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just4koo · 3 months

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best friends..? ❀ first kiss

→ character pairing : best friend!Jungkook x fem!reader → drabble summary : in which you two decide to share your first kiss together, because best friends do everything together... right..? → word count : 2.7k → warnings : foul language, slight toxicity/jealousy (maybe), conflicting feelings, unedited → genre(s) : fluff, crack, slight angst → note : i made this a series due to requests :) since the chapters aren't connected you can read this without having read the first installment but it's recommended you read "new perfume" first for background info!!

SERIES MASTERLIST

one thing that nobody knew about you and jungkook was that you shared your first kiss together. why? because it would only worsen the rumors about you two that were already bad enough. everyone always shipped you two, and if this kiss was something that ever got out, things would get much worse.

it seemed simple. you were stupid teenagers, two sixteen year olds. but it also wasn't that simple.

"jungkook, come on!" you impatiently whisper-shouted, grabbing the hand of your best friend to forcefully pull him out of your bedroom. your victim was still half asleep, subject to you shaking him awake just moments earlier.

jungkook was a bit (very) grumbly since you had woken him up from his slumber. who wouldn't be angry when they got woken up during the middle of the night, especially since he had just been so comfy using you as his pillow? but of course he had no choice, there was no way he could just roll back over and go to sleep when he saw the excited look on your face.

one of your favorite things during the winter was snow. it was so beautiful and you could just sit for hours watching it. lucky for you, in the apartment building the two of you lived in, there was an accessible roof. ever since you had discovered it one day when the two of you were playing in the stairwell it sort of became your spot. the two of you would sneak up there countless times without the knowledge of your parents.

tonight there had been a forecast on the weather channel that it was supposed to snow tonight. the first snow of the winter. even though the weather lady didn't specify what time it would start, you had already planned to stay up for it. you had witnessed the first snow of every year since you were 10 and that wasn't a streak you wanted to break.

jungkook had offered to stay up with you but as expected he'd succumbed to sleep 5 minutes into the movie you two chose. the way he was cuddling you made it very tempting to just doze off with him, but you didn't. you needed to stay up. so after hours of finding stupid movies to watch on your TV, it finally started snowing just a quarter past 04:00.

you had immediately shook jungkook in a not-so-gentle way, almost shoving him off of you so you could rush to put your sweatpants and winter jacket on. after taking a few moments to remember where the fuck he was, jungkook was following in your steps. he was pretty sure he put his sweatpants on backwards, but he had no time to worry about it when you started tugging him down the hallway.

"slow down, ______. you're going to wake your parents before we can make it out of the apartment." jungkook spoke in a quiet tone, getting a proper grasp of your hand so he could tug you backwards and slow you down a bit. you flashed him what seemed like an annoyed glance in the almost pitch black room but ended up slowing down.

once you got to the front door he went ahead and slipped into his boots, reaching for yours before you had a chance to do it yourself. he helped you into the shoes and tied them for you to make sure you didn't leave them untied in your haste and trip over your own feet. the whole time he was doing this you watched him, fighting the adoring smile that was trying to surface on your lips.

he made sure you were properly bundled up, putting earmuffs and gloves on your hands since he knew you'd want to stay outside for a while to watch the snow fall. you were someone who always forgot to take care of yourself, so jungkook was the one who did it for you. ever since he had gotten out of his aggressive adolescence phase around the age 14, he seemed to fall into a sort of caretaker role. it wasn't his fault that you were so clumsy all the time, or you would forget meals since you were too busy watching your stupid adorable cat compilation videos.

after the two of you had on all of your winter attire, he finally opened up the door as quietly as possible so you two could sneak out. the moment he shut the front door to your apartment, you were already grabbing his hand and running again, this time straight towards the stairwell. he let out a slight yelp of surprise when he felt his arm being tugged roughly. you always got so eager when you were excited about things.

"hurry up, we need to get outside before it stops!" you exclaimed as you launched up the stairs, taking it two at a time. just as he expected, that energy didn't last very long. your apartment level was pretty low compared to how many floors the apartment building had, and climbing 9 flights of stairs was extremely exhausting. by the time you were at the top you were leaning on top of jungkook and heaving breaths.

"what happened to hurrying up, huh?" jungkook questioned with a twinge of playfulness in your tone, smirking when he saw the way you glared at him. your cheeks were flushed and hair awry, lips pulled into a small frown. he knew what would cheer you up so he placed his hand on your back, opening the door that led to the rooftop. you two were instantly greeted by the falling snow. it was a pretty heavy snowstorm, already a few inches on the floor.

just as expected, you immediately brightened up once you saw the view outside. no matter how many times you'd seen it snow, it never got any less beautiful. you walked out onto the rooftop and looked up at the sky, admiring the sight of the snow falling. this was one of your favorite parts of living in the north, you were able to watch the snow practically every week.

the two of you walked to the little spot you both had constructed years ago, a makeshift canopy tent with a disney princess comforter on the floor that you two had stolen from your room and then spent an hour trying to convince your parents that the dog ate it. (they didn't believe that, obviously) it was definitely not a very pretty sight, but it worked for the two of you, nobody else ever visited the roof. the owners of the building probably had no idea that the door was actually unlocked.

the two of you sat down under the canopy to be able to see the snow without it falling on the both of you. as the two of you situated next to each other, you ended up with your head rested against his shoulder while he held his arm around you, his gloved hand rubbing your bicep. it felt so peaceful in this moment that he felt like he could fall asleep sitting upright, so he decided to just start talking.

the two of you never ran out of things to talk about. even though you had practically talked about everything since the two of you grew up together, you still could just converse for hours. because you two never seemed to get tired of each other. if anything, being together was energizing. you could never get tired of his melodic voice and laugh just like he would never be annoyed by the cute rants you always went on.

"i don't know, i just feel like if my girlfriend had a guy who was a best friend i would get jealous." jungkook said with a small shrug. your random conversations always got the two of you to some strange places, and tonight it had seemed the conversation had deviated to relationships. you were never really sure how your conversations evolved into the ones they did, but it was just where boredom got you.

"do you know how hypocritical you sound? you're saying that when you have a best friend who's the opposite gender." you replied with an incredulous look. jungkook just shrugged at that, although he didn't seem to take back what he said.

"i guess so. that's probably the reason i haven't had a relationship yet." he spoke quietly and you had to pretend that you didn't feel your heart break a little when you immediately registered the slight sadness in his voice.

it was hard to be a teenager and have every single girl curve you just because he had a girl best friend. he hadn't had a single romantic interaction because practically everyone in town knew about your friendship and always assumed it was something more than that. the only time he had even held hands with a girl was in the second grade. other than that, every other girl just avoided interacting with him.

he knew it was the same with you too, knew that you hadn't been asked out to a school dance or had one of those cringe middle school relationships that all of your other girl friends liked to joke around about. while every single one of your friends had a guy to gossip about, you always just sat there and listened. there were a few instances where your friends told you that a certain guy said you were cute but he wasn't going to ask you out because they didn't want to get their ass beaten by jungkook.

you honestly didn't blame them too much, since jungkook was pretty intimidating. despite that though, he wouldn't beat someone up just for asking you out. no, he would only beat them up if they ever dared to treat you wrong. maybe that was why any other boy was too intimidating to approach you. because nobody would ever be able to treat you up to jungkook's standard aside from himself. he hadn't trusted anyone else with you.

that didn't change the fact that you both felt bad for each other though. you were both missing out on a fundamental part of life. having your first significant other, first love, first kiss. the two of you were yet to experience any of that, and part of you wondered if you would ever possibly find someone who could accept the friendship you shared with jungkook. based on your luck for the past 16 years, you would guess that the answer was a no.

"i mean, i haven't either. not even my first kiss." you shrugged a bit. jungkook already knew this of course, since he would've been the first person you'd tell if it happened. he knew you were just saying this to make him feel better and he appreciated it. the two of you may never get to experience some of these things but at least you had each other's friendship.

"it sucks that we're both missing out on these things that practically everyone else has experienced. waiting for the right person is taking too long." you added on after a few moments. jungkook couldn't deny the way a small amount of jealousy flared up in his body at the thought of you finding someone to share your first kiss with. someone that wasn't him. and it seemed like he was too impulsive to keep that thought to himself.

"what better person to share your first kiss with than your best friend?" jungkook almost blurted out the sentence before he lost the sudden confidence. he had not only broken the silence between you two, but he felt as if he also broke the comfortable atmosphere. without looking down at you he could feel the way your body tensed through your thick layers of clothing.

"i mean- i'm just saying because like... we can't even find people who are comfortable with our friendship and nobody really wants to-" his jumbled up sentence was abruptly interrupted when he felt one of your mittens touch his cheek. it was if his whole body recoiled and his eyes darted down towards your face. your face was scarily calm and you were just staring at him. he was completely ready to play off what he said as a joke when you nodded.

"okay." you mumbled softly, and he swore that his heart had never started pounding so fast. due to his inexperience in romance, he had never really felt butterflies in his stomach... until now. he wanted to just take a handful of snow and shove it into his face to see if he was dreaming or actually experiencing this right now. but everything felt too real right now. he seemed to be noticing every miniscule detail right now.

the way your breath puffed softly into the air with every exhale, the soft blush that tinged your cheeks since you had just agreed to giving you first kiss to your best friend. the way that you eyes twinkled with the slight light from the city lights that were surrounding the both of you, and the snow that was still sprinkled lightly in your hair. but the most important detail that stood out to him was the way you were leaning closer to him. how those pretty lips looked like the softest thing. he found himself wondering how they tasted, and he'd be damned if he didn't find out.

and when your lips touched, all regrets simultaneously faded away.

all those years of feeling left out in life, the nights wishing that you would have someone to hold, someone to feel romance with. none of that mattered when you kissed each other. all of that was swept away, just like the breath from his lungs. he never knew that a moment like this would suddenly feel so intense, but he felt like right now he was being drowned and given life and nothing else mattered except for this kiss.

you weren't faring any better as well. the kiss was sweet. so much sweeter than you imagined. more so than the cookies you would bake together on a cold day, or the honey you would mix into your tea whenever you were sick. it's softer than the snow that surrounds the two of you in the current moment, impossibly softer than jungkook's voice whenever he's humming a tune to help you fall asleep at night.

the kiss tasted like the first shining rays of dawn, a start of something beautiful. it was a canvas upon which the sunrise of love would be painted. each touch was a brushstroke, creating a masterpiece of shared feelings written in the language of intertwined souls, feelings that had yet to be experienced until now. things that had been secretly brewing under the surface and shocked the both of you.

neither one in particular pulled away first, everything was too blurry to even remember it properly. both of you bombarded and overwhelmed with this emotions. the soft lights of the city around you which once illuminated your anticipation now exposed traces of vulnerability in both of your eyes - you couldn't help but wonder if jungkook had felt the same or if the symphony in your hearts was rather a solo performance on your side.

you had both unintentionally traveled into uncharted areas. words of everyone echoed through your mind right now, the countless times that you had been told that there was something more than just innocent friendship. jungkook could see the hesitation in your eyes, the instinct to retreat back into the safety of friendship the two of you had known for all these years. the promise to remain best friends for forever.

even the never-sleeping city of seoul and the intense snowstorm around you seemed to halt its movement, as if it was just waiting for something to be said. for a decision to be made, or for one of you to move back in again. waiting and waiting, and yet nothing ever came.

finally, a small, fragile smile spread onto jungkook's lips; an attempt to disregard the sudden tension in the moment surrounding you. it seemed to break you out of the trance you had been in, the world around you once resuming as you returned the smile back to him. as you gazed away from him and back towards the snow, the canvas filled with the starting of a masterpiece had been halted - waiting to be continued once again in the future.

your small canopy on the roof of your apartment was now a witness to what could've been, what might be. a shelf holding stories filled with chapters waiting to be filled and shared. but for now, it remained stagnant. this moment was held as nothing but that: a moment.

at least you could now join in the first kiss conversation with all of your friends.

end. ♥

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piizunn · 7 months

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september 30th, 2023

People who are not First Nations, Métis, or Inuit will never know the sickening feeling of finding out the playground you used to go to is the site of a former residential school, a school still in use by the town of Fort Smith, NWT.

fig. 1. Joseph Burr Tyrrell Elementary School in Fort Smith. Sarah Pruys/Cabin Radio.

First, I’d like to make clear that to my knowledge none of my my immediate family members are residential school survivors, I share community and space with many people who are and I personally attended the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and I will only be speaking on my own experiences. I descend from 7 historic Métis Otipemisiwak families by the names of Berthelet, Caron, St. Germain, Larivière, Dazé, Dubois, and Boudreau, who come from the historic Red River Settlement and Batoche. I come from Amiskwaciywâskahikan, Treaty 6 and I now make my home in Mohkinstsis on Treaty 7 land. I introduce myself in this traditional way of the Métis Otipemisiwak to contextualize my knowledge and experiences, honour my family, and situate myself on this land and in this conversation.

Today is Orange Shirt Day, a day that honours Phyllis Webstad, member of Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation (Canoe Creek Indian Band), and survivor of the Residential School system. Her story is what has inspired this national day of honour and action. Beyond wearing orange I would like non-Indigenous settlers to really consider the history around them and the experiences of survivors and those who lost their lives. I would like you to physically step up for us, be there for us when we are being beaten down, sit with Elders and listen to their stories, learn about their joy as well their pain.

I attended Grandin School, an elementary school in Amiskwaciywâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta) before it was renamed to Holy Child. For anyone outside of the area I will describe it; the school is over one hundred years old in a historic neighbourhood. Near the school is an LRT station underground and on one side of the platform was a large mural depicting Bishop Grandin, a nun holding a native child, an Indigenous family at camp, and a residential school. Based on the fact that Bishop Grandin spent time working in Saint-Boniface of the Red River Settlement, Fort Chipewyan in what is now Alberta, and Île-à-la-Crosse in what is now Saskatchewan, it can be assumed that the family is either First Nations or Métis, however it must not be forgotten that the Inuit of the north also suffered these institutions.

A quote from Bishop Vital Grandin haunts me to this day, more now than ever.

“We instil in them a pronounced distaste for the native life so that they will be humiliated when reminded of their origin. When they graduate from our institutions, the children have lost everything Native except their blood.”

- Bishop Vital Grandin, 1875

Fig. 2. “A mural depicting Bishop Grandin at an Indian Residential School is located at the Grandin LRT Station in Edmonton.” Image courtesy of Jake Cardinal and Alberta Native News.

I remember teachers taking us to the Is platform to sse the murals but it was not a critical conversation they were very much pro church and viewed residential schools from a sinister paternalistic perspective.

The mural was eventually covered up but the narrative in grandin elementary was that they were "helping native families. I remember inside the school by the main stairwell there was a portrait of Old Grandin and it was literally so scary to me hated walking past it so much I would sprint up the stairs whenever I walked past him alone.

I attended the seventh and final Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s national event in March of 2014, at the end of one of the days I was there I took the train to see my old elementary school, to see the mural and to really consider what I had been taught in school versus what my community and family has taught me. Again, none of my direct family are residential school survivors but many Métis are and this history is often hidden. Prayers up and tobacco down for every single survivors, living and in spirit form.

Fig. 3. The mural depicting Bishop Vital-Justin Grandin at an Edmonton LRT Station was covered in orange Tuesday, June 8, 2021. Kirby Bourne, Global News

First Nations, Métis, and Inuit have been talking about their family members who did not come home and the abuse they experienced. This is not new information, and you have to sit and listen no matter how uncomfortable you are because nothing is more uncomfortable than colonial violence. When news came out about the children of Kamloops in 2021 it was devastating how many people I knew personally that were completely ignorant of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the history of residential schools. What happened in these institutions are absolute atrocities many people would rather not face even the knowledge of what happened to these children, both alive and passed on. Like the survivors, the perpetrators of these horrors live on and have never been held accountable.

