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katytheinspiredworkaholic · 3 years

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WIP Wednesday

Title: Extraordinary

Pairings: HotchReid (more to come)

Summary: League of Extraordinary Gentleman/Vampire AU;

Within the FBI there is a specialized team full of an elite selection of people. Unique individuals with very particular skill sets. And their job is to take the unusual cases: the ones that need to not only be solved, but are undetermined if the unsub is human, or something else entirely.

In a world filled with Vampires, non-human creatures, and subspecies unknown, there is only enough information to have them vaguely regulated. Rules that are so easily, and violently broken, all while hidden in plain sight among the unsuspecting public. Unrivaled for eons.

That’s where the BAU comes in.

Official Posting Date: October 2021

Links: (Masterpost) (Snippet 01) (Snippet 02) (Snippet 03) (Snippet 04)

(TW/CW: dead body/crime scene, blood and bite wounds talked about in detail, hypnosis/compelling someone to do something against their will, overall discussion of murder (basically what we see in every episode of the show))

(the story so far/what you need to know for this clip at least: Absolutely nothing you don’t already know, this is legit from the first chapter. Hotch is a Vampire (although the LEOs don’t really know that), Rossi is a priest, Morgan is so empathetically telepathic he can touch the auras in the air, and Reid is Reid. I know I’ve been giving you the juicy HotchReid stuff but here have some case stuff too, to see what you’re in for with the plot and everything. This is FIRST DRAFT so it’s terribly unpolished, first part is generalized POV (hence the more professional titles) and the second is within the team dynamics so they get more familiar. idk my first drafts are messy and indecisive, enjoy anyway. 💕)

–

They approach the body and Rainer shoos away his pestering, hovering officers and --- winces once again at the sight of the bloodied woman. “This is the third body in two days; a jogger found her about 6 am. Coroner says she thinks she’s been dead for about 6 hours; killed in the middle of the night, just like the others.”

“Closer to five hours, I think,” Dr. Reid says, crouching down to look closer. All long legs and his gun looking too big on his belt next to his FBI badge. “Could still be within the Witching Hour, though.”

“Do you have accurate time of death estimates for the other two bodies?” Agent Morgan adds on, already picking up the train of thought Dr. Reid has started on. The detective pulls out an old-school flip notebook book and looks through it before answering.

“3:15am the first night, 9:30pm last night and now this.”

“Well that rules out hex, sacrifice, and spell gone wrong,” he concludes, as the other agents surround the body to inspect it from all angles. “So what are we thinking?”

“It’s a frenzied bite,” Agent Hotchner points out, looking from where he stands and not having to get as close as Dr. Reid to inspect it accurately. His eyesight is better than any microscope. “Shows multiple entries, it couldn’t get a good enough hold to rip her throat. Or she struggled, so it wasn’t strong enough to keep her pinned down.”

“The boys think it’s a Vamp,” Detective Rainer points out. “Maybe a baby one, still learning the ropes?”

“Vampire changes are regulated and no sire would allow whoever they turned to do this,” Agent Hotchner says, a colder flint to his voice that matches the way his dark stare cuts up to the detective. “No one has been turned in the United States in the past twelve years.”

“It’s not a Vampire bite,” Dr. Reid agrees, putting on latex gloves to further inspect the body and test the bite radius. “And it’s not a werewolf bite, either.”

“...Werewolf?” the detective says with a winded sound, eyes wide and looking to the three agents who didn’t even blink at the word. “There’s -- there’s such thing as werewolves?”

“Detective, I think you should let my team and I work, we will come to you with our findings and then help you track down your killer.” Agent Hotchner doesn’t leave room for argument, his dark brown eyes looking pitch black in the early morning light, and Detective Rainer… suddenly feels the overwhelming urge to walk away. Like he can’t breathe if he doesn’t comply; he fights it, tries to fight it, and feels his will crumble beneath him like a sand bank giving way under his feet. He turns, even that small gesture lessening the pressure crushing his chest, and takes a step away from the group, air swept into his lungs like a riptide. He makes a hasty retreat after that, winded as if he just ran up a flight of stairs and the sweet taste of oxygen being his only reprieve. He doesn’t know what happened, and wouldn’t upon further inspection until much, much later.

“That wasn’t very nice, Hotch,” Rossi points out with a look of glib reprimand towards their team leader. “I thought compelling feeble minded beat cops was for those who have no skills to avoid it.”

“My patience was running thin, and we need to move faster on this case before our unsub kills again. He’s escalating.” That much is obvious, by the timeline alone, but Father Rossi still gives him a side-ways glance that says he finds far too much amusement in the undead’s antics. “Reid, are you sure it’s not a werewolf bite? It would explain the lack of control and precision.”

“I’m sure,” Reid says with finality, and no one makes a mention on why. He had done more research than any human possibly could in the past few months on werewolf transformation and the after effects of attacks. With what happened to one of their former agents mere months ago, no one doubted his newly learned expertise. “It’s also not a shifter, or a ghoul. We can rule out ghost and poltergeist as well, no residue or temperature shifts.”

“Demon possession?” Morgan asks, looking to Rossi just as he does his customary Sign of the Cross at the mere mention. Can’t help the gesture, after his own past experiences. Giving anything the power of a name, even arbitrary, can be a dangerous thing.

“We can’t rule it out,” he admits. “The teeth marks are human, someone possessed would still have a hard time biting that deep and doing that much damage. Cannibalism is only reserved for the amusements of level three demons, however they aren’t usually powerful enough to reach the mortal plane or take possession of someone’s body. They would need help.”

“You really think someone would weaponize a demon like that?”

“We’ve seen people do worse things, as has history, but I’d like to hope it wouldn’t happen in my lifetime.”

“We need more information,” Hotch concludes, arms crossed and watching as Reid stands up and removes the blood stained gloves. “Morgan,” his gaze cuts to the tall man in his deep blue suit. “Can you walk the scene, tell us what you see?”

“Not with this many people around,” Morgan shakes his head, eyes glancing to every person within a twenty foot radius. “Too many readings, the aura field here looks like an oil spill. The only thing I can latch onto is…” his gaze is back on the ground, hovering over the dead woman, who would have no aura to speak of at all and therefore a blank canvas. He replaces Reid’s space, crouching down to touch the air over the bite wound. Fingers spread wide, less than a foot from her but not touching, palm suddenly curving as if over an invisible shoulder, the place where someone had once been not so long ago. It could have been the coroner, or the crime scene photographer, but with it being so close to the body -- chances were it was the unsub.

“They were crouched down, half on the ground, no… human thoughts that I can hear,” he says, closing his eyes and letting his hand glide through the air a little more, following the curve of someone’s spine and up their neck, resting where the head would be. “They have a fever burning them up, hot as a furnace--” he keeps his hand there too long, suddenly jerks it back as if it had physically burned him, then stands up again. Shaking off the aura reading still sticking to his fingers and the forefront of his mind. “Sound like anything you’ve heard of, pretty boy?”

Reid shakes his head, sharing a glance with Father Rossi. “We might have to go through some of your demonology books.” The older man grins wide.

“You just want to get your hands on them, at this rate you’ll have them memorized by next week.”

“Dave --” Hotch says slow, a reprimand of his own.

“Fine, fine, I’ll have Garcia send us some scans. If the Vatican knew I was putting a book like that in his hands they’d strip me of all my titles.”

“Didn’t they already do that?” Morgan teases with a grin.

“Ex-communicated. I got to keep the dog collar, the honorifics, bless the holy water, you know -- the party tricks.”

–

((if you want to be apart of the taglist just hit me up via comment, reblog tag, DMs or asks 💕))

#THIS IS JUST A SNIPPET #a really fucking long snippet but who's counting #I've missed WIP wednesdays #spooky season is upon us so I'm channeling that #a glimpse at how they handle cases that obviously don't look human #cw blood #cw murder #cw biting #paranormal stuff #sorry it's kind of all over the place but I got to play with Morgan's abilities and that was fun for me #Extraordinary #katyswriting #katyswip #wip wednesday #ALSO I DECIDED ON A POSTING DATE hope that doesn't bite me in the ass later lol

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justsomeoneunordinary · 3 years

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Dark Fic Recs

@rhodee asked me for some dark fic recs and since this is one of my favorite tropes, I know quite some. I wanna make clear from the beginning that those are dark fics. Means stories with fucked up/morally dubious/voilent content. And not salty “Team Cap was mean to me, so I become evil now” kind of fics. If you’re interested in the latter, I am the wrong person to ask.

Some of them are much darker than the others, but you should read for each one carefully the tags and/or the Author’s Note, since some have special twists in the end that aren’t mentioned in the tags.

Basically: know your limits.

Dark!Tony fics (my personal preference)

Faster, Colder, Sharper by Penned (WinterIron)

Tony is kidnapped by Hydra. When the team gets him back, he has changed far more than they suspect. More than even the surface shows.

Bucky though, he notices it all.

A de-aged Tony fic with Bucky as a caretaker... of sorts.

Radioactive by Valmasy (WinterIron, Series)

The pain is all-encompassing. It’s all he can think about. It’s all he feels. It’s all he breathes. It’s all he lives. Like a barbed net, its sharpness swallows him whole, over and over and over. Tony’s mind tries to hide, tries to save itself, but the pain finds him even then. It burns away at his resistance until all he is crumbles, until he’s nothing but ash and dust.

Attack dog by salytierra (Stony)

Steve doesn't swim in self-delusion. He knows that he is sick and that his owner is even worse. He is aware of it every time he rips some nameless guy’s throat out and feels the crunch of bones under his fingers. He is aware of it every time the rush of adrenaline at seeing life slip away from a stranger’s eyes hits him and gets him bothered and panting in ways that have nothing to do with physical exhaustion.

But it feels so good…

His owner’s approach is less personal. His shots fall clean and take out several foes at a time, his figure elegant and so graceful he looks like a god among savages. He is power incarnated, cold and burning like a sun at the same time… and Steve tries not to focus on him when they are fighting together, least his knees go weak and his technique falters. It’s fine though. They will go home afterwards and his owner will fuck him on the hard floor, with most of their gear still on and a vicious grip in his hair.

Anatomy of a Moral Man by ShyOwl (Stony, WIP)

At a young age Tony understood he was not meant to be a hero and the world, he believes, is far better for it. With his rule now set in stone, his life is finally settling down. That is until something was found buried underneath the ice.

Tony may not be a hero but that did not stop him from falling in love with one.

In Restless Dreams by charocalwinter (WinterIron, WIP)

When he discovers what he believes to be the truth about his parents’ recent deaths, a powerful and morally ambiguous Tony Stark sets out to get his revenge on Steve Rogers. How does Bucky Barnes fit into this feud and why isn't anybody giving him a pair of socks?

“It isn’t often that Tony Stark finds himself unsure of anything, but this situation has him doubting his every thought, his every move … with Rogers comes James, and that boy is muddling Tony’s mind.” ~ interrupted excerpt from ch 4.

A Pound of Flesh by jellybeanforest (Stony)

To save Bucky, Steve volunteers to work off his debt to the Carbonell crime family. Unfortunately, he is unsuited for the role of enforcer, unable to beat and murder those in the same position as Bucky. He is brought before the mob boss, Tony Stark, who demands his pound of flesh in the wake of Steve’s failure. But upon seeing the attractive blond, Tony proposes alternative employment, one that won’t require him to harm others: Becoming his kept man.

“This isn’t an offer I make often, so you should be flattered – count yourself lucky, even – that I am extending you this rare opportunity.”

“To be raped repeatedly?”

“To have a second chance to work off your debts after you failed so spectacularly the first time. But I don’t have to. I could just use these knives I’ve brought along, carve up that pretty face of yours like a Thankgiving turkey, which would be a shame, really. Then I suppose I’d have to pay a visit to your little friend. This entire exercise has been a waste of my valuable time… perhaps I’ll take an arm for my trouble,” he muses. “So, tell me, Rogers, is Barnes right- or left-handed?”

It’s an offer Steve can’t refuse.

Take Away (everything I am) by salytierra (WinterIron)

“Everyone I kill deserves to die.”

“True. But try to explain that to Captain Justice and Faith.” He takes a gulp of the scotch right out of the bottle and flops down on Tony’s lap, straddling his hips. “He cares too much. You and I? – We do what needs to be done.”

Tony circles his waist with both arms and pulls him closer, opening his mouth when Barnes offers him the bottle and swallowing the bitter liquid dry.

“Nobody ever believed I was able to care. So why should I?”

“Coming from somebody who is expected and probably should care more but doesn’t really give a fuck? – I’ll drink to that.”

Operant Conditioning by dracusfyre (WinterIron, Series)

In which Tony is HYDRA and Bucky’s handler.

in another country (people die) by pprfaith (FrostIron)

“The world is not your playground, Stark!” Fury yells at him one time, after he maybe brings down a building or two and Tony just laughs because, seriously, yes it is.

on the bleeding edge by esama (Pepperony, WIP, abandoned (still good tho))

Tony Stark goes back in time and becomes a super villain.

Almost Perfect by One and Five Nines (Obani) (Stony, Comic)

A powerful enemy invades from an alternate reality, but the only thing he really seems interested in is Steve Rogers

Eventually by One and Five Nines (Obani) (Stony, Comic, WIP)

Tony is godking of the wasteland. Steve is not.

Victim!Tony fics

Deliver Us by romanoff (FrostIron)

Loki comes back for revenge. Tony Stark is his captive.

“Why,” he tries, voice failing “do you want me.” He coughs into the ash.

“A king needs an advisor. A king needs concubines. A conquering king must learn the ways of the natives or risk expulsion,” he wipes blood from the sceptre with the end of his coat “and I’m rather fond of you, I think. Even in the face of death you use your wit, you charm with your tongue. It reminds me of myself, maybe, one or two millennia ago.”

Terms & Conditions by Penned (WinterIron)

Tony Stark is desperate and trusts too easily. Bucky Barnes takes advantage of that.

A mob AU with no powers, featuring a very dark, very off-kilter Bucky.

(reverse) Kidnapping by AngeNoir (WinterIron)

Tony Stark is wallowing. He has a right to - he's just finished the funeral preparations for his parents in New York. He didn't expect them to live forever, but still...

And then he falls asleep from his bender.

And wakes up in a nightmare.

(Is it a nightmare?)

Anything (and Everything) - remix by Penned (WinterIron)

The Soldier will do anything to make Tony happy, with or without his explicit consent.

Heavily inspired by Shi_Toyu's IronWinter Holiday Exchange fic "Anything." This is a much darker version of that story.

like flowers soaked in monochrome by deathsweetqueen (Stony)

Steve Rogers woke up to a world where everyone he loved and knew had forged on without him. But this world, it's nothing like he's used. It wants something brutal from him, something unforgiving. There are so many compromises to make. There are too many monsters behind kind smiles.

But if it means keeping Tony safe, if it means protecting him, he's willing to do whatever it takes.

He can't be soft.

After all, the weak are meat; the strong do eat.

Sins of Omission by Kiyaar (Stony, WIP (tbh I still haven’t started reading this story, but the tags and summary sound perfect!))

A Post-Civil War, Pre-Secret Invasion AU where Steve is dead, Tony's a mess, and everything sucks.

In which Tony deals poorly with Steve's death, falls off the wagon, sees ghosts, and misses a lot.

Oh, and the Skrulls are about to invade.

That’s it. Read all warnings carefully and enjoy!

#fic recs #winteriron #buckytony #stony #stevetony #frostiron #lokitony #pepperony #only one pepperony tho :(#dark fics

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browniefox · 3 years

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The Spectral Turnabout 2/?

Chapter 2! Last chapter was about Phoenix when he got introduced to the spectral world, this one is about Miles :D

oOo

Miles passed out in the elevator with a scream ringing through the air, one that will haunt his dreams, haunt his footsteps, haunt his every moment for the next fifteen years.

When he woke up, his world had been turned on its head.

When he’s a little older, Miles goes through the events over and over and over until the story makes sense, until he knows the events forwards and backwards. It goes like this:

Miles got into the elevator with his dad and Yanni Yogi. There was an earthquake. The elevator became stuck. The oxygen ran low. Yanni Yogi started attacking his dad. Miles threw the gun. A shot rang through the elevator, and the scream chased Miles in darkness as he passed out. And Miles goes crazy.

The days after The Event are a blur, are foggy, and they tell him it’s from the trauma mixed with the lack of oxygen. What Miles does know is that when he’s capable of forming memories again, he sees things that aren’t really there. Creatures, monsters that lurk in the corners, brightly colored mist coming off of them. An energy that Miles could see coming off of himself in muted purple waves.

They said Yanni Yogi’s lawyer had him plead insanity. Brain damage due to the lack of oxygen. There was a precedent for it.

Miles was an orphan for six months before Manfred von Karma adopted him. Miles’ used those six months to perfect ignoring what he could see. He didn’t want to think about how he’d be treated, how people would look at him, if they knew something had snapped in his head from The Event. Even more so once he was under Von Karma’s roof. Imperfection was not tolerated. So Miles would be perfect. He was perfect.

He was a perfect child, who most certainly didn’t see things that weren’t there.

oOo

Pess was the first spirit to ever speak to Miles.

It’d been an entire year since the accident. It wasn’t always easy to act completely normal. When the figments of his imagination actually come into contact with him, he felt phantom pressure, and a time or two they’d run into him with enough force to bowl him completely over. No, that was wrong, they didn’t run him over. Miles tripped or something, and for some reason his brain had decided to place a make-believe monster as the reason.

Pess had slipped into Miles bedroom in the evening, straight through the walls. She had landed on the floor, curling up into a tight little ball in the corner. Miles hadn’t thought much of her at first, aside from allowing himself to openly track her movement. He was in the safety of his room, he’d allow himself to look.

This one imaginary monster was shaped like a very curly-furred greyhound, if greyhounds had tails longer than their bodies, three pairs of legs, and wings instead of ears. The back two pairs were bird feet instead of paws, and there was another set of wings tightly closed onto the monster’s back.The colored mist coming off of her matched Miles’ own to a ‘T’, but something looked off about it.

Miles shot a look to his door, making sure it was still closed, and then for extra good measure he locked it and pulled the curtains shut over the window. Then, he got a little closer to the creature that wasn’t real, staring. The mist usually came off of things like steam off of warm water, but for this creature it was also coming from spots that closely resembled would. She had gouges in her sides and bite marks on her legs, long scratches down her snout.

The hallucination opened one of her eyes and then flinched back at how close he was. Miles responded in kind, head whipping around to check the door once more. He felt like he’s standing at the precipice of something dangerous here, of showing so much acknowledgement to something that isn’t really there, but his curiosity still has a hold on him.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t realize a spectral lived here, I-I’ll, um, I’ll…” The thing got to her feet, all six of them, and shook her coat.

“Wait…!” Miles whispered, and then slapped a hand over his mouth, going bright red and shame filling him. This was too much, talking to her was a step too far. But then, she actually stopped, and turned her big and warm brown eyes on him. “Wh… what did you call me?”

“A spectral? You are one, right? In fact, we match.” She said. Miles couldn’t deny that.

“I don’t know what that is.” He admitted, sitting back. Why would a hallucination use a word he doesn’t know?

“It means you can see us.” She explained.

“‘Us’?”

“Spirits.”

Miles looked at the door again and raised a hand to bite one of his nails before yanking the hand down.

“Come on,” He said and crawled underneath his bed and the hallucination - the spirit? - followed after him, “Tell me more about spirits.”

The spirit introduced herself as Pess, and she explained how spirits weren’t ghosts, really, but more like the conglomerations of leftover energy from dead things. Spectrals were people who were still alive but could see them. There were very few of them, to the point that Miles was the first one Pess had ever met.

