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fangirl-creates · 3 years

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ZERO OVER YONDER (FULL FIC)

(Likes and Reblogs are appreciated!)

1 - Banjo Pluck

“Look, all I’m saying is—would it kill Rippen to just have a little chill once in a while?” The red-headed boy vented to his friends as they walked to the movie theater.

“Penn, Rippen is Rippen. Of course he’s still gonna be rude to you when we’re not saving the Multiverse.” Sashi commented, wanting desperately to hear the end of these complaints spilling out of Penn’s mouth.

“Well yeah, obviously. But today, there was just no end to it! Like even when I was eating lunch, BAM! There he was!” He folded his arms, his face turning about as red as his hair at this point.

Rippen had definitely been more annoying than usual today. The reason? Probably having a bad day and picking on Penn was the only thing that would bring him ‘joy’...if you’d even call it that. And even though Penn had learned to ignore Rippen during times like these, today was one of those ‘impatient’ days for Penn Zero—considering the fact he had stayed up till 3am last night on a count of The Chinchilla bothering him again.

“Don’t worry about it, dude.” Boone put his arm around his friend, patting his back. “I’m sure beating Rippen again will put you in a good mood. Think of it as a way to get back at him.”

“Yeah!” Sashi chimed in. “I’ll even let you kick him in the face this time.” She smiled.

Penn felt a little better, the red from his face fading away. “Thanks, guys.”

The trio stepped onto their usual spots on the zap platform, Penn cracking his knuckles.

“I’m really gonna let him have it today.” He grinned between his teeth.

“Violence must wait till tomorrow!” Phyllis called from her spot on the balcony.

Penn titled his head. “...I don’t understand.”

“You will see.” She pulled the lever, the trio levitating as they were forced into the portal. “GOOD LUCK!”

After the brilliant blue flash, Penn opened his eyes. Space. He saw Space. Below him was the material of some kind of smaller planet he stood on—“Purple-colored dirt” in his Earth vocabulary. But that wasn’t the thing that surprised him...it was the body he was in. It was weirdly insulating, like a very thick fur coat—that’s when he realized he was covered in it. Orange fur coated him from head to toe. The only articles of clothing he was actually wearing were white socks and some slightly worn blue sneakers. He felt..uncomfortable.

“Penn?” Sashi’s voice made itself known.

Penn looked up, a bit surprised she was taller than him now. “Sashi! You’re a—uh….” He studied his friend’s new look. She was blue with a pink mane—yet her body itself was a cross between a horse and a dinosaur. He shrugged it off. “Never mind.” He looked around for the Wiseman. “Where’s Boone?”

“Right here!” A confident voice called, Penn searching for the source.

“Boone? Where are-” He noticed Sashi pointing above his head, to which he realized he was wearing a hat as well. He took it off to find the rather large green hat staring back at him. “Oh.”

“Oh yeah. I definitely feel like a wiseman now…”

“Cause you were on my head and you feel like you can give me knowledge that way.” Penn raised a brow.

Boone did what was an attempted shrug. “Who knows...maybe I’m magic.”

Penn rolled his eyes, placing Boone back on his head. “Okay Sash, check the specs.”

Sashi pressed the side of her glasses, which were now a dark purple to complement the colors of her new form. The holographic image showed up in front of them. “You are a wandering Do-Gooder, and I am your trusty steed and best friend.”

“What about me?” Boone asked, feeling a little left out.

“You’re his hat.” ….She didn’t add anything else.

“Well, I still think I might be magic.” He looked away. “You two just don’t know it yet.”

Sashi rolled her eyes. “Annnnyway, the evil Lord Hater is planning to conquer another innocent planet with his army of Watchdogs. It’s up to us to stop him before he manages to leave the planet successful.” Normally, this was the part where the hologram would disappear, but it lingered.

“All right! Sounds easy enough.” Penn pounded his fists together. “I’ll admit, this body is a little on the weaker side, but I can still give Rippen a good fi-”

“Actually, you can’t use violence at all. I’m the one who can fight them. You stop bad guys by...being nice.” Now the hologram was gone.

Penn suddenly understood what Phyllis meant earlier...and he hated it. “I...I can’t fight him?! Seriously??” His face was turning red again, yet it was hard to tell with the orange fur. “So not only does Rippen get away with all the stuff he did to me today, but now I can’t even GET HIM BACK?!”

“No one said you can’t get him back—you just can’t beat him up.” Sashi folded her arms.

“...Can I at least punch him?”

“No. You’ll ruin the hero’s image.”

Penn covered his face with hands, a muffled scream. He then took a deep breath, calming himself. Thankfully for him, this body seemed to have a very calm mindset...that, and really cheerful one. “Okay...okay, I’ll do my best…for the sake of the mission, and because I don’t want to accidentally break something.” He hopped onto the saddle on Sashi’s back.

“Good choice.” Sashi nodded. “Now how do we get out of here?”

“Don’t look at me—what the??” A small bottle fell onto the ground. Upon closer inspection, it looked like a container for bubble blowing, but it read ‘Orbble juice’, with instructions on the back. Penn shrugged and pulled the wand out, blowing as a large air-tight bubble formed around them, lifting them off the ground. “Now we’re talking!” He yelled out into the bubble, cheerfully. “HEIGH-HO, SYLVIA!”

Sashi and Boone both looked at him.

Penn blinked, not sure what came over him. “S-Sashi...I meant Sashi. Oh, that was weird.”

Thankfully, it was quickly forgotten by the trio, heading on their way to their next destination…

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2 - A Hero’s Image

Rippen looked at himself in the mirror. In all his years as a Part-Time Villain, he had only been a skeleton once. And even then, it was only for a couple minutes. The complete lack of skin made him feel...exposed. But at the same time, the bone seemed hard as nails, so there was that.

His thoughts were quickly interrupted, however, by the rambles of his cheerful minion—who was in the body of a Commander with the exact opposite personality. But that didn’t affect Larry in the slightest. “Isn’t this eyeball head weird? I mean I’m talking, but there’s no mouth! How crazy is that?” He laughed. “How do people even know when I’m speaking?”

Rippen rolled his eyes. “Your pupil moves, Larry.”

Larry looked in the mirror, expressing a smile as much as a watchdog could to the best of their abilities. “Heh, it’s kinda funny how it bounces like that.”

“Can we get on with it, then?” He was having an exceptionally good day...as far as Rippen’s standards go. And he didn’t want this good mood to go to waste.

“Right, right...sorry.” He laughed softly, pressing the side of his glasses, which were now yellow and only one square instead of two. “Okay, you are the evil Lord Hater and I am your Second in Command. Our Mission is to conquer another poor innocent planet before Penn stops you with-” Larry paused, unsure he was reading this right.

“With what? Come on, spit it out.” Rippen pestered.

“Um...friendship.”

Rippen blinked, a bit stunned by what Larry just said. “Maybe it's the lack of ears that makes it hard for me to hear you, but did you say…‘Friendship’?”

“Yep. He’s supposed to be nice to you.” Larry nodded.

Rippen was silent for a moment, then he burst out laughing. “Penn Zero’s forced to be nice to me!” He laughed again. “If we’re lucky, he’ll break under the pressure, completely ruining the hero’s image! And then I can finally become a Full-Time Villain!” When he laughed a third time, however, green lighting shot from his fingertips as he made a ‘rock n roll’ gesture with both of his hands.

Larry narrowly avoided it, but some watchdogs down the hall weren’t so lucky; loud yelps followed by groaning were heard after getting zapped.

“Wait..what just happened?” Rippen looked at the gesture he was making, a bit confused.

“Oh yeah, you got cool lightning powers! I forgot to tell you that…” Larry attempted a smile again.

For once in his life, Rippen was filled with the absolute confidence that this time...this time, he could not only win...but finally annihilate Penn Zero. He laughed one more time, green lighting sparking around him. “This is it, Larry! Victory is finally at hand!”

Friendship...of all the things. He had been nice to Rippen before, sure, but that was often out of pity...or on rare occasions, when he genuinely felt sorry for him. But this was the first time he was forced to do it. And that fact made him upset. Heck, even the phrase ‘Kill em with Kindness’ was starting to sound not understandable anymore. He glanced at Sashi. “Soooo, this whole ‘friendship’ thing…”

Sashi’s eyes met his, despite being focused on the destination.

“Is he like...allergic to it or something? Is he gonna melt if I hug him??”

“No. You’re just being nice to him...for the 100th time.” She mumbled under her breath.

“I know, I know...it’s just...what’s the point of being nice to your enemy if they’re just gonna continue to do you harm? How is this furball even still alive after constantly clashing with this guy?”

It Never hurts to Help. A little voice said in the back of his mind.

Penn blinked. “Boone, did you say something?” He glanced up.

“Uhh no?”

He scratched his head, thinking. If he was really gonna do this, he was gonna do it right. But how?

As if on cue, Boone jumped up, a Banjo seemingly appearing out of nowhere, landing in Penn’s hands. He stared at it. “Uhhh Boone...where did this come from?” He looked up.

Boone just gasped in response. “I AM magic!!” He said triumphantly.

Penn rolled his eyes, holding the banjo awkwardly. When it came to music, Penn considered himself more of a singer than anything else. But Instruments were not his strong suit...still, this Banjo didn’t look unimportant. He held it the right way, his fingers dancing along the frets. And then, as if on command…he started playing. It wasn’t a specific song or anything too complex, just a simple melody that made his friends smile as he continued. It was so strange...he had never played the banjo before, and here he was; playing it like he’d had years of practice. He was so lost in song, that he didn’t realize he was moving around while he did so. Luckily, they had found their destination before Rippen did, so Sashi was able to land on the ground, giving Penn freedom to do...whatever he was doing.

Sashi was amused by this. She had seen Penn dance before, but this was nothing like how he normally did it. This kind of dancing was silly, almost...cartoonish. What was even funnier was that not only did he dance in tune to the music, but he sang along to it as well. Well...more like sing-talking gibberish. Regardless, he seemed really into it. In fact, he got faster with each ‘verse’. It got to a point where he was strumming so fast, one would think the banjo was going to catch fire.

Penn’s chest went up and down as he breathed heavily, stopping finally. The sound of Sashi clapping caught his attention and he immediately realized what was going on. “O-Oh...yeah I didn’t mean to do any of that….” He blushed.

“It was cute.” Sashi commented. “But, you know, like in a funny kind of way.”

“Yeah, But not so good for me…” Boone managed, feeling a bit dizzy from Penn’s rapid dancing and spinning.

Penn cringed. “Ohh oh no. Do you need a minute? Do hats even get sick??” He thought about it for a second. Unfortunately, his thoughts were interrupted by a loud THUD.

All three turned to see a giant Skull Ship land on the planet’s surface. It opened its mouth, a large tongue landing down as watchdogs began to march in formation, chanting ‘Hate’s Great, Best Villain!’ as they did.

Penn watched, standing proudly as he held the banjo close. “Alright…” He took a deep breath. “Time to go to work.”

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3 - Never Hurts to Help

It didn’t take long for Rippen to get the Watchdogs out, the inhabitants of the planet already running away in fear. The Do-Gooders were behind a rather large rock. Not the best hiding spot, but a good temporary one.

“Okay, Sash. That’s your cue.”

Sashi cracked her knuckles, but glanced at her friends before she ran off. “I know you can do this, PZ.” Then she was gone—charging into a group of Watchdogs.

Penn watched, taking a deep breath.

“So what are you gonna do?” Boone asked.

Penn hesitated. “Honestly, I have no idea.” He remembered what Sashi had said earlier...No one said you couldn’t get back at Rippen—you just can’t beat him up. Penn remembered how annoying Rippen was earlier...and for some reason, the mindset of this body seemed to know exactly how to annoy him back. A smirk appeared on his face as he ran to find his enemy.

Rippen was having the time of his life, blasting back at forth. What felt even better was that the creatures feared him the closer he got. He didn’t even care Sashi was punching the Watchdogs left and right—as long as he got his reward, he didn’t care what else went wrong.

“Havin’ fun, Rippen?”

And there it was.

Rippen turned to face the orange ball of fur, a cackle at how tall he was compared to the do-gooder. “Well, Well, Well! If it isn’t Penn Zero!” He raised his hands, pointing them at him as green lighting charged between his fingers—the soft glow illuminating on everyone close enough to see. “I know all about this little requirement of your’s to not hurt me-! So now I only have one thing to say to you—!”

Penn’s heart pounded in his chest. Best case scenario, the plan worked. Worst case scenario, Rippen blasts him into the next dimension.

“—Are you ready to meet your demise?”

Penn cleared his throat, standing casually. “Actually, Rippen ol’ Buddy, I’ve got a question for you.” He sounded so calm despite the fear inside of him.

Rippen raised part of his brow, staring down at his enemy. This day had been going so well for him. And if he destroyed him without hearing the question at all, it would haunt him forever. Rippen shrugged, not letting his guard down. “You know what? Ask away!”

Penn breathed a small sigh of relief, taking a step back. “Well I was just thinking...you must be hungry after this...invasion thing.”

Though he didn’t want to admit it, Rippen was starving. He didn’t understand why, but this body had the need to consume every junk food imaginable. And everything it craved, Rippen had never touched in his life. He made a slightly annoyed face at Penn. “Why would it matter to you?”

“Oh no reason…” He pulled out two sandwiches from behind his back. “Just that...uh..got some sandwiches here. Hate for them to go to waste…” He mocked, waving the scent around Rippen’s nonexistent nose. “Truly...truly a shame.”

Rippen’s stomach made probably one of the loudest sounds a stomach was capable of making—strange, considering Skeletons didn’t even have stomachs. He tried to keep his eyes off the two sandwiches, but it was impossible. “Ugh! Just give them to me—!” He tried to reach, but Penn jumped back.

“What’s that? You do want these?” He grinned. “Well, would you prefer—” He threw the first sandwich at Rippen’s face. “Mustard-?” He jumped over Rippen, throwing the other sandwich on his face when he turned around. “-or Mayo?!” He laughed, landing on his feet.

Rippen angrily wiped the sandwiches from his face, staring at Penn with a piercing glare.

Instead of a rude gesture, Penn stuck out his tongue in a playful manner, his legs speeding up. “Come and get me!” And he was gone.

Rippen didn’t know why, but every voice in the back of his head screamed ‘GET HIM!’ no matter what. And that’s exactly what he did. He ran, screaming at the top of his...lungs? Whatever skeletons have.

Penn pulled out the banjo as he ran, turning around as he was now jogging backwards. “How about a little chase music?” He smiled, strumming rather fast. The music seemed to be annoying Rippen even more, which meant it was working.

Meanwhile, Sashi had already beaten up all the Watchdogs while Rippen was distracted. Larry was too busy watching Rippen chase Penn around to notice. Something about it made him want to sigh. He was...disappointed in Rippen?? He shivered, hoping he’d never get that feeling again.

At this point, Rippen was exhausted. He clawed at the ground, now laying on his stomach. Penn, however, didn’t feel tired at all. He felt as though he could run a marathon in seconds. Eventually, he stopped running and walked right over to Rippen, bending down so they were at eye level once more. He put his hands behind his back, a smug look on his face.

“You uh..you doing okay?” He raised a brow.

Rippen wheezed, trying to stand. “W...Watchdogs! Get him—!” It wasn’t until he yelled that when he realized they were all defeated, Sashi standing there triumphantly. “NOOO! I WAS SO CLOSE!!” He wheezed again, his face lightly hitting the ground.

Penn felt a little bad for him. He wasn’t sure why the feeling was so sudden, but he didn’t question it. “Look, you seem pretty exhausted, so I’ll just leave this here for you.” He placed one of the mustard sandwiches and a bottle of a soda labeled ‘Thunder Blazz’ in bright yellow bubble letters on the side.

Rippen stared at the food, standing up as he wolfed down the sandwich. He glared at Penn, pointing at him. “This doesn’t make us friends!” He spoke between bites.

Penn made a face. “I uh...I never said that.”

Rippen blinked, shaking his head. “Oh never mind!” He grabbed the soda and angrily trudged back to the skull ship, Larry patting him on the back as they headed inside.

The inhabitants cheered once the skull ship took off, Sashi running to greet her friends. “You did it, Penn!”

“Yeah!” Boone chimed in. “I’m not exactly sure what you did...but you did it!”

Penn’s eyes watched the skull ship fade from view. Why did Rippen retreat? And why did he think he was trying to be his friend? Even with all these questions, Penn still couldn’t help but feel good about himself…

With another blue flash, the trio was pulled back to the movie theater, landing safety back onto their original spots. Penn looked at himself, no longer feeling uncomfortable, but a bit disappointed the cheerful feeling was gone. “That was probably one of the strangest missions ever...but in a good way.” He managed.

“Yeah, wonder what was up with Rippen after we won…” Sashi added, hand on her chin.

“Sometimes,” Phyills started, coming back down from the balcony. “Enemy is just a friend you haven’t made yet.” She looked at Penn. “Remember that, Penn Zero.”

Penn put his hands in his pockets, a smile. “I will.”

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4 - Epilogue

Later that evening, the space duo set up camp for the night. Sylvia was still trying to process exactly what happened earlier. Her fists were sore from punching Watchdogs, when she hadn’t even done that today? Or had she??

Wander, on the other hand, seemed to be in a particularly good mood. Normally, that wasn’t a surprise in Wander’s case, but it definitely was after the events of today.

“I swear,” Sylvia put some wood on the fire, the flames grasping onto it. “My head’s buzzing like a swarm of bees. The whole thing was so weird…” She sat down next to her friend, who was casually resting, playing a happy tune on his banjo. “How are you keeping it all together, buddy? Doesn’t your head hurt?” She asked, concerningly.

The Nomad looked up at her, smiling. “Because I helped someone.”

Sylvia blinked. “So...you remember what happened today?”

“Nope.” He cheerfully responded.

“...then..how do you know if you helped someone or not??”

“Just a hunch.”

