TAZ November Celebration 15: Silly/One

And that's the month, folks! I've learned so much doing @taznovembercelebration, it's the first time I've done an event like this and I'm really proud I met my goal! It's been awesome seeing the great work everyone else has been doing! For my 15th and final entry, I got "silly," then drew "one" to get more direction. This was surprisingly difficult to get started with, and I tried a few ideas that I might develop later, but I'm really happy with what I made once I got going on the idea I liked! This one is a little ridiculous, and I tried to lean into the taakitz dumbass energy, which I hope I captured well.

30 days, 30 fics, and 45 884 words later, we've finally reached the end of @taznovembercelebration

Big shoutout and thanks to @ceilingfan5 for putting the whole thing together! It was fun! Also this is the only time i write nowadays alslfls

Anyway, here we go team, last one! Until next year 🫡

Day 30: missing pieces

It was the most fun Barry had ever had in school. He finally had real, actual friends who wanted to be around him and play games and talk about the things he liked. Sometimes, the twins would sit on either side of him as he read a book out loud. They said he was a very good reader.

Then, one day, they just vanished.

-

Barry met his best friends in elementary school, and then a few more times after that.

Read it on AO3 or read the whole series

Promising Union

We made it! Day 30 of @taznovembercelebration which means I've written 30 fics in 30 days and had an absolute blast. Thank you to @ceilingfan5 for all of their hard work in organising taznc. I've had the best time rolling in the taznc tags.

Today's prompt was "three" and then I clicked until I got an AU which was "superhero". You can read below or on Ao3. Missed yesterday's? Catch up here!

-

Kravitz feels like he lives in the staff canteen now. He’s used to the ebb and flow of it, has managed to time his day around it. He makes sure he’s there to cover the stand at breakfast time, gets on with work until mid morning, and then sets up is ‘ask me anything’ sign again at lunch time. There’s no point in standing and smiling through the afternoon, no one’s really around. There’s three times a day, three chances to talk to people about what Kravitz could do for them, and three chances to get snubbed repeatedly and relentlessly.

The free pens had helped, but they’d cleaned him out pretty fast and no one had actually joined up. No one had even really made eye contact. He understood they were busy, a superheroes work is never done, yada yada yada, but that was exactly why unions were important. He and Sloane had worked really hard on the sidekick down time requirements, they shouldn’t be doing day shifts into nights without a proper break between and they definitely shouldn’t be working more than 40 hours a week - especially not fresh out of training. Supers shouldn’t really be doing it either, but there was a whole mess around ‘vocation’ and ‘voluntary’ roles which he and Sloane were still knee deep in resolving. It would help if the membership was representative and not just a few supers who joined up because their parents had always been members.

Kravitz cracks out a box of stress octopodes. There had been a slight issue with the stress ball order (he actually intended to get oranges), but the tentacles were comforting to squidge. Maybe that’d lure some people in for him, or, one specific person. A tall guy with a long blonde braid and seemingly never ending layers of clothes (maybe his super power was pockets?) had been eyeing Kravitz appreciatively all week. Well, he thought so… maybe that was conceited? The man might just be admiring Kravitz’s impeccable taste in tailoring… the attention had certainly encouraged him to dress more elaborately as the week went on. But he wanted to believe it was an interest in him, not just the way he was packaged.

Second last day!!!!! One more to go!!!! We're almost done @taznovembercelebration

Three guesses what this one's about (shocking no one, it's blups)

Day 29: musical

Lup's just trying to get the rust off her violin skills for the challenge the Legato Conservatory has posed them when she finds someone she didn't expect at a piano.

Read it on AO3

Lup's heading to one of the practice rooms in the Legato Conservatory's music building late one night to keep brushing up on her violin basics. One of the doors isn't shut completely, letting a sliver of light out into the darkened hallway along with muffled piano music. She stops to quietly pull the door shut, but pauses as she sees the pianist through the window. 

