Screaming and sobbing as I think about Lear’s “come, let’s away to prison” speech opening with four “no”s, which parallels the next time he speaks, when he opens with four “howl”s.

A Royal Pain In The Ass

Yandere Male Alpha x Male Omega Reader (CW: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, INCEST, non-con, male reader, a/b/o, ass eaten like it is groceries, blowjob, marking, biting, knotting, musk, general yandere behavior, necromancy, assassination, minor character death, angst, pain, violent sex, breeding, forced feminization, size difference) Word Count: 2.9k (This is probably the worst thing I have ever written, but I think I covered all the appropriate warnings. Sorry for any mistakes I did proofread, but I did not have this beta read.)

Your father, King Esmer, had been among the wisest and most powerful kings in all the world. He had led decisive victories in war, chosen brilliant advisors, and knew when to rule kindness and when to rule with a bit of a sterner hand. Overall he had been much loved by all the classes and had truly united his kingdom, alphas, betas, and omegas alike. But as he grew older many in the royal court began to fear that your brother, Prince Vairthold, would become a tyrant of a monarch. He had always been a bit of a demanding brat, but as he grew so too did his arrogance and entitlement, and when he presented as an alpha he became an accomplished warrior, his powerful muscles and keen instinct allowing him to become a terror on the field. It did nothing to staunch the growth of his ego. Your father could not see it, as blinded as he was by denial and love for his first born, so he would not hear of it when his advisors wanted him to choose another heir. Perhaps one more malleable and temperate such as you, his younger son, an omega. “He will grow into the role,” he would always say, “I had to learn and change a lot too when I first started. Besides, most lords just would not accept an omega ruler.” And that would be the end of the discussion. But once Esmer had passed his successor wasted no time in changing how things were to be done. They were, in the grand scheme of things, very minor changes at first. Statues built, mundane orders carried out, nothing too unusual or threatening. But within months your older sibling allowed a dark sorcerer in the court in a high advisory position. Dark magic was not something that had been allowed in any capacity previously, but your brother had searched long to create someone to place in this position. When he finally had the magic user that he so desired he became not just arrogant and demanding, but colder and crueler as well. He did not go out slaughtering people, though laws did become more draconian, with several inmates disappearing in the dead quiet of night. He also revoked many of the laws and rights that omegas had previously enjoyed under his predecessors, making them basically under the ownership of their alpha or beta relatives unless they were single and had no family. You, being an omega yourself, were almost never allowed out of your brother’s sight, even being forced to stay in his bedroom. The only time you were not with him was when he was off in the darkness of night consorting with his dark advisor, and even then he left the bulkiest beta knights he could find to guard the door and make sure you had zero chance of escape. Your older sibling had always been far too possessive over you, some people, including your late father, might have mistaken his behavior as merely how a protective alpha is supposed to act around their smaller omega family members. But you knew better, you could tell there was something impure about the way you caught him leering at you, something off about how he had kept away any and all courters, something wicked in the way his expression changed when you were in heat and he caught a whiff of your scent. He had never been particularly mean to you, perhaps a bit of bullying here and there, but ever since he had changed the laws and the status of omegas he had been a lot more gruff with you. Not tolerating any dissent. If you resisted he would not hesitate to slap you across the face, but if you cooperated and did not complain he would often reward you with little gifts for your good behavior. Over time you learned never to complain, and so far nothing terrible had happened, but you did not trust his intentions at all. You dreaded to think what would happen if you had your heat now when he was always so close. He had not just forced you to sleep in his bedroom but to make a nest for yourself there too. You knew what it implied and you did not like it one bit. But a few months into his rule, as he started ignoring his court less and less, right as your heat was starting, he died. He was assassinated in his sleep. You were not involved at all in his murder, how could you be when you were constantly under the watch of him or his guards, but you did not raise a huge fuss over it either. You had been freed. Just in time. But it was only a delay of the inevitable. Soon after you had been crowned all those who had been involved with the assassination died, one by one. It was as if there had been some curse on the act of killing your brother and there was fear and dismay among the court and kingdom as a whole. You had never really been raised to rule, you mostly went by the advice of your council, they may have been using you as a puppet king to talk through, but they were good honest people who had wanted the best for the kingdom. With so few of them left you were buckling under the weight of your responsibility. But it would not be yours for long. After the last traitor of your sibling had been done away with, a few months into your reign and right as your heat was starting again, your brother and his wizard, who had gone missing after your brother’s murder, came sauntering into the castle, right in front of the throne as you were holding publicly addressing the problems of your lower-born subjects. There were whispers and murmurs among the guard and the present nobles. He looked different, blueish grey skin, dark rings around his now violet eyes, and his bright blonde hair had faded a bit, but he was still unmistakable as anyone but Vairthold. The deceased king. You, and everyone else present, were shocked and speechless. Had he faked his death? Why did he look so odd? Terror and hopelessness filled your heart as you knew immediately he had been responsible for the deaths of those involved in the plot against him and you were sure you would be next. He ordered the guards to remove everyone from the room except you. They hesitated briefly but decided that if your brother was not dead, and he seemingly had the ability to kill anyone who had tried to stand against him, then he was still their rightful king and they better be quick about following his orders. Vairthold smirked at you as they did his bidding while slowly approaching you, causing you to slink back against the throne with your arms in front of you protectively. The guards had left along with his magic using companion, so you were alone with him and he could do whatever he wanted with you. He wordlessly plucked the crown from your trembling form and placed it atop his head instead. “Awe, don’t be scared, little prince. I was mad at you for not avenging me, but I know you are just a weakling little omega doing what you were told. I am sorry I left you like I did, you must have been so terrified, but I wanted to become a lich, and I had to get rid of all those who would have stopped me.” You could not bear to meet his gaze, your lip trembled in fear, and your eyes were beginning to fill with tears. A lich was an immortal abomination made of magic that few believed in. If he truly was one then this couldn’t get any worse. Except it could, because under all the fear and anxiety there was another scent that had just graced your brother’s nostrils. Your heat. He began nuzzling his nose at your neck and underarms. In a rare act of defiance, perhaps forgetting exactly what he was for a moment, you tried to push away his head with all your might but he just chuckled and pinned your hands to the side. He had never been this brazen before. “It’s good that you’re feisty sometimes, shows that you’re strong, bet you’ll make us lots of strong heirs. I’ll forgive you for being uncooperative this time, putting you in front of subjects today when you’re in heat is bound to make your head a bit off. I should kill them all.” At his mention of heirs you redoubled your efforts to push him off, to somehow wiggle out of his grip, there was no way you could let this monster put anything inside of you. “N-no, this is my throne n-now! Y-y-you have to stop!” It was a pathetic display really, but a bit surprising coming from you. He smacked you with enough force to sting, but you knew he was not really trying to hurt you, just trying to remind you of your place. “Awe, that’s too cute, if you wanted the throne all you had to do was ask~ I will let you use it later.” He quickly disrobed and ripped off all of your clothing, leaving you bare beneath his hungry gaze. All your squirming and panicked pleas did nothing to stop him bending down and assaulting your neck with sloppy licks and kisses. You could smell the musk practically radiating off of him, it was making you dizzy, his smell had never interested you in the slightest and it still didn’t You could tell by his pheromones that he was a virile and fertile alpha, in any other alpha it may be attractive, but it only made your brother more terrifying. He did not have the same opinion of your scent, it had been driving him wild for years, but now was the first time he could freely indulge himself. He alternated between sniffing and licking your underarms and neck, he had longed for this for years and no one could stop him now. After making sure that you both utterly reeked of one another, he got between your legs on the ground in front of the throne and put your legs over his shoulder. Your mind felt distressed to the core, but your body had different plans, you could not control how it reacted. Especially when under the direct affections of such a powerful alpha during heat. You felt disgusted with yourself when you realized your cock was rock hard and felt slick start to leak out onto the throne beneath you, but your brother was thrilled. The smell emanating from your desperate little virgin hole was divine and he wasted no time at all in pulling your ass close to his face and sliding his tongue right in. The flavor was even better, so full of your pheromones, the taste was so intimately yours and he knew he was the only one that ever had or ever would get the chance to savor it. It was a royal treasure that only he and he alone was worthy enough for. A small involuntary moan escaped your attempt at stifling it and encouraged him to keep going. You really couldn’t help it, you were so grossed out, scared, and overstimulated that you were crying even as you instinctively spread your legs wider for him to get better access. You could feel his warm tongue sliding all around your entrance, stretching and warming it up. He pulled his face away from your ass and sniffed and licked at your precious little nuts, they were so tiny and delicate, unlike his big alpha balls. The scent you had there drove him wild. He started sucking on them before licking up your relatively small shaft and sucking your cock until he felt you buck into his mouth and cum all over his tongue. He moaned softly as he swallowed it all down. “I’m disgusting. That was wrong,” you muttered under your breath as you stared blankly at nothing in particular. “How could someone so sweet and perfect be disgusting? How could you think something that felt so good could possibly be wrong? Don’t worry princess, I know something that will feel so good you won’t even be able to form thoughts like that~” That was enough to jolt you from your post-orgasmic daze and revulsion, as your brother leaned over you, greedy hands busy groping and caressing up and down your sides. “I’m not a princess!!” You shrieked as you rocketed upwards from the throne and headbutt your lustful sibling as hard as you could. The unexpected impact caused even a large alpha such as himself to stumble backwards. You did not waste a fraction of a second to exploit the opening and started to get up past him. But he was no stranger to physical combat and knew how to recover quickly. He grabbed your arm and pulled you over to himself with great force. He sat on the cushioned throne and lifted you easily, forcing you to face him as you straddled his lap. When you felt the force with which he was grabbing you and saw the violence in his eyes as a small trickle of blood flowed from his nose you immediately regret assaulting him. “Let me be VERY clear, I am the king. And you ARE my princess. And when we are married you WILL be my queen. And there is nothing you can do about it.” You instinctively whimpered softly at the anger of the bristling alpha. He ignored it and focused on putting you in your place, submitting to him and impaled on his cock. Vairthold lifted you up and slammed you down on his cock. You screamed loud as it stretched and hurt in ways you had not conceived of. You knew he had stretched you. You knew there would certainly be blood. Even your slick couldn’t make this painless when he was driving into you so forcefully while you were so tense. “This could have been a lot easier on you, but you wanted to play rough!” With his hands gripping your sides painfully he lifted you up and slammed you back down on his dick repeatedly, thrusting upwards into you each time for added force. With each thrust you whimpered and yelped out in pain, your mind breaking a bit by bit. It felt like you were being stabbed. His nails began digging in, bruising your sensitive flesh as he only escalated the force he was using, you thought you were going to pass out, you even began to welcome it. “Puh-plea-ease, p-please. I’m s-s-sorry. I’ s-sorry. I-I’m sorry.” You sniffled and stammered, tears and snot running unattractively down your face, though your “partner” didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. “Say... You’re... My... Princess…” He spat each word through gritted teeth, emphasizing each by painfully pulling you down on his cock. “I-i’m your p-pr-prin-ce-cessss.” You struggled to form the words but once you had the change was immediate. He began slowing down to a much more merciful pace before pulling your trembling form close to him. It was still extremely painful, given the abuse your hole had just endured, but you tried to not focus on it. You could not bear to look at him so you just buried your crying face into his chest instead. Vairthold took this as a sign that you were willingly seeking comfort from him as your alpha so he slowed down a bit more. As he slowly slid his cock in and out of you, a mixture of slick with a bit of blood leaking down his shaft, he licked, kissed, and nuzzled the sensitive scent gland on your neck to try to comfort you. You had hurt him, but you had submitted to your king, so you didn’t deserve anymore pain. “You’re being such a good girl for me, I am gonna put so many babies in that belly.” You sobbed a bit louder but made no movements against him. He stroked your back soothingly as his knot swelled up inside you, tying the both of you together right before his cock spasmed and began filling you up with seed. As he came he bit down on your neck hard, officially marking you as his mate. By the mercy of the gods you finally passed out, sparing you the pain of being conscious while tied to your alpha. King Vairthold licked your neck clean of the blood he had just drawn and cuddled you protectively, his instincts telling him to keep his mate safe at all costs. When his knot finally allowed him to, he slid out of your ass before bundling you up and carrying upstairs to your private chambers. He cleaned you off carefully and laid you in your bed, before sliding in beside you and wrapping his arms around your waist. As he lay there with his princess in his arms he could scarcely wait for the preparations to turn you into a lich to be completed. He was going to keep you with him for all eternity.

