The traveler’s teapot is huge. It makes sense; they allow all the friends they’ve made along their journey inside whenever they want. Of course it has to be big enough to accommodate all of that. Still, Scaramouche wasn’t expecting it—mansions and gardens strewn about as far as he could see, crystalflies lighting the shadows as they flutter through the trees. He can’t deny that it’s beautiful, and frankly, impressive. He asked them once how long it took to get everything in place. They had quickly changed the subject.
Scaramouche sees lots of people come and go, some familiar faces, some not. Out of all of them, though, he thinks he’s the one who spends the most time in this little realm. He technically doesn’t have a place to stay in Sumeru; Lesser Lord Kusanali had offered to help, but he’d declined. So now in his free time he likes to go into the traveler’s Adeptus world, basking in the constant warmth.
They have a lot of animals, especially cats—and every single one of them is absolutely infatuated with Scaramouche. No matter what he does or where he goes, he’s always greeted with soft meows or the tiny footsteps of a pet hoping he won’t see it. He finds it endearing, honestly; he could never help but have a soft spot for small creatures.
One cat in particular follows him everywhere. Her name is Tofu and her fur is so soft that Scaramouche can’t even try to resist the urge to cuddle her.
He's dozing off, sitting near a secluded waterfall that he knows is rarely visited, when Tofu paws at his leg, making a soft noise to wake him up. He chuckles, picking her up with ease and setting her down into his lap. He scratches behind her ears as she nestles into him.
“You're so clingy,” he tells her fondly. She meows quietly, as if to argue. “Meow to you, too.”
Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't be caught dead acting so soft; he's not a gentle person, and as far as anyone else is concerned, there are no exceptions. But there's no one around, and he's certain Tofu won't tell a soul what she sees.
She scampers up his arm to rest on his neck, purring as she bumps his cheek with her head. He scratches under her chin, smiling fondly as he notices she’s in a more energetic mood.
“You’re spoiled,” he scolds, although there’s no heat behind his words.
She makes a soft trilling sound, biting at the shell of his ear with her dull fangs.
He can’t help but giggle, gently pushing her away. “Cut it out, that tickles.” She can’t understand him, but he finds it easier to talk to her as though she can.
“...You’re ticklish?” asks a soft voice from behind. Tofu leaps off of his shoulder and darts into a bush, startled as Scaramouche turns around to see the speaker.
A man with pale hair braided above his ears looks back at him curiously, a star-shaped mark against his throat. Scaramouche has met Albedo before, a few times, having been subject to his neverending curiosity. He’s answered countless questions about his own internal functions, how his blood flows and how he even moves at all. It’s interesting, he has to admit, but thinking so hard about the way he does things makes his head start to hurt after a while.
He never tells Albedo to leave, though—they aren’t friends, exactly, but, well. It’s not exactly a secret that Albedo is pretty, from his gentle features to his warm eyes. Scaramouche can’t say he doesn’t enjoy his company, not just because of his beauty (of course not, that would be shallow), but his quiet demeanour is more relaxing than most people Scaramouche knows.
He’s a bit embarrassed at being caught in such a vulnerable state, though, even if the person standing there could have been someone much worse. He turns away, staring at the bush Tofu had disappeared to and reaching his hand out, coaxing her back. “I don’t know how, so don’t ask,” he says in return, gently drumming his fingers on the grass.
Scaramouche pauses, the words registering in his mind. He knows what Albedo is implying, and his answer is fuck no. He’s not letting some stranger put their hands all over him, pretty face or not.
But when he opens his mouth, the complete opposite comes tumbling out.
So that is how he ends up in Albedo's personal lab inside of the teapot (seriously, how big is the thing?) atop a table while Albedo walks around and studies him from every angle.
“Most people are ticklish in spots their body considers vulnerable,” Albedo explains, uncomfortably close, “like the stomach or neck. Generally these are spots with important organs or arteries that aren’t covered with bone. It’s a defense mechanism.”
Scaramouche resists the urge to cross his arms, having been instructed to stay still. He feels so exposed. “But I’m not a human.”
