#also you can tell i haven’t been super proud of a bunch of the art i made this year | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nicknellie · 3 years

Text

@julie-n-phantoms requested: I saw this really cute idea once, about Willie having a whole bunch of different fun flavored chapsticks and making Alex guess what they were when they kissed. So maybe that, and Willie just keeps using it as an excuse to kiss Alex at the most random times and poor Alex keeps bluescreening?

This is so cute omg I love it! It ended up kind of short because I’m extremely tired and haven’t written Willex in a while, but I’m still very happy with how it turned out. Thank you for the request and sorry it’s taken me so long to get round to it, I hope you enjoy! Title from I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry (ofc lmao).

The Taste of His Cherry Chapstick

Not for the first time, Alex found himself questioning exactly how the rules around ghosts worked. He had been a ghost for quite some time now and he kept thinking that he should really have these things figured out, but being dead was a lot trickier than it seemed. Alex could sit on chairs, but he could also walk right through them; he could change his clothes, but he still hadn’t figured out how his clothes became invisible to lifers just like he was; he didn’t have a body, but he could still get hurt (he had Caleb to thank for cluing him in on that one). He had long ago accepted that the rules of being a ghost would always be hazy and muddled and that sometimes he would just have to get on with it, but every now and then something would happen and it would totally stump him.

Like right now. Willie was putting chapstick on and Alex was simply could not wrap his head around it.

“Why do you need to do that?” he asked Willie, breaking the soft silence between them. They were sat in the studio on the sofa together, Willie with his legs casually crossed over Alex’s lap, lying back as he applied the chapstick.

Willie shrugged easily, popping the cap back on and slipping it into his pocket. (Pockets were another ghost thing Alex didn’t understand and he might have spiralled into that a little more if he hadn’t been so fixated on the chapstick.)

“Stops my lips getting chapped,” Willie said. “It’s kinda in the name.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Alex replied, “but you’re a ghost. Can your lips even get chapped?”

“Yeah, that’s why I bought the chapstick,” Willie explained, meeting Alex’s bewildered look with an amused smirk. “That and the fact that it’s a nice flavour. Do you want to test it?”

Alex shook his head violently. “Absolutely not. I don’t trust it. How can we still use it even when we’re dead? There are some things that should not cross the line between life and the afterlife, and this is one of them.”

Willie giggled. “Alex, it’s literally just chapstick.”

“I know that. I’m not using it.”

Willie rolled his eyes affectionately, but then the amused smirk he’d had on his face morphed into something much more mischievous. Alex knew that look – it meant Willie had got an idea and there was absolutely no way of telling whether or not it was a good one.

“Well,” Willie said slowly, sitting up and shuffling so that he could properly look Alex in the eye, “there’s more than one way you could try it out.”

“How?” Alex asked sceptically.

Willie’s only response was to lean forward, that devilishly cute little smirk still on his face, and press a sweet, chaste kiss to Alex’s lips. It took Alex by surprise and was over before he could even kiss Willie back as Willie pulled away with a soft, self-satisfied smile. Alex, meanwhile, was still struggling to process what had happened. It wasn’t like he and Willie had never kissed before, but the fact that he hadn’t been expecting it combined with how brief it was and how happy Willie looked to have solved the chapstick issue meant that his mind was lagging a little as it tried to catch up. It did not help that Willie was beaming at him, looking effortlessly adorable.

“So?” Willie prompted after Alex had been silently staring at him with his mouth open in shock for almost a minute. “What flavour do you think it is? Do you like it?”

Alex dragged his mind back down from where it had been launched into the heavens. He reminded himself that he was here, with Willie in the studio, that conversations only worked if both people were talking, that staring was rude, and that there had in fact been a point to the kiss. He cleared his throat, trying to school his features back to neutrality but knowing he failed when Willie giggled, and then licked his lips.

“Um… is it cherry?” he guessed. His mind was still a little foggy and more focused on the fact that Willie had kissed him rather than what flavour the chapstick was.

Willie grinned, digging the chapstick out of his pocket again and showing Alex the label on the tube. “Yeah, man! You’re right, great job!”

As Willie settled back into his original position with his legs kicked over Alex’s lap, Alex pushed his momentary panic out of his mind and tried to be normal again. He had thought it would be a one-off, that one kiss and his one guess, and that would be the end of it. But apparently, Willie had other ideas because it just kept happening over and over again.

The second time it happened was in the middle of the night. Willie had got the bright idea of going to the museum at midnight to see all the art and exhibits in the dark. It had turned out to be an amazing idea – the low light gave every painting and sculpture a completely different energy, some more sinister, others infinitely more sad, some seeming so different to how they were during the day that it would have been hard to tell they were the same piece of art at all. Alex followed Willie around the museum with an affectionate smile on his face the whole time, a loving warmth in his chest as he listened to Willie talk about all the art and what it meant and who made it. It was always endearing whenever Willie talked about art; his passion and enthusiasm and the way his face positively lit up was enough to make Alex fall in love a thousand times over.

It was going so well and Alex felt unbelievably lucky that he got to be the one there with Willie. But then Willie stopped talking for a moment and Alex watched him reach into his pocket and pull out his chapstick. He couldn’t help the way his mind wandered to the last time this had happened, when Willie had pressed that one gentle kiss to his lips and backed away. When he saw Willie’s eyes light up, he knew he was thinking of the same thing.

“Want to try?” Willie asked. It was an innocent enough question, but they both heard the implication behind it – Willie was asking for another kiss.

Alex loved kissing Willie, but it still made him nervous every time, mostly because he couldn’t believe someone as incredible as Willie would actually want to kiss him. So momentarily, his nerves caught up with him and he couldn’t reply to Willie, not with words at least. He gave a quick nod before swallowing his nerves and cupping Willie’s jaw to pull him into a kiss.

He made sure this one lasted longer than the other, but it still wasn’t more than a few seconds. Alex tried not to pout when Willie pulled away, but smiled to himself when Willie rested their foreheads together.

“What flavour do you think it was?” Willie asked quietly.

Oh yeah, that was what Alex was meant to be figuring out. Well, he didn’t think he could really be blamed for forgetting that detail when just a moment ago he’d been kissing the love of his afterlife. Again, his mind took a ridiculous amount of time to get past the excitement and giddiness of the kiss and actually focus on the question he’d been asked.

“Is that cola?” he asked after a minute or two.

Willie dropped a feather-light kiss to the tip of Alex’s nose (and Alex was not too proud to admit it made him go slightly weak in the knees) and then pulled back with a smile. “You’re two for two. You’re getting good at this game, hotdog.”

“We’ll have to keep playing so I can get even better,” Alex replied. It might have been smooth if not for the fact that he was blushing so profusely that he could literally feel the heat in his face, and his voice was a little pitchy with a cruel mixture of nerves and the awkwardness that came with not being very good at flirting.

Willie didn’t mention it though. He just smiled softly, squeezed Alex’s hand, and said in a low voice, “Oh, we’re definitely going to keep playing.”

The third time it happened, Alex wasn’t expecting it at all. Half because they weren’t alone, and half because he hadn’t seen Willie put the chapstick on.

Julie and the Phantoms had just wrapped up a gig. Flynn had hired them to play at her birthday party (well, less ‘hired them’ and more the fact that the boys had wanted to give her a birthday present but they were all ghosts which made things like that very difficult, so they and Julie had offered to provide live music at her party instead) and it had gone brilliantly. Not only was the crowd enormous because Flynn had invited practically the whole school – which meant the band would get tons of exposure – but they had clearly been loving the music too. They were easily the best crowd the band had ever played too.

But maybe Alex was biased – he tended to say every crowd was the best crowd just as long as Willie was in it.

Willie and Flynn hadn’t actually met because they were yet to find a way of making Willie visible to lifers, but Flynn had heard enough stories about “Alex’s super cool skateboarder ghost boyfriend” to know that he could be counted as a friend, so he had been invited. As always, Alex had sought him out in the crowd and played like he was only playing to Willie. That was always when he performed his best.

When they finally finished their set and headed into the makeshift backstage area (which was really just Flynn’s bedroom), Alex barely had time to register what was going on as Willie came running into the room, grabbed Alex’s face and pressed a hard kiss to his lips. Alex distantly registered a few cheers from his friends, but he was too distracted to bother telling them off. All that mattered was the fact that Willie was kissing him and it was even more of a rush than the performance had been.

When they finally pulled away, Willie breathed, “You killed it up there! I swear, I’ll never get tired of hearing you guys play. I’m proud of you.”

“If you’re proud of all of us then how come only Alex gets a kiss?” Luke asked. Alex knew that he was joking, but he still bundled Willie up protectively in his arms, ignoring the way that just elicited laughter and ‘awwww’s from his friends.

“You liked it, then?” Alex asked quietly. He knew Willie always loved their performances, but it always felt amazing to hear it.

“I loved it, just like I love you,” Willie whispered back. Alex melted a little. “Did you like it?”

“Like what?” Alex asked. “The performance?”

“No,” Willie said, that sly smirk back on his face. Suddenly Alex realised what was going on, how he’d been caught off-guard. “My chapstick. Did you like the flavour?”

This one was totally unfair. Alex hadn’t know he was supposed to be thinking about the chapstick. He’d been so caught up in Willie that it had been the very last thing on his mind. Briefly, he entertained the idea of kissing Willie again to try and get another taste, but he knew if he did that he probably wouldn’t be able to stop and he wasn’t so keen to do that while his friends were still in the room, even if they weren’t paying attention anymore.

“That’s cheating!” he said. “I didn’t know we were playing.”

“You’ve gotta guess, hotdog,” Willie returned with a laugh, “those are the rules.”

“You never told me there were rules.”

“You never asked.”

“Okay, that’s fair,” he admitted reluctantly. “Was it… I don’t know. Blueberry?”

“Not even close,” Willie said. He pressed another kiss to Alex’s lips and pulled away before Alex could lose himself in it, which was disappointing but probably a good thing.

He tasted it this time, doing his best to focus on it, but it was very difficult with Willie so close and so cute. Still, the proud smile he got from Willie when he finally guessed watermelon made his restraint and effort completely worthwhile.

From then on, he learned to expect it. To look forward to it too. He went shopping with Willie to buy new multipacks of fun flavours (though shopping was another weird thing as a ghost because even though they left money on the counter it felt a lot more like shoplifting) and they continued their guessing game for months and months. But truth be told, it had started to feel less like a game and more just an excuse to kiss each other. It took another month or two for Alex to realise that had probably been Willie’s plan all along anyway – when he asked Willie about it, the laughter he was met with was more than enough answer.

But he wasn’t complaining. He got to kiss his boyfriend all he wanted, and neither of them ever got chapped lips.

128 notes · View notes

ecoamerica · 20 days

Text

youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

5K notes · View notes

zkfanworkweek · 4 years

Text

ZFAW Content Creator Interviews: OwedBetter

Hey everyone! We hope you’re all excited for ZFAW, and to honor (ha!) ZFAW’s commitment to supporting and celebrating fan content creators in the Zutara fandom, we’re going to be rolling out a series of interviews with well-known and widely-beloved content creators over the next few weeks. We’ve got artists and fanfiction authors, some names you recognize as well as a few phenomenal up-and-coming talents, and we can’t wait for you to meet them all!

I’m super excited about this one! For the sixth (incredibly delayed, I’M SORRY) interview in the cycle, we have Jo, aka @owedbetter. Best known for the absolutely iconic Zutara fanfiction “I’m Still Here,” Jo’s works can be found at: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12312357/chapters/27990618

Tell us about how you came to ship Zutara. What does this ship mean to you?

To use one of my favourite lines from Jane Austen, "I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun." I started watching Avatar: The Last Airbender when I was just a tiny little baby child at 10 turning 11 years old. I do know for a fact, however, that Zutara had simply always been it for me from the very beginning. I believe it was during "The Storm" that I just knew that there was more to Zuko than what was at surface level. As a brown girl trying to make her way into positions of leadership as a child, Katara's strength, rage, and bravery paved the way for me to survive in the way I have. As a survivor of child abuse myself, Zuko remaining kind and gentle and good was of paramount importance. Together, they were the joining of two souls that met in conflict and chaos but through merit, equal standing, and forgiveness, they were exactly what each other needed. They are not opposites nor two halves of a whole; they are the sky and between them is only the world. Everyone has the need to feel truly seen and understood as they are by another, and Zuko and Katara do exactly that. Other stories come and go, but they're the story I come back to and will continue to call home every single time. I will never tire of them.

2. What inspires you to create Zutara fanworks?

I've been a professional writer for the last ten years. It's my job to imagine and create stories. I also love consuming stories through every medium possible. The well never dries when you keep it full to the brim. When you do the work I do and you consume as many stories as I do and you've lived a long enough life and paid attention to the life around you as I have trained to do, to be inspired is second nature. For Zutara, however, these are voices that have lived in my brain for fifteen years. When I get an idea for a story, literally any story, it's like my subconscious is naturally attuned to their dynamic that every prompt I come up with is automatically a Zutara prompt. Such is the way. If I ever publish a novel and/or lead my own show/movie, you can bet that it's probably Zutara if you squint.

3. Be selfish - if you could request one fanwork based on your own art/fanfic, what would it be? What would you absolutely love to see someone create?

To this day, "i'm still here" is probably the single greatest thing I've ever done in my whole stupid life. It would be the greatest honour to see my work interpreted visually. Genuinely, I'd love to see certain scenes as comic panels or something. Katara's realisation at the beach over who she is and she thinks about Yue, her mother, and her grandmother. Zuko and Katara's mutual understanding. The scene that started it all: baby Zuko taking care of baby Azula at the beach. Katara and Iroh talking in Chapter 7. Toph meeting fear for the first time. The entire ending of Chapter 6. As of writing this, I haven't updated the sequel yet but I would love to see visual interpretations of incoming Original Characters because they've been fun to create. I don't even know. If anyone wants to draw something from "i'm still here", I would like to see it. Please let me see it. I will cry. But also, I would like to see visual interpretation of Zutara in my modern quarantine pandemic AU because I would like to see long haired 28 year old Zuko wearing autumn-wear in a public park filled with flowers with 26 year old Katara basically wearing anything I wear because I am projecting in that story for a reason.

4. Any words for people who are new to the fandom and/or nervous about sharing their work for the first time?Buddy, we're all just a bunch of nerds who are creating things for our enjoyment and the enjoyment of likeminded individuals. Do things for you and because they bring you joy, first and foremost. Everything else can be ignored if you want to ignore it. You're doing great.

5. What is your favorite Zutara-related thing you’ve made and why is it special to you?

Again, "i'm still here" is literally the greatest thing I've ever done in my life. Something I get commended for a fair amount with ISH is how I handled Zuko being a child abuse survivor, and his conflicting emotions with his violent abusers because he's still a child who wants his family to love him. That comes from an extremely personal place for me and it means the world to know that other survivors out there resonated so well with it. Also, Masterchef Zuko with that chicken adobo meant me getting a LOT of people saying they tried out the recipe themselves and I can feel my grandmother radiate with pride over knowing I'm so great a cook that I can convince people to want my dish just by writing about it. I'm so proud of everything I did with ISH. I worked really hard on it and I'm so happy to know it means a lot to other people too.

6. What’s an idea for a fanwork that you have but haven’t gotten around to making?

I have this one modern AU involving dogs that I've put on the backburner since 2017. One day... one day!!! I'm a bit of a workaholic, though, so most of the things I want to do, I just do 'em.

7. Are you participating in ZFAW? If so, want to give us a hint as to your plans? 👀

I am! I have a draft ready based on one of Hayley Foster's animatics and I'm very excited. Tumblr user hayleynfoster, I owe you my entire life.

#zfaw #zutara fanworks appreciation week #interviews #zutara #owedbetter

62 notes · View notes

riotwritesthings · 3 years

Text

Ok I was actually tagged in a bunch of these year-end-writing-things, so I’m just gonna combine them all haha thank you @crownofstardustandbone and @thursday-knight!!!

Total Completed Stories:

53(?!?!?)

Total words:

On AO3: 416,521

Total including WIPS and unposted things: 588,500

Fandoms written in:

.... Just MCU ahaha

Top 5 By Word Count:

Road Hazards

It Lingers Too

I Feel It Too

A Work in Progress: You and I

The Taste of You

Top 5 By Kudos:

Melt into Me (Your Words Are My Own)

Tony Learns Something New

Morning People

Baby Crazy

Emerald Ivy (Wrapped Around My Skin)

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected?

Definitely more, and yet almost none of them were the fics I expected to work on haha

Did you take any writing risks this year?

Yes definitely, I was really nervous to post the MCD fic, obviously, (until I come back), but I feel like the biggest ‘risk’ was stretching out of my comfort zone for the Bound to You series with @crownofstardustandbone, it’s definitely the most emotional and REAL fic, I feel, for whatever real means in this context haha.

Do you have any fanfic goals for the new year?

Maybe actually write that Stripper Tony story? Or any of my other many many WIPs and ideas?! IDK don’t look at me!!

For real though look forward to some more skinny!steve coming up in the nearish future 👀

Most popular story of the year?