Wizard School Mysteries: Book 1 Side Characters

Ok I'm 90% sure I've shared all of these sketches before but for funsies, let's look at some of the minor characters from book 1 of Wizard School Mysteries.

We'll start with the four elemental experts of the AAAM's teaching staff. While I generally use the four humors theory as, like, a surface level detail for my students, I tried to make the four teachers who specialize in the elements really live up to it, witch each teacher sporting the personality traits associated with the humor that corresponds to their elements. Lymf Splenik is a sadsack melancholic, Sulfrous Bladgal is cantankerous as befitting a choleric, Arturiel Haemoglobe is free-spirited and sanguine, and Mewcosa Glycocet is sweet but extremely emotional, as a phlegmatic should be.

Their names, of course, play on this too. Mewcosa is a play on Mucus, Sulfrous's last name, Bladgal, is a corruption of "Gall bladder," which makes yellow bile, Artery = Arturiel and Hemoglobin = Haemoglobe, and Lymf = lymph nodes while spenik is a corruption of "spleen," which makes black bile.

Professor Alys Evelina, teacher of Sorcery Studies, ends up serving as a secondary antagonist for books 1 and 2. Given how wild I went with making a lot of these side wizards explicitly monstrous, I decided to make Alys look excessively normal, even attractive, to not play into the "ugly = evil" trope. Don't read too much into the Alice in Wonderland motiff - while Alys and Alice both share a general disdain for things that are don't make sense to them, Alice Liddel is a much more likable character.

We don't get to see much of Alys's rival, Broomhilda Siegfried, but I still wanted to put some effort into her design anyway. She's meant to visually contrast Alys in the ways that Conjuration contrasts to Sorcery - notably, she's a lot shorter and hides her face, to go with the fact that Conjurers are kind of looked down upon by sorcerers. She's not keen on how her magic is viewed as the "lesser" of the two main ways to be a wizard.

They might not all get named, but we do see a lot of the non-educator staff in the first two books as well. Astrae Bygonn, the bugbear who runs the AAAM's Lost and Found, plays a pretty important role for how little screen time he gets. Esmer the gargoyle is named, while Quasi and Modo go uncredited in their roles as the two gargoyles working the school dance that starts the climax of Book 1. I think Ralda might only have showed up in book 2, but what the hell let's include her here anyway. And of course the janitorial homunculi are always on the fringers, being gloppy, helpful little guys maintaining all the school's functions.

Though they don't feature heavily in the story, both Ambrosio Medina (the alchemy professor) and Curdletongue (the prophecy professor) have named cameos in book 1, and they'll have slightly more important roles later on. Ambrosio is specifically meant to resemble Vincent Price, as I wanted him to have that charming yet slimy quality to him that Price so often brought to his roles.

I wanted the school to feel full, so I had my friends in the writers workshop discord I'm in pitch loose concepts for wizard students so I could have, like, a few dozen to pick from whenever I needed a background extra. Eventually we sorted them all loosely into the minor arcana of Tarot, and then expanded it to include some of the arcana from Minchiate, a card game very similar to Tarot that might be a parody of it? We were having fun making wizard students, what can I say.

Mugre Repellus was pitched by @bugcthulhu while Bartholomew Crawson was pitched by @dragonzzilla, and both of them went the extra mile to do some concept art too, which I adapted into these designs. They were two of the earliest spare wizard students we made, and we grew a bit attached to them - and since they both had claws on their arms, they were unofficially named "the claw gang" despite only having two members. Then, because it was fun, I made Shere Statchell to be their third member, the Jessie to their Team Rocket, and the Claw Gang became a sort of quirky trio who we kept making fun side stories for while working on the rest of the Spare Wizard Kids.

The joke was fun enough to keep going, to the point where I've made them recurring background extras and cameo characters in the series. What can I say, I love the Claw Gang.

Of course, another reason I needed a big ol' bucket of Spare Wizard students is that this is a mystery series, and mysteries need victims. I warned all my friends sending me pitches not to get too attached, because some of these kids were gonna die.

I'm a firm believer that a character's death should serve a purpose, though. You can kill a random one-off character for a gag, but if a character actually has, like, stuff going on, their death should have some weight to it. And book 2 needed at least one death that we felt - a side character who we liked enough to be sad to see go.

I picked Gabriev because his concept pitch - a wizard who also wants to be a chivalric knight - felt easy to make likable very quickly. Possibly a bit of personal bias - I'm a suck for knights in shining armor - but all you really need to do is make him nice and profess his desire to be a hero who goes out and does good, and suddenly that untimely death he's facing seems tragic.

Buuuut, if you do that too hurriedly, it'll be obvious he's set up to die - akin to having an old character say "I'm two days away from retirement" in a monster movie. Gabriev had to be seeded subtly, so audiences think he might have a future ahead of him.

So I put him in book 1, as a nice but not terribly prominent background extra in one of the main classes the kids attend in it, so readers might remember him and assume he's just a recurring extra like the Claw Gang. Ain't I devious?

Gabriev Zelgad's design and name is another Slayers reference. His armor is based on Gourry Gabriev (who is also obviously the source of his first name), and his last name is just another Slayers character, Zelgadis, without the "is." Like Gourry, he's a beautiful blond young man who's a bit of a ditz, and like Zelgadis, he suffers horribly tragedy.

Before I started the Spare Wizard Student project, I made a handful of supporting cast wizard students based on alternative names for various Major Arcana cards. Liam O'Sullivan here is based on The Lust, which is what Aleister Crowley renamed The Strength to in his Tarot deck, because of course he would, the horny old bastard. I initially didn't want to use that as a prompt because, like, what the fuck would that character end up being, WSM's take on Mineta? But then one of my friends joked I could just make him another take of the running gag I have in my TTRPG campaigns of introducing side characters who are deeply unflattering caricatures of myself that inexplicably end up in relationships with hot, terrifying goth women, and I smiled wickedly and said, "Oh you dumb bastard, that's canon now."

...which ended up being a godsend, because it gave me a way to introduce The Queen of Night, a minor character who's nonetheless important to book 1's mystery, as romancing her is the goal of the true antagonist. Sometimes torturing a specific part of your audience accidentally leads to a useful story beat.

Mr. Mackers is another minor fairy character who I wanted to use to show that Midgaheim does not work on the "Seelies = good fairies and Unseelies = bad fairies" trope, and also that it doesn't follow the "all fairies are explicitly evil eldritch horrors" trope that's becoming increasingly common as a "more true to the myths" approach. The mythic Nuckelavee is explicitly evil, to be fair, but not all fairies are, and I figured taking a fairy that's popular in internet culture for being so damn creepy and monstrous and having it be a relatively nice guy was a good way to subvert the modern expectations of what fairies should be - and try and stay true to the general mythological approach to fairies, which is that fairies are complex, not just good or evil.

Finally, we have good ol' Lornwig Kayjay, no relation to any children's book authors who decided to be figureheads for hategroups that specifically bully trans people. My rough concept for Lornwig was "that kid you get in at least one college class a semester who deliberately antagonizes the professor and every other student in class," because dear god you always get at least one class with a That Kid in it. The worst I ever endured was my class on Environmental Studies, because we had THREE That Kids in there. My second worst was the graduate class I took on Medieval Literature About Hell, because despite my best efforts, I was the That Kid of that class. It's a weird phenomenon.

As pre-writing chugged along and a certain children's book author became more prominently deranged, I decided Lornwig could get some theming outside of her role as a That Kid. And, you know, she's not the only That Kid I have planned. There's different flavors of That Kid, you know.

While Lornwig's role as a minor antagonist doesn't leave a lot of room for depth, I tried to give her a consistent philosophy behind her douchebaggery. She likes order and categorization, and things fitting into neat and tidy groups that you can sort into "Good" and "Bad" categories. That's a very human mindset - not a good one, but a very human one nonetheless. And she lives in a world of dangerous magical monsters, she does have some reasons to be scared and paranoid.

But mostly, she's That Kid.

Next time: minor characters of book 2!

So it's getting clearer that Dancer is kind of terrible, and I'm starting to think the reason FCG doesn't think they have a soul or is a person is because of her.

When Imogen asked Esmer how Dancer viewed FCG, she specifically says she was 'proud' of them. Now, on the surface you could say that is a good thing. Dancer is proud of who FCG is and loves them. From everything FCG has told us she was a great person. On the other hand, she's an artificer who has been portrayed as rather competitive. It makes more sense to me that she's proud of them in the sense of her own accomplishments. She sees them as tools that she has made and are amazing. I mean she named them like they were pets, you wouldn't call a person Pussy or Apple Pie. Add in the fact she never told FCG about his past and blatantly lied about creating them, it leads me to the conclusion that she never saw FCG as being alive or really respected them. And FCG internalised that shit like crazy.