Sylvia rolled her eyes, playfully, rustling his fur. “Okay, buddy…”

Deep within the stars, they saw the skull ship pass by, the voice of Lord Hater screaming into the night sky…

“I CAN’T BELIEVE I ACTUALLY ATE ONE OF WANDER’S STUPID SANDWICHES!!”

Wander chuckled, yawning as he got into his normal sleeping spot. “Yep, not a bad day…”

Sylvia still couldn’t remember what happened, but regardless of that, she was happy Wander still got to help out someone. And in the end, that was all that matters...

END

#penn zero part time hero #wander over yonder #crossover fanfiction #fanfic #pzpth #save woy #woy watchdogs

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deliciouslymindless · 4 years

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Rebecca was so excited as she unboxed her new headphones, she had given them a quick trial run in the electronics store and instantly fell in love! The audio in them just hit her in all the right places, and like. it had a special app that would be able to analyze your game and give you the perfect mood-setting music, depending on the game, so if you were doing a bossfight for example it would be intense, where as if you were speedrunning call of duty it would be quick and energizing, making sure to keep you in the right mindset for the game you are playing using special subliminals.

The headphones of course came in all sorts of colours and styles, Rebecca had however went for the cute kitty-ear headphones as she felt like they just fitted her!

Rebecca was a gamergirl and a twitch streamer. She was a goofy girl, so streaming just kind of came naturally to her, always talking with her spectators and fans to include them. This had gotten her widely popular along with her cute looks of course.

Rebecca loaded up PUBG, and quickly felt her anticipation build as she waited in the lobby, ready for the match to start, the app was really working, and it was amazing. Rebecca loved the specs in the headphones, the audio quality was like she was actually there, and not only that, but you barely felt like you were wearing them, not like the other heavy-duty gaming headsets that gave you a headache from squeezing on your head or the pull from the weight.

Rebecca bit her lip as she was looting the building, they were down to 15 players and the map was getting smaller, she felt so on-edge she completely forgot about her fans, she was so emerged…

Her heart raced at the sound of a gunshot, the adrenaline was rushing through her body, quickly scanning her surroundings, she wiped a pearl of sweat from her forehead and went outside, crosshair so stable, so focused as she noticed the other player, gunning him down in moments “FUCK YEAH!” she exclaimed loudly, giving a confident wink to her watchers.

*****

Rebecca shut down the game after a few matches, it had been so thrilling, she could still feel the excitement in her system, but in her time streaming, Rebecca had learned how to release that excitement.

She took her laptop and went over to her bed, typing in “P” and just like that, pornhub came up like usually, she was used to a nice little release after an intense gaming session, but today, she was feeling hornier than usual and was quick to find a fitting video. At this point she didnt care what she watched, as long as she got to cum.. Quick.

Rebecca barely noticed how “Take it off” started playing as the woman in the video stripped down, and Rebecca found herself doing the same without any intention.

As her index finger went in her mouth, she started sucking eagerly, getting a weird flavour in her mouth… This wasn’t what a finger tasted like? it tasted more like a-a… a cock, that was it. It tasted like a big, juicy, filthy cock, and somehow it was making her excited. That’s weird, she thought to herself. Rebecca was a long time lesbian, and knew guys were’nt her thing, but as she sucked her finger, imagining a huge throbbing cock, she couldn’t help but rub her aching clit, GOD she was horny… Watching that pink haired, big tittied dumb ditzy bimbo on her knees bopping and sucking, while her mind was popping, she couldn’t keep herself aware as she came harder than ever before, the pleasure flooding through her, overwhelming her every senses. It was like her mind got too much input and just short-circuited.

***** As becky woke up on her knees, she felt odd, somehow. she like, totes didn’t cum that much.

Her aching puss told her otherwise. It told her she’d been rubbing and fingering herself for hours on end. God, there had to be enough cum there to fill a bucket.

Imagining it made Becky extremely wet.. A bucket of cum, and she’d have it all to herself. She could just get lost as she poured it all down her throat…

WTF? what was she thinking? that was like, so nasty! but oooh so hot. Becky bit her lip but shook her head, she like, def. couldn’t like, spend all her time thinking bout cum when she had her twitch to entertain!.

Becky went to get dressed, but found yucky boring outfits, so she decided to go shopping first. Her fans could wait, after all, it’d be worth it, she smirked at the thought of what she was gonna do for them.

*****

“HEYA GUYS! It’s like, Becky again!” She giggled, squeezing her big latexc-overed tits. She was wearing a shiny pink Croptop and like a black latex miniskirt.

She turned around and flipped up her skirt, giggling as she wriggled her bum.

Becky had her pink headphones on, and had some porn running in the background, cuz she like, totes needed her subliminal training to be a good slut!

“Look guys, it’s like, so sexyy in dis skirt, mah butt is like.. sooo big! dont you just like, wann play with it? cuz i like. totes could use some cock!”

The twitch-chat went insane, so many compliments and sexy teases flying over the screen.

“LOOK AT THAT ASS, I COULD FUCK HER RIGHT HERE AND NOW!”

“Ohh my god, i just want to feel those lips between my legs!”

Becky giggled, apparently she wasn’t the only one who was horny.

“Can we like, meet guys? I’d like, totes love to take all your cocks!”

*****

Becky went to the park where they had planned to meet, she was like, so ready to get fucked in public.. and by 5 guys! eee, it was so exciting, she couldn’t think straight…

The moment she had put on the headphones, her mind was gone.

The moment she came to the view of cocks, she became a horny fuckslut

The moment she put on a show, she became a slutty bimbo camgirl.

The moment Becky went to the park, her life changed forever….

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modern-inheritance · 3 years

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Modern Inheritance Cycle: The origins of Farthen Dur’s current veterans bar owner (semi-scrapped ficlet)

(*hacks up half completed MIC snippet hairball and wanders off* Timeline is a few years before Saphira’s egg is stolen, probably about three or four years at most.)

CONTENT WARNING: WARZONE COMBAT, COMBAT INJURIES, TRAUMATIC AMPUTATION, COMBAT AMPUTEE CHARACTER, REHABILITATION

Cracks and shots stabbed needles into unprotected ears. Bullets cut swirled, roiling lines through the smoke and dust saturated air while the clash of blades rumbled at a constant crackle. Heavy booms of dwarvish artilary and Broddring cannonbombs shook the blood soaked earth.

He couldn’t say he was at the center of it all. In fact, he was a good distance from the thick of the hand to hand combat, in a half completed, baked earth sprinkled trench. The crumbling walls had sloped in on him, partially burying what was left of his lower right leg and his shrapnel studded left. A cannonbomb impacted ten meters away, pouring more of the dirt onto his body as various warriors of both sides scrambled and yelled, running to and fro in the pitched battle.

No, he wasn’t at the center of it. Combat engineer Samuel “Coop” Cooper, 32nd Division of the Surdan ground forces, couldn’t have cared less. Because he was bleeding and screaming and writhing in that little trench, staring at the white shanks of bone that heralded the new end of his leg.

Coop cried out in renewed pain, the shudder of the ground bumping into his mangled limb. He was crying, cutting streaks through the grime on his young face down to his close cropped beard. He had been so proud of that damn beard, finally out of the awkward patchiness of his teen years, proud to finally be a true C.E. like the rest of his division. Now it didn’t even matter. He’d seen men on the battlefield in his situation. He knew that in the chaos of a full on fight that the wounded were rarely, if ever, treated early enough to grant survival.

He’d go out like his Pap. Screaming bloody murder at the Broddring dogs across the battlefield, knowing that his own battlemates couldn’t spare the time or distraction to pick him up and haul him back to the tents.

No one would ever say it was a noble death. But by the bright gods above, Coop would show the courage to face it head on.

New shots cracked overhead, a rifle not three yards from where the young man was concealed. Instead of footsteps pounding by in a dead run towards –or away, as many young recruits had gone– the thick of the battle, the steps came directly towards him. A cold hand clutched at Coop’s heart when black boots entered his field of vision, and he screamed incoherently at the owner, trying to brandish the remnants of his shattered rifle.

No bullet came for him. The figure crouched down, ignoring the whiz of projectiles whipping past.

“Looks like you’re in rough shape, kid.” Then they leapt into the trench and hunched over Coop’s prone form.

He stared.

He honestly couldn’t tell if it was a trick of his mind. He was in enough pain and had lost enough blood for that to make sense. It had to be that.

Crouched over him, thick braid dangling over her shoulder, was a woman. Her gore streaked face was strikingly pretty, even for Coop’s befuddled brain. A rifle he couldn’t identify was slung over her right shoulder, a fine sword clenched in her left hand, and pieces of an outlandish silvery blue kevlar material was strapped all over her chest.

“Hey. Hey!” He tried to focus his bleary vision on her face. Her dark eyes caught and held his gaze. “You got any wards? I need to know.”

Coop shook his head with great effort. Combat Engineers rarely got things as precious as wards.

Everything was getting very heavy….

And then the world shot back into achingly sharp clarity when the woman grabbed his mangled leg at the knee, fingers impossibly strong. He shrieked in agony, red and black spots flaring in his vision. The shrill sound drowned out the spell that the woman used, but he didn’t care because moments afterwards the pain drained away. There was a crawling, itching sensation as the blood that had been flowing from his legs coagulated and dried, forming hard, shiny scabs that were quickly covered with fine dust from the parched soil.

“H’up you go!” Suddenly the world tilted and rolled, spinning in and out of focus like a sickening rollercoaster. The next thing Coop saw, so close up so that he nearly crossed his eyes to read it, was the patch on the woman’s shoulder.

E.S.O. Elvin Spec. Ops. Edoc’sil Varden du Wyrani.

And then the world was again a blur. Not long after he felt himself being lowered onto a stretcher, the woman’s voice garbled and indistinct. As more voices layered in, Coop let himself close his eyes.

He didn’t really know what to think about the last ten minutes. He didn’t know if he was with the Surdan and Varden forces or with the Broddring Empire’s, but he didn’t hurt as much. His mind was foggy but that was okay. He just needed…needed a nap.

Sam Cooper fell asleep on the stretcher, and didn’t wake up until he was in the closest hospital, the lower half of his right shin now neatly amputated and wrapped in clean white gauze.

Cooper closed his eyes, the bright white lights of the hospital room glaring through his lids. He didn’t want to get up and turn them off, but he couldn’t sleep with them on either.

It was six long, painful months after his medical discharge. Six months after he transferred from Surda’s VA hospital to the underground facility at Farthen Dur. Six months of getting used to his new prosthetic foot, six months of learning how to stand and walk again, six months of grueling physical therapy that put boot camp to shame. His whole body ached from the PT session he just completed, the stump of his leg the sorest of all. He was still building up thicker skin that would make putting his weight on it easier.

Coop groaned and dragged his hands over his eyes. He hated calling the nurses to ask for simple things like water and light switches. It felt humiliating. A twenty-two year old army man with three years of active, bloody duty on the Surdan border and the nurses still had the gall to look at him with open pity.

Maybe he could just sleep with his arm over his face….

Three sharp raps on the sign outside his hospital room startled Cooper from his thoughts. He pulled the crook of his elbow away from his eyes– and gaped at his visitor.

It was her!

The woman was leaned casually in his doorframe, stray tendrils of pitch black hair whisping over her forehead and braid again over her shoulder. Her jacket, pinned at the shoulders by the straps of a black backpack, was free from a majority of the kevlar, and hung open on her lean frame. Beneath it, a simple black shirt and a pair of mottled green cargo pants.

“Hi.” She waved slightly.

Coop opened and closed his mouth a few times. “…H-hi.”

“I figured you would have been sent here.” She raised an eyebrow. “Mind if I come in? I brought you a treat.”

“…Sure?” Slowly getting over his shock but still confused as ever, Coop pointed at the uncomfortable plastic chair against the wall. “Feel free, I guess.”

“Thanks, kid.” She dragged the chair over and sat down next to him, pulling the backpack into her lap as she did so. “Didn’t get to introduce myself before. I’m Arya.” They shook hands.

“Coop. Sam Cooper.”

“I stole some cans of fruit salad, Coop.” Arya grinned, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “You want one?”

He glanced over at the tray of unappetizing hospital rations sitting on the dresser. “…Yeah. Thanks.” He accepted the can as she passed it to him, and in turn passed her one of the plastic multi utensils from his tray.

“Cheers, Coop.”

====================

Coop is/was going to be the eventual owner of Farthen Dur’s veterans bar. He’s good friends with Arya, Faolin and Glenwing, even occasionally using them as unofficial bouncers when things got rough or getting them to play music on slow nights to draw in customers.

MIC’s Glenwing is also an amputee, having lost his arm in the ambush that starts off the series, but his recovery was during the time that Eragon and Co are doing their thing and isn’t seen. I wanted to display the strength that many veterans who return from combat with missing limbs have to go through the stress and struggles that PT puts them through. A local man I am friends with lost his leg and he’s incredibly open about his experience, and it really struck a chord in me.

Alas, I never could pick this one up again. It felt too song fic like when I thought about later parts. Sam Cooper is a staple to much of my mental map of MIC though, and will always be ‘canon’ in my little corner of the IC world.

Cheers mates.

Oh right. Arya’s patch is what she, Faolin and Glen ‘homebrewed’ for their rank and division to better fit in with the Varden’s military structure. The motto translates very roughly (with some tinkering) to ‘Unconquerable Guardians of Fate’ because edgy.

#Modern Inheritance #inheritance cycle #eragon #modern inheritance stories #the cyclists #Ket's Modern Inheritance Cycle #MIC OC #Sam Cooper #Arya #elf squad #modern inheritance lore #amputee character #effects of war

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1-1snailxd-art · 5 years

Text

Sanders Sides Oneshot - Babysitting

This is how you beat writers block - you draw and then find your will to write afterwards.

Characters/relationships: Logan / Virgil (analogical), Patton / Roman (Royality), Kid Thomas

Warnings: none

Words: 1511

Summary: This came about from a post by @fanartfunart and seeing as I’m trying to learn how to draw people better, I decided to challenge myself with a drawing....that drawing then turned into a little fic. FYI, I know there is a lot wrong with Logan’s proportions in the picture (I can see it), but Thomas is cute so whatever.

_____________________________________

"Don't be such a baby, Logan." Virgil huffed, following his partner into the kitchen. "It's a kid, not a freakin' nuclear bomb."

"I know that, but..." Logan kept his back to Virgil as he absentmindedly took ingredients for dinner out of the fridge and cupboards. "I don't know anything about babysitting a child."

Watching the cook’s shoulders slump at the admission, Virgil softened his tone and moved to lean on the counter next to Logan.

"What's to know, Lo? You give him some food, easy for you, and turn on the TV. Job done." Virgil sighed when Logan didn't look away from the bowl in front of him; hands floured as he prepared a pasta dough. "Look, I only need to be in the studio for an hour at most; then I'll come straight home. You can entertain 'til I get back, right?"

"Are you sure you can't stay?"

The tone of Virgil's phone gave him his answer as the other man quickly excused himself to take the call. It wasn't that Logan didn't like children; he just didn't think he was good for children. Honestly, he questioned daily what Virgil saw in him; a pensive, workaholic wasn't that romantic and didn't scream partner material. Patton on the other hand was destined to be a parent; they'd wanted to be one since they were kids.

The pasta dough came into shape as Logan recalled the day Patton video called them to announce they had been approved for adoption now Roman had consistent work. He'd shared in their excitement but never fully understood it. Admittedly, Logan was still hurt that Patton had moved so far away to support Roman's career and their relationship took a hit from the distance.

Setting the finished dough aside to rest, Logan washed his hands and turned to find the dejected Virgil walking back in.

"Virgil? What's wrong?"

"I've gotta go, Lo. Shit's hit the fan with the computers at the studio and Nate's pissed."

"How bad is it?" Logan moved closer, knowing there would be no way out of this now and accepting that he would have to face Patton alone.

"Backups failing bad. I should have gone in earlier when it was just a glitch. It was stupid of me to ignore it and-fuck I'm gonna pay for it n-"

Logan tilted Virgil's chin back and placed a soft kiss on his lips to silence the worrier.

"I apologise for my earlier attitude and clouded judgements. I will be fine this evening. You should go." Taking Virgil's hand, Logan walked him towards the door. "I will be fine until you or Patton return."

"Yeah, you will." he replied with a half-smile, before giving Logan a final kiss goodbye and heading out the door.

The silence of the apartment was crushing as Logan threw himself onto the couch; sliding his glasses up off his face as he massaged his brow. It was all too much at once. First, he was just worried about seeing Patton and Roman again after years of dwindling contact; then they asked the couple to babysit while they went to the award ceremony that brought them to town; and now Logan would have to face it all alone. A knock at the door pulled Logan from his thoughts and he was quick to sit up and correct himself before answering it.

"Hey Specs" Roman smiled from the entry; the pink backpack on his shoulder a harsh contrast to the black suit he wore. "It's great to see you again!"

"It's good to see you too, Roman. You are looking well considering the travel."

"Oh please," With a hand gesture Roman stepped into the apartment and put the apparently heavy bag down. "It would take more than a few hours on a plane to ruin this face."

"Indeed," Logan chuckled, turning just in time to see a pink blur heading towards him.

"Uncle Logan!" Came a cheery voice as a body slammed into Logan and constricted his middle.

"Um...Thomas, I presume."

Logan looked up to see Patton beaming as they walked up the path in a simple blue gown. They looked so happy and lively that Logan forgot all his past grievances; it seemed Patton was happy and that was all that mattered.

"That's my Thomas," Patton giggled.

"It's good to see you again, Patton." Logan pulled a face as he looked down at the figure still holding his arms by his sides. "Your son is very... Huggie."

Roman and Patton both laughed, and Roman snapped a quick picture of the awkward man pinned by his son.

"Oh, I know. I trained him well, don't you think?"

"Indeed, Patton, but...um," Thomas giggled as Logan tried to lift his arms out of the vice grip around him. "How do I un-train him? I do need to work at some point this evening."

"That will do, Thomas; give Uncle Lo some breathing room."