Oooohh That’s a tough one to judge, but I would have to say Melt Into Me, which makes me so so happy because I worked really hard on that one, put a lot of thought into basically every part of it, and I’m so happy with how it came out

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

Road Hazards. It’s just still one of my favorites, if you like classic road trip tropes and banter and “awkward silence to bantering friends to mutual pining morons to lovers” vibes, all fluff all the time, then give it a try maybe! It’s also the longest stand alone fic I’ve written, and I’m still like damn how’d I do that

Most fun story to write?

Baby Crazy! I will shamelessly admit that I cracked MYSELF up writing that fic

With a very close runner up of Bound to You, because working out the details and planning and just talking about this verse is a constant joy and I’m so happy Stella dragged me into this! ❤️ (by suggesting it, that’s basically all it takes haha)

Most unintentionally telling story:

...... definitely Melt into Me ahaha my praise kink and acts-of-service-love-language popped out HARD in this fic, and that’s probably one of the reasons it’s in my top favorites. But I mean for real, my husband regularly pats my head and tells me I’m doing a good job and I go melty everytime ahaha

Biggest disappointment?

Probably just all the ideas that I haven’t had time to get to yet, but hey I’ll get to it all eventually! Maybe!

Biggest surprise?

Probably how big of a hit the Bound to You series has been, I really expected it to be a kind of niche interest thing, and I’ve been just overwhelmed by the amount of people who liked it, and by the amazing people I’ve met because of that verse 🥰

rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

Oh Jeez ok I’m going to do my best here but WOW I wrote a lot this year ahaha

Melt Into Me (Your Words Are My Own) - WinterIron, E, aka the praise kink fic

Bucky has a new strategy for getting Tony to take proper human care of himself. Tony has never been so well fed, hydrated, thoroughly rested, and confused in all his life.

That doesn’t mean he wants it to stop, and it’s amazing how many boring adult things Bucky can get him to do just by patting his head and calling him ‘good boy’. Right up until Tony possibly ruins everything.

This fic just holds a very special place in my heart, I swear I put more thought into this than any other fic, the gradual build up and framing it just the way I wanted and making sure every scene was absolutely SOAKED in pining. As I like to say, it is Softe, but in a Very Intense way.

Bound to You - WinterIron BDSMverse, E, aka my current obsession

Look. I just love this series. I love everything about it, I love that it lets me dive a little deeper into emotions and such than I maybe normally do, in my usual cracky-porn style. This is definitely the slowest burn I’ve ever written, and I am loving every second of it and really REALLY looking forward to what we have coming up next! And of course, a big part of that love is just from how much fun I have working on it with @crownofstardustandbone, bounding ideas back and forth and brainstorming and making joking what-ifs that we end up falling in love with.

Baby Crazy - WinterIron, E, aka is it egotistical to laugh at my own jokes?

For some reason, the children of New York love Bucky Barnes. It’s heartwarming to witness, and it’s making it really hard for Tony to ignore his gigantic crush on the man.

Especially because Tony can’t stop suggesting they maybe have a baby together. The rest of the Avengers just want a vacation.

My favorite part of this fic is just how many people told me it made them actually laugh out loud, that’s basically my favorite thing to hear. All the friendships and team dynamics were so much fun in this one, and I will admit that I regularly reread it for a giggle

A Series of Learning Experiences - SteveTony, E, aka smol Steve with the big ol’ monster cock

Look. This series isn’t my fault. Stella put the idea of Skinny Toppy Steve in my head and now the little bastard lives there making filthy demands. This series is a totally different type of challenge too, in that I try to make it as Absolutely Filthy as possible. I regularly poke my friends like “hey is this filthy enough? SHOULD I UP THE FILTH FACTOR?!” It is my ode to smut with feelings, and I have so much fun with it haha

until I come back (from the dead for you) - WinterIron, E, aka the choose your own ending fic

Bucky meets Tony at a dive bar. He can’t deny that there’s something between them, but Bucky is also leaving soon, and he doesn’t know when he’ll be back. He only knows that he’ll think about Tony the entire time he’s gone, that as soon as he’s stateside again he’s going to take Tony on an actual date.

(Except he doesn’t come back.)

(But coming back takes a little longer than he expected, and he comes back a little more broken.)

Mostly I’m super proud of myself for actually managing to write the super sad MCD ending that I set out to, even if I did have to write the happy ending at the same time to get through it hahaha. I do love that people can choose the sad or happy ending without missing anything, but I do have to admit there are some parallels I’m really proud of that only show up if you read both versions

#my fic #thank you for tagging me I know I’m awful at these things but I love you!!

26 notes · View notes

snowdice · 3 years

Text

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 33]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. None edited chapters are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

Alright, here we go again!

Chapter 12

There was something off about his readings. Clearly the time distortion was starting to pull at this place with the way the weather was flickering between storming and sunny, but he still couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact location of the source of it. He could, however, get that it must be somewhere on this side of the river more into the downtown area, so that’s the way he was walking, Pat close on his heels.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

Janus shot him a glare. “Elvis Presley,” he said.

Pat frowned, clearly knowing who that was. “There’s no reason to be mean.”

“You did it to me first.”

“…Introduced myself as a famous musician?” he asked. Janus didn’t respond, and after a moment, Pat laughed lightly. “You really don’t understand time travel, do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Janus said. “Name the three types of time distortions.”

“Just because I don’t know the names of things doesn’t mean I don’t understand them.” He stuck out his tongue. Janus was dealing with an actual toddler. “Unlike you who has a bunch of fancy words, but just caused a time loop.”

Janus scoffed. “I did not just cause a time loop.”

“Maybe not a big one,” Pat agreed, “but you did.”

Janus raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never introduced myself to you with a musician’s name, but now you’ve told me that I will. So, at some point in the future I will have to, thereby making you think to say that now. Time loop.”

“That’s not… that doesn’t count.”

“Does too,” Pat claimed. “Like I have said once before and you may or may not have heard me say before, anything you do to me to get back at me for something I haven’t done yet, just causes whatever that is to happen in the first place.”

“But you’re still going to do it.”

“Then take it up with future me. I haven’t done anything to you.” Then he paused and sighed. “…Which I guess means you’ve done nothing to me.” He seemed to mull this concept over for a long moment. “Well you were a bit crabby about me not knowing what a time distortion was, but I can forgive you for that.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you?”

“Like I said,” Pat said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You also haven’t done anything to endear yourself to me either,” Janus grumbled.

“Hmm,” Pat said. “Fine.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “You’re obviously not having much luck finding whatever you’re looking for. Tell me what it is and I’ll help.”

Janus squinted at what was in his hand. “Is that… an iPhone 5?”

“No!” he said. “It’s super-secret time travel tech disguised as an iPhone 5!”

“We’re in 2027,” Janus said. “Not a great disguise. Those things have been obsolete for a decade.”

“Well I’ll keep in mind to have my tech disguised as phones from the right year next time,” Pat said, sticking out his tongue. “Now what are we looking for?”

“If my timepiece can’t find it, I’m certain yours can’t.”

Pat rolled his eyes and tapped on the device’s screen a couple of times. “I’m going to guess it’s that,” he said proudly.

Janus leaned over to look at the screen. “Are you using google maps?” he sputtered.

“It integrates time relevant data like traffic conditions and local weather warnings with time travel technology,” Pat explained. “Something seems to be going on in a museum a couple of blocks that way.”

“I…” Janus said. That was actually a really good idea, usually unnecessary with scouts observing that data beforehand, and Janus wasn’t sure how good the accuracy would be considering whatever was taking it into account was automated, but still a good idea. “Well, I guess since we have no other leads, we can check it out.”

Pat looked far too proud for having only used a piece of tech that hadn’t even been confirmed as accurate. “Then, let’s go,” he said right as a chilly wind started to pick up and a couple of snowflakes began to fall around them. “Before that gets worse…”

Janus let Pat lead with his iPhone. Janus’s timepiece still wasn’t picking up a clear signal for some reason, but it seemed to point in the same general direction as Pat’s. Strangely though, as they got closer to their destination, the signal started to get fuzzier. Pat’s tech seemed unaffected leading them closer to the museum.

When they got to the Musée Fabre museum, Janus stopped. “What?” Pat asked. He was shivering slightly in the cold and holding his arms around himself.

“My timepiece stopped working completely,” he said.

“I’m assuming that’s weird?” Pat said.

“It is,” Janus confirmed, turning to squint at him suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not the one doing it?”

“If I was doing it, wouldn’t I have just knocked it out from the get go?” Pat questioned.

Janus pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “Would you have? Maybe it’s a trick.”

Pat’s eyes narrowed a bit on him. “Think what you want, but I’m freezing. Come in with me if you want.”

He dithered from a few moments before following Pat inside. Pat had already struck up a conversation with the woman charging admission into art museum. She was looking at him, her brow knit as he spoke. Janus nudged him away from her getting a confused glance from him in return. He shot a smile at the woman.

“Two adult passes for the museum and the Hotel Sabatier d’Espevran, please,” he said, placing down 14 euro.

“Ah,” she said, still looking at Pat oddly. “Yes sir.” She gave them the passes and Janus quickly shuffled Pat away.

“What is wrong with your French?” he hissed once they were out of earshot.

“What?” he asked, bewildered.

“You sound like you’re reading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. No one talks like that anymore.”

“I’m a little rusty,” Pat defended himself.

“Two centuries?” Janus asked. Pat stuck his tongue out like a child once again. “Is that your only way to respond to legitimate criticism?”

“What does it even matter anyway? No one ever expects time travel, at least not for something so silly.”

“It’s not silly,” Janus said. “It’s a legitimate issue. The wrong person who’s watched too much science fiction notices and you’re putting the timeline at risk. Not to mention if there are other time travelers around that aren’t as nice as me.”

“Are there a lot of time travelers around?” Pat asked, sounding intrigued.

“There are plenty, both legal and not.”

“Huh,” he said, “but what are the chances we’ll run into another one?”

“Considering the time distortion? There could be many. Opportunists wanting to capitalize off the chaos, people trying to stop it, like me, and not to mention the person who caused it.”

“Wait, someone made it happen?” Pat asked.

“These things don’t just happen naturally.”

“Huh. So, something like this has to be caused by a person?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “…Why?”

Pat smiled. “No reason. I think we should head upstairs. Whatever I’m picking up says it’s around here, but I don’t see anything. Maybe it’s a floor or two above us.”

“Which is why it’s ridiculous to use Google Maps.”

“Would you rather use yours?” he asked sweetly.

“I’m still not convinced it’s not your doing,” Janus growled. “Why does your tech still work when mine doesn’t?”

“Probably the same reason the ring did,” he muttered.

“What?”

“You may be the most aggravating being in the universe.”

Pat glanced at him with a bit of a smirk. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “It would be a much bigger risk to the timeline than me speaking in French from the 1830s. But, I’m pretty sure the reason mine still works is just a software difference.”

“What the hell do you mean a software difference?”

Pat opened his mouth, doubtlessly to supply him with yet another frustratingly cheeky and unhelpful answer. Yet, Pat did not have a chance to do so as, just as Janus stepped onto the second floor of the museum, the ground started to violently shake. Janus tried to turn to catch Pat as the other man’s foot slipped on the last step, but he couldn’t do so in time. Pat fell onto his hands and knees, sliding back a few steps and smacking his face into the stairs hard once and then a couple of times more after that as he slid.

Chapter 13

The room stopped shaking after a moment. “Ow,” Pat said. He seemed a bit stunned but was still moving at least. He carefully maneuvered himself into a seating position. “Ouch. Owie.” He reached up to poke his own nose. “Ow!” Janus slapped his hand away when he got there. A bit of blood was already trickling from his nose and there was a small cut over his eye, but it wasn’t bleeding too much.

Janus pushed him so he was leaning slightly forward and produced a pack of time appropriate tissues from his pocket. He pulled one out of the package and offered it to him.

He took it and pressed it up against his nose to try to stop the bleeding. He seemed mostly alright though Janus imagined he’d have plenty of bruises down the line. The power in the museum flickered and Janus looked up. Now that he was listening, he could hear people panicking in and out of the museum.

“We should probably get off of the stairs,” he suggested.

“Yeah,” Pat agreed. Janus helped him to his feet, and they climbed back up the steps. Janus looked around and found an employees only sign a few feet away. Usually he’d not risk that as it could get him into trouble he didn’t want to be in, but considering the earthquake that had just happened, he could probably play it off as panic.

He ushered Pat into a small room and found a chair and table. He had Pat sit in the chair and pulled out another one of the tissues to dab at the blood coming from the cut over his eyes. “Here,” he said. “Hold that there. I’m going to go see if there are any bandages about.”

Pat took the tissue with the hand not already holding one to his nose. “Thanks,” he said.

Janus nodded and got to his feet. The lights flickered once again but didn’t stay off for now. He didn’t know how long that would last.

He couldn’t see anything that might hold bandages in this room, but there was a second door. “I’ll be right back,” he told Pat, exiting through it.

The lights flickered once more as the door closed behind him and he cursed. When they came back up Janus’s eyes immediately fell on a man. They both froze.

“Remus!” Janus hissed the second their eyes met. “What are you doing here?”

Remus blinked at him for a moment. “Hi. Janus,” he said. “I… come to France for… tea sometimes?”

“There isn’t any tea back here.”

“So, there isn’t…” he said. There was a moment of silence. “Uh, so I actually cannot talk to you right now.”

“What do you mean?” Janus asked. Remus grimaced in a way Janus had never seen from him before. It immediately set off alarm bells in Janus’s head. “Oh my god,” Janus said. “Oh my god. You’re not from the same time as me.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Remus mumbled.

“Holy shit, you’re looping?!”

“It’s… not looping if I wasn’t here the first time.”

“Remus, we spend more than 12 hours a day together most of the time. The only thing worse than this is if I looped back to this time myself.”

“…Yeah. Anyway, I need to leave now.”

“Please do.”

He turned to go, but then stopped. “Oh, and,” he reached into his pocket and tossed something at Janus. Janus caught it.

It was Band-Aids.

“Oh, shit,” Janus spat at the clear use of foreknowledge. “I hate this. I hate you. I’m going to kill you the next time you see me.”

“Sure, Jan.”

“Go.”

He did, slipping into the next room while Janus took a deep breath and then turned back to the door behind him. He schooled his face before Pat looked up. “I found some Band-Aids.”

Pat nodded and Janus came over to squat next to him.

Janus opened the box and Pat looked down. His eyes lit up with sudden joy so intense that Janus felt like he’d just gotten a punch to the gut. “Kitty Band-Aids!” he exclaimed. Janus bothered to actually look at the design on the container, only to note the cartoon cats on the front. Pat was almost vibrating off his seat. “Look they’re all so cute!” He grabbed the container from him to inspect the different designs printed on the back with glee even as a bit of blood was still trickling from his nose.

Janus took the box back gently and guided the wad of bloody Kleenexes back to his nose.

“Which would you like?” Janus asked.

“Oh, they are all so cute,” Pat cooed. “Um, how about that one!” he pointed. “Or that one! Or that one!”

“Pat you only have one cut.”

“But they’re all so cute!” Pat said, tongue tucking into his cheek. He contemplated the box again. “Let’s do the black one,” he finally settled on.

Janus selected one of the Band-Aids with a black cat wrapped around a pink ball of yarn and staring back at them with wide green eyes. The think looked like it had partaken in one two many doses of catnip, but Janus didn’t mention that.

Instead, he just carefully unstuck the backing from the Band-Aid and motioned for Pat to remove the tissue from his forehead. He smiled at Janus as he drew back.

Janus cleared his throat. “How’s the nose.”

“It’s slowing down,” Pat replied. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Janus replied. They met eyes for a second before Pat looked away back at the box of Band-Aids.

“Oh,” Pat said. “There’s a grey one. I didn’t notice.” He pointed to it. “I should have used that one.”

“Do you like grey cats?” Janus asked.

“I like all kitties,” he said, “but one of my roommates loves grey cats. He had one when he was a kid and thinks of them as good omens. Seeing one always brightens up his day.”

“A friend of mine has a grey cat,” Janus said. “She’s much more tolerable than him.”

Pat laughed a bit. “Don’t be mean,” he said.

“Oh, he deserves it, don’t worry.” Janus considered him for a moment. “Here,” he said, pulling out one of the Band-Aids with the grey cat on it. It did, actually, look a lot like Diesel Fuel.

“But I don’t…”

Janus just shrugged and stuck it on his cheek where there was no wound. Pat giggled and touched it with a finger. Janus stood back up.

“Can I have another tissue?” Pat asked.

“Sure.” Janus handed a tissue over to him and he crumpled up the bloody ones in his hand.

“I think I’m good to keep going,” Pat said, putting the new tissue under his nose. “The nose will stop soon.”

Pat got out his iPhone and directed him back out of the room. They checked the second floor and didn’t find anything and so went to the third floor. The second they arrived in the room that Pat’s phone was directing them too, Janus knew that it must be right. There was a strange, distorted whirling sound and the entire room was shaking slightly like they were standing next to a railroad track.

“I’m guessing this is it,” Pat said.

Janus nodded and looked over his shoulder at the screen. They both cautiously walked towards where the little dot was on the phone.

“Is that it?” Pat asked, pointing at a small device on the center column in the room. Janus reached forward to flip the switch on it. The whirling stopped and the room settled. Janus’s time piece vibrated as it came back online. They waited for a few moments. “I assumed… time distortions would be more…”

“They are,” Janus said. “This one is artificial.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a simulation,” Janus said. “It causes similar symptoms to a time distortion, but it’s not actually fracturing time at all.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Pat asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said. He took the piece of tech of the wall and carefully stored it in his pocket, “but someone’s trying to get our attention.”

