony bridgerton x reader #bridgerton x reader #bridgerton #benedict bridgerton x fem!reader #benedict bridgerton x y/n

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bigfatbimbo · 2 months

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Was drawing my oc for your collective dom for the Vees series and had the random thought of what the Vees have (y/n) as in their contact.

Valentino has them funnily enough as “My pimp💋” or “Main bitch”

Velvette’s is labeled probably something like “Darling💕” or “My Darling”

Vox’s is probably something basic like just your name with a heart by it or “Doll” so when your name pops up on his screen it looks like it’s just normal or at least like he wears the pants in their little weird poly relationship thing.

(You and/or Val have changed your contact name in his phone to Mommy😩💦 before without him knowing. And then called him only to have him fumble to get your name off his screen before he overheated either embarrassment.)

(He yelled at both of you for it after but you make it up to him later ;) )

CANON CANON CANON CANON!!!!!

Valentinos I feel like would be absolutely fucking unhinged and changing constantly. Like you said ‘my pimp’ with some wackass emojis or something.

Velvettes would totally be darling or something pretty tame and not necessary implying anything weird.

But you’re absolutely correct on Vox’s like he is so pretending to be normal and in control omfg god forbid it’s dollface or babygirl or something terrible like that.

also THE LAST BIT HELP?? God thats so fucking funny, Velvette would probably film his reaction. Oh my god and after you change his contact to something embarrassing(ly accurate) like calling him while he’s in a public place? where anyone can see his phone?

Him almost dropping his phone when he sees the name pop up, and literally because of that all of the people around him probably saw it too… and now he just has to clear his throat and be like, “Excuse me, I have to take this.” Before going in the other room and just flipping the fuck out over the phone.

#hazbin hotel x reader #dom reader #the vees x reader

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lordsukunas · 3 months

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never make him love me

tldr: you’re determined to confess to teen!gojo, but your chances of success are literally 0.

cw: angst/no comfort... sorry? reader is a bit very delusional n kinda weird, gojo may be a bit ooc, no curse au, gender neutral (i think) but reader is wearing a skirt, and im p sure this is not very accurate to the actual japanese school system. not beta read btw

a/n: this has been in my drafts for too long... whoops! trying a different divider but i don’t rlly like it. also does reader count as a girl/boyfailure here or not? they kinda strange tbh :/ idk lol, hope yall enjoy getting rejected by gojo n can yall guess who hes already in love w

you’re in love with gojo satoru.

which, to be fair, a lot of people are. he’s a pretty face: soft, snow-white hair with bright cerulean eyes that draws anyone and everyone in. a big, gorgeous smile, and long, muscular limbs that you just know would feel so good wrapped around you.

plenty of people have confessed to him, and all of them have been rejected. that should be enough to put you off, to make you face the reality that gojo may not be madly in love with you, but it just makes you more determined. he’s just rejecting everyone else because he’s waiting for you!

that has to be it, right?

definitely, you think as you skip to gojo’s classroom. you can feel the weird stares from students (and even a teacher or two), but they don’t matter. you’re going to confess to gojo satoru, damn it, and nothing’s getting in the way.

it’s lunch period, thankfully, which means he’ll be with geto and ieiri. that’s good — his best friends will be there to watch him declare his reciprocated love for you.

you slide the door open, love letter and two packs of kasugai gummies in one hand. a few students in the room glance up at you, including gojo!

the two of you lock eyes — well, you think you do. it’s a bit difficult to tell, but his head is facing your direction, so he’s totally looking at you. he’s noticing you!!!

you bite your lip to stifle the giggle bubbling up in your chest and walk up to the perfect trio (hopefully, soon to be quadruple). “hi, gojo,” you say, a nervous yet giddy smile on your face.

“... hey?” he exchanges looks with geto before focusing back on you. “do i know you?”

okay, ouch. you literally sat behind him in chemistry, but, whatever. don’t focus on the little things!

“um, probably not, but!” you hold out the envelope with a heart sticker as the seal. “i have something to tell you.”

“uh... okay.” gojo scratches the back of his neck, then takes the letter. he slides his finger under the seal, tearing it open, and pulls the letter out. he unfolds it, and both geto and ieiri lean in to also read it.

a frown tugs at the corners of your lips. the words were meant for just gojo, not those two. although... does it really matter? you’re just proving that you’re a good fit for their best friend.

after a drawn out moment of silence, gojo chuckles, albeit awkwardly. “wow, uh... this is a lot.”

you nod. “yeah!” you also hand him the packs of gummies, which he takes a bit more eagerly than the letter and sets them on his desk. “so, um...”

your heart has been hammering in your chest this entire time, but now it feels like it’s trying to escape. sweat accumulates on your palms, and you resist the urge to wipe them on your skirt.

this is the big moment.

you hope and pray and plead to whatever being that’s out there for gojo to accept and reciprocate your feelings. with all the manifesting and ‘love spells’ you’ve done, it should work. gojo satoru is most definitely in love with–

“this is nice, but, uh, i’m not interested.”

...

what?

you blink down at him, and now you’re the one chuckling nervously. “i’m sorry?”

maybe you misheard. that had to be it, right? there’s no way he isn’t in love with you. you bought him gummies, you wrote him a letter, you spent countless hours researching and trying different manifestation methods, you prayed at the shrine, you learned his schedule so that you could pass by him on the way to class, you did everything for him.

he scratches the back of his neck again before refolding the letter and putting it back into the envelope. “i’m not really interested in a relationship right now. you’re probably really cool and stuff, so don’t take it personally.”

no, no, no, no. this isn't how this was supposed to go! he was supposed to say yes! what happened? what did you do wrong?

now you’ve embarrassed yourself in front of his friends. his best friends. how are you supposed to come back from this? thank god no one else in the room is paying attention right now.

heat creeps up the back of your neck and spreads to your face. sweat is drenching your palms, blood is roaring in your ears, and you really want to melt into the ground never to be seen again. you’re pretty sure your heart just shattered into a trillion pieces and a shard pierced your lungs, because you cannot breathe.

you then feel a hand on your forearm, and you jolt. it’s ieiri. “hey, are you–”

“i’m fine!” you blurt, and a few heads turn in your direction. you take the envelope back from gojo, spin on your heel, and rush out of the classroom.

damn it.

you’re pushing past people to get to the restroom, and you slam the stall door shut before locking it.

you’re so stupid. how could the gojo satoru be in love with you?

the tears finally spill from your eyes, running down your cheeks, and you let your face fall into your hands as you sob.

idiot, idiot, idiot.

you should’ve known you wouldn’t be any different. he wasn’t waiting for you. he’ll never be waiting for you. you never had a chance, and in your defense, no one did.

gojo’s heart has already been claimed by someone else, and if you were a little smarter, you’d know exactly who it is.

#jjk #jjk angst #jjk gojo #gojo satoru #satoru gojo #gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #satoru gojo x reader #satoru gojo x you #reader angst

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orkbutch · 9 months

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Okay! time to add my accompanying essays with each image from this set of work about why I assigned which types of play to each set of characters, and how Baldur's Gate III supports these in the text of the game. Because I thought about all of this way too much im not joking

First, Context:

All of these are drawings of consensual play happening between these characters after they have put aside any active conflicts between each other. Nonetheless, they utilise the dynamics and emotional conflicts of these characters. Each of these characters are in some way violent people, deeply stressed out by their circumstances, and craving pleasure and connection. Sometimes you need a little pinch and squeal before the end of the world just to get through the night, you know?

Knife play; Shadowheart (D) / Lae'zel (S)

This is definitely the best supported concept in the text of the game because we literally see this happen, though in a significantly different context. I'd say most of us thought it was hot, whether we realised it or not, and I think Shadowheart and Lae'zel probably agreed once they weren't worried about dying! I think its the perfect encapsulation of the tension between SH and LZ both early on and as it resolves. It also expresses both their personalities very succinctly and accurately. SH is absolutely an edgy, paranoid goth, and LZ would love the thrill.

For all the early game SH sees LZ as ruthless and dangerous to her, and resents Gith for the death of her peers. LZ is a threat she wants to neutralize or at least control. At the same time, SH is someone who prefers to avoid conflict and subtly occupy power/advantage in most situations she finds herself in. She has little concern for honour, pride or fairness.

Lae'zel absolutely does. She is a very straight forward and efficient person. For her, SH starts as an inconveniently racist coworker, but at the reveal of the artifact SH becomes more than that; not only has she insulted LZ's people, she's revealed herself to be untrustworthy, very willing to lie and play dirty. Not only does SH seem to hate her, but SH has rules and intentions that are entirely unknown to LZ, and that is obviously frightening.

AND SO I JUST THINK... that potent history would be very hot background for fear based play, which knife play is all about. The heart-racing threat of the point of a dangerous object held at your most tender areas - throats, armpits, mouths, bellies... and the depth of trust and submission to let that occur, to sit in the fear and really enjoy the rush of danger and helplessness, knowing you will be safe. It shows a profound growth in their regard for eachother, a true and total overcoming of old resentments and conflicts.

This is not only a position I think SH would relish - to reduce someone as deadly as LZ to being at her mercy, and to feel deeply trusted with someone's life and pleasure - but also a rare delight for LZ. To take the heart-thumping threat of a battlefield, which she absolutely thrives in, and to toy with and explore that mental space. To be truly stripped back and placed in anothers hands. For that to be an enemy who has become someone she feels so completely safe with.

Beneath this I think there is also a thread of empathy and shared idiosyncratic communication between them. They were both cruelly broken into roles that made it difficult for them to connect to others. Violence is a language both of them understand very well, in different ways, and even after they each turn on their cruel masters, violence retains meaning for them.

For SH, violence is to be enacted and more often endured as a sign of devotion. It's something that carries wisdom, the agony of lessons learned and knowledge that is uncomfortable but ultimately good for you. I don't think this is something she decides is wrong. I think what disillusioned her (beyond the betrayal of being lied to) was how Shar was revealed to have misused her pain. Shar's pain was not a gift, it had no loving measure or purpose. It was a spiteful, excessive control tactic.

I like to imagine SH learning a new way to use her affinity with pain, which I think is a very normal affinity for people to have. To learn how to use pain the way she had wanted it to be used and had come to admire. To make pain bespoke from Shar, her own gift to give and recieve on her own terms.

