I'm so confused!

Required Rudeness (200 words) by Sharpest_Asp
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Lord of the Rings - Peter Jackson movies, Sword-Dancer Saga - Jennifer Roberson
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Samwise "Sam" Gamgee, Sandtiger [Sword-Singer Saga]
Additional Tags: Double Drabble, Alternate Universe - Fusion
Summary:

Samwise has to be rude, to keep his people safe.

Required Rudeness

The surly horse actually caught Samwise's attention before the man, but then he took note of the shoulder-scabbarded sword and decided he'd best do his duty. They didn't need more trouble at all, and he meant to make that happen!

"Here now, traveler, the Shire has no wish of men that live by the sword," Samwise said in a direct breach of being kind and hospitable. Then again, it was his job to be brusque, as he knew the signs of danger better than most.

"Seeking directions to a place called the Grey Havens," the man said in an accent Samwise could not place. "Word is my basha headed that way."

Samwise's eyebrows rose into his hairline, but if the man was bent on that pilgrimage, he'd let the elves deal with it.

"West a bit more, straight on to the river," Samwise offered.

The man nodded and rode on, taking his strangeness — and that well-used sword — away from the Shire. Maybe nothing would have come from inviting him to rest with them a time, but Samwise didn't put his faith in maybe. He dusted off his hands, well-shod of duty for the day and went to find a pipe.

Or read at the community

A Needed Ally (400 words) by Sharpest_Asp
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore, Sword-Dancer Saga - Jennifer Roberson
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Catti-brie [Dungeons & Dragons], Delilah [Sword-Dancer Saga]
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fusion
Summary:

Catti runs into an ally

A Needed Ally

Catti-brie would have given a lot of treasure to never see a desert again, but here she was in one that made Calimshan look civilized. The next time she was offered 'something different, something new, just track this wee artifact down' by ANY Harper, she would remember to say 'no'.

About the second time she broke a man's wrist for trying to touch her in brutish ways, she heard a 'ssstt' from one side and a welcome, if unexpected face peered at her, all pale in a sea of darker shades.

"Del?" Catti asked as she made it through the throng to the woman.

"You're a long way from where we met," the elder woman said. "Why are you in the Southron lands?"

"Looking for a trinket that supposedly got traded down here. Care to help me out?"

"Call the debt for the Moonshaes closed, and you have my aid. Possibly my partner's."

Catti-brie wrinkled her nose. "Ne'er counted a debt on helping ye. But if'n it means ye can help me before I have tae kill a man, done!"

"Kill one, ten more will appear," Del answered with a sigh.

"Glad as I met up with ye," Catti-brie said.

"You might not be if Tiger's still addled with liquor." Del's wry smile made her look a little younger, and Catti was glad to see it on her. She'd found the woman very driven, hard-pressed by her past, and too rare in her smiles.

"Dwarf-raised. Can deal with the hangover," Catti told her with a grin.

"You haven't met Tiger yet," Del warned. "Good thing you wear your blade at the hip; over the shoulder is a definite mark of a sword-dancer, and you'd be challenged to prove you can use them."

"I think I'd prove capable," Catti-brie answered with justifiable pride in her skill. After all, Drizzt had been her teacher.

"Yes, but it brings even more attention than just your looks."

"I should nae ask how many ye had to prove your skill to?"

"I lost count," Del said blandly, leading up a narrow alley before getting them inside a cooler building. Both took in the small space, lacking any person at all. "Hmm, maybe he didn't make it back this morning.

"So tell me about the trinket, while we have peace from Tiger's belly-aching."

Catti-brie settled to do just that, eager to be done with this quest.

Or read at the community

Wary Arrival (400 words) by Sharpest_Asp
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dragonlance, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Raistlin Majere, Dalamar [Dragonlance], Drizzt Do'Urden
Additional Tags: Crossover
Summary:

Drizzt gets shoved off-plane and meets a Dark Elf... by some standards.

Wary Arrival

Drizzt Do'Urden was not a man to allow anything to leave him flat-footed for long. The tail had whipped around too fast, flung him back through the gate when it stole his breath with the thud against his chest, but he rolled with the blow, and came up, swords already back in their ready position… to find the gate had no visible sign on this side, and his eyes were streaming tears from the change of tree-dappled shade and sun to the glare of multiple light sources in a confined space.

Sound told him two bodies, both in loose rustling clothes, and the air pressure spoke of several obstacles in a small space.

"Deal with him; he's some sort of elf," a voice said, and Drizzt realized the sound of it was being translated through the arm-band he'd been gifted with, an artifact for translation.

Thankfully, it worked on his words too.

"Peace, unless you are in league with the dark ranger and druid I was fighting," Drizzt said.

"Magic," a second voice said, and now Drizzt knew where both were more clearly.

"How interesting," came a sardonic reply to that, and Drizzt could all but feel the jaded sense in the speaker.

"If you are both familiar with magic," he hazarded, "I can try and trade knowledge," he offered, smelling books and ink, "for a return to my rightful place before any of the archmages I work with come seeking me."