Continue to honour your community, stand up and show up for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit. Learn about the history of settler-colonial occupation of this land and how you yourself are directly benefitting from this ongoing genocide. Residential school survivors and the children who never came home are in your community; they are the kind kokum down the hall as well as the middle aged man living on the street, their children young adults, teenagers, kids, babies, they still carry these experiences and memory down to the atoms that make up each of their cells.

works cited

Bourne, Kirby. ‘Mural at old Grandin LRT Station to be removed this fall,’ September 23rd, 2021, Global News.

Cardinal, Jake. ‘Edmonton Paints Over The Grandin Mural’, Alberta Native News, June 10th, 2021.

Grandin, Vital-Justin. On the goal of residential schools, 1875.

Pruys, Sarah. ‘MLA calls for new Fort Smith schools, citing residential school legacy’. Cabin Radio, March 5th, 2023.

Webstad, Phyllis Jack. Phyllis’ Story In Her Own Words, OrangeShirtDay.Org

#my heart is there for all survivors and families that lost their babies #truly heartbreaking stuff #truth and reconciliation #orange shirt day #riel text #Indigenous #heavy day

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mochie85 · 1 year

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To Have and To Hold - Chapter 4

THaTH Masterlist Complete Masterlist

Summary: Loki comes home to find Violet missing. A/N: Thank you to everyone who supported me in continuing this series. I'm sorry it took longer than expected. Thank you for being invested in these characters as I am. I wanna thank @lokisgoodgirl for being my BETA and @michelleleewise for all the wonderful ideas. You two are the absolute best! 🥰 Pairing: Loki x OFC/Reader Word Count: 1.8K Tags/Warnings: Lots of angst.

Loki arrived hours later, barging into your shared room. His nerves unable to relax until he held you in his arms again.

“Darling.” He called out to you. He ran into the en suite to see if your nausea had gotten the best of you again but you weren’t there. “FRIDAY, where is Agent Moreau?”

“She is not in the compound, Mr. Laufeyson.”

“What do you mean she’s not in the compound? Where is she? Did she leave?” Loki started to shake. His nightmare from hours ago crept toward the back of his mind. Clawing at him.

“Her last known location was in your bedroom, sir.” The AI answered.

“She’s not here FRIDAY. Can you please pull the security camera footage from outside the hall? Queue her last appearance please?” FRIDAY obeyed and relayed the image on the television screen hung above the fireplace.

He watched you walking back and forth between your old room and his room. You had items in your hands, clothes, and some small keepsakes. The last image of you was closing the door to your shared room and that was it.

Loki tried your cell phone. He heard it ring on the bedside table. He went to the nightstand, noticing a folded piece of paper with his name on it.

What in the nine realms?! “Since when have I ever given her the impression that she was never enough?” The letter made him seethe. But more pressingly, it made him worried. “FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Mr. Laufeyson?”

“Where’s Violet?”

“Current location for Agent Moreau is unknown.”

“Where’s Dr. Banner?” Loki growled in agitation.

“In his laboratory, sir,” FRIDAY answered. He swiftly walked through the halls and down to the elevators, trying to make his way to see Bruce. “How did she leave the building?”

“Unknown,” FRIDAY answered, keeping in time with the prince. Her voice followed him through the speakers like a sentient being. He pushed the call for the elevator. His anger causing a minor crack in the button. He decided that it was taking too long and opted to go down the stairwell.

Taking two steps at a time, Loki made quick work of descending the stairs. “Did she tell anyone she was leaving?” He asked FRIDAY once he got back inside the building hallway.

“Unknown.”

“Is she hurt? Was she taken? Why hasn’t anyone filed a missing person’s report for her?” The doors of multiple labs and offices whizzed past him on his way to Bruce’s laboratory.

“Unknown.”

“Is there anything that you do know?” he yelled up into the closest speaker.

“I know plenty of information, Mr. Laufeyson. I just have no knowledge of what you are inquiring about.”

Loki opened Bruce’s lab with an angry flourish.

“She’s gone!” Loki yelled. Bruce dropped the small blow torch he had in his hands at Loki’s entrance.

“Geez, Loki. Warn a man before you enter his lab. I could’ve been carrying something explosive!”

“Bruce. She-She’s gone. I have no idea where she is. FRIDAY is of NO HELP!” Loki yelled to the ceiling. “She could be hurt! She could’ve been taken. I had a horrible dream earlier and now I’ve come home to find the love of my life gone!”

“Whoa, whoa Loki. Settle down. Violet is gone?” Bruce asked, trying to calm him.

“Yes! I come home and all I found was this note on her nightstand next to her phone.” Loki threw the note down to the table and Bruce picked it up to read. “How do I even get in contact with her? What if she was taken and this is all a- a ploy? Some ruse to make me think she left me, so I won’t go looking for her?”

“Loki…”

“She could be hurt. She could be manipulated and used.”

“Loki…”

“Thanos could be torturing her right now.”

“Loki!” Bruce roared, looking a little green around his neck. Loki immediately stopped pacing and huffed. “Calm down, please.”

“I can’t, Bruce. I nearly lost her last time. And we both lost our child. I can’t lose her again. Not like this.”

Bruce sighed. Thinking about that night gave him heartache. You came home from a nearly fatal gunshot wound and all he remembers was your distraught face and the dark secret you had asked him and Strange to keep.

He wondered how long you were going to keep up the charade. You couldn’t hide your changing body forever. Everyone was bound to notice. The fact that the God of Lies hasn’t picked up on anything untoward was incredible on your part.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Loki. And I’m sorry about this,” Bruce says holding up the note and handing it back to him. “But what is this about Thanos and torturing her? Start from the beginning,” Bruce asked trying to change the subject.

Loki recounted everything that has happened since he hung up the phone with you. His readiness to talk. The horrifying dream he had. Then coming home to find your letter and watched you act suspiciously in the security footage.

“Nothing adds up, Bruce! One minute she’s in our room, the next she’s gone?! No footage of her leaving. No sign of any of the vehicles being taken. Her clothes are gone. Her weapons…”

Loki stood there running his hands through his hair and pulling it. He looked as crazed as the day he set foot on earth trying to conquer it for Thanos.

“Loki. I will help you find her,” Bruce volunteered.

“You will?”

“I can tell that you love her, greatly. And by the way she ended this note, I know that she loves you too. You guys just have a lot to work through. A LOT!” Bruce reasoned. “She has a tendency to run, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, she does. I just thought that I would be running right by her side, is all,” Loki sighed. “I mean…how could she think that Bruce? How could she think she was unworthy?”

“I…might know…something about that,” Thor chimed in.

“Blessed Yggdrasil!” Loki shrieked. “How long have you been there?”

“I’ve been here since before you came in!” Thor said indignantly. “We’ve been testing out Mjolnir’s heat…”

“Wonderful, Thor! Now, back to my predicament. What exactly do you know?” Loki demanded.

Thor sighed, “When we were on our last mission together…”

“Where you let her get shot, yes…”

“Before she got shot, we were discussing the future of the baby. Our traditions. How the child would’ve been whisked away to start training as a royal heir and guardian of the nine realms.”

“You WHAT?!”

“We talked about how you would be king one day if you chose to do so, and she might become queen.”

“Why would say that? We haven’t even discussed anything of the sort!”

“She wanted to know!”

“So, you’re telling me…that you told the mother of my unborn child…that we would’ve taken her baby away from her. To be raised as a warrior…or…or however, father saw fit, without her concern?”

“I didn’t put it in those words, Loki. She wanted to understand why you were so upset. And I told her that you just wanted the best for her and that you didn’t want her to give up her lifestyle. So, as per our traditions, the child would’ve been taken and raised...OOHHH, I see where I made the mistake.”

“YOU IMBECILE!” Loki yelled as he grabbed the small torch from where Bruce had placed it. In his hands, the blaze had grown higher, as if it were a sword made of flame. Thor rounded the table and backed away hoping to put Bruce in between them.

“Bruce, step away. There will be no saving my brother from the hellfire I will unleash,” Loki threatened.

“Loki, calm down. Thor, please don-don’t put me in the middle of this,” Bruce said exasperated.

“I will help you, Loki! I promise. I will help you look for Violet.” Thor tried to placate him. Loki swung the makeshift weapon and Bruce dodged it early enough to not get singed, leaving Thor to face Loki alone.

“Why would you spout nonsense to her, when I hadn’t had the chance to talk to her about it myself? No wonder she ran off! You took her choice away from her! She either loses our child or loses her freedom. No wonder she ran. She got scared.”

“Well, I guess it really didn’t matter in the end…” Thor said carelessly, more to himself but said it out loud. Before he could retract his statement, Loki swung the flame sword toward him again.

Loki saw red. His ears began ringing and the pain was the only thing he felt at being robbed of a life with you and the pain of losing the child. He yelled out loud. A plume of green seidr erupted around him. The smoke expanded out and then came back in, centering on Thor. A minor shake was felt all around the compound.

When Loki had finished yelling, and the dust finally settled, Bruce made his way over toward Loki.

“Loki? Thor?” Bruce coughed, fanning the debris away from him. Loki emerged from the smolder, squeezing a frog in his hands. Loki pushed the frog toward Bruce’s chest.

“I’ll change him when I have calmed down. If he’s lucky.” Loki growled at the frog. With a flick of his wrist, Loki opened the lab doors and walked out, taking the flume of smoke with him.

⬅️ Chapter 3 | Chapter 5 ➡️

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littlethingwithfeathers · 2 months

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Tornado Safety!

When tornado season starts up each year, I usually do a little PSA about how to prepare for bad storms. Since it seems like tornadoes are getting more and more likely outside of Tornado Alley (thank you climate change…), I thought I’d do a little more thorough and less Deep South centered write up to help people new to tornadoes prepare for bad weather.

Please note I’m not a severe weather specialist, nor am I any kind of emergency or crisis assistance professional. This is just wisdom gleaned from three decades living in a place where this stuff was just… normal. You learned about tornado safety in school, and you knew how severe weather worked by watching the news. It’s just part of the culture around here (Here being northern Alabama). But if you’re new to it, or it’s new to you, here’s my primer.

Tornado 101: Tornado season happens in the mid-to-southeastern USA (nicknamed Tornado Alley) twice each year. Broadly speaking, tornado season is from late February to August each year, with another blip in the autumn that’s less severe. (obviously tornadoes are becoming more common outside of this area and “season” is varying more and more. Again… Climate change.) Most tornadoes occur in the late afternoon/early evening, usually after the sun has warmed up the ground and caused the atmosphere to become unstable due to the rapidly changing air temperature. The reason spring is so volatile is because that is the widest temperature change on a day to day basis, plus it rains often which adds to humidity which adds to the instability. This is not to say tornadoes can’t happen any other time of year. It’s just less likely. If you’re interested in a deeper primer, check out the National Severe Storms Laboratory page on the subject HERE! Cool… so you live in Tornado Alley or another place that gets tornadoes (They’ve been seen as far north as Chicago and as far west as California)! What should you do so you don’t get blown away?

Well first of all, don’t freak out. Don’t ever freak out. It’s fine. There’s some prep you should do both in terms of equipment and knowledge, but there’s no need to go full Doomsday Prepper on this. There’s just some basic stuff you should have and know, just like someone in northern Wisconsin should know how to drive on snow and have an engine block heater. Annual Tornado Safety Checkup: Here’s a list of things you should do to prepare ahead of time for a possible tornado or bad storm (tornadoes are bad, but there’s things that cause just as much disruption or damage like straight line winds and hail). And once you get your gear together, you should check that stuff every year. I usually go through mine in March, and then again when the weather starts to turn cold in fall (there’s a lot of overlap of this stuff and winter storm gear in my area so I can double up). Know where your safe place is. This is where you will take cover during a tornado. If you live in a house, locate an interior room on the lowest floor of your home (including your basement). This should be the room with the most walls between you and the outside and no windows if possible. Usually this a bathroom or interior hallway. If you live in an apartment that’s not on the ground floor, or in a trailer or dormitory, find out where the nearest shelter is and make a plan of how to get there. For dorms or apartments sometimes they have an onsite shelter. At work, ask your manager/boss/coworker who’s been there awhile what happens during a tornado. If you work in a non-public facing place like an office, it might take some time to get an answer (and if there’s not an answer, that’s a red flag. You should push to figure that out.) but if you work in some place that the public goes regularly (school, mall, entertainment venue), it might be posted somewhere in the building like the bathroom or a main hallway. For public spaces, when in doubt, go to the bathroom or an interior stairwell/hallway on the first floor. Remember, you want as many walls between you and outside as possible and as few things between you and the ground as possible. Get a weather radio and get extra batteries. This will be a programmable radio that will alert you to severe weather in your area. Walmart and similar stores usually have them. Sometimes news stations will give them away for free, but they aren’t expensive. Seriously… go get one. They’re absolutely vital. And make sure to get one that can run on batteries if the power goes out. I have a pretty sweet one that also has a built in flashlight and functions as a regular radio. You’ll need to program that sucker so it knows what location to give alerts for, but there’s plenty of online tutorials for that or it will come with instructions. And you may be tempted to think that you don’t need one because of internet or cell service. Don’t. It’s a trap. A major rule of severe weather safety is don’t rely on only one piece of hardware/source for information. So don’t just rely on your phone. Don’t rely on the TV. Don’t rely on the internet. Those things can and will go out. But even if the power goes out, the radio stations will fire up the generators and keep broadcasting. During the terrible tornado outbreak here in April of 2011, the power was out for over a week and we -only- had radio. They kept broadcasting though!

Oh, and make sure you swap out the batteries and test that puppy every year. Familiarize yourself with a map of your area. Map reading skills and personal awareness of your location are basic tornado safety skills. Learn what county you’re in. Learn where you are in said county and what counties border you. Learn basic landmarks in your more immediate area, especially to the west as most storms move west to east. These landmarks should be things like major highways/roads, municipal buildings like schools, hospitals, and public buildings, and other major locations of note (parks, major shopping centers, and large well-known churches). And not only will you want to know this stuff visually, but you’ll need to be able to hear it via radio and know where you are and where the storm is. This takes practice, so start working on it now. Find a local weather person you like on a local news channel and start watching their broadcasts. Sometimes you can even find them on YouTube! For example, this is how a weatherperson will explain where a storm is over the radio and which direction it’s headed: This storm is currently outside Warksburg in Warking County and is headed west across Warkwark Road along Interstate 0. If you live near the Warkmart on Warkington St. or in the neighborhood around Our Lady of the Perpetual Warking Church, take shelter immediately. If you live in Warkford Plaza or in the area of the Warkball stadium on Warkford Street, take cover as well since this will be on you in about 10 minutes. I’m always surprised at how many people can’t find themselves on a basic county map. Growing up in Alabama in the 90s, they drilled this stuff into everyone both in the school system and as a public safety project… we even had stickers with county maps for the back of your remote so you could make notes about where you were for when you were watching the radar. Map skills are basic safety in tornado country. Especially if the TV is out and all you have is the radio to listen to for updates. You need to know that stuff when the weather-people are talking about trajectories of storms, so you can know if you need to go hide in your bathroom or if you can go stand on your porch. (kidding. Don’t do that except I’m totally one of those people…) Learn to sling the tornado lingo. Know what a hook echo is and how to spot one on a radar? How about a wall cloud? Know what a super cell is and why it’s dangerous? There’s a whole lexicon of terms about tornadoes and learning them will help you more effectively watch your local weather coverage during severe storms. You should also learn what the different alert levels are and what they mean… but the short version is that a Watch means conditions are favorable for tornadoes (this often gets announced at least a few hours before storms move into the area), and a Warning means that a tornado/funnel has been spotted or has appeared on radar (This will be announced as soon as the rotation is spotted on radar or there’s a physical report on the ground. Likely lasts less than half an hour). Watch means just hang tight, get eyes on your safety gear, and keep an eye on the weather. Warning means there is (or is very likely) a tornado on the ground so if you’re in the path, go hide. A great source for this and other vocabulary is here!