For LZ, violence is to be mastered for survival and superiority. Pain was only endured to prove you could endure it better than others. Violence is a hammer in a world where all beings are nails, except you and the few other hammers. All else was forsaken for this mastery. Even in sex violence and superiority are key. Vulnerability is terrifying, to make yourself a nail made to be driven by hammers who are certain of their purpose.

What else could be a greater liberating thrill, a more profound sign of trust for LZ? Willing submission to the violence of another. Those she comes to truly love become the source of her bruises. In submission to violence LZ embraces true vulnerability, untethered by tradition, opening herself to another person and trusting them to handle her with care.

In conclusion: These bitches love knife play, it gets them super hot and they feel rly connected after and share wine and cheese and maybe a massage if they have energy as aftercare. LZ will be cuddled but only if SH doesn't ask and just does it. LZ always makes sure to tell SH she admires her skill and had fun. Its very sweet

#bg3 #Lae'zel #Shadowheart #Shadowzel #laeheart #art #nasties #kinkposting #edited this because i wrote it in one sitting at like 4am and it shows

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pr-incey · 2 months

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For a while—after being exposed to the antiship movement, because goodness knows I didn't care about this when I was younger—I wondered *why* fiction and reality were so different in my head. Why I could happily see things depicted in fiction that would make me sick to my stomach or upset me to tears just from thinking of it happening in real life. I couldn't come up with a reason for this for a while, which caused me distressed and made me worried that I might secretly be a terrible person after all.

But I've done some thinking and I've figured it out. Or, rather, I've returned to the mindset that came so easy to me in the past and probably did to a lot of people before the well was poisoned.

When I see a fictional character, I don't see a person. I don't see a person like *me*, anyway. I see a person within that piece of fiction's universe; a plane of existence that is wholly different from my own. Lines and colour, words on a page, virtual drawings being played sequentially at a speed that simulates movement. Sure, the written passage, 'He had eyes, ears and a mouth' is a representation of what *I* am, and what other people around me are, but it is fundamentally a plane of existence that is *alien* to me.

An alien is something that is decidedly not human. I feel empathy for other humans because I can relate to them. I have no desire to hurt them because I either know what it is like to be hurt in that way, or I can imagine what it would be like. I know the harm it would do to them, which illicits a reaction of disgust and apprehension in me. 'That's terrible,' I think, which simply kills any desire to cause any harm to a real person or do any disgusting actions.

This is why predators are such terrible people. They are fully aware of the harm their actions will cause and then go ahead with them anyway.

But with a fictional character, it's different in these ways:

1. First of all, we have to remember that they AREN'T human and so whatever I feel towards them cannot accurately mirror whatever I feel towards real flesh and blood individuals. They're projections of humanity from OTHER people in whatever medium they choose, but fictional characters are—and I cannot stress this enough—NOT HUMAN. If I pull off the head of a Barbie doll, does that mean I have the desire to behead someone in real life? Does it mean that I MUST have the urge to behead someone in real life, because a barbie doll is a 'representation' of a person? Your answer, I'm hoping, is no. Because Barbie is not human.

2. And because fictional characters are not human, I don't have empathy for them. Not REAL empathy, anyway, the type that stops the desire to cause harm. When I 'violate' a fictional character, it illicits at most only superficial disgust because I know that character will not live with the lasting consequences of my actions. They're a projection, a facsimile.

So that might bring you to another question, 'Even if they're not real, why would you WANT to do that to them, anyway?'

That I can't answer. The human brain is weird. Sometimes, people have dark urges. If a kid tosses their Barbie onto the ground and seems to take pleasure in it falling, can that accurately say they want to push a real person onto the ground? If someone seems to enjoy a violent video game like GTA where they can run people over and shoot them to their heart's content, is that a surefire way to know that they want to do those things to real people? I wouldn't say it is. Would you?

The final thing to remember is that it's not completely black and white. A serial killer might have been 'inspired' by a violent horror story, whereas the actual author of that story is a nice, well-adjusted individual. People with the desire to hurt actual humans might make do with projections, but it does not change the fact that they actually want to HARM people. The fiction didn't make them want to do that. They already did, and probably would have even if they didn't discover said fiction. And horrible people CAN make their own 'projections'.

Generally though I believe it is obvious when someone is just playing with dolls, and when someone is exhibiting an actual desire to hurt somebody.

#proship safe #proshippers please interact #proship #profic #just thinking

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crimson0lake · 4 months

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BSD characters as parents! Pt5 (I'm somewhat still manage to keep doing these-)

Pt1 - Pt2 - Pt3 - Pt4 - Pt5 - Pt6 - Pt7 - Pt8

Masterlist

A.n: yeah, probably a lot of you wait for these ones till now, images from BSD manga

Characters: Fyodor and Nikolai please don't come for me in the comments if I accidentally mischaracterized them. I didn't watch past early parts S3 and I'm trying my best-

Warnings: mentioned gun, knife, and dead. Mentioned manipulation.

Fyodor:

Marriage or not? Both is possible. Like with the mafia members, Fyodor is also can consider to get in a physical relationship if needed or he wants to gain something. Adoption would still be a choice but we all know why Fyodor most likely take orphans..

Still if an abandoned child keep following him or they are somewhat interesting to him (via eye colour, their expressions, their actions, etc) he maybe could take the child with him.

If they are from a physical relationship, he probably question the mother in his mind: if he come to conclusion of that the mother is not good/abusive/in a bad state to look after the child, he is taking the child with him; if the mother is in good state and not abusive, he is leaving the child. Even then, he probably send plenty of money to mother to stay silent and take care of the child

He is pretty religious (as for what I see and read about him) so he probably raise his child like that.

I'm not entirely sure about his religious self and I don't like to make, accurate or not, points to the things I'm not sure, so onto next topic-

If the child is a girl: he would treat his daughter as like a princess, even teach them etiquettes. If it's a boy however: he would still treat them good: but more like a knight/strong prince I hope it explains except those two, he won't act different fully.

He loves his child, probably would have a smirk or at least have his lips sides curled upwards when his child near him. He isn't the best at showing emotions however so it can easily seem like he doesn't care about his child

Yet he would be slightly protective inside as well, making sure everything would go smoothly when his child is around. Also, he probably strict too, making rules for his child like bed time, forbidden rooms (his office, the places that he put the people who go against him or he captured, etc) yet he won't be too strict, in the end he knows what his child is doing and thinking by just looking them.

He would put the drawings his child made to in his desk's drawers, he sometimes would take them out, looking through them and take every detail once again

He is has his own fears even though he don't shows them. Losing his child is one of them, he would act like he don't care about losing them and that they are just tools he use for his plans. But those would not be true, his fears of losing his child locked deep inside his manipulative heart.

Nikolai is the first play friend of the child, Fyodor probably had to warn him to not to give his child a gun before he let Nikolai baby sit them but he still gave them a toy gun as a gift-

Nikolai is the kind of a uncle/brother to the child, who would teach them how to make things disappear and make illusions

But for the babysitter part, he is letting his child alone with Sigma. Nikolai isn't the best one not only to his child but any child. He don't want to visit versious of countries in a week to find his child and Nikolai.

Anyway- Sigma is the second friend of the child, who he likes to play. He himself didn't have a childhood, so seeing a child and experiencing things with them makes him feel less nervous about his lack of experience.

Fyodor most likely teach his child how to use manipulation but not too perfectly/fully so he would still be two steps ahead of his child.

He probably wants his child on his side. Not bad, not good. Just on his side. Yet he won't be disappointed or angry of his child goes to either of those sides. He would only mad if his child decides to go against him.

If his child decides to be on good: he is fine. At least he would make his child to be in somewhere and in a position that he can gain something, maybe information or power over that organisation or people.

If they are on the bad side: still, it's not the worst. He would make sure and help his child in secret to get them into the Por Mafia and in a position he can get information to use against the Mafia as well.

Only bad thing would happen if his child go against him: He would be very disappointed and mad inside. He won't look the fault in him but find the blame in his child. Even though he would see it coming if his child found what he did and doing, he is still disappointed in them

He would always fight against his child if the fight necessary, if not he won't even bother to fight.

In fights he would remind them who raised them, who taught the manipulation to them and keep making them fall into his manipulations, cause we all know this man probably raise his child between his manipulations in case he need to manipulate them.

He would make them lose their colleagues, fall in the despair before taking them next to him again. No, he won't let them keep fighting against him if he can't take any gain from that.

Overall he is strict, calm, and looks like he is not caring for his child. Which is not true, but he won't admit even himself. He won't show his love to his child that much, but he can't deny that he would do anything to stop the harm ever touching his child.

Nikolai:

Marriage or not? Both is possible as well for this man. Like in Fyodor's part, Nikolai can consider getting in a physical relationship with someone if he would gain something or for a mission. Or he would simply take a child he found abandoned and take his interest by their anything.

If it's from an physical relationship, he probably don't care. He loves the child and probably would take the child with him. If the mother cares for the baby as well? Sure thing, he can just, yoink a ring and boom! Now a family-

He probably doesn't care about the gender. Girl? She is learning how to do illusions. Boy? Still learning that.

His child probably at least has one desk of cards in their room since they are Nikolai's child.

Fyodor probably would let the child alive as he can use the child to keep Nikolai under control or keep manipulating him (I'm not sure if Fyodor's manipulating Nikolai or Nikolai's just crazy/acting like crazy in BSD.)

Pretty fun dad actually. He is calm and let's his child do anything almost. ALMOST. Cause he still won't let them get seriously harmed. I said seriously cause he probably won't get into his child's mess if they arent seriously injured. He probably things this would help them with going in life.

Random desk of cards everywhere in the house. His child would even find cards in their clothes and hair. They would at least once question where their dad find this much of cards..

He is his child's first friend. First play friend as well.

He probably leaves his child with Sigma as well. He won't leave them with Fyodor cause.. He don't want his child dead. I don't think he would even find other members of DOA's safe to leave his child with. Yeah he can be crazy (or act like crazy) but he is not completely crazy to risk his child.

Sigma is their first babysitter and probably first friend after their father (and mother if she is there). Tbh Sigma would question himself and be nervous around child at first few times till he get more comfortable. Still it's the same for him, it would make him feel at least more good to be with someone probably less experienced than him.

He wants his child in his side. But if they aren't? Not a big problem as well. At least it's away from the government's works or the people against DOA, he is good (cause you know, I read DOA arent good with government completely)

He is scared to lose his child, he would show it from time to time. So he wants them away from serious fights.