Chapter 14

Janus didn’t feel comfortable leaving France 2027 just yet, still weirded out by the strange turn of events. So, he and Pat ended up sticking around for a couple of hours. They looked through the art museum for a bit, but Janus was having trouble focusing on the pieces, and Pat eventually suggested they get some air. Janus agreed considering the museum would close for the night soon anyway.

They wandered around the downtown for a bit. The people seemed to jump back from the strange weather and earthquake that afternoon rather quickly, and there were plenty still about to blend into.

Pat was snapping photos every so often like a tourist which Janus shook his head at but allowed because even with the outdated phone it almost made them blend in even more. It also might stop any questions about Pat’s weird way of speaking French. They could just say he was an overeager tourist who watched too many old movies.

“Ooo!” Pat said. “We should get crepes.”

“Why?”

“You can’t go to France and not eat crepes.”

“I assure you, you can,” Janus said dryly.

Pat shot a pout at him and the next thing he knew he was in a small crepe shop.

For Janus, choosing something was easy. He just ordered the first thing he found on the menu which seemed to be a standard one with ham and eggs. Pat on the other hand seemed to be struggling greatly, and Janus had to gently push him to the side to let some other customers order first.

“What should I get!?” Pat asked. “They all look so good! I could do strawberry preserves or maple syrup or just sugar!”

“Or you could get one that is actually food,” Janus suggested mildly. “I don’t think you need any more sugar judging by how you are acting.”

Pat rolled his eyes. “You sound like Lo.”

Janus made a note of the name ‘Lo’ even though it surely was a nickname.

“But, since you’re insisting, I’ll get something healthy. I’ll have the strawberry one. That’s a fruit!”

“It comes with a cream cheese filling,” Janus pointed out.

“And it’s fruit!”

Janus shook his head and stepped up to the counter. “One ham and cheese and one strawberry preserve, please,” he said to the cashier as he was not allowing Pat to order in French and accidently say something stupid. He forked over some euros.

“You don’t have to pay for me,” Pat protested when he saw that.

Janus glanced back at him. “I was afraid you’d try to pay in francs,” he said dryly.

It looked like Pat was about to stick his tongue out at him, remembered that Janus had criticized him for that earlier, and then just scrunched up his face in displeasure as though that was any less childish.

They waited for their crepes to be finished and then went to eat them outside near a water fountain.

“I can pay you back for the crepe,” Pat said after they sat down. “I do actually have euros.”

Janus waved him off. “It wasn’t that expensive.”

Pat hummed. “Well, in that case. I insist on paying for a wish for you.” Janus raised an eyebrow. “In the fountain!” Pat clarified.

Pat set aside his crepe to dig in his pocket for a couple of coins. “Here!” he said handing one over.

Janus glanced over at the fountain. “No.”

“Oh, come on,” Pat beseeched. “You have to want something. I’ll even throw it in for you, but you have to make a wish first!”

“No.”

“Please!”

Janus sighed. “Fine.” He popped the rest of his crepe in his mouth. “I wish for a crepe,” he said after swallowing.

“You just had a crepe, silly.”

“But I liked it, so I want another one.”

“We can go back and get you another crepe.”

“Ah, but I’m not hungry anymore.”

Pat crossed his arms. “You’re just being difficult on purpose.”

“Not me,” Janus said putting hand over his heart. “I would never do something like that.”

Pat glared at him, but then snatched the coin out of his hand. “Fine!” he said. “One crepe wish coming right up.” He hopped up with the two coins and darted over to the water fountain. Janus turned to watch him go but then happened to catch sight of something out of the corner of his eyes.

Pat’s phone.

He didn’t pause in his movement, completing the turn, but as he watched Pat close his eyes, presumably to focus on his own wish, Janus snuck a hand out and grabbed the phone without looking. He slipped it into his own pocket.

Pat came back over after throwing both coins in the fountain and didn’t even seem to notice that his phone was missing, picking up his crepe to take another bite. Just to make sure, though Janus decided to distract him. “What do you think of your crepe?” Janus asked.

“I like it! It’s sweet, but not too sweet. There was a crepe place across the street from my apartment in college, but they always put a bit too much sugar in the dough, I think. I’d still eat them, but these are much better.”

Janus nodded and kept up the light conversation until Pat was finished.

21088

“Well,” he said then, getting to his feet. “It seems that nothing else is going to happen regarding the time distortion. I should be getting back.”

Pat hummed. “I should too. It’s movie night!”

“I probably should arrest you,” Janus noted.

“In the middle of all of these people?” Pat asked mildly.

“Touché,” Janus said.

Pat gasped and pointed at him. “Pun!” he said. Janus blinked at him. “Because we’re in France! That’s French!”

“…Goodbye Pat,” Janus said, turning to walk away from him.

“Goodbye… wait I still don’t know your name!”

Janus stopped to look back at him for a moment. “Like I said,” he replied. “Elvis.”

“Fine,” Pat said. “Au revoir, mon chéri.”

“You never stop, do you?” Janus asked.

Pat giggled. “Considering I don’t know what you mean, I imagine I’m just getting started.”

Janus actually left then, walking off towards the alley he’d first arrived in. In some ways, the mission had been a bust, but in others it had gone very well.

He felt for the weight of the phone in his pocket before pulling up the display screen on his timepiece to go back to the TPI.

It had gone very well indeed.

Chapter 15

The first thing Janus had done when he’d returned to the TPI was hand over the timebomb to Khalid who sent it to forensics. Within the hour, forensics got back to them that it was the same timebomb as 2999 and that it had never exploded, but simply been diffused. Which meant, blessings on blessings, everyone got to go home that night.

Not that Janus went home, no, he ended up falling asleep on his desk somewhere between 3 and 4am, but at least he wasn’t sharing his space with anyone. He’d been trying to hack the cell phone all night to see if it had anything he could use, but he honestly had no idea what he was doing. All it seemed he could do was play some annoying song over and over again about never giving someone up. At around 2am, he’d finally broken and sent off an email, though, he’d continued to try to mess with it after that.

He got woken up by Lena coming into the office at 7am, and noticed he already had an email response asking when Janus wanted to come in.

“Now?” he sent back.

“…Do you sleep?” was the immediate response. “And yes.”

His wrist buzzed as an appointment in 5 seconds downloaded to his timepiece. He selected the coordinates and landed at Cultural Outreach. The receptionist blinked up at him and then back down at the screen on his desk. “Oh!” he said. “I didn’t see this appointment. I think Professor Eran is in his office.”

He didn’t stand to escort Janus this time, so Janus went ahead and went down the hall to Virgil’s office himself.

He knocked on the door and while he was waiting for Virgil to open it, the infernal contraption once again started to play the same stupid song.

“I didn’t even touch you!” he spat, getting it out and tapping on the screen.

“Jonas Brothers dude again?” Virgil asked causally upon opening the door.

Janus shoved it at him. “Make it stop.”

Virgil took it and fiddled with it for a few moments before it stopped with the song. “Oh my gosh,” he said scrolling through something on the screen.

“What.”

“What maniac sets a custom alarm for every 30-60 minutes for a week that just plays ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’? Oh, and one ‘It’s Not Unusual’ on Saturday. He’s mixing memes at an alarming rate.”

“Can you. Just. Make it not happen. Anymore?”

Virgil smirked at him. “Maybe.” He turned around to go back into his office.

“Virgil,” Janus growled following him in.

Virgil just laughed. “What do you want to know about it?” he asked. “Just a fair warning… the song means he… likely was aware someone would steal it.”

“Of course, he was,” Janus groaned.

“But I’m sure we can still get something out of it.” Virgil started tapping at the screen again. “Okay, let’s see. It’s an iPhone 5, and someone jailbroke it.”

“What does that mean?”

“Tampered with it so they could install non-company approved software,” Virgil explained.

“Well I figured that since he was using Google Maps to track time distortions,” Janus grumbled.

“I think I have something,” Virgil said to himself while digging through his desk. “Ah ha!” He held up some sort of cord. “This will let me hook it up to my integrator.” He slotted the cord into the bottom of the iPhone and then crawled under his desk to fiddle around with some other things. “There we go,” Virgil said popping back up. “It might take a few minutes. Running the program any faster might overheat the phone.”

Janus nodded and sat back to wait. Virgil grabbed the phone and started to play around with it a bit even as it uploaded all of its information to his computer.

“Weird,” Virgil said after a moment.

“What?” Janus asked, sitting up straighter.

“There are exactly two contacts. Fewer than I’d anticipate for a regular phone from the 2010s. More than I would expect from one clearly not being used as a phone.

Virgil glanced to the side, and it must have finished the download because he unhooked it from the computer. “I have a 21st century phone network adapter,” Virgil said. “It transfers call back to whatever date the phone says. Do you want to try calling one?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Janus replied.

Virgil dug back into his desk for a small device that he plugged into the same port he’d plugged the earlier cord. “Okay, which contact do you want to try first?” he asked. “One has ‘Ro’ with a crown, red heart, and a gold star emoji. The other has “Lo” with a book, blue heart, and Milky Way emoji.”

“He mentioned a Lo,” Janus said. “So, try him first.”

Virgil nodded. “I’ll put it on speaker.” He pressed some buttons before setting the phone on the desk between them.

The phone rang three times before with a bit of a crackle, it was answered. “Salutations,” a voice said, voice sounding a bit scratchy as though he had only just gotten up.

Virgil motioned with his head for Janus to speak. “Are you ‘Lo’?” he asked.

The man hummed. “To some people.”

Janus… didn’t quite know what to say to that, or even what questions he should ask.

“I’m assuming you’re the man that stole my associate’s phone.”

“Your associate?” Janus fished.

The man made an amused hum. “I believe you were calling him ‘Pat’ on your last adventure.” Janus could hear something being placed down on the other end of the phone. Before Janus could respond, he heard what sounded like an old keyboard being typed on. “Now,” Lo said. “I have to admit, I am surprised you were willing to oblige me so thoroughly by plugging the phone into your system. Let’s see…”

The screen on Virgil’s lit up bright blue all of a sudden. “…shit,” said Virgil.

“Well,” Lo said, “it seems you were clever enough not to plug it into the TPI system, which is disappointing, but…”

There was more clicking on the other end. “Hmm, interesting music tastes for the 4000s,” he said.

“I’m an anthropologist,” Virgil spoke up.

“Ah, yes, I can see that,” Lo replied. “Virgil Eran, senior professor at Silver Mountain University, a vetted member of the Cultural Outreach program, and searched the phrase ‘How to eat sushi without making a cultural blunder and making everyone hate you and losing your job because what kind of shit anthropologist doesn’t know how to eat raw fish right’ which you then shortened to ‘How to eat sushi’ and proceeded to search 52 times in the last 48 hours.”

Virgil went a bit scarlet around the ears. “Dude, did you really have to out me like that?” he hissed at the phone.

“My apologies,” Lo responded. “From my personal experience, don’t dip the rice parts in soy sauce, and don’t add too much wasabi. Overall, most people will be understanding of mistakes, and you will certainly not be fired or ostracized for handling food incorrectly. As long as you are not acting intentionally disrespectful, and I image you will not be considering your clear anxiety over whatever outing you are planning to attend, you will be fine.”

“Okay,” Virgil said. “Good point, but counterpoint, what if you’re wrong and everyone hates me forever?”

“Is it the lunch meeting today at 11:30am?” Lo asked, “because I can see that a Professor Boris Laden has attended the event multiple years in a row. Considering he is a philosophy instructor, has no Japanese heritage that I can see, and I have found a photo of last year’s event wherein he has placed his chopsticks vertically in his rice, and he has yet to be fired or ostracized, I would postulate that your fears are unfounded.”

“Yeah but… okay, I really don’t have an argument for that one, except maybe I’m a piece of shit and everyone is looking for a reason to hate me.”

“Considering your many impressive accolades in your field, I would argue that ‘a piece of shit’ is not a good descriptor of you. Not to mention the fact that you are often a highly requested member for different committees in your department and outside of it.”

“Oh, but is that because people like me or because I’m an anxious mess and make sure events go off without a hitch?”

“From experience, disorder with people you enjoy the company of is far more tolerable than order with people you do not. Which explains my current living situation and the lack of finished dishes in my sink. Therefore, I would assume the former.”

22735

“A lot of assumptions,” Virgil commented, but he was smiling slightly.

“Assumptions based on data,” Lo argued back lightly.

“You really came in here, hacked into my computer and smacked my anxiety in the face, huh?”

“Glad to have helped.”

“Y-”

“Are the two of you finished?” Janus interrupted, finally getting sick of the two of them.

“Not nearly,” Lo said. “I have gained access to an entire network of a very large university and will be sorting through the data for a long time.”

“Ugh, right,” Virgil groaned, “and you got access through my integrator.”

“I doubt they’ll be able to trace it back to you if you don’t tell them.”

“Nice try,” Virgil said dryly, “but not likely. I’m telling them about you immediately so they can work to kick you out.”

Lo laughed. “Fair enough, but I’ve already gotten plenty of information at this point. Including the fact that you work with the TPI and scheduled an appointment with an Agent Janus Picani this morning set to start a few minutes before this phone call. So, hello Janus.”

“Bastard,” Janus shot back.

“And goodbye Professor Eran. It was a pleasure.” He hung up.

Virgil sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “This is going to be fun to explain to both of our bosses.”

Arc II What We Do to Each Other

Chapter 16:

As it would turn out, Janus and Virgil did not get in trouble for hooking up the old phone to Virgil’s integrator, mostly because it wasn’t really a mistake on their part. The phone cleared all virus checks that the tech people both from the university and the TPI ran on it. The phone should have been clean and should not have caused an issue.

In fact, they were still trying to pin down the code on the general university server. They could tell that something was mucking about on the system but what or how was a mystery. This also meant that there was no telling what information had been compromised and considering how many things Silver Mountain had its hands in, that was… a bit worrying.

Another worrying thing was there was suddenly more activity of late at the TPI. There were more time distortions popping up every day. Usually they would be few and far in between. There had been 3 total recorded the year before, but over 12 in the last week. Some of them were fake like the one Janus had investigated, but some of them were real. It painted a distressing picture and also was a drain on their resources. Khalid was actually looking to advertise positions to hire new recruits which was something she rarely did as she liked to keep appointments to the TPI in house.

They’d even loosed the number of field agents needed for each mission and Janus and Remus had been splitting up just to get everything done. Today, he and Remus had thankfully only two missions scheduled for the day.

“Are we going together or separate today?” Janus asked Remus.

“Think they’ll burn me at the stake for being a witch if I go alone to either of them?” Remus asked.

“I don’t know. Probably. I think we’re getting a bit late into the 1700s for that in Cuba, but I have no idea about Mesopotamia.”

“Let’s just go together. I did not like almost drowning yesterday because I was the only stranger in town when the weather was going wonky.”

“Surely it isn’t because you opened your mouth. Ever.” Janus said dryly.

“How was I supposed to know he was the local clergyman’s son?”

Janus rolled his eyes. “On second thought,” he said, pushing a button on his desk to choose Cuba as he next mission, and standing up. “I don’t want you coming with me.” Yet, he did not protest when Remus also signed up for the Cuba mission and he waited for him by the office door before going to talk to Rhi.

Rhi was a bit frazzled when which meant quite a bit as she was usually incredibly put together. Remus didn’t even seem inclined to tease her today.

“Okay,” she said once they’d closed the door behind them. She flipped through some documents on her desk. “Picani and Clockson. Camaguey Cuba 1755. Do you know Cuba?”

“Uh,” Janus said. “Yeah?”

“Like you’re reading the things, right? I don’t have to babysit you, right? You got it? The Seven Year War was happening, but it won’t affect you much as it hasn’t really hit Cuba. It’s the middle of the Camaguey Carnival. Everyone will be everywhere and there will be chaos so as long as you don’t really fuck up you should be fine. Um…apparent races.” She looked up at them and studied them each for a moment as thought looking at them for the first time despite having known them for years. “It’ll work. Go to costuming.”

“Shouldn’t we…” Janus said, “sign things?”

“…Yep,” she said, fiddling with her desktop and then sending documents over to their side to sign.

Janus and Remus both did before sending them back.

“Great. Good.” She stood and grabbed some things from behind her. “You can go.” She sat back down as they took their things and Janus noticed a message pop up on her desk. She looked up at Remus looking exhausted. “What?” she asked.

“Just open it,” Remus said.

Rhi tapped it and a photo opened.

“I got her a new mouse toy!” Remus said happily as Rhi looked at the picture of Diesel Fuel attacking a cloth mouse.

“That is… appreciated Agent Clockson,” Rhi said. “Now get out.”

They did, leaving to get their costumes on and checked. Costuming was just as busy and frazzled as Rhi had been and they actually had to wait for decon because there’d been a mix up with the agents leaving before them. They landed in Cuba without issue. Janus could already hear the festival in full swing outside the small building they’d were in. Remy was standing there with a very not time appropriate mug of coffee.

“Sue me,” Remy said when Janus raised an eyebrow at it. “Please just… get in and out without causing trouble. Seriously. I don’t want to have to deal with that on top of everything else.”