They have feelings, autonomy, can be kind of judgy but wants to help others, has likes and dislikes. They want to experience things 'soul-touched' people do and meet people like him. Hell they even have a feud with a bird that they're terrified of. By my definition that would mean they have a soul and they aren't just a machine. Yet FCG doesn't recognise this and fights every time someone in the group says they're the same as them.

If Dancer cared for FCG like Bell's Hells do I don't think this would be an issue. She would have made sure to instill in them that they have a soul, just like everyone else. That they have as much value as a person made of flesh and blood. But she didn't and that's heartbreaking. It's going to be a hard lesson to unlearn, but I hope FCG breaks from the narrow constraints Dancer created for them and realises that they deserve so much better.

He Cares a Lot

They were officially straight up not having a good day.

Scratch that. They were officially straight up not having a good week.

Ashton was laying on one of the corners of some kind of warehouse, a gaping wound in their chest. Staring up at his friend who, seconds before, was behaving like his normal self.

OR

FCG has another episode and Ashton will not fight him.

They were officially straight up not having a good day.

Scratch that. They were officially straight up not having a good week.

Ashton was laying on one of the corners of some kind of warehouse, a gaping wound in their chest. Staring up at his friend who, seconds before, was behaving like his normal self.

“Letters…” he choked.

There was no sign of recognition in those red eyes. They stared, unwavering, the spiritual weapon, which hovered over Ashton’s head, in the shape of a glass hammer.

They were careful. They had decided to put FCG’s weapons in the hole, which was being kept safe in Fearne’s pouch. But neither of them had thought about Grass’ own magic.

Well, you always learn from your mistakes, thought Ashton.

They weren’t supposed to be in that warehouse. After they returned to Bassuras the group had decided to go meet with the Paragon’s Call. It was Fresh Cut Grass who had said they wanted to look for Dancer first.

“Maybe she knows a way to fix me,” they’d said.

He was met with instant disagreement, even from Ashton themselves. The last thing he wanted was to see his friend go through that again. He had almost thought to go look for Dancer themselves and threaten her to go and fix the mess she’d surely done.

But FCG had been adamant.

“I think this is the best moment to do it. I feel good, and it was a while until the…episode happened again.”

That was true.

Ashton had found FCG about two years ago, and they’d never had a similar episode before.

“I’ll go alone” he said, “I don’t want to risk it with any of you. But I have to do this. I need to know what happened.”

Orym and Imogen were still not completely on it. Laudna was…not very focused. And Fearne and Chetney agreed that FCG should do what he thought was right.

“What do you think, Ashton?” asked FCG.

He felt his party’s eyes on him. In the end, it didn’t matter what the others said. If Ashton said it wasn’t worth it, FCG would leave it alone.

But Ashton saw the pleading in their friend’s eyes.

“I’ll go with you.”

“Oh, no. Wait. That’s not…” FCG had started.

“Shut up.” Growled Ashton. “I’m not going to leave you alone with her, especially if she doesn’t like you. The last thing we need is to find you like we found your other friends.”

They all knew Ashton wouldn’t bulge. They agreed the others would go to the Paragon’s meeting. It was important after all.

Before they separated, Imogen spoke in his head.

I told Letters tell us where y’all went. But I’m gonna leave this line open as long as I can. If something as little as a glitch happens, you let me know and we’ll be there.

Ashton smiled to themselves.

Don’t worry, Purple. I’ll be vigilant.

Ashton thought he heard a snort in his brain.

And so they went.

They determined that if someone knew where Dancer was, that person was Esmer. They got to Finders Takers hoping Dancer wouldn’t have got to them first.

Luckily, they hadn’t seen Dancer after FCG had told them about her supposed death.

“I don’t know where she’s staying, but the last thing she told me was that she was working on something in a warehouse down in the slums. Then she vanished, like she always does.”

They thanked Esmer and went on their way.

Ashton was familiar with the slums. Greymoore’s children were weirdly fond of that place. You could find all sorts of things, all kinds of people. They were almost never good, but sometimes they paid good money.

To their relief they didn’t find anyone they knew there. And asking a few people they found out Dancer’s warehouse was fairly close.

FCG stopped by the entrance. They could hear someone welding inside.

“Say the word and we’ll go back.” Said Ashton.

FCG took something that sounded like a deep breath, though that was impossible.

“I think it’s better if you go first, I don’t know what she’ll do if she sees me.”

Ashton nodded and pushed the wooden slab that acted as a door, FCG following close behind.

The welding got louder as the approached the person working. They were hunched over a metal table, white sparks flying as they worked on something that looked like it was attached to them. They didn’t hear them as they got closer, so Ashton stopped and good few feet away from the worker.

When the person stopped welding, they looked up and flinched with a gasp. Without the sparks, Ashton could see they were covered in dark brown fur and the thing they were working on was their own metal arm.

“Who the hell are you?” a deep voice exclaimed, muffled by the welding mask covering their face.

Ashton sensed FCG tremble behind him.

“Hello,” said Ashton. “I was told that was the place where I could find Dancer.”

The person lifted their mask. The same brown fur covered the face. She was beautiful. If she hadn’t hurt their friend she would’ve been Ashton’s type.

“Well, you found her.” Dancer lowered the welding machine and took off the mask, her eyes untrusting. “What do you want?”

“Some answers,” said Ashton.

As if on cue, FCG showed themselves.

The reaction was instant. The distrust in Dancer’s eyes was replaced by intense fright. She rapidly turned and tried to run, but Ashton was faster and grappled her.

“Oh, no you don’t.” he growled.

Dancer tried to set herself free, but it was fruitless.

“I just want to talk,” stammered FCG.

He hadn’t gotten closer. Didn’t want Dancer to be more frightened that she was.

“Why did you bring it here?” She asked Ashton, refusing to look at FCG. “You’ve killed us all.”

Red-hot anger sizzled through Ashton. He raged as he tightened his grip on her. Dancer exclaimed in pain.

“His name,” he said slowly, “is Fresh Cut Grass.” He tightened his grip a bit more. “You named him.”

“I never should’ve named it,” she winced. “I never should’ve gotten it.”

“STOP!”

FCG’s voice thundered all around the warehouse. Ashton turned to look at him, searching for some kind of sign he was slipping out, but he looked fine, just a bit angry, and a bit guilty. Ashton wanted to kill that bitch.

“I don’t remember anything, Dancer.” She was still avoiding looking at him. “I thought something else had killed everyone, had killed you.”

Dancer forced herself to look at the robit, but there was no pity in her eyes.

“I think I know what really happened now, but I don’t want to be like this, I want to be what you built me to do. I still want to help people.”

Dancer snorted bitterly.

“Help people. You couldn’t help anyone. They pleaded, you know? Begged you to stop. You killed them all. Almost killed me.”

Ashton was focused on Dancer, but he could hear FCG stammering, and also some static.

It wouldn’t happen now, wouldn’t it?

“I shouldn’t have bought you. I should’ve left you to rust.”

“Hey,” warned Ashton.

“Are you it’s friend?” she asked, looking at Ashton. “It’ll end up killing you. It’s not a person. It’s a killing machine.”

Ashton was about to slam her on the ground, but he finally noticed something wasn’t right.

FCG was still awake, but his stammering had become worse. It was then when Dancer took advantage of Ashton’s distraction. She managed to set herself free and tried to run towards the makeshift door.

Ashton ran behind her and grappled her again, not accounting how close they had gotten to FCG. In her desperation to free herself, one of her legs kicked FCG. And that’s when all went to shit.

The glowing red eyes had returned, setting themselves on Dancer.

“Oh no” she whispered.

Ashton didn’t care about her anymore. He let her go so suddenly she slammed her butt on the floor.

“Letters,” he said cautiously. “C’mon, bud, I know you can hear me.”

FCG didn’t acknowledge them. Their eyes were still fixed on Dancer.

“You abandoned me.” He got closer to her, lifting a weaponless arm in her direction. “You created me. Their deaths are also your fault.”

With that, he surged forwards towards her.

Acting on instinct, Ashton lounged forward and grabbed FCG. Dancer chose that time to stand up and run towards the exit. Ashton believed it was a bit of guilt that made her turn around.

“Just knock it out and leave. It’s better if it doesn’t exist.”

She turned again and left the warehouse. Ashton swore if he saw her again he would kill her.

But they had bigger problems now. With Dancer gone, FCG had put his attentions on him.

It was useful to say it wasn’t a fair fight. Ashton refused to hurt him and FCG wanted to do that and more.

They didn’t want to call Imogen just yet. He wanted to see if they could reach him first.

“This really isn’t fun, Letters” they’d say after FCG’s spiritual weapon, shaped like a short sword, had slashed through their chest.

“Cool Ashton,” FCG retorted. “Always in it for the fun. The one who doesn’t care. Doesn’t do friends, doesn’t do family. It will be good to know other people don’t care about you either.”

Low blow, Grass, thought Ashton.

“Look at you. You’re getting beat up but no one’s here to see it. It must be killing you.”

“Oh, it’s killing me alright, but now in the way that you think.”

“Oh, it’s definitely in the way that I think.”

Ashton hadn’t noticed the weapon had now turned into a glass hammer. He tried to reach for his own, but his body betrayed him and he just collapsed. FCG got closer to him.

This is how it had started. The positions were reversed and Ashton was still awake, but it was eerily similar.

Ashton could sense themselves slipping away. He tried to speak, both with his mind and with his voice.

“Letters…” he choked.

The last thing he saw were his friends’ red eyes as he dropped the hammer.

-

Imogen was thankful they weren’t inside the Paragon’s headquarters when she heard the voice.

It had been almost a whisper, a weak plea.

Letters.

She tried not to panic and stretched out her mind.

Ashton? Are you all right?

Nothing.

She tried again, a different destination.

Letters? Can you hear me?

Silence.

She stopped in her tracks, just a few feet away from the door they were supposed to get through. Orym was the first one to notice.

“It’s everything alright?” he asked, always vigilant.

“I think I heard something,” she said.

The others noticed they had stopped and got closer to them. Laudna looked worriedly at Imogen and Chetney complained about the delay.

“The guys?” asked Orym.

She nodded, trying to calm herself.