If his child is on good side: he is fine with that, he can still randomly visit and bring them small gifts or deserts. He would want them leave if they are working for government however. He don't want government to learn about his child and try to use them against him. I'm saying again: He won't risk his child's life.

If they are on bad side: sure thing. He probably been on the bad side before as well. Only he would make them not to get in big fights or at least call him if they get in a big mess.

If they are against DOA however, he would be shocked probably. Yeah, he knew his child would probably hate him when they learn about what he did and doing.. but he wouldn't expect them to turn against him.. he would be disappointed and mad.

He is mad that his child leave his side after all those years, it would still hurt to see his child in pain, laughing, crying, and simply living their Ife while he can't go and join them. He probably felt the pain if his child hit what he done to his face. He probably made the hero and good guy image in his child's eye from the childhood, so breaking that image would hurt

He would avoid the fighting sometimes, while other times he won't hold back. Still carefull to not to hurt his child seriously though.

Even if his child is against him, he won't want them to leave him completely.. He dont and didn't want that to happen..

Overall, he is fun and energetic father. Who would bring (teleport?) his child around the world with him and do the most of the things most parents won't let them do. Like eating ice cream in winter or getting in the sky casino (only with him till they are adults though).

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missedditart · 6 months

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Along with my Lackadaisy hyperfixation I've also become obsessed with under the devils moon by @libras-interactives. I absolutely love their ocs and can't wait to see more of them in the story. I made some fan designs of them and thought it couldn't hurt to share them. I had a lot of thoughts about their designs so anyone who is interested can read about that below. Also, English isn't my first language so please ignore any spelling mistakes and such.

Malwina

Malwina's design was really fun, also the first one I did. She is described as having black fur and hair and orange eyes. I knew if I wasn't careful she could end up looking like Ivy, so I made her hair color brighter than her fur color and also made her hair curly/wavy. I also emphasized the eyes as they're often pointed out in the text as big and pumpkin-like. I wanted her to look curious but maybe a little unsettling if she stares at you too long. I also gave her soft shapes and rounded years since she is very friendly albeit a bit pushy.

Máire

for Máire just mostly followed the description we get of her, calico, auburn hair and green eyes. The thing I had to think about for this drawing is what kind of clothing she would wear. I went between thinking she would prefer something stylish or something comfy. I'm not an expert on 1920s fashion so I mostly looked at old clothing catalogs to get a feel for the clothes she could wear. I settled on something more in between a comfy shirt with a stylish skirt. I based the tarot cards in her hand on Pamela Colman Smith’s designs. Also since she is wearing a shirt I couldn't show off the heart fur pattern on her chest but it's definitely there.

Sylvester

Sylvester doesn't have a very striking design but that's the point. For his facial structure i took some inspiration from Asa Sweet and Bobby Bastion from the comic but I also tried to make him stand out on his own. Other than that I kept close to the text, gray suit and graying fur. I was tempted to give him a colorful gaudy tie, maybe something his wife insisted he should wear. To make him more interesting but again he was supposed to be drab and unassuming. So I decided against it. (I still headcanon that his wife gives him gaudy ties and insists he wear them and he cant say no to her.)

Flynn

Flynn was the one I had the most ideas for but also the one I'm the least happy with the result of but might as well share it. We haven't gotten many physical descriptions of him and what we get is somewhat vague. I also haven't played all the backstories so there might be something there that I've missed. But from what we do get he is often described as odd eyed and two faced, this gives me the impression he has a chimera pattern. We haven't been given any specific color so I chose what I thought fit best. black and bluish gray to make him cold and dark looking, i gave him green as an accent color. I probably went a bit heavy on the devil shape language but it's fun so… I also wanted to color the tip of his shoes white or gray to make them look like goat hooves but they ended up looking too much like bowling shoes so I decided against it. He still has a hoof-like pattern on his shoes which probably isn't very historically accurate for 1920s men's shoes haha. And lastly his cane is only described as black and ivory but nothing specific on the shape. I figured giving it some interesting motif would be fun so I went with a snake. specifically a black mamba witch don't look dangerous until you get too close or they open their mouth. I'm sure a fitting metaphor could be made from that. My design for him will probably change if we get new info about him later in the story but so far this is how i imagine him.

#art #my art #lackadaisy #Under the devils moon #interactive fiction #fanart

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pompomoo · 1 year

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Please read from right to left. This is BartNat. 'Bartimaeus attends Nathaniel's funeral after his body is found' This manga was drawn in line with such requests. For me this was a so difficult request, consider this as one possible AU story among many.

The following is my fantasy. I couldn't explain it just within the manga...... Although Bart is sorry for Nat's death, they understood each other perfectly in their parting. Therefore, for Bart, Nat's death is not just sad. I think there is also the joy of having a heart-to-heart with Nat, whom he had hated for so many years. That is why the end of PG is sad but has a somewhat refreshing aftertaste. So Bart often reflects on Nat's death. Not because it is a memory of pain, but because it is a memory of his strong friendship with him. Well, even if that is the case, Bart's split on Nat's death is because he feels ‘that we did everything we could’, so if the possibility that there really was a way to save them both came into Bart's mind, he would feel bitter. I can't think that Bart actually believes that Nathaniel will be reborn (because Ptolemy doesn't come to see Bart after two thousand years), but he can live with the hope that he will see him somewhere down the road. I hope that through Nat, Bart has also healed the memory of his separation from Ptolemy. It would be nice to have a grave for Nathaniel and a grave for John Mandrake, respectively. In Bart's mind, the two are not similar. Even as Bart, he would not want to go near Mandrake's grave, even though Nathaniel's death deserves to be mourned. Probably.

Also, in my mind, the relationship between Bart and Kitty is similar to that of a father and daughter. I think that protecting Kitty, whom Nat wanted to protect, is what Bart can do for Nat. There's too much to write about when I'm trying to describe Nat's death. I hope to draw the same subject again at some point. Thank you for taking a look. PS Not sure if Latin is accurate. If you have a better translation suggestion, please let me know.

#bartimaeus #fanart #bartnat

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scoops-aboy86 · 3 months

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I've had a terrible day, comment to ease my turmoil?

Oh, and towards the end of this chapter, “Luck can’t fix stupid” is just Eddie being hard on himself. He is a good boy who is trying his best.

Part 1, part 1.5, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7 of the love spell no go au

By morning, Eddie wakes to find that he’s rolled over in the night and Steve has burrowed into his arms. Hair that smells of Eddie’s shampoo tickles at his nose, and Steve is warm. A tingling under Eddie’s fingertips where they’re draped across Steve’s back tell him that his healing spells are still working—maybe that’s why Steve is sleeping so peacefully that it’s already dawn.

Nancy was supposed to have woken Steve for his guard shift, probably hours ago. Huh.

Eddie wants to melt into this and soak it up, just in case he never gets another chance, but… there’s too much going on right now to get caught up in whatever this might be. Better to take a page from Steve’s book and let it be, hold his tongue and wait until they’re not dealing with an interdimensional catastrophe.

Careful not to wake the (beautiful, brave, captivating) boy in his arms, he extracts himself carefully from the bed. He can’t resist leaving a soft kiss on Steve’s temple before he goes, though, his heart clenching and expanding and basically exploding in his chest when Steve shifts with a sigh and presses his full body into the space Eddie just vacated, seeking the lost body heat and breathing deeply against Eddie’s pillow. Fuck. Fuuuuuuck.

Instead of crawling right back into bed like he wants to, Eddie slinks out of the room and down the short hallway to the living room, eyes averted from the fleshy gash in the ceiling. Nancy is standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed as she stares up at it—but her eyes are clear, and she refocuses on Eddie as soon as he clears his throat.

“So, uh,” he croaks, throat still rough from sleep. “Watch system kinda broke down, didn’t it?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Nancy replies, too quick not to be at least a little defensive.

Eddie peers past her to Robin, who is asleep face-down on the couch with his uncle’s scratchy wool blanket draped over her. “Not saying I blame you there, Wheeler, but. Did you try?”

After a pause, Nancy lets out a breath that seems to come from all the way down to her toes, stiff shoulders slumping just a little and world weary in a way that no teenager should have to sound. “No.”

He flashes her a brittle smile, because yeah, he gets it. The only reason he’d managed any shut-eye was probably thanks to Steve’s reassuringly steady breathing at his back. “Fair enough. Instant coffee?”

There’s only the slightest twitch of distaste in her expression (he’s betting the Wheelers can afford actual coffee beans and shit) before she nods. “Coffee would be great.”

Which kind of makes him feel like a waiter, but he did offer. Eddie puts his back firmly to the gate and pokes around the kitchen for a pot to fill with water, pours it into four different mugs once it’s come to a boil, and dutifully stirs in the shitty off-brand Folgers.

He sips his own somberly, pensive. All his life, it’s been drilled into him that magic is to be kept secret, cast in the shadows and never so flashy that it would draw too much outside attention. That’s what had gotten his dad locked up.

But this group already knows about magic, even if they only refer to it as such using dnd metaphors that are actually more accurate than they think. Hell, maybe psychic powers are just a different method of spell casting—that’s deeper into magic theory than he usually ventures to go, though, so whatever. Not important right now. The point is… they could all die. It’s a very real possibility, especially for Max, and Eddie’s seen how that goes twice now. If there’s anything he can do to help, he has to try.

Which means… he has to tell them.

After Nancy recounts what Vecna showed her, after they formulate a plan that makes Eddie’s stomach clench and roll with dread, Eddie opens his mouth and says, “Guys, I have to tell you something.”

They sit patiently if a little incredulously through his explanation. A little more credulously once he gives a demonstration, turning an apple from the Mayfield’s kitchen blue, then, purple, then neon orange, then back to red and slicing it down the middle into an even seven pieces without so much as touching it.

Dustin speaks up first, because of course he does—interrogating him about what offensive and defensive spells he knows, leading with examples that Eddie recognizes almost word for word from the Monster Manual. Lucas joins in after a minute, the boys’ enthusiasm snowballing until suddenly they’re drafting a list of things they want to see if Eddie can do.

It’s Steve who ends up putting a stop to that, snapping. “Hey shitheads, he’s not a show pony and he’s not going to do tricks just to satisfy your scientific whatever, alright? You wouldn’t do that to Eleven, we’re not doing it to Eddie.”

