#“lost” in BIG ol quotes there

[aquamonstra]

I caved and bought an Xbox Series S (bc it was the only system i could barely afford that can run Veilguard) and it was supposed to get delivered today but now I'm worried Fedex lost it 😭

[princeymarmar]

I don't think Soma was ever Catholic however Dracula as Mathias definitely was even if he was practicing his little alchemical heresies and was one major personal tragedy away from declaring God his personal enemy. in this essay I shall talk about how this fundamental difference doomed Dracula to repeating the cycle and helped Soma break it,

[etraytin]

Postcards From the Dusty Mountains

Took the kiddo out yesterday with me when I went a-volunteering because he is getting very tired of not having anything to do. You know it's getting bad when a guy misses school and is tired of being on his computer all day. I'm not being sarcastic either, I'm deeply sympathetic to his plight and I wish he could get back to school and the friends he was making and the brand-new boyfriend he's been taking those first cautious romantic steps with. He already had to live through COVID homeschooling for two years, and now this. Ugh. I have heard rumors that they are hoping to open the schools back up on October 21, which means two more weeks closed, but it could be worse. So many places still don't even have power, much less water.

Anyway, I took him with me and we went down to a food distribution in Swannanoa. They got hit very very hard, and we spent a couple hours helping a Chick-Fil-A volunteer team from Atlanta hand out hot chicken sandwiches and bottled water. In normal days I don't have much to do with Chick-Fil-A because I don't like their politics, but when the matter at hand is giving hot food to people who've lost their homes, you put the politics aside. I just wish the rest of the country was able to do the same, because I am extraordinarily tired of people thinking of North Carolina as a "battleground state" when the battle we are fighting right now is to keep people alive as the weather starts to turn cold and the water lines stay broken.

Today was busy because I actually managed to keep a doctor's appointment I have been waiting a month for, which was quite a pleasant surprise! The doctor's office is in Hendersonville, so the fact that they were open for business and that I was able to get there are both things that I might have doubted a week ago. I also had an appointment with a local HVAC outfit about getting a whole-house standby generator installed so that next time we have a power outage, we can at least power the fridges, the well pump, the dehumidifiers and my CPAP, with maybe some left over for laptop charging. The price he quoted me for everything except the propane tank and line was $11,000, which was not exactly unexpected but still a big ol' yikes. The good news is, his company bought several of the right size generators before the storm so they would have an inventory, so I could theoretically have a generator before winter really sets in. Highly tempting.

In the afternoon, kiddo and I went out to do more helping. If nothing else has become more apparent over this week, it's that we were and continue to be so, so lucky. Of all the teachers at my husband's school, we are the _only_ family who are still in our own home with all our utilities back up. We are the only members of our extended family in the area who have power. We are part of a tiny fraction of households in the region who have potable water coming from our taps. Given all of that, we decided that we were going to take my final paycheck from canvassing and put it into a community that was not lucky at all. Our Lowes got restocked big time this week, so I was able to go in and get a propane tank, a gas can, a huge box of contractor bags, a straight rake, a shovel, and a gas-powered chainsaw with two cans of fuel for it. We also raided our own house and took our own three shovels and straight rake, our garden cart, some very cute hiking boots I bought but hadn't worn yet, eight packs of bath wipes and two of our cell phone power banks and drove the whole thing down to Black Mountain.

Black Mountain is very close to Swannanoa and was also hit extremely hard by the storm. We didn't go around touristing, but even on the main roads we took we could see devastation everywhere. Everywhere the water touched was drenched in toxic mud, which has dried over the past two weeks into an awful choking dust that covers everything. It blows on the wind and rises with every passing car. As we drove I took the opportunity to explain how the search and rescue paint marking system works to Kiddo, because their bright green graffiti was on all the half-destroyed houses we were passing.

There's an outdoor music venue in Black Mountain called Silverados that has been turned into a massive distribution center. Hot meals were being passed out in the front, while the rear was a busy hive of organizing and distributing supplies. We went there and dropped off all our items, where they were carted away into an absolutely teeming hub of supplies and volunteers. We asked if they needed any more help today, but they definitely had enough willing hands. I think my dad will laugh because I finally did get the chainsaw he talked me out of, but then gave it away before it even left the box.

With a little time on our hands, we went back up north and visited our favorite grocery store, the one that sells lightly-expired canned and boxed food at greatly reduced prices. We were very happy to see that they'd come through the storm unscathed except for a lack of internet, and stocked up on more of the seemingly endless supply of Old El Paso meal kits that they sell two for a dollar. Cheaper than buying tortillas and taco seasoning, lol! We also visited the local record store, which opened for regular business hours despite the circumstances as well, and bought a couple of records because we want them to stay in business even though times are tough. It was, overall, an extremely successful outing.

Sometimes the world here in our house feels tantalizingly close to normal, an endless weekend where we are just waiting to go back to school and work. But just driving into town and seeing all the places closed for lack of water is enough to destroy that bubble, and driving thirty minutes in any direction is like stepping into a different world. Marshall, Spruce Pine, Swannanoa, Black Mountain, the River Arts District. Dozens more places that I have not seen and probably couldn't even get to if I tried. I'm very afraid for what is about to happen in Florida, for their sake and for ours. Appalachia has a long history of being forgotten about when bad things are happening. I really hope it doesn't go that way again.

[voidcat]

— embrace the poison

characters: dazai osamu, you

notes/warnings: implied toxic relationship, dazai and you being exes and getting back together, dazai implied to be manipulative from the sidelines and basically make one person leave your life.

this is technically a follow up to the fic ‘mutual intoxication’ self-indulgent fic as always !!

The calm of the day and the idle rush of the city, the unkind breeze of the winter strokes your cheeks, further making you tense up and smallen.

With the cold and a fiery mind irritated at things one too many, the state of your shoulders– or the rest of your body for that matter, do not come into your attention until you feel a pair of hands there, slowly kneading the flesh under layers of cloth.

At this point, you do not need to turn to confirm this is Dazai, just as once before.

So much for moving on and pretending he doesn’t exist– that the two of you didn’t exist. He has taken root once more and does not seem to be willing to let go.

Not just yet, not until he has all of you to himself, your undivided attention, your touch, your warm breath, your cold gaze and empty smiles as well as the rare occasions you let go of the mask.

Maybe that online gimmick you pulled wasn’t all for vain after all.

Sure, you are annoyed at how dense one can be, the sheer audacity of their words– or, at least your interpretation of it, but how can you not, when it was all talked and agreed on before, stated on clear terms? What does that make you then, what position does that put you in? Some sort of indecent person maybe, take things a little further, reach a little longer and call it being an attention whore, worse things if you get creative but you doubt that would be needed in their case. They can assume whatever the hell they want for all you care.

Dazai was right, you hate to admit it, as his fingers dig into your skin, it is lost on you entirely when the two of you made it back inside.

The cafe under the agency is as welcoming as ever but it is the work of dazai’s skilled hands that has you melting into the cushions.

In the heat of ranting, quoting whatever you could recall from past conversations and messages  and good ol’ hypothermia setting in, you hadn’t even noticed.

It doesn’t matter any longer, for Dazai Osamu is here– by your side again, with all the mess, and how tainted your souls can be, for all the toxic purple ooze born from your unison, this feels better– right.

Though you’d rather be caught dead than to ever say that in his vicinity. Spoiling the man too much could always blow into your face, and nobody wants a face all blown up, exploded and has nothing left but the distorted bones.

Dazai Osamu was right once more, you deserve someone to match your wits and pick up on your meanings before you can even finish the sentences. Someone to clash your teeth with, baring your fangs, all claws and snarks when needed, to keep up that excitement, never tame, never settling down, do not show mercy nor compromise.

Gentle hands massage your scalp, leaving you at a loss for a moment. After so long of just clashing and crashing, then avoidance and playing pretend, you have forgotten underneath the demon, the prodigy, the fallen angel; Dazai Osamu can be kind and gentle, radiating comfort with his very existence. 

In the blink of an eye, everything returns back to ‘normal’– or what you may call that. It takes a while to not care about anything again but once the seed is planted, the deed is done.

People at the agency have missed you, they say and you accept their exclaims with open arms and a big smile. 

It hasn’t been the same around without you, Dazai hasn’t been the same, blah blah blah, same old same old. 

What catches your attention though is that Dazai has begun spending more time on work, or so Atsushi says. You cannot blame the kid when even Kunikida takes his extra hours on the device as working.

But you know a fire when you smell incense in the air. 

And above all, you know Dazai Osamu.

So you do not pry, you do not bother checking his devices this time or to see if the end of his  hard worker period aligns with the time they have started dating someone.

Why should you bother, poke the hornet’s nest when this is all working in your favor? 

If your suspicions are true, Dazai is only helping you out in the long term really, it is but a technical detail that just happens to redirect your attention and thirst for it back to him.

What good comes from a person who makes you want to rip your hair off, strangle yourself and gag for a good decent of the time you converse with them after all? And it’s just cherry on top, for you at least, that suddenly their way of acting and talking switches and even labels an innocent thing you’ve said as flirtatious. 

Their loss, not yours, it was them who talked of people acting all close and all only to leave, ask you to not leave their side after all. If they care so much, they would’ve acted smarter.

Then again, how much can you blame this on them if they are incapable of the act itself? 

It doesn't matter, you can hear Dazai’s honeyed voice whisper into your ear– the small Dazai in the back of your head, not the real one, for the real one does not even require to state the obvious for such a person.

Shooting a glance around the office, you see their most treasured detective taking a nap, Kunikida across you typing passionately on his computer.

A moment’s breath later, Dazai reemerges from the kitchen, holding two mugs of hot beverage.

From the scent alone you can tell it’s your favorite, made to perfection, as always.

As difficult and complicated of a person Dazai Osamu may be, he has his ways of showing he cares, no matter how… concerning some might be, or even obsessive– as some might have called it if they knew the depth of things.

Dazai’s love is twisted, his display of it, his way of declaring, acting out on it; and so is yours– all leashes and grips.

It is beautiful in a tragic sense, really, how the two of you make it work, the harmony of this darkness intervening, enabling one another.

Not as bad as it sounds when it scratches that itch in your brains and hearts– the two of you were respective wrecks on your own already– crashing into one another meant no harm, only casualties.

When Dazai wraps an arm around, you lean back, your hand placed on his.

Why deny what you had and settle for something inferior to your tastes when Osamu always brings a mouthful of excitement to the way of things, the dull stream of river called living?

[hey-august]

250 Followers Prompt Event - Done!

AHHHH YAAAYYyyyy, time to celebrate another exciting milestone AND have an excuse to do a follower event!!

Over the weekend I got 250 followers!!!! 🌟 Welcome welcome and thank you all so much!!

To celebrate, I have a list of Buggy x Reader SFW prompts to pick from. 😊 They are more on the fluffy side of things, so this sorta doubles as a Valentine's event, although this will probably go past Feb 14. 🩷

👀 There are a few rules for making a request, so be sure to read through this post before sending a request.

((BTW, I just adore this gif. The lips, the big ol' grin with smile lines, crinkles around his eyes. And I swear it looks like his pupils increase as he smiles. 😩😩😩❤️❤️))

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

How to:

Pick a prompt. - Prompts will be filled in the order they come in. Once a prompt is selected/fulfilled, it can't be chosen again. I'll update the prompt list as soon as I can and I'll still respond to duplicates, they just won't have another story. - Some prompts have additional choices (like picking between Reader or Buggy), so please be sure to include those details. - The final prompt (14) will be available once all the other prompts are complete. Choose a quote or two. - These will be incorporated into the prompt and can be reused multiple times. - You can request if a quote is from Buggy or Reader. I might not be able to make it work perfectly in each story, but I’ll try my best! Send your request here!