“What did you hear?” asked Fearne, suddenly next to Imogen.

“Just ‘Letters’ but…it sounded weird, almost weak. And I tried to reach them but they’re not answering.”

She watched as Laudna’s face became focused, her long fingers touching her temples.

“I can’t hear them either.” She said finally.

Panic tugged at her skin again, so she cast Calm Emotions. They needed to be clearheaded right now.

“Did FCG told you where they were going?” asked Orym.

“Yeah, he did.”

A warehouse in the slums he’d said. Next to a three story yellow building.

They made their way towards the slums and the place FCG has described as fast as they could. They had to ask a few people on the way, but not a lot of them were willing to talk to strangers, especially in the slums.

Maybe they fell asleep, said Laudna in her head, maybe Dancer was really understanding and invited them to…nap.

Imogen knew she was trying to comfort herself as much as her, and that made her more nervous. If eternally positive Laudna had no idea how this would turn out, they were in deep shit.

After thirty minutes of intense searching, they finally found the place. Orym ran forward and looked at the ground next to the entrance. When they all reached the door, they saw what he was looking at.

There were three sets of footprints, one wheel and two feet going in, and two way different feet going out.

“They were running,” said Orym as he drew his sword.

Chetney also drew his chisel and she could see Fearne casting fire. Laudna and Imogen looked at each other and went in together, right after the other three. Orym was the first one to go in and ran forward a few feet. The others heard his voice before they saw anything.

“GUYS!” he yelled. “COME HERE QUICKLY!”

When they reached the end of the warehouse, Imogen heard Fearne gasp. Imogen couldn’t make a sound, she was frozen in place.

They were both there.

She first saw Fresh Cut Grass. He looked as he did when he slept. Calm, unbothered. He had looked that way too, when they managed to stop him the first time, but he’d had his head crushed by Laudna. He didn’t look hurt now.

But Ashton…

“Oh…” croaked Fearne.

She ran forward and knelt next to Ashton. Orym had already got to him, kneeling on his other side.

They had a horrible gash on their torso, fresh blood still coming out of it. But the worst part was their head. The amethyst crystals that once decorated it were shattered and the beautiful opalescent brain that every night glowed with vitality was now dented and dull.

Imogen had to do everything in her power to avoid throwing up. She felt Laudna come next to her but she didn’t dare to move.

Orym’s eyes filled with panic as he tried to find Ashton’s pulse. He looked at Fearne and she wordlessly put both her hands over Ashton’s wounds, soft white light emanating from them.

A minute that felt like an hour passed. Fearne’s hands stopped glowing as she looked at Orym. He rapidly put his fingers to Ashton’s neck trying again to find that precious heartbeat.

Orym sighed, but not from relief. It was a sigh of defeat. Imogen didn’t want to believe it.

Orym? She asked him.

She didn’t get a verbal answer, just pain.

She felt Laudna grab her hand. She squeezed it back weakly, tears running through her face.

Orym was crying too. And Fearne…

Fearne couldn’t stop looking at her hands. She looked angry and broken.

She moved her hands towards Ashton’s body again, this time pressing against his wounds. Her hands covered in his blood as she tried to cure him again.

“Work,” she pleaded. “Work.”

“Fearne,” sobbed Orym.

“No,” she snapped. “It has to work. It always works.”

None of them dared to stop her. All of them hoping it would somehow work. Ashton was strong, stronger than any of them. If anyone was able to survive this, it was him.

Another minute passed, but nothing changed.

Fearne’s hands were red now and when she looked at them, she started sobbing.

None of them moved as they grieved. Or, at least, that’s what Imogen thought. A loud bang took her from her trance and when she turned around she saw Chetney slapping FCG.

“Chet,” she said with pity. “This won’t bring Ashton back.”

Chetney slapped him again, with even more force than before. “No, this is exactly what will bring them back.”

“What?” Asked Laudna behind her.

“FCG heals, right?” asked Chatney matter-of-factly “we just have to wake him up.”

Imogen’s eyes widened. It was true. FCG was a powerful healer, even more so than Fearne. If anyone could do this…

Imogen struggled to remember what they’d done before. FCG had been unconscious, like now, and what they did then was…

“Fearne!” she yelled, looking at the faun, who turned to look at her, tear tracks on her cheeks. “Can you do one more healing spell?”

Fearne spent a few seconds trying to understand what was going on, but when she did, she stood up and ran towards Chetney and FCG. The gnome complained when she pushed him to the side but Fearne didn’t pay attention to him.

She gently put her hands on FCG, her friend’s, face and called to her magic once more. She feared she had spent it all on Ashton, prayed to whatever god that was listening that she still had enough.

Seconds before she gave up, FCG’s bright eyes came to life. Not red, but normal familiar white. But Fearne was not relieved, not yet. She let go of FCG and ran towards Ashton’s side.

“Wha- what happened?” He looked around, confused and ashamed. “Did it happen again?”

FCG’s eyes fell on Ashton’s lifeless body and started to stammer again.

“Ashton? What, no. This can’t…I couldn’t. Never…”

Imogen walked towards FCG and put her hands where Fearne’s were seconds ago. Calm Emotions ran through her purple streaked fingers towards her friend.

“FCG…Letters…Now it’s no time to lose yourself, okay? We need you, Ashton needs you. He’s your priority right now. Everything else? We’ll deal with it later.”

FCG looked at her intensely and relaxed. Imogen didn’t know if it was the spell or her own words.

“Yes, of course.” FCG rolled towards Ashton, taking Orym’s place. The Halfling looked at him with a bit of distrust and kept his hand on his sword.

“Fearne?” asked FCG. “Do you still have the diamond Hexum gave us?”

Fearne nodded and reached into her pouch. Sure enough, she produced a grape sized diamond that she gave to FCG. He took it in his mechanical hand and placed it over Ashton’s chest.

“I need all of you to focus on what Ashton means to you right now.”

Imogen remembered his sly smile whenever they would talk. How they cared about other people, how he kept them safe while claiming he didn’t do friends.

He had to live. He had to.

Because she honestly thought the group wouldn’t survive in he didn’t.

The moment felt like an eternity. Imogen could see that the diamond FCG had asked for was gone.

Is that it? She thought. Did they fail again?

A moment passed.

Then another.

Imogen was ready to give up, when she heard Fearne’s gasp.

The gaping wound that covered Ashton’s torso was closing up. And his opalescent head started to emit a weak glow.

No one dared to speak or move. All eyes were on Ashton as he took a deep breath and opened their eyes.

Imogen almost collapsed from relief, but Laudna was there to catch her. She saw Orym collapse against the wall and cover his face with his hands. Fearne’s face hovered over Ashton’s, dangerously close.

“Ashton?” asked FCG, warily.

Ashton looked around groggily and cleared his throat.

“Hey,” they said finally. “Did I die?”

Fearne laughed with relief and Orym removed his hands from his face, also smiling.

“You gave us a big fright there, Ash.” He said.

Ashton tried to focus his eyes and searched for FCG.

“Letters?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m here.”

Ashton sighed. “How are you, bud?”

“How am I? Have you seen yourself?”

“No, but I can feel myself” they said, trying to sit up.

They were obviously still in pain. Fearne grabbed their arm and back to help him and he didn’t complain, choosing to lay against her for support.

“Ashton, I…” started FCG.

“Don’t.” The genasi stopped him. “It wasn’t you, Letters. I don’t regret anything.”

The robit looked at their friend, and then at all the others. He knew it’d be a while before they could fully trust him again. And way more before he could trust himself. But Ashton was okay, and that was all that mattered. At least for now.

“Let’s get out of here.” Said Orym, leading the group towards the exit.

“Yeah, I’ve had enough of this place.” Responded Chatney, following him.

Imogen looked at Fearne, who was slowly helping Ashton walk.

“I can cast fly on him.” Said the purple haired woman, but Fearne shook her head.

“I got him.” She said finally, looking fondly at Ashton.

Imogen looked away smiling and linked her arm with Laudna’s who was just now starting to calm down and was also missing a big patch of hair.

They would not go meet with the Paragon’s call that day.

They all needed a good night’s sleep.

I find it interesting that FCG said Delilah instead of Dancer way back in episode 27 when they were having a memory glitch and here's why.

In the same episode he starts the interaction with confusing Armand Tresh with Cyrus "we have to get Cyrus out of the city". You can kida see a logic to this mishap since they had a similar mission with Cyrus both him and Armand are now criminals that they need to escort out of somewhere.

Based on his physical description of Dancer, from what we know, you can see a similar logic there.

Here's the exact description Letters gave (without stammering and interjections) :

"she was furry and tall, had little floppy ears, she was riding a horse at one point through a field and she had...was it blue skin? And she had a moon tattoo"

We know from Esmer that she indeed had light fur, she hasn't mentioned anything about her being tall but FCG clarified in the convo that she was taller then him which could be just normal height. The floppy ears we also can't say anything about yet cuz Esmer hasn't mentioned them but that dosent mean we should rule them out.

Now we get to the first clear contradiction. "She was riding a horse through a field at one point" the obvious thing here is that he most likely mixed up a horse with a crawler and the field with the dessert. "She had... Was it blue skin?" Coupled with the horse he was obviously mixing her up with Imogen here, we don't know enough about Dancer yet to make a concrete connection between them but I'm gonna speculate a little bit, I heard some people say she might be an artificer who deals with magic like Imogen and therefore might've been prone to similar accidents, this is supported a little bit by fcg already kinda knowing how to deal with curses when the blue skin ordeal took place.

"And she had a moon tattoo" now this one's obvious since we know dancer has a star tattoo he just mixed it up with Orym's moon tattoo both being celestial bodies seen at night.

My point with this is, you can kinda see a logic with everything he got mixed up, similarities that make sense. But for the Delilah mix up what is the similarity?

Was it something shallow like their names starting with the same letter or was it deeper? Like Delilah being the one to bring Laudna back from the dead, Dancer kinda did a similar thing for FCG didn't she? Maybe it's that.

Maybe it's something about them having control, Delilah takes hold over Laudna in certain situation and convinces her to do things, FCG might percive that as similar to him taking orders from Dancer, he might've thought he had to follow her lead because he was her automaton (back before he realised he wasn't simply a robot without a soul).

This is just speculation and I really want to give Dancer the benefit of the doubt about not being an ass towards FCG until we get to meet her so yeah.

Just thought it might be something interesting to discuss.

omg I wanna hear about Right In Front of You

Ayyyyeeee this one is gonna bring on the heartache from the first chapter but it picks up from there I promise lol

Ok so this one, it's Jensen who is recently widowed left to care for his newborn daughter.