“We’ll do our best,” Janus assured.

Remy pulled his sunglasses down to look at him. He looked exhausted. “God please do more than your best.”

Janus nodded tightly. “We’ll be in and out,” he said, already glancing at his timepiece. It had been disguised as a golden bracelet which made it a bit harder to actually use, but wrist watches wouldn’t be invented for more than a century, so they’d have to make do. “The time distortion, if that’s what it is, should be in the middle of town. Let’s go.”

He and Remus exited the building onto the packed city street.

Janus was immediately bombarded with all types of sights, sounds, and smells. There were many colorful articles of clothing and costumes as people went every which way along the street talking to other members of their community, playing instruments, and dancing. There was the sound of people speaking Spanish, still mostly almost pure Castilian Spanish with perhaps a bit of influence from Taino as the Haitian revolution had yet to push the Creole language over to Cuba. People must have been hard at work cooking different dishes for the carnival as many different spices wafted through the air. It was sticky hot considering it was the middle of June in the tropics and Janus was immediately sweating despite the temperature appropriate clothing he’d been outfitted with.

He glanced around their immediate area, just scoping out the crowds. His eyes were immediately drawn to one person near them.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he said out loud when he saw Pat. Remus looked in the direction Janus was.

Even if Janus didn’t recognize him the moment he laid eyes on him, he probably still would have ended up staring as he was the only person in the area who clearly did not know how to do the dance he was attempting.

Remus snorted and Janus shook his head in secondhand embarrassment. “Well, would you look whose boyfriend’s here,” he said to Janus. Make that firsthand embarrassment. “Has anyone told him the Mambo wasn’t invented until the 1900s and also that’s not how you do it?”

Chapter 17

Pat stopped dancing the moment he saw Janus approaching him, but he still bobbed cheerfully ( and unrhythmically) to the music. “Hi Janus,” he said pleasantly.

“You just have to rub it in, huh?”

There was a flash of confusion across his face, but then he smiled. “Well, I know where in our relationship you are. How was France?”

“You’re a bastard.”

“You stole the phone,” he laughed.

“You stole the bomb,” Janus countered, “and you wanted me to steal the phone. You booby trapped it.”

“No,” Pat correct, putting a finger up. “We have security on my phone because in high school I once forgot it in the school locker room and long story short, the three of us ended up in a lake. So, then Lo made sure I always had some sort of tracker on it. When I started time traveling, he updated it and when I met you we updated it again in case there was ever an opportunity like that. Lo calls it using our weaknesses to our advantage.”

“He’s a bastard too,” Janus growled.

Pat just laughed.

“Is someone talking about me?” Remus asked, stepping over to them. Janus rolled his eyes.

“Oh,” Pat said, blinking at Janus’s partner for a moment. “Remus.” He hesitated slightly. “How are you doing?”

“Me?” Remus asked. “Uh, I’m doing good. A little stressed out with work, but fine.”

“Good,” Pat said with just a little too much heartfulness to it.

“What?” Janus asked, eyes narrowed at Pat. “What is that?”

“What is what?” Pat asked. He met Janus’s eyes briefly and it made panic surge up Janus’s spine because the look Pat was sending him wasn’t one that said he was playing dumb. It was a warning.

Oh, Janus did not like this. That look told Janus Pat had some foreknowledge that he absolutely could not tell Janus about without messing up the timeline spectacularly. This was why this mess the two of them were mixed up in was so bad, but it seemed Janus did not have much of a choice when it came to Pat.

Despite how bad of an idea he knew it was, he still wanted to push, because whatever Pat was hiding could be very, very bad and it had to do with Remus. There were so many reasons Pat could be acting like that around Remus, but the worst ones were definitely the ones on his mind. Death, injury, illness. They were all possible especially in their line of work and especially with how time was being screwed with right now. And Pat knew. He knew exactly what the answer was, and oh did Janus want to push.

Experience knowing what worse things could come out of having foreknowledge made Janus bite his tongue.

“So, what are you two doing here,” Pat asked, and Janus unhappily let him change the subject.

“Oh, like you don’t know,” Janus replied.

“I don’t know,” Pat said innocently.

“There’s another time distortion,” Janus said, “and while you didn’t know what it was the last time I saw you, I’m pretty sure you do now.”

“Oh, I didn’t know there was a time distortion here. I can help you if you like,” he offered sweetly.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to see if I could find the Flying Dutchman,” Pat told him.

“And so you went to Camaguey?”

“Uh huh.”

“One of the farthest places from the ocean in Cuba?”

“Is it?”

“I don’t trust you.”

Pat just shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want my help finding the time distortion, I’ll just be on my way then.”

“Wait,” he said when Pat went to turn away. Pat paused. Janus turned to Remus. “Remus, do you think he’s bullshitting me so I let him wander off and do whatever the hell he’s doing, or do you think he’s bullshitting me into letting him come with us.”

“Hmm,” Remus said, looking Pat up and down. Janus could immediately tell he wasn’t going to get any helpful answer. “Well, if we’re going with the how much do I get to see his, admittedly very sexy, ass criteria.” Janus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Letting him leave now means instant gratification and a nice full image when he turns away. However, letting him go with us means many more opportunities to get a glimpse, but they’d probably just be glimpses. So, yeah that’s a tough call.”

“You didn’t even bother to give me an actual hidden suggestion with that bullshit,” Janus groaned. He glanced at Pat only to see him hiding his very red face in his hands. Janus blinked. “Oh,” he said. “You got him, Remus.” Janus was surprised. He’d expected a bit more tenacity for someone with Pat’s personality. Of course, Janus was used to Remus, so that perhaps had some effect. Pat made a muffled distressed sound behind his hands and Janus raised an eyebrow. “You really got him.”

Pat flapped one hand around while still using the other to completely hide his face. “It’s just. His face. Saying that. Is weird.”

Janus could not say that he didn’t feel a slight spark of joy at seeing Pat flustered. After all, Pat’s weapon of choice had often been flirting with Janus in the past. However, he still smacked Remus on the shoulder when it looked like he was about to continue with something likely far more inappropriate. “We are here for a reason,” he reminded. He turned to consider Pat and squinted at him. “You’re coming with us, I’ve decided. I don’t want to let you out of my sights. Don’t,” he said empathically turning to Remus as the man opened his mouth once more.

Pat had mostly recovered, though his cheeks were just a bit pink still. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll go with you. Where do we start?”

Janus glanced at his timepiece. “It’s not showing up on our trackers yet.”

“It messed with your tracker last time,” Pat pointed out.

“I know,” Janus said. “Which means it could be another fake one or whatever is causing it hasn’t started yet. If things start going wrong, but it still doesn’t show on our radar, it’s almost certainly a fake one, but some of the fake ones haven’t blocked our technology.”

“Here, I can check,” Pat said.

“Please don’t pull out an iPhone,” Janus begged.

Pat stuck out his tongue at him, and then smiled. He reached for the bracelet on his wrist and twisted it back and forth a few times before pressing his palms together. He glanced around them quickly to make sure no one around them was watching and then peeled apart his palms like he was miming reading a book.

“What the fuck is that, and how do I get one?” Remus asked immediately. It was innocuous, whatever it was. If someone from this time caught a glimpse of the display, they’d likely assume it was a trick of the light, but staring right at it, Janus could tell it was a map of the surrounding areas with a softly glowing blue light marking their current location. Janus could see no screen or origin of a hologram. It looked like the image was drawn onto the man’s palms, but as he watched, the image shifted to zoom out.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything major yet,” Pat said wiggling his fingers a bit. The display changed slightly to some sort of colorful overlay Janus did not understand. Pat hummed. “Did you two come from that building recently?” he asked nodding at it.

“Yes,” Janus replied. “How do you know?”

“There’s sometimes a slight temperature change when people time travel,” Pat explained. “I can read it on here.” He tilted his head. “There also seems to be a big enough temperature change in a church a few blocks away that could indicate time travel. Want to check it out?”

“We might as well,” Janus agreed.

“And if it’s nothing, we can get drunk on the communion wine!”

“He’s going to get immediately struck by lightning,” Janus said.

Chapter 18

“If we see anyone,” Janus said as they entered the church. “You keep your mouth shut. Do you understand me? Remus, do you understand me?”

Remus immediately turned to Pat. “You know, I didn’t grow up Catholic,” he said to Pat who looked at him in confusion. “So the first time I ever entered a Catholic church, you can’t blame me for being a little confused about the whole cabinet thing with a wall between them. After all, everyone was singing about glory to god and what not. So I…”

Janus slapped him. “This is why you were almost burned at the stake yesterday.”

25821

“Excuse you,” Remus said, putting his hand over his heart. “I was almost drowned.”

“You were almost drowned?” Pat asked, his voice seeming legitimately distressed.

Remus shrugged a smile on his face that caused a Pavlovian migraine to start up behind Janus’s eyes. “It’s one of the hazards of the jobs, and really it would have all been worth it if I’d actually gotten to drown in that man’s…”

“We’re in a church!” Janus cut him off switching from Spanish to Swahili in the hopes that no random passersby would be able to understand him in this time and place. “Don’t talk about lewd sex things. Don’t talk about sex at all. It’s a Catholic church!”

Remus continued to speak in Spanish with no regard for anything. “But not talking about lewd sex things takes away 3/4ths of my personality,” he pouted.

“More like 9/10th,” Janus grumbled, “and the other 1/10th is just normal stupid.”

“Hey, you shouldn’t be mean,” Pat scolded, in fucking English for some reason, “but Remus, honey, you probably shouldn’t be saying things like that right now.”

“No, no, he has a point,” Remus said switching to English.

“He’s my partner, I have the right to call him stupid,” Janus insisted.

“And I love you too!” Remus said in Greek because he was really, truly, stupid.

26042

Pat looked between the two, but then seemed to accept it, dropping the concerned expression for a slightly amused one. “If you say so.”

“Can I… help you?” A voice asked. All three of them whipped around to see a young boy looking at them and seeming very confused. Which was fair considering that to his ears, they’d just been speaking nonsense.

“We’re here to pray!” Remus claimed, then he turned to wink at Pat and said under his breath in Swahili, “to that ass.” Pat went immediately bright red again, which was doubtlessly Remus’s aim. Janus subtlety stepped on his foot while smiling at the boy.

26150

“Oh,” the boy said. “Okay.” Thankfully, he didn’t seem interested in questioning the random strangers in front of him further. “I’m going to go back to the celebration now.”

Janus smiled at him. “Have fun,” he said. He waited for the boy to leave through the front door before slapping Remus on the back of the head.

“Ow!” he whined sounding far too pained for how hard Janus had actually hit him.

Janus rolled his eyes. “Let’s just start investigating,” he said.

“Sure, sure, you never let me have any fun,” Remus said, pulling up his wrist and spinning the golden bracelets on his arm. “Hmm…” he said.

#study break stories #not writing

26 notes · View notes

tangled-cl0wn-core · 3 years

Note

Where, besides Tumblr, can people find you doing fannish things? (Obviously only mention sites and usernames you actually want to be found at. Don’t expose your secret identities on my account.)

What other names have you gone by on these platforms, including Tumblr, if any?

When did you join the IT fandom? And what got you into fandom, to begin with?

What are your favorite ships, or characters, if any, and why? What do they mean to you?

In what ways do you participate in fandom? (ex. Posting memes, reblogging/commenting on content, writing fanfic, making fanart, creating fanmixes, etc.)

Do you have any in-fandom inspirations? Other members of the community that drive you? (And if you have the time/energy, in what ways do they inspire you?)

Name and link some of your favorite works, please!

Do you have any works of your own that you feel particularly proud of, or wish more people would’ve consumed? Please provide links if possible.

Have you ever participated in a fannish event (ie. IT Week, a fic Big Bang) or applied to be a part of a fanzine? If so, which ones, and can you please link them?

Without any form of bashing or lashing out, what is something you feel this fandom is missing?

HI!! since you asked before sending it, I knew this was coming but my First Cool Guy Tumblr Ask is so neat,, anyway!!

This is my only IT-specific account, but I post almost everything I draw on my instagram, https://www.instagram.com/fabricsofteners/ (I don't know how people make links cool on tumblr aaa) I also have an AO3, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangledheadphonecord , where I might post this one really long fic I’m working on (maybe not, as it’s super lame but God am I putting in work)? But mostly it’s just really old stuff atm, and no IT content right now - just some random drabbles from past hyperfixations tbh.

I used to be ‘fabricsofteners’ everywhere besides here - tangledheadphonecord is a username I used for my tumblr because I want a change from the fabricsofteners brand, as I've had it for quite a few years and have just grown kind of bored - just waiting a bit to change my instagram user. I also used to be ‘unbrandedmarkers’ like, three years ago on instagram? but, that era ended fast. I think I might have an old Tumblr under some variation of ‘fabric softener’ but honestly even if anything is up on it I’d probably be embarassed to look at it now.

I watched IT for the first time in 2019, I believe, but wasn’t really in the fandom until actually like, April of this year. I entered the fandom and developed a hyperfixation (sobs) by complete mistake - I read all the fics for michael mell/rich goranski on ao3, and was on a camping trip and wanted to read some Homosexual Fanfiction and literally remembered IT on a whim (rich-to-richie association) and read a bunch of Reddie fics, and it was all down (up?) hill from there.

Unshockingly, I’m sure, Reddie is my number one favourite IT ship. I’m also an enjoyer of Benverly, as well as Stanley/Patty - IT is like, the only fandom where I actually like the canon ships. I do also think Streddie/Stozier is really cute and Bill/Mike (unsure of the shipname?) is nice when I see it!! I think Reddis is cute because I am a total sucker for best-friends-to-lovers, as well asthe ‘I tease everyone but mostly you’ and the ‘I’m so tired of you bullying me but if you ever stop I’ll cry’ and... just, the entire dynamic that they have. Stanley/Patty - there is no reasoning, I just want Stanley to be happy. Benverly - the way they were each other’s first Meaningful Interactions in so like?? agony, they’re so cute. They both deserve to be happy, and I’m so happy they find that happiness in each other.

As for characters - Richie is absolutely my favourite. I (unfortunately /hj) kin and relate to him on so many levels it hurts. Having a character that feels that fear of their sexuality because of a horrible environment is painfully real. covering up struggles with humour and all that?? yeah, mood (also, crushing on your best friend-). What he means to me, in a sense, isn’t really canon - I read strictly fix-it fics, because I want to feel that hope that like fanon Richie, I don’t have to hide forever. I can be myself and be happy. Obviously I can’t much look to the movies or anything for that but hey - what’re Andy or Stephen gonna do, tell me to stop reading fics?

I also really like Stanley!! I don’t,, have a reason. I just think he’s adorable and I love his dynamic with the other Losers a lot. Stanley breathed like, once, and instantly became a comfort character and not even I know why at this point, he just is. Eddie & Bev are up there, too - honestly, Bill is the only Loser I don’t have a strong attachment too. And honestly, he’s growing on me rapidly.

I mostly draw whatever my goblin hyperfixated brain can think of, as well as rebloging just about every post that I see and like (art, jokes, edits, fics, etc.) - I start and stop a lot of fics, maybe one day I’ll finish one but as of yet I have not... Sigh.

I honestly don’t think I do have anyone to tag for inspiration? I follow IT blogs but none I would go to for inspiration (no offense to any mutuals-) inspiration for me is mostly just seeing a pose and going ‘okay’ and suddenly I have a drawing - I have no clue what happens in between.

So, my current all-time favourite IT fic atm is https://archiveofourown.org/works/18213215/chapters/43087232, though I will say it’s a really heavy fic and to read with caution. Going away from Angst, any ‘famous Reddie’ AUs are amazing, but I constantly reread the entire https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560019 series. It’s cute and funny and I THRIVE for domestic Reddie content.

Actually not Reddie, I throughly enjoyed https://archiveofourown.org/works/23201011 for giving me the Mike content the movies have robbed me of for too long, as well as https://archiveofourown.org/works/25262698 which is pure stanlon greatness and made my heart flutter for the boys more than once.

I don’t really have any IT fics up of my own creation, and honestly my reception in way of Tumblr notes is far better than I expected so honestly, I have none to link lol. As long as I get minimun interaction I will thrive.

I wish I could say I’ve been in anything like a zine or anything, but I have not! I’m relatively new to the fandom (and having a social media dedicated to one thing) so I wouldn’t even know where to begin to join or be qualified for one, y’know? I’ve done art weeks in the past and found them incredibly fun but haven’t seen any for IT - but if anyone does happen to know of any... Feel free to send them my way-

As for the last question - other than like, hyping up Chosen and Jeremy just as much as we do the other IT kids (which, honestly I’m not even sure if is still a problem - I’ve just seen posts about it and it’s made me wary), I’m not sure? I’ve honestly not encountered anything in the fandom I find awful and honestly, for a fandom about a movie that is... Well, IT, I’ve really just kind of enjoyed my time in the fandom thus far?

(I will say we need 200% more attention being drawn to 1990s adult Eddie Kaspbrak, who is one of the most beautiful men I have ever seen - but I also feel that way about James Ransone, so I’m not mad.)