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Pick a prompt:

Touch Posted! ⭐

Rock Posted! ⭐

Portrait Posted! ⭐

Matching Posted! ⭐

Bottle (Pick a color) Posted! ⭐

Petal (Pick a flower) Posted! ⭐

Snack (Sweet, spicy, salty, or sour?) Posted! ⭐

Sing (Pick a song/genre) Posted! ⭐

Cat / Dog (Pick one, feel free to choose a breed!) Posted! ⭐

Land* (Pick weather) Posted! ⭐

Heat* Posted! ⭐

Dream* Posted! ⭐

Lost* Posted! ⭐

Treasure - 🔒Locked until all the other prompts are complete Posted! ⭐

*For prompts 10-13, also pick Reader or Buggy.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Pick 1-2 quotes:

“Give me that.”

“Wait, I’m sorry.”

“It’s nice.”

“What are you looking at?”

“Where are you going?”

“I like this.”

“Come back.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“You’re annoying.”

“I’m full of surprises.”

“You’re gonna make me cry.”

“Knock it off.”

˗ˏˋ See fulfilled prompts here. ˎˊ˗

[zadien]

Lost electricity this evening and so that meant I lost any motivation I had to write, so I guess I'll just catch up on commenting on fanfics and submit more to the quotes page. Which honestly is an equally productive use of my time. Before the motivation was lost I had little Tiramisu bunnies whispering - we get some jealous Timothy so that's going to be exciting to write. Jealous Timothy is just another version of season 2 Timothy where all focus is on work because distractions are dangerous... and Lucy's a big ol' distraction in a very delightful package. Who knew.

[imminent-danger-came]

Do you think monkey MK is like a retcon or that it was planned from the start?

Monkey MK is one of the things I'm most confident about being planned from the start! I'll just quote my "Eldritch Abomination MK Theory":

"Obviously we have Wukong's "Not just anyone can wield my staff, but you did" from A Hero is Born and "The staff's just a big 'ol stick bud! It takes someone special to wield it" from 3x03, but there's also something in 1x09 Macaque (in regards to MK not being human):

Macaque: "Your staff kinda gives you away dude, not just anyone can wield that thing."

-

Macaque: "Ohohoh no, can't you hold the magic staff anymore? Well, you know what that means—there really isn't anything special about you. You're just a kid with a heavy stick."

-

-

The sweet irony of "There really isn't anything special about you. You're just a kid with a heavy stick!" followed immediately by MK lifting the staff again is not lost on me.

So, from s1 it was pretty obvious that Wukong didn't "give" MK any form of power, but we knew that already with MK being a monkey demon and all."

(and I'll stop quoting EAMK here!)

All the way in s1 the writers had a character question where MK's powers came from, and after supposedly "stealing" his powers, say "there really isn't anything special about you"—from that alone we could assume that yes, MK's powers really did come from Wukong. BUT, MK is then able to lift the staff again, which Wukong encourages him to do! Wukong knew MK could do it and knew that Macaque didn't steal all of the kid's powers (how could he when MK has so much of it lol).

So, I think it's pretty safe to assume monkey MK was planned from the start!

I also think the line "Not just anyone can wield my staff, but you did" from A Hero is Born is really telling. That's not a comment someone makes when they know the individual they gave the power to lift the staff lifts the staff.

[tarisilmarwen]

Rebels Rewatch: "A Fool's Hope"/"Family Reunion And Farewell"

*singing*

~I'm glad that you were here with me/Here at the end of all things.~

Live reaction version.

Yeah be prepared for a lot of Lord of the Rings quotes and song lyrics in this one, lol.

Hey, don't blame me, the writers were the ones who made it clear they were hopeless Tolkien nerds.

And yes I am packaging both (all three?) episodes together. This is how it was aired, this is how it was experienced, you're gonna get the full treatment.

This does mean though that I will be very stingy with the pictures. Apologies. Blame Tumblr, not me.

Anyway, we start off the finale by gathering all the disparate parties that we completed the Friendship Fetch Quests for. Rex, Kallus, Gregor, Wolffe, Hondo, Melch, and Ketsu are all Back For The Finale. Which is a trope that I absolutely love in all shapes and forms, and it's even more appropriate for this show given that Ezra's main character "superpower" is literally making friends.

The connections and bridges he built all come back to aide him, not for any selfish motives of their own or because "the enemy of my enemy", but simply because Ezra has asked them to come.

"It's for Ezra," is all Hera has to say, and Hondo is immediately, genuinely pledging, "For that boy, there is nothing I would not do."

It is... incredibly heartwarming.

And I told y'all Hondo was a romantic at heart, and genuinely misses the days when the Jedi were around. And also that in the Rebellion Era, the Jedi still represent the nobility and goodness of the past.

After the titlecard, which still has no fanfare, we get this scene:

Come, you all knew I was going to cap it. Sabine's concern is so soft, the hand she places on Ezra's shoulder and the way she asks if he's okay so gentle.

The visual similarity in this scene and two scenes prior to this are interesting. This scene is firstly visually reminiscent of the Kanan-Hera scene in the beginning of "Kindred" (inviting comparison to the main canon ship of the show), and also the Kanan-Ezra scene at the beginning of "Jedi Night" (which emphasizes again that Kanan and Sabine are the two Most Important People in Ezra's life).

Ezra sits in the exact same pose, in the exact same place, that we saw Kanan meditating at, suggesting that he is also hearing the echoes of things to come, having similar visions of the future. This is certainly supported by his dialogue, where he mentions, "Something's changed... Something's happening." and that he's had a vision of Palpatine sending Thrawn back to Lothal.

Honestly I'm surprised it took Palpatine so long, lol. Thrawn: Treason supposedly takes place over the course of... a week? And the events of "Rebel Assault" to "A World Between Worlds" can't have been more than three or four days.

(This is why I reject the official canon timeline for Rebels, Season Four's events are crammed into the space of a month or two AT BEST.)

But anyway, Palpatine is pretty pissed off about the whole Temple thing so yeah, he's sending Thrawn back to retrieve Ezra personally. This seems to be a big ol' sticking point for our favorite blue bastard because he is NOT HAPPY when he turns back up.

You can't blame him really. He'd barely left Lothal and his TIE Defender project got literally blown up, so he had to spend the budget meeting arguing for what was essentially a smoking crater, and the wager he made with Krennic et. all. ultimately went nowhere because he lost on a technicality, and then the Emperor starts questioning his loyalty because his old Ascendancy friends showed up during the shenanigans, and then Palpatine dismissed him to go clean up the mess on Lothal and fetch him back a teenager for Sith sorcery bullshit.

...He'd had a very bad week, is what I'm saying.

I got off topic there, where was I?

Oh yes, Ezra's risky gamble. Fun fact, that was the original title of the episode, "Ezra's Gamble". I assume they axed it because it would give too much away. And like I've said before, if they could have avoided showing Ryder in footage taking the Dome for the finale previews, they could have really sold his false betrayal.

Pryce does not look like she's having a good week either lol.

Ezra continues to be cryptic about things, yet another hint to us that he's gotten "insider information" from the Force, as it were, and has made plans according to multiple possible outcomes. This is just one of the reasons why he outmaneuvered Thrawn, the other major one being that there was no possible way for Thrawn to predict Ezra throwing space whales at him lol.

This interference by the Force could have been a bit of a Deus Ex Machina but I think it's pretty clear that the Force only shared what might happen and left Ezra to figure out a solution on his own.

And his solution was space whales. XD

That comes later though, after this very risky gambit with letting Ryder broadcast their location to Pryce. A lot of things could have gone wrong. Hera might not have made it back in time. Ryder could have decided to genuinely betray them. Rukh could have gotten in a lucky strike and incapacitated him.

We are apparently putting a LOT of trust in the Force today.

This action setpiece is a great one so I'll just cover a few of my favorite highlights:

All the shots that track Sabine as she jetpacks around the battlefield.

Ezra versus Rukh.

Zeb going full feral with the minigun.

And of course on the other side of things Hondo trying to count the number of times he'd been collided with pulling off this exact maneuver they're using lol. The blockade seems to have thinned from "Rebel Assault", not as many capital ships?, so maybe I was right in that Thrawn called for reinforcements to repel the attack. Still gives Ezra the highest kill count by proxy at the end of things.

Oh and once again there's a moment where someone threatens Sabine in order to force Ezra to surrender. <3 Love that.

Pryce is awfully smug until the Ghost shows up, lol. (To heroic Main Theme fanfare into the Rebel Alliance theme of course.) Someone on the writing team understood the power of a good Eucatastophe. (Tolkien term, it means "the sudden happy turn to good".)

The clones also get a leitmotif fanfare as they debark the Ghost.

And we get a lovely Force Theme as Ezra gets his most badass shot.

Hell yeah.

The wolves sequence is amazing. The dramatic chorus, the chaos, the wolves skirting the veeeeeeeeeeery boundary of what's allowed on a Y7 show lol.

You know some of the troopers got ate.

One last shoutout to Hera using the Ghost to straight up smack a gunship out of the air and now we've come to the end of the setpiece. It can be hard sometimes to fill a full episode with one action sequence but this episode pulls if off perfectly. It never feels stale or boring, there are multiple bits and moments that just work. (I've always loved the moment where Ezra lunges for Ruhk's energy staff and uses the momentum of Rukh lunging for the same to straight up yeet him off the platform.)

Ezra's completely nonphased at Hondo's slung arm shoulder hug now aww.

Moving right along into the next segment...

This soft intro with Ezra talking to his parents' picture, telling them they are the inspiration behind his actions, how he wishes they could meet his new family, how he knows what he needs to do, but he's afraid. T_T Hgn he's precious and so mature and I love him so so much.

He knows what he might have to do, guys. He knows he might never actually see Lothal again and he's still prepared to make that sacrifice if he has to.

He's SUCH a good Jedi you guys I can't.

Kallus gets a token line here about his defection which is... okay. But again, really needed more from this arc for it to have a full impact.

"We come to it at last; the great battle of our time."

One casual wolf threat later, Pryce has agreed to transmit the victory codes and our heros fly off to the capitol to pull off their boldest venture yet.

I will never ever get over this moment. Sabine so attuned to Ezra even without the Force that she can tell just by looking at him how distracted and sad and scared he is.

How Ezra so clearly wants to tell her but holds back, and substitutes instead a declaration of absolute faith and trust.

And how she sees right through that and knows Something Weird Be Up With The Boy, Yo.

But like so many other conversations between the two, things are left unfinished, the mission and circumstances taking precedence.

Love the two quipping back to Pryce tho. <3

Still a crapton of air pollution over the city. This would clear up dramatically in the climax, for a bit of a symbolic moment.

There are SO many callbacks to previous moments in the show in this sequence, I noted a couple of them in my original liveblog but I'm certain there's a few I missed.

The music cue is great too, as is the effective silence once they've taken the bridge. A little bit of musical breathing space before things get hairy again, courtesy of Rukh ambushing the others back at base and stealing a gunship.

You know? I'm not quite sure what the plan was for if they managed to destroy the Dome before Thrawn got back. Seems a little shortsighted to blow up all the fighters and equipment and your city shields. A single Star Destroyer is more than capable of leveling cities and there are several in orbit around Lothal.

This honestly lends even more credence to the idea that, Force visions aside, Ezra was largely making this up as he went and had NO idea what he was doing lol.

Indy Ploy versus Xanatos Gambit. Indy Ploy wins by virtue of there was no way the Xanatos Gambit could predict the level of crazy Ezra's ideas were.