Get a first aid kit. This is basic life safety, really, but it’s also important for tornado safety. If you can, get one of those kits that has some of the outdoorsy survival stuff like rain ponchos, alcohol wipes, emergency shears, and splinter removal. You will also want sunscreen in there (in case the power goes out for a long time and you need to walk somewhere like the grocery store so you don’t waste gas). Check it every year to see what needs replacing. Also make sure it has some basic OTC meds like pain relievers. Buy good flashlights. And don’t forget the batteries. They also make super cool hand-crank flashlights, and my personal favorite are these flashlights that have a charging cradle. You plug them in and they double as a nightlight… and when the power goes out they turn on so you can see to find them. And before you ask, no your cellphone does not count as a flashlight, save to use it to get to your real flashlight. You’ll want to save the charge on your phone for later. Remember that the assumption here is that the power might be out for awhile… possibly more than a day. You will need a real flashlight. More than one preferably. I have one in my kitchen, garage, and my bedside table. Make sure when you get them that you take them out of the plastic prisons so you’re not fumbling with scissors in the dark. Also, it’s not the worst idea to get an electric lantern or two. They can live in your car until you really need them. Test your generators and service them if needed. This is pretty self explanatory. Stockpile prescription meds. If you’re on meds that will be a Bad Time ™ if you go off them, make sure you keep a bit of a stockpile. If you’re on a controlled substance or just generally have issues with this, contact your doctor or pharmacist for assistance/information. This is just good life safety again, but you do not want to get stuck behind washed out roads with no power AND no meds. *** Okay… so you have your stuff. You know your plan and you can find your house on a map. And you hear there’s severe weather coming in a few days. Now what? Well, there’s no reason to go crazy. Odds are good everything will be fine. So to keep myself from going overboard, all my prep goes through two gates: What will I kick myself for not doing if the worst happens? What will I kick myself for doing and not needing it? That tends to keep the desire to over-prepare at bay. Check your annual checks again. Ensure they’re all working and you have back up batteries for your radio, flashlight, etc. Also, make sure all these things are where you can find them in the dark. Bear in mind as you’re prepping that you might be without power and/or internet for awhile… as in days. Get the following items and make sure you can find them in the dark: -Pocket knife/multi-tool. -Rain jacket, -Sturdy, closed toe, shoes and good socks (water proof/resistent if you have them. You might need to pick your way out of your house through debris so pretend you’re going to a construction site). -A bike or construction helmet (put it in your safe place). -Sturdy clothes… like some good jeans, longsleeve shirt etc. Again, pretend you’re going to a construction site. -A good backpack/duffle/small suitcase (no need to pack a bag every time it thunders but just be able to lay a hand on what you’d need if you have to pack in the dark). -An umbrella. -A little cash. (No need to go crazy, but if power, cell service, and internet go down, we’re back to the stone ages… so get enough to grab some groceries and maybe a tank of gas). -Pet carriers if you have animals, and food for them. (In case you need to evacuate) -Candles and ignition sources. (don’t have this be your only light source, but they’re not a bad idea for prolonged outages)

Get gas. Gas up any cars you have the day before severe weather is due to hit. If you have a generator, get gas for it. No need to go hoarding, but you will want a full tank of gas just in case. Best case scenario, nothing happens and future you has one less thing to worry about in the morning on your way to work. Worst case scenario… Future you has one less thing to worry about in a crisis. (We learned this lesson in the 2011 outbreak in Alabama… The power was out for over a week and we had less than half a tank in both our cars and were not sure we could make it to a place with power that also had gas so we were stuck.)

Check your prescription medication stock. Make sure you’d be good for at least a week if the power goes out or you get stuck behind fallen trees or a washed out road. Do laundry. I’m serious. Make sure you have clean clothes and plenty of towels just in case the power goes out and you can’t do laundry for awhile. (also a lesson personally learned in 2011) Charge all your devices. Cellphones, tablets, laptops, power banks and external batteries for your cellphones, and such. Anything like that. Find all your cables and have them in easy reach. Again… future you will thank you for this regardless of if you get blown to Oz. Make sure you have weather apps and alert systems installed on your phone and check for updates. If it’s supposed to storm overnight, turn the ringer on your phone on. Don’t just trust the sirens to warn you. (we learned that lesson a couple of years ago… a software glitch lead to the sirens not going off). Make sure you can lay hands on things you don’t need power to do. If the power goes out for a really long time it can make you a little stir-crazy, so stash some playing cards, a crochet project, a book or anything like that with your emergency supplies. Your bored future self will thank you. I read a lot of books in the week we were without power in 2011 and I taught my husband to play Egyptian Rat Screw.

If you have a propane grill, make sure you have a fresh/extra tank on hand. If you lose power for a long time, you might want to have a cookout to work through anything perishable in your freezer. Make sure you have food on hand that doesn’t require cooking. Granola/protein bars, canned goods, peanut butter, that sort of thing. Also, keep drinking water on hand, just in case. Just a case in the pantry will do. And don’t just feed yourself! Make sure you have food and supplies for any pets you might have. Again… don’t stockpile or go crazy. Just make sure if the power goes out for a couple of days, you’re covered on food… stuff you’d eat anyway. Make sure you can find weather info quickly and from multiple sources. Tune your radio, weather radio, and TV to your local weather station of choice. Bookmark a good local weather source in your web browser and on your phone. *** So you’re all prepped. But now your weather radio is going ballistic! THERE’S A TORNADO WATCH! WAT DO???

Stay calm. Seriously, it’s probably fine and you aren’t going to change the trajectory of the storm by stressing about it. If where you are is not safe (such as a mobile home or you’re out driving) go to the tornado shelter. Do this before the sirens go off or the take cover order is given. You don’t want to be caught driving. Take a change of clothes, your first aid kit, a flashlight, your phone charger, your phone, ID and money, and something to do that won’t drain your cellphone battery. Stay glued to your local weather news. Use everything that’s working… TV, website, and radio. Watch the trajectory and heed any advice from the local weather-people and the National Weather Service. You’re watching for things close to you now. Often the weather people tracking the storms will draw a cone out from areas of concern (not just tornadoes but things like hail as well) and those cones will mark neighborhoods, major landmarks etc. and give ETAs for all those places. This is where all your map reading skills will come in handy. They said to take cover! The sirens are going off! So that means you need to go to your safe spot we mentioned before. Stay calm and get moving. Turn up the TV/computer so you can hear the weather from your safe spot. Bring your pets and family. Bring your flashlight. Bring your first aid kit. Bring your phone and charger. Bring your weather radio. Grab all your pillows or a fluffy duvet to hide under. Put on your helmet if you have one. (This is to help prevent injury from falling debris or broken glass.) And bring something to do. You might be here for a hot minute. Stay in your safe spot until the all clear is given. Be patient. These storms move fast usually, but tornadoes can spin up on the front and backside of a line of storms. Sit tight and wait for the all clear. WHAT IF I’M DRIVING!? If you’re driving and a tornado warning is given for the area, or God forbid you SEE a funnel cloud, stay calm. If there’s a house or building nearby, go bang on the door and beg them to let you inside. I’m serious. If there’s no buildings, go lay flat in a ditch. I’m still serious. Get as low to the ground as you can and cover your head and face with your jacket. You absolutely do not want to be in a car when there’s tornadoes about. They will toss you around like a tin can. Edited to add: Do NOT get under an overpass. This was common wisdom (even I was told this and originally had it in the post) but according to the National Weather Service and FEMA this is not the case. It seems like a good idea because it's a sturdy shelter, but it acts like a wind tunnel. Thank you to @medic-kix for the catch.

*** Aaaannnd that’s that! I’m sure I missed something so feel free to tack on if you’ve got any further advice. Everyone be safe and stay weather aware!

#tornado #tornado safety #tornadoes #storms #storm safety #severe weather #severe weather safety #safety #tornado alley

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astarionslittlejuicebox · 5 months

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The Promise of Eternity (Part 3)

Author: @astarionslittlejuicebox

Imagine: The reader helped Astarion ascend and became his spawn. After saving the world from the Elder brain and it’s destruction, the reader and Astarion set out to take on the world together. While he promised to never forget the gifts the reader has given him, Astarion has seemed to have changed his attitude towards the reader in the last century…. After someone breaks one of Astarion’s rules, how will this affect the reader’s fate?

Pairing: Astarion x F!Reader

Trigger warnings: potential for minor spoilers, suggestive themes, language, mentions of death, mentions of blood, abusive relationship, mention of slavery

Word Count: 1234

Imagine Series List

Side Notes:

This imagine series takes place 200 years after the events of Baldur’s Gate 3. Everything you read in here is a story from my mind outside of the original BG3 character Astarion.

In this imagine series, Astarion is a bit more unemotionally unavailable, and this series will follow the decisions and consequences of that change. This is not canonically accepted and it is just an idea I’ve had in my head! (I do believe Astarion might truly care for the reader after Ascension, but that is open to individual interpretation.)

In this series, TAV is mildly based on my first character I played in BG3; she is a drow and I will make references to her in her background and knowledge as well. I do apologize that it is not 100% your own imagine, but the name for TAV is up to you as well as anything else that I can think of leaving to you, the reader, to decide.

I appreciate everyone who reads the imagines and this series, and I hope you enjoy the story!

TAV POV

As I walked out of the castle I called home, I was greeted by the gardeners tending to the landscape. Each of them received a smile and a small greeting from me as I proceeded on my journey to the one place that could help me uncover who had stolen the blood. A stone path lead away from the pearl white mansion and into a small forested area that separated the city from our sanctuary. I continued to follow that stone path until it turned to dust and then returned to stone as I arrived at the outskirts of the bustling city. Most of the city’s patrons took no notice of me as I waltzed through the city streets. Walking through the city had become a comfort for me in the last century, and it has only grown to be more of a comfort to me in the last few years with the tiefling parading about the castle. With the changing of the season, the scents of the city had changed. In the air, spices like cinnamon and clove hung heavily in the air as bakers in local bakeries baked fresh apple pies for the season. Cinnamon brooms hung in several store fronts that I passed by on my stroll, and I reminisced on the days when Astarion would let me decorate the castle for the upcoming holidays. Nowadays, the only room in the house that remained decorated for all the holidays was my bedchambers.

Some parents nearby laughed as their young child did a cartwheel in the grass off to the side of the pathway. An all-too-familiar feeling pulled at the muscles in the dead organ within my chest at the sight, and I quickly turned my attention back to my task at hand. The library in Baldur’s Gate had some of the best selections of books on all sorts of magic and spells. In my younger years, I had heard about a handful of rituals that could prove useful in shedding some light on who the blood thief was. Worse case scenario, I could use one of the rituals to locate the vial of blood itself.

The familiar ashen gray stone building stood before me with its long flight of cream stairs beckoning me up to the large stone double doors; standing guard on either side of the stairwell was a pair of slate gray gargoyles, whose eyes followed your every move. Giving them a small wave as I passed, I entered one of the few places in Baldur’s Gate that still felt like home. Shelves upon shelves occupied most of the space on the first floor of the enormous building. Books of all shapes and sized filled every shelf your eyes could see. Above the venter of the room, a circular opening gave away to the upper floor of the library, where more shelves stand awaiting the arrival of the next avid reader to pick a book from their shelf and peer between the book’s cover in search of the knowledge hidden within the sheets. Walking to the center of the room, a large circular desk demanded all attention as a golden dragonborn stood behind its daunting wooden structure. Vunxar Drakax was an older male dragonborn who loved the books as if they were his own children, and I had come to be great friends with him over the last few decades.

“Now, why would someone bend the corner of a page in Ascension and the Stars? Does no one have any respect for the pages anymore?” His exotic voice whispered as he worked to unbend a dog-eared page in a book with a sparkling purple cover.

“Most people do not care for the books like children, Vunxar.” I whispered as I stood in front of the desk where the librarian was working.

“That is precisely what is wrong with people nowadays. I remember when books were treated with respect and no one bent the pages.” He sighed heavily as he turned to look at me with cyan eyes. “Ah, (TAV’s name), what can I help you find today?” He gave me a toothy-smile before he continued to examine the returned library book’s condition.

“I am seeking knowledge of rituals that could either help me see a past event that happened in the last couple of days, and I believe there is a book that could help me track something that has been lost as well.” I gave the dragonborn a warm smile as he paused, contemplating my request.

“I do believe that I may have a few books in here that could hold the knowledge you seek. In shelving unit T21, there is a book with an emerald green cover called Ruination of Reality that details the dangers of timetraveling and alternating events of the past. Another book in shelving unit A4, Queen of the Lost and Found, may hold a story or two of the ancient Queen Coshi Talae and her ritual to find a lost relic of her late husband, who died at sea. The only other book I can think of off the top of my cranium is hidden away from the public, but for you I will allow to read. It is Inception of Yesterday, and you will find that book contains valuable information on the Weave’s ability to receive energy from events of the past. In there, I believe you could find some information about observing the past. Here, allow me to go get the book for you while you search for the other two.” Vunxar stepped away from the book in front of him as I started to make my way through the maze of shelves to find the books he had told me about. After searching the library for a couple of hours, I returned to the desk to check out the books Vunxar recommended. A book with a plain midnight blue cover laid on the desk next to his arm.

“I hope you were able to find both of my recommendations.” He said as I placed both of the books on the counter in front of him. “From the looks of it, you were able to. You wouldn’t believe the amount of incompetent people who are not able to locate any book in here, even with me telling them the shelving unit number.” He let out a soft, hardy laugh that quietly echoed in the otherwise silent building. “And I have found the book I promised you as well.” He wrote quickly on the ledger the names of the books, the date, and my name before handing me all three books. “As always, please return to me once you have had your fill of knowledge from the books, or if you find you no longer need the knowledge within the pages.”

“Of course, Vunxar.” I gave him a warm smile before grabbing the books and taking my leave. I kept a brisk pace back to the dungeon of the castle I called home as I eagerly awaiting the knowledge hidden within the pages of the books that were hugged close to my unbeating heart.

Hopefully I can learn what I need to in these pages to catch that damn blood thief. I thought to myself. Perhaps, then, Astarion would at least speak to me cordially again. With a newfound pep in my step, I could not wait to delve into the books.

#astarion imagine #astarion x reader #baldursgate3 #baldursgate3imagine #ascended astarion #the promise of eternity

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chirpsythismorning · 7 months

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Willel Twins Crumbs Because Why Not

Subtitles for the news report stop at this point for this scene, so I will provide them:

Can you remember your favorite stuffed toy from childhood?

And how heartbroken you were when it left your life?

Then you’ll relate to the story, of a girl named *unintelligible*

So right from the jump, directly after the opening credits, we are being bombarded with shots of keys and Hopper showing off his blue bracelet and his watch. We know the bracelet was actually a ponytail that belonged to his daughter Sarah, however I think the importance of this scene runs a lot deeper.

It might not seem important, but the dialogue in the background also connects to not only Sarah, but to Will and El too.

As we know, Sarah had a stuffed Tiger on her bedside at the hospital during treatment for her cancer (also featuring the blue ponytail on Hopper's wrist).

As it turns out, Will and El also had a stuffed toy that was referenced in this same season, though they both had stuffed lions, in contrast to Sarah's stuffed tiger.

