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mdhwrites · 1 year

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Jumbled Thoughts: The Problem With “Too Little, Too Late” Featuring The Owl House‘s Willow

Before I really get started, I want to let people know that this problem with writing has gained a unique spin to it in the modern age of social media and fandoms. I’ll put something in bold text if you want to skip to that part because... I think it’s a problem fandoms don’t realize even can happen. Anyways: So... tell me if you’ve heard this with writing before: A writer will sometimes leave breadcrumbs inside their story. Innocuous lines or character traits that seem benign but like any good eldritch horror, much more lurks beneath the surface. You don’t think about it though unless you’re really paying attention. So it continues to simmer, either watched with anticipation or more likely ignored pleasantly. And then BAM! All these little breadcrumbs come together into a five course meal! Reveal of how it all connects and winds together and it makes all those little moments all the more satisfying because you can see what they were leading up to. What they were hinting. But they never got the attention to make you think they had to be revealed until now. That is foreshadowing and is commonly believed to be a REALLY good writing technique. “Too little, too late” is when you make a tasty sub-sandwich, with the works, promise you’ll give it to your friend for lunch and then give it to them a month later when it’s blue, the vegetables are mush, the meat is possibly genuinely becoming an eldritch being and the person is just left asking why you bothered bringing it to them at all when clearly you should have thrown it away and focused your attention elsewhere. Or to not use a metaphor: Foreshadowing de-emphasizes elements that are still within the story so as to have them but not make it obvious how important they are so when they become important, it means something BUT there isn’t a time limit because the reveal is the only time that it matters. This happens with a lot of villain schemes or when the innocuous sword that the hero wields turns out to actually be super cool and awesome. These are elements that work in the narrative no matter what when they happen and the foreshadowing only makes them better because you could have seen it coming and it helps the moment feel planned. “Too little, too late” instead is when a juicy plot or character hook is dangled in your face, given importance and made potentially critical to a character or the plot... And then doesn’t go resolved until so much time has passed that you maybe forgot the plot hook existed at all. Or, worse yet, so much time and stuff has happened that the plot point no longer feels valid. Which brings me to our example today: Willow Park from The Owl House. Now... describing Willow is a rough thing to do because the show barely treats her as a character until... Season 3? Okay, there’s a blip in Season 2 that I’ll bring up because it is a form of follow up, even if not a good one. What you need to know for this lesson is that Willow: Is presented early on as struggling with her emotions and magic and this is resolved in episode 6 of Season 1. After this, she is commonly characterized as being literally the strongest magic user of her age, maybe in the world, at least in her specialty. She was bullied heavily by a character who eventually joined the main cast (and Willow was friends with before the bullying) and this joining happened in episode 15 of Season 1 when Willow said that while she could forgive, she didn’t know if she was ready to call her a friend. This sets up the plot point of the two properly reconciling. This also ends her bullying as she is characterized as having been heavily bullied before now and becomes weirdly popular after this episode. It truly gets dealt with in Episode 18 of Season 1 though to be fair. And these are her main plot points. If you’re expecting a character dissection, don’t. This is specifically about how her plot points are treated because that’s what this writing lesson is about. So there are your main plot hooks and when they happened. So... When are they followed up on? Well, we’ll go in reverse actually because the show did and that’s not a joke. First was following up on her relationship with her ex-friend/ex-bully. Seeing as this character became a CRUCIAL member of the cast, literally the girlfriend to the main character who is also one of Willow’s very few friends, it would make sense that such a plot hook would be followed up on pretty quickly. Maybe given some importance at least within the first half of S2, maybe even earlier as Willow theoretically is a main supporting character of the show and to just leave her hanging is a problem. Literally nothing happens with Willow until the SECOND HALF of Season 2. And there was a mid-season hiatus for the show worse yet. So you have two hiatuses and FIFTEEN episodes before this plot point is revisited. And when it is, it’s a brief moment, still focused on the bully character mostly, with Willow just saying, “Hey, it’s still weird that you’re so open with me.” So it pretty much reinforces “This was important to this character,” while doing nothing with it and so late that you might go, especially with events that have happened with the bully character. This gets worse though. In Season 2 Episode 18 they FINALLY talk. Literally over a season, they finally have an argument about how Willow used to be treated and how her ex-friend is treating now... And it’s about her ex-friend still seeing her as not strong. That’s it. Not if they’re friends, not if they actually care about each other or the work needed to work with one another. It is about a character who, even before this plot hook was brought up, was commonly portrayed as STUPIDLY POWERFUL. There are explanations... And put a pin it because it has to do with that other side of this problem. So what about the other problem? The one that’s WAY worse? Well... Remember: Willow solves her problem between her magic and her emotions in episode 6 of the series. It NEVER comes back up in S1 or S2. Never in a form of a of control or the like. She is a perfect witch after that episode. In SEASON THREE, Special 2 because the show’s third season was shortened to three specials, it gets brought back. Literally two seasons later. After the plot hook has been resolved for two seasons. Worse yet, despite the bully problem being resolved also back in Season 1, IT ALSO COMES BACK. And mind you, at this point the world is fucked because a child-like GOD has decided to start turning people into puppets. And we’re back to talking about school bullies IN THE SCHOOL SETTING EVEN. What these elements get brought back for might be good but... Here’s the fundamental question? Why should an audience care? What makes it feel foreshadowed... to a regular person? The Spin on This This is not a problem in fandoms. Fandoms are going to theorize and talk plot points like this on a damn near daily basis. People were SCREAMING about these plot points between Seasons 1 and 2 of The Owl House. They still cared. They still saw it as foreshadowing because they constantly remind themselves about these elements. But this is a problem for the casual viewer. The one not on social media, talking about it, they just like the show and tune in when a season shows up because they remember enough to be happy to see it continue. These people AREN’T getting constant reminders and don’t have a deep enough connection with the show to remember every episode in vivid detail. They aren’t going to be theorizing about something that feels solved. And they sure aren’t going to care about a side character who hasn’t had anything happen with them for half a season or more. This is where the fact that foreshadowing usually precipitates a moment that works in the narrative no matter what is actually really important. A moment that doesn’t get contradicted by what the normal status quote of the show is. It instead builds on what the status quote is with a twist on elements you thought were normal but weren’t. “Too little, too late” happens when the casual viewer has no reason to even care. When even if the emotion might be good or the character well written, a normal viewer might reasonably go, “UGH, this character? With this plot? I THOUGHT WE WERE DONE WITH THIS!” because... The story led them to believe that. That’s where solving plot hooks and forgetting to reintroduce becomes even worse. And the real death knell? When the scale no longer matches the plot hook you abandoned. That whole ‘month later’ thing from the metaphor isn’t just about literal time. It’s also about scale. Dealing with an issue like your school bullies or the tenuous friendship you have with a reformed ex-bully makes sense to pursue when the issues you are dealing with are on par or a bit higher. If the characters are still going to a school, or starting to expand the settings and threats they’re dealing with beyond that, those plot hooks make sense with the setting and tone. If you’ve expanded to worrying about a small god destroying an entire realm on a whim or an army is actively on your trail, etc. like that... You have gone too far to deal with that plot point. A viewer has every right to not want to bother with this small stuff when other characters might be dealing with the potential deaths of loved ones, how they’re going to handle the threat, or just literally anything to do with what is happening in the narrative currently, not what happened back when whether or not you could prove yourself to crush was a big deal. At that point, this better be genuinely something CRUCIAL to the narrative or... Maybe you could have just decided to throw it away. Focus on what is there and what does matter to the narrative because when the time for these plot hooks made sense is just... gone. You’ve done too little and it’s too late. Even if you put a lot of heart and love into that sandwich you made, into this thing your friend wanted, the right thing to do as a friend is to throw it away and figure how else you can do what you want. Because no one wants that month old sandwich and you didn’t even refrigerate to give it a chance of survival, you obviously cared so little.

#Willow #The Owl House #Jumbled Thoughts

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andiwriteordie · 1 year

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Hello <3 we have been moots too long without me sending an ask.

Anyways, what do you think the hopper-byers christmas would be like?

ahhhh hi hello!!! i love this ask omg thank you for sending it 😭❤️💚

see, the thing about the byers-hopper/hopper-byers family christmas is that it's so wonderfully insane.

the first real christmas that they get to spend together (because nobody is counting the years they lived in hawkins during the apocalypse) comes around right after vecna is defeated and the world is saved. i like to think that all of this comes full circle and ends around november 6, which means their family has a little over a month now to find a new home (goodbye hawkins, which has been destroyed like all the small-minded, small town ideals it has represented) and celebrate christmas together.

somehow, some way, hopper and joyce manage to buy a home in this short period of time, which you know... should be difficult considering hopper is legally dead, but hey owens remember that time you like didn't really help our son who was being stalked by an eldritch horror and also that time you sorta kinda kidnapped our daughter (yeah, yeah, she went willingly but still wtf owens) and brought her back to her primary abuser? dude, you owe us. and owens is like... "mm yeah, i'm here to help." and gets all of them a home in like... an indy suburb or something.

it's great! the five of them spend most of the months of nov/dec finding furniture, setting up their new home, and getting adjusted to all living in the same space now. and it's somewhere in the first couple weeks of december that el declares that—as a new family and with it being their first christmas together—they have to create christmas traditions. just like all the ones she's seen on tv shows and movies.

nobody in the byers-hopper family is traditional though, and nothing about their family is traditional, so even though all of them are like... "yes, absolutely, we love this idea" things just are completely chaotic. between the five of them, they decide that each person in the family will get to make one christmas tradition that they'll try out together, and it's just... pure chaos.

so, for starters, the five of them go to a christmas tree farm and try to pick out a tree, except the axe gets stuck and hopper is grumbling trying to get it out, jonathan and will are trying to help, joyce is shaking her head, and el decides enough is enough and knocks over the tree with her powers... also then knocking down several other trees in the nearby vicinity. it's fine. they get their christmas tree.

also, christmas sweaters. el insists they have to have christmas sweaters for christmas, right? except money is still a little tight and christmas sweaters are expensive, so the family all goes together to thrift christmas sweaters, and it's pure chaos together, and there's one sweater that el really wants that some lady has already snatched up... so if will uses his own powers to distract the woman so jonathan can steal it out of her cart and buy it for their sister, nobody needs to know, right? certainly not their dad, who is a former police chief. and now, they've got 5, mismatched, polyester sweaters with atrocious christmas designs on them, and el is beaming the entire car ride home.

there's christmas cookies too. that's joyce's idea, and hopper and el are totally on board with it! but jonathan and will, um... they are a little wary of this idea. they love their mom, of course, and her food is okay... but her baking is, uh... questionable at best. and jonathan has become a pretty good cook over the years of growing up, but he's never really dabbled in baking. joyce ends up attempting to make cookies (she definitely burns them), but would you look at that? hopper and el are actually surprisingly good at baking. so they take over and make a fresh batch, and the five of them sit down together and decorate little christmas cookies in the shape of stockings and ornaments and snowmen and trees.

christmas movie night is something that happens at hopper's insistence, because he'll be damned if his children don't learn to watch the classics. jonathan is a film snob though, so god knows he's giving hopper a hard time for his movie choices, while joyce and will just shake their heads (they're used to this, after years of living with jonathan) and el is shushing all of them and trying to get them to shut the hell up. they get through about 2 movies before they start falling asleep. hop's the first to go—passed out on the recliner. the twins fall asleep next, all curled up next to each other under a blanket. jonathan and joyce are the only ones to make it to the end of the movie, and joyce asks her oldest kid if he really didn't like the movies. and in a rarer, more mischievous side of jonathan that most people don't know exists, he admits that no... he's fine with most of these movies. they're not his cup of tea, but they're fine for what they are. it's just fun to see hop get a little agitated.

will's idea is to decorate gingerbread houses (oh, would you look at that? the artist wants to have an artsy tradition lol) and compete against each other. somehow, their competition lands on a night when mike and nancy are in town and visiting, so the family of 5 becomes a family of 7 for the night. they split into teams of 2—byler, jancy, jopper, and el, who is SO damn determined to win and stubbornly insists that she will beat the rest of them on her own. it's pure madness. will is good at decorating the houses because he's a painter, it translates, right? but mike is clumsy and definitely smudges everything will makes. jonathan is good at building the houses, but nancy has a very particular vision that just isn't working, because the two of them don't have any artistic skills. and joyce and hopper? yeah, their house barely stands up. both of them are cursing, which the kids all find hilarious. the gingerbread house ends up on the floor in pieces.

(el ends up winning. her gingerbread house is beautifully created, and it actually stands up. will and mike bicker with her for a little bit, because they're a close second, but everyone else in the family sides with el this time. the three of them definitely promise to have a rematch the following christmas though.)

and finally, jonathan's idea is one that he keeps hidden from the rest of his family. the five of them—they've been talking about adopting a dog for a while, and it's on their list of things to do once 1989 rolls around. but everyone wants one. el loves animals, and hopper likes dogs a lot too. joyce loved chester when he was around, and even will is more ready to have a dog in the house again and feels confident it won't trigger his ptsd the way chester used to in 1983. so, jonathan recruits nancy's help (and mike's, but mostly just to distract the rest of his family), and he goes and picks up a little golden retriever puppy.

(the puppy stays at the wheeler house until christmas. karen loves him. ted thinks he's a demon. holly wants to keep him. nancy and mike almost don't give him back lol.)

jonathan tricks his family into thinking his christmas gift/tradition is just something simple. he's a photographer first and foremost. he just wants them to all have an annual family christmas picture, so he tells them after he gets back from giving nancy her gift, he'll get his tripod up and all of them will sit on the couch together and get a little picture together that they can hang up in their home. of course, jonathan picks up the family's puppy, who is in a little box he and nancy wrapped, and he brings it home to them, allowing his family to open it.

and jonathan gets to capture all the magic as the rest of his family meets the final member of the byers-hopper fam on christmas.

after the initial shock wears off, jonathan does actually go through with the christmas picture tradition, and so he sets up with tripod across the room and quickly runs and sits next to el, who is holding the puppy, and all five of them—six with their new dog—smile at the camera and get their first family picture together.

jonathan doesn't shoot polaroid, so he's got no clue if it's a good one, but hey, they take a couple. there are definitely some chaotic ones there—especially when the puppy decides to pee on will's lap.

but when all's said and done and the five of them are sitting around the dining room table together and thinking about all they've been through together and about this chaotic month of creating christmas traditions together, there's not a single thing any of them would change. they're keeping all the traditions, even some (all?) of them were a little chaotic, because these traditions are theirs. and this christmas season is the first of many they'll get to spend together.

(el does ask jonathan if he intends on bringing a new pet home every christmas. hopper is very quick to shut this idea down.)

#andi's asks #byers hopper family #hopper byers family #this was so fun #merry christmas to everyone who celebrates!#ficlet

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venfx · 3 years

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magnus fic roundup

as tma comes to a close, i thought i'd post some of my favorite fics to come out of this fandom. most of these are classics, listed in no particular order.

A Weather In The Flesh by @cuttoothed | 3K | S1-S4 | Jon/Martin | Complete

"There is a span of years where Jon doesn’t touch anyone other than the occasional hand shake. It’s not so bad. He’s never been someone who’s needed physical affection."

Jon has never been any good at making people want to stick around.

↳ this is such a well-done exploration of jon’s character and his relationship with touch, and i’ve re-read it at least five times. sweet and sad and phenomenally well-written.

in the chillest land and on the strangest sea by imperfectcircle, singlecrow | 20K | Safehouse, S1-S4 | Jon & Daisy, Jon/Martin | Complete

Jon remembers a statement he read years ago given by a Jesuit priest, who said that the shortest prayer he knew was, just, fuck it, as in fuck it; it's in God's hands. He takes Daisy's hand and trails on after her.

or; hope is a thing with feathers.

↳ hey, you wanna fuckin..... feel things? read this.

The Magnus Institute hires a Data Protection Officer. He sets about diligently booking in meetings, writing policy documents, and training all the staff in the importance of confidentiality. Now if only he could get hold of the Head Archivist, who seems to have vanished again...

(Jon is only trying to save the world, but apparently some people think he should still be doing his day job.)

↳ i’d be surprised to find people who haven’t read this series, but it’s the definition of “the magnus archives is a workplace comedy”. also, alasdair stuart has actually read some clips of this on Twitch, so that’s a fun bonus.

In accordance with the Ride or Die Pact of 2009, Jonathan Sims can call upon Georgie Barker at any time for aid with no strings attached. Despite their rocky history, their childhood friendship, and Jon’s barely recovered alcoholism, this pact is sacred and must be upheld.

Georgie Barker may regret this. She may regret it when she discovers that the world is full of monsters and eldritch gods and dickhead managers. She may regret it when a punk rocker who should be dead collapses on their doorstep, a teenager again who needs their help. She may regret it when her stupid ex-boyfriend starts selling his soul for knowledge and the ability to keep his new family safe.

But she probably won’t. Georgie isn’t scared of anything - not a Clown’s apocalypse, not the apocalypse that Jon is destined to begin, and not Jon’s own loss of humanity.

Maybe she should be.

↳ if you’re looking for an everyone-lives-no-one-dies-happy-ending fic that also happens to be massively chaotic, look no further.

The Reverb in These Holy Halls by @wolftraps | 98K | AU, S1-S4 | Jon/Martin | Complete

Undoing the apocalypse would have been enough for Jon, if all his people survived. Without them, Jon's only recourse is making it so it never happened in the first place. He's going to do better this time.

↳ quintessential time travel AUs. plot-wise, i feel like these can be difficult to write, but op does a fantastic job of tying things together in a way that makes sense. plus, it’s just fun to read.

jon sims v the nhs by @thoughtsbubble | 12K | Series | S3 | Complete

Joan Bright has a new patient. He's carrying an old tape recorder and is covered head to toe in scars. Jonathan Sims looks dangerous, but Dr Bright has dealt with all sorts of atypical individuals. She has no reason to be nervous.

Right?

↳ if you’ve ever thought “hey, jon should probably go to therapy”, then 1) you’re absolutely right and 2) this is... probably what would’ve happened. prior knowledge of The Bright Sessions is not required. also, apparently, this fic is written by the showrunner of The Underwood Collection? wild.

Family, Found by Dribbledscribbles | 9K | S4 | Complete

It’s Basira who catches onto it.

The collective shift that seems to come over them when heading in or out of the Institute. Not just the oppressive sensation of being observed, their every move catalogued for the voyeuristic cravings of some unseen Eye(s). That feeling remained with them even when they left the Institute these days, but it was always stronger inside its walls. That wasn’t the change. Nor was it the point.

The point was: making life worse for Jonathan Sims.

↳ i think being part of the avengers fandom circa 2012 has given me permanent found-family-trope brainrot, but you know what. jonathan sims can have a little happiness, as a treat.

n. an important moment of insight, typically one that leads to a dramatic transformation of attitude or belief

Or, in which Tim becomes an avatar for the end of all things.

↳ tim dies and then he doesn’t. there is catharsis and world building. just....read it.

Come, Change Your Ring With Me by @backofthebookshelf | 29K | S3 | Peter/Jon, Jon/Martin, Peter/Elias | Complete

The Lukases demand the Archivist marry into the family, and the Institute relies on them too much to say no. Peter is smug. Elias is fuming. Martin is suffering. Jon thinks this might be tolerable if only Peter would hurry up and leave him alone already.

OR, the soap opera we call an Archives revolves around Peter Lukas this time.

↳ superb evil-bastards-in-love content, feat. martin pining, tim being obnoxious, and jon being... well, tired, mostly. i will literally never get tired of how op writes peter.

creatures that i briefly move along by @dotsayers | 16K | Series | AU, Post-S4 | background Jon/Martin

Mr Sims was so weird, was the thing. Miss Grant always said calling people weird was rude, and Anna sort of agreed, but she didn’t know what other word to use to describe Mr Sims.

He’d only been in with the class for a few days, really, and half of that he just sat at the back listening, but that didn’t stop her from making a swift judgement. 5BG had had student teachers before, back when they were 3ST, and they’d been uniformly normal.

Mr Sims was… actually, Anna had a better adjective. He was interesting.

↳ i just.... love teacher!jon fics. this series delivers.

Once Bitten by @apatheticbutterflies | 1K | S4 | Jon & Daisy | Complete

Jon Sims has always been a jumpy kind of guy. Nervous. Twitchy. Daisy used to think it meant he was guilty. Turns out he was. Just not of what she’d thought.

Daisy learns how to peel an orange.

↳ daisy and jon’s relationship is an example of an instance where i’m happy to say “fuck what you wrote mr. jonny ‘chocolate torte of tragedy’ sims, i want them to be friends”.

pins and needles by mutterandmumble | 13K | S1-S4 | Complete

He’s got a reputation to uphold anyways; an uptight, rigid reputation that dictates the way that he interacts and functions and is such an integral part of him that he can’t let go of it anytime soon. He likes his safety nets. He likes his contingencies. He likes his privacy, and everything around this place right down to the walls seems to have ears, so he’ll stay tight-lipped up to and beyond the threat of death.