Amazing how empty the streets are when they've been emptied of Imperials.

Thrawn arrives, per schedule, and parks right over the Dome so that can't launch, lest they create catastrophic collateral damage. Important to note, for the people who want to nitpick No Endor Holocaust scenarios, the show specifically details that the city shields put out by the Dome deflected the Star Destroyer wreckage when the purrgil came, and that the Rebels directed the Dome to explode over the bay, not the city. The Cadet Academy is also a completely different building.

I mean, sure the debris from the Dome probably isn't great for the bay's ecosystem but honestly the water was probably already super polluted from the factories, they had to clean it up anyway.

Where was I? Right, Thrawn getting to be really awesomely creepy. The placid, "Are you quite finished?" gives me chills every time. Once again let me praise the expression work on this show because Ezra's soft Oh Crap look is amazing.

The dawning horror on Sabine's face too.

And then this music cue! The tension is drawn out just long enough for us to fully appreciate the horror.

:((((((

They even give us a nice wide-shot to appreciate just how much damage just those few seconds of bombardment did.

I had a rant here originally about the dumbass headcanon that Thrawn targeted empty buildings in this sequence (that may or may not have originated from Timothy Zahn himself) but if you've been following me you already know how I feel about it. It's asinine and I won't entertain it. Moving on.

Backed into a corner, Ezra knows he has no choice but to give himself up to Thrawn. This track in the score, "Sabine Sees Ezra" perfectly captures the sorrow and drama. It starts with a strained version of Ezra's theme, that doesn't resolve, fading instead into mournful original strings. Hera's entreaties for him to stay are painful, we can't help but think of what must be in her head--she just lost Kanan, she's afraid to lose him too. But Ezra is a Jedi. He is the guardian of Lothal. So he must make the sacrifice no one else can. He can't choose to be selfish.

So while Hera and the others try to figure out a way around the problem of Thawn, Ezra goes to confront it head on, secretly signaling to Chopper, who has been entrusted with so much of this plan.

And Sabine sees him.

It's a consistent theme throughout their relationship. She sees him. She notices him. She's attuned to when he's upset. She perceives him in a way that's unique from everyone else.

And he trusts her so implicitly that he silently asks for her help here, and after a moment of agony she does it, because she trusts him too.

These two just break my heart. :(

Sabine keeps looking back at the empty spot where he had been. T_T

There's a theme here about attachment and loss again, and it comes from Sabine. Like a Jedi, she's able to let go of her fear of loss and trust Ezra, whatever happens, and is able to encourage Hera to do the same. Her theme plays out here, strongly, before giving way to an excerpt of the Main Titles theme, uniting the Rebels in their heroism.

Ezra's theme playing again here, skittish and frightened. Once again the expression work is heartbreaking. Ezra looks like he's steeling himself, holding back his fear. He's resigned to his purpose, but that doesn't mean he's enjoying it.

AND NOW WE GET MY FAVORITE HANNIBAL LECTURE/SHUT UP HANNIBAL EXCHANGE! :D

The dialogue between Thrawn and Ezra here is so good.

"You could have chosen to let your people die. However... you chose to be a Jedi." Jedi cannot help what they are, the Jedi Code is like an itch he cannot help it *sobs in Kenobi feelings*.

Thrawn pontificating about how petty things like ethics get in the way of being efficient. He picks at Ezra from several different angles in this conversation, first by deriding the moral code of the Jedi, then by pointing out that their righteousness did not save the Jedi in the end, all that's left are frightened poorly trained children--a clear dig at Ezra himself. He laments what a shame it is that the Jedi didn't apply their powers in a way he deems would have been effective, implicitly suggesting that the Jedi should have used their power to dominate and conquer--Might Makes Right, after all, if you have the means to achieve a certain end you should use it.

Ezra tanks that calmly, pointing out that the Force isn't a weapon.

So Thrawn switches tactics, now lamenting that he must destroy Lothal (no you don't you asshole you can literally just disobey orders and defect, the total genocide of Lothal is entirely within your power to prevent) and oh, isn't it such a shame about Sabine.

And that hits Ezra's berserk trigger lol.

He snaps back at Thrawn. You're a tyrant, a bully, you didn't make or earn any of this, you just took it because you could, because you think your strength makes you right.

Thrawn essentially confirms that, "Yeah, having power does make me right." before leading him down to where the Temple doors have been set up for his meeting with the Emperor. Which kind of makes me think Thrawn wanted the opportunity to dress Ezra down and soften him up for Palpatine's manipulations because he could have just had the troopers shove him into the hanger first thing.

Subtle animation appreciation moment: The way Ezra keeps looking around in astonishment, wide-eyed, at the sight of the Temple doors.

Palpatine cloaks himself in white like an angel of light for this final temptation, wearing the guise of a friend or kindly old grandpa. It's every bit as unsettling as it seems.

Meanwhile with the B-Squad, Mart reveals that--like Chopper--he has also been entrusted with a crucial part of Ezra's "Just in case" plan. (Theirs is an underrated friendship, fanficcers you have let me down, again, why do I have to write all the things I wanna see more of?)

That shot of the wolves running alongside and under the Ghost. *chef kiss*

I have no idea when Ezra found time to figure out a signal the purrgil would respond to but I very much want to see that scene.

Sabine: "He [Ezra] knows what he's doing." Lol are you sure about that, 'bine? I think he had no clue the whole purrgil thing would work.

Palpatine is so slimy here, ugh. Acting like he did Ezra a favor by desecrating the Jedi Temple. Ezra's all ready to fling back anything ol Sheev throws at him here until Palpatine takes aim right at the heart of his greatest weakness.

Because after all this time, Ezra has never quite fully gotten over and accepted the loss of his parents. He's still at heart a lost little boy who misses his mom and dad.

The score goes almost Stravinsky-esque here, suggesting the Faustian nature of the deal Sidious is offering.

Meanwhile down in the gullet of the Dome, the Rebels are working feverishly to regain control of the the shield generator. There's some great coordination here between the teams and the control, Sabine really shines as a leader.

Word of God behind the scenes confirms Ezra is seeing THE day his parents were taken, his seventh birthday, when he could hear his mom and dad calling for him but didn't come because he was goofing off.

Hey uh, can this boy's life stop being ENDLESSLY SAD please? That'd be nice.

Love how Gregor calls for "something drastic" and Zeb immediately thinks, "Right, yeeting myself at the enemy." lol.

Gotta respect a man whose strategy is to fling himself full force at the enemy.

And the obligatory Make TCW Fans Cry Moment with Gregor here.

Palpatine keeps digging. This is your heart's desire isn't it? Don't you deserve this? All you have to do is open this one little door. He tries to keep Ezra's attention and focus on himself, even when Ezra asks what will happen to his friends if he makes this choice.

You can undo their deaths, Palpatine promises, about Ezra's parents. You can save them. I can help. It's the exact temptation he offered Anakin all those years ago.

"I have the power to give you what you want. You won't have to face this loss."

Like a devil, what he offers is a two-edged sword. What he is offering can't actually exist. Because if Ezra goes to be with his parents on the day they were arrested, how will he be able to make it here to open the door for Palpatine? Will Palpatine have to trap him in a closed loop, retrieve him from wherever he will end up in the alternate timeline, to ensure he can't fix this one fatal mistake?

See Palpatine doesn't care about breaking the timeline, he will gladly do it and rule over the ruins. But if Ezra reaches for this vision, he dooms his friends. He allows Palpatine to gain power beyond his wildest imaginings, turn himself into lord and master of time itself, a physical god.

So Ezra must deny himself, accept the loss, and let go.

And he does.

The Emperor's hologlamour flickering and failing as his rage ascends is really effectively creepy. Also HOW ABOUT THEM RETURN OF THE JEDI PARALLELS?

Years down the line, yet another pure-hearted Jedi boy will stand before the Emperor, throw his offer in his face, and tell him where to shove it. Even the dialogue mirrors Luke's.

"You're wrong. I have a family. I don't need anything from you."/"Never. I'll never turn to the Dark Side. You've failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

"Unfortunate. Destroy him!"/"So be it, Jedi. If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed!"

Poetry. Pure poetry. <3

Ezra gets a nice little face off against the Royal Guards, with some lovely whump in the form of whatever those pikes are doing to him, but manages to weasel himself out of the situation. And then somehow fights his way all the way up to the bridge. So proud of him.

The Rebels get the shield up just in time to prevent Thrawn's full scale bombardment, Rukh frying rather dramatically in the process. Lol and ouch with how irreverent Zeb is over the comm.

So now all that's left to do is break the stalemate and remove Thrawn from the chessboard.

HELL YES.

Oh hoooo man this twist isn't even really a twist it just makes too much sense for Ezra, for his character, for the themes of the show, for how to take Thrawn out as a threat while respecting his acumen as a strategist. (Gotta throw something at him he would never suspect lol.)

The musical build-up is amazing. Dooming low bass notes, drolling percussion. The strings build up, crescendo-ing.

AND THEN THE "WRATH OF NATURE" CUE FROM "THE CALL" COMES IN WITH GLORIOUS FULL ORCHESTRA.

The Hyperspace theme comes in as well, and the purrgil proceed to utterly decimate Thrawn's fleet. By proxy this gives Ezra probably the highest kill count on the show, as the purrgil must have taken out the orbital construction stations, a good chunk of the Star Destroyers up there, and all three of the ones above the city. (Somehow Palleon survives to join the Council of Evil in Mando Season 3 lol.)

Sabine looks SO confused, ha ha.

What a great shot.

Thrawn tries to get in a final, Taking You With me speech only for Ezra to be like, "Joke's on you that was the plan all along. You're not taking me with you, I'm taking you with me."

I do love Thrawn's increasingly panicky WTF expressions as things progress.

THIS ADORABLE #MARRIED BANTER BETWEEN EZRA AND SABINE AND THEN HOW THEIR THEMES ARE TONALLY INTERMINGLED IN THIS CUE.

Subtle animation appreciation moment: The way Ezra's left arm hangs limp after Thrawn shoots his shoulder and the pained grimace he gives when he turns around to seal the door behind them.

He looks exhausted.

Pained grimace number two as Ezra raises his injured arm to wind up IN AN EXACT TABLEAU OF THE POSE KANAN HAD AT HIS OWN HEROIC SACRIFICE.

HELLO YES, ALSO ANOTHER ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOMENTS BETWEEN EZRA AND SABINE AS SHE BEGS HIM TO GET OFF THE CHIMAERA.

ALSO IT BEARS EMPHASIS BUT LOOK HOW THE GLASS SHARDS STILL WHEN EZRA RAISES HIS OTHER ARM.

EZRA IS LITERALLY HOLDING THE OXYGEN INSIDE THE BRIDGE WITH THE FORCE, WHILE HOLDING THRAWN AND THE DOOR IN PLACE, WITH AN INJURED ARM.

Ezra Bridger is the greatest shut up.

The purrgil charge up. Everything goes white. His theme bellows at full heroic volume and then...

Quiet.

Utter awed quiet.

Right, so you wanna know the other of the two times I cried at this show? Ezra's sacrifice right here. Waterworks.

"We set out to save the Shire, and it has been saved. But not for me. I have been too badly hurt. The last pages are for you, Sam."

Sabine is handed Ezra's lightsaber by Chopper, and takes up his mantle, finishing his mission and leading all the rest of them to safety as the launch the Dome and blow it. (Her journey to becoming co-protagonist is complete.)

Chopper gives us a final goodbye message from Ezra (that makes me sad again), and they soar over a triumphant freed populace.

Fade out and then...

*SOBS ABOUT THE BOOKENDS FOREVER*

Shot for shot. Shot. For. Shot. And I am UNDONE.