“Scientific method, Steve,” Dustin grumbles, but relents. Eddie shoots a grateful look to Steve over the kid’s shoulder, and the smile he gets in return makes his heart do a flip.

“I can’t do big shit like Vecna,” he cautions everyone, now that he can get a word in edgewise again. “But I can do smaller stuff. Protection charms on clothes, spells to make sure we don’t miss what we’re aiming for, that kind of thing. I can help, I’m just… not your point guy. I’m no Supergirl.”

Max snorts at the Supergirl part, but speaks up with a grave, “As the person sticking out my neck for this crazy plan, not missing sounds nice.”

That seems to clinch it. And next up, they need to stock up on weapons, so…

It was waking up to a cuddly Steve Harrington that did it, Eddie swears. That, and adrenaline from staring down the barrel of the balls-to-the-wall insane plan the group has concocted, because Eddie is surrounded by fucking heroes aparently. He doesn’t feel very heroic.

Because he says things like “It’s not exactly a car, Steve” with a devilish smirk, and not asking but telling Steve that he’s driving the stolen RV, the words big boy tumbling out like his mouth has a fucking mind of its own. And each of those times, Steve blinks back at him with something in those hazel eyes, which Eddie is trying so hard to tell himself he doesn’t know how to read, but he wants.

There isn’t time to do anything about it, though. When the RV’s rightful owners start banging on the door, adrenaline sends Steve leapfrogging into the driver’s seat and Eddie scrambling to get away from the windows so he won’t be spotted. They roar out of the trailer park with the kids whooping in the back, caught up in the adventure of it.

Eddie feels like everything is going wrong and about to get worse, but he’s felt that way ever since Chrissy died so that’s nothing new. At least Steve stays in the RV instead of going into the War Zone, even if it takes Robin pointing out that the entire high school had seen them talking at Eddie’s locker on Friday and some probably noticed them sitting together at the game—because yeah, Lucas had told them what Jason Carver had done to Gareth, and Eddie doesn’t want anyone else hurt because some vigilante jock thinks they might be harboring him.

“Sorry,” Eddie tells him after the others are gone. When Steve gives him a blank look, he adds, “That you’re a known associate of The Freak.” He nods towards the back of the RV where the two boys are wrapped up in a conversation of their own. “It’s bad enough that Lucas and Dustin are in the crosshairs, but they at least signed up for Hellfire.”

Steve frowns. “You’re my friend, Eddie, I don’t care who knows that. It shouldn’t even matter.”

“Dude, all of this shouldn’t be happening, but it is. It does matter. A hell of a fucking lot.” Eddie braces his elbows on his knees and drops his head into his hands. “Fuck.”

After a moment, a hand presses tentatively between his shoulder blades, shifting reassuringly up and down. It’s a big hand. Eddie is almost disappointed that he’s too upset to fully appreciate the contact.

As it is, he groans into his hands and shrugs the touch off. “Steve, I should… I have to tell you something.” And you might not want to keep touching me after you hear it, he doesn’t say out loud.

“What is it?”

Eddie lifts his head with a flick of his hair and a quick flail of his hands. “That was—I just cast a little privacy spell, if you were wondering. So the kids can’t eavesdrop.”

“Okay,” Steve says slowly. “Do you do that a lot? Just do magic like that? Because, you move your hands around a lot…”

He can’t help but smirk a little at that. “Not as much as you’d think. It’s a good cover if I have to, though.”

Steve’s eyes are wide and curious, his irises a honeyed brown tinged with spots of green. “Have you ever used magic on me?”

Aaand there it is. Eddie looks down at his hands, now clasped across bare his knees where time and wear have reduced the denim to strings. “Yep.”

“Like what?”

So Eddie tells him about the love spell.

Magic, considering everything else Steve has seen over the past few years and especially the past few days, isn’t much of a stretch to accept. That trick with the apple had helped, but for the most part he’s learned to just push through the confusion and listen to whoever sounds the most certain about it.

And Eddie sounds pretty certain that he’s ruined Steve’s life.

But that’s… not right. His life doesn’t feel ruined. He has Dustin and Robin. Yeah, he keeps ending up in life or death situations, but that gives him a sense of a purpose and might have happened anyway, because it’s not like Eddie’s one spell back when they were underclassmen created Hawkins Lab or Henry Creel out of thin air.

A big part of Steve is elated, actually. Eddie likes him. Or liked him, enough to try and secure his heart with magic. Maybe that elation is from the spell, but honestly? The world might end tonight and any of them might die trying to stop it, so he’ll take any good feeling he can get regardless of where it’s coming from.

When he tells Eddie as much, the guy looks about ready to cry.

Before he can protest, Steve says, “I know you think you made me feel this way and that it’s like—” he frowns, unable to remember the way Eddie had put it “—violating my self-asomething-or-other, but fuck that. Your uncle said it wouldn’t have worked if I could never have liked you on my own, right? And I… In high school, people just hung around and I could never figure out why. Magic is as good an explanation as any, I guess. But with you, I had to work to get you to be my friend. I had to earn it. The more I got to know you the more I knew you’re a great guy, so by the time we were friends it felt like I’d really accomplished something, you know? You’re really nice, once you get past the prickly attitude—”

“Prickly?” Eddie mutters, quiet like he wants to interrupt but still feels a little too guilty to quite dare. Steve gets it; he knows how guilt can be, especially when it’s guilt for a stupid reason.

“—And you’re smart, way smarter than me. The teachers who failed you are either full of shit or bad at their jobs, probably both. You’re so creative it blows me away, keeping track of all that Dungeons and Dragons stuff and making up entire worlds and all the people that go in them. And you have a great smile, with dimples and everything, and your hands are… And the way you watch me sometimes, like I’m the only person in the room even if we’re in a crowd, it feels really good.”

Eddie is getting more red by the second, a flush starting in his cheeks and threatening to go all the way to his chest at the compliments. Which, okay, Steve knows he’s gushing, but he’s been bottling all this up for a while and he’s not used to that. When it comes to love he’s usually an all-in kind of guy, and holding back had led to a quiet but snotty breakdown in Robin’s arms the night before.

… Damn, he’s going to have to admit that she was right about Eddie being into guys (into him), though.

“Steve,” Eddie says, and he sounds longing. Music to Steve’s ears.

“I wanted the championship game to be a date,” Steve blurts. Because he’s already mentioned Eddie’s dimples and his hands, might as well go all in.

Eddie’s blush intensifies, the start of that dimpled grin Steve loves so much on his face. “I… I did too.”

“So… after the game, when you went off with Chrissy…”

“That was just business,” Eddie says quickly, and Steve ducks his head to try and hide the relieved grin. “I mean, I wanted to help her, but I’m, uh. It’s always been just guys for me.”

“It’s both for me,” Steve tells him, glancing up through his eyelashes. He notices the way Eddie’s hand twitches, wanting to reach out but unsure, so he reaches over and tentatively lays his fingers over Eddie’s ringed ones. “Is that… okay?”

Eddie bites his lip, and just as tentatively twines their fingers together. “Y-yeah, I think so. This is—Shit, yeah.”

“Would it make you feel better if… I don’t know, is there a way to turn the spell off?”

“Not really, magic doesn’t—” Eddie starts, but then stops, frowns. “Uh. My uncle did teach me something to undo magic once, but it’s a whole… thing. Like pulling a ripcord on a parachute, and, yeah, you stop falling as fast, but it jerks you around first. And it would ‘turn off’ every spell I’ve ever cast.”

Before Steve has a chance to react to that, they’re interrupted by the rest of the group crashing back into the RV. Steve is up and barely even registers the remnants of Eddie’s privacy spell clinging to his face like invisible cobwebs. He spots Jason Carver out of the corner of his eye just before pulling out of the parking lot and, fuck.

The rest of the day is too busy and tense to speak to Eddie alone, and Steve has a creeping worry (which he tries to ignore) that maybe Robin is right; maybe they aren’t going to be okay this time.

Eddie doesn’t get to have nice things. Like an unbroken family, or a high school diploma, or Steve Harrington.

He knows this. It’s deeply embedded in the reason he chickens out at the last minute, shaping his possible last words to Steve into, “Make him pay.” In that moment where their eyes had met he’d felt every loose thread, every unspoken thing between them weighing on him like a ton of bricks, and he regrets everything. Even though there hadn’t been time. He wonders if Steve regrets not saying whatever was on his mind back at the trailer, while the water was running… And from the way Steve looks back at him before nodding and turning to go, Eddie thinks he can hear the hollowness in it.

Steve has similar hollowness, Eddie knows. Parents whose attention has always seemed to ghost right over him ever since Barbara Holland, leaving Steve to drift all alone in that big house until he felt like a phantom. They know these things about each other; they’ve talked about it all while high (everything except the Eddie wanting Steve part… and, apparently, an entire alternate universe full of monsters). And Steve gets it, even though Eddie wishes he didn’t. Wishes Steve’s life could be easy streets and clear sailing (ha, ahoy) so that Eddie wouldn’t have to feel so seen, stripped bare of all his armor.

Even his battle vest is still in Steve’s possession, hidden under the thick army jacket.

And it’s ironic, really, that Steve thinks he’s the stupid one but Eddie forgot about the goddamn air vents in the trailer. There isn’t really a spell to protect against that; luck can’t fix stupid.

So he does the best he can think of, if it can be called thinking at this point: flings a stealth spell at Dustin so the bats will be more likely to forget about him, cuts the sheet-rope, and bolts out the door. He grabs a bike and pedals as hard as he can, just trying to get away, and in the blankness of his panicking-in-overdrive mind an idea begins to form.

When one of the bats gets caught in the spokes and Eddie goes down, he’s up almost immediately and spitting the words Wayne taught him when he was still small—before his uncle got custody but after his mom started getting sick, when Eddie’s dad had first started getting reckless.

The swarm of flying monsters descends on him while he’s still screaming the spell. After the last syllable, bleeding and knocked around by the attack, the ripcord pulls and Eddie is slammed into darkness.