While it is understood by the majority at this time that these parallels exist only to jog Hopper's memory of his own daughters death, to give some more depth and impact to these moments, it still doesn't answer the question as to why these 3 kids all have the same stuffed toy to begin with? And apparently enough importance for them to drop an easter egg in the first 10 minutes of the show?

In the context of El for example, she has the stuffed lion because it was essentially the only meaningful toy in her possession while in the lab. Sure, she played with toys in the rainbow room and colored with crayons, but those were all things they were tasked to do to test out and improve the kids' powers. The lion in contrast, was simply there to operate as something more personal, tied to her innocence and a life she could have had outside of the lab. And yet at the same time, this being the only thing El had in the lab, gives its importance a tie to the lab itself, which is why I am so wary about this whole thing.

In the context of Will on the other hand, we don't really know much other than that it was shown a lot more than El and Sarahs' combined.

Will's lion and the prominence of it in s1, more than anything else, is what makes me think the meaning behind these parallels is so much more than how we currently understand it. Because while we assume right now he has no ties to the lab, the fact that this stuffed toy has ties to the lab for El and Sarah, begs to question why there was a need to focus on it so much in Will's case, when he was never in the lab pre-s1 (or was he?)...

Which then brings us to Sarah, where you might think her case has no ties to the lab, but it does!

Sarah received treatment for her cancer at Hawkins Lab. This is something so many people either overlook and don't know about, or forget and just brush off as being insignificant, which I just cannot fathom.

It would be one thing if this was common knowledge in canon and actually spoken about, with Hopper talking about how it's not his first time here, and yet they don't make any effort to establish that. All we got is this stairwell shot of Hopper mourning Sarah's death, in the same stairwell at Hawkins Lab, which we see not only referenced in s1, but also s2 and s4.

Yeah... Owens knows exactly who that is. Let's not forget he's the one who, in another universe (Aliens) signed a document back in 79' that led the death of a lot of people...

So... what's the deal? Why has there been such an effort to put in easter eggs to allude to something unanswered related to Hopper's memories of Sarah, often triggered by instances regarding Will and El, who have almost identical stuffed animals to his daughter's, all tying them to the lab to some extent, and without that being touched on at all by the writers outside of the show?

Well, probably because there's still one season left and this plays a big part in the key to everything...

#byler #stranger things #jim hopper #el hopper #will byers #willel twins #willel literal twins #twelvegate #will = yellow #el = red #you get the gist #premium crackers featured in a scene about el's parents 'forgetting' to feed her #us seeing those same crackers in that same episode when joyce and hopper looking for signs of will #this concept of forgetting #el matching will in her plaid w her bracelet paralleling his watch at rink o mania: 'idk i just forgot...' will: 'right...'#'CRIB' SCORE PLAYING WHEN WILL IS CONSOLING EL OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL IN LENORA #THE FIRST TIME WE SEE THE CRIB BEING CRYPTICALLY ACCOMPANIED BY JOYCE AND HOPPER IN S1 #WHEN THEY WERE LITERALLY TALKING ABOUT THE TRUTH BEING COVERED UP #the lucky charms with the rainbow + upside down horseshoe #hopper cast in a rainbow before he walks up to the shed with a horseshoe above the door...#el's memories of the lab being triggered which included many shots repeated #but specifically 2 shots of her when she was a baby and 2 shots of her when she was 5 years old in the lab...#the lights in that s4 promo above el and will being identical in blocking like literally spot on #something something 'you didn't really think we were working out of a shed did you?'

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heliads · 2 years

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Keep You Safe

Based on this request: "Your a Etherealki who fled your country. you arrived in ketterdam and met kaz who recruited you after learning about your grisha gifts. 2 years later your kaz’s right hand man. he’s the only one to know about your powers. One night your both ambushed by razorgulls, and are forced to use your power to protect yourself and kaz."

masterlist

It is a glorious day in the Barrel, and you’ve scarcely even begun it. The desolate landscape can’t slow your spirits; no amount of choking smog in the streets nor roaming packs of thugs can bring you down. Years you’ve spent seeing the world, eternities you’ve had to appreciate a world outside of Ketterdam.

Today, however, you’re not loving the world but your home, which has been proven to be Ketterdam time and time again. You know the nooks and crannies of the Slat as well as if you’d been born there. You’re keenly aware of which creaking stairs should be avoided, which oil lamps will never light, and which rooms have peepholes in the sides. This place is a riddle to most, but you’ve solved it, and now it’s yours to cherish.

You’ve been away on Dregs business all morning, and after a brief stop in your quarters to reload your guns and check yourself for injuries you haven’t sustained, you head back out again. You’ve scarcely stepped over your own threshold, however, when you’re greeted by a familiar face.

Kaz Brekker, known by one and all for his glimmering enthusiasm about roughly nothing at all, pauses for a moment on the stairwell so you have time to latch your door before he passes by.

He arches a brow in a careful movement you’ve seen about a thousand before. Kaz wears his consternation on his sleeve. The greed of men may line his coat pockets, but he doesn’t need to rely on an entire city to carve his expressions from solid stone. Kaz is cold, as he always is, as he always will be.

Indeed, today he seems just as frosty as usual. “You look particularly festive this morning, Y/N. Have you perhaps amassed a fortune without my knowledge?”

You smirk. “Money isn’t the only thing that can bring joy, Kaz, even if it’s all that works for you. I’m merely happy because today marks two years since we met. Just picture it. Two full years ago, I was merely a starving wretch on the streets and you took me in. You were a wretch too, of course, just slightly less starving. Now look at us.”

Kaz inclines his head solemnly. “No longer wretches, just con men. A marvelous change.”

In all honesty, you do owe a lot to Kaz. You came to Ketterdam half lost in fear, running from witch catchers trying to drag you back to your home country. Few places treat their Grisha well, and as an Etherealnik, you’ve faced your share of dangers. You left everything behind when you got on a ship destined for Kerch, but it ended up being the best decision you’ve ever made.

Most of that is, of course, due to Kaz Brekker. He found you when the two of you were almost nothing, and you’ve grown to become his right hand man. Kaz is the only one who knows that you’re a Grisha, and both of you have long since agreed on keeping it that way. To be a master of the Small Science in the Barrel is to accept your fate as an escaped lab rat. At any moment, you could be found and forced back to imprisonment or experimentation in your home country.

You’re fairly sure that most people would consider a life as a criminal in Ketterdam to be a terrible fate, but you’ve grown to enjoy it. You have a home here, as strange as it seems. You trust Kaz completely with your secret, and he has yet to betray you. Around here, loyalties last as long as the shifting tides, but for some reason Kaz is the exception.

Still, sentimentality is rarely encouraged, even though you have a lot to appreciate. Kaz is certainly regarding you as if you’ve lost your mind.

You roll your eyes. “I’d say it’s fantastic. We’ve come a long way, don’t you think?”

Kaz glances towards you, almost incredulous. “I never would have thought you to be this sentimental. Have you gone soft with your newly acquired old age?”

You laugh. “I’m not soft, Kaz. A strong command over my emotions is one of my best strengths.”

Kaz seems suspicious. “Just the other day, you audibly cheered when I allowed you to leave your post early to go get waffles with Nina. Are you certain that controlling your emotions is still a strength of yours?”

You tilt your head to the side, considering this. “Absolutely. As is duplicity.”

Kaz exhales sharply through his nose, paired with a brief upward tug of his lips. Saints, is he laughing?

Before you can call him out on it, Kaz taps the end of his cane against the stair railing. “Inej and Jesper have been waiting for you. They’re at a table on the first floor.”

You smile at the thought of it. “I’ll have to take them up on that offer. See you around, Kaz.”

Kaz murmurs something under his breath as you go, just too quiet for you to hear. Judging by the sharp flash of his eyes to you, you don’t think you were meant to hear it. Judging by that same flicker of a smirk on his normally creased mouth, the sentiment might even be positive.

You meet Inej and Jesper to find them huddled together, trying to figure out a similar problem.

Jesper spreads his fingers flat on the table as if laying out an invisible round of cards to steady his nerves. “We’re fascinated by this recent development, Y/N. Kaz is either smiling or undergoing a significant involuntary spasm of the face. I’ve never known Dirtyhands to do anything involuntarily, so it must be the former.”

Inej raises a brow, highlighting a bemused smile. “I thought the whole point of involuntary actions is that no one had control over it, even Kaz.”

Jesper sighs. “See, you’d think so, but Kaz appears to be an exception. I mean, last week, for example, we were walking through this dusty mercher’s office. All of our boys were sneezing their souls out, but Kaz didn’t even flinch. Nature means nothing to him. He has to be smiling.”

You ponder alongside your friends. “But does Kaz smiling make any more sense?”

Inej taps her hand against the hilt of one of her knives, just barely visible against her belt. “Exactly. He does seem to have an exception for you, though.”

Jesper nods fervently before you can deny this. “Yes. I mean, it makes sense. Kaz sets you on these impossible tasks, and you always come back with successfully. How do you do it, honestly? How do you beat such odds every time?”

You hesitate before you speak. The reason you’re able to handle such tough jobs is because you are, after all, still a Grisha. You only use your gifts when no one can see, and when the people you’re fighting will end up dead. The only way to make sure no one can tell on you is to silence them forever, and Kaz knows it.

You’re his best killer for that reason, although you can’t exactly articulate it now. You’re certain that Inej knows, or can at least guess at it. Over your time spent wandering the alleyways and canals of Ketterdam, you’ve found that the best strategy in life is to assume that Inej knows everything and go from there. Otherwise, you waste a lot of time trying to cover up secrets that she already found out.

Still, you’re not about to tell anyone else that you’re an Etherealnik. So, you plaster on a smile, and hope that Jesper is distracted enough by Kaz’s bizarre expression that he won’t ask you anything else.

“Perhaps it’s my dazzling wit. Or my guns.” You offer.

Jesper shrugs. “That’s good enough for me.”

Inej deftly switches the conversation to another topic, and you let the contented sounds of your friends’ voices fill your ears. It is a pleasing place, your city, even if few would agree with you. At least here, you have a chance. All it takes is a pair of watchful eyes and open ears, and you’re ready to go.

Speaking of which, you have a prime view of the door outside the Slat from your table, and you can’t help but notice something strange. The same man has been passing by several times, going back and forth on some unknown task. He walks furtively, as if not wanting to be seen, but you’ve noticed him regardless.

On the man’s fourth passage past the door, you decide that something is definitely up. You bid your farewells to Inej and Jesper, then walk back over to Kaz, who has been monitoring the various gang members from his same position on the stairwell. Most people seem almost unaware of him, but this can’t wait, even if it means you draw attention to him.

Kaz regards you coolly when you finally arrive by his side. “What’s the matter? Come to ask if I really am smiling or not?”

You shake your head. “No, and stop using the reflections of the windows to read our lips, it’s weird.”

Kaz looks vaguely disappointed that you’ve figured out his secret so quickly, but you keep going before he can interrupt.

“Look, I was watching the door and the same guy has been hurrying past the building a couple times now. He seems sketchy.”

Kaz nods mechanically. “Yes, I’ve seen him too.”

You glance around to make sure no one else can hear you, then drop your voice down an octave. “I had a better view than you, though. There’s a gang tattoo on his wrist. I couldn’t make it out from this distance, but he’s definitely no friend of ours.”

Kaz’s expression shifts imperceptibly. “You’re certain he’s not merely a worker at one of the brothels trying to fetch customers?”

You shake your head. “He’s walking with too much purpose. I don’t know who it is, but they have no reason to be so far in our territory.”

Kaz inclines his head slowly. “Let’s check it out ourselves.”

You don’t need him to remind you to walk calmly, as if nothing were the matter. The Dregs scattered around the various levels of the Slat may be your allies, but panicking them through harried footsteps won’t do a bit of good. Besides, Kaz knows two or three of the fellows clustered nearby are spies for rival gangs, traitors he keeps around for the sole purpose of feeding them misinformation. You don’t want to alert them to any signs that you’re onto something.

All the same, Kaz’s pace is brisk as he sets out from the Slat. You watch as his eyes methodically sweep every corner of the streets, searching and scanning for some sign of the man. The two of you walk side by side down the block, then turn a corner and keep going.

As the two of you walk, Kaz seems to relax enough to point the crow’s head of his cane towards the mouth of an alleyway not far from where you stand now. “That’s where we first met, I believe. You were robbing the very banker I was hoping to pickpocket.”

You laugh. “I didn’t realize you still remembered. As I recall, you were furious that I stole your opportunity until you found out that you could use me, and then you were pleased again.”

Kaz scoffs, mildly vexed at the thought that you’ve been abusing your first encounter with him even in the confines of your own memory. “I wasn’t using you, I was offering you a job. If I was using you, you wouldn’t be paid.”

The two of you have passed by the alley by now, but the memories still continue to call to you. “Of course, I should have known. The mere fact that you share your fortunes with me is a clear indicator that we’re friends.”

Kaz looks puzzled. “Yes. That’s exactly what that means.”

You grin. “I wouldn’t assume anything less.”

Kaz shoots you an affronted look. “Don’t mock me, my fortunes are exactly what’s keeping us all afloat. As I recall, you were thanking me for it just a moment ago.”

“Yes, but I’m entirely too sentimental, something you were chastising me for also just a moment ago. I’m trying to rid myself of it now.”

Kaz glances over at you again, eyes softening. You rarely see him like this, in bare snatches of conversation or late night meetings, and it always happens when the two of you are alone. It makes you wonder what could have happened had the two of you not been forced into the gutters of this city by monstrosities outside of your control.

Over Kaz’s shoulder, you see a group of people start to emerge out of a side street. You’ve been too distracted by the wave of memories, as was Kaz, and neither of you noticed the fact that there are surprisingly few people out on such a pleasant morning, especially on a road that should be riddled with people.

It is precisely this distraction, the two of you enjoying each other’s company, that leaves you utterly unprepared for the attack. Too late, you notice the tattoos on the wrists of these newcomers, inked designs that must match the one on the man who you’d spotted outside the Slat. These are the Razorgulls, come to lure Dirtyhands and his right hand man into an ambush.

Kaz starts to react, ready to push you out of the way, but it’s too late. The Razorgulls’ hands are already on drawn guns, already pulling triggers, and no amount of belated hypervigilance will save you now. Not unless you do something. You know what you have to do, of course, there is no other option left to save the two of you, but you regret it even as you extend your hands.

Here is the one thing that the Razorgulls do not know, a little trick that they picked up on too late: you are Grisha, you are born of witchcraft, and in the end, a few bullets are nothing compared to you. You had time to practice your gifts before you had to leave your country, and your mastery of the Small Science is enough to save you now.

Your Etherealki powers leave you in a rush, barreling down the street and colliding with the Razorgulls in one mass display of force. About half are left dead or otherwise too broken for repair, and the remaining few run with terrified eyes towards the nearest source of cover.

You’re left standing there, arms still raised. The gravity of what you’ve done comes crashing over you now. You’ve revealed yourself for good. How long will it be until the witch hunters start coming for you, how long until the slavers realize that they’ve got perfectly good prey right here wearing your skin? This is how it ends, then, with you spending the rest of your life in terror.

You’re lost in a haze of panic. All this time, you’ve been doing your best to avoid this very fate, and now it’s found you regardless. A hand descends upon yours, and you’re suddenly dragged out of your maze of nerves by the sheer shock of it. You stare at the hand for a moment longer, as if to confirm that what you’re seeing is real, and it is: your fingers intertwined, practically tearing themselves apart, and a gloved palm resting on top. Kaz’s hand. Kaz’s touch, which you have never felt more than an accidental passing graze of fabric against fabric.