Barry's eyes are lidded as he looks down at the keys, and his hands glide easily over the keys. It's a simple enough tune, but it's soft and sweet and beautiful. He has no sheet music, playing simply from memory. Lup stands with her hand on the doorknob, watching him. She doesn't want to interrupt him. 

He finishes his song, and takes a deep breath, lowering his hands into his lap. 

She opens the door slowly, “Barry?” 

He jumps slightly at the sudden intrusion. “Lup?” He relaxes, “what are you doing here?” 

She lifts the violin case. “Same as you, apparently. I didn't know you play piano.” 

He sighs, running a hand lightly over the keys. “I don't, really. My mom put me in lessons as a kid to… build my confidence or something. I couldn't tell you the last time I touched a piano, even before the mission.” 

“You sounded good.” 

He smiles, still looking at the piano. “Thanks. I'm still really rusty, but I couldn't think of anything else to do for this.” He looks up at her, and nods to the case in her hand, “violin? I hear that's really hard to learn.”

She laughs sheepishly. “Yeah… one of the caravans Taako and I traveled with had a handful of bards. They said we'd get a cut of profits if we played with them, so I got one of them to teach me. Taako wasn't interested, he stuck with cooking.” Her smile grows as the memory comes back, “the one who taught me said I had “fiddling fingers” so,” she lifts the case again, “fiddle.” 

“Fiddling fingers sounds inappropriate.” She barks out a laugh. Barry puts on a deep, gruff voice, “you could fiddle something with those fingers, young lady.”  

Look into my Eyes

Day 29 of @taznovembercelebration, one more day to go! Today's prompt was "ignore" and you can read it below or on Ao3. Missed yesterday's? Catch up here!

-

“You’re gonna have to kill me, Lup. I’ve had a good run, I’ll miss you most of all, but we all knew this is how it would end. It’s what I would have wanted.” Taako opens his arms wide and waits for Lup to stab him through the heart with her handy dandy kitchen sword or whatever weapon she has on hand. Tenderising mace?

“Hello Taako, lovely to see you too, why yes, I did have a great day, thank you for caring, brother mine. It’s so touching that you’re so interested in my life.” Lup grins infuriatingly instead of murdering him where he stands. Rude.

“C’mon!” Taako keeps waiting.

“You’re sure this is what you want?”

“Positive.”

Lup strides towards him, kitchen scissors in hand.

“Wait no! Taako wants to live, nevermind.” He tucks his arms around his chest and makes himself as small as possible. It turns out his survival instinct is strong. Who knew?

Lup wraps her arms around his ball of self-preservation, scissors discarded on the counter. “That’s what I thought. Wanna tell cha’girl what’s going on?”

“Taako’s fine, great even!” He doesn’t know why he’s even bothering to lie, but it drips out easily.

“Uh huh.”

Not necessarily believably.

“Yuh huh.”

“Is it Kravitz?”

“He only cares about dead people.”

“And you’ve decided this because?”

“He’s always hanging out with them.”

“It’s his job, KoKo, and he’s not so much ‘hanging out’ as ‘preparing them for their funeral’. Slight difference.”

“Not when it involves not going out with Taako.”

“Did you actually ask him this time?”

Taako hesitates. “I see how it is, you ask ‘did you ask him Taako?’ and not ‘shall we go and tell that bastard off, Taako’?” This isn’t the support Taako deserves.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“I did ask him!” Taako’s indignant now, how dare she not believe him?

“How?” Lup says and raises an eyebrow in the way that means she’s full not going to pander to any of Taako’s bullshit.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.” Lup stares into his soul.

Taako gives up. “With my eyes.”

“You fucking what now?” Lup’s mouth is a firm line and she’s breathing deeply through her nose.

“I did the thing. You know.” He flaps his hand dismissively.

“Show me the thing?”

“You know the one, the thing.”

“I don’t, remind me.” Lup’s tone leaves no room to argue.

“You might fall in love with me and that’s illegal pretty much everywhere.” Maybe the cold hard truth will shock her out of unreasonable demands.

“Taako!”

“Fine.” Taako gives Lup his most soulful eyes.

“Fuck, I’m in love with you.”