“Exactly,” says Albedo. “That’s why I’m curious.”
Scaramouche wants so badly to get up and leave, but he finds it hard to say no to the genuine interest in Albedo’s expression. “Just hurry up and—gh?!” His whole body jolts as he feels a finger poke into his side, and he glares. “At least warn me!”
Albedo cocks his head. “You said to hurry up.”
Scaramouche feels heat rising to his face. “Just get this over with!”
“It’s an experiment,” Albedo says. “I have to be thorough.” He reaches towards his side again, beginning to spider his fingers along. “Are you ticklish here?”
Scaramouche flinches but quickly grips the edge of the table, forcing himself to stay still. “Th-the hell’s it look like?”
“I need a definite answer,” the alchemist replies, and it’s impossible to tell if he’s being genuine or teasing.
“...Yes, n-now move.” Scaramouche’s voice is tense, strained from holding back any embarrassing noises like, Archons forbid, a laugh. He doesn’t even remember the last time he’s truly laughed in the presence of someone else.
Albedo complies with his request, but unfortunately, his curious hands move to Scaramouche’s stomach, which is worse. He’s fighting hard not to curl up or run away, but fuck, this already tickles way too much for him to handle. He's never been tickled before, you can't blame him!
He squeaks (how humiliating) when Albedo pokes his tummy to get his attention. “What about here?”
Scaramouche squeezes his eyes shut and ducks his head, as if it’ll make him invisible. “Yes.”
“How interesting,” Albedo hums, and then his fingers are crawling and dancing all over Scaramouche’s waist and he really can’t take it anymore. “Humans have lots of organs in this area, which would imply that you do, too.”
Scaramouche covers his mouth with a hand, firmly keeping his reactions silenced. He tries to lean away, but Albedo easily follows him.
“I assume your body works artificially,” he continues as if nothing’s happening, “though I have no way of knowing for sure. You clearly have a bloodflow—” (Scaramouche realises then that he’s blushing, and he wants to die) “—yet you have no heart. You seem quite ticklish here, so you must have some kinds of organs.” Albedo pinches the skin above his hip, and he yelps. “Oh?”
Scaramouche pulls his hands away from his face, gripping onto Albedo’s wrists tightly. “I’m going to kill you.”
But Albedo only smiles at him. “Can I take this as a sign to continue?”
Scaramouche sputters. “What?! What about that sounds like a go-ahead?”
“You haven’t told me to stop.”
Scaramouche can feel himself burning, from his ears all the way down to his neck. Fuck this. He hates this, hates everything about it. How delusional must Albedo be to take his threat as an okay?
Albedo chuckles softly, which does stupid things to Scaramouche’s chest. “I’ll be gentle,” he promises.
Some part of Scaramouche must be insane, too, because he reluctantly lets go.
idk I know this is a dumb thing to think about but it still bothers me that the Hornblower show gave Horatio more confidence than he has in the books. The whole Point of Hornblower's character in the books is the contradiction of him being highly ambitious while simultaneously being full of self-doubt and shame and despair. And admittedly it is hard to put this across in a medium like a tv show because so much of Hornblower's turmoil is internal, he almost never voices it aloud, but the show never really tries to communicate it any other way and that makes it seem like it just isn't there. And admittedly I don't think it would have been better to have voice-overs where Horatio tells the audience "ooooh i'm so full of self doubt and shame" but with the way it is it's like that whole aspect of his character is largely absent.
And they also go out of their way to just give him confidence where he shouldn't have it. I'm still pissed about the moment from The Wrong War (I think) where Mariette confronts him about his ability to actually keep her safe and he says "You don't know what I'm capable of." He Would Not Say That!!! Who is that man?? It sure isn't Horatio Hornblower
like soooo many people simply cannot wrap their imaginations around the concept of a man who lacks confidence. Especially if he's a protagonist. Forester carefully crafted a guy who is textually critically low in self esteem and full of Agonies and people keep taking him and saying "Hmmmm ok but what if he wasn't" Stop changing my special little freak who hates himself into someone who's normal!!!!
this one swears it remembers hearing about this somewhere, but this Wikipedia page's only source seems to be a webmd symptom checker link that..... doesn't work-?