(Also, we should be calling out the 1990s IT more, I watched it recently and it’s so bad /lh)

Anyway!! I feel like this answer was incredibly long and I am so sorry!! But like, thank you so much for asking me anything at all fihabsfhbafb I thrive at any chance to talk about the dumb clown movie. (Also, i’m sorry I say ‘honestly’ so much-)

4 notes · View notes

come-on-shitty-boys · 3 years

Note

send this to the twelve nicest people you know or who seem to have a good heart and if you get five back you must be pretty awesome

Hi Maddi 💛💛

I HOPE YOU’VE BEEN HAVING A SPECTACULAR DAY AND THAT YOU’LL CONTINUE HAVING A SPECTACULAR WEEK 💛

I love you super super super super super much

-micchi 🦝 @sanso

MDKSKSKS M I C C H I 😭😭 IM GOING TO S C R E E C H I LOVE YOU SO SO SO MUCH 🤧🤧🤧

you're such a sweet bean and I do not deserve to have such an absolute QUEEN a GODDESS an ETHEREAL BEING like yourself as a friend and moot 🤧 I hope you're taking care of yourself, darling 🥺💕 please be sure to drink water and get a snack if you haven't lately 🥺 i love you so very much so beaucoup des bisous for you MWAH

ALSO @catharsisbabey 🥺💕 thank you for tagging me as well 🤧🤧 you're such a sweet blessing and I love interacting with you 🥺 you really deserve only the best and I hope you're doing well, okay 🥺 please make sure to take some breaks sometimes so you don't get stressed or overworked 🥺💕 I love you bunches and thank you for being so very kind

{I'm also too lazy to send this to inboxes so enjoy some love letters under the cut}

@cherryonigiri - alice my darling 🥺💕 my love 🥺💕 I wish only the best for you and I don't think I could thank you enough for creating the server and giving me the opportunity to meet so many wonderful and amazing people 🥺 you really have made 2020 so much more bearable with your kind and compassionate soul 💕

@afterglowkuroo - lou I gotta tell you how much I love you one more time before you delete your account 👀 even if you aren't some super cool artist living a hella cool life in a new york apartment 👀 lou I know that tumblr has not been kind to you, but I do hope that you'll at least be able to look back on some fond memories. I wish you only the best in where life takes you and please don't hesitate to reach out, okay 🥺💕

@ush7jima - T E M M I E OH HOW I LOVE YOU SO 😭😭 your blog has grown so much since I started following you and I couldn't be more proud of you, sweetheart 🥺 you're so sweet and funny and I hope that you continue to do incredible things. You've made me smile and giggle and screech more than you could ever know, so yes I love you very much 💕

@tokyosdawn - we haven't been moots for long but you're so sweet 🥺 I love seeing you in my inbox and I'm so glad that we got to meet and become mutuals bc I really do love interacting with you, sweetheart 🥺💕

@icyhearts - icy my bby my love my darling my very first anon and my first ever request 🥺💕 it's been so long and we've seen each other grow so much in a only a few short months and I couldn't thank you enough for all of the love and support that you have given me. I hope you're doing well, babes 💕

@boosyboo9206 - whether it's bitching the pot or building houses in the sims 🥱 I know you got me b 🥴 even if you clown me like there's no tomorrow (that's okay though. i'm asking for it 97% of the time 😭) I love you bunches and I could never say it enough 🥺 thank you for supporting me in all of my tattoo artist kuroo dreams and thank you for being an even more amazing friend than I could ever ask for ❤️ red hearts for kuroo ❤️

@writingfreakk - please you're literally so fucking funny 😭😭 what did I do to deserve the absolute tiktok queen that is zaynab 🤧 nothing. The answer is nothing. I do not deserve you 😭💕 I hope you're wall turns out well and you better be sending me pics bby 😤💕

@ga1axy-defender - I cannot tag you for whatever reason but hi yes hello thank you for being my friend 🥺 and I really like talking to you so very much 🥺 thank you for being such a sweetie dkskskdkd 😖💕

@quilledinkpen - YOU BEAUTIFUL KIND SWEET WONDERFUL HUMAN BEING YOU I- 😭😭please you are so amazing and talented ugh I love seeing your art it's all so amazing 😭 I literally sent that daishou fanart you did to every single one of my friends because I couldn't stop crying over it 😭😭 you are so wonderful and I love you so very much 🥺💕

@sugasugawarau - xkdksks I literally do not deserve you marika 😭 you are so damn sweet and for what?? you're so kind and wonderful and you deserve the absolute god damn world 🤧 🤲❤️ that's my heart take it it is yours 🤧 I hope you're doing well 🥺💕

Bubbs 🥺 hi bubbs idk if you'll see this but please know that I'm thinking about you and that I hope you're doing well

Daishou mod 🐍💕 hi sweetie 🥺 I hope you're doing okay and taking care of yourself 🥺 I know life can be kinda hard but just know that you make me very happy and I don't think I could ever put into words how glad I am to have you (yes you mod 😠 daishou is great but you are very important to me too) 🥺💕 please remember that I am always here if you need me and be sure to take some breaks from time to time, okay?

Literally everyone else fkdldlsls hi if you haven't been called out yet, I love you 🥺💕 you have made my 2020 bearable. when I started this blog in June, I had no idea that it would grow into something like this. I didn't know that I would make so many friends and have so many people interested in my stories, wanting to interact with me 🥺 I fully expected to only be here for about a month and then get burnt out, but thank you for giving me the motivation to keep writing and thank you for always supporting me 💕 there are now 1.4K of you and I never really thought about how big of a number that is? That's so many people that want to see my content and want to listen to what I have to say 😖 you have made me so incredibly happy and, while this year was definitely ✨not the vibe✨, you are the reason that it was far from the worst year of my life. so thank you for everything and I hope you have a good day and an even better tomorrow ❤️

much love

xx maddi

#shitty has mail #micchi 🦝👑#OMG I DOODLED A LIL RACCOON THE OTHER DAY AND A LIL RACCOON INSPIRED DRAGON DJSKSKSK VERY PRECIOUS 10/10 #he's being incorporated into my final project bc i really like is design 🥴#alice darling 🥺💕#lay 🐦#onyx 🖤#lou bby 🥺#wife temmie 💍🥺💕#zaynab 🦋#🧊💕 bby #eve 💫#every time I sign off i feel like im dying #like no i swear im still alive 😭#bonk sentimental maddi

14 notes · View notes

jq37 · 4 years

Text

The Royal Report– A Crown of Candy Ep 2

Ambush on the Sucrosi Road

And we’re back for our first battle episode! Are you feeling trepid my guys, cause I sure am.

You’re Dead and Here’s Your Mini

You’ll remember that, at the end of the episode, the Candia Caravan had stopped in the road because of a fallen tree--the universal fantasy fiction indication for an impending ambush--and Ruby was unceremoniously dropped to zero HP. But don’t worry! Brennan is here with all the missing ceremony at the top of this episode! And by ceremony, I mean we get the most graphic, visceral, bloody description of bodily harm we’ve ever gotten in an episode of D20 as the arrow pierces her neck and she goes unconscious. In her unconscious state, she’s on a trapeze, swinging from one bar to another that seems to be either getting closer or farther away. A voice in the inky black that surrounds her tells her to bring it towards her. We fade out from the vision and that brings us into the combat proper.

So that’s the very chill place this episodes starts.

With Ruby down, everyone else springs into action. Liam does his ranger thing and reveals a hidden enemy--which is like finding a roach in your house: You *know* there’s no such thing as a single roach. Jet tries to snatch Ruby into the carriage but when she loses her grip, she opts to instead threaten Lapin--Heal my sister or I’ll reveal you’re working for the Sugarplum Fairy--and hop on top of the stopped carriage to use herself to shield her sister from any further damage. She also activates the Locket of the Sweetest Heart--a split friendship locket the two of them have which gives advantage on saving throws if the other person is within 5 feet--so she’ll have help on her next death save which happens right away. She gets a success with two 13s, which gives her 1 save, 1 fail (I assume from getting hit by a second arrow--ranged attacks while down count as a fail and melee attacks count as two. Yikes!).

In her mind, Ruby uses Mage Hand to bring the trapeze bar closer to her and, as she does so, she sees a pair of smiling purple eyes and hears a voice say, “You are gifted in the ways of the arcane. It seems that my brother has made quite a family for himself.” Ruby gasps. “Are you my aunt?” The voice tells her to take good care of her bow. She’ll need it.

On Amethar’s turn, he clocks a bunch more hidden archers and hears that they’re speaking Carnish (the meat language) but (and Jet especially notices this because she speaks Carnish) they’re speaking it brokenly and with weird (vaguely French-y) accents. And the arrow that hit Ruby is baconsteel, but the archers look weird. Like, it’s less that they’re made of meat and more like they’re *wearing* meat, and it smells like it’s rotting (which, hey Brennan? Gross). Something’s up.

Amethar, charges out and goes into a rage--pouring cola onto himself and letting the pop rocks of his body explode out (extremely cool flavoring for that), doing 2 points of damage to anyone in the immediate vicinity. Jet, still over Ruby’s unconscious body, narrates this all to her, because Emily Axford never lets a moment for an emotional gut punch go to waste.

Amethar gets a Nat 20 with his first attack and hits the nearest enemy hard enough to cut through the meat. Underneath, he smells stinking cheese.

But then, it’s the enemies’ turn and Amethar is absolutely beset. A couple of enemies go after the others’ but five enemies go for him and all hit, bringing him down to less than a third of his HP in one round of combat (down to 10). And they’re not messing around. They are really and truly trying to murder him specifically.

Thank the Sugarplum Fairy or the Bulb if you prefer that Lapin’s turn is next. He scrambles to the top of the carriage and casts Cure Wounds on Ruby which brings her back to full because first level rogues are so so weak you guys. Lapin goes through the Bulbian motions but Jet, who is closeby, can smell the sugary magic energy from his true patron. She doesn’t much care though since it means Ruby’s back and she promises her silence. Lapin also tosses Amethar a d6 of healing with his bonus action.

Theobold hits a nat 20 to do a good bit of damage then action surges and casts Compelled Duel with his sword--Battlepop the Broadscicle--to force the Captain of the attackers (who rolls a Nat 1 save) to 1v1 him to take some heat off of the king.

Ruby and Jet are forced to confront the possibility that Lapin and Theobold might be...cool? Really, all the old dudes this fight are kinda badass--Calroy also hits a nat20 and is kicking ass all fight (also, his pants are on point--I think this is only the second time in d20 pants have ended up being *A Thing* (John Feathers) but that still feels like a lot for *pants*).

The fight continues!

Jet fights alongside her super proud dad and does a bunch of damage but doesn’t quite get a killing blow which she blames on Theobold’s refusal to teach her one last episode. The brigands continue to strategically try and take out Amethar and Lapin judiciously uses his precious few heals to let him drop and then bring him back instead of blowing all his heals at once--stressful but effective. Also, Sir Theo comes in clutch and uses his shield--Swirldwarden--to, as a reaction, take one of the attacks that would have F’d him up.

Ruby shoots the leader of the cheese brigands--at this point everyone knows that these are cheese people disguised as meat people--and, spurred on by some new, hazy awareness from her near death experience, uses her once per day grasping arrow (an Arcane Archer ability) to hold the captain in place and make him take damage if he moves. Amethar goes back into a rage after having gone down, teaching us that when he does that, it hits enemies and allies alike. On the baddies’ turn, the captain tries to move and gets obliterated by Ruby’s arrow. This is super clutch, not just because he was going after Amethar, but he also gave +1d4 to all attacks to all of his guys of which there are/were many.

Amethar goes down again and, on his turn, Lapin heals him, and then wrecks some of the brigands with a very un-Bulbian blast of candy energy, though he continues to insist that it’s all above board. On her turn, Jet gives her half of the locket to her dad in case he drops again (not how it really works since it requires attunement but Brennan allows it this time since it’s her dad). One of the attackers tries to hit Jet but between her once-per-day shield with Flickorice and Theo imposing disadvantage, she’s unscathed.

Our Daily Bread

You’ll remember from last episode that the caravan was on their way to meet an Imperial escort. Well, they finally show up to help, led by a young Ceresian Centurion Commander (they confirm later it’s the guy they were supposed to have been meeting--Commander Constano Grissini--wonder if him showing up was like an “after x rounds of combat” story event or if it was based on something else). Ruby (very conspicuously) casts Fog Cloud around her dad to try and make it harder for anyone to hit and drop him again. Brennan makes her roll an Insight check and on a 12, tells her nothing which is the most maddening thing a DM can do to you.

With the extra help, they’re able to end the fight pretty quickly after that without any casualties (tiny violins for Brennan because, lbr, the house always eventually wins--it’s only a matter of time before he gets one of them). Theobold wanted to keep one enemy alive for questioning but the Tartguard didn’t quite get the memo and skewered the last guy. Lapin is very suspicious of Grissini but his 23 Insight check tells him this is a straight up guy who would have been ruined if anyone here had died. However, he also notices that Grissini won’t look Ruby in the eye. Calroy quietly comes up to Ruby and tells her that, while she did a good job this fight, things are about to get very complicated and she should be a loooot more careful with any future magic she does. She seems confused by her own abilities and mentions she saw her aunt Lazuli while she was passed out but Calroy shushes her before she says anything else incriminating. It seems we didn’t get the full picture of how frowned upon non-Bulbian magic is outside out Candia.

Lapin rolls to cover for Ruby with Grissini and says that her magic is Bulbian and Brennan rolls in the Box of Doom to see if he buys it. 10 or higher and he knows something’s up. We don’t get the result (though it *looked* like a 1) but he either buys it or plays along.

Theobald investigates the area (with help from his living sprinkle/dog Sprinkle who I haven’t mentioned before but gives him the help action in battle) but doesn’t find any info they didn't already have. However, he does notice that there aren’t any steeds around, which he interprets to mean they didn’t get there through outlaw means (ie: ride in on your horse, steal a bunch, ride out).

Calroy pulls aside Lapin and Theobald and says that even though they may have been able to convince Grissini, all of his men also saw Ruby doing forbidden magic and if word gets out it’ll be a problem. They need to make a plan and they need to be very careful about how they tell Amethar because if he finds out they “know how he’ll solve the problem.”

Ominous!

Things I’m Concerned About

So something I talked about while this episode was happening (and something that Brennan talked about during the talkback afterwards but in slightly different terms) is that the enemy NPC Battle effectiveness has, like, changed from “Saturday Morning Cartoon Minion” to “Art of War Scholar”. No one came into this like, “Let’s have an epic fight!” It was like, “We need to murder one specific guy as quickly as possible.” This isn’t a world where you can spend several rounds trying to jump on tables for cool points. This is a world where you need to be paying full attention even when it’s not your turn and everyone figured that out pretty quick. This is the most tense I’ve ever been during a d20 battle episode and this was only the first one! Amethar--the *Barbarian*--dropped THREE times. He ran out of rages which I didn’t even know was a thing! The fact that everyone made it out of the battle alive was really a miracle! Like, everyone was strategic and played well but if Ruby hadn’t won that Grasping Arrow roll off (Siobhan: I love gambling!), if Lapin hadn’t been perfectly placed in the initiative to feed Amethar heals right after he dropped, if just a couple of things had gone differently, they could have been so screwed.

Oh, and you know what else? Rezzes don’t exist in this world! Like, I think we all kinda figured but we got confirmation this week on Adventuring Party. It makes total sense. It is absolutely the correct choice for the setting. But, God, does it ratchet up every single round of combat. Every single decision. Every one of Lapin’s limited heals. Like, RIP Zac. What a season to play the party healer. Ally and Lou got off easy. (Note: The Spare the Dying cantrip does exist though at least, which isn’t a powerhouse spell but it’s not nothing).

I’m concerned about Jet’s flirting! First Thad now this hot Italian breadstick soldier guy? Like, usually I’d be like do you girl but, like, romantic entanglements are a quick way to get in a lot of trouble, up to and including death in a world like this! This is the “actions have consequences” season!

On the exact opposite end of the spectrum, Liam doesn’t seem to have any interest in romantic entanglements which doesn’t always go over well if you’re a royal. He’s not directly in line for anything important it seems since he had so many older brothers, so maybe he can skate by. But last episode, Caramelinda did seem to be pushing him a little bit in that direction--saying he could get out of exile earlier if he got hitched--and I feel like there’s a good chance this becomes a bigger issue for him.

If we have a false flag attack AND and an attempted assassination in episode TWO, what are we escalating to, huh? Where are we going that that’s where we’re STARTING?

I could have mentioned this last episode but I’m glad I waited until this episode because it underlines the point even better. I’m *very* concerned about the religious politics of Calorum. In the first episode we got kind of a sense that things were different in Candia versus the rest of the world but this ep it was less of a “sense” and more of a concrete fear that someone was about to start gossiping about having seen Goody Ruby with the devil. And we knew from last episode that Lapin is secretly in league with the Sugarplum Fairy but Brennan used the word heretic in the talkback which feels a *lot* more dire but...yeah, is accurate. Plus, one of the girls’ aunt is St. Citrina, clearly a respected figure in the Bulbian faith, so there’s obviously Lore to unlock there. Look, a lot of going on and none of it feels very chill. Lapin better keep nailing all of his deception checks.

And, to drill down a little deeper, I’m very concerned that Ruby--who has presumably been told that magic is banned in the rest of the world, decided to illegally cast a spell in front of a ton of people--including Imperials--while loudly shouting “ABRACADABRA!” Like, if her impulse control doesn’t improve, we are gonna have some *issues*.