Lothal is free. The Empire never had a chance to retake it. Likely couldn't spare the manpower from the rest of the galaxy, first off, also replacing all those ships they had in orbit has gotta be expensive, and I suspect Palpatine just put glassing Lothal on hold until the Death Star was completed. And well... we know how that turned out lol.

The Fellowship broke, but they seem to all keep in touch, if Sabine's voiceover is any indication. Kanan's legacy lives on. Our crew found peace.

And last...

A sworn promise to find a precious friend and bring him back home.

The finale of Rebels is near perfection. With a very few quibbles here and there (the purrgil could have been just a smidgen more set up, Kallus's arc still needs to have some decent onscreen content for his redemption happy ending to be earned) it is the best Rebels has to offer.

The callbacks and bookends undo me. The music is full of wonderful dramatic cues. The animation is gorgeous. Everything comes to full completion and it is a very satisfying end.

Overall Season Thoughts:

Season Four is almost a bit nostalgic, returning to the tightly written narrative of the first season, but even more tightly tied together. None of the episodes feel wasted or superfluous. The major character death midway through is given plenty of narrative weight and time for the characters to adjust and grieve. Objectively it's probably the best season overall, none of the episodes are misses.

Even with the unanswered mysteries, the season feels solid, and a fitting conclusion to the overall Rebels saga.

---

And that was Star Wars: Rebels, the little show about a Found Family that could. It is my favorite new Star Wars content and what actually dragged me back into fandom after years away. It is heartwarming and exciting, poignant and hopeful and I'm so so glad I was taken on this journey.

Here's hoping the lost son of Lothal can make his way home soon.

[rosalind-hawkins]

🐧🦃🐦‍⬛ for the ask game

For THIS ask game! I decided to dig deep for these! All of these are excerpts from an unpublished fic rewrite/continuation about the Legendary Knights of Atlantis: Secrets & Lies.

🐧 a funny quote (silly! laughs! jokes! puns!)

Oof, had to dig deep for this.

~~~~~

"I have quite a few tales from my journeys," Hermos said one day when he feared that Drustan was about to ask a personal question. "Would you like to hear one?"

"Maybe." The brunette smiled. "How embellished is your story?"

"It's stretched long enough to reach nose to tail on a draft horse." He grinned wickedly.

"Then of course I want to hear it," Drustan laughed, settling back in his chair for the story. He didn't particularly care if the story was true, a good story is a good story.

🦃 a big, meaty quote (JUST A BIG OL PARAGRAPH YOU WANNA SHARE)

Bruh, YOU ASKED FOR IT.

~~~~~

"I've lost strength, Timaeus."

"What do you mean?"

"When I had almost reached Soleanna, I was robbed on the road. My sword was stolen from me and my right arm was injured. The wound has healed, but the healers told me that the wound was so deep I would not be able to recover my former strength. I'm no longer fit to be a knight of Atlantis." Hermos closed his hands into a fist. "I was barely fit for the role in the first place."

"That's not true." Timaeus' statement was full of conviction.

"I was lucky to make the rank of knight at all." Hermos's voice was bitter and sad. "I don't know what the hell they were thinking when they partnered me with you two. Even at my best, I was barely half as good as you."

The sound of steel sliding against steel made Hermos look up. Critias had unsheathed his sword.

"Duel me, Hermos. I will assess the strength of your sword-arm for myself."

🐦‍⬛ a great quote of dialogue (maybe you're proud of how in-character it is, or how sharp the back and forth!)