How to Train Your Ghost (still trying to find an appropriate title)
Low-key inspired by a lot of fanarts and highkey inspired by areaper au I found that's pitch pearl in the fanfiction.net. This is my 2nd time writing this idea (since ive been thinking of it for the.....past 18 hours), my draft got accidentally deleted and I am mad (wrote the first draft sleep deprived and running on 30 minutes of sleep, still is running on 30 minutes of sleep, I'll visit this idea back after I get at least 4 hours of sleep and not low-key delirious, yes I still am low-key delirious) forgive me if i dont explain well or my horrendous punctation and grammas, i know. ill just word vomit/narrate/write my prompt/story/thoughts. ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿
Tags: Human Danny (more like liminal but hes not a halfa, he does have powers though but much more altered and weaker for his squishy human body but if its a more ghost power, well, he doesnt have it), Danny Fenton is a ghost hunter, Danny Fenton has a scythe, No trio trio-ing here (Sorry, Sam, Tucker and Danny aren't friends, maybe yet), Pitch Pearl (minor, slight, if you squint, platonic, Idk) Phantom is a dork, Phantom is a sin-ammon roll (.....), Phantom is learning all about Life and Humans (mostly humans), Secret Identities, No One Knows
I found the fic I took inspo from! Do mind that while it may look very similar (probably at the first) I have different plans for mine (ques the clues I left behind and the glaring title) but still feel free to check out their work!
Just Like the Story by Kitsune's Dark Shadow
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Danny probably didn't die in his parent's portal last week on Wednesday, he thinks. He was pretty sure that he was still breathing when he crawled out of the portal, feeling the warm breathe he feels his lungs exhale on the cold ceramic tiles of the lab's floor bringing no comfort to his charred flesh as he stares at the swirling green of the portal, feeling hollow inside as he felt that something was taken from him.
Even though he could feel phantom pain on every nerve of his body all the way to Monday, the first day of school, he chalked it up to being electrocuted by at least a million volts in his body when he unwittingly slipped and press the on button inside the machine. Why there's an on button inside a portal? Danny unfortunately knows how it was mistakingly built inside.
But aside from the near death painpainI'mscaredhelpHelpMe, it stands to reason that for a teenager, such triffling matters were thrown into the metaphorical trash bin for more important matters. Like the A-listers, his studies, space and finding friends cause he's so terribly lonely, just wanting to not be seen as a freak. So it really isn't Danny's fault that he forgot about that one Wednesday noon, he was and still is busy trying to find his place in Casper High, determined to find one friend who would like him. Who wouldn't leave him due to him being Danny Fenton, son of deranged scientists believing ghost exists, the local freak of Amity and the lonely loser of Casper High.
He would have forgotten about it until he woke up floating from his bed, face first in the ceiling. Doing the approximate of a reverse dive into his week and remembering that one Wednesday brought the memories fresh, clear and crisp back to his newly (already) traumatised teenaged brain.
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Soft moonlight streamed down from the covered moon as the dewy grass below is disturbed, a floating glow of a silhouette dashes through the forest. Panting as blobs of green dripped from its wounds, gripping its sluggishly bleeding arm. It muttered "No...No...No.....No" as it ran for its afterlife, scared at something that was following it. Blue lights hallowed in green with little flecks of it across it iris narrowed as it captured and saw its target.
The ghost immediately ducked, the wind whistling as though something flew through the air. The ghost screamed in fear as they came into a clearing, sudden whips of air came and dropped in front of the ghost, effectively blocking it from its escape.
A large black scythe stood in front of the ghost, nothing of note to its design but only the tiny flecks of dark green stars across its blade. The ghost stared at the weapon in fear and apprehension as the moon sifting to the forest below slowly peeked around the clouds.
A shadow hovered and blocked the moonlight as the ghost stilled. Green eyes slowly looked up, following the handle of scythe and stopped at a figure above. Foot firmly placed on the handle of the scythe while still holding it, a boy looked down at the ghost.