You know what I’m concerned about? My continuing relationship with several different food groups if I have to keep hearing graphic descriptions of them fighting each other. I mean, BONES in the CHEESE? *Bones* in the *Cheese*? My forgetting to preheat the oven is the *only* reason I wasn’t eating pizza when I heard that line. And the worst part is, with another DM I’d be like, “They probably didn’t think of the implications.” But this is Brennan so I KNOW he thought of the implications and he was like, “I’M DOING IT ANYWAY.”

Also, while we’re on the implications, I was also concerned--as Theo/Murph was--about Lord Swirly’s (the ice cream Candian) loyalty considering he is dairy (like the cheese brigands) even though he is Candian. Like, there’s a *lot* of overlap in different food types and that feels like it could easily get messy.

If this fight is an indication, these fights aren’t gonna be balanced to be fair. They’re balanced to be tactically sound--as in, “What would their enemies do to them at this moment?” And, man, I am really dreading the inevitable moment they get hit when they’re down for the first time. Having to start a fight already down to one third of your HP and having already burned through most of your spell slots is so demoralizing but you know it’s gotta happen!

I share Zac’s concerns about their Imperial allies. When he said, “This is Games of Thrones. It doesn’t mean anything,” I felt that.

I was reminded of a scene in the trailer which shows what looks to be the PCs in a freezer and now I’m just full of questions like is a freezer a part of a fridge or its own thing? Is it Calorum or is that like the upper part of the map that cuts off? Is it a death-y no man’s land? What’s going on?

So the toughest prof I've ever had was my Constitutional Law professor my 1L year of Law School. She's probably the smartest person I've ever met and so supportive but also super scary. What you need to know about law school grades to understand this story is that they're fake so a B- is like a hard C, a C is like a D, and a D means your professor wants you to die. A professor has to fill out paperwork and justify giving you a D at my school. So we heard a rumor that this professor gave one of her students a D and we were like, "Oh man, even she wouldn't...would she?" So, one day--I think at some kind of event, we're all chilling and we're like, "Professor! Did you *really* give a student a D last year." And she turns to us, glint in her eye, and says, "Who said I only gave out one?" Chills. Absolute chills. Anyway, that is all to say, I'm very much feeling shades of that conversation right now. "Brennan, did you really kill a PC this season?" *Anime Glasses Flash* "Who said I only killed one?"

Lingering Questions

Theobald is an Eldritch Knight, not a Paladin. So he has some magic, but it wouldn’t be Bulbian (unless Brennan flavored it that way). Is he also doing arcane magic on the down low or is there some other mechanism for that? (Sidenote: Glad the cast made the gummi berry juice joke when Murph cast Jump on Amethar so I didn’t have to.) If he is, gotta say, hiding it *way* better than the others.

Curious about exactly what Liam’s favored enemy is. Cause he was getting the bonus for that during this fight but was it because they were bandits or cheese people or archers or what?

Another quick holdover from last episode: Sir Theo rolled a deception check last ep against Ruby's insight upon seeing the princesses training with their new weapons (Theo won with a 19 to her 17) and Brennan gave us no information so it’s like, what was their deal? Past relationship? Past magical relationship (see first point)? Just concerned Ruby is gonna do something stupid with a magic bow in the world where magic is banned?

Five Six More Things

OK, let’s get the most important thing out of the way...my Candysona would be a Mint Chocolate divine soul sorcerer librarian/researcher. I’m sure ALL of you were wondering.

I really wanna give it up for the crew this episode! The battle set was amazing and the music was so good! Especially Ruby’s quirky circus-y theme. Loved that! Oh and the overlay of all the magical items was very helpful. (Side note: It’s all on the wiki if you wanna see it--I’d link it but tumblr hates when I do that. EDIT: @cloudmancy actually wrote them all up here too so here’s the link).

There was no way Brennan could have known that Ruby was going to drop immediately when he initially planned the session but using that as kind of a vision quest moment to unlock her magic which she starts fully using after that point for the first time was a very clutch story choice for them.

Murph and Emily sitting next to each other this season is a *gift*.

I cannot imagine having the gall to play a level 1 magic rogue in a world where magic is illegal, people who can hit for more than my hit point total 100% want me dead, and rezzes don’t exist. What a choice.

If one twin dies...and they have to decide...what to do with the other half of that locket...Brennan…

Housekeeping

Brennan is doing an Answer Time here on tumblr! Get your questions in before the 25th!

Not strictly D20 related but Brennan is also DMing a D&D game with some actual play vets and their kids! Check it out here!

I can’t believe I failed my word count limit two episodes in on a battle episode that I only had 3 pages of notes for. Bold of me to assume I could tamp down on me. But, plus side, Brennan did say I was valid on stream last week, so I’m gonna say these two things cancel each other out and I am in the clear.

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #a crown of candy #a crown of candy spoilers #the royal report

93 notes · View notes

nocompromise-noregrets · 3 years

Text

Favourite Works Meme

Tagged by the fabulous @lemurious - THANK YOU I LOVE YOU <333333

Rules: Choose your favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

2020 was a hell of a year for me. I last wrote anything of substance in 2011, and although I’d been posting to AO3 here and there, a lot of it was older stuff that I wrote back in the mid-2000s, and I hadn’t really found a fandom that inspired me enough to want to write much for it. I’d been heavily into the Tolkien fandom between about 2002 and 2004/5 but had fallen away as the excitement over the films faded, and for some reason the Hobbit movies didn’t get me back into it all at the time. (Now I wish they had!)

And then that LotR cast reunion video appeared on YouTube in early June. Honestly, it was like seeing dear old friends again who I hadn’t seen in years. I spent most of it alternately grinning broadly and weeping like a small child, and after it was over, I ran back to the films for a rewatch. Then I started looking at my old WIPs, and following blogs on here, and then...and THEN the words just started pouring out of me. I wrote around 430k between June and December, which is absolutely unprecedented for me - 2011 was probably my previously most productive year, in which I wrote somewhere just over 100k, none of which got posted anywhere other than my old LJ as it was for a tiny fandom that doesn’t exist on AO3 (it died before AO3 really got going and we all tacitly agreed never to speak of it again xD ).

So...my favourite works from 2020. This is going to be tough, because I love them all, but...

Firstly, the It’s Always Been You series, which grew from notes and a few scenes from a side-fic to a ‘verse I was playing in with @myfairprouvaire back in about 2003; I looked at it in June, thought ‘I want to read that fic...dammit, that means I have to write that fic’ and then...and then, miraculously, I DID. It’s very niche, being that it centres on the pairing of Orophin/Rúmil, which is rare enough without the obvious issue, but I adore them, they’re one of my OTPs, and it gave me the opportunity to explore their characters, plus those of Haldir, Arwen (<33333), and her brothers, who happen to be one of my other OTPs. Yes, I know, and I don’t care.

Secondly, once I got that out of my system (sort of, it’s still not finished), I had been percolating something about Bard and Thranduil, having not even needed my slash goggles to see the potential between them in Battle of the Five Armies. It probably helped that they’re both unreasonably nice to look at, damn them, and they kept looking at each other. Anyway, what I was expecting to be 10k of eventually-resolved-sexual-tension turned into the absolute monster that is the (currently just over 210k O.O ) series My Heart Is An Empty Vessel, the main story of which is currently standing at somewhere over 160k and has an epilogue, a sequel also in progress, and several side-fics AND allowed me to weave in my existing Legolas/Imrahil series A Little Piece of the Sea, which I also wrote some new pieces for this year. I love those two so much, so I was super happy about that. Empty Vessel also ties in to pretty much everything else I’ve ever written in the Tolkien fandom, including the It’s Always Been You series - everything is in the same ‘verse, and characters referred to in one series are the same versions as those in another. Hooray for self-referentiality!

Thirdly, there is the ridiculous Christmas-movie modern Bard/Thranduil AU It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like..., which is breeding a sequel and turning into a series as we speak, although I don’t have a title for the series yet. I didn’t think I had a modern AU in me, but it looks as though I do. I had so much fun with this one, weaving in little canon references and headcanons and references to the Empty Vessel versions of the characters (and making Sigrid and Tauriel girlfriends, yay!), and I’m really looking forward to seeing where the sequel goes.

And fourthly, I am going to put together all the challenge/exchange fics I wrote this year because I had so much fun with them and I’m super proud of all of them. Kicking off with Broken On The Inside, written for @lemurious, the Erestor/Glorfindel getting-together tale in which Glorfindel has sustained a head injury and is thinking about his time at the Last Homely House, home of the misfits, the outcasts, the broken and the damned. the only home, a piece of experimental poetry which is all that Elladan and Elrohir would give me when I asked them to tell me about sailing West for @secretlythranduil, and Two Princes, about Legolas and Imrahil getting together, aided and abetted by their interfering friends and Legolas’ Ada, were written for the same event (Innumerable Stars). Then for Have A Happy Hobbit Holiday I wrote Should All The Stars Shine In The Sky for @bayta-darell, about winter celebrations in Dale, with Bard/Thranduil, Sigrid/Tauriel, and Bain and Tilda being adorable, and for Tolkien Secret Santa I wrote Come Home for @gamjawo, featuring Elrohir’s childhood fixation with Maglor finally paying off. Aaaaand for Yuletide I wrote A Tale Untold, a post-movie A Knight’s Tale fic in which the Black Prince gives William and Jocelyn a little manor in the country and the gang all settle down to live happily ever after (featuring a Latin deed of grant that’s as close to accurate as I could get it, a translation thereof, and a bunch of stuff about how medieval manors operated, because I am That Kind Of Nerd), and Six Bottles of Wine, a 2011-Three Musketeers story in which Porthos bets Aramis that Aramis can’t seduce Athos, and there is, eventually, some debate as to whether it’s Aramis or Athos who actually wins the bet. And as part of those exchanges I received some absolutely wonderful stories which I thoroughly encourage you all to check out.

ETA: oh yeah and FIFTHLY how could I forget Overrun By Halflings, which is a thoroughly ridiculous little thing I wrote for Tolkien Crack Week, in which Rosie makes Sam take her and all the kids to Valinor to join Frodo, and Certain People Who Have No Room To Comment At All get a little sniffy about it. :D (and everything I wrote for Writers’ Month, and and and... :D :D :D I’m just ludicrously excited about all of it!)

I had such a wonderful time with all of these, and all the other fics I wrote last year. My life is infinitely better, and I am infinitely happier, for being back in the Tolkien fandom and for being able to write again. This time last year I honestly thought it was over. I thought I’d never find something to inspire me again. And then...all it took was that reunion video and BAM here we are. <333333

I think everyone’s done this one by now, but if any of you haven’t and want to, consider yourselves well and truly tagged!

#fic meme #my writing

5 notes · View notes

abyssmail · 3 years

Text

Caerul Design Notes,

because I’ve actually put a lot of thought into creating Caerul’s aesthetic and I’m lowkey really proud of it. I won’t get into her actual character concept/personality/backstory/etc. since this got super long, but this is how/why I made the choices I did with regards to her name and visual design!

▶ Caerul’s color scheme started off way bluer (hence the name “Caerul,” from caeruleus/a/um - “blue”/“cerulean”/“azure”/“of the sky/sea” in Latin) and less saturated, but when I gave her a (dead) twin with a red theme, I wanted them to look more alike and made both of their hair purple (although I haven’t actually done more than sketch Roseus before... he’s got purple hair and red eyes). Purple’s my favorite color, and unnatural hair colors don’t seem to be uncommon in Orth, so why not, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The red elements in Caerul’s design are meant to represent her honoring Roseus!

All of the base colors I use when drawing Caerul! They all end up looking a bit darker once they’re shaded though.

▶ As well as shamelessly using one of my favorite Latin words (I’m a Classics major, okay ;;>~>), I also tried to pick a name that sounded similar to the ones that already exist in-universe. This was actually fairly tricky, since as far as I can tell the names in Made in Abyss have a WIDE variety of influences. Some of them seem passably Japanese-sounding (Riko, Jiruo, Kiyui, Nanachi) disclaimer I bring dishonor to my ancestors and know 0 Japanese so this is just about vibez, others seem Western-ish (Reg, Nat, Lyza, Prushka). Some are fairly whimsical (Shiggy, Maruruk, Mitty) while others are more mysterious and fantastic (Any of the White Whistles besides maybe Lyza). The only common thread I could really settle on was a general fantasy feeling to all of the names. I tried to capture that nebulous vibe with Caerul’s name, although with something so vague and subjective it’s pretty much impossible to say if I was entirely successful. I named her siblings afterward with other Latin color words and ended up with a RGB theme lol.

▸ By the way, “Caerul” is pronounced “KAI-rool.” It rhymes with “Hyrule.” The ae diphthong makes an “eye” sound in Latin #TheMoreYouKnow

▸ “Caducalae” is a portmanteau of “caducae alae,” literally “falling/doomed/futile wings” in Latin (again), playing off how pointless it is to be able to fly when the Curse of the Abyss is a thing. Originally, they weren’t supposed to work at all outside of the Abyss, but I decided that was boring for crossovers/other verses so I scrapped it. I’m not too happy with the name since it doesn’t fit the naming scheme of the canon relics (there is no precedent at all for gratuitous Latin in Made in Abyss, which is a good thing because it’s overused in fantasy, but Latin was the only thing I was good at in high school sooooo... ^^;), but I didn’t like any of my other ideas that much, either. “Wings of Futility” feels more canon, but it’s also kinda depressing :/

▶ I’ve mentioned before that Caerul’s build is based off of mine for art reference purposes (it’s convenient to just look in the mirror while making the pose I want =w=)b), but another reason she’s so short is that I didn’t have to make the caducalae quite as big since she’s smaller, so she can actually go indoors if she’s careful.

▶ Long hair isn’t super practical with mechanical wings with lots of bits for it to get caught in, but Caerul idolizes Lyza, so I left her hair as long as I could reasonably get away with.

▶ I heavily referenced the canon Made in Abyss character designs for Caerul’s clothing so she would fit into the world, but made some alterations to make everything more personal to her and accommodate for her wings. In general, I lightened everything up, since she takes a bunch of short, quick trips rather than lengthy expeditions. Her gloves, for instance, are loosely inspired by the ones we see many delvers wearing in the manga/anime, but are less heavy-duty and are convertible mittens/fingerless gloves for better dexterity with handling letters and such.

The best close up of the gloves I could find was actually a screenshot of the aftermath Reg & Riko’s orb piercer encounter, but I didn’t want to have to tag this for gore, so you get Lyza ^^; There’s a filter over Caerul here so you can see the glove better which is why she looks kinda washed out :/

▶ Her coat is heavily influenced by Jiruo’s, since he’s the only Moon Whistle we’ve seen in canon.

yeah, uhhhh, sorry to yoink your style my dude ^^;

▸ Caerul’s has a different color palette, a simpler lapel border, an extra set of outer pockets, and three separate panels in the back that button around her wings so she can put it on! I haven’t drawn it, but her shirt works similarly.

This is my favorite detail about her design tbh... it’s just really satisfying what a logical solution it is for some reason??? the original doodle is off rotting somewhere in my Modern European History notes, but I tried to recreate it just as sloppily here =w=)b

▶ Caerul’s corset isn’t just a painful fashion choice - it’s actually meant to be a(n admittedly heavily stylized) brace for her back against the weight of her wings.

▶ Since Caerul can’t wear a backpack with the wings, I had to get creative with storage options for her. In addition to an undetermined number of pockets on the inside of her coat, I gave her these two pouches on her thighs to carry more stuff.

I wonder how buff your quads could get carrying a significant amount of weight there...

�� Messenger bags don’t seem super practical for delving, so I didn’t design a specific one for her to carry all the time, but Caerul does use them on occasion. Even with that, though, she still has far less carrying capacity than the average delver, which is a problem she has to deal with when carrying out her duties!

▶ The wings/caducalae were by far the most difficult part of designing Caerul, and it took several redesigns over 2+ years before I was finally happy with them. Their first design was deliberately far simpler in the interest of having to draw them a zillion times, but they ended up clunky and unwieldy looking:

chonky o~O

▸ The final design is MUCH more of a pain to draw (in fact, a lot of the time I cheat and just copy and paste them from drawings I’ve already done), but I think it looks much sleeker and more “functional”.

I also got better at making my diagrams look slightly more authentic ;0

▸ I knew I wanted jetpack-style thrusters to be a component of the wings to somewhat justify the shit I wanted Caerul to be able to pull with them (especially to eliminate the need for accounting for the damage landing suddenly could do to her ankles), but incorporating them proved to be one of the biggest problems of the design. At one point, they were going to have a whole separate attachment point on her back, but I finally just made them an offshoot of the first “joint,” as you can see in the final design.

A really messy intermediate caducalae sketch. The weird double pentagon shape was meant to be the part of the relic actually fused to Caerul’s back, but I scrapped that too when I scrapped the separate limbs for the thrusters.

▸ Speaking of the joints, they’re all balls so they can rotate all over and I don’t have to fuss too much about how they move. Likewise, the frame is metal, but I treat it like it’s kind of flexible, so Caerul can “flex” the wings open and closed. These wings are hard enough to draw period okay I’m giving myself every excuse to be inconsistent af on purpose.

▸ The caducalae have some “bonus” features that I’ve sketched out, but that Caerul hasn’t unlocked yet, and won’t for a while.

owo what’s this?