He’s good at that.

In which Jon takes up embroidery and bumbles through life the best that he can.

↳ out of all the introspective jon pieces i’ve read (and there are many), this one stands out. maybe it’s the symbolism or the characterisation, or maybe it’s the fact that i have an embroidery kit lurking in the back of my closet along with a hundred other half-pursued hyperfixations. whatever. this is excellent.

sleeping in by @ivelostmyspectacles | 5K | S2 | Jon/Tim | Complete

“Who are you trying to convince?”

Jon gives up, letting his head sag against Tim’s shoulder. “I don’t know.”

aka Elias gets tired of Jon and Tim's bickering, sends them away for a "team-building" weekend trip, and is sure to book them a room with only one bed

↳ this has everything you’d need from a “oh no there’s only one bed” fic. someone please get these men therapy.

if you try, sometimes (you get what you knead) by @ajcrawly | 3.5K | S1-S4 | Jon/Martin, Tim/Sasha | Complete

It starts with an abundance of boeuf bourguignon and ends up as a team tradition.

Food and love in uncertain times.

↳ more found family fic, this time with a diverse og!archival staff and food as a metaphor for love. hurt in all the right ways. made me hungry in the process.

#tried to keep this shortish but i might just make a part 2 #people in this fandom are crazy talented #tma #the magnus archives #tma fic recs #fic recs #long post #txt #mine

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inkdemonapologist · 3 years

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scribbles from Session 2 of the current Bendy Call of Cthulhu game, where everyone’s having a normal one!!!

After an actually very pleasant evening meal (there was cake!), things got weird fast,

Joey started “talking to himself” in his empty hotel room but got evasive and weird and physically shoved everyone out when the others went to demand an explanation

Sammy tried to sleepwalk into traffic, completely entranced by Those Weird Symbols which apparently “feel like ink,” and got real Prophety for a bit when the others woke him up

Joey got him to chill out by calling after him in two voices at once (?!?!?)

After Sammy finally came to his sense and we all went back to get a little sleep, Joey finally showed us why he’s been so intent on wearing a hat everywhere lately and explained that hE IS POSSESSED BY BENDY CURRENTLY, so that Bendy could get some help remaining stable and come on the trip with us, WHICH IS, FINE. Just let eldritch horrors possess your mortal form that’s fine. Also Bendy needs a regular supply of ink to remain stable, so Joey’s been drinking ink, which is, also fine,

Anyway here’s some contextless quotes under the readmore:

[Sammy is played by me, Joey is played by Boo (inkyvendingmachine), Henry is played by Maf (inkcryptid), Jack is played by Mochi (whatyouwantedmetosee)and Thren (haunted-hijinxer) is our GM!]

[Sammy] So yeah, if you roll under a 5 on a d100, then Jack has SOMEHOW seen this occult symbol before. [Jack] Y'know, I'm gonna roll, just because it'd be REALLY funny if he succeeded. [Henry] Yeah! You can do it, Jack! [Jack] oH MY GOODNESS [Sammy]....what did you roll, [Jack] I roLLED A FOUR,,, [Sammy] Jack I JUST told you not to look at symbols what are you DOING

[Jack] He just used to have an ex who was really into the occult, it's fine -- [Sammy] (his name is Joey Drew,)

[GM] The location of the body is about 30 feet from the nearest building. [Sammy] Ah. So he fell out of the SKY. [GM] Unless he was a very impressive long jumper!

[Joey] Joey did not get candles because it seemed... a bit unfortunate that Bendy was not able to join us -- [Sammy] Sammy doesn't care. [Joey] -- but we can still celebrate -- [Sammy] He's here for cake.

[GM] Is everybody drinking responsibly this time? [Henry] Well Henry's not stuffing four drinks down himself if that's what you're asking!!

[Sammy] There's gotta be at least ONE nice thing about this trip. [Sammy] And it's this cake. That's it.

[Henry] Henry might try to get that book from Joey -- [Joey] Which book? [Henry] The yellow symbol one. [Joey] Um, Joey's gonna hold onto the one with the weird symbol on the cover, because he hasn't had a chance to cover up the symbol and he wants to do that first, but if Henry wants to look at Alice in Wonderland, he can have that one! [Henry] ...maybe tomorrow. [Joey] Joey seems ofFENDED at this.

[Sammy] That's the best roll I'll ever have in this entire scenario. [Henry] Sammy's listening very hard. [Sammy] Sammy's trying to sleep, therefore he hears Every Noise.

[Joey] It was the first night that Joey took Jack out to a dinner to kind of, y'know, spoil him, [Joey] a Thanks For Not Being Super Weird About Our Occult Stuff And Sorry You Got Dragged Into This dinner,

[Sammy] Sammy's not TRYING to be handsome, he's just accidentally really hot.

[Joey, the lowest physical stats of the whole group] He's going to more desperately try to just like, shove them out the door I guess!!! [Sammy, the highest physical stats of the whole group] Yeah! Give that a shot! SEE HOW THAT GOES

[GM] Henry swears he saw a third hand shoving Sammy out the door. [Henry] *uncertain* ......we know how many hands Joey has, right?

[Sammy] I was going to suggest that he's possessed, but... that's not a symptom I'm familiar with. [Henry] I'm pretty sure I didn't get extra limbs last time. [GM] (He just THOUGHT he did!) [Henry] (Well, he thought he was three whole people.) [Joey] (THATS SO MANY LIMBS!!)

[Sammy] I want an explanation. [Joey] *innocently* For what? [Sammy] The list grows longer!

[Henry] You know what happened last time you hid stuff from us, Joey... please... try to be smart, [Sammy] .............. (we know it's hard for you,)

[Sammy, explaining to Jack] ...I mentioned dying, in Haiti, [Henry] Oh, we're going into this, then, okay-- [Sammy] *muttering* You’re the one who brought up being possessed, [Sammy] Joey and I were possessing Henry for a significant portion of the trip. [Henry] For longer than the trip itself! [Sammy] well i wasn't going to go into THAT, [Henry] Well I-- uh-- I-- ...I should shush.

[Jack] So what do I have to roll to see how well Jack processes this? [Joey] How many nightmares do you have tonight? [GM] *cheerfully opening Weird Dream files* At least one!

[GM] You could make a Brawl check to hold on, if you're trying to make sure Sammy doesn't walk away from you. [Sammy] Brawl Check: Just Deck 'Im. [Henry] Henry will try! [Sammy] ....he's gonna try to deck him????

[GM] I feel like this might apply to the Charm skill, because you're a good... cajoler of Sammies, [Jack] *laughing* I'm actually SLIGHTLY BETTER at Persuade, because I'm down to 69 Charm for the joke!!

[Joey] But Joey's going to say it with two voices at once. [Sammy] HMMMMMMMMMMM,,, [Henry] eXCUSE ME? [Jack] Is Jack the only one here who doesn't have someone else in his head?! [Henry] Well Henry doesn't currently, [Jack] Give him five minutes.

[Joey] I think Joey's actually probably going to crack open that book now. [Jack] I honestly thought you were going to say "a drink" [Jack] Crack open a cold one with the son boy

[Jack] Jack is going to do all of the motions of going to bed except for the one part that's the most important.

[Sammy] The rest of us will go down and meet with Peter. [Sammy] Oh -- no, just realised, Sammy would call him "Pete" because he doesn't know that nicknames aren't transitive.

[Sammy] What IS it with people in masks??? [GM] ..................says Sammy,

[Sammy] All we've learned is that Trenchcoat Guy is super suspicious! Big shocker, I know.

[Jack] Jack is going to respond with a very eloquent, "UHHHHH,,,,"

[GM] You probably would get a Bendy voice popping up at that point saying "Joey's not actually drinking it, I am!" [Henry] Oh, hey Bendy. [GM] He maybe borrows a hand to wave. [Henry] (HOW'S IT FEEL, JOEY!!!!)

[Jack] I also had a hunch about the horns once it became more apparent that Joey was very specifically trying to keep a hat on all the time. [Jack] But very briefly, when he was like "and he takes his hat off to reveal--" my brain was like, what if it isn't horns, what if there's just a very small Lurker, [Sammy] Just pulling on his hair like Ratatouille,

[GM] Jack is pretty sure that whoever wrote this play wrote it to induce paranoia and mental distress. It seems baked in. [Henry] Well it's working on Henry! Henry wants to go home!

[Jack] #JustWorkingAtJDSThings

[GM] Make some sort of persuade-type roll! [Sammy] My... my only one is Intimidate, so that's what I'm using! [Jack] oH BOY [Jack] what do I roll to stop Sammy from whatever he's about to say?!

[Jack] Everyone else better be on their best behaviour! [Joey] Joey puts away his lockpicks for now.

[GM] You do see a microfilm machine, which is quite large at this point in time, [Jack] Not very micro, then,

[Jack] See if his Prophet senses are tingling! [Sammy] THATS THE OTHER GUY

[GM] It's kind of remarkable how little there is that talks about this guy's personal life in his desk! [Joey] There's no, like, locked drawers or anything? [Jack] No copy of his autobiography, talking about how gay he is?

[Jack] He's not going to mess with things. He's a polite boy. [Sammy] The rude boys have left the building. [GM] Only polite boys left!

[GM] It surely would never happen again! [Jack] One-of-a-kind, one-time-only, completely exclusive, if you didn't go you'll never get the fancy new shirt, [Jack] Hashtag I Was At The Cult Police Raid And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt And Put In An Asylum

[Sammy] Well, now we can have some new trauma! We've had time to process this trauma, we're ready for more; that's how it works, right? [GM] That's good, because you need to roll Sanity checks for those dreams!

#call of cthulu: haunted hijinx #sammy lawrence #Henry Stein #Jack Fain #joey drew #when in doubt just keep drawing #EVERYONES HAVING A GREAT TIME #joey drew of course makes Only Good Decisions

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justanotherpersonsuniverse · 3 years

Text

Game Master Akuma AU by crisisdparity

Xavier Duchamp was rather proud of himself. What he had before him was an absolute masterpiece of a campaign if he did say so himself. The product of over six months of study, research, and rebalancing efforts followed by two weeks of discussion with his five players to hash out schedules, meeting times, characters, backstories, potential character arcs, and getting them set up with a messaging app that was really good for sending discrete messages between the GM and the players. Valentine and her boyfriend Justin were onboard in an instant. Within days, he’d greenlighted their Half-Elf Bard of the College of Glamour whose spell list was 100% Illusion spells and Half-Orc Fighter (Eldritch Knight) who was focusing entirely on Abjuration as Rena Rouge and Carapace respectively. Olivia had spent a few days coming up with a Halfling Rogue and debating subclasses with him until settling on Scout. Along with some discussion over how her special magic item’s stunning and paralysis effect would work with Sneak Attack, the campaign had its Vesperia. Jeanette had gone back and forth with him for a week looking at various homebrew subclasses for her Gnome Artificer before they both agreed on one particular Master Tinkerer entry that would be balanced and do the character justice. And with that they had their Ladybug. Even Matt was on board with a stealthy human Chat the Barbarian using the Path of the Beast. The class choice was something Matt had insisted on (and that Xavier would have suggested anyway just for the high hit point totals given Matt’s history with characters dying) and he’d even come up with a backstory that Xavier felt was quite compelling compared to Matt’s usual efforts. Morally ambiguous, likely to be tempted by promises of power, but with a great deal of story potential to work with. Which was a relief. Getting a new player into their group to replace Matt was not something Xavier really felt comfortable with. There were too many unknowns with introducing a new person, far too many for him to risk his masterpiece on an unknown factor. He knew Matt. He could work with Matt. Despite the history. He’d put everything he had into this. Every known Akuma ever fought by the heroes had been made into a boss-tier foe. He’d carefully documented each and every power the heroes had shown to craft special legendary magic items based on the Miraculous. Hawkmoth and Mayura themselves were going to be the final bosses of his campaign. In response to criticism about the difficulty of his campaigns (he tried to make them fair, but still challenging enough to be memorable), he’d made several guest NPCs based on every other hero that had ever been called upon, statted out like player characters that might show up in a pinch to help. He even had a genuine Deus ex Machina that he was ready to use to get the players out of a truly impossible jam if they found themselves in one. Not always, but a few times at least. Enough to get them to the point where they wouldn’t need it anymore. —– It was thirty minutes in, right in the middle of exposition from the Guardian NPC, when Xavier got his first message on the app. Matt/Chat - Chat’s going to wait until everyone breaks up and follow Ladybug stealthily. Xavier/GM - Starting party conflict on the first session? Not what I’d advise, but it’s your character. Go ahead and make your Stealth roll now. Matt/Chat - <photo> 17 Xavier/GM - Yeah, that beats everyone’s passive Perception easily. You’ll sneak off handily without anyone noticing. —– “Jeanette, Ladybug is grabbed from behind by an unknown assailant. Roll to resist the grapple.” “Geez, already? Okay, what did my assailant get for their grapple? How screwed am I?” Xavier pretended to roll a die while consulting the message from Matt. “19.” “Okay, difficult, but not undoable… Crap.” “What’d you get?” “Nat 1…” “Hah! I rip off her earrings and claim them for myself! The Wish is mine!” “Seriously Matt?! What the hell?!” “Because it’s payback time! Payback for every character of mine killed in these hellish

campaigns!” “Oh, come on! You’re not the only person whose had a character die at this table! <GM> runs some pretty challenging campaigns, but they’re always fair!” “What about the time he killed Allric the Allmighty in a single round of combat?” “Dude, you tried to Leroy Jenkins straight into melee with a 4th-level Wizard that had a CON penalty. Even at full health you had like 10 hp.” “14!” “Not much better, dude.” “Guys, it’s fine. I can handle this. Okay, Matt. Chat the Barbarian managed to get the earrings-” “Yeah, Ladybug screams bloody murder when he rips them out. Good luck getting out of this in one piece.” “The moment Rena hears Ladybug scream, she bolts for the sound.” “So does Carapace.” “Vesperia too.” “-and with their current locations and movement speeds, I assume you’re all using the Dash action?, you’ve got maybe one round to decide on your Wish before they’re all over you, so choose carefully. And be aware that I plan to grant whatever you wish for in the worst possible way, just as I would if any of the others pulled this.” “Rena screams ‘What the HELL, Chat?! We’re supposed to protect the Miraculous, not use them for our own selfish purposes! Didn’t you listen to the Guardian? Such actions always bring misfortune upon those who misuse the Miraculous!’” “Because I am Chat, avatar of Destruction and I WISH THIS WORLD NEVER EXISTED!” There was dead silence at the table. “Matt… What… just… WHAT?!” “Hah! You like that?! How does it feel now that the shoe’s on the other foot, huh?!” “What the hell is your problem, Matt?!” “My problem? MY problem?! Do you know how much time I’ve spent making characters for these shitty campaigns only to have them turned into paste in one session?!” “Because you made primary spellcasters and played every last one of them like a barbarian, charging in headfirst without thinking! All of us breathed a sigh of relief when you revealed that your character finally matched your playstyle!” “I HATE BARBARIANS! THEY’RE BORING! I SHOULD GET TO PLAY CHARACTERS THAT CAN AT LEAST CHUCK FIREBALLS!” “THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULD STOP RUNNING THEM FACE FIRST INTO ENEMY SWORDS!” “NONE OF YOU COULD EVER HANDLE THE FACT THE I MAKE MORE AWESOME CHARACTERS THAN ANY OF YOU, SO YOU JUST LET THIS DOUCHEBAG KILL THEM OFF SO YOU WOULDN’T GET OVERSHADOWED BY HOW AMAZING I AM! WELL NOW I KILLED SOMETHING YOU ALL WORKED HARD ON, SO SUCK IT! I’M DONE WITH ALL OF YOU FOREVER!” “MATT! HEY! GET BACK HERE YOU JERK! MATT!” “Crap, I think Olivia might actually kill him this time…” “It’s going to take all of us to stop her from getting arrested at least.” Xavier just watched numbly as the rest of the group ran out of his apartment. Over six months of work. Gone in less than an hour. He’d given so much to making sure this would work. He’d apologized to Matt at least twice for every character of his that had died to get him to come back. He’d agreed to demand after demand just to keep a familiar face on board, never dreaming he’d pull something like this. He’d nearly gotten fired from his job trying to rearrange his schedule to fit with everyone else’s. They’d somehow, miraculously, gotten the whole day with no other obligations among any of them and decided to make the first session a true marathon. They’d meet in the morning after breakfast and eat both lunch and dinner at the game table before calling it a night late in the evening. It was barely 10:00 in the morning and the whole campaign he’d slaved over for months was kaput. He never noticed the butterfly landing on his custom Miraculous-themed Game Master screen and being absorbed into it. “Game Master, I am Hawkmoth. Few people appreciate the kind of effort that goes into making something truly grand and memorable. I shall give you the power to bring your entire world to life and in return, I ask only for a few simple things.” This was wrong. Hawkmoth was the worst of the worst. The kind of person who would be at home among all the final bosses he’d ever made for his campaigns. Heartless, manipulative, cruel. “Not

enough? Ah, but what is a game without players? How would you like to have the Miraculous heroes themselves run your great campaign? Surely they would be far more appreciative than those ungrateful peons that left you alone with nothing but the broken remains of your efforts.” He knew all these things, but the allure of bringing the world he’d spent so much time on to life… What creator could ever turn down an offer like that? “I, the Game Master, accept… Hawkmoth.” “Excellent. And in exchange, you shall bring me one of two things: The Miraculous, or the identities of their wielders.” “No.” Hawkmoth was silent for a moment. “I beg your pardon?” “I said no. I am the Game Master. I make the world. I craft the challenges. I decide the rewards. But I do not do anything for anyone. If you want these things, get them yourself.” “If you refuse me, it shall be very unpleasant for you.” “No. As Game Master, I decide the limits of all powers within my realm. And I decide that you have none over me.” And with that, he unleashed his creation over all of Paris, drawing everyone and everything within into his sphere of influence. —– Ladybug blinked the spots (ha) out of her eyes as the flash of light died down and looked at herself. She didn’t remember transforming, but she was clearly in her spots. Except her red and black superhero uniform didn’t usually look like it was headed to a steampunk convention. Looking around, she tried to figure out what had happened and her eyes landed on a familiar belt and pants combo. Problem. Whoever this was, their groin was at eye level for her. She looked up. And up. To find a grinning Chat Noir, sans anything resembling a shirt and having put on at least a foot of height and apparently a hundred pounds of pure muscle, grinning down at her. “How’s the weather down there?” Chat Noir chuckled as he flexed his unfairly attractive muscleman physique. “I WILL END YOU!” the heroine snarled, already 100% done with whatever new insanity Hawkmoth had cooked up. Characters: Ladybug - Gnome Artificer (Master Tinkerer - Homebrew) Chat Noir - Human Barbarian (Path of the Beast) —– Vesperia had to admit, as Akuma attacks went, this was pretty dope. She was currently a halfling. A halfling! If it wasn’t for her fantasy ensemble being yellow and black, she’d have thought she stepped straight out of Lord of the Rings. Of course, fantasy setting or not, there were still things she’d have rather left back in the real world. Like racism. And stigma against mixed couples. Not directed at her, but rather at the two walking down the street next to her. “You know, people are staring…” she said as she craned her head to look at her companions. “Let them,” the Half-Elf Rena Rouge (who looked like a cross between a musician and a belly dancer) said from her perch atop the shoulders of the heavily armored (and surprisingly buff) Half-Orc Carapace. “They’re just jealous because their boyfriends can’t carry them everywhere.” Characters: Vesperia - Halfling Rogue (Scout) Rena Rouge - Half-Elf Bard (College of Glamour) Carapace - Half-Orc Fighter (Eldritch Knight) —– Ryuko blinked as she studied the apparent snake-man-thing before her who claimed to be Viperion. She lifted a hand to study it and found what appeared to be bronze scales covering every inch of her skin. She sniffed herself, smelling the sharp tang of ozone. What was she? And why did she appear to be wearing wooden armor? Characters: Ryuko - Dragonborn (bronze) Druid (Circle of Storms - Third Party) Viperion - Naga Sorcerer (Divination Magic - Homebrew) —– Polymouse giggled as her friends ran over her. Okay, she’d freaked out a little to find a swarm of mice (with hair like hers no less) crawling all over her surprisingly mouse-like body when she’d come to in the middle of some forest somewhere. But she’d gotten over it pretty quickly. It helped that her new friends were adorable. It might help more if she could figure out where she was. Or find another person. Characters: Polymouse - Kobold