The surprise of it is enough to pull you back to reality. When you look up, Kaz’s jaw is set.

“We need to get back to the Slat. I have a list of names for Inej to find. Half can be bought out, the others will be killed. If we act quickly, we can stop this information from getting out.”

You shake your head slowly. “You can’t just kill random civilians and gang members, even through the Dregs. It’s not worth the wrath of everyone else.”

Kaz’s gaze hardens. “Damn everyone else. I will kill whoever I have to in order to keep this secret. Let them come.”

You stare at him, confused. “Why is it worth all this? We knew the secret would get out eventually.”

Kaz swallows, looks away. His gaze finds you eventually, it always returns to you. “You’re important to me. Important enough that I’d risk it. I will keep you safe, Y/N, no matter the cost.”

He starts to walk past you, back towards the Slat. Revelations like these come few and far between around here. Love has no place in the Barrel, not as a weakness and certainly not as a strength. As far as confessions go, though, you’re fairly sure that you’ve just heard the best of them. There is no promise like safety, and Kaz has sworn to protect you. What other form could love take?

grishaverse tag list: @rogueanschel, @cameronsails, @deadreaderssociety, @mxltifxnd0m, @story-scribbler, @retvenkos, @thatfangirl42, @amortensie, @gods-fools-heroes

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aerodaltonimperial · 9 months

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Okay. So. The smut prompts. I'm not gonna read the list right now because I'm at work and just a little bit too out in the open, *but* Please take this as blanket permission to write a Magus/Marle scene for any one of these you fancy ;) Dealer's choice! Happy Birthday week! 🎉You are awesome!!

(thank you! <3 Marle/Magus, I used #81 "I don't think I've ever wanted someone more")

"We can't keep doing this," she says, but it's halfhearted at best, mumbled against his mouth as though now, with her legs wrapped around his hips, he has any hope of stopping this hill they're tumbling down. She grabs for his hair, his ears, the sides of his face—anything to get purchase until he heaves her up higher and her back slides along the stones.

Pressed against her, he can feel every labored inhale of air, every ragged exhale that tips dangerously close to a gasp. He coaxes her lips apart and tastes the remnants of the dinner's wine there, something dark and oak-y.

"Tell me to stop," he tells her. He does not believe that she will, but the illusion of choice is, as usual, an important one. She is who invited him here; she is who continues to invite him here. Crono is down in the parlor with the rest of the delegation, the council, and she is here, in one of the back stairwells that is dotted with cobwebs. Here, she is the most like herself that she has ever been since they returned from their time travels. Here, she is demanding and spoiled, both a child and a woman, in all things, a princess who will get what she wants.

And what she wants is him—the knowledge a heady flare of heat in Magus's chest. For she wants him, and she will take what she wishes to claim.

"You ought to stop of your own accord," she snaps near his ear, even as her fingernails scrape beneath the collar of his tunic. The council will not miss him; his presence only requires them to think outside their bubbles, their circles. "You should know better than—"

"I should know better?" He finds the hem of her skirt, the ridiculous layers she wears because it's expected even though they are antiquated, pushes his way up her thigh until he finds the heat of her. She is already wet. For him. "You are the one in charge here, your highness, unless I've mistaken who—"

"Stop this," she interrupts, a hiss. "You know. You know how I feel."

That gives him pause. It's difficult to keep her weight aloft, and his arm trembles, but he leans against the wall for stability. He offers a single drag of his fingers back, eliciting a moan, and then stops. "Tell me."

"Janus," she says, a whine, a keen. Her nails scrape further at his skin, drawing blood.

He leans in to breathe in her ear. "Tell me what you feel."

"I want you," she replies, immediate. Her chin lifts when she throws her head back and hits the stones, does not react to the impact. He curls his finger again, in praise, enticing her to continue. "I need you. I want you. I don't think I've ever wanted anyone more. I—" Another moan, and she must be quiet, for even the dark recesses of the castle are used on occasion.

"Tell me," he whispers.

She knows what he wishes to fall free from her teeth. "I love you," she gasps, clawing at his shoulders. He will bear the marks for days. "I love you, I love—"

Perhaps this is his greatest sin, in the end: taking her up against the curve of the staircase while her husband sits making polite conversation with the blue planet's delegation. But he knows that, should this be what damns him, there was no other choice for him to make, for she is the sun and the moon, the light and the dark, and he is merely a shadow playing out upon the dirt of her kingdom.

#tag so you don't lose this shit

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manufactoredxbyxdesign · 9 months

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Vittorio has always been a man of discipline. He knew when to act and when to hold back, knew how to retreat out of a conflict arising to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. He liked to consider himself rather sensible in that regard. Yet one thing that seemed to shut down any thought wasted on maintaining a healthy distance to danger was - and has always been - his pursuit for knowledge. So when he noticed the vast library the RPD held, he couldn't resist to pay a short visit outside of the usual trials. If he was quiet enough, he surely wouldn't stir any attention, would he? He was sure to slip out of this part of the entity's realm unnoticed until his heartbeat picked up the pace and the feeling of dread arose. He looked up from his book and quickly slipped into a dark corner, hoping the killer approaching would walk past him and continue his patrol elsewhere. Back pressed against the wall he clamped a hand over his mouth to prevent any sound from slipping out and giving away his hiding spot.

The instant he crosses the threshold into the RPD, he can sense the disturbance. Even if he has vehemently denied the role of Overseer, the realm still tethers itself to Wesker in ways he cannot properly explain.

Knowing precisely who enters or leaves has been among the least annoying features. Although instinct wants him to believe it may be one of the small gathering that truly belongs here - HUNK , Nemisus or perhaps Birkin. But as he hears the shuffle from inside the library his jaw clenches with immediate suspicion.

Definitely not any of them.

As he storms up the stairwell and through the nearest doorway, his eyes start to skim over the whole room. Searching the array of shelves, desks, and various clutter for a trace of the unwanted guest.

The books here are replicas of the ones he often skimmed through during his years as the STAR's Captain. And their familiarity is something that, while he hates to discuss, is something that now few just familiar enough to ground him on more troubling days.

After spotting a book that has been left forgotten on a nearby table, he grumbles loudly.

"You may either come out now or risk immense suffering if I have to hunt you down." He calls out into the stale, dusty air. "The choice is yours."

#- - (ic)#cryptic ashes

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auxiliarydetective · 1 year

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Falling for Hogan's Heroes - Day 9: "Don't leave. Please."

With that familiar, sweet click, the lock opened and Newkirk had access to the safe. Behind him, LeBeau and Carter high-fived in triumph. Quickly, he flipped through the contents before finding the plans they needed. Neat blueprints for a new weapon the Krauts were developing.

Suddenly, the door flew open and two men burst into the room. Before anyone could react, one had LeBeau by his sweater. Carter was quick to try to help him. Hurriedly, Newkirk clutched the plans to his chest but failed to notice the other man walking up to him. A heavy blow struck his head and he stumbled backwards, towards the window. He stumbled, lost balance. With a sudden push, he fell backwards, through the window, crashing into the bushes below. Immediately, Carter jumped at the man who had pushed him, knocking him out with the help of a folder from the save. Then, he and LeBeau finished the other attacker off. Panic arose in them. LeBeau rushed to the window and looked down, but it was too dark to see anything.

“Newkirk!” he hissed.

No response. LeBeau could feel himself getting dizzy with worry whereas Carter had turned white as a sheet. Carefully, Carter climbed out through the window. As he drew closer, he could make out Newkirk’s silhouette in between the branches of the bushes beneath the window. He landed next to his feet, then hushed to kneel down next to his chest.

“Newkirk”, he whispered and sighed in relief when he got a faint grunt in return.

He was alive and conscious even!

“Boy, you sure were lucky those bushes were there. - Can you walk?”

“Don’t rush him, Carter”, LeBeau threw in, having just now landed next to him. “You haven’t even checked if he’s hurt or not. - Are you?”

“No, I’m fine”, Newkirk grunted.

Slowly, he started moving, trying to sit up with the help of his elbows before flinching and almost dropping back down.

“Of course, you’re not hurt”, LeBeau scoffed.

“I just need a moment.”

Suddenly, LeBeau got an idea.

“If he’s hurt, we better take him to Vicky’s house”, he said, looking directly into Carter’s eyes. “Right, Carter?”

Carter just stared back at him in confusion. “But won’t the others get worried that we’re not back? And we can’t just go back without Newkirk.”

“Maybe I did ‘urt somethin’”, Newkirk groaned.

LeBeau smirked. His plan had worked. Luring Newkirk by mentioning Vicky’s name was always a guaranteed success. Besides, bringing him to Vicky’s house was actually a good idea. He was clearly hurt and Vicky had at least some knowledge of first aid and skill at taking care of injuries, at least more than Carter and LeBeau. On top of that, her house was only two streets away. What a lucky coincidence! Slowly, Newkirk started getting up from the ground, Carter and LeBeau helping and supporting him.

“Alright, here’s the plan”, LeBeau whispered. “You two go to Vicky’s house, I’ll take the plan and go to the telephone down the street and call her so she’ll open the door for you.”

That was the plan and they carried it out. Newkirk was unsteady on his feet, swerving left and right and stumbling at times. When they reached Vicky’s house, the front door was already opened slightly. Then, when they walked up to it, it opened fully and Vicky stood there waiting for them in a bathrobe. Her eyes widened the moment she saw Newkirk. Mumbling unintelligible things, she beckoned them inside. They scaled the stairs to Vicky’s apartment in silence. In fact, nobody spoke until Newkirk had sat down on the sofa.

“Carter, you should meet LeBeau outside”, Vicky said as she turned on the light next to the couch. After walking through the dark stairwell, it was almost blinding. “The two of you have to go back to camp and tell the others what happened. LeBeau already told me. I’ll take Newkirk to work with me tomorrow morning, that way he’ll be on time for roll call.”

Carter nodded. “Hang tight, buddy”, he told Newkirk, then snuck out of the apartment.

Meanwhile, Vicky had started picking sticks and leaves off of Newkirk’s clothes and hair, looking both worried and confused.

“What on earth happened?” she asked. “LeBeau told me you fell but… from where? How?”

“I was pushed out of a window”, Newkirk grumbled.

“You what?”

“You ‘eard me right the first time. We got caught stealin’ the plans and that ruddy Kraut pushed me through the window. Some bushes broke my fall.”

“Thank the Lord they did, otherwise you might be dead now.”

Now, in the light, Newkirk looked terrible. He had various scratches across his skin and tears in his clothes.

“Where does it hurt?” Vicky asked, reading into Newkirk’s scrunched expression.

“Back, shoulder, elbow”, he replied curtly.

“Did you land there?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. Try taking off your jacket, I’ll go get my first aid kit.”

Newkirk sighed and nodded. He watched Vicky leave for the kitchen, then opened his jacket. However, taking it off turned out to be much more of a chore. Jolts of pain went through his back whenever he tried. This was humiliating. Angrily, he pressed his lips together and decided to just force himself through it.

“Stop, stop”, Vicky cut in. She placed a box with various medical supplies down on the coffee table. “Let me help.”

A grin formed on Newkirk’s face, even through the pain. “Eager to undress me, are you?”

Vicky scoffed and shook her head. “Oh, Newkirk… I’m starting to think you may not be hurt that badly. I suppose I’ll just leave then…”

“No!” Newkirk quickly gasped. “I’ll stop. Just. Don’t leave. Please.”

Vicky chuckled as she carefully started to help Newkirk out of his jacket. “I wasn’t actually going to leave, silly”, she said. “If you can make jokes, so can I.”

“I’m starting to think I’m a bad influence on you, joking about things like that.”

“My father would certainly agree. I, for one, think it’s rather fun.”

Slowly, Vicky started cleaning the cuts and scrapes, putting bandages on some and leaving others to heal by themselves. Then, she asked Newkirk to roll up his shirt - he bit his tongue not to make another joke - and started rubbing an ointment on the hurt spots.

“You were really lucky, you know”, Vicky mumbled as her soft, gentle hands trailed across Newkirk’s back. “I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened if you had landed on your head.”

“But you’re doing it”, Newkirk remarked.

“Sorry?”

“You’re thinking about it. That’s what you do, you worry a lot. I didn’t land on me ‘ead, so don’t think about what would ‘appen if I did. It didn’t ‘appen.”

“If only it were that easy…”

“At least that means you care about me.”

“Of course, I do”, Vicky scoffed. “You’re a great person. You’re a Cockney, so what? If anything, it should be you hating me. But you don’t. Maybe it’s because you find me attractive, but I’d rather have that than you being an ignorant sod.”

“Language, Vicky.”

“See? That’s what I like about you. You’re funny, you’re confident, charming even-”

“Charming?” Newkirk echoed with wide eyes.

“Yes, charming. And so what if you steal? I personally find that charming, too. I think it’s very impressive how you do it and it’s not like you regularly steal from your friends, right?”

“The worst thing I do to them is cheat at cards.”

“See? I think you’re incredible.”

For a while, Newkirk was at a loss for words. “Thanks”, he finally said. “I, uh, I think you’re incredible too.”

Smiling, Vicky cleaned her hands on a kitchen cloth. She put all of her medical supplies back in the box.

“I’ll leave you the box here”, she announced. “Take whatever you need if you need it. I’ll be off to bed now.” She gave Newkirk a quick peck on the cheek. “Good night.”

“Good night”, Newkirk replied, a smile spreading across his face.

#hogan's heroes #peter newkirk #louis lebeau #andrew carter #hogan's heroes oc #oc: vicky brandt #zoe allen #fanfiction #falling for hogan's heroes

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countthelions · 2 years

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Dear Operator, what’s in a name?

a continuation of [this piece], taking place near the beginning of the timeline after Gaster makes the impulsive decision to take home the elemental he accidentally created. Dedicated to @/plantpretender for their support when I was feeling very low about this AU. I don’t know what else will be created for it, but like our two here, it’s worth sharing for the joy of it existing.

Gaster tends to call the operator in his apartment stairwell, ‘cause he’s got six flights to trek up and he gets tired lugging all his books and equipment and whatever else he tries to bring up from the labs up all those steps. His magic could be used to help carry things, but it’s honestly not the strongest and he’d rather save it for delicate lab work instead.

So he usually takes a break on the third level 'cause no one lives in the rooms right by the stairs on his side of the building (he doesn't know why, but it's why rent is cheap despite being in walking distance of the subway, so he'll take whatever he can) and it gets surprisingly good cell service. Usually. There was one time it was just garbage noise until he switched to the other side of the space then it cleared up just fine. But during this pause, he asks about Names.

He’d been talking but not-really-talking to Alphys about the elemental - not-really-talking because he doesn’t want her to get in trouble either, but still desperately needing someone to hear what’s going on - and about her class because her undergrads were a really neat bunch this quarter. As always, she was very worried about their needs and making sure they understood what she was teaching them, and when one came in with an interpreter, she knew she needed to brush up on her signing with Gaster. Since y’know, skeleton talk is his first language and monster-speak is his second and sign was the bridge between them.

That then sorta rolled into the idea of Names, because of name signs and Gaster kinda stops and is like, well. shit. The elemental needs a name. I can't just keep waving to get his attention. He seems used to that sort of greeting already for reasons Gaster doesn't want to think about. It feels... wrong, and so Gaster calls the Commission line, and doesn't try to think too hard about Papyrus yet again being the one who picks up.

"Welcome to the Monster Commission Helpline, Papyrus speaking, how may we help you on this fantastic day?"

"Hi Papyrus." It might be karma or something that it's Papyrus every time actually. Gaster's trying to hide this monster who isn't supposed to exist outside of war efforts and something wants him to get caught. Not Papyrus at least. He hopes. For as rule following as the other monster is - he does work for the Commission after all, it’s probably some sort of requirement - he's never actually asked for any more information, just excited to share his knowledge.