▸ For the wings, I think my biggest inspirations were some of the mechier Cardfight!! Vanguard dragon units (although I don’t remember which cards specifically) and the energy wings on the ninth-generation knightmares in Code Geass R2.

I’ve made a lot of OCs, and since I don’t like to use faceclaims, I’ve done a fair amount of character designing. I don’t think I’ve ever spent as much time or had as much fun with any of them as I have with Caerul, though! OCs aren’t always super well accepted in fandom roleplay, but the Made in Abyss community has been super welcoming and I’ve had a blast. Thanks for listening to me gush about Caerul if you got this far, and thank you to everyone who’s interacted with her!

The original sketch of Caerul from back in 2017. How far we’ve come :’D

#miscellaneous info #mun art #appearance #ooc #((no one cares lol))#((but I had fun putting all my thoughts down in writing ^^;))#((also! the full version of the new caerul art from the promo!))

5 notes · View notes

gryfon-spanish-werewolf · 3 years

Note

7. What story/headcanons do you feel the proudest of?

15. What is the fanfic you’ve written that you’re most proud of?

16. What fanfic tropes do you avoid writing for?

17. What fanfic tropes do you gravitate to writing for?

20. What feedback makes you the happiest to hear?

21. Is there an idea you’ve always wanted to write, but haven’t yet?

36. What fanfic of yours has the symbolism you’re proudest of?

39. What area of writing do you feel strongest in?

Fanfic Writer Asks

7) In terms of headcanons (which I wouldn’t say I make often) I think I’m most proud of how I unabashedly use magic in a lot of my stories. Elsa’s magic, Troll magic, Other-magic - if I think something is neat then I kind of just roll with it!

Elsa’s ice magic, in canon has a LOT of uses, but I like pushing the boundaries. Ice-GPS? Check. Icepack for that burn? Check (though who hasn’t xD). Troll magic used for time travel? Check. Troll magic used for Dream-traversal?? Check. Physical embodiment of a strong emotion via magic? Check. Physical, evil appearance of an emotion incarnate via ice magic and troll magic and the POWER OF LOVE? Where’s my BINGO sheet? Cuz check that too.

15) OOF wow, that’s a hard one. I hate to say it but it MIGHT be one that’s not published and is currently sitting on my GDrive >_>;; I’m really proud of my Frozen!StarWars crossover

But of the ones that are published? Either A Banisher’s Dilemma or Great Knight Annatorias, The Abysswalker. I got to be super nerdy and meta on the second one^^

16) I avoid writing smut, I’ve never really been game for it. I’m always amazed that other people can write it, but I never really want to. I also tend to avoid angst, especially if it’s for no other reason than JUST angst. It has it’s place, but I don’t like using it just to get a reaction. (Some of you are already pointing fingers at Spirit - I know I KNOW xD It was a one off, I swear!)

17) I immediately gravitate towards anything SOFT. I love slice of life, I love characters bonding with each other, I love when they have CONVERSATIONS, especially about hard things that they can work through together! I also love “Firsts’”! First meeting, first hug, first confession, first kiss, first hand-hold, first date, first anniversary, etc etc. I love confessions and conversations. On the flip side I really love established relationships? Whatever they are: familial, friends, romantic or marital. There’s something really nice about a a pair or a group already being together. I have no idea where that all fits under your standard trope lists, but those are mine!

20) I absolutely scream if anyone ever quotes my stuff back to me saying stuff like “I really liked this line/paragraph/part because...” and then says why. I lose my mind. I also love when people say “This made me feel X” because I’m just ever so curious about how writing affects people!

Edit bc I forgot: I’ve had one (1) person make me fan art once as “feedback” for a story and I was on cloud 9 for like, shit, a month?? I still think about that person. I legit hope they are living their best life.

21) I wouldn’t say I “always” wanted to write this since I’m WAY too impatient to wait on ideas most of the time BUT I have had this au sitting in my WIPs folder for nearly 6 YEARS and it’s about how the King and Queen of Arendelle are secretly part of a vampire hunting guild. They kill a vampire that snuck into the castle one night but not before it infects their daughter and heir to the throne, Elsa (who’s like, 6 or 8). Even though they’re oathbound to kill vampires, they can’t kill their daughter. The castle is closed similar to post-Accident Frozen 1.

Jumping to modern times, Anna is a history student exploring the mountains of Norway with her classmate, Hans, and a guide, Kristoff, and they are heading for the ruins of Arendelle castle for a research project. Rumors say that despite wars, invasions, thrill seekers, and treasure hunters, a lot of people that go into that foggy area of the fjord waters and forest end up lost and never found. The few that make it out tell tales of strange chills and the feeling of eyes at their backs. Locals know that the headstones of the last living Royals (who died at sea) are still tended to, though no one knows by whom. Anna gets separated from the group and encounters a sleeping Elsa in the castle before sundown. Afraid for the stranger’s safety (it’s winter, it’s cold, and it’s going to be night soon), Anna attempts to wake Elsa, to no avail. Realizing she’s sort of stuck herself, Anna builds a fire and awaits morning (and her own rescue), unknowing that in the last rays of sunlight her “companion” is about to wake. For the worse.

Unrelated to fanfic, I HAVE always wanted to write a story about a girl named Rain (as such for her birth during a terrible storm) that misfortune is heaped upon by the bucketful, so much so that everyone believes she’s cursed, except for her tutor. I want her name have a double meaning that she both slumps and shines under, since rain may bring destruction, but also growth and healing.

36) A Banisher’s Dilemma, hands down. I did SO MUCH RESEARCH for that fic AND I was in a Bible New Testament class at the same time, so I just SHOVED a whole bunch of Christian history, themes, imagery, and references in there. It’s not the only symbolism however, as I mixed plenty of other global and cultural references in there as well. Hard not to, since Anna is literally jet-setting to a new location nearly every chapter.

39) Surprising maybe no one: light humor! My writing is often funny, mostly because I like to make myself laugh :D If I’m not having fun, than what’s the point!? Most often it’s shown off in my one shots or short fiction, but even re-reading some of my longer chapter fics still has me laughing at the same jokes I wrote many years ago.

If not humor than portraying strong emotions. I’ve received too many (generous and loving <3) comments about how pinpoint accurate or visceral my portrayal of joy or sorrow, grief or fear, or love and happiness are to deny it. And that’s much less of a boast and more a humble acknowledgement of people who have written very thoughtful responses to my work, and it would be irresponsible to imply that their words over the years were false in any way.

Thanks for the ask! These are a lot of really good questions!

#anon ask #fanfic ask #also did they change the way asks can be sent/formatted?#i swear I've never seen an ask stacked like that xD #great questions tho like I said #A Banisher's Dilemma #Great Knight Annatorias The Abysswalker #Spirit #The Darkness Within #unnamed Vampire!au #Frozen!StarWars crossover #So You Can Always Find Me #as for the humor? MOST of my little short stories have humor and they are all on Ao3 and FF.net

6 notes · View notes

mysticalmusicwhispers · 4 years

Text

APH College AU: China

Oh hey look I’m doing the Asians now? Perhaps! AU intro here, highly suggested you read for context of why China is out of college.

Also, I know chefs aren’t supposed to be a waiter/see customers and cook at the same time, but too bad. He likes interacting with people personally and is good at knowing when to go back into the kitchens to make sure the food doesn’t burn.

- Owner and head chef of a small Chinese restaurant called Upside Down Luck (*any suggestions for other names are cool!*). He’s thinking about expanding pretty soon, since business is good and very consistent and a second restaurant would probably be as successful as the first. - 50% of business is college students, so he knows most of them. Most have come to his place at least once, and some, such as America, are regulars. - He's really good at memorizing faces and names, and can usually recognize people from the college. They get treated with either “Welcome back! How’s school? I heard there was a small fire in the labs!” or “You, again? *sigh* Same as last time?” - Also relating to that, he never lets students get more than two bottles of alcohol, especially late at night, and has never fell for a fake ID (partly thanks to his siblings telling him who’s a sophomore, freshman, etc). A true mom. - Knows all the school gossip also because his siblings, especially Taiwan and Japan, but South Korea also lets things slip because he forgets China doesn’t know; at dinner or something he’ll be like “Remember how ___?” And China whips around, very surprised and says “What??” with a raised eyebrow and a look that says s p i l l t h e t e a s i s - He always complains about making his food too “Americanized” (?) but honestly it’s more Authentic Chinese style than most people - DESPISES Panda Express and their orange chicken. CHN: “Why is this sweet????” HK: “Chill, that’s just American Chinese food. Anyways, it’s okay tasty.” “No.” “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

- A whiz at budgeting and bargaining; always stays on top of his finances and sometimes manages his siblings’ finances as well when he’s really pissed at them for being lazy/not responsible with their money. A lot of the restaurant’s success is due to his cunning and money managing. - When he’s cooking or frustrated or hot, his ponytail goes up into a sort of bun. He’s not too happy with how it looks on him, but it’s just more convenient that way, either because regulations/sanitary purposes or to get his neck cooler. - He gives his siblings 20-30% off on restaurant stuff most of the time, but it varies a little with mood. Most other students have been jealous at some point or another, but the other side of the deal is that they can’t call Yao “mother” or “grandma” or “grandpa” in any form. They still do it though, and then he’s like “No privileges for you!1!2!1!!” - Also, the restaurant layout is super fengshui, because Yao is superstitious as heck, but also because it’s actually useful for interior design. Like it’s all perfectly aligned, windows face north-south (to get fresh air and sunlight), the door doesn’t have clutter around it, etc. It honestly looks a bit minimalist but also traditional at the same time. During the Lunar New Year he puts up menshen (门神) on the door and couplets on the sides of it, and he always has a small Metteyya (弥勒佛) statue/idol/thingy in the back of the restaurant for money and luck. - Laughs internally at people failing at using chopsticks. (He provides knives and forks and spoons of course, but there are always the handful who keep trying chopsticks). I think he’s the type to just... casually watch you struggle in vain and won’t do anything to help. Of course, if you’re a friend, then he’ll definitely try to teach you, but he doesn’t mind having a laugh at most of his customers. I think South Korea, Hong Kong, and perhaps Vietnam (Japan, Taiwan and Macau would be too kind to laugh and chopsticks aren’t widely used in other Asian countries) would stand and watch as well, taking out their phones and recording any particularly hilarious attempts. - He doesn’t live right above the restaurant, but has an apartment 3 blocks over. It’s not small, but not too big either, so when his siblings come over it gets kinda crowded. South Korea and Hong Kong are always telling him to move out and get a larger place, but China just kinda refuses out of sentimentality. “I like this place too much to leave it!” - Wakes up at 7 AM every morning and walks around the neighborhood and sometimes goes to the college to visit India. He likes routine, and considers it a really refreshing part of his morning. - I haven’t decided a lot of the other ancient’s lives yet, but China and the others would definitely get together for chats once in a while. All of them just happened to stick around close by after college and they’d talk about work and college gossip. College gossip is provided by China and India, but they all know a bit since their siblings are still there. - He majored in business and took a whole lot of outside culinary arts classes in college, and also happened to take a bunch of other random classes just for the heck of it. So now he’s educated on things like human behavior and what people would do in a zombie apocalypse + why they react that way, garbage and sustainability, and medieval studies + folklore through Game of Thrones. He considered taking a tree climbing course but didn’t, just because he didn’t want to waste time relearning how to climb trees with ropes. - Corollary to that, he probably has the weirdest fun facts because of all this miscellaneous info he’s collected. “Did you know there’s immortal cancer cells?” “I don’t want to know, Yao.” (Above fact is true but the story of the cells is really sad (and twisted and makes me kinda angry). They’re called HeLa, after Henrietta Lacks.) - His dorm room was probably on the neater side. However, it wasn’t too meticulously organized, and sorta like a thrown together hodgepodge of themes/aesthetics. Not that pretty to look at but it did its job well for him; he never really lost things in his room. - Loved math assignments (even though he grumbled) and bs-ed English, didn’t do too well in it. I think he’d honestly be ok with a B+, and his grades would’ve ranged from 87s to As depending on subject, with possibly one C+ where he just didn’t really apply himself. But he still applies the Asian Parent Standard to his siblings (but isn’t too strict about it most times. Just when he feels they’re really consistently not doing their best when they could be aceing a class). - He loved history though, and took a lot of courses about it that he didn’t need to graduate. This is also how he met India. - I feel like Yao would have a lot of lifehacks, both for managing college work, job lifehacks and things he uses in the restaurant daily, and tricks for outdoor work ex. farm work. Like if you put him outdoors in a rural area and told him to grow crops and raise chickens, he’d totally be okay with it, and would probably be able to do it well. This is in contrast to his siblings, who are more of city (?) kids. - Of course, he’s proficient with tech stuff and office work, but isn’t as good at it as Japan or HK. - Has a 3/4 heat tolerance and a 5/10 cold tolerance. He warms up by cooking (hot stove) or drinking warm water or tea. - Proud, a bit overly critical of people and nagging. He often gets tiny bursts of anger/intense annoyance at small things, and it makes him scary sometimes. (I hc it’s like this; someone does something slightly off/wrong and he kinda has a mini explosion, but it doesn’t affect his overall mood and he’ll still be pretty cheery to you after the incident is corrected.) - Again, his anger isn’t really full blown anger, but more a bunch of small annoyed explosions. It’s rare he gets mad, but if so, it’s usually a long tirade and lecture with lots of hand motions and shouting. It’s sorta scary since he doesn’t often get like that, so it’s serious when he does. - Relationships with some of his siblings are strained a little. They’re like a sorta mismatched family with lots of squabbles and petty disagreements, especially about who can order the others around. - Honestly a people person, he could ramble on and on for days about his life. Some people find him tiring, but he’s a good mixer with strangers. Casual friends with a lot of people, especially those who appreciate sarcasm and can snark right back at him.

Thanks for reading! I didn’t want to include too much about China’s college days but ended up writing more than I intended. Also, the “random college courses” I mentioned are all real classes, obviously not from the same university, but they exist (pretty cool!!) Next up will probably be SK or HK (I have more ideas for them than some of the others). Feedback is welcome and appreciated!

18 notes · View notes

strangenewclassrooms · 4 years

Text

Ugh

I’ve been putting off this post because I haven’t had the energy to deal with this shit. And also, y’know, in a pandemic time and brains are weird. I will start by just adding TW for grooming & sexual harassment. Putting it behind a cut for length. Please excuse the word vomit (I’m going back through and editing a bit for clarity but I just needed to get this OUT.)

ANYWAY, I’ve been dealing with a(nother) situation in my martial arts world that has just thrown me for a loop. Some of y’all remember when I had to speak up almost two years ago about a serial creep in the system. That was dealt with, or “dealt with”--not entirely to my satisfaction, but that’s besides the point atm. My friend K (female) and I had brought in our friend D (male) to help with dealing with creep-o because we trust him, he has--or had--consistently shown himself to be an ally across the board. D is a member of a dojo in a different state, so we don’t see him a ton but we do hang out when we are together for martial arts stuff.

So in my girl group we have a 19 year old girl, E. She has been in my dojo since she was 9. She’s the de facto little sister of the group, and is in general a really badass person with a good head on her shoulders. After last summer, when D was hanging out with our group, she and he started chatting online. Nothing out of the ordinary from what I could tell. He does tend to be a bit of a shitposter, but I had never seen him be inappropriate. (I should note at this point that D is male, 40, and a teacher.) Anyway, several weeks ago E dropped to us that in the course of their snapchat convo he asked to see a pic of her in her sports bra. She rightfully flipped out on him, told him that there is no circumstances where he should be asking a 19 year old girl to show him her bra, he was basically like “oh yeah, shit” and she blocked him. He later texted her to say “I’m sorry I’ll keep my flirtation more tame in the future. I’ll be here when you’re ready to talk to me” (so a non-apology) *eta side note: he’s also married. And that aside there is no circumstance where he should be doing anything like “flirting” with a 19 year old girl.

K and I encouraged her to talk to our sensei about it bc this is beyond not OK. (At the time, I was really hopeful that this was just a colossal mistake on D’s part and we could just keep E from having to interact with him and he’d learn.) During that conversation, she revealed it wasn’t the first inappropriate comment he’d made to her, but she’d just ignored the comments. When they first started talking he told her “let me know if I’m ever too much/cross a line” (which has klaxons going off in my head bc that’s grooming behavior), and at a later point he’d mentioned masturbation to her. (In the context of: “Girl, you need to relax...”) So naturally that revelation changed shit. And K and I were furious with D. (And also super proud of E for standing up to him and knowing she doesn’t deserve that. While also being horrified/guilty/angry that she was put in that position.) At that point, we stopped interacting with D online. He commented on a bunch of K’s fb posts, and then when she didn’t reply messaged her saying he was worried about her. She sent a message to the group with the three of us to say that we were really upset with him and didn’t want to talk. He replied and said he understood, but thought “this whole thing is being blown out of proportion” and offered to talk when we wanted. We haven’t taken him up on that offer, and don’t plan on it. And I’ve just been SO thrown for a loop by this. I’m furious at him. He’s a fucking teacher and should know better than most about how to maintain good boundaries with young people. I was always a little uncomfortable with the fact they were talking over Snapchat, but I chalked that up to the fact that I don’t use it, and in general I maintain really strict (stricter than necessary?) social media boundaries. So I thought of that as a *me* issue, rather than an issue with the communication. And I should have listened to my gut. I’m not blaming myself for the fact that E was in that position, but I do feel like I failed in my duty of care. Not as badly as D, of course. But I trusted him. K trusted him. And there is no scenario where this can be written of as a clueless guy making dumb comments. The fact it was more than just one incident, the fact it’s all over Snapchat (and thus no record), his grooming behavior. The fact that he’s fucking 40 years old, married, a TEACHER (side note: I know, I know that there are some shitty predatory teachers out there, but I just thought he wasn’t that.) Like, he knew better. He did.

