The Amazon website on full display with a blue bar at the top that holds a search bar in the middle, a three-line hamburger menu in the left corner, and a shopping cart icon in the right corner. The blue color cuts off maybe an eighth of the way down the page.
Important part: one search bar contains the words joy demorra phangs (with a ph)
The other search bar contains just the word phangs (with a ph)
Below that is an advertisement for the paranormal romance series "Tails from the Alpha Art Gallery"
Below that is the red cover of the best selling novel Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites by Joy Demorra.
Hi Joy, I just want you to know that I've been calling it Phangs for so long in my head that when I saw the dog food post I was actually shocked! And I might have accidentally typed it in Amazon. Somehow, it came up anyway. I'm excited for the Fluffy version!
I *think* that might be because we tagged it that way, anticipating people looking for “phangs”, because yea, I call it Phangs more than I call it anything else haha
And thank you for the cool image and the captions!
Lost Time And Other People's Bullshit for the title meme (last one, I swear)
Read up on dyschronometria and wanted to use it for this! I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that Tony doesn’t mean to be distant, he just doesn’t realize he is.<:3c
Lost Time and Other People’s Bullshit
Pepper finds Tony standing in the hallway in the dark and nearly launches herself into the ceiling in fright. “Tony oh my God.”
Tony blinks at her placidly.
Pepper stares at him, clutching a folder to her chest, then reaches out and gently grabs his arm. “Where have you been?”
“I’ve? Huh?” Tony asks. “I’ve been working. Look! I made a new cell phone,” he adds, jerking his hand up. The cell phone is small and thin and probably the best thing to hit the market soon. “I’ve managed to make it pretty indestructible, and upped the battery life by seventy-three percent–”
He has no idea he’s missed three meetings and a deadline on a patent, Pepper realizes after a moment. She’s not sure how she feels about that–mostly unnerved, she decides. She covers the cell phone with her hand.
Tony stops talking abruptly to blink at her again. He doesn’t look guilty, or upset, or tired. Just excited to be able to show her the new thing he made.
“Let’s get dinner and you can tell me more about it,” she offers.
“I could eat,” Tony agrees, and then launches into the parameters he wants to add to the phone.
Tony doesn’t remember three of his PhDs. Bruce had seen one of the certificates on the wall and had tried to ask Tony when he’d gotten a PhD in Safenology, of all things.
“He hyperfocuses and then when he doesn’t need the information anymore his brain just dumps it until he needs it,” Rhodey explains when Bruce mentions it. “He uses that degree without realizing it whenever he goes over new safety protocols for inventions of departments.” He catches Tony as he tries to power-walk by, clearly focused on something else.
Tony stops and looks up at him, tilting his head. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Rhodey says, and then, “Shower.”
“Oh,” Tony says, and then continues power-walking away.
Rhodey drags him down to dinner and he smells fresh, so he must have showered at some point. It’s both boggling and horrifying that he needs to be reminded.
Steve finds old fashioned boxes of Monopoly, Scrabble, and Sorry! in the common room. He doesn’t understand. He’d made a passing comment to Tony while he’d clearly been focused on something else, and here these games were, ones that he’d played with Bucky and his sisters so many years ago. When had he done that? Why? He was always so busy, why add the stress of Steve’s passing complaint to his problems?
“It was no trouble,” Tony says when Steve asks him, looking past him out the window. “Is it evening already?”
Natasha finds a whole new wardrobe in her closet, from shoes hiding lock-picking implements to dresses that look sheer but are clearly made of fabric that’ll protect her from knife wounds. She stares. When had he done this? He’d been working with the military on bulletproof vests and also working on the next upgrade for the helicarrier. She’d only mentioned being annoyed that the dress she’d been given by SHIELD had ripped in passing, to Clint, as Tony was poking at his tablet. She hadn’t even thought he’d been listening.
“I want you to be safe,” Tony says when she asks him.
He sounds so reasonable that she begins to nod, agreeing, even says, “Thanks.”
“Well, I’m going to go to bed,” Tony says, even though it’s two o’clock in the afternoon, and pats her shoulder before he turns and leaves. It’s not until he’s gone that she remembers that she wanted to ask him not to do that anymore, since his plate was already so full.