He meets Jared who becomes his best friend/roommate and they are raising Jensen's daughters together.

Feelings are there. They've grown in 5 years they've lived together/raised the little girl together but neither one says anything because they feel like the other won't reciprocate that love.

So far the first chapter is done and I'm about 1,300 words into writing chapter 2.

It wasn't easy in the beginning. Jared made things easier. He spent the majority of his time at Jensen's place than he did at his own home. He grew extremely attached to Esmeralda, or Esmer as they had grown to call her.

Jared was there by his side for everything, the first time she rolled over, crawled, pulled herself up, the first time she walked. All the first his wife will never get to see. He was blessed to have such a great friend who was practically family at this point. 

Although at times he berated himself for how he had begun to feel towards Jared recently. He was his best friend and was helping him raise his daughter. Not to mention that he was still very much in love with his late wife. He was just confused. Mistaking kindness for something more.

Movies I watched this Week #89

After nearly two years of watching on average three movies per day, I realize why I enjoy this self-imposed project so much:

1. I really love movies, and I appreciate very much being able to do it full time as if it was a “real job”.

2. I am so happy to discover the richness of 'World Cinema’ on a regular basis, true masterpieces I never heard about before from far flung lands.

3. It’s not the act of passively watching movies that is most important for me. It’s having started writing again, even if it’s only film reviews for my own sake. Who knows, maybe soon I will even be moving these film-scripts from my head to paper.  

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RIP, Jean Luc Godard X 4:

🍿 A woman is a woman, (1961) his first idiosyncratic color ‘musical’. Exuberant film-making, imaginative, self-conscious and rebellious. "I don't know if this is comedy or tragedy... but it is a masterpiece"

🍿 I’m sorry to say but his second feature, the philosophical crime thriller Le Petit Soldat, left me cold. Maybe it’s all the talking about the politics of the Algerian War, maybe it’s the fragmented style and loose structure. I could hardly keep up. 🍿Sympathy for the Devil (AKA One Plus One) was Godard's first English language film. It documents The Rolling Stones in the studio developing the song "Sympathy for the Devil" from the album ‘Beggars Banquet’, which is exquisite. But this is mixed up with a bunch of didactic agitprop, long voice-over readings of Marxist texts, and staged scenes from the revolution, a tedious experience at best.

🍿Extra: From an 2014 introduction at TIFF.

(Also, I did not know he was a kleptomaniac).

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I have no affinity to the Turkish culture, but I’m excited to explore its apparent cinematic wealth. Watchtower is a terrific quiet drama, not made by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, but by female director Pelin Esmer. A lonely man with a tragic secret takes a sentinel job at a remote mountain fire-watching station. A young woman was raped by her uncle so she hides her pregnancy while working as a bus tour company. Slowly and painfully their paths converge. Even without a traditional payout at the end, it is the serendipitous discovery of the week!

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Petite maman, my 5th and the latest by my favorite feminist author Céline Sciamma. Always telling subtle stories about young girls, this short cinematic poem follows an eight-year-old daughter, whose grandmother just died. Small and delicate, as are all her other films. 8/10.

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Ermanno Olmi’s first major feature Il Posto (1961). A delicate telling of a shy young man landing his first job at a large Kafkaesque Milano office. I saw it in an Italian version with no subtitles, and missed much of the intended subtext.  

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Bergman Island - Scenes from a Marriage on Fårö Island, my 3rd delightful meta-film by Mia Hansen-Løve (after ‘Goodbye first love’ and ‘Things to come’). The story of a married couple of filmmakers on a working retreat on the island where Ingmar Bergman had resided. A film for Bergman fans, who may venerate the earth that the great ‘Artiste’ walked on.

Nearly perfect from the very first scene, with the parallel film-within-the-film maybe a bit on the nose. Female-centric and sparse in its Swedishness. Vicky Krieps is the most beautiful actress from Luxembourg I know. My favorite film of the week!

🍿  

2 with Aubrey Plaza:

🍿 Emily the criminal, a tight new LA crime thriller, about a woman who can’t get from under her impossible student loan debt. Depressingly realistic look into the humiliating life of marginal gig workers and poor people in general, which turns into a terrific survival flick. You can only make it here if you decide to break the law (and of course if you are a pretty white young female..). 8/10.

🍿 Earlier Aubrey Plaza played in Funny People, a 2.5 hour-long Judd Apatow comedy with Adam Sandler and Seth Rogan. It’s an unfunny exploration of sophomoric stand up comedians, that is too long by at least an hour. Lots and lots of dick jokes. 2/10

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The Brazilian Pink cloud starts off with a disclaimer: “This film was written in 2017 and shot in 2019. Any resemblance to real life is purely coincidental.” It’s about a woman who hook up with some guy for a one-night stand, and who finds out the next morning that a lethal ‘Pink Cloud’ suddenly covers the whole world, and nobody can go outside any more. Passive and claustrophobic, the two find themselves stuck together, isolated in the apartment, for days, then weeks, and eventually for a decade. This is not about Covid, but it is. 5/10.

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The last movie star, one of the last movies 81-year-old Burt Reynolds completed before his death shortly after. The story of a frail man who used to be a superstar, flying to an amateur film festival in Nashville was predictable, but still touching, lovely, and wistful. 7/10.

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Patricia Highsmith X 2:

🍿 Loving Highsmith, a lovely new biography of the prolific, lonely writer whose many terrific thrillers were made into films (’Carol’, ‘The talented Mr. Ripley’, ‘The American friend’, ‘Strangers on a train’). She was one of my friend Danny’s favorite writers. ‘Carol’ was the “first Lesbian novel with a happy ending”. 7/10.

🍿 Strangers on a train, based on her first novel. Hitchcock supposedly “stole” the rights for the movie for only $7,500, negotiating for it anonymously in order to keep the purchase price low. With two famous tennis matches, one out-of-control merry go round disaster and a famous shot of a murder reflected in the victim’s broken glasses. Re-Watch.

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Apparently, The Catholic School is based on a true event that happened in an affluent Rome neighborhood in 1975. So it mixes the standard Italian tropes of sin, guilt, latent homosexuality, misogyny, masculine pride, sexual repression, Etc.- nothing wrong with that. But the confusing story starts with a large group of mixed up teens in an upper-class school, and describes them in such unclear way, that it’s hard to figure out who’s who what and what is it about. What’s worse, it ends up unexplainably with a gruesome gang-rape, lengthy torture scene and a senseless murder. A disgusting experience. 1/10.

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Toto the hero, a Belgian classic from 1991. An old man (who looks remarkably like Laurence Olivier in his 70′s) is looking back at his dull life and all the many things he dreamed about but never got to achieve, especially his love to his sister. The best scenes were when he imagined his childhood as a theme from Charles Trenet’s ear worm ‘Boum‘. 4/10.

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2 dramas related to September 11:

🍿 The Humans, a claustrophobic thanksgiving dinner with six members of an unhappy family: Depressed religious father Richard Jenkins, his senile old mother June Squibb, the two bitter daughters Amy Schumer and Beanie Feldstein (who is moving into a run-down Chinatown apartment in NYC with her unmarried boyfriend Steven Yuen, to the disapprovement of the mother). Not dysfunctional enough? The father who was just fired from his job as a janitor at a Catholic school, after 28 years, is still traumatized by his memories from 9/11.

(Btw, Casting Director here is Ellen Chenoweth, whom I thought had many hundreds of movies to her credit, but according to IMDB, “only” 97 since 1982′s ‘Diner’).

🍿 The Siege was a bombastically-loud action film about Arab terrorists in New York City, whose actions causes Martial law to be declared over the city. Made in 1998, it foreshadows many of the agonies that will befall the country just three short years later, hysteric jingoism, macho Islamophobia, terror in the streets, the expansion of the Security State. The most original plot twist was letting CIA agent Annette Bening sleep with her Palestinian informant (but then of course she had to die). Seeing TV clips of Bill Clinton playing a president and rich pundit Arianna Huffington bloviating on TV was not helpful either.

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World War Z, a $200 million zombie apocalyptic horror, the highest-grossing zombie film of all time. Fast zombies instead of slow-shuffling zombies, and very fast editing to compensate for the stupid plot. With Peter Capaldi as a WHO Doctor... 2/10.

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I literally could not understand the new Confess Fletch comedy with Jon Hamm. But then, I recently saw the Chevy Chase original for the first time, and I didn’t get that one either. It did have one good joke (“What’s the password?” - Go fuck yourself!” ) but the rest? Was it goofy? Wacky? Witty? Plucky? Smart? Was it funny? Not for me.

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Switch, a predictable rom-com with good guy schmuck Jason Bateman as a sperm donor to Jennifer Aniston. 2/10.

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(My complete movie list is here)

Archaic/Classical Greek Authors and Whether I Could Win Against Them in a Fight (Part 1)

Homer: This one depends on how I interpret the question. Homer as he’s thought of in the classical world? Absolutely I could take on a (probably fictional) old blind poet. Homer as in all the people who likely had a role in constructing The Iliad and The Odyssey? I do not stand a chance against that mob.

Hesiod: Oh yeah no problem. I’ll just, like, flutter my eyelashes or throw a bucket of bath water at him and he’ll run away screaming like the woman-fearer he is.

Sappho: Yes I could win against her in a fight, but why would I want to? I don’t have any beef with Sappho. I’d much rather befriend her.

Herodotus: This one’s going to be close, you guys. On the one hand, as a man in Classical Greece he has military training. On the other hand, I have a more balanced diet and most importantly, rage on my side. I think ultimately, his greater experience in combat will tip the scales.

Thucydides: Fuck no. That man fought a war against Sparta and survived. He caught the Plague of Athens and lived to tell the tale. His Greek sentences alone make me want to die. He would squash me like a bug.