Black whispy hair framed the boy's face, wind swept and frazzled from the chase. A long single white tuff of hair was partially hidden by a crocheted black and white headband, a striking difference to his dark hair. Blue eyes hallowed in neon green with flecks of different shaded oof green dancing in his eyes like stars as he stared the ghost down.
His face was framed by the moon as he slowly moved and pointed a modified ecto-gun to the ghost's head.
The ghost whispered "Azrael..."
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Notes:
Danny goes by 'Azrael' while Phantom is Phantom, the only one with a secret identity here is Danny and Valerie. No one knows who Danny moonlights as or that Danny for one is ghost hunting, so no Jazz, his parents and since the thrio aren't friends, they dont know too. I dont know about Valerie, Vlad or the ghost population yet as I haven't planned that out yet. The No One Knows tag can be applied here and his...accident too.
I have plans on Phantom but treat him as an independent character from Danny, while he does have a correlation with Danny (soul bonded) other than his looks being an invertion of Danny's (likes Danny therefore copied his human looks), they're not the same person.
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Phantom: We're soul bonded! :D
Danny (holding a gun and his scythe while staring at the local hero of Amity): ....
*silently cocks gun at phantom*
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Notes:
Anyways, Danny being a ghost hunter doesn't mean he doesn't sympathise with ghost. (He's liminal) that's also where the 'Azrael' name comes. He guides the dead, like a psychopomp, and also protects humans from the ghosts and vice versa.
I have more ideas for him but.... I won't share :)
All in due time.
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Danny was slowly stalking down the road near the forest, brushing his upper lip and his hand coming away bloody. His hands tightly clenched as he gritted his teeth and gave a low snarl.
"Fucking Dash Baxter and his stupid-" he hissed lowly as he kicked a can to the bushes. He huffed as he clutched his bag when suddenly he heard something. He looked around, a bit confused and wary when he saw nothing, he clutched his bag closer to him as he quickly opened it and took out a modified ecto-gun.
One of his latest projects in his sudden venture into ghost hunting, he was proud of how much he was able to customised it to his liking. He heard another sound and quickly aimed at where he heard it, the same bush he kicked the can at.
He slowly creeped up to it, prickles of unease all around his skin. He knew he wasn't a professional ghost hunter, he's still new to the whole thing. The world of Ghost hunters is a cruel and cold place, its either being lucky enough to not find a quack to ally with or lucky enough to survive until you changed careers. It's especially much more harder for an aspiring un-allied ghost hunter that sympathises with ghosts to learn the ropes. No back up and No supervision means that Danny has to always be in high alert in case for a ghost attack.
A melodic tune came from the bush as Danny crept closer. Using the muzzle to nudge the bush to the side as Danny immediately aimed.
He stared down at the wide green eyes of an amorphous blob ghost with a little white tuff of hair on its head as it gave a tiny squeaky tune.
i'm tired i'm too tired to keep approaching people individually and i'm kinda done. i'm just gonna say this publicly once, please read this. the situation over here rn isn't about palestinians fighting for their human rights and freedom, if it were i would support it. the attacks on israel are by a terrorist organization named Hamas and you're more than welcome to look them up-their ideology is: number one that they see the muslim people as entitled to the land of israel/palestine (which i am not going to argue about, i don't agree nor disagree on that i quite literally don't care about that conversation), and number two that they need to kill jews. i'm not paraphrasing that's in their literal "covenant"- again, look it up- that they strive to kill all jewish people and see it as their obligation to do so. i hate this country and its government with every fiber of my being and the things israel has done (and still does) to palestinians are absolutely horrible and condemnable. with that said, the attacks rn aren't about that. they're not by palestinian citizens, they're by the terrorist group known as hamas. they do things that could not ever be done in the name of fighting for human rights or self-preservation. i am critical of israel but 1,100 innocent israeli civilians are dead since saturday. some are people i know and care about. so many were kidnapped and tortured. this IS complicated and you SHOULD educate yourself proparly on the matter before speaking and yes before reblogging random posts too. your opinion is your own but you must have the proper information before preaching it.
reblog this, don't reblog this, i don't really care anymore. but i had to say something.