Eventually things come to a head, and Thor puts his hand on Tony’s chest to stop him from leaving the kitchen. “Tony.”
Tony stares up at him, bewildered. “Yes?”
“Are you even aware that it’s been a week since we’ve seen you?” Thor asks.
“A week? No,” Tony says, and then tilts his head, looking more interested than concerned. “A week? Really?”
Tony shrugs one shoulder, holds his hand out toward the door. “I was busy.”
“Tony,” the rest of the Avengers choke out.
“I’m better than I was when I was younger,” Tony says, shrugging again. “I’m on medication. A therapist comes to see me because I can’t remember dates. I’m not ignoring you. I just don’t have a concept of time passing. That’s why JARVIS has so many alerts for me, and why if Pepper really needs me, she’ll come and get me, and why Rhodey will just grab me and remind me of stuff. It’s not that I don’t care about you guys, I just literally can’t realize by myself that it’s been hours, days, or even weeks that I haven’t seen another person.”
“And you’ve always been like this?” Bruce asks, looking pained.
Tony blinks at him guilelessly. “Ever since the car crash I was in on my way home from boarding school, yeah. I was… s-si–seven maybe?” He scratches at his chin, squinting at the ceiling. “I don’t remember much of the years surrounding the accident because they all blend together into hospital visits and private tutors. It’s in my medical files if you want to see them.”
“Tony,” Steve says softly, frowning. “If you’re already struggling–why go out of your way for us, then?”
“I’m not struggling,” Tony says, brows furrowing together in confusion. “I’m actually functioning quite well. My therapist says I’m doing great! And why wouldn’t I go out of my way for you guys?” he adds, perplexed. “You’re my friends. I love you and want to take care of you.”
“Oh,” they say, stunned and quite humbled by it.
“Oh,” Tony says. “Is it dinner time?” He sits down in the seat beside Thor and looks around the table. “What’s for dinner? Curry! Nice!” He pauses, silent, as Steve reaches out and pulls him in for a side-hug, then leans back to look up at him. “Have I done something wrong?”
“No,” Steve says. “Just, some things about you make a whole lot more sense all of the sudden, and it’s nice to know I don’t have to worry about them.”
Tony stares up at him for a moment, then shrugs and turns back to the food, unconcerned. “If you guys haven’t seen me for a few days and want me for dinner, come and get me. I don’t mean to miss out. I just can’t tell I am.”
The rest of the team gets together after dinner to make a list of when and who will approach him and for what, which they run past Pepper and Rhodey and Happy, who seem cautiously happy about it. They still find Tony coming and going at all times, but with a reason for it, it doesn’t bother them so much anymore, especially now that they know they can tow him in to spend time with them and he won’t get upset by it. They’d known he hadn’t been aloof with them, not really, but hearing an explanation for why he didn’t spend time with them was enough to alleviate their fears that they were bothering him.
Even if Tony lost time, it was good to know that it didn’t make his feelings for them wane.
I definitely want to see snippets of previously unshared writing. Those are always fun!
I think so! But since they have no current endings, it can be a bummer for some people :D I love seeing unfinished writing though! It gets my imagination running!
This one’s for a vampire who’s old as shiiiiit
-------------
Olivia is in the foyer when they knock once and then burst in. She blinks at the odd mesh of a vampire, a werewolf, a human and a hunter.
“Is this a mob?” she inquires idly. She thinks back to the last two decades. She doesn’t remember anything particularly heinous happening, nothing, at least, that could be linked back to her. She herself hasn’t left this building since the 1950s.
“No,” the vampire says. He’s young (but aren’t they all?) maybe in his second or third century. Still, he reeks of power, a familiar smell, and Olivia feels her eyes itching to turn red, to match their powers against each other.
She’s old enough that she just looks at him placidly, her eyes brown and soft and human.
“The Council has risen,” the werewolf tells her. She’s a beautiful woman, tall and curvy, with thick, brown hair. Her eyes flash yellow in the moonlight pouring through Olivia’s broken windows. “We seek the help of the Old One.”
Olivia lets her head drop to one side, observing them. The human is the calmest of them all, strange markings darting up his arms, over the his exposed shoulders and down his back. She recognizes marks of power and upgrades him from human to mage.