It seemed like far too convenient an explanation. Oh, yes, Miles wasn’t crazy, he was just special, like a character out of a book his teacher’s used to read out loud to the class before he switched schools.

“I don’t believe you.” Miles told her right to her face. “Ghosts don’t exist.”

“Oh.” Pess rested her head on her front paws, looking over at him sadly. “Well, why can’t they?”

“If they did, then…” Miles trailed off. He opened his mouth and closed it, unable to form the words. He didn’t like thinking about The Incident, and definitely not talking about it. But… but if spirits were real, if ghosts were real, then why did Yanni Yogi get proven innocent? Why would Misty Fey claim to have channeled his dad, and his dad to have said it was Yanni Yogi.

No, Miles needed to remember to focus on what was real, what was physical, what he had evidence for.

Pess seemed to understand anyway. The wings on her head closed up tight and her tail swept over to rest on Miles’ hand. It felt soft and warm. No, it was the heater kicking on somewhere, a gust of warm air, and the broken part of his mind had decided to make the hallucination align with it just so.

“I need to go to bed.” Miles said out loud. He did not say it to Pess, because Pess wasn’t real.

“Okay,” Pess asid, and while Miles crawled out from under the bed, she simply phased right through it to sit on his bed and then settled on top of the blanket. She didn’t so much as rumble the comforter, because of course she didn’t. “Uh, Spectral, I don’t want to bother you, but…?”

Miles knew he should set himself straight again. He’d been working on ignoring what wasn’t there for a year now, he should be better than this. And yet, Miles found himself sighing and looking at her.

“But?”

“Spirits can heal on their own, but they heal faster around a spectral with a color that matches their own. C-could…? Could I stay here? Until I’m better?” She begged. She had the puppy-dog eyes down pat.

Miles cast another look to the door, clenching his hands into fists until his fingernails were embedded into his palms.

“Okay. Yeah, okay. Just until you’re better.”

oOo

Pess didn’t leave after she was healed up.

Sometime between that night and the time wounds had closed up, Miles had become used to her presence. One would think that having a figment of his imagination that he did acknowledge at time would make things worse, and that was what Miles had feared at first, but he’d found he didn’t deny the comfort of cuddling close to her at night, and she never complained if he ever hugged her too tight when he had nightmares. She followed him everywhere, at first so she might heal up quicker, but Miles found himself enjoying her constant presence at his side.

It certainly made him feel a little less lonely at school. He hadn’t had much luck yet making friends. Manfred von Karma insisted that Miles didn’t need to think about things like that. Miles nodded to that in perfect agreement.

Pess was very soft, very nice, and very excitable. She always seemed able to pick up on when Miles was starting to get anxious and would come over and rub her face against his hand. He couldn’t say anything to her, or look at her, or purposefully try to touch her. At least, not out in public. He only allowed himself to indulge in that sort of thing when he was sure nobody else could see him, and even then he only ever talked to her in low and quiet whispers both he and pess could barely hear, let alone anybody who might try to listen in.

He asked her, once, if she’d ever wanted to leave. She must’ve done something before being here, being with him. She’d stopped chasing a smaller ‘spirit’ around his room and looked over him, cocking her head, a doggish grin on her face.

“Why would I leave? I have you now.”

He wondered if she’d been alone before she’d met him. He didn’t ask. He felt he knew the answer.

He tried to convince himself over the years that he was passed needing her there for him. She was nothing more than an imaginary friend. He got older, he shouldn’t need it her, he shouldn’t like having her there. A couple times he’d even managed to find somewhere far and secluded and yell at her to go away, to leave, to let him finally be closer to perfect.

Both times, Pess did leave, tail between her legs.

Both times, it hadn’t sat well with Miles and he’d gone out late at night searching the city and calling her name until he found her.

The older he got, the more he realized he didn’t ‘leak’ spectral energy constantly. It surged particularly when he had intense emotions. He seeked that out, stifling his emotions, burying them so he came off self-assured. He asked if there was a big reason for the energy, telling himself he was just curious of what his mind would come up with to explain it, and pess told him she wasn’t really sure. She knew spirits were made of it, and she’d heard rumors of spectrals being able to do something about that, but again, he was the first spectral she’d ever met.

The habit of her accompanying him to court came about naturally. Where he went, Pess went, and where did he need her more than during a case?

Miles found a balance of almost-nearly perfect that he told himself was Perfection.

It had to do.

#paranatural #pnat #ace attorney #miles edgeworth #pess #au #browniefox writes #the spectral turnabout

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waywardfangirl · 4 years

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Write This Down

General Audiences | No Archive Warnings Apply

Baz Pitch/Simon Snow | 3,305 words | Complete

Summary: Inspired by Write This Down by George Strait - Baz and Simon love each other, and they know it. But, Baz came close to losing Simon once, and he doesn't intend to let that ever happen again.

***A big thank you to @foolofabookwyrm for editing this for me literally the second I finished writing it! I love you!!!***

Baz

The first time I told Simon I loved him, tears were pouring down both of our faces and we were absolutely miserable. It was one of the worst days of my life, and I hated the fact that every nice thing Simon and I have, every special moment and milestone in our disaster of a relationship, is marred in some way by tragedy. We kissed for the first time in the middle of a burning forest when I was so deep in the throes of self-hatred I couldn’t find my way out without Simon to save me. Instead of the honeymoon phase that every other couple gets, Simon and I received death and destruction and trauma, and then hearings and interrogations before the Coven. When we tried to go on vacation, to take a break and do something to pull Simon out of the pit of depression he had spiraled into, we almost died multiple times. When I finally propose to him I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that dark creatures can’t find us, the weather can’t ruin us, and even our well-meaning but nosy friends can’t disturb us.

But I’m getting too far ahead of myself. I can’t start planning for a proposal just yet, because I’m still not sure that I won’t lose him one day. He told me he loved me with tears streaming down his cheeks, and then he tried to break up with me.

I had started crying around that time too; I wanted to be in control, I wanted to shut off my emotions so Simon wouldn’t be hurt by my own anguish, but instead traitorous tears came streaming down my face and I started babbling out every thought I’d ever had – please don’t leave me and I’m not happy without you and no no no don’t go, Simon, please don’t and eventually I love you, I love you too, I love you so much, there’s nothing for me if you aren’t here, I love you. So, no, it was not one of our better moments.

Once I finally convinced him that breaking up with me would, in fact, not help me at all, we agreed to put serious effort into working on our relationship. This has also meant that both Simon and I found ourselves going to (separate) therapists, and coming together once a month for couple’s counseling too. Put together, we’re utilizing three-quarters of the magical word’s mental health resources. (It’s helping.)

(Read the rest on AO3, or under the cut)

I don’t know exactly what Simon discusses with his own therapist (although I could probably make a few guesses), but my therapist has been encouraging me to work on my own anxieties as of late among other things. I haven’t been able to shake my fear that Simon might decide to leave again, and that crying amidst declarations of love won’t fix things this time. So, since I can’t control the actions of others, I can only control what I think and do myself (yes, thank you Amy, the once-weekly sessions are working and I now hear your voice in my head when I evaluate my own thoughts), I’ve decided on a course of action that will help both Simon and myself.

I start by stealing his phone. He only uses the notes app to write down things he wants to bring up in therapy, so I ignore all the existing memos and start a new one, just three words – I love you.

(The numpty never bothered setting a passcode, I should modify his phone more often. He needs a new lock screen.)

Three days later, Simon emerges from his bedroom after his appointment, face blotchy and tear tracks drying on his cheeks. Every muscle in my body pulls to gather him up in my arms and give him shelter in the form of an embrace, but I know in moments like this I have to let him make the first move. Luckily, he walks straight over to where I’m putting the dishes away and immediately buries his face in my neck. His arms cinch around my waist, and I waste no time in pulling him closer to me, carding one hand through his curls.

“Alright, love?”

He nods, pressing in closer, then mumbles into my skin, “I love you.”

Ah. He found the note, then. Good.

“I love you too.”

*****

The next week, I walk into Simon and Penny’s apartment after classes, only to find Simon asleep on the couch. Netflix is playing some action movie on the tv, and Simon’s face is twitching slightly, still reacting to the sound even while fast asleep. I know he was up late last night preparing for a big presentation, so I let him rest. As I pull my laptop out of my bag to study at the kitchen table, I grab a sticky note as well, and attach it to the center of the television screen.

I love you

An hour later, I hear the tv shut off. Simon wanders into the kitchen, sitting down at the table and scooching his chair over until it’s pressed up next to mine. He kisses me on the cheek, and then on the mouth when I turn my head.

“Hi love, how was your day?”

“Good. Better now.”

*****

Finals are upon us, and of course the worst academic weeks of the year are also the time when Simon and I decide to try spending the night together again. (Just sleeping, but sharing each other’s space for that long, being there together when we wake up the next morning.) I feel like all of this should be so much easier, like other couples just make it look so effortless – we love each other, why can’t we show it? Why is it so hard to turn those emotions into actions and words? I don’t ever want to be beside anyone else, how can I prove that to him?

After the first few nights, it starts to feel normal. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the feeling of Snow’s arms wrapped around me, his muscles relaxing as we both fall asleep, but I don’t want to get used to it. I want it to be novel every single time, I always want to feel this in love with him.

Tonight, though, I can’t let myself lie down until I finish this last essay. I’ll edit it tomorrow, but I can’t stop writing until I’m done or I know I’ll lose momentum. Simon went to bed at least half an hour ago, and that’s all the incentive I need to keep my fingers flying across the keyboard; the sooner I’m done, the sooner I’ll be back beside him.

I close my laptop at half past midnight, and attempt to straighten the academic mess on the kitchen table before breakfast ruins a textbook tomorrow morning. Snow has left his books in a perilous heap, on the verge of teetering onto the floor, so I straighten the stack, then pick up the top book.

It’s a textbook, An Introduction to Social Services, because my brave and caring boyfriend wants to continue saving the world in any way he can. The first half of the book is filled with bookmarks and flags, highlighted passages and scribbled notes in the margins. He’s been attacking his studies with a vigor he’s never shown for academia before, and I’m so proud of him. I pick up a pen and add a note of my own under the practice review he’s flagged with tomorrow’s date (when did he get to be so organized? He’s wonderfully full of surprises even now) – You’re absolutely brilliant, love.

I leaf through the book to the next practice exam, this one flagged for three days from now. You’re the most caring man I’ve ever met, you were born for this work. The review in the middle of the book gets a simple (true) I’m so proud of you, and then I start leafing through the pages I assume Simon will be using next semester. I don’t let myself question the future, I don’t let uncertainty and anxiety creep in, I just write notes on random pages, to be discovered in the middle of lectures or homework or studying.

My darling

You’re the only sunshine I need

Have I told you lately how handsome you are?

I adore you

You’re my perfect other half, I’m so happy we match

Finally, I leave an index card mixed in with the ones he’s been using for review.

Q: How much do I love you?

A: More than I can possibly say.

*****

Simon Snow can still go off. He’s less physically destructive now, nothing in the flat gets burnt to a crisp and he doesn’t leave craters behind, but sometimes his emotions get stopped up until they come out in a flood of yelling and crying, and he erupts.

We’ve both been trying to be better about handling our outbursts, and trying not to take bad days out on the other, but sometimes it still happens. I don’t know exactly what happened today, but from what I can make out it seems like small things just piled up until I rolled my eyes when Simon suggested watching Star Wars, and that became the straw that broke the camel’s back. Old habits die hard, and we both still give as good as we get when fighting, so fifteen minutes later Penelope came home to find a screaming match in the living room and neither of us even aware of what we were saying or fighting over anymore.

She made us sit down and go through all the skills we’ve learned (use “I” statements, list your emotions, say what you admire about the other person – fine, thank you Amy, your voice is still in my head) until finally we had calmed down enough to be there for each other again.

I held Simon as he cried into my shirt, and we crawled into bed together still holding hands. We kissed before falling asleep and the last thing I remembered was Simon’s breath ghosting over me.

Now though, I’m awake, pulled from sleep and my boyfriend’s arms because I needed a glass of water, and I suddenly can’t stop reliving our argument. We’re fine, I know we are, we’re going to be okay. All couples fight, what matters is that we sat down and talked about it afterwards. We’re both sorry and we both love each other.

I can’t help the voice in the back of my head though, the voice that insists that Simon still thinks I don’t love him and that he might leave me again. I ignore it, then tell it how wrong it is, before finally giving in to my anxiety and tearing a blank piece of paper from the notepad on the fridge. I leave the note on his bedside table, so he’ll see it first thing in the morning, when he inevitably wakes up before I do.

Simon, my dearest, I love you so much. I promise, I love you, no matter what.

*****

“Baz! Did you get it?”

Simon Snow is bouncing on the soles of his feet like a toddler crossed with a golden retriever, and if anyone else were acting like this I would make a point of ignoring them, but because it’s Simon I just kiss him quickly and pull the book out from behind my back.

“Yes, love, I got it. Hot off the press, specially for you.”

Simon’s never been much of a reader, but after discovering ‘the best book in the world’, as he puts it, he’s been devouring this series. The newest one was released today, and I promised him I would pick it up from the bookstore on my way home. (I’ve read them too, and they are quite good, although Simon is definitely more enchanted with them than I am.)

“Can we start reading it right now?” He’s got it clutched to his chest like a child, and—no, that’s dangerous territory to enter, I can’t let myself start thinking of Simon with a baby or else I won’t leave this flat until I’ve proposed to him, and he deserves a nicer proposal than whatever happens to fall out of my mouth right now. Besides, I don’t even have the ring with me, it’s still hidden in my sock drawer back in Hampshire.

“Are you suggesting skipping dinner?” I hold up the bags of takeaway I’ve brought. He looks anguished.

“Can’t we do both?”

He’s a disaster. I love him.

“Alright you bottomless pit, you can eat your dinner and I’ll read to you, will that work?”

He kisses me again in response, a proper snog that’s only interrupted when Bunce wanders through to the kitchen, remarking loudly to Shepard, “They have their own room and everything, but they still insist on doing this sort of thing out here in the open.”

Simon good naturedly flips her off, and I pull away to smirk.

“He’s far too attractive for me to confine my affection to only one room in the house, Bunce. It’s not fair to expect me to restrain myself when my boyfriend is so criminally handsome.” I take Simon’s hand and tug him into the living room to settle against me as I start to read.

When all the food has been devoured and my voice is starting to lull Snow to sleep, I grab a scrap of paper, scribble I love you on it, and then insert it in the book to mark our place.

*****

Simon has been baking up a storm. He’s determined to figure out Cook Pritchard’s recipe for sour cherry scones, because she won’t give up the secret and he hates having to wait for Pitch family gatherings to eat them. He’s going through butter like a fiend, and all of our neighbors adore us because he keeps giving batches away.

When he leaves the kitchen to go retrieve something from his bedroom I slip a note into the fridge, to be discovered the next time he picks up the butter.

I love you

Three days later, I find the note affixed to the freezer door.

*****

“It’s so empty!”

Simon’s voice bounces off of the walls, and it almost echoes. The house really is empty, at once both exciting and intimidating – this is ours, this is where we get to keep building our life together, this is where we’ll make more memories, this is where we’ll start our family.

“The rest of our furniture will be here tomorrow, love, the movers said they could have it in before nine.”

I hear running footfalls, and then Simon comes sliding down the hall in his socks, crashing into me and almost knocking me over.

“Maybe we should keep it like this, and we can use the first floor for sock races!” He’s laughing, and so happy, and I adore him.

“Mmm, perhaps not,” I say, pushing his curls back from his face. “As enchanting as that idea may be, I expect you’d be sad if Penny and Shepard stopped visiting us because they had no place to sit. And I’m sure you would miss having a dining room table, too.” I kiss him on his nose, because it always makes him laugh, and then I lean back, grab his hands, and spin him around in circles in our empty living room.

Once we’re both too dizzy to stay standing, we collapse on the floor together, struggling to swallow our giggles. Eventually, I pull Simon back up to standing, and nudge him to start unpacking what we can. Dishes go in the cupboards, and sheets go in the linen closet. One of the boxes I open has a hammer and nails, and Simon finds the box that we put our pictures in. Some have to be set aside until the furniture is arranged, but we hang a few in the kitchen and the entry hall. Right before we blow up the inflatable mattress and go to sleep for the first time in our new house, I lead Simon back into the living room and pull out one last photo to hang.

The picture itself is quite large, a candid shot taken during our engagement party. Simon was laughing at something I’d just said, and he’s as bright and radiant as ever. I’m gazing adoringly at him, looking every bit the lovesick fool I am. Penny and Shep are in the background, along with Fiona and the rest of my immediate family, and everyone looks so happy to be celebrating the two of us. It’s one of my favorites, enlarged to sit in a frame over the mantle, where everyone who enters our home will be sure to see it.

It’s a bit of a struggle to get it to hang straight, but eventually we manage it.

“That looks lovely. I didn’t even know you’d had that one framed, I like it.”

I kiss his neck, and wrap my arms around his waist, hooking my chin over his shoulder and holding my wand out in front of him.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

We watch together as three words start to curve around our bodies in the portrait, shiny gold cursive tethering us to each other and stating simply, I love you.

Simon leans back into me, turning his face up for a kiss. “I love you too,” he whispers when we pull apart, “Show-off.” Then he’s walking backwards down the hall, leading me towards the stairs, and going to break his neck if he tries to go up the stairs without first turning around. I’ll tell him tomorrow that the spell I cast will only show those words if they’re true and if I still mean them. (They’re going to be there forever.)

*****

We go ring shopping together. We want our wedding rings to match, and to also complement the engagement rings we gave each other, so we block off an entire Saturday to find the perfect bands. (It turns out that the perfect rings are hiding in a jewelry store just a few blocks from Simon and Penny’s first apartment, which I think has a lovely symmetry to it.)

The rings themselves are simple, gold bands that compliment both of our complexions with a delicate scattering of engraved stars barely visible on the surface. We know immediately that these are our rings, we hardly need to glance at each other to confirm it.

As we’re being sized and filling out all the necessary information, I hand over a folded slip of paper.

“I would like this to be engraved on the inside of his ring, please.”

Simon’s mouth falls open for a moment, then he reaches into his jeans pocket to pull out his own slip of paper.

“I’d like this engraved inside of his too, please,” he says, and I can’t help but loop my arm around his waist.

“I suppose great minds think alike, don’t they Snow?”

He wrinkles his nose.

“You’re going to have to start calling me Pitch before too much longer, you know.”

I wasn’t prepared for this argument, and I’m far too in love with him to have a satisfactory response ready.

“No I won’t. Pitch will be your last name, and Snow will become your middle name. You call me by my middle name already, so we’ll match,” I add, as a happy afterthought.

The jeweler chuckles.

“You really do. You want the same engraving and everything.”

I feel like he maybe should have understood that those messages were meant to be a surprise, given Snow’s obvious shock, and the folded pieces of paper, but I’m a little too happy to care. Our wedding rings are going to match, inscription and all.

I love you

#Write This Down #my fic #snowbaz #snowbaz fic #Write This Down Fic #this is just self-indulgent fluff

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southerndragontamer · 3 years

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Pokémon AU

Chase Brody

Rillaboom (can Gigantamax), Boltund, Goodra, Ursaring, Polteageist, Banette (has Banettite)

-His starter was Grookey, the little drummer monkey heard Chase absently drumming a rhythm while he was waiting for the bus to get to Hammerlocke and just hopped out of his Pokeball the professor had and over to him and picked him. Grookey nearly bit the Professor when she tried to take him from Chase because he wanted to stay. And they’ve been together ever since.