Xenophon: Ah, Xenophon, nobody’s favourite author. Again, he has a ton of military experience. Could kill me easily. What an underwhelming end, to be killed by Xenophon of all people.

well now i just NEED the playlist

part one | part two (you are here!)

anon, my lovely! i have a streak of bad luck when it comes to making playlists for wip projects - meaning, i’ve made playlists but never actually finished the thing i was working on - so i will refrain from making one for now in a bout of superstition.

i'll gladly share some more music, though, (more or less) related to tarn's hot girl midlife crisis - ESPECIALLY i think i'll use this new ask of yours to talk a bit about those opera pieces i mentioned in the tags of the last post, with some extra funsies thrown in.

i'm sorry, this isn't really what you asked for, but if you want to make your own unofficial midlife crisis playlist with the songs i've already mentioned (and feel free to add your own, of course!) please, go ahead! and do share if you do! :)

that said, lets-a-go!

if you've read the tags in the first post, you know i said recitar (probably better known as vesti la giubba, i think?, but as opera etiquette goes the songs are usually titled using the first line spoken by the singers, and i’m gonna follow that) was tarn’s ‘show must go on’ song - if not because i get to call him a clown (the main character (Canio) and singer of this particular aria plays a character called Pagliaccio - lit. clown)

you multiple links for this particular piece because i honestly cannot pick a favourite: Pavarotti, Domingo, Lanza and... Mina?! - while she’s not a proper opera singer, i think her re-interpretation was pretty cool and it’s fun to listen to a male role being sung by a woman for a change; she also has a beautiful voice.

favourite and most pertinent lyrics: and when Arlecchino / steals away your Colombina / laugh, Pagliaccio, and the audience will cheer

- i’ve never had the opportunity to share this thought before, so i’m gonna go off topic for a moment to say that i love that the word used in the og to evoke how the ‘Arlecchino’ has stolen ‘Pagliaccio’ ‘s partner (Colombina) is “invola” (conj. of the verb “involare”) which is, yes, very old italian, but describes a picture in which Colombina is both being seduced by Arlecchino, and hence being stolen away from her partner, but she is also flying (that ”volare” in “involare” in modern italian means literally “to fly”) away from Pagliaccio, like the dove she is named after. 

one of the first contender as the empyrean suite stand in in the human au was libiamo ne’ lieti calici (here by Diana Damrau and Juan Diego Flòrez): i thought that the airy and celebrative (of love, especially, passionate and fleeting) atmosphere of this song made for an excellent and hilarious contrast if it were to be used to cover up murder noises, but as things went on and i started to sketch out a more defined version of human tarn he grew to hate not only this particular song but the la traviata as a whole - of course, the characters and their grieves are very radicated into high society so it’s not hard to presume that tarn’s problems with the opera per se would come with it being a complete antithesis to what the decepticons stand for, and he would be very inclined to make you believe so! in truth, it’s actually a very personal matter (and he has a particular distaste for Alfredo, the male protagonist, usually interpreted by a tenor, fyi)

some other misc songs i really enjoy from la traviata: sempre libera; (by Lisette Oropesa and by Diana Damrau; if you were to listen to critics Damrau’s performance here isn’t very good, but i still enjoyed her acting and had overall fun listening to her, so here you go) lovely piece, i especially like how they have the tenor sing off stage to achieve that “overheard” effect, maybe a silly thing, but i find it really endearing, coro di zingarelle e mattadori (sic); (i don’t know where this performance is from, but it has noi siamo zingarelle (sic) and di madride noi siamo i mattadori both together so i’ll take it. trigger warning for: inappropriate language to describe romani women (the italian equivalent of the g word) and discussed bullfighting) if you can get past the 1853-ness of it it’s a very fun piece that almost always makes me want to get up and dance - honorable lyrics mentions goes to the bit where the marquis, who was gossiping about Alfredo and Violetta at the beginning of the song, gets called a slut and then to bullfighters’ bit which has them enter the scene just to say how hot and sexy they are.

about carmen, though! i mentioned votre toast, but what about other songs? in près des ramparts de seville (by Elīna Garanča, my beloved and the most Carmen ever. did you know that originally carmen flopped for being too horny of an opera? now you know) you can start to see why i called tarn a don josè; with the exception that josè at least tries to mantain some self control before becoming a disgusting simp. 

mentioning la habanera is kind of cheating so i’m just not gonna say anything about the song per se and link my two favourite performances: 1. Maria Callas; she starts singing at 2:15 if you want to skip the ouverture, but i suggest you don’t: she just is that much a pleasure to watch and listen to, her satisfaction and joy just bleed into the performance, that little pleased smile she has on is very contagious, 2. Elīna Garanča; amazing, showstopping, i have a little crush on her, etc., if you thought the près des ramparts performance was horny you will discover that this one is also very much horny (also fun note: Elīna Garanča is a mezzosoprano while Maria Callas is a soprano! it’s again the situation of of Samuel Ramey playing Escamillo, even if a little less drastic)

let’s conclude this little opera parentheses with again another song i considered as an empyrean suite stand in: va, pensiero (or, more known as the nabucco choir, here sang by the choir of il Teatro dell’Opera di Roma); again, there’s the discrepancy between the meaning of the song and its longing (for the singers’ homeland, this time) and tarn’s use of it, but what actually, imho, would’ve made it interesting as a possible empyrean suite is that as a song it did have an important place in the italian resurgence, and such as a somewhat political piece, as its composer, Giuseppe Verdi, (long story short) ‘broke containment’ and its pieces were not only widespread among the upper classes but the commoners who sang them and made them into something that unified a country in name only, otherwise physically divided.

in the end i decided against it because votre toast is objectively funnier. still, va, pensiero is a beautiful song.

(and since i’m spamming my own scribbles: BAM HUMAN TARN AND MIKA LYRICS. brings back memories...)

now! how about those FUNSIES EXTRA i mentioned forever ago? for the ‘things i actually listened to while writing/plotting’ we have notte all’opera (lit. night at the opera) because what can i say? if tarn’s living his hot girl midlife crisis i’m living my 80s italian pop one - plus, this one is a really funky one. now, to more recent times, there’s la paura del buio that has a really nice tarnsaurus break-up post deathsaurus defection (especially the first verses: i look myself in the mirror and i pretend to be at the circus / on a merry-go-round of happiness that i don’t want to get off / even if i’m not having fun anymore).

and a propos of måneskin, i wanna be your slave is a really good tarn song that fits him in every universe - eons ago i even drew a little something about it and even meant to make a sort of spiritual sequel with the lyrics: i wanna set you free / but i’m too fucking jealous / i wanna pull your strings / like you’re my telecaster / and if you want to use me i could be your puppet; but alas i never did.

first of all, if you’ve got here, i bow to you, and thank you for reading all my nonsensical rambles; but let’s on go ahead to the bonus track: someone special, i felt like i should also share something that’s incredibly warm and fuzzy and self indulgent for tarn et deathsaurus - go on, listen to it, i won’t spoil the lyrics but i promise it’s extremely fluffy.

but you know what there is an astoundingly lack of in this musical post, considering it’s me we’re talking about? if you guessed POETS OF THE FALL you’re right, if you didn’t: don’t worry, you’re about to ascend to an entire new plane of existence.

now, since they’re one of my most loved bands, where to start when picking in relation to my current and most beloved wip?

revolution roulette is probably my favourite album of them, and while i do love all its tracks i will stop to three for the wip: 1. revolution roulette itself is another good buildup to defection for deathsaurus; 2. ultimate fling is THE deathsaurus/esmeral breakup song and probably my second absolute favourite from the band (lyrics that make me absolute rabid: ashtrays filled with the fruits of our transgression / here and there sarcasm overflows / to stay I'll need this sitcom to be re-run till I get the gist of just how it goes); 3. i lied this is two :) but! to my defence, i think they both paint a good picture of what i like (and like to write) in tarn: 3.1 passion colors everything (lyrics: the face I wear behind my grin / the price I've paid for my original sin); 3.2 save me (lyrics - tw for self harm if you go listen the whole song: looking at myself in the mirror / funny I should see only headlines and ads with my name / i was told I'd see my ally / so who are these skeletons with guns taking aim?)

clearview is their second most recent album and while it’s not bad it certainly is not their best, but it also has my favourite song of all time: children of the sun that, admittedly, it’s a bit of my jolly because i always find a way to shoehorn it into my favourite things, but its good. listen to it :)))

- also: drama for life is an absolute banger and another good song for tarn (lyrics that make me eat dirt: a blueprint for life, blueprint your life / aggressively primal cultural high / this mental Versailles is much grander than the lies / you tell yourself to get through the night)

twilight theater is another favourite of mine, and the one i think i will end this post - on another double featurette and a bonus track: 1. change refers more to a tarn immediately after finding about megatron’s denunce of the cause (since i can’t put it into my own words you get lyrics: do you feel a change coming on / rolling out of the blue like a storm / and it's throwing your dollhouse world in disarray / so you can rebuild or conform [...] i too fear the change coming on / rolling out of the blue like a storm / can you hear it scream at the hurt that I knew); 2. smoke and mirrors i think fits nicely for a young tarn post autobots/early decepticons era (when the malady's no remedy / till we reach the lowest absolute / and necessity will finally force something through what's walling you)

man tumblr has destroyed quality on this one smh

An upstanding model citizen, Thunderclash Convoy is a former senator turned respected political commentator, and the go-to celebrity crush of Iacon. He’s well-liked, appreciated, and sought-after, so it’s no surprise that Jhiaxus specifically sought him out while planning the Academy, joining highly competent friends of his like Ratchet and Roadmaster. Now he teaches a class on government, political structure, and the function of the Stratocracy, giving students from every caste an in-depth look to their society. He’s definitely considered one of the school’s most attractive teachers, but he takes the attention in stride. Really, everyone at this Academy is lovely to spend time with... except, for some reason, one of his students. He’s not sure why Hot Rod has decided to take issue with him, but could the youngling at least pretend to put effort into his homework?

Star Saber has been charged with the running of the Academy’s small devotionary for anyone to come practice their faith, and by Primus he does it well. As a licensed clergymech, he takes his own belief and the support of others very seriously, which is why he’s also the best to teach a class on religion and mythology. Very few others know all the secrets, varieties, historical misconceptions, and philosophical conundrums of Cybertronian religion like he does. He’s gratified by the many students who’ve met him after class to thank him for explaining things in a way they can finally understand, now that it isn’t rote doctrine pushed by the High Council. It would be the best job he’s ever had, if it weren’t for that glitch Deathsaurus. His longtime academic rival who scoffs at faith and spits blasphemies like breathing also works at the Academy, and their students are endlessly entertained by the petty drama between them, but Star Saber is proud to say that he takes the victory in most of their verbal duels.

Deathsaurus is having a field day at the Academy. Not only does he have access to archives full of banned texts curated by Alpha Trion himself, but he also has the right to freely teach them! His literature class is truly enriched by the sheer variety of material, and he can feed a few juicy tidbits back to his wonderful Conjunx Esmeral, things that the Stratocracy might not want anyone else knowing. He even has the opportunity to spend time around dear Lyzack again, making sure the young mech is flourishing in the position he recommended for her. Really, this would be the best job he’s ever had, if it weren’t for that aftshaft Star Saber. Can’t a mech expound on the grammatical style of a sacred text without being called a heretic? His darling students are good enough to take bribes to steal Star Saber’s morning energon, so victory goes to Deathsaurus.