"Deal," the second voice answered, with only the slightest sigh from the first. As a show of peace, Drizzt flipped his swords into their scabbards, and ignored his injuries in favor of forcing his eyes to work. One elf, one… that was not quite a human, if he were to guess, for all the man likely had begun as such.

"Drizzt Do'Urden."

"Dalamar Nightson," the elf with bronze skin said. "And he is Raistlin Majere," he added when the once-human did not respond to the question of names implicit in the introduction. "Let us get our impressions of the portal that spit you out, and then we will decide further how to proceed."

Drizzt nodded once, and started working on his injuries, relieved that Mielikki's magic could aid him still — and aware that the one called Raistlin was studying him more than where he'd fallen from. There was a sense of foreboding, and Drizzt would stay on guard.

Or read at the community no_true_pair

Okay, because I don't always play right with horror flicks, I'd let myself get as spoilered as I could for this movie. I have been LOVING the gifs and the art and the meta and the analysis.

Tonight, I finally got to watch Sinners for the first time, beginning to end. What is below the cut is my live-reaction. I don't have cohesive thoughts. I am still at BEST VAMPIRE MOVIE BEST BLUES MOVIE BEST MAKE ME THINK MOVIE. Oh right, warning for my potty mouth. I do tend to curse as emphasis.

No, really, I was posting in a Discord thread as I watched, so if you HAVE NOT seen it, do not click this line

So far, loving the shit out of it
So rural Mississippi
Shoots a pair of would be thieves, and pays to have them patched up? My kinda guys
Love the Asian couple
DelRoy Lindo is solid
Love the music.
The characters feel solid fast

Feeling all the pain of what we did to the black man
So uncouth, lol
That was in reference to all the sex talk
Aww fuck the flowers were for his dead baby girl
I love that Annie follows older traditions

Smoke is named Elijah
Yoruba language (ETA: The actress has been studying it since 2020, and it is her heritage)
Aww yeah the Choctaw scene
Oh man I haven't heard that language in years
Messy vampires

Mary passing gives her trouble with the black folk
Gods I need a trilogy of these people before this
Stack trying to protect Mary
Michael B Jordan must have had a vocal coach

ETA: actually, I rather liked that the accents came off as they did in ALL of them, despite a bunch of non-Southern actors. It was a conscious way of shifting vowels, swallowing some of the words, a particular pattern to the speaking that never jarred me out of the setting. Then again, I have been accused of talking like a Yankee my whole life because I grew up at a military base and didn't fall full on into the accent of my blood kin.

Sammie is stealing my heart
Trippy effect
The mix of past and future is phenomenal
Have goosebumps from this scene
Shit is about to break out

Remmick, Joan and Bert...
Something uncanny in how the trio moved
Oh hellfire. Mary trying to find a way to make the money. That's how this starts the horror fest

Oh man. The power pole making a cross behind the trio
Remmick is ... Very Toreador, presence and auspex
Even celerity
And Mary is in. As a vampire
Stack is Elias
Cornbread is next victim

The drooling is weird
And we started
Stack!
Smoke is so broken and Annie is trying and it hurts

Haint. Love it
Aww fuck yeah horror time
Stack, honey. You're not yourself any more
Annie switched up to vampire instead of haint. Used pickled garlic
I love the lore

Smoke holds Stack better than himself so this hurts so much
Jack O'Connell does Irish song well

Grace and Bo, it hurts
This is so fucking good
Poor Grace
Family, freedom, ties and chains... All solid themes
Grace broke and I can't blame her
Hell yeah

Fucking hell, Stack got Annie
Slim!!!!!
The brothers fighting
Everyone trying to save Sammie
Protean as well (ETA: back to World of Darkness Disciplines I was seeing in play; Protean is very NOT Toreador)
Smoke with the save
Gods this is fucking so good

And Smoke about to finish the mortal evil
Klan about to die
Oh oh oh I cry
Fuck this movie is perfect

Stack and Mary, coming to see Sammie
Smoke made him promise and he kept it
Love them
Favorite vampire movie

Okay maybe cohesive, lifted from reading that. Themes: Family. Ties that bind. Ties that choke. Freedom. Chains. Racism, of course. Setting your own rules in an unjust world, keeping to your set of morals. Choosing not to be evil doesn't mean choosing to be pure. LOVE.

If you like vampire movies, watch this. If you like movies that showcase the struggle of black lives trying to rise up, watch this movie. If you like complicated leads, watch this movie. One jumpscare that I noticed, and the gore has that 'real enough for the movie vibe, not real enough to gross me out' and it is mostly fake blood.

New Home (571 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Aristocats (1970)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Duchess/Thomas O'Malley, Berlioz & Marie & Toulouse (Disney: Aristocats)
Characters: Thomas O'Malley, Duchess (Disney: Aristocats), Berlioz (Disney), Marie (Disney: Aristocats), Toulouse (Disney)
Additional Tags: Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Character Study, of sorts
Summary:

Thomas O'Malley reflects on his new home.