-Chase travels because it makes him happy to be exploring, to be training with his team. Grookey finding him was the start of Chase getting out of a funk he’d been in for some time and back to being on the right track. He’s a good fighter, not as skilled as someone who goes at it crazy hardcore every day as he’s in it for the fun mostly, not trying to really be the toughest Trainer like some are.

-Is actually thinking of becoming a Breeder after he gets all his badges, as he doesn’t really want to fight the league. Currently Chase is training for fighting Melony or Gordie depending on who has switched in to be the Leader.

-Would lose to little kids that ask him for battle in a heartbeat if he could, but Chase takes it easy on them and gives advice and tips he picked up. And comforts anyone that’s upset after.

-Team order is Rillaboom, Boltund, Goodra, Ursaring, Banette, Polteageist

-Has befriended Jirachi and Nihilego

-Do not under any circumstances upset or hurt a little kid around him, you thought Anti was bad, uh uh, you haven’t seen an angry Chase and no one wants to get their behind handed to them by a protective father.

-Chase takes things at a easy pace, looking around Galar and exploring at his and his ‘Mon’s leisure and taking in the little things most pass by in the rush to get the next badge. He takes a lot of photographs, videos and collects postcards of everywhere he visits.

-He’s the type to save as much as he can in case he needs things later, is very hoard minded as he doesn’t know when it might come in handy. So, this guy is the kind of Trainer to have a ton of Nuggets burning a hole in his pocket for when he’s in need of cash to buy supplies.

-Totally dotes on his ‘Mon, very openly affectionate with them and gives them treats after a battle. Which considering the energy they just burn actually balances out so Nurse Joy doesn’t give him any trouble.

-Has very good aim when he plays games like laser tag or frisbee with other trainers while their teams relax and play when he hangs out with them. Comes in handy for throwing Pokéballs accurately, he can even make curve balls hit. And he’s been trying out different tricks with a toy ball to see if he can copy it with a Pokéball if he can.

-His style is laid back, casual kind of clothing. Hoodies, t shirts and jackets, jeans, shirts, boots and gloves and his snapback cap. He isn’t ever seen without his cap, it was a gift from some people special to him and he thinks it’s his good luck charm.

-The nicknames for his Pokémon are: Rillaboom is Silver, Bolthund is Lucky, Ursaring is Lunar, Goodra is Daisy, Banette is Stitch and Polteageist is Lipton

-He encountered Lucky just after getting Silver who he named that due to him being attracted to the shiny coins as the two walked to get started looking around and bringing them to Chase. Lucky got his name because he was running as fast as he could from a dog catcher and just in time Chaae stopped him and asked what was going on. Lucky was wild and had wandered into town and caused a bit of ruckus by digging up flower beds. So, Chase asked how much the damage was, didn’t bat an eye as he got his wallet out and paid the man to give to the owners of the gardens and turned to Lucky, who’s tail was just wagging like mad and asked if he wanted to come with, the response of being jumped on and licked sent Chase laughing.

-How he met Daisy happened during the long trip through the Wild Area to get to Motostoke. Chase was taking his time to get used to being around so many Pokémon and enjoying the sights. He’d just ran from a too powerful Onyx that had been accidentally nicked by Silver’s Razor Leaf that they were training with, and tripped into a small field of flowers. And there curled up asleep was Daisy, she even had a flower between her antenna. Chase instantly took a picture of her and when the sound of the shutter woke her asked if she wanted to join.

-Meeting Lunar and Stitch was interesting as it happened at the same time. They aren’t native to Galar though with so many Trainers coming in from different regions it’s natural they’re finding more wild or released Mon from other Regions, as well as moves, that weren’t there before as they acclimate to the Wild Areas easily. But, Chase was actually talking with a Trainer he’d just beaten that was recently from Hoenn after going through Johto. They had an Egg but they didn’t really want to switch their team out and just abandoning it wasn’t something they were comfortable with either so as Chase had plenty of room still, he offered to take it.

-And at the same time they handed it over, the Trainer asked if he wouldn’t mind taking on another Mon. And they explained a Ghost Type was following them, their unofficial seventh member at the moment. They didn’t want to just let it run wild when it wouldn’t be a good idea. Chase wasn’t one to turn down an opportunity to help and agreed and a little Shuppet appeared out of thin air and gave Chaae the most hopeful look. All Stitch had wanted was a friend, and now he had more than he knew what to do with!

-Chase took good care of the Egg that turned out to be a Teddiursa who he named Lunar for the crescent moon marking, and he adored caring for the baby Pokémon. All of his team turned into doting siblings honestly and it was very sweet to watch. There was a lot of baby and family pictures taken during this time. Lunar adores his family and will do everything to keep them safe and happy.

-This time was when Chase decided he wanted to try to become a Breeder, taking care of Lunar and his Egg was something he adored doing and he wanted to do that more, and make sure the babies got to good Trainers who would love them as much as he loved his Pokémon.

-Lipton was a cute encoder. Chase was on his way to Ballonlea through Glimwood Tangle and had gotten turned around a lot since the forest was so dark for the most part. He decided to take a bit of a break before he tried again, at least the experience was good for the team. He got out his hackysack and started to play with it lightly and didn’t notice for a bit that a little curious Sinistea was creeping closer. When Chase accidentally threw the hackysack too far, it was caught and then tossed back. Chase laughed a little and the two started a game to see if they could always catch or throw it perfectly.

-Chaae then mentioned needing to get to town as he was reminded he had somewhere to be when he looked at his watch and Lipton led him down the right path, but didn’t want to leave and basically caught himself.

-How he met Jirachi that was a fun one. Jirachi is known to sleep for years at a time, but since Jirachi is a Psychic Type, it’s not unheard of for its mind to reach out to others during its rest. And that’s exactly what happened with Chase, they met in his dreams and Jirachi played with him a lot. The first thing that happened when they met physically was Chase getting knocked off his feet in a ecstatic hug by the wish granting Legendary.

-Nihilego is actually his unofficial seventh team member. He’s not even really sure how they, or she as despite not being genderendd doesn’t seem to mind being referred to with feminine pronouns but it depends on mood for this, met him as Chase just... woke up one morning to find Nihilego over his bed. He assumes from research it’s due to an Ultra Wormhole opening up sometime during the night. While at first wary of being attacked, Nihilego didn’t try to attach to Chase or any of the team. Instead, they just... followed Chase around almost like the child they resemble.

-Chase named them Galaxy because of the Star like pattern they have. And Galaxy stays invisible a lot of the time around other humans, causing mischief sometimes but all in all, they just behave more like a child than an alien Pokémon most of the time. Though that’s not to say they stay like that all the time, sometimes when angered or when she thinks Chase or her family is threatened Galaxy will lash out to protect them. Galaxy sleeps curled up with Chase and the others on the team in a big cuddle pile.

Author’s note

Finally! The next installment is done! XD I’m sorry it took so long to get this out, and that it turned out so long, but I had to figure out the right team and then the rest wrote itself almost. And again, just feel free to ask for more information on anything in the AU if you’re curious! I promise I don’t bite.

#Chase Brody #Trick Shots #Jacksepticeye Ego #Jacksepticeye Fandom #Pokémon #Johto #Hoenn #Kalos #Alola #Galar #Pokémon Trainers #Legendary Pokémon #Ultra Beasts #Pokémon Fandom #South Writes #Fanfic #Chase Brody Headcanons #My Headcanons

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atrainernamedradish · 4 years

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Top 10 Least Favorite Pokemon

You know what’s harder than making a top favorites list? A least favorite one. I was particular about this list because I wanted my own personal opinion on the matter instead of adding to the echo chamber that can be the fandom’s. I don’t hate these Pokemon. These are the ones I care for the least. Also, the placements kept changing for this list, but I feel like I finally put everyone on here in the right order now.

10) Whismur Line

The only reason this line is the Normal typing is because Game Freak hasn’t made the Sound typing official. Hell, Electric, or even Steel, would have made more sense. But nope we got these weird fleshy sound-based things that I’m never excited to see.

9) Greedent

I take back everything I said about Diggersby (still wished it didn’t have the belching model cry though), and I’m directing that towards Greedent. It looks like your typical fat, lazy, and not particularly bright cartoon character. Almost feel like they were a bit lazy in this design. Like… they could have done something more, or less since it’s large enough. I feel like Game Freak is trying to recreate a likeness to Snorlax, since it’s the poster child for obese Pokemon, but keeps falling short by giving us the ugliest designs. We don’t need more fat normal types. We’ve got plenty.

8) Electrode

Hey guys, let’s make this Pokeball based Pokemon flip upside down, make it less pissed off and call it an evolution! Also, it’s going to be crazy fast as well explode, most likely killing anything nearby, because why the fuck not? Boring and dangerous… what a match made in hell for a design!

7) Pheromosa

It’s an almost 7 foot tall sentient cockroach with legendary stats. Nope. Just nope. *flees*

6) Grimmsnarl Line

I have been disappointed with this evolutionary line since seeing the leaks of Impidimp. I know a lot of Faerie lore and it ticks me off that they chose a Goddamn Goblin for the first Dark/Fairy type. Also, and I know not all Faeries are cute and cuddly, but why does Game Freak keep trying to sneak in ugly Fairy types? About 95% of the Fairy typing has a cute or pleasing ascetic. That’s one of its themes, that and trying to throw pink on everything, so why give us this ugly line?

The only indicator of this thing remotely being Fairy typing at a glance is that it’s pink. I would have never gotten Fairy otherwise from it. Goblins might be in Faerie Tales, but they aren’t Faeries.

The only one in this line that remotely gives off the Dark typing to me is Morgrem. The other two not so much. Putting black on a Pokemon is maybe another indicator of the Dark typing, but even then it ain’t helping…?

Overall to me this thing is goofy to ugly looking with its design and typing a complete mess. It irritates me that our first combination of Fairy and Dark is this line…

Also, using it in a playthrough and it pisses me off that I’m not getting a Fairy move until it reaches its final evolution! That’s if I don’t want to grind up watt points in the Wild Area for a Fairy TR, or beat Opal before getting said evolution!

5) Shiinotic

Fairy typing makes sense for Morelull when you realize what it’s based on. Hell, even Ghost does. But Shiinotic? I don’t care if mushrooms are a big thing in Faerie Culture. You can’t just design some ugly ass alien mushroom hybrid then slap the Fairy typing on it because of mushrooms or lore from a pre evolution! While we’re at it let’s make the Amoongus and Breloom line Fairies too!

Morelull should have been a single stage line. It would have made sense. But no. They just wanted to make an ugly Fairy type just to prove they could say: “hey fandom I know you’re sick of all the cute and pink Fairy types so here’s an ugly one to change things up!”

And don’t get me *started* on that ugly ass shiny! Game Freak: bright yellow and muddy browns are a terrible color combination! Guess why?

4) Spinda

You know how I praised Alcremie for having multiple forms because of what it was and why it made sense for it? Well I have the opposite opinion regarding Spinda.

If I didn’t believe in the golden rule of everyone having a favorite of each Pokemon then I’d very much assume this thing wasn’t liked by anyone.

Everything about its design annoys me. Why is it a panda? And before anyone tries to tell me otherwise, it’s in its American/English name. Why is it in a constant state of vertigo? I literally was trying to think of a typing it would be better off as instead of the Normal typing and none come to mind. So it’s normal because a) it’s an animal or b) because they needed to give it a typing and no other typing fit.

And out of ALL the Pokemon why does this one have an almost endless possibility of “forms”? This thing has got to be a living dex collector’s worst nightmare!

3) Archeops

This Pokemon is on here for pure personal reasons. Technically there are a few other Pokemon that I feel the same towards, but this one was the worst about it.

You know you have a stupid powerful stat as a non-psuedo legendary and legendary when you need an ability to nerf you. What’s worse is when you need a pretty bulky Pokemon to soak up the damage you reap before said ability does nerf you.

It was always Goddamn terrifying to run into this Pokemon in White 2. Not only was a good chunk of my team weak to Flying, but my Samurott couldn’t take more than one hit from it. Not to mention it didn’t do enough super effective damage to OHKO this thing. So I was never happy to run into this thing because I would only get out of the fight with a lot of collateral damage to my party!

This wasn’t the only Pokemon that was this fucking difficult to deal with in Unova. There is definitely a power imbalance in these games which made playing them a pain in the ass. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE Black 2 & White 2, but fuck me if this wasn’t my biggest issues with those games…

(Some of y'all are probably wondering about Slaking, and Slaking is actually easier to deal with thanks to its typing and ability readily triggering.)

2) Pelipper

This Pokemon was originally going to be my least favorite Water type on my favorite and least favorite typings lists, but I think its placement on this list suits it better.

I honestly don’t mind its pre-evolution Wingull. Wingull is kinda cute. Wonder Trade had me groaning every time I saw one, but that was more the player’s fault than anything.

Pelipper is just such a poorly designed Pokemon. Like, what were they thinking when they essentially fused the beak and stomach together? How can this thing carry its front heavy, well front? I assume it can handle all of that weight being airborne since I doubt it can get around any other way with its stubby little feet.

Then they gave it the Drizzle ability and suddenly people give a shit about its ugly ass…

The only time I’ve “willingly” used one was in my Wonderlocke, which was only due to the fact that I was in dire need of a water type, and I'll tell you that right now that I didn’t want to resort to using it. I’m pretty sure it died at the very end in the Champion battle… wasn’t all that sad to lose it if I’m being honest.

This isn’t just reserved for this Pokemon, but I absolutely hate the dual typing of Water/Flying. Nothing says “throw a rock at me” more than this typing combination.

Overall I just don’t like anything about this Pokemon.

1) Greninja

This Pokemon used to be a lot lower on this list, but as I mentioned right before the list that the order changed as I was making it. I can promise you that this Pokemon isn’t on here because of how popular it is (there are others that would be on here if that was the case). There are many other reasons I will go over as to why this one is on the list.

The first is my experience using a basic one in XY. It’s learn set of moves is terrible, and that’s because it learns a lot of physical moves despite having a much better Special Attack. When I thought about the aspects of a ninja’s special attack being higher than physical it made much more sense. It had little to no options for Dark type moves with one of the best moves for it not being available till you’ve gotten the 8th badge for Waterfall. Greninja was the weakest member of my team with my Aromatisse putting in much more work than it! If Greninja is not competitively trained as well as has any of its hidden abilities then it’s not really that useful. I kept the one from that playthrough because I don’t have the heart to release it or get rid of it…

The second is its design. I very much don’t care for it (its tongue scarf is gross!). Its middle evolution looks so much better to me, and it made me sad evolving it into this ugly thing…

The third is its typing. I’ve had some time to think about it and I’ve wondered to myself: why is Greninja a Dark type? Thinking of the history, and to some extent the mythology of ninjas, nothing screams Dark type to me. I’m also taking into account of Dark being Evil in Japan, and nothing about ninja inherently screams Evil or Dark typing. Then I found myself thinking about its other typing in Water which brought me to the conclusion that the only reason Greninja is a Water type is for two reasons: 1) It’s a starter and 2) it’s a frog.

So you’re probably thinking by this point: “well Radish if you don’t like its typings then what would you change them to?” Unfortunately, I’d keep Water since it’s not the only Pokemon to have a typing based on the animal it is (looking at you Poliwag line!). Dark typing would be replaced with Ghost since ninjas in their lore and mythology can traverse and interact with the spiritual world.

I will address the elephant in the room for my closing thoughts on this Pokemon: Greninja and the fandom. I wholeheartedly believe that if Greninja didn’t have the hidden abilities that it did that it wouldn’t be as favored as it is among the fanbase. As someone who used a basic ability one in hopes of giving it a chance I was greatly disappointed, and didn’t understand why this Pokemon was so popular. That’s why I feel as though the competitive scene is where it has gotten all of its fame from. People give Charizard so much shit for being overrated but do they for Greninja? (Not a big fan of Charizard for those who wanna accuse me as such.)

#whismur #loudred #exploud #greedent #electrode #pheromosa #grimmsnarl #impidimp #morgrem #shiinotic #spinda #archeops #pelipper #greninja

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elsajeni · 4 years

Text

Chocolate Box 2020 Letter

Dear Chocolatier: thank you for dropping by! I know I will enjoy anything you write for me, but if you’d like a little more detail on my preferences, here it is. First all the general stuff, which is all in my sign-up, but for the sake of having everything in one place:

Likes: bantering and bickering; moments of humor even in dark situations; pining; misunderstandings that turn out all right in the end; hurt/comfort; rescue missions; casual relationships; “undercover as a couple” tropes; “actually a couple, undercover as something else” tropes.

Sex & Kink Likes, if you go in that direction: light bondage; lots of talking during sex, both sweet and dirty; laughing during sex; inappropriate use of magic/Force powers/miracles; “foreplay” activities as the main event; overstimulation; orgasm denial, orgasm control, forced orgasm; light D/s dynamics.

DNWs: rape/non-con unless specified; incest; explicit scenes with underage characters; detailed description of bodily fluids; mundane AUs (coffeeshop, high school etc.); A/B/O; lifestyle or outside-the-bedroom D/s; infidelity; pregnancy, miscarriage, or infertility; unrelentingly dark and grim stories (I like a glimmering of hope); unhappy endings in Good Omens fic specifically.

Onward! to the pairing-specific prompts!

Luke Skywalker/Wedge Antilles -- this is a long-time favorite pairing, and I would love pretty much anything about them! Given the Thrawn trilogy as a setting, I’m interested in the pressures that their respective positions and commitments put on a relationship, and especially the complications of maintaining a relationship with someone who’s always running off on incomprehensible Jedi business (Luke just... up and fuckin’ vanishing off of Hoth is a pivotal moment in how I tend to see their relationship) -- whether they’re trying to make a committed relationship work, or deciding that a casual whenever-we’re-on-the-same-planet thing is the best they can manage, or what. How do you deal with loving someone when circumstances never seem to let you make him your first priority, or you his? (If it comes up, I strongly prefer Wedge’s old EU/Legends backstory.)

Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker -- another long-time favorite! Another pairing where I would like basically anything you give me! I’m especially interested in the innate connection between them that exists before they even meet, and how that shapes their relationship. I am, of course, very into their eventual true love and the canonical slow build into it; that said, I’m also super into the idea that they had the occasional purely-chemistry-driven goddammit-I-don’t-even-like-you hookup long before that. (If you’re into soulmate AUs, this is also the very rare pairing where I’m into soulmate AUs, not least because of how completely furious Mara would be about it.)

Mara Jade/Darth Vader -- I’m interested in Mara’s youth in the Emperor’s court, and the sort of... just-under-the-surface yawning horror that we know is there, but that doesn’t get dug into much in the EU. Give me something with her and Vader encountering each other -- as rivals for Palpatine’s attention, as tentative allies in court intrigue, as student and tutor? This could go in a lot of directions, from something as relatively innocent as a kid’s crush on the one person she thinks understands her to something as dark as the Emperor ordering one of them to the other one’s bedroom; whatever way you go with it, I do want you to treat the power dynamics and age dynamics here seriously, and lean into the darkness it suggests -- no one here is having a nice time or doing something they’ll be really happy to look back on.

(This is my one sort-of-exception to the “no rape/non-con” clause; it’s a pairing that lends itself to questionable or compromised consent, and I’m into that. The line between “dubcon” and “non-con” is blurry, but as much as possible, I’d like you to stay on the dubcon side of it -- deceit, coercion, and uncomfortable power imbalances, yes; violence, physical or Force-based force, or explicit non-consent that’s ignored, no. This is NOT an exception to the “no explicit scenes with underage characters” clause; if you write this with Mara as a teen, please keep anything explicitly sexual off-screen.)