The hunter is the purest of his kind that Olivia has seen in a long time. She can see the veins of power running through him, giving him vampiric speed and sensing ability while maintaining the still beating human heart. She thinks idly of feeding but dismisses the thought.
She has not needed to feed in a long time.
“Where is your Master?” the mage demands to know. “We demand an audience with them.”
“What makes you think they’re here?” Olivia asks, folding her arms. She’s abruptly aware of the clothes she’s wearing. They’re always the first tell in things like this and she’s not as outdated as she feared. A structured dress from her last foray into civilization some fifty years before.
The hunter stalks forward, a growl low in his throat. “Don’t try to mislead us, vampire. The signs all point to here.”
“Please, ma’am,” the vampire says. “The Council--it is not like our histories promised. They’re blood thirsty. Deranged. They’ve wiped out a hive already for an accident.”
“They wiped out a pack for questioning their presence on pack lands,” the werewolf says. She opens her arms. “They say they only listen to the Old One.”
They’ve missed steps here. Introductions and explanations but Olivia barely registers them. Thousands of years of memory, locked behind a wall of apathy, slowly come to her. The establishment of the council, her first children. How they betrayed her, in the end, how they went into the world without her support, without her nourishment. Was it betrayal or growing? She’s lost perspective, she knows, along the centuries.
“They don’t listen to her,” Olivia murmurs. Her eyes flick to the high windows. The moon is half full, waning. It is a bad time for opposition, for conflict. “They are lying to you. They listen to no one.”
“You’ve seen the Old One,” the vampire says, relieved. “So she’s here.”
Olivia hums. “She can’t help you.”
The hunter takes an aggressive step forward. “Who are you to decide that?”
“I’m Olivia,” she tells him. She doesn’t know the customs anymore so she nods. “Who are you?”
“That’s not--” the hunter starts to say only to be cut off by the vampire.
“Jonathan, ma’am,” the vampire says, sweeping a low bow. When he looks up at her, his face is carefully blank, round jaw tense. “Would you give us a moment, please?”
She almost tells him that she’ll hear everything but figures that he must know that, that this is merely a formality. She nods and takes a step back, a physical sign that she will pretend not to take notice of whatever is said.
“I can’t scent her,” Jonathan tells his comrades. “She’s unaffected by the mention of the Council and she knows the Old One. We have to assume that she’s as old as the council and that makes her dangerous. We need to be polite.”
“Barging in here wasn’t exactly polite,” the werewolf points out. Her brow furrows. “What should we do?”
“Follow my lead,” Jonathan says and turns back towards Olivia, face once again blank. “May I call you Olivia?”
Olivia nods. “Who are your companions?”
“I’m sorry we didn’t introduce ourselves sooner.” Jonathan gestures to the hunter. “This is Alex, heir to the Grimm family. He’s sworn fealty to my House for the duration of this conflict with the Council.”
“How do you do?” Alex says and his voice is mocking. Shaggy, blond hair falls into his eyes as he bows condescendingly low, sweeping his arms dramatically. “It’s an honor to meet you.”
Jonathan looks horrified at the other man’s manners and she can see him trembling with the effort it takes not to lash out. She’s not so much offended as amused. Alex reminds her strongly of a young hunter she’d met in Germany many centuries ago. She wonders if they’re related.
“I’m Gloria Jameson,” the werewolf says loudly, trying to break the awkward, horrified silence that’s fallen. She sweeps a bow at the waist and, obviously unaccustomed to the motion, comes up far too fast. “Alpha appointed of North America during this time. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Olivia.”
“I’m Frederick Lumiere,” the mage says. He doesn’t bow, but nods. His hair is contained in box braids except for one long braid which she can smell power radiating from. His dark eyes burn with an inner fire. “Call me Fred.”
Olivia is surprised to actually feel her lips twitch at that. A mage named Fred? This century is already more entertaining than her last three, easily.
“Wonderful to meet you all,” she says and is again surprised to find that she actually means it. She’s had this happen to her before where she’s realized just how silent the years have been until someone comes to burst her bubble of isolation. She feels something stirring in her, something ancient and old that she’s put to sleep. “Now, what circumstances brought about the resurrection of the Council?”