Tag list (comment to be added): @hotluncheddie @8em-em-em8 @anaibis @connected-dots @lawrencebshoggoth

Part 9, part 10, part 11

#scoops words #love spell no go au #wg steddie #steddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #nancy wheeler #the big magic reveal to the group is kind of underwhelming next to the threat of the apocalypse #it's as good a time to sneak it in there as any #instead of steve talking to nancy about his six little nuggets dream in the woods again he tells robin about the love spell #boy couldn't keep a secret from her if he tried

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pluckyredhead · 1 year

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Since we are FINALLY getting a new Green Arrow comic next week, I wanted to talk about my favorite GA story in a very long time: “Earn It Back” by Dave Wielgosz and Mike Norton, which was part of last year’s DC’s Saved By the Belle Reve anthology. I picked up this comic because the solicit mentioned Super Sons and Gotham Academy stories, but the solicit, cover, and variant cover gave zero indication that there would be any GA content at all, let alone maybe the best Ollie + baby Roy story...ever??? (Side note: this is why I am Comics Georg. If you read EVERYTHING, you will eventually find treasure.)

The story takes place “years ago,” when Roy is in 8th grade. (For non-Americans, that means 13 or 14, depending on when exactly in the year it is. Roy’s birthday is in November so he’s probably 14 here.)

It starts with Ollie being called in to Roy’s school to speak to the vice principal, and oh man, Ollie is a disaster here:

There is so much to love already:

1. Mike Norton’s art! I always enjoy his work so much. Take it as given that for every page I am loving the art, so I won’t keep saying it. (Also this is a tiny detail but colorist Steve Wands picked just the perfect shade of green for Ollie’s shirt.)

2. “He’s not an idiot.” Already Ollie is in a defensive panic and absolutely flailing. It’s worth noting that Ollie has always and will always be someone who says the very first thought that comes to mind, and this is before he lost all his money and grew a social conscience so he is using thoughtless, offense language. But also, as will be made explicit by the end of the story, Ollie is not someone who did well academically. When Ollie uses the word “idiot,” he means himself. Roy himself once said Ollie is both proud and ashamed that Roy is so much like him and the fact that Roy phrased it that way makes my heart hurt, but it’s probably more accurate to say: Ollie recognizes that Roy is very like him and it worries him because he is intimately familiar with his own faults.

3. This story sits pretty completely within pre-Flashpoint continuity and characterization - it doesn’t match Roy’s New 52 or Rebirth backstories at all. And as a pre-Flashpoint fan, I do love that. But one thing that emerges from the mess of contradictory versions of Roy’s backstory in the New 52 is that it’s really easy to headcanon that version of him - eternally bored in school, miles ahead of the class and unable to sit still, eventually seeking solace in acting out and substance abuse - as neurodivergent, potentially ADHD. And this story also hints at those tendencies, which there is zero indication of in pre-Flashpoint. I just think it does a great job gracefully combining multiple characterizations of Roy so that no one’s is “wrong.”

Ollie: “Hey Barry. you’re a fucking nerd, right?” Barry: “...Yes. 😔”

ANYWAY LOOK HOW MUCH OLLIE LOVES ROY!!! HE THINKS ROY IS AMAZING!!

My single solitary issue with this story is that it posits that Bruce is someone it would be logical to turn to for parenting advice, but I guess this early on, before Dick started butting heads with him - let alone before Jason showed up - both Bruce and Ollie could be dumb enough to think he was.

I will never get over how cute Roy’s little face is when he’s talking about shooting Wally. I kiss him! I pinch his cheeks!

Weeks go by. Roy’s grades improve, but he’s miserable:

Truly Mike Norton is just drawing my headcanons at this point. Yes, that is what Ollie’s house looks like. Yes, that is how he dresses. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Look how mad the Titans are! Look at Garth stomping off! This is so cute, I’m dying.

Again, BRUCE IS NOT A MODEL PARENT. He’s so condescending here, too. AT LEAST OLLIE'S KIDS ALL MAKE IT OUT OF ADOLESCENCE ALIVE, BRUCE.

(The Dinah cameo is interesting, since she and Ollie don’t interact. It makes this story tricky to place in any prior continuity, since pre-Crisis she didn’t join the League until after Ollie had already grown his beard. I guess this could be the post-Crisis continuity established by JLA: Year One, because Ollie is clean-shaven in that book, which has the pleasing implication that she is a veteran founding member here and Bruce and Ollie are rookies.)

Anyway, it’s the VP calling to let Ollie know that Roy has been cutting school:

BABY IS ANGRY. Baby also has impeccable aim (of course), because oh man, telling Ollie he’s a tyrant and a fake and flaky is one THOUSAND percent hitting him where it hurts. “You gave up on me” oh BOY the abandonment issues started early.

Other things I love: how incredibly daddish Ollie sounds in the “Keep going, Roy” line. Also, “Being his friend didn’t work.” DAVE WIELGOSZ IS ALSO JUST WRITING MY HEADCANONS!!! I have said for literally decades at this point that Ollie’s early parenting style was permissive to a fault because Roy is his buddy! His pal! His little fella!

Like I said at the beginning, Ollie’s panicked “He’s not an idiot!” was not about Roy, it was about Ollie. He doesn’t want to see Roy make the same mistakes he did. (He should probably have told Roy about contraceptives then, but...) (Actually he did tell Roy not to get Donna pregnant in Teen Titans: Year One, but probably he should have been clearer about the means.)

Panel three makes me want to sob. THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MU-HU-HUCH. (Ollie and Roy, I mean. Not Ollie and Vice Principal Parks.)

P.S. The posters on Roy’s wall! What a nerd!

😭😭😭

This is such a complicated little emotional beat and I love it. Roy has been so angry at Ollie but his immediate uncomfortable forgiveness and the way Ollie recognizes it for what it is is so good. (Also of course Robert went along with it, Robert Queen was trash.)

THEY LOVE EACH OTHER! OLLIE THINKS ROY IS THE GREATEST PERSON ALIVE! ROY SHOWS HIS FORGIVENESS BY ROASTING HIS OLD MAN!

(We don’t need to discuss the part where I’m pretty sure Roy never finished high school. It’s a happy ending for now, okay?)

Anyway, I love this story very very much and just wanted to gush about it. if the new GA book is anywhere close to this high quality, I will be very happy indeed.

#green arrow #oliver queen #roy harper #speedy

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maniculum · 4 months

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Bestiaryposting Results: Almlaeni

Here are the results for this week's bestiaryposting; as always, anyone who doesn't know what that's about can see all previous posts here: https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting.

This one, I think, really illustrated to me how differently one perceives these entries when one knows what animal is being described. There was a particular detail in this week's entry that I thought was an absolute dead giveaway as to the identity of the animal, but most of the commentary I've seen from the artists indicates that they didn't see it as obvious, which was a relief -- I think the harder it is to guess, the more fun this whole thing is. (Yes, you're not supposed to try and guess it at all, but on the more obvious ones like the Gligglae I see a lot of comments along the lines of "I'm pretty sure I know what this is", so there are indicators whether people know.) It probably helps that it was a longer entry, so there's a lot going on. I just think it's worth noting because of the conversation recently going around regarding what's obvious to the author vs. what's obvious to the reader.

The entry we're working from can be found here:

Art is below the cut in roughly chronological order.

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) started with the thought that an example of an animal with strong jaws is an ant. But given the description of manes and fur, this is probably a mammal, so we get an "ant-lion" that they describe as looking "like he should be an alien pet in a sci-fi movie or game", which I think is spot-on. Good design for a weird alien pet. I really like the execution of the "ant's head but mammalian" concept, and the coloring of the mane looks really cool. Some more detail on design decisions can be found in the linked post.

@sweetlyfez (link to post here) does note that she thinks she knows what this animal is -- but, in the spirit of the thing, intentionally avoided drawing that -- so we'll have to see how identifiable it is at the end of this post. She's also provided her own alt text, thanks for that. I find this design really charming -- the blend of porcine and feline makes for a good silhouette in my opinion, the pose looks cool, and the rainbow mane is quite pretty. I particularly like that the tuft of hair the entry says is a love charm is drawn to resemble a heart.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) has drawn a rather frightening-looking beast, here shown nipping its own paw after accidentally stepping on a twig. (They also provided alt text, thank you.) There's a lot of interesting design choices here -- explained in some detail in the linked post, check that out. We can see a stocky, muscular head and chest, showing that this animal has the strength in its jaws and chest mentioned by the entry, paired with kangaroo-like legs and tail to give it the leaping capabilities mentioned. Also, this picture shows an Ethiopian Almlaeni in summer, which is why it is bald except for a bit of fur on its mane and tail. The shining eyes, I think, are what really gives this animal an unsettling appearance.

Cheapsweets also would like to note that they're "on the lookout for some good resources for animal anatomy and musculature", so if anyone has any suggestions, please send those their way!

@pomrania (link to post here) has given us this creature that is very much A Mammal but it's hard to pin down anything more specific than that -- it makes me think of the sort of old engravings that archaeologists just kind of give up on categorizing as specific animals and end up just calling them something like "the [culture/location] Beast". It's kind of feline, kind of equine, and it has what Pomrania (accurately) characterizes as a greyhound-like build. This impression is aided by the pose and the line work -- I don't know, there's just something about it that makes me think "this should be on the wall of an old tomb somewhere." I like the vibe, is what I'm saying. Very good beast.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has selected a couple of the elements in the description that stand out and taken them to their most dramatic interpretation. The Almlaeni can jump in such a way that it seems to fly, and it can live on the wind -- what if it has bat-like wings it can glide on? (Someone else noted "live on the wind" as possibly suggesting flight depending on how you interpret the ambiguity of the phrase, but discarded the idea; here we're running with it.) The result is quite a fearsome beast; that face is downright scary. We can also see here sensory organs adapted to hunting at night, and strength concentrated in the front of its body (which probably helps with those wings). And of course the stylization is excellent as always -- the linework is very convincingly medieval and I swear I've seen illuminations with that exact style of starry background. The linked post describes the design decisions in a bit more detail. (Also thank you for providing your own alt text.)

@strixcattus (link to post here) put this up after I drafted the rest of this post, and from the text of their post I think they guessed the nature of the animal, so take all references to it being more difficult to identify than I thought with a grain of salt. They also describe it as "a little freak (affectionate)" which is definitely an accurate description of the creature they've drawn. I really like the combination of different types of animal you can see here. The pose comes from a pretty reasonable interpretation of a couple points in the original entry: they can leap really well, but most of their strength is in the front half of their body. Therefore, obviously, they must use their front legs to jump and to propel themselves for rapid motion. Excellent direction to take that, I think. As usual, I strongly recommend clicking that above link and seeing the details Strixcattus writes up for their beasts.