Garik "Face" Loran/Ton Phanan -- listen, this is a long shot and I know it, but: GHOSTS. Give me Ton still hanging around after death -- where else does he have to go, after all? Haunting all the Wraiths, or just Face, or trying to figure out how he can go haunt some Imperials and ruin their day. Making Face miserable, or still making him laugh (and is he real, or is this some kind of coping mechanism, and does Face want to find out which?), or not seeming to know he’s dead. Just… Ghost Ton. Pls. (If ghosts aren’t for you, I’d also be very happy with them getting into shenanigans and having lots of pleasant casual sex during happier days!)

Wedge Antilles/Wes Janson -- I’m just looking for more Wraith Squadron/Starfighters of Adumar-style shenanigans here, really. Maybe some silly undercover-as-a-couple type stuff, or just some pure stress-relief casual fun? Alternately, this is a pairing that lends itself to hurt/comfort; both of these guys have more than enough canonical close calls, let’s see the aftermath of one of them. If you’re feeling ambitious, you could fix Isard’s Revenge for me by writing their post-Distna reunion, after they’ve both believed each other to be dead for weeks.

Son of Havoc/Ivelisse Velez/Angelico -- I just love these beautiful dysfunctional dipshits and I want them to love each other! I’m into this as a casual stress-relief thing among teammates that accidentally turns less casual; I would love some hurt/comfort, which I feel like wrestling fic is basically made for, and I have a special love for “oh no, *I’m* the one who hurt you” h/c in particular, which I feel like these three squabbling idiots are basically made for. My general taste in Lucha Underground fic is “turn the supernatural nonsense up to 11,” so go nuts with the “persecuted by the literal goddess of death” business; I have a particular weakness for regular mortal Ivelisse and Havoc getting dragged into supernatural nonsense because their boyfriend is a supernatural creature with no sense of self-preservation.

Aziraphale/Crowley -- hi, yes, like everyone else on tumblr I am now a full-time Good Omens obsessive. This is another pairing that I like pretty much any way you take it -- six thousand years of angsty pining and “no actually they’ve been fucking and/or married since Eden” and anything in between all equally welcome. I love the historical scenes that we get in the TV show, and would be delighted with anything looking at what they’ve been up to throughout the rest of history (ooh, how about a Robin Hood interlude?); I love rescue missions and hurt/comfort of any kind; I have a terrible weakness for the delayed-action total fucking breakdown that Crowley is clearly going to have post-Armageddon; I’m down for them not being quite as safe as they thought they were post-Armageddon, and having to fend off one last attack from Heaven or Hell or both. I love the warm soft side of how ludicrously much they love each other, and also the absolutely crucial part of their dynamic that is “I can’t believe I have somehow been stuck, for six THOUSAND YEARS, hanging around with the SINGLE MOST ANNOYING PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE”. My one specific demand is: I don’t mind some angst on the way to my happy ending, the payoff is all the sweeter if you make me suffer for it a little, but this is the one pairing where I feel really really strongly that you gotta give me the happy ending, or at least leave them on track for it if they’re not quite there yet.

(A note: I requested Aziraphale/Crowley under both book and TV fandoms, and I’m lumping them together here because I honestly don’t care much about the distinction. I love the book, I loved the show, fics set in book canon, TV canon, or a sort of pick-and-choose hybrid canon are all equally fine with me!)

#exchange letters #chocolate box

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kagaintheskywithdiamonds · 6 years

Conversation

EVERY pokemon type matchup EXPLAINED

(or at least, some way to remember them all)

Water > Fire: water puts out fire

Ground > Fire: you can also pour sand on a fire to put it out.

Rock > Fire: sand is made of tiny rocks.

Water > Rock: rocks sink

Water > Ground: “ground” = “earth”, “earth” in this case meaning “the rock that makes up the earth” (which makes it nearly indistinguishable from rock-type but whatevs), and water erodes rock to carve up the land

Grass > Rock: if you plant a seed in a crack in a rock, its roots may have the power to break that rock into pieces when it grows bigger

Electric > Water: water conducts electricity

Bug > Grass: bugs eat plants

Flying > Grass: birds eat plants

Flying > Bug: birds eat bugs

Electric > Flying: lightning strikes in high places

Ice > Flying: birds fly south for the winter

Ice > Dragon: maybe dragons also fly south for the winter? scientists still aren’t sure

Ghost > Ghost: you know how Danny Phantom had to turn into a ghost in order to fight the evil ghosts? it’s like that

Dark > Ghost: messing with ghosts is some dark shit and only those proficient in dark magic can control them.

Bug > Psychic: spiders are a common phobia, so you could think of it like a psychological fear thing. also there’s the fact that gen 1 was crazy unbalanced and that bug-types were kind of useless and psychic-types were crazy OP and the usually-weak bug-types were SUPPOSED to be the Achilles heel of psychic-types but in practice it really didn’t work out.

Bug > Dark: the psychological fear thing applies here too. also there’s the fact that dark and steel types were added in gen 2 to fix the balance issues in gen 1 and bug-types needed another thing to be strong against.

Dark > Psychic: Dark Pokemon show me the Forbidden Power that can defeat the crazy OP psychic-types of gen 1.

Ghost > Psychic: ghost-types were also supposed to be the Achilles heel to psychic-types. but then the coders in gen 1 made psychic-types immune to ghost attacks, somehow. anywho they fixed that in gen 2 and onwards.

Fire > Grass: fire burns plants/wood

Fire > Ice: heat melts ice

Fire > Steel: greater amounts of heat will melt metal

Fire > Bug: did y’all ever go camping with your family and watch some kid in the neighboring campsite gather up a bunch of live bugs and then throw them into their campfire?? that’s what this makes me think of. but yeah if you throw a bug in a fire it will most likely die.

Rock > Bug: it would be more efficient to kill a bug by crushing it under a rock

Ice > Grass: plants die/trees hibernate during winter

Dragon > Dragon: dragon-types were also OP in gen 1 and they needed to nerf themselves (and this didn’t happen in gen 1 because the only damage-dealing dragon-type move was dragon rage which always deals 40 HP of damage sooooo)

Fighting > Normal: imagine a Machamp using a Snorlax or something as a punching bag. it makes more sense than trying to use any of the other types as a punching bag I suppose.

Rock > Flying: “kill two birds with one stone”

Fighting > Rock: imagine some guy karate chopping a brick in half.

Fighting > Steel: imagine that same guy karate chopping a steel bar in half. it doesn’t really work, since the steel bar just kinda bends instead of snapping in two. but he still managed to fuck that thing up so I guess it still makes sense.

Fighting > Ice: exercise and physical activity keeps you warm and that helps you tolerate the cold. …or you could imagine karate-guy chopping a brick of ice in half. that works too.

Fighting > Dark: I read somewhere that dark-type pokemon are actually called “evil” type in Japan, and that dark-type moves are often about “playing dirty.” meanwhile, fighting-type pokemon/moves are based more on martial arts, which is a more respectable and honorable form a fighting that often goes hand-in-hand with certain moral codes and philosophies. so basically, a good, clean, honorable fight trumps dirty cheaters.

Flying > Fighting: “have you ever tried to punch a bird”

Fairy > Fighting: I like to think of this as a defeat of toxic masculinity

Fairy > Dragon: it’s like a fairy tale where the hero slays the dragon in the end

Fairy > Dark: good overcomes all sorts of evil in fairy tales

Poison > Fairy: remember Ferngully? that movie about those fairies who lived in the rainforest and then their home was threatened by man-made pollution? it’s like that.

Poison > Grass: pollution also kills plants. both in the Ferngully rainforest and elsewhere.

Grass > Water: plants drink water.

Grass > Ground: plants also take in nutrients from the soil

Ice > Ground: “that thing where water gets into cracks in the ground and then freezes and that breaks the rock up”

Rock > Ice: after the ground is broken up by the ice, the ground becomes rocks. rocks are all that remain. rock wins.

Steel > Ice: ice can’t break up steel the same way it can break up rocks. steel does not fear ice.

Ground > Electric: lightning rods “ground” electricity so it isn’t dangerous

Ground > Poison: imagine a venomous snake trying to “kill” a clump of dirt. it won’t be a successful hunt for the snake.

Ground > Rock: ROCK IS JUST GROUND. GROUND IS ROCK. YA HEAR THAT, ROCK?! I OWN YOU

Ground > Steel: if you take a robot or your computer or phone or really anything electronic and then bury it underground without any protective casing, it probably won’t work anymore when you dig it back up.

Psychic > Fighting: “mind over matter”/“brain over brawn”

Psychic > Poison: if you’re psychic then you can see into the future and that means you might see a vision of you dying from eating food that was poisoned or you getting bitten by a snake in a certain location and then you will know to avoid those foods/locations (idfk, you got a better explanation?)

Steel > Rock: metal is the refined version of rock. metal is superior.

Steel > Fairy: can a fairy fight its way through a steel wall? no? I thought not.

Rock being resistant against Normal: if you’re not the karate guy from the earlier examples, then punching a rock isn’t going to do much for you.

Steel being resistant against Normal: again, if you’re not the karate guy, punching a slab of metal won’t go well for you.

Fire being resistant against Fairy: how is a fairy supposed to put out a fire. it’s too smol.

Dragon being resistant against Fire: FIRE CANNOT HURT A DRAGON

Dragon being resistant against Water: WATER ALSO CANNOT HURT A DRAGON, I GUESS. MAYBE BECAUSE SOME DRAGONS ALSO LIVE IN WATER?

Dragon being resistant against Electricity: dragons are the masters of all elements and I guess we just have to accept that at this point.

Dragon being resistant against Grass: foliage cannot hurt a dragon

Steel being resistant against Grass: if you cut down a forest, and lay a foot-thick blanket of steel on the ground where the forest used to be… those plants aren’t going to grow back very easily.

Water being resistant against Ice: water is one phase away from BEING ice. there’s not much ice can do to bother water.

Steel being resistant against Ice: I don’t RECOMMEND putting your smartphone in the freezer but it would probably survive the process

Poison being resistant against Fighting: punching a snake isn’t going to get rid of the venom that has already been injected inside your body

Bug being resistant against Fighting: I mean you CAN punch a bug but I wouldn’t recommend it because you’re probably going to hurt your fist from punching whatever surface the bug was sitting on.

Rock being resistant against Poison: a snake that bites a rock would also have little success. but apparently slightly more success than if it were to bite a clump of dirt. because it’s only a one-way resistance this time.

Ghost being resistant against Poison: you can’t poison something that’s already dead

Bug being resistant against Ground: I mean. bugs live in the ground. I guess they’re pretty familiar with the place. it doesn’t throw them off their routine too much.

Steel being resistant against Flying: when a bird flies directly into a skyscraper and dies, the skyscraper doesn’t take too much damage.

Steel being resistant against Psychic: you can’t play mind games with a computer

Water being resistant against Steel: water usually isn’t too annoyed by the objects that enter it.

Flying being immune to Ground: if you’re flying then you’re not touching the ground. the ground can’t bother you.

Steel being immune to Poison: you can’t poison a robot.

Ghost being immune to Normal and Fighting: so the idea here is that ghosts are intangible. you can’t physically touch a ghost, much less punch one. you’d have to blast it with fire or electricity or something instead. but making ghost-types immune to all physical moves would’ve been OP, especially in gens 1-3 when a move counted as physical or special entirely based on what type it was. and instead of ghost being immune to ALL physical types, they made it immune to the two that are most easily associated with physically attacking things.

Normal being immune to Ghost: listen… normal-types have like nothing else going for them. they might as well get to be immune to the type that is already immune against them. (fighting-types can still fuck up rocks pretty well so they didn’t need this kind of extra immunity)

#pokemon #I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS GOT SO LONG #shitpost #nintendo #gaming

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nelvana · 5 years

Text

In which the ninetales is met

First: In which the human is transformed Next: In which they return to the town Previous: In which things go bump in the night

“I don’t care what marching order we go in, as long as I don’t have to be around him,” Keahi stated, stubbornly avoiding looking at Sableye.

“Fair enough,” Alex replied, “I can carry him in that case, and then I can take the back, while you go up front with Nel.”

“I can walk on my own!” Sableye yelled, and to prove his point, he stood up and awkwardly took a few steps towards the others.

“You can walk, but you can’t keep up like that. The rope limits your movement too much but we can’t untie you,” Alex groaned, giving the pokemon a sideways glare before looking at the others again. “And, I have to carry him because if Tsuki carries him and the rope rubs too much against her, she’ll get too sore,” he added.

“Very well, but I’ll hang back with you then for the extra defense. The path is pretty straightforward, so I don’t need to lead,” Tsuki responded, “shall we head off then? We’re losing time discussing this.”

“Great, let’s get going,” Nelvana said, standing off and leading the group out of the cave again, out into the blinding daylight reflecting off the snow.

After Sableye’s attack, nothing of importance had happened for the rest of the night, much to everyone’s relief. Nelvana had had another nightmare, this one the clearest yet, likely with the midnight event, but she had decided not to bring it up to the others yet.

The blizzard from the day before had ended, and not even flurries fell during the walk. All the extra fallen snow from that storm had frozen over in the morning’s chill, permitting everyone to be able to walk over it, instead of having to trudge through the deep powder. Tsuki told them that it would only be about an hour’s travel to get to the dungeon, and a quick glance at the map notes confirmed this as well.

Alex easily scooped up Sableye and began carrying him under his right arm. Sableye struggled for a bit, even attempting to bite to grovyle, but all it took was some sparks to start flicking from his fist for the ghost-dark-type to back off. They took up the previous decided marching order, with Nelvana leading, and Keahi right up beside her. Then Alex and Tsuki about a foot behind them, keeping a slight distance so that the leading pair wouldn’t feel uncomfortable with Sableye so close.

“Woah! Now that I can really look at this place, it’s really pretty!” Keahi exclaimed, pausing to take in the view of the snow coating the land sparkling in the sun.

“Yeah…” Nelvana agreed, enjoying the moment as well.

Tsuki smiled, “one of the positives to staying out here. At night, the sky is clearer than I’ve heard it is in most places, and you can really see the stars. Of course, we couldn’t last night because of the blizzard…”

“I guess if we ever come back here, we’ll have to take some time for that!” Keahi chirped.

“No offense Tsuki, but if I can avoid coming back here, I probably will,” Alex admitted.

“None taken. It gets even colder in the night too, so I wouldn’t recommend going stargazing without being well prepared to stay warm anyway,” Tsuki replied.

Sableye scowled, not saying anything, unwilling to admit that this was pretty, but knowing that trash talking it to pretend like he hated it wouldn’t help himself much.

Continuing on their way, the group found that the timing was correct, and they made it to the entrance of the dungeon after just an hour. However, while the snow from before hadn’t snowed in the cavern of Mt. Freeze, it had hidden the storage statue. There was no sight of the stone kangaskhan, it had completely disappeared underneath of the white flakes. Tsuki pawed at the ground to try and find it, but to no avail.

“Do you remember where it was?” Nelvana asked.

“I’m afraid not, I don’t come this way often,” Tsuki sighed.

“Alex, could you just dig and find it?” Keahi suggested.

Alex shook his head, “unfortunately, that move doesn’t work that way. Even if I found it, I couldn’t exactly stop to reach in and grab some stuff,” he replied, “we should be fine without anything in there though, right?”

“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” Nelvana agreed, “hopefully we’ll be back home before noon anyway,” she added.

“Hey Tsuki, what moves do you know anyway?” Keahi asked as they entered the dungeon.

Tsuki clicked her tongue pensively, “mostly slashing moves. We absols are very physical attackers after all; but I also know ice beam, not that that would help here,” she murmured.

“Oh, alright! Ice beam is good though, none of us know any ice-type moves,” Keahi replied.

“Should I demonstrate some of my battling skills? Would that help for planning future fights to know what I can do?” Tsuki questioned.

“That could help, yes,” Alex hummed, shifting the grip on Sableye, who seemed to be going their best to make this as miserable as possible for the grovyle.

Tsuki nodded in acknowledgement, and they waited for the first dungeon pokemon to attack. This ended up being a furret, which bounded towards the group to attack right upon seeing them. Tsuki readied herself before bolting at the long bodied pokemon, seeming to gain speed instantly, arriving to her foe in a flash and raking them across the face with her foreclaws. The furret recoiled in pain, arching their back before swiping at the absol in return, which much less effective with their shorter claws. All it took was Tsuki to bat them again with a paw for them to disappear, defeated.

“Good job!” Keahi cheered, hurrying over to join the absol. “That was quick attack and slash, right?”

“Yes, it was,” Tsuki answered courtly, “now, we shouldn’t linger here, this is only the first floor after all.”

“How many floors are there here again? The same as the others or more?” Nelvana asked, glancing back at Alex.

“I…” Alex paused, looking at Sableye, and then the bag, before dropping Sableye on the ground to pull the map out of the bag. “Says that Mt. Freeze has twenty floors total, five of them being the top floors, after the special room,” he read from the back of the paper.

“You didn’t have to drop me, you prick!” Sableye snapped.

“With all that squirming you were doing, I thought you’d be happy to be on the ground,” Alex responded coolly, barely sparing the pokemon a glance from the map.

“It’s cold,” Sableye mumbled, trying to keep the least amount of them touching the icy ground as possible.

“Wait, Mt. Freeze? Is that the name of this mountain? I’ve been calling it Frosty Peak this entire time!” Keahi exclaimed.

“Mt. Freeze is the name of this mountain, and dungeon, yes, but Ninetales… well, she does live on this mountain, but in the one time I’ve met her, she made it very clear that she didn’t want to be related to the dungeon, and only lives so close to avoid guests. So, she lives at Frost Peak, the peak of Frosty Forest,” Tsuki explained.

“Oh,” Keahi laughed, “that’s relieving. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing to have gotten the name wrong this entire time?”

Before Sableye could even try to make a clever comment, Alex stuffed the map back in the bag and scooped up the dark-ghost-type again.

“Yeah,” Nelvana agreed, glancing at the others. “But, we still have twenty floors to go through, so let’s pick up the pace a bit, shall we?”

As with most dungeons, their progress continued in a similar fashion. The extra help from Tsuki made a notable difference, with her able to help out more against numbers, and her quick attack could get rid of some of the dungeon pokemon before they got too close without always having to rely on Keahi using ember or Nelvana throwing her bone club across the room, especially since Alex had one arm full and wasn’t able to fight to his full potential. Like at Frosty Forest, the dungeon was filled with a bitter coldness, and even on a few of the later floors, they got hailed on, which made everyone scramble around until they could find the stairs, trying to avoid getting hurt by the ice pellets. Nelvana found out very quickly that her headgear mostly protected her, and used this ability to her advantage as much as possible on these floors.

Regardless, they went through it quickly and efficiently, soon finding themselves at the special safe floor of the dungeon. Unlike the other dungeons with this feature, there was no statue to greet them. Or at least there wasn’t one anyway. A pile of unrecognizable chunks of rock lay in the center of the room, giving it an eerie and empty feeling without the stone pokemon all in one piece.

“Oh that’s… unexpected. What happened here?” Nelvana murmured, hesitantly approaching the stone pieces.

“A meteor strike maybe,” Sableye joked, earning him a rough jostle from Alex.

“I’m not sure. It’s been like this ever since I’ve been around, and I haven’t bothered to ask about it yet. Ninetales is probably the only one who knows, but I didn’t think to ask her when I was around. It just isn’t something you ask someone about in a casual conversation,” Tsuki replied, ignoring the comment and instead following the cubone, tapping one of the chunks idly with a forepaw.