"Mr. Elemental Research!" Well... Maybe..... Gaster tries to not fidget in concern, or look around like someone suddenly started monitoring them.

"That's me aheh..." He rubs his free hand on one pant leg, trying to get out the jitters. These calls were worth it, he reminded himself, it was worth learning more about this elemental and about what he needed and - "I bet you can tell why I'm calling?"

"Absolutely, I've got the book out again and everything." There was a shuffle, like some sort of elemental tome had been pulled from the shelves. It'd be easier if Gaster could just... get that somehow, but he was already in deep enough trouble with hiding an elemental and there was no way Papyrus would just hand it over. Also seeing him? Seeing the operator? Yeah that was a really bad idea. He did not need Papyrus to know who he was or what he looked like because then he'd tell Stratus and she would - "you still there?"

"Uh, yes. Yes! Sorry, I was," Gaster jolts, pacing the length of the little landing platform as he tried to think of a good lie. "uh, getting out my notebook to write this down." yeah that's.... that'll have to do. "Uhm, I wanted to ask about... names?"

"Oh! Give me one moment." There's another shuffle of pages, Papyrus humming quietly to himself instead of putting on the hold music which Gaster appreciates. The hold music for one is boring and two, it means Papyrus maybe isn't telling someone about these calls when Gaster can’t hear. Gaster can continue to hope and fret that that’s why Papyrus is humming.

He doesn't recognize the song either but something about it is familiar? He taps his foot along as some sort of beat - and to continue to get out the nerves until Papyrus finally answers. “Thank you for waiting! I don’t really see anything on names here. As tools, they were easily replaced by the units assigned to needing an elemental’s destructive strength, usually the frontlines, so you could look up specific units to track any historical significance between these weapons. The practice of not naming them appears to have kept up to this day.”

Papyrus keeps talking about where Gaster can look up the different commanders and units and battalions and all this other military jargon Gaster has dumped immediately into a mental box of "really not good news probably" when these calls first started but he's not listening anymore. A ringing fills his skull he knows is an increase of magic because everything in his vision goes blue and there's a static crack to the air that feels like a thunderstrike about to crush him to bone dust.

No name.

No name?!

"I'll be sure to look those up, thank you." Gaster cuts Papyrus off, hanging up. He barely resists the urge to throw his phone - if only because he unfortunately still needs it and doesn't have the money to replace it - and instead shoves it in his pocket and gathers all his stuff to hike back up the stairs. He takes them two at a time, unburdened by his load in the fury that rises.

What sort of monster creates a living creature and doesn't name them?

They're not tools, they must've had lives and beliefs and things they liked and didn't like and favorite foods - he knows what this elemental likes - and different voices and flame patterns surely and - it doesn't make sense. The heartlessness wedges beneath his teeth, and all his magic tries crushing the idea with each grind of his jaw. It doesn't make sense.

He'll have a name. Gaster thinks. We'll spend all week looking for a good one, he's gonna have one no matter what.

--------------

He'd been thinking.

Usually he thought about the books Gaster had brought him, because whenever he came home, Gaster would ask about which ones he liked best so the next books he brought the elemental would be about those topics. He was working up through the younger monster books to stuff with less pictures and more words in them too, so there were a lot of topics to pick from as language clicked more and more in his mind. This week was almost half and half words and pictures, and that felt like a really big accomplishment, especially seeing how the stack on the left - the one he put the read books in, that he understood - grow compared to its neighbor, the one where he'd have to ask Gaster for what certain words meant. The dictionary he was given helped with figuring out words too but it was more fun to ask Gaster instead, to see what the skeleton knew and if it was something related to his work. Those were the best topics he discovered, because it made whatever core that made up Gaster's magic - a soul, he thinks Gaster had called it, but it was bigger than that single word could define. His own felt bigger at least - glow like fire. When it glowed, he seemed happier too, less worried.

The worry made the elemental wonder if there was something he was supposed to do to help. There was an urge that told him he needed to protect and fend off whoever hurt his creator - but something too told him that urge had no actual target. Gaster hadn't really made him, at least, that’s what he kept saying. But he still wanted to protect Gaster from whatever was worrying him.

This worry though was his own.

Sometimes Gaster would go out to the balcony when he thought the elemental had fallen asleep and talk with someone. An Alphys. He hadn't met her yet but she sounded like Gaster. Excited about their shared topics, and worried about other things. Her worry this week was about a student of hers who needed signing. He wasn't sure what that was, but Gaster did, which helped whatever worry Alphys had. Then they were quiet for a long while, the elemental actually falling asleep before Gaster had come back in. That worry wasn't what he was focused on though, it was the names. They called each other Doctor, and these shorter names from their names, Gast and Alph - and he wanted one of those. The characters in the books he read had names. Every item seems to have a name of some kind too, like book and pan and well, elemental.

But Gaster wasn't Skeleton, he was W.D. Gaster. If the elemental was a creature like him then... shouldn't he have a name too?

The books didn't really tell him how to get a name. The characters already had theirs when the story began, but they must've come from somewhere. So he looked through all the books from this week. The stacks moved sides again, the right one to the left, then back again as he sifted again. It seems names could be given, like the nicknames were, like Doctor seemed to be too, but also the characters could choose their own. Sometimes they shed old names.

One of the fantasy books had a hero who did that, proclaiming it in front of the gathered supporters who saw how their work saved their burrow by blocking up the flood waters with their really fluffy fur, that had been something they were made fun of at the beginning of the tale. I'm not the scruffy bunny anymore! I'm the fluffiest one, and everyone will know me as that!

Their change was celebrated, and the elemental had nodded in agreement. They truly were the fluffy bunny.

So could he do that too? He didn't do some big thing like save his home but... he existed, and that felt like a good reason.

Today when Gaster left for school, the elemental did the start of his regular routine. He cleaned up after breakfast, putting those all to cool off to the side, but instead of doing the next part of his routine - looking out the window to watch pieces of other morning routines - he sat back down where his books where, and pulled all the ones he had marked especially for this day. He hadn't told Gaster he was doing this, wanting to surprise him. There were a lot of words on his list so far, the pages carefully folded in the corners - dog eared as Gaster called it when he saw the elemental doing it - so he could flip quickly to his favorites.

The books formed a neat semi-circle around him as he examined them closer. Names could be anything - they could even be an object name, but he already had one of those, so it was time for something more specific. He liked to cook a lot, so most of the ideas surrounded that line of thinking.

Pepper was the top contender. He liked adding it to their meals, liked the smell of it, how it made Gaster sneeze. He liked too how it could be multiple things - a spice, a vegetable, a color - but that also made him hesitate to choose it. It might be too broad. He was just one thing.

Maybe an action word would be better. There's peppery but I don't like that as much, he thought, setting aside the books with Item Names. He aligned their spines carefully, using small nudges to check in between each touch for any burn marks. He hadn't burned anything yet, but he knew he had to be careful anyways. Gaster is kinda an action-y word. G is a nice letter too.

He sorted through the G words, more books back to their proper stacks until a much smaller list was before him. He scanned through it, saying each name aloud to feel how it sounded, and to continue to practice speaking.

"Grinder." Hmm no.

"Glaze, Glazing, Glazed." No, he liked the 'gr' better.

"Gravy." Closer. But it was a bit off. He was... kind of gravy? Fire gravy. He made a face. Nope.

"Griddle." .... that was, getting there. The next one on the list was, "Grill."

"Grill." Oh he liked that! That had the 'Gr' and it was a cool action thing. The books about grilling food were really neat too. "Grill." It just... need something. The Y on the ends were nice, could he...? "Grilly. Grillsy, Grillty, Grill... Grillb... Grillby."

Oh.

"Grillby." He said again, fire warm, warm, warm inside his soul. That was it. That was it! That was him, he wasn't just an elemental, he was Grillby the elemental. Grillby! Grillby grinned, I can't wait to tell -

The door opened, making Grillby jump at how sudden and wide it flung, before Gaster hooked a foot around the bottom edge, and shut it behind him. A little click said he used some magic to lock it.

"Gaster!" Grillby greeted, getting up to collect whatever Gaster had chosen to take home for the day. It looked like this time it was a box of wires and tubes, probably connected to repairing the device he had been working on with Alphys. There were definitely more pieces though, Grillby peering into the box as he took over carrying it the half of the table they designated as "the work zone" with a long piece of tape to split the sides up. His soul was all fluttering, giddy to share his news but knew to wait first. It was best to stick with the routine, the schedule, before changing it up. "Tonight I was thinking we could try enchiladas for dinner. The books you got me this week had that recipe repeat a few times across them, and I think we have all the ingredients except for maybe tortillas. We might have used the last of them with breakfast - but we still have the green peppers and the cheese."

"Maybe if they're good you'd be able to take them for lunch. I mean," Grillby scratched the side of his head in thought, before pulling off his glasses to resettle them. "I can still make you sandwiches if you want those but this could be something more filling maybe? I feel like something more filling would be good."

The box was easy to unpack and place all the items into their designated areas, Grillby staring at the organization with a bit of pride making his fire curl delightedly, before turning back to Gaster who hadn't answered his question or responded to his greeting, who... who hadn't moved from the doorway actually. Grillby paused. He didn't know what that expression was on Gaster's face, still not the best at figuring out what the physical changes meant when the magic was right there for him to feel out for instead. Grillby definitely felt the magic. It wasn't the excited feeling or the worried one - maybe a little bit? - but something... sharp. Kinda like pepper. It made that protective urge bubble up.

"Is everything alright?" Grillby asked, moving away from the table towards Gaster, starting to scan around for any magic he didn't recognize, going through the motions that were as ingrained as the beat of his heart. Gaster locked the door so if someone followed up him, they'd have a hard time getting in - like I'd even let them get this far. This was his home. He wouldn't let anything bad happen to Gaster.

"Wh wait, wait, I'm s-" Gaster interrupted Grillby's thoughts with a sigh of frustration towards himself. "I'm sorry, it's. We're fine. Everything's.. well, everything's not fine but not something you need to defend or fight against. It's..." He stopped with another short sigh, a forceful one that tried to push the magic out of the air with little success.

Oh. Grillby relaxed his stance, confused. "If it's bad but not something I can fight, then what is it?"

Gaster stares for a moment, and that was familiar at least. That look said he had talked to that person on the phone, and learned something. With careful, exact words - that specific way of speaking he used to let Grillby know his frustrations were never aimed at Grillby - Gaster said, "I learned elementals aren't named, when they're - when they're created. And. You - all of them but, you - "

"I chose one." Grillby interrupted before those careful words got off track. Gaster stared again. "I uh, heard, I heard you and Alphys talking and wanted a name and chose one."

"Oh." Gaster kept staring, the rush of his frustrated magic vanishing in a little blip of surprise, as if whatever plan he had thundered in with was completely derailed. His next words suggested the same confusion as what Grillby felt in the skeleton's magic too. "Well that's. Good. I'm - really glad, that's. What is it?"

"Grillby." Grillby said, smiling in pride.

"Grillby." Gaster repeated, softly. Then he smiled too, a burst of magic that felt just like fire. "That's perfect, Grillby. You found the perfect name."

Grillby beamed, pulling Gaster further into the apartment as the warmth grew brighter and brighter from their combined delight. Gaster laughed, willingly pulled along, turning their motions into a little spin in the open living room space until they were moving and dancing just for the joy of getting to move.

"It's absolutely perfect Grillby!" Gaster repeated, and Grillby was certain his soul never felt so bright.

#undertale fanfic #grillster #grillby x gaster #grillby #gaster #w.d. gaster #lionwrites #operator au #yes this is 100% a trans analogy #because that's important to me #esp in this au #dehumanization tw #yeah there's not a lot of context thus far but I'll write a master post up of all that was going to exist for it #so it'll stop tearing pieces off my heart #but this one needed to be in full

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icebergian · 1 year

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Unwanted junk? Is it time to slim down our bookshelves? Photograph: Sean Smith for guardian.co.uk

Do books furnish a room, as Anthony Powell's Bagshaw insists? Or are they just a massive encumbrance?

It's a painful question, but one I found myself pondering while moving house recently. By the time I'd sorted through what I definitely wanted to keep, and then rigorously sorted through again to whittle the pile down further, there were comfortably 2,000 books to be somehow disposed of.

The conventional wisdom that charity shops will be glad of them can be laid to rest. Lurching in a loaded car between organisations collecting for everything from cancer to homelessness, we were welcomed about as readily as Typhoid Mary. Charity shops can sell clothes and the odd utensil, but nobody, we learned, really goes there to browse for books. Secondhand bookshops were thin on the ground, and anyway there wasn't time for anyone else to start sorting through them.

The books were eventually packed into a battalion of supermarket trolleys outside the warehouse premises of a hospice charity, and even then there was much tutting and shaking of heads and fatalistic hoping that it wasn't going to rain. And really, you can see their point. How much critical theory can a hospice shop hope to sell?

This is the first time in my life I've seen books – my own books – as unwanted junk. I always felt, as the old blues lyric had it, that I would rather go blind than see them walk away from me. But as we loaded them into the trolleys, some still emitting wisps of dust missed by the hasty wet-wiping, they came to seem like the obsessive-compulsive clutter of an unrepentant hoarder. Moments of stabbing nostalgia alternated with shafts of self-reproach (Scruton's Sexual Desire? What was I thinking?) – I dithered pitifully for minutes with Finnegans Wake in my hands – but the overall effect was one of laborious disburdening.

What's the point of keeping most books once they've been read? They huddle together on the shelves and then, when shelf space runs out, they stand around in precarious columns on the floor, making fossil impressions on the carpet, doing nothing really more serious than bearing witness to what you've read in the past few decades. Do they speak to your visitors of your capacious literary appetite? Or do they just count as old friends, the rows of Nabokovs and Thomas Manns, standing protectively around you on permanent guard?

According to one way of looking at the problem, a personal library is an enormous accumulation of books you don't want to read – either because you once tried and failed, or because you've already read them and won't ever need to reread them. So what function are they actually serving? In past times, the library of a grand house was a domestic resource that contained a repository of knowledge that couldn't be stored in any other way. It was also somewhere your guests might find something with which to entertain themselves in the quiet times between talking and eating.

These days, no such extravagantly space-consuming resource seems necessary. There will always be books to which one wants to refer back again and again, but what of most of the novels, biographies of minor figures, the tidal wave of critical theory? The answer is: they can go. Having served their moment, they can be shown the door. It's a brutally efficient new system – buy, read, flog on Amazon Marketplace – but it feels like a mid-life rite of passage. And before anyone says "ebooks", I spend enough time staring at screens already.

I'm looking at a picture of interior designer Sallie Trout, who has fitted an awkward stairwell in her home with scattered bookshelves, which she accesses by means of a bosun's chair attached to a chain hoist hanging from the ceiling. She looks like she's dangling from a ski-lift stuck somewhere above Zermatt, gamely whiling the time till rescue by leafing through an illustrated book. The crazed ingenuity of it is at once impressive and preposterous. I'd really rather get rid.

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thecuriouskit · 2 years

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Exile

I need to come clean with everybody as to my current relationship with my immediate family. I have disowned and exiled myself from my parents.