I was tempted to post this whole scene, but that would have been way too much. I promise I'll post this fic someday.

~~~~~

“Get the hell out of here, Critias.” Hermos turned his back on him, facing the dragonsteed again as he tried to keep his temper under control. He wasn’t sure how much more ridicule he could take before he threw himself at the blond with both fists raised.

Critias took a few steps away, then turned back to speak over his shoulder.

“Who stayed up with you that night, Hermos?”

His tone had completely changed.

“That night, after Maiya turned down your proposal, you drank half your body weight in ale, and Timaeus passed out trying to keep up with you. Who stayed up with you all through that night until the dawn broke?”

The silence was long and deafening.

“You did.” Hermos’s answer was barely a whisper.

“That’s right.” Critias looked away from him again. “You didn’t sleep a wink that night, so neither did I.” He left then, and neither Hermos nor Drustan spoke a word until the blond knight was long out of sight.

"Wow. He's…" Drustan was at a loss for words, but Hermos wasn't.

"Pigheaded. Obnoxious. Self-righteous. Overbearing. Pick one." The former knight waved a hand demonstrably before he resumed petting Persephone.

"Intense," Drustan chose instead.

"He's the firstborn son of a noble, it probably comes with the silver spoon."

[burnin0akleaves]

He shrugged, a little embarrassed that he had exposed that aspect of his life. “I guess I was happy enough,” he said. “But all the others in the ward—Horace, Alyss, Jenny and George—they all had family names. They might have lost their parents but they knew who they had been. They knew where they came from. I didn’t and I guess I felt... I don’t know... left out somehow.”

This is literally just me practicing how to draw kids, added the quote because its a rare Will remembers his problems moment and it feels relevant.

Anyway I've come to the conclusion that I hate drawing small children! Toddlers barely have any of their facial features developed. I can't give Alyss or Horace bigger noses, I can't give Will his nose bridge, they all have big ol eyes, thin eyebrows and soft features. Its like having same face syndrome but on purpose. Also George is there.

A lot of blondes in this kingdom jesus christ

[mrstsung]

My hc mk12/mk1 shang tsung self ship au quotes:

*note i only do my hc version of mk12/mk1 shang tsung. This is also just for fun. So canon divergent extreme. Because i have kollectively decided that the storymode is shit,the narrative is shit,and my hc verse is just a young master shang tsung in outworld during his time under the corrupt regime of edenia and outworld. Under shao Kahn's heelboot. That being said enjoy.*

Cw:language,(also it's mortal kombat you should know better),canon divergence,some nsft implications,some angst,self indulgent to hell. Not an x reader. If there is anything i forgot lemme know so i can properly citation this. <3

Green is shang

Purple is me

💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚

"If you can be anything,be a menace to them my dear,much more fulfilling"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Why should i trust you?"

"The question you actually wish to ask my dear,is why not? But also can i afford not to? What alternative is there truly? The emperor cares not for earthrealmers,i should know. I was once one of them."

"Fair point. I don't like anyone here. And i need to get back home somehow. So im stuck with you."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You're lucky he's dead,he would have eaten you....though you have a sweet little soul. I think he may get cavities" *chuckles*

"Are you always this a sarcastic insufferable dick?"

"No,but for you it's just too fun not to be beautiful"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*scenario: hiding from warrior guards. Me n shang unfortunately are hiding in a compromising position. And he's kinda feelin the cobra rise*

"I think we lost them shang"

*notices somethin be poking me back*

"Wait...is that....*whisperes heavily* SHANG!"

*blushes and turns away* "apologizes my dear"

"Ugh" *blushing*

"Could you really blame a man though?,you do have a rather...pleasing posterior"

*blushes harder and gets more mad n flustered* (look im tsundere af im easy to tease. Shang would have a field day with me)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*shang reading a book. Sees me walk into his bed chambers with nothing on but a big ol shirt.*

*puts the book down*

"Oh my,well well. Don't you look delectable ♡"

"It's nothing really. I mean it's a simple big black shirt i had in my backpack,Nothing special. I mean i packed very lightly before i fell into this weird mess of a realm."

"Even so. It fits you oh so nicely. Shows all of your greatest....assets."

"Stop shang,you're just trying to make me feel better" *looks away,kinda feeling low about appearance*

"No,no i mean it. You're beautiful. You think of everyone but yourself. Take care of everyone else but you. You deserve the best in life. And i wouldn't settle for less than. Neither should you."

*sits me in front of a mirror in his bed chambers*

"My dear look at your curves,your hair how it flows. Your beautiful lips. Your dark eyes with yearning. A fire and passion burns in your soul,waiting to be free. And if you let me,and ask of me. I shall help set it free. Free from worry,pain,never again will you doubt yourself."

"I dunno shang,i just think of myself as well...me. nothin really that special."

*shang thinking he needs a better approach. As he realizes flattery can get so far. Though he genuinely means every word. He thinks to himself "this woman has a worried mind,and has been hurt before perhaps." *

"Nonsense! You look at me *lifts my head with finger under my chin* you are special. I have seen into your very soul. You are unique. Every one is. But you,see me as i am. Not as i say. With you i dont need to hide. No honeyed words can sway you,tho your face blushes red. Nothing that i have done so far strays you from me. Even now i show you my place of dwelling and though i am but the emperors courtly mage i still am forced to live in a more less than ideal home. All the gold and treasures you see before is through tournaments in the Coliseum. Nothing but trinkets either from the emperor for being a "good dog" or from the crowds to see slaughter for the bloodsport of the gods. Yet this doesn't frighten you,or turn you from me. I know that feeling of not liking what you see before you. But believe me when i say. A body will rot. But the soul....ah the soul my dear lives on for eternity. It's the truest of ones self. And within you i see a rose among the gardens of weeds and pompous fools gold. A heart that i honestly and deeply can say is Phoenix like. Noble,beautiful, and rising above such insects below you."

"Shang...i...dunno what else to say,i mean I'm flattered but.... Did you mean all that?"

"Every word my dear,every word. But dont just take my words,believe in yourself. Please. I dont like seeing you be so hard on yourself. A man such as i,can not truly pass. But you do,and can. Wish not for a life not worth lived. And loved."

"Shang,i....thank you"

*embraces shang in a deep hug*

*shang embraces back*

(Oof sorry i got carried away there. 😅 but i thought of a scenario where in all honesty i may feel a lil inadequacy in edenia/outworld. Because everyone there looks "appealing" while i feel like an outsider, which i am technically. But fr it would feel awkward. And basically shang telling me. That my looks dont matter my heart and soul does. And edenians and outworlders have a tendency to be fake af and he likes my honesty and down to earth vibe. In other words shang likes my homilyness and none of that "person who tries to hard to look good but has a shitty personality and only likes him for what he can give them and not him for him,even when he is old and grey and low on souls and not doin so hot. Etc" crap he may have gotten before with others.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You will not fucking dare harm her!"

"Less you lose your head reiko"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Shang....what are you doing?"

"Clearly smoking and pondering the universes secrets" *takes a hit from his hookah*

*snickers* "what does the universe tell you oh wise and deep one?"

"It tells me that if you keep up that snark you may find yourself on the receiving end on my dragon's claws" *gestures with clawed rings*

*blush*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Ah fuck, quick! what do i do now shang?!"

"If you Kill their pride they'll usually fall down"

*hits the opponent in the balls so hard that it would make 95 johnny cage proud*

"Not exactly what i ment but that'll work"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*me n shang bathing together*

"You know,I've noticed that your sweet side is you best side"

"Well that's a Good thing to hear,because you're the only one who's seen it"

*kisses my forehead*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*this is suggestive.

So take it as you want.>:3c hee hee*

"That's....like a lot shang."

"Apologizes dear,it's been a while"

"How about i clean that up for you? *flirty look*

"I'd like that very much ♡"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well that's all for now. May make some more later.

💚🐍💋

[fearxtoxfreedom]

NAME : Alessio AGE : 19 GENDER : Male SEXUALITY : Bisexual ENERGY : Martial Arts HEIGHT : 183 см REGION : Sunset IDENTITY : Protector of the Outer City QUOTE : "I once forgot about the person behind the mask...Now I remember."

WORLD CONNECTIONS :

MILADY : Alessio lives in the liberal Outer City, and was only vaguely wary of the ruler in the Inner City. However, since Biron lost an arm in a run-in with Milady, she became one of Alessio's enemies. BIRON : They met over trying to save a cat, and became blood brothers. They always talk as if they don't like each other, but Alessio works very hard on Biron's mechanical arm, and Biron often accompanies Alessio on his voyages. MAYENE : An ally in the journey to find ol' Captain Red Hawk. It'd be nice if she could work a bit harder though. ALLAIN : Allain's new job is to keep an eye on the Red Hawk. What will happen between him, Mayene, and Alessio? The story continues. DOILA : "She snuck onto my ship and hid in a crate until she was discovered. Turns out that our stowaway is of the merfolk mentioned in the logs. Incredible!" MARCO POLO : Alessio encountered Marco Polo, an anomalic lordling, while investigating the Red Hawk, and learned more about the ship as well as the old Captain. HEINO : Alessio initially thought that since Heino's a member of an Arkana clan, power and profits would be the only thing on his mind. Much to his surprise, Heino's as passionate as Alessio when it comes to protecting Navenia, and even might have a hint of that Red Hawk spirit. LUNA : Alessio once saved a cat and befriended it. Later on, he found out that the cat, Bailey, belonged to the Moon Clan. Bailey often goes to Alessio for free food, and Alessio escorts Bailey home each time, and happened to meet its owner.

BIOGRAPHY :

Alessio, who lived in the Outer City of Navenia, was but an average individual, till in a life-changing moment, he took on the commission from the legendary Captain Red Hawk and started on a new path as a hero in disguise. The real legendary "Captain Red Hawk" had single-handedly protected the Outer City from pirates. Although Alessio had an ingenuity that provided him with a few tricks up his sleeve, he knew he was a far cry from Captain's fearsome reputation. To put on a perfect hero act, Alessio honed his skills tirelessly, doing his best to imitate the old Captain in every way possible, but he still fell short. That is, until one day, when his mask was shattered and his cover was blown. Only when the folks in the Outer City still accepted him despite not being the real thing, did he realize that a hero is recognized not by their name, but by their deeds. Today, folks in the Outer City continue to call him Captain Red Hawk. Though he had now officially inherited the name, he was no longer interested in trying to copy the original Captain. Instead, he began to accept himself and started exploring ways to become a unique Red Hawk. With his mask strapped to his waist, he continued to patrol the Outer City every day with his cannon on his shoulder, researching newfangled shells and unique combat methods in order to protect the peace. Anyone in a tight spot could be sure to rely on his kindness and determination, even if it meant confronting the powerful and ruthless Governess. And thus, in the sailors' shanty, a legendary new Captain Red Hawk was born... But deep down, Alessio continued to look forward to the day when he would see the old Captain again to tell him that he had not dishonored the Red Hawk name.

SHORT STORIES BENEATH CUT

IMPOSTER :

Alessio once chanced upon a counterfeit at a flea market.

It was a shell bearing the name Captain Red Hawk. It bore a high price tag, he bought it anyway, and it became his prized possession. Little did he know that he had gotten his hands on a ticking bomb—one that literally blew up half his room while he was asleep.

Half a room wasn't such a big deal, and even if it had blown up the entire room, there wasn't much that needed saving. But the shrapnel from the explosion was clearly engraved with "Property of the Arkana Navy," tying it to the powerful consul and her arsenal. This meant that it had nothing to do with Captain Red Hawk from the Outer City.

After that, he gathered his few remaining possessions and went to stay with his brother-in-arms, Biron. At that time, Biron hadn't yet lost an arm or earned the nickname "Steele."

This also gave Biron, always the butt of Alessio's jokes, the opportunity to poke fun at him instead.

"Well, well, since you've only got fragments of that ridiculously expensive cannon left, isn't it high time you let me have a look at your precious treasure?"

The words of gloating reached Alessio's ears as soon as he stepped foot inside. He hurled his possessions in an attempt to shut Biron up, then made a beeline for the bed, immediately making himself at home.

"Alright, so I got my hands on a lousy counterfeit."

"Just admit it—there's no difference between an impostor and a lousy counterfeit. They're both fakes."

"Of course there's a difference!"

Alessio took the shrapnel from around his neck and showed him that the words "Arkana Navy" had been sanded down, as if they had never existed.

"A great impostor always means business. If you're going to fake something, you might as well go all the way."

"Who cares what the truth is as long as it's buried deep enough?"

Alessio never thought he'd see the day when he'd become an impostor.

Dressed in a red coat and Captain Red Hawk's mask with a cannon tucked under his arm, he bore a striking resemblance to the man who had single-handedly repelled a fleet of pirates. Little did anyone know that under that familiar outfit was a complete nobody.

Threatening gangs, defeating pirates, and driving away ruffians... Getting started wasn't hard at all. Just the sight of Captain Red Hawk coming their way was enough to scare off troublemakers. Before, he'd jump right into the fray to defend the weak, but more often than not, he'd be the one getting beat up. Performing heroic deeds was much easier with this new hero getup. Every time he set out in his Captain Red Hawk mask, his disguise was foolproof, no matter who set eyes on him.

Only he knew just how much he lacked.

To truly impersonate a known hero like Captain Red Hawk, he needed the strength and skill associated with the name. This was Alessio's second task in becoming a great impostor.