“I wonder what it once looked like?” Keahi asked, more to himself than anyone.

“Ninetales, perhaps?” Nelvana suggested, couching down and reaching out to gently touch one of the pieces she was standing in front of, and then for a moment appearing almost disappointed when nothing happened. “She isn’t a legendary, but she is the only option that really makes sense, since she’s the only one that lives out here,” she continued, standing up and dusting herself off.

“That’s true. Wonder what happened to it then? All the others have been in one piece at least,” Alex replied, watching Nelvana curiously.

“This was definitely intentional. And since no dungeon pokemon can walk on this floor, it couldn’t have been them,” Tsuki inputted, “possibly a traveller?”

“That sounds likely,” Alex murmured, “let’s keep going though, no sense in staying here for too long.”

“Yeah! We’re almost there, aren’t we? C’mon!” Keahi exclaimed, suddenly filled with excitement that carried him out of the room.

This energy filled the group, bringing them swiftly through the rest of the floors, eager to be so close to their goal. They passed through the final five floors with ease, finding them outside once more. The sun’s position shining in the sky told them that they hadn’t spent too much time in the dungeon. Now though, instead of being clear, a light snowfall had begun, but compared to the storm of the night before, it was hardly noticeable.

“You see that cave up there?” Tsuki said, gesturing to the small entrance up ahead. “That’s where Ninetales is,” she told them.

“Really? That’s so close! Come on!” Keahi cheered, hurrying forward again. “I can’t believe it! Our journey will finally bear fruit!”

“Yeah!” Nelvana agreed, the positivity from her partner affecting her as well as she hurried after said torchic.

Climbing up to the mouth of the cave, they were greeted by an odd warmth radiating from an unknown source inside the cavern, keeping all ice and snow at bay for a few feet away from the entrance. No torches lined the walls, and yet the inside wasn’t swallowed up in shadows. Despite all these peculiarities, there were no signs of life, no immediate evidence that someone lived here.

Heading inside, an eerie silence clouded the room they were walking through. There were no sounds aside from the tapping of their steps against hard stone as they wandered around.

“Hello? Ninetales? Are you there?” Keahi called, his voice echoing in the seemingly empty cavern. “Uh… My name is Keahi, I’m one of Blaziken’s kids! And I’m here with my friends, we just need to ask something and then we’ll leave!” he added loudly.

They waited for a response. There was none.

“Maybe she’s out…?” Nelvana whispered.

“Maybe she’s dead,” Sableye snickered.

Alex huffed, dropping Sableye on the ground again, “you get to stay there until we’re done here.”

“Ouch!” Sableye yelled dramatically.

“I suppose we’ll have to wait,” Tsuki decided, sitting down. “It would be rude to start snooping around for her,” she added.

“What if she’s hurt somewhere deeper in here and can’t respond?” Keahi asked worriedly.

“If we have to wait for a half hour, then we go look around. Sound good?” Alex offered.

“I’d probably sense it if something like that had happened to her, but I suppose we can do that just in case…” Tsuki murmured, glancing around the room.

“Team Galaxy.”

At being mentioned, the group whirled around in surprise to find the source of the voice, only to see Team A.C.T. standing a few meters behind them, their expressions initially appearing neutral, but a glimmer of harshness showed through Charizard’s gritted teeth and Alakazam’s furrowed brows.

“Team A.C.T.!” Keahi exclaimed, stepping towards the trio, his eyes lighting up at seeing his idols again.

“Team Galaxy, you made it,” Alakazam said, “I’d say congratulations, but…”

Keahi’s expression fell, “but what?” he asked, “what are you doing here anyways?”

Nelvana reached out to gingerly place her hand on Keahi’s back. Her heart had already begun pounding in anticipation, and out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Alex stiffen. Charizard hissed something to his teammates too quietly to be heard by Team Galaxy, but the way he shifted his gaze to Tsuki told them that he was whispering something negatively about the absol.

“You’re here to kill me, aren’t you,” she growled.

“Wha…” Keahi blinked, glancing at the cubone, confused by her accusation.

“It hopefully won’t have to come to that,” Alakazam replied coolly, “but once Ninetales arrives and confirms the truth, we will have to.”

“The truth?” Keahi gasped, “you… you can’t honestly believe Gengar, can you?”

A hint of guilt shimmered in Tyranitar’s gaze, but Alakazam and Charizard remained stoic. Nelvana’s gaze narrowed at the trio, and Tsuki’s fur bristled at the lack of defense from this question.

“We must remain open to the possibility, especially since we don’t know for certain how she became a pokemon. After all, this is the world’s balance at stake,” Alakazam told them.

“Ha, is that the excuse you’re using? We all know that the ‘unthinkable’ is the meteor, and yet instead of helping make the solution to that, you’re adding onto this problem,” Alex snarled, “you didn’t even have the decency to teleport us straight here to get the news faster, instead just waiting until we got here to just pop in on your own,” he continued, “I bet you were hoping that Moltres or Articuno would off us so you wouldn’t have to? Too bad for you I guess,” he spat.

Charizard’s expression twisted into a snarl at Alex’s comments, but he continued to hold himself back and not say anything.

“Here, since you decided to pay us a visit, might as well make yourselves useful,” Alex said, kicking Sableye over at Team A.C.T. “This little gremlin happens to be a murderer. Heard you were missing some nuzleaves? Sableye is the reason for that. You’re welcome for us doing your job for you.”

The higher ranked team’s expressions softened for a moment. Tyranitar hesitantly reached down and picked up Sableye, who immediately began kicking at the air and screeching profanities. In this slur of curses, Sableye ended up accidentally confirming what Alex said about what happened with the nuzleaves, leaving Team A.C.T. with no choice but to take this criminal with them. Tyranitar untied Sableye from the rope, only to hold the dark-ghost-type securely in his arms, sealing away the smaller pokemon’s hopes of escaping the rescue teams. Then, Tyranitar handed the rope back to Alex.

“Oh? Thanks, at least I can count on you to do some good around here,” Alex said, taking his rope back and putting it in the bag.

“You may have captured this criminal, but don’t let that make you think we’ll go any easier on you if Nelvana is the one from the legend,” Charizard snapped.

“Why do any of you even think that’s a possibility?” Keahi yelled, “shouldn’t it be easy for you to realize that Gengar is lying?”

“So much for having an IQ over 5000,” Nelvana mumbled.

Alakazam stiffened, but didn’t respond. He’s hiding something.

“How did you get here with such timing anyhow?” Tsuki asked.

“We don’t have to answer to you, Absol,” Charizard snarled.

Alakazam sighed, raising an arm to silence his teammate. Charizard shifted his weight impatiently and mumbled something about the team harboring two disaster bringers. Nelvana glanced around, growing quickly more curious about the answer to Tsuki’s question. How could Team A.C.T. have known when they would arrive to Ninetales? Unless…

“You… you were stalking us with your psychic abilities, weren’t you?” Nelvana growled, her grip tightening on her weapon. “You can’t properly sense Alex or me with our shields, and you can’t sense Tsuki with her typing, but I guess Keahi is just a convenient beacon to you, isn’t he?” Anger boiled through her body at her conclusion, and that this team would use her partner like this.

“That’s a way to put it, yes,” Alakazam murmured, to the continuous shock of Keahi.

Tyranitar took a deep breath, “look… we s-shouldn’t… Just… Just, consider us witnesses to whatever Ninetales says, o-okay?” he said, his voice quiet and wavering. “The public will… believe you, uh, more if we s-support you.”

This statement brought the two teams to silence, in a mixture in agreement at what Tyranitar as had, and in surprise that he had spoken at all. A full, awkwardly tense minute dragged on without a word spoken. Until finally, a soft clicking of claws on stone announced the arrival of another.

“Hello there,” Ninetales said.

Walking out from around a corner deeper in the cave, came Ninetales. The fox pokemon slowly walked over to the two groups, her nine, long tails flowing behind her, one of them being more dragged than the rest. Her steps came with a nearly unnoticeable limp from her hind left leg, and white hairs whisked at her muzzle. Her right ear was notched, a scar from an old battle. Despite her age, she evidently carried herself with pride, holding herself to a higher regard than anyone else in the room. Burgundy eyes flecked with wisdom and an old power.

“I must say, I didn’t expect to have quite so many guests,” Ninetales murmured, looking over said guests thoughtfully. “Team A.C.T…. Absol… Blaziken’s kid… a grovyle and a sableye… and a human,” she murmured, her eyes landing on Nelvana.

Nelvana’s eyes widened, “you can tell with just a glance?”

“Yes, I can. I suppose it also helps that I’ve been around humans before. I know how you… carry yourselves, without any of my abilities,” Ninetales continued, approaching more. “You seem different though… less… uncouth. I can appreciate that,” she added quietly.

Nelvana shifted uncomfortably under Ninetales’ gaze, and Alex stepped closer to the cubone, protectively.

Ninetales blinked, snapping out of her daze, “now then, what brings all of you here? To ask about my legend, I presume?”

Alakazam cleared his throat, “yes, as a matter of fact. Is Nelvana, this cubone, the very same human from your legend?”

“Wha… Good heavens, no!” Ninetales exclaimed, her eyes widening in surprise at the very idea. “Why in the name of Arceus would you think that? Of course she isn’t that human.”

“I don’t know, why in the name of Arceus would you think that, Team A.C.T.?” Alex asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he glared back at the mentioned team.

“I… I knew Nelvana was innocent!” Charizard lied, chuckling nervously and glancing at Alakazam frantically for support.

“If only that were true,” Keahi hissed at the fire-flying-type, his tone lower than expected for speaking to the team he once admired.

“Well…” Alakazam paused, hurriedly trying to find something to cover himself up. “She was recently accused by Gengar of being that human, and we had to make sure.”

“Gengar…?” Ninetales repeated, and oddly enough, a sly grin grew on her face. “Why, that’s quite interesting to hear, considering he is the human that touched my tail, and abandoned Gardevoir.”

Everyone’s eyes widened in surprise at this new information. Tsuki blinked incredulously, even without having personally met Gengar, this news of the very one that accused Nelvana of being this person, turned out to be that person, shocked her. Keahi’s feathers fluffed up, and he exchanged looks with his two other teammates. Charizard’s jaw dropped open, and Tyranitar almost dropped Sableye. Alakazam’s moustache sprang out to match his expression of shock.

“What? It’s Gengar?” Alakazam exclaimed.

“Then he’s the one causing the disasters!” Charizard roared.

“He’s… no, he is not. Shin- Gengar may be the one from my legend, but I would never curse someone to end the world,” Ninetales soothed them smoothly, “do what you wish with this information, but don’t go hunting him down just because of a lie.”

Alakazam huffed, looking away almost sheepishly that not a single part of Gengar’s accusation was correct, and that he had followed it regardless. Charizard’s expression was slowly beginning to settle into a scowl again, giving Alakazam a side glare. Tyranitar shifted in place awkwardly and nudged Alakazam, holding up his badge. Alakazam shook his head at his teammate.

“Not yet,” he told Tyranitar before facing Ninetales again. “Then what is causing the world’s balance to be disrupted?”

“I’ve told you before! It’s the meteor!” Alex snapped.

Alakazam’s gaze hardened at the grovyle, but Ninetales nodded.

“The ‘unthinkable’ you speak of, it is in fact the meteorite,” Ninetales said calmly, “however, that isn’t your only concern. Groudon has awakened from this disbalance, and they are angry. This is the cause of the earthquakes and many of the other natural disasters,” she explained, “if they aren’t defeated… then the balance will only shift more negatively.”

“We will fight them then,” Alakazam stated.

“We can fight them!” Keahi insisted, “we’ve fought legendries before!”

“But you’ve also made this long journey. You should rest, we’ll handle this,” Alakazam replied.

“Yeah! Plus, Groudon is a lot stronger than that trio you fought, let the professionals handle this,” Charizard added.

Keahi’s feathers ruffled with irritation at continuously being underestimated, but he didn’t argue any further. Nelvana flexed her grip on her club from frustration.

“Now then, we have lots of work to be done now, so we must be going,” Alakazam said.

Team A.C.T. didn’t wait for any reply, and just disappeared, with Sableye, in a beam of light, leaving just Team Galaxy with Ninetales.

“I suppose you’re busy too, and will have to leave,” Ninetales said, her voice silvery smooth, sending a chill down Nelvana’s spine.

“Y-Yeah,” Nelvana replied, “just… one last thing, if you don’t mind?”

“Go ahead.” Ninetales smiled down at Nelvana.

“What was Gengar’s name as a human?” Nelvana asked, “do you know?”

Ninetales’ smile grew, “Shinobi. His name was Shinobi. I hope that helps you out.”

“Thanks,” Nelvana responded, “now let’s finally get home.”

With that, Team Galaxy disappeared from Frosty Peak in a beam of light. Finally going home again.

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tateblog · 6 years

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How does your character think of their father? What do they hate and love about him? What influence - literal or imagined - did the father have?/ How do they see themselves: as smart, as intelligent, uneducated?/ What were your character’s deepest disillusions? In life? What are they now?/ What do they want from a partner? What do they think and feel of sex?/ How are your character’s gestures? Vigorous? Weak? Controlled? Compulsive? Energetic? Sluggish?

001. TATE MIRRORS HIS FATHER’S APPROACH to his family , he’s highly apathetic towards the man . as a child , i suspect he accepted Hugo and ( dare i say ) loved him , maybe blindly and to an oblivious fault . but like most psychopathic children , he was frighteningly aware of the dysfunctions around the house ; between his parents and the unusual level of neglect toward himself and his siblings . this was “normal” to him . the Langdons didn’t have a happy marriage . perhaps they tried , to keep appearances , to force things to work , but Hugo was unfaithful and an alcoholic . mind you , incredibly functional , as they lead a very comfortable life . Hugo was a successful car salesman , and married Constance when she was very young . though Tate remained unaware of what had really happened to his father ( murdered by Constance ) , he knew something was wrong . posthumously , Tate didn’t get to see Hugo around the house as a ghost , mostly because Hugo is not aware he is dead , and shortly after his “disappearance” Constance couldn’t manage the bills and she , with her children , had to move out . Tate , for a long time , held a grudge against Constance for driving his father away , perhaps imagining things would be different had they lived with his father instead ( or so he told himself ) . begrudgingly , he moved on from the abandonment ( so he thinks ) . subconsciously , he keeps the image of his father at bay . as he grew older , Tate acquired mannerisms and gestures very reminiscent of his father . facial expressions , body language , speech patterns ( sometimes ) , all these things that have gotten a mixed reception from his mother . after Tate’s own death , in the house , knowing of the permanent residents already , he finally discovers what happened to the man . there’s a mix of anger and apathy in this ; anger towards Constance , for lying to him . apathy toward Hugo , as he doesn’t blame Constance for killing him . this is a small conflict he carries toward his parents , one which causes no ripples in him . as far as Hugo Langdon is concerned , Tate is completely unburdened . whether the shared savagery between the two is an inherited trait or not , is up to discussion .

002. TATE HAS MOMENTS WHEN HE KNOWS he is intellectually capable . he never had problems excelling in school , if he so desired . instead , he sought after average effort for average results . he’s smart , undoubtedly so . but he is also someone who needs to be constantly stimulated by whatever his attention is drawn to . this is why he spent much of his time at school in the library , instead of spending time with classmates or making friends or talking to girls ; none of that interested him in the very least . so he�� read and absorbed copious amounts of knowledge and information , some of it aiding his early demise . he doesn’t see himself as being “educated” at all , though he is well read and was capable of much more than he managed to accomplished in life . he died at seventeen , during his senior year of high school . in his mind , this makes him a drop-out . and in retrospect , something he contemplated in doing when the dark fantasies of killing his classmates came to be too much . Tate , occasionally , has moments of arrogance when thinks of himself highly and in askew proportion to how he really is . like with any other psychopath , this comes from having narcissistic tendencies and an irrationally inflated ego , despite the usual cold , objective , realistic view of himself . though he knows he’s not the brightest bulb in the shed ( if you will ) , there are moments when nothing will convince him otherwise .

003. DURING LIFE, TATE’S GREATEST DISILLUSION was the way society worked . both in little things and the larger picture . this started at home , with his mother . the boy started off well-mannered , polite , and far much “mature” for his age . he did not keep a messy room nor did he misbehave for the sake of doing so . despite this , he was , by all means strange and intense . unbeknownst to himself , he repelled kind gestures from his mother . a reaction to her obvious dotting and overzealous sheltering of the boy , in contrast to the mistreatment his siblings had either via psychological means , neglect or simply by physical abuse ( keeping a boy with special needs and disabilities , hidden and chained in a room is hardly good parenting ) . he then began to act out against his mother . in turn , the woman kept her position of correctness and virtue , “high and mighty” . from his perspective , he was able to see through this well-kept persona she projected to the world around them , including his siblings ; addie , his sister , who always loved and adored Constance despite the way she’d put her down with small comments . whether this was intentional or not , the boy saw no difference . when Larry and other men showed interest in the woman , Tate was nothing but appalled . how could he ( Larry ) not see the truth of her ? it was so obvious . this also happened in school . the boy was never able to care for the things his classmates did ; socializing , making friends , ignoring school and simply use their attendance to hang out with others . their behavior sometimes repelled him . but he kept quiet , to himself , away from them and their little in-school society he couldn’t see himself being a part of ( unable to connect , isolated , this had little to do with his classmates but rather something in the boy’s psyche – unbeknownst to him ) . he saw their interactions , friendships and love interests as meaningless and false . his mind could never understood how it was people connected , so effortlessly , with one another , as they so claimed , and still could be so brutally ruthless with each other . the idea of this only magnified itself with the events of the era ; brutal attacks on innocent people by supposedly well-doing citizens , mass riots standing up to acts of injustice . then , his brother is murdered by Larry , as per Constance’s wishes and instructions . the final straw . how could she , who claimed to love her children , have him do this ? nowadays , Tate’s disillusions are more to take note of ; his failure with Violet , his own premature death ( to an extent , he regrets it , though selfishly so ) , to name a few .

004. DURING LIFE, AS AFOREMENTIONED, TATE was highly disinterested in forming any type of relationships ; acquaintances , friendships , romantic relationships , none of them seemed important enough to make an effort and construct them . for a kid unable to connect to another human being on an emotional level , relationships and human connections seemed rather unimportant and disposable . he didn’t need people in his life to go through his days , he’d never needed them before and therefore he assumed he would never come to need them . this , of course , brought moments of unbearable isolation and loneliness . something he took with frustration ( even rage ) rather than sadness . when it came to girls , or being attracted to others , it was merely superficial ; not in terms of visual attraction but in lacking depth . posthumously , after he meets Violet , this changes . for the first time in his “life” ( or afterlife ) he saw the need to be liked by another . he was instantly captivated by the girl and did everything he could to become close to her . it was a whole new experience to him , a wakening . things he never thought he could feel , a level of excitement and childish joy to be in her company . to be equally wanted by her . yes , Violet was his first “love” . at least , in the way he is able to experience love . psychopaths , by their own nature , aren’t capable to experience this connection in the way most people can . infatuation , lust , obsession . and after their relationship “failed” ( via monstrous acts committed by him ) , he’s no longer sure love is real . when it comes to sex , however , he’s always been disturbingly blase . in life , as a child , he’d been highly aware of sex . this to an uncomfortable and inappropriate level . during his young adulthood , he experienced a rather “asexual phase” . though he experienced physical needs , like any other human being , he didn’t seek out sex with others . sex was nothing but a human function ; much like eating , sleeping or breathing . it was something humans did , with the sole difference that one could experience physical pleasure through it . something he could appreciate . by no means did his disinterest kept him from acting on his impulses . but his sexual experiences mean absolutely nothing . it was sex for the sake of sex . ( this changes when it comes to Violet , however , due to his “feelings” towards her . though sex is still merely a physical act , he knows it must have a new depth when it is between two people who love each other . whether he experiences anything differently simply because of his feelings toward Violet , it’s highly doubtful ) .