And now, the Aberdeen Bestiary version.

As you can probably gather from this image, this week's animal is the wolf. And I think it's an interesting peek into the medieval imagination to see how fierce that wolf looks. The shaggy fur, the fangs, the eyes -- it's striking. That looks like a fairy-tale illustrator decided to draw the Big Bad Wolf in such a way as to frighten children. All the best wishes to our heroic little dog up there.

I also like the interestingly-symbolic depiction of the sheepfold: it kind of looks like our sleeping shepherd keeps his flock in a TARDIS. And, of course, look at that lovely Stylized Tree in the background.

So yeah, it was the bit about them sneaking up on sheepfolds that I thought made it Too Obvious that the Almlaeni was a wolf. Glad that didn't turn out to be as much of a tip-off as I thought.

As for the Ethiopian wolves mentioned: damned if I know what they were thinking of. Jackals and African wild dogs can be pretty colorful, so there might be something there, but I wouldn't describe them as having manes. My best guess is that the original animal being described was a black-backed jackal, but it's hard to be sure what, if anything, the grain of truth is here. (There is an animal we call the "Ethiopian wolf", but it looks more like a coyote than anything, so I'm not seeing the "colorful mane" thing.)

The thing about this is that medieval authors were very much ignorant of that part of the world. "Ethiopia" to them was much like "India" -- to the modern ear, those are countries we're aware of with a defined location, and we can go read about them if we want. To medieval Europeans, both were just kind of vague geographical blobs: they knew these places existed because they heard about them from classical sources and/or from trading partners, but there was virtually no direct contact or reliable information. These were distant and mysterious lands to them, and as a result they were willing to believe just about anything regarding what those places were like. (Also, if you see "Ethiopia" in a medieval text, don't necessarily think the region we now call by that name -- it tends to just be an umbrella term for "sub-Saharan Africa".) So, leaping maned wolves? May or may not be based on anything real, and if it was, it's been Telephoned to death by this point.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #almlaeni

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heavenlyhischier · 2 years

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i am yours - anthony b.

summary: no matter how much you love someone, you can not wait for them to be ready forever.

word count: 1.3k

warnings: probably not like super accurate but ive never written for the regency era so forgive me please

note: this is just a little blurb i had sitting in my drafts for a few days.

You had been in love with Anthony Bridgerton since the moment you stepped into his family home and he was standing amongst his siblings to greet you. He was standing behind his younger, smaller siblings with a look of boredom plastered on his handsome face as your parents greeted his own. You could not help but stare; something your mother would be sure to scorn you on if she were to catch you. The two younger Bridgerton brothers noticed, however, and they shared quite the amusing look with each other.

“This is my darling daughter, Y/N,” Your mother introduced, gently placing a hand on your shoulder and bringing you forward. Your gaze was ripped away from the handsome boy and you dropped into a curtsy to greet Lord and Lady Bridgerton.

“Dear Y/N, the formality is not necessary! Why don’t you and the other children go off while your parents and I discuss a few things,” Lord Bridgerton suggested, giving you a kind smile.

You returned his kind gesture before turning to your parents to ask if it would be okay to go socialize with the other children. They agreed, of course, and your mother made a point to whisper something about paying extra attention to the older brothers. Her comment made your cheeks flush bright pink, and you did your best to hide your slight embarrassment before you turned around.

Daphne was the one to approach you, and she linked her arm with yours while she led you to the drawing room with her other siblings. She was going on a tangent about how she has always wanted an older sister and that you two were going to be the very best of friends.

While that ended up being the correct fate of your relationship with Daphne, it was her eldest brother you grew the closet to. Anthony often teased you in such a way that you found yourself in a constant state of blushing; something he quite enjoyed doing. He would never admit this to anyone out loud, but the days he got to see you were his very favorite of days. Seeing you brought out unfamiliar feelings within the young boy and he was determined to find a name for what they were.

Nearly a year after you being the one constant thing on his mind, his father suddenly passed and he became Viscount Bridgerton. He became loaded with responsibilities and grief that your friendship became something he neglected. You understood that he was now the man of the house and was now solely responsible for managing family affairs, and you did your best to not let it upset you, but you could not help it.

You found solace in the fact that, while you may no longer be one of the things on the forefront of Anthony’s mind, you were still able to be around him due to your family's relationship with his and your friendship with Daphne. It wasn’t the same, of course, and it caused you a great deal of heartache when he would brush you off anytime you tried to speak with him. Daphne did her very best to console you and reassure you that he was just busy and it did nothing to change the fact that he cared deeply for you.

After a year and a half, Anthony began to come out of the shell of a person he had become. He would speak to you whenever he had a spare moment and he would sit next to you when you stayed with his family for dinner. Slowly, he started to become your friend again, but you could tell that he was closely guarding his heart in a way that pained you to see. He had sworn off love like it was some vile disease and he made it known to his mother that if he were to marry, it would be solely for business.

You had hoped he would change your mind and he would eventually fall for you the way you had fallen for him, but you were more than aware that was not likely to happen. You held his friendship very close to your heart and wished nothing more than for him to see you in a different light, but you knew you could not wait forever.

You had finally run out of excuses to not participate in the season, and your mother was doing all she could to ensure that your debut was going to be perfect. Your father had put out the expenses to purchase several new dresses and accessories. You were trying to participate as much as you could, but it was truly hard when your entire heart belonged to another.

“Are you ready, darling,” Your mother asked as the carriage pulled up to the ballroom.

“I suppose. As ready as I can be,” You gave her a tight smile.

The music and sounds of chatter filled your ears as your mama led you towards the party. Your mind ran with thoughts of Anthony seeing you in such fine clothing and you selfishly hoped he asked you for a dance or simply complimented you. You were aware of his reputation around the ton and you’re aware that nearly all of the rumors were true, but that did not deter you.

You waited by the refreshments as your mother made her way around the party, already preying on the young men of the evening. You felt so out of place and alone that you wanted nothing more than to run away and hide, but knowing that the Bridgertons would arrive any moment brought you comfort. It wasn’t long after that the doors opened and Daphne emerged through with Benedict on her arm. You made quick haste to meet her at the bottom of the steps and envelope her in a tight hug.

“I have been waiting for your arrival,” You whispered, letting the young girl out of your grasp, “Where is Anthony?”

“Late, as always,” Lady Bridgerton spoke, disappointment very clear in her voice. You knew what he was doing when he was late, and your heart ached at the thought, “You look beautiful, my dear.”

Soon after their arrival, the boys went off to find dance partners, leaving both you and Daphne to wait for someone to ask you. She began discussing her nerves and how the Queen declared her the diamond, and you reassured her that she had nothing to worry about. It would not be long until the suitors were lining up to share a moment with her.

“Lady Y/N,” A voice spoke from beside you.

“Lord Lumley,” You bowed your head and curtsied. You could feel Daphne’s excited gaze burning a hole in your head.

“May I have the pleasure of a dance,” He held out his hand to you, a kind smile gracing his soft features.

You wordlessly accepted his dance, taking his hand and letting him guide you to the floor. He began jabbering about literature, which was something you knew very little about, and that made it difficult to conversate. You attempted to divert the topic to something more neutral and light, but he found a way to go back to it every time. Thankfully the song came to a quick end, and you all but dashed away from him.

“So, Lord Lumley did not make an impression,” A familiar voice broke through the music and gossip.

You turned and saw Anthony standing there dressed in similar clothes to his brothers. He looked handsome, and that alone was enough to have your cheeks burning. His eyes danced across your body and you couldn’t help but subconsciously shrink in on yourself.

“You look breathtaking,” He finally let out, slightly shaking his head as if he was seeing you in an entirely different light. Truthfully, he has always seen you as the most beautiful girl in the world, but you were practically radiating in front of him.

“Well thank you, Lord Bridgerton,” You playfully smiled once you had regained your composure from his piercing gaze, “And to answer your question, he did. Just not a very interesting one.”

“Good. We can not have him sweeping you off your feet, can we?”

“And why is that,” You scoffed, slightly offended as it seemed like he was implying you were undeserving of the honor.

“Because, Lady Y/N, I do not like to share.”

part two??? hmmm

#anthony bridgerton #anthony bridgerton x reader #anthony bridgerton imagine #anthony bridgerton fic #bridgerton

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jerrsterrr · 8 months

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hey guyssshahgahgahaaaaaaahhaaaa

obligatory silly posting about my ocs/sonas!!!!!!! and. me

and the amongus crewmates because i made a joke on insta that my followers were little guys and it was a silly "where do u wanna be on the drawing" w my mutuals over there :3

those characters are like my sort of sonas in my little oc world, the mind, body and heart!! i have this lil goober with headphones to more accurately represent me ^___^

(LMAO THIS WAS THE ONLY PIC I COULD FIND)

Theres like a big biiiigg storyline as these three being main characters thats going on here with several different characters that i wish to update more accurately on my Toyhouse and i have several posts on my instagram but i decided to use tumblr as to rant and ykno fanboy about my own ocs aswell!!!!!!!!! lol

okay long infodump that probably makes little sense my bad

The way it goes is themed after infinite realities, death,, living and basically heaven? Which i came up with after having like several years of haunting dreams LOL

For the longest time since i was little ive had dreams of being in some sort of messed up apocalypse so thats what the mind is from!! His name is Xiety and he looks like me when i had those dreams, or like some fucked up bird thing heheh

After all that though i started having dreams where i was,, different people sort of?? Dreams with different povs or dreams where i lived entire different lives. Thats Jerri! the body.