At Roman's word, Thomas let go and moved to his father's side. Logan's moment of reprieve was short lived as Patton replaced their son, pulling their old friend close and whispering in his ear.

"I really missed you, Logan."

"I..." For a moment, he was lost for words before mimicking the tight grip around his friend. "I missed you too."

The group remained in the entry as Patton began rattling off things Thomas could and couldn't do. Though he listened intently, Logan's eyes kept shifting to the young boy in the pink jacket that lent against Roman; holding onto his father’s arms around his neck and smiling up at Logan.

".... And if you need anything, just call me and I'll come right back and-"

"Calm down, Pat." Roman interjected, "We're just going for a few hours. I'm sure Lo and Thomas will be fine."

"Right. You're right."

"I always am." "That's not true, Dad." Thomas turned to look up at his father in confusion. "We were late to the airport because you got the times wrong, and you brought the wrong chocolate milk last week, and you-"

"Alright, that's enough." Roman was quick to scoop the boy up and headed inside. "Let's get you set up, hey."

A smile crept across Logan's face as he watched them go.

"Is that a genuine smile I see, Logan?" It comforted Patton to see him looking so content, despite his obvious fear of being responsible for Thomas.

"I'm proud of you, Patton." Their eyes widened as Logan turned; his own shining in the sun light. "You made the family you always wanted." "Almost," they laughed. "It's just missing one thing." "Hm?" Brows furrowing in confusion, Logan wracked his brain for what Patton was talking about. "What could you possibly be missing?"

"Just an uncle to teach Thomas about computers and another to show him how to cook. Any idea on where I could find them?"

"I think I do, but they live pretty far away." "That's okay, we're moving anyway." "What?" Logan was genuinely shocked by the news, mouth left ajar as Roman came up from behind and place a hand on his shoulder.

"You ready to be a full-time uncle, Logan?"

The question left Logan reeling. Three years ago, Patton left their teaching position to follow Roman's quest for recognition in music and theatre; leaving Logan and Virgil behind in the process. One year ago, they adopted Thomas and their contact became almost non-existent; so to be told they were returning to include him and Virgil in their family...was amazing.

"I suppose I'll have to be."

This time, Logan initiated a group hug; wrapping an arm around each of his friends and briefly forgetting that they had somewhere to be and he had a job to do.

"Jeez Specs, Thomas rubbed off on you quickly." Roman joked; causing Logan to quickly step back and adjust his tie.

"Ah, yes, sorry." Logan stumbled over his words, causing his friends to laugh at his sudden display of affection. "I got a little carried away." "It's okay, Lo." Patton assured, waving at the little figure that was poking his head over the couch inside. "But we should get going or we'll never leave."

"Right. Yes. Of Course."

Logan watched as Patton blew a kiss to Thomas before heading down the front path with Roman. Once the car had pulled away, he shut the door and turned to the smiling figure kneeling on the couch, waiting patiently. Brown eyes looked expectantly at him and he thought about Patton's wish for uncles for their son.

"So… Thomas. Have you ever made pasta before?" The boy shook his head and slipped off the couch as Logan held his hand out. "Perhaps it's time uncle Logan taught you then."

*************************

When Virgil came home, he was shocked to find the apartment lit only by Steven Universe playing on the TV. Tiptoeing around the couch he was greeted to the scene of Logan fast asleep with Thomas laying on his chest. It didn't look comfortable at all, but Virgil had to admit it was an adorable thing to come home to.

________________________________________

Tags: @thequeensphinx

What else have I done:

The Shield to your Sword (WIP - A fantasy/magic au - Prinxiety (Royal Roman and orphan Virgil - they’ll admit to their love eventually), Virgil angst, non binary healer Logan, *spoiler* Patton, cursed Deceit and ridiculous Remus)

Libraries are for Meetings (ongoing WIP - Human/University au with Royality and developing Analogical. Slow burn and heavily focused on a grieving group of friends that Virgil slowly becomes a part of to better himself.)

And more....

Writing Master Post

Check out my other blog for random fandom reblogs and stuff @snail-giggles

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innuendostudios · 4 years

Text

Thoughts on Obduction

[no proper spoilers, but the game is best when you go in cold]

Hey y’all I got a new laptop, and, for the first time in... ever, I could afford to make it a pretty good gaming PC. Now, maybe you get your first proper gaming PC and think, “Hell yeah, I’m gonna play that new Star Wars game, I’m gonna play Modern Warfare, let’s take this baby out for a spin!!”

I’m the guy who says, “I can finally play Obduction!”

Obduction marks the professional reunion of Rand and Robyn Miller, the brothers who founded Cyan and created Myst and Riven. Rand wrote and designed it, and Robyn wrote the music and plays the central NPC. Moreover, Obduction serves as a kind of spiritual sequel to the Myst series. I backed it on Kickstarter ages ago, but the Mac build took forever to come out and my computer’s dated specs and the port’s horrendous bugginess made it unplayable. So, naturally, it was the first thing I downloaded on the new machine.

The game’s premise is very “as Myst as you can get while being technically not-Myst.” Instead of stumbling onto a book that transports you to a fantastical world, you are touched by an alien seed that transports you to a fantastical world. Instead of finding more books to more worlds, you find more seeds to more worlds. And, instead of these worlds being constructed by a magical writer, they’re natural, alien landscapes that have been put in contact for unknown reasons. It still all feels very Myst-y, having a central, familiar hub world with a lot of overlapping designs and styles, and mysterious links to stranger worlds with their own rules.

I will say, they seem to be leaning into what makes Cyan Cyan. What if Myst, but instead of the worlds being discrete they overlap? What if Myst, but you take some of the surrounding terrain with you when you link to another world, and something from that world goes back to where you were? What if the membrane separating worlds were a puzzle mechanic? What if linking books were puzzle mechanics? What if where a book is left when you link through were important?

The worldbuilding is also a bit more... anthropological this time, where the Myst series felt architectural. Myst and Riven were very interested in how a world was built, how it fits together, how it was first imagined and then colonized by its writer. And each world was cordoned off from the next, with only select outsiders traveling between them. Obduction’s worlds, by contrast, before coming into contact existed independently of each other, having their own species and cultures. Many of the info dumps are about how these different cultures learned to coexist, how they learned to communicate, the different ways of thinking and types of technology they brought to each other. This narrative focus on complex communities makes the emptiness you find when you arrive more dissonant, but also more haunting. Call it an even trade.

Now, I could talk about design gripes. Rand is a fine designer but I’ve always preferred Robyn’s sensibilities, which took the lead on Riven, aka the best game Cyan ever made if you ask me. There’s nothing as brainmeltingly obtuse as Riven’s fire marble puzzle, but, at the same time, there’s nothing so deeply stitched into the the game’s world and narrative as the fire marble puzzle. Riven also had a lever that very obviously goes up that lets you get stuck for hours and hours if you don’t notice that it unobviously also goes down, and I can now confirm that this kinda thing is a Cyan design staple. (They also repeated their “opening a door closes off a passage you didn’t know was there and you’ll never find it unless you close the door again which you have no reason to do” trick, damn them.) In fact, every time I looked up a hint it was for something that was simple, straightforward, and poorly-clued, the kind of thing you would have spent days not knowing what to do and finally stumbled onto by accident. (This is a roundabout way of bragging that I did all the hard puzzles on my own, by the way.)

It’s also a bit less open this time around. You have to spend a lot of time in Hunrath before you find your way to Kaptar, you have to do a lot in Kaptar before you can get more than a few feet into Maray, and you have to have spent time in all three before you can get to Sorai, so, while there’s technically a stretch of the game where you can be doing puzzles in all four worlds, odds are your experience will be fairly linear. Not sure if that’s a problem, just an observation.

And there’s other stuff. I forgot that Cyan isn’t great with building to any sort of climax. You explore these fascinating worlds, figuring them out, and then, at some point, you realize... oh, I guess I’m in the endgame. You feel a sense of exploration, but not one of narrative tension; outward momentum, not forward momentum. And it’s sometimes unclear what's environmental storytelling and what’s flavor text, so, come the ending, I got answers to things I didn’t realize were questions and found some answers I’d expected weren’t coming. The natural arc of the ending is: cutscene, then credits, then visit the wiki.

But, all that being said... can I just talk about how good it feels to be in a Cyan world again?!?! For all the folks who bit their style, they remain peerless. Nobody builds environments like them. They’re beautiful and enigmatic and drenched in mystery. I spent 14 hours in this game and at least half followed a steady progression of “aha” moments. But not even “aha” moments, more like “what the hell?!??!” moments. The narrative is doled out much better than in Myst or Riven, so every few hours I’d realize the world is more complicated and interesting than I’d previously thought. You see the game with new eyes at regular intervals. Truly remarkable.

Sometimes a game you played at a young age has been in your memory so long it’s hard to remember what it actually felt like when you played it the first time. Spiritual successors are a way of recapturing that feeling, and that’s not always a good thing. Thimbleweed Park, for instance, reminded me how frustrating Monkey Island 2 was. But Obduction does the opposite, in the best way possible: it reminded me how wonderful Myst and Riven were.

I can’t wait to see what Cyan does next.

#capsule review #obduction #adventure games #cyan

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supremeuppityone · 4 years

Photo

Written for Klaroline Valentine's Day Bingo 2020 @kcvalentinesbingo

Prompt: “A dare is a dare.”

Author’s note: This is the much-requested sequel to Chapter 63: Drowning Secrets in the Sea, found in my Klaroline series, A Beautiful Symmetry.

Warning: Casual references to drugs

Please review here.

“This is your idea of an adventure?”

Caroline whipped her head around, mouth curving up into a pleased grin as she took in Klaus’ rumpled appearance. “Your university’s still skimping on the travel budget, huh? You know, just because they pay for coach doesn’t mean you have to fly it.”

“Not all of us can afford first class, sweetheart,” Klaus replied, pulling Caroline to her feet and playfully spinning her around the cramped basement.

She kissed one of his dimpled cheeks, suddenly giddy and hopeful. He was here. She honestly hadn’t known what to expect when she sent him the artifacts and GPS coordinates. “Seriously? Just because I fly first class, doesn’t mean I actually pay for it.” At his amused chuckle, she allowed herself to press into him, his warmth and familiar scent washing over her. She’d missed him more than she’d cared to admit. It only had been a couple of weeks since he’d let her walk away, angry and hurt by what she’d done.

“Are you still mad at me,” she asked tentatively, stepping away to give herself a bit of space for this conversation.

He hesitated, running his fingers through his disheveled curls a few times before he finally spoke. “You pretended to be an archeologist to gain access to priceless artifacts that my father commissioned you to steal. You could’ve ruined my academic career — everything I’ve ever worked for.”

She bowed her head, her heart sinking in her chest. Did he come all this way just to tell her off?

“But then you also didn’t go through with it and came back to save my life,” he continued, his tone a bit shaky. “I’ve missed you every moment since you left,” he confessed, standing in front of her once more, his touch tender as he caressed her cheek. “And I’m tired of missing you, love.”

Their kiss was nothing like their first one — while that night in the bar had been hesitant, now their kiss was frantic; fueled by the past deception and a tentative promise of forgiveness. He tasted like her future. And Caroline had no intention of walking away from it twice. “I missed you too,” she admitted, placing kisses along his jawline.

It was when he started to untie the silken knot at her waist that she snapped back to reality. With a sigh of regret, she gently pushed away, telling him, “We’ll need to pick this up later — a business associate is meeting me here in a minute.”

Klaus looked skeptically around the dusty room, asking, “What sort of business meeting could you have down here?”

“The private kind.” She considered him carefully, bending down to scoop up a few dusty books and folders to shove into his arms. “So, I don’t want you to freak out, but we’re meeting a kind of go-between for a gunrunnermobbossguy — but don’t worry! He’s totally safe and I’ve worked with him before.” She winced as she saw his gray eyes grow wide with alarm despite the fact that she��d hoped her rapid-fire words wouldn’t really register.

“Did you just say we’re meeting with a ‘gunrunner mob boss’? Bloody hell, Caroline!”

She rolled her eyes, checking her watch as she corrected him. “He’s a go-between. He’s not actually a gunrunner mob boss. He just works for one.”

“How is that any better? And how are you going to explain me? What’s my cover?”

Caroline snorted. Klaus was adorable when he panicked. “Calm down, James Bond. You’re playing the role of a nervous archaeologist completely out of his depth. Something tells me you’ll pull that off beautifully.” At his grumpy expression, she impulsively poked one of his dimples, telling, him, “Where’s your adventurous spirit? You know you want to embrace it — otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

“I’d thought we’d start with dinner,” he mumbled, a hint of a smile starting to appear the longer he looked at her.

“Perhaps you can postpone your plans a bit, mate? We’re on a bit of a deadline,” interrupted a cocky voice as heavy footsteps finished descending the stairs into the basement.

Caroline instantly went into her work persona, adapting her stance and demeanor to best put Galen at ease. “Galen Vaughn, you slimy bastard, the next time you let me borrow a grappling hook, make sure you didn’t break off one of the ends on Kangchenjunga Peak.”

His blue eyes crinkled with mirth, cuffing her on the shoulder as he said jovially, “You managed a’right, didn’t you, lass? If memory serves, you repaid me in kind when you sold me out to the Germans.”

“Looks like it worked out alright for you — considering you’re now their go-between.” Sharpening her tone slightly, she decided to move the meeting along. “Tell me the specs and deadline.”

“Two spear points about 12 centimeters each. Day after next.” He nodded toward Klaus. “Who’s this?”

Caroline kept her tone light as she explained, “This is Klaus, my expert. He’ll authenticate on-site.”

As though to make up for her non-committal introduction, Klaus sprang forward, shaking Galen’s hand a bit too enthusiastically. “I’m an archaeologist. I can identify artifacts from 3000 BC to AD 500. While my main expertise in in classical antiquity, I have completed extensive fieldwork in Bronze and Iron Age dig sites. In fact, I lectured extensively on the evolution of the battle ax and advanced smelting techniques. It actually was quite fascinating how groundbreaking their metalsmiths were...” he trailed off, somewhat self-conscious when he noted Caroline’s indulgent smile. “Anyway...I uh, like...old things.”

Did Klaus purposely make his accent deeper because Galen has a Scottish accent? “Right. As you can see, we’ve got this,” she told Galen dryly.

“I’m impressed you’d take such an eager partner,” Galen replied skeptically, “he seems quite green, lass.”

Since it looked like Klaus was squaring off to punch a friend of one of the most dangerous mobs in Eastern Europe, Caroline hastily shook Galen’s hand, sealing their deal. “Day after next,” she told him solemnly. He left with little more than a curt nod, his jovial demeanor instantly replaced by a more disquieting nature. Such was the way of this business.

“Bollocks. Between the dodgy codes and the wanker with the pretentious facial hair, I’m a bit lost as to our mission, sweetheart.”

She cheerfully answered, “It’s no big deal — we just need to infiltrate a party tonight and steal some Bronze Age artifacts so we can sell them to this gunrunner mob boss I know.” At his incredulous expression, she winked and added, “And you have stubble too.”

“Clearly mine’s better.”

Caroline softened her tone, noting the wariness in Klaus’ gray eyes. “If you want out, I get it. No hard feelings, ok?”

“It’s not that; I’d just like to know what I’m getting into.” His gaze was penetrating, as though searching for something. “Why put yourself in danger? There’s a larger gain than just riches, isn’t there?”

She crossed her arms, not comfortable giving so much of herself away. But she needed to learn. “Mikael took my mother off the donor’s list so that I’d work for him. When I killed him, I lost my one chance to get her name restored. My only option is a black-market kidney and this job will get me the cash I need to make that happen.”

The kiss he gave her was electric; it burned her all the way to her toes and she arched into him, a tiny little moan escaping. “Does this mean you’re in?”

That devilish smirk of his was all the answer she needed.

_________________________________

The estate was stubbornly built on the marshes along the coast of the Baltic Sea, proving that even the immensely wealthy could be ignorant dipshits. Caroline critically eyed the tall rooftops of the main house and its surrounding buildings, the crooked lines wordlessly demonstrating that everything was slowly sinking, eventually to be reclaimed by the sea. She could feel Klaus tensing beside her, and she patted his arm affectionately. “Relax — the doorman is barely coherent after his wild night at the Hunter’s Mark. He’s barely going to glance at our invitation, and even if he did, it’s been expertly forged.” She gave him a sly wink, adding, “By me.”

“How do you know what he was up to last night,” he whispered back, eyes darting around the ornate courtyard of marble statues.

“Because I paid off his dealer to ensure he never ran out,” she answered matter-of-factly, favoring the pale, sweaty doorman with a sunny smile as she handed over the ivory parchment invitation she’d painstakingly threaded with gold along the borders to match the genuine ones. As she suspected, they were waived inside with barely a glance, and she smugly handed Klaus a champagne flute.

“Impressive,” he murmured, casting curious glances around the immense ballroom with its 10-piece orchestra quietly playing chamber music.

“Yeah, they’re pretty impressive. The Martins have been running drugs out of Kiel for decades; their territory is perfectly situated to take advantage of the port. They launder much of their profits with a string of online boutiques set up by the younger siblings, Greta and Luka,” she murmured, snatching a smoked salmon canape from a silver serving tray.

Klaus seemed to slowly relax as he acclimated to his surroundings, a bemused look on his face as he eyed the cascading fountain of champagne flowing from a beautifully crafted ice sculpture in the center of the room. “I meant you were impressive, sweetheart. You’re brilliant, remarkably talented, and adventurous — enviable qualities the rest of the world only dreams of possessing.” He leaned in, his accented voice low and sexy as he added, “Not to mention your ethereal, utterly enchanting beauty.”

There went her heart doing that fluttery thing again. He already was wearing the hell out of that Tom Ford tuxedo, but then to have him whisper those things — things that maybe she’d heard before but no one ever really meant — made her want to shove him into that gold leaf and pearl-tiered cake and lick the buttercream off.