After vorns and vorns of managing companies and communities, Megaempress is pretty well qualified to teach social studies. Her class takes all the ideas of other social studies classes, like leadership, organization, and anthropology, and puts them together in a practical manner, and she means really practical. She’s had enough of sitting in pristine rooms with quiet groups of people reading reports and charts. Not a day goes by that she isn’t leading a gaggle of students around the Academy or Iacon itself, asking people questions, making connections, solving problems, and participating in the society they’re studying. She may come across as haughty and gruff, but that’s just because she’s got the confidence of a goddess, and ultimately most everyone ends up swayed by her charisma. She’s never too aloof to spot a struggling student though, and four kids in particular have earned her interest and support.

Sam was back from Hell (though some would say he wasn't all there). After a few months of working with his grandfather and the other Campbells, he felt he was in need of a break and a mroe familiar face. He couldn't talk to Dean but no one said anything about tracking down his old boyfriend....

Esmer was on the road again, making his own way in the world for a time. He missed his boys. But this was how it had to be. Dean had a soulmate and Esmer... Esmer had nothing.

Not that strange from how things used to be.

He was settled in the town nearby for a week or two, dancing and singing for money. Sometimes more.

Everyone knew the stories. Whenever your soulmate got a scar, you received a flower on your skin. It wasn't the same for everyone, but that was the gist. The severity of the scar determined the type and detail in the blossoms, small things like tiny burns appearing as simple one-line daisies for some, watercolour carnations for others, deeper cuts manifesting as colourful hyacinths or richly detailed sunflowers. Esmer knew a man whose wife's double-mastectomy became a bouquet of roses on his chest, and fire victims whose partners bore full fields of daffodils and foxgloves.

For his part, he hoped he didn't have a soulmate. Or that it didn't work for them. He saw the occasional simple bloom that betrayed that feeling (they rarely lasted more than a month), and had a beautiful blue cornflower on his hip. He wondered what had happened there.

More than that, he hoped that his scars weren't giant pieces on their back and legs. That they didn't have terrifying vines or bushes manifest in their skin.

But daydreaming was for people who weren't currently busy running a booth, and who didn't have impossibly beautiful men stopping by.

"How can I help you, hon?" He asked the man softly.

--- @welcome-to-the-sin-zone

Harry, on principle, had no issue with the flowers that decorated him. They meant he had a soulmate, someone to care for and who would hopefully care for him to. He was proud to bear the proof of such a wonderful blessing.

Sadly, he was often required to cover them for work or at home. Potential employers didn’t like models with too many flowers as they required special costumes or makeup to cover them and his family was....let’s just say possessive of his life choices. He winced as the mark on his hip flared up to remind him of that.

But he didn’t have time to worry about that. He was late and very, very lost and there was a beautiful man at the help desk that he’d stop for even if he didn’t need it. “Hello there, gorgeous.” He winked and leaned on the counter. “I don’t suppose you could tell me where the DeVil shoot is? I’m running a bit late....”

          “A dragon! A dragon in the castle!”

          As if it weren’t awful news, every gossip in town flocked to the well, chattering like so many birds before a tray of seeds.

          “I heard it was a kitchen fire-”

          “A kitchen fire up the royal tower? I pick berries up by the castle, that’s nowhere near the kitchens-”

          “Daft girl, I thought I told you to leave that be! You remember what happened to the old millet picker!”

          “The queen’s not going to cut my hands off over an apron full of blackberries, now, is she? They all fall to the ground, anyway, nobody minds them- sorry, what were you saying, Anna, about the dragon?”

          Anna bobbed her head eagerly, pigtails flying half out of her cap. “Edie saw it. She was emptying the chamber pots, and looked up away from the smell, and there it was- big as a tree and white like milk, swept right over the castle and out to the hills, and next she knew it, half the tower was burning, they had to evacuate the prince and all the lords, the smoke was terrible-”

          And she went on like this, in her squeaky voice, captivating everyone, so neatly and efficiently that they did not notice the washer-woman, whom everyone knew was a half-wit who could barely speak, put down her washing, stand up, and take off into the trees.

--

          Distances for a dragon were not the same as distances for a human, even if the dragon happened to be using small human legs at the time. A human’s senses were, for the most part, bound by two axes; up and down were only of so much relevance to something whose ancestors had disavowed themselves from both trees and the ocean some time ago. Up was generally more important than down, but either way, these things were governed by the ground.

          The average dragon had a lot more opinions about up and down, and Dethel, at this moment, was of the impression that she ought to be going up as fast as possible right now, but unfortunately, when the village was all full of noise because of SOMEONE, going up first required a great deal of forwards. So, forwards she went, pounding her sensible washer-woman shoes over small hills and across gullies and making quite a mess of her only set of clothes that she’d have to mend later, first well, and then badly, and it was really all going to be quite a mess, but finally there was the old stone wall that had meant quite another thing to the people who’d laid it originally, but right now it was just a convenient metric for how much forwards was enough forwards.

          Dethel split her skin, and tossed it to a low tree as if it were a blanket she might have been washing, and took wing. Shedding a skin left the body uncomfortably wet, but the sun was warm and bright, particularly as she crossed over the trees, and it dried her off quickly, back to the burnt and gilded shades of red she was properly. Now, the going was easy, and she was home in a matter of minutes, through the narrow cracks in the rock that had, until very recently, done a lovely job convincing humans that there were absolutely no caves in these mountains. “ESMER!”

          Esmer’s head snaked out, disrupting the curtains about her horns. “I thought you were still out,” she said, in the dreamy tone that was especially prominent when she had no idea she was in trouble.

          “I was out! I was working a perfectly serviceable job and now I’m going to have to contrive some reason I wandered off, all on account of you!”

          The rest of Esmer’s body trotted out to catch up with her head. Esmer was a very beautiful dragon. She was not, as Anna (or Edie) said, white as milk, but the pearly silver of twilight, ever so slightly violet along the ridge of her spine to moonstone colors along her smooth-scaled belly. Dethel was reasonably certain if there was a reason Esmer could be quite so dense, it was because she had been born beautiful enough that it distracted everyone from being mad at her. “Well, that’s fine. You should come, come see my treasure.”

          “Treasure? You raided a castle about treasure?” Dethel followed, incredulous, still spitting mad she reassured herself, but the faintest spark of curious. Also, one had to take initiative catching up with Esmer; Dethel was a perfectly sized dragon, but if there was one way the villagers were right, it was that Esmer was in fact very large. Bounding along to keep up with Esmer’s great, languid strides, she kept up her questions: “We have plenty of nice treasures. More of them than anyone else I know, in fact, because you keep going off like this, and I told you that you should talk to me about this, so we can plan it out-”

          “I remember!” And it was reassuring to see Esmer bob her head in faint sheepishness. “And I know. I didn’t mean to make any sort of trouble.”

          Dethel sighed, long, and hard, but there weren’t any cinders to it. “I know. You never mean to.”

          “And I’ll take responsibility for this, like always. I just… this is different, alright? You really have to come see.”

          “I’m coming. I’m seeing.”

          They moved past the lying room, Esmer making a short hop and Dethel a much longer one to reach the landing up to the observatory. That gave Dethel a bit of pause, internally if not externally; the observatory was Esmer’s most special room, besides the library.

          Maybe it really was something special or different-

          -Dethel snapped that thought up like it was a stray sheep on a cliff’s edge. No, absolutely not, she was being cross with Esmer first. She was not going to forgive her for everything, especially when this could create a horrible amount of trouble for the both of them…

          And, yet, it was hard to be mad at Esmer in the observatory that they had painted together, below the great telescope that had been so much trouble and bartering and arguing to procure, that she had been so delighted that she’d pranced all about the room warbling about the stars-

          -there were reasons aside from beauty, admittedly, that Dethel herself could not always stay mad at Esmer.

          Now, Esmer swept aside, piling her great length in several coils all about a side alcove that she had clearly cleared in a great hurry, shuffling other precious things off to the side to take refuge on other shelves. From this angle, Dethel could not see what was in the little box there, only Esmer’s delighted expression, but she had a bad feeling when she realized that the bottom of the box was curved, and that a moment later Esmer hooked the dewclaw of one wing ever-so-gently over the edge and began rocking it.

          Dethel climbed the shelf, and leaned her head over.

          “This is what you set a castle on fire for.”

          Esmer shushed her hurriedly. “You’ll wake it, it’s sleeping.”

          Dethel looked back at the doughy, squash-faced little mound of thing that would someday be a fully grown human.

          She looked back to Esmer, and lowered her voice accordingly. “This?”

          “Isn’t it lovely?”

          “Esmer-” a pause. Scrutiny. “Are you going broody over a baby human?”

          “It gets lonely here, doesn’t it?”

          “You are. You’re going broody. Blood of the earth, Esmer, you sound like my grandmother.”

          She looked back at the cradle. “What are we even going to feed it?”

          “Yes, yes, it doesn’t have any teeth yet, I checked. I’ll have to stew the meat, to make it soft enough-”

          “It probably can’t even eat meat yet, it’s not like a hatchling.”

          Esmer looked alarmed. “What? No, oh no, it’s- it’s biggish, isn’t it? Look, it’s the size of my claw-”

          “That’s little. Little for a human.” Dethel sniffed it, and the creature squirmed in its sleep. “Might be brand new. I’d say a month or so.”

          “What- but- how could they-” Esmer swallowed. “Dethel, you don’t understand, it was crying and crying- the room was cold! Cold enough for me to feel it, and they just left it there and locked the door!” Her eyes were wide and frantic.

          Dethel looked closer, and realized that the baby was not, in fact, swaddled in a blanket, but in one of Esmer’s tapestries. “We’re going to have to fix that,” she said, more making the note for herself than anything, “it needs proper bedclothes. And something to wrap its bottom in, before it poops.”

          Esmer blinked. “It’ll tell us, won’t it?”

          Dethel laughed until Esmer shushed her, and the infant shifted and squalled. “It won’t know it has to go until it’s gone, Es! Humans are completely useless for at least a year. We’ll have to get milk to feed it, and something to put the coals in to keep it warm, because it can’t touch those, and something to wrap its bottom, and a lot of those, because it’ll keep going whenever it needs to wherever it is right then-”

          She didn’t expect any of that would actually stop Esmer, but rather, Esmer’s resolve seemed to strengthen. “Alright. I can do that. We can do that. Better than leaving it there.”