Okay, to begin... My sister is understandably wary of me because of some inexcusable things I did to her while we were children and the fact we don't really have that many common interests. She is loyal to my parents too and has been used as a go-between by my parents before. Unfortunately actually trying to build a relationship with my sister and brother-in-law hasn't been too successful. My niece gets scared of me, probably because of the beard and her general unfamiliarity with me, but mother (not my sister) also gatekeeps me so I can't help out... it's not a matter of not needing to... I want to help so I can learn, as well as the principle of unconditional love. That aside, every idea I've had has been shot down by my mother or is twisted in a such a way that it is impossible to fulfil, and the gatekeeping will stop the rest. Cases in point... I had the idea to build a model traffic light for when she turns 3, using some knowledge of electronics and woodworking - normal children don't like traffic lights, according to her, which was also an indirect stab at me, since I loved the things at 3, but now it's a source of ridicule for her. She said she would want a doll instead, betraying her heteronormative views by assuming such a thing even before any strong interests or orientation could possibly cement themselves. I could teach her chess... only if she shows interest... well, my sister and mother don't own chess sets, so how will she ever show interest? Mother suggested I could teach her piano... she threw the piano out - my paternal grandmother’s piano I might add - because 'it was taking up space'... well, she herself was never able to play it. To get back on point though... how could I ever teach her in that case, especially as I have no means to practise myself? Since my sister and I don't have a relationship, I've given up hope of ever having a relationship with my niece by extension.

Now for my parents. In December 2021, while venturing to my niece's 1st birthday party, I was in a bad mood because I was fed up of my mother's fakery and shallowness, and while walking up a stairwell, I commented about mother dressing above her class while my father was behind me (I really don't know why I actually said that to be honest, and it was certainly extremely rude). In response, my father actually spanked me. My reaction was one of violation and helplessness, because I immediately knew there were no witnesses (mother had her back to us, and later verification confirmed she would stand by my father) and no legal recourse. That and my father is better than me in every way possible... physical strength, killer instinct, legal knowledge and general charisma to draw people to his side. Due to a bad set of circumstances, I was unable to leave because I had left my house keys at mother's house and my debit card was lost (and cancelled) and, due to being Christmas, a replacement would not come for a while. What it meant is that I couldn't return to my flat, my mother's house or catch a bus, which meant walking 8 miles in the rain, with it getting dark in an hour, and having to stand and wait outside anyway. So I just hid in a different room and refused to participate. My father initially tried to gaslight me in what really happened, and then justify his actions. Ultimately it confirmed I was still a child in his eyes, and now I know I cannot trust him walking behind me because his first action is to physically and, in some people's eyes, sexually assault me. I did tell one of my cousins later that he sexually assaulted me (since I felt so violated, I called it that) and she told me that I can't say things like that and will not support me. After clarification about the actual actions, she said she would have beaten up her father if he did that... well, your father is not my father and I don't fancy my chances against my father even with martial arts training, because he himself is martial arts trained, is a former rugby player, runs triathlons and it would just look mindless assault and hence turn the legal situation against me. On top of that, he is the de facto patriarch of the family, so people are naturally loyal to him. And what am I but the autistic black sheep? I have not forgiven my father for his action, and I refuse to. And I refuse to be anywhere near him even to the point of refusing to go to family gatherings because of his history of micromanaging me, occasionally publicly humiliating me when I 'embarrass' him and otherwise me always being in his shadow and expected to uphold his expected image of me. So, the only logical solution is to completely disown myself from the family and become a pariah and find my own path.

Now for my mother. My relationship has always been shaky with her due to her mocking if not outright hostility towards my interests and moral code, as well as her just using me for the skills I do have, like being a designated driver or fixing her computer for free. She is also self-righteous to a dangerous degree. She claims she wasn't raised a racist and follows feminism, but some of the things she says reveals that she is entitled, privileged and dangerously racist and heteronormative. For example, with the incidents of police brutality in the USA, she just said "if they had listened to the police, none of this would have happened", and she doesn't understand how "White Lives Matter" is racist and wrong, is against "Black Lives Matter" and instead follows "All Lives Matter". For the heteronormative things, see above with my niece. When she is not any of those, I sense she tries to score brownie points with me by gossiping about me or telling people about my problems because she feels 'they have a right to know'. For the brownie points, I was dating someone who was genderfluid at one point, and given some of the comments dad had said later (suggesting I bring a partner, when I've been a forever bachelor) implies that mother blabbed to him when I told her that I was seeing someone. Mother doesn't know how to keep her mouth shut, like she complained to her friends about the choice of name for my niece even before I knew (I overheard) and before she was even born. Not to mention, mother told me about my sister's pregnancy before my sister could tell me herself. How? "Has she spoken to you yet?" "No, why?" "Then you haven't heard the good news." "What, she's pregnant? "YES! How did you know?" "What else would it be?" (admittedly I pulled a bit of a "You just told me" trick on her, but she completely opened herself up to it).

But what led me to disown my mother? During August, she and I went to the Lake District for hiking and camping. The upcoming family gathering with my father's side of the family was really eating at me because I really did not want to be in the same room as my father. Eventually I broke down and confessed my fears to mother. We found a solution and I felt better off for it, but she later used it against me. When I had a meltdown after getting sprayed by a standing tap, she simply told me that I could have chosen not to react like that, because so what? It's only water. And my outburst is unacceptable in a family camp and she had been up since 6am (I don't know why she brought that up... maybe to show she was suffering more than me?). As a result, I left. I packed what I could (most of it was locked in her car and I had no access), so I took what I could and ran away... I caught a bus and then a train back to Brighton. Thankfully, having learnt my lesson from December, I kept my keys and debit card on me at all times. When mother arrived home a day afterwards, after briefly asking if I was okay, she tore into me again, especially not letting go of my father smacking me, and she also mentioned the fact I had assaulted her back in 2013 and she had gotten over it and not called the police. I told her that she should have done and I was fully expecting to get arrested that night. As for my father? Well, according to her, I still hadn't apologised for 'making him hit me'. Well, after hearing that, there was no way I was going to apologise. I was done. I knew right there and then I would have to disown my mother too. So I packed what I could and left. Also, because I was so sick of her gossiping and using my achievements or whatever as bragging rights, I took my graduation picture off her wall. She told me to put it back because it was hers and she paid for it, and I refused and simply said I was going to destroy it. And left. I later gave back her bag and also gave her my copy of her house key... broken in two. However, i had forgotten her drink holder that was still attached to my rucksack... a small fabric thing about the size of a wallet when it was all folded up. She used my sister to get that back from me, and I used the opportunity to get my sleeping bag and tent from her house as a trade... I also stated that it was to be complete, untampered, undamaged and unmodified in case she had the idea of cutting it out of spite. And after I picked them up without ever facing her, I was gone from her life. I sort of regret not getting the Lego out of the loft (I can see her throwing it away or maybe giving it to my niece because it was taking up space in 'her' loft), since I would have liked to play with that, but I can see her refusing because it's 'inappropriate', and it's a loss I can live with.

When it comes to her shallowness, she always falls back to things belonging to her or the fact she paid for something or how much it costs her. Leaving a light on for more than a few seconds gets me a reprimand, as is leaving a fingerprint on the light switch because everything must be ultra-clean. Of course, if I ever turn it on her (like when I called her out for leaving the bathroom light on), it's never her fault, because she'll be coming back in a few minutes and it will take more energy turning it off then on again. Granted, my absent-mindedness is the bane of their existence, and I curse myself for it. Hearing "why can't you do X like everybody else?" only further destroys my sense of self worth because my answer of "because I'm not everybody else" is not acceptable. I've also learnt that she doesn't actually value my opinion. Besides my interests being something I must shut up about unless it suits her needs (i.e. teasing me to her boyfriend or using me in place of a professionally paid service). The previous year, she got stuck on Swirral Edge on Helvellyn (a mountain in the Lake District). I told her she could do it and tried to guide her towards footholds (I had done this the previous day when she got stuck on another mountain), but she refused and said she was going the long way, even though it would add several miles to our journey and require a bus ride back to the car. However, as soon as a COMPLETE STRANGER (another hiker) suggested the same things and started to guide her, she succeeded easily.

At one point in the recent past (before everything went wrong), I did try to find common ground and offer to play a board game with her (something my sworn sister Mitch suggested). She refused, saying that I always win, even when I suggested backgammon, a game neither of us are particularly good at, but she would rather play Ludo with my niece instead, someone who is far too young to play yet. I don't want to call her a coward because that's what I am, but that was another incident that affected me and my opinion of her.

I know I'm not the good guy in this, and anyone will point out how much my parents have sacrificed for me, especially due to my condition that makes me struggle to fit into society. I know I am selfish and don't think about other people, and sometimes I simply don't know how to. I'm not a person who you want to be friends with. But it has reached a point where I'm expected to destroy my individuality and suppress my sense of self for the sake of social expectations and upholding the status quo. I can't ever hope to change society or people who use the excuse that they are set in their ways due to their age, so all I can do is exile myself and live in a way that may ultimately be self-destructive, but at least true to myself. But what makes me truly the villain? I am well aware that I am the last person to carry the Moreton family name, and it will die with me. If and when I get married, I'm taking my partner's name. Finally, to cement my exile, I am also discarding my name. I am no longer Gareth. I am now Kit. And no, I'm not taking it from Ratchet and Clank 5... "Kit" was my fursona long before the game was devised. Moreton will be discarded once I find a better surname.

I am a coward, yes, but at least I can now live and die by my own terms, plus avoiding conflict, even if it means exile, is better than constantly facing it. And honestly? I feel so much better for it. I know I go against every written principle, but I hate my mother and I refuse to forgive my father, and I'm growing to hate him too. Why? Because forgiving him will condone and enable his actions, and hatred is the only thing I have that's stronger than his anger that he was used to make me cower and submit to him in the past. If it comes to that again where his anger takes over, since it's always his way or the highway (something my mother admits to and indirectly supports), my hatred will be enough to stop me succumbing to fear.

I am no longer my parents' child. I am no longer John Gareth Moreton. Now there is only Kit. I will live by my own terms, probably die alone and be buried a pauper's grave and my memory lost to the sands of time. And I am content with that. One might ask "what's the point?", given that we're born, we live, we die and we're forgotten, and most people cannot hope to leave their mark on the world, for better or for worse, but the meaning of life is to live, not survive. So live. If it harm none, do what thou wilt. Live your life, so long as you don't trample over others.

Live.

#a kit's life #rant

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limerancy-fics · 2 years

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any teen/high school xiaoven hcs aside from ones you've already talked abt?? i'm a sucker for mutual pining and these idiots are very cringe and sappy

omg.......maybe not the same au but a slightly different hs au...

xiao is the weird kid. as in, people think he's weird since he's so blunt and straightforward and doesn't get sarcasm or jokes and can't really talk to people. he also doesn't give a shit about fashion so he's like. hoodies n sweats every day or smthn

so xiao is kinda.... ostracized. anyone who does try and talk to him quickly gets bored by his random bird facts and obscure history knowledge (because he really doesn't know how to do small talk or conversation)

venti is popular. maybe not by choice. but he's pretty and he dresses nice and smells nice and is just quirky enough to be cute without being weird and everyone wants to be his friend

maybe one day, venti's fucking tired of it and he runs off to hide in some stairwell at the far end of the school. but surprise! this is where xiao hides out during lunch. venti's about to groan n run away again when xiao's like "oh......i'll find somewhere else....."

n venti feels bad about ousting xiao from his usual spot so he tells xiao he can stay. they sit in silence. xiao offers an apple. he admits his dad always packs them in his lunches but he hates the texture and never eats them (usually just leaving them outside for an animal to grab or smthn)

cue venti immediately getting attached to xiao (give venti an apple n he will love you forever) and staying there the whole lunch break. they don't say much to each other but when venti leaves he asks "is it okay if i come back tomorrow?" and xiao shrugs "do what you want."

so he does come back. every day he comes back. he always makes sure to lose his gaggle of followers before doubling back around and going to xiao. it becomes routine

venti, xiao quickly finds out, is a lot more quirky than people think. as in, he hides a lot of his true self from people. he listens to all of xiao's bird facts and offers some of his own. he talks himself into tangents where he can't remember what he even started with (until xiao quietly reminds him where the conversation started and what venti was trying to say in the first place). he talks a lot about music and poetry and writing. and he doesn't seem to mind when xiao doesn't have the "right" response or he just doesn't respond (since he doesn't know what to say in the first place)

xiao listens to venti and remembers the things venti tells him. he spends a night at home learning how to make origami cecilias and gets to school early just so he can leave it at venti's locker without anyone seeing. venti mentioned how he always wanted a pen pal so they start exchanging letters through their lockers too

they're not afraid to be themselves with each other. they both have to hide—xiao so he doesn't get harassed even more than he already does, and venti so he doesn't get turned on by the rabid horde of high schoolers obsessed with him (there are a few other good friends he has that he's comfortable with. but not nearly on the same level as xiao)—but around each other, there's never any judgement for stims or ticks or infodumping or anything like that

xiao is safe. he's comfortable. he's respite in the hell that is high school. he's a break from the mask venti has to wear. he's warm and soft and kind and gentle and thoughtful and goes out of his way to make venti feel better. venti can offhandedly mention wanting something small in midst of his rambles and find it in his locker the next day. it's the small things. the little things. the things that make venti feel more like a person with xiao

venti is fun. he's bright and fun and kind and encouraging. he's smart. he doesn't get offended when xiao doesn't understand his jokes, and even explains them so xiao can understand. he pays attention to xiao and doesn't get fed up when he just says another bird fact instead of contributing to the conversation (venti does see this as a contribution, though, and will endlessly defend it). venti is welcoming and bright and makes xiao feel like he can relax for once

obviously, they fall in love. venti's other friends start noticing his change in behavior and tease him about it, but venti vehemently refuses to reveal who it is (not because he's ashamed or doesn't want people to know, solely because he knows xiao would be uncomfortable with the attention or that venti has suddenly told other people about their special, shared moments)

xiao admits he wants physical affection, he just doesn't know how to ask for it or what to do. so venti helps him. they start off small—holding hands. then leaning their heads on each other. hugging. and by this point, they just start cuddling shamelessly. xiao makes a joke one day (a joke!) and venti laughs. he gets so caught up that he kisses xiao on the cheek

cue xiao.exe has stopped working. venti's practically in his lap but starts freaking out and apologizing because he didn't make sure it was okay with xiao first and he doesn't want to make him uncomfortable or push his boundaries too much. but xiao squeezes his eyes shut and goes to kiss venti's cheek in turn, only to catch venti's lips right when he's turning his head

they both get so flustered

but when venti sees that xiao is not, in fact, mortified or disgusted and is instead just quietly losing his mind like venti is, he admits his feelings. xiao awkwardly and quietly admits it's mutual

they go slow. like super slow. it takes maybe a few months before venti even tells his friends, another before he tells them it's xiao, and yet another before he introduces them

obviously they get married and have a bajillion babies and fifty million birds (re: the bird feeder outside their house and the murder of crows xiao befriends) and live happily ever after

#xiaoven #fluff #hc list #modern au #hs hc

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whimsicallyreading · 3 years

Text

“I just realized I’m desperately in love with you-“

Prompt Day One for Rowaelin Month

"Rowan, take a picture of that one. It's so cute." Aelin fawns quietly.

Rowan gives a long-suffering sigh. "There are a thousand of them here. Do you have to pester me into taking a picture of every seal pup we come across?"

"Her name is Fleetfoot, and yes. Isn't that the whole reason we are here?" Aelin looks at him equally annoyed, a strand of gold spun hair freeing itself from beneath her parka.

"I'm here to study the behavioral patterns of tiger seals and orcas in a rapidly shifting environment. You are here to keep our equipment functioning. If you keep talking, neither of us will finish our jobs and escape from this wasteland." Rowan switches the lens of his camera to focus on two male seals who were squaring up with each other in the distance.

Rowan nearly threw his camera over the boat and jumped off into the coastal waters of Argentina when he realized who had been assigned to assist him on this expedition.