As though pleased she was rendered momentarily speechless, Klaus suddenly gripped her waist, spinning her onto the polished marble floor. His touch was commanding, but not forceful, which she appreciated. Almost as much as his smooth muscles underneath her touch. The red satin of her dress wound its way between them as Klaus performed surprisingly intricate footwork.

At her small gasp of surprise, Klaus flashed her a dimpled smirk. “I may have a few moves.”

“Nice moves,” she said, a bit breathless as he led her through a reverse spin that had her momentarily crowded against his chest. She couldn’t help but rest her palm against his chest. Firm, but it was more than that — he felt like a steady person. Someone she could trust. “Mystic Falls, Virginia.” At his questioning brow, she explained, “It’s where I’m from. Well, we bounced around a lot of big cities when I was a kid, but that’s where we finally stayed.” She hesitated, unsure of how he’d react. It was a big step — and one she’d never taken before. “My mom still lives there...maybe, um, you’d like to meet her?”

At Klaus’ stunned silence, she hurriedly backtracked, telling him, “No, I get it — it’s probably way too soon for that. I’vejustneverbeenlikethiswithanyone and I’m not sure what the steps are. But I can figure it out. Seriously, I can be good at steps. All the steps. Probably. It’s just that I need to head back there for a bit once we get our business here settled and her kidney secured and I know it’s a lot to ask —”

“I’d be honored,” he quickly answered, kissing her soundly. “And it’s certainly not a chore to get to know you better, love,” he admonished when he broke the kiss, dipping her until she giggled with relief.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a slight commotion as the aerial silk acrobats had arrived and were starting to set up in the main courtyard. Perfect. “Follow me,” she whispered in his ear, casually leading him down a narrow corridor full of priceless artwork resplendent with inlaid lapis lazuli and hammered silver frames. “While most of the guests are distracted, we need to get what we came for — two Bronze Age spear points.”

They stopped in front of a tall glass case, admiring the artifacts perched on a carved ebony pedestal. “They were unearthed in the muddy riverbed of the Tollense Valley. It’s a unique find for the region, marking a significant battle around 3200 years ago. Archaeometallurgical studies have pinpointed the geological origin of the metals’ composition, which means you can trace the route these spear points took to get to the valley.”

“Except determining the geological origin of the metals isn’t infallible when you take into consideration the various ore ingots used along trade routes as currency. So, your premise, while admirable, is flawed.”

“My premise is flawed?! Are you seriously discounting all of the cutting-edge work Drs. Maxfield and Branson published in the American Journal of Archaeology? Or the Nordic Bronze Age metallurgy expertise of Dr. Hildegard,” Caroline hissed, feeling her temper rise. She’d just started to recite the latest research statistics on copper-based metals across Bronze Age Europe when she noticed the tips of his ears growing red. Suddenly, she burst into giggles at the ridiculousness of the situation.

Klaus’ confusion gave way to amusement as he too started chuckling. “We’re never going to agree, are we?”

“Nope. But where’s the fun in that,” she asked, leaning over to kiss him soundly on the lips. She broke off the kiss with a twinkle in her eye, sticking out her leg to take advantage of the deep slit in her dress in order to access her lock pick kit. She deftly worked at the enormous mechanism lock behind the glass case, rolling her eyes at the Martins’ foolish assumption that bigger was better when it came to security.

The interlocking tumblers easily gave way, and as she carefully opened the glass door, Klaus murmured, “You make burglary sexier than it has any right to be, sweetheart.”

“Sweet talker,” Caroline replied fondly, delicately sliding the spear points into the leather strap across her thigh. “If you’re lucky, I might let you help me remove these later. Artifacts require such a gentle touch, you know.”

From that lustful gleam, it seemed he was ready to take her up on her offer sooner rather than later, but unfortunately, they had company. From the heavy black eyeliner and holdover grunge ensembles, she knew exactly who had found them. “Shit. It’s the Travelers.” She quickly pulled Klaus up a narrow staircase, explaining, “So, maybethere’s also this cult of crazy fanatics who are interested in the spear points. They’re convinced some ancient ancestor was a powerful witch who disturbed the natural balance and was cast out of her community.”

With a troubled sigh that turned into a choked laugh, he pulled loose his bowtie as they hid out on a balcony, staring down at the courtyard very far below. “And what does that nonsense have to do with our artifacts?”

He said ‘our’. It inexplicably filled her with warmth and she again had to tamp down those lusty thoughts. Action now — then some real action later. “It’s kind of hard to follow and has more embarrassing plot holes than a CW show, but supposedly there was a curse that had something to do with doppelgangers, massive earthquakes and possibly a boat anchor and they think these artifacts will somehow break the curse.”

He scoffed, but whatever skeptical diatribe he was about to begin was stopped short when there was a loud banging on the double doors to the room where they’d been hiding. Glancing over the balcony once more, he wryly asked, “Does your skillset include flying?”

Following his line of sight, she spied some of the aerial silks the acrobats had hung for their performance. As the edges of the jewel-toned fabrics fluttered near the balcony, she asked, “Are you daring me to jump out this window and slide down a curtain?”

Wincing a bit at the sound of wood starting to splinter from the psycho cult just outside, he told her, “Perhaps I found my adventurous spirit.”

“Fine. But we’re jumping together.”

Klaus smirked, grabbing her by the waist as they each clutched the sturdy fabric. “I suppose a dare is a dare.”

#kcvalentinesbingo #klaroline fanfic #uppity bitch fanfic #klaroline #grifter caroline is so much fun to write #klaroline aesthetic #aesthetic

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watchoutforthefanfics · 5 years

Text

High School Musical AU // Part Two

Part one

◇ ◇ ◇

Logan was currently staring at the ceiling of his bedroom, thoughts flocking in his head.

His room was definitely comforting, the familiar walls and distant memories was much better than the annual visit of the Ski Resort. (Perhaps, not this time. Purely because the weather was favorable.) Yet, Logan couldn’t close his eyes. His mind was bubbling with his schedule, or his outfit, or his phone, or some irrational worries (that may or may not have sprouted from Patton’s absence in their usual text conversations).

He groaned, throwing his arm over his eyes.

Logan hated the “feelings”, that arose in his chest at the mention of his duet partner. He wasn’t intelligent in that department, he didn’t know everything there was to know about feelings. And even when he tried to learn, his mind couldn’t truly understand them. They were his “weakness”, in Roman’s words anyway.

Logan didn’t believe they were a weakness, necessarily, just a part of life he had to put more effort into. It wasn’t impossible for him to grasp the idea of emotion (like Batman and fully accepting his parents’ death), and these feelings didn’t cause him physical pain/damage (like Superman with kryptonite).

While Logan believed it was a technical ‘weakness’ (based on the definition), he knew that Roman was comparing him to that of a superhero. And those qualifications were not met with Logan’s current dilemma.

So, Roman was wrong. (As always.)

But, that didn’t necessarily benefit Logan (other than embarrassing his best friend). And it ultimately meant he was metaphorically, “back to the drawing board”.

His clock ticked in his ear, as his mind buzzed with the true purpose as to why he had delved so deep into these wistical thoughts.

Well, wistical wasn’t the right word. More like… ignorant. Logan corrected, almost as an instinct.

Glancing at the clock, he briefly processed the time before grabbing his phone and deciding he wasn’t the proper one to sort out these affairs. (Logically, he was definitely not qualified for trying to sort out some sort of explanation for how he felt.)

It was a brief short message, that he was overall hesitant to send, as he knew the receiver would blow it out of proportions. But, he knew that he was loyal and would keep the teasing private if Logan had wanted it to be. (Which he did.)

So, considering the circumstances…

Roman, I need to talk to you.

It took his best friend 5 minutes to read that message, and then another 2 to start typing. Which wasn’t necessarily improbable, as Roman always had his phone in hand, and Logan could believe it.

What he couldn’t believe, however, was just how long it took Roman to type his message. Not that he hadn’t seen it before, as Roman was often the type to write long, and rather detailed, thoughts (or the complete opposite: a simple word or two). But in his frazzled and tired state, this only seemed to grow annoyance the more he thought about it. Logan felt unfamiliar and his friend was typing for way longer than Logan presumed the average to be.

Until, it flashed on the screen that Roman was calling him. Great.

“Logan?”

“Hello, Roman.”

“I have one simple thing to say before we continue with this dull conversation. And I’d like for you to listen, very carefully.”

“Okay…?”

“If you texted me to rant about some sort of chemical compound or math equation that you love… You will have to find a new friend, okay?”

“Roman. Do you truly believe that I am that ignorant? If so, I must have truly failed on representing mysel-”

“Logan.”

“Yes?”

“It is time for a prince’s beauty sleep and I am sacrificing that privilege for you. Get to the point, please!”

“I, uh… Well…”

“Is… Is everything okay, Logan?”

“If you mean physically, I sustain no injuries. However, it seems my mind has gone into a bit of a crisis.”

“Crisis?”

“Yes, it seems that I cannot sleep because of this before said crisis.”

“What exactly do you mean by crisis? What’s happening?”

“I… Well, you know how after every Christmas, my family goes to a Ski Lodge as a tradition? An event occurred on that trip that was seemingly unplanned and has greatly affected my life.”

“This ‘event’ is keeping you up right now?”

“Generally yes, but specifically, a person from this event has integrated themselves into my thoughts when I should be sleeping.”

“A person, huh?”

“That is correct.”

“So, I know you’re purposely being vague, but, Nerdville I kind of need the whole story to understand this dilemma with the said ‘event’ and ‘person’.”

“I do not believe that information is necessary.”

“Well, it seems -dear nerd- that you do not call the shots on this one. Which is ultimately why you came to me. Now describe, go.”

“Well, I was forced into a… function, and within-”

“A party, Logan. Just say party.”

“Ehm. Party. And within this -ahem- party, there was one main attraction that I desired to know of. So, I took a closer look. But, in my fit of observation-”

“Speed it up, Specs.”

“…”

“It was karaoke.”

“Wait, wait, wait. You did karaoke?”

“Well… Yes. Yet, it was unwillingly.”

“Okay, so someone forced you into karaoke on a st-”

“With a spotlight on those chosen.”

“Okay, so?”

“I was chosen for a duet.”

“Yeah, what’s the- Oh. Wait… You had to have a duet partner. ”

“Correct, it is tradition to sing a duet with a duet partne-”

“Don’t even.”

“…”

“Was the duet horrible or something?”

“…No.”

“Well? Frankenstein, I don’t understand why you are texting me at 2 in the morNING- Ahem, what about the karaoke was so traumatizing that has disabled you from exploring the dream realm?”

“Nothing was traumatizing per say, it was quite… dopamine inducing.”

“You know, you could just say delightful. Or wonderful. Or wondrous. Or joyf-”

“I… I loved it, Roman. Singing. It was… nice.”

“Oh.”

“And Patton is wonderful. So very wonderful.”

“Oh.”

“The problem, Roman, is not the singing itself nor is it my duet partner. It’s the unexplainable… feelings.”

“Oh my goodness.”

“I-”

“Oh my goodness!”

“Yo-”

“Logan, do you know what this means?”

“No, of course not. Why would I be aski-”

“Logan. I’ve been waiting for you to understand for 16 years! It’s a miracle!”

“…I’m not sure that I understand.”

“Really? Well, my dear nerdy friend… It seems like you have a bit of a crush.”

“That is a… false claim.”

“You are exhausting you know that, Teach?”

“No, actually I did n-”

“Listen, Meek Geek, the more you deny the worst it will get. The less sleep, the more flush, and the more you feel these things.”

“…Is that proven?”

“‘Course it is! Teenagers all over the world have this problem, everyone I know would tell you the same thing.”

“Do you have evidence?”

“I have a handful of numbers you could call and ask- BUT, that’s not the point Logan! Feelings don’t necessarily have to have a reason, and sometimes things are just unexplainable.”

“…Everything has an explanation, Roman. Surely feelings can be easily expla-”

“Logan, buddy. Relax. You always get so worked up when something new blossoms in your knowledge.”

“…I do n-”

“Logan. Don’t even start with me, I’ve known you since Elementary School. No need to be ashamed.”

“I… Thank you.”

“Alright, now that I know this a problem. I’ll talk about it more tomorrow, okay? Oh, this is the perfect time to tell you that I can be your ride.”

“Roman, you always drive me to school.”

“Well, yes… But I may have forgotten this fact.”

“Of course, you did.”

“Okay, I’m just going to not take that personally.”

“I, somehow, do not believe that statement is true.”

“Shut it, glasses.”

“…”

“I didn’t mean literally ugh- Logan. Listen, I want you to know, I am helping you on this problem more in the morning, alright? I don’t leave a fellow friend behind. But, for now, for you to sleep… Just acknowledge that those feelings are there… Like, objectively. That should help until you sleep all your proper sleep. Just as I will when you hang up!”

“Well, the logical action, if you wanted to sleep would be to han-”

His ears filled with the dull tone, before he had even finished uttering the words. Logan, if it had been anyone else, would’ve been excessively insulted but this was Roman.

Roman Davenport, specifically.

His best friend with that oddly complimented his straightforward, rather harsh, personality. So, after years of friendship, Logan could assume this was a regular occurrence.

His phone flashed for a moment, eyes trailing off to the slim screen without thought.

I will talk to you in the morning, Logan. See you then!

Logan scoffed, knowing that this was halfway expected of Roman at this point. (Although, he seemed very… popular at school, Roman tended to cycle through friends a lot. Except for Logan. So, he took some extra precautions.)

His mind was still buzzing, a rather soft hum of words echoing in his thoughts. Academics, school the next day, Roman, and Patton. Patton, Patton, Patton. I may never see Patton in person again. I may never feel those things again. Not with-

Logan’s thoughts were halted by the soft ding of his phone, the screen lighting his darkened room for a second or two. To say Logan had grabbed his phone quickly was a severe understatement, because it was within his hands in milliseconds (if he calculated correctly.)

Logan’s heart raced in his chest, as the familiar face stayed framed on his screen. His eyes flashing to the message without a second thought.

Patton: Hey! I know it’s late. I just wanted to tell you that I was a bit busy and not to worry!!!

Logan had a message typed out, before he could truly debate the idea and sent it with the reflex of his finger.

Logan: I don’t believe this is your normal sleep schedule, is something troubling you?

Well…

I’m kind of going to a new school, and I’m just nervous about making friends and the new area.

I’m just scared is all.

Well, if it is any consolation you are very charismatic, and a “people person.”

Thanks, Lo! That means a lot to me right now.

If your classmates don’t enjoy your presence, that is their ignorance, Patton.

That’s really sweet, Logan.

It is the truth.

Gosh.

I wish I went to the same school as you.

That would be satisfactory.

It would, it really, really would.

I’d like to think we could go places together a lot, like cafes and libraries and gosh, I’m just getting ahead of myself.

I would like that.

Maybe one day we could meet up then. If you like the idea.

That would also be favorable.

You’re so kind Lo-Lo, I really wanna see you again.

Logan felt his heart flutter in his chest, and almost had to bite back the confusing mix of reactions to these feelings. (He’d have to research it later.)

Patton, I have a question. As you know, I do a lot of research and I just wanted to ask you about your personal reasoning.

Okay? Did I say something to upset you? If I did, I’m so so so so sorry!

No, no Patton. You could never upset me, besides the idea you’ve prepared is quite pleasant. I am just curious about your choices.

Alrighty, that’s good! So what is your question, Detective? :P

It is fairly simple, despite my mind accumulating diverse questions before.

That’s okay! I’m probably better off with simple, lol.

Why me?

That text was the last, before his phone’s screen shut off, letting the only light in the room fade to the harsh darkness.

Logan’s lips parted, a jolt of fear rushing underneath his skin. Muttering to himself slightly, his hands fell to defeat beside his head and Logan was sent into an unforgettable wave of emotions that he couldn’t quite grasp.

I can text Patton in the morning, Logan reassured himself, he isn’t that quick to judge. I hope.

With a swift movement, his phone was on the charger and Logan had one step in silencing his mind.

Logan closed his eyes, gently (as he found facial relaxation further pursues the whole body to follow its path), and carefully emptied his mind of his tedious thoughts.

Except for a single, familiar melody that lulled him to sleep.

“The start of something new.”

∆ ∆ ∆

Logan woke up to his echoing alarm, as his parents must have already been sent on their way. (His mother was looking into nursing, and his Dad (the school principal) actually had meeting that morning.)

So, Logan was up 2 hours earlier than actually required, not for himself though. His best friend, Roman, tended to take way longer than Logan would present him with (something about how “a prince has got to slay”). Due to many tests, Logan concluded that him getting up 2 hours earlier and going from there is the most successful route.

He quickly grabbed the outfit, previously displayed after his dinner yesterday, and slipped it on. The whole process sounded speedy, but Logan learned to only accept perfection (in regards to himself).

In turn, Logan was a hypocrite.

As his dressing schedule, usually consisted of buttoning every button correctly (sometimes even ironing his shirt) and perfecting every strand of hair.

Which took Logan about 45 minutes and 34 seconds on a good day, but days that were expected to be stressful, Logan took more time to compensate.

Sadly, he never accounted for Roman having a bad day.

***

It started simple, as Logan was lacing up his shoes and briskly making his way to the toaster for his breakfast. (He found it’s simplicity to be absolutely delicious.)

Pulling out the Crofters jar and the proper utensils, Logan hovered over to the kitchen and carefully made his breakfast without a single fault.

Well, until he checked his phone.

He had the plate ready, the jam prepared, and the bread in the toaster… when his phone buzzed in his front button-up pocket. And at the proportion of silly puzzle games to not, Logan figured it was a meaningless notification.

Which it was, but he hadn’t checked his phone all morning.

Logan’s mind latched onto the text messages that shined steadily on his screen, the stamp reading that of 1:30 am.

Patton: Lo, you mean the world to me!!!💙 I thought you knew that.

Patton: I didn’t mean to scare you off. I sure hope I didn’t, but I’m sorry if I did. :(

Patton: Goodnight, I guess.