“I warned you! Shit! You have to leave the house, not me, it’s not cha’boy’s fault.” He’ll miss her, but it’ll wear off within the year probably.

“Oh wait, no, hang on, that’s not love, that’s a deep confusion about what the fuck you were just doing with your face.” Lup’s mouth is twitching and Taako knows she’s trying to hold a laugh in. How dare she? This is serious!

“It’s not funny.”

“It’s a bit funny, Ko.”

Taako scowls. He scowls hard. Double hard in fact!

“Let's go over the facts. Here…” Lup points to the sofa. “... you go sit down, I’ll get us a drink, and we can talk it through.”

Taako flops obediently on the sofa, but ragdolls as much as possible. If he lists sadly enough to the side Lup might not decide to use facts against him.

“Move.” She says, nudging him with her toe.

Taako flops the other way, then straightens up again when he realises she’s sacrificed some of her fancy bitch presse stash for him.

Lup rolls her eyes, hands him the cup, then sits down onto the other side of the sofa and draws her legs up under her.

“So you want to ask Kravitz out.” It’s a statement, not a question.

Taako takes a long sip of his drink, decides he may as well just go with it. “Yes.” He answers anyway.

“And you’ve been seeing him three times a week for the last two months?”

“When he’s not hanging out with the dearly departed instead.”

“Yes, we’ve covered that.” Lup unfurls a leg to nudge him with her foot. “Stay on topic. So you’ve been hanging out?”

“Yes.” Taako could say more, he could say a lot more, but he’ll try and stick to the questions so she doesn’t bully him further.

“Going to dinner together?”

Taako nods.

“Sleeping over at his house sometimes.”

“Once or twice.”

“How many rooms does he have?”

This is a trap. “One.”

“Huh.” Says Lup, but doesn’t press any further.

“And on these ‘friend hang outs.’” Lup does quote marks with her fingers. “...would you say you’ve been asking him out with your eyes?”

“Yes!” Taako’s glad she gets it.

“And he hasn’t reciprocated?”

“No.” There’s no need for her to rub it in.

“Not even with his eyes?”

Taako pauses. Fuck. This was a trap in a trap. The ol’ double trap fake trap trap. If he doesn’t answer she can’t get him.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought… Taako, I have a novel idea.”

Taako keeps his mouth shut. Inclines his head. He can’t be arrested for that.

“Why don’t you try asking him with words?”

“Gross.” Taako wrinkles his nose.

He could swear Lup growls slightly under her breath.

“Why?”

“Because then he could say no!”

“So your plan is to be a corpse?”

“He likes spending time with them.”

“Uh huh. And how are you going to enjoy that time together if you’re dead?”

Taako thinks for a long moment. “Fuck.”

TAZ November Celebration 14: Vampire AU

This @taznovembercelebration story was brought to you by my firm belief that Angus McDonald should be able to roast every adult in the TAZ universe at least once. My card for this one was "vampire AU," so I had some fun playing around in a deeply unserious vampire space.

Careless Whisper

It's day 28 of @taznovembercelebration - we're so close to the end! Today's prompt was "whisper" so enjoy! Read below or on Ao3. Missed yesterday? Here it is!

-

“You have a crush on Taako?” Yells Sloane at a higher volume than anyone has ever reached before and ever could again.

“Ssssh” Kravitz hisses. He jumps to his feet and wishes he could move this quickly when they were transitioning from floor to standing work in gym class. Klarg always looked slightly pitying as he wormed his way slowly to his feet.

Kravitz looks around desperately, maybe no one heard, maybe no one’s nearby? Fuck. There’s someone by the pond… wait, it’s not Taako, it’s Paloma, the tiny old lady who lives a few floors down. She probably couldn’t hear anything, no matter how loudly Sloane yelled, it was fine.

“What?” Sloane says, her voice magically lower again, massive grin fixed on her face.

“You can’t just go yelling secrets!” Kravitz tries to maintain a level of indignation despite his relief.

“Yeah. sure… secrets.” Sloane snorts out a little laugh.