005. TATE’S FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND OVERALL corporal displays are incredibly animated . this is usually perceived as “quirky” , charming even . he is lively . but know that , sometimes , a lot of his gestures and body language is controlled . he transmits what he wants to say . he is careful and secretive . this control , however , has lessened with time . as a child he was far more uptight , discreet , and much less expressive , unless he purposely tried otherwise . as a teenager , during life , he’d occasionally allow himself to soften his demeanor . slowly learning to express other things rather than just discontent or anger . often displaying just enough to remain unnoticed . without much calculation , his eyes tell much more than he would like . his face as a whole is well versed in communicating whatever he needs it to . unfortunately , in moments of stress or high frustration , he can become much less contained . verbally and physically explosive . his gestures betray him with ease . and like with most people who experience a low levels of empathy , it’s difficult for Tate to express sympathy if it’s not rehearsed ( feeling bad for Ben after Vivien dies during childbirth ? not his best performance ) . because of this , mournful words may sound mechanical sometimes . empty . this is not without a reason . whatever Tate doesn’t experience himself , he can portray it because he is observant and knows what it looks like in other people . this is not abnormal to him , this is all he knows . there are certain things he does when absentminded or under stress ; biting his nails , pacing , fidgeting fingers . by “default” , his demeanor is relaxed and carefree . much like his conscience .

meme / character solidifying HERE !

#👻 ❝ ᵇᵉᵉˢʷᵃˣ ( meme )#👻 ❝ ʳᵃᵖᵉ ᵐᵉ ( inbox )#👻 ❝ ᶜˡᵉᵃⁿ ᵘᵖ ᵇᵉᶠᵒʳᵉ ˢʰᵉ ᶜᵒᵐᵉˢ ( character study )#👻 ❝ ᵈᵒ ʳᵉ ᵐⁱ ( character development )#👻 ❝ ᵉⁿᵈˡᵉˢˢ ⁿᵃᵐᵉ��ᵉˢˢ ( headcanon )#👻 ❝ ᵐʳ. ᵇᵘᵗᵗᵉʳʷᵒʳᵗʰ ( about tate )#icameasiam #👻 ❝ ᵃᵉʳᵒ ᶻᵉᵖᵖᵉˡⁱⁿ ( da mun tag )#👻 ❝ ᵇʳᵉᵉᵈ ( hugo langdon )#👻 ❝ ⁱᶠ ʸᵒᵘ ᵐᵘˢᵗ ( constance langdon )

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wackygoofball · 6 years

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Gifset: Jaime x Brienne - Ghost Hunters AU

Ever since killing his police commander “Mad King” Aerys Targaryen, Jaime Lannister is haunted –literally so. Both the man he executed for reasons Jaime never leaked to the public following the news’s witch hunt that marked him as the “Kingslayer” forever, and the people he failed to protect, like Aerys’s son Rhaegar, come after him whenever he falls asleep.

In the beginning, Jaime thought that he was merely hallucinating Aerys’s presence in his apartment, but he soon had to realize that Aerys’s actual ghost is haunting him, and can take physical form to harm not just Jaime, but also his family, something the spirit threatens him with ever since.

Wanting to know his family safe, Jaime made a drastic decision, abandoned his old job, his old life, cut all ties, and dove into the world of ghost hunting, in the hope to find a way to rid himself of Aerys’s ghost – and hopefully return home some day. However, Jaime didn’t have any luck just yet. While he slowly but surely slipped into the life of a ghost hunter, the former police officer found no way yet to exorcise his very own demons, thus focusing his efforts on the vengeful spirits haunting others instead.

Matters get increasingly worse as Jaime’s lack of sleep starts to take its toll on him, to the point that he fears that one of these days, he won’t wake up from his nightmares in which Rhaegar and the people he failed to protect from Aerys’s plot, which may have cost the lives of many people, had Jaime not made the decision to execute his commander, come after him.

While working what he thought to be a regular job near Oldtown, a haunted house with what seemed to be no more than a vengeful spirit to shoot at with the specially designed hunter weapons that he gathered over time, Jaime finds himself in quite a trouble. Because Aerys’s ghost decides to now also attack him on the gigs, which leaves Jaime injured as he has to battle two ghosts at once, and on the verge of losing. However, he is rescued by a tall, blonde woman who instantly fires at the spirits to make them retreat from Jaime – at the very last second.

Yet, he is very much surprised at the fact that the woman has no better to do than lash out at him, talking about “hunters” as though they are the worst people ever, though she is evidently one of them.

“You may just as well get yourself into your car and leave the rest to me.”

“In case it went without your notice, I was here first, wench.”

“And in case it went without your notice, you would have been screwed had I not arrived in time. And do not call me ‘wench.’”

“I would have managed without you, wench.”

“Yeah right.”

Their banter is quickly interrupted when the vengeful spirit of the house reappears. Jaime is still gathering himself after the head injury he received in the fight, shocked when confronted with the danger of the woman now being attacked by the ghost they both came here for originally. However, for some reason, the hunter with brilliant blue eyes does not fire at the spirit hovering above her, but instead… starts to talk to the creature. Jaime’s irritation only intensifies as the ghost shifts shape, revealing herself as a young girl, no more than ten years of age, skipping up the stairs after the conversation with the woman, only to disappear into thin air.

While very reluctant about it, the woman gives Jaime a lift to the next best doctor to trust in to have his injuries taken care of. The former police officer obviously uses the opportunity of the car ride through the vastness of the outer rims of Oldtown to get more information on this most curious hunter whose acquainted he just made, wanting to know just how she did it – and why.

Because truth be told, Jaime never considered talking ghosts into going back to where they belong.

“That is why I don’t like hunters,” she scoffs when he brings the topic up.

“You are a hunter.”

“I am not.”

“You hunt ghosts. That means you are not that much different from me, sorry to inform you, wench.”

“You probably find it funny to take a shot at a vengeful spirit. But it’s no game to me.”

“Trust me, wench, that is no game to me either. One could say my life depends on it.”

“Well, for me, the ghost’s afterlives depend on it that there is at least one person out there who tries to be there for them.”

“To do what?”

“Pass the threshold. Travel across. Find peace. Like the girl today. She lost her way, didn’t know how to leave the house, until she remembered how she died, falling down the stairs, and went back up to finally find her way back to her family in the afterlife.”

“Wait, you are telling me that you are one of those ghost whisperer folks?!” Jaime laughs.

“I am not a ghost whisperer. I don’t whisper to them.”

“Talk, whisper, mutter, yell, whatever. But you are a medium… if that is the term you prefer?”

“I don’t like labels.”

“Well, you had no trouble labelling me as one of those hunters that you despise so very much, or did you?”

She says nothing at that, just grabs the steering wheel tighter as they carry on with their ride through the darkness of the night.

With a concussion confirmed by the retired doctor who takes care of hunters without asking too many questions, Brienne, yet again very reluctantly, agrees to have an eye on Jaime to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed out of sheer stupidity.

Though both are fully aware that he will use the time to interrogate further into her case. And yet, Brienne takes some courage in that, reckoning that she can do the same.

When Brienne keeps poking him for information about why Jaime decided to come to Oldtown for particularly this case at that point of time, she is surprised to learn that the other hunter came here for the same reasons that drove her to Oldtown: irregularities in the weather, increase of thunderstorms, and an increase of heavily injured patients slipping into a coma within a fifty-mile radius, among other things. To Jaime’s asking if she has more information about that phenomenon, Brienne reveals quite a big truth:

“You say that we, as hunters, take care of the bad guys, the vengeful spirits, and make them go to where they belong. And in that, yes, we don't differ much. However, there is something out there that is causing those irregularities that you also found, and it’s keeping the ghosts from going to where they belong.”

Jaime is ever the more irritated at that set of information muttered over a lukewarm bottle of beer. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“There is a shadow that is hunting ghosts, but it doesn’t help them cross the threshold, it takes them somewhere else, someplace they don’t belong.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know, but I will find out. And I will stop it.”

Brienne wants to continue in her quest to find the shadow reaping those ghosts that have lost their way, but for some damned reason, the fellow hunter with snarky smile now wants to join in – and even gives valid reason as to why she should let him take part in her quest: Jaime managed to gather data that Brienne was desperately searching for in ages, and he is only willing to share if he gets to work the case alongside her.

Jaime, for himself, hopes that if he figures what keeps those ghosts from travelling across, it may help him find out just why Aerys’s ghost won't disappear, no matter how many times he shoots him down, hoping that this is his ticket home at last.

Thus, a yet again very reluctant alliance is born.

As the two continue travelling the country in search for clues on the shadow hunting ghosts, they are bound to reveal some of their greatest secrets to one another: Jaime comes clean to Brienne about why he killed Aerys, following a late-night encounter with the ghost, which leads to increasing tension between the two as Brienne confronts Jaime not just on his self-induced insomnia but also his tendency of letting his guilt consume him.

Brienne takes some drastic measurements to help Jaime, thereby letting on more about how she is a medium and how she can communicate and see ghosts the way she does, an ability she acquired at a very young age, as was discovered when she kept interacting with her dead brother Galladon, and eventually helped him travel across. Jaime is quite surprised and shocked to learn about how she dropped out of the business, upon her father’s plea to know her safe, after all, not all ghosts are peaceful, and what brought her back into the game: The shadow.

As Brienne eventually admits to him, knowing she can no longer hide the truths from her hunting partner, she lost her childhood friend and former crush Renly Baratheon to the shadow reaping his soul before it could pass, and now fears for her comatose father to have fallen victim to the same dark entity.

“There is nothing more hateful than failing to protect the ones you love. And I can’t fail my father, not again. I have to find them to set them free.”

“Will you be able to do that, though?”

“To do what?”

“Let them go? Because let me tell you that one thing from experience, that is the hardest part. Are you ready for that?”

“We are about to find out, aren’t we?”

Battling their own demons in their continuous quest for the shadow threatening the living and the dead, both that of the ghostly kind and of memories and guilt haunting either one, Jaime and Brienne find themselves also battling each other’s hauntings, growing closer and closer in a time that may mean their deaths at every step, every case they take in the hope to get one step closer towards the final goal.

Retracing the paths of a medium called “The Red Woman” leads them down a rabbit hole that may very well be one without return, unless they find a way to battle the shadow reaping the living and the dead, which proves to be perhaps the toughest challenge of their lives as they try to hold on while also having to let go.

Only time will show whether they can turn out victor against the Red Woman, the shadow, their own guilt and ghosts haunting them…

#jaime x brienne #jaime lannister #brienne of tarth #au #wacky tries gifs #moodboard #fanfic

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obviouslyelementary · 7 years

Text

Horror Time - Chapter II

Based in @softlogic ‘s horror sides.

Warnings: horror themes, torture, human experiments, poisoning.

-----

Dark.

Every was still dark when Anxiety finally opened his eyes again.

Groaning, he stood up, only to lose his footing and falling again, hitting something with the back of his head. With his still blurry vision, all he could see in the darkness were two red lights a few feet away from where he was.

“What…” he mumbled, and at his words the lights were turned on and he groaned, becoming blind for a few seconds, slowly blinking his eyes open again. When his sight finally got used to the bright lights, he frowned.

He was inside a lab of some kind. There were computers everywhere, machines, utensils, everything for a very technological lab. And most important, those two red lights were no longer in front of him. All he was facing now was a closed metal door.

He moved his hands to find something to support himself to stand, only to find out that he was inside a big glass tube.

“What the hell…” Anxiety groaned, standing up and touching the glass in front of him. Then he looked around. He was surrounded by glass! When he looked down, there was a metal platform under his feet, and when he looked up there was a big plastic tube. He frowned. What was happening?

Then, he heard the door opening, and when he looked down, he remember what had happened.

“H-h-hell-llo An-nxi-xiety”

Anxiety pulled away, eyes wide, pressing his back against the glass as a giant robot walked inside the room, holding a notebook, dressed in a lab coat, not at all phased by how scared Anxiety was.

“Y-y-y-you…” Anxiety mumbled, heart beats increasing so rapidly he honestly thought he was having a heart attack. The robot… dark Logic… turned to him slowly and walked closer to the tube, making Anxiety whimper quietly in fear.

“W-wo-wo-worry n-not” Logic said, checking the machines next to Anxiety’s tube. “A-all I w-wa-want are an-answ-swers. I n-nee-eed a ne-ew bo-bo-body. Yo-ours-rs wi-ill su-su-fi-ce-ce. I wo-won’t-n’t h-hur-urt yo-ou mo-mo-mo-re t-than ne-ce-ce-cessar-ssary”

“More than necessary?” Anxiety gasped out, voice two octaves higher, eyes wide, scared. “What are you going to do with me..?”

“T-te-test yo-ou” the robot said, turning around and walking away from Anxiety again, back to the main machines next to the door. “L-let-lets beg-gin”

Anxiety wrapped his arms around himself.

There was nothing else he could do.

-----

The first thing Morality saw was a rock ceiling.

The second thing he felt was that his arms were being held up by some type of rope.

The third thing he realized was that his legs were also tied up.

The fourth thing was that he was laying down in some kind of rock structure.

The last was that he was certainly not wearing his clothes.

“What…” he mumbled, confused, his head still pounding a bit as he looked around. The walls were made of rock. There were several wooden and metal utensils that he had never seen in real life before laying around, only in medieval movies. The room was lightened up by several different candles. His hands were tied down by ropes and he was laying in something that he couldn’t really see anything of aside from weird wooden circles next to his legs and arms. He was also wearing some type of robe, not his usual clothing.

Something didn’t feel very right.

“Is he awake already?” he heard someone saying, their voice really alike Prince’s but with a hint of… impatience. He tried to look where the door could possibly be, but was only successful in listening to it open and close. Sooner than later, however, he saw someone walking to his left and looked over.

Dark Prince.

“You…” Morality mumbled, eyes widening slowly, fear settling into his system. The dark royal stopped and looked down at him, his eyes sparkling, a smirk on his lips.

“Oh my. You really are awake!” he said, excited, and then slowly walked around the table where Morality was laying down. “What do you think of my dungeons?”

“They are wonderful. Can you let me go now?” the father asked, smiling as big as he could while his heart just desperately beat inside his chest. Prince froze on the spot before slowly turning around, raising his eyebrow.

“Why would I let you go now? We haven’t even started the fun” he said, slowly, moving close to Morality again. “Do you have any idea for how long I wanted you like this, in my dungeons? This room is special for you, Morality. I made it for you as soon as I got the throne” he said, smirking wider as he slowly touched the light trait’s cheek, making him wince away. Prince didn’t seem to mind. “I have been crazy to test it…”

“I-I really don’t t-think I want to…” Morality said, trying his best to be nice, moving away from Prince’s soft touch before the royal grabbed his jaw and turned his face to him, red eyes sparkling in malice.

“Do you really think you have a choice here?” he asked, darkly, a laugh coming out of his mouth that made Morality close his eyes and whimper. After a few seconds, the light trait felt Dark Prince’s breath against his ear, his stomach twirling in his stomach. “This is exactly what I want to see. I promise you that if you scream, it will be over sooner” he whispered, and Morality could feel the smirk forming on his lips again as he chuckled against the light trait’s ear.

“P-please…” Morality gasped out, trying to move his face away, tugging on the ropes that held him down. “P-please let me g-go”

All he heard as an answer was a deep laugh.

-----

“Wake up darling…”

Logic slowly blinked his eyes open, his vision blurry.

“Mo…?”

“Wake up sweetheart…”

“What is happening..?”

“You are safe now”

Logic’s sight slowly became normal again, and when he focused in who was in front of him, he froze.

It was Morality. Just not… his Morality.

“You…” Logic said, slowly, narrowing his eyes at the red eyed father. “You poisoned us!”

“Of course I did. Do you really think I would let this opportunity pass?” Dark Morality asked, his smile wide and creepy as he laughed deeply. Then, he looked back down at Logic, and only then the teacher realized he was completely tied up on a chair, arms behind the seat, legs tied against the feet. He tugged on them, frowning, while Morality watched him while sitting in another chair. “Oh. You are trying to escape? That is surely adorable”

“Listen here. You can’t, you aren’t allowed to do this! This isn’t our place, this is your place” Logic said, groaning, as he continued tugging on the ropes. Morality was just watching him with a fond smile. “We need to return to our house before Thomas’ mind collapses on itself!”

“Worry not. You will be fine” Morality said, slowly standing up and humming as Logic watched him. “I mean, maybe. We will find out soon enough” he chuckled, taking a big box from a random table in the back of the room. Only then Logic looked around to see they were in a very cozy living room.

“No. You will let me and the others go now” Logic fought back, but the dark personality just walked with the box closer to the teacher and sat down on his chair again, smiling in that creepy way of his.

“Oh no please. I promise you I will release everyone, but only if you play a little game with me, yeah?” Dark Morality asked, red eyes sparkling, and Logic narrowed his own eyes.

“I am not in a playing mood”

“That is a shame” Morality pouted, and then tilted his head, smiling again. “Tell me Logic, how well do you know about everything?”

The teacher frowned.

“Not as much as I wish I knew… Why?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. Morality chuckled.

“What do you know about poisons?” he asked again, and Logic stared at him coldly.

“Not much” he admitted, and Morality bit his lip, seeming way too excited for their situation.

“Well… more than the others for sure” he said, smirking widely. “This is our little game” he continued, opening the box and showing the several bottles of strange liquids to Logic. The teacher swallowed thickly. “I will make a few questions about the poisons in front of you and you have to answer. Simple. If you get it all right, you won’t have to take them. If you get it all wrong, you will receive a stronger dose. If you get some right and some wrong, I will adjust the quantity. What do you think? Do you like my game?” Morality asked, eyes wide, sparkling, a wide smile on his face, like a child on Christmas.

Logic could feel his heart beat increasing but took a deep breath and calmed himself down.

He could do this. He knew enough. Right?

“How… how do we start?” he asked, cursing himself for how shaken his voice sounded, but dark Morality didn’t seem to mind, simply smiling wider.

“I’m glad you asked…”

-----

When Prince opened his eyes, he couldn’t see much.

The room around him was pretty much grey and had no windows or lights. He blinked his eye slowly, looking around, trying to get a hold of his surroundings, slowly sitting up from his laying down position. He checked his arms and legs, then his face, just to make sure he wasn’t physically hurt, before he slowly stood up. The room was empty.

Well, at least at first.

After being silent for long enough, and letting his eyes get used with the darkness, he noticed a very quiet crying sound. Then, as he looked for that sound, he saw a small white shadow in a corner, curled up around itself. It looked like a person, so Prince slowly approached.

“Hello?” he asked, quietly, and at the sound the shadow stopped shaking, but didn’t move. He walked closer, lifting his hands. “I won’t hurt you. Can you tell me where I am?”

Silence.

“You don’t remember?”

Prince was taken aback, freezing. That voice was so familiar…

“Anxiety?” he asked, eyes wide, and the shadow became a little less transparent, slowly looking up to reveal a ghostly Anxiety who hadn’t yet stopped crying. Prince stared at him, scared. “Oh no… what did they do to you…”

“I am not your Anxiety” the ghost mumbled, slowly standing up, only to float a little over the floor, looking down as he held himself together. “I am… I am their Anxiety”

“But… You’re nothing like them” Prince said, confused, remembering how creepy all the other sides looked. “And how… how come you weren’t there when we came?”