Logan’s heart constricted in his chest, a heavy feeling weighing into his chest. This, he noted, this was new. He surprisingly didn’t feel the urge to record these new feelings, but still planned too… eventually.

He carefully typed out a few words, (possibly muttering them through his head a few times, for educational purposes only, of course). Thoughts blossoming in his head carefully, as surprisingly anxious thoughts filled his brain.

Patton, I wanted to apologize for my absence of responses. My phone had insufficient battery and lost power. I was not avoiding you or anything of the sort, and wanted to clarify that.

Logan gnawed on his lip, his fingers hovering over his screen gently and nerves making his mind question his own wor-

Ding!

Logan shook his thoughts, slipping into the regular routine of breakfast. Fluidly moving from the toaster to the plate, to swiping the jam and just a smidge of butter. (It was oddly relieving to distract his mind from the previous task.)

Until the thing you were distracting yourself from lights up your phone screen again.

Patton: Oh, thank goodness! I felt so bad. So, you’re okay now right?

Yes, Patton. I am perfectly fine, I’m actually making myself my preferred breakfast at the moment.

And what is your “preferred” breakfast?

Well, it is rather simple. Toast, heated for 65 seconds exactly, topped with a smooth ¼ a tablespoon of margarine and ¾ a tablespoon of Crofters jam.

With some “OJ” to compliment the meal.

That sounds good! I’m glad you’re eating breakfast, Lo. You know what they say, it’s the best meal of the day! ☀️🌥🌈

Is everything alright with you? I know you were troubled last night/this morning, and wanted to assure you’d be alright.

I’m a bit nervous, but that’s pretty natural for a new student. But, I’m surprisingly okay compared to last night!

That is satisfactory.

I actually have to go now, Lo. But I’d love to plan a meeting soon! If you’d like…

I would enjoy that, Patt. I’d be up for anything, as long as it is deemed appropriate.

Of course! I’ll make plans 🌈 💙

Can’t wait to talk later !!! :p

Logan smiled lightly, eyes skimming over the profile picture and flashing back to the ski lodge, with the songs, beautiful curls, and-

“NERDY WOLVERINE-” Roman’s voice thundered through his hallways, “-I NEED MY COFFEE, AND I SWEAR TO GOD IF I DON’T GET IT.”

Logan took one last glance at the messages, before sprinting up and dashing to the door, “I’m coming, Roman.”

This was going to be a long day.

#hsm sanders sides au #watchoutwriting #ts logicality

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braham-is-bi · 5 years

Text

Well I guess it’s my turn to post my opinions on the GW2 stuff since everyone is doing it.

The Good

I cannot tell you all how beyond excited I am about more Charr and Norn stuff. I might vibrate into a new dimension

Rytlock is a fan fave and it’ll be great to get more content for him

Braham is my husband and I’m weeping tears of joy about more content for him

The amount of stuff they’re implementing to help new people experience more of the game??? Is so awesome???

Like HoT now being a part of PoF makes it so much more affordable holy cow

And the mini raids are a great idea because I am baby and scared of big raids. Now me and all the other fools can get together and learn how to be not as scared of raids

Personally I love snowy areas in video games so this expansion is right up my alley

Jormag fulfills my voice kink

THE FUNKO POPS??? ARE SO??? CUTE?????

And come with codes to give us in game miniatures I cannot wait to have tiny bobblehead Aurene follow me around

The new Charr in Rytlock’s story had a new face. Which means maybe new appearance updates for the Charr and the Norn???

Everyone they interviewed seemed super excited about what they’re working on which really leads me to believe this is gonna be some good story stuff

Bless them for putting literally the entire game soundtrack up somewhere that I can listen to it (it’s a pity I gotta pay for it but still. that’s so much music hell yeah)

Thrilled to see their monster designs are still as good as ever. 10/10 want to give the new world boss tummy scritches.

They didn’t decide to reuse old maps like they were thinking about thank god.

They said they have 4 teams working on different things now? Which means they can stagger updates between teams to give everyone more time and also give us the players less downtime between the updates this season? Hopefully?

The Bad

It was a pretty sparse update for something they hyped so much.

This is the first time since s1&2 that we’ve gotten a second season without an expac in between. So far it doesn’t seem like this season/sage will make up for no expac

It definitely needs to be said that they lost 1/4 of their staff before this season and I’m pretty sure a good chunk of their senior members. This hasn’t affected the quality of the work from what we can see, but it’s definitely affected the quantity

They did say something about this season giving us expac level content with this season a while back. It doesn’t look like that was true, but maybe the whole point behind calling it a saga was so they could work over a longer time period?

No new elite specs. I think having that alone would have really satisfied a lot of people (I know I would have been pretty happy about it)

People who are out there saying “dead game lol” are full of shit but I’m worried that GW2 might not be able to keep up with other popular mmos right now? Mainly FF14 comes to mind

New masteries seem like they’re going to be useful only on the maps they’re released in which is...eh.

If they talked about all the content they’re releasing and aren’t keeping anything secret, I really don’t think it’ll be enough to keep my interest (personally).

All in all my ending emotion on the stream was “I loved every word they said, I just wish they’d said more words.” Everything they showed us looked amazing to me. And I’m not angry at the devs for not giving “enough content” considering this is the first real update made entirely by the post layoff team. But I’m definitely a little disappointed at how bare this season seems at first look.

But this was also only a glance into the new season that hasn’t even been released yet. I would never want the game to fail and I will happily eat my words if the devs prove me wrong with the first few episodes.

EDIT: I’ve been told the event was actually free to go to! Marked my list accordingly.

#guild wars 2 #the icebrood saga #lws5 #long post #we'll just have to wait and see in the end #but here's my two cents on it all #gw2

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tonystarkficrecs · 5 years

Note

Hey, i hate to bother you again, but have you seen endgame yet? Also do you have any really happy fics?

I have!! I’ll be doing my best to avoid spoiling anything for anyone and I’ll make another post about it, but if/when I rec any fics containing Endgame spoilers, I’ll be using the tags #endgame and #endgame spoilers.

I’m putting the recs under a cut because this list grew really huge really fast (19 fics!!). They’re the happiest, fluffiest ones I can remember reading (and if that’s not enough, check out the fluff tag for more!).

The (Not So) Great Pretender by RayShippouUchiha

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Words: 19,585

Pairing: James “Bucky” Barnes/Tony Stark

Completed: Yes

“What,” Tony says softly but with a great depth of feeling, “the actual fuck just happened?”

“I believe, Sir,” JARVIS pipes up from the phone in his pocket, an unnecessary amount of what sounds like glee in his voice, “that you’ve once again managed to maintain your closely guarded secret identity. Truly your subterfuge skills know no bounds.“

“You’re an asshole J,” Tony mutters back as he reaches up to rub at his temple. He either has a headache coming on or a blood clot. At this point he’s honestly not sure which he’d prefer.

“I did learn from the best, Sir,” JARVIS tells him sunnily.

i babysat god and he stabbed me with a fork by surveycorpsjean

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Words: 11,395

Pairing: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange

Completed: Yes

If these two idiots don’t sort out their shit real soon, Loki is going to stab everyone in this room and then himself.

What I Need I Just Don’t Have by gyzym

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Words: 2,199

Pairing: James Rhodes/Tony Stark

Complete: Yes

If you want this choice position, have a cheery disposition. (Or: Tony needs an assistant. Rhodey needs a break.)

Phil Coulson’s Case Files of the Toasterverse by scifigrl47

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Words: 287,890 (series)

Pairing: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (+various other pairings)

Completed: No (most works in series completed)

Short stories from the Toasterverse, because the author gets panicky writing long form stories built around plot and has to finish something in order to function.

Phil has problems with these people. So does the Author.

Late Nights and Bare Bottoms by Shi_Toyu

★ ★ ★ ★

Words: 1,947

Pairing: James “Bucky” Barnes/Tony Stark

Completed: Yes

Tony stared down at the gingerbread cookies that’d been placed on the edge of the work station. It’d been the smell that’d drawn him out of his tunnel vision. He didn’t normally smell gingerbread in the middle of August. He blinked hazily, but the plate of cookies didn’t disappear. They were still warm, too, when he picked one up and bit into it.

God, and delicious. He moaned and stuffed the rest of the cookie into his mouth, already reaching for another one.

“You like them.”

Tony nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Bucky’s voice, but in a flat tone. The super soldier loomed behind his chair, hair a tangled mess and face completely blank. He was dressed in Clint’s ‘I love to rub my meat’ apron and what appeared to be nothing else.

“Uhhh… yes?”

don’t know why it took me so long to see by goodmorningbeloved

★ ★ ★ ★

Words: 11,209

Pairing: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

Completed: Yes

“Oh, watch this,” Natasha says, propping her chin against her knuckles and turning a sweet gaze on him. “Tony, what’s it like dating a superhero?”

Tony bristles in irritation. “We’re not dating,” he snaps. “Captain America probably thinks he can get into anyone’s pants just ‘cause he’s got a mask, costume, and reputation, but not me, buddy. That shield? Gotta be overcompensating for something.” He adds, a bit petulantly, “Oh, and all that blue? Definitely more Steve’s color than his.”

-In which Tony is a genius in all matters except recognizing his boyfriend past a mask.

No, He’s Your Son by orphan_account

★ ★ ★ ★

Words: 1,420

Pairing: Gen (pre Tony Stark/Stephen Strange)

Completed: Yes

peter, on the phone: dad i forgot my homework can you drop it off in the seminar hall it’s empty don’t worry

strange: ok

strange, walking out of a portal into a hall filled with students:

peter, loudly: EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM OWES ME FIVE DOLLARS I TOLD YOU MY DAD WAS A WIZA-

may the fourth by irnan

★ ★ ★ ★

Words: 1,762

Pairing: Gen

Completed: Yes

So there’s this project Tony has been working on since he was ten years old which is only marginally less awesome than the specs for the TARDIS he totally could have built if Fury would’ve just let him had the Tesseract for a couple hours longer.

Peter Parker’s Step-By-Step Guide to Get These Two Dumbasses to Kiss Already by everythingsace

★ ★ ★ ★

Words: 3,781

Pairing: James Rhodes/Tony Stark

Complete: Yes

Rhodes was on the floor, his legs pulled up beside him, and Mr. Stark was kneeling down beside him, asking questions and checking if he was okay.With the biggest heart-eyes he’d ever seen.Peter’s jaw dropped as he stared, his eyes turning to Rhodes, only to realize that he had the doe eyes, too. Not quite as bad and obvious, but holy shit.Holy shit.

Tony Stark is the Alyssa Milano by Akira_of_the_Twilight

★ ★ ★

Words: 1,388

Pairing: Peter Quill/Tony Stark

Complete: Yes

Prompt: Starkquill where somehow Drax was the first one to notice that Tony and Peter were into each other, but he’s been around humans for a while now and he understands that if you tell them things directly they’ll just do the opposite and ruin everything for everyone, so he’s going to get them together using… metaphors

“Kidnapped, enjoys space, likes your music, and can dance,” Drax listed off.

Peter grinned. “Yeah, pretty cool dude. I might actually miss him by the time we get him back to Earth.”

For a man who had been in search of a partner for as long as Drax had known him, Drax was surprised that Peter was unable to see his perfect match right before him.

Earthlings could be quite stupid sometimes.

Rocket Science by marsmaywander and orbingarrow

★ ★ ★ ★

Words: 12,094

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Tony Stark

Completed: Yes

Sleep-deprived and under-caffeinated, grad student Tony falls asleep in a conveniently empty classroom and wakes up in the middle of Bruce’s Physics 101 course. After seeing a groggy Tony fumble a simple question, actual-student Bucky offers to tutor him. In a moment of “oh no; he’s cute” panic, Tony takes him up on it. Now, in addition to his already complicated life, Tony has to figure out the answer to the incredibly messy question: “How do you look like you’re failing the class, when you literally wrote the book?”

i stole the keys to this guy by kellifer_fic

★ ★ ★ ★

Words: 6,007

Pairing: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

Completed: Yes

Where it was Nick Fury’s idea, but he didn’t mean it like that.

The Tongues of Men and Angels by copperbadge

★ ★ ★ ★

Words: 2,369

Pairing: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark

Completed: Yes

Extremis has a few unexpected benefits.

Pint-Sized Parker by flyingonfeatherlesswings

★ ★ ★

Words: 3,636

Pairing: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange

Completed: Yes

Tony is called away from a meeting to deal with a now toddler-aged Peter Parker, who went snooping around in Stephen Strange’s spells.

carpool introductions by sapphirestark

★ ★ ★

Words: 2,401

Pairing: Gen

Completed: Yes

“It’s - it’s nice to meet you too, Colonel Rhodes, sir. I’m Peter. Uh, Parker.”

“I heard.” Rhodey smiled. Well, teenage Tony had certainly never been this polite. “Just call me Rhodey, kid.”

“O-okay, Rhodey.” Peter’s timid smile transformed into a grin. Rhodey decided he would definitely rub that in Clint’s face the next time he claimed Rhodey wasn’t good with kids.

“Are you kidding me?” Tony interrupted from the driver’s seat. “He’s Rhodey after two minutes and you’re still calling me ’Mr Stark’?”

Angry Genius White Noise by copperbadge

★ ★ ★

Words: 520

Pairing: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts

Complete: Yes

One of Pepper’s favorite activities after a long day is putting on sci-fi movies and watching Tony dissect their bad science. He’ll happily spend two hours curled up against her and ranting about the flawed central plan in Armageddon and how REALLY, HE HOPES AN ASTEROID HEADS FOR EARTH, HE’LL SHOW HOLLYWOOD HOW TO REALISTICALLY AVOID AN EXTINCTION-LEVEL EVENT, DAMMIT. Pepper finds it oddly relaxing, like angry genius white noise. Add in Bruce, and she could sell tickets.

The More You Know by Nokomis

★ ★ ★

Words: 2,457

Pairing: Gen

Completed: Yes

Peter’s first post-mission Avengers hang out goes about as well as one would expect.

home is where the science is by IntrovertedOwl

★ ★ ★

Words: 2,566

Pairing: Gen

Completed: Yes

Tony wasn’t jealous.

The very idea was ridiculous. Laughable. Absurd.

In fact, he was pleased.

Yes, that’s what he was. Pleased. And a little smug.

But the Best of Men by lusilly

★ ★ ★

Words: 2,113

Pairing: Gen

Completed: Yes

In which Tony introduces a fifteen-year-old boy to Steve, and Steve is touched that Tony would introduce him to his son.

(Except he’s not Tony’s son, he’s the newest Avenger, and Tony’s just completely oblivious to how parental he’s become.)

#fic rec list #fanfic #marvel #avengers #tony stark #fluff #tony/happiness

110 notes · View notes

softanxiouspatton · 5 years

Text

[Patton-centric] Sunshine Songs

[No warnings that I know of, just pure fluff! Enjoy!]

There was one thing everyone knew about Patton. He couldn't deny it. He didn't even try.

His enthusiasm and happiness was contagious.

Whenever he laughed, the other sides couldn't help but smile (outwardly or inwardly, they all always felt more positive). He was just a very positive person. He enjoyed joking and playing about with the others and of course, he liked to sing.

Though as the others began to realise, it became more apparent that Patton only sang properly when the others did. (The uncomfortable singing was just that. He was trying to distract himself. Does not count.)

Virgil was the one who pointed it out to the other two.

"... do you two notice that Patton doesn't sing out loud unless someone sings first?"

Logan stopped typing and Roman stopped doodling. They all had been in common room (aka the mindscapes version of Thomas' living room) while Patton was away with Thomas (he'd seen a dog and did not want to miss out).

"I believe I hadn't fully noticed that. Now that you mention it Virgil, that does seem to be true." Said Logan. Roman nodded.

"Yeah. Pat always joins in with me but never starts by himself." Said Roman, frowning a little.

"I mean, he hums a lot but I've never heard him sing alone." Said Virgil, shrugging and unsure what to say. "I wonder why. I mean he's a lovely singer." Said Roman.

"Maybe it's different for him in some sense. Roman when do you sing?" Asked Logan. Roman raised an eyebrow.

"Most of the time it's when Disney is on my mind or something great happened especially if I created something excellent. So basically most of the time." Said Roman. Logan nodded, taking in the information. "Okay and why? Why do you sing?" He asked.

"Uh to express myself? Because it makes me happy? I'm relaxed? Lots of reasons. I just like to sing." Said Roman. "People don't just have a reason to sing. We sing because we can!"

Virgil rolled his eyes amused as Roman dramatically threw his arms out. Logan pushed up his glasses.

"Singing is a creative outlet. It's also an emotional one. I suppose you sing for your creative outlet. Patton likely only sings with his emotions are high." Theorized Logan. Virgil shook his head.

"L, we've all seen Patton with his emotions high. He was not singing during those times." Said Virgil. Logan furrowed his eyebrows. "Ah. Yes. You're right. Hmm I'll have to think this through some more." Said Logan.

"Maybe he just prefers to sing to himself? Or our singing is what spurs him on?" Suggested Roman. Virgil shrugged. "Maybe. Who knows."

"You won't believe how cute that dog was!"

Virgil flinched in surprise and they all saw Patton rise up into the common room. Roman chuckled. "Fluffy and adorable?" Inquired Roman. Patton squealed.

"Yes! How did you know?!"

Virgil chuckled as Patton gushed about the dog, thoughts of his singing pushed to the back of his mind.

"Roman have you seen-" Virgil was cut off by the loud music that hit him as he entered. He found Roman dancing about, singing at the top of his lungs.

"If you like it then you should've put a ring on it!~"

Virgil watched silently as Roman sang through the entire song (and dance the entire choreography which was… impressive). He grinned when it finished.

"Wow Roman I didn't know you knew the dance too."

Roman spun around, face bright red as he catches sight of Virgil.

"You tell no one." Said Roman, pointing at Virgil. Virgil snickered. "Alright. Alright. No promises though. I was just going to ask if you've seen Patton?" Said Virgil.