“Why are you laughing?” Kravitz scans the courtyard again, okay, he’s probably fine, no one else is here.

“No reason.” She’s infuriating.

Kravitz sits back down on their picnic blanket. “Do you think it’s not a secret?” He asks quietly, because he, unlike some people, knows the proper volume at which to hold this conversation.

“It’s not not not a secret.” She runs her fingers through the grass and doesn’t look at Kravitz.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s not not a secret because you, you know, haven’t told him.”

Kravitz nods happily.

“But it’s also not-not not a secret, because you’re always goopy when he’s around. You got him those flowers!”

“I get you flowers!”

“Yeah, and you’re not trying to bone down with me.”

“I don’t just want to bone down with Taako!”

“Awwwww.” Sloane kicks her feet up into the air. “Taako and Kravitz kissing in a tree, K I S S I N G!

“Sloane, you have to stop”

She just grins happily.

“Hey!” A familiar voice yells from up above. “Hey, handsome!”

Kravitz looks straight up at Taako’s balcony. He’s treated to the sight of Taako wearing the tiniest black pyjama shorts, a massive frou frou pink robe, and nothing else. Nothing else, he’s perfect.

“Are you okay?” Kravitz shouts up. Hopefully Taako’s not having some kind of emergency, Kravitz could start trying to climb the balconies now, that single session of bouldering before his arms hurt too much would probably stand him in good stead.

“Taako’s fine, my guy.” Taako waves and gives a thumbs up to illuminate this point.

“Then why did you shout?”

“Oh, I have a crush on you too.” Taako says, or rather yells, like it’s no big deal, like people just say these things.

“How did you…?”

“Paloma texted me.”

Kravitz turns to glare and she waves happily from the bench by the pond.

“You’re welcome!” She shouts.

He’d love to not be having this conversation at this volume. Now the only thing that could make this worse was…

“…Magnus!” Yells Magnus, winded, but still as peppy as usual. “I saw some messages in the group chat that said I had to get down here.”

Kravitz sighs, deeply, right down to his boots.

“Are you serious, Taako? You have to tell me if this is a joke.” Kravitz tries his best to ignore the fact that Lup and Barry have definitely just sidled out of the door, pretending to be transfixed by one of the trees.

“No joke my guy, Taako would ride you right into the sunset.” There’s a loud whoop from somewhere suspiciously near Paloma.

“Shall we have this conversation in private?” Kravitz shouts back. You know, maybe so his insides stopped liquifying with the embarrassment.

“I thought you were into shakespeare? This is basically Romeo and Juliet, Taako should know, he read the spark notes.”

“Did you plan this?”

“Do you like it?”

“I like bits of it.”

“I like your bits.” Taako hollers.

“Can I come up?” Kravitz asks, hopeful that direct action might save him having to have this conversation in public.

“Ooooh, you move fast. I like it. See you in 5.”

Kravitz runs all the way to the lift.

--

Enjoyed this and want some more? Find tomorrow's here.

Sometimes you kind of accidentally write 5k and post day 27 of @taznovembercelebration at 1am on day 28...

Anyway, today's is a 5k monster so it's going to live on ao3, but it's based off this au I outlined back in 2020, so i hope you like it!

Day 27: destroy

Angus, despite being part of it, doesn't trust the Bureau of Balance. There's something strange going on here, and he's going to get to the bottom of it.

aka: Angus figures everything out and fucks up Lucretia's whole Thing

Read it on AO3

TAZ November Celebration 13: Sick

The card I drew for this @taznovembercelebration entry was "sick," so you know what that means! It's time for more soft taakitz! Another incredibly self-indulgent one that was loosely inspired by me starting off this month horrifically sick and now being very grateful I can breathe again. Discussion of sickness in this one, naturally, but just inconvenient cold/upper respiratory infection stuff, nothing too serious.

Falling for You

It's @taznovembercelebration day 27! We're so close to the end of the month! Today's prompt was "Ow!" - just to warn you, there's some mention of blood, it's not extensively, but there is a grazed and bleeding knee.