“I was… I just… didn’t reveal myself…” Anxiety mumbled, looking up at him. “Sorry…”

“It’s… fine…” Prince said, confused, before he looked around again. “Where are we?”

“In my room…” he mumbled, looking around slowly and then sighing. “People don’t… usually come here”

“Where are the others?” Prince asked, worriedly, and Anxiety winced, turning around with his back to the royal. “Anxiety? Where are my friends?”

“I don’t know…” Dark Anxiety mumbled, shaking his head, but Prince furrowed his eyebrows.

“Yes you do. Are they okay? Are they in danger?”

Silence.

“Where are they Anxiety?”

“I am supposed to watch you and not let you leave…” Anxiety mumbled, flying away from Prince and making him run after the ghost.

“Hey stop!” Prince called, and the ghost stopped, in front of a wall. “You don’t look like you are evil like they are. If my friends are in danger, I need to find them!”

“I can’t help you… I am not allowed to…” Anxiety mumbled, shaking, and Prince sighed, suddenly becoming desperate.

What the hell was happening to the others? They needed his help.

“I don’t need your help once I’m out of here! I just need to leave! Please!” he begged, walking closer to Dark Anxiety and making the ghost turn around slowly. “Take me out of here and show me where they are. You don’t have to do anything. Please.”

“I can’t…” Anxiety mumbled, shakily, and shook his head before going through the wall and leaving Prince behind. The royal groaned, hitting the wall in front of him and closing his eyes.

How was he going to get out of there?

How was he going to help the others?

What if they were in danger?

He groaned, hitting the wall again, before he heard a loud sound and looked back, seeing the wall just behind him moving up to reveal an exit.

He narrowed his eyes before he walked to the wall, seeing the ghost floating in front of him.

“Promise me you will help me to get out of here after you are done saving your friends” Dark Anxiety mumbled, and Prince nodded slowly, biting his lip.

“Thank you”

“Follow me”

Prince did, walking after the ghost through the hallways of the gigantic house.

He could only hope he had been fast enough.

#horror time #chapter ii #my fanfic #horror au #horror sides #horror themes #torture #human experiences #poisoning #morality sanders #logic sanders #prince sanders #anxiety sanders #sanders sides

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droewyn · 7 years

Text

Intervention, Part 2

Part 1 here.

Cold. He was lying on his back. It was cold and dark and a heavy weight was pinning him to the ground. He tried to groan and wound up with a mouthful of hair, Victor’s favorite styling gel bitter on his tongue. “Vitya?” No response. Yuuri forced his eyes open, and found himself staring up into the night sky. It had been the middle of the afternoon just moments before. His husband was lying on top of him, unmoving. “Victor?”

“Tell Yakov I’m dead,” It was a drowsy mumble, and he let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Whatever the hell had just happened, Victor was okay and Yuuri wasn’t alone.

“Victor, you’re crushing my kidneys!”

He felt Victor’s breath hitch an instant before his head snapped up to look at him. “Yuuri?” The word was laced with confusion and worry.

He tried for a reassuring smile. “I’m fine, love. Just… get off me?”

Victor blinked, then swore and rolled quickly off of Yuuri. The two men helped one another to their feet, clinging tightly to each other’s hands for comfort as they looked around them.

They were in an alley somewhere in a city center, though the buildings were all wrong for it to be St. Petersburg. Skyscrapers that Yuuri recognized as being in the American “art deco” style stood next to shorter, slightly more modern structures of glass and concrete. The juxtaposition was oddly familiar. He found himself staring at one building in particular, a rusty brick and sandstone tower. Spotlights illuminated the upper floors, which were decorated with a mosaic of patterned tiles, and a flag waved from the spire.

“Yuuri, I think we’re in the past—” “Victor, I think we’re in Detroit—” The words made no sense, all jumbled together as they talked over one another. The words made no sense, period. To go from day to night, halfway around the world, in the span of a kiss? It wasn’t possible.

Victor was staring at his phone as though he expected it to bite him. Yuuri peered at it and blinked. The display didn’t change. Wordlessly, he reached into his back pocket for his own phone, thumbing the home button automatically to wake it up.

Their lock screens were identical. Twin images of Victor lifting a radiant Yuuri during their Stammi Vicino gala skate. Status bars showing cell reception (LTE? Downtown? Was America(?!) really so backwards in updating their infrastructure that their metropolitan areas still had 4G?), battery life, and various app notifications. Clocks showing 9:37 pm. Dates?

Friday, January 15.

The year wasn’t displayed, and Yuuri bit down on a laugh that would have been more than slightly hysterical if he’d let it escape. Why would anyone need to know what year it was, it wasn’t like, it wasn’t like people could just--

“Time skips aren’t real,” he whispered, willing the words to be true.

“What else could this be?” came Victor’s hushed reply.

Time skips were an urban legend -- a joke -- and the only people who took the idea at all seriously hung out in the tinfoil-hat parts of the internet that also believed in chemtrails and people with Rh- blood being descended from alien lizard people. The History Channel ran programs on time skips, for pity’s sake! Faux documentaries where people with overactive imaginations talked about being instantly transported through space and time in order to meet up with their past selves and prevent them from making some kind of terrible mistake…

But he and Victor were standing in the heart of downtown Detroit. The air was chill but not quite freezing and carried the normal city smells of food, car exhaust, and garbage. The sidewalks were clear, with the ghost of an old snowfall in the corners where people didn’t walk. A half-moon hung low in the west. The least romantic moon possible for a night like this, he remembered suddenly, the bitter satisfaction of the thought echoing forward through the years, except it wasn’t a memory because it was this moon and it was happening now and Yuuri felt the blood drain from his face because he knew why he needed to be there. Yuuri knew.

“Fuck.” He was moving, sprinting, ignoring Victor’s startled cry. His love was just going to have to catch up and keep up on his own because it was 2016, it was after Vicchan, it was after Sochi, it was after Nationals, it was after setting Celestino loose, and he needed to get to the river right now and there wasn’t enough time. His phone was still in his hand, and he breathed a prayer to the gods of wireless technology that the network would recognize the same international carrier and the same phone number and that it wouldn’t notice the oddity of two phones with the same credentials and that Phichit would be there and pick up and—

“Yuuri?” Oh, thank you. Thank you.

“Yes,” he gasped into the phone. “No! Sort of.” He couldn’t allow himself to slow down for an instant, and his voice was harsh with exertion. “He needs you. Yuuri needs you. At Hart Plaza. It’s an emergency.”

“Yuuri’s on a date,” Phichit said slowly. “He met someone and they’re going out to dinner in Royal Oak.”

“And you believed that horseshit?”

There was a pause, and then Phichit swore explosively in Thai. “Who is this?” he demanded.

“Just hurry,” Yuuri said. “And bring his skates!” He ended the call and kept running.

~ ~ ~

Hart Plaza wasn’t much to look at, particularly lying in the shadow of the Renaissance Center’s gleaming silver towers. It was a park with no green space, a huge concrete and stone terrace designed for hosting outdoor festivals, and judging by the crumbling or outright missing paver bricks it hadn’t been properly maintained in years. Yuuri ignored scattered works of abstract art and a truly hideous aluminum fountain, intent on not breaking an ankle on the uneven footing. A cluster of bronze statues with some unknown historical significance guarded the stairs that led down to the riverwalk. Many of the decorative lampposts lining the water were dark, either through neglect or vandalism, but it still only took a glance to spot the lone figure who was staring into the icy water of the Detroit River from the wrong side of the guardrail.

Yuuri knew exactly what worked to pull himself out of various states of mental crisis; after existing in his own head for a lifetime, how could he not? A physical stimulus could ground his anxiety and help stave off a panic attack, but once an attack happened he could only bear to be touched in certain very specific ways and needed words to focus on. On days when he lacked the energy to move or care for himself, it was skin-to-skin contact that kept him from spiraling into something darker. When anxiety and depression started tag-teaming him, only solitude allowed him to weep without shame. Thanks to years of therapy and the love of friends, family, and Victor, Yuuri had an arsenal of tried and true coping mechanisms at his disposable.

Unfortunately, his plan had pretty much evaporated after get there and the frantic half-mile run hadn’t burned off anywhere near enough adrenaline to allow for rationality, much less empathy. Five years ago, Katsuki Yuuri had done the unthinkable. The unforgiveable. He’d given up. And in doing so, he’d apparently fucked up so badly that the gods, or aliens, or the universe itself had needed to rewrite causality just to fix it. Now, five years later, five years ago, right this minute, Japan’s Ace was within shouting distance of Japan’s Shame. And now that he was done being scared, Yuuri was pissed.

Unloading on himself like a teenaged Yuri Plisetsky who had just witnessed someone literally pee in his Cheerios was a perfectly reasonable response, given the circumstances.

“You pathetic little coward.” Rapid-fire Japanese spilled from Yuuri’s mouth almost unbidden as he stormed over to his younger self, who visibly stiffened at the intrusion. “Phichit and Celestino care about you, not that they don’t deserve better; how do you think they’ll feel when your stinking corpse gets dredged out of the river?” The other Yuuri’s head snapped up at the familiar names, and he gaped as he met his own eyes and recognized them. “And don’t forget Kaasan and Tousan; do you think they’ll be pleased when they’re called to pick up their son’s coffin from the airport? Especially when it’ll be the first time they’ve seen you since you were seventeen. Maybe Minako-sensei will make a special banner for your homecoming.” He was spitting the words like the poison they were, forcing them past a lump in his throat that was threatening to choke him.

“Yuuri—”

The stupid, selfish boy in front of him was a watery blur now. “And it’s not like Mari-nee is already blaming herself for letting Vicchan get out into the street, so what’s another layer of guilt? And, oh god, Yurio, he’ll probably—” Yuuri’s voice cracked.

“Yuuri!” Strong arms wrapped around him from behind, steadying him, and Victor’s breath was warm in his ear. “Enough, lyubov moy. This isn’t helping.”

“But he’s – I’m – going to ruin everything,” he wailed. Hot tears spilled down his cheeks, clearing his vision, and he glared at his younger self.

The other Yuuri was clutching the guardrail as if it was the only thing keeping him standing upright, shocked eyes darting back and forth between his face and Victor’s. “Y-you,” he stammered. “V-vi—” He closed his mouth with a snap, clearly giving up.

“Nobody’s ruining anything.” Victor’s embrace was tender, but his voice was artificially cheerful. Yuuri could tell from the tone that if he turned to look at his husband, he’d be flashing one of his celebrity smiles. “Yuuri-chan isn’t going to be taking a cold bath tonight,” Victor declared brightly, drawing the name out in emphasis, “because he knows that if he does, you won’t be going in after him.”

The younger Yuuri emitted a strangled squeak, whether from the idea of his idol and future self watching him drown in the Detroit River or from being referred to as ‘Yuuri-chan’ by Victor Nikiforov, it was hard to tell. Yuuri would have felt sorry for him in a different circumstance; he’d heard that edge in Victor’s voice before, though it hadn’t been turned on him in a long time. This was the Victor who’d so innocently wondered how Yuuri could be eating katsudon all the time when he hadn’t stood on a podium in half a year, and who had called Yuri Plisetsky a mediocre kitten shortly before sending him off to be slapped around by a temple priest. The man who had sweetly ripped a journalist to weeping shreds when she’d tried to manufacture a scandal by suggesting in an interview that Victor’s continued friendship with Christophe Giacometti might be a sign of marital infidelity.

Knowing that his husband was struggling with his own temper was oddly calming.

“No,” Victor continued as though the other Yuuri’s noise had been a polite request for more information, “I’m afraid that I’ll have to jump into that freezing river if Yuuri-chan does.” One of his arms changed positions against Yuuri’s shoulder, and he imagined Victor bringing his index finger to his lips in studied contemplation. “Or, if Yuuri-chan already has so little regard for himself, perhaps he is unmoved by the thought of others risking their lives on his behalf.”

Red bloomed across the younger Yuuri’s cheeks, and he shook his head wildly. “N-no!” he gasped, “I don’t w-want you putting yourself in danger f-for me.” He glanced at Yuuri. “Either of you.”

“Excellent.” Victor clapped his hands together as though the three men had just decided on a restaurant for dinner together. “Since we’re agreed that no one will be suffering from hypothermia or contracting any diseases from swimming in disgusting water tonight, now it’s time to come back over here where the people belong, yes?”

The other Yuuri – Yuuri-chan? Might as well use it if Victor was going to, Yuuri decided – hesitated, his gaze flickering between the two time skippers again. “Please?” Yuuri found himself begging. “I’m – I’m really happy. You have no idea how much.”

After another long moment, Yuuri-chan finally nodded. Yuuri and Victor helped him climb over the railing, sharing a sigh of relief once he was safely back on the ground. Yuuri-chan looked at their joined hands, Victor’s in his right and Yuuri’s in his left, making no move to let go. “This isn’t a dream, is it?” he asked wonderingly. “You’re really V-Victor, and,” he turned to Yuuri, “you’re me.”

In answer, Yuuri tugged up the sleeve of his sweater. There was a blue-gray mark on the underside of his forearm, an artifact of a childhood accident that had left a pencil point lodged permanently in his skin. “Takeshi used to tease me about this all the time,” he said almost fondly. “Remember? He called it my blue freckle.”

Yuuri-chan looked at the mark – and burst into tears. Dropping Victor’s hand, he flung himself at Yuuri, who curled his arms protectively around his younger self and let him cry. Victor moved close behind him, and Yuuri knew that he was rubbing comforting little circles on the small of Yuuri-chan’s back. It had been a long time since sudden tears had made Victor panic. “Shh,” Yuuri whispered into thick black hair. “It’s okay now. You’re safe, and I’m safe, and everything’s going to be okay. I promise.”

“I’m sorry!” Yuuri-chan sobbed into Yuuri’s shoulder. “I’m s-so, so s-sorry!”

“Phichit incoming,” Victor murmured, and Yuuri could hear the stomping footsteps that took the riverwalk stairs two at a time. Yuuri-chan stiffened, dreading the encounter. “Go on, solnyshko,” Victor told him, not unkindly. “You two need each other.”

He looked like he was being sent to face a firing squad, but allowed himself to be peeled off of Yuuri and pushed toward his best friend and roommate, who dropped the skate bag he’d been carrying and shrieked his name, ignoring the two time skippers entirely. Yuuri-chan broke into a run and the two crashed into each other, Yuuri-chan babbling tearful apologies while Phichit alternated cursing him out in a garbled blend of English and Thai and peppering his face with frantic kisses.

Feeling like he was intruding on a private moment, Yuuri looked away from the two oblivious roommates. Victor had turned toward him at the same moment and they shared a small smile, in tune as always. His husband opened his arms in invitation, and Yuuri sank gratefully into his embrace.

Victor felt like home.

“Are you all right?”

Yuuri huffed a laugh. “I don’t feel like I’m disappearing from reality, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “Not that I’d know what that would even feel like. If you’re asking about my emotional state, let’s go with a point somewhere between ‘nope’ and ‘probably going to be’. What about you?”

He shrugged. “Slightly less terrified out of my mind than I was. So what happens next? Are we done here?”

“Hell if I know. This night is a total blur for me. I remember looking down into the water, and then I’m waking up tomorrow with Phichit and it’s almost six o’clock at night. Phichit missed practice and Celestino was livid. I knew I hadn’t gotten drunk, so I always assumed I’d had some kind of breakdown.”

Victor hummed thoughtfully. “That’s a time skip thing, isn’t it? The people who claimed to have done it always said they didn’t remember being there until they were sent back.”

“Those are weird internet people. Not exactly sources you can cite on Wikipedia.”

“That includes us now,” Victor pointed out. “Figure skating legends, soon-to-be world’s greatest coaches, and weird internet people.”

Yuuri sniffed. “Only if we decide to be, and I’m not planning to jump on Reddit with my life story anytime soon.” He sighed. “We’re getting off topic, though. How do we know that we’ve done what we were sent here to do?” He glanced over at Yuuri-chan. The other Yuuri and Phichit were laughing more than crying now, Phichit’s kisses were starting to linger, and Yuuri-chan was starting to kiss back. He found himself smiling wistfully.

“You miss him.”

“Always. But I’ll get to see him in a couple weeks when he comes to stay with us. And anyway, that isn’t my Phichit. He’s Yurio’s age.”

Victor chuckled. “I’m not suggesting that you drag him off into the nearest bathroom stall,” he teased. “But no matter how old he is or isn’t at the moment, he’s still your best friend and you don’t spend nearly enough time together in person. You’ve been given an opportunity; why not make the most of it? Besides, aren’t you just dying to see the look on his face when he realizes who we are?”

“You make a compelling argument,” Yuuri grinned. Then he turned thoughtful. “Actually, it might not be a bad idea to show baby-me how great the future is rather than just telling him. We don’t seem to be going anywhere at the moment, at any rate. And I do want to make sure.”

“I like it. I think we have a plan. Bet you a thousand yen that Chulanont is too shocked to take a picture?”

“You’re on, sucker.”

#yuri on ice #katsuki yuuri #victor nikiforov #phichit chulanont #victuuri #phichuuri #implied polyamory #detroit days #time travel #yoi time skip au #tw: suicide attempt #original content #i have committed fanfiction

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idreamofhazel · 7 years

Text

Life on the Road

Written for @atc74 and @mamaredd123‘s Fabulous 300 Challenge

Prompts: Drivin’ My Life Away by Eddie Rabbit, main character kills someone, acceptance

Characters/Pairing: Reader, Sam, Dean

Word Count: 3.5k

Warning: You kill someone

Paved roads, gravel roads, dirt roads, any roads--you’ve driven them all. It’s been at least two years, maybe more, maybe less, since you left home. You’ve never really kept track of the time. You had intended to find a job, an apartment, roots somewhere--anywhere really--but instead you found that the open road called your name and you didn’t need roots; you just needed gasoline and places to go. There was this diner and that diner, this landmark and that landmark, so many places to see and experience, none of them important in your family’s eyes, but all of them worthwhile to you. It was the same routine everyday but with new people, new landscapes, and new foods. You weren’t sure if you’d found yourself yet either, but life had found you one way or another, in the form of a 1972 Chevy Cheyenne and rubber meeting the road. You were content.

Some people thought you to be lonely, and you had to admit, sometimes they were right, but most often they were wrong. You made new friends everyday. There was the waitress in Boise, the gas station clerk outside Waco, and your motel neighbor in Springfield, all of them pleasant to chat with and decent creatures who brightened your day. If you ever did feel alone, there was your cell and then there were countless places to be, all with cheerful faces and amicable patrons graced with that southern charm that seemed to sweep from coast to coast if you hit the right towns. They had to be small or moderately sized, often in the middle of nowhere, but sometimes in the suburbs of a larger city. It just depended.

Life on the road was a breeze most of the time. You had your savings, your poker and pool skills, and the odd jobs you picked up. This week, you were in a town called Reo working in housekeeping. You’d find the oddest things working those kinds of jobs, things people thought they had hidden well but they didn’t, both physical and otherwise. You learned that the guest in room 215 liked to watch Spanish soap operas because he always left the tv on that channel and you found out the one in 407 may have OCD because of the immaculate state of the room every time you went to clean it. Those were all decent discoveries that kept you entertained, but the most interesting thing you ever found was partially because of your job and partially because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That happened on Tuesday. By Wednesday, you were on the road again, running away instead of just running.