Roman relaxed and shook his head. "Nope. Maybe Logan has? Why don't we ask him? I was just about to go find Pat." Said Roman. Virgil shrugged. "Sure, let's go." Said Virgil.

They left Roman's room, heading for Logan's room until they bumped into him in the hall.

"Oh Virgil, Roman. Salutations. Do you two know where Patton is?" Asked Logan. Virgil and Roman looked at each other before looking back at Logan.

"We were just about to ask you the same thing Specs." Said Roman. Logan blinked in surprise. "Oh. Well that is not overly helpful I suppose. Have you checked his room? I was about to check." Asked Logan. Virgil shook his head.

"Nope. First place I looked. I suppose he might be in the common room?" Suggested Virgil. "Oh yes. He did mention about doing some "spring cleaning" as he put it." Said Logan.

"Well what are we waiting for?! Let's go find Patton!" Exclaimed Roman.

They all walked down and heard music. They all stopped and looked at each other before all of them peeked into the common room. It was nearing the end of the song and they could see Patton dancing about, broom in hand.

"I'm on sunshine baby oh! I'm walking on sunshine wooooah~! I'm walking on sunshine oooh! I'm walking on sunshine wooooaaaah! And don't it feel good!"

Patton's voice rang loudly in the room as he sang to his heart's content, bopping his head and spinning the broom. His hair was all messed up and his glasses were a little askew on his nose.

The three sides couldn't help the smiles on their faces. Soon another song started playing and Patton squealed, dropping the broom.

"Oh Mickey you're so fine, you're so fine, you blow my mind, Hey Mickey!"

Roman covered his mouth and the other two stared as Patton full on began to dance about, singing loudly. Patton pointed to random parts of the room, pretending he was singing to an audience as he danced.

"Oh Mickey, what a pity you don't understand! You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand!"

Patton had a large smile on his face, hands clasping over his chest as he shimmied about.

"Oh Mickey you're so pretty, can't you understand! It's guys like you Mickey! Oh what you do Mickey- Do Mickey! Don't break my heart Mickey!"

Patton danced as if he knew the moves off by heart. He spun around, expression happy and joyful.

"Hey Mickey- eeek!"

Patton squealed as he noticed all of them, the door having slowly opened fully as they had watched.

"How- How long have you been standing there!" Squealed Patton as he hurriedly tried to switch the radio off.

"Since near the end of the previous song. So I'd say around three or four minutes." Answered Logan. Patton blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. "So you all saw…" Mumbled Patton embarrassed.

"By great Odin's eyepatch! That was incredible Patton! Where did you learn to dance like that!?" Exclaimed Roman. Patton squeaked. "Uh thank you! And um no one? I made the dance up" Said Patton shyly. Roman gasped.

"You mean to say that those were your own moves!? Patton you've been holding out on us! On me!" Exclaimed Roman. Virgil shook his head amused.

"Why have you been holding back from singing alone in front of us Pat?" Asked Virgil. Patton smiled sheepishly and shrugged. "I dunno. I just get so emotionally into a song that I guess I was just… shy." Said Patton.

"Well you don't need to be with us! You're amazing!" Exclaimed Roman, running over and picking Patton up. He spun them around and Patton squealed. "Haha Roman!"

Logan quirked a small smile. "Roman is quite correct with his statement. There's no need to feel shy with us." Said Logan. Virgil nodded. Patton smiled as Roman put him down.

"Thanks you three. The same goes to all of you as well! We should all be honest and open with each other!" Said Patton. Virgil grinned and Roman paled at it.

"About that, you'll never believe that I saw Roman-"

"Virgil don't you dare-"

"-dancing the entire choreography to Single Ladies!"

Patton squealed as Roman turned red. "Roman! That's impressive!" Exclaimed Patton. "Thank you Patton…" Said Roman smiling. "Could you teach me?! We could dance together!" Asked Patton. Roman grinned. "That's a great idea! I'd love to!" Exclaimed Roman.

"Yay!"

Virgil and Logan chuckled.

Back to whatever normal they had.

18 notes · View notes

afterspark-podcast · 4 years

Text

G1 Episode 28: Transcript

Episode Show Notes

[This can also be found on AO3!]

[Stinger]

S: Okay, it's not actually a saber, it's a short saber, but-

O: Oh, yes, because that makes it better!

[Into Music]

O: Hello, and welcome to the Afterspark Podcast, an episode by episode recap of the Generation 1 Transformers cartoon. I'm Owls!

S: And I'm Specs!

O: Today we're gonna be talking about episode 28: The Master Builder. Let's talk about giant robots today, shall we?

S: Sure. So we open with Powerglide, ace of the air, flying through the sky.

O: Skywarp fires on him with Starscream following close behind.

S: Now here's our main characters for this episode: Hoist and Grapple. They build stuff.

O: Theoretically. How much stuff have they been able to build during a war, exactly?

S: That is the question. Very much so.

O: Not enough, probably. [laughs]

S: Yeah. Grapple is an orange and yellow crane and Hoist as a boxy, green tow truck who sounds, you know, slightly like Shakespeare.

O: Dinobot called, he'd like his shtick back.

S: They're building a model for a solar power tower to uh, harness the power of the Sun.

O: It sparkles.

S: Yaaaayyyyy [softly]

O: Sparkle, sparkle, sparkle.

S: Then they wheel their little model over to the main room to show Optimus.

O: Who is played basketball with Spike.

S: And, somehow, not completely murdering him or accidentally committing manslaughter which, you know, always a good thing.

O: Yeah. He is still getting the lingo, though, as he calls it “drooling” instead of “dribbling”.

S: Well, he’s attempting it.

O: He's trying. Dad- dad-bot’s trying.

S: Yup.

O: Dadimus prime, if you will. [Laughter]

S: When Hoist and Grapple enter the room, Optimus does the Optimus equivalent of “think fast!” and tosses the ball at Spike, who, when he catches it, you know just-

O: Falls over.

S: -Falls over.

O: [Laughter] They attempt to sell Prime on their tower idea but he doesn't approve because it could cause problems if it fell into Decepticon hands.

S: It's a valid point.

O: It is. Uh, so while this is going on Teletraan-1 declares condition ‘magenta’ because Powerglide has been shot down.

S: Do you think that's a Powerglide specific, you know, condition or something, or is just specific for that type of Decepticon attack? Any Autobot being shot down?

O: We don't know. I don't know if they'll ever use this again. Somehow, I doubt it. Grapple, however, is dejected by Prime's react- rejection. Uh, they are sent to Powerglide’s location to fix him up.

S: So both, um, Hoist and Grapple only have one hand. They- they really, really need to be working together.

O: There’s only two hands between them. And poor Grapple wonders if he shouldn't just give up on building things and become a grease monkey.

S: Poor dude. Powerglide is able to take off again after, you know, the two guys work on him and get him up and running and then, um, our two trucks are two, uh, two trucks head back to base via a canyon.

O: They stop and chat about, you know, their mutual disappointment but are overheard by a sneaky Scrapper.

S: Wait. No, no, it's just all the Constructicons sneaking on them.

O: All of them! And poor Grapple is the saddest crane in the world.

S: He's so dejected, man. Hoist does not like the vibrations in this location and suggests rolling out before, you know, they spot the Constructicons.

O: You know, lending credence to, they probably should have left before they spotted the Constructicons. Scavenger knocks a boulder in front of them to block their exit before they can escape, though, so… eh?

S: And then Mixmaster seals their other exit with concrete.

O: That's gotta be some really fast setting concrete.

S: He's a chemist.

O: [Laughter]

S: He can presumably do that shit.

O: See, this is what I'm talking about, though. The Decepticons just need to patent half their shit. They'll make enough money, they could buy a power plant or something.

S: Yes, but that would be too sane and logical.

O: Again, they should just listen to Soundwave. You cannot tell me Soundwave hasn't had this thought.

S: Yeah but they probably have to purchase through a company but let's- let’s-

O: [laughs] Moving on! Or heading to commercial.

S: Yeah, as the two- as the two Autobots are buried in a landslide caused by Bonecrusher, um-

O: Don't worry, they're mostly fine. The Constructicons just wanted to talk, apparently.

S: Ah, the relations between the factions.

O: You know, that's a totally normal thing that Decepticons just want to talk.

S: Mm-hmm.

O: But with the amount of time Megatron shows up at their base wanting to talk, maybe I shouldn't make that joke. [laughter] Eh?

S: So the Constructicons say that they've left Megatron and they want to help Grapple and Hoist build this solar power tower that they have literally just heard about.

O: Yes. Megatron and Starscream are watching this at the Decepticon base by way of a hidden camera that's inside of a rock, though.

S: How did the Decepticons know to place that camera there?

O: I don't know. I'm so confused how that camera got there. It would be one thing if Laserbeak was spying on them but I don't even think it was that. Like, I’m pretty sure it’s a camera that pops out of a rock.

S: It's absurd. This show is absurd. Starscream continues to be a blazing hypocrite as he starts screeching about the “Traitors!!” but Megatron says to leave them to him.

O: Hoist and Grapple are definitely tempted, but the Constructicons offer proof of their good intentions by letting them go.

S: Which, I don't know how much I'd believe that after being, you know, buried under a pile of rocks but I guess they weren't any worse for wear.

O: I mean, they are giant robots. Maybe that's equivalent of being pushed into a sandbox, for all we know. [Laughter]

S: Maybe, oh god. So, Meg- when the Constructicons show up, Megatron proceeds to give them shit, but they manage to convince him that they were doing it just to get the solar power tower. They’re- they're tricking them.

O: I mean, seems legit. The Constructicons do need to offer further proof to Grapple and Hoist, though. so Megatron's like, “Then you must give them my most precious possession!” before laughing maniacally. So Starscream's aft, then? [Laughter]

S: [Softly] His-his Optimus Prime clone?

O: [Laughter] His Optimus Prime blow-up doll, you say?

S: [Laughter]

O: Ehh… how many of those does he got? Really, I want to know.

S: Costumes.

O: Costumes. That copy of him he had floating around. The clone he had made. [Laughter]

S: Yeah, there's so many options.

O: Yeah, I just- why? Why? I know why, but why? [Laughter]

S: The Constructicons return to Grapple and Hoist with, you know, metric fuckton of Energon in tow. You know, I think probably in Longhaul’s bed because poor Longhaul is just the hauler-monkey.

O: I’m still weirded out that this is his most precious possession. Like, if nothing else shouldn’t it be his fusion cannon, or something?

S: He cares more about food than anything else, I guess.

O: I mean, okay, not starving is important. I don't know, it's still weird.

S: Yeah, I don’t know. But, no, this is enough Energon to build Grapple’s Tower!

O: Grapple is now the happiest crane in the world.

S: He's a very- a very trusting dude.

O: Yeah. The Constructicons burst into a construction site and steal a bunch of building materials.

S: And here you see a human with a sense of self-preservation.

O: He doesn't argue with the giant robots stealing stuff. Smart man.

S: I think he just tears up the blueprints while crying.

O: He does! He does! He’s like, “Heargh...” [Laughter]

S: Poor guy. And so work begins on the tower.

O: But back at the Ark, Optimus is playing basketball with folks more to his scale, as Spike coaches them from the sidelines.

S: That's much safer, Spike.

O: Much. [Laughter]

S: And oh hey, Tracks is here!

O: And then immediately injured while playing basketball, may we remind you, and Prime says it’s time for a checkup.

S: But apparently Hoist hasn't been around much lately.

O: Gee, I wonder why?

S: He's off having an affair with the Constructicons, with Grapple, and it's... gonna be awkward.

O: Very. Meanwhile, back with our illegal Tower, the Constructicons are stroking the fuck out of Grapple’s ego.

S: Yep and due to the fact that Hoist is- Hoist and Grapple are missing, Powerglide has been sent out to find them. And find them he does, and their little construction site. And this little tete-a-tete-

O: [Laughter]

S: [Laughter] With the uh, Constructicons.

O: Their little home away from home, if you know what I mean. [Laughter]

S: Yeah.

O: And then Megs- wow, I'm reading the entirely wrong section. I'm serious, why am I miss-reading all the parts? Umm, [clears throat] Powerglide relays this back to Prime.

S: Who then says, “Code Blue.” Which, I mean, what the fuck does that mean?

O: Consorting with the enemy?

S: We’re- we're learning so much about the color codes- coding system today and nothing makes sense.

O: No, it doesn't. Construction vehicles fly through the air as the Constructicons form Devastator.

S: This is to, like, put the finishing touch on the tower. And then Megatron shows up and shoots both Grapple and Hoist, who were just like, “Ah, we're betrayed.”

O: [Singing] Did we mention we're betrayed?

S: Yeah. Megatron does call their tower magnificent, though.

O: Is it just me, or does he really seem to appreciate well bit- built shit?

S: What's not to appreciate about well built shit?

O: I mean, you've got a point. [Laughter]

S: Cutting to the Autobots, we see Optimus leading the charge, with a group of Autobots in tow. With Spike riding shotgun in Prime's cab.

O: Because that's always a good idea. Ah, the Autobots shoot at the tower, a fight ensues.

S: The Constructicons reform Devastator in order to fight the Autobots.

O: Devastator now shoots eye beams.

S: Let's just give all of these robots more powers when it's convenient, I guess.

O: Remember, kids, when you're playing with your Devastator toy he can attack with eye beams.

S: After you've bought all six of the Constructicons. So you got to get all six of them to have Devastator, remember, kids.

O: You don't want him to be missing an arm, or a head, or any legs now, would you?

S: Or the torso.

O: Well, they couldn't really connect there was no torso so I was going with their limbs, but yes.

S: That's true but, I mean, you can stick all of them in a potato. [Laughter]

O: Welcome to the world's weirdest Mr. Potato Head. Mr. Potato Head Constructor- Devastator. I- wait, he needs a better name but-but, Potate-dader or some- Potato-nader?

S: Devas-tater?

O: Devas-tator? Yes. [Laughter]

S: Devas-tater, god, with a hyphen. Okay, so Cliffjumper attempts to shoot his, ah, patented glass gas but it's just slapped away.

O: Megatron then pulls some binoculars out of his boobs to get a closer look at what's going on.

S: Titty-noculars?

O: At least they're not titty guns, I guess?

S: How- I mean, why doesn't he use these-?

O: Ever again? Because we know what we're watching.

S: Powerglide it takes to the air but is met with Ramjet, who's almost immediately knocked out by Devastator, because Powerglide, if nothing else, is at least good at maneuvering.

O: True and then we have Warpath, wham-powing with his way into battle.

S: Smokescreen then gets Devastator's attention and gets him to kick the tower by, I think, using his patented smokescreen thing?

O: Or being like, “Nananananana, I’m over here.” Something like that.

S: Yeah.

O: But Prime narrates this the entire time.

S: It really seems like Smokescreen shouldn't need to be told what to do.

O: He didn't, but the kids did.

S: That is an accurate-

O: The Autobots shoot Devastator who falls onto the remains of the tower, and then it explodes.

S: Megatron is very disappointed in this. He didn't- I mean, he- the guy didn't even do anything to get the tower, aside from turn up afterwards, but you know.

O: He's upper management, Specs, he takes credit for everything, remember?

S: True.

O: [Laughter]

S: Oh and don't worry, all the Constructicons are perfectly fine, despite the exploding tower because it totally exploded.

O: The Autobots dig through the rubble to find Hoist and Grapple, who are also perfectly fine, albeit a little Han Solo’d at the moment. Like, they look like they're frozen in carbonite.

S: Yeah, yeah that's pretty... yeah.

O: [Laughter]

S: But don't worry, Brawn punches them to freedom.

O: Ah, yes, we found another good use for Brawn. Grapple and Hoist apologize which Optimus accepts immediately, unlike when Grimlock apologizes about a good 90 percent of the time.

S: [Sighs] But he does punish them. And their punishment is to go clean up the mess they made, all by themselves.

O: Everyone heads back towards home.

S: Grapple picks up what remains of this original model which, I guess, he took there?

O: He must have.

S: Yeah. He and Hoist uh, commiserate a little before they, too, head out.

O: Including tossing the model on top of the scrap heap to deal with later.

S: Avoidance. It’s a tactic.

O: That's where our episode cuts, so join us next time for bugs! Bugs! BUGS!! Big bugs!!! Also, mind control.

S: So much mind control.

O: So much mind control. I believe we have some fic recommendations for today?

S: Yes, we do. Ok, so our first recommendation for today is “Waiting for a World to Rebuild” by Caius. It's in the G1 continuity, it's rated G. It’s... got some shippy implications. Pairings are Grapple and Hoist. Our characters are Grapple, Hoist, and Rodimus Prime. And, in summary, “Grapple’s been waiting and designing and redesigning. When did he have a chance to build? Written for the TF speed writing prompt ‘setting the world to rights.’ It's about 300 words written in about a half an hour, revised and reposted per the authors’ summary.” The theme is Grapple and Hoist, and it's a complete- complete fanfic.

S: Our second recommendation for today is, “And the Walls Came Tumbling Down,” written by Pteropoda (SilentP). It's also in the G1 continuity, it's rated T, it's not Gen, so there's some Shippy stuff. Yeah, that's more than Shippy stuff this it's very overt, it is the subject matter in today’s-

O: Grapple and Hoist are definitely definitely, definitely in a relationship in this fic.

S: Yes. So there are obvious pairings, and the characters are Hoist, Grapple, Ratchet, Bluestreak and Red Alert, and, in summary, “Hoist has said the wrong thing and he knows it, but it's difficult to apologize when Grapple seems determined to never look him in the face plates again. Of course, the rest of the Ark knows better. According to them, those two have been together since the dawn of Cybertron and they will continue to be a couple until the end of time. All they need to do is to get those two to realize it.” And, again, the theme is Grapple and Hoist, this time very specifically as a pairing, and it's also complete.

O: That one sounds good, I haven't read these yet but I really want to read that one.