And I’m just tired of always being the one who has to bring this shit up (thankfully in this situation it wasn’t just me, and our sensei took it very seriously and were as horrified as K and I were.) I just worry that the more I bring up instances of misconduct or sexism, the more likely it is that the powers that be will see it as a girl who cried wolf thing as opposed to me raising legitimate issues. So, I don’t really know where or how to go from this. Thanks to pandemic, we won’t be in a position to be physically around D for a while. E has blocked him everywhere so he doesn’t have access to her, and I’m not concerned about him harassing K and I about any of it. But I’m just questioning my instincts, which are normally pretty good, and questioning how as an organization things will proceed. We’ve already heard that the system heads are working on a (very overdue imho) code of conduct, but I’m not 100% confident that it will cover everything that we need. (This is the same system heads who gave an award for integrity to the first creep-o the same year I reported him. So...yeah...) I’m just tired. And I know that pandemic brain is making everything worse and more draining. But it’s not fair that this is something that women in the system (and in general) have to deal with when we’re just trying to work out, same as everyone else.

#please no rebagel #coincidentally today's Ask a Manager had a similar situation and the unanimous NOPE comments put me over the edge again

10 notes · View notes

testifytime · 4 years

Note

do everything for me, you already know about me BUT: im described as "chaotic faggot" by my friends, i have no filter, I can switch from being outgoing to really nervous in a second, i like drawing, dice, and divinitation. i hoard candles and incense, and i like paintball.

- A Pokemon team/type theme (+ fun facts abt your team!)

Your team is full of Poison types! They’re used the most often for rascly lil fucker trainers, so, it fits :3c

Your signature Pokemon is Toxtricity, though your team also consists of Whirlipede, Haunter, Gloom, Toxicroak, and Crobat!

Fun facts!

Your Toxtricity was sent to you by your juggabro. In his words, it’s a “cool Pokemon to fit your aesthetic but keep you on track”. It can be pretty overprotective, but sometimes it turns a blind eye to the more chaotic things you do.

Your Whirlipede is just an entire baby. Even though it’s got toxic spikes on its shell that COULD kill you, it’s pretty much a lapbug. You just have to try and remind it to be careful before it goes in for snuggles.

Your Haunter and Gloom actually kind of hate each other! Having them out at the same time often ends up with you either getting paralysed or put to sleep. They’re super sweet when they’re apart, though, and both LOVE scritches.

Toxicroak used to be really loveydovey when it was a Croagunk, but now it acts like it’s too cool for school. It’s really not. If you pay more attention to another Pokemon it WILL jab you in the stomach. And then it’ll pretend like it totally wasn’t even because it was jealous.

Your Crobat is the sweetest of the bunch!! It likes to collect (read: steal) things for you that it thinks you’ll like, and is almost always attached to your back out of its Pokeball. Sometimes without you wanting it to be. It can be a bit of a pain, sometimes.

- Bloodcaste/lusus/chumhandle as if you were a Homestuck troll (+lore)

You’re a purpleblood with a seaserpent lusus! Your chumhandle is acquiredTalisman.

You live with your lusus in a hive that boarders where the jungle forest ends and the beach begins. It’s a pretty popular spot for violetbloods, admittedly, but it’s also the only place your giantass Seaserpentdad can actually fit; the mouth of the river is deep and leads directly out into the ocean, where he spends most of his time. The hive itself is pretty cluttered - because man, you suck at keeping shit tidy - and filled to the brim with your dice collections, your religious paraphenalia, and all the random junk you’ve stolen (of which there is a lot).

You have a few interests, of which the main is your religion. You’re a diviner of sorts, oddly sought out by your fellow purplebloods to tell them what their purpose is in life as stated by the Great Mirthful Messiahs. You’re not entirely sure that they really do speak through you, but your readings are scary-accurate, and not only does it mean that you’ve made more friends, but you’ve made a fuck tonne of money, too. You’re more fond of practicing with your friends, or on your own, sneaking what you can beneath your lusus’ snout; so far, he hasn’t seemed to question the candle collection you have, or the alter with the Faygo bottlecaps, or the cards, or pendulum made from a grubbone you got from one of your customers. Actually, he hasn’t noticed much of anything? You’re hesitant to go TOO far, but you do like pushing at what you can get away with every now and then.

On top of that, you love to draw - mostly as a form of worship, but also just for fun with your juggabros. You send drawings back and forth, even though you’ve never been able to meet them, and it’s pretty fun! You hope one day that you can get them to your favourite hangout spot to cause a little chaos - which usually means trashing the violetbloods’ rich boy shit and stealing things you know they’re too proud to tattle about. You don’t... always remember doing those things? But you definitely remember the amount of violetbloods that give you nasty glares whenever you walk past. It’s okay, though. You have a rifle and you’re not afraid to use it.

Beyond that, though, you’re... kind of lonely. There’s nobody that you really consider a friend around you, and when your friends do visit you, it’s only every few months. Having all those customers and the nasty violetbloods hanging around is great, sure, but... sometimes you wish you could move your hive closer inland to be near your juggabros. You could, you guess. But then where would your lusus go?

Your lusus is kind of ridiculously huge. You really couldn’t miss him even on the horizon, his giant form standing stark against the two moons. Not that he spends a whole lot of time above the water, though. He pretty much only comes back to get fed and throw a fit if he sees any of your purpleblood customers hanging around.

- Symbol/guardian/chumhandle as if you were a Homestuck kid (+lore)

Your symbol is a and your guardian is your big bro! Your chumhandle is augmentedTemptation.

You and your older bro kick it in a sweet lil bottom-floor apartment. It’s kinda dingy, kinda shitty, but it’s the best he can afford and you’re not really one to complain when you know how hard he works just to keep the leaky roof over your head. It’s got everything you want out of a home, anyway; separate bedrooms, tiny bathroom, sweet hangout pad that doubles as a kitchen (which you’ve got a curtain draped over so that it looks like they’re two rooms) - it’s pretty neat. It’s also got a fire escape out the back and easy access to the lobby doors that’re easy to pick, so you figure it’s kinda home.

You absolutely fucking love to play paintball. You’ve got a painball gun that you maybe stole from the store once, and a couple pellets you’ve been buying for cheap online whenever you have the money. You don’t... actually have anyone to play with, but hey, cop cars make a great target. It feeds into your general need for chaos, which isn’t limited to - but has involved - petty theft, breaking into cars, and spray painting defametory phrases against racists and homophobes on billboards. You’ve never actually been caught. Okay, you got caught once, but you’re really good at crying. You’re pretty sure your bro doesn’t know about that.

You like to practice witchy shit in your spare time. You’ve got altars set up for your patrons, and a candle collection that you really don’t know that you’re ever gonna burn through. Plus, incense! Your bro kind of hates the smell, but you just crack open a window and it’s like he doesn’t even know. You’ve also got a pretty fair collection of crystals, but that’s more because people just keep giving them to you? It’s wild what they’ve thought were just normal rocks, and you’re pretty sure some of your collection could sell for a pretty buck, but they make way better offerings.

Of course, you also love to talk to your friends online. You have a bunch! You’re pretty easy to get on with, you think, so you end up just kinda collecting people into one giant group of friends that never stops growing. You share art, play games, chat, make them worried sick when you do dumb shit - it’s great.

Sometimes at dusk you like to go up to the roof of the apartment block you and your bro live in and stand right on the edge. It’s so high up you can see around for miles, and everything below you looks like a speck of dust beneath your feet. The stars twinkle above you in the darkening sky, just barely visible, and you think, every now and then, that you are very, very small.

- A FNAF animatronic design and name

You’re a broken down animatronic, probably one of the earliest of your kind. Maybe even a prototype? Nobody really remembers anymore. You’ve just kind of always been there, at the back of the store, half a body and more coherent than people expect you to be, but never fully quite there. Your head lulls back and forth, your arms moving sluggishly, and in order to get around, you drag yourself across the floor.

You can speak, but not by much. It’s glitchy and switched out more often than not, absolutely terrifying to hear in the dark - but you’re a pretty sweet soul, all things considered. The few who’ve been brave enough to slip back behind the old, abandoned doors, past the cobwebs and through the narrow halls, who haven’t run at the first sight of you, tell tales of a sweet carcass who seemed more scared of being found than anything else.

There are a couple kids who routinely come back to visit you. They like to give you things they’ve found outside the pizzaria, mostly coins and old dice and things that smell sweet to try and cover up how musty you are.

You’ve never hurt a soul the entire time you’ve been there, but your reputation has been built on the whispers of kids who’ve seen the rotting maw of your muzzle, the glint of your endoskeleton and the shine of your eyes in the dark. They call you Thing - as if giving you a name will make you come to life.

The ones that know you better call you Peppi.

- A BNHA Quirk and hero title

Your Quirk is Corroding Touch. Despite its name, and how terrifying it sounds, your quirk is pretty simple! Anything you touch wastes away, and you can control how far along its own personal timeline it decays through. For instance, you could touch a flower and have it start wilting, and stop there on its timeline - or you could have it waste away to a point that it decays completely and turns to mush.

The drawback here is that what you’re doing is essentially speeding up a natural process. Things that don’t waste away without outside forces - such as rocks through erosion - won’t be affected by your quirk. Things that live very long lives before decaying - such as turtles - will take up a lot more of your time to speed them through their natural timeline. Finally, you can’t reverse what you’ve done. Once you’ve sped it through its natural timeline, there’s no going back; another quirk will have to undo the effects.

Of course, it also means that if you plant an oak seed, instead of waiting hundreds of years for it to grow into an oak tree, you can just use your quirk to speed up the process. So it’s a good-bad thing!

Your hero title is the Wasteful Hero: Corrosion. You’re a sort of last-resort hero, and you don’t like being in the limelight. Your quirk is dangerous if not handled correctly, so you work on a team with another hero who has a counter-effective quirk to yours (essentially Hyper Growth!). A lot of civillians are scared of you, but that’s okay. You know that what you do is important, and that your ranking doesn’t matter so long as you’re saving lives.

You are a little bitter, though, that your partner is several ranks ahead of you.

#turnfagshithead #long post//#heartless prince rambles

4 notes · View notes

entomycetic · 4 years

Text

BUST AU - Timeskip Moon Base (+other headcanons)

(Made a previous post about my The Space Between Us AU that I’m now calling BUST AU; all you need to know is Steven grew up in the Moon Base, which was remodeled over time to look more like a proper home.) “Here’s an AU that I won’t develop beyond this synopsis!” *immediately spends the entire night world building* ....Seriously its almost 8am, I haven’t left my computer since I made the first BUST post like 9 hours ago or somethin oops- Anyways, I really wanted to design how the moon base house looked in my head! Though after I drew it out, I realized it might be more suitable as a timeskip, when Steven had more say in how it was constructed, and was held more responsible for taking care of himself. I SUPER wanna revisit this and actually make a background for each room, but now is Not The Time, so here’s the general idea!

I wanted to get a sense of scale first, so here’s just the practice of getting the interior down! I used a bunch of screenshots to make an educated guess on the measurements, and boy howdy that is a LOT of room...

And here’s the (timeskipped) house version! (The holes on the far wall allow a platform elevator to efficiently transport people up and down the house, courtesy of Peridot and Pearl’s handiwork.) I went HAM on the decoration man, I’ll explain this chicken scratch bottom to top:

Warp Room

The entrance and exit! The warp pad was placed in its own room so the warp light doesn’t blind anyone. It’s a personal theory that the farther the distance of warping, the stronger the light; and the moon is pretty far!

The Gems bring back as many cool finds as they can to help decorate the space (making sure the sharper things are securely fastened out of reach). Along with this, Steven decorates with his own art and posters that he buys online.

The Gems made sure to insulate and wall up the murals; they didn’t need him asking about the Diamonds so soon. Some furniture lines the outer wall with maps and books strewn all across them; Steven prefers to be home schooled down here, and it’s also where the Gems usually plan for missions that they want Steven to join. Steven also brought a bunch of flowers down, helping fill in the giant room.

Next to the door is a pair of homemade (but reliable) astronaut suits; they aren’t used very often though, since there’s not much to see outside. The main door used to be locked entirely, until a second airlock was fitted inside.

Kitchen/Living Room

To the left is the general living room area, to the right is the kitchen. The Gems were able to set up electricity, water lines, sewage, the WHOLE package!

The dining table usually has 5 chairs set up, but they keep some extra foldable chairs leaned against the cabinet- just in case.

A large rug, coffee table, two mismatched couches, and a cluttered bookshelf in the living room; long counters, overhead cabinets full of canned goods, a fridge, sink, and microwave oven in the kitchen.

Bathroom/’Shed’

For the sake of privacy, this floor is separated into two rooms with a hallway in the middle. Steven took the liberty of decorating it with a nice table and a flower.

As standard a bathroom you can fined on the moon, on the left- tub/shower combo, a short counter with a sink, a mirror, toilet, standalone closet with ‘typical’ bathroom supplies

Currently, the ‘shed’ is full of books, games, and beanbags; whatever Steven’s family think he might find fun usually ends up here.

Steven built a little loft area as his first big addition to the house, which he’s proud of; only him and Amethyst have the guts to hang out up there, though. A small TV is used for his video games and movies; he can’t really get a signal for cable on the moon, but he can always watch new movies in theaters in the observatory.

Greenhouse

As it’s titled, where at least half the plants in the house are kept!

This area might have gotten the most upgrades, with Peridot’s help; with regulators and efficient plant lights, this farm and outdoor area is much easier to take care of nowadays.

The first ‘layer’ is a grassy area with a small oak tree and a pond with a few fish.

The ‘shelf’ floors act as a farm, with a variety of crops growing all year round in assorted wall hanging planters.

Plant lights hand down from the shelf floors; the brightest hang above the open area, so the tree gets enough light. Solar panels now line a majority of the outer walls of the base to power the house.

Observatory

Almost the same as it was when the Gems first started renovating; the only difference being the entrance/exit being changed to a different spot. Steven uses this room less ever since he’s been able to visit Earth more, but before then it might’ve been the room he spent the most time in.

Bedroom

The diamond seat was turned into a bed; with some custom-made support between the edge of the seat and the edge of the control panel, a mattress was able to be placed inside; the back of the seat and the control panel acting as the head and foot of the bed. As cool as the view is, Steven placed a removable veil over his bed for when he wants to pretend he isn’t entirely isolated from humanity.

I like to think it’s similar to the conservatory seen in the movie, with beanbags and flowerpots.

Furniture like a dresser and bookshelf was placed on the wall facing away from Earth; his desk faces the Earth. He also made a removable background curtain, so when his friends that don’t know he lives on the moon decide to video call, he doesn’t have to answer many questions.

He has a few hundred feet of string lights hung above everything, kind of like a spiderweb. Pearl calls it a fire hazard, Steven calls it necessary for the aesthetic

There’s all the rooms, now time for some other random headcanons!

Can you tell that I like Steven likes beanbags?

Steven picked up a LOT of hobbies since he had so much alone time; his most frequent being singing/playing instruments, gardening, reading, and art. The gardening helps him take care of the greenhouse, and his art decorates a lot of wall space. He’d have probably picking up cooking if he didn’t have to rely so much on others getting the ingredients for him.

Steven keeps a beanbag in the observatory; he could and does spend hours sightseeing. As fascinated as he is by society, he tries to respect peoples’ privacy as best he can, and doesn’t spy on his friends and family altogether.

A lot of the stuff to build was stolen or taken from garbage; Greg was impressed, exasperated, and afraid for his son when Amethyst told him this. (Amethyst still brings stuff for the house to this day; the foldable chairs, some of Steven’s posters, the living room rug,etc.)

The amount of hours he’s sunk into people watching has inadvertently made him REALLY good at lip reading.

Steven isn’t entirely vegetarian, but a good majority of what he eats comes from the farm in the greenhouse; it’s easy to tend to and is right at home!

The greenhouse used to be Steven’s favorite place to hang out, but seeing the human zoo kind of disturbed him; he still loves it since it’s his home and he likes tending to his plants, but he subconsciously avoids staying there for as long as he used to. (...remind me to never try to do half-assed-and-failed gravity math at 4am ever again. also. heheheh could write some fluffy qpr connverse....or something dramatic like the warp pad breaking...hehehehehehe maybe later tho when i aint dead)

#steven universe #su #steven universe au #the space between us #su bust au #mycoart #mycoau #mynotatian

27 notes · View notes

snowdice · 3 years

Text

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 32]

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

This was on hiatus for a while because I needed to focus a lot harder on my exam than usual studying and then it was break after that, but I have to get some stuff read for next week, so I’m going to be doing this for a bit today! Last time we just entered a church... with Remus. Let’s see how this goes...