Read below or on Ao3. Catch yesterday's here if you missed it!

-

“Ow!” Says Taako, loudly, really loudly, because if he has to be in pain then he at least gets to yell about it.

He debates just staying down. Maybe if he simply melts into the floor he won’t have to deal with the consequences of falling over and spilling his very large, very expensive, ‘treat for the week’ fancy drink down himself in public. His knee’s definitely bleeding, he can tell from the prickly pain, and also all the blood on it when he tried to look. Maybe if he just pretends it’s not happening it’ll be fine? No one can laugh at him if they think he’s seriously injured.

“Are you okay?” Asks Kravitz. Handsome, unobtainable Kravitz.

Because of course he does. Who else would witness Taako in a ridiculous moment if not Mr-Put-Together, Mr Casually-Wearing-A-Three-Piece-Suit-Every-Day-Of-His-Life, Mr Taako’s-Perfect-Man?

Taako plays dead. More time to think.

“Taako?” Kravitz sounds worried enough that Taako cracks an eye open.

Kravitz’s face is close, he kneels close by, hand out as if he wants to touch but isn’t sure if he’s allowed. Welcome to Taako’s world.

“Hey handsome, what’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?” Taako rests his head on his arm, casually, mysteriously, handsomely.

“I was just here to get a drink and… well.” Kravitz struggles to find a nice way to say ‘I saw your idiot self stack it and tip a bucket of coffee which was more milk and sugar syrup than anything else over yourself and that derailed my day a bit actually.’

“Well, as you can see, cha’boy’s all good, funky fresh, just, you know, hanging out.”

Consider: twosun didn't have snow. Anywhere. At all. They didn't even have a concept of it. They don't know what it is. Anyway, it's day 26 of @taznovembercelebration and im a canadian who tried to write people who've never seen snow before

Day 26: wonder

The IPRE crew is very happy that their plan worked and they've successfully hidden from the Hunger. What they didn't plan for, was how cold Faerun could get and the not-rain falling from the sky.

Read it on AO3

After they deploy the relics in what they hope to be the final cycle, the IPRE crew waits with bated breath for the Hunger. But the scouts never come. Days pass, then weeks, then months, and the sky never darkens unnaturally, revealing countless white eyes opening up to find them.

As those months pass, they find that the days shorten and the air cools. As people built for a world with two suns, this poses a bit of a problem. Sure, they spent certain cycles in colder and darker climates, but that doesn't mean they enjoyed it. One year just isn't enough time to adapt to that. So they make do. Sweaters and blankets are plentiful, and when the cold gets bad enough that the ship's heating system can't seem to break through it, they all pile up in the living room. Body heat is crucial for survival. Not to mention that Magnus is simply a furnace of a man.

He's the one who seems to be able to function the best. He has to wear a shirt (or a few), much to his chagrin, but he still gets up every morning and dutifully goes for a run.

One morning, he extracts himself from the pile of bodies on top of him, and everyone shuffles in to fill the space he left. He's barely gone for a few minutes when he comes back and excitedly says, “guys, get up! You gotta see this!”

Tale as Old as Time

It's @taznovembercelebration day 26! Look how far we've come! Today's prompt was "familiar" and I also used an AU generator (you'll never guess what I got...)

Read below or on Ao3, missed yesterday? Catch up here.

--

“Did you see that next door’s open?” Taako asks, cool, calm, motives impenetrable.

“Raven Tattoo?”

“Yeah.” He’s nonchalant, inarguably casual.

“So you met hotboy then?” Lup asks.

Fuck.

It’s fine, Taako doesn’t have to admit anything, Lup doesn’t have a warrant. “Who?”

“Tattoo goth next door?”

“I’m not sure.

“You don’t know if you met the man who owns the shop you just told me was open?”

“Nope.” Says Taako, liar supreme.

“He’s your type, is all I’m saying.”

He is. But that is precisely none of Lup’s business so Taako keeps his mouth shut.