          There was something behind Esmer’s eyes that Dethel had seen before, and that betrayed a truth worse than she had been expecting: this was not, in fact, a flight of fancy about a pretty trinket.

          Then the shadow was gone, and Esmer peered at her warily. “Er- what… kind of milk, do little humans need? Does it have to be human milk, or could we find a goat, or-”

          At that precise moment, the baby pooped, and, as that woke it up, began crying.

          It was going to be a very long year.

Snippet; “ELITA-1”

My second draft for a chapter of Idyllic— it was much more Starscream focused than my final draft (and published vers.) was!

This version is still very rough ... I was going to edit it when I decided to just spruce up the initial draft haha

I haven't posted the vers. I settled on, but I’ll update this post with a link when I do pspsp

EDIT: Chapter 2 is up :D

— binary

*

*

*

The seekerling liked knowing things. It made her feel safer.

“This is actually pretty thorough,” The blue seeker scrolled down, his digit gliding across the screen. “You're missing some information, but it's still really good.”

The praise made her feel bubbly, but Aphelion rose a brow at T.C.’s latter statement. “How can I be missing something?”

Thundercracker zoomed out, and the spreadsheet in its entirety came into view. He tapped the empty slot marked ‘3 p.m.’.

“Uncle Starscream has his craft club from 3 to 5.” He scrunched his face, and then corrected himself. “Well, 3 to 6 if the tea and gossip’s good,”

Aphelion gave a nod of understanding, and slid a box of rust sticks over to the blue seeker; his payment for being such a good help.

“I think I’ll ask if I can go with him. Skyfire says I need to meet new people,” She opened a smaller box of energon goodies, popping one into her mouth. “Does that sound like a good idea?”

“Do whatever.” Thundercracker shrugged his shoulder struts. “Miss Elita’s nice, anyways— you’ll be fine no matter what you do.”

The other seeker nodded, though she had no clue who Elita was. Aphelion rose to her pedes, figuring that Starscream would know; the aerial knew a lot.

***

She found Starscream in his craft room.

“Is Miss Elita nice?” Aphelion asked quietly. The last thing she wanted to do was disturb Starscream, who seemed to be busy with choosing what supplies to bring. To his credit, his craft room was very well-stocked. Most fabrics were not produced on Cybertron, but rather imported from organic races or Cybertronian colonies— in other words, fabrics were expensive.

And Aphelion supposed that professors were paid very well, if Skyfire could afford to keep Statscream's craft room as well-stocked as it was. In any case, if she were in Starscream’s heel struts, the seekerling would have trouble choosing what to bring along to a club meeting, too.

“She's nice, almost sickeningly so.” came Starscream’s reply, and the youngling nodded, satisfied with that answer.

***

“Well, well, well, if it isn't Starscream.” Chromia sat closest to the kitchen door, and was the first to see the red seeker approach. The blue femme snorted, “You're so late that I almost forgot you lived next door, you know.”

Starscream rolled his optics, but the smile on his face betrayed his true feelings— for all of her bantering, he did consider Chromia a friend. “The star of the show never arrives first, Chromia.”

As he spoke, his optics scanned the kitchen. Seated at the table was Chromia of course, but also Esmeral. And, if he looked beyond the archway, and into the sitting room, he could spy a few other mechs and femmes in their own groups. But, there was no sign of Elita-1.

Esmeral must’ve seen the mech’s eyes wander because she piped up quickly, “Our gracious host went to fetch a bottle of engex for us though, there’s regular energon in the fridge, too, I’m told.”

“Wonderful,” Starscream took a seat, “Our guest can't drink high-grade, after all.”

Chromia nodded, “Brought Skywarp with you this time? Or, did you switch things up and rope Thundercracker into coming?”

But the aerial shook his helm. 

“Do you have another nephew stashed away somewhere?” Chromia quirked an optic ridge, servos folded firmly over her chassis in legitimate confusion. 

“Oh! Oh! Maybe there was a buy one, get two free deal?” Esmeral laughed. But, she quickly straightened up. “No really. Was there such a sale going on?”

At that moment, Elita-1 stepped into the kitchen, cradling a transparent bottle of engex. Her blue optics grew even more vibrant when she caught sight of Starscream.

“I was wondering when you’d get here!” She set the bottle down, and it gave a soft clink as it connected with the table. Esmeral’s sangria optics traced the label, then glowed with satisfaction– the Eukarian knew a good wine when she saw it.  “We almost had to start without you!”

“Such a tragedy has been averted; let’s not linger on it.” The seeker trailed off, sparing a glance behind him, towards the kitchen door. He could make out the tip of a white wing, and tsked beneath his breath. “Aphelion, stop lingering by the door.”

“Aphelion?” Elita-1 murmured. She looked over at her amica, but Chromia merely shrugged her shoulders. The blue femme was in no position to explain; Chromia didn’t understand what was going on herself. And, well, if Esmeral knew anything, surely she would’ve said something by now. 

“Ladies,” Starscream’s voice was a purr, and his servos rested delicately yet firmly on the newcomer’s wings. “this is Aphelion.”

The femmeling’s optics never met the kitchen table, and really, the white seekerlet appeared content to look everywhere else but where the other femmes were seated.

At the same time though, her wings spread high and wide behind her. It was a tactic that fliers used to make themselves appear both larger and more confident. On the youngling though, it only made her more endearing than she already was.

For a short while, there was an awkward silence as Chromia, Esmeral and Elita ran their eyes over their new arrival. 

Esmeral broke the silence, “She doesn’t take after Windblade or Slipstream very much, does she?”

“Not all younglings take after their creators, Esme.” Chromia reminded gently. “We aren’t on Eukaris, mind you.” While Esmeral ruminated on her friend’s words, Elita cleared her throat, and shot both femmes a look

“Let’s not talk about someone who’s right in front of us,” The pink Cybertronian said this pointedly.

Then, she lowered herself to a knee. She didn’t try to meet the seekerlet’s eyes, nor did she attempt to make the child look at her. Aphelion swallowed, and took a pede step backwards. Or rather, she tried to. Starscream tightened his grip on her wings, anchoring her in place. So, Aphelion directed her gaze upwards, brows furrowed, and lips fixed into a frown. 

“Use your words.” Starscream mouthed. At once, Aphelion shook her head, her frown only growing deeper. “Just once, Aphelion. That’s it.”

The seekerling risked a look at Elita. “Just once?” She asked quietly.

“Just once.” Starscream affirmed. The youngling reset her optics, as if mentally preparing herself. Her guardian quickly added, “You don’t need to say anything after this.”

Aphelion supposed that was better than needing to keep up a conversation she didn’t want, and she nodded. She would have preferred to observe, but at least the older seeker had given her an out of some kind. She was grateful for it.

“My d-designation is,” She took in a sharp intake, trying to shake the nervousness out of her voice. She tried once more before she opted to simply say,”I’m Aphelion.”

Elita beamed, and rested a hand against her chassis. “It’s very nice to meet you, Aphelion. I’m Elita-1.” Her powder-blue optics flitted over to Chromia, who offered a smile. “That’s Chromia, and the other femme is Esmeral,” The Eukarian threw up an awkward wave.

They seemed nice enough.

***

With introductions out of the way, Aphelion was content to stay seated on her guardian’s lap and observe. They were all occupied with their own projects, but made light conversation as they talked. But Aphelion was less interested in their gossip, and more intrigued by the different methods each femme employed.

“Starscream …” She lightly knocked against the mech’s cockpit, trying to get his attention. “What is Miss Esmeral doing?”

The seeker barely looked up from his needle felting. “Ask her.” 

Aphelion ex-vented in annoyance, “You said I wouldn't have to talk…”

But Starscream was not budging. “I said you wouldn't need to talk. Truth be told, you only need to introduce yourself. Anything said after that is purely optional.”

Aphelion wouldn’t argue with him, but, Certainly, if she had come with Skyfire, the shuttle-mech wouldn’t have made her talk so much. No, Skyfire would have held her close to his spark and assured her that she didn't need to talk at all.

Aphelion ex-vented, one part annoyed and one part nervous. But she was a curious creature, and her lips moved almost on instinct. 

“What are you doing?” Elita, Chromia and Esmeral all looked up, trying to figure out which of them Aphelion referred to. The young seeker felt her faceplates grow warm.

“S..sorry..” It came out quieter than the white youngling would have preferred. “I.. I meant Miss Esmeral,”

From her end of the table, Aphelion could see that the femme was doing … something with a plastic square. The square had holes all over it, from what the seekerling could tell.

 

Thankfully, Esmeral was more than happy to explain. “It's called a plastic canvas.” She said.

“See this? The thread goes into these little holes. Would you like to try? It’s not difficult at all!”

Not difficult at all? Aphelion liked the sound of that, and it would give her something else to do other than sit and observe.

***

“Aphelion’s very good with her hands.” Elita-1’s took short sips of her energon wine, her head turned so she could peer into the sitting room.

Chromia and Esmeral had long since abandoned the kitchen table, in favour of moving with Aphelion to the living room, where there was more space. And of course, the new face attracted all kinds of attention.

Starscream looked up for a nano-klik, before he returned to his craft. There was a datapad in front of him, with an organic avian creature on screen. He was using it as a reference.

“Of course.” The red seeker responded. “She learns best through imitation. But, I have an ulterior motive for coming today.”

“And here I was thinking that you enjoyed the tea and excuse to gossip,” Elita-1 chuckled, pouring herself another cube’s worth of engex. “I'll bite— what's this ulterior motive of yours, Star?”

Her fellow Cybertronian was quiet a moment, as if deciding how to best phrase his next words. He drummed his digits against the table, optics flicking towards the ceiling in thought. 

Finally, the aerial spoke. “I shouldn't say ulterior motive. I … You’re a good mother, Elita. Sky and I-” He clasped his servos on his lap, squeezing them together tightly. “-we don't know how long Aphelion will be with us. But, while we're her guardians, we were wondering if you would be willing..”

The gynoid held a hand up. “I can't believe you’d ask something so silly— the answer's yes to whatever it is!”

Starscream ex-vented in relief. He detested asking for help, but, he figured that the Prime’s cinjunx would have useful information. And, as always, Elita had proven that calling her “sickeningly nice” was more than apt.

[END OF DRAFT]