S: Yup, they were both good. And that just about wraps it up for us today. Remember to check us out on Tumblr or Pillowfort as Afterspark-Podcast for any additional information, show notes, or links we may have mentioned. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter @AftersparkPod (all one word), and various other locations by searching for, “Afterspark Podcast,” such as AO3, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and Youtube, just to name a few. Until next time, I'm Specs.

O: And I'm Owls.

S: Toodles!

[Outro Music]

#g1 episode 28 #transcript #afterspark #afterspark podcast

1 note · View note

the-roanoke-society · 5 years

Note

Tell us about a mission that our Golden Girl, Seraphim, failed

once upon a time, two old friends stood side-by-side, looking out from a window on a snowy new york city.

i—have no had a very good month. and a lot of that negativity got channeled into this. there are details of child death, explicit violence, gore, forced self-harm and gun violence below the cut. proceed with caution.

writing music sampler is over here if you’re curious.

seraphim glanced back over her shoulder in time to to see whiskey poking his head through the conference room door. the familiar smell of bourbon, polished wood and old paper hit him right in the face. “… oh.” she watched one of his arms drop, relaxed. “morgan, uh. hey.”

“were you going to attack me?” she sounded exhausted. if the rumors whiskey had heard were true, then he wasn’t surprised.

his lasso stayed faithfully coiled on his belt as he came in, closing the door behind him. “i didn’t think anyone was up here. especially not you. did ginger clear you already?”

seraphim had her arms crossed her chest. he could see cotton bandages still wrapped around her forearms as they dove under the sleeves of her white button-up, one pad taped up next to her left eye. but her hair was down, over—

“yeah. as soon as they were sure i wasn’t going to die and the gel had worked.”

“and they did the uh—the test?”

seraphim turned away from him, sighing. he stepped closer to her as she answered, softly: “yes. ging—had a picture of merlin and i. did the trick.” she laughed. it was a joyless sound. “better than doing the sound test with that sword, i guess. don’t get me wrong, still traumatizing even with the picture. but i guess traumatizing in a way that i was… better equipped to handle, at the time.”

“that was your first time with the gel. does the quartermaster know that—you—?”

“no.” whiskey was careful to keep his gaze forward as seraphim’s voice cracked. he knew her well enough. instead, he focused on the snow. it wasn’t the first one of the season, but it was the thickest they’d seen so far. the flakes were huge, falling from a sky that was a single shade of slate grey. “but i’ll have to eventually.”

but that was when she lifted her hair. there was a medium-sized scar, running behind her ear. ginger had shaved a portion of her head but left enough to cover it, like a sheet. the mark was still raw, red, angry. and he winced as he realized that there was a slight dent. they would’ve had to have reconstructed part of her skull. seraphim swallowed. she still didn’t look at him. “i don’t think i’ll be able to hide this.”

“jesus, morgan.”

“it’s—it’s fine. it’s fine.” a hand went to her mouth and he could hear her shaky inhales and exhales. “i’m okay.”

“you sure?”

“mhmm.”

“… morgan.”

“yes, jack.”

“… what happened.”

she let out a sob and he felt the blood leave his face. the regret was immediate and acute, but then, she began, “i—i lost someone. in the worst way. the youngest i ever have.”

“how ol—“

“ten months.”

whiskey breath out a sharp breath. okay. so the rumors weren’t true. the real story was much worse.

“look, i’m sure it wasn’t yo—“

“it was.” her answer was so firm it startled him, and when he looked at her, her expression was… there was just a sheer veneer over barely-contained grief. one tear escaped her eye and she rubbed it away roughly, her hand shaking.

“walk me through it, then. talk to me.”

for a moment, she said nothing, but then she nodded. “it—it was a normal resident call. normal as can be, anyway. something had gotten inside of the hensons’ daughter. her name—“ a cough covering up a much sadder sound. “—her name was olivia. olivia kate henson.”

whiskey could barely standing to listen to her speak. he knew seraphim’s field record wasn’t perfect—no agent could boast of a hundred percent success rate, not in roanoke, not in statesman, and not in kingsman. but when it was a roanoke-flavored failure, the consequences tended to be a bit more horrific.

“i… underestimated the entity that i was dealing with. it’s very, very unusual for people that young to become hosts. demons generally want a body that can y’know, walk. form complete sentences. all that shit. something they can use. so my initial impression was that it was just an low-class imp. something that maybe had done it on accident, even. so those were the tools i brought with me. that was… that was my mindset.”

seraphim opened her mouth to speak and then convulsed. he couldn’t tell if she’d choked back a cry or was trying not to be sick. whiskey reached out and put one hand on her shoulder, but he didn’t take a step closer. seraphim, likewise, stayed where she was.

that wasn’t who they were anymore.

the next part came slowly, measured. “it was a soldier demon. the ones that were john’s specialty.” she started shaking her head, her brows knit together, “we never see those in children, in babies, jack, not ever. this seemed like it was supposed to be part of a bigger trap or something. i’ll have a lot of research to do when i get—when i go home. something else was at play here.”

seraphim sniffed. “but that doesn’t take away the fact that that demon still had to be taken out and deported. that doesn't take away from the fact that i was unprepared, and so when i… when i had to…” hands in her hair. whiskey felt pops as she bent forward, her spine curving underneath an invisible weight. “… her body was too small.” that was all she said.

whiskey brushed his thumb in one reassuring stroke before taking his hand away. “you aren’t a medium. there was no way you could have known.”

she snorted. “… that should have been the end of it.” her tone was a resigned anger. “i should have simply done a circle there, sent that thing back into whatever dark pit it crawled out of. but instead.” she pursed her lips together, jaw clenching. “i was too busy being mortified, mrs. henson wouldn’t stop screaming, mr. henson had fainted in a corner, and before i had a chance to do anything actually useful—it manifested onto this plane.”

seraphim uncrossed her arms, lifting them. whiskey could see red flecks in jagged patterns. “it launched itself at me. tried to turn my forearms into spaghetti noodles. get me to bleed out while i was still standing. it would’ve been deserved.”

“morgan—“

“i fought with it through the house.” she continued. turning her hands over to look at her knuckles. they were bruised and scabbed. “and it shoved me through their front door and onto the street. at high noon. in a busy brownstone neighborhood.”

she laced her fingers together, putting them behind her head. “so of course i had a lovely message from lilith on my specs when ginger finally let me have them. how i’d come so close to compromising our organization, how they had to send a retcon group and warp the memories of over thirty people, half of which weren’t even fourteen yet.” a heavy sigh. she let her arms flop to her sides. “… she didn’t even mention the baby. not once.”

whiskey watched her step up closer to the window. she put one palm up against the glass, and a silhouette of fog blossomed around her fingers. “i forget how fragile it all is. you and i are standing right here, routinely between them—“ she tapped on the glass “—and everything they don’t know that wants to kill them. or control them. or some godawful third thing. the nature of our work is both necessary and damned to exist in the weird grey area of internet conspiracy material.”

“do you ever wish you could go back?” he asked gently. “y’know, take the blue pill?”

“… sometimes.” seraphim answered honestly. “but i don’t think i could now. after everything. could you?”

whiskey thought of jenny—then lauren. the blur of bullets, trauma and blood that had led him to where he was standing. it hadn’t been an easy path. but it’d been the one he walked. he’d never want those steps wasted. “… no. no i don’t think i could either.”

seraphim didn’t start when he went to move her hair, staring at her scar. “so a demon… did this?”

she leaned away from his touch. “no.” she smiled, brokenly. “i did.”

“… what?”

“as soon as i got some solid footing, i pinned it down in the middle of the street. i had it right where i wanted it. but it—it called out.”

“called out? like—in english?”

“no, it was more like a—not a distress call, more like it saw something else and was trying to call it closer. and seventh strike of the day—i glanced up to try to see if there was something else i needed to take care of.”

whiskey felt his mouth go dry. “when you turned back around…”

“i had my own gun pointing straight at my face.” she met his eyes. he’d never seen her look so haunted. “i tried to get out of the way, but—“ she wiped at her eyes, her nose. “it went off. i don’t—i don’t remember anything after that. the next thing i knew i was waking up in medical with ginger over me. said i’d been out for a solid day.” she tried to grin. “bet they worked that into the cover. some poor methed-out woman finally snapped and tried to blow her brains out in broad daylight where everyone could see…”

“morgan, i’m—“

“jack i killed someone’s daughter.”

“you are not a murderer.”

“i was a proxy.”

“look at me.” he grabbed her by the biceps, turning her. she didn’t fight him, and it dawned on him that if she was still recovering from a bullet to the brain, she probably wasn’t strong enough to do much.

and her face crumpled as he spoke. “you fucked up. and you know what that means? it means you’re a hundred percent, certified bonafide human. which means that you are always going to have the potential for mistakes, and for failure, and when it happens it sucks. it will always suck. and you can let it stop you, or you can learn from it. this is just—how it is. for the people like us.” his grip loosened. “our fuck-ups tend to be on a more viscous scale.”

he brushed her hair back, as he had before, long ago. but it was different now. her eyes dropped to the floor. “i know… i know. i sent a message to lilith, asking her to send lady to the henson house. not sure if it’ll actually do anything if i don’t have a job.”

“i think we both know that if lilith wanted to fire you—she wouldn’t have called us.”

“true.” seraphim shivered as whiskey let her go, bringing her arms up in an x over her chest. “she would’ve let me die.”

“look… things look a little bleak right now. just take it easy for a few days. ging’ll probably want to keep you around for at least a little bit, make sure you don’t have any side effects from the gel. and when you get home, then lilith, well—”

seraphim lifted a hand to press on a temple. “god, i don’t know how i’m going to handle this debriefing… i don’t know how i’m going to tell hamish…”

“he worked with recruits for kingsman, right? i don’t think you’ll be the first or last person that has to come to him with a mistake. he’ll understand.”

“i’m glad one of us is sure.”

“what, you think he’ll leave you when he finds out?”

she answered without skipping a beat. “i always think he’ll leave me.”

“well, that sounds healthy.”

seraphim lightly touched at the pink forming around her eyes. “i’m not a hundred percent sure you’re the right person i should be talking about this with, but i am a hundred percent sure i’ve heard you tell me multiple times that you don’t deserve lauren and if she had any sense she’d find someone better.”

whiskey—didn’t immediately have a response to that.

“that’s what i thought.” seraphim turned away from the window, walking up to the conference table. her eyes flickered to champ’s liquor and decanter once, but she left it. drinking so soon after being exposed to alpha-gel was probably not the best idea. she leaned back, letting the hard edge of the table press into her back. the pain was grounding.

seraphim buried her face in her hands. “… this wouldn’t have happened if john was there. he’d be so disappointed if he knew.”

“john can go eat satan’s dick for all i care.”

“don’t say things like that.“

“you’re telling me merlin didn’t have that same reaction when you talked to him about that son of a bitch?”

seraphim stayed silent. just looking at him. it took him a second, and then: “… he doesn’t know.”

“i—am working on it.”

whiskey opened his mouth, but when he saw her face all his anger left him.

this wasn’t the time.

instead, he strode over to the decanter, pouring two glasses of the statesman trademark bourbon. seraphim watched him. “i don’t know if ginger would want me to—“

“do you want to?”

her shoulders sagged. “… yeah.”

“alright then.”

seraphim took the glass he offered with a grip that was still a little unsteady, looking at the liquid amber. “should we toast? that’s what you’re supposed to do, right?”

“sure. always something to celebrate.” whiskey answered, lifting his drink. “to life after failure?”

and seraphim smiled. it was thin, but it was genuine. her voice was thick when she spoke again: “to olivia.”

clink.

once upon a time, two old friends stood side-by-side, looking out from a window on a snowy new york city.

“so—have you proposed yet?”

“… you could say i’m working on it.”

#agent seraphim #agent whiskey #(background lies & lessons.)#(and background hymns & holograms.)#the things we carry #once upon a time in new york

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weirdponytail · 5 years

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Modern Inheritance Cycle: The origins of Farthen Dur’s current veterans bar owner (semi-scrapped ficlet)

(*hacks up half completed MIC snippet hairball and wanders off* Timeline is a few years before Saphira’s egg is stolen, probably about three or four years at most.)

CONTENT WARNING: WARZONE COMBAT, COMBAT INJURIES, TRAUMATIC AMPUTATION, COMBAT AMPUTEE CHARACTER, REHABILITATION

No one would ever say it was a noble death. But by the bright gods above, Coop would show the courage to face it head on.

No bullet came for him. The figure crouched down, ignoring the whiz of projectiles whipping past.

“Looks like you’re in rough shape, kid.” Then they leapt into the trench and hunched over Coop’s prone form.

He stared.

He honestly couldn’t tell if it was a trick of his mind. He was in enough pain and had lost enough blood for that to make sense. It had to be that.

“Hey. Hey!” He tried to focus his bleary vision on her face. Her dark eyes caught and held his gaze. “You got any wards? I need to know.”

Coop shook his head with great effort. Combat Engineers rarely got things as precious as wards.

Everything was getting very heavy….

E.S.O. Elvin Spec. Ops. Edoc’sil Varden du Wyrani.

Sam Cooper fell asleep on the stretcher, and didn’t wake up until he was in the closest hospital, the lower half of his right shin now neatly amputated and wrapped in clean white gauze.

Cooper closed his eyes, the bright white lights of the hospital room glaring through his lids. He didn’t want to get up and turn them off, but he couldn’t sleep with them on either.

Maybe he could just sleep with his arm over his face....

Three sharp raps on the sign outside his hospital room startled Cooper from his thoughts. He pulled the crook of his elbow away from his eyes– and gaped at his visitor.

It was her!

“Hi.” She waved slightly.

Coop opened and closed his mouth a few times. “...H-hi.”

“I figured you would have been sent here.” She raised an eyebrow. “Mind if I come in? I brought you a treat.”

“...Sure?” Slowly getting over his shock but still confused as ever, Coop pointed at the uncomfortable plastic chair against the wall. “Feel free, I guess.”

“Thanks, kid.” She dragged the chair over and sat down next to him, pulling the backpack into her lap as she did so. “Didn’t get to introduce myself before. I’m Arya.” They shook hands.

“Coop. Sam Cooper.”

“I stole some cans of fruit salad, Coop.” Arya grinned, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “You want one?”

He glanced over at the tray of unappetizing hospital rations sitting on the dresser. “...Yeah. Thanks.” He accepted the can as she passed it to him, and in turn passed her one of the plastic multi utensils from his tray.

“Cheers, Coop.”

====================

Coop is/was going to be the eventual owner of Farthen Dur’s veterans bar. He’s good friends with Arya, Faolin and Glenwing, even occasionally using them as unoffical bouncers when things got rough or getting them to play music on slow nights to draw in customers.

Cheers mates.

#inheritance cycle #modern inheritance #modern inheritance cycle #mic fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #modern inheritance fanfic #arya drottningu #eragon #pre-eragon #can i call this homebrewed inheritance cycle?#i like the phrase homebrew #coop the bar owner #arya enjoys grape soda mixed drinks fyi #the more sugar the better when you use magic frequently #plus an elf with a hella purple drink makes me laugh #modern inheritance story #modern inheritance lore

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justheretobreakthings · 5 years

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If You Can’t Say Anything Nice

A Voltron: Legendary Defender fic Central Characters: Lance, James, Keith Word Count: 4,322 Read on AO3

Summary: When Lance needs to blow off some steam after a frustrating morning with Keith, he finds himself with an unexpected and very indulging confidant.

“Oh, good, you guys are here,” Lance said as he entered the Garrison rec room and plopped down onto the couch. Hunk, in the corner of the couch opposite him, looked up from the book he was reading, while Pidge, sitting crossed-legged on the floor next to him with earbuds plugged into the laptop balanced on her knees, tilted her head back to look at him upside-down. “You would not believe the morning I’ve had,” Lance sighed.

“What happened?” Hunk asked.

“Okay, so, you know how Keith and I agreed to do that school visit with Red and Black today?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, leave it to Mullet to go and decide to make a mess of the thing. How hard can it possibly be to - ?”

“Here we go,” Pidge muttered, rolling her eyes and removing her earbuds.

Lance raised a brow and turned to her. “I’m sorry? What do you mean ‘here we go’?”

“I mean, here we go, it’s time for our daily helping of Lance-whining-about-Keith.”

Lance bristled. “I do not whine!”

“Call it what you like,” Pidge said with a shrug. “But let’s face the facts - you do complain about him a lot.”

“I don’t complain about him that much! Hunk, back me up here.”

Hunk offered him a sheepish shrug. “Well, she’s got a point…”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine, I complain about him. But only because he gives me so much to complain about!”

“Uh-huh,” Pidge said. “So what pissed you off today? What’d Keith do? Was it something about his hair? His attitude? Way he dresses? Did he not laugh at one of your jokes, Lance? Do you need a hug, would that make it all better?”

Lance scowled and crossed his arms. “You know what? Friends listen to friends who need to vent.”

“Oh, I’m listening,” Pidge said. She put her headphones back in and turned the volume of her music up so loudly that Lance could hear it where he was standing. “Go on, I’m all ears.”

His scowl deepening, Lance flipped her off and turned to Hunk. Just as he was opening up his mouth to speak, Hunk cut him off by saying, “Actually, Lance, I’m at a really good part in this book, so, um, I don’t think I can spare the time to listen to a Keith Rant right now…”

“First of all, let’s not start calling them ‘Keith Rants’ like they’re an official thing, I’m just letting off steam. Second of all, fine, if my friends don’t want to hear about my day, I’ll just head to lunch and vent to my mashed potatoes. Thanks for nothing.”

“You’re welcome,” Hunk said, lifting his book and returning his attention to it. Pidge didn’t so much as glance in his direction. With a sigh, Lance left the room and made his way to the cafeteria, grumbling under his breath as he went.

He left off his grumbling as he made it to the Garrison cafeteria, and kept quiet long enough to get a tray filled and find a seat at an empty table before he resumed, muttering to himself as he stabbed at his pineapple chunks.