(rodentlike) Ranger (Swarmkeeper - Reskinned) —– Purple Tigress sighed as she felt the hair (fur?) on the top of her head being shifted around and twitched her new catlike ears in mild annoyance. “Are you quite done?” “Almost!” Pigella’s cheerful voice answered. “Your fur is so comfy!” Tigress sighed. Of course Pigella would end up being a fairy, and having her normal cheerful enthusiasm cranked up to previously unimagined levels. “I love you dearly, but if you start shouting 'hey listen’ I will stick you in a bottle.” “Aw, I love you too! Hey, what’s that?” “I think it’s my character sheet?” Characters: Purple Tigress - Tabaxi Paladin (Oath of Glory) Pigella - Fairy Cleric (Order Domain - Reskinned) —– “According to my analysis, we have been placed into what appears to be a Dungeons and Dragons campaign under 5th edition rules,” Pegasus stated in a mechanical monotone. “I am apparently a Warforged Wizard using the School of Conjuration whose spells create portals to bridge dimensions and summon or banish my intended targets. You are what is known as a Simic Hybrid, with the class of Monk, following the Way of the Drunken Master.” “Aweshum,” King Monkey slurred, his generally human appearance clad in monk’s robes marred by his monkey-like hands and feet as well as the monkey tail swishing behind him. “Why do you keep slurring like that? According to my sensors, your gourd is filled with only water.” “Gotta keep up appearanshes!” King Monkey grinned as he continued faking drunkenness. Characters: Pegasus - Warforged Wizard (School of Conjuration - Reskinned) King Monkey - Simic Hybrid Monk (Way of the Drunken Master) —– Hawkmoth studied the dark red horns growing out of his head in the mirror. The change in appearance was disconcerting, but he felt a rush of power in this new form that he’d never felt before. “Hmm… perhaps I can work with this…” “Speak for yourself…” Mayura muttered off to the side, ruffling her peacock-like feathers in annoyance as she tried to glare at the beak on her own face. Characters: Hawkmoth - Tiefling Dark Lord, Warlock Patron, Contracted by Lila Rossi, Volpina, Queen Wasp, and many others. Mayura - Kenku Assistant to the Dark Lord, Creator of Monsters —– “Oh, come on!” A figure in a cyan and white hooded robe complained as they waved a similarly colored umbrella around angrily. “Everyone else gets to be part of this adventure, why can’t I join them?” “Because you’re too OP. You’d completely break everything and remove all challenge from the adventure.” “But sitting around is no fun at all!” “If you like, I can put you in the position of the main quest giver. Your job would be to direct them towards their enemies and means of becoming stronger.” “That’s it?! I’m on 'mysterious hooded figure’ duty? Boo! Why can’t I fight with them?!” “Because you’re too OP. But if you insist, I’ll allow some Deus ex Machina interventions.” “YES!” “Five.” “I’m sorry?” “I’ll allow five interventions at your discretion to aid them when they are in peril. Once you have come to their aid five times, I will allow no more meetings save to impart quest information.” “That’s it?” “Yes. Choose your interventions wisely.” “So… if I manage to save one for when they fight Hawmoth and Mayura in the final battle…?” “Then I would allow you to join them of course.” “Score!” Characters: Bunnyx: Mysterious Hooded Figure, Deus-ex-Machina (5) Game Master: Akuma Lord of the Miraculous Campaign —– Addendum When the Game Master is finally purified and the damage reversed, it turns out that he took the effort to trap all of Paris in a temporal stasis bubble so that no matter how long passed inside no more than a few moments passed outside. Meaning that after what seemed like months in the bubble, it’s basically less than a minute after he was akumatized when everything is put back. All his friends, minus Matt, come back in bringing a new person named Zack that they vetted themselves to take Matt’s place in case he pulled something like what he did. And while he

has a similar playstyle to Matt, he’s savvy enough to know what kind of characters that is suited for and he loves playing barbarians. They all sit back down and restart the game they were all looking forward to.

—-

oh wow- that’s- wow. good job dude, seems like you worked on this a lot. Next time You should post this on your own account though, as this isn’t getting tagged or anything. Thank you though, you did a good job with this.

#submission

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canyouhearthelight · 3 years

Text

The Miys, Ch. 133

Whew. I finally get a chance two queue chapters and add to my buffer! Yayyy me! Kind of long author’s note, feel free to skip to the readmore.

Seriously, though, I managed to only work 5ish hours of OT this week instead of the 25/wk I’ve been clocking the last several weeks. It’s been a ride, for sure. Thank you for bearing with me through this frankly-insane time.

@baelpenrose and I have had more chances to write together in real-time, which considering both our schedules and living 3 timezones apart has been a delightful miracle and I will never take it for granted ever again.

@anotherusrname and @the-raven-fae have been very encouraging of my efforts to work less, which - it turns out - has been a huge concern for oh, my entire family... Sorry I worried you all. :( I’m trying to do better! Swear I have vacations coming up!

@charlylimph-blog has just been... such a support. She literally texts me every night at 10pm my time to tell me to take my most important medications. Sainted Eldritch Fae cannot be appreciated enough, and somehow I have two.

Final shout outs go to @snickerfritz, @just-a-pastel-bunny, and @eldritchmoths for love-bombing my inbox recently. Seeing anyone speed-run through this story lets me know that I’m not wasting my time.

Don’t forget to check out the podcast!! AhhhhH! I want to scream in delight each time a new episode is released!

Focus, I told myself, breath coming in short pants. It was easier said than done, with sweat dripping into my eyes while I constantly tried to pay attention to where I was safe to move to without putting myself in the line of fire. Seeing the incoming hit, I ducked and pivoted to my left -

“Oof,” I grunted as I took a blow to the ribs. I managed not to be winded or fall, but I was pretty sure something just broke.

A voice taunted me. “You have got to get better at keeping your guard up.”

“I am,” I panted. “My ribs are a lot tougher than my face.” Refusing to be distracted, I jumped back from the next hit and started circling wide.

“And I hit harder than your sister.”

Yeah, well broken ribs are for bitches, I thought to myself. It wasn’t like I hadn’t had a broken rib before. I was fine. Out of reflex more than forethought, I pivoted my leg and bent my knee to absorb the shock of the next hit - this one to the thigh. Grabbing the offending leg, I held tight around the calf with one arm before shoving upwards on the heel with the other, dropping him onto his back.

Unfortunately, the kick to the chin I got as a result also landed me on my back.

Like an exceedingly annoying ninja, Arthur sprang to his feet before holding out a hand to help me up off the floor. “You should have expected that.”

I scowled and rubbed my jaw. “Why am I sparring with you again?”

“Because Tyche’s busy and I’m the only other person willing to actually hit you hard enough to teach you anything.”

Rolling my neck, I tried to relieve some of the tension that was setting in. “It’s not like aliens are going to know Terran hand-to-hand combat,” I pointed out as I took my stance for the next round. This time, his movement was a lot more fluid, which told me he was going for grappling instead of striking.

The kick I almost took to the face told me that his stance was also a lie.

There wasn’t any time for trash-talking, this time around. I could barely find time to breathe as he aggressively attacked, although I barely managed to avoid him actually touching me. I wasn’t an idiot - if he got a hold of me, I would be waking up from a forced nap with a sore throat. However, after what felt like an eternity and was probably only about five minutes, the odds of keeping it up were dwindling. My heart was pounding in my ears, my lungs were searing with the effort of trying to keep up with it, and there wasn’t a chance in hell that I had enough stamina to outlast him. The man ran a 5k a day as a warm up. Even more humiliating, I had spent the entire time running and dodging without even a chance to mount a counter to any of it.

Finally, I was spent. Every time I tried to raise my hands, they shook so badly that there was no chance of landing a hit, even if I had the opportunity. My legs were trembling, my knees burned, and the broken rib felt like someone was twisting a hot blade into my side. Feeling defeated, I dropped my hands and squared my feet up. The blow to the solar plexus was unsurprising, as was the chokehold he put me in as soon as I doubled over. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time this had happened while sparring with him - or even with Tyche.

I was so frustrated. No matter how much I sparred with either of them, I felt like I hadn’t gained any ground. The whole point to training so hard was to prove that I actually could defend myself. Councilor or not, the thought that I was going to be shoved in the back of the Archives in the event of an attack was insulting. Not only that, it was even more insulting than the time I had round-the-clock guards. No one else had to put up with this, why did I?

“Tap out, Sophia,” he warned me. He wasn’t squeezing yet, but he had his arm locked tightly enough that I couldn’t get my head out. When I silently refused, he sighed and applied pressure, pissing me off even more.

I’m not helpless, I growled at myself. The anger at myself and the frustration with the situation flooded my mind, and I started pulling against the hold with my legs.

“You’re going to break your neck,” he grunted as he leaned the opposite direction. I may not have had his stamina, but I could also leg-press nearly five-hundred pounds. He could let go, or lean back, no other options.

Spots were floating in front of my eyes when I felt his posture change, and as soon as I felt it, both my arms swung up. Assuming I was going to hit his face, he leaned back even further…

Right into the path of my cupped hands, which hit his ears hard enough to bruise both my hands.

“Ow, FUCK!” he shouted, the pain of his ruptured ear drums distracting him just enough that I was able to pull my head free.

As soon as I stood, he reached up to one of his ears, only to pull his hand away and see blood. “Son of a - “ he stopped when he realized what happened. “Huh. That… that is a pretty neat trick.”

Oh, just you wait, I thought to myself.

Sure enough, as soon as he tried to shift his weight for another assault, he stumbled. Trying to compensate, he made it even worse and ended up falling flat on his back. Dropping his head to the mat in defeat, he splayed his limbs out to try to gain some sense of equilibrium. “Oh that is cool,” he muttered, obviously for my benefit since he couldn’t exactly hear himself.

I managed to get him to his feet and drag him to the corridor as the medical transport arrived - there was no way I was going to try to walk him to a medbay. Once his eardrums were restored - along with his internal balance - Arthur stood and stared me down. “That was a dirty trick, Sophia.” Without warning, I was suddenly pulled into a crushing hug. “I am so proud of you. Do that, a lot of it.”

“Can’t breathe,” I gasped.

He released me, stepping back. “Right. The rib.”

I tried to wave him off. “It’s just a broken rib. I’ll be fine.”

“Medbay.” He gestured around the room. “Stop being stubborn.”

“You’re overreacting - “

“If you trip and fall, which you will, you can puncture a lung.”

“Hasn’t happened yet.”

“It’s been broken all of ten minutes. Medbay. Now.”

I glared at him. “If you think this is the first broken rib I’ve had, you’re insane. It’s not even the fiftieth.”

“Stop reminding me that I can’t go back to Earth and kill someone who is hopefully dead anyway. You made me go to the medbay for some broken teeth after the fight with Jokul. Also, with your luck it’s a miracle you haven’t killed yourself by breathing, and I am not going to be the one who’s next up on Tyche’s shit list. Go. Medbay. Now.”

I opened my mouth to argue again, but was cut off by swearing and Arthur literally just picking me up and dropping me in the closest berth. With exactly zero shame, he pinned me down by my shoulders and hips while one of Noah’s avatars held me down from the other side and scanned, then healed, my broken rib - both of them, it turns out. Finally, they both let go of me. “Can I leave now?” I asked petulantly.

“Only if you tell me the eardrum trick so I can figure out how to use it on other species.”

Sliding off the berth and to my feet, I ran a hand through my hair. “Easy. You just cup your hands so there aren’t any cracks between your fingers, like this.” I demonstrated. “And then try to clap your hands through someone’s head, right over the ears. Force of the air ruptures the ear drums, and the trauma reaction kills their spatial sense and balance.” When he tilted his head at the simplicity of it, I shrugged. “Women’s self-defense classes.”

“Ah,” he nodded. “Speaking of women and self-defense, we have got to get you more in the habit of striking and blocking with your legs. Pretty sure you’d kick like a horse if you tried.”

“If I kick you, I’ll break something.”

“Your legs are a lot tougher than you think - “

“I meant something on you,” I clarified, staring at the ground.

I didn’t look up, but I could hear the savage grin in his voice at what he said next. “Oh, we have got to try this.” When my head snapped up, sure enough, he was smiling. “If you can land a kick on me, I won’t even be mad if you break something. But that’s not what I meant.”

“You want me to test it on someone else?” That wasn’t exactly a better option.

He rolled his eyes. “Maverick literally does calibrations for a living. Pretty sure he’s got something that measures impact force. Then we do the math from there.”

“I feel like I’m on an episode of MythBusters,” I grumbled as we headed out of the Medbay and back towards my office.

“I know!” he agreed enthusiastically.

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#the miys #found family #aliens #apocalypse #humans are weird #humans are space orcs #humans are space fae #hfy #self defense #science fiction #sci fi #original science fiction #original sci fi #original writing #my writing

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avatarvyakara · 2 years

Text

Strands of Webbing

A Spiderverse Fanfic

Prompts 61-72

“Earth-90214”

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62. Legend

i used to live in africa, you know, says the Spider-God, the coal-dark words pressing into Peter’s brain like hits from a battering ram. the ruthlessness of the predators, the bursts of rebellion in the prey, so many stories to tell...you know, this city isn’t actually that different from home. i had so many bearers there. but i’m needed here, now. my begetters need me. and i, it seems, need you.

So many memories, gliding through his head. So much death and darkness. The shadow of the Vulture. The rumour about Uncle Benjamin. The Goblin Men. Little Martin Harris, run over by a cart—slowly—when Peter was all of five years old. The Bite, all of five seconds and fifty aeons ago. Every mistake he’s ever made that’s cost someone their life. The world around him pulses with his story, and it’s not a happy one.

“I’m—I’m not from Africa,” Peter manages. “I don’t think I can help you.”

The Spider-God tilts its head in an Are you serious? expression. as if that matters. the leprechaun and that stupid monkey from china both found bearers among my begetters, am i complaining? humans are so insistent on judging by the flesh, but let me assure you, peter parker—my people are very good at stripping the flesh away, and getting right to the heart.

Peter feels paralyzed. He is paralyzed, in this glowing web in the darkness. The Spider-God is enormous, its limbs barely visible on the horizon. Six of the eighty-eight giant eyes look at him almost pityingly. (At least fourteen are watching what looks like the live performance of a radio soap opera, flickering in and out of vision like a dream. Another three appear to be reading a larger-than-life copy of the Daily Bugle.)

and here i think i have found a proper champion, says the Spider-God. “where great power fails, great responsibility rises”, that was your uncle’s phrase, yes? very commendable. he would have been one of mine, too. sadly my people have become constrained by the years. we can have only one bearer at a time, now.

“What can I do?” croaks Peter.

do what you were going to do, peter parker. expose the corruption. spin webs. hide in corners and spy on the world. save your loved ones. play games with the predators. you’ll have help from me and my children. the one thing i ask of you is not to murder any of my begetters, otherwise i’ll have to kill you in a very uncomfortable way. far worse than the army of my children that bit you just now.

And now, for the first time, Peter notices that the air around him isn’t dull or dark, not really. It’s blood, and fire, and Marie’s lips, and rich clay. It’s the savanna, and sunset over the city. He has never seen this Colour before. But he knows what it is, instinctively and with a sense of mixed awe and dread.

All of the eyes are on him, now.

tell my stories, peter parker, says Anansi, in this world of Red. tell them like peter parker would tell them. be the spider-man. and in exchange...you will have a story of your own. and my stories always have happy endings. The horrible, alien mouth grins. well. happy endings for the prey and the pranksters, anyway.

"Do I get a choice?" And there’s Peter Parker coming back, and staring into those eyes with some of his old fire.

Laughter. Strange, multifaceted laughter. Laughter shone through and scattered through a prism of centuries and a million ghosts. Peter can feel himself being stretched, expanded. He gasps; it’s a deeper voice than before. It hurts. He’s becoming something new, and it hurts.

when have you ever?

Caution: contains German and English racial slurs and discussions about racism and parallel-world Naziism. Also, eldritch horrors and a teeny tiny bit of innuendo.

#spiderman into the spiderverse #spiderman across the spiderverse #spiderman #spiderverse #spiderman noir #peter benjamin parker #anansi #harry osborn #otto octavius #doc ock #peni parker #sp//dr #spider man noir #tony stark #felicia hardy #aunt may #aaron davis #fanfic #one shot collection

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grailfinders · 3 years

Text

Fate and Phantasms #185

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making the snake/shrine maiden/ninja/widow Assassin of Paraiso! She’s got more jobs than a freakin’ barbie doll...

Check out her build breakdown (expect true name spoilers) below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: In Shimousa you must wait, until the dice read five or eight.

Mochizuki Chiyome is an Arcane Trickster Rogue for the regular kind of ninja trickery, plus a Fathomless Warlock to grab the kind of thing your forefather would normally have to boink a snake god to get. (That’s what happened, right? It’s been a while.)

Race and Background

Shockingly, Mochi is a Human, but Variant so we can get cool stuff. This gives her +1 Dexterity and Intelligence, as well as Religion proficiency to make her cover as a shrine maiden foolproof and the Mobile feat for when the right fool comes along. This adds 10′ to her movement speed, dashing lets her ignore difficult terrain, and you avoid opportunity attacks from creatures you’ve attacked this turn.

Magical assassins seem to be more common in D&D than their mundane counterparts, because they have their own freakin’ background! As a Volstrucker Agent, you get proficiency in Deception and Stealth. You know, for ninjaing.

Ability Scores

Dexterity is number 1. You’re a ninja, it’s not a surprise. Second is Charisma. Your snake blood doesn’t like to cooperate on good days, you’ve got to be convincing enough to make it behave. Also, there’s more ninja stuff in charisma, it’s a good skill to have. Your Intelligence comes next, ninjas don’t really have magic powers, they’re just really clever. That being said none of your spells actually use intelligence that much, so we don’t need it to be that high. Your Wisdom isn’t bad, spy networks don’t work if you can’t tell when someone’s lying, and since we’re only building the one character you’ll have to be your own spy network.

Oh yeah, the real Mochizuki ran a spy network, we’re throwing that in the build too. So we’re making a shrine maiden/snake/ninja/widow/master spy. Real simple.

Anyway. Your Constitution isn’t great, just don’t get hit and you’ll be fine. That means we’re dumping Strength. Don’t worry, you don’t really need it anyway.

Class Levels

Rogue 1: Starting off as a rogue gets you a lot of proficiencies, like Dexterity and Intelligence saves, plus four skills. Grab Acrobatics for ninjaing skills, Performance for better disguises, and Insight and Investigation for spy work. If that wasn’t enough, you get Expertise in two of those skills, doubling your proficiency bonus in Stealth and Insight. You also get a Sneak Attack if you’re attacking with a finesse weapon or a ranged weapon, and you have advantage or a friend near the target. This adds 1d6 damage to the attack once per turn. You also learn Thieves’ Cant. It’s a language.

Rogue 2: Second level rogues have a Cunning Action, which lets you dash, disengage, or hide as a bonus action. Y’know, ninja stuff.

Rogue 3: Boom! 2d6 sneak attack. Also, you’re an Arcane Trickster now. This gives you some Spells, most of which are Illusion or Enchantment, but all of which use your Intelligence to cast. Or they would, if we didn’t go the galaxy brain route and pick spells that don’t use your intelligence. You’re forced to pick up Mage Hand as one of your three cantrips, but you also get Friends to make fooling guards easier, and Prestidigitation for smaller magical tricks. On top of that, Illusory Script makes you an expert codewriter, Disguise Self takes care of your... well, your disguises (Though regular disguises are probably better since this is the one spell that actually uses your intelligence), and Fog Cloud gives you a quick and dirty smoke bomb. Speaking of Mage Hand, you also get a Mage Hand Legerdemain right out of the gate, making your mage hand extra sneaky. It can be invisibile, and you can use it to stow objects in containers carried by other creatures, steal objects from containers held by other creatures, or pick locks and disarm traps at range. Also, you only have to use your bonus action to control the hand.

Warlock 1: Bouncing over to grab your cursed Orochi blood makes you a Fathomless warlock. I know that’s a bit weird, but don’t worry, we’ll fix it in flavoring. Instead of a Tentacle of the Deep, you’re summoning a head of Orochi as a bonus action for up to a minute! Each turn you can attack for a bit of cold damage, and you can summon up to Proficiency heads per day. You also get a Gift of the Sea, giving you a swim speed of 40′ and the ability to breathe underwater. As long as you stay near the surface, you can probably get away with calling it walking on water. You also learn Pact Magic, which you cast with your Charisma. This doesn’t mix with your spell slots from rogue, but you can use warlock slots for rogue spells and vice versa. You get Eldritch Blast so you don’t have to collect your throwing knives like a chump, Minor Illusion for minor illusions, Hex for a weak Orochi’s curse, and Expeditious Retreat so you can go even faster if you wanna.

Warlock 2: Second level warlocks get Eldritch Invocations, like Devil’s Sight which lets you see in magical darkness and Armor of Shadows for free mage armor on yourself. Shrine maidens aren’t known for wearing plate mail, so this should help a bit. You also learn how to Cause Fear, frightening a creature for up to a minute if they fail their wisdom save. That means they can’t move closer to you, and they have disadvantage on attacks while they can see you.

Rogue 4: Now that we’re done with warlocking for a bit, bouncing over to rogue gets you your first Ability Score Improvement. Bump up that Charisma for stronger spells and Orochi heads. You also learn the spell Color Spray for some pocket sand at the ready whenever you want. Roll a couple dice, then blind creatures from least to most HP up to the point you rolled.