“It’s a tale as old as time, you know.” Lup says as she wraps the brown paper around her spray. “Tattoo artist, florist, can I make it any more obvious?” She winds twine to keep it in place.

“Ah yes, the ancient tattoo shop florist love stories which echo through the ages, they’ve got at least four Disney films with it as a central premise I’m sure. Do you remember the one where the handsome florist’s sister is a complete dingus?”

Taako barely dodges out of the way of the stem cut offs that Lup lobs at him. Thankfully he’s had years of training.

“Fuck off, goofus. Have you spoken to him yet?”

“No.” Taako says, quickly.

“Uh huh.”

Flawless lie.

“So what was he like?” Lup asks.

Double fuck.

TAZ Balance 12: First

Just three more entries to reach my goal for @taznovembercelebration this year! My card for this entry was "first," so this is a silly one about new experiences!

I'm really on top of it today, it's only 6:15! Look at me go. Five days left of @taznovembercelebration team, the end is in sight

Day 25: three

First, an apocalypse destroyed her world. Then she spent a year utterly alone, only to sentence herself to loneliness a few decades later. Eventually, the world almost ended, but didn't. Where does she go from here?

Or, three times lucretia lost everything, and the one time she got it back

Read it on AO3

The apocalypse

Lucretia's only 20 years old when the world ends. She's standing on the deck of a shiny new silver ship as it raises into the air for its maiden voyage when columns of shadows slam into the ground out of the unmoving grey sky above. Creatures flood out of the columns and wreak havoc in the streets below. She's powerless to help them.

They rise above the storm, and see a disk made of shadow, another plane that no one had ever heard of before. She watches in horror as it uses the countless columns emerging from its underside to tear her home out of its place in the universe and consume it whole. She does not scream, and she does not cry.

That first night, after a long, confusing, and upsetting day, she lies in her bunk, shrouded in darkness.

She didn't have much in the way of friends or family back home. It's why they hired her. She knew it was up in the air whether the Starblaster would return home. First of its kind, a voyage never done before, of course they'd send the people they deemed disposable. She just never expected to not have a home to return to, if the mission was a success. But it's gone. Destroyed, eaten, taken over. All words used by the only other people left from where she came from.

She feels as if someone's reached into her chest and is squeezing her heart like a stress ball. Her lip quivers, and she cries for people she never knew and a home she can't return to.

The Rule Book

It's @taznovembercelebration day 25 and I got the prompt "crisis". Read below or on A03, and catch yesterday's here if you missed it.

-

“I want to fuck a vampire.” Kravitz announces, because he can’t keep it in any more, because there’s simply no point in lying to Barry.

Barry drops his newspaper onto the table in relief. “Thank fuck! I think I’m in love with Lup.” Barry volleys right back to him, because apparently it’s a competition now?

“We’re not supposed to use names! It humanises them…” Kravitz immediately parrots the manual. Wait. Fuck. “No, wait, I didn’t mean that. Taako’s great, it’s not that I don’t have feelings for him, it’s not just all about the sex wanting. He’s human, not like human human, because of the vampire thing, but it’s not just about…” Kravitz waves his hand, searching for the right words, he can’t have Barry thinking this is just a physical thing.

“...The sex wanting.” Barry finishes for him and nods solemnly. Kravitz thinks he’s gotten away with it, then he snorts and repeats “sex wanting” under his breath.

Kravitz scowls. “Barry, we’re having a crisis in case you haven’t noticed, can we bully me later?”

Barry grumbles some but seems to agree. “Fine, fine. So what do we do?”

“Bring flowers?”

“And not our stakes?”

Kravitz groans and sinks into the chair opposite Barry. “There has to be a rule against this.”

“There isn’t, I’ve checked. Twice.” Barry pauses. “Okay, seven times. It’s not there. I read the manual front to back.”

“You’re sure?”

“I guess it’s implied?”

“But 'implied' isn’t legally in the rules.” Kravitz nods emphatically. If it’s not a firm rule it’s much easier to bend.

@taznovembercelebration I have finally pulled a third card and got "sweet" lol

Argo with an orange slice 🍊