He'd encountered the most ferocious predators in the waters, witnessed gladiators in the arena, seen every Sunset sunrise while honing his artillery skills, and even had his explosives blow up in his face. Through intense physical training, imitating all known mannerisms, lowering his voice, sharpening his artillery skills, and implementing any and every possible rumor... His muscles grew and he gained a few more scars. His good-humored smile disappeared beneath the mask, replaced instead by a tense and unsmiling mouth.

He grew accustomed to playing the part of Captain Red Hawk, so much so that Alessio became a distant memory.

"Where's the Red Hawk, Captain?"

"The crew took her out on an expedition. When they return, they'll come bearing a treasure that'll amaze the Outer City."

—He hoped that they would return with good news for the Outer City. And when that happened, he'd be able to return to his life before he took the Captain's name.

"Captain, fancy a drink?"

"Thanks, but I've got something to attend to. I'll be off."

—Alessio had never gotten drunk before, and the Captain's drinking capacity wasn't something he could fake... More importantly, it wasn't worth risking his disguise. He had to remain watchful.

"I recruited a lad with good mechanical skills and sent him on an expedition with the Red Hawk."

—No one had asked why the real Alessio seemed to have disappeared yet, but Biron and his mercenary buddies were bound to return at any time, so it didn't hurt to set some groundwork.

"Don't worry, Red Hawk is here!"

—Even if it was uttered by an impostor, it would still bring some measure of peace to the Outer City.

In the early morning on the pier, a determined figure leaped down into the crowd. Through the sudden haze, the ruffians had only time to make out a flash of red before being blinded by cannon fire. As soon as they came to and opened their eyes, they'd become sitting ducks in the water.

Though the haze still lingered on the now calm bay, Captain Red Hawk was long gone.

A great impostor, having been in disguise all day, will remain in disguise.

Before the old Captain returns, he'll keep playing his part to protect the Outer City. After all, did it really matter who was behind the mask?

This was something he had come to realize as an impostor.

THE REAL DEAL :

Alessio never expected that his cover would be blown, not by the pirates attacking the Outer City, or by his frequent shooting practice, but by his brother-in-arms.

After returning from his six-month stint, the mercenary must have read the farewell letter Alessio had left for him. He seemed to have bought the story, because he had gone around the Miracle Tavern bragging about having a "promising brother-in-arms who hung out with Captain Red Hawk."

After Alessio found an abandoned house by the seaside to live in, he never once returned to his old house or showed his face around his old neighborhood.

In order to perfectly imitate the old Captain's mannerisms, he even went to painstaking lengths to lower his voice. On time after a fight, even Biron joined the crowd in shouting "long live Captain Red Hawk!"

No matter which way you looked at it, his disguise was foolproof.

That was, until his brother-in-arms confronted the Governess Milady about the contamination.

When Alessio heard that Milady had hacked off the mercenary's arm, and that Biron, who hated mechcraft, had been fitted with a mechanical arm, Alessio saw red. In his rage, he forgot that he was still wearing Captain Red Hawk's mask. Without a word, he grabbed his cannon and prepared to bombard the tower of the inner city.

But when he opened the door, something blocked his path. It was a giant mechanical arm, unfamiliar to both him and its owner.

"Hey, steady there. Captain Red Hawk doesn't have a mercenary brother-in-arms, remember?"

From then on, Biron coined the name "Steele." With it and his new mechanical arm, he set off in search of the source of the contamination. Of course, there was no conceivable reason for the real Captain Red Hawk to send him off. Nonetheless, Alessio stayed up several nights studying the arm's technology, and finally, when the mercenary group arrived back at the pier, he pretended to approach them casually, dark circles around his eyes.

"Hey, I just found a copy of Maintenance Manual for Mechanical Arms. Is it yours?"

When Biron returned from the Sunset plain, Alessio had already lost his mask and had his cover blown in a confrontation with the Bullhead Shark pirates. He'd lost the Red Hawk Cannon left by the old captain, but he'd also found himself again. While playing the role of protector of the people, he in turn received their support as the new Captain Red Hawk.

The broken mask had been glued back together, and the small cannon, developed by the new Captain Red Hawk himself, leaned against the bed. With his leg in a cast and his hand tapping on the mechanical arm, Alessio couldn't resist asking:

"How on earth did you recognize me? What gave me away?"

The mercenary replied: "Look, there's cat hair on your coat. Who else could it be but you? No one ever mentioned the old Captain Red Hawk fancying cats."

He went on to excitedly recount his first meeting with Alessio: A young Alessio, wearing a crude mask, was curled up on the ground surrounded by a group of thugs, tightly holding a kitten in his arms. The kitten, struggling fearfully in his arms, had rubbed white hair all over him.

"If I hadn't jumped in to rescue you, you and Bailey would've been in for a whole new world of bullying!" Biron exclaimed proudly.

"Oh wow, I sure am extremely grateful for that..."

Alessio couldn't help but smile as he lamented the cat hair detail he had overlooked, and at the same time, another version of the story played in his mind:

At that time, he had curled up not out of defeat, but because he was buying time to think of the best way to protect Bailey and get away from the thugs. Just when he'd finally gotten his plan and managed to leave the crowd, he ran headlong into a big fellow who'd appeared out of nowhere. With no choice but to fight, he took several more punches from the big fellow.

Many years passed, and he'd been too lazy to tell him what actually happened. Plus, he didn't have the heart to ruin his brother-in-arms' memory of having saved the cat.

From outside the window, Biron heard the footsteps of Alessio's visitors. Looking at his half-finished sketch of a new cannon, he came to a conclusion.

The cat hair was but one giveaway. It was the stories circulating through the tavern that had led to his investigation. During the six months he was away, he'd heard that the pirate Blackbeard had been itching to duel Alessio and finally had his challenge accepted. Blackbeard set foot on shore only to have his ship blown to pieces. By springing a trap in the bay, Alessio had used its unique terrain to trap an entire fleet of pirates. Plus, he'd recently heard booms in the early morning, and it turned out to be Alessio practicing on the beach. It was definitely the sound of a cannon firing. Stephan had lost his cat the day before yesterday, and it was “Captain Red Hawk” who'd found it and given the thief a hard lesson...

Others couldn't understand, but Biron knew that Alessio only took the lowest paid commissions from the group. Not because he was lazy, but because the more mundane injustices were often ignored. He'd lost count of the times Alessio dived headlong into danger, thus gaining familiarity with all manner of escape routes and ambush spots. Eventually, he learned to come up with new ones on the go.

It wasn't until he saw Alessio intent on confronting Milady that his suspicions were finally confirmed.

"I'm not fixing you up again the next time you act recklessly, you tin can." Alessio tapped Biron's mechanical arm.

"What? Has the new Captain Red Hawk found a long-term funder for his shells?"

"Oh, please. The money you make is barely enough to cover your arm repairs."

"Come on, take me to the tied-up pirates. They seem to have fought the old captain, and their weapons look advanced. I'm sure they also have a base somewhere... And I need to pry something out of them before I empty their den."

The mask, the coat, the cannon, the name, the voice, and the dwelling; they all added to the finished act.

Though Biron had no absolute proof at the time, the courage to stand up for the smallest of troubles, the conviction to march into danger, and the ability to somehow win battles that seemed utterly lost—

Who could it be other than his brother-in-arms, Alessio?

This must certainly be the real deal. No doubt about it.

VOYAGE LOG SNIPPETS :

In the Red Hawk's captain's cabin, many maps and voyage logs could be found on the bookshelf. Even though much time had passed, records of the past were still kept in a neat and orderly manner. Among them was a row of logs organized in chronological order. Though some of the records were hardly legible, one could still learn much of the past through them.

Voyage Log #3

3 August

Finally, the Bullhead Sharks have been driven out... They're definitely the worst pirates I've ever come across.

But there are still too many troublesome factions in the Outer City...

6 October

I met an interesting kid today. He was just a little taller than my knees, yet he fought off some miscreants picking on younger kids he didn't even know.

Though bruised and battered, he refused to stay down and kicked them as he struggled.

He was wearing a mask that looked like mine, and even after I saved him, he refused to admit that he was pretending to be the Red Hawk... Looks like he wasn't an easy one to budge.

Voyage Log #6

4 August

I didn't expect to save a nobleman from the pirates. It was the world renowned Niccolo... If I hadn't heard Estella mention him before, I would have thrown him right off the ship.

5 August

Contamination, the Forgotten Scrolls, and the great shadow lurking beneath Sunset...

"If the source of the contamination is not found and resolved, then sooner or later, everyone in Navenia will suffer..." Looks like he was after something different from the power-hungry Arkanas.

If such a danger exists, then the Outer City, being right next to the ocean, will bear the brunt of it. I must do something...

8 August

Before parting, I accepted Niccolo's gift of gratitude, an oceangoing ship: the Red Hawk. It is fitted with Navenia's secret device and powered by fluorescent stones. In return, I promised to deliver a letter to his son.

All because I was in need of a sturdier ship.

2 December

As of today, 21 pirate strongholds have been eliminated. Therefore, I believe the people in the Outer City will not be troubled for the next six months.

I woke up this morning and found a transformation plan on the bow of the Red Hawk. I couldn't help but wonder who left it. Meanwhile, the mechsmith was overjoyed upon seeing it and jumped right to working on it.

Voyage Log #7

29 April

It's been four months since we set sail. Apart from eliminating a bunch of pirates and discovering a treasure, we've come up empty-handed.

20 May

We were heading back the way we had come when a strange colored mist obstructed our view, throwing us off course. I thought I saw something huge and glowing in the middle of the mist. It looked like coral...

Then a storm came upon us without warning. That was a strange one... Fortunately, by the power of the Red Hawk, we narrowly escaped the whirlpool...

When I opened my eyes again, the mist and the glowing coral were gone. The sun was shining brightly on the deck, and the ocean was calm as ever, as if it had been just a dream.

21 May

Things haven't been right... Recently, some of the crew have been hallucinating, and the mechsmith nearly smashed his head with a hammer... There's even a faint fluorescent blue coming from the veins under my skin... I must prevent this from happening to all of Navenia!

Whether or not this is the source of the contamination, it must have something to do with the danger Niccolo spoke of.

We must be prepared before coming back.

10 September

Even after speeding up the return trip, we're still far behind schedule. In the meantime, the troublemakers were looking to cause trouble again, but fortunately the crew's symptoms were gone.

The nobles of the inner city never lifted a finger in all of this.

But it seems a masked young man trapped a group of pirates and even blew up one of their ships. Well done!

Voyage Log #8

25 December

From what I gather, we must have encountered the Misty Seas... None of the ships that went in ever returned. All that was found were glass bottles containing this name and the words "Storm," "Danger," "Hallucination," "Rampage," and "Turn Away." Seems that it wasn't just us who experienced these symptoms.

Looking at the unfading fluorescent blue in my veins... I seem to recall seeing a seabird with feathers of this color at the pier this morning.

Finally, the Red Hawk has been fully transformed. Now the crew and I have nothing to fear. We have to investigate this contamination, even if it means never returning.

But I still can't stop worrying about the Outer City.

If I don't make it back, can the Outer City defend itself without the Red Hawk?

3 January

I didn't expect the peace to be broken so quickly.

News of the Red Hawk's departure somehow reached the pirates' ears. On the eve of the Sea Opening Festival, while the crew was gathering florescent stones on the island, the Bullhead Sharks sprang an ambush.

I didn't expect anyone to turn back and save me. After all, the Captain Red Hawk everyone knew could take on a whole fleet of ships by himself.

The young man who should have retreated with everyone else will never know the importance of the bullet he had stopped. The enemy had come prepared, and I was at a disadvantage. If he hadn't appeared in front of me out of nowhere, I might have gotten killed without a chance to fire that decisive shot.

In all my years as a hero, it was the first time I was protected by someone. Perhaps I'm getting old.

When he turned around, I realized that he was the boy I had once saved.

He was almost as tall as me now, and still he still stood firm against the pirates, even though he was at a disadvantage. Looks like the tough talker never changed.

I guess if it were him, he could protect the Outer City well enough.

5 January

I met up with the crew and set off in secret.

After so many years, I was unaccustomed to going without my mask and leaving my weapons behind. The kid gave me a bunch of weapons he had developed for me. There were cannons, mortars, smoke grenades, flashbangs, a hammer, and even a lucky conch he had bought off the street.

Anyhow, I guess I should go destroy a pirate den and replenish our supplies. After all, the kid's weapons aren't half bad. The only thing they lacked was ammo capacity.

Most of the logs had been brought back to the tower by the Arkana Navy, so Alessio could only see the last remaining log. It had fallen, and most of the pages were soaked in the fluorescent blue seawater. Only the last few pages were barely legible.

Voyage Log #10

XXXX

The weather's even worse than the previous.......... the storm lasted three days and nights, and the hurricane.......... tornado.......... the mast nearly snapped and was temporarily restored to some semblance of functionality after emergency repairs. ..........

XXXX

.......... the rudder was completely out of order.......... ran aground.......... tornado.......... an island to land on.......... coral.......... fluorescent stones.......... I thought it would be best to abandon the ship..........

XXXX

.......... if I don't make it back.......... the Outer City.......... Little Red Hawk..........

I guess the next time I see that kid, I should probably ask him for his name.

Hopefully we'll meet again.

[yayforocs]

Ohhhhhhhhhh My God okokok i'm going to be unpacking a lot here and i'm. oh my goodness i'm so excited there's stuff here i FORGOT about!!!!!! never posted anywhere would have been lost forever if i hadn't saved it on this flash drive!!!!!

OLD UNPOSTED ART LET'S GO (pt 1) (yes i'm doing multiple parts bc u can only post 30 images per post)

ohhhhhh man oh man ok i'm looking through and checking on like Each And Every One Of These to make sure they're not actually posted anywhere and m a n