Rogue 5: Fifth level rogues get 3d6 sneak attack, and they can make an Uncanny Dodge as a reaction, halving incoming damage from an attack.

Rogue 6: At sixth level you get another round of Expertise, so double up on your Deception and Performance so you can sneak into wherever you need to go.

Rogue 7: Seventh level rogues get Evasion. It’s been a while since someone’s gotten evasion, huh? It’s a good feature though, it turns your failed dexterity saves into basically successes as far as damage goes, and successful dex saves now negate damage entirely. (Also, your sneak attack goes up to 4d6.)

Warlock 3: The Orochi isn’t quite done with you yet, so we’re heading back for a few more levels. At level three you undertake the Pact of the Talisman, letting you add 1d4 to a failed ability check Proficiency times per long rest. It’s a shame you don’t have a fancy sword like Grass Cutter, but at least it’s useful. Now that you can see in the dark though, you can cast Darkness to create a more effective smoke bomb that only you and other warlocks can see though.

Warlock 4: Use this ASI to get your Keen Mind. This adds 1 to your intelligence among other neat tricks, but the big reason we’re here is for the ability to recall information for up to a month. This will be more useful later, but it’s always nice to be brainy. You also learn the cantrip Toll the Dead for some ooky spooky necrotic damage, and Silence to perform acts of violence, in silence. Ninjas.

Warlock 5: Fifth level warlocks can cause Fear, frightening multiple creatures who fail their wisdom save. Once per long rest you can also mark a creature with a Sign of Ill Omen, casting Bestow Curse using a warlock spell slot. There’s a couple out of the box options in the PHB, but ultimately you can make up whatever you want, as long as it’s DM approved. The target also has to fail a wisdom save, and it lasts up to a minute.

Rogue 8: Use this ASI on your Dexterity for better damage and a higher AC. Turns out rogues are dexterous, who knew? Speaking of being dexterous, grab Misty Step so you can become so dexterous you literally blink out of existence and back in. Related note, dexterous no longer looks like a word.

Rogue 9: Ninth level rogues can really mess up their enemies with 5d6 damage on a sneak attack, or you can mess up enemies with a Magical Ambush. As long as you’re hidden from whatever creature you’re targeting, they have disadvantage on a spell’s saving throw. This also applies to warlock spells, making it especially useful for curses. (Also, 5d6 sneak attack)

Rogue 10: Tenth level rogues get another ASI, so bump up that Charisma again for a stronger curse. You also can cast Message to relay info over short distances, or Magic Mouth to set up information dead drops for other party members.

Rogue 11: Eleventh level rogues can deal reliable damage thanks to their 6d6 sneak attack. They also have Reliable Talent, so the lowest you can roll on a skill you’re proficient in is a 10. When you’re good at something, you’ll never fail a day in your life. You can also cast Blur to become harder to hit. Maybe it’s like, a little smoke bomb? Not my best work, I’ll admit.

Rogue 12: At twelfth level you get your last ASI, so max out that Dexterity for the best damage and defense you could hope for.

Rogue 13: Thirteenth level arcane tricksters are Versatile Tricksters, letting you spend an action to distract a nearby creature with your mage hand, giving advantage on your next attack that turn. If you don’t have extra ninjas at home, magic bought is fine. Don’t scoff at free advantage though, especially with that 7d6 sneak attack. You also learn to pull a Kotarou and can cast Enemies Abound, which makes it so one creature can’t tell friend from foe and will attack randomly if they fail an intelligence check.

Rogue 14: Your brand new Blindsense means you’ll always be able to sense other ninjas, since invisible and hidden creatures within 10′ of you are always on your radar. You also -finally- get your spy network online thanks to Clairvoyance, letting you create a sensor in any location you’re familiar with, or an obvious one you aren’t, like around a corner. For up to ten minutes, you can see or hear through that sensor as if you were there, and can even swap which sense you use at will.

Rogue 15: Your capstone isn’t particularly flashy, but Slippery Mind will help make sure you don’t get cursed more than you already are, since you now have proficiency with wisdom saves. One last thing: 8d6 sneak attack. It’s pretty good.

Pros:

With multiple kinds of magic backing up your impressive stealth skills, you come packing with plenty of ways to slip into and out of combat at will, or even better, avoid combat entirely.

Thanks to your keen mind and clairvoyance, you can spy on others and keep that information tucked away for safekeeping. Then, you can use spells like Message and Magic Mouth to get that info where you need it to go without arousing suspicion. Who knows, you might legitimately start up a spy network.

Curses are great. For your enemies, I mean, sorry. But yeah, they’re pretty effective, especially if you can start a fight with an enemy already cursed. Like, say, you sneak up to them and use Magical Ambush to make it even harder for them to avoid the spell, and that starts initiative? That’d be nice.

Cons:

Some DMs are not very flexible, and they’ll just force you into combat regardless of how much you try to avoid it. That’s really bad for you, since you’ve only got 100 HP. One stiff wind and you’re in Power Word Kill territory. Fortunately you’ve got a good AC, but still.

The one spell you have that actually uses intelligence is probably one of your most crucial, at least early on. Disguise Self not being that good kind of sucks while you’re getting set up, but eventually you’ll be good enough with a regular disguise kit it probably won’t matter.

You have a lot of utility spells, but only a couple spell slots to use them with. Long missions might be a problem if you don’t pace yourself.

#fate grand order #fgo #D&D 5e #DND #Assassin of Paraiso #Rogue #Warlock

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jcmorrigan · 3 years

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Consider, blakeworther dealing with children. Whether they adopted a child or are babysitting for some reason

Oh. Okay. So I haven’t even thought about this but this prompt is so entertaining that I’m gonna do this off the top of my head right now.

What I will say is I can’t see them adopting kids. You know what I can see? I’m kinda hopping on the bandwagon for Draco/Vanora (not like super OTP, but it’s cute, I can get behind it, love all the art/fic of it, I don’t see any reason not to). So even though I’m SURE this story is not going to resolve in such a way that everyone is alive and friends at the end, we’re going to pretend it will and Dranora have two children, who I’m calling Kiddo (an elementary schooler) and Moody (a teenager). Anyway there’s some emergency that requires Draco to put his children in the hands of his brother/cyborg clone (reveal pending) and Vanora’s like “Are you sure about this” and Draco’s just “No. No I am not. But I’m desperate.”

AND HERE’S HOW IT GOES

-First things first, Kiddo and Moody aren’t allowed to do a damn thing until their schoolwork is done.

-Albert: “Because being the smartest person in your class will offer you unlimited power.” Vincent: “Because some asshole is going to beat you to being smartest in the class and you need to catch up. Don’t be like me.”

-Victor is trying to convince them to let the kids have some fun but NO! ACADEMICS!

-Victor ends up sneaking them some cookies under the table so it’s not all boring.

-Kiddo reveals they have a hard time with math and you can hear a pin drop as we shift into OH NO mode

-Albert: “I can help with - “ Vincent: “YOU PUT THOSE FLASHCARDS AWAY. WE’RE NOT DOING THIS”

-Homework finally finishes. Vincent then puts Kiddo in front of the television and Moody in front of their computer and calls it DONE.

-(It’s not done.)

-Albert ends up watching marathon-length kids’ programming with Kiddo and getting more into it than Kiddo is. And then being creepy. For example: “What do you think Big Bird would taste like flambé?” “Clifford the Big Red Dog would make an excellent tool to overthrow the state if properly weaponized.” “You know, all this Cliff Hanger nonsense in that lion show would be easily resolved if somebody just stomped on his hand so he would fall off the cliff.”

-At some point Victor has to come barging in to kick over the Solo cups that he’s setting up because WE’RE NOT DOING THIS

-Meanwhile, Moody swears at their computer. Vincent sighs; “If I ask you what’s wrong, will you be quiet?”

-Moody: “There’s this bitch in my class who keeps making fun of me online and it really hurts my feelings.”

-Vincent: “...Hang on.”

-An hour later and Vincent has set up five different sockpuppet accounts on an AI script to doxx Moody’s bully. Because if anybody knows how to commit REVENGE, it’s Vincent

-While he’s plugging away at Moody’s social accounts, Victor pulls Moody aside into the bar. “So. If you’re curious about liquor or smoking, you can try ANYTHING in this room and I won’t tell your parents”

-Moody is sixteen and comes out of that room drunk as a skunk. Possibly also high.

-But it gets them sleepy so that’s ONE KID IN BED; ONE TO GO

-Albert: “I can get the small one sleepy if you just let me use dream - “ Vincent and Victor: “NO”

-Meanwhile Kiddo is on Albert’s desk playing with his red phone because let’s face it, that thing looks like a toy. They accidentally manage to call some Eldritch dimension before Vincent comes running in “PUT THAT DOWN”

-So cue all three guys sitting around going...what are you supposed to do to make a kid sleepy? Aren’t there rules about this?

-Oh yeah, you’re supposed to read bedtime stories to a small child

-Cue Vincent ending up sitting on the side of kiddo’s bed and trying to read them The Count of Monte Cristo. It isn’t received well.

-Lullabies are a thing, right?

-Victor goes in to softly sing kiddo to sleep and it works! He’s actually got a nice voice; he just doesn’t really enjoy singing in public that much.

-Vincent is all mumbly, “You sing well”

-Both offspring are asleep! Finally! Three tired temporary dads slump down on the couch downstairs.

-The peace only lasts so long. Kiddo comes hurtling down the stairs bawling. “I HAD A REALLY BAD NIGHTMARE ABOUT THE SKINNY BLACK CREATURES WITH WHITE SKULL FACES”

-Slloooowwwwwly Vincent and Victor turn to look at Albert. Albert is smiling very nervously.

-“Before you make any accusations, I want you to know this one wasn’t my - “ “ALBERT GERALD KRUEGER WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO”

-Kiddo’s mood is improved because they’ve never heard THAT word before

-So now you have a small child running around the manor yelling “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!”

-Albert: “Okay, but you two did THAT”

-Now all three of them have to watch even more television with Kiddo until they get sleepy again...which...Kiddo doesn’t

-Kiddo suddenly notices that Victor’s arms are metal. “How did you lose your real arms?”

-Victor is just broken by this point so he goes “The creatures you saw in your nightmares ripped them off when I was your age because I didn’t go to sleep and also I said bad words”

-Kiddo ZOOMS upstairs, locks themself in their room, doesn’t come out

-VICTORY!

-Draco and Vanora come back to the house to find their eldest having a hangover and their youngest screaming “I COULDN’T SLEEP ALL NIGHT! THE BAD THINGS WILL RIP OFF MY ARMS! FUCK!” and Draco realizes they probably would’ve been better off dropping the kids in the Myers front lawn and letting them clean random stuff with Dino for the last twelve hours

#vincent edgeworth #victor blake #albert krueger #blakeworther #vincent the secret of myers #vtsom #therapy with dr. albert krueger #twdak #this one was so fun nonnie #i was laughing at myself writing the whole thing up #thank you for giving me this hypothetical

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takiki16 · 3 years

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Considering your last Russell Crowe obsession consider: Joe/Nicky 3:10 to Yuma AU and Master and Commander AU. :D

Fork. Forkforkfork my PAST is coming back to haunt me i deny anything and everything whoooooo is that white man i don’t know him!!!!!

Kaysanova AU Propositions: 3:10 to Yuma and Master and Commander

(more under the cut)

Okay, I’m assuming that these AUs are more than just “Immortal Husbands in the Age of Sail and the mid-1800s in North America?” Because if this is just about seeing Joe and Nicky on the deck of a tall ship or in cowboy gear, those are both pretty much canon scenarios. @polarcell has done some AMAZING cowboy!Joe art that speaks pretty much exactly to this point!

But if this is about FUSION AUs - that is, Joe and Nicky actually taking on the roles of Jack/Stephen from M&C and Wade/Dan from 3:10 to Yuma, then that is a discussion to be had. And not to get all Heavy (TM) about this, but 3:10 to Yuma and Master & Commander are both stories heavily based in the colonial/imperialist narratives of the American and British empires - specifically “the Wild West” and “Britannia Rules the Waves,” etc. etc. TOG has been an educational fandom for me in terms of a LOT of things, and while I DO want to have fun with fusion AU scenarios that feature movies I like, I want to be...careful with my words and ideas and keep the scope narrow, you know?

SO: IN THE ORDER OF RECEPTION:

Kaysanova: 3:10 to Yuma edition:

I mean, i feel like the OBVIOUS FRAMEWORK here is that Nicky = Ben Wade. notorious stagecoach robber, fastest gun in the West, wielder of the pistol called the Hand o’ God, always ready with an ominous theological quote and all-round projector of dangerous eldritch charisma vibes. And JOE is obviously the good-hearted rancher who is down on his luck due to no fault of his own and is working himself to the bone trying to do his best but always being Kept Down By The Man. And lo and behold! Joe walks into the saloon one day and finds Nicky!

Nicky is fascinated by this beautiful and furious man, and lingers juuuust long enough for the local sheriff to clap him in handcuffs. Joe volunteers to help transport Nicky the few days’ ride to the next train station to cash in on the reward and put Nicky on the 3:10 train to Yuma Prison. Seductive Shenanigans ensue on the way!

And like...the concept of this. The scenes we could get! Because the bare bones of Yuma!AU have a lot in common with the 1099 meet-cute: two enemies, chilling around a fire, five feet apart because they won’t admit they’re gay for each other. But in Yuma!AU, there’s all these extra characters around helping to guard Mister Notorious Outlaw Nicky, which means a whole lot of talking around the point! The thing I liked about the outlaw character was that his divide-and-conquer strategy for the posse bringing him in was INCREDIBLY clear and blatant, but his charisma score was so high it didn’t matter! Everyone fell for it anyway! EVERYONE EXCEPT DAN THE RANCHER, which fascinated Wade, which made it a movie-long pigtail-pulling game until the tragic ending.

The tropes here are endless. “Is he making eyes at me because he actually finds me attractive, or because he wants me to let him escape? Woe is me, I am a wicked outlaw and do not deserve such a paragon of goodness! Oh no, my sexy captor has been shot, and it would be CLEARLY in my best interests for him to let him die but I just! Can’t! OH NO, my sexy captive has been shot, and now I have to take care of him but ONLY for the reward money and for NO other reason! Yes, we are having a conversation that outwardly includes everyone around the campfire, but REALLY is about our mutual loathing and even more mutual attraction!”

Mandatory: Joe does NOT die in the end. Nicky does NOT swing for his crimes. Maybe he does end up putting Nicky on the 3:10 to Yuma, and maybe Nicky grabs him by Ye Olde West Bandanna and kisses him as the train pulls away, WWII photograph style. BUT THEY END UP TOGETHER IN THE END, and Joe’s ranch thrives, and Nicky goes back to outlawing because fuq Wells Fargo and all U.S. banks and monopolies, YEE HAW.

Kaysanova: Master & Commander / Aubreyad edition:

Oh this one is tricky. I can’t help but come at this not only from a movie perspective, but from my hyperfixation with the 21-novel saga perspective????

Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are appealing as characters because they are so vividly and specifically drawn. Jack is a jock-type himbo with an open heart of gold but some deeply unfortunate blind spots that lead to him frequently putting his foot in his mouth - or worse. Stephen is a deeply secretive and obsessive doctor/naturalist/spy who tends to dislike most people and who also is in denial about his substance abuse problems. If you are trying to substitute Joe and Nicky in for either of them, then traits on both sides are going to be erased. Which is always the case for any AU, but like I said - Jack and Stephen have such rich character design that I hate to chip away any of it?

But one of the core appealing parts of Jack and Stephen’s relationship is the compare/contrast between them, and the ways they are deeply connected to each other not merely in spite of their differences, but because of their differences. Substituting Joe and Nicky in, then, becomes less about transforming the Immortal Husbands to fit the HMS Surprise (or vice versa) and more about the ways that Ship’s Captain and Ship’s feral doctor/naturalist/spy can showcase their respective personalities in opposition and attraction to each other. This leans us more towards a generic Age of Sail AU, but SUCH IS THE PRICE OF WELL-MADE CANON - IT’S HARDER TO LEAVE BEHIND! you have no idea how hard it was not to make this whole post an Aubrey/Maturin love letter there are SO MANY SHENANIGANS TO HAVE FUN WITH

HAVING SAID THAT: Kaysanova, M&C edition!

Since neither Joe nor Nicky are an exact fit for Jack or Stephen, we can try it both ways! Captain!Joe, doctor!Nicky, and captain!Nicky, doctor!Joe!

Captain Joe, Doctor Nicky:

Okay I’ll admit - this one came easy, because if we’re going by sun/moon contrast imagery then Captain “Lucky Jack” Aubrey and his blindingly high charisma score is definitely a first pick for Joe, while Stephen “I write my own private diary with triple encryption and would definitely hiss at people if I could” Maturin is definitely a first pick for Nicky. Captain Joe steps onto the quarterdeck of his new command, exhibits some Proper Seamanship and Good Leadership Principles, and in short order most of the crew are willing to follow him anywhere. He is effusive and generous and open, especially to lonely surgeon and naturalist Nicky who is camping out on a hillside with nowhere to go, and the rest is history.

Oh I love this, I love this, because given a reading of Joe as the effusive brilliant one and Nicky as the feral murder cat, this AU does almost write itself. Captain Joe insisting that Ship’s Surgeon Nicky put in some effort and dress for the admiralty inspection, while Nicky is standing there in a bloody surgery apron and mismatching shoes arguing that my attire is perfectly reasonable, my dear, I cannot understand this outrageous insistence on starch. Nicky quietly finding the man who tried to frame Joe for a crime and literally killing and dissecting him in a back alley chop shop! (YES, that is canon). Joe becoming a surrogate dad/mentor to literally every younger officer/ship’s boy/random child that falls under his care who shows the slightest need for care and affection! Nicky pulling off a surgical miracle one minute and filling the ship with random animals and beehives the next! YESSSSSSSS.

Captain Nicky, Doctor Joe:

Now THIS ONE requires the most creative canon juggling, but I have been excited to talk about it because if you follow the spy!Joe headcanon backstory this becomes 100000% more interesting.

Captain!Nicky is one of those reserved, calm types of captains that doesn’t believe in being “one of the lads” and doesn’t believe in excessive efforts to be popular in a crude sense, but IS a universally respected and competent ship’s captain. His success on the waves leads him to a special assignment transporting Doctor!Joe, who has some rudimentary medical training and can do emergency battle medicine, but is REALLY here to study the languages and cultures of the world, Captain! *innocent eyes* The two of them quickly strike up a friendship.

However, LITTLE DOES CAPTAIN!NICKY KNOW, but Joe is on a secret intelligence mission of the utmost importance, and his universal likeability and friendliness both redirect unwelcome attention from his true purpose and also are A+++ assets in getting the right people to trust him. Feelings and Tensions Rise as the ship is sent all over the world - Joe making contacts in every port, Nicky commanding them through storms and battles, and both of them falling more and more in love with each other on the way. Any number of canon scenarios could happen from this point! Is Joe captured, and Nicky has to mount a daring rescue? Is Nicky unwittingly caught up in intelligence shenanigans, and Joe has to delicately extract him? Do they have a fight about all the secrets that nearly breaks them apart but for their True Love?

I would LOVE to read this fic because spy!Joe has always, ALWAYS fascinated me. I don’t think any of the popular characterizations of Joe put secrecy or subterfuge as one of his main traits, although doing intelligence work doesn’t necessarily mean that Joe is a secretive person (just that he’s good at finding the right knowledge and getting it to the right places without raising alarms). However, it does present this amazing dichotomy between the friendly, openly verbal and affectionate person that Joe IS in canon and the careful, think-twice behavior needed to keep a secret on an enclosed community like a tall ship. Especially if Joe is in the middle of falling in love with the ship’s captain while trying to carry out a mission of his own separate to the official public orders of the ship’s company!

And Captain!Nicky also presents an interesting interpretation issue, because one of my very favorite Jack Aubrey traits is what a natural leader he is. And again, it’s not that Nicky can’t be a leader, but I don’t think any of Nicky’s popular character interpretations have him eager to take charge either. It would be SUPER interesting to see what kind of a ship’s captain Nicky - with his mildly unfashionable clothes and Eldritch Vibes (TM) and outward reserve and deep, deep capacity for rage and kindness in equal measures would be. Tall Ship Sailing with a crew requires huge amounts of mutual trust, coordination, and cooperation. How might a person like Nicky gain the necessary loyalty to coordinate his crew through the Perilous High Seas without resorting to cruelty and force?

CANON Aubreyad shenanigans that MUST happen in both AUs no matter what!!!! (if you take NOTHING else away from this post, this list MUST be it, and yes, all of them are canon in the books!!!):

Our two heroes must enact a daring escape over land involving one of them wearing a fursuit for several days. The fursuit is mandatory

Whoever is the Doctor must kill someone in the middle of a joint jewelry/intelligence heist by beating them to death with a stone dildo. Mandatory: they kill only one person this way, but that is not the only person they kill in that 24-hour period

Our two heroes escape from prison by chiseling open the toilet hole, but they never actually go through the toilet hole because someone in the party manages a seduction in the nick of time

The doctor brings 60,000 live bees onto the ship and stores them without a second thought in the captain’s quarters

The captain debauches a sloth. It is subsequently adopted by the Franciscans in Rio and happily drinks altar wine for the rest of its days.