“They weren’t dead,” Alex the hunter says, folding his arms. “Nothing can bring back the dead. You should know that.”
Her lips turn down as the first surge of irritation fills her in centuries. She should know that? He should know that there’s an exception to every rule.
“What we mean to say,” Jonathan says hastily, “is that there was a shift in the world’s power. We don’t know what or why or how. What we do know is that it changed the power points across all continents, making them free game for any being fast and strong enough to claim them.”
Olivia blinks. A shift of that magnitude should have caught her attention, even as sedate as she is. “That’s...unprecedented.”
“Actually, no,” Fred the Mage says with a shade of enthusiasm. “There are some records that this has happened a few times before. Generally to do with a shifting sentient population; the Earth puts her power where her children are.”
“Not in my lifetime,” Olivia says. She frowns and the expression feels odd. “I do not believe in my lifetime. I did not feel the shift this time.”
“You’ve got to be keyed into the ley lines to feel it,” Fred explains. “Mages all over felt it as soon as it happened, werewolves the first full moon. Vampires only got wind of it when the packs started migrating and then the hunters.”
She lets another part of her wake up, a small one that tastes the current of energy under her feet. To her surprise, it no longer exists, only the phantom traces of what it had been remaining. “The ley line here is gone.”
“Shifted twenty miles south,” Fred says. “It’s really quite fascinating--”
“The Council is seeking to claim all the new intersections of old power,” Jonathan interrupts. He shoots an apologetic look at Fred. ‘We can get into the specifics later. What’s important now is that they’re out of control. They’re starting to attract the attention of the humans.”
“Oh,” she says, “are they no longer informed about our existence?”
“No longer?” Gloria asks, looking at her companions. “They haven’t ever really known about us. We’re legend to them. Myths.”
Olivia sighs and tries to remember when the last time a human had known her for what she was. It’s far too long ago, perhaps a millenia, perhaps more. “Tedious.”
“Um, well,” Jonathan says, floundering, “tedious it might be, but, um, we have to keep them in the dark. Or else we’ll be hunted to extinction, most likely. So we have to stop the Council before they try to reclaim some of the bigger intersections in major human cities.”
“D.C, namely,” Fred says. “According to my informants, the Wisconsin intersection shifted all the way to D.C. and that’s where the Council is headed next.”
“The humans have the technology to wipe our kind out,” Jonathan says. “We can’t let them know about us. We need the Old One’s help to even have a chance of stopping the Council.”
Olivia nods slowly. “And when you say ‘stopping’ what do you mean?”
“Killing,” Alex says, teeth bared. “That’s the only way to stop a blood sucker.”
Jonathan hisses at him, Gloria growls and even Fred looks aggrieved. Jonathan turns to her. “If that’s the only way to stop them, yes, but we really want to preserve our culture, Olivia. We aren’t here to ask the Old One for a death sentence.”
“Aren’t we?” Alex mutters under his breath.
Olivia is...conflicted. Something she hasn’t been in a long time, probably she doesn’t think she’s been anything in a long time. Her children had taken so much from her when they left to start their new world and she’s let them because she’d thought them right. She’s old and out of touch and the world moves so much faster than her.
But this. This is not what she taught them, the death of species for power had never been her or their purpose in this world.
But she can taste the truth in what the say, the truth in the ground beneath her feet, and who she was (who she had been) knows that people change. Even the ones she loves or loved.
She needs to wake up.
The vampire feels it first, when she rips that door open, the door to her power and to her past. He jerks as if he’s going to lunge back, at the last moment putting himself in front of Gloria the Werewolf. The mage falls to one knee under the weight of her aura, face paling and symbols flaring to life as they fight to keep her out of his will.
Gloria shifts right there, her bones cracking and elongating until a wolf stands where she did, growling and clawing at the ground.
Olivia wakes up.
“The years yawn behind me, the future a wall ahead,” she says at last. “I know not when I’ll tumble from my place in history, but I take the chance to climb higher so that others will know the path.” She looks at them, her eyes carrying all that she’s hoped and hopes and will hope. “I will help you. No matter the cost.”