ALRIGHT, cranking the clock alllll the way back to the start of my main blog, july 2012!!!

God ok this is fanart for a slamacow video, it's the like one music video he made :VVV good ol Cube Land!!

shadow of israphel!!!!!! what a series, my brother and i still quote a few lines from it. i actually did draw quite a lot more SoI fanart that never got posted, i'll have to go digging around and see if i can find it.... BUT atl now i know like!! timestamp for when i drew all that!!!

moving on to august 2012!

herobrine in a cloak ig

dklsfjsd did i not feel like drawing regular clothes or.

september 2012!!

genuinely i don't remember if i traced this over my laptop screen or if i just copied it down bc i was pretty good at just like lookin at stuff and replicating it, but it's erza from fairy tail!

october 2012 :V

i opened up a requests thread on the craftedmovie forums, and lookin back it looks like i only ever posted one of them, wack

so here's the rest!

we've got a gamzee makara! we've got 'a brown haired girl (brown eyes may have also been specified? i don't quite remember but i'm p sure brown haired girl was) standing next to fluttershy'! who i actually, since no other specifics on the girl were given, drew to be the protag from the animation Crayon Dragon! and then the third one is the requester, trixomaniac, sitting on a rainbow :VV

november 2012!

we've got more requests!

first one was i don't remember if it was just 'chicken man' or actually the requester's (gafloff was the name) skin but the request was for the person to be holding a butter sword standing over a zombie piglin or something along those lines :V i had no context of skydoesminecraft so i remember being very confused like. why a sword made out of butter XD

and then the second is shadowflare86, holding a gun pointing at the viewer :V whiCH! i had no idea how to draw so i did my best to imitate a pose from this wonderful animation called Serenade to Miette

...looking at this now tho i think it just looks like it could be a fantastic reaction image klshdg

speaking of

i also. did this? i don't remember any context for it tho, i think it may have been another one of the requests?

on to the next folder! here we skip december, then looks like i've posted everything in january, then there's no february folder, so on to march 2013!

starting out strong with this one lskdfjs

so i did actually post like the big middle drawing there, but it was posted before i colored, and also before i drew the other stuff on the page, but yes cue the homestuck art >:J starting with some runawaystuck fanart (and actually i know i added in a little jade and karkat to that page at some point, not sure if i scanned it again later after i added them or not)

copied the talksprites for funsies :V rip jade ig

ohohohoho i don't even remember what the context for this one was but i do definitely remember that i had fun with it X)

OH RIGHT THIS ONE YES IT'S NOT HOMESTUCK BUT!!

FAIRY QUEEN LADY!! THE ORIGINAL DRAWING OF HER!! she was based on a Really Funky Graph i made one time messing around with inputs:

i had a sliding phone so that's unfortunately as good a picture as it's gonna get bc i don't think i can recreate it 😅

april 2012!

cleverbot doodles! kldsfjs i found the post i'd made of the colored drawing i did, and saw in the tags that i'd said ''#website characters #yeah i think there's a name for it but idk what it is'' gijinka friend. the word you are looking for is gijinka

and i had a lot of fun with this gijinka :V

GOD SS PAINT!!!! i think i never posted this bc i was worried it looked too much like he was choking her skdlfj

-oh wow this is. this picture is a lot smaller than i thought it was. slkdfj. anyway another that i can't remember if it's a trace or a replication but it's a yellow from the pokespe manga! please go read it if u haven't it's so so so good

skip to july 2013!

i'm like 90% certain this is a replication. but there's still a 10% of uncertainty. regardless, it's de nam from final fantasy crystal chronicles!

next up is august 2013 :V

ib time ib time

i doodled an au where garry was also a kid :V i think we (mogi and i) also joked around about like. a teenager au? they're both teens? i don't think any doodles came of it tho

october 2013, featuring doodles i know i drew in july bc i remember drawing them sldkfjds oh well

these are a bunch of random ocs i came up with as like. a. ok it's not like a homestuck au bc it doesn't involve any of the comic characters in any way but this was a group of ocs i came up with that played through their own version of sburb and. everyone died but one person. i never came up with names or anything for any of them, it's literally like just what is there visible on the paper is all i had for them 😅 i'm p sure i redrew these guys a few years later, but i don't think i ever scanned it.

-ah i cannot upload any more, let me. multi-part this.

[jmdbjk]

Vibe

Overall, VIBE the song is catchy with that deep base beat. I like a good beat to just mindlessly bop all day. 

The lyrics are sort of superficial, very "love you baby you have all my attention baby we got a vibe baby". Which is ok. Many of my favorite non-BTS songs are pretty superficial. So there’s nothing that’s gonna make me think too hard with this song. 

Now they are giving Jimin writing credit on the song. Previously it was just composing credit. Now people are speculating which lyrics he may have written. My guess is the neutralizing of any mention of gender as a possibility. Of course, if we must go there, Taeyang would be singing as an idol to his fans or about his wife when he says “girl” in the lyrics. Jimin, however, used the word “baby” so would be singing about his baby ...whoever that might be... 

[what is JK doing here for this song review post? (heh heh)]

BUT!!! Jimin’s vocals!!!! Those high notes!!! His delivery!!!! A taste of what’s to come with his solo album. Everytime I think about it I am on the edge of berserk.

The Vibe video...I was not wowed by the actual production of the video though because my expectations and standards are BTS sky high. I always expect cinematic excellence and/or storytelling in their music videos. Didn’t get any of that with this video.

The thing that bothered me the most was that large circular sofa thingy. It was out of place. What was the purpose of it? Just to hide Jimin’s lower body and then he is released from the confines of it when they pull it apart? It was a lost opportunity of taking advantage of showcasing their feature guest star that they probably paid a bunch of money for and who is the best dancer in the industry. Just to hide with a dumb sofa. The number of views would be millions more if we got to see Jimin’s lower half dancing instead of the backside of a dumb sofa.

Yes, skyline of Seoul (somewhat). Yes Han River, Nam Mountain. What does that have to do with a big ol’ modular sofa that looks like a spare piece of furniture from a hotel lobby? Maybe I am missing some intricate nuance. The rest of the set was a big yawn for me too (just my opinion)... maybe the song is really about Seoul itself... it’s a vibe... 

[wtf?]

And they did not focus as much on the dance as I expected which is always a let down even in BTS productions. STOP WITH THE CAMERA WORK and just put them on that raised stage and let them dance! Thank goodness for the tiktok vid so we can see the choreo head to toe.

Taeyang is quoted as saying something to the effect that he saw Jimin was more passionate than he was and that he (Taeyang) learned from it. Which made me laugh because I can imagine what triggered that comment: Jimin saying “let’s do it one more time” ... probably ten times. HAHAHAHAHA. Taeyang learned what a perfectionist you are, Jimin. 

Yes, that’s why our boys rule the top. They work hard and are never satisfied, always striving to be better. 

[He looks so good in that suit. Certainly his own suit and probably has worn it before.]

When Jimin releases his album, we just all need to get on our knees, bare our necks and let him slay us en masse because that’s what will happen (that was sort of  gruesome, sorry). 

[savebatsartedition]

Whumptober 2024 Day 22

Summary:

Peter gets a big ol’ shock to the nervous system. Prompt piece used: "Oh that's not good."

Notes:

Erm so that line/little scene made me lose my actual mind. Unfortunately I can write Peter about as well as I can draw him. Which is to say not at all. I tried. Content Warnings: Being tied to a chair and later to a wall, mentions of drugging someone to the point of passing out, guns being pointed at people, torture I guess? Loss of memory (it’s temporary but isn’t fixed in this oneshot) Words: 2,835

(Fic also under the cut!!)

Peter did not struggle against the rope that bound him. To be honest, he and his bandmates got kidnapped so often that it was becoming more of a monthly hassle than a once in a lifetime terrifying event. Though, he couldn’t say it wasn’t still terrifying. (They hadn't even made their name out of the city yet. Whoowie. Imagine if they actually did get famous.) He watched the two men, Bruno and Marcovich, giddly talking.

Something about losing good scientists? Something about banquets?

Professor Schnitzler (who had made a very good speech earlier in the night) lay across a medical table, unconscious due to some kind of drug that Marcovich had administered to him. Peter tilted his head slightly and opened his mouth. If Professor Schnitzler was going to be taken out of the country, what about him?

Marcovich and Bruno finished their laughing, and Peter didn't have to ask the question of his fate because Bruno asked it for him. The man's accented voice dropped lower, and his eyes shone dark with malice as he pointed at the tied up bass player. “What about him?” he asked Marcovich, looking Peter up and down.

“Yeah, what about me?” Peter added quickly, not wanting to lose the chance of the moment.

Bruno marched forward, his shoulders wide and threatening as he stared at Peter. (The musician felt his heart jump in his chest, and he instinctively tried to shift back and out of his chair. This, of course, did not work. He was a bit tied up.) ”Shut up!“ Bruno hissed, growing closer by the second.

Peter felt quite a bit scared, but he decided to mask it. He set his eyes as sad as he could make them, and began to quote the first thing that came to mind. Something about sadness and mothers. Bruno and Marcovich looked at each other, and then back at Peter, obviously lost on the reference.

Confused, Marcovich questioned him on it, and Peter grinned. He had successfully distracted Bruno away from him, even if he still didn't know what  was going to be done to him, he at least had accomplished temporary safety.

“Ben Casey,” he told them, tilting his head instead of bowing (because the ropes were too tight and he was too scared), “act one.” He smiled and fiddled his hands slightly. They didn't move enough to be of help.

Instantly he knew he'd messed up. Bruno and Marcovich's faces contorted in anger, and without giving it even a second of thought, Bruno was pointing a revolver right at Peter. His eyes were darker than before, and even Marcovich looked at him in some surprise.

This wasn't by any means the first time Peter had gotten a gun pointed at him, but he still hadn't expected it. He tried his best not to whimper in shocked fear. As it was, it was all he could do not to throw himself and the chair to the floor. He tried to raise his tied wrists to protect himself, but his hands only twisted, and they didn't make it very far.

Thankfully, Marcovich didn't seem to want him shot (yet), and quickly pushed the gun down and towards the floor.  “What are you doing with that?!” he asked, voice at a level that could have almost been an attempt to keep Peter from hearing it, if Marcovich had been a little less upset.

“He knows too much,” Bruno hissed back, his eyes still locked onto Peter's, but his gun thankfully pointed towards the ground. His hand was on the trigger, and Peter shifted his feet uncomfortably in their binds. They would not move any easier than the rest of him would. Scared Bruno would take that as an opportunity to shoot, he did his best to smile.

“Thank you,” he said, though his voice might have been shaking. He tried to appear genuine, but his smile twitched and faltered as Bruno's shoulders heaved in rage. (Peter was just picking all of the wrong options today. If he ever made it back to his bandmates, and if they ever made it to stardom, this was going to be some story to tell the masses.)

”We can't afford a murder here,“ Marcovich explained to his still seething partner, grabbing the gun to steady it towards the floor. Peter felt relief flood him, though it disappeared as Marcovich's face twisted into an evil sort of smirk, “Besides,” he snickered, “I have a better plan,”

Peter felt his heart jump, and he pushed unconsciously against the ropes once more. Uh oh. Better than murder at keeping someone quiet? Hadn't he already been kidnapped today? What more was there to do to him?!

The two kidnappers turned and walked away, Marcovich laughing and whispering what were undoubtedly evil plans of injury and insults, and Bruno still taking backwards glances over his shoulder as they went. Bruno's gun was at his side, but Peter knew it could shift quickly, and he would be nothing more than a blood splatter on the yellowish green wallpaper of the hospital room. He swallowed hard, searching his mind in vain for some way to get out of this situation he found himself in.

If only the guys were here, they always knew what to do in times like these. What was it that Micky had told him about kidnappers? That they always tied the ropes tight so it was good to puff out your chest when you were being tied up? ...no that wasn't it. It was too late for that.

Too bad Peter hadn't been able to keep his breathing in check when Bruno and Marcovich had tied him, he'd been far too out of it to try, of course, but now he was kicking himself for it anyway. If Davy had been the one hit on the head and brought to the hospital, he never would have stayed out for long enough to be tied up like this. He would had broken out, or kicked them with his strong jockey legs, or withstood the pain of the hit to the head and not passed out in the first place. Micky could have talked his way out, Mike probably could have slithered out between the gaps in the ropes, if he had so wanted to.

Really, it was just Peter who couldn't figure out a way out, which is why it sucked so much that he was the one who had been taken, and why it sucked so much that he was alone. (Every other time he'd been kidnapped he'd at least been with one of his friends, even two or all three if he was really lucky.)

But now he was alone with the unconscious form of Professor Milo Schnitzler, and he didn't see a way out. He jumped in his chair with all of his might, shifting it closer to the mirror but not enough to figure out a way to break it. He stared at himself and the reflection of Professor Schnitzler in the broken mirror. They looked pathetic.

In the hall, he could hear whispering and footsteps, but then they were gone, and he heard nothing more.

He kept fighting against the ropes, but by the time Marcovich and Bruno returned, he had not managed to even loosen any of them, and he was tired. His chest heaved and his hair fell into his face. Oh this was so not good.

”Ugh,“ Marcovich sounded disgusted with Peter and the sweat that dripped from his twitching nose, ”get up kid,“

Peter didn't really have it in him to answer, but he still frowned, confused and scared. ”I can't get up,“ he tried to explain, not really realizing that Marcovich hadn't been asking, ”I'm tied to the chair.“

”Yes yes, whatever,“ Marcovich continued. Peter's eyes caught on Bruno's hands. They were still fiddling with the gun at his side. (How he had been getting around the hospital with that thing in full view Peter didn't understand, but there was a lot he didn't understand, so it wasn't that surprising, really.)