Way too many laxatives. This is how the port authorities are avoided.

Constant, constant roasting of each other and also horrible puns, sweetly counterbalancing True Affection and Ride-or-Die bonds of love.

#Anonymous #aubrey maturin #the old guard #3:10 to yuma #yusuf al-kaysani #nicolo di genova #aubreyad #my posts #kaysanova #immortal husbands #I HOPE THIS SATISFIES YOU ANON - THIS RABBIT HOLE WAS DEEPER THAN I EXPECTED

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felswritingfire · 4 years

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Hey, everyone!

Have some housamo dad hcs that no one asked for! This guys kind of a monster (7978 big) so it goes under the read more. I just,,,, I really like domestic parent hcs ajlskfjlksdj

I kept the kids older years vague and just kept to biological gender because I didn’t want to complicate anything, if that makes sense, just give a little personality to the kiddo/kiddos but mostly focus on the dads, you know? Anyway Enjoy!

(Also so much thanks to @summonerscenarios for helping me with some of these and reading the beta, much love!!)

(Reader is gender neutral btw)

Arsalan

OIL DAD- OIL DAD-

He’d probs have one and then ask for two more- a weird lion thing you know? So, under the assumption that you’re A) down to give birth to three or B) end up adopting three kiddos, he’d most likely end up with two girls (both a year apart from each other) and a boy (who’s three years younger than the middle girl, making him the youngest and gentlest out of his sisters)

He honestly has a bit of a “Oh shit” moment when you guys gain a kid by either a series of events or you getting pregnant, he’s lowkey freaking out

He’s never had a kid before, I mean, sure, he’s been a role model to young people for a long time, but it’s not like he’s had to raise them from when they were in diapers; and honestly, he has this vague wondering if he’s even too old to be a dad- but then she looks into his eyes and it’s like all his worries wash away and then he’s thinking out loud: “if one can do this to me, Y/N, what do you think five more would do?”

You’ve never seen him so happy and you’re almost sad when you have to shut him down. Almost. “We’re not having six children, Arsalan.”

“Ok, what about two more then?” “Arsalan.”

Jokes on you, Y/N, you have two more.

He’s super involved with all of the babies, like, there isn’t a time where Arsalan isn’t seen with them when they’re babies, since the girls are older than their brother, they were with their papa while he was with their baby brother- btw, despite them being four and three respectively, they still loved him to death- and there wasn’t a time when he wasn’t holding or touching them when they were babies

OH! He doesn’t wear any oil when he’s holding them! Since he almost shit a brick one of the times he was holding your oldest girl because he almost dropped her. His hands were so fucking oily because he just finished a riviting round of ✨Turkish Oil Wrestling✨, that he ended up flailing with her like a melted stick of butter in his hands until he managed to get her into the crook of his arm (she was giggling the entire time). Never again. He learned his lesson the first (and last) time.

Btw, you weren’t there for that, but if he ever looks at you with guilty eyes you know why

He hates diaper duty with a passion and will vehemently try to get out of it. Though, he’ll do it if you really can’t and he’ll silently accept his fate, even the girls will steer clear when he has to change their brother’s diaper. A lonely soldier left to his fate

He baby talks to them when they’re babies, like, straight up, every one of the kids gets baby talked

No and’s, if’s, or but’s. They get the baby talk

The girls help you guys out a lot with their little brother, or at least they try their best and that’s all that matters. It’s actually really heartwarming??? They’re so attached to this little bundle in your arms, they love him so much

The two girls weren’t fussy babies, but they were very curious, and they kept that curiosity for their entire lives, so they would get into a lot of things that would cause you and Arslan to panic, while their brother was a little angel, he was very quiet and he rarely cried. Though, he didn’t like when you or Arsalan were away for too long, this was a problem for when you guys needed a babysitter for them, not with the girls though, oh no, they love everyone in the Aoyama Guild, especially Maria and Gabriel (the middle one might have a crush on her, but who knows 💅💅). But your guys’ little boy is a whole other story. He’ll start crying and none of them can calm him down, their only saving grace is surprisingly Nyarl. Which Arsalan dislikes with an immense passion

He’s so afraid Nyal’s going to feed his kids to some eldritch horror or teach them bad habits- *GASP* WHAT HAPPENS IF HE TEACHES HIS LITTLE BOY HOW TO SAY FUCK??? OH NO-

He has entrusted the girls with keeping Nyarl in check and the hyena actually listens to them (of course Maria or Zab is there to keep him in check too, they just don’t let the girls know that they’re actually the ones giving Nyarl The Look behind them)

When they’re toddlers, Arsalan starts teaching them strategy and starts wrestling with them so that they can know how to defend themselves with different fighting techniques

You know that thing that papa lions do where they’ll feign getting hurt when their cubs bite them to build their confidence??? Yeah, he does that with the little ones. The girls are all proud of themselves each time they manage to “beat” their papa, but your little boy is devastated the first time it happened because he thought he actually hurt Papa Arsalan and he started crying and was too afraid to touch anyone for a good two days before Arsalan managed to convince him that he was perfectly fine and the way for him not to hurt someone is to embrace his strength and learn how to use it for good! Luckly, your little boy accepts the answer and goes over and gives his papa a big hug and Arsalan gives him a big ol’ kiss on the forehead

You still have the video- it’s cute- you’re never getting rid of it

Arsalan definitely takes them to the guild and everyone LOVES THEM

The girls get along best with the angels, the more aggressive ones specifically while your little boy gets along best with the healers of the guild; they listen to all of the stories that anyone is willing to share with them and they LIVE FOR THEM

They all swear up and down that they’re gonna join the Aoyama guild when they get older and protect their dad and Arsalan tears up

They MEET (officially) ZABANIYYA AND YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN MORE STARSTRUCK CHILDREN IN YOU LIFE (He met them when they were babies, but he was always too busy to actually swing by and say hello to the little ones frequently)

They think he’s so cool and he feels a little awkward around them, but he’s accepted his fate as Uncle Zab

By the time they hit their tween years, Arsalan is more in his element, he’s an amazing listener, and coupled with the fact that his advice is some A++ shit, his kids feel at ease telling him their woes. Also he’s always open with his affection so if they need a hug, he’s there for that too!

The girls, at this time, are much more similar to Arsalan, their brother on the other hand is very shy, so they take it upon themselves to act as “bodyguards” for their little brother

Your guys’ kids in general are pretty independent, so they’re pretty self aware of themselves; Arsalan made sure of that, especially since he was in the mindset of “making capable kings and queens”- he was a king after all

The girls would go into sports, something like volleyball or softball, while your boy would take up a lot of writing/medical classes in high- if he has the opportunity, he’d probably go into a philosophy class

Your guys’ oldest girl has a bit of a problem with butting heads with people, she’s opinionated and backs them up with facts, she knows what she believes in and will defend it, so she’ll get into the occasional fight

Your middle girl is your social butterfly and gets along with everybody; she’s super sweet, but she has a temper and strong sense of justice which gets her into trouble every now and then

They both team up to take care of their little brother, it’s actually really cute to watch them

Your boy is the peace keeper of the group; he’s very passive and fights with his words rather than his fists, but he really wants to go into the medical field

HAVE FUN DEALING WITH THE FACT THAT THEY ALL GET INTO SHIT LIKE THEIR DAD. You and Arsalan had to go and convince the Tycoons not to hang your oldest by her toes because she punched Ophion straight in the jaw and suplexed Lucifuge (Hakuman was having an amazing time- the other two were not)

When they graduate, Arsalan doesn’t cry, but it’s still super evident that he’s proud of his kids, each one gets a huge ass bear (lion) hug that squeezes the breath out of them

He may be a little shocked at first, but he takes it in stride like everything else in his life; he marvels at the way that your guys’ kiddos grow up so fast. Honestly, having a family was one of the best experiences of his life.

Ifrit

I like to imagine that Ifirt would end up with more than one kid with you, being that if you can actually have a baby/babies or if you guys adopt, he’ll want one right after the other, but only if you’re comfortable with that.

We’re going with the route that you’re comfy with having/adopting at least two children:

He’d probs end up having two little boys that are two years apart.

When you guys bring home your first little boy, Ifrit is a mess of tears and snot and he gives you the wettest and biggest smooch he possibly can on your lips. He’s always wanted a big family (but he was afraid he would never be able to really start one because of his debt until you came along and, thanks to your more skeptical nature and eye for seeing through scams, he finally got financially stable!) and now it’s the start of one and he’s so excited!

SPOILER ALERT, HIS KIDS ARE EXACTLY LIKE HIM.

They are rambunctious little babies and are loud just like their father; I’m so sorry.

Speaking of loud- Ifrit does not help with the volume- if anything, he amplifies them; riling up the boys when he plays with them.

When he does play with the boys, he’s super soft about it with them. He’ll go down easily for them and play dead when they play any sort of game that includes a big scary monster.

The first time he did play dead, his boys started crying and then he started crying after he couldn’t get them to calm down because he was overwhelmed with so much emotion for accidentally making his kids cry- you walked in on the three of them, with groceries lining your arms, cuddled up together on the floor crying their hearts out.

IFRIT DRESSES UP HIS BABIES IN MATCHING OUTFITS TO HIM-THEY’RE LITTLE ROCKSTAR BABIES

IT’S SOFT SHIT

YOUR EYES? BLESSED

YOUR HEART? STOLEN

IFRIT? BEST DAD

UM, HAVE YOU EVER REALIZED THAT IFRIT HAS A TAIL???? (because I sure as hell didn’t, but no surprise there I’m blind-) YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS:

BABIES KOALA CLINGING TO HIS TAIL

LIKE, CAN YOU IMAGINE THEM JUST HOLDING ON WHILE HE TIDIES UP THE HOUSE WHILE THEY’RE GIGGLING AND TEETHING ON THE SPIKES OF HIS TAIL????

He was a tad nervous when they first started doing this because he realized that he’s a pretty loud and expressive person, so he didn’t want to accidentally knock one of the boys off when he was super excited or he got angry; after you assured him that he was in fact, not going to hurt the boys, he started letting them cling to his tail. And, hey, you were right. He has never once knocked the boys off since, despite his excitable nature, his tail keeps relatively still when he feels the boys on there

Speaking of tails, if any of the boys ends up having tails or horns or fangs like him (especially if they’re biologically his and they get hit with all three), he’ll have you guys invest in a lot of… chew toys for dogs and scratching posts for cats

“Why are we getting dog toys for our kid again, Ifrit?” “One fucking word, babe, growing pains” “That’s two words-” “YOU GET WHAT I MEAN.”

Um, I’m so sorry if you wanted your kid’s first words to be “mama/papa/nano” (I read on reddit that’s a gender neutral term for parent, but like, real talk, if you have any other ones, just hit me up and tell me! I love learning new stuff in the LGBTQ+ community!) you ain’t gonna get it chief. It’s gonna be a cuss word because, let’s be frank Ifrit’s got a potty mouth from Hell (me too, man) and it isn’t going away anytime soon

So your kids are most likely gonna be cussing like sailors by the time they get into middle school/high school

Ifrit is a pretty great multitasker in general, the other bonus is that he’s not afraid to change diapers, so when the boys were babies he was always ready to go when you needed a break

Just let him slap a clothing pin or shove a couple tissues up his nose and he is ready to go, babe

The kids usually cling to him, though, I feel the younger of the two would cling to you more so than Papa Ifrit, while the older one is attached to Ifrit: he copies everything that Ifrit does and is basically a carbon copy of him personality wise

It was kinda hard to convince them to let you guys go out for date night, but they’re super attached to Ebisu and Fenrir, and then Auntie Benten comes and tuckers them out since she has the same amount of energy as the little balls of chaos. So you guys usually call on them to come and watch the babies; once in a while Ahab and Aegir will join and the boys L O V E THEM (you two are honestly a little jealous tbh)

Ebisu is in charge though. Ebisu is always in charge

He’s a little lost in the tween years, but he figures it out pretty fast, luckily, your kids are pretty easy going and simple minded like Ifrit, albeit more aware of their surroundings since you beat it into their heads since you and Ifrit wanted to avoid some punks taking advantage of your kiddos, so they’re pretty straightforward in their thinking- though, your older boy has a hard time handling his emotions, while the younger boy has a hard time expressing his emotions, so you both have to take your time with them and talk it through with them and see how they’re feeling and to understand their problems. Which really isn’t that big of a problem for Ifrit, he’s a good listener and it’s easy for the boys to express themselves around him because, hey, he gets it. He usually let’s his anger control his decision so, he gets it, man

ONE THING THAT HAS ALWAYS CALMED HIS KIDS DOWN IS IFRIT’S FIRE TRICKS AND THIS STICKS WITH THEM THROUGHOUT THEIR LIVES

THEY LIVE FOR THAT SHIT

One thing that Ifrit never taught them, and you don’t know where they got it from, if they have horns, they’ll headbutt each other

This has lead to Ifrit, more than once, having to come and untangle their horns, due to the fact that he’s the only one who knows how horns work, because they got locked together, especially if they have Ifrit’s horns (also thank you Juno for giving me this headcanon, I love you-)

If you two ever hear frustrated yelling, you know exactly what’s happening and Ifrit sighs as he gets up while yelling, “again?”

Teenage years are actually quite chill, the boys don’t really go through that phase where nothing feels right or they’re embarrassed of their parents- they’re comfy in their skin and Ifrit and you provide a solid and understanding home for them, so they actually have the tendency to brag about you guys to other people- especially your oldest

What does cause a lot of problems, even when they were little, is fighting

The boys tend to throw themselves head first into fights because A) they have their papa’s temper and B) they can’t stand bullies

So they kinda act as the designated “Protectors of the Weak” if you will and usually it doesn’t end in a fight, their sheer volume and confidence usually makes people back off pretty quick, and if they’re biologically Ifrit’s, then, like, they also have the height and build along with them- or if they were adopted and they had big ass parents, it goes either way

But when they get into a fight- they throw down H A R D. T O G E T H E R

So, once in a while you two get calls to come and pick up the boys, since they got into another skirmish again with that Billy kid-

Honestly, the first time it happened, Ifrit was pissed because, what the fuck you two? And then he got their side of the story (because of course he would, he’s a GOOD DAD) and he was like, “WELL, FUCK, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BE MAD NOW??” So instead, he goes and gets them ice cream every time they get into a fight because he knows your boys would never start a fight unless absolutely necessary. Also they beat up a bunch of bullies HOW THE FUCK IS HE NOT PROUD? HE RAISED THEM RIGHT

This might be one of the only serious arguments you ever have if you’re against the boys fighting at all (but like, I wouldn’t, they beat up bullies. FUCK BULLIES)

When your sons graduate from High school, Ifrit will cry at each of their ceremonies. Full blown sobbing- he’s so proud of his boys and he’s so ready to see what they make of themselves.

Ifrit dad rating: 10/10, he’s amazing, please let him be a dad; he’s really matured from his younger days, especially now that he has kids. Being in a family with you has really made his life complete

Ophion

Ophion, to no one’s surprise, has a lot of experience under his belt. At least we would presume, but plot twist: this dragon is used to dealing with older creations rather than little baby ones. Not to say he doesn’t have any experience with babies, he’s just… used to his kids being independent on their own. It’s a luxury when you got an egg that pops out Wyvern children who are fully developed left and right

He is totally down for babies tho, please, he actually really likes kids a lot and, when he was the older version of himself, he’d try to covertly play with them out in public if he’s with the Tycoons for whatever reason (they knew. They fucking knew what he did, none of them told him jack shit because Hakuman does the same exact thing and Lucifuge thinks his buddy is adorable when he plays with the babies, so like shit he’s gonna say anything. And Licht holds onto this as blackmail, just in case Ophion decides to really piss him off), younger Ophion gives zero shits about playing with babies in front of the Tycoons. He loves hearing babies laugh, so he’ll make some cool ass light tricks and babies and toddlers alike are in awe

Also, he has this tendency to try to give kids life advice and teach them philosophy that their little heads just do not comprehend, but they think he’s the coolest thing to ever exist so they just nod along and pretend they understand (he knows they don’t he just thinks they’re adorable

He’d try to convince you to have a horde of children; it’s up to you to talk him down because, holy shit, Ophion we are not repopulating a planet. That’s a lot of kids to take care of-

You manage to talk him down to having two and seeing how it goes from there

Plot twist y’all end up with four children: split even boys and girls

Ok, so, I apologize but I’m gonna be drifting away from the gender neutral territory for a hot minute because, like, Juno pointed this out:

Giving birth to Ophion’s baby would be a nightmare: Ophion is a big dude, if I remember right he’s 6’10”, that’s huge if you didn’t know, can you imagine how big that baby is gonna be inside of you???? And the other thing- if they have any draconic characteristics then, like, have fun pushing out a baby with wings, my dude. So it’s either: pray that the little guy is baby baby sized or C-Section

Which is fine- you have options, so that works out great! Double bonus, you never have to worry about medical bills because Ophion is fucking LOADED; TRIPLE BONUS, SINCE OPHION IS LOADED YOU WOULD BE PAMPARED HALF TO DEATH AFTER THE ENTIRE DEBACLE

SPEAKING OF LOADED, your babies have all of the best shit ever since they were born into a rich family.

I’m talking about gucci onesies all the plushies they can imagine

Now, you might be thinking: shit. That means I have to be the tough parent.

Not necessarily

Ophion is particular about how he wants his kids to be raised up: he wants them to be smart and aware, not spoiled and useless. He honestly expects some sort of perfection out of them since, you know, the whole mindset of: well, they’re my children. Of course they have to be perfect

Which, no, bad Ophion. We don’t hold our children to unrealistic standards in this house, it’s up to you to knock him off his high horse. The good part is that he’ll listen to you and actually reflect on his expectations for his kids, he’ll even work on taking said expectations down a couple of notches which is great.

You’ll probs still have to remind him once in a while, but he’s pretty good at chilling the fuck out when he needs to

Your kids go in the order of girl, boy, girl, boy; all of them a year or two apart, because of course

The first baby was a very rambunctious baby and Ophion threatened to chuck her out the window more than once- IN THE MOST LOVING WAY HE POSSIBLY COULD, I SWEAR- when she’d wake up crying in the middle of the night, because then he’d come and get her and she’d immediately start giggling and trying to grab his finger

He could never stay mad her and he’d end up staying up and rocking her until she fell back asleep

The crib was barely used for your guys’ second and third baby- they were both easy babies for the most part, only really making a peep when they were away from one of you. Your boy was quite attached to you while the second girl was attached to Ophion; but your oldest girl and boy’s rooms weren’t really used until they each turned five respectively because they’d just climb into bed with you guys and set their younger sibling in between them- these were some of Ophion’s favorite moments tbh. It was so soft and gentle, it soothes his soul when he thinks about it

Your youngest was another rambunctious baby, not in the sense that he cried a lot, but in the sense that he was very… He had a knack for getting into things that shouldn’t have been possible

Like, you, Ophion, and your eldest daughter almost shit when you found your baby boy on top of the counter; no one put him there- you set him down for two minutes- but there he was, giggling as he crawled all over the polished countertops

Also, PS: each of the babies has their own designated “nanny Wyvern” that takes care of them, but they’re more like, just huge ass guard dogs because they’ll try to make the babies a bottle of milk and it just… it does not work out so well, because sharp claws and microwaves don’t mix as you’ve come to learn

All the wyvern’s love your kids to death tho, they’d die for them. Nobody touches the babies unless they want to get fucking mauled to death by a thousand basically siblings

Each of the babies has gone with him on business meetings with the Tycoons, not that he was very thrilled- Ophion is quite the possessive dragon when it comes to his family- but you needed the load off, especially when you guys have four kids running around? Yeah. He isn’t gonna let you deal with that responsibility alone.

So he brings them and the Tycoons were a little hesitant about the kids at first because, I mean, they’re Ophion’s kids, they have to be prideful little shits right?

Lucky for them, you keep what Ophion rubs off on his kids in check- especially the pride shit

So, turns out, that your kids are really sweet, maybe a little too confident, but sweet to everyone, and, surprisingly, Ophion’s kinda stickler for manners so they know how to behave themselves

BUT HOLY SHIT DO THEY LOVE GYUMAO????

YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHY OR HOW- BUT THE KIDS ARE LIKE???? COW MAN IS BEST MAN

Ophion is lowkey pissed about it because those are his babies, fuck you, Gyumao

But you’re jumping for joy because um? Babysitter who is legit big enough to handle all of the kiddos in one room???? YES PLEASE

The second oldest really likes Lucifuge and will ask if he can comb his hair and Luci always says yes and convinces the kids to call him Uncle Luci; Ophion also hates this

Hakumen is honorary Auntie, they love her to death, especially the two youngest ones, and she likes to spoil them to piss of Ophion

The youngest really likes Licht and Melusine (all the kids are in agreement that Mel is super pretty and the oldest always asks her if she can hold her tail)

When your kids become toddlers, they’re all curious little things and like to hang around Papa and watch what he’s doing

They’ll try to mimic him, so you’ve walked into a room and witnessed Ophion standing there looking over Tokyo majestically with a wine glass in his hand and all four of your kiddos lined up next to him trying to mimic him, all with their own respective juice cups (youngest to oldest, all trying to look like their papa??? It’s some soft shit and I will forever love Juno for adding and making this scene even cuter)

IF- IF HIS KIDS HAVE WINGS- WATCHING HIM TEACH THEM HOW TO FLY IS THE MOST WHOLESOME THING?????

He’s got a surprising amount of patience with them, so if they're scared to jump off the top of the couch, he’ll reassure them that he’s there and he would never, ever let them fall- and when they do jump? He catches them and praises them for being so brave and it’s just- *cries*

He’ll also take them out on flies so they can get used to the feeling of the wind on their faces and under their wings; they all get super excited if he does a cool twist in the air with them or something like that

The wyverns are usually out and about with them too, so they get two comfort buddies for the price of one fly!

Like with Ifrit, this dude has a tail, so the kiddos will grab onto it, and if they have tails, they’ll make a train of them holding onto each other’s tails as Ophion walks around the house or the Tower- everyone almost dies, because???? That shit cute.

You have so many photos of them doing this

Once your youngest girl fell asleep on his tail while he walked around and you almost died

When they hit their tween years, since they are confident kiddos, especially your two eldest, they have a tendency to push back with Ophion. And Ophion really doesn’t mind?

He views it as them developing a true identity for themselves, but if they ever cross a line, pray for the kiddos, because he will put the fear of a god in them. He’s very scary angry

It’s even scarier because he doesn’t lift a finger, it’s just a look. A hard, narrowed, disappointed look. It shuts them up real fast

They don’t fight with you though. They’d never fight with you lmao they love you too much

Your two youngest are relatively easy because they don’t have as dominating personalities as their big sister and brother do. So they’ll still stick close to Ophion and listen to what he has to say

You’re eldest ones have an easier time talking to you about their problems while the little ones go to their papa

Though from time to time they’ll talk to the Wyvern that they grew up closest to and rant to them, all the while said Wyvern is squawking and cooing at them in understanding

In their teenage years, they’ve been humbled a bit by their experiences, so they’re not as.... Over the top. They’re still dramatic tho

Honestly, they’d probs all go into theater. AND THEY’D BE INCREDIBLY GOOD AT IT

And Ophion would obviously brag about this because of course his offspring are amazing at anything they do

Your oldest girl is probably going to play a sport, probably swimming unless she has wings then she’d most likely play something like Lacrosse; you’re eldest boy would probably really into fashion because of Lucifuge so he’d take any fashion classes he could get his hands on; your youngest girl would be into business, courtesy of Auntie Haku and Uncle GyuGyu; and your youngest would most likely stick to theater and the arts; he fell in love with acting and I have this hc that Ophion is really into art in his spare time (especially since, hello- Old Greek God, where do you think they learned it from???) so he runs with the talent he has and just floors it

They all end up kinda, lowkey, running the school, their personalities just cause them to be natural leaders

When they finally graduate highschool, Ophion, if they can’t fly, will take them in his arms after the ceremony and they’ll fly around Tokyo just talking about everything and anything; if they can fly they’re doing the same thing, just instead they’re both doing kick ass tricks in the air! Either way, Ophion is proud and there’s the Wyvern they were closest to crying and nuzzling them because their basically little sib is all grown up

Ophion would kill for a big family with you and he’s such a good papa??? He’s naturally a good dad, it’s a little freaky- but he has so much fun raising this family. He holds all the memories he’s had with you and them close to his heart

Tadatomo

Tadatomo and you would probably have one baby in general, a little girl who’s very bubbly- though if you wanted a bigger family, Tada isn’t opposed to the idea

I feel like with Tada the baby, if you have the ability to have children- Hell, even if you don’t have the ability to have a child- you two still probably end up with having a surprise kiddo: they probably wind up being placed in front of your guys’ door by some random person-

Long story short, he freaks out

He definitely doesn’t know how to take care of a baby- he can barely take care of himself- Y/N, what does he do? Please-

It takes a lot of google searching, Youtube videos and phone calls to get Tada to calm down about the baby

After he gathers his bearings, he actually steps up to the plate pretty easily

Except for diapers, I’m so sorry, but you’re on your own for diapers. He’ll get you the stuff and everything, but, he just,,, He can not handle the smell

You guys don’t ever get a crib, if anything someone else gets you said crib (probably Mori) but you guys never use it because Tada places the baby between the both of you when you two go to sleep and, since he’s such a light sleeper, he’s usually the one to tell when she needs something before she even makes a peep

Not that I think she makes a lot of noise in the first place aside for her laughing- she’s just a happy and easy baby in general

Btw, Tada totally shed a tear when she laughed for the first time, he’ll never admit it but she gives him so much L I F E

He lets her play with his ears/tail, doesn’t matter if she pulls on them (which she doesn’t, she’s a gentle baby) no matter what time or place. He could be threatening someone with a knife and she’d be playing with his ears and everyone is like????? That’s kinda cute????

He binge watches Naruto with his baby despite them not knowing what the fuck is going on and even gets them an Uchiha onsie because obviously Sasuke and Itachi are the bast characters in Naruto and no, he doesn’t take constructive criticism, thank you very much

He probably tries to convince you to name her after Tsunade, it’s up to you if

you’re willing to go with it

(you’re kid probs has a hardcore anime phase in middles school and Tada and Shino NEVER LET HER LIVE IT DOWN)

For someone who was terrified of babies at first, he takes baby proofing the house/apartement very seriously; you’ll honestly have to stop him- he’s going crazy:

“Tada, for the last time, you don’t need to sand down the corners of the wall.” “But what if she runs into it?” “Tadatomo Inuyama, if you don’t put down that sander, I will have your head.”

You’ll sometimes wake up in the middle of the night just to find your baby isn’t there, it almost gave you a heart attack the first time because, I mean, HOLY SHIT WHERE’S YOUR BABY???

But when you look over and see Tada resting with her by the window and humming/singing her a little lullaby- your heart has never been more ready to burst in your life

Moritaka and Shino are the main babysitters, she absolutely adores Mori to death and Tada feels a sense of betrayal everytime she clings to him

Moritaka has so many mixed emotions about it because on one hand: !!! My favorite basically niece! But on the other hand, Tadatomo has been glaring at the back of his head for the past 30 minutes, please, help him-

Shino also spoils her a teeny bit and Mori and Tada will stare at him with wide eyes, like, “dad, WHERE’S MY HUG???”

He starts her training early, because you know he wants his little girl to be able to take care of herself if he isn’t there to protect her, which, that’s not gonna happen, Tada will kill an entire city, don’t test him (also Mori and Shino and you’ll be there and like, nobody wants to open that can of fucking worms)

She’s clumsy at first, but she’s a really fast learner and he cannot be more proud when she starts to pick up stuff, he almost starts crying but, again, denies it if you try to bring it up

If she ends up having fangs of any kind, he will, like Ifrit, invest in chew toys as well, because have you seen puppies when they teeth??? It’s chaos, you will lose so much furniture that way, let me tell you

She develops a really good sense of balance, so it’s a fight to get her to stop breaking into the snack cupboard when she wants a treat; she’ll give it up without a fight, but she will break in again if you don’t watch it

She’s a pretty big ball of sunshine so she makes a lot of friends and invites them over; they all think Tada’s super scary because he’s glowering at them, if you tell them that that’s just how his face is, he’ll be mildly offended, but then you also throw in the fact that he’s a super cool ninja and then the kids are all over the poor transient

He’s in heaven, but he won’t tell you that. Your guys’ daughter is all too happy to tell you guys all about how people think she has the coolest parents in school

Despite him teaching her how to fight, he’s a bit of a helicopter parent, especially when her tween/teenage years roll around

She’s a pretty easy kid in her tween years too, though Tada has a heart attack when puberty hits her and Aunt Ruby comes a knocking and he calls up Shino of all people to explain it to her, which he does, you’re honestly a little shocked when you get home and you see Shino with a whole powerpoint slide explaining in excruciating detail what a period is to your horrified daughter and your, as equally horrified, husband

He gets her everything she needs or asks you to get it if he can’t BECAUSE YOU GUYS ARE GOOD PARENTS

Tadatomo isn’t the best with emotions so he’s shit with advice, but he’s a really good listener. So, sometimes your kid will just info dump to him about everything that’s bothering her

When she starts getting into the dating scene Tada HATES IT

He’s always glowering at the partner she brought home because he already hates them, he wants them to go away. She’s his little Shinobi- DON’T TOUCH HIS LITTLE SHINOBI-

You have to be the one to calm him down tbh because he will kill a child with zero hesitation

Her teenage years are also pretty easy, she’s a rather laid back and optimistic kid and she has a solid relationship with both you and her papa so she doesn’t really have a lot of negative emotions inside of her

And if she ever gets angry or anything, you know Tada installed a gym in your guys’ home, so she’ll punch the punching bag or work out her emotions

Tada will join her if she’s feeling up for it

She’s most likely into sports and Tada and you go to all of her games; Tada cheers the loudest but he will DENY IT

When she graduates from high school, Tada will openly cry. He’s super proud of his little girl and she’s a step closer to being an adult, she most likely got a scholarship for whatever sport she was most excited for and a dozen other little scholarships as well. Tadatomo will give her a big ol’ hug and tell her how proud he is of her, honestly, you’re probs gonna cry too

He is another excellent papa, who would give the world to his kid- he’s honestly so happy that you’re with him because he feels like he would never be able to take care of her as good without you

Xolotl

XOLOTL WOULD BE AN AMAZING DAD I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL

I feel that he’d have one child, maybe two, but definitely one; a little boy

It’s most likely you who brings up the idea of having a kid with him; and he is both a nervous wreck and an excited mess because A) Oh! A baby! And you want to have one with him??? WHY??? And B) OH! A BABY! I LOVE BABIES AND I LOVE YOU

He’s a pretty gentle soul, so when you bring home the baby, Xolotl gets the kid to go out like a light every time he starts crying

It relieves both you and Lotl, but definitely Lotl, like, the poor guy always has a mini heart attack when his baby is crying

The baby is a bit of a fussy baby so, he tends to cry if he feels like he isn’t getting enough attention or he wants to be held

Lotl is super attuned to your kids’ emotions?? Like, to a freaky degree, he can tell just what your baby wants

He records all milestones in your babies life and you know it’s him because you can hear his sniffles in the background

IF (and most likely) YOUR BABY’S FIRST WORD IS DADA, XOL WILL FUCKING LOSE HIS SHIT

“Y/N! Y/N! Our baby said ‘dada’! Our baby said ‘dada’!” “Yes, Xol, that’s great! Don’t cry on the camera though, please-” *Incomprehensible blubbering ensues*

He’ll actually take the baby with him to work if you’re too busy to watch him or if you can’t find anyone to watch him

AKA: Maria is super busy and can’t watch the baby, which kills her inside because she loves the baby and Xolotl, as much as he loves Garmr, isn’t about to trust him with his baby’s life because that is… a very foolish decision to make, unfortunately

Hakuman got mad at him the first time for this and started yelling at him when the baby started to cry, her maternal instincts kicked in and she was on it; like she snatched him out of his little baby carrier and cradled him, cooing at the baby until he calmed down and then she gave him back to his papa, who was mildly miffed for once in his life, thank you very much (his fur was standing on end, he was ready to throw down with the mistress). She even apologized for taking your guys’ baby without permission and startling him- don’t get her wrong, she was still very much against the idea of Xol bringing his baby to work. It can, afterall, be a very dangerous place, especially the casino, but what could you do? Obviously this little baby needed a place to stay and what better place than with his papa, her top bodyguard, and of course the one and only her!

She ends up convincing him to bring the baby a vast majority of the time he comes around now, she’ll have him take him into meetings she has with the Tycoons and they get nothing done. NOTHING. They’re all too busy playing with the baby. He has a tendency to get really antsy when Ophion comes near his baby, fighting the urge to snap at him, but he learned that Ophion just really likes kids and holding them. Though he did make the jab that you and him would’ve made much cuter children and Hakuman was terrified of Xolotl in that moment because he almost lost his shit

When the baby becomes a toddler, Lotl is much more confident and experienced, but he’s still nervous, your little boy is still very attached to his papa despite this

When he meets new people that he doesn’t know very well, he’ll hide behind your’s or Xolotl’s leg and peek out at them

It’s really, really cute???? Lotl almost starts crying

SPEAKING OF CRYING, your little munchkin cries a lot

But Lotl never yells at him for it or anything, he just kneels down and rests his hands on his shoulders and asks what’s wrong, more often than not, your kiddo just gets nervous and starts crying, not loud and obnoxious, but those silent tears of stress. But then he gets a big ol’ hug from papa/you and he’s alright

He likes to try and copy what Lotl does so he’ll pretend he has a tie and fix it whenever Papa Lotl does and he almost screamed when he caught your kiddo mimicking him

He’ll also steal Lotl’s glasses once in a while and wear them, pretending to be a kick ass agent like his dad

LOTL MADE HIM A MATCHING BRACELET TO HIM AND I SHIT YOU NOT WHEN I SAY: THIS BOY NEVER TAKES IT OFF, EVEN WHEN HE’S A TEENAGER THAT STAYS NO MATTER WHAT

Lotl gave it to him when it was his first day of school and told him that papa put some of his and mama/papa/nano’s bravery in it so he’d always have some of his own- and he just- AHHH-

As your little boy grows up, he develops a bit more of a bite than his dad has, so he’ll try to defend you guys from anyone if they try to say anything about his dad crying and hitting on you, they have one pissed off toddler on their hands and he fucking bites, it doesn’t matter if he has the fangs or not, he’ll bite someone

(You guys honestly don’t know where he learned that from-*looks at Garmr*)

When he hits his tween years, the boy is an anxious mess, but he’s not afraid to cry about it, he’s learned that crying is perfectly fine from his papa and it’s actually super healthy to get rid of all that pent up emotion, so you bet your ass when I say: your little boy knows a lot of healthy coping methods, which is awesome

It actually helps his transition through puberty a lot

Real talk, he almost shits himself when he speaks and he realizes how deep his fucking voice is, even Lotl is freaked out. But then he gets real proud of it and so does Lotl and it’s a cute father-son moment

If he ever gets to be the same size of Lotl, he’ll still get plenty of head pats from his papa

His teenage years are pretty smooth sailing aside from him being a tad anxious and socially awkward about things, but he’ll get through it! With the power of support and him having a safe place to explore himself he’ll learn healthy coping mechanisms to handle his anxiety!

Though if he ever does get really emotionally constipated or it just becomes too much, he’ll go to Lotl or you and ask if you can hug him and he’ll just cry and let it all go, rambling into your shirt, you can barely make out the words, but still nodding along with what he’s saying- it really helps

He has a first job already in the bag: at the water park that Hakuman runs! Because like hell was he gonna work at the casino as a first job, over Lotl’s, your’s and Hakuman’s dead bodies. It really helps his social anxiety and he learns that he actually really likes to interact with people (also everyone loves him over there because he’s such a gigantic teddy bear)

He’s probably super into art and Lotl gets him everything art related that he can get his hands on, he really wants to support his kiddo

Lotl and you go to every gallery that your son’s art features in and it’s always great because that’s where you get to see him shine the most

When your guys’ son graduates from high school with a fully paid scholarship to his dream art school for his portfolio, you're all crying. You’re all so proud of your guys’ little boy

Having a kid was really good for Xolotl- having a family was really good for him; it helped build his confidence and become more secure with himself. He only wished his brother could be here to see his nephew, but this was fine, he could probably see him know and see how good of a dad Lotl was

Bonus HC for Lotl: he’d be, hands down, one of the best characters to be a single parent. Change my mind

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yanderecandystore · 4 years

Note

Can we have the s/o in the old eldritch one get pregnant n stuff

Oh well, it seems like the antichrist will be born-

Well not literally, but kinda.

I think… That maybe I should warn y'all about some possible disasters.

Tags?/Tw??: size difference boo; curious eldritch boy; illusions; apocalyptic world; also mentions of other entities and some of the events that happened in A Bad Dream. Also I'm a dumbass who should have took some medicine instead of writing while having a headache.

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

Golden Years [Yandere!Eldritch x Pregnant!Reader - Short Fanfiction and possibly a follow-up story]:

It's been five years since the Earth's sky has been broken apart. The red clouds above form a connection to the other world that creatures like him came from. A portal, in a way.

To humanity, this was the end. But to them, it was the beginning of something.

Something interesting.

Not every single entity on Ibu's home was on Earth of course, it's a really small place for so many cosmic entities. And it is not like all of them have an interest in this small rock, only a few, like Ibu himself.

Always the curious one. Most would consider him naive, and possibly childish, if the "concept" of children was commonly known throughout his "brothers and sisters".

He was only a couple of stars old. 687 stars have been born and have died throughout his entire existence, to be exact. Which was pretty young compared to his "peers".

Not that they really cared about keeping up with their age, it was mostly used to devalue each other's nonsense. Someone around his age would be considered foolish regardless of what his morals and ethics were.

But he doesn't really care, he prefers to take his time and learn than pretend he knows everything in the universe. He enjoys being curious the way he is, is more fun to learn about things if you truthfully explore them.

And learning about humans while interpreting to be one is probably the best form of learning he could have ever found!

It's extremely exciting to him, in five years he has learned so much. He learned that humans fall easily into his illusions, that humans are small and easy to carry, that even if a human is in his illusion they won't notice the odd feelings of being high up or being held by bigger hands, oh! Humans are actually pretty warm, and that their living habitats are tiny but he can kinda squeeze himself in.

Which isn't the most comfortable thing, but he knows how to deal with it.

He learned that humans call each other by names depending on their relationship status and how much a human cares for them. He learned that humans are fragile, and that they like small things, and that they-

Oh, it's just so many things you know? He could keep going on, but it isn't exactly human like to point out obvious things like that.

You told him that. You've been really helpful with helping him understand your kind better.

His companions don't really agree with his actions. While he is playing "dollhouse" (he saw small humans doing this ritual of playing with inanimate objects and pretending to have an "a family", he found that so fascinating), his peers are doing more "fun things".

Like slaving humans, or executing humans, or trapping them in pocket dimensions, or adding them to their ever growing collection (like a friend of his who is obsessed with collecting life forms), or destroying everything and everyone that they meet in the way, like his sister!

She showed him a big wall the other day, it was bigger than any human, or even house. They both didn't understand the point of such obstacle. She said it probably took centuries to put it up. She simply smashed it down like it was nothing.

He doesn't know why she does these types of things, but she still finds enjoyment in doing them, so he would just let her have her fun.

She tried to convince him to give up on understanding you and just let loose, as humans would say.

But, he doesn't find it fun at all. He tried it once on a really annoying human, he thinks it was your mate.

He can't remember for sure. He tries to forget unpleasant things. Yet, he still remembers that day.

Could you stop it please? It's getting annoying.

There he was, the annoying human, and some others trying to… Hurt him? He doesn't understand what they were trying to do, whatever it was it wasn't as effective as they thought it was. They were clearly aiming at his eyes, but it only made them itchy.

You never stop, do you?

At that time he didn't remember that they couldn't understand him. He was getting angry, and it seemed normal to speak in his own language rather than communicating on yours.

"- Hey… What is happening love?" You asked him, poor thing, he wondered what you could possibly be seeing. Considering his illusions were really effective on you, he assumes that you were only seeing your husband and a bunch of pricks trying to hurt him.

In your eyes, he looks like your true husband, and your real husband feels like a stranger. It's all that he can do for now, interpret your old mate.

Also, love, you have some bad taste at picking partners, this little human seems a little too possessive, don't you agree?

Of course there are a couple of rebellious humans, trying to survive and fight for their freedom and what not. He really wishes he could care about them, but honestly, how can they expect to win a "war" that is not even happening?

It's not a fair fight anyway, so why bother so much? And also, they don't even know that the most important part of "killing" one of his kind is completely destroying their mask. Which is close to almost impossible.

Honestly, why even bother…

"- L-love? Are you okay?"

"- Yes, don't worry about it." He learned how to perfectly imitate the other human's voice. It's not exactly a difficult thing to do, especially for the likes of him, but hey, he thinks he deserves some praises for doing it.

Anyway, they thought that they could have a chance against him. And although he wasn't looking for a fight, he almost did kill them out of rage.

While holding you in one hand, he made his way towards the crowd shooting at him. One little slap to the ground was enough to shake it and unbalance them. It's kinda silly from his perspective.

How bothersome, if I take these would you stop?