The last little guy is called matthew and isnt based off any dreams but more based off the feeling i get when i realize im dreaming. Ive never lucid dreamed but ive always had like a moment to realize "this isnt my life" and im just like viewing whats happeining o_0

All together i made a story for when they get sort of seperated, Xiety, the mind is seperated from the two in a apocalyptic world they have control over and hides the heart (matthew). The body being basically a carbon copy of itself just wanders around this world. Jerri cant remember how they got there or where they are from, but they die, over and over and over. Until eventually, they find the heart, in some rubble, and they sort of gain concious enough to realize "um im stuck in infinite zombie reality hell and this is NOT my reality" they take the plush and try to survive, but xiety kinda catches on and feels betrayed by this. He cant comprehend why on earth the body would want to live knowing what he knows (news flash only the mind knows what he knows of their og reality) HENCE the breaking out and being stuck in a infinite inbetween of constant realities woooo. Jerri and Matthew try to find to find the og reality, going through different bodies, meeting different minds and dying in ALOT of them. It becomes kinda clear that in most realities NONE of them do they live or are happy LMAO

that was like a shitty simplification BUT BESIDES ALLAT they litterally stumble into heaven and meet gods and Reapers and souls BUT they cant stay which SUCKS cuz imagine losing it it and one day people see you for yourself and you cant STAY cuz ur technically not dead just abstracted into peices and yaddah yaddah more ocs hehehe

(ALSO BASED ON A DREAM I HAD)

anyways heres a silly video i made with all of em:

ALSO ALSO OBLIGATORY TAG @moenmomentsthemoe-en

:333333

#j oc snippets #GOD THIS MAKES NO SENSE GRAAA #anyways the sillies ive had for like 4 years heheheheohoh #jerri was like my main sona for like 2 years but they all represent me in some sorta weird dream way #jerri grew xiety didnt and matthew just k n o ws #i lvoe this storyline so much and the rest of the ocs i needa loredump too because can you imagine jerri interacting with people aft alltha #me when i stumble into heaven but am not allowed bcuz im stuck in limbo #real not clickbait #i still get these weird dreams till this day btw HEHE #follow my toyhouse im tryna upload more everyday #fanboying #oc cringe #WAHOOOOOO #erm if u want u can ask questions but idk this is rlly horribly explained #theres also lots of more art on insta #OK DIES GOODBYEVIGWTFGH

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livelovecaliforniadreams · 5 months

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I Am All In Rewatch - Episode 1x13

I did enjoy the Luke stuff. You know, the Rachel stuff where the L McPherson girl that dumped me and broke my heart. I I thought back to New York City when I lived in New York and I was studying acting and doing theater and all that stuff, and you know, going out at night and meeting models and things like that. You know it was you know, so I knew what I was drawing from in those moments. I when I saw that scene, I said, oh, yeah, I've been that guy. I yeah, that's that's from experience. [It was such a major revelation to the audience and to Lorelai, like wow, and how you went so just like bleep crazy over the sweatshirt.] Yeah, that was that was that was the big relationship that that really rocked my world that I will never recover from. [Yeah, and it helps us with that timeline clarity because that was happening the town knew but Laura la wasn't totally privy to all of it.] -Scott

[So how do you think Lorelai felt finding out about Rachel? Because we know I'd love to learn more from you what Luke felt. But what do you think Lorelai felt?] Well, Lorelai feels you know that now she's she's sort of considering. I think Lorelai is kind of on the fence. I think she feels a certain way about Luke and that's undeniable, right, there's an attraction there, but is she going to act on it? And I think that's really the debate that's going on within her. Is this, you know, whereas she should have been having this debate with herself with Max Medina, she's having this debate with with Luke because they are such friends and they've known each other a long time, and she goes there three times a day sometimes, um, usually once at least once a day. So it's a you know, it's a real practical question, right, how she's gonna she is she gonna alter her her schedule, she gonna alter her daily life. If that blows up, she won't be able to go to Luke's anymore. And it's like, so she's having that debate, but learning that he was with you know, the the the uber fox girlfriend that was the road the road went to Pamplona, Spain and ran with the bulls or whatever she did, wildlife photographer and like jumped into volcanoes since it all rode bulls like, you know, dove into hundred foot cliffs, into tiny little bodies of water, you know, just a wild, wild woman. Um. And I think Lorelai, yeah, And I think Sooki nailed her she was jealous, or she was measuring herself against this, and you know, maybe that's why Luke doesn't make a move on me, because I'm not pretty enough and I'm not wild enough, and you know that kind of I thing.-Scott

Well it definitely, you know it really it really kind of um solidified Luke's bonafides as a man. [I will say it gave you a lot of cred.] It did. Right. She's like you know now she Lorelai's sitting back thinking, man, Luke's cooking with gas. You know what I'm saying. [Actually, that's so accurate. It took your stock up, even though it probably terrified her, and she's like, how do I compete with that? At the same time, she's like, wait a minute...] Let's get let's maybe get in the fight here. Let's let's get some attention. This guy might have something going on behind the curtain, you know, what's happening there? And that the fact is, and another thing that really solidifies his bonafides is he wouldn't move out of Stars Hollow. For El McPherson, it's like he's still the grounded guy and simple guy, practical guy. No doing his business. He wasn't. He wasn't moving. -Scott

[But man, and you were mad? Is that the maddest we've seen Luke?] No, No, when I I when when they were talking, when Sooki was and Lorelai were at the counter talking about Max Medina, No he's so dreamy this kind of thing, and Sooki came behind the counter. He flipped. I don't think he's ever popped at anybody in the show like that. Maybe maybe Taylor once in a while. But I thought that was just anyway. [So Luke has two ticking points the sweater and Max Medina...Yeah, it's like Luke can get pissed. Feisty? How would you describe it? how do you describe sort of that reaction to the sweatshirt?] Just hurts and he's confused, he doesn't know why she's wearing it. He thinks he probably thinks that she knows about Rachel and she's just wearing it to provoke him, and he can't understand why. He's not really thought it out, but he's just reacting. [You tried to get rid of it, though you tried. You tried to get rid of it because you put it in the rummage sales stuff.] Right, But why is she wearing it? [Right? Why did he take it back? And don't understand why he took it back] Because she offered it and she was being really cool with him. [And he wasn't ready to let it go. He tried. This is my take that Luke tried to sort of get rid of it, like we all do, to sort of erase that memory of that person that we love, and then it shows up in his face. He's all hurt, which is a great way to describe it. And then he's he realized is like, I'm just putting this back in the closet. I'm not ready.] So Lorelai in you know, in sync with him enough to realize that he's not ready to move on and that that's not going to help him move on, that he should keep it because the only thing that's going to help him move on is some Lorelai. Right? So that empowered her. -Scott

#i am all in #luke x lorelai #lorelai x luke #luke danes #lorelai gilmore #javajunkie #lauren graham #scott patterson #love #gif #gifs #gifset #gilmore girls #1x13

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lorichu · 6 months

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Just Like the Ones I Used to Know

This is my part of a holiday gift exchange @gtypewriter and I did where we chose one of each other's stories and then selected a Christmas song to use as inspiration. I was "given" my characters from The Night Shift, and chose the song White Christmas. The art was a little extra on my part.

Thanks for reading, and happy holidays!

The distant melody of another Christmas song echoed from upstairs, as did his mom and uncle's actually pretty good singing, but John didn't move. It was all just noise to him at this point. A quiet, half-formed thought tried to encourage him to get up and go help them decorate the tree, but his entire body had been carved from a block of cold, numb stone. He slid lower in the booth's faded bench seat. Sitting before him was the equally inert empty cup of coffee he'd originally come down into the shop for, which had been drained and left to cool for some time.

John's blank expression stared at the door. Night had fallen hours ago, bringing with it the soft, hazy glow of a snowstorm. The heavy white powder blanketed the rest of the world, rounding out harsher edges and burying everything in indistinct obscurity. If you didn't already know what to expect under a particular snowbank, you'd have no way of finding out without more than a little digging. Over the past hour or so both the flurries and the wind had picked up. Together they created an intricate dance, swirling and spiraling in the shop's exterior floodlight like they were on stage. Each gust was a delicate maneuver, the entire storm a complex song.

And John was just as numb to that as well.

What did catch his attention was the crunch of snow under tires and the scraping of shovels against the pavement. Outwardly he didn't react to those either, but each one was another little jab at his heart. One more needle slipping under his skin to draw out another pinprick of blood. His body was covered in scars that matched the dried salty trails of slush across the doormat. They were rough and jagged, bright against the dark surface, and were pointless to clean away this time of year. All the scrubbing in the world wouldn't stop them from forming all over again the second someone else walked through the door.

Heavy eyelids slid lower as John continued to not put up a fight to stay present. The chilling cold of the darkened coffee shop had drained away all but the very last of his resolve, leaving him hollow and stained like the inside of his empty mug. Uncomfortable as it obviously was, he wanted to feel the pain. More accurately, he was desperate to feel anything. Each and every day had been a little bit worse than the last, but it was his Uncle Alec's return that finally broke the camel's back. Then and only then had he truly noticed how much of him had gone numb. When he couldn't think of a fix, John decided to lean into it. To really embrace the sensation fully, with both body and soul.

Was that the right choice? Probably not. But, then again, John didn't care. Right here in this moment, however long it had been, was the first time he remembered feeling something that wasn't completely soul crushingly empty.

He slouched lower in the booth so that his shoulder blades touched the seat. The stark emptiness of his mind roared loudly in his ears, and his eyes fluttered that much closer to closing. After spending such a long time dancing around the issue, John was tired. Maybe sleeping down here wasn't that bad of an idea. Sure, his body wouldn't be too happy about it, but it might give him something to help take the pain away.

All the flurries blustering about outside had been a simple distraction to dissociate to, but out of nowhere there was motion in the darkness itself. A sharp silhouette crawled up over the opposite side of the table, moving with more purpose than John had experienced in hours. The shape didn't get too close, but it did speak.

"John?" Lyra's voice was soft and yet somehow managed to cut through the static.

Had he been any more in control of himself John wouldn't have flinched so hard. It was like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over his head, snapping him out of the sleepless dreaming that had almost taken him. Scrambling to support himself, John managed to sit upright with a forceful push against the seat, but he still needed a minute to blink the daze out of his eyes.

That acknowledgement was enough of an invitation for Lyra, and she started to slowly inch closer. "Are you alright? You've been down here for a while, and we were... I was getting worried."

Even though his throat felt like it was filled with cobwebs, John's voice managed to find its way out. "I-I," he croaked, "I'm fine."

The shadows falling across Lyra's face couldn't cover up her frown. "Is that so?"

Her anger became a chisel that broke through the icy walls he'd built to barricade himself in. Dropping his hands into his lap, John hung his head. "No..." he sighed. His eyes slid shut, but that was only to stem the incoming flow of tears. "I just, I miss him."

Lyra didn't say a word. She closed the remaining distance between them by walking right up to the edge of the table. For a moment she considered sitting down, but instead chose to stand so she could be as close to John as possible.