”Bruno, hold him,“ Marcovich commanded, reaching out to undo the ropes around Peter's midsection, ”We need to move him into the other room,“ he winked at his partner, ”the one with the machine.“

Bruno seemed very excited to do that, and he held Peter's shoulders with such gusto that his arms got bent a bit behind the frame of the chair back. They ached and Peter almost thought they broke. He whimpered. He wouldn't have tried to run anyway, these guys were armed, and he was not. And- and- well. He wouldn't get very far without the guys away.

”Don't make us look suspicious,“ Marcovich hissed, ”or you'll regret it I swear.”

“I won't,” Peter promised quietly. But it wasn't enough and he was soon crying out as Bruno squeezed him even tighter. His newly freed hands twitched and his legs kicked against the ropes that Marcovich was working on. “I said I won't!“

”Good,“ Bruno muttered, ”Because we've got ways of dealing like snoops like you.”

Without much more fanfare, the two men had pulled him to his feet, and Peter was soon getting bundled out of the room. Bruno had one hand on Peter's shoulder, though he stood slightly behind him. Marcovich led the pack.

Once or twice, the three passed a nurse or a doctor in the hall. A few even shot Peter a smile. (He must have looked like a patient being led out to freedom by two very qualified helpers, and not... whatever was actually happening.) If Bruno's free hand hadn't been resting on the handle of a gun in his doctor's coat pocket, Peter might have thought about asking for some extra help in his walk. But it was, and he didn't.

They reached another door, and Bruno roughly shoved Peter through it. The blond bassist stumbled and almost fell, but managed to catch himself before his already shivering body hit the cold tiled floor. (Sure, he may have been shivering in fear now, but it surely wouldn't have helped him.)

“Over here boy,” Marcovich said, sounding remarkably cheery. Despite himself, Peter felt his terrified heartbeat slow a bit, and he tried a bit of a smile. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

Or maybe he just told himself that.

Slowly, carefully, taking in the surroundings like his life depended on it (which, honestly, it kind of did), Peter walked towards the man. Marcovich was standing by a weird green board leaned against the yellow tiles of the tiny room. He had a short line of white rope in his hand, and was smiling in the direction of a strange black machine. It looked like some new kind of medical technology.

Peter tried not to hesitate too much, and made his way over.

“Bruno,” said Marcovich, “as soon as I'm done you can go back to the others, but we have to make sure he's secure first.“

Bruno nodded, still standing protectively by the door.

”The others?“ Peter asked. Did Marcovich mean the other three Monkees? Oh he hoped so, he could use the help. Err... he hoped not! He didn't want them in the same trouble he was in!

”Yes,“ Marcovich said, pushing Peter up against the green board and winding the rope around him, securing him in place once more. Though it was with slightly less attention to detail than the first time, Peter still guessed that he could get out easily, the rope bit into him to the point where he doubted even ducking under it would work, at least not without catching his neck in it first.

Seeing that the blond kid was secure, Bruno nodded and left the room, shutting the door behind him. (It clicked shut, and Peter stilled, realizing that he was locked into the tiny space with Marcovich and his mystery medical device.) 

Marcovich smiled, and Peter did his best to smile back. He doubted it was very convincing though, even for a dummy.

”What is that machine?“ Peter asked casually, gesturing with his nose towards the black object that Marcovich was now fiddling around with. He blew some blond hair out of his eyes, his arms too bound down to adjust it the normal way.

”This instrument, Mr. Tork, will cause temporary amnesia,“ Marcovich explained, sounding rather excited, ”It will erase your memory.”

Peter's eyes widened and his heart sped up again. His memory? He needed that!

“By the time your memory will return, we will be safely out of the country with Professor Schnitzler,” Marcovich finished, sounding very pleased with his little plan. He adjusted the machine, turning it slowly so a piece oddly reminiscent of the barrel of a gun was pointed right at the musician. He grinned, and his teeth showed.

Peter tried to shift against the ropes, but it was no use. Marcovich was right at the controls of that thing, there was no way he could move fast enough to get out of range before it was fired. What should he do? Panic? Cry? Beg for forgiveness? Stall?

Stall, yes, maybe he could even get some answers out of the man.

“How long before I get my memory back?” he tried, only stuttering a little bit. His hair fell back into his eyes.

Marcovich thought for a second, looking towards the ceiling for just a moment before finding his answer. “A normal brain should be out of commision for three days.“

Peter laughed uncomfortably. Normal? What did that have to do with his question? Plus, that was a really long time to be without one's memory, even though Marcovich said it like it was nothing. And, extra plus, Peter didn't very well like the idea of what would have to happen to him for something like that to happen.  He tried to smile and struggle against the thin rope at the same time. It didn't work very well at all.

”But in your case,“ Marcovich added, his eyes growing brighter with each word, ”We are safe to say until early spring,“

Peter blinked, hardly hearing Marcovich's next words as scrub wearing man moved to set the machine up. He was laughing, but Peter's heart was beating too fast to even effectively struggle. Until early spring? What would have to happen to break him until EARLY SPRING?! Three days had sounded bad enough, but now it sounded like practically nothing.

Peter had heard that a shock to the nervous system could induce temporary amnesia. How bad was this going to hurt?

He swallowed hard, but there was no more stalling to be done. Marcovich had already completed the checks on his dials, and he had set all the switches the right way. He was laughing even louder now, eyes bright and full of a joy that said he enjoyed the entire interaction much more than as just a necessary part in covering his tracks.

“I will erase your memory!” he cried, laughing still. Peter couldn't say anything, even if he had been given time to. His throat was so dry with panic that it hurt.

...but that pain was nothing compared to what he felt when Marcovich flipped the switch on the side of the instrument. First a red beam hit his face, and he cried out, but he could not escape it. He was tied too tightly.

Suddenly it didn't matter that the smart Professor (Peter had already lost his name in the agony of the moment) was drugged to the point of passing out somewhere in the hospital. Suddenly it didn't matter that his friends weren't there to help him. (He couldn't even remember their names, or how many there were meant to be. Three? Two? None at all?)

All that mattered was the burning behind his eyes and the ringing in his head. He screamed, but it probably didn’t even sound that out of place to the people around him. (Where was he? There was a reason why that would be, but he couldn’t even figure out what that was anymore.) He thrashed against whatever it was that was holding him. (He couldn’t focus enough to figure out what it was under the blinding pain he felt.)

The air felt like fire, and his body felt like a roasting piece of meat on that fire.

He screamed and screamed and screamed, and his mind felt more and more stripped as he did.

In fact, by the time the beam had clicked off and the pain had stopped, it didn’t even register that the man didn’t even remember what he was doing there, or what instrument he was supposed to play, or that he was even supposed to play one at all. It didn’t even register that he wasn’t even aware of his own name, much less that he was supposed to have one.

The man who had forgotten that he was Peter felt his eyes flutter shut, and he collapsed into the wall behind him.

[weministertomonsters]

Seafood pt1 - it came from the swampland

An encroaching swamp comes and goes, leaving strange creatures behind that quickly become known as swampfish. Their taste for human flesh soon makes them a thing to be feared. However, when you bite the one that feeds you, the story changes. Who's the real predator here?

──── ⋆⋅𓆝 𓆟 𓆞⋅⋆ ────

Take a deep breath 

because it won't get better from here

Trust me I am taking you far 

under the surface of the swamp

you will find evil looking at you

it is a mirror of what

hides within your soul

──── ⋆⋅𓆝 𓆟 𓆞⋅⋆ ────

Author's Note:

Hello! I hesitated to start posting this story, but whatever. Life waits for no one. Don't ask me what I'm doing, because I don't know. I'm just writing something... That said, this story is going to be very dark, with gore, violence, and sexual content along with surreal things that (hopefully) don't make much sense, all because I can. You should be over 18 to read this, thank you. I will update this page if anything else needs mentioning.  ♡

All rights reserved for the swampfish.

"Coffee for you, sir?" Wilson asked as he led the Inspector into his log cabin.

"I'm good, but thank you for the offer," Calbert replied, removing his hat as he watched Wilson pour himself a cup, his thick farmer's hands dwarfing the pot.

"So, how long have you been experiencing the affliction?" Calbert asked.

"Eh?" Wilson peered at him.

"This creature you speak of. It has been destroying fishing nets, so I've heard." Calbert prompted.

Wilson's shaggy eyebrows rose, revealing shiny blue bead eyes. "Ah, yes. Up the river from Mr. Redmund's land to Old Kristy's. Whatever it is, it likes the hunting grounds. I should say it only destroys the nets on bad fishing days. Or when it gets peckish."

"Peckish," Calbert grunted. "That's not what the medical team reported. A man lost half a leg. Would we call that peckish?"

Wilson shrugged his burly shoulders and took a long sip of his coffee.

"Hmmm. Any idea what it is?" Calbert asked, walking around the cabin and examining the meager furnishings.

There were no picture frames and the living room consisted of one heavy-footed single-person armchair. It looked like it hadn't been used in years; the worn pillow had a dog-shaped hollow molded into it.

"I can't rightly say what it is, considering I've never seen it," Wilson replied.

"The victim reported seeing, and I quote, a fish with arms. Do you have anything in the area that could match that description, even vaguely?"

Wilson barked out a belly laugh. "Now ya see, Inspector, no one trusts a word that comes out of ole' Jolly's mouth. Do ya know they say humans are sixty-percent water? That man is sixty-percent Jack Daniels liquor. Sure, maybe he saw something, but I'll bet it was a gator."

"I see," Calbert said. "You have alligators all the way up here."

"I don't see why not," Wilson said, boots thumping as he made a turn around the table, so they were face to face. "I can tell you now, Inspector, whatever you're thinking you're gonna find, we ain't got it."

The two men stared at each other for a moment. Calbert took a breath and nodded.

"Show me to the river, please, I'd like to have a look."

Wilson grunted and lumbered outside. Calbert put his hat back on and strode after him, grimacing as his polished shoes sank an inch into the mushy ground.

God damn this swamp, he thought.

"Watch your step," Wilson called over his shoulder. "Some spots go down deep enough to lose a shoe."

"You call this a river?" Calbert said as he stood on the creaking pier and squinted past the low-hanging sun to observe the horizons of the water. "It's more of a lake."

The small paddle boat moored to the pier and thudded softly close to his feet.

"You have a current running here?" Calbert asked, peering at the water.

Even in the mid-afternoon, the water looked black, reflecting a distorted version of himself.

"Not much. Must have been a fish," Wilson said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Then it was a big fish," Calbert replied, putting his hands on his hips and squinting up at the sky like it would tell him something.

Perhaps the Inspector was hoping Wilson would break down and confess to something, but the man looked unaffected, most of his face hidden by his cap, full beard, and impressive eyebrows.

"You know, the lake isn't as big as it looks," Wilson said, popping a piece of dried meat he'd unearthed from his pocket in his mouth and gnawing on it. "It's shaped like a gourd, this here is the largest bit."

"And this "largest bit" is yours?" Calbert said, turning to look at the farmer. "You don't even fish."

"This land is mine, plus this section of the river," Wilson said protectively. "It's been in the family for generations."

"I know," Calbert said. "I looked at the papers down in the Townhall."

"Did ya?" Wilson said. His words seemed to hang in the air like a fog for a few moments before they were dispelled.

Calbert scuffed his shoe on the edge of the pier, trying to clean the crust of mud from his shoe. Wilson spat the meat gristle into the water and backed away.

"Hold on, let me get the oars for the boat, I'll take you around a bit," Wilson said, tromping up the hill.

Calbert nodded distractedly. He stomped a couple of times and decided he wasn't going to get his shoes any cleaner than this. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette but the crisp air had made his fingers stiff, and he struggled to get a flame from his lighter. The paddle boat thunked against the pier again, much harder than the first time. Calbert dropped the lighter and lunged, trying to grab it before it fell. He only succeeded in brushing the tips of his fingers against it and sending it hurtling into the water. Cursing, he crouched and peered at the surface, trying to locate the lighter.

He reasoned that the river couldn't be very deep this close to the bank.

His reflection rippled violently, but he was looking past it. He saw a gleam, but it wasn't his lighter. Something lashed out, sending a wave of bracken water onto the pier. Calbert hollered, falling on his ass and holding a hand out to deter the wet, slimy thing that came sliding onto the pier like a dolphin beaching its prey. His hand went first, with a carrot-like crunch between jaws that snapped down like hedge clippers. Calbert howled, yanking what was left of it back. He stared, stunned, at the two fingers remaining. A muscular humanoid torso slammed into him, arms wrapped around his chest, crushing ribs.

A fish with arms, Carson thought dazedly as he was squeezed like a squeaky toy.

"What in god's name is that?!'" Wilson hollered, running and slipping down the bank with the oars.

He was the sort of man who grew up reacting instinctively to threats, and all he saw now was a hideous creature ripping chunks out of the Inspector. He swung the oar like a bat and it splintered against the creature's writhing tail and broke in half. With a war cry, he impaled the rest of it into the creature's side and it made a sound like a dying cat, gurgling and hissing as swiping at him with claws that ripped through his sturdy boots and cut into his shin.

"Son in heaven!" He bellowed in pain and swung blindly with the other oar.

He managed to deter the creature, but the man he was trying to save was a lost cause. The Inspector was rag-doll limp and more meat than human. Wilson backed away, swinging with the oar. The creature, sensing submission, showed its grey spiky teeth and dove into the water, taking the Inspector with it. Wilson slumped in the mud, staring at the blood and the copious slime, and the single cigarette bobbing on the sloshing surface of the river.

"I mean, I'm glad the Inspector is gone," Wilson muttered, picking himself off and brushing at his clothes. "But by god, it is real!"

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