The two men staying in room 126 weren’t the cleanest men, but they weren't the messiest either. They seemed to like beer and porn mags and flannel shirts and they were out of the motel more often than they were in it. Tuesday morning, you were making your rounds through the halls, pushing your cart along and checking any rooms that were absent of “do not disturb signs”, when you saw the two men walking to their room. Usually, you made it to their room while they were gone. They appeared to be just getting in from being out all night and, if that weren't enough to make you curious about what they were doing, their conversation was.

“I can’t believe we have to start over now. I thought you had the research right!”

“It fit the description of a ghost sickness. Even you thought so!”

They promptly shut their mouths once they noticed you passing them in the hall. You made a mental note not to talk to them and to spend time as little time in their room possible. They sounded crazy.

You forgot about the incident completely after retiring to your own room in another motel across town later that night. It was twelve am. You had your feet propped up on the coffee table watching one of the few movies playing on cable and thinking you should probably hit the hay soon when it happened.

Your door fell down. All in one piece, hinges breaking off the wall and splintering wood, drywall dust flying everywhere; all with a loud bang and a shriek from you. A man walked in, tall, burly, and dressed in a green henley. His eyes were bloodshot and his skin was sickly pale, but he didn’t act as if his condition inhibited his physical ability. In fact, he stepped right across the door and ran towards you. You almost couldn’t move, freezing only momentarily before coming to your senses and jumping off the couch. The only place you could think of was the bathroom, so you ran there and locked yourself in.

That was a stupid decision really, considering this man had shown you his ability to break down doors. You stood there, in the middle of the small bathroom, just waiting, mentally kicking yourself as you shook with rapid breaths. Just as you assumed, the rabid man came banging on the door. You backed up quickly, almost stumbling backwards into the bathtub. You’d backed up just quick enough, though, because he swiftly knocked the second door down, the top of it landing just inches from your toes. He was closer this time around and you could get a better look at him. His eyes weren’t really bloodshot more than they were shaded over with a consistent pink hue surrounding the irises. The paper-white color of his skin contrasted with the dark purple circles under his eyes and and his veins, which were more visible. There were small holes in his shirt, like someone had taken scissors or a knife and cut lines, and dirt smudged his clothes and boots.

Those details were neither here nor there, though. They flew through your mind in a split second before you planned an escape. You were small, not tiny, but small enough, and this man seemed larger than life. He stood with his legs apart, ready to attack, and so you thought, I can fit through there. You waited just a moment for him to charge, and when he did, you ran and dove straight under him, sliding across the door and back into the motel room. You started to make a beeline for the exit, but two men were blocking your way. You looked up and saw none other than the strange men who were at the other motel earlier that day.

“Hey, are you-wait, aren’t you that maid from earlier?” one of them asked.

“Housekeeping, and yes. What the hell is wrong with that man?” you said.

“What are the odds, huh? He came after our maid!” he said, looking at the man standing next to him.

“Housekeeping!” you snapped.

“Dean, that’s really not important right now,” the other one said, motioning towards the bathroom, but he was interrupted by grunts and incoherent garbling coming from inside.

The two men raised their guns and you spun around, just as the man came charging out of the room straight towards the three of you. Without thinking, you ran to the bedside table where you kept your gun. It wasn’t anything special, just a pistol that would do the job if self-defense was ever needed. You’d never had to use it before. You knew how to shoot, but you hadn’t practiced in years, since before you left home. Nevertheless, you snatched it out of the drawer, cocked it, and spun around aiming it straight at the man.

This guy seemed to like you best. He ignored the two other men in your room and came running at you instead. You heard one of them, Dean maybe, yelling, trying to get the guy’s attention by insulting him, but it wasn’t working. All of this happened in the blink of an eye and all you knew was that this man wanted to kill you. So, you pulled the trigger. The bullet hit him right where it needed to, square in the chest, and he stopped, eyes glazed over, dropping to his knees and then facedown into the carpet. You still held the gun in the air.

“Nice shot!” Dean said, “You always that good of a shot?”

You heard Dean talking, but you didn’t really register it. You thought of the response in your head, but you couldn't open your mouth. You weren’t that good of a shot. Ever. Not even when you were in practice.

“Ma’am,” the other man said, more softly than Dean had been talking, “You can put the gun down, it’s ok. He’s dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

You blinked twice, registered what he said, and then slowly lowered the gun. “I didn’t mean to-” you started to say, but when you thought saying it, or any words like it, you just couldn’t.

“Hey, it’s ok. Look, I’m Sam, and his is my brother, Dean. We’ve been tracking this guy and you just helped us get him.”

You looked over at Sam, who had been slowly approaching you, gun tucked back away in his holster and an understanding look on his face replacing the menacing one from before.

“You guys are cops?”

“Something like that,” he said. “We can explain, if you want.”

You stared at the open doorway behind Sam and Dean. “I think I’d like to just go. Can I go?”

“Yeah, sure, of course.”

Sam looked mildly disappointed and very concerned, but you ignored that and began gathering your things. You didn’t understand what was going on with you or why you felt the need to get out of there so quick. Maybe it was the dead body on your floor or that fact that you had kil-. No, you couldn’t even think that word. You just had to go.

It didn’t take you long to gather your things. You slung your bag over your shoulder and made straight for the door, but not before a hand on your shoulder stopped you. You jumped and spun around, hand ready to smack whoever was touching you, but it was just Sam.

He instantly took his hand back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to give you this.”

He held a card in his hand, an official business card with two names and numbers on it. You stared at it then at him then back at it.

“Just in case you need us, for anything, or have questions,” he said, scratching the back of his neck and standing awkwardly, waiting for you to pick it up. “It’s got our aliases on it, that’s why it doesn’t say Sam and Dean, just so you know.”

You nodded and swiped the card from his hand then shoved it in your pocket. “Thanks,” you mumbled before flying out the door. You barely said bye; you didn’t even acknowledge the other man in the room. You just ran.

Now it was Friday and you were parked on the side of the road somewhere in Kansas, shaking behind the wheel, finally releasing everything you’d been holding in. You ran because you didn’t know what else to do. You had killed a man without even thinking. You didn’t consider that maybe he had a family, a wife or kids, that he had a job and hobbies that he loved, that he had a whole life worth living. You didn’t think about any of that. You just pulled the trigger.

Now, two days later, the reality of that was crashing down. You thought that running and returning to your normal routine would distract you from what you did. You thought you could ignore the fact that you had killed someone, not even daring to think the words kill, dead, or murder until now, but you were wrong. The words hammered in your mind and fell from your lips much quicker than you expected, and now you felt lost and ashamed, unsure of what your next step was. That’s when you remembered the card that Sam had given to you.

In a moment of impulsivity and desperate need, you unzipped the duffel sitting next to you and frantically searched for the jeans you wore that night. You quickly found them and yanked them out, digging your hands in the pockets until you found the one with the card. It was wrinkled a bit, but still very readable, so you grabbed your phone and began dialing the number. It wasn’t until you heard the ringing on the other line, loud and clear in your ear, that you began to panic. The panic was short-lived, though. Sam picked up quickly.

“Hello?” he said, almost like a question, very suspicious and wary, as if strangers hardly ever called his line.

You voice was shaking as you began to talk. “Hi, Sam. It’s uh, me, from the other night at the motel.

“Oh! Right, how are you? Is everything ok?”

You didn’t really know how to answer that. Actually, you weren’t even really sure why you had called. You opened your mouth to speak, but it just hung open, silent, while Sam waited on the other line.

“You still there?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, sorry. I think I need to talk about what happened. I want to know about that guy and why he attacked me.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, pausing for a moment. You heard shuffling sounds and muffled talking before he came back on the line clearly. “Where are you at right now?”

“Somewhere in Kansas. I don’t really know. I think I passed a sign that said Lawrence not too long ago.”

“That’s perfect because we’re...maybe an hour away from you. Why don’t you find a place, there’s a nice diner there, and text us. We’ll come to you.”

“Ok, yeah. Thanks.”

You hung up and took in a deep breath of Kansas air. What were the odds that you ended up so close to their office, or was it their home? Either way, you were relieved because of the ease of meeting, but also nervous to talk about what happened. You were scared of some of the answers they would give you. They didn’t seem judgmental over the fact that you shot the man either, but you never know with people. They could just be hiding it well. But either way, you needed answers, so you started your engine again and drove towards Lawrence, finding the diner Sam was probably thinking of with Google Maps.

With jitters and sweaty palms, you seated yourself in a sticky booth far down the length of the diner, ignoring everyone except the young waitress who came to take your drink order. You sent Sam the text message quickly and then placed your phone down on the linoleum table with a soft clink. He must’ve been on his way already because he arrived only twenty minutes after the text, Dean in tow behind him, looking much less interested in this visit than Sam.

You nervously wrung your hands together as they sat down, Sam first then Dean, across from you, bumping your knees. Sam swiftly apologized and although it was awkward, you were almost thankful for the human contact. You didn’t get much of it these days. Sam waited for you to begin with expectant eyes, hands resting peacefully on top of one another, pretending to be waiting for a chance to order a drink. Dean made no effort to hide the fact that he was here for the food alone. He craned his neck around and made eye contact with the girl, who promptly came over and took their orders like they were a couple of sweethearts. You still hadn’t said anything, allowing the formalities of ordering to take the place of beginning this conversation, whatever it was going to be, but Sam was much better at this than you were and he started talking without missing a beat.

“How are you doing? What brings you to Kansas?” he asked, grabbing a laminated menu out of the condiment holder and skimming it over.

You shifted, your legs sticking to the booth despite wearing jeans, and you blurted out the first thing that came to your mind, which happened to be the truth. “I travel a lot. I just kind of ended up here.”

Dean’s face lit up with piqued interest. “What kind of car you got?”

He took you off guard with the question, but you answered it anyway, slowly. “A ‘72 Cheyenne. It's parked right out there.” You pointed out the half-opened blinds on the window next to your seat where your truck sat a few spaces down.

“That’s my baby right over there,” Dean said, pointing the opposite way in the lot, “‘67 Impala.”

You nodded, impressed with the car, but still too nervous to engage in such light-hearted conversation. At least Dean was warming up to you, but you had more heavy matters on your heart.

Sam cleared his throat and changed the subject. “So, you said you had some questions about what happened. What would you like to know?”

“Right,” you said, finally taking the time to look Sam in the eye. He had tired, wise eyes that had the ability to calm and communicate. You imagined he had seen some things during his time in the field, whatever field it was that dealt with strange, diseased men. He could understand what you were saying, even if it came out in garbled mess. “I guess the biggest question is what was wrong with that guy? Was he sick or something?”

“We actually aren’t entirely sure. We have him at a lab where they are running tests. Obviously, he was sick, but with what exactly, we don’t know.”

Your throat tightened unexpectedly and you gulped back a rush of tears, only to have them come back again instantly with greater force. You thought that answer might help reassure you, but it only seemed to be making your guilt worse. “So, he could’ve been, cured?” you choked out.

“No. We don’t think so.”

Your head snapped up, eyes wet with not-yet-fallen tears, waiting more Sam to say something more. He seemed to sense this need in you instantly and a flash of recognition and familiarity flashed across his face.

“It’s an unknown virus strain that seems to be making people aggressive. His body showed signs up rapid deterioration in the heart. He would’ve died soon, maybe in a few hours.”

You thought you’d feel a rush of relief and understanding after hearing those words, as if the sudden guilt that had taken over your consciousness would be wiped away and purged thoroughly. It wasn’t.

“But what if you guys had gotten him and taken him to the lab? He didn’t even have a chance then?”

“Not at all,” Dean spoke up for the first time in awhile. “If you hadn’t shot him, Sam or I were going to do it seconds later.”

“Oh.” You went back to picking at your sleeve and staring at the swirls of marbled brown on the diner table.

“You’ve never shot someone before,” Sam said. It sounded somewhat like a question, but more like a statement that he already had decided on days ago.

You swiftly shook your head, more tears threatening to spill out. It sounded so real when Sam said it like that.

“You did what you had to do. It was self-defense and it was out of your control. He was the victim of something unexpected and he was going to die anyway, whether from the end of one of our guns or from his condition. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Sam said.

“Then why do I feel like a murderer?” you whispered through a tight throat.

“Everyone feels that way when it first happens,” Dean said. “Then you find a way to live with it. You rationalize it. Sometimes it’s a harder case than this. You got an easy one.”

“What Dean is trying to say, is that you’ll find a way to process it and work through it. You’re not a murderer. We’ve had to do things like that more times than we can count. You’re an angel compared to us.”

You blushed a little at the comment, the new red in your cheeks hidden by the flush that had been there from crying.

“Trust us, kid. You ain’t bad, not even close,” Dean added.

For the first time in two days you felt the weight lift off your chest and you could breathe. It would still be hard to live with the fact that you had killed someone, but Sam and Dean were right, the circumstances were out of your control.

You swiped your eyes with the sleeves of your shirt and stretched out the tension that had been sitting in your shoulders and legs the entire time. “So, are you guys busy on a case or do you have time to eat, since we’re already here?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Dean exclaimed with relief and turned to get the waitresses attention once more.

“So, you said you travel a lot,” Sam said, “Where all have you been?”

You smiled big, a warm grin that was laced with a smirk. Sam and Dean were in for a story. “Well, now I really hope you have some time, because I’ve been almost everywhere.”

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#mamaandangelinasfabulous300 #supernatural oneshot #supernatural fanfiction

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hazelplaysgames · 5 years

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every Pokemon type by my preference! and yeah, i’m putting this under a read more. 18 types with some explanation will get long.

Basically, yeah, every type, most to least favourite. I’m considering mostly through gut feelings and memory, but I’m probably gonna end up looking up a few things, i know myself. Favourite Pokemon of each type might not be mentioned here though. if that’s all you’re looking for, this post might be a disappointment. i know Sword and Shield are about to be out, so uh. i kinda feel like this entire list has somewhat shaky foundation at the moment, like it’s about time for renovations. but those games aren’t out right now, are they?

1: Water. The first Pokemon I ever picked was Mudkip. Mudkip is a water type and he was my starter. i enjoy swimming, i love rain. I also enjoy a Water/Fire/Grass core on my teams too. Surf, Waterfall, Aqua Jet, good coverage, good matchups against other types, just a lot of things going for it. right now, Water is such a natural first pick for me that any other type is just in a race for second.

2: Ground. Just to reiterate: Mudkip was the first pokemon i ever picked, and the fully evolved Swampert is part Ground. aside from that, Ground is generally very solid, except for Flying’s immunity from it. it has the ever reliable Earthquake as an attack, a few other moves to mess with speed or accuracy, and is immune to Electric. which is very nice when comboed(combod? however that’s supposed to be spelt) with Water: one weakness there. given all that, any other type is just in a race for third.

3: Ice. I love the Cold, i love Winter, and Ice is one of the most solid attacking types in general. Freeze has potential to be devastating, and Frost Breath being one of only two moves with GUARANTEED Critical hits(abilities notwithstanding). the only real thing holding it back is the terrible defenses. four weaknesses and a resistance only to itself. in the end, i love Ice types and the aesthetic of it a lot, but not so to blind myself of the issues present.

4: Flying. Immunity to Ground, most likely to be able to learn Fly in earlier generations, not to mention Fly ITSELF, and probably one of the most solid physical attacking types. and it has plenty of combinations that lessen it’s own weaknesses. Thinking on it now, this is the only type that has potential to fall because my opinion of it lessens, instead of my opinion of others rising. this is evident in the fact that this was originally in 3rd...

5: Rock. This feels like it shouldn’t be so high up at first thought, but it certainly does feel like it fits in here. I do like Rocks. it’s a very solid type in general, and if more of it’s moves had better accuracy, it could’ve swapped spots with Flying. it feels like the types attacks use 80% and 90% a lot.

6: Poison. One whose favour only came to me about 2017. I ran a Drapion in Platinum about then, and that’s the start of my love for Poison. I never actually use Toxic much, but regular Poison status, immunity to being poisoned for the most part(shoutouts to Salazzle), and what it covers since Fairy was added is good to me. and most Poison types can ignore the fact Steel is immune to it with their coverage in my experience.

7: Bug. I think that the only thing holding Bug back these days is just kinda how weak they were in early generations. but recent generations? super kind to Bug. the buff to Leech Life, more bugs being generally stronger, stuff like that. they still got several weaknesses, but their looks get them by.

8: Grass. Repeating what i said in the points for Water, i enjoy the Water/Grass/Fire core in teams. ever since the buff to the absorbs, moves that have high power were added, and Leech Seed, the moves usually have a place on my team. a shame for the defenses in the type, but they cover Water types. a premium trait to have, as it’s one of two super effective against it.

9: Electric. Speaking of types that cover Water. Electric is generally a powerhouse, but i usually don’t worry about getting it on my team. Thunderbolt is probably one of the most common Electric moves on my teams, even those without an Electric type. it has only has one weakness, so that’s usually a treat to have.

10: Ghost. two immunities and supereffective against Psychic. that’s already enough to get it into my good books. i think Curse is what makes me put it on the top 10, it’s a good stat boosting move on non-ghost types and powerful when on a Ghost type.

11: Fire. last on the Water/Grass/Fire core. it’s usually the last one i worry about, any Fire type works well enough for me. but the saving grace of the Fire type is the non-Fire Pokemon that can learn a Fire type attack like Flamethrower. that sentence reads weird to me and i have no idea how to make it clearer. the Burn status has actually been pretty handy too. my instinct at seeing it at 11th is that it should be higher up, i know teams lacking in this type have some issues with certain games. but no, it’s here.

12: Normal. I mean, it is Normal. but i can’t lie, immunity to Ghost when against some poorly set up Ghost type? hilarious. i try to bring this up as often as i can: bring a Normal type against Marty’s Gengar in Heartgold/Soulsilver and just don’t attack him, he can’t touch you. this combined with most Normal types having good stats and move pools makes them all solid friends.

13: Steel. most Steel types have good defense, and it comes with immunity to Poison. i find myself not using many Steel Type moves, though. i think Metal Claw is my most used one? Iron Head and Flash Cannon are kind of rare. but Gen 7 added some good attacks for it, so it might just get better with time.

14: Fighting. Honestly, if the move Foresight were Fighting, it would be enough to surpass Steel, maybe even Normal. kinda ironic actually. as a type it beats those two, but in my preferences it doesn’t. it also feels kinda weird when combo’d with most types, despite some being pretty good.

15: Psychic. It’s one of the best Special Attacking Types in the game, and Miracle Eye means it can hit almost anything well. that’s all i really have to say about it. if there were more Psychic Pokemon typed with Normal or if i just used it more, it might be a bit higher up.

16: Dark. Now we’re getting to the range of neutral. Bite and Crunch are nice. Nasty Plot has it’s good points. my highest point is for it is getting comboed with Poison: only weak to Ground, even with Fairy added. immunity to Psychic isn’t bad either.

17: Fairy. I used several Fairy Pokemon by now, but i still just generally consider them neutrally. Dazzling Gleam and Moonblast are fantastic though, and have been more helpful than i initially thought. Like Steel, it might just rise up a couple of spots over time.

18: Dragon. It is last, but it isn’t that Dragon is bad: it’s just that i rarely use it. i don’t have much attachment to this one. if we put all the types on a number scale, 1 to 10, 1 being the worst, 10 being the best, and 5 is neutral, this type would be 5.6. most Dragons have high level requirements to evolve which usually turns me away in most games. they got some good moves and stats, i can’t deny that, but i just use them so rarely that it doesn’t bring them up enough. right now, it’s my 18th favourite type simply because there are now 18 types. i think Kalos or some other region could have a decently available Dragon type in the Early-game, so i might move to attempt a dragon mono-type and maybe that’ll help a bit.

#pokemon

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