A ragged breath filled and left his lungs. "There was so much else going on last year that I didn't really have time to think about it." His eyes opened slowly, seeking her out like a warm fire in the midst of a howling storm. "B-But, but now, all I can see are the empty spaces. All the places he should be, but isn't. And won't ever be, ever again."

Before John realized he'd moved it, his hand was on the table, loosely draped behind Lyra. She didn't appear to be bothered, and even leaned into the touch, making his fingers curl in closer. As a fingertip brushed over her hip, Lyra locked eyes with him. Her expression told him all he needed to know, but it wasn't until she nodded encouragingly that John dared to take things farther. He scooped her up with all the care in the world even though his hands were still trembling. Instead of just lifting her higher John held her to his chest and sunk into the seat again. Lyra relaxed against him, fully content and at ease despite being essentially trapped.

Like the warmth of smoldering embers, Lyra's love melted through another layer of John's walls. "I know Uncle Alec always comes for Christmas," he murmured, "and I'm glad he's here for Mom, but he," John's entire body shuddered, "he just makes the emptiness bigger, because my heart knows it's supposed to be the three of them up there. Laughing, singing, decorating... This is as close to complete as their group can ever be again. Nothing they, or anyone else can do will ever be able to change that."

Burying her face into his shirt, Lyra took a deep breath. "Filling in the blank spaces doesn't make them go away," she agreed. "No matter how much the substitution might check all the right boxes, it just isn't the same."

It was rare for Lyra to ever speak of her many losses, regardless of who was gone or how long it had been. As they'd grown closer together, John had come to accept that some parts of her would always be inaccessible to him. However, that slight peek behind the curtain brought a gentle touch of ease to his grief ravaged heart. These were not hollow condolences given out of obligation. Lyra was empathizing with her entire being by reaching into the darkest places that could only hurt her. She had not come down into the coffee shop to force him back upstairs, but to connect with him in a way only she knew how.

His thumb bent in to lightly rest on the top of her head. "I keep waiting for his car to pull up," John mumbled on. "Like all this time he's just been out helping someone. That happened a lot, especially this time of year." He filled his lungs and exhaled a powerful sigh. "My heart can't stop believing that eventually he's gonna open that door with a laugh and burst of snow, then tease me about w-why I'm down, down here, and n-not ups-stairs..."

Sobs filled his throat, choking out his voice. John curled inward, draping his other hand over Lyra as well and mindfully clutching her to his chest. That messy blur was back and stronger than ever, but now he had the most powerful shield in the world. Lyra was the only thing keeping him sane, his literal last line of defense against the bellowing grief boiling within him. The animalistic desire to wail his overwhelming feelings would do nothing but scream his throat raw. Any release he could get from that would just cause him more pain beyond this instance. By simply being here, in this moment with him, Lyra was protecting him from himself.

Painful as it was to keep speaking, the entire process was oddly cathartic. "A-And, then," John rasped, "then we'd go up there t-together. To Mom and Uncle Alec." As more words came out his throat felt looser. "There'd be a pot of peppermint hot cocoa on the stove, and the same old CD of Christmas music would be playing. First we'd decorate the tree, then the rest of the house, until f-finally we'd come down here to do the shop. When we finished it'd be at least midnight, but everything would look amazing."

The pressure on her hadn't been unbearable, but Lyra wasn't able to actually calm down until it lessened. "That sounds like a lot of fun. What a wonderful tradition." More of John relaxed around her, and she rolled over onto her stomach in an attempt to look him in the eye. "I can confirm that there is hot cocoa brewing, and Pam dug a really banged up CD out of the closet."

After feeling Lyra move, John repositioned so he could see her. Now that he was out of his mind and back in the present, he smelled the faint waftings of peppermint and heard the familiar crooning of a song he'd listened to every year as far back as he could remember. John watched as Lyra settled more comfortably beneath his hand, sharing what little warmth she had with him. The sight of her so perfectly at ease cast a bright but pleasant light on the corners of his mind, chasing the shadows away.

"What do you think about going up there and joining them?" John asked, his stabler voice already sounding more like his normal self.

Lyra's slight frown just barely furrowed her brow. "Are you sure? I don't mind waiting if you need more time."

Shaking his head, John freed his left hand and braced it against the booth seat to sit up. "Don't worry, I'll be alright. Hiding out down here isn't gonna do me any good. Right now, what I really need is-"

The dull crunching of a car plowing through snow turned into the parking lot. They both froze, now suddenly back in John's sorrowful musings, and they held their breath as the extra diffused illumination from headlights shut off. A door opened, then slammed shut with a snow-muted thud. Softer, dampened footsteps marched towards the shop, bringing with them a familiar face just barely visible through the window.

Gently letting Lyra off on the table, John shuffled over to open the door. "Bret?" he muttered as the bundled, snow-dusted figure scrambled inside. "Did I miss a text or something?"

Bret shook his head, sending a small squall into the air as the door was shut behind him. "Nah, your mom invited me." He started unbuttoning his jacket and took off his hat. "If you didn't know I was coming, why were you down here?"

Walking back over to Lyra, John shrugged and rubbed the tip of his nose with the back of his hand. "Just needed a little break from the festivities, you know?"

A believable enough lie, but even in the dimmed lighting Bret could see the puffy rings around John's eyes. Despite that truth staring him in the face, he'd happily take the offered bait instead. "You always did say that decorating night could get outta hand," Bret joked. "And actually, this is kinda perfect." His gaze wandered to Lyra, who stiffened up ever so slightly.

"Why's that?" John asked in her place, shifting a little closer to her out of habit.

Not realizing just how much his crypticness was hurting the situation, Bret reached into his jacket's inner pocket. "Because I have something to give Lyra."

It didn't matter that so much time had passed, hearing him say her name like that still gave Lyra chills. She almost started inching closer to John, then immediately thought better of it. 'Don't show him anything's wrong,' she reminded herself. 'Everything can be turned into a weakness. Don't give him any more to take advantage of.'

An entire lifetime of better memories wouldn't be enough to outweigh or erase everything that happened to her at the museum. Lyra knew this, and so did Bret. However, as the one who hadn't been on the receiving end of years of torture, Bret wasn't always as quick to pick up whenever he inadvertently crossed that line. She knew he was trying his best, and the effort was appreciated, but the iron-clad instincts that had kept her alive wouldn't allow even the smallest slight to pass so easily.

When Bret's hand reemerged, it was closed around something small. He looked at Lyra then John before stepping up to the table and extending his arm just as slowly. Fingers pulled away quickly to reveal the little object, and while John was left squinting to figure out what it was, Lyra gasped. "W-Wait... Is that?"

"Your bag," Bret answered. "The one you had when I found you."

Lyra clamped a hand over her mouth and wrapped her other arm across her body. "How? How do you still have this when he asked you to destroy it?"

Bret needed to stabilize his balance by bracing a hand on the table. "Because I forgot." A groveling apology was building up inside of him, but instead of caving to that, he just went on with the story. "Amos wouldn't let me throw it out in his office because that would be too suspicious, so I just put it in my pocket. There was so much else going on that I completely forgot about it until I got home. I needed to stay on Amos's good side to keep my job, so I wanted to wait for the best time to throw it away. Until I found that, I decided to just stash it in my desk drawer... where I forgot about it again."

"I can't believe you kept it," Lyra mumbled, taking a shuffled step forward. This felt so much like a trap, but she just couldn't help herself. "After all this time."

Because she was getting closer, Bret wanted to pull his hand back and move away from the table. Thanks to his momentary indecision though, it looked like he'd missed his chance. 'She's already too close,' he grumbled. 'If I move now, it'll just freak her out. Probably enough that she won't accept it.'

So he stayed rooted in place and watched as the tiny Mintran woman knelt down to reunite with her timeworn pack. Lyra delicately unhooked the latch and drew in a sharp breath when she saw the stash of her old possessions. "It's all here," she murmured. "Everything..." Distant memories of the life that was stolen from her condensed into tears that stung her eyes. A choked down sob rocked her shoulders and her fingers dug into the thick fabric as she hunched lower.

Seconds later her head snapped up. Just as quickly she tossed the bag aside and jumped to her feet. The heavy stares following her weren't enough to stop her from breaking out into a full-on sprint, and she never wavered as she raced over to Bret's hand. She wrapped her arms as far as she could around his wrist and fully leaned into the hug.

"Th-Thank you, Bret," she whimpered, smearing tears over his skin. "You don't know what this means to me."

Now utterly terrified to move, Bret tried to hold his ground. "You're, um, you're welcome." The way she was clinging to him made his mind dredge up images of her begging for her life, which was a habit he'd broken her of long ago. He could hear echoes of mournful cries ripping through her raw throat. Each one dug into him as well to leave a festering scar that would never fully heal. Over time the wound had gotten easier to ignore, but that didn't mean it had stopped hurting.

Her joy couldn't hold her fear back forever though, so Lyra broke the embrace first. She shuffled backwards to the bag, refusing to take her eyes off Bret after voluntarily getting so dangerously close. He remained just as statuesque and didn't appear to take a full breath until she'd reached down to grab the bag.

Lyra offered a timid smile. "Seriously, Bret, thank you."

"Course," he muttered through a similar grin. "Merry Christmas."

The ache that had brought John down into the shop felt like a fading memory of an old nightmare. He hadn't fully recovered, but there was a new layer of warmth wrapped around his heart like a thick blanket. That warmth was holding him together, bundling up the pieces of him into a single place where they could be protected and cared for. Love was all around him, holding the door open to let him in out of the cold dark of loneliness. It was definitely something to do this time of year, but John knew without a doubt that everyone in this house would do the same things all over again even if it was the middle of summer.

John wrapped his hand behind Lyra's back again and gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze as he looked Bret in the eye. "We were just going upstairs to join them, and since you already talked to Mom, I know she'll be expecting you too." Lyra leaned back against him, and he knew that was his cue to pick her up. He didn't need to look down to scoop her off her feet, but he still sent a quick smile and wink her way. "They've probably already done a good chunk of it by now, but I'm sure there's more left to decorate."

Perking up more into his normal self, Bret nodded. "I'm here as long as you need me."

Nothing else had to be said as they hurried through the darkened coffee shop. When they opened the door at the bottom of the stairs the music changed. Without missing a beat, Pam and Alec were already singing.

"I'm, dreaming, of a White, Christmas..."

#g/t #giant/tiny #g/t writing #my writing #giant tiny #gt #the night shift #christmas

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