He took and broke (although accidentally) the guns in his fingers. He was actually planning on studying them but, oh well, he can always ask you later about how they function.

Even when he already lost, your ex partner still tries to pick up a fight. It's taking every fiber of his being to not put this insufferable little creature into an everlasting nightmare in his pocket dimension. He picked the annoying one up, while the others were trying to pick some extra equipment they brought.

It wasn't so difficult to trade places with you, but if you keep acting foolish, I don't think you'll exist for too long.

Yelling, after cursing, after more yelling, some crying in the mix. Ibu can't be bothered right now, you two were just going back home.

Can't a being tall as a building go home with his tiny mate in peace? The world has already ended, so why bother stoping him from living his own immortal life?

"- She doesn't love you, and ya know that."

…

Oh.

…. Oh…

"- Excuse me?"

"- Oh! So you can speak now-" He yelled after hearing Ibu speak in his own language. That prick heard every bit of suffering that he put him through, yet-

"- Repeat." Ibu already knew what he said, he just needed to hear it, again...

"- What?" … Just to be sure…

"- Repeat." … That what he heard was correct...

"- … What if I don't?" … And that he had a free pass...

"- … What would your intestines look like if they were pulled from inside out?" … To lose his patience with this one.

It seemed like he could "let loose" this time around.

If only he had payed better attention at you instead of that insolent pest.

He had closed his hands a little too harshly at that moment. Even if it was unconsciously, the damage was already done.

He closed his hand, and accidentally (he swears it was an accident!) Broke one of your legs.

He dropped the other human at your sudden scream. The low sound of something breaking wasn't really reassuring.

I mean, two legs were broken that day, yours and your ex lover's. But he didn't care about the other one, so let's ignore his screams of agony-

To his sister, breaking one of your bones wasn't exactly the worst possible thing that could happen. Actually, if it was her the one holding you, she would probably do that intentionally.

As to her, it was fun to hurt humans like you. But to Ibu it wasn't, it was terrible! He really didn't mean to.

He was plagued by the sudden feeling of guilty overflowing him. It was probably the first time he ever felt like this. It was probably the first time he ever apologized for something.

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry please shhhh I'm really sorry I'm sorry I'll fix it I'll fix it I'm sorry I'm sorry

Woah, that was… A terrible experience even remembering gives him headaches. And he shouldn't even have headaches! Stress can lead to his mask breaking.

That would be really unfortunate.

You didn't seem to remember what happened the day after, so he had to help you get better slowly. I guess another thing he learned in these five years was how to fix human bones.

But that was in the past, right? It didn't matter now, right?

Yeah… It didn't… Mattered.

Or it shouldn't. He never really relaxed after that incident.

Not only did he feel incapable of taking care of you, as he started thinking a simple blow of wind could make you fall. But he also felt on edge whenever he remembered those words.

" She doesn't love you."

That shouldn't have been so impactful as it was. Maybe he truly was too soft. He knows better than to listen to the delusions of that man.

He knows that you love him. He knows that! He really… He really hopes he knows that.

He really hopes it is true.

You started acting a little weird recently, he doesn't know how you're feeling and what you are thinking, so he started feeling like maybe you don't love him…

You normally made calls to your friends, although the telephone hasn't been functional since four years ago, since if you truly were interacting with other people there could be a chance of you breaking the illusion. You would tell them what was on your mind while you thought he wasn't listening.

You haven't written in your diary, you haven't made any recent notes on your phone or computer, and you haven't told him what you were hiding.

He wouldn't know how to react if you decided to get away from him. He would probably put you inside his pocket dimension, or probably take you to his own world.

No… That place is too dangerous. What can he do??

He was sitting on the sofa contemplating this last few weeks you've been acting differently. And that phrase keeps popping up in his mind, and is starting to make him sick.

And the thought of you being sad or mad at him from when he broke your leg is starting to eat him from inside.

What can he do-

"- Love? Are you okay?"

"- Oh, don't worry about it… I'm just thinking about some stuff."

"- Is it related to work?"

Oh yeah, "work", he kinda hides outside the house whenever you think he is at work. Even if he wanted to experience a job for the first time and know how humans function under social stress twenty two hours a day through five days, each every single week, there weren't any jobs available.

As more than a half of the population was gone or dead.

"- Yeah… It is." He learned how to deal with this type of question. He saw a lot of tv shows with you, and they all mentioned how jobs are essentially torture chambers that suck the energy out of humans in exchange of money.

Those shows weren't lying or exaggerating, right?

"- Well, I… I think you should relax, and maybe take a break, I never saw you taking a vacation, maybe this is a good time, love."

"- Yeah…. I would love to spend more time inside." Although he literally just watches you doing mundane things all day everyday, because to him all of those things are incredible and breathtaking.

"- I… I have something to tell you…" You seemed a little concerned, was something wrong?

"- What is it?"

"- H-here." You were worried that his reaction might be a little negative, or not as excited as you were. He works every single day, you feel like this type of surprise you probably make him worry more.

But then again, there wasn't really a way to keep this a secret. You're still wondering how hasn't he noticed your belly or your morning sickness, but you also didn't think it was because of pregnancy, so, I guess you're both equally naive?

He is looking at the pregnancy test, not knowing it's a pregnancy test or what pregnancy even is. So he doesn't really understand what it is until you say it out loud.

"- I'm going to have a baby, love."

He is still visibly confused.

"- A… Tiny human?"

"- Pfft, yes! Of course it's a tiny human. Oh gosh, how can you be silly in a time like this."

Yeah, he is a riot, isn't he?

Stars, help him understand what is happening, please.

"- That's kinda what I like about you, you know? You're funny, you never take anything too seriously." You tell him, being fully honest.

His presence feels comforting in a world so serious and dull.

He isn't aware of how to feel, he is confused and extremely excited about this revelation.

Would the baby be human? A hybrid of some form? Would it have his own features? Would it have a mask? Would giving birth to them possibly break the illusion?

He should consider all of the possibilities but… He is just, so happy! This the weirdest most confusing experience he ever had, yet he is absolutely delighted by this outcome.

He loves you so much, he really does, and he knows that now. He knows that this is a proof of love, that there is absolutely nothing that can separate you from him.

You two would be spinning around the living room, full cliche style.

Although, again, he doesn't really fit in the living room all that well. So he can't really do that, but you get the sentiment, right?

Stars, this is perfect, absolutely perfect.

"- I love you [Y/N]!"

"- I love you too, Cameron!"

It's been five years, and yet you kept saying the same name over and over again.

At first he didn't mind, it was a nice sounding name. But as time went on, being called by your ex's name is starting to become troublesome.

"- Maybe I can fix that later." Maybe he can drop the charade and give you one of his many names.

Having you call him "Ibu" would be so special to him.

"- Hun? What do you mean?"

Oh nothing, really.

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

#yandere #yandere oc #yandere x reader #sheep's stuff #yandere oc x reader #yandere eldritch #yandere short fanfiction #yandere fanfic #yandere fanfiction #special delivery request #special delivery scenarios #yandere scenario #yandere scenarios

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bewaretheidesofmarchyall · 3 years

Note

Hey, i really like minecraft and used to watch mcyt's back when i was younger. I was wondering if you could maybe guide me into the dream smp series. I have no idea where to start or what people are partaking in it. It seems so active rn and you seem to be invested in the plotlines and such so i thought maybe you can help me?

Okay!

The Dream SMP: A History

Warnings for drugs, the selling of drugs, drinking, war, death, explosions, and human/fish relationships

So, once upon a time, there was a Minecraft server.

It didn't have much of a plot or drama, everyone was just kind of playing the game

Then Wilbur showed up.

An important thing to remember about this server: It’s all Wilbur’s fault, except when it’s Dream’s.

Anyway, Wilbur decided to start a Minecraft drug empire (re: potions) out of a hto dog van (I did not misspell that. It’s called the hto dog van).

But they all lived in Dream’s server (Dream is the main Ruler/God/Inconceivable Green Dude of the SMP) and under Dream’s rule.

He interfered with their “drug” business, so Wilbur did the only logical thing: Declared independence and formed his own nation to sell more “drugs”!

The nation was called L’Manburg, but Dream wasn’t a fan of any of this

And so the Revolution began!!

Part One: The Disc Wars

The main players were Wilbur (the most theater kid of them all), Tommy (The closest thing to a shonen protagonist this thing has), Tubbo (sunshine personified, likes bees, can lie though), and Eret (fuck Eret /j) (In all seriousness, they're awesome)

It was a hard battle.

Dream had way more people. The revolutionaries were outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, and out planned. And that was before Eret betrayed them.

Eret killed off all of their fellow revolutionaries in exchange for Dream giving them a kingdom.

All seemed lost (Tommy even tried to duel Dream despite being 16 and not the best at combat. He got killed quickly.)

Tommy hadn’t really cared about the revolution in the beginning, but at the end he gave up his most prized possessions (his music discs) to get Dream to leave them alone.

And L’Manburg was an independent nation!

Everyone celebrated in the ways they knew best

In Wilbur’s case, that was sleeping with a fish (yes. a fish. it was a salmon, if that clears anything up) named Sally and having a son: Fundy, furry extraordinaire!

Somehow the middle ground between Salmon and Human is Fox, as Fundy is an anthropomorphic fox.

He was the first person born in L’Manburg, and it seemed like there was to be peace throughout the land once more.

Take one flying guess who screwed that up.

Part Two: The Election

If you guessed Wilbur, we have a winner!

He decided that he needed to win an election to rule the country, and ran as POG 2020, or Wilbur for President.

But he wasn’t unopposed.

Enter Quackity (yes, this is the guy Trump vague tweeted), wanting power but being chill about it, as usual. He decided to throw his beanie into the political ring as Quackity 2020.

It seemed like an easy race, since Wilbur had liberated the nation and Quackity was just Some Guy at this point.

Then, Fundy and Nikki decided to run as Coconut 2020 in a third party bid for the presidency.

THEN, when Schlatt (senile old goat, the corrupt businessman archetype, often drunk) came up to the stage to endorse a candidate, he instead rambled into the mic that he was running for president too.

Like the senile old man they all thought he was.

Little did they know.

Wilbur still could have easily won this election. He was popular and everything. Then, he made a decision.

(Wilbur didn't need to do this, but like all tragic heroes and/or theater kids, he had hubris and was going to make it Everyone's Problem)

He went up to Quackity and suggested that they combine their votes. Quackity wasn't going to win either way, but this way he'd get to be vice president.

Quackity saw that it made sense, but decided that he wanted to be petty that day, and decided to combine votes with Schlatt instead.

And then the votes were counted

Team Coconut came in fourth because they cheated

Team Schlatt came in third because no one wanted the drunken, senile goat to be president

Team Quackity came in second

And Team Wilbur won in a landslide, taking 45% of the votes!

Tommy ran out of the video to tell his mom they won. And then Wilbur revealed the deal Quackity and Schlatt struck.

Quackity+Schlatt got 46% of the votes. Schlatt was president of L’Manburg.

Schlatt immediately takes the podium and starts giving a dramatic speech that sounds less Senile Goat more Dangerous Dictator Goat. He orders that Team Wilbur leave the nation of L'Manburg Manburg (he renamed the country) under threat of death.

Part Three: The Festival

Team Wilbur became Pogtopia, Schlatt and crew became Manburg, and L'Manburg became a nostalgic dream.

The Pogtopians hope to reclaim their nation, and get this absolute madman on their team.

The dude spent a year just farming potatoes to beat someone in a contest. He regularly quotes The Art Of War. He's a die-hard anarchist.

Behold: Technoblade.

So Manburg is a dictatorship at this point in the tale, and Pogtopia is trying its best.

They have Technoblade, Tommy, Wilbur, probably someone I'm forgetting, and Tubbo.

Tubbo is their spy on the inside (so is Fundy, but he hasn't even told Pogtopia he's spying for them, so he's regarded as a traitor)

Then the Festival rolls around

Wilbur has been spiraling, and having a little corruption arc because of course the theater kid decides to kin Hamlet (or is it Macbeth in this situation?)

A day before the festival, he reveals that he's planning on blowing up L'Manburg, because if he can't have it no one can.

The festival comes around, and surprise! Tubbo is publicly executed in front of a crowd!

Schlatt figured out he was a traitor, so he ordered that Techno execute him.

Techno did, but because he was peer pressured.

Then Techno killed pretty much everyone at the festival with fireworks!

Wilbur tried to blow up the place, but lost the button to detonate the TNT (Side note: The TNT was given to him by Dream. Because of course.)

Part Four: The Revolution 2 (Electric Boogaloo)

By the time the true war for L’Manburg rolls around, next to no one is on Schlatt’s side.

Quackity betrays him, Fundy betrays him, even Eret is back on the side of Pogtopia.

The war went by fast, and Schlatt was surrounded by former allies and enemies alike.

Schlatt had a heart attack before anyone could actually kill him, and died as pathetically as he’d lived. Anti-climactic, but everyone was happy.

Wilbur declared Tommy, our protagonist, president.

Tommy declined the presidency, saying that he needed to search for his discs first. He declared Wilbur president of L’Manburg once more.

Wilbur declined the presidency and declared Tubbo president

Tubbo accepted and gave a lovely speech

And then it all goes to shit. "Surely not all of it?" Yeah. All of it.

Wilbur (yes. it was wilbur.) explodes L’Manburg, finally pressing the button to destroy his nation despite his dad trying to stop him.

His own father, Philza, kills him

Stabs the Wilbur

Everyone panicks

And that's when Techno decided it was Chaos Time.

He stands on the ashes of L'Manburg, and said that no government will be allowed to rise in the entire SMP. Tommy objects, and Techno gives this speech:

do you think you’re a hero, tommy?

the thing about this world tommy, is that good things don’t happen to heroes. let me tell you a story, tommy. a story about a man called theseus. his country—well his city-state technically—was in danger. and he sent himself forward into enemy lines. he slayed the minotaur and saved his city.

and you know what they did to him, tommy?

they exiled him. he died in disgrace, despised by his people. that’s what happens to heroes, tommy. the greeks knew the score. but if you want to be a hero, tommy. that’s fine.

do you want to be a hero tommy?

THEN DIE LIKE ONE.

And then he spawns two withers (one of which is named Subscribe To Technoblade) and all hell breaks loose.

Part Five: The Aftermath (aka Where Are They Now?)

Since then, Tubbo has been trying to rebuild L’Manburg. It’s a canal town now, and it looks lovely. He’s a good President.

Tommy isn’t the best Vice President, but once he stops banning people from the country he should be good.

Nikki has left the fox Wilbur gave her in Pogtopia.

Speaking of abandoned foxes, Fundy’s dealing with the death/betrayal of his dad, as well as not getting on that well with the others. He’s also engaged to Dream.

Yes, you read that right. Dream and Fundy are getting married. Fundy met their eldritch overlord on what was pretty much a blind date, and they just clicked.

Eret is adopting Fundy! She has no kingdom any more, but she’s recovered some honor and now has a son.

Philza is dealing with the fact that he killed his son, and may try to resurrect him.

Schlatt is still dead (but is he really gone?)

Quackity is....doing some worrisome things, getting vague tweeted at by Trump, ate Schlatt’s heart, and might be possessed by him??

Technoblade is still doing his own thing, I think

And Wilbur? Wilbur is an amnesiac ghost, blocking out the memories of when he was hurt or a bad person.

There’s way more to say on the subject of the Dream SMP, but this is the basics! Hope this helped!

#long post #dream smp #mcyt

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serendipitous-posts · 4 years

Text

I see your Au’s where Klaus is the one with his powers suppressed and I raise you an Au where Ben’s power is the one suppressed

(May call this Cthulhu au? Sounds about right. I also somehow made Reginald worse??)

So, Reginald Hargeeves is a dick, but he’s also pragmatic, right? He doesn’t care for these kids, as long as they can live up to his expectations

He is absolutely determined for them all to reach their full potential, mental and physical safety be damned

So in this verse, he doesn’t give up on Vanya. He remains certain that he can control her and that she can control it

It takes a lot of time, but he’s persistent in his belief she can achieve greatness, which would be amazing virtue if he wasn’t such an abusive ass

The violin, he learns, helps a lot, helps hone her abilities and fine tune them to her advantage

The press love the little musician, with her big shiny eyes and careful nature and gentleness

You know who the press doesn’t like? Ben. Hates him actually.

Or rather, they hate what is inside of him. They hate the Horror

(once, when ben was very young, he had tried to explain to three that he was the horror and the horror was him. like conjoined twins, but she had looked so disgusted that he had shut up)

Because it’s hard to spin a weird eldritch abomination that kills people into a positive light, and in the aftermath of every mission there’s always a group, growing louder and louder with each one, arguing that just because they were criminals doesn’t mean they should be murdered. That the Umbrella Academy were playing judge, jury and executioner when they shouldn’t, that they had no legal power and what were they doing?

An even smaller group, but potent in it’s ferocity, points out just how terrible it is, forcing a child to kill people

And normally Reginald would write it off, ignore it except-

Except he can’t ignore the way the Horror has been acting lately-hungry and aggressive and mad. But not towards the other kids, no. Towards him. He steps into the room and Ben’s skin starts crawling and twisting.

(if he didn’t know better, he would say it was trying to protect him)

And Hargreeves, as we see in season 2, is an experienced fighter, but he’s not going to kid himself. He knows he doesn’t stand a chance against the Horror. The only ones who might are his siblings

But, as he realises with horror, he doesn’t know if they would side with him against number 6.

Because Ben is the shy, quiet kind one. If he ordered them to kill them- Number One might do it, but the others? No, no way, he sees how they look at him sometimes, all quiet fuming hatred and anger and-

They’d probably try and kill him themselves

But they’re young, and easily manipulated so he starts - leaving suggestions really- makes them watch any videos of the Horror attacking, showing it’s rampage as Ben wilts before them all. Suggests 6 shouldn’t be near the cameras anymore because he’s too frightening. TV shows now have movies like Alien and documentaries about parasites that burrow under the skin

They see a hulk figurine in the store one day and he makes sure to tell One, loud enough for everyone to hear, that he’s not a hero, he’s a monster, because he can’t control his impulses

At the end of every mission, he finds a reason to critique the Horror and Ben and their brutalness, all the while sending them out to do so anyways

The Horror, perhaps sensing the amount of bullshit that is happening, grows worse, grows even more agitated over time

4 and 5 and 7 rally behind him, because 5 and 7 are his isolation buddies and 4 and him have been friends forever. But 1 and 2 and 3- they start to pull away, little by little

Because they believe that he’s going too far that their father may actually be right, at least on this, it is a little freaky, and it’s not just their father saying it, it’s everyone and they can’t all be lying

He makes them all sit in on Ben’s special training- killing a rabbit, and now Vanya starts to flinch whenever he comes into the room, stops inviting him to her recitals

(it’s not a coincidence that rabbits were her favourite animal)

Five stays loyal though, making a point of going with him to the libraries or talking to him about books he’s read. Ben’s- he’s paler now, even quieter, but he enjoys the company and the Horror always seems to settle down in his presence

Then Five disappears one day and never returns.

Reginald is torn because on one hand- he’s one asset down and Five was always a very useful asset and very very clever but he always thought he was so clever, working around all of his rules

Vanya and Five were the closest and now she’s alone. And even though Vanya is one of the nicest people out there, she just lost her brother, and she needs someone to blame to lash out at and she remembers how Ben and Five would talk for hours about Five’s powers

She yells at him, screams at him that this is his fault, and Klaus tries to intervene but it doesn’t really work, because in this universe Vanya isn’t forgotten or ignored, she’s the most powerful and that comes with a certain amount of respect.

She’s more confident and sure of herself and she is sure that this is Ben’s fault

The Horror, sensing Ben’s stress, lashes out. It slams a tentacle down on the ground in front of her, causing her to scramble back, suddenly aware of the fact that she is in a room with someone who has a literal monster in his stomach

Diego walks in on Ben attacking their sister and immediately grabs his knife, stabbing into it and Ben howls, the tentacles sliding back under his skin

Diego is praised for his quick thinking, one of the few times his father ever compliments him and he holds it close to his chest

(she’ll realise her mistake much later of it not being Ben’s fault, but she doesn’t apologise, too scared of the Horror and what it could do to her)

(she full on avoids him now)

All that leaves in Klaus, but to be honest? He has his own issues to deal with. At first, he clings to Ben because he gets it, the absolute hatred you have to your powers

And Ben is so so so happy to have someone be there for him, someone who hates their abilities as much as he does. They comfort each other after their own personal lessons, talk about which powers they would like to have, how they would love to get rid of their powers entirely

And then Klaus does. Get rid of them.

Well, kind of. Drugs as it turns out, cancels out his abilities. They learn this during a mission and he’s so happy. And Ben is so happy for him

Except . . after a while, Klaus starts to pull away too, so caught up in the world of drugs and addiction and leaving him behind to deal with his own issues

He tries to confront him on it, but Ben was always the meekest of his siblings, and it doesn’t go well

“You’re just jealous” Klaus spits “you can’t turn off” he gestures towards Ben’s torso “that thing.”