He'd insisted that only he and one other make the trek across the Antarctic. Insisting a large group could impede the quality of his research. When they agreed, Rowan thought they would send him with Lorcan or Brullo. Both were accomplished survivalists and scholars—valuable additions to any team.

Instead, it was Aelin Ashryvver who waited for him at the dock. The most annoying newbie on his floor. Dorian insisted that her knowledge of mechanical engineering would make her invaluable.

So far, she was just a verifiable pain in his ass.

She sat around bored as Rowan spent the day writing notes and snapping photos. Occasionally she helped him set up microphones. On one instance, she fixed their ATV. It was the first and only time he'd found her truly useful.

Rowan couldn't wait to go home.

"Alright, we have the cameras positioned. We should head back to the base. The temps are dropping. We need to warm up and eat."

Aelin nods quietly, she would never admit it, but the severe temperatures are taking a toll on her. It was amazing how important something like fat is in a frigid environment. Rowan is naturally covered in layers of dense muscle. While Aelin is fit herself, she's still small and the first to feel the effects of persistent cold.

Watching the seals, she occasionally found herself jealous of their thick layers of blubber that kept them comfortable. She should have carb-loaded before they set sail.

They hop on the snow ski and traverse quickly over the powderlike substance.

~~~

When they reach the Terresen South Pole station and ditch their coats, they fall to the floor in a cascade of flurries. Rowan's spine straightens for the first time that day. Their coats were dense. With the additional weight of all of the equipment he carried, there was a perpetual bend in his spine.

It was a huge relief to be inside a climate-controlled building—light layers, freedom movement, and feeling in all of his extremities. Tossing that coat off was the pinnacle of his daily routine on this mission.

That is until he realized it was freezing.

Walking over to a light switch with urgency, he flicks it a few times. Nothing happens. Anxiety wells in his gut, and he hits the wall a couple of times before flipping the switch again.

"Shit," Rowan hisses.

"The power is out," Aelin's eyes widen with the realization. "That's not good."

"I thought I was the scientist, but look at you stating the obvious," Rowan growls as he shrugs his jacket back on. It wasn't nearly as frigid inside the insulated building as it was outside, but it was still bitterly cold. Keeping warm would be their first step in survival. Without heat, shit could hit the fan for them very quickly. Thankfully their satellite phones should still be functioning; he'd charged the battery the day before. There should be enough juice in the phones to send out a mayday call even without power.

Aelin doesn't put on her jacket. Instead, she heads in the direction of the lockers with a look of determination plastered on her face. It was a look he'd slowly begun to grow familiar with, mainly when Rowan was holding a ration packet she wanted. It made him uneasy.

"Where are you going?" Rowan calls after her, picking up her jacket. He wouldn't be held responsible for his younger, female partner freezing to death. HR at the University would have his head on a stick if she died on his watch.

He follows Aelin to her locker, where she's already sliding a grey jumpsuit over her clothes.

"I can fix the engines," Aelin pulls her zipper up. The jumpsuit covered head-to-toe, but they weren't nearly as warm as their snow gear. He could already see a slight blue-ish tint to her lips. "They probably just stalled. All I need to do is go down, diagnose the problem, and fix it. Easy as pie."

Ignoring the massive oversimplification of their situation, knowing it was a lost cause, he focuses on the immediate problem. "You need to keep your jacket on," Rowan thrusts the article of clothing at her. Her color was concerning him, and the longer she went without the thermal garment, the higher his stress became.

Aelin gives him a long-suffering look, all too similar to the one he gives her. "And get my hood or a sleeve caught in one of those beasts? Those machines are massive. Getting snagged could rip my arm off or kill me. It's like you don't even have a master's in engineering and a spotless safety record," she smiles at Rowan's scowling face. "Oh wait, that's me. Let me do my job, Dr. Whitethorn."

Before Rowan could argue, Aelin was gone down the stairwell towards the engines.

Dragging a frustrated hand through his hair, he tosses her jacket on the floor. His time is probably better spent getting through to their mission handlers on the satellite phones anyway.

~~~

Two hours later, Rowan has long finished his call with Dorian.

Their expedition leader had asked if they wanted a recovery team sent out to them, but Rowan hesitated. He was on the mission of a lifetime. He'd spent years waiting for approval to research at the southernmost tip of the world. It would be a devastating blow to his career and his pride for it to be cut short. The selfish part of him wanted to stay. The rationale, reasonable part of him was aching to stay the full duration of the expedition.

"You know, Dr. Whitethorn," Dorian spoke carefully. "There is a reason we chose Aelin to accompany you. She may be green and lacking a doctorate, but she's a miracle worker at what she does."

"Are you asking me to put my life in the newbie's hands?" Rowan asked without his standard vitriol. The situation and the cold had left him with no energy to be spiteful. He'd heard talk of her capabilities amongst the guys, and he'd seen a fraction of it when their snowmobile broke down. Rowan thinks back to the look on her face when she'd gone down the stairs. The steely determination of a warrior marching off to do battle.

Dorian laughs as if there was something funny about two of his most stubborn colleagues getting stranded in the south pole by themselves. "I'm not asking you to do anything. It's your call."

Rowan closes his eyes and contemplates their options. His head told him they should call the extraction team before they were nothing but frozen corpses. Yet, his heart didn't want to leave so soon. There was still so much work left to do.

Could he rely on Aelin?

"We will stay for now. Expect a call in twenty-four hours with a progress update." Rowan disconnected the transmission without any of the standard formalities.

After the fruitless call, he checks their food supply. Rowan scans the shelves, comfortable they wouldn't go hungry any time soon. Their only concern would be keeping all their shit from freezing, including their water. Rowan triple checks that everything is insulated, sealed, and stored away before moving on to other essentials, like batteries.

Another hour passes as he takes inventory, and Rowan is starting to feel the cold more than before. His nailbeds slowly shift from blue to white beneath his thick gloves, and he can't control the slight quaking spreading up his limbs.

When Rowan hears the doorway to the stairwell creak, he goes to check in with Aelin on her progress.

What he finds when he opens the locker room door sends his heart to his throat.

Aelin's hands loosely grip the zipper of her jumpsuit as she weakly attempts to free herself. Her face is a ghostly white, and her movements sluggish.

If she weren't moving, he'd have thought she was already frozen.

"Aelin, are you good? Talk to me." Rowan rushes to her and helps Aelin step out from the jumpsuit.

"I fixed the engine," Aelin coughs into the crook of her arm, her voice scratchy from the cool air. "It will be a couple of hours before they can catch up and heat the building."

Rowan rips off a glove and holds a bare hand to her cheek. Aelin's skin is freezing to the touch, even to his own icy hands. He notes that she isn't trembling the same way he is. It's not a good sign, the biologist in him notes. He knows it's her body growing too weak to keep itself warm.

"Sit down. You're freezing," Rowan helps her slide to the floor and looks at the discarded jacket that's still lying there. It won't warm her quick enough.

"Rowan?" Aelin speaks from her slightly slumped position.

Rowan is pacing, trying to think. They don't have a means of warming water for a bath. Laying next to the generators is too risky.

"Rowan," Aelin murmurs, her eyes drooping. "I can't feel my feet."

Rowan looks at her, and for a moment, she looks like an ice princess. Her blond hair is slipping from its braid and coiling across her colorless face. The cerulean blue of her eyes was the brightest color he now saw regularly beside the southern lights. They stood out even more starkly now.

It was all wrong.

"It's going to be alright, Aelin. You said the power is back on?" Rowan lifts her into his arms, her freezing nose burrowing into the crook of his neck.

"Yeah," she rasps against his shoulder. "But it will take a while for the building to heat."

"We don't need the whole building to heat. Do you trust me?" Rowan trots down the hall, careful not to bump her against the narrow doorframes.

She mumbles something incoherent into his shirt. "I trust you."

Rowan is thankful that the cold keeps the flush from his face. He reaches the desired room and fiddles with the control panel on the wall. A wave of relief hits him as the room behind the heavy door audibly hums to life.

"Okay, here we go." He says more to himself than Aelin. Rowan ditches the jacket and pulls his long-sleeved tee over his head. The buttons of his pants are next, leaving him in only his boxers.

Turning around, Aelin looks weary but not surprised. "Nice abs."

"Thanks," He says and kneels next to her, eyes searching her face for permission.

Aelin dips her head, "I'm not shy, Whitethorn. Don't fret."

Rowan helps Aelin maneuver her stiff limbs out of her garments until she is left in nothing but her bra and panties. Her face is pained as even more of her is exposed to the cold.

"Hurts," Aelin grits through her teeth, and Rowan gathers her up again. The icy room is like barbs against his exposed skin, but he's not in a position to complain.

The minute he carries her into the balmy air of the sauna, Aelin flinches. "Oh, that smarts."

"I know. It's going to suck for a bit while your blood recirculates." Rowan consoles softly, knowing he would also feel the cramping as they got their blood moving.

Drastic temperatures changes weren't the ideal way to warm up, but they'd spent far too long in the cold. He needed to get Aelin shivering again. It was the body's natural defense against the cold, and when a person could no longer shiver, it meant they were dipping into the realm of hypothermia.

The sauna was an added addition for the comfort of the researchers who visited the Southern base. It was a great tool to warm people after spending hours in the harsh climate. He'd heard tales of it from colleagues who'd visited the base before but hadn't yet saught to use it himself. Rowan was too focused on the mission. It hadn't carried any appeal for him until this moment, and now he was beyond grateful for its existence.

Rowan sits on the floor instead of the bench so that Aelin can curl up comfortably in his lap. Skin-to-skin contact was one of the best ways to help a person regulate their body temperature. He soothes a calloused hand over the length of her arm, trying to spread what remained of his warmth to her skin.

Aelin's cheek rests against his chest, and Rowan uses one hand to free her hair from its braid. The curtain of gold fans across her back, and he has to resist the urge to run his fingers through its waves.

He'd noticed how beautiful she was the day they first met at the university. Out of respect, he'd immediately repressed those thoughts. They were professionals, and Rowan wasn't about to ruin his reputation fawning over the new, young blonde on their floor.

But with her laying half-naked in his lap, it was hard to disregard how pretty she was. It wasn't even just her appearance. The girl was magnetic in every way. People paid attention when she walked in, and she claimed the lion's share of air in the room.

Fenrys and Conall flirted with her remorselessly. It secretly irked him. Rowan had long since memorized the way she laughed and how she'd smile as she shoed them away. It was all good-natured fun for them, but it always made Rowan irrationally angry. The time she'd showed up at the annual Christmas party in a green velvet dress with an open back nearly left his brain on the floor. His eyes had raked the smooth plains of skin, only turning away when she'd tried to catch his eye.

If he'd been paying attention, he would have seen her look of disappointment.

Rowan had written it off as an infatuation—a natural response to seeing an attractive woman. The scientist in him wanted to boil it down to chemistry and hormones. Cold facts that could diagnose the way he felt every time he laid eyes on her. Yet, as Rowan laid there with a hurting Aelin in his arms, he began to wonder if there was something more.

Her pain was making his chest physically ache.

A pair of arms snaked around his waist, and his body jerked. Aelin looks up at him sheepishly. "Sorry, I'm just really comfortable."

Rowan relaxes, "It's fine."

The steam in the room is slowly building. Rowan can feel the cramping beginning in his legs. Aelin's weight on his thighs was not helping the slightest, but there was no way in hell he'd move her.

"My body is aching," Aelin says lightly, but he can hear the strain in her voice and feel a slight tremble running through her.

"That's good. Can you feel your feet?" Rowan can no longer resist, and her hair parts between his fingers like strands of gold silk.

Aelin tightens her arms around him, "Yeah. A bit. I didn't realize how numb they got until I took off my boots."

There's a slight tickle at his back, Aelin's finger tracing a pattern against his skin. A flush of warmth rushes through him, not from the sauna.

He's in unending deep shit.

"Aelin," his voice wavers uncharacteristically. "Do you have a boyfriend?"

The fingers on his back continue making their delicate patterns. "No."

"Aelin?" He asks again, but she cuts him off with a groan.

"Stop asking me questions and just kiss me," Aelin grips the back of his head and pulls his lips down to her's.

An inferno blooms inside his soul.

Aelin could never be a winter queen. She was the raging embodiment of summer. A burning ember he'd carried from the north into this land of ice. As his lips move against hers, he swears his body is lit ablaze, and when Rowan opens his eyes, he's delighted at the flush he finds unfurling across her cheeks.

"It's suddenly a lot warmer." Aelin laughs, looking more lively even as her body starts to quake from the warmth finally reaching her.

He kisses her cheek and tilts her ear towards his lips, "Aelin?"

"Another question?" Aelin's smile curls into something feline. "Is this that scientific curiosity the university is always going on about?"

"I just realized I'm desperately in love with you,"

Rowan lets the truth fall from his lips. It was just the two of them. They were the only human souls in this far corner of the earth. There was no one to stop him as he finally lets the emotions he'd been repressing until the moment Aelin was in danger wash over him.

"That's not a question," Aelin responds after a moment, her tone light and jovial.

Rowan smiles. "It's not."

Aelin curls back up against Rowan, enjoying the feel of his skin against hers. An embarrassing sound of contentment escapes her, which worsens her blush.

Not forgetting their original purpose in the sauna, Rowan grips her hands and massages them between his. "You have no response?"

"Not one that HR is going to like." Aelin winces as her hand spasms, and Rowan methodically works to ease the ache.

"Say it anyway," Rowan implores. Screw the university. He was tired of living for his work alone. Nothing outshined this moment, holding this woman in his arms. He could find a new job, but if Aelin reciprocated his feelings, he couldn't find another one of her.

"Well, I thought it was pretty obvious when I wore that dress to the Christmas party and then found a reason to walk past your office every day." Aelin huffs and looks up at him, "Don't tell me you didn't know?"

Rowan was speechless.

Aelin's eyes twinkle with amusement. "Rowan, Dorian, and I are friends. Did you know that?"

"What?" Rowan blinks confusedly. That was common knowledge, but he didn't understand why she was bringing that up now.

"Dorian and I go way back. He knew I had a thing for you, and I told him sending me on this trip was unethical when I'm such a new hire-" Aelin trails off, waiting for him to grasp her point.

"Wait," Rowan looks down at her, bemused. "Dorian was trying to set us up?"

"Human recourses won't like that very much either," Aelin grins. "But Dorian would keep our secret. He owes me a lot of favors."

The sauna's temperature had slowly been rising, and Rowan could see that his skin was returning to its usual color. Aelin still looked a bit pale, but it was probably residuals from being so close to freezing.

She'd risked herself to save the expedition and successfully fixed the engines. Rowan didn't believe for one second that Dorian only sent her in an elaborate attempt to set her up. She was bright and cunning. He was lucky to have her along with him.

"You got here on your merit," Rowan presses a soft peck to her lips as he soothes her unvoiced concern. He refused to let her doubt her level of skill. "But if the feelings are mutual, I would love to take you on a date when we get back home?"

"I would love that," Aelin crawls off his lap and holds a hand out. "Come on, now. We need to eat and sleep. We have seals to observe."

Rowan accepted her hand. Forget the seals. He would have a difficult time keeping his attention on them. His eyes were glued to her bare legs as they moved and the way her hair swung free of its constraints.

She smirked over his shoulder. Aelin knew precisely what she was doing to him.

Rowan had traversed to the end of the world to understand the natural universe a little better. While he hadn't unlocked any great mysteries, he couldn't help but think what he did find was better.

#rowaelin month #rowaelin #rowaelinscourt #rowan whitethorn #aelin galathynius #fanfic #prompts #cute #fluffy #southpole #throneofglass #tog #day one

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