“Um,” a voice interrupted him a minute in, and he looked up to see James Griffin standing across from him is his orange uniform, raising a brow at him. “Do you mind if I sit here, or are you already chatting with someone?”

“Go ahead,” Lance said, gesturing with his fork to the seat across from him, which James sank into. “Sorry ‘bout that, just been a long morning.”

“How so?” James asked.

“Had that school visit with Keith today. Don’t know whose idea it was to schedule just us for it, but I swear, I’m never doing a presentation with Keith again.”

“What happened?”

“Well,” Lance said, “We both had to memorize parts for the first half of the presentation, and that went fine. But then we had this Q-and-A portion, and it was like Keith just completely forgot how to do public speaking. The man cannot string two words together if he doesn’t rehearse them beforehand, so I wound up pretty much having to do that whole portion on my own. Then we’re introducing the kids to the lions, showing them around, and I’m starting to think Keith has never even interacted with a child before, because he is absolute shit at it. Plus he flat out scared one kid; little guy jumps up for a surprise piggyback ride on him and Keith knocks him off and snarls at him like he’s gonna eat him.”

He paused to take a bite of his lunch before continuing. “Whole thing was just… gah. He saddles me with most of the work, and then proceeds to make both of us look bad in front of the kids. I swear, Keith should not be allowed to do any press events ever.”

“Hey, I hear you,” James said through a bite of his own sandwich. “We’ve all seen the press photos. I’ve yet to see one where Kogane doesn’t look like he wants to beat up whoever’s manning the camera.”

Lance let out a laugh. “I know, right? Like, seriously, would it kill him to learn to take a decent photo? Designated leader of Voltron, and yet he’s the paladin who’s worst at making a first impression.”

“So, he’s like, the official ‘leader’ of the group, right?” James asked. “Thought I’d seen a press release say that but…”

“Technically, yeah,” Lance sighed. “Basically, the person who pilots the Black Lion gets to call the shots in battle. Although, full disclosure, for most things Shiro and Allura’s words are above Keith’s. And Keith’s never really been the kind of person you think of when the phrase ‘born leader’ comes to mind or anything. He’s as likely to go running off on his own as he is to actually do his ‘leader’ job.”

“Honestly, doesn’t sound like he’s changed all that much since the Garrison,” James said. “Remember the sorts of things he would do during sims?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Lance groaned. “Pretty sure we all did three times as many drills as any other class in the history of the Garrison on account of Keith’s dumb stunts.”

“He didn’t get better in fighter class, you know,” James said. “‘Star student’ or not, no one wanted to work with him. I was friends with the guy they had assigned to be Kogane’s comm spec the first year of fighter training, and apparently he and the group’s engineer wound up begging to get assigned a different pilot, he was so annoying. Wouldn’t talk with them, wouldn’t listen to them. I don’t know how you managed to spend all that time stuck out in space with him.”

“Believe me, it wasn’t easy,” Lance said with a little grin. “The guy’s no fun at all. Whenever the whole group’s together, he spends the whole time just sulking in a corner, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard him laugh. Even when he gets the joke; sometimes he will actually just straight-up turn to Pidge or Shiro and have them explain punchlines to him. You can’t hold a conversation with him.”

“Well, hey, don’t be so quick to knock that,” James said. “There’s advantages to him not getting jokes. Some of us in fighter class would have this sort of game where we’d talk to him in euphemisms and references and keep score of how often Kogane would catch on when we insulted him, and how often it just went over his head. Dude was batting, like, a fifty. It was honestly kinda sad.”

Lance laughed. This was… nice. It was nice to get some Keith-related gripes out of his system. Hunk didn’t let him vent about Keith the way he used to - and Lance had never figured out the reason for the change - Pidge never paid any attention to him when he did, and God forbid he ever try to air any of it to Shiro. The former Black Paladin seemed reluctant to believe that Keith was anything short of perfect in spite of any evidence to the contrary. “I gotta tell you, it’s a breath of fresh air,” he said. “Didn’t know he got under everyone else’s skin too. I had started thinking I was the only one at the Garrison who didn’t worship the ground Keith walked on.”

“Oh, there were people like that,” James said with a shrug. “But that’s only because they only knew Kogane as the master pilot, not the warts-and-all version we got. The people who thought he was role model material didn’t see the way he’d lose his mind if someone in the room would click their pen too much, or the fact that he won’t use a urinal if anyone else is in the restroom, or, God, the fact that he would fucking sing to himself in the cockpit if he didn’t think anyone was listening.”

“He still does that!” Lance cried in delight. “The singing thing! We’ve caught him at it a couple of times. Pidge managed to get a recording of him once, singing this, like, theme song he made up for the lions or something. I don’t think he knows the recording even exists.”

“Lance,” James said. “Lance, you have got to send that to me. I haven’t had a decent ringtone in so long. God, I had a couple videos saved of him back during the Garrison days that I’d totally trade you for, but that was, like, two phones ago.”

“Well, hey, there’s no shortage where that came from,” Lance said. “Keep an eye on him long enough, he’s bound to do something worth recording. I’m gonna have to see what’s on his vlog at some point.”

“His vlog?”

“Coran had all of us film these little vlog things for ‘historical’ reasons, and Keith straight-up refuses to let anyone watch his. Must have wound up recording something pretty damn embarrassing, but who knows what it was.”

“If you ever get hold of that footage, send it my way. You gonna eat that coleslaw?” James asked, pointing to Lance’s tray.

“Have at it,” Lance said, sliding the cup over. “You realize, of course, that now you’re really starting to rack up a bill for how much you owe me.”

“Oh, I’ll figure out a way to pay it,” James said as he began digging into the coleslaw. “You want me to mess with Keith for you? There’s always a stock of old standbys from the Garrison, but I can come up with more sophisticated stuff.”

“Old standbys?” Lance asked, raising a brow. “What do you mean?”

“You know, just little pranks the other people in fighter class would pull on him sometimes. Old school teenager things. Grease on his gearshift, put old food in his bag, piss in his shampoo. Stupid stuff like that.”

Lance wrinkled his nose. “People did that?”

“Shampoo was his roommate’s doing,” James answered, “But I don’t think he ever even noticed that one.”

“Not surprising. You’ve seen his hair, I don’t think he gives two shits what he puts in it.”

“Fair point,” James said with a nod. “Give him a horseshoe mustache to complete the look and he could be living in a garage in the nineteen-eighties.”

“You know he doesn’t shave?” Lance said.

“Hm?”

“Yeah, he’s the only one of the paladins who didn’t keep a razor in our communal bathroom, and I figured maybe he kept it in his room and just carried it back and forth for some reason and shaved in private. But then he winds up on this, like, two-year-long camping trip with his mom, and comes back without so much as a single hair of stubble. He just flat out can’t grow facial hair.”

James let out a bark of laughter. “Oh my god. You think that’s why he grows that mullet thing of his out so long? ‘Cause he’s overcompensating?”

“Ha, it wouldn’t surprise me,” Lance said.

“Wow. And, shit, you’d think with his mom being what she is, he’d have wound up covered in the stuff. Guess it’s not genetic. He oughta be relieved; his dad goes and fucks a goddamn Hibagon, what came out could have been a total furry mess.”

Lance’s smirk faltered a little on that remark. “Okay, let’s, ah – let’s not bring Krolia into anything, she’s – ”

“Oh, Keith still hung up on his mommy issues?” James asked. He set aside his coleslaw and leaned his chair back onto two legs, crossing his arms behind his head and kicking his feet up to table’s surface. “God, he was always so nuts about anything to do with his parents back at the Garrison. Anyone just mentioning them would set him off. I mean, I guess I can understand why, now. I’d probably have mommy issues too if mine was a fucking alien, but it got annoying as hell back at school. Not like he was the only kid in the school who had issues with their parents, he’s just the only one who had such thin skin about it.”

“James,” Lance said, frowning at him. “Seriously, could we talk about something else?”

James turned to him with a raised brow, then brought his feet back down to the floor to sit upright. “Shit, dude, relax. I don’t have anything against Krolia. Just, you know, what came out of her.”

“It’s just, you know. That’s… I think that’s still kind of a sore spot.”

“And? What, is Keith in the room. Is your lunch bugged? We’re just chatting, Lance.”

“Yeah, but - ”

“Okay, okay,” James said, lifting his hands in mock surrender. “Dropping the subject. You know the new-and-improved half-Galra Keith better than I do anyhow, I guess. Still got no shortage of him back when he was still all human, though. I could fill a book.”

“... I’ll admit, I’d probably read it.”

“It’d be a page-turner, let me tell you. I mean, sure, a couple of the Garrison stories I’ve got for him were more other people setting things off, but mostly he’d just do his own stupid stuff, we just all got to bear witness. And it sure as hell isn’t like I’m the only one who was sick of him back then, there were plenty of other people whose skin he got under. Pretty much everyone he was partnered with in classes, his crew, whoever made that poster when flight classes were assigned - ”

The corners of Lance’s mouth quirked upward; he was pretty sure he knew what this story was going to be. “The poster,” he repeated.

“Yeah, in the hall for the fighter pilots’ hangar entrances, you know how they had that poster with, ah, whatshisname, the one Garrison alum, that had that, like, ‘Ten Tips for Fighter Pilots’ with those little inspirational quotes? Well, someone went and replaced it with a poster of Kogane, had it saying ‘Ten Tips for Getting into Fighter Class’ and it was, um, hang on… ‘Number one: develop a superiority complex. Number two: punch out the competition. Number three:’, uh…”

“‘Number three: you’re too special to play by the rules’,” Lance finished for him. “‘Number four: prepare to suck massive quantities of commanding officer dicks.’”

“So you remember it!” James cried. “I thought you might, that photo of the poster was going around for weeks after.”

“‘Course I remember it, I helped co-write it.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nah, me and a couple of the others who wound up in cargo class. We were pissed, thought we would have a laugh. One of the others printed it up and hung it, I just helped with the concept. And the guy who printed it was the only one who got a suspension for it, so as far as anyone else knows, I’m one hundred percent innocent. So you didn’t hear this from me.”

“You have my word,” James said with a grin, putting his hand over his heart. “That was a classic, man. Guy who was rooming with Kogane that semester told us he straight up cried himself to sleep the night after that thing went up.”

Lance felt his own smile begin to falter. “He - ”

“He also straight up vanished for the weekend after. Turned out he just run off and hid at Shirogane’s place for a couple days, but a bunch of us thought he had straight up dropped out of the Garrison on account of that whole deal. Imagine everyone’s disappointment when he showed up again.”

“... Oh.” Lance stared down at his tray. He hadn’t known that. He had never meant to make Keith cry, even back then. None of them had. They’d only been trying to embarrass him a little, blow off some steam.

“Hey, it’s nothing to feel bad about,” James said, and Lance looked back up to see the other looking at him in concern. The twinge of guilt must have made its way into his expression. “Not the first time Kogane ran off crying just ‘cause someone was having a little fun with him. Wouldn’t stop him from completely blowing a fuse if someone spotted him melting down. He plays the victim card, but gets mad when people see him playing it. Try and figure that one out.”

“I mean, um, it’s - it’s possible he wasn’t ‘playing the victim card’, he was just… being upset…”

“We talking about the same Kogane? I’m pretty sure the only two emotions he’s capable of are boredom and rage.”

Lance swallowed as he looked down at his tray. The only food still on it was a brownie that he had saved for last, but suddenly it was looking rather unappetizing. In fact, everything he had eaten was suddenly not sitting well in his stomach. No, Keith was capable of more emotions than that, as much as Lance sometimes managed to convince himself otherwise; he’d seen them in action. And, apparently, been the cause of them before.

And God, this was just supposed to be him letting off some steam, but maybe…

He’d gone a bit too far, hadn’t he.

“Let’s… let’s drop this, okay?” he mumbled.

“All right, fine. Hey, another fun fact: are you aware that Keith used to - ”

“No, James, I meant - let’s drop this. This - this is mean.”

James frowned at him, quirking a brow. “What?”

“I, uh, I was mad at him today, sure, but - but I shouldn’t have said - ”

“Okay, whoa, what is with you all of a sudden? We were having fun a few minutes ago, then you start getting quiet on me, and now out of the blue it’s all, ‘thou shalt never speak ill of thy neighbor’?”

“It - I wasn’t thinking, I hadn’t thought - this was mean. We’re being mean.”

“Oh, so now I’m ‘mean’? Where is this coming from?”

“James - ”

“Maybe it’s nice to take the little freak down a peg, you know?” James snapped. “Seriously, it’s not like I’m bursting into his room and attacking him or anything, we’re just chatting. Considering how he went out of his way to make life so difficult for me back at the Garrison, I don’t think think there’s anything wrong with ragging on him a bit.”

Lance tilted his head. “Wait, what do you mean? Are you talking about that time he punched you?”

“That too, but also the fact that he would just be an ass to me at every opportunity,” James answered with a shrug. “You know the way he was, always acting like everyone else in the school was unworthy to speak to him and crap? Always gotta be better than everyone else? And he seemed to have it out for me in particular. Spent all his time glaring at me and trying to find excuses to get into fights. And he just could not stomach the thought of me being better than him in anything, so in every single class, no matter what I did, he always just had to one-up me, you know? Like, God forbid I ever surpass him in anything, in any way. Then the profs would started praising him because apparently they just love show-offs, and he’d get all smug and just refuse to acknowledge anyone else’s existence for the rest of class.”

He yawned and stretched his arms up behind his head before he added, “See, you weren’t in the fighter class yet, so you probably didn’t know what the dynamics were among the pilots or anything, so you may not be aware of this, but all through school, Keith Kogane was, like, my rival.”

Lance stared at him. “Your… what?”

“My rival,” James repeated. “You know, Kogane and Griffin, always neck-in-neck, fighting for top of the class. And he’d get pissed every time I’d beat him, get smug and look down his nose at me every time he’d beat me. He was a nightmare.”

“He was… your rival.”

“Yeah. You may have been stuck with him out in space, but you never had to deal with quite the same side of him I did. Count yourself lucky.”

For a long and quiet moment, Lance stared down at his empty tray, feeling like he had just swallowed, concrete. Then, without warning, he stood up, sending his chair back with a screech.

“Where you going?” James asked.

“I need to talk to Keith,” Lance said.

“What? Oh my God, are you serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious. I - I have to apologize.”

“Dude, that shit was years ago. It’s all water under the bridge now.”

Lance shook his head. “No, no, it’s - I hadn’t realized I was so - I’ve gotta make this right. We ought to make this right, really.”

James rolled his eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve both fought beside him in battle. We’ve both worked on a team and saved his skin. I’m pretty sure that counts as ‘making things right’.”

“Whatever. I’m gonna talk to him.”

James shrugged. “Fine, on your own head be it, then. Are you gonna eat your brownie, by the way?” he asked, reaching for it.

Lance snatched up the tray with a grunt of, “Yes,” before James could grab the brownie, and he moved to dump all the remaining contents of the tray into the nearby garbage can before setting his tray on top and marching out of the cafeteria.

His thoughts were too muddied to allow him to pay much attention to his route as he walked to Keith’s room, and before he knew it, he found himself knocking on the door. A bark answered his knock, and when the door opened, Kosmo’s snout made its way out of the room first, eagerly sniffing the air before Keith pushed it back and took his place in the doorway.

“Lance?” Keith asked. “What is it?”

“Um… hey,” Lance answered, only just now realizing that in his haste to get here, he hadn’t actually planned on anything today.

Keith sighed. “If you’re here about the school thing this morning, you already made your thoughts perfectly clear on the ride back, so could you - ”

“No, that’s not - I wanted to - I just - I wanted to say sorry.”

Keith raised a brow. “For this morning?”

“Yeah,” Lance said. “I mean, I shouldn’t have gotten frustrated with you, and I’m sorry. Yeah, you kinda screwed some stuff up, but I made it worse than it needed to be, so… sorry.”

“Um, thanks?”

“And, I mean, I hadn’t realized that I was, like, being mean about it, I thought I just - well, you seemed like you were being a bit of a dick too, so I was just kind of trying to be a dick back, but maybe you weren’t actually being a dick, you were just being you, and - not saying that ‘just you’ is a dick, just that that was the impression, see - and I shouldn’t have - I mean, I’ve said some really dickish stuff to you, and apparently so have other people, and you - I shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have had to deal with all that. I hadn’t realized… I over-dicked, I guess, is what I’m saying, and I’m sorry about that, and that was mean, and I - and I’m gonna be less of a dick, going forward, I swear I am.”

Keith stared at him, eyes blown wide. “Uh…” he said. “That’s… uh…”

“Right, sorry, that was, that was a lot, just now, kinda - kinda piled on there.” Lance cleared his throat. “But, um… sorry. For this morning. And for - for other stuff.”

“Oh.”

“I, uh, I just want to…” He took a breath. “Hey, um, if you want, I could give you a hand with this press stuff. Like, what to do in Q-and-A sessions, stuff like that. I figure, you know, ‘stead of just complaining about how you do it, I could… help?”

Keith frowned. “I dunno, Lance…”

“I mean, you don’t have to, I get it, I haven’t exactly been - been such a good - just, you know, the offer’s there, if you want it. And, um, sorry.”

“Right, you said that. Well… thanks. For the offer.”

“Yeah. You’re welcome.”

The two boys stood in uncertain silence before Keith slid back into his room, shutting the door behind him, and Lance let out a breath of tension. That hadn’t really been a moment of closure or revelation or anything.

Still… they had years’ worth of fences to mend. And Lance had apologized, and had left an open door, and next time he’d just have to try harder. Be patient with Keith. Put the shit behind him. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

Baby steps, Lance told himself as he walked away from Keith’s room. Baby steps.

#lance #james griffin #keith #vld fic #voltron fic #lance is kinda a jerk in this one #not straight up evil or anything #just like a level two jerk #james is a punk ass bitch as per usual #my writing #fic: if you can't say anything nice

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