All the while, the Horror is growing more and more agitated, squirming under his skin like an itch, stretching it and bruising it, awful and visible. His siblings, sickened by this display, start to avoid him, which just makes him agitated, which just makes the Horror agitated, which makes it more active, which makes his siblings avoid him more, rinse and repeat

(he can’t move, somedays, from the pain of it all, muscles stretched beyond their limit by the thing that should never be beneath a persons skin)

And then- and then, after a very bad mission, where his siblings had all looked away as he emerged bloody from another room, his father tells him he doesn’t have to do missions if he doesn’t want to

Holy hell. Holy fucking shit

This is- it’s- everything he has ever wanted since his first ever training exercise

He says yes, of course

(The Horror hasn’t been this calm in years)

And he doesn’t have to go on missions anymore! He gets to stay home and read and be alone but in a good way and it is everything he has ever dreamed of and more

(in another room, their father announces that Ben is too dangerous to be allowed on missions anymore, and that he won’t be training with them anymore)

His siblings are torn between relief-that they won’t have to see another killing spree, and jealousy-because he doesn’t have to go on missions or have personal training

(none of them are relieved for ben, who always hated going on missions)

Klaus especially is jealous, and is snippy towards Ben for the remainder of the week, but he’s on cloud freakin’ nine, and he doesn’t really notice any of his sibling’s odd behaviour

But as time passes, Ben starts to feel more and more left out and excluded. The main reason why the siblings are so close is that they go on missions and train together, and Ben is no longer doing that.

He also notices that the others are . . . blaming him a lot. Even for things he didn’t do

“Why is there a hole in the wall?”

“Ben must have let the Horror out”

“You’re bringing an animal inside the house? Don’t let Ben see it”

It’s lonely, but the alternative is going back to training, and he would actually rather die. It’s just- he’s being selfish. The Horror is a monster (he is a monster) so it makes sense that others would think he was the one doing Bad Things

And Ben spent his entire life trying not to be a Bad Person, but everyone keeps saying that he is a Bad Person, and he isn’t sure what to do. Sometimes people recognise him on the streets, pull back, hide their kids, some the same age as him

(once Allison and Luther were with him when this happened, and they looked at the woman shielding her baby with something like-understanding? empathy? whatever it was, it made Ben’s stomach open, but not in a Horror way in a Bad Way)

He breaks down in tears, finds his mom in the middle of the night, feeling like a baby because he is fourteen years old and he shouldn’t be crying except this morning Diego had turned to Luther and asked “where’s the freak?” and Luther had grinned and said “Ben’s still in his room” and neither had realised he was standing behind them

(family scapegoat syndrome is a very serious thing.)

He goes to her, crying and wishing that it would just go away, that awful, awful monster in his body, why won’t it just die already?

Grace tries to comfort him, but Reginald knew this would one day happen, and put certain . . things into her coding, things she can and can’t say.

She sits there and tells her son awful things about him and the thing that lives inside of him, a parasite, she is forced to call it, to call him

(and you may think Diego hates Reginald the most, but that title has, will and always shall belong to Grace)

“You’re disgusting” she tells her son and thinks of the man who made her

Ben wails, loud and strong, and the Horror responds to his horror, jumping to life and slamming into Grace and then Ben is screaming and he can hear his siblings footsteps, rapidly approaching, but he’s trying to get to his mom and-

He blacks out

He wakes back up in the infirmary, where Pogo is waiting for him. He explains how their mother is damaged, and will take a while to fix

He has to go about his day with Diego’s glare scorching his back. Breakfast is burnt porridge and milk. The first chance he gets, Diego accosts him, knife missing by inches

“A-a-asshole!” He shouts, brandishing a knife “h-how could you?!”

“I didn’t mean to!” Ben squeaks, because he was always the shortest brother and his brother loves their mom and he hurt their mom and his brother is armed

“Diego stop” Vanya says, tugging on his arm “you’ll anger it”

Ben looks down to see his skin ripple and flushes, pressing himself even further against the wall

“You saw what happened with mom” Allison chimes in, glaring at Ben because their breakfast that morning was awful

“He’s not worth it” Luther says, and for once it seems they’re in agreement, because Diego turns and walks away, the others trailing behind him

Klaus stops, and gives him a sad look before scurrying after them, leaving Ben alone

Afterwards Ben is pulled into dad’s office and he’s handed pills. “To suppress your more . . animalistic side” he said by way of explanation.

Six blinks up at him. Suppress? As in . . get rid of? No more Horror

“It has come to my attention that you are far too dangerous to have running around unchecked” dad says when he asks, and Ben wilts

He takes the medication, and tries not to get his hopes up about it, but the Horror is gone

Instead of the usual aching chasm in his stomach there’s nothing. Just a sense of stability, of calm. He doesn’t feel like bursting into tears or crawling away in shame

(he doesn’t . . he can’t feel much of anything really)

But he does feel excitement. His siblings are going to be so amazed- no more Horror!- and- and his dad can give Klaus some medication too, so he doesn’t have to use drugs anymore- or other drugs anymore!

His father pulls him aside and tells him that he must never tell anybody about this medication. His siblings have to keep thinking he can summon the Horror

Ben loves their father so much, wants to impress him, wants to make him proud. Except-Klaus. Klaus deserved to have this medication too, right? His- his powers were way worse than Ben’s

Reginald tells him, point-blank, that if he tells anyone about suppressing the Horror, he will take him off the medication

And that is-Ben feels kind of muffled right now, as if he’s under a weighted blanket but-

Terror is the only way to describe it, because he just found peace and now it is being threatened to have it ripped away

He lies about the Horror. The others continue to avoid him, but he also avoids them now, guilt over his lie causing him to cut himself off from Klaus, who cared for him, who deserves to have this as well, but Ben is just so selfish-

The second he hits eighteen, Ben leaves the house. He’s been on medication for 4-5 years now, and it shows. His emotions are basically gone.

He stays away from everyone until the funeral, when Five returns, telling him about the apocalypse, and he believes him, wholeheartedly believes him

He’s so frazzled by the announcement that he goes off his medication, forgotten in the moment of the literal apocalypse

(Reginald Hargreeves was a man trying to play god. He tried to lock away a beast too strong to be tamed)

(Someone should have taught him;when you cage a beast, the beast will get angry)

#umbrella academy #the umbrella academy #umbrella academy au #ben hargreeves #number 6 #reginald hargreeves #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #umbrella academy allison #klaus hargreeves #number 5 #number five #umbrella academy vanya #vanya hargreeves #Cthulhu au

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crisisdparity · 3 years

Text

Game Master Akuma AU

(Note: Originally submitted to @justanotherpersonsuniverse, on their advice I will be using my own tumblr for anything in the future related to this AU.)

Valentine and her boyfriend Justin were onboard in an instant. Within days, he'd greenlighted their Half-Elf Bard of the College of Glamour whose spell list was 100% Illusion spells and Half-Orc Fighter (Eldritch Knight) who was focusing entirely on Abjuration as Rena Rouge and Carapace respectively.

Olivia had spent a few days coming up with a Halfling Rogue and debating subclasses with him until settling on Scout. Along with some discussion over how her special magic item's stunning and paralysis effect would work with Sneak Attack, the campaign had its Vesperia.

Jeanette had gone back and forth with him for a week looking at various homebrew subclasses for her Gnome Artificer before they both agreed on one particular Master Tinkerer entry that would be balanced and do the character justice. And with that they had their Ladybug.

Even Matt was on board with a stealthy human Chat the Barbarian using the Path of the Beast. The class choice was something Matt had insisted on (and that Xavier would have suggested anyway just for the high hit point totals given Matt's history with characters dying) and he'd even come up with a backstory that Xavier felt was quite compelling compared to Matt's usual efforts. Morally ambiguous, likely to be tempted by promises of power, but with a great deal of story potential to work with.

Which was a relief. Getting a new player into their group to replace Matt was not something Xavier really felt comfortable with. There were too many unknowns with introducing a new person, far too many for him to risk his masterpiece on an unknown factor. He knew Matt. He could work with Matt. Despite the history.

He'd put everything he had into this. Every known Akuma ever fought by the heroes had been made into a boss-tier foe. He'd carefully documented each and every power the heroes had shown to craft special legendary magic items based on the Miraculous. Hawkmoth and Mayura themselves were going to be the final bosses of his campaign.

In response to criticism about the difficulty of his campaigns (he tried to make them fair, but still challenging enough to be memorable), he'd made several guest NPCs based on every other hero that had ever been called upon, statted out like player characters that might show up in a pinch to help. He even had a genuine Deus ex Machina that he was ready to use to get the players out of a truly impossible jam if they found themselves in one.

Not always, but a few times at least. Enough to get them to the point where they wouldn't need it anymore.

-----

It was thirty minutes in, right in the middle of exposition from the Guardian NPC, when Xavier got his first message on the app.

Matt/Chat - Chat's going to wait until everyone breaks up and follow Ladybug stealthily.

Xavier/GM - Starting party conflict on the first session? Not what I'd advise, but it's your character. Go ahead and make your Stealth roll now.

Matt/Chat - <photo> 17

Xavier/GM - Yeah, that beats everyone's passive Perception easily. You'll sneak off handily without anyone noticing.

-----

"Jeanette, Ladybug is grabbed from behind by an unknown assailant. Roll to resist the grapple."

"Geez, already? Okay, what did my assailant get for their grapple? How screwed am I?"

Xavier pretended to roll a die while consulting the message from Matt.

"19."

"Okay, difficult, but not undoable... Crap."

"What'd you get?"

"Nat 1..."

"Hah! I rip off her earrings and claim them for myself! The Wish is mine!"

"Seriously Matt?! What the hell?!"

"Because it's payback time! Payback for every character of mine killed in these hellish campaigns!"

"Oh, come on! You're not the only person whose had a character die at this table! Xavier runs some pretty challenging campaigns, but they're always fair!"

"What about the time he killed Allric the Allmighty in a single round of combat?"

"Dude, you tried to Leroy Jenkins straight into melee with a 4th-level Wizard that had a CON penalty. Even at full health you had like 10 hp."

"14!"

"Not much better, dude."

"Guys, it's fine. I can handle this. Okay, Matt. Chat the Barbarian managed to get the earrings-"

"Yeah, Ladybug screams bloody murder when he rips them out. Good luck getting out of this in one piece."

"The moment Rena hears Ladybug scream, she bolts for the sound."

"So does Carapace."

"Vesperia too."

"-and with their current locations and movement speeds, I assume you're all using the Dash action?, you've got maybe one round to decide on your Wish before they're all over you, so choose carefully. And be aware that I plan to grant whatever you wish for in the worst possible way, just as I would if any of the others pulled this."

"Rena screams 'What the HELL, Chat?! We're supposed to protect the Miraculous, not use them for our own selfish purposes! Didn't you listen to the Guardian? Such actions always bring misfortune upon those who misuse the Miraculous!'"

"Because I am Chat, avatar of Destruction and I WISH THIS WORLD NEVER EXISTED!"

There was dead silence at the table.

"Matt... What... just... WHAT?!"

"Hah! You like that?! How does it feel now that the shoe's on the other foot, huh?!"

"What the hell is your problem, Matt?!"

"My problem? MY problem?! Do you know how much time I've spent making characters for these shitty campaigns only to have them turned into paste in one session?!"

"Because you made primary spellcasters and played every last one of them like a barbarian, charging in headfirst without thinking! All of us breathed a sigh of relief when you revealed that your character finally matched your playstyle!"

"I HATE BARBARIANS! THEY'RE BORING! I SHOULD GET TO PLAY CHARACTERS THAT CAN AT LEAST CHUCK FIREBALLS!"

"THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULD STOP RUNNING THEM FACE FIRST INTO ENEMY SWORDS!"

"NONE OF YOU COULD EVER HANDLE THE FACT THE I MAKE MORE AWESOME CHARACTERS THAN ANY OF YOU, SO YOU JUST LET THIS DOUCHEBAG KILL THEM OFF SO YOU WOULDN'T GET OVERSHADOWED BY HOW AMAZING I AM! WELL NOW I KILLED SOMETHING YOU ALL WORKED HARD ON, SO SUCK IT! I'M DONE WITH ALL OF YOU FOREVER!"

"MATT! HEY! GET BACK HERE YOU JERK! MATT!"

"Crap, I think Olivia might actually kill him this time..."

"It's going to take all of us to stop her from getting arrested at least."

Xavier just watched numbly as the rest of the group ran out of his apartment. Over six months of work. Gone in less than an hour.

He'd given so much to making sure this would work. He'd apologized to Matt at least twice for every character of his that had died to get him to come back. He'd agreed to demand after demand just to keep a familiar face on board, never dreaming he'd pull something like this.

He'd nearly gotten fired from his job trying to rearrange his schedule to fit with everyone else's. They'd somehow, miraculously, gotten the whole day with no other obligations among any of them and decided to make the first session a true marathon. They'd meet in the morning after breakfast and eat both lunch and dinner at the game table before calling it a night late in the evening.

It was barely 10:00 in the morning and the whole campaign he'd slaved over for months was kaput.

He never noticed the butterfly landing on his custom Miraculous-themed Game Master screen and being absorbed into it.

"Game Master, I am Hawkmoth. Few people appreciate the kind of effort that goes into making something truly grand and memorable. I shall give you the power to bring your entire world to life and in return, I ask only for a few simple things."

This was wrong. Hawkmoth was the worst of the worst. The kind of person who would be at home among all the final bosses he'd ever made for his campaigns. Heartless, manipulative, cruel.

"Not enough? Ah, but what is a game without players? How would you like to have the Miraculous heroes themselves run your great campaign? Surely they would be far more appreciative than those ungrateful peons that left you alone with nothing but the broken remains of your efforts."

He knew all these things, but the allure of bringing the world he'd spent so much time on to life... What creator could ever turn down an offer like that?

"I, the Game Master, accept... Hawkmoth."

"Excellent. And in exchange, you shall bring me one of two things: The Miraculous, or the identities of their wielders."

"No."

Hawkmoth was silent for a moment.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said no. I am the Game Master. I make the world. I craft the challenges. I decide the rewards. But I do not do anything for anyone. If you want these things, get them yourself."

"If you refuse me, it shall be very unpleasant for you."

"No. As Game Master, I decide the limits of all powers within my realm. And I decide that you have none over me."

And with that, he unleashed his creation over all of Paris, drawing everyone and everything within into his sphere of influence.

-----

Ladybug blinked the spots (ha) out of her eyes as the flash of light died down and looked at herself. She didn't remember transforming, but she was clearly in her spots. Except her red and black superhero uniform didn't usually look like it was headed to a steampunk convention. Looking around, she tried to figure out what had happened and her eyes landed on a familiar belt and pants combo.

Problem. Whoever this was, their groin was at eye level for her.

She looked up.

And up.

To find a grinning Chat Noir, sans anything resembling a shirt and having put on at least a foot of height and apparently a hundred pounds of pure muscle, grinning down at her.

"How's the weather down there?" Chat Noir chuckled as he flexed his unfairly attractive muscleman physique.

"I WILL END YOU!" the heroine snarled, already 100% done with whatever new insanity Hawkmoth had cooked up.

Characters:

Ladybug - Gnome Artificer (Master Tinkerer - Homebrew)

Chat Noir - Human Barbarian (Path of the Beast)

-----

Vesperia had to admit, as Akuma attacks went, this was pretty dope.

She was currently a halfling. A halfling! If it wasn't for her fantasy ensemble being yellow and black, she'd have thought she stepped straight out of Lord of the Rings.

Of course, fantasy setting or not, there were still things she'd have rather left back in the real world. Like racism. And stigma against mixed couples. Not directed at her, but rather at the two walking down the street next to her.

"You know, people are staring..." she said as she craned her head to look at her companions.

"Let them," the Half-Elf Rena Rouge (who looked like a cross between a musician and a belly dancer) said from her perch atop the shoulders of the heavily armored (and surprisingly buff) Half-Orc Carapace. "They're just jealous because their boyfriends can't carry them everywhere."

Characters:

Vesperia - Halfling Rogue (Scout)

Rena Rouge - Half-Elf Bard (College of Glamour)

Carapace - Half-Orc Fighter (Eldritch Knight)

-----

Ryuko blinked as she studied the apparent snake-man-thing before her who claimed to be Viperion. She lifted a hand to study it and found what appeared to be bronze scales covering every inch of her skin.

She sniffed herself, smelling the sharp tang of ozone. What was she?

And why did she appear to be wearing wooden armor?

Characters:

Ryuko - Dragonborn (bronze) Druid (Circle of Storms - Third Party)

Viperion - Naga Sorcerer (Divination Magic - Homebrew)

-----

Polymouse giggled as her friends ran over her. Okay, she'd freaked out a little to find a swarm of mice (with hair like hers no less) crawling all over her surprisingly mouse-like body when she'd come to in the middle of some forest somewhere. But she'd gotten over it pretty quickly. It helped that her new friends were adorable.

It might help more if she could figure out where she was.

Or find another person.

Characters:

Polymouse - Kobold (rodentlike) Ranger (Swarmkeeper - Reskinned)

-----

Purple Tigress sighed as she felt the hair (fur?) on the top of her head being shifted around and twitched her new catlike ears in mild annoyance.

"Are you quite done?"

"Almost!" Pigella's cheerful voice answered. "Your fur is so comfy!"

Tigress sighed. Of course Pigella would end up being a fairy, and having her normal cheerful enthusiasm cranked up to previously unimagined levels.

"I love you dearly, but if you start shouting 'hey listen' I will stick you in a bottle."

"Aw, I love you too! Hey, what's that?"

"I think it's my character sheet?"

Characters:

Purple Tigress - Tabaxi Paladin (Oath of Glory)

Pigella - Fairy Cleric (Order Domain - Reskinned)

-----

"According to my analysis, we have been placed into what appears to be a Dungeons and Dragons campaign under 5th edition rules," Pegasus stated in a mechanical monotone. "I am apparently a Warforged Wizard using the School of Conjuration whose spells create portals to bridge dimensions and summon or banish my intended targets. You are what is known as a Simic Hybrid, with the class of Monk, following the Way of the Drunken Master."

"Aweshum," King Monkey slurred, his generally human appearance clad in monk's robes marred by his monkey-like hands and feet as well as the monkey tail swishing behind him.

"Why do you keep slurring like that? According to my sensors, your gourd is filled with only water."

"Gotta keep up appearanshes!" King Monkey grinned as he continued faking drunkenness.

Characters:

Pegasus - Warforged Wizard (School of Conjuration - Reskinned)

King Monkey - Simic Hybrid Monk (Way of the Drunken Master)

-----

Hawkmoth studied the dark red horns growing out of his head in the mirror. The change in appearance was disconcerting, but he felt a rush of power in this new form that he'd never felt before.

"Hmm... perhaps I can work with this..."

"Speak for yourself..." Mayura muttered off to the side, ruffling her peacock-like feathers in annoyance as she tried to glare at the beak on her own face.

Characters:

Hawkmoth - Tiefling Dark Lord, Warlock Patron, Contracted by Lila Rossi, Volpina, Queen Wasp, and many others.

Mayura - Kenku Assistant to the Dark Lord, Creator of Monsters

-----

"Oh, come on!" A figure in a cyan and white hooded robe complained as they waved a similarly colored umbrella around angrily. "Everyone else gets to be part of this adventure, why can't I join them?"

"Because you're too OP. You'd completely break everything and remove all challenge from the adventure."

"But sitting around is no fun at all!"

"If you like, I can put you in the position of the main quest giver. Your job would be to direct them towards their enemies and means of becoming stronger."

"That's it?! I'm on 'mysterious hooded figure' duty? Boo! Why can't I fight with them?!"

"Because you're too OP. But if you insist, I'll allow some Deus ex Machina interventions."

"YES!"

"Five."

"I'm sorry?"

"I'll allow five interventions at your discretion to aid them when they are in peril. Once you have come to their aid five times, I will allow no more meetings save to impart quest information."

"That's it?"

"Yes. Choose your interventions wisely."

"So... if I manage to save one for when they fight Hawmoth and Mayura in the final battle...?"

"Then I would allow you to join them of course."

"Score!"

Characters:

Bunnyx: Mysterious Hooded Figure, Deus-ex-Machina (5)

Game Master: Akuma Lord of the Miraculous Campaign

-----

Addendum

When the Game Master is finally purified and the damage reversed, it turns out that he took the effort to trap all of Paris in a temporal stasis bubble so that no matter how long passed inside no more than a few moments passed outside. Meaning that after what seemed like months in the bubble, it's basically less than a minute after he was akumatized when everything is put back.

All his friends, minus Matt, come back in bringing a new person named Zack that they vetted themselves to take Matt's place in case he pulled something like what he did. And while he has a similar playstyle to Matt, he's savvy enough to know what kind of characters that is suited for and he loves playing barbarians.

They all sit back down and restart the game they were all looking forward to.

#game master akuma au #miraculous ladybug #